Bart Ridgeley Part 34

"I suppose," said Ida, "that a great many beautiful and heroic events are very prosy and painful to the actors therein, and they never dream the world will give them the gloss of romance."

"Ladies," said the young man, with a gay and mocking air, "hear the romance of the Judge's daughter, and the poor student--certainly a _very_ poor student. There was a rich, powerful and proud Judge; he had an only daughter, more beautiful than a painter's dream, and proud as a princess born. In the neighborhood was a poor and idle youth, who had been the Judge's secretary, and had been dismissed, and who loved the proud and beautiful maiden, as idle and foolish youths sometimes do. The beautiful maiden scorned him with a scorn that banished him from her sight, for he was prouder than Judge and daughter, both.

While disporting with her damsels among the spring flowers in the forest, one day, the beautiful maiden wandered away and became lost in the heart of an interminable wood, more wild and lonely than that which swallowed up the babes of the old ballad. Day pa.s.sed and night came, and in its bosom was hidden a fierce tempest of wind and hail and snow. The poor maiden wandered on, and on, and on, until she came upon the banks of a dart, cold river; wild and lost amid tempest and storm, she wandered down its banks, until, in despair, chilled and benumbed without heart or hope, she laid her down to die, and the pure snow covered her. Her father, the proud Judge, and his friends, were searching for her miles away.

"A little boy told the story to the poor student, who hurried into the forest, and under the inspiration of his scorned love, ran and ran until he found the swooning maiden under the snow, took her up in his arms, placed his garments upon her, and bore her through the cold and rapid stream, found a shelter under the rocks on the other side, kindled a fire, gave the maiden, proud no longer, a cordial, warmed and restored her, made her a couch of moss and dried leaves, and while she slept he watched over her until the day dawned. Then he conducted her to a wood-chopper's cabin in the forest, where she was tenderly cared for. The poor, proud youth would hear no thanks from the maiden.

He sent a note, without his name, to the proud Judge, telling him where his daughter could be found; and never saw the beautiful maiden, or proud rich Judge afterwards. This, ladies," with the same gay banter, "is the romance of the Judge's daughter and the poor student."

"And I suspect," said Miss Giddings, seriously, "that it is about the literal truth of the affair, and it is more romantic than I had thought."

"Barton has made the acquaintance of poor Sartliff," said Ida, willing to introduce a new subject, "and was much struck by him."

"Do you think he is actually shattered?" asked Miss Giddings.

"I really have no opinion. His mind moves in such unaccustomed channels: we find it in such unusual haunts, that n.o.body can tell whether it remains healthy or not. It works logically enough, granting his premises. Of course he is under delusions--we should call them mistakes merely, if they occurred in ordinary speculations; but with him, in his abnormal pursuits, they are to be expressed under the vapory forms of delusions."

"Oh, it is the saddest sight to see this young man, with a nature so richly endowed, asking only for light, and the right way; to see him turning so blindly from the true given light, and searching with simple earnestness along sterile, rocky byways and th.o.r.n.y hedges, to find the path or opening that conducts back to a true starting place.

He opens his bosom to sun and air, and bares his feet to the earth, thinking that inspiration will, through some avenue, reach his senses, and so inform him. It is the most pitiful spectacle that the eye can see," said Ida, pathetically.

"Like a kind spirit sent from heaven to earth," said Bart, "who, having forgotten his message, can never find his way back; but is doomed to wander up and down the uncongenial region, searching in vain for the star-beam by which he descended."

"My father has quite given him up," said Miss Giddings; "he says he pa.s.sed long since the verge of healthy thought and speculation. I used to think that possibly some new and powerful stimulus, such as might spring from some new cause--"

"Love, for instance," suggested Bart.

"Yes, love, for instance. I declare, Mr. Ridgeley, you think as a woman."

"Do women really think? I thought their minds were so clear and strong that thought was unnecessary, and they were always blest with intuitions."

"Well, sir, some of them are obliged to think--when they want to be understood by men, who don't have intuitions, and can't go at all without something to hold up by--and a woman would think, perhaps, that if Sartliff could fall in love--"

"And if he can't he isn't worth the saving," interjected Bart.

"Exactly; and if he could, that through its medium he might be brought back to a healthy frame of mind, or a healthy walk of mind. There, Mr. Ridgeley, I have got out with that, though rather limpingly, after all."

"And a forcible case you have made. Here is a man crazy about Nature; you propose as a cure for that, to make him mad about a woman. And what next?"

"Well, love is human--or inhuman," said Miss Giddings; "if the former, marriage is the specific; if the latter, his lady-love might get lost in a wood, you know."

"Yes, I see. Poor Sartliff had better remain where he is, winking and blinking for the lights of Nature," said Bart.

"I remember," interposed Ida, "that he and your brother, among the matters they used to discuss, disagreed in their estimate of authors.

