LII.
In the early spring of 1842,—we are not quite sure of the date, but it was at any rate shortly after the establishment of the Reverend Theophilus Catesby at Ashfield,—the Doctor was in the receipt of a new letter from his friend Maverick, which set all his old calculations adrift. It was not Madame Arles, after all, who was the mother of Adèle; and the poor gentleman found that he had wasted a great deal of needless sympathy in that direction. But we shall give the details of the news more succinctly and straightforwardly by laying before our readers some portions of Maverick's letter.
"I find, my dear Johns," he writes, "that my suspicions in regard to a matter of which I wrote you very fully in my last were wholly untrue. How I could have been so deceived, I cannot even now fairly explain; but nothing is more certain, than that the person calling herself Madame Arles (since dead, as I learn from Adèle) was not the mother of my child. My mistake in this will the more surprise you, when I state that I had a glimpse of this personage (unknown to you) upon my visit to America; and though it was but a passing glimpse, it seemed to me—though many years had gone by since my last sight of her—that I could have sworn to her identity. And coupling this resemblance, as I very naturally did, with her devotion to my poor Adèle, I could form but one conclusion.
"The mother of my child, however, still lives. I have seen her. You will commiserate me in advance with the thought that I have found her among the vile ones of what you count this vile land. But you are wrong, my dear Johns. So far as appearance and present conduct go, no more reputable lady ever crossed your own threshold. The meeting was accidental, but the recognition on both sides absolute, and, on the part of the lady, so emotional as to draw the attention of the habitués of the café where I chanced to be dining. Her manner and bearing, indeed, were such as to provoke me to a renewal of our old acquaintance, with honorable intentions,—even independent of those suggestions of duty to herself and to Adèle which you have urged.
"But I have to give you, my dear Johns, a new surprise. All overtures of my own toward a renewal of acquaintance have been decisively repulsed. I learn that she has been living for the past fifteen years or more with her brother, now a wealthy merchant of Smyrna, and that she has a reputation there as a dévote, and is widely known for the charities which her brother's means place within her reach. It would thus seem that even this French woman, contrary to your old theory, is atoning for an early sin by a life of penance.
"And now, my dear Johns, I have to confess to you another deceit of mine. This woman—Julie Chalet when I knew her of old, and still wearing the name—has no knowledge that she has a child now living. To divert all inquiry, and to insure entire alienation of my little girl from all French ties, I caused a false mention of the death of Adèle to be inserted in the Gazette of Marseilles. I know you will be very much shocked at this, my dear Johns, and perhaps count it as large a sin as the grosser one; that I committed it for the child's sake will be no excuse in your eye, I know. You may count me as bad as you choose,—only give me credit for the fatherly affection which would still make the path as easy and as thornless as I can for my poor daughter.
"If Julie, the mother of Adèle, knew to-day of her existence,—if I should carry that information to her,—I am sure that all her rigidities would be consumed like flax in a flame. That method, at least, is left for winning her to any action upon which I may determine. Shall I use it? I ask you as one who, I am sure, has learned to love Adèle, and who, I hope, has not wholly given over a friendly feeling toward me. Consider well, however, that the mother is now one of the most rigid of Catholics; I learn that she is even thinking of conventual life. I know her spirit and temper well enough to be sure that, if she were to meet the child again which she believes lost, it would be with an impetuosity of feeling and a devotion that would absorb every aim of her life. This disclosure is the only one by which I could hope to win her to any consideration of marriage; and with a mother's rights and a mother's love, would she not sweep away all that Protestant faith which you, for so many years, have been laboring to build up in the mind of my child? Whatever you may think, I do not conceive this to be impossible; and if possible, is it to be avoided at all hazards? Whatever I might have owed to the mother I feel in a measure absolved from by her rejection of all present advances. And inasmuch as I am making you my father confessor, I may as well tell you, my dear Johns, that no particular self-denial would be involved in a marriage with Mademoiselle Chalet. For myself, I am past the age of sentiment; my fortune is now established; neither myself nor my child can want for any luxury. The mother, by her present associations and by the propriety of her life, is above all suspicion; and her air and bearing are such as would be a passport to friendly association with refined people here or elsewhere. You may count this a failure of Providence to fix its punishment upon transgressors: I count it only one of those accidents of life which are all the while surprising us.
