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  CHAPTER II.

  AS I before remarked, Mrs. Katy Scudder had invited company to tea.Strictly speaking, it is necessary to begin with the creation of theworld, in order to give a full account of anything. But for popularuse, something less may serve one’s turn, and therefore I shall letthe past chapter suffice to introduce my story, and shall proceed toarrange my scenery and act my little play on the supposition that youknow enough to understand things and persons.

  Being asked to tea in our New England in the year 17— meant somethingvery different from the same invitation in our more sophisticated days.In those times, people held to the singular opinion, that the nightwas made to sleep in; they inferred it from a general confidence theyhad in the wisdom of Mother Nature, supposing that she did not put outher lights and draw her bed-curtains, and hush all noise in her greatworld-house without strongly intending that her children should go tosleep; and the consequence was, that very soon after sunset, the wholecommunity very generally set their faces bedward, and the tolling ofthe nine-o’clock evening-bell had an awful solemnity in it, soundingto the full. Good society in New England in those days very generallytook its breakfast at six, its dinner at twelve, and its tea at six.‘Company tea,’ however, among thrifty, industrious folk, was oftentaken an hour earlier, because each of the inviteés had children toput to bed, or other domestic cares at home, and as in those simpletimes people were invited because you wanted to see them, a tea-partyassembled themselves at three and held session till sundown, when eachmatron rolled up her knitting-work and wended soberly home.

  Though Newport, even in those early times, was not without its familieswhich affected state and splendour, rolled about in carriages witharmorial emblazonments, and had servants in abundance to every turnwithin-doors, yet there, as elsewhere in New England, the majority ofthe people lived with the wholesome, thrifty simplicity of the oldentime, when labour and intelligence went hand in hand in perhaps agreater harmony than the world has ever seen.

  Our scene opens in the great old-fashioned kitchen, which, on ordinaryoccasions, is the family dining and sitting room of the Scudder family.I know fastidious moderns think that the working-room, wherein arecarried on the culinary operations of a large family, must necessarilybe an untidy and comfortless sitting-place; but it is only because theyare ignorant of the marvellous workings which pertain to the organof ‘faculty,’ on which we have before insisted. The kitchen of a NewEngland matron was her throne-room, her pride; it was the habit of herlife to produce the greatest possible results there with the slightestpossible discomposure; and what any woman could do, Mrs. Katy Scuddercould do _par excellence_. Everything there seemed to be always done,and never doing. Washing and baking, those formidable disturbers ofthe composure of families, were all over within those two or threemorning-hours when we are composing ourselves for a last nap,—andonly the fluttering of linen over the green-yard, on Monday mornings,proclaimed that the dreaded solemnity of a wash had transpired. Abreakfast arose there as by magic; and in an incredibly short spaceafter, every knife, fork, spoon, and trencher, clean and shining, waslooking as innocent and unconscious in its place as if it never hadbeen used and never expected to be.

  The floor,—perhaps, sir, you remember your grandmother’s floor, ofsnowy boards sanded with whitest sand; you remember the ancientfireplace stretching quite across one end,—a vast cavern, in eachcorner of which a cozy seat might be found, distant enough to enjoythe crackle of the great jolly wood-fire; across the room ran adresser, on which was displayed great store of shining pewter dishesand plates, which always shone with the same mysterious brightness;and by the side of the fire a commodious wooden ‘settee,’ or settle,offered repose to people too little accustomed to luxury to ask for acushion. Oh, that kitchen of the olden times, the old, clean, roomy NewEngland kitchen! Who that has breakfasted, dined, and supped in onehas not cheery visions of its thrift, its warmth, its coolness? Thenoon-mark on its floor was a dial that told of some of the happiestdays; thereby did we right up the shortcomings of the solemn old clockthat tick-tacked in the corner, and whose ticks seemed mysteriousprophecies of unknown good yet to arise out of the hours of life. Howdreamy the winter twilight came in there!—as yet the candles were notlighted,—when the crickets chirped around the dark stone hearth, andshifting tongues of flame flickered and cast dancing shadows and elfishlights on the walls, while grandmother nodded over her knitting-work,and puss purred, and old Rover lay dreamily opening now one eye andthen the other on the family group! With all our ceiled houses, let usnot forget our grandmothers’ kitchens!

