I have heard it stated that during Virginia Scott's residence in Paris there existed a deep attachment between herself and a young gentleman of foreign birth. The story goes that in the course of time he became as devoted to his religion as he had hitherto been to the beautiful American, and that it was agreed between them that they should both consecrate themselves thereafter to the service of God. He accordingly entered at once upon a religious life. I have heard that they afterwards met at a service before the altar, but that there was no recognition. As intimate as I became with the members of the Scott family in subsequent years, I never heard any allusion to this incident in their family history, and I can readily understand that it was a subject upon which they were too sensitive to dwell.
Father Connelly, whom I have mentioned in connection with Miss Scott's conversion, began his career as an Episcopal clergyman. There was a barrier to his becoming a Roman Catholic priest, as he was married; but his wife soon shared in his religious ardor, and when he entered the priesthood she became a nun. He lacked stability, however, in his religious views, and was subsequently received again into the Episcopal Church. It was his desire that his wife should at once join him but she refused to leave the Convent, and she finally became the founder of the Order of the "Sisters of the Holy Child." I have heard that he took legal measures to obtain possession of her, but if so he was unsuccessful in his efforts.
Another one of Madame Chegaray's distinguished pupils was Martha Pierce of Louisville. As she attended this school some years before I entered, I knew of her in these days only by reputation. But some years later I had the pleasure of knowing her quite intimately, when she talked very freely with me in regard to her eventful life. She told me that upon a certain occasion in the days when women rarely traveled alone she was returning to Kentucky under the care of Henry Clay, and stopped in Washington long enough to visit the Capitol. Upon its steps she was introduced to Robert Craig Stanard of Richmond, upon whom she apparently made a deep impression, for one year later the handsome young Southerner carried the Kentucky girl, at the age of sixteen, back to Virginia as his bride. During her long life in Richmond her home, now the Westmoreland Club, was a notable salon, where the beaux esprits of the South gathered. She survived Mr. Stanard many years. Beautiful, even in old age, gifted and cultivated, her attractions of face and intellect paled before her inexpressible charm of manner. She traveled much abroad and especially in England. A prominent Kentuckian once told me that he heard Washington Irving say that Mrs. Stanard received more attention and admiration in the highest circles of English society than any other American woman he had ever known. She corresponded for many years with Thackeray, the Duke of Wellington and many other prominent Englishmen, and in her own country was equally distinguished. In the course of one of our numerous conversations she told me that after the death of Edward Everett she loaned his biographer the letters she had received from that distinguished orator. During the latter part of her life she gave up her house in Richmond and came to Washington to reside, where she remained until the end of her life. She left no descendants. Her husband's mother, Jane Stith Craig, daughter of Adam Craig of Richmond, was immortalized by Edgar Allan Poe, who, fictitiously naming her "Helen," paid feeling tribute to her charms in those beautiful verses commencing:
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
Among my other schoolmates at Madame Chegaray's were Susan Maria Clarkson de Peyster, a daughter of James Ferguson de Peyster, who subsequently married Robert Edward Livingston; Margaret Masters, a daughter of Judge Josiah Masters of Troy, New York, and the wife of John W. King; Virginia Beverly Wood, a daughter of Silas Wood of New York, who became the wife of John Leverett Rogers; and Elizabeth MacNiel, daughter of General John MacNiel of the Army and wife of General Henry W. Benham of the U.S. Engineer Corps.
