My Unknown Chum Part 9

No gouty man would ever look to the New York Tribune as the exponent of his religious or political creed. His complaint has a positive character, and it makes him earnest to find something positive in religion and politics. The negativeness of radicalism tires him. He deprecates every thing like change. He thinks that religion, and society, and government were established for some better end than to afford a perpetual employment to the destructive powers of visionary reformers and professional philanthropists. He longs to find constancy and stability in something besides his inexorable disorder.

There is another disorder which people generally seem to consider a very trifling affair, but which any one who knows it will allow to be productive of the most unmistakable pain. I refer to neuralgia. Who pities a neuralgic person? Any healthy man, when asked about it, will answer in his ignorance that it is "only a headache." But ask the school teacher, whose throbbing head seems to be beating time to the ceaseless muttering and whispering of her scholars as they bend over their tasksask the student, whose thoughts, like undisciplined soldiers, will not fall into the ranks, and whose head seems to be occupied by a steam engine of enormous power, running at the highest rate of pressure, with the driver sitting on the safety-valveask them whether neuralgia is "only a headache"! Who can tell the cause of the prevalence of this scourge? whether it proceeds from our houses overheated with intolerable furnaces and anthracite coal, or from our treacherous and unconstant climate so forcibly described by Choate: "Cold to-day; hot to-morrow; mercury at eighty degrees in the morning, with wind at south-west; and in three hours more a sea turn, with wind at east, a thick fog from the very bottom of the ocean, and a fall of forty degrees of Fahrenheit."

The uncertainty which seems to attend all human science, and the science of medicine in particular, envelops this mysterious disease, and thousands of us are left to suffer and wonder what the matter is.

But all of these pains, gouty, neuralgic, and otherwise, have yet their sweet uses, and like the vile reptile Shakespeare tells us of, are adorned with a precious jewel. The old Roman emperors in the hour of triumph used to have a slave stand behind them to whisper in their ear, from time to time, the unwelcome but salutary truth that they were but mortal men. Even now, on the occasion of the enthronement of a Pope, a lighted candle is applied to a bunch of flax fixed upon a staff, and as the smoke dissipates itself into thin air before the newly-crowned Pontiff, surrounded as he is by all the emblems of religion and all the insignia and pomp of worldly power, the same great truth of the perishableness of all mortal things is impressed upon his mind by the chanting of the simple but eloquent phrase, _Sic transit gloria mundi_.

But we neuralgic and gouty wretches need no whispering slave nor smoking flax to remind us of our frailty and the transientness of our happiness and glory. We carry with us a monitor who checks our swelling pride, and teaches us effectually the brevity of human joys. We are very apt, in our impatience and short-sightedness, to think that if we had the management of the world and the dispensation of pleasure and suffering, every thing could be conducted in a much more satisfactory manner. If it were so, we should undoubtedly carry things on in the style of a French restaurant, so that we could have _pain discretion_. But on the whole, I am inclined to think that we had better leave these matters to the management of that infinite Power which gives us day by day our daily pain, and from which we receive in the long run about what is meet for us. I hope that I shall not be thought ill-bred or profane in using such expressions as these. At my time of life it is too late to begin to murmur. A few twinges more or less are nothing when the hair grows gray and the eye is dimmed with the mists of age. The man who knows nothing of the novitiate of patiencewho has pa.s.sed through life without the chastening discipline of bodily painhas missed one of the best parts of existence. To suffer is one of the n.o.blest prerogatives of human nature.

Without suffering, life would be robbed of half its zest, and the thought of death would drive us to despair.

When I was a young man, and gave little thought to the gout and the other ills that vex me at present, I saw a wonderful exhibition of patience, which I now daily recall to mind, and wish I could imitate. I was sojourning in Florence, that lovely city, whose every a.s.sociation is one of calm and satisfactory pleasure undisturbed by any thing like bodily suffering. I enjoyed the friends.h.i.+p of a young American amateur artist of unquestioned talent, but whose artistic efforts were interfered with by the frequent attacks of a serious and excruciating disorder. It was considerable time after I made his acquaintance before I knew that he was an invalid. I noticed his lameness, but whenever we met he wore a smiling face, and had a cheerful word for every body. One evening I called in at his quiet lodgings near the Lung Arno, and found a party of some six or eight Americans talking over their recollections of home. He was entertaining them with the explanation of an imaginary panorama of New England, and a musical friend threw in ill.u.s.trative pa.s.sages from the piano in the intervals. The parlour resounded with our laughter at his irresistible fun; but in the midst of it all, he asked us to excuse him for a moment, and went into his bedroom. After a little while, another engagement calling me away, I went into his chamber to speak with him before leaving. I found him lying upon his bed, writhing like Laocon, while great drops stood upon his brow and agony was depicted on his patient face. He resisted all my attempts to do any thing for him; the attack had lasted all day, but was at some times severer than at others; he should feel better soon, and would go back to his friends; I had better not stop with him, as it might attract their attention in the parlour, &c. So I took my leave. The next morning I met one of his friends, who told me that he returned to his company a few minutes after my departure, and entertained them for an hour or more with an exhibition of his powers of wit and humour, which eclipsed all his previous efforts. Poor S. C.! His weary but uncomplaining spirit laid down that crippled body, which never gave aught but pain to its possessor, three or four years ago, and pa.s.sed, let us hope, into a happier state of existence, which flesh and blood, with their countless maladies and dolours, may not inherit.

