Papers from Overlook-House
INTRODUCTORY LETTER
My Dear Friend: – At last, as if borne to you by some scape-grace of a messenger, these papers, copied from the time-discoloured manuscripts, so carefully preserved in the old book-case, which with its dark lustre, its bright brass ornaments, is still the prominent object in our library, are destined to reach the hands into which they should long ago have been placed.
I well remember the evening on which you first heard of them, and listened to my attempt to read them to you; perplexed as I was with the faded lines, traced by fingers which can write no more.
You will not forget our drives, previously, during the day, and late in the afternoon, in consequence of my week-day service in the old church. Perhaps the ancient edifice would need the excuse of days of architectural ignorance, but no Cathedral on earth can surpass it, in its claim to occupy a place amid scenes of surpassing beauty and sublimity. There it stands alone, on the slope of an immense hill, with the whole range of the mountains from the water-gap to the wind-gap full in view – glorious walls to sustain the great blue dome of heaven! The great solitude of the road that winds along the grave-yard, has often caused me to think of distant friends, and has riveted them to my soul with still more indissoluble bonds. And the Great Friend has been the great relief from oppressive loneliness, as I thus stood in one of the beautiful gates of the Eternal Temple. As to that quiet grave-yard itself, the "rhetoric of the dead" is there well spoken, and they whose ashes are here deposited, do not find "second graves" in our short memories.
You will tell me that all connected with my church is not always solemn. Your perverse memory will never forget the leader of the choir; nay, the useful man who was often choir itself. He sang at least with energy. Unfortunately – oh well do I remember my fearful victory over my features, when I first became cognizant of the fact; a victory at a time when a smile had endangered my claims to due ministerial sobriety; unfortunately he had the habit of marking time emphatically, by raising himself on his toes, and simultaneously elevating his hand, his chin, his eyes, and his hair. Yet that was but a slight trial to us both. The man was better than either of us; and the first impression having subsided, we found that he did well in calling forth the voices of the congregation. You will recollect our return home, as we refused all offers of hospitality, although the snow was falling, and we were warned not to risk the drifts, promised by the rising wind. We would not be detained, as we had set our hearts on passing the evening together in the old mansion of my fathers. On we drove, the sound of the bells sweeping in wild merriment over the great fields of snow, or rising to a louder chime as we passed through the forest, under a thousand triumphal arches, of boughs laden with white honors. Only once, and where the road was in a ravine, was I afraid that you would be exposed some hours to the storm, until we should hear the voices of hunters, and the bay of their dogs, sent to seek us, after our custom, when any one is lost in the snow. Happily we extricated ourselves, and soon saw the lights gleaming from the windows of the house upon the hill.
How pleasant the welcome of our good old Cæsar, the man of dark hue, who had no desire to be the first man in the village, nor the second man at Rome; but was all eagerness to have a place, however lowly, in the Eternal City! Another glad welcome in the hall; a net-work of questions from little threads of voices, and the seats before the great wood-fire, one of the few remaining representatives of the profuse customs of the fathers; one witness that our forests are not yet all swept away. Did we not give ample tributes to the repast prepared by Cæsar's wife! Two hungry men rescued from snow waves, we proved that one could feast on Dinah's poetry of food, and yet, in the ensuing night, behold no magnificent bandit, with a beard that would have done credit to a Roman Centurion, and a dagger that honored the sense of sublime danger, by the assurance that if it was to give us our death-blow, it was no coarse weapon; the grand villain peering over you with an eye in which the evil fires take refuge when conscience is in ashes. You know that in that coming night, you did not even see the "fair ladie," now your wife, borne away from you, in a mysterious coach, by some ruffians clad in splendid mantles, while you were palsied, and could not move to seize the sword, or gun, or could not call for aid. How pleasant was that evening! From your weed rose the cloud that no counterblast, royal or plebeian, has ever yet been able to sweep away from the lips of men. Knitting by her little stand, sat one, whom to name is to tell, in a word, the great history of my best earthly happiness. I am sure her sweet thoughts, when spoken, were as the fragrance of flowers over our homelier fields; while her gentle sympathy added to our strength, and her instinctive and pure impressions, aided our conceptions, as gentle guides, and taught us how wisdom was linked to minds swayed by goodness. What a bond has she been of our long-enduring friendship! We talked of the old times – of the ancient famed hospitality of the house. We spoke of those who came there at Christmas – when the hymn of Milton seemed to be read in a grand audience chamber – at the Spring when the world seemed again so young – at Autumn where the mountains and hills were all a glow, as if angels had kindled them with a fire, burning, but not consuming them, turning them into great altars, by which man could stand, and offer his adoration. Then we spoke of the papers that had been read among the assembled guests. I told you their history; a history further recorded in the fourth chapter; the last of the four chapters preliminary. These were written by my grandfather. As your curiosity was awakened, I drew forth some of these, from the old book-case in the library, and read them as I could. You insisted that I should decipher them, and let you send them to the press; send them to some one of your honorable publishers, so that many eyes could read, what few eyes have rested on, in this distant solitude. Julia seconded the proposition. What had I to do, but to obey! Some years have passed, and you have often complained of my procrastination. Shall I make excuses? Excuses are the shadows which the irresolute and idle, the evil, keep ever near, as their refuge from just accusation. The moment you feel the least loss of self-respect in seeking them, the moment you have to search to find them, take heed of them. Those formed to be giants, often live in them, and then life is consequently the life of the dwarf. I knew that I could have sent the papers long ago, had I written two or three lines each day, since I gave my promise. Julia, who, woman-like, always convicts me when I excuse myself, and consoles me, and defends me, when I am in the ashes, and contrite with self-upbraiding, who is never severe with me, but when I spoil the children by keeping them up too late at night, says, that I never allow a literary effort to encroach on my great duties; that I have had so much to do, that I could not sooner perform my promise. She laughs, and says that the dates I annex to my papers, during my progress in this work, show how I was interrupted, and that if the histories of intermediate parochial work were given, the book would be a strange record. Often the sick and suffering have caused long intervals to elapse in these labors. When I could attempt the work, the change in the current of my associations has been a relief. Julia has wished me to write histories of the lives of some of those, who composed various papers in the old case. Of course, some of the authors have been passing utterly from the minds of a race, that cannot remember, but the least remnant of those who have gone before. We lament the ravages of time. Multitudes are forgotten on the earth, whom it would be a blessing to have in perpetual remembrance. Alas! we have also to confess, that time conceals the story of innumerable others, when it is well that it should be buried in its deepest oblivion.
I hope that I have copied these papers with commendable accuracy. We trust that they will add to the happiness of those who read them, and prove at the same time to be profitable. May they increase kind impressions! May they sow seeds that shall have the sun and dew that never falls on growth that is evil! Man has tablets in the heart, for inscriptions greater, and more enduring, than those of the great ledges of rock in the far East.
As one would hesitate to write the outlines of his coming destiny, if such a pen of Providence could be ready for his hand, so he, who has any love for others, would pause before he would carve, even in faintest letters, one word on these, which could sully the surface, where the indestructibility warns us, that all is an eternal record with Him, whose eye is too pure to look upon iniquity. I need not attempt, like authors of a former age, to solicit a favorable criticism, from the "gentle reader." If I say,
