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HEART;
A Social Novel.
by
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, A.M., F.R.S.
Author of
Proverbial Philosophy.
Hartford:
Published by Silas Andrus & Son.
1851.
HEART.
CHAPTER I.
WHEREIN TWO ANXIOUS PARENTS HOLD A COLLOQUY.
"Is he rich, ma'am? is he rich? ey? what--what? is he rich?"
Sir Thomas was a rapid little man, and quite an epicure in the use of
that luscious monosyllable.
"Is he rich, Lady Dillaway? ey? what?"
"Really, Thomas, you never give me time to answer," replied the
quintescence of quietude, her ladyship; "and then it is perpetually the
same question, and--"
"Well, ma'am, can there be a more important question asked? I repeat it,
is he rich? ey? what?
"You know, Sir Thomas, we never are agreed about the meaning of that
word; but I should say, very."
As Lady Dillaway always spoke quite softly in a whisper, she had failed
to enlighten the knight; but he seemed, notwithstanding, to have caught
her intention instinctively; for he added, in his impetuous, imperious
way,
"No nonsense now, about talents and virtues, and all such trash; but
quick, ma'am, quick--is the man rich?"
"In talents, as you mention the word, certainly, very rich; a more
clever or accomplished--"
"Cut it short, ma'am--cut it short, I say--I'll have no adventurers, who
live by their wits, making up to my daughter--pedantic puppies, good for
ushers, nothing else. What do they mean by knowing so much? ey? what?"
"And then, Sir Thomas, if you will only let me speak, a man of purer
morals, finer feelings, higher Christian--"
"Bah! well enough for curates: go on, ma'am--go on, and make haste to
the point of all points--is he rich?"
"You know I never will make haste, Thomas, for I never can have
patience, and you shall hear; I am little in the habit of judging people
entirely by their purses, not even a son-in-law, provided there is a
sufficiency on the one side or the other for--"
"Quick, mum--quick--rich--rich? will the woman drive me mad?" and Sir
Thomas Dillaway, Knight, rattled loose cash in both pockets more
vindictively than ever. But the spouse, nothing hurried, still crept on
in her _sotto voce adantino_ style,
"Mr. Clements owes nothing, has something, and above and beside all his
good heart, good mind, good fame, good looks, good family, possesses a
contented--"
"Pish! contented, bah!" our hasty knight's nose actually curled upwards
in utter scorn as he added, "Now, that's enough--quite enough. I'll bet
a plum the man's poor. Contented indeed! did you ever know a rich man
yet who was contented--ey? mum--ey? or a poor one that wasn't--ey? what?
I've no patience with those contented fellows: it's my belief they
steal away the happiness of monied men. If this Mr. Clements was
rich--rich, one wouldn't mind so much about talents, virtues, and
contentment--work-house blessings; but the man's poor, I know
it--poo-o-or!"
Sir Thomas had a method quite his own of pronouncing those contradictory
monosyllables, rich and poor: the former he gave out with an unctuous,
fish-saucy gusto, and the word seemed to linger on his palate as a
delicious morsel in the progress of delightful deglutition; but when he
uttered the word poor, it was with that "mewling and puking" miserable
face, appropriated from time immemorial to the gulping of a black
draught.
"No, Lady Dillaway, right about's the next word I shall say to that
smooth-looking pauper, Mr. Henry Clements--to think of his impudence,
making up to my daughter, indeed! a poo-o-o-r man, too."
"I did not tell you he was poor, Sir Thomas: you have run away with that
idea on your own account: the young man has enough for the present, owes
nothing for the past, and reasonable expectations for the--
"Future, I suppose, ey? what? I hate futures, all the lot of 'em: cash
down, ready money, bird in the hand, that's my ticket, mum:
expectations, indeed! Well, go on--go on; I'm as patient as a--as a
mule, you see; go on, will you; I may as well hear it all out, Lady
Dillaway."
"Well, Sir Thomas, since you think so little of the future, I will not
insist on expectations; though I really can only excuse your methods of
judging by the fancy that you are far too prudent in fearing for the
future: however, if you will not admit this, let me take you on your own
ground, the present; perhaps Mr. Clements may not possess quite as much
as I could wish him, but then surely, dear Thomas, our daughter must
have more than--"
I object to seeing oaths in print; unless it must be once in a way, as a
needful point of character: probably the reader's sagacity will supply
many omissions of mine in the eloquence of Sir Thomas Dillaway and
others. But his calm spouse, nothing daunted, quietly whispered on--"You
know, Thomas, you have boasted to me that your capital is doubling every
year; penny-postage has made the stationery business most prosperous;
and if you were wealthy when the old king knighted you as lord mayor,
surely you can spare something handsome now for an only daughter, who--"
"Ma'am!" almost barked the affectionate father, "if Maria marries money,
she shall have money, and plenty of it, good girl; but if she will
persist in wedding a beggar, she may starve, mum, starve, and all her
poverty-stricken brats too, for any pickings they shall get out of my
pocket. Ey? what? you pretend to read your Bible, mum--don't you know
we're commanded to 'give to him that hath, and to take away from him
that--'"
"For shame, Sir Thomas Dillaway!" interrupted the wife, as well she
might, for all her quietude: she was a good sort of woman, and her
better nature aroused its wrath at this vicious application of a truth
so just when applied to morals and graces, so bitterly iniquitous in the
case of this world's wealth. I wish that our ex-lord mayor's distorted
text may not be one of real and common usage. So, silencing her lord,
whose character it was to be overbearing to the meek, but cringing to
any thing like rebuke or opposition, she forthwith pushed her
advantages, adding--
"Your income is now four thousand a-year, as you have told me, Thomas,
every hour of every day, since your last lucky hit in the government
contract for blue-elephants and whitey-browns. We have only John and
Maria; and John gets enough out of his own stock-brokering business to
keep his curricle and belong to clubs--and--alas! my fears are many for
my poor dear boy--I often wish, Thomas, that our John was not so well
supplied with money: whereas, poor Maria--"
"Tush, ma'am, you're a fool, and have no respect at all for monied men.
