John Wool

“ John Woolfolk, who long ago had put such considerations from his existence, was yet clearly conscious of the disturbing quality of her person. She possessed the indefinable property of charm. Such women, he knew, stirred life profoundly, reanimating it with extraordinary efforts and desires. Their mere passage, the pressure of their fingers, were more imperative than the life-service of others; the flutter of their breath could be more tyrannical that the most poignant memories and vows. ”

“ Halvard’s broad, concentrated countenance, the steady, grave gaze and determined mouth, cleared Woolfolk’s mind of its phantoms. He moved to the cockpit and from there said:
“That will do for today.”
Halvard followed, and commenced once more the familiar, ordered preparations for supper. John Woolfolk, smoking while the sky turned to malachite, became sharply aware of the unthinkable monotony of the universal course, of the centuries wheeling in dull succession into infinity. Life seemed to him no more varied than the wire drum in which squirrels raced nowhere. ”

“ One thing more remained; and, going deeper into the tin box, John Woolfolk brought out a packet of square envelopes addressed to him in a faded, angular hand. They were all that remained now of his youth, of the past. Not a ghost, not a remembered fragrance nor accent, rose from the delicate paper. They had been the property of a man dead twelve years ago, slain by incomprehensible mischance; and the man in the contracted cabin, vibrating from the elemental and violent forces without, forebore to open them. ”

“ A deep loathing of his surroundings swept over John Woolfolk, a sudden revulsion from the dead man on the floor, from the ponderous menace on the stair, the white figure that had brought it all upon him. ”

“ It lay without motion, sprawling upon a lower step and the floor. John Woolfolk moved backward from it, his hand behind him, feeling for the entrance to the lighted room. He shifted his feet carefully, for the darkness was wheeling about him in visible black rings streaked with palest orange as he passed into the room.
Here objects, dimensions, became normally placed, recognizable. He saw the mezzotint with its sere and sunny peace, the portfolios on their stands, like grotesque and flattened quadrupeds, and Lichfield Stope on the floor, still hiding his dead face in the crook of his arm. ”

“ But Woolfolk, annoyed, ignored the sailor, and the latter finally moved away, muttering. Even in the scintillating day the island remained a place of black shadows, metallic foliage. Not a sign of life was visible except a blue drift of smoke from a hidden chimney. John Woolfolk sat somberly thinking, and Jerry rested extended on the deck. At times there were involuntary twitchings of his hands and facial muscles. He said:
"The collection of instincts and emotions huddled in the human frame is rather appalling. ”

“ In the space beneath the afterdeck Woolfolk found a spare folded anchor for the tender, a length of rope; and he slowly completed the preparations for his purpose. He lifted the body to the narrow deck outside the rail, and, in a long dip, the waves carried it smoothly and soundlessly away. John Woolfolk said:
“‘... Commit his body to the deep, looking for the general resurrection ... through ... Christ.’”
Then, upright and motionless at the wheel, with the wan radiance of the binnacle lamp floating up over his hollow cheeks and set gaze, he held the ketch southward through the night. ”

“ He took up the lamp, held it elevated while he advanced to the door with a ready pistol. There, however, he stopped, realizing the mark he would present moving, conveniently illuminated, up the stair. The floor above was totally unknown to him; at any turning he might be surprised, overcome, rendered useless. He had a supreme purpose to perform. He had already, perhaps fatally, erred, and there must be no further misstep.
John Woolfolk realized that he must go upstairs in the dark, or with, at most, in extreme necessity, a fleeting and guarded matchlight. ”

“ John Woolman, one of the most distinguished of men in the cause of humanity, travelled much as a minister of his sect, but always on foot, and without money, in imitation of the Apostles, and in order to be in a situation to be more useful to poor people and the blacks. ”

“ The ketch forged ahead, but the wait was longer than before. “Caught,” Halvard's voice drifted thinly aft; “coral ledge.” Woolfolk held the Gar stationary until the sailor cried weakly: “Anchor's apeak.”
They moved imperceptibly through the dark, into the greater force of the wind beyond the point. The dull roar of the breaking surf ahead grew louder. Halvard should have had the jib up and been aft at the jigger, but he failed to appear. John Woolfolk wondered, in a mounting impatience, what was the matter with the man. ”

