All that the nurse and all the priest have taught.
All that the nurse and all the priest have taught.
I do not think that, like Lady Denham, she considers it as a commutation, but she preserves it as a habit. A religious exercise, however, never interferes with a worldly one. They are taken up in succession, but with this distinction, the worldly business is to be done, the religious one is not altogether to be left undone. She has a moral chemistry which excels in the amalgamation of contradictory ingredients. On a Sunday at Melbury castle if by any strange accident she and her lord happen to be there together, she first reads him a sermon, and plays at cribbage with him the rest of the evening. In town one Sunday when she had a cold she wrote a tract on the sacrament, for her maids, and then sat up all night at deep play. She declared if she had been successful she would have given her winnings to charity; but as she lost some hundreds, she said she could now with a safe conscience borrow that sum from her charity purse, which she had hoped to add to it, to pay her debt of honor."
Next day, within two hours of her appointed time, she came, and was complimented by Sir John on her punctuality. "Indeed," said she, "Iamrather late, but I met with such a fascinating German novel, that it positively chained me to my bed till past three. I assure you, I never lose time by not rising. In the course of a few winters I have exhausted half Hookham's catalogue, before some of my acquaintance are awake, or I myself out of bed."
We soon stopped at the humble door of which we were in search. Sir John conducted Lady Melbury up the little winding stairs. I assisted Lady Belfield. We reached the room, where Fanny was just finishing a beautiful bunch of jonquils. "How picturesque," whispered Lady Melbury to me. "Do lend me your pencil; I must take a sketch of that sweet girl with the jonquils in her hand. My dear creature," continued she, "you must not only let me have these, but you must make me twelve dozen more flowers as fast as possible, and be sure let me have a great many sprigs of jessamine and myrtle." Then snatching up a wreath of various colored geraniums—"I must try this on my head by the glass." So saying she ran into an adjoining room, the door of which was open; Lady Belfield having before stolen into it to speak to the poor invalid.
As soon as Lady Melbury got into the room, she uttered a loud shriek. Sir John and I ran in, and were shocked to find her near fainting. "Oh, Belfield," said she, "this is a trick, and a most cruel one! Why did you not tell me where you were bringing me? Why did you not tell me the people's name?" "I have never heard it myself," said Sir John, "on my honor I do not understand you." "You know as much of the woman as I know," said Lady Belfield. "Alas, much more," cried she, as fast as her tears would give her leave to speak. She retired to the window for air, wringing her hands, and called for a glass of water to keep her from fainting. I turned to the sick woman for an explanation; I saw her countenance much changed.
"This sir," said she, "is the lady, whose debt of seven hundred pounds ruined me, and was the death of my husband." I was thunderstruck, but went to assist Lady Melbury, who implored Sir John to go home with her instantly, saying, her coach should come back for us. "But, dear Lady Belfield, do lend me twenty guineas, I have not a shilling about me." "Then, my dear Lady Melbury," said Lady Belfield, "howcouldyou order twelve dozen expensive flowers?" "Oh," said she, "I did not mean to have paid for them till next year." "And how," replied Lady Belfield, "could the debt which was not to have been paid for a twelvemonth have relieved the pressing wants of a creature who must pay ready money for her materials? However, as you are so distressed we will contrive to do without your money." "I would pawn my diamond necklace directly," returned she, but speaking lower, "to own the truth, it is already in the jeweler's hands, and I wear a paste necklace of the same form."
Sir John knowing I had been at my banker's that morning, gave me such a significant look as restrained my hand, which was already on my pocket-book. In great seeming anguish, she gave Sir John her hand, who conducted her to her coach. As he was leading her down stairs, she solemnly declared she would never again run in debt, never order more things than she wanted, and above all, would never play while she lived. She was miserable, because she durst not ask Lord Melbury to pay this woman, he having already given her money three times for the purpose, which she had lost at Faro. Then retracting, she protested, if ever shedidtouch a card again, it should be for the sole purpose of getting something to discharge this debt. Sir John earnestly conjured her not to lay "that flattering unction to her soul," but to convert the present vexation into an occasion of felicity, by making it the memorable and happy era of abandoning a practice which injured her fortune, her fame, her principles, and her peace. "Poor thing," said Sir John, when he repeated this to us,
"Ease will recantVows made in pain, as violent and void."
"Ease will recantVows made in pain, as violent and void."
"In an interval of weeping, she told me," added he, "that she was to be at the opera to-night. To the opera Faro will succeed, and to-morrow probably the diamond earrings will go to Grey's in pursuit of the necklace."
Lady Belfield inquired of Fanny how it happened that Lady Melbury, who talked withher, without surprise or emotion, discovered so much of both at the bare sight of her mother. The girl explained this by saying, that she had never been in the way while they lived in Bond-street when her ladyship used to come, having been always employed in an upper room, or attending her masters.
Before we parted, effectual measures were taken for the comfortable subsistence of the sick mother, and for alleviating the sorrows, and lightening the labors of her daughter, and next morning I set out on my journey for Stanley Grove, Sir John and Lady Belfield promising to follow me in a few weeks.
As soon as I got into my post-chaise, and fairly turned my back on London, I fell into a variety of reflections on the persons with whom I had been living. In this soliloquy, I was particularly struck with that discrepancy of characters, all of which are yet included under the broad comprehensive appellation ofChristians. I found that though all differed widely from each other, they differed still more widely from that rule by which they professed to walk. Yet not one of these characters was considered as disreputable. There was not one that was profane or profligate. Not one who would not in conversation have defended Christianity if its truth had been attacked. Not one who derided or even neglected its forms; and who in her own class would not have passed for religious. Yet how little had any one of them adorned the profession she adopted! Of Mrs. Ranby, Mrs. Fentham, Lady Bab Lawless, Lady Denham, Lady Melbury, which of them would not have been startled had her Christianity been called in question? Yet how merely speculative was the religion of even the most serious among them! How superficial, or inconsistent, or mistaken, or hollow, or hypocritical, or self-deceiving was that of all the others! Had either of them been asked from what source she drew her religion, she would indignantly have answered, from the Bible. Yet if we compare the copy with the model, the Christian with Christianity, how little can we trace the resemblance! In what particular did their lives imitate the life of Himwho pleased not himself, whodid the will of his Father; whowent about doing good? How irreconcilable is their faith with the principles which He taught! How dissimilar their practice with the precepts He delivered! How inconsistent their lives with the example He bequeathed! How unfounded their hope of heaven, if an entrance into heaven be restricted to those who arelike minded with Christ!
