Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 26, December, 1859», страница 6

CHAPTER XLII
LAST WORDS

We know it is fashionable to drop the curtain over a newly married pair, they recede from the altar; but we cannot but hope our readers may by this time have enough of interest in our little history to wish for a few words on the lot of the personages whose acquaintance they have thereby made.

The conjectures of Miss Prissy in regard to the grand house which James was to build for his bride were as speedily as possible realized. On a beautiful elevation, a little out of the town of Newport, rose a fair and stately mansion, whose windows overlooked the harbor, and whose wide, cool rooms were adorned by thy constant presence of the sweet face and form which has been the guiding star of our story. The fair poetic maiden, the seeress, the saint, has passed into that appointed shrine for woman, more holy than cloister, more saintly and pure than church or altar,—a Christian home. Priestess, wife, and mother, there she ministers daily in holy works of household peace, and by faith and prayer and love redeems from grossness and earthliness the common toils and wants of life.

The gentle guiding force that led James Marvyn from the maxims and habits and ways of this world to the higher conception of an heroic and Christ-like manhood was still ever present with him, gently touching the springs of life, brooding peacefully with dovelike wings over his soul, and he grew up under it noble in purpose and strong in spirit. He was one of the most energetic and fearless supporters of the Doctor in his life-long warfare against an inhumanity which was intrenched in all the mercantile interests of the day, and which at last fell before the force of conscience and moral appeal.

Candace in time transferred her allegiance to the growing family of her young master and mistress, and predominated proudly in gorgeous raiment with her butterfly turban over a rising race of young Marvyns. All the care not needed by them was bestowed upon the somewhat querulous old age of Cato, whose never-failing cough furnished occupation for all her spare hours and thought.

As for our friend the Doctor, we trust our readers will appreciate the magnanimity with which he proved a real and disinterested love, in a point where so many men experience only the graspings of a selfish one. A mind so severely trained as his had been brings to a great crisis, involving severe self-denial, an amount of reserved moral force quite inexplicable to those less habituated to self-control. He was like a warrior whose sleep even was in armor, always ready to be roused to the conflict.

In regard to his feelings for Mary, he made the sacrifice of himself to her happiness so wholly and thoroughly that there was not a moment of weak hesitation,—no going back over the past,—no vain regret. Generous and brave souls find a support in such actions, because the very exertion raises them to a higher and purer plane of existence.

His diary records the event only in these very calm and temperate words:—"It was a trial to me,—a very great trial; but as she did not deceive me, I shall never lose my friendship for her."

The Doctor was always a welcome inmate in the house of Mary and James, as a friend revered and dear. Nor did he want in time a hearthstone of his own, where a bright and loving face made him daily welcome; for we find that he married at last a woman of a fair countenance, and that sons and daughters grew up around him.

In time, also, his theological system was published. In that day, it was customary to dedicate new or important works to the patronage of some distinguished or powerful individual. The Doctor had no earthly patron. Four or five simple lines are found in the commencement of his work, in which, in a spirit reverential and affectionate, he dedicates it to our Lord Jesus Christ, praying Him to accept the good, and to overrule the errors to His glory.

Quite unexpectedly to himself, the work proved a success, not only in public acceptance and esteem, but even in a temporal view, bringing to him at last a modest competence, which he accepted with surprise and gratitude. To the last of a very long life, he was the same steady, undiscouraged worker, the same calm witness against popular sins and proclaimer of unpopular truths, ever saying and doing what he saw to be eternally right, without the slightest consultation with worldly expediency or earthly gain; nor did his words cease to work in New England till the evils he opposed were finally done away.

Colonel Burr leaves the scene of our story to pursue those brilliant and unscrupulous political intrigues so well known to the historian of those times, and whose results were so disastrous to himself. His duel with the ill-fated Hamilton, the awful retribution of public opinion that followed, and the slow downward course of a doomed life are all on record. Chased from society, pointed at everywhere by the finger of hatred, so accursed in common esteem that even the publican who lodged him for a night refused to accept his money when he knew his name, heart-stricken in his domestic relations, his only daughter taken by pirates and dying amid untold horrors,—one seems to see in a doom so much above that of other men the power of an avenging Nemesis for sins beyond those of ordinary humanity.