  But we must pull up, however, and back to our subject-matter, which isin the kitchen of Mrs. Katy Scudder, who has just put into the oven,by the fireplace, some wondrous tea-rusks, for whose composition sheis renowned. She has examined and pronounced perfect a loaf of cakewhich has been prepared for the occasion, and which, as usual, is doneexactly right. The best room, too, has been opened and aired,—the whitewindow-curtains saluted with a friendly little shake, as when one says,‘How d’ye do?’ to a friend; for you must know, clean as our kitchenis, we are genteel, and have something better for company. Our bestroom in here has a polished little mahogany tea-table, and six mahoganychairs, with claw talons grasping balls; the white sanded floor iscrinkled in curious little waves, like those on the sea-beach; andright across the corner stands the ‘buffet,’ as it is called, with itstransparent glass doors, wherein are displayed the solemn appurtenancesof company tea-table. There you may see a set of real China teacups,which George bought in Canton, and had marked with his and his wife’sjoint initials,—a small silver cream-pitcher, which has come downas an heirloom from unknown generations,—silver spoons and delicateChina cake-plates, which have been all carefully reviewed and wiped onnapkins of Mrs. Scudder’s own weaving.

  Her cares now over, she stands drying her hands on a roller-towel inthe kitchen, while her only daughter, the gentle Mary, stands in thedoorway with the afternoon sun streaming in spots of flickering goldenlight on her smooth pale-brown hair,—a _petite_ figure, in a fullstuff petticoat and white short-gown, she stands reaching up one handand cooing to something among the apple-blossoms,—and now a Java dovecomes whirring down and settles on her finger,—and we, that have seenpictures, think, as we look on her girlish face, with its lines ofstatuesque beauty,—on the tremulous, half-infantine expression of herlovely mouth, and the general air of simplicity and purity,—of some oldpictures of the girlhood of the Virgin. But Mrs. Scudder was thinkingof no such Popish matter, I can assure you,—not she! I don’t think youcould have done her a greater indignity than to mention her daughterin any such connection. She had never seen a painting in her life, andtherefore was not to be reminded of them; and furthermore, the dove wasevidently, for some reason, no favourite,—for she said, in a quick,imperative tone, ‘Come, come, child! don’t fool with that bird, it’shigh time we were dressed and ready,’—and Mary, blushing, as it wouldseem, even to her hair, gave a little toss, and sent the bird, likea silver fluttering cloud, up among the rosy apple-blossoms. And nowshe and her mother have gone to their respective little bedrooms forthe adjustment of their toilets, and while the door is shut and nobodyhears us, we shall talk to you about Mary.

  Newport at the present day blooms like a flower-garden with youngladies of the best _ton_,—lovely girls, hopes of their families,possessed of amiable tempers and immensely large trunks, and capable ofsporting ninety changes in thirty days, and otherwise rapidly emptyingthe purses of distressed fathers, and whom yet travellers and the worldin general look upon as genuine specimens of the kind of girls formedby American institutions.

  We fancy such a one lying in a rustling silk _négligé_, and, amida gentle generality of rings, ribbons, puffs, laces, beaux, anddinner-discussion, reading our humble sketch;—and what favour shallour poor heroine find in her eyes? For though her mother was a worldof energy and ‘faculty,’ in herself considered, and had bestowed onthis one little lone chick all the vigour and all the care and all thetraining which would have sufficed for a family of sixteen, there wereno results produced which could be made appreciable in the eyes ofsuch company. She could not waltz, or polk, or speak bad French, orsing Italian songs; but, nevertheless, we must proceed to say what washer education and what her accomplishments.

