"Look here upon this picture, and on this."
_Hamlet_
We have no family pictures, Prue and I, only a portrait of my
grandmother hangs upon our parlor wall. It was taken at least a
century ago, and represents the venerable lady, whom I remember in my
childhood in spectacles and comely cap, as a young and blooming girl.
She is sitting upon an old-fashioned sofa, by the side of a prim aunt
of hers, and with her back to the open window. Her costume is quaint,
but handsome. It consists of a cream-colored dress made high in the
throat, ruffled around the neck, and over the bosom and the
shoulders. The waist is just under her shoulders, and the sleeves are
tight, tighter than any of our coat sleeves, and also ruffled at the
wrist. Around the plump and rosy neck, which I remember as shrivelled
and sallow, and hidden under a decent lace handkerchief, hangs, in the
picture, a necklace of large ebony beads. There are two curls upon the
forehead, and the rest of the hair flows away in ringlets down the
neck.
The hands hold an open book: the eyes look up from it with tranquil
sweetness, and, through the open window behind, you see a quiet
landscape--a hill, a tree, the glimpse of a river, and a few peaceful
summer clouds.
Often in my younger days, when my grandmother sat by the fire, after
dinner, lost in thought--perhaps remembering the time when the picture
was really a portrait--I have curiously compared her wasted face with
the blooming beauty of the girl, and tried to detect the likeness. It
was strange how the resemblance would sometimes start out: how, as I
gazed and gazed upon her old face, age disappeared before my eager
glance, as snow melts in the sunshine, revealing the flowers of a
forgotten spring.
It was touching, to see my grandmother steal quietly up to her
portrait, on still summer mornings when every one had left the
house,--and I, the only child, played, disregarded,--and look at it
wistfully and long.
She held her hand over her eyes to shade them from the light that
streamed in at the window, and I have seen her stand at least a
quarter of an hour gazing steadfastly at the picture. She said
nothing, she made no motion, she shed no tear, but when she turned
away there was always a pensive sweetness in her face that made it not
less lovely than the face of her youth.
I have learned since, what her thoughts must have been--how that long,
wistful glance annihilated time and space, how forms and faces unknown
to any other, rose in sudden resurrection around her--how she loved,
suffered, struggled and conquered again; how many a jest that I shall
never hear, how many a game that I shall never play, how many a song
that I shall never sing, were all renewed and remembered as my
grandmother contemplated her picture.
I often stand, as she stood, gazing earnestly at the picture, so long
and so silently, that Prue looks up from her work and says she shall
be jealous of that beautiful belle, my grandmother, who yet makes her
think more kindly of those remote old times. "Yes, Prue, and that is
the charm of a family portrait."
"Yes, again; but," says Titbottom when he hears the remark, "how, if
one's grandmother were a shrew, a termagant, a virago?"
"Ah! in that case--" I am compelled to say, while Prue looks up again,
half archly, and I add gravely--"you, for instance, Prue."
Then Titbottom smiles one of his sad smiles, and we change the
subject.
Yet, I am always glad when Minim Sculpin, our neighbor, who knows that
my opportunities are few, comes to ask me to step round and see the
family portraits.
The Sculpins, I think, are a very old family. Titbottom says they
date from the deluge. But I thought people of English descent
preferred to stop with William the Conqueror, who came from France.
Before going with Minim, I always fortify myself with a glance at the
great family Bible, in which Adam, Eve, and the patriarchs, are
indifferently well represented.
"Those are the ancestors of the Howards, the Plantagenets, and the
Montmorencis," says Prue, surprising me with her erudition. "Have you
any remoter ancestry, Mr. Sculpin?" she asks Minim, who only smiles
compassionately upon the dear woman, while I am buttoning my coat.
Then we step along the street, and I am conscious of trembling a
little, for I feel as if I were going to court. Suddenly we are
standing before the range of portraits.
"This," says Minim, with unction, "is Sir Solomon Sculpin, the founder
of the family."
"Famous for what?" I ask, respectfully.
"For founding the family," replies Minim gravely, and I have sometimes
thought a little severely.
"This," he says, pointing to a dame in hoops and diamond stomacher,
"this is Lady Sheba Sculpin."
"Ah! yes. Famous for what?" I inquire.
"For being the wife of Sir Solomon."
Then, in order, comes a gentleman in a huge, curling wig, looking
indifferently like James the Second, or Louis the Fourteenth, and
holding a scroll in his hand.
"The Right Honorable Haddock Sculpin, Lord Privy Seal, etc., etc."
A delicate beauty hangs between, a face fair, and loved, and lost,
centuries ago--a song to the eye--a poem to the heart--the Aurelia of
that old society.
"Lady Dorothea Sculpin, who married young Lord Pop and Cock, and died
prematurely in Italy."
Poor Lady Dorothea! whose great grandchild, in the tenth remove, died
last week, an old man of eighty!
