place to Columbia, the capital of the State. Here they were obliged to take passage in a stage-coach, with nine passengers inside. It was intensely hot, the road was very dusty, and there had been no rain for a month. "Three days of uninterrupted company in a vehicle will make you better acquainted with another," says Lavater, "than one hour's conversation with him every day for three years. Some men are very entertaining for a first interview; but after that they are exhaused, and run out. On a second meeting, we shall find them very flat and monotonous: like hand-organs, we have heard all their tunes." But Musidora regarded every individual she met with the interest of one who is intensely analyzing the human heart; and therefore she was never wearied, as her friend was, of this everlasting clatter of tongues for three whole days. "There are braying men in the world, as well as braying asses; for, what's loud and senseless talking and swearing any other than braying?' This tedious journey was occasionally relieved by an impulse of pity for the four stage-horses, that induced every passenger to spring out of the coach and walk up-hill for a distance of three or four hundred yards. Their first resting-place was Greenville, a village three hundred miles from the sea, surrounded by mountains, and the air so bracingly cold, that even in July and August an oak fire, morning and evening, would be most acceptable. Musidora here met with her brother Halcombe's particular friend, the Governor of the State, who was sojourning there for the purpose of holding a large military encampment; when seven thousand people assembled on the ground where the tents were struck; the greatest enthusiasm prevailing among all classes of society in South Carolina in regard to these yearly martial exercises indeed, the very boys are infused with a military spirit. The Governor insisted that Musidora should accompany him to a very large party, given in compliment to himself; and the effect of all this running hither and thither was wholesome, inasmuch as it drew Musidora's mind away from uselessly brooding over past sorrows. The next morning the two friends continued their journey until they arrived, by invitation, at the residence of the far-famed John C. Calhoun, whose plantation was named Fort Hill, from the ruins of a fort found there, and believed to have been erected by the Cherokee Indians, in their terrible wars with the Iroquois, or Six Nations. The tradition of the South is, that the Shawnees came from the Suwanee river, in Florida, and that the first place they settled was the banks of the Savannah. At this position they became involved in a war with the Cherokees. The latter prevailed, after a long and sanguinary contest, and drove the Shawnees north. They cherish the memory of this event as one of their proudest achievements. Mr. Calhoun was devotedly loved by all classes of men around his home. "His great mind and soul was given to politics." ... "In earnestness he was never surpassed by even a religious devotee;" for he was a patriot, whose whole body was full of light, and his integrity of purpose blazed from his eye, and from every action of his whole life. The tricks of politicians never found one single loop-hole to hang by in his magnificent, daring, noble character. You could not converse with him ten minutes without ascertaining that truth sat enthroned in his inmost soul; and no living man could ever have approached him with ambiguous proposals. "As a public speaker, Calhoun occupied the foremost rank among the great orators, not of America only, but of the world." ... “IIis diction was remarkable for the absence of ornament and metaphor, and for its clear, terse, and logical compactness. Avoiding all discursiveness of the imagination, his speeches are characterized by a salient pressure to the point, and a fiery vehemence of dogmatic argumentation, unbroken in its flow." Musidora now had a long-coveted opportunity of seeing this intellectual giant around his family fireside. His wife was a quiet woman, not possessing genius, but a fund of every-day sense; and it was surprising to Musidora how much influence she exerted over this godlike genius. Mrs. Calhoun, however, was one of the few wives of great men who appreciated proudly her husband's majesty of mind and character. Indeed, as a husband, father, master, or friend, there is probably no living being who could say aught except in his praise. Musidora felt in his presence that his very simplicity of manner was so imposing, that she trembled with awe. He indeed became so much interested in her frankness and originality, and precision of sentiment on all subjects, that he was her friend ever afterwards. In the midst of the purest intellectual delight she had ever experienced from the conversation of any genius since her lover's death, poor Musidora received dispatches to hurry home, as her brother Halcombe was in a dying state. Bidding farewell to South Carolina's most august statesman, and his natural, affectionate, and numerous family, Musidora arrived at Palmetto Grove as soon as it was in the range of possibility to reach there. She found her brother had been accidentally shot by a friend, who was on a visit to him at his plantation. The whole load of shot entered immediately under Halcombe's knee, as the sportsman, standing near him, was about starting on a deer-hunting excursion. The negroes, when they saw their loved master's blood spouting and streaming on the ground, from the great gaping wound, could scarce be restrained from laying violent hands on the perpetrator of the mischief, and mobbing him on the spot. Halcombe himself was in such an agony of pain, that it was some time before he could be moved out of the bed of weltering gore that overspread the grass on which he lay. Finally, his deeply sympathizing servants contrived the least-jolting means of transporting him to the house, where for two years he was imprisoned, with no hope of ever again being able to walk, except on crutches. The faithful slaves were unwearied in their attentions, taking turns at night to sit up with him. Indeed, being up all night, and sleeping in the sun all day, exactly suits the taste of the black man; and whenever he offers to sit up at night with his ill master (which they all most cheerfully do), the housekeeper provides quantities of food for him to eat, during his hours of watching. A smart black sempstress, named Harriet, dressed his wide-mouthed wound, every day, with a mother's careful tenderness. Musidora now found exercise for all her sensibilities, in making her brother's imprisonment tolerable to him. She was a splendid reader, and therefore entertained him with her great ingenuity in making all authors speak as if they were bodily present; so exquisite was her mimicry of the tones and manner each one was supposed to demonstrate in their conversational powers. Indeed, in reading Shakspeare's plays, she merely introduced the different characters that were to act their parts on the stage; and afterwards her brother knew exactly which one of them was then speaking, by the great versatility of Musidora's voice. She never read a book without making her mind well acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of the author, so as definitely to receive or reject the sentiments or theories he advanced. Halcombe at last recovered so as to be able to walk, though the wounded leg shrunk up an inch shorter than the other. He, however, finally became as strong and robust as ever; and as Musidora had been so absorbed in his restoration as never to allude to her own blasted hopes, he believed her mind free from all its former sorrows, and he fell back on his old habit of utterly neglecting her. "O Thou, who driest the mourner's tear, How dark this world would be, If, when deceived and wounded here, "The friends who in our sunshine live, And he who has but tears to give, Must weep those tears alone. |