 Book One of Pierre or the Ambiguities by Herman Melville. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ndu, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Pierre or the Ambiguities by Herman Melville. Book One, Pierre, Just Emerging from His Teens. Chapter One There are some strange summer mornings in the country when he who is but a sojourner from the city shall early walk forth into the fields and be wonder smitten with the trance-like aspect of the green and golden world. Not a flower stirs. The trees forget to wave. The grass itself seems to have ceased to grow and all nature, as if suddenly become conscious of her own profound mystery and feeling no refuge from it but silence, sinks into this wonderful and indescribable repose. Such was the morning in June when, issuing from the emboured and high-gabled old home of his father's, Pierre, duly refreshed and spiritualized by sleep, gaily entered the long, wide, elm-arched street of the village and half unconsciously bent his steps toward a cottage which peeped into view near the end of the vista. The verdant trance lay far and wide and through it nothing came but the bridled kind, dreamily wandering to their pastures, followed, not driven, by ruddy cheeked, white-footed boys. As touched and bewitched by the loveliness of this silence, Pierre neared the cottage and lifted his eyes. He swiftly paused, fixing his glance upon one upper-open casement there. Why now this impassioned youthful pause? Why this incandled cheek and eye? Upon the sill of the casement, a snow-white, glossy pillow reposes and a trailing shrub has softly rested a rich crimson flower against it. Well, maced thou seek that pillow, thou odiferous flower, thought Pierre. Not an hour ago, her own cheek must have rested there. Lucy, Pierre! As heart rings to heart, those voices rang and for a moment, in the bright hush of the morning, the two stood silently but ardently eyeing each other, beholding mutual reflections of a boundless admiration and love. Nothing but Pierre left the youth at last. Thou hast forgotten to bid me good morning. That would be little. Good mornings, good evenings, good days, weeks, months and years to thee, Pierre, right Pierre, Pierre. Truly, thought the youth, with the still gaze of inexpressible fondness, truly the skies do hope and this invoking angel looks down. I would return thee thy manifold good mornings, Lucy. Did not that presume, though, haths lived through the night and by heaven thou belongs'd to the regions of an infinite day? Fine now, Pierre, why should ye youths always swear when ye love? Because in us love is profane, since it mortally reaches towards the heaven in ye. There thou flyst again, Pierre. Thou art always circumventing me so. Tell me, why should ye youths ever show so sweet despartness in turning all trifles of ours into trophies of yours? I know not how that is, but ever was it our fashion to do. And shaking the casement shrub, he dislodged the flower and conspicuously fastened it in his bosom. I must away now, Lucy. See, under these colours I march. Bravissimo, oh, my only recruit. Pierre was the only son of an affluent and haughty widow, a lady who externally furnished a singular example of the preservative and beautifying influences of unfluxuating rank, health and wealth when joined to a fine mind of medium culture uncankered by any inconsolable grief and never worn by sordid cares. In mature age the rose still miraculously clung to her cheek. Leithness had not completely uncoiled itself from her waist, nor smoothness unscrolled itself from her brow, nor diamond-ness departed from her eyes. So that, when lit up and bedidomed by ballroom lights, Mrs. Glendoning still eclipsed far younger charms, and had she chosen to encourage them, would have been followed by a train of infatuated suitors little less young than her own son Pierre. But a reverential and devoted son seemed to love her enough for this widow-bloom. Besides all this Pierre went namelessly annoyed and sometimes even jealously transported by the too ardent admiration of the handsome youths who now and then, caught in unintended snares, seemed to entertain some insane hopes of wedding his unattainable being. Pierre had more than once, with a playful malice, openly sworn that the man, grey-beard or beardless, who should dare to propose marriage to his mother, that man would, by some prempatory, unrevealed agency immediately disappear from the earth. This romantic filial love of Pierre seemed fully returned by the triumphant maternal pride of the widow, who in the clear-cut lineaments and noble air of the sun saw her own graces strangely translated into the opposite sex. There was a striking personal resemblance between them, and as the mother seemed to have long stood still in her beauty, heedless of the passing years, so Pierre seemed to meet her half-way, and by splendid percussity of form and feature almost advanced himself to that mature standpoint in time, where his pedestal mother so long had stood. In the playfulness of their unclouded love and with that strange license, which a perfect confidence and mutual understanding at all points had long bred between them, they were wont to call each other brother and sister. Both in public and private this was their usage, nor when thrown among strangers was this mode of address ever suspected for a sportful assumption, since the unmarantheness of Mrs. Glendening fully sustained this youthful pretension. Thus freely, enlightingly, for mother and son she slowed on the pure-joined current of life. But as yet the fair river had not borne its waves to those sideways-repelling rocks, where it was thenceforth destined to be forever divided into two unmixing streams. An excellent English author of these times, enumerating the prime advantages of his natal lot, cites foremost that he first saw the rural light. So with Pierre, it had been his choice fate to have been born and nurtured in the country, surrounded by scenery whose uncommon loveliness was the perfect mold of a delicate and poetic mind. While the popular names of its finest features appealed to the proudest patriotic and family associations of the historic line of Glendening. On the meadows, which sloped away from the shaded rear of the menorial mansion, far to the winding river, an Indian battle had been fought in the earlier days of the colony. And in that battle, the paternal great-grandfather of Pierre, mortally wounded, had sat unhorsed on his saddle in the grass with his dying voice, still cheering his men in the fray. This was Saddle Meadows, a name likewise extended to the mansion and the village. Far beyond these plains, a day's walk for Pierre rose the storied heights where in the Revolutionary War, his grand-father had for several months defended a rude but all-important stockaded fort against the repeated combined assaults of Indians, Tories and regulars. From before that fort, the gentlemanly but murderous half-breed Brant had fled, but had survived to dine with General Glendening in the amicable times which followed that vindictive war. All the associations of Saddle Meadows were full of pride to Pierre. The Glendening deeds by which their state had so long been held bore the ciphers of three Indian kings, the aboriginal and only conveyancers of those noble woods and plains. Thus loftily in the days of his circumscribed youth did Pierre glance along the background of his race, little wrecking of that mature and larger interior development which should forever deprive these things of their full power of pride in his soul. But the breeding of Pierre would have been unwisely contracted had his youth been unintermittingly passed in these rural scenes. At a very early period he had begun to accompany his father and mother and afterwards his mother alone in their annual visits to the city where naturally mingling in a large and polished society Pierre had insensibly formed himself in the aryer graces of life. Without enfeebling the vigor derived from a martial race and fostered in the country's clarion air. Nor while thus liberally developed in person and manners was Pierre deficient in a still better and finer culture. Not in vain had he spent long summer afternoons in the deep recesses of his father's fastidiously picked and decorous library where the Spinsarian nymphs had early led him into a many a maze of all bewildering beauty. Thus with a graceful glow on his limbs and soft imaginative flames in his heart did Pierre glide towards maturity thoughtless of that period of remorseless insight when all these delicate warmth should seem frigid to him and he should madly demand more ardent fires. Nor had the pride and love which had so bountifully provided for the youthful nurture of Pierre neglected his culture in the deepest element of all. It had been a maxim with the father of Pierre that all gentlemanhood was vain. All claims to it preposterous and absurd unless the