The Knickerbocker Gallery/Eighteen Years
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Sam.l Osgood
Eighteen Years.
A REMINISCENCE OF KENTUCKY.
Every, profession or business has its own peculiar experiences, and it has often seemed to me that the world of readers would be wiser, and they who make books for them would be far more interesting and instructive, if every writer would describe things from his own actual point of view, trying honestly to hold the mirror up to nature and life with his own hand from his own position. The genuine diary of a physician, or lawyer, or clergyman, or merchant, or banker, if recording his own impressions during his years of activity, would be as interesting as any fictitious sketches, and far more instructive, whether to the old who are always glad to fight their battles over again, or to the young whose battles have not yet begun. I do not make this remark by way of preface to any ambitious portraitures of professional scenes and labors, but merely to introduce a few slight sketches of professional travel that seem quite as well fitted for the present purpose as any more elaborate essay.
I have just returned from a visit to Kentucky after an absence of seventeen years. I was at the city of L——— at various times in the years 1836–37, and have never forgotten the impression left by the place and the people. The first years of a minister's professional life are far more significant than those of any other profession; for usually he takes upon himself the full burden of his cares, and in most cases he has as much labor and anxiety at twenty-five as at fifty. In one respect, indeed, he has more care at the outset of his career; for he is obliged to depend each week upon the fresh coinage of his own brain, instead of falling back upon the large literary capital accumulated by a veteran sermon-writer. The consequence is that the first two or three years of a preacher's life are quite likely to decide his destiny, and if he does not break down within this period after his settlement, he is pretty well seasoned and stocked for subsequent needs. It is advisable, therefore, on many accounts, that he should take what the Germans call his "Wanderjahre," and travel a year or two before pitching his tent for permanence. Travel merely for pleasure, or for general information, is dangerous to a young man's habits of study and sobriety of purpose, whilst travel with professional aims, for periods of service for a few weeks or months in different places, gives him a wide field of observation, and prepares him for his parish duties alike as a man of practical experience and of literary resources. I remember very well the events of the two years passed in this way, and have been inclined to ascribe the good health and constant labor of the long time since to the influence of those years of wandering. I visited, in some way, almost every State in the Union, and in various cities and towns remained several weeks, and in a few cases several months. No place lingers more fondly in memory than the city of L———, Kentucky.
Contrast is one of the laws of sympathy, and there is something in the electric beat of the Southern pulse quite fascinating to a young man educated under the sedate discipline of New-England, and taught to depend upon cool reasoning as the only sure path to the convictions of his audience. Most of our young theological students of the more ambitious kind, put study and thought enough into their first sermon to expand into a whole volume, forgetful of the fact that it is the emotional life that gives the sermon its power, and that, without this, the gun "ecclesiastic," however crammed with balls or shot, has no powder, and can not be fired. A Southern audience is sure to teach a young man this fact, and, whilst fond of clear reasoning, it is so greedy for fervor in feeling and utterance, as to have little patience with the speaker who does not meet this want. The tone of social life is somewhat in the same spirit, and nothing can more successfully take the stiffness out of the manners and conversation of our Northern scholastics than a few months' sojourn in hearty Southern society. I remember very well the first impression of Kentucky life. Faults there were in abundance to note, deficiencies of culture, radical errors in the political and domestic order, yet the sternest censor could not but be captivated by the cordiality of the people, and even soften his censure into sympathy, when he found that they were quite as ready to perceive and lament their failings as he could be. From the first hearty shake of the hand from a Kentuckian on the crowded landing to the hearty farewells that speeded the parting guest upon his homeward way months afterward, the same genial pulse seemed to beat. It would be quite as wrong to regard this impulsive warmth of manner as mere affectation of generosity, as it would be wrong to regard the colder temper of Northern men as proof of habitual selfishness. The climate has much to do with the temperament, and it is undoubtedly the union of Southern impulsiveness with the daring self-reliance incident to a border life that has given the Kentuckian his peculiar air and tone.
