Elmwood

“ Love, that produces wonders, that seduces and subdues the most determined and rigid spirits, had in two instances overcome the inflexibility of Lord Elmwood; he married Lady Elmwood contrary to his determination, because he loved; and for the sake of this beloved object, he had, contrary to his resolution, taken under his immediate care young Rushbrook; but the magic which once enchanted away this spirit of immutability was no more—Lady Elmwood was no more, and the charm was broken. ”

“ Practically, I think, for the earlier years of James Lowell’s life, Elmwood furnished as large a world as he wanted. Within its hedges and fences the young people might do much what they chose. They were Mary, who was the guardian; then came William; afterwards Robert, whose name is well known in our literature; and then James. The four children were much together; they found nothing difficult, for work or for pastime. ”

“ Miss Woodley, too, smiled at the prospect before her—she esteemed Lord Elmwood beyond any mortal living—she was proud to hear what he had said in her praise, and overjoyed at the prospect of being once again in his company; painting at the same time a thousand bright hopes, from watching every emotion of his soul, and catching every proper occasion to excite or increase his paternal sentiments. ”

“ Such are the tales still told in our county of the olden days at Elmwood—tales handed down from father to son, and preserved in the memories of the old inhabitants of Pasquotank. And all such memories should be preserved and recorded ere those who hold them dear have passed away, and with them, the traditions that picture to a generation all too heedless of the past, the life of these, our pioneer forefathers.
From this old home more distinguished men have gone forth than probably from any other home in North Carolina. ”

“ You seem a worthy youth," said Mr. Elmwood, who was certainly struck and touched by the silent uncomplaining resolution of the mere stripling who had borne so heavy a burthen. "If you were heartily one of us, I should be glad to make you woodward, instead of old Tomkins, and build up yonder house for you, but I cannot do it for one who is hankering after prelacy, and might use the place for I know not what plots and conspiracies of the malignants." ”

“ It was one of those bleak and flinty nights, when prairie winds pierce like needles, and a step on the snow sounds like a file on the steel teeth of a saw. My next appointment after Elmwood was on Monday night, and in order to reach it in time, it was necessary to go to Peoria the night previous, so as to take an early morning train, and I could only accomplish this by leaving Elmwood after my lecture at midnight, for there was no Sunday train. ”

“ Lord Elmwood having come to this resolution, was more composed than he had been for several days before; while the horror of domestic wrangles--a family without subordination--a house without oeconomy--in a word, a wife without discretion, had been perpetually present to his mind.
Mr. Sandford, although he was a man of understanding, of learning, and a complete casuist, yet all the faults he himself committed, were entirely--for want of knowing better. ”

“ Not far from Elmwood, but in the adjoining village of Watertown, lived one of Lowell's classmates, whose sister, Maria White, a slender, delicate girl, with a poetic genius in some respects more regulated and lofty than his own, early inspired him with a true and saving love. ”

“ Sandford never came into her thoughts, while the image of Lord Elmwood never left them. One morning, as she sat talking to Lady Luneham on various subjects, but thinking alone on him, Sir Harry Luneham, with another gentleman, a Mr. Fleetmond, came in, and the conversation turned upon the improbability, during the present Lord Elmwood’s youth, that he should ever inherit the title and estate which had now fallen to him—and, said Mr. Fleetmond, “Independent of rank and fortune, it must be matter of infinite joy to Mr. Dorriforth.” ”

“ Lord Elmwood proposed a wife to him; and in a way so assured of his acquiescence, that if Rushbrook's life had depended upon his daring to dispute his benefactor's will, he would not have had the courage to have done so. There was, however, in his reply, and his embarrassment, something which his uncle distinguished from a free concurrence; and looking stedfastly at him, he said, in that stern manner which he now almost invariably adopted,
"You have no engagements, I suppose! Have made no previous promises!"
"None on earth, my Lord," replied Rushbrook candidly. ”

“ Nor under this destiny can he have any claim to pity; for genuine love will make him happy in banishment, in poverty, or in sickness: it makes the poor man happy as the rich, the fool blest as the wise.” The sincerity with which Lord Elmwood had loved, was expressed more than in words, as he said this.
“Your Lordship is talking,” replied Sandford, “of the passion in its most refined and predominant sense; while I may possibly be speaking of a mere phantom, that has led this young man astray.” ”

“ His religious studies had completely taught him to consider this world but as a passage to another; to enjoy with gratitude what Heaven in its bounty should bestow, and to bear with submission, whatever in its vengeance it might inflict. In a greater degree than most people he practised this doctrine; and as soon as the shock he received from Lady Elmwood’s conduct was abated, an entire calmness and resignation ensued; but still of that sensible and feeling kind, that could never suffer him to forget the happiness he had lost ”

“ But more than all, the threatening manner in which this rational and apparently conciliating speech was uttered, the menaces, the severity which sat upon the Earl's countenance while he delivered those moderate words, might have intimidated a man wholly independent, and less used to fear than his nephew had been.
"You make no answer, Sir," said Lord Elmwood, after waiting a few moments for his reply.
"I have only to say, my Lord," returned Rushbrook, "that although my heart may be totally disengaged, I may yet be disinclined to marriage." ”

“ During his absence that day, Lord Elmwood had called Sandford apart, and said to him,--that as the malevolence which he once observed between him and Rushbrook, had, he perceived, subsided, he advised him, if he was a well-wisher to the young man, to sound his heart, and counsel him not to act against the will of his nearest relation and friend. ”

“ CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
[v]
I. ELMWOOD.
About half a mile from the Craigie House in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the road leading to the old town of Watertown, is Elmwood, a spacious square house set amongst lilac and syringa bushes, and overtopped by elms. Pleasant fields are on either side, and from the windows one may look out on the Charles River winding its way among the marshes. ”

