University of Virginia.
Young girls reared in a university town and admitted to the friendship of the professors' families must be dull indeed if they absorb nothing from the literary atmosphere. My dear aunt was an accomplished English scholar. Her father had been the friend and neighbor of Patrick Henry, her husband had been one of John Randolph's physicians. My close friends, the Gilmers, Southalls, and the daughters of Professor Harrison, all had brothers who were students, and we strove to keep pace with these fine young fellows and meet them on English ground at least.
We had no circulating library in Charlottesville, and depended upon the mails for our current literature. We saw Graham's Magazine from Philadelphia, the Home Journal from New York, the Southern Literary Messenger from Richmond. Dickens's novels reached us from London, issued then in monthly sections, and we impatiently awaited them. "Oh, Sara, have you been introduced to Mr. Toots?" wrote Maria Gordon; "he is so much in love with Florence Dombey, he 'feels as if somebody was a-settin' on him!'"
We liked Dickens better than Walter Scott. We found the remarks of Captain Clutterbuck and the Rev. Dryasdust hard to bear, barring the door to the enchanted palace until they had their say. To be sure, Dickens could be tiresome too, pausing in the middle of an exciting story while somebody—the "stroller" or the "bagman"—related something wholly irrelevant. To my mind, a story within a story was a nuisance. It was like a patch on a garment. The garment might be homespun and the patch satin, but it was a blemish, nevertheless, something put on to help a weak place. I skipped these stories then and skip them now!
As to Thackeray, I blush to say we did not appreciate him when he appeared as "Michael Angelo Titmarsh." But we all knew Becky! She was only a sublimated little Miss Betsy Stevens, a ragged mountain woman who sold peaches on a small commission, and who, like Becky, having "no mamma" or other asset, lived by her wits.
Perhaps in our estimation of Thackeray we were guided somewhat by his own countrymen. An English paper fell in our hands which was not at all respectful to "Chawls-Yellowplush-Angelo-Titmarsh-Jeames-William-Makepeace-Thackeray, Esquire of London Town in old England." Such ridicule would soon settle him! No man could survive it.
None of the visiting authors deigned to call on us,—Thackeray, Dickens, Miss Martineau,—all passed us by. True, Frederika Bremer condescended to spend a night with her compatriot, Mr. Schéle de Vere, en route to the South, where she was to find little to admire except bananas. Mr. Schéle invited a choice company to spend the one evening Miss Bremer granted him. Her novels were extremely popular with us. Every one was on tiptoe of pleased anticipation. While the waiting company eagerly expected her, the door opened—not for Miss Bremer, but her companion, who announced:—
"Miss Bremer, she beg excuse. She ver tired and must sleep! If she come, she gape in your noses!"
Alas for tourist's help in the translating books! "Face" and "nose," "gape" and "yawn," although not synonymic, bear at least a cousinly relation to each other.