Evenings At Donaldson Manor Part 3

"I know nothing about her," said I, with a smile at his eagerness.

"Then why, dear Aunt Nancy, did you keep the engraving?" asked Annie.

"I might answer, because of my interest in the scene it depicts--a scene in which religion seems to shed its sanctifying influence over the tenderest affection and the homeliest duties of our common life; but I had another reason."

"Ah! I knew it," exclaimed Annie.

"I first saw this print in company with a very cultivated and interesting German lady, to whose memory the sleeping baby recalled a cradle song written by her countryman, the brave Korner. She sang it for me, and as the German is, I am grieved to say, a sealed book to me, she gave me a literal translation of the words, which--"

"Which you have put into English verse, and written here at the back of the engraving in the finest of all fine writing, and which papa will put on his spectacles and read for us."

"No; I commission Mr. Arlington to do that," said the Colonel, "without his spectacles."

"First," said I, "let me a.s.sure you that the original is full of a simple, natural tenderness, which I fear, in the double process of translating and versifying, has entirely escaped."

Mr. Arlington, taking the paper from Annie, now read,--

THE CRADLE SONG;

A FREE TRANSLATION FROM KoRNER.

I.

Slumberer! to thy mother's breast, So fondly folded, sweetly rest!

Within that fair and quiet world, With downy pinions scarce unfurl'd, Life gently pa.s.ses, nor doth bring One dream of sorrow on its wing.

II.

Pleasant our dreams in early hours, When Mother-love our life embowers;-- Ah! Mother-love! thy tender light Hath vanished from my sky of night, Scarce leaving there one fading ray To thrill me with, remember'd day.

III.

Thrice, by the smiles of fav'ring Heaven, To man this holiest joy is given; Thrice, circled by the arms of love, With glowing spirit he may prove The highest rapture heart can feel, The n.o.blest hopes our lives reveal.

IV.

The earliest blessings that enwreathed His infant days, 'twas Love that breathed.

In Love's warm smile the nursling blooms, Nor fears one shade that o'er him glooms, While flowers unfold and waters dance In joy, beneath his first, fresh glance.

V.

And when around the youth's bold course Clouds gather--tempests spend their force-- When his soul darkens with his sky, Again the Love-G.o.d hovers nigh; And on some gentle maiden's breast Lulls him, once more, to blissful rest.

VI.

But when his heart bends to the power Of storm, as bends the summer flower, 'Tis Love that, as the Angel-Death Wooes from his lips the ling'ring breath, And gently bears his soul above, To the bright skies--the home of Love.

"Poor Korner!" said Mr. Arlington, as he concluded reading this song--if indeed it may claim that name in its English dress--"I can sympathize, as few can do, with his mournful memory of mother-love."

This was said in a tone of such genuine emotion, that I looked at him with even more pleasure than I had hitherto done.

"Such tenderness touches us particularly when found, as in Korner, in union with manly and vigorous qualities--perhaps, because it is a rare combination," said Mrs. Dudley.

"Is it rare?" I asked doubtfully. "The results of my own observation have led me to believe that it is precisely in manly, vigorous, independent minds that we see the fullest development of our simple, natural, home-affections."

"You are right, Aunt Nancy," said Col. Donaldson; "it is only boys striving to seem manly and men of boyish minds, who fail to acknowledge with reverence and tenderness the value of a mother's love."

"So convinced am I of this," I replied, "that I would ask for no more certain indication of a man's n.o.bility of nature, than his manner to his mother. I remember a striking ill.u.s.tration of the fidelity of such an indication in two brothers of the name of Manning, with whom I was once acquainted. The one was quite a _pet.i.t-maitre_--a dandy; the other, a fine creature--large-minded and large-hearted. The first betrayed in every look and movement, that he considered himself greatly his mother's superior, and feared every moment that she should detract from his dignity by some sin against the dicta of fashion; the other did honor at once to her and to himself, by his reverent devotion to her.

They were a contrast, and a contrast which circ.u.mstances brought out most strikingly. Ah, Mr. Arlington! I wish you could have seen them--a sketch of them from your pencil would have been a picture indeed."

"We will take your word-painting instead," said Mr. Arlington.

"A mere description in words could not present them to you in all their strongly marked diversity of character. To do this, I must give you a history of their lives."

"And why not?"--and--"Oh, yes, Aunt Nancy, that is just what we want,"

was echoed from one to another. They consented to delay their gratification till the evening, that I might have a little time to arrange my reminiscences; and when "the hours of long uninterrupted evening" came, and we had

"----stirr'd the fire and closed the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheeled the sofa round,"

and disposed ourselves in comfort for talking and for listening, I gave them the relation which you will find below under the t.i.tle of

THE BROTHERS;

OR, IN THE FASHION AND ABOVE THE FASHION.

