CHAPTER XXV.LETTERS.—A CONVERSATION.

CHAPTER XXV.LETTERS.—A CONVERSATION.

“Oakdale,June 25, 18—.

“Oakdale,June 25, 18—.

“Oakdale,June 25, 18—.

“Oakdale,June 25, 18—.

“My Dear Girl: I have just come from Mrs. Buzzell’s. It is about the happiest family I ever knew. The baby flourishes like a weed, and is as pretty a child as you would wish to see, and actually resembles your mother so much that everybody remarks it. This is a piece of poetic justice that makes me grin with delight. She ignores still the existence of Susie, the child, and good Mrs. Buzzell; but she is the only one who hears anything from Dan. He is in San Francisco, and wears a huge diamond. That is all I know of my only son.

“Susie’s new establishment for flower culture is a perennial delight. She has written you, so you are doubtless posted as to the money she made last winter. Everything promises well for the next. She is bound to succeed, and if she had capital, could build up a fine business; but what is better than all, is the fact that she has outgrown all her heart-aches, and is really and truly happy. See, my girl, what we have done for her! When we remember how ignorant she was, how deficient in any moral or other training, and therefore how certain to be guided by her emotions, if we had ‘passed by on the other side,’ like the rest, she might have been damned beyond salvation; yet still I doubt it after all.She reads a great deal, and is the best patron of the new circulating library. ‘Give me a list of books,’ she said to me, ‘that you know are good. If I select for myself I shall waste time, and I want to make up for what I have lost.’ Some people would call this lack of individuality, but the fact is, it is real wisdom. Life is too short to read all the books of unknown and new authors. Let them sift through the ten million general readers of the country. If anything is too big to go through the sieve, there will be a noise about it, and then it is time for the discriminate to take it up. Susie devours history, biography, travels, and entertains me greatly by her fresh comments upon them. She has not yet complained of my selection being too serious for her. You see, I keep a copy of my lists, and when I think the pabulum too nutritious, I throw in a few lollypops in the shape of novels, though I don’t mean to include all novels under that head. Have you read George Eliot’s last? I ask, because I would have you not only read, but read very carefully, everything she writes. In my opinion she is the closest observer and the profoundest thinker among women to-day. Susie has an appreciation of her that is delightful to me. You know, of course, that I am teaching Susie French and natural philosophy. Upon my word, I think I missed my calling. I should have been a teacher of girls—women I should say, for girls are only interesting because they are womenin posse.

“The great event in Oakdale is the arrival of the Count Von Frauenstein. I met him at the Kendrick’s last night, and I like him more than any man I ever met. That is saying a good deal, but I know when a man has the ring of the true metal. He is a Prussian by birth,but no more belongs to that country than I do to this 10 × 12 study. In fact, he is a genuine cosmopolitan. He graduated at Cambridge, for his family took up their residence in England when he was a boy; then he took a degree in Philosophy in Heidelberg (which don’t count for much in my opinion), then lived some years in France, where he was sent on some government business. Some years ago he came into his inheritance, when he made for this country for the purpose of investing it. Kendrick says he is worth two millions to his knowledge, and much more in all probability. Kendrick is laying pipe to interest him in the new insurance company, but so far has only succeeded in getting him to help on the new railroad.

“It was a very stylish affair, the Kendrick reception last night; music,chef d’œuvresof confectionery, ladies inundress, and all that. Your mother was furious about the display of charms, and of course I defended it—not on principle, but because she was too savage. Leila and Linnie were invited, and they would have rejoiced in a state ofdécollétéextending to their boots, I think. Your mother compromised the matter with black lace, and so they still live. Frauenstein has a fine voice, and Linnie was in the seventh heaven when she got a chance to play him an accompaniment to a song fromDer Freischutz.

