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THE BAPTIST BAXXiiH
A MiMSOBS A.H» LSSSBSASaY HWSFAJFtt.
BY JAS. N. ELLS 4 CO.
VOL. IV.
@ta gaplfet gmiw,
DEVOTED TO RELIGION AND LITERATURE,
Is published every Saturday, at Atlanta, Georgia, at the
subscription price of three dollars per year.
JAMES N. ELLS & CO.,
Proprietors.
Jas. N. Ells. S. D. Niles. A. K. Seago.
[From Sharpe's London Magazine.’}
MY GHOST.
A BEAUTIFUL AND TRUE STORY.
I AM not superstitious. Whatever lean
ings I may have had in the days of my
youth towards spiritualities and mysticali
ties, and absurdities of that nature, I am
now practical enough—a man of middle
age, a married man. Still, as I write the
heading of this page, a thrill shivers through
me; and as my wife (bending-over me)
reads the same, 1 feel her little hand trem
ble sympathetically upon my shoulder. —■
She knows the story, and I know the story;
and the story is true !
On this cold winter night, when the wind
is rushing with shrieks against the window,
like some hopeless ghost begging to be let
in ; when the snow stands adrift under the
hedge where the dead child was found, and
under the churchyard wall, where the va
grant who died in the work-house was bu
ried yesterday, stands adrift like a spectre
—the more horrible that it is motionless;
when the furniture is cracking in the room,
and the curtains stir tremulously about the
window, and the whole house shakes, and
the latchless attic-door creaks continuously
on its rusty hinge—to-night, though my
wife is beside me, and I can almost hear
the low breathing of our baby in the room
above, and can catch sounds of Christmas
merriment from my household servants in I
the kitchen—to-night I will toll you this ,
said true story of my earlier life, the histo
ry of “My Ghost! ” '
I was scarcely nineteen; I was reading '
for Cambridge. These were the circum
stances: The place was Ventnor, in the Isle '
of Wight. At Ventnor I fell in love —this
confession is foolish, no doubt. All boys ’
of scarcely nineteen do fall in love, reading *
diligently, in the pages of fair living faces
some scraps of knowledge whereby they
matriculate as sons of the universal Alma ’
Mater. “The hard grained Muses of the
cube and square” hold Aphrodite (the Ura
nian particularly) in holy horror; but, nev
ertheless, she will rise from the troubled
seas of young souls: the Muses have no
chance against her. One day, according to
my custom, I sauntered into the Landslip
—that curious little bit of chaos which, if it
were only a larger scale, would be sublime.
I bad with me a volume of Shelley, (I liked
Shelley in those unpractical days, and
thought I understood him,) my pipe, and
my sketch-book —pleasant companions all, '
on a glorious July morning; there being a ‘
cool, steady breeze out, and above a blue ,
sky, looking bluer by contrast against a J
Hock of fleecy clouds which pastured on it ‘
far over the sea. Through the hazel thick-p
et by a tangled path, jumping a mimic ra
vine, climbing a few rock steps, and so to a 1
higher level—a little terrace of emerald
velvet-grass, shut in on one side by over- 1
hanging rocks; open on the other, .and "
overlooking a gradual declivity bristling
with miniature crags and precipices, waving ‘
and rustling with tiny forests of hajel.—
Bex ond a distant hillock, which rose again''
from the bottom of this declivity, gleamed
the Channel. As 1 threw myself upon«*fie
grass, its level cut against the sea, emerald
green against steel-blue. I never saw such
green grass anywhere else: it looked as ifi
it were a special dancing place of the fairies,
whither they flocked in such multitudes
that their rings were inscribed one within
the other, and so covered the whole turf. 1
lighted my pipe; Shelley opened of him
self at the “ Witch of Atlas; ” and 1 lay ,
gazing idly on the emerald green and the
dashing steel-blue, and the sheep-clouds
sleeping on the steep of the sky, with the
line running in my head :
‘•And universal Pan, tis said, was there:”
And universal Pan, tis said, was there.
