“I do not, brother,
Infer, as if I thought my sister’s state
Secure, without all doubt or controversy;
Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear
Does arbitrate the event, my nature is,
That I incline to hope rather than fear.”—MILTON.
Eliot Lee to his Mother.
“—Town, 1778.
“I have arrived thus far, my dear mother, on my journey; and, according to my promise, am beginning the correspondence which is to soften our separation.
“My spirits have been heavy. My anxious thoughts lingered with you, brooded over dear Bessie and the little troop, and dwelt on our home affairs.
“I feared Harris would neglect the thrashing, and the wheat might not turn out as well as we hoped; that the major might forget his promise about the husking bee; that the pumpkins might freeze in the loft (pray have them brought down, I forgot it!); that the cows might fail sooner than you expected; that the sheep might torment you. In short, dear mother, the grief of parting seemed to spread its shadows far and wide. If Master Hale could have penetrated my mental processes, he would have deemed his last admonition, to deport myself in thought, 72word, and deed, like a scholar, a soldier, and a gentleman, quite lost upon me. I was an anxious wretch, and nothing else. Poor Kisel did not serve as a tranquilizer. His light wits were throwing off their fermentation, in whistling, laughing, and soliloquizing: and this, with Beauty’s shambling gait, neither trot, canter, nor pace, but something compounded of all, irritated my nerves. Never were horse and rider better matched. Together, they make a fair centaur; the animal not more than half a horse, and Kisel not more than half a man; there is a ludicrous correspondence between them; neither vicious, but both unbreakable, and full of all manner of tricks.
“Our land at this moment teems with scenes of moral and poetic interest. We made our first stop at the little inn in R—. The landlord’s son was just setting off to join the quota to be sent from that county. The father, a stout old man, was trying to suppress his emotion by bustling about, talking loud, whistling, hemming, and coughing. The mother, her tears dropping like rain, was standing at the fire, feeling over and over again the shirts she was airing for the knapsack. ‘He’s our youngest,’ whispered the old man to me, ‘and mammy is dreadful tender of him, poor boy!’ ‘Not mammy alone,’ thought I, as the old man turned away to brush off his starting tears. The sisters were each putting some love-token, socks, mittens, and nutcakes into the knapsack, which they looked hardy enough to have shouldered, while one poor girl sat with her face buried in her handkerchief, weeping most bitterly. The old man patted her on the neck—‘Come, Letty, cheer up!’ said he; ‘Jo may never have another chance to fight for his country, and marrying can be done any day in the year.’ He turned to me with an explanatory whisper; ‘’Tis tough for all—Jo and Letty are published, and we were to have the wedding thanksgiving evening.’
“All this was rather too much for me to bear, in addition to the load already pressing on my heart; so without waiting for my horse to be fed, I mounted him and proceeded.
73“My next stop was in H—. There the company had mustered on the green, in readiness to begin their march. Some infirm old men, a few young mothers, with babies in their arms, and all the boys in the town, had gathered for the last farewell. The soldiers were resting on their muskets, and the clergyman imploring the benediction of Heaven on their heads. ‘Can England,’ thought I, ‘hope to subdue a country that sends forth its defenders in such a spirit, with arms of such a temper?’ Oh, why does she not respect in her children the transmitted character of their fathers!
“I arrived at Mrs. Ashley’s just as the family were sitting down to tea. She and the girls are in fine spirits, having recently received from the colonel accounts of some fortunate skirmishes with the British. The changed aspect of her once sumptuous tea-table at first shocked me; but my keen appetite (for the first time in my life, my dear mother, I had fasted all day) quite overcame my sensibilities; the honest pride with which my patriotic hostess told me she had converted all her table-cloths into shirts for her husband’s men, and the complacency with which she commended her sage tea, magnified the virtues of her brown bread, and self-sweetened sweetmeats would have given a relish to coarser fare more coarsely served.
