I learned to believe that there is something beyond the anguish of a lover, or a husband, in the death of one beloved. I learned to think that an acquired tie is never so strong as a natural one.

The whole course of life is a series of mistakes—made and corrected; and this was one of them. The agony of the bereaved father was far greater than my own, although I thought that I loved poor Louise as strongly as it was possible for a husband to love—although I knew that I loved her now far more than even before I became her husband.

I was not then aware that there is a love beyond that which I then felt—a love, compared with which, a father’s, though it may be as enduring, must be more cold.

We laid her in the still, still grave. We mingled our tears together, and returned to the house, now solitary to us both. We said not a word of future plans. We made no arrangements. We dealt with no business. The life and the love that was gone, was a bond between us, which seemed both to him and me, unseverable. At first, I gave way to my grief—sat in the little room that had been hers. Wept by the side of the bed where she had lain in my arms, and in the arms of death, and writhed under the first great disappointment of my earthly hopes. Oh, how sweet, how beautiful, how pleasant was her memory, and how bitter, how terrible the thought that I could never hold her to my heart again.

For two days I was brutally selfish—I thought only of myself, and of my sad, sad loss. In the last week, I had learned to love her more than I ever loved her before. It seemed, indeed, as if we had become one, and that my heart lay dead with hers in the cold earth.

I was roused from this sort of stupor by the old woman-servant coming in as I sat there, and saying in her simple way—

“Ah! sir, it is very sad, indeed, for you, but there is one who has a sadder fate than yours. In heaven’s name, shake off your sorrow, and go and see him. You are young, and he is old. You have long years, and, perhaps, bright days before you. He has nothing but darkness and solitude between him and the grave. You have lost one whom you loved well, but you have time, perhaps, to love again. But he has lost the only one, and can love no more. Go and see him, sir. Go and see him; for her whole heart was in you, and he will think that his child’s spirit comes back to visit him with her husband. He has not broken bread,” she added, “since we laid her on that bed, and there is no sorrow, like an old man’s sorrow for the death of his only one.”

I took the good creature’s hands in mine, and wrung them hard, though I could not speak, and went forth to seek the bereaved father.

I found him in his old room, with half-a-dozen books at his feet—tried, and thrown down upon the floor. All his activity was gone. He was quiet and still enough now; but when he saw me, he started up, and we ran into each other’s arms, as father and son, weeping very bitterly.

We never mentioned her name, and I do not recollect that, during the whole fortnight I remained there, he ever alluded to her except upon one occasion, and that was, when we were on the eve of parting.

First, however, let me say how we came to part at all. Our minds had become a little more calmed. We sat together, and sometimes conversed. He had resigned his professorship, took no interest in any thing which had pleased and amused him before, and saw no one but myself and one or two old friends. One day, however, while we were seated together, not talking, but with our eyes fixed upon vacancy, and our thoughts resting on the past, the Chief of Police came in, and spoke to him in a whisper. The old man’s attention was soon roused, and as he had a great hatred of secret communications, he answered and asked questions in a loud tone, which soon made me aware of the following facts: that France extending her aggressions far and wide, and at this time exercising a sort of Dictatorship over Prussia, under whose Protectorate Hamburgh was supposed to be, had demanded that all emigrants who had found refuge in that city should be expelled or arrested. Resistance was not very easy. Submission was not very pleasant; and the mode which the authorities took to escape from their difficulty was—to inform all emigrants of the demand which had been made, with a hint that it would be better for them to deliver Hamburgh from their presence. The amount of the whole information was, that there was no longer any safety for me there; that at any moment I might be arrested at the mandate of France, and no one in those days could tell what would be the result.

