Papers from Overlook-House

The Neshamony, and its hurried waves,
Rising and falling all around her path.
No peace in all the Heavens that she could see
Was like her peace. "I suffer here," she said,
"But suffering, I shall learn more love for all."

She had returned. Her footsteps died away,
Her parents stood yet in the open air,
Where they had parted with her for the night.

Then o'er the stream there came an awful cry.
It was her cry. Oh agony to hear!
It stilled all sounds besides. It seemed to make
The wide-arched Heavens one call to echo it.
Parents and others rushed there with affright,
In breathless terror. Nurse and child were gone.
Each wood around, and every forest road
Gleamed all the night with torches. But no cheer
Rose to proclaim a trace of faintest hope.
One traveler said, that on a distant road
He met a carriage, hurrying with strange speed,
And heard, in passing, cries of a young child.
In vain they follow. Hopeless they return.

Oh wondrous, the ingenious plan devised
By that poor mother to regain her child!
Her parents tried, as if for life and death
To give her aid: and saw that she must die:
For patience such as hers was all too grand
To linger long on earth. She day by day
Trod her old haunts. But never did she see
The Heaven, or beauteous world. Her pallid lips
Moved with perpetual prayer. And when she leaned
On those who loved her, the storm-tossed at rest,
She was as quiet as in days, when she
Was but an infant. When they spoke of hope
She smiled. It was a smile of love, not hope.
It was indeed simplicity to one,
Just on the threshold where His people pass,
And where, forever, they have more than hope.

All saw that she attained a mystic life,
That was not of the earth. What might she had
To love the sorrowing! By the dying bed
She seemed as if she had not known a pang,
Her voice so peaceful. Little children round
Gazed sorrowful: and in their confused thought
Deemed that the anguish of her little child
Weeping its mother, was her dying pain;
And thought how desolate fond hearts would be
If they were gone, as was her little one.

One sweet Lord's Day she knelt down at the rail,
In her loved Church, and had forgot all grief,
Receiving there the hallowed Bread and Wine,
And the one shadowed forth had strengthened her,
So that she fed on food come down from Heaven.
The others moved. But she was in her place.
The Pastor came, and found that she was dead.
Oh how the tears of Christians fell that day!
Oh how they thanked God for her good release!
And so she went to her eternal rest.

But men, unreasoning, said they saw her form,
Oft in the night, along the river shore —
Oft at the Ford, which now is crossed no more.
And men will say, in firmness of belief,
That when the Inn was closed, and no man dwelt
In its forsaken walls, a light was seen
In Ellen's room. And then they also say,
That pure while flowers which never grew before,
Now come with Spring, where her bright spirit walks.
My children say, that if you hear the owl
Along her pathway, you may hasten on
Sure that her spirit will not meet you there.
But should you hear a bird of plaintive song,
Break the night's stillness, then go far around
By field and wood – for you may see her form
Along the shore she gladdened with her life —
A shore of many sorrows at the last.

III.

MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT BIOGRAPHY; – OR, LITERATURE FOR A FAIR WIDOW

I had just concluded my first cause at the bar. My duty had been the defence of a man, whom the jury, without leaving the box, condemned to be hung. My friends said that I spoke very eloquently. I consoled myself for my want of success, by remembering that my client had put into my hands, sorry evidence of his innocence, in place of having allowed me to arrange the circumstances of his murderous deed, so that the testimony against him might have at least, some degree of inconsistency and doubt. But the rash creature formed his plan for killing a man out of his own head. A poor, stupid, blundering head it was.

I have always regarded that trial with a cool, philosophical mind. I think that any gentleman, who indulges himself in that rather exceptionable occupation of shedding the blood of his fellow-man, without first consulting a lawyer, deserves to be executed. And, verily, this fellow got his deserts.

Well, as I sat in my office, perfectly calm and composed, some hours after the case was decided, I received a pretty note from a widow lady. I had often met her at our pleasant little evening parties. She was on a visit to one of her friends in our green village; was very pretty, was said to be quite agreeable, and it was obvious that she was much admired by the gentlemen. As to her age – to say the least on that subject, which I consider, in such a case, to be the only gentlemanly mode of procedure – she was some years older than she wished to be accounted.

Her particular friends said that she had been very beautiful as a girl. She was one of that select class, scattered over our country, concerning each of whom there was a family tradition, that on some occasion of public ceremonial, General Washington had paused and stood opposite to her in mute admiration. I know that the great Father of his country was reported to have paid such a tribute to one of my maiden aunts – and that the story procured from her nephews and nieces a large portion of respect. I boasted, as a boy, of this fact – regarding it as a sprig of a foreign aristocratic family, would the honors of his aunt, the Duchess. But an unreliable boy at our school matched this history from the unwritten archives of his vulgar relatives. So, in great disgust, I held my tongue on the subject for the future.

Well, thought I, as I mused over the note of the widow, the formation of some of her letters indicating a romantic turn of mind; this is, indeed, a strange, a very strange world. Here I have just done with a client who must get himself hung. A dull, stupid fellow; a blockhead of the most knotty material, "unwedgeable" by any possible force of common sense; a spot on the face of the earth! Hang him! Hanging is too good for him. He was a fellow who had neither eyes, nor nose, nor mouth for the attracted observation of a jury, nor any history, nor any ingenuity in his murderous deed, – as a thread on which a poor advocate could suspend one gem of argument, one gem of eloquence to blaze and dazzle the eyes of the twelve substantial citizens, whose verdict was to life or death. And now here is a call to attend to some legal business to be done in the sunshine of a fair lady's favor! Has she heard of the rare ability displayed in the defence of this man who is so soon to be suspended in the air, as a terror to evil doers? Or has she been allured by my good looks and agreeable manners? Handsome! – a few years older than myself, and then a good little fortune, which my legal knowledge could protect. Well, if this world be odd, I must make the best of it. Society is a strange structure; and happy is the man who is a statue ready for his appropriate pedestal.

It is unquestionably an amiable trait in human character which clothes those, who by special circumstances acquire marked relations with us, in attractions which surpass ordinary charms.

I must freely confess that I never saw the widow look so interesting as at the hour when I made my visit. I presented myself with dignity, as one who represented learning at the bar, and future dignities on the bench. She received me kindly. There was a seriousness in her demeanor, an obvious earnestness, as of one who had a burden on the mind, so that I perceived that the occasion was one of great importance.

I ought here to inform the gentle reader that it had been my good pleasure, instigated by ambition natural to young men, and as a relaxation from my graver studies, to indite various articles in prose and verse for the Newark Democrat; – a paper which was supposed by the editor, the host at the Bald Eagle Inn, the headquarters of the ruling political party in our town, and also by several members of the Legislature who could read any kind of printing, to exert a great influence over the destinies of our country.