  Well, then, she could both read and write fluently in themother-tongue. She could spin both on the little and the great wheel,and there were numberless towels, napkins, sheets, and pillow-cases inthe household store that could attest the skill of her pretty fingers.She had worked several samplers of such rare merit, that they hungframed in different rooms of the house, exhibiting every variety andstyle of possible letter in the best marking-stitch. She was skilfulin all sewing and embroidery, in all shaping and cutting, with a quietand deft handiness that constantly surprised her energetic mother, whocould not conceive that so much could be done with so little noise.In fact, in all household lore she was a veritable good fairy; herknowledge seemed unerring and intuitive: and whether she washed orironed, or moulded biscuit or conserved plums, her gentle beauty seemedto turn to poetry all the prose of life.

  There was something in Mary, however, which divided her as by anappreciable line from ordinary girls of her age. From her father shehad inherited a deep and thoughtful nature, predisposed to moraland religious exaltation. Had she been born in Italy, under thedissolving influences of that sunny, dreamy clime, beneath the shadowof cathedrals, and where pictured saints and angels smiled in clouds ofpainting from every arch and altar, she might, like fair St. Catherineof Siena, have seen beatific visions in the sunset skies, and a silverdove descending upon her as she prayed; but, unfolding in the clear,keen, cold New England clime, and nurtured in its abstract and positivetheologies, her religious faculties took other forms. Instead of lyingentranced in mysterious raptures at the foot of altars, she read andpondered treatises on the Will, and listened in rapt attention whileher spiritual guide, the venerated Dr. H., unfolded to her the theoriesof the great Edwards on the nature of true virtue. Womanlike, she feltthe subtle poetry of these sublime abstractions which dealt with suchinfinite and unknown quantities,—which spoke of the universe, of itsgreat Architect, of men, of angels, as matters of intimate and dailycontemplation; and her teacher, a grand-minded and simple-hearted manas ever lived, was often amazed at the tread with which this fair youngchild walked through these high regions of abstract thought,—oftencomprehending through an ethereal clearness of nature what he hadlaboriously and heavily reasoned out; and sometimes, when she turnedher grave, childlike face upon him with some question or reply, thegood man started as if an angel had looked suddenly out upon him froma cloud. Unconsciously to himself, he often seemed to follow her, asDante followed the flight of Beatrice, through the ascending circles ofthe celestial spheres.

  When her mother questioned him, anxiously, of her daughter’s spiritualestate, he answered, that she was a child of a strange graciousnessof nature, and of a singular genius; to which Katy responded, with awoman’s pride, that she was all her father over again. It is only nowand then that a matter-of-fact woman is sublimated by a real love; butif she is, it is affecting to see how impossible it is for death toquench it; for in the child the mother feels that she has a mysteriousand undying repossession of the father.

  But, in truth, Mary was only a recast in feminine form of her father’snature. The elixir of the spirit that sparkled within her was of thatquality of which the souls of poets and artists are made; but the keenNew England air crystallizes emotions into ideas, and restricts manya poetic soul to the necessity of expressing itself only in practicalliving.

  The rigid theological discipline of New England is fitted to producerather strength and purity than enjoyment. It was not fitted to makea sensitive and thoughtful nature happy, however it might ennoble andexalt.

  The system of Dr. H. was one that could only have had its origin in asoul at once reverential and logical,—a soul, moreover, trained fromits earliest years in the habits of thought engendered by monarchicalinstitutions. For although he, like other ministers, took an activepart as a patriot in the Revolution, still he was brought up under theshadow of a throne; and a man cannot ravel out the stitches in whichearly days have knit him. His theology, was, in fact, the turning toan invisible Sovereign of that spirit of loyalty and unquestioningsubjugation which is one of the noblest capabilities of our nature.And as a gallant soldier renounces life and personal aims in the causeof his king and country, and holds himself ready to be drafted for aforlorn hope, to be shot down, or help make a bridge of his mangledbody, over which the more fortunate shall pass to victory and glory, sohe regarded himself as devoted to the King Eternal, ready in His handsto be used to illustrate and build up an Eternal Commonwealth, eitherby being sacrificed as a lost spirit or glorified as a redeemed one,ready to throw not merely his mortal life, but his immortality even,into the forlorn hope, to bridge with a never-dying soul the chasm overwhich white-robed victors should pass to a commonwealth of glory andsplendour, whose vastness should dwarf the misery of all the lost to aninfinitesimal.