My father had been early in life intimately connected with the family of Mr. Stanley. Though this gentleman was his junior by several years, yet there subsisted between them such a similarity of tastes, sentiments, views, and principles, that they lived in the closest friendship; and both their families having in the early part of their lives resided in London, the occasions of that thorough mutual knowledge that grows out of familiar intercourse, were much facilitated. I remembered Mr. Stanley, when I was a very little boy, paying an annual visit to my father at the Priory, and I had retained an imperfect but pleasing impression of his countenance and engaging manners.
Having had a large estate left him in Hampshire, he settled there on his marriage; an intercourse of letters had kept up the mutual attachment between him and my father. On the death of each parent, I had received a cordial invitation to come and soothe my sorrows in his society. My father enjoined me that one of my first visits after his death, should be to the Grove; and in truth I now considered my Hampshire engagement as thebonne boucheof my southern excursion.
I reached Stanley Grove before dinner. I found a spacious mansion, suited to the ample fortune and liberal spirit of its possessor. I was highly gratified with fine forest scenery in the approach to the park. The house had a noble appearance without; and within, it was at once commodious and elegant. It stood on the south side of a hill, nearer the bottom than the summit, and was sheltered on the north-east by a fine old wood. The park, though it was not very extensive, was striking from the beautiful inequality of the ground, which was richly clothed with the most picturesque oaks I ever saw, interspersed with stately beeches. The grounds were laid out in good taste, but though the hand of modern improvement was visible, the owner had in one instance spared
"The obsolete prolixity of shade,"
"The obsolete prolixity of shade,"
for which the most interesting of poets so pathetically pleads. The poet's plea had saved the avenue.
I was cordially welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Stanley; and by that powerful and instantaneous impression which fine sense and good breeding, joined to high previous veneration of character, produce on the feelings of the guest, I at once felt myself at home. All the preliminaries of gradual acquaintance were in a manner superseded, and I soon experienced that warm and affectionate esteem, which seemed scarcely to require intercourse to strengthen, or time to confirm it. Mr. Stanley had only a few minutes to present me to his lady and two lovely daughters, before we were summoned to dinner, to which a considerable party had been invited; for the neighborhood was populous and rather polished.
The conversation after dinner was rational, animated, and instructive. I observed that Mr. Stanley lost no opportunity, which fairly offered, for suggesting useful reflections. But what chiefly struck me in his manner of conversing, was, that without ever pressing religion unseasonably into the service, he had the talent of making the most ordinary topics subservient to instruction, and of extracting some profitable hint, or striking out some important light, from subjects which, in ordinary hands, would have been unproductive of improvement. It was evident that piety was the predominating principle of his mind, and that he was consulting its interests as carefully when prudence made him forbear to press it, as when propriety allowed him to introduce it. This piety was rather visible in the sentiment than the phrase. He was of opinion that bad taste could never advance the interests of Christianity. And he gave less offense to worldly men, than most religious people I have known, because though he would, on no human consideration, abate one atom of zeal, or lower any doctrine, nor disguise any truth, nor palliate, nor trim, nor compromise, yet he never contended for words or trifling distinctions. He thought it detracted from no man's piety to bring all his elegance of expression, his correctness of taste, and his accuracy of reasoning to the service of that cause which lies the nearest to the heart of every Christian, and demands the exertion of his best faculties.
He was also forward to promote subjects of practical use in the affairs of common life, suited to the several circumstances and pursuits of his guests. But he particularly rejoiced that there was so broad, and safe, and uninclosed a field as general literature. This he observed always supplies men of education with an ample refuge from all vulgar, and dangerous, and unproductive topics. "If we can not," said he, "by friendly intercourse, always raise our principles, we may always keep our understanding in exercise; and those authors who supply so peccable a creature as man with subjects of elegant and innocent discussion, I do not reckon among the lowest benefactors of mankind."
In my further acquaintance with Mr. Stanley, I have sometimes observed with what address he has converted a merely moral passage to a religious purpose. I have known him, when conversing with a man who would not have relished a more sacred authority, seize on a sentiment in Tully's Offices, for the lowest degree in his scale of morals, and then gradually ascending, trace and exalt the same thought through Paley or Johnson, or Addison or Bacon, till he has unsuspectedly landed his opponent in the pure ethics of the Gospel, and surprised him into the adoption of a Christian principle.
As I had heard there was a fine little flock of children, I was surprised, and almost disappointed every time the door opened, not to see them appear, for I already began to take an interest in all that related to this most engaging family. The ladies having, to our great gratification, sat longer than is usual at most tables, at length obeyed the signal of the mistress of the house. They withdrew, followed by the Miss Stanleys,
With graceWhich won who saw to wish their stay.
With graceWhich won who saw to wish their stay.
After their departure the conversation was not changed. There was no occasion; it could not become more rational, and we did not desire that it should become less pure. Mrs. Stanley and her fair friends had taken their share in it with a good sense and delicacy which raised the tone of our society; and we did not give them to understand by a loud laugh before they were out of hearing, that we rejoiced in being emancipated from the restraint of their presence.
