Coelebs In Search of a Wife Part 17

Mr. Tyrrel and his nephew called on us this evening, and interrupted a pleasant and useful conversation on which we were just entering. "Do you know, Stanley," said Mr. Tyrrel, "that you absolutely corrupted my nephew, by what pa.s.sed at your house the other day in favor of reading?

He has ever since been ransacking the shelves for idle books."

"I should be seriously concerned," replied Mr. Stanley, "if any thing I had said should have drawn Mr. Edward off from more valuable studies, or diverted him from the important pursuit of religious knowledge."

"Why, to do him justice, and you too," resumed Mr. Tyrrel, "he has since that conversation begun a.s.siduously to devote his mornings to serious reading, and it is only an hour's leisure in the evening, which he used to trifle away, that he gives to books of taste; but I had rather he would let them all alone; the best of them will only fill his heart with cold morality, and stuff his head with romance and fiction. I would not have a religious man ever look into a book of your belles-lettres nonsense; and if he be really religious, he will make a general bonfire of the poets."

"That is rather too sweeping a sentence," said Mr. Stanley. "It would, I grant you, have been a benefit to mankind, if the entire works of some celebrated poets, and a considerable portion of the works of many not quite so exceptionable, were to a.s.sist the conflagration of your pile."

"And if fuel failed," said Sir John Belfield, "we might not only rob Belinda's altar of her

Twelve tomes of French romances neatly gilt,

but feed the flame with countless marble-covered octavos from the modern school. But having made this concession, allow me to observe, that because there has been a voluptuous Petronius, a scoffing Lucian, and a licentious Ovid, to say nothing of the numberless modern poets, or rather individual poems, that are immoral and corrupt--shall we therefore exclude all works of imagination from the library of a young man? Surely? we should not indiscriminately banish the Muses, as infallible corrupters of the youthful mind; I would rather consider a blameless poet as the auxiliar of virtue. Whatever talent enables a writer to possess an empire over the heart, and to lead the pa.s.sions at his command, puts it in his power to be of no small service to mankind.

It is no new remark that the abuse of any good thing is no argument against its legitimate use. Intoxication affords no just reason against the use of wine, nor prodigality against the possession of wealth. In the instance in dispute, I should rather infer that a talent capable of diffusing so much mischief was susceptible of no small benefit. That it has been so often abused by its misapplication, is one of the highest instances of the ingrat.i.tude of man for one of the highest gifts of G.o.d."

"I can not think," said I, "that the Almighty conferred such a faculty with a wish to have it extinguished. Works of imagination have in many countries been a chief instrument in civilization. Poetry has not only preceded science in the history of human progress, but it has in many countries preceded the knowledge of the mechanical arts; and I have somewhere read, that in Scotland they could write elegant Latin verse before they could make a wheel-barrow. For my own part, in my late visit to London, I thought the decline of poetry no favorable symptom."

"I rejoice to hear it _is_ declining," said Mr. Tyrrel. "I hope that what is decaying, may in time be extinguished."

"Mr. Tyrrel would have been delighted with that with which I was displeased," replied I. "I met with philosophers, who were like Plato in nothing but his abhorrence of the Muses; with politicians, who resembled Burleigh only in his enmity to Spenser; and with warriors, who, however they might emulate Alexander in his conquests, would never have imitated him in sparing the house of Pindarus."

"The _art_ of poetry," said Mr. Stanley, "is to touch the pa.s.sions, and its _duty_ to lead them on the side of virtue. To raise and to purify the amus.e.m.e.nts of mankind; to multiply and to exalt pleasures, which being purely intellectual, may help to exclude such as are gross, in beings so addicted to sensuality, is surely not only to give pleasure, but to render service. It is allowable to seize every avenue to the heart of a being so p.r.o.ne to evil; to rescue him by every fair means, not only from the degradation of vice, but from the dominion of idleness. I do not now speak of gentlemen of the sacred function, to which Mr. Edward Tyrrel aspires, but of those who, having no profession, have no stated employment; and who, having more leisure, will be in danger of exceeding the due bounds in the article of amus.e.m.e.nt. Let us then endeavor to s.n.a.t.c.h our youth of fas.h.i.+on from the low pleasures of the dissolute; to s.n.a.t.c.h them, not only from the destruction of the gaming-table, but from the excesses of the dining-table, by inviting them to an elegant delight that is safe, and especially by enlarging the range of pure mental pleasure.