The traveller in the south of Europe frequently encounters, in his perambulations through the streets and squares of cities, a group of people gathered around a monk, who is discoursing to them of those sublime truths which men are p.r.o.ne to lose sight of in their walks abroad. The style of the sermon is not, it is true, what we should look for from Newman, or Ravignan, or Ventura, but it has in it those fundamental principles of true eloquence, simplicity and earnestness; and the coa.r.s.e brown habit, the knotted cord, and the pale, serene, devout face of the preacher, harmonize wondrously with the self-denying doctrine he teaches, and give a double force to all his words. His instructions frequently concern the simple moral duties of life and the exercise of the cardinal virtues, which he enforces by ill.u.s.trations drawn from the lives of canonized saints, who won their heavenly crown and their earthly fame of blessedness by the practice of those virtues.

Allow me to close my sermon on suffering in the manner of the preaching friars, though I may not draw my ill.u.s.trations from the ancient martyrologies; for I apprehend that it will be more in keeping with the serious character of this essay to take them from another source. We have all laughed at d.i.c.kenss characters of Mark Tapley and Mr. Toots.

The former was celebrated for "keeping jolly under disadvantageous circ.u.mstances," and seemed to mourn over those dispensations of good fortune which detracted from his credit in being jolly. The latter was never known to indulge in any complaint, but met every mishap and disappointment with a manly resignation and the simple remark, "Its of no consequence." Even when he was completely ingulfed in misfortunes, when Pelion seemed to have been heaped upon Ossa, and both upon him, he did not give way to despair. He only gave utterance more fervently to his favourite maxim, "Its of no consequence. Nothing is of any consequence whatever!" Now, laugh at it as we may, this is a great truth. It is the foundation of all true philosophyof all practical religion. A few years more, and what will it avail us to have bargained successfully, to have lived in splendour, to have left in history a name that shall be the synonyme of power! A few years, and what shall we care for all our present sufferings and the light afflictions which are but for a moment! May we not say with Solomon, that "All is vanity," and with poor Toots, that "Nothing is of any consequence whatever"? Now, if there are any people who are likely to arrive at this satisfactory conclusion, and who need the consolation imparted by the reception and full appreciation of the deep truth it contains, it is the gouty, and rheumatic, and neuralgic wretches whom I have had in mind while writing this paper. Let me, in conclusion, as one who has had some experience, and is not merely theorizing, exhort all such persons to meditate upon the lives of the two great patterns of patience whom I have brought forward as examples; and to bear in mind that it is only through the resignation of Toots, that they can attain to the jollity of Tapley.

Likewise let me counsel those who may be pa.s.sing through life unharmed by serious misfortune and untrammelled by bodily pain, never to lose sight of that striking admonition of old Sir Thomas Brownes, "Measure not thyself by thy morning shadow, but by the extent of thy grave; and reckon thyself above the earth, by the line thou must be contented with under it."

BOYHOOD AND BOYS

Human nature is a very telescopic "inst.i.tution." It delights to dwell on whatever is most distant. Lord Rosses famous instrument dwindles down to a mere opera gla.s.s if you compare it with the mental vision of a restless boy, looking forward to the time when he shall don a tail-coat and a beaver hat. How his young heart swells with pride as he antic.i.p.ates the day when he shall be his own master, as the phrase iswhen he shall be able to stay out after nine oclock in the evening, and to go home without being subjected to the ignominy of being escorted by a chambermaid! If he be of a particularly sanguine temperament, his wild imagination is rapt in the contemplation of the possibility of one day having his name in the newspapers as secretary of some public meeting, or as having made a vigorous speech at a political caucus where liberty of speech runs out into slander, and sedition is mistaken for patriotism,or perhaps even of being one day a Common Councilman, or a member of the Great and General Court. A popular poet of the present day has expressed the same idea in a less prosaic manner:

"Not rainbow pinions coloured like yon cloud, The suns broad banner oer his western tent, Can match the bright imaginings of a child Upon the glories of his coming years:"

and another bard avers that human blessings are always governing the future, and never the present tense,or something to that effect. The truth of this n.o.body will deny who has pa.s.sed from the boxes of childhood upon the stage of manhood which so charmed his youthful fancy, and finds that the heroes who dazzled him once by their splendid achievements are mere ordinary mortals like himself, whom the blindness or caprice of their fellows has allowed to be dressed in a little brief authority; that the cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces he used to gaze on from afar, prove, on a closer inspection, to be mere deceptions of paint and canvas, and that he has only to look behind them to see the rough bricks and mortar of every-day life.