Mrs. Stanley is a graceful and elegant woman. Among a thousand other excellences, she is distinguished for her judgment in adapting her discourse to the character of her guests, and for being singularly skillful in selecting her topics of conversation. I never saw a lady who possessed the talent of diffusing at her table so much pleasure to those around her, without the smallest deviation from her own dignified purity. She asks such questions as strangers may be likely to gain, at least not to lose, credit by answering; and she suits her interrogations to the kind of knowledge they may be supposed likely to possess. By this, two ends are answered: while she gives her guest an occasion of appearing to advantage, she puts herself in the way of gaining some information. From want of this discernment, I have known ladies ask a gentleman just arrived from the East Indies, questions about America; and others, from the absence of that true delicacy, which, where it exists, shows itself even on the smallest occasions, who have inquired of a person how he liked such a book, though she knew, that in the nature of things, there was no probability of his ever having heard of it: thus assuming an ungenerous superiority herself, and mortifying another by a sense of his own comparative ignorance. If there is any one at table who from his station has least claim to attention, he is sure to be treated with particular kindness by Mrs. Stanley, and the diffident never fail to be encouraged, and the modest to be brought forward, by the kindness and refinement of her attentions.
When we were summoned to the drawing-room, I was delighted to see four beautiful children, fresh as health and gay as youth could make them, busily engaged with the ladies. One was romping; another singing; a third was showing some drawings of birds, the natural history of which she seemed to understand; a fourth had spread a dissected map on the carpet, and had pulled down her eldest sister on the floor to show her Copenhagen. It was an animating scene. I could have devoured the sweet creatures. I got credit with the little singer by helping her to a line which she had forgotten, and with the geographer by my superior acquaintance with the shores of the Baltic.
In the evening when the company had left us, I asked Mrs. Stanley how she came so far to deviate from established custom as not to produce her children immediately after dinner? "You must ask me," said Mr. Stanley, smiling, "for it was I who first ventured to suggest this bold innovation. I love my children fondly, but my children I have always at home; I have my friends but seldom; and I do not choose that any portion of the time that I wish to dedicate to intellectual and social enjoyment should be broken in upon by another, and an interfering pleasure, which I have always within my reach. At the same time I like my children to see my friends. Company amuses, improves, and polishes them. I therefore consulted with Mrs. Stanley how we could so manage as to enjoy our friends without locking up our children. She recommended this expedient. The time, she said, spent by the ladies from their leaving the dining-room till the gentlemen came in to tea, was often a little heavy, it was rather an interval of anticipation than of enjoyment. Those ladies who had not muchmind, had soon exhausted their admiration of each other's worked muslins, and lace sleeves; and those whohad, would be glad to rest it so agreeably. She therefore proposed to enliven that dull period by introducing the children.
"This little change has not only succeeded in our own family, but has been adopted by many of our neighbors. For ourselves, it has answered a double purpose. It not only delights the little things, but it delights them with less injury than the usual season of their appearance. Our children have always as much fruit as they like, after their own dinner; they do not therefore want or desire the fruits, the sweetmeats, the cakes, and the wine with which the guests, in order to please mamma, are too apt to cram them. Besides, poor little dears, it mixes too much selfishness with the natural delight they have in seeing company, by connecting it with the idea of the good things they shall get. But by this alteration we do all in our power to infuse a little disinterestedness into the pleasure they have in coming to us. We love them too tenderly to crib their little enjoyments, so we give them two pleasures instead of one, for they have their dessert and our company in succession."
Though I do not approve of too great familiarity with servants, yet I think that to an old and faithful domestic, superior consideration is due. My attendant on my present tour had lived in our family from his youth, and had the care of me before I can remember. His fidelity and good sense, and I may add, his piety, had obtained for him the privilege of free speaking. "Oh, sir," said he, when he came to attend me next morning, "we are got into the right house at last. Such a family! so godly! so sober! so charitable! 'Tis all of a piece here, sir. Mrs. Comfit, the housekeeper, tells me that her master and mistress are the example of all the rich, and the refuge of all the poor in the neighborhood. And as to Miss Lucilla, if the blessing of them that are ready to perish can send any body to heaven, she will go there sure enough."
This rhapsody of honest Edwards warmed my heart, and put me in mind that I had neglected to inquire after this worthy housekeeper, who had lived with my grandfather, and was at his death transplanted into the family of Mr. Stanley. I paid a visit, the first opportunity, to the good woman in her room, eager to learn more of a family who much resembled my own parents, and for whom I had already conceived something more tender than mere respect.
I congratulated Mrs. Comfit on the happiness of living in so valuable a family. In return, she was even eloquent in their praises. "Her mistress," she said, "was a pattern for ladies, so strict, and yet so kind! but now, indeed, Miss Lucilla has taken almost all the family cares from her mamma. The day she was sixteen, sir, that is about two years and a half ago, she began to inspect the household affairs a little, and as her knowledge increased, she took more and more upon her. Miss Ph[oe]be will very soon be old enough to relieve her sister; but my mistress won't let her daughters have any thing to do with family affairs till they are almost women grown, both for fear it should take them off from their learning, and also give them a low turn about eating and caring for niceties, and lead them into vulgar gossip and familiarity with servants. It is time enough, she says, when their characters are a little formed, they will then gain all the good and escape all the danger."
Seeing me listen with the most eager and delighted attention, the worthy woman proceeded. "In summer, sir, Miss Stanley rises at six, and spends two hours in her closet, which is stored with the best books. At eight she consults me on the state of provisions, and other family matters, and gives me a bill of fare, subject to the inspection of her mamma. The cook has great pleasure in acting under her direction, because she allows that Miss understands when things are well done, and never finds fault in the wrong place; which, she says, is a great mortification in serving ignorant ladies, who praise or find fault by chance, not according to the cook's performance, but their own humor. She looks over my accounts every week, which being kept so short, give her but little trouble, and once a month she settles every thing with her mother.
"'Tis a pleasure, sir, to see how skillful she is in accounts! One can't impose upon her a farthing if one would; and yet she is so mild and so reasonable! and so quick at distinguishing what are mistakes, and what are willful faults! Then she is so compassionate! It will be a heart-breaking day at the Grove, sir, whenever Miss marries. When my master is sick, she writes his letters, reads to him, and assists her mamma in nursing him.
