More than kin: a book of kindness ..

More than Kin.

"'BYjAMbS VILA BLAKE

THOMAS RUTHERFORD BACON

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More than Kin:

A BOOK OF KINDNESS:

THINGS GOTTEN OF LIFE AND FOS-
TERED OF THOUGHT: IN WHICH
THE AUTHOR is MORE OBLIGED TO
A DEAR AND NOBLE OTHER ONE
THAN TO His OWN WIT:

By JAMES VILA BLAKE,

CHICAGO:
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY.

1893-

KfQt,

COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY JAMES VILA BLAKE.

PRESS OF THOS. P. HALPIN & Co.
178 MONROE ST., CHICAGO.

tf. I -

To my Sister, Counselor, Friend.

267945

Preface.

Reader, if you read with friendliness and
belief, I have naught to say to you but
what already is said in the book. But if
you come with unbelief, and with scorn of
the simplicity of romance, then let me tell
you I deny not that fancy has some vein in
these pages; notwithstanding, the book is
truth. Incidents, persons, thoughts, char-
acter, the life, the language, are real; of
which I have joyful knowledge.

J. V. B.
June, 1893.

Contents.

I. More than Kin,

II. The Proof

III. Two Parts of Kindness, .

IV. The Amount

V. The Discipline,

VI. A Labor of Love,

VII. The Invisible Heart,

VIII. The Responsibility, . .

IX. Meanness of Unkindness,

X. Reciprocity,

XL Making an Average,

XII. Vanity

XIII. Calmness

XIV. Invention,
XV. Happiness,

XVI. Encouragement,

XVII. Recommendation, . .

XVIII. Truthfulness,

XIX. Fault-Finding,

XX. Helping,

XXI. Advising

XXII. Respectfulness,

XXIII. Education

XXIV. Outcasts,

XXV. Children

XXVI. Beauty,

XXVII. Grieving the Spirit,

XXVIII. Sporting,

XXIX. Conclusion, . .

9

12
15
23
30

36

53
67

74
78

83
106
in

153
164
I69

180

193
209

216
228
247
267
278
296

3ii
328

More than Kin.

I.

It is my Sister's good will that names
this little book "More than Kin."

In letters, more than kin by one char-
acter.

In life, more than kin by all the world!

Kind is more than kin by one letter to
the eye; but to the "mind's eye," by all
the wide world.

Men have been vultures, cormorants,
wolves, foxes, to their kin. But no kind
soul has plotted injury, even against an
enemy. Therefore a kind man is more
than a kinsman.

To be kin, yet being not kind, is to be
like a gnarled bit of wood, or a poisonous
root mayhap, cast up on a river bank.
For a mere kinsman by lineage is no more
than a bit of body cast up on the banks of
a certain blood-stream. He may be like
the drift-wood, taking unkindly to any
good. I mean, as I have said, that one
may be kin without being kind. But no
man can be kind without being kin — a
kinsman of the soul, by right of the com-
9

More than Kin.

mon nature of us, who are all of one spir-
itual fountain.

Now, if this be true, what matters it
how high the kin? To be a kind man is
more than to be a kinsman, though of a
king's line. Here then is a royal thing,
this kindness! more royal than a king's
son! If one be high in kin, even of a
king's blood, but low in kindness, he
is of base degree; but whoever is low in
kin, even but a stevedore's son, but ex-
alted in kindness, is very high.

There is a fable of a man driving a
donkey laden with a heavy sack of corn.
The load slipped off the good animal's back
to the ground. Just then came by the
owner's brother. "Thou art come at the
very nick of time, brother," cried the
donkey-driver; "pray help me up with
this corn sack." "It were a hard lift for
three men," said the brother. " But try a
little; two hearts in one heave may do
much." "What folly! 'tis too heavy, I
tell thee;" and he went away. " Master,"
said the donkey, "what can not be done
by main force may come little by little.
I will lay me down; rest you one end of
yonder rail on my back, and belike you
can roll up the corn-sack upon me." The
man did so. "Ah!" said he, caressing
the soft ears of the donkey, " Poor creat-
10

More than Kin.

ure, thou showest me there is something
more than kin." " That is like the hawk
and the nightingale," said the donkey.
"What is that story?" asked the master.
The donkey recited: "A mellifluous night-
ingale one day was pounced on by a hawk.
'As you sing so charmingly/ cried the
hawk, 'how deliciously must you taste!'
That was as foolish," said the donkey, "as
to think that if one be kin he needs must
be kind; for the two are different."

11

The Proof.

II.

From what I have said to the effect
that, however low in social place, a man
may be royal by kindness, my mind went
suddenly on a journey from step to step of
associations, thus, — A lowly rank but a
royal mind; then the value of the inward
state over the outward lot; then, the text,
" Is not the life more than meat, and the
body than raiment ? " then, the lilies of
the field, and King Solomon; then the de-
scription of the good wife and mother in
the last chapter of Proverbs. By this path
I came round again to kindness; back
from my little journey to find myself again
in the home of my theme, in the text which
is part of that glowing praise of the good
wife, namely, " In her tongue is the law of
kindness."

It is a point — and a very notable one
herein — that it is not wrkten that she
is a loving character; only that "in her
tongue is the law of kindness," and that
all her life is kind and dutiful works. Did
not the singer well? — say I. Should he
12

The Proof.

present to us a mountain, and say, Take
note, this is a mountain? If behave given
us brave deeds, should he say, Take heed
now that here is a hero? Are not the
true proofs above words ? Should he
draw up for us this portait of a blessed
wife, and say, Take note now that here is
love? Behold, the face thereof is shining
on us. There is no proof of love except
the deeds. of it. Ossa on Pelion of car-
esses and wooings will not reach the
heaven of love like the wing of a kind
deed. Words and tendernesses are like
spires and pinnacles in architecture, beau-
tiful if plainly they stand on good piers;
otherwise, false things and terrors. There
is no sign nor measure of love whatever
but the doing of kind deeds. I recall often
the right reason of a woman who said she
found it hard to bear that her husband
should caress her on one arc of the pen-
dulum and profanely revile her on the next
swing. I warrant you he would have had
no oaths tripping to his tongue if the while
before he had been busy, not with caresses,
but with some kind deed for her, some
needful care, thoughtful consideration, in-
venting somewhat or disposing things for
her pleasure or ease.

Here comes not ill a fable or story of
this truth, that only the deed of love is
13

The Proof.

the proof of love: A man wished to marry
a maiden. " Will you be my wife?'1 said
he, "I love you." " That turns,'1 said the
maid, " on how much love you have. How
many yards of it have you?" " Yards?"
quoth the man. "Ay, and pounds?"
"Pounds?" "Ay, and baskets?" "Bas-
kets?" "How many times daily will you
take steps for me?" said the maid — "that
is the yards of it; and how much will you
lift me the tubs of water? — that is the
pounds of it; and how much will you chop
me the chips for the fire? — that is the
baskets of it." "A woman must do her
work," said the man sullenly. "Ay," said
the maid, "but belike you want the work,
not love the woman. In this same way
the lamb answered the wolf." " How was
that?" said the man. The maid recited:
"A wolf said to a lamb, ' O you beautiful
creature, how dearly I love you! ' But the
lamb's mother was a wise sheep and had
instructed her. 'You mean/ said the
lamb, « What a good meal I should make
you,' and skipped away."

14

Two Parts of Kindness.

III.

My Sister in my mind is the better por-
tion of any theme like to mine, and I can
not part my thoughts from her. She is the
very image and dream of kindness. By
deed and by word in our happy life together
she has given me many thoughts and much
instruction concerning this kindness, what
truly it is. Therefore if I turn waywardly, as
it may seem, from my theme to my Sister,
and back, to and fro, let the reader remem-
ber that I have intended no better order, but
only to write on as heart and mind should
work together — not treatise-like. As over
my life, so over my writing my Dozen is like
a sky over a landscape; sometimes I am
conscious of the sky mainly, anon of the
land-view, again of both, sometimes the
sky is night-hidden, now sun-gleaming,
again breaking in with a rain or a breeze.

A glance up the page shows me that I
have written her name "Dozen." Ah!
well, I will not remove it. What shame in
my fancies? Why blush for my quips and
sports? Know, then, friendly reader (and
15

Two Parts of Kindness.

if thou be not friendly, why, beshrew thee !
Go learn of birds and flowers, which think
neither of decking nor undecking them-
selves, nor of showing themselves nor hid-
ing!) that Dozen is my name in brief for
my Sister. You may count twelve letters
in " Sister Marian;" whence I call her
< < Dozen " for short. What say you ? That
perhaps it were well to draw a silence
around my carolings? Go to! Do I con-
strain you? And may a bird not fly in
the air lest some one think him too blitfre,
or say he should nest his raptures?

For the light of kindness which streams
over me from my Dozen, what return make
I? Ah! I fear it is long since I have
bethought me enough of that. I must
consider it. I will invent some delight for
her, some bit of surprising thought. For
it is the best sweetness of a kindness to
be the fruit of thought, of consideration.
Neither shall she upbraid me with a sacri-
fice of our few pennies for her sake. Noth-
ing is cheaper than the best pleasures are.
Yes, I must contrive some kind thing, to
charm her. I will give heed to it. If it
be only a word well considered, it is rich.
What says the ancient wise singer, "Shall
not the dew assuage the heat? So is a word
better than a gift." It has been said well,
"A small unkindness is a great offence."
16

Two Parts of Kindness.

Well then, a small kindness, if it be
thought of well and invented cunningly, is
a great offering, belike a rich benefit.

Kindness has two parts: i. — Unwill-
ingness to inflict the least needless pain,
either of body or of mind; this is the neg-
ative part. 2. — Wish and effort to add to
the sum of joy; this is the positive part.
Now I shall be far from saying that it is
nothing to have the negative part of kind-
ness without the positive; for merely to be
merciful and avoid giving pain is some-
thing. Besides, I fear me much that if I
were strict to grant no virtue to this indol-
ent mercy, I should refuse to think a half
of the world, and mayhap a larger portion,
kind, so vastly does the negative goodness
of not giving pain abound more than the
positive virtue of kindness, which is to in-
crease joy! Moreover, many a man (if I
may trust my eyes which many a time have
beheld it) who will not set his lump of
a body in motion to give a pleasure, will
show himself no little spry to relieve a
pain if it come close before him; and I
must not say there is no virtue in this. Nay,
it hangs on the brink of being very vir-
tuous with the very heavenliness of kind-
ness, by as much as it is not done without
an active bestirring of the man. Finally,
it is plain sight, if we but open our eyes by
17

Two Parts of Kindness.

day, that unmercifulness, even to a delight
in seeing pain, or at least in sports which
inflict suffering, not yet has gone the way of
other barbarisms, but often is to be met
in young persons; for youth is cruel. A
lover of our dumb fellow creatures, I mean
the brutes, even laments that "the same in-
stincts of cruelty, love of sport and de-
structiveness, break out at a later stage
among adults of the highest ranks, includ-
ing royalty itself, when they revel in the
butchery of battued pigeons or hares. " For
these reasons, then, I will not say there is
no virtue in negative kindness, the not giv-
ing pain, nor in the little higher leap of
goodness which is the relieving of pain
if we see it. Yet I can not say there is
much excellence or a very human loveli-
ness in it. To let men alone while they
suffer no sad pangs, careless whether they
have any good joys, is but a meagre leanness
of heart which will singrno carols of praise.

Two parts in kindness: i. Not to give
pain; 2. To give joys; — here is a doctrine
for life, here is a store of food and a well
of water, here is "daily bread."

Ah! I can hold me from pausing here
no more than from lifting my eyes to a
break of light. With the words "daily
bread " comes the thought of my Dozen to
my mind; and when enters she the doors of
18

Two Parts of Kindness.

my heart (which truly she keeps swinging)
but a blessing enters with her like light
over her shoulder? But now she comes
as a memory, with the words, "daily
bread." Once said she to me, "Thou art
my daily bread, my dear." For in sooth,
though I seem to do little service for her,
yet she will have it that I do much, saying
I am like a river which so disperses and
exhales of its substance that it does wide
kindness by its flowing on. But I know
well that, like Eve looking into the pool,
she but sees herself in her imaginary river
and fancies the figure another creature.
"Thou art my daily bread " said my sister,
meaning that she fed of love and did her
work by the nourishment of it. Well!
well!

But this analysis of kindness, I say,
namely, that it has two parts, which I will
phrase again thus, i. — Non-unkindness;
2. — Invention and giving of joys — this is
"daily bread" for daily life; this is doctrine
to take to heart seriously. Ah! the differ-
ence of the parts! Ah! the deep pit be-
tween not being unkind and being indeed
kind! How little do I if I cause no pains,
if therewith also I make no joys! Let me
not plume me with virtue if I hurt no one.
That is but the lower part of kindness, the
feet of it. If I rise to the heart, the head,

19

Two Parts of Kindness.

the eye of it, kindness is the consideration
how to give joys, and increase them.

This is the teaching of the Master in the
splendid and terrific place in the Gospels
wherein he sets forth the tests or reasons
which shall part the sheep from the goats.
For the Master lays no ill deeds to the
charge of those whom he drives headlong
from him, to the fire prepared for the
devils. Their misery is that, however they
have done no evil acts, they have done
far worse, for they have done no good
deeds. He says not to them, Ye made
men hungry, ye stole their meat, ye spilled
their drink, ye robbed them of their gar-
ments and left them naked, ye poisoned
;and sickened them, ye threw them into
.dungeons. No, not with one such evil
,deed doth he face them. But he says
they have not done the good deeds, they
jiave not fed men, not given drink to
the thirsty, not clothed the naked, not
nursed the sick, not visited the prisoner.
This is all their condemnation; but a mill-
stone about their necks in a fiery sea.
For not to make men famished, thirsty,
naked, sick, enslaved, is not the same as to
be merciful and loving-kind unto them.
Neither as to the good sheep on the other
side, doth the Master commend them
whom he calls into his light and kingdom,
20

Two Parts of Kindness.

for not having done this sin, or that one,
or some other; of these he says naught; but
lie receives them because they have done
good deeds of mercy and loving-kindness.

A story has it that a wise, albeit a strict
Dervis, about to go on a journey, was
besought by a pleasant fellow in the town
that he might go with him. "Not so,"
said the sage.

"Why, what fault can you find with
me? " said the man.

"None."

"Why then, give me your hand."

"Not so. I am too poor myself and
need too much help on the way to go with
one of whom I can say only that I can
find no fault with him."

"Why, what more would you have than
to find no fault in me? "

"I would find some virtue in you.
'What fault? ' say you: < None,' say I; but
if you asked me, 'What virtue?' again
I should say, 'None.' For to do no ill
is not the same as to have virtue, not to
run away is not the same as to be brave,
not to hate is not the same as to love, to
keep clean of evils is not the same as to
engage with virtue, to behave so that no
bad actions can be charged is not the same
as to be a noble man. This is what the
Roman slave whispered to his donkey."
21

Two Parts of Kindness.

"What is that story? " said the man.

" The slave Crato," answered the Dervis,
"came one day to the stable and whis-
pered into the long soft ears of his ass,
< Woe is me, Asellus, that I must serve
such a master.' 'Is he then so cruel or
wicked?' asked the donkey. ' Nay, 'said
Crato, 'he has not a fault in the world.'
'Why this lamentation, then?' cried the
donkey. 'Alas! good Asellus,' said the
slave, 'neither has he a virtue.' There-
fore, friend," continued the Dervis, if I
can find naught in you but that you do no
ill things, I will jog along alone, till I come
to one who does good things."

22

The Amount.

IV.

Kindness then has two parts: i. — Not to
give pain; 2. — To give joys. This brings
the question, How much must we bethink
and bestir ourselves to give joys? The
positive side of kindness is a husbandman's
work. Joys will not grow unless they be
planted first and tilled continually. I
mean that to be kind in the way of adding
joys to the daily walks of the persons about
us, is first a work of invention and seeding,
and then a work of fostering. Now, how
much must we do this? To what amount
turn aside from our own path or stop our
journey, that we may plant corn in an-
other's field or border another's path with
box and poppies? Bacon avers that great
lovers of their country or of their masters
have not been fortunate, nor can be, be-
cause he that considers another man "goeth
not his own way." 'Tis not to be denied
that to make a business of giving joys is
sacrificial. Yet this steady business is the
only positive kindness. If it be not steady,
then a man may spot his life here and there
23

The Amount.

with kind acts, but the spots will not be the
hue, nor will this make a kind man any
more than sometimes to tell the truth is to
be truthful. Therefore, joy-giving is sacri-
ficial— not to be done without cost of ease
or substance. Therefore, it is a question
how much we must do it.

How much must I be kind, by the posi-
tive side of it? How much must I invent
joys and bring them to pass? I answer,
All I can.

All I can. There is no limit but the end
of my power. Kindness is not like a bar-
ter, so much for so much; or so much by
contract, and my duty done. But kind-
ness is like a righteousness or like a wor-
ship, not done unless it be done all I can.
For the heart must run forth without meas-
ure like a child, and kindness be wound
around like a child's arms about the neck,
not by measure, but as tightly and as long
as they can be.

But now you will say, very like, that
thus a man may throw himself all away.
He may waste away his substance and
time and mind on other persons, till he
have no more left and no means for getting,
and has become a mere cast-up, having
attended to every one till he can do so no
more because he has destroyed himself.
Surely it is fool's doctrine that a man must
24

The Amount.

be busy giving joys to others all he can,
for he has the power to do nothing else,
and so come to naught even in that.

But, friend, I mean not a physical can,
but a moral. True, a man may empty gold
or food or books into the sea. He has
them; they are his; he stands on a wall or a
ship-side; 'tis but a turn of the wrist; he
can do it. Yet if he consider of it, if he
weigh the act, if he put it in place in his
mind and compare it with wisdom and rea-
son, then he can not do it; and the moral
inability outreaches all the physical power,
so that no more he can do it than if he
were tied; and in truth his hand is held
tight by his mind. If there be a poor hun-
gry wayfarer somewhere, and two men pass
by, and one of them has no food in his
wallet nor money in his purse, and the
other has both in plenty, but a hard heart,
unpitying of others and gripping his own
possessions tightly, there is then no differ-
ence in them as to ability, and no power
in either to relieve the famishing poor man.
One no more can than the other. There-
fore, when I say I must do the positive
part of kindness, to make joys abound, all
I can, and there is no limit but the end of
my power, I mean not to speak to myself
as if I were a brute force only, pitted
against so much or so much weight of
25

The Amount.

things which the so much brute force is
able to toss about and away. If I must do
kindness in the positive part thereof all 1
can, this means not that I must wear away
all my time and substance therein, for this
I can not do, if I take account of justice
and reason. I am such a creature that to
take thought of justice and reason may tie
up my hands so that no more I can do a
certain act with them than if they were
bound with strong cords. Therefore, the
rule to invent joys and pour them around
other persons all I can, is not an unsafe
rule nor improvident.

But mark this now, that the rule and
wish to do all I can, is the only one which
will show me what I can. Never shall I
know truly how much I can give unless it
be mightily in my heart to give that sum
whatever it be. Can I know where justice
and reason will stop me unless I feel their
tug by going to the end of them? If I say
not, "I will give joys all I can, and see to
it and invent for it," but say, "I will do
this as much as I must," or "As much as
circumstances require of me," or "As is
thrust in my way," or "As much as others
do and as manners go, "it is surprising
how little I shall deem required of me,
what a small measure I shall mete out for
my duty. Whoso seeks to do all he can
26

The Amount.

is in the state of heart to know truly what
he can, but he whose point is to do as little
as he must will think often that he can do
nothing.

And how much indeed it is to do all we
can! Little or large, what a vast sum it is!
This rule and duty is the great leveler,
which brings all things to our view of one
size, as God sees them. To do all we can
is so vast a sum in love and kindness, that
to receive from one all he can, how little so-
ever, is a much dearer thing, and a greater,
than to receive from another only a part
of what he might, though it be a great
amount.

This principle of the amount of due
kindness, that it must be all we can, is
the intent of a story which herewith I will
relate:

When a certain Calif once was roaming
Bagdad with his vizier, in the disguise of
an oil merchant, he saw a wretched, fam-
ished beggar by the roadside, and over
him was stooping a poor water-carrier.
"Come hither," cried the water-carrier, as
soon as he saw them, "come hither to this
man who is faint from being famished, and
I wager I will do as much for him with my
own as you will." "You are an impudent
fellow," said the Calif, "to promise that
you, a common water-carrier, will do as
27

The Amount.

much for this poor man as I who am* a rich
oil merchant." "Softly, Master," said the
water-carrier; and therewith he drew out
one penny and gave it to the hungry poor
man: "Now," said he to the Calif, "I
have done all I can, for the penny is all I
have; let me see you do all you can; and
then you will but equal me. I said I would
do as much as you with my own\ only a
man's will is his own, to do all he can; his
possessions, wherewith he may work, are
all Allah's, — may he be praised forever!
That is like the answer of the Ant to the
Elephant."

"What story is that?" said the vizier.

Then the water-carrier narrated the fol-
lowing: " An Elephant who was carrying
ten men looked at an Ant who was bearing
a bag of eggs out of the ant-hill. 'You
poor contemptible little thing/ said the
Elephant.

'You big, dull, logy, swollen-up crea-
ture,' said the Ant, 'let me see you carry
five times your size and weight, as I am
doing. But perhaps you are doing all you
can; then we are equals; all else is Allah's
— may he be praised forever!'

'You are right,1 said the Elephant; 'in
that way the water-drop answered the
cloud.'

' How was that? ' said the Ant.
28

The Amount.

'A cloud,' replied the Elephant, ' saw
a rain-drop, and said, 'Poor falling thing,
why do you not float as I do?* 'I fall,'
answered the drop, 'because I have come
to the state of doing all the good that is in
me, my substance being gathered home
compactly. You float because you are dis-
persed abroad idly. Therefore, my falling
is more than your floating, however fine
you look.' "

The next day the Calif sent for the
water-carrier and made him Master of the
Charities; "For," said he, "I must look
after the poor of the city, and the man
whose view is that I must do this all I can
is the one who will learn truly how much I
can."

29

The Discipline.

V.

An ancient Stoic said we must keep in
mind continually that "men are not born
wise but have to become so." This is to
bethought of also concerning kindness and
love. "What!" you will say, "are men
born, then, with no more feeling than
knowledge? Come they hither and set
forth with no more love than wisdom?"
Truly, friend, I think that very much it is
so, if not altogether. Much have I ob-
served men on this point, to see whether
love has the advantage of wisdom in being
given to men without labor and discipline;
and to my seeing, it is as little a free gift as
knowledge is, and waits to be acquired no
less than wisdom. Nay, I have become
persuaded that a great store of ill and of
pain in the world runs like water from this
one fountain, that men think love belongs
to them so by nature that it will thrive and
come to its fruit without discipline of
themselves in it. Yet this is no more so
than with knowledge or wisdom or music
or any art, or any beautiful and good thing.
30

The Discipline.

But appears not love in the very begin-
ning, comes it not forth at once and strong-
ly in the child, as soon as the infant, while
yet speechless, can evince himself at all?
It is so, indeed; and so it is with wisdom,
if we include therein the common instincts
and openings of knowledge and the many
items of apprehension needful for self-
preservation, such as to avoid pits and
falls and fire, and to seek food or to creep
into a shelter. For these appear with the
first pushes of sense, or very quickly are
gotten; and in our brute fellow beings, and
even in the insects, such knowledge much
more is born with them than with us, or
gotten far more quickly and wonderfully.
But it is of the higher knowledge and wis-
dom that we speak when we say "Men are
not born wise, but have to become so."
And this is true no less of the higher love
and real kindness.

But let us distinguish. Kindness, as I
have said, has two parts; the negative,
which is unwillingness to give pain and a
tendency to relieve suffering when we be-
hold it; and the positive, which is a con-
cern and consideration how to give joys,
and an active going about it. Now, the
negative part seems to be born with us in
some plenty, in our present stage of moral
unfolding. We come hither with the ad-
31

The Discipline.

vantage of being not cruel; we delight not
in seeing pain, nay, we shrink from it.
This is to be taken with some abatement,
and "pity 'tis 'tis true;" for, as I have said,
there is much cruel sport of many kinds,
like pigeon-shooting and some kinds of
hunting, in which, if there be no pleasure
in giving pain, at least it is inflicted indif-
ferently and lessens not the sport. Yet,
even with all reserve, we have come to
this in the moral evolving of mankind, that
we are born with a good share of the neg-
ative kindness. But the positive kindness
comes of discipline. To observe other
persons, with thought whether there be
a chink for a kindness from us in their
lot at the moment; to set a high value on
joys; to count a good pleasure a precious
thing; to invent a plan how we may make
a good surprise, give a leap of delight to
some one, drop benefit at some one's
feet like a staff for the weary, or dewy
love like a rose at morning; and to go
about to do these things when they are
planned, to take trouble and time, steps,
work, expense, to do them, — this kindness
comes only by reflection, conscience, labor
and discipline. I have said in the chap-
ters foregoing that kindness is a royal
thing, a splendor greater than any rank of
kindred; that there is no proof of love but
32

The Discipline.

the deed of love, — as said the apostle, "Let
us not love in word, neither with the tongue,
but in deed and truth;" and that there is no
limit of the law of kindness but power, so
that in kindness we must do all we can, and
fall not short of our utmost, and study to
know what our power may be; these things
have gone before herein, I say, and every
one of them is a point of will. They come
not save by willing and striving unto them.
Loving-kindness is a fruit of discipline by
virtue of the second part, the positive. No
man becomes kind but by labor. If we
trust to impulse, without labor on our-
selves, we may become not unkind; but that
is not the same as to be kind.

A certain Dervis, famous for his piety
and learning, came in his travels, to a
certain town where he called the people
together and preached to them. After
the sermon, a man approached him and
said:

"Holy Dervis, peace be with you! I
give you my thanks for the blessed words
you have spoken."

The Dervis answered, "Is not your name
Hassan?"

"Yea," replied the man, "but how do
you know me, holy Dervis?"

"Know," said the Dervis, "that three
days back in my journey I sojourned for a
33

The Discipline.

day in your village, and I beheld your* wife
and spoke with her."

"Allah be praised!" cried Hassan. "How
did my wife look?"

"Very beautiful," said the Dervis.

"That," said Hassan, "she cannot help.
How did she seem to you in the things
wherein she has chpice and can do good
or evil?"

"She appeared gentle and pleasant in
manner," answered the Dervis.

"That again," said Hassan, "she is
compelled to be, for she attended to her
parents' instruction and learned to rever-
ence the elders."

"But I saw that she was charitable to
the poor," said the Dervis.

"In that too," said Hassan, "she is
what she must be, for she has so soft and
kind a heart that she cannot resist any
supplication."

The Dervis smiled. "I noticed," he
said, "that she was very religious. She
listened with fervor to my discourse."

"How can she choose as to that?" cried
Hassan, "for she has a nature so pious
that the stars in the heavens at night fill
her eyes with tears."

"I observed also that she was very duti-
ful," said the Dervis, "for she cared well
for your children."

84

The Discipline.

"Neither can she do otherwise in that,"
answered Hassan, "for she has a conscience
so tender that any evil fills her with terror
and grief. "

"But tell me, my son," said the Dervis,
"what are the things in which she has
choice and can do good or evil?"

But to this Hassan made no answer, for
he could not think of anything and knew
not what to say.

"You deceive yourself , my son," said the
Dervis, after waiting a little. "Think not
that any good thing comes without labor
and prayer. You behold all the graces,
but you see not the inward labor by which
they exist. Even the beauty of the face is
only the victory of the soul. When you
return home, salute your children with joy
and your wife with reverence, and believe
that she is not good without prayer and
endeavor."

35

A Labor of Love.

VI.

It is possible to begin a day with rapture,
and so begin I this day.

I am writing daily at early morning. I
have no other time. "The cares that
infest the day " stir up their camp about
me all the working hours till late evening
before they " fold their tents like the Arabs
and as silently steal away." Therefore,
when I had become like a full well with
the sister-song in me, which had risen to
the light of the brim and no more could
be confined but must flow out over, there
was no way whereby to gather the drops
but to arise early at morn to fetch the
filled vessels from the well-side. Besides,
I was resolved to keep this little book
from my Dozen till it should be all
done. Daily thereupon I began to sit me
for one hour at my desk before breakfast,
and write in the light of the morning.
It is seclusion and quiet. My sister is
table-busy. The Arabs have not gathered.
The freshness of morning is a dew on my
thoughts. To the young day, — nay, not
36

A Labor of Love.

even young yet, but a very child, warm, yet
brisk, a flush without a taint of fever — my
thoughts come forth as to a child they
come, by nature, and sallying gladly "from
the round tower of my heart," as the poet
saith.

Now, it is with a singular joy of spirit that
I sit me down to write this morning; and
when this joy, rejoicing like a child danc-
ing, comes at early morning, it must be by
effect of yesterday. Yesterday's twilight
refracts around the sphere of sleep to be the
dawning of to-day. My yesterday was a
day for memory to feed on. In earth and
sky it was one of those days of perfect
glow which report a heavenly tropics from
which they have been transported, but
cooled in the descent through space. How
delicious was the temperate warmth of it,
the rich, serious, reserved sun-heat! And
my soul was glad. The day before, indeed,
shadows which had been thick, had begun
to take themselves away, like clouds
swarming seaward to fall into the ocean.
But yesterday what so had begun was ful-
filled. The shadows fled utterly, each one
bidding me farewell with a caress, like
swarthy friends departing. The light on
my heart was like the seeding of a field,
and so swiftly the shoots of joy sprang and
flowered that the day was one blooming-
37

A Labor of Love.

slope to the still waters of the evening.
Even my failures, faults, errors, ceased
their threats and all but smiled on me the
day long. Naught could extinguish my
quiet joy, my simple exultation. I can
pierce with my eye but a little way into
the fog of questions which encloses me
round about. I steer my little boat with
pain. Rocks are to right and shoals to left.
Difficulties, problems, anxieties, wishes
without means and wants without wishes,
cares, misgivings, obscurity, claims with-
out resources and demands without claims
— all these are thick as their wont is, very
thick, around me and before me. But they
mattered not yesterday. They could not
disturb me. Nay, they had power to
stay the stream of my joy no more than a
babe's finger in a river. The day was my
minister, the living air waited on me as if
I were a king. No Grecian was ever
stronger of limb than was I in my walking,
nor Aurora more "rosy-fingered" to
Homer than to me, nor the Hours scatter-
ing more blossoms in Virgil's Song or
Raphael's vision. So passed the hours and
events over me, as if the sky were a vast
organ and these its melodies, wonderful,
but counterpointed to a harmony more
wonderful. Then came mild evening on.
The far and fading sounds charmed me,
38

A Labor of Love.

withdrawing into murmurs as the light into
shadows. I enjoyed the softened rustle of
the town nestling to its domestic rest.
My lamp shone like wisdom. My books
looked at me friend-like. My desk failed
me not, and I was pleased to say to myself,
"This sound oak wrill fail not some other
who will sit at it, very like, when this body
of mine shall have use of it no more." My
pen was like a blossoming rod or a living
wand. Then drew unto me the images of
the dear who are near about me, or of the
far absent who are dear; and a soft voice
said within me, " Peace be with us! "

So was yesterday to the end — or without
end; and so I say that when we begin in
the morning with a singular joy, as this
morning I have, it is by effect of a yester-
day, whose twilight refracts around the
sphere of sleep to be this day's dawn.

"Peace be with us" — ah! it was no
dream-voice, but the living voice of a dear
body that said the words; a gentle frame
compacted of earth's lovely substances,
and almost as precious to me as the spirit
of love and truth that lives in it — my lov-
ing and delicate Sister. When the fine
hours of yesterday had come to stars and
shadows, I stretched me on a low ottoman
in the veranda and was giving myself to
friend-dreams, as I have said, when came
39

A Labor of Love.

my Dozen, drew a low chair to my side,
facing me, sat her down, and said, " Peace
be with us," also at the moment laying her
hand for an instant over my eyes and with-
drawing it with a little downward sweep.

Never from any other have I heard that
greeting. The ' < Pax vobiscum " of priest,
or sometimes of jolly friend, is common.
To you the good wish is; " Peace be with
you" — so the form is. But my Sister says
always " Peace be with us," as if there
could be no peace sole, ' but only twin.
Neither ever have I had from another, nor
seen anywhere, that strange caress, the
hand laid over my eyes for an instant with
touch like air, and lifted away downward,
like a clearing of vision; and in truth my
eyes ought to be cleared of all selfishness
before looking into hers.

So sat she by me, saying naught after
1 ( Peace be with us," and I, being tired,
very blissfully, was given to silence under
the stars and the pluming shadows. And
now have I still the crowning bliss to
tell of all the blissful day. Presently my
Dozen arose and went away, withdrawing
as she did so, the low chair to a spot be-
yond the end of the ottoman, behind my
head. Soon she came back and sat her
again, and I was conscious of her more by
love than by sound, when suddenly crept,
40

A Labor of Love.

half-timidly and appealingly, yet richly
and firmly, an array of musical chords out
on the air, then a short figured introduc-
tion, then a melody, "Muss i> denn" a
favorite with me, played very tenderly and
perfectly on that most appealing of instru-
ments in good hands, the guitar of Spain?

I spoke not, nor indeed could I, for sur-
prise and love. When my Dozen had
played the tune, she continued into an in-
terlude and then repeated the melody, and
ceased. Still said not I a word nor moved.
I had come to my senses, and suppressed
an exclamation. How knew I her pretty
plan and what steps she had devised for
discovering her art to me? I would wait
her pleasure and not break in on it. After
a little silence she played again, this time
a melody of old romance, with a drum and
other devices of the pretty instrument em-
ployed in it; and so one piece after another
she played to me charmingly for a half-
hour, while I stirred not, except that I was
careful by an intelligent murmur now and
then to show that I was not asleep but
entranced.

Then my Sister laid aside her guitar —
fell on her knees by me. I could feel
her cheek flush with the exercise bodily
and spiritual. I put my arm about her
and a hand on her head, silently waiting
41

A Labor of Love.

for her to make her own end of it all;
which she 'did thus simply —

" I shall play better by and by."

"Better?" I cried; "Why, thou hast
played wondrously; thy fingers on the
strings have been like breezes on the tree
tops. But what is all this? Kow came
this art to thy hand? Tell me of it, my
sweet Sister, my Dozen."

Then she reminded me of an evening a
year ago, like to this one, when I had laid
me as now under stars and veranda-roof,
tired and musing, and she had come as
her wont was and sat down by me in the low
chair. Sometimes she came with all man-
ner of blithe noises, carols and rustles and
tapping feet, sometimes quietly; nor ever
did amiss, for whether one way or the
other, either she knew mysteriously to meet
my mood or she drew me into hers; nor
ever knew I which it was, but only always
that she was right. That night she sat in
silence.

At last, " Thou art a sweet quiet," said I.

"I would I were a sweet sound," she
answered; "for a fine music is a silence
and something more."

"Ah! yes," said I, "and this day have I

heard it. Thou knowest, Marian, that this

morning came a note from our lovely Dr.

Agatha Hickes, asking me to come to the

42

A Labor of Love.

hospital. So this evening at the edge of
twilight I went. She wished me to see
a young mother and child there, to be-
speak my interest by letter in a possible
country home for her — thou knowest — at
the Clover Farm, and I have written the
letter which I think will bring a pleasing
answer. After the visit to the nursery, Dr.
Agatha took me about among the patients;
and I tell thee, dear Dozen, it was an an-
gelic progress. If meeting her anywhere
thou hast joy in her, as thou knowest, to
go with her there is to have a joy rising on
itself, like one billow on another. It was
a heavenly sight of kindness and love to
behold her go from one to another of the
sick and aching people. With a touch or
two, as deft as a whiff of air, she refreshed
some bed-clothing, or smoothed or turned
a pillow. Anon she laid her palm on a
flushed forehead; or again felt a pulse, or
took a hand, or curled aside a lock of hair.
All with a few words wondrous for joined
sympathy and cheeriness, sometimes in
English, sometimes German, as either
would be mother-tongue. Her very
shadow seemed a ray, not a shade, and the
sick faces awoke like pictures in a dark
place when a lamp is brought in. Hope
went before her, Light came with her,
Peace followed her.

43

A Labor of Love.

Soon broke on my sense a music. It lay
in the air like a diffusion, as light does
under clouds, no source of it being vis-
ible. It was like a rill entering a fen, gone
as a running course, but become a spread
of vapor like a cloud meshing with the
earth. "I will take you to them," said
Dr. Agatha. "They are a sister and a
brother, Spaniards. There were two other
brothers; and if they were like to this
younger sick one, they loved their sister
worshipfully. They went off westward by
two paths, to look for land. Both were
seized with a swift malady, The girl was
writing pitifully to each of them in turn,
asking to be told why she heard not from
the other; and they both were dead. Be-
fore word of this desolation reached her,
she had brought hither the younger one,
with fever — plainly the nursling of them
all; and he knows not of the death of the
others." With this we came to the bed.
He was a lad of twenty years, mayhap;
far gone with fever and the drying of life's
fountains. Plainly the brother and sister
were of good nurture; there was a fine-
ness. The sick lad's face had a silvery
light in it, very ominous, very beautiful.
The girl was slender, delicate, with a lovely
spirit and much discipline showing under
the warm color of her country, like the
44

A Labor of Love.

effective sweet blue of the sky under a crim-
son dawn. The music was of the sister's
guitar; and it was exceeding beautiful and
wonderful. 'Twas then I had the same
thought which just now thou hast uttered,
dear Marian, that music has a silence and
something more. For the sister's playing
had the very silence of the coming shadow
in it, and of the others already fallen.
She changed the music as I listened, from a
tender melody to a blithe whirl with the
very tripping of gay feet in it; but the
same stillness was therein, like the quiet
and pathos of twinkling stars. It recalled
to me what our friend Franklin said last
evening to us — thou wilt remember — of
Mozart's music, that however gay it be, in
its gayest and most lightsome pranks, its
careerings as of birds paired with breezes,
always there is an appeal and a pathos.
'Twas the most haunting music — I mean
the Spanish sister's guitar — that ever I
have heard, and I fear that by the holiness
of the spectacle I was not stilled so but
I brought away a din of selfishness in
me; for I conceived what delight it were,
what rest and refreshment, and source of
fancies and thoughtful dreams, if my
Dozen, my Sister, so could play to me on
that lovely instrument. Ah! thou see'st
my selfishness, dearest Marian — to wish
45

A Labor of Love.

thy 'refined gold gilded,' the 'lily' of
thee ' painted/ a 'perfume thrown on the
violet ' of thee, a ' hue added to the rain-
bow,' and 'the beauteous eye of heaven'
in thee, thy perfect sister-love, ' garnished
with a taper light! ' Well, well! "

Hereat my Dozen looked wondrous
pleased; which I thought strange; for it
were more like her to be grieved that she
could not play to me, than pleased because
I wished that she could.

All this befell a year ago; and now in
truth had my Dozen played to me as lus-
trously as my memory of that music shines!
Now had my wish to lay me after labor to a
resting eddied about with music, come to
pass like a fairy-gift!

"Come," I cried to my Sister, "confess
thee. What is this? Thou rogue! thou
secrecy! thou naughty mystery! thou am-
bush! Knowest not that hidings are for-
bidden in this house? Ah! knowest not
that all is to be between us like the air to
birds' wings or the water to fishes, a com-
mon vehicle shared in every particle?
Knowest not? Shrive thyself now!"

"A fine thing in thee, truly," said Sister,
" to be so full of such claim! thou, with
all thy tricks and plots and wiles, as thick
as sun-rays. By which as thou knowest, I
have been driven to name thee Sir Prize,
46

A Labor of Love.

— my only bit of wit — because thou pelt-
test me with thy surprises in such man-
ner! "

- " Pah! " said I, "all my tricks and plots,
as thou callest my innocences, put together,
amount not to such as this of thine. Con-
fess, I say, unfold, relate, describe, and
quickly! "

" But never hadst thou more to tell me
of the Spanish sister and brother?" said
Marian.

"No," said I, "when I went thither
after a fortnight, they were gone; the
brother had died."

" But I went to them next day and made
friends with the sister," said Marian.
" Margarita is her name. I engaged her
to teach me her music, and she was very
willing. She told me of a guitar which
was very good that hung for sale in a loan-
shop, for a small price, and she obtained
it for me at my wish. For a year she has
taught me weekly. That is all."

" But the payment for the lessons," said
I, " whence was that? We have so little.7'

" Dost forget my small store put by? "

"But that was for "

" Hush! A foolish vanity. Could it be

used better than to fill my hands with an

invisible beauty of skill and my heart with

a most visible joy (I am sure it were visi-

47

A Labor of Love.

ble if thou couldst get at it), to be sweet
sounds and light and dreams unto thee? "

"And a unity in us, dearest Marian," I
said, deeply moved, "a unity in us.
Surely thou lovest it too."

" It has been an increasing charm to me
and is now an exceeding delight," she
answered.

"But the time," said I. "Thou wert
busy enough before. Thy day already was
like a fresh nut packed with sound meat.
There was no room for more."

"Nay, time is not like a shell but like
a heart. Fill it full with one love, and
thou hast but stretched it to give room for
another. Didst ever know time that would
not stretch? Now, time and heart and life
being so filled with my Brother were en-
larged the more for music."

"Ay, but a minute is a minute and no
more, and -

"Oh, well," said my Dozen, " I got me
up an hour earlier in the morning and
hastened a bit. Love-work is spry work.
And for the practicing, why, thou art
not always a baggage in the house, thou
knowest. Thou goest out daily."

