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He saw in her a great stock of piety, an upright heart, a tenderness of mind, inclinations truly great and noble, which he cultivated with admirable care, and set her forward, by degrees, in the most sublime and solid ways of a spiritual life: So that Neachile, under the conduct of Father Xavier, arrived to a singular devotion; that is to say, she grew humble and modest, from disdainful; and haughty as she was, mild to others, and severe to herself, suffering her misfortunes without complaint of injuries; united to God in her retirements, and not appearing publicly, but to exercise the deeds of charity to her neighbour; but more esteemed and honoured, both by the Indians and Portuguese, than when she sat upon the throne, in all the pomp and power of royalty.
How this atmosphere affected Hawthorne he has hinted in his romance founded on some aspects of community life: "Though fond of society, I was so constituted as to need these occasional retirements, even in a life like that of Blithedale, which was itself characterized by a remoteness from the world.
'From this bondage the Reformation set us free. The minister has no longer power to press into the retirements of conscience, to torture us by interrogatories, or put himself in possession of our secrets and our lives. But though we have thus controlled his usurpations, his just and original power remains unimpaired.
Nay, from the force of habit, it follows us even into solitude, and in our most secret retirements we often act as if our conduct were subject to human observation, and we derive no small complacency from the imaginary applauses of an ideal spectator."
Even Mede, though the author of Clavis Apocalyptica was steeped in the soulless clericalism of his age, could not support his brother-fellows without frequent retirements to Balsham, "being not willing to be joined with such company." Happily his father's circumstances were not such as to make a fellowship pecuniarily an object to the son.
There are the stately avenues and retirements of Versailles; Italian terraces; and a various mixed old English style, which bears some relation to the domestic Gothic or English Elizabethan architecture. Whatever may be said against the abuses of the artificial landscape-gardening, a mixture of pure art in a garden scene, adds to it a great beauty.
For if it be admitted that the Divine Spirit, by means of its agency on the heart of man, is really a cause of virtuous character, it will then be but reasonable to suppose, that the Quakers, who lay themselves open for its reception more than others, both by frequent private retirements, and by their peculiar mode of public worship, should bear at least as fair a reputation as others, on account of the purity of their lives.
This, too, was evacuated when the garrison had done their work of delaying our advance and protecting the main retreating body. It was due to their dogged defence that a larger number of prisoners were not taken by the British, and the two almost bloodless retirements were admittedly very ably carried out.
Driver W. Cryer, Royal Field Artillery, relates in the Manchester Guardian that, at St. Quentin, Sir John French visited the troops, "smiling all over his face," and explained the meaning of the repeated retirements. Up to then, says Cryer, the men had almost to be pulled away by the officers, but after the General's visit they fell in with the general scheme with great cheerfulness.
At the end of this period, feeling my health giving way, my father and mother having both, in the meantime, died, and having all that time scraped together a competency, I returned to my native land, and have written these little memoirs in one of the pleasantest little retirements on the banks of the Tweed.
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