MEMOIR
OF
WALTER AIMWELL.
PREFACE TO MEMOIR.
This is not a story of romantic scenes or unusual incidents. Externally, the life of Walter Aimwell was but a common one,—uncommonly common, if the paradoxical term may be used. And not only are the scenes familiar, but the hero, although a working power behind or within them, hardly appears, personally.
Without doubt, the mind is most startled by singular and showy living; and it is well to know of those who, amid extraordinary circumstances, have moved gloriously. As we look on, we surely admire; we may covet the surroundings and the opportunity; we may think of copying the action; we may feel the inspiration of a generous ambition, most likely to be balked. But an every-day life, lived finely, firmly, truly, purely, appeals to all our every-day hearts, and moves them, not to envy, not to servile imitation, not to ambition; but to such sincere sympathy as will naturally take effect in noble action where we are,—we not waiting for special position, or the probability of applause.
WALTER AIMWELL.
CHAPTER I.
HIS BIRTHPLACE.
Once there was a little, green peninsula that lay amid the shining waters like a pear upon a plate of burnished silver. The Indians—whose light canoes, like feathers, now and then glided across the gleamy ripples—called the peninsula Mishawum, and the water Mystic.
Since then, lying centuries in the sunshine of God’s blessing, the pear has ripened until its surface is ruddy with the homes of civilization, and gray with the dust of commerce; and the salver has been etched by the shadows of a thousand foreign spars.