The voyager who sails from the dark waters of the restless Atlantic into the deep blue Mediterranean, notices at sunset a rich purple haze which rises apparently from the surface of that fair inland sea, and drapes the hills and vales along the beautiful sh.o.r.e with a glory that fills the heart of the beholder with unutterable gladness. The distant, snow-covered peaks of old Granada, clad in the same bright robe, seem by their regal presence to impose silence on those whom their majestic beauty has blessed with a momentary poetic inspiration which defies all power of tongue or pen. It touches nothing which it does not adorn, and the commonest objects are trans.m.u.ted by its magic into fairy shapes which abide ever after in the memory. Under its softening influence, the dingy sail of a fishermans boat becomes almost as beautiful an object to the sight as the ruins of the temple which crowns the height of Cape Colonna. But when you approach nearer to that which had seemed so charming in its twilight robes, your poetic sense is somewhat interfered with. You find the fis.h.i.+ng boat as unattractive as any that anchor on the Banks from which we obtain such frequent discounts of nasty weather, and the sh.o.r.e, though it may still be very beautiful, lacks the supernal glory imparted to it by distance. It is very much after this fas.h.i.+on with manhood, when we compare its reality with our childish expectations. We find that we have been deceived by a mere atmospheric phenomenon. But the destruction of the charm which age had for our eyes as children, is compensated for by the creation of a new glory which lights up our young days, as we look back upon them with the regret of manhood, and realize that their joys can never be lived over again.

Pardon me, gentle reader, for all this prosing. I have been reading that pleasant, hearty book, "Tom Browns School Days at Rugby," during the past week, and it has set me a-thinking about my own boyhood; for, strange as it may seem, there was a time when this troublesome foot was more familiar with the football and the skate than with gout and flannel,and Tom Browns genial reminiscences have revived the memory of that time most wonderfully. There was considerable fun in Boston in my childhood, even though most of the faces which one met in Marlboro Street and Cornhill were such as might have appropriately surrounded Cromwell at Naseby or Marston Moor. There were many people, even then, who did not regard religion as an affair of spasmodic emotions, and long, bilious-looking faces, and psalm-singing, and neck-ties. They thought that, so long as they were honest in their dealings, and did not swear to false invoices at the customhouse, and did as they would be done by, and lived virtuously, that He to whom they had been taught by parental lips to pray, would overlook the smaller offencessuch as an occasional laugh or a pleasant jestinto which weak nature would now and then betray them. I cannot help thinking that they were about right, though I fear that I shall be set down as little better than one of the wicked by Stiggins, Chadband, Sleek & Co.

Yes, there was a good deal of fun among the boys in those old days. Boys will be boys, however serious the family may be; and if you take away their marbles, some other "vanity" will be sure to take their place.

What jolly times we used to have Artillery Election! How good the egg-pop used to taste, in spite of the dust of Park Street, which mingled itself liberally with the nutmeg! How we used to save up our money for those festive days! How hard the arithmetic lessons seemed, particularly in the days immediately preceding vacation! How dreary were those long winters; and yet how short and pleasant they seemed to us!

for we loved the runners, and skates, and jingling bells, and, as Pescatore, the Neapolitan poet, sings, "though bleak our lot, our hearts were warm."

