John Winthrop

“ Our author urges, with force of arguments and the evidence of authentic papers, entirely to our satisfaction, that John Winthrop was essentially and substantially the digester and exponent of those pregnant considerations. The correspondence which follows proves how conscientiously the enterprise was weighed, and the reasons and objections debated. Godly ministers were consulted for their advice and coöperation. No opposition or withholding of any shade or degree would seem to have been made by any member of Winthrop's family ”

“ An entry in the records of his father must have been a most grateful discovery to the Governor's descendant in the seventh generation. "1602. The 2d of December I rode to Cambridge. The VIIIth day John my soonne was admitted into Trinitie College." But the old mystery vanishes only to give place to another, which has a spice of romance in it. John Winthrop did not graduate at Cambridge. He was a lawful husband when seventeen years of age, and a happy father at eighteen. ”

“ The governor elected by the Massachusetts company was John Winthrop, one of the noblest men who aided in the making of New England. Winthrop was a gentleman by birth, gracious, gentle, and charitable in private life, intense—and sometimes intolerant—in his religious views. When he joined the “great emigration” of 1630, he was forty-one years of age, having been born the very year that the Spanish Armada was destroyed. With eight hundred men and the precious charter, Winthrop sailed to the New World. A few days were spent at Salem, and then it was decided to make a settlement at Charlestown. ”

“ I gave one more look at the caravan we had seen winding so beautifully down on the plain, no longer ago than yesterday evening. Rosy morning brightened on every wagon of the great ellipse. Not a soul was to be seen of all their tenants. I recognized Mr. Clitheroe’s habitation at the farther end. That, too, had the same mysterious, deserted air, as if the sad pair who dwelt in it had desperately wandered away into the desert by night.
Brent would not turn. He kept his haggard face bent eastward, toward the horizon, where an angry sunrise began to thrust out the quiet hues of dawn. ”

“ There they came! Gerrian’s whole band of horses in full career! First, their heads suddenly lifted above a crest of the prairie; then they burst over, like the foam and spray of a black, stormy wave when a blast strikes it, and wildly swept by us with manes and tails flaring in the wind. It was magnificent. My heart of a horseman leaped in my breast. “Hurrah!” I cried.
“Hurrah ’t is!” said Gerrian.
The herd dashed by in a huddle, making for the corral. ”

“ The tender hues of morning glorified the blue adobes of Bridger’s shabby fort. It rested on the plain, still as the grave, — stiller for the contrast of this silent hour with last night’s riot. A deathly quiet, too, dwelt upon the Mormon caravan. There were the white-topped wagons just growing rosy with the fond colors of early day. No abandoned camp of a fled army could have looked more lonely. Half a mile from the train were the cattle feeding quietly in a black mass, like a herd of buffalo. There was not one man, out of our own party, to be seen. ”

“ No holidays, no green grass, no flowers, no freshness, — nothing but hard, ill-paid drudgery, with starvation standing over the task and scourging them on. There were children among them already aged and wrinkled, ancient as the crone, Samwell’s mother, for any childish gayety they showed. Poor things! they had been for years their twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours at work in stifling mills, when they should have been tumbling in the hay, chasing butterflies, expanding to sunshine and open air.
“We have not seen,” said Brent, “one hearty John Bull, or buxom Betsy Bull, in the whole caravan.” ”

“ The old steady, faithful look in the gray eyes. The same pale, saddened beauty. The unblenching gaze of patient waiting.
She looked at me vaguely, while life paused one pulse. Then, as I stepped forward, the eloquent blood gushed into her face, — for she knew that the friend could not long outrun the lover. She sprang into my arms. Forgive me, John Brent, if I did put my lips close to her burning cheek. It was only to whisper, “He is in London, searching for you. He has never rested one moment since you were lost to us. In an hour he will be here.” ”

“ But many such diaries have been kept by men who might have covered alternate pages with matter similar to his own, or with worse. We must interpret the religious diaries of that age by aids independent of those which their contents furnish us. John Winthrop, writing of his youth when he had grown to the full exalted stature of Christian manhood, and though sweetly mellowed in the graces of his character by genial ripening from within his soul, was still a Puritan of the severest standard theologically, and, by principle, charges himself with heinous sin. ”

