Charles Brockden Brown

“ Human life abounds with mysterious appearances. A man perched on a fence at midnight, mute and motionless, and gazing at a dark and dreary dwelling, was an object calculated to rouse curiosity. When the muscular form and rugged visage, scared and furrowed into something like ferocity, were added,—when the nature of the calamity by which the city was dispeopled was considered,—the motives to plunder, and the insecurity of property arising from the pressure of new wants on the poor, and the flight or disease of the rich, were attended to, an observer would be apt to admit fearful conjectures. ”

“ He is dead: he died last night of the yellow fever.
The name of this disease was not absolutely new to her ears. She had been apprized of its rapid and destructive progress in one quarter of the city, but hitherto it had existed, with regard to her, chiefly in the form of rumour. She had not realized the nature or probable extent of the evil. She lived at no great distance from the seat of the malady, but her neighbourhood had been hitherto exempt. So wholly unused was she to contemplate pestilence, except at a distance, that its actual existence in the bosom of this city was incredible. ”

“ Was there no branch of her present knowledge which she might claim wages for imparting to others? Was there no art within her reach to acquire, convertible into means of gain? Women are generally limited to what is sensual and ornamental: music and painting, and the Italian and French languages, are bounds which they seldom pass. In these pursuits it is not possible—nor is it expected—that they should arrive at the skill of adepts. The education of Constantia had been regulated by the peculiar views of her father, who sought to make her, not alluring and voluptuous, but eloquent and wise. ”

“ It was not merely frugal fare and a humble dwelling to which he was condemned. The evils to be dreaded were beggary and contempt. Luxury and leisure were not merely denied him. He must bend all his efforts to procure clothing and food, to preserve his family from nakedness and famine. His spirit would not brook dependence. To live upon charity, or to take advantage of the compassion of his friends, was a destiny far worse than any other. To this therefore he would not consent. However irksome and painful it might prove, he determined to procure hit bread by the labour of his hands. ”

“ Tell her to come down and warm herself. She must needs be cold, and here is a cheerful blaze. I feel it myself. Like the lightning that precedes death, it beams thus brightly, though in a few moments it will be extinguished forever. Let my darling come and partake of its comforts before they expire."
Constantia had retired in order to review her situation and devise some expedients that might alleviate it. ”

“ But his destiny seemed never weary of persecuting him. It was not enough that he should fall a victim to the most atrocious arts, that he should wear out his days in solitude and drudgery, that he should feel not only the personal restraints and hardships attendant upon indigence, but the keener pangs that result from negligence and contumely. He was imperfectly recovered from the shock occasioned by the death of his wife, when his sight was invaded by a cataract. Its progress was rapid, and terminated in total blindness.
He was now disabled from pursuing his usual occupation. ”

“ Dudley's blindness might justly be accounted, even in its immediate effects, a fortunate event. It dissolved the spell by which he was bound, and which it is probable would never have been otherwise broken. It restored him to himself, and showed him, with a distinctness which made him shudder, the gulf to which he was hastening. But nothing can compensate to the sufferers the evils of blindness. It was the business of Constantia's life to alleviate those sufferings, to cherish and console her father, and to rescue him by the labour of her hands from dependence on public charity. ”

“ Anticipation has a tendency to lessen or prevent some evils, but pestilence is not of that number. Strange untowardness of destiny! That thou and I should be cast upon a scene like this!"
Mr. Dudley joined with uncommon powers of discernment a species of perverseness not easily accounted for. He acted as if the inevitable evils of her lot were not sufficient for the trial of his daughter's patience. Instead of comforter and counsellor he fostered impatience in himself, and endeavoured, with the utmost diligence, to undermine her fortitude and disconcert her schemes. ”

“ A passenger whose attention and compassion had been excited by this incident was endowed with more courage. He lifted the stranger in his arms, and carried him from this unwholesome spot to a barn. This was the only service which the passenger was able to perform. Whiston, deserted by every human creature, burning with fever, tormented into madness by thirst, spent three miserable days in agony. When dead, no one would cover his body with earth, but he was suffered to decay by piecemeal. ”

“ She knew herself to be young; she was sensible of the daily enlargement of her knowledge: every day contributed to rectify some error, or confirm some truth. These benefits she owed to her situation, which, whatever were its evils, gave her as much freedom from restraint as is consistent with the state of human affairs. Her poverty fettered her exertions, and circumscribed her pleasures. Poverty, therefore, was an evil, and the reverse of poverty was to be desired. ”

“ He remarked her admirable economy of time, and money, and labour, the simplicity of her dress, her evenness of temper, and her love of seclusion. These ware essential requisites of a wife, in his apprehension. The insignificance of his own birth, the lowness of his original fortune, and the efficacy of industry and temperance to confer and maintain wealth, had taught him indifference as to birth or fortune in his spouse. His moderate desires in this respect were gratified, and he was anxious only for a partner that would aid him in preserving rather than in enlarging his property. ”

“ During her indisposition she was attended by Sarah, in whose honest bosom no sentiment was more lively than gratitude. Constantia having promised to renew her visit the next day, had been impatiently expected, and Sarah had come to her dwelling in the evening, full of foreboding and anxiety, to ascertain the cause of her delay. Having gained the bedside of her patroness, no consideration could induce her to retire from it.
Constantia's curiosity was naturally excited as to the causes of Baxter's disease. The simple-hearted Sarah was prolix and minute in the history of her own affairs. ”

“ The company of one with whom we have no sympathy, nor sentiments in common, is, of all species of solitude, the most loathsome and dreary. The nuptial life is attended with peculiar aggravations, since the tie is infrangible, and the choice of a more suitable companion, if such a one should offer, is for ever precluded. The hardships of wealth are not incompensated by some benefits; but these benefits, false and hollow as they are, cannot be obtained by marriage. Her acceptance of Balfour would merely aggravate her indigence.
Now she was at least mistress of the product of her own labour. ”

