Poems (Davidson)/Biography of Lucretia Maria Davidson
Lucretia Maria Davidson was born at Plattsburg, in the State of New York, on the 27th of September, 1808. Her father, Dr. Oliver Davidson, is a lover of science, and a man of intellectual tastes. Her mother, Margaret Davidson (born Miller), is of a most respectable family, and received the best education her times afforded, at the school of the celebrated Scottish lady, Isabella Graham, an institution in the city of New York, that had no rival in its day, and which derived advantages from the distinguished individual that presided over it that can scarcely be counterbalanced by the multiplied masters and multiform studies of the present day. The family of Miss Davidson lived in seclusion. Their pleasures and excitements were intellectual. Her mother has suffered year after year from ill health and debility; and being a person of imaginative character, and most ardent and susceptible feelings, employed on domestic incidents, and concentrated in maternal tenderness, she naturally loved and cherished her daughter's marvelous gifts, and added to the intensity of the fire with which her genius and her affections, mingling in one holy flame, burned till they consumed their mortal investments. We should not have ventured to say thus much of the mother, who still survives to weep and to rejoice over her dead child more than many parents over their living ones, were it not to prove that Lucretia Davidson's character was not miraculous, but that this flower of paradise was nurtured and trained by natural means and influences.
The physical delicacy of this fragile creature was apparent in infancy. When eighteen months old, she had a typhus fever, which threatened her life; but nature put forth its mysterious energy, and she became stronger and healthier than before her illness. No records were made of her early childhood, save that she was by turns very gay and very thoughtful, exhibiting thus early these common manifestations of extreme sensibility. Her first literary acquisition indicated her after course. She learned her letters at once. At the age of four she was sent to the Plattsburg Academy, where she learned to read and to form letters in sand, after the Lancasterian method. As soon as she could read, her books drew her away from the plays of childhood, and she was constantly found absorbed in the little volumes that her father lavished upon her. Her mother, on some occasion, in haste to write a letter, looked in vain for a sheet of paper. A whole quire had strangely disappeared from the table on which the writing implements usually lay; she expressed a natural vexation. Her little girl came forward, confused, and said, "Mamma, I have used it." Her mother, knowing she had never been taught to write, was amazed, and asked what possible use she could have for it. Lucretia burst into tears, and replied that "she did not like to tell." Her mother respected the childish mystery, and made no farther inquiries. The paper continued to vanish, and the child was often observed with pen and ink, still sedulously shunning observation. At last her mother, on seeing her make a blank book, asked what she was going to do with it. Lucretia blushed, and left the room without replying. This sharpened her mother's curiosity; she watched the child narrowly, and saw that she made quantities of these little books, and that she was disturbed by observation; and if one of the family requested to see them, she would burst into tears, and run away to hide her secret treasure.
The mystery remained unexplained till she was six years old, when her mother, in exploring a closet rarely opened, found, behind piles of linen, a parcel of papers which proved to be Lucretia's manuscript books. At first the hieroglyphics seemed to baffle investigation. On one side of the leaf was an artfully sketched picture; on the other, Roman letters, some placed upright, others horizontally, obliquely, or backwards, not formed into words, nor spaced in any mode. Both parents pored over them till they ascertained the letters were poetical explanations, in metre and rhyme, of the picture on the reverse. The little books were carefully put away as literary curiosities. Not long after this, Lucretia came running to her mother, painfully agitated, her face covered with her hands, and tears trickling down between her slender fingers. "O mamma! mamma!" she cried, sobbing, "how could you treat me so? You have not used me well! My little books! you have shown them to papa—Anne—Eliza; I know you have, O; what shall I do?" Her mother pleaded guilty, and tried to soothe the child by promising not to do so again: Lucretia's face brightened; a sunny smile played through her tears as she replied, "O mamma, I am not afraid you will do so again, for I have burned them all;" and so she had! This reserve proceeded from nothing cold or exclusive in her character; never was there a more loving or sympathetic creature. It would be difficult to say which was most rare, her modesty, or the genius it sanctified. She did not learn to write till she was between six and seven; her passion for knowledge was then rapidly developing; she read with the closest attention, and was continually running to her parents with questions and remarks that startled them. At a very early age, her mother implanted the seeds of religion, the first that should be sown in the virgin soil of the heart. That the dews of Heaven fell upon them, is evident from the breathing of piety throughout her poetry, and still more from "=its precious fruit in her life. Her mother remarks, that, "from her earliest years, she evinced a fear of doing anything displeasing in the sight of God; and if, in her gayest sallies, she caught a look of disapprobation from me, she would ask, with the most artless simplicity, 'O mother, was that wicked?'"
There are very early, in most children's lives, certain conventional limits to their humanity, only certain forms of animal life that are respected and cherished. A robin, a butterfly, or a kitten is a legitimate object of their love and caresses; but woe to the beetle, the caterpillar, or the rat that is thrown upon their tender mercies! Lucretia Davidson made no such artificial discriminations; she seemed to have an instinctive kindness for every living thing. When she was about nine, one of her schoolfellows gave her a young rat that had broken its leg in attempting to escape from a trap; she tore off a part of her pocket-handkerchief, bound up the maimed leg, carried the animal home, and nursed it tenderly. The rat, in spite of the care of its little leech, died, and was buried in the garden, and honored with the meed of a "melodious tear." This lament has not been preserved; but one she wrote soon after, on the death of a maimed pet robin, is given here as the earliest record of her Muse that has been preserved:—
A little bird which ne'er could fly;
Twelve large angle-worms did fill
This little bird, whom they did kill.
Puss, if you should chance to smell
My little bird from his dark cell,
O! do be merciful, my cat,
And not serve him as you did my rat!"
Her application to her studies at school was intense. Her mother judiciously, but in vain, attempted a diversion in favor of that legitimate sedative to female genius, the needle; Lucretia performed her prescribed tasks with fidelity and with amazing celerity, and was again buried in her book.
When she was about twelve, she accompanied her father to the celebration of Washington's birth-night. The music and decorations excited her imagination; but it was not with her, as with most children, the mere pleasure of stimulated sensations; she had studied the character and history of the Father of her country, and the "fête" stirred up her enthusiasm, and inspired that feeling of actual existence and presence peculiar to minds of her temperament.
To the imaginative there is an extension of life far back into the dim past, and forward into the untried future, denied to those of common mould.
The day after the fête her elder sister found her absorbed in writing. She had sketched an urn, and written two stanzas beneath it: she was persuaded to show them to her mother; she brought them, blushing and trembling; her mother was ill, in bed; but she expressed her delight with such unequivocal animation, that the child's face changed from doubt to rapture, and she seized the paper, ran away, and immediately added the concluding stanzas; when they were finished, her mother pressed her to her bosom, wept with delight, and promised her all the aid and encouragement she could give her; the sensitive child burst into tears. "And do you wish me to write, mamma? and will papa approve? and will it be right that I should do so?" This delicate conscientiousness gives an imperishable charm to the stanzas, which will be found among the poems in this volume, under the title of "A Hero's Dust."