Newspapers were not a common luxury in those times, and I suppose that I took as little notice of pa.s.sing events as most children; yet I well remember the effect produced upon my mind one dark, threatening afternoon, near the close of the last century, by the announcement of the death of General Was.h.i.+ngton. I had been accustomed to hear him talked about as the Father of his Country; I had studied the lineaments of his calm countenance, as they were set forth for the edification of my patriotism on some coa.r.s.e handkerchiefs presented to me by a public-spirited aunt, until I began to look upon him as almost a supernatural being. If I had been told that the Old South had been removed to Dorchester Heights, or that the solar system was irreparably disarranged, I should not have been more completely taken aback than I was by that melancholy intelligence. I need not say that afterwards, when I grew up and found that Was.h.i.+ngton was not only a mortal like the rest of us, but that he sometimes spelt incorrectly enough to have suited Noah Webster, (the inventor of the American language,) my supernatural view of that estimable general and patriot was very materially modified. I remember, too, how much I used to hear said about an extraordinary man who had risen up in France, and who seemed to be bending all Europe to his will. I never shall forget my astonishment on finding that Marengo was not a man, but a place. The discovery shamed me somewhat, and afterwards I always read whatever newspapers came in my way. When some slow tub of a packet had come across the ocean, battling with the nor-westers, and was announced to have made a "quick pa.s.sage of forty-eight days," how eagerly I followed the rapid fortunes of the first Napoleon! His successes, as they intoxicated him, dazzled and bewildered my boyish imagination. I understood the matter imperfectly, but I loved Napoleon, and delighted to repeat to myself those stirring names, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, &c. How I hated Russia after the disastrous campaign of 1812! (By the way, the exhibition of the Conflagration of Moscow, which used to have its intermittent terms of exhibition here some years since, always brought back all my youthful feelings about the old Napoleon; the march of the artillery across the bridge, in the foreground of the scene, the rattling of the gun carriages,that most warlike of all warlike sounds,the burning city, the destruction of the Kremlin, all united in my mind to form a sentiment of admiration and sympathy for the baffled conqueror. If that admirable show were to be revived once more, I should be tempted to take a season ticket to it, for I have no doubt that it would thrill me just as it did before my head could boast of a single gray hair.) Nor was my admiration for Napoleons old marshals much below that which I entertained for the mighty genius who knew so well how to avail himself of their surpa.s.sing bravery and skill. I felt as if the unconquerable Murat, Lannes, Macdonald, Davoust, were my dearest and most intimate friends. The impetuous Ney, "the bravest of the brave," as his soldiers called him; and the inflexible Ma.s.sna, "the favourite child of victory," figured in all my dreams, heading gallant charges, and withstanding deadly a.s.saults, and occupied the best part of my waking thoughts. I do not doubt that there is many a schoolboy nowadays who has dwelt with equal delight on the achievements of Scott and Taylor, of Canrobert, Bosquet and Plissier, of Fenwick Williams and Havelock, and poor old Raglan, (that brave man upon whom the Circ.u.mlocution Office tried to fasten the blame of its own inefficiency, and who died broken-hearted, a melancholy ill.u.s.tration of the truth of Shakespeares lines,

"The painful warrior, famousd for fight, After a thousand victories once foiled, Is from the book of honour razd quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toiled,")

and who cherishes them as I did the heroes of half a century ago.

But, as I was saying, Tom Browns happy reminiscences of Rugby have awakened once more all my boyish feelings; for New England has its Rugby, and many of the readers of the old Rugby boys pleasant pages will grow enthusiastic with the recollection of their schoolboy days at Exeter,their s...o...b..llings, their manly sports, their mighty contests with the boys of the town,and, though they may not claim the genius of the former head-master of Rugby for the guardian of their youthful sports and studies, will apply all of the old boys praises of Dr.

Arnold to the wise, judicious, and lovable Dr. Abbot.

I always cherished an unbounded esteem for boys. The boythe genuine human boymay, I think, safely be set down as the n.o.blest work of G.o.d.

Pope claims that proud distinction for the honest man, but at the present time, the nearest we can come to such a mythological personage as an honest man, (even though we add Argand burners, expensive Carcels, Davy safeties, and the Drummond light to the officially recognized lantern of Diogenes,) is a real human boy, without a thought beyond his next holiday, with his heart overflowing with happiness, and his pockets chock full of marbles. Young girls cannot help betraying something of the in-dwelling vanity so natural to the s.e.x; you can discern a self-consciousness in their every action which you shall look for in vain in the boy. Bless your heart!you may dress a real boy up with superhuman care, and try to impress on his young mind that he is the pride of his parents, and one of the most remarkable beings that ever visited this mundane sphere, and he will listen to you with becoming reverence and docility; but his pure and honest nature will give the lie to all your flattery as soon as your back is turned, and in ten minutes you will find him kicking out the toes of his new boots, or rumpling his clean collar by "playing horse," or using the top of his new cap for a drinking vessel, and mixing in with the Smiths, and Browns, and Jinkinses, on terms of the most unquestioned equality. The author of Tom Brown says that "boys follow one another in herds like sheep, for good or evil; they hate thinking, and have rarely any settled principles."

This is undoubtedly true; but still there is a generous instinct in boys which is far more trustworthy than those sliding, and unreliable, and deceptive ideas which we call settled principles. The boys thinking powers may be fallible, but his instinct is, in the main, sure. There is no aristocracy of feeling among boys. Linsey-woolsey and broadcloth find equal favour in their eyes. What they seek is just as likely to be found under coa.r.s.e raiment as under purple and fine linen. If their companion is a real good feller, even though he be a son of a rich merchant or banker, he is esteemed as highly as if his father were an editor of a newspaper.