"An hour earlier in the morning! " cried
I — " like to me for my Sister-book."

"What is that? " said Sister, quickly.

It was too late to get back the flown
48

A Labor of Love.

words to their cage. Unwary in my de-
light, I had let out my secret, like a linnet
from a wicker, and Dozen's ear was not
slow to it. But I put a bold face on it.

Said I, with a frown, " What! wilt thou
be curious? wilt question me? Go to! go
to! Not a line shalt thou see of it till I
have brought it to the end, and wrought
it over, and put it to labor once and again.
Then shall thy chaste fancy take note of it,
and amend me.

"A fine consistency thou!" cried Mar-
ian. "Thou secrecy! thou naughty mys-
tery! thou ambush! Knowest not, etc.,
etc. And thy fine figures of the equal air
for birds and water for fishes — ah! ha! "

"Pooh! pooh!" said I; "what says a
wise man — A prying mind is like thorns, it
either catches rags or makes them."

" But applies not that equally to thy own
curiosity? "

"By no means; for I first have applied
it to thee and there's none left for applying
to me. . Therefore I will bear patiently the
sore of my curiosity, but thou shalt be
cured of thine."

"Oh!"

"In proof," said I, "tell me of thy teach-
er, the Spanish maiden. Was she to thy
mind, as acquaintance ripened? Was she
overflowed with thy heart? Whatever is
49

A Labor of Love.

washed in thy love must be white at first
and it comes out whiter, like a lily laid in
a swan's breast."

"She was lovely, Brother. Her music
was not fairer or gentler. The lessons be-
came charming hours of affection to me.
Yet always she had a reserve, a distance;
not proud so much as tender, like haze in
a far meadow. I could not enter it. She
had taken her brother's mortal part to the
crematory, and the ashes were in a small
beautiful bronze vase engraved with his
name which always was on a corner of the
low mantel of her room, and the western sun
always was streaming on it at my lesson-
hour. Above the vase hung the cage of
her bird, a beautiful songful linnet, with
a 'lay of love' indeed, as the poet calls
it; for sometimes the lesson would be
hindered by the bird, who would join in
the music. The cage door always was
open and the bird often out, flying about
the room. During the lesson he liked
to be on Margarita's shoulder or hand
and thence pipe his wilful duet with my
playing, till Margarita would throw a
gauze over him which stilled him. The
loving creature became used to me during
my year of lessons and would come to me
as freely as to his mistress, and always
greeted me with a chirp and by flying to
50

A Labor cf Love.

me as soon as I entered. The room was
very clean, but plain and poor. It was
manifest she had strained no little to ac-
quire that sacred bronze urn. One day I
perceived she was not feeling well — indeed
often she drooped, though bravely. She
asked me not to come for one week or till
she should sead for me. Three weeks
passed and I heard not. Then I sought
her — 'twas yesterday; but the little room
was shut. She was gone and no one
thereabout could tell me of her."

"Surely we shall find her again, " said I.
"She will come back."

"Oh! Brother, I long for it," said my
Dozen; "my heart is sad with wishing her.
She became very sister-like to me. Yet she
was proud, and never admitted me to any
troubles, pains or privations."

I took my Sister's hand and looked
at it.

"This little hand," said I, "looks no
otherwise than as before; but what a dif-
ference! I am reminded of friend Roper's
remark (thou wilt remember) when he
stretched forth his right hand before me
and said, 'That hand looks like any other,
but it is worth fifty thousand dollars to me
by reason of the invisible mechanical skill
in it' — a fine thing to say, Sister. What a
glory the hand is!"

51

A Labor of Love.

"I remember — truly a noble thing to
say."

"But who can compute the value of this
hand, this faithful small implement of thy
love, Marian? who can put a value on the
rest, peace, joy and refreshing of mind in
me — nay, selfish fellow that I am, in us —
which lies in its skill, like balm in the
Bayberry, exuded by a touch? Take
thine instrument again, . dearest Sister;
play to me some more. To grand music
thy guitar compares as to 'the bards sub-
lime/ compares 'the humbler poet whose
song gushed out from his heart.' Play to
me. Ah! the delight! And sit where I
can see thee too. The eye and music con-
sort well. Play as thou wilt. Ramble in
melodies. Thy music will hang up in my
mind like Melilot in a room, breathing
balm by being housed."

52

The Invisible Heart.

VII.

Strange that I thought not of the hos-
pital; nor did my Sister.

Yesterday, immediately after the morn-
meal, came a messenger from Dr. Agatha,
bidding me come to the hospital at once.
When I arrived there, the Doctor told me
she had sent for me for the Spanish girl
whose music so had charmed me a year
ago. "She came hither some weeks ago,"
said the kind physician, "with fever, and
has been very ill, but turned convalescent,
and we thought she was recovering. Sud-
denly last night befell a change for the
worse, with great sinking, and now she is
going fast. She has refused all along to
have any friend sent for, but at the last
hour something bade me call you without
asking her. It can do no harm. She is
too near the mystical door to be distressed,
and possibly a new kind presence may be
like a fresh breeze to spread her wings
on."

"You have done better than you know,"
said I; "a good angel led you." And I
53

The Invisible Heart.

told her of my sister's music-hours with
Margarita.

Immediately I was by her, where she lay
a little propped with pillows to stay up her
head, as she had desired. I knelt at the
little bed and said quietly and cheerfully,
"I am the brother of Marian who had
music lessons of you."

The closed eyes opened and kindled.

"She has grieved after you," said I.
"She would have hastened to you like a
sister if she had known you were here."

Again the eyes kindled and this time a
smile followed, faint, but with no taint of
sadness. Then her eyes turned from one
to another of the three things present
which belonged to her, the bronze urn,
her guitar, the linnet in his cage, and then
came back to my face with an invoking
look.

"Do you wish me to give the guitar and
bird from you to my Sister, and shall we
keep and guard the urn?"

A glad and grateful look gave me full
assurance. Then she suddenly grew a
little whiter and there was a slight spasm
of the mouth.

"About yourself," said I quickly, "have
you no wish?"

The lips moved, and bending very close
I caught the words —
51

The Invisible Heart.

"No choice — because— no way."

I knew she meant no money. I told her
in a glad tone that she should have my
grateful care, because she so had blessed
our home with her love and music. ' 'Would
you not like" said I, "to have this body
you are dropping exhaled to the air with
flaming purity, as you did with your broth-
er's, and the ashes mingled in the bronze
urn with his, and your name engraved on
it with his?"

A delightful joy broke in her face and
her eyes thanked me infinitely.

"It shall be so," said I.

Then as if that sudden unexpected vast
delight were too much for the frail frame,
the spirit made wings of it and flew at once.
The flight shook the body a trifle, as a bird
does a twig in launching from it. Then
all was still, and nothing woful.

When I told my dear Sister what had
happened, her tears flowed womanly. She
received with grateful tenderness the lega-
cies, the splendid antique guitar, and the
linnet, — which delicate little creature I per-
ceived at once knew my Sister and showed
it by many chirps, flutterings, and cries of
love, and instantly alighted on her finger
which Marian thrust into the cage. Forth-
with his cage was opened and he was given
the liberty of the room, of which his first
55

The Invisible Heart.

use was to alight gn Marian's shoulder and
peck at her ear and mouth. The trust,
also, the bronze urn, my Sister received
reverently, and placed it on the corner of
the mantel in our study whereon the west-
ern sun shone daily; for so it had been
placed in Margarita's poor little room.
' 'Of ten did I think," said my Sister tear-
t fully, "of trying to win my sweet young
teacher to come and live with us. Once I
tried toward it, but she shrank so quickly
that I thought the time had not come. I
wish now I had sought it more boldly.
Mayhap I should have won her, and may-
hap then she would not have fallen ill, or
if she had I could have nursed her."

Herewith came tears again with a most
precious look of sorrowing love, while she
handled the guitar tenderly. Presently
she said, looking up, "Hers was a deep
nature, dear Brother. There was a great-
ness in her. I was not given to explore it
much, with all her sweetness to me — and
she kissed me earnestly when she dis-
missed me for a little, as she said, and it
was for all. I am very glad of that kiss
now. No, I could not explore in her, but
she had a deep life. I caught a few bits
of light which flashed from deeps, reveal-
ing for an instant a greatness of soul with
tragical experience, joys and sorrows,
56

The Invisible Heart.

both great. She was like a rich delicate
vessel of adamant in which lay a jewel'such «•
as never was known, shining a little
through the adamant, but neither its shape
nor light to be discerned truly, and the
adamant not to be pierced nor broken to
get unto the jewel."

These words of my Sister clung to me
and set me brooding on the unknown life
of each person. Respect unto it hath
great place in the law of kindness. Mari-
an's words attended me in the streets of
the great city whither I went in the after-
noon. I looked more lovingly and intent-
ly at the faces of the hurrying people.
"That living flood," says Teufelsdr6ckhr
"pouring through these streets, of all qual-
ities and ages, knowest thou whence it is
coming, whither it is going? Aus der
Ewigkeit, zu der Ewigkeit hin. From eter-
nity onwards to Eternity." And what a,
thing, what a fact, awful, tender, mysteri-
ous, are the drops in this flood, the per-
sons. I walked the thoroughfares and
searched the faces, under the spell of my
Sister's soul, not like a naturalist to whom.
all is grist, but like a miner who looks only
to the gold. What unknown saints, I
thought, were passing me in the throngs!
What brothers, careful, gentle, loving their
sisters tenderly and manfully, protecting,,
57

The Invisible Heart.

respecting. What fathers, devoted, toil-
» ing by day and by much of the night for
their poor nests of wife and children, faith-
ful, kind, not counting fatigue, denying
themselves, indulgent, sympathetic, heroic,
obscure. What sisters as lovely before
God as my own, following some wayward
or selfish or sullen fellow of a brother, and
never giving him up, enduring, working,
saving for him, giving to him, Hiding tears,
— because he had lain on the same mother's
breast. What lovers, lads and girls, to
whom love was devout, reverential, tender,
great, an exaltation, a being crowned, a
glory and praise above all ambitions, trap-
pings, fames. What mothers, out on
anxious errands, now hastening back to
bend, like the mercy of God, over the sick
or the lacking or the ungrateful. All these
and other saints pass me, bearing great
tragedies, which they, the true poets, sing
unto heaven by their bearing of them, and
no other poets can sing nor have the might
to tell — what incidents, what struggles,
what vast covered sorrows boxed in pa-
tience and lidded with smiles; what cour-
age, daring deeds and thoughts, unspeak-
able natural longings in holy quiet kept,
like a tragedy enacted at a fane or shrine!
Here passed me great sins which had
come to sincere repentance and penance.
58

The Invisible Heart.

Here was religion walking by me in its most
simple devout form — " How know I what
prayers ye lifted this morn," said I, looking
into some faces, "at what poor bedsides
kneeling, or under rich tapestries where
wealth excludes neither woes nor tempta-
tions; and what thoughts unto God are
walking by me in the humble trust and self-
watchfulness and many a silent uplift of
souls; and what prayers of lowly praise for
one more day's safety accomplished ye will
lift in shabby stalls or under fine hangings
to-night, with the same temptations, pains,
struggles and spiritual victories in the
poverty and in the riches, and some kinds
in each unknown to the other lot! "

These worlds and mysteries of saintly
things passed me in the unknown lives of
each person, and other things black and
dreadful — all passing, beautiful, tremend-
ous, terrible, in the persons who hastened
by me like phantoms. O let me stand
before each one with awe for what may be
in him, what nature, feeling, experience!

When we read the tender or the grand
passages of poets we are appalled at the
depth or the majesty of the experience. If
we read the Indian serenade of Shelley
which Poe so much admired, which indeed
has a very delicate atmosphere of love; or if
in his "Prometheus Unbound" we read
59

The Invisible Heart,

such descriptions as in the talk between

Panthea and Asia in scene third of the

second act; or such lines as these in the

same poem:

Panthea. Alas, I looked forth twice, but will no
more.

Ionia. What dost thou see?

Panthea. A»woful sight; a youth

With patient looks nailed to the crucifix.

Ionia. What next?

Panthea. The heaven around, the earth below
Was peopled with thick shapes of human death,
All horrible and wrought by human hands,
And some appeared the work of human hearts,
For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles;
And oth^r sights too foul to speak and live,
Were wandering by,

or if we read the amazing and glorious
picture of Beatrice in her dreadful despair,
writhing in the "clinging, black, contam-
inating mist," whereby

The beautiful blue heaven is flecked with blood,
The sunshine on the floor is black,

or when she cries defiant to the judge:

Tortures! Turn

The rack henceforth into a spinning wheel!
Torture your dog, that he may tell when last
He lapped the blood his master shed — not me!
My pangs are of the mind and of the heart
And of the soul! Ay, of the inmost soul
Which weeps within tears as of burning gall !

or as she is in her wildest anguish followed

by despair, followed again by a high calm

60

The Invisible Heart.

after the death sentence, or in the child-
like simplicity of the pathos of the words
with which she ends the grand terrific
play; or, if we take the calm, religious
Wordsworth, as he speaks in the glowing
lines in which he describes how the wand-
erer, when a boy, "from the naked top
of some bold highland beheld the sun
rise up and bathe the world in light;" or in
his great ode of immortal life; or in the
soaring of his soul from the banks of Wye,
perhaps the most majestic flight of all his
holy verse, — in these, and all such glorious
readings, we stand wonder-struck, awed,
glorified before the deeps of the soul.
Now such experience is not an inven-
tion of the poet, but a record. He con-
trives not, matches not part to part, as
inventors plan machines; but only writes
down the miracle of the things that strug-
gle within him, the history of what the
poet sees and feels and is. Therefore,
often in reading these bursts of emotion,
of pathos or of thought, I have had the
poet rise as a vision before me, as the
place or the sphere in creation in which
the great things came to pass. But when
I have looked closer at him, I have found
him with calm manner and appearance,
as if by my intrusion and looking on him
grown quiet and common and shrouded in
Gl

The Invisible Heart.

himself. If one should come on Shelley
with the pen in his hand streaming with the
agonies of Beatrice, launching the sublim-
ities of the Titan's patience, or played
around and over by the rainbows of the gor-
geous scenery of Prometheus, the poet
would drop that same p.en quietly and rise
from his desk unmoved and calm, with a
quiet eye and look of polite address. I
should see only a common sight, only the
usual outside of men, while in the soul
Beatrice, Panthea, Asia and Prometheus
would be consorting in illimitable heavens.
Often have I thought thus, often thus have
visited in imagination the great writers,
and have returned again humbled, and up-
lifted too, with a more tender regard for
human beings. Wordsworth exclaims:

Oh, many are the poets that are sown

By nature; men endowed with highest gifts,

The vision and the faculty divine,

Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse.

How can I judge by the exterior, how
shall I tell what is in any soul by the com-
mon inertia of the clay? How shall I
know what passes inside? If I could meet
Wordsworth and pass him by, and no Tin-
tern Abbey rise in my mind's eye; if I
could meet Shelley and toss pebbles with
him into the Genoese gulf, and never know
I was with the sky-fire of the prayer at
62

The Invisible Heart.

Prometheus's rock, how know I what
may be passing in the mortals around me
— what deeps may lie beyond those pas-
sive shores of bodies — sometimes what
storms, and wild or dreadful glory beyond
sight, while the shores are bathed in quiet
sunshine? Every one has a vast deep in
him compared to anything he may say of
himself. No Homer or Shakespeare or
Milton ever uttered himself, but only
strove, and stammered forth a little of the
things that were in his sight in earth and
sky. What then of the tongue-tied? —
those who can only lift their hands or
kindle in their eyes silently? All are poets
in deeps of struggling experience, of holy
living, of love, of sin, of repentance, of
prayer, of valor.

Sometimes, these come forth in few and
simple words, which are rifts in clouds.
Sir Walter Scott said that when he had
been listening to the common expressions
of simple folk speaking their thoughts of
life, and of their experience in their sim-
ple sorrows and troubles, sometimes he
had heard sublimities in thought and in
simplicity of expression unequaled in his
knowledge outside of the Biblical pages.
What can we do but remember this un-
known and unshown part in dealing with
each other, and treat every one like a mys-
63

The Invisible Heart.

tery, with reverence? For neither can we
tell what the child will be nor what any
one is. But a little we are let in and given
the freedom of any one's body and soul.
We must walk like St. Paul in the Athen-
iian streets, with eyes and heart open for
£he altar of the Unknown God. Neither
;<know we what has been in any soul,
'"trailing what clouds of glory " or of
•shame it came forth; what things it has
wrestled with, what struggles and pains
^and joys it has come through. How can
-we stand by it except as by an Aztec altar,
the huge blocks and mighty sculp-
£>, overgrown with forest, record a vast
vanished history whereof not even a mem-
cory remains? What hand graved those
^sculptures, what muscles strained to roll
those huge fanes from the quarry, what
ielt the heart that drove the blood to hands
and feet? And thou who art beside me,
what hath graven thee to this shape or to
that, sometimes so strange, always so hid-
den and so awful? I have seen an uncouth
man, inveterate and untimely in his jokes,
trivial sometimes; I set him down as little
^worth, except that he was good-natured
and behaved himself cleanly. But there-
after, one day, I saw him burn with a white
heat of generous and grand earnestness,
jkindle and flame up to heaven; and all for
61

The Invisible Heart.

love of poor, hard-worked men of whom
he thought and spoke. It was a lesson.
I came suddenly on the altar in the Athen-
ian streets. Let me look on every soul
which is hidden from me in my ignorance
as perforce by ignorance I would look on
some Arabian manuscript scribbled all
over on cover and margin by a jester, or
perhaps even by a wanton hand; but hold-
ing, for aught I can say, a lost treatise of
Averroes.

"We are fearfully and wonderfully
made," as open as day, as hidden as night.
Beware what we may come to, what our
ignorance may be! And as a means of
grace, kindness, undistorted heart, have
respect to the unknown life of each person
and learn to feel how another is feeling.
A man said to me, " My difficulty in re-
fusing a beggar or any beseeching person is
that, however my judgment may instruct
me, I am feeling so intensely how more
intensely still the suppliant is wishing
what he asks and hanging on my decision."
This is a beautiful openness of the win-
dows, and it may be into heavenly air.
Can one go very far wrong, be very unpiti-
ful or obtuse or ignorant, who feels thus
what is outside his own station or sensa-
tions? I trow not. To have respect for
the unknown life of each person is to go
65

The Invisible Heart.

far to know all life by sympathy and con-
ception, to see as God sees.

My visit to the city had the purpose of
getting engraved on the bronze vase the
name of the Spanish maid. It is done.
This day, in the late hours, toward twi-
light, we shall hold a tender vespers for
her. We take the mortal part — changeable,
perishable, but ah! so sacred, so precious
— to the almost spiritual purification of the
flames; and when, save a handful of sweet
mineral, it all has gone forth into the
wide air, we will say, with very happy
meaning and sweet images, as one might
of a dried rose-petal which had exhaled
its color and fragrance, "The body returns
to the earth as it was, but the spirit unto
God who gave it."

Dr. Agatha will go with us.

66

The Responsibility.

VIII.

Kindness is a particular seemliness or
duty laid on every person. It behooves us
to be kind by a general law, that we must
be gentle to fellow creatures and con-
cerned to make them happy. But there
are some specific facts which make us
answerable for kindness, chiefly three:

First, I myself do ill continually. I fall
into many sad errors, by which I make
heavy drafts on others' forbearance; yes,
and even on my own patience with myself,
unless I will despair utterly. Therefore
how reasonable it is and how beholden am
I and how due it is from me to extend that
same kindness to others which continually
I need. It is one of the strange things in
human nature, which is a reasoning nature,
that continually we do things the most fool-
ish and senseless without a thought how
absurd or insane they look to the eye
of reason. Says William Law in his
"Serious Call/1 "He that can talk the
learned languages and repeat a great deal
of history, but prefers the indulgence of
67

Responsibility.

his body to the purity and perfection of his
soul, is in the nearest state to that natural
who chooses a painted coat rather than a
large estate. He is not called a natural
by men; but he must appear to God and
heavenly beings as in a more excessive
state of stupidity, and will sooner or later
certainly appear so himself." But now, if
while choosing the painted coat and flour-
ishing in it ridiculously, a man should be
in a rage in good earnest with any one
making the same choice, and should berate
him as a simpleton, how much more a nat-
ural would he appear then! Yet just so
does one who, being often in error himself,
has no pity nor aid nor kindness for those
who displease him. To the eye of reason,
how more can one condemn himself, or by
what greater folly invite harshness toward
himself, than by unkind acts while in his
heart, and with voice too, he cries out for
mercy to himself. It is no more than
reason, therefore, and no less than a wise
and modest forecast, as well as beauty and
nobleness, to act by the saying of Pliny,
"He is best and purest who pardons
others as if he himself sinned daily, but
avoids sinning as if he never pardoned."
And be sure that if he come to that point,
of avoiding sinning, it will be by reason of
a most faithful kindness; for to be unkind,
68

Responsibility.

or even to neglect to be kind when God
has brought us opportunity, is a great sin.
Secondly kindness is according to simple
common sense, if we will but consider
what Seneca says, that " He who knows
that men are not born wise, but have to
become so, will never be angry with the
erring." Surely it needs no great knowl-
edge to see so plain a fact; the more as
every man can look back to a time when
he was very foolish indeed, or at least far
from the wisdom which now he has, and
did things which now he cares not to talk
of, seeing that they were very silly. And
it is rational to conclude that by and by
we may attain a higher place where much
that now we hold by will look to us, as it
is, very ridiculous. Therefore, according
to common sense, we should act by this
plain fact, that either we must be foolish to
the end, or else grow in becoming wise,
since we start not so. And as all are
stumbling on together, some more, some
less, but none without staggers that will
look ungraceful by and by, how reasonable
kindness is between those who are all
afloat in one boat of folly on a wide sea of
effort! And how reasonable to return not
unkindness with the like, for this is but to
avoid the bad bog that another's flounder-
ing shows us.

69

Responsibility.

It is a third point that if we can not
teach, we have small right to complain of
those who go untaught, and if we have no
art of healing, it is but stripping bare our
own ignorance if we cry out on those who
are not cured. Marcus Aurelius says, "If
thou be able, teach others what is right;
but if thou be not able, be mindful that
meekness is given thee for this." Here
stands by a man doing some wrong. He
is a dwelling of some meanness, malice,
treachery, violence, or of some madness,
like rage or drunkenness. If we be able
to cure him, it may be not ill to let ap-
pear our disgust for the disease of which
we have rid him. Or if we have the
heavenly power to show him the right way
and impart strength to walk in it, it may
be not amiss to contemn the pack of sins
he has cast off. But if there be no healing
power, no virtue in us to go out of us, no
potency to teach or strengthen, this is a
cause for meekness in us, as Aurelius says.
If, as reason is, we be busy with right shame
for our weakness, we shall have little time
and less heart to rage at another's. For
if there be a real, noble, lofty strength
in us, with no abatement by vanity, nor
pretence, nor sanctimony, but a simple,
clear, sincere, kind manhood, meet whom
you may, and whether he will or no, or
70

Responsibility.

whether he show it or not, 'tis like he will
take a share of your strength in some
measure, and lay an unfelt hand on you to
stay himself till he can stand alone. I say
not this surely will be so in every instance.
Natures differ very widely. "There be land
rats and water rats," wolves in the woods
and wolves in the streets, beasts in the
jungle and beasts in the city, and they will
act by their natures wherevlr they be. As
not alone a red sky is necessary to rosy
sight, but an eye able to perceive the
color, so there must be a nature impres-
sionable and a power to drink of moral in-
fluence; else one will stand in vain at the
overflow of holy persons and will not be
moved by the goodness of the good, any
more than an eye by a lovely color for
which it has no store of vibrations. For
as a wolf will devour a child that smiles in
his face, so will some men do and have
done. How many belike were there in
the mob crying, "Crucify him," how many,
that neither were moved nor could be by
the sweet meekness and the heavenly
goodness of the Nazarene? Wherefore, I
say (for I would speak carefully and in
limits) it is not sure that any one will be
moved and won by sincere kindness and
nobleness. But I say that seldom we can
be sure whether 'tis the unmoved one who
71

Responsibility.

is insensible or we who have not the pure
simplicity of goodness ; nor can we tell
surely how long a patience is needful to
give fair trial of any one. This much,
therefore, seems very plain, and a good
guide for us, and a warning to be very
careful and slow, namely, that if a traveler
have fallen by the way under a heavy load,
and we be of such puny muscles as can
not lift the burden by so much as a penny-
weight, it is unreasonableness, which is
folly, and also it is unkind, cruel folly, to
be full of fury that he can not toss it up
alone, and even to add to that heavy
weight a heap of reproach or contempt.
Therefore let us be able to teach, or bear
very long and patiently with those who go
untaught.

A fable of the vine has a good touch of
this doctrine. A man said to a vine, " See
how that idler throws your fruit about, let-
ting fall more than he eats and treading it
under foot. You should not bear grapes
for him." " But I am not sure," said the
vine, " whether he be an ill man or I be a
poor vine that can not win him by good
grapes. That is what the thistle said to
the donkey." " What story is that," said
the man. Whereupon the vine narrated:
"A donkey said to a thistle, ' I must eat
you.' ' But eat my leaves, spare my flow-
72

Responsibility.

ers/ said the thistle. < But the flower is
the sweeter/ answered the donkey. ' But
it is seed,' said the thistle, 'and if you
forego it now, it will make more thistles
for you and others/ 'No, I must have
the sweet morsel now,' cried the donkey.
The thistle sighed and said, ' I know not
whether this be because you are a donkey
or because I am a poor, ill-grown thistle;
so after all I am pleased to be sweet to
you in dying.' So" said the vine, " I must
put forth my grapes again and again be-
cause it is my part, however the people
may use them; and belike if the grapes
become better, the people may be per-
suaded to use them more carefully."

73

Meanness of Unkindness.

IX.

Can aught be plainer than that it is but
a mean spirit which will be unkind? For
what is unkindness but a selfish or cruel
use of some power fallen to us by strength
or by some chance? Now, he who will be
cruel when he has power will fawn when
he is under power.

It is an old saying, "It is excellent to
have a giant's strength, but tyrannous to
use it like a giant." Now if the tyrannous
giant were pared down into a dwarf, as a
carver may cut down an image by shaving
it away, the manikin, I am very sure,
would be large enough to hold all the
courage that so strutted in the big carcass.

Seneca says well that no one can be des-
pised by others unless he has, his own con-
tempt, and that "no one is more ready to
tread others under his feet than he who
has become used to taking offences." This
is a principle much used by composers
of plays whereby to obtain those sud-
den contrasts in character or action which
they know to inhere in mean dispositions.
74

Meanness of Unkindness.

Thus have I seen a servant kicked by his
master for some inattention, and standing
muttering indignantly at the meanness of
the affront. Presently enters a boy to call
the man, whereupon the servant kicks the
stripling in his turn for interrupting him.
But as surely as the man took a kick from
the master before giving one to the boy,
so will the master take one servilely from
his master, from king or governor or any
ruler over him. For it is the same mean-
ness to give a kick and to take it; nor ever
will one give it till he has taken it, or has
the servility in him to do so.

Wherefore if you see any one unkind
when he is in power — if, being a wit, he
make a butt of slow parts; if, being large,
he be a fury among the small; if, being
rich, he parade himself and flaunt his lux-
uries before the poor — be sure he is craven
at heart. Trust not him for any service;
hang not on him for any office or stead-
fastness of soul.

Yet put him not away, bar him not from
your goodness. For the more servile he is,
the more he needs of two good things, pity
and patience.

I have run upon a fable of that mean-
ness which is like to show forth if much
power be confided to a small spirit. In a
forest there dwelt a hermit. One day a
75

Meanness of Unkindness.

crow flew over the hermit's head and from
his bill fell a mouse at the hermit's feet.
He had compassion on it, and took it up,
fed it with rice and revived it. Soon he
saw that a cat alarmed it and was seeking
to destroy it. So by the sacred powers of
a saint, he metamorphosed his mouse into
a cat. But the cat was afraid of his dog,
so the saint changed him into a dog. The
dog being terrified at a bear, at last he
was transformed into a lion. But the
holy man regarded the lion as in no way
superior to his mouse. Now the people
who came to visit the hermit used to tell
one another that the lion which they saw
had been made so by the power of the
saint, from a mouse. This being over-
heard by the li-on, he was uneasy and
ashamed of his extraction, and he said to
himself, As long as this hermit is alive, the
disgraceful story of my former state will
be brought to my ears. Saying which, he
went to kill his protector. But the holy
man penetrated his design with his super-
natural eye.

" Be a mouse again," said the hermit,
and instantly he was reduced to his first
estate. "Ah," said the hermit, "you
were only a mouse looking like a lion. If
truly you had been that noble beast, you
would not have turned on your benefactor."
76

Meanness of Unkindness.

"Alas," said the mouse with a sad squeak,
" I am like the ape that was brought down
by going up." "What is that story?"
the hermit asked; and the mouse narrated:
"An ape who was more cunning than his
fellows and had a good countenance, prac-
ticed walking upright, got him garments,
carefully kept his mouth closed, and
passed himself off for a man. This went
well till one day, being puffed up by his new
station, he determined to take a high seat.
Then the people looked up at him care-
fully in the high place and saw his tail;
and they drove him out." "Ah!" said
the hermit, " thou say'st well, little mouse.
If a small soul be thrust into a large sta-
tion, he will be either foolish or cruel; and
either one is a show of his meanness."

77

Reciprocity.

X.

Reciprocity means the interchange of
actions, offices, influence. It may be be-
tween two or many. It has a good law
of its own, which is like to a law or fact in
physics, to-wit, that action and reaction are
equal. If you pound an anvil with a ham-
mer, says the philosopher, the hammer is
pounded every whit as much by the anvil.
Or if a great heat be changed into a motion
of some vast mass, the moving of the mass
cools the heat by just as much as the heat
moves the mass; and if the mass cease
moving, then just as much heat is turned
forth again as was consumed in setting the
mass in motion. Or if a stone be dropped
to the earth, the earth' rises unto the stone
as much as the stone falls unto the earth.
For though the earth move but an invisi-
ble and insensible distance, yet if the
globe be conceived as divided into portions
of the size of the stone, each one of those
little portions moves so far toward the stone
that all of those small distances together
make just the length of the stone's fall. So
78

Reciprocity.

that the earth meets the stone in a manner
midway.

Now this law is observed very strictly
in all dealings and exchanges. The things
exchanged must be equivalents, pound for
pound or the value thereof. In higher
matters, it is the aim to give teachers,
writers, artists their own value again.
I mean they must be paid for the pleas-
ures they bring to our firesides in sums that
will enable them to adorn their own hearth-
stones in like manner.

In yet higher matters, things of the
heart, we return love for love, kindness for
kindness. This is simple Reciprocity.

But is this the whole law of these high-
est of dealings, wherein precious boxes
of spikenard are broken? What shall be
returned to the unkind? What shall be
measured to those who threaten our bodies,
wound our feelings, sting us with their
tongues, plant traps with their gossip? To
answer this reasonably, consider in what
way we look on the malevolence we have
suffered. Call we it praiseworthy? Think
we it graceful, lovely? Rather are we not
very loud in complaints when any one is
f roward or malicious ? If then we denounce
this temper when some one disobliges us
with it, is it not incredible folly if we
give back to him straightway the same
79

Reciprocity.

affronts? This is so strange a folly, so
outrageous to reason, that it can be
thought no better than a certain madness
at the moment, as any emotion is like to
be if it overcome. For madness is but an
overcoming of the reason by some feeling or
fancy or wish. And if still, after the affront
has passed awhile, and we have had time
to grow cool and to collect ourselves, we
be bent on some reprisal, to do some in-
jury in return, it is no better than a settled
madness and were as worthy of confine-
ment as any lunacy. For how can that
which we are so loud to call hideous
and hateful in another suddenly change to
excellence and comeliness in us?

It is the law of reason, therefore, that
kindness must be offered, and again offered,
and still held out continually and unwear-
ied, even to the unkind, ungrateful and
injurious. To this law the heart comes
leaping like a child to a friend. And so
teach the sages. A very gracious author-
ity has admonished us that if we love them
only that love us, there is no reward or
virtue. Aurelius says we should " beware
of feeling toward the cruel as they feel
toward others; " and, says he, " It is pe-
culiarly human to love even those who
do wrong. And this happens if when they
err it occurs to thee that they are kinsmen,
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Reciprocity.

and that they err by ignorance and uninten-
tionally, and that soon both of you will die;
and above all that the wrong doer has
done thee no harm, for he has not made
thy ruling faculty worse than it was be-
fore." This is not feebleness nor servility,
but a nobility and vastness of character,
and very manly. Nay, it grows into the
divine; for it is divine, as said the Master,
to cause the sun to rise on the good and
evil and to send rain on the just and the
unjust. Seneca teaches likewise: " My
kindness is not returned; how shall I act?
Like God, most bountiful author of all
things, who begins to bless us in our ignor-
ance and keeps on doing so in our ingrati-
tude." Elsewhere he says, " The immor-
tal Deity is neither willing nor able to
harm us," for " all his power is to do
good," and "no sane man is afraid of
God."

If I may compare things divine with
human — and surely I may, for as all things
come forth from God, all things must be
like unto him and bear some image of him
and have some manner of comparison;
and in such a probation I would not say
that it is comparison of things human with
divine, so much as of things divine with
Divinity — if this I may do, then a fine story
preserved of one of the Sultans Solyman
81

Reciprocity.

will be a fair image of sound Tightness of
soul 'unto God, which is void of being
afraid of him. Some soldiers had de-
spoiled by night the little farm of a wid-
owed dame, and driven off her sheep.
Straightway she went to the Sultan and
made complaint, very simply and with
much reverence. "You must -have been
very sound asleep," said Solyman, grimly,
"if the men could drive away so many
sheep without your observation." Then
the woman looked at the great monarch
simply, void equally of being bold and of
being afraid, and answered, "It is true,
sire, that I slept soundly, the hour being
my slumber-time; but it was with full faith
that the king's eye was watching over the
people's safety."

In this way our kindness ought to be like
to Divinity, that no sane man could fear an-
other could do him a hurt, and we should
be void of all terror one of another.

82

Making an Average.

XL

"Brother," said my Sister, at breakfast
yesterday. —

Ah! these morn-meals with my Sister!
Naught had we but some small and thin
biscuit, baked apples with cream, and co-
coa-cups; but the biscuit were a melting
ambrosia, the apples, done to a golden
brown, quivered on the verge of liquidity
and with the cream became a unity of
nectar, and the cocoa was as balmy and del-
icate as a- brew of grape-blossoms unpur
pled to the fat fruit. The breakfast room
receives the morning sun through the
stained windows of a church close against
it, so that soft glints and tender lights flick
the white table. But my Sister at her
place, so sweet, so cool, so kind and
bright, gives the chief light by the light of
the love of her eyes, and her blithe piety
(for always, however I meet her, she af-
fects me as if on the brink of beginning a
thanksgiving song) diffuses a fragrance.
'Tis a place of flowers, my morn-meal,
from which daily I cull a vase of blossoms
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Making an Average.

for my study table, sometimes wholly the
fragrancies of affection, sometimes also
the foliage of thoughts.—

" Brother," said my Dozen, " there is a
play called The Merchant at the Academy
Theatre, said to be a good play, and I want
to see it."

" Pooh," said I, " I don't believe it is
as good as ' The Merchant of Venice.' "

My Sister opened her eyes, but said
with a lovely gravity, "A safe judgment,
dear, and a wise Daniel."

" Good, "said I; "the wise always are
safe."

"It has seemed to me of late, dear
Brother," said my Sister, with a very de-
mure gentleness, "that thou hast attained
a high admiration of thyself."

"Certainly, my Dozen," said I, " be-
cause no one else admires me. One must
keep up the average. The man who has
the most clear title to admire himself is
he whom none others admire.*- Else were
all equality destroyed and everything topsy-
turvy. And it is seen everywhere that the
man whom no other admires is he whom
Nature has endowed with the best capacity
to admire himself."

"Ah!" said my Sister, "thy last sen-
tence has brought thee to shore in some
wit. But indeed, Brother, thy speaking
84

Making an Average.

of 'keeping up the average/ reminds me
of what our neighbor John Rivers' wife
told me of poor Zack, yesterday, and I
have brooded over it no little."

" And who is poor Zack?" said I.

" Her brother Zackary; she calls him
poor Zack. Thou must know I made a
long call there yesterday, indeed, passed
the whole afternoon with Mrs. Rivers
while thou wert in the city. At first we
sewed, and afterward arranged flowers.
She talked all the time. She needs no
more than a good listener to wing up her
eloquence. But she is no magpie. She
talks well. And her discourse of poor
Zack cost her some tears as well as much
breath."

"Tell me of him," said I.

" She says he is a large man, generously
made everyway, large and impressive in
body, ample in mind and wide in heart,
and withal very simple in his manners and
feelings. But his wife is scornful and
ambitious, disparaging, and measures her
manners to people by her conclusions of
their importance. To bring Mrs. Rivers1
long story to the space of a sentence or
two — at first her brother was very well-to-
do, then poor, then successful again, even
richer than before. During these fortunes
up and down, his wife was haughty and
85

Making an Average.

selfish in the rich days, full of wails,
moans, and base mortifications in the poor
days. All of which had a very bad effect
on the son and daughter, now nineteen
and seventeen years of age, who came out
of it as cold and worldly as the mother.
At last they gave poor Zack the one blow
too many and too much."

"Ah! thou speakest a grave truth,
Dozen," said I. "It is one of the risks
and scourges of the selfish and unloving
that never they know when they have come
to the limit till they have passed it."

"Yes," said Marian, "a terrible fact of
the heart. Love has its conditions of liv-
ing and its conditions of dying, like the
body, or like reflection, or any other power
of soul. Well, so did they to poor Zack.
They went on in their ways till they thrust
them on him once too often. Mrs. Rivers
said that her brother, being a large and
serious spirit, was attached warmly to his
church, and he had in it a class of young
girls whom he had been teaching for many
years. Now, to a party of young people,
given by Zack's wife and children, all of
these girls were bidden except one. That
one, moreover, was Zack's special favorite,
by reason of her gentleness, character and
fine intelligence. But she was omitted be-
cause she was a small green-grocer's
86

Making an Average.

daughter. This was too much for poor
Zack. He said a few indignant words,
which were received with a dogged con-
tempt. Then his heart quite broke. He
said no more, rbut he brooded long and
sternly.'*

" Again thou hast the right word," said
I. "A vivid sternness seizes on one who,
after forbearing long, is given one blow
too many."

"The word was Mrs. Rivers', dear,"
said my Sister, gently, " and I quarrel not
with it; only, it must be a due fitness of
judgment, not a mere stubborn anger.
Well, Zack settled on a behavior; after
brooding over it with a sickness at his
heart for many weeks, said his sister — he
settled on a behavior. He fastened on
two principles, which he named, ' Equal-
izing things,' or ' Making an average.'
He settled it firmly in his mind that this
equalizing of things or effecting an average
was one of the ways in which it was right
for a man deliberately to essay a part in
divine Judgment and Providence. One of
the two principles pertained to giving at-
tention to others. He said there was a
certain due amount of consideration, I
mean of being thought for and planned
for, which belonged by Divine intention to
every one; and this due amount ought to be
87

Making an Average.

had, and no more. Now, if any one thought
so much for himself as to confer on him-
self that due portion, then no one should
think for him, because then he would have
more than his own portion, which is the
same as to get another's rightful portion,
and all is disordered."

" Truly," said I, "that was a shrewd
bit of thinking in poor Zack. I begin to
guess where thou art coming out. What
was the second principle? "

"Why, that was the same," said Mar-
ian, "only it pertained to the bestowal of
gifts and pleasures. Zack said that when
any persons had an abundance of pleas-
ures, opportunities, enlivenments, and re-
fused to share them affectionately with the
less favored, it became the Providential
business of some one, whoever might have
the power, to take away a due portion of
benefits from them for distribution to
others, thus to equalize things and keep a
right average. And this Zackary said
should be done quietly and privately, not
with lecturing or assertion, and those whose
possible pleasures were withheld, to be
given to others, should not be told of their
losses; for this would serve no good pur-
pose and do no more than stir up content-
ion; even, mayhap, it might -defeat the
equalization many times."
88

Making an Average.

"This principle," said I, " hath not
quite the delicacy of the first one, but it is
firm enough. But thou said'st he settled
on a behavior."

"Ay, so he did; by which to put in
practice the principles."

" Ah! now comes the fine part — the be-
havior. Human conduct is like music.
One may theorize, conceive, render a son-
ata in one's mind; but to perform it with the
hands is another thing. And any one may
do somewhat ©f the conceiving, and many
may make a very fair piece of business of
it, how the piece should be rendered; but
few can do any performing at all. So it is
in life's compositions, in the music whose
notes are the footfalls of the daily walk.
What was poor Zack's behavior? "

"Mrs. Rivers delighted in it hugely,""
said Marian, " and filled a long time and a
hundred instances with unfolding it. But
in short it was thus: First, he decided
(and amply; he set aside a large slice, his
sister said) how much of his income he
ought to devote to amusements and pleas-
ures, and this he divided, with much care,
and much consulting of his diary, between
winter pleasures, concerts, dramas, social
parties, and the like, and summer out-
ings, boat excursions, journeys, rides, pic-
nics, and the like. Thus he made a fund
89

Making: an Average.

to maintain and guide his behavior, and
took care that the fund should serve duly
for the whole year, each season having its
own appropriation."

