Since the conversation which had accidentally led to the discovery of
Miss Stanley's acquirements, I could not forbear surveying the perfect
arrangements of the family, and the completely elegant but not luxurious
table, with more than ordinary interest. I felt no small delight in
reflecting that all this order and propriety were produced without the
smallest deduction from mental cultivation.
I could not refrain from mentioning this to Mrs. Stanley. She was not
displeased with my observation, though she cautiously avoided saying any
thing which might be construed into a wish to set off her daughter. As
she seemed surprised at my knowledge of the large share her Lucilla had
in the direction of the family concerns, I could not, in the imprudence
of my satisfaction, conceal the conversation I had had with my old
friend Mrs. Comfit.
After this avowal she felt that any reserve on this point would look
like affectation, a littleness which would have been unworthy of her
character. "I am frequently blamed by my friends," said she, "for taking
some of the load from my own shoulders, and laying it on hers. 'Poor
thing, she is too young!' is the constant cry of the fashionable
mothers. My general answer is, you do not think your daughters of the
same age too young to be married, though you know marriage must bring
with it these, and still heavier cares. Surely then Lucilla is not too
young to be initiated into that useful knowledge which will hereafter
become no inconsiderable part of her duty. The acquisition would be
really burdensome then, if it were not lightened by preparatory practice
now. I have, I trust, convinced my daughters, that though there is no
great merit in possessing this sort of knowledge, yet to be destitute of
it is highly discreditable."
In several houses where I had visited, I had observed the forwardness of
the parents, the mother especially, to make a display of the daughter's
merits: "so dutiful! so notable! such an excellent nurse!" The girl was
then called out to sing or to play, and was thus, by that
_inconsistency_ which my good mother deprecated, kept in the full
exhibition of those very talents which are most likely to interfere with
nursing and notableness. But since I had been on my present visit, I had
never once heard my friends extol their Lucilla, or bring forward any of
her excellences. I had however observed their eyes fill with a delight,
which they could not suppress, when her merits were the subject of the
praise of others.
I took notice of this difference of conduct to Mrs. Stanley. "I have
often," said she, "been so much hurt at the indelicacy to which you
allude, that I very early resolved to avoid it. If the girl in question
does not deserve the commendation, it is not only disingenuous but
dishonest. If she does, it is a coarse and not very honorable stratagem
for getting her off. But if the daughter be indeed all that a mother's
partial fondness believes," added she, her eyes filling with tears of
tenderness, "how can she be in such haste to deprive herself of the
solace of her life? How can she by gross acts wound that delicacy in her
daughter, which, to a man of refinement, would be one of her chief
attractions, and which will be lowered in his esteem, by the suspicion
that she may concur in the indiscretion of the mother.
"As to Lucilla," added she, "Mr. Stanley and I sometimes say to each
other, 'Little children, keep yourselves from idols!' O my dear young
friend! it is in vain to dissemble her unaffected worth and sweetness.
She is not only our delightful companion, but our confidential friend.
We encourage her to give us her opinion on matters of business, as well
as of taste; and having reflected as well as read a good deal, she is
not destitute of materials on which to exercise her reasoning powers. We
have never repressed her natural vivacity, because we never saw it, like
Ph[oe]be's, in danger of carrying her off from the straight line."
I thanked Mrs. Stanley for her affectionate frankness, with a warmth
which showed the cordial interest I took in her, who was the object of
it: company coming in, interrupted our interesting tete-a-tete.
After tea, I observed the party in the saloon to be thinner than usual.
Sir John and Lady Belfield having withdrawn to write letters; and that
individual having quitted the room, whose presence would have reconciled
me to the absence of all the rest, I stole out to take a solitary walk.
At the distance of a quarter of a mile from the park-gate, on a little
common, I observed, for the first time, the smallest and neatest cottage
I ever beheld. There was a flourishing young orchard behind it, and a
little court full of flowers in front. But I was particularly attracted
by a beautiful rose-tree, in full blossom, which grew against the house,
and almost covered the clean white walls. As I knew this sort of rose
was a particular favorite of Lucilla's I opened the low wicket which led
into the little court, and I looked about for some living creature, of
whom I might have begged the flowers. But seeing no one, I ventured to
gather a bunch of the roses, and the door being open, walked into the
house, in order to acknowledge my theft, and make my compensation. In
vain I looked round the little neat kitchen: no one appeared.
