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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
Bayard Taylor's 'Joseph and His Friend' is a compelling novel that explores themes of friendship, love, and societal norms in 19th century America. The book is written in a refined literary style, characterized by elaborate descriptions and intricate character development, which reflects Taylor's deep understanding of human emotions and relationships. Set against the backdrop of Philadelphia's intellectual and artistic circles, the story follows the intricate and evolving relationship between the two protagonists, Joseph and Harold, as they navigate societal expectations and personal desires. Taylor's nuanced exploration of same-sex friendship and platonic love challenges conventional norms and offers a thought-provoking perspective on human bonds. Bayard Taylor, a talented writer and poet, drew inspiration from his own experiences as a traveler and observer of various cultures, which enriched his writing with a profound sense of cultural diversity and understanding. His keen insights into human nature and his commitment to exploring complex themes make 'Joseph and His Friend' a captivating and insightful read for those interested in psychology, literature, and social history. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Joseph and His Friend
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Table of Contents
Introduction
A young man’s quiet pursuit of integrity in a close-knit Pennsylvania community draws him into a bond that tests the boundaries between affection and duty, inviting readers to consider how private feeling negotiates public expectation, how loyalty can deepen into something difficult to name, and how reputation—so carefully tended on farms, in village parlors, and along country roads—both protects and constrains, until every choice, from whom one trusts to how one speaks, bears the weight of a life’s direction and the hope that sincerity might carve a path through the thicket of custom, ambition, and the judgments of others.
Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania, by Bayard Taylor, is a novel first published in 1870, set amid the farms, villages, and small towns of rural Pennsylvania. Taylor, a prominent American poet, novelist, and travel writer of the nineteenth century, brings to fiction the observational acuity he honed on the road, but turns it inward to domestic life and local society. The book works within the realist tradition, attentive to everyday labor, conversation, and reputation. Its setting anchors it firmly in the American countryside, where material aspirations, moral ideals, and community surveillance intersect in the rhythms of seasonal work and social ritual.
The story follows Joseph, a conscientious young man as he steps into adult commitments that tie him to land, kinship, and the complicated bargains of trust. Early encounters lead him to a companion whose presence clarifies and unsettles him at once, pressing questions about friendship, loyalty, and the meaning of a life well chosen. Taylor shapes these developments without sensational turns, instead letting small decisions accumulate consequence. Readers encounter a voice that is reflective yet direct, observant of manners, and alive to the textures of place, producing a reading experience that feels at once intimate, measured, and quietly searching.
Taylor’s style blends pastoral description with moral analysis, favoring lucid sentences, patient pacing, and dialogue that reveals more than speakers intend. Scenes of work, travel, and visiting place characters under the gaze of neighbors, where rumor can move as swiftly as news. The tone ranges from earnest to gently ironic, but it remains sympathetic to human frailty. The narrative attends to the emotions of ordinary life—envy, admiration, suspicion, tenderness—and to the silences that surround them. That balance allows the novel to explore complex feeling without naming it prematurely, inviting readers to read between the lines and listen for hesitations.
Through that restraint, the book probes themes that remain vital: how definitions of masculinity shape what men may say to one another; how economic hopes can blur ethical judgment; and how the need for belonging can make a person accept, resist, or renegotiate social expectation. It is also concerned with the education of the heart, tracing how self-knowledge can emerge from error as well as fidelity. The rural setting sharpens these questions by making reputation concrete; fields, contracts, and marriages are public facts, and privacy is fragile. Against this backdrop, affection and duty must learn to share the same space.
Because it depicts a profound bond between men within nineteenth-century norms of speech and decorum, Joseph and His Friend has drawn sustained interest from modern readers and scholars, including those attentive to queer histories of literature. Without presuming authorial intention beyond the text, it is fair to say that the novel captures forms of intimacy that language of the period could neither easily label nor dismiss. That ambiguity gives contemporary audiences a chance to examine how communities police feeling, how friendship can carry ethical demand, and how reading carefully can restore nuance to experiences that labels often flatten.
Approached on its own terms—as a realist story of Pennsylvania life and a study in character—Taylor’s novel rewards patience with the deep satisfactions of cumulative insight. Its conflicts arise from recognizable pressures rather than contrived peril, which makes the stakes feel lived-in and persisting. For readers today, the book offers a way to think about intimacy, duty, and the ethics of speaking honestly when words fail us. It asks us to notice how environments shape emotion and how judgment travels, and it encourages a generous attention to others that makes the novel’s quiet revelations endure.
Synopsis
Published in 1870, Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania by Bayard Taylor follows a young farmer at a moment of transition, poised between inherited duties and new desires. Early chapters place him within the rhythms of rural life and the expectations of a close-knit community, then quickly widen to include town society, new acquaintances, and altered prospects. A chance meeting with an incisive, sympathetic outsider begins a friendship that will shape the protagonist’s self-understanding. The novel establishes questions that run throughout: what kind of loyalty does love require, what is the value of candor, and how should one choose among competing ideals?
Joseph enters marriage with a bright, admired young woman whose poise and tastes align with rising postwar fashions, promising access to urban polish and broader ambition. Domestic arrangements and family connections draw him into town circles where confidence, display, and opportunity mingle. The new friend, independent and intellectually severe yet compassionate, offers a contrasting model, one grounded in steadiness and frank speech. Through scenes that counterpose garden, farmhouse, parlor, and street, Taylor sketches the friction between simplicity and sophistication, establishing the terms on which Joseph must balance affection, duty, and aspiration. Attention to manners and conversation signals the novel’s moral stakes.
