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58 The Chronicleg of Per~epoUs. [Jan., THE CHRONICLES OF PERSEPOLIS; OR, FIVE~ YEARS OF THE LIFE OF A GENTLEMAN~FARMER IN THE KINGDOM OF NEW-JERSEY. BY MR. QUIGG. OHAPTKR FIRST. HOW I WYU~T I2~O THE OOTT~THY. SHORTLY after my admission to the bar, I committed the common imprudence of getting married. My practice never having been large enough to support me as a bachelor, the addition of a wife was one of those vrovi. dential arrangements which fit a man as Tom Callender s wig fitted his friend John Gilpin. What would not support one was, of course, a potential Cal- ifornia for two, and the possibilities. As I am about to withdraw the veil from five years of my life, it may, perhaps, be proper to mention at the outset that my name is Quigg, and that I have been distinguished, from my youth, by an amiable temper, severe industry, and a pro- found confidence in my fellow-men. In fact, if I ha4 ever possessed a fortune large enough to permit me to do good without serious personal inconvenience~ I flatter myself I should have been a distinguished philanthropist. Indeed the Quiggs have always been more or less distinguished. They are a very old, and exceedingly respectable family. My grandfather was a major in the militia, and my great- aunt Deborah married an alderman. I have been told, too1 that one of my ancestors wrote verses. But the family is very tender upon that head, and I could never learn his name. I believe it is not unusual for folk to commence a story at the wrong end. Most commence life at that place, and the story of a life or part of a life might naturally be expected to follow so general an example. I should have a very good apology to offer too; for in fact, from the first moment I aban- doned the limits of civilization, as comfortably walled around 1856.] The Ch~onides of Per8e2olis. 59 by the boundaries of city life, I have never been exactly cer~ tam which end was foremost. However, I have begun at the beginning, and will endeavor to preserve in some sort the natural order of those remarkable events which I am about to relate. My name you are already acquainted with. I have, there. fore, only to inform you that, to the best of my information and belief, I am the son of my father. My parents were good and happy people; happier in nothing, however, as will be readily admitted, than in having so excellent a son as myself. This brief account of my birth, parentage, and early educa- tion, ought, I think, to entitle me to the entire confidence of my readers. By way of securing me in honest and virtuous courses, my revered parents determined that I should be bred to the law. If they could have made the law bread to me, they would have done a better thing. The summer before I was married, I was taken with the afflicting distemper which usually results in that species of moral suicide. I fell in love: deeply, terribly.over head and ears in love. The great distance one has to fall into that abyss, the rapid- ity of the descent, and the severe shock sustained, make it quite a miracle how any survive the accident. Death, however, seldom intervenes. A brain.fever is usually the worst of the consequences. In the summer of 184, then, I, Clarkson Quigg, Esq., at- torney at law and solicitor in chancery, fell in love. It was a violent attack. The faculty gave me up, and my best friends considered my case hopeless. Early in the month of July the object of my pious adoration went up the Hudson River to spend the summer. Of course I went with her. A sultry summer-day; a crowded steamer; the glorious Hudson. Solitude in the crowd. Alone with the goddess of my dreams. Seductive picture! We talked sentiment beneath the Palisades. Our souls were elevated to a heavenly communion by the grandeur of Antho- nys Nose. Ah! if Providence had only granted us, at that moment, a small boat all alone by ourselves, a faithful dog, and a German flute, together with a guitar for my divine Julia, the mea- sure of our earthly felicity had been full. Wanting, however, those sublime accessories, we nourished our young romance of 60 The Chronicle8 of Per8epolis. [Jan., passion with the fuel of imagination, and got as far away from reality and common-sense as the most exacting novelist could reasonably require from two people in our situation. It was, however, the place, that old house among the trees where we soj ourned all thosesunny days of summer-time which finished us; quenched the last lingering spark of worldly wis- dom, and fooled us into marriage. There were mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins there with us. But I will not linger over them. That sort of people are always in the way of lovers; always just where they are not wanted. I leave them, as I wished oftentimes they would leave mealone; since I am not engaged in recalling the sor- row of that time, but the sweet infatuation of our youthful ecstasy of love. About four miles north of Hyde Park then, and on the banks of the Hudson, was the scene of those events which gave a color to all the after-purpose of our lives. A Wide lane led up to the house from the Old French road On either side the lane towering giant-like in the air, rose up some of the finest locust trees I have ever seen. Be- fore the house especially, were five of enormous size, and so old the oldest neighbors said they were great trees in their childhood, and were probably remains of the original forest which there bordered the river. The house itself was a long, narrow, one-story-and-a-half Dutch mansion of the olden