The nature of the boy is full of the very essence of generosity. The boys who hide away their gingerbread, and eat it by themselves,who lay up their Fourth of July five-cent pieces, for deposit in that excellent savings inst.i.tution in School Street, instead of spending them for the legitimate India crackers of the "Sabbath Day of Freedom,"are exceptions which only put the general rule beyond the pale of controversy. The real boy carries his apple in one of his pockets until it is comfortably warm, and he has found some companion to whom he may offer a festive bite; for he feels, with Goethe, that

"It were the greatest misery known To be in paradise alone;"

and if, occasionally, when he sees his friend gratifying his palate with a fair round specimen of the same delicious fruit, he asks for a return of his kindness, with a beckoning gesture, and a free and easy"I say, you know me, Bill!"he is moved thereto by no mere selfish liking for apples, but by a natural sense of friends.h.i.+p, and of the excellence of the apostolic principle of community of goods. This spirit of generosity may be seen in the friends.h.i.+ps of boys, which are more entire and unselfish than those by which men seek to mitigate the irksomeness of life. There are more Oresteses and Pyladeses, more Damons and Pythiases, at twelve years of age than at any later period of life. The devotedness of boyish friends.h.i.+p is peculiar from the fact that it is generally reciprocal. In this it is superior to what we call love, which, if we may believe the French satirist, in most instances consists of one party who loves, and another who allows himself or herself to be loved. This phenomenon has not escaped the notice of that great observer of human nature, Thackeray.

"What generous boy," he asks, "in his time has not wors.h.i.+pped somebody?

Before the female enslaver makes her appearance, every lad has a friend of friends, a crony of cronies, to whom he writes immense letters in vacation; whom he cherishes in his heart of hearts; whose sister he proposes to marry in after life; whose purse he shares; for whom he will take a thras.h.i.+ng if need be; who is his hero."

The generosity, and all the priceless charms of boyhood, rarely outlive its careless years of happiness. They are generally severely shaken, if not wholly destroyed, when the youth enters upon that crepuscular period of manhood in which his jacket is lengthened into a sack, and he begins to take his share in the conceit, and ambition, and selfishness of full-grown humanity. It is sad to think that a human boy, like the morning star, full of life and joy, may be stricken down by death, and all his hilarity stifled in the grave; but to my mind it is even more melancholy to think that he may live to grow up, and be hard, and worldly, and ungenerous as any of the rest of us. For this latter fate is accompanied by no consolations such as naturally a.s.suage our sorrow when an innocent child is s.n.a.t.c.hed from among his playthings,when "death has set the seal of eternity upon his brow, and the beautiful hath been made permanent" I have seen few men who would be willing to live over again their years of manhood, however prosperous and comparatively free from trouble they may have been; but fewer still are those whom I have met, in whose memory the records of boyhood are not written as with a sunbeam. No, talk as we may about the happiness of manhood, the satisfaction of success in life, of gratified ambition, of the possession of the Mary or Lizzie of ones choice,what is it all compared to the unadulterate joy of that time when we built our card houses, and made our dirt pies, or drove our hoops, unvexed by the thoughts that Jinkinss house was larger than ours, or by any anxiety concerning the possibility of obtaining our next days mutton-chop and potatoes? Except the momentary pain occasioned by the exercise of a magisterial rattan upon our persons, or an occasional stern reproof from a hair-brush or the thin sole of a maternal shoe, that halcyon period is imperturbed, and may safely be called the happiest part of life.

My venerated friend, Baron Nabem, who has been through all these "experiences," and therefore ought to know, insists upon it that no man really knows any thing until he is forty years old. For when he is eighteen or twenty years of age, he esteems himself to be a sort of combination of the seven wise men of Greece in one person, with Humboldt, Mezzofanti, and Macaulay thrown in to make out the weight; at twenty-five, his confidence in his own infallibility begins to grow somewhat shaky; at thirty, he begins to wish that he might really know a tenth part as much as he thought he did ten years before; at thirty-five, he thinks that if he were added up, there would be very little to carry; and at forty the great truth bursts upon him in all its effulgence that he is an a.s.s. There are some who reach this desirable state of self-knowledge before they attain the age specified by the Baron; other some there are who never reach it at all,as we all see numerous instances around us,but these are mere exceptions strengthening rather than invalidating the common rule. It is a humiliating acknowledgment, but if we consider the uncertainty of all earthly things, if we try the depth of the sea of human science, and find how easy it is to touch bottom any where therein, if we convince ourselves of the impenetrability of the veil which bounds our mental vision,I think that we shall be obliged to allow that the recognition of our own nothingness and asininity is the sum and perfection of human knowledge. Now, Solomon tells us that he who increases knowledge increases sorrow; and it naturally follows that when a man has reached the knowledge which generally comes with his fortieth year, he is less happy than he was when he wrapped himself in the measureless content of his twentieth years self-deception. And it follows, too, most incontrovertibly, that he is happier when unpossessed by that exaggerated self-esteem which rendered the discovery of his fortieth year necessary to him; and when is that time, if not during the careless, happy years of boyhood?