As the friendship deepens, private conversations venture beyond practical advice into conviction, character, and the claims of the heart. The bond is presented as exacting and ennobling, alert to self-deception and resistant to fashionable evasions. Observant neighbors register the pair’s closeness, and discreet, sometimes envious commentary reveals the social risks of choosing uncompromising intimacy over easy compliance. Joseph’s marriage, meanwhile, begins to exhibit ordinary but telling misalignments: expectations of comfort collide with the realities of labor and place. Taylor keeps the narrative focused on minute ethical decisions, portraying fidelity as a sequence of choices rather than a single vow, and letting tensions accumulate without melodrama.
Pressure mounts through schemes of rapid advancement that flourish in the period’s speculative mood. In-laws and acquaintances promote ventures promising quick returns, and the language of improvement—railroads, shares, and chartered projects—tempts Joseph to shift his footing. The friend scrutinizes these appeals with skepticism, urging slower, sounder paths. Financial entanglements blur personal obligation with public risk, and the tone tilts toward social satire as confident promoters circulate on terms of borrowed credibility. The lure of novelty tests Joseph’s patience and judgment, intensifying existing strains at home and exposing the difference between shine and substance in both business and affection.
Domestic scenes trace the marriage’s fragile compromises: a spouse’s love of display and change meets the farmer’s preference for probity and constancy. Social visits, parties, and excursions underscore divergent needs for admiration and for inward assurance. Taylor is attentive to the ways clothing, furniture, and conversation become instruments of aspiration, while the countryside supplies a counterpoint of steadier values. The narrative resists caricature, granting each party recognizably human motives, yet it records the widening gap between what is promised by charm and what can be delivered by character. Friends and relatives, interested or well-meaning, complicate every attempt at reconciliation.
Events converge in reversals that expose the costs of pretense and the strength of unflinching guidance. Setbacks in business and reputation precipitate private reckonings, and strained ties are brought into frank, unavoidable conversation. Joseph is compelled to decide how far loyalty extends, what truth requires of him in speech and action, and which bond—marital, familial, or elective—defines his future. Taylor stages this testing ground without sensationalism, letting consequences accrue from character and circumstance. Crucial choices are made, but their full implications unfold gradually, preserving suspense about the durability of reconciliations and the precise arrangement in which the principal relationships will endure.
By its close, the novel draws its relationships into clearer, more honest forms, measuring fulfillment not by fortune or applause but by integrity. Without divulging its final turns, Joseph and His Friend leaves readers with an image of affection tried in public and private arenas and of a community learning how to accommodate candor. First published in 1870, it has been widely noted for its open valorization of intense male friendship alongside a critique of speculative glamour. The book endures for its inquiry into how love, duty, and self-knowledge can be harmonized, and for its sober view of progress and its discontents.
Historical Context
Published in 1870, Bayard Taylor’s Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania emerged from the author’s deep familiarity with rural southeastern Pennsylvania, where he was born and raised. Taylor, already famous for travel writing and poetry, turned to a domestic, regional novel set amid farms, crossroads towns, and county seats that connected local life to broader markets. Issued just after the American Civil War, the book addresses a society navigating recovery, modernization, and shifting moral expectations. Its setting foregrounds everyday institutions—churches and meetinghouses, local papers, courts, and schools—through which communities regulated reputation, marriage, property, and the boundaries of acceptable conduct.
Mid-nineteenth-century southeastern Pennsylvania combined Quaker legacies, German-speaking communities, and market-oriented agriculture linked to Philadelphia. Counties like Chester and Lancaster sustained prosperous mixed farming, dairy, and small-scale industry, supported by turnpikes, canals, and then rail lines. Quaker meeting discipline and Protestant denominations shaped norms of sobriety, thrift, and communal oversight. County courts arbitrated contracts and estates, while local weeklies publicized marriages, business ventures, and scandals. The novel’s milieu reflects these structures: landholding families protective of inheritance, young people negotiating courtship under communal scrutiny, and proprietors balancing tradition with new opportunities, all against a backdrop of incremental but unmistakable rural modernization.
During the 1840s–1860s, Pennsylvania became a national engine of industrial growth. The Pennsylvania Railroad, chartered in 1846, knit interior counties to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Anthracite coal from the northeast fueled factories and home heating; ironworks expanded; and the 1859 oil strike at Titusville introduced a new speculative frontier. The National Banking Acts of 1863–64 standardized currency and expanded credit, encouraging investment but also risk. Small-town merchants, lawyers, and farmers increasingly encountered rail contracts, mineral leases, and boom-bust cycles. Taylor situates his characters where agrarian stability meets volatile enterprise, illuminating how new fortunes and failures tested prudence, trust, and the ethics of advancement.
Taylor wrote amid shifting literary currents. Midcentury sentimental and domestic fiction still shaped expectations for moral instruction and affective intimacy, while postbellum realism and emerging regionalism sought precise social detail. Authors and magazines in New York and Boston promoted both tendencies. Taylor had long engaged European literature, notably German Romanticism; his translation of Goethe’s Faust appeared around this period, signaling his debt to ideals of friendship, Bildung, and ethical striving. Joseph and His Friend draws on these transatlantic influences while embracing American local color, presenting Pennsylvania not as mere backdrop but as a social ecosystem legible through speech, custom, and landscape.