  It is not in our line to imply the truth or the falsehood of thosesystems of philosophic theology which seem for many years to have beenthe principal outlet for the proclivities of the New England mind,but as psychological developments they have an intense interest. Hewho does not see a grand side to these strivings of the soul cannotunderstand one of the noblest capabilities of humanity.

  No real artist or philosopher ever lived who has not at some hoursrisen to the height of utter self-abnegation for the glory of theinvisible. There have been painters who would have been crucified todemonstrate the action of a muscle,—chemists who would gladly havemelted themselves and all humanity in their crucible, if so a newdiscovery might arise out of its fumes. Even persons of mere artisticsensibility are at times raised by music, painting, or poetry to amomentary trance of self-oblivion, in which they would offer theirwhole being before the shrine of an invisible loveliness. These hardold New England divines were the poets of metaphysical philosophy,who built systems in an artistic fervour, and felt self exhale frombeneath them as they rose into the higher regions of thought. Butwhere theorists and philosophers tread with sublime assurance, womanoften follows with bleeding footsteps;—women are always turning fromthe abstract to the individual, and feeling where the philosopher onlythinks.

  It was easy enough for Mary to believe in _self_-renunciation, forshe was one with a born vocation for martyrdom; and so, when theidea was put to her of suffering eternal pains for the glory of Godand the good of being in general, she responded to it with a sort ofsublime thrill, such as it is given to some natures to feel in view ofuttermost sacrifice. But when she looked around on the warm, livingfaces of friends, acquaintances, and neighbours, viewing them aspossible candidates for dooms so fearfully different, she sometimesfelt the walls of her faith closing round her as an iron shroud,—shewondered that the sun could shine so brightly, that flowers couldflaunt such dazzling colours, that sweet airs could breathe, and littlechildren play, and youth love and hope, and a thousand intoxicatinginfluences combine to cheat the victims from the thought that theirnext step might be into an abyss of horrors without end. The blood ofyouth and hope was saddened by this great sorrow, which lay ever onher heart,—and her life, unknown to herself, was a sweet tune in theminor key; it was only in prayer, or deeds of love and charity, or inrapt contemplation of that beautiful millennial day which her spiritualguide most delighted to speak of, that the tone of her feelings everrose to the height of joy.

  Among Mary’s young associates was one who had been as a brother toher childhood. He was her mother’s cousin’s son,—and so, by a sort offamily immunity, had always a free access to her mother’s house. Hetook to the sea, as the most bold and resolute young men will, andbrought home from foreign parts those new modes of speech, those othereyes for received opinions and established things, which so often shockestablished prejudices,—so that he was held as little better than aninfidel and a castaway by the stricter religious circles in his nativeplace. Mary’s mother, now that Mary was grown up to woman’s estate,looked with a severe eye on her cousin. She warned her daughter againsttoo free an association with him,—and so—— We all know what comes topass when girls are constantly warned not to think of a man. The mostconscientious and obedient little person in the world, Mary resolvedto be very careful. She never would think of James, except, of course,in her prayers; but as these were constant, it may easily be seen itwas not easy to forget him.

  All that was so often told her of his carelessness, his trifling, hiscontempt of orthodox opinions, and his startling and bold expressions,only wrote his name deeper in her heart,—for was not his soul in peril?Could she look in his frank, joyous face, and listen to his thoughtlesslaugh, and then think that a fall from a mast-head, or one night’sstorm, might——Ah, with what images her faith filled the blank! Couldshe believe all this and forget him?

  You see, instead of getting our tea ready, as we promised at thebeginning of this chapter, we have filled it with descriptions andmeditations,—and now we foresee that the next chapter will be equallyfar from the point. But have patience with us; for we can write only aswe are driven, and never know exactly where we are going to land.