Silas Weir
Mitchell
— he has dropped the first baptismal name
is the son of the Rev.
is the son of the Rev.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v17 - Mai to Mom
His sketches are very unequal
in interest, and are interspersed with stories picked up here and there.
The work is marked by an immaturity, the gradual disappearance of
which it is interesting to follow in succeeding volumes. After this
came, two years later, “The Battle Summer' — Paris in 1848. This is
written in short fragmentary paragraphs, and apparently under the
spell of Victor Hugo; and would be more valuable to the reader of
to-day if it appeared to be more absolutely a record of personal obser-
vation of the dramatic period of which it treats, like that of Victor
Hugo in the later Histoire d'un Crime. )
He has been a frequent lecturer on literature and history; and in
English Lands, Letters, and Kings' has gathered pleasant perceptive
sketches of literature and social forces from the time of the Celt to
the time of Wordsworth.
But after his books of sentiment, those which are best known are
his books upon rural life: My Farm at Edgewood,' Wet Days at
Edgewood,' (Rural Studies, etc. ; written from the standpoint of the
man of letters and of worldly experience, who enjoys to the utter-
most the varying aspects of nature, the growth and passing of vege-
tation, and the changes of the seasons. These books are full of
prudent caution to the over-sanguine, of wise advice, of healthy
delight in the contest of man with nature.
Mr. Mitchell was born at Norwich, Connecticut, April 12th, 1822;
was graduated at Yale College in 1841; studied law; was appointed
United States Consul at Venice in 1853, remaining there however but
a short time; and in 1855 purchased the farm near New Haven which
he calls Edgewood, which has since been his home.
>
OVER A WOOD FIRE
From (Reveries of a Bachelor): Charles Scribner & Co. , New York
I
HAVE got a quiet farm-house in the country,- a very humble
place to be sure, tenanted by a worthy enough man of the
old New England stamp, where I sometimes go for a day or
two in the winter, to look over the farm accounts and to see how
the stock is thriving on the winter's keep.
One side the door, as you enter from the porch, is a little
parlor, scarce twelve feet by ten, with a cozy-looking fireplace, a
heavy oak floor, a couple of arm-chairs and a brown table with
carved lions' feet. Out of this room opens a little cabinet, only
## p. 10113 (#541) ##########################################
DONALD G. MITCHELL
IO113
big enough for a broad bachelor bedstead, where I sleep upon
feathers, and wake in the morning with my eye upon a saucy-
colored lithographic print of some fancy Bessy. "
It happens to be the only house in the world of which I am
bona fide owner; and I take a vast deal of comfort in treating it
just as I choose.
I manage to break some article of furniture
almost every time I pay it a visit; and if I cannot open the
window readily of a morning, to breathe the fresh air, I knock
out a pane or two of glass with my boot. I lean against the
walls in a very old arm-chair there is on the premises, and
scarce ever fail to worry such a hole in the plastering as would
set me down for a round charge for damages in town, or make
a prim housewife fret herself into a raging fever. I laugh out
loud with myself, in my big arm-chair, when I think that I am
neither afraid of one nor the other.
As for the fire, I keep the little hearth so hot as to warm
half the cellar below, and the whole space between the jambs
roars for hours together with white flame. To be sure, the
windows are not very tight, between broken panes and bad joints;
so that the fire, large as it is, is by no means an extravagant
comfort.
As night approaches, I have a huge pile of oak and hickory
placed beside the hearth; I put out the tallow candle on the
mantel (using the family snuffers, with one leg broken) — then,
drawing my chair directly in front of the blazing wood, and set-
ting one foot on each of the old iron fire-dogs, until they grow
too warm, I dispose myself for an evening of such sober and
thoughtful quietude as I believe, on my soul, that very few of
my fellow-men have the good fortune to enjoy.
My tenant, meantime, in the other room, I can hear now and
then-though there is a thick stone chimney and broad entry
between - multiplying contrivances with his wife, to put two
babies to sleep. This occupies them, I should say, usually an
hour; though my only measure of time (for I never carry a
watch into the country) is the blaze of my fire. By ten, or there-
abouts, my stock of wood is nearly exhausted; I pile upon the
hot coals what remains, and sit watching how it kindles, and
blazes, and goes out-even like our joys! - and then slip by the
light of the embers into my bed, where I luxuriate in such sound
and healthful slumber as only such rattling window frames and
country air can supply.
XVII-633
-
## p. 10114 (#542) ##########################################
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DONALD G. MITCHELL
But to return: the other evening - it happened to be on my
last visit to my farm-house - when I had exhausted all the ordi- .
nary rural topics of thought: had formed all sorts of conjectures
as to the income of the year; had planned a new wall around
one lot, and the clearing up of another, now covered with patri.
archal wood; and wondered if the little rickety house would not
be after all a snug enough box to live and to die in,- I fell on
a sudden into such an unprecedented line of thought, which took
such deep hold of my sympathies, sometimes even starting tears,
that I determined the next day to set as much of it as I could
recall, on paper.
Something - it may have been the home-looking blaze (I am
a bachelor of say six-and-twenty), or possibly a plaintive cry of
the baby in my tenant's room— had suggested to me the thought
of - Marriage.
I piled upon the heated fire-dogs the last armful of my wood;
and now, said I, bracing myself courageously between the arms
of my chair,- I'll not flinch; - I'll pursue the thought wherever
—
it leads, though it leads me to the D— (I am apt to be hasty)
at least - continued I, softening - until my fire is out.
The wood was green, and at first showed no disposition to
blaze. It smoked furiously. Smoke, thought I, always goes
before blaze; and so does doubt go before decision: and my
Revery, from that very starting-point, slipped into this shape:-
-
I.
SMOKE
SIGNIFYING DOUBT
A WIFE? - thought I; — yes, a wife!
And why?
And pray, my dear sir, why not — why? Why not doubt;
why not hesitate; why not tremble ?
Does a man buy a ticket in a lottery - a poor man, whose
whole earnings go in to secure the ticket - without trembling,
hesitating, and doubting ?
Can a man stake his bachelor respectability, his independence
and comfort, upon the die of absorbing, unchanging, relentless
marriage, without trembling at the venture ?
Shall a man who has been free to chase his fancies over the
wide world, without let or hindrance, shut himself up to marriage.
ship, within four walls called home, that are to claim him, his
time, his trouble, and his tears, thenceforward forevermore, with
out doubts thick and thick-coming as smoke?
## p. 10115 (#543) ##########################################
DONALD G. MITCHELL
I0115
Shall he who has been hitherto a mere observer of other
men's cares and business — moving off where they made him sick
of heart, approaching whenever and wherever they made him
gleeful — shall he now undertake administration of just such cares
and business, without qualms ? Shall he, whose whole life has
been but a nimble succession of escapes from trifling difficulties,
now broach without doubtings that matrimony, where if difficulty
beset him there is no escape? Shall this brain of mine, careless-
working, never tired of idleness, feeding on long vagaries and
high gigantic castles, dreaming out beatitudes hour by hour -
turn itself at length to such dull task-work as thinking out a
livelihood for wife and children ?
Where thenceforward will be those sunny dreams in which I
have warmed my fancies and my heart, and lighted my eye with
crystal? This very marriage, which a brilliant-working imagina-
tion has invested time and again with brightness and delight,
can serve no longer as a mine for teeming fancy: all, alas, will
be gone— reduced to the dull standard of the actual!
No more
room for intrepid forays of imagination, no more gorgeous realm-
making -- all will be over!
Why not, I thought, go on dreaming ?
Can any wife be prettier than an after-dinner fancy, idle
and yet vivid, can paint for you? Can any children make less
noise than the little rosy-cheeked ones who have no existence
except in the omnium gatherum of your own brain ? Can any
housewife be more unexceptionable than she who goes sweeping
daintily the cobwebs that gather in your dreams?
domestic larder be better stocked than the private larder of
your head dozing on a cushioned chair-back at Delmonico's ? Can
any family purse be better filled than the exceeding plump one
you dream after reading such pleasant books as Münchausen' or
'Typee'?
But if, after all, it must be — duty, or what-not, making provo-
cation - what then ? And I clapped my feet hard against the
fire-dogs, and leaned back, and turned my face to the ceiling, as
much as to say:— "And where on earth, then, shall a poor devil
look for a wife ? »
Somebody says -- Lyttleton or Shaftesbury, I think that
« marriages would be happier if they were all arranged by the
Lord Chancellor. ” Unfortunately, we have no Lord Chancellor to
make this commutation of our misery.
Can any
>
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## p. 10116 (#544) ##########################################
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DONALD G. MITCHELL
Shall a man, then, scour the country on a mule's back, like
honest Gil Blas of Santillane; or shall he make application to
some such intervening providence as Madame St. Marc, who, as
I see by the Presse, manages these matters to one's hand, for
some five per cent. on the fortunes of the parties?
I have trouted, when the brook was so low and the sky so
hot that I might as well have thrown my fly upon the turnpike:
and I have hunted hare at noon, and woodcock in snow-time,
never despairing, scarce doubting: but for a poor hunter of his
kind, without traps or snares, or any aid of police or constabu-
lary, to traverse the world, where are swarming, on a moderate
computation, some three hundred and odd millions of unmarried
women, for a single capture — irremediable, unchangeable — and
yet a capture which by strange metonymy, not laid down in the
books, is very apt to turn captor into captive, and make game
of hunter — all this surely, surely may make a man shrug with
doubt!
Then, again, there are the plaguy wife's relations. Who
knows how many third, fourth, or fifth cousins will appear at
careless complimentary intervals, long after you had settled into
the placid belief that all congratulatory visits were at an end?
How many twisted-headed brothers will be putting in their ad-
vice, as a friend to Peggy?
How many maiden aunts will come to spend a month or two
with their “dear Peggy," and want to know every tea-time "if
she isn't a dear love of a wife” ? Then dear father-in-law will
beg (taking dear Peggy's hand in his) to give a little wholesome
counsel; and will be very sure to advise just the contrary of
what you had determined to undertake. And dear mamma-in-
law must set her nose into Peggy's cupboard, and insist upon
having the key to your own private locker in the wainscot.
Then, perhaps, there is a little bevy of dirty-nosed nephews
who come to spend the holidays, and eat up your East India
sweetmeats; and who are forever tramping over your head or
raising the Old Harry below, while you are busy with your clients.
