A Girl's Life in Virginia before the War Part 14

This Danish lady was succeeded by one of a wholly different type, all grace and accomplishments, a Virginian, and the widow of Major Lomax of the United States Army.

Mrs. Lomax had several accomplished daughters who a.s.sisted in her school, and the harp, piano, and guitar were household instruments.

The eldest daughter contributed stories and verses, which were greatly admired, to periodicals of that day. One of these stories, published in a Northern journal, won for her a prize of one hundred dollars, and the school-girls were thrilled to hear that she spent it all for a royal purple velvet gown to wear to Miss Preston's wedding in Montgomery County.

In this school Mrs. Lomax introduced a charming corps of teachers from Boston, most cultivated and refined women, whom it will always be a pleasure to remember. Among these were Mrs. Dana, with her accomplished daughter, Miss Matilda Dana, well known in the literary world then as a writer of finished verses.

We had also a bright, sweet-natured little Frenchwoman, Mlle. Roget, who taught her native language.

Besides these teachers we had a German gentleman, a finished pianist and linguist; and the recollections of those days are like the delicious music that floated around us then from those master-musicians.

After such pleasant school-days at home we were sent away to a fashionable boarding-school in the city of Richmond, presided over by a lady of great dignity and gentleness of manner, combined with high attainments. She was first Mrs. Otis of Boston, and afterward Mrs.

Meade of Virginia.

At her school were collected many interesting teachers and pupils.

Among the former were Miss Prescott of Boston and Miss Willis, sister of N. P. Willis, both lovable and attractive.

Among the noted girls at Mrs. Meade's school was Amelie Rives[20] of Albemarle County, Va. She spoke French fluently, and seemed to know much about Paris and the French court, her father having been Minister to France.

[20] This interesting girl married Mr. Sigourney of Ma.s.sachusetts, and after the war, as she was crossing the ocean to Europe with her husband and all her children (except one son) the ill-fated ship sank with nearly all on board. We have heard that, as the ship was going down, Amelie, her husband, and her children formed a circle, hand in hand, and were thus buried in the deep.

We looked upon Amelie with great admiration, and, as she wrote very pretty poetry, every girl in the school set her heart upon having some original verses in her alb.u.m, a favor which Amelie never refused.

Closing this chapter on schools suggests the great difference in the objects and methods of a Virginia girl's education then and now. At that period a girl was expected not only to be an ornament to the drawing-room, but to be also equipped for taking charge of an establishment and superintending every detail of domestic employment on a plantation--the weaving, knitting, sewing, etc.--for the comfort of the negro servants to be some day under her care. I have thus seen girls laboriously draw the threads of finest linen, and backst.i.tch miles of st.i.tching on their brothers' collars and shirt-bosoms. Having no brothers to sew for, I looked on in amazement at this dreary task, and I have since often wished that those persevering and devoted women could come back and live their lives over again in the days of sewing-machines.

At that day the parents of a girl would have shuddered at the thought of her venturing for a day's journey without an escort on a railway car, being jostled in a public crowd, or exposed in any way to indiscriminate contact with the outside world, while the proposition of a collegiate course for a woman would have shocked every sensibility of the opposite s.e.x.

How the men of that time would stand aghast to see the girl of the present day elbowing her way through a crowd, buying her ticket at the railway station, interviewing baggage-agents, checking trunks, and seating herself in the train to make a long journey alone, perhaps to enter some strange community and make her living by the practice of law or medicine, lecturing, teaching, telegraphing, newspaper-reporting, typewriting, bookkeeping, or in some other of the various avenues now open to women!

Whether the new system be any improvement upon the old remains open for discussion. It is certain that these widely opposed methods must result in wholly different types of feminine character.

CHAPTER XIX.

The scenes connected with the late war will recall to the mind of every Southern man and woman the name of Robert E. Lee--a name which will be loved and revered as long as home or fireside remains in old Virginia, and which sets the crowning glory on the list of ill.u.s.trious men from plantation homes. Admiration and enthusiasm naturally belong to victory, but the man must be rare indeed who in defeat, like General Lee, receives the applause of his countrymen.

It was not alone his valor, his handsome appearance, his commanding presence, his perfect manner, which won the admiration of his fellow-men. There was something above and beyond all these--his true Christian character. Trust in G.o.d enn.o.bled his every word and action.

Among the grandest of human conquerors was he, for, early enlisting as a soldier of the Cross, to fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil, he fought the "good fight," and the victor's crown awaited him in the "kingdom not made with hands."

