Recollections of a Lifetime, by Samuel Griswold Goodrich (New York & Auburn: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1856)

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LETTER XXIII.

Durham--History of Connecticut--Distinguished Families of Durham--The Chaunceys, Wadsworths, Lymans, Goodriches, Austins, &c.--Woodbury--How Romance becomes History--Rev. Noah Benedict--Judge Smith.

My dear C******

Having spent about a week at New Haven, we proceeded to Durham, an old-fashioned, sleepy town of a thousand inhabitants. Its history lies chiefly in the remarkable men it has produced--the Chaun-

ceys,* celebrated in the literary, clerical, official, and professional annals of New England, and I may add, of the country at large; the Wadsworths, no less noted in various commanding stations, military and civil, public and private; the Lymans, renowned in the battle-field, the college, the pulpit, and the senate; the Austins--father and son--to whose talent and enterprise Texas owes her position as a member of this Union.

To this list of remarkable names, I trust I may add that of the Goodriches, without the imputation of egotism, for historical justice demands it. At the time I visited the place, nearly all the family had long since left it. My grandfather--Dr. Goodrich-- died in 1797, but my grandmother was living, as well as her daughter, Mrs. Smith, wife of Rev. David Smith, the clergyman of the place, who had succeeded to my grandfather's pulpit.

I had never any great fancy for genealogies, so I did not study the broad-spreading tree of the family, its roots running back to the time of Godric the Saxon--the great Adam of the race--as is duly set forth

in King William's Doomsday-Book. Two old bachelors of the place--a little quaint and starch, but studiously polite and very gentleman-like, with a splendid farm, and a house embellished with old oak carvings--told me something about it, and made it out, by a long chain of links, that I was their great, great, double cousin; that is, on my mother's, as well as my father's side. My grandmother also explained to me, that somewhere since the building of Babel, her family was blent with the Griswolds, whence I got my middle name--in token of which she gave me a reverend silver-headed cane, marked I. G., that is, John Griswold, who was her great-grandfather. Of course, I have piously kept this antediluvian relic to the present day.

I trust I have all due respect for this my little, fat, paternal grandmother, and who has already, by the way, been introduced to your notice. She was now quite lame, having broken her leg some years before, and appeared to me shorter than ever; nevertheless, she was active, energetic, and alive to every thing that was passing. She welcomed me heartily, and took the best care of me in the world--lavishing upon me, without stint, all the treasures of her abundant larder. As to her Indian puddings--alas, I shall never see their like again! A comfortable old body she was in all things--and as I have before remarked, took a special interest in the welfare of the generation of descendants rising up around her. When she saw

me eating with a good appetite, her benignant grandmotherly face beamed like a lantern.

She was a model housekeeper, and as such had great administrative talents. Every thing went right in the household, the garden, the home lot, the pasture, and the little farm. The hens laid lots of large fresh eggs, the cows gave abundance of milk, the pigs were fat as butter; the wood-pile was always full. There was never any agony about the house: all was methodical, as if regulated by some law of nature. The tall old clock in the entry, although an octogenarian, was still staunch, and ticked and struck with an emphasis that enforced obedience. When it told seven in the morning, the breakfast came without daring to delay even for a minute. The stroke of twelve brought the sun to the noon-mark, and dinner to the table. The tea came at six. At sunset on Saturday evening, the week's work was done, and according to the Puritan usage, the Sabbath was begun. All suddenly became quiet and holy. Even the knitting-work was laid aside. Meditation was on every brow; the cat in the corner sat with her eyes half shut, as if she too were considering her ways.

On the morning of the Holy Day, all around was silent. The knife and fork were handled quietly, at the table. The toilet, though sedulously performed, was made in secret. People walked as if they had gloves on their shoes. Inanimate nature seemed to know that God rested on that day, and hallowed it.

The birds put on a Sunday air: the cows did not low from hill to hill as on other days. The obstreperous hen deposited her egg, and cackled not. At nine o'clock, the solemn church bell rang, and in the universal stillness, its tones swelled over the village like a voice from above. At ten, the second bell rang, and the congregation gathered in. There, in the place she had held for forty years, was my good grandmother, in rain and shine, in summer and in winter. Though now well stricken in years, and the mother of staunch men--their names honored in the pulpit, the senate, and at the bar--she still faltered not in the strait and narrow path of duty. She was strong-minded, and showed it by a life which elevated, ennobled, and illustrated the character of the mother, the wife, the woman, as she had learned to regard it. It was pleasant to see with what affectionate reverence the people saluted her, as if, in addition to the love they bore her, she still carried with her remembrances of her now almost worshiped husband. Many years she lived after this, but she is now numbered with the dead. Let her portrait have a place in these pages as a fine specimen of the New England wife of the olden time.