I was just going out, when the sound of a soft female voice over head
arrested my attention. Impelled by a curiosity which, considering the
rank of the inhabitants, I did not feel it necessary to resist, I softly
stole up the narrow stairs, cautiously stooping as I ascended, the
lowness of the ceiling not allowing me to walk upright. I stood still at
the door of a little chamber, which was left half open to admit the air.
I gently put my head through. What were my emotions when I saw Lucilla
Stanley kneeling by the side of a little clean bed, a large old Bible
spread open on the bed before her, out of which she was reading one of
the penitential Psalms to a pale emaciated female figure, who lifted up
her failing eyes, and clasped her feeble hands in solemn attention!
Before two little bars, which served for a grate, knelt Ph[oe]be, with
one hand stirring some broth which she had brought from home, and with
the other fanning with her straw bonnet the dying embers, in order to
make the broth boil; yet seemingly attentive to her sister's reading.
Her disheveled hair, the deep flush which the fire, and her labor of
love gave her naturally animated countenance, formed a fine contrast to
the angelic tranquillity and calm devotion which sat on the face of
Lucilla. Her voice was inexpressibly sweet and penetrating, while faith,
hope, and charity seemed to beam from her fine uplifted eyes. On account
of the closeness of the room, she had thrown off her hat, cloak, and
gloves, and laid them on the bed; and her fine hair, which had escaped
from its confinement, shaded that side of her face which was next the
door, and prevented her seeing me.
I scarcely dared to breathe, lest I should interrupt such a scene. It
was a subject not unworthy of Raphael. She next began to read the
forty-first Psalm, with the meek, yet solemn emphasis of devout feeling:
"Blessed is he that considereth the poor and needy, the Lord shall
deliver him in the time of trouble." Neither the poor woman nor myself
could hold out any longer. She was overcome by her gratitude and I by my
admiration, and we both at the same moment involuntarily exclaimed,
Amen! I sprang forward with a motion which I could no longer control.
Lucilla saw me, started up in confusion,
And blushed
Celestial rosy red,
then eagerly endeavoring to conceal the Bible, by drawing her hat over
it, "Ph[oe]be," said she, with all the composure she could assume, "is
the broth ready?" Ph[oe]be, with her usual gayety, called out to me to
come and assist, which I did, but so unskillfully, that she chid me for
my awkwardness.
It was an interesting sight to see one of the blooming sisters lift the
dying woman in her bed, and support her with her arm, while the other
fed her, her own weak hand being unequal to the task. At that moment,
how little did the splendors and vanities of life appear in my eyes! and
how ready was I to exclaim with Wolsey,
Vain pomp and glory of the world, I hate you.
When they had finished their pious office, I inquired if the poor woman
had no attendant. Ph[oe]be, who was generally the chief speaker, said,
"she has a good daughter, who is out at work by day, but takes care of
her mother at night; but she is never left alone, for she has a little
grand-daughter who attends her in the mean time; but as she is obliged
to go once a day to the Grove to fetch provisions, we generally contrive
to send her while we are here, that Dame Alice may never be left alone."
While we were talking, I heard a little weary step, painfully climbing
up the stairs, and looked round, expecting to see the grand-daughter;
but it was little Kate Stanley, with a lap full of dried sticks, which
she had been collecting for the poor woman's fire. The sharp points of
the sticks had forced their way in many places through the white muslin
frock, part of which, together with her bonnet, she had left in the
hedge, which she had been robbing. At this loss she expressed not much
concern, but lamented not a little that sticks were so scarce; that she
feared the broth had been spoiled, from her being so long in picking
them, but _indeed_ she could not help it. I was pleased with these
under allotments, these low degrees in the scale of charity.
I had gently laid my roses on the hat of Miss Stanley, as it lay on the
Bible, and before we left the room, as I drew near the good old dame to
slip a couple of guineas into her hand, I had the pleasure of seeing
Lucilla, who thought herself unobserved, retire to the little window,
and fasten the roses into the crown of her hat like a garland. When the
grand-daughter returned loaded with the daily bounty from the Grove, we
took our leave, followed by the prayers and blessings of the good woman.
As we passed by the rose-tree, the orchard, and the court, Ph[oe]be said
to me, "A'n't you glad that poor people can have such pleasures?" I told
her it doubled my gratification to witness the enjoyment, and to trace
the hand which conferred it; for she had owned it was _their_ work. "We
have always," replied Ph[oe]be, "a particular satisfaction in observing
a neat little flower-garden about a cottage, because it holds out a
comfortable indication that the inhabitants are free from absolute want,
before they think of these little embellishments."
