The Story of a Life Part 1

The Story of a Life.

by J. Breckenridge Ellis.

INTRODUCTION.

The story of any life, if fully portrayed, should be more interesting than the story of a dream-phantom of fiction. In hearing of one who really lived, there is with us the feeling that the sunshine which greets our eyes, the rain which dashes against our window, in brief, the joys and sorrows which like flowers and thistles grow everywhere, were all known to that real character in the world's drama. Therefore, since, in a measure, our experience and his are in common, his life, inasmuch as it touches us at so many points, should lead us into new fields of interest and instruction, as it goes on its way alone.

This is true of any life, if we could know it in its entirety. But how much more strikingly true it is found, when the life selected is one that leads from the twilight dawn of infancy to the twilight close of life, in one straight line of definite desire and inspiring achievement.

It is the purpose of this book to trace such a life, from the little bed in the nursery, a bed of weakness and tears, to the huge pile of brick and stone which stands as a monument to that life as if to show what may be accomplished in spite of tears and weakness.

In the story of this life will be found stirring scenes and distant travels; romance will not be lacking; here and there the faces of famous men and women will, for a moment, appear; across the bloom of youth and hope will fall the shadows of war. All these realities will be presented in the colors of truth. But something deeper than an interest in connected links of a story is here to be found; it shall be our endeavor to discover the causes that lead to wider activities.

In endeavoring to divine, and clearly reveal, the motives that prompt action, we shall try to hold ourselves detached from the subject, finding no fault, and indulging in no encomium, defining beliefs and ambitions, not because they are ours, but because they were those of Mattie Myers, and, to understand her, one must understand them.

It will not be sufficient to consider her work, and the opinions of those who knew her, in order to reach the desired result. As far as possible, she shall speak out herself, out of her old diaries and the abundance of her letters. As her biographer, I would be but the setting to uphold the gem, that it may shine by its own light. And yet, there is no life whose story may be fully understood, unless a knowledge is gained of those other lives with which it comes in contact. In the present story, this truth is of wider significance than one finds in the lives of the majority. Here will be painted scenes as widely separated as Kentucky, Missouri, Texas, Australia, England, and the Levant.

THE STORY OF A LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

A KENTUCKY GIRL

"I don't believe she's going to live long," said the black nurse, mournfully shaking her head. "She's so thin and weak, and she cries nearly every night!"

The nurse was speaking of little Mattie Myers, who lived in the old Kentucky town of Stanford. The child was seldom to be seen engaged in those sports natural to children. She was grave, quiet, thoughtful. Her one amus.e.m.e.nt was found in her family of dolls; she was always their teacher, and they were daily going to school to her. For companions, she chose those who were much older than herself, and she would sit by the hour, soberly listening to theological discussion, weighing, in her infant mind, the arguments of learned men.

Her mother was dead, but Mattie could recall her sympathetic touch, and tender smile. It seemed to her that out of the shadow of death her life had emerged, to be clouded by new losses. One after the other, her two sisters were taken from her. Then the brother, who was her only intimate companion, went to another town to teach school. Mattie found herself the only young person in the large house of her wealthy father.

Of course she received all care; her slightest wishes were granted; the love of her widowed father was doubly hers, because of his bereavements.

But the little girl was very lonely. When the flowers sent forth their perfume on the warm Kentucky breezes, she was reminded of three graves; and when the sunshine gilded the level pike leading toward Lancaster, she felt as if her brother Joe were calling her to come and nestle against his loving breast.

At every turn, the big house in Stanford reminded her of her mother's footsteps, her sisters' voices forever hushed, and that beloved brother from whom, for the first time, she found herself separated. Is it a wonder that the nights often witnessed her tears? Is it strange that there should have grown up within her, the intense desire to go to her brother? She made this wish known to her father, and her brother seconded her in the plan. Why not stay with Joe during the school year?

Then they could spend the vacations at home, together.

Henry Myers, the wealthy and influential father, considered this proposition. He was an ambitious man. He had spared no expense in giving his son a thorough education. He was pleased, now, to find that little Mattie should show a disposition for learning. She was only eight years old, and yet he felt that, in the companionship of her brother, she would find ample protection. Moreover, while a child of eight is usually no fit inmate of a boarding-school, and while it is not best to send one so young, to dwell among strangers, Mattie was no ordinary child.