“I never met a real lion in society before, and I studied both with interest. This fashionable society is nothing, after all, but a kind of licensed policy-shop. They want Frauenstein’s money, and Kendrick thinks he has the best right to it because his cousin was Frauenstein’s mother—an American woman; so you see he has blood!The Delanos are related to him in about the same degree; so of course you have heard of him. I like the count for one reason, and this is, that notwithstanding the display and cajolery of the women, and the flattery of most of the men, he had the good taste to talk with your old doctor more than to any one there; so the race is not wholly degenerate! In politics he is soundly radical, and hates war like a Quaker. He sees in it the degradation of the people. It was refreshing to hear him talk. He says the wealth-producers of the world are not dependent upon capital so much as capital upon them, if they only knew it; for they have everything in their own hands, and are slowly coming to realize the fact, and to see how they can organize and accomplish great things. He was very eloquent when the subject of education came up, and presented the whole matter in a clear and new light to most of those who heard him. He said it was a disgrace to the age that we have no text-book of morals for the public schools; and as the various systems of religion have monopolized the teaching of codes of morals, by shutting out all religious instruction, we have shut out moral training as well. It is right to exclude all creeds from schools supported by the people, but it is a great and vital error to deprive the young of constant and unremitting instruction in the laws that should govern human beings in their mutual relations. He would have a text-book on morals compiled from the writings of all the great teachers, whether pagan or Christian, excluding every myth and unverifiable hypothesis. Such a book could be made as acceptable to all religious sects, as works on arithmetic or chemistry now are. He talked also of woman’s coming position as that of perfect social and politicalequality. It is astonishing how radical Kendrick, old priest Cooke, and many other out-of-her-sphere noodles, have suddenly become. Kendrick actually assented to the very propositions he has repeatedly pooh-pooed when presented by me. I made him feel a little uncomfortable by saying, ‘Mind, Kendrick! I shall see that you stick to that.’

“I come now to the important part of your letter. The old Serpent has got into your Eden. Two things I would say to you as a preliminary: first, don’t go off at half-cock. This is a common weakness of women. Second, don’t expect better bread than can be made of wheat. Your Albert is not so fine in nature as you supposed, or the fact of your being unhappy, even disturbed in your mind about his affection, would be the very strongest motive to self-examination. For myself, I don’t much believe in marriage, any way: it don’t seem to work. If it could be prevented until the age of forty or so, it would work better. If you were an ordinary woman, I should recommend flirting; but that would be useless in your case. So, my girl, I cannot help you as I would. I need not dwell on my feelings in the matter. In such cases there is only one physician, and he is the old mower with the hour-glass. Do not forget, that although a woman, you are really a philosopher. Love is not all there is of life; and as you depend less on its intoxication for your happiness, the more smoothly will work the machinery of destiny, just as the circulation of the blood is effected more normally when we trust to Nature, instead of trying to aid her by counting the beating of our hearts.

“The truth is, I am at a sad loss what to write you on this matter. I feel sure that you will act wisely, and beunjust to no one. The best I can do is to trust to your finer instincts. Action and reaction are equal: so the doctrine of eternal rewards and punishments is true in principle, though we look for heaven and hell in the wrong places. Be sure that Nature always restores the equilibrium. This is always the thought that I comfort myself with. It answers the place that praying does to the devotee. Nature’s laws are immutable, and cannot fail us. Be patient, dear girl, and know that there is one old fellow on whom you can rely, no matter what may happen.

“Yours, as you know,“G. F.”

“Yours, as you know,“G. F.”

“Yours, as you know,“G. F.”

“Yours, as you know,

“G. F.”

To the ordinary observer, there might not seem to be anything in the doctor’s letter to his daughter that should move her deeply; yet she read all the latter part of it through blinding tears. She received it a few days after her reconciliation with Albert, and answered it immediately as follows:

“Dear, dear Papa: Your letter consoles and blesses me, but I almost regret mentioning my troubles to you. Ifeelhow they sink into your heart, and as I read I was filled with gratitude by the thought that you are still strong and hale and may live as long as I do, which I fervently desire. The very thought of losing you, is terrible. No one can ever understand me like my good, my precious, father. Your character is my ideal of all that is noble in manhood, and it was not wise, perhaps, for me to marry, because I must measure all men by your standard, and then be disappointed when they fall below it. I am unreasonable. I should never expect to find any one withyour sense of justice, or with your delicate appreciation of everything fine in human motives. I could never deceive you: you see below the surface. I can deceive Albert, and do constantly, and hate myself for it. I can make him happy by wearing a smiling face when my heart is as heavy as lead. About a week ago we had an explanation. He confessed he had been wrong, had neglected my love, and we cried together, andplayedthat all our clouds had passed forever. I thought it was possible; but there is something false and forced about our re-established happiness, that mocks our once proud state like a beggar’s rags upon a king. Still, I am much happier. I try to dress more showily. Albert likes the lilies-of-the-field style of Ella. Think of your Clara’s pride! She enters the lists in a toilet display to regain the admiration of her husband. Is it not pitiful?

“O papa, what am I saying? I meant to write you such a happy letter, but I fear the iron has entered my soul; yet I would not try, even for your sake, to deceive you, and believe me, I am suffering very little now, and I really think I shall recover my lost state. It is this hope that sustains me; but if I am disappointed, I shall rise above it and live. I am papa’s own girl, and more proud of being the daughter of such a man than I should be in being the queen of the grandest monarch that ever lived. If for no other reason than for your sake, I would bear up philosophically.

