MY JOURNAL TO MY COUSIN MARY.
March, 1855.
Of all the letters of condolence I have received since my misfortune, yours has consoled me most. It surprises me, I confess, that a far-away cousin—of whom I only remember that she had the sweetest of earthly smiles—should know better how to reach the heart of my grief and soothe it into peace, than any nearest of kin or oldest of friends. But so it has been, and therefore I feel that your more intimate acquaintance would be something to interest me and keep my heart above despair.
My sister Catalina, my devoted nurse, says I must snatch at anything likely to do that, as a drowning man catches at straws, or I shall be overwhelmed by this calamity. But is it not too late? Am I not overwhelmed? I feel that life is a revolting subject of contemplation in my circumstances, a poor thing to look forward to. Death itself looks pleasanter.
Call up to your mind what I was, and what my circumstances were. I was healthy and strong. I could run, and wrestle, and breast strong winds, and cleave rough waters, and climb steep hills,—things I shall henceforth be able only to remember,—yes, and to sigh to do again.
I was thoroughly educated for my profession. I was panting to fulfil its duties and rise to its honors. I was beginning to make my way up. I had gained one cause,—my first and last,—and my friends thought me justified in entertaining the highest hopes.
It had always been an object of ambition with me to—well, I will confess—to be popular in society; and I know I was not the reverse.—So much, Mary, for what I was. Now see what I am.
I am, and shall forever be,—so the doctors tell me,—a miserable, sickly, helpless being, without hope of health or independence. My object in life can only be—to be comfortable, if possible, and not to be an intolerable trial to those about me! Worth living for,—isn't it?
An athlete, eager and glowing in the race of life, transformed by a thunder-bolt into a palsied and whining cripple for whom there is no Pool of Bethesda,—that is what has befallen me!
I suppose you read the shocking details of the collision in the papers. Catalina and I sat, of course, side by side in the cars. We had that day met in New York, after a separation of years. She had just returned from Europe. I went to meet and escort her home, and, as we whirled over the Jersey sands, I told her of all my plans and hopes. She listened at first with her usual lively interest; but as I went on, she looked me full in the face with an air of exasperated endurance, as if what I proposed to accomplish were beyond reason. I own that I was in a fool's paradise of buoyant expectation. At last she interrupted me.
"Ah, yes! No doubt! You'll do those trifles, of course! And, perhaps, among your other plans and intentions is that of living forever? It is an easy thing to resolve upon;—better not stop short of it."
At this instant came the crash, and I knew nothing more until I heard people remonstrating with Kate for persisting in trying to revive a dead man, (myself,) while the blood was flowing profusely from her own wound. I heard her indignantly deny that I was dead, and, with her customary irritability, tell them that they ought to be ashamed of themselves for saying so. They still insisted that I was "a perfect jelly," and could not possibly survive, even if I came to consciousness. She contradicted them energetically. Yet they pardoned, and liked her. They knew that a fond heart keenly resents evil prophecies of its beloved ones. Besides, whatever she does or says, people always like Kate.
After a physician arrived, it was found that the jellying of my flesh was not the worst of it; for, in consequence of some injury to my spine, my lower limbs were paralyzed. My sister, thank Heaven, had received only a slight cut upon the forehead.
Of course I don't mean to bore you with a recital of all my sufferings through those winter months. I don't ask your compassion for such trifles as bodily pain; but for what I am, and must forever be in this life, my own heart aches for pity. Let yours sympathize with it.
I thought to be so active, so useful, perhaps so distinguished as a man, so blest as husband and father!—for you must know how from my boyhood up I have craved, what I have never had, a home.
Now that I have been thrust out of active life and forced to make up my mind to perfect passiveness, I have become a bugbear to myself. I cannot endure the thought of ever being the peevish egotist, the exacting tyrant, which men are apt to become when they are thrown upon woman's love and long-suffering, as I am.
My only safeguard is, I believe, to keep up interests out of myself, and I beg of you to help me. I believe implicitly in your expressed desire to be of some service to me, and I ask you to undertake the troublesome task of correspondence with a sick man, and almost a stranger. I will, however, try to make you acquainted with myself and my surroundings, so thoroughly that the latter difficulty will soon be obviated.
First, let me present my sister,—named Catalina,—called Kate, Catty, or Lina, according to the fancy of the moment, or the degree of sentimentality in the speaker. You have not seen her since she was a child, so that, of course, you cannot imagine her as she is now. But you know the circumstances in which our parents left us. You remember, that, after living all his life in careless luxury, my father died penniless. Our mother had secured her small fortune for Kate; and at her death, just before my father's, she gave me—an infant a few weeks old—into my sister's young arms, with full trust that I should be taken care of by her. You know of all my obligations to her in my babyhood and for my education, which she drudged at teaching for years to obtain for me. I could never repay her for such devotion, but I hoped to make her forget all her trials, and only retain the happy consciousness of having had the making of such a famous man! I expected to place her in affluence, at least.
