Part 13

YEARS passed away in this manner, varied only by the extension of that protection and education, which they gave to a succession of nephews and nieces of the colonel or Mrs. Schuyler. These they did not take from mere compassion, as all their relations were in easy circumstances; but influenced by various considerations, such as, in some cases, the death of the mother of the children, or perhaps the father; in others, where their nieces or nephews married very early, and lived in the houses of their respective parents, while their young family increased before they had a settled home; or in instances where, from the remote situations in which the parents lived, they could not so easily educate them. Indeed, the difficulty of getting a suitable education for children, whose parents were ambitious for their improvement, was great; and a family so well regulated as hers, and frequented by such society, was in itself an academy, both for the best morals and manners. When people have children born to them, they must submit to the ordinary lot of humanity; and if they have not the happiness of meeting with many good qualities to cultivate and rejoice over, there is nothing left for them but to exert themselves to the utmost, to reform and ameliorate what will admit of improvement. They must carefully weed and prop: if the soil produce a crop both feeble and redundant, affection will blind them to many defects; imperious duty will stimulate them, and hope, soothing, however deceitful, will support them. But when people have the privilege, as in this case, of choosing a child, they are fairly entitled to select the most promising. This selection, I understood always to have been left to aunt Schuyler, and it appeared, by the event, to have been generally a happy one. Fifteen, either nephews or nieces, or the children of such who had been under her care, all lived to grow up and go out into the world: all acted their parts so as to do credit to the instruction they had received, and the example they looked up to. Besides these, they had many whom they brought for two or three years to their house to reside; either because the family they came from was at the time crowded with younger children, or because they were at a time of life, when a year or two spent in such society as was there assembled, might not only form their manners, but give a bias to their future character.

About the year 1730, they brought home a nephew of the colonel’s whose father having a large family, and having, to the best of my recollection, lost his wife, entirely gave over the boy to the protection of this relation. This boy was his uncle’s god-son, and called Philip, after him. He was a great favourite in the family; for though apparently thoughtless and giddy, he had a very good temper and quick parts, and was, upon the whole, an ingenious, lively, and amusing child. He was a very great favourite, and continued to be so, in some measure, when he grew up.

There were other children, whose names and relation to my friends I do not remember, in the house at the same time, but none that staid so long, or were so much talked of as this. There certainly never were people who received so much company, made so respectable a figure in life, and always kept so large a family about them, with so little tumult or bustle, or indeed at so moderate an expense. What their income was I cannot say; but am sure it could not have been what we should think adequate to the good they did, and the hospitality and beneficence which they practised; for the rents of lands were then of so little value, that, though they possessed a considerable estate in another part of the country, only very moderate profits could result from it; but, indeed, from the simplicity of dress, &c. it was easier; though, in that respect, too, they preserved a kind of dignity, and went beyond others in the materials, though not the form of their apparel. Yet their principal expense was a most plentiful and well ordered table, quite in the English style, which was a kind of innovation: but so many strangers frequented the houses of the three brothers, that it was necessary for them to accommodate themselves to the habits of their guests.

Peter being in his youth an extensive trader, had spent much time in Canada, among the noblesse there, and had served in the continental levies. He had a fine commanding figure, and quite the air and address of a gentleman, and was, when I knew him, an old man.

Intelligent and pleasing in a very high degree, Jeremiah had too much familiar kindness to be looked up to like his brother. Yet he also had a very good understanding, great frankness and affability, and was described by all who knew him, as the very soul of cordial friendship and warm benevolence. He married a polished and well-educated person, whose parents (French protestants) were people of the first fashion in New-York, and had given with her a good fortune, a thing very unusual in that country. They used, in the early years of their marriage, to pay a visit every winter to their connexions at New-York, who passed part of every summer with them. This connexion, as well as that with the Flats, gave an air of polish and a tincture of elegance to this family beyond others; and there were few so gay and social. This cheerfulness was supported by a large family, fourteen, I think, of very promising children. These, however, inheriting from their mother’s family a delicate constitution, died one after another as they came to maturity: one only, a daughter, lived to be married, but died after having had one son and a daughter.

I saw the mother of this large family, after out-living her own children, and a still greater number of brothers and sisters, who had all settled in life, prosperous and flourishing, when she married; I saw her a helpless, bed-ridden invalid, without any remaining tie, but a sordid, grasping son-in-law, and two grand-children, brought up at a distance from her.

With her, too, I was a great favourite, because I listened with interest to her details of early happiness, and subsequent woes and privations—all of which she described to me with great animation, and the most pathetic eloquence. How much a patient listener, who has sympathy and interest to bestow on a tale of woe, will hear! and how affecting are the respect and compassion even of an artless child, to a heart that has felt the bitterness of neglect, and known what it was to pine in solitary sadness! Many a bleak day have I walked a mile to visit this blasted tree, which the storm of calamity had stripped of every leaf! and surely in the house of sorrow the heart is made better.

