IX.
Now many memories make solicitous
The delicate love lines of her mouth, till, lit
With quivering fire, the words take wing from it;
As here between our kisses we sit thus
Speaking of things remembered, and so sit
Speechless while things forgotten call to us."
Joanna's wedding occurred at the beginning of the winter and the winter festivities. But, amid all the dining and dancing and skating, there was a political anxiety and excitement that leavened strongly every social and domestic event. The first Colonial Congress had passed the three resolutions which proved to be the key-note of resistance and of liberty. Joris had emphatically indorsed its action. The odious Stamp Act was to be met by the refusal of American merchants either to import English goods, or to sell them upon commission, until it was repealed. Homespun became fashionable. During the first three months of the year, it was a kind of disgrace to wear silk or satin or broadcloth; and a great fair was opened for the sale of articles of home manufacture. The Government kept its hand upon the sword. The people were divided into two parties, bitterly antagonistic to each other. The "Sons of Liberty" were keeping guard over the pole which symbolized their determination; the British soldiery were swaggering and boasting and openly insulting patriots on the streets; and the "New York Gazette," in flaming articles, was stimulating to the utmost the spirit of resistance to tyranny.
And these great public interests had in every family their special modifications. Joris was among the two hundred New York merchants who put their names to the resolutions of the October Congress; Bram was a conspicuous member of the "Sons of Liberty;" but Batavius, though conscientiously with the people's party, was very sensible of the annoyance and expense it put him to. Only a part of his house was finished, but the building of the rest was in progress; and many things were needed for its elegant completion, which were only to be bought from Tory importers, and which had been therefore nearly doubled in value. When liberty interfered with the private interests of Batavius, he had his doubts as to whether it was liberty. Often Bram's overt disloyalty irritated him beyond endurance. For, since he had joined the ranks of married men and householders, Batavius felt that unmarried men ought to wait for the opinions and leadership of those who had responsibilities.
Joanna talked precisely as Batavius talked. All of his enunciations met with her "Amen." There are women who are incapable of but one affection,—that one which affects them in especial,—and Joanna was of this order. "My husband" was perpetually on her tongue. She looked upon her position as a wife and housekeeper as unique. Other woman might have, during the past six thousand years, held these positions in an indifferent kind of way; but only she had ever comprehended and properly fulfilled the duties they involved. Madam Van Heemskirk smiled a little when Joanna gave her advices about her house and her duties, when she disapproved of her father's political attitude, when she looked injured by Bram's imprudence.
"Not only is wisdom born with Joanna and Batavius, it will also die with them; so they think," said Katharine indignantly, after one of Joanna's periodical visitations.
A tear twinkled in madam's eyes; but she answered, "I shall not distress myself overmuch. Always I have said, 'Joanna has a little soul. Only what is for her own good can she love.'"
"It is Batavius; and a woman must love her husband, mother."
"That is the truth: first and best of all, she must love him, Katherine; but not as the dog loves and fawns on his master, or the squaw bends down to her brave. A good woman gives not up her own principles and thoughts and ways. A good woman will remember the love of her father and mother and brother and sister, her old home, her old friends; and contempt she will not feel and show for the things of the past, which often, for her, were far better than she was worthy of."