Authors and Writers Associated with Morristown Part 13

"Hannah! Hannah! this is no place for you. We do not want you here just now;" and would have taken her hand to lead her from the room.

She was a docile little woman and obeyed his wishes in general without a word: but now it seemed as if she scarcely saw him, as with one hand she pushed him gently back and turned to the startled group.

"Have you made your decision, gentlemen?" she asked. "Have you chosen the part of men or of traitors?"

It was putting the question too broadly,--so like a woman, seeing only the bare, ugly facts, and quite forgetting the delicate drapery which was intended to veil them. It was an awkward position to put them in, and they stammered and bungled over their answer, as men in a false position will.

The reply came at last, mingled with explanations and excuses and apologies.

"Quite hopeless; absurd for a starving, half-clothed, undisciplined army like ours to attempt to compete with a country like England's unlimited resources. Repulsed everywhere--ruined; throwing away life and fortune for a shadow;"--you know the old arguments with which men try to prop a staggering conscience.

Mrs. Arnett listened in silence until the last abject word was spoken. Then she inquired simply: "But what if we should live, after all?"

The men looked at each other, but no one spoke.

"Hannah! Hannah!" urged her husband. "Do you not see that these are no questions for you? We are discussing what is best for us, for you, for all. Women have no share in these topics. Go to your spinning-wheel and leave us to settle affairs. My good little wife, you are making yourself ridiculous. Do not expose yourself in this way before our friends."

His words pa.s.sed her ear like the idle wind; not even the quiver of an eyelash showed that she heard them.

"Can you not tell me?" she said in the same strangely quiet voice. "If, after all, G.o.d does not let the right perish,--if America should win in the conflict, after you have thrown yourself upon British clemency, where will you be then?"

"Then?" spoke one hesitating voice. "Why, then, if it ever _could_ be, we should be ruined. We must leave the country forever. But it is absurd to think of such a thing. The struggle is an utterly hopeless one. We have no men, no money, no arms, no food and England has everything."

"No," said Mrs. Arnett; "you have forgotten one thing which England has not and which we have--one thing which outweighs all England's treasures, and that is the Right. G.o.d is on our side, and every volley from our muskets is an echo of His voice. We are poor and weak and few; but G.o.d is fighting for us. We entered into this struggle with pure hearts and prayerful lips. We had counted the cost and were willing to pay the price, were it our heart's blood. And now--now, because for a time the day is going against us, you would give up all and sneak back, like cravens, to kiss the feet that have trampled upon us! And you call yourselves men--the sons of those who gave up home and fortune and fatherland to make for themselves and for dear liberty a resting-place in the wilderness? Oh, shame upon you, cowards!"

Her words had rushed out in a fiery flood, which her husband had vainly striven to check. I do not know how Mrs. Arnett looked, but I fancy her a little fair woman, with kindly blue eyes and delicate features,--a tender and loving little soul, whose scornful, blazing words must have seemed to her amazed hearers like the inspired fury of a pythoness. Are we not all prophets at times--prophets of good or evil, according to our bent, and with more power than we ourselves suspect to work out the fulfillment of our own prophecies? Who shall say how far this fragile woman aided to stay the wave of desolation which was spreading over the land?

"Gentlemen," said good Mr. Arnett uneasily, "I beg you to excuse this most unseemly interruption to our council. My wife is beside herself I think.

You all know her and know that it is not her wont to meddle with politics, or to brawl and bl.u.s.ter. To-morrow she will see her folly, but now I pray your patience."

Already her words had begun to stir the slumbering manhood in the bosoms of those who heard her. Enthusiasm makes its own fitting times. No one replied; each felt too keenly his own pettiness, in the light cast upon them by this woman's brave words.

"Take your protection, if you will," she went on, after waiting in vain for a reply. "Proclaim yourselves traitors and cowards, false to your country and your G.o.d, but horrible will be the judgment you will bring upon your heads and the heads of those that love you. I tell you that England will never conquer. I know it and feel it in every fibre of my heart. Has G.o.d led us so far to desert us now? Will He, who led our fathers across the stormy winter sea, forsake their children who have put their trust in Him?

For me, I stay with my country, and my hand shall never touch the hand, nor my heart cleave to the heart of him who shames her."

She flashed upon her husband a gaze which dazzled him like sudden lightning.

"Isaac, we have lived together for twenty years, and for all of them I have been a true and loving wife to you. But I am the child of G.o.d and of my country, and if you do this shameful thing, I will never again own you for my husband."

"My dear wife!" cried the husband aghast, "you do not know what you are saying. Leave me, for such a thing as this?"

"For such a thing as this?" she cried scornfully. "What greater cause could there be? I married a good man and true, a faithful friend and a loyal Christian gentleman, and it needs no divorce to sever me from a traitor and a coward. If you take your protection you lose your wife, and I--I lose my husband and my home!"