Lucretia did not escape the common trial of precocious genius. A literary friend, to whom Mrs. Davidson showed the stanzas, suspected the child had, perhaps unconsciously, repeated something she had gathered from the mass of her reading, and she betrayed her suspicion to Lucretia; she felt her rectitude impeached, and this, and not the wounded pride of the young author, made her weep till she was actually ill. As soon as she recovered her tranquillity, she offered a poetic and playful remonstrance, which set the matter at rest, and put an end to all future question of the authenticity of her productions. Before she was twelve years old, she had read the English poets. "The English poets," says Southey, in his review of Miss Davidson's poems, "though a vague term, was a wholesome course, for such a mind." She had read, beside, much history, sacred and profane, novels, and other works of imagination. Dramatic works were particularly attractive to her; her devotion to Shakspeare is expressed in an address to him written about this time, from which we extract the following stanzas:—
Gave thee of virtue, then of vice a part,
Lest we, in wonder, here should bow before thee,
Break God's commandment, worship and adore thee."
Ordinary romances, and even those highly wrought fictions that without any type in Nature have such a mischievous charm for most imaginative young persons, she instinctively rejected; her healthy appetite, keen as it was, was under the government of a pure and sound nature. Her mother, always aware of the worth of the gem committed to her keeping, amidst her sufferings from ill health kept a watchful eye on her child, directed her pursuits, and sympathized in all her little school labors and trials; she perceived that Lucretia was growing pale and sickly over her studies, and she judiciously withdrew her, for a time, from school. She was soon rewarded for this wise measure by hearing her child's bounding step as she approached her sick-room, and seeing the cheek bent over her pillow blooming with returning health. How miserably mistaken are those, who fancy that all the child's lessons must be learned from the school-book and school-room! This apt pupil of Nature had only changed her books and her master; now, she sat at the feet of the great teacher, Nature, and read, and listened, and thought, as she wandered along the Saranac, or contemplated the. varying aspects of Cumberland Bay. She would sit for hours and watch the progress of a thunder-storm, from the first gathering of the clouds to the farewell smile of the rainbow. "Twilight," and "The Evening Spirit," are examples of the impression of these studies and pensive meditations.
In her thirteenth year the clouds seemed heavily gathering over her morning; her mother, who had hitherto been her guide and companion, could no longer extend to her child the sympathy and encouragement which she needed. Lucretia was oppressed with the apprehension of losing this fond parent, who for weeks and months seemed upon the verge of the grave. There are, among her unpublished poems, some touching lines to her mother, written, I believe, about this tume, concluding thus:—
That weeps o'er every passing wave;
This life is but a restless pillow;
There's calm and peace beyond the grave."
As Mrs. Davidson's health gradually amended, with it returned her desire to give her daughter every means in her power to aid the development of her extraordinary genius. Her extreme sensibility and delicate health subjected her, at times, to depressions of spirit; but she had nothing of the morbid dejection, the exclusiveness, and hostility to the world, that are the results of self-exaggeration, selfishness, and self-idolatry, and not the natural offspring of genius and true feeling, which, in their healthy state, are pure and living fountains flowing out in abundant streams of love and kindness.
Indulgent as Mrs. Davidson was, she was too wise to permit Lucretia to forego entirely the customary employments of her sex. When engaged with these, it seems, she sometimes played truant with the Muse. Once she had promised to do a sewing task, and had eagerly run off for her work-basket; she loitered, and when she returned, she found her mother had done the work, and that there was a shade of just displeasure on her countenance. "O mamma!" she said, "I did forget; I am grieved, I did not mean to neglect you." "Where have you been, Lucretia?" "I have been writing," she replied, confused; "as I passed the window, I saw a solitary sweet pea; I thought they were all gone. This was alone; I ran-to smell it; but before I could reach it, a gust of wind broke the stem. I turned away disappointed, and was coming back to you; but as I passed the table, there stood the inkstand, and I forgot you." If our readers will turn to her printed poems, and read the "Last Flower of the Garden," they will not wonder that her mother kissed her, and bade her never resist a similar impulse.
When in her "happy moments," as she termed them, the impulse to write was irresistible; she always wrote rapidly, and sometimes expressed a wish that she had two pairs of hands, to record as fast as she composed. She wrote her short pieces standing, often three or four in a day, in the midst of the family, blind and deaf to all around her, wrapt in her own visions. She herself describes these visitations of her Muse, in an address to her, beginning—
I drop each earthly care;
I feel as wafted from the world
To Fancy's realms of air."
When composing her long and complicated poems, like "Amir Khan," she required entire seclusion; if her pieces were seen in the process of production, the spell was dissolved; she could not finish them, and they were cast aside as rubbish. When writing a poem of considerable length, she retired to her own apartment, closed the blinds, and in warm weather placed her Æolian harp in the window. Her mother has described her on one of these occasions, when an artist would have painted her as a young genius communing with her Muse. We quote her mother's graphic description: "I entered the room; she was sitting with scarcely light enough to discern the characters she wastracing; her harp was in the window, touched by a breeze just sufficient to rouse the spirit of harmony; her comb had fallen on the floor, and her long dark ringlets hung in rich profusion over her neck and shoulders; her cheek glowed with animation; her lips were half unclosed; her full dark eye was radiant with the light of genius, and beaming with sensibility; her head rested on her left hand, while she held her pen in her right; she looked like the inhabitant of another sphere; she was so wholly absorbed that she did not observe my entrance. I looked over her shoulder and read the following lines:—
So soft, so melancholy, and so clear?
And do the tuneful Nine then touch the lyre,
To fill each bosom with poetic fire?
Or does some angel strike the sounding strings
Who caught from Echo the wild note he sings?
But ah! another strain, how sweet, how wild!
Now rushing low, 'tis soothing, soft, and mild.'
"The noise I made on leaving the room roused her, and she soon after brought me her 'Lines to an Æolian Harp.'"
During the winter of 1822 she wrote a poetical romance, entitled "Rodri" She burned this, save a few fragments found after her death. These indicate a wellcontrived story, and are marked by the marvelous ease and grace that characterized her versification. During this winter she wrote also a tragedy, "The Reward of Ambition," the only production she ever read aloud to her family. The following summer, her health again failing, she was withdrawn once more from school, and sent on a visit to some friends in Canada. A letter, too long to be inserted here entire, gives a very interesting account of the impression produced on this little thoughtful and feeling recluse, by new objects and new aspects of society. "We visited," says the writer, "the British fortifications at Isle-aux-Noix. The broad ditch, the lofty ramparts, the draw-bridge, the covered. gate-way, the wide-mouthed cannon, the arsenal, and all the imposing paraphernalia of a military fortress, seemed connected in her mind with powerful associations of what she had read, but-never viewed before. Instead of shrinking from objects associated with carnage and death, like many who possess not half her sensibility, she appeared for the moment to be attended by the god of war, and drank the spirit of battles and siege, with the bright vision before her eyes, of conquering heroes, and wreaths of victory." It is curious to see thus early the effect of story and song in overcoming the instincts of nature; to see this tender, gentle creature contemplating the engines of war, not with natural dread as instruments of torture and death, but rather as the forges. by which triumphal cars and wreaths of victory were to be wrought. A similar manifestation of the effect of tradition and association on her poetic imagination is described in the following passages from the same letter: "She found much less in the Protestant than in the Catholic churches to awaken those romantic and poetic associations, created by the record of events in the history of antiquity and traditional story, and much less to accord with the fictions of her high-wrought imagination. In viewing the buildings of the city, or the paintings in the churches, the same uniformity of taste was observable. The modern, however beautiful in design or execution, had little power to fix her attention; while the grand, the ancient, the romantic, seized upon her imagination with irresistible power. The sanctity of time seemed, to her mind, to give a sublimity to the simplest objects; and whatever was connected with great events in history, or with the lapse of ages long gone by, riveted and absorbed every faculty of her mind. During our visit to the nunneries she said but little, and seemed abstracted in thought, as if, as she herself so beautifully expresses it, to
The faded forms of other days.'
