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Page 25
The misfortune of the Miscellany, I suppose, was that its publishers had
no capital. They had to resort to the claptraps of fashion-plates and
other engravings, in the hope of forcing an immediate sale upon persons
who, caring for fashion-plates, did not care for the literary character
of the enterprise. It gave a very happy escape-pipe, however, for the
high spirits of some of us who had just left college, and, through my
brother's kindness, I was sometimes permitted to contribute to the
journal. In memory of those early days of authorship, I select "The
South American Editor" to publish here. For the benefit of the New York
Observer, I will state that the story is not true. And lest any should
complain that it advocates elopements, I beg to observe, in the
seriousness of mature life, that the proposed elopement did not succeed,
and that the parties who proposed it are represented as having no
guardians or keepers but themselves. The article was first published in
1842.]
* * * * *
It is now more than six years since I received the following letter from
an old classmate of mine, Harry Barry, who had been studying divinity,
and was then a settled minister. It was an answer to a communication I
had sent him the week before.
"TOPSHAM, R.I. January 22, 1836.
"To say the truth, my dear George, your letter startled me a
little. To think that I, scarcely six months settled in the
profession, should be admitted so far into the romance of it as to
unite forever two young runaways like yourself and Miss Julia
What's-her-name is at least curious. But, to give you your due,
you have made a strong case of it, and as Miss ---- (what is her
name, I have not yours at hand) is not under any real
guardianship, I do not see but I am perfectly justified in
complying with your rather odd request. You see I make a
conscientious matter of it.
"Write me word when it shall be, and I will be sure to be ready.
Jane is of course in my counsels, and she will make your little
wife feel as much at home as in her father's parlor. Trust us for
secrecy.
"I met her last week--"
But the rest of the letter has nothing to do with the story.
The elopement alluded to in it (if the little transaction deserves so
high-sounding a name) was, in every sense of the words, strictly
necessary. Julia Wentworth had resided for years with her grandfather, a
pragmatic old gentleman, to whom from pure affection she had long
yielded an obedience which he would have had no right to extort, and
which he was sometimes disposed to abuse. He had declared in the most
ingenuous manner that she should never marry with his consent any man of
less fortune than her own would be; and on his consent rested the
prospect of her inheriting his property.
Julia and I, however, care little for money now, we cared still less
then; and her own little property and my own little salary made us
esteem ourselves entirely independent of the old gentleman and his will.
His intention respecting the poor girl's marriage was thundered in her
ears at least once a week, so that we both knew that I had no need to
make court to him, indeed, I had never seen him, always having met her
in walking, or in the evening at party, spectacle, concert, or lecture.
He had lately been more domineering than usual, and I had but little
difficulty in persuading the dear girl to let me write to Harry Barry,
to make the arrangement to which he assented in the letter which I have
copied above. The reasoning which I pressed upon her is obvious. We
loved each other,--the old gentleman could not help that; and as he
managed to make us very uncomfortable in Boston, in the existing state
of affairs, we naturally came to the conclusion that the sooner we
changed that state the better. Our excursion to Topsham would, we
supposed, prove a very disagreeable business to him; but we knew it
would result very agreeably for us, and so, though with a good deal of
maidenly compunction and granddaughterly compassion on Julia's part, we
outvoted him.
I have said that I had no fortune to enable me to come near the old
gentleman's _beau ideal_ of a grandson-in-law. I was then living on my
salary as a South American editor. Does the reader know what that is?
The South American editor of a newspaper has the uncontrolled charge of
its South American news. Read any important commercial paper for a
month, and at the end of it tell me if you have any clear conception of
the condition of the various republics (!) of South America. If you
have, it is because that journal employs an individual for the sole
purpose of setting them in the clearest order before you, and that
individual is its South American editor. The general-news editor of the
paper will keep the run of all the details of all the histories of all
the rest of the world, but he hardly attempts this in addition. If he
does, he fails. It is therefore necessary, from the most cogent reasons,
that any American news office which has a strong regard for the
consistency or truth of its South American intelligence shall employ
some person competent to take the charge which I held in the
establishment of the Boston Daily Argus at the time of which I am
speaking. Before that enterprising paper was sold, I was its "South
American man"; this being my only employment, excepting that by a
special agreement, in consideration of an addition to my salary, I was
engaged to attend to the news from St. Domingo, Guatemala, and
Mexico.[F]
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