Sartliff could never endure N.P. Willis, for instance."

"A sign," said Miss Giddings, "that he was sane then, at least.

Willis, in Europe, is called the poet's lap-dog, with his ringlets and Lady Blessingtons."

"I believe he had the pluck to meet Captain Marryatt," said Bart.

"Was that particularly creditable?" asked Miss Giddings.

"Well, poets' lap-dogs don't fight duels, much; and Miss Giddings, do you think a lap-dog could have written this?" And taking up a volume of Willis, he turned from them and read "Hagar." As he read, he seemed possessed with the power and pathos of the piece, and his deep voice trembled under its burthen. At the end, he laid the book down, and walked to a window while his emotion subsided. His voice always had a strange power of exciting him. After a moment's silence, Miss Giddings said, with feeling:

"I never knew before that there was half that force and strength in Willis. As you render it, it is almost sublime. Will you read another?"

Taking up the book, he read "Jepthah's Daughter:" reading it with less feeling, perhaps, but in a better manner.

"I give it up," said Miss Giddings, "though I am not certain whether it is not in you, rather than in Willis, after all."

"Six or seven years ago, when my brother Henry came home and gathered us up, and rekindled the home fires on the old hearth," said Bart, "he commenced taking the _New York Mirror_, just established by George P. Morris, a.s.sisted by Fay and Willis. Fay, you know, has recently published his novel, 'Norman Leslie,' the second volume of which flats out so awfully. At that time these younger men were in Europe; and we took wonderfully to them, and particularly to Willis's 'First Impressions,' and 'Pencillings by the Way.' To me they were authentic, and opened the inside of English literary society and life, and I came to like him. The language has a wonderful flexile power and grace in his hands; and I think he has real poetry in his veins, much more than John Neal, or Dr. Drake, though certainly less than Bryant. Yet there is a kind of puppyism about the man that will probably prevent his ever achieving the highest place in our literature."

"You are a poet yourself, Mr. Ridgeley, I understand," said Miss Giddings.

"I like poetry, which is a totally different thing from the power to produce it; this I am sure I have not," was the candid answer.

"You have tried?"

"Most young men with a lively fancy and fervid feelings, write verses, I believe. Here is Mr. Case, quite a verse writer, and some of his lines have a tone or tinge of poetry."

"Would you like literature for a pursuit?"

"I like books, as I like art and music, but I somehow feel that our state of society at the West, and indeed our civilization, is not ripe enough to reach a first excellence in any of these high branches of achievement. Our hands are thick and hard from grappling with the rough savagery of our new rude continent. We can construct the strong works of utility, and shall meet the demands for the higher and better work when that demand actually exists."

"But does not that demand exist? Hasn't there been a clamor for the American novel? A standing advertis.e.m.e.nt--'Wanted, the American Novel'--has been placarded ever since I can remember; and I must forget how long that is," said Miss Giddings.

"Yes, I've heard of that; but that is not the demand that will compel what it asks for. It will be the craving of millions, stimulating millions of brains, and some man will arise superior to the herd, and his achievement will challenge every other man of conscious powers, and they will educate and ripen each other till the best, who is never the first, will appear and supply the need. No great man ever appeared alone. He is the greatest of a group of great men, many of whom preceded him, and without whom he would have been impossible. Homer, alone of his group, has reached us; Shakespeare will live alone of his age, four thousand years hence."

"But, Mr. Ridgeley, our continent and our life, with our fresh, young, intense natures, seem to me to contain all the elements of poetry, and the highest drama," said Miss Giddings.

"So they seem to us, and yet how much of that is due to our egotism--because it is ours--who can tell? Of course there is any amount of poetry in the raw, and so it will remain until somebody comes to work it up. There are plenty of things to inspire, but the man to be inspired is the thing most needed."

"So that, Mr. Ridgeley," said Ida, "we may not in our time hope for the American novel, the great American epic, or the great American drama?"

"Well, I don't know that these will ever be. That will depend upon our luck in acquiring a mode and style, and habit of thought, and power of expression of our own, which for many reasons we may never have. An American new writes as much like an Englishman as he can--and the more servile the imitation, the better we like him--as a woman writes like a man as nearly as she possibly can, for he is the standard. What is there in Irving, that is not wholly and purely English? And so of Cooper; his st.u.r.diness and vigor are those of a genuine Englishman, and when they write of American subjects, they write as an Englishman would; and if better, it is because they are better informed."

"Mr. Ridgeley," said Miss Giddings, "can't you give us an American book?"

"'When the little fishes fly Like swallows in the sky,'

An American will write an American book," said Bart, laughing. "But your question is a good answer to my solemn twaddle on literature."

"No, I don't quite rate it as twaddle," said Ida.

"Don't you though?" asked Bart.

"No," seriously. "Now what is the effect of our American literature upon the general character of English literature? We certainly add to its bulk."