Читать книгу Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II. - Various - Страница 4

BY THE "ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER."

(Continued from page 165.)

Once having begun, it followed naturally that the war should deepen in bitterness. Wounds that wrote memorials in the flesh, insults that rankled in the heart – these were not features of the case likely to be forgotten by our enemies, and far less by my fiery brother. I, for my part, entered not into any of the passions that war may be supposed to kindle, except only the chronic passion of anxiety. Fear it was not; for experience had taught me that, under the random firing of our undisciplined enemies, the chances were not many of being wounded; but the uncertainties that beset every conflict, as regarded my power to maintain the requisite connection with my brother, and the absolute darkness that brooded over that last worst contingency – the case of being captured, and carried off to Gath as a trophy won from Israel – these were penalties attached to the war that ran too violently into the current of my constitutional despondency, ever to give way under any casual elation of success. Success we really had at times —often in skirmishes; and once, at least, as the reader will find to his mortification, if he is wicked enough to take the side of the Philistines, a most smashing victory in a pitched battle. But even then, and while the hurrahs were yet ascending from our jubilating lips, the freezing memento came back to my heart of that deadly depression which, duly at the coming round of the morning and evening watches, traveled with me like my shadow on our approach to the memorable bridge. A bridge of sighs2 too surely it was for me; and even for my brother it formed an object of fierce yet anxious jealousy, that he could not always disguise, as we first came in sight of it: for, if it happened to be occupied in strength, there was an end of all hope that we could attempt the passage; and that was a fortunate solution of the affair, as it imposed no evil beyond a circuit; which, at least, enjoyed the blessing of peace, although the sarcastic public might choose to call it inglorious. Even this shade of ignominy, however, my brother contrived to color favorably, by calling us – that is, me and himself – "a corps of observation;" and he condescendingly explained to me, that although making "a lateral movement," he had his eye upon the enemy, and "might yet come round upon his left flank in a way that wouldn't perhaps prove very agreeable." This, from the nature of the ground, never happened. We crossed the river out of sight from the enemy's position; and my brother's vengeance, being reserved until he came round into the rear of Philistia, from which a good retreat was always open to Greenhay; naturally discharged itself in triple deluges of stones. On this line of policy there was, therefore, no cause for anxiety; but the common case was, that the numbers might not be such as to justify this caution, and yet quite enough for mischief. For my brother, however, stung and carried headlong into hostility by the martial instincts of his nature, the uneasiness of doubt or insecurity was swallowed up by his joy in the anticipation of victory, or even of contest; while to myself, whose exultation was purely official and ceremonial, as due by loyalty and legal process from a cadet of the belligerent house, no such compensation existed. The enemy was no enemy in my eyes; his affronts were but retaliations; and his insults were so inapplicable to my unworthy self, being of a calibre exclusively meant for the use of my brother, that from me they recoiled, one and all, as cannon-shot from cotton bags.

This inordinate pugnacity of my brother, this rabid appetite for trials of prowess, had, indeed, forced itself into display on the very first interview I ever had with him. On the night of his return from Louth, an artisan, employed in the decorations of Greenhay, had entered into conversation with him upon the pre-eminence of Lancashire among the provinces of England. According to him, the county of Lancaster (to translate his meaning into Roman phrase) was the prerogative tribe of England. And really I am disposed to think that it still is such, mongrelized as it has long been by Cambrian and Hibernian immigrations. There is not on earth such another focus of burning energy. Among other things, the man had magnified the county as containing (which it then did) by very much the largest remnant of old Roman Catholic families – families that were loyal to the back-bone (in those days a crowning honor); that were of the ancient faith, and of the most ancient English blood; none of your upstart, dissenting terræ filii, but men that might have shaken hands with Cœur de Lion, or at least come of ancestors that had. "And, in short, young gentleman," he concluded, "the whole county, not this part, or that part, but take it as you find it, north and south, is a very tall county."