As to my uncle and aunt Smith, I may remark that they were plain, pious people, the former worthily filling the pulpit of my grandfather, and enjoying a high degree of respect, alike from, his position and character. Besides attending to his parochial duties, he fit-

ted young men for college. Among his pupils were Samuel D. Hubbard, late Postmaster-general of the United States, Dr. Dekay, the naturalist, Commodore Dekay, and other persons who attained distinction. As a man, he was distinguished for his cheerful, frank, friendly manners: as a preacher, he was practical, sincere, and successful. I must mention a story of him, among my pulpit anecdotes. As sometimes happens, in a congregation of farmers during midsummer, it once chanced that a large number of his people fell asleep--and in the very midst of the sermon. Even the deacons in the sacramental seat had gone cosily to the land of Nod. The minister looked around, and just at that moment, the only person who seemed quite awake, was his eldest son, David, sitting in the minister's pew by the side of the pulpit. Pausing a moment and looking down upon his son, he exclaimed, in a powerful voice--

"David, wake up!"

In a moment the whole congregation roused themselves, and long did they remember the rebuke. In after-times, when, through the temptations of the devil and the weakness of the flesh, during sermon-time, their sight became drowsy, and dreams floated softly over their eyelids, then would come to mind the ominous sound, "David, wake up!" and starting from their slumbers, they would shake themselves, and fix their eyes on the preacher, and wrestle with their infirmities like Jacob--sometimes, though not always,

prevailing like Israel. I need only add in respect to this excellent old gentleman, that he is still living, at the age of eighty-nine, and last year (1855) preached at the capitol in Washington to an attentive and gratified audience.

During our stay of two or three weeks at Durham, my brother-in-law was so ill as to need the advice of a skillful physician. Accordingly I was dispatched on horseback to Middletown, a distance of eight or ten miles, for Dr. O...., then famous in all the country round about. On my way I met a man of weather-beaten complexion and threadbare garments, mounted on a lean and jaded mare. Beneath him was a pair of plump saddlebags. He had all the marks of a doctor, for then men of this profession traversed the country on horseback, carrying with them a collection of pills, powders, and elixirs, equivalent to an apothecary's shop. A plain instinct told me that he was my man. As I was about to pass him, I drew in my breath, to ask if he were Dr. O...., but a sudden bashfulness seized me: the propitious moment passed, and I went on.

On arriving at the house of Dr. O...., I learned that he had gone to a village in the southwestern part of the town, six or eight miles off. "There!" said I to myself, "I knew it was he: if I had only spoken to him!" However, reflection was vain. I followed, to the designated spot, and there I found that he had left about half an hour before, for another

village in the central part of the town. I gave chase, but he was too quick for me, so that I was obliged to return to Durham without him. "Ah!" I thought, "how much trouble a little courage would have saved me!" In fact, I took the incident to heart, and have often practiced to advantage upon the lesson it suggested, which is, never to let a doctor, or any thing else, slip, for the want of asking an opportune question.

This Dr. O.... made several visits to Durham, and I remember to have heard my brother-in-law once ask him whether he was a Brunonian* or a Cullenite; to which he replied, smartly--"Sir, I am a doctor

myself!" The pith of this answer will be felt, when it is known that at this period, and indeed for some years after, there was a schism in the medical profession of this region, which became divided into two parties; one of them adopting the theory and practice of John Brown,* that life is a forced state, depending upon stimuli, and hence that disease and death are to be constantly combated by stimulants. According to this theory, even certain fevers were to be treated with brandy, and in extreme cases, with a tincture of Spanish flies--internally administered! The other followed the theory of Cullen, who adopted the opposite practice of purgatives and depletion, more especially in fevers. A real frenzy ensued, and

the medical profession, as well as society, were involved in a sort of temporary insanity.

At length, we departed from Durham, and took our way homeward, through a series of small towns, arriving at last at Woodbury. Here we remained a week or ten days, being hospitably entertained by the Rev. Noah Benedict, my brother-in-law's uncle. He lived in a large, low, old-fashioned house, embowered in elms, and having about it an air of antiquity, comfort, and repose. He was himself very aged, nearly eighty years old, I should judge. He was, like my own lineage, of the orthodox faith, and sometimes officiated in his pulpit, though he had now a colleague. I need not describe him, further than to say that he was a fine old man, greatly beloved by his parish, and almost adored by his immediate connections. Close by, in a sumptuous house, lived his son, Noah B. Benedict, then a leading lawyer of the State. Half a mile to the south, in an antique, gable-roofed mansion, dwelt his daughter, the wife of Nathaniel Smith, one of the judges of the Supreme Court, and regarded as the intellectual giant of his time. I have good reason to remember the place, for it is now the home of one of my sisters, who married, many years later, the only child of its founder--long since gathered to his fathers.

The week of our sojourn at Woodbury flew on golden wings with me. The village itself was after my own heart. It lies in a small tranquil valley, its

western boundary consisting of a succession of gentle acclivities, covered with forests; that on the east is formed of basaltic ledges, broken into wild and picturesque forms, rising sharp and hard against the horizon. Through the valley, in long serpentine sweeps, flows a stream, clear and bright--now dashing and now sauntering; here presenting a rapid and there a glassy pool. In ancient times it was bordered by cities of the beaver; it was now the haunt of a few isolated and persecuted muskrats. In the spring and autumn, the wild-ducks, in their migrations, often stooped to its bosom for a night's lodging. At all seasons it was renowned for its trout. In former ages, when the rivers, protected by the deep forests, ran full to the brim, and when the larger streams were filled to repletion with shad and salmon, this was sometimes visited by enterprising individuals of their race, which shot up cataracts, and leaped over obstructing rocks, roots, and mounds, impelled by an imperious instinct to seek places remote from the sea, where they might deposit in safety the seeds of their future progeny. In those days, I imagine, the accidents and incidents of shad and salmon life, often rivaled the adventurous annals of Marco Polo or Robinson Crusoe.