"There was a time when I would have had ambition to do otherwise; but now, with my love for Adèle established by my intercourse with her and by her letters, I have no other aim, if I know my own heart, than her welfare. It should be kept in mind, I think, that the marriage spoken of, if it ever take place, will probably involve, sooner or later, a full exposure to Adèle of all the circumstances of her birth and history. I say this will be involved, because I am sure that the warm affections of Mademoiselle Chalet will never allow of the concealment of her maternal relations, and that her present religious perversity (if you will excuse the word) will not admit of further deceits. I tremble to think of the possible consequences to Adèle, and query very much in my own mind, if her present blissful ignorance be not better than reunion with a mother through whom she must learn of the ignominy of her birth. Of Adèle's fortitude to bear such a shock, and to maintain any elasticity of spirits under it, you can judge better than I.
"I propose to delay action, my dear Johns, and of course my sailing for America, until I shall hear from you."
Our readers can surely anticipate the tone of the Doctor's reply. He writes:—
"Duty, Maverick, is always duty. The issues we must leave in the hands of Providence. One sin makes a crowd of entanglements; it is never weary of disguises and deceits. We must come out from them all, if we would aim at purity. From my heart's core I shall feel whatever shock may come to poor, innocent Adèle by reason of the light that may be thrown upon her history; but if it be a light that flows from the performance of Christian duty, I shall never fear its revelations. If we had been always true, such dark corners would never have existed to fright us with their goblins of terror. It is never too late, Maverick, to begin to be true.
"I find a strange comfort, too, in what you tell me of that religious perversity of Mademoiselle Chalet which so chafes you. I have never ceased to believe that most of the Romish traditions are of the Devil; but with waning years I have learned that the Divine mysteries are beyond our comprehension, and that we cannot map out His purposes by any human chart. The pure faith of your child, joined to her buoyant elasticity,—I freely confess it,—has smoothed away the harshness of many opinions I once held.
"Maverick, do your duty. Leave the rest to Heaven."
COMMUNICATION WITH THE PACIFIC.
It is remarkable that, while we have been fighting for national existence, there has been a constant growth of the Republic. This is not wholly due to the power of democratic ideas, but owing in part to the native wealth of the country,—its virgin soil, its mineral riches. So rapid has been the development that the maps of 1864 are obsolete in 1866. Civilization at a stride has moved a thousand miles, and taken possession of the home of the buffalo. Miners with pick and spade are tramping over the Rocky Mountains, exploring every ravine, digging canals, building mills, and rearing their log cabins. The merchant, the farmer, and the mechanic follow them. The long solitude of the centuries is broken by mill-wheels, the buzzing of saws, the stroke of the axe, the blow of the hammer and trowel. The stageman cracks his whip in the passes of the mountains. The click of the telegraph and the rumbling of the printing-press are heard at the head-waters of the Missouri, and borne on the breezes there is the laughter of children and the sweet music of Sabbath hymns, sung by the pioneers of civilization.
Communities do not grow by chance, but by the operation of physical laws. Position, climate, latitude, mountains, lakes, rivers, coal, iron, silver, and gold are forces which decree occupation, character, and the measure of power and influence which a people shall have among the nations. Rivers are natural highways of trade, while mountains are the natural barriers. The Atlantic coast is open everywhere to commerce; but on the Pacific shore, from British Columbia to Central America, the rugged wall of the coast mountains, cloud-capped and white with snow, rises sharp and precipitous from the sea, with but one river flowing outward from the heart of the continent. The statesman and the political economist who would truly cast the horoscope of our future must take into consideration the Columbia River, its latitude, its connection with the Missouri, the Mississippi, the Lakes, and the St. Lawrence.
How wonderful the development of the Pacific and Rocky Mountain sections of the public domain! In 1860 the population of California, Oregon, and the territories lying west of Kansas, was six hundred and twenty-three thousand; while the present population is estimated at one million, wanting only facility of communication with the States to increase in a far greater ratio.
In 1853 a series of surveys were made by government to ascertain the practicability of a railroad to the Pacific. The country, however, at that time, was not prepared to engage in such an enterprise; but now the people are calling for greater facility of communication with a section of the country abounding in mineral wealth.
Of the several routes surveyed, we shall have space in this article to notice only the line running from Lake Superior to the head-waters of the Missouri, the Columbia, and Puget Sound, known as the Northern Pacific Railroad.
The public domain north of latitude 42°, through which it lies, comprises about seven hundred thousand square miles,—a territory larger than England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, all the German States, Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden.
The route surveyed by Governor Stevens runs north of the Missouri River, and crosses the mountains through Clark's Pass. Governor Stevens intended to survey another line up the valley of the Yellow Stone; and Lieutenant Mullan commenced a reconnoissance of the route when orders were received from Jeff Davis, then Secretary of War, to disband the engineering force.