Last, and worse, is some fidgety old uncle, forever too cold or
too hot, who vexes you with his patronizing airs, and impudently
kisses his little Peggy!
That could be borne, however; for perhaps he has promised
his fortune to Peggy. Peggy, then, will be rich (and the thought
made me rub my shins, which were now getting comfortably
1
## p. 10117 (#545) ##########################################
DONALD G. MITCHELL
IOI17
warm upon the fire-dogs). Then she will be forever talking of
her fortune; and pleasantly reminding you, on occasion of a favor-
ite purchase, how lucky that she had the means; and dropping
hints about economy; and buying very extravagant Paisleys.
She will annoy you by looking over the stock-list at breakfast-
time; and mention quite carelessly to your clients that she is
interested in such or such a speculation.
She will be provokingly silent when you hint to a tradesman
that you have not the money by you for his small bill: in short,
she will tear the life out of you, making you pay in righteous
retribution of annoyance, grief, vexation, shame, and sickness of
heart, for the superlative folly of "marrying rich. ”
But if not rich, then poor. Bah! the thought made me stir
the coals; but there was still no blaze. The paltry earnings you
are able to wring out of clients by the sweat of your brow will
now be all our income; you will be pestered for pin-money, and
pestered with your poor wife's relations. Ten to one, she will.
stickle about taste,-“Sir Visto's,”— and want to make this so
pretty, and that so charming, if she only had the means; and is
sure Paul (a kiss) can't deny his little Peggy such a trifling sum,
and all for the common benefit.
Then she, for one, means that her children shan't go a-beg-
ging for clothes,- and another pull at the purse. Trust a poor
mother to dress her children in finery!
Perhaps she is ugly; not noticeable at first, but growing on
her, and (what is worse) growing faster on you. You wonder
why you didn't see that vulgar nose long ago; and that lip-
it is very strange, you think, that you ever thought it pretty.
And then to come to breakfast with her hair looking as it does,
and you not so much as daring to say, “Peggy, do brush your
hair! ” Her foot too -- not very bad when decently chaussée -
but now since she's married she does wear such infernal slip-
pers! And yet for all this, to be prigging up for an hour when
any of my old chums come to dine with me!
“Bless your kind hearts! my dear fellows,” said I, thrusting
the tongs into the coals, and speaking out loud, as if my voice
could reach from Virginia to Paris - "not married yet! ”
Perhaps Peggy is pretty enough — only shrewish.
No matter for cold coffee: you should have been up before.
What sad, thin, poorly cooked chops to eat with your rolls!
She thinks they are very good, and wonders how you can set
such an example to your children.
(
i
## p. 10118 (#546) ##########################################
10118
DONALD G. MITCHELL
>
»
son ;
The butter is nauseating.
She has no other, and hopes you'll not raise a storm about
butter a little turned. I think I see myself, ruminated I, sitting
I
meekly at table, scarce daring to lift up my eyes, utterly fagged
out with some quarrel of yesterday, choking down detestably
sour muffins, that my wife thinks are “delicious,” — slipping in
dried mouthfuls of burnt ham off the side of my fork-tines, -
slipping off my chair sideways at the end, and slipping out with
my hat between my knees, to business, and never feeling myself
a competent, sound-minded man till the oak door is between me
and Peggy!
"Ha, ha,- not yet! ” said I; and in so earnest a tone, that
my dog started to his feet, cocked his eye to have a good look
into my face, met my smile of triumph with an amiable wag of
the tail, and curled up again in the corner.
Again, Peggy is rich enough, well enough, mild enough, only
she doesn't care a fig for you. She has married you because
father or grandfather thought the match eligible, and because
she didn't wish to disoblige them. Besides, she didn't positively
hate you, and thought you were a respectable enough young per-
-she has told you so repeatedly at dinner. She wonders
you like to read poetry; she wishes you would buy her a good
cook-book; and insists upon your making your will at the birth
of the first baby.
She thinks Captain So-and-So a splendid-looking fellow, and
wishes you would trim up a little, were it only for appearance's
sake.
You need not hurry up from the office so early at night: she,
bless her dear heart! does not feel lonely. You read to her a
love tale: she interrupts the pathetic parts with directions to her
seamstress. You read of marriages: she sighs, and asks if Cap-
tain So-and-So has left town! She hates to be mewed up in a
cottage, or between brick walls: she does so love the Springs!
But again, Peggy loves you; at least she swears it, with her
hand on the Sorrows of Werther. ) She has pin-money which
she spends for the Literary World and the Friends in Council. '
She is not bad-looking, save a bit too much of forehead; nor
is she sluttish, unless a negligé till three o'clock, and an ink-
stain on the forefinger, be sluttish; — but then she is such a sad
blue!
You never fancied, when you saw her buried in a three-
volume novel, that it was anything more than a girlish vagary;
## p. 10119 (#547) ##########################################
DONALD G. MITCHELL
10119
and when she quoted Latin, you thought innocently that she had
a capital memory for her samplers.
But to be bored eternally about divine Dante and funny Gol-
doni is too bad. Your copy of Tasso, a treasure print of 1680,
is all bethumbed and dog's-eared, and spotted with baby-gruel.
Even your Seneca - an Elzevir - is all sweaty with handling.
-
She adores La Fontaine, reads Balzac with a kind of artist scowl,
and will not let Greek alone.
You hint at broken rest and an aching head at breakfast, and
she will Aling you a scrap of Anthology — in lieu of the camphor
bottle - or chant the aiai aiai of tragic chorus.
The nurse is getting dinner; you are holding the baby: Peggy
is reading Bruyère.
The fire smoked thick as pitch, and puffed out little clouds
over the chimney-piece. I
gave the forestick a kick, at the
thought of Peggy, baby, and Bruyère.
Suddenly the flame flickered bluely athwart the smoke -
caught at a twig below — rolled around the mossy oak stick - -
twined among the crackling tree-limbs -- mounted - lit up the
whole body of smoke, and blazed out cheerily and bright. Doubt
vanished with Smoke, and Hope began with Flame.
II.
BLAZE — SIGNIFYING CHEER
I PUSHED my chair back; drew up another; stretched out my
feet cozily upon it, rested my elbows on the chair arms, leaned
my head on one hand, and looked straight into the leaping and
dancing flame.
Love is a flame — ruminated I; and (glancing round the room)
how a flame brightens up a man's habitation!
"Carlo,” said I, calling up my dog into the light, "good fel-
low, Carlo! " and I patted him kindly, and he wagged his tail,
and laid his nose across my knee, and looked wistfully up in my
face; then strode away,— turned to look again, and lay down to
sleep.
Pho, the brute! ” said I; “it is not enough, after all, to like
a dog. ”
If now
in that chair yonder,— not the one your feet lie
upon, but the other, beside you — closer yet — were seated a sweet-
faced girl, with a pretty little foot lying out upon the hearth, a
bit of lace running round the swelling throat, the hair parted to
(C
»
## p. 10120 (#548) ##########################################
IOI 20
DONALD G. MITCHELL
-
a charm over a forehead fair as any of your dreams — and if
you could reach an arm around that chair-back, without fear of
giving offense, and suffer your fingers to play idly with those
curls that escape down the neck; and if you could clasp with
your other hand those little white taper fingers of hers, which
lie so temptingly within reach, - and so talk softly and low in
presence of the blaze, while the hours slip without knowledge,
and the winter winds whistle uncared-for;- if, in short, you
were no bachelor, but the husband of some such sweet image
(dream, call it rather), — would it not be far pleasanter than this
cold single night-sitting - counting the sticks — reckoning the
length of the blaze and the height of the falling snow?
And if some or all of those wild vagaries that grow on your
fancy at such an hour, you could whisper into listening, because
loving ears - ears not tired with listening, because it is you who
whisper-ears ever indulgent because eager to praise ;- and if
your darkest fancies were lit up, not merely with bright wood
fire, but with a ringing laugh of that sweet face turned up in
fond rebuke how far better than to be waxing black and sour
over pestilential humors — alone -- your very dog asleep!
And if when a glowing thought comes into your brain,
quick and sudden, you could tell it over as to a second self, to
that sweet creature, who is not away, because she loves to be
there; and if you could watch the thought catching that girlish
mind, illuming that fair brow, sparkling in those pleasantest of
eyes- how far better than to feel it slumbering, and going out,
- heavy, lifeless, and dead, in your own selfish fancy.
generous emotion steals over you, coming you know not whither,
would there not be a richer charm in lavishing it in caress or
endearing word upon that fondest and most dear one, than in
patting your glossy-coated dog, or sinking lonely to smiling slum-
bers ?
How would not benevolence ripen with such monitor to task
it! How would not selfishness grow faint and dull, leaning ever
to that second self, which is the loved one! How would not
guile shiver, and grow weak, before that girl-brow and eye of
innocence! How would not all that boyhood prized of enthusi-
asm, and quick blood, and life, renew itself in such a presence!
The fire was getting hotter, and I moved into the middle of
the room. The shadows the flames made were playing like fairy
forms over floor and wall and ceiling,
## p. 10121 (#549) ##########################################
DONALD G. MITCHELL
IOI 21
My fancy would surely quicken, thought I, if such a being
were in attendance. Surely imagination would be stronger and
purer, if it could have the playful fancies of dawning womanhood
to delight it. All toil would be torn from mind-labor, if but
another heart grew into this present soul, quickening it, warming
it, cheering it, bidding it ever - God-speed !
Her face would make a halo, rich as a rainbow, atop of all
such noisome things as we lonely souls call trouble. Her smile
would illumine the blackest of crowding cares; and darkness that
now seats you despondent in your solitary chair for days together,
weaving bitter fancies, dreaming bitter dreams, would grow light
and thin, and spread and float away — chased by that beloved
smile.
Your friend
- poor fellow ! — dies; never mind: that gentle
clasp of her fingers, as she steals behind you, telling you not
to weep — it is worth ten friends!
Your sister, sweet one, is dead — buried. The worms are busy
with all her fairness. How it makes you think earth nothing but
a spot to dig graves upon!
It is more: she, she says, will be a sister; and the waving
curls as she leans upon your shoulder, touch your cheek, and
your wet eye turns to meet those other eyes. — God has sent his
angel, surely.