There was, in good sooth, about this little village, a singular union of refinement and rusticity, of cultivated plain and steepling rock, of blooming meadow and dusky forest. The long, wide street, saving the

highway and a fevy stray paths, here and there, was a bright, grassy lawn, decorated with abundance of sugar-maples, which appeared to have found their Paradise.* Such is the shape of the encircling hills and ledges that the site of the village seems a sort of secluded Happy Valley, where every thing turns to poetry and romance. And this aptitude is abundantly encouraged by history--for here was once the favored home of a tribe of Indians. All around--the rivers, the hills, the forests--are still rife with, legends and remembrances of the olden time. A rocky mound, rising above the river on one side, and dark forests on the other, bears the name of "Pomperaug's Castle;" a little to the north, near a bridle-path that traversed the meadows, was a heap of stones, called "Pomperaug's Grave." To the east I found a wild ledge, called Bethel Rock.† And each of these objects has

its story. How suggestive--how full of imaginings was Woodbury to me, when I visited it, five and forty years ago! And the woods, teeming with the smaller game--the gray-squirrel, the partridge, and quail, my old West Mountain acquaintances--with what delight did I traverse them, gun in hand, accompanied by a

black-eyed stripling, now my respected and gray-haired brother-in-law!

It was a great time, that happy week, for be it remembered that for a whole year I had been imprisoned in a country store. What melody was there in the forest echoes, then! Ah! I have since heard

Catalani and Garcia and Pasta and Sontag and Grisi. I have even heard the Swedish nightingale; nay, in France and Italy--the very home of music and song--I have listened to the true nightingale, which has given to Jenny Lind her sweetest and most appropriate epithet; but never, in one or all, have I heard

such music as filled my ears, that incense-breathing morn, when I made a foray into the wilds of Woodbury! There was indeed no nightingale there: the season of wood minstrelsy was passed; even the thrush had descended from its perch aloft, and ceasing its melodies, was busy in, the cares of its young

ones, now beginning life in the bush. It was the echo of my own heart, that gave to "simple and familiar sounds--that of the far-off barking dog, the low of distant herds, the swing of the village bell, the murmur of the brooks, the rustle of the leaves in the joyous breath of morning--their real melody. And

then the merry mockery of the red-squirrel, flying, rather than leaping from tree to tree, with the hearty guffaw of his gray brother, rioting in the abundance of some aged hickory: how did these add to the general harmony! And more than all this, there was occasionally the low whistle of the quail, stealing through the leaves, attended at intervals by the

rolling drum of the partridge,* reminding me, with all the force of old associations, that I was once more at liberty in the forest. How great, how impressive do little and even common things become, when seen through the prismatic lens of youthful remembrance! During our stay in Woodbury, as I have said, we lodged at the house of the aged clergyman, Father Benedict,† as he was generally called. I remember

his voice still, which, was remarkable for its tender, affectionate tones. There was also a childlike simplicity in his prayers, which was very touching. These made such an impression on me that I could now repeat several passages, which were perhaps favorites, as they came in every petition.

Of Judge Smith, his son-in-law--whom I have already mentioned--I have also the most vivid recollections. He was then about fifty years of age. His hair was jet black, his eye black and piercing, his complexion swarthy. He was of middle height, of a large and massive mould, There was a mingled plainness and majesty about his appearance, such as might have suited Cincinnatus. He was a great farmer, and devoted himself with intense interest to his tillage, his cattle, and his flocks, during the recesses of the courts. At these times, he seemed to delight in the rustic sports and simple pastimes to which he had been accustomed in early life. After the day's task was done, he was often seen in the midst of his workmen, gathered upon some grassy plain, for the race, the wrestle, or other gymnastic

exercises--he being the umpire, and joining heartily in the spirit of frolic and fun, proper to the occasion. Nothing could be more admirable than his intercourse with his family and the people around him. All knew him to be the judge, yet all felt that he was even more to them--the father, friend, and neighbor.

Few men have left behind them a biography at once so striking and so spotless. "Perhaps," says the chronicler, "the history and character of no other man could be more profitably studied by the youth of ardent aspirations, feeling the fire of genius burning within him, and struggling under the power of adverse circumstances for an honorable position in society, than that of Mr. Smith. He furnishes a brilliant example of what the innate force of a mighty intellect can accomplish, though surrounded by difficulties and obstacles."*

The father of Mr. Smith was poor, and hence he had an extremely limited education. While yet young, he and his brother were engaged in trading between Philadelphia and the northern parts of New England. Being once at Rutland, Vermont, and having a little leisure, he went into the court-house, and heard a trial there. He became deeply interested, and after a little reflection, he said to his brother--"I have been to Philadelphia, to sell new rum, for the last time: I am determined to be a lawyer. Ignorant as I am, I

could have managed the case I heard in court, better than either of the parties engaged. My mind is made up!" Soon after this, he offered himself as a student in the office of Judge Reeve of Litchfield. The latter, knowing his unlettered condition, attempted to dissuade him from an attempt which seemed so hopeless. As Smith persisted, however, he lent him a book, desiring him to read it, and come back in a week for an examination. This he did, and the judge was so struck with his intelligence and capacity, that he received him into his office, and thenceforward gave him every encouragement. Such was his progress, that he was admitted to the bar, even before the time usually required for study had elapsed.