Nineteenth-century gender ideology in the United States emphasized separate spheres and the ideal of companionate marriage, linking domestic harmony to civic virtue. Legal reforms unfolded unevenly: Pennsylvania, like many states, enacted Married Women’s Property Acts beginning in the 1840s, granting wives greater control over separate property, though divorce remained difficult and socially fraught. Engagements involved families, guardians, and calculations of status and stability. Reputation—reinforced by churches, courts, and newspapers—carried tangible consequences for inheritance and employment. These norms inform the novel’s conflicts, in which choices about courtship, trust, and financial prudence intersect with communal judgment and the legal frameworks governing property and obligation.
Victorian-era Anglo-American culture recognized intense, often romanticized same-sex friendships expressed in letters and literature without explicit erotic vocabulary. Such bonds were compatible with sentimental conventions and public virtue, even as sodomy statutes remained on the books and explicit discussion of sexual nonconformity was rare. Medicalized terms for homosexuality would gain broader currency later in the century. Within this context, Taylor’s narrative treats male friendship as morally serious and emotionally significant, employing the period’s language of affection and fidelity. Subsequent scholarship has read the novel as an unusually candid exploration of male intimacy within the cultural codes available in 1870.
Pennsylvania’s postwar climate combined Republican political dominance, veterans’ return to civilian life, and confidence in industrial expansion. Reform movements—temperance, Sabbath observance, and debates over marriage and social purity—animated pulpits and press. The expanding book and periodical market brought regional fiction to national audiences, while circulating libraries and subscription publishers widened reach beyond cities. Taylor wrote to readers attuned to moral didacticism but curious about modern ambition and risk. His Pennsylvania is thus a space where Union victory and economic optimism coexist with anxieties about speculation, respectability, and the human costs of progress, themes that shaped how contemporaries evaluated character and choice.
Upon publication in 1870, Joseph and His Friend did not match the renown of Taylor’s travel books, yet it entered discussions of regional manners and moral conduct common in contemporary criticism. In later decades, especially with the growth of queer studies and renewed interest in regionalism, scholars revisited the novel for its depiction of male friendship and Pennsylvania life. Historically, the book scrutinizes the emergent Gilded Age ethos—credit, enterprise, and social climbing—through the lens of rural virtue, community sanction, and sincere attachment. By juxtaposing speculative modernity with tests of loyalty, it reflects and questions its era’s values.
Joseph and His Friend
The better angel is a man right fair; The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
Shakspeare: Sonnets.
To those who prefer quiet pictures of life to startling incidents, the attempt to illustrate the development of character to the mysteries of an elaborate plot, and the presentation of men and women in their mixed strength and weakness to the painting of wholly virtuous ideals and wholly evil examples: who are as interested in seeing moral and intellectual forces at work in a simple country community as on a more conspicuous plane of human action: who believe in the truth and tenderness of man's love for man, as of man's love for woman: who recognize the trouble which confused ideas of life and the lack of high and intelligent culture bring upon a great portion of our country population,—to all such, no explanation of this volume is necessary. Others will not read it.
CHAPTER I. JOSEPH.
Rachel Miller was not a little surprised when her nephew Joseph came to the supper-table, not from the direction of the barn and through the kitchen, as usual, but from the back room up stairs, where he slept. His work-day dress had disappeared; he wore his best Sunday suit, put on with unusual care, and there were faint pomatum odors[1] in the air when he sat down to the table.
Her face said—and she knew it—as plain as any words, "What in the world does this mean?" Joseph, she saw, endeavored to look as though coming down to supper in that costume were his usual habit; so she poured out the tea in silence. Her silence, however, was eloquent; a hundred interrogation-marks would not have expressed its import; and Dennis, the hired man, who sat on the other side of the table, experienced very much the same apprehension of something forthcoming, as when he had killed her favorite speckled hen by mistake.
Before the meal was over, the tension between Joseph and his aunt had so increased by reason of their mutual silence, that it was very awkward and oppressive to both; yet neither knew how to break it easily. There is always a great deal of unnecessary reticence in the intercourse of country people, and in the case of these two it had been specially strengthened by the want of every relationship except that of blood. They were quite ignorant of the fence, the easy thrust and parry of society, where talk becomes an art; silence or the bluntest utterance were their alternatives, and now the one had neutralized the other. Both felt this, and Dennis, in his dull way, felt it too. Although not a party concerned, he was uncomfortable, yet also internally conscious of a desire to laugh.
The resolution of the crisis, however, came by his aid. When the meal was finished and Joseph betook himself to the window, awkwardly drumming upon the pane, while his aunt gathered the plates and cups together, delaying to remove them as was her wont, Dennis said, with his hand on the door-knob: "Shall I saddle the horse right off?"
"I guess so," Joseph answered, after a moment's hesitation.
Rachel paused, with the two silver spoons in her hand. Joseph was still drumming upon the window, but with very irregular taps. The door closed upon Dennis.