Next the gentle lady hangs a fierce figure, flourishing a sword, with
an anchor embroidered on his coat-collar, and thunder and lightning,
sinking ships flames and tornadoes in the background.
"Rear Admiral Sir Shark Sculpin, who fell in the great action off
Madagascar."
So Minim goes on through the series, brandishing his ancestors about
my head, and incontinently knocking me into admiration.
And when we reach the last portrait and our own times, what is the
natural emotion? Is it not to put Minim against the wall, draw off at
him with my eyes and mind, scan him, and consider his life, and
determine how much of the Eight Honorable Haddock's integrity, and the
Lady Dorothy's loveliness, and the Admiral Shark's valor, reappears in
the modern man? After all this proving and refining, ought not the
last child of a famous race to be its flower and epitome? Or, in the
case that he does not chance to be so, is it not better to conceal the
family name?
I am told, however, that in the higher circles of society, it is
better not to conceal the name, however unworthy the man or woman may
be who bears it. Prue once remonstrated with a lady about the marriage
of a lovely young girl with a cousin of Minim's; but the only answer
she received was, "Well, he may not be a perfect man, but then he is a
Sculpin," which consideration apparently gave great comfort to the
lady's mind.
But even Prue grants that Minim has some reason for his pride. Sir
Solomon was a respectable man, and Sir Shark a brave one; and the
Right Honorable Haddock a learned one; the Lady Sheba was grave and
gracious in her way; and the smile of the fair Dorothea lights with
soft sunlight those long-gone summers. The filial blood rushes more
gladly from Minim's heart as he gazes; and admiration for the virtues
of his kindred inspires and sweetly mingles with good resolutions of
his own.
Time has its share, too, in the ministry, and the influence. The hills
beyond the river lay yesterday, at sunset, lost in purple gloom; they
receded into airy distances of dreams and faery; they sank softly into
night, the peaks of the delectable mountains. But I knew, as I gazed
enchanted, that the hills, so purple-soft of seeming, were hard, and
gray, and barren in the wintry twilight; and that in the distance was
the magic that made them fair.
So, beyond the river of time that flows between, walk the brave men
and the beautiful women of our ancestry, grouped in twilight upon the
shore. Distance smooths away defects, and, with gentle darkness,
rounds every form into grace. It steals the harshness from their
speech, and every word becomes a song. Far across the gulf that ever
widens, they look upon us with eyes whose glance is tender, and which
light us to success. We acknowledge our inheritance; we accept our
birthright; we own that their careers have pledged us to noble action.
Every great life is an incentive to all other lives; but when the
brave heart, that beats for the world, loves us with the warmth of
private affection, then the example of heroism is more persuasive,
because more personal.
This is the true pride of ancestry. It is founded in the tenderness
with which the child regards the father, and in the romance that time
sheds upon history.
"Where be all the bad people buried?" asks every man, with Charles
Lamb, as he strolls among the rank grave-yard grass, and brushes it
aside to read of the faithful husband, and the loving wife, and the
dutiful child.
He finds only praise in the epitaphs, because the human heart is kind;
because it yearns with wistful tenderness after all its brethren who
have passed into the cloud, and will only speak well of the departed.
No offence is longer an offence when the grass is green over the
offender. Even faults then seem characteristic and individual. Even
Justice is appeased when the drop falls. How the old stories and plays
teem with the incident of the duel in which one gentleman falls, and,
in dying, forgives and is forgiven. We turn the page with a tear. How
much better had there been no offence, but how well that death wipes
it out.
It is not observed in history that families improve with time. It is
rather discovered that the whole matter is like a comet, of which the
brightest part, is the head; and the tail, although long and luminous,
is gradually shaded into obscurity.
Yet, by a singular compensation, the pride of ancestry increases in
the ratio of distance. Adam was valiant, and did so well at Poictiers
that he was knighted--a hearty, homely country gentleman, who lived
humbly to the end. But young Lucifer, his representative in the
twentieth remove, has a tinder-like conceit because old Sir Adam was
so brave and humble. Sir Adam's sword is hung up at home, and Lucifer
has a box at the opera. On a thin finger he has a ring, cut with a
match fizzling, the crest of the Lucifers. But if he should be at a
Poictiers, he would run away. Then history would be sorry--not only
for his cowardice, but for the shame it brings upon old Adam's name.
So, if Minim Sculpin is a bad young man, he not only shames himself,
but he disgraces that illustrious line of ancestors, whose characters
are known. His neighbor, Mudge, has no pedigree of this kind, and
when he reels homeward, we do not suffer the sorrow of any fair Lady
Dorothy in such a descendant--we pity him for himself alone. But
genius and power are so imperial and universal, that when Minim
Sculpin falls, we are grieved not only for him, but for that eternal
truth and beauty which appeared in the valor of Sir Shark, and the
loveliness of Lady Dorothy. His neighbor Mudge's grandfather may have
been quite as valorous and virtuous as Sculpin's; but we know of the
one, and we do not know of the other.
