On entering the drawing-room, Randal found the two ladies seated close
together, in a position much more appropriate to the familiarity of
their school-days than to the politeness of the friendship now existing
between them. Mrs. Hazeldean's hand hung affectionately over Carry's
shoulder, and both those fair English faces were bent over the same
book. It was pretty to see these sober matrons, so different from each
other in character and aspect, thus unconsciously restored to the
intimacy of happy maiden youth by the golden link of some Magician from
the still land of Truth or Fancy--brought together in heart, as each eye
rested on the same thought;--closer and closer, as sympathy, lost in the
actual world, grew out of that world which unites in one bond of feeling
the readers of some gentle book.
"And what work interests you so much?" said Randal, pausing by the
table.
"One you have read, of course," replied Mrs. Dale, putting a bookmark
embroidered by herself into the page, and handing the volume to Randal.
"It has made a great sensation, I believe."
Randal glanced at the title of the work "True," said he, "I have heard
much of it in London, but I have not yet had time to read it."
MRS. DALE.--"I can lend it to you, if you like to look over it to-night,
and you can leave it for me with Mrs. Hazeldean."
PARSON (approaching).--"Oh! that book!--yes, you must read it. I do not
know a work more instructive."
RANDAL.--"Instructive! Certainly I will read it then. But I thought it
was a mere work of amusement--of fancy. It seems so, as I look over it."
PARSON.--"So is the _Vicar of Wakefield_; yet what book more
instructive?"
RANDAL.--"I should not have said _that_ of the _Vicar of Wakefield_. A
pretty book enough, though the story is most improbable. But how is it
instructive?"
PARSON.--"By its results: it leaves us happier and better. What can any
instruction do more? Some works instruct through the head, some through
the heart; the last reach the widest circle, and often produce the most
genial influence on the character. This book belongs to the last. You
will grant my proposition when you have read it."
Randal smiled and took the volume.
MRS. DALE.--"Is the author known yet?"
RANDAL.--"I have heard it ascribed to many writers, but I believe no one
has claimed it."
PARSON.--"I think it must have been written by my old college friend,
Professor Moss, the naturalist; its descriptions of scenery are so
accurate."
MRS. DALE.--"La, Charles, dear! that snuffy, tiresome, prosy professor?
How can you talk such nonsense? I am sure the author must be young;
there is so much freshness of feeling."
MRS. HAZELDEAN (positively).--"Yes, certainly young."
PARSON (no less positively).--"I should say just the contrary. Its tone
is too serene, and its style too simple for a young man. Besides, I
don't know any young man who would send me his book, and this book has
been sent me--very handsomely bound too, you see. Depend upon it, Moss
is the man--quite his turn of mind."
MRS. DALE.--"You are too provoking, Charles dear! Mr. Moss is so
remarkably plain, too."
RANDAL.--"Must an author be handsome?"
PARSON.--"Ha, ha! Answer that, if you can, Carry."
Carry remained mute and disdainful.
SQUIRE (with great _naivete_).--"Well, I don't think there's much in the
book, whoever wrote it; for I've read it myself, and understand every
word of it."
MRS. DALE.--"I don't see why you should suppose it was written by a man
at all. For my part, I think it must be a woman."
MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Yes, there's a passage about maternal affection, which
only a woman could have written."
PARSON.--"Pooh, pooh! I should like to see a woman who could have
written that description of an August evening before a thunderstorm;
every wildflower in the hedgerow exactly the flowers of August--every
sign in the air exactly those of the month. Bless you! a woman would
have filled the hedge with violets and cowslips. Nobody else but my
friend Moss could have written that description."
SQUIRE.--"I don't know; there's a simile about the waste of corn-seed in
hand-sowing, which makes me think he must be a farmer!"
MRS. DALE (scornfully).--"A farmer! In hob-nailed shoes, I suppose! I
say it is a woman."
MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"A WOMAN, and A MOTHER!"
PARSON.--"A middle-aged man, and a naturalist."
SQUIRE.--"No, no, Parson; certainly a young man; for that love-scene
puts me in mind of my own young days, when I would have given my ears to
tell Harry how handsome I thought her; and all I could say was--'Fine
weather for the crops, Miss.' Yes, a young man, and a farmer. I should
not wonder if he had held the plow himself."
RANDAL (who had been turning over the pages).--"This sketch of night in
London comes from a man who has lived the life of cities, and looked at
wealth with the eyes of poverty. Not bad! I will read the book."
"Strange," said the Parson, smiling, "that this little work should so
have entered our minds, suggested to all of us different ideas, yet
equally charmed all--given a new and fresh current to our dull country
life--animated us as with the sight of a world in our breasts we had
never seen before, save in dreams;--a little work like this, by a man we
don't know, and never may! Well, _that_ knowledge _is_ power, and a
noble one!"
"A sort of power, certainly, sir," said Randal, candidly; and that
night, when Randal retired to his own room, he suspended his schemes
and projects, and read, as he rarely did, without an object to gain by
the reading.
The work surprised him by the pleasure it gave. Its charm lay in the
writer's calm enjoyment of the Beautiful. It seemed like some happy soul
sunning itself in the light of its own thoughts. Its power was so
tranquil and even, that it was only a critic who could perceive how much
force and vigor were necessary to sustain the wing that floated aloft
with so imperceptible an effort. There was no one faculty predominating
tyrannically over the others; all seemed proportioned in the felicitous
symmetry of a nature rounded, integral, and complete. And when the work
was closed, it left behind it a tender warmth that played round the
heart of the reader, and vivified feelings that seemed unknown before.
Randal laid down the book softly; and for five minutes the ignoble and
base purposes to which his own knowledge was applied, stood before him,
naked and unmasked.
"Tut," said he, wrenching himself violently away from the benign
influence, "it was not to sympathize with Hector, but to conquer with
Achilles, that Alexander of Macedon kept Homer under his pillow. Such
would be the true use of books to him who has the practical world to
subdue; let parsons and women construe it otherwise as they may?"
And the Principle of Evil descended again upon the intellect, from which
the guide beneficence was gone.