What had been so well begun was, in due time, finished in a similar manner. Mr. Smith rose with unexampled rapidity to the front ranks of his profession, and that too at a time when the Connecticut bar shone with a constellation of great names. His clearness of statement, his simple but vigorous logic, his fertility and felicity of illustration, all aided by a manly presence and a voice of prodigious power, gave him a mastery alike over the plainest and the most instructed audience. These high gifts were nerved by an iron will, and when once he was roused to an earnest effort, his course was marked with a crushing energy, which bore down all opposition. It is said that sometimes, in the consciousness of his power, he rode rough-shod over his adversary, though

in general his practice was signalized not only by justice but amenity.

It appears that although Mr. Smith thus rose to distinction, he still preserved the good-will of the people at large, in an uncommon degree. He soon passed through various stages of official advancement: in 1789, he represented his native town in the General Assembly; in 1795, he was sent to Congress; in 1800, he was a member of the State Council; in 1806, he was judge of the Superior Court, an office which he held for eleven years, when the state of his health, compelled him to resign. In all these positions he was distinguished for his ability, his good sense, his right feeling, his patriotism, justice, dignity. Yet it is recorded that in this elevated career, he never ceased to be stamped with the simplicity of the country farmer. The farm was, indeed, the place which he seemed most to enjoy. His intercourse with country people was marked with a fellowship very rare in a professional man, and hence, no doubt, that general feeling of kindliness among the masses, which even yet cherishes his memory in his native valley, and indeed throughout his native State.

It is greatly to be regretted that none of the higher oratorical efforts of this great man are preserved. The reporting of speeches--so common now--was unknown in his day, and he had too little love of self-display to report what he said, himself. There was, in general, a modesty, a self-forgetfulness about him,

quite as remarkable as the greatness of his intellect. He shrunk from no public duty, but he coveted no public honors. When not officially called away, his home, his farm, and the house of worship--for he was a man of steadfast piety--were his chosen scenes and sources of interest. When I saw him, he was at the height of his fame: all eyes looked at him with admiration. It may be imagined, therefore, that a strong impression was made upon my mind, when--one evening chancing to be at his house--I saw him kneel down, in the midst of his gathered family, including the servants, and offer up his evening prayer, with all the earnest simplicity and feeling of a child, addressing a revered but beloved father. There was something inexpressibly touching and affecting in the scene, and especially in the thrilling, pleading tones of the speaker, poured out as if from the fullness of an overflowing heart. It was, indeed, a scene never to be forgotten--a lesson never to fail of imparting instruction.*

LETTER XXIV.

The Cold Winter and a Sharp Side--Description of Danbury--The Hat Manufactory--The Sandimanians--Gen. Wooster's Monument--Death of my Brother-in-law--Master White--Mathematics--Farewell to Danbury.

My dear C******

We returned to Danbury after a tour of some five or six weeks. The succeeding autumn and winter presented no peculiar incident--with a single exception. There was, if I rightly remember, in the month of February,* a certain "cold Friday," which passed down to succeeding generations as among the marvels of the time. It had snowed heavily for three days, and the ground was covered three feet deep. A driving wind from the northeast then set in, and growing colder and colder, it became at last so severe as to force everybody to shelter. This continued for two days, the whole air being filled with sleet, so that the sun, without a cloud in the sky, shone dim and gray as through a fog. The third day, the wind increased, both in force and intensity of cold. Horses, cattle, fowls, sheep, perished in their coverings. The roads were blocked up with enormous drifts: the mails were

stopped, traveling was suspended; the world, indeed, seemed paralyzed, and the circulation of life to be arrested.

On the morning of this third day--which was the ominous and famous Friday--word was brought to my sister that a poor family, to whom she had long been a kind of providence, about two miles off, was in danger of starvation. She knew no fear, and tolerated no weakness. A thing with her that ought to be done, was to be done. Therefore, a sack was filled with bread, meat, candles, and a pint of rum: this was lashed around my waist. The horse was brought to the door--I mounted and set off. I knew the animal well, and we had enjoyed many a scamper together. He was indeed after my own heart--clean-limbed, with full, knowing eyes, and small, pointed, sensitive ears. He had a cheerful walk, a fleet, skimming trot, a swift gallop, and all these paces we had often tried. I think he knew who was on his back; but when we got to the turning of the road, which brought his nostrils into the very tunnel of the gale, he snorted, whirled backward, and seemed resolved to return. I however brought Him sternly to his work, gave him sharp advice in the ribs, and assured him that I was resolved to be master. Hesitating a moment--as if in doubt whether I could be in earnest--he started forward; yet so keen was the blast, that he turned aside his head, and screamed as if his nostrils were pierced with hot iron. On he

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The Cold Friday. Vol. 1, p. 394.

went, however, in some instances up to the saddle in the drift, yet clearing it at full bounds.

