Home as Found - James Fenimore Cooper (ebook reader wifi txt) 📗

Preface

Those who have done us the favour to read "Homeward Bound" will at

once perceive that the incidents of this book commence at the point

where those of the work just mentioned ceased. We are fully aware of

the disadvantage of dividing the interest of a tale in this manner;

but in the present instance, the separation has been produced by

circumstances over which the writer had very little control. As any

one who may happen to take up this volume will very soon discover

that there is other matter which it is necessary to know it may be as

well to tell all such persons, in the commencement, therefore, that

their reading will be bootless, unless they have leisure to turn to

the pages of Homeward Bound for their cue.

 

We remember the despair with which that admirable observer of men,

Mr. Mathews the comedian, confessed the hopelessness of success, in

his endeavours to obtain a sufficiency of prominent and distinctive

features to compose an entertainment founded on American character.

The whole nation struck him as being destitute of salient points, and

as characterized by a respectable mediocrity, that, however useful it

might be in its way, was utterly without poetry, humour, or interest

to the observer. For one who dealt principally with the more

conspicuous absurdities of his fellow-creatures, Mr. Mathews was

certainly right; we also believe him to have been right in the main,

in the general tenor of his opinion; for this country, in its

ordinary aspects, probably presents as barren a field to the writer

of fiction, and to the dramatist, as any other on earth; we are not

certain that we might not say the most barren. We believe that no

attempt to delineate ordinary American life, either on the stage, or

in the pages of a novel, has been rewarded with success. Even those

works in which the desire to illustrate a principle has been the aim,

when the picture has been brought within this homely frame, have had

to contend with disadvantages that have been commonly found

insurmountable. The latter being the intention of this book, the task

has been undertaken with a perfect consciousness of all its

difficulties, and with scarcely a hope of success. It would be indeed

a desperate undertaking, to think of making anything interesting in

the way of a _Roman de Societe_ in this country; still useful glances

may possibly be made even in that direction, and we trust that the

fidelity of one or two of our portraits will be recognized by the

looker-on, although they will very likely be denied by the sitters

themselves.

 

There seems to be a pervading principle in things, which gives an

accumulating energy to any active property that may happen to be in

the ascendant, at the time being.--Money produces money; knowledge is

the parent of knowledge; and ignorance fortifies ignorance.--In a

word, like begets like. The governing social evil of America is

provincialism; a misfortune that is perhaps inseparable from her

situation. Without a social capital, with twenty or more communities

divided by distance and political barriers, her people, who are

really more homogenous than any other of the same numbers in the

world perhaps, possess no standard for opinion, manners, social

maxims, or even language.

 

Every man, as a matter of course, refers to his own particular

experience, and praises or condemns agreeably to notions contracted

in the circle of his own habits, however narrow, provincial, or

erroneous they may happen to be. As a consequence, no useful stage

can exist; for the dramatist who should endeavour to delineate the

faults of society, would find a formidable party arrayed against him,

in a moment, with no party to defend. As another consequence, we see

individuals constantly assailed with a wolf-like ferocity, while

society is everywhere permitted to pass unscathed.

 

That the American nation is a great nation, in some particulars the

greatest the world ever saw, we hold to be true, and are as ready to

maintain as any one can be; but we are also equally ready to concede,

that it is very far behind most polished nations in various

essentials, and chiefly, that it is lamentably in arrears to its own

avowed principles. Perhaps this truth will be found to be the

predominant thought, throughout the pages of "Home As Found."

 

Home as Found.

Chapter I. ("Good morrow, coz. Good morrow, sweet Hero.") SHAKSPEARE.

 

When Mr. Effingham determined to return home, he sent orders to his

agent to prepare his town-house in New-York for his reception,

intending to pass a month or two in it, then to repair to Washington

for a few weeks, at the close of its season, and to visit his country

residence when the spring should fairly open. Accordingly, Eve now

found herself at the head of one of the largest establishments, in

the largest American town, within an hour after she had landed from

the ship. Fortunately for her, however, her father was too just to

consider a wife, or a daughter, a mere upper servant, and he rightly

judged that a liberal portion of his income should be assigned to the

procuring of that higher quality of domestic service, which can alone

relieve the mistress of a household from a burthen so heavy to be

borne. Unlike so many of those around him, who would spend on a

single pretending and comfortless entertainment, in which the

ostentatious folly of one contended with the ostentatious folly of

another a sum that, properly directed, would introduce order and

system into a family for a twelvemonth, by commanding the time and

knowledge of those whose study they had been, and who would be

willing to devote themselves to such objects, and then permit their

wives and daughters to return to the drudgery to which the sex seems

doomed in this country, he first bethought him of the wants of social

life before he aspired to its parade. A man of the world, Mr.