From this chronicle of past times I derived much information respecting our good aunt; such as she would not have given me herself. The kindness of this generous sister-in-law was, indeed, the only light that shone on the declining days of sister Susan, as she was wont affectionately to call her. What a sad narrative would the detail of this poor woman’s sorrows afford! which, however, she did not relate in a querulous manner, for her soul was subdued by affliction, and she did not “mourn as those that had no hope.” One instance of self-accusation I must record. She used to describe the family she left as being no less happy, united, and highly prosperous, than that into which she came: if, indeed, she could be said to leave it, going, as she did, for some months every year to her mother’s house, whose darling she was, and who, being only fifteen years older than herself, was more like an elder sister, united by fond affection.

She went to New-York to lie in, at her mother’s house, of her four or five first children; her mother at the same time having children as young as hers: and thus caressed at home by a fond husband, and received with exultation by the tenderest parents; young, gay, and fortunate, her removals were only variations of felicity; but gratified in every wish, she knew not what sorrow was, nor how to receive the unwelcome stranger when it arrived. At length she went down to her father’s as usual, to lie in of her fourth child, which died when it was eight days old. She then screamed with agony, and told her mother, who tried by pious counsel to alleviate her grief, that she was the most miserable of human beings; for that no one was capable of loving their child so well as she did hers, and could not think by what sin she had provoked this affliction: finally, she clasped the dead infant to her bosom, and was not, without the utmost difficulty, persuaded to part with it; while her frantic grief outraged all decorum. “After this,” said she, “I have seen my thirteen grown-up children, and my dear and excellent husband, all carried out of this house to the grave: I have lost the worthiest and most affectionate parents, brothers, and sisters, such as few ever had; and however my heart might be pierced with sorrow, it was still more deeply pierced with a conviction of my own past impiety and ingratitude; and under all this affliction, I wept silently and alone—and my outcry or lamentation was never heard by mortal.” What a lesson was this!

This once loved and much respected woman have I seen sitting in her bed, where she had been long confined, neglected by all those whom she had known in her better days, excepting aunt Schuyler, who unwieldy and unfit for visiting as she was, came out two or three times in the year to see her, and constantly sent her kindly tokens of remembrance. Had she been more careful to preserve her independence, and had she accommodated herself more to the plain manners of the people she lived among, she might, in her adversity, have met with more attention; but too conscious of her attainments, lively, regardless, and perhaps vain, and confident of being surrounded and admired by a band of kinsfolk, she was at no pains to conciliate others; she had, too, some expensive habits, which, when the tide of prosperity ebbed, could meet with little indulgence among a people who never entertained an idea of living beyond their circumstances.

Thus, even among those unpolished people, one might learn how severely the insolence of prosperity can be avenged upon us, even by those we have despised and slighted—and who, perhaps, were very much our inferiors in every respect; though both humanity and good sense should prevent our mortifying them, by showing ourselves sensible of that circumstance.

This year was a fatal one to the families of the three brothers. Jeremiah, impatient of the uneasiness caused by a wen upon his neck, submitted to undergo an operation, which being unskilfully performed, ended fatally, to the unspeakable grief of his brothers and of aunt, who was particularly attached to him, and often dwelt on the recollection of his singularly compassionate disposition, the generous openness of his temper, and peculiar warmth of his affections. He, indeed, was “taken away from the evil to come;” for of his large family, one after the other went off, in consequence of the weakness of their lungs, which withstood none of the ordinary diseases of small-pox, measles, &c. till in a few years there was not one remaining.

These were melancholy inroads on the peace of her who might truly be said to “watch and weep, and pray for all;” for nothing could exceed our good aunt’s care and tenderness for this feeble family, who seemed flowers which merely bloomed to wither in their prime; for they were, as is often the case with those who inherit such disorders, beautiful, with quickness of comprehension, and abilities beyond their age.

CHAP. XXX.

Death of Philip Schuyler—Account of his family, and of the society at the Flats.