"Well," said she, with singular calmness, "a body is not bound to dress particularly fine for watching, though I would as soon show him that much respect, if need be, as anybody else. Don't forget to ask Maria if there's anything I can do for her."
Joseph turned around with a start, a most innocent surprise on his face.
"Why, aunt, what are you talking about?"
"You are not going to Warne's to watch? They have nearer neighbors, to be sure, but when a man dies, everybody is free to offer their services. He was always strong in the faith."
Joseph knew that he was caught, without suspecting her manœuvre. A brighter color ran over his face, up to the roots of his hair. "Why, no!" he exclaimed; "I am going to Warriner's to spend the evening. There's to be a little company there,—a neighborly gathering. I believe it's been talked of this long while, but I was only invited to-day. I saw Bob, in the road-field."
Rachel endeavored to conceal from her nephew's eye the immediate impression of his words. A constrained smile passed over her face, and was instantly followed by a cheerful relief in his.
"Isn't it rather a strange time of year for evening parties?" she then asked, with a touch of severity in her voice.
"They meant to have it in cherry-time, Bob said, when Anna's visitor had come from town."
"That, indeed! I see!" Rachel exclaimed. "It's to be a sort of celebration for—what's-her-name? Blessing, I know,—but the other? Anna Warriner was there last Christmas, and I don't suppose the high notions are out of her head yet. Well, I hope it'll be some time before they take root here! Peace and quiet, peace and quiet, that's been the token of the neighborhood; but town ways are the reverse."
"All the young people are going," Joseph mildly suggested, "and so—"
"O, I don't say you shouldn't go, this time," Rachel interrupted him; "for you ought to be able to judge for yourself what's fit and proper, and what is not. I should be sorry, to be sure, to see you doing anything and going anywhere that would make your mother uneasy if she were living now. It's so hard to be conscientious, and to mind a body's bounden duty, without seeming to interfere."
She heaved a deep sigh, and just touched the corner of her apron to her eyes. The mention of his mother always softened Joseph, and in his earnest desire to live so that his life might be such as to give her joy if she could share it, a film of doubt spread itself over the smooth, pure surface of his mind. A vague consciousness of his inability to express himself clearly upon the question without seeming to slight her memory affected his thoughts.
"But, remember, Aunt Rachel," he said, at last, "I was not old enough, then, to go into society. She surely meant that I should have some independence, when the time came. I am doing no more than all the young men of the neighborhood."
"Ah, yes, I know," she replied, in a melancholy tone; "but they've got used to it by degrees, and mostly in their own homes, and with sisters to caution them; whereas you're younger according to your years, and innocent of the ways and wiles of men, and—and girls."
Joseph painfully felt that this last assertion was true. Suppressing the impulse to exclaim, "Why am I younger 'according to my years?' why am I so much more 'innocent'—which is, ignorant—than others?" he blundered out, with a little display of temper, "Well, how am I ever to learn?"
"By patience, and taking care of yourself. There's always safety in waiting. I don't mean you shouldn't go this evening, since you've promised it, and made yourself smart. But, mark my words, this is only the beginning. The season makes no difference; townspeople never seem to know that there's such things as hay-harvest and corn to be worked. They come out for merry-makings in the busy time, and want us country folks to give up everything for their pleasure. The tired plough-horses must be geared up for 'em, and the cows wait an hour or two longer to be milked while they're driving around; and the chickens killed half-grown, and the washing and baking put off when it comes in their way. They're mighty nice and friendly while it lasts; but go back to 'em in town, six months afterwards, and see whether they'll so much as ask you to take a meal's victuals!"
Joseph began to laugh. "It is not likely," he said, "that I shall ever go to the Blessings for a meal, or that this Miss Julia—as they call her—will ever interfere with our harvesting or milking."
"The airs they put on!" Rachel continued. "She'll very likely think that she's doing you a favor by so much as speaking to you. When the Bishops had boarders, two years ago, one of 'em said,—Maria told me with her own mouth,—'Why don't all the farmers follow your example? It would be so refining for them!' They may be very well in their place, but, for my part, I should like them to stay there."
"There comes the horse," said Joseph. "I must be on the way. I expect to meet Elwood Withers at the lane-end. But—about waiting, Aunt—you hardly need—"
"O, yes, I'll wait for you, of course. Ten o'clock is not so very late for me."
"It might be a little after," he suggested.
"Not much, I hope; but if it should be daybreak, wait I will! Your mother couldn't expect less of me."
When Joseph whirled into the saddle, the thought of his aunt, grimly waiting for his return, was already perched like an imp on the crupper, and clung to his sides with claws of steel. She, looking through the window, also felt that it was so; and, much relieved, went back to her household duties.
He rode very slowly down the lane, with his eyes fixed on the ground. There was a rich orange flush of sunset on the hills across the valley; masses of burning cumuli hung, self-suspended, above the farthest woods, and such depths of purple-gray opened beyond them as are wont to rouse the slumbering fancies and hopes of a young man's heart; but the beauty and fascination, and suggestiveness of the hour could not lift his downcast, absorbed glance. At last his horse, stopping suddenly at the gate, gave a whinny of recognition, which was answered.
Elwood Withers laughed. "Can you tell me where Joseph Asten lives?" he cried,—"an old man, very much bowed and bent."
Joseph also laughed, with a blush, as he met the other's strong, friendly face. "There is plenty of time," he said, leaning over his horse's neck and lifting the latch of the gate.
