Chapter 6

this day, that I received it.

Yet that night, when I sat with friend Jordan in the hallway of friend Afton's house, my mind seemed confused and full of uncertainty. I scarcely noted the name which friend Hicks told me belonged to the man he had seen his daughter walking with, and not until friend Afton called to the other woman that she should retire for the night did the similarity of the names bear upon me. The hireling minister was named Jordan, the demented woman's name was Jordan: it might be a casual coincidence, but the man seemed taking all away from me that had made my life pleasant and hopeful, while the woman said I gave her new life, new hope, and all that life and hope consisted of--a healthful belief in the Lord and His works--although I knew that while she said so her lost mind was perhaps only being influenced by a quiet and moderate one. Yet maybe there are moments of what is called delusion which are the most sane constituents of a lifetime. As it was, late in the night, as I lay awake and sore in spirit, and wild with all things and almost with the Lord, sleepless and with much yearning grown upon me, I heard the voice calling out in the night up to the stars and the mystery of quiet for love and all that had been near and dear to this one clouded mind; and I turned my face to the wall. And I was like Ishmael indeed when I remembered, while that voice threw out its plaint and the words were clear and cleaved the darkness, that when I had last parted with Barbara, when I hurried from her presence fearful to look back lest she might call me from manly order by a look or a smile, I had thrown myself against a man outside the garden-gate, the man with a white neckcloth and long black ill-cut coat, who had told me that he was the minister of the church but newly erected, and that I had bidden peace go with him, and he had bidden it back to me.

III.

I bethink me that I was very much perturbed in my mind after this, albeit I was exteriorly the quiet, drab-colored Quaker that all knew me to be. Still, I have failed yet to ascertain what discipline that can govern actions, looks and speech can make man's heart throb more sluggishly than the feelings to which all Nature is prone must ever provoke. Thee knows a Friend must be seemly to all, and that alone will inform thee that I manifested no alteration in my demeanor. And my business qualifications were not impaired because of the uprising in my mind, for what has worldly business to do with spiritual? I could bargain and sell to the best advantage, be wholly consistent in all things, and be termed a man whose feelings were so schooled that no emotion ever dared come nigh them. Thee may think, the world may think, that suppressed emotion is annihilated emotion: I who wear drab know differently. And the silence between friend Barbara and myself was not a silence to be broken by useless speech: it was too closely allied to the end of something I had been brought to think almost eternal. I still had letter after letter from friend Hicks, which I replied to always--letters on purely business-matters, never once touched by so much as the name of Barbara, for she no longer sent her duty to me; and I could but realize how stern her father must be to her at home for her dereliction, and I--pitied her. As the weeks went by and I heard nothing of or from her, I may safely asseverate that the cruelly weak feeling that had oppressed me at first left me by degrees, and I could see far clearer than before, and could perchance blame myself for having failed to see ere this that I was what I was to her. I began to weigh the many chances of happiness against the many certainties of unhappiness, and I could but understand that she had with a woman's keen insight found out easily what it had cost me so considerably to know. I could not blame her: why should I? She had acted most fairly to me: had I done as well to her? In friend Afton's house I fought the battle which alone Friends approve of and sanction--the battle of the spirit against the flesh; and I conquered well, I am assured, although I could never cease to care for friend Barbara as I had cared for her since I had known her: it would have been entirely inconsistent with the principles of constancy and truth which had been so early and late imbibed by me.

I must say now that my great comfort in these times was friend Jordan; and, odd as it may appear, the similarity of her name with that of the man whom friend Hicks's daughter had learned to regard so highly seemed to call her closer to me than anything else at the same season might have done. Of evenings we would take up our old manner, and she would say, "Quaker, you are kinder than you know."

She had never learned my name, nor had expressed a desire to know it: what were names of things to her who had lost the things themselves?

"Thank thee, friend Jordan," I would say; and then we would sit and talk. Sometimes she would do all the talking: at other times she let me join her. With her confused mind it was perhaps the best work I could have had, to try to let in a little light where darkness had been so long.

"We always love those the most who give us the most pleasure, do we not?" she asked me.

I could not give her the reply she wanted, for friend Hicks's daughter had given me considerable happiness; so I remained quiet.

"Then next to those I love, and who nightly shine down to me in long, cool reaches of light from the stars, I love you, Quaker," she said.

"I thank thee," I replied.

"You should never thank for love," she said, "for it is a gift that requires as much as it bestows."

"And yet they call thee crazed!" I said, and placed my hand upon her wild dishevelled hair.

"But you Quakers never show any feeling," she went on, "and I suppose you never love."

"Sometimes we do," said I.

She seemed to think I was made sorry by what she had spoken, for she started. "What am I saying?" she exclaimed, "when you have shown me more feeling than any one in the world; and maybe you love me a little."

"We should love our neighbors as ourselves."

"I want the stars," she began, weeping: "I want to reach them, to go to them, to have the light in my mind that is gone out of it up to them."

I could say nothing, for my want was something akin to hers.

Many a wild night had she now, and friend Afton and I had often but sad chances of keeping her within bounds: we had to watch her while she would stand and call out to the far-off lights in the sky; and as, like a prophet of old, she stood and repeated divine words of care and an all-seeing love, she was grown softer and gentler, and her speech seemed to come from one who understood what the words imparted to her hearers. She was fond of saying the Psalms of David, and would weep at the touching words of suffering, of joy and of exultation which that man, so many thousand years dead, had been wont to sing as perchance he stood as she now did, looking up to the same nightly skies and weeping as she now wept, as his words rang through the ever-settled calmness of the night, and had no answer borne to his ears, but only the quiet made even quieter by his sorrow or his joy.

But I find that again I am using superfluous if not wholly irrelevant speech. Let me say, however, that had I possessed more curiosity--or, rather, if I had expressed more curiosity--friend Afton would have told me, as she afterward did, that the woman was not so entirely alone as she imagined herself to be, for that weekly letters reached friend Afton wherein were goodly wages for the care of the stricken one.

That my affairs prospered I am glad to relate--that in the six months I should be here I should accumulate an agreeable sum might have pleased me. But what was that sum to me now, when I realized to what purpose I had expected to put it? Yet my greed received a check. I had a letter from friend Hicks. It was a most grievous letter: my money, all that he held in trust for me (and it was my all), had been stolen from his keeping. The theft had occurred more than a month ago, but as he had sedulously hoped to detect the culprit, he had kept the fact from me for shame at what might be termed his negligence of reposed trust. He had instigated diligent search, but nothing had come of it: there was no one to accuse. He had determined, however, to pay back to my account from his own moneys the full amount, and had only informed me of the loss that there might be no secrecy between us, and that I should never hear from outside parties that this thing had occurred, and that he had used most reprehensive tact to disguise the fact from me. I wrote a letter to him. I reminded him that the money was of no account--that as it had been intended for the well-known purpose, and as my marriage was to be at no set time, let it rest to my loss, and not his, for that I would never accept of his money to cover what was truthfully a theft from me.

