CHAPTER VIII.PHILOSOPHY VANQUISHED.
One night, some months before Clara’s final return from Stonybrook, the doctor returned home weary and “cross,” as he said. To the twins this used to mean that he was not in the humor to enjoy their clambering over him; but they felt themselves young ladies now, and “cross” meant that the doctor hoped they had done their piano practising during the day. Their torturing the piano was something endless and excruciating, but the doctor bore all domestic annoyances with the kind, long-suffering spirit that characterized the good family man—the great man, indeed—that he really was.
Women are beginning to see the folly of allowing their “lords” to write the biographies of great men, and are gradually taking the task upon themselves. When they do their full share of this work, there will be found in history many pigmies that would have swelled to colossi under the pens of their own sex; for their claims to the honor of greatness as moral forces will be judged by the way they treat women, specially and generally. A man may be great in a particular sense, if he is nothing but a military or political leader, or profound as a scientist; but he can never be great integrally as a man, if he lacks tenderness, justice, or faith in humanity. Men who are very tender as lovers, and deeply sensitive to the influence ofwomen, usually have the reputation among brutal men of being “hen-pecked”—a word never found in the vocabulary of refined people.
On this occasion, as the doctor’s family sat down to tea, Mrs. Forest enquired after the health of Mrs. Buzzell, whom the doctor had been visiting regularly for many days. She was more comfortable, the doctor said.
“I don’t think,” remarked Mrs. Forest, “that her illness would endure so long if Dr. Delano attended her.”
“Oh, ho! A reflection upon my professional skill,” said the doctor, wiping the creamy tea from his grizzly moustache; but he added, laughing, “If there is anything Mrs. Buzzell enjoys, it is a good long serious illness.”
“That is because you pet her so. I think she is a ridiculous old thing.”
“That is not kind, Fannie. I don’t see how you can speak so of a good old friend like that. We ought never to forget that she is somewhat enfeebled by age, and really has no one to care for her.”
“I don’t see that that is any reason why you should make a martyr of yourself.”
“Oh, I do not. It is pleasant to me to see her faded eyes light up when I enter the room. I know I am the medium of a great consolation to her; and giving happiness should make us happy always.”
“Really! You are quite tender to your interesting patient.”
“Fannie, you disgust me,” he said, setting his cup down emphatically. “If this infernal world chooses to be cruel and mean, to laugh at those who are pining forsympathy and love—youought to be capable of better sentiments.” The doctor added a more vehement word.
“What! profanity? You do pain me so by your violent way of speaking,” complained the doctor’s wife.
“There!” said Leila, “papa is really getting cross;” and lancing a confident saucy look at her father, whose crossness had no terrors for her, she seized her gentler-willed sister and waltzed her out of the room to the accompaniment of “Good riddance, you sauce-box,” from the doctor, and a stately rebuke from Mrs. Forest. When they were alone, Mrs. Forest repeated in other words her last remark to the doctor, who answered—
“Yes, I know I am always giving you pain when I remind you of your want of sympathy except for those who are a part of you. One’s children are not all the world, and to love only them is narrow and selfish. Suffering, wherever we find it, has claims upon us.”
“Charity begins at home,” said Mrs. Forest, sententiously.
“Yes;begins, but it should not end there. I have been wondering every day why you do not go and see Mrs. Buzzell, knowing how lonely she is, with no society but that of her old servant.” Now Mrs. Forest was indeed intending to go and sit awhile with her old friend, and carry her some dainties; but she did not feel in a gracious mood, and would not confess it. She said rather, “She has too much of your society to miss mine, I think.”
This was exasperating. The doctor rose, and Mrs. Forest touched the spring of the table-bell. “Somehow you will forever dance in a pint-pot; you cannot see anything in a broad light,” he said, “and Leila is going tobe just like you. She requires nice dresses, a little music, a little flattery, a good deal of sentimental, unchristlike piety, and her cup runneth over. A grand life, a grand emotion, will never come to her. It would burst her like a soap-bubble, as it would you, to do anything not set down as proper by your set.”
“I should like to know some of your women who see things in a broad light. Who are they?”
“Well,” said the doctor, after a pause, “it is no use to cite examples. Most of them have someway outraged Mrs. Grundy, and you would not believe in them.”
“Yes; I suppose, in order to see things in a broad light,” said Mrs. Forest, contemptuously pronouncing the words, “one must become disreputable. Thank you; I prefer a good reputation, and what you are pleased to call a pint-pot dance.”
“By ——,” exclaimed the doctor, excitedly, “I do believe the first condition for the development of broad sympathies for humanity in a woman’s heart is the loss of respectability as defined by hypocrites and prudes.” Mrs. Forest looked horrified; but the entrance of Susie to remove the tea-things in answer to the bell, prevented her reply. As Susie went on with her work noiselessly, avoiding the slightest clatter of cups and spoons, the doctor continued, watching her movements as he spoke: “We should cultivate a feeling of unity with all nature, of which we are a part. That will force us out of our narrow lives, and make happiness possible to us only when all around us are happy. The inculcation of this sentiment of unity is so important, that we cannot overestimate it, for it will lead to grand association schemes for the amelioration of mankind. There are people inthis town to-day, who labor hard from year to year, and yet want the conditions for a decent life; children who never have the chance of seeing a fine picture, or wearing a pretty suit of clothes.”
“I know that is very sad, but your free-thinkers do nothing for them. It is the ladies of our church who carry food and clothing to the children of the poor.” Mrs. Forest, as she said this, noticed something in her husband’s face which made her add, “You know, my dear, I always except you.”