Effingham possessed the requisite knowledge, and a man of justice,

the requisite fairness, to permit those who depended on him so much

for their happiness, to share equitably in the good things that

Providence had so liberally bestowed on himself. In other words, he

made two people comfortable, by paying a generous price for a

housekeeper; his daughter, in the first place, by releasing her from

cares that, necessarily, formed no more a part of her duties than it

would be a part of her duty to sweep the pavement before the door;

and, in the next place, a very respectable woman who was glad to

obtain so good a home on so easy terms. To this simple and just

expedient, Eve was indebted for being at the head of one of the

quietest, most truly elegant, and best, ordered establishments in

America, with no other demands on her time than that which was

necessary to issue a few orders in the morning, and to examine a few

accounts once a week.

 

One of the first and the most acceptable of the visits that Eve

received, was from her cousin, Grace Van Cortlandt, who was in the

country at the moment of her arrival, but who hurried back to town to

meet her old school-fellow and kinswoman, the instant she heard of

her having landed. Eve Effingham and Grace Van Cortlandt were

sisters' children, and had been born within a month of each other. As

the latter was without father or mother, most of their time had been

passed together, until the former was taken abroad, when a separation

unavoidably ensued. Mr. Effingham ardently desired, and had actually

designed, to take his niece with him to Europe, but her paternal

grandfather, who was still living, objected his years and affection,

and the scheme was reluctantly abandoned. This grandfather was now

dead, and Grace had been left with a very ample fortune, almost

entirely the mistress of her own movements.

 

The moment of the meeting between these two warm-hearted and

sincerely attached young women, was one of great interest and anxiety

to both. They retained for each other the tenderest love, though the

years that had separated them had given rise to so many new

impressions and habits that they did not prepare themselves for the

interview without apprehension. This interview took place about a

week after Eve was established in Hudson Square, and at an hour

earlier than was usual for the reception of visits. Hearing a

carriage stop before the door, and the bell ring, our heroine stole a

glance from behind a curtain and recognized her cousin as she

alighted.

 

"_Qu'avez-vous, ma chere_?" demanded Mademoiselle Viefville,

observing that her _eleve_ trembled and grew pale.

 

"It is my cousin, Miss Van Cortlandt--she whom I loved as a sister--

we now meet for the first time in so many years!"

 

"_Bien_--_c'est une tres jolie jeune personne_!" returned the

governess, taking a glance from the spot Eve had just quitted. "_Sur

le rapport de la personne, ma chere, vous devriez etre contente, au

moins_."

 

"If you will excuse me, Mademoiselle, I will go down alone--I think I

should prefer to meet Grace without witnesses in the first

interview."

 

"_Tres volontiers. Elle est parente, et c'est bien naturel."_

 

Eve, on this expressed approbation, met her maid at the door, as she

came to announce that _Mademoiselle de Cortlandt_ was in the library,

and descended slowly to meet her. The library was lighted from above

by means of a small dome, and Grace had unconsciously placed herself

in the very position that a painter would have chosen, had she been

about to sit for her portrait. A strong, full, rich light fell

obliquely on her as Eve entered, displaying her fine person and

beautiful features to the very best advantage, and they were features

and a person that are not seen every day even in a country where

female beauty is so common. She was in a carriage dress, and her

toilette was rather more elaborate than Eve had been accustomed to

see, at that hour, but still Eve thought she had seldom seen a more

lovely young creature. Some such thoughts, also, passed through the

mind of Grace herself, who, though struck, with a woman's readiness

in such matters, with the severe simplicity of Eve's attire, as well

as with its entire elegance, was more struck with the charms of her

countenance and figure. There was, in truth, a strong resemblance

between them, though each was distinguished by an expression suited

to her character, and to the habits of her mind.

 

"Miss Effingham!" said Grace, advancing a step to meet the lady who

entered, while her voice was scarcely audible and her limbs trembled.

 

"Miss Van Cortlandt!" said Eve, in the same low, smothered tone.

 

This formality caused a chill in both, and each unconsciously stopped

and curtsied. Eve had been so much struck with the coldness of the

American manner, during the week she had been at home, and Grace was

so sensitive on the subject of the opinion of one who had seen so

much of Europe, that there was great danger, at that critical moment,

the meeting would terminate unpropitiously.

 

Thus far, however, all had been rigidly decorous, though the strong

feelings that were glowing in the bosoms of both, had been so

completely suppressed. But the smile, cold and embarrassed as it was,

that each gave as she curtsied, had the sweet character of her

childhood in it, and recalled to both the girlish and affectionate

intercourse of their younger days.

 

"Grace!" said Eve, eagerly, advancing a step or two impetuously, and

blushing like the dawn.

 

"Eve!"

 

Each opened her arms, and in a moment they were locked in a long and

fervent embrace. This was the commencement of their former intimacy,

and before night Grace was domesticated in her uncle's house. It is

true that Miss Effingham perceived certain peculiarities about Miss

Van Cortlandt, that she had rather were absent; and Miss Van

Cortlandt would have felt more at her ease, had Miss Effingham a

little less reserve of manner, on certain subjects that