I heard long afterward that he let his daughter read this letter, as he knew that she was often with Richard Jordan, and he desired to acquaint her that I meant to be well in all my principles. This was as I understood it.

The loss of this money gave me little concern, I assure thee; and now that it would never be put to its originally-intended use, I perhaps cared less than I ordinarily might have cared; for friend Barbara's long silence could help me but to one conclusion, and that was that she would never be my wife. For had she consented to be guided by her former promise, her confession of much care for another man would have most effectively debarred me from calling into requisition that promise so exactingly obtained from her. My wife must have no fondness for another man than me. And yet when, a few days after the receipt and reply of her father's letter, another in friend Barbara's writing was placed in my hand, I can but say that more joy than I had ever before experienced was mine, and I thought of Miriam's song so full of triumph and gladness. And then the wonderful words of the psalm came to me. "'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me,'" I said aloud, and thought of poor friend Jordan as she had understood those words so short a time ago.

Suppose Barbara had written in answer to my letter to her--had owned that her thought of the man was a delusion, and that she cared for me, and me only, above all others in the world! I carried the letter by me for many an hour, for it was business-time when I had it, and I let nothing interfere with needful duties of the day. It lay within my pocket pulseless, as a letter always is: its envelope had my name upon it carefully and neatly inscribed. Then when I had an hour to myself I walked, not more briskly than usual, to a sunny hollow surrounded by new boards smelling most pleasantly of the rich forests they had helped to form, and there, surrounded by deal that had held many a singing bird's voice in its time, I broke the seal of Barbara's second letter to me. I think I was vastly stricken as I read it--more stricken perhaps than life can ever experience twice. Did she write as I had most hoped and desired? It was a long letter, and I read it through twice to fully comprehend it. She was a thief! she herself had stolen the money! She knew that her father must have written me that the money was gone, and she did not wish to see the blame rest on an innocent person. Her father had been harsher than usual with her, and, when she would have asserted herself in many ways, had always referred her to me, telling her that I was the rightful one to say what might and what might not be: her father had refused to hear her make mention of the man she had mentioned to me, and had not recognized her being with him at all. (I could see in this that friend Hicks had tried more than arbitrary means to reduce his daughter's mind to the level of his wishes. But to the letter.) How could she, then, she wrote, tell her father of the taking of the money? She trusted that I might not think her overly bold, but if I did, it made no difference to her, for she was rendered desperate on all sides. (Ah, friend Barbara! thy father had ever such a cold reserve, that was not meant unkindly, but nevertheless was overly severe.) She could trust me, for it was my own money she had taken. (I bethink me it was but an odd trust at best.) She had taken the money to send to the man she cared so much for: he was a very poor man, and the congregation of which he was the hired preacher was poor; and as they had built a church which they could not afford to pay for, it was but in reason that they could not pay the minister of the church. The church was what the world's people call "a split" from another church--split because the people quarrelled about the Thirty-nine Articles, whatever they be, one party wanting thirty-eight or forty, and the other perhaps the original number. She knew that the minister was woefully in debt; that no one would trust him any further; that he had met and told her nothing at all of it; that he was duly polite to her, and mentioned none of his affairs at all. (O Barbara! how thee shielded him!) But she had questioned a woman who knew much of him, and the woman had said that he must have money for a certain secret purpose, the nature of which purpose the woman refused to tell, and that he was crazed for money. Barbara had asked the woman if the purpose were a sinful or shameful purpose, but the answer had been that it was the most holy one a man could have. Then Barbara had looked upon his white face and knew of his straits, and had pitied him. It was borne in upon her that she should help him. "Thee would have felt so, I am assured," she wrote. Then looking around her, confused by many and conflicting feelings, sad and grieving for herself, having no one to go to in the greatest trial a woman can have, she had seen but one thing to do: she called to mind Samuel Biddle, and how generously he had acted toward her--more generously than she had reason to suppose another man could ever do. Friend Biddle's letter to her was couched in such kindly terms that she knew it had been no great overthrow of feeling on his part to give her the liberty which she had long debated with herself whether to accept or not; and had finally concluded to do so. Then she had taken the money from her father's iron safe. She had sent it anonymously to the man, though she feared that he suspected from whom it came; and that was the saddest stroke of all, "for, friend Biddle," she wrote, "I know not if I am anything unto him, but I do assure thee he is much to me." (Poor friend Barbara! how I pitied thee for that!)

This was all of the letter, and I read it through twice.

I had gotten over my foolish emotion of disappointment, as I have told thee before this, and I went back to my office and indited a reply to the epistle immediately. "Let it be as thee has done, and thee may think that I fully sympathize with thee." That was my only reply.

And when I thought over the letter--her letter--from beginning to end, all day long, I did not see that I could have indited a different reply. Still, when I went home to friend Afton's house, and friend Afton came to me and told me that friend Jordan had had a more miserable day than ever, although my sympathy was fully aroused, yet it was with a sense of relief that I entered my room and closed the door, for I bethought me that I had much to ponder on. But my thought was interrupted: the poor demented woman was weeping in her room. She was stormy in her grief, and I heard friend Afton scolding. I opened my door. "Friend Jordan, is thee grieved?" I asked.

"Oh, Quaker," she cried, running to me, "they are all in the sky calling to me, and this woman will not let me reach them."

"She would have jumped out," whispered friend Afton, "and I had to nail down the sash."

I nodded, and motioned for her to keep quiet. "Does thee think thee would like to talk to me a while?" I asked.

"Not now, for I only want to talk with them. But tell me, Quaker--tell me if you want one thing more than any other in this world, and I will ask them to give it to you. Is there any one that you want to love you? For they can easily help you, as they have made me love you, and made you be good to me."

"Nay, friend," I said, "even the light from the stars cannot make one care for me who would not."

Then she cried out that I was sorrowful, and that I made her heart heavy--I who had always been a comfort and a guidance before.

"I will be so to thee now," I said.

"Then give me rest," she cried.

"The Lord knows I would give thee rest, O soul! if I could."

She looked at me most suddenly--I may say as a flash--and quickly glanced in at my room.

"Then I think I can rest in your room," she said.

"Thee shall do so."

Then I put on my hat and prepared to go out, and friend Afton said it was a relief to have one so obliging in the house.

"Farewell to thee," I said to friend Jordan.

She stood inside my doorway and looked at me. "'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest,'" she said, and moved like a spirit toward me, placed her lips upon my cheek, and went in and closed the door. It was the first time any woman save my mother had ever kissed me.

Those words made me feel that they applied to me, youth is so vain and exacting even of the Lord's words. Nevertheless, as I went along the dark streets I heard them ringing in my ears with such a benign meaning as I never had understood in them before.

