who married him for convenience, and whose selfish
requisitions had almost driven him mad, was the honorable Mrs. Erle, and
an earl's daughter. He had loved my mother twice as well, found her ten
times more attractive and interesting, devoted and congenial; admired
her grace, recognized all her worth, not only in deed but in word, and
with a fidelity of heart that never wavered even when he married again.
Yet the prestige of descent was wanting in her and hers, or rather,
such as it was, brought with it ignoble and repulsive associations
_only_. He was not the man to reach a hand across Shylock and the
old-clothes man, to grasp that of the poet-king of Israel; or Esther,
the avenging queen of a downtrodden nation; or Joab, strong in valor and
fidelity; or Deborah, inspired to rule a people from beneath the shelter
of her palm-tree in the wilderness.

The grandeur of the past, in his estimation, was eclipsed by the
ignominy of the present; but with me it was otherwise, and, as I grew
old enough to recognize the peculiar traits of that ancient people from
which I sprung, it pleased me to imagine that whatever there was about
me of fiery persistency, of fearless faith, of unshrinking devotion,
nay, of bitter remembrance of injuries, and power to avenge or forgive
them, as the case might be, sprang from that remarkable race who called
themselves at one time, with His permission, the chosen children of God.

I think these very characteristics of mine repelled my father and jarred
on his nervous temperament, endangering that outward calm which it was
his pride and care to preserve as necessary to high-bred demeanor, and
thus intrenching on his ideas of personal dignity. Yet, with strange
inconsistency, it was her very indulgence of these peculiarities that
inclined him most strongly to Constance Glen, and finally, I am well
convinced, determined him on making her his wife, as one well suited to
secure the welfare of his turbulent and incomprehensible child, his
"rebellious Miriam," as he sometimes called me when milder words availed
not.

He had, as I have said, an "English" horror of scenes and excitement of
any kind. He was conservative in every way. He believed in the British
classics, and would not admit that any thing could ever equal, far less
surpass them (dreary bores that many of them are to me!). Walter Scott's
novels were the only ones of later days he ever allowed himself to read
approvingly; for, once being be