Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862

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He seized the hand she extended, bowed down, and showered mingled tears
and kisses upon it. Then, with a wild sob in his throat, he started up
and rushed down the street, through the fast-falling rain. The father
and daughter walked home in silence. Eli had heard every word that was
spoken, and felt that a spirit whose utterances he dared not question
had visited Asenath's tongue.

She, as year after year went by, regained the peace and patience which
give a sober cheerfulness to life. The pangs of her heart grew dull and
transient; but there were two pictures in her memory which never
blurred in outline or faded in color: one, the brake of autumn flowers,
under the bright autumnal sky, with bird and stream making accordant
music to the new voice of love; the other, a rainy street, with a lost,
reckless man leaning against an awning-post, and staring in her face
with eyes whose unutterable woe, when she dared to recall it, darkened
the beauty of the earth, and almost shook her trust in the providence
of God.

V.

Year after year passed by, but not without bringing change to the
Mitchenor family. Moses had moved to Chester County soon after his
marriage, and had a good farm of his own. At the end of ten years
Abigail died; and the old man, who had not only lost his savings by an
unlucky investment, but was obliged to mortgage his farm, finally
determined to sell it and join his son. He was getting too old to
manage it properly, impatient under the unaccustomed pressure of debt,
and depressed by the loss of the wife to whom, without any outward show
of tenderness, he was, in truth, tenderly attached. He missed her more
keenly in the places where she had lived and moved than in a
neighborhood without the memory of her presence. The pang with which
lie parted from his home was weakened by the greater pang which had
preceded it.

It was a harder trial to Asenath. She shrank from the encounter with
new faces, and the necessity of creating new associations. There was a
quiet satisfaction in the ordered, monotonous round of her life, which
might be the same elsewhere, but here alone was the nook which held all
the morning sunshine she had ever known. Here still lingered the halo
of the sweet departed summer,--here still grew the familiar
wild-flowers which _the first_ Richard Hilton had gathered. This
was the Paradise in which the Adam of her heart had dwelt, before his
fall. Her resignation and submission entitled her to keep those pure
and perfect memories, though she was scarcely conscious of their true
charm. She did not dare to express to herself, in words, that one
everlasting joy of woman's heart, through all trials and sorrows,--"I
have loved, I have been beloved."

On the last "First-day" before their departure, she walked down the
meadows to the lonely brake between the hills. It was the early spring,
and the black buds of the ash had just begun to swell. The maples were
dusted with crimson bloom, and the downy catkins of the swamp-willow
dropped upon the stream and floated past her, as once the autumn
leaves. In the edges of the thickets peeped forth the blue, scentless
violet, the fairy cups of the anemone, and the pink-veined bells of the
miskodeed. The tall blooms through which the lovers walked still slept
in the chilly earth; but the sky above her was mild and blue, and the
remembrance of the day came back to her with a delicate, pungent
sweetness, like the perfume of the trailing arbutus in the air around
her. In a sheltered, sunny nook, she found a single erythronium, lured
forth in advance of its proper season, and gathered it as a relic of
the spot, which she might keep without blame. As she stooped to pluck
it, her own face looked up at her out of a little pool filled by the
spring rains. Seen against the reflected sky, it shone with a soft
radiance, and the earnest eyes met hers, as if it were her young self,
evoked from the past, to bid her farewell. "Farewell!" she whispered,
taking leave at once, as she believed, of youth and the memory of love.

During those years she had more than once been sought in marriage, but
had steadily, though kindly, refused. Once, when the suitor was a man
whose character and position made the union very desirable in Eli
Mitchenor's eyes, he ventured to use his paternal influence. Asenath's
gentle resistance was overborne by his arbitrary force of will, and her
protestations were of no avail.

"Father," she finally said, in the tone which he had once heard and
still remembered, "thee can take away, but thee cannot give."

He never mentioned the subject again.

Richard Hilton passed out of her knowledge shortly after her meeting
with him in Philadelphia. She heard, indeed, that his headlong career
of dissipation was not arrested,--that his friends had given him up as
hopelessly ruined,--and, finally, that he had left the city. After
that, all reports ceased. He was either dead, or reclaimed and leading
a better life, somewhere far away. Dead, she believed,--almost hoped;
for in that case might he not now be enjoying the ineffable rest and
peace which she trusted might be her portion? It was better to think of
him as a purified spirit, waiting to meet her in a holier communion,
than to know that he was still bearing the burden of a soiled and
blighted life. In any case, her own future was plain and clear. It was
simply a prolongation of the present,--an alternation of seed-time and
harvest, filled with humble duties and cares, until the Master should
bid her lay down her load and follow Him.