But we who have learned of Christ may humbly hope that these crushing miseries in this life came not because he was a sinner above others,—not in wrath alone,—but that the prayers of the sweet saint who gave him to God even before his birth brought to him those friendly adversities, that thus might be slain in his soul the evil demon of pride, which had been the opposing force to all that was noble within him. Nothing is more affecting than the account of the last hours of this man, whom a woman took in and cherished in his poverty and weakness with that same heroic enthusiasm with which it was his lot to inspire so many women. This humble keeper of lodgings was told, that, if she retained Aaron Burr, all her other lodgers would leave. "Let them do it, then," she said; "but he shall remain." In the same uncomplaining and inscrutable silence in which he had borne the reverses and miseries of his life did this singular being pass through the shades of the dark valley. The New Testament was always under his pillow, and when alone he was often found reading it attentively; but of the result of that communion with Higher Powers he said nothing. Patient, gentle, and grateful, he was, as to all his inner history, entirely silent and impenetrable. He died with the request, which has a touching significance, that he might be buried at the feet of those parents whose lives had finished so differently from his own.

 
"No farther seek his errors to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode."
 

Shortly after Mary's marriage, Madame de Frontignac sailed with her husband for home, where they lived in a very retired way on a large estate in the South of France. An intimate correspondence was kept up between her and Mary for many years, from which we shall give our readers a few extracts. Her first letter is dated shortly after her return to France.

"At last, my sweet Marie, you behold us in peace after our wanderings. I wish you could see our lovely nest in the hills which overlook the Mediterranean, whose blue waters remind me of Newport harbor and our old days there. Ah, my sweet saint, blessed was the day I first learned to know you! for it was you, more than anything else, that kept me back from sin and misery. I call you my Sibyl, dearest, because the Sibyl was a prophetess of divine things out of the Church; and so are you. The Abbé says, that all true, devout persons of all persuasions belong to the True Catholic Apostolic Church, and will in the end be enlightened to know it. What do you think of that, ma belle? I fancy I see you look at me with your grave, innocent eyes, just as you used to; but you say nothing.

"I am far happier, ma Marie, than I ever thought I could be. I took your advice, and told my husband all I had felt and suffered. It was a very hard thing to do; but I felt how true it was, as you said, that there could be no real friendship without perfect truth at bottom; so I told him all, and he was very good and noble and helpful to me; and since then he has been so gentle and patient and thoughtful, that no mother could be kinder; and I should be a very bad woman, if I did not love him truly and dearly,—as I do.

"I must confess that there is still a weak, bleeding place in my heart that aches yet, but I try to bear it bravely; and when I am tempted to think myself very miserable, I remember how patiently you used to go about your house-work and spinning, in those sad days when you thought your heart was drowned in the sea; and I try to do like you. I have many duties to my servants and tenants, and mean to be a good châtelaine; and I find, when I nurse the sick and comfort the poor, that my sorrows are lighter. For, after all, Marie, I have lost nothing that ever was mine,—only my foolish heart has grown to something that it should not, and bleeds at being torn away. Nobody but Christ and His dear Mother can tell what this sorrow is; but they know, and that is enough."

The next letter is dated some three years after.

"You see me now, my Marie, a proud and happy woman. I was truly envious, when you wrote me of the birth of your little son; but now the dear good God has sent a sweet little angel to me, to comfort my sorrows and lie close to my heart; and since he came, all pain is gone. Ah, if you could see him! he has black eyes, and lashes like silk, and such little hands!—even his finger-nails are all perfect, like little gems; and when he puts his little hand on my bosom, I tremble with joy. Since he came, I pray always, and the good God seems very near to me. Now I realize, as I never did before, the sublime thought that God revealed Himself in the infant Jesus; and I bow before the manger of Bethlehem where the Holy Babe was laid. What comfort, what adorable condescension for us mothers in that scene!—My husband is so moved, he can scarce stay an hour from the cradle. He seems to look at me with a sort of awe, because I know how to care for this precious treasure that he adores without daring to touch. We are going to call him Henri, which is my husband's name and that of his ancestors for many generations back. I vow for him an eternal friendship with the son of my little Marie; and I shall try and train him up to be a brave man and a true Christian. Ah, Marie, this gives me something to live for! My heart is full,—a whole new life opens before me!"

