Next to the fashion, if not in an equal or superior degree, I think my grandmother most abhorred the French. Indeed her strongest denunciations against the reigning modes were usually clinched with the triumphant assertion that they were "French fashions." No marvel if her spirit was stirred within her by the horrors of revolutionary France, and her Protestantism strengthened by the butcheries of "Ninety-eight." I knew that she was a protester and a tory of no common stamp; and I knew that she brought her Bible forward in support of every opinion that she uttered. Rarely did I visit her without finding her buried in the study of that blessed book; and I know that she strove to teach me much of its meaning; but our change of residence proved a great bar to personal intercourse, and she never wrote letters. I sometimes trace impressions on my mind, made in early life, which I am sure must have been through her means, and though the good seed died on the ground, while the weeds took root and flourished, still, here and there a grain might sink below the surface, to spring up after many days.
And now I must record my first sorrow, although I cannot dwell upon it as on some other things. My brother had been nearly two years absent, on service in the Peninsula, when an apoplectic attack arrested my lather in the midst of life and health and vigor, and every promise of lengthened years. The premonitory visitations of repeated strokes were disregarded, for we could not, would not, realize the approach of such an event, and persisted in believing them nervous; but just when all cause for alarm seemed at an end, and I was rejoicing in the assurance of its being so, I was called from my pillow at midnight to see that tender and beloved parent die. The bereavement was terrible to me: I had always been his principal companion, because no one else in the family had a taste for those things in which he delighted—literature and politics especially—and since my brother's departure, instead of seeking to replace him by friends of my own age, I had turned wholly to my father, never desiring to pass an hour out of his society, and striving to be to him both daughter and son. My mother was a perfect devotee to household affairs, every thought occupied in seeking to promote the domestic comforts of her family; while I, indulging a natural antipathy to all that did not engage the intellectual powers, gave her no help there, I was truly cumbering the ground, seeking only my own gratification, and dignifying my selfishness with many fine names, only because it was best indulged in my own dear home. From the period of my loss of hearing, music had been wholly banished; my father seemed to lose all relish for what could no longer minister enjoyment to me, and deeply I felt the force of that affection which could so instantly and wholly overcome the ruling passion of his mind, accompanied as it was with such exquisite skill in that delightful science as rendered him the admiration of all who came within its influence. It redoubled my devotion to him, and most bitter was the anguish of my heart when I beheld him taken away at a stroke.
Was this affliction sanctified to me? Not in the least. I found a luxury in grieving alone, brooding on the past, and painting the probable future in any colors but those of reality. My father had enjoyed two livings with a minor canonry in the cathedral, but the emolument was very small, and his income had not allowed him, as yet, to make any provision for us. A small annuity was all that my mother could depend on, and I resolved to become a novel-writer, for which I was just qualified, both by nature and habits of thinking, and in which I should probably have succeeded very well, but it pleased God to save me from this snare. My brother's unexpected return on leave, with our subsequent changes of abode, paying visits among friends, and keeping my thoughts constantly unsettled, hindered the execution of the project; and when my brother returned to Portugal, we repaired to London, to make a long stay with some near relations. It was there that I met with the gentleman, an officer on leave of absence, whose wife, at the end of six months, I became.
I am longing to arrive at that period when the light of the glorious gospel of Christ first shone upon me through the darkness of many trying dispensations; therefore I pass by much that intervened, including my dear brother's marriage, who returned again to London with his bride and his mother, to resume his staff situation there; and shall only take you with me across the Atlantic, for a few Nova Scotian reminiscences, before proceeding to the scene of my most precious recollections, dear Ireland. My husband had joined his regiment in Halifax, and sent me a summons to follow him out without delay; in order to which I was obliged to embark in a large vessel taken up partially by government for the conveyance of troops, but in which there was a select party, occupying the state cabin, and making their own terms with the captain for the best possible accommodation and provision on the passage. Of this number was I; and certainly a more select, polished and agreeable party of highly bred gentlemen could not have been found. I went under the kind care of one of these, with his wife, who had invited me to travel with them.
Have you ever been at sea? It is a question the answer to which will throw very little light on the matter, unless you also state how it agreed with you: no two races on the earth can be more distinct than those two are upon the water—the people who are sea-sick and the people who are not. It was my happy privilege to belong to the latter class; I never for a moment experienced even an unpleasant sensation from any marine cause, but on the contrary enjoyed exemption from all physical annoyances during a five weeks' voyage, excepting that of hunger. An abundant supply of every thing that was nourishing, in the most palatable form, left no excuse for remaining hungry; nevertheless the demand was incessantly kept up; and I appeal to all who have been similarly affected, whether the munching of hard sea-bread from morning to night under the pressure of a real sea appetite, is not a greater luxury than the choicest viands on shore. To me it certainly was; and surely I had reason to be deeply thankful to the Lord, who, by means of that delicious voyage, and its bracing exhilarating effects, prepared me for a trying winter in the singular climate for which I was bound.
Every day, and all day long, be the weather what it might, I was stationed on deck, generally seated on the highest point of the ship's stern, directly over the rudder, to enjoy a full view of that most graceful and exquisite spectacle, a large vessel's course through the mighty deep. Ours was a splendid one, a West Indiaman, almost rivalling the sea-palaces of the East India Company, and manned in the first style. The troops on board, under the command of a field officer, greatly added to the effect and comfort of the thing, for nothing is so conducive to the latter as military discipline, well and mildly maintained. Although our party was perfectly distinct from those who went out entirely at the charge of government, consisting of several officers and their wives, yet we too were nearly all military, including the commandant, and were strictly amenable to martial law. Of course that soul of domestic and social comfort, punctuality, reigned paramount; every meal was regulated by beat of drum, subordination carefully preserved, and decorum, to the most minute particular, insisted on. No dishabille could appear, in the cabin or on deck; no litter, not an article of luggage visible. All the sick people, all the cross people, and all the whimsical people were stowed away in their respective berths, and such drawing-room elegance, combined with the utmost freedom of good-humor and the unrestrained frankness that results from a consciousness of proper restraint, pervaded our little select coterie, amounting to seventeen gentlemen and two ladies, that it did not need the miserable contrast which I afterwards experienced on the homeward passage, to assure me we were among the most favored of ocean travellers.