"She had an opportunity of viewing an elegant collection of paintings. She seemed in ecstasies all the evening, and every feature beamed with joy." The writer, after proceeding to give an account of her surprising success in attempts at pencil-sketches from Nature, expresses his delight and amazement at the attainments of this girl of fourteen years in general literature, and at the independence and originality of mind that resisted the subduing, and, if I may be allowed the expression, the subordinating effect of this early intimacy with captivating models. A marvelous resistance, if we take into the account "that timid, retiring modesty," which, as the writer of the letter says, "marked her even to painful excess." Lucretia returned to her mother with renovated health, and her mind bright with new impressions and joyous emotions. Religion is the natural, and only sustaining element of such a character. Where, but at the ever fresh, sweet, and life-giving fountains of the Bible, could such a spirit have drunk, and not again thirsted? During the winter of 1823, she applied herself more closely than ever to her studies. She read the Holy Scriptures with fixed attention. She almost committed to memory the Psalms of David, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the book of Job, guided in her selection by her poetic taste. Byron somewhere pronounces the book of Job the sublimest poetry on record. During the winter Miss Davidson wrote "A Hymn on Creation," "The Exit from Egyptian Bondage," and versified many chapters of the Bible. She read the New Testament, and particularly those parts of it that contained the most affecting passages in the history of our Saviour, with the deepest emotion.
In her intellectual pursuits and attainments only was she premature. She retained unimpared the innocence, simplicity, and modesty of a child. We have had descriptions of the extreme loveliness of her face, and gracefulness of her person, from less doubtful authority than a fond mother.
Our country towns are not regulated by the conventional systems of the cities, where a youthful beauty is warily confined to the nursery and the school till the prescribed age for coming out, the coup-de-theatre of every young city-woman's life, arrives. In the country, as soon as a girl can contribute to the pleasures of society, she is invited into it. During the winter of 1823, Plattsburgh was gay, and Miss Davidson was eagerly sought to embellish the village dances. She had been at a dancing school, and, like most young persons, enjoyed excessively this natural exercise; for that may be called natural which exists among all nations, barbarous and civilized.
Mrs. Davidson has given an account of her daughter's first ball, which all young ladies, at least, will thank us for transcribing almost verbatim, as it places her more within the circle of their sympathies. Her mother had consented to her attending one or two public assemblies, in the hope they might diminish her extreme timidity, painful both to Lucretia and her friends. The day arrived; Mrs. Davidson was consulting with her eldest daughter upon the all-important matter of the dresses for the evening; Lucretia sat by, reading, without raising her eyes from the book, one of the Waverly Novels. "Mamma, what shall Luly wear?" asked her eldest sister, calling her by the pretty diminutive by which they usually addressed her at home. 'Come, Lucretia, what color will you wear to-night?" "Where?" "Where; why, to the assembly, to be sure." "The assembly; is it to-night? so it is!" and she tossed away the book and danced about the room half wild with delight; her sister at length called her to order, and the momentous question respecting the dress was definitely settled; she then resumed her reading, and, giving no thought to the ball, she was again absorbed in her book. This did not result from carelessness of appearance, or indifference to dress; on the contrary, she was rather remarkable for that nice taste which belongs to an eye for proportion and coloring; and any little embellishment or ornament she wore was well chosen and well placed; but she had the right estimate of the relative value of objects, which belongs to a superior mind. When the evening approached, the star of the ball again shone forth; she threw aside her book, and began the offices of the toilet with girlish interest, and, it might be, some heart-beating at the probable effect of the lovely face her mirror reflected. Her sister was to arrange her hair. Lucretia put on her dressing-gown to await her convenience; but when the time came, she was missing. "We called her in vain," says Mrs. Davidson; "at last, opening the parlor door, I distinctly saw, for it was twilight, some person sitting behind the large close stove; I approached, and found Lucretia writing poetry! moralizing on what the world calls pleasure! I was almost dumb with amazement. She was eager to go, delighted with the prospect of pleasure before her; yet she acted as if the time were too precious to spend in the necessary preparations, and she sat still, and finished the last stanza, while I stood by, mute with astonishment at this strange bearing in a girl of fourteen, preparing to attend her first ball, an event she had anticipated with so many mingled emotions." "She returned from the assembly," continues her mother, "wild with delight. 'O mamma,' she said, 'I wish you had been there! when I first entered, the glare of light dazzled my eyes; my head whirled, and I felt as if I were treading on air; all was so gay, so brilliant! but I grew tired at last, and was glad to hear sister say it was time to go home.'"
The next day the ball was dismissed from her mind, and she returned to her studies with her customary ardor. During the winter she read "Josephus," "Charles the Fifth," "Charles Twelfth;" read over "Shakspeare," and various other works in prose and poetry; she particularly liked "Addison," and read almost every day a portion of the "Spectator." Her ardent love of literature seldom interfered with her social dispositions, never with her domestic affections; she was ever the life and joy of the home circle. Great demands were made on her feelings about this time, by two extraordinary domestic events,—the marriage and removal of her elder sister, her beloved friend and companion, and the birth of another, the little Margaret, so often the fond subject of her poetry. New and doubtless sanative emotions were called forth by this last event. The lines entitled "On the Birth of a Sister," were written about this time; and "The Smile of Innocence," marked, we think, by more originality and beauty, were written soon after, and, as the previously mentioned ones were, with her infant sister in her lap. What a subject for a painter would this beautiful impersonation of genius and love have presented!
The last three most beautiful stanzas, which we here quote, must have been inspired by the sleeping infant on her lap, and they seem to have reflected her soul's image, as we have seen the little inland lake catch and give back the marvelous beauty of the sunset clouds.
'Tis one far dearer to my soul;
It is a smile which angels might
Upon their brightest list enroll.
Of sleeping infancy's light dream;
Like lightning on a summer's eve,
It sheds a soft and pensive gleam.
And tells of happiness within;
It smiles what it can never speak,—
A human heart devoid of sin."