"All right; but you must now wake up. You're spruce enough to make a figure to-night."
"O, no doubt!" Joseph gravely answered; "but what kind of a figure?"
"Some people, I've heard say," said Elwood, "may look into their looking-glass every day, and never know how they look. If you appeared to yourself as you appear to me, you wouldn't ask such a question as that."
"If I could only not think of myself at all, Elwood,—if I could be as unconcerned as you are—"
"But I'm not, Joseph, my boy!" Elwood interrupted, riding nearer and laying a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I tell you, it weakens my very marrow to walk into a room full o' girls, even though I know every one of 'em. They know it, too, and, shy and quiet as they seem, they're un-merciful. There they sit, all looking so different, somehow,—even a fellow's own sisters and cousins,—filling up all sides of the room, rustling a little and whispering a little, but you feel that every one of 'em has her eyes on you, and would be so glad to see you flustered. There's no help for it, though; we've got to grow case-hardened to that much, or how ever could a man get married?"
"Elwood!" Joseph asked, after a moment's silence, "were you ever in love?"
"Well,"—and Elwood pulled up his horse in surprise,—"well, you do come out plump. You take the breath out of my body. Have I been in love? Have I committed murder? One's about as deadly a secret as the other!"
The two looked each other in the face. Elwood's eyes answered the question, but Joseph's,—large, shy, and utterly innocent,—could not read the answer.
"It's easy to see you've never been," said the former, dropping his voice to a grave gentleness. "If I should say Yes, what then?"
"Then, how do you know it,—I mean, how did you first begin to find it out? What is the difference between that and the feeling you have towards any pleasant girl whom you like to be with?"
"All the difference in the world!" Elwood exclaimed with energy; then paused, and knitted his brows with a perplexed air; "but I'll be shot if I know exactly what else to say; I never thought of it before. How do I know that I am Elwood Withers? It seems just as plain as that,—and yet—well, for one thing, she's always in your mind, and you think and dream of just nothing but her; and you'd rather have the hem of her dress touch you than kiss anybody else; and you want to be near her, and to have her all to yourself, yet it's hard work to speak a sensible word to her when you come together,—but, what's the use? A fellow must feel it himself, as they say of experiencing religion; he must get converted, or he'll never know. Now, I don't suppose you've understood a word of what I've said!"
"Yes!" Joseph answered; "indeed, I think so. It's only an increase of what we all feel towards some persons. I have been hoping, latterly, that it might come to me, but—but—"
"But your time will come, like every man's," said Elwood; "and, maybe, sooner than you think. When it does, you won't need to ask anybody; though I think you're bound to tell me of it, after pumping my own secret out of me."
Joseph looked grave.
"Never mind; I wasn't obliged to let you have it. I know you're close-mouthed and honest-hearted, Joseph; but I'll never ask your confidence unless you can give it as freely as I give mine to you."
"You shall have it, Elwood, if my time ever comes. And I can't help wishing for the time, although it may not be right. You know how lonely it is on the farm, and yet it's not always easy for me to get away into company. Aunt Rachel stands in mother's place to me, and maybe it's only natural that she should be over-concerned; any way, seeing what she has done for my sake, I am hindered from opposing her wishes too stubbornly. Now, to-night, my going didn't seem right to her, and I shall not get it out of my mind that she is waiting up, and perhaps fretting, on my account."
"A young fellow of your age mustn't be so tender," Elwood said. "If you had your own father and mother, they'd allow you more of a range. Look at me, with mine! Why, I never as much as say 'by your leave.' Quite the contrary; so long as the work isn't slighted, they're rather glad than not to have me go out; and the house is twice as lively since I bring so much fresh gossip into it. But then, I've had a rougher bringing up."
"I wish I had had!" cried Joseph. "Yet, no, when I think of mother, it is wrong to say just that. What I mean is, I wish I could take things as easily as you,—make my way boldly in the world, without being held back by trifles, or getting so confused with all sorts of doubts. The more anxious I am to do right, the more embarrassed I am to know what is the right thing. I don't believe you have any such troubles."
"Well, for my part, I do about as other fellows; no worse, I guess, and likely no better. You must consider, also, that I'm a bit rougher made, besides the bringing up, and that makes a deal of difference. I don't try to make the scales balance to a grain; if there's a handful under or over, I think it's near enough. However, you'll be all right in a while. When you find the right girl and marry her, it'll put a new face on to you. There's nothing like a sharp, wide-awake wife, so they say, to set a man straight. Don't make a mountain of anxiety out of a little molehill of inexperience. I'd take all your doubts and more, I'm sure, if I could get such a two-hundred-acre farm with them."
"Do you know," cried Joseph eagerly, his blue eyes flashing through the gathering dusk, "I have often thought very nearly the same thing! If I were to love,—if I were to marry—"
"Hush!" interrupted Elwood; "I know you don't mean others to hear you. Here come two down the branch road."
The horsemen, neighboring farmers' sons, joined them. They rode together up the knoll towards the Warriner mansion, the lights of which glimmered at intervals through the trees. The gate was open, and a dozen vehicles could be seen in the enclosure between the house and barn. Bright, gliding forms were visible on the portico.