How very much do they err who consider the absence of order and method as supplying greater liberty or removing a sense of restraint. Such freedom is galling to me; and in my eyes, the want of punctuality is a want of honest principle; for however people may think themselves authorized to rob God and themselves of their own time, they can plead no right to lay a violent hand on the time and duties of their neighbor. I say it deliberately, that I have been defrauded of hundreds of pounds, and cruelly deprived of my necessary refreshment in exercise, in sleep, and even in seasonable food, through this disgraceful want of punctuality in others, more than through any cause whatsoever besides. It is also very irritating; for a person who would cheerfully bestow a piece of gold, does not like to be swindled out of a piece of copper; and of many an hour have I been ungenerously wronged, to the excitement of feelings in themselves far from right, when I would gladly have so arranged my work as to bestow upon the robbers thrice the time they made me wantonly sacrifice. To say, "I will come to you on such a day," leaving the person to expect you early, and then, after wasting her day in that uncomfortable, unsettled state of looking out for a guest, which precludes all application to present duties, to come late in the evening—or to accept an invitation to dinner, and either break the engagement or throw the household into confusion by making it wait—to appoint a meeting, and fail of keeping your time—all these, and many other effects of this vile habit are exceedingly disgraceful, and wholly opposed to the scriptural rules laid down for the governance of our conduct one to another. I say nothing of the insult put upon the Most High, the daring presumption of breaking in upon the devotions of his worshippers, and involving them in the sin of abstractedness from the solemn work before them, by entering late into the house of prayer. Such persons may one day find they have a more serious account to render on the score of their contempt of punctuality, than they seem willing to believe.
But I have run away from my ship—yet not so; for as every thing shines out most by contrast, it was natural to think on the ugly reverse when recalling the beautiful harmony and order of our regulations on board. We were favored with most delightful weather, fresh and dry and warm; with only one day's hard rain, during which the sea "ran mountains," as the sailors said. I was conducted on deck, "just for one minute, that you may be able to say you have seen such a sea," remarked the gentleman who put a military cloak over me, and led me up the stairs. But who could be satisfied with a momentary sight of any thing so stupendously grand? I resisted all efforts to persuade me into retreating again, and it ended in my being lashed to the mizenmast by my friendly conductor, who declared that his head, the best landsman's head on board, would not stand the giddy scene; in short, that he should be obliged to report himself sick, and exchange our agreeable society below for the solitude of his berth. Of course I dismissed him, and was left among the mountains, alone, save when a sailor passed me on his duties among the rigging, and gave me a smile of approval, while the man at the wheel seemed to regard me as being under his especial patronage. The tars love one who does not flinch from their own element.
Truly, I saw that day the works of the Lord and his wonders in the great deep. Imagine yourself in a ship, large among vessels, but a mere cork upon the waters of that mighty main. On every side, turn where you would, a huge mountain of irregular form was rising-dark, smooth, of unbroken surface, but seeming about to burst from over-extension. How did you come into that strange valley? how should you get out of it? how avoid the rush of that giant billow that even now overhangs your bark? These questions would inevitably rush through the mind; but in a second of time the huge body beside you sunk, you were on its summit, and another came rolling on. Meanwhile the ship would reel, with a slow slanting movement that gradually lowered the tall masts till the yards almost dipped in the brine, and you were either laid back on the frame- work behind you, or well-nigh suspended, looking down upon the water over the ship's bulwarks. I soon discovered why my companion had so carefully buckled the leather strap that held me to the mast; certainly I cannot recall the scene with such steadiness of nerve as I beheld it with. Every now and then a small billow would burst upon the vessel's side, sending its liquid treasure across the deck, and more than one ablution of the kind was added to the fresh-water drenching bestowed by the clouds. Can you fancy the discomfort of such a situation? Then you were never at sea, or at least you left your imagination ashore; for I defy any person not well inured to it, to look on such a scene with so negative a feeling as discomfort; it will excite either terror or delight sufficient to engross the whole mind.
I well remember that, when deeply affected by the grandeur of this and other aspects assumed by the majestic main, I found the highest flights of man's sublimity too low. They would not express, would not chime in with my conceptions; and I was driven to the inspired pages for a commentary on the glorious scene. It was then that the language of Job, of Isaiah, of Habakkuk, supplied me with a strain suited to the sublime accompaniment of God's magnificent work. Sunrise I could not witness, because at that hour no lady might appear on deck, and my cabin had not a side-window; but sunset, moonlight, starlight, with the various phenomena of ocean's ever-varying appearance, these furnished an endless contemplation with which nothing could accord but the language of Holy writ. I did not bring forth my Bible, well knowing the bantering remarks to which it would have exposed me on the score of affectation, but my memory served me equally well in that as in profane poetry; and many a precious word of warning, exhortation, and promise did I recite, enchanted by the sublimity of what, as to its spiritual meaning, was still an unknown tongue to me. Among these, the thirty-second of Deuteronomy, the fortieth of Isaiah, and other passages full of the gospel, were repeatedly called to mind; and above all, in blowing weather, the forty-sixth Psalm delighted me.