The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 30, April, 1860

If Ivy had not been a little fool, she would not have spoken so; but she was, so she did.

"I beg your pardon, little tendril. I was so occupied with my own preconceived ideas that I forgot to sympathize with you. Tell me why or how I have made you unhappy. But I know; you need not. I assure you, however, that you are entirely wrong. It was a prudish and whimsical notion of my good old housekeeper's. You are never to think of it again. I never attributed such a thought or feeling to you."

"Did you suppose that was all that made me unhappy?"

"Can there be anything else?"

"I am glad you think so. Perhaps I should not have been unhappy but for that, at least not so soon; but that alone could never have made me so."

Little fool again! She was like a chicken thrusting its head into a corner and thinking itself out of danger because it cannot see the danger. She had no notion that she was giving him the least clue to the truth, but considered herself speaking with more than Delphic prudence. She rather liked to coast along the shores of her trouble and see how near she could approach without running aground; but she struck before she knew it.

Mr. Clerron's face suddenly changed. He sat down, took both her hands, and drew her towards him.

"Ivy, perhaps I have been misunderstanding you. I will at least find out the truth. Ivy, do you know that I love you, that I have loved you almost from the first, that I would gladly here and now take you to my heart and keep you here forever?"

"I do not know it," faltered Ivy, half beside herself.

"Know it now, then! I am older than you, and I seem to myself so far removed from you that I have feared to ask you to trust your happiness to my keeping, lest I should lose you entirely; but sometimes you say or do something which gives me hope. My experience has been very different from yours. I am not worthy to clasp your purity and loveliness. Still I would do it, if—Tell me, Ivy, does it give you pain or pleasure?"

Ivy extricated her hands from his, deliberately drew a footstool, and knelt on it before him,—then took his hands, as he had before held hers, gazed steadily into his eyes, and said,—

"Mr. Clerron, are you in earnest? Do you love me?"

"I am, Ivy. I do love you."

"How do you love me?"

"I love you with all the strength and power that God has given me."

"You do not simply pity me? You have not, because you heard from Mrs. Simm, or suspected, yourself, that I was weak enough to mistake your kindness and nobleness,—you have not in pity resolved to sacrifice your happiness to mine?"

"No, Ivy,—nothing of the kind. I pity only myself. I reverence you, I think. I have hoped that you loved me as a teacher and friend. I dared not believe you could ever do more; now something within tells me that you can. Can you, Ivy? If the love and tenderness and devotion of my whole life can make you happy, happiness shall not fail to be yours."

Ivy's gaze never for a moment drooped under his, earnest and piercing though it was.

"Now I am happy," she said, slowly and distinctly. "Now I am blessed. I can never ask anything more."

"But I ask something more," he replied, bending forward eagerly. "I ask much more. I want your love. Shall I have it? And I want you."

"My love?" She blushed slightly, but spoke without hesitation. "Have I not given it,—long, long before you asked it, before you even cared for my friendship? Not love only, but life, my very whole being, centred in you, does now, and will always. Is it right to say this?—maidenly? But I am not ashamed. I shall always be proud to have loved you, though only to lose you,—and to be loved by you is glory enough for all my future."

For a short time the relative position of these two people was changed. I allude to the change in this distant manner, as all who have ever been lovers will be able to judge what it was; and I do not wish to forestall the sweet surprise of those who have not.

Ivy rested there (query, where?) a moment; but as he whispered, "Thus you answer the second question? You give me yourself too?" she hastily freed herself. (Query, from what?)

"Never!"

"Ivy!"

"Never!" more firmly than before.

"What does this mean?" he said, sternly. "Are you trifling?"

There was such a frown on his brow as Ivy had never seen. She quailed before it.

"Do not be angry! Alas! I am not trifling. Life itself is not worth so much as your love. But the impassable gulf is between us just the same."

"What is it? Who put it there?"

"God put it there. Mrs. Simm showed it to me."

"Mrs. Simm be—! A prating gossip! Ivy, I told you, you were never to mention that again,—never to think of it; and you must obey me."

"I will try to obey you in that."

"And very soon you shall promise to obey me in all things. But I will not be hard with you. The yoke shall rest very lightly,—so lightly you shall not feel it. You will not do as much, I dare say. You will make me acknowledge your power every day, dear little vixen! Ivy, why do you draw back? Why do you not come to me?"

"I cannot come to you, Mr. Clerron, any more. I must go home now, and stay at home."

"When your home is here, Ivy, stay at home. For the present, don't go.

Wait a little."

