Mary Griffith

“ Custard! oh, how much superior was a boiled custard, with the gratings of a fresh lemon; and many a glass of jelly did she fancy herself making with the sprightly well ripened juice; so much sprighther, and having so much more of a perfume with it, than the stale, unripe lemons of the shop—oh, how Hannah French, at that moment, despised the shop lemons. And then to surprise Mr. Floss with the half of a fine, well rolled, plump, ripe lemon on Sunday, to eat with his fish or cutlet—on Sunday, when none could be bought—and Hannah laughed out in very happiness. ”

“ A man never feels his power and responsibility so strongly as when a lovely woman leans on him for support, and relies on his courage and his ability to protect her. What a delightful sensation comes over a man when he knows that there is one being in the world who trusts to him entirely, and looks up to him as the first and the best—none but a husband can have this feeling—he enjoys it as long as life continues ”

“ I spoke of the rapturous feelings of a young husband, at the mention of his bride, but they are nothing in comparison to those he has when she is called his wife—when the quiet evenings of winter bring him for ever near her; when he listens to her innocent conversation, full of love, and care, and thoughtfulness—all for him. I often wondered whether all men loved their wives as I loved mine. There was no way in which I could judge, for I had never been even in the same room with a husband and wife ”

“ You can see nothing at all to laugh at in me; for I am made like most people—and—besides—I allow no man to laugh at me. This reminds me, Mr. Webb, of the golden rule—I beg your pardon for my mirth; but, really, the hat and coat, to say nothing of the boots, were too much for me. But, my little man—hem—Mr. Webb, I mean, why do you not go into the country and gather a little colour and flesh? You would look more like a—hem—you would look as well again. ”

“ Adjoining his estate lived a quaker, by the name of Harley, a steady, upright man, loving his ease, as all quakers do, but having no objection to see his neighbours finer or wiser than himself. He took a fancy to our hero, and the beloved evening hour often found him sitting on the settee with Hastings, when, after enjoying together an animated conversation, he also would fall into the deep feeling which fading scenery, and the energy of such a character as his young friend's, would naturally excite in a mind so tranquil as his own. ”

“ Martin Barton, wide awake now, falling on the afflicted little maiden’s neck, and trembling like a leaf—“don’t leave us, we shall both die if you think of leaving us. Martin Barton, don’t let us go to Camperdown—that is, to live there, I mean. If she will stay, let us remain and keep shop for her as she has done for us.”
“Good heaven,” thought Jenny Hart, almost fainting with emotion, “could I have believed that under this untiring money-making spirit there was so much of deep feeling?—and for me too! But I cannot give up Archy Campbell; he has wrought hard for me. ”

“ My bride!—oh, what a tender name! how sweetly it falls on the ear of the man of tender sensibility. It is a word in common use; it is heard daily; thousands and tens of thousands repeat it; in itself it is nothing; but to the young husband, when it comes to be his bride, then does the magic of the name cast its glorious spell over him—it is then that he feels all its beauty and its loveliness.
"My bride! thou art wholly mine, beloved one," said I; "no evil that I can avert shall ever come near thee. ”

“ He wanted to make an opening through a noble piece of woods that bounded the north side, that he might catch a view of the village steeple—so he fell to musing about that. A beautiful winding river lay in front of his estate, the bank of which sloped down to the water’s edge; this tranquillizing scene likewise operated on his feelings, so that politics faded away, and his mind became calm and serene. Thus it was, that at thirty years of age he had these fits of abstraction, and he became a muser.
Men of his age—sensible men—are not so easily pleased as those who are younger. ”

“ It will be a great loss to the shop when she goes, said one; a public loss said another; Jenny Hart ought never to marry said a young gentleman; for half the pleasure in life we young fellows have, is to get a look at her and hear her musical voice, so modest and so arch and gay as she is too. I have a great mind to choke old Norton, and shoot this Archy Campbell; and there he stands, looking as if no happiness awaited him. I think it must be old Norton after all; for no man could look so grave on the eve of marrying such a peerless creature as this Jenny Hart. ”