The poor professor was in a terrible slate of distress and agitation; and I was very much grieved to leave the father of my poor Louise. But my resolution was soon taken. The ship in which I had engaged my passage to America, was still in the port, and to sail in three days. All my preparations were rapidly made, and nothing remained but to bid my good father-in-law adieu. On my marriage day he had given me a rouleau of gold Frederics, amounting to the two thousand dollars he had promised; but without this, I was comparatively rich; for my fifty louis d’ors remained untouched, and I had accumulated a good many dollars by teaching. I therefore took him back the rouleau, and told him I did not think I had any right to retain it. He would not receive it, however, saying:

“Put it up, put it up. Do you think, Louis, I would rob my dead child? No, no, my dear boy. You and poor Louise were one. I had hoped that you would have remained here to close my eyes; for my time will not be long. But God punishes me by denying that satisfaction. You must write to me as soon as you reach the shores of America, and you shall hear from me very soon after. If I have occasion to communicate with you before, I will address my letter to Boston.”

This was the only occasion on which he mentioned his daughter’s name. His eyes remained tearless, however, and the words were spoken in that dull, cheerless, despairing tone, which made me fear, not without reason, that he would never recover from the shock he had received. He saw me on board the vessel, and took leave of me, as a father might of a son whom he could never behold again. He was very, very sad; and when he had descended the ship’s side, and sat in the little boat, he bent down his eyes, and never lifted them to look at the vessel which was about to carry me away.

It was growing dusk when I embarked, and the ship was to sail about the time of high water, which was at ten o’clock. I went down therefore at once to my little, uncomfortable berth, with no great hope of sleeping, but rather to be out of sight, for there were feelings in my heart at that moment, which I did not wish exposed to the eyes of others. I was weary, however, and exhausted; for I had slept but very little during the last three days, and after lying in sad stillness, shut up in the close, evil-smelling cabin for about an hour, I fell into the most profound slumber that I ever recollect to have obtained. I heard nothing, I knew nothing; and when I woke, the broad day was looking at me through a round, thick glass window, like an eye, in the side of the cabin; and I could hear a strange sort of rushing, gurgling noise close at my head, giving me the first intimation that there was nothing but that frail plank between me and the wide, deep sea. A negro, in a white jacket, with his sleeves turned up from his large-boned, sinewy, black arms, was laying a table in the middle of the cabin, as if for the morning meal, and putting out my head, I asked him where we were.

He grinned at me with his white teeth, saying—

“Can’t tell, massa. No post-house in middle of sea. You glad of your dinner, I reckon, habin’ had no breakfas’. You come and eat good dinner. Keep him down if you can. He, he, he.”

I did not feel myself the least disposed to be sick, however, and the ship seemed to be going with so smooth and easy a motion, that I felt very sure for that day at least, I should escape the infliction which most young voyagers have to endure. I rose and dressed myself, but had hardly completed my toilet, when my friend, the negro, made his appearance with an enormous piece of roast beef. He then brought in a great tureen of pea-soup, and a dish of potatoes; and such was our fare almost every day during the voyage, with the slight, and not very pleasant variation of strongly salted beef, instead of fresh, which took place when we had been about six days at sea. Such was the provision of an American packet-ship in those days. Hunger, however, they say is good sauce, and I must confess that I was ravenous. When the dinner was served, the captain of the vessel came down, with his only other passenger, one of the most extraordinary looking beings I ever saw. She was a Madame Du Four; an emigrant like myself; dressed in the fashion of the court of Louis the Fifteenth, with a robe of stiff brocade silk, not very clean, and a petticoat, shown in front, of green satin. She had strong-marked aquiline features, very keen dark eyes, and shaggy brows, was enormously tall, and had also added to her height by a sort of tower upon her head of most extraordinary construction, consisting, I fancy, of a cushion, over which her hair, well powdered, was carried on all sides, with a lace cap, and coquelicot ribbons surmounting the whole. She was highly rouged, and painted white also; but those female vanities did not prevent her from having a somewhat fierce and masculine look, which was not at all softened by a sort of finikin minauderie of manner with which it contrasted strongly. On the first day, too, I could not help thinking when she moved across the cabin, or walked about the deck, that I detected a pair of Hessian boots under her enormous petticoats. On the following day, however, she had shoes, buckles, and silk stockings. Our dinner passed pleasantly enough, though the bluff American Captain could hardly get on with his meal for laughter whenever Madame Du Four opened her mouth. The fun he had out of her during the passage was quite as good as double passage money, although I must acknowledge she spoke English very well, and therefore it was not at her language that he laughed. She was exceedingly agreeable, too, notwithstanding her oddities, had an immense fund of information, and seemed to have traveled a great deal. Like all Frenchwomen she had great curiosity, and never rested till she had wormed out of me, my whole history, with the exception of that part which referred to my poor Louise—a subject too sacred to be touched upon by me. To my surprise, and not altogether to my satisfaction—for it made me accuse myself of indiscretion—she took down the name of Father Bonneville and Madame de Salins, and I endeavored to get in return, some information respecting herself. But there she was proof against all enquiries; and I could only discover that she had friends or relations in Louisiana.

