had to sit facing the assemblage, aware, doubtless, that during the time of silence the occupation of the strangers present, if not of the friends themselves, would be watching her and her party. She was pretty, and most beautifully dressed. I have seldom pitied anybody more than I did her, while she sat palpitating for three hours under the gaze of some hundreds of people; but, towards the end of the time of silence, my compassion was transferred to the bridegroom. For want of something to do, after suppressing many yawns, he looked up to the ceiling; and in the midst of an empty stare, I imagine he caught the eye of an acquaintance in the back seats; for he was instantly troubled with a most irrepressible and unseasonable inclination to laugh. He struggled manfully with his difficulty; but the smiles would come, broader and broader. If, by dint of looking steadfastly into his hat for a few minutes, he attained a becoming gravity, it was gone the moment he raised his head. I was in a panic lest we should have a scandalous peal of merriment if something was not given him to do or listen to. Happily "there were communications," and the course of his ideas was changed.
Of the five speakers, one was an old gentleman whose discourse was an entire perplexity to me. For nearly an hour he discoursed on Jacob's ladder; but in a style so rambling, and in a chant so singularly unmusical as to set attention and remembrace at defiance. Some parenthetical observations alone stood a chance of being retained, from their singularity; one, for instance, which he introduced in the course of his narrative about Jacob setting a stone for a pillow; "a very different," cried the preacher, raising his chant to the highest pitch, "a very different pillow, by-the-way, from any that we—are—accommodated—with." What a contrast was the brief discourse of my Quaker friend which followed! Her noble countenance was radiant as the morning; her soft voice, though low, so firm that she was heard to the farthest corner, and her little sermon as philosophical as it was devout. "Send forth thy light and thy truth," was her text. She spoke gratefully of intellectual light as a guide to spiritual truth, and anticipated and prayed for an ultimate universal diffusion of both. The certificate of the marriage was read by Dr. Parrish, an elderly physician of Philadelphia, the very realization of all my imaginings of the personal appearance of William Penn; with all the dignity and bonhommie that one fancies Penn invested with in his dealings with the Indians. Dr. Parrish speaks with affection of the Indians, from the experience some ancestors of his had of the hospitality of these poor people when they were in a condition to show hospitality. His grandfather's family were shipwrecked, and the Indians took the poor lady and her children home to an inhabited cave, and fed them for many weeks or months. The tree stump round which they used to sit at meals is still standing; and Dr. Parrish says that, let it stand as long as it will, the love of his family to the Indians shall outlast it.
The matrimonial promise was distinctly and well spoken by both the parties. At the request of the bride and bridegroom, Dr. Parrish asked me to put the first signature, after their own, to the certificate of the marriage; and we adjourned for the purpose to an apartment connected with the church. Most ample sheets of parchment were provided for the signatures; and there was a prodigious array of names before we left, when a crowd was still waiting to testify. This multitudinous witnessing is the pleasantest part of being married by acclamation. If weddings are not to be private, there seems no question of the superiority of this Quaker method to that of the Boston marriage I beheld, where there was all the publicity, without the co-operation and sanction.
The last wedding which I have to give an account of is full of a melancholy interest to me now. All was so joyous, so simple, so right, that there seemed no suggestion to evil-boding, no excuse for anticipating such wo as has followed. On one of the latter days of July, 1835, I reached the village of Stockbridge; the Sedgwicks' village, for the second time, intending to stay four or five days with my friends there. I had heard of an approaching wedding in the family connexion, and was glad that I had planned to leave, so as to be out of the way at a time when I supposed the presence of foreigners, though friends, might be easily dispensed with. But when Miss Sedgwick and I were sitting in her room one bright morning, there was a tap at the door. It was the pretty black-eyed girl who was to be married the next week. She stood only a minute on the threshold to say, with grave simplicity, "I am come to ask you to join our friends at my father's house next Tuesday evening." Being thus invited, I joyfully assented, and put off my journey.
The numerous children of the family connexion were in wild spirits all that Tuesday. In the morning we went a strong party to the Ice Hole; a defile between two hills, so perplexed and encumbered with rocks that none but practised climbers need attempt the passage. It was a good way for the young people to work off their exuberant spirits. Their laughter was heard from amid the nooks and hiding-places of the labyrinth, and smiling faces might be seen behind every shrubby screen which sprang up from the crevices. How we tried to surpass each other in the ferns and mosses we gathered, rich in size and variety! What skipping and scrambling there was; what trunk bridges and ladders of roots! How valiant the ladies looked with their stout sticks! How glad every one was to feast upon the wild raspberries when we struggled through the close defile into the cool, green, breezy meadow on the banks of the Housatonic! During the afternoon we were very quiet, reading one of Carlyle's reviews aloud (for the twentieth time, I believe, to some of the party), and discussing it and other things. By eight o'clock we were all dressed for the wedding; and some of the children ran over the green before us, but came back, saying that all was not quite ready; so we got one of the girls to sing to us for another half hour.
The house of the bride's father was well lighted, and dressed with flowers. She had no mother; but her elder sisters aided her father in bidding us welcome. The drawing-room was quite full; and while the grown-up friends found it difficult to talk, and to repress the indefinable anxiety and agitation which always attend a wedding, the younger members of the party were amusing themselves with whispered mirth. The domestics looked as if the most joyous event of their lives were taking place, and the old father seemed placid and satisfied.
In a few minutes we were summoned to another room, at the top of which stood the tall bridegroom, with his pretty little lady on his arm; on either side, the three gentlemen and three ladies who attended them; and in front, the Episcopalian minister who was to marry them, and who has since been united to one of the sisters. It was the first time of his performing the ceremony, and his manner was solemn and somewhat anxious, as might be expected.
The bridegroom was a professor in a college in the neighbouring State of New-York; a young man of high acquirements and character, to whom the old father might well be proud to give his daughter. His manners were remarkably pleasing; and there was a joyous, dignified serenity visible in them this evening, which at once favourably prepossessed us who did not previously know him. He was attended by a brother professor from the same college. When the service was over, we all kissed the grave and quiet bride. I trust that no bodings of the woes which awaited her cast a shadow over her spirits then. I think, though grave, she was not sad. She spoke with all her father's guests in the course of the evening, as did her husband. How often have I of late tried to recall precisely what they said to me, and every look with which they said it!
We went back to the drawing-room for cake and wine; and then ensued the search for the ring in the great wedding cake, with much merriment among those who were alive to all the fun of a festivity like this, and to none of the care. There was much moving about between the rooms, and dressing with flowers in the hall; and lively conversation, as it must needs be where there are Sedgwicks. Then Champagne and drinking of healths went round, the guests poured out upon the green, all the ladies with handkerchiefs tied over their heads. There we bade good-night, and parted off to our several homes.
When I left the village the next morning two or three carriages full of young people were setting off, as attendants upon the bride and bridegroom, to Lebanon. After a few such short excursions in the neighbourhood, the young couple went home to begin their quiet college and domestic life.
Before a year had elapsed, a year which to me seemed gone like a month, I was at Stockbridge again and found the young wife's family in great trouble. She was in a raging fever, consequent on her confinement, and great fears were entertained for her life. Her infant seemed to have but a small chance under the
