sparkling, Cleopatra-looking girl, whose rich color, dazzling eyes, and
superb figure might have bid defiance to art to furnish an extra charm;
nevertheless, each grace had been as indefatigably drilled and
manoeuvred as the members of an artillery company. Eyes, lips,
eyelashes, all had their lesson; and every motion of her sculptured
limbs, every intonation of her silvery voice, had been studied,
considered, and corrected, till even her fastidious mother could discern
nothing that was wanting. Then were added all the graces of _belles
lettres_--all the approved rules of being delighted with music,
painting, and poetry--and last of all came the tour of the continent;
travelling being generally considered a sort of pumice stone, for
rubbing down the varnish, and giving the very last touch to character.
During the time that all this was going on, Miss Fanny, whom we now
declare our heroine, had been growing up in the quietude of her mother's
country seat, and growing, as girls are apt to, much faster than her
mother imagined. She was a fair, slender girl, with a purity and
simplicity of appearance, which, if it be not in itself beauty, had all
the best effect of beauty, in interesting and engaging the heart.
She looked not so much beautiful as lovable. Her character was in
precise correspondence with her appearance; its first and chief element
was feeling; and to this add fancy, fervor, taste, enthusiasm almost up
to the point of genius, and just common sense enough to keep them all in
order, and you will have a very good idea of the mind of Fanny Grey.
Delightfully passed the days with Fanny during the absence of her
mother, while, without thought of rule or compass, she sang her own
songs, painted flowers, and sketched landscapes from nature, visited
sociably all over the village, where she was a great favorite, ran about
through the fields, over fences, or in the woods with her little cottage
bonnet, and, above all, built her own little castles in the air without
any body to help pull them down, which we think about the happiest
circumstance in her situation.
But affairs wore a very different aspect when Mrs. Grey with her
daughters returned from Europe, as full of foreign tastes and notions as
people of an artificial character generally do return.
Poor Fanny was deluged with a torrent of new ideas; she heard of styles
of appearance and styles of beauty, styles of manner and styles of
conversation, this, that, and the other air, a general effect and a
particular effect, and of four hundred and fifty ways of producing an
impression--in short, it seemed to her that people ought to be of
wonderful consequence to have so many things to think and to say about
the how and why of every word and action.
Mrs. Grey, who had no manner of doubt of her own ability to make over a
character, undertook the point with Fanny as systematically as one would
undertake to make over an old dress. Poor Fanny, who had an
unconquerable aversion to trying on dresses or settling points in
millinery, went through with most exemplary meekness an entire
transformation as to all externals; but when Mrs. Grey set herself at
work upon her mind, and tastes, and opinions, the matter became somewhat
more serious; for the buoyant feeling and fanciful elements of her
character were as incapable of being arranged according to rule as the
sparkling water drops are of being strung into necklaces and earrings,
or the gay clouds of being made into artificial flowers. Some warm
natural desire or taste of her own was forever interfering with her
mother's _regime_; some obstinate little "Fannyism" would always put up
its head in defiance of received custom; and, as her mother and sisters
pathetically remarked, do what you would with her, she would always come
out herself after all.
After trying laboriously to conform to the pattern which was daily set
before her, she came at last to the conclusion that some natural
inferiority must forever prevent her aspiring to accomplish any thing in
that way.
"If I can't be what my mother wishes, I'll at least be myself," said she
one day to her sisters, "for if I try to alter I shall neither be myself
nor any body else;" and on the whole her mother and sisters came to the
same conclusion. And in truth they found it a very convenient thing to
have one in the family who was not studying effect or aspiring to be any
thing in particular.
It was very agreeable to Mrs. Grey to have a daughter to sit with her
when she had the sick headache, while the other girls were entertaining
company in the drawing room below. It was very convenient to her sisters
to have some one whose dress took so little time that she had always a
head and a pair of hands at their disposal, in case of any toilet
emergency. Then she was always loving and affectionate, entirely willing
to be outtalked and outshone on every occasion; and that was another
advantage.
As to Isabella and Emma, the sensation that they made in society was
enough to have gratified a dozen ordinary belles. All that they said,
and did, and wore, was instant and unquestionable precedent; and young
gentlemen, all starch and perfume, twirled their laced pocket
handkerchiefs, and declared on their honor that they knew not which was
the most overcoming, the genius and wit of Miss Emma, or the bright eyes
of Miss Isabella; though it was an agreed point that between them both,
not a heart in the gay world remained in its owner's possession--a thing
which might have a serious sound to one who did not know the character
of these articles, often the most trifling item in the inventory of
worldly possessions. And all this while, all that was said of our
heroine was something in this way: "I believe there is another
sister--is there not?"