Somewhat later, another letter announces the birth of a daughter,—and later still, the birth of another son; but we shall add only one more, written some years after, on hearing of the great reverses of popular feeling towards Burr, subsequently to his duel with the ill-fated Hamilton.

"Ma chère Marie,—Your letter has filled me with grief. My noble Henri, who already begins to talk of himself as my protector, (these boys feel their manhood so soon, ma Marie!) saw by my face, when I read your letter, that something pained me, and he would not rest till I told him something about it. Ah, Marie, how thankful I then felt that I had nothing to blush for before my son! how thankful for those dear children whose little hands had healed all the morbid places of my heart, so that I could think of all the past without a pang! I told Henri that the letter brought bad news of an old friend, but that it pained me to speak of it; and you would have thought, by the grave and tender way he talked to his mamma, that the boy was an experienced man of forty, to say the least.

"But, Marie, how unjust is the world! how unjust both in praise and blame! Poor Burr was the petted child of Society; yesterday she doted on him, flattered him, smiled on his faults, and let him do what he would without reproof; to-day she flouts and scorns and scoffs him, and refuses to see the least good in him. I know that man, Marie,—and I know, that, sinful as he may be before Infinite Purity, he is not so much more sinful than all the other men of his time. Have I not been in America? I know Jefferson; I knew poor Hamilton,—peace be with the dead! Neither of them had a life that could bear the sort of trial to which Burr's is subjected. When every secret fault, failing, and sin is dragged out, and held up without mercy, what man can stand?

"But I know what irritates the world is that proud, disdainful calm which will give neither sigh nor tear. It was not that he killed poor Hamilton, but that he never seemed to care! Ah, there is that evil demon of his life,—that cold, stoical pride, which haunts him like a fate! But I know he does feel; I know he is not as hard at heart as he tries to be; I have seen too many real acts of pity to the unfortunate, of tenderness to the weak, of real love to his friends, to believe that. Great have been his sins against our sex, and God forbid that the mothers of children should speak lightly of them I but is not so susceptible a temperament, and so singular a power to charm as he possessed, to be taken into account in estimating his temptations? Because he is a sinning man, it does not follow that he is a demon. If any should have cause to think bitterly of him, I should. He trifled inexcusably with my deepest feelings; he caused me years of conflict and anguish, such as he little knows; I was almost shipwrecked; yet I will still say to the last that what I loved in him was a better self,—something really noble and good, however concealed and perverted by pride, ambition, and self-will. Though all the world reject him, I still have faith in this better nature, and prayers that he may be led right at last. There is at least one heart that will always intercede with God for him."

It is well known, that, for many years after Burr's death, the odium that covered his name was so great that no monument was erected, lest it should become a mark for popular violence. Subsequently, however, in a mysterious manner, a plain granite slab marked his grave; by whom erected has never been known. It was placed in the night by some friendly, unknown hand. A laborer in the vicinity, who first discovered it, found lying near the spot a small porte-monnaie, which had perhaps been used in paying for the workmanship. It contained no papers that could throw any light on the subject, except the fragment of the address of a letter on which was written "Henri de Frontignac."

THE NORTHERN LIGHTS AND THE STARS

 
The stars are watching at their posts
And raining silence from the sky,
And, guarded by the heavenly hosts,
Earth closes her day-wearied eye.
 
 
A reign of holy quietness
Replaces the tumultuous light,
And Nature's weary tribes confess
The calm beatitude of Night:
 
 
When from the Arctic pit up-steams
The Boreal fire's portentous glare,
And, bursting into arrowy streams,
Hurls horrid splendors on the air.
 
 
The embattled meteors scale the arch,
And toss their lurid banners wide;
Heaven reels with their tempestuous march,
And quivers in the flashing tide.
 
 
Against the everlasting stars,
Against the old empyreal Right,
They vainly wage their anarch wars,
In vain they urge their fatuous light.
 