Nor was her mother an ordinary woman. Mary Burdette possessed a cultured and original mind, related in sympathies to that of her cousin who is known to the world, in the familiarity of affection, as "Bob Burdette."

When Mrs. Mary Burdette Myers died, it was supposed that Mattie was too young to appreciate her loss. She could not, of course, appraise that loss at its full value, but its shadow rested upon her girlhood. This death, and that of her sisters, had rendered her serious, had brought enforced reflections upon death and immortality. The letters that she wrote, almost to the days of maturity, are found inclosed in faded little envelopes, which show the black band of mourning.

No, there was no danger in sending Mattie to Lancaster where brother Joe would be her protector. Her father consented.

The ambition to teach school, entertained by one who was a man of means, was a rare thing in the South before the Civil War; or, at any rate, it was rare in Kentucky. Yet that was the ambition of Joe Myers, and to this ambition he devoted his life. He was a natural teacher, and Mattie, who admired him above all others, imitated him in all things. What he liked, she liked, and what he wanted to do, she meant to do. The young man was very fond of music--so was his little sister. He opened up an academy at Lancaster--Mattie established her first school, as we have seen--a college of dolls.

When at last it was decided that Mattie should go to Joe, great was her joy. Some of those few golden hours of childhood, which she afterward recalled, came to her then. She went--the pike had not called in vain--but she did not leave her dolls at home. She boarded with her brother Joe Myers, and her education began in earnest.

"I was only eight," she afterwards said, "when I entered a boarding school; my whole family of dolls matriculated with me."

Lancaster and Stanford were not far apart, though in different counties.

It was a short journey to go home Friday evening, and visit there until Monday morning. But of course these visits were not of weekly occurrence.

There was Joe to stay with, and these two never tired of each other's companionship. In the twilight-hours, the young teacher would play his flute, and the little girl would sit listening with all her soul, translating his music into definite resolves. Just as he had given his life to teaching, so would she. She declared her purpose at that age of eight. She would teach a school--a school for girls. It was a purpose she never changed.

Thus the years pa.s.sed by, in sweet companionship with her brother during the school months, and with the reunited family every summer. Mattie did not grow strong. The black nurse still shook her head. "We never thought she would live!" she often declared, in after years.

In the meantime, Mattie still a.s.sociated with those who were much older than herself, still found pleasure in discussion of religious differences. We shall find her, at the age of eighteen, saying that most of her friends are married or dead, thus showing that no intimacies existed between herself and girls of her own age.

At twelve, a change came into her life. So thoroughly had she pursued her studies at Lancaster, that it was determined to send her away to college. At that time, the strongest college for girls of her father's faith, was at Harrodsburg, Kentucky. The name of it was "Daughters'

College." Mattie's brother and father, justly proud of her attainments, and still resolved to encourage her in her desire to become thoroughly educated, sent her to Harrodsburg to be instructed by John Augustus Williams, the President of "Daughters' College."

Boarding among strangers, now far from home, Mattie found accentuated both her spirit of self-reliance, and her att.i.tude of reserve toward others, two traits always shown in her childhood. The six years at Harrodsburg served to strengthen and deepen her already-preconceived ideals. John Augustus Williams carried on the work that Joe Myers had begun. The Harrodsburg President was as devoted to learning as the Lancaster professor; and he had farther penetrated its depths. He was, indeed, a remarkable man, one who magnified the dignity of his calling, always conscious that the better he succeeded as a teacher, the greater would prove his blessing to the lives of others.

On Sunday we may follow the college girls to church. There goes Mattie Myers, in her solid-green woolen dress, her wonderful suit of hair arranged as plainly as such a wealth of heavy brown will permit. We see the neat and unpretentious hat from under which appear the serious brow, and the eyes always bright and intelligent. We note her reliant step; her form, too thin; her face a little weary from over-hard studying.

Shall we not enter this church on Main street, and watch the young ladies as they seat themselves in a bright oblong of femininity, if not of beauty?

We shall certainly do so, if we are young ministerial students, attending the University! Unfortunately, young Oliver Carr cannot enter with us, for he is still over yonder at May's Lick; but never mind--he will presently be coming down to find out what Latin is like! What happy fortune has brought the University for young men into the same town that affords a college for young ladies? That, too, we shall presently understand.