"It looks, also," said Miss Stanley, "as if the woman, instead of
spending her few leisure moments in gadding abroad, employed them in
adorning her little habitation, in order to make it more attractive to
her husband. And we know more than one instance in this village in which
the man has been led to give up the public-house, by the innocent
ambition of improving on her labors."
I asked her what first inspired her with such fondness for gardening,
and how she had acquired so much skill and taste in this elegant art?
She blushed and said she was afraid I should think her romantic, if
she were to confess that she had caught both the taste and the passion,
as far as she possessed either, from an early and intimate acquaintance
with the Paradise Lost, of which she considered the beautiful
descriptions of scenery and plantations as the best precepts for
landscape gardening. "Milton," she said, "both excited the taste and
supplied the rules. He taught the art and inspired the love of it." From
the gardens of Paradise the transition was easy and natural. On my
asking her opinion of this portrait, as drawn by Milton, she replied,
"That she considered Eve, in her state of innocence, as the most
beautiful model of the delicacy, propriety, grace, and elegance of the
female character which any poet ever exhibited. Even after her fall,"
added she, "there is something wonderfully touching in her remorse, and
affecting in her contrition."
"We are probably," replied I, "more deeply affected with the beautifully
contrite expressions of repentance in our first parents, from being so
deeply involved in the consequences of the offense which occasioned it."
"And yet," replied she, "I am a little affronted with the poet, that
while, with a noble justness, he represents Adam's grief at his
expulsion, as chiefly arising from his being banished from the presence
of his Maker, the sorrows of Eve seem too much to arise from being
banished from her flowers. The grief, though never grief was so
beautifully eloquent, is rather too exquisite, her substantial ground
for lamentation considered."
Seeing me going to speak, she stopped me with a smile, saying, "I see by
your looks that you are going, with Mr. Addison, to vindicate the poet,
and to call this a just appropriation of the sentiment to the sex; but
surely the disproportion in the feeling here is rather too violent,
though I own the loss of her flowers _might_ have aggravated any common
privation. There is, however, no female character in the whole compass
of poetry in which I have ever taken so lively an interest, and no poem
that ever took such powerful possession of my mind."
If any thing had been wanting to my full assurance of the sympathy of
our tastes and feelings, this would have completed my conviction. It
struck me as the Virgilian lots formerly struck the superstitious. Our
mutual admiration of the Paradise Lost, and of its heroine, seemed to
bring us nearer together than we had yet been. Her remarks, which I
gradually drew from her in the course of our walk, on the construction
of the fable, the richness of the imagery, the elevation of the
language, the sublimity and just appropriation of the sentiments, the
artful structure of the verse, and the variety of the characters,
convinced me that she had imbibed her taste from the purest sources. It
was easy to trace her knowledge of the best authors, though she quoted
none.
"This," said I exultingly to myself, "is the true learning for a lady; a
knowledge that is rather detected than displayed, that is felt in its
effects on her mind and conversation; that is seen, not by her citing
learned names, or adducing long quotations, but in the general result,
by the delicacy of her taste, and the correctness of her sentiments."
In our way home I made a merit with little Kate, not only by rescuing
her hat from the hedge, but by making a little provision of wood under
it, of larger sticks than she could gather, which she joyfully promised
to assist the grand-daughter in carrying to the cottage.
I ventured, with as much diffidence as if I had been soliciting a
pension for myself, to entreat that I might be permitted to undertake
the putting forward Dame Alice's little girl in the world, as soon as
she should be released from her attendance on her grandmother. My
proposal was graciously accepted, on condition that it met with Mr. and
Mrs. Stanley's approbation.
When we joined the party at supper, it was delightful to observe that
the habits of religious charity were so interwoven with the texture of
these girl's minds; that the evening which had been so interesting to
me, was to them only a common evening, marked with nothing particular.
It never occurred to them to allude to it; and once or twice when I was
tempted to mention it, my imprudence was repressed by a look of the most
significant gravity from Lucilla.
I was comforted, however, by observing that my roses were transferred
from the hat to the hair. This did not escape the penetrating eye of
Ph[oe]be, who archly said, "I wonder, Lucilla, what particular charm
there is in Dame Alice's faded roses. I offered you some fresh ones
since we came home. I never knew you prefer withered flowers before."
Lucilla made no answer, but cast down her timid eyes, and out-blushed
the roses on her head.