"Soon after her marriage," says Mrs. Davidson, "her sister, Mrs. Townsend, removed to Canada; and many circumstances combined to interrupt her literary pursuits, and call forth, not only the energies of her mind but to develop the filial devotion and total sacrifice of all selfish feelings, which gave a new and elevated tone to her character, and showed us that there was no gratification, either in pursuance of mental improvement, or personal ease, but must bend to her high standard of filial duty." Her mother was very ill, and to add to the calamity, her monthly nurse was taken sick, and left her; the infant, too, was ill. Lucretia sustained her multiplied cares with firmness and efficiency: the conviction that she was doing her duty gave her strength almost preternatural. I shall again quote her mother's words, for I fear to enfeeble, by any version of my own, the beautiful example of this conscientious little being. "Lucretia astonished us all; she took her station in my sick-room, and devoted herself wholly to the mother and the child; and when my recovery became doubtful, instead of resigning herself to grief, her exertions were redoubled, not only for the comfort of the sick, but she was an angel of consolation to her afflicted father. We were amazed at the exertions she made, and the fatigue she endured; for, with nerves so weak, a constitution so delicate, and sensibility so exquisite, we trembled lest she should sink with anxiety and fatigue. Until it ceased to be necessary, she performed not only the duty of a nurse, but acted as superintendent of the household." When her mother became convalescent, Lucretia continued her attentions to domestic affairs. "She did not so much yield to her ruling passion as to look into a book, or take up a pen (says her mother) lest she should again become so absorbed in them as to neglect to perform those little offices which a feeble, affectionate mother had a right to claim at her hands." As was to be expected from the intimate union of soul and body, when her mind was starved, it became dejected and her body weak; and, in spite of her filial efforts, her mother. detected tears on her cheeks, was alarmed by her excessive paleness, and expressed her apprehensions that she was ill. "No, mamma," she replied, "not ill, only out of spirits." Her mother then remarked that of late she never read or wrote. She burst into tears, a full explanation followed, and the generous mother succeeded in convincing her child that she had been misguided in the course she had adopted; that the strongest wish of her heart was to advance her in her literary career, and for this she would make every exertion in her power; at the same time she very judiciously advised her to intersperse her literary pursuits with those domestic occupations so essential to prepare every woman in our land for a housewife, her probable destiny.
This conversation had a most happy effect; the stream flowed again in its natural channel, and Lucretia became cheerful, read and wrote, and practiced drawing. She had a decided taste for drawing, and excelled in it. She sung over her work, and in every way manifested the healthy condition that results from a wise obedience to the laws of nature.
We trust there are thousands of young ladies in our land, who, at the call of filial duty, would cheerfully perform domestic labor; but if there are any who would make a strong love for more elevated and refined pursuits an excuse for neglecting these coarser duties, we would commend them to the example of this conscientious child. She, if any could, might have pleaded her genius, or her delicate health, or her mother's most tender indulgence, for a failure, that in her would have hardly seemed to us a fault.
During this summer, she went to Canada with her mother, where she reveled in an unexplored library, and enjoyed most heartily the social pleasures at her sister's. They frequently had a family concert of music in the evening. Mrs. Townsend (her sister) accompanied the instruments with her fine voice. Lucretia was often moved by the music, and particularly by her favorite song, Moore's "Farewell to my Harp;" this she would have sung to her at twilight, when it would excite a shivering through her whole frame. On one occasion, she became cold and pale, and was near fainting, and afterwards poured her excited feelings forth in the lines addressed "To my Sister."
We insert here a striking circumstance that occurred during a visit to her sister the following year. She was at that time employed in writing her longest published poem, "Amir Khan." Immediately after breakfast she went.to walk; and not returning to dinner, nor even when the evening approached, Mr. Townsend set forth in search of her. He met her, and as her eye encountered his, she smiled and blushed, as if she felt conscious of having been a little ridiculous. She said she had called on a friend, and, having found her absent, had gone to her library, where she had been examining some volumes of an Encyclopedia to aid her, we believe, in the Oriental story she was employed upon. She forgot her dinner and her tea, and had remained reading, standing, and with her hat on, till the disappearance of daylight brought her to her senses. In the interval between her visits, she wrote several letters to her friends, which are chiefly interesting from the indications they afford of her social and affectionate spirit. We subjoin a few extracts. She had returned to Plattsburg amid the bustle of a Fourth of July celebration.
"We found," she says, "our brother Yankees had turned out well to celebrate the Fourth. The wharf, from the hill to the very edge of the water, even the rafts and sloops, were black with the crowd. If some very good genius, who presided over my destiny at that time, had not spread its protecting pinions around me, like everything else in 'my possession, I should have lost, even my precious self. What a truly lamentable accident it would have been just at that moment! We took a carriage, and were extricating ourselves from the crowd, when Mr. ———, who had pressed himself through, came to shake hands and bid goodby. He is now on his way to Well! here is health, happiness, and a bushel of love to all married people! Is it possible, you ask, that sister Lue could ever have permitted such a toast to pass her lips? We arrived safely at our good old home, and found everything as we left it. The chimney swallows had taken up their residence in the chimney, and rattled the soot from their sable habitations over the hearth and carpet. It looked like desolation indeed. The grass is high in the yard; the wild-roses, double-roses, and sweet-briers are in full bloom, and, take it all in all, the spot looks much as the garden of Eden did after the expulsion of Adam and Eve. We had just done tea when M. came in and sat an hour or two. What in the name of wonder could he have found to talk about all that time? Something, dear sister, you would not have thought of; something of so little consequence that the time he spent glided swiftly, almost unnoticed. I had him all to myself, tête-à-tête. I had almost forgotten to tell you I had yesterday a present of a most beautiful bouquet: I wore it to church in the afternoon; but it has withered and faded,—
Faded, like the world's pleasures.'"
From the sort of mystical, girl-like allusions in the above extracts, to persons whose initials only are given, to bouquets and tête-à-têtes, we infer that she thus early had declared lovers even at this age, for she was not yet sixteen: her mother says she had resolved never to marry. "Her reasons," continues her mother, "for this decision were, that her peculiar habits, her entire devotion to her books, and scribbling (as she called it) unfitted her for the care of a family; she could not do justice to husband or children, while her whole soul was absorbed in literary pursuits; she was not willing to resign them for any man; therefore she had formed the resolution to lead a single life,"—a resolution that would have lasted probably till she had passed under the dominion of a stronger passion than her love for the Muses. With affections like hers, and a most lovely person and attractive manners, her resolution would scarcely have enabled her to escape the common destiny of her sex. The following is an extract from a letter written after participating in several gay parties: "Indeed, my dear brother, I have turned round like a. top for the last two or three weeks, and am glad to seat myself once more in my favorite corner. How, think you, should I stand it to be whirled in the giddy round of dissipation? I come home from the blaze of light, from the laugh of mirth, the smile of complaisance, and seeming happiness, and the vision passes from my mind like the brilliant but transitory hues of the rainbow; and I think with regret on the many, very many happy hours I have passed with you and Annie. O! I do want to see you, indeed I do. You think me wild, thoughtless, and perhaps unfeeling; but I assure you I can be sober. I sometimes think, and I can and do feel. Why have you not written? not one word in almost three weeks! Dear brother and sister, I must write; but, dear Annie, I am now doomed to dim your eye and cloud your brow, for I know that what I have to communicate will surprise and distress you. Our dear cousin John is dead! O! I need not tell you how much, how deeply he is.lamented; you knew him, and like every one else who did, you loved him. Poor Eliza! how my heart aches for her! her father, her mother, her brother, all gone; almost the last, the dearest tie is broken which bound her to life; what a vacancy must there be in her heart! How fatal would it prove to almost every hope in life, were we allowed even a momentary glimpse of futurity! for often half the enjoyments of life consist in the anticipation of pleasures, which may never be ours." Soon after this Lucretia witnessed the death of a beloved young friend; it was the first death she bad seen, and it had its natural effect on a reflecting and sensitive mind. Her thoughts wandered through eternity by the light of religion, the only light that penetrates beyond the death-bed. She wrote many religious pieces,—and among them one commencing with
During this winter her application to her books was so unremitting that her parents again became alarmed for her health, and persuaded her occasionally to join in the amusements of Plattsburg. She came home one night at twelve o'clock, from a ball; and, after giving a most lively account of all she had seen and heard to her mother, she quietly seated herself at the table, and wrote her "Reflections after leaving a Ball-room." Her spirit, though it glided with kind sympathies into the common pleasures of youth, never seemed to relax its tie to the spiritual world.