"Just see," whispered Elwood to Joseph; "what a lot of posy-colors! You may be sure they're every one watching us. No flinching, mind; straight to the charge! We'll walk up together, and it won't be half as hard for you."
CHAPTER II. MISS BLESSING.
To consider the evening party at Warriner's a scene of "dissipation"—as some of the good old people of the neighborhood undoubtedly did—was about as absurd as to call butter-milk an intoxicating beverage. Anything more simple and innocent could not well be imagined[1q]. The very awkwardness which everybody felt, and which no one exactly knew how to overcome, testified of virtuous ignorance. The occasion was no more than sufficed for the barest need of human nature. Young men and women must come together for acquaintance and the possibilities of love, and, fortunately, neither labor nor the severer discipline of their elders can prevent them.
Where social recreation thus only exists under discouraging conditions, ease and grace and self-possession cannot be expected. Had there been more form, in fact, there would have been more ease. A conventional disposition of the guests would have reduced the loose elements of the company to some sort of order; the shy country nature would have taken refuge in fixed laws, and found a sense of freedom therein. But there were no generally understood rules; the young people were brought together, delighted yet uncomfortable, craving yet shrinking from speech and jest and song, and painfully working their several isolations into a warmer common atmosphere.
On this occasion, the presence of a stranger, and that stranger a lady, and that lady a visitor from the city, was an additional restraint. The dread of a critical eye is most keenly felt by those who secretly acknowledge their own lack of social accomplishment. Anna Warriner, to be sure, had been loud in her praises of "dear Julia," and the guests were prepared to find all possible beauty and sweetness; but they expected, none the less, to be scrutinized and judged.
Bob Warriner met his friends at the gate and conducted them to the parlor, whither the young ladies, who had been watching the arrival, had retreated. They were disposed along the walls, silent and cool, except Miss Blessing, who occupied a rocking-chair in front of the mantel-piece, where her figure was in half-shadow, the lamplight only touching some roses in her hair. As the gentlemen were presented, she lifted her face and smiled upon each, graciously offering a slender hand. In manner and attitude, as in dress, she seemed a different being from the plump, ruddy, self-conscious girls on the sofas. Her dark hair fell about her neck in long, shining ringlets; the fairness of her face heightened the brilliancy of her eyes, the lids of which were slightly drooped as if kindly veiling their beams; and her lips, although thin, were very sweetly and delicately curved. Her dress, of some white, foamy texture, hung about her like a trailing cloud, and the cluster of rosebuds on her bosom lay as if tossed there.
The young men, spruce as they had imagined themselves to be, suddenly felt that their clothes were coarse and ill-fitting, and that the girls of the neighborhood, in their neat gingham and muslin dresses, were not quite so airy and charming as on former occasions. Miss Blessing, descending to them out of an unknown higher sphere, made their deficiencies unwelcomely evident; she attracted and fascinated them, yet was none the less a disturbing influence. They made haste to find seats, after which a constrained silence followed.
There could be no doubt of Miss Blessing's amiable nature. She looked about with a pleasant expression, half smiled—but deprecatingly, as if to say, "Pray, don't be offended!"—at the awkward silence, and then said, in a clear, carefully modulated voice: "It is beautiful to arrive at twilight, but how charming it must be to ride home in the moonlight; so different from our lamps!"
The guests looked at each other, but as she had seemed to address no one in particular, so each hesitated, and there was no immediate reply.
"But is it not awful, tell me, Elizabeth, when you get into the shadows of the forests? we are so apt to associate all sorts of unknown dangers with forests, you know," she continued.
The young lady thus singled out made haste to answer: "O, no! I rather like it, when I have company."
Elwood Withers laughed. "To be sure!" he exclaimed; "the shade is full of opportunities."
Then there were little shrieks, and some giggling and blushing. Miss Blessing shook her fan warningly at the speaker.
"How wicked in you! I hope you will have to ride home alone to-night, after that speech. But you are all courageous, compared with us. We are really so restricted in the city, that it's a wonder we have any independence at all. In many ways, we are like children."
"O Julia, dear!" protested Anna Warriner, "and such advantages as you have! I shall never forget the day Mrs. Rockaway called—her husband's cashier of the Commercial Bank" (this was said in a parenthesis to the other guests)—"and brought you all the news direct from head-quarters, as she said."
"Yes," Miss Blessing answered, slowly, casting down her eyes, "there must be two sides to everything, of course; but how much we miss until we know the country! Really, I quite envy you."
Joseph had found himself, almost before he knew it, in a corner, beside Lucy Henderson. He felt soothed and happy, for of all the girls present he liked Lucy best. In the few meetings of the young people which he had attended, he had been drawn towards her by an instinct founded, perhaps, on his shyness and the consciousness of it; for she alone had the power, by a few kindly, simple words, to set him at ease with himself. The straightforward glance of her large brown eyes seemed to reach the self below the troubled surface. However much his ears might have tingled afterwards, as he recalled how frankly and freely he had talked with her, he could only remember the expression of an interest equally frank, upon her face. She never dropped one of those amused side-glances, or uttered one of those pert, satirical remarks, the recollection of which in other girls stung him to the quick.