"You do not understand me. You will not understand me," said Ivy, bursting into tears. "I must leave you. Don't make the way so difficult."

"I will make it so difficult that you cannot walk in it."

His tones were low, but determined.

"Why do you wish to leave me? Have you not said that you loved me?"

"It is because I love you that I go. I am not fit for you. I was not made for you. I can never make you happy. I am not accomplished. I cannot go among your friends, your sisters. I am awkward. You would be ashamed of me, and then you would not love me; you could not; and I should lose the thing I most value. No, Mr. Clerron,—I would rather keep your love in my own heart and my own home."

"Ivy, can you be happy without me?"

"I shall not be without you. My heart is full of lifelong joyful memories. You need not regret me. Yes, I shall be happy. I shall work with mind and hands. I shall not pine away in a mean and feeble life. I shall be strong, and cheerful, and active, and helpful; and I think I shall not cease to love you in heaven."

"But there is, maybe, a long road for us to travel before we reach heaven, and I want you to help me along. Ivy, I am not so spiritual as you. I cannot live on memory. I want you before me all the time. I want to see you and talk with you every day. Why do you speak of such things? Is it the soul or its surroundings that you value? Do you respect or care for wealth and station? Do you consider a woman your superior because she wears a finer dress than you?"

"I? No, Sir! No, indeed! you very well know. But the world does, and you move in the world; and I do not want the world to pity you because you have an uncouth, ignorant wife. I don't want to be despised by those who are above me only in station."

"Little aristocrat, you are prouder than I. Will you sacrifice your happiness and mine to your pride?"

"Proud perhaps I am, but it is not all pride. I think you are noble, but I think also you could not help losing patience when you found that I could not accommodate myself to the station to which you had raised me. Then you would not respect me. I am, indeed, too proud to wish to lose that; and losing your respect, as I said before, I should not long keep your love."

"But you will accommodate yourself to any station. My dear, you are young, and know so little about this world, which is such a bugbear to you. Why, there is very little that will be greatly unlike this. At first you might be a little bewildered, but I shall be by you all the time, and you shall feel and fear nothing, and gradually you will learn what little you need to know; and most of all, you will know yourself the best and the loveliest of women. Dear Ivy, I would not part with your sweet, unconscious simplicity for all the accomplishments and acquired elegancies of the finest lady in the world." (That's what men always say.) "You are not ignorant of anything you ought to know, and your ignorance of the world is an additional charm to one who knows so much of its wickedness as I. But we will not talk of it. There is no need. This shall be our home, and here the world will not trouble us."

"And I cannot give up my dear father and mother. They are not like you and your friends"—

"They are my friends, and valued and dear to me, and dearer still they shall be as the parents of my dear little wife"—

"I was going to say"—

"But you shall not say it. I utterly forbid you ever to mention it again. You are mine, all my own. Your friends are my friends, your honor my honor, your happiness my happiness henceforth; and what God joins together let not man or woman put asunder."

"Ah!" whispered Ivy, faintly; for she was yielding, and just beginning to receive the sense of great and unexpected bliss, "but if you should be wrong,—if you should ever repent of this, it is not your happiness alone, but mine, too, that will be destroyed."

Again their relative positions changed, and remained so for a long while.

"Ivy, am I a mere schoolboy to swear eternal fidelity for a week? Have I not been tossing hither and thither on the world's tide ever since you lay in your cradle, and do I not know my position and my power and my habits and love? And knowing all this, do I not know that this dear head"–etc., etc., etc., etc.

But I said I was not going to marry my man and woman, did I not? Nor have I. To be sure, you may have detected premonitory symptoms, but I said nothing about that. I only promised not to marry them, and I have not married them.

It is to be hoped they were married, however. For, on a fine June evening, the setting sun cast a mellow light through the silken curtains of a pleasant chamber, where Ivy lay on a white couch, pale and and still,—very pale and still and statuelike; and by her side, bending over her, with looks of unutterable love, clasping her in his arms, as if to give out of his own heart the life that had so nearly ebbed from hers, pressing upon the closed eyes, the white cheeks, the silent lips kisses of such warmth and tenderness as never thrilled maidenly lips in their rosiest flush of beauty,—knelt Felix Clerron; and when the tremulous life fluttered back again, when the blue eyes slowly opened and smiled up into his with an answering love, his happiness was complete.