The period of boyhood has been shortened very considerably within a few years; and real boys are becoming scarce. They are no sooner emanc.i.p.ated from the bright b.u.t.tons which unite the two princ.i.p.al articles of puerile apparel, than they begin to pant for virile habiliments. Their choler is roused if they are denied a stand-up d.i.c.key. They sport canes.

They delight to display themselves at lectures and concerts. Their young lips are not innocent of d.a.m.ns and short-sixes; and they imitate the vulgarity and conceit of the young men of the present day so successfully that you find it hard to believe that they are mere children. Since this period of dearth in the boy market set in, of course the genuine, marketable article has become more precious to me. I remember seeing an old physician in Paris, who was as true a boy as any beloved twelve-year-old that ever snapped a marble or stuck his forefinger into a preserve jar on an upper shelf in a china closet. A charming old fellow he was, too. He used to stop to see the boys play in the gardens of the Tuileries, and I knew him once to spend a whole afternoon in the avenue of the Champs Elyses looking at the puppet shows and other sights with the rest of the youngsters. He told me afterwards that that was one of the happiest days of his life; for he had felt as if he were back again in the pleasant time before he knew any thing of that most uncertain of all uncertain thingsthe science of medicine; and he doubted whether any boy there had enjoyed the cheap amus.e.m.e.nt more than himself. I envied him, for I knew that he who retained so much of the happy spirit of boyhood could not have outlived all of its generosity and simplicity. "Once a man and twice a child,"

says the old proverb; and I cannot help thinking that if at the last we could only recall something of the sincerity, and innocence, and unselfishness of our early life, second childhood would indeed be a blessed thing.

JOSEPHINEGIRLHOOD AND GIRLS

A bright-eyed, fair, young maiden, whose satchel I should insist upon carrying to school for her every morning if I were half a century younger, came to me a day or two after the publication of my last essay, and, placing her white, taper fingers in my rough, Esau-like hand, said, "I liked your piece about the boys very much; and now I hope that youll write something about girls." "My dear Nellie," replied I, "if I should do that I should lose all my female acquaintances. I have a weakness for telling the truth, and there are some subjects concerning which it is very dangerous to speak out the whole truth and nothing but the truth." The gentle damsel smiled, and looked

"Modest as justice, and did seem a palace For the crownd truth to dwell in,"

as she still urged me on, and refused to see any danger in my giving out the plainest truth about girlhood. _She_ had no fear, though all the truth were told; and I suppose that if we had some of Nellies purity and gentleness remaining in our sere and selfish hearts, we should be much better and happier men and women, and should dread the truth as little as she does. But I must not begin my truth-telling by seeming to praise too highly, though it must be confessed, even at my time of life, if I were to describe the charming young person I have referred to, with the merciless fidelity of a daguerreotype and an absence of hyperbole worthy of the late Dr. Bowditchs work on Navigation, I should seem to the unfortunate "general reader" who does not know Nell, to be indulging in the grossest flattery, and panting poesy would toil after me in vain.

So I will put aside all temptations of that kind, and come down to the plain prose of my subject.

There is, in fact, very little that can be said about girlhood. Those calm years that come between the commencement of the bondage of the pantalettes and emanc.i.p.ation from the tasks of school, present few salient points upon which the essayist (observe he never so closely) may turn a neat paragraph. They offer little that is startling or attractive either to writer or reader,

"As times of quiet and unbroken peace, Though for a nation times of blessedness, Give back faint echoes from the historians page."

The rough sports of boyhood, the out-door life which boys always take to so naturally, and all their habits of activity, give a strength of light and shade to their early years which is not to be found in girlhood. It is not enough to say that there is no difference in kind, but simply one in degree,that the years of boyhood are calm and happy, and that those of girlhood are so likewise,that the former resemble the garish suns.h.i.+ne, and the latter the mitigated splendour of the moon; for the characters of boys seem to be struck in a sharper die than those of girls, which gives them an absoluteness quite distinct from the feminine grace we naturally look for in the latter. The free-hearted boy, plunging into all sorts of fun without a thought of his next days arithmetic lesson, and with a charming disregard of the expense of jackets and trousers, and the gentle girl, who clings to her mothers side, like an attendant angel, and contents herself with teaching long lessons to docile paper pupils in a quiet corner by the fireside, are representatives of two distinct cla.s.ses in the order of nature, and (untheologically, of course, I might add) of grace. There is not a greater difference between a hockey and a crochet needle than there is between them.