Their conversation was interrupted, for when Miss Blessing spoke, the others became silent. What Elwood Withers had said of the phenomena of love, however, lingered in Joseph's mind, and he began, involuntarily, to examine the nature of his feeling for Lucy Henderson. Was she not often in his thoughts? He had never before asked himself the question, but now he suddenly became conscious that the hope of meeting her, rather than any curiosity concerning Miss Blessing, had drawn him to Warriner's. Would he rather touch the edge of her dress than kiss anybody else? That question drew his eyes to her lips, and with a soft shock of the heart, he became aware of their freshness and sweetness as never before. To touch the edge of her dress! Elwood had said nothing of the lovelier and bolder desire which brought the blood swiftly to his cheeks. He could not help it that their glances met,—a moment only, but an unmeasured time of delight and fear to him,—and then Lucy quickly turned away her head. He fancied there was a heightened color on her face, but when she spoke to him a few minutes afterwards it was gone, and she was as calm and composed as before.
In the mean time there had been other arrivals; and Joseph was presently called upon to give up his place to some ladies from the neighboring town. Many invitations had been issued, and the capacity of the parlor was soon exhausted. Then the sounds of merry chat on the portico invaded the stately constraint of the room; and Miss Blessing, rising gracefully and not too rapidly, laid her hands together and entreated Anna Warriner,—
"O, do let us go outside! I think we are well enough acquainted now to sit on the steps together."
She made a gesture, slight but irresistibly inviting, and all arose. While they were cheerfully pressing out through the hall, she seized Anna's arm and drew her back into the dusky nook under the staircase.
"Quick, Anna!" she whispered; "who is the roguish one they call Elwood? What is he?"
"A farmer; works his father's place on shares."
"Ah!" exclaimed Miss Blessing, in a peculiar tone; "and the blue-eyed, handsome one, who came in with him? He looks almost like a boy."
"Joseph Asten? Why, he's twenty-two or three. He has one of the finest properties in the neighborhood, and money besides, they say; lives alone, with an old dragon of an aunt as housekeeper. Now, Julia dear, there's a chance for you!"
"Pshaw, you silly Anna!" whispered Miss Blessing, playfully pinching her ear; "you know I prefer intellect to wealth."
"As for that"—Anna began, but her friend was already dancing down the hall towards the front door, her gossamer skirts puffing and floating out until they brushed the walls on either side. She hummed to herself, "O Night! O lovely Night!" from the Désert[2], skimmed over the doorstep, and sank, subsiding into an ethereal heap, against one of the pillars of the portico. Her eyelids were now fully opened, and the pupils, the color of which could not be distinguished in the moonlight, seemed wonderfully clear and brilliant.
"Now, Mr. Elwood—O, excuse me, I mean Mr. Withers," she began, "you must repeat your joke for my benefit. I missed it, and I feel so foolish when I can't laugh with the rest."
Anna Warriner, standing in the door, opened her eyes very wide at what seemed to her to be the commencement of a flirtation; but before Elwood Withers could repeat his rather stupid fun, she was summoned to the kitchen by her mother, to superintend the preparation of the refreshments.
Miss Blessing made her hay while the moon shone. She so entered into the growing spirit of the scene and accommodated herself to the speech and ways of the guests, that in half an hour it seemed as if they had always known her. She laughed with their merriment, and flattered their sentiment with a tender ballad or two, given in a veiled but not unpleasant voice, and constantly appealed to their good-nature by the phrase: "Pray, don't mind me at all; I'm like a child let out of school!" She tapped Elizabeth Fogg on the shoulder, stealthily tickled Jane McNaughton's neck with a grass-blade, and took the roses from her hair to stick into the buttonholes of the young men.
"Just see Julia!" whispered Anna Warriner to her half-dozen intimates; "didn't I tell you she was the life of society?"
Joseph had quite lost his uncomfortable sense of being watched and criticized; he enjoyed the unrestraint of the hour as much as the rest. He was rather relieved to notice that Elwood Withers seemed uneasy, and almost willing to escape from the lively circle around Miss Blessing. By and by the company broke into smaller groups, and Joseph again found himself near the pale pink dress which he knew. What was it that separated him from her? What had slipped between them during the evening? Nothing, apparently; for Lucy Henderson, perceiving him, quietly moved nearer. He advanced a step, and they were side by side.
"Do you enjoy these meetings, Joseph?" she asked.
"I think I should enjoy everything," he answered, "if I were a little older, or—or—"
"Or more accustomed to society? Is not that what you meant? It is only another kind of schooling, which we must all have. You and I are in the lowest class, as we once were,—do you remember?"
"I don't know why," said he, "—but I must be a poor scholar. See Elwood, for instance!"
"Elwood!" Lucy slowly repeated; "he is another kind of nature, altogether."
There was a moment's silence. Joseph was about to speak, when something wonderfully soft touched his cheek, and a delicate, violet-like odor swept upon his senses. A low, musical laugh sounded at his very ear.
"There! Did I frighten you?" said Miss Blessing. She had stolen behind him, and, standing on tiptoe, reached a light arm over his shoulder, to fasten her last rosebud in the upper buttonhole of his coat.
"I quite overlooked you, Mr. Asten," she continued. "Please turn a little towards me. Now!—has it not a charming effect? I do like to see some kind of ornament about the gentlemen, Lucy. And since they can't wear anything in their hair,—but, tell me, wouldn't a wreath of flowers look well on Mr. Asten's head?"
"I can't very well imagine such a thing," said Lucy.
