It has been assumed by the outside world that our people lived a life of idleness and ease, a kind of “hammock-swung,” “sherbet-sipping” existence, fanned by slaves, and, in their pride, served on bended knees. No conception could be further from the truth. The ease of the master of a big plantation was about that of the head of any great establishment where numbers of operatives are employed, and to the management of which are added the responsibilities of the care and complete mastership of the liberty of his operatives and their families. His work was generally sufficiently systematized to admit of enough personal independence to enable him to participate in the duties of hospitality; but any master who had a successfully conducted plantation was sure to have given it his personal supervision with an unremitting attention which would not have failed to secure success in any other calling. If this was true of the master, it was much more so of the mistress. The master might, by having a good overseer and reliable headmen, shift a portion of the burden from his shoulders; the mistress had no such means of relief. She was the necessary and invariable functionary; the keystone of the domestic economy which bound all the rest of the structure and gave it its strength and beauty. From early morn till morn again the most important and delicate concerns of the plantation were her charge and care. She gave out and directed all the work of the women. From superintending the setting of the turkeys to fighting a pestilence, there was nothing which was not her work. She was mistress, manager, doctor, nurse, counsellor, seamstress, teacher, housekeeper, slave, all at once. She was at the beck and call of every one, especially of her husband, to whom she was “guide, philosopher, and friend.”
One of them, being told of a broken gate by her husband, said, “Well, my dear, if I could sew it with my needle and thread, I would mend it for you.”
What she was, only her husband divined, and even he stood before her in dumb, half-amazed admiration, as he might before the inscrutable vision of a superior being. What she really was, was known only to God. Her life was one long act of devotion,—devotion to God, devotion to her husband, devotion to her children, devotion to her servants, to her friends, to the poor, to humanity. Nothing happened within the range of her knowledge that her sympathy did not reach and her charity and wisdom did not ameliorate. She was the head and front of the church; an unmitred bishop in partibus, more effectual than the vestry or deacons, more earnest than the rector; she managed her family, regulated her servants, fed the poor, nursed the sick, consoled the bereaved. Who knew of the visits she paid to the cabins of her sick and suffering servants! often, at the dead of night, “slipping down” the last thing to see that her directions were carried out; with her own hands administering medicines or food; ever by her cheeriness inspiring new hope, by her strength giving courage, by her presence awaking faith; telling in her soft voice to dying ears the story of the suffering Saviour; with her hope soothing the troubled spirit, and lighting with her own faith the path down into the valley of the dark shadow. What poor person was there, however inaccessible the cabin, that was sick or destitute and knew not her charity! Who that was bereaved that had not her sympathy!
The training of her children was her work. She watched over them, inspired them, led them, governed them; her will impelled them; her word to them, as to her servants, was law. She reaped the reward. If she admired them, she was too wise to let them know it; but her sympathy and tenderness were theirs always, and they worshipped her.
There was something in seeing the master and mistress obeyed by the plantation and looked up to by the neighborhood which inspired the children with a reverence akin to awe which is not known at this present time. It was not till the young people were grown that this reverence lost the awe and became based only upon affection and admiration. Then, for the first time, they dared to jest with her; then, for the first time, they took in that she had been like them once, young and gay and pleasure-loving, with coquetries and maidenly ways, with lovers suing for her; and that she still took pleasure in the recollection,—this gentle, classic, serious mother among her tall sons and radiant daughters. How she blushed as they laughed at her and teased her to tell of her conquests, her confusion making her look younger and prettier than they remembered her, and opening their eyes to the truth of what their father had told them so often, that not one of them could be as beautiful as she.
She became timid and dependent as they grew up and she found them adorned with new fashions and ways which she did not know; she gave herself up to their guidance with an appealing kind of diffidence; was tremulous over her ignorance of the novel fashions which made them so charming. Yet, when the exactions of her position came upon her, she calmly took the lead, and, by her instinctive dignity, her wisdom, and her force, eclipsed them all as naturally as the full moon in heaven dims the stars.
