第26章

ON one of those clear, cold days of December, which so frequently occur in our climate, two very young women were walking on the fashionable promenade of New-York. In the person of the elder of these females there was exhibited nothing more than the usual indications of youth and health; but there were a delicacy and an expression of exquisite feeling in the countenance of her companion, that caused many a plodding or idle passenger to turn and renew the gaze, which had been attracted by so lovely a person. Her figure was light, and possessed rather a character of aerial grace, than the usual rounded lines of earthly beauty; and her face was beaming more with the sentiments of the soul within, than with the ordinary charms of complexion and features. It was precisely that kind of youthful loveliness that a childless husband would pause to contemplate as the reality of the visions which his thoughts had often portrayed, and which his nature coveted as the only treasure wanting to complete the sum of his earthly bliss. It truly looked a being to be loved without the usual alloy of our passions; and there was a modest ingenuousness which shone in her air, that gently impelled the hearts of others to regard its possessor with a species of holy affection. Amongst the gay throng, however, that thoughtlessly glided along the Broadway, even this image of female perfection was suffered to move unnoticed by hundreds; and it was owing to the obstruction offered to the passage of the ladies, by a small crowd that had gathered on the side-walk, that a gentleman of uncommon personal endowments enjoyed an opportunity of examining it with more than ordinary attention. The eldest of the females drew her companion away from this impediment to their passage, by moving towards the opposite side of the street, and observing, as they crossed, with an indifference in her manner--"It is nothing, Charlotte, but a drunken man; if people will drink, they must abide the consequences.""He does not seem intoxicated, Maria," replied the other, in a voice whose tones corresponded with her appearance; "it is some sudden illness.""One that, I dare say, he is accustomed to," said Maria, without having even taken such a look at the sufferer as would enable her to identify his colour;"he will be well enough after he has slept."

"But is the pavement a place for him to sleep on?"rejoined her companion, still gazing towards the miserable object; "and if he should be ill!--why do they not raise him?--Why do they suffer him to injure himself as he does?"The speaker, at the same time that she shrunk in a kind of sensitive horror from this exhibition of human infirmities, now unconsciously stopped, with an interest in the man that she could not controul, and thus compelled Maria to pause also. The crowd had withdrawn from the man, giving him sufficient room to roll over, in evident pain, while they yet stood gazing at him, with that indefinable feeling of curiosity and nerveless sympathy, which characterises man when not called on to act, by emulation, vanity, or the practice of well-doing. No one offered to assist the sufferer, although many said it ought to be done; some spoke of sending for those who monopolized the official charity of the city; many, having satisfied their curiosity, and finding that the moment for action was arriving, quietly withdrew from a trouble that would interfere with their comforts or their business--while a few felt an impulse to aid the man, but hesitated in being foremost in doing that which would be honourable to their feelings, but might not accord with their condition, or might seem as the ostentatious display of unusual benevolence.

Where men are congregated, conduct must be regulated by the touchstone of public opinion; and, although it is the fashion of New-York to applaud acts of charity, and to do them too in a particular manner--it is by no means usual to run to the assistance of a fellow creature who is lying in distress on a pavement.

{those who monopolized the official charity = in 1821 the only officially supported charitable organization in New York City was the City Dispensary -- municipal aid to others having been cut off in 1817 on the grounds that charity to the poor only made them lazy and improvident}

Whatever might be the impulses of the gentleman whom we have mentioned, his attention was too much absorbed by the conversation and manner of the two ladies to regard any thing else, and he followed them across the street, and stopped also when they paused to view the scene. He was inwardly and deeply admiring the most youthful of the females, for the natural and simple display of those very qualities that he forgot himself to exercise, when he was roused with a feeling of something like mortification, by hearing Charlotte exclaim, with a slight glow on her cheek--"Ah! there is George Morton coming--he surely will not pass the poor man without offering to assist him."The gentleman turned his head quickly, and noticed a youth making his way through the crowd, successfully, to the side of the sufferer. The distance was too great to hear what passed--but an empty coach, whose driver had stopped to gaze with the rest, was instantly drawn up, and the man lifted in, and followed by the youth, whose appearance had effected these movements with the silence and almost with the quietness of magic.