“I have been pondering on the character of our New-England people during my ride. The aspect of our society is quiet, and, to a cursory observer, it appears tame. We seem to have the plodding, safe, self-preserving virtues; to be industrious, frugal, provident, and cautious; but to want the enthusiasm that gives to life all its poetry and almost all its charms. But it is not so; there is a strong under-current. Let the individual or the people be roused by a motive that approves itself to the reasoning and religious mind, a fervid energy, an all-subduing enthusiasm bursts forth, not like an accidental and transient conflagration, but operating, like the elements, to great effects, and irresistibly. This enthusiasm, this central fire, is now at its 74height. It not only inflames the eloquence of the orator, kindles the heart of the soldier, the beacon-lights and strong defences of our land; but it lights the temple of God, and burns on the family altar. The old man throws away his crutch; the yeoman leaves the plough in the half-turned furrow; and the loving, quiet matron like you, my dear mother, lays aside her domestic anxieties, dispenses with her household comforts, and gives the God-speed to her sons to go forth and battle it for their country. The nature of the contest in which we are engaged illustrates my idea. Its sublimity is sometimes obscured by the extravagance of party zeal. We have not been goaded to resistance by oppression, nor fretted and chafed, with bits and collars, to madness; but our sages, bold with the transmitted spirit of freedom, sown at broadcast by our Pilgrim fathers, have reflected on the past and calculated the future; and coolly estimating the worth of independence and the right of self-government, are willing to hazard all in the hope of gaining all; to sacrifice themselves for the prospective good of their children. This is the dignified resolve of thinking beings, not the angry impatience of overburdened animals.
“But good-night, dear mother. After this I shall have incidents, and not reflections merely, to send you. The pine-knot, by the light of which I have written this, is just flickering its last flame. ‘I cannot afford you a candle,’ said my good hostess when she bade me good-night; ‘we sold our tallow to purchase necessaries for the colonel’s men—poor fellows, some of them are yet barefooted!’
“I shall enclose a line to Bessie—perhaps she will show it to you; but do not ask it of her. Tell dear Fan I shall remember her charge, and give the socks she knit to the first ‘brave barefooted soldier’ I see. Sam must feed Steady for me; and dear little Hal must continue, as he has begun, to couple brother Eliot with the ‘poor soldiers’ in his prayers. Again farewell, dear mother. Your little Bible is before me; my eye rests on the few lines you traced 75on the title-page; and as I press my lips to them, they inspire holy resolutions. God grant I may not mistake their freshness for vigour. What I may be is uncertain; but I shall ever remain, as I am now, dearest mother,
“Your devoted son,
“Eliot Lee.”
Eliot found his letter to his sister a difficult task. He was to treat a malady, the existence of which the patient had never acknowledged to him. He wrote, effaced, and re-wrote, and finally sent the following:—
“My sweet sister Bessie, nothing has afflicted me so much in leaving home as parting from you. I am inclined to believe there can be no stronger nor tenderer affection than that of brother and sister; the sense of protection on one part, and dependance on the other; the sweet recollections of childhood; the unity of interest; and the communion of memory and hope, blend their hearts together into one existence. So it is with us—is it not, my dear sister? With me, certainly; for though, like most young men, I have had my fancies, they have passed by like the summer breeze, and left no trace of their passage. All the love, liking (I cannot find a word to express the essential volatility of the sentiment in my experience of it) that I have ever felt for all my favourites, brown and fair, does not amount to one thousandth part of the immutable affection that I bear you, my dear sister. I speak only of my own experience, Bessie, and, as I well know, against the faith of the world. I should be told that my fraternal love would pale in the fires of another passion, as does a lamp at the shining of the sun; but I don’t believe a word of it—do you, Bessie? I am not, my dear sister, playing the inquisitor with you, but fearfully and awkwardly enough approaching a subject on which I thought it would be easier to write than to speak; but I find it cannot be easy to do that, in any mode, which may pain you.