I have, as a general thing, a greater liking for boys than for girls; for the vanity so common to all mankind is not developed in them at so early an age as in the latter. Still I must acknowledge that I have seen some splendid exceptions, the mere recollection of which almost tempts me to draw my pen through that last sentence. Can I ever forgetI can never forgetone into whose years of girlhood the beauty and grace of a long, pure life seemed to have been compressed? It was many years ago, and I was younger than I am nowso pardon me if I should seem to catch a little enthusiasm of spirit from the remembrance of those days. Like the ancient Queen of Carthage, _Agnosco veteris vestigia flamm_. I was living in London at that time, or rather at Hampstead, which had not then become a mere suburb of the great metropolis, but was a quiet town, whose bright doorplates, and well-scoured doorsteps, and clean window curtains contrasted finely with the dingy brick walls of its houses, and impressed the visitor with the general prosperity and quiet respectability of its inhabitants. In my daily walks to and from the city, I frequently met a gentleman whose gray hairs and simple dignity of manners always attracted me towards him, and exacted from me an involuntary tribute of respectful recognition. One day he overtook me in a shower, and gave me the benefit of his umbrella and his friends.h.i.+pfor an intimacy which ended only with his death commenced between us from that hour. He was a gentleman of good family and education, who had seen thirty years of responsible service in the employ of the Honourable East India Company, had attained a competency, and had forsworn Leadenhall Street for a pension and a quiet retreat on the heights of Hampstead.

His wife was a lady of cultivated tastes, whose sober wishes never learned to stray from the path of simple domestic duty, and the presence of the books in which she found her daily pleasures.

"Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home."

Their only child, "one fair daughter, and no more," was a gentle and merry-hearted creature, who, in the short and murky days of November, filled that cottage with a more than June-like suns.h.i.+ne. Her parents always had a deep sympathy with that unfortunate Empress of France whose dismission from the throne was the commencement of the downward career of the first Napoleon, and bore witness to it by giving her name to their only child. They lived only three or four doors from my lodgings, and there were few days pa.s.sed after the episode of the umbrella in which I did not find a welcome in their quiet home. Their daughter was their only idol, and I soon found myself a convert to their innocent system of paganism. We all three agreed that Josey was the incarnation of all known perfections, and the lapse of forty years has not sufficed to weaken that conviction in my mind. She had risen just above the horizon of girlhood, and the natural beauty of her character made the beholder content to forget even the promise of her riper years. I do not think she was what the world calls handsome. I sometimes distrust my judgment in the matter of female beauty; indeed, some of my candid friends have told me that I had no judgment in such things. Well, as I was saying, Josey was not remarkable for personal beautyin fact, I think I remember some persons of her own s.e.x who thought her "very plain""positively homely"and wondered what there was attractive about her. There are circ.u.mstances under which I should not have hesitated to attribute such remarks to motives of envy and jealousy; but as they came from girls whose attractions of every kind were far below those of the gentle creature whom they delighted to criticise, how can I account for them? Joseys complexion was darkher forehead, like those of the best models of female comeliness among the ancients, low. Her teeth were pearly and uniform, and her clear, dark eyes seemed to reflect the happiness and hope which were the companions of her youth. Her beauty was not of that kind which consists in mere regularity of features; it was far superior to that. You could discern under those traits, none of which were conspicuous, a combination of mental and social qualities which were far above the fleeting charms that delight so many, and which age, instead of destroying, would increase and perfect. She was quiet and gentle, without being dull or moody; light-hearted and cheery, without being frivolous; and witty, without being pert or conceited. Her unaffected goodness of heart found many an opportunity of exercise. I often heard of her among the poor, and among those who needed words of consolation even more than the necessaries of life. It was her delight to intercede with the magistrate who had inflicted a punishment on some disorderly brother of one of her poor clients, and to obtain his pardon by promising to watch over him and insure his future good behaviour; and there were very few, among the most reckless, who were not restrained by the thought that their offences would give pain to the kind-hearted girl who had so willingly become their protector.

