IS PATIENCE A VIRTUE?

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

INTRODUCTIONS are awkward things enough-necessary evils sometimes, it is true, but always to be dispensed with if possible. It would not, perhaps, be civil to thrust a mirror before a gentleman's eyes without a preliminary 'By your leave, sir!' But if we are able to place it so that he can catch a glimpse of himself in passing, and thus afford him an opportunity of reforming some trifing inaccuracy of costume, he will be content to avail himself of the advantage without adverting to the obscurity which may envelop his benefactor. Did it sort with my humour to grope like a mole through the earth that covers an hundred generations, I could make out an authentic pedigree that would rival any in the sporting calendar; but besides that this deliberate method is entirely foreign to my nature and habits, I cannot but see that there would be about as much propriety in such a mode of introducing one's self to the reader, as there would be in engraving a genealogical trec upon our visiting cards. I shall, therefore, forbear to gratify my pride of ancestry, by enumerating the various generations of the Hasty family, that flourished beyond the flood (of the Atlantic, I

mean), and commence with my first American ancestor, Mr. Wildrake Hasty, who, after a headlong quarrel with his guardians concerning the amount of his allowance while under age, scampered over with Sir Walter Raleigh, and falling head over heels in love the very first day after he landed, was married in a month, and became the founder of our family on this side the water. Skipping several of his successors, who were not remarkable for anything that ever I could learn, beyond an unusual facility in getting rid of money, I shall mention only Mr. Solomon Hasty (the only Solomon of the name), who happily achieved an heiress, and thus, in some measure, retrieved the rather drooping fortunes of the race, and enabled my immediate ancestors to transmit to me a goodly inheritance, which was considerably augmented by a long (and, oh! how tedious!) minority.

So much by way of introduction. I should have preferred omiting even this short specimen of the art of prosing. I love the stirring, abrupt style, where the narrator bounds on in the middle of a scene, brandishing his wooden sword, and shaking his cap and bells, and calling 'Presto! Presto! for a continual change of scene; but this sort of commencement supposes the story, or chit-chat which follows, to be, if not as sparkling as champagne, at least as brisk as bottled ale. I have no wit, and scarcely a wonder in store; and I am far too honest to lure the reader on by a promise of turtle, and then set him down to hasty pudding. So I prose at the outset, meaning to be rather better than worse than my pro

mises.

When I had reached the independent age, and my guardians had resigned their controul over my person and fortune, they very cơnsiderately advised me to marry and settle in life, thinking, perhaps, that so mercurial a character required a wife by way of ballast.

But I had other matters on hand. I could not think of 'settling' until I had, by a long flight, prepared myself to relish repose. So I dashed over Europe, feeing conducteurs to extra diligence, and overturning ciceroni, and laming valets de place, in the impetuosity of my sight-seeing efforts. Like all the rest of the world, I talked large and felt small at St. Peter's; I leaned over the Leaning Towers; I paced and repaced the gallery of the Louvre, and threaded the intricacies of the Palais Royal; I dived under the Thames, peeped from the top of St. Paul's, and said and did all that was proper in the hallowed atmosphere of Poets' Corner; and then came home as fast as winds and wave could carry me, in a violent hurry to 'settle.' And here began my difficulties. If men could live like albatrosses, forever on the wing, I should have settled at once, in imitation of that sensible bird; but being resolved to clip my roving wing, and seek a gentle mate, it became necessary to provide a nest fit for the keeping of so dear a charge. Fortunately for me, a tract of forest-land, which had been purchased by my grandfather, as a sort of land-in-the-moon speculation, afforded just the site I wanted for my dwelling, and I was soon involved in all the delightful bustle of building. Plans crowded upon me; elevations without limit exalted my imagination. All and each seemed to promise all that need be promised; yet every new projector found a flaw in the ideas of his predecessor. At length, to cut the matter short, I decided by lot; and, dismissing my theorists, set myself seriously at work to realize a romance in stone and lime.'

This proved the first great lesson of my life. To build in the country! Words fail me, and I pass on.

My house was finished, my shrubberies planted, my garden under skilful hands, and now I set about falling in love, with all

my heart and soul, as I am said to do everything. Nothing could equal the rapidity with which I lost my heart, save the celerity with which I found it again; and after this process had been repeated some two or three times, I began to fear that my friends had been correct in prophesying that I should never be of one mind long enough to be married. But my time had not yet come. Love had his revenge at last, and when I least expected it. I had taken my gun, and was popping away in the grounds of a cynical old bachelor, my very good neighbour, within whose walls I never beheld the shadow of a petticoat, when I came very near shooting a lady who sat reading in a summer-house. She was pale with fright, and I thought her scarcely pretty; but as I poured forth my apologies, rich blushes rose to her cheek, and enhanced the radiance of her dove-like eyes, till my charmed sense confessed her the perfection of feminine loveliness. The fair Serena was, doubtless, my destiny; and after a few faint struggles I yielded myself her captive, rescue or no rescue.

Of all the wonders Master Cupid ever performed, certainly this feat was the most wonderful. My fair enslaver was in everything my opposite, or at least the prominent parts of our characters were altogether and strikingly dissimilar, and it was the consciousness of this difference that alone induced my attempts at resistance. Serena was lovely and well connected: what reasonable mortal could ask more? I was not a reasonable mortal. I sighed for perfect similarity of taste and temperament, of habits and opinions; and I expected some evidence of a reciprocal passion, which, though female delicacy and reserve might restrain, they should not, I thought, be wholly able to conceal. I sighed in vain for anything of this kind. She was won after an age of wooing, and I ought to have felt assured that she would not have accepted me unless she had pre

ferred me to all the world. I did at first believe so, when, after having once rejected my suit on the score of her fears for the stability of my attachment, she was induced to revise her sentence after I had endured a year's probation, and at length acknowledged herself satisfied by my perseverance. But doubts once planted, continued to torment me at intervals. Unskilled in the female heart, I expected the most powerful of all sentiments to exhibit itself nearly in the same manner in all characters, at least in married life; and it was hard for me to learn to read in my wife's mild eyes and unimpassioned gentleness of manner, the tranquillity of happy love.

A chilling doubt of Serena's affection caused me to quarrel with her unchanging placidity of temper. I faneied that I should be happier if she were angry, or even jealous, since I should then have some proof of my influence over her feelings. No husband ever took half the pains to soothe the angry passions of his termagant spouse, that I tried in endeavouring to discover whether my wife had any passions. I sought occasions to thwart her wishes; I pretended, at times, an indifference I never felt, and even affected to flirt with other pretty women; yet never could succeed in ruffling her temper. Perhaps her nicer tact enabled her to read, through the mists in which I strove to envelop it, the almost idolatrous devotion with which I regarded her. At any rate there must have been a preservative power somewhere, since my waywardness did not estrange her from me. I must often have seemed to her cruelly unobservant of her feelings; yet the same unvarying gentleness, the same cloudless smile was ever ready to welcome me. Her complexion, indeed, would change, and be pale or glowing according to my mood, and her eyes withdraw from any expression in mine which harmonized not with their own natural dewy tenderness; but never, under any