76“I have neglected the duty I owed you; and yet, perhaps, no vigilance could have prevented the natural consequence of your intercourse with one of the most fascinating men in the world. There, it is out!—and now I can write freely. I said I had neglected my duty; but I was not conscious of this till too late. The truth is, my mind has been so engrossed with political subjects, so harassed with importunate cravings and conflicting duties, that I was for a long time unobservant of what was passing under my eye. I awoke as from a dream, and found (or feared) that my sister’s happiness was at stake; that she had given, and given to one unworthy, the irrequitable boon of her affections; irrequitable, but, thank Heaven, not irrecoverable. No, I do not believe one word of all the trumpery about incurable love. I will not adopt a faith, however old and prevailing, which calls in question our moral power to achieve any conquest over ourselves. For my own part, I do not think we have any power over our affections to give or withdraw them, or even to measure their amount. This may seem a startling assertion, and contradictory of what I have said above; but it is not. The sentiment I there alluded to is generated by accidental circumstances, is half illusion, unsustained by reason, unauthorized by realities—not the immortal love infused by Heaven and sustained by truth; but a disease very mortal and very curable, dear Bessie, believe me. Such a mind as yours, so pure, so elevated, has a self-rectifying power. You have felt the influence of the delightful qualities which M—undoubtedly possesses; and why should you not, for who is more susceptible to grace and refinement than yourself? Heaven has so arranged the relations of affections and qualities, that, as I have said above, we can neither give nor withhold our love—the heart has no tenants at will. If M—has assumed, or you have imputed to him qualities which he does not possess, your affection will be dissipated with the illusion. But if the spell still remains unbroken, I entreat you, my dear sister, not to waste your sensibility, the precious food of life, the life of life, in moping melancholy.
77 “‘Attach thee firmly (I quote from memory) to the virtuous deeds
And offices of love—to love itself,
With all its vain and transient joys, sit loose.’
“I have long had a lurking distrust of M—. He has acted too cautious a part in politics for a sound heart. Let a man run the risk of hanging for it either way; but if he have a spark of generosity, he will be either a whole-souled whig or a loyal tory in these times.
“I know what M—has so often reiterated. ‘He had a mother in England; all his friends were on the royal side; and, on the other hand, his property was here, and might depend on the favour of the rebels; and indeed, there was so much to be said on both sides, that a man might well pause!’ There are moments in men’s histories when none but cowards or knaves, or (worse than either) cold-blooded, selfish wretches, would pause!
“It is possible that I misjudge him; Heaven grant it! All that I know is, that he is in New-York no longer, pausing, but the aid of General Clinton. It is barely possible that he has written; letters are not transmitted with any security in these times; but why did he not speak before he went? why, up to the very hour of his departure (as my mother says, you know I was absent), did he continue a devotion which must end in suffering and disappointment to you? There is a vicious vanity and selfishness in this, most unmanly and detestable. Do not think, dearest Bessie, that I am anxious to prove him unworthy—Alas, alas! I was far too slow to believe him so; and I now only set before you these inevitable inferences from his conduct, in the hope that your illusion will sooner vanish, and you will the sooner recover your tranquility.
“I am writing without a ray of light, except what comes from the embers on the hearth. Perhaps you will think I am in Egyptian mental darkness. No, Bessie, I must be clear-sighted 78when I have nothing in view but your honour and happiness. They shall ever be my care, even more than my own. But why do I separate that which is one and indivisible? Good-night, dear sister. Let me fancy you listening to me; your sweet eye fixed on me; no dejected nor averted look; your face beaming, as I have often seen it, with the tenderness so dangerous here, so safe in heaven; the hope so often defeated here, there ever brightening; the joy so transient here, there enduring!—Let me see this blessed vision, and I shall sleep sweetly and sweetly dream of home.
“Ever thine, Bessie,
“E. L.”
Bessie read her brother’s letter with mixed emotions. At first it called forth tenderness for him; then she thought he judged Meredith precipitately, harshly even; and after confirming herself in this opinion, by thinking of him over and over again in the false lights in which he had shown himself, she said, “even Eliot allows that we can neither give nor withhold our love; then how is Jasper to blame for not giving it to one so humble, so inferior as I am? and how could I withhold mine?” Poor Bessie! it is a common trick of human nature to snatch from an argument whatever coincides with our own views, and leave the rest. “If,” she continued in her reflections, “he had ever made any declarations, or asked any confessions—but I gave my whole heart unasked and silently.” She could have recalled passionate declarations in his eye, prayers in his devotion; but her love had the essential characteristics of true passion; it was humble, generous, and self-condemning.