The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss Part 4

I never could realise that more than half a dozen people would read my pieces. Besides, I have no desire of the sort you express, for fame.

I care a great deal too much for the approbation of those I love and respect, but not a fig for that of those I don't like or don't know.

II.

Her Character as a Teacher. Letters. Incidents of School-Life. Religious Struggles, Aims, and Hopes. Oppressive Heat and Weariness.

Miss Payson had been in Richmond but a short time before she became greatly endeared to Mr. and Mrs. Persico, and to the whole school. She had a rare natural gift for teaching. Fond of study herself, she knew how to inspire her pupils with the same feeling. Her method was excellent. It aimed not merely to impart knowledge but to elicit latent powers, and to remove difficulties out of the way. While decided and thorough, it was also very gentle, helpful, and sympathetic. She had a quick perception of mental diversities, saw as by intuition the weak and the strong points of individual character, and was skillful in adapting her influence, as well as her instructions, to the peculiarities of every one under her care. The girls in her own special department almost idolised her. The parents also of some of them, who belonged to Richmond and its vicinity, seeing what she was doing for their daughters, sought her acquaintance and showed her the most grateful affection.

Although her school labors were exacting, she carried on a large correspondence, spent a good deal of time in her favorite religious reading, and together with Miss Susan Lord, the senior teacher and an old Portland friend, pursued a course of study in French and Italian. At the table Mr. Persico spoke French, and in this way she was enabled to perfect herself in the practice of that language. Of her spiritual history and of incidents of her school life during the new year, some extracts from letters to her cousin will give her own account.

RICHMOND, _January 3, 1841._

If I tell you that I am going to take under my especial care and protection one of the family--a little girl of eleven years whom n.o.body can manage at all, you may wonder why. I found on my plate at dinner a note from Mrs. Persico saying that if I wanted an opportunity of doing good, here was one; that if Nannie could sleep in my room, etc., it might be of great benefit to her. The only reason why I hesitated was the fear that she might be in the way of our best hours. But I have thought all along that I was living too much at my ease, and wanted a place in which to deny myself for the sake of the One who yielded up every comfort for my sake. Nannie has a fine character but has been mismanaged at home, and since coming here. She often comes and puts her arms around me and says, "There is _one_ in this house who loves me, I do _know_." I receive her as a trust from G.o.d, with earnest prayer to Him that we may be enabled to be of use to her. From morning to night she is found fault with, and this is spoiling her temper and teaching her to be deceitful.... I have been reading lately the Memoir of Martyn.

I have, of course, read it more than once before, but everything appears to me now in such a different light. I rejoice that I have been led to read the book just now. It has put within me new and peculiar desires to live wholly for the glory of G.o.d.

_Jan.13th._--I understand the feeling about wishing one's self a dog, or an animal without a soul. I have sat and watched a little kitten frisking about in the sunshine till I could hardly help killing it in my envy--but oh, how different it is now! I have felt lately that perhaps G.o.d has something for me to do in the world. I am satisfied, indeed, that in calling me nearer to Himself He has intended to prepare me for His service. Where that is to be is no concern of mine as yet. I only wish to belong to Him and wait for His will, whatever it may be.

_Jan. 14th_.--I used to go through with prayer merely as a duty, but now I look forward to the regular time for it, and hail opportunities for special seasons with such delight as I once knew nothing of. Sometimes my heart feels ready to break for the longing it hath for a nearer approach to the Lord Jesus than I can obtain without the use of words, and there is not a corner of the house which I can have to myself. I think sometimes that I should be thankful for the meanest place in the universe. You ask if I ever dream of seeing the Lord. No--I never did, neither should I think it desirable; but a few days ago, when I woke, I had fresh in my remembrance some precious words which, as I had been dreaming, He had spoken to me. It left an indescribable feeling of love and peace on my mind. I seemed in my dream to be very near Him, and that He was encouraging me to ask of Him all the things of which I felt the need.