With the last words the thrilling voice broke suddenly with a pathetic fall and a film crept over the proud blue eyes. Perhaps this little touch of womanly weakness moved her hearers as deeply as her brave, scornful words.

They were not all cowards at heart, only touched by the dread finger of panic, which, now and then, will paralyze the bravest. Some had struggled long against it and only half yielded at last. And some there were to whom old traditions had never quite lost their power, whose superst.i.tious consciences had never become quite reconciled to the stigma of _Rebel_, though reason and judgment both told them that, borne for the cause for which they bore it, it was a t.i.tle of n.o.bility. The words of the little woman had gone straight to each heart, be its main-spring what it might.

Gradually the drooping heads were raised and the eyes grew bright with manliness and resolution. Before they left the house that night, they had sworn a solemn oath to stand by the cause they had adopted and the land of their birth, through good or evil, and to spurn the offers of their tyrants and foes as the deadliest insults.

Some of the names of those who met in that secret council were known afterwards among those who fought their country's battles most n.o.bly, who died upon the field of honor, or rejoiced with pure hearts when the day of triumph came at last. The name of the little woman figured on no heroic roll, but was she the less a heroine?

This story is a true one, and, in this Centennial year, when every crumb of information in regard to those old days of struggle and heroism is eagerly gathered up, it may not be without interest.

Mrs. Miriam Coles Harris.

Mrs. Harris was well known during her stay in Morristown and is remembered as a charming woman. "In Morristown", she writes, she found "restoration to health, many friends, and much enjoyment",--adding "I think I shall always love the place".

Mrs. Harris has been a voluminous writer of stories and novels. Her first work, "Rutledge", published without her name, excited immediate and wide attention and established her reputation. Since then, she has given to the world, among others, the following volumes: "Louie's Last Term at St.

Mary's"; "The Sutherlands"; "Frank Warrington"; "St. Philip's"; "Round-hearts" (for children); "Richard Vandermarck"; "A Perfect Adonis"; "Missy"; "Happy-go-Lucky"; "Phoebe"; "A Rosary For Lent" and "Dear Feast of Lent".

The selection given to represent Mrs. Harris in Stedman and Hutchinson's "Library of American Literature" is a chapter from her novel, "Missy". An appropriate selection for this volume would be an extract from her chapter on "Marrowfat" (Morristown) in her novel, "Phoebe", published in 1884.

The two princ.i.p.al characters of the book, Barry and Phoebe, lately married, are described in Marrowfat, going to church on Sunday morning:

EXTRACT FROM "PHOEBE."

They were rather late; that is, the bell had stopped ringing, and the pews were all filled, and the clergyman was just entering from the sacristy, when they reached the door. It was an old stone church, with many vines about it, greensward and fine trees. * * The organist was playing a low and un.o.btrusive strain; the clergyman, having just entered, was on his knees, where unfortunately, the congregation had not followed him. They were all ready to criticise the young people who now walked down the silent aisle; very far down, too, they were obliged to walk. It was the one moment in the week when they would be most conspicuous. * * Barry looked a greater swell than ever, and his wife was so much handsomer than anybody else in Marrowfat that it was simple nonsense to talk of ignoring the past. If one did not want to be walked over by these young persons they must be put down; self preservation joined hands with virtuous indignation; to cancel the past would be to sacrifice the future. Scarce a mother in Marrowfat but felt a bitter sense of injury as she thought of Barry. Not only had he set the worst possible example to her sons, but he had overlooked the charms of her daughters; not only had he outraged public opinion, but he had disappointed private hopes. Society should hold him to a strict account; Marrowfat was not to be trifled with when it came to matters of principle.

It was an old town, with ante-Revolutionary traditions; there was no mushroom crop allowed to spring up about it. New people were permitted but only on approbation of the old. It was not the thing to be very rich in Marrowfat, it was only tolerated; it was the thing to be a little cultivated, a little clever, very well born, and very loyal to Marrowfat.

It was not exactly provincial; it was too near the great city and too much mixed up with it to be that; but it was very local and it had its own traditions in an unusual degree. That people grew a little narrow and very much interested in the affairs of the town, after living there awhile, was not to be wondered at. It is always the result of suburban life, and one finds it difficult to judge, between having one's nature green like a lane, even if narrow, or hard and broad like a city pavement, out of which all the greenness has been trampled and all the narrowness thrown down.

The climate of the place was dry and pure; it was the fas.h.i.+on for the city doctors to send their patients there; and many who came to cough, remained to build. The scenery was lovely; you looked down pretty streets and saw blue hills beyond; the sidewalks were paved and the town was lit by gas, but the pavements led you past charming homes to bits of view that reminded you of Switzerland, and the inoffensive lamp-posts were hidden under great trees by day, and by night you only thought how glad you were to see them.