"In order to this, let us do all we can to cultivate their taste, and innocently indulge their fancy. Let us contend with impure writers, those deadliest enemies to the youthful mind, by opposing to them in the chaster author, images more attractive, wit more acute, learning more various; in all which excellences our first-rate poets certainly excel their vicious compet.i.tors."

"Would you, Mr. Tyrrel," said Sir John, "throw into the enemy's camp all the light arms which often successfully annoy where the heavy artillery can not reach?"

"Let us," replied Mr. Stanley, "rescue from the hands of the profane and the impure, the monopoly of wit which, they affect to possess, and which they would possess, if no good men had written works of elegant literature, and if all good men totally despised them."

"For my own part," said Mr. Tyrrel, "I believe that a good man, in my sense of the word, will neither write works of imagination, nor read them."

"At your age and mine, and better employed as we certainly may be," said Mr. Stanley, "we want not such resources. I myself, though I retain the relish, have little leisure for the indulgence, which yet I would allow, though with great discrimination, to the young and the unoccupied. What is to whet the genius of the champions of virtue, so as to enable them successfully to combat the leaders of vice and infidelity, if we refuse to let them be occasionally sharpened and polished by such studies? That model of brilliant composition, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, was of this opinion, when he said, 'by whatever instrument piety is advantaged, use that, though thou grindest thy spears and arrows at the forges of the Philistines.'

"I know," continued Mr. Stanley, "that a Christian need not borrow weapons of attack or defense from the cla.s.sic armory; but, to drop all metaphor, if he is called upon to defend truth and virtue against men whose minds are adorned with all that is elegant, strengthened with all that is powerful, and enriched with all that is persuasive, from the writers in question--is he likely to engage with due advantage if his own mind be dest.i.tute of the embellishments with which theirs abound?

While wit and imagination are _their_ favorite instruments, shall we consider the aid of either as useless, much less as sinful in their opponents?"

"While young men _will_ be amused," said Sir John, "it is surely of importance that they should be _safely_ amused. We should not therefore wish to obliterate in authors such faculties as wit and fancy, nor to extinguish a taste for them in readers."

"Show me any one instance of good that ever was effected by any one poet," said Mr. Tyrrel, "and I will give up the point; while, on the other hand, a thousand instances of mischief might be produced."

"The latter part of your a.s.sertion, sir," said I, "I fear is too true: but to what evil has elevation of fancy led Milton, or Milton his readers? Into what immoralities did it involve Spenser or Cowley? Has Thomson added to the crimes or the calamities of mankind? Into what immoralities did it plunge Gray, or Goldsmith? Has it tainted the purity of Beattie in his Minstrel, or that of the living minstrel of the LAY?

What reader has Mason corrupted, or what reader has Cowper not benefitted? Milton was an enthusiast both in religion and politics. Many enthusiasts with whom he was connected, doubtless condemned the exercise of his imagination in his immortal poem as a crime; but his genius was too mighty to be restrained by opposition, and his imagination too vast and powerful to be kept down by a party. Had he confined himself to his prose writings, weighty and elaborate as some of them are, how little service would he have done the world, and how little would he now be read or quoted! In his life-time politics might blind his enemies, and fanaticism his friends. But now, who, comparatively, reads the Iconoclastes? who does not read Comus?"

"What then," said Mr. Tyrrel, "you would have our young men spend their time in reading idle verses, and our girls, I suppose, in reading loose romances?"

"It is to preserve both from evils which I deprecate," said Mr. Stanley, "that I would consign the most engaging subjects to the best hands, and raise the taste of our youth, by allowing a little of their leisure, and of their leisure only, to such amus.e.m.e.nts; and that chiefly with a view to disengage them from worse pursuits. It is not romance, but indolence; it is not poetry, but sensuality, which are the prevailing evils of the day--evils far more fatal in themselves, far more durable in their effects, than the perusal of works of wit and genius. Imagination will cool of itself. The effervescence of fancy will soon subside; but absorbing dissipation, but paralyzing idleness, but degrading self-love,

"Grows with their growth, and strengthens with their strength."

