I DISCOVER THE BEAUTIES OF FRIENDSHIP.
Much has been written lately concerning the doctrine of friendship
between men and women. It is thought and said by some that there lies an
unexplored territory in our American life, and we have the example of
Madame Récamier set before us to show how perfectly intimate and devoted
a whole circle of manly friends may be with one fair woman, without
detriment or disadvantage to their domestic ties or hers. The adorable
Juliet is the intimate friend at once of Matthew Montmorenci, the saint,
of Chateaubriand, the poet, and of an indefinite number of artists and
men of letters, all of whom address her in language of adoration and
devotion, and receive from her affectionate messages in return.
Chateaubriand spends every afternoon with Juliet, and every evening with
his invalid wife, like a devoted and dutiful husband, and this state of
things goes on from year to year without trouble and without scandal.
It was with some such sublimated precedent in my head that I allowed
myself to yield to the charming temptation opened to me by my
acquaintance with Eva Van Arsdel. Supposing by Jim's account that she
was already engaged, looking on myself as yet far off from the place
where I could think of marriage, what was there to hinder my enjoying
her society? Of course, there was no possible danger to myself, and it
would be absolute coxcombry to think that there would be any to her.
She, who had been a queen of fashion, and who had the world under her
feet, if she deigned to think kindly of a poor _littérateur_, it could
surely lead to nothing dangerous. I might have been warned, if I were
wise, by the fact that the night after my first presentation I lay awake
and thought over all she had said, and counted the days that should
intervene before next Wednesday evening. I would not for the world have
had Jim Fellows divine what was going on within me; in fact I took as
much pains to cajole and pacify and take myself in as if I had been a
third party.
I woke about six o'clock in the dim grey of the next morning, from a
dream in which Eva and I were talking together, when she seemed so vivid
that I started up almost feeling that I saw her face in the air.
Suddenly I heard the bell of a neighboring church strike the hour, and
thought of what she had said the evening before about attending morning
services.
What was to hinder my going to the church and seeing her again? There
was a brisk morning walk, that was a good thing, and certainly morning
devotion was something so altogether right and reasonable that I
wondered I never had thought of it before. I dressed myself and turned
out into the streets to seek the little church of the Holy Sepulcher
where the new Rector of whom Eva had spoken held early Lenten services.
There was something quaint and rather exciting to my imagination to be
one of a small band who sought the church at this early hour. The
sunlight of the rising day streamed through the painted window and
touched with a sort of glory the white dress of the priest; the organ
played softly in subdued melody, and the words of the morning service
had a sort of touching lovely sound. "Where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" seemed to come to
my thoughts with new force as I looked on the small number, two or three
in a pew, who were scattered up and down through the church. She was
there in a seat not far from me, shrouded in a simple black dress and
veil, and seemed wholly and entirely absorbed by her prayer-book and
devotions.
As the little company dispersed at the close of the services, I stood in
the door and joined her as she passed out.
"Good morning, Miss Van Arsdel," I said.
She started and looked surprised, and a bright color flushed in her
cheeks.
"Mr. Henderson! you quite astonish me."
"Why so?"
"There are so very few who get out at this hour; and you, I believe, are
not of the church."
"I don't know what you mean by _the_ church, exactly," said I.
"Oh," said she, looking at me with a conscious smile, "I know what
everybody means that says _the_ church--it generally means _our_
church--the one that is _the_ church for us; but you, I think, belong to
the Bethany," she added.
"I do," said I, "but I have large sympathies for all others,
particularly for yours, which seems to me in some points more worthily
to represent what a church should be, than any other."
She looked pleased, and said with warmth, "Mr. Henderson, you must not
judge our church by such very imperfect specimens as you see among us.
We are very unworthy children of a noble mother; our church has
everything in it to call us to the highest and best life, only we fall
far below her teaching."
"I think I can see," I said, "that if the scheme of living set forth by
the Episcopal Church were carried out with warmth and devotion, it would
make an ideal sort of society."