What it was exactly that he meant by tall, I can not say. From the intense predominance in Lancashire of old genuine mother English, it is probable that he meant stout-hearted, for that was the old acceptation of the word tall, and not (as it is now understood) high in stature. "A tall ship" meant a stout and sea-worthy ship; "a tall man," meant a man that was at once able-bodied and true-hearted. My brother, however, chose to understand it in the ordinary modern sense, and he replied, "Yes, it's tall enough, if you take it south and north: from Bullock Smithy in the south, to beyond Lancaster in the north, it measures a matter of sixty miles or more; certainly it's tall, but then it's very thin, generally speaking."

"Ay, but," said the man, "thick or thin, it's a county palatine."

"Well, I don't care much for that," rejoined my brother; "palatine or not palatine, thick or thin, I wouldn't take any jaw (which meant insolence) from Lancashire, more than from any other shire."

The man stared a little at this unlooked-for attitude of defiance to a county palatine; but, recovering himself, he said, that my brother must take it, if Lancashire chose to offer it.

"But I wouldn't," replied my brother. "Look here: Lincolnshire, the county that I've been staying in for these, I don't know how many years – and a very tall county, too, tall and fat – did I take any jaw from her? Ask the sheriff. And Leicestershire, where I've generally spent my holidays, did I take jaw from her? Tell me that. Neither, again, did Louth ever dream of giving me any of her jaw; then why should I stand it from Lancashire?"

Certainly, why should he? I, who took no part in all this but as a respectful listener, felt that there was much reason in what my brother said. It was true that, having imbibed from my nurses a profound veneration for my native county, I was rather shocked at any posture (though but in a hypothetical case) of defiance to Lancashire; and yet, if three out of four capital L's had been repulsed in some mysterious offense, I felt that it was mere equity to repulse the fourth. But I prepared anxiously to say, on the authority of my last nurse, that Lancashire (I felt sure) was not the county to offer him any "jaw," whatever that might be. Unhappily, in seeking for words, which came very slowly at all times, to express my benevolent meaning, the opportunity passed over for saying any thing at all on the subject; but, though wounded by his squaring at Lancashire, I yet felt considerable respect for a brother who could thus resolutely set his arms a-kimbo against three tall counties, two of them tolerably fat, and one decent market-town.

The ordinary course of our day's warfare was this: between nine and ten in the morning, occurred our first transit, and consequently our earliest opportunity for doing business. But at this time the great sublunary interest of breakfast, which swallowed up all nobler considerations of glory and ambition, occupied the work-people of the factory (or what in the brutal pedantry of this day are termed the "operatives"), so that very seldom any serious business was transacted. Without any formal armistice, the paramount convenience of such an arrangement silently secured its own recognition. Notice there needed none of truce, when the one side yearned for breakfast, and the other for a respite; the groups, therefore, on or about the bridge, if any at all, were loose in their array, and careless. We passed through them rapidly, and, on my part, uneasily; exchanging only a few snarls, but seldom or ever snapping at each other. The tameness was almost shocking of those who in the afternoon would inevitably resume their natural characters of tiger-cats, wolves, and hunting-leopards. Sometimes, however, my brother felt it to be a duty that we should fight in the morning, particularly when any expression of public joy for a victory – bells ringing in the distance, or when a royal birthday, or some traditional commemoration of ancient feuds (such as the 5th of November), irritated his martial propensities. These being religious festivals, seemed to require of us some extra homage, for which we knew not how to find any natural or significant expression, except through sharp discharges of stones, that being a language older than Hebrew or Sanscrit, and universally intelligible. But excepting these high days of religious solemnity, when a man is called upon to show that he is not a Pagan or a miscreant in the eldest of senses, by thumping, or trying to thump, somebody who is accused or accusable of being heterodox, the great ceremony of breakfast was allowed to sanctify the hour. Some natural growls we uttered, but hushed them soon, regardless (in Mr. Gray's language) "of the sweeping whirlpool's sway, that hushed in grim repose, looked for his evening prey."