In a huge arm-chair, bolt upright, where they had placed him, sat Farmer Geer, holding in his sadly awkward hands the unconscious cause of all this agitation, namely, a poor, little, horrid, gasping, crying, writhing, old-faced, distressed-looking, red, wrinkled, ridiculous baby! between whose "screeches" Farmer Geer could be heard muttering, in a dazed, bewildered way,—"Ivy's baby! Oh, Lud! who'd 'a' thunk it? No more'n yesterday she was a baby herself. Lud! Lud!"

THE PORTRAIT

In a lumbering attic room,Where, for want of light and air,Years had died within the gloom,Leaving dead dust everywhere,Everywhere,Hung the portrait of a lady,With a face so fair!Time had long since dulled the paint,Time, which all our arts disguise,And the features now were faint,All except the wondrous eyes,Wondrous eyes,Ever looking, looking, looking,With such sad surprise!As man loveth, man had lovedHer whose features faded there;As man mourneth, man had mourned,Weeping, in his dark despair,Bitter tears,When she left him broken-heartedTo his death of years.Then for months the picture bentAll its eyes upon his face,Following his where'er they went,—Till another filled the placeIn its stead,—Till the features of the livingDid outface the dead.Then for years it hung aboveIn that attic dim and ghast,Fading with the fading love,Sad reminder of the past,—Save the eyes,Ever looking, ever looking,With such sad surprise!Oft the distant laughter's soundEntered through the cobwebbed door,And the cry of children foundDusty echoes from the floorTo those eyes,Ever looking, ever looking,With their sad surprise.Once there moved upon the stairOlden love-steps mounting slow,But the face that met him thereDrove him to the depths below;For those eyesThrough his soul seemed looking, looking,All their sad surprise.From that day the door was nailedOf that memory-haunted room,And the portrait hung and paledIn the dead dust and the gloom,—Save the eyes,Ever looking, ever looking,With such sad surprise!

A LEAF

FROM THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE-LITERATURE OF THE LAST CENTURY

One hundred and sixteen years ago, to wit, on the 20th day of October, A.D. 1743, the quiet precincts of certain streets in the town of Boston were the theatre of unusual proceedings. An unwonted activity pervaded the well-known printing-office of the "Messrs. Rogers and Fowle, in Prison Lane," now Court Street; a small printed sheet was being worked off,—not with the frantic rush and roar of one of Hoe's six-cylinder giants, but with the calm circumspection befitting the lever-press and ink-balls of that day,—to be conveyed, so soon as it should have assumed a presentable shape, to the counters of "Samuel Eliot, in Cornhill" and "Joshua Blanchard, in Dock Square," (and, we will hope, to the addresses indicated on a long subscription-list,) for the entertainment and instruction of ladies in high-heeled shoes and hoops, forerunners of greater things thereafter, and gentlemen in big wigs, cocked hats, and small-clothes, no more to be encountered in our daily walks, and known to their degenerate descendants only by the aid of the art of limner or sculptor.

For some fifteen years, both in England and America, there had been indications of an approaching modification in the existing forms of periodical literature, enlarging its scope to something better and higher than the brief and barren résumé of current events to which the Gazette or News-Letter of the day was in the main confined, and affording an opportunity for the free discussion of literary and artistic questions. Thus was gradually developed a class of publications which professed, while giving a proper share of attention to the important department of news, to occupy the field of literature rather than of journalism, and to serve as a Museum, Depository, or Magazine, of the polite arts and sciences. The very marked success of the "Gentleman's Magazine," the pioneer English publication of this class, which appeared in 1731 under the management of Cave, and reached the then almost1 unparalleled sale often thousand copies, produced a host of imitators and rivals, of which the "London Magazine," commenced in April, 1732, was perhaps the most considerable. In January, 1741, Benjamin Franklin began the publication of "The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America," but only six numbers were issued. In the same year, Andrew Bradford published "The American Magazine, or Monthly View of the Political State of the British Colonies," which was soon discontinued. Both these unsuccessful ventures were made at Philadelphia. There were similar attempts in Boston a little later. "The Boston Weekly Magazine" made its appearance March 2,1743, and lived just four weeks. "The Christian History," edited by Thomas Prince, Jr., son of the author of the "New England Chronology," appeared three days after, (March 5, 1743,) and reached the respectable age of two years. It professed to exhibit, among other things, "Remarkable Passages, Historical and Doctrinal, out of the most Famous old Writers both of the Church of England and Scotland from the Reformation; as also the first Settlers of New England and their Children; that we may see how far their pious Principles and Spirit are at this day revived, and may guard against all Extremes."