"It would be a really consecrated life," she said, with warmth. "If all
would agree to unite in daily morning and evening prayers for instance,"
she said, "how beautiful it would be." "I never enjoy reading my Bible
alone in my room as I do to have it read to me here in church; somehow
to me there is a sacred charm about it when I hear it read there, and
then to have friends, neighbors and families meet and pray together as
one, every day, would be beautiful. I often think I should like to live
close by one of those beautiful English cathedrals where they have
choral services every day, and I would go morning and evening, but here,
in this dreadful, flashy, busy, bustling New York, there is no such
thing, I suppose, as getting any number of people to agree to daily
worship."
"In that respect," said I, "we modern Christians seem to be less devout
than the ancient heathen or the Mohammedans; you recollect Huju Buba
sums up the difference between the Englishman and the Persian by saying,
'We Persians pray seven times a day, and they, never.'"
"I like to come to church," she said, "it seems a shelter and a refuge.
Nowadays there are so many things said that one doesn't know what to
think of; so many things disputed that one has always supposed to be
true; such a perfectly fatiguing rush of ideas and assertions and new
ways that for my part I am glad to fall back upon something old and
established, that I feel sure isn't going to melt away into mist before
to-morrow."
"I can well appreciate that feeling," I said, "for I have it myself."
"Do you? Oh, Mr. Henderson, you don't know how it perplexes one. There's
sister Ida, now! she has a circle of friends--the very nicest sort of
people they seem to be!--but, dear me! when I am with them a little
while, I get perfectly bewildered. No two of them seem to believe alike
on any subject; and if you quote the Bible to them, they just open their
eyes and look amazed at you, as if _that_ was something quite behind the
age; and as there is no standard with them, of course there is nothing
settled. You feel as if life was built on water, and everything was
rocking and tilting till you are quite dizzy. Now, I know I am a poor
sort of a specimen of a Christian; but _I_ couldn't live so! I fly back
from this sort of thing, like a frightened bird, and take refuge in the
church--_there_ is something fixed, positive, and definite, that has
stood the test of time; it is noble and dignified, and I abide by
that."
"There is all that about it," said I; "and so very much that is
attractive and charming in the forms of your church, that I think if you
would only open your arms wide, and be liberal as the spirit of this
age, you would indeed be _the_ church of the world."
"You think we are not liberal?" she said.
"When you call yourselves _the_ church, and make no account of all that
true, pure, good souls--true followers of the same Saviour--are doing,
it seems to me you are not."
"Ah, well, Mr. Henderson, perhaps we are wrong there--I cannot say. I
know there are many churches and many dear, good souls in all; it is
only to _me_ that mine is _the_ church; if that is an illusion, it is a
happy one."
"Now," said I, "what a dreary picture should we have of New York
Christianity, if we judged it by the few morning worshipers at Lenten
services!"
"Yes, indeed," she said. "I am often sorry for our rector--he is so
earnest, and so few care to come; and yet he told us in his sermon, last
Sunday, that these Lenten services were an act of union with our
Saviour's self-denials and sufferings."
"Well, Miss Van Arsdel," said I, "I doubt not there are hundreds of
thousands in this city who do really, in spirit, unite with the Saviour
in self-denials and sufferings, daily, who do not express it in this
form. If all who really love the Saviour, and are living in his spirit,
_should_ make a point of early morning service in Lent, I verily believe
the churches would be crowded to overflowing."
"You do really think so?"
"I do. In spite of all that appears, I think ours is really, at heart, a
religious age--it is only that we do not agree in the same external
forms of expression."
"But how beautiful! oh, how beautiful it would be if we could!" she
said. "Oh, it would be lovely if all the good and true could see each
other, and stand side by side! I long for _visible_ unity--and do you
think, Mr. Henderson, we could unite in _more_ beautiful forms than
ours?"
"No; I do not," said I; "for me, for you, for many like us, these are
the true forms, and the best; but we must remember that others have just
as sacred associations, and are as dearly attached to other modes of
worship as we to these."
"Then you really do prefer them yourself?"