During the summer of 1824, Captain Partridge visited Plattsburg, with his soldier scholars. Military display had its usual exciting effect on Miss Davidson's imagination, and she addressed to the "Vermont Cadets" several spirited stanzas, which might have come from the martial Clorinda.
It was about this time that she finished "Amir Khan," and began a tale of some length, which she entitled the "Recluse of the Saranac." "Amir Khan" has long been before the public; but we think it has suffered from a general and very natural distrust of precocious genius. The versification is graceful, the story beautifully developed, and the Orientalism well sustained. We think it would not have done discredit to our best popular poets in the meridian of their fame: as the production of a girl of fifteen, it seems prodigious. On her mother discovering and reading a part of her romance, Lucretia manifested her usual shrinkings, and with many tears exacted a promise that she would not again look at it till it was finished; she never again saw it till after her daughter's death. Lucretia had a most whimsical fancy for cutting sheets of paper into narrow strips, sewing them together,and writing on both sides; and once playfully boasting to her mother of having written some yards, she produced a roll, and forbidding her mother's approach, she measured off twenty yards! She often expressed a wish to spend one fortnight alone, even to the exclusion of her little pet sister; and Mrs. Davidson, eager to afford her every gratification in her power, had a room prepared for her recess; her dinner was sent up to her, she declined coming down to tea, and her mother, on going to her apartment, found her writing,—her plate untouched.
Some secret joy it was natural her mother should feel at this devotion to intellectual pleasure; but her good sense or her maternal anxiety got the better of it, and she persuaded Lucretia to consent to-the interruption of a daily walk. It was about this period that she became acquainted with the gentleman who was destined to influence the brief space of life that remained to her. The late Hon. Moss Kent, with whom her mother had been acquainted for many years previous to her marriage, had often been a guest at the house of Dr. Davidson, but it had so happened that he had never met Lucretia since her early childhood. Struck with some little -effusions which were in the possession of his sister, Mrs. P———, he went immediately to see Mrs. Davidson, to ask the privilege of reading some of her last productions. On his way to the house he met Lucretia; he had been interested by the reputation of her genius and modesty; no wonder that the beautiful form in which it was enshrined, should have called this interest into sudden and effective action. Miss Davidson was just sixteen; her complexion was the most beautiful brunette, clear and brilliant, of that warm tint that seems to belong to lands of the sun rather than to our chilled regions; indeed, her whole organization, mental as well as physical, her deep and quick sensibility, her early development, were characteristics of a warmer clime than ours; her stature was of the middle height, her form slight and symmetrical, her hair profuse, dark, and curling, her mouth and nose regular, and as beautiful as if they had been chiseled by an inspired artist; and through this fitting medium beamed her angelic spirit. "Mr. Kent, with all the enthusiasm inherent in his nature, after examining her commonplace-book, resolved, if he could induce her parents to resign Lucretia to his care, to afford her every facility for improvement that could be obtained in the country; and in short, he proposed to adopt her as his own child. Her parents took the subject into consideration, and complied so far with his benevolent wishes as to permit him to take an active interest in her education, deferring to future consideration the question of his adopting her. Had she lived, they would, no doubt, have consented to his plan. It was, after some deliberation, decided to send her a few months to the Troy Seminary; and on the same evening she wrote the following letter to her brother and sister:—
"What think you? 'ere another moon shall fill, round as my shield,' I shall be at Mrs. Willard's seminary; in a fortnight I shall probably have left Plattsburg, not to return at least until the expiration of six months. O! I am so delighted, so happy! I shall scarcely eat, drink, or sleep for a month to come. You and Anne must both write to me often; and you must not laugh when you think of poor Luly in the far-famed city of Troy, dropping handkerchiefs, keys, gloves, etc.; in short, something of everything I have. It is well if you can read what I have written, for papa and mamma are talking, and my head whirls like a top. O! how my poor head aches! Such a surprise as I have had!"
On the 24th of November, 1824, she left home, health on her cheek and in her bosom, and flushed with the most ardent expectations of getting rapidly forward in the career her desires were fixed upon. But even at this moment her fond devotion to her mother was beautifully expressed, in some stanzas which she left where they would meet her eye as soon as the parting tears were wiped away. These stanzas are already published, and I shall only quote two from them, striking for their tenderness and truth.
Which nature gave me at life's opening day;
To thee these rude, these untaught strains belong,
Whose heart, indulgent, will not spurn my lay!
What bosom would have throbbed like thine for me?
Who would have smiled responsive? Who in grief
Would e'er have felt, and, feeling, grieved like thee?"
The following extracts from her letters, which were always filled with yearnings for home, will show that her affections were the stronghold of her nature:—
"Troy Seminary, December 6th, 1824.—Here I am at last; and what a naughty girl I was, when I was at Aunt Schuyler's, that I did not write you everything! But to tell the truth, I was topsy-turvy, and so I am now; but in despite of calls from the young ladies, and of a hundred new faces, and new names which are constantly ringing in my ears, I have set myself down, and will not rise until I have written an account of everything to my dear mother. I am contented; yet, notwithstanding, I have once or twice turned a wishful glance towards my dear-loved home. Amidst all the parade of wealth, in the splendid apartments of luxury, I can assure you, my dearest mother, that I had rather be with you in our own lowly home than in the midst of all this ceremony."
"O mamma, I like Mrs. Willard. 'And so this is my girl, Mrs. Schuyler?' said she,and took me affectionately by the hand. O, I want to see you so much! But I must not think of it now. I must learn as fast as I can, and think only of my studies. Dear, dear little Margaret! kiss her and the little boys for me. How is dear father getting on in this rattling world?"
The letters that followed were tinged with melancholy from her "bosom's depth," and her mother has withheld them. In a subsequent one she says, "I have written two long letters; but I wrote when I was ill, and they savor too much of sadness. I feel a little better now, and have again commenced my studies. Mr. K. called here to-day. O, he is very good! He stayed some time, and brought a great many books; but I fear I shall have little time to read aught but what appertains to my studies. I am consulting Kames's 'Elements of Criticism,' studying French, attending to geological lectures, composition, reading, paying some little attention to painting, and learning to dance."