"No? Well, perhaps I am foolish: but when one has escaped from the tiresome conventionalities of city life, and comes back to nature, and delightful natural society, one feels so free to talk and think! Ah, you don't know what a luxury it is, just to be one's true self!"
Joseph's eyes lighted up, and he turned towards Miss Blessing, as if eager that she should continue to speak.
"Lucy," said Elwood Withers, approaching; "you came with the McNaughtons, didn't you?"
"Yes: are they going?"
"They are talking of it now; but the hour is early, and if you don't mind riding on a pillion[3], you know my horse is gentle and strong—"
"That's right, Mr. Withers!" interrupted Miss Blessing. "I depend upon you to keep Lucy with us. The night is at its loveliest, and we are all just fairly enjoying each other's society. As I was saying, Mr. Asten, you cannot conceive what a new world this is to me: oh, I begin to breathe at last!"
Therewith she drew a long, soft inspiration, and gently exhaled it again, ending with a little flutter of the breath, which made it seem like a sigh. A light laugh followed.
"I know, without looking at your face, that you are smiling at me," said she. "But you have never experienced what it is to be shy and uneasy in company; to feel that you are expected to talk, and not know what to say, and when you do say something, to be startled at the sound of your voice; to stand, or walk, or sit, and imagine that everybody is watching you; to be introduced to strangers, and be as awkward as if both spoke different languages, and were unable to exchange a single thought. Here, in the country, you experience nothing of all this."
"Indeed, Miss Blessing," Joseph replied, "it is just the same to us—to me—as city society is to you."
"How glad I am!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands. "It is very selfish in me to say it, but I can't help being sincere towards the Sincere. I shall now feel ever so much more freedom in talking with you, Mr. Asten, since we have one experience in common. Don't you think, if we all knew each other's natures truly, we should be a great deal more at ease,—and consequently happier?"
She spoke the last sentence in a low, sweet, penetrating tone, lifted her face to meet his gaze a moment, the eyes large, clear, and appealing in their expression, the lips parted like those of a child, and then, without waiting for his answer, suddenly darted away, crying, "Yes, Anna dear!"
"What is it, Julia?" Anna Warriner asked.
"O, didn't you call me? Somebody surely called some Julia, and I'm the only one, am I not? I've just arranged Mr. Asten's rosebud so prettily, and now all the gentlemen are decorated. I'm afraid they think I take great liberties for a stranger, but then, you all make me forget that I am strange. Why is it that everybody is so good to me?"
She turned her face upon the others with a radiant expression. Then, there were earnest protestations from the young men, and a few impulsive hugs from the girls, which latter Miss Blessing returned with kisses.
Elwood Withers sat beside Lucy Henderson, on the steps of the portico. "Why, we owe it to you that we're here to-night, Miss Blessing!" he exclaimed. "We don't come together half often enough as it is; and what better could we do than meet again, somewhere else, while you are in the country?"
"O, how delightful! how kind!" she cried. "And while the lovely moonlight lasts! Shall I really have another evening like this?"
The proposition was heartily seconded, and the only difficulty was, how to choose between the three or four invitations which were at once proffered. There was nothing better to do than to accept all, in turn, and the young people pledged themselves to attend. The new element which they had dreaded in advance, as a restraint, had shown itself to be the reverse: they had never been so free, so cheerfully excited. Miss Blessing's unconscious ease of manner, her grace and sweetness, her quick, bright sympathy with country ways, had so warmed and fused them, that they lost the remembrance of their stubborn selves and yielded to the magnetism of the hour. Their manners, moreover, were greatly improved, simply by their forgetting that they were expected to have any.
Joseph was one of the happiest sharers in this change. He eagerly gave his word to be present at the entertainments to come: his heart beat with delight at the prospect of other such evenings. The suspicion of a tenderer feeling towards Lucy Henderson, the charm of Miss Blessing's winning frankness, took equal possession of his thoughts; and not until he had said good night did he think of his companion on the homeward road. But Elwood Withers had already left, carrying Lucy Henderson on a pillion behind him.
"Is it ten o'clock, do you think?" Joseph asked of one of the young men, as they rode out of the gate.
The other answered with a chuckle: "Ten? It's nigher morning than evening!"
The imp on the crupper struck his claws deep into Joseph's sides. He urged his horse into a gallop, crossed the long rise in the road and dashed along the valley-level, with the cool, dewy night air whistling in his locks. After entering the lane leading upward to his home, he dropped the reins and allowed the panting horse to choose his own gait. A light, sparkling through the locust-trees, pierced him with the sting of an unwelcome external conscience, in which he had no part, yet which he could not escape.
Rachel Miller looked wearily up from her knitting as he entered the room. She made a feeble attempt to smile, but the expression of her face suggested imminent tears.
"Aunt, why did you wait?" said he, speaking rapidly. "I forgot to look at my watch, and I really thought it was no more than ten—"
He paused, seeing that her eyes were fixed. She was looking at the tall old-fashioned clock. The hand pointed to half-past twelve, and every cluck of the ponderous pendulum said, distinctly, "Late! late! late!"
He lighted a candle in silence, said, "Good night, Aunt!" and went up to his room.
"Good night, Joseph!" she solemnly responded, and a deep, hollow sigh reached his ear before the door was closed.