It would appear, however, that none of the four magazines last named were so general in their scope, or so well conducted, certainly they were not so long-lived, as "The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle," the first number of which, bearing date "September, 1743," appeared, as we have said, on the 20th of the following October, under the editorial charge, as is generally supposed, of Jeremy Gridley, Esq., Attorney-General of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and the head of the Masonic Fraternity in America, though less known to us, perhaps, in either capacity, than he is as the legal instructor of the patriot Otis, a pupil whom it became his subsequent duty as the officer of the crown to encounter in that brilliant and memorable argument against the "Writs of Assistance," which the pen of the historian, and, more recently, the chisel of the sculptor, have contributed to render immortal. This publication, if we regard it, as we doubtless may, as the original and prototype of the "American Magazine," would seem to have been rightly named. It was printed on what old Dr. Isaiah Thomas calls "a fine medium paper in 8vo," and he further assures us that "in its execution it was deemed equal to any work of the kind then published in London." In external appearance, it was a close copy of the "London Magazine," from whose pages (probably to complete the resemblance) it made constant and copious extracts, not always rendering honor to whom honor was due, and in point of mechanical excellence, as well as of literary merit, certainly eclipsed the contemporary newspaper-press of the town, the "Boston Evening Post," "Boston News Letter" and the "New England Courant." The first number contained forty-four pages, measuring about six inches by eight. The scope and object of the Magazine, as defined in the Preface, do not vary essentially from the line adopted by its predecessors and contemporaries, and seem, in the main, identical with what we have recounted above as characteristic of this new movement in letters. The novelty and extent of the field, and the consequent fewness and inexperience of the laborers, are curiously shown by the miscellaneous, omnium-gatherum character of the publication, which served at once as a Magazine, Review, Journal, Almanac, and General Repository and Bulletin;—the table of contents of the first number exhibits a list of subjects which would now be distributed among these various classes of periodical literature, and perhaps again parcelled out according to the subdivisions of each. Avowedly neutral in politics and religion, as became an enterprise which relied upon the patronage of persons of all creeds and parties, it recorded (usually without comment) the current incidents of political and religious interest. A summary of news appeared at the end of each number, under the head of "Historical Chronicle"; but in the body of the Magazine are inserted, side by side with what would now be termed "local items," contemporary narratives of events, many of which have, in the lapse of more than a century, developed into historical proportions, but which here meet us, as it were, at first hand, clothed in such homely and impromptu dress as circumstances might require, with all their little roughnesses, excrescences, and absurdities upon them,—crude lumps of mingled fact and fiction, not yet moulded and polished into the rounded periods of the historian.

The Magazine was established at the period of a general commotion among the dry bones of New England Orthodoxy, caused by what is popularly known as "the New-Light Movement," to do battle with which heresy arose "The Christian History," above alluded to. The public mind was widely and deeply interested, and the first number of our Magazine opens with "A Dissertation on the State of Religion in North America," which is followed by a fiery manifesto of the "Anniversary Week" of 1743, entitled "The Testimony of the Pastors of the Churches in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New-England at their Annual Convention in Boston, May 25, 1743, Against several Errors in Doctrine and Disorders in Practice, which have of late obtained in various Parts of the Land; as drawn up by a Committee chosen by the said Pastors, read and accepted Paragraph by Paragraph, and voted to be sign'd by the Moderator in their Name, and Printed." These "Disorders" and "Errors" are specified under six heads, being generalized at the outset as "Antinomian and Familistical Errors." The number of strayed sheep must have been considerable, since we find a Rejoinder put forth on the seventh of the following July, which bears the signatures of "Sixty-eight Pastors of Churches," (including fifteen who signed with a reservation as to one Article,) styled "The Testimony and Advice of an Assembly of Pastors of Churches in New England, at a Meeting in Boston, July 7, 1743. Occasion'd by the late happy Revival of Religion in many Parts of the Land." Some dozen new books, noticed in this number, are likewise all upon theological subjects. The youthful University of Yale took part in the conflict, testifying its zeal for the established religion by punishing with expulsion (if we are to believe a writer in "The New York Post-Boy" of March 17, 1745) two students, "for going during Vacation, and while at Home with their Parents, to hear a neighboring Minister preach who is distinguished in this Colony by the Name of New Light, being by their said Parents perswaded, desired, or ordered to go." The statement, however, is contradicted in a subsequent number by the President of the College, the Rev. Thomas Clapp, D.D., who states "that they were expelled for being Followers of the Paines, two Lay Exhorters, whose corrupt Principles and pernicious Practices are set forth in the Declaration of the Ministers of the County of Windham." In all probability the outcasts had "corrupt Principles and pernicious Practices" charged to their private account in the Faculty books, to which, quite as much as to any departure from Orthodox standards, they may have been indebted for leave to take up their connections.