“ John Woolman's faith, like the Apostle's, is manifested by his labors, standing not in words but in the demonstration of the spirit,—a faith that works by love to the purifying of the heart. The entire outcome of this faith was love manifested in reverent waiting upon God, and in that untiring benevolence, that quiet but deep enthusiasm of humanity, which made his daily service to his fellow- creatures a hymn of praise to the common Father. ”

“ In an hour you will be in a new world.”
“With John Woolfolk?”
“I am John Woolfolk.”
“But he—you—left me.”
“I am here,” he insisted with a tightening of his heart. He rose, animated by an overwhelming necessity to get the ketch under way, to leave at once, for ever, the invisible shore of the bay. He gently folded her again in the blanket, but she resisted him. “I’d rather stay up,” she said with a sudden lucidity. “It’s nice here; I wanted to come before, but he wouldn’t let me.”
A glimmer of hope swept over him as he mounted swiftly to the deck. “Get up the anchors,” he called ”

“ John Woolman, unwilling that the animal should be slowly bled to death, as the custom had been, and to spare it unnecessary suffering, had a smooth block of wood prepared to receive the neck of the creature, when a single blow terminated its existence. Nothing was more remarkable in the character of Woolman than his concern for the well-being and comfort of the brute creation. "What is religion?" asks the old Hindoo writer of the Vishnu Sarman. "Tenderness toward all creatures." ”

“ At times his inflexible integrity oppressed John Woolfolk. Halvard, he thought, was a difficult man to live up to.
He turned and absently surveyed the land. His restlessness increased. He felt a strong desire for a larger freedom of space than that offered by the Gar, and it occurred to him that he might go ashore in the tender. He moved aft with this idea growing to a determination. In the cabin, on the shelf above the berths built against the sides of the ketch, he found an old blue flannel coat, with crossed squash rackets and a monogram embroidered in yellow on the breast pocket. ”

“ The author of The Patience of Hope, whose authority in devotional literature is unquestioned, says of him: 'John Woolman's gift was love, a charity of which it does not enter into the natural heart of man to conceive, and of which the more ordinary experiences, even of renewed nature, give but a faint shadow. Every now and then, in the world's history, we meet with such men, the kings and priests of Humanity, on whose heads this precious ointment has been so poured forth that it has run down to the skirts of their clothing, and extended over the whole of the visible creation ”

“ She redirected her thoughts to her parent's enthralling end. “Do you think a man as brave as that should lie on the floor?” she demanded. “A flag,” she added obscurely, considering an appropriate covering for the still form.
“No, not on the floor,” Woolfolk instantly responded. He bent and, lifting the body of Lichfield Stope, carried it into the hall, where, relieved at the opportunity to dispose of his burden, he left it in an obscure corner.
Iscah Nicholas was stirring again. John Woolfolk waited, gazing up the stair, but the other progressed no more than a step. Then he returned to Millie. ”

“ Apart from its first-fruits of emancipation, there is a perennial value in the example exhibited of the power of truth, urged patiently and in earnest love, to overcome the difficulties in the way of the eradication of an evil system, strengthened by long habit, entangled with all the complex relations of society, and closely allied with the love of power, the pride of family, and the lust of gain.
The influence of the life and labors of John Woolman has by no means been confined to the religious society of which he was a member. ”

“ Wool followed, bemoaning the destiny that kept him between the two fierce fires of his old master's despotism and his young mistress's caprice, and muttering:
"I know old marse and dis young gal am goin' to be the death of me! I knows it jes' as well as nuffin at all! I 'clare to man, if it ain't nuff to make anybody go heave themselves right into a grist mill and be ground up at once." Wool spoke no more until they got to Tip Top, when Clara still closely veiled, rode up to the stage office just as the coach, half filled with passengers, was about to start. ”

“ Deceived by the scarlet uniforms of the militia flank companies, Wool believed that the attacking party was composed exclusively of regulars, so steady was their advance. His own force now consisted of 500 men, over 300 of whom were regulars. Notwithstanding his much greater strength and vastly superior position, being protected by artificial brush-shelters and logs, and the withering fire with which he met the dogged progress of the British, his flanks, pressed by Williams and Macdonell, began to shrink. The moment was a critical one for our hero. ”