Trust in G.o.d kept him calm in victory as in defeat. When I remember General Lee during the war, in his family circle at Richmond, then at the height of his renown, his manner, voice, and conversation were the same as when, a year after the surrender, he came to pay my mother a visit from his Lexington home.

His circ.u.mstances and surroundings were now changed: no longer the stars and epaulets adorned his manly form; but, dressed in a simple suit of pure white linen, he looked a king, and adversity had wrought no change in his character, manner, or conversation.

To reach our house he made a journey, on his old war horse "Traveler,"

forty miles across the mountains, describing which, on the night of his arrival, he said:

"To-day an incident occurred which gratified me more than anything that has happened for a long time. As I was riding over the most desolate mountain region, where not even a cabin could be seen, I was surprised to find, on a sudden turn in the road, two little girls playing on a large rock. They were very poorly clad, and after looking a moment at me began to run away. 'Children,' said I, 'don't run away.

If you could know _who_ I am, you would know that I am the last man in the world for anybody to run from now.'

"'But we do know you,' they replied.

"'You never saw me before,' I said, 'for I never pa.s.sed along here.'

"'But we do know you,' they said. 'And we've got your picture up yonder in the house, and you are General Lee! And we aint dressed clean enough to see you.'

"With this they scampered off to a poor low hut on the mountain side."

It was gratifying to him to find that even in this lonely mountain hut the children had been taught to know and revere him.

He told us, too, of a man he met the same day in a dense forest, who recognized him, and, throwing up his hat in the air, said: "General, _please_ let me cheer you," and fell to cheering with all his lungs!

My last recollections of General Lee, when making a visit of several weeks at his house the year before his death, although not coming properly under the head of "plantation reminiscences," may not be inappropriate here.

It has been said that a man is never a hero to his valet; but this could not have been said of General Lee, for those most intimately connected with him could not fail to see continually in his bearing and character something above the ordinary level, something of the hero.

At the time of my visit the Commencement exercises of the college of which he was president were going on. His duties were necessarily onerous. Sitting up late at night with the board of visitors, and attending to every detail with his conscientious particularity, there was little time for him to rest. Yet every morning of that busy week he was ready, with his prayer-book under his arm, when the church bell called its members to sunrise service.

It is pleasant to recall all that he said at the breakfast, dinner, and tea table, where in his hospitality he always insisted upon bringing all who chanced to be at his house at those hours--on business or on social call.[21] This habit kept his table filled with guests, who received from him the most graceful courtesy.

[21] Here was seen the Mount Vernon silver, which had descended to Mrs. General Washington's great-grandson, General Custis Lee, and which was marvelously preserved during the war, having been concealed in different places--and once was buried near Lexington in a barn which was occupied by the enemy several days.

Only once did I hear him speak regretfully of the past. It was one night when, sitting by him on the porch in the moonlight, he said to me, his thoughts turning to his early childhood:

"It was not my mother's wish that I should receive a military education, and I ought to have taken her advice; for," he continued very sadly, "my education did not fit me for this civil life."

In this no one could agree with him, for it seemed to all that he adorned and satisfactorily filled every position in life, civil or military.

There was something in his manner which naturally pleased everyone without his making an effort; at the same time a dignity and reserve which commanded respect and precluded anything like undue familiarity. All desirable qualities seemed united in him to render him popular.

It was wonderful to observe--in the evenings when his parlors were overflowing with people, young and old, from every conceivable place--how by a word, a smile, a shake of the hand, he managed to give _all_ pleasure and satisfaction, each going away charmed with him.

The applause of men excited in him no vanity; for those around soon learned that the slightest allusion or compliment, in his presence, to his valor or renown, instead of pleasing, rather offended him. Without vanity, he was equally without selfishness.

One day, observing several quaint articles of furniture about his house, and asking Mrs. Lee where they came from, she told me that an old lady in New York city--of whom neither herself nor the general had ever before heard--concluded to break up housekeeping. Having no family, and not wishing to sell or remove her furniture to a boarding-house, she determined to give it to "the _greatest living man_" and that man was General Lee.

She wrote a letter asking his acceptance of the present, requesting that, if his house was already furnished and he had no room, he would use the articles about his college.

The boxes arrived. But--such was his reluctance at receiving gifts--weeks pa.s.sed and he neither had them opened nor brought to his house from the express office.

Finally, as their house was quite bare of furniture, Mrs. Lee begged him to allow her to have them opened, and he consented.

First there was among the contents a beautiful carpet large enough for two rooms, at which she was delighted, as they had none. But the general, seeing it, quickly said: "That is the very thing for the floor of the new chapel! It must be put there."

Next were two sofas and a set of chairs. "The very things we want,"

again exclaimed the general, "for the platform of the new chapel!"