“ Hang a man because he has forged our name for a few dollars! No: go to our prisons, there you will see the murderer’s fate—solitary confinement, at hard labour, for life! that is his punishment; but murders are very rare now in this country. A man stands in greater dread of solitary confinement at hard labour than he does of hanging. In fact, according to our way of thinking, now, we have no right, by the Divine law, to take that away from a human being for which we can give no equivalent. It is right to prevent a murderer from committing still farther crime ”

“ Martin Barton," said her husband, "what a long holiday those children have; how noisy they are, jumping and screaming like mad things; and old Hosea Bringle with your night cap on—only look there."
"No, it is my cap," said Jenny Hart, "let the poor old man play, for once in his life; only think how long he has been nailed to this counter. Just make a codicil to your will, Mr. Martin Barton, and give the poor old soul one hundred dollars a year for life—I am only too glad to get him out of the shop. ”

“ I bless the good Irishman’s memory for having so early and so constantly spoken of my parents; particularly of my mother.
A man finds he cannot make his way in the world without honesty and industry, so that, although his father’s example may do much, he has to depend upon his own exertions; he must work, he must be honest, or he cannot attain to any enviable rank. But the tender soothings of a mother, her sympathy, her devotedness, her forgiving temper—all this sinks deep in a child’s heart ”

“ You have neither the satisfaction of living where you like best, nor the pleasure of having a decent name for your child."
"But I have the pleasure of knowing that my little girl will have a handsome independence—and do you think, my dear Hassy, that it is no gratification to me to see that our going to the country is an event of great importance to your health and happiness?"
"My dearest Winny," said her tender-hearted, conscience-stricken husband, "I do not deserve this goodness. I cannot enjoy the thought of going into the country, unless I tell you how it has been brought about. ”

“ Instead of going directly to New York, as they at first contemplated, they visited every part of Pennsylvania. Railroads intersected one another in every direction; every thing was a source of amazement and amusement to Hastings. The fields were no longer cultivated by the horse or the ox, nor by small steam engines, as was projected in the nineteenth century, but by a self-moving plough, having the same machinery to propel it as that of the travelling cars. ”

“ My dear son—Stay where thou art, for thy presence will but aggravate our grief. I will give thee all the particulars of the dreadful calamity which has befallen us. I have not yet recovered from the shock, and thy sister is in the deepest wo; but it is proper that thou shouldst know the truth, and there is no one to tell thee but myself. On Monday the 15th, my dear son Edgar Hastings took a tender farewell of thy sister and his babe, shaking hands with me in so earnest and solemn a manner, that one prone to superstition would have said it was prophetic of evil. ”

“ I do not wonder she has the name of dirty Rachel; for how can a poor creature keep a husband and five children clean, when she has not money to buy soap even. But they are a quiet, well behaved set, and disturb no one. Larry keeps the children around him, and by his eternal good humour and pleasant ways he has contrived to make us all like him; so one throws him this thing and the other that; and your little bounties have come in a very good time. He only wishes, he says, that such gentlemen as you would sprain their ankle every day. ”

“ You cannot think what a really useful woman Bonny Betty is; it is a pity that the children are so sickly."
"Has she a doctor?—does she ever consult a doctor?"
"A doctor! why they are all more or less deformed. Ben, the eldest, has a great wen over his left eye which has nearly destroyed his sight; Kate, the next, has a broken back, and is lame; Jemmy is one sore from head to foot, and has been in that way for four years; Bob is a thin, sickly boy, that has fainty turns, and is beginning to lose his hearing; Susy is deaf and dumb; and little Christie, only four years old, has the dropsy." ”

“ To this day, now that I am a man, I still seem to hear that ever-to-beloved voice in the silence of the night, when the summer wind murmurs through the foliage. I used, at that forlorn period of my existence, to give myself up to these delusions till my heart has fairly throbbed with emotion.
I looked around for something to love, but no one ever dreamed of me, all were engaged in their business, or when the day closed, in their own amusement; all that I could draw to me was a poor singed cat, which I coaxed into my garret-room, and domesticated there. ”