“ To keep the enemy at bay, until he could form his men, he dispatched a body of sixty men, who advanced, but retreated without firing a gun. The British followed, and drove the Americans to the brink of the precipice. One soldier, who was about to descend, Wool ordered to be shot; but, as the musket was levelling, he returned. Thus prohibiting either surrender or retreat, and being ably seconded by his officers, Wool rallied, and led on his troops to the attack. The British, in their turn, gave way, and retreated down the hill. ”

“ WOOLMAN, JOHN (1720–1772) , quaker essayist, son of Samuel Woolman, a quaker farmer of Northampton, Burlington county, West Jersey, was born there in August 1720. He was a baker by trade, when, about the age of twenty-three, he began a lifelong testimony against slavery. He learned tailoring in order to support himself simply, became a travelling preacher in the states, and journeyed on foot handing payment to the wealthy host, or to the slaves themselves, rather than accept hospitality from slave-owners (Brissot, Nouveau Voyage, Paris, 1791, ii. 9) . ”

“ And Old Hurricane, attended by Wool, walked down to his kennels and his stables to look after the well-being of his favorite hounds and horses. It was while going through this interesting investigation that Major Warfield was informed—principally by overhearing the gossip of the grooms with Wool—of the appearance of a new inmate of the Hidden House—a young girl, who, according to their description, must have been the very pearl of beauty. ”

“ Tauler strove with equal intensity of zeal to promote the temporal and the spiritual welfare of men. In the dark and evil time in which he lived, amidst the untold horrors of the "Black Plague," he illustrated by deeds of charity and mercy his doctrine of disinterested benevolence. Woolman's whole life was a nobler Imitation of Christ than that fervid rhapsody of monastic piety which bears the name. ”

“ The most devoted Cantabrigian, after Lowell, whom I knew, would perhaps have contended that if he had stayed with us Willson might have lived; for John Holmes affirmed a faith in the virtues of the place which ascribed almost an aseptic character to its air, and when he once listened to my own complaints of an obstinate cold, he cheered himself, if not me, with the declaration, “Well, one thing, Mr. Howells, Cambridge never let a man keep a cold yet!” ”

“ He had ever a warm heart for Woolwich, where he had been born and brought up. He often returned to it, sometimes to carry his mother a share of his week's wages while she lived, and afterwards to refresh himself with a sight of the neighbourhood with which he had been so familiar when a boy. He liked its green common, with the soldiers about it; Shooter's Hill, with its out-look over Kent and down the valley of the Thames; the river busy with shipping, and the royal craft loading and unloading their armaments at the dockyard wharves. ”

“ I have been busy, first with a somewhat unexpected visitor, a cousin from Cornwall, who has been spending a few days with us, and now with Miss Wooler, who came on Monday. The former personage we can discuss any time when we meet. Miss Wooler is and has been very pleasant. She is like good wine: I think time improves her; and really whatever she may be in person, in mind she is younger than when at Roe Head. ”

“ Ridley murmured a few lines of poetry under his breath, and remarked, as if to conceal the fact that he had done so, "Very hot to-day."
"Two degrees higher than it was yesterday," said St. John. "I wonder where these nuts come from," he observed, taking a nut out of the plate, turning it over in his fingers, and looking at it curiously.
"London, I should think," said Terence, looking at the nut too.
"A competent man of business could make a fortune here in no time," St. John continued. "I suppose the heat does something funny to people's brains. Even the English go a little queer. ”

“ John!”
“Precisely; I have tried the life, Mr. Hoffman.”
The Professor joined us at the gate, radiant and communicative. “All this soil, you will observe, is mingled with oyster shells to the depth of several feet,” he began. “This was done by the Spaniards for the purpose of enriching the ground. Ah! Miss Iris, I did not at first perceive you in the shadow. You have a rose, I see. Although—ahem—not given to the quotation of poetry, nevertheless there is one verse which, with your permission, I will now repeat as applicable to the present occasion:
“ ‘Fair Phillis walks the dewy green ”