Grass Valley, June 2, 1859
My Dear Miss Esther –
You can very well believe that I felt much disappointed at not receiving a letter from you by the two last steamers from New York. I know that as at present – situated you cannot command leisure at any moment you please, and therefore would not have you for one moment think that I feel any way displeased towards yourself for I can assure you nothing of that kinds exists yet I do so covet a letter from you that I confess to a disappointment, or rather a feeling of disappointment, when the steamer arrived without the so much coveted boon. There is one consolation, however, and that is that this state of things cannot last forever – “the streams are tending towards the foot or point of the mountain,” and “ere long must muse and mingle into one,” and without laying myself open to the charge of profanity, I can adopt the words of the old hymn, and add-
“Fly quickly round ye wheels of Time,
And bring the joyful day.”
When a person has the mind forced upon a particular object, anything that intervenes to distract that attention is a subject of vexation, and given birth to a fit of the Blues, as you term it, and in this state, anything gloomy readily patronizes the mind. The season has been one of the worst we have had in California for many a year, and as I feel that my time is precious now, the continuation of bad weather puts me back in working my Mining Claims, for I had hoped to have worked them out in time to get home, – or to what I now consider as almost a second home, – that is to Salisbury, New Hampshire, in the season of Sleigh rides. The state of mind super induced by circumstances, as I said before causes the “gloomy” to fraternize readily with it, and thus you will see that my reading has been of the melancholy cast, and that though there is something of the melancholy in the following extracts from various authors, yet there is likewise something of the beautiful in the poetry, that like oil on troubled water, seems to calm down the tempest of disappointment within: It has always appeared to me the true reading of poetry is the picturing of the scene as it seemed to pass before the author’s mind – but I need not have suggested this to you, if I may presume to judge, from what I have seen through the medium of pen, ink and paper, of the turn of your mind.
Now let me quote a stanza or two in the sweet, melancholic strain: The subject is a young lady fading away with Consumption. She loved music and requested her friend –
When life’s sad dream is o’er,
Its happiness and woe,
And nature is weak and wearied out
Has done with all below
Sit near, and while my breath
Comes feebly, let me hear
Thy voice repeats that plaintive strain,
My dying hour to cheer.
Sing while my fluttering pulse,
Its labor faintly plies:
Sing while my spirit hovers near,
And while to God it flies.
And again the sick room – the patient reclining on a couch the entrance of a stranger – the nurse raising the finger in caution,
Softly!
She is lying
With her lips apart.
Softly!
She is dying
Of a broken heart.
Whisper!
She is going
To her final rest.
Whisper!
Life is growing,
Dim within her breast.
Gently!
She is sleeping,
She has breathed her last.
Gently!
While you’re weeping
She has passed to heaven.
And here are four lines of poetry that seem so truthful that I cannot help transcribing them. The fair authoress has been walking in one of the large Cemeteries when a particular spot is laid off for the burial of infants, and thinking o’er these “Little Graves”, she says:
There are many an empty cradle, there are many a vacant bed,
There’s many a lonely bosom, whose life and joy have fled.
For thick in every graveyard the little hillocks lie,
And every hillock represents an angel in the sky.
But here is a beautiful piece of poetry, so like reality, that the scene is easily pictured as we read—It is the death of “Little Jim”.
(The Place)
The cottage was a thatched one, the outside old and mean,
(It’s Condition)
Yet everything with that Cot was wondrous, neat, and clean.
(The Weather)
The night was dark and stormy, and the wind was howling wildly.
(The Occasion)
A patient mother watched beside the deathbed of her child.
(The Object)
A little worn-out creature, his once bright eyes grown dim,
It was a Cottier’s (a rural laborer living in a cottage) wife and child; they called him little Jim.
(The Mother’s Condition)
And oh to see the briny tear fall that mother’s cheek,
As she offered up a prayer in thought, she was afraid to speak.
Lest she might waken one she lov’d much better than her life.
(The True Mother)
For she had all a Mother’s heart; had that poor Cottier’s Wife.
With hands uplifted, she kneels beside the suffer’s bed,
And prays that God would spare her boy, and take her instead.
She got her answer from the boy – soft fell the word from him.
(Last Words of the Fading Away)
Mother, the angels do so smile and beckon little Jim;
I have no pain, dear mother, now, but oh, I am so dry,
Just moisten poor Jim’s lips again, and Mother, don’t you cry.
With gentle, trembling haste, she held a teacup to his lips,
He smiled to thank her, as he took three little tiny sips;
“Tell Father when he comes from work, I bid him good night.
(He’s Gone)
And Mother, now I’ll go to sleep!” Alas, poor little Jim,
She saw that he was dying, that the child she loved so dear
Had uttered the last words she might ever hope to hear.
(The Entrance of the Father)
But, see the Cottage door is open, the Cottier’s step is heard,
The father and the mother meet, yet neither speaks a word.