In a few minutes we were at the door of the miserable hut, now half buried in a snow-drift. I was just in time. The wretched inmates--a mother and three small children--without fire, without food, without help or hope--were in bed, poorly clothed, and only keeping life in their bodies by a mutual cherishing of warmth, like pigs or puppies in a similar extremity. The scene within was dismal in the extreme. The fireplace was choked with snow, which had fallen down the chimney: the ill-adjusted doors and windows admitted alike the drift and the blast, both of which swept across the room in cutting currents. As I entered, the pale, haggard mother, comprehending at a glance that relief had come, burst into a flood of tears. I had no time for words. I threw them the sack, remounted my horse, and, the wind at my back, I flew home. One of my ears was a little frost-bitten, and occasionally for years after, a tingling and itching sensation there, reminded me of my ride, which after all left an agreeable remembrance upon my mind.

Danbury* is a handsome town, now numbering

six thousand inhabitants; but in my time there were scarcely more than half that number. It is chiefly built on a long, wide street, crossed near the northern extremity by a small river, a branch of the Housatonic, which, having numerous rapids, affords abundance of mill-sites in its course. At this crossing, there were two extensive hat-factories, famous over the whole country, and belonging, the one to White, Brothers & Co., and the other to Tweedy & Co. Their hats were the rage with the fashionable Genins, St. Johns, Knoxes, and Beebes of that age. I believe, indeed, that these factories, with others of more modern date, are still maintained.

Nearly all the workmen in these establishments--of whom there were several hundred--at the time I am describing, were foreigners, mostly English and Irish. A large part of the business of our store was the furnishing of rum to these poor wretches, who bought one or two quarts on Saturday night, and fuddled themselves till Monday, and frequently till Tuesday. A factory workman of those days was thought to be born to toil, to get drunk, and make a hell of his home. Philanthropy itself had not then lifted its eye or its hopes above this hideous malaria of custom. We had imported these ideas from England and other foreign manufacturing countries, and they reigned over the

public mind. That large humanity, which has done so much, in modern times, to remove vice and crime, and to elevate the public standard of morals, had not then set its Star in the West, calling the Wise and Good to a new revelation of life. It is a modern discovery that manufacturing towns may rise up, where comfort, education, morals, and religion, in their best and happiest exercise, may be possessed by the toiling masses. This is not only a modern, but an American discovery, and refutes volumes of abuse that long-eared philosophy has leveled at republicanism.

Danbury is not without other points of interest--historical and social. It was, as I have shown, the scene of one of those wanton and wicked outrages, perpetrated upon the people of Connecticut, and indeed of many other parts of this country, which made the British name offensive to God and man, during the Revolutionary war. In commemoration of the life and services of General Wooster, who fell at Ridgefield, in an encounter with these British marauders, there has recently been erected at Danbury a beautiful monument of Portland granite, forty feet in height, with the following inscription:

The character of Wooster* was indeed a noble one, and the people of Danbury have shown a wise discernment in the construction of this beautiful memorial of his character and career.

One item more and I shall take leave of Danbury. About midway between the northern and southern extremities of the long main street, and a little to the west of it, there was a building of moderate size, somewhat between a church and a barn, in aspect. It was without tower or steeple, so it could not be the first: it was nicely built and tidily kept, and could not be the last. It was, in fact, the sanctuary of the Sandimanians, or, according to the popular accent, Sandiminians; a small sect of forty members then, and now dwindled to a still smaller number.

The history of its founder is well known. Robert Sandiman, a Scotchman, having adopted the tenets, and married the daughter, of Rev. John Glass--an able

divine, who seems to have been the originator of the Scotch Independents--became a distinguished defender of his theological views. After a time, he was invited to come to America by some of his admirers there, and accordingly he arrived in 1764, and settled among them--first at Boston, but finally taking up his residence at Danbury. He appears to have been much disappointed at the character of his adherents, and the general state of society in America. This was aggravated by his taking the tory side in the agitation which now verged toward the Revolution. His days were in fact embittered, and his flock reduced to a handful of followers. His death took place in 1771, and a simple marble slab, in the burial-ground, opposite the court-house, commemorates his name and history. He was doubtless a man of ability, but his career displays the usual narrowness and inconsistency of sectarianism founded upon persons, rather than principles. His doctrine was, that faith is a mere intellectual conviction--a bare belief of the bare truth. Of course so cold a religion, scarcely distinguishable in its principle from deism, and giving no satisfaction to that constant craving of the soul for a more exalted and spiritual life, could not prosper. It was only adapted to a few rigid minds like his own. His adherents in my time met at their little church on the afternoons of Sundays and Thursdays; they sat around a large table, each with a Bible. The men read and discoursed, as the spirit dictated: the

women were silent. Spectators were admitted, but the worshipers seemed not to recognize their presence. After a prayer and a hymn, they went to the house of one of the members, and had a love-feast. "Greet one another with a holy kiss," was their maxim and their practice.