Long I walked the streets, lost in much thought and contemplation, and I felt what was weakness leaving me, and I deemed how heavy were some yokes compared to mine--friend Barbara's, for instance, she who must be surrounded and held in by unsympathizing moods. I fain would have helped her more than I did, but any further succor only meant a further offering of my feeling for her, and _that_ she was as powerless to accept as I was to make her accept it. Long I walked the streets, and had the hopeful, helping words around and within me. And late in the night I turned my wearied steps toward friend Afton's, and once more was entering the house, when, as though an angel--as though the Lord above--had spoken to me from high overhead, in grave, solemn, holy voice came the words, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." And I turned my eyes above as I hope to turn them on the last Vast Day, when methinks those words may again be spoken and call forth a mighty response. But what was that white form so far above, even upon the sill of my window, three stories from the ground? With a great terror grown upon me I rushed into the street, and saw far up there, far in the night, friend Jordan standing out in the darkness with hands supplicating the stars, saying those words. This was why she had desired to rest in my room: with the cunning of insanity, she had known that the windows of her own room were nailed down, and so on the instant had thought of mine as a possible means of reaching to her stars. With every limb frozen, it seemed, by sudden petrification, I had no power to unclose my lips, but I made a sound like a groan, I know, and then I saw her reach up high, high toward the sky and give a leap into the air. There came a crash of breaking glass, and I saw a whirl of white garments far above me that came fluttering down in a spiral motion. I rushed toward it ere it fell: there came a sickening thud on the ground beside me, and a lifeless mass lay there.

I can scarcely narrate this calmly or well, but thee sees I have tried my best.

Then when friend Afton came to me, and in pardonable and much agitation asked me to write to the friends of the dead woman, I complied, and directed the letter to the Reverend Richard Jordan; and his address was the place where friend Hicks sojourned, as likely thee has guessed.

"What was this man to the deceased? does thee know?" I asked friend Afton.

"No, sir. He placed her with me a year ago, and asked me to take the best of care of her, and has always sent me money for her wants, and paid me well besides. And, strange to say, I never could get her to mention him. He seemed to be a good man, but poor in his dress--too young in the profession to get a wealthy 'call.'"

So the Reverend Richard Jordan, who had cared for this woman, was the man whom friend Barbara thought well of! This was what the money had been wanted for--this was the secret which was "neither sinful nor shameful, but the most holy that a man can have"!

When he came in at friend Afton's I went to him. "Who was the deceased?" I asked--most bluntly, I fear me.

"She was my wife," he said sadly, and so altogether frankly that I knew he was no guilty man, whatever else he might be.

"I grieve with thee," I said. "And before thee goes up to thy solemn office of praying by thy dead wife's side, I would tell thee something. I met thee--look at me!--months ago, when I almost stumbled against thee outside of Benjamin Hicks's garden-gate. Thee was new to the place, thee told me."

"I remember you," he said, and flushed painfully.

"Nay, do not redden," I said almost with anger. "I know all things about thee, and nothing that is harmful."

"Nor ever has been harm," he said firmly.

"I know thee has had much money sent to thee, and thee does not know from whom."

"I do," he said, "and am ashamed to say I accepted it. It came from your friend Hicks's daughter, but it was for my poor wife--for her alone. I could not help myself--I--"

"Thee has no need of shame for that. The Lord must have made it patent to thee that we are placed here to help one another. And so much as friend Hicks's daughter did for thee she did well, and she has my consent; for it was my money that she sent thee."

"God bless you, man!" he said, holding his hand to his face, "for I am nothing to you."

"And what is Benjamin Hicks's daughter to thee if thee is nothing to me?"

He looked at me in wonder: "She is to me a good woman who did her benefits in secret. I never had much conversation with her, for we seldom met; but she was ever kind, and I heard that she would marry soon. I never talked much to any one, for my cares have been great to me, and that sorrow up stairs has been a goodly portion."

"Go to thy sorrow," I said, "and let it comfort thee, as sorrow should, that thee did the best thee could."

Was I cruel in having spoken to him as I had, and at this time?

Then I wrote all--everything of the past months, of to-day, of the deceased woman's suffering, of her death, her husband's arrival, and all that he had said to me. It was a considerably lengthy letter, but what of that? It was for friend Barbara. I sent it at once. Then I must not neglect my duties here, so I stayed the allotted time, receiving occasional word from friend Hicks, but none from his daughter.

I think my mind was much inclined toward the hireling minister, for I clearly saw, as thee no doubt does, that he never knew what Barbara thought of him, and that he never could know, for he was a pure man and the sad husband of a sad wife. And when he would have said words of thanks to me when he left me I checked him: "Thee knows a Friend is not well pleased with many words: let the many good deeds which thee will do act as the many kind words thee would give me."

"With God's help I will," said he.

"Verily," I said; "and I bid peace be unto thee!"

"And unto you, friend!" he said. And the words that had been our first parting at friend Barbara's father's gate were the words that were our last as I left him at his wife's grave, from whence he was to go to a church in a distant city.

And when the six months were over and I was at liberty to go, I wrote another letter of a single line to Barbara, and this was it: "I am coming to thy father's house." That was all, for I thought that maybe she might not care overly much to greet me, all things considered, and might peradventure choose to make a trifling visit to her cousin Ann Jones, to whose house she as often as not went for those changes which most women much incline toward. Yet when I entered upon the porch of friend Hicks's house, and Barbara was there, and said, "I am pleased to see thee, friend Biddle," and her father said, "How does thee do?" altogether as though I had seen them but a day before, it was most agreeable to my mind and soothing to my spirit. And when, after the dinner was over, before which there was little chance at conversation, although I thought I detected a slight pallor in friend Barbara's face where before the dints had been, and when she had betaken herself to some place out of sight, and friend Hicks was beginning to talk upon my loss in his suffering a theft on his premises, I merely said, "Yea, friend Barbara took the money." Thee should have seen his face: it must have afforded thee considerable amusement.

"Barbara?" he said with much difficulty.

"Yea," I answered. "I know all about it; and she gave it to Richard Jordan, whom thee thought to frighten me with. He was poor, in need, and had a wife whom he must care for. I was in the house where his wife was ever since thee parted with me."

"Samuel Biddle!"

"Verily, friend Hicks. And she was a demented woman, whom her husband had to take good care of, and she relied upon me for such poor comfort as I could afford her. She is deceased, and it was myself who sent for her husband. Maybe there was much secrecy which thy daughter and I kept without thee, but mayhap we did it for the best. And thee must never inquire anything more about it; and I regret thee had so much concern, and thank thee for a most kind and generous friend."

"Samuel Biddle, I deemed that Barbara was not unto thee, nor thee unto her, as both had been to one another."

