Memoir of Mary Twining
By Annie Eliot Trumbull
Edited by Jane Mouttet
The other day, I spent several hours looking over many dusty volumes I had gotten as an inheritance. In the collection, I came upon a brief memoir which, after a glance within, I laid aside as worthy, at least, of perusal. The other books were of little value of any sort—an orthodox commentary, an odd volume of county history, one or two cookbooks, a worn and broken set of certain standard British authors—the usual assortment to be found in a country farmhouse, whose occupants soon ceased to keep up with the times. But this little book seemed unusual—an opinion confirmed by examination. I had long ago discovered the fallacy of that tradition of early youth that a memoir is, of necessity, dull. I was not affected by the title, “Memoir of Mary Twining.” There proved to be something singularly quaint and charming in this little sketch, something fresh and new in this voice from bygone years. The subject of the memoir attracted me powerfully, both from the simplicity and naturalness of her own words and the freedom and occasional depth of both thought and expression, in a day when freedom and thinking for one’s self were less the fashion of New England maidens than they have since become. Or, it may be that the editor, notwithstanding an occasional stiffness and apparent want of sympathy, has so well done his work, has understood what to give us and what to keep from us, that the reader’s interest is skilfully fostered from the start. Be this as it may, I have not been able to resist the temptation to write, myself, a little of this memoir and its subject, to make a little wider, if I may, the public who have been told the story of this life. It was not exciting or eventful, though it lived in stirring times. As I have already said, it seems to have a charm that should not be forgotten in country garrets or unnoticed in second-hand bookstores. With no further apology for this review of it, I shall let the book, as far as possible, speak for itself.
Mary Twining was born in Middleport, Massachusetts, on June 27, 1757. Her father fought with Colonel Washington in the French and Indian War and subsequently under General Washington in a later disturbance. Her mother was a granddaughter of one of the early colonial governors. Mary has come naturally enough through fine impulses and good breeding.
“It is not,” says the conscientious biographer, “from any vain partiality for high-sounding names, or any poor pretense of good blood, which were most out of place in this our Republic, made so by the genius and enduring fortitude of all classes of men, that I claim for Mary Twining stately lineage, but that when such accidents fall in the lives of human beings, it is not a thing to make light of, but worthy of study in its results. Besides, General Washington is a good soldier because he is a gentleman.”
I suspect the traditions of a loyal Englishman had not been wholly eradicated from the mind of this biographer by a few years of plebeian institutions. With equal truth, he goes on, however, to say that what was “of an importance swallowing up the lesser matter of lineage and station, Richard Twining was an upright and a God-fearing man, and Mary, his wife, patterned in all things after the behavior of her Godly ancestor.” Either Richard or Mary, his wife, must have something “patterned” after a liberal and occasionally self-willed model, else whence came the spice of independence in the little Mary’s character? She was an only child, and only children were probably in the middle of the eighteenth very much what they are in the close of the nineteenth century—little beings allowed greater liberties and burdened with heavier accountabilities than where there are more to divide both. Several childhood incidents are not particularly remarkable, perhaps, but show that her mind and imagination are alive. She was not by any means a precocious child; her mind was but little, if at all, in advance of her years. If one may judge from detached anecdotes and descriptions, she showed no more than the receptivity and quickness natural to a bright and somewhat obvious intellect. Through all these anecdotes, there runs a vein denoting what is less common in childhood than a certain precocity—a keen sense of justice. She appears to have reasoned of many things, usually taken by childhood for granted, and assented to their results only if they seemed to her childishness just. Suppose the afterlife showed her that the affairs of this life can be but seldom regulated according to the ideas of finite justice. In that case, she never seems to have lost a certain fairness of judgment and opinion, which is rare in one of her sex and circumstances. When she was five years old, her mother, wishing her to give up a favorite doll to a little crippled friend, told her that sympathy should suggest her doing it, that it was a privilege to make another happy, that it was selfishness to prefer her own pleasure of possession to that of another. But Mary listened unmoved to these arguments.
The struggle was not a long one. With a good grace, after a few moments of silence, she carried the doll to her unfortunate friend. “Mamma,” she said soberly, “she shall have it, for it is right that she should. I feel it. I shall have many things that she can never have.”
Considering the logic of five years, it was no small thing to settle this question in this way. Dwelling on the anecdotes of her childhood would take too much time and space. Indeed, the biographer does not linger on them long himself.