Your mother, alas for it, she is gone! Is there any bitterness
to a youth, alone and homeless, like this ?
But you are not homeless; you are not alone: she is there;
- her tears softening yours, her smile lighting yours, her grief
killing yours; and you live again, to assuage that kind sorrow of
hers.
Then – those children, rosy, fair-haired; no, they do
, not
disturb you with their prattle now — they are yours ! Toss
away there on the greensward-never mind the hyacinths, the
–
snowdrops, the violets, if so be any are there: the perfume of
their healthful lips is worth all the flowers of the world. No
need now to gather wild bouquets to love and cherish: flower,
tree, gun, are all dead things; things livelier hold your soul.
And she, the mother, sweetest and fairest of all, watching,
tending, caressing, loving, till your own heart grows pained with
tenderest jealousy, and cures itself with loving.
You have no need now of any cold lecture to teach thankful-
ness: your heart is full of it. No need now, as once, of burst-
ing blossoms, of trees taking leaf, and greenness, to turn thought
## p. 10122 (#550) ##########################################
IOI 22
DONALD G. MITCHELL
kindly and thankfully: forever beside you there is bloom, and
ever beside you there is fruit, - for which eye, heart, and soul
are full of unknown, and unspoken, because unspeakable, thank-
offering
And if sickness catches you, binds you, lays you down — no
lonely moanings, and wicked curses at careless-stepping nurses.
The step is noiseless, and yet distinct beside you, . The white
curtains are drawn, or withdrawn by the magic of that other
presence; and the soft cool hand is upon your brow.
No cold comfortings of friend-watchers, merely come in to
steal a word away from that outer world which is pulling at
their skirts; but ever the sad shaded brow of her whose lightest
sorrow for your sake is your greatest grief,- if it were not a
greater joy.
The blaze was leaping light and high, and the wood falling
under the growing heat.
So, continued I, this heart would be at length itself; striving
with everything gross, even now as it clings to grossness.
Love
would make its strength native and progressive. Earth's cares
would fly. Joys would double. Susceptibilities be quickened.
Love master Self; and having made the mastery, stretch onward
and upward toward Infinitude.
And if the end came, and sickness brought that follower-
Great Follower— which sooner or later is sure to come after,
then the heart and the hand of Love, ever near, are giving to
your tired soul, daily and hourly, lessons of that love which con-
soles, which triumphs, which circleth all and centreth in all -
Love Infinite and Divine!
Kind hands none but hers — will smooth the hair upon your
brow as the chill grows damp and heavy on it; and her fingers
none but hers—will lie in yours as the wasted flesh stiffens
and hardens for the ground. Her tears — you could feel no
others, if oceans fell — will warm your drooping features once
more to life; once more your eye, lighted in joyous triumph,
kindle in her smile, and then
The fire fell upon the hearth; the blaze gave a last leap -a
flicker — then another -- caught a little remaining twig - blazed
up— wavered
- went out.
There was nothing but a bed of glowing embers, over which
the white ashes gathered fast. I was alone with only my dog
for company.
## p. 10123 (#551) ##########################################
10123
S. WEIR MITCHELL
(1829-)
R. Weir Mitchell has won distinction in two very different
fields. He has international reputation as a specialist in
nervous diseases, while as a writer of fiction and poetry he
has done work of dignity and worth.
Silas Weir Mitchell — he has dropped the first baptismal name
is the son of the Rev. Dr. I. K. Mitchell of Philadelphia, in which
city Weir was born February 15th, 1829. He was educated at the
University of Pennsylvania, and at Jefferson Medical College, whence
he was graduated in 1850. He soon did
notable work in the study of snake poisons;
and as army surgeon in the Philadelphia
hospital for injuries to the nerves, his studies
of nervous affections gave him a high place
in his profession. Besides more technical
publications, his medical works include a
number of popular treatises.
In view of his strenuous and success-
ful labor in medicine, Dr. Mitchell has
displayed a remarkable activity in pure lit-
erature. His works in fiction and poetry
count up to a dozen or more volumes. His
first fiction, Hephzibah Guinness,' a volume S. WEIR MITCHELL
containing three short stories, appeared in
1880; and it was followed by 'In War Time) in 1884, Roland Blake
in 1886, and Characteristics in 1893,— the latter not fiction strictly,
but rather a series of conversations, full of suggestive ideas, and
often brilliant in reflection or characterization. It was not until the
novel (Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker,' in 1897, that Dr. Mitchell revealed
his full power as a story-writer, producing a powerful and skillfully
wrought art-work. Quaker life and war life have in his earlier fic-
tion been leading themes of interest; and in this fine historical study
of Revolutionary times in America, these blended in a story of much
picturesqueness, movement, and dramatic force. The book, while full
of accurate delineations of the bygone day, is written in a roman-
tic spirit which gives it color and charm. The analysis of human
nature is keen,- that of one who knows men and women in their
)
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10121
S. WEIR MITCHELL
normal and morbid manifestations, but who, by force of the poetic
imagination, avoids in his treatment the unpleasantly realistic or
pessimistic. Hugh Wynne certainly must be included among the
larger works of American historical-romantic fiction.
Dr. Mitchell began to print verse in 1882, with a volume entitled
(The Hill of Stones'; and the seven books which he has subsequently
published were gathered in 1896 into the single volume of his Col-
lected Poems. ) He demonstrates a genuine gift as a verse-writer;
and in a kind less often cultivated with success by modern poets —
the dramatic — he has done fine things. His historical pieces, Francis
Drake' and Philip Vernon,' are very vigorous and pleasing, and
show a sympathetic comprehension of Elizabethan models, a skillful
handling of blank verse, and a virile imagination. These poems are
dramatic in more than name and aim. The lyrics herewith printed
show Dr. Mitchell's happy touch in lighter forms.
A striking figure in the social and intellectual life of his city, a
rugged personality impressing those with whom it comes in contact,
an American of distinction, Weir Mitchell's contribution to letters is
sufficient to give him honorable enrollment among the literary men of
his land.
(
ANDRÉ'S FATE
From Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker. Copyright 1897, by the Century
Company
O"
N THE 20th of September I was desired by my colonel to con-
duct two companies from Newark, where we lay, through
the gap at Ramapo, New Jersey, to the main army, which
at this date was camped, as I have said, about Tappan. Being
stout and well, I was glad to move, and glad of a chance to see
the great river Hudson. We were assigned camp-ground near to
Piermont, on a hill slope, in a long-settled country, where since
early in the seventeenth century the Dutch had possessed the
land. Having no tents, on arriving we set to work at the old
business of hut-building; so that it was not until the 26th of Sep-
tember that I had an idle hour in which to look up Jack, who
lay somewhere between Tappan and the river.
It was, as usual, a joyous meeting, and we never did less
lack for talk. Jack told me that he was ordered on an unpleas-
ant bit of business, and asked if I could not get leave to go with
him. Orders were come from West Point to seize and destroy all
periaguas, canoes, and boats in the possession of the few and
## p. 10125 (#553) ##########################################
S. WEIR MITCHELL
10125
often doubtfully loyal people between us and King's Ferry. He
had for this duty two sail-rigged dories with slide-keels, and
would take two soldiers in each.
Upon his representing my skill as a sailor, and the need for
two officers, I was allowed to turn over my command to the
junior captain and to join Jack.
We set off on the 27th of September with provender and two
small tents, and went away up the river with a fine wind. The
water was a dull gray, and the heavens clouded. The far shore
of Dobbs' Ferry and Tarrytown was already gayly tinted with
the hues of the autumn, and to south the bleak gray lines of the
Palisades below Sneedon's Landing lay sombre and stern under
a sunless sky. One of my men was a good sailor, and I was
thus enabled to spend most of the day in Jack's boat.
I mention all these details because of a curious coincidence.
I said to Jack - I was steering — that I had had since dawn a
- I —
feeling that some calamity was about to happen. Now this was,
as I recall it, a notion quite new to me, and far more like Jack
himself. He laughed and said it was the east wind. Then after
a pause he added: "I was trying to recall something I once
heard, and now I have it. This waiting for an idea is like fish-
ing in the deep waters of the mind: sometimes one gets only a
nibble, and sometimes a bite; but I have my fish. It was Dr.
Rush who told me that the liver was the mother of ghosts and
presentiments. When I told him I was afflicted with these latter,
he put on his glasses, looked at me, and said I was of a presen-
timental temperament. ”
“And he was right,” said I, laughing. Then Jack declared
the weather was sorry enough to account for my notion. I made
answer, as I remember, that I was not subject to the rule of the
weathercock, like some fellows I knew, nor to thinking I was
going to be shot. This shut up Jack for a while, and we got off
on to our own wise plans for capturing Sir Henry and all his
host.
At last we ran ashore at a settled point, called Nyack, and
thence we went to and fro wherever we saw the smoke of men's
homes. We broke up or burned many boats and dugouts, amid
the lamentations of their owners, because with the aid of these
they were enabled to take fish, and were ill off for other diet.
We had an ugly task, and could only regret the sad but inexor-
able necessities of war.
## p. 10126 (#554) ##########################################
101 26
S. WEIR MITCHELL
As we ap-
We camped ten miles above Piermont; and next day, near to
dusk, got as far as King's Landing, having pretty thoroughly
attended to our ungracious task.
As the tall promontory of Stony Point rose before us, dim in
the evening light, we talked of Wayne's gallant storming of this
formidable fort, and of his affection for the bayonet, which, he
said, was to be preferred to the musket because it was always
loaded.
“We of our State had most of that glory,” said Jack; "and
all our best generals, save the great chief, are men of the
North,” which was true and strange.
We had at this place a strong force of horse and foot; and
here we meant to pass the night with some of our officers,
friends of Jack's.
It was quite dark, when, running in with a free sheet, we
came close to a large barge rowed by six men.
proached I heard a stern order to keep off; and recognized in
the boat, where were also armed men, Major Tallmadge, whom
I knew. I called to him, but as he only repeated his order, I
answered, “Very well, sir ;” and we drew in to the shore some
hundred feet away.