After dinner I went upon the deck, and there the principal part of my time was spent during the voyage, whether the weather was fine or foul; for the cabin was close and miserable.

I have heard men, and read books, expressing the highest enthusiasm and admiration of the sea, but I suppose I am very unimaginative; for I never could discover any thing in it to excite my admiration, except perhaps a certain degree of sublimity, which always attaches to vastness. As we passed along over the bosom of the waters, with one unvarying expanse around us, that ocean about which men rave so much, seemed to me nothing but one great, dull, brown heaving mass, very unpleasant to the eye, and exceedingly monotonous. As the sun went down, however, the prospect was a little varied on that first day, by the long, bright line of ruby light which he cast from the horizon to the ship; but except twice, we never had the honor of seeing his face in the evening; though once or twice he broke out about mid-day. Generally the sky was covered with clouds, and very often a thick mist enveloped us, exciting greatly the indignation of the captain, who seemed to think he had a right to clear weather. I was not even treated to a storm, though, occasionally, it blew what the captain called half a gale, and then the great, greenish brown, drugget-looking thing that surrounded us was tossed up into some very uncomely and disagreeable billows. Happily for myself I was not in the slightest degree sea-sick, which raised me greatly in the opinion of the captain, who used to wink knowingly at meal times toward the cabin of good Madame Du Four, who never appeared in rough weather, and say, with a laugh, “The old woman is laid up on the locker, I guess.”

At the end of three weeks one of the sea phenomena which I had often heard described, occurred as we were passing some fishing banks. It was night, and the sky was very cloudy, but the whole sea was in a blaze of light, as if the Milky-Way had been transferred to its bosom. Every wave that passed was loaded with stars, and not only the wake of the ship, but long lines in different directions where the sea was agitated, seemed all on fire. This continued for many hours, and I have seldom seen any thing more marvelously beautiful.

Here, too, we saw a great number of small fishing vessels—the first ships of any kind that we had met with. A whale or two also came in sight, and long troops of white porpoises; but nothing else occurred to enliven us during the whole passage; and I must confess, that I cannot conceive any thing more dull, heavy and uninteresting, taken as a whole, than a voyage across the wide Atlantic.

Certainly my spirits did not rise during the passage. I had made up my mind to write and read a great deal, and to occupy my thoughts as far as possible with indifferent subjects; but I did nothing of the kind, and I have remarked since that a ship is the idlest place in the whole universe. Nobody seems to do any thing but the sailors, and they nothing more than they are obliged to do.

At length, oh blessed sight! just as day was beginning to break we perceived a light-boat, and the captain announced that we were on the coast of America. I never was so rejoiced at any thing in my life, especially when, a few minutes after, I heard him order a gun to be fired for a pilot. But whether in punishment at my repining, or in order that I might have a full and competent knowledge of the sea, before I had done with it, the cannon had hardly roared out its first call for a pilot, when the wind chopped round suddenly from the west with a little south in it, and in a quarter of an hour was blowing a heavy gale off the coast. For four long, tedious days we continued struggling against this merciless enemy, in no little danger, as I understood afterward, and during the whole of that time I was enlivened by hearing the plaintive voice of Madame Du Four exclaiming to herself, “Oh, mon Dieu! je vais mourir,” together with other sounds, not nearly so euphonious.

At length, however, we got into the beautiful port of Boston; and as we sailed peacefully amongst the blue islands, up came Madame Du Four, painted, patched and brocaded, and as brisk as a bee.

——