“It is meet,” he says, “to speak of these early years, not from a desire to show that there was anything in the childhood of Mary Twining remarkable or unnatural that should be the cause of wonder or admiration. But rather, there may be shown the presence of certain qualities of sound judgment and thoughtfulness unusual in a young girl, which grew as she got older and, in later years, developed into stronger traits.”
In 1773, she was sent away to a school where she remained for three years, varied by occasional visits at home. She made several friends here, and here, for the first time, she kept a methodical and somewhat extended diary. Her biographer makes many extracts from this diary. In fact, from this period, the memoir has been chiefly made up of her several journals, whose continuity now and then has significant gaps, with occasional notes. I shall make less copious extracts, principally those bearing upon that matter of which we always, more or less consciously, seek traces in the lives of individuals, distinguished or obscure, the love story. But first for her school life, into which few whispers of sentiment penetrated. It was no fashionable boarding school to which she was sent, attended by young ladies whose dreams of what they will soon be doing in society monopolize the hours nominally devoted to literature and the sciences. An old friend of her mother opened her house to a few representatives of those families with whom she was acquainted, where, under the best teachers the country could afford, they were trained in such acquirements as were prescribed by the canons of the day. On September 15, she says:—
“I have been at the good school for more than a week, which my kind parents have chosen for me. There is little happening here. The few mathematics exercises and the selections from the works of England’s most highly endorsed authors are the most profitable. As for embroidery, I worked with patience ten years ago, a sampler that was not considered discreditable, and the multiplying of stitches has no end. It was likely to go no farther. My daily practice on the piano may be the means of giving pleasure in the future. Still, it is the occasion of little benefit in the present, and of the future can we be never certain.”
Her employment’s profitableness was often in her mind during these three years. She cannot help feeling that there are times when it is hard to contentedly fold the hands over even the worsted marvels of a “not discreditable” sampler. A year later, she says again:—
“More practice and more embroidery this afternoon. Those of my companions ask nothing better than such unvarying exercises. In them, they find room for employing their imagination and their spirit. I wonder if it could be such a great fault in me that I find them wearying. It is not that they are in themselves so distasteful, as it is that there seems much work waiting to be done, which a woman’s hands might well do, were it not reckoned somewhat unseemly.”
“Hers was a somewhat restless soul,” says her biographer, “perplexing itself with questions which it was not for her to answer.”
Yes, with questions with which many a restless woman’s soul has since perplexed itself and which are now only beginning to attain a solution. It is pleasant to find, in these early times, that when we fancy New England maidens well content with their spinning and bread-making, hints that there were enterprising spirits who thought the prescribed round too narrow.
She finds some fault with one of her teachers for being too lenient with her.
“I received no reproof,” she says, “today when I most richly deserved it. A disturbance in the hour for study was entirely of my own making, but the person who was master at that hour refused, with persistence, to see it. I made it most evident, but with a frown for a less offender, he remarked that he should hold Mistress Twining excused. I shall find occasion to address him on this subject, for if I receive due credit for that which I do, that is well done. I will bear the brunt of my superior’s disappointment for what is ill-done. Moreover, I will not have it otherwise.”
“It would have been better,” is the brief comment, “had Mary Twining shown more regret for what she confesses was ill-done rather than that she should take upon herself to correct the faults of those towards whom she was somewhat lacking in reverence.” But it is droll enough to fancy the scene—the pretty schoolgirl gravely rebuking her delinquent master for the too great partiality her bright eyes had won. Poor man! His was no sinecure. To hold rule over a parcel of unruly girls, with the graces of one so tugging at his heartstrings! His path might at least have been spared the thorn of having his fault denounced by the voice that had done the mischief.
During the last year of her stay, she has written less. Did the objectlessness of this education of hers pall upon the energy of her nature more and more? Or was her woman’s heart preparing the way for the answer to the restless questions? Only now and then do we glimpse this development, which was singularly mature and free from restriction.
“I have read many tales,” she says, “how true, in my small experience, I know not of the aptitude of women, particularly those young women whose characters are in a state of most imperfect development, to yield in matters essential to their best happiness to the opposing wishes of parents and guardians. I speak of those matters, perhaps not fitting for the speculations of a partially-schooled maiden—love and choosing a husband. While in these matters, as in all others, the wishes of wise and fond parents and guardians are the only safe guides for a young and untrained spirit, there are other cases where injustice and a desire to rule are but slender grounds for the exercise of authority. I know that my boldness in this opinion cannot pass even my own mind unchallenged, but when I read of unwilling maids forced to the very church door or languishing under unmerited sternness and yielding up their own happiness and that of another (though he is a man) into the hands of an unwise judge through inability to resist such unloving pressure, my nature rebels against it. It would seem to me cause for a glad and an unfaltering resistance. For a husband is, after all, a matter for a maid’s own choosing.”