_Jan. 17th_.--I did not mean to write so much about myself, for when I took out my letter I was thinking of things and beings far above this world. I was thinking of the hour when the Christian first enters into the joy of his Lord, when the first note of the "new song" is borne to his ear, and the first view of the Lamb of G.o.d is granted to his eye. It seems to me as if the bliss of that one minute would fully compensate for all the toils and struggles he must go through here; and then to remember the ages of happiness that begin at that point! Oh, if the unseen presence of Jesus can make the heart to sing for joy in the midst of its sorrow and sin here, what will it be to dwell with Him forever!

My Bible cla.s.s, which consists now of eighteen, is every week more dear to me. I am glad that you think poor Nannie well off. She has an inquiring mind, and though before coming here she had received no religious instruction and had not even a Bible, she is now constantly asking me questions which prove her to be a first-rate thinker and reasoner. She went to the theatre last night and came home quite disgusted, saying to herself, "I shouldn't like to die in the midst of such gayeties as these." She urged me to tell her if I thought it wrong for her to go, but I would not, because I did not want her to stay away for my sake. I want her to settle the question fairly in her own mind and to be guided by her own conscience rather than mine. She is so grateful and happy that, if the sacrifice had been greater, we should be glad that we had made it. And then if we can do her any good, how much reason we shall have to thank G.o.d for having placed her here!

_Feb. 11th._--My thoughts of serious things should, perhaps, be called prayers, rather than anything else. I have constant need of looking up to G.o.d for help, so utterly weak and ignorant am I and so dependent upon Him. Sometimes in my walks, especially those of the early morning, I take a verse from the "Daily Food" to think upon; at others, if my mind is where I want it should be, everything seems to speak and suggest thoughts of my Heavenly Father, and when it is otherwise I feel as if that time had been wasted. This is not "keeping the mind on the stretch," and is delightfully refreshing. All I wish is that I were always thus favored. As to a hasty temper, I know that anybody who ever lived with me, until within the last two or three years, could tell you of many instances of outbreaking pa.s.sion. I am ashamed to say how recently the last real tempest occurred, but I will not spare myself. It was in the spring of 1838, and I did not eat anything for so long that I was ill in bed and barely escaped a fever. Mother nursed me so tenderly that, though she forgave me, I _never_ shall forgive myself. Since then I should not wish you to suppose that I have been perfectly amiable, but for the last year I think I have been enabled in a measure to control my temper, but of that you know more than I do, as you had a fair specimen of what I am when with us last summer. It has often been a source of encouragement to me that everybody said I was gentle and amiable till my father's death, when I was nine years old.... While reading to-night that chapter in Mark, where it speaks of Jesus as walking on the sea, I was interested in thinking how frequently such scenes occur in our spiritual pa.s.sage over the sea which is finally to land us on the sh.o.r.es of the home for which we long. "While they were toiling in rowing,"

Jesus went to them upon the water and "would have pa.s.sed by" till He heard their cries, and then He manifested Himself unto them saying, _"It is I."_ And when He came to them, the wind ceased and they "wondered."

Surely we have often found in our toiling that Jesus was pa.s.sing by and ready at the first trembling fear to speak the word of love and of consolation and to give us the needed help, and then to leave us _wondering_ indeed at the infinite tenderness and kindness so unexpectedly vouchsafed for our relief.

_Feb. 13th_--I do not think we should make our enjoyment of religion the greatest end of our struggle against sin. I never once had such an idea.

I think we should fight against sin simply because it is something hateful to G.o.d, because it is something so utterly unlike the spirit of Christ, whom it is our privilege to strive to imitate in all things. On all points connected with the love I wish to give my Saviour, and the service I am to render Him, I feel that I want teaching and am glad to obtain a.s.sistance from any source. I hardly know how to answer your question. I do not have that constant sense of the Saviour's presence which I had here for a long time, neither do I feel that I love Him as I thought I did, but it is not always best to judge of ourselves by our feelings, but by the general principle and guiding desire of the mind. I do think that my prevailing aim is to do the will of G.o.d and to glorify Him in everything. Of this I have thought a great deal of late. I have not a very extensive sphere of action, but I want my conduct, my every word and look and motion, to be fully under the influence of this desire for the honor of G.o.d. You can have no idea of the constant observation to which I am exposed here.