"A judicious reformer," said Sir John, "will accommodate his remedy to an existing and not an imaginary evil. When the old romances, the grand Cyruses, the Clelias, the Calprenedes, and the Ca.s.sandras, had turned all the young heads in Europe; or when the fury of knight-errantry demanded the powerful rein of Cervantes to check it--it was a duty to attempt to lower the public delirium. When, in our own age and country, Sterne wrote his corrupt, but too popular lesser work, he became the mischievous founder of the school of sentiment. A hundred writers communicated, a hundred thousand readers caught, the infection.

Sentimentality was the disease which then required to be expelled. The reign of Sterne is past. Sensibility is discarded, and with it the softness which it must be confessed belonged to it. Romance is vanished, and with it the heroic, though somewhat unnatural, elevation which accompanied it. We have little to regret in the loss of either; nor have we much cause to rejoice in what we have gained by the exchange. A pervading and substantial selfishness, the striking characteristic of our day, is no great improvement on the wildness of the old romance, or the vapid puling of the sentimental school."

"Surely," said I (L'Almanac des Gourmands at that instant darting across my mind), "it is as honorable for a gentleman to excel in critical as in culinary skill. It is as n.o.ble to cultivate the intellectual taste, as that of the palate. It is at least as creditable to discuss the comparative merits of Sophocles and Shakspeare, as the rival ingredients of a soup or a sauce. I will even venture to affirm that it is as dignified an amus.e.m.e.nt to run a tilt in favor of Virgil or Ta.s.so against their a.s.sailants, as to run a barouche against a score of rival barouches; and though I own that, in Gulliver's land of the Houyhnhnms, the keeping up the breed of horses might have been the n.o.bler patriotism, yet in Great Britain it is. .h.i.therto, at least, no contemptible exertion of skill and industry 'to keep up the breed of gentlemen.'"

CHAPTER XXIX.

I strolled out alone, intending to call at the Rectory, but was prevented by meeting the worthy Dr. Barlow, who was coming to the Grove.

I could not lose so fair an opportunity of introducing a subject that was seldom absent from my thoughts. I found it was a subject on which I had no new discoveries to impart. He told me he had seen and rejoiced in the election my heart had made. I was surprised at his penetration. He smiled, and told me he "took no great credit for his sagacity in perceiving what was obvious to spectators far more indifferent than himself; that I resembled those animals who, by hiding their heads in the earth, fancied n.o.body could see them."

I asked him a thousand questions about Lucilla, whose fine mind I knew he had in some measure contributed to form. I inquired, with an eagerness which he called jealousy, who were her admirers? "As many men as have seen her," replied he; "I know no man who has so many rivals as yourself. To relieve your apprehensions, however, I will tell you, that though there have been several compet.i.tors for her favor, not one has been accepted. There has, indeed, this summer been a very formidable candidate, young Lord Staunton, who has a large estate in the county, and whom she met on a visit." At these words I felt my fears revive. A young and handsome peer seemed so redoubtable a rival, that for a moment I only remembered she was a woman, and forgot that she was Lucilla.

"You may set your heart at rest," said Dr. Barlow, who saw my emotion; "she heard he had seduced the innocent daughter of one of his tenants, under the most specious pretense of honorable love. This, together with the looseness of his religious principles, led her to give his lords.h.i.+p a positive refusal, though he is neither dest.i.tute of talents, nor personal accomplishments."

How ashamed was I of my jealousy! How I felt my admiration increase! Yet I thought it was too great before to admit of augmentation. "Another proposal," said Dr. Barlow, "was made to her father by a man every way unexceptionable. But she desired him to be informed that it was her earnest request that he would proceed no further, but spare her the pain of refusing a gentleman for whose character she entertained a sincere respect; but being persuaded she could never be able to feel more than respect, she positively declined receiving his addresses, a.s.suring him, at the same time, that she sincerely desired to retain, as a friend, him whom she felt herself obliged to refuse as a husband. She is as far from the vanity of seeking to make conquest, as from the ungenerous insolence of using ill those whom her merit has captivated, and her judgment can not accept."