“The beaten path,” says the biographer, “had little attraction for Mary Twining. It would have been well had she been less happy to seek opportunity for lawful resistance to bonds. It seems to the young that such opportunities are not long in coming.”
It was not only from the consciences of the colonial fathers that the stirrings of independence went forth. Apparently, a spirit was abroad that breathed now and then from the lips of partially-schooled maidens. Still, it is not unruliness; this protest of a young and independent spirit against slavishness is now and then upheld in certain forms of literature. There is little revolutionary, after all, in Mary’s sentiment that “a husband is a matter for a maid’s own choosing.”
But we must ignore the last few notes of her school life. At nineteen, she left school forever.
“I am about to leave this little life of school,” she writes, “for a larger life of home and maybe a taste of that life which is called of the world. And suppose I am not now, at the age of nineteen years, equipped for the change and able to behave with discretion and dignity. In that case, such equipment cannot be found within these four walls or in the daily practice of music and mathematics. Which, though I will be filled with no excessive distrust of my own capabilities, seem to my eyes of some doubt and difference of opinion.”
“On a certain day of June,” her biographer states, “Mistress Mary Twining was placed in the coach which should take her on a two-day journey to her father’s house. She was in the company of a friendly, old, reverend gentleman who was well known to her father and held in high esteem. The fairness of a maid is but a vain toy, but,” declares the biographer, with refreshing candor, “as it is a matter which is not without its effect on the fortunes of many, it is not always to be passed over in the silence which would befit a sober pen. Mary Twining’s hair was gold and wound itself in small, and not always tidy, rings about her neck and forehead. Her eyes were darker than is common, and her mouth, though not without a certain winsomeness, gave promise of a firm opinion and an independence which was perhaps but a sign of the times, which her small and shrewdly-set nose did not deny.”
I more than suspect that disclaim it as he may, our discreet biographer was in nowise loath to dwell a little on this vain toy of Mary’s personal appearance. I even fancy that he was tempted to employ greater latitude of expression, which only his stern sense of his responsibilities led him to reject in the description of that uncompromising mouth, not to mention the spice of naughtiness involved in that nose so “shrewdly set.”
—————-
This June day, not an unattractive picture in the coach window is of Mary Twining in her big poke bonnet, white kerchief, and short-waisted gown. And who is this, coming at the last moment, springs into a vacant place at her side, under the very eyes of the reverend old gentleman, her father’s friend? The three-cornered hat, which he removes with ceremonious courtesy to the fair vision before him, the high boots with jingling spurs, and the sword at his side are picturesque items to nineteenth-century eyes. Were they likely to be so in the eyes of this nineteen-year-old maiden just out of boarding school?
“As it happened,” says the biographer, “there went down the same day, and by the same coach, one of the young aids of our general. He was a personable youth, and the arrangement of the many ornaments on his costume did not take away from the face and figure providence given him. It were better had he or Mary Twining chosen another time for the journey.”
Neither did a natural timidity of disposition do anything to lessen the impression a personable young man has in his power to make upon a fair and observing girl in any century.
Mary herself says:— “There rode down with us a young man of most holiday appearance, but not ignorant of the working days of a soldier. It was not long before he had entered into a conversation with Mr. Edwards, who had knowledge of the young man’s parents. I learned something about him from that conversation, though most modestly told. He would gladly have allowed me to join in my guardian’s questioning. Still, I kept in mind the unseemliness of an unwarranted connection. I sought to avoid rather than court the glances, which he was not over-cautious in sending in my direction.”
“A maid’s avoidance,” observes the biographer, “of a youth’s glances, is not of that nature that is the cutting off of all hope.”
And fortune, too, was not of an unacceptable disposition in this June weather as she is sometimes. For, on the second day, when probably glances, so conscientiously evaded, had become but the accompaniment of spoken words, there was an accident. As coaches are apt to do, the coach was upset, and its occupants “made haste rather as they could than as they would” to leave it. In the confusion and tumbling about of heavy boxes, Mary might have been badly hurt had not the young man, quickly springing to his feet, caught her as she was thrown forward by a second lurch of the unwieldy thing, and, lifting her up, carried her out of the way of falling luggage and struggling horses to a place of safety.