"After her morning's work, sir, does she come into company, tired and cross, as ladies do who have done nothing or are but just up? No, she comes in to make breakfast for her parents, as fresh as a rose, and as gay as a lark. An hour after breakfast, she and my master read some learned books together. She then assists in teaching her little sisters, and never were children better instructed. One day in a week, she sets aside both for them and herself to work for the poor, whom she also regularly visits at their own cottages, two evenings in the week; for she says it would be troublesome and look ostentatious to have her father's doors crowded with poor people, neither could she get at their wants and their characters half so well as by going herself to their own houses. My dear mistress has given her a small room as a store-house for clothing and books for her indigent neighbors. In this room each of the younger daughters, the day she is seven years old, has her own drawer, with her name written on it; and almost the only competition among them is, whose shall be soonest filled with caps, aprons, and handkerchiefs. The working day is commonly concluded by one of these charitable visits. The dear creatures are loaded with their little work-baskets, crammed with necessaries. This, sir, is the day—and it is always looked forward to with pleasure by them all. Even little Celia, the youngest, who is but just turned of five, will come to me and beg for something good to put in her basket for poor Mary or Betty such a one. I wonder I do not see any thing of the little darlings; it is about the time they used to pay me a visit.
"On Sundays before church they attend the village school; when the week's pocket-money, which has been carefully hoarded for the purpose, is produced for rewards to the most deserving scholars. And yet, sir, with all this, you may be in the house a month without hearing a word of the matter; it is all done so quietly; and when they meet at their meals they are more cheerful and gay than if they had been ever so idle."
Here Mrs. Comfit stopped, for just then two sweet little cherry-cheeked figures presented themselves at the door, swinging a straw basket between them, and crying out, in a little begging voice, "Pray, Mrs. Comfit, bestow your charity—we want something coarse for the hungry, and something nice for the sick—poor Dame Alice and her little grand-daughter!" They were going on, but spying me, they colored up to the ears, and ran away as fast as they could, though I did all in my power to detain them.
When Miss Stanley came in to make breakfast, she beautifully exemplified the worthy housekeeper's description. I have sometimes seen young women, whose simplicity was destitute of elegance, and others in whom a too elaborate polish had nearly effaced their native graces: Lucilla appeared to unite the simplicity of nature to the refinement of good breeding. It was thus she struck me at first sight. I forbore to form a decided opinion till I had leisure to observe whether her mind fulfilled all that her looks promised.
Lucilla Stanley is rather perfectly elegant than perfectly beautiful. I have seen women as striking, but I never saw one so interesting. Her beauty is countenance: it is the stamp of mind intelligibly printed on the face. It is not so much the symmetry of features as the joint triumph of intellect and sweet temper. A fine old poet has well described her:
Her pure and eloquent bloodSpoke in her cheeks and so distinctly wrought.That one could almost say her body thought.
Her pure and eloquent bloodSpoke in her cheeks and so distinctly wrought.That one could almost say her body thought.
Her conversation, like her countenance, is compounded of liveliness, sensibility, and delicacy. She does not say things to be quoted, but the effect of her conversation is that it leaves an impression of pleasure on the mind, and a love of goodness on the heart. She enlivens without dazzling, and entertains without overpowering. Contented to please, she has no ambition to shine. There is nothing like effort in her expression, or vanity in her manner. She has rather a playful gayety than a pointed wit. Of repartee she has little, and dislikes it in others; yet I have seldom met with a truer taste for inoffensive wit. This is indeed the predominating quality of her mind; and she may rather be said to be a nice judge of the genius of others than to be a genius herself. She has a quick perception of whatever is beautiful or defective in composition or in character. The same true taste pervades her writing, her conversation, her dress, her domestic arrangements, and her gardening, for which last she has both a passion and a talent. Though she has a correct ear, she neither sings nor plays; and her taste is so exact in drawing, that she really seems to havele compass dans l'[oe]uil; yet I never saw a pencil in her fingers, except to sketch a seat or a bower for the pleasure-grounds. Her notions are too just to allow her to be satisfied with mediocrity in any thing, and for perfection in many things, she thinks that life is too short, and its duties too various and important. Having five younger sisters to assist, has induced her to neglect some acquisitions which she would have liked. Had she been an only daughter, she owns that she would have indulged a little more in the garnish and decoration of life.
At her early age, the soundness of her judgment on persons and things can not be derived from experience; she owes it to atactso fine as enables her to seize on the strong feature, the prominent circumstance, the leading point, instead of confusing her mind and dissipating her attention, on the inferior parts of a character, a book, or a business. This justness of thinking teaches her to rate things according to their worth, and to arrange them according to their place. Her manner of speaking adds to the effect of her words, and the tone of her voice expresses with singular felicity, gayety or kindness, as her feelings direct, and the occasion demands. This manner is so natural, and her sentiments spring so spontaneously from the occasion, that it is obvious that display is never in her head, nor an eagerness for praise in her heart. I never heard her utter a word which I could have wished unsaid, or a sentiment I could have wished unthought.
As to her dress, it reminds me of what Dr. Johnson once said to an acquaintance of mine, of a lady who was celebrated for dressing well. "The best evidence that I can give you of her perfection in this respect is, that one can never remember what she had on." The dress of Lucilla is not neglected, and it is not studied. She is as neat as the strictest delicacydemands, and as fashionable as the strictest delicacypermits; and her nymph-like form does not appear to less advantage for being vailed with scrupulous modesty.
Oh! if women in general knew what was their real interest! if they could guess with what a charm even theappearanceof modesty invests its possessor, they would dress decorously from mere self-love, if not from principle. The designing would assume modesty as an artifice, the coquet would adopt it as an allurement, the pure as her appropriate attraction, and the voluptuous as the most infallible art of seduction.