Jack said it was queer: what could it mean? We walked
toward the small blockhouse in time to see Tallmadge and several
soldiers conduct a cloaked prisoner into the fort. A little later
the major came out, and at once asked me to excuse his abrupt-
ness, saying that he had in charge Sir Henry Clinton's adjutant-
general, who had been caught acting as a spy, and was now
,
about to be taken to Tappan. I exclaimed, “Not Major André! ”
"Yes,” he returned, "André. A bad business. ” And I was
hastily told the miserable story of Arnold's treason and flight.
I turned to Jack. « There it is,” said I. «What of my presenti.
ment? ” He was silent. “You know, I added, “that to this
man I owed my life at the Mischianza ball: here he is in the
same trap from which his refusal to aid my cousin saved me. ”
I was terribly distressed; and at my urgent desire, in place of
remaining at the fort, we set out after supper and pulled down
the river against the food-tide, while my unfortunate friend
André was hurried away to Tappan, guarded by a strong escort
of light horse.
We reached Sneedon's Landing about 5 A, M. , and I went
up with Jack to his hut. Here I got a bit of uneasy sleep, and
(
1
## p. 10127 (#555) ##########################################
S. WEIR MITCHELL
10127
thence set off to find Hamilton; for the whole staff, with his
Excellency, had made haste to reach the camp at Tappan so soon
as the general felt reassured as to the safety of West Point.
I walked a half-mile up a gentle rise of ground to the main
road, about which were set, close to the old Dutch church, a few
modest one-story stone houses, with far and near the canton-
ments of the armies. At the bridge over Piermont Creek, I was
stopped by sentries set around a low brick building, then used as
headquarters. It stood amid scattered apple-trees on a slight rise
of ground, and was, as I recall it, built of red and black brick.
Behind the house was the little camp of the mounted guard, and
on all sides were stationed sentinels, who kept the immediate
grounds clear from intrusion. For this there was need; soldiers
and officers were continually coming hither in hopes to gather
fresh news of the great treason, or curious as to this strange
capture of Sir Henry Clinton's adjutant. General officers came
and went with grave faces; aides mounted and rode away in
haste; all was excitement and anxious interest, - every one asking
questions, and none much the wiser. With difficulty I succeeded
in sending in a note to Hamilton along with Jack's report. This
was nigh to nine in the morning, but it was after midday before
I got a chance to see my friend.
Meanwhile I walked up and down in a state of such agitation
and distress as never before nor since have I known. When I
had seen Major Tallmadge, he knew but little of those details of
Arnold's treason which later became the property of all men;
but he did tell me that the correspondence had been carried on
for Sir Henry by André in the name of Anderson, and this
brought to my mind the letter which the Quaker farmer declined
to surrender to me at the time I was serving as Arnold's aide.
I went back at last to Jack's hut in the valley near the river,
and waited. I leave Jack to say how I felt and acted that day
and evening, as I lay and thought of André and of poor Mar-
garet Shippen, Arnold's wife: -
“Never have I seen my dear Hugh in such trouble. Here
was a broken-hearted woman, the companion of his childhood;
and André, who, at a moment which must have called upon his
every instinct as a soldier, held back and saved my friend from
a fate but too likely to be his own. Hugh all that evening lay
in our hut, and now and then would break out declaring he must
do something; but what, he knew not, nor did I. He was even
## p. 10128 (#556) ##########################################
10128
S. WEIR MITCHELL
so mad as to think he might plan some way to assist André
to escape. I listened, but said nothing, being assured from long
knowledge that his judgment would correct the influence of the
emotion which did at first seem to disturb it.
"Now all this miserable business is over, I ask myself if our
chief would have tried to buy an English general; or if so, would
I or Hugh have gone on such an errand as André's. To be a
spy is but a simple duty, and no shame in it; but as to the
shape this other matter took, I do not feel able to decide. ”
Still later he adds:
“Nor is my mind more fully settled as to it to-day; some
think one way, some another. I had rather André had not gone
on this errand with the promise of a great reward. Yet I think
he did believe he was only doing his duty. ”
After an hour or more of fruitless thinking, not hearing from
Mr. Hamilton, I walked back to headquarters. Neither in the
joy and pride of glad news, nor when disaster on disaster fell on
us, have I ever seen anything like the intensity of expectation
and of anxiety which at this time reigned in our camps. The
capture of the adjutant-general was grave enough; his fate hung
in no doubtful balance: but the feeling aroused by the fall of a
great soldier, the dishonor of one greatly esteemed in the ranks,
the fear of what else might come, all served to foster uneasiness
and to feed suspicion. As the great chief had said, whom now
could he trust, or could we? The men talked in half-whispers
about the camp-fires; an hundred wild rumors were afloat; and
now and again eager eyes looked toward the low brick church
where twelve general officers were holding the court-martial
which was to decide the fate of my friend.
It was evening before the decision of the court-martial became
generally known. I wandered about all that day in the utmost
depression of mind. About two in the afternoon of this 29th of
September, I met Hamilton near the creek. He said he had
been busy all day, and was free for an hour: would I come
and dine at his quarters ? what was the matter with me?
I was
glad of the chance to speak freely. We had a long and a sad
talk, and he then learned why this miserable affair affected
me so deeply. He had no belief that the court could do other
than condemn Mr. André to die. I asked anxiously if the chief
were certain to approve the sentence. He replied gloomily, "As
surely as there is a God in heaven. ”
1
## p. 10129 (#557) ##########################################
S. WEIR MITCHELL
T0129
I could only wait. A hundred schemes were in my mind,
each as useless as the others, In fact, I knew not what to do.
On the 30th his Excellency signed the death-warrant; and all
hope being at an end, I determined to make an effort to see the
man to whom I believe I owed my life. When I represented
the matter to Mr. Hamilton and to the Marquis de Lafayette, I
put my request on the ground that Mr. André had here no one
who could be called a friend, excepting only myself; and that to
refuse me an interview were needlessly cruel. I wrote my appli-
cation with care, the marquis, who was most kind throughout,
charging himself with the business of placing it favorably before
our chief.
The execution had been ordered for October ist; but upon
receipt of some communication from Sir Henry Clinton, it was
postponed until noon on October 2d.
On the 30th I rode out into the hills back of Tappan, and
tried to compose myself by my usual and effective remedy of a
hard ride. It was useless now. I came back to my friend's
quarters and tried to read, finding a stray volume of the Ram-
bler on his table. It was as vain a resort.
Never at any time in my memory have I spent two days of
such unhappiness. I could get no rest and no peace of mind.
To be thus terribly in the grip of events over which you have
no control, is to men of my temper a maddening affliction. My
heart seemed all the time to say, “Do something,” and my rea-
son to reply, “There is nothing to do. ” It was thus in the jail
when my cousin was on my mind; now it was as to André, and
as to the great debt I owed him, and how to pay it. People who
despair easily do not fall into the clutches of this intense cray-
ing for some practical means of relief where none can be. It is
the hopeful, the resolute, and such as are educated by success,
who suffer thus. But why inflict on others the story of these
two days, except to let those who come after me learn how one
of their blood looked upon a noble debt, which, alas! like many
debts, must go to be settled in another world, and in other ways
than ours.
Hamilton, who saw my agitation, begged me to prepare for
disappointment. I, however, could see no reason to deny a man
access to one doomed, when no other friend was near.
Nor was
I wrong. About seven in the evening of the ist, the marquis
came in haste to find me. He had asked for my interview with
XVII-634
## p. 10130 (#558) ##########################################
.
10130
S. WEIR MITCHELL
Mr. André as a favor to himself. His Excellency had granted
the request in the face of objections from two general officers,
whom the marquis did not name.
As I thanked him he gave
me this order:
“To Major Tallmadge :
“The bearer, Hugh Wynne, Esq. , Captain Second Company,
Third Regiment of Pennsylvania Foot, has herewith permission
to visit Major André.
“GEOWASHINGTON.
"October ist, 1780. "
I went at once — it was now close to eight in the evening -
to the small house of one Maby, where the prisoner was kept.
It was but an hundred yards from his Excellency's quarters. Six
sentries marched to and fro around it, and within the room two
officers remained day and night with drawn swords.
My pass
was taken at the door of the house, while I waited on the road
without. In a few minutes an officer came to me with Major
Tallmadge's compliments, and would I be pleased to enter?
I sometimes think it strange how, even in particulars, the
natural and other scenery of this dark drama remains distinct
in my memory, unaffected by the obliterating influence of the
years, which have effaced so much else I had been more glad
to keep
I can
see to-day the rising moon, the yellowish road, the
long gray stone farm-house of one story, with windows set in an
irregular frame of brickwork. The door opens, and I find myself
in a short hall, where two officers salute as I pass. My con-
ductor says, “This way, Captain Wynne ”; and I enter a long,
cheerless-looking apartment, the sitting-room of a Dutch farm-
house. Two lieutenants, seated within at the doorway, rose as I
entered, and saluting me, sat down again. I stood an instant
looking about me. A huge log fire roared on the hearth, so
lighting the room that I saw its glow catch the bayonet tips of
the sentinels outside, as they went and came. There were a half-
dozen wooden chairs, and on a pine table four candles burning,
a bottle of Hollands, a decanter and glasses. In a high-backed
chair sat a man with his face to the fire. It was André. He
was tranquilly sketching, with a quill pen, a likeness of himself. *
* My acquaintance, Captain Tomlinson, has it.
## p. 10131 (#559) ##########################################
S. WEIR MITCHELL
JO131
He did not turn or leave off drawing until Captain Tomlinson,
one of the officers in charge, seeing me pause, said:-
"Your pardon, major. Here is a gentleman come to visit
you. ”
»
As he spoke the prisoner turned, and I was at once struck by
the extreme pallor of his face, even as seen in the red light of
the fire. His death-like whiteness at this time brought out the
regular beauty of his features, as his usual ruddiness of color
never did. I have since seen strong men near to certain death,
but I recall no one who, with a serene and untroubled visage,
was yet as white as was this gentleman.
The captain did not present me; and for a moment I stood
with a kind of choking in the throat, which came, I suppose, of
the great shock André's appearance gave me. He was thus the
first to speak.
“Pardon me,” he said as he rose: “the name escaped me. ”
“Mr. Hugh Wynne,” I said, getting myself pulled together -
it was much needed.
"O Wynne! ” he cried quite joyously: "I did not know you.