primeval gentleness of the golden humanities of religion had been so thoroughly wrought into the complete texture of the character that he who pronounced himself gentleman could also rightfully assume the meek but kingly style of Christian. At the age of sixteen Pierre partook with his mother of the holy sacraments. It were needless and more difficult perhaps to trace out precisely the absolute motives which prompted these youthful vows. Enough that as to Pierre had descended the numerous other noble qualities of his ancestors as he now stood heir to their forests and farms so by the same insensible sliding process he seemed to have inherited their docile homage to a venerable faith which the first glendoning had brought over sea from beneath the shadow of an English minister. Thus in Pierre was the complete polished steel of the gentleman girded with religion's silken sash and his great grandfather's soldierly fate had taught him that the generous sash should in the last bitter trial furnish its wearer with glory's shroud so that what through life had been warned for grace's sake and death might safely hold the man. But while thus all alive to the beauty and poesy of his father's faith Pierre little foresaw that this world has a secret deeper than beauty and life some burdens heavier than death so perfect to Pierre had long seemed the illuminated scroll of his life thus far that only one hiatus was discoverable by him and that sweetly-writ manuscript a sister had been omitted from the text he mourned that so delicious a feeling as fraternal love had been denied him nor could the fictitious title which he so often lavished upon his mother at all supply the absent reality this emotion was most natural and the full cause and reason of it even Pierre did not at the time entirely appreciate for surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man and it is first in point of occurrence for the wife comes after he who is sisterless is as a bachelor before his time for much that goes to make up the deliciousness of a wife already lies in the sister oh had my father but had a daughter cried Pierre someone who I might love and protect and fight for if need be he must be a glorious thing to engage in a mortal quarrel on a sweet sister's behalf now of all things would be heaven I had a sister thus air entranced in the gentler bonds of a lover thus often would Pierre invoke heaven for a sister but Pierre did not then know that if there be anything a man might well pray against that thing is the responsive gratification of some of the devoutest prayers of his youth it might have been that the strange yearning of Pierre for a sister had part of its origin and that still stranger feeling of loneliness he sometimes experienced as not only the solitary head of his family but the only surnamed male Glendoning extant a powerful and populous family had by degrees ran off into the female branches so that Pierre found himself surrounded by numerous kinsmen and kinswomen yet companion by no surnamed male Glendoning but the duplicate one reflected to him in the mirror but in his more wanted natural mood this thought was not wholly sad to him nay sometimes it mounted into an exultant swell for in the readiness and flushfulness and vain gloriousness of his youthful soul he fondly hoped to have a monopoly of glory and capping the fame column whose tall shaft had been erected by his noble sires and all this how unadmonished was our Pierre by that foreboding and prophetic lesson taught not less by Palmyra's quarries than by Palmyra's ruins among those ruins is a crumbling, uncompleted shaft and some leagues off ages ago left in the quarry is the crumbling corresponding capital also incomplete these time seized and spoiled these time crushed in the egg and the proud stone that should have stood among the clouds time left abased beneath the soil oh what quenchless feud is this that time hath with the sons of men Chapter 3 it had been said that the beautiful country round about Pierre appealed to very proud memories but not only through the mere chances of things had the fine country become ennobled by the deeds of his sires but in Pierre's eyes all its hills and swales seemed as sanctified through their very uninterrupted possession by his race that fond ideality which in the eyes of affection hollows the least trinket once familiar to the person of a departed love with Pierre that talisman touched the whole earthly landscape about him for remembering that on those hills his own fine fathers had gazed through those woods over these lawns by that stream along these tangled paths many a grand dame of his had merrily strolled when a girl vividly recalling these things Pierre deemed all that part of the earth a love token so that his very horizon was to him a memorial ring the monarchial world very generally imagines that in demagogical America the sacred past hath no fixed statues erected to it but all things irreverently seethe and boil in the vulgar cauldron of an everlasting uncrystallizing present this conceit would seem peculiarly applicable to the social condition with no chartered aristocracy and no law of entail how can any family in America imposingly perpetuate itself certainly that common saying among us which declares that be family conspicuous as it may a single half century shall see it abased that maxim undoubtedly holds true with the commonality in our city's family rise and burst like bubbles in a vat for indeed the democratic element operates as a subtle acid among us forever producing new things by corroding the old as in the south of France, vertigris, the primitive material of one kind of green paint is produced by grape vinegar poured upon copper plates now in general nothing can be more significant of decay than the idea of corrosion yet on the other hand nothing can more vividly suggest luxuriance of life than the idea of green as a color for green is the peculiar signet of all fertile nature herself herein by apt analogy we behold the marked anomalousness of America whose character abroad we need not be surprised is misconceived when we consider how strangely she contradicts all prior notions of human beings and how wonderfully to her death itself becomes transmuted into life so that political institutions which in other lands seem above all things intensely artificial with America seem to possess the divine virtue of a natural law for the most mighty of nature's laws is this that out of death she brings life still are there things in the visible world over which ever shifting nature has not so unabounded a sway the grass is annually changed but the limbs of the oak for a long term of years defy that annual decree and if in America the vast mass of families be as the blades of grass yet some few there are that stand as the oak which instead of decaying annually puts forth new branches whereby time instead of subtracting is made to capitulate into a multiple virtue in this matter we will not superstitiously but in fair spirit compare pedigrees with England and strange as it may seem at the first blush not without some claim to equality I dare say that in this thing the parage book is a good statistical standard whereby to judge her since the compilers of that work cannot be entirely intensable on whose patronage they most rely and the common intelligence of our own people shall suffice to judge us but the magnificence of names must not mislead us as to the humility of things for as the breath in all our lungs is hereditary and my present breath at this moment is further descended than the body of the present high priest of the Jews so far as he can assuredly trace it so mere names which are also but air do likewise revel in the endless descendedness but if Richmond and St. Albans and Grafton and Portland and Beclaw be names almost old as England herself the present dukes of those names stop in their own genuine pedigrees at Charles II and there find no very fine fountain since what we would deem the least glorious parentage under the sun is precisely the parentage of Beclaw for example whose ancestors could not well avoid being a mother it is true but had accidentally omitted the preliminary right yet a king was the sire then only so much the worse for if it be small insults to be struck by a pauper but mortalled offence to receive a blow from a gentleman then of all things the by blows of kings must be signally unflattering in England the peerage is kept alive by incessant restorations and creations one man George III manufactured 522 peers an earldom in abeyance for five centuries has suddenly been assumed by some commoner to whom and had not so much descended as through the art of the lawyers then made flexibly to bend in that direction for not Thames is so sinuous in his natural course not the bridge water canal more artificially conducted than blood in the veins of that winding or manufactured nobility perishable as stubble