Miriam Monfort | Page 4

instructress, deeming rightly that the law of love
would prove the stronger and better guidance in our case, and
understanding well, and by some line magnetic sympathy as it appeared,
my own peculiar nature, to which affection was a necessity.
Ours was a peaceful and happy childhood under her gentle and
fostering rule; and, when it ceased, all the wires of life seemed jangled
and discordant again.
She lived with us three years as friend and teacher. At the end of that
time her vocation and sphere of action were enlarged, not changed, for
she married my father, and thus our future welfare seemed secured.
Alas for human foresight! Alas for affection powerless to save! Alas for
the vanity of mortal effort to contend with Fate!
Our home was in one of the chief Northern cities of that great republic
which has for so many years commanded the admiration, respect, and
wonder, of the whole world. The house we occupied was situated in the
old and fashion-forsaken portion of the city. From its upper windows a
view of the majestic Delaware and its opposite shores was afforded to
the spectator; and the grounds surrounding the mansion were spacious
for those of a city-house, and deeply shaded by elms that had been lofty
trees in the time of General Washington.
Four squares farther on, the roar of commerce swelled and surged, in
storehouse and counting-room, on mart and shipboard and quay; but
here all was quiet, calm, secluded, as in the country, miles beyond.
Two houses besides our own shared the whole square between them,
though ours, the central one, possessed the largest inclosure, and was
the finest residence of the three, architecturally speaking; and the
inmates of these dwellings, with very few exceptions, constituted for
years our whole circle of friends and visitors.

So it will be seen how secluded was the life we led, how narrow the
sphere we moved in, despite our acknowledged wealth, which, with
some other attributes we possessed, had not failed, if desired, to confer
on us both power and position in the society we shunned rather than
shared.
To my father's nature, however, retirement was as essential as routine.
He was one of those outwardly calm and inwardly excitable and
nervous people we sometimes encounter without detecting the fire
beneath the marble, the ever-burning lamp in the sarcophagus, unless
we lift the lid of rock to find it--an effort scarcely worth the making in
any case, for at best it lights only a tomb.
Extremely mild and self-contained in manner, and chary of opinion and
expression, he was at the same time a man of strong and implacable
prejudices and even bitter animosities when once engendered. I do not
think his affections kept pace with these. He loved what belonged to
him, it is true, in a quiet, consistent way, and his good breeding and
practised equanimity were alone sufficient to secure the peace, and
even happiness, of a household; but of much effort or self-sacrifice I
judge him to have been incapable.
He was a handsome man in his stiff and military way--well made, tall,
commanding in figure and in demeanor, stately in movement. His
features were regular, his teeth and hair well preserved, especially the
first, his hands and feet aristocratically small and shapely, his manner
vaguely courteous. He was a shy rather than reserved person, for, when
once the ice was broken, his nature bubbled over very boyishly at times,
and his confidence, once bestowed, was irrevocable. Like most men of
his temperament, he was keenly susceptible to deferential flattery, and
impatient of the slightest infraction of his dignity, which he guarded
punctiliously at all points. It was more this disposition always to wait
for overtures from others, and to slightly repel their first manifestations,
from his inveterate shyness, than any settled determination on his part,
that made him such an alien from general association. Nervous,
fastidious, exacting--what had he in common with the texture of the
new society in which he found himself, and what right had he to fancy

himself neglected where the "go-ahead" principle alone was recognized,
and time was esteemed too precious to waste in ceremony?
Yet this injured feeling pursued him through life and made one of his
peculiarities, so that he drew more and more closely, as years passed on,
into his own shell, which may be said to have comprised his household,
his comforts, his hobbies, and his narrow neighborhood, in which he
was idolized, and the sympathy of which was very soothing to his
fastidious pride.
Nothing so fosters haughtiness and egotism as a sphere like this, and it
may be doubted whether the crowned heads of the world receive more
adulation from their households than men so situated.
From the moment he set his