Read Ebook: The Æneid of Virgil Translated Into Scottish Verse. Volumes 1 & 2 by Virgil BCE BCE Douglas Gawin Translator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 145 lines and 15468 words, and 3 pages

The difference is not in rank, for these young people were all daughters of parents who earn their bread with their own hands. It is not in the amount of wages, however usual that supposition is, for they were then earning from one to three dollars a-week, besides their food; the children one dollar , the second rate workers two dollars, and the best three: the cost of their dress and necessary comforts being much above what the same class expend in this country. It is not in the amount of toil; for, as I have said, they worked seventy clear hours per week. The difference was in their superior culture. Their minds are kept fresh, and strong, and free by knowledge and power of thought; and this is the reason why they are not worn and depressed under their labors. They begin with a poorer chance for health than our people; for the health of the New England women generally is not good, owing to circumstances of climate and other influences; but among the 3800 women and girls in the Lowell mills when I was there, the average of health was not lower than elsewhere; and the disease which was most mischievous was the same that proves most fatal over the whole country--consumption; while there were no complaints peculiar to mill life.

At Waltham, where I saw the mills, and conversed with the people, I had an opportunity of observing the invigorating effects of MIND in a life of labor. Twice the wages and half the toil would not have made the girls I saw happy and healthy, without that cultivation of mind which afforded them perpetual support, entertainment, and motive for activity. They were not highly educated, but they had pleasure in books and lectures, in correspondence with home; and had their minds so open to fresh ideas, as to be drawn off from thoughts of themselves and their own concerns. When at work they were amused with thinking over the last book they had read, or with planning the account they should write home of the last Sunday's sermon, or with singing over to themselves the song they meant to practise in the evening; and when evening came, nothing was heard of tired limbs and eagerness for bed, but, if it was summer, they sallied out, the moment tea was over, for a walk, and if it was winter, to the lecture-room or to the ball-room for a dance, or they got an hour's practice at the piano, or wrote home, or shut themselves up with a new book. It was during the hours of work in the mill that the papers in the "Offering" were meditated, and it was after work in the evenings that they were penned.

There is, however, in the case of these girls, a stronger support, a more elastic spring of vigor and cheerfulness than even an active and cultivated understanding. The institution of factory labor has brought ease of heart to many; and to many occasion for noble and generous deeds. The ease of heart is given to those who were before suffering in silent poverty, from the deficiency of profitable employment for women, which is even greater in America than with us. It used to be understood there that all women were maintained by the men of their families; but the young men of New England are apt to troop off into the West, to settle in new lands, leaving sisters at home. Some few return to fetch a wife, but the greater number do not, and thus a vast over proportion of young women remains; and to a multitude of these the opening of factories was a most welcome event, affording means of honorable maintenance, in exchange for pining poverty at home.

As for the noble deeds, it makes one's heart glow to stand in these mills, and hear of the domestic history of some who are working before one's eyes, unconscious of being observed or of being the object of any admiration. If one of the sons of a New England farmer shows a love for books and thought, the ambition of an affectionate sister is roused, and she thinks of the glory and honor to the whole family, and the blessing to him, if he could have a college education. She ponders this till she tells her parents, some day, of her wish to go to Lowell, and earn the means of sending her brother to college. The desire is yet more urgent if the brother has a pious mind, and a wish to enter the ministry. Many a clergyman in America has been prepared for his function by the devoted industry of sisters; and many a scholar and professional man dates his elevation in social rank and usefulness from his sister's, or even some affectionate aunt's entrance upon mill life, for his sake. Many girls, perceiving anxiety in their fathers' faces, on account of the farm being incumbered, and age coming on without release from the debt, have gone to Lowell, and worked till the mortgage was paid off, and the little family property free. Such motives may well lighten and sweeten labor; and to such girls labor is light and sweet.