"Thee must be at odds with reason, friend Hicks, for I never have cared less for Barbara than I did at the first."

So I told the narrative to him; and although I strictly adhered to the facts, I bethink me that had I made them a trifle straighter he might not have comprehended them as he did. But he came to me as I sat there on the porch, and he laid his hand on my arm: "I have been overly strict with Barbara, friend Samuel, and thee must pardon me, for I only kept her for thee. Thee is a good man; and although some of Barbara's and thy doings in this matter, as thee has related it, are scarcely in accordance with an understanding of the world such as I have, and such as thee may hope to have in time, and most of what thee has done is rather removed from orthodox, yet I hold myself in thy debt."

Then as I glanced up I saw a face looking narrowly from far off in the hall: I fear me that Barbara must inevitably have heard every word. However, it was rather warmish weather, and as she came out to the porch with her knitting in her hands, she looked as though she were grateful to me; and there were wet rings about her eyes which made me sad to see, and I remembered the time in the lane, a long while ago, when I had seen just such rings and stains about her eyes. We spake not a word, and she sat down on one side of me and her father on the other. As in another time, friend Hicks put his handkerchief over his face to protect him from the air--the flies not being come yet--and I scarcely hesitate to say that he covered his left eye as well as his right. Then I am positive that the silence grew irksome to me, for I knew not what to think of Barbara's manner, nor what to say. So I arose and stood on the edge of the porch, and looked far over the large unbroken landscape, as all early spring landscapes are. I could not have been there many minutes before a soft touch made me turn about, and Barbara was beside me, and the rings about her eyes were wetter than ever.

"Barbara!" I said softly.

"Hush!" she whispered most gently, glancing toward her father, now balmily sleeping. "Samuel Biddle, I must thank thee: thee knows what for, so I need not repeat it. I thank thee, not as I would have thanked thee six months ago, but as--"

"As what, Barbara?"

"As thy wife soon to be, Samuel Biddle."

I placed her hand in mine. "And thee is not mistaken?" I said.

"Nay, not mistaken now. I never knew thee till I understood that all men are not like thee. I never knew thee till I most foolishly thought that a few words from another man on even trivial subjects meant more than thy silence of devotion. I learned my own mind in many ways, Samuel, and then I learned thee; for I had thought thee was in a measure thrust upon me, and only because I had not seen thee before father's approval of thee. That other man's care of his wife--a care that kept her affliction from any and all eyes--showed me what thee was even, and what thee was for me. I cannot rightly say all that I would, but I can only say this--that I never cared overly much for thee at first, Samuel Biddle; but Richard Jordan has taught me one thing, which perhaps no other man in the world could have done."

"And that is--?"

"What love is."

"Barbara!"

"Yea, Samuel Biddle, what love is; for I love thee, I love thee, and but only thee; and might never have told thee so, but I heard what thee said a spell ago to father, and I knew that thee was not disgusted with me, but cared for me as much as ever. Yea, a stranger man has taught me what love is."

And while I could but pat her head as it rested upon my shoulder, I said gladly, "Barbara, more than man has taught me what love is, and to love thee; but maybe a man can teach to woman what the Lord alone has taught to me."

"Let me think so, Samuel--that the Lord taught thee, and thee taught me the knowledge fresh from the Lord."

Then I placed my lips upon Barbara's lips.

ROBERT C. MEYERS.

LADY MORGAN.

With her wit and vanity, poor French and fine clothes, good common sense and warm Irish heart, Lady Morgan was a most entertaining and original character--a spirited, versatile, spunky little woman, whose whole life was a grand social success. She was also one of the most popular and voluminous writers of her day; but, with all her sparkle and dash, ambition and industry, destined in a few generations more to be almost unknown, vanishing down that doleful "back entry" where Time sends so many bright men and women. As the founder of Irish fiction--for the national tales of Ireland begin with her--and the patron of Irish song (she stimulated Lover to write "Rory O'More," and "Kate Kearney" is her own), always laboring for liberty and the interests of her oppressed countrymen, and preserving her name absolutely untouched by scandal through a long and brilliant career, she deserves a place among distinguished women. She evidently had no idea of being forgotten, and completed twenty chapters of autobiography--its florid egotism at once its fault and its charm--besides keeping a diary in later years, and preserving nearly all the letters written to her, and even cards left at her door. But on those cards were the names of Humboldt, Cuvier, Talma and the most celebrated men of that epoch, down to Macaulay, Douglas Jerrold and Edward Everett, while she could count among her intimates the noted men and women of three countries. La Fayette declared he was proud to be her friend; Byron praised her writings, and always expressed regret that he had not made her acquaintance in Italy; Sydney Smith coupled her name with his own as "the two Sydneys;" Leigh Hunt celebrated her in verse; Sir Thomas Lawrence, Ary Scheffer and other famous artists begged for the honor of painting her portrait. Was it strange after all this, and being told for half a century that she was an extraordinarily gifted and fascinating woman, that (being a woman) she should believe it?

She was extremely sensitive in regard to her age, and if forced to state it on the witness-stand would doubtless have whispered it to the judge in a bewitching way, as did a pretty but slightly _passé_ French actress under similar embarrassing circumstances. She pleads: "What has a woman to do with dates--cold, false, erroneous, chronological dates--new style, old style, precession of the equinox, ill-timed calculation of comets long since due at their station and never come? Her poetical idiosyncrasy, calculated by epochs, would make the most natural points of reference in woman's autobiography. Plutarch sets the example of dropping dates in favor of incidents; and an authority more appropriate, Madame de Genlis, who began her own memoirs at eighty, swept through nearly an age of incident and revolution without any reference to vulgar eras signifying nothing (the times themselves out of joint), testifying to the pleasant incidents she recounts and the changes she witnessed. _I_ mean to have none of them!"

Sydney Owenson was born in "ancient ould Dublin" at Christmas: the year is a little uncertain. The encyclopædias say about 1780: 1776 has been suggested as more correct, but we will not pry into so delicate a matter. A charming woman never loses her youth. Doctor Holmes tells us that in travelling over the isthmus of life we do not ride in a private carriage, but in an omnibus--meaning that our ancestors or their traits take the trip with us; and in studying a character it is interesting to note the combinations that from generations back make up the individual. Sydney's father was the child of an ill-assorted marriage. "At a hurling-match long ago the Queen of Beauty, Sydney, granddaughter of Sir Maltby Crofton, lost her heart, like Rosalind, to the victor of the day, Walter McOwen (anglicized Owenson), a young farmer, tall and handsome, graceful and daring, and allowed him to discover that he had 'wrestled well and overthrown more than his enemies.' Result, an elopement and mésalliance never to be forgiven--the husband a jolly, racketing Irish lad, unable to appreciate his high-toned, accomplished wife, a skilful performer on the Irish harp, a poetess and a genius, called by the admiring neighbors 'the Harp of the Valley.'" Their only child, the father of Lady Morgan, was a tolerable actor, of loose morals and tight purse, who could sing a good song or tell a good story, and who was always in debt.