That came but too surely. Yes, evening never forgot to come – never for once forgot to call for its prey. Oh! reader, be you sure of that. Pleasures – how often do they forget themselves, forget their duty, forget their engagements, and fail to revolve! But this odious necessity of fighting never missed its road back, or fell asleep, or loitered by the way, more than a bill of exchange, or a tertian fever. Five times a week (Saturday sometimes, and Sunday always, were days of rest) the same scene rehearsed itself in pretty nearly the very same succession of circumstances. Between four and five o'clock, we had crossed the bridge to the safe, or Greenhay side; then we paused, and waited for the enemy. Sooner or later a bell rang, and from the smoky hive issued the hornets that night and day stung incurably my peace of mind. The order and procession of the incidents after this was odiously monotonous. My brother occupied the main high road, precisely at the point where a very gentle rise of the ground attained its summit; for the bridge lay in a slight valley; and the main military position was fifty or eighty yards perhaps above the bridge; then – but having first examined my pockets in order to be sure that my stock of ammunition, stones, fragments of slate, with a reasonable proportion of brickbats, was all correct and ready for action – he detached me about forty yards to the right, my orders being invariable, and liable to no doubts or "quibbling." Detestable in my ears was that word "quibbling," by which, for a thousand years, if the war had happened to last so long, he would have fastened upon me the imputation of meaning, or wishing at least, to do what he called "pettifogulizing" – that is, to plead some little technical quillet, distinction, or verbal demur, in bar of my orders, under some colorable pretense that, according to their literal construction, they really did not admit of being fulfilled, or perhaps that they admitted it too much as being capable of fulfillment in two senses, either of them a practicable sense. Unhappily for me, which told against all that I could ever have pleaded in self-justification, my Christian name was Thomas – an injury for which I never ceased to upbraid secretly my two godfathers and my one godmother; and with some reason: they ought to have seen what mischief they were brewing; since I am satisfied to this hour that, but for that wretched wo-begone name, saturated with a weight of predestined skepticism that would sink a seventy-four with the most credulous of ship's companies on board, my brother never would have called me Thomas à Didymus, which he did sometimes, or Thomas Aquinas, which he did continually. These baptismal sponsors of mine were surely answerable for all the reproaches against me, suggested by my insufferable name. All that I bore for years by reason of these reproaches, I charge against them; and perhaps an action of damages would have lain against them, as parties to a conspiracy against me. For any thing that I knew, the names might have been titles of honor; but my brother took care to explain the qualities, for better and worse, which distinguished them. Thomas à Didymus, it seemed, had exactly my infirmity of doubting and misgiving, which naturally called up further illustrations of that temper from Bunyan – a writer who occupied a place in our childish library, not very far from the "Arabian Nights." Giant Despair, the Slough of Despond, Doubting Castle, mustered strong in the array of rebukes to my weakness; and, above all, Mr. Ready-to-sink, who was my very picture (it seems) or prophetic type. As to Thomas Aquinas, I was informed that he, like myself, was much given to hair-splitting, or cutting moonbeams with razors; in which I think him very right; considering that in the town of Aquino, and about the year 1400, there were no novels worth speaking of, and not even the shadow of an opera; so that, not being employed upon moonbeams, Thomas's razors must, like Burke's, have operated upon blocks. But were these defects of doubting and desponding really mine? In a sense, they were; and being thus embodied in nicknames, they were forced prematurely upon my own knowledge. That was bad. Intellectually, if you are haunted with skepticism, or tendencies that way, morally, and for all purposes of action, if you are haunted with the kindred misery of desponding, it is not good to see too broadly emblazoned your own infirmities: they grow by consciousness too steadily directed upon them. And thus far there was great injustice in my brother's reproach; true it was that my eye was preternaturally keen for flaws of language, not from pedantic exaction of superfluous accuracy, but, on the contrary, from too conscientious a wish to escape the mistakes which language not rigorous is apt to occasion. So far from seeking to "pettifogulize," or to find evasions for any purpose in a trickster's minute tortuosities of construction, exactly in the opposite direction, from mere excess of sincerity, most unwillingly I found, in almost every body's words, an unintentional opening left for double interpretations. Undesigned equivocation prevails every where;3 and it is not the caviling hair-splitter, but, on the contrary, the single-eyed servant of truth, that is most likely to insist upon the limitation of expressions too wide or vague, and upon the decisive election between meanings potentially double. Not in order to resist or evade my brother's directions, but for the very opposite purpose – viz., that I might fulfill them to the letter; thus and no otherwise it happened that I showed so much scrupulosity about the exact value and position of his words, as finally to draw upon myself the vexatious reproach of being habitually a "pettifogulizer."