Some, who have no such calls, unite the surplus of their earnings to build dwellings for their own residence, six, eight, or twelve living together with the widowed mother or elderly aunt of one of them to keep house for, and give countenance to the party. I saw a whole street of houses so built and owned, at Waltham; pretty frame houses, with the broad piazza, and the green Venitian blinds, that give such an air of coolness and pleasantness to American village and country abodes. There is the large airy eating-room, with a few prints hung up, the piano at one end, and the united libraries of the girls, forming a good-looking array of books, the rocking chairs universal in America, the stove adorned in summer with flowers, and the long dining-table in the middle. The chambers do not answer to our English ideas of comfort. There is a strange absence of the wish for privacy; and more girls are accommodated in one room than we should see any reason for in such comfortable and pretty houses.

In the mills the girls have quite the appearance of ladies. They sally forth in the morning with their umbrellas in threatening weather, their calashes to keep their hair neat, gowns of print or gingham, with a perfect fit, worked collars or pelerines, and waistbands of ribbon. For Sundays and social evenings they have their silk gowns, and neat gloves and shoes. Yet through proper economy,--the economy of educated and thoughtful people,--they are able to lay by for such purposes as I have mentioned above. The deposits in the Lowell Savings' Bank were, in 1834, upwards of 114,000 dollars, the number of operatives being 5000, of whom 3800 were women and girls.

I thank you for calling my attention back to this subject. It is one I have pleasure in recurring to. There is nothing in America which necessitates the prosperity of manufactures as of agriculture, and there is nothing of good in their factory system that may not be emulated elsewhere--equalled elsewhere, when the people employed are so educated as to have the command of themselves and of their lot in life, which is always and everywhere controlled by mind, far more than by outward circumstances.

I am very truly yours,

H. MARTINEAU.

MIND AMONGST THE SPINDLES.

ABBY'S YEAR IN LOWELL.

"Mr. Atkins, I say! Husband, why can't you speak? Do you hear what Abby says?"

"Any thing worth hearing?" was the responsive question of Mr. Atkins; and he laid down the New Hampshire Patriot, and peered over his spectacles, with a look which seemed to say, that an event so uncommon deserved particular attention.

"Why, she says that she means to go to Lowell, and work in the factory."

"Well, wife, let her go;" and Mr. Atkins took up the Patriot again.

"But I do not see how I can spare her; the spring cleaning is not done, nor the soap made, nor the boys' summer clothes; and you say that you intend to board your own 'men-folks' and keep two more cows than you did last year; and Charley can scarcely go alone. I do not see how I can get along without her."

"But you say she does not assist you any about the house."

"Yes, she might do a great many things which she does not think of doing; and as I do not see that she means to be useful here; we will let her go to the factory."

"Father, are you in earnest? may I go to Lowell?" said Abby; and she raised her bright black eyes to her father's, with a look of exquisite delight.

"Yes, Abby, if you will promise me one thing, and that is, that you will stay a whole year without visiting us, excepting in case of sickness, and that you will stay but one year."

"I will promise anything, father, if you will only let me go; for I thought you would say that I had better stay at home, and pick rocks, and weed the garden, and drop corn, and rake hay; and I do not want to do such work any longer. May I go with the Slater girls next Tuesday? for that is the day they have set for their return."

"Yes, Abby, if you will remember that you are to stay a year, and only a year."