I was too idle to think of sketching, I was
too idle to read. Oh ! that luxurious idle
ness of the days before I became practical !
What can be the good of staring up into a
void of sky ? Do you suppose it was made
to be looked at ? 1 watched a hawk quiv-|
ering on such rapid wings that he seemed
motionless: he swooped half way down to
earth, and then rose again, poising over ex
aclly the same spot. Three rooks crossed
the sky, and forthwith proclaimed battle
with the hawk, chasing him hither and thith
er with hoarse warcries. A steamer came
In sight on the strip of sea. casting a long
horizontal line of smoke behind it,as straight
as if it had been ruled. There was a rustle
in the grass close to me: a golden, dark
spotted snake glided along, leaving the
grass-blades trembling in his wake. My
pipe was out: I turned for my tobacco
pouch to refill it, when there was a voice—'
“Oh ! don’t move, please • ”
I thought the snake had spoken : but no,
it was n»t the serpent; it was Eve. There,
seated in the hollow between two of the
over-slanting rocks, “ half light, half shade.”
like Tennyson’s “Gardener’s Daughter,”)
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, FEBRUARY 28, 1863.
was a lady—no, not a lady ; a little girl—
no, sarcely that: *a young lady, we will
say. She was drawing, and had evidently
been quietly putting me in as afore-ground
figure to her sketch when I had moved, and
startled the sketcher into that strange ex
clamation : “ Oh ! don’t move, please ! ”
She instantly apologized —“ I beg your
pardon, I am sure! ” and then laughed a
little laugh at the absurdity of the scene. —
She half-rose, blushing and smiling and
apologizing; while I, with bashful volubili
ty besought that she would continue her
sketch, resuming my former position as
nearly as I could.
“ Is that right ? ”
“Your head a little higher, if you please.
Thank you.”
There was silence again. My back was
towards the lady, as it had been at first.—
I felt uncomfortably angular, and had a
nervous twitching in my legs. I longed to
look over my shoulder, that I might realize
and verify my momentary vision. A tiny
figure dressed in white; a small, thin face,
almost lost between two torrents of brown
hair w hich swept dow n from a brown gipsy
hat; eyes of the first magnitude, and a blush
rose-red. The moments passed slowly by. 1
My vision was getting more and more in
distinct. Was the hair brown? What 1
was the expression of the eyes? Was she ;
a girl or a woman? This last question
puzzled me the most. She was too self
possessed for the one, too frank for the i
other. She was very quiet. Why should 1
we not talk ? She had seemed to have a ‘
pleasant voice; I was not sure that she 1
had ; but I could satisfy myself on that |
point; I would speak to her. <
“I hope I have not spoiled your draw- <
ing.” No answer. “Tell me vhen 1 may .
move.” No answer. j
1 was silent, having some misgivings.— i
There was no sound but the sawing of the 1
grasshoppers, and the faint rustling of the i
hazel-bushes lower down. <
“May I move now?” I asked, waited a j
moment, and then sprang to my feet. The i
little lady had disappeared. The grass I
was slightly pressed where she had sat; I
other sign of her there was none ! \
This was my first sight of Daisy Main- i
waring. Os this little Hower, whom I thus t
saw bedded in the emerald-grass, 1 soon t
learned more, much more than was good >
for my subsequent peace of mind. Three i
days after, she and her father came to call I
on the clergyman with whom I was read- i
ing. I recognized her at once, chiefly by <
her luxuriant hair. She evidently recog- 1
nized me too, but would not acknowledge ;
that she did so. Impelled by that bashful (
impudence which often dares more than ]
settled nonchalance, I said suddenly as 1 stood
beside her: “ Did you finish your sketch?” j
The blush rushed to her face; she ti died ;
out a trebled laugh, and answered : “ 1 was <
ashamed of myself, and so I ran away.” i
A strange little person was this Daisy i
Mainwaring: not a child, and yet scarcely f
a woman, having all the frank innocence r
and unspoiled originality of the child, with j
the gravity and self-possession of the mat- I
ron. 1 learned what she was, little by lit- i
tie. She startled me often, outraged all my <
preconceptions, following an orbit of her t
own which I could not at all calculate.— <
Iler inexplicability lay in this: that she was «
herself. She had not been moulded into
the conventional pattern: her natural an- <
gles and erratic curves had not been press- i
ed and tortured into the conventional line i
of beauty. It takes one’s breath when un- g
taught nature dares to appear openly in the t
: midst ot this artistic world. She was not ’
beautiful : thin and small, with a chjld-face, s
always drooping, it seemed, under then
weight of her brown hair; eyes which de-h
lied you, their language was one that had . i
died out of the earth long ago; but this lan !
