Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 3, March 1849

It was just daybreak; the air was calm, and the whole face of nature was shrouded in a light and silvery mist. Presently the mist became agitated by a fitful breeze; rays of light, faint at first, but every moment becoming brighter in their hue, penetrated it from the eastern horizon, and at length gathering its folds, it prepared to follow the path of the ascending sun. As it lifted, it disclosed a scene upon which the eye of man delights to dwell.

An island, clothed with luxuriant foliage and redolent with the perfume of the tropics, lay sleeping on the crystal waters. On its southern side, the unruffled waves of a sheltered bay, broke with a murmuring sound upon a white and shelving beach. At the foot of this bay, embowered in a grove, was a small cluster of houses, whose white-washed walls, seen through the interlacing branches of the trees, many of the last laden with their golden fruit, looked the fit abodes of charity and domestic peace. The flickering airs, soft and fragrant as the breath of beauty, fanned the pale and attenuated cheek of an invalid, who, seated at the foot of a cotton-tree, looked wistfully to seaward. A boundless expanse of ocean, its undulating surface checkered with the prolonged shadows of detached and scarcely moving clouds alone met his anxious gaze.

Beside him, with a look as wistful as his own, but fixed on his wasted features, stood a young and lovely female. Unconscious of her presence, he seemed lost in revery, and the silence was for some moments unbroken—for they were busied with the thoughts most congenial to the nature of each—his of active exertion and the strife of men; while hers, disinterested and pure, and true to the instinct of her sex, dwelt only on his hopes, his prospects, and his future happiness. With a sigh, she broke the silence, and laying her hand gently upon his head, she said,

“Oh, Edward! why this anxiety to leave us? Why this yearning for the sea?”

“Mary, dearest Mary!” said he, looking up, “I knew not that you were near. Sit down, dear girl, and I will tell you my little history. It will be the best answer to your question, and your trustful nature deserves implicit confidence. You know,” said he, as she complied, and placed her hand in his, “you know that I am in the naval service of our country, and that the captain of the ship to which I belong, sent me ashore here some two months since, at the recommendation of the surgeon; and you know, too, that your father, finding that I was connected with some friends of his own in the United States, invited me to his house, where, like a ministering angel, you have wooed me from the embrace of death. This, save my unbounded gratitude and love, is all you know, and unsuspicious of others as you are yourself confiding, hoping like an angel, and believing what you hope, you have sought to learn nothing more.

“I have no parents,” he proceeded to say, “and of a large family of children, I am the sole survivor. My father died when I was yet an infant; in my fourteenth year I lost my mother, and in the intervening time, one by one, my brothers and my sisters fell, all swept off by that insidious destroyer, whose victims waste away, even while the cheek is flushed and the eye brilliant with anticipations of renovated health and years of enjoyment. Oh, Mary! that you could have seen and known my sister—for she was near your present age, and in many things you much resemble her.”

“I should have loved her dearly, Edward?”

“You could not have helped it, for she was one of the purest, gentlest beings I ever knew.”

“Describe her to me.”

“That is impossible, for, graceful as a fawn and with spirits buoyant and elastic, her features, at one moment gleaming with hope, and the next, subdued in sympathy, were changeable as the aspects of the summer cloud, but beautiful in all its changes—for the light it reflected was borrowed from heaven.”

“Hers, then, was the beauty of expression.”

“Yes, of angelic expression, and yet her countenance was exquisitely lovely in repose. It reminded one of an inland lake, which, when serene and undisturbed, reflects the flowers and the foliage around it; but, when agitated, the shadows on its surface, the tiny crests of foam and mimic waves brattling on the shore, all its wild and shifting beauties are its own. She died on an early summer’s morning, the dew-drop yet sparkling on the blade which, while it bent, it fertilized; and the whole earth, in one gush of fragrance, sent up its tribute to the mighty hand that made it.”

“Oh, Edward! it were happiness thus to die.”

“Ay, dearest, it is only a spirit pure and spotless as your own, that can realize that death has no terrors where life has no reproaches.”

A pressure of the hand was her only reply, for his eyes were filled with tears, and she felt too much moved to speak. After a slight pause he proceeded. “In less than twelve months, my mother followed her to the grave, and the day and the hour, the occasion and the scene, are deeply graven in my memory; but,” he continued, observing her emotion, “I will not distress you with the sad recital, although the sorrows of that bitter hour were not without their solace—for, feeling that our loss would be her gain, the showers and the sunshine, the alternate gloom and brightness of the day without, were typical of our hopes and fears. My patrimony was considerable, and my mother had named a distant relative and seemingly attached friend as her executor and my guardian.