Jack's a rich man, mum--knows a trick or two, sticks at nothing on
'Change, shrewd fellow, and therefore, of course I don't stint him: ha!
he's a regular Witney comforter, that boy--makes money--ay, for all his
seeming extravagance, the clever little rogue knows how to keep it, too.
If you only knew, ma'am, if you only knew--but we don't blab to fools."
I dare say "fools" will hear the wise man's secret some day.
"Well, Thomas, I am sure I have no wish to pry into business
transactions; all my present hope is to help the cause of our poor dear
Maria."
"Don't call the girl 'poor,' Lady Dillaway; it's no recommendation, I
can tell you, though it may be true enough. Girls are a bad spec, unless
they marry money. If our girl does this, well; she will indeed be to me
a dear Maria, though not a poo-o-o-r one; if she doesn't, let her bide,
and be an old maid; for as to marrying this fellow Clement's, I'll cut
him adrift to-morrow."
"If you do, Sir Thomas, you will break our dear child's heart."
"Heart, ma'am! what business has my daughter with a heart?" [what,
indeed?] "I hate hearts; they were sent, I believe, purposely to make
those who are plagued with 'em poo-o-o-r. Heart, indeed! When did heart
ever gain money? ey? what? It'll give, O yes, plenty--plenty, to
charities, and churches, and orphans, and beggars, and any thing else,
by way of getting rid of gold; but as to gaining--bah! heart
indeed--pauperizing bit of muscle! save me from wearing under my
waistcoat what you're pleased to call a heart. No, mum, no; if the girl
has got a heart to break, I've done with her. Heart indeed! she either
marries money and my blessing, or marries beggary and my curse. But I
should like to know who wants her to marry at all? Let her die an old
maid."
Probably this dialogue need go no farther: in the coming chapter we will
try to be didactic. Meantime, to apostrophize ten words upon that last
heartless sentence:
"Let her die an old maid." An old maid! how many unrecorded sorrows, how
much of cruel disappointment and heart-cankering delay, how often-times
unwritten tragedies are hidden in that thoughtless little phrase! O, the
mass of blighted hopes, of slighted affections, of cold neglect, and
foolish contumely, wrapped up in those three syllables! Kind heart, kind
heart, never use them; neither lightly as in scorn, nor sadly as in
pity: spare that ungenerous reproach. What! canst thou think that from a
feminine breast the lover, the wife, the mother, can be utterly sponged
away without long years of bitterness? Can Nature's wounds be
cicatrized, or her soft feelings seared, without a thousand secret
pangs? Hath it been no trial to see youthful bloom departing, and middle
age creep on, without some intimate one to share the solitude of life?
Ay, and the coming prospect too--hath it greater consolations than the
retrospect? How faintly common friends can fill that hollow of the
heart! How feebly can their kindness, at the warmest, imitate the
sympathies and love of married life! And in the days of sickness, or the
hour of death--to be lonely, childless, husbandless, to be lightly cared
for, little missed--who can wonder that all those bruised and broken
yearnings should ferment within the solitary mind, and some, times sour
up the milk of human kindness? Be more considerate, more just, more
loving to that injured heart of woman; it hath loved deeply in its day;
but imperative duty or untoward circumstances nipped those early
blossoms, and often generosity towards others, or the constancy of
youthful blighted love, has made it thus alone. There was an age in this
world's history, and may be yet again (if Heart is ever to be monarch of
this social sphere), when those who lived and died as Jephthah's
daughter, were reckoned worthily with saints and martyrs; Heed thou,
thus, of many such, for they have offered up their hundred warm
yearnings, a hecatomb of human love, to God, the betrothed of their
affections; and they move up and down among this inconsiderate world,
doing good, Sisters of Charity, full of pure benevolence, and beneficent
beyond the widow's mite. Heed kinder then, and blush for very shame, O
man and woman! looking on this noble band of ill-requited virgins;
remember all their trials, and imitate their deeds; for among the legion
of that unreguarded sisterhood whom you coldly call old maids, are often
seen the world's chief almoners of warm unselfish sympathy, generous in
mind, if not in means, and blooming with the immortal youth of charity
and kindliness.