Friend Mitchenor bought a small cottage adjacent to his son's farm, in
a community which consisted mostly of Friends, and not far from the
large old meeting-house in which the Quarterly Meetings were held. He
at once took his place on the upper seat, among the elders, most of
whom he knew already, from having met them, year after year, in
Philadelphia. The charge of a few acres of ground gave him sufficient
occupation; the money left to him after the sale of his farm was enough
to support him comfortably; and a late Indian summer of contentment
seemed now to have come to the old man. He was done with the earnest
business of life. Moses was gradually taking his place, as father and
Friend; and Asenath would be reasonably provided for at his death. As
his bodily energies decayed, his imperious temper softened, his mind
became more accessible to liberal influences, and he even cultivated a
cordial friendship with a neighboring farmer who was one of "the
world's people." Thus, at seventy-five, he was really younger, because
tenderer of heart and more considerate, than he had been at sixty.

Asenath was now a woman of thirty-five, and suitors had ceased to
approach her. Much of her beauty still remained, but her face had
become thin and wasted, and the inevitable lines were beginning to form
around her eyes. Her dress was plainer than ever, and she wore the
scoop-bonnet of drab silk, in which no woman can seem beautiful, unless
she be very old. She was calm and grave in her demeanor, gave that her
perfect goodness and benevolence shone through and warmed her presence;
but, when earnestly interested, she had been known to speak her mind so
clearly and forcibly that it was generally surmised among the Friends
that she possessed "a gift," which might, in time, raise her to honor
among them. To the children of Moses she was a good genius, and a word
from "Aunt 'Senath" oftentimes prevailed when the authority of the
parents was disregarded. In them she found a new source of happiness;
and when her old home on the Neshaminy had been removed a little
farther into the past, so that she no longer looked, with every
morning's sun, for some familiar feature of its scenery, her submission
brightened into a cheerful content with life.

It was summer, and Quarterly-Meeting Day had arrived. There had been
rumors of the expected presence of "Friends from a distance," and not
only those of the district, but most of the neighbors who were not
connected with the sect, attended. By the by-road through the woods, it
was not more than half a mile from Friend Mitchenor's cottage to the
meeting-house, and Asenath, leaving her father to be taken by Moses in
his carriage, set out on foot. It was a sparkling, breezy day, and the
forest was full of life. Squirrels chased each other along the branches
of the oaks, and the air was filled with fragrant odors of
hickory-leaves, sweet-fern, and spice-wood. Picking up a flower here
and there, Asenath walked onward, rejoicing alike in shade and
sunshine, grateful for all the consoling beauty which the earth offers
to a lonely heart. That serene content which she had learned to call
happiness had filled her being until the dark canopy was lifted and the
waters took back their transparency under a cloudless sky.

Passing around to the "women's side" of the meeting-house, she mingled
with her friends, who were exchanging information concerning the
expected visitors. Micajah Morrill had not arrived, they said, but Ruth
Baxter had spent the last night at Friend Way's, and would certainly be
there. Besides, there were Friend Chandler, from Nine Partners, and
Friend Carter, from Maryland: they had been seen on the ground. Friend
Carter was said to have a wonderful gift,--Mercy Jackson had heard him
once, in Baltimore. The Friends there had been a little exercised about
him, because they thought he was too much inclined to "the newness,"
but it was known that the Spirit had often manifestly led him. Friend
Chandler had visited Yearly Meeting once, they believed. He was an old
man, and had been a personal friend of Elias Hicks.

At the appointed hour they entered the house. After the subdued
rustling which ensued upon taking their seats, there was an interval of
silence, shorter than usual, because it was evident that many persons
would feel the promptings of the Spirit. Friend Chandler spoke first,
and was followed by Ruth Baxter, a frail little woman, with a voice of
exceeding power. The not unmelodious chant in which she delivered her
admonitions rang out, at times, like the peal of a trumpet. Fixing her
eyes on vacancy, with her hands on the wooden rail before her, and her
body slightly swaying to and fro, her voice soared far aloft at the
commencement of every sentence, gradually dropping, through a melodious
scale of tone, to the close. She resembled an inspired prophetess, an
aged Deborah, crying aloud in the valleys of Israel.