Sydney was a winsome little rogue, quite too much for her precise and stately mother, who was ever holding up as a model a child, in her grave fifty years agone, who had read the Bible through twice before she was five years old, and knitted all the stockings worn by the coachmen! All in vain: Sydney was not fated to die early or figure as a young saint in a Sunday-school memoir. She took a deep interest in chimney-sweeps from observing a den of little imps who swarmed in a cellar near her home, and on one occasion actually scrambled up a burning chimney, followed by this sooty troop. Her pets were numerous, the prime favorite being a cat named Ginger, from her yellow coat. Her mother, who was shocked by Sydney adding to her nightly petition, "God bless Ginger the cat!" did not share this partiality, as is seen in the young lady's first attempt at authorship, which has been preserved:

My dear pussy-cat, Were I a mouse or a rat, Sure I never would run off from you, You're _so_ funny and gay With your tail when you play, And no song is so sweet as your mew. But pray keep in your press, And don't make a mess, When you share with your kittens our posset, For mamma can't abide you, And I cannot hide you Unless you keep close in your closet.

Her voice was remarkable, but her father, knowing too well the temptations that beset a public singer, refused to cultivate her talent for music, saying, "If I were to do this, it might induce her some day to go on the stage, and I would prefer to buy her a sieve of black cockles from Ring's End to cry about the streets of Dublin to seeing her the first prima donna of Europe." A genuine talent for music will assert itself in spite of neglect, and one evening at the house of Moore, where with her sister Olivia she listened in tearful enthusiasm to some of his melodies, sung as only the poet could sing them, was an important event in her life. She tells us that after this treat they went home in almost delirious ecstasy, actually forgetting to undress themselves before going to bed. This experience developed a longing to know more of the early Irish ballads, and roused a literary ambition. If the grocer's son could so distinguish himself, she could surely relieve her dear father from his embarrassments; and she began at once to write with this noble object. Her unselfish and unwavering devotion to her rather worthless father is the most attractive and touching point in her character. After her mother's death she was sent to boarding-school, where she studied well, scribbled verses, accomplished herself in dancing, and furnished bright home-letters for her less brilliant mates.

She next figures as a governess in the family of a Mrs. Featherstone of Bracklin Castle. There was a merry dance for adieu the night she was to leave, but, like Cinderella, she danced too long: the hour sounded, and Sydney was hurried into the coach in a white muslin dress, pink silk stockings and slippers of the same hue, while Molly, the faithful old servant, insisted on wrapping her darling in her own warm cloak and ungainly headgear. Being ushered in this plight into a handsome drawing-room, there was a general titter at her grotesque appearance, but she told her story in her own captivating way until they screamed with laughter--not at her now, but with her--and she was "carried off to an exquisite suite of rooms--a study, bedroom and bath-room, with a roaring turf fire, open piano and lots of books;" and after dinner, where she was toasted, she sang several songs, which had an immense effect, and the evening ended with a jig, her hosts regretting that they had no spectators besides the servants. This, her first jig out of the school-room, she contrasts with her last one in public, when invited by the duchess of Northumberland to dance with Lord George Hill. She accepted the challenge from the two best jig-dancers in the country, Lord George and Sir Philip Crampton, and had the triumph of flooring them both.

Her first novel, _St. Clair_, was now completed. She had kept the writing of it a profound secret, and one morning the young author, full of ambitious dreams, borrowed the cook's market-bonnet and cloak and sallied out to seek her fortune. Before going far she saw over a shop-door "T. Smith, Printer and Bookseller," and ventured in. It was some minutes before T. Smith made his appearance, and when he did so he had a razor in one hand, a towel in the other, and only one side of his face shaved. After hearing her errand he told her, good-naturedly, that he did not publish novels, and sent her to Brown. Brown wanted his breakfast, and was not anxious for a girl's manuscript; but his wife persuaded him to promise to look it over; and, elated with success, Sydney ran back, forgetting to leave any address, and never heard of her first venture till, taking up a book in a friend's parlor, it proved to be her own. It had a good sale, and was translated into German, with a biographical notice which stated that the young author had strangled herself with an embroidered handkerchief in an agony of despair and unrequited love. _The Sorrows of Werther_ was her model, but with a deal of stuff and sentimentality there was the promise of better things. "In all her early works her characters indulge in wonderful digressions, historical, astronomical and metaphysical, in the midst of terrible emergencies where danger, despair and unspeakable catastrophes are imminent and impending. No matter what laceration of their finest feelings they may be suffering, they always have their learning at command, and never fail to make quotations from favorite authors appropriate to the occasion."

_The Novice of St. Dominick_ was Miss Owenson's second novel, and she went alone to London to make arrangements for its publication. In those days a journey from Ireland to that great city was no small undertaking, and when the coach drove into the yard of the Swan with Two Necks the enterprising young lady was utterly exhausted, and, seating herself on her little trunk in the inn-yard, fell fast asleep. But, as usual, she found friends, and good luck was on her side. The novel was cut down from six volumes to four, and with her first literary earnings, after assisting her father, she bought an Irish harp and a black mode cloak, being always devoted to music and dress. At this time her strongest ambition was to be every inch a woman. She gave up serious studies, to which she had applied herself, and cultivated even music as a mere accomplishment, fearful lest she should be considered a pedant or an artiste.

Next came _The Wild Irish Girl_, her first national story, which gave her more than a national fame, and three hundred pounds from her fascinated publisher. It contains much curious information about the antiquities and social condition of Ireland, and a passionate pleading against the wrongs of its people. It made the piquant little governess all the rage in fashionable society, and until her marriage she was known by the name of her heroine, Glorvina. As a story the book is not worth reading at the present day.

In _The Book of the Boudoir_, a sort of literary ragbag, she gives, under the heading "My First Rout in London," a graphic picture of an evening at Lady Cork's: "A few days after my arrival in London, and while my little book, _The Wild Irish Girl_, was running rapidly through successive editions, I was presented to the countess-dowager of Cork, and invited to a rout at her fantastic and pretty mansion in New Burlington street. Oh, how her Irish historical name tingled in my ears and seized on my imagination, reminding me of her great ancestor, 'the father of chemistry and uncle to the earl of Cork'! I stepped into my job carriage at the hour of ten, and, all alone by myself, as the song says, 'to Eden took my solitary way.' What added to my fears and doubts and hopes and embarrassments was a note from my noble hostess received at the moment of departure: 'Everybody has been invited expressly to meet the Wild Irish Girl; so she must bring her Irish harp. M.C.O.' I arrived at New Burlington street without my harp and with a beating heart, and I heard the high-sounding titles of princes and ambassadors and dukes and duchesses announced long before my poor plebeian name puzzled the porter and was bandied from footman to footman. As I ascended the marble stairs with their gilt balustrade, I was agitated by emotions similar to those which drew from a frightened countryman his frank exclamation in the heat of the battle of Vittoria: 'Oh, jabbers! I wish some of my greatest enemies was kicking me down Dame street.' Lady Cork met me at the door: 'What! no harp, Glorvina?'--'Oh, Lady Cork!'--'Oh, Lady Fiddlestick! You are a fool, child: you don't know your own interests.--Here, James, William, Thomas! send one of the chairmen to Stanhope street for Miss Owenson's harp.'"