After admiring in the warmest terms the purity and generosity of her heart, I pressed Dr. Barlow still further, as to the interior of her mind. I questioned him as to her early habits, and particularly as to her religious attainments, telling him that nothing was indifferent to me which related to Lucilla.

"Miss Stanley," replied he, "is governed by a simple, practical end, in all her religious pursuits. She reads her Bible, not from habit, that she may acquit herself of a customary form; not to exercise her ingenuity by allegorizing literal pa.s.sages, or spiritualizing plain ones, but that she may improve in knowledge and grow in grace. She accustoms herself to meditation, in order to get her mind more deeply imbued with a sense of eternal things. She practices self-examination, that she may learn to watch against the first risings of bad dispositions, and to detect every latent evil in her heart. She lives in the regular habit of prayer, not only that she may implore pardon of sin, but that she may obtain strength against it. She told me one day when she was ill, that if she did not constantly examine the actual state of her mind, she should pray at random, without any certainty what particular sins she should pray against, or what were her particular wants. She has read much Scripture and little controversy. There are some doctrines that she does not pretend to define, which she yet practically adopts. She can not perhaps give you a disquisition on the mysteries of the Holy Spirit, but she can and does fervently implore his guidance and instruction; she believes in his efficacy, and depends on his support. She is sensible that those truths, which from their deep importance are most obvious, have more of the vitality of religion, and influence practice more, than those abstruse points which unhappily split the religious world into so many parties.

"If I were to name what are her predominant virtues, I should say sincerity and humility. Conscious of her own imperfections, she never justifies her faults, and seldom extenuates them. She receives reproof with meekness, and advice with grat.i.tude. Her own conscience is always so ready to condemn her, that she never wonders, nor takes offense, at the censures of others."

"That softness of manner which you admire in her is not the varnish of good breeding, nor is it merely the effect of good temper, though in both she excels, but it is the result of humility. She appears humble, not because a mild exterior is graceful, but because she has an inward conviction of unworthiness which prevents an a.s.suming manner. Yet her humility has no cant; she never disburdens her conscience by a few disparaging phrases, nor lays a trap for praise by indiscriminately condemning herself. Her humility never impairs her cheerfulness; for the sense of her wants directs her to seek, and her faith enables her to find, the sure foundation of a better hope than any which can be derived from a delusive confidence in her own goodness."

"One day," continued Dr. Barlow, "when I blamed her gently for her backwardness in expressing her opinion on some serious point, she said, 'I always feel diffident in speaking on these subjects, not only lest I should be _thought_ to a.s.sume, but lest I really _should_ a.s.sume a degree of piety which may not belong to me. My great advantages make me jealous of myself. My dear father has so carefully instructed me, and I live so much in the habit of hearing his pious sentiments that I am often afraid of appearing better than I am, and of pretending to feel in my heart what perhaps I only approve in my judgment. When my beloved mother was ill,' continued she, 'I often caught myself saying mechanically, G.o.d's will be done! when I blush to own how little I felt in my heart of that resignation of which my lips were so lavish.'"

I hung with inexpressible delight on every word Dr. Barlow uttered, and expressed my fears that such a prize was too much above my deserts to allow me to encourage very sanguine hopes. "You have my cordial wishes for your success," said he, "though I shall lament the day when you s.n.a.t.c.h so fair a flower from our fields, to transplant it into your northern gardens."

We had now reached the park-gate, where Sir John and Lady Belfield joined us. As it was very hot, Dr. Barlow proposed to conduct us a nearer way. He carried us through a small nursery of fruit-trees, which I had not before observed, though it was adjoining the ladies'

flower-garden, from which it was separated and concealed by a row of tall trees. I expressed my surprise that the delicate Lucilla would allow so coa.r.s.e an inclosure to be so near her ornamented ground. "You see she does all she can to shut it out," replied he. "I will tell you how it happens, for I can not vindicate the taste of my fair friend, without exposing a better quality in her. But if I betray her, you must not betray me.