The last speaker was Friend Carter, a small man, not more than forty
years of age. His face was thin and intense in its expression, his hair
gray at the temples, and his dark eye almost too restless for a child
of "the stillness and the quietness." His voice, though not loud, was
clear and penetrating, with an earnest, sympathetic quality, which
arrested, not the ear alone, but the serious attention of the auditor.
His delivery was but slightly marked by the peculiar rhythm of the
Quaker preachers; and this fact, perhaps, increased the effect of his
words, through the contrast with those who preceded him.

His discourse was an eloquent vindication of the law of kindness, as
the highest and purest manifestation of true Christian doctrine. The
paternal relation of God to man was the basis of that religion which
appealed directly to the heart: so the fraternity of each man with his
fellow was its practical application. God pardons the repentant sinner;
we can also pardon, where we are offended; we can pity, where we cannot
pardon. Both the good and the bad principles generate their like in
others. Force begets force; anger excites a corresponding anger; but
kindness awakens the slumbering emotions even of an evil heart. Love
may not always be answered by an equal love, but it has never yet
created hatred. The testimony which Friends bear against war, he said,
is but a general assertion, which has no value except in so far as they
manifest the principle of peace in their daily lives,--in the exercise
of pity, of charity, of forbearance, and Christian love.

The words of the speaker sank deeply into the hearts of his hearers.
There was an intense hush, as if in truth the Spirit had moved him to
speak, and every sentence was armed with a sacred authority. Asenath
Mitchenor looked at him, over the low partition which divided her and
her sisters from the men's side, absorbed in his rapt earnestness and
truth. She forgot that other hearers were present: he spake to her
alone. A strange spell seemed to seize upon her faculties and chain
them at his feet; had he beckoned to her, she would have arisen and
walked to his side.

Friend Carter warmed and deepened as he went on. "I feel moved to-day,"
he said,--"moved, I know not why, but I hope for some wise purpose,--to
relate to you an instance of Divine and human kindness which has come
directly to my own knowledge. A young man of delicate constitution,
whose lungs were thought to be seriously affected, was sent to the
house of a Friend in the country, in order to try the effect of air and
exercise."

Asenath almost ceased to breathe, in the intensity with which she gazed
and listened. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap to prevent them
from trembling, and steadying herself against the back of the seat, she
heard the story of her love for Richard Hilton told by the lips of a
stranger!--not merely of his dismissal from the house, but of that
meeting in the street, at which only she and her father were present!
Nay, more, she heard her own words repeated, she heard Richard's
passionate outburst of remorse described in language that brought his
living face before her! She gasped for breath,--his face _was_
before her! The features, sharpened by despairing grief, which her
memory recalled, had almost anticipated the harder lines which fifteen
years had made, and which now, with a terrible shock and choking leap
of the heart, she recognized. Her senses faded, and she would have
fallen from her seat but for the support of the partition against which
she leaned. Fortunately, the women near her were too much occupied with
the narrative to notice her condition. Many of them wept silently, with
their handkerchiefs pressed over their mouths.

The first shock of death-like faintness passed away, and she clung to
the speaker's voice, as if its sound alone could give her strength to
sit still and listen further.

"Deserted by his friends, unable to stay his feet on the evil path," he
continued, "the young man left his home and went to a city in another
State. But here it was easier to find associates in evil than tender
hearts that might help him back to good. He was tired of life, and the
hope of a speedier death hardened him in his courses. But, my friends,
Death never comes to those who wickedly seek him. The Lord withholds
destruction from the hands that are madly outstretched to grasp it, and
forces His pity and forgiveness on the unwilling soul. Finding that it
was the principle of _life_ which grew stronger within him, the
young man at last meditated an awful crime. The thought of
self-destruction haunted him day and night. He lingered around the
wharves, gazing into the deep waters, and was restrained from the deed
only by the memory of the last loving voice he had heard. One gloomy
evening, when even this memory had faded, and he awaited the
approaching darkness to make his design secure, a hand was laid on his
arm. A man in the simple garb of the Friends stood beside him, and a
face which reflected the kindness of the Divine Father looked upon him.
'My child,' said he, 'I am drawn to thee by the great trouble of thy
mind. Shall I tell thee what it is thee meditates?' The young man shook
his head. 'I will be silent, then, but I will save thee. I know the
human heart, and its trials and weaknesses, and it may be put into my
mouth to give thee strength.' He took the young man's hand, as if he
had been a little child, and led him to his home. He heard the sad
story, from beginning to end; and the young man wept upon his breast,
to hear no word of reproach, but only the largest and tenderest pity
bestowed upon him. They knelt down, side by side, at midnight; and the
Friend's right hand was upon his head while they prayed.