_Feb. 21st._--I spent three hours this afternoon in taking care of a little black child (belonging to the house), who is very ill, and as I am not much used to such things, it excited and worried me into a violent nervous headache. I finished Brainerd's Life this afternoon, amid many doubts as to whether I ever loved the Lord at all, so different is my piety from that of this blessed and holy man. The book has been a favorite with me for years, but I never felt the influence of his life as I have while reading it of late.

She alludes repeatedly in her correspondence to the delight which she found on the Sabbath in listening to that eminent preacher and divine, the Rev. Dr. Wm. S. Plumer, who was then settled in Richmond. In a letter to her cousin she writes:

I have become much attached to him; he seems more than half in heaven, and every word is full of solemnity and feeling, as if he had just held near intercourse with G.o.d. I wish that you could have listened with me to his sermons to-day. They have been, I think, blessed messages from G.o.d to my soul.

All her letters at this time glow with religious fervor. "How wonderful is our divine Master!" she seemed to be always saying to herself. "It has become so delightful to me to speak of His love, of His holiness, of His purity, that when I try to write to those who know Him not, I hardly know what is worthy of even a mention, if He is to be forgotten." And several years afterwards she refers to this period as a time when she "shrank from everything that in the slightest degree interrupted her consciousness of G.o.d."

The following letter to a friend, whose name will often recur in these pages, well ill.u.s.trates her state of mind during the entire winter.

_To Miss Anna S. Prentiss. Richmond, Feb 26, 1841._

Your very welcome letter, my dear Anna, arrived this afternoon, and, as my labors for the week are over, I am glad of a quiet hour in which to thank you for it. I do not thank you simply because you have so soon answered my letter, but because you have told me what no one else could do so well about your own very dear self. When I wrote you I doubted very much whether I might even allude to the subject of religion, although I wished to do so, since that almost exclusively has occupied my mind during the last year. I saw you in the midst of temptations to which I have ever been a stranger, but which I conceived to be decidedly unfavorable to growth in any of the graces which make up Christian character. It was not without hesitation that I ventured to yield to the promptings of my heart, and to refer to the only things which have at present much interest for it. I can not tell you how I do rejoice that you have been led to come out thus upon the Lord's side, and to consecrate yourself to His service. My own views and feelings have within the last year undergone such an entire change, that I have wished I could take now some such stand in the presence of all who have known me in days past, as this which you have taken. My first and only wish is henceforth to live but for Him, who has graciously drawn my wandering affections to Himself.... You speak of the faintness of your heart--but "they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength," and I do believe the truth of these precious words; not only because they are those of G.o.d, but also because my own experience adds happy witness to them. I have lived many years with only just enough of hope to keep me from actual despair. The least breath was sufficient to scatter it all and to leave me, fearful and afraid, to go over and over again the same ground; thus allowing neither time nor strength for progress in the Christian course. I trust that you will not go through years of such unnecessary darkness and despondency. There is certainly enough in our Saviour, if we only open our eyes that we may see it, to solve every doubt and satisfy every longing of the heart; and He is willing to give it in full measure. When I contemplate the character of the Lord Jesus, I am filled with wonder which I can not express, and with unutterable desires to yield myself and my all to His hand, to be dealt with in His own way; and His way is a blessed one, so that it is delightful to resign body and soul and spirit to Him, without a will opposed to His, without a care but to love Him more, without a sorrow which His love can not sanctify or remove. In following after Him faithfully and steadfastly, the feeblest hopes may be strengthened; and I trust that you will find in your own happy experience that "joy and peace" go hand in hand with love--so that in proportion to your devotion to the Saviour will be the blessedness of your life. When I begin I hardly know where to stop, and now I find myself almost at the end of my sheet before I have begun to say what I wish. This will only a.s.sure you that I love you a thousand times better than I did when I did not know that your heart was filled with hopes and affections like my own, and that I earnestly desire, if Providence permits us to enjoy intercourse in this or in any other way, we may never lose sight of the one great truth that we are _not our own._ I pray you sometimes remember me at the throne of grace.

The more I see of the Saviour, the more I feel my own weakness and helplessness and my need of His constant presence, and I can not help asking a.s.sistance from all those who love Him.... Oh, how sorry I am that I have come to the end! I wish I had any faculty for expressing affection, so that I might tell you how much I love and how often I think of you.