" Truly, poor Zack is a man of method, "
said I.

" His sister says he is as regular in all
his doings as the earth in its path," said
Marian. "Well with this fund, he "set
about his purpose to essay a part in Judg-
ment and Providence. 'Why should a
man be a victim, a slave, a fallen foe, tied
to the wheels and dragged along in the
Divine triumph? ' — said he; < let him take
his part in it as one of the army, and pipe
music in the march, and do his portion in-
telligently, for justice, for delicate and
poetic justice.' Whereupon he ceased
wholly to do any suggesting or planning of
pleasures for his family. 'The whole
amount that they ought to be thought for,
they think for themselves,' said he, ' there-
fore I will not think for them too, for then
they will be thought for too much and the
right order overthrown. And they do no
thinking at all for any others; therefore
Tvhat they fail in I will supply by turning
:my thoughts to the others, and so effect a
right average.' Besides, he said they had
a very good time anyway. All manner of
pleasant things, a goodly dwelling, fine
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Making an Average.

fruits and meats, draperies, garments, so-
cial pleasures, ease, enlivenments sur-
rounded them, for which he saw no grati-
tude and no affectionate sharing of the
good things with others. 'Nature,' said
poor Zack, ' nurses inequality of powers
because this is the means of progress; but
for that very reason it is a man's duty to
override inequality of powers, as much as
can be, with an equalizing of pleasures,
because this is the way of happiness.' "

" Truly," said I, " poor Zack has made
a good use of ' Evolution.' "

"Has he not, Brother? Now, it had
been his way to keep watch of the pleas-
ant things that offered, good music, plays,
excursions, and the like, and if he knew
not their value but they had a good air
with them, he would take pains to inquire
about them, and thereupon speak of them
to his family, and buy places for them if
they wished. He continued to watch and
inquire as before, and bought places at the
good things, but he spoke not of them at
home, and the places he gave to many per-
sons who not often had such pleasant
befallings. This was Zackary's behavior
under the .first principle, namely, that as
his family thought for themselves to the
whole of the amount due them to be
thought for, he would give his thoughts
91

Making an Average.

to others. But he went further still under
the second principle. If his family woke up
of themselves and demanded to go to some
amusement, he would provide it; but in-
stead of the best places, which always be-
fore had been their privilege, he would
take less showy, but comfortable and good
places, and with the money so saved
he would give a place at the same en-
tertainment to some person to whom it
was a rare treat. If his family wish to
give a social party, he is nothing loth, but
he relentlessly cuts down enough of their
desired elegancies, kickshaws, and lolli-
pops, to provide, with the money thus
saved, some delightful outing for persons
not bidden to that feast, nor often to any.
There is much surprise and no little anger
over these ' parsimonies,' as the sufferers
call them; but Zackary says shortly that
he can afford no more, and ends it. Be-
yond a dim feeling that some kind of
change has come about which they under-
stand not, his family know not their many
losses. Mrs. Rivers says that poor Zack
is satisfied well with his invention and is
much more at ease in his mind. He calls
it 'dispensing poetic justice' — 'justice'
because it is right, and ' poetic ' because
they who lose are so unwilling. For
Zackary says, as I told thee, after an old
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Making an Average.

Stoic (the Stoics are great favorites with
him, his sister avows), that whoever will
not walk of himself in the Divine triumph
is dragged at the Chariot wheels, though
as little he wot as will; which is a base
station, but ' poetic justice.' Zackary
acknowledges that toward his family there
is thus a certain contempt in his acts, and
their position is a humiliation, because
they are dealt with like wayward and self-
ish children; but for this, he avers, there
is no remedy, and, if one tell the whole
truth, it is a portion of the 'poetic justice.'
What think'st thou of all that, Brother?"

"Indeed," said I, "there is much to be
said."

" On both sides? " cried my Sister.

" I know not," said I, " I must consider;
there is much in it."

"Well," said Marian, "I have consid-
ered, and I cast my vote for poor Zack
intoto. How often hast thou said, Brother,
that it is the most saving wisdom in life
to acknowledge everything to be what it is,
and to treat it so. Acknowledge, then,
every form of the I-am-better-than-thou
spirit to be what it is, unkindness, and
thereupon mete out to it the stubble that
is due it, not the fruits of kindness."

"Ah! but, my Dozen, who shall judge
assuredly, one above another?"
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Making an Average.

" But we must judge, Brother. We can
not look on all things indifferently. Re-
member what our Saint Matilda used to
say, that it is right to play on the follies
of men, if one do it as an artist."

" Which means," said I, "without any
tincture of the same folly. A fool chas-
tising his own folly is a humor much used
by playwrights. Sir Anthony Absolute
in a mighty rage commands his son to be
calm as his father is."

"But disgust is not bitterness nor harsh-
ness," said my Sister. " I think it were
no ill in poor Zack if he had a loathing of
the harsh vanity which he shut round with
his < poetic justice.' '

This talk with Marian befell just after I
had written the foregoing chapter, "Reci-
procity." But for poor Zack and my Doz-
en's view of him, belike I should have
rested in that chapter without further con-
sideration or modification of it. For surely
no principle can be plainer or better than
that we are to be kind to the unkind. It
is a thought which gives a good heart a
golden content. But mayhap the heart
may seize on it too unwarily. The prin-
ciple needs specification by reason. Must
our behaviors be alike to the kind and the
unkind? No; for this were to treat things
as the same which are different. In what
94

Making an Average.

manner, then, may our behaviors be as dif-
ferent as the things? This is a right and
needful question touching the sweet grace
and duty of kindness.

It is not doubtful that there are ingrates
in the world; and thinking of them it is*
matter of course that we call to mind
^Esop's fable, the viper which was warmed
by the compassionate countryman on his
hearth, and, being thawed thus from its
stiff and frozen condition, turned on its
benefactor with its fangs.

Now the moral of this story is, not that
it is possible to waste kindness, but that
the countryman's act was not rational
kindness, and hence in a way not kindness
at all. This unrational behavior occurs
when any creature is treated as if it were
something which it is not. In the Sermon
on the Mount there is explicit command
to this effect. "Give not that which is
holy to the dogs, neither cast your pearls
before swine, lest haply they trample them
under their feet and turn again and rend
you." This is the whole philosophy in a
marvelous convincing figure, in a state-
ment of the two consequences of the folly
of doing as a kindness what is so unfit to
the nature of the recipient that it is in fact
and effect not kindness, but only a mis-
taken softness of heart. What possible
95

Making: an Average.

kindness in giving pearls to swine? Pearls
.are valuable and pearls are beautiful, but
the swine have no market for their value
and no feeling for their beauty — like Bot-
tom when the fairy queen offers to send
her fairies to gather new nuts for him.
The ass' head on him answers: " I would
rather have a handful or two of dried peas."
Now, the pearls not being suited to the
swine, and, therefore, no real kindness to
them however soft-hearted the donor's act,
the two consequences follow: i. — They
misuse the good things already misused by
being offered to them — they trample the
pearls under their feet. 2. — They are in-
grates, turning and rending the giver of
the pearls in their rage that the jewels are
not corn or other fodder. There are many
oriental maxims to this effect: "What!
are silk tassels to be tied to the broom?"
*' Will you give a fair flower to a monkey?"
"Who would cast rubies into a heap of rub-
bish?" "What! are you giving ambrosia
to a dog?" The rabbins called the deli-
cate and deep meanings in the law its
" pearls," so that the injunction not to
waste them on swine is but a highly figur-
ative way of uttering the warning in Prov-
erbs (xxiii., 10): "Speak not in the ears of
a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of
thy words."

96

Making an Average.

The simple truth is, there are kinds of in-
fluence which have no rational application
to certain natures, and there is nothing
rational but to treat every creature, a man
included, like what he is, and like what he
is at the moment too, however we may
wish he were different. No good ever
comes of treating any thing or creature
like what it is not. If we have an ingrate
to deal with, we are not to think we
shall make him grateful by treating him as
if already he were so. Place an ingrate
on the one hand and opposite to him the
law of kindness. It is then the wisdom
and moral of ^Esop that we have to study
rationally what the law of kindness is
and commands in that case.

To define kindness for this present pur-
pose,— I think we may say it has two parts:
To do things for another which will bene-
fit him; to do things for another which
will please him. Obviously these two
parts of kindness may not be present, in
all cases, in the same act. Very often
whether they can combine in one act will
depend on the character, whether noble or
mean, of him who receives the act; for a
right deed will not please a wrong mind.
Now, suppose we are dealing with an in-
grate, like the viper in the fable, how must
we apply the law of kindness?
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Making an Average.

First, it is certain that the negative of
kindness never is to be allowed. No mat-
ter how basely ingrate a person may be,
never purposely are we to do what will dis-
advantage him or what will displease him,
I mean for the sake of causing him injury
or annoyance. As to the positive side, we
must be ready to do what may be for the
profit, including discipline, of the ingrate;
but I must hold that we are not bound to
plan and take measures to please him.
For he may not deserve to be pleased,
and so far as he " is an ingrate he does
not; and however we give him pearls
of love, they may not please, because,
being ingrate, he may not know them
for what they are. And if they please
not, or even if they please, so very swinish
is the ingrate he may turn and rend you,
and will do so if you stand in his way
to a trough, though you have made his
very bed of pearls. Therefore, I must
say that, just as if a swine once had
trampled pearls and then should take a
fancy to have some, they should not be
given him, because of the nature of the
creature, so an ingrate has no claim on
others that they should seek to give him
happiness. Let him look to that himself.
No one is bound to consider him and to
plan for him. The whole duty of others
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Making an Average.

toward him is, negatively, not to do him
injury, and, positively, to be ready un-
revengefully and mercifully to do him any
fair service that offers; but not to consider
how to deal joys to him or to delight him.
For this is to treat him as a loyal, faithful,
grateful heart, which is the opposite of
what he is. To put it in a sentence,
every one has the right (I should say
the duty) simply to move away from an
ingrate and make a solitude around him.
Caution, loving caution, must be had in
deciding that any one is an ingrate. Also
there are many degrees of the vanity and
conceit with barrenness of heart ^which
mingle to make ingratitude; and what
proof is needful, or how much ungrateful-
ness first is to be overlooked, must be con-
sidered in a merciful way. But once any
one is seen clearly to be an ingrate, I say it
is right to leave him quietly in a solitude.
For he is to be treated as what he is, not
as what he is not; and he is one at whose
feet loving favors are as much out of place
as pearls under hoofs.

To sum up all, it is certain, as I have
said, there are such characters as ingrates;
and dark indeed they are. I think there
is no manner of person so dangerous as the
ingrate. It is sound caution to move away
and beware of any one who shows little
99

Making an Average.

sense of small favors and gentle atten-
tions. This is not to say that we may try
to disoblige him; but that we are under
no duty to please him, if perchance it
would please him to receive any favors or
confidence or trust. "All should unite to
punish the ungrateful," says Thomson;
" ingratitude us treason to mankind." Is
there any kind of mental deformity so
great or so menacing? One reason of this
is that ungratefulness is based on the
most intolerable and gross vanity. The
ingrate can not be such unless he has a
Very great and fine opinion of himself, so
that never he thinks himself treated well
enough; and, besides, an inordinate vanity
will be offended with benefits, because of
the implication or proof that aid was
needed. It has been said shrewdly, that
"whenever the good done to us does not
affect the heart, it wounds and irritates our
vanity." But the slightest good ought to
affect the heart; and if it do not, 'tis vanity
that hinders, sickening us with anger
by the double poison of it, to wit, the idea
that everything is due us, and resentment
that we can be supposed to need benefits.
I have been used to hold that an extreme
shrinking from being under obligation to a
fellow-being is an indication of ingrate
character, and that it will be prudent to
100

Making an Average.

remove from the person showing that
trait. La Rochefoucauld puts it that
•'everybody takes pleasure in returning
small obligations; many go so far as to
acknowledge moderate ones; but there is
hardly any one who does not repay great
obligations with ingratitude." Let us take
comfort, however, to think this an in-
genious overstatement; at best it means no
more than that heroes of battle-fields are
more common than heroes of noble self-
respect and humility.

I have met a tale in the Gesta Roman-
orum which may point these thoughts:

A man was a slave of a rich master who
was blind. The man found favor in his
master's eyes, which I must think was
because he was blind, for the ingrate and
selfish face not easily is to be mistaken
if one will observe well. Yet sometimes
meanness wears a mask stolen from gen-
erosity. The master being blind and so
having fewer pleasures than many men,
delighted himself the more in his own ex-
cellent singing. For he had a fine voice
and good ear and great love of music, as
very often the blind have. He rejoiced to
do all kindness to his servants and often
assembled them at evening when the day's
labors were over, that he might talk to them
from the stores of his reflection, and es-
101

Making an Average.

pecially he was wont to sing to them and
bring them also to sing with him; so that
his abode became renowned for its plenti-
ful and pleasing music, and especially the
master himself for his fine voice and his
perpetual use of it. For hardly he seemed
to cease to sing day or night, and sweet
sounds flowed from his house like a stream
from a fortunate hill. Now, the slave who
had his master's favor was made a free-
man by him; and then, though poor, being
free, he solicited the hand of a rich lady,
for he had an eye to place and fortune.
But she reminded him of a law of Rome
at that time, to wit, that no poor man
should marry a rich woman; first he must
have wealth equal to her own. She desired
him, therefore, to find means for comply-
ing with the law. He departed in much
grief, but after a little he bethought him-
self of his master who had loved him and
sung him his sweetest songs and at last
freed him. Might not he bring the old
man to his death and seize on his wealth?
No sooner thought than planned. He set
about it watchfully, for the aged master
was guarded in the day by armed domestics
and at night by the vigilance of a faithful
dog. He contrived, however, to kill the
dog from a distance with an arrow, and
then rushing upon the old man, despatched
102

(Making an Average.

him. With the wealth thus obtained he
returned to the rich lady. He informed
her that he had accomplished his purpose,
and being asked how this had been done
in so short a time, he told her all that had
happened. The lady desired him before
the marriage should take place to go to the
spot where the master was buried, lay
himself on the tomb, listen to what he
might hear and then report it to her. The
man did so. In the middle of the night
he heard a voice saying: "O aged master,
that liest buried here, what askest thou
that I can do for thee?" The answer was:
"O Jesus, upright judge, all that I require
is that my blood, unjustly spilled, be
avenged." The voice answered: "Thirty
years from this time the punishment shall
be fulfilled." When the man, terrified, re-
turned with the report to the lady, she re-
flected that thirty years made a long time
and resolved on the marriage. When the
thirty years, filled with pleasures, but not
with peace, nearly were passed, they built
a strong castle and eight days before the
expiration of the thirty years they entered
it. All the gates and approaches were
guarded by slaves and by ferocious wild
beasts and dogs, and great care was taken
that only very sure friends should come in.
All the servants were examined, and only

103

Making an Average.

the lady and her daughters were allowed
to serve as cooks so careful were they
against poison. A great feast was made
to last during five days. All seemed well.
Not an event happened amiss. 'Twas not
to be seen how any mischief or punish-
ment could enter that stronghold. On the
last day of the thirty years especial revelry
was held and all the guests were in great
hilarity and the lord and lady in great
show of ease, when a bird flew in at the
window and began to sing with uncommon
sweetness. In heaven the same voice had
spoken which the man had heard at the
grave, and said: "O aged master, the
thirty years are ended. Now comes the
vengeance on the slayer." But the master,
whose kind heart had relented, cried:
"Nay, Lord, what harm did he me that he
sent me to thy heaven? But to himself he
did harm, for he has had pleasures without
peace; and now is he still harder of heart.
Let me go in some shape to his presence,
and belike my songs, to which once he
hearkened before he was so evil, will soften
him yet, that thou may'st save him." The
voice said "Go." So came he in the shape
of the bird. But when the man heard the
bird's song and knew the melodies which
he had heard the master sing, he took his
bow in wrath and shot an arrow through
104

Making an Average.

the bird in the presence of all the company..
Instantly the castle was rent into two parts
and with the man and the lady and all the
guests who were in it sank to the lowest
depths of the infernal regions. The story
adds that on the spot where the castle had
stood there is now a spacious lake, on
which no substance whatever floats, but
immediately is plunged to the bottom.

105

Vanity.

XII.

No doubt there is a great conceit and
vanity of soul in being unkind. And in-
gratitude, a hideous vice and very hateful
form of unkindness, has the same source,
as in the last chapter I have said, namely,
a vain and puffed-up view of ourselves.
For this, as says Seneca, "makes us think
that we deserve everything, so that we take
a service as if it were our due and never
think ourselves treated well enough."
I heard John Weiss say that by what
rivers you can you may clean out what
Augean stables you may, but no streams
or lavations can wash the virus from the
heart pf a man who conceives other per-
sons made to serve him, and verily allots
himself a claim to every obligingness and
deference from the world, not by reason of
aught good that he has done, but on the
merits of what fine things his fine powers
might do if he pleased.

Plainly a lowly and simple mind count-
ing his own merits modestly and "not
thinking of himself more highly than he
106

Vanity.

ought to think, "will tend to the positive
kindness of good offices, because he will
have so much eye to spare for others and
will see their needs; and to the nega-
tive kindness of doing no unkindness, of
being not morose nor captious nor venge-
ful, because he that lays no mighty claims
not easily will be offended. It is the being
puffed-up and highly vaunting ourselves
that makes us to be jealous and either to
put on haughtiness and sternness or to
retaliate an unkindness with the like of it;
because we have so great an idea of our
merits and of the obliging treatment which
is due to us. It is sad, wanton and hope-
less when for good things done us we
credit not others' goodness, but our own
value. For this reason we are suspicious
of slights, hasty, obstinate, severe and
swift in retaliation. Therefore lack of
kindness, and by much more an unkindness,
whether by itself or in return of an unkind-
ness, is a silly and weak-minded thing to
the eye of reason, like the undraping of a
mis-shapen body with the fond persuasion
that it is beautiful. We show ourselves
then swelling up in spirit, more watchful
of another's slips than of our own, atten-
tive to our virtues, but not to our short-
comings, and ridiculously puffed-up. A
foolish opinion of ourselves is stark blind-
107

Vanity.

ness; also a pitiful feebleness, as if a blind
man should dress himself in scarlet and
yellow and strut for admiration. But what-
ever soul is afflicted by the ills in himself
and wrestles with them in humility of spirit,
like the publican who would not so much
as lift his eyes to heaven, whither then on
the down-striking wings of his eyes his
soul flew, such a one never will be cruel
nor think himself so ill used by the malice
of another as to retort with a like unkind-
ness.

The vanity which is the toughness of
unkindness is the motive of the story of
Drusilla and her daughter Drusillina with
a gallant named Marcellus. The learned
will have it that the tale is but Ceres and
Proserpina meddled with by folk-cronies.
But that weighs not; if it be so, the cronies
have given a good moral to the ancient
myth. Thus it is: Drusilla was born under
a lucky star, and a strange god-mother sud-
denly appeared by the babe's side and
foretold that she should have the power of
changing any person into whatever animal
he most resembled. But Drusilla was
good at heart and used not her terrible
gift. Only once in her life she had been
provoked to it, when a robber had fallen
on her on a lone highway and threatened
both body and purse. Drusilla dipped her
108

Vanity.

hand in a pool and dashed some water in
his face, crying, "Be what you are like."
Instantly he became a cowardly wolf and
slunk away among the bushes. When
Drusillina, who was as good and as like to
her mother as their names were of a piece,
was a fair young woman, she was snatched
up one day and rapt away by a wicked
dwarf who had his abode inside a black
and rocky hill near by; and soon after he
seized and carried off Marcellus in like
manner. Now Marcellus had paid court
to the young girl; but she had not liked
him, and he was angry. When he found
himself with her, prisoned in the hill-gar-
den of the dwarf, he made his court again,
saying that now being companions in mis-
fortune they should comfort each other.
But the weeping girl would have none of
him. "It is bad enough," said she, "to
lose my dear mother whom I love without
taking you whom I love not." With this
Marcellus was still more wroth and indeed
raged in himself vengefully. Now Drusilla
looked for her daughter sorrowfully every-
where and mourned sadly; when suddenly
in this great strait appeared to her the
strange kindly old quean who had stood
uninvited god-mother to her and never
since had been seen. The mystical dame
told Drusilla where her daughter was
109

Vanity.

and gave her a talisman which would open
the hill and oblige the dwarf to set free
Drusillina: but only if in the hill-gardens
she neither had eaten nor drunk anything.
With this charm Drusilla went into the
hill and embraced her daughter and was
about leading her forth from the scowling
dwarf — for Drusillina said she had tasted
neither morsel of food nor drop of drink in
the place — when Marcellus came near and
said: "I saw you under a rose-tree, and
when you reached up your face to smell
of a rose a drop of dew fell from the flower
upon your lip and you drank it." "Ah!
ha!" said the dwarf with a vile leer, "the
pretty weeper will not get out of the hill
yet awhile." "Become what you are like,"
cried the angry mother, dashing some
water into the face of Marcellus. And in-
stantly he became a peacock.

110

Calmness.

XIII.

Calmness, if it be not a base phlegm, is
both a kindness and a means of preventing
unkindness. A vast bulk of unkindness
is done in sudden passion; and a worse
kind, more hurtful, though not so plenti-
ful, is done in obstinate and prolonged
fevers of hatred, which are the most un-
reasonable and inexcusable manner of the
lack of calmness. It is pitiable when one
continually is ambushed by sudden rages
and hot gusts as if a blazing and smoky
wind swept down on him, fogging the eye's
sunlight with the nitre and soot of frowns.
But worse is it, and very bad, blame-
worthy, savage, when the rage lasts, and
even grows day by day. 'Tis then like a
pack of wolves invading a hamlet which a
hurricane has overthrown. Now, by calm-
ness done away, either by a sudden flush
or a settled fever of rage, great unkindness
is heaped up. Sad sufferings, incurable
wounds then are inflicted by comrades,
friends, lovers, on each other. Very bitter
may be the repentance, but ineffectual. It
ill

Calmness.

is well to say over and over, till we learn to
think of it fearfully, that as in the body
£here are small wounds which heal and
leave no memory or mark, and great hurts,
like the severing of a member, which can
not be cured so as to make the body what
it was before, so in the heart there may be
many healings of hurts and even no scars
left, yet with one blow may be given a
wound for which no repentance can bring
balm nor make the heart to arise from it to
be what before it was.

It may help us if in our sane hours we
will reason on this point and throw up as
many as may be of works of meditation
against ambushes and surprises of anger,
simply resolving not to be foolish. It
needs no more than this, that we be not
foolish. For it is plain good sense in
Seneca when he says that "if there were
any reason for beginning to be angry there
could be none for ever ceasing to be," and
that "it is madness to think we can fix an
end to passions which we cannot control
at their beginning."

Also says Seneca: "There is nothing
grand that is not also calm;" which is
much to our purpose now, for calmness, I
say, is a kindness, and kindness is a great-
ness, truly a grandeur, being a species of
love, or an act of it. Calmness is more
112

Calmness.

than a cursory quiet, a lull between up-
roars. It is a quiet like the sea, too deep
to be plowed. In such a peace, meditation
hath a watch-tower, and the mind's eye
sees things as they are. Reason hath its
full headway in this quietness. Kindness
is so reasonable — we need argue no more
than this, that it is reasonable — and an
excellence so natural to thinking beings —
nay, very manifest and abundant in many
gentle creatures among our dumb fellow-
beings, who await the unloosing of their
tongues and with them the unloosing of
their minds unto the general thoughts with
which we have advantage, — that any one
who can think of these things in calmness
and then invent and inflict a hurt, or be
careless whether he do what may hurt,
surely must have his reason only about his
neck as a millstone, or, by another figure,
surely must wear his reason as no better
than a hide of cunning and claws, and be
more cruel than beasts that act from un-
reflecting fury.

A noble calmness, which conveys a re-
proof by a quiet deed, but not in manner,
still less in words, has a mighty power to
form and to convert. For a reproach by
words can not but make some noise, and
reproach by manner may be very irritating
by as much as it is undefined andunanswer-
113

Calmness.

able; but reproof by the right deed, with
calmness, is like a still fair pool and the
offender brought suddenly to see himself
in it and to reflect what manner of man he
appears. I am reminded of a very fine
story of the Cid in illustration; which I
will take from Southey's " Chronicle:"

"Here the history relates that at this
time Martin Pelaez the Asturian came
with a convoy of laden beasts, carrying
provisions to the host of the Cid; and as
he passed near the town the Moors sallied
out in great numbers against him; but he,
though he had few with him, defended
the convoy right well, and did great hurt
to the Moors, slaying many of them, and
drove them into the town. This Martin
Pelaez who is here spoken of, did the Cid
make a right good knight, of a coward, as
ye shall hear. When the Cid first began
to lay siege to the city of Valencia, this
Martin Pelaez came unto him; he was a
knight, a native of Santillana in Asturias,
a hidalgo, great of body and strong of
limb, a well made man and of goodly sem-
blance, but withal a right coward at heart,
which he had shown in many places when
he was among feats of arms. And the Cid
was sorry when he came unto him, though
he would not let him perceive this; for he
knew he was not fit to be of his company.
1U

Calmness.

Howbeit he thought that since he was
come he would make him brave whether
he would or not. And when the Cid began
to war upon the town, and sent parties
against it twice and thrice a day, as ye
have heard,* for the Cid was alway upon
the alert, there was fighting and tourney-
ing every day. One day it fell out that
the Cid and his kinsmen and friends and
vassals were engaged in a great encounter,
and this Martin Pelaez was well armed;
and when he saw that the Moors and
Christians were at it, he fled and betook
himself to his lodging, and there hid him-
self till the Cid returned to dinner. And
the Cid saw what Martin Pelaez did, and
when he had conquered the Moors he re-
turned to his lodging to dinner. Now it
was the custom of the Cid to eat at a high
table, seated on his bench, at the head.
And Don Alvar Fanez, and Pero Ber-
mudez, and other precious knights, ate in
another part, at high tables, full honor-
ably, and none other knights whatsoever
dare take their seats with them, unless they
were such as deserved to be there; and the
others who were not so approved in arms
ate upon estrados, at tables with cushions.
This was the order in the house of the Cid,
and every one knew the place where he
was to sit at meat, and every one strove all
115

Calmness.

he could to gain the honor of sitting to
eat at the table of Don Alvar Fanez and
his companions, by strenuously behaving
himself in all feats of arms; and thus the
honor of the Cid was advanced. This
Martin Pelaez, thinking that none had
seen his badness, washed his hands in turn
with the other knights, and would have
taken his place among them. And the
Cid went unto him, and took him by the
hand and said, you are not such a one as
deserves to sit with these, for they are
worth more than you or than me; but I
will have you- with me; and he seated
him with himself at table. And he, for
lack of understanding, thought that the
Cid did this to honor him above all the
others. On the morrow the Cid and his
company rode towards Valencia, and the
Moors came out to the tourney; and Mar-
tin Pelaez went out well armed, and was
among the foremost who charged the
Moors, and when he was in among them
he turned the reins, and went back to his
lodging; and the Cid took heed to all that
he did, and saw that though he had done
badly he had done better than the first day.
And when the Cid had driven the Moors
into the town he returned to his lodging,
and as he sate down to meat he took this
Martin Pelaez by the hand, and seated
116

Calmness.

him with himself, and bade him eat with
him in the same dish, for he had deserved
more that day than he had the first. And
the knight gave heed to that saying, and
was abashed; howbeit he did as the Cid
commanded him: and after he had dined
he went to his lodging and began to think
upon what the Cid had said unto him, and
perceived that he had seen all the baseness
which he had done; and then he under-
stood that for this cause he would not let
him sit at board with the other knights
who were precious in arms, but had seated
him with himself, more to affront him than
to do him honor, for there were other
knights there better than he, and he did
not show them that honor. Then re-
solved he in his heart to do better than he
had done heretofore. Another day the
Cid and his company and Martin Pelaez
rode toward Valencia, and the Moors came
out to the tourney full resolutely, and Mar-
tin Pelaez was among the first, and
charged them right boldly; and he smote
down and slew presently a good knight,
and he lost there all the bad fear which he
had had, and was that day one of the best
knights there: and as long as the tourney
lasted there he remained, smiting and slay-
ing and overthrowing the Moors, till they
were driven within the gates, in such man-
117

Calmness.

ner that the Moors marveled at him, and
asked where that Devil came from, for they
had never seen him before. And the Cid
was in a place where he could see all that
was going on, and he gave good heed to
him, and had great pleasure in beholding
him, to see how well he had forgotten the
great fear which he was wont to have.
And when the Moors were shut up within
the town, the Cid and all his people re-
turned to their lodging, and Martin Pelaez
full leisurely and quietly went to his lodg-
ing also, like a good knight. And when
it was the hour of eating the Cid waited
for Martin Pelaez, and when he came, and
they had washed, the Cid took him by the
hand and said, My friend, you are not such
a one as deserves to sit with me from
henceforth, but sit you here with Don
Alvar Fanez, and with, these other good
knights, for the good feats which you have
done this day have made you a companion
for them; and from that day forward he
was placed in the company of the good.
And the history saith that from that day
forward this knight Martin Pelaez was a
right good one, and a right valiant, and a
right precious, in all places where he
chanced among feats of arms, and he lived
alway with the Cid, and served him right
well and truly. And the history saith
118

Calmness.

that after the Cid had won the city of Val-
encia, on the day when they conquered
and discomfited the King of Seville, this
Martin Pelaez was so good a one, that set-
ting aside the body of the Cid himself,
there was no such good knight there, nor
one who bore such part, as well in the bat-
tle as in the pursuit. And so great was
the mortality which he made among the
Moors that day, that when he returned
from the business the sleeves of his mail
were clotted with blood, up to the elbow;
insomuch that for what he did that day
his name is written in this history, that it
may never die. And when the Cid saw
him come in that guise, he did him great
honor, such as he never had done to any
knight before that day, and from thence-
forward gave him a place in all his actions
and in all his secrets, and he was his great
friend. In this knight Martin Pelaez was
fulfilled the example which saith that he
who betaketh himself to a good tree hath
good shade, and he who serves a good
Lord winneth good guerdon; for by reason
of the good service which he did the Cid,
he came to such good state that he was
spoken of as ye have heard: for the Cid
knew how to make a good knight, as a
good groom knows how to make a good
horse."

119

Invention.

XIV.

I have bethought me of the little thing,
the little fetch of love, which I will do for
my dear Dozen.

Much have I pondered what little atten-
tion or gift I could bring to pass for her
which should cost no money (of which
fine dross I have none nor can compass
any), but should be concocted of time and
thought. And now I have a fine and sim-
ple invention. I will write her a letter.
Not too long, else she will chide me for
time or mind or rest too much spent; nor
too short; for there must be a duty and a
reverence in it. It shall be of the exact
length to join dear love with good sense.
Blissful thought! I will delight her. In
this early morn now will I write the letter;
for after the morn-meal (the cheerful clat-
ter of her utensils and the trip of her feet
while she prepares the same now pierce
through doors and my ears, straight drop-
ping into my heart like spent arrows into
a pool) I must go to the city to-day and be
gone until night; which rare excursion
120

Invention.

opens a door of opportunity to me. I
will mail my letter early in the city and
it will come back hither to her by the mid-
afternoon. Ah! I think I can see afar
the sparkle of her eye when she shall
read it, not without a watery glimmer, per-
haps,— my dear Dozen — like the winking
gleam of a star, such tenderness lodges in
distance.

What? A shame on my years? A boy's
freak? The idling of a lover who has not
passed the " sighing furnace" and the
"woful ballad made to his mistress' eye-
brow? " Not so. Mix up like with unlike
by error of the eye, and call chalk swan's-
down, if you will, good reader. Not L
No "sighing furnace" would I make of
any love; yet that were better, so only it
would sigh forever, than an ashy heap
where dies a "poor remains" of fire,,
with a small glow in the dark, but more
gray than age if but a beam of light fall
on it. And for being a boy — why, if a
man love like a boy, he loves doubly; for
he must love like a man, being one, and if
then with that he keep his boyhood and
add a boy's loving, he is twice good,
"With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles
come;" ay, and with love's most frisking
mirth! For love and innocence are the
only things that sport truly; and of all
121

Invention.

love's tricks and wiles and plots, not one
jot will I abate till I lay me down in my
white quiet at last.

And as to my years, what has love to do
with time? I have brooded at moments
over the thought that by virtue of the love
of God it is that to him a thousand years
are as a day. For his wisdom we must
conceive perfect, infinite, accomplished
from all eternity; wherefore it has naught
to do with time, neither taking thought of
a day nor of a thousand years nor of ever-
lasting cycles. But his love is nev.er ac-
complished, for it speeds and spreads to
every new creature that comes forth unto
him; wherefore it is busy continually with
time, but in love's mighty fashion. For
love, after a vast period, hath wavered no
more than in a day. And human love
hath so much of Divinity as that it
counts not years nor grows old, and "the
most ancient heavens " are to it as a day.
Go thy way, friend; call not my years
frosty. I tell thee I will have heart-
games and invent love-traps for my sweet
Sister while head and hand keep their
cunning; and when they become stiff in
all else, by use they shall be spry in this,
and I will gladden me in it like any boy.

Now to my letter, for time goes, and I
hear the symphony of the breakfast clatter
122

Invention.

giving forth a certain tinkle or melody
which apprises me it is near done: —

OUR STUDY, June —
My Dear Sister: —

Ah! ha! Say no more that I have not
a fine wit! Confess that I can surprise
thee, my dear! Shall I not send this, my
shadow, back to my gentle Dozen, to
linger my going and to foredate my return?
Ay, verily will I. And I will show thee
that when a shadow is cast by love's light,
it has substance sufficient to knock at the
door, and, after that, at the heart.

Surprises — what mangers of daily affec-
tion they are, where 'gentle herds of joys
feed! 'Tis the short paths of daily life, the
habitudes and recurring hours that make
surprises possible. Long paths, like as if
one go a journey, and be wandering from
place to place over the earth, may be set
thick on every side with wondrous and cu-
rious and strange things; but with surprises,
— no; because where all is new and naught
expected, there is no marking of the unex-
pected. But the daily-trodden paths of
common life give place for sudden turns
or surprises. If, my Dozen, thou take a
flight to some strange place and there
find a fine statue on a pedestal, thou wilt
admire, but not be surprised. For why,
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Invention.

mayhap, should there not be ten statues,
or any things whatsoever? But if thou go
about thy gentle daily walks and pass in
the morning a niche in thy garden which
always thou hast seen empty and this very
morning it is empty and this noon thou
pass again, and lo! a figure, a breathing
marble, then hast thou not only admiration
but a surprise.

Now surprises are love's food and love's
cheers, dearest Marian; and the short
paths of daily life are very precious oppor-
tunities. We have to visit the same places,
see the same persons, return again to the
same abodes, do the same tasks, take
up the same cares,' over and over each
week, every day. Here is room for sur-
prises— blissful room, a many-nooked gar-
den, a court of marble columns with
abundant corners, a chamber of bright
tapestries with plentiful hidings. If any
one of the common things or repetitions
vary a little, lo, a surprise! This is a field
to seed with love's blossoms. Naught is
needed but a little brooding, a bit of in-
vention, a thought, a care. Let one drop
a flower for the other at a corner turned
every morning. At the door to which the
one returns every night, let the other set up
a statue, I mean a bit of help or welcome or
other attention, not there in the morning.
124

Invention.

At bed-time let some little pleasure be
found on the pillow, like a charm thought-
dropt to please Sleep that his angels, good
Dreams, may be let in. At the waking, or
the coming down in the morning, let some
beam of love-light unexpected mingle with
the expected daylight. These are sur-
prises which give health and good pulses
of strength.

So, now, thou good Dozen, thou Sister-
heart of me, confess! Shrive thyself I
Say thou art surprised when the postman
shall deliver thee this epistle! Say that
it flashes a bit in thine eyes, like the sun
which will dazzle thee when thou shalt
open the west door at the carrier's knock!
Own that I have the best of thee ! Verily
I have dug a pit for thee; but I have
poured in a measure of downy words that
it may be soft enough for thee till I re-
turn and pull thee out !

I must tell thee of a sight I had when
early this morning I walked out-doors to
"snuff the morning breeze" and wash my
eyes in the East. I came on a flock of
about twenty small birds, feathered darl-
ings, who seemed to have found some sort
of cold pickings on the grass between the
house and the church, and were very busy
with their pretty bills. I went cautiously
off close to the road-side and passed
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Invention

without causing so much as a flutter of a
wing, or even seeming to attract their at-
tention. "There is a pretty item for Sister
to fall on," said I (having this letter-pit
for thee in mind), and went on happy.
Ah ! little birds, did ye think as ye as-
sembled there that ye had a mission for
me, to put into my heart a pleasant image
for a gentle Sister ? She is ever in my
soul; but did ye know that ye came to ar-
range me for an instant into a special nest
for her and for you (fit company for each
other as ye are, ye birds and thou womanly
spirit), and give me so good a nesting of
joy? I trow not. So serve we each other,
we creatures of one Father,, when we know
it not. I bless you, ye little birds; and
when my Dozen shall read these words,
she will bless you. Ah ! how well did I
owe it to you to walk cautiously by you,
that not a breast or wing of you might be
fluttered !

Well, farewell for a little, my dear. And
look thou, thou rogue of a Dozen — have
me an extra-brown toast at tea-table and
uncork thy most precious marmalade. I
come home in no humor for odds and ends
picked up, nay, but for goodies. There-
fore look to thy toast and the rest of it.
But chiefly see to thyself. Have on thy
pink ribbon. Come not near me with
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Invention.

toast without thy pink ribbon. See that
thou look thy prettiest. Meet me at the
door. Fail not. Beware. .

Thy admirable

BROTHER.

So. Now when I go forth I will toss my
letter in the air like a dove. It will fly to
its cote, by that kindliest of all human in-
ventions, that straight air-path and light-
path, the postal service. But, sooth, the
dove's breast burns on my palm with some
sad moralizings of love. For with gray
hairs I find the sadness of age is its emin-
ence to behold the mistakes of the young.
I see young" lovers marry and build their
argosies of sun-beams and go sailing forth.
But they have not thought how to keep
their love; no, but rather they think they
will be kept by the love. Sad, plaintive
error ! Strange and sad it seems that
youth is the season of so bright love, when
indeed it must set forth — there is no other
way — and yet love is so great a thing that
only age hath learned the secret and trick
of it, how to keep it.

But how may love be kept ? This is to
be done by not trusting to the love to take
care of the consorting, but by using the con-
sorting to take care of the love. This is the
secret of joy; "the straight and narrow
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Invention.

way," and many there be who find it not.
The lovers say in their hearts: "Now
we are safe; the reefs are passed; we love,
we are married; all is done; our joy is
made; love takes care of that; we will ride
at rest in the harbor." Sadness, say I,
sadness, sadness, naught but sadness.
Love is that very thing which must be
taken care of. Nay, it will not grow with-
out exceeding care. Naught but a weed
will come to fruit without looking after.
'Tis the very notion of a tare that it thrives
on neglect. Weeds, it is said, poetically,
are plants whose uses we know not yet.
Ah! but let a use be known, instantly we
need to improve the wild herb. Then
there is a tussle with it, and no longer it
is a weed. What if one set out a rare rose
in a bed and say, "Grow now," but tend
it not, shade it not, nor water it, nor dig
about it ? Will it come to flower ? Yet
so the thoughtless young plant love in
marriage, saying, "Bloom now," and go
about their business; and their Plant of
Paradise dries and is eaten of worms.
'Tis done before they know it. Belike
some day they bethink them of the rose-
tree and go to it fora flower, but find none.
Therefore, trust not to the love for the
marriage. 'Tis the business of the mar-
riage to till the love. Now, what other
128

Invention.

way of nursing aught is there but by fore-
thought and invention ? They must
scheme for it and wax ingenious for it. Let
the wife consider at morning, "What
can I devise whereby to send off my hus-
band this day with a bit of attention which
shall cling to his heart till he come back to
me?" Let the husband plot at evening,
"What can I invent now whereby to
bring home not only myself to my wife,
but good proof that I have had thoughts of
her in my busy cares ?" There wilfr lack
no genius for the invention if there be but
thought of the need of it.

Two stories have I which put love's
carefulness of itself, like a good body's
clean hygiene, in a brief and amiable way.
A poor man was to wed a very rich lady.
A friend bewailed with him, foreboding:
"She has everything she can wish," said
the friend, "and is not likely to set much
preciousness on more." "But," said the
man, "do you reckon me at no more than
her stuffs? Each bit of her furniture has
but one service; it is a stock, with that one
office and no more. But I, who am a
mind, can invent. I will devise gentle
deeds more than the day has hours, and
more expressions than I shall have meet-
ings with her." The other story is of a
wife who would not go to a merry supper,
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Invention.

wherein she had good company and much
reason and right to have part, but still
she would not, because her husband had
affairs to keep him at home. "But he will
not sup alone," cried her friends; "there
are others in the house and at the table.
Well enough for once he can do without
you." "But," said the wife, with a sweet
flush, "I wish him not to discover that he
can do without me."

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Happiness.

XV.

