At last, driven to the wall, she threw a nice morocco letter-case into my lap, saying:
'Take it and read it to yourself, and you will see why I positively can not read it aloud.'
So we gave up our entreaties. I read the letter-journal after I went to my room. The reading cheated me of an hour's sleep; perhaps because I had just intensely enjoyed the country my friend described; and in the morning I begged Miss Langdon's permission to publish it. She at first vehemently objected, saying it would be in the highest degree indelicate to publish so much of her own story as was inextricably interwoven with the journey.
'But, dear child,' I urged, 'who that reads The Continental knows you? And besides, when this is published, (if indeed the Messrs. Editors of that popular journal graciously permit it to see the light,) you will be on the other side of the Atlantic; and before you return, this record will be forgotten, for, alas! we contributors to Monthlies do not write for immortality.'
'But for the briefest mortality I am not fitted to write,' she pleaded.
I rather smiled at the novelty of one hesitating to write for the public because not fitted for the task; and, thinking of 'the fools that rushed in,' (there is small aptness in the remainder of the familiar quotation,) I continued to urge till my young friend yielded, on my promising to omit passages which relate to the emotions and rites of the inner temple; Mary Langdon not partaking that incomprehensible frankness or child-like hallucination which enables some of our very best writers—Mrs. Browning, for instance—to impart, by sonnets and in various vehicles of prose and verse, to the curious and all-devouring public those secrets from the heart's holy of holies that one would hardly confess to a lover or a priest.
It is to our purpose, writing, as we profess to do, pour l'utile, that our young friend indulged little in sentiment that her circumstances rendered dangerous to her peace, and that, being a country-bred New-England girl, she conscientiously, set down the coarser realities essential to the well-being of a traveler—breakfasts, dinners, etc. But before proceeding to her journal, I must introduce my debutante, if she who will probably make but a single appearance before the public may be so styled.
Mary Langdon is still on the threshold of life; at least those who have reached threescore would deem her so, as she is not more than three-and-twenty. The freshness of her youth has been preserved by a simple and rather retired country-life. A total abstinence from French novels and other light reading has left the purity and candor of her youth unscathed by their blight and weather-stain. Would that this tree of the knowledge of evil—not good and evil—were never transplanted into our New World. 'If ye eat of it,' your love of what is natural and simple 'will surely die;' ye will lose your perception of the sweet odors of the flowers Providence has sown along your path, and the vile exhalations from these fruits of corrupted genius will hide from you the star of duty—perhaps Nature's sternest light, but her best.
Mary Langdon's simplicity is that of truth, not of ignorance. Her father has given her what he calls 'a good old-fashioned English education;' that means, he says, that 'she thoroughly knows how to read, write, and cipher, which few girls brought up at French boarding-schools do.' As might be suspected from the practical ideas in her narrative, our young friend has had that complete development of her faculties which arises out of the necessities of country-life in its best aspects. There is hardly a position in our country, now, so isolated but one may 'follow the arts' if one chooses, foreign artists and accomplished exiles pervading our country parts. Mary has availed herself of the facilities thus afforded to cultivate a musical talent and temperament, and acquire enough of the foreign languages to open their literature to her. Strangers do not call Mary Langdon handsome; but her friends do, and they marvel that her fair oval face, her spirited expression, tempered by the sweetest mouth and most pearly and expressive teeth, do not strike all eyes. And then she is so buoyant, so free of step and frank of speech, that while others are slowly winding their way to your affections, she springs into your heart.
With due respect to seniority, we should have presented Mr. Langdon before his daughter. On being called on for his journal, he said he was not 'such a confounded fool as to keep one for any portion of his life. He should as soon think of crystallizing soap-bubbles. He had dotted down a few memoranda in his memorandum book, as warnings to future travelers, and we were welcome to them; though he thought we were too mountain-mad to profit by them, if indeed any body ever profited by any body else's experience!' The fact was, the dear old gentleman had left home in a very unquiet state of mind. He hated at all times leaving his home, abounding in comforts. He detested travel under what he termed 'alleviating circumstances.' He was rather addicted to growling; this English instinct came over with his progenitor in the Mayflower, and half a dozen generations had not sufficed to subdue it. But Mr. Langdon's 'bark is worse than his bite.' In truth his 'bite' is like that of a teething child's, resulting from a derangement of sweet and loving elements.