William Bartram

“ Here also were old peach and plum-orchards, some of the trees of which still appeared to be thriving and fruitful. From Sticoe, proceeding along a vale, and crossing a delightful brook, which falls into the Tenessee, Mr. Bartram followed its course nearly as far as Cowe, an Indian town which stands in a valley on the bank of one of the branches of the river Tenessee. He had letters of introduction to a gentleman resident in this place, who had, for many years, been a trader with the Indians, and who was noted for his humanity, his probity, and his equitable dealings with them. ”

“ She was George IV.'s mistress, and presented a complete contrast to Mila in other respects than age alone.—T.
[509] William Bartram (1739-1823) , an American traveller and naturalist, author of Travels through North and South Carolina, East and West Florida, the Cherokee country, &c.—T.
[510] The ruins of Mitla and Palenque in Mexico prove today that the New World rivals the Old in antiquity.—Author's Note (Paris, 1834) . ”

“ They rapidly approached him; and, under an impression that one of them, who was at the head of the troop, was the emperor or grand chief of the Cherokees, Mr. Bartram turned out of the path in token of respect. In this supposition he was correct, and the compliment was accepted, for the chief, with a cheerful smile, came up to him, and placing his hand on his breast, then offered it to Mr. Bartram, and heartily shook hands with him. The chief made enquiry respecting a gentleman of Charleston, with whom he was acquainted, and afterwards welcomed Mr. ”

“ Laughing boisterously, and mingling all their voices together in unceremonious talk, they now burst into the moonshine and narrow streaks of firelight that illuminated the open space before the lime-kiln. Bartram set the door ajar again, flooding the spot with light, that the whole company might get a fair view of Ethan Brand, and he of them.
There, among other old acquaintances, was a once ubiquitous [3] man, now almost extinct, but whom we were formerly sure to encounter at the hotel of every thriving village throughout the country. ”

“ So the noise frightens me!"
"Don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "You will never make a man, I do believe; there is too much of your mother in you. I have known the rustling of a leaf startle you. Hark! Here comes the merry fellow now. You shall see that there is no harm in him."
Bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watching the same lime-kiln that had been the scene of Ethan Brand's solitary and meditative life, before he began his search for the Unpardonable Sin. ”

“ This, you see,” she said, “is the other side.”
“I think,” poor Marcher returned, “that all sides are the same to me.” Then, however, as she gently shook her head in correction: “We mightn’t, as it were, have got across—?”
“To where we are—no. We’re here”—she made her weak emphasis.
“And much good does it do us!” was her friend’s frank comment.
“It does us the good it can. It does us the good that it isn’t here. It’s past. It’s behind,” said May Bartram. ”

“ In 1786 he became a member of the American philosophical society, and he was also connected with other scientific bodies. Mr. Bartram was the author of “Anecdotes of a Crow,” “Description of Certhia,” and “Memoirs of John Bartram.” In 1789 he wrote “Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians,” which was published in 1851 (“Transactions American Ethnological Society,” vol. iii.) . He drew the illustrations in Barton's “Elements of Botany,” and many of the most curious and beautiful plants of North America were illustrated and first made known by him. ”

“ Since, however, a mysterious fate had opened his mouth in youth, in spite of him, he would count that a compensation and profit by it to the utmost. That the right person should know tempered the asperity of his secret more even than his shyness had permitted him to imagine; and May Bartram was clearly right, because—well, because there she was. ”

“ And, with the first gleam of light upon the mountain-top, the fiend crept in at the iron door, there to abide the intensest element of fire, until again summoned forth to share in the dreadful task of extending man's possible guilt beyond the scope of Heaven's else infinite mercy.
While the lime-burner was struggling with the horror of these thoughts, Ethan Brand rose from the log, and flung open the door of the kiln. The action was in such accordance with the idea in Bartram's mind, that he almost expected to see the Evil One issue forth, red-hot from the raging furnace. ”

“ The orthodox Friends might have done still better, and cited the case of John Bartram, [187] the father of American botany, who was disowned by Darby Monthly Meeting in 1758, for deistical and other unorthodox opinions. It has [Pg 191] been supposed that Bartram was disowned by Friends for placing the following inscription over his door:
[187] John Bartram, born near Darby, Pa., Third month 23, 1699. Was the earliest native American botanist. He died Ninth month 22, 1777. Bartram traveled extensively in the American colonies in pursuit of his botanical studies and investigations. ”

“ What it had come to was that he wore a mask painted with the social simper, out of the eye-holes of which there looked eyes of an expression not in the least matching the other features. This the stupid world, even after years, had never more than half discovered. It was only May Bartram who had, and she achieved, by an art indescribable, the feat of at once—or perhaps it was only alternately—meeting the eyes from in front and mingling her own vision, as from over his shoulder, with their peep through the apertures. ”

“ The deposition of this personage arrived but with her death, which, followed by many changes, made in particular a difference for the young woman in whom Marcher’s expert attention had recognised from the first a dependent with a pride that might ache though it didn’t bristle. Nothing for a long time had made him easier than the thought that the aching must have been much soothed by Miss Bartram’s now finding herself able to set up a small home in London. ”

“ Marcher returned. “‘Humanly,’ no doubt, as showing that you’re living for something. Not, that is, just for me and my secret.”
May Bartram smiled. “I don’t pretend it exactly shows that I’m not living for you. It’s my intimacy with you that’s in question.”
He laughed as he saw what she meant. “Yes, but since, as you say, I’m only, so far as people make out, ordinary, you’re—aren’t you? no more than ordinary either. You help me to pass for a man like another. ”

“ He then told me that Bartram was the temple of liberty, that the health of a whole life was founded in a few years of youth, air, and exercise, and that accomplishments, at least, if not education, should wait upon health. ”

