Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

"I have some consideration for anti-jokers. They are not amusing, but they are generally useful. It is well for the race, no doubt, to have many persons always in solemn earnest. I don't know what the world would come to if every body could see a joke. Possibly it might laugh itself to death."

Frequently on these walks they were met and joined by Mr. Colburne. That young gentleman, frank as his clear hazel eyes and hearty laugh made him appear, was awkwardly sly in bringing about these ostensibly accidental meetings. Not that his clumsy male cunning deceived Miss Ravenel: she was not by any means fond enough of him to fail to see through him; she knew that he walked in her paths with malice aforethought. Her father did not know it, nor suspect it, nor ever, by any innate consciousness or outward hint, feel his attention drawn toward the circumstance. And, what was most absurd of all, Mr. Colburne persisted in fearing that the Doctor, that travelled and learned man of the world, guessed the secret of his slyness, but never once attributed that degree of sharp-sightedness to the daughter. I sometimes get quite out of patience with the ugly sex, it is so densely stupid with regard to these little social riddles. For example, it happened once at a party that while Colburne, who never danced, was talking to Miss Ravenel, another gentleman claimed her hand for a quadrille. She took her place in the set, but first handed her fan to Colburne. Now every lady who observed this action understood that Miss Ravenel had said to Colburne as plainly as it was possible to express the thing without speaking or using force, that she wished him to return to her side as soon as the quadrille was over, and that in fact she preferred his conversation to that of her dancing admirer. But this masculine blunderer comprehended nothing; he grumbled to himself that he was to be put off with the honor of holding a fan while the other fellow ran away with the owner; and so, shoving the toy into his pocket, he absented himself for half an hour, to the justifiable disapprobation of Miss Ravenel, who did not again give him any thing to hold for many evenings.

But this was an exceptional piece of stupidity in Colburne, and probably he would not have been guilty of it but for a spasm of jealousy. He was not grossly deficient in social tact, any more than in natural cleverness or in acquired information. Conversation, and very sensible conversation too, flowed like a river when he came into confluence with the Ravenels. The prevailing subject, as a matter of course, was the rebellion. It was every body's subject; it was the nightmare by night and the delirium by day of the American people; it was the one thing that no one ignored and no one for an hour forgot. The twenty loyal millions of the North shuddered with rage at the insolent wickedness of those conspirators who, merely that they might perpetuate human bondage and their own political supremacy, proposed to destroy the grandest social fabric that Liberty ever built, the city of refuge for oppressed races, the hope of the nations. For men who through such a glorious temple as this could rush with destroying torches and the cry of "Rule or ruin," the North felt a horror more passionate than ever, on any occasion, for any cause, thrilled the bosom of any other people. This indignation was earnest and wide-spread in proportion to the civilization of the century and the intelligence of the population. The hundreds of telegraph lines and thousands of printing presses in the United States, sent the knowledge of every new treason, and the reverberation of every throb of patriotic anger, in a day to all Americans outside of nurseries and lunatic asylums. The excitement of Germany at the opening of the Thirty Years' War, of England previous to the Cromwellian struggle, was torpid and partial in comparison with this outburst of a modern, reading and swiftly-informed free democracy. As yet there was little bloodshed; the old respect for law and confidence in the processes of reason could not at once die, and men still endeavored to convince each other by argument while holding the pistol to each other's heads; but from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf there was a spiritual preparedness for slaughter which was to end in such murderous contests as should make ensanguined Europe rise from its thousand battle-fields to stare in wonder.

Women and children were as wild with the patriotic excitement as men. Some of the prettiest and gentlest-born ladies of New Boston waited in a mixed crowd half the night at the railroad station to see the first regiments pass towards Washington, and flung their handkerchiefs, rings, pencil-cases, and other trinkets to the astonished country lads, to show them how the heart of woman blessed the nation's defenders. In no society could you be ten minutes without hearing the words war, treason, rebellion. And so, the subject being every body's subject, the Ravenels and Colburne frequently talked of it. It was quite a sad and sore circumstance to the two gentlemen that the lady was a rebel. To a man who prides himself on his superior capacity and commanding nature, (that is to say, to almost every man in existence) there can be few greater grievances than a woman whom he cannot convert; and more particularly and painfully is this true when she bears some near relationship to him, as for instance that of a wife, sister, daughter and sweetheart. Thus Ravenel the father and Colburne the admirer, fretted daily over the obstinate treasonableness of Miss Lillie. Patriotism she called it, declaring that Louisiana was her country, and that to it she owed her allegiance.

It is worthy of passing remark how loyal the young are to the prevailing ideas of the community in which they are nurtured. You will find adult republicans in England, but no infant ones; adults monarchists in our own country, but not in our schools and nurseries. I have known an American of fifty whose beliefs, prejudices and tastes were all European, but who could not save his five children from being all Yankee. Accordingly this young lady of nineteen, born and nurtured among Louisianians, held firm for Louisiana in spite of the arguments of the adored papa and the rather agreeable admirer.

The Doctor liked Colburne, and respected his intellect. He rarely tired of talking with him on any subject, and concerning the war they could go on interminably. The only point on which they disagreed was the probable length of the contest; the southerner prophecying that it would last five or six years, and the northerner that the rebels would succumb in as many months. Miss Ravenel sometimes said that the North would give up in a year, and sometimes that the war would last forty years, both of which opinions she had heard sustained in New Orleans. But, whatever she said, she always believed in the superior pluck and warlike skill of the people of her own section.

"Miss Ravenel," said Colburne, "I believe you think that all southerners are giants, so tall that they can't see a Yankee without lying down, and so pugnacious that they never go to church without praying for a chance to fight somebody."

She resented this satire by observing, "Mr. Colburne, if I believe it you ought not to dispute it."

I am inclined to think that the young man in these days rather damaged his chances of winning the young lady's kind regards (to use a hackneyed and therefore decorous phrase) by his stubborn and passionate loyalty to the old starry banner. It was impossible that the two should argue so much on a subject which so deeply interested both without occasionally coming to spiritual blows. But why should Mr. Colburne win the kind regards of Miss Ravenel? If she were his wife, how could he support her?