Fun was my Dozen's postman — our
dog. The little creature was a stray
being, a waif. Marian found her one cold
morning last winter shivering and sleep-
ing at once in the small shelter of an up-
turned box in a corner of the garden. She
was very dirty and very suspicious, yet
from a distance gave signs of a piteous
friendship which agitated all her little body
wonderfully. As Caesar said, "I rather
tell thee what is to be feared than what I
fear, for always I am Caesar," so con-
versely the sad and willing little being by
every quaver of her frame seemed to say,
"You see how foolish and how fond I am,
but rather I tell you what is to be hoped
than what I hope, for I mind me of all the
kicks and harsh words I have had." It
was only after much kind and delicately-
mannered feeding for some days that she
consented to be touched, and then after a
little very shyly entered the house. At
that point my Sister judged it well to use
some gentle compulsion for the little
131

Happiness.

creature's better comfort and conversion;
she promptly seized the dog and plunged
her into a delicious warm bath. There
was much trembling but no resistance
while the balmy soap was spread, rubbed
to a lather and gotten into the matted
meshes by the fingers of my Sister, who
talked and cooed the while without ceas-
ing to the sensitive little being. When
she came from the bath her long hair was
of a lustrous pearl, her skin a blush of
pink, and the spherical brown of her eyes
from the misty locks that hung about them
showed a very soft gleam and pathos.
From that instant she was one of us, and
her ecstasy of refreshment both mental
and physical was more than she could ex-
press by the most wonderful agitations of
her little frame. Soon she considered us
;so much her own as to be under her care;
-.she must keep a watch for trespassers.
Her bark and growl have a humor, they
are so big and opinionated from so small a
source. She is a doughty little being, a
tender friend, but not obsequious.

Well, this Fun I say (my Dozen named
her Fun) was made my Sister's postman in
answering my letter. When I arrived at
home last evening, methought I could
snuff, or rather feel pervading me as if in
a warm perfume, a somewhat uncommon
132

Happiness.

in the house and around my Sister, a man-
ner of pulsation, a certain light; but not a
word said she, nor could I gather any sign
save that she wore the pink ribbon and the
toast and marmalade were duly on the
table. She preserved a sweet ease, with
now and then a frank look at me, which I
found exceeding charming and vexatious.
For, look you, I had made up my mouth
for much rapture over my fine letter and to
be greatly bepraised and hung upon.

But I observed that after our evening
meal my Dozen took possession of me.
Commonly she is very respectful in that
point. She waits at a loving distance,
with a reverence, to learn whether I will
enter the study and sit me to write; and if
so I do, a sweet cool stillness falls on the
house, and after a little — for she knows
she is to me at such times like a breeze of
clover coming in at a window, bathing but
not interrupting my solitude — she will come
in with a spiritual footfall with which "Si-
lence is pleased." And if I write late,
much absorbed, anon she will come to me,
bestow a kiss, murmur a good-night and be
gone, all so soft as would not distract an
angel intent on catching a new melody
from a strange conjunction of stars in "the
music of the spheres."

O beautiful respect! O fair and delicate
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Happiness.

carefulness! Thou high reverence, which
movest with scruples and puttest off thy
shoes in presence of the things of mind
in the chambers of thought! What help
cometh from thee, what quickening of
powers, what freshening of vision, what
rejoicing of labor! Truly not only he
writeth who hath the pen in his hand, but
she as much, or more, who holds the hand
in her hand. What words can tell how
much my Sister composes what I write
because she composes me! I breathe of
her, as of the air, and what were the body
without the air in the blood? She is the
fuel in my heart, and what have I in head
which comes not from heart? To be so
encompassed with respect, as with an
illumined air, to behold always that I am
deemed worth guarding and helping — yet
not so much I as the things of thought —
to be nourished at need with a sacred
silence full of love, such as a worshiper
takes with him into a church, how can I
describe what a fountain this is to dip a
pen into! Gentle and dear Marian, thou
mindest me of some truthful words of
D'Israeli: "A woman friend," says he,
"amiable, clever and devoted, is a pos-
session more valuable than parks and pal-
aces; and without such a muse, few men
can succeed in life, none be contented."
134

Happiness.

When my Sister shall review these pages,
belike I shall have a struggle with her;
nay, I know that I shall. But let her be
advised; she shall not spoil my book by
taking herself out of it. But belike she
will be more appeased if also by another
woman I give example of these nursing
and brooding graces, these tender rever-
ences and spirit-bred considerations where-
with Marian brings the power of me to its
best and makes it joy. I mind me well
and happily of my Sister's delight in this
* woman and praise of her; nay, Marian
allowed herself even some strong words
about the crimes of women who spoil
thoughts and crush visions, and "no
woman," said she, "is love-fit to cook or
housekeep for a man's body who reveres
not her offices to his business or his art."

"And would you say not the same of a
man's offices to a woman?" said Sidney
Morse, who was present at the time.
"Assuredly," said Marian, "I draw no
unnatural lines; I say only that whosoever
respects not another's gifts of mind, and
makes not way for them reverently, is no
lover."

These words befell by reason of a report

which Sidney had been giving us of the

words spoken to him by one of our elder

poets, of the precious ministries and ven-

135

Happiness.

erations of the poet's wife. "She is a
fount of inspiration just by her reverent
care, " said the poet. "Often, " said he, "I
have sat at my table a long forenoon vainly
gazing after a fancy that flitted like a song-
bird about me but would not be seized;
and so, I being just on the verge of
obtaining the coy sprite of thought, has
come the hour of the midday meal. But
there was no piercing clang of a bell
allowed, and no rude bursting into my
study nor breaking of my quiet, to drive
away, belike forever, the fair image I '
just was coaxing near; not any such
thing, but a slow opening of my door and
my wife's — never any other — pretty head
softly looking in, and a contented smile,
and a voice like a love-silence, saying,
' Dear, it is the hour, but there is not the
least need of your coming if you are too
sacredly busy.' And I tell you, friend
Sidney," said he, "that the best things
that ever I have done with my pen have
been written after such a reverence from
my wife. It was as if she poured her
religious mind before me, and said, < Dip
your pen therein/ and I did so."

Such-like is my Sister, — the fine rever-
ence of her perfect love is "daily bread "
on which feeds the Hope of my dreams.
But last evening, as I have said, she kept
136

Happiness.

not her wonted loving distance, her rever-
ent waiting, but took possession of me.
Soon then we were seated in the little
porch in the last tenderness of the twilight,
my Sister on a little low chair to which she
has taken liking since she acquired her gui-
tar music. My thoughts were reverting:
to some work I had in hand and had
looked to continue in the evening, when I
was recalled by my Sister's hand gently
pressed into mine. Looking down on her
face, I saw instantly that her heart was
quite full, and even the mist of a tear in
her eye. Thereupon I clasped her hand
closely; but said lightly, " What is the
matter with thee? Art glad or sad?"

"Both," said she.

" Thou'rt always full of thy paradoxes, "
said I. "Come, account for thyselL
Open thy fine reason and show me how
thou art glad and sad at once."

"Why, thousee'st, Brother, I found some
time to-day to sit me at thy table to read a
bit, — which was ' good, very good, very
excellent good; ' but there I found a song;
written by thee, — which was ill, very ill,,
very excellent ill."

"What, the song?"

" No, but the finding of it."

" Why then lose it again/ where it was,,
and all is mended."

137

Happiness.

"It was a song to thy Sister, dear;"—
there was just the faintest unwontedness
in the voice which might betoken a hurt
feeling. I laid my other hand on that
dear head.

But I said lightly, "Ah! yes, I remem-
ber. A little thing."

"Thou should'st have given it to me,
Brother. "

"Why, troth, I set it aside to cool, that
then I might judge whether it had good
flavor enough to offer thee."

"What is the matter with thee?" cried
:my Dozen, raising her head. " I have told
thee over and over thou art not fit to judge
thine own things. Belike thou wilt have
me din that at thee every morning and
inquire of thy obedience every night."

"Ah!"

"'Tis so. Is it not enough for thee to
write, but thou must make shift to judge
too? I tell thee again, I will do the judg-
ing, and the instant a song has fled thy
pen, it is to nest in my mind. It is not to
^wing-weary itself in a void, like the dove
out of the ark, which could find no place
for the sole of its foot. Dost think I am
no better than a waste of waters? "

"Ah!"

"Besides," continued my Dozen, "if it
l)e a song to me (and methinks it is an un-
138

Happiness.

pardonable long time since thou hast writ
me a song), then the more I am to have it
instantly, good or ill. If it be as homely
as Audrey, it is ' a poor thing, Sir, but
mine own.' "

"Come," said I, — "for truly I have for-
gotten that song — read it me, if the twilight
will serve yet, thatr-I may know what color
it hath when washed in thy voice."

" I will do better," said Marian blithely,
"I will sing it thee. Thou canst not con-
ceive my delight when I found it, Brother,
except for my displeasure aforesaid. When
I had read it over many times, and ex-
amined its beauties of form in the way thou
hast taught me, suddenly came to mind
with it a German folk-melody which we
like," — <Wenn ich die Blumlein schau,'
thou knowest — and when I had tried them
together, lo! a wonderful fitness, as if they
had come to earth involved in each other.
I think the music floated back of thee
while thou wast writing the delicate words
to thy Sister. The song-tones were the
shifty sprites which shoveled thy song-
words, as fast as they came forth, into a
tempo; and they showed good taste, the
fine pixies, in seizing thy song to them-
selves. Thou shalt hear! "

At this my Dozen fetched her guitar, and
on the low chair again, tuned the tender in-
139

Happiness.

strument. Her tuning always is delicious
to me, it is so deft, and the straying sounds
are like the murmurs of falling waters.
When all was in accord, she wove aeolian
sounds absently a few moments, ceased
slowly as a zephyr expends, her hands fell,
clasped across the strings, she leaned
slightly on one elbow, and gazed off. I
looked at her, stilly and reverently, ad-
miring her delicate beauty, observing the
genius-line of the perfect recurve of her
brow, feeling the spiritual space about
her, loving her adoringly, wondering what
visions were ministering to her, what her
sweet being was, what -a woman is, what
I was, what any man is, yea, or any
creature. I have seen persons look out
over the sea as my Sister then was looking,
— over the sea, drawing from it into their
eyes a look of the infinite. The ocean
sometimes will give to any one such eyes
as the child in the Sistine Madonna has.

My Sister from her gaze turned to me
with a smile which was like the twilight
suddenly perceived to be a mystery of love,
laid down her instrument, arose and looked
on me, laid her hand on my head, so stood
a few moments, looking on me, and then
off and then back to me. At last look-
ing long on me, "Ah! my Brother," said
she, gave me on my forehead a kiss which
140

Happiness.

was like the evening light made tangible
an instant, and then on her low chair again
enfolded her guitar.

" The horizon caught me and suddenly
floated me, Brother," said Marian. " Yon-
der paling green-gold suddenly spread
forth to me till it seemed to meet my eyes
and go all around me and behind, and I
was afloat on an unmoving sea, opal,
virescent, aureate, from my eyes to infinity.
But now I will sing thee."

The song was what I had written the
morning after Marian had made me ac-
quainted with her guitar and first had sung
for me to its half-spiritual sounds. I had
named my verse

SISTER AND SONG.

I said, " I pray thee, O Song,

Come hither and sing to me;
Sing me a lay as sweet and strong

As in heart can be."

Said Song, ' ' Why should I sing,

And why call'st thou to me?
That tell me, before I will bring

Music to thee."

"For her, the dear, the sweet,

I wish thee to sing, O Song,
That I may drop at her gentle feet

Lays sweet and long."

Happiness.

Said Song, ' ' O not for her

Can I give music to thee;
If but her gentle breath she stir,

She sings to me."

Said Song, " Not for her ear

Music can I confer;
If she but speak, 'tis I must hear,

And listen to her."

This my Sister sang to a tune lovely and
simple, one of those strangely perfect folk-
melodies which spring in the soil of a
musical people, often with no name, no
composer to be found, belike not made at
once, but stripped bit by bit from some
cumbrous but finely-souled form, to a com-
plete lithe grace which could not spare
another film nor bear another hair's weight,
full of the fire of genius and tender feeling.

With the ceasing of the song, my Dozen
laid the guitar tenderly within the door-
way. She always treated her instrument
like a living thing. Then on my knee
she laid her hand, which again I cov-
ered with mine, and on that as before she
laid her face and looked out on the even-
ing. Day had contracted to a narrow
band at the horizon. The fancy came to
me that it was Light's gold ring on the
finger of Night, who was a bride drawing
the curtains of their windows. Soon she
would be mother of stars.
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Happiness.

Marian was content with a long silence;,
but at last —

"Well?" said she.

11 Thy music, dear Dozen," said I, "so
hath mixed with the hour and place, with
yonder zephyr in the bushes, and with
my spirit, that it hath made all one, and
seems not to have ceased but to be fixed.
Canst not hear it, dear, as a painter steps
away a little to view what he has done? "

,"It is no wonder," said Marian, "if the
song has melted all things to one, since
the words and music of it make such a
wedding. Is it not perfect? "

1 'Truly thou hast made my song with
thy music," said I, "as one makes a gem
who turns the light on it, or as the eye
does so with the printed page; for the gem,
and the paper and ink, are but dead in
themselves."

"No," said Marian, "the gem and the
page have a living soul; else nor light nor
eye would do aught. Thy song is a deli-
cate, sweet fancy in itself, with words and
rhythm fit for it, and dear to thy Sister's
heart. But the words and the melodyr
Brother, do they not join wonderfully?"

"It is indeed a lovely unity, my Dozen,""
said I. " Thy fine sense caught at a true
likeness of soul when that melody was
called up in thee."

143

Happiness.

"Thou phrasest it well, Brother, — alike-
ness of soul. And what a mystery is the
soul of a melody! I know no more of it
than one little negative, that it does not lie
in the metre; for often I have noted that
one may take a very perfect, beautiful lyric,
and a very perfect, sweet melody of the
self-same metre and movement, put them
together, and lo! nothing but an ugliness.
Each one wholly undoes the beauty of the
other."

" The metre and time may be called the
/fM^nralities of the songs, both the song
verbal and the song musical," said I.
"Now, not of anything nor of any person
lies the soul in the temporalities."

"Ha! a conceit with a real thought in
it," said Marian. "It is a mystery. — I
^wonder . "

"Thou wonderest," said I, after a si-
lence.

"Why, yes," said she, "I was wonder-
ing whether it may not be with persons
as with poem and melody, that two very
fine spirits may spoil each other. Me-
thinks I have observed somewhat the like
of this — two persons each with a beauty
and fine value, but they could not be so
much as in the same room without an ugly
confusion. They have a fatal readiness
for mingling, which is like the one metre
144

Happiness.

in the poem and the music, but they only
distort each other."

" True," said I, "and that shows it is
not easy always to know wherein the
temporalities consist which make possible
a mixture but not a oneness. 'Tis not
merely in outward trappings. The metre,
though a temporality, is yet a very part of
that verse and of that melody."

"Yes," said Marian; "it is a mystery."

" One thing I have not said which ought
to be said, dear," said I, "which is that
thy singing was very beautiful. Thou
didst sing with a rare delightful expression
as well as truth, and thy voice seemed to
me like to this scene around us, a beauty
which hath this house and home in the
midst of it."

Suddenly a gold glint shot through the
foliage and fell quivering in the porch.

" Diana's arrow," cried my Sister.
"The late moon, Brother. Let us say
good-night. But first let us sing that
tender little night prayer thou didst English
long ago, Milde bin ich> ge/i1 zur ruh\ 'Tis
long since we sang it, even many months.
Then we had only our voices, now the
voices of the strings too."

So, to the guitar's music we sang the
sincere, religious little folk-melody:

H5

Happiness.

Weary am I, go to rest;
My two eyes with sleep are pressed.
Let thine eyes, my Father, be
On my bed and over me.

All to me who precious stand,
Lord, let rest within thy hand.
All men, great and small, shall be
Safe enfolded, kept by thee.

Send to grieving hearts repose,
Weeping eyes in slumber close;
In thy heaven delay the moon,
The still earth to look upon.

Then, "Good-night, dear Dozen," said
I, and quoted, "Sleep give thee all his
rest."

"With half that wish the wisher's eyes
be pressed," quoted she, gaily and affec-
tionately.

The evening had been so delightful that
wholly I had forgotten my letter. But as
I lay my head on my pillow it recurred to
me. What could mean Dozen's silence
about it? Had she not received it per-
haps? But yes, the pink ribbon, the toast
and marmalade had appeared duly. Those
could not be chance haps. Much puzzled,
I fell asleep. But I was awaked this
morning with a doing away of the mystery.
I was aroused by a leap on my bed and
the cool nose of our little Fun thrust into
my face. Hanging about her neck by a
146

Happiness.

pink ribbon was a letter, my Sister's letter
in answer to mine of yesterday. As I
said in the beginning of this chapter,
Fun was my Dozen's chosen postman.
Ah! the wiles of my Dozen, her inven-
tions, her freaks, her changes, her frolics,
her soberness — at one time as still as the
deep sea, as votive as an altar, as serious
as the sky, at an other time as babbling
and freakish as a "bickering brook."
What say you, reader? — "You see nothing
in the device? It was foolish, forsooth
inane, a silly-girlish thing, to send the
letter by the dog? " Well, I pray thee let
be my Dozen's follies. I like them. I
would not have her cured — no more than
Orlando would be cured because "Mon-
sieur Melancholy" liked not his doings.
When Jacques disparaged him for marring
the trees with his verses, Orlando bade
him mar no more of his verses by reading
them ill-favoredly. Read not you my Sis-
ter's whimseys ill-favoredly. Without
doubt you can mend many things in the
world, good reader, and chiefly yourself;
but not my Dozen.

Soon I was ready to sit at open window
with the letter, mingling the reading of it
with the freshness of the morning and a
delicious composition of odors from patches
of earth newly worked, from a flower gar-
147

Happiness.

den, a trellis of yellow roses, a clump of
arbor-vitae, and the fine grass of a neigh-
boring lawn mown the day before. Here
is the letter:

OUR STUDY, June —
Good morning, thou Brother mine. As
thou didst surprise me yesterday with an
early-eve letter to forerun thy return from
the city, I have arisen early to open thy
day with a letter. 'Tis a rarely beautiful
morn. The air is full of the stir and fra-
grance of green things growing, and the
cheery little birds are sounding their
joy-notes. Mayhap they are the very
"feathered darlings" of which thou didst
write so gently in thy surprise-letter yester-
.day. Yes, I do own to being surprised.
,At first I thought it but a business note,
.about something forgotten, or the like; but
-soon I knew my mistake. Deeply moved
was I by thy letter, my Brother, and by thy
thought to write it. It brought memories
of our parted years. Dost remember that
then thou didst write me every day?
Never didst thou fail, but sometimes sur-
prise me with two letters. They were my
wells of joy in a desert land, reached by a
day's journey. But I will not talk of the
past, but of the bright and happy present.
And yet, Brother, happy as it is to live
148

Happiness,

together, there was some loss when thy
letters ceased.

Our neighbor, Mrs. Rivers, came in,
just as I had finished reading thy letter,
and I showed it to her, — being very proud,
thou knowest, of a certain Brother of mine.
She praised it to my content and said a
kind word of thy thoughtfulness in writing
the letter. Mayhap I will tell thee what
she said when thou shalt come to breakfast,
if thou wilt coax me to do so.

Dost remember the gentle girl who
passes by every day, the one who dresses
so shabbily that even thou hast noticed it?
Well, I learned, from our neighbor, that
she has been supporting a brother through
an art school on her pay as a teacher.
Just think what privations she must suffer
for her brother's sake. Yet our neighbor,
who knows her well, says that she is one
of the cheeriest of bodies, always ready to
"lend a hand," and, though she loves
beautiful things and would fain have them,
never impatient because of her privations
or apparently conscious that she is doing
aught noteworthy.

Thou must know our neighbor better,
Brother, for she is a delightful companion
and hath a mind stored with fair thoughts.
She told .me of another of her "mind-
pictures," as she names them. It was of a
149

Happiness.

gentle brown-eyed girl who is alone in the
city with her father, and as she is em-
ployed during the day and he during the
night, they see each other but once a
week, on Sunday. But each night she
writes to him, telling of all that has hap-
pened to her during the day. Does not
that bring a fair picture to thy mind?

Because of my early rising breakfast is
nearly ready, and I bid thee hasten down;
else will the cocoa be cold and I shall greet
thee crossly. Have I not heard thee talk
wisely of the beauty of starting on the day
aright? Make it possible for thy Sister by
coming quickly. I expect thee to praise
me exceedingly for being able to keep these
bits of nothings over night, and in return
mayhap I will talk of thy surprise-letter.
Bring Fun down with thee. I warrant she
will curl up on the white counterpane.

DOZEN.

Ah! the immensity of the value of per-
sons to each other, and of kind deeds and
affectionate inventions between them, for
the making of happiness! A common
thought, very common. Who will gainsay
it? Who will not hasten to say it is so,
and then mayhap think he has said naught
to much purpose, because "it goes with-
out saying? " But to confess a fact of na-
150

Happiness.

ture, as one may admit a fine picture to be
hanging on the wall, may be far from hav-
ing a feast of soul, but rather like a smack
of cold victuals of knowledge, very far
from a deep understanding and heart-feel-
ing of the meaning and power of the fact
like as when the eye clings to the picture
intelligently, ravished with its beauty. So
one may confess, without feeling, the in-
estimable value of kindness and loving in-
vention for bringing happiness to pass.
Belike we shall feel the truth keenly if we
consider how dreadful this earth would be,
with all its beauty, if one were alone in it.
The sun might be fresh and young,
beaming on hills and vales radiant, dewy,
filled with innumerable colors and odors of
fruits and flowers, washed by pellucid
brooks like air. Yet a man doomed to live
alone therein hardly could keep a sane eye
to know the beauty; nay, belike he would
be like a maniac fleeing from his own
fancies. And how he would run to the
gentler creatures among the beasts if he
should happen on such, how he would
clasp them about the neck and gaze in
their eyes with rapture, invite their voices
and immerse him in the sounds, though
inarticulate, coming from living throats,
from sensitive creatures. Solitude is so
dreadful that it is thought tc add much to
151

Happiness.

a prison-sentence of many years if even
one day of solitary confinement be added.
Consider, therefore, that though such utter
loneliness would be very terrible, still it
were better than a cruel companion, better
than a being like to us, who therefore
might be a fellow in joys and thoughts, but
should spurn us unkindly, fence himself to
live apart morosely, or hurt us treacher-
ously. By such thoughts we so may clear
the mind, wiping from its true surface the
dust of custom, that kindness will be im-
aged therein brightly, and we shall see
vividly what a source of happiness affec-
tionate fellowship is. Surely we shall feel
strongly the immensity of the value of per-
sons to each other if they be very kind and
given to affectionate invention. In re-
newed eyes and ears thereupon, such music
and light will be apprehended, that all
voices will be sweeter with influence and
all eyes splendid with reflection. The air
of that quality of love will fill houses as the
sea fills a shell and feeds the creature in it.
And it is past computing what sum of hu-
man joys will be created, or what beauty a
warm happiness will make grow in the
human face — with invention.

152

Encouragement.

XVI.

Well I remember a letter from my Sister
which greatly heartened me both by its.
love and wisdom, and by a word of re-
proach for a weakness in me which I had
discovered to her. I was absent from that
most precious friend of my spirit for three
years in a far place (Ah ! a long and
lonely time it was!) where I had hard
duties and heart-sickness, with sad short-
coming of sound plans — so they seemed —
and sore anxieties about my Dozen who
was toiling beyond her strength and alone
at her place; for it was before we had be-
come able to make this town-cottage home
for ourselves — ever blessed be it! I wrote
my Sister a plaintive letter in which I let
slip an indication that I had turned on my-
self a small rill of pitying concern from a
kind person whom I encountered. This,
she liked not. It has been a trait of Mar-
ian always that she is averse to commiser-
ation, and indeed by no means can bear it.
For, says she, "to pity myself were the
most pitiable thing that could befall me.
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Encouragement.

How then can I permit from another what
even from my own soul to me is too dis-
respectful?" This was the occasion of a
letter from her which was full of good
meat done up with love, but not a word
said she of my atony, until the last sen-
tence. Thus she ended: " Finally, Bro-
ther, cheer thee! take heart! be of good
courage! and above all, wear a brave face.
The world loves courage, Brother, and it
is noble." Ah! triple steel around me and
a Damascus blade in my hand did those
words arm me withal! And a force of
heart, without which breast-plates and
swords are baggage! And some shame!
Yea, verily; but only as salt to joy. For
Avhat joy have I on earth like to my rever-
ence for my Sister and the beholding her
grand?

The worth of encouragement is very
great. Kindness has a very far-going
iorce in it by the virtue and wings of en-
couragement. For courage is the force
with which we begin a work, and it is
little like that we shall grow in power if
we begin faintly. For difficulties, in any
-endeavor, are as certain as drops in a rain
or gusts in a wind, and commonly they
cluster and jostle at the beginning while
the hopes wait modestly behind. If there-
iore we begin timorously and with boding
154

Encouragement.

heart, the first two or three of the difficul-
ties will trip us up before a hope can get
us by the hand. Whatsoever we have to
do and howsoever we be faithful in the
study of it and be full up in skill, yet if we
go to it shaking and with faint heart, we
can not do what we can do, but gasp and
tremble, by the vicious fingers of our terrors
clutching the throat of our skill. This we
may see when the diffident present them-
selves to speak or sing or make an instru-
ment of music discourse,

' ' Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practiced accents in their fears,
And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off."

Qualification will help, 'tis true, to give
bottom and firmness, but if these be cut
from under by a shrinking and apprehen-
sive spirit, down topples the mastership
with it. Wherefore who has not seen the
bold go farther with small parts or little
proficiency than the misgiving can attain
with much faculty and sound instruction?

Therefore Kindness which applies it-
self to encouragement may have a vast
force of service for any one; for " courage
can erect our powers as much as faint heart
or fear cast them down."

Courage is heart-age, if the first syllable
of it come of the Latin cor, as through the
155

Encouragement.

French it seems. To encourage, there-
fore, which is to put courage in, is to pour
of our own full heart into another's lacking
one, like that transfusion of blood from the
full veins of a strong body to the fluttering
and empty pulse of one who has lost much
of the vital fluid or has had it turn
watery and thin. For then by uniting the
two bodies by some vessels, the strong
blood flows from the full heart into the
fainting channels and revives the pale
frame with flush and force*. So is it when
of the abundance of a strong spirit a con-
tact by love is made with a fainting soul
and courage poured in.

It is a virtue of encouragement, and a
great force or value of kindness therein, that
it comes to us, very like, when the sight
greatly is perplexed or obscured and we
see not the way. On all sides are many
ways, and perforce we must walk in one;
yet all set out dimly and vanish soon in
darkness. 'Tis then that a great blessing
of hope may be raised in us by the kind-
ness of a warm encouragement. Nay, the
more dim and cloudy the affairs, the more
may hope expand, as then the more it is
needful, if kindness give a light of encour-
agement; for they who now have little
substance and least can augur the future,
may hope the most, and "hope never
156

Encouragement.

spreads her golden wings but on unfath-
omable seas." In this saying Emerson is
like Paul, who says, "Hope that is seen
is not hope; for who hopeth for that which
he seeth? " Therefore it is in the low and
dim places of experience that hope can be
bred and trained up by encouragement.
The kindness that pours in the courage
gives us credit to "borrow of the future,"
which is a wholesome debt, without usury;
for when the future is come it is ours, and
we inherit the debt with its increase.

Now, kindness always has power to
give encouragement. This is not a hard
thing. A bit of good reason, a scrap of
cheery wisdom, nay, a word, nay, a look,
a smile, an eye of love and sympathy, may
go far. If any one have taken a fall, there
is one good thing which always we may
say to him, with loving kindness, to wit,
" One failure is not final." No, nor many.
Wherefore if there have been many falls,
we may change the phrase to this, "No
failure should be the last effort." It may
not be amiss to bring forward the homely
proverb, "He who gets up every time he
falls, sometime will get up to remain
standing."

So may kindness speak; and more, with
but exclamations, inspiriting, martial, as
"Up! " " Cheer thee! " "Hearten thee! "
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Encouragement.

"Give me thy hand!" and such like —
words without discourse or reasoning,
but swift, and like arrows not aimed but
shot at random, sure to hit if they come
thick enough, or as one in a rain is wetted
though no drop be launched at him. It is
a very beautiful encouraging in this kind
which Orlando gives old Adam. The old
man " can go no further," but " here must
lie down and measure out his grave.'*
"Why, how now, Adam!" cries Orlando,
"no greater heart in thee? Live a little;.
Comfort a little; cheer thyself a little. * *
Thy conceit is nearer death than thy
powers. For my sake be comfortable;
hold death awhile at the arm's length. * * *
Well said! thou look'st cheerly. * *
Cheerly, good Adam! " Thus may kind-
ness discourse heart in words and beam in
them with life, like the coming of morning
in a sick-room.

A great and good manner of encourage-
ment is praising. To praise is the oppo-
site of cheering one up. The one com-
forts in failure; the other rewards in suc-
cess. The one inspirits for a new endeavor
to do something; the other increases de-
light to go on to do more. The one en-
kindles again a flickering spirit; the other
pours sweet oil on a fire already flaming.
But now, praising is a kindness both very
158

Encouragement.

great and very needful. It gives a very rich
and just delight. To a noble spirit, it is
true, the great rewar<4 of doing is the doing
and the prospect from the height thereof.
This is a heroic peak; but unless there be
a beloved heart with good gratulation and
approval for us, 'tis a cold peak, and praise
is needful. For one works at advantage if
one receive good meed, but at odds if
labor yield no fruit of human approval;
and this is no weakness, but rather the dis-
covery of a heart in us. We must preach
faithfulness and devotion for themselves,
whatever come of them, and say they are
heroic, religious; and so they are. Yet
will I say too that it is a sad and bitter
loneliness to go on with faithful labors and
hidden good achievements with never an
eye taking note of them and never a tone
of love delighting in them and praising
us. Nor know I aught more churlish,
yea, or more, thievish, than so to walk
by a comrade's side, inconversable, un-
praiseful of good things done or sweet
virtues maintained. It is a very unloving
lack of kindness, by as much as praise
is both a sweet joy, even unto tears
sometimes, and a good girding. At this
moment, as I write, I mind me of a man
who fell to scoffing at the heaven of
heavens as in the gospel it is promised^
159

Encouragement.

for, said he, "I see no real and good joy
promised, but only feasts and crowns and
pleasures and ease; which are base tinsel."
"Yet," said one who listened to him,
"there is a passage wherein is described a
very great joy, a most worthy and deep rec-
ompense, enough for heaven;" and then
told him to read the first twelve words of
Matthew xxv, 21, and he should find that
wonderful great guerdon. Then the man
looked into that place in the book and
iound these words, "His Lord said unto
him, Well done, thou good and faithful
servant." Take heed of this, ye who be
near to each other; for in what way more
than in this way can ye be God's husband-
men unto others, being as Paul names you,
•" God's husbandry" yourselves? Praise
each other in truth and love, and admire
one another, and give it tongue, ye friends,
ye brothers and sisters. Ye husbands,
praise your wives; ye wives, praise your
husbands. And this is a mating that ye
can do on the wing, like birds, and a
syllable is great discourse. It is one of
the joys of love that the vocabulary of
praise is increased by it; for large measures
of praise, and the joy of it, may go in a
look, a touch, and that, too, with the
greatest privacy in large companies.

Encouragement, whether by a cheering
160

Encouragement.

up if we faint or fall or struggle, or by
praise if we run well, is a delicate need to
every one. Some need it more, some less,
but there is no one who has no need of it,
and all are the better for it. Yet the need
is a hidden thing, like love's ache; and so
must it be; for no one can go about saying,
"Encourage me." You may go into any
company, reader, where souls are fainting
and gasping and sickening for medicinable
esteem or encouragement, and you will not
know them. Nay, they will laugh into
your eyes and be more modest to the quick
to cover their souls with smiles than their
bodies with garments. There is no as-
sembly but is a stalking place of vast needs
behind faces; nor can you tell who needs
encouragement the most, or when. Here-
in is a great office laid on kindness, to con-
sider and to watch, to look on others at-
tentively and with a certain awe, as one
peers into deep water. But if you can not
discern the famishing, this is certain the
while, that all ought to be fed at due
seasons and plentifully, nor can you tell
how far the word of encouragement, nay,
but the tone of love, will go with any one,
or work what wonders. Even the un-
speaking, inexpressive horse, whose feel-
ings you can not guess because nature has
penned them in such small gates of ex-
161

Encouragement.

pfession, weary, jaded, overstrained, will
move an ear quickly to catch the kind
word, will feel the pat on his neck and the
pitiful voice, and resume his strength.
Then

" On the level way he goes proudly,

And the arch of his strong neck is lofty;

A strange sound smites him and he stands;

He tosses his head with power;

His eyes are like burning coals which throw sparks,

And his nostrils are like swinging gates.

He comes to a high hill, and forsakes his pride;

He bends to his labor with humility;

The muscles are knotted in his thighs,

And his knees straighten like bended oak;

He hangs his head to the ground;

He throws all his weight into his labor.

When he has gone up, he has overcome and is

strong;

He takes one deep breath and is refreshed;
He looks back at his driver;
He goes swiftly for the voice that he loves."

I have heard that a kind-hearted girl
passing a little boy in the street, a small
merchant of matches, tape and needles, and
seeing how thinly he was clad, the air
being biting, smiled and said, "Are you
not cold, little man?" Then spoke the
small ragged knight, and said, "I was,
ma'am, till you passed by." All the fire
of the sun could not have raised that glow
in him.

Stretch thy fancy, reader, to his sleep-
162

Encouragement.

ing place (there is naught that more I do
than consider of people where they sleep);
is it a far stretch that mayhap the small
cavalier made a few more pence that day,
working later by the heat of that fuel in
him, whereby his poor place had more
coals that night and more food?

163

Recommendation.

XVII.

Encouragement is the speaking of the
right word to any one, heartening him at
need. But also to speak a good word for
any one, is a great part of kindness. Like-
wise a great power withal. To recommend
well goes far. Encouragement rouses our
own minds at a fainting point; but recom-
mendation puts knowledge of us in an-
other's mind, and mayhap just when he is
alert to catch at such a service as may be
had from us. Such a kindness, to recom-
mend, often may turn the current of a life.
From a deed of it may date a career of
honorable achievement, or years of gentle
inconspicuous happiness which are very
fair to the discovering eye — the violets of
life, under the oaks and pines which roar
back to the storms. The benefactions of
one who has entrance and influence where
he disposes and conciliates others to us at
point of need, are like vapors from fortu-
nate green places of the earth, stirred
about and falling again in "rain upon the
mown field" which is athirst. Such bene-
164

Recommendation.

fits come not of selfish people; for too little
they are aware of others to do such wake-
ful work for them; or worse, they give
strict heed to them to jostle them aside out
of the way, or to make draught-beasts of
them at their chariots.

Recommendation is in three kinds. The
first kind is the seeking out of a place
whereto to recommend one who lacks a
labor-place. This is a good and loving
work; it is a very positive kindness, which
is excellent, not waiting to speak a good
word if the chance happen, but carrying
the good word in search of a place where
it will have effect.

The second kind is the speaking warmly
and well when a chance happens wherein
we may prefer another to some good place,
though we have not looked for it. Many
persons speak never warmly of others,
never generously, never with a, rush and
fervor of heart like waters of praise pent
and glad to be opened; but always with a
coolness and an eye half-shut, as if to con-
sider whether on the whole the balance be
with better or worse qualities. This is a
sad and cold blindness of the heart. Is it
too much to call love the eye of the mind?
This at least will I say, that love is the
color-sense of the mind's eye, receiving
nature's hues, rich, warm, lovely; nay, two
165

Recommendation .

senses in one, letting in a fragrance round
the heart, — for which expression I may
avail of Milton's credit; Adam, first made
and waked, says:

"About me round I saw

Hill, dale, and shady wood, and sunny plains,
And liquid lapse of murmuring streams; by these,
Creatures that lived, and moved, and walked, or flew;
Birds on the branches warbling; all things smiled;
With frag ranee and with joy my heart o'erflowed."

All life's color and odor (as Milton, again,
speaks of the "sweet odor of the Gospel")
wash in vain on one who has no herald
tongue for the good graces of others. If
the tongue be not a squire, 'tis because the
heart is not a knight and hath no gentle-
hood wherein to become apprised of virtue.
Or if the heart be not such a dullard, such
a color-blind eye, but will give no currency
to the virtues of others which it appre-
hends, then it is worse off and more un-
knightly, for this is a thievishness — as
Emerson says, "Our very abstaining to re-
peat and credit a fine remark of our friend
is thievish;" and if this be so, as to but a
bit of our friend's wit, how much more as
to his sweet and valuable virtues. Under
this thievishness lies often a base envy and
gluttony, which grudges what is said good
of another as so much cut off from oneself.
Truly I have seen this unkind and wretched
166

Recom mendation .

covetousness, this clog on the tongue brak-
ing it from a warm exercise with another's
virtues, this letting another man's good
parts make, miserably and enviously, a
burning spot just below the heart, as it is
the manner of envy to affect us physically.
The third kind or manner of recommen-
dation is that which always is ready and
expressive. It hath a heart of such sweet
and kind joy in admiring others that it must
be uncovering it continually; not waiting
for a chance to offer wherein some prefer-
ment may be made, nor going about to find
a profitable place for our friend who has
forced it on our eyes that he needs our
speaking for him — not waiting for these
things, though they be good things to do;
but constantly speaking warmly of excel-
lencies which we have taken note of in
others. How lovely is this habit of mind,
this triple affection in us unto excellencies,
to see, to admire, to commend. How
sweet and comely are they who do this, by
nature or reflection, how lovely, and what
beautified faces they come to. "It ye have
love one toward another," says an apostle,
"God dwelleth in you;" and Paul, "Know
ye not that ye are God's temple?" Now,
such beauty being builded in the body by
this triple kindness of seeing, admiring,
commending, and bethinking us of the
167

Recommendation.

apostles' sayings, we must cry, for very
gladness, with the psalmist, "How lovely
are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts!"
Let us have eyes for the inconspicuous, in
whom often is a very rare beauty. Go not
agog and staring at what all men are agog
with, the great and high-placed and far-
shining; but look about closely for what is
passed by. Having therewith seen it and
made worthy observation of it, thereupon
utter it. Noise abroad our discovery mu-
sically. Have good words for the good
things, like the gentle maid in the folk-tale
who could not open her mouth to speak
but with the word dropped out a pearl.
This may go very far, never we can tell
how far, in bringing some one to profitable
notice or helping him to a good start; and
surely it will go very far in cheer and cour-
age. To set some good thing going whose
end or spread of benefit we can not tell, is
creative, like working with God.

168

Truthfulness.

XVIII.

After speaking of the kindness of recom-
mendation, I have come perforce to truth-
fulness as kindness. From the last chap-
ter to this one the path of thought is
thus: If justly we be not able to praise de-
sirably, then kindly we can refrain from
dispraising willfully; if with good heed we
can not speak a good word, then at least
we can look to it not to speak an ill word
carelessly; now, speech which, being ad-
verse, disserviceable, hurtful therewith, is.
careless as to seasons, occasions, motives
of speaking, is heartless; but adverse
speech which is careless and adventurous
as to the truth, is heartless and lying too.

If Emerson's saying, before quoted, be
true, that abstaining to hand on and credit
the good and fine things we meet, is thiev-
ish, what then is the spreading of the bad?
This is war; and not open war, declared
and under rules, which, frightful evil as it
is, at least may be generous; but private
war, every man for himself wantonly, and
also unproclaimed, ambushed, skulking
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Truthfulness.

and hateful war. War it is, with all that
belongs to war, the chief traits whereof are
destruction and lying.

Now as to the ruin wrought by private
war, where are shot forth detraction, strict-
ure, odium, fling, sneer, cavil, — this needs
but few words. As I have spoken of
the power and virtue of recommendation
to lift up and preserve, the like power as-
persion has to cast down and destroy.
Nay, more power; for in affairs men are
more fearful than trustful, frightened
away by a libel more than attracted by
good report. Therefore a defaming word
is a terrible thing very often, having a vast
power of destruction, and once discharged
not to be stopped again. It is like some
poisonous and horrible odors, one drop of
which will fill a vast space, nor can it be
told what it will infect or how long per-
sist. But it is worse than this; for ill
words not only will shake or overthrow
outward fortunes, but, so bad are they,
they will infect the man himself of whom
they are spoken, to make him worse if he
be at all ill. For the more people there
are who think unworthily of him the harder
it is for him to do well and not to do ill.
As a man in a sickness may be poisoned
further by his own exhalations if they be
confined about him, so may unkind defam-
170

Truthfulness.

^

ations for a fault make an atmosphere in
which it is very hard to be cured of the
evil. Thus the more an invidious report is
spread around a man, by- unkind tongues,
the harder it is for him not to stumble into
that ill more deeply, or into some other.
For it is very hard to keep a straight and
steadfast course over the slippery drop-
pings of kindless tongues. And this is the
same whether the report be true or false.
For even if false, it makes all grace and
virtue harder, which already are hard
enough, needing muniments with the best
of us, and most of all with any who
boast and flourish themselves as self-
propped. But if the unkind report be
true in some measure, and there be in a
man a grain or more of that fault which is
charged, then the more spread the evil
words are, the more is he hemmed in with
the fault and the harder is made the con-
trary virtue. Such is the destructiveness
of evil-speaking, the hateful state of pri-
vate war, which has no laws because it is
too unhonorable to be considered — a bat-
tle of ambushes and skulkers — such is its
destructiveness, which not only may shake
down fair outward fortunes or stop their
building, but has an inward effect on the
heart of the victim to make courage and
virtue harder for him. But of this I will
171

Truthfulness.

say no more because it is so plain; for there
have been good precepts enough on this
point at all times, and if knowledge of how
filthy and black this private war is could
have destroyed it, it would have ceased
ages ago. But hordes of cannibals survive
with us whose mouths are never happy but
when chewing on the tender flesh of men.