ANOTHER very heavy sorrow followed the death of Jeremiah; Peter, being the eldest brother, his son, as I formerly mentioned, was considered and educated as heir to the colonel. It was Peter’s house that stood next to the colonel’s; their dwellings being arranged according to their ages, the youth was not in the least estranged from his own family (who were half a mile off,) by his residence at his uncle’s, and was peculiarly endeared to all the families, (who regarded him as the future head of their house,) by his gentle manners and excellent qualities. With all these personal advantages which distinguished that comely race, and which give grace and attraction to the unfolding blossoms of virtue, at an early age he was sent to a kind of college, then established in New-Jersey—and he was there instructed as far, as in that place, he could be. He soon formed an attachment for a lady still younger than himself, but so well brought up, and so respectably connected, that his friends were greatly pleased with the marriage, early as it was, and his father, with the highest satisfaction, received the young couple into the house. There they were the delight and ornament of the family, and lived amongst them as a common blessing. The first year of their marriage a daughter was born to them, whom they named Cornelia; and the next, a son, whom they called Peter. The following year, which was the same that deprived them of their brother Jeremiah, proved fatal to a great many children and young people, in consequence of an endemial disease which every now and then used to appear in the country, and made great havoc. It was called the purple or spotted fever, and was probably of the putrid kind: be that as it may, it proved fatal to this interesting young couple. Peter, who had lost his wife but a short time before, was entirely overwhelmed by this stroke: a hardness of hearing, which had been gradually increasing before, deprived him of the consolations he might have derived from society. He encouraged his second son to marry; shut himself up for the most part in his own apartment; and became, in effect, one of those lay-brothers I have formerly described. Yet, when time had blunted the edge of this keen affliction, many years after, when he lived at the Flats, he used to visit us; and though he did not hear well, he conversed with great spirit, and was full of anecdote and information. Meanwhile, madame did not sink under this calamity, though she felt it as much as her husband, but supported him, and exerted herself to extract consolation from performing the duties of a mother to the infant who was now become the representative of the family. Little Peter was accordingly brought home, and succeeded to all that care and affection of which his father had formerly been the object, while Cornelia was taken home to Jersey, to the family of her maternal grandfather, who was a distinguished person in that district. There she was exceedingly well-educated, became an elegant and very pleasing young woman, and was happily and most respectably married before I left the country, as was her brother very soon after. They are still living; and Peter, adhering to what might be called eventually the safer side during the war with the mother country, succeeded undisturbed to his uncle’s inheritance.

All these new cares and sorrows did not in the least abate the hospitality, the popularity, or the public spirit of these truly great minds. Their dwelling, though in some measure become a house of mourning, was still the rendezvous of the wise and worthy, the refuge of the stranger, and an academy for deep and sound thinking, taste, intelligence, and moral beauty. There the plans for the public good were digested by the rulers of the province, who came, under the pretext of a summer excursion for mere amusement. There the operations of the army, and the treaties of peace or alliance with various nations, were arranged; for there the legislators of the state, and the leaders of the war, were received, and mixed serious and important counsels with convivial cheerfulness, and domestic ease and familiarity. It is not to be conceived how essential a point of union, a barrier against license, and a focus, in which the rays of intellect and intelligence were concentrated, (such as in this family,) were to unite the jarring elements of which the community was composed, and to suggest to those who had power without experience, the means of mingling in due proportions its various materials for the public utility. Still, though the details of family happiness were abridged, the spirit that produced it continued to exist, and to find new objects of interest. A mind, elevated by the consciousness of its own powers, and enlarged by the habitual exercise of them, for the great purpose of promoting the good of others, yields to the pressure of calamity, but sinks not under it, particularly when habituated, like these exalted characters, to look through the long vista of futurity, towards the final accomplishment of the designs of providence. Like a diligent gardener, who, when his promising young plants are blasted in full strength and beauty, though he feels extremely for their loss, does not sit down in idle chagrin, but redoubles his efforts to train up their successors to the same degree of excellence. Considering the large family she (madame) always had about her, of which she was the guiding star as well as the informing soul, and the innocent cheerfulness which she encouraged and enjoyed; considering, too, the number of interesting guests whom she received, and that complete union of minds, which made her enter so intimately into all the colonel’s pursuits, it may be wondered how she found time for solid and improved reading; because people whose time is so much occupied in business and society, are apt to relax with amusing trifles of the desultory kind, when they have odd half hours to bestow on literary amusements. But her strong and indefatigable mind never loosened its grasp; ever intent on the useful and the noble, she found little leisure for what are indeed the greatest objects of feeble characters. After the middle of life she went little out; her household, long since arranged by certain general rules, went regularly on, because every domestic knew exactly the duties of his or her place, and dreaded losing it, as the greatest possible misfortune. She had always with her some young person, who was unto her as a daughter—who was her friend and companion, and bred up in such a manner as to qualify her for being such; and one of whose duties it was to inspect the state of the household, and “report progress” with regard to the operations going on in the various departments; for no one better understood or more justly estimated the duties of housewifery. Thus, those young females who had the happiness of being bred under her auspices, very soon became qualified to assist her instead of encroaching much on her time. The example and conversation of the family in which they lived, was to them a perpetual school for useful knowledge, and manners easy and dignified, though natural and artless. They were not indeed embellished, but then they were not deformed by affectation, pretensions, or defective imitation of fashionable models of nature. They were not indeed bred up “to dance, to dress, to roll the eye, or troll the tongue;” yet they were not lectured into unnatural gravity or frozen reserve. I have seen those of them who were lovely, gay and animated, though in the words of an old familiar lyric,

“Without disguise or art, like flowers they grace the wild, Their sweets they did impart, whene’er they spoke or smil’d.”

Two of those to whom this description particularly applies, still live, and still retain not only evident traces of beauty, but that unstudied grace and dignity which is the result of conscious worth and honour, habituated to receive the tribute of general respect. This is the privilege of minds which are always in their own place, and neither stoop to solicit applause from their inferiors, nor strive to rise to a fancied equality with those whom nature or fortune have placed beyond them.