These customs remain* to the present day, save only as to the kiss, which, according to the current report, was modified some years' since. The congregation was rather mixed, and included the W.... R,....s, a family of wealth and refinement, down to N. S ...., the blacksmith. Mrs. W.... R.... was a woman of great delicacy of person, manners, and dress: her lace was the finest, her silks the richest, her muslin the most immaculate. She was in breeding a lady, in position an aristocrat, in feeling an exclusive. And yet, one day, as she walked forth, and chanced to turn the corner, close to the central meeting-house, wending her way homeward, she came suddenly upon the village Vulcan, above mentioned. He was in front of his shop, and being a man of full habit, and having just put down the heel of an ox, which he was shoeing, he was damp with perspiration. Nevertheless, the faith was strong within him: "Greet one another with a holy kiss!" rushed to his mind, and he saluted Mrs. W.... R...., as in duty bound.

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I, p. 401

She, a saint in profession, but alas, in practice a sinner, as doth appear--returned not the salute! Had she been of another sect, abstinence would have been a virtue, but in this, it was of course a crime. Upon this incident rocked and quaked the whole Sandimanian church for some months. At last the agitation subsided, and the holy kiss was thenceforward either abandoned or given with discretion. Such is the tale as it was told to me, nearly fifty years ago.

It may be remarked that Sandimanianism, which originated in a hard, sarcastic mind, subsided into a sort of amiable and tranquil Quakerism. Its members were noted for purity of life, and some of them for habits of abstraction, which marked themselves in a cold pallor upon the countenance. Seeming to be conscious of a chill at the heart, they sought to quicken the circulation of the Spirit, by outward observances and by peculiarities of worship, such as might distinguish them from other Christians. "I am better than thou, for I am other than thou," has often proved a consoling doctrine for the narrow people of narrow creeds.

A few brief sketches more, and I have done with Danbury, The health of my brother-in-law gradually failed, and at last, as winter approached, he took to his room, and finally to his bed. By almost insensible degrees, and with singular tranquillity of mind and body, he approached his end. It was a

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I, p. 402

trait of his character, to believe nothing, to do nothing, by halves. Having founded his faith on Christ, Christianity was now, in its duties, its promises, and its anticipations, as real as life itself. He was afflicted with no doubts, no fears. With his mind in full vigor, his strong intellect vividly awake, he was ready to shake hands with death, and to enter into the presence of his God. The hour came. He had taken leave of his friends, and then feeling a sense of repose, he asked to be left alone. They all departed save one, who sat apart, listening to every breath. In a few moments she came and found him asleep, but it was the sleep that knows no waking!

I continued in the store alone for several months, selling out the goods, and closing up the affairs of the estate. I had now a good deal of time to myself, and thumbed over several books, completing my reading of Shakspeare, to which I have already alluded. It happened that we had a neighbor over the way--a good-natured, chatty old gentleman, by the name of Ebenezer White. He had been a teacher, and had a great taste for mathematics. In those days it was the custom to put forth in the newspapers puzzling questions of figures, and to invite their solution. Master White was sure to give the answer, first. In fact, his genius for mathematics was so large, that it left rather a moderate space in his brain for common sense. He was, however, full of good feelings, and

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was now entirely at leisure. Indeed, time hung heavy on his hands, so he made me frequent visits, and in fact lounged away an hour or two of almost every day, at the store, I became at last interested in mathematics, and under his good-natured and gratuitous lessons, I learned something of geometry and trigonometry, and thus passed on to surveying and navigation. This was the first drop of real science that I ever tasted--I might almost say the last, for though I have since skimmed a good many books, I feel that I have really mastered almost nothing.

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LETTER XXV.

Farewell to Danbury--Hartford--My first Master and His Family--Merino Sheep--A Wind-up--Another Change--My new Employer--A new Era in Life--George Sheldon--Franklin's Biography.

My dear C******

I must now introduce you to a new era in my life. Early in the summer of 1811, I took leave of Danbury, and went to Hartford. On my arrival there, I was installed in the dry-goods store of C. B. K...., my father having made the arrangement some weeks before. My master was a young man of excellent disposition, with a pretty wife and two fat cherubs of children, I was kindly treated in this family, with which I took my meals. Many a happy

romp had I with, the children--this exercise filling in some degree the aching void of my bosom, arising from isolation--for I was not only in a new place, but I was almost without friends or acquaintances. My master had no real turn for business, and spent much of his time away, leaving the affairs of the shop to an old fudge of a clerk, by the name of Jones, and to me. Things went rather badly, and he sought to mend his fortune by a speculation in. Merino sheep*--then the rage of the day. A ram sold

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I, p. 405

for a thousand dollars and a ewe for a hundred--a great discount certainly for gender; but Maria Antoinette Brown and her school had not then equalized the sexes. Fortunes were made and lost in a day, during this mania. With my master, it was great cry and little wool; for after buying a flock and driving it to Vermont, where he spent three months, he came back pretty well shorn--that is, three thousand dollars out of pocket! This soon brought his affairs to a crisis, and so in the autumn I was transferred to the dry-goods store of J. B. H.....