Most I wish to say, what not so much is
reflected on, how vast and bad is the lying
which is in this treacherous war. And
this I mean strictly, in the full circle of
what it is to lie. I mean not merely that
one who spreads ill words is like to spread
unfounded words; I mean he is of a piece
with a willful liar who devises and tosses
forth a bold falsehood, The principle and
precept is that careless and adventurous
speech adverse to any one, is direct and
abominable lying.

I am sure this is not considered well
and strictly; for either people miss the
fact of it and see it not, or else the world
is full of liars more willful than I can think
them. Liars they are, but yet with a grain
less of willfulness than some; but liars
still, and bad ones. To see this, attend a
little to the notion of truthfulness, and
what it requires of us.

Has one fulfilled the law of truthfulness
when he has refrained from saying what he
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Truthfulness.

knows to be not true? By no means. We
must be careful to say only what we know
to be true; or, in reverse way, if that will
state it more clearly, we must be careful to
know anything to be true before we declare
it. Not to put forth what we know to be
not true, is but one part of truthfulness,
and the smaller, ah! very much the
smaller. The other and the larger part, is
to take good heed to know what is true be-
fore we declare aught. Why should one
be called a liar who willfully puts forth
what he knows to be not the truth, yet
called no liar, but by some milder name, if
he toss about averments, hints, implica-
tions, advices, with no care or steadiness
to know whether they be true or not? I
say he is a liar, in very point of the larger
and more glorious part of truthfulness;
which part is, not merely to declare no
known untruth, but to be delicately con-
cerned to know the truth before we aver or
adventure anything. For uninformed
speech, if we adventure much in it, as if
we had taken the pains to be informed
which rightly may be expected of us, may
be as great a lie, in very spirit, as the
boldest falsehood. To speak boldly with-
out knowledge, as if we had knowledge, is
not this as lying a thing as to aver against
knowledge? And when the budgets, bulle-
173

Truthfulness.

tins, hearsays, averments, nods or head-
waggings which a man thus adventures,
concern the good fame of others, and bear
hard on their interests or labors, then is he
not only a liar but a most accursed liar,
whose words are spits of snaky venom;
nor can it be told what filthy spray the
wind will make of them, nor whom they
will sicken or kill. It is but a whining,
driveling plea, if he make it, that he said
only what he supposed to be true; for it is
his being void of due care before he speaks
in points so precious, which is the lie in
him.

Belike if these words seem too sturdy,

I can make this matter clearer to my reader
by a parable. A man went forth one
morning into the streets of a city, carrying
a gun. Coming to a street which was full
of people, many coming and going and
crossing in different ways, the man said,

II Here have I an itching to let off my gun;
I will aim at no one." But when he had
done so, it chanced that one of the throng
was hit by the ball and fell dead. "Un-
fortunate," said he; "but I aimed not to
hit the man;" and forthwith he let off his
gun again, and the ball struck in the heart
of another one who fell dead. "Bad
luck," said the man, "but I intended not
his death, nor intend any man's; I but

174

Truthfulness.

fire my gun." Which then he did again,
and another of the thronging people was
killed. But now came the amazed people
and seized him, saying, " You are a mur-
derer." "Not so," answered he, "I
sought no man's death, nor aimed at any;,
I but let my gun off." "But to shoot
carelessly into a throng of men is murder-
ous," cried the people; and he was held
for a murderer.

Let it be said, now, whether the people
were not right. To shoot from a gun at
random in an unpeopled place were not
murder, though neither were it shooting,
with rectitude; but to shoot wildly into a
thoroughfare, is a degree of heedlessness
of life and a hardened hazarding of it
which is murderous in spirit, and murder
if one be killed. Likewise is he a liar who
puts forth carelessly averments that are
blows and missiles. If he speak them in a
desert, it counts nothing, though even
then to utter them is not truth; but if he
let them fly amid companies, where they
may strike and maim or kill, it is of the
nature of lying, and he who does so hath
no awe of the truth and is a liar in spirit,
and thereafter in effect too, if the words
prove false and work harm. For not
merely a willful falsehood is a lie, but there
is a degree of carelessness about the truth,,
176

Truthfulness.

Avhen others' fame or fortunes are in sus-
pense therein, which is altogether lying.

And this is a lie very accursed, base and
mean in some points of its own. For first,
it may be a lie without temptation, no
stress of fear or gain in it, but a wanton-
ness or cruelty unto the feelings and
struggles of others. Or if there be in the
reckless words a pushing of anger or spite
or self-importance or self-interest, then it
is the baser and worse still, a most direct
and faithless lie; and secondly, it is a
skulking lie, not bold and taking the risk
of itself, but ready with such shelters as,
•"I supposed it was true," or, "I told it
as I heard it," or, "I argued so or so,"
under which these liars impudently claim
to be received for truthful persons.

If a man have a strong motive against
the truth and thereby fall from the truth,
still it is a lie. But if there be that which
ought to be a strong and high motive unto
truthfulness, like the pains or dangers of
other persons, then reckless speech is very
wanton lying, as the man heedlessly shoot-
ing into a busy highway is murderous in a
hardened manner.

To sum up in precepts (and is there
aught for human happiness and love more
worthy of summing?) —
/ The law of truthfulness requires equally
176

Truthfulness.

/ that we aver not what we know to be not
true, and that we aver not what we do not
\ know to be true:

Especially if pangs or burdens or in-
terests of others be in question, this latter
and more delicate part of the law hath
great virtue and claim:

But to be regardless of the virtue and
claim of truth is to be a liar:

And to utter regardlessly, without knowl-
edge or surety or any effort thereunto,
averments which sting the peace or the
labor of others, is to be singularly a mean
liar, unctuous with excuses, as that he did
no more than any man, said no more than
he heard or thought, and the like, — slip-
ping out of responsibility like a greased
swine from the hands, well oiled with pre-
texts, and no offence in him by which he
can be held.

As this little book — may blessings go
with it, and with her whose it is more than
mine, by her spirit within me! — treats of
kindness, it befits that I return to that
theme, to say what a good kindness as well
as righteousness a careful truthfulness is.
Few words are needed thereof. I said in
the beginning that speech against any one
and careless of occasion and motive, is
heartless, and if careless also about the
truthfulness of the averment, then it is
177

Truthfulness.

heartless and lying too. But on the other
side — for how much better it is to look on
the beauty of truthfulness than on the ugli-
ness of untruthfulness ! — how fair, sweet and
heavenly is the kindness that lays hand on
another's fame as a good physician touches
the body, never but in love, to heal, and
never without an awe of that living thing
which is l ' fearfully and wonderfully made !"
But the heart is made more fearfully and
wonderfully than the body. We can de-
fend the body from the hurts of criminal
bungling and impious ignorance by decrees
of senates and colleges. Not such muni-
ments can we build around hearts. They
have no other defence than pious kind-
ness.

Young ^Etasflorens looked with joy on his
fine body and resolved to find a perpetual
youth for it. Long he sought some elixir
which could bestow his desire, and at last
besought the oracle. " There is no elixir
of youth," said the oracle, "nor can be,
until a young man be found who will give
his own youth to be made into an elixir."
" That will I," cried ^Etasflorens. "Go,
then," said the oracle, "and at the very
top moment of your youth you shall be
changed into a wash which shall give per-
petual youth to others." So ^Etasflorens
lived ruddily and charmingly till the very
178

Truthfulness.

top of his youth was attained, when sud-
denly he was changed to an ever-flowing
fountain. Whoever bathed therein gained
immortal youth. As thus the elixir to be-
stow youth must be made of youth, so
heart only is medicinable to heart, and
naught but a sweet and heavenly kindness
can deal with the fame or the shame of a
soul, or knows to take in hand what affects
the labors, the pains and the joys of others.
And how beautiful is this kindness, which
walks always among the feelings, the
names and fames and interests of others
with slow and reverent footsteps. Such
kindness will have always the beauty of a
truthful spirit, to say naught but with a
holy carefulness, and to aver not anything
which we know not surely; nor aught that
we know, save by occasion and with love.

179

Fault-Finding.

XIX.

Fault-finding either is an honor unto him
who is censured, or else an extreme un-
kindness. For in either case it is an inflic-
tion of pain. Now if we be handled
painfully because we are worth mending
and our life is to be promoted, that is hon-
orable to us. But pain without this aim,
and but ruthlessly or heedlessly flung on
us, is exceeding unkindness.

I like not in my writing — especially as my
sweet Sister has yet to rule and pronounce
on it, and she sees never any ill thing,
having her eyes so filled with the good,
unless the evil be pushed verily against
her eyes till they smart with it; and even
then, ill things, like flying dust, rather
shut up her orbs instinctively, not to be
filled with the irritations by staring at
them — I like not, I say, to treat of things
unkind, kindness being my theme and
beautiful. But this looking at an opposite
evil must be done sometimes, especially as
it may be that we know not how much we
are infected with some bad thing till we
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Fault-Finding.

look at it enough to see how bad it is and
apply our sight of it to ourselves. There-
fore I must write a chapter to say how
ugly and ungracious fault-finding is; but
first I am glad to perceive and say that one
manner of it is very honorable to him who
is censured and to the censor too.

This honorable kind of fault-finding is
seen when one on another, as friend on
friend or any manner of lover on another,
lays a claim which is an honor or trust,
and then censures a falling-short of that
claim. If one claim of another some-
what to which must go a fine intelligence,
a firm will and decision, a strong work-
power, an ideality, such a claim is an
honor, by ascribing these qualities; and if
there happen a shortcoming, then to find
fault with it is the same honor in another
form; as if we conferred the two styles of
the honor thus: "What? You have these
high qualities? Then I claim this or this
of you." Or again, "What! you have
these high qualities, and fall short of this
or this? That is censurable!" Thus
may all manner of lovers do each other
honor by large claims, and large censure
therewith. And it will be well, before one
resents a good piece of fault-finding, to
consider how much honor the censure does
him, and whether the hidden praise in it
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Fault-Finding.

may not make up for some sharpness. For
fault-finding may be like a harmony,
wherein a grave lower tone of true moral
love and decorating claim may bear up and
embosom pleasantly a shrill note, else too
shrill.

At this moment comes to me an instance
in memory, wherein Marian, my Sister,
my faithful counselor, did me this kind
of honor with a stern love. It befell on
a birthday of that gentle Blessing of my
years, during that same long parting of us
which I have mentioned. On that day I
sent to her a letter; for she had signified to
me that an epistle written day by day for
some time beforehand would be the most
acceptable gift I could devise for her birth-
day. Now, I had been busy, with much
running hither and thither; but that is no
excuse, and truly I know not how it befell,
and it seems that Love like Homer may nod
sometimes (and thereupon let him sleep a
bit, say I, or if thou must awake him,
remember that it is Homer — and Love —
whom thou stirrest, and rouse him rever-
ently with music from his own songs), but
certain it is that my letter to my Sister was
a trifling and unthoughtful thing. I mean
that no care and pains went into it. That
letter my Sister returned to me with some
austere Draconian words, saying that her
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Fault-Finding.

heart had wept plentifully over it, but that
they were fiery tears; and that she must
ask not to keep a letter which did her no
respect, and still less was worthy of me.
"When I asked for the gift of a letter,"
said my Sister, "I asked for a share of
thyself; but thou hast done no more than
toss me the rind of thy days." Now, at
first, under the unexpected rebuke, as if a
dove had flown in my face, I was annoyed,
verging to anger; but on thought I per-
ceived that my Dozen's fault-finding and
her disowning of a trifling thing from me,
was honorable to me; for well I knew that
if my unmindful scraps were all I had wit
to do, her sweet spirit would have covered
them with love.

But fault-findfng, when not thus an
honor, but a small pecking at small faults,
is a bad unkindness; very mischievous.
This fitly is called nagging] and I observe
that the learned say that the verb nag
is another form of gnaw, and truly nag-
ging bites and eats the heart to pieces, I
mean of him who is nagged; and as for
him who thus has battened on another's
heart, it seems to profit him little, for
he goes as lean and ill-favored as before.

I know not how to treat this unkindness
as it deserves without falling into epithets
and declamation, which I like not; and
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Fault-Finding.

there is no need, for any one will be round
enough in his disgust with it who will
consider but what it is, and how exceeding
unkind, and what a fell fire-bug to the best
edifices of human happiness.

It is not hard to tell what nagging is— -
on a general view, not too curious, for it
has ten thousand forms. Its essence is
that it comes of settling the eyes on bad
things when good are by us. For the bad
will loose the tongue as well as the good
if only it strike us as much. Now to talk
about bad points continually, is to nag.
The only avoidance is not to see the bad,
or to see it but as a spot on the good sur-
rounding the spot everywhere, like the
small pits, or big pits, if you will, yet
small by comparison, in the sun. Where-
fore nagging, in essence, is the having an
eye for little trespasses and small things.
The unbearable issue of it at the mouth is
but the belching of a bad rumbling in the
heart.

But though it be not hard to say what
nagging is, loquacious fault-finders in this
manner are hard to deal with. For
nagging is too little to be made an oc-
casion and yet too much to be borne.
What then one can do if he be nagged I
know not, unless he will be ridiculed on
the one hand, like one who berates an ass
184

Fault-Finding.

for braying, which is a solace to the
creature, though it rend rounder ears, or
unless, on the other hand, he will be a
victim, like one who sweats under a bur-
den and must bear it, though his driver be
a clown.

It is sad that a nagger's voice goes so-
far, but there is no help for it; for he who-
will screech will be heard, though he say
ill things or even nothing. Time is said
to be a great conqueror, but naggers are
too much for him. The great bard says,
" Time's glory is to calm contending
kings; " but however the ancient Saturnus
may fall on monarchs that fall on each
other, he is no match for bickering clowns,
which naggers are. They are not quieted
so easily, for their wrangles and snarls are
not on great occasions, which come rarely
and may be done with, but on the small
occasions of which life is full. But in an-
other way old Saturnus makes tools of
carpers and naggers for his overthrowings.
Shakespeare says again that one of Time's
offices is "to waste huge stones with little
water drops;" but by constant dropping of
the spume of naggers and prodders Time
wastes greater things than huge stones —
even huge saintly patiences and hilly
wealths of happiness, till nothing is left
but a dust-bin.

185

Fault-Finding.

Charitable people who by their own
sweetness, or by reading of the Stoics, call
every bad quality a sickness (of which
good company I fain would be one, and
the more the better) — these, I say, will
have it that this nagging is a disease.
Truly it is like a sickness in this, that it
grows fast if not taken in hand. Also in
this, that it fills the whole place with pes-
tilent vapors. Like some diseases also in
this, that it is very hard to cure. Like
others again in this, that it is infectious,
for few are nagged very much but they will
catch the habit in a degree, or else the dis-
ease will take another form in them and
they will grow sullen or dispirited. But
even if it be an illness and not a crime,
what then? Why should moral sicknesses
be borne with more than physical, if they
be even more pestilential? If one have
an infectious disease spreading pain and
death at touch, he is put in a pest-house,
where, if he must die of it, he may not
kill others; but if he recover he may come
out. If this be reasonable with ills of the
body, why not more still with moral ills,
which truly cast around worse and deadlier
germs than fevers and poxes? At the
Sandwich Islands, which are burdened
with leprosy, they have a special island set
apart for the infected; which is merciful
186

Fault~Finding.

and just, for there the sick are no worse,
and they are spared making the healthy like
to themselves. I think — and I would be un-
derstood soberly — that it were well if there
were a mid-sea island convenient to all
shores where the naggers of the world could
be gathered. And this would be the better
in their case, for possibly it may be hoped
that nagging is curable, though I fear
rarely. Then not only would they cease,
so banished, to drive Quiet into a corner
and twist the face of Peace awry, but in
time they might come out cured and able
to live with their fellows again. I have
heard of a rare healing for quarrelsome
married couples, namely, that they be shut
in a small room for a time with only one
utensil of every kind needful, as one knife,
one fork, one spoon, and so a cup, a plate,
a chair, and so on, only one of each; by
which the patience, concession, and po-
liteness enforced by duly taking their turns
with the articles, so prevails that they
grow to a habit of mutual consideration,
and come forth changed. Now, if the like
device were followed, not with utensils,
but in a moral way, it would not be one
article, but one kind of temper or quality
a company would be furnished with, to
wit, their own. Thus, if the dishonest
were islanded by themselves, it would fol-
187

Fault-Finding.

low they must steal all together, if at all,
which were the same as not at all, since
none could gain above another. Or, if
the ugly were gathered apart, they must be
uncomely all together, which were the
same as not at all, for there can be no
ugliness without distinction; and this I
think were as true of moral ugliness as of
physical. Or, if the angry were walled in,
the like were true; for if one were no more
contentious than another, it were the same
as all being at quiet. In like way, if these
pecking fault-finders were shut off on a
bald rock in the sea, as they would have
only one kind of tongue between them, to
wit, the nagging tongue, they might learn
to make no victims where all must be
victims, and so get the habit of peace in
their tongues, and come out cured. But
I should advise to receive them again by
small boat loads.

In soberness, naggers are to be resisted
and put out of mind; and if one take the
quickest way to put them out of mind,
which is to put them out of sight, who is
to be blamed? A prodder, and grumbler,
and scolder, is the exact opposite of a
warner; for they come after the event,
when only they can give pain; but good
warners before the event, when their
words do service. Therefore you will not
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Fault-Finding.

find one who warns and one who nags in
the same person; and one is useful and
the other a torment.

O ! friend Filemar, well remember I,
and often have I bewailed for thee what
thou didst reveal to me, unwittingly, as
if a curtain were lifted an instant by an
escaped gust of thy emotion (I wonder
whether my Dozen will permit me this
recollection, to set it down here, for she
loved Filemar well and he was often at
our humble hearth, a gentle presence), well
remember I, O my friend, when thou wast
helping us, as thy ready hand was wont, in
putting up some book-shelves and decking
them with draperies, thy unwonted re-
mark— thy first and last — by which a fervid
pain escaped, as a fiery trickle from a cu-
pola if the luting of clay be broken a
little. "Ah! that is well done," said I,
" and the hangings robe the books fitly."
" Yes," saidst thou, "but my wife will not
like it." "Why not?" said Marian,
open-eyed. " Because she did not or-
iginate it," saidst thou. Then fell a si-
lence, for very shame and tenderness. It
was not easy to talk more. There was a
fog in the air, and we became indistinct to
each other. Our guest left us soon, — Ah!
Filemar, my friend! And not long after
he departed this earth also. Some said,
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Fault-Finding.

under breath, that she who never was
satisfied with aught which she brought not
to pass herself, should be content with
that; they said she killed him with slow
poison, decoctions of herself in small doses
at every eating and drinking. I know not.
But with us thou livest in thy manfulness,
Filemar, my friend.

One principle is sure, namely, that there
should be no fault-finding if there be no
season of praising therewith. It may be
allowed to censure a failure, with pre-
caution and good intent (and still more a
habit of failing, for it is a good rule to pass
over single mishaps and censure only what
grows habitual), if also duly we praise a
success. Otherwise, fault-finding is wan-
ton unkindness and brutish grumbling.
Praise is the salt that seasons censure;
and without it, rebuke has a savor which
no one can stomach.

One day there came to our table our

friend D , a wife at the nether verge

of youth, and strangely unsmiling, I had
remarked. After that tea-time (it was a
chance coming and then a staying with per-
suasion to our evening meal) I understood
the unlifting gray of the face. It was a
dainty spread of the table thou hadst made,
my Sister; and never better, thou chef of
simple-lovely cooking, were those delicate
190

Fault-Pi ndtag.

tea-biscuit which thou knowest I much
affect. Ha! how often hast thou taunted
me with 'revealing to thee too plainly the
means to keep me in good nature! I
have retorted, getting the better of thee
easily, with some high-flown fancy, such
as that it is no wonder I am mollified by
a dainty viand which thou hast mixed
with thy dropping smiles. Dost remember
my finding thee in the kitchen, before one
of thy favorings of me with this particular
fine delicacy, smiling broadly to thyself?
I know well thou wast foretasting my
praise, as I returned to our study with a
lively foresmack of thy biscuit.

That same evening at table, the evening
of our friend D 's presence, I com-
mended thy dainty handiwork. I per-
ceived the gray of our friend's face deepen;
and she said, "Ah! my husband never
does that; if things be good, he is silent,
but always mentions the fault if aught
have gone ill."

Verily what a creature to cater for. His
mouth is no better than a mill, which has
no grace to make music when it has grist,
but sets up a great clatter when it has
none. I say without fear that there is no
worse kind of a creature for human society
than* one who snaps like a wolf at a bad
point, a weakness, a fault; but never goes
191

Fault-Finding.

•grazing, like a lamb in warm weather, in
pastures of good qualities, though these
be wide and green. We are good, bad,
poor, rich, noble, ignoble, faithful, un-
faithful, loving, hating, failures and also
great achievements, darkness and light;
all these, I say, we are together, and
every one of us is all these qualities, each
with different measures of them. But
your true nagger sees only the one kind,
the dark, and roams in the dark with
nocturnal animals.

Whether it be better to have much
fault-finding and therewith much praising,
or little blaming but also small commend-
ing, I know not. But the good and
profitable way is to praise much, with a
kind of flush and current, but do little
fault-finding, and that slowly, with con-
science.

192

Helping.

XX.

It is a saying of Sidney Smith that there
be Samaritans enough, omitting the oil and
twopence. Doing and giving are the tests
and proofs of feeling — which is so plain
and simple a principle, and so sweet a
thing withal, that like a homely, sweet
melody, it needs but to be said, without
enforcement or ornaments. Yet if Sidney
Smith's saying be true, it is well that the
simple melody of giving be sung often, till
its sweetness be at home in all ears.

After encouragement comes kindness to
the point of helping. To give help is
kindness which is like an inn, full of food,
fruits and strength. If one end with en-
couragement, like a Samaritan without oil
and twopence, he may do much in pointing
the way to the hospice; but he will miss
more if he give not a push to the gate
and help in unto the food and shelter his
neighbor who has need of them.

Timely help is great power, and there-
fore large kindness. A task may be too
great for the strength however encouraged;
193

Helping.

and a man may carry well a load, once up,
which he cannot toss to his shoulders. If
then we do more than cry " Heave ho!"
if to the weight we put our own hands and
give a lift, it is past all seeing what a great
effect we may do, what losses forestall by
our seasonable help, what success begin,
what riches, honor or content set running.

I need not enforce this to my reader
farther, especially as in this little book be-
fore I have said what seems needful of
deeds as the proof of feeling, and kind
deeds therefore as the test and exhibition
of kindness at heart: also of the two
divisions of kindness, the negative, namely,
which consists in giving no pain, and the
positive, which is direct effort to give joy.
The same distinction applies to helping
our neighbor. Not to hinder any one is
negative kindness; and I would not call it
little, or nothing. Indeed sometimes it is
much virtue simply to keep out of another's
way. But to help is positive kindness,
and far exceeds the negative, as a bright
and glowing light is different from non-
darkness.

Every man has three things which he
may give for help of others, and there is
no man but has two of them in some quan-
tity if he will but measure and use them
well; these three are: Exertion, Time,
194

Helping.

Money. Exertion and Time are the Samar-
itan oil which every one possesses. It is
a question only how much of them he
will bestow on his neighbor's need. To
undergo exertion and labor, to take trouble,
to spend time, are great positive kindnesses,
which many give, and therefore there is
much good help in the world; but many
also who negatively are amiable, and fain
would see others prosper, have not the
positive will or enough love to bestir them-
selves, break their ease, take trouble, give
time; and therefore there is not enough
help in the world.

Of money, the Samaritan twopence, it
is true that many have not much; but true
it is also that they who have least of it
give the most, and true that many who,
having very little, give nothing, might
slice a small bit for another from their
small loaf and be the more fed thereby in
soul and not too much less in body. They
are kind

1 ' Who, be their having more or less, so have
That less is more than need, and more is less
Than the great heart's good will."

The beautiful pattern of this devout
manner of giving, shining unto all eyes
forever, is the poor widow whom the Mas-
ter took loving note of and commended,
195

Helping.

saying that by her little she cast in riches.
And good is the saying of commentators
that the two mites are what give such savor
to the poor woman's devotion, for she
might have kept one; but it was her heart
to give all that she could. Therefore was
her gift so acceptable. The same wisdom
and reverence were in the Rabbinical air
around Jesus. The sacrifice of the poor,
said the Rabbins, is the most acceptable in
heaven; for they give double, — first, what
offering they bring, secondly their own flesh.
This they enforced with legends. " Once, "
said they, "came a woman bringing an
offering of a mere handful of flour;
and the chief priest spurned her, saying,
"That is a wretched nothing even for
eating; how contemptible then for an
.offering!" But that same night he was
warned in a dream, and a Voice from
heaven said to him, "Spurn her not, for
her offering is the same as giving herself,
her very life."

There is no real giving unless there be
sacrifice therewith. Can one in truth be-
stow anything unless he set apart for
another what well and sensibly he might
apply to his own comfort? Doth he give
fuel and paint rooms fire-ruddy who lets
the poor pick up his chips which he will
not stoop his own back to? It is to be
196

Helping.

questioned whether any but the poor can
know the savor and sweetness of giving,
yea, or of getting. " There is a spiritual
pleasure in patching a garment," said to
me a good woman, " which no one can have
who can buy a new one for the opening of
hi$ purse." The lovely and beloved Mary
Waterhouse, wife of William Ware, told
me merrily of a bit of quaint old-fashioned
furniture, an escritoire, which they looked
at with great desire, exposed at the door
of the shop of a dealer in such fine articles;
but the cost was too much for them. Yet
the temptation continued, as they passed
the place daily in their walks, and with the
desire they counted their coin, and at last,
having collected enough and silenced some
scruples whether it were not a worldly in-
dulgence to which their conditions had no
title, they brought home the coveted bit of
elegance; and great was their admiration
and comfort in it and their satisfaction
with each other in the obtaining of it; and
no king was ever prouder of a conquered
province, said she. These are the joys of
the not rich; and likewise the full sweet-
ness of giving, is reserved for them, unless
the rich will do in bestowing what the poor
must, to wit, bestow so much that they
pinch themselves somewhere. But it is
seldom they will do that; yea, and the
197

Helping.

easy souls can not conceive it is reason that
they should. " I will give all I can
afford," say they; which means, "until I
begin to be abridged in some comfort," —
or mayhap even in some pleasure, so
wholly do they imagine that what they
have in their hands is their own.

Here comes to me a memory of that
most sweet friend of my life and treasure
of my labors, my Sister. It was during
that dark time when we were parted, too
poor to make together the home that now
she blesses

" With the sunlight, moonlight, starlight;
With the fire-light"

of her love. I had need of some money
in my distant place; for I was earning even
less than she with her skillful swift hands
and her nine hours' hard labor every day.
Therefore she pinched herself in many
ways to save the wherewith to send me
help, and to abate the debts which
weighed on me. The winter was cold and
her walk to her labor long, in the biting
mornings; but she denied herself the cheap
muff which she needed, and tucked her
hands up her sleeves for warmth, for my
sake, which she called "wrapping them up
in love," when I drew the truth from her
long afterward; "and thus, thou see'st I
198

Helping:.

made a muff of thee," said she, with a
very arch look and just a perceptible cir-
cumflex on "muff" giving it a very objec-
tionable savor. But to my doubtful look
she answered with a kiss and ran away.
Ah ! my Dozen, what a light shines from
thee around me! "After the day cometh
the darkness, but the light of wisdom
never goeth out;" and love is the great
wisdom. And joy it is to be sure, my
sweet Dozen, that, lovely as thou art, there
be other sisters that do likewise, and
other brothers better than I, though not
more blest, — many of both. Else would
the heavens fall. The world is made glad
by sacrifice. There is no real giving but
is sacrificial, a kind of sacrament, a devo-
tion, by the dedication unto another of
what we prize and could turn to account
for ourselves and fain would keep fondly
but that still more we have a heart to give
it. But to give what for ourselves we
need not and want not is naught. " How
can that leave a trace which has left
no void?" He who gives only a bit of
his overflow and touches himself in no
way in the giving, may see himself in
Bacon's remark of one who has hoarded
everything his life long and now bequeaths
it, that he is "rather liberal of another man's
than of his own." For does a man own
199

Helping.

aught before God which he can put to no
comely use for himself? Rather then is he
a steward or porter of it unto some one,
and God is the giver; but if the man give
what he might apply to himself in some
fair good way, and forego something by
reason of what he invests another with,
then he adds himself piously to God and
becomes a giver with him.

Now, if help be loving and devout,
which is to say, with sacrifice at need,
ihen it is to be done wisely, which is
matter for consideration in many points;
but always one great point in giving
help with wisdom is timeliness. Kind-
ness often moves far and finely in an-
other's affairs by the saving of time to
him. It may be a matter of vast moment
whether some task be done in a day or
in a week; yes, the interests of years, the
turning point of a life, may lie in that
issue. If at such a point we "lend a
hand " we can not dream how far the
effects may travel. Nay, we may do kind-
ness, if we be alert in it, ignorant that we
are serving at a crisis. Add to this all the
saving of time a little well-imparted knowl-
edge, if this be the help or a portion of it,
may grow to, spreading on many sides for
many years, and who can count the effects
of a little pains kindly taken, or imagine
200

Helping.

the harmonies of it, so timely it drops into
the world's business and so long goes on
singing its part!

Giving help being so very great a part
of kindness, it follows that whatever gives
power .and means of helping is to be
looked to by a kind spirit. Economy and
care are the sources of the means of help-
ing. To be lavish and heedless in the use
of money or material is great unkindness;
in other ways, too, it is offence against
nature, but especially it is great unkind-
ness. He who will not make all things
go as far as they can, by care and economy,
cuts off another's part in what he has. A.
penny saved is more than a penny earned,
for certainly if I dropped it carelessly by
the way in my own use, then to save and
not drop it is a penny of power in me for
my neighbor's good. It was a wise saying
of a Chinese Emperor that if but one
woman were idle in the Empire, some one
suffered with hunger in some province of
the dominion.

Especially it is an easy and plain kind-
ness to be economical and careful with our
overflows of useful things. This will
have great effect on the interests and- priv-
ileges of others. For in every house how
many things collect which we use not; or
using them once, we are done with them-
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Helping.

A careless spirit will let them lie in heaps
in garrets or barns; but conscientious
kindness scatters them where they may be
useful. Kindness is a great foe of waste,
.for it seems cruel to destroy or abuse
things which still are full of service for
others, albeit spent for us. Kindness,
therefore, will not suffer the pang of seeing
rubbish heaps where lie decaying many
things which others need. I have known
persons very conscientious in this matter,
keeping and selecting everything carefully
to bestow it where it may continue its serv-
ice. Kind and thoughtful minds save
-disused reading matter, books, pamphlets,
papers, and send them to cheerless places
like prisons and sick chambers, or to
dwellers in some remote hamlet where
precious products of art come but rarely
and scantily, falling like a few feathers
from birds of passage. Of Lucretia Mott
her grandchildren say, "It was contrary
to her system of household economy to
allow any one to use or tear up newspapers
indiscriminately. She assorted them care-
fully in several piles; and woe be to the
unfortunate who took a paper from the
wrong pile! Only the dailies were taken
for kindlings, and not even they until they
had attained a venerable age. The
weeklies and monthlies were given away,

202

Helping.

some regularly to friends who could not
afford to subscribe for them, while others
were made into packages for distribution
at country meetings." She saved the
inside of the envelopes that came by
mail, on which to write memoranda, notes
and comments and quotations from fav-
orite books; she used "ravelings in sew-
ing carpet rags, and in many kinds of
mending where strength was not required."
Some persons liked not these habits and
even were harsh and ridiculing in regard
to them, and of her own family some
wished she would be more comfortable to
herself when economy so sharp was not
needful and she was both aged and
famous. But it was an economy which
had a double grace, — it was religion, a
reverence for things, and it was kindness;
and, says a grandchild, "it is not for
one who profited by her generosity to
criticise as excessive the economy that
made such generosity possible." Her
husband was like her in these pre-
arrangements for giving, and what
they bestowed "was a large portion of
what was never more than a moderate in-
come. It was not given to ordinary chari-
ties, as a rule, but was quietly passed
over, five dollars here, ten there, or fifty
perhaps, to help some poor overworked
203

Helping.

seamstress to a holiday, to alleviate a case
of temporary distress, or to furnish an un-
expected treat to some self-denying
drudge." A dainty instance of her econo-
my is told; a member of the household,
going into her room one morning, found
her diligently mending a rip in her pillow.
She glanced up and said, "Will thee
please open that bureau drawer for me?
Right in front in the corner thee will find
a feather that I want." The feather was
given her; she tucked it into the pillow
and sewed up the hole. At this same
time several of the family, children, grand-
children, greatgrandchildren, were pre-
paring for a journey. She called them to
her severally in turn during one day and
gave each one " a sum of money sufficient
to cover the whole expense of the journey."
Ah! well remember I one spirit like to
this Quaker dame. But why say I "re-
member." Is she not with me still?
Comes not a light from where she is, and
that light still on earth? Belike I say "re-
member " because the preciousness of my
many memories gather all in one, by reason
of a certain unity and entire coherence in
her character, so that always my past days
with her mingle with the present. - I retain
still with me the first time I saw St.
Matilda (this is the name Theodorus gave
204

Helping.

her, and her friends accepted at once the
rechristening — it was so suitable), thirty
and odd years ago, when she was not so
old as I am now, and I was a college lad.
At an evening party at her sister's house
she passed by, a slight, delicate woman,
with iron-gray locks which allowed some
curls at the temples, deep eyes like wells of
insight, and a brow, nose and chin like
Crawford's Beethoven by some indefinable
touches made feminine. From that hour
she has been a singular perfectness to me,
like some fairness existing in the eye-sight
itself; for I have looked at all the world
very much through her. She is like a
Quaker, with an acceptable unlikeness. I
mean she has the sweetness, serenity,
spiritual loveliness, stillness, government,
with no touch of the mere precision and
other limitations. She delights in music,
and I knew just in what very chair to find
her quaint sweet company for many years
at every Symphony and Oratorio. Her
house was used and open all the time, to a
point of wonderment to common mortals.
Rich and poor, learned and ignorant alike
were at her table. To know her and fre-
quent her house was to have a near sight
of life as impartial as the far and myster-
ious sight of it to be gotten in walking the
streets. Well recall I one of her weekly
205

Helping.

guests on a Monday, Miss C , a quaint,

queer, lone ancient maid, knotted up in
some places with rheumatism, but tall and
very stiffly erect, with gray hair back of a
big forehead and done up in a high knot
with a large comb behind. She ate with
relish and smiled not and said little. I can
recall but one observation she was pleased
to make, repeated with emphasis, to wit,
that she ate the fat of meat because it kept
her warm. It was St.. Matilda's loving good
pleasure to have the antique dame pass all
day of every Monday with her, that the lone
rheumaticky body might have golden loop-
holes at set intervals along her dusky way;
and no doubt she eased the time between
the chinks of light by anticipating the
next one — a fine and perpetuating charity,
for anticipation hath a gusto of its own
and is much more than the ghost of a
feast.

Throngs of persons came continually to
St. Matilda for advice, sympathy, help of
every kind, and she held levee daily like a
queen or great officer, but one who kept no
state nor antechamber and treated the poor
and forlorn like fellow-queens. She made
it the mission of many of her best years
to take "unfortunate babies" (so called
she them that had no name) and keep
them in small private places, little asy-
206

Helping.

lums, of her own, till she could find homes-
for them; and for many hundreds of in-
fants did she provide thus, yea, for hun-
dreds more than a thousand.

Never was there a house more hung
with light "spread out like a curtain," nor
more adorned, yet never one whose orna-
ment and beauty so lay in the persons, not
in the things.

Her generosity was notable, lavish in-
deed, but secret. Slyly or swiftly would
she put money, large sums too, into a
hand wherein she divined some need; and
she is one who understands the need of
food before starvation has set in. She
could feel by conception — a rare and per-
haps a saintly, power; I mean, that by a
loving imagination and wide spirit she so
could apply her own experience as to con-
ceive what she had not experienced and
understand the things of others though
not touching herself. She had a power
which she called "Sensing." She could
"sense" from afar, and it was not often
that I could surprise her. She knew be-
fore I came or spoke. When she came at
my ring at the door, she has said, " I have
been expecting you; I have felt you in the
air all day." If I wrote to her from a dis-
tance, though I had been silent a long
time, she would answer, "I have been so
207

Helping.

certain that what you tell me had happened
to you or was about to happen that I have
made ready for it." Such, though but in
little, is Saint Matilda. To know her is
to dwell below an upland whence a stream
falls, and the bright waters provoke thirst,
and to drink thereof is reverence and
knowledge of loving-kindness.

208

Advising.

XXI.

To advise is a power possessed by kind-
ness, and without kindness it is not pos-
sible. This is important, because advice
is the access of the old to the young; and
because no one can stand alone.

Trust is necessary to any power of ad-
vice with us; for no fruit can grow unless
the advice come from a trusted person and
be given purely, which means with no taint
in it either of vanity or of self-interest.
But thus to think of another with a mind
as single-eyed as for a need of one's own,
is perfect and pure kindness. Hence ad-
vice is a force of kindness. In a small
wise essay on Advice, Sir Arthur Helps
says, " You should not look about for the
wisest thing which can be said, but
for that which your friend has the heart
to undertake and the ability to accom-
plish. You must sometimes feel with
him, before you can possibly think for
him. There is more need of keeping this
in mind, the greater you know the differ-
ence to be between your friend's nature
209

Advising:.

and your own. Your advice should not de-
generate into comparisons between what
would have been your conduct, and what
was your friend's. You should be able to
take up the matter at the point at which it
is brought to you." All this is simple and
truthful kindness, a "pure and perfect
sincerity " of kindness, which is the con-
dition of advisory worth. Besides, advice
not always is welcome in itself. "In
general," says Sir Arthur Helps, "it is
with advice as with taxation; we can en-
dure very little of either, if they come to
us in the direct way. They must hot
thrust themselves upon us. We do not
understand their knocking at our doors."
Now must I say I feel not like the
essayist in this passage as regards tax-
ation. For when I stroll the fields of
a fair country and behold what men have
done over forest and plain and hill and sea
by leaguing themselves, or when I walk
the streets of a rich city and see the same
in architecture and many wondrous and
beautiful arts, and feel a vast protection
around me also, and whereas I am but one
man and insignificant, yet I know that I
am under care of all men and my claims
are not counted insignificant, then I desire
to pay my portion of the cost of this ex-
cellence and to do all my part in the gen-
210

Advising.

eral order, justice and architecture, and
never yet I paid my taxes but willingly
and feeling the better for it.

And I must say the like regarding ad-
vice too, in a measure. For one who is
unwilling to be helped will miss very much
good, and whoso thinks he can stand all
alone will be very like to shore himself up
so hard on one side that he will fall in
some other way, if no worse mischance be-
fall him.

Yet also there are things which we need
much, which yet must come delicately,
like love, or censure, or religion. And
advice is another such thing. To have it
thrust on us boldly is very unwelcome and
even mayhap sore to a not unwholesome
pride, as an intrusion; and belike the
reason is that advice is so good a thing
and so excellent a power as to be worthy
of delicate approach and preparation, and
also that one who feels not this delicacy of
it, and has no sense of the personal realm,
but plunges at us boldly with his counsel,
with never a " by your leave " or a respect,
is like to be so presumptuous and over-
weening that he is unfit to advise and can
have no power in it; or even if he have
some strong sense (which, however, is
like to be twisted by his vanity and self-
importance), surely has no soft and gentle
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Advising.

skill. Advice, therefore, must come for-
ward with a most kind face, which is to
say a countenance wholly filled with re-
spect and love unto us, unshadowed with
pride of doing a fine thing in advising us,
and lighted with a reverent mindfulness of
the personal realm. This is simple and
pure kindness, which is the wedding gar-
ment of advice; and advice shall not enter
our doors without it.

Touching the potency and value of
acceptable advising which I have men-
tioned, to wit, that it is the access of the
old to the young, it is a precious power.
By this means experience may be saved,
and the tough lessons of life be cobbled
into sandals for young feet thronging the
same way, if only the youth can be led to
put on the sandals. But this "if" — ah!
it bars the way like a little sand heap be-
fore a wheel — a small matter, but quickly
it stops the traveling. The world would
grow wise very fast if only the experience
of one generation were taken at cost and
set to purpose by the next. But "such a
hare is madness, the youth, to skip o'er
the meshes of good counsel, the cripple,"
that a youth of spirit who will listen to
advice is a "rare bird" indeed, and they
who have no spirit fail to listen by dull-
ness or belike by sheer obstinacy, and many
212

Advising.

others are careless, and all youth is like to
be conceited; so that one way and another it
is a hard matter for the old to advise the
young. Well I remember that in my
callow youth I thought ail persons verging
fifty years, or even forty, were "old fogies"
who had not caught life's trick, and the
quick world had gone by them. And
many a hard buffet had I, and many
shames stomached and many woes suffered,
before my pin-feather impudence took
flight. And now succeeds another genera-
tion, unshod as I was, to whom in turn I
am a fogy, and all my cobbling with my
experience can make no shoe which any of
them will put on. So hardly can the old
arrive at the young. Therefore if at all,
only the purest kindness can do it, a kind-
ness so pure that it is memory, sympathy,
humility, confession, tenderness and em-
brace, a turning about and holding the
young to heart while over their shoulders
we look back, with contrition for ourselves
and yearning for them, at our traveling
of the same road. La Rochefoucault says:
"We give advice, but we can not give con-
duct." His words are precise, " On donne
des conseilsj mats on n'inspire point de con-
duite." After the precept, then to move
the conduct is inspiration, and this is the
overflow of limpid love.
213

Advising.