What I admire in Miss Stanley, and what I have sometime regretted the want of in some other women, is, that I am told she is so lively, so playful, so desirous of amusing her father and mother when alone, that they are seldom so gay as in their family party. It is then that her talents are all unfolded, and that her liveliness is without restraint. She was rather silent the two or three first days after my arrival, yet it was evidently not the silence of reserve or inattention, but of delicate propriety. Her gentle frankness and undesigning temper gradually got the better of this little shyness, and she soon began to treat me as the son of her father's friend. I very early found, that though a stranger might behold her without admiration, it was impossible to converse with her with indifference. Before I had been a week at the Grove, my precautions vanished, my panoply was gone, and yet I had not consulted Mr. Stanley.
In contemplating the captivating figure, and the delicate mind of this charming girl, I felt that imagination, which misleads so many youthful hearts, had preserved mine. The image my fancy had framed, and which had been suggested by Milton's heroine, had been refined indeed, but it had not been romantic. I had early formed an ideal standard in my mind; too high, perhaps; but its very elevation had rescued me from the common dangers attending the society of the sex. I was continually comparing the women with whom I conversed, with the fair conception which filled my mind. The comparison might be unfair to them; I am sure it was not unfavorable to myself, for it preserved me from the fascination of mere personal beauty, the allurements of fictitious character, and the attractions of ordinary merit.
I am aware that love is apt to throw a radiance around the being it prefers, till it becomes dazzled, less perhaps with the brightness of the object itself, than with the beams with which imagination has invested it. But religion, though it had not subdued my imagination, had chastised it. It had sobered the splendors of fancy, without obscuring them. It had not extinguished the passions, but it had taught me to regulate them.——I now seemed to have found the being of whom I had been in search. My mind felt her excellences, my heart acknowledged its conqueror. I struggled, however, not to abandon myself to its impulses. I endeavored to keep my own feelings in order, till I had time to appreciate a character which appeared as artless as it was correct. And I did not allow myself to make this slight sketch of Lucilla, and of the effect she produced on my heart, till more intimate acquaintance had justified my prepossessions.
But let me not forget that Mr. Stanley had another daughter. If Lucilla's character is more elevated, Ph[oe]be's is not less amiable. Her face is equally handsome, but her figure is somewhat less delicate. She has a fine temper, and strong virtues. The little faults she has, seem to flow from the excess of her good qualities. Her susceptibility is extreme, and to guide and guard it, finds employment for her mother's fondness, and her father's prudence. Her heart overflows with gratitude for the smallest service. This warmth of her tenderness keeps her affections in more lively exercise than her judgment; it leads her to over-rate the merit of those she loves, and to estimate their excellences, less by their own worth than by their kindness to her. She soon behaved to me with the most engaging frankness, and her innocent vivacity encouraged, in return, that affectionate freedom with which one treats a beloved sister.
The other children are gay, lovely, interesting, and sweet-tempered. Their several acquisitions, for I detest the termaccomplishments, since it has been warped from the true meaning in which Milton used it, seem to be so many individual contributions brought in to enrich the common stock of domestic delight. Their talents are never put into exercise by artificial excitements. Habitual industry, quiet exertion, successive employments, affectionate intercourse, and gay and animated relaxation, make up the round of their cheerful day.
I could not forbear admiring in this happy family the graceful union of piety with cheerfulness; strictness of principle embellished, but never relaxed by gayety of manners; a gayety, not such as requires turbulent pleasures to stimulate it, but evidently the serene, yet animated, result of well-regulated minds;—of minds actuated by a tenderness of conscience, habitually alive to the perception of the smallest sin, and kindling into holy gratitude at the smallest mercy.
I often called to my mind that my father, in order to prevent my being deceived, and run away with by persons who appeared lively at first sight, had early accustomed me to discriminate carefully, whether it was not theanimalonly that was lively, and the man dull. I have found this caution of no small use in my observations on the other sex. I had frequently remarked, that the musical and the dancing ladies, and those who were most admired for modish attainments, had littleintellectualgayety. In numerous instances I found that the mind was the only part which was not kept in action; and no wonder, for it was the only part which had received no previous forming, no preparatory molding.
When I mentioned this to Mr. Stanley, "the education," replied he, "which now prevails, is a Mohammedan education. It consists entirely in making woman an object of attraction. There are, however, a few reasonable people left, who, while they retain the object, improve upon the plan. They too would make woman attractive; but it is by sedulously laboring to make the understanding, the temper, the mind, and the manners of their daughters, as engaging as these Circassian parents endeavor to make the person."
The friendly rector frequently visited at Stanley Grove, and, for my father's sake, honored me with his particular kindness. Dr. Barlow filled up all my ideas of a country clergyman of the higher class. There is a uniform consistency runs through his whole life and character, which often brings to my mind, allowing for the revolution in habits that almost two hundred years have necessarily produced, the incomparablecountry parsonof the ingenious Mr. George Herbert.[1]
"I never sawZeal without Innovation," said Mr. Stanley, "more exemplified than in Dr. Barlow. His piety is as enlightened as it is sincere. No errors in religion escape him, through ignorance of their existence, or through carelessness in their detection, or through inactivity in opposing them. He is too honest not to attack the prevailing evil, whatever shape it may assume; too correct to excite in the wise any fears that his zeal may mislead his judgment, and too upright to be afraid of the censures which active piety must ever have to encounter from the worldly and the indifferent, from cold hearts and unfurnished heads.
"From his affectionate warmth, however, and his unremitting application, arising from the vast importance he attaches to the worth of souls, the man of the world might honor him with the title of enthusiast; while his prudence, sober-mindedness, and regularity, would draw on him from the fanatic, the appellation of formalist. Though he is far from being 'content todwellin decencies,' he is careful never to neglect them. He is a clergyman all the week as well as on Sunday; for he says, if he did not spend much of the intermediate time in pastoral visits, there could not be kept up that mutual intercourse of kindness which so much facilitates his own labors, and his people's improvement. They listen to him because they love him, and they understand him, because he has familiarized them by private discourse to the great truths which he delivers from the pulpit.
"Dr. Barlow has greatly diminished the growth of innovation in his parishes, by attacking the innovator with his own weapons. Not indeed by stooping to the same disorderly practices, but by opposing an enlightened earnestness to an eccentric earnestness; a zealwithknowledge to a zealwithoutit. He is of opinion that activity does more good than invective, and that the latter is too often resorted to, because it is the cheaper substitute.