“ They are loved and respected by the Indians, who repair to the governor for justice. He [John Winthrop] is a discreet and sober man, wearing plain apparel, assisting in any ordinary labour, and ruling with much mildness and justice’ (Cal. State Papers, Colonial, 1574–1660, p. 156) . In September 1632, in his capacity as governor, Winthrop paid a ceremonious visit to the planters at Plymouth. About this same period an animated quarrel between the governor and his deputy, Thomas Dudley, was allayed by Winthrop's pacific demeanour. ”

“ Bancroft says of him: “It was principally the calm decision of Winthrop which sustained the courage of his companions.” Palfrey concludes a notice of him, in his “History of New England,” as follows: “Certain it is that, among the millions of living men descended from those whom he ruled, there is not one who does not, through efficient influences, transmitted in society and in thought along the intervening generations, owe much of what is best within him and in the circumstances about him to the benevolent and courageous wisdom of John Winthrop.” ”

“ That stern intent made his sinews steel, and put an agony of power into every stride. The man never stirred, save sometimes to put a hand to that bloody blanket bandage across his head and temple. He had told his story, he had spoken his errand, he breathed not a word; but with his lean, pallid face set hard, his gentle blue eyes scourged of their kindliness, and fixed upon those distant mountains where his vengeance lay, he rode on like a relentless fate. ”

“ O beauty! beware, or do not beware, just as you deem best, but know that there is peril! For love can improvise out of the steam of a teapot a romance as big and sudden and irrepressible as the Afreet that swelled from the casket by the sea-shore in the Arabian story.
We sat down upon the grass for our picnic. I should not invite the late Mr. Watteau, or even the extant Mr. Diaz, to paint us. The late Mr. Watteau’s heroes and heroines were silk and satin Arcadians; they had valets de chambre and filles de chambre, and therefore could be not fully heroes and heroines, if proverbs be true. ”

“ You should have seen the white horse, sir, in that picture, — full of gentleness and spirit, and worthy the handsome cavalier just ready to mount him.”
As the old gentleman talked of his heroic ancestor, a name not unknown to history, he revived a little, and I saw an evanescent look of his daughter’s vigor in his eye. It faded instantly; he sighed, and went on.
“I should almost have liked to live in those days. It is easier to die for a holy cause than to find one’s way along through life. I have found it pretty hard, sir, — pretty hard, — and I hope my day of peace is nearly come.” ”

“ Frosty nights on the Sierra tried to cramp him; foggy mornings in the valleys did their worst to chill him; showers shrank his buckskins and soaked the macheers of his saddle to mere pulp; rain pelted his blankets in the bivouac till he was a moist island in a muddy lake. Bah, elements! try it on a milksop! not on John Brent, the invulnerable. He laughs in the ugly phiz of Trouble. Hit somebody else, thou grizzly child of Erebus!
Brent was closer to Nature than any man I ever knew. Not after the manner of an artist. The artist can hardly escape a certain technicality. ”

“ And still she seemed to rule her fate with quiet, steady eyes, — gray eyes with violet lights.
I carried her a few steps to the side of a jubilant fountain lifting beneath a rock, and left her there to Nature, kindliest leech.
Then I took a cup of that brilliant water to my friend, my brother.
“I can die now,” he said feebly.
“There is no death in you. You have won the right to live. Keep a brave heart. Drink!”
And in that exquisite spot, that fair glade of the sparkling fountains, I gave the noble fellow long draughts of sweet refreshment. ”

“ You and I have had the college, the salon, the club, the street, Europe, the Old World, and Yankeedom through and through; when do you expect to outgrow Ishmael, my Jonathan?”
“Whenever Destiny gives me the final accolade of merit, and names me Lover.”
“What! have you never been that happy wretch?”
“Never. I have had transitory ideals. I have been enchanted by women willowy and women dumpy; by the slight and colorless mind and body, by the tender and couleur de rose, and by the buxom and ruddy. I have adored Zobeide and Hildegarde, Dolores and Dorothy Ann, imp and angel, sprite and fiend. ”

