The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index
General
The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index
Literature -- Collections
On the appointed day she sent to his office a relative, a student of
law, to receive his opinion. This young gentleman, timid and
inexperienced, had an immense opinion of Burr's talents; had heard all
good and all evil of him; supposed him to be, at least, the acutest of
possible men. He went. Burr behaved to him in a manner so exquisitely
pleasing that, to this hour, he has the liveliest recollection of the
scene. No topic was introduced but such as were familiar and
interesting to young men. His manners were such as this age of slangy
familiarity can not so much as imagine. The young gentleman went home
to Madame Jumel only to extol and glorify him.
Madame and her party began their journey, revisiting Ballston,
whither, in former times, she had been wont to go in a chariot drawn
by eight horses; visiting Saratoga, then in the beginning of its
celebrity, where, in exactly ten minutes after her arrival, the
decisive lady bought a house and all it contained. Returning to New
York to find that her mansion had been despoiled by robbers in her
absence, she lived for a while in the city. Colonel Burr called upon
the young gentleman who had been madame's messenger, and, after their
acquaintance had ripened, said to him, "Come into my office; I can
teach you more in a year than you can learn in ten in an ordinary
way." The proposition being submitted to Madame Jumel, she, anxious
for the young man's advancement, gladly and gratefully consented. He
entered the office. Burr kept him close at his books. He did teach him
more in a year than he could have learned in ten in an ordinary way.
Burr lived then in Jersey City. His office (23 Nassau street) swarmed
with applicants for aid, and he seemed now to have quite lost the
power of refusing. In no other respects, bodily or mental, did he
exhibit signs of decrepitude.
Some months passed on without his again meeting Madame Jumel. At the
suggestion of the student, who felt exceedingly grateful to Burr for
the solicitude with which he assisted in his studies, Madame Jumel
invited Colonel Burr to dinner. It was a grand banquet, at which he
displayed all the charms of his manner, and shone to conspicuous
advantage. On handing to dinner the giver of the feast, he said: "I
give you my hand, madame; my heart has long been yours." This was
supposed to be merely a compliment, and was little remarked at the
time. Colonel Burr called upon the lady; called frequently; became
ever warmer in his attentions; proposed, at length, and was refused.
He still plied his suit, however, and obtained at last, not the lady's
consent, but an undecided No. Improving his advantage on the instant,
he said, in a jocular manner, that he should bring out a clergyman to
Fort Washington on a certain day, and there he would once more solicit
her hand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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