"The young man was rescued from his evil ways, to acknowledge still
further the boundless mercy of Providence. The dissipation wherein he
had recklessly sought death was, for him, a marvellous restoration to
life. His lungs had become sound and free from the tendency to disease.
The measure of his forgiveness was almost more than he could bear. He
bore his cross thenceforward with a joyful resignation, and was
mercifully drawn nearer and nearer to the Truth, until, in the fulness
of his convictions, he entered into the brotherhood of the Friends.

"I have been powerfully moved to tell you this story," Friend Carter
concluded, "from a feeling that it may be needed, here, at this time,
to influence some heart trembling in the balance. Who is there among
you, my friends, that may not snatch a brand from the burning? Oh,
believe that pity and charity are the most effectual weapons given into
the hands of us imperfect mortals, and leave the awful attribute of
wrath in the hands of the Lord!"

He sat down, and dead silence ensued. Tears of emotion stood in the
eyes of the hearers, men as well as women, and tears of gratitude and
thanksgiving gushed warmly from those of Asenath. An ineffable peace
and joy descended upon her heart.

When the meeting broke up, Friend Mitchenor, who had not recognized
Richard Hilton, but had heard the story with feelings which he
endeavored in rain to control, approached the preacher.

"The Lord spoke to me this day through thy lips," said he; "will thee
come to one side, and hear me a minute?"

"Eli Mitchenor!" exclaimed Friend Carter; "Eli! I knew not thee was
here! Doesn't thee know me?"

The old man stared in astonishment. "It seems like a face I ought to
know," he said, "but I can't place thee."

They withdrew to the shade of one of the poplars. Friend Carter turned
again, much moved, and, grasping the old man's hands in his own,
exclaimed,--

"Friend Mitchenor, I was called upon to-day to speak of myself. I
am--or, rather, I was--the Richard Hilton whom thee knew."

Friend Mitchenor's face flushed with mingled emotions of shame and joy,
and his grasp on the preacher's hands tightened.

"But thee calls thyself Carter?" he finally said.

"Soon after I was saved," was the reply, "an aunt on the mother's side
died, and left her property to me, on condition that I should take her
name. I was tired of my own then, and to give it up seemed only like
losing my former self; but I should like to have it back again now."

"Wonderful are the ways of the Lord, and past finding out!" said the
old man. "Come home with me, Richard,--come for my sake, for there is a
concern on my mind until all is clear between us. Or, stay,--will thee
walk home with Asenath, while I go with Moses?"

"Asenath?"

"Yes. There she goes, through the gate. Thee can easily overtake her.
I'm coming, Moses!"--and he hurried away to his son's carriage, which
was approaching.

Asenath felt that it would be impossible for her to meet Richard
Hilton there. She knew not why his name had been changed; he had not
betrayed his identity with the young man of his story; he evidently did
not wish it to be known, and an unexpected meeting with her might
surprise him into an involuntary revelation of the fact. It was enough
for her that a saviour had arisen, and her lost Adam was
redeemed,--that a holier light than the autumn sun's now rested, and
would forever rest, on the one landscape of her youth. Her eyes shone
with the pure brightness of girlhood, a soft warmth colored her cheek
and smoothed away the coming lines of her brow, and her step was light
and elastic as in the old time.

Eager to escape from the crowd, she crossed the highway, dusty with its
string of returning carriages, and entered the secluded lane. The
breeze had died away, the air was full of insect-sounds, and the warm
light of the sinking sun fell upon the woods and meadows. Nature seemed
penetrated with a sympathy with her own inner peace.