“ He straightened himself in his saddle, gave his fair moustache a twirl, and hummed, for gayety of heart, “Ah non giunge!” to the beat of his mustang’s hoofs.
We were riding at the bottom of a little hollow. The dusty trail across the unfenced wilderness, worn smooth and broad as a turnpike by the march of myriad caravans, climbed up the slopes before and behind us, like the wake of a ship between surges. The mail train had disappeared over the ridge. Our horses had gone with it. Brent and I were alone, as if the world held no other tenants. ”

“ Fitz John Winthrop, Esq., F.R.S. (died 1707) , son of the last, and also Governor of Connecticut, is said to have been “famous for his philosophical” (that is, scientific) “knowledge.” [18] And the second Governor’s nephew, John Winthrop, Esq., F.R.S. (died 1747) , who left this country and passed the latter part of his life in England, is declared by the author of the dedication already above cited, to have “increased the riches of their” (the Royal Society’s) “repository with more than six hundred curious specimens, chiefly in the mineral kingdom ”

“ An elder of First Church I think you are;
I have a message for you; come, prepare."
Portrait of Rev. John Wilson. "Winthrop!" cried I, "my venerable sire!
Do you reanimate your rich attire?
Most glad am I to have this interview;
Pray, tell me all you wish, things old and new."
"My friend," said he, "no ven'rable am I,
For mortals grow no older when they die;
E'er since my earthly race I long have run,
My age has numbered only sixty-one.
Years are not counted on the heavenly shore,
For in eternal life time is no more. ”

“ The wild-sage bushes had plainly never tasted fluid more plenteous than seldom dewdrops doled out on certain rare festal days, enough to keep their meagre foliage a dusty gray. No pleasant streamlet lurked anywhere under the long dry grass of the savannas. The arroyos were parched and hot as rifts in lava.
It became agonizing to listen to the panting and gasping of our horses. Their eyes grew staring and bloodshot. We suffered, ourselves, hardly less than they. It was cruel to press on. But we must hinder a crueller cruelty. Love against Time, — Vengeance against Time! ”

“ WINTHROP, JOHN (1588–1649) , a Puritan leader and governor of Massachusetts, was born in Edwardston, Suffolk, on the 12th of January (O.S.) 1588, the son of Adam Winthrop of Groton Manor, and Anne (Browne) Winthrop. In December 1602 he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, but he did not graduate. The years after his brief course at the university were devoted to the practice of law, in which he achieved considerable success, being appointed, about 1623, an attorney in the Court of Wards and Liveries, and also being engaged in the drafting of parliamentary bills. ”

“ Clitheroe’s wagon.
“See,” said I; “there are those two gamblers again. I don’t like such foul vultures hanging about that friendless dove. They look villains enough for any outrage.”
“But they are powerless here.”
“In the presence of a steadier villany they tire. That foul Sizzum is quite sure of his prey. John Brent, what can be done? I do not know which I feel most bitterly for, the weary, deluded old gentleman, doubting his error, or that noble girl. Poor, friendless souls!” ”

“ She had not seen her father so cheerful, so like himself, since they had left England.”
“What a weary pilgrimage they must have had, poor errant souls!”
“Wade, Wade! how this tragedy of theirs cures me forever of any rebellion against my own destiny. A helpless woman’s tragedy is so much bitterer than anything that can befall a man.”
“Must we say helpless, John?”
“Are we two an army, that we can take them by force? She has definitely closed any further communication on our part. She said that I could not have failed to notice how Elder Sizzum disliked our presence. ”

“ When can you travel, John?”
“Nearly a month I have been here fighting [Pg 273] death and grasping at life. Give me two days more to find a horse and ride about a little, and we are off.”
“Armstrong, fine old fellow, left the sorrel for you,” I said. “He is in racing trim now.”
“Capital!” said Brent. “One Armstrong is a brave weight on the true side of the balance, against an army of pioneers who have gone barbarous.”
“I have something to show you, John,” said Biddulph. “See here. I bought this of a Mormon. He had very likely stolen it from Mr. Clitheroe’s wagon. ”