, guage I learned, and could at length read
them. She was as .variable as an Aprill
day, abandoning herself to joy or grief like .
a child, and for causes unimaginable to any
but hersclt. she always needed a strong,
tender hand to guide and quiet her. This
I need endeared her t<> me most. Iler edu-i
cation and manner of life had been unlike
that of girls generally. Her mother died
when she was very young, and she was an
only child. Her father was a literary man
—a laborious student, shut up always in a
fog of psychological problems and meta
physical enigmas. Margaret had never left
him; had never been to school, had never
had any feminine home-companionship ex
icept that of the one servant. Iler father;
had educated her : and this education had
been a kind of compromise between coming
out of his fog to her and taking her into the
fog to himself. He had experimentalized
on her as psychologists must, and xx here he
i should have taught had often questioned,
guessing at the riddles of human nature in
her as if she had been a Sphinx. The effect
of this education was that she was’ ignorant
of most things whien girls usually know,
and had acquired an amount of heterogene
ous erudition which would have puzzled
J most men. She had jead numberless
I strange, heavy, antique books, which seem
ed to lie as a weight upon her, and from
which she had gathered dialecticAl subtle
ties and mystical beliefs which frightened
one. Ever since she was a child she had
| begun to be her father’s amanuensis, and
HIS BANNER OVER US IS LOVE.
now this labor of love had increased until
it fell somewhat heavily on her. It was
not the brown hair alone that weighed
down the weary little head.
Some such anomaly as I have tried to
sketch was this Daisy Mainwaring, and
with her I fell in love. We soon became
great friends. One good influence at least
of her education was that she had none of
that silly prudery which most young ladies
affect towards young gentlemen. She liked
me, and when I used to go into their lodg
ings towards the afternoon, to drag out the
old man and her for a walk, would rise from
her writing, run to me, and put her little
ink-stained fingers in mine, saying: “Oh ! I
am so glad you have come!” Then, her
father would take the spectacles from his
dim abstracted eyes, and put his book un
der his arm : her brown hat was in a mo
ment tied over her brown hair, and we sal
lied forth for the Landslip. Arrived there
the old man was soon absorbed in his book
and Margaret and I, having chosen an effec
tive “ bit” of scenery, sat down to sketch.
She drew very incorrectly, but had an eye
for color and an intuitive perception of the
spirit of nature, which was marvelous.—
Solemnly the little face used to peer over
my shoulder as I altered her outlines; and
then she w-ould dash away at the color with
a success of effect which made me half-en
vious. Our sketch finished, we talked—in
what manner rested with her. Sometimes
she was so childishly wild and mischievous
that she had macle me angry. She teased
“papa” until he came out of his fog; she
teased me, blurred my wet sketch, hid my
pipe; then climbed up inaccessible rocks
or crept through the hazel-thickets which
closed behind her and swallowed her up.