The powerful Indian Confederacy, known as the Six Nations, had just concluded at Philadelphia their famous treaty with the whites, and in the numbers for October and November, 1743, we are furnished with some curious notes of the proceedings at the eight or nine different councils held on the occasion, which may or may not be historically accurate. That the news was not hastily gathered or digested may be safely inferred from the fact that the proceedings of the councils, which met in July, 1742, are here given to the public at intervals of fifteen and sixteen months afterwards. The assemblies were convened first "at Mr. Logan's House," next "at the Meeting House," and finally "at the Great Meeting House," where the seventh meeting took place July 10, in the presence of "a great Number of the Inhabitants of Philadelphia." As usual, the Indians complain of their treatment at the hands of the traders and their agents, and beg for more fire-water. "We have been stinted in the Article of Rum in Town," they pathetically observe,—"we desire you will open the Rum Bottle, and give it to us in greater Abundance on the Road"; and again, "We hope, as you have given us Plenty of good Provision whilst In Town, that you will continue your Goodness so far as to supply us with a little more to serve us on the Road." The first, at least, of these requests seems to have been complied with; the Council voted them twenty gallons of rum,—in addition to the twenty-five gallons previously bestowed,– "to comfort them on the Road"; and the red men departed in an amicable mood, though, from the valedictory address made them by the Governor, we might perhaps infer that they had found reason to contrast the hospitality of civilization with that shown in the savage state, to the disadvantage of the former. "We wish," he says, "there had been more Room and better Houses provided for your Entertainment, but not expecting so many of you we did the best we could. 'Tis true there are a great many Houses in Town, but as they are the Property of other People who have their own Families to take care of, it is difficult to procure Lodgings for a large Number of People, especially if they come unexpectedly."

But the great item of domestic intelligence, which confronts us under various forms in the pages of this Magazine, is the siege and capture of Louisburg, and the reduction of Cape Breton to the obedience of the British crown,—an acquisition for which his Majesty was so largely indebted to the military skill of Sir William Pepperell, and the courage of the New England troops, that we should naturally expect to find the exploit narrated at length in a contemporary Boston magazine. The first of the long series is an extract from the "Boston Evening Post" of May 13, 1745, entitled, "A short Account of Cape Breton"; which is followed by "A further Account of the Island of Cape Breton, of the Advantages derived to France from the Possession of that Country, and of the Fishery upon its Coasts; and the Benefit that must necessarily result to Great Britain from the Recovery of that important Place,"—from the "London Courant" of July 25. In contrast to this cool and calculating production, we have next the achievement, as seen from a military point of view, in a "Letter from an Officer of Note in the Train," dated Louisburg, June 20, 1745, who breaks forth thus:—"Glory to God, and Joy and Happiness to my Country in the Reduction of this Place, which we are now possessed of. It's a City vastly beyond all Expectation for Strength and beautiful Fortifications; but we have made terrible Havock with our Guns and Bombs. … Such a fine City will be an everlasting Honour to my Countrymen." Farther on, we have another example of military eloquence in a "Letter from a Superior Officer at Louisburgh, to his Friend and Brother at Boston," dated October 22, 1745. To this succeeds "A particular Account of the Siege and Surrender of Louisburgh, on the 17th of June, 1745." The resources of the pictorial art are called in to assist the popular conception of the great event, and we are treated on page 271 to a rude wood-cut, representing the "Town and Harbour of Louisburgh," accompanied by "Certain Particulars of the Blockade and Distress of the Enemy." Still farther on appears "The Declaration of His Excellency, William Shirley, Esq., Captain General and Governour in Chief of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, to the Garrison at Louisburgh." July 18, 1745, was observed as "a Day of publick Thanksgiving, agreeably to His Excellency's Proclamation of the 8th inst., on Account of the wonderful Series of Successes attending our Forces in the Reduction of the City and Fortress of Louisburgh with the Dependencies thereof at Cape Breton to the Obedience of His Majesty." There are also accounts of rejoicings at Newport, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, and other places. Nor was the Muse silent on such an auspicious occasion: four adventurous flights in successive numbers of the Magazine attest the loyalty, if not the poetic genius of Colonial bards; and a sort of running fire of description, narrative, and anecdote concerning the important event is kept up in the numbers for many succeeding months.