“ Anglesea would not have been so great—perhaps if I had never known you, I should have found less difficulty in obeying my uncle. You perceive that I trust in you entirely."
It was not till I had read this dear letter over and over again that I could comprehend the full measure of my felicity; then came a rush of joy, then came an exquisite calm over my troubled heart. My aspiring eye shot a quick glance over days of happiness, of thankfulness, of usefulness, till my beloved and I had finished our duties on earth, and were safely and securely and for ever seated among angels in Heaven. ”

“ There is now, but one tax, and each man is made to pay according to the value of his property, or his business, or his labour. A land-holder, a stock-holder and the one who has houses and bonds and mortgages, pays so much per cent, on the advance of his property, and for his annual receipts—the merchant, with a fluctuating capital, pays so much on his book account of sales—the mechanic and labourer, so much on their yearly receipts, for we have no sales on credit now—that demoralizing practice has been abolished for upwards of a century. ”

“ To me every day was one of happiness, and with her near me, even the bustle of moving was a pleasant thing to anticipate; but in the abstract, apart from the thought of my wife, nothing could be more irksome than the hurry of change. It was not far to our new habitation, and in looking up there stood dear aunt Martha at the door, bending forward to look for us.
"Walk in, walk in," said she; "walk in your own house, good folks; come and see if every thing is to your liking, Mr. Parr," and open went all the doors of the four tiny rooms. ”

“ Why should all the people of a great nation be compelled to pass over an unsafe road, in miserably constructed cars, which made such a noise that for six hours a man had to be mute, and where there was perpetual fear of explosion from the steam engine—why should this be, when another company could give them a better road, more commodious cars, and a safer propelling power? ”

“ I was born with tender and strong feelings, and a friend was the bounds of my ambition.
At length the day came, St. Patrick's day, blessed be his name, it gave me freedom. My agitation had kept me awake the whole night before, for I had a sort of fear that something would occur to hinder me from leaving the office. As to where I was to go, that never troubled me—green fields, the river, running brooks, trees, birds, and the animals of the country, were all before me, and to me they would speak volumes. If man denied me his sympathy, they would not refuse it ”

“ In that service, a man binds himself by a solemn oath ‘to endow his wife with all his worldly goods.’ If he swears to endow her with all, how can he in safety to his soul, will these worldly goods away from her. We consider the practice of depriving a woman of the right to the whole of her husband’s property after his death, as a monstrous act of injustice, and the laws are now peremptory on this subject. ”

“ I want you to let Archy Campbell have the goods and the shop, and your good will—and—poor Jenny Hart in the bargain. Archy Campbell has saved money too; will you give your consent?"
"No," thundered out Martin Barton, wide awake, "that I won't. The goods he may have for nothing, the shop he may have for nothing, and our best good will he may have; but as to your leaving us—no, never. Oh, Jenny Hart, Jenny Hart, can you bear to leave us? You may well cry and take on so, Letty; why it is impossible, Jenny Hart—we could not stand it." ”

“ You were an irreverent, exacting race in your day; you expected more from a preacher than from any other person to whom they gave salaries—they were screwed down to the last thread of the screw; people would have their pennyworth out of them. It is no 65wonder that you had such poor preachers in your day; why few men of liberal education, aware of all the exactions and disabilities under which the sacred cloth laboured, would ever encounter them. But, now, every village has its own pastor; and some of them are highly gifted men, commanding the attention of the most intelligent people. ”

“ I had been so unaccustomed to the society of women, and my dear wife and the gentle Martha, in all my various moods of gaiety and melancholy, had always shown so much tenderness and sympathy for me, that the mirth of this young lady excited something like uneasiness in my mind, and I could not help referring to it in the midst of the storm that was raging. ”

“ It was easy to build a cellar, she thought, and so the cellars were made. “It seems to me,” she continued to say, “that men have no idea of comfort themselves, or they would not grudge it to their poor tenants; women understand these matters better, and as God has endowed them with greater sensibilities than the other sex, why it is incumbent on them to show their grateful sense of this partiality in their favour; and how can we show it but by attending to those little things which make up, by their great number, all the happiness of life? ”

“ This was sensible Valentine Harley's opinion and feeling; in rules of faith he had never been inducted—are there any quakers, apart from a few of their leaders, who can define what their religious faith is? So, although he loved the forms in which he had been educated—although he wore the quaker dress, and made his son and daughter do the same—yet when Edgar Hastings left off musing in the twilight, and was seen at that hour walking slowly down the glen, with Ophelia hanging on his arm, he only heaved a sigh, and wished that the young man said thee and thou. ”