After a stand and a stare of some seconds at a strikingly sullen-looking, handsome creature who stood alone, and whom she heard addressed by a pretty sprite of fashion with a "How-do, Lord Byron?" she says: "I was pushed on, and on reaching the centre of the conservatory I found myself suddenly pounced upon a sort of rustic seat, a very uneasy pre-eminence, and there I sat, the lioness of the night, shown off like the hyena of Exeter 'Change, looking almost as wild and feeling quite as savage. Presenting me to each and all of the splendid crowd which an idle curiosity, easily excited and as soon satisfied, had gathered round us, she prefaced every introduction with a little exordium which seemed to amuse every one but its object: 'Lord Erskine, this is the Wild Irish Girl whom you are so anxious to know. I assure you she talks quite as well as she writes.--Now, my dear, do tell my Lord Erskine some of those Irish stories you told us the other evening. Fancy yourself among your own set, and take off the brogue. Mrs. Abingdon says you would make a famous actress: she does indeed. You must play the short-armed orator with her: she will be here by and by. This is the duchess of St. Albans: she has your novel by heart. Where is Sheridan?--Do, my dear Mr. T---- (This is Mr. T----, my dear: geniuses should know each other)--do, my _dear_ Mr. T----, find me Mr. Sheridan. Oh! here he is!--What! you know each other already? So much the better.--This is Lord Carysford.--Mr. Lewis, do come forward.--That is Monk Lewis, my dear, of whom you have heard so much, but you must not read his works: they are very naughty.' Lewis, who stood staring at me through his eye-glasses, backed out after this remark, and disappeared. 'You know Mr. Gell,' her ladyship continued, 'so I need not introduce you: he calls you the Irish Corinne. Your friend Mr. Moore will be here by and by: I have collected all the talent for you.--Do see, somebody, if Mr. Kemble and Mrs. Siddons are come yet, and find me Lady Hamilton.--_Now_, pray tell us the scene at the Irish baronet's in the rebellion.'

"Lord L---- volunteered his services. The circle now began to widen--wits, warriors, peers and ministers of state. The harp was brought forward, and I tried to sing, but my howl was funereal. I was ready to cry, but endeavored to laugh, and to cover my real timidity by an affected ease which was both awkward and impolitic. At last Mr. Kemble was announced. Lady Cork reproached him as the _late_ Mr. Kemble, and then, looking significantly at me, told him who I was. Kemble acknowledged me by a kindly nod, but the stare which succeeded was not one of mere recognition: it was the glazed, fixed look so common to those who have been making libations to altars which rarely qualify them for ladies' society. Mr. Kemble was evidently much preoccupied and a little exalted. He was seated my _vis-à-vis_ at supper, and repeatedly raised his arm and stretched it across the table for the purpose, as I supposed, of helping himself to some boar's head in jelly. Alas! no! The _bore_ was that _my_ head happened to be the object which fixed his tenacious attention, which, dark, cropped and curly, struck him as a particularly well-organized _brutus_, and better than any in his repertoire of theatrical perukes. Succeeding at last in his feline and fixed purpose, he actually stuck his claws in my locks, and, addressing me in the deepest sepulchral tones, asked, 'Little girl, where did you get your wig?' Lord Erskine came to the rescue and liberated my head, and all tried to retrieve the awkwardness of the scene. Meanwhile, Kemble, peevish, as half-tipsy people generally are, drew back muttering and fumbling in his pocket, evidently with some dire intent lowering in his eyes. To the amusement of all, and to my increased consternation, he drew forth a volume of the _Wild Irish Girl_, and reading with his deep, emphatic voice one of the most high-flown of its passages, he paused, and patting the page with his fore finger, with the look of Hamlet addressing Polonius, he said, 'Little girl, why did you write such nonsense? and where did you get all those damned hard words?' Thus taken by surprise, and smarting with my wounds of mortified authorship, I answered unwittingly and witlessly the truth: 'Sir, I wrote as well as I could, and I got the hard words from--Johnson's Dictionary.' He was soon carried off to prevent any more attacks on my head, inside or out."

Glorvina was now very much the fashion, visiting in the best Dublin society and making many friends, whom she had the tact to retain through life. When articles of dress or ornament are named for one, it is an unfailing sign that they have attained notoriety, if not fame, and the bodkin used for fastening the "back hair" was called "Glorvina" in her honor. Like many attractive women of decided character, she had her full share of faults and foibles. Superficial, conceited, sadly lacking in spirituality and refinement, a cruel enemy, a toady to titles, a blind partisan of the Liberal party,--that is her picture in shadow. Her style was open to severe criticism, and Richard Lovell Edgeworth suggests mildly that Maria, in reading her novel aloud in the family circle, was obliged to omit some superfluous epithets.

In this first flush of celebrity she never gave up work, holding fast to industry as her sheet-anchor. Soon appeared two volumes of patriotic tales. _Ida of Athens_ was Novel No. 3, but written in confident haste, and not well received. The names of her books would make a list rivalling that of the loves of Don Giovanni (nearly seventy volumes), and any extended analysis or criticism would be impossible in this rapid sketch. "Every day in my life is a leaf in my book" was a motto literally carried out, and she tried almost every department of literature, succeeding best in describing the broad characteristics of her own nation. "Her lovers, like her books, were too numerous to mention," yet her own heart seemed untouched. She coquetted gayly, but her adorers were always the sufferers.

