The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-03-06
For the National Era
L ii b B r O T III E r S.
BY e. d. z. N. soUTHwoRTH.

CHATTER v.
Judge not; the workings of his brain
Ana OF his heart thou not see;
What looks to Thy dim eyes a stain,
In Gods pure light may only be
scar brought from some well fought field,
where thou woudst only faint and yield.
"The look, the air that frets thy sight
I'M May be a token tina, below,
The soul has closed in deadly fight
With some internal fiery foe,
whose glance would scorch Thy smiling grace,
a 40 east thee shuddering, on thy face"
1t had been arranged, as the best plan for
all parties, under present circumstances, that
Fannie should retain her situation as shop
woman at Lerouxs hair-dressing and fancy
store, where they were anxious to keep her as
long as possible. With Valentines hundred
dollars, and fifty dollars that had been made
in overwork by Phedra, a room was taken in
M, and neatly furnished. And there Val
entine and Fannie went to housekeeping, after
this fashion: Fannie, still tending Leroux's
shop all day, ate and slept at home, where
Valentine visited her once week, or oftener,
whenever he could do so.
In the mean time, as winter advanced, Mr..
Warnings health was fully re-established; and,
as many of bis favorite boon companions, who
had been absent on their summer tours, return
ed to the neighborhood, Oswald began to re-
sumo his former habits of extravagant and
reckless dissipation. Deer-hunting, coursing,
partridge-shooting, and other field sports, occu-
pied the mornings; and dinner-parties, oyster
suppers, and other entertainments, accompanied
and followed by wine-drinking, song-singing,
card-playing, and similar orgies, at home or
abroad, filled up the afternoons and evenings.
Again were Valentines services brought into
requisition three or four nights of every week,
to drive his master to the city at dusk, and
home again at dawn. Upon these occasions,
Valentine would drive Mr.. Waring first to the
clubhouse, restaurant or billiard saloon that
happened to be his destination for the evening,
set him down, take the carriage and horses to
the livery-stable, leave them, and then go to
Leroux's, and stay with Fannie until the hour
of closing the store arrived, when he would
take her home.
Valentine, from his gentlemanly" appear
ance, dress, and address, as well as from his
perfectly trustworthy character, was not an un-
welcome visiter at the store, where, behind the
counter, and by the side of Fannie, he made
himself so useful, that Monsieur Leroux would
often speculate as to the possibility of getting
him for an assistant. This also was Valentine IS
and Fannie's great ambition; but it was vain
one, for his personal attendance was considered
indispensable to his masters comfort.
Valentines standing order, upon these occa.
sions of their night visits to the town. was to be
in waiting with the carriage for Mr.. Warning at
twelve o'clock. And the man was obliged to
be punctual, though he had often to wait two or
three hours for the coming of the master. And,
as general fact, the longer Mr.. Waring remain.
ed among his boon companions, the more in
toXicated he became; and, when at last he ap-
peared, all the old humiliations and provoca-
tons of Valentines former days were renewed.
You know what these were. 1t would be vain
repetition to describe them again.
All this was, in every respect very trying to
the poor boy. He religiously adhered to his res.
olution of abstinence from all spirituous liquors,
and constantly and prayerfully struggled against
the ebullitions of his own impetuous temper.
But the life he led acted nearly fatally upon a
very fragile organization; and all individuals
of antagonstically mixed races are known to
be frail. The continued loss of rest, habitual
irregularity in food and sleep, affectionate anx-
iety upon account of his master, tender solici-
tude for his own gentle, little wife, frequent
and excessive provocation from Oswald, all
combined to wear and fret his originally excl
table temperament to state of unnatural ner
vous rritability that could scarcely sustain with
calmness the rudeness of the shocks to which
in his false position, he was constantly exposed
and therefore he was very frequently-to use
his own expression at the love feasts "-in
great danger of falling from grace.
Rejecting upon this portion of the poor
doomed boys life; recollecting the great, the al
most superhuman struggle his spirit was ma
king against the terrible, combined powers Of
evil; of his discordant organization; his fiery,
impulsive temperament; his unfortunate edu
cation; his unhappy position, and his exasper.
fateful-we find his parallel nowhere in mod
ern times, and are forced to think of the age Of
antiquity, and of those mighty but Intellectual
struggles of some fore-doomed mortal, like
Gpidus, in the power of the angry Fates
Upon poor Valentines silent, deadly strug-
gle, none but the plying eye of our Father
looked. And nothing but miracle could have
ayerted its final and fatal issue; and miracles
are not wrought at the expense of moral, free
agency. There came at last day-an awful
day-when the boy spoke, and others heard, of
that fell struggle with the powers of darkness.
But we anticipate. The dark and trying sea-
sons were relieved by brighter ones, alternating
like night and day.
The hours spent with Fannie, either in the
gay, lighted shop, among a thousand objects of
taste and beauty, and occupations shared with
her, and congenial to his own aesthetic fancy,
or in their little home, that, despite of poverty,
Fannie's taste had made beautiful, were sea.
sons of unclouded happiness, in which all care
was forgotten.
There were sunny hours, also, when Mr.. War
ing's better nature was in the ascendant; when
he would feel like gratifying his own beneyo-
lence, and making Valentine happy, by fair
promises of making him free; of setting him
and Fannie up in the hair-dressing and fancy
business, which he would laughingly declare
to be exactly suited to Valentine that Val.
could be the barber, and Fan. the ladies' hair.
dresser; and that they could have a nice little
house in an eligible street, with the dwelling
above, and the shop below. Thus he would
talk, indulging his good humor at the small
expense of his breath, and amusing himself
with noticing the effect of his words upon Val.
entine's sensitive nature, playing upon its
chords of hope and fear, as if his heart had
been harp, and his oaon the experimenting
hand that tried its strings. Perhaps he intend.
ed to realize at some future day. these expecta-
tons that he raised; at least, at the time of
speaking, he wished to please the boy by in.
fasing hope; but alas he only disturbed
him, by exciting and aggravating his old pas,
sionate aspiration after liberty.
But, besides those happiest hours spent with
Fannie, there were other seasons of forgetful.
ness, and of almost unalloyed bliss. These were
the Sabbath services and the weekly meetings,
where the ardent, Jealous soul of the young
man found its expression in eloquence that