"It is a rule when any servant who has lived seven years at the Grove, marries, provided they have conducted themselves well, and make a prudent choice, for Mr. Stanley to give them a piece of ground on the waste, to build a cottage; he also allows them to take stones from his quarry, and lime from his kiln; to this he adds a bit of ground for a garden. Mrs. Stanley presents some kitchen furniture, and gives a wedding dinner; and the rector refuses his fee for performing the ceremony."

"Caroline," said Sir John, "this is not the first time since we have been at the Grove that I have been struck with observing how many benefits naturally result to the poor, from the rich living on their own estates. Their dependants have a thousand petty local advantages, which cost almost nothing to the giver, which are yet valuable to the receiver, and of which the absent never think."

"You have heard," said Dr. Barlow, "that Miss Stanley, from her childhood, has been pa.s.sionately fond of cultivating a garden. When she was hardly fourteen, she began to reflect that the delight she took in this employment was attended neither with pleasure nor profit to any one but herself, and she became jealous of a gratification which was so entirely selfish. She begged this piece of waste ground of her father, and stocked it with a number of fine young fruit-trees of the common sort, apples, pears, plums, and the smaller fruits. When there is a wedding among the older servants, or when any good girl out of her school marries, she presents their little empty garden with a dozen young apple-trees, and a few trees of the other sorts, never forgetting to embellish their little court with roses and honey-suckles. These last she transplants from the shrubbery, not to fill up the _village garden_, as it is called, with any thing that is of no positive use. She employs a poor lame man in the village a day in a week to look after this nursery, and by cutting and grafts a good stock is raised on a small s.p.a.ce. It is done at her own expense, Mr. Stanley making this a condition when he gave her the ground; 'otherwise,' said he, 'trifling as it is, it would be my charity and not hers, and she would get thanked for a kindness which would cost her nothing.' The warm-hearted little Ph[oe]be cooperates in this, and all her sister's labors of love.

"Some such union of charity with every personal indulgence, she generally imposes on herself; and from this a.s.sociation she has acquired another virtue, for she tells me, smiling, she is sometimes obliged to content herself with practicing frugality instead of charity. When she finds she can not afford both her own gratification, and the charitable act which she wanted to a.s.sociate with it, and is therefore compelled to give up the charity, she compels herself to give up the indulgence also.

By this self-denial she gets a little money in hand for the next demand, and thus is enabled to afford both next time."

As he finished speaking, we spied the lame gardener pruning and clearing the trees. "Well, James," said the Doctor, "how does your nursery thrive?" "Why, sir," said the poor man, "we are rather thin of stout trees at present. You know we had three weddings at Christmas, which took thirty-six of my best apple-trees at a blow, besides half a dozen tall pear-trees, and as many plums. But we shall soon fetch it up, for Miss Lucilla makes me plant two for every one that is removed, so that we are always provided for a wedding, come when it will."

I now recollected that I had been pleased with observing so many young orchards and flouris.h.i.+ng cottage gardens in the village: little did I suspect the fair hand which could thus in a few years diffuse an air of smiling comfort around these humble habitations, and embellish poverty itself. She makes, they told me, her periodical visits of inspection to see that neatness and order do not degenerate.

Not to appear too eager, I asked the poor man some questions about his health, which seemed infirm. "I am but weak, sir," said he, "for matter of that, but I should have been dead long ago but for the Squire's family. He gives me the run of his kitchen, and Miss Lucilla allows me half-a-crown a week for one day's work and any odd hour I can spare; but she don't let me earn it, for she is always watching for fear it should be too hot, or too cold, or too wet for me; and she brings me my dose of bark herself into this tool-house, that she may be sure I take it; for she says, servants and poor people like to have medicines provided for them, but don't care to take them. Then she watches that I don't throw my coat on the wet gra.s.s, which she says, gives laboring men so much rheumatism; and she made me this nice flannel waistcoat, sir, with her own hands. At Christmas they give me a new suit from top to toe, so that I want for nothing but a more thankful heart, for I never can be grateful enough to G.o.d and my benefactors."