"His charity, however, is large, and his spirit truly catholic. He honors all his truly pious brethren, who are earnest in doing good, though they may differ from him as to the manner of doing it. Yet his candor never intrenches on his firmness; and while he will not dispute with others about shades of difference, he maintains his own opinions with the steadiness of one who embraced them on the fullest conviction.
"He is a 'scholar, and being a good and a ripe one,' it sets him above aiming at the paltry reputation to be acquired by those false embellishments of style, those difficult and uncommon words, and that labored inversion of sentences, by which some injudicious clergymen make themselves unacceptable to the higher, and unintelligible to the lower, and of course, the larger part of their audience. He always bears in mind that the common people are not foolish, they are only ignorant. To meet the one he preaches good sense, to suit the other, plain language. But while he seldom shoots over the heads of the uninformed, he never offends the judicious. He considers the advice of Polonius to his son to be as applicable to preachers as to travelers—
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
"In his pulpit he is no wrangling polemic, but a genuine Bible Christian, deeply impressed himself with the momentous truths he so earnestly presses upon others. His mind is so imbued, so saturated, if I may hazard the expression, with scriptural knowledge, that from that rich store-house, he is ever ready to bring forthtreasures, new and old, and to apply them wisely, temperately, and seasonably.
"Though he carefully inculcates universal holiness in all his discourses, yet his practical instructions are constantly deduced from those fundamental principles of Christianity which are the root and life and spirit of all goodness. Next to a solid piety, and a deep acquaintance with the Bible, he considers it of prime importance to a clergyman to be thoroughly acquainted with human nature in general, and with the state of his own parish in particular. The knowledge of both will alone preserve him from preaching too personally so as to hurt, or too generally so as not to touch.
"He is careful not to hurry over the prayers in so cold, inattentive, and careless a manner, as to make the audience suspect he is saving himself, that he may make a greater figure in delivering the sermon. Instead of this, the devout, reverential, and impressive manner in which he pronounces the various parts of the Liturgy, best prepares his own heart, and the hearts of his people, to receive benefit from his discourse. His petitions are delivered with such sober fervor, his exhortations with such humble dignity, his thanksgiving with such holy animation as carry the soul of the hearer along with him. When he ascends the pulpit, he never throws the liturgical service into the back ground by a long elaborate composition of his own, delivered with superior force and emphasis. And he pronounces the Lord's prayer with a solemnity which shows that he recollects its importance and its author.
"In preaching, he is careful to be distinctly heard, even by his remotest auditors, and by constant attention to this important article, he has brought his voice, which was not strong, to be particularly audible. He affixes so much importance to a distinct delivery, that he smilingly told me he suspected the grammatical definition of a substantive was originally meant for a clergyman, whose great object it was, if possible,to be seen, but indispensably to beheard,felt, andunderstood.
"His whole performance is distinguished by a grave and majestic simplicity, as far removed from the careless reader of a common story, as from the declamation of an actor. His hearers leave the church, not so much in raptures with the preacher, as affected with the truths he has delivered. He says, he always finds he has done most good when he has been least praised, and that he feels most humbled when he receives the warmest commendation, because men, generally extol most the sermons which have probed them least; whereas those which really do good, being often such as make them most uneasy, are consequently the least likely to attract panegyric. 'Theyonly bear true testimony to the excellence of a discourse,' added he, 'not who commend the composition or the delivery, but who are led by it to examine their own hearts, to search out its corruptions, and to reform their lives. Reformation is the flattery I covet.'
"He is aware that the generality of hearers like to retire from the sermon with the comfortable belief, that little is to be done ontheirparts. Such hearers he always disappoints, by leaving on their minds at the close, some impressive precept deduced from, and growing out of, the preparatory doctrine. He does not press any one truth to the exclusion of all others. He proposes no subtleties, but labors to excite seriousness, to alarm the careless, to quicken the supine, to confirm the doubting. He presses eternal things as things near at hand; as things in which every living man has an equal interest.
"Mr. Stanley says, that though Dr. Barlow was considered at Cambridge as a correct young man, who carefully avoided vice and even irregularity, yet being cheerful, and addicted to good society, he had a disposition to innocent conviviality, which might, unsuspectedly, have led him into the errors he abhorred. He was struck with a passage in a letter from Dr. Johnson to a young man who had just taken orders, in which, among other wholesome counsel, he advises him 'to acquire the courage to refusesometimesinvitations to dinner.' It is inconceivable what a degree of force and independence his mind acquired by the occasional adoption of this single hint. He is not only, Mr. Stanley, the spiritual director, but the father, the counselor, the arbitrator, and the friend of those whom Providence has placed under his instruction.
"He is happy in an excellent wife, who, by bringing him a considerable fortune, has greatly enlarged his power of doing good. But still more essentially has she increased his happiness, and raised his character, by her piety and prudence. By the large part she takes in his affairs, he is enabled to give himself wholly up to the duties of his profession. She is as attentive to the bodies, as her husband is to the souls of his people, and educates her own family as sedulously as he instructs his parish.
"One day when I had been congratulating Dr. Barlow on the excellence of his wife's character, the conversation fell, by a sudden transition, on the celibacy of the Romish clergy. He smiled and said, 'Let us ministers of the Reformation be careful never to provoke the people to wish for the restoration of that part of popery. I often reflect how peculiarly incumbent it is on us, to select such partners as shall never cause our emancipation from the old restrictions to be regretted. And we ourselves ought, by improving the character of our wives, to repay the debt we owe to the ecclesiastical laws of Protestantism for the privilege of possessing them.'
