The Choir Invisible
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me of being on my way here, and who impressed it upon me that I must tell
you of the last displays of women-wear: painted and velvet ribbons, I think
they said, and crepe scarfs, and chintzes and nankeens and moreens and
sarcenets, and--oh yes!-some muslinette jackets tamboured with gold and
silver. They said we were becoming civilized--that the town would soon be
as good as Williamsburg, or Annapolis, or Philadelphia for such things. You
see I am like my children: I remember what I don't understand."
"I understand what I must not remember! Don't tell me of those things," she
added. "They remind me of the past; they make me think of Virginia. I wear
Homespun now, and am a Kentuckian.""Well, then, the Indians fired on the
Ohio packet-boat near Three Islands and killed--"
"Oh!" she said, with pain and terror, "don't tell me of that, either! It
reminds me of the present.""Well, in Holland two thousand cats have been put
into the corn-stores, to check the ravages of rats and mice," he said,
laughing.
"What is the news from France? Do be serious!"
"In New York some Frenchmen, seeing their flag insulted by Englishmen who
took it down from the liberty-cap, went upstairs to the room of an English
officer named Codd, seized his regimental coat and tore it to pieces."
"I'm glad of it! It was a very proper action!"
"But, madam, the man Codd was perfectly innocent!"
"No matter! His coat was guilty. They didn't tear him to pieces; they tore
his coat. Are there any new books at the stores?"
"A great many! I have spent part of the last three days in looking over
them. You can have new copies of your old favourites, Joseph Andrews, or
Roderick Random, or Humphrey Clinker. You can have Goldsmith and Young, and
Chesterfield and Addison. There is Don Quixote and Hudibras, Gulliver and
Hume, Paley and Butler, Hervey and Watts, Lavater and Trenck, Seneca and
Gregory, Nepos and even Aspasia Vindicated--to say nothing of Abelard and
He1oise and Thomas a Kempis. All the Voltaires have been sold, however, and
the Tom Paines went off at a rattling gait. By the way, while on the subject
of books, tell the major that we have raised five hundred dollars toward
buying books for the Transylvania Library, and that as soon as my school is
out I am to go East as a purchasing committee. What particularly interests
me is that I am going to Mount Vernon, to ask a subscription from President
Washington. Think of that! Think of my presenting myself there with my
tricoloured cockade --a Kentucky Jacobin!"
"The President may be so occupied with the plots of you Kentucky jacobins,"
she said, "that he will not feel much like supplying you with more
literature." Then she added, looking at him anxiously, " And so you are
going away?"
"I'm going, and I'm glad I'm going. I have never set eyes on a great man. It
makes my heart beat to think of it. I feel as a young Gaul might who was
going to Rome to ask Caesar for gold with which to overthrow him. Seriously,
it would be a dreadful thing for the country if a treaty should be ratified
with England. There is not a democratic society from Boston to Charleston
that will not feel enraged with the President. You may be sure that every
patriot in Kentucky will be outraged, and that the Governor will denounce it
to the House."
"There is news from France, then--serious news?""Much, much! The National
Convention has agreed to carry into full effect the treaty of commerce
between the two Republics, and the French and American flags have been
united and suspended in the hall. The Dutch have declared the sovereignty of
the French, and French and Dutch patriots have taken St. Martin's. The
English have declared war against the Dutch and granted letters of marque
and reprisals. There has been a complete change in the Spanish Ministry.
There has been a treaty made between France and the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
The French fleet is in the West Indies and has taken possession of
Guadeloupe. All French emigrants in Switzerland have been ordered to remove
ten leagues from the borders of France. A hundred and fifty thousand
Austrians are hurrying down toward the Rhine, to be reinforced by fifty
thousand more."
He had run over these items with the rapidity of one who has his eye on the
map of the world, noting, the slightest change in the situation of affairs
that could affect Kentucky; and she listened eagerly like one no less
interested.
"But the treaty! The treaty! The open navigation of the Mississippi!" she
cried impatiently.
"The last news is that the treaty will certainly be concluded and the open
navigation of the Mississippi assured to us forever. The major will load his
flatboats, drift down to New Orleans, sell those Spanish fops his tobacco
for its weight in gems, buy a mustang to ride Home on, and if not robbed and
murdered by the land-pirates on the way, come back to you like an enormous
bumblebee from a clover-field, his thighs literally packed with gold."
"I am so glad, so glad, so glad!"
He drew from his pockets&nbs
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