So far as I could see, the same electric temper appeared in every sphere of life, certainly in the serious as well as in the festive sphere. If in the conduct of business, especially of agricultural business, there were some tokens of the easy gait so characteristic of people accustomed to be served by slaves, no trace of languor showed itself whenever men met together upon any interesting occasion, whether grave or gay. A revival preacher, or a stump orator, could have no occasion to complain of dull listeners. The chat of an evening party had none of the stately reserve so affected by English mannerists nearer home, but seemed downright earnest, as if society were a genuine business, and very pleasant business, too. I remember the perfect furore that prevailed during one of those semi-barbarous races which are a kind of relic of the ancient tournament, with this difference, that the man is but a spectator, and leaves the honors and the pains of the struggle to his horse. The whole city was in commotion, and the rage of betting infected the servants and slaves. The little fellow that brushed our clothes at the boarding-house, swelled into the consequence of a gentleman of the turf, as he staked his half-dollar with a comrade of like hue and stature, whilst the august head of Henry Clay, then in his prime, towered up among the sporting magnates on the stand erected for the judges of the course. All Kentucky and all Tennessee seemed to be embodied in those rival racers, and every Kentuckian felt an inch taller when his own pet came in the winner. Absurd as this excitement seemed to a Northern man, so cruel to the horses, and so little profitable to the spectators, it was not difficult to read it as a text from the old book of human nature. From the very beginning, the rivalries of men and nations have turned more upon the pride of conquest than the prize contested, and whether for an oaken crown or a silver cup, whether upon the race-course or the battle-field, it is the name more than the game that is played for. He that would moralize largely and wisely about a horse-race would come to some very sweeping conclusions regarding the whole system of competition that rules over society, and strike hard at the habits of many very grave people.
The social elements that presented themselves to a stranger's observation in various circles, were in many respects of the most heterogeneous kind, yet seemed all pervaded by the same stirring leaven. The New-Englander and the Englishman, with their cool temperament, caught much of the prevailing tone of geniality, without losing their characteristic calculation. One of the most delightful and hearty men in the social walk was an English gentleman who had come out to seek his fortune with a young wife and slender patrimony in that then far country. The brother of one of our most ideal and gifted poets, he did not lose sight of the ideal world in the prosaic business of a lumber-merchant. He was always ready for a literary conversation, and took delight, at any time, in turning from his ledger to his library, and from numbers arithmetical to numbers poetical. I never meet with the portrait of John Keats now, without tracing in his features and expression a memento of this emigrant brother, who never ceased to prove that he was of kindred blood to the author of "Endymion" and "The Eve of St. Agnes." He is not living now, but his image stands in my memory among the cherished forms that can not be forgotten. I might add many other names to the list of notables, but it is enough to specify one person more whose acquaintance enlarged my knowledge of human character.
Judge S——— was a noble specimen of a gentleman of the old school—of the most transparent simplicity, thorough honesty in deed and word, and unswerving independence. I remember well the first time of meeting him. His quaint old carriage drove up to the door of our lodgings, and the vehicle and the occupant looked like specimens of the good old days gone by. It was worth a thousand miles' travel to receive such a shake of the hand, and such an invitation to visit him at his plantation. His eye had an almost feminine mildness, yet in its affectionate expression there was a latent manliness is in the mild blue sky, above whose transparent depths the Sun-God has his throne, and can thence at will launch his arrows at their mark. It was quite a new phase of life that the days spent on his plantation disclosed. Never have I seen more affection between the various members of a family; never a more earnest purpose to be just and kind in every social relation. The Judge was no admirer of slavery, and if the counsels of such men as he had prevailed, the curse of bondage would, ere this, have been erased from the statute-book of Kentucky. He aimed, so far as the laws allowed him, to abolish slavery in his own domain, by exchanging servitude for service, and treating his dependents as servants to be protected. They looked upon him with great affection, and could honestly pray that he might live a thousand years. When an absent son returned, it was a rare sight to see the welcome of him by the slaves the morning after his arrival. They seemed all to claim kindred with him, and their cordial greeting to Master Josh was a better commentary than any antiquarian notes upon the redeeming features of the old patriarchal times. In becoming acquainted with the slaves, one marks quite as wide differences of character as among their prouder lords. I found in the two who took charge of the horses, genuine representatives of characters that have stamped their mark upon the world's history. The coachman was a thorough-going mystic, a believer in visions and trances, which he interpreted to auditors, who listened with open ears and distended eyes. He was a preacher, as he and his admirers thought, of heaven's own ordaining; and, although occasionally somewhat given to excessive potations, his hearers, with an acuteness equal to that of many pious white people under similar circumstances, carefully distinguished between the infirmities of the man and the inspirations of the saint. The hostler, Cato, was of sterner school, and not at all addicted to mysticism, or any kind of faith or devotion. He was the skeptic of the plantation, and might have astonished the author of the "Vestiges of Creation" by his constant reference of remarkable phenomena to natural causes. When Morocco, the coachman, would discourse of the falling stars as sure signs that the world was coming to an end, Cato would contemptuously shrug his shoulders, and say that it was "nothing but the brimstone in the air." The mystic seemed to have more followers than the skeptic, and when the Judge tried to entertain his guests by excavating an Indian mound upon his plantation, and evening shut in before the close of the labor, the sable excavators evidently inclined to Morocco's opinion that the wizard-hour had come, when the spirits of the dead Indians haunted their graves, and it was time to stop working there.