"Will it be thought too trifling to add, how carefully this valuable pair carry their consistency into the most minute details of their family arrangements? Their daughters are no less patterns of decorum and modesty in their dress and appearance, than in the more important parts of their conduct. The Doctor says, 'that the most distant and inconsiderable appendages to the temple of God, should have something of purity and decency. Besides,' added he, 'with what face could I censure improprieties from the pulpit, if the appearance of my own family in the pew below were to set my precepts at defiance, by giving an example of extravagance and vanity to the parish, and thus by making the preacher ridiculous make his expostulations worse than ineffectual.
"So conscientious a rector," added Mr. Stanley, "could not fail to be particularly careful in the choice of a curate; and a more humble, pious, diligent assistant than Mr. Jackson could not easily be found. He is always a welcome guest at my table. But this valuable man, who was about as good a judge of the world as the great Hooker, made just such another indiscreet marriage. He was drawn in to choose his wife, the daughter of a poor tradesman in the next town, because he concluded that a woman bred in humble and active life, would necessarily be humble and active herself.Herreason for acceptinghimwas because she thought that as every clergyman was agentleman, she of course, as his wife, should be agentlewoman, and fit company for any body.
"'He instructs my parish admirably,' said Dr. Barlow, 'but his own little family he can not manage. His wife is continually reproaching him, that though he may know the way to heaven, he does not know how to push his way in the world. His daughter is the finest lady in the parish, and outdoes them all, not only in the extremity, but the immodesty of the fashion. It is her mother's great ambition that she should excel the Miss Stanleys and my daughters in music, while her good father's linen betrays sad marks of negligence. I once ventured to tell Mrs. Jackson that there was only one reason which could excuse the education she had given her daughter, which was that I presumed she intended to qualify her for getting her bread; and that if she would correct the improprieties of the girl's dress, and get her instructed in useful knowledge, I would look out for a good situation for her. This roused her indignation. She refused my offer with scorn, saying, that when she asked my charity, she would take my advice; and desired that I would remember that one clergyman's daughter was as good as another. I told her that there was indeed a sense in which one clergyman was as good as another, because the profession dignified the lowest of the order, if, like her husband, he was a credit to that order. Yet still there were gradations in the church as well as in the state. But between thewivesanddaughtersof the higher and lower clergy, there were the same distinction which riches and poverty have established between those of the higher and lower orders of the laity; and that rank and independence in the one case, confer the same outward superiority with rank and independence in the other."
Among the visitors at Stanley Grove, there was a family of ladies, who, though not particularly brilliant, were singularly engaging from their modesty, gentleness, and good sense. One day when they had just left us, Mr. Stanley obliged me with the following little relation: Mrs. Stanley and Lucilla only being present.
"Lady Aston has been a widow almost seven years. On the death of Sir George, she retired into this neighborhood with her daughters, the eldest of whom is about the age of Lucilla. She herself had had a pious but a very narrow education. Her excessive grief for the loss of her husband augmented her natural love of retirement which she cultivated, not to the purpose of improvement, but to the indulgence of melancholy. Soon after she settled here, we heard how much good she did, and in how exemplary a manner she lived, before we saw her. She was not very easy of access even to us; and after we had made our way to her, we were the only visitors she admitted for a long time. We soon learned to admire her deadness to the world, and her unaffected humility. Our esteem for her increased with our closer intercourse, which however enabled us also to observe some considerable mistakes in her judgment, especially in the mode in which she was training up her daughters. These errors we regretted, and with all possible tenderness ventured to point out to her. The girls were the prettiest demure little nuns you ever saw, mute and timid, cheerless and inactive, but kind, good, and gentle.
"Their pious mother, who was naturally of a fearful and doubting mind, had had this pensive turn increased by several early domestic losses, which, even previous to Sir George's death, had contributed to fix something of a too tender and hopeless melancholy on her whole character. There are two refuges for the afflicted; two diametrically opposite ways of getting out of sorrow—religion and the world. Lady Aston had wisely chosen the former. But her scrupulous spirit had made the narrow way narrower than religion required. She read the Scriptures diligently, and she prayed over them devoutly; but she had no judicious friend to direct her in these important studies. As your Mrs. Ranby attended only to the doctrines, and our friend Lady Belfield trusted indefinitely to the promises, so poor Lady Aston's broken spirit was too exclusively carried to dwell on the threatenings; together with the rigid performance of those duties which she earnestly hoped might enable her to escape them. This round of duty, of watchfulness, and prayer, she invariably performed with almost the sanctity of an apostle, but with a little too much of the scrupulosity of an ascetic. While too many were rejoicing with unfounded confidence in those animating passages of Scripture, which the whole tenor of their lives demonstrates not to belong to them, she trembled at those denunciations which she could not fairly apply to herself. And the promises from which she might have derived reasonable consolation, she overlooked as designed for others.
"Her piety, though sincere, was a little tinctured with superstition. If any petty strictness was omitted, she tormented herself with causeless remorse. If any little rule was broken, she repaired the failure with treble diligence the following day; and labored to retrieve her perplexed accounts with the comfortless anxiety of a person who is working out a heavy debt. I endeavored to convince her, that an inferior duty which clashed with one of a higher order, might be safely postponed at least, if not omitted.
"A diary has been found useful to many pious Christians, as a record of their sins, and of their mercies. But this poor lady spent so much time in weighing the offenses of one day against those of another, that before the scruple was settled, the time for action was past. She brought herself into so much perplexity by reading over this journal of her infirmities, that her difficulties were augmented by the very means she had employed to remove them; and her conscience was disturbed by the method she had taken to quiet it. This plan, however, though distressing to a troubled mind, is wholesome to one of a contrary cast.
"Myfamily, as you have seen, are rather exact in the distribution of their time, but we do not distress ourselves at interruptions which are unavoidable: butherarrangements were carried on with a rigor which made her consider the smallest deviation as a sin that required severe repentance. Her alms were expiations, her self-denials penances.
"She was rather a disciple of the mortified Baptist, than of the merciful Redeemer. Her devotions were sincere but discouraging. They consisted much in contrition, but little in praise; much in sorrow for sin, but little in hope of its pardon. She did not sufficiently cast her care and confidence on the great propitiation. She firmly believed all that her Saviour had done and suffered, but she had not the comfort of practically appropriating the sacrifice. While she was painfully working out her salvation with fear and trembling, she indulged the most unfounded apprehensions of the divine displeasure. At Aston Hall the Almighty was literally feared, but he was not glorified. It was the obedience of a slave, and not the reverential affection of a child.