“Why,” said the doctor, “here are the Unitarians, all free-thinkers, according to your creed, for they do not accept your orthodox scheme of salvation; but you can’t deny they do more for the poor than all the orthodox in the country. Take the firm of Ely & Gerrish, one a Unitarian and the other a Deist, as they call him; they have built a magnificent home for their workmen, whereby they are provided with many of the luxuries of wealth, and at about the cost of ordinary lodgings. How much nobler it is to help people to independence than to inculcate the spirit of begging, by your small charities!”
“We can’t all build workingmen’s homes, like Ely & Gerrish,” said Mrs. Forest, “but that should not hinder us from doing what we can.”
“I admit the worthiness of your motives, and the temporary good you do; but it is none the less true that it degrades the being to be the recipient of charity. No; charity don’t work, as a social system. The poor-house don’t work. The orphan asylum don’t work. Now, to one who has the scientific method in his examination of social problems, the moment a system don’t work, heknows it is wrong. Then the first duty is to discover why it don’t, and substitute a better.”
“All of which is very easy—in words,” said Mrs. Forest.
“In words!” echoed the doctor. “Why, we are doing it literally every day. Take the steam-engine and the telegraph. When the necessity arose for more rapid transportation, we tried awhile to breed faster and stronger horses, make better wagons and roads, but we found that did not work, and so we substituted the steam-car and the railroad; so with the postal system, the telegraph and the steam printing-press.”
Mrs. Forest saw that the doctor held a strong position logically, so she waived the question by giving some final orders to Susie about work for the next morning, and then dismissed her summarily. When she was gone the doctor said, “Do you think you are as kind to that poor child as you ought to be?”
“Dear me! what next?” answered Mrs. Forest, with a sigh. “Yes, I think I am. I give her time to sew for herself, and she has a good home. I must say she behaves remarkably well, considering her bringing up.”
“I am greatly interested in her,” the doctor said. “I wish Clara was here. That’s a girl after my own heart, you know. Clara has the true democratic—that is, the true human spirit. She would pity this lonely Susie, and help her to have some object in life.”
“Object in life! Why, what better object can she have than to behave herself, and be happy by doing her duty?” Mrs. Forest, with her “little hoard of maxims,” was armed at all points. It was as hard to grapple with her as with a porcupine. She was so utterly different fromthe doctor in her way of looking at things, that it is hard to do her justice. The doctor’s radical ideas had always alarmed her, and it had troubled her exceedingly to find that Clara delighted in just those radical notions that were her horror. It was clear, too, that Clara wrote her mother from duty—short, dutiful, correct, and very commonplace notes. To her father she scrawled long, rapid, charmingly frank and interesting letters, signing herself always “Papa’s Own Girl.” To her mother she invariably subscribed herself, “Your affectionate daughter,” which indeed Mrs. Forest considered in rather more ladylike taste, but she was a little jealous all the same.
When Mrs. Forest gave her opinion, in such a decided manner, about Susie’s duty, the doctor paused awhile and filled his pipe in an absent kind of way, holding his box of tobacco with some difficulty, so as to not disturb “Hommie,” the cat, who would jump upon his knee whenever he sat down. Mrs. Forest was never troubled with such familiarity on the part of Hommie, so named by the twins in honor of his perilous adventure in the hominy pot when a kitten. “Doing one’s duty,” the doctor said, “is not all there is of life. This Susie must feel the need of friends sadly. I wish you would take more interest in her, Fannie—talk to her and gain her sympathy.”
“I don’t care to talk to her much, and she don’t care to hear me.”
“That is because you talk to her about saving her soul—a subject about which she knows just as much as you do. Of course, it must bore her. Talk to her of herself; get her to read, and to take interest in some subject.”
“She’s not very intellectual,” replied Mrs. Forest, laconically.
“What!” said the doctor. “Why, she’s as bright as a dollar. See what a fine head she has!”
“Very likely. I don’t believe in heads, as you do. Some of the most stupid people I know are all head.”
“Ah! quality as well as quantity must be considered. In this case the quality is good.”
“I have not much hope for her. To be sure she goes to church, but I think it may be from the fear of displeasing me if she stays at home.”
“I am sorry she goes at all from that motive,” said the doctor.
“When Dan is here, she stays at home evenings, and I notice how she looks at him. When he is not here she often goes out in the evening. I’m sure I don’t know where she goes nor what she does.”
“Well, don’t be meanly suspicious. I know the girl’s heart is right. What can you expect? You treat her like a menial, and she feels it. She does your bidding because it means her daily bread, and because she has lost her heart to Dan. Poor little thing! That’s the saddest of all. She’s happy if she can only look at him; but otherwise finding no companions, no sympathy here, of course she seeks the few acquaintances she has outside, in the hope of answering this need—a need as imperative as that for food or air. You will some time find that it is a misfortune that you cannot take her into your heart and help her more. Let her think that Dan is the only creature that cares for her, and she will come to depend too much upon his regard, which I doubt not is already on the wane.”
“Yes; I think he would like to erase that abominable tattooing. Silly boy!”
“I’m not sure but that is the evidence of the best impulse that ever swayed him.”
“Mercy! doctor, how can you talk so? How would you like your only son to marry such a person?”
“He might do worse,” answered the doctor, decidedly.
This was too much for Mrs. Forest’s patience—too much for adequate expression in decorous words; so she folded her sewing, and left the doctor to the cat and his pipe.