“ The fact is, we consider that a woman has the same feelings as we have ourselves—a thing you never once thought of—and now the property that is made during marriage is as much the woman's as the man's; they are partners in health and in sickness, in joy and in sorrow—they enjoy every thing in common while they live together, and why a woman, merely on account of her being more helpless, should be cut off from affluence because she survives her husband, is more than we of this century can tell. ”

“ Her daughters never so much as pondered on the word; and as to Fanny, that sweetest and gentlest of human beings, it would have been cruel to mention the thing to her. Going to Congress would have sounded to her like going down a deep pit, among miners; or sailing in an open boat to Botany Bay. "Don't tell Fanny of it, my dear Francis; it will only set her to wondering and crying, for she can't understand it," said good Mrs. Bangs; "but let that alone, 'tis no concern of ours." ”

“ Nay, the old Recorder says that there have been rich men who ordered the very house in which they lived, and which had been built for their wives' comfort, during their life time, to be sold, and who thus compelled their wives to live in mean, pitiful houses, or go to lodgings."
"Yes," said Hastings,—quite ashamed of his own times,—"but then you know the husband was fearful that his wife would marry again, and all their property would go to strangers."
"Well, why should not women have the same privileges as men? Do you not think that a woman had the same fears? ”

“ Webb had read some observations of Dr. Burroughs on the subject of insanity, which went to prove that there were more frequently cases of aberration of mind from a rise to sudden prosperity, than from adversity. "What can ail you? surely you are not one of those weak minded persons who cannot bear a sudden turn of good fortune?"
"My dear Winny," said her husband, in the most rueful tone imaginable, "I am not thinking in the least of the money, nor of the farm, but of the probability of our child's having a preposterous name." ”

“ Blagge had answered his letter, stating why I did not write myself, and as this thing did not concern me any further I dismissed the subject from my mind, not even thinking it worth mentioning when I returned to my wife.
Every evening, the moment the sun went down, I returned to that dear, solitary one, and then after taking our supper we would wander about from place to place, caring very little in what direction we strayed. We lived for ourselves, and most deeply and gratefully did we enjoy the felicity of being together unnoticed and unknown. ”

“ THE LITTLE COUPLE.
"I wish my dear Hassy," said Mrs. Webb to her husband, "I do really wish that we had a house of our own; I dislike to live at lodgings, it leaves me so little to do. When my baby is dressed and your bureau is put in order, I have nothing to do but to sew, no exercise at all; and as to you, you read, read until you lose your colour and health. Now, if we had a house to ourselves, you would have exercise enough in going to market— (Heavens, Mr. Webb go to market!!) ”

“ Every house, now, whether of the rich or the poor man, is insured. It has to pay so much additional tax, and the corporation are the insurers. But the tax is so trifling that no one feels it a burden; our houses are almost all fire-proof since the discovery of a substance which renders wood almost proof against fire. But I have a file of the Recorder of Self-Inflicted Miseries, and you will see the regular gradation from the barbarisms of your day to the enlightened times it has been permitted you to see. ”

“ My whole manner must be a convincing proof that I have a high esteem for your character, and that I feel a strong interest in your welfare; more than this I dare not say. I am entirely dependent on my uncle; and it has been his wish, for many years, to see me the wife of his grandson—the person who has always accompanied me to the lectures. You need not fear that this event will ever take place, as my disinclination to it has long been known to the young man; and neither he nor my uncle have any power to compel me. ”

“ I shall sleep as sound as a top, as I always do—and you, dearest, you will have golden dreams; oh, what a fine house you will build at Camperdown; and how snugly uncle Porter will be ensconced in the little, neat, comfortable stone house; and dear aunt Martha, what a glorious south room you are to have on the first floor, along with us; and oh, what planning and what perplexities we shall be in for the next two years. Why, Mr. Bartlett has made a most princely offer."
And thus the dear creature went on, leading me to believe that the good news related to him; but aunt Martha knew better. ”