and fungus as the fungi those grafted families successively live and die on the eternal soil of a name in England this day 2,500 peerages are extinct but the names survive so that the empty air of a name is more endurable than a man or than dynasties of men the air fills man's lungs and puts life into a man but man fills not the air nor puts life into that all honour to the names then and all courtesy to the men but if Saint Albans tell me he is all honourable and all eternal I must still politely refer him to Nell Gwynn beyond Charles II very few indeed hardly worthy of note are the present titled English families which can trace anything like a direct unvitiated blood descent from the thief knights of the Norman beyond Charles II their direct genealogies seem vain as though some Jew clothesmen with a tea canister on his head turned over the first chapter of Saint Matthew to make out this unmingled participation in the blood of King Saul who had long died ere the career of the Caesar began now not preliminarily to enlarge upon the fact that while in England an immense mass of state masonry is brought to bear as a buttress and upholding the hereditary existence of certain houses while with us nothing of that kind can possibly be admitted and to omit all mention of the hundreds of unobtrusive families in New England who nevertheless might easily trace their uninterrupted English lineage to a time before Charles the blade not to speak of the old and oriental like English planter families of Virginia and the South the Randolphs for example one of whose ancestors and King James time married Pocahontas the Indian princess and in whose blood therefore an undirived aboriginal royalty was flowing over 200 years ago consider those most ancient and magnificent Dutch manners at the north whose purchase are miles whose meadows overspread adjacent countries and whose haughty rent deeds are held by their thousand farmer tenants so long as grass grows and water runs which hints of a surprising eternity for a deed and seem to make lawyers ink unobliterable as the sea some of those manners are two centuries old and their present patrons or lords will show you stakes and stones on their estates put there the stones at least before Nell Gwynn the Duke mother was born and genealogies which like their own river Hudson flow somewhat farther and straighter than the serpentine brooklet in Hind Park these far descended Dutch meadows lie steeped in a hinduish haze as Eastern patriarchalness sways its mild crick over pastures whose tenant flocks shall their feed long as their own grass grows long as their own water shall run such estates seem to defy time's tooth and by conditions which take hold of the indestructible earth seem to contemporize their fee-simples with eternity unimaginable audacity of a worm that but crawls through the soil he so imperially claims in Midland counties of England they boast of old Oaken dining halls where three hundred men at arms could exercise of a rainy afternoon in the rain of the plantagenits but our lords the patroons appeal not to the past but they point to the present one will show you that the public census of a county is but part of the role of his tenants ranges of mountains high as Ben Nevis or Snowdon are their walls and regular armies with stacks of officers crossing rivers with artillery and marching through primeval woods and threading vast rocky defiles have been sent out to destrain upon three thousand farmer tenants of one landlord at the blow a fact most suggestive two ways both were of shall be nameless here but whatever one may think of the existence of such mighty lordships in the heart of a republic and however we may wonder at their thus surviving like Indian mounds the revolutionary flood yet survive and exist they do and are now owned by their present proprietors by as good nominal title as any peasant owns his father's old hat or any duke his great uncle's old coronet for all this then we shall not air very widely if we humbly conceive that should she choose to glorify herself in that inconsiderable way our America will make out a good general case with England in the short little matter of large estates and long pedigrees pedigrees I mean wherein is no flaw chapter four in general terms we have been thus decided in asserting the great genealogical and real estate dignity of some families in America because in so doing we poetically establish the richly aristocratic condition of master Pierre Glendening for whom we have before claimed some special family distinction and to the observant reader the sequel will not fail to show how important is the circumstance considered with reference to the singularly developed character in most singular life career of our hero nor will any man dream that the last chapter was merely intended for a foolish bravado and not with a solid purpose in view now Pierre stands on this noble pedestal we shall see if he keeps that fine footing we shall see if fate has not just a little bit of a small word or two to say in this world but it is not laid down here that the Glendening stated back beyond pharaoh or the deeds of saddle meadows to the three magi in the gospels nevertheless those deeds as before hinted did indeed date back to three kings Indian kings only so much the finer for that but if Pierre did not date back to the pharaohs and if the English farmer Hamptons were somewhat the seniors of even the oldest Glendening and if some American manners boasted a few additional years and square miles over his yet think you that all is possible that a youth of nineteen should merely by way of trial of the thing threw his ancestral kitchen hardened stone with wheat in the stock and there standing in the chimney to thresh out that grain with a flail whose aerial evolutions had free play among all the masonry were not impossible for such a flailer so to thresh wheat in his own ancestral kitchen chimney without feeling just a little twinge or two of what one might call family pride I should say not or how think you it would be this youthful Pierre if every day descending to breakfast he caught sight of an old tattered British banner or two hanging over an arched window in this hall and those banners captured by his grandfather the general and fair fight or how think you it would be if every time he heard the band of the military company of the village he should distinctly recognize the peculiar tap of a British kettle drum also captured by his grandfather in fair fight and afterwards suitably inscribed on the brass and bestowed upon the saddle meadows artillery core or how think you it would be if sometimes of a mild meditative 4th of July morning in the country he carried out with him into the garden by way of a ceremonial cane a long majestic silver tipped staff a major general's baton once wielded on the plume nodding in musket flashing review by the same grandfather several times here in before mentioned I should say that considering Pierre was quite young and very unphilosophical as yet and with a rather high blooded and sometimes read the history of the revolutionary war and possessed a mother who very frequently made remote social illusions the epaulets of the major general his grandfather I should say that upon all of these occasions the way it must have been with him was a very proud elated sort of way and if this seem but too fond and foolish in Pierre and if you tell me that this sort of thing in him showed him no sterling democrat and that a truly noble man should never brag of any arm but his own then I beg you to consider again that this Pierre was but a youngster as yet and believe me you will pronounce Pierre a thoroughgoing democrat in time perhaps a little too radical altogether to your fancy in conclusion do not blame me if I hear make repetition and do verbally quote my own words and saying that it had been the choice fate of Pierre to have been born and bred in the country for to a noble American youth this indeed more than in any other land this indeed is a most rare and choice lot for it is to be observed that while in other countries the finest families boast of the country as their home the more prominent among us proudly cite the city as their seat too often the American that makes him's fortune builds him a great metropolitan house in the most metropolitan street of the most metropolitan town whereas a European of the same sort would there upon migrate into the country that here in the European half the better of it no poet no philosopher and no aristocrat will deny for the country is not only the most poetical and philosophical but it is the most aristocratic part of the earth for it is the most venerable and numerous bars have ennobled it by many fine titles whereas the town is the more plebeian portion which besides many other things is plainly evinced by the dirty unwashed face perpetually worn by the town but the country like any queen is ever