A subsequent letter indicated great unhappiness and debility; and awakened her mother's apprehensions. The next was written: more cheerfully. "As I fly to you," she says, "for consolation in all my sorrows, so I turn to you, my dear mother, to participate in all my joys. The clouds that enveloped my mind have dispersed, and I turn to you with a far lighter heart than when I last wrote. The ever kind Mr. K. called yesterday." She then describes the paternal interest he took in. her health and happiness, expresses a trembling apprehension lest he should be disappointed in the amount of her improvement, and laments the loss of time from her frequent indisposition. "How, my dear mother," she says, "shall I express my gratitude to my kind, my excellent friend? What is felt as deeply as I feel this obligation, cannot be expressed: but I can feel, and do feel." It must be remembered that these were not formal and obligatory letters to her guardian, but the spontaneous overflowing of her heart in her private correspondence with her-mother.
"We now begin to dread the examination. O, horrible! seven weeks, and I shall be posted up before all Troy, all the students from Schenectady, and perhaps five hundred others. What shall I do?
"I have just received a note from Mr. K, in which he speaks of your having written to him of my illness. I was indeed ill, and very ill, for several days, and in my deepest dejection wrote to you; but do not, my dearest mother, be alarmed about me. My appetite is not perfectly good, but quite as well as when I was at home. The letter was just such a one as was calculated to soothe my feelings, and set me completely at rest. He expressed a wish that my stay here should be prolonged. What think you, mother? I should be delighted by such an arrangement. This place really seems quite like home to me, though not my own dear home. I like Mrs. Willard, I love the girls, and I have the vanity to think I am not actually disagreeable to them."
We come now to another expression (partly serious and partly bantering, for she seems to have uniformly respected her instructress) of her terrors of "examination."
"We are engaged, heart and hand, preparing for this: awful examination. O, how I dread it! But there is no retreat. I must stand firm to my post, or experience all the anger, vengeance, and punishments, which will, in case of delinquency or flight, be exercised with the most unforgiving acrimony. We are in such cases excommunicated, henceforth and forever, under the awful ban of holy Seminary; and the evil eye of false report is upon us. O mamma, I do, though, jesting apart, dread this examination; but nothing short of real and absolute sickness can excuse a scholar in the eyes of Mrs. Willard. Even that will not do it to the Trojan world around us; for if a young lady is ill at examination, they say, with a sneer, 'O, she is ill of an examination fever!' Thus you see, mamma, we have no mercy either from friends or foes. We must 'do or die.' Tell Morris he must write to me. Kiss dear, dear little Margaret for me, and don't let her forget poor sister Luly, and tell all who inquire for me that I am well, but in awful dread of a great examination."
The following extract is from a letter to her friends, who had written under the impression that all letters received by the young ladies were, of course, read by some one of the officers of the institution:—
"Lo! just as I was descending from the third story (for yon must know I hold my head high), your letter was put into my hands. Poorlittle wanderer! I really felt a sisterly compassion for the poor little folded paper. I kissed it for the sake of those who sent it forth into the wide world, and put it into my bosom. But O, when I read it! Now, Anne, I will tell you the truth; it was cold; perhaps it was written on one of your cold Canada days, or perchance it lost a little heat on the way. It did not seem to come from the very heart of hearts; it looked as though it were written 'to a young lady at the Troy Seminary,' not to your dear, dear, dear sister Luly. Mr. K. has thus far been a father to me, and I thank him; but I will not mock my feelings by attempting to say how much I thank him."
"My dear mother! O how I wish I 'could lay my head upon your bosom! I hope you do not keep my letters, for I certainly have burned all yours;[2] and I stood like a little fool and wept over their ashes; and when I saw the last one gone, I felt as though I had parted with my last friend." Then, after expressing an earnest wish that her mother would destroy her letters, she says, "They have no connection. When I write, everything comes crowding upon me at once; my pen moves too slow for my brain and my heart, and I feel vexed at myself, and tumble in everything together, and a choice medley you have of it!
"U attended Mr. Ball's public (assembly) last night, and had a delightful evening; but now for something of more importance,—Ex-am-i-na-tion! I had just begun to be engaged, heart and hand, preparing for it, when, by some means, I took a violent cold. I was unable to raise my voice above a whisper, and coughed incessantly. On the second day, Mrs. Willard sent for Dr. Robbins; he said-I must be bled, and take an emetic; this was sad; but, O mamma, I could not speak or breathe without pain." There are further details of pains, remedies, and consequent exhaustion; and yet this fragile and precious creature was permitted by her physician and friends, kind and watchful friends too, to proceed in her suicidal preparations for examination! There was nothing uncommon in this injudiciousness. Such violations of the laws of our physical nature are every day committed by persons in other respects the wisest and the best; and our poor little martyr may not have suffered in vain, if her experience awakens attention to the subject.
In the letter from which we have quoted above, and which is filled with expressions of love for the dear ones at home, she continues: "Tell Morris I will answer his letter in full next quarter; but now I fear I am doing wrong, for I am yet quite feeble; and when I get stronger, I shall be very avaricious of my time, in order to prepare for the coming week.
"We must study morning, noon, and night. I shall rise between two and four now every morning, till the dreaded day is past. I rose the other night at twelve, but was ordered back to bed again. You see, mamma, I shall have a chance to become an early riser here." "Had I not written you that I was coming home, I think I should not have seen you this winter. All my friends think I had better remain here, as the journey will be long and cold; but O! there is that at the journey's end which would tempt me through the wilds of Siberia,—father, mother, brothers, sisters, home. Yes, I shall come."
We insert some stanzas written about this time, not so much for their poetical merit as for the playful spirit that beams through them, and which seems like sunbeams smiling on a cataract.
One has her neck in flannel rolled;
Ask the complaint, and you are told,
"Next week's examination."
Another hopes, despairs, and sighs;
Ask but the cause, and each replies,
"Next week's examination."
And studies morning, noon, and night,
As though she took some strange delight
In these examinations.
The brains with midnight tasks benumbed,
Still all in that account is summed,
"Next week's examination."
In a letter, February 10th, she says, "The dreaded work of examination is now going on, my dear mother. To-morrow evening, which will be the last, and is always the most crowded, is the time fixed upon for my entrée upon the field of action. O! I hope I shall not disgrace myself. It is the rule here to reserve the best classes till the last; so I suppose I may take it as a compliment that we are delayed."
"February 12th.—The examination is over. E——— E——— did herself and her native village honor; but as for your poor Luly, she acquitted herself, I trust, decently! O mamma, I was so frightened! but, although my face glowed and my voice trembled, I did make out to get through, for I knew my lessons. The room was crowded almost to suffocation. All was still,—the fall of a pin could have been heard,—and I tremble when I think of it even now." No one can read these melancholy records without emotion.
Her visit home during the vacation was given up, in compliance with the advice of her guardian. "I wept a good long hour or so," she says, with her characteristic gentle acquiescence, "and then made up my mind to be content."
In her next letter she relates an incident very striking in her eventful life.