My new employer had neither wife nor child to take up his time, so he devoted himself sedulously to business. He was indeed made for it--elastic in his frame, quick-minded, of even temper, and assiduous politeness. He was already well established, and things marched along as if by rail. For a time, we had another clerk, but he was soon dismissed, and I was the only assistant; my master, however, seldom leaving the shop during business hours. Had trade been in me, I might now have learned it. I think I may say, that I fulfilled my duty, at least in form; I was regular in my hours, kept the books duly journalized and posted. I never consciously wronged arithmetic to the amount of a farthing. I duly per-

formed my task at the counter. Yet, in all this, I was a slave; my heart was not in my work. My mind was away: I dreamed of other things; I thought of other pursuits.

And yet I scarcely knew all this. I had certainly no definite plan for the future. A thousand things floated before my imagination. Every book I read drew me aside into its own vortex. Poetry made me poetical; politics made me political; travels made me truant. I was restless, for I was in a wrong position, yet I asked no advice, for I did not know that I needed it. My head and heart were a hive of thoughts and feelings--swarming in the sunny spring-tide of life--without the regulating and sedative supremacy of a clear and controlling intelligence. My imagination was a flame, playing around my yet clouded understanding, and giving to this its own wavering and blinding light.

It may seem to you, my dear C...., that I am treating with undue emphasis and detail this unspoken history of a boy in a country store. Yet such--in the main--is life, with the great as with the small. Remember, I am speaking of that crisis of existence, when an impulse to the right or left may determine the direction and the end of a whole career. You are a philosopher, and can not be indifferent to any experience that may throw light upon the history of the human heart. You are, besides, a parent, and as such, can not be too well advised of what passes in

the bosom of youth, and especially as they stand at the door of manhood. No one can know too well the mastery which slight events at this period may exercise over a long and fearful future. Therefore, pass not disdainfully over this page of my story!

My experience was, no doubt, in some degree exceptional. With considerable knowledge, gathered by glimpses, in a scramble, as I passed along in an irregular and uncertain road, I had really no education in the sense of mental discipline. What I knew was by halves, and it had been so acquired that my mind was a thicket of weeds and flowers, without a defined path to get into or out of it. All that I had was instinct, somewhat enlightened, perhaps, by my early religious training. On questions of right and wrong, in feeling and conduct, my conscience should have been a safe guide; but in respect to the understanding, as to logic of thought--I scarcely knew the process. My imagination was like an unbridled colt, and it carried me whither it would. In reflecting upon this in maturer years, I have compared my mind to that slippery bird of the sea--the loon--which usually comes up in the direction exactly opposite to that in which it goes down. In argument, in reflection, in deliberation, with myself or others--if I began upon one thing, I was pretty sure to get speedily stranded upon another. All that I knew of myself was, that I felt; I had not yet, in fact, learned the process of sober induction and methodical reasoning. I had just that

little learning which, is a dangerous thing, because it imparts intoxication, not inspiration.

So far, then, my condition was certainly peculiar. But in regard to that impulse which rises up in the youthful bosom like a gale to the ship, coming in the midst of seeming calm, and bringing every sail and spar suddenly and by surprise to its work--I was like other boys at the threshold of a new and startling era in life. What gigantic strides seem then to be at command with the seven-leagued boots of gristle manhood! And yet, with such an impetus, the youth may yield himself to a word, a thought, which takes the helm, and guides the spirit, through weal or woe, to its doom.

"My boyhood vanish'd, and I woke,
     Startled, to manhood's early morn--
No father's hand my pride to yoke,
     No mother's angel voice to warn!

             * * * * * *

The spark forever tends to flame--
     The ray that quivers in the plash
Of yonder river, is the same
     That feeds the lightning's ruddy flash.
The summer breeze that fans the rose,
     Or eddies down some flowery path,
Is but the infant gale that blows
     To-morrow with the whirlwind's wrath.
And He alone who wields the storm,
     And bids the arrowy lightnings play,
Can guide the heart, when, wild and warm,
     It springs on passion's wings away.

One angel minister is sent,
     To guard and guide us to the sky,
And still her sheltering wing is bent,
     Till manhood rudely throws it by.
Oh, then with mad disdain we spurn
     A mother's gentle teaching; throw
Her bosom from us, and we burn
     To rush in freedom, where the glow
Of pleasure lights the dancing wave--
     We launch the hark, we woo the gale,
And reckless of the darkling wave
     That yawns below, we speed the sail!"

Thus many a youth rushes upon his fate. Some, indeed, are always sober and judicious: they plod on wisely and prosperously, not so much on account of the influence of home instruction, nor indeed by happy accident, but through, inherent steadiness of character. Yet these cases are not frequent. Nearly all pass through the straits of Scylla on one side and of Charybdis on the other. Some escape, but, alas, how many are fatally wrecked! how many only live on to scandalize society, to break the hearts of their parents, to debase and degrade themselves and their companions! It is sad to reflect upon the number of young men who are lost at this turning-point--this "doubling the Cape"--of life. Several of my earliest acquaintances have gone down, long since, to their graves, the victims of those hidden quicksands which beset the youthful voyager, at the very moment when his sails are filled with flattering hopes and generous

aspirations--yet, also, with presumptuous confidence. In short, they were shoved out to sea with no pilot, on board but their own passions, and destruction was but the too natural consequence.