"Yes, there is a quiet little blue-eyed lady, who never has a word to
say for herself--quite amiable I'm told."
Now, it was not a fact that Miss Fanny never had a word to say for
herself. If people had seen her on a visit at any one of the houses
along the little green street of her native village, they might have
learned that her tongue could go fast enough.
But in lighted drawing rooms, and among buzzing voices, and surrounded
by people who were always saying things because such things were proper
to be said, Fanny was always dizzy, and puzzled, and unready; and for
fear that she would say something that she should not, she concluded to
say nothing at all; nevertheless, she made good use of her eyes, and
found a very quiet amusement in looking on to see how other people
conducted matters.
* * * * *
Well, Mr. George Somers is actually arrived at Mrs. Grey's country seat,
and there he sits with Miss Isabella in the deep recess of that window,
where the white roses are peeping in so modestly.
"To be sure," thought Fanny to herself, as she quietly surveyed him
looming up through the shade of a pair of magnificent whiskers, and
heard him passing the shuttlecock of compliment back and forth with the
most assured and practised air in the world,--"to be sure, I was a child
in imagining that I should see Cousin George Somers. I'm sure this
magnificent young gentleman, full of all utterance and knowledge, is not
the cousin that I used to feel so easy with; no, indeed;" and Fanny gave
a half sigh, and then went out into the garden to water her geraniums.
For some days Mr. Somers seemed to feel put upon his reputation to
sustain the character of gallant, _savant, connoisseur_, etc.., which
every one who makes the tour of the continent is expected to bring home
as a matter of course; for there is seldom a young gentleman who knows
he has qualifications in this line, who can resist the temptation of
showing what he can do. Accordingly he discussed tragedies, and reviews,
and ancient and modern customs with Miss Emma; and with Miss Isabella
retouched her drawings and exhibited his own; sported the most choice
and _recherche_ style of compliment at every turn, and, in short,
flattered himself, perhaps justly, that he was playing the irresistible
in a manner quite equal to that of his fair cousins.
Now, all this while Miss Fanny was mistaken in one point, for Mr. George
Somers, though an exceedingly fine gentleman, had, after all, quite a
substratum of reality about him, of real heart, real feeling, and real
opinion of his own; and the consequence was, that when tired of the
effort of _conversing_ he really longed to find somebody to _talk_ to;
and in this mood he one evening strolled into the library, leaving the
gay party in the drawing room to themselves. Miss Fanny was there, quite
intent upon a book of selections from the old English poets.
"Really, Miss Fanny," said Mr. Somers, "you are very sparing of the
favor of your company to us this evening."
"O, I presume my company is not much missed," said Fanny, with a smile.
"You must have a poor opinion of our taste, then," said Mr. Somers.
"Come, come, Mr. Somers," replied Fanny, "you forget the person you are
talking to; it is not at all necessary for you to compliment me; nobody
ever does--so you may feel relieved of that trouble."
"Nobody ever does, Miss Fanny; pray, how is that?"
"Because I'm not the sort of person to say such things to."
"And pray, what sort of person ought one to be, in order to have such
things said?" replied Mr. Somers.
"Why, like Sister Isabella, or like Emma. You understand I am a sort of
little nobody; if any one wastes fine words on me, I never know what to
make of them."
"And pray, what must one say to you?" said Mr. Somers, quite amused.
"Why, what they really think and really feel; and I am always puzzled by
any thing else."
Accordingly, about a half an hour afterwards, you might have seen the
much admired Mr. Somers once more transformed into the Cousin George,
and he and Fanny engaged in a very interesting _tete-a-tete_ about old
times and things.
Now, you may skip across a fortnight from this evening, and then look in
at the same old library, just as the setting sun is looking in at its
western window, and you will see Fanny sitting back a little in the
shadow, with one straggling ray of light illuminating her pure childish
face, and she is looking up at Mr. George Somers, as if in some sudden
perplexity; and, dear me, if we are not mistaken, our young gentleman is
blushing.
"Why, Cousin George," says the lady, "what _do_ you mean?"
"I thought I spoke plainly enough, Fanny," replied Cousin George, in a
tone that _might_ have made the matter plain enough, to be sure.
Fanny laughed outright, and the gentleman looked terribly serious.
"Indeed, now, don't be angry," said she, as he turned away with a vexed
and mortified air; "indeed, now, I can't help laughing, it seems to me
so odd; what _will_ they all think of you?"
"It's of no consequence to me what they think," said Mr. Somers. "I
think, Fanny, if you had the heart I gave you credit for, you might have
seen my feelings before now."