Such in part was the mistress. As to the master himself, it is hard to generalize. Yet there were indeed certain generic characteristics, whether he was grave and severe, or jovial and easy. There was the foundation of a certain pride based on self-respect and consciousness of power. There were nearly always the firm mouth with its strong lines, the calm, placid, direct gaze, the quiet speech of one who is accustomed to command and have his command obeyed; there was a contemplative expression due to much communing alone, with weighty responsibilities resting upon him; there was absolute self-confidence, and often a look caused by tenacity of opinion. There was not a doubtful line in the face nor a doubtful tone in the voice; his opinions were convictions; he was a partisan to the backbone; and not infrequently he was incapable of seeing more than one side. This prevented breadth, but gave force. He was proud, but rarely haughty except to dishonor. To that he was inexorable. He believed in God, he believed in his wife, he believed in his blood. He was chivalrous, he was generous, he was usually incapable of fear or of meanness. To be a Virginia gentleman was the first duty; it embraced being a Christian and all the virtues. He lived as one; he left it as a heritage to his children. He was fully appreciative of both the honors and the responsibilities of his position. He believed in a democracy, but understood that the absence of a titled aristocracy had to be supplied by a class more virtuous than he believed any aristocracy to be. He purposed in his own person to prove that this was practicable. He established the fact that it was. This and other responsibilities made him grave. He had inherited gravity from his father and grandfather. The latter had been a performer in the greatest work of modern times, with the shadow of the scaffold over him if he failed. The former had faced the weighty problems of the new government, with many unsolved questions ever to answer. He himself faced problems not less grave. The greatness of the past, the time when Virginia had been the mighty power of the New World, loomed ever above him. It increased his natural conservatism. He saw the change that was steadily creeping on. The conditions that had given his class their power and prestige had altered. The fields were worked down, and agriculture that had made his class rich no longer paid. The cloud was already gathering in the horizon; the shadow already was stretching towards him. He could foresee the danger that threatened Virginia. A peril ever sat beside his door. He was “holding the wolf by the ears.” Outside influences hostile to his interest were being brought to bear. Any movement must work him injury. He sought the only refuge that appeared. He fell back behind the Constitution that his fathers had helped to establish, and became a strict constructionist for Virginia and his rights. These things made him grave. He reflected much. Out on the long verandas in the dusk of the summer nights, with his wide fields stretching away into the gloom, and “the woods” bounding the horizon, [his thoughts dwelt upon serious things]; he pondered causes and consequences; he resolved everything to prime principles. He communed with the Creator and his first work, Nature.
This communion made him a wonderful talker. He discoursed of philosophy, politics, and religion. He read much, generally on these subjects, and read only the best. His bookcases held the masters (in mellow Elzevirs and Lintots) who had been his father’s friends, and with whom he associated and communed more intimately than with his neighbors. Homer, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Goldsmith, “Mr. Pope,” were his poets; Plutarch, Bacon, Burke, and Dr. Johnson were his philosophers. He knew their teachings and tried to pattern himself on them. These “new fellows” that his sons raved over he held in so much contempt that his mere statement of their inferiority was to his mind an all-convincing argument.
In religion he was as orthodox as the parson. He might not be a professing member of the church; but he was one of its pillars: ready to stand by, and, if need were, to fight to the death for the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Confession of Faith. Yet, if he was generally grave, he was at times, among his intimates and guests, jovial, even gay. On festive occasions no one surpassed him in cheeriness. To a stranger he was always a host, to a lady always a courtier. When the house was full of guests, he was the life of the company. He led the prettiest girl out for the dance. At Christmas he took her under the mistletoe, and paid her gracious compliments which made her blush and courtesy with dimpling face and dancing eyes. But whatever was his mood, whatever his surroundings, he was always the exponent of that grave and knightly courtesy which under all conditions has become associated with the title “Virginia gentleman.”