“ Good Mary Quince, like myself, had quite dried her tears by this time, and we were both highly interested, and I a little nervous, too, about our arrival and reception at Bartram. Some time, of course, was lost in this pleasant little parlour, before we found ourselves once more pursuing our way.
The slowest part of our journey was the pull up the long mountain road, ascending zig-zag, as sailors make way against a head-wind, by tacking. ”

“ He had "followed it for miles without ever, but once, getting a good view of it," and had for twenty years tried to get a specimen without success. "After many inquiries and unwearied research," says Ord, "it turned out that this invisible musician was no other than the wood robin, a bird which, if sought for in those places which it affects, may be seen every hour of the day." The next summer Wilson announced to Bartram his determination to make a collection of drawings of the birds of Pennsylvania, and sent him twenty-eight for criticism. ”

“ John Bartram in his Travels from Pensilvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and the Lake Ontario, in Canada, and, in a letter to Jared Eliot, Franklin, after mentioning the fact that Bartram corresponded with several of the great naturalists in Europe, and would be proud of an acquaintance with him, said: "I make no Apologies for introducing him to you; for, tho' a plain illiterate Man, you will find he has Merit." "He is a Man of no Letters, but a curious Observer of Nature," was his statement in a subsequent letter to the same correspondent. ”

“ George Bartram’s visits have lately grown more and more frequent to the family at Portland Place—so certainly I can assure you that Norah is finding a relief under her suspense, which is not of my bringing, and a hope in the future, which I have not taught her to feel.
“It is needless for me to say that I tell you this in the strictest confidence. God knows whether the happy prospect which seems to me to be just dawning will grow brighter or not as time goes on. The oftener I see Mr. George Bartram—and he has called on me more than once—the stronger my liking for him grows. ”

“ Here John Bartram was born March 23, 1699.
His early attention was first directed to botanical studies by one of those accidents which seem to shape the destinies of all great men.
When a mere lad and helping his father with the work about the farm he plowed up a daisy. Despite everything the modest little flower kept intruding itself on his consideration, until after several days he hired a man to plow while he rode to Philadelphia to procure a treatise on botany and a Latin grammar. ”

“ Henry Rambo married, and brought a new mistress to the farm-house. Betty married, and migrated to a new home in another part of the State. Leonard Clare went back to his trade, and returned no more in harvest-time. So the pleasant farm by the Brandywine, having served its purpose as a background, will be seen no more in this history.
Miss Bartram's inmost life, as a woman, was no longer the same. The point of view from which she had beheld the world was shifted, and she was obliged to remodel all her feelings and ideas to conform to it. ”

“ Constance.—"Then,"—with a glance at his devout posture, of which Bartlett has himself become quite unconscious,—"won't you sit down, Mr. Bartlett?"
Bartlett, restored to consciousness and confusion:—"Thanks; I think it will be better." He rises, and in his embarrassment draws a chair to the spot on which he has been kneeling, and sits down very close to her. He keeps the fan in his hand, as he talks: "It's rather nice out there, Miss Wyatt,—there on the island. You must be rowed out as soon as you can stand it. ”

“ Ethan Brand thrust more wood into the fire, and closed the door of the kiln; then looking over his shoulder at the lime-burner and his son, he bade, rather than advised, them to retire to rest.
"For myself, I cannot sleep." said he, "I have matters that it concerns me to meditate upon. I will watch the fire, as I used to do in the old time."
"And call the Devil out of the furnace to keep you company, I suppose," muttered Bartram, who had been making intimate acquaintance with the black bottle above mentioned. "But watch, if you like, and call as many devils as you like! ”

“ He had gone in late to see her, but evening hadn’t settled and she was presented to him in that long fresh light of waning April days which affects us often with a sadness sharper than the greyest hours of autumn. The week had been warm, the spring was supposed to have begun early, and May Bartram sat, for the first time in the year, without a fire; a fact that, to Marcher’s sense, gave the scene of which she formed part a smooth and ultimate look, an air of knowing, in its immaculate order and cold meaningless cheer, that it would never see a fire again. ”

“ Bartram had for some years been the leader of the unbelievers in the town; the logic of a young man who was smart enough to convince judges on the bench in matters of law was good enough for the general crowd when it was brought to bear upon religion. ”

“ May Bartram had her strange faint smile. “Oh no, it hasn’t passed you by!”
“But if I haven’t been aware of it and it hasn’t touched me—?”
“Ah your not being aware of it”—and she seemed to hesitate an instant to deal with this—“your not being aware of it is the strangeness in the strangeness. It’s the wonder of the wonder.” She spoke as with the softness almost of a sick child, yet now at last, at the end of all, with the perfect straightness of a sibyl. She visibly knew that she knew, and the effect on him was of something co-ordinate, in its high character, with the law that had ruled him. ”

“ He learned that he could sell merely his plot, that the "continuity" work would be done by their own people; and delighted to receive a most satisfactory lump sum, John Harrison gave his name as Louis Bartram, and removed to another hotel, where he registered under his new name.
For Peter Crane had resolved to do a little investigating on his own hook, and he realized that since the girl at his home knew his present cognomen it must be changed.
Louis Bartram, therefore, sent for Douglas, and took that mystified young man into his confidence to a degree. ”

“ Bartlett, maddened by the fresh disaster:—"Good Lord!" He flings himself wildly upon the first pillow, and crams it into the chair behind Miss Wyatt; then without giving his courage time to flag, he seizes the others, and packs them in on top of it: "Will that do?" He stands hot and flushed, looking down upon her, as she makes a gentle attempt to adjust herself to the mass.
Constance.—"Oh, perfectly." She puts her hand behind her and feebly endeavours to modify Bartlett's arrangement. ”