The drives were endless, the roads good; there were livery-stables, hotels, skilled confectioners, shops of all kinds, a library, a pretty little theatre, churches of every shade of faith, schools of every degree of pretension; lectures in winter, concerts in summer, occasional plays all the year; two or three local journals, the morning papers from the city at your breakfast table; fast trains, telegraphs, telephones, all the modern amenities of life under your very hand; and yet it was the country, and there were peaceful hills and deep woods, and the nights were as still as Paradise. Can it be wondered at that, like St. Peter's at Rome, it had an atmosphere of its own, and defied the outer changes of the temperature?

Marrowfat certainly was a law unto itself. Why certain people were great people, in its view, it would be difficult to say. Why the telegraphs, and the telephones, and the fas.h.i.+onable invalids from the city and the rich people who bought and built in its neighborhood, did not change its standards of value one can only guess. But it had a stout moral sentiment of its own; it had resisted innovations and done what seemed it good for a long while; and when you have made a good moral sentiment the fas.h.i.+on, or the fact by long use, you have done a good thing. Marrowfat never tolerated married flirtations, looked askance on extremes in dress or entertainment, dealt severely with the faults of youth. All these things existed more or less within its borders, of course, but they were evil doings and not approved doings.

In a certain sense, Marrowfat was the most charitable town in the world; in another the most uncharitable. If you were to have any misfortune befall you, Marrowfat was the place to go to have it in; if you lost your money, if you broke your back, if your children died, if your house burned down, Marrowfat swathed you in flowers, bathed you in sympathy, took you out to drive, came and read to you, if need were took up subscriptions for you.

But if you did anything disgraceful or discreditable, it is safe to say you would better have done it in any other place.

Miss Maria McIntosh.

Miss McIntosh was born in the little village of Sunbury, Georgia, in 1804.

She was educated by an old Oxford tutor who was teacher and pastor combined and she led the cla.s.s of boys with whom she studied. After her mother's death, (her father had died in her infancy), she came to the north, wholly for the purpose of studying and improving herself.

Her first stories were for children. Then appeared two very successful tales for youth; "Conquest and Self-Conquest," and "Praise and Principle".

"To Seem and To Be"; "Charms and Counter-Charms", and their successors followed on during a period of twenty years. Several of her books were translated into both French and German and all were widely read abroad, but the joy in her work lay in the rich harvest for good which was constantly made known to her. In the year before her death, many letters came to her from women then married and heads of families, thanking her for first impulses to better things arising from her words.

Not long ago, Marion Harland, (Mrs. Terhune), wrote to a dear friend of this author, that she owed to Miss McIntosh the strongest influences of her young life and those which had determined its bent and development.

Miss McIntosh was intensely interested in the maintenance of Republican simplicity and purity of morals and wrote a strong address, which was widely circulated, to the "Women of America" which led to a correspondence with the then d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland and other English women who were interested in the elevation of women and of the family life.

She died in Morristown, at the residence of her devoted niece and namesake, Mrs. James Farley c.o.x, and soothed by her loving ministrations,--after a protracted illness, lasting over a year. Mrs. c.o.x tells us, "she loved Morristown and said amidst great pain, that her last year, was, despite all, the happiest of her life".

"Lofty and Lowly"; "Charms and Counter-Charms", and "To Seem and To Be", are all alike n.o.ble books. Miss McIntosh seems a woman of strong creative powers, with a delicacy of feeling and a fine touch of womanliness, united to a certain delicate perception of character. She did not write from what we now so grandly call _types_, or, for the sake of displaying a surgical dissection of character; but her books are groupings of individuals as real as those we meet in daily life. There are no strained situations, no fanciful make-ups, and no unnatural poses.

There are the lovely Alice Montrose with a strangely beautiful blending of delicate refinement and womanly strength, rising to meet every requirement of her varied life; Mr. Gaston, the New England merchant; Richard Grahame the hero of "Lofty and Lowly", with some telling contrasts in the way of villians and weaker characters. Beside this, Miss McIntosh has a strong sympathy for nature and all through her stories she stops, as it were to show us the flowering fields and summer skies and as she draws us to her, we feel the beatings of her own warm human heart going out as it does to the young and inexperienced.

Again, Miss McIntosh gives in her stories faithful representations of life both north and south, before the war, forty years ago. These pictures are of peculiar value as few books preserve pictorial records of that condition of life now pa.s.sed away forever. She had a power in ma.s.sing details and binding them by a thread of common interest and common action.

She seemed in her writings, like one who had been spiritually "lifted higher" and like all such spirits she could not but draw others after her.