Never in this day—generation of jaded and sated literary appetite—will any one know the fresh and eager joy, the vivid sensation of delight with which a poem like "The Lady of the Lake," a novel like "Ivanhoe," was received in lonely mountain towns by a people eager for a new mental excitement. The young folks called the rocks and glens and rivers of their romantic region by names borrowed from Scott; they clambered among the crags of Benvenue and sailed on the bosom of Loch Katrine.
The students in the law offices and the young ladies of the first families had their reading circles and their literary partialities—some being partisans of Byron, some of Scott, etc.—and there was much innocent spouting of poetry. There were promising youths who tied their open shirt collars with a black ribbon, and professed disgust at the hollow state of human happiness in general, and there were compassionate young ladies who considered the said young men all the more interesting for this state of mysterious desolation, and often succeeded in the work of consoling them. It must be remarked, however, that the present gathering was a married people's party, and the number of young men and maidens was limited to the immediate family connections. The young people had their parties, with the same general decorum, where the conversation was led by them. In the elderly circles all these literary and social topics came under discussion. Occasionally Judge Belcher, who was an authority in literary criticism, would hold the ear of the drawing-room while he ran a parallel between the dramatic handling of Scott's characters as compared with those of Shakespeare, or gave an analysis of the principles of the Lake School of Poetry. The Judge was an admirable talker, and people in general liked to hear him quite as well as he liked to hear himself, and so his monologues proceeded nem. con.
On this particular evening, however, literature was forgotten in the eagerness of politics. The news from the state elections was not in those days spread by telegraph, it lumbered up in stages, and was recorded at most in weekly papers; but enough had come to light to make the Poganuc citizens aware that the State of Connecticut had at last been revolutionized, and gone from the Federalists to the Democrats.
Judge Belcher declaimed upon the subject in language which made the very hair rise upon Dolly's head.
"Yes, sir," he said, addressing Dr. Cushing; "I consider this as the ruin of the State of Connecticut! It's the triumph of the lower orders; the reign of 'sans culotte-ism' begun. In my opinion, sir, we are over a volcano; I should not be surprised, sir, at an explosion that will blow up all our institutions!"
Dolly's eyes grew larger and larger, although she was a little comforted to observe the Judge carefully selecting a particular variety of cake that he was fond of, and helping himself to a third cup of tea in the very midst of these shocking prognostications.
Dolly had not then learned the ease and suavity of mind with which both then and ever since people at tea drinkings and other social recreations declare their conviction that the country is going to ruin. It never appears to have any immediate effect upon the appetite. Dolly looked at her father, and thought he assented with somewhat of a saddened air; and Mrs. Davenport looked concerned; and Mrs. Judge Gridley said it was a very dark providence why such things were permitted, but a little while after was commending the delicacy of the cake, and saying she must inquire of Venus about her peculiar mode of confection.
Judge Gridley—a white-haired, lively old gentleman with bright eyes, who wore the old-fashioned small-clothes, knee-buckles, silk stockings and low shoes—had fixed his eyes upon Dolly for some time, and now crossing the room drew her with him into a corner, saying: "Come, now, Miss Dolly, you and I are old friends, you know. What do you think of all these things?"
"Oh, I'm so glad you came," said Dolly, with a long sigh of relief. "I hoped you would, because mamma said I mustn't talk unless somebody spoke to me, and I do so want to know all about those dreadful things. What is a volcano? Please tell me!"
"Why, my little Puss," he said, lifting her in his lap and twining her curls round his finger, "what do you want to know that for?"