Sensibility [pp. 79-87]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MAESSENGER.
in his youth he had commanded a fishing-smack. Montague had one evening walked some way out of town;
and on his return, intending to pass an hour at Mr.
Claremont's, he passed through this lane as the shortest
way to his house. In passing the Commodore's domicil,
which stood on the lower side of the lane, he cast his
eyes in at the window, which had neither shutter nor
curtain, and by a glimmering fire-light saw the old man
sitting in his arm chair by the fire, while a female sat
on a low stool beside him, who seemed to be doing something to his foot, which lay across her lap. Montague
halted an instant, for there was something about the
female figure, although enveloped in a large shawl and
hood, that reminded him of Margarette. But her back
was toward him, and the fire-light was so dim, that he
remained in doubt whether or not it was she. "If it is
her," thought he, as he walked on-" If it is her, performing such an office for the poor old Commodore, it
may, after all, be her who visits the Delantys." As
he came out of the lane, he met an acquaintance, with
whom he conversed a minute or two, and then proceeded to Mr. Claremont's.
On entering the parlor, he found the little domestic
circle complete. Mr. Claremont was engaged in a volume of Brewster's Encyclopedia; Alice with Malvina,
over which she was shedding a torrent of tears,-and
Margarette with her knitting work. "It was not her,
after all," thought Montague; "but who could it be?
she had not the air of a rustic!" After receiving Mr.
Claremont's cordial welcome, he advanced toward his
cousin, and closing her book with gentle violence, said "If you sustain no other injury, my dear Alice, you
will inevitably ruin your eyes by reading while you
weep so profusely. I wish you would relinquish novels
as I fear they do you little good. Their general tendency is to enervate rather than strengthen the character." "I wish you could persuade her to relinquish
them, Mr. Montague," said Mr. Claremont. "I am
satisfied that that class of reading, only increases in
Alice that sensitiveness which is already too strong.
It will degenerate into weakness, and I know of few
things more to be dreaded than a sickly sensibility."
"W hy should you suppose that the reading of novels
would produce that effect, more than the scenes of real
life?" said Alice, "when it is universally conceded, that
no genius can ever reach the truth."
"I can tell you why, Alice," said Montague. "In
reading works of the imagination, persons of feeling
unconsciously identify themselves with the favorite
character; and then in a day or two, and sometimes in
a few hours, their feelings are taxed with those scenes
of sorrow and excitement, which in real life are scattered through months, or perhaps years. The greater part
of life is made up of comparative trifles, which make
little demand oni the feelings, and scenes of sorrow and
excitement are'few and far between,' like the convulsions of the elements-which, though often distressing,
and sometimes disastrous, are, on the whole, highly
beneficial. But were the elements always at war, nature would soon sink to dissolution; and so if the mind
and the heart were constantly raised to a state of high
excitement, their energies would soon be exhausted,
and the corporeal part would soon sink in the conflict.
Do you read novels, Miss Claremont?" inquired Montague.
"Sometimes, but not often," Mlargarette replied.
"And do they affect you as they do cousin Alice?"
"Affect her?" cried Alice-" no, indeed! I never saw
her moved to tears, by reading, but once in mny life."
"And pray what was she then reading?" asked Montague, with a smile.
"A little penny tract, called'Old Sarah, the Indian
Woman' "-said Alice. "Over that she actually wept!"
"Did you read the tract, cousin Alice?"
"Yes-from mere curiosity, after witnessing the wonderful effect it produced."
"And did it call forth your tears?"
"No, certainly not!-Sarah was a good old creature,
to be sure, but there was nothing in the tract to touch
one's sensibility; and I could never conceive what there
was in it, that so moved Margarette."
"Pho, pho, Alice," said Mr. Claremont, "Margarette
is not the Stoic you represent her. I caught her no
longer ago than this very morning, with a tear in her
eye, while reading."
" My dear uncle," said Margarette, in a supplicating
tone, while the pure blood in her cheeks rushed to her
temples.
"What taas she reading, uncle?" cried Alice.
"None of your lackadaisical nonsense, you may be
certain, Alice," said Mr. Claremont. "Shle was reading
a newspaper."
Alice laughed outright.
"Not so laughable an affair, neither, my dear," said
Mr. Claremont, "as she was reading of the bravery and
sufferings of the poor unfortunate"
"Dear uncle!" again ejaculated Margarette.
"Poles," added Mr. Claremont, without noticing the
interruption.
"The Poles? O yes," said Alice. "There was
'Thaddeus of Warsaw'-he was a divine creature!
Well might one weep at the recital of his sufferings!"
"Doubtless, my dear-but Margarette's sympathies
were moved by sufferings of a more recent date than
his —by the narrative of bravery and suffering in all
their nakedness-unadorned witlh the romance and poetry that Miss Porter has thrown around her hero. And
to tell you the plain truth, Alice-I do like that sensibility better, that sympathizes with the actual miseries
of our fellow creatures, even though there be nothing
elegant, or poetic about them, than that which has tears
only for some high-wrought tale of fictitious woe-the
afflictions of some faillen prince, or the sorrows of some
love-stricken swain, or lovelorn damsel."
"That, dear uncle, is as much as to say," said Alice,
while her voice was clihoked with rising emotion-" that
I can feel for sorrows of no other kind, and that you like
Margarette's sensibility better than you do mine! I
suppose you love her, too, more than you do your own
poor, lone Alice! I feel that she is stealing every one's
affection from me, though I love with so much more ardor than she does!" and she burst into tears.
All present felt exceedingly uncomfortable, and Margarette, who was really distressed, resolved to give a
new turn to the conversation. A lice had seated herself
on Mr. Claremont's knee, and thrown both her arms
around his neck-so leaving him to soothe her wounded
feelings in his own way, Margarette asked Montague
some question, as foreign as possible to their receot
conversation. The effort succeeded-the tears of Alice
84