How delightful to see a friend; how good of you to come! Sit
down. Our accommodations are slight. Thanks to his Excel-
lency, here are Madeira and Hollands: may I offer you a
glass ? »
“No, no," I said, as we took chairs by the fire; on which he
cast a log, remarking how cold it was.
in interest, and are interspersed with stories picked up here and there.
The work is marked by an immaturity, the gradual disappearance of
which it is interesting to follow in succeeding volumes. After this
came, two years later, “The Battle Summer' — Paris in 1848. This is
written in short fragmentary paragraphs, and apparently under the
spell of Victor Hugo; and would be more valuable to the reader of
to-day if it appeared to be more absolutely a record of personal obser-
vation of the dramatic period of which it treats, like that of Victor
Hugo in the later Histoire d'un Crime. )
He has been a frequent lecturer on literature and history; and in
English Lands, Letters, and Kings' has gathered pleasant perceptive
sketches of literature and social forces from the time of the Celt to
the time of Wordsworth.
But after his books of sentiment, those which are best known are
his books upon rural life: My Farm at Edgewood,' Wet Days at
Edgewood,' (Rural Studies, etc. ; written from the standpoint of the
man of letters and of worldly experience, who enjoys to the utter-
most the varying aspects of nature, the growth and passing of vege-
tation, and the changes of the seasons. These books are full of
prudent caution to the over-sanguine, of wise advice, of healthy
delight in the contest of man with nature.
Mr. Mitchell was born at Norwich, Connecticut, April 12th, 1822;
was graduated at Yale College in 1841; studied law; was appointed
United States Consul at Venice in 1853, remaining there however but
a short time; and in 1855 purchased the farm near New Haven which
he calls Edgewood, which has since been his home.
>
OVER A WOOD FIRE
From (Reveries of a Bachelor): Charles Scribner & Co. , New York
I
HAVE got a quiet farm-house in the country,- a very humble
place to be sure, tenanted by a worthy enough man of the
old New England stamp, where I sometimes go for a day or
two in the winter, to look over the farm accounts and to see how
the stock is thriving on the winter's keep.
One side the door, as you enter from the porch, is a little
parlor, scarce twelve feet by ten, with a cozy-looking fireplace, a
heavy oak floor, a couple of arm-chairs and a brown table with
carved lions' feet. Out of this room opens a little cabinet, only
## p. 10113 (#541) ##########################################
DONALD G. MITCHELL
IO113
big enough for a broad bachelor bedstead, where I sleep upon
feathers, and wake in the morning with my eye upon a saucy-
colored lithographic print of some fancy Bessy. "
It happens to be the only house in the world of which I am
bona fide owner; and I take a vast deal of comfort in treating it
just as I choose.
I manage to break some article of furniture
almost every time I pay it a visit; and if I cannot open the
window readily of a morning, to breathe the fresh air, I knock
out a pane or two of glass with my boot. I lean against the
walls in a very old arm-chair there is on the premises, and
scarce ever fail to worry such a hole in the plastering as would
set me down for a round charge for damages in town, or make
a prim housewife fret herself into a raging fever. I laugh out
loud with myself, in my big arm-chair, when I think that I am
neither afraid of one nor the other.
As for the fire, I keep the little hearth so hot as to warm
half the cellar below, and the whole space between the jambs
roars for hours together with white flame. To be sure, the
windows are not very tight, between broken panes and bad joints;
so that the fire, large as it is, is by no means an extravagant
comfort.
As night approaches, I have a huge pile of oak and hickory
placed beside the hearth; I put out the tallow candle on the
mantel (using the family snuffers, with one leg broken) — then,
drawing my chair directly in front of the blazing wood, and set-
ting one foot on each of the old iron fire-dogs, until they grow
too warm, I dispose myself for an evening of such sober and
thoughtful quietude as I believe, on my soul, that very few of
my fellow-men have the good fortune to enjoy.
My tenant, meantime, in the other room, I can hear now and
then-though there is a thick stone chimney and broad entry
between - multiplying contrivances with his wife, to put two
babies to sleep. This occupies them, I should say, usually an
hour; though my only measure of time (for I never carry a
watch into the country) is the blaze of my fire. By ten, or there-
abouts, my stock of wood is nearly exhausted; I pile upon the
hot coals what remains, and sit watching how it kindles, and
blazes, and goes out-even like our joys! - and then slip by the
light of the embers into my bed, where I luxuriate in such sound
and healthful slumber as only such rattling window frames and
country air can supply.
XVII-633
-
## p. 10114 (#542) ##########################################
IO114
DONALD G. MITCHELL
But to return: the other evening - it happened to be on my
last visit to my farm-house - when I had exhausted all the ordi- .
nary rural topics of thought: had formed all sorts of conjectures
as to the income of the year; had planned a new wall around
one lot, and the clearing up of another, now covered with patri.
archal wood; and wondered if the little rickety house would not
be after all a snug enough box to live and to die in,- I fell on
a sudden into such an unprecedented line of thought, which took
such deep hold of my sympathies, sometimes even starting tears,
that I determined the next day to set as much of it as I could
recall, on paper.
Something - it may have been the home-looking blaze (I am
a bachelor of say six-and-twenty), or possibly a plaintive cry of
the baby in my tenant's room— had suggested to me the thought
of - Marriage.
I piled upon the heated fire-dogs the last armful of my wood;
and now, said I, bracing myself courageously between the arms
of my chair,- I'll not flinch; - I'll pursue the thought wherever
—
it leads, though it leads me to the D— (I am apt to be hasty)
at least - continued I, softening - until my fire is out.
The wood was green, and at first showed no disposition to
blaze. It smoked furiously. Smoke, thought I, always goes
before blaze; and so does doubt go before decision: and my
Revery, from that very starting-point, slipped into this shape:-
-
I.
SMOKE
SIGNIFYING DOUBT
A WIFE? - thought I; — yes, a wife!
And why?
And pray, my dear sir, why not — why? Why not doubt;
why not hesitate; why not tremble ?
Does a man buy a ticket in a lottery - a poor man, whose
whole earnings go in to secure the ticket - without trembling,
hesitating, and doubting ?
Can a man stake his bachelor respectability, his independence
and comfort, upon the die of absorbing, unchanging, relentless
marriage, without trembling at the venture ?
Shall a man who has been free to chase his fancies over the
wide world, without let or hindrance, shut himself up to marriage.
ship, within four walls called home, that are to claim him, his
time, his trouble, and his tears, thenceforward forevermore, with
out doubts thick and thick-coming as smoke?
## p. 10115 (#543) ##########################################
DONALD G. MITCHELL
I0115
Shall he who has been hitherto a mere observer of other
men's cares and business — moving off where they made him sick
of heart, approaching whenever and wherever they made him
gleeful — shall he now undertake administration of just such cares
and business, without qualms ? Shall he, whose whole life has
been but a nimble succession of escapes from trifling difficulties,
now broach without doubtings that matrimony, where if difficulty
beset him there is no escape? Shall this brain of mine, careless-
working, never tired of idleness, feeding on long vagaries and
high gigantic castles, dreaming out beatitudes hour by hour -
turn itself at length to such dull task-work as thinking out a
livelihood for wife and children ?
Where thenceforward will be those sunny dreams in which I
have warmed my fancies and my heart, and lighted my eye with
crystal? This very marriage, which a brilliant-working imagina-
tion has invested time and again with brightness and delight,
can serve no longer as a mine for teeming fancy: all, alas, will
be gone— reduced to the dull standard of the actual!
No more
room for intrepid forays of imagination, no more gorgeous realm-
making -- all will be over!
Why not, I thought, go on dreaming ?
Can any wife be prettier than an after-dinner fancy, idle
and yet vivid, can paint for you? Can any children make less
noise than the little rosy-cheeked ones who have no existence
except in the omnium gatherum of your own brain ? Can any
housewife be more unexceptionable than she who goes sweeping
daintily the cobwebs that gather in your dreams?
domestic larder be better stocked than the private larder of
your head dozing on a cushioned chair-back at Delmonico's ? Can
any family purse be better filled than the exceeding plump one
you dream after reading such pleasant books as Münchausen' or
'Typee'?
But if, after all, it must be — duty, or what-not, making provo-
cation - what then ? And I clapped my feet hard against the
fire-dogs, and leaned back, and turned my face to the ceiling, as
much as to say:— "And where on earth, then, shall a poor devil
look for a wife ? »
Somebody says -- Lyttleton or Shaftesbury, I think that
« marriages would be happier if they were all arranged by the
Lord Chancellor. ” Unfortunately, we have no Lord Chancellor to
make this commutation of our misery.
Can any
>
-
## p. 10116 (#544) ##########################################
1016
DONALD G. MITCHELL
Shall a man, then, scour the country on a mule's back, like
honest Gil Blas of Santillane; or shall he make application to
some such intervening providence as Madame St. Marc, who, as
I see by the Presse, manages these matters to one's hand, for
some five per cent. on the fortunes of the parties?
I have trouted, when the brook was so low and the sky so
hot that I might as well have thrown my fly upon the turnpike:
and I have hunted hare at noon, and woodcock in snow-time,
never despairing, scarce doubting: but for a poor hunter of his
kind, without traps or snares, or any aid of police or constabu-
lary, to traverse the world, where are swarming, on a moderate
computation, some three hundred and odd millions of unmarried
women, for a single capture — irremediable, unchangeable — and
yet a capture which by strange metonymy, not laid down in the
books, is very apt to turn captor into captive, and make game
of hunter — all this surely, surely may make a man shrug with
doubt!
Then, again, there are the plaguy wife's relations. Who
knows how many third, fourth, or fifth cousins will appear at
careless complimentary intervals, long after you had settled into
the placid belief that all congratulatory visits were at an end?
How many twisted-headed brothers will be putting in their ad-
vice, as a friend to Peggy?
How many maiden aunts will come to spend a month or two
with their “dear Peggy," and want to know every tea-time "if
she isn't a dear love of a wife” ? Then dear father-in-law will
beg (taking dear Peggy's hand in his) to give a little wholesome
counsel; and will be very sure to advise just the contrary of
what you had determined to undertake. And dear mamma-in-
law must set her nose into Peggy's cupboard, and insist upon
having the key to your own private locker in the wainscot.
Then, perhaps, there is a little bevy of dirty-nosed nephews
who come to spend the holidays, and eat up your East India
sweetmeats; and who are forever tramping over your head or
raising the Old Harry below, while you are busy with your clients.