Touching the other reason of the value
of advice which I have mentioned,
namely, that no man is able to stand alone
in his life, this also is a great value of it;
for as to meeting life's straits alone, two
things are to be considered: first, as I have
said, that no man is able to do it with
wisdom, and, secondly, that if one could
do it, he would miss therein life's sweetest
and most instructive joys, the unions of
the heart. Wisdom and virtue are such
qualities that all possible helps and re-
sources are no more than enough to attain
to them. All muniments wherewith we
can wall ourselves in, are needful. There-
fore good advising is a precious thing.
And for giving advice the quality of the
heart and soul is the most valuable part of
intelligence. Nay, I know not what wit
and sharp parts are worth in anything if
the heart be hard and the soul greedy; for
then wit is like swift feet on a wrong road;
the swifter thereon the worse for them.
" In seeking for a friend to advise you,"
says Sir Arthur Helps, in the wise little
essay before quoted, "look for uprightness
in him rather than for ingenuity. It fre-
quently happens that all you want is moral
strength. You can discern consequences
well enough, but can not make up your
mind to bear them. Let your Mentor also
214

Advising.

be a person of nice conscience, for such a
one is less likely to fall into that error to
which we are all so liable, of advising our
friends to act with less forbearance, and
less generosity, than we should be inclined
to show ourselves, if the case were our
own."

Simple truth is the greatest kindness if
there be love with it. "The highest com-
pact we can make with our comrade is,
Let there be truth between us two for ever-
more," says Emerson. But it must be
truth with 4ove and loving-kindness —
which is taken for granted in Emerson's
remark; and this shows the ground-value
of love.

215

Respectfulness.

XXII.

I know not whether there be any practi-
cal kindness so great as respectfulness,
and I am sure there is none greater.
Especially this is a kindness which is more
precious by so much as the person who re-
ceives it is nobler to prize it; -and few in-
deed, I happily think, but would prefer a
great and manifest respectfulness for them
and unto them, to any other benefit, or all
others together, without that grace of
honor. Moreover, it is one of the bases —
I know not but I should say the main one,
but certainly as needful as any other, such
as sincerity, and the like — of all other
forms of kindness and of the possibility of
them; for no man will busy himself much
for what he respects not, neither will the
person who is unrespected be able to re-
ceive much good from us, and not at all
the best benefits, such as encouragement,
knowledge, counsel, of which I have been
speaking. And if there be a deep and
subtle disrespect in us unto a certain per-
son, even though it be curbed well or be
216

Respectfulness.

such as breaks forth into appearance only
rarely or on delicate occasions, still there
will be a vague pain and obscure unhappi-
ness caused in him, and though he may
get many benefits from us he will not
receive the best one, which is inspiration,
lilt of heart, and fine spirit to live.

It is not easy to describe how vast and
efficient a kindness respectfulness is, when
it is warm, deep, at heart's center, ever
ready to break forth into sight and action.
It is an extreme and precious kindness,
and confers a very active joy. Is there
anything that so will hearten us day by
day, suffuse us with such a might of joy
around the soul, so make us equal to all
occasions and endue us with faith that we
shall not try great things in vain, as a deep
consideration and respect for us overflow-
ing from any one, especially if that one
have a place in our love? Moreover, this
manner of kindness is a very beautiful
thing, and as unto our favored ones it is
rooted in the finest quality of love, so unto
the general company and usual bevy
around us respectfulness hath root in a
large and religious heart for men. A
gentle woman of the family of Ware,
friends and lovers of Orville Dewey, told
me that on inquiry as to the source of a
certain respectfulness emanating from him
217

Respectfulness.

and stirring like air and light around any
one who came to him, she found the grace
sprang from a deep reverence for the hu-
man soul.

Many there be, I am very sure, — nay, I
have seen such, and a sad sight it is — who
fall short of what they might do in life, and
shrink into themselves or betake them-
selves to lone ways, because they have not
had the heartening kindness of a warm
and sweet respectfulness put forth unto
them and spread around them. For it is
a very hard thing to lift the head much
above the importance which the persons
near to one assign him by their manners;
and it is easy for a modest spirit that never
is regarded much and never shielded from
intrusion or interruption, but every labor
and care laid on him, and no fine consider-
ations offered him, and no advocate of his
dignity or due place to be found in any
bosom — for such a one, I say, it is easy to
think, and it is great odds but at last he
will be persuaded, that he is worth no
more than these neglects and infringements
express of him. For there is nothing in
the world worth so much to a soul that
hath a scrap of nobility in it as a rich and
consistent and steady respectfulness ac-
corded him. Even affection is not so
precious. Sometimes, no doubt, he who
218

Respectfulness.

is disregarded, especially by the persons
nearest to him, has some lack of weight in
himself, some inscrutable deficiency which
effects a slightness or lightness about him,
so that he commands no observance; but
sometimes too, it is one of the ill points,
and a punishment, of disregardful, un-
respectful persons, that they pass by
" modest merit " to expend themselves on
flaunting " parts; " and they know not how
ridiculous and unlovely they appear to a
sound and a kind eye that, by reason of
the soundness of kindness, comes nearer
to seeing things as they are. Moreover,
even if any one be of slight make and no
Weight, it is one of the sweetest and fairest
offices of kindness to do such manner of
observance to him as can shield him from
secret despair and support him to make
the most of himself.

I said just now that unto our favored
ones, respectfulness is rooted in the finest
quality of love; which leads me to a
thought that often hath arisen in me to a
great height — namely, that between lovers
respect and the observance thereof should
rise into a passion. I would define a
noble love, whether friend-love or that
friend-love with a somewhat more which is
marriage-love, as a passion of respect
mingled with a deep tenderness of affection.
219

Respectfulness.

N

And the passion should be in the respect; for
the respect is a sky whence the pure trans-
port will rain into the tenderness also, that
it will blossom with all manner of fervid
things. But if the passion be not first and
by origin in the respect, but in some other
feeling (like the "passion to possess " — the
bad name of a worse thing), ,in that
measure the love is abased; and there be
degrees of that abasement and of selfish-
ness therein which have no right to the
name of love.

I would speak only of beautiful things
in this book so far as may be, as I have
said before; so here rather of the beauty of
respectfulness than of the ugliness of im-
pudence. Yet the evil must be known
sometimes, "because often it is of the
nature of a pit-fall, which is no more than
a black hole if we know well where it is.
Perhaps if I bring some of the shadow of
impudence under the light of respectful-
ness, the bad shadow may appear more
truly as its nature is.

And bad it is, gross, base. Sometimes
I have thought that impudence is the
greatest offense one can do another. For
other wrongs may be escaped or amended
or overlooked or forgotten, because they
are like robberies. But impudence is like
a blow, a slap on the face of the spirit, a
220

Respectfulness.

desperate offence, a slave's lot if it be
borne. It is not to be revenged, but it is
not to be borne. One should choose to
sit in a desert and feast off his soul while
the body should dry unto death, not to
consort with an impudent person who can
use a bludgeon on the spirit.

A blow always has been felt a base in-
dignity and horror. It is so. Even to
touch another, save with great conscience,
is an offence, such is the sense of personal
sphere and inviolate retreat. A blow is a
gross horror. I have read somewhere a
story of a servant in an oriental country,
the man of some Frank or Saxon, who
killed himself on being struck by his
master. He started back, a look of horror
spread on his face, and drawing his dag-
ger, he said, "You are my master, and I
have eaten your bread; I can not lay hands
on you, neither can I survive such abase-
ment," and he struck the steel to his
heart. Therefore an impudence is such
an immense wrong, because it is a blow
struck on the spirit, a private wrong, a
wrong against personality. Other wrongs
fall on belongings only, like reputation,
property, opportunity, friendship (if it be
undermined slanderously), and so follow-
ing; but insolence is an offence against in-
ward rights and personal state. In " The
221

Respectfulness.

Ring and the Book," the Tertium Quid of
Rome, answering the charge that Guido
should have killed at first or not at all,
exclaims,

"Sooner? What's soon or late i' the case? — ask we.

A wound if the flesh, no doubt, wants prompt re-
dress;

It smarts a little to-day, well in a week,

Forgotten in a month; or never, or now, revenge !

But a wound to the soul? That rankles worse and
worse."

This vulgar extraction of impudence —
for it is both high-flown and truly menial —
has many faces and styles. Direct abuse,
insolent speech, are but louder swells of
impudence, like the blare of a horn made
loud, but the same brassy thing whether
louder or softer. Sneers, intrusions,
meddling, undue questions, the habit of
lecturing other persons, flippancy, pre-
sumption, any manner of forwardness,
boldness with other persons, are titles of
impudence, though they be done in breath-
ings or shake their little fool's-bells softly.
I have noted also many impudent persons
whose notion of ill temper in another per-
son is that he will not put up with their
impudence, — a very grotesque notion, yet
I conclude, one of the natural evils of im-
pudence, and a punishment of it, to be so
ridiculous, and sticking close to it. Yet
222

Respectfulness.

what defence have we from an impudent
man? The only way not to be hurt by an
impudence is to despise the source of it.
But some persons can not feel that con-
tempt for anything above a monkey, and
so by their own virtue are open to the
thrusts of the impudent.

I know not whether it be needful to en-
force with circumstance; yet examples may
do more than words. I have culled some
instances from my observations which may
serve to dress up this Punchinello for
sight. I heard a bold woman ask a scholar
whether it were not time he brought some-
thing to pass with all his studying and fix-
tures; a gross impudence — also base igno-
rance therewith, which always is like to
cleave to impudent spirits. I have been
told of one who, having hurt another by
some ill manners or inconsidered act, said
easily, "I didn't mean anything, child;'*
an impudence, a complacent impudence,
though belike too fine a point to be seen by
a saucy eye. Of another I heard that she
called loudly down-stairs to bid the maid
dismiss her company because the clock had
struck ten; wanton, vile impudence, a
yokel's trespass, a grievous injury and
unkindness, flagrant ill-breeding. A cus-
tomer desired a printer to bind his pam-
phlet as the printer should please, in any
223

Respectfulness.

pleasing way, and when the books were
delivered to him, wrote, " I am sorry you
have chosen for the cover two such ugly
colors;" insolent, very insolent, a puffy im-
pudence, rude, boorish unkindness. All
such-like manner of impudence is very
vulgar, base-born or very ill-taught, and
has a coarse grain of selfishness in it.
From the Percies I have a story that a
"Lord Abingdon who was remarkable for
the stateliness of his manners, one day
riding through a village in the vicinity of
Oxford, met a lad dragging a calf along
the road; who, when his lordship came up
to him, made a stop and stared him full in
the face. His lordship asked the boy if he
knew him. He replied, ' Ees.' ' What is
my name?' said his lordship. 'Why,
Lord Abingdon,' replied the lad. ' Then
why don't you take off your hat?' 'So I
will, sur,' said the boy, ' if ye '// hold the
.calf.' " If the selfishness, unkindness,
commonness, ignorance, all that makes up
the lump of impudence in a person, could
be taken out and set up to sight on the
road, and moulded a bit, and legs gotten
forth from the shoulders as on the king's
charger in the Parsee legend, it would be as
stupid in face and in fact, and as spraw-
ling and perverse over the road, as any
calf; and if the person from whom it was
224

Respectfulness.

extracted were still tied up with it in some
manner and obliged to drag it along, as
much as if still it were in him, such a one
might say very seasonably to any man who
should complain of his impudence and de-
mand of him to carry himself regard-
fully, that he would indeed if but any one
would hold the calf.

Contrariwise, what a beauty and grace,
how kind and heartening, from what a fine
root of nature or nurture, is a constant re-
spectfulness of feeling and manner. Em-
erson went to call at an intelligence office
in search of domestic help, and the poor
woman who kept the place said afterward
that " he treated her like a queen." I was
present once by a good chance — for the
picture hath hung on the walls of my
heart till this day — when a student came
to take farewell of his teacher, an aged
scholar known to the learned of two hem-
ispheres. The young fellow said a few
words of gratitude, to the effect that if ever
he attained to any rank in letters it would
be the forthcome of the love of scholar-
ship, the ideal of it which his instructor
had inspired in him; and there was more
in face and voice than in the few words.
The venerable scholar was silent a little,
and then said, "Sir, your words are very
welcome to me, and I thank you for this
225

Respectfulness.

farewell. I should have been specially
grieved if you had gone away without it, for
all through your course of study with me
you have shown me a manner of respect-
fulness— if I may say so, an affectionate
respectfulness — very agreeable to an old
man." I knew once a little girl — bless-
ings on the lovely maid she has grown to,
if these words ever shall meet her eye! —
who is the heroine of a fine picture in my
mind's gallery. She was much in love
with her uncle, a student; the little golden-
haired damsel, three or four years old,
regarded him with admirable reverence.'
One day she was seen sitting in her little
chair drawn close to his feet looking up at
him with great worship, while he, ab-
sorbed in his book, paid no regard to
her. But no discontent appeared. She
was perfectly respectful of him. The
little fine creature knew by soul the
balance of observance and familiarity,
that double-star of the domestic heavens,
and was ceremonious to the scholar's mood
while waiting to resume the playmate's
freedom.

Such is the ugliness and the beauty over
against one another. King Lear said it
was " worse than murder to do violent
outrage on respect; " which is like what a
friend said to me, that he thought no im-
226

Respectfulness.

pudent person had a right to life. And
why it is horrid crime to stab the body,
but none to thrust daggers of impudences,
to "hack one another in the sides" of the
soul, who can see reason? On the other
hand, how fine and far shines a loving
respectfulness! With what a-light! What
a sweet virtue of love it is, with a light
above common virtues! It diffuses a bliss!
Respect means originally to look back on,
to look twice or sundry times on, and so
to give heed and care. Let them who
would dwell in one another take note that
there is a bare lack of the due heed, with-
out more offence, which may hurt more
cruelly than a stranger can do with what-
ever scoffs and open impudence. There is
no high fervency of loving without much
thinking, and again thinking.

227

Education.

XXIII.

The effects of kindness in affairs are
past numbering, of which Encouragement,
Recommendation, Advice, Respectfulness,
Help in many forms, Knowledge imparted,
Economy of matter and time, are but a
few 'titles. Indeed these effects are mir-
acles, and if all were written down, "the
world could not hold the books that should
be written." Yet another must be added,
to wit, Education; for this is one of the
.great results and powers of kindness.
Truly Education must be the work of lov-
ing-kindness; for it is but the drawing of
us forth, and we shall come forth to naught
but kindness. Of course I mean not, in
the office of training others, young or old,
to commend a weak or yielding spirit
which can hold never to a steady purpose
nor go onward firmly to one sure point, —
foolishly fond, cruelly indulgent. For
such feeble tempers commonly are very
cruel in effect, however they be in mean-
ing. For very often, being weak, they are
unstable and capricious, at one moment
indulgent, at the next harsh, and each
without reason or reflection. But to be
228

Education.

indulgent without consideration may be as
cruel in near effect (if one, for example,
let another take a poison because it tastes
pleasantly), and as calamitous in far result,
by breeding a foolish or perverse char-
acter, as an unreasonable gusty harshness.
Besides, a weak yieldingness of temper
drags after it another injury, namely, that
it despoils others of loving; for only firm-
ness and force, decision and steadiness,
can draw forth much love or good love.
Continually it is seen that it is not weak
parents or teachers who are beloved by
children. In many ways, therefore, it is
plain that the feeble, unbraced, unresolute,
bending temper is in effect a cruel one as
much as a harsh spirit.

But Education must be done by a large,
unwearying, ever hopeful loving-kindness,
which also is wise withal and has an eleva-
tion and, if so I may say, a sternness in
its love, like a mountain, very kind and
full of prospects to a climber, but stooping
its head not a whit to loiterers and feeble-
legged gentry at its foot. For who will
be drawn to knowledge or to any good
thing by cruel acts or fierce manners', or
by coldness, indifference, void of atten-
tion, or by weakness? And yet what
young person or creature can withstand
forever the entreaties, example or instruc-
229

Education.

tion of a firm kindness which never tires?
" Consider," says Marcus Aurelius, "that
kindness is unconquerable if it be sincere
and not an affected smile or acting a part.
For what will even the worst man do to
thee if thou continue to be of a kind dis-
position toward him, and if at opportunity
thou admonish him gently and calmly cor-
rect his errors at the very time when he is
trying to do thee harm, saying: ' Not so,
my child. We are constituted by nature
for something else. I certainly shall not
be injured, but thou art injuring thyself,
my child;' and show him with gentle tact
and by general principles that this is so,
and that even bees do not as he does,
nor any animals which are formed by
nature to live in company. And thou
must do this neither with any double
meaning nor for a reproach, but affection-
ately and without any rancor in thy soul,
and not as if thou wert lecturing him; nor
yet that any bystander may admire, but
when he is alone."

This sage says herein that kindness
enough prolonged, which means unfailing,
surely will educate if it be perfectly sincere.
But what an "if!" What a necessity!
That it be simple, purely genuine, without
selfishness, pride, or any falsity in it!
Now recall I at this moment a man and a
230

Education.

woman who set about to correct or change
somewhat in the situation and action of
a friend to which they objected; and an
excellent good motive they said they had,
and it is but fair to take their word for it,
since the soul is invisible, and believe that
there was much spice of desire to benefit
their friend, and that they little were con-
scious, as animals perceive not their own
odors, of the wanton pride, ugly vanity
and sanctimony wherewith they set to at
their friend. They were so wantonly
pleased to turn lecturers and admonishers
that in that soda-flame all else in them
turned ghastly. They were so eager for
their vantage that they perceived not how
they danced at a funeral of his hopes to the
tune " I am better than thou." Then were
they much wonder-struck, in their heart-
blindness, and displeased with him, be-
cause he pushed back their boldness and
would not be admonished of them, being
too much afflicted by their skipping gait
and impudence and satisfaction with them-
selves. Yet so must it be; for a jealous or
complacent or impudent state of mind has
an exceeding intensity of color wherewith
to stain a considerable mass of good in-
tent, and make it as worthless and nauseous
as fair-looking butter in its yellow pride
which has imbibed some bad odors, tar or
231

Education.

oil or garlic, set near it. For a correcting,
admonishing, advising, educating can be
done only by the most pure simplicity of
love and unadulterated sincerity. Even
very common natures, yea, and very bad
characters, whose wits and senses are very
blunt, will detect a false ring, a vanity, or
a mere hue and cry, in an attempted re-
proof or instruction, and will set it at
naught. Deservedly; for even if they
would do well to twist a bad thing to
their own profit, the bad thing has no claim
to it.

But to a great, simple, clear loving-
kindness, all things will yield at last — in
time, in good time. If it be a far time,
kindness must be patient, for some things
dissolve slowly.

Also, kindness must be wise and expect
not things beyond conditions. We must
act toward all things according to their
nature and " acknowledge everything to
be what it is." If I wish to try the vim of
kindness on a tiger, I must take measures
first which to the creature will not seem
kind, and very surely will not be pleasant
to him, nor soft and gentle; for else he
will eat me at once. It is not kindness
but folly to enter into conversation with a
tiger on supposition that he is like a
lamb, or that he is a lamb in fact though
232

Education.

to our eyes a tiger. I profess no non-
resistance, nor feel I any qualm or reluc-
tance to say so, as if half-fearful that
I put away a good or ideal thing. Force
has a place in nature, and it is due and
should be active in some moral conditions
or events. If a man may lay constraining
will on himself, I see not why he may
not lay constraining hands on another
in an exigency. For why inward and
mental energy and decision is good, but
becomes bad when it passes forth into-
the outward and physical at need, I never
could see. I have read credibly that
Tolstoi, being pushed on his doctrine of
non-resistance, was asked whether, on
occasion of a furious man holding up
in the air a child and lashing the quiv-
ering little creature with a rod, one might
interfere by force; and he answered,
"No." "But what may be done?"
"We may reason with the man, talk to
him, beseech him." "But if he be deaf
with rage and either hear not or will
not listen, and continue whipping the
child?" "Then we have done wrhat we
can." ."And we must let him flog the
helpless infant because we may not take
hands to him — we must stay by and see it
to no purpose, or run away from it, be-
cause we may use no force?" "So." —
233

Education.

What a besottedness is this! And all be-
cause it is written in Scripture, "Resist
not evil," or "the evil doer," which-
ever we shall translate it. I have no way
to follow the story, to explore it in its
source, and I must ask forgiveness of
Tolstoi if this tale be mythical, which pur-
ported to be an interview with him; but I
suppose it is of a piece with his doctrine,
though it be the extreme of it. Neither
have I read what he may say for himself in
this vie^w, nor cared to read it; for it is but
to expound texts, or at least to ground on
them, sticking as fast and as dangerously
as a ship on a sandbar while the living
ocean beats on it. And truly I have no
time to read any one wherein he is not
free of his own soul, but ties himself to
some text, and has but one answer and
reason, — "It is written." Now simply I
say, I would deal with everything after its
kind, and not with a furious man as with a
•calm one, nor with a robber as with a
peaceable man, nor with a violent and
bullying fellow as with a gentle one. I
-would not leave them to do their will un-
hindered if belike the rage, the thievish-
ness or the impudence have smeared them
with an unction from which bland dewy
words roll off. It may be useful and vir-
tuous and needful to knock a man down.
234

Education.

Do it, then. But do it with love, as a
surgical tour de force, inwardly as calm and
beneficent as the heavens that insphere
the act, the soul thus being as righteously
busy as the fists, each after his own fashion.
I say with conscience that I believe in
fists on occasion, and in staves, and in bind-
ing with cords, and all other means of de-
fence or offence short of killing; and by no
means would I fail to perceive, or perceiv-
ing, shirk, an occasion for them. I would
advise all young men to understand sparring
and attain to skill in it, so that on proper
occasion they may be found equipped with
science against brute-force. Moreover,
the sense of right power and of good ad-
vantage over common muscle goes very far
to keep the heart calm and benevolent and
make the blows uncruel. Naught is so
disturbing and fury-engendering as a sense
of weakness and non-mastery when one
must launch himself into an emergency.

Here will I avail me of a good bit of
wisdom from my Sister, my dear Marian.
She will be no stranger to these views
when she shall review these sentences.
For this is no new matter with me, but old
thoughts, and I have had them over with
her and " tumbled them up and down " in
our talks more than once. And her loving
soul has agreed with me. " For," said my
235

Education.

Dozen, with a smile, " as nature has not
given hard fists and knotty biceps to women,
but to men has given them, the meaning is
both peace and war, but that one fighter
is quite enough for two persons; and," she
added, with a roguish beam at me, " also
it means that in time peace shall prevail
utterly and there shall be no fighters at
all." "Oh! ho!" said I, "how makest
thou out that?" "Why, thou see'st,
brother," answers my Dozen demurely,
"if Abel had had a sister instead of a
brother, she would not have asked, ' Am I
my brother's keeper?,' because she would
have known well that she was." Hereat
I began, "Thou art very much too" — .
But she put her hand over my mouth, and
with that advantage continued, "And thou
knowest the adage, ' The keeper can lead
the elephant with a hair.' 'Tis true, we,
the sisters, are keepers of rather wild
creatures, who will be still snarling and
clawing on a chance; and sometimes the
wild creature of one of the keepers breaks
loose and falls on the keeper of another
with tooth and nail. Then there is trouble;
and I would be loth to think my brother
would not fight for me on such occasion."
With this my Marian, who is given to
quick changes (you have seen a mantled
pool, gentle reader, which lies under stars
236

Education.

and trees like crystal, so adamantine seems
the diamond surface; but so tenderly mo-
bile is it that a sigh will rock it, nay, a
pencil of light seems to carry breeze
enough in its fan to ripple it; — such is
Marian) looked at me with a sweet ser-
iousness and loving trust which moved me;
but my satisfaction somewhat was dimmed
by her action; for she took my hand,
whereat methought a doubtful look stole
in, and she doubled my unpracticed fist
and regarded it, and methought an intelli-
gent amusement flickered a moment at her
mouth.

"We are agreed as to the goodness of
fighting on occasion," said I, "but all
turns on the occasion, and how we are to
know it without misadventure. For one
person will find never an occasion, like
Benedict Button who agreed that a wife
must be ruled, but when it came to the
point of an occasion, never found aught in
which he thought he should rule his own
wife; and others, contrariwise, make so
light of it that anything is occasion for
a setting to, even with weapons. There-
fore, between these, how may the right oc-
casion be known with a wisdom sure
enough for so great a matter? " Now this
I said not to disprove the virtue of a
"holy war," (for I would be as loth as my
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Education.

Dozen to think I would not use my fists
for her, or any oaken staff at hand, in a
pure fury, at need), but as a perplexity.
For it was what a good disciple of George
Fox had said to me but recently when I
was opening this subject with him. "I
grant thee," said he, "that there may be
occasion for fighting; but I would remind
thee that it is not given to human wisdom
to know the occasion. That what may
seem like an occasion truly is an occasion,
is what neither thee knows nor can any
man." I answered that this rule would
cut off a vast portion of all human judg-
ment and action, for the greatest matters
must be conducted often in uncertainty;
but he replied that it was right to do many
things in ignorance and hope, but that
fighting was so horrible a thing that it
should be done only on absolute assur-
ance. "But," cried I, " who can have
absolute assurance except the Infallible?"
"True," said he; "therefore leave war to
God." Now when I told my gentle Sis-
ter this conversation, there came forth
from her that bit of good wisdom to which I
have referred. " I think the Friend is mis-
taken in two ways," said Marian: " First,
it seems to me not true that fighting is the
most horrible and worst of things; for not
to fight, supposing the occasion real, is far
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Education.

worse, as I think, Brother. Therefore it
may be very much worse to err by not
fighting on real occasion, than, by fight-
ing on mistaken occasion, to err the
other way. And the second point is that
we are not left without due guidance in
this matter, but we have an eye specially
able to discern the color of occasion and
know it efficiently. That eye is Peace.
The man who is loving-kind at heart and
dearly seeks peace will know when there
must be war. He will know the occasion
when it is present. But the unkind will
mistake occasion and rush to it when there
is none; and therein is one of the sad
penalties of unkindness."

So said my Marian. Ah! thou loving
one and my beloved, thou mindest me of
the fragrance of a Kempis when he saithr
11 No one knoweth to speak but him who
loveth to be silent, and no one knoweth to
command but him who loveth to obey."1
We have been very poor, my Sister, and
young were thy feet when they came to the
treadmill, and long were the many yoars
of thy labors. No academe has waved
its shades over thee, and the sciences are
unto thee like stars in a far firmament.
But how ripe is thy mind with the ripeness
of thy soul! How sweet is thy wisdom
with the sweetness of thy love! How
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Education.

clear are the humors of thine eye to see
truly! How reflecting the loving quiet
and devout patience of thy spirit which
keepeth thee pellucid to receive into thy-
self and to shape again in thyself all
things as they are!

And how vain and astray are those who
think to ripen in portions, and without the
heart. For no more than a fruit can be
red-ripe on one side and green-crude on
the other, can a man be open in mind and
shut up in heart. If the fruit so be soft
on one cheek and hard on the other, it is
but a false ripeness, unperfected, rather
indeed an untimely advance to decay, and
it is an un-fruit-ed fruit, not brought to
any true soundness, and the part which
to the eye so is seeming-ripe, to the taste
and to the stomach, which are the true
tests, but is fair falseness, for to the stom-
ach it is unwholesome and to the taste
it has a bitter or else a flavorless savor
from the crude portion of it. Such-like is
a man who being still untender in heart
thinks therewith to be wise in mind, or
being thoughtless, untutored, unearnest in
mind, uncareful to get knowledge and to
reflect, thinks therewith to come at any
good virtue and perfectness of heart.

If a man have the learning of Sir
Thomas More and have not his heart, be
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Education.

sure he will have not his wit and wisdom.
Nor if he have the soft and gleeful heart
without the carefulness of reflection,
neither that way will he come at the ripe-
ness, to be large and wise. For neither
can one think well without loving, nor
love well without thinking.

And yet I would put love first and count
it most, as more leading unto thought and
unto the seeing of things as they are, and
thoughts the more following after love, and
then falling back unto it, to die in it, as it
were like leaves in the soil, to enrich it
and thereby lift themselves from it to a new
life, more in numbers and in beauty.

Great wit without love is a corner; but
great wit with great tenderness is all Na-
ture. A man may swell, be impudent,
strut, in the corner, and not seem therein
very ridiculous to himself, nay, nor to
others much out of keeping, because the
corner is so small. But in Nature there is
no impudence, nor figuring and posturing,
because it is unlimited, and all things are
harmonious together therein, which is its
greatness. It is strange to me how topsy-
turvy and flatly upsidedown the witty do
place these things and make up their rank.
A woman said to me — and "a. woman well
reputed," much regarded, being witty and
well knowing her wit and claiming much
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Education.

on account of it and assuming foremost
places in right of it — this woman said to
me, "Oh, I am not tender, I make no
claim to be tender! " and she might have
added, for so did her actions loudly, "I
claim not to seek to be tender nor to bring
myself to that condition." Now in saying
this she spoke with no compunction, but
rather as if it were no shame to a woman
to lack that grace; nay, rather as if she
were lifted above a human frailty thereby,
and could see the better unbefogged in it.
She knew not what a portion of the soul's
sight is blinded in untenderness. But
never, even to her secret self, would
she have avowed a like lack of under-
standing, or if secretly conscious of it,
that she would have been ashamed of,
and by no means declared it, nor allowed
others to mention it. This is what seems
to me a strange topsyturviness, a putting
of last things first, and the reckoning of
first things as of no place. Because of
this inverting and transposing of things
the Nazarene Master foretold another turn-
ing over, that the order should be set
right again, and the things now first
should be made last and those now last be
made first; and in like manner Paul says,
"The wisdom of this world is foolishness
with Him. It is written, He taketh the
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Education.

cunning in their craftiness. For God often
hath chosen the things accounted foolish
in the world, to put to shame the wise,
and the weak things of the world that he
might put to shame the things that are
strong; and the abased things of the world
and the despised things hath God chosen."
With this thought, that in love groweth
wisdom, comes back my mind to my Mar-
ian, my heart-dwelling Sister. Equally
doth my eye rest on her, and my mind,
with my eye beholding her joyfully when
she is present, and with my mind's
eye making a presence of her when she
is absent. How inexpressibly do I de-
light in her delicate, lissom beauty, her
loveliness, her tenderness, her aerial pres-
ence, her spiritual pervasion round about
me, her strength as of a fine Damascus
blade, and her mental touch of rare and
singular genius. These qualities all are
joined together in her loving goodness like
colors in white light; but on prismatic oc-
casion they break forth, and she, the sim-
ple, the sweet, is clothed in the rainbow.
How often I sit looking silently at the fine
ellipse of her brow over from her eyes to
the gentle obscurity of the curve in her
soft hair above her neck. It is a fine and
genius-carrying symmetry, that same fair
curve, rising from the valley of her eyes,
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Education.

not like a masonry or cliff, as do some
foreheads, straight and barren, or bulging,
and square-angled at the temples, but like
the enriched breast of a slope full of seeds
and roots of all manner of bloom. Nature,
in the external perfections that answer to
spiritual, hath been careful of lines, and of
the continuance of them, that they should
sweep over and around in fine curves; and
howsoever we view her figures and heads,
the boundaries should be lovely lines un-
angled. Often have I observed that the
head and brow which, from the eyes over,
follow a gentle graceful recession unto a
fair round of the top and again a like curv-
ing descent and gentle ingress to the neck
• — that this, I say, is the manner and shape
of head which shows, not a genius, for this
or that, but genius in wholeness, not parts
t(as with a fine ironical instinct we dub
-smart wits), but a unity, of fair sane power,
harmony, "poetic justice," and an eye
of the mind to see things as they are.
Therewithal have I noticed also that
this same symmetry of curving and un-
angled contour is sign of expressiveness,
of the gift to put forth ourselves, by
speech or other arts, in forms which are
beautiful, poetic, musical, tender, humane.
Compare the heads of Bacon and Shakes-
peare, that massive rampart, that forti-
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Education.

fication, that hostile masonry rising
square and beetling from the eyes of the
one, and the other's invitation of brow,
if so I may call it, the humane grace and
harmony of the refluence. Prate not to
me that one was a changeling of the other
in the cradle of poetry. Their heads are
enough. That square brow, of front and
angles, is the wall whence " parts" spy
out from the eye; but Shakespeare's genial
forehead is a casement where the man in
whole, with grace, love and song, sits
at window. In that massy cube of
Bacon's forehead could not have been
conceived the things Shakespeare has
done, even if the cold essayist had mayhap
the grace to envy the poet righteously; nor
would Shakespeare have cared a doit to
leave his persons and the human heart to
take up with the philosopher's frigid
cheapenings, nor put his large fervors to
that cynical work, " though it cried " hon-
ors " never so! "

Shine still in me and around me, dear
and gentle spirit, my Sister, fringing thy
loving-kindness and thy wisdom with the
colors and corona of thy delicate genius.
Bright and fair is the morning wherein
these words are written, Nature's gracious-
ness according to the season; but more
full of light than the sky hath my Sister
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Education.

dawned in me. Soon she will call me to
our morning meal. Know I not her ways?
Her feet will come like feather-falls to the
door, and softly as a violet opens will the
door swing to her hand, and cautiously
will the ray of her eye creep in, like morn-
ing over hills, and her voice, like a rustle
of silence, will say, " Hidalgo," which is
her way of announcing a meal, referring to
the " Hidalgo's dinner " of the poet, "very
little meat and a great deal of table cloth; "
for this is her ideal of a repast if the cloth
be snowy. Or perhaps she will nod only,
or look quietly, if I seem abstracted; and
all lest she dim or break some "great
thought " which I may have. So will she
come; but already, by such manner of
coming which is known unto me, and by
all her loving reverence of spirit, lest
aught be disturbed, she has arisen in me
and come unto me more than the sun and
shone over my matin page.

And here she is! "Good morning!
Come in, Blessing! Didst hear that robin-
whistle among the sparrow-twitters this
morning, the first of the Spring? Ah! I
knew it would not escape thine ear."

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Outcasts.

XXIV.

Kind reader, though I am pleased to
write this chapter, and by no means would
omit it, yet it is written by my Sister's bid-
ding. I had finished my writing, and
Marian had it in hand, when she said to
me, "I see naught herein of kindness to
the outcast. " ' i All are outcasts who receive
no kindness," I answered. " But some are
outcasts first and thereupon unkindly
used," said Marian.

11 How often have we agreed," continued
my Sister, " that the present dealings with
criminals make a blot on our civility; and
thou hast visited many of the cages and
barred places and seen the abominations
of them." "But, Sister," said I, "the
book hath its plan and now is builded ac-
cording to it. If I add another chapter,
will it not be like hanging out an unsightly
and unconformed wing on a house, an ex-
crescence which upsets the beauty and the
gracious outline?" "That is naught,"
said Marian. "Thou writest not for beauty
but to do good, and gatherest beauty by
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Outcasts.

the way because it is one of the tools for
doing good withal. " " Beauty is its own
excuse for being," I murmured. "True,"
said my Dozen; "wherefore, seek the
greater beauty. If thou can write words
which will count in one heart anywhere, to
awake the thought that society shares in
the crime of the criminal, and the ques-
tion what duty lies therewith on society,
thou wilt build a greater beauty in that
soul than the architecture of a book. And
if thou add some discourse for the sake of
kindness and justice, I mistake much if it
will be found like a hanging ugliness, but
rather like a fair part which was latent and
has grown forth. Besides," so continued
my Dozen, " I think not only thy book lacks
a virtue if thou neglect this justice and
mercy in it, but thy discourse of education
therewith, which thou endest with speak-
ing of children, lacks a fair and round out-
line if thou omit to speak of the educing
and disciplining of wayward persons and
outcasts."

Bethink you, reader — and if there be
two reading together, a brave man and
tender woman, who mysteriously, being
invisibly one in love, have become visibly
one in children, in the perilous joy of
them, in the anxiety of them because they
must meet the world's temptations and be
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Outcasts.

washed around with the eddies of society,,
bethink you the more — whether we share
not sadly and be not very answerable in
the fate of the shameful creatures who
now are in the small cages in the prisons.
Have not we, though free, accessory guilt
with those who are confined? What* say
you? That you can recall no prison-like
act of yours, nor ever did you set any one
going toward the cages? Nay, I would
not imagine your souls to be bruised in
that manner. But tell me, if society so be
formed and so act in body and soul as to
make rotting and sore places which exhale
criminality, where is the conscience about
it? Who is to be loaded with that foul-
ness? Who must feel guilty of it? Shall
no one be burdened with the festering heaps
except those whom the noisome steams,
have made sick? It is a hard thing to find
the conscience of the whole; but your con-
science, my conscience, must be aroused,
till at last and at least we use our mouths
and cry aloud and say, Shame on usE
Then will the little leaven have entered
which will raise the whole lump after a
season.

Here is the simple truth, namely, that

the whole social structure is accessory ta

crime and in complicity with it; and being

so, we do worse than the criminals if we be

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Outcasts.

indifferent to our part in making criminals,
and then the more and worse if we hale
them out as aliens and castaways, and
trample on them already down, and con-
sume the last of their self-respect in the
vileness, shames and hardships of small
-cages. That society, however bad, must
defend itself, I admit; because there are
many innocent, and because if the social
structure be preyed on too much by its
own spawn of crime, it will reach no bet-
ter state, nay, will be eaten up. There-
fore there are men who must be imprisoned,
and women too (what woe it is!); but why
should lodgings for prisoners be so mean,
so hateful? Why should there not be a
progressive discipline? Why, by steps of
•discipline should not the felon be housed
comfortably, treated kindly? Would room,
light and furniture be follies? If these
help up self-respect and have some healing
-virtue when healing may be possible, what
•else should we seek? And if no cure be
possible and we must immure the man
iorever, is there good reason for doing it
cruelly, and with degradation, or not rather
as kindly and peacefully and elevatingly as
we can, and with sorrowful conscience?

What? Say you such measures of com-
fort and kindness are too costly? I think
they would be a part of a vast saving; for
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Outcasts.

such good things never will be until the
selfishness of social life be purged much,
and then withal crime itself will be done
away or abated greatly; and the costliest
of all things is crime. But what if a
right manner of detention, firm and un-
wavering, sure, unfickle, but gentle, kind,
nursing self-respect, be more costly than
our cages? 'Tis a question not of cost but
of who is answerable and what is right.
If society by its ignorance, greed, selfish-
ness, iniquities and frauds of many kinds,
league with the criminal's temptation and
crime, then shall we skulk from the cost
of things favorable to salvation?

Besides, what aim we at? If revenge,
we are barbarous; if prevention, we are
foolish; even looking but at the useless
cost, foolish. What could be a more costly
gigantic failure than the cages? Have
criminals become rare by them? Have
the cages awed the starving, the brutal,
the lustful? What reformation and re-
pentance, or revenge and hatred rather,
have they cast up on society when they
have disgorged themselves of their uneasy
meat at the end of the term of sentence?
When rescued they ever a sinking pride,
revived a forgotten hope, roused an un-
manned spirit?

Wherefore I say again that it is no ques-
251

Outcasts.

tion of cost, to a manly heart, but of what
the aim shall be, and of who is answerable,
and whether there be not a divided blame-
worthiness and society be not accessory to
the making of the criminal. Look with
enough love (which is the secret of seeing
anything) at the sources . which recruit
"the dangerous classes" (so we call
them, but they are no more dangerous to
us than we to them), and one of two things
is clear, namely, that either we are not
enough intelligent nor have knowledge to
deal with men, boys, women, girls, with-
out cages, or we are callous, brutally in-
sensible to the madness and misery behind
the bars, and the distresses, vagabondage,
filth, vicious education, which rear the in-
mates of cells!

On this sunny morning, when now I
write these words, ah! how delicious is my
life and liberty! But under this sun, not
seeing it, men are lying in the iron cages
of many cities, because they are what
every thing and every influence around
them from babyhood has made them.

My liberty, say I ! Just my liberty this
sunny morning! How precious it is! My
power to go whither I will — what a bliss!
The sun, the verdure, the sounds of the
earth, the rustle of the business of men, the
voices of creatures, birds, trees, and my
252

Outcasts.

life among them, how delicious! What
ecstasy! But what is my desert of it all?
Is my fine freedom the meed of my virtue?
Or of my virtue? We who walk about free,
fortunate, glad, we, the well-dressed, well-
fed, amiable, we, who never were vagrants
nor felt the lash of disease or appetite in-
herited— whence come the fine feathers
that we plume ourselves withal? In some
tribes only the tried brave may wear eagles'
plumes. Where were we tried? Were we
vagrants from infancy? Were we beggars,
whipped at home, kicked abroad, loafing
in stables, gaming-dens, drink-shops?
Sometimes the city is startled by a sudden
bulging crime, a huge embezzlement or a
dreadful violence, in the " best society."
It is thought a terrible marvel. Who
could have conceived it? Who could have
suspected that he, the courted, the ad-
mired, the trusted, could fall in that man-
ner? But it amazes not the thoughtful.
They know the unhappy man had not been
tried and his seeming virtue was no more
than circumstance and fortune. Mayhap
in a finer chemistry known in heaven there
is a qualitative analysis that often finds
but the same substance in fine free worth-
ies and in caged outcasts. Who may not
be humbled sadly if he reflect how much of
his respectability he may owe to circum-
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Outcasts.

stance, and how little of a feat then his
character or life is, it having been so
sheltered and so safe! And even if we
have a fine endowment by nature, what of
it? Is it ours? Made we it? On what
ground can we stand to puff up ourselves
and be elated about our personality? Con-
fronting the deeps of the issues of life, we
are all alike. I heard a preacher once
speak slightingly of " second or third rate
persons." I know no second rate persons.