Many scenes stand associated with that kindly home. One fairy little form that graced the house and garden walks I can never forget; the bright child who cheered us by her naïve prattle and her sylph like dance. Her form lingered like a benediction upon the memory; and when word of her death came to me, years afterward, it was as if one of the lights of our own household had been quenched. When, in the March of 1837, I left Kentucky, and parted with so many cherished friends, of the whole circle none gave more brightness to the hope of a return, ere long, than the kindly group who dwelt under the tall trees of that plantation, and day by day received the good judge's blessing. My course was homeward to New-England by the circuitous Southern route; and in the five days after the departure, every variety of climate between winter and summer presented itself, until in New-Orleans I found fruits and flowers in abundance, under a sky as sultry as when our dog-star rages. In due season I returned to New-England to find its forests leafless, its gardens still waiting the footsteps of the golden summer that I had left at the South. Years passed, and with them passed many schemes for visiting old friends at the West and South. Only after seventeen years' absence the opportunity came, and I have just returned from Kentucky and the kindly city of L———, which I saw for the first time eighteen years ago.
Every man who has any sort of affection or sentiment is glad to re-visit familiar scenes; yet, there is something startling in the return after long absence. We think of all that we have done and endured during the interval, and our own daily life, with its constant yet almost unnoticed changes, rises up before us in its united experience; so that a man sometimes needs to go away from home to see himself as he is and has been in his own home. There are few men who can look upon the form and feature of a score of years thus consolidated by distance without some grave thoughts upon life and its changes. We tremble, moreover, as we draw near the places and friends so long unvisited. We fear that we have been shaping an ideal world out of the materials stored up by our memory, and that things and persons will seem wholly strange to us. We fear that more friends than we have heard of have passed away, and that they who remain will not remember us as we remember them.
When our steamer drew near the city of L———, the spires of some of the churches were familiar to my eye, and the whole face of the country seemed to answer the absentee's grateful recognition. The city had more than doubled its population, and stretched itself out on either side of its domain; yet it had only grown in stature, without having essentially changed its features. The landing was crowded by the same motley throng as of old, and it is only when the stranger sees the new squares of stately houses in the remoter streets that he appreciates the growth and prosperity of the place. But what avails a familiar scene if there is no welcome from a familiar friend? It was somewhat remarkable that the first face that I recognized was that of the son of my kind host of former years, the good Judge; and it was cheering to learn, from our ready and mutual recognition, that Father Time had not so set his marks upon our features as to hide the familiar lineaments. In a half-hour, the hearty welcome from his sisters, two of whom kept house together in the city, was ample assurance that the light of other days had not died out, and that the father's kind heart still animated the children, even as when he was with them in the body. The welcome was not limited to the parlor, but came also from the tenants of the kitchen. The old farm-servants were not indeed there, and Morocco and Cato, with many of their associates, had gone to the land where the law of color and caste does not rule, but the smart serving-maid, who had grown from a child to a stout woman during the interval, seemed to have some remembrance of the ancient guest at the old plantation; and the little boy, Bob, who presided at the brush, grinned with all his might when I talked to him of his Uncle Morocco, as if we were friends and kindred at once by that tie of association.