Abby retired to rest that night with a heart fluttering with pleasure; for ever since the visit of the Slater girls, with new silk dresses, and Navarino bonnets trimmed with flowers and lace veils, and gauze handkerchiefs, her head had been filled with visions of fine clothes; and she thought if she could only go where she could dress like them, she would be completely happy. She was naturally very fond of dress, and often, while a little girl, had she sat on the grass bank by the road-side, watching the stage which went daily by her father's retired dwelling; and when she saw the gay ribbons and smart shawls, which passed like a bright phantom before her wondering eyes, she had thought that when older she too would have such things; and she looked forward to womanhood as to a state in which the chief pleasure must consist in wearing fine clothes. But as years passed over her, she became aware that this was a source from which she could never derive any enjoyment, while she remained at home, for her father was neither able nor willing to gratify her in this respect, and she had begun to fear that she must always wear the same brown cambric bonnet, and that the same calico gown would always be her "go-to-meeting dress." And now what a bright picture had been formed by her ardent and uncultivated imagination.--Yes, she would go to Lowell, and earn all that she possibly could, and spend those earnings in beautiful attire; she would have silk dresses,--one of grass green, and another of cherry red, and another upon the color of which she would decide when she purchased it; and she would have a new Navarino bonnet; far more beautiful than Judith Slater's; and when at last she fell asleep, it was to dream of satin and lace, and her glowing fancy revelled all night in a vast and beautiful collection of milliners' finery.

But very different were the dreams of Abby's mother; and when she awoke the next morning, her first words to her husband were, "Mr. Atkins, were you serious last night when you told Abby that she might go to Lowell? I thought at first that you were vexed because I interrupted you, and said it to stop the conversation."

"Yes, wife, I was serious, and you did not interrupt me, for I had been listening to all that you and Abby were saying. She is a wild, thoughtless girl, and I hardly know what it is best to do with her; but perhaps it will be as well to try an experiment, and let her think and act a little while for herself. I expect that she will spend all her earnings in fine clothes, but after she has done so she may see the folly of it; at all events, she will be more likely to understand the value of money when she has been obliged to work for it. After she has had her own way for one year, she may possibly be willing to return home, and become a little more steady, and be willing to devote her active energies to household duties, for hitherto her services have been principally out of doors, where she is now too old to work. I am also willing that she should see a little of the world, and what is going on in it; and I hope that, if she receives no benefit, she will at least return to us uninjured."

"O, husband, I have many fears for her," was the reply of Mrs. Atkins, "she is so very giddy and thoughtless, and the Slater girls are as hair-brained as herself, and will lead her on in all sorts of folly. I wish you would tell her that she must stay at home."

Abby flew round in high spirits to make the necessary preparations for her departure, and her mother assisted her with a heavy heart.

The evening before she left home her father called her to him, and fixing upon her a calm, earnest, and almost mournful look, he said, "Abby, do you ever think?"--Abby was subdued, and almost awed, by her father's look and manner. There was something unusual in it--something in his expression which was unexpected in him, which reminded her of her teacher's look at the Sabbath school, when he was endeavoring to impress upon her mind some serious truth. "Yes, father," she at length replied, "I have thought a great deal lately about going to Lowell."

"But I do not believe, my child, that you have had one serious reflection upon the subject, and I fear that I have done wrong in consenting to let you go from home. If I was too poor to maintain you here, and had no employment about which you could make yourself useful, I should feel no self-reproach, and would let you go, trusting that all might yet be well; but now I have done what I may at some future time severely repent of; and, Abby, if you do not wish to make me wretched, you will return to us a better, milder, and more thoughtful girl."

New feelings and new ideas had begotten new resolutions, and Abby's dreams that night were of smiles from her mother, and words from her father, such as she had never received nor deserved.

When she bade them farewell the next morning, she said nothing of the change which had taken place in her views and feelings, for she felt a slight degree of self-distrust in her own firmness of purpose.

Abby's self-distrust was commendable and auspicious; but she had a very prominent development in that part of the head where phrenologists locate the organ of firmness; and when she had once determined upon a thing, she usually went through with it. She had now resolved to pursue a course entirely different from that which was expected of her, and as different from the one she had first marked out for herself. This was more difficult, on account of her strong propensity for dress, a love of which was freely gratified by her companions. But when Judith Slater pressed her to purchase this beautiful piece of silk, or that splendid piece of muslin, her constant reply was, "No, I have determined not to buy any such things, and I will keep my resolution."