“ Lord Elmwood, after four years enjoyment of the most perfect happiness that marriage could give, after becoming the father of a beautiful daughter, whom he loved with a tenderness almost equal to his love of her mother, was under the indispensable necessity of leaving them both for a time, in order to rescue from the depredation of his own steward, his very large estates in the West Indies. ”

“ Horton, had left her solely relying on the bounty of Lady Elmwood, and now her death, had left her totally dependant upon the Earl—for Lady Elmwood though she had separate effects, had long before her death declared it was not her intention to leave a sentence behind her in the form of a will. She had no will, she said, but what she would wholly submit to Lord Elmwood’s; and, if it were even his will, that her child should live in poverty, as well as banishment, it should be so. ”

“ Lord Elmwood, however, took no notice of her looks, but after wishing her her health, walked slowly out of the house; turning back frequently and speaking to Sandford, or to some other person who was behind him, as if part of his thoughts were left behind, and he went with reluctance.
When he had quitted the room where Miss Woodley was, Rushbrook, timid before her, as she had been before her benefactor, went up to her, all humility, and said, "Miss Woodley, we ought to be friends: our concern, our devotion is paid to the same objects, and one common interest should teach us to be friendly." ”

“ As if I cared a straw for them or any body besides Guy and Tom!
It is very pleasant here at Elmwood, but the house is not as grand as I supposed, and there are not as many servants, and the family carriage is awful pokey. Guy is to give me a pretty little phaeton on my birthday.
I like Miss Frances very much, only she is such a raging housekeeper, and keeps me all the while on the alert. I don't believe in these raging housekeepers who act as if they wanted to make the bed before you are up, and eat breakfast before it is ready. ”

“ She did not return to dinner, nor till it was late in the evening; Lord Elmwood was at home, but he never once mentioned her name.
She came home, after he had retired, in great spirits; and then, for the first time, in her whole life, appeared careless what he might think of her behaviour:—but her whole thoughts were occupied upon the business which had employed the chief of her day; and her dress engrossed all her conversation, as soon as Miss Woodley and she were alone. She told her, she had been shewn the greatest variety of beautiful and becoming dresses she had ever beheld ”

“ I shouldn’t be happy anywhere else;” and at Elmwood he died, Wednesday, 12 August, 1891.
The place was endeared to him by a thousand memories, and he liked it none the less for the historic associations, which lent it a flavor whimsically suggestive to him of his own lurking sympathy. “It will make a frightful Conservative of you before you know it,” he wrote in 1873 to Mr. Aldrich, then living at Elmwood; it was born a Tory and will die so. Don’t get too used to it. I often wish I had not grown into it so.” ”

“ This sentence, in which his friend’s memory was recalled, with an additional allusion to her long and secret love for him, affected Lord Elmwood much—he was moved, but ashamed of being so, and as soon as possible conquered the propensity to forgive. Yet, for a short interval, he did not know whether to go out of the room, or to remain in it; whether to speak, or to be silent. At length he turned towards her, and said,
“Appeal to your father in some other form—in that (pointing at her dress) he will not know you. ”

“ For several years he went back to England every summer, and it was not until he took up his abode at Elmwood again that he spent a whole year at home. One winter he passed at his sister's home in Boston, but mostly he lived with his daughter at Southborough. I have heard a story of his going to Elmwood soon after his return in 1885, and sitting down in his old study, where he declared with tears that the place was full of ghosts. ”

“ Ignorant of a certain decorum which attended all Lord Elmwood’s actions, he suspected that his child might be in want; and an acquaintance with the worst part of her sex informed him, that relief from poverty was the sure bargain for his success. With these hopes, he again paid Miss Woodley and her a visit ”

“ An elderly man entered, who had been for many years the head gardener at Elmwood House; a man of honesty and sobriety, and with an indigent family of aged parents, children, and other relations, who subsisted wholly on the income arising from his place. The ladies, as well as Sandford, knew him well, and they all, almost at once, asked, “What was the matter?” ”

“ Other people went away from Cambridge in the summer to the sea and to the mountains, but Lowell always stayed at Elmwood, in an impassioned love for his home and for his town. I must have found him there in the afternoon, and he must have made me sup with him (dinner was at two o’clock) and then go with him for a long night of talk in his study. He liked to have some one help him idle the time away, and keep him as long as possible from his work ”

“ Merritt settled at Elmwood, a small village sprung up about twenty miles distant, on the edge of the prairie; and, as the country filled up beyond, it was made the county-seat; and a store or two being established there, it became quite a market-place for the farmers on the prairie.
On a cold morning in January of the third winter of his residence at Elmwood, Mr. Merritt, having some business which called him to the village, Miss Emma improved the opportunity to accompany him, for the purpose of exercising her taste in the purchase of a few articles from the store. ”

“ But I believe he will not be in good humour enough for that."
"You had better dress at the house of the ladies with whom you go," said Miss Woodley; and this was agreed upon.
At dinner they learnt that Lord Elmwood was to go that evening to Windsor, in order to be in readiness for the king's hunt early in the morning. This intelligence having dispersed Miss Milner's fears, she concluded upon dressing at home.
Lord Elmwood appeared at dinner, in an even, but not in a good temper; the subject of the masquerade was never brought up, nor indeed was it once in his thoughts ”

“ This was but a common-place civility, such as is paid by one enemy to another every day; but the manner was the material part. The unaffected concern, the attention, the good will, she demonstrated in this little incident, was that which made it remarkable, and immediately took from Lord Elmwood the displeasure to which he had been just before provoked, or rather transformed it into a degree of admiration. Even Sandford was not insensible to her behaviour, and in return, when he left the room, “Wished her a good night.” ”