(The Effect Upon Him)
He felt that all was o’er – he knew his child was dead
He took the candle in his hand and walked toward the bed.
(Resignation and Hopeful Request)
His quivering lip gave token of the grief he’d fair conceal;
And see, his wife has joined him – the stricken couple kneel.
With hearts bowed down with sadness, they humbly ask of Him,
That they in Heaven once more, may meet their own dear little Jim.
But it’s evening and –
Say what shall be my song tonight,
And the strain at the bidding shall flow
Shall the Music be sportive and light,
Or it’s murmers be mournful and low?
Shall the days that are gone flit before us,
The freshness of children comes o’er us,
Shall the past yield its smiles and its tears,
Or the future’s hopes and its fears.
Echo not answering, I must begin of my own volition, and therefore will have to tell you, in want of something better, of what I have been reading. I have been somewhat interested in reading a tale entitled – “Milicent” — something after the manner of “Shirley”, though for behind it in beauty of language and sentiment. I will give you some of the points, without troubling you to procure and read them all.
Milicent, a young lady, had grown up in the companionship of a young gentleman, who, like Louis Moore, had striven to correct some of the known defects in her character by association. He loved her and she loved him, but they had never communicated the fact to each other orally/there are other means of communicating that fact besides the voice. I believe it does you. The young gentleman at length asks her to become his wife, but, unluckily made his request at a moment when one of the defects of character was in the ascendancy over the mind, and she peremptorily (emphatically) refused the offered hand, and the young gentleman in astonishment replies –
“You cannot mean, Milicent, what you say. Many a woman has sacrificed her happiness to her pride; take care, if for your own sake only, how you add to the number.” To this, Milicent responds –
“Yes, Sir, I do mean what I say. I shall not sacrifice my happiness. We would not be happy together; you are hard and cold, and I am passionate and headstrong, as you tell me. I could not live with a man who was always watching to detect and reprove. I should learn to hate my husband in the character of a censor and judge. Life would be one fierce quarrel, ever growing fiercer. No, Sir, it is because I would have neither of us miserable that I am determined to end this engagement.”
“But Milicent, are you not bound to me by ties which the caprice of a woman cannot break, – your confessions and promises – have you not loved me, or have the events and our associations of the past ten years, been but a lie, a lengthened, continuous lie.”
“If, she replies scornfully, “your words were anything to me now, I should resent such language. Have I loved you? Well enough to submit to be pupil, culprit, almost slave! I have learnt to dread your presence in the midst of what I deem innocent amusement. No husband shall school me; the wife’s position is an equal one, and you would degrade it. No, I will not marry to such bondage. Oft have I said, If Mr. Forrester acts thus again, it shall be the last time, and the last time has come!”
“Stop,” cried Mr. F., for I can bear no more. I should be bent indeed upon my misery if I urged you further. Strand that we have thus deceived ourselves – that, instead of loving me, such intense hatred is burning in your heart. What blind dreamers we are.”
“I, too, have dreamed,” replied Milicent. “You are not alone in your disappointment, but is all over. – Goodbye, Mr. Forrester.” Her attitude as she held out her hand was firm and stately, but her averted eyes gleamed with emotion, and her flushed cheeks were wet with tears. He held her hand a moment in his passionate grasp, but knew not the secret agony against which her indomitable spirit upheld her, and thus they parted, as firmly attached as at any moment of their lives.
Time rolled on. Milicient was not of age, and the estate which her father then owned had been left to him with a promise, that if he had a son, that son should inherit the estate; if no son, then, should, at the time of his death, his oldest daughter be of the age of 21, she should inherit; but if not so, then the estate belonged to his surviving brother, who was requested to make provision for the daughter. Milicent’s father fell from his horse and was killed before she arrived of age, and her uncle’s family not being congenial, she started in life to earn her living and that of her younger sister by teaching music. The young sister falls sick, and having to go around to private houses to teach, she is sadly put to it, and after struggling against her hard fate, is about ready to give up in despair. Oh, how often did these warning words rise before her. “Many a woman has sacrificed her happiness to her pride; be careful, if only for your own sake, how you add to the number.” Mr. Forrester had been endeavoring to find Milicent ever since he had heard of the change in her fortunes, but had not succeeded. Since the day they had parted, Milicent’s love seemed on the increase, adoring the master – grief of bitter self-reproach and vain regrets for a future lost forever. She would dwell on the recollection of his worth; it lowered her pride to the dust; it exalted it anew to think he had loved her. Memories of low words scarcely heard, but never forgotten; kisses dearer with each reiteration; golden plans frustrated; life’s happiness sacrificed to the caprice of a moment; possessed and moved her beyond control. Even his friendship was rejected. “Offer it again, Mr. Forrester, and I will take it humbly. Come and teach me what now I ought to do, and I will be led, come to me and I will confess my faults – come – or rather never come, lest I sob out my love at your feet.”