That I escaped is no special merit of my own. I formed an acquaintance with George Sheldon, which soon ripened into friendship, and this had great influence on my future life. He was, at the time, a clerk in the establishment of Hudson & Goodwin,* a firm

then known all over this hemisphere, as publishers of the Bible, Webster's Spelling-book, and the Connecticut Courant. They were, in the popular mind regarded as the bulwarks of religion, education, and federalism--three pretty staunch supporters of the New England platform, in that epoch of the world.

It is very seldom that plodding industry rises so high. Mr. Hudson was a homespun old respectability, of plain, strong sense, sturdy principles, and rather dry, harsh manners, having also a limp in the leg. He took charge of the financial department of the concern. Mr. Goodwin was a large, hale, comely old

gentleman, of lively mind and cheerful manners. There was always sunshine in his bosom and wit upon his lip. He turned his hand to various things though chiefly to the newspaper, which was his pet. His heaven was the upper loft in the composition room; setting type had for him the sedative charms of knitting-work to a country dame. I have often seen him, cheerfully swinging back and forth, as is the wont of compositors, and tossing the type merrily over his thumb into the stick, as if he were at work by the thousand ems, and had a wife and nine small children dependent upon his labors!

George Sheldon, then, was the favored clerk of this ancient and honored firm. He was happily moulded by nature, and not unkindly treated by fortune. He was short of stature, but of a bearing at once modest and manly. His large understanding and vivid imagination were duly balanced--the first being always the master, the latter always the servant. He had been well educated in the schools of the city, even to the acquisition of the common Latin and Greek classics. He had read extensively, for one of his age, and with profit. When I met him, he was twenty; I but eighteen.

It is not easy to conceive of two persons more unlike than we were at that time. Why we coalesced, can only be accounted for from the affinity of opposition--a phenomenon not unknown in the chemistry of the mind and the affections. Tall men seek short

wives; large women favor little husbands. The blonde is smitten with black eyes and raven hair; the brunette falls in love with flaxen locks and azure looks. All nature's contradictions make all nature's peace. And so a friendship, which was only terminated by the grave, grew up between myself--a raw adventurer from the country--and George Sheldon, the educated, disciplined, well-balanced graduate of the city.

I must again apologize for, or perhaps rather explain, the introduction of these commonplace details. Were I writing for the popular favor, and sought success only through the current taste of the day, I should choose for the exercise of my pen a subject very different from that which gives birth to these pages. I know that the public crave high-seasoned meats. Romance must be thrilling; biography startling. History must be garnished with the lights and shadows of vivid dramatic representation. Who, then, of the great excited public would condescend to these simple memorials of apprentice boys in the middle ranks of life?

I might indeed cite as example for these passages, the autobiography of Franklin the printer, were it not that I fear this would be deemed too ambitious, as if I suggested a comparison in respect to the end as well as the beginning. Nevertheless, it is Franklin's history, as a boy of the middle class, successfully but laboriously working his way upward, that has

made it at once the most attractive and most useful biography of modern times. All over Christendom, it has met with the sympathy of the working classes and it has done more than any volume within my knowledge, to give courage and heart to the sons of labor, as it has shown that the paths of ambition are open to them as to others, provided they be followed with Franklin's virtues--honesty, frugality, perseverance, and patriotism. What a contrast between the influence of such a biography as this, and that of a man whose life is only remarkable for success in bloodshed, or even in the more vulgar paths of vice, knavery, or crime! What a debt of gratitude does the world owe to Franklin! What a weight of condemnation should rest upon him who degrades and debases those who come within the sphere of his influence, by exciting and seductive narratives of the little or the great rascals who are sent as scourges and warnings to our race!

One of the most grateful things in my experience among the middle classes in England, France, and Germany, is, that I have been there recognized as the countryman of Franklin, and by virtue of this, have been often received as a friend. There is no part of Europe that I have visited, where the name of Franklin is not known and honored--except, perhaps, in-w Italy. There the atmosphere is not of a nature to permit such a history as his, to shed its beneficent light upon the hearts of the people. The

mythologies of the Virgin, and the saints are deemed safer reading--safer, because they darken rather than enlighten the mind--than the history of a Boston printer, whose whole life is a lecture in behalf of the elevating power of liberty of thought and action. With this exception, Franklin's story of his early life, his humble apprenticeship, his patient struggles, his plodding industry, his rise, step by step, from poverty to independence, and all this within the possible and probable sphere of common life--seems actually to have been a gospel of good tidings to the European masses of modern times. Let me go on, then, my dear C...., countenanced, if not encouraged, by this example. Be it well understood, however, that if you are disheartened at the specimens I have furnished, I give you leave to depart, and with no offence to me. Good-by, my friend--if it must be so--and peace be with thee!