Therefore, Prue, I say to my wife, who has, by this time, fallen as
soundly asleep as if I had been preaching a real sermon, do not let
Mrs. Mudge feel hurt, because I gaze so long and earnestly upon the
portrait of the fair Lady Sculpin, and, lost in dreams, mingle in a
society which distance and poetry immortalize.
But let the love of the family portraits belong to poetry and not to
politics. It is good in the one way, and bad in the other.
The _sentiment_ of ancestral pride is an integral part of human
nature. Its _organization_ in institutions is the real object of
enmity to all sensible men, because it is a direct preference of
derived to original power, implying a doubt that the world at every
period is able to take care of itself.
The family portraits have a poetic significance; but he is a brave
child of the family who dares to show them. They all sit in
passionless and austere judgment upon himself. Let him not invite us
to see them, until he has considered whether they are honored or
disgraced by his own career--until he has looked in the glass of his
own thought and scanned his own proportions.
The family portraits are like a woman's diamonds; they may flash
finely enough before the world, but she herself trembles lest their
lustre eclipse her eyes. It is difficult to resist the tendency to
depend upon those portraits, and to enjoy vicariously through them a
high consideration. But, after all, what girl is complimented when you
curiously regard her because her mother was beautiful? What attenuated
consumptive, in whom self-respect is yet unconsumed, delights in your
respect for him, founded in honor for his stalwart ancestor?
No man worthy the name rejoices in any homage which his own effort and
character have not deserved. You intrinsically insult him when you
make him the scapegoat of your admiration for his ancestor. But when
his ancestor is his accessory, then your homage would flatter
Jupiter. All that Minim Sculpin does by his own talent is the more
radiantly set and ornamented by the family fame. The imagination is
pleased when Lord John Russell is Premier of England and a whig,
because the great Lord William Russell, his ancestor, died in England
for liberty.
In the same way Minim's sister Sara adds to her own grace the sweet
memory of the Lady Dorothy. When she glides, a sunbeam, through that
quiet house, and in winter makes summer by her presence; when she sits
at the piano, singing in the twilight, or stands leaning against the
Venus in the corner of the room--herself more graceful--then, in
glancing from her to the portrait of the gentle Dorothy, you feel that
the long years between them have been lighted by the same sparkling
grace, and shadowed by the same pensive smile--for this is but one
Sara and one Dorothy, out of all that there are in the world.
As we look at these two, we must own that _noblesse oblige_ in a
sense sweeter than we knew, and be glad when young Sculpin invites us
to see the family portraits. Could a man be named Sidney, and not be a
better man, or Milton, and be a churl?
But it is apart from any historical association that I like to look at
the family portraits. The Sculpins were very distinguished heroes, and
judges, and founders of families; but I chiefly linger upon their
pictures, because they were men and women. Their portraits remove the
vagueness from history, and give it reality. Ancient valor and beauty
cease to be names and poetic myths, and become facts. I feel that they
lived, and loved, and suffered in those old days. The story of their
lives is instantly full of human sympathy in my mind, and I judge them
more gently, more generously.
Then I look at those of us who are the spectators of the portraits. I
know that we are made of the same flesh and blood, that time is
preparing us to be placed in his cabinet and upon canvass, to be
curiously studied by the grandchildren of unborn Prues. I put out my
hands to grasp those of my fellows around the pictures. "Ah! friends,
we live not only for ourselves. Those whom we shall never see, will
look to us as models, as counsellors. We shall be speechless then. We
shall only look at them from the canvass, and cheer or discourage them
by their idea of our lives and ourselves. Let us so look in the
portrait, that they shall love our memories--that they shall say, in
turn, 'they were kind and thoughtful, those queer old ancestors of
ours; let us not disgrace them.'"
If they only recognize us as men and women like themselves, they will
be the better for it, and the family portraits will be family
blessings.
This is what my grandmother did. She looked at her own portrait, at
the portrait of her youth, with much the same feeling that I remember
Prue as she was when I first saw her, with much the same feeling that
I hope our grandchildren will remember us.
Upon those still summer mornings, though she stood withered and wan in
a plain black silk gown, a close cap, and spectacles, and held her
shrunken and blue-veined hand to shield her eyes, yet, as she gazed
with that long and longing glance, upon the blooming beauty that had
faded from her form forever, she recognized under that flowing hair
and that rosy cheek--the immortal fashions of youth and health--and
beneath those many ruffles and that quaint high waist, the fashions of
the day--the same true and loving woman. If her face was pensive as
she turned away, it was because truth and love are, in their essence,
forever young; and it is the hard condition of nature that they cannot
always appear so.