"Now, do sit down, my _dear_ cousin," said Fanny, earnestly, drawing him
into a chair, "and tell me, how could I, poor little Miss Fanny Nobody,
how _could_ I have thought any such thing with such sisters as I have? I
did think that you _liked_ me, that you knew more of my real feelings
than mamma and sisters; but that you should--that you ever should--why,
I am astonished that you did not fall in love with Isabella."
"That would have met your feelings, then?" said George, eagerly, and
looking as if he would have looked through her, eyes, soul, and all.
"No, no, indeed," she said, turning away her head; "but," added she,
quickly, "you'll lose all your credit for good taste. Now, tell me,
seriously, what do you like me for?"
"Well, then, Fanny, I can give you the best reason. I like you for being
a real, sincere, natural girl--for being simple in your tastes, and
simple in your appearance, and simple in your manners, and for having
heart enough left, as I hope, to love plain George Somers, with all his
faults, and not Mr. Somers's reputation, or Mr. Somers's establishment."
"Well, this is all very reasonable to me, of course," said Fanny, "but
it will be so much Greek to poor mamma."
"I dare say your mother could never understand how seeing the very acme
of cultivation in all countries should have really made my eyes ache,
and long for something as simple as green grass or pure water, to rest
them on. I came down here to find it among my cousins, and I found in
your sisters only just such women as I have seen and admired all over
Europe, till I was tired of admiring. Your mother has achieved what she
aimed at, perfectly; I know of no circle that could produce higher
specimens; but it is all art, triumphant art, after all, and I have so
strong a current of natural feeling running through my heart that I
could never be happy except with a fresh, simple, impulsive character."
"Like me, you are going to say," said Fanny, laughing. "Well, _I'll_
admit that you are right. It would be a pity that you should not have
one vote, at least."
CHILDREN.
"A little child shall lead them."
One cold market morning I looked into a milliner's shop, and there I saw
a hale, hearty, well-browned young fellow from the country, with his
long cart whip, and lion-shag coat, holding up some little matter, and
turning it about on his great fist. And what do you suppose it was? _A
baby's bonnet!_ A little, soft, blue satin hood, with a swan's down
border, white as the new-fallen snow, with a frill of rich blonde around
the edge.
By his side stood a very pretty woman, holding, with no small pride, the
baby--for evidently it was _the_ baby. Any one could read that fact in
every glance, as they looked at each other, and then at the large,
unconscious eyes, and fat, dimpled cheeks of the little one.
It was evident that neither of them had ever seen a baby like that
before.
"But really, Mary," said the young man, "isn't three dollars very high?"
Mary very prudently said nothing, but taking the little bonnet, tied it
on the little head, and held up the baby. The man looked, and without
another word down went the three dollars--all the avails of last week's
butter; and as they walked out of the shop, it is hard to say which
looked the most delighted with the bargain.
"Ah," thought I, "a little child shall lead them."
Another day, as I was passing a carriage factory along one of our
principal back streets, I saw a young mechanic at work on a wheel. The
rough body of a carriage stood beside him, and there, wrapped up snugly,
all hooded and cloaked, sat a little dark-eyed girl, about a year old,
playing with a great, shaggy dog. As I stopped, the man looked up from
his work, and turned admiringly towards his little companion, as much as
to say, "See what I have got here!"
"Yes," thought I; "and if the little lady ever gets a glance from
admiring swains as sincere as that, she will be lucky."
Ah, these children, little witches, pretty even in all their faults and
absurdities. See, for example, yonder little fellow in a naughty fit. He
has shaken his long curls over his deep-blue eyes; the fair brow is bent
in a frown, the rose leaf lip is pursed up in infinite defiance, and the
white shoulder thrust angrily forward. Can any but a child look so
pretty, even in its naughtiness?
Then comes the instant change; flashing smiles and tears, as the good
comes back all in a rush, and you are overwhelmed with protestations,
promises, and kisses! They are irresistible, too, these little ones.
They pull away the scholar's pen, tumble about his paper, make somersets
over his books; and what can he do? They tear up newspapers, litter the
carpets, break, pull, and upset, and then jabber unheard-of English in
self-defence; and what can you do for yourself?
"If I had a child," says the precise man, "you should see."
He _does_ have a child, and his child tears up his papers, tumbles over
his things, and pulls his nose, like all other children; and what has
the precise man to say for himself? Nothing; he is like every body else;
"a little child shall lead him."
The hardened heart of the worldly man is unlocked by the guileless tones
and simple caresses of his son; but he repays it in time, by imparting
to his boy all the crooked tricks and callous maxims which have undone
himself.