“ You are anxious to obtain some knowledge of the history of Constantia Dudley. I am well acquainted with your motives, and allow that they justify your curiosity. I am willing to the utmost of my power to comply with your request, and will now dedicate what leisure I have to the composition of her story.
My narrative will have little of that merit which flows from unity of design. You are desirous of hearing an authentic and not a fictitious tale. ”

“ Never did futurity wear, to her fancy, so dark a hue: never did her condition appear to her in a light so dreary and forlorn. To fly from the danger was impossible. How should accommodation at a distance be procured? The means of subsistence were indissolubly connected with her present residence, but the progress of this disease would cut off these means, and leave her to be beset not only with pestilence but famine. What provision could she make against an evil like this? ”

“ Could she not by the employment of her hands increase the income as well as diminish the expense? Why should she be precluded from all lucrative occupation? She soon came to a resolution. She was mistress of her needle; and this skill she conceived herself bound to employ for her own subsistence.
Clothing is one of the necessaries of human existence. The art of the tailor is scarcely less use than that of the tiller of the ground! There are few the gains of which are better merited, and less infurious to the principles of human society. ”

“ The death of Watson, however, filled her mind with awful reflections. The purpose of her walk was forgotten amidst more momentous considerations. She bent her steps pensively homeward. She had now leisure to remark the symptoms of terror with which all ranks appeared to have been seized. The streets were as much frequented as ever, but there were few passengers whose countenances did not betray alarm, and who did not employ the imaginary antidote to infection—vinegar. ”

“ Others made haste by new marriages to supply the place of wives, husbands, and children, whom the scarcely-extinguished pestilence had swept away.
Constantia, however, was permitted to take no share in the general festivity. Such was the colour of her fate, that the yellow fever, by affording her a respite from toil, supplying leisure for the acquisition of a useful branch of knowledge, and leading her to the discovery of a cheaper, more simple, and more wholesome method of subsistence, had been friendly, instead of adverse to her happiness. ”

“ These gloomy meditations were derived from the languors of her frame: when these disappeared, her cheerfulness and fortitude revived. She regarded with astonishment and delight the continuance of her father's health and her own restoration. That trial seemed to have been safely undergone, to which the life of every one was subject. The air, which till now had been arid and sultry, was changed into cool and moist. The pestilence had reached its utmost height, and now symptoms of remission and decline began to appear. ”

“ Though painting was capable of fully gratifying his taste as matter of amusement, he quickly found that, in his new situation, it would not answer the ends of a profession. His father supported himself by the profits of his shop, but with all his industry he could do no more than procure a subsistence for himself and his son.
Till his father's death young Dudley attached himself to painting. His gains were slender, but he loved the art, and his father's profession rendered his own exertions in a great degree superfluous. ”

“ She herself would have died before she would have condescended to beg. It was not worth prolonging a life which must subsist upon alms. She would have wandered into the fields at dusk, have seated herself upon an unfrequented bank, and serenely waited the approach of that death which the rigours of the season would have rendered sure. ”

“ Her scanty gains were equal to their needs during summer, but would probably fall short during the prevalence of cold.
These reflections could not fail sometimes to intrude. She indulged them as long as they served, merely to suggest expedients and provisions for the future, but laboured to call away her attention when they merely produced anxiety. This she more easily effected, as some months of summer were still to come, and her knowledge of the vicissitudes to which human life is subject taught her to rely upon the occurrence of some fortunate though unforeseen event. ”

“ This service was repaid with the utmost gratitude. Sarah regarded her benefactress with a species of devotion. She could not endure to behold one, whom every accent and gesture proved to have once enjoyed affluence and dignity, performing any servile office. In spite of her own multiplied engagements, she compelled Constantia to accept her assistance on many occasions, and could scarcely be prevailed upon to receive any compensation for her labour. ”

“ Her music, and even her books were not spared,—not from the slight esteem in which these were held by her, but because she was thenceforth to become an economist of time as well as of money, because musical instruments are not necessary to the practice of this art in its highest perfection, and because books, when she could procure leisure to read, or money to purchase them, might be obtained in a cheaper and more commodious form, than those costly and splendid volumes with which her father's munificence had formerly supplied her. ”

“ Her new dwelling possessed indisputable advantages over her old. Not the least of these benefits consisted in the vicinity of people, peaceable and honest, though poor. She was no longer shocked by the clamours of debauchery, and exposed, by her situation, to the danger of being mistaken by the profligate of either sex for one of their own class. It was reasonable to consider this change of abode as fortunate, and yet circumstances quickly occurred which suggested a very different conclusion.
She had no intercourse, which necessity did not prescribe, with the rest of the world. ”

“ But to what scene or kind of employment should he betake himself? He could not endure to exhibit this reverse of fortune on the same theatre which had witnessed his prosperity. One of his first measures was to remove from New York to Philadelphia. How should he employ himself in his new abode? Painting, the art in which he was expert, would not afford him the means of subsistence. Though no despicable musician, he did not esteem himself qualified to be a teacher of this art. This profession, besides, was treated by his new neighbours with general, though unmerited contempt. ”

“ This caprice was swayable by every breath, and paid a merely subordinate regard, in the choice of workwomen, to the circumstances of skill, cheapness and diligence. In consequence of this, her usual sources of subsistence began to fail.
Indigence, as well as wealth, is comparative. He indeed must be wretched, whose food, clothing, and shelter, are limited, both in kind and quantity, by the standard of mere necessity; who, in the choice of food, for example, is governed by no consideration but its cheapness, and its capacity to sustain nature. ”