The Minister's Wooing
CHAPTER XXXII.
MARY revolved the affairs of her friend in her mind during the night.The intensity of the mental crisis through which she herself had justpassed, had developed her in many inward respects, so that she lookedupon life no longer as a timid girl, but as a strong, experiencedwoman. She had thought, and suffered, and held converse with eternalrealities, until thousands of mere earthly hesitations and timidities,that often restrain a young and untried nature, had entirely losttheir hold upon her. Besides, Mary had at heart the Puritan seed ofheroism,—never absent from the souls of true New England women. Heressentially Hebrew education, trained in daily converse with thewords of prophets and seers, and with the modes of thought of a graveand heroic people, predisposed her to a kind of exaltation which,in times of great trial, might rise to the heights of the religioussublime, in which the impulse of self-devotion and protection tooka form essentially commanding. The very intensity of the repressionunder which her faculties developed seemed as it were to produce asurplus of hidden strength, which came out in exigencies. Her reading,though restricted to few volumes, had been of the kind that vitalizedand stimulated a poetic nature, and laid up in its chambers vigorouswords and trenchant phrases, for the use of an excited feeling—so thateloquence came to her as a native gift. She realized, in short, in herhigher hours, the last touch with which Milton finishes his portrait ofan ideal woman:—
‘Greatness of mind and nobleness, their seat Build in her loftiest, and create an awe About her as a guard angelic placed.’
The next morning, Colonel Burr called at the cottage. Mary was spinningin the garret, and Madame de Frontignac was reeling yarn, when Mrs.Scudder brought this announcement.
‘Mother,’ said Mary, ‘I wish to see Mr. Burr alone; Madame deFrontignac will not go down.’
Mrs. Scudder looked surprised, but asked no questions. When she wasgone down, Mary stood a moment reflecting; Madame de Frontignac lookedeager and agitated. ‘Remember and notice all he says, and just how helooks, Mary, so as to tell me; and be sure and say that “I thank himfor his kindness yesterday;” we must own he appeared very well there;did he not?’
‘Certainly,’ said Mary; ‘but no man could have done less.’
‘Ah! but Mary, not every man could have done it as he did; now don’tbe too hard on him, Mary; I have said dreadful things to him; I amafraid I have been too severe. After all, these distinguished men areso tempted; we don’t know how much they are tempted; and who can wonderthat they are a little spoiled; so, my angel, you must be merciful.’
‘Merciful!’ said Mary, kissing the pale cheek and feeling the coldlittle hands that trembled in hers.
‘So you will go down in your little spinning toilette, ma _mie_; Ifancy you look as Joan of Arc did when she was keeping her sheep atDoremi. Go, and God bless thee!’ and Madame de Frontignac pushed herplayfully forward.
Mary entered the room where Burr was seated, and wished him goodmorning, in a serious and placid manner, in which there was not theslightest trace of embarrassment or discomposure.
‘Shall I have the pleasure of seeing your fair companion this morning?’said Burr, after some moments of indifferent conversation.
‘No, sir; Madame de Frontignac desires me to excuse her to you.’
‘Is she ill?’ said Burr, with a look of concern.
‘No, Mr. Burr, she prefers not to see you.’ Burr gave a start ofwell-bred surprise; and Mary added:—
‘Madame de Frontignac has made me familiar with the history of youracquaintance with her; and you will therefore understand what I mean,Mr. Burr, when I say that, during the time of her stay with us, wewould prefer not to receive calls from you.’
‘Your language, Miss Scudder, has certainly the merit of explicitness.’
‘I intend it shall have, sir,’ said Mary, tranquilly; ‘half the miseryof the world comes of want of courage to speak and to hear the truthplainly, and in a spirit of love.’
‘I am gratified that you insert the last clause, Miss Scudder; I mightnot otherwise recognize the gentle being whom I have always regardedas the impersonation of all that is softest in woman. I have not thehonour of understanding in the least the reason of this apparentlycapricious sentence, but I bow to it in submission.’
‘Mr. Burr,’ said Mary, walking up to him, and looking him full in theeyes with an energy that for the moment bore down his practised airof easy superiority, ‘I wish to speak to you for a moment, as oneimmortal soul should to another, without any of those false glossesand deceits which men call ceremony and good manners. You have done avery great injury to a lovely lady, whose weakness ought to have beensacred in your eyes. Precisely, because you are what you are,—strong,keen, penetrating, able to control and govern all who come near you;because you have the power to make yourself agreeable, interesting,fascinating, and to win esteem and love,—just for that reason you oughtto hold yourself the guardian of every woman, and treat her as youwould wish any man to treat your own daughter. I leave it to your ownconscience whether this is the manner in which you have treated Madamede Frontignac.’
‘Upon my word, Miss Scudder,’ began Burr, ‘I cannot imagine whatrepresentations our mutual friend may have been making. I assure you,our intercourse has been as irreproachable as the most scrupulous coulddesire.’
