Fifteen Days: An Extract from Edward Colvil's Journal

by Mary Lowell Putnam

"In regard to our institutions, you mean? I know, that, spoken or unspoken, hatred of them is carried in the heart of every New-Englander. It is sometimes suppressed through politeness or from interest, but I never saw a Northerner who was good for anything, in whom it did not break out on the first provocation. I like as well to have it fairly understood in the outset. I have had a letter from Harry in answer to one of mine. It is explicit on this point."

I had no doubt it was very explicit. Frederic's eye meeting mine, he caught my thought, and we had a good laugh together, which made us better friends.

"The Northerners are brought up in their set of prejudices, as we in ours. I can judge of the force of theirs by that of my own. I only wish there was the same unanimity among us. We are a house divided against itself."

And Frederic's face darkened,—perhaps with the recollection of the rupture of old ties in Shaler's case,—or rather, as it seemed, with the rankling of some later, nearer pain. He turned quickly away from the intrusive thought, whatever it was. He does not like the unpleasant side of things.

"At any rate, because Harry Dudley and I are to be adverse, it does not follow that we are to be estranged. I cannot forget our school-days,—our walks on the boulevards and the quays,—our rides in the Bois,—our journeys together, when we were like brothers. I was never so happy as in those days, when I had not a care or a duty in the world."

He had the air, with his twenty-one years, of a weary man-of-the-world. There was no affectation in it. Unless report have done him injustice, the last two years have put a gulf between him and that time.

I reminded him of the conversation between him and his sister, in which they spoke of Harry Dudley before I knew who Harry Dudley was. He remembered it, and returned very readily to the subject of it. He related many incidents of the tour in Brittany, and spoke warmly of the pleasure of travelling with a companion who is alive to everything of interest in every sort. He said his travels in Germany, and even in Italy, had hardly left with him so lively and enduring impressions as this little journey into Brittany; for there he had gone to the heart of things.

"I must see him again. We must meet once more as we used to meet. We must have one good clasp of the hand; we must, at least, say a kind good-bye to the old friendship. If, hereafter, we find ourselves opposed in public life, I shall deal him the worst I can, but with openness and loyalty like his own, and doing him more justice in my heart, perhaps, than he will do me."

Frederic Harvey inquired anxiously where Harry was to be found, and I was obliged to tell him of our intended meeting. I was afraid he would propose to go with me. He was on the point of doing so, but refrained, seeing that I was not expecting such a suggestion.