"Some men are born to greatness--some achieve greatness--and some have greatness thrust upon them." Henry Manning belonged to the second of these three great cla.s.ses. The son of a mercantile adventurer, who won and lost a fortune by speculation, he found himself at sixteen years of age called on to choose between the life of a Western farmer, with its vigorous action, stirring incident and rough usage--and the life of a clerk in one of the most noted establishments in Broadway, the great source and centre of fashion in New-York. Mr. Morgan, the brother of Mrs. Manning, who had been recalled from the distant West by the death of her husband, and the embarra.s.sments into which that event had plunged her, had obtained the offer of the latter situation for one of his two nephews, and would take the other with him to his prairie-home.

"I do not ask you to go with me, Matilda," he said to his sister, "because our life is yet too wild and rough to suit a delicate woman, reared, as you have been, in the midst of luxurious refinements. The difficulties and privations of life in the West fall most heavily upon woman, while she has little of that sustaining power which man's more adventurous spirit finds in overcoming difficulty and coping with danger. But let me have one of your boys; and by the time he has arrived at manhood, he will be able, I doubt not, to offer you in his home all the comforts, if not all the elegances of your present abode."

Mrs. Manning consented; and now the question was, which of her sons should remain with her, and which should accompany Mr. Morgan. To Henry Manning, older by two years than his brother George, the choice of situations was submitted. He went with his uncle to the Broadway establishment, heard the duties which would be demanded from him, the salary which would be given, saw the grace with which the _elegants_ behind the counter displayed their silks, and satins, and velvets, to the _elegantes_ before the counter, and the decision with which they promulgated the decrees of fashion; and with that just sense of his own powers, which is the accompaniment of true genius, he decided at once that there lay his vocation. George, who had not been without difficulty kept quiet, while his brother was forming his decision, as soon as it was announced, sprang forward with a whoop that would have suited a Western forest better than a New-York drawing-room, threw the Horace he was reading across the table, clasped first his mother and then his uncle in his arms, and exclaimed, "I am the boy for the West. I will help you fell forests and build cities there, uncle. Why should not we build cities as well as Romulus and Remus?"

"I will supply your cities with all their silks, and satins, and velvets, and laces, and charge them nothing, George," said Henry Manning, with that air of superiority with which the worldly-wise often look on the sallies of the enthusiast.

"You make my head ache, my son," complained Mrs. Manning, shrinking from his boisterous gratulation;--but Mr. Morgan returned his hearty embrace, and as he gazed into his bold, bright face, with an eye as bright as his own, replied to his burst of enthusiasm, "You _are_ the very boy for the West, George. It is out of such brave stuff that pioneers and city-builders are always made."

Henry Manning soon bowed himself into the favor of the ladies who formed the princ.i.p.al customers of his employer. By his careful and really correct habits, and his elegant taste in the selection and arrangement of goods, he became also a favorite with his employers themselves. They needed an agent for the selection of goods abroad, and they sent him. He purchased cloths for them in England, and silks in France, and came home with the reputation of a travelled man. Having persuaded his mother to advance a capital for him by selling out the bank stock in which Mr.

Morgan had founded her little fortune, at twenty-four years of age he commenced business for himself as a French importer. Leaving a partner to attend to the sales at home, he went abroad for the selection of goods, and the further enhancement of his social reputation. He returned in two years with a fashionable figure, a most _recherche_ style of dress, moustachios of the most approved cut, and whiskers of faultless curl--a finished gentleman in his own conceit. With such attractions, the _prestige_ which he derived from his reported travels and long residence abroad, and the _savoir faire_ of one who had made the conventional arrangements of society his study, he quickly arose to the summit of his wishes, to the point which it had been his life's ambition to attain. He became the umpire of taste, and his word was received as the fiat of fashion. He continued to reside with his mother, and paid great attention to her style of dress, and the arrangements of her house, for it was important that his mother should appear properly. Poor Mrs. Manning! she sometimes thought that proud t.i.tle dearly purchased by listening to his daily criticisms on appearance, language, manners, which had been esteemed stylish enough in their day.

George Manning had visited his mother only once since he left her with all the bright imaginings and boundless confidence of fourteen, and then Henry was in Europe. It was during the first winter after his return, and when the brothers had been separated for nearly twelve years, that Mrs. Manning informed him she had received a letter from George, announcing his intention to be in New-York in December, and to remain with them through most if not all of the winter. Henry Manning was evidently annoyed at the announcement.

"I wish," he said, "that George had chosen to make his visit in the summer, when most of the people to whom I should hesitate to introduce him would have been absent. I should be sorry to hurt his feelings, but really, to introduce a Western farmer into polished society--" Henry Manning shuddered, and was silent. "And then to choose this winter of all winters for his visit, and to come in December, just at the very time that I heard yesterday Miss Harcourt was coming from Washington to spend a few weeks with her friend, Mrs. Duffield!"