The younger of the sisters was much afraid of lightning, and had devised a curious little refuge to which she always betook herself when a thunderstorm appeared imminent. This was a wooden platform standing on glass feet, with a seat and a silken canopy, which the good lady drew closely around her, remaining thus enveloped until the dreaded danger was past.
My father sometimes endeavored to overcome my fear of lightning by taking me up to the cupola of our house, and bidding me admire the beauty of the storm. Wishing to impress upon me the absurdity of giving way to fear, he told me of a lady whom he had known in his youth who, being overtaken by a thunderstorm at a place of public resort, so lost her head that she seized the wig of a gentleman standing near her, and waved it wildly in the air, to his great wrath and discomfiture. I am sorry to say that this dreadful warning provoked my laughter, but did not increase my courage.
The years of mourning for my father and beloved brother being at an end, and the sister next to me being now of an age to make her début in society, I began with her a season of visiting, dancing, and so on. My sister was very handsome, and we were both welcome guests at fashionable entertainments.
I was passionately fond of music, and scarcely less so of dancing, and the history of the next two winters would, if written, chronicle a series of balls, concerts, and dinners.
I did not, even in these years of social routine, abandon either my studies or my hope of contributing to the literature of my generation. Hours were not then unreasonably late. Dancing parties usually broke up soon after one o'clock, and left me fresh enough to enjoy the next day's study.
We saw many literary people and some of the scientists with whom my brother had become acquainted while in Europe. Among the first was John L. O'Sullivan, the accomplished editor of the "Democratic Review." When the poet Dana visited our city, he always called upon us, and we sometimes had the pleasure of seeing with him his intimate friend, William Cullen Bryant, who very rarely appeared in general society.
Among our scientific guests I especially remember an English gentleman who was in those days a distinguished mathematician, and who has since become very eminent. He was of the Hebrew race, and had fallen violently in love with a beautiful Jewish heiress, well known in New York. His wooing was not fortunate, and the extravagance of his indignation at its result was both pathetic and laughable. He once confided to me his intention of paying his addresses to the lady's young niece. "And Miss —— shall become our Aunt Hannah!" he said, with extreme bitterness.
I exhorted him to calm himself by devotion to his scientific pursuits, but he replied: "Something better than mathematics has waked up here!" pointing to his heart. He wrote many verses, which he read aloud to our sympathizing circle. I recall from one of these a distich of some merit. Speaking of his fancied wrongs, and warning his fair antagonist to beware of the revenge which he might take, he wrote:—
"Wine gushes from the trampled grape,
Iron's branded into steel."
In the end he returned to the science which had been his first love, and which rewarded his devotion with a wide reputation.