"Well, Miss Van Arsdel, I unite with the church of my father and mother,
because I was brought up in it; yet if I were to choose another, it
would be yours."
She looked pleased, and I added: "It seems to me one of the most
beautiful things about it is a daily service."
"Yes," she said, "and it is pleasant to have churches where you feel
that worship is daily offered, whether people attend or not. There was
something sacred and beautiful about the Church of St. Peter's in
Rome--to think that at every hour of day or night worship was going on
in it. I used to like to think of it when I awoke nights--that they were
praying and adoring there--in this cold, dreary world; it seems as if it
was like a Father's house, always light, and warm, and open."
"There is a beauty and use in all these forms and images," I said; "and
I think if we are wise, we may take comfort in them all, without being
enslaved by any."
Here our interview closed, as with a graceful salutation she left me at
the door of her house.
The smile she gave me was so bright and heart-warm, that it lightened
all my work through the day; a subtle sense of a new and charming
companionship began to shed itself through all my labors, and,
unconsciously and unwatched, commenced that process of double thought
which made everything I read or wrote suggest something I wanted to say
to her. The reader will not, therefore, wonder that I proved my sense of
the beauty of a daily morning service by going with great regularity
after this, and as regularly walking home with my enchanting companion.
I was innocently surprised to find how interesting the morning scenery
in prosaic old New York had become. It was April, and the buds in the
Park were swelling, and the green grass springing in the cracks of the
pavement, and little sparrows twittered and nestled in the ivy that
embowered the church--and all these things had a strange, new charm for
me. I told myself, every day, that I was not in love with Eva Van
Arsdel, or going to be; I took myself to witness that all our
conversation was on the most correct and dispassionate subjects, and not
in the slightest degree inclining to any vanity of that nature. Since
then, I have learned that Eva was the kind of woman with whom it made no
difference what the subject matter of conversation was. It might be
religion, or politics, or conic sections, but the animus of it was sure
to be the same thing. It was her vital magnetism that gave the interest.
It was, in fact, hardly any matter what we talked about, or whether we
talked at all, it was the charm of being together that made these
morning interviews so delightful; though I believe we discussed nearly
everything under the sun, with the most astonishing unanimity of
sentiment.
I was very careful to keep the knowledge of my increasing intimacy from
Jim Fellows. Early rising was not his forte, and I, very improperly,
congratulated myself on the fewness of the worshipers at early service.
By and by, I grew so conscious that I got a way of stealing out at an
opposite door, appearing to walk off another way, and joining Eva at the
next corner--lest haply my invariable constancy should attract
attention. She noticed all these things with a droll, amused, little,
half-conscious look. True daughter of Eve as she was, she had probably
seen many a shy fish before, swimming around her golden net as artlessly
as I was doing.
I soon became her obedient slave and servant, interpreting all her
motions and intimations with humble assiduity. Of course I presented
myself duly with Jim in the Wednesday evening receptions, where, as the
rooms were filled with other company, we already began to practice an
involuntary hypocrisy, keeping up our friendly intimacy by that kind of
intuitive and undemonstrative communication natural to those who know
each other by sympathy, and learn to understand each other without
words.
I was a great deal in Ida's studio, probably much to the satisfaction of
Aunt Maria and Mrs. Van Arsdel--while Eva glanced and twinkled in and
out like a fire-fly in a meadow, taking my heart with her as she came
and went, yet awing me with a dutiful reticence, lest "people should
talk."
Ida was one of those calm, quiet, essentially self-poised women, with
whom it would be quite possible for a man to have a very intimate
friendship, without its toning off into anything warm, either on her
part or on his. Everything with her was so positive and definite, that
there was no possibility of going over the limits. I think that she
really had a very warm esteem for me; but she looked at me and judged me
solely in relation to Eva, and with a quiet persistency favored the
intimacy that she saw growing between us. Her plans of life were laid
far ahead; she was wedded to a purpose which she would not have
renounced for any man on earth; but Eva was the very apple of her eye,
and I think she had her own plans as to the settling of her life's
destiny; in short, Ida was from the start the best friend I could have.