Her cousin having gone abroad, a break in the correspondence with him occurred about this time and continued for several months. In a letter to her friend, Miss Thurston, dated April 21st, she thus refers to her school:

There are six of us teachers, five of them born in Maine--which is rather funny, as that is considered by most of the folks here as the place where the world comes to an end. Although the South lifts up its wings and crows over the North, it is glad enough to get its teachers there, and ministers too, and treats them very well when it gets them, into the bargain. We have in the school about one hundred and twenty-five pupils of all ages. I never knew till I came here the influence which early religious education exerts upon the whole future age. There is such a wonderful difference between most of these young people and those in the North, that you might almost believe them another race of beings. Mrs. Persico is beautiful, intelligent, interesting, and pious. Mr. Persico is just as much like John Neal as difference of education and of circ.u.mstances can permit. Mr. N.'s strong sense of justice, his enthusiasm, his fun and wit, his independence and self-esteem, his tastes, too, as far as I know them, all exist in like degree in Mr. Persico.

The early spring, with its profusion of flowers of every hue, so far in advance of the spring in her native State, gave her the utmost pleasure; but as the summer approached, her health began to suffer. The heat was very intense, and hot weather always affected her unhappily. "I feel,"

she wrote, "as if I were in an oven with hot melted lead poured over my brain." Her old trouble, too--"organic disease of the heart" it was now suspected to be--caused her much discomfort. "While writing," she says in one of her letters, "I am suffering excruciating pain; I can't call it anything else." Her physical condition naturally affected more or less her religious feelings. Under date of July 12th, she writes:

The word _conflict_ expresses better than any other my general state from day to day. I have seemed of late like a straw floating upon the surface of a great ocean, blown hither and thither by every wind, and tossed from wave to wave without the rest of a moment. It was a mistake of mine to imagine that G.o.d ever intended man to rest in this world. I see that it is right and wise in Him to appoint it otherwise.... While suffering from my Saviour's absence, nothing interests me. But I was somewhat encouraged by reading in my father's memoir, and in reflecting that he pa.s.sed through far greater spiritual conflicts than will probably ever be mine.... I see now that it is not always best for us to have the light of G.o.d's countenance. Do not spend your time and strength in asking for me that blessing, but this--that I may be transformed into the image of Christ in His own time, in His own way.

Early in August she left Richmond and flew homeward like a bird to its nest.

III.

Extracts from her Richmond Journal.

Were her letters to her cousin the only record of Miss Payson's Richmond life, one might infer that they give a complete picture of it; for they were written in the freedom and confidence of Christian friendship, with no thought that a third eye would ever see them. But it had another and hidden side, of which her letters contain only a partial record. Her early habit of keeping a journal has been already referred to. She kept one at Richmond, and was prevented several years later from destroying it, as she had destroyed others, by the entreaty of the only person who ever saw it. This journal depicts many of her most secret thoughts and feelings, both earthward and heavenward. Some pa.s.sages in it are of too personal a nature for publication, but the following extracts seem fairly ent.i.tled to a place here, as they bring out several features of her character with sunlike clearness, and so will help to a better understanding of the ensuing narrative:

RICHMOND, _October 3, 1840._

How funny it seems here! Everything is so different from home! I foresee that I shan't live nearly a year under these new influences without changing my old self into something else. Heaven forbid that I should grow old because people treat me as if I were grown up! I hate old young folks. Well! whoever should see me and my scholars would be at a loss to know wherein consists the difference between them and me. I am only a little girl after all, and yet folks do treat me as if I were as old and as wise as Methusaleh. And Mr. Persico says, "Oui, Madame." Oh! oh! oh!

It makes me feel so ashamed when these tall girls, these damsels whose hearts are developed as mine won't be these half dozen years (to say nothing of their minds), ask me if they may go to bed, if they may walk, if they may go to Mr. So-and-so's, and Miss Such-a-one's to buy--a stick of candy for aught I know. Oh, oh, oh! I shall have to take airs upon myself. I shall have to leave off little words and use big ones. I shall have to leave off sitting curled up on my feet, turkey-fashion. I shall have to make wise speeches (But a word in your ear, Miss--I _won't_).

