All those things were, I believe, far more influential and educative than the unthinking will admit. They gave me much food for thought. They roused in me commendable emotions, or salutary dismays. Might I some day be like my aunt Sarah? Was I really like my father? Could I worthily be classed with these others? And traits not to be proud of—was I in danger from these? So cautions and hopes and worthinesses grew up in me under the fine influence of what might be called a study in "Comparative Characteristics." There is not alone a dignity, but a tenderness as well, lent to life by such a study of former and passing generations. The results of living much of my childhood in the presence of the past, serving tea to it, offering it the required courtesies, putting footstools under its feet, were, I believe, a certain abiding reverence for human nobility, and a pity for human faults and weaknesses, and more, a desire and hope for nobility in myself, and a haunting dread that some family weakness might reappear in me; and these, as valuable assets to education, I would not rank below the dates of the battles of Crécy and Poitiers, and the siege of Paris—none of which dates, though I once learned them carefully, have remained with me.
There is not space to tell of that nearer constellation of warm and bright stars, guests who were my mother's and father's intimate friends and contemporaries. Even if there were nothing else to recommend them, these were men and women who had lived through the Civil War in their prime. To sit on the knee of my ex-soldier uncle, and know that where my head leaned he carried in his breast-pocket a little Testament, with a bullet-hole in it but not quite through it—the Testament having saved his life and stopped the bullet from reaching his heart; and to sit on the knee of another uncle, who actually carried a bullet from Antietam about in his body, yes, and for all that, was the very gayest of the gay—these experiences were spelling-books of a higher order and readings in life not to be looked down on.
There were other uncles, who visited the house only in tradition, but were entertained there how warmly of my eager fancy,—their adventurous lives having ended before mine began,—who were memorable lessons in daring, in courtesy, and in spirit!
There was my uncle Robert, for instance, who, to escape, for his part, from my Chancellor grandfather's stern requirement that all of his seven sons should study law, ran away and went before the mast at eighteen, and at twenty-one came sailing home again, master of his own vessel.
She was called the Griffin. Ah, the Griffin! the Griffin! Though I never set foot upon her deck, how well I knew her, masts, spars, canvas, tar, and timber! How often I had stood in dreams, a little figure at the prow, my skirts and hair blown back by the wind, while we sailed the seas, she and I and her gallant crew, under the wise direction of my sailor uncle! How often had we sought and found, across the pathless ways, those places, vague, vague and far away, but known and endeared to me by the wonder and the romance of their names—China and Celebes, Madagascar and Gibraltar, the Azores and Canaries and Shetlands, Hebrides, Bermudas and the Spice Islands, Ceylon and the Andamans, Marseilles and Archangel and Valparaiso! How possible all of them were, how sure of access, without regard to limiting geography! Let but the Griffin weigh her anchor, and her sails be set! How far! how far!
Never mind that the Griffin's master was dead and buried in the sea he loved, before I was born! I contrived to live above these facts, as I did above geography. Could it be possible, do you think, that this my best-loved uncle did not know me when I knew him so well? Was I not, somehow and notwithstanding, one of his close kith and kin, on whom he looked fondly? His favorite niece, perhaps with a spirit of adventure to match his own?
There were other uncles besides, with lives full as romantic. I mention only this one, because I loved him best.
There was, further, my mother's youngest sister, who was better than any legend. I would rather have inherited, as I did then, that love-story of hers, than very considerable worldly riches.
Another of my mother's sisters was mistress of a home on Fifth Avenue and of a very lovely country place on the Hudson. She had maids at every hand to wait upon her, and footmen whose eyes looked straight ahead of them, and who wore cockades in their hats. I liked her for herself: her beauty and her spirit and commandingness always stirred me, and she liked and approved of me, besides. Moreover,—let me be frank,—I liked her too, in those days, for the footmen as well. One of my sisters had visited her for nine months, and had, on her return, entirely revolutionized all my ideas of the world.
But that, rather, which confirmed and stablished me and my ideals as on a rock, was the love-story of my youngest aunt.