 
The skies may flash and meteors glare,
And Hell invade the spheral school;
But Law and Love are sovereign there,
And Sirius and Orion rule.
 
 
The stars are watching at their posts,
Again the Silences prevail;
The meteor crew, like guilty ghosts,
Have slunk to the infernal jail.
 
 
The truths of God forever shine,
Though Error glare and Falsehood rage;
The cause of Order is divine,
And Wisdom rules from age to age.
 
 
Faith, Hope, and Love, your time abide!
Let Hades marshal all his hosts,
The heavenly forces with you side,
The stars are watching at their posts.
 

THOMAS PAINE IN ENGLAND AND IN FRANCE

Paine landed at Havre in May, A.D. 1787, aet. suae 50, with many titles to social success. He brought with him a literary fame which ranks higher in France than elsewhere; and his works were in the fashionable line of the day. He had been an energetic actor in the American Revolution,—a subject of unbounded enthusiasm with Frenchmen, who look upon it, to this day, as an achievement of their own. And he could boast of a scientific spécialité, without which no intelligent gentleman was complete in the last third of the eighteenth century. Philosopher, American, republican, friend of humanity, savant,—he could show every claim to notice. Besides all this, and better than all, he brought letters from Franklin, the charming old man, whose fondness for "that dear nation" which he could not leave without regret was returned a thousand fold by its admiring affection. De Rayneval did not exaggerate when he wrote to him,—"You will carry with you the affection of all France"; and De Chastellux told the simple truth in the graceful compliment he sent to the old sage after his return home,—"When you were here, we had no need to praise the Americans; we had only to say, 'Look! here is their representative.'" Let us devoutly pray that our ambassadors may not be made use of for the same purpose now!

For these reasons, Paine's reception in Paris was cordial; visits and invitations poured in upon him; he dined with Malesherbes; M. Le Roy took him to Buffon's, where he saw some interesting experiments on inflammable air; the Abbé Morellet exerted himself to get the model of his bridge, which had been stopped at the custom-house, safely to Paris. Through their influence it was submitted to a committee of the Académie des Sciences; their report was, in substance, that the iron bridge of M. Paine was ingénieusement imaginé,—that it merited an attempt to execute it, and furnished a new example of the application of a metal which had not yet been sufficiently used on a large scale.

Two other gentlemen from America, who were interested in science and in mechanics, were in Paris at that time. Rumsey was there with his model of a steamboat; and Thomas Jefferson, whose curiosity extended to all things visible or audible, was busily collecting ground-plans and elevations, and preparing to add at least two ugly buildings to a State "over which," as he himself wrote, "the Genius of Architecture had showered his malediction."

Unfortunately for inventors, the times were not favorable for the construction of boats or of bridges. A taste had sprung up in France for constitution-making, one of the most difficult and expensive of public works. A translation of the American State Constitutions attracted more attention in Paris than Paine's iron-work; for these also, the French thought, were ingénieusement imaginées, and worthy of an attempt to execute them abroad. The American Revolution, with its brilliant termination of wisdom, liberty, and peace, seemed to promise similar good results to the efforts of reformers elsewhere. Treatises on moral science and on the nature and end of civil government were eagerly read, "Humanité, mot nouveau," as Cousin says, became the watch-word of the Parisians. It was the fashion among all classes, high as well as low, to talk of human rights, to exalt the virtue of the people, hitherto supposed to have none, and to execrate "bloody tyrants," "silly despots," the members of the kingly profession, which fell into such sad disfavor towards the end of the last century. Ségur, after his return from America, heard the whole court applaud these lines at the theatre:—

 
"Je suis fils de Brutus, et je porte en mon coeur
La liberté gravée et les rois en horreur."
 