time of New-York. Quaint and comfortable, it squatted behind its trees, and as the smoke rose up from its chimney, seemed like a comfortable old broad- sterned burgher seated in his bowerie The eaves came down at the back of the house almost to the ground, and in front a broad piazza stretched its comfortable length. A lovely reach of meadow-land lay behind, the house,through which a brook made its way wit h many strange twists and windings. This brook came down by way of a rocky hill which lay a little to the south, and formed in its descent a hundred tiny cascades. Amongst these were some very pic- turesque; and from the summit of the rocky elevation a single waterfall, worthy of the name, took its first leap of some twenty feet downwards to the valley. When a storm came to swell the brook, the waterfall could be heard at the house; and, in- deed, at such times it made quite a grand and imposing figure, and lifted up its variable voice almost to the roar of a cat- aract. A succession of rude steps in the rocks, partly natural, 1856.] The Chronicles of Persepolis. 61 partly the work of man, led up the hill by the brookside till at the last step you came suddenly upon the sweetest possible little lake lying, like a forest mirror, framed among the old trees, and reflecting the fantastic shadows of the moving clouds from its waveless surface. Here, here, we, alas !we, Julia and myself; used to sit the livelong summers day, and indulge in choice selections from the British poets. How every tender passage, every soft quotation took a particular and touching application, and re- ceived an eloquent commentary from the language of the eyes, do ye not know, 0 lovers? The shadows of the forest were around us. The sunlight glinted through. The lake lay at our feet, reflecting tremu- lously the fleecy clouds as they sailed across the sky like ships upon the sea. The trees above spread their broad green arms, and the little leaves clapped their hands. The birds, loving fools like ourselves, twittered and giggled with mischie- vous delight to see us getting into the impracticable labyrinth of love, and rushing madly into the jaws of the Minotaur of matrimony. And why do I relate these things? Why do I mention the lake, the forest, the old Dutch farm-house? Alas! it is because having been so happy there, all our fondest memories and brightest fancies became foolishly and fatally connected with the idea of a country life. The country alone would satisfy us. There the sky was bluest. There the birds sang sweetest. There the very silence was eloquent, as with the tongues of angels. The calm and quiet of the soul had there its birth. Love was cradled there, and lay so sweet all canopied with bowers. The day-spring of the soul, the hearts sunrise, and the opening gates of Paradise, with all that lies beyond the mornings doors where, paved with sunbeams, to eternal bliss the road leads on for everallall commenced with babblings of green fields. That road, in ecstasy of hope and loving prophecy of endless joys succeeding, we were to tread down to a remote old age; and always travel it by way of th~ rural districts. And we tried it; poor deluded creatures. All that thing began up there; or, rather, all those three thingsmoonshine, matrimony, and a country life. It began up there. Up in the country. Up by the water- fall. Up by the lake upon the mountain-top. Further up stillin the morning clouds, the sunny, misty, rosy morning clouds of youth and love. 62 The C.4ronicle8 of PereepoZie. [Tan., Therefore we determined to be married, and as soon as pos- sible afterwards to move into the country. We resolved to retire from the horrid city, to leave that place of crime, cram, conventionalities, frippery, and falsehood, and go away to the paradisaical peace and purity of the country. CHAPTE1~ SNOO~D. EXODUS. SUMMER went. Autumn came. The leaves grew red. We were as green as ever. We were married. I had a terrible head-ache the next morning. My brother. in-law was indelicate enough to refer to the arrack.punch of the bridal evening; but, I felt convinced that it was nothing but nervous susceptibility. Our first season in town was as brilliant as our prospects were gloomy; and, by spring, rich in all the new polkas, but terribly low in cash, we began to think seriously of the future. Hoyle says: When you are in doubt, play trumps. Now, the country is the ver~y ace of trumps, for all new-mar- ried folks, whose tastes, habits, and antecedents are at war with the state of their finances. Added to this was the memory of that little garden of bliss, where we had passed the summer preceding our espousals. Of course I bought a farm. To the character of a landed proprietor, I proposed adding my professional one, and tilling the rt~gged soil of law, as well as the arable land of agriculture. Coke and Selden, Wirt and Emmet, Story and Webster were beautifully mixed up, in my imagination, with wheat and ruta-bagas, compost and sum- mer-fallow. I proposed opening, for my neighbors, a new vista, through which their astonished gaze should be directed to unheard-of triumphs, in the art of farming; whilst, at the same time, they were to be ,charmed, in the county court, out of their usual stolidity, by the magic of my eloquence. I fore- saw much profit, and great fame from this combination of industrial and testhetic effort. How I succeeded in the practice of the law, I shall relate in another chapter, in which will be found a full report of the great case of Bivins vs. Smithers. I very soon heard of a placea charming farm, near the