And now what can I bring to her but grief and gray hairs? I am dependent upon her for my daily bread; I occupy all her time, either in nursing or sewing for me; I try her temper hourly with my sick-man's whims; and I doom her to a future of care and economy. Yet I believe in my soul that she blesses me every time she looks upon me!
Thackeray says women like to be martyrized. I hardly think it is the pursuit of pleasure which leads them to self-denial. Men, at any rate, do not often seek enjoyment in that form. If women do make choice of such a class of delights, even instinctively, they need advance no other claim to superiority over men. The higher the animal, the higher its propensities.
Kate the other day was asserting a wife's right to the control of her own property, and incidentally advocating the equality of the sexes,—a touchy point with her. I put in,—
"Tell me, then, Lina, why animals form stronger attachments to men than to women. Your dog, your parrot, even your cat, already prefers me to you. How can you account for it, unless by allowing that there is more in us to respect and love?"
"I account for it," said she, with her most decided nod, "by affinity. There is more affinity between you and brutes. It is the sons of God who find the daughters of men fair. We draw angels from the skies;—even your jealous, reluctant sex has borne witness to that."
"Pshaw! only those anomalous creatures, the poets. But please yourself with such fancies; they encourage a pretty pride that becomes your sex. Conscious forever of being your lords, we feel that the higher you raise yourselves, the higher you place us. You can't help owning that angelic woman-kind submits—and gladly—to us."
"Nonsense! conceited nonsense!"
"But don't they?"
"Some do; but I do not."
"Why, all my life you have been to me a most devoted, obedient servant,
Kate."
"Yes, I have my pets," she answered, "and I care for them. I am housemaid to my bird; my cat makes her bed of my lap and my best silk dress; I am purveyor to my dog, head-scratcher to my parrot, and so forth. It is my pleasure to be kind. Higher natures always are so,—yes, Charlie, even minutely solicitous for the welfare of the objects of their care; for are not the very hairs of our head all numbered by the Most Beneficent?"
She began in playful insolence, but ended with tearful eyes, and a grateful, humble glow upon her face. Its like I had never seen before in her rather imperious countenance. I gazed at her with interest. She saw me, and was irritated to be caught with moistened eyes. She scorns crying, like a man.
"Come, come!" said she, childishly and snappishly, "what are you looking at?"
Of course you cannot have any idea of her personal appearance from memory, and I will try to give you one by description.
Though over thirty, she is generally considered very handsome, and is in the very prime of her beauty; for it is not of the fragile, delicate order. She has jet-black, very abundant hair, hazel eyes, and a complexion that is very fair, without being blonde. A bright, healthy color in cheek and lip makes her look as fresh as a rose. Her nose is the doubtful feature. It is—hum!—Roman, and some fastidious folks think a trifle too large. But I think it suits well her keen eyes and slightly haughty mouth. She has fine hands, a tall figure, and an independent "grand action," that is not wanting in grace, but is more significant of prompt energy.
The study of woman is a new one to me. I often see Kate's friends and gossips,—for I occupy the parlor as sick-room,—and I lie philosophizing upon them by the hour, puzzling myself to solve the problem of their idiosyncrasies. Lady Mary Wortley Montague said, that, in all her travels, she had met with but two kinds of people,—men and women. I begin to think that one sex will never be thoroughly comprehended by the other, notwithstanding the desperate efforts the novelists are making now-a-days. They all go upon the same plan. They take some favorite woman, watch her habits keenly, dissect her, analyze her very blood and marrow,—then patch her up again, and set her in motion by galvanism. She stalks through three volumes and—drops dead. I have seen Kate laugh herself almost into convulsions over the knowing remarks upon the sex in Thackeray, Reade, and others. And I must confess that the women I know resemble those of no writer but Shakspeare.
We take our revenge for this irritating incapacity by saying that neither can women create ideal men at all resembling reality. But halte là! Was it not said at first that Rochester must be a man's man? Is not the little Professor Paul Emanuel an actual masculine creature? Heathcliff was a fiend,—but a male fiend.
But where am I wandering? To come back to my sister. She is a fair specimen of the quick, impulsive, frank class of women. She says she belongs to the genus irritabile. She is easily excited to every good emotion, and also to the nobler failings of anger, indignation, and pride. But she is so far above any meanness or littleness, that she don't know them when she sees them. They pass with her for what they are not, and she is spared the humiliation of knowing what her species is capable of. Kate's nature is very charming, but there is a gentler, calmer order of beings in the sex. I once was greatly attracted by one of them; and you, I think, belong to that order. However, I should not class you with her,—for Kate says she was a "deceitful thing." She may have been so, for aught I know; but I hold it as my creed, that there are some women all softness, all gentleness, all purity, all loveableness, and yet all strength of principle. Kate says, if there are men all courage, all chivalry, all ardor, and all virtue, I may be right.