‘Irreproachable! innocent! Mr. Burr, you know that you have takenthe very life out of her; you men can have everything, ambition,wealth, power; a thousand ways are open to you; and women have nothingbut their hearts, and when that is gone, all is gone. Mr. Burr, youremember the rich man that had flocks and herds, but nothing would dofor him but he must have the one little ewe lamb which was all his poorneighbour had. Thou art the man! You have stolen all the love she hasto give, all that she had to make a happy home; and you can never giveher anything in return without endangering her purity and her soul,and you knew you could not. I know you men _think_ this is a lightmatter; but it is death to us; what will this woman’s life be? one longstruggle to forget; and when you have forgotten her, and are goingon gay and happy, when you have thrown her very name away as a fadedflower, she will be praying, hoping, fearing for you; though all mendeny you, yet will not she. Yes, Mr. Burr, if ever your popularity andprosperity should leave you, and those who now flatter should despiseand curse you, she will always be interceding with her own heart andwith God for you, and making a thousand excuses when she cannot deny;and if you die, as I fear you have lived, unreconciled to the God ofyour fathers, it will be in her heart to offer up her very soul foryou, and to pray that God will impute all your sins to her, and giveyou heaven. Oh, I know this because I have felt it in my own heart!’and Mary threw herself passionately down into a chair, and broke intoan agony of uncontrolled sobbing.
Burr turned away, and stood looking through the window; tears weredropping silently, unchecked by the cold, hard pride which was the evildemon of his life.
It is due to our human nature to believe that no man could ever havebeen so passionately and enduringly loved and revered by both men andwomen as he was, without a beautiful and lovable nature; no man everdemonstrated more forcibly the truth, that it is not a man’s naturalconstitution, but the _use_ he makes of it which stamps him as good orevil.
The diviner part of him was weeping, and the cold, proud, demon wasstruggling to regain his lost ascendency. Every sob of the fair,inspired child who had been speaking to him seemed to shake hisheart; he felt as if he could have fallen on his knees to her; andyet that stoical habit, which was the boast of his life, which wasthe highest wisdom he taught to his only and beautiful daughter, wasslowly stealing back round his heart, and he pressed his lips together,resolved that no word should escape till he had fully mastered himself.
In a few moments Mary rose with renewed calmness and dignity, andapproaching him, said, ‘Before I wish you a good morning, Mr. Burr,I must ask pardon for the liberty I have taken in speaking so veryplainly.’
‘There is no pardon needed, my dear child,’ said B
urr, turning andspeaking very gently, and with a face expressive of a softened concern;‘if you have told me harsh truths, it was with gentle intentions; Ionly hope that I may prove, at least by the future, that I am notaltogether so bad as you imagine. As to the friend whose name has beenpassed between us, no man can go beyond me in a sense of her realnobleness; I am sensible how little I can ever deserve the sentimentwith which she honours me. I am ready, in my future course, to obey anycommands that you and she may think proper to lay upon me.’
‘The only kindness you can now do her,’ said Mary, ‘is to leave her. Itis impossible that you can be merely friends,—it is impossible, withoutviolating the holiest bonds, that you can be more. The injury done isirreparable, but you can avoid adding another and greater one to it.’
Burr looked thoughtful.
‘May I say one thing more?’ said Mary, the colour rising in her cheeks.
Burr looked at her with that smile that always drew out the confidenceof every heart.
‘Mr. Burr,’ she said, ‘you will pardon me, but I cannot help sayingthis: You have, I am told, wholly renounced the Christian faith of yourfathers, and build your whole life on quite another foundation. Icannot help feeling that this is a great and terrible mistake. I cannothelp wishing that you would examine and reconsider.’
‘My dear child, I am extremely grateful to you for your remark, andappreciate fully the purity of the source from which it springs.Unfortunately, our intellectual beliefs are not subject to the controlof our will. I have examined, and the examination has, I regret to say,not had the effect you would desire.’
Mary looked at him wistfully; he smiled and bowed, all himself again;and stopping at the door, he said, with a proud humility, ‘Do me thefavour to present my devoted regard to your friend; believe me, thathereafter you shall have less reason to complain of me.’ He bowed andwas gone.
An eye-witness of the scene has related that when Burr resigned hisseat as president of his country’s senate, he was an object of peculiarpolitical bitterness and obloquy. Almost all who listened to him hadmade up their minds that he was an utterly faithless, unprincipled man;and yet, such was his singular and peculiar personal power, that hisshort farewell address melted the whole assembly into tears; and hismost embittered adversaries were charmed into a momentary enthusiasm ofadmiration.
It must not be wondered at, therefore, if our simple-hearted, lovingMary strangely found all her indignation against him gone, and herselflittle disposed to criticise the impassioned tenderness with whichMadame de Frontignac still regarded him.
We have one thing more that we cannot avoid saying of two men sosingularly in juxtaposition, as Aaron Burr and Dr. Hopkins.
Both had a perfect _logic_ of life, and guided themselves with aninflexible rigidity by it. Burr assumed individual pleasure to bethe great object of human existence; and Dr. Hopkins placed it in alife altogether beyond self. Burr rejected all sacrifice, Hopkinsconsidered sacrifice as the foundation of all existence. To live as faras possible without a disagreeable sensation was an object which Burrproposed to himself as the _summum bonum_, for which he drilled downand subjugated a nature of singular richness. Hopkins, on the otherhand, smoothed the asperities of a temperament naturally violent andfiery by a rigid discipline, which guided it entirely above the planeof self-indulgence; and, in the pursuance of their great end, the onewatched against his better nature as the other did against his worse.It is but fair, then, to take their lives as the practical workings oftheir respective ethical creeds.