After a number of years spent in teaching, Madame Chegaray gave up her New York school and moved to Madison, New Jersey (at one time called Bottle Hill), with the intention of spending the remainder of her life in retirement; but she was doomed to disappointment. Discovering almost immediately that through a relative her affairs had become deeply involved, she with undaunted courage at once opened a school in Madison in the house which she had purchased with the view of spending there the declining years of her life. Previous to this time I had been one of her day scholars; I entered the second school as a boarding pupil. Once a week we were driven three miles to Morristown to attend church. I recall an amusing incident connected with this weekly visit to that place. One Sunday a fellow boarder, thinking that perhaps she might find some leisure before the service to perfect herself in her lesson for the following day, thoughtlessly took along with her a volume of French plays by Voltaire. During the service someone in a near pew observed the author's name upon the book, and forthwith the Morristown populace was startled to hear that among Madame Chegaray's pupils was a follower of the noted infidel. It took some time to convince the public that this book was carried to church by my schoolmate without her teacher's knowledge; and the girl was horrified to learn that she was unintentionally to blame for a new local scandal. While I was at Madame Chegaray's I owned a schoolbook entitled "Shelley, Coleridge and Keats." I brought it home with me one day, but my father took it away from me and, as I learned later, burned it, owing to his detestation of Shelley's moral character. On one occasion he quoted in court some extracts from Shelley as illustrative of the poet's character, but I cannot recall the passage.
After two years spent in Madison, Madame Chegaray returned to New York and reopened her school on the corner of Union Square and Fifteenth Street in three houses built for her by Samuel B. Ruggles. At that time the omnibuses had been running only to Fourteenth Street, but, out of courtesy to this noble woman, their route was extended to Fifteenth Street, where a lamp for the same reason was placed by the city. Madame Chegaray taught here for many years, but finally moved to 78 Madison Avenue, where she remained until, on account of old age, she was obliged to give up her teaching.
While I was still attending Madame Chegaray's school, my father, under the impression that I was not quite as proficient in mathematics and astronomy as it was his desire and ambition that I should be, employed Professor Robert Adrian of Columbia College to give me private instruction in my own home. Under his able tuition, I particularly enjoyed traversing the firmament. I was always faithful to the planet Venus, whose beauty was to me then, as now, a constant delight. In those youthful days my proprietorship in this heavenly body seemed to me as well established as in a Fifth Avenue lot, and was quite as tangible. I regarded myself in the light of an individual proprietor, and, like Alexander Selkirk in his far away island of the sea, my right to this celestial domain there was none to dispute.
After the flight of so many years, and in view, also, of the fact that sometimes the world seems to us older women to be almost turned upside down, it may not be uninteresting to speak of some of the books which were familiar to me during my school days. One of the first I ever read was "Clarissa Harlowe" by Samuel Richardson. "Cecilia," by Frances Burney, was another well-known book of the day. Mrs. Amelia Opie was also a popular authoress, and her novel entitled "White Lies" should, in my opinion, grace every library. Miss Maria Edgeworth and Mrs. Ann Eliza Bray, the latter of whom so graphically depicted the higher phases of English life, were popular authoresses in my earlier days in New York. Many years later some of the books I have mentioned were republished by the Harpers. "Gil Blas," whose author, Le Sage, was the skilful delineator of human nature, its attributes and its frailties, was much read, and, in my long journey through life, certain portions of this book have often been recalled to me by my many and varied experiences. I must not fail to speak of the "Children of the Abbey," by Regina M. Roche, where the fascinations of Lord Leicester are so vividly portrayed; nor of another book entitled "The Three Spaniards," by George Walker, which used to strike terror to my unsophisticated soul.
When Madame Chegaray retired temporarily from her school life and moved to Madison in New Jersey, Charles Canda, who had taught drawing for her, established a school of his own in New York which became very prominent. He had an attractive young daughter, who met with a most heartrending end. On her way to a ball, in company with one of her girl friends, Charlotte Canda was thrown from her carriage, and when picked up her life was extinct. As there were no injuries found upon her body, it was generally supposed that the shock brought on an attack of heart-failure. Subsequently the disconsolate parents ordered from Italy a monument costing a fabulous sum of money for those days, which was placed over the grave of their only daughter in Greenwood Cemetery, where it still continues to command the admiration of sightseers. This tragic incident occurred in February, 1845, on the eve of the victim's seventeenth birthday.