attended by scrupulous ladies maids in the guise of the seasons and the town hath but one dress of brick turned up with stone but the country hath a brave dress for every week in the year sometimes she changes her dress 24 times in the 24 hours and the country weareth her son by day as a diamond on a queen's brow and the stars by night as necklaces of gold beads whereas the town's son is smoky paced and no diamond and the town's stars are pinchback and not gold in the country then nature planted our pier because nature intended a rare and original development in pier never mind if hereby she proved ambiguous to him in the end nevertheless in the beginning she did bravely she blew her wind clarion from the blue hills and pierne made out lyrical thoughts as at the trumpet blast a warhorse paused himself into the lyric of foam she whispered through her deep groves at eve and gentle whispers of humanness and sweet whispers of love ran through pier's thought veins musical as water over pebbles she lifted her spangled crest of a thickly starred night and forth at that glimpse of their divine captain and lord ten thousand mailed thoughts of heroicness started up in pier's soul and glared round for some insulted good cause to defend so the country was glorious benediction to young pier we shall see if that blessing pass from him as did the divine blessing from the Hebrews we shall yet see again I say whether fate hath not just a little bit of a word or two to say in this world we shall see whether this wee little bit scrap of latinity be very far out of the way Nemo contra doom nici deus ipsi Chapter 5 Sister Mary said pier returning from his sunrise stroll and tapping at his mother's chamber door do you know sister Mary that the trees which have been up all night are all broad again this morning before you do you not smell something like coffee my sister a light step moved from within toward the door which opened showing Mrs. Glendoning in a resplendently cheerful morning robe and holding a gay wide ribbon in her hand good morning madam said pier slowly and with a bow whose genuine and spontaneous reverence amusingly contrasted the sport of manner that had preceded it for thus sweetly and religiously was the familiarity of his affections bottomed on the profoundest filial respect good afternoon to you pier for I suppose it is afternoon but come you shall finish my toilet here brother reaching the ribbon now acquit yourself bravely and seating herself away from the glass she awaited the good offices of pier first lady in waiting of the Dowager Duchess Glendoning left pier as bowing over before his mother he gracefully passed the ribbon round her neck simply crossing the ends in front well what is to hold it there pier I am going to try and tack it with a kiss sister there oh what a pity that sort of fastening won't always hold where's the cameo with the fawns I gave you last night ah on the slab you were going to wear it then thank you my considerate and most politic sister there but stop there's a ringlet gone romping so now dear sister give the Assyrian toss to your head the huddly happy mother rose to her feet and as she stood before the mirror to criticize her son's adornings pier noticing the straggling tie of her slipper knelt down and secured it and now for the urn he cried madam and with a humorous gallantry offering his arm to his mother the pair descended to breakfast with Mrs. Glendoning there was one of those spontaneous maxims which women sometimes act upon without ever thinking of never to appear in the presence of her son in any disable that was not eminently becoming her own independent observation of things had revealed to her many very common maxims which often become operatively lifeless from a vicarious reception of them she was vividly aware how immense was that influence which even in the closest ties of her heart mirrors to appearances make upon the mind and as in the admiring love and graceful devotion of Pierre lay now her highest joy in life so she omitted no slightest trifle which could possibly contribute to the preservation of so sweet and flattering a thing besides all this Mary Glendoning was a woman and with more than the ordinary vanity of women a vanity it can be called which in a life of nearly 50 years had never betrayed her into a single published impropriety or caused her one known pain at the heart moreover she had never yearned for admiration because that was her birthright by the eternal privilege of beauty she had always possessed it she had not to turn her head for it since spontaneously it always encompassed her vanity which in so many women approaches to a spiritual vice and therefore to a visible blemish in her peculiar case and though possessed in a transcendent degree was still the token of the highest health in as much as never knowing what it was to yearn for its gratification she was almost entirely unconscious of possessing it at all many women carry this light of their lives flaming on their foreheads but Mary Glendoning unknowingly bore hers within through all the infinite tressories of feminine art she evenly glowed like a vase which internally illuminated gives no outward sign of the lighting flame but seems to shine by the very virtue of the exquisite marble itself but that bluff corporeal admiration with which some ballroom women are content was no admiration to the mother of Pierre not the general homage of men but the selected homage of the noblest men was what she felt to be her appropriate right and as her own maternal partialities were added to and glorified the rare and absolute merits of Pierre she considered the voluntary allegiance of his affectionate soul the representative fealty of the choicest guild of his race thus though replenished through all her veins with the subtlest vanity with the homage of Pierre alone she was content but as to a woman of sense and spirit the admiration of even the noblest and most gifted man is esteemed as nothing so long as she remains conscious of possessing no directly influencing and practical sorcery over his soul and as notwithstanding all his intellectual superiority to his mother Pierre through the unavoidable weakness of inexperienced and unexpanded youth was strangely docile to the maternal tuitions in nearly all the things which thus far had anyways interested or affected him therefore it was that to marry Glendoning this reverence of Pierre was invested with all the proudest delights and witcheries of self complacency which it is possible for the most conquering virgin to feel still more that nameless and infinitely delicate Roma with inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness which in every refined and honourable attachment is contemporary with the courtship and precedes the final bands and the right but which, like the bouquet of the costliest German wines too often evaporates upon pouring love out to drink in the disenchanting glasses of the matrimonial days and nights this highest and ariest thing in the whole compass of the experience of our mortal life this heavenly evanescence still further etherealized in the filial breast was from Mary Glendoning now not very far from her grand climacteric miraculously revived in the cordious lover like adoration of Pierre altogether having its origin in a wonderful but purely fortuitous combination of the happiest and rarest accidents of earth and not to be limited in duration by that climax which is so fatal to ordinary love this softened spell which still wield the mother and the son in one orbit of joy seemed a glimpse of the glorious possibility that the divinest of those emotions which are incident to the sweetest season of love is capable of an indefinite translation into many of the less signal relations of our many checkered life in a detached and individual way it seemed almost to realize here below the sweet dreams of those religious enthusiasts who paint to us a paradise to come when etherealized from all drosses and saints the holiest passion of man shall unite all kindreds and climes in one circle of pure and unimparable delight Chapter 6 there was one little uncelestial trait which in the opinion of some may mar the romantic merits of the gentlemanly Pierre Glendoning he always had an excellent appetite and especially for his breakfast but when we consider that though Pierre's hands were small and his ruffles white yet his arm was by no means dainty and his complexion inclined to brown and that he generally rose with the sun and could not sleep without riding his 20 or walking his 12 miles a day or felling a fair-sized hemlock in the forest or boxing or fencing or boating or performing some other gymnastical feat when we consider these athletic habitudes of Pierre and the great fullness of brawn and muscle they built round about him all of which manly brawn and muscle three times a day loudly clamored for attention we shall very soon perceive that to