“He lifted me as though I had been but a feather’s weight, showing a strength which is indeed good in the sons of men,” says Mary demurely, “and which was most grateful in the stress and confusion, and in its display most timely, though perhaps,” she adds, with delicious frankness, “he was not over ready to put me down that he might hasten back to be of further help.”
“My bonnet was awry,” she continues, “my hair in sad confusion, and my face a milkmaid red, so I said with little grace, ‘Sir, I fear you have found me a grievous weight.’ He answered me that so light was my weight and that his heart was heavier after putting me down, which was a conceit that was not reasonable but most kindly intended. I thanked him, and he vowed such a burden he would gladly carry to the world’s end had he a reason.”
Another picture not unpleasant to the mind’s eye, the overturned coach, the esteemed guardian of the youthful beauty delaying a little in its immediate neighborhood, perhaps to secure the safety of some precious package, the farm laborers in the green adjacent fields dropping their tools and running forward to help, the outcry and confusion, and apart, in the summer sunshine, the handsome fellow with the flashing sword by his side, listening with bent head and admiring eyes to the thanks which Mistress Mary, with her untidy hair and lifted eyes, was tendering with “but little grace.”
“Such chance meeting,” says our commentator, “where what is most commanding in the one and most dependent in the other appears but is ill-advised. The uttering of such vain offers as carrying Mary Twining to the world’s end and other foolishness has a savor of reality which conceals the vain delusion.”
We have delayed too long over these extracts, and though I am tempted to delay longer, so quaint is the contrast between Mary Twining’s youthful and feminine pen and that of her critical biographer, I pass on to a time some months after her arrival home. Indeed, she writes little in the interval. Coming into a new and broader circle and adapting to new conditions leave her little time for writing. There is a rapid noting of events, for it was an eventful time—mentioning a few distinguished names, and that is all. But to follow the thread of Mary Twining’s romance, we must pause at the account of a ball given to one of General Washington’s regiments at a time before the rigor of war had quenched all thoughts of merry-making. It was not her first ball. She had mixed freely in society and had measured herself with the men and women around her—always an interesting experience to the free, unprejudiced, and thoughtful girl.
“It was a joyous scene enough,” she writes, “but I was not quite in the humor for such excursions. I had a gloomy fancy that reason would not dismiss, that in these troubled times, there were things outside of the ballroom door, striving to enter, which, having done, they would have proved inappropriate. Nonetheless, I danced with those who asked me and paid attention to little else than how they asked. Not that there was a lack of good partners, but I was mindful of nothing beyond being courteous. The only annoyance I was sensible of was the attention of my cousin Eustace Fleming, who has recently come into this part of the country and claims a relationship. He is an excellent young gentleman, but he will likely weary me with his over-appreciation of my qualities. It is a sign of my stubbornness and inflexible heart that he wearies me the most because he is approved and commended by my parents. When he asked me a third time to join the dance, I wanted to tell him that there were fairer maidens in the hall who would be less reluctant to pay him the favor. Still, as this would but have drawn from him a labored compliment to my own person, I prudently refrained.”
In the weariness of this encounter, she looked up. She saw approaching her the hero of her adventure in the coach, the impulsive youth whose former foolishness had won the semi-disapproval of our commentator. The gloomy fancies of shadowy things outside lightened a little, and the war ceased to be a background only for shapes of evil.
“It required not the space of a moment for me to recognize him, although his attire had changed with the circumstance, as my father’s friend, Mr. Edwards, had not deemed it of sufficient importance to mention our former encounter, it now seemed to me useless to publicly recall that incident. Particularly now being presented to me in the presence of my parents, and with due vouchers of his credit, our acquaintance could make such progress that we should mutually consider profitable.”
Prudent Mistress Mary and delinquent Mr. Edwards!
“After the cotillion for which he had asked the honor of my hand, he led me to my seat by an indirect route. When I commented on it, he replied that all ways were short to him now after traveling the long and difficult one he had followed to see me again. I, laughing, said that my presence was hardly worth such effort. That it was generally attained with more ease.
He, replying gracefully, said hastily that he was well aware that it was easier to enter and he should again forsake it.”