The Germans say, "Give the Devil a hair, and he will get your whole head." Luckily it is the same with the good angels. I have seen a hundred examples to prove it true. I will give the one nearest my heart.
Lina's generous aspiration at the birth of her baby brother was the hair. Since then, the angel of generosity has drawn her on from one self-denying deed to another, until he has possessed her utterly. Her self-sacrifice was completed some weeks ago. I will tell you how,—for her light shall not be hidden under a bushel.
When I arrived at this, her little cottage home, after the accident, it was found impossible to get me up stairs. So I have since occupied the parlor as my sick-room,—having converted a large airy china-closet into a recess for a bed, and banished the dishes to the kitchen dresser. During the day I occupy a soft hair-cloth-covered couch, and from it I can command, not a view, but a hearing, of the two porches, the hall, and the garden.
The day after my return was a soft, warm day; and though it was in February, the windows were all open. I heard a light carriage drive up to the front door, and supposing it to be the doctor, I awaited his entrance with impatience. After some time I discovered that he was with Kate in the garden, and I could hear their voices. I listened with all my ears, that I might steal his true opinion of myself; for I concluded that Kate was having a private consultation, and arranging plans by which I was to be bolstered up with prepared accounts, and not told the plain facts of the case. I had before suspected that they did not tell me the worst. I could just catch my name now and then, but no more; and I wished heartily that they were a little nearer the windows. They must be, I thought, quite at the bottom of the garden. Suddenly I perceived that the voice addressing my sister was one of impassioned persuasion, and I heard the words, "Be calm and reasonable,"—"Not forever." Then Kate said, with a burst of sobs, "Only in heaven."
"It is all over with me, then," I thought, aghast. But having settled it, after a struggle, to be the best thing both for me and Kate, I began to listen again. They were quite silent for some moments. Then I heard sounds which surprised me,—low, loving tones,—and I desperately wrenched myself upon my elbows to look out. The agony of such effort was more tolerable than the agony of suspense. They were not far off, as I supposed, but close under the window, standing in the little box-tree arbor, screened from all eyes but mine; and no doubt Kate believed herself safe enough from these, as I had never been capable of such exertion since the accident. Their low tones had deceived me as to their distance.
I was mistaken in another respect. It was not the doctor with Kate, but a fine-looking man, whose emotion declared him her lover. His arm held her, and hers rested upon his shoulder, as she looked up at him and spoke earnestly. His face expressed the greatest alarm and grief. I do not know where she found the resolution, while looking upon it, to do what she did; for, Mary,—I can hardly bear to write it,—I heard her forever renounce her love and happiness for my sake.
I might then have cried out against this self-sacrifice; but there is something sacred in such an interview, and I could not thrust myself upon it. I wish now that I had done so. But then I listened in silence—grief-struck—to the rejection of him she loved,—to the farewells. I saw the long-clasped hands severed with an effort and a shudder; I saw my proud sister offer and give a kiss far more fervent than that which she received in return;—for she felt that this was a final parting, and her heart was full of love and sorrow; while in his there lingered both hope and anger,—hope that I would recover, and release her,—resentment because she could sacrifice him to me.
And yet, after the parting, Kate had but just turned from him, when a change came over his countenance, at first of enthusiastic admiration, then of a yet more burning pain. He walked quickly after her, caught her in his arms, and dashing away tears, that they might not fall upon her face, he kissed her passionately, and said, "It is hard that I must say it, but you are right, Lina! Oh, my God! must I lose such a woman?"
Kate, trembling, panting, stamped her foot and cried, "Go, go!—I cannot stand it!—go!" Ah, Mary! that poor, pale face! He went. Kate made one quick, terrified, instantly restrained motion of recall, which he did not see; but I did, and I fainted with the pang it gave me.
When I recovered consciousness, I found my sister bending over me, blaming herself for neglecting me for so long a time, and calling herself a cruel, faithless nurse, with acute self-reproach!—There's woman for you!
I told her what I had overheard, and protested against what she had done. She said I must not talk now,—I was too ill; she would listen to me to-morrow. The next day I broached the subject again, as she sat by my side, reading the evening paper. She put her finger on a paragraph and handed it to me. I read that one of the steamships had sailed at twelve o'clock that day. "He is in it," Kate said, and left the room.—He is in Europe by this time.
Helpless wretch that I am!
Are not Kate's whole head and heart, and all, under the dominion of
Heaven's best angels?