Last, and worse, is some fidgety old uncle, forever too cold or
too hot, who vexes you with his patronizing airs, and impudently
kisses his little Peggy!
That could be borne, however; for perhaps he has promised
his fortune to Peggy. Peggy, then, will be rich (and the thought
made me rub my shins, which were now getting comfortably
1
## p. 10117 (#545) ##########################################
DONALD G. MITCHELL
IOI17
warm upon the fire-dogs). Then she will be forever talking of
her fortune; and pleasantly reminding you, on occasion of a favor-
ite purchase, how lucky that she had the means; and dropping
hints about economy; and buying very extravagant Paisleys.
She will annoy you by looking over the stock-list at breakfast-
time; and mention quite carelessly to your clients that she is
interested in such or such a speculation.
She will be provokingly silent when you hint to a tradesman
that you have not the money by you for his small bill: in short,
she will tear the life out of you, making you pay in righteous
retribution of annoyance, grief, vexation, shame, and sickness of
heart, for the superlative folly of "marrying rich. ”
But if not rich, then poor. Bah! the thought made me stir
the coals; but there was still no blaze. The paltry earnings you
are able to wring out of clients by the sweat of your brow will
now be all our income; you will be pestered for pin-money, and
pestered with your poor wife's relations. Ten to one, she will.
stickle about taste,-“Sir Visto's,”— and want to make this so
pretty, and that so charming, if she only had the means; and is
sure Paul (a kiss) can't deny his little Peggy such a trifling sum,
and all for the common benefit.
Then she, for one, means that her children shan't go a-beg-
ging for clothes,- and another pull at the purse. Trust a poor
mother to dress her children in finery!
Perhaps she is ugly; not noticeable at first, but growing on
her, and (what is worse) growing faster on you. You wonder
why you didn't see that vulgar nose long ago; and that lip-
it is very strange, you think, that you ever thought it pretty.
And then to come to breakfast with her hair looking as it does,
and you not so much as daring to say, “Peggy, do brush your
hair! ” Her foot too -- not very bad when decently chaussée -
but now since she's married she does wear such infernal slip-
pers! And yet for all this, to be prigging up for an hour when
any of my old chums come to dine with me!
“Bless your kind hearts! my dear fellows,” said I, thrusting
the tongs into the coals, and speaking out loud, as if my voice
could reach from Virginia to Paris - "not married yet! ”
Perhaps Peggy is pretty enough — only shrewish.
No matter for cold coffee: you should have been up before.
What sad, thin, poorly cooked chops to eat with your rolls!
She thinks they are very good, and wonders how you can set
such an example to your children.
(
i
## p. 10118 (#546) ##########################################
10118
DONALD G. MITCHELL
>
»
son ;
The butter is nauseating.
She has no other, and hopes you'll not raise a storm about
butter a little turned. I think I see myself, ruminated I, sitting
I
meekly at table, scarce daring to lift up my eyes, utterly fagged
out with some quarrel of yesterday, choking down detestably
sour muffins, that my wife thinks are “delicious,” — slipping in
dried mouthfuls of burnt ham off the side of my fork-tines, -
slipping off my chair sideways at the end, and slipping out with
my hat between my knees, to business, and never feeling myself
a competent, sound-minded man till the oak door is between me
and Peggy!
"Ha, ha,- not yet! ” said I; and in so earnest a tone, that
my dog started to his feet, cocked his eye to have a good look
into my face, met my smile of triumph with an amiable wag of
the tail, and curled up again in the corner.
Again, Peggy is rich enough, well enough, mild enough, only
she doesn't care a fig for you. She has married you because
father or grandfather thought the match eligible, and because
she didn't wish to disoblige them. Besides, she didn't positively
hate you, and thought you were a respectable enough young per-
-she has told you so repeatedly at dinner. She wonders
you like to read poetry; she wishes you would buy her a good
cook-book; and insists upon your making your will at the birth
of the first baby.
She thinks Captain So-and-So a splendid-looking fellow, and
wishes you would trim up a little, were it only for appearance's
sake.
You need not hurry up from the office so early at night: she,
bless her dear heart! does not feel lonely. You read to her a
love tale: she interrupts the pathetic parts with directions to her
seamstress. You read of marriages: she sighs, and asks if Cap-
tain So-and-So has left town! She hates to be mewed up in a
cottage, or between brick walls: she does so love the Springs!
But again, Peggy loves you; at least she swears it, with her
hand on the Sorrows of Werther. ) She has pin-money which
she spends for the Literary World and the Friends in Council. '
She is not bad-looking, save a bit too much of forehead; nor
is she sluttish, unless a negligé till three o'clock, and an ink-
stain on the forefinger, be sluttish; — but then she is such a sad
blue!
You never fancied, when you saw her buried in a three-
volume novel, that it was anything more than a girlish vagary;
## p. 10119 (#547) ##########################################
DONALD G. MITCHELL
10119
and when she quoted Latin, you thought innocently that she had
a capital memory for her samplers.
But to be bored eternally about divine Dante and funny Gol-
doni is too bad. Your copy of Tasso, a treasure print of 1680,
is all bethumbed and dog's-eared, and spotted with baby-gruel.
Even your Seneca - an Elzevir - is all sweaty with handling.
-
She adores La Fontaine, reads Balzac with a kind of artist scowl,
and will not let Greek alone.
You hint at broken rest and an aching head at breakfast, and
she will Aling you a scrap of Anthology — in lieu of the camphor
bottle - or chant the aiai aiai of tragic chorus.
The nurse is getting dinner; you are holding the baby: Peggy
is reading Bruyère.
The fire smoked thick as pitch, and puffed out little clouds
over the chimney-piece. I
gave the forestick a kick, at the
thought of Peggy, baby, and Bruyère.
Suddenly the flame flickered bluely athwart the smoke -
caught at a twig below — rolled around the mossy oak stick - -
twined among the crackling tree-limbs -- mounted - lit up the
whole body of smoke, and blazed out cheerily and bright. Doubt
vanished with Smoke, and Hope began with Flame.
II.
BLAZE — SIGNIFYING CHEER
I PUSHED my chair back; drew up another; stretched out my
feet cozily upon it, rested my elbows on the chair arms, leaned
my head on one hand, and looked straight into the leaping and
dancing flame.
Love is a flame — ruminated I; and (glancing round the room)
how a flame brightens up a man's habitation!
"Carlo,” said I, calling up my dog into the light, "good fel-
low, Carlo! " and I patted him kindly, and he wagged his tail,
and laid his nose across my knee, and looked wistfully up in my
face; then strode away,— turned to look again, and lay down to
sleep.
Pho, the brute! ” said I; “it is not enough, after all, to like
a dog. ”
If now
in that chair yonder,— not the one your feet lie
upon, but the other, beside you — closer yet — were seated a sweet-
faced girl, with a pretty little foot lying out upon the hearth, a
bit of lace running round the swelling throat, the hair parted to
(C
»
## p. 10120 (#548) ##########################################
IOI 20
DONALD G. MITCHELL
-
a charm over a forehead fair as any of your dreams — and if
you could reach an arm around that chair-back, without fear of
giving offense, and suffer your fingers to play idly with those
curls that escape down the neck; and if you could clasp with
your other hand those little white taper fingers of hers, which
lie so temptingly within reach, - and so talk softly and low in
presence of the blaze, while the hours slip without knowledge,
and the winter winds whistle uncared-for;- if, in short, you
were no bachelor, but the husband of some such sweet image
(dream, call it rather), — would it not be far pleasanter than this
cold single night-sitting - counting the sticks — reckoning the
length of the blaze and the height of the falling snow?
And if some or all of those wild vagaries that grow on your
fancy at such an hour, you could whisper into listening, because
loving ears - ears not tired with listening, because it is you who
whisper-ears ever indulgent because eager to praise ;- and if
your darkest fancies were lit up, not merely with bright wood
fire, but with a ringing laugh of that sweet face turned up in
fond rebuke how far better than to be waxing black and sour
over pestilential humors — alone -- your very dog asleep!
And if when a glowing thought comes into your brain,
quick and sudden, you could tell it over as to a second self, to
that sweet creature, who is not away, because she loves to be
there; and if you could watch the thought catching that girlish
mind, illuming that fair brow, sparkling in those pleasantest of
eyes- how far better than to feel it slumbering, and going out,
- heavy, lifeless, and dead, in your own selfish fancy.
generous emotion steals over you, coming you know not whither,
would there not be a richer charm in lavishing it in caress or
endearing word upon that fondest and most dear one, than in
patting your glossy-coated dog, or sinking lonely to smiling slum-
bers ?
How would not benevolence ripen with such monitor to task
it! How would not selfishness grow faint and dull, leaning ever
to that second self, which is the loved one! How would not
guile shiver, and grow weak, before that girl-brow and eye of
innocence! How would not all that boyhood prized of enthusi-
asm, and quick blood, and life, renew itself in such a presence!
The fire was getting hotter, and I moved into the middle of
the room. The shadows the flames made were playing like fairy
forms over floor and wall and ceiling,
## p. 10121 (#549) ##########################################
DONALD G. MITCHELL
IOI 21
My fancy would surely quicken, thought I, if such a being
were in attendance. Surely imagination would be stronger and
purer, if it could have the playful fancies of dawning womanhood
to delight it. All toil would be torn from mind-labor, if but
another heart grew into this present soul, quickening it, warming
it, cheering it, bidding it ever - God-speed !
Her face would make a halo, rich as a rainbow, atop of all
such noisome things as we lonely souls call trouble. Her smile
would illumine the blackest of crowding cares; and darkness that
now seats you despondent in your solitary chair for days together,
weaving bitter fancies, dreaming bitter dreams, would grow light
and thin, and spread and float away — chased by that beloved
smile.
Your friend
- poor fellow ! — dies; never mind: that gentle
clasp of her fingers, as she steals behind you, telling you not
to weep — it is worth ten friends!
Your sister, sweet one, is dead — buried. The worms are busy
with all her fairness. How it makes you think earth nothing but
a spot to dig graves upon!
It is more: she, she says, will be a sister; and the waving
curls as she leans upon your shoulder, touch your cheek, and
your wet eye turns to meet those other eyes. — God has sent his
angel, surely.