Our stay in the city was a succession of delightful recognitions, deepened yet not wholly saddened by remembrances of those who had passed away. Our religious services renewed all the best associations of former years, and for five days the hours were too few for the discourses, devotions, and discussions which engaged the conference of worshippers, met together from so many States. It is not the place to describe the theological aspects of the occasion, and I will only give a description or two of social experiences.
An observing man could write a good treatise upon the chronology of the human features or the traces of time left upon the human countenance by various periods of years. This visit has given a far milder idea of the ravages of this ruthless power. My friends who were in early manhood eighteen years ago are now in their prime; their look is the same as then, nay, even more decidedly pronounced, and, like Pat's portrait, "more like than the original." They who were in the meridian then are now of more venerable mien, yet not one such face had any trait that did not seem familiar and agreeable. The feminine complexion is indeed a more delicate chronicle of times and experiences; yet the many buxom mothers in whom I recognized the sprightly girls of eighteen years ago were but the same flowers in fuller bloom; and I more than once, in view of a worthy mother with group of a half-dozen children about her, was reminded of the favorite theory, that even personal beauty is more a moral than a physical attribute, and ripens, instead of dying, with years of faithful service to life's true ideal. What Dante said of Beatrice in Paradise is true of every woman who does her work nobly and keeps her soul unspotted from the world. There is a "second beauty," even fairer than the first—a beauty radiating from a life beyond that of youthful bloom. The angels are calling on every fair woman in this world, as upon Beatrice in the spiritual world:
Thy saintly sight on this thy faithful one.
Gracious at our prayer, vouchsafe
Unveil to him thy cheeks; that he may mark
Thy second beauty, now concealed.'"
Setting all merely poetic sentiment aside, is it not true that the beauty that most transforms the character, and refines and softens the husband and subdues and educates the child, is that which beams from a face in which girlish bloom has ripened into womanly fidelity and benignity! Whilst contesting thus the boasted empire of Time over the countenance, it must be confessed that, in one respect, his transforming power was most startling. In seventeen years, the infant of the cradle grows to full stature, and the absentee felt, on his return, somewhat of a Nestor in age as he was greeted by two fair girls who were babies at his previous visit, and who, for their honored and lamented father's sake, were ready to receive him with something of filial deference.
One scene more only can be noted—a re-visit to the plantation of our old friend already so affectionately named. We rode out—a goodly company of guests—to that house so memorable for its unstinted hospitality. The Judge was not there to welcome us with his hearty grasp and benign eye. His daughter, however, fitly honored her name and breeding as she welcomed her father's friends. Many changes had taken place in the grounds on account of the division of the property and the encroachments of the city upon the country; but the house, with its lofty rooms, was the same, and the gateway and broad green-sward of the great avenue were as of old. The most conspicuous change was presented by the family burial-place, now inclosed by a massive wall. We all went reverently to that hallowed ground. I stood over the grave of the noble father and the dear child, the pet of the former visit, who gave such light to that home, and blessed Goo for the treasure of such a remembrance and such a hope. The myrtle covered those graves with its rich and aromatic growth, and birds of many hues and notes sang in the branches of the trees. A venerable clergyman, who had known and honored the good Judge, spoke words of consolation to the large company of children, grand-children and friends, and, leaning upon his staff, lifted his voice in prayer. But even this touching ministration added little to the pathos of that seene. The place, with those tomb-stones, was enough and more than enough. I could hardly listen to language touching and spiritual as that which sought so fitly to consecrate that sun-set hour among the dead. Those buried ones spoke to me with a living voice that rose above the and dirges chanted by the shades of all those intervening years. From the midst of that garden of graves, where blooming life sprang from the decaying dust, a voice from the unseen world repeated the great prophet's saying:
But the word of our God shall stand or ever."
The years that had gone since meeting those cherished friends seemed to rise before me, and to chant a requiem which mingled the solemnity of memory with the cheerfulness of hope.