have a bountiful appetite was not only a vulgar reproach but a bright royal grace and honor to Pierre attesting him a man and a gentleman for a thoroughly developed gentleman is always robust and healthy and robustness and health are great trencher men so when Pierre and his mother descended to breakfast and Pierre had scrupulously seen her supplied with whatever little things were convenient to her and had twice or thrice ordered respectable and immemorial dates the servitor to adjust and readjust the window sashes so that no unkind current of air should take undue liberties with his mother's neck after seeing to all of this in a very quiet and inconspicuous way and also after directing the unruffled dates to swing out horizontally into a particular light a fine joyous painting in the good fellow Flemish style which painting was so attached to the wall as to be capable of that mode of adjusting and furthermore after darting from where he sat a few invigorating glances over the river meadows to the blue mountains beyond Pierre made a Masonic sort of mysterious motion to the excellent dates who in a Tomaton obedience there too brought from a certain agreeable little side stand a very prominent looking cold pasting which on careful inspection with the knife proved to be embossed savoury nest of a few uncommonly tender pigeons of Pierre's own shooting Sister Mary said he lifting on his silver trident one of the choicest of the many fine pigeon morsels Sister Mary said he in shooting these pigeons I was very careful to bring down one in such a manner that the breast is entirely unmarred it was intended for you and here it is now sergeant dates help hither your mistress plate no nothing but the crumbs of French rolls and a few peeps and a coffee cup is that a breakfast for the daughter of yonder bold general pointing to a full length of his gold laced grandfather on the opposite wall well pitiable is my case when I have to breakfast for two dates sir remove that toast rack dates in this plate of tongue and bring the rolls nearer and we'll stand far farther off good dates having thus made generous room for himself Pierre commenced operations interrupting his mouthfuls by many sallies of mirthfulness you seem to be in a prodigious fine spirits this morning brother Pierre said his mother yes very tolerable at least I can't say that I'm low-spirited exactly sister Mary dates my fine fellow bring me three bowls of milk one bowl sir you mean said dates gravely and imperturbably as a servitor left the room Mrs. Glendening spoke my dear Pierre how often have I begged you never to permit your hilariousness to betray you into overstepping the exact line of propriety in your intercourse with servants dates look was a respectful reproof to you just now you must not call dates my fine fellow he is a fine fellow a very fine fellow indeed there is no need of telling him so at my table it is very easy to be entirely kind and pleasant to servants without the least touch of any shade of transient good fellowship with them well sister no doubt you are all together right after this I shall drop the fine and call dates nothing but fellow fellow come here how will that answer not at all Pierre but you are Romeo you know and so for the present I pass over your nonsense Romeo oh no I am far from being Romeo side Pierre I laugh but he cried poor Romeo alas Romeo what was me Romeo he came to a very deplorable end did Romeo sister Mary it was his own fault though poor Romeo he was disobedient to his parents alas Romeo he married against their particular wishes what was me Romeo but you Pierre are going to be married before long I trust not to a capulet but to one of our own Montague's and so Romeo's evil fortune will hardly be yours you will be happy the more miserable Romeo don't be so ridiculous brother Pierre so you are going to take Lucy that long ride among the hills this morning she's a sweet girl a most lovely girl yes that is rather my opinion sister Mary by heaven's mother the five zones hold not such another she is yes though I say it dates he's a precious long time getting that milk let him stay don't be a milk soft Pierre ha my sister is a little satirical this morning I comprehend never rave Pierre and never rant your father never did either nor is it written of Socrates and both were very wise men your father was profoundly in love I know to my certain knowledge but I never heard him rant about it he was always exceedingly gentlemanly and gentlemen never rant milk sops and muggletonians rant but gentlemen never thank you sister there put it down dates are the horses ready just driving round sir I believe why Pierre said his mother glancing out at the window are you going to Santa Fe de Bogota with that enormous old Phaeton what do you take that juggernaut out for humor sister humor I like it because it's old fashioned and because the seat is such a wide sofa of a seat and finally because a young lady by the name of Lucy tartan cherishes a high regard for it she vows she would like to be married in it well Pierre all I have to say is be sure that Christopher puts the coach hammer and nails and plenty of cords and screws into the box and you had better let him follow you in one of the farm wagons with a spare axle and some boards no fear sister no fear I shall take the best of care of the old Phaeton the quaint old arms on the panel always remind me who it was that first rode in it I'm glad you have that memory brother Pierre bless you God bless you my dear son always think of him and you can never air yes always think of your dear perfect father Pierre well kiss me now dear sister for I must go there this is my cheek and the other is Lucy's though now that I look at them both I think that hers is getting to be the most blooming sweeter dues fall on that one I suppose Pierre laughed and ran out of the room for old Christopher was getting impatient his mother went to the window and stood there a noble boy and docile she murmured he has all the frolicsomeness of youth with little of its giddiness and he does not grow vain glorious and sophomoreian wisdom I think heaven I sent him not to college a noble boy and docile fine proud loving docile vigorous boy pray God he never becomes otherwise to me his little wife that is to be will not estrange him from me for she too is docile beautiful and reverential and most docile seldom yet have I known such blue eyes as hers that were not docile would not follow a bold black one as too meek blue ribboned use follow their marshal leader how glad am I Pierre loves her so and not some dark eyed haughtiness with whom I could never live in peace but who would be ever setting her young married state before my elderly widowed one and claiming all the homage of my dear boy a fine proud loving docile vigorous boy the lofty minded well-born noble boy and with such sweet docilities see his hair he does in truth illustrate that fine saying of his fathers that the noblest colts in three points abundant hair swelling chest and sweet docility should resemble a fine woman so should a noble youth well goodbye Pierre and a merry morning to you so saying she crossed the room and resting in a corner her glad proud eye met the old generals baton which the day before in one of his frolic moods had taken from its accustomed place in the picture bannered hall she lifted it and musingly swayed it to and fro then paused and staff-wise rested with it in her hand her stately beauty had ever somewhat marshal in it and now she looked the daughter of a general as she was for Pierre's was a double revolutionary descent on both sides he sprang from heroes this is his inheritance the symbol of command and I swell out to think it yet but just now I fondled the conceit that Pierre was so sweetly docile he sure is a most strange inconsistency for his sweet docility a general's badge and is this baton but a dista then here's something widely wrong now I almost wish him otherwise than sweet and docile to me seeing that it must be hard for a man to be an uncompromising hero and a commander among his race and yet never ruffle any domestic brow pray heaven he show his heroicness in some smooth way a favoring fortune not be called out to be a hero of some dark hope for Lorne of some dark hope for Lorne whose cruelness makes a savage of a man give him oh god regardful gales fan him with unwavering prosperities so shall he remain all docility to me and yet prove a haughty hero to the world end of book one book two part one of Pierre or the ambiguities by Herman Melville this Libervox recording is in the public domain recording by Ndu Chiang Mai Thailand book two love delight and alarm chapter one on the previous evening Pierre had arranged with Lucy the plan of a long winding ride among the hills which stretched around to the southward from the wide plains of Saddle Meadows though the vehicle was a sexagenarian the animals that drew it were but six-year