“‘What matters it if I be loved or not?And what if he who works shall be forgot?The work of Love is no less surely wrought,And the great world shall answer me.’

“‘What matters it if I be loved or not?And what if he who works shall be forgot?The work of Love is no less surely wrought,And the great world shall answer me.’

“‘What matters it if I be loved or not?And what if he who works shall be forgot?The work of Love is no less surely wrought,And the great world shall answer me.’

“‘What matters it if I be loved or not?

And what if he who works shall be forgot?

The work of Love is no less surely wrought,

And the great world shall answer me.’

“Are not those grand words? They have just cometo the surface of my memory, like the artist’s negative under the developing solution. I mean to keep them before me henceforth, like themene tekelon Belshazzar’s wall.

“Good-bye, dearest father, mine. I have written myself into a horrid mood. I have written to Susie, mamma, and others. Trust me, and believe in the good sense of

“Papa’s Own Girl.

“Papa’s Own Girl.

“Papa’s Own Girl.

“Papa’s Own Girl.

“P. S.—Icanwrite a letter without apost scriptum. You will bear me witness; but I must say just this:do not be worried about me so long as I am silent.

“C. F. D.”

“C. F. D.”

“C. F. D.”

“C. F. D.”

The next day the White Mountains party set out on their journey, where we will leave them for the present and go back to Oakdale.

The time is sunset, and it is summer. A little child, whose flesh seems moulded from its mother’s milk, is playing on the little green lawn before Mrs. Buzzell’s porch. It is a creature of exuberant life, of movement incessant, of inexhaustible joy. She has pure blue eyes, and her hair is long, straight, and fine like spun gold. It dances and streams out in the sunlight with the movements of her little frame, as she dances, and laughs, and sings. At first, being carefully and very coquettishly dressed by “Auntie,” and let loose upon the lawn, it was joy enough to simply dance and carol in the sunlight, but soon this ceased to suffice her. Her active brain and fingers must have more positive occupation; and a few minutes later “Auntie,” coming out on the porch, discovered the sprite pirouetting around her beautiful caladium, a huge leaf-tip in each dimpled hand.

“Min! Min! whatareyou doing?” The electric current of joy was cut off instantly, and the child pouted:—

“I’m only dancing with auntie’scladium.”

“Will you let mycladium, as you call it, alone? I won’t have its leaves twisted to rags.” But further admonition was unnecessary, for Minnie descried a well-known horse and “sulky,” and she ran toward the gate, crowing at the top of her voice. The doctor jumped out of the vehicle and took the child in his arms, saying, “Well, how is my little Min to-day?”

“Auntie’s cwoss,” was the somewhat irrelevant response.

“Cross, is she?” he repeated, taking Mrs. Buzzell’s hand; “then Minnie must have been a naughty girl.”

“No, se wasn’t naughty; an auntie nee’n’t be sowough” (rough).

She was one of those elfin creatures whose accents and gestures, and charming self-asserting confidence that the machinery of the universe is run for their special amusement, make it difficult to resist indulging them in every way. Minnie made you laugh at her, and then she felt sure of her victory over you. The only dispute Mrs. Buzzell and Susie had ever had, was on Min’s account; the former declaring that Susie was not quite tender enough to the child. Susie replied, “I think I love her as much as any mother should. I shall devote my life principally to her care and education; but I cannot spend so much time in amusing her as you do, unless I neglect what is of far more consequence.”

Susie was reading when the doctor entered. She rose, and greeting him, as she always did, with frank cordiality, held out her book. It was a copy ofRoderick Random.

“Doctor, you choose my serious reading, I believe with exemplary discretion; but shall I waste my precious time and peril my immortal soul over such trash as this? Trash is too flattering a name for it. I must borrow yours. I call it, unqualifiedly,rot.” The doctor laughed, and said:

“Why, you must have some light reading.”

“Thank you; but the levity of this is too great altogether.”

“You see, I don’t know much about modern novels; so after George Sand, George Eliot, Thackeray, Balzac, and Dickens, I’ve reached the end of my tether, and fall back upon the old standard stock.”

“Standard!” repeated Susie. “If this is a standard, I pity the dwarf varieties.”

“You borrow your rhetorical figure from your business. It smells of the shop,” said the doctor smiling.