None suspected whither the road would lead which they were pursuing with so much gayety and enlightenment. Philosophers, nobles, and parliaments all clamored for reform—in others; and for the public good, provided their own goods did not suffer. The King meant reform; he, at least, was in earnest. But how to get it? He had sought assistance from the middle classes; had tried Turgot, the political economist, and Necker, the banker, as ministers; but both broke down under the opposition of the nobility. Then Calonne volunteered, witty and reckless, and convoked the notables, or not-ables, as Lafayette called them in one of his American letters, borrowing a bad pun from Thomas Paine. Calonne could do nothing with the notables, who obstinately refused to submit to taxation. Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, took his place. This was in April, 1787, a month before Paine's arrival in France. The notables suddenly became manageable under the new minister, and voted all the necessary taxes; but now the parliaments grew restive, refused to register the edicts, declaring that they had not the legal right to consent to taxes, that the States-General alone had authority to impose new ones. Brienne, indignant at this perverseness,—for hitherto they had claimed the sole right of registering taxes,—forced them to register the stamp-tax and the land-tax, and exiled them to Troyes. This took place on the 15th of August. The same day the two brothers of the King went to register the edicts in the Cour des Comptes and the Cour des Aides. Monsieur was received with acclamations; but D'Artois, who belonged to the unpopular Calonne party, was hissed and jostled by the crowd. Alarmed, he ordered his guard to close about him. "I was standing in one of the apartments through which he had to pass," says Paine, "and could not avoid reflecting how wretched is the condition of a disrespected man."

Evidently no bridges to be built here at present. It would be better to try in England, Paine thought, and in September crossed to London. Sir Joseph Banks, a great scientific authority, thought well of his model, and recommended the construction of one on a larger scale. The different parts of the new bridge were cast in a Yorkshire foundry belonging to Thomas Walker, a Whig friend of the inventor, brought by sea to London, and erected in an open field at Faddington, where the structure was inspected by great numbers of people. After standing there a year, it was taken down, and the materials used in building a bridge over the river Wear at Sunderland, of two hundred and thirty-six feet span, with a rise of thirty-four feet. This bridge is still in use.²

Paine had forgotten his bridge long before it was taken down. His soul was engrossed by the contemplation of the wonderful event which was daily developing itself in France. Bankruptcy had brought on the crisis. In August, 1788, the interest was not paid on the national debt, and Brienne resigned. The States-General met in May of the next year; in June they declared themselves a national assembly, and commenced work upon a constitution under the direction of Sièyes, who well merited the epithet, "indefatigable constitution-grinder," applied to Paine by Cobbett. Not long after, the attempted coup d'état of Louis XVI. failed, the Bastille was demolished, and the political Saturnalia of the French people began.

It is evident, that, in the beginning, Paine did not aspire to be the political Prometheus of England. He rather looked to the Whig party and to Mr. Burke as the leaders in such a movement. As for himself, a veteran reformer from another hemisphere, he was willing to serve as a volunteer in the campaign against the oppressors of mankind. He had adopted for his motto, "Where liberty is not, there is my country,"—a negative variation of Franklin's saying, which suited his tempestuous character. As he flitted to and fro across the Channel, observing with sharp, eager eyes the progress of "principles" in France, gradually there arose in his mind the thought that poor, old, worn-out England might be regenerated by these new methods. "The French are doubling their strength," he wrote, "by allying, if it may be so expressed, (for it is difficult to express a new idea by old terms,) the majesty of the sovereign with the majesty of the nation."

Paris swarmed with enthusiastic "friends of humanity," English, Scotch, and Irish. Among them Paine naturally took a foremost position, being an authority in revolutionary matters, and a man who had principles on the subject of government. In spite of his contempt of titles, he wrote himself, "Secretary for Foreign Affairs to the Congress of the United States," slightly improving upon the office he had actually held, to suit the sound to European capacity,—showing that in this, likewise, he possessed a genuine American element of character. Lafayette thought much of him, used his pen freely, and listened to his advice. The Marquis, warm-hearted, honest, but endowed with little judgment and a womanish vanity, was trying to make himself the Washington of a French federative republic, and felt happy in having secured the experienced services of Mr. Paine. He wrote to his great master,—"'Common Sense' is writing a book for you, and there you will see a part of my adventures. Liberty is springing up around us in the other parts of Europe, and I am encouraging it by all the means in my power." Paine was in Paris when the Bastille was taken. Lafayette placed the key in his hands, to be transmitted to Washington. Paine wrote to the President, "That the principles of America opened the Bastille is not to be doubted, and therefore the key comes to the right place." Washington, returning his thanks to Paine for the key, added,—"It will give you pleasure to learn that the new government answers its purposes as well as could have been reasonably expected." Yes! and still answers reasonable purposes to this day. In the mean while dozens of French constitutions, "perfections of human wisdom," have been invented, set up, and crushed to atoms.