It occurred in returning to Troy, after her vacation, passed happily with her friends in the vicinity. "Uncle went to the ferry with me," she says, "where we met Mr. Paris. Uncle placed me under his care, and, snugly seated by his side, I expected a very pleasant ride with a very pleasant gentleman. All was pleasant, except that we expected every instant that all the ice in the Hudson would come drifting against us, and shut in scow, stage, and all, or sink us to the bottom, which, in either case, you know, mother, would not have been quite so agreeable. We had just pushed from the shore. I watching the ice with anxious eyes, when, lo! the two leaders made a tremendous plunge, and tumbled headlong into the river. I felt the carriage following fast after; the other two horses pulled back with all their power, but the leaders were dragging them down, dashing and plunging, and flouncing in the water. 'Mr. Paris, in mercy let us get out!' said I. But, as he did not see the horses, he felt no alarm. The moment I informed him they were overboard, he opened the door, and cried, 'Get out and save yourself, if possible; I am old and stiff, but I will follow in an instant.' 'Out with the lady! let the lady out!' shouted several voices at once; 'the other horses are about to plunge, and then all will be over. I made a lighter spring than many a lady does in a cotillon, and jumped upon a cake of ice. Mr. Paris' followed, and we stood (I trembling like a leaf) expecting every instant that the next plunge of the drowning horses would detach the piece of ice upon which we were standing, and send us adrift; but, thank Heaven, after working for ten or fifteen minutes, by dint of ropes, and cutting them away from the other horses, they dragged the poor creatures out, more dead than alive.
"Mother, don't you think I displayed some courage? I jumped into the stage again, and shut the door, while Mr. Paris remained outside, watching the movement of affairs. We at length reached here, and I am alive, as you see, to tell the story of my woes."
In her next letter she details a conversation with Mrs. Willard, full of kind commendation and good counsel. "Mamma," she concludes, "you would be justified in thinking me a perfect lump of vanity and egotism; but I have always related to you every thought, every action, of my life. I have had no concealments from you, and I have stated these matters to you because they fill me with surprise. Who would think the accomplished Mrs. Willard would admire my poor daubing, or my poor anything else! O dear mamma, I am so happy now! so contented! Every unusual movement startles me. I am constantly afraid of something to mar it."
The next extract is from a letter, the emanation of her affectionate spirit, to a favorite brother seven years old.
"Dear L———, I am obliged to you for your two very interesting epistles, and much doubt whether I could spell more ingeniously myself. Really, I have some idea of sending them to the printers, to be struck off in imitation of a Chinese puzzle. Your questions about the stars I have been cogitating some time past, and am of the opinion that if there are beings inhabiting those heavenly regions, they must be content to feed, chameleon-like, upon air; for even were we disposed to spare them a portion of our earth sufficient to plant a garden, I doubt whether the attraction of gravitation would not be too strong for resistance, and the unwilling clod return to its pale brethren of the valley 'to rest in ease inglorious.' So far from burning your precious letters, my dear little brother, I carefully preserve them in a little pocket-book; and when I feel lonely and desolate, and think of my dear home, I turn them over and over again. Do write often, my sweet little correspondent, and believe me," etc., etc.
Her next letter to her mother, written in March, was in a melancholy strain; but as if to avert her parent's consequent anxieties, she concludes:—
"I hope you will feel no concern for my health or happiness. Do, my dear mother, try to be cheerful, and have good courage."
"I have been to the Rensselaer school, to attend the philosophical lectures. They are delivered by the cele- brated Mr. Eaton, who has several students, young gen- tlemen. I hope they will not lose their hearts among twenty or thirty pretty girls. For my part, I kept my eyes fixed as fast as might be upon the good old lecturer, as I am of the opinion that he is the best possible safe- guard, with his philosophy and his apparatus; for you know philosophy and love are sworn enemies!"
Miss Davidson returned to Plattsburg during the spring vacation. Her mother, when the first rapture of reunion was over, the first joy at finding her child un- changed in the modesty and naturalness of her deport- ment, and fervor of her affections, became alarmed at the indications of disease, in the extreme fragility of her person, and the deep and fluctuating color of her cheek. Lucretia insisted, and, deceived by that ever-deceiving disease, believed she was well. She was gay and full of hope, and could hardly be persuaded to submit to her father's medical prescriptions; but the well-known crimson spot, that so often flushed her cheek, was re- garded by him with the deepest anxiety, and he shortly called counsel. During her stay at home she wrote a great deal. Like the bird, which is to pass away with the summer, she seems to have been ever on the wing, pouring forth the spontaneous melodies of her soul.
The physician called in to consult with her father was of opinion that a change of air and scene would probably restore her, and it was decided, in compliance with her own wishes, that she should return to school.
Miss Gilbert's boarding-school, at Albany, was selected for the next six months. There are few more of her productions of any sort, and they seem to us to have the sweetness of the last roses of summer. The following playful passages are from her last letter at home to her sister in Canada:—
"The boat will be here in an hour or two, and I am all ready to start. O, I am half sick. I have taken several doses of something quite delectable for a visiting treat. Now, she concludes her letter, "by your affection for me, by your pity for the wanderer, by your remembrance of the absent, by your love for each other, and by all that is sacred to an absent friend, I charge you, write to me, and write often. As ye hope to prosper, as ye hope your boy to prosper (and grow fat!), as ye hope for my gratitude and affection now and hereafter, I charge you write. If ye sinfully neglect this last solemn injunction of a parting friend, my injured spirit will visit you in your transgressions. It shall pierce you with goose-quills, and hurl down upon your recreant heads the brimming contents of the neglected inkstand. This is my threat, and this is my vengeance. But if, on the contrary, ye shall see fit to honor me with numerous epistles, which shall be duly answered, know ye, that I will live and love you, and not only you, but your boy! So, you see, upon your own bearing depends the future fate of the little innocent, 'to be beloved, or not to be beloved!' They have come! Farewell, a long farewell!"
She proceeded to Albany, and in a letter dated May 12th, 1825, she seems delighted with her 'reception, accommodations, and prospects at Miss Gilbert's school. She has yet no anxieties about her health, and enters on her career of study with her customary ardor. With the most delicate health and constant occupation, she found time always to write long letters to her mother and the little children at home, filled with fond expressions. What an example and rebuke to the idle schoolgirl who finds no time for these minor duties! But her studies, to which she applied herself beyond her strength, from the conscientious fear of not fulfilling the expectations of her friends, were exhausting the sources of life. Her letters teem with expressions of gratitude to her friend Mr. K., to Miss Gilbert, and to all the friends around her. She complains of debility and want of appetite, but imputes all her ailings to not hearing regularly from home. The mails were of course at fault, for her mother's devotion never intermitted. The following expressions will show that her sensibility, naturally acute, was rendered intense by physical disease and suffering.
"O my dear mother, cannot you send your Luly one line? Not one word in two weeks! I have done nothing but weep all day long. I feel so wretchedly! I am afraid you are ill.
"I am very wretched, indeed I am. My dear mother, am I never to hear from you again? I am homesick. I know I am foolish; but I cannot help it. To tell the truth, I am half sick. I am so weak, so languid, I cannot eat. I am nervous, I know I am; I weep most of the time. I have blotted the paper so, that I cannot write. I cannot study much longer, if I do not hear from you."