colts the old bayotin had outlasted several generations of its drawers Pierre rolled beneath the village elms in billowy style and soon drew up before the white cottage door flinging his reins upon the ground and entered the house the two colts were his particular and confidential friends born on the same land with him and fed with the same corn which in the form of Indian cakes Pierre himself was often wanted to eat for breakfast the same fountain that by one branch supplied the stables with water by another supplied Pierre's pitcher they were a sort of family cousins to Pierre and they were splendid young cousins very showy in their redundant mains and mighty paces but not all vain or arrogant they acknowledged Pierre as the undoubted head of the house of Glendoning they well knew that they were but an inferior and subordinate branch of the Glendonings bound in perpetual feudal fealty to its headmost representative therefore these young cousins never permitted themselves to run from Pierre they were impatient in their paces but very patient in the halt they were full of good humor too and kind as kittens bless me how can you let them stand all alone that way Pierre cried Lucy as she and Pierre stepped forth from the cottage door Pierre laid in with shawls and a small hamper wait a bit cried Pierre dropping his load I will show you what my cults are so saying he spoke to them mildly and went close up to them and padded them the cults naid the nigh cult naing a little jealousy as if Pierre had not padded impartially then with a low long almost inaudible whistle Pierre got between the cults among the harness where at Lucy started and uttered a faint cry but Pierre told her to keep perfectly quiet for there was not the least danger in the world and Lucy did keep quiet for somehow though she always started when Pierre seemed in the slightest jeopardy yet at the bottom she rather cherished an notion that Pierre bore a charmed life and by no earthly possibility could die from her or experience any harm when she was within a thousand leagues Pierre still between the horses now stepped upon the pole of the Phaeton then stepping down indefinitely disappeared or became partially obscured among the living colonnade of the horses eight slender and glossy legs he entered the colonnade one way and after a variety of meanderings came out another way during all of which equestrian performance the two cults kept gaily naing and good humoredly moving their heads perpendicularly up and down and sometimes turning them sideways towards Lucy as much as to say we understand young master we understand him miss we never fear pretty lady why bless your delicious little heart we played with Pierre before you ever did are you afraid of their running away now Lucy said Pierre returning to her not much Pierre the superb fellows why Pierre they have made an officer of you look and she pointed to two foam flakes epilating his shoulders bravissimo again I called you my recruit when you left my window this morning and here you are promoted very prettily conceded Lucy but see you don't admire their coats they wear nothing but the finest Genoa velvet Lucy see did you ever see such well groomed horses never then what say you to have them for my groomsmen Lucy glorious groomsmen they would make I declare they should have a thousand L's of white favors all over their mains and tails and when they draw us to church they would be still all the time scattering white favors from their mouths just as they did here on me upon my soul they shall be my groomsmen Lucy stately stags playful dogs heroes Lucy we shall have no marriage bells they shall nafer us Lucy we shall be wedded to the marshal sound of Job's trumpeteers Lucy hark they are naing now to think of it naing at your lyrics Pierre come let us be off here the shawl, the parasol, the basket what are you looking at them so for I was thinking Lucy of the sad state I am in not six months ago I saw a poor a pianced fellow an old comrade of mine lodging along with this Lucy tartan a hillock of bundles under either arm and I said to myself there goes a sumpter now, poor devil he's a lover and now look at me well life's a burden they say why not be burdened cheerly but look you Lucy I am going to enter a formal declaration and protest before matters go further with us when we are married I am not to carry any bundles unless in cases of real need and what is more when there are any of your young lady acquaintances in sight I am not to be unnecessarily called upon to back up and load for their particular edification now I am really vexed with you Pierre that is the first ill-natured innuendo I ever heard from you are there any of my young lady acquaintances in sight now I should like to know six of them right over the way said Pierre but they keep behind the curtains I never trust your solitary village streets Lucy sharp shooters behind every clapboard Lucy pray then dear Pierre do let us be off chapter two while Pierre and Lucy are now rolling along under the elms let it be said who Lucy tartan was it is needless to say that she was a beauty because chestnut haired bright cheeked youths like Pierre glending seldom fall in love with any but a beauty and in the times to come there must be as in the present times and in times gone by some splendid man and some transcendent women and how can they ever be unless always here and there a handsome youth weds with a handsome maid but though owing to the above named provisions of dame nature there always will be beautiful women in the world yet the world will never see another Lucy tartan her cheeks were tinted with the most delicate white and red the white predominating her eyes some God brought down from heaven her hair was daneis spangled with jove's shower her teeth were dived for in the Persian sea if long won't to fix his glance on those who trudging through the humbler walks of life and whom unequal toil and poverty deform if that man shall happily view some fair and gracious daughter of the gods who from unknown climbs of loveliness and affluence came to sight all symmetry and radiance how shall he be transported that in a world so full of vice and misery as ours there should yet shine forth is in this visible semblance of the heavens her lovely woman is not entirely of this earth her own sex regard her not as such a crowd of women eye a transcendent beauty in the room much as though a bird from Arabia had lighten on the window sill say what you will their jealousy if any is but an after birth to their open admiration do men envy the gods and shall women envy the goddesses a beautiful woman is born queen of men and women both as Mary Stuart was born queen of scots whether men or women all mankind are her scots her leal clans are numbered by the nations a true gentleman in Kentucky would cheerfully die for a beautiful woman in Hindustan though he never saw her yay count down his heart and death drops for her and go to Pluto that she might go to paradise he would turn Turk before he would disown an allegiance hereditary to all gentlemen from the hour their grand master Adam first knelt to Eve a plain faced queen of Spain dwells not in half the glory a beautiful milliner does her soldiers can break heads but her highness cannot crack a heart and the beautiful milliner might string hearts for necklaces undoubtedly beauty made the first queen if ever again the succession to the German empire should be contested and one poor lame lawyer should present the claims of the first excellingly beautiful women he chance to see she would there upon be unanimously elected Empress of the Holy Roman German Empire that is to say if all the Germans were true free-hearted and magnanimous gentlemen at all capable of appreciating so immense an honor it is nonsense to talk of France at the seat of all civility did not those French heathen have a salique law three of the most bewitching creatures immortal flowers of the line of Valois were excluded from the French throne by that infamous provision France indeed this Catholic million still worshiped Mary, Queen of Heaven and for ten generations refused cap and knee to many angels, Marys rightful queens of France here is cause for universal war see how vilely nations as well as men assume and wear unchallenged the choices titles however without merit the Americans and not the French are the world's models of chivalry our salique law provides that universal homage shall be paid all beautiful women no man's most solid rights shall weigh against her ariest whims if you buy the best seat in the coach to go and consult a doctor on a matter of life and death you shall cheerfully abdicate that best seat and limp away on foot if a pretty woman traveling shake one feather from the stage house door now since we began by talking of a certain young lady that went out riding with a certain youth and yet find ourselves after leading such a merry dance fast by