Sir Jonah Barrington wrote her at this time a complimentary and witty letter, in which he says of her heroine Glorvina, "I believe you stole a spark from heaven to give animation to your idol." He thought the inferiority of _Ida_ was owing to its author's luxurious surroundings. "I cannot conceive why the brain should not get fat and unwieldy, as well as any other part of the human frame. Some of our best poets have written in paroxysms of hunger, and I really believe that Addison would have had more point if he had had less victuals; and if you do not restrict yourself to a sheep's trotter and spruce beer, your style will betray your luxury." But soon came an increase of the very thing feared for her fame, in the form of an invitation from Lady Abercorn and the marquis to pass the chief part of every year with them. This was accepted, and thus she met her fate. Lord Abercorn kept a physician in his house, Doctor Morgan, a handsome, accomplished widower, whom the marchioness was anxious to provide with a second wife. She had fixed upon Sydney as a suitable person, but the retiring and reticent doctor had heard so much of her wit, talents and general fascination that he disliked the idea of meeting her. He was sitting one morning with the marchioness when a servant threw open the door, announcing "Miss Owenson," who had just arrived. Doctor Morgan sprang to his feet, and, there being no other way of escape, leaped through the open window into the garden below. This was too fair a challenge for a girl of spirit to refuse, and she set to work to captivate him, succeeding more effectually than she desired, for she had dreamed of making a brilliant match. Soon a letter was written to her father asking his leave to marry the conquered doctor, yet she does not seem to have been one bit in love. He was too grave and good, though as devoted a lover as could be asked for. It was a queer match and a dangerous experiment, but after a while their mutual qualities adjusted themselves. He kept her steady, and she roused him from indolent repose. As a critic of that time says: "She was as bustling, restless, energetic and pushing as he was modest, retiring and unaffected." Lover gives this picture of them: "There was Lady Morgan, with her irrepressible vivacity, her humor that indulged in the most audacious illustrations, and her candor which had small respect for time or place in its expression, and who, by the side of her tranquil, steady, contemplative husband, suggested the notion of a Barbary colt harnessed to a patient English draught-horse."

She had a certain light, jaunty air peculiarly Irish, celebrated by Leigh Hunt in verses which embody a faithful portrait:

And dear Lady Morgan, see, see where she comes, With her pulses all beating for freedom like drums, So Irish, so modish, so mixtish, so wild, So committing herself, as she talks, like a child; So trim, yet so easy, polite, yet high-hearted, That Truth and she, try all she can, won't be parted. She'll put on your fashions, your latest new air, And then talk so frankly, she'll make you all stare. Mrs. Hall may say "Oh!" and Miss Edgeworth say "Fie!" But my lady will know the what and the why. Her books, a like mixture, are so very clever That Jove himself swore he could read them for ever, Plot, character, freakishness, all are so good, And the heroine herself playing tricks in a hood.

After a happy year with her patrons Glorvina married and moved to a home of her own in Kildare street, Dublin, whence she writes to Lady Stanley: "With respect to authorship, I fear it is over. I have been making chair-covers instead of periods, hanging curtains instead of raising systems, and cheapening pots and pans instead of selling sentiment and philosophy." But even during this first busy year of housekeeping she was working upon _O'Donnel_, another national tale, for which she was paid five hundred and fifty pounds. It was highly praised by Sir Walter Scott, and sold with rapidity, but her Liberal politics made her unpopular with the leading Tory journalism of England. In point of pitiless invective the criticism of the _Quarterly_ and _Blackwood_ has perhaps never been exceeded. Her books were denounced as pestilent, and the public advised against maintaining her acquaintance. Miss Martineau, an impartial critic, if impartiality consists in punching almost every one she passed, did not fail to give our heroine a black eye, speaking of her as "in that set to which Mrs. Jameson belonged, who make women blush and men grow insolent."

Sir Charles and his wife next visited Paris with the intention of writing a book. Their letters carried them into every circle of Parisian society, and in each the popularity of Lady Morgan was unbounded. Madame Jerome Bonaparte wrote to her: "The French admire you more than any one who has appeared here since the battle of Waterloo in the form of an Englishwoman." When _France_ appeared the clamor of abuse in England was enough to appall a very stout heart. John Wilson Croker was one of her most bitter assailants, and attempted to annihilate her in the _Quarterly_. She balanced matters by caricaturing him as "Counsellor Crawley" in her next novel, in a way that hit and hurt, and by a witticism which lives, while his envenomed sentences are forgotten. Some one was telling her that Croker was among the crowd who thought they could have managed the battle of Waterloo much better than Wellington, whose success, in their estimation, was only a fortunate mistake. She exclaimed, "Oh, I can believe it. He had his secret for winning the battle: he had only to put his _Notes on Boswell's Johnson_ in front of the British lines, and all the Bonapartes that ever existed _could never have got through them_!" Maginn, in _Blackwood_, gave unmerciful cuts at her superficial opinions, ultra sentiments and chambermaid French. _Fraser's Magazine_ complimented her sardonically on her simple style, being happy to observe that she had reduced the number of languages used, as the Sibyl did her books, to three, wisely discarding German, Spanish, the dead and Oriental languages. But she received the cannonade, which would have crushed some women, with perfect equanimity. As a compensation, she was the toast of the day, and at some grand reception had a raised dais only a little lower than that provided for the duchess de Berri. At a dinner at Baron Rothschild's, Carême, the Delmonico of those times, surprised her with a column of ingenious confectionery architecture on which was inscribed her name spun in sugar. It was a more equivocal compliment when Walter Scott christened two pet donkeys Hannah More and Lady Morgan.

_Florence Macarthy_, another novel, attacking the social and political abuses in Irish government, was her next work. Colburn, her publisher, who had just presented her with a beautiful parure of amethysts, now proposed that she and her husband should go to Italy. "Do it, and get up another book--the lively lady to sketch men and manners, the metaphysical balance-wheel contributing the solid chapters on laws, politics, science and education." They accepted the offer, and received the same extraordinary attentions as in their former tour. This may be accounted for by the fact that it was well known that they were to prepare a book on Italy. It was equally well known that Lady Morgan had a sharp tongue and still sharper pen; so that people who lived in glass houses, as did many of the magnates, were remarkably civil to "Miladi," even those who regarded her tour among them as an unjustifiable invasion. Byron pronounced this book an excellent and fearless work. During her sojourn in Italy Lady Morgan became enthusiastic about Salvator Rosa, and began to collect material for writing the history of his life and times, which was her own favorite of all her writings.

In 1825 the _Diary_ is started, chatty, full of gossip and incident. She writes, October 30th: "A ballad-singer was this morning singing beneath my window in a strain most unmusical and melancholy. My own name caught my ear, and I sent Thomas out to buy the song. Here is a stanza:

Och, Dublin City, there's no doubting, Bates every city upon the say: 'Tis there you'll hear O'Connell spouting, And Lady Morgan making tay; For 'tis the capital of the foinest nation, Wid charming pisantry on a fruitful sod, Fighting like divils for conciliation, An' hating one another for the love o' God."