" In all people I see myself, none more and not one

a barley-corn less,
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them."

Wretched and accidental are the dis-
criminations of human justice. They
pierce not to reality. Here every day we
may charge ourselves with freedoms for
which many a poor son of man has suf-
fered the knout in Russia or beheading in
Turkey or disemboweling in China or
dungeons in France or tortures in Spain,
or hanging in this country a while back.
Both as to vile guilt and as to mischief it
is possible to sin worse outside the law
than in its clutches. Easy and comfort-
able is it to steal enormously by ways that
law troubles not itself with, nor would if it
could. These ways are common shames,
well known. They pad the shoulders of
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Outcasts.

public service, of dealings in land and in
stocks, and of much trade. But this is
stealing, of a piece with the pickpocket,
sneak-thief, shop-lifter, housebreaker. I
can see but one line, one face, one flesh.
The safe sinner is a little criminal, the
criminal is a large sinner; nay, nor may
they be called little or large but inter-
changeably, and the prison not deciding.
Often what odds is there but courage? —
and the daring spirit very like is the no-
bler, and no more harmful mayhap, than
the secure thief who from the vantage of a
base prudence or a puny muscle or respect-
able opportunity or the law's blindness,
squints at his big brother in a cage.

Speaking of the fine feathers we flaunt
withal, we, who never were tried, but
housed, nursed, guarded, blest from the
beginning, calls to my mind's eye a strange,
sharp, careless, pathetic youngling face, a
boy I saw and knew long ago; nor know I
what became of him, and I feel it a
shame that I know not. He was running
wild and in great danger. A skittish
urchin, a bright-eyed little fellow, with
naught coarse or brutal in his face. But
there was need of vast skill, tact, heart,
patience, humility in dealing with him,
He could not be kept at school — some
places he would not endure, others would
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Outcasts.

not endure him. He was whipped habit-
ually by his father. If now perchance he
be in a cage, is it all his fault? For he
was out and free once. Had the whole
community not wit enough to keep him so?
Or not soul enough to care, or think, or
pay for it? The question between society
and that boy (and his name is Legion) is
one of interest in a moral doom. How
important think we it that the boy should
be followed with divine constancy, not left
to himself, but walled with all the re-
sources of society, like a mother's arms
around a babe in his first steps? And
what are the resources of society? What
wit have we to invent, what love to apply,
what devotion to pay for appliances equal
to that labor? Feel we, as if in our own
ilesh, for that boy the pitfalls of idleness
and passions? Rather give we not flaunt-
ing vice and dissolute men full scope to do
their worst on the unguarded or the way-
ward? See the ten thousand hands
stretched out to pull him down. He is
like a child floating in a sea full of water-
devils invisible except by the hands rising
from under the surface to snatch at him.
Want, hunger, libertinism, drunkenness,
avarice, all play for him. What is .the
counter-move of respectable, sheltered,
happy people? What skill or fervor have
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Outcasts.

we in that desperate game for a soul?
Have we either morality alive to it or wit
equal to it? I see it not; neither feel I it
in myself, nor find I it. Well then, the
time may come when the little sad vaga-
bond, who had no choice in his inheritance
as to body or soul or conditions, may be
an injury or a threat to society so bad that
he must be seized and caged. But he
will not be so extreme a failure as our
boasted knowledge and civility, able to
lock up the man and willing to pay for it,
being hurt by him, but neither able in wit
nor having the good will of our pockets to
redeem the child. Nor know I how we
dare, fronting the face of this huge failure
in ourselves, to cage him in a grated cell
like a wild beast, bare, comfortless, in-
decent !

But to the indifference or ignorance of
society a sad and large count must be
added. Not only negatively, by indiffer-
ence, the community is answerable for
criminals, but by the positive way of
direct temptation and incitement. Will
there not be of necessity small stealing
where large stealing flourishes? Consider
the power of riches how great, ambition
how venturesome, competition how bitter.
And especially in a new country where
chances are so many and society foams
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Outcasts.

and lashes itself after money, consider how
great belike will be the individual wishes
. and envies. Consider then the effect on a
poor, ill-provided, ill-balanced man, or on
one untaught, with no trade and little edu-
cation, thereby driven to subsist by what
wits he has in what way he may — con-
sider the effect on such a man of the sight
of enormous stealing stalking all over the
country in the management of corpora-
tions, in the trade-confusing gambling of
speculators, and in the notorious corrup-
tions of municipal governments. Can
aught be more suitable to confound moral
distinctions? What thoughts will such
sights nurse in hungry or greedy men?
What indeed but that life is a game be-
tween ' ' ins " and ' ' outs, " in which it is their
ill luck to be out; that thereupon if they
snatch their small prey when they find it,
they are guilty of naught worse than the
vulgarity of picking up small things! Add
the compounding of felonies, in which be-
like the detective taxes both his employer
and the thief to his mind before aught can
be gotten. Add the infamous intimacy of
the police with bad classes in large cities,
wherein it has transpired often that officers
collect hush-money from evil places under
threats of disturbing them. Truly society
has forcible ways of provoking the pas-
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Outcasts.

sions and breaking to pieces the moral
sentiment of the unreasoning and needy.
The untaught it makes soon the ill-taught.
Such things are sources of moral disease
which far and wide spread bane and
poison. To eyes smeared with that pitch,
society looks like no more nor better than
a clash and warfare of private interests, in
which any one may have what he can seize
and hold. But not only by suggestion
and example do these abominations of
selfishness teach and nurse crime, and
the more because the large thieves com-
monly are powerful and sought after,
since there are so many who wish to
share the spoils — not only so, but, more
or worse, they induce a perverted eth-
ical doctrine. Willful thieves, who steal
by trade, it is well known often show
no moral sense in the matter. It has be-
come their ethical doctrine that " the
world owes them a living" and they sim-
ply take their own when they help them-
selves and the only evil is that they are
vulgar in it because they can lay hands on
so little. So spreads the poison of selfish
greed, and the same disease which makes
the fortunate man obese covers the lean
and luckless with little sores.

But consider again (although this lies in
what I have said already, yet consider
259

Outcasts.

again and more particularly) that the trade
doings of society tear to pieces all sense of
human brotherhood. Conceive a man
affected by severe want, stung by shabby,
cold or hungry children in his home, igno-
rant, able to take sides and make cause,
but unused to think closely or widely.
Now consider the effect, on such a man,
of gross monopolies, speculations, cun-
ning and violent interference with natural
distribution, "corners" in the necessaries
of life, in wheat, corn, fuel, sewing-
machines. If he think at all, and, by not
thinking to the full, think ill, consider how
it must affect his feelings and impulses to
know that every man he meets in the
street would be glad at any moment to
seize the supplies of all necessaries, so as
to trade on his hunger or his nakedness at
gains swelling to riches in a day.

Under this breaking of humanity to
pieces, and such provocation, if a man steal
by violence or craft, what can we do?
What is left us? To sit down and weep
plentifully for him and for ourselves? No.
He must be locked up, or otherwise con-
trolled. One of the bad parts, because it
is strong, must chastise the other bad part
because it is weak; for the weak must not
prey on the strong, else whence shall come
any progress? But the society that has
260

Outcasts.

taught the felon how to steal and flaunts
itself in stealing grandly while whipping
his small robbing, sinks lower than he has
fallen if it turn thievish also of every
moral hope of him by the infamy and pol-
lution of a cage. Stern and strong belike
must be the discipline by the state at first,
but progressive, careful, and done humbly
by society, to the end of ministry, pity,
sympathy and help.

But if we speak of the positive incite-
ments which the community composts
crime withal, what shall be said of liquor
retailing, that « rank offence" which
"smells to heaven," the crime of society
against sanity, adding mania to misery and
spurring temptation with frenzy! Who
will argue this matter? Who will enter
to debate it? Would not any one think it
a strange thing if I should argue to him
that he must love his little children?
"We take some things for granted."
What a monster were that man who should
ply his boy with unclean sights, sounds,
opportunities, thereupon to chain, torture
or kill him for a bad act or fancy! But
how otherwise acts society if it pour into the
veins a liquid fire and then slay for arson? —
if it ply the wretched, discontented, un-
taught, the fierce, the diseased, with burn-
ing drink till the nerves be ruined,
261

Outcasts.

character gone, reputation killed, want
gnawing like a wolf, animosities turned to
fury, and the woe, anger, moral blindness
and madness break out in robbery and
murder; and then it torture its victim in an
iron cage or hang him from a gibbet?
How society may deal with that pander of
woe and sire of criminals, the liquor-
seller, I am not wise to know. Sumptuary
laws are very hard to apply. But until
society be stirred by a sense of responsi-
bility, by an unselfish fervor and a deeper
religion, to learn how to sweep the liquor-
seller from the earth, it is meet it should
bow its head in ashes before the victims
whom now it but gets out of its sight into
the cages.

But alas! the liquor-seller is himself a
criminal, an extra-legal criminal. I would
deal no more harshly or scornfully with
him than with any criminal. Society shares
with him the responsibility of his being.
Rather would I heap my judgment and
scorn on myself if ever I helped support
him by drinking anything at those tragical
counters where the drunkard buries his
sanity, where pass the funerals of domes-
tic peace.

But here must I fend off a wrong infer-
ence from these reflections. I would be
careful not to weaken the individual's ac-
262

Outcasts.

count with himself. It is not for naught
nor by any accident that the sense of will,
of power, of choice, and of our own an-
swerableness and fault "if we go wrong, is
so deep in us. It is sure that each one is
more than a bit of flotsam and jetsam
driven just as the waves may wash. It is
wholesome and truthful to say to the
criminal that for his own health he must
fasten his eyes on his own fault and know
that he has himself to reproach if he fall
into the base cages. But no less true
is it that if the criminal can come to no
health without conviction of his own fault,
neither can society chastise or help him to
health but by humbly acknowledging
therewith its own blame and share in his
disorder. And soberly I see not how any
one who will survey the whole can conclude
less than that it is the selfishness, the
greed, the cruelty, overreaching, lies,
luxuries, stealing, ignorance and barbar-
ism of society which is most answerable
for the wretchedness and evil of the doers
of crime.

But the word "barbarism" in this last
sentence recalls me to a just patience with
all free offenders as well as for the caged
ones; I mean, patience with all of us, with
society. Society is but an inheritance;
and when we consider from what state and
263

Outcasts.

origin it has come forth, it is a wonder,
and a proof of God, that it has come forth
at all and is as good as it is. Harshness
continually laps over from a lower to a
better state of society; so that what first
was a barbarism among barbarians, per-
sists far into a milder state, by reason of
•"imperfect sympathy," lack of attention,
force of custom, sluggish imagination;
until it is a revolting incongruity, out of
all likeness to the conditions about it.
Hence comes a deal of that penal cruelty
with which society has been drenched
from the marshes of its origin, as any one
may learn and illustrate abundantly by
study of the changes in venerable penal
codes. Therefore I would not spend
harsh words on society for its harsh blows
on the criminal. The community is not
vicious. There is much desperate selfish-
ness and distressing callousness; but
mainly this is vulgar more than vicious.
Society is ill-taught, with a brutal inheri-
tance to wrestle with, and so ignorant as
not to perceive that to cage men vindic-
tively is but to harness itself as a draught
beast to the cages. "We are all alike; "
and if we call to the mind's eye an ideal
humanity, we shall conclude we are all bar-
barous together, and know it is impossi-
ble, by decree of nature, for a corner of
264

Outcasts.

the community to be savage except as-
therewith society throughout is barbarized.
Meantime, there is one person whom
every man should watch strictly, to wit,
himself; first to see to it that he commits
not under delicate shelters deeds which
truly are of a piece with those that hurry
men to the cages under vulgar exposures;
and secondly to examine himself humbly — -
whether he have good wit and good culture
enough to be capable of moral sympathy.
"Any one," says Lecky, in his " History of
European Morals," among some wise,
words on our treatment of criminals —
"Any one can conceive a fit of drunken-
ness or a deed of violence; but few per-
sons, who are by nature very sober or very
calm can conceive the natural disposition
that predisposes to it. * * * To realize;
with any adequacy the force of a pas-
sion we have never experienced, to con-
ceive a type of character radically different
from our own, above all to form any just
appreciation of the lawlessness and obtuse-
ness of moral temperament inevitably gen-
erated by a vicious education, requires a
power of imagination which is among the
rarest of human endowments. " But when-
ever this power be not a happy "endow-
ment," I would not toss it away on that
account, as no one's concern. For if a
265

Outcasts.

man be born eyeless, he is to be pitied;
but if he will not have a sick eye cured
that he may see, he is contemptible. I
would put it forward that this heavenly
imagination, conceiving after that divine
manner which " sees the thought of the
heart," may be labored unto and attained
by reflection with conscience and love;
Tvherefore a man should be ashamed to be
void of intellectual and moral sympathy,
the power to feel by conception what we
have not felt in our own fibres, to enter
into a mental and moral condition and into
a force of circumstances all alien to us.
This is a hard thing, nay, the last rare
feat of a generous culture; but let any one
be ashamed and class himself but vulgarly
till he shall have come to it. It is an
angel who never will lay a cool hand on
one who crowds selfishly through life, see-
ing men only as thjey may be pressed to
aid him while he seizes what he can, and
crying vindictively, when the criminal, an-
other plunderer, rends the same social
order, " Away with him! To the gallows!
To the cages!" Intelligent justice comes
of humane reflection and of a habit of look-
ing on men curiously and tenderly in our
daily walk as creatures plunged in a social
struggle wherein few are much above the
common, and few much below.
266

Children.

XXV.

I have read of taming the hyena and the
wolf, till they pine after their masters;
even the wasp has been educated till it has
been made "placable and mild." If
fierce brutes are to be softened and edu-
cated by kindness, it is known well that
better or needfully they should be taken
very young. Likewise among men, child-
hood is the instructor's " prime of w'orld."
In the training of children, kindness stands
on the hill-top of its realm; it may travel
widely around, but it can go no higher.
I have said hereinbefore that kindness, to
be of force for education, must be, first,
perfectly pure and sincere, without vanity
or self-importance; secondly, not a weak-
ling's pliancy, but firm, and disciplinary if
occasion be; thirdly, applied according to
the nature of things, differently to a tiger
and to a lamb, to one disposition and to
another. In these three traits of a kind-
ness good for educating, shine well forth
what the child needs, namely, a kindness
that is very pure and utterly loving, un-
'267

Children.

selfish and devout, and this firm and
strong, and then studious withal, studious
of the child's special nature, and wise to
deal with him as truly he is, with under-
standing.

Let blows be put away. The hand that
leaps quickly to give a blow to a child, has
not escaped the temper and subtle memory
of having been a claw afar back. I say
not that whipping never is wise and always
brutal; yet he is brutal in it who does it
without an awful conscience. I would lay
down this rule, that the only case in which
it is right to apply whipping except (if in-
deed there be any exception) after long and
sorrowful reflection and with a shrinking
conscience and after a multitude of patient,
vain efforts by other means, is a case
wherein it is necessary for the child's
bodily safety to make a sudden effect on
him. For example, I knew a father whose
little girl had a habit of running up to
strange dogs and throwing her arms about
them, hanging on them. And-this she did
in spite of warning. The habit was too
dangerous. There was no time to await
the slow work of reason. One decided
whipping was effective, and the child
dropped the practice. But mark well that
one source, and mayhap the greatest, of
the effect of the punishment was, that it

Children.

was rare and momentous. If the tender
creature had become used to blows by
dodging or suffering chance slaps day by
day, little power would have been left to
the chastisement.

How is it possible to look on a child
without a kind of heart-ache at the pathos
of its helplessness? How cruel harshness
is, or cold neglect, how dreadful fierce and
angry blows, upon these little beings who
cling to us like clusters on a vine! It is
by our good juices they must be ripened.
If the vine be bad, what hope for them!
Children can be brought to that bloom and
blossom of young life which is so exqui-
site, or to that excellence of ripe mid-age
which is so honorable and blest, only by a
raining and beaming on them of many
forces as sweet and tender as dew and
light, — I mean, utmost loving-kindness,
exceeding forbearance, just eyes to see our
own faults in the child, quickness of sym-
pathy, inventiveness to give pleasure or
grace, much companionship, much liberty
too, confidence given and won, contrivance
and ingenuity in gentle leading. And
withal, as I have said before that there is
a large vanity and conceit in unkindness,
so there will be no very good parental
kindness without humility; for sad or bad
is he who can look on his child without
269

Children.

awe, or compare its needs and his attain-
ments without remorse.

It is very important, under head of kind-
ness, and especially of kindness to child-
ren, that we reckon highly the value and
authority of a wish. I like Wollaston's
principle in his "Religion of Nature."
"Those pleasures are true," says he,
"and to be reckoned into our happiness,
against which there lies no reason. For
where there is no reason against, there is
always one for it, included in the term,"

The question is, Which should be the
disposition of mind, whether to say "yes"
or to say "no? " Since there are so many
requests in life, and asking and wishing .
make so large a part of experience, it is a
question not a little important how we
should be predisposed' to entertain^ re-
quests.

Now this we shall answer wisely if we
look at all things in the two classes in
which naturally they stand, to wit, things
moral and things indifferent. As to moral
matters, the answer is easy that neither
"yes" nor " no " should have prescription,
but that each case must stand by itself.
For when once a moral quality is settled,
action also is settled, if it shall be dutiful.
But in respect to matters indifferent there
will be a balancing of judgment which
270

Children.

must decide. Herein is room for predis-
position, and this should be to say "yes. "
For though judgment be called into ser-
vice, yet in many cases the asking itself
must weigh in the judgment. And, be-
sides, there will be many instances in
which the thing asked will be neither wise
nor unwise, expedient nor inexpedient in
itself, but a privilege or pleasure, or even
it may be a whim. Now the principle
should be this; that if anyone ask any-
thing of us, his wish is a good reason why
he should have it and why we should grant
it, unless there be some better reason
against the same.

This has wide application and no day
passes but we meet occasions for it. But
though it be useful for all, and though life
would be an Eden if always this principle
ruled, the dearest and best application of
it is to children. For the requests of
children are many; wherefore to grant or
to deny them makes constant points of
pleasure or of disappointment. And with
this, children are so much the less able to
bear disappointment with philosophy, and
so much the more jubilant in their pleas-
ures, that either way, the "yes" or the
" no " is of much matter. It is a kind and
wise remark of Buckle that it is a very
serious thing to diminish the pleasures of

271

Children.

any one; and it is but a kind addition
thereto to say, that not to enlarge them
when we can is the same as to cut them
off. A poet has the same thought, "To
stifle righteous wishes is a murder."

It is beyond doubt that joy and sadness
store themselves in the soul. They sink
into the heart, making a state thereof
which meets life's difficulties well or ill.
For if a child grow to a soul in which joy
has become a habit, he will look for the
joy in all paths, and looking find it;
since what we find is in the eye, because
all qualities lie in all paths to be picked
out, though proportions differ. But con-
trariwise will be the child's collections
from experience if sadness be the habit.
And besides, the one is strength, the other
weakness; joy is force, grief inertia; hap-
piness is concentration, pain disper-
sion. Wherefore the child • whose spirit
has been dowered with kindly-given pleas-
ures in right manner, is armed for life's
conflicts and has a strong place whither to
retire if in any combat he be worsted.
Therefore it is a great thing to have erected
this tower of joy in a child's soul. To
give joy in the present which becomes
strength in the future is a divine act. Of
this a poet says, happily:

272

Children.

" Make beautiful to children their young days.
Despise not nor neglect the smallest joy.
Thou makest them for the day as little gods;
Nay, for their lifetime thou implantest in them
A gladsome mood and ever cheerful heart.
The pleasures of their youth will pass away,
And it will come one of these pleasant days
They will know nothing more of the ripe nuts
They knocked down from the tree; the leaping pole.
No more they know the smile their mothers wore
To see them bring the basket full of grapes.
Yet as all joy struck down into the soul,
They always hope for kindness from the world."

And the same poet, Schefer, writes to a
mother of five children:

41 Five suns thou hast created; five earths, too,
And moons no less; and many hundred springs,
And many hundred thousand roses, fruits;
For to glad hearts alone creation is,
Five mothers, one to each, five fathers, too,
Hast thou created for love's tenderness."

And the same poet also instances the
pleasure which is stored, when a child,
grown old, can talk of his father or mother
to his own children, because his parents
were such joyful pleasures to him:

11 In the days to come
They to their children will delight to talk
Of thee, as thou to them wast wont to talk
About thy mother, and they will listen there
As to the story of a miracle,
With reverent stillness and with frequent sigh."
273

Children.

One secret of the disposition to say
"yes," is quickness of memory; and this
is the same thing as continuance of youth.
For many times we say "no" to children
because of imperfect memory, unmindful of
our own thoughts at that age. Forgetting
how we felt, we snap a little childish stem
of pleasure ruthlessly. But I know not
how, in the cares of life, this memory can
be revived without thought and pains.
Therefore he who can say each day, while
yet the child is little, " Let me see here
again what I was, and happily vault the
wall of time to that early garden which I
walked in, that I may cut off no flower
from my child's path which I shall rec-
ollect my delight in " — he will tend
always to say "yes."

Sometimes again, parents deny or force
their children unwisely or harshly be-
cause of lack of experience. For new
things spring up for children, new kinds
of exercises the like of which the child-
hood of the elders knew not; and of these
we are often too ignorant to judge well,
and it is a great safeguard if then we have
the leaning to say "yes." For this dis-
position helps out our ignorance by means
of the children's judgment, which is better
equipped in these new facts than our own.
This reflection I but quote from Marian.
274

Children.

She delivered it, as I remember well, on a
night when she surprised me with an early
return from a visit to John River's family.
She came across the two gardens, through
the shrubbery. The night was misty and
pitchy. She wore a scarlet drapery.
When suddenly she appeared in the gar-
den door of our study, what with the
color of the garment, the beam of her
smile and her streaming hair (for it had
fallen down), methought a bolt of light had
broken from the darkness and all the room
was fire with it.

" Wait a bit, thou fiery ghost," said I,
"and I will put out the lamp, not to be
dazzled by both of you."

"That were like putting out the sun in
order to enjoy the moon," said Sister,
"for the moon would follow the sun into
darkness. There must be a light in thine
eye before I can be visible."

"Ah yes!" said I seriously; "which
shows the difference between the eye and
the mind's eye. Thou thyself wouldst
enkindle my soul to behold thee."

"Nay," said Marian, "they are not so
different. There must be light in the soul
first. 'Tis only light that knows light; as
Galileo said, i You can not teach any one
anything; you only can help him to dis-
cover it within himself!' Which reminds
275

Children.

me," continued Dozen, " of what neighbor
John this evening said of himself and his
boy and their wheels. Having set up his
lad with a bicycle, he then required of him
its constant use, as an economy, to save
the pennies which otherwise he must pay
for riding on errands and to school. And
often he forced this, calling the lad's un-
willingness laggard. But afterward, hav-
ing learned the use of the wheel himself,
he found what it was to cope with long
stretches of rutty and slippery street and
with crowding teams, through which lay
the lad's course to school, and no longer
pushed him on that score, not because the
boy was more willing to traverse the
slime and furrows, but because the father
grew wiser than to wish it, by dint of hav-
ing tasted it."

I feel not so sure of many things as of
this gracious principle, that a wish carries
its own reason for granting it unless there
be a stronger against it. And be it said
that sluggishness, or languor, or inatten-
tion in us, or some effort or inconvenience
required of us, make no good reasons for
denial; for he who will refuse a child, or
any one, wished things because he must
move his body a little to get them, is
either very lumpish flesh or a very slug-
gish heart. I have thought that of all sad
276

Children.

losses, the saddest are the openings for
giving happiness which we enter not, but
rather again close up. This will be known
to anyone who will count but for a day or
two what he might have done to raise a
little joy, but did not, and will reflect how
keen a thing enjoyment is when he feels it
himself, and what wings it gives to time,
what riches to memory. Especially, per-
haps, if we consider how much of our own
enjoyment is made or hindered by others,
and often by very little things which they
do or do not, we shall judge better of our
own disposition as to saying "yes" or
saying " no."

277

Beauty.

XXVI.

It is worth a chapter to say what a great
beauty is the beauty of kindness, both
what it makes in the home and what it
makes in the face, and in the whole body
indeed; for with its grace it overflows all
parts. This beauty bred an incident for
me recently that has hung an oddly fair
picture in the chambers of my soul.

I will not say that kindness is the most
beautiful thing in the world, and makes
more beauty than any other thing. For
then forthwith arise in judgment all noble
moral qualities — honesty, truthfulness, sim-
plicity, faithfulness, patience, gratefulness,
modesty, piety. All these have and impart
a beauty which is the beauty of God; and
kindness can do no more. But kindness
can do as much, and has a very great
beauty and inlays the same, and is not
surpassed in it by any of the good qualities.

Consider the beauty created in the home

by kindness in its two parts, the negative

part, that we do no one any harm, and the

positive part, that we do every one all the

278

Beauty.

benefit we can. For kindness in these two
parts in the home is like the two parts of
cultivation in a garden, namely, the keep-
ing of the ground free and open, not seized
on by undesired things, and then, in
second and even better part, the cultiva-
tion of the things desirable and lovely.
But much is done if even the first part be
done, which is to keep the ground free;
for when noxious and weedy things are
warded off and the surface is open, fair
and fine things will till it for themselves
and with themselves, springing up because
there is place free for them. For beauty
ever is on the watch to come in. If then
to the place left ready and open, cultiva-
tion of delicate and sweet plants be added,
and beauty be helped in, what a double
and fine loveliness grows thereupon !
Then do the lawns look like smooth mo-
saic-bits from the green horizon of twilight,
and the parterres are harmonies of every
manner of blossom, color, fragrance.

So is the home. If but the negative
part of kindness be in it, much beauty
springs up, because the unlovely has not
preoccupied the room, and if there be no
bad seeds sprouting, there will be sure to
be some good ones. But if now positive
kindness be added, then is cultivation
brought into service. Choice is made of
279

Beauty.

the good things that shall grow, and they
are trained to grow at their best. Whence
comes great beauty in the home. That
there is no unkindness is a fallow field
which then active kindness fills with fine
and rich growths. By another figure,
simply the negative part, of kindness, that
no one does harm or pain to another, is
like a bare wall in a house, well made and
ready and of a good tint; then comes posi-
tive kindness, that every one does all the
pleasure and grace he can to the others,
and hangs the wall with pictures.

"It is good government," says Con-
fucius, "when those who are near are
made happy and those who are far are
attracted; " but when the near are made
happy, it is sure the far will be attracted.
The kindness and thence happiness in a
house draws company, and the best com-
pany, gracious, cheerful, gentle, sincere,
akin to the atmosphere which draws them.
It is kindness in the home that makes the
door swing and peals of sweet voices and
laughter and lovely faces come in. It
makes the tea-table, the ring of china and
glass, sweet bread, the steam of urns,
good cheer, good talk, the lamp, song, and
the odor of melilot. What beauties be
these! And only in a "house where great
kindness is do they break forth.
280

Beauty.

Kindness invents. It sets forth happy
things for others as objects, and considers
inventively how to compass them. And
this cannot be done without many beauties
and adornments issuing. Also there is no-
source of more gracious beauties in a
house than good hospitality; and kindness
makes this and keeps it good, — not osten-
tation, pride, expense, surfeit, crowds, but
sincere, simple, frugal, loving, private in
dear groups, and not rare and on oc-
casions, but perpetual, habitual.

But consider not only the house but the
persons, the beauty fashioned in the face
by kindness in its two parts. The nega-
tive kindness, that we do no hurt or harm,,
leaves the face free, like good ground
weeded. It is much that no ugly passions,
hatred, envy, jealousy, greed, occupy the
face. There is so much beauty in the
soul awaiting exit and so much beauty
outside pressing for entrance, and the two
so do invite each other, that if the face be
but left free and open by the negative
kindness, a fairness will begin to over-
spread it like a thin verdure. For beauty
can be prevented altogether in no wise but
by the preoccupancy of ugliness. But
when to the negative kindness is added
the positive that we consider how to make
joys and benefits for persons around us?
281

Beauty.

then springs beauty wonderfully in the
face, and in the form too, in postures, mo-
tions, in the outlines that come of exer-
cise. For power in the face is but life in
the face, and bad life gives power, being
life though bad, but good life gives the
strength which is beauty also. Beauty of
body is a moral fact. I mean it lies truly
in the soul, which the face expresses or
exposes to us. I deny not that 'there may
be a lovely soul in an uncouth body, like
a fine thought in a clumsy sentence; but
not for long, because the soul never ceases
working at the body by the continual ex-
ercise of the gestures and motions which
express the goodness; and never all nor
mainly ugly, for under the sweet impulses
combined motions of features and of
members continually will occur which
will shed graces and beauties. We are
•surprised by them as if some fair portions
or shapes of the body had escaped us in
shadow and suddenly a light is thrown on
them. And sooth it is light — light that
breaketh out from within.

And again there be faces which have
no fault in them except that there is no
good in them. In shapes they are very
fair, but in shape they are not fair. Ex-
amine the nose, you can not improve it.
Discourse of the eyes, you must sing.
282

Beauty.

Tell of the cheeks, you must be a limner
with color and a soft touch. Speak of the
hair you must be poet, seeing streams of
bronzed cirrus sweep the horizon. De-
scribe the brow, it has a good fullness, and
is draped like an ivied wall. And the
mouth hath the curves of Apollo's bow.
And yet in these features all together there
is no beauty in the face. For it is not
enough that the nose might example fine
curves and the eyes give pleasant ellipses
and the skin make delicate parchment and
the hair be golden braids and the brow be a
shapely aegis and the mouth be like a del-
icate carving; for all these can not make a
face, because a face is a thing of soul.
Therefore all these parts may be faultless
in it, and yet there be no beautiful face.

Whence it is that artists who fail in
faces — tyros or poor limners — fail not
by making a vicious face, which never
they do, but by making no face. I
mean there is naught in it; it is vacant,
dead, or rather never came to life. Emer-
son has spoken of a preacher whom
once he heard, who was "spectral." "He
had lived in vain. He had no one word
intimating that he had laughed or wept,
was married or in love, had been com-
mended or cheated or chagrined." There
be such faces, as if naught had come to
283

Beauty.

life in themselves or their ancestry.
They have no deep. It is impossible to
think that much grieving or rejoicing or
conceiving goes on behind them, and the
eyes are no better than spy-holes after
victuals and drink. Yet these faces may be
symmetrical and well colored. At least
it is not easy, no, nor possible, very like,
to tell what is the lack in outline, or in the
lines of the outline; and to many eyes
there is no lack, the lines and tints
are sufficient. They say it is a handsome
face. But beauty comes only of the
moral; and the vision for it from the same.
I say not that shapely features are
worthless. No doubt a fine crystal vessel
filled with clear water will have a com-
pound beauty, the beauty of the vessel
and the beauty of the water (albeit the
flagon's beauty is some maker's soul in it
and the beauty of the water is the soul of
the rain and the sea); and so it may be
with the features and colors of the face,
when the features have lovely lines and
the complexion is pellucid warmth, if then
kindness be carried in them like the
gathered rain in the crystal cup. But as a
wooden bucket dripping from sweet spark-
ling springs hath more beauty than the
crystalline flagon filled with befouled stag-
nation, so an ill-featured face filled with
284

Beauty.

kindness hath a beauty which an admirable
cast of features filled with avarice hath not.

I would not put kindness absolutely first
for the making of beauty as I have said,
since every virtue is an artificer of it; but
Emerson ventures more. He says, " There
is no beautifier of complexion or form or
behavior like the wish to scatter joy, and
not pain, around us." And surely, if the
virtues be conceived as angels exercising
and modeling the features and muscles
into harmonies and lovely shapes, it is
not too much to call kindness the master-
workman and overseer of them. Says
George Eliot, and with all my soul I go
with her, making italics of the words which
I conceive she would emphasize, " My own
experience and development deepen every
day my conviction that our moral progress
may be measured by the degree in which
we sympathize with individual suffering
and individual joy." Verily it is the truth
that any one may be beautiful who will;
for this virtue of kindness continually is
urged on us within and without, nursed
with kind deeds. Therefore it is to be
achieved. And then comes beauty.

I have in the mind's sight — 'tis one of the

pictures hung in my courts — a girl the

sight of whom I enjoyed rapturously on an

occasion. She was not matched well in

285

Beauty.

features, no, nor in the members of her
form, and it was a common remark, "How
plain she is." And I said so too, for I
was as unperceiving as the others. But
one day I had been talking with her, and
at the farewell she came with me kindly to
the door. The sun in the west, an hour
high, came half slant-wise over the lintel,
sifted and quivering through a tree at the
veranda corner, hanging a singular web
of light around her. As she stood in that
array briefly, listening to me, her eyes
were downcast attentively, and her face
and form so were filled with gentleness,
meekness, simplicity, thoughtfulness, that
suddenly her beauty broke on me. My
soul did her reverence and said in me,
" What a picture! How can any one call
her plain! Good sooth, she is wondrous
lovely!" Another like sight of exceeding
fairness had I in a young mother, who, in
truth, save a pair of soft eyes, was very
ungraciously ill-featured. Many said,
"What drew her husband?" But one
day I saw her with some children, and
when she looked up from them, there was
a smile so celestial and such a light of
kindness, love, sincerity, thought, in her
face, that fairly I started with the beauty
there shining, and conceived easily that
any one might love her devoutly.
286

Beauty.

I said, in beginning this chapter, that
this kindness-made beauty had bred an in-
cident for me which had set me up a pic-
ture forever, both odd and very lovely, in
the halls of my mental habitation. And I
am reminded besides of another one, a little
interchange with my Sister, but one I for-
get not. She told me awhile ago, with a
strange peculiar look, common, I conceive,
to women, that she was fading. (AM
ye little cares, observations, anxieties,,
regrets of women, and of the best women,,
let others call you " vanities " if they wilL
I like you. Ye touch me.) "No, "said I,,
somewhat shocked, and scanning atten-
tively her sweet face. She showed me
that angles, furtively and peepingly, if so
I may say, and hiding in some lights, as if
ashamed to be there, yet beyond peradven-
ture, were breaking into the lines of her
features, and the smooth round surfaces
were becoming (albeit hoveringly and
evanescently, "like dove's-neck lustres")
a joinery of squares like a mosaic. This she
averred was the effect of time and growth
on the soft contours of the face. "Yes,,
my dear," she said gaily, "it is certain
that what thou hast been pleased to call
my beauty in days past, is fading. And
surely it is time. We are not so young as.
we were, Brother. One can not have
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Beauty.

dignity-years of labor and then peace-
years of home-life like ours, without their
counting as years, my dear."

" Ah! " said I, " avaunt with thy squares
and angles " — but with a tear in my eye.
"The truth is, thy sweet soul has been
doing some carving on thee, being not
content with even thy loveliness as it was,
but would have it more like herself. Thou
never hadst such beauty as at this moment,
my Dozen, and thou wilt have more yet.
Years, sayest thou? Thou art pushing
out youth with perpetual youth, which is
to say, Time with Eternity."

The fair youth of my Sister was no more
than a promise that she should come easily
to a greater beauty. It was like the first
chapter of a beautiful book, a lovely peace-
iul promise of a wealth of beauty further
on, though it must be woven with marks
of storms, passions, pains, joys almost like
pains, and deep devotions.

But to that incident of which I have
spoken; it happened in this wise:

One evening — it was not long after
Marian's words about her fading, which
still were lingering with a strange yearning
in my heart — a half-hour before tea time
we came in from garden-work, and, after
a draught of cool water and laving with
warm water, I seated me in a large chair
288

Beauty.

in our study; and Marian, looking like a
dewed blush-rose, quietly brought a low
ottoman to my feet and took her place on
it with her guitar. Rain had begun to
fall, with no wind, or only the gentlest
breath at moments. Very cheerful and
sweet was the music from the shrubbery
and the veranda roof. I knew my Dozen
would tune her music in full accord with it,
and prepared me to enjoy delightfully.
Usually she played awhile before joining
her voice with it (which often indeed she
did not at all unless at my request), but
this evening, with a few sweeping chords
and a delicate short prelude she began to
sing at once. Now, no sooner had a few
notes come forth than the linnet, which
had retired to his cage and roost for the
night, was agitated, and showed every
sign of excitement, and soon came from
the cage, flew to Marian, perched on her
shoulder and so stayed, palpably vibrating
to the music till the song ceased. Then
his little throat swelled and he opened his
beak and poured forth such a song as
surely must have burst him if it had had
no exit.

"He knows the song," said Dozen,
rapturously, taking the bird in her hand
with caresses, " he remembers the song I
sang, Brother."

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Beauty.

"The bird knows much better than I
do," said I. " What is thy song? I never
heard thee sing it before."

11 1 have not had it before," said Marian,
"the words, I mean; I set them to the
melody this morning. It is an old Anda-
lusian love-song, a folk-melody, which
Margarita loved. She sang it often to me
in Spanish; and one day she told me the
meaning of the words, translating them
one by one, and I wrote them down.
Margarita said softly that the song showed
there were good lovers in her country.
Since my gentle teacher died, the mel-
ody has been haunting my memory. This
morning I took Margarita's translation and
Englished it in the rhythm of the music."

With this, at my request, while I listened
more critically, Sister sang me the song
again, thus:

My sweet dear love,

Who fillest me with joy,
Of all the joys I have of thee
What is the joy thou givest me

That will my song employ

All other joys above?

Is it that I love,

Lifting my heart to thee,
And each night fall from thee asleep,
Awake to thee, and love's watch keep

All day? Nay, not to me

Is this all joys above.
290

Beauty.

That thou dost love,

Stooping thy heart to me —
With thy sweet life dost gird me round,
And tenderly my being sound

With thine? No, not to me

Is this all joys above.

My dear, dear love,

That I thy beauty see,
That I behold thy sweetness so, —
So true, so high, so heavenly know

Thy soul — this giveth me

My joy all joys above.

" Oh that I had a voice, a real voice!"
said my Dozen, with a sigh, when she had
finished the lovely lay.

" Thou hast a most engaging, beautiful
voice," said I.

"Brother," said Sister, "I expect truth
of thee."

" It is the most heartfelt truth," said I,
" and scientific too. The voice is like the
face, or aught other sensible thing: 'tis not
needful that it should be mechanically per-
fect that it may be beautiful, but only beau-
tiful in what it conveys. 'Tis true, dear
Marian, that thy voice has not a fine musi-
cal timbre\ there is I-know-not-what lack in
thy throat. Notwithstanding, truly thy
voice is beautiful, and always I both am
delighted and am moved by thy singing,
for it hath thy kind and sweet soul and thy
very truth in the voice of it. I must tell
291

Beauty.

thee what our friend, Franklin Hughes
said to me but yesterday when I met him
in the city — which indeed very blame-
worthily I have forgotten to mention to thee
till this moment. I asked him of Miss
Leigh — thou wilt remember — whom he
had let go from his quartet. ' I thought
she had a good voice/ said I. Franklin
answered that she had a good vocal mech-
anism but could not sing. ' You mean she
has no knowledge of music,' said I. 'No,'
said Franklin, ' I mean she has a bad dis-
position and spiteful temper.' i Is sing-
ing, then a moral performance?' said I,
surprised. 'Assuredly it is,' Franklin
answered; 'the least spite in the heart at
the moment will pervert the finest voice,
and execution too. So will a settled un-
kindness, jealousy, envy, moroseness. No
unkind person can sing very beautifully.'
' But if thus unkindness will undo a voice,
will kindness make one?' I asked. 'In a
manner it will,' said Franklin; 'I mean it
will give one to sing acceptably with no
great quality of organ. A tender, sweet,
devout soul,' said he, 'will fill a song with
music and move the hearer deeply without
gifts of tone.' Ah! yes, I have delight in
thy singing, my Sister. Thy voice hath a
psalm in its sound. Praise and love meet
. in it. Not the least, but rather the greatest,
292

Beauty.

boon of thy new art — thy guitar, I mean —
is that I have thy voice with it. For-
merly thou didst no more than warble and
chirrup sometimes at thy work, but now
thou singest songs to me delightfully."

Here arose suddenly a great stir and
whir, as of a merry exercise, in the dining
room, a very lively leaping and scamper-
ing. "Fun and Linnet," said my Dozen,
laughing, and running to the door; where
meanwhile the frolic had fallen suddenly
to a perfect stillness.

"Come hither, Brother," called my Sis-
ter, delightedly, "thou shouldst see the
rogues."

Going quickly, I saw an odd spectacle
indeed. Fun was on the floor, with her
fore-quarters crouched and her head
stretched out between her paws, her hinder
parts raised, full of action and ready for a
leap. On the dog's head stood the bird,
cocking himself nonchalantly, looking very
triumphant. Here all together was the
tableau vivant I have mentioned, odd and
very fair. Nature might have dubbed it
"A Study in Kindness," for kindness was
the light of it. My Sister's kind look and
beaming countenance, her lissom form and
the attitude in which her eager movement
had been stopped, the postures of the dog
and bird too, the saucy kindness of
293

Beauty.