a stage house window this may seem rather irregular sort of riding but wither indeed should Lucy Tarton conduct us but among mighty queens and all other creatures of high degree and finally set us roaming to see whether the wide world can match so fine a wonder by immemorial usage am I not bound to celebrate this Lucy Tarton who shall stay me is she not my hero's own athianced what can be gained said where underneath the tester of the night sleeps such another yet how would Lucy Tarton shrink from all this noise and clatter she is bragged of but not brags thus far she has floated astilly through this life as this whole down floats over meadows noiseless she except with Pierre and even with him she lives through many a panting hush all those love pauses that they know how ominous of their future for pauses proceed the earthquake and every other terrible commotion but blue be their sky a while and lights them all their chat and frolics them their humours never shall I get down this vile inventory how if with paper and with pencil I went out into the starry night to inventorize the heavens who shall tell stars as teaspoons who shall put down the charms of Lucy Tarton upon paper as for the breast her parentage what fortunes she would possess and how many dresses in her wardrobe and how many rings upon her fingers cheerfully would I let the genealogists tax gatherers and upholsterers attend to that my proper province is with the angelical part of Lucy but as in some quarters there prevails a sort of prejudice against angels who are merely angels and nothing more therefore I shall murderize myself by letting such gentlemen and ladies into some details of Lucy Tarton's history she was the daughter of an early and most cherished friend of Pierre's father but that father was now dead and she resided an only daughter with her mother in a very fine house in the city but though her home was in the city her heart was twice a year in the country she did not at all love the city in its empty heartless ceremonial ways it was very strange but most eloquently significant of her own natural angelhood that though born among brick and mortar in a seaport she's still pined for unbaked earth and inland grass so the sweet linnet though born inside of wires in a ladies chamber on the ocean coast an ignorant all its life of any other spot yet when springtime comes it is seized with flutterings and vague and patience's it cannot eat or drink for these though unlearned by any experience still the inspired linnet divinely knows that the inland migrating time has come and just so with Lucy in her first longings for the verter every spring those wild flutterings shook her every spring this sweet linnet girl did migrate inland oh god grant that those other and long after nameless flutterings of her inmost soul when all life was become wary to her god grant that those deeper flutterings in her were equally significant of her final heavenly migration from this heavenly earth it was fortunate for Lucy that her aunt Lanolin a pensive childless white turban widow possessed and occupied cottage in the village of saddle meadows it's still more fortunate that this excellent old aunt was very partial to her and always felt a quiet delight in having Lucy near her so aunt Lanolin's cottage in effect was Lucy's and now for some years past she had annually spent several months at saddle meadows and it was among the pure and soft incitements of the country the first had felt towards Lucy the dear passion which now made him holy hers Lucy had two brothers one her senior by three years and the other her junior by two but these young men were officers in the navy and so they did not permanently live with Lucy and her mother Mrs. Tarton was mistress of an ample fortune and moreover perfectly aware that such was the fact and was somewhat inclined to force it upon the notice of other people no wise interested in the matter in other words Mrs. Tarton instead of being daughter proud for which she had infinite reason was a little inclined to being purse proud for which she had not the slightest reason seeing that the great module probably possessed a larger fortune than she not to speak of the Shah of Persian Baron Rothschild and a thousand other millionaires whereas the grand Turk and all their other majesties of Europe, Asia and Africa to boot could not in all their joint dominions boast so sweet a girl as Lucy nevertheless Mrs. Tarton was an excellent sort of lady as this lady like world goes she subscribed to charities and owned five pews in as many churches and went about trying to promote the general felicity of the world by making all the handsome young people of her acquaintance marry one another in other words she was a matchmaker not a Lucifer matchmaker though to tell the truth she may have kindled the matrimonial blues in certain dissatisfied gentlemen's breasts who had been wedded under her particular auspices and by her particular advice rumors said but rumors always fibbing that there was a secret society of dissatisfied young husbands who were at the pains of privately circulating handbills among all unmarried young strangers warning them against the insidious approaches of Mrs. Tarton and for reference named themselves Incypher but this could not have been true for flushed with a thousand matches burning blue or bright it made little matter Mrs. Tarton sailed the seas of fashion causing all top sales to lower to her and towing flotillas of young ladies for all of whom she was bound to find the finest husband harbors in the world but does not matchmaking with the reality begin at home why is her own daughter Lucy without a mate but not so fast Mrs. Tarton years ago laid out that sweet program concerning Pierre and Lucy but in this case her program happened to coincide in some degree with the previous one in heaven and only for that cause did it come to pass in the first place of Lucy Tarton besides this being a thing so nearly affected herself Mrs. Tarton had for the most part been rather circumspect and cautious in all her maneuverings with Pierre and Lucy moreover the thing demanded no maneuvering at all the two platonic particles after roaming in quest of each other from the time of Saturn and Ops till now they came together before Mrs. Tarton's own eyes and what more could Mrs. Tarton do toward making them forever one and indivisible once and only once had a dim suspicion passed through Pierre's mind that Mrs. Tarton was a lady thimble rigger and slyly rolled the pea in their less mature acquaintance he was breakfasting with Lucy and the first cup of coffee had been poured out by Mrs. Tarton when she declared she smelt matches burning somewhere in the house and she must see them extinguished so banning all pursuit she rose to seek for the burning matches leaving the pair alone to interchange the civility of the coffee and finally sent word to them from above the stairs that the matches, or something else had given her a headache and begged Lucy to send her up some toast and tea and she would breakfast in her own chamber that morning upon this Pierre looked from Lucy to his boots and as he lifted his eyes again saw a necrion on the sofa on one side of him and Moore's melodies on the other and some honey on the table and a bit of white satin on the floor and a sort of brides veil on the chandelier never mind though thought Pierre fixing his gaze on Lucy I'm entirely willing to be caught when the bait is set in paradise and the bait is such an angel again he glanced at Lucy and saw a look of infinite subdued vexation and some unwanted pallor on her cheek then willingly he would have kissed the delicious bait and so gently hated to be tasted in the trap but glancing round again and seeing that the music which Mrs. Tartan under the pretense of putting in order had been adjusting upon the piano seeing that this music was now in a vertical pile against the wall with love was once a little boy for the outermost an only visible sheet and thinking this to be a remarkable coincidence under the circumstances Pierre could not refrain from a humorous smile though it was a very gentle one and immediately repented of especially as Lucy seeing and interpreting it immediately arose with an unaccountable indignant angelical adorable and all persuasive Mr. Glendening utterly confounded in him the slightest germ of suspicion as to Lucy's collusion in her mother's imagined artifices indeed Mrs. Tartan having anything whatever to do or hint or finesse in this matter of the loves of Pierre and Lucy was nothing less than immensely gratuitous and sacrilegious would Mrs. Tartan doctor lilies when they blow would Mrs. Tartan set about matchmaking between the steel preposterous Mrs. Tartan but this whole world is a preposterous one with many preposterous people in it chief among whom was Mrs. Tartan matchmaker to the nation this conduct of Mrs. Tartan was the more absurd seeing that she