At other times she would be silent and
grave, and then pour out a torrent of small
imaginary troubles, looking most disconso
lately at the past and the future, prophesy
ing eVils and wretchedness, accusing herself
of unheard-of crimes and selfishness.—
Again, she would start some airy supernat
ural theory, enforcing it by keen arrows of
borrowed dialectic, which sounded strange
ly enough in her treble voice. Thus she
would talk of preexistence, and argue that
in dreams came our reminiscences thereof;
that sleep was the intermediate state be
tween life and death ; that birth and death
were the same—mere gateways leading
into a new state of life, and so would fall
to wondering how far it was possible to
retroject ourselves again through these
gates, to reenter the world before this life,
to reenter this world after death. Thus
again, she would retail to me Berkley’s
doctrine of Idealism, colored by her own
poetic imagination, and would prove that 1
who sat beside her did not exist, save as an
impresion on her mind ; that the grass
around us was not really emerald-green,
did not wave and tremble in the wind, was
not grass at all: in fact, was nothing. In
the truth of which theory, modified, 1
agreed ; for was I not addicted to Shelley ?
The old man, hearing metaphysical words
and idioms, would arouse himself from his
book, and we would find his spectacles fixed
upon us. He regarded us purely in a psy
chological light, and would busy himself a
moment in noting the effect.we had on each
other—how each acted sympathetically on
each.
Those were happy days. Even with my
good wife seated near to me by the roaring
winter-fire, I can not help looking back
with a reprehensible fondness on those idle
summer-days. Still, I can remember that
they were not altogether happy. There
was a certain Sir Hercules Lowther, a huge
stolid young gentleman, of whom I was at
that time very jealous. lie was an old
friend of the Mainwarings; had known
them in London long before I had known
them ; was a sort of benefactor to them, in
that he was assisting the father pecuniarily
in the bringing out of a grand psychologi
cal history which had been the work of his
lite. This Lowther was the very antithesis
of Margaret; large in body, small in mind;
-low, both corporeally and mentally; and
yet for Margaret he had a decided and un
mistakable liking. To my discomfort, I
found him often in the Mainwaring lodg
ings when I made my daily visit there.—
Sometimes he would even accompany us
to the Landslip, speaking little, but watch
. ing Daisy with wide, wondering eves, pav
| ing her clumsy attentions and helping her
i awkwardly. I felt she could not like this
I man; and yet, had she not often told me I
j that we in this world—imperfect—soughd
out that which was unlike ourselves to per-j
feet our own imperfection? What if this'
stolid mass ot flesh and muscle was the
make-weight to sober down Daisy to a
proper earthliness? L his Lowther was
gall and wormwood to me; the more espe
cially that I saw that Margaret knew her
power over him, and rejoiced in it. What
u oman has not a touch of coquetry in her ?
Would not the lack of it unsex them ? If
they were not gifted by nature with this
desire q/ pleasing, where would be their
magical power ever us men? Daisy, with
all her innocence—her innocence by no
means less immaculate thereby soon
learned her power over Lowther, and over
me; and used that power, sometimes ty
rannically .
However, before the summer was over,
Margaret and I were engaged. I had no
' jealousy of Lowther then, but pitied him
sincerely. Happy times those ! My dear
little wife that was to be grew daily more
womanly and natural; her childish wilful
ness and petulance became softened and
harmonized by love, her fragmentary* ab
stract speculations gravitated towards a
concrete centre, and so xvidened and puri
fied our affection. Mr. Mainwaring was i
surprised at the turn which our “acting
sympathetically each on each” had taken.
There was little difficulty in arranging the
matter on this side. Aly wordly prospects
were moderately good ; sufficiently so if he
had been urgent on that point, which he
was not. I firmly believe he looked on the
projected marriage as a foolish and incon
sequent conclusion to his psychological
theory of our mutual attraction. On an
other side the difficulty was much greater.
I was an only son, as Daisy was an only
daughter—l had but one parent, as she
had; but mine was a mother. To my
mother I wrote about my engagement —
foolish, fervid letters, which made the affair
look more boyishly romantic than it really
was. However, the engagement w y as made,
and to it she acceded perforce, giving her
consent in cold and sarcastic phrases, and
hinting vaguely at cunning fascinations and
artful entrapments. I told Margaret noth
ing of this. If it chilled me in one way, it
but served to make my affection for her the
warmer and more tender. Sir Hercules
Lowther, with his large estates, would have
been a much richer quarry to fly at than
myself. She had given up him for me. I
had no doubt of her, and I was sure that it
would be the same with my mother when
she came to see and know her.