Linnet's air and the admirable expression
that filled the shaggy kind eyes and wrink-
led the nose of Fun, made a composition not
to be forgotten. Suddenly the bird threw
his little weight forward and delivered
an excellent peck on the dog's nose. Fun
leaped up with a growl and the romping
game began again. 'Twas all a very fine
picture for the wall of the chamber within
me wherein most I must live.

It is fit that I record, as no little thing,
but rather as I would write of any love, the
love of the linnet for my Sister and for
Fun. The bird is very respectful and
pleasant to me, but it is plain that he gives
his heart entirely to Marian and the dog.
Sooth, he makes this very plain indeed.
He has no thought of that politeness which,
as says a Frenchman, consists in pains to
prevent the several persons of a company
from observing that you prefer one of
them. He lavishes his quaint caresses
and frolics on my Dozen and on Fun per-
petually. The romps of the dog and bird
are delightful; charming is the pleasure
they have in each other. And sometimes
when the rustle and clatter of one of their
games is stilled, I have come on them
resting together, the dog stretched out on
her side and the bird half hidden in the
long silky hair of her throat, Fun's eyes
294

Beauty.

closed, perhaps asleep, but Linnet looking
out saucily, as who should say, "Disturb
me if you dare."

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Grieving the Spirit.

XXVII.

Growth, moral and physical, is slow;
destruction is swift. Life and beauty are
long a-making, but death or disfigurement
may do its all in an instant. A flaming
fury an hour long will make a black heap
of a century of buildings. A master, with
years of study that his soul may be charged
full of his art, and thereupon with more
years mayhap of dreaming for one work of
his art, and thereafter with innumerable
days of labor and prayers and faith, may
bring to pass a great canvas of color and
form, a vast thought in a picture; and an
imp with a knife may make tatters of it
with the freedom of a few slashes. Nor
could the master rear his creation at all if
the imp were by him continually with the
knife. I know not how slow and long the
currents are which secrete a diamond; but
I have seen the gem inflamed into gas in
an instant. Truly, a moment of the wan-
tonness of violence has power to overthrow
what years of the piety of labor have up-
reared.

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Grieving the Spirit.

So may one unkindness overweigh, out-
run and undo the effect of many good-
offices, yes, even of many years of favor-
ing acts.

Now having observed this fact often, I
could not but fall to thinking whether it
were wholly, or in the main, or sometimes-
even in any manner, unamiable. For very
like it is said by us, rough and ready and
exclaiming our first thought, that to receive
many apparent kindnesses and then to
count them for nothing and say they all
are undone because we have received
thereafter one unkindness from the same
hand, is but the wantonness and vanity of
an ingrate. And so indeed it may be —
there are ingrates, and sad creatures they
are; but so also I am very sure it may not
be. There is a power and a law in un-
kindness that it may undo in an instant
what the pleasant offices long have beeu
effecting. And if this seem a terrible law, ,
a frightful tooth that unkindness has, it is
right enough that unkindness should be a
terrible thing.

For this power of unkindness, that it
may overthrow suddenly the works of
many and long fair-looking favors, I have
perceived some strong reasons, as follows:

i. The general truth with which I have
begun this chapter has bearing. Kindness
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Grieving the Spirit.

hardly can build so mightily but that a
strong unkindness may hurl it down and
make a crash and ruin of it, because to
destroy is so much easier than to build,
and one stroke is enough if it be hardy
enough, like a launch of lightning.

2. Pleasant good offices, however very
pleasant and very long applied, may not
be kindness in good truth, but only a
quality of leisure, a mere ease, a manner of
indulgent and pliant humor met with a
fortunate hap of opportunity, a liking to
keep things agreeable, still and smooth
about one. But this is not kindness, for
kindness has a mixture of firm principle in
it; nor is it love, but rather a self-consider-
ing. Therefore if an unkindness be done,
it may be such a malice or unfeelingness
as instantly shows there was no real love
or devotion in all the foregoing pleasant
offices. Whereupon they are undone and
count for but their worth, not because of
an ungrateful forgetting of them, but be-
cause they wore a mask and now are
stripped.

3. Indulgent disposition is general, by
its nature, spread forth toward every one,
though more intent on the more favored or
on those near by. But unkindness, con-
trariwise, is like to be, or at least to seem,
Very special, direct, individual, and more

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Grieving the Spirit.

directly applied to us than the good offices
which spread farther. Hence the good
which seems general tends to be made of
no effect by the ill turn which so sharply
is individual.

4. Kindnesses, I mean good and pleas-
ant offices done us, may have many motives.
It \s possible to think of them as cajoleries,
traps, compliments, decoys, solicitations,
done to us but really not for us. But un-
kindness can have but one source, which
is lack of due love, and is very definite;
nor can mean anything but just itself,
namely, that the heart has failed, which is
to say that never it was deep toward us as
it seemed to be. Therefore the definite
meaning of unkindness may undo the
effects of previous good offices, because
these are overshadowed with suspicion by
the unkindness; and if the unkindness be
faithless and treacherous in nature, it will
do so perforce. For treachery is a terrible
thing.

5. An unkindness may include a very
agonizing and shameful unrespect or dis-
respect. Now not only is such disrespect
a very hard thing to bear and one of the
sorest wounds that can be done on us, but
the disrespect would be impossible if the
foregoing good offices had been kindness
in truth, which is principle and love, a

299

Grieving: the Spirit.

reverence and seriousness of loving duty.
Thus the unkindness which has any touch
of presumption or impudence in it, throws
back a long black shadow of doubt on the
forego.ing apparent kindnesses; and if it
be very impudent, it may undo them al-
together.

6. An unkindness is a wound in the
heart; and I know not why it may not be
fatal like a wound in the body. If one
have dressed and fed and lodged and
caressed a friend's body never so long nor
so well, if then he drive a knife through
the heart, it is all over. And how if he
cut through a love and rend the quick and
the life of it? Will a mortal blow not be
mortal because of fondnesses before it?
How is it to be escaped that a wound in
the heart, if it be cruel enough, may be
mortal? And even if not mortal, it may be
incurable, as a blow may disfigure the
body forever. Oh! the truth of this truth,
the sad truth of it, that an honest, dear and
sweet love may be killed! or if not mor-
tally struck, yet scarred forever! Says
Thackeray in that very wonderful book of
his, " Henry Esmond," " You do not know
how much you suffer in those critical mal-
adies of the heart, until the disease is over
and you look back on it afterwards. Dur-
ing the time the suffering is at least suffer-
300

Grieving: the Spirit.

able. The day passes in more or less of
pain, and the night wears away somehow.
* * * O dark months of grief and rage! of
wrong and cruel endurance! He is old
now who recalls you. Long ago he has
forgiven and blessed the soft hand that
wounded him; but the mark is there, and
the wound is cicatrized only — no time,
tears, caresses or repentance can obliterate
the scar."

7. It is to be noted that there is a law
of evanescence in physical pain. I mean
it can not be retained in memory. The
occasion of it, the scene, accessories, these
may be recalled very well, but the pain
itself is not to be lived again in imagin-
ation; the tortures can not be felt in mind
when they have ceased in body. It is the
nature and blessed law of physical suffer-
ing that it expends itself utterly at the
moment, and there is no more it can do,
and no continuing of it in pangs of con-
ception. But heart-hurts are hurts of the
center where conception lives. Heart-
hurts bruise the very quick of feeling
itself — hence may be unending. And
especially is this so of unkindnesses which
are disrespects, indignities, intrusive in-
solences or wanton presumptions — the
severest of all wounds of the soul, — r
though treacheries are to be added as very

301

Grieving the Spirit.

close upon them. These hurts are lived
over and over in memory with all their
first force of pain — nay, often more, be-
cause reflection on them and slow penetra-
tion reveal their gross nature very fatally.
They will be keener pangs of heart as they
become closer acquaintances of the judg-
ment. Therefore unkindnesses have a sad
power to undo the effects of many pleasant
offices which have seemed very kind, be-
cause the unkindness not only is a wound
of heart and may have any effect from a
pang to killing, but if it be a hard wound it
is like not to grow better, but worse, and
not to ache less, but more, with time. For
this may be the effect of judgment and
the slow penetration of a fatal truth which
was too shocking and benumbing to be
conceived truly at first.

8. There is no so sweet other result of
kindness and love as trust. The rest,
peace, repose of spirit in a friend, the en-
tire confidence, that would go anywhere
with him blindfolded and take his eyes for
our own, is a heavenly chamber unto us.
But one unkindness, if it be of the more
fatal manner of it, like a treachery, a
very deep selfishness, or a gross impudence
which shows that no reverence hath
builded under the shows of love, or a
wanton measure of vanity which hath a
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Qrieving the Spirit.

pleasure to sit like a high judge over
a friend, this will stab in an instant, with
a shocking astonishment, to the very heart
of a trust which sundry favoring things
have been rearing up. Sorrowful is it
when one who has had a dear esteem of
another's heart as a friend, gets a key to a
Bluebeard chamber in it, or to a miser's den
in it, or to a secret cellar of plots, or to
a gilt and white, glittering, cold gallery
of vanity-pictures, wherein we get locked,
awhile and forgotten almost to starvation.
And thereafter the place is hateful, what-
ever be the fair architecture of the outside
of it, or the other chambers of it which
afford some comforts.

I have observed these eight reasons,
now, — some of which may be but different
appearances of the same thing, like the
varied faces of a crystal — why one un-
kindness may undo many foregoing favors
and grieve the spirit forever, — to wit, that
in general destruction is swifter than build-
ing up; that obliging acts may not be real
principle and heart, but only indolent ease
and indulgence; that a favoring and easy
disposition which has the look of kindness,
is general and spreads abroad, but unkind-
ness is a sharp personal blow; that ap-
parent kindnesses may have a selfish motive
and aim in them, whereas unkindness is
303

Grieving the Spirit.

-very definite and can mean nothing but
itself; that an unkindness may be after the
manner of a gross impudence, which is a
terrible wound in itself and also throws a
.doubt on all foregoing good offices —
what truly they are; that heart-wounds
have a possible fatality like body wounds,
and one may suffice; that hurts of heart
affect perforce the memory and often in-
tensify by the slow culmination of judg-
ment; that trust, the sweetest of all effects
of love, and again the most nourishing of
that love, may be destroyed by the logic of
one bad act.

To these there is now a ninth reason to
be added, which is a fine and delicate un-
.derstanding of love, namely, that love
requires a perfectness or completing of
truth and kindness, and nothing is com-
pleted which has come to a stop. And no
matter how far it has been builded, if it
:stop uncompleted, it hath failed, and is
.only a portion of the natural body of itself,
and can have no right to its full name. In
love the fine and precious thing is not this
kind favor, nor that, nor any host of them
.together, but the fervent, tender and loving
.edification of a heart toward us; in brief,
perfectness; the proof of which greatness,
or full station of it, arrives only with the
last moment, if so I may say, with the com-
304

Grieving the Spirit.

pleted thing. And one unkindness, if it be
special and harsh, may be in effect a stop
of the love toward us, leaving it unfinished,
and show all the foregoing pleasant and
seeming-kind deeds to be not from a perfect
state of heart toward us, not from a hum-
ble, reverent, pure, devout love, but from
some quality which hath halted short of the
worth and virtue of fulness. There is an
eastern fable which utters well this truth:
If a man set forth to build a mountain and
has poured but one basket of earth on a
plain, he is building a mountain; but if
there lack one basketful at the top, and he
fail to carry it up, he has not builded the
mountain. To the same purpose were the
dying words of the Cid, when "King
Bucar with seven and thirty kings whom
he brought with him, and a great power of
Moors," was coming to besiege Valencia.
The Cid was hero of a thousand victories,
and no man had stood against him in his
life; yet he feared to be overcome with im-
perfectness if even his body after death
were vanquished or handled by enemies.
So "the Cid Ruydiez stood up and made
a full noble preaching, showing that no
man whatsoever, however honorable or
fortunate they may be in this world, can
escape death; to which, said he, I am now
full near; and since ye know that this body
305

Grieving the Spirit.

of mine hath never yet been conquered, nor
put to shame, I beseech ye let not this
befall it at the end, for the good fortune of
man is accomplished only 'at his end."

But now I have to say that although this
power of one unkindness is real and fatal,
and often is the fact and history in an
overthrow of love, yet very often too it is
only apparent; for what seems like one ill
turn is in fact a vast troop of them — in-
deed all that ever were done. This comes
of a deep law affecting the delicate and
precious mystery of love, the law, as I may
call it, of insensible accumulation. I mean,
it is a great and lovely quality of the
heart that it may swallow up many unkind-
nesses and love on; but also it is a terrible
and perilous nature of the heart that the
injuries, unfaithfulnesses, selfishnesses, un-
kindnesses which are swallowed up and
disappear, are not destroyed. They be-
come not as nothing. They have a life in
the fearful "round towers" of memory.
There they will accumulate, and the
heart, which likes not to visit those tow-
ers, may know it not. Each hurt, as it
goes in, may seem to drop into naught,
but it falls in fact on a heap and makes one
more in it. Then when is done the very
hard unkindness, that which for some
reason, either by treachery or impudence
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Grieving the Spirit.

or particular harshness, is excessive, this
works the evil not by its own force alone.
Nay, if it were the first or tenth, or one
hundreth mayhap, even that grossness
might be swallowed away into darkness, as
others have been. But it undoes the bars
of the "round towers;" out troop all the
imprisoned unkindnesses, and do a fatal
havoc. In plain speech, one last cruel
unkindness may call into action again the
host of previous injuries that seemed
buried and gone; and the ravage is done
not by the last one but by them all. I may
illustrate this law by the sea and its waves
dashing up on a shore. However wave
after wave wash over me and recede, it is
nothing; I am left as before. But if a
violent surge breaking on me, sweep me
out into the deep where they all are, I
drown in them. Or again I may liken the
thought to a wilderness where wild crea-
tures rage, surrounding a pleasant dwelling.
Every unkindness that may get in is chased
forth from the dwelling into this wilder-
ness, to its place among furious beings.
But if in struggling with one bold wolf of
unkindness which will not out easily, I be
rapt away with it to the wilds, I am fallen
on by the whole pack and devoured.

Nay, it is not even necessary that the
last unkindness which unlooses all the
307

Grieving the Spirit.

others before done, or (mayhap it is more
exact to say) makes the long, sad, invisi-
ble strain of them apparent by adding the
last weight up to the breaking-point — it is
not necessary, I say, that this be a peculiar
harshness or some gross thing like treach-
ery or impudence. Simply it may be
the one blow too many, though a slight
one, the once too often, though a small oc-
casion. The thousand-and-first stroke, no
matter though it be no more than just the
common blow, may have effect with the
power of all the thousand together; for it
is the one blow too many. Withheld, the
other thousand will be carried; but with
the one too many, there is effect from them
all, and the heart breaks suddenly. Very
sad and critical too is it, in this law of the
delicacies and dangers of love, that neither
:the one who gives the blows nor the one
who takes them, can discern, nay, nor
guess never so little, how near the end is,
how impending the one time too many.
I may illustrate by a magnet of unknown
strength. To the armature a weight is
hung. No effect is visible. Yet nothing
is more sure than that the whole effect is
had, but is carried. Increase now the
weight by small increments, nay, by but
the weights of hairs, and at some moment,
while yet there is no visibility of effect, the
808

Grieving the Spirit.

point has come when another hair is too
much, and the armature falls, overweighted.
It is true this figure compares spiritual
things with mechanical; and I know well
the soul is a living body which can re-
cover of wounds perfectly so that there is
left not the least trace of them. But we
recover not of wounds while still being
struck with them. There is an analogy in
the illustration though mechanical, and a
solemn law of the heart's life is imaged
therein. Oh! the once too often! the sad
once too often! How many times hath it
foundered a good bark of love, which first
hath labored gallantly with freight in a
stormy sea.

From the lingo (for his Latin is little
better) of the youngest Egometus, some-
times called Verevidens, I will transcribe
here Escanaba's dream; which, in what-
ever vulgarity of diction, it were well if all
would lay to heart. Egometus has dressed
it up with many fancies, but the bare par-
ticulars will suffice. Escanaba had come
in, and stood looking at his sleeping wife.
He had been neglectful that day, and she
had said naught; and unthankful, but she
had said naught; and harsh once — she had
said naught. And now she lay in another
silence, sleep. Half angrily he said to
himself that she seemed not so affectionate
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Grie/ing the Spirit.

to him as she was wont to be, and lay
down in his place. He fell asleep soon,
but instantly, in his dream, arose from the
bed; for a red light suddenly filled the
room, and he beheld an ugly dwarf, red-
clad from liberty-cap to pointed shoes, and
his face as scarlet as his tight jerkin. The
gnome, paying no heed to Escanaba, went
to the bed, turned down the coverings and
unloosed the breast of the wife's night-
robe. Then plunging his red hand into the
mid-recess of the gentle bosom, he opened
the left half of it like a lid and pulled forth
the heart, the while a chilled and waxen
whitehess spread in the face and neck of
the sleeping woman. The gnome placed
the heart in the pan of a balance which he
held, and carefully weighed it. " Nearly
full," croaked he; "light yet, by a hair;
but near! Soon! Once more! Once more
— 'twill break! Soon, soon! Ha! ha! "
Then with a chuckle, grin, and horrid
laugh, he replaced the heart, shut the
bosom, drew the robe and coverings, and
went out the door, the red light following
him. The frightened man, by the light of
the returning flush of the face, seeming
like a faint phosphorescence by which he
could see his wife, fell on his knees by her
and vowed his life away if he gave her the
one hurt too many; — all in his dream.
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Sporting.

XXVIII.

Let me speak for those who can not
speak for themselves.

Gentle reader, they have feelings to be
"hurt," they love, they hate, they suffer
shame, hope, despair, they writhe with tor-
tures of body, as wrell as you.

I should not have forgotten to give them
a chapter in this morn-made book, for a
dawn in June is not lovelier nor in October
is more glistening and refreshing than is
Fun's greeting to me of a morning. Ah!
good little being, the rapture of thy ex-
pression, the ecstasy of thy small life, tops
the morning for me as thou knowest not,
when I come to seat me here to the friend-
ship of my pen. But why say I thy "small
life? " Truly I know not how large it is,
nor what awaits thee in the " many man-
sions."

And thy friend the linnet had a morning
chirp and sometimes a fine lay for me, and
happily flew to me sometimes, setting my
heart a-stir with j.oy in Creation.

No, I should not have forgotten you, ye
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Sporting.

speechless of words, but ye rapturous
ones in sounds and motions. For I love
you well, nor ever look into the eye
of one of you without tender wonder
and a fervency of acknowledgment of your
pathos. Yet this chapter has a special
reason or cause of it, a sadness and loss,
and I write while my heart is still very
warm with it.

It happened thus: The very fine morn-
ing three days past, warm, with temper-
ance, bright, with a veil, and breezy, my
Sister was at work in our garden, with
Linnet and Fun near as usual. For the
linnet often flew out-doors, and always
when my Sister was garden-working, or
lingering out in fine weather, and Fun
was inseparable from both. The kind
and radiant little dog seemed never able to
admire enough her winged friend's abilities
in the air, and would race after his flights,
barking and leaping under his alighting
places with ecstasy. On this morning the
usual delights of dog and bird were going
on in the shrubbery and especially in and
under a small cherry-tree much liked by
Linnet, when the bird suddenly launched
forth for a clump of trees in the farther
corner of the meadow on which our little
garden borders, to which sometimes,
though rarely, he flew; and thither after
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Sporting.

him raced Fun, bounding and barking as
if desirous to do all she could in the thin
medium in which her little friend was so
agile. My Sister, busy with her plants,,
unmindful of her pets for a little, was
startled by the report of a gun, and, rais-
ing herself, with sickening heart, she saw
the misty smoke near the trees and a bird
falling. In a few moments Fun, with
drooping ears and every sign of distress,
came running, with the bird in her mouth,
and laid the little bleeding being in her
mistress' hand. Linnet opened his eyes,
addressed his mistress with a feeble flutter
and faint chirp, and died. Marian came to
me with streaming tears, pale face and
quivering mouth. She could not be com-
forted, not only for the loss of the little
being she loved, but also for the so radiant
life barbarously quenched; and of men who
carry guns she spoke more passionately^
harsh words than ever before I had heard
from my sweet Sister.

Marian kept by her for a day, on the
mantel, by Margarita's urn, the little
feathered winged body which had been so
airy, so swift, so songful and so loving.
Then, making a very intense fire, she laid
tearfully the cold stillness of the little
sweet-singer in a porcelain crucible and
gave it thus to the air. The thimble of
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Sporting.

ashes she mingled with the earth around
the roots of her favorite rose.

Our dumb fellow beings (dumb as to ar-
ticulation, but full of amazing expression)
are of two classes — the helpless faithful
servants of men, and the wild creatures,
the radiant beings of forest, fen, moor and
mere. Touching duty of gentleness, kind-
ness, protection, to the domestic creatures
who serve us, there is no dispute. Often
they are treated very cruelly indeed, but
the harshness is held disgraceful, is de-
nounced, and even punished by law. But
of the wild beings there is need to speak,
because still we are killing them for sport.

Killing for sport! I pray my reader to
consider this matter with me, and let me
speak to him of the wild free creatures to
whom my soul yearns. If you be a skill-
ful hunter, I have to confess, though not
as a merit, that I share not the marks-
man's ecstasy nor indeed have any skill.
Only once in my life I have fired a gun,
and then at a large target, which I hit not
so much as the edge of. Whence I have no
part in pursuit of game, on land, in air,
or in water. Notwithstanding, I were of
small mind if on that account I understood
nothing of the pleasure. I can conceive
the delight of the skill which you have
with your weapons in contending with the
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Sporting.

intelligence, cunning, speed of the animals.
The exercise of any power is pleasurable.
Yet here indeed I must depart a little
from approval if not from understanding.
For I fear that part of the pleasure lies in a
certain ecstasy in destruction. Otherwise,
why not shoot at marks, and if special
skill be what is sought, then at flying
marks, arranged to pass with swift motion
across the field, for which I have seen
some devices? This would not take the
place of field sports? No; but even when
the open air, the brisk breeze, the fragrant
forest, the wide landscape, the ample
space, all are thrown in, still I fear that at
bottom there is a certain delight in de-
struction which has survived from savagery;
for I can think it nothing else than bar-
barous.

What are the rights of the lower ani-
mals, and what man's rights over them?
We have the right to exterminate rfoxious
creatures, as venomous serpents; of which,
indeed, there are few here, but they throng
in India and other such climates, killing
thousands of human beings every year.
So likewise tigers, hyenas, wolves, and the
like. Wallace thinks we may look to a
time when the earth shall bear only culti-
vated plants and domestic animals, since
now the reason of man has risen over the
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Sporting.

bodily evolution of nature. I know not.
For myself I would not have it so. I love
the wild things, the beautiful untamed
creatures, the fauna, and the slender flora
of woods, lowlands, uplands, which no
gardener's art matches for delicacy and
rare beauty. But the harmful creatures
we must do away. Again, we have the
right to take all we need for use. This is
a part of nature's general order. So all
animals do whose nature it is to live by
prey. And man, I must confess it, seems
to be a preying creature, indeed, the chief
of them; for others prey on only a few
creatures, but man on all, and it would
seem, even on his own kind. Aurelius
says that the spider is proud when he has
caught a fly, and a certain man when he
has entrapped a hare, and another when he
has netted a little fish, and another when
he has taken a wild boar, and another
when ne has conquered the Sarmatians;
but that the same principle is in all, and
the act if wanton is robbery in all. But
it need not be wanton; and for use we may
seize rightfully the creatures, either wild
or tamed. But has man a right to exter-
minate for his use. That is, by such ex-
cessive, unsparing consumption that the
species on which he preys becomes extinct
before him? No. Looks it not greedy,
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Sporting.

immodest? And have we no duties to com-
ing generations? May we rob our coming
fellows of the beauties or the uses of cer-
tain creatures ? The author of ' 'Upland and
Meadow," tells of his chagrin when a gray-
beard said to him, " You seem to know
something about animals, but we had the
critters themselves." To use unsparingly
is unreverent of the limits of nature. For
if Nature make and cherish the species, is
not a limit set thereby to man's consump-
tion of it, namely, the boundary and duty
of non-extermination of what Nature has
made in harmless beauty? But whether
use unto extermination be moral or not,
this is sure, that it is not wise, but foolish,
improvident; for sometimes it destroys a
needful balance in Nature — whereby in-
sidious, unlooked-for ills come trooping
on us; and always it sacrifices future
plenty to present superfluity.

Moreover, if hunting for use has been
so hard on Nature, hunting for sport I sus-
pect has been no less spendthrift, and the
two together have made such havoc that
Nature hardly can wrestle with man's
wantonness, and often has been undone.

I know, indeed, there are many hunters

(the best and gentlest of their kind) who,

never are wanton, will not shoot birds at

seasons when the killing of the old birds

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Sporting-.

starves the brood, nor even at their mating
times before the brooding, because this
cuts nature's stream at the fountain; and
such good hunters, indeed, see to it that
their game is used somewhere for human
benefit, and do nothing wantonly.

But these I fear are not very many
among those who hunt for sport. It is
plain the waste is prodigious; for to this
bear witness our plains stripped of their
great splendid creatures, our woods de-
spoiled of deer, our coast ravaged of birds,
our small lakes drained of fish. Now this
waste is wrong; I fear not to say grossly
wrong, even an impiety. Cite not for
answer the prodigality of nature, which
scatters thousands of seeds where one
takes root, peoples her domains with crea-
tures which destroy each other, and fills
interminable plains with flowers unwit-
nessed, fruits ungathered, — answer not
thus; for there is no destruction in nature
without purpose. The ends of the vast
and glorious profusion around us are, first
to supply other creatures who live by
prey; secondly, to keep room in plenty,
whence the fact of death, which if it
be not occasioned by creatures that prey,
comes by natural limitation at last, that
other beings may have living space;
thirdly, the evolution of new and finer
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Sporting.

forms, for thus assuredly the long and
holy processes of creation come tread-
ing on the heels of destruction; fourthly,
just beauty and grace for the time and
the place where it is. In Gray's oft
quoted

" Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air,"

I confess I like not the word waste. Em-
erson says better, that beauty needeth no
reason but itself, nor ever is it a waste to
Nature that hath produced it, even though
no other portion of Nature's wealth of
creatures witness the same. This, says
the ancient poet, is the way of God,—

To cause it to rain on the earth where no man is,
On the wilderness wherein there is no man,
To satisfy the desolate and waste ground,
And to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring
forth. — Job xxxvia:26.

Thus the prodigality of Nature, her
endless tribes forever appearing, passing,
disappearing, answer plainly these four
ends; and how many more I pretend not to
know or guess. But in these decrees
there is no wantonness nor waste, but
preservation and right balance of exuber-
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Sporting.

ances; but man's wanton destruction is
without use and a sheer waste, an inter-
ference with the natural movement of the
•orders of creatures, as if one lay a bold
arresting hand on divine machinery.
A/Vhat shall I call this? Impious?

These are true thoughts I am sure, and,
I think, with a due and right piety in
them. But my subject specially is Kind-
ness, which is " more than kin," and is the
most sweet manner of justice. Therefore
my question is not one of economy, nor
even of respectfulness, but of love. May
we destroy for sport? No. We have no
dominion, except a tyrant's, over the life
and pain of any creature for our pleasure,
even if sadly we be able to enjoy destruc-
tion and pain; and not any more over the
weaker creatures or the lower, as they are
called, than over our own quality. Who
gave us this authority? Who placed us in
ownership of all Nature? Time was when
it was believed the strong man might kill
or torture a weaker enemy for his pleasure;
but it was a savage time; we wonder at it
now. Time will be, I am sure, when a
gentler people will wonder at us, because
toward the weaker creatures in our power
we claim the same right of death or tor-
ture which more barbarously our father*
used over each other.
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Sporting.

"The marmot has his right too, in his house,
Until the marmot-digger comes upon him,
Beats him to death and takes his household goods —
'Takes', say, the man; 'no,' the marmot, 'steals;'
' Man,' he would say, ' thy right is mastery,
Right of the stronger.' "

Is there reason, tell me, why might
should make right between me and a dove
more than between you and me, my fellow-
man? Is there reason why royal reason
itself should free the creature who so
is crowned from bonds to defend the weak,
to treat the defenceless tenderly?

Consider the reverent quality of love
which all creatures should rouse in us.
Reverence for delicate and mysterious
things marks a high mind. A gentle soul
approaches anything rare and exquisite
with a kind of awe, a feeling akin to relig-
ion. Now so should we feel toward the
creatures around us, whether living with us
domesticated, or ranging in wild freedom.
Think of their beauty of form! Who
would esteem himself if he injured care-
lessly a statue or a painting? Who would
injure such a work wantonly and for love
of doing the injury deftly? If the statue
or painting were the only one in the
world, how it would be guarded and cher-
l<?hed, and how infamous forever the hand
that should destroy it! But if there be
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Sporting1.

millions, still each one stands alone in
its beauty, admirable as if the only one,
an exquisite creation, to be lifted above
wantonness or destruction not a whit the
more if solitary, nor a whit the less if
multitudinous. So of the lovely creatures
that bless our eyes on earth, in air; is it not
barbarous to find sport in defacing them?

Look at the creatures about us simply as
curious mechanism, past all rivalry or im-
itation. I have such feeling for anything
that goes, moving in regular order by
recurrence, as if somewhere a mind lay in
it, a pulse, a breath, that I cannot stop a
watch or clock without conscience. But a
watch is a gross thing compared to the
creatures of the earth looked at only as
exquisite machines. How can we violate
that delicate play of parts, once breaking
which we have no laboratory to repair it,
nor can make any part to fit, nor renew
the arrested motion? Who made these
machines? Who strung the cords, ar-
ranged the wondrous joints, the balls and
sockets, the bellows, the levers? Who
made the channels for the play of the
force that runs somehow from a center
that never has been found by man's most
delicate probes, and speeds to the tips of
wings, to leaping feet, to eye-lids, ears,
tongue? Who made these things? 'Tis
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Sporting.

certain we did not. How then without
awe or conscience can we destroy them
ruthlessly — for sport?

Think of the mystery of life. These
creatures are not only the most delicate
machines; they have power of knowing,
seeking, gathering and applying their own
fuel or sustenance; so that while their day
lasts they seem to realize the dream (hu-
manity's folly) of perpetual motion, as the
wheeling and circling infinitude of the
heavens does. This power of the creatures
is what we call intelligence, desire, mind,
life, soul — God. "I have no name for it;
feeling is all; name is but sound and smoke
veiling the glow of heaven." How we
ought to stand in awe of such a fact!
Think of it; at one moment there is an ex-
quisite mechanism, beyond all our inven-
tion or imitation, pervaded with the mys-
tery of life, floating above us, careering on
wings, mounting, poising, coming, going,
wheeling in spirals until but a speck
on the clouds, and again down-rushing
with the speed of light; and all this with
ecstasy of joy, flooding the air meanwhile
with carols, such as these beings love to
sing a-light on the pinnacle of a tree, from
whence they chant their perception of the
glory of the lighted earth; and not only
with song but with gleams of color flooding
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Sporting:.

the space through which their graces of
motion speed! — all this at one instant; and
the next, we have dealt destruction from a
distance, and all the motion, the song, the
color, mechanism, life, has dropped into
our hands, a mere mass of matter, a
chemical congeries of atoms, on which
even now as we look rapacious inorganic
forces fasten fangs. This by our act;
this out of — shall I say, our heart? our
pity?

Finally, consider the pain inflicted. O
the pain! the pain! the dire dreadful tor-
ture of soul, such as a hunted fox has,
growing to tortures of bodily struggles,
hard breathing, the eyes starting, the
tongue hanging and dripping, ending at
last in the keener anguish, yet quicker to
conclude and so more merciful, of lacera-
tion. The pain! the pain! the agonies!

But if we will not spare the radiant
wild beings whom we agonize, at least
consider ourselves whom we degrade.
What belongs more to a reasonable crea-
ture than to nurse tenderness of feeling?
Is this enough thought of in the world?
Understand we as we ought that feeling,
like mind, or any capacity or knowledge,
as skill in art, in mathematics, in experi-
ment, in language, must be wrought by
care, applying the proper means thereof?
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Sporting.

For ourselves there is nothing more prec-
ious; since assuredly Nature will be no
more tender to us than we shall have
learned to be to Nature. I mean, that if
we be hard at heart, the earth, sky, waters,
will have no rosy tenderness for us, and
men no softness to our understanding;
but we shall meet everywhere the hardness
which is in us. And for others, how un-
speakably needful that we should be ten-
der! For this is the happiness, the help,
the liberty of those who live with us. Now,
doth it soften the heart to kill for sport?
Or still worse, to maim for sport? Have
you bethought you that wherever hunters
go, they not only kill, but maim many
a creature who then drags itself away to a
long, lingering anguish of dying, either of
the wound or of starvation? These are
quick nerves, as quick as yours or mine;
they feel the smart, the pang, the soreness
as we would. A friend told me that on a
hot afternoon of summer he walked along
the reedy bank of a stream near which he
had heard gunning early in the day. A
slight noise drew his attention and he
found under a thin cover a wretched
wounded bird. The little creature had
lain there all that hot day, in the lingering
anguish of a wound inflicted in the early
morning. My friend mercifully killed the
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Sporting.

harmless sufferer instantly; but what of the
hunter whose sport had caused all that
pain? And what of the certainty that it
was but one of many not found and linger-
ing in the pain for many days perhaps? I
have read a hunter's pitiful record of find-
ing and picking up a wounded partridge,
evidently hit some days before, still alive,
and the sore wound, which the little being
had no hands to protect, no way to reach,
filled with maggots and worms. And these
things, the agonies of the many wounded
but not killed, that hunter says, attend all
cover shooting; and when the sportsmen
have gone to their jolly dinner at the manor,
inside there is light, warmth, cheer, out
in the cover darkness, cold and unspeak-
able pain. These are cruel thoughts. If
they come not to our hearts when we think
of "sport," or if, though they come, we
still hie to the sport, will this nurse our
tenderness, for our own heart-life or to
others' benefit?

Note. — My Sister, having read this chap-
ter, in her revisal, has recalled to my
mind an incident told us long ago by a
venerable lady of Plymouth. There was
hunting at Naushon. Two friends, one of
them a novice, lay in hiding, when suddenly
came out of the woods, from an unex-
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Sporting.

pected direction, a very beautiful doe.
The situations brought the animal and the
man on an instant face to face, and
the two creatures, the speaking and the
dumb, gazed at each other in mutual as-
tonishment and admiration, as still as
statues. There was the man in all the
glory of reason, supplied with inventions,
full of knowledge which was majestic in
his face and revealed itself in his hands.
There stood the doe, meek, yet with
a wild proud freedom, supple and deli-
cate in every line of her body, bright red
brown in color, the lovely neck tow-
ering, the soft face turned forward, the
pathetic liquid eyes beaming a gentle kind
wonder — a creature of exquisite grace, of
unarmed and sweet mildness. After a
little, the delicate being, with a wonder-
ing sniff of the air and a quiver of the nos-
trils, turned and fled away among the trees.
The sportsman came running to his friend:
— "Why did not you shoot?" The man
started, looked vacantly an instant, then
warm color mounted and the eyes glistened:
— "Shoot? I never thought of it. I
would as soon have taken aim at my grand-
mother!"

327

Conclusion.

XXIX.

I said to Marian, of a recent evening,
"Take thy lovely instrument, dear Sister,
and play to me. Play lMuss P denn? first;
afterward, what thou wilt. Also sing, not
forgetting Margarita's love-song. For I
am weary, and would have music rest me.
Music takes us up into her arms and makes
us children again. And even if I fall
asleep, think not but I shall be listening.
Thy tones will change to hewn gems in my
dream, and I will build of them a palace of
light."

I betook me to the divan in our study,
and to the low ottoman near by Marian
brought the guitar.

"Nearer," said I; "It is dusky twilight.
I would see thy hands on the strings and
thine arm like a grace over the instrument. "

"And what will hands and arm become
in thy dream if thou fall asleep?" laughed
my Dozen. "Belike some impish pinches
for thy rudeness, to awaken thee."

But I slept not, and my Sister refreshed
me with piece after piece of her delicate
328

Conclusion.

playing, with here and there a song. It
was delicious rest. As the shadows deep-
ened, it grew to an almost mystical, tin-
earthlike delight. Under its spell I was
so still for a long time that at last my Sis-
ter, ending a Slumber-song which is a fav-
orite with me, instead of the concluding
words, sang "Art thou sleeping, Brother?'*

"No," said I, "but almost over-charmed,
except that I have a very lively discontent-
ed wish."

"And what is that?"

"I wish I could compose music. How
delicious were it to hear my soul expound-
ed by thy fingers and thy voice!"

"Thou art like the hero in an Arabian-
Nights tale, who, when he had all else,
could not be content without asking of the
Genie a Roc's egg. Which is to say, thou
art rapacious. Thou deservest to be re-
proved, as the Genie served the hero.
Canst not be content with thy pen in prose
and verse, but thou must carve music too?"

" 'Carve music' is very good," said I;
"but thy music has been carving a fine
vision for me. Dost remember that
thought in Fingal, the coming of the ghosts
when Carril sang — the place we read last
night?"

" 'The ghosts of those he sang came in
their rustling winds. They were seen to
329

Conclusion.

bend with joy toward the sound of their
praise.' Yes."

"Thy music brought that scene to mind,
and then instantly a kindred apparition
formed in the sky yonder which I saw as
plainly as any reality. I saw three figures.
One was Peace, a sweet quiet maid, with
far-searching eyes, her back to a rushing
wind, her hair brought over her shoulder
tightly across her bosom, so that the wind
moved it not. Another was Love, like
lier sister Peace, except that her hair was
tossed in the wind and blown all about her,
and fell in a fine veil over her face. The
other was Joy, like to her sisters, except
that her bright hair streamed in the wind
straight before her over her shoulder in
one tress, and with her right hand she
held a long trumpet to her mouth. A
great concourse of bright beings were
with them in three parts, one part behind
each figure, but soon mingling further be-
hind and agreeing then in one throng.
And these heavenly figures were attending
and bending to thy playing with delight,
like the ghosts in Fingal < toward the
sound of their praise/ thy music being
Peace and Love and Joy. Was not that a
fair vision for thy music to sculpture for
me on yonder cloud in the moonlight? "

"And thou," cried my Sister, "whoem-
330

Conclusion.

bracest both age and youth, by the
prophet's tokens, ' your old men shall
dream dreams, your young men shall see
visions,' — thou wouldst compose music
too! Truly thou art rapacious. Thou
lackest a certain piety."

But her face was full of a very sweet
happiness.

"I have some news for thee, dear
Marian," said I. "Thou wilt remember
that book which I was writing secretly —
but I let slip the secret to thee at an un-
wary moment. Well, it is done. This
morning I penned the last word of the
last chapter."

"It has been a happy doing?" said
Marian.

"Blissful," said I.

She looked at me very lovingly and
with a delightful joy, but said no more.

At last — "And now comes thy part,"
said I.

My Dozen nodded.

"But there is a condition."

" Can one judge under conditions?*' said
Sister.

"An exception, then. In brief, thou
art not to touch the places in which I
have spoken of thee."

Marian looked doubtful.

"Nay," said I, answering the look, "I
331

Conclusion.

am fixed. For although I am like the cen-
turion at Capernaum —

"How like the centurion?" asked my
Dozeji.

"Why, I am a man under authority."

"Ah!"

"'Tisso. But in this point I assert
myself. Thou may'st hew and trim and
file all else as thou wilt; but what I have
writ of thee shall stay as it is. And
rightfully too; for what I ask of thee is un-
biased judgment, which thou canst not
give in what I, of my heart and my eye
and my mind's eye, know very well, and
unbiased, of thee. Therefore, content
thee."

With this I gave her the manuscript.

All this was three weeks ago. Last
evening Marian brought me back the book.
After we had talked over her emendations
and I had admired the good sense and
taste of every one of them, except that
she demurred to some of my expressions
concerning herself and in these I was res-
olute to have my own way, she said at last:

"Well, however thou wilt, I am deeply
moved, Brother, by the parts that refer to
me in thy book — "

" Our book" said I, quietly, covering
her hand with mine.

" Our book," said she, with a dewy
332

Conclusion.

quaver in her voice, "it thou wilt have it
so. But surely the parts which speak of
me are thine."

" Doubly ours," said I; "I but tran-
scribed thy spirit in me."

Then Marian offered an opinion as to a
name for the book. She would call it
"MORE THAN KIN," taking the title from
my use of those words in one or two places,
she said; and I liked the name exceed-
ingly well.

" I will write a brief opening to intro-
duce the name at the very beginning," said
I. "And so our book is done, dear."

"None ever compared with thee for
sweetness unto a woman" — so my Sister
was pleased to say.

" Nay, nay," said I —

"Hast any notion," said my Dozen,
"with what constant perfect and sweet
comradeship of spirit thou clothest me
withal? I trow not. Thou art perfect
unto me. Thy love and thoughts spread
around me like a warm fair morning, my
Brother."

"Now, now," I said, "I must quiet
thee."

"I am making no noise."

"Thou art making a vast noise, for
a noise is but sound ill-placed. Is it
any less ill-placed to over-praise me to my
333

Conclusion.

face than to under-talk me to others?
Tell me that. Ah! ha!"

But I blessed her with grateful love, and
betook me to writing an opening for the
book, for the name; and she was gone.

Ah! Sister, my Sister, follow thy heart
and not my words. Ay, give thy honest
dear praises. Can a man have more or
better honor than to be good joy unto a
woman, whether mother, sister or wife?
And praise we poor mortals each other
enough in this world? Delight we enough
in each other?

THE END.

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