At the close of a pleasant April day, Mr. Atkins sat at his kitchen fire-side, with Charley upon his knees. "Wife," said he to Mrs. Atkins, who was busily preparing the evening meal, "is it not a year since Abby left home?"

"Perhaps she will not come at all," said Mr. Atkins, with a gloomy look; "she has written us but few letters, and they have been very short and unsatisfactory. I suppose she has sense enough to know that no news is better than bad news, and having nothing pleasant to tell about herself, she thinks she will tell us nothing at all. But if I ever get her home again, I will keep her here. I assure you, her first year in Lowell shall also be her last."

"Husband, I told you my fears, and if you had set up your authority, Abby would have been obliged to stay at home; but perhaps she is doing pretty well. You know she is not accustomed to writing, and that may account for the few and short letters we have received; but they have all, even the shortest, contained the assurance that she would be at home at the close of the year."

"Pa, the stage has stopped here," said little Charley, and he bounded from his father's knee. The next moment the room rang with the shout of "Abby has come! Abby has come!" In a few moments more, she was in the midst of the joyful throng. Her father pressed her hand in silence, and tears gushed from her mother's eyes. Her brothers and sisters were clamorous with delight, all but little Charley, to whom Abby was a stranger, and who repelled with terror all her overtures for a better acquaintance. Her parents gazed upon her with speechless pleasure, for they felt that a change for the better had taken place in their once wayward girl. Yes, there she stood before them, a little taller and a little thinner, and, when the flush of emotion had faded away, perhaps a little paler; but the eyes were bright in their joyous radiance, and the smile of health and innocence was playing around the rosy lips. She carefully laid aside her new straw bonnet, with its plain trimming of light blue ribbon, and her dark merino dress showed to the best advantage her neat symmetrical form. There was more delicacy of personal appearance than when she left them, and also more softness of manner; for constant collision with so many young females had worn off the little asperities which had marked her conduct while at home.

"You had better have bought me a pair of spectacles, for I am sure I cannot see anything." There were tears in the rough farmer's eyes, but he tried to laugh and joke, that they might not be perceived. "But what did you do with all your money?"

"I thought I had better leave it there," said Abby, and she placed her bank-book in her father's hand. Mr. Atkins looked a moment, and the forced smile faded away. The surprise had been too great, and tears fell thick and fast from the father's eyes.

"It is but a little," said Abby. "But it was all you could save," replied her father, "and I am proud of you, Abby; yes, proud that I am the father of such a girl. It is not this paltry sum which pleases me so much, but the prudence, self-command, and real affection for us which you have displayed. But was it not sometimes hard to resist temptation?"

"Yes, Abby, you may do anything you wish. I shall never again be afraid to let you spend a year in Lowell."

LUCINDA.

I have often heard this remark, "If their friends can give them nothing else, they will surely give them a wedding." As I have nothing else to present at this time, I hope my friends will not complain if I give them an account of the first wedding in our town. The ceremony of marriage being performed by his Excellency the Governor, it would not be amiss to introduce him first of all.

Let me then introduce John Wentworth , whose country seat was in Salmagundi. The wedding which I am about to describe was celebrated on a romantic spot, by the side of Lake Winnipiseogee. All the neighbors within ten miles were invited, and it was understood that all who came were expected to bring with them some implements of husbandry, such as ploughs, harrows, yokes, bows, wheelbarrows, hods, scythe-snaths, rakes, goads, hay-hooks, bar-pins, &c. These articles were for a fair, the product of which was to defray the expenses of the wedding, and also to fit out the bride with some household furniture. All these implements, and a thousand and one besides, being wanted on the farm of Wentworth, he was to employ persons to buy them for his own especial use.