_The O'Briens and O'Flahertys_ was published in 1827, and proved more popular than any of her previous novels. There is an allusion to it in the interesting account which Lord Albemarle gives us of his acquaintance with Lady Morgan: "A number of pleasant people used to assemble of an evening in Lady Morgan's 'nut-shell' in Kildare street. When I first met her she was in the height of her popularity. In her new novel she tells me I am to figure as a certain count, a great traveller who made a trip to Jerusalem for the sole object of eating artichokes in their native country. The chief attraction in the Kildare street 'at homes' was her sister Olivia (Lady Clark), who used to compose and sing charming Irish songs, for the most part squibs on the Dublin society of the day. One of the verses ran thus:

We're swarming alive, Like bees in a hive, With talent and janius and beautiful ladies: We've a duke in Kildare, And a Donnybrook Fair; And if that wouldn't plaze, why nothing would plaze yez. We've poets in plenty, But not one in twenty Will stay in ould Ireland to keep her from sinking: They say they can't live Where there's nothing to give. Och, what business have poets with ating or dhrinking?"

Justly proud of her sister, Lady Morgan was in the habit of addressing every new-comer with, "I must make you acquainted with my Livy." She once used this form of words to a gentleman who had just been worsted in a fierce encounter of wit with the fascinating lady. "Yes, madam," he replied, "I happen to know your Livy, and I only wish 'your Livy' was _Tacitus_."

Few of Lady Morgan's bon-mots have been preserved, but one is given which shows that she occasionally indulged in a pun. Some one, speaking of a certain bishop who was rather lax in his observance of Lent, said he believed he would eat a horse on Ash-Wednesday. "Very suitable diet," remarked her ladyship, "if it were a _fast_ horse."

The _Diary_ progresses slowly by fitful jerks. Here is a characteristic entry: "_April 3, 1834._ My journal is gone to the dogs. I am so fussed and fidgeted by my dear, charming world that I cannot write: I forget days and dates. Ouf! Last night, at Lady Stepney's, met the Milmans, Mrs. Norton, Rogers, Sydney Smith and others--among them poor, dear Jane Porter. She told me she was taken for me the other night, and talked to as such by a party of Americans! _She_ is tall, lank and lean and lackadaisical, dressed in the deepest black, with rather a battered black gauze hat and the air of a regular Melpomene. _I_ am the reverse of all this, and without vanity the best-dressed woman wherever I go. Last night I wore a blue satin trimmed fully with magnificent point lace--light-blue velvet hat and feather, with an aigrette of sapphires and diamonds. Voilà! Lord Jeffrey came up to me, and we had _such_ a flirtation! When he comes to Ireland we are to go to Donnybrook Fair together: in short, having cut me down with his tomahawk as a reviewer, he smothers me with roses as a man. I always say of my enemies before we meet, 'Let me at them!'" Of the same soirée she writes again: "There was Miss Jane Porter, looking like a shabby canoness. There was Mrs. Somerville in an astronomical cap. I dashed in in my blue satin and point lace, and showed them how an authoress should dress."

Her conceit was fairly colossal. The reforms in legislation for Ireland were, in her estimation, owing to her novel of _Florence Macarthy_. She professed to have taught Taglioni the Irish jig: of her toilette, made largely by her own hands, she was comically vain. In _The Fraserians_, a charming off-hand description of the contributors to that magazine, Lady Morgan is depicted trying on a big, showy bonnet before a mirror with a funny mixture of satisfaction and anxiety as to the effect.

Chorley, the feared and fearless critic of the _Athenæum_, speaks of Lady Morgan as one of the most peculiar and original literary characters he ever met. After a long and searching analysis he adds: "However free in speech, she never shocked decorum--never had to be appealed or apologized for as a forlorn woman of genius under difficulties."

An American paper, the _Boston Literary Gazette_, gave a personal description which was not sufficiently flattering, and roused the lady's indignant comments. It dared to state that she was "short, with a broad face, blue, inexpressive eyes, and seemed, if such a thing may be named, about forty years of age." Imagine the sensations this paragraph produced! She at once retorted, exclaiming in mock earnest, "I appeal! I appeal to the Titian of his age and country--I appeal to you, Sir Thomas Lawrence. Would you have painted a short, squat, broad-faced, inexpressive, affected, Frenchified, Greenland-seal-like lady of any age? Would any money have tempted you to profane your immortal pencil, consecrated by Nature to the Graces, by devoting its magic to such a model as this described by the Yankee artist of the _Boston Literary_? And yet you did paint the picture of this Lapland Venus--this impersonation of a Dublin Bay codfish!... Alas! no one could have said that I was forty then; and this is the cruelest cut of all! Had it been thirty-nine or fifty! Thirty-nine is still under the mark, and fifty so far beyond it, so hopeless; but forty--the critical age, the Rubicon--I cannot, will not, dwell on it. But, O America! land of my devotion and my idolatry! is it from _you_ the blow has come? Let _Quarterlys_ and _Blackwoods_ libel, but the _Boston Literary_! Et tu Brute!"

In 1837 she received a pension of three hundred pounds a year in recognition of her literary merits. In 1839 she published a book entitled _Woman and her Master_, as solid and solemn and dull as if our vivacious friend had put herself into a strait-jacket and swallowed a dose of starch and valerian.

The closing chapter of any life must of necessity be sad, friends falling to the grave like autumn leaves. First her beloved husband died, then her darling sister Olivia; and her journal she now calls her "Doomsday Book." Yet in 1850 she thoroughly enjoyed a sharp pen-encounter with Cardinal Wiseman on a statement about St. Peter's chair made in her work on Italy. She writes: "Lots of notes and notices of my letter to Cardinal Wiseman. It has had the run of all the newspapers. The little old woman lives still." December 25, 1858, was her last birthday. She assembled a few old friends at dinner, and did the honors with all the brilliancy of her brightest days. She told a variety of anecdotes with infinite drollery, and after dinner sang a broadly comic song of Father Prout's--

The night before Larry was stretched, The boys they all paid him a visit.

It was a custom in Ireland to "wake" a man who was to be hung, the night before the execution, so that the poor fellow might enjoy the whiskey drunk in his honor. There was one book more, "positively the last," but she never gave up her pen, "her worn-out stump of a goosequill," until her physician literally took it from her feeble fingers. She had grown old gracefully, showing great kindness to young authors, enduring partial blindness and comparative neglect with true dignity and cheerfulness, her heart always young. She met death patiently and with unfailing courage on the evening of the 16th of April, 1859.

KATE A. SANBORN.

A COMPARISON.

I think, ofttimes, that lives of men may be Likened to wandering winds that come and go, Not knowing whence they rise, whither they blow O'er the vast globe, voiceful of grief or glee. Some lives are buoyant zephyrs sporting free In tropic sunshine; some long winds of woe That shun the day, wailing with murmurs low, Through haunted twilights, by the unresting sea; Others are ruthless, stormful, drunk with might, Born of deep passion or malign desire: They rave 'mid thunder-peals and clouds of fire. Wild, reckless all, save that some power unknown Guides each blind force till life be overblown, Lost in vague hollows of the fathomless Night.

PAUL H. HAYNE.

THROUGH WINDING WAYS.