“Listen! ‘O Jesus! the very features of Mr. Random! So saying, Narcissus kissed it with surprising ardor, sheds a flood of tears, and then deposited the lifeless image in her lovely bosom.’ Then,” said Susie, explaining, “Mr. Random broke from his concealment, when Narcissus ‘uttered a fearful shriek, and fainted in the arms of her companion.’ Then Roderick, telling his story, says: ‘Oh that I were endowed with the expression of a Raphael, the graces of a Guido, the magic touches of a Titian, that I might represent the fond concern, the chastened rapture and ingenuous blush, that mingled on her beauteous face when she opened her eyes upon me, and pronounced,O heavens! is it you?’”

The doctor laughed like a boy. “Why,” said he, “Iknow any quantity of young women who would read that with rapture.”

“And would they this?” asked Susie, reading the last sentence of the book.

“Ah? I confess that is utter nastiness. Smollet! rot!”

“We have just finished Richardson’sPamela, taking turns reading it to each other while sewing,” said Mrs. Buzzell. “I can scarcely believe that it is the same story that, in my mother’s time, was read aloud in the best family circles. Why, I consider it positively indecent.”

“You musn’t think, doctor, that I am not glad to have read these books,” said Susie; “they are very interesting, as showing the taste of a century ago. It must be that we are now much more refined than people were then.”

“Certainly we are,” said the doctor. “With the invention of the steam-engine and the telegraph, our means of communication with each other all over the world are immeasurably greater, and this is the proximate cause of modern culture. Isolation of the community, the family or the individual favors the savage state, while aggregation tends to stimulate urbanity, generosity, and all our higher faculties. See, therefore, how false the religious teaching that exalted hermits and ascetics of all kinds. Self-torture the church considered praiseworthy, and even to-day we hear of the ‘mortification of the flesh,’ for God is still a being to be propitiated by the agonies of his creatures. Wherever that conception of Nature or God prevails, we may recognize the traces of the savage, and the absence of any real vitalizing faith. The only livingfaith to-day you will find among those called unbelievers or infidels—men devoted to the discovery of scientific methods. To them Nature is never inimical to man.”

“IsNature never inimical to man?” queried Susie. “Does not the cold freeze him, the sun scorch him, the water drown him, wild beasts devour him, the earthquake and the lightning destroy him, as well as disease and accident?”

“Ah!” said the doctor. “What do we mean by man? Do we mean the savage who has command of a few of his forces, or the integrally-developed human being, commanding all his forces, and through this command, setting himself in harmony with Nature,

“‘Like perfect music unto noble words?’

“‘Like perfect music unto noble words?’

“‘Like perfect music unto noble words?’

“‘Like perfect music unto noble words?’

Man has not accomplished this, hence the use of faith. The best thinkers to-day have the strongest faith that we are to obtain further and more complete control over the elements; that we are to control the weather, the climate, and make the planet a stately Eden, fit for the emancipated human race. Is not that a sublime faith?”

“A much more difficult faith,” said Mrs. Buzzell, “than any I know of.”

“To me it is very simple; simpler far than all others,” said the doctor. “No one can deny that the whole history of human beings on this planet is a history of extending and harmonizing their mutual relations and interests. See the savage. He is at war with all his kind, like the beast, except, perhaps, a chosen female of his species; then, when he has risen a little higher, he establishes a harmony of interest in the family, the tribe,then throughout the race constituting the different tribes, and so a nation is developed—at war, of course, with all other nations, and calling all foreigners barbarians. Then nations recognize each other, and evolve codes of international law, and cease preying upon each other. Have we reached the acme of human progress? So doubtless the savage thought when he had invented a stone knife to scalp his neighbor. When the steam-engine was utilized, who was not satisfied when news could fly over the country at the rate of thirty miles an hour? Who then, except the scientist, would have believed that we should literally ‘put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes?’ To me, and many others, this increase of harmony among different peoples, points unerringly to the time when the higher nature of man will rule, when his intelligence will come to comprehend the harmony of all human interests, and his affections embrace all mankind as brothers. This is our millennium, Mrs. Buzzell—the reign of peace, harmony, and love.”

“Amen!” said Mrs. Buzzell, who was holding the sleeping Minnie in her arms.

“We cannot really disagree,” said Susie, “whatever our different creeds, if we only love God in the right way, and that is through faith in humanity. It is because we have not sufficient faith in humanity, that we are so selfish and dishonest.”

“That is very true, Susie; but we have not yet the conditions for showing our faith. We shall finally, in the general, concerted action of the world toward great ends. Our forces now are ‘like sweet bells jangled.’ Melodies are first created, then harmonies, and lastly, grand symphonies.”

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