Johnny O'Lara, an old man, who used to chop wood at my father's door, related the particulars of the wedding one evening, while I sat on a block in the chimney-corner , plying my knitting-needles, and every now and then, when the eyes of my step-mother were turned another way, playing slyly with the cat. And once, when we yonkers went upon a whortleberry excursion, with O'Lara for our pilot, he showed us the spot where the wedding took place, and described it as it was at the time. On the right was a grove of birches; on the left a grove of bushy pines, with recesses for the cows and sheep to retire from the noon-day sun. The background was a forest of tall pines and hemlocks, and in front were the limpid waters of the "Smile of the Great Spirit." These encircled about three acres of level grass-land, with here and there a scattering oak. "Under yonder oak," said O'Lara, "the ceremony was performed; and here, on this flat rock, was the rude oven constructed, where the good wives baked the lamb; and there is the place where crotched stakes were driven to support a pole, upon which hung two huge iron kettles, in which they boiled their peas. And on this very ground," said O'Lara, "in days of yore, the elfs and fairies used to meet, and, far from mortal ken, have their midnight gambols."

The wedding was on a fine evening in the latter part of the month of July, at a time when the moon was above the horizon for the whole night. The company were all assembled, with the exception of the Governor and his retinue. To while away the time, just as the sun was sinking behind the opposite mountains, they commenced singing an ode to sunset. They had sung,

"The sunset is calm on the face of the deep, And bright is the last look of Sol in the west; And broad do the beams of his parting glance sweep, Like the path that conducts to the land of the blest,"

when the blowing of a horn announced the approach of the Governor, whose barge was soon seen turning a point of land. The company gave a salute of nineteen guns, which was returned from the barge, gun for gun. The Governor and retinue soon landed, and the fair was quickly over. The company being seated on rude benches prepared for the occasion, the blowing of a horn announced that it was time for the ceremony to commence; and, being answered by a whistle, all eyes were turned toward the right, and issuing from the birchen grove were seen three musicians, with a bagpipe, fife, and a Scotch fiddle, upon which they were playing with more good nature than skill. They were followed by the bridegroom and grooms-man, and in the rear were a number of young men in their holiday clothes. These having taken their places, soft music was heard from the left; and from a recess in the pines, three maidens in white, with baskets of wild flowers on the left arm, came forth, strewing the flowers on the ground, and singing a song, of which I remember only the chorus:

"Lead the bride to Hymen's bowers, Strew her path with choicest flowers."

The bride and bridesmaid followed, and after them came several lasses in gala dresses. These having taken their places, the father of the bride arose, and taking his daughter's hand and placing it in that of Clifford, gave them his blessing. The Governor soon united them in the bonds of holy matrimony, and as he ended the ceremony with saying, "What God hath joined let no man put asunder," he heartily saluted the bride. Clifford followed his example, and after him she was saluted by every gentleman in the company. As a compensation for this "rifling of sweets," Clifford had the privilege of kissing every lady present, and beginning with Madame Wentworth, he saluted them all, from the gray-headed matron, to the infant in its mother's arms.

The cake and wine were then passed round. Being a present from Madame Wentworth, they were no doubt excellent. After this refreshment, and while the good matrons were cooking their peas, and making other preparations, the young folks spent the time in playing "blind-man's-buff," and "hide and go seek," and in singing "Jemmy and Nancy," "Barbara Allen," "The Friar with Orders Grey," "The Lass of Richmond Hill," "Gilderoy," and other songs which they thought were appropriate to the occasion.

At length the ringing of a bell announced that dinner was ready. "What, dinner at that time of night?" perhaps some will say. But let me tell you, good friends , that "the best time for a wedding dinner, is when it is well cooked, and the guests are ready to eat it." The company were soon arranged around the rude tables, which were rough boards, laid across poles that were supported by crotched stakes driven into the ground. But it matters not what the tables were, as they were covered with cloth white as the driven snow, and well loaded with plum puddings, baked lamb, and green peas, with all necessary accompaniments for a well ordered dinner, which the guests complimented in the best possible manner, that is, by making a hearty meal.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet