For the first time in the history of the English dominion in India, its power has been shaken from within its own possessions, and by its own subjects. Whatever attacks have been made upon it heretofore have been from without, and its career of conquest has been the result to which they have led. But now no external enemy threatens it, and the English in India have found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with a portion of their subjects, not so much for dominion as for life. There had been signs and warnings, indeed, of the coming storm; but the feeling of security in possession and the confidence of moral strength were so strong, that the signs had been neglected and the warnings disregarded.
No one in our time has played the part of Cassandra with more foresight and vehemence than the late Sir Charles Napier. He saw the quarter in which the storm was gathering, and he affirmed that it was at hand. In 1850, after a short period of service as commander-in-chief of the forces in India, he resigned his place, owing to a difference between himself and the government, and immediately afterwards prepared a memoir in justification of his course, accompanied with remarks upon the general administration of affairs in that country. It was written with all his accustomed clearness of mind, vigor of expression, and intensity of personal feeling,—but it was not published until after his death, which took place in 1853, when it appeared under the editorship of his brother, Lieutenant-General Sir W.F.P. Napier, with the title of "Defects, Civil and Military, of the Indian Government." Its interest is greatly enhanced when read by the light of recent events. It is in great part occupied with a narrative of the exhibition of a mutinous spirit which appeared in 1849 in some thirty Sepoy battalions, in regard to a reduction of their pay, and of the means taken to check and subdue it. On the third page is a sentence which read now is of terrible import: "Mutiny with [among?] the Sepoys is themostformidable danger menacing our Indian empire." And a few pages farther on occurs the following striking passage: "The ablest and most experienced civil and military servants of the East India Company consider mutiny as one of the greatest, if notthegreatest danger threatening India,—a danger also that may come unexpectedly, and, if the first symptoms be not carefully treated, with a power to shake Leadenhall."
The anticipated mutiny has now come, its first symptoms were treated with utter want of judgment, and its power is shaking the whole fabric of the English rule in India.
One day toward the end of January last, a workman employed in the magazine at Barrackpore, an important station about seventeen miles from Calcutta, stopped to ask a Sepoy for some water from his drinking-vessel. Being refused, because he was of low caste, and his touch would defile the vessel, he said, with a sneer, "What caste are you of, who bite pig's grease and cow's fat on your cartridges?" Practice with the new Enfield rifle had just been introduced, and the cartridges were greased for use in order not to foul the gun. The rumor spread among the Sepoys that there was a trick played upon them,—that this was but a device to pollute them and destroy their caste, and the first step toward a general and forcible conversion of the soldiers to Christianity. The groundlessness of the idea upon which this alarm was founded afforded no hindrance to its ready reception, nor was the absurdity of the design attributed to the ruling powers apparent to the obscured and timid intellect of the Sepoys. The consequences of loss of caste are so feared,—and are in reality of so trying a nature,—that upon this point the sensitiveness of the Sepoy is always extreme, and his suspicions are easily aroused. Their superstitions and religious customs "interfere in many strange ways with their military duties." "The brave men of the 35th Native Infantry," says Sir Charles Napier, "lost caste because they did their duty at Jelalabad; that is, they fought like soldiers, and ate what could be had to sustain their strength for battle." But they are under a double rule, of religious and of military discipline,—and if the two come into conflict, the latter is likely to give way.
The discontent at Barrackpore soon manifested itself in ways not to be mistaken. There were incendiary fires within the lines. It was discovered that messengers had been sent to regiments at other stations, with incitements to insubordination. The officer in command at Barrackpore, General Hearsay, addressed the troops on parade, explained to them that the cartridges were not prepared with the obnoxious materials supposed, and set forth the groundlessness of their suspicions. The address was well received at first, but had no permanent effect. The ill-feeling spread to other troops and other stations. The government seems to have taken no measure of precaution in view of the impending trouble, and contented itself with despatching telegraphic messages to the more distant stations, where the new rifle-practice was being introduced, ordering that the native troops were "to have no practice ammunition served out to them, but only to watch the firing of the Europeans." On the 26th of February, the 19th regiment, then stationed at Berhampore, refused to receive the cartridges that were served out, and were prevented from open violence only by the presence of a superior English force. After great delay, it was determined that this regiment should be disbanded. The authorities were not even yet alarmed; they were uneasy, but even their uneasiness does not seem to have been shared by the majority of the English residents in India. It was not until the 3d of April that the sentence passed upon the 19th regiment was executed. The affair was dallied with, and inefficiency and dilatoriness prevailed everywhere.
But meanwhile the disaffection was spreading. The order for confining the use of the new cartridges to the Europeans seems to have been looked upon by the native regiments as a confirmation of their suspicions with regard to them. The more daring and evil-disposed of the soldiers stimulated the alarm, and roused the prejudices of their more timid and unreasoning companions. No general plan of revolt seems to have been formed, but the materials of discontent were gradually being concentrated; the inflammable spirits of the Sepoys were ready to burst into a blaze. Strong and judicious measures, promptly put into action, might even now have allayed the excitement and dissipated the danger. But the imbecile commander-in-chief was enjoying himself and shirking care in the mountains; and Lord Canning and his advisers at Calcutta seem to have preferred to allow to take the initiative in their own way. Generally throughout Northern India the common routine of affairs went on at the different stations, and the ill-feeling and insubordination among the Sepoys scarcely disturbed the established quiet and monotony of Anglo-Indian life. But the storm was rising,—and the following extracts from a letter, hitherto unpublished, written on the 30th of May, by an officer of great distinction, and now in high command before Delhi, will show the manner of its breaking.
"A fortnight ago no community in the world could have been living in greater security of life and property than ours. Clouds there were that indicated to thoughtful minds a coming storm, and in the most dangerous quarter; but the actual outbreak was a matter of an hour, and has fallen on us like a judgment from Heaven,—sudden, irresistible as yet, terrible in its effects, and still spreading from place to place. I dare say you may have observed among the Indian news of late months, that here and there throughout the country mutinies of native regiments had been taking place. They had, however, been isolated cases, and the government thought it did enough to check the spirit of disaffection by disbanding the corps involved. The failure of the remedy was, however, complete, and, instead of having to deal now with mutinies of separate regiments, we stand face to face with a general mutiny of the Sepoy army of Bengal. To those who have thought most deeply of the perils of the English empire in India this has always seemed the monster one. It was thought to have been guarded against by the strong ties of mercenary interest that bound the army to the state, and there was, probably, but one class of feelings that would have been strong enough to have broken these ties,—those, namely, of religious sympathy or prejudice. The overt ground of the general mutiny was offence to caste feelings, given by the introduction into the army of certain cartridges said to have been prepared with hog's lard and cow's fat. The men must bite off the ends of these cartridges; so the Mahometans are defiled by the unclean animal, and the Hindoos by the contact of the dead cow. Of course the cartridges arenotprepared as stated, and they form the mere handle for designing men to work with. They are, I believe, equally innocent of lard and fat; but that a general dread of being Christianized has by some means or other been created is without doubt, though there is still much that is mysterious in the process by which it has been instilled into the Sepoy mind, and I question if the government itself has any accurate information on the subject.
"It was on the 10th of the present month [May] that the outburst of the mutinous spirit took place in our own neighborhood,—at Meerut. The immediate cause was the punishment of eighty-five troopers of the 3d Light Cavalry, who had refused to use the obnoxious cartridges, and had been sentenced by a native court-martial to ten years' imprisonment. On Saturday, the 9th, the men were put in irons, in presence of their comrades, and marched off to jail. On Sunday, the 10th, just at the time of evening service, the mutiny broke out. Three regiments left their lines, fell upon every European, man, woman, or child, they met or could find, murdered them all, burnt half the houses in the station, and, after working such a night of mischief and horror as devils might have delighted in, marched off to Delhien masse, where three other regiments ripe for mutiny were stationed. On the junction of the two brigades, the horrors of Meerut were repeated in the imperial city, and every European who could be found was massacred with revolting barbarity. In fact, the spirit was that of a servile war. Annihilation of the ruling race was felt to be the only chance of safety or impunity; so no one of the ruling race was spared. Many, however, effected their escape, and, after all sorts of perils and sufferings, succeeded in reaching military stations containing European troops. * * *
"From the crisis of the mutiny our local anxieties have lessened. The country round is in utter confusion. Bands of robbers are murdering and plundering defenceless people. Civil government has practically ceased from the land. The most loathsome irresolution and incapacity have been exhibited in some of the highest quarters. A full month will elapse before the mutineers are checked by any organized resistance. A force is, or is supposed to be, marching on Delhi; but the outbreak occurred on the 10th of May, and this day is the first of June, and Delhi has seen no British colors and heard no British guns as yet. * * *
"As to the empire, it will be all the stronger after this storm. It is not five or six thousand mutinous mercenaries, or ten times the number, that will change the destiny of England in India. Though we small fragments of the great machine may fall at our posts, there is that vitality in the English people that will bound stronger against misfortunes, and build up the damaged fabric anew."
So far the letter from which we have quoted.—It was not until the 8th of June that an English force appeared before the walls of Delhi. For four weeks the mutineers had been left in undisturbed possession of the city, a possession which was of incalculable advantage to them by adding to their moral strength the prestige of a name which has always been associated with the sceptre of Indian empire. The masters of Delhi are the masters not only of a city, but of a deeply rooted tradition of supremacy. The delay had told. Almost every day in the latter half of May was marked by a new mutiny in different military stations, widely separated from each other, throughout the North-Western Provinces and Bengal. The tidings of the possession of Delhi by the mutineers stimulated the daring madness of regiments that had been touched by disaffection. Some mutinied from mere panic, some from bitterness of hate. Some fled away quietly with their arms, to join the force that had now swelled to an army in the city of the Great Moghul; some repeated the atrocities of Meerut, and set up a separate standard of revolt, to which all the disaffected and all the worst characters of the district flocked, to gratify their lust for revenge of real or fancied wrongs, or their baser passions for plunder and unmeaning cruelty. The malignity of a subtle, acute, semi-civilized race, unrestrained by law or by moral feeling, broke out in its most frightful forms. Cowardice possessed of strength never wreaked more horrible sufferings upon its victims, and the bloody and barbarous annals of Indian history show no more bloody and barbarous page.
The course of English life in those stations where the worst cruelties and the bitterest sufferings have been inflicted on the unhappy Europeans has been for a long time so peaceful and undisturbed, it has gone on for the most part in such pleasant and easy quiet and with such absolute security, that the agony of sudden alarm and unwarned violence has added its bitterness to the overwhelming horror. It is not as in border settlements, where the inhabitants choose their lot knowing that they are exposed to the incursions of savage enemies,—-but it is as if on a night in one of the most peaceful of long-settled towns, troops of men, with a sort of civilization that renders their attack worse than that of savages, should be let loose to work their worst will of lust and cruelty. The details are too recent, too horrible, and as yet too broken and irregular, to be recounted here.
Although, at the first sally of the mutineers from Delhi against the force that had at length arrived, a considerable advantage was gained by the Europeans, this advantage was followed up by no decisive blow. The number of troops was too small to attempt an assault against an army of thirty thousand men, each man of whom was a trained soldier. The English force was unprovided with any sufficient siege battery. It could do little more than encamp, throw up intrenchments for its own defence, and wait for attacks to be made upon it,—attacks which it usually repulsed with great loss to the attackers. The month of June is the hottest month of the year at Delhi; the average height of the thermometer being 92°. There, in such weather, the force must sit still, watch the pouring in of reinforcements and supplies to the city which it was too small to invest, and hear from day to day fresh tidings of disaster and revolt on every hand,—tidings of evil which there could scarcely be any hope of checking, until this central point of the mutiny had fallen before the British arms. A position more dispiriting can scarcely be imagined; and to all these causes for despondency were added the incompetency and fatuity of the Indian government, and the procrastination of the home government in the forwarding of the necessary reinforcements.
Delhi has been often besieged, but seldom has a siege been laid to it that at first sight would have appeared more desperate than this. The city is strong in its artificial defences, and Nature lends her force to the native troops within the walls. If they could hold out through the summer, September was likely to be as great a general for them as the famous two upon whom the Czar relied in the Crimea. A wall of gray stone, strengthened by the modern science of English engineers, and nearly seven miles in circumference, surrounds the city upon three sides, while the fourth is defended by a wide offset of the Jumna, and by a portion of the high, embattled, red stone wall of the palace, which almost equals the city wall in strength, and is itself more than a mile in length. Few cities in the East present a more striking aspect from without. Over the battlements of the walls rise the slender minarets and shining domes of the mosques, the pavilions and the towers of the gates, the balustraded roofs of the higher and finer houses, the light foliage of acacias, and the dark crests of tall date-palms. It is a new city, only two hundred and twenty-six years old. Shah Jehan, its founder, was fond of splendor in building, was lavish of expense, and was eager to make his city imperial in appearance as in name. The great mosque that he built here is the noblest and most beautiful in all India. His palace might be set in comparison with that of Aladdin; it was the fulfilment of an Oriental voluptuary's dream. All that Eastern taste could devise of beauty, that Eastern lavishness could fancy of adornment, or voluptuousness demand of luxury, was brought together and displayed here. But its day of splendor was not long; and now, instead of furnishing a home to a court, which, if wicked, was at least magnificent, it is the abode of demoralized pensioners, who, having lost the reality, retain the pride and the vices of power. For years it has been utterly given over to dirt and to decay. Its beautiful halls and chambers, rich with marbles and mosaics, its "Pearl"musjid, its delicious gardens, its shady summer-houses, its fountains, and all its walks and pleasure-grounds, are neglected, abused, and occupied by the filthy retainers of an effete court.
The city stands partly on the sandy border of the river, partly on a low range of rocks. With its suburbs it may contain about one hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants, a little more than half of whom are Hindoos, and the remainder nominally Mahometans, in creed. Around the wall stretches a wide, barren, irregular plain, covered, mile after mile, with the ruins of earlier Delhis, and the tombs of the great or the rich men of the Mahometan dynasty. There is no other such monumental plain as this in the world. It is as full of traditions and historic memories as of ruins; and in this respect, as in many others, Delhi bears a striking resemblance to Rome,—for the Roman Campagna is the only field which in its crowd of memories may be compared with it, and the imperial city of India holds in the Mahometan mind much the same place that Rome occupies in that of the Christian.
Before these pages are printed it is not unlikely that the news of the fall of Delhi will have reached us. The troops of the besiegers amounted in the middle of August to about five thousand five hundred men. Other troops near them, and reinforcements on the way, may by the end of the month have increased their force to ten thousand. At the last accounts a siege train was expected to arrive on the 3d of September, and an assault might be made very shortly afterwards. But September is an unhealthy month, and there may be delays.Dehli door ust,—"Delhi is far off,"—is a favorite Indian proverb. But the chances are in favor of its being now in British hands.[1] With its fall the war will be virtually ended,—for the reconquest of the disturbed territories will be a matter of little difficulty, when undertaken with the aid of the twenty thousand English troops who will arrive in India before the end of the year.
The settlement of the country, after these long disturbances, cannot be expected to take place at once; civil government has been too much interrupted to resume immediately its ordinary operation. But as this great revolt has had in very small degree the character of a popular rising, and as the vast mass of natives are in general not discontented with the English rule, order will be reëstablished with comparative rapidity, and the course of life will before many months resume much of its accustomed aspect.
The struggle of the trained and ambitious classes against the English power will but have served to confirm it. The revolt overcome, the last great danger menacing English security in India will have disappeared. England will have learnt much from the trials she has had to pass through, and that essential changes will take place within a few years in the constitution of the Indian government there can be no doubt. But it is to be remembered that for the past thirty years, English rule in India has been, with all its defects, an enlightened and beneficent rule. The crimes with which it has been charged, the crimes of which it has been guilty, are small in amount, compared with the good it has effected. Moreover, they are not the result of inherent vices in the system of government, so much as of the character of exceptional individuals employed to carry out that system, and of the native character itself.—But on these points we do not propose now to enter.
If the close of this revolt be not stained with retaliating cruelties, if English soldiers remember mercy, then the whole history of this time will be a proud addition to the annals of England. For though it will display the incompetency and the folly of her governments, it will show how these were remedied by the energy and spirit of individuals; it will tell of the daring and gallantry of her men, of their patient endurance, of their undaunted courage, and it will tell, too, with a voice full of tears, of the sorrows, and of the brave and tender hearts, and of the unshaken religious faith supporting them to the end, of the women who died in the hands of their enemies. The names of Havelock and Lawrence will be reckoned in the list of England's worthies, and the story of the garrison of Cawnpore will be treasured up forever among England's saddest and most touching memories.
[Footnote 1: It is earnestly to be hoped that the officers in command of the British force will not yield to the savage suggestions and incitements of the English press, with regard to the fate of Delhi. The tone of feeling which has been shown in many quarters in England has been utterly disgraceful. Indiscriminate cruelty and brutality are no fitting vengeance for the Hindoo and Mussulman barbarities. The sack of Delhi and the massacre of its people would bring the English conquerors down to the level of the conquered. Great sins cry out for great punishments,—but let the punishment fall on the guilty, and not involve the innocent. The strength of English rule in India must be in her justice, in her severity,—but not in the force and irresistible violence of her passions. To destroy the city would be to destroy one of the great ornaments of her empire,—to murder the people would be to commence the new period of her rule with a revolting crime.
"For five days," says the historian, "Tamerlane remained a tranquil spectator of the sack and conflagration of Delhi and the massacre of its inhabitants, while he was celebrating a feast in honor of his victory. When the troops were wearied with slaughter, and nothing was left to plunder, he gave orders for the prosecution of his march, and on the day of his departure he offered up to the Divine Majesty the sincere and humble tribute of grateful praise."
"It is said that Nadir Shah, during the massacre that he had commanded, sat in gloomy silence in the little mosque of Rokn-u-doulah, which stands at the present day in the Great Bazaar. Here the Emperor and his nobles at length took courage to present themselves. They stood before him with downcast eyes, until Nadir commanded them to speak, when the Emperor burst into tears and entreated Nadir to spare his subjects."]
Of all the rides since the birth of time,Told in story or sung in rhyme,—On Apuleius's Golden Ass,Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass,Witch astride of a human hack,Islam's prophet on Al-Borák,—The strangest ride that ever was spedWas Ireson's out from Marblehead!Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
Body of turkey, head of owl,Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,Feathered and ruffled in every part,Captain Ireson stood in the cart.Scores of women, old and young,Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane,Shouting and singing the shrill refrain:"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrtBy the women o' Morble'ead!"
Girls in bloom of cheek and lips,Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips,Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chaseBacchus round some antique vase,Brief of skirt, with ankles bare,Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang,Over and over the Mænads sang:"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrtBy the women o' Morble'ead!"
Small pity for him!—He sailed awayFrom a leaking ship in Chaleur Bay,—Sailed away from a sinking wreck,With his own town's-people on her deck!"Lay by! lay by!" they called to him.Back he answered, "Sink or swim!Brag of your catch of fish again!"And off he sailed through the fog and rain!Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
Fathoms deep in dark ChaleurThat wreck shall lie forevermore.Mother and sister, wife and maid,Looked from the rocks of MarbleheadOver the moaning and rainy sea,Looked for the coming that might not be!What did the winds and the sea-birds sayOf the cruel captain who sailed away?—Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
Through the street, on either side,Up flew windows, doors swung wide;Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,Hulks of old sailors run aground,Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain:"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrtBy the women o' Morble'ead!"
Sweetly along the Salem roadBloom of orchard and lilac showed.Little the wicked skipper knewOf the fields so green and the sky so blue.Riding there in his sorry trim,Like an Indian idol glum and grim,Scarcely he seemed the sound to hearOf voices shouting far and near:"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrtBy the women o' Morble'ead!"
"Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried,—"What to me is this noisy ride?What is the shame that clothes the skin,To the nameless horror that lives within?Waking or sleeping, I see a wreckAnd hear a cry from a reeling deck!Hate me and curse me,—I only dreadThe hand of God and the face of the dead!"Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
Then the wife of the skipper lost at seaSaid, "God has touched him!—why should we?"Said an old wife mourning her only son,"Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!"So with soft relentings and rude excuse,Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,And gave him cloak to hide him in,And left him alone with his shame and sin.Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
I fell in with a humorist, on my travels, who had in his chamber a cast of the Rondanini Medusa, and who assured me that the name which that fine work of art bore in the catalogues was a misnomer, as he was convinced that the sculptor who carved it intended it for Memory, the mother of the Muses. In the conversation that followed, my new friend made some extraordinary confessions. "Do you not see," he said, "the penalty of learning, and that each of these scholars whom you have met at S., though he were to be the last man, would, like the executioner in Hood's poem, guillotine the last but one?" He added many lively remarks, but his evident earnestness engaged my attention, and, in the weeks that followed, we became better acquainted. He had great abilities, a genial temper, and no vices; but he had one defect,—he could not speak in the tone of the people. There was some paralysis on his will, that, when he met men on common terms, he spoke weakly, and from the point, like a flighty girl. His consciousness of the fault made it worse. He envied every daysman and drover in the tavern their manly speech. He coveted Mirabeau'sdon terrible de la familiarité, believing that he whose sympathy goes lowest is the man from whom kings have the most to fear. For himself, he declared that he could not get enough alone to write a letter to a friend. He left the city; he hid himself in pastures. The solitary river was not solitary enough; the sun and moon put him out. When he bought a house, the first thing he did was to plant trees. He could not enough conceal himself. Set a hedge here; set oaks there,—trees behind trees; above all, set evergreens, for they will keep a secret all the year round. The most agreeable compliment you could pay him was, to say that you had not observed him in a house or a street where you had met him. Whilst he suffered at being seen where he was, he consoled himself with the delicious thought of the inconceivable number of places where he was not. All he wished of his tailor was, to provide that sober mean of color and cut which would never detain the eye for a moment. He went to Vienna, to Smyrna, to London. In all the variety of costumes, a carnival, a kaleidoscope of clothes, to his horror he could never discover a man in the street who wore anything like his own dress. He would have given his soul for the ring of Gyges. His dismay at his visibility had blunted the fears of mortality. "Do you think," he said, "I am in such great terror of being shot,—I, who am only waiting to shuffle off my corporeal jacket, to slip away into the back stars, and put diameters of the solar system and sidereal orbits between me and all souls,—there to wear out ages in solitude, and forget memory itself, if it be possible?" He had a remorse running to despair of his socialgaucheries, and walked miles and miles to get the twitchings out of his face, the starts and shrugs out of his arms and shoulders. "God may forgive sins," he said, "but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth." He admired in Newton, not so much his theory of the moon, as his letter to Collins, in which he forbade him to insert his name with the solution of the problem in the "Philosophical Transactions": "It would perhaps increase my acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly study to decline."
These conversations led me somewhat later to the knowledge of similar cases, existing elsewhere, and to the discovery that they are not of very infrequent occurrence. Few substances are found pure in nature. Those constitutions which can bear in open day the rough dealing of the world must be of that mean and average structure,—such as iron and salt, atmospheric air, and water. But there are metals, like potassium and sodium, which, to be kept pure, must be kept under naphtha. Such are the talents determined on some specialty, which a culminating civilization fosters in the heart of great cities and in royal chambers. Nature protects her own work. To the culture of the world, an Archimedes, a Newton is indispensable; so she guards them by a certain aridity. If these had been good fellows, fond of dancing, Port, and clubs, we should have had no "Theory of the Sphere," and no "Principia." They had that necessity of isolation which genius feels. Each must stand on his glass tripod, if he would keep his electricity. Even Swedenborg, whose theory of the universe is based on affection, and who reprobates to weariness the danger and vice of pure intellect, is constrained to make an extraordinary exception: "There are also angels who do not live consociated, but separate, house and house; these dwell in the midst of heaven, because they are the best of angels."
We have known many fine geniuses have that imperfection that they cannot do anything useful, not so much as write one clean sentence. 'Tis worse, and tragic, that no man is fit for society who has fine traits. At a distance, he is admired; but bring him hand to hand, he is a cripple. One protects himself by solitude, and one by courtesy, and one by an acid, worldly manner,—each concealing how he can the thinness of his skin and his incapacity for strict association. But there is no remedy that can reach the heart of the disease, but either habits of self-reliance that should go in practice to making the man independent of the human race, or else a religion of love. Now he hardly seems entitled to marry; for how can he protect a woman, who cannot protect himself?
We pray to be conventional. But the wary Heaven takes care you shall not be, if there is anything good in you. Dante was very bad company, and was never invited to dinner. Michel Angelo had a sad, sour time of it. The ministers of beauty are rarely beautiful in coaches and saloons. Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself. Yet each of these potentates saw well the reason of his exclusion. Solitary was he? Why, yes; but his society was limited only by the amount of brain Nature appropriated in that age to carry on the government of the world. "If I stay," said Dante, when there was question of going to Rome, "who will go? and if I go, who will stay?"
But the necessity of solitude is deeper than we have said, and is organic. I have seen many a philosopher whose world is large enough for only one person. He affects to be a good companion; but we are still surprising his secret, that he means and needs to impose his system on all the rest. The determination of each isfromall the others, like that of each tree up into free space. 'Tis no wonder, when each has his whole head, our societies should be so small. Like President Tyler, our party falls from us every day, and we must ride in a sulky at last. Dear heart! take it sadly home to thee, there is no coöperation. We begin with friendships, and all our youth is a reconnoitring and recruiting of the holy fraternity that shall combine for the salvation of men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of united light, yet there is no group which a telescope will not resolve, and the dearest friends are separated by impassable gulfs. The coöperation is involuntary, and is put upon us by the Genius of Life, who reserves this as a part of his prerogative. 'Tis fine for us to talk: we sit and muse, and are serene, and complete; but the moment we meet with anybody, each becomes a fraction.
Though the stuff of tragedy and of romances is in a moral union of two superior persons, whose confidence in each other for long years, out of sight, and in sight, and against all appearances, is at last justified by victorious proof of probity to gods and men, causing joyful emotions, tears, and glory,—though there be for heroes thismoral union, yet they, too, are as far off as ever from an intellectual union, and the moral union is for comparatively low and external purposes, like the coöperation of a ship's company, or of a fire-club. But how insular and pathetically solitary are all the people we know! Nor dare they tell what they think of each other, when they meet in the street. We have a fine right, to be sure, to taunt men of the world with superficial and treacherous courtesies!
Such is the tragic necessity which strict science finds underneath our domestic and neighborly life, irresistibly driving each adult soul as with whips into the desert, and making our warm covenants sentimental and momentary. We must infer that the ends of thought were peremptory, if they were to be secured at such ruinous cost. They are deeper than can be told, and belong to the immensities and eternities. They reach down to that depth where society itself originates and disappears,—where the question is, Which is first, man or men?—where the individual is lost in his source.
But this banishment to the rocks and echoes no metaphysics can make right or tolerable. This result is so against nature, such a half-view, that it must be corrected by a common sense and experience. "A man is born by the side of his father, and there he remains." A man must be clothed with society, or we shall feel a certain bareness and poverty, as of a displaced and unfurnished member. He is to be dressed in arts and institutions, as well as body-garments. Now and then a man exquisitely made can live alone, and must but coop up most men, and you undo them. "The king lived and ate in his hall with men, and understood men," said Selden. When a young barrister said to the late Mr. Mason, "I keep my chamber to read law." "Read law!" replied the veteran, "'tis in the courtroom you must read law." Nor is the rule otherwise for literature. If you would learn to write, 'tis in the street you must learn it. Both for the vehicle and for the aims of fine arts, you must frequent the public square. The people, and not the college, is the writer's home. A scholar is a candle, which the love and desire of all men will light. Never his lands or his rents, but the power to charm the disguised soul that sits veiled under this bearded and that rosy visage is his rent and ration. His products are as needful as those of the baker or the weaver. Society cannot do without cultivated men. As soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become imperative.
'Tis hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top; but through sympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert exasperates people to a certain fury of performance they can rarely reach alone. Here is the use of society: it is so easy with the great to be great! so easy to come up to an existing standard!—as easy as it is to the lover to swim to his maiden, through waves so grim before. The benefits of affection are immense; and the one event which never loses its romance is the alighting of superior persons at our gate.
It by no means follows that we are not fit for society, becausesoiréesare tedious, and because thesoiréefinds us tedious. A backwoodsman, who had been sent to the university, told me, that when he heard the best-bred young men at the law-school talk together, he reckoned himself a boor; but whenever he caught them apart, and had one to himself alone, then they were the boors, and he the better man. And if we recall the rare hours when we encountered the best persons, we then found ourselves, and then first society seemed to exist. That was society, though in the transom of a brig, or on the Florida Keys.
A cold, sluggish blood thinks it has not facts enough to the purpose, and must decline its turn in the conversation. But they who speak have no more,—have less. 'Tis not new facts that avail, but the heat to dissolve everybody's facts. Heat puts you in right relation with magazines of facts. The capital defect of cold, arid natures is the want of animal spirits. They seem a power incredible, as if God should raise the dead. The recluse witnesses what others perform by their aid with a kind of fear. It is as much out of his possibility, as the prowess of Coeur-de-Lion, or an Irishman's day's work on the railroad. 'Tis said, the present and the future are always rivals. Animal spirits constitute the power of the present, and their feats are like the structure of a pyramid. Their result is a lord, a general, or a boon-companion. Before these, what a base mendicant is Memory with his leathern badge! But this genial heat is latent in all constitutions, and is disengaged only by the friction of society. As Bacon said of manners, "To obtain them, it only needs not to despise them," so we say of animal spirits, that they are the spontaneous product of health and of a social habit. "For behavior, men learn it, as they take diseases, one of another."
But the people are to be taken in very small doses. If solitude is proud, so is society vulgar. In society, high advantages are set down to the individual as disadvantages. We sink as easily as we rise, through sympathy. So many men whom I know are degraded by their sympathies, their native aims being high enough, but their relation all too tender to the gross people about them. Men cannot afford to live together on their merits, and they adjust themselves by their demerits,—by their love of gossip, or sheer tolerance and animal good-nature. They untune and dissipate the brave aspirant.
The remedy is, to reinforce each of these moods from the other. Conversation will not corrupt us, if we come to the assembly in our own garb and speech, and with the energy of health to select what is ours and reject what is not. Society we must have; but let it be society, and not exchanging news, or eating from the same dish. Is it society to sit in one of your chairs? I cannot go to the houses of my nearest relatives, because I do not wish to be alone. Society exists by chemical affinity, and not otherwise.
Put any company of people together with freedom for conversation, and a rapid self-distribution takes place into sets and pairs. The best are accused of exclusiveness. It would be more true to say, they separate as oil from water, as children from old people, without love or hatred in the matter, each seeking his like; and any interference with the affinities would produce constraint and suffocation. All conversation is a magnetic experiment. I know that my friend can talk eloquently; you know that he cannot articulate a sentence: we have seen him in different company. Assort your party, or invite none. Put Stubbs and Byron, Quintilian and Aunt Miriam, into pairs, and you make them all wretched. 'Tis an extempore Sing-Sing built in a parlor. Leave them to seek their own mates, and they will be as merry as sparrows.
A higher civility will reëstablish in our customs a certain reverence which we have lost. What to do with these brisk young men who break through all fences, and make themselves at home in every house? I find out in an instant if my companion does not want me, and ropes cannot hold me when my welcome is gone. One would think that the affinities would pronounce themselves with a surer reciprocity.
Here again, as so often, Nature delights to put us between extreme antagonisms, and our safety is in the skill with which we keep the diagonal line. Solitude is impracticable, and society fatal. We must keep our head in the one, and our hands in the other. The conditions are met, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our sympathy. These wonderful horses need to be driven by fine hands. We require such a solitude as shall hold us to its revelations when we are in the street and in palaces; for most men are cowed in society, and say good things to you in private, but will not stand to them in public. But let us not be the victims of words. Society and solitude are deceptive names. It is not the circumstance of seeing more or fewer people, but the readiness of sympathy, that imports; and a sound mind will derive its principles from insight, with ever a purer ascent to the sufficient and absolute right, and will accept society as the natural element in which they are to be applied.
[Continued.]
CHAPTER III
When little Helen was not far from nine years old, her mother, (as she had learned to call Mrs. Bugbee,) whose health for a long time had been failing, fell sick and took to her bed. Sometimes, for a brief space, she would seem to mend a little; and a council of doctors, convened to consider her case,—though each member differed from all the others touching the nature of her malady,—unanimously declared she would ultimately recover. But her disease, whatever it was, proved to be her mortal illness; for the very next night she came suddenly to her end. Her loss was a heavy one, especially to her own household. She had always been a quiet person, of rather pensive humor, whose native diffidence caused her to shrink from observation; and after Amelia's death she was rarely seen abroad, except at meeting, on Sundays, or when she went to visit the poor, the sick, or the grief-stricken. It was at home that her worth was most apparent; for plain domestic virtues, such as hers, seldom gain wide distinction. Her children's sorrow was deep and lasting, and the badge of mourning which her husband wore for many months after her death was a truthful symbol of unaffected grief. From the beginning, he was warmly attached to his wife, whose affection for him was very great indeed. It would have been strange if he had been unhappy, when she, who made his tastes her study, also made it the business of her life to please him. Besides, his cheerful temper enabled him to make light of more grievous misfortunes than the getting of a loving wife and thrifty helpmeet ten years older than himself.
When a widower, like the Doctor, is but fifty, with the look of a much younger man, people are apt to talk about the chances of his marrying again. Before Mrs. Bugbee had been dead a twelve-month, rumors were as plenty as blackberries that the Doctor had been seen, late on Sunday evenings, leaving this house, or that house, the dwelling-place of some marriageable lady; and if he had finally espoused all whom the gossips reported he was going to marry, he would have had as many wives as any Turkish pasha or Mormon elder. It was doubtless true that he called at certain places more frequently than had been his custom in Mrs. Bugbee's lifetime. This, he assured Cornelia, to whom the reports I have mentioned occasioned some uneasiness, was because he was more often summoned to attend, in a professional way, at those places, than he had ever been of old; which was true enough, I dare say, for more spinsters and widows were taken ailing about this time than had ever been ill at once before. Be that as it may, certain arrangements which the Doctor presently made in his domestic affairs did not seem to foretoken an immediate change of condition.
Miss Statira Blake, whom the Doctor engaged as housekeeper, was the youngest daughter of an honest shoemaker, who formerly flourished at Belfield Green, where he was noted for industry, a fondness for reading, a tenacious memory, a ready wit, and a fluent tongue. In politics he was a radical, and in religion a schismatic. The little knot of Presbyterian Federalist magnates, who used to assemble at the tavern to discuss affairs of church and state over mugs of flip and tumblers of sling, regarded him with feelings of terror and aversion. The doughty little cobbler made nothing of attacking them single-handed, and putting them utterly to rout; for he was a dabster at debate, and entertained as strong a liking for polemics as for books. Nay, he was a thorn in the side of the parson himself, for whom he used to lie in wait with knotty questions,—snares set to entrap the worthy divine, in the hope of beguiling him into a controversy respecting some abstruse point of doctrine, in which the cobbler, who had every verse of the Bible at his tongue's end, was not apt to come off second best.
But one day, Tommy Blake, being at a raising where plenty of liquor was furnished, (as the fashion used to be,) slipped and fell from a high beam, and was carried home groaning with a skinful of broken bones. He died the next day, poor man, and his bedridden widow survived the shock of witnessing his dreadful agonies and death but a very little while. Her daughters, two young girls, were left destitute and friendless. But Major Bugbee, to whom the cobbler's wife had been remotely akin, and who was at that time first selectman of the town, took the orphans with him to his house, where they tarried till he found good places for them. Roxana, the elder girl, went to live with a reputable farmer's wife, whose only son she afterwards married. Statira remained under the shelter of the good Major's hospitable roof much longer than her sister did, and would have been welcome to stay, but she was not one of those who like to eat the bread of dependence. With the approval of the selectmen, she bound herself an indentured apprentice to Billy Tuthill, the little lame tailor, for whom she worked faithfully four years, until she had served out her time and was mistress of her trade, even to the recondite mystery of cutting a double-breasted swallow-tail coat by rule and measure. Then, at eighteen, she set up business for herself, going from house to house as her customers required, working by the day. Her services were speedily in great demand, and she was never out of employment. Many a worthy citizen of Belfield well remembers his first jacket-and-trowsers, the handiwork of Tira Blake. The Sunday breeches of half the farmers who came to meeting used to be the product of her skilful labor. Thus for many years (refusing meanwhile several good offers of marriage) she continued to ply her needle and shears, working steadily and cheerfully in her vocation, earning good wages and spending but little, until the thrifty sempstress was counted well to do, and held in esteem according. Sometimes, when she got weary, and thought a change of labor would do her good, she would engage with some lucky dame to help do housework for a month or two. She was a famous hand at pickling, preserving, and making all manner of toothsome knick-knacks and dainties. Nor was she deficient in the pleasure walks of the culinary art. Betsey Pratt, the tavernkeeper's wife, a special crony of Statira's, used always to send for her whenever she was in straits, or when, on some grand occasion, a dinner or supper was to be prepared and served up in more than ordinary style. So learned was she in all the devices of the pantry and kitchen, that many a young woman in the parish would have given half her setting-out, and her whole store of printed cookery-books, to know by heart Tira Blake's unwritten lore of rules and recipes. So, wherever she went, she was welcome, albeit not a few stood in fear of her; for though, when well treated, she was as good-humored as a kitten, when provoked, especially by a slight or affront, her wrath was dangerous. Her tongue was sharper than her needle, and her pickles were not more piquant than her sarcastic wit. Tira, the older people used to remark, was Tommy Blake's own daughter; and truly, she did inherit many of her father's qualities, both good and bad, and not a few of his crotchets and opinions. In fine, she was a shrewd, sensible, Yankee old maid, who, as she herself was wont to say, was as well able to take care of 'number one' as e'er a man in town.
Statira never forgot Major Bugbee's kindness to her in her lonely orphanhood. She preserved for him and for every member of his family a grateful affection; but her special favorite was James, the Doctor's brother, who was a little younger than she, and who repaid this partiality with hearty good-will and esteem. When he grew up and married, his house became one of Statira's homes; the other being at her sister's house, which was too remote from Belfield Green to be at all times convenient. So she had rooms, which she called alike her own, at both these places, in each of which she kept a part of her wardrobe and a portion of her other goods and chattels. The children of both families called her Aunt Statira, but, if the truth were known, she loved little Frank Bugbee, James's only son, better than she did the whole brood of her sister Roxy's flaxen-pated offspring. Nay, she loved him better than all the world besides. Statira used to call James her right-hand man, asking for his advice in every matter of importance, and usually acting in accordance with it. So, when Doctor Bugbee invited her to take charge of his household affairs, Cornelia joining in the request with earnest importunity, she did not at once return a favorable reply, though strongly inclined thereto, but waited until she had consulted James and his wife, who advised her to accept the proffered trust, giving many sound and excellent reasons why she ought to do so.
Accordingly, a few months after Mrs. Bugbee's death, Statira began to sway the sceptre where she had once found refuge from the poor-house; for though Cornelia remained the titular mistress of the mansion, Statira was the actual ruler, invested with all the real power. Cornelia gladly resigned into her more experienced hands the reins of government, and betook herself to occupations more congenial to her tastes than housekeeping. Whenever, afterwards, she made a languid offer to perform some light domestic duty, Statira was accustomed to reply in such wise that the most perfect concord was maintained between them. "No, my dear," the latter would say, "do you just leave these things to me. If there a'n't help enough in the house to do the work, your pa'll get 'em; and as for overseein', one's better than two." But sometimes, when little Helen proffered her assistance, Tira let the child try her hand, taking great pains to instruct her in housewifery, warmly praising her successful essays, and finding excuses for every failure. It was not long before a cordial friendship subsisted between the teacher and her pupil.
The Doctor, of course, experienced great contentment at beholding his children made happy, his house well kept and ordered, his table spread with plentiful supplies of savory victuals, and all his domestic concerns managed with sagacity and prudence, by one upon whose goodwill and ability to promote his welfare he could rely with implicit confidence. Even the servants shared in the general satisfaction; for though, under Tira's vigorous rule, no task or duty could be safely shunned or slighted, she proved a kind and even an indulgent mistress to those who showed themselves worthy of her favor. Old Violet, the mother of Dinah, the little black girl elsewhere mentioned, yielded at once to Tira Blake the same respectful obedience that she and her ancestors, for more than a century in due succession, had been wont to render only to dames of the ancient Bugbee line. Dinah herself, now a well-grown damsel, black, but comely, who, during Cornelia's maladministration, had been suffered to follow too much the devices and desires of her own heart, setting at naught alike the entreaties and reproofs of her mistress and her mother's angry scoldings,—even Dinah submitted without a murmur to Tira's wholesome authority, and abandoned all her evil courses. Bildad Royce, a crotchety hired-man, whom the Doctor kept to do the chores and till the garden, albeit at first inclined to be captious, accorded to the new housekeeper the meed of his approbation.
"I like her well enough to hope she'll stay, mum," quoth he, in reply to an inquisitive neighbor. "And for my part, Miss Prouty," he added, nodding and winking at his questioner, "I'd like to see it fixed so she'd alwus stay; and if the Doctordoosthink he can't do no better'n to have her bimeby, when the time comes, who's a right to say a word agin it?"
"Goodness me!" exclaimed the unwary Mrs. Prouty,—"do you mean to say you think he's got any idea of such a thing, Bildad?"
"Yes, Idon'tmean to say I think he's got any idee of sich a thing, Bildad," replied Bildad himself, who took great delight in mystifying people, and who sometimes, in order to express the most unqualified negation, was accustomed to employ this apparently ambiguous form of speech. "I said formypart, Miss Prouty,—formypart. As for the Doctor, he'll prob'bly have his own notions, and foller 'em."
Besides these already mentioned, there was another person, who sat so often at the Doctor's board and spent so many hours beneath his roof, that, for the nonce, I shall reckon her among his family. Indeed, Laura Stebbins was almost as much at home in the Bugbee mansion as at the parsonage, and she used to regard the Doctor and his wife with an affection quite filial in kind and very ardent in degree. For this she had abundant reason, the good couple always treating her with the utmost kindness, frequently making her presents of clothes and things which she needed, besides gifts of less use and value. These tokens of her friends' good-will she used to receive with many sprightly demonstrations of thankfulness; sometimes, in her transports of gratitude, distributing between the Doctor and his wife a number of delicious kisses, and telling the latter that her husband was the best and most generous of men. After Mrs. Bugbee's death, the Doctor's manner, as was to be expected, became more grave and sober, and he very wisely thought proper to treat Laura with a kindness less familiar than before, which perceiving with the quickness of her sex, she also practised a like reserve. But notwithstanding this prudent change in his demeanor, his good-will for Laura was in no wise abated. At all events, the friendship between Cornelia and Laura suffered no decay or diminution. Indeed, it increased in fervency and strength. For Laura, having finished her course of study at the Belfield Academy, had now more time to devote to Cornelia than when she had had lessons to get and recitations to attend. The parsonage stood next to the Bugbee mansion, and in the paling between the two gardens there was a wicket, through which Cornelia, Laura, and Helen used to run to and fro a dozen times a day. The females of the Doctor's family made nothing of scudding, bareheaded, across to the parsonage by this convenient back-way, and bolting into the kitchen without so much as knocking at the door; and Laura's habits at the Bugbee mansion were still more familiar. Mrs. Jaynes, though not the most affable of womankind, gave this close intimacy much favor and encouragement; for she bore in mind that Cornelia's father was the richest and most influential member of her husband's church and parish.
At first, Laura was a little shy of the plain-spoken old maid, for whose person, manners, and opinions she had often heard Mrs. Jaynes express, in private, a most bitter dislike. But Statira had been regnant in the Bugbee mansion less than a week, when Laura began to make timid advances towards a mutual good understanding, of which for a while Statira affected to take no heed; for having formed a resolution to maintain a strict reserve towards every inmate of the parsonage, she was not disposed to break it so soon, even in favor of Laura, whose winsome overtures she found it difficult to resist.
"If it wa'n't for her bein' Miss Jaynes's sister," said she, one day, to Cornelia, who had been praising her friend,—"if it wa'n't for that one thing, I should like her remarkable well,—a good deal more'n common."
"Pray, what have you got such a spite against the Jayneses for?" asked Cornelia.
"What do you mean by askin' such a question as that, Cornele?" said Tira, in a tone of stern reproof. "Who's got a spite against 'em? Not I, by a good deal! As for the parson himself, he's a well-meanin' man, and does as near right as he knows how. If you could say as much as that for everybody, there wouldn't be any need of parsons any more."
"But you don't like Mrs. Jaynes," persisted Cornelia.
"I ha'n't got a spite against her, Cornele,—though, I confess, I don't love the woman," replied Statira. "But I always treat her well; though, to be sure, I don't curchy so low and keep smilin' so much as most folks do, when they meet a minister's wife and have talk with her. Even when she comes here a-borrowin' things she knows will be giv' to her when she asks for 'em, which makes it so near to beggin' that she ought to be ashamed on't, which I only give to her because it's your father's wish for me to do so, and the things are his'n; but I always treat her well, Cornele."
"But why don't you like her, Tira?" asked Helen.
"My dear, I'll tell you," said Statira; "for I don't want you to think I'm set against any person unreasonable and without cause. You see Miss Jaynes is a nateral-born beggar. I don't say it with any ill-will, but it's a fact. She takes to beggin' as naterally as a goslin' takes to a puddle; and when she first come to town she commenced a-beggin', and has kep' it up ever since. She used to tackle me the same as she does everybody else, askin' me to give somethin' to this, and to that, and to t'other pet humbug of her'n, but I never would do it; and when she found she could'nt worry me into it, like the rest of 'em, it set her very bitter against me; and I heard of her tellin' I'd treated her with rudeness, which I'd always treated her civilly, only when I said 'No,' she found coaxin' and palaverin' wouldn't stir me. So it went on for a year or two, till, one fall, I was stayin' here to your ma's,—Cornele, I guess you remember the time,—helpin' of her make up her quinces and apples. We was jest in the midst of bilin' cider, with one biler on the stove and the biggest brass kittle full in the fireplace, when in comes boltin' Miss Jaynes, dressed up as fine as a fiddle. She set right down in the kitchen, and your ma rolled her sleeves down and took off her apurn, lookin' kind o' het and worried. After a few words, Miss Jaynes took a paper out of her pocket, and says she to your ma, 'Miss Bugbee,' says she, 'I'm a just startin' forth on the Lord's business, and I come to you as the helpmate and pardner of one of his richest stewards in this vineyard.'—'What is it now?' says your ma, lookin' out of one eye at the brass kittle, and speakin' more impatient than I ever heard her speak to a minister's wife before. Well, I can't spend time to tell all that Miss Jaynes said in answer, but it seemed some of the big folks in New York had started a new society, and its object was to provide, as near as ever I could find out, such kind of necessary notions for indigent young men studyin' to be ministers as they couldn't well afford to buy for themselves,—such as steel-bowed specs for the near-sighted ones, and white cravats, black silk gloves, and linen-cambric handkerchiefs for 'em all,—in order, as Miss Jaynes said, these young fellers might keep up a respectable appearance, and not give a chance for the world's people to get a contemptible idee of the ministry, on account of the shabby looks of the young men that had laid out to foller that holy callin'. She said it was a cause that ought to lay near the heart of every evangelical Christian man, and especially the women. 'We mothers in Israel,' says Miss Jaynes, 'ought to feel for these young Davids that have gone forth to give battle to the Goliaths of sin that are a-stalkin' and struttin' round all over the land.' She said the society was goin' to be a great institution, with an office to New York, with an executive committee and three secretaries in attendance there, and was a-goin' to employ a great number of clergymen, out of a parish, to travel as agents collecting funds; 'but, 'says she,' I've a better tack for collectin' than most people, and I've concluded to canvass this town myself for donations to this noble and worthy cause; and I've come to you, Miss Bugbee,' says she, 'to lead off with your accustomed liberality.'—Well, what does your ma do, but go into her room, to her draw, I suppose, and fetch out a five-dollar bill, and give it to Miss Jaynes, which I'd 'a' had to work a week, stitchin' from mornin' to night, to have earnt that five-dollar bill; though, of course, your ma had a right to burn it up, if she'd 'a' been a mind to; only it made me ache to see it go so, when there was thousands of poor starvin' ragged orphans needin' it so bad. All to once Miss Jaynes wheeled and spoke to me: 'Well, Miss Tira,' says she, 'can I have a dollar from you?'—'No, ma'am,' says I.—'I supposed not,' says she; which would have been sassy in anybody but the parson's wife. But I held my tongue, and out she went, takin' no more notice of me than she did of Vi'let, nor half so much,—for I see her kind o' look towards the old woman, as if she was half a mind to ask her for a fourpence-ha'penny. Well, that was the last on't for a spell, until after New Year's. I was stayin' then at your Uncle James's, and one afternoon your ma sent for your Aunt Eunice and me to come over and take tea. So we went over, and there was several of the neighbors invited in,—Squire Bramhall's wife, and them your ma used to go with most, and amongst the rest, of course, Miss Jaynes. There had just before that been a donation party, New Year's night, to the parson's, and the Dorcas Society had bought Miss Jaynes a nice new Brussels carpet for her parlor, all cut and fitted and made up. In the course of the afternoon Miss Bramhall spoke and asked if the new carpet was put down, and if it fitted well. 'Oh, beautiful!' says she, 'it fits the room like a glove; somebody must have had pretty good eyes to took the measure so correct, and I not know anything what was a-comin'; and I hope,' says she, 'ladies, you'll take an early opportunity to drop in and see it; for there a'n't one of you but what I'm under obligation to for this touchin' token of your love,' (that's what she called it,)—'except,' says she, of a sudden, 'except Miss Blake, whom, really, I hadn't noticed before!'—I tell ye, Cornele, my ebenezer was up at this; for you can't tell how mean and spiteful she spoke and looked, pretendin' as if I was so insignificant a critter she hadn't taken notice of my bein' there before, which, to be sure, she hadn't even bid me good afternoon; and for my part, I hadn't put myself forward among such women as was there, though I didn't feel beneath 'em, nor they didn't think so, except Miss Jaynes.—Then she went on. 'Miss Blake,' says she, 'I believe didn't mean no slight for not helpin' towards the carpet; for she never gives to anything, as I know of,' says she. 'I've often asked her for various objects, and have been as often refused. The last time,' says she, 'I did expect to get somethin'; for I asked only for a dollar to that noble society for providin' young men, a-strugglin' to prepare themselves for usefulness in the ministry, with some of the common necessaries of life, but she refused me. I expect,' says she, a-sneerin' in such a way that I couldn't stand it any longer, 'I expect Miss Blake is a-savin' all her money to buy her settin'-out and furniture with; for I suppose,' says she, lookin' more spiteful than ever, 'I suppose Miss Blake thinks that as long as there's life there's hope for a husband.'—I happen to know what all the ladies thought of this speech, for every one of 'em afterwards told me; but, if you'll believe me, one or two of the youngest of 'em kind of pretended to smile at the joke on't, when Miss Jaynes looked round as if she expected 'em to laugh; for she thought, I suppose, I was really and truly no account, bein' a cobbler's daughter and a tailoress,—and that when the minister's wife insulted me, I dars'n't reply, and all hands would stand by and applaud. But she found out her mistake, and she begun to think so, when she see how grave your ma and all the rest of the older ladies looked, for they knew what was comin'. I'd bit my lips up till now, and held in out of respect to the place and the company, but I thought it was due to myself to speak at last. Says I, 'Miss Jaynes, I've always treated you with civility and the respect due to your place; though I own I ha'n't felt free to give my hard-earned wages away to objects I didn't know much about, when, with my limited means, I could find places to bestow what little I could spare without huntin' 'em up. I don't mean to boast,' says I, 'of my benevolence, and I don't have gilt-framed diplomas hung up in my room to certify to it, to be seen and read of all men, as the manner of some is,—but,' says I, 'Iwillsay that I've given this year twenty-five dollars to the Orphan Asylum, to Hartford, and I've a five-dollar gold-piece in my puss,' says I, 'that I can spare, and will give that more to the same charity, for the privilege of tellin' before these ladies, that heard me accused of being stingy, why I don't give to you when you ask me to, and especially why I didn't give the last time you asked me. I would like to tell why I didn't help sew in the Dorcas Society, to buy the new carpet,' says I, 'but I don't want to hurt anybody's feelin's that ha'n't hurt mine, and I'll forbear.'—By this time Miss Jaynes was pale as a sheet. 'I'm sure,' says she, 'I don't care why you don't choose to give, and I don't suppose any one else does. It's your own affair,' says she, 'and you a'n't compelled to give unless you're a mind to.'—'You should have thought of that before you twitted me,' says I, 'before all this company.'—'Oh, Tira, never mind,' says Miss Bramhall, 'let it all go!' But up spoke your Aunt Eunice, and says she, 'It's no more than fair to hear Tira's reasons, after what's been said.'"
"Good!" said little Helen; "hurrah for Aunt Eunice!"
"And your ma," resumed Statira, "I knew by her looks she was on my side, though, it bein' her own house, she felt less free to say as much as your Aunt Eunice did.—'In the first place,' says I, 'if I did want to keep my money to buy furniture with, in case I should get a husband, I expect I've a right to, for 'ta'n't likely,' says I, 'I shall be lucky enough to have my carpets giv' to me. But that wa'n't the reason I didn't put my name down for a dollar on that subscription. One reason was, I knew the upshot on't would be that somebody would be put up to suggestin' that the money should go for a life-membership in the society for Miss Jaynes,' says I; 'and I don't like to encourage anybody in goin' round beggin' for money to buy her own promotion to a high seat in the synagogue.'—You ought to seen Miss Jaynes's face then! It was redder'n any beet, for I'd hit the nail square on the head, as it happened, and the ladies could scurcely keep from smilin'.—'Then,' says I, 'I shouldn't be my father's daughter, if I'd give a cent for a preacher that isn't smart enough to get his own livin' and pay for his own clothes and eddication. To ask poor women to pay for an able-bodied man's expenses,' says I, 'seems to me like turnin' the thing wrong end foremost. A young feller that a'n't smart enough to find himself in victuals and clothes won't be of much help in the Lord's vineyard,' says I."
"And what did Mrs. Jaynes say?" asked little Helen, when Tira finally came to a pause.
"Well, really, my dear," replied Miss Blake, "the woman had nothin' to say, and so she said it. When I got through my speech I handed the five-dollar gold-piece to your Aunt Eunice, to send to the Asylum, and that ended it; for just then Dinah come in and said tea was ready, and we all went out. It was rather stiff for a while, and after tea we all went home; and for three long years Miss Jaynes never opened her face to me, until I came here to live, this time. Now she finds it's for her interest to make up, and so she tries to be as good as pie. But though I mean to be civil, I'm no hypocrite, and I can't be all honey and cream to them I don't like; and besides, it a'n't right to be."
"But you ought not to blame Laura because her sister affronted you," said Helen.
"I know that, my dear," replied Miss Blake; "and if I've hurt the girl's feelin's, I'm sorry for't. She's tried hard to be friends with me, but I've pushed her off; for, not bein' much acquainted, I was jealous, at first, that Miss Jaynes had put her up to it, to try to get round me in some way."
"Never!" cried Cornelia,—"my Laura is incapable of such baseness!"
"Well," said Statira, smiling, "come to know her, I guess you can't find much guile in her, that's a fact. If I did her wrong by mistrustin' her without cause, I'll try to make amends. It a'n't in me to speak ha'sh even to a dog, if the critter looks up into my face and wags his tail in honest good-nater. And I'll say this for Laura Stebbins, anyhow, if sheisMiss Jaynes's sister,—she's got the most takin' ways of 'most any grown-up person I ever see."
The reflection is painful to a generous mind, that, by harboring unjust suspicions of another, one has been led to repel friendly advances with indifference or disdain. In order to assuage some remorseful pangs, Miss Blake began from this time to treat Laura with distinguished favor. On the other hand, Laura, delighted at this pleasant change in Miss Blake's demeanor, sought frequent opportunities of testifying her joy and gratitude. In this manner an intimacy began, which ripened at length into a firm and enduring friendship. Laura soon commenced the practice of applying to her more experienced friend for advice and direction in almost every matter, great or small, and of confiding to her trust divers secrets and confessions which she would never have ventured to repose even in Cornelia's faithful bosom. This prudent habit Tira encouraged.
"I know, my dear," said she, one day, "I know what it is to be almost alone in the world, and what a comfort it is to have somebody you can rely on to tell your griefs and troubles to, and, as it were, get 'em to help you bear 'em. So, my dear child, whenever you want to get my notions on any point, just come right straight to me, if you feel like it. I may not be able to give you the best advice, for I a'n't so wise as you seem to think I be; however, I ha'n't lived nigh fifty years in the world for naught, I trust, and without havin' learnt some things worth knowin'; and though my counsel mayn't be worth much, still you shall have the best I can give."
"Oh, thank you, thank you!" cried Laura, with such a burst of passionate emotion that Miss Blake's eyes watered at the sight of it. "My dear, dear, dear good friend! you don't know how glad I shall be, if you will let me do as you say, and tell me what to do, and scold me, and admonish and warn me! Oh, it will be such happiness to have somebody to tell all myrealsecrets and troubles to! I do so need such a friend sometimes!"
"Don't I know it, you poor dear?" said Miss Blake, wiping her eyes. "Ha'n't I been through the same straits myself? None but them that's been a young gal themselves, an orphan without a mother to confide in and to warn and guide 'em, knows what it is. But I do, my dear; and though I shall be a pretty poor substitute for an own mother, I'll do the best I can."