In the meantime, a gentleman who had seen her at her uncle’s and had fallen in love with her finds her out, and, in her greatest distress, asks her to become his wife. Though bowed down with poverty and grief, and this offer presents a wealthy home, she refuses the offer, but he persists till at length, she replies to him from the fullness of an overcharged heart.
“Never, Sir, never.” Anything rather than perjury of soul and body. I can never love you. Let this suffice; my will is fixed; yes, any misery, even to desolation, before I lie against God and my love. Do you understand me, Mr. Nalford/the gentleman’s name/? I will speak more plainly. You have often heard Mr. Forrester’s name in my uncle’s family. I have loved him from a child. No other man can become my husband.
Winter had set in once more, and Milicent had arrived one morning, weary and ill, at the house of one of her pupils. The young lady was not ready, and the teacher sat down at the piano to wait. While thus sitting, her eyes fell upon a letter lying on the table/it had been purposely put there at Mr. F’s request, to observe the effect it would have upon Milicent, she was well acquainted with his handwriting. The moment she saw it, the blood rushed to her pale cheeks, and her pulse beat with a passionate force long since subdued, she had thought, – She held that letter in her hand, her eyes devouring the cover and burning with an almost uncontrollable desire to read the enclosure, when the lady of the house entered the room, Mr. Forrester remaining at the door unseen, but ready to enter. Milicent dropped the letter; she looked as pale as death; her glittering eyes seemed to throw a strange light over her passive face – every faculty was concentrated with that of hearing. – “Madam,” she said at length with a great effort, “excuse what must seem so strange to you. I thought I heard the voice and recognized the footsteps of a friend of my father’s. This is his untying. Is Mr. Forrester in the house?” The lady smiled, looked behind her and said in reply – “My dear Miss Milicent, is this your father’s friend?” She raised her eyes – “Milicent,” – there was a depth, an intense depth of passion and of pity in the accent, oh, he loves her still, and what could withhold her from throwing herself into his yearning outstretched arms, now that the doubt was solved. “Milicent, my love – my wife!” What need of saying more. Mr. Forrester has sought, until now, unsuccessfully for Milicent, unable to agree that the heart he could not believe was false to him, and had found her purer, nobler, “refined as with fire.” And adds the author, “if I yielded to my bent, one describes at length the happiness of their after lives, it might excite the sneer of the incredulous and throw the doubt of fiction over all.”
I have thus condensed a work of some length into a small space, connecting the thread so as to make it understood. That, as in “Shirley,” there is also a moral in this, is evident – Shirley and Milicent, but Shirley “the noblest of the twain.”
I have been reading over a third time your last letter, and noticed the lecture you read me on the vested rights of women, that you say “it is well that women are tender-hearted,” and I quote this to ask you where you got this important piece of intelligence. That women are ‘tender hearts’ or rather that a majority of them are. I am willing to admit, and can only hope that in writing as you did, it was but a slip of the pen that put a ??? Over, and turned what otherwise might have been taken for an e into an i. But perhaps you intended it so. The tinder you know will not produce fir of itself – but take a flint and steel and produce with them sparks to fall of the tinder and thought he tinder may not ignite from the first or second spark, yet it will finally, and from that spark a lamp is lit, and by that lamp a fire may be kindled and by that fire a kettle may be boiled, or a conflagration ensures. You will see by the picture I enclose from Naper’s Comicalities, how the Poger family carried out the tender idea. I have marked this A. Then again, I have said “there are other ways of communicating a fact”, and I find one on the page I have marked B-C. Well, I once related a dream and you thought it curious – others can dream as well as I, and therefore what think you of the extract marked D. And again, in one of my letters, I mentioned what a sensation the appearance of a lady created years ago in California. What do you think of this, marked E., which I take from a paper published two days since? Trinity is in the mountains of California. And there again I told of the doings of the fair sex, and now the piece marked F, I take from the same paper.
No mail steamer having been telegraphed as yet, I am reluctantly compelled to place this in the Post Office without the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt of a letter from you. I had hoped this would not have been the case, for I long to be delivered from a state of suspense, and my deliverance I anxiously look for in the next letter from you. I must here make an addition to the last letter I wrote in that fact that relates to myself. I do not think I told you in that letter to what state I belong, and I now rectify or supply omission, by saying that I am from the State of New York, my last place of residence being in the City of Brooklyn, though my business was done in the city of New York. Whether I shall ever reside in New York again must depend upon the choice of another, as for myself, I have no great partiality for overlarge cities, and therefore can make myself at home almost anywhere.
I send this with scarcely any other intention than to remind you that I have not forgotten to write. If there be anything in it worth reading, please preserve what is fit to be read, and consign the rest to oblivion, and in the meantime allow me,
To remain,
Dear Miss Esther,
Yours ever,
E.F. Delancy,
Miss E. F. Dimond
Salisbury 67-14-11A N.H.