_Oct. 27th_--This Richmond is a queer sort of a place and I should be as miserable in it as a fish out of water, only there is sunshine enough in my heart to make any old hole bright. In the first place, this dowdy chamber is in one view a perfect den--no carpet, whitewashed walls, loose windows that have the shaking palsy, fire-red hearth, blue paint instead of white, or rather a suspicion that there was once some blue paint here. But what do I care? I'm as merry as a grig from morning till night. The little witches down-stairs love me dearly, everybody is kind, and--and--and--when everybody is locked out and I am locked into this same room, this low attic, there's not a king on the earth so rich, so happy as I! Here is my little pet desk, here are my books, my papers.

I can write and read and study and moralise, I don't pretend to say _think_--and then besides, every morning and every night, within these four walls, heaven itself refuses not to enter in and dwell--and I may grow better and better and happier and happier in blessedness with which nothing may intermeddle.

Mr. Persico is a man by himself, and quite interesting to me in one way, that is, in giving me something to puzzle out. I like him for his exquisite taste in the picture line and for having adorned his rooms with such fine ones--at least they're fine to my inexperienced eye; for when I'm in the mood, I can go and sit and dream as it seemeth me good over them, and as I dream, won't good thoughts come into my heart? As to Mrs. P., I hereby return my thanks to Nature for making her so beautiful. She has a face and figure to fall in love with. K. has also a fine face and a delicate little figure. Miss ---- I shall avoid as far as I can do so. I do not think her opinions and feelings would do me any good. She has a fine mind and likes to cultivate it, and for that I respect her, but she has nothing natural and girlish in her, and I am persuaded, never had. She hates little children; says she hates to hear them laugh, thinks them little fools. Why, how odd all this is to me!

I could as soon hate the angels in heaven and hate to hear them sing.

That, to be sure, is my way, and the other way is hers--but somehow it doesn't seem good-hearted to be so very, very superior to children as to shun the little loving beautiful creatures. I don't believe I ever shall grow up! But, Miss ----, I don't want to do you injustice, and I'm much obliged to you for all the flattering things you've said about me, and if you like my eyes and think there is congeniality of feeling between us, why, I thank you. But oh, don't teach me that the wisdom of the world consisteth in forswearing the simple beauties with which life is full. Don't make me fear my own happy girlhood by talking to me about love--oh, don't!

_Dec. 1._--I wonder if all the girls in the world are just alike? Seems to me they might be so sweet and lovable if they'd leave off chattering forever and ever about lovers.... If mothers would keep their little unfledged birds under their own wings, wouldn't they make better mother- birds? Now some girls down-stairs, who ought to be thinking about all the beautiful things in life but just lovers, are reading novels, love-stories and poetry, till they can't care for anything else.... Now, Lizzy Payson, where's the use of fretting so? Go right to work reading Leighton and you'll forget that all the world isn't as wise as you think you are, you little vain thing, you! Alas and alas, but this is such a nice world, and the girls don't know it!

_Dec. 2._--What a pleasant walk I had this morning on Ambler's Hill.

The sun rose while I was there and I was so happy! The little valley, clothed with white houses and completely encircled by hills, reminded me of the verse about the mountains round about Jerusalem. n.o.body was awake so early and I had all the great hill to myself, and it was so beautiful that I could have thrown myself down and kissed the earth itself. Oh, sweet and good and loving Mother Nature! I choose you for my own. I will be your little lady-love. I will hunt you out whenever you hide, and you shall comfort me when I am sad, and laugh with me when I'm merry, and take me by the hand and lead me onward and upward till the image of the heavenly forceth out that of the earthly from my whole heart and soul.

Oh, how I prayed for a holy heart on that hillside and how sure I am that I shall grow better! and what companionable thoughts I've had all day for that blessed walk!

_8th._--My life is a nice little life just now, as regular as clockwork.

We walk and we keep school, and our scholars kiss and love us, and we kiss and love them, and we read Lamartine and I worship Leighton, good, wise, holy Leighton, and we discourse about everything together and dispute and argue and argue and dispute, and I'm quite happy, so I am!