Autumn came; the last roses died out of
the gardens; the leaves of the sumach be
gan to turn blood-red ; our green platform
in the Landslip had become sere and yellow
under her harvest-suns. The time had come
when I was to leave Ventnor for Cambridge.
I walked with Daisy to our first try sting
place for the last time. She was grave and
sad, and then broke out into one of her old .
fits of misery, which I had not heard for a
long time. She threw herself on the sod
den grass, and hid her little face on my
knees. She foreboded all kinds of evil.—
We should never see each other other any
more; I should die; I should cease to love
her. She ended with childish sobs as if her
heart would break. I stroked her luxuri
ant hair, and chided and soothed her. Then
she seated herself quietly at my feet, and
after a long silence began to speculate
dreamily on what we should do during the
separation. We weie to think of each oth
er at a certain time every day; we were
always to think of each other at night be
fore we went to sleep, and so try to dream
of each other. It was not impossible, she
thought, that in dreams we might actually
meet. Such things had been; why should
they not be now ? The old philosophers
could separate their souls from their bodies
by intense thought. She believed firmly
it might be done. Again, there , were
strange sympathies often between twin
brothers —each knew when the other was
ill—each felt the joy or the sorrow of the
other. We loved each other better than
twin-brothers did, why should it not bo the
same with us ? She was sure she would
know if I were ill; she w ould feel happy
when I was happy, sad when I was sad. —
Supposing she was to die suddenly, would
it be possible for her to come to me to say
good-bye, or to summon me to her death
bed? If either of us died, would it be pos
sible for the dead to come and see the liv
ing?—to make its presence known?—to
appear visibly as it used to be in the flesh?
Agreements had been made between dear
friends that the one who died first should
come from the future world and visit the
other: would I make this agreement with
her? She was pertinacious on this point;
she would have this agreement made. To
satisfy her I acceded, and ratified the prom
ise with a kiss. This seemed to comfort
her, and I scolded her for her foolishness.
It had been arranged that she was to come
and stay with my mother during the Christ
mas vacation. There were but two months ,
of separation, and I talked to her of this, •
and tried to cheer her with the prospect of
so soon meeting again. Still this our last |
meeting in the old place was very (
sad—as different from the first as was the .
yellow from the green grass, the gray sky j
| from the blue, the bitter east wind from the
soft west.
« * * * «
D;<isy came to us at Christmas, and that
Christmas saw the end of our engagement.
It is useless to detail all the petty words
and doings which Jed to this rupture. My
mother is dead, (God rest her soul I) and
; the wrong that she did was done for love
of me. She would have been jealous of
any one whom I loved better than herself
—for whom I meditated leaving her; and
to Daisy she had taken a strong dislike be
fore she even saw her. They were the op
posites of each other, and could no more
sympathize than fire could mingle with wa-1
ter. My mother was of cold temperament,
precisely bred, looking upon surface prop-i
erties as vital matters; never suffering &
wave of passion or strong feeling to disturb :
the visible level of her nature, proud of her'
TERMS — Three Dollars a-year.
> good blood and of her competent wealth.
Daisy was what I have sketched her; and,
moreover, she was poor, and neither knew
nor cared about her pedigree. My moth
er’s orthodoxy was shocked at her rambling
speculations; it was a sin, she thought, for
an y g’ r l to have a deep thought beyond her
catechism, her creed, and the established
interpretations thereof. She was shocked
at her undisguised fondness for me: when
Daisy on my first arrival ran up to me and
hung about my neck, my mother blushed
scarlet. I had dreaded their coming to
gether, and the event I soon saw would
prove worse than my forebodings. The
first symptom of my mother’s aversion was
a rigid silence about Margaret, when alone
with me: then came the old hints’about
cunning entrapments, and, in addition, allu
sions to want of modesty and religion;
then plainer sayings; and the issue was
hard words between mother and son, and
consequent quarrel and estrangement.
