"There was a general whisper, toss, and wriggle,
But etiquette forbade them all to giggle."—BYRON.
"The outward forms the inner man reveal."—HOLMES.
THROUGHOUT all the Union, there is no region more full of an abounding life and activity than western New York. Its people, inheriting from their New England ancestors their unresting energy in all practical affairs, and their habits of keen and close investigation in everything connected with their social or moral development, seem, in a great measure, to have laid aside the conservatism, the wary circumspection that the descendant of the Puritans has still retained. Enjoying the gifts of nature bestowed with a more bounteous hand and a freer mode of life, they have thrown off many of the shackles or restraints with which the worldly prudence of the New Englander hampers him in action, however loose he may suffer the reins to lie on his mind or fancy; but, whatever result his reason or benevolence works out, a genuine New Yorker would exemplify in his conduct, with a high disdain for all who suffered the baser motives of prudence or fear of censure to withhold them from the same course.
The people of that section of the country are so accustomed to see the singular theories, that are only talked about in other places, carried out into action by their zealous promulgators or defenders, that the eccentricities that, in most country villages, would throw all the people into a high state of astonishment, and supply them with a topic of conversation for months, there only causes a gentle ripple over the surface of society; or, to give a truer illustration, the waves there are always rolling so fast and high, that one wave more or less makes but little impression.
But when, from this unquiet ocean, a Bloomer was left stranded on the still shores of our quiet little town of Westbridge, our dismay and agitation can be but faintly described. Socially speaking, propriety is our divinity; Mrs. Grundy, our avenging deity. We frown on short sleeves; but when those short skirts were seen waving in our streets, when they even floated up the broad aisle on the Sabbath, it would be hard to say whether indignation or horror were the predominant feeling.
But, to begin at the beginning, as is in all cases most proper and satisfactory, Jane Atwood announced at our Sewing Society, and Mrs. Atwood mentioned, in the course of a round of calls, that they were expecting Miss Janet McLeod, a niece of the late Mr. Atwood, to pass the winter with them. We all knew Mr. McLeod by reputation, for Mrs. Atwood was very proud of her relationship to him, and references to her brother-in-law were frequently and complacently made. We had seen him, too, when now and then he had passed a day with the Atwoods—he never found time to stay in Westbridge more than a day—and were astonished to find that the rich Mr. McLeod, who had been for some time a sort of a myth among us, a Westbridge Mrs. Harris, was a plain, homespun-looking man, with a comely sun-browned face, white hair, and the kindest and most trusting brown eyes in the world. His manners were hearty and genial, but their simplicity prevented him from making a great impression on us; we like more courtliness and a little more formality. His benevolence and uprightness, together with his immense wealth, procured for him among us that degree of consideration which such things always do procure among the numerous class who take the world as they find it, and we dismissed him with the remark that, though plain and unpolished in his manners, he possessed sterling goodness and sound sense.
This last quality might not have been allowed him, if Mrs. Atwood had not been careful in concealing, as far as possible, the peculiar revelations he made in each visit of his reigning enthusiasm.
"That Mr. McLeod is a very strange man," said Mrs. Atwood's nurse to a former employer of hers. "Do you know, ma'am, he spent all yesterday pulverizing Miss Jane! Miss Jane went sound asleep, and I thought in my heart she would never wake up no more."
It was found out afterwards that Jane Atwood had been undergoing some experiments in mesmerism, which, although Mr. McLeod declared them triumphantly successful, Mrs. Atwood was rather inclined to conceal than converse about. This was on Mr. McLeod's first visit. On his second, he found Mrs. Atwood suffering from an attack of rheumatism. He pulled out of a capacious pocket-book two galvanic rings, which he insisted on her wearing; and, for fear that they might not effect so speedy a cure as he wished, he hastened to the city and returned with a galvanic battery, by means of which he gave his sister-in-law such severe shocks that she assured us often "that her nervous system was entirely shattered by them." But, as I have known many ladies live and get a fair proportion of enjoyment out of this life with their nervous systems in the same dilapidated state, I have come to consider it a very harmless complaint.