Gifts of Genius | Page 5

no absurd aristocrat--but I would rather be the grandson
of a faithful common soldier than of General Benedict Arnold, the
traitor. I would rather trace my lineage to the Chevalier Bayàrd, simple
knight though he was, than to France's great Constable de Bourbon, the
renegade.
So I am glad my stout grandfather was a brave and truthful
gentleman--that grandma yonder, smiling opposite, was worthy to be
his wife. I do not remember her, but she must have been a beauty. Her
head is bent over one shoulder, and she has an exquisitely coquettish
air. Her eyes are blue--her arms round, and as white as snow--and what
lips! They are like carnations, and pout with a pretty smiling air, which
must have made her dangerous. She rejected many wealthy offers to
marry grandpa, who was then poor. As I gaze, it seems scarcely

courteous to remain thus covered in presence of a lady so lovely. I take
off my hat, and make my best bow, saluting my little grandmamma of
"sweet seventeen," who smiles and seems graciously to bow in return.
All around me I see my family. There is my uncle, the captain in
Colonel Washington's troop. I do not now mean the Colonel
Washington of the French wars, who afterward became General
Washington of the American Revolution--though my uncle, the captain,
knew him very well, I am told, and often visited him at Mount Vernon,
the colonel's estate, where they hunted foxes together, along the
Potomac. I mean the brave Colonel Washington who fought so nobly in
North Carolina. My uncle died there. His company was much thinned
at every step by the horrible hail-storm of balls. He was riding in front
with his drawn sword, shouting as the column fell, man by man,
"Steady, boys, steady!--close up!"--when a ball struck him. His last
words were "A good death, boys! a good death! Close up!" So, you see,
he ended nobly.
Beside my uncle and the rest of his kith and kin of the wars, you see,
yonder, a row of beauties, all smiling and gay, or pensive and
tender--interspersed with bright-faced children, blooming like so many
flowers along the old walls of the hall. How they please and interest me!
True, there are other portraits in our little house at home--not my hall
here--which, perhaps, I should love with a warmer regard; but let me
not cramp my sympathies, or indulge any early preferences. I must not
be partial. So I admire these here before me--and bow to them, one and
all. I fancy that they bow in return--that the stalwart warriors stretch
vigorous hands toward me--that the delicate beauties bend down their
little heads, all covered with powder, and return my homage with a
smile.
Why not? Can my shabby coat make the lovely or proud faces ashamed
of me? Do they turn from me coldly because I'm the last of a ruined
line? Do they sneer at my napless hat, and laugh at my tattered elbows?
I do not think of them so poorly and unkindly. My coat is very shabby,
but I think, at least I hope, that it covers an honest heart.
So I bow to the noble and beautiful faces, and again they smile in

return. I seem to have wandered away into the past and dreamed in a
realm of silence. And yet--it is strange I did not hear her--Annie is still
singing through the hall.
III.
I promised to tell you of the incident of the coat, the unfortunate coat
which I sometimes think makes the rich folks visiting the hall look
sidewise at me. It is strange! Am I not myself, whether clad in velvet or
in fustian--in homespun fabric, or in cloth of gold? People say I am
simple--wholly ignorant of the world; I must be so in truth.
But about the coat. I hinted that Annie even saw, and alluded to it; it
was not long after my arrival at the hall, and a young lady from the
neighborhood was paying a visit to Annie.
They were standing on the portico, and I was leaning against the trunk
of the old oak beneath, admiring the sunset which was magnificent that
evening. All at once I heard whispers, and turning round toward the
young ladies, saw them laughing. Annie's finger was extended toward
the hole in my elbow, and I could not fail to understand that she was
laughing at my miserable coat.
I was not offended, though perhaps I may have been slightly wounded;
but Annie was a young girl and I could not get angry; I was not at all
ashamed--why should I have been?
"I am sorry, but I cannot help the hole in my elbow," I said, calmly and
quietly, with a bow and a smile; "I