Letters from home renovated her for a few days; and at Mr. K.'s request, she went to the theatre, and gave herself up, with all the freshness of youthful feeling, to the spells of the drama, and raved about Hamlet and Ophelia like any other school-girl.
But her next letter recurs to her malady, and for the first time she expresses a fear that her disease is beyond the reach of common remedies. Her mother was alarmed, and would have gone immediately to her, but she was herself confined to her room by illness. Her father's cooler judgment inferred, from their receiving no letters from Lucretia's friends, that there was nothing immediately alarming in her symptoms.
The next letter removed every doubt. It was scarcely legible; still she assures her mother she is better, and begs she will not risk the consequences of a long journey. But neither health nor life weighed now with the mother against seeing her child. She set off, and, by appointment, joined Mr. K. at Whitehall. They proceeded thence to Albany, where, after the first emotions of meeting were over, Lucretia said, "O mamma, I thought I should never have seen you again! But, now I have you here, and can lay my aching head upon your bosom, I shall soon be better."
For a few days the balm seemed effectual; she was better, and the physicians believed she would recover; but her mother was no longer to be persuaded from her conviction of the fatal nature of the disease, and arrangements were immediately made to convey her to Plattsburg: The journey was effected, notwithstanding it was during the heats of July, with less physical suffering than was apprehended. She shrank painfully from the gaze her beauty inevitably attracted, heightened as it was by that disease which seems to delight to deck the victim for its triumph. "Her joy upon finding herself at home," says her mother, "operated for a time like magic." The sweet health-giving influence of domestic love, the home atmosphere, seemed to suspend the progress of her disease, and again her father, brothers, and friends were deluded; all but the mother and the sufferer. She looked, with prophetic eye, calmly to the end. There was nothing to disturb her. That kingdom that cometh "without observation" was within her; and she was only about to change its external circumstances, about to put off the harness of life in which she had been so patient and obedient. To the last she manifested her love of books. A trunk filled with them had not been unpacked. She requested her mother to open it at her bedside; and as each book was given to her, she turned over the leaves, kissed it, and desired to have it placed on a table at the foot of her bed. There they remained to the last, her eye often fondly resting on them.
She expressed a strong desire to see Mr. Kent once more, and a fear that though he had been summoned, he might not arrive in time. He came, however, to receive the last expressions of her gratitude, and to hear his own name the last pronounced by her lips.
The "Fear of Madness" was written by her while confined to her bed, and was the last piece she ever wrote. It constitutes a part of the history of her disease, and will, for this reason alone, if no other, be read with interest.
That the records of the last scenes of Lucretia Davidson's life are scanty, is not surprising. The materials for this memoir, it must be remembered, were furnished by her mother. A victim stretched on the rack cannot keep records. She says, in general terms, "Lucretia frequently spoke to me of her approaching dissolution with perfect calmness, and as an event that must soon take place. In a conversation with Mr. Townsend, held at intervals, as her strength would permit, she expressed the sentiments she expressed to me before she grew so weak. She declared her firm faith in the Christian religion, her dependence on the divine promises, which she said had consoled and sustained her during her illness. She said her hopes of salvation were grounded on the merits of her Saviour, and that death, which had once looked so dreadful to her, was now divested of all its terrors."
Welcome, indeed, should that messenger have been that opened the gates of knowledge and blissful immortality to such a spirit!
During Miss Davidson's residence in Albany, which was less than three months, she wrote several miscellaneous pieces, and began a long poem, divided into cantos, and entitled "Maritorne, or the Pirate of Mexico." This she deemed better than anything she had previously produced. The amount of her compositions, considering the shortness and multifarious occupations of a life of less than seventeen years, is surprising.
We copy the subjoined paragraph from the biographical sketch prefixed to "Amir Khan." "Her poetical writings, which have been collected, amount in all to two hundred and seventy-eight pieces, of various lengths, When it is considered that there are among these at least five regular poems, of several cantos each, some estimate may be formed of her poetical labors. Besides these were twenty-four school exercises, three unfinished romances, a complete tragedy, written at thirteen years of age, and about forty letters, in a few months, to her mother alone." This statement does not comprise the large proportion (at least one third of the whole) which she destroyed.
The genius of Lucretia Davidson has had the meed of far more authoritative praise than ours. The following tribute is from the "London Quarterly Review," a source whence praise of American productions is as rare as springs in the desert. The notice is by Mr. Southey, and is written with the earnest feeling that characterizes that author, as generous as he is discriminating. "In these poems," ("Amir Khan," etc.) "there is enough of originality, enough of aspiration, enough of conscious energy, enough of growing power, to warrant any expectations, however sanguine, which the patrons, and the friends, and parents of the deceased could have formed."
But, prodigious as the genius of this young creature was, still marvelous after all the abatements that may be made for precociousness and morbid development, there is something yet more captivating in her moral loveliness. Her modesty was not the infusion of another mind, not the result of cultivation, not the effect of good taste; nor was it a veil cautiously assumed and gracefully worn; but an innate quality, that made her shrink from incense, even though the censer were sanctified by love. Her mind was like the exquisite mirror, that cannot be stained by human breath.
Few may have been gifted with her genius, but all can imitate her virtues. There is a universality in the holy sense of duty that regulated her life. Few young ladies will be called on to renounce the Muses for domestic duties; but many may imitate Lucretia Davidson's meek self-sacrifice, by relinquishing some favorite pursuit, some darling object, for the sake of an humble and unpraised duty; and, if few can attain her excellence, all may imitate her in gentleness, humility, industry, and fidelity to her domestic affections. We may apply to her the beautiful lines in which she describes one of those
Float in light visions round the poet's head."
With lavish Nature's richest loveliness;
Such I have often seen in Fancy's eye,
Beings too bright for dull mortality.
I've seen them in the visions of the night,
I've faintly seen them when enough of light
And dim distinctness gave them to my gaze,
As forms of other worlds or brighter days."
This memoir may be fitly concluded by the following "Tribute to the Memory of my Sister," by Margaret Davidson, who was but two years old at the time of Lucretia's death, and whom she often mentions with peculiar fondness. The lines were written at the age of eleven. May we be allowed to say, that the mantle of the elder sister has fallen on the younger, and that she seems to be a second impersonation of her spirit?
Like the floweret which drops in its verdure and bloom;
Though the halls of thy childhood now mourn thee in vain,
And thy strains shall ne'er waken their echoes again,—
Still o'er the fond memory they silently glide,
Still, still thou art ours, and America's pride.
Sing on, thou pure seraph, with harmony crowned,
And pour the full tide of thy music along;
O'er the broad arch of heaven the sweet note shall resound,
And a bright choir of angels shall echo the song.
The pure elevation which beamed from thine eye,
As it turned to its home in yon fair azure sky,
Told of something unearthly; it shone with the light
Of pure inspiration and holy delight.
Round the rose that is withered a fragrance remains;
O'er beauty in ruins the mind proudly reigns.
Thy lyre has resounded o'er ocean's broad wave,
And the tear of deep anguish been shed o'er thy grave;
But thy spirit has mounted to mansions on high,
To the throne of its God, where it never can die."
- ↑ Written by Miss Sedgwick, in the year 18.
- ↑ This was in consequence of a positive command from her mother.