As to Lamartine, he's no great things, as I know of, but I want to keep up my knowledge of French and so we read twenty pages a day. And as to our discourses, my fidgety, moralising sort of mind wants to compare its doctrines with those of other people, though it's as stiff as a poker in its own opinions. You're a very consistent little girl! you call yourself a child, are afraid to open your mouth before folks, and yet you're as obstinate and proud as a little man, daring to think for yourself and act accordingly at the risk of being called odd and incomprehensible. I don't care, though! Run on and break your neck if you will. You're nothing especial after all.

_9th._--To-night, in unrolling a bundle of work I found a little note therein from mother. Whew, how I kissed it! I thought I should fly out of my senses, I was so glad. But I can't fly now-a-days, I'm growing so unetherial. Why, I take up a lot of room in the world and my frocks won't hold me. That's because my heart is so quiet, lying as still as a mouse, after all its tossings about and trying to be happy in the things of this life. Oh, I am so happy now in the _other_ life! But as for telling other people so--as for talking religion--I don't see how I _can._ It doesn't come natural. Is it because I am proud? But I pray to be so holy, so truly a Christian, that my _life_ shall speak and gently persuade all who see me to look for the hidden spring of my perpetual happiness and quietness. The only question is: Do I live so? I'm afraid I make religion seem too grave a thing to my watching maidens down-stairs; but, oh, I'm afraid to rush into _their_ pleasures.

_25th._-- ... I've been "our Lizzy" all my life and have not had to display my own private feelings and opinions before folks, but have sat still and listened and mused and lived within myself, and shut myself up in my corner of the house and speculated on life and the things thereof till I've got a set of notions of my own which don't _fit into_ the notions of anybody I know. I don't open myself to anybody on earth; I can not; there is a world of something in me which is not known to those about me and perhaps never will be; but sometimes I think it would be _delicious_ to love a mind like mine in some things, only better, wiser, n.o.bler. I do not quite understand life. People don't live as they were made to live, I'm sure ... I want _soul._ I want the gracious, glad spirit that finds the good and the beautiful in everything, joined to the manly, exalted intellect--rare unions, I am sure, yet possible ones.

Little girl! Do you suppose such a soul would find anything in yours to satisfy it? No--no--no--I do not. I know I am a poor little goose which ought to be content with some equally poor little gander, but I _won't._ I'll never give up one inch of these the demands of my reason and of my heart for all the truths you tell me about myself--never! But descend from your elevation, oh speculating child of mortality, and go down to school. Oh, no, no school for a week, and I guess I'll spend the week in fancies and follies. It won't hurt me. I've done it before and got back to the world as satisfied as ever, indeed I have.

_Jan. 1, 184l._--We've been busy all the week getting our presents ready for the servants, and a nice time I've had this morning, seeing them show their ivory thereat. James made a little speech, the amount of which was, he hoped I wouldn't get married till I'd "done been" here two or three years, because my face was so pleasant it was good to look at it! I was as proud as Lucifer at this compliment, and shall certainly look pleasant all day to-day, if I never did before. Monsieur and the rest wished me, I won't say how many, good wishes, rushing at me as I went in to breakfast--and Milly privately informed Lucy that she liked Miss Payson "a heap" better than she did any body else, and then came and begged me to buy her! I buy her! Heaven bless the poor little girl.

I had some presents and affectionate notes from different members of the family and from my scholars--also letters from sister and Ned, which delighted me infinitely more than I'm going to tell _you_, old journal.

Took tea at Mr. P.'s and Mrs. P. laughed at her husband because he had once an idea of going to New England to get my little ladyship to wife (for the sake of my father, of course). Mr. P. blushed like a boy and fidgeted terribly, but I didn't care a snap--I am not old enough to be wife to anybody, and I'm not going to mind if people do joke with me about it. I've had better things to think of on this New Year's day--good, heavenward thoughts and prayers and hopes, and if I do not become more and more transformed into the Divine, then are prayers and hopes things of nought. Oh, how dissatisfied I am with myself. How I long to be like unto Him into whose image I shall one day be changed when I see Him as He is!