could not but know that Mrs. Glendening desired the thing and was not Lucy wealthy going to be that is very wealthy when her mother died sad thought that for Mrs. Tartan and was not her husband's family of the best and had not Lucy's father been a bosom friend of Pierre's father and though Lucy might be matched to someone man where among women was the match for Lucy exceedingly preposterous Mrs. Tartan but when a lady like Mrs. Tartan has nothing positive and useful to do then she will do just such preposterous things as Mrs. Tartan did well time went on and Pierre loved Lucy and Lucy Pierre to let last the two young naval gentlemen her brothers happened to arrive in Mrs. Tartan's drawing room from their first cruise a three years one trip to the Mediterranean they rather stared at Pierre finding him on the sofa and Lucy not very remote pray be seated gentlemen said Pierre plenty of room my darling brothers cried Lucy embracing them my darling brothers and sisters cried Pierre folding them together pray hold officer said the elder brother who had served as a past midshipman for the last two weeks the younger brother retreated a little and clapped his hand upon his dirk saying sir we are from the Mediterranean sir permit to say this is decidedly improper who may you be sir I can't explain for joy cried Pierre hilariously embracing them all again most extraordinary cried the older brother extricating his shirt collar from the embrace and pulling it up vehemently draw cried the younger intrepidly peace foolish fellows cried Lucy this is your old playfellow Pierre glendoning Pierre why Pierre cried the lads a hug all round again you've grown a fathom who would have known you but then Lucy I say Lucy what business have you here in this a hugging match I should call it oh Lucy don't mean anything cried Pierre come one more all around so they all embraced again and that evening it was publicly known that Pierre was to wed with Lucy where upon the young officers took it upon themselves to think though they by no means presumed to breathe it that they had authoritatively indirectly accelerated a before ambiguous and highly incommendable state of affairs between the now affianced lovers Chapter 3 in the fine old robust times of Pierre's grandfather an American gentleman of substantial person and fortune spent his time in a somewhat different style from the greenhouse gentlemen of the present day the grandfather of Pierre measured six feet four inches in height during a fire in the old manorial mansion with one dash of his foot he had smitten down an oaken door to admit the buckets of his negro slaves Pierre had often tried on his military vest which still remained an heirloom at saddle meadows and found the pockets below his knees and plenty additional room for a fair-sized quarter cask within its buttoned girth in a night scuffle in the wilderness before the revolutionary war he had annihilated two Indian savages by making reciprocal bludgeons of their heads and all this was done by the mildest hearted and most blue-eyed gentlemen in the world who according to the patriarchal fashion of those days was a gentle white-haired worshipper of all the household gods the gentlest husband and the gentlest father the kindest of masters to his slaves of the most wonderful unruffledness of temper a serene smoker of his after-dinner pipe a forgiver of many injuries a sweet-hearted charitable Christian in fine a pure beautiful childlike blue-eyed divine old man in whose meek majestic soul the lion and the lamb embraced fit image of his god never could Pierre look upon his fine military portrait without an infinite and mournful longing to meet his living aspect in real life the majestic sweetness of this portrait was truly wonderful in its effects upon any sensitive and generous-minded young observer for such that portrait possessed the heavenly persuasiveness of angelic speech a glorious gospel framed and hung above the wall and declaring to all people as from the mount that man is a noble godlike being full of choicest juices made up of strength and beauty now this grand old Pierre Glendening was a great lover of horses but not in the modern sense for he was no jockey one of his most intimate friends of the masculine gender was a huge proud gray horse of a surprising reserve of manner his saddle-beast he had his horse's majors carved like old trenchers out of solid maple logs the key of the corn bin hung in his library and no one grained his steeds but himself unless his absence from home promoted moir an incorruptible and most punctual old black to that honorable office he said that no man loved his horses unless his own hands grained them every Christmas he gave them brimming measures I keep Christmas with my horses said grand old Pierre the grand old Pierre always rose at sunrise washed his face and chest in the open air and then returning to his closet and being completely arrayed at last stepped forth to make a ceremonious call at his stables to bid his very honorable friends there a very good and joyful morning woe to Krantz, Kit, Dow or any other of his stable slaves if grand old Pierre found one horse unblanketed or one weed among the hay that filled their rack not that he ever had Krantz, Kit, Dow or any of them flogged a thing unknown in that patriarchal time and country but he would refuse to say that his wanted pleasant word to them and that was very bitter to them for Krantz, Kit, Dow and all of them loved grand old Pierre and his shepherds loved old Abraham what decorous lordly gray haired steed is this what old chaldean rides abroad to his grand old Pierre who every morning before he eats goes out promenading with his saddle beast nor mouths him without first asking leave but time glides on and grand old Pierre grows old his life's glorious grape now swells with fatness he has not the conscience to saddle his majestic beast with such a mighty load of manliness besides the noble beast himself is growing old and has a touching look of meditativeness in his large attentive eyes leg of man swears grand old Pierre shall never more bestride my steed no more shall harness touch him than every spring he sowed a field with clover for his steed and at midsummer sorted all his meadow grasses for the choicest hay to winter him and had his destined grain thrashed out with a flail whose handle had once borne a flag in brisk battle into which the same old steed had pranced with grand old Pierre one waving main one waving sword now needs must grand old Pierre take a morning drive he rides no more with that grey old steed he has a feyton built fit for a vast general in whose sash three common men might hide doubled, trebled are the huge S shaped leather springs the wheels seem stolen from some mill the canopy seat is like a testered bed from beneath the old archway not one horse but two every morning now draw forth old Pierre the Chinese draw their fat god Josh once every year from out his feign but time glides on and a morning comes when the feyton emerges not but all the yards and courts are full helmets line the ways sword points strike the stone steps of the porch muskets ring upon the stairs and mournful martial melodies are heard in all the halls grand old Pierre is dead and like a hero of old battles he dies on the eve of another war air wheeling to fire on the foe his platoons fire over their old commanders grave in AD 1812 died grand old Pierre the drum that beat in brass his funeral march was a British kettle drum that had once helped beat the vainglorious march with a 30,000 predestined prisoners led into sure captivity by that bragging boy Burgoyne next day the old grey steed turned from his grain turned round and vainly winnied in his stall by gracious Moyer's hand he refuses to be padded now plain as horse can speak the old grey steed says I smell not the wanted hand where is grand old Pierre grain me not and groom me not where is grand old Pierre he sleeps not far from his master now beneath the field he cropped he has softly lain him down and long ere this grand old Pierre and steed have passed through that grass to glory but his pheaton like his plumed hearse outlives the noble load at Boer and the dark base steeds that drew grand old Pierre alive and by his testament drew him dead and followed the lordly lead of the lead grey horse those dark base steeds are still extant not in themselves or in their issue but in the two descendant stallions of their own breed for on the lands of saddle meadows man and horse are both hereditary and this bright morning Pierre Glendoning grandson of grand old Pierre now drives forth with fancy tartan seated where his own ancestor had sat and reigning steeds whose great great great grandfathers grand old Pierre had reigned before how proud felt Pierre in fancy's eye he saw the horse ghosts a tandem in the van these are but wheelers cried young Pierre the leaders of their generations end of book 2 part 1