“A few weeks found me under the roof of Mr. Thornton. The exchange was a sad one. I had left the home of my infancy, where every familiar object was associated with some kindly phrase or act of endearment, to become a member of a proud aristocratic family, which traced its lineage from England. I could have endured privations without repining, but I was peculiarly sensitive of neglect, and was like the vine cast from the trunk which had supported it, whose tendrils, unsustained and drooping, are swayed to and fro by the wind, seeking for something whereupon to cling. Repelled by the cold indifference of the family, my yearning nature found the sympathy it needed in the friendship of Mr. Winchester, who was employed as a private tutor for Mr. Thornton’s children. Above all men I have ever seen, he united the wisdom of the serpent with the simplicity of the dove. Placed under his tuition, I made rapid progress, he was pleased to say, not only in the acquisition of knowledge from books, but in that more difficult branch which teaches us to analyze our feelings, and to know ourselves. You remember Mr. Hamilton, who left here shortly after my arrival?”

“Indeed, I do, and esteem him highly, for he is a most excellent man.”

“Well, imagine him a little taller, a shade more pensive, somewhat more retiring in his manners, and with an enunciation yet more distinct, and you have Mr. Winchester before you.”

“I see him—and with the character you give, feel that I could love him too.”

“Ay, that you would, for his meek exterior concealed a spirit incorruptible as that of Brutus, and as benevolent as Howard himself. To him I am indebted for all that I am or can ever hope to be. At that time politics ran high; Napoleon, the great human vulture, was gorging himself with the blood of nations, and the blood-red flag of England claimed the empire of the seas. The discordant clamor of party strife was loud and vehement, and the whole country seemed to vibrate with the throes of political convulsion. Warped by his pride of descent, and giving the tone to his family, at Mr. Thornton’s fireside, in all political discussions, the cause of England was strenuously maintained. It was here that, as I grew older, I derived the greatest benefit from the counsels of Mr. W. A pure patriot, without a parade of zeal, he ever upheld the cause of his country. Pointing out the distinction between the governments of Europe and the one we had adopted, how the former strove to maintain an idle and luxurious class in exclusive privileges, while the other recognized no difference between man and man, he ingrafted in me an attachment to our institutions as warm and enduring as his own. But for him, I might have imbibed the alien feelings of the family with which I was domesticated.

“About the close of my second year under his tuition, news came of the wanton attack upon, and inglorious surrender of the Chesapeake. At Mr. Thornton’s table that day, much was said of the valor of the English, and the craven spirit of the Americans. Mr. Winchester mildly but firmly defended his countrymen; but his opposition provoked such a torrent of abuse, and such violent denunciations of every thing pertaining to America, that, interrupting Mr. Thornton in his loudest tirade, he announced his determination of forever quitting a house which he considered as a fit shelter only of foes and traitors. A violent outbreak seemed inevitable, but his calm and lofty demeanor quelled the rising storm; and, true to his word, he left the next morning. After his departure, the last tie that bound me to the spot was severed, and I applied to be sent to college. To my surprise, Mr. Thornton declined, and threw out some vague hints of an unpaid bond and a threatened lawsuit that might involve my whole estate. I then asked to be sent elsewhere to school, but was again denied. I therefore determined, hap what might, to leave the place, and make my way to one of the Atlantic cities, where, in the sanguine spirit of youth, I felt sure of achieving something. Any thing was preferable to the life there before me. I had read of perilous escapes, and in my inexperience, confounding my situation with that of some imaginary captive, and fearing a thousand obstacles, I waited impatiently for a tempestuous night. It came at last, wild and terrific to my heart’s content.

“Throughout the day the weather had been variable. At one time the tops of the trees were bowed down by fitful gusts, while at another the wind gently soughed among the branches, or dying away calm, every thing would droop with the oppressive heat. The clouds, low, detached and ragged, seemed to hover over us. The bold and craggy tops of the mountains were wreathed in mist, and the same humid vapor filled the chasms and swept down the distant slopes. Even before the sun disappeared, his disc became lurid; the air seemed to thicken and respiration was difficult. The untended cattle went lowing to their pens, and the poultry, with discordant noises, hurried under cover. About dusk, a dense bank of cloud gathered in the north-west, and while the thunder muttered in the far-off mountains, it slowly approached us, the lightning playing across it in incessant flashes. Suddenly, like the smoke of artillery, a number of jets were thrown out from its upper surface, and then a flash, compared to which, those were as artificial fire-works which had preceded it, blinded the eye, and instantly every animate thing shrunk with dread as a most terrific crash pealed upon the ear. Then came the whirl and the roar of a tempest. The spirit of the storm was abroad, and Omnipotence seemed, “to ride on the wings of the mighty wind.” Huge trees and massive fragments of rock were whirled about like gossamer in a summer’s breeze. An avalanche of rain followed, the very flood-gates of heaven seeming to have opened above us.