It was a time of revival in politics. Holland was indulging in hope, Germany was anxious, and steady old England began to lend an ear to the new doctrines from the other side of the Channel. The tendency of the human mind to believe in a golden future, until knowledge of the world and reflection teach us that these bright visions always shrink into the ordinary dimensions of the present as they approach it, misled enthusiastic Englishmen, many of them of a high order of intelligence. There was something grand in the idea, that the prejudices and the abuses of twenty centuries had been buried forever in the ruins of the old French monarchy. This was not enough. All governments and all prejudices of society were to be thrown into the melting-pot; out of the fusion was to arise the new era, the millennium. All other evil things would cease to exist, as well as monopolies, titles, places, and pensions. Sickness, even death, perhaps, might be evaded by the skill of a new science. Who could tell? Franklin had suggested this, half in jest, years before; Condorcet believed and asserted it now. Ignorance and misery, at all events, should come to an end. When kings and a wicked self-seeking aristocracy should be swept away, the divine sense of right, which God had implanted in the people, would rule; there could be no wars; armies and fleets would become useless; taxes would amount to nothing. All the nations would form one grand republic, with a universal convention sitting at the world's centre, to watch over the rights of man! Liberty, virtue, happiness, seemed ready to descend upon the earth.

 
"Jam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto,
Ac toto surget gens aurea mundo."
 

As each week brought the news of some stupendous change, a kind of madness seized upon the minds of men. Fanatics were jubilant. "Revolutions," they said, "can do no wrong; all are for the best." Englishmen, hitherto sane, forgot their nationality, and became violent Frenchmen. So strongly did the current set in this direction, that the massacres of September, the execution of the King, the despotism of the Directory and the Consulship could not turn it, until Napoleon united all France under him and all England against him. As late as 1793, such men as James Watt, Jr., and the poet Wordsworth were in Paris, on intimate terms with Robespierre and his Committee.

Before 1789, there was no particular discontent in England. Some talk there had been of reform in the representation, and the usual complaints of the burden of taxation. The Dissenters had been trying to get the Corporation and Test Acts repealed, without much success. But nothing beyond occasional meetings and petitions to Parliament would have occurred, had it not been for the explosion in France, then, as since, the political powder-magazine of Europe. The Whig party had seen with pleasure the beginning of the French reforms. Paine, who had partaken of Mr. Burke's hospitality at Beaconsfield, wrote to him freely from Paris, assuring him that everything was going on right; that little inconveniences, the necessary consequences of pulling down and building up, might arise; but that these were much less than ought to be expected; and that a national convention in England would be the best plan of regenerating the nation. Christie, a foolish Scotchman, and Baron Clootz (soon to become Anacharsis) also wrote to Burke in the same vein. Their communications affected his mind in a way they little expected. Mr. Burke had lost all faith in any good result from the blind, headlong rush of the Revolution, and was appalled at the toleration, or rather, sympathy, shown in England, for the riots, outrages, and murders of the Parisian rabble. He began writing the "Reflections," as a warning to his countrymen. He was led to enlarge the work by some remarks made by Fox and Sheridan in the House of Commons; and more particularly by some passages in a sermon preached at the Old Jewry by Dr. Price. Eleven years before, this scientific divine, by a resolution of the American Congress, had been invited to consider himself an American citizen, and to furnish the rebellious Colonists with his assistance in regulating their finances. He had disregarded this flattering summons. Full of zeal for "humanity," he eagerly accepted the request of the Revolution Society to deliver their anniversary sermon. In this discourse, the Doctor, the fervor of whose sentiments had increased with age, maintained the right of the nation "to cashier the king," choose a new ruler, and frame a government for itself. The sermon and the congratulatory addresses it provoked were published by the society and industriously circulated.