“And so on with such vanities,” says the biographer, “as pass current with young men and maidens in their shortsighted enjoyment of the moment, and with which Mary Twining was but too willing to delay.”
There followed the frequent meetings, known and approved by the watchful parents, the half confessions, the vague wonderment, and the pledge given and received at last. Mary Twining became the fiance of the handsome young officer. We trace all this in her journal, with satiric comments, now and then, of the editor, but it is all so familiar that we will not dwell on it, pretty as it is. Only one shadow seems to have fallen on them—that of Mr. Eustace Fleming, the worthy cousin whose persistence in the ballroom so tired the patience of Mistress Mary. Because her parents had previously favored him for Mary’s hand, he found it hard to give up without a struggle. With a lack of that wisdom unfortunate lovers find so hard to supply, he disturbed their interviews and forced himself on Mary’s society, with no rudeness or self-betrayal that could lead to an outbreak. Apparently, He is a self-contained man who finds it impossible to see that he is beaten. I make one or two extracts from Mary’s journal of this period and then go on to the end.
“If I once marveled at the yielding of those weak women who find it easier to relinquish the happiness found in the love of those bound to them by mutual attraction than to contest the matter with all dignity, forbearance, firmness, and patience, how much the more do I marvel now at their shortsightedness! Were he, whom I gladly call my betrothed, to be the victim of oppression or malice, it would seem to me but the throwing down of the glove—a challenge to battle rather than a demand for submission. It was not as imploring that I should stoop to pick it up. But why talk of fighting? Who is a peaceful maid who would labor honorably towards her dear country, to remove the sound of battle far from her lover? He is more ready to fight than am I to have him. He would see an opportunity to strike a blow in my cause, but there is none, so anxious he is to draw his sword on my behalf. Indeed, so excellent an opinion does he entertain of my person and my mind and my conditions that he would not be long in finding one who should most justly contest the same.
Some men were created to fill a gap who, without active hindrance, make it more challenging to row one’s boat up the stream of life. Cousin Eustace Fleming is that type of man. His mistaken admiration of me serves to make a hindrance where my satisfaction is concerned. He could learn the lesson I have tried to mark out for him more easily.
“It was vain,” is the comment on the last passage, “to expect a recognition of sober worth in the day of love and ambition. And Mistress Twining, after the manner of her kind, pays little heed to lasting affection before the time comes when it shall be of use to her.”
The wedding day approaches. Mary Twining does not lose her independence, though she seems to enjoy losing herself in the love lavished upon her. Here and there, passages show that, in the warmth of her romance, she thinks, judges, and acts for herself as she did in school. Mary Twining will never merge her individuality with that of another, however dear to her.
The entries grow briefer and more infrequent as the month for the marriage draws near. It is to be in June—two years from that June when she rode down by coach in the care of her father’s friend.
“The day is set for June 27” is one of the last entries in her journal. “Two years ago, fate gave my life into his hands. At least, in giving it to him a second time, fate and I are one.”
The following entry is a month later. It is simply the statement,—
“May 24. I have done my Cousin Eustace wrong.” Then —
“July 27. And I am twenty-one!”
And June comes and goes, and there is no word on her bridal day, no breathings of her new happiness from her ready pen. Is the book closed? Yes, but her biographer has a word to say.
“On June 27, Mary A. Twining became the wife of her Cousin Eustace Fleming. Their betrothal was short, but in the eyes of her judicious parents, there was no unseemly haste. It had long been a cherished wish of their hearts, and Eustace Fleming was a young man of promise and of rare discretion.”
There it ends. The record of Mary Twining is finished. With Mary Fleming he has nothing to do. But where is the girl of ripened understanding, freedom of thought, and directness of purpose? We do not know, for our biographer does not tell us. Was there a tragedy, and were the details too heart-breaking for even the stoical editor to maintain his critical attitude?
Where is the dignified young man with his picturesque devotion, vain toys of pretty speech and gesture, and fiery and presumptuous love and admiration for Mistress Mary Twining? He seemed to me a brave and loyal sort of young fellow enough. I cannot tell. Put the quaint old book back on the shelf and let her romance rest again. But notwithstanding her husband of such promise and rare discretion, I cannot help sighing, “Poor Mary Twining!”
Fate and she had a difference, after all. And she was but twenty-one!
Purchase a PDF of this story – https://payhip.com/b/XW5N9
Check out my lists on Benable
Do you enjoy these reviews? Want to help support this blog? You can leave a tip here.