During the months that I lived at Hampstead my intercourse with that excellent family was as familiar as if I had been one of their own kindred. A little attack of rheumatism, which confined me to my lodging for a fortnight or three weeks, proved the constancy of their friends.h.i.+p. The old gentleman came daily to see metold me all the news from the city, and read to me; the mother sent me some of her favourite books; and Josey came to get a.s.sistance in her Latin and French, and brought me sundry little pots of grape jelly and other preserves, which tasted all the sweeter for being the work of her fair hands. It was a sad parting when I was called away to Americasad for me; for I told them that I hoped that my absence from England would be but temporary, when I felt inwardly that it might extend to several years.

Two or three months after my arrival at home, I received a letter from the old gentleman, written in his deliberate, round, clerk-like style, informing me of his wifes death. A note was enclosed from Josey, in which she described with her pencil the spot where her mother was buried in the old churchyard, and told me of her progress in her studies. More than a year pa.s.sed by without my hearing from them at all, two or three of my letters to them having miscarried. Nearly seven years elapsed before I visited England again. Two years before that, I had read the decease of the old gentleman, in a stray London newspaper. I had written to Josey, sympathizing with her in her desolation, but had received no answer. So, the day after my arrival in London, I determined to make a search for the beloved Josey. I went to Hampstead, and my heart beat quicker as I approached the cottage where I had spent so many happy hours. My throat felt a little choky, as I recognized the neat bit of hedge before the door, the graceful vine which overhung it, and the familiar arrangement of the flower pots in the frames outside the windows; but my hopes received a momentary check when I found a strange name on the plate above the knocker. I knocked, and inquired concerning the former occupants of the house. After a severe effort to overcome the Botian stupidity of the housemaid, she ushered me into the little breakfast room, and said she would "call her missus." Almost before I had time to look about me, Josey entered the room. The little girl whose Latin exercises I had corrected, and who had always lived in my memory as she appeared in those days, suddenly came before me

"A perfect woman, n.o.bly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a spirit still and bright With something of an angel light."

Yet she was hardly changed at all. She had lost none of those charming qualities which had made the thought of her precious to me during long years of absence. She had gained the maturity and dignity of womanhood without losing any of the simplicity and light-heartedness of girlhood.

She was married. Her husband was a literary man of considerable reputation. Though only in middle age, he was a great sufferer with the gout. He was, generally speaking, a patient man; but I found, after I became intimate with him, that his pains sometimes made him express himself with a force of diction somewhat in advance of the religious prejudices of his gentle Josey, who tended him and ministered to his wants like an angel, as she was. But excuse me for wandering so far from my theme. To make a long story short, Josey went to Italy with her husband, who had been ordered thither by his physicians, and I never saw her afterwards. She deposited her husbands remains in the cemetery where those of Sh.e.l.ley and Keats repose, and found for two or three years a consolation for her bereaved spirit in residence in that city which more than all others proclaims to our unwilling hearts the vanity and transitoriness of this worlds hopes, and the glory of the unseen eternal. Years after, I met one of her husbands friends in Paris, who told me that some four years after his death, she had entered a convent of a religious order devoted to the reclaiming of the degraded of her s.e.x, in Brussels. There she had found a fitting occupation for the natural benevolence of her heart, and the peace which the world could not give. She had concealed the glory of her good works under her vow of obedienceher personality was hidden under the common habit of her Orderthe very name which was so dear to me had been exchanged for another on the day that saw her covered with the white veil of the novice. I was about returning to England from the continent when I heard this, and I resolved to take Belgiums fair capital in my route. I found the convent readily enough, and waited in its uncarpeted but scrupulously clean parlour some time for the Lady Superior. She was a lady of dignified mien, with the clear complexion, the serene brow, and the dovelike eyes so common among nuns, and her face lighted up, as she spoke, with a gentle smile, which seemed almost like a presage of immortality. I explained my errand, and she told me that the good English sister had been dead more than a year. The intelligence pained me, and it gave me a feeling of self-reproach to notice that the nun, who had been with her in her last hour, spoke of her as if she had merely pa.s.sed into another part of the convent we were in. The Superior, perceiving my emotion, conducted me through the garden of the convent to a shady corner of the grounds, where there were several graves. She stopped before a mound, over which a rose bush bent affectionately, as if its white blossoms craved something of the purity which was enshrined beneath it. At its head was a simple wooden cross, on which was inscribed the name of "Sister Helen Agnes," the date of her death, and the common supplication that she might rest in peace; and that was the only memorial of Josey that remained to me.

I have not forgotten, dear reader, that I am writing about girls; but having brought forward one who always seemed to me to be about as near perfection as it is vouchsafed to poor humanity to approach, I could not help following her to the end, and showing how she went from a beautiful girlhood to a still more beautiful womanhood, and a death which all of us might envy; and how lovely and harmonious was her whole career. For I feel that the consideration of the contrast which most of the young female readers of these pages will discover between themselves and Josey, will do them some good.