At any rate, here sits Mattie Myers, decorously listening, it would appear--we hope she is not thinking about her studies--while Dr. Robert Richardson, or Robert Graham, or Robert Milligan--all teachers at the University (among whom "Robert" seems a favorite name)--preaches and preaches. About what? Why, about what we must do to be saved, to be sure. And Mattie listening eagerly--for of course she listens--finds that these distinguished men agree entirely with her father, that what we must do to be saved is very much like what Peter declared we must do--nay, is exactly what Peter declared, to the very words. Far, indeed, is it from the mind of this thin, erect girl in the dress of solid-green, and under the hair whose splendor refuses to be concealed--far is it from her mind that any young man of the Kentucky "froglands" is ever to enter her life as an integral part!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pres. Jno. Aug. William.

Daughters College.

Harrodsburg Ky]

Little time is there for day dreams for this child!--Little time, and no inclination. Study--ever deeper and more persistent study for her; late hours after the lamps are out, sitting in the window with long hair streaming, borrowing favor from the moon--that means spectacles in no very short time! Study--ever more absorbed, and absorbing study, at noon-recess, in early morning, on holidays--till the form grows thinner, the face paler; and, indeed, she had better have a care, or all this will come to an end, with pain and disappointment!

The sermon is nearly ended. Are you sorry you missed it? An hour and a quarter, already! Do the school girls move uneasily in the straight-backed benches? Let us hope they are entertained by this searching examination of sectarian "positions." How new that church building seems to them! Why, it was finished only a few years ago--that is to say, in 1850. There was a time when two bodies of believers met in Harrodsburg; one organized by the followers of Barton Stone, who called themselves "Christians", another the "disciples" who had followed John Smith and John T. Johnson out of the Baptist church. The Christians met from house to house; the "disciples" in the old frame building at the corner of South Main and Depot streets, nearly opposite the public square. Each body was suspicious of the other till, one day, they found out that they taught the same things, believed the same truths, were, in short, blood-brothers of faith and practice. So they came together and formed the church which Mattie is attending. She comes every Sunday; and every Sunday you will find, if you examine her closely, that she is a little paler, a little weaker. Working too hard! The end must come if this is kept up, year after year.

We find the girl subject to an unappeasable hunger for facts. Is she not to devote her life to teaching her s.e.x? Now is the time to store the mind. John Augustus Williams spurs her on, leads her into untold scientific difficulties; lets her realize how little is her strength; then aids by teaching her to help herself. One thing he does not help her do--that is to husband her physical forces. As he stands before his "daughters" in chapel he hammers away at this idea:

"Teaching is woman's profession and her natural vocation. No lady can claim to be well educated, therefore, or trained for her proper sphere in life, until she has learned to teach, and to govern the young. The learning which prepares her for the school-room, prepares her at the same time for the highest social and domestic position. No time is lost by such a training, even should the student never become a professional teacher."

It is no wonder that the enunciation of these ideas strengthened the girl's resolutions. Here was the most learned man she had ever met in daily life, a polished speaker, a graceful author, a correct translator; one who reads the pages of his ma.n.u.script, "The Life of John Smith,"

that his cla.s.s may pa.r.s.e it;[1] a preacher, too, who pointed the way back to Pentecost. Wisdom flowed from his lips, and his lips proclaimed teaching the "natural vocation" of woman.

And the way in which this teaching was to be done--in a word, his conception of what an education means--that justified his dictum. He said over and over again:

"You have an infallible criterion by which you may determine the success of your own and your teacher's labors. If you feel in your heart a greater susceptibility to truth, a livelier appreciation of the purely beautiful, a profounder regard for virtue, a warmer affection for the good, and sublimer devotion to G.o.d, esteem your labors as eminently successful; but if your attainments, varied and extensive as they may be, are to render you less amiable in disposition, or less pure in thought--less charitable to your fellows, or less devoted to G.o.d, then have we labored in vain, and your learning, also, has been in vain."

To such a teacher as this, every year is a book written full of sweet influences,--books far deeper and more permanent than any work of the pen. The girl understood this; that is why her determination to be a teacher grew and ripened; not to impart facts but, by means of facts, to inculcate the love of learning and of truth. She wanted to come into touch with the world, and to send the ripple of her personal influence far out into those magic circles of infinite distance, which the casting of an idea forms on the sea of thought. She wanted girls, many girls, countless girls,--to receive a higher view of life by having known her; to enter more fully into the inheritance of their estate through her ministration. No other relation than that of teacher and pupil, could connect this circuit of spiritual influence.