But the crown of the benignant day was yet to come. A quick footstep
followed her, and erelong a voice, near at hand, called her by name.

She stopped, turned, and for a moment they stood silent, face to face.

"I knew thee, Richard!" at last she said, in a trembling voice; "may
the Lord bless thee!"

Tears were in the eyes of both.

"He has blessed me," Richard answered, in a reverent tone; "and this
is His last and sweetest mercy. Asenath, let me hear that thee forgives
me."

"I have forgiven thee long ago, Richard,--forgiven, but not
forgotten."

The hush of sunset was on the forest, as they walked onward, side by
side, exchanging their mutual histories. Not a leaf stirred in the
crowns of the tall trees, and the dusk, creeping along between their
stems, brought with it a richer woodland odor. Their voices were low
and subdued, as if an angel of God were hovering in the shadows, and
listening, or God Himself looked down upon them from the violet sky.

At last Richard stopped.

"Asenath," said he, "does thee remember that spot on the banks of the
creek, where the rudbeckias grew?"

"I remember it," she answered, a girlish blush rising to her face.

"If I were to say to thee now what I said to thee there, what would be
thy answer?"

Her words came brokenly.

"I would say to thee, Richard,--I can trust thee,--I _do_ love
thee!'"

"Look at me, Asenath."

Her eyes, beaming with a clearer light than even then when she first
confessed, were lifted to his. She placed her hands gently upon his
shoulders, and bent her head upon his breast. He tenderly lifted it
again, and, for the first time, her virgin lips knew the kiss of man.

TAXATION NO BURDEN.

According to returns made by the Census Bureau to the Secretary of the
Treasury, the gross value of the productions of the United States for
1860 was $3,900,000,000: namely,--the product of Manufactures, the
Mechanic Arts, Mining, and the Fisheries, $1,900,000,000; the product
of Agriculture, $2,000,000,000.

It is a well-understood principle of political economy, that the
annual product of a country is the source from which internal taxes
are to be derived.

The nation is to be considered a partnership, the several members
engaged in the various departments of business, and producing annually
products of the value of $3,900,000,000, which are distributed among
the partners, affording to each a certain share of profit. The firm is
out of debt, but a sudden emergency compels an investment, in a new
and not immediately profitable branch of business, of $1,500,000,000,
which sum the firm borrows. As the consequence of this liability, the
firm must afterward incur an annual additional expense as follows:
$100,000,000 for the payment of members not engaged in productive
labor, $90,000,000 for interest upon the debt incurred, and $60,000,000
for a sinking-fund which shall pay the debt in less than twenty years.

It is absolutely necessary for the future prosperity of the business of
the firm, that this immense investment, so unexpectedly called for,
shall be made to pay. How shall this problem be solved?

Large sums are confusing, and tend to prevent a clear understanding of
the matter; therefore let the nation be represented by Uncle Sam, an
active, middle-aged man, owning a farm and a factory, of which the
annual product is $40,000. The largest and best portion of his farm is
very badly cultivated; no intelligent laborers can be induced to remain
upon it, owing to certain causes, easily removable, but which, being
an easy-going man, well satisfied with his income as it has been,
Uncle Sam has been unwilling to take hold of with any determination.

Suddenly and without notice, he is compelled to borrow $15,000, and
spend it upon this portion of his farm; and he then finds, while
expending the money for another object and not a profitable one, he can
remove the only obstacle which prevented his obtaining a full supply
of the best and most intelligent labor, and that he can very soon
increase his annual product to $42,500. The increase of $2,500 each
year will enable him to pay his additional clerks, to meet the interest
on his liabilities, and to accumulate a sinking-fund sufficient to pay
his debts before his children come of age. He will be able to take some
comfort and satisfaction in his agricultural laborers; he will have a
larger amount of cotton to spin and to sell than ever before, and so
much wool, that, instead of being obliged to buy one-third the amount
required by his factory, as he has heretofore done, he will have more
than he can spin; and lastly, he will be able to raise fruit, to make
wine, to produce indigo, cochineal, and a great variety of articles
never produced on his farm before.

What sound business-man would not thus regulate his investment, when
compelled to make it, even though he had been unwilling to borrow the
money for the simple purpose of making such an improvement?

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