"When I saw her denying herself and her daughters the most innocent enjoyments, and suspecting sin in the most lawful indulgences, I took the liberty to tell her how little acceptable uncommanded austerities and arbitrary impositions were to the God of mercies. I observed to her that the world, that human life, that our own sins and weaknesses, found us daily and hourly occasions of exercising patience and self-denial; that life is not entirely made up of great evils or heavy trials, but that the perpetual recurrence of petty evils and small trials is the ordinary and appointed exercise of the Christian graces. To bear with the failings of those about us, with their infirmities, their bad judgment, their ill-breeding, their perverse tempers; to endure neglect where we feel we have deserved attention, and ingratitude where we expected thanks; to bear with the company of disagreeable people, whom Providence has placed in our way, and whom he has perhaps provided on purpose for the trial of our virtue: these are the best exercises; and the better because not chosen by ourselves. To bear with vexations in business, with disappointments in our expectations, with interruptions of our retirement, with folly, intrusion, disturbance, in short, with whatever opposes our will, and contradicts our humor; this habitual acquiescence appears to be more of the essence of self-denial than any little rigors or inflictions of our own imposing. These constant, inevitable, but inferior evils, properly improved, furnish a good moral discipline, and might well in the days of ignorance have superseded pilgrimage and penance. It has this advantage too over the other, that it sweetens the temper and promotes humility, while the former gives rigidness instead of strength, and inflexibility instead of firmness."
"I have often thought," said I, when Mr. Stanley made a pause, "that we are apt to mistake our vocation by looking out of the way for occasions to exercise great and rare virtues, and by stepping over those ordinary ones which lie directly in the road before us. When we read, we fancy we could be martyrs, and when we come to act, we can not even bear a provoking word."
Miss Stanley looked pleased at my remark, and in a modest tone observed that "in no one instance did we deceive ourselves more than in fancying we could do great things well, which we were never likely to be called to do at all; while, if we were honest, we could not avoid owning how negligently we performed our own little appointed duties, and how sedulously we avoided the petty inconveniences which these duties involved."
"By kindness," resumed Mr. Stanley, "we gradually gained Lady Aston's confidence, and of that confidence we have availed ourselves to give something of a new face to the family. Her daughters, good as they were dutiful, by living in a solitude unenlivened by books, and unvaried by improving company, had acquired a manner rather resembling fearfulness than delicacy. Religious they were, but they had contracted gloomy views of religion. They considered it as something that must be endured in order to avoid punishment, rather than as a principle of peace, and trust, and comfort; as a task to be gone through, rather than as a privilege to be enjoyed. They were tempted to consider the Almighty as a hard master, whom however they were resolved to serve, rather than as a gracious father who was not only loving, butlovein the abstract. Their mother was afraid to encourage a cheerful look, lest it might lead to levity, or a sprightly thought, for fear it might have a wrong tendency. She forgot, or rather she did not know, that young women were not formed for contemplative life. She forgot that in all our plans and operations we should still bear in mind that there are two worlds. As it is the fault of too many to leave thenextout of their calculation, it was the error of Lady Aston, in forming the minds of her children, to leave outthis. She justly considered heaven as their great aim and end; but neglected to qualify them for the present temporal life, on the due use and employment of which so obviously depends the happiness of that which is eternal.
"Her charities were very extensive, but of these charities her sweet daughters were not made the active dispensers, because an old servant, who governed not only the family but her lady also, chose that office herself. Thus the bounty being made to flow in partial channels, the woman's relations and favorites almost entirely engrossing it, it did little comparative good.
"With fair understandings the Miss Astons had acquired very little knowledge: their mother's scrupulous mind found something dangerous in every author who did not professedly write on religious subjects. If there were one exceptionable page in a book, otherwise valuable, instead of suppressing the page, she suppressed the book. And indeed, my dear Charles, grieved am I to think how few authors of the more entertaining kind wecanconsider as perfectly pure, and put without caution, restriction, or mutilation, into the hands of our daughters. I am, however, of opinion, that as they will not always have their parents for tasters, and as they will everywhere, even in the most select libraries, meet with these mixed works, in which, though there is much to admire, yet there is something to expunge, it is the safest way to accustom them early to hear read the most unexceptionable parts of these books.
"Read them yourself to them without any air of mystery; tell them that what you omit is not worth reading, and then the omissions will not excite but stifle curiosity. The books to which I allude are those where the principle is sound and the tendency blameless, and where the few faults consist rather in coarseness than in corruption.
"But to return; she fancied that these inexperienced creatures, who had never tried the world, and whose young imaginations had perhaps painted it in all the brilliant colors with which erring fancy gilds the scenes it has never beheld, and the pleasure it has never tried, could renounce it as completely as herself, who had exhausted what it has to give, and was weary of it. She thought they could live contentedly in their closets, without considering that she had neglected to furnish their minds with that knowledge which may make the closet a place of enjoyment, by supplying the intervals of devotional with entertaining reading.
"We carried Lucilla and Ph[oe]be to visit them; I believe she was a little afraid of their gay countenances. I talked to her of the necessity of literature to inform her daughters, and of pleasures to enliven them. The term pleasure alarmed her still more than that of literature. 'What pleasures were allowed to religious people? She would make her daughters as happy as she dared without offending her Maker.' I quoted the devout but liberal Hooker, who exhorts us not to regard the Almighty as a captious sophist, but as a merciful Father.
"During this conversation we were sitting under the fine spreading oak on my lawn, in front of that rich bank of flowers which you so much admire. It was a lovely evening in the end of June, the setting sun was all mild radiance, the sky all azure, the air all fragrance. The birds were in full song. The children, sitting on the grass before us, were weaving chaplets of wild flowers.