Go to the jail, to the penitentiary, and find there the wretch most
sullen, brutal, and hardened. Then look at your infant son. Such as he
is to you, such to some mother was this man. That hard hand was soft and
delicate; that rough voice was tender and lisping; fond eyes followed
him as he played, and he was rocked and cradled as something holy. There
was a time when his heart, soft and unworn, might have opened to
questionings of God and Jesus, and been sealed with the seal of Heaven.
But harsh hands seized it; fierce goblin lineaments were impressed upon
it; and all is over with him forever!
So of the tender, weeping child is made the callous, heartless man; of
the all-believing child, the sneering sceptic; of the beautiful and
modest, the shameless and abandoned; and this is what _the world_ does
for the little one.
There was a time when the _divine One_ stood on earth, and little
children sought to draw near to him. But harsh human beings stood
between him and them, forbidding their approach. Ah, has it not always
been so? Do not even we, with our hard and unsubdued feelings, our
worldly and unspiritual habits and maxims, stand like a dark screen
between our little child and its Savior, and keep even from the choice
bud of our hearts the sweet radiance which might unfold it for Paradise?
"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not," is still
the voice of the Son of God; but the cold world still closes around and
forbids. When, of old, disciples would question their Lord of the higher
mysteries of his kingdom, he took a little child and set him in the
midst, as a sign of him who should be greatest in heaven. That gentle
teacher remains still to us. By every hearth and fireside Jesus still
_sets the little child in the midst of us_.
Wouldst thou know, O parent, what is that _faith_ which unlocks heaven?
Go not to wrangling polemics, or creeds and forms of theology, but draw
to thy bosom thy little one, and read in that clear, trusting eye the
lesson of eternal life. Be only to thy God as thy child is to thee, and
all is done. Blessed shalt thou be, indeed, "_when a little child shall
lead thee_."
HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH MAMMON.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon of a dull winter day that Mr. H.
sat in his counting room. The sun had nearly gone down, and, in fact, it
was already twilight beneath the shadows of the tall, dusky stores, and
the close, crooked streets of that quarter of Boston. Hardly light
enough struggled through the dusky panes of the counting house for him
to read the entries in a much-thumbed memorandum book, which he held in
his hand.
A small, thin boy, with a pale face and anxious expression, significant
of delicacy of constitution, and a too early acquaintance with want and
sorrow, was standing by him, earnestly watching his motions.
"Ah, yes, my boy," said Mr. H., as he at last shut up the memorandum
book. "Yes, I've got the place now; I'm apt to be forgetful about these
things; come, now, let's go. How is it? Haven't you brought the basket?"
"No, sir," said the boy, timidly. "The grocer said he'd let mother have
a quarter for it, and she thought she'd sell it."
"That's bad," said Mr. H., as he went on, tying his throat with a long
comforter of some yards in extent; and as he continued this operation he
abstractedly repeated, "That's bad, that's bad," till the poor little
boy looked quite dismayed, and began to think that somehow his mother
had been dreadfully out of the way.
"She didn't want to send for help so long as she had any thing she could
sell," said the little boy in a deprecating tone.
"O, yes, quite right," said Mr. H., taking from a pigeon hole in the
desk a large pocket book, and beginning to turn it over; and, as before,
abstractedly repeating, "Quite right, quite right?" till the little boy
became reassured, and began to think, although he didn't know why, that
his mother had done something quite meritorious.
"Well," said Mr. H., after he had taken several bills from the pocket
book and transferred them to a wallet which he put into his pocket, "now
we're ready, my boy." But first he stopped to lock up his desk, and then
he said, abstractedly to himself, "I wonder if I hadn't better take a
few tracts."
Now, it is to be confessed that this Mr. H., whom we have introduced to
our reader, was, in his way, quite an oddity. He had a number of
singular little _penchants_ and peculiarities quite his own, such as a
passion for poking about among dark alleys, at all sorts of seasonable
and unseasonable hours; fishing out troops of dirty, neglected children,
and fussing about generally in the community till he could get them into
schools or otherwise provided for. He always had in his pocket book a
note of some dozen poor widows who wanted tea, sugar, candles, or other
things such as poor widows always will be wanting. And then he had a
most extraordinary talent for finding out all the sick strangers that
lay in out-of-the-way upper rooms in hotels, who, every body knows, have
no business to get sick in such places, unless they have money enough to
pay their expenses, which they never do.
Besides this, all Mr. H.'s kinsmen and cousins, to the third, fourth,
and fortieth remove, were always writing him letters, which, among other
pleasing items, generally contained the intelligence that a few hundred
dollars were just then exceedingly necessary to save them from utter