“ Your mother does not like me,” said
my poor little betrothed to me continually,
and looked in my face with her solemn
eyes, and lead the truth there, though my
lips evaded it. It was soon plain enough.
Greater familiarity emboldened my moth
er’s tongue, and cruel inuendos and relent
less sarcasms became broader day by day.
My mother is dead, (God rest her soul.')
and I w T ill write no more of this, for I can
not write forgivingly even now. One
morning my darling came to me and said
quietly, “You shall not marry me;” and
then she threw herself into my arms and
kissed me passionately, and she was gone.
I stormed and raged in vain. That episode
of my life was over. O, Daisy ! Daisy ! if
hearts do bleed—do, in their agony, wring
forth bitter tears of blood—then my heart
bled when I lost you !
“Did I cry out ‘Daisy’? No, wife,
you have fallen asleep over your work and
dreamed it. Do not come to look over
me. You shall read the story - when it is
finished.”
♦
******
I sowed a plentiful crop of wild oats at
Cambridge, which bore their mingled pro
duce of good and ill. When I came home
after degree, for a week, before I set off" for
Italy, I was much more cynical and stoical
than in the days of my matriculation. The
old heart-wounds had cicatrized long ago,
and the heart had become more callous in
the cicatrization. It would have taken
much to make me fall in love now, and if I
had done so I should have stifled the weak
ness before I had confessed it even to. my
self. That past quarrel was made up be
tween my mother and me; but we general
ly, by mutual consent, fenced round that
ugly pit with a wall of silence. I had lost
all sight of the Mainwarings ; I never heard
their name, never suffered myself to think
about them. Only in my dreams little
Daisy would sometimes rise up, her head
drooping beneath the w eight of brown hair,
and her solemn eyes fixed always tenderly
on mine. Lowther had been my fellow
collegian ; but he, the rich man, did not
stay to take his degree as I did, to whom
the prestige of that ceremony would be
serviceable at the Bar. So of Lowther I
had lost sight also, for a year or more.
On the last morning of my sojourn at
home before my departure, 1 sat reading
my letters at the breakfast table —reading
aloud a scrap here and there which I thought
might interest my mother. Suddenly I be
came silent, as in a letter from a college
friend I came upon this passage : “ You re
member old Lowther. Did you ever think
it possible that that stolid Hercules would
would find hisOmphale? Yet nonetheless
found she is, and Hercules is a slave, and
only all his wealth will ransom him. He
is going to be married. The affair is to
come off immediately. Omphale is not
precisely a queen; in fact is a poor little
milliner, or a governess, or something of
that sort; her name ; s Affth. waring. Peo
ple talk with horror about the mesalliance.
Ido not see it in that light. A man might
do worse than marry a milliner. You see
I am reading for ordination, and so getting
I moral.”
I turned white, and gasped for breath.—
j The old wound burnt like fire, and throbbed
i as if the cicatrice would break.
( “ What is the matter ? ” said my mother.
“There is bad news.”
A.ll my cynicism rose to help me. “Not
lat all so,” I said. “ You remember a little
i person whom you never would call Daisy ?
Well, the said little person is about to be
married to a friend of mine. It is a good
match. The pearl is a pearl of great price,
and has sold itself for fifteen thousand per
annum.”
Shame on me for that sentence; but all
my old jealousy had sprung up within,
more acrid than it had ever been before.
“And who is the purchaser ?’’asked my
mother, in a low voice, but flushing to her
; temples. The wall of silence was down,
and the air from the pit was unwholesome
with fire-damp. I read her face. As the
I old love had awakened in my breast, so the
old fear had awakened in hers. She guess
ed what my pale face meant, and I knew
I the meaning of the flush on hers. She
: should not read my weakness thus.
[CONCLUDED ON ZOURTH PAGE.]
NO. 15.