Meantime, our campaigning continued to rage. Overtures of pacification were never mentioned on either side. And I, for my part, with the passions only of peace at my heart, did the works of war faithfully, and with distinction. I presume so, at least, from the results. For, though I was continually falling into treason, without exactly knowing how I got into it, or how I got out of it, and, although my brother sometimes assured me that he could, in strict justice, have me hanged on the first tree we passed, to which my very prosaic answer had been, that of trees there were none in Oxford-street – [which, in imitation of Von Troil's famous chapter on the snakes of Lapland, the reader may accept, if he pleases, as a complete course of lectures on the natural history of Oxford-street] – nevertheless, by steady steps, I continued to ascend in the service; and, I am sure, it will gratify the reader to hear, that, very soon after my eighth birthday, I was promoted to the rank of major-general. Over this sunshine, however, soon swept a train of clouds. Three times I was taken prisoner; and with different results. The first time I was carried to the rear, and not molested in any way. Finding myself thus ignominiously neglected, I watched my opportunity; and, by making a wide circuit, without further accident, effected my escape. In the next case, a brief council was held over me: but I was not allowed to hear the deliberations; the result only being communicated to me – which result consisted in a message not very complimentary to my brother, and a small present of kicks to myself. This present was paid down without any discount, by means of a general subscription among the party surrounding me – that party, luckily, not being very numerous; besides which, I must, in honesty, acknowledge myself, generally speaking, indebted to their forbearance. They were not disposed to be too hard upon me. But, at the same time, they clearly did not think it right that I should escape altogether from tasting the calamities of war. And, as the arithmetic of the case seemed to be, how many legs, so many kicks, this translated the estimate of my guilt from the public jurisdiction, to that of the individual, sometimes capricious and harsh, and carrying out the public award by means of legs that ranged through all gradations of weight and agility. One kick differed exceedingly from another kick in dynamic value: and, in some cases, this difference was so distressingly conspicuous, and seemed so little in harmony with the prevailing hospitality of the evening, that one suspected special malice, unworthy, I conceive of all generous soldiership. Not impossibly, as it struck me on reflection, the spiteful individual might have a theory: he might conceive that, if a catholic chancery decree went forth, restoring to every man the things which truly belonged to him – your things to you, Cæsar's to Cæsar, mine to me – in that case, a particular brickbat fitting, as neatly as if it had been bespoke, to a contusion upon the calf of his own right leg, would be discovered making its way back into my great-coat pockets. Well, it might be so. Such things are possible under any system of physics. But this all rests upon a blind assumption as to the fact. Is a man to be kicked upon hypothesis? That is what Lord Bacon would have set his face against. However, some of my new acquaintances evidently cared as little for Lord Bacon as for me; and regulated their kicks upon principles incomprehensible to me. These contributors excepted, whose articles were unjustifiably heavy, the rest of the subscribers were so considerate, that I looked upon them as friends in disguise.

On returning to our own frontiers, I had an opportunity of displaying my exemplary greenness. That message to my brother, with all its virus of insolence, I repeated as faithfully for the spirit, and as literally for the expressions, as my memory allowed me to do: and in that troublesome effort, simpleton that I was, fancied myself exhibiting a soldier's loyalty to his commanding officer. My brother thought otherwise: he was more angry with me than with the enemy. I ought, he said, to have refused all participation in such sansculottes' insolence; to carry it was to acknowledge it as fit to be carried. "Speak civilly to my general," I ought to have told them; "or else get a pigeon to carry your message – if you happen to have any pigeon that knows how to conduct himself like a gentleman among gentlemen." What could they have done to me, said my brother, on account of my recusancy? What monstrous punishments was I dreaming of, from the days of giants and ogres? "At the very worst, they could only have crucified me with the head downward, or impaled me, or inflicted the death by priné,4 or anointed me with honey (a Jewish punishment), leaving me (still alive) to the tender mercies of wasps and hornets." One grows wiser every day; and on this particular day I made a resolution that, if again made prisoner, I would bring no more "jaw" from the Philistines. For it was very unlikely that he, whom I heard solemnly refusing to take "jaw" from whole provinces of England, would take it from the rabble of a cotton factory. If these people would send "jaw," and insisted upon their right to send it, I settled that, henceforward, it must go through the post-office.

But, in that case, had I not reason to apprehend being sawed in two? I saw no indispensable alternative of that see-saw nature. For there must be two parties – a party to saw, and a party to be sawed. And neither party has a chance of moving an inch in the business without a saw. Now, if neither of the parties will pay for the saw, then it is as good as any one conundrum in Euclid, that nobody can be sawed. For that man must be a top-sawyer, indeed, that can keep the business afloat without a saw. But, with or without the sanction of Euclid, I came to the resolution of never more carrying what is improperly called "chaff," but, by people of refinement, is called "jaw" – that is to say, this was my resolution, in the event of my being again made prisoner; an event which heartily I hoped might never happen. It did happen, however, and very soon. Again, that is, for the third time, I was made prisoner; and this time I managed ill indeed; I did make a mess of it; for I displeased the commander-in-chief in a way that he could not forget.

In my former captures, there had been nothing special or worthy of commemoration in the circumstances. Neither was there in this,5 excepting that, by accident, in the second stage of the case, I was delivered over to the custody of young woman and girls; whereas the ordinary course would have thrown me upon the vigilant attentions (relieved from monotony by the experimental kicks) of boys. So far, the change was by very much for the better. I had a feeling myself – on first being presented to my new young mistresses – for to be a prisoner, I in my simplicity, believed, was to be a slave – of a distressing sort. Having always, or at least up to the completion of my sixth year, been a privileged pet, and almost, I might say, ranking among the sanctities of the household, with all its female sections, whether young or old (an advantage which I owed to a long illness, an ague, stretching over two entire years of my infancy), naturally I had learned to appreciate the indulgent tenderness of women; and my heart thrilled with love and gratitude, as often as they took me up into their arms and kissed me. Here it would have been as every where else; but, unfortunately, my introduction to these young women was in the very worst of characters. I had been taken in arms – in arms, against whom? and for what? Against their own nearest relations and connections – brothers, cousins, sweethearts; and on pretexts too frivolous to mention, if any at all. Neither was my offense of ancient date, so as to make it possible for desperate good nature to presume in me a change of heart, and a penitential horror of my past life. On the contrary, I had been taken but five minutes before, in the very act of showering brickbats on members of their own factory; and, if no great number of stones appeared to swell my pockets, it was not that I was engaged in any process of weaning myself from such fascinating missiles, but that I had liberally made over to their kinsfolk most of those which I possessed. If asked the question, it would be found that I should not myself deny the fact of being at war with their whole order. What was the meaning of that? What was it to which war, and the assumption of warlike functions, pledged a man? It pledged him, in case of an opportunity arising, to storm his enemies; that is, in my own case, to storm the houses of these young factory girls; briefly, and in plain English, to murder them all; to cut the throats of every living creature by their firesides; to float the closets in which, possibly, three generations of their family might have been huddled together for shelter, with the gore of those respectable parties. Almost every book of history in the British Museum, counting up to many myriads of volumes would tell them plainly, and in pretty nearly the very same words, what they had to expect from every warrior, and therefore from me, videlicet this – that neither the guileless smiles of unoffending infancy, nor the gray hairs of the venerable patriarch sitting in the chimney corner; neither the sanctity of the matron, nor the loveliness of the youthful bride; no, nor the warlike self-devotion of the noble young man, fighting as the champion of altars and hearths; none of these searching appeals would reach my heart; neither sex nor age would confer any privilege with me; that I should put them all to the edge of the sword; that I should raze the very foundations of their old ancestral houses; having done which, I should probably plow up the ground with some bushels of Nantwich salt, mixed with bonedust from the graves of infants as a top-dressing; that, in fact, the custom of all warriors, and therefore by necessity of myself, was notoriously to make a wilderness, and to call it a pacification; with other bloody depositions in the same key, and often in the very same words.

All this was passing through my brain as the sort of explanatory introduction which, in mere honesty, I could not disown, if any body should offer it, when suddenly one young woman snatched me up in her arms, and kissed me; from her, I was passed round to others of the party, who all in turn caressed me, with scarcely an allusion to that warlike mission against them and theirs, which only had procured me the honor of an introduction to themselves in the character of captive. The too palpable fact, that I was not the person meant by nature to murder any one individual of their party, was likely enough to withdraw from their minds the counterfact – that too probably, in my military character, I might have dallied with the idea of murdering them all. Not being able to do it, as regarded any one in particular, was illogically accepted as an excuse for the military engagement that bound me to attempt it with regard to all in mass. Not only did these young people kiss me, but I (seeing no military reason against it) kissed them. Really, if young women will insist on kissing major-generals, they must expect that the generals will retaliate. One only of the crowd adverted to the character in which I came before them: to be a lawful prisoner, it struck her too logical mind that I must have been caught in some aggressive practices. "Think," she said, "of this little dog fighting, and fighting our Jack." "But," said another, in a propitiatory tone, "perhaps he'll not do so any more." I was touched by the kindness of her suggestion, and the sweet merciful sound of that same "Not do so any more," which really I fear was prompted by the charity in her that hopeth all things, and despairs of no villain, rather than by any signals of amendment that could have appeared in myself. It was well for me that they gave no time to comment on my own moral condition; for, in that case, I should have told them, that, although I had delivered, in my time, many thousands of stones for the service of their near relatives, and must, without vanity, presume that, on the ratio of one wound to a thousand shots, I had given them numerous reasons for remembering me; yet that, if so, I was sincerely sorry (which I was) for any pain I had caused – the past I regretted, and could plead only the necessities of duty. But, on the other hand, as respected the future, I could not honestly hold out any hopes of a change for the better, since my duty to my brother, in two separate characters, would oblige me to resume hostilities on the very next day. While I was preparing myself, however, for this painful exposition, my female friends saw issuing from the factory a crowd of boys not likely at all to improve my prospects. Instantly setting me down on my feet, they formed a sort of cordon sanitaire behind me, by stretching out their petticoats or aprons, as in dancing, so as to touch; and then, crying out, "Now, little dog, run for thy life," prepared themselves (I doubt not) for rescuing me, if any recapture should be effected.

But this was not effected, although attempted with an energy that alarmed me, and even perplexed me with a vague thought (far too ambitious for my years, but growing out of my chivalrous studies) that one, perhaps, if not two of the pursuing party might be possessed by some demon of jealousy, since he might have seen me reveling among the lips of that fair girlish and womanish bevy, kissed and kissing, loving and being loved; in which case from all that ever I had read about jealousy (and I had read a great deal – viz, "Othello," and Collins's "Ode to the Passions"), I was satisfied that, if again captured, I had very little chance for my life. That jealousy was a green-eyed monster, nobody could know better than I did. "Oh, my lord, beware of jealousy!" Yes; and my lord couldn't possibly beware of it more than myself; indeed, well it would have been for him had his lordship run away from all the ministers of jealousy – Iago, Cassio, Desdemona – and embroidered handkerchiefs – at the same pace of six miles an hour which kept me ahead of my infuriated pursuers. Ah, that maniac, white as a leper with flakes of cotton, can I ever forget him, that ran so far in advance of his party? What passion, but jealousy, could have sustained him in so hot a chase? There were some lovely girls in the fair company that had so condescendingly caressed me; but, doubtless, upon that sweet creature his love must have settled, who suggested, in her low, soft, relenting voice, a penitence in me that, alas! had not dawned, saying, "Yes; but perhaps he will do so no more." Thinking, as I ran, of her beauty, I felt that this jealous demoniac must fancy himself justified in committing seven times seven murders upon me, if he should have it in his power. But, thank heaven, if jealousy can run six miles an hour, there are other passions, as for instance, fear, that can run, upon occasion, six and a half; so, as I had the start of him (you know, reader), and not a very short start – thanks be to the expanded petticoats of my dear female friends! naturally it happened that the green-eyed monster came in second best. Time luckily was precious with him; and therefore, when he had chased me into the by-road leading down to Greenhay, he turned back; and I, with somewhat sorrowful steps, on the consideration that this scene might need to be all acted over again, when Green-eyes might happen to have better luck, and being unhappy, besides, at having to number so many kind-hearted girls among Philistines and daughters of Gath, pensively pursued my way to the gates of Greenhay. Pensively is not the word that meets the realities of the case. I was unhappy, in the profoundest sense, and not from any momentary accident of distress that might pass away and be forgotten, but from deep glimpses which now, as heretofore, had opened themselves, as occasions arose, into the interior sadnesses, and the inevitable conflicts of life. I knew – I anticipated to a dead certainty – that my brother would not hear of any merit belonging to the factory population whom every day we had to meet in battle; on the contrary, even submission on their part, and willingness to walk penitentially through the Furcæ Caudinæ, would hardly have satisfied his sense of their criminality. Continually, indeed, as we came in view of the factory, he used to shake his fist at it, and say, in a ferocious tone of voice, "Delenda est Carthago!" And certainly, I thought to myself, it must be admitted by every body that the factory people are inexcusable in raising a rebellion against my brother. But still rebels were men, and sometimes were women; and rebels, that stretch out their petticoats like fans for the sake of screening one from the hot pursuit of enemies with fiery eyes (green or otherwise), really are not the sort of people that one wishes to hate.

Homeward, therefore, I drew in sadness, and little doubting that hereafter I might have verbal feuds with my brother on behalf of my fair friends, but not dreaming how much displeasure I had already incurred by my treasonable collusion with their caresses. That part of the affair he had seen with his own eyes from his position on the field; and then it was that he left me indignantly to my fate, which, by my first reception, it was easy to see would not prove very gloomy. When I came into our own study, I found him engaged in preparing a bulletin (which word was just then traveling into universal use), reporting briefly the events of the day. Drawing, as I shall again have occasion to mention, was among his foremost accomplishments; and round the margin of the border ran a black border, ornamented with cypress, and other funeral emblems. When finished, it was carried into the room of Mrs. Evans. This Mrs. Evans was an important person in our affairs. My mother, who never chose to have any direct communication with her servants, always had a housekeeper for the regulation of all domestic business; and the housekeeper for some years at this period was this Mrs. Evans. Into her private parlor, where she sat aloof from the under servants, my brother and I had the entrée at all times, but upon very different terms of acceptance: he, as a favorite of the first class; I, by sufferance, as a sort of gloomy shadow that ran after his person, and could not well be shut out if he were let in. Him she admired in the very highest degree; myself, on the contrary, she detested, which made me unhappy. But then, in some measure, she made amends for this, by despising me in extremity, and for that I was truly thankful – I need not say why, as the reader already knows. Why she detested me, so far as I know, arose out of my reserve and thoughtful abstraction. I had a great deal to say, but then I could say it only to a very few people, among whom Mrs. Evans was certainly not one; and when I did say any thing, I fear that my dire ignorance and savage sincerity prevented my laying the proper restraints upon my too liberal candor; and that could not prove acceptable to one who thought nothing of working for any purpose, or for no purpose, by petty tricks, or even falsehoods – all which I held in stern abhorrence, that I was at no pains to conceal. The bulletin, on this occasion, garnished with its pageantry of woe, cypress wreaths, and arms reversed, was read aloud to Mrs. Evans, indirectly therefore to me. It communicated, with Spartan brevity, the sad intelligence (but not sad to Mrs. E.), "that the major-general had forever disgraced himself, by submitting to the … caresses of the enemy." I leave a blank for the epithet affixed to "caresses," not because there was any blank, but, on the contrary, because my brother's wrath had boiled over in such a hubble-bubble of epithets, some only half-erased, some doubtfully erased, that it was impossible, out of the various readings, to pick out the true classical text. "Infamous," "disgusting," and "odious," struggled for precedency; and infamous they might be; but on the other affixes I held my own private opinions. For some days, my brother's displeasure continued to roll in reverberating thunders; but at length it growled itself to rest; and at last he descended to mild expostulations with me, showing clearly, in a series of general orders, what frightful consequences must ensue, if major-generals (as a general principle) should allow themselves to be kissed by the enemy.

[From Bentley's Miscellany.]