Your mother, alas for it, she is gone! Is there any bitterness
to a youth, alone and homeless, like this ?
But you are not homeless; you are not alone: she is there;
- her tears softening yours, her smile lighting yours, her grief
killing yours; and you live again, to assuage that kind sorrow of
hers.
Then – those children, rosy, fair-haired; no, they do
, not
disturb you with their prattle now — they are yours ! Toss
away there on the greensward-never mind the hyacinths, the
–
snowdrops, the violets, if so be any are there: the perfume of
their healthful lips is worth all the flowers of the world. No
need now to gather wild bouquets to love and cherish: flower,
tree, gun, are all dead things; things livelier hold your soul.
And she, the mother, sweetest and fairest of all, watching,
tending, caressing, loving, till your own heart grows pained with
tenderest jealousy, and cures itself with loving.
You have no need now of any cold lecture to teach thankful-
ness: your heart is full of it. No need now, as once, of burst-
ing blossoms, of trees taking leaf, and greenness, to turn thought
## p. 10122 (#550) ##########################################
IOI 22
DONALD G. MITCHELL
kindly and thankfully: forever beside you there is bloom, and
ever beside you there is fruit, - for which eye, heart, and soul
are full of unknown, and unspoken, because unspeakable, thank-
offering
And if sickness catches you, binds you, lays you down — no
lonely moanings, and wicked curses at careless-stepping nurses.
The step is noiseless, and yet distinct beside you, . The white
curtains are drawn, or withdrawn by the magic of that other
presence; and the soft cool hand is upon your brow.
No cold comfortings of friend-watchers, merely come in to
steal a word away from that outer world which is pulling at
their skirts; but ever the sad shaded brow of her whose lightest
sorrow for your sake is your greatest grief,- if it were not a
greater joy.
The blaze was leaping light and high, and the wood falling
under the growing heat.
So, continued I, this heart would be at length itself; striving
with everything gross, even now as it clings to grossness.
Love
would make its strength native and progressive. Earth's cares
would fly. Joys would double. Susceptibilities be quickened.
Love master Self; and having made the mastery, stretch onward
and upward toward Infinitude.
And if the end came, and sickness brought that follower-
Great Follower— which sooner or later is sure to come after,
then the heart and the hand of Love, ever near, are giving to
your tired soul, daily and hourly, lessons of that love which con-
soles, which triumphs, which circleth all and centreth in all -
Love Infinite and Divine!
Kind hands none but hers — will smooth the hair upon your
brow as the chill grows damp and heavy on it; and her fingers
none but hers—will lie in yours as the wasted flesh stiffens
and hardens for the ground. Her tears — you could feel no
others, if oceans fell — will warm your drooping features once
more to life; once more your eye, lighted in joyous triumph,
kindle in her smile, and then
The fire fell upon the hearth; the blaze gave a last leap -a
flicker — then another -- caught a little remaining twig - blazed
up— wavered
- went out.
There was nothing but a bed of glowing embers, over which
the white ashes gathered fast. I was alone with only my dog
for company.
## p. 10123 (#551) ##########################################
10123
S. WEIR MITCHELL
(1829-)
R. Weir Mitchell has won distinction in two very different
fields. He has international reputation as a specialist in
nervous diseases, while as a writer of fiction and poetry he
has done work of dignity and worth.
Silas Weir Mitchell — he has dropped the first baptismal name
is the son of the Rev. Dr. I. K. Mitchell of Philadelphia, in which
city Weir was born February 15th, 1829. He was educated at the
University of Pennsylvania, and at Jefferson Medical College, whence
he was graduated in 1850. He soon did
notable work in the study of snake poisons;
and as army surgeon in the Philadelphia
hospital for injuries to the nerves, his studies
of nervous affections gave him a high place
in his profession. Besides more technical
publications, his medical works include a
number of popular treatises.
In view of his strenuous and success-
ful labor in medicine, Dr. Mitchell has
displayed a remarkable activity in pure lit-
erature. His works in fiction and poetry
count up to a dozen or more volumes. His
first fiction, Hephzibah Guinness,' a volume S. WEIR MITCHELL
containing three short stories, appeared in
1880; and it was followed by 'In War Time) in 1884, Roland Blake
in 1886, and Characteristics in 1893,— the latter not fiction strictly,
but rather a series of conversations, full of suggestive ideas, and
often brilliant in reflection or characterization. It was not until the
novel (Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker,' in 1897, that Dr. Mitchell revealed
his full power as a story-writer, producing a powerful and skillfully
wrought art-work. Quaker life and war life have in his earlier fic-
tion been leading themes of interest; and in this fine historical study
of Revolutionary times in America, these blended in a story of much
picturesqueness, movement, and dramatic force. The book, while full
of accurate delineations of the bygone day, is written in a roman-
tic spirit which gives it color and charm. The analysis of human
nature is keen,- that of one who knows men and women in their
)
## p. 10124 (#552) ##########################################
10121
S. WEIR MITCHELL
normal and morbid manifestations, but who, by force of the poetic
imagination, avoids in his treatment the unpleasantly realistic or
pessimistic. Hugh Wynne certainly must be included among the
larger works of American historical-romantic fiction.
Dr. Mitchell began to print verse in 1882, with a volume entitled
(The Hill of Stones'; and the seven books which he has subsequently
published were gathered in 1896 into the single volume of his Col-
lected Poems. ) He demonstrates a genuine gift as a verse-writer;
and in a kind less often cultivated with success by modern poets —
the dramatic — he has done fine things. His historical pieces, Francis
Drake' and Philip Vernon,' are very vigorous and pleasing, and
show a sympathetic comprehension of Elizabethan models, a skillful
handling of blank verse, and a virile imagination. These poems are
dramatic in more than name and aim. The lyrics herewith printed
show Dr. Mitchell's happy touch in lighter forms.
A striking figure in the social and intellectual life of his city, a
rugged personality impressing those with whom it comes in contact,
an American of distinction, Weir Mitchell's contribution to letters is
sufficient to give him honorable enrollment among the literary men of
his land.
(
ANDRÉ'S FATE
From Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker. Copyright 1897, by the Century
Company
O"
N THE 20th of September I was desired by my colonel to con-
duct two companies from Newark, where we lay, through
the gap at Ramapo, New Jersey, to the main army, which
at this date was camped, as I have said, about Tappan. Being
stout and well, I was glad to move, and glad of a chance to see
the great river Hudson. We were assigned camp-ground near to
Piermont, on a hill slope, in a long-settled country, where since
early in the seventeenth century the Dutch had possessed the
land. Having no tents, on arriving we set to work at the old
business of hut-building; so that it was not until the 26th of Sep-
tember that I had an idle hour in which to look up Jack, who
lay somewhere between Tappan and the river.
It was, as usual, a joyous meeting, and we never did less
lack for talk. Jack told me that he was ordered on an unpleas-
ant bit of business, and asked if I could not get leave to go with
him. Orders were come from West Point to seize and destroy all
periaguas, canoes, and boats in the possession of the few and
## p. 10125 (#553) ##########################################
S. WEIR MITCHELL
10125
often doubtfully loyal people between us and King's Ferry. He
had for this duty two sail-rigged dories with slide-keels, and
would take two soldiers in each.
Upon his representing my skill as a sailor, and the need for
two officers, I was allowed to turn over my command to the
junior captain and to join Jack.
We set off on the 27th of September with provender and two
small tents, and went away up the river with a fine wind. The
water was a dull gray, and the heavens clouded. The far shore
of Dobbs' Ferry and Tarrytown was already gayly tinted with
the hues of the autumn, and to south the bleak gray lines of the
Palisades below Sneedon's Landing lay sombre and stern under
a sunless sky. One of my men was a good sailor, and I was
thus enabled to spend most of the day in Jack's boat.
I mention all these details because of a curious coincidence.
I said to Jack - I was steering — that I had had since dawn a
- I —
feeling that some calamity was about to happen. Now this was,
as I recall it, a notion quite new to me, and far more like Jack
himself. He laughed and said it was the east wind. Then after
a pause he added: "I was trying to recall something I once
heard, and now I have it. This waiting for an idea is like fish-
ing in the deep waters of the mind: sometimes one gets only a
nibble, and sometimes a bite; but I have my fish. It was Dr.
Rush who told me that the liver was the mother of ghosts and
presentiments. When I told him I was afflicted with these latter,
he put on his glasses, looked at me, and said I was of a presen-
timental temperament. ”
“And he was right,” said I, laughing. Then Jack declared
the weather was sorry enough to account for my notion. I made
answer, as I remember, that I was not subject to the rule of the
weathercock, like some fellows I knew, nor to thinking I was
going to be shot. This shut up Jack for a while, and we got off
on to our own wise plans for capturing Sir Henry and all his
host.
At last we ran ashore at a settled point, called Nyack, and
thence we went to and fro wherever we saw the smoke of men's
homes. We broke up or burned many boats and dugouts, amid
the lamentations of their owners, because with the aid of these
they were enabled to take fish, and were ill off for other diet.
We had an ugly task, and could only regret the sad but inexor-
able necessities of war.
## p. 10126 (#554) ##########################################
101 26
S. WEIR MITCHELL
As we ap-
We camped ten miles above Piermont; and next day, near to
dusk, got as far as King's Landing, having pretty thoroughly
attended to our ungracious task.
As the tall promontory of Stony Point rose before us, dim in
the evening light, we talked of Wayne's gallant storming of this
formidable fort, and of his affection for the bayonet, which, he
said, was to be preferred to the musket because it was always
loaded.
“We of our State had most of that glory,” said Jack; "and
all our best generals, save the great chief, are men of the
North,” which was true and strange.
We had at this place a strong force of horse and foot; and
here we meant to pass the night with some of our officers,
friends of Jack's.
It was quite dark, when, running in with a free sheet, we
came close to a large barge rowed by six men.
proached I heard a stern order to keep off; and recognized in
the boat, where were also armed men, Major Tallmadge, whom
I knew. I called to him, but as he only repeated his order, I
answered, “Very well, sir ;” and we drew in to the shore some
hundred feet away.
Jack said it was queer: what could it mean? We walked
toward the small blockhouse in time to see Tallmadge and several
soldiers conduct a cloaked prisoner into the fort. A little later
the major came out, and at once asked me to excuse his abrupt-
ness, saying that he had in charge Sir Henry Clinton's adjutant-
general, who had been caught acting as a spy, and was now
,
about to be taken to Tappan. I exclaimed, “Not Major André! ”
"Yes,” he returned, "André. A bad business. ” And I was
hastily told the miserable story of Arnold's treason and flight.
I turned to Jack. « There it is,” said I. «What of my presenti.
ment? ” He was silent. “You know, I added, “that to this
man I owed my life at the Mischianza ball: here he is in the
same trap from which his refusal to aid my cousin saved me. ”
I was terribly distressed; and at my urgent desire, in place of
remaining at the fort, we set out after supper and pulled down
the river against the food-tide, while my unfortunate friend
André was hurried away to Tappan, guarded by a strong escort
of light horse.
We reached Sneedon's Landing about 5 A, M. , and I went
up with Jack to his hut. Here I got a bit of uneasy sleep, and
(
1
## p. 10127 (#555) ##########################################
S. WEIR MITCHELL
10127
thence set off to find Hamilton; for the whole staff, with his
Excellency, had made haste to reach the camp at Tappan so soon
as the general felt reassured as to the safety of West Point.
I walked a half-mile up a gentle rise of ground to the main
road, about which were set, close to the old Dutch church, a few
modest one-story stone houses, with far and near the canton-
ments of the armies. At the bridge over Piermont Creek, I was
stopped by sentries set around a low brick building, then used as
headquarters. It stood amid scattered apple-trees on a slight rise
of ground, and was, as I recall it, built of red and black brick.
Behind the house was the little camp of the mounted guard, and
on all sides were stationed sentinels, who kept the immediate
grounds clear from intrusion. For this there was need; soldiers
and officers were continually coming hither in hopes to gather
fresh news of the great treason, or curious as to this strange
capture of Sir Henry Clinton's adjutant. General officers came
and went with grave faces; aides mounted and rode away in
haste; all was excitement and anxious interest, - every one asking
questions, and none much the wiser. With difficulty I succeeded
in sending in a note to Hamilton along with Jack's report. This
was nigh to nine in the morning, but it was after midday before
I got a chance to see my friend.
Meanwhile I walked up and down in a state of such agitation
and distress as never before nor since have I known. When I
had seen Major Tallmadge, he knew but little of those details of
Arnold's treason which later became the property of all men;
but he did tell me that the correspondence had been carried on
for Sir Henry by André in the name of Anderson, and this
brought to my mind the letter which the Quaker farmer declined
to surrender to me at the time I was serving as Arnold's aide.
I went back at last to Jack's hut in the valley near the river,
and waited. I leave Jack to say how I felt and acted that day
and evening, as I lay and thought of André and of poor Mar-
garet Shippen, Arnold's wife: -
“Never have I seen my dear Hugh in such trouble. Here
was a broken-hearted woman, the companion of his childhood;
and André, who, at a moment which must have called upon his
every instinct as a soldier, held back and saved my friend from
a fate but too likely to be his own. Hugh all that evening lay
in our hut, and now and then would break out declaring he must
do something; but what, he knew not, nor did I. He was even
## p. 10128 (#556) ##########################################
10128
S. WEIR MITCHELL
so mad as to think he might plan some way to assist André
to escape. I listened, but said nothing, being assured from long
knowledge that his judgment would correct the influence of the
emotion which did at first seem to disturb it.
"Now all this miserable business is over, I ask myself if our
chief would have tried to buy an English general; or if so, would
I or Hugh have gone on such an errand as André's. To be a
spy is but a simple duty, and no shame in it; but as to the
shape this other matter took, I do not feel able to decide. ”
Still later he adds:
“Nor is my mind more fully settled as to it to-day; some
think one way, some another. I had rather André had not gone
on this errand with the promise of a great reward. Yet I think
he did believe he was only doing his duty. ”
After an hour or more of fruitless thinking, not hearing from
Mr. Hamilton, I walked back to headquarters. Neither in the
joy and pride of glad news, nor when disaster on disaster fell on
us, have I ever seen anything like the intensity of expectation
and of anxiety which at this time reigned in our camps. The
capture of the adjutant-general was grave enough; his fate hung
in no doubtful balance: but the feeling aroused by the fall of a
great soldier, the dishonor of one greatly esteemed in the ranks,
the fear of what else might come, all served to foster uneasiness
and to feed suspicion. As the great chief had said, whom now
could he trust, or could we? The men talked in half-whispers
about the camp-fires; an hundred wild rumors were afloat; and
now and again eager eyes looked toward the low brick church
where twelve general officers were holding the court-martial
which was to decide the fate of my friend.
It was evening before the decision of the court-martial became
generally known. I wandered about all that day in the utmost
depression of mind. About two in the afternoon of this 29th of
September, I met Hamilton near the creek. He said he had
been busy all day, and was free for an hour: would I come
and dine at his quarters ? what was the matter with me?
I was
glad of the chance to speak freely. We had a long and a sad
talk, and he then learned why this miserable affair affected
me so deeply. He had no belief that the court could do other
than condemn Mr. André to die. I asked anxiously if the chief
were certain to approve the sentence. He replied gloomily, "As
surely as there is a God in heaven. ”
1
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S. WEIR MITCHELL
T0129
I could only wait. A hundred schemes were in my mind,
each as useless as the others, In fact, I knew not what to do.
On the 30th his Excellency signed the death-warrant; and all
hope being at an end, I determined to make an effort to see the
man to whom I believe I owed my life. When I represented
the matter to Mr. Hamilton and to the Marquis de Lafayette, I
put my request on the ground that Mr. André had here no one
who could be called a friend, excepting only myself; and that to
refuse me an interview were needlessly cruel. I wrote my appli-
cation with care, the marquis, who was most kind throughout,
charging himself with the business of placing it favorably before
our chief.
The execution had been ordered for October ist; but upon
receipt of some communication from Sir Henry Clinton, it was
postponed until noon on October 2d.
On the 30th I rode out into the hills back of Tappan, and
tried to compose myself by my usual and effective remedy of a
hard ride. It was useless now. I came back to my friend's
quarters and tried to read, finding a stray volume of the Ram-
bler on his table. It was as vain a resort.
Never at any time in my memory have I spent two days of
such unhappiness. I could get no rest and no peace of mind.
To be thus terribly in the grip of events over which you have
no control, is to men of my temper a maddening affliction. My
heart seemed all the time to say, “Do something,” and my rea-
son to reply, “There is nothing to do. ” It was thus in the jail
when my cousin was on my mind; now it was as to André, and
as to the great debt I owed him, and how to pay it. People who
despair easily do not fall into the clutches of this intense cray-
ing for some practical means of relief where none can be. It is
the hopeful, the resolute, and such as are educated by success,
who suffer thus. But why inflict on others the story of these
two days, except to let those who come after me learn how one
of their blood looked upon a noble debt, which, alas! like many
debts, must go to be settled in another world, and in other ways
than ours.
Hamilton, who saw my agitation, begged me to prepare for
disappointment. I, however, could see no reason to deny a man
access to one doomed, when no other friend was near.
Nor was
I wrong. About seven in the evening of the ist, the marquis
came in haste to find me. He had asked for my interview with
XVII-634
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.
10130
S. WEIR MITCHELL
Mr. André as a favor to himself. His Excellency had granted
the request in the face of objections from two general officers,
whom the marquis did not name.
As I thanked him he gave
me this order:
“To Major Tallmadge :
“The bearer, Hugh Wynne, Esq. , Captain Second Company,
Third Regiment of Pennsylvania Foot, has herewith permission
to visit Major André.
“GEOWASHINGTON.
"October ist, 1780. "
I went at once — it was now close to eight in the evening -
to the small house of one Maby, where the prisoner was kept.
It was but an hundred yards from his Excellency's quarters. Six
sentries marched to and fro around it, and within the room two
officers remained day and night with drawn swords.
My pass
was taken at the door of the house, while I waited on the road
without. In a few minutes an officer came to me with Major
Tallmadge's compliments, and would I be pleased to enter?
I sometimes think it strange how, even in particulars, the
natural and other scenery of this dark drama remains distinct
in my memory, unaffected by the obliterating influence of the
years, which have effaced so much else I had been more glad
to keep
I can
see to-day the rising moon, the yellowish road, the
long gray stone farm-house of one story, with windows set in an
irregular frame of brickwork. The door opens, and I find myself
in a short hall, where two officers salute as I pass. My con-
ductor says, “This way, Captain Wynne ”; and I enter a long,
cheerless-looking apartment, the sitting-room of a Dutch farm-
house. Two lieutenants, seated within at the doorway, rose as I
entered, and saluting me, sat down again. I stood an instant
looking about me. A huge log fire roared on the hearth, so
lighting the room that I saw its glow catch the bayonet tips of
the sentinels outside, as they went and came. There were a half-
dozen wooden chairs, and on a pine table four candles burning,
a bottle of Hollands, a decanter and glasses. In a high-backed
chair sat a man with his face to the fire. It was André. He
was tranquilly sketching, with a quill pen, a likeness of himself. *
* My acquaintance, Captain Tomlinson, has it.
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JO131
He did not turn or leave off drawing until Captain Tomlinson,
one of the officers in charge, seeing me pause, said:-
"Your pardon, major. Here is a gentleman come to visit
you. ”
»
As he spoke the prisoner turned, and I was at once struck by
the extreme pallor of his face, even as seen in the red light of
the fire. His death-like whiteness at this time brought out the
regular beauty of his features, as his usual ruddiness of color
never did. I have since seen strong men near to certain death,
but I recall no one who, with a serene and untroubled visage,
was yet as white as was this gentleman.
The captain did not present me; and for a moment I stood
with a kind of choking in the throat, which came, I suppose, of
the great shock André's appearance gave me. He was thus the
first to speak.
“Pardon me,” he said as he rose: “the name escaped me. ”
“Mr. Hugh Wynne,” I said, getting myself pulled together -
it was much needed.
"O Wynne! ” he cried quite joyously: "I did not know you.
How delightful to see a friend; how good of you to come! Sit
down. Our accommodations are slight. Thanks to his Excel-
lency, here are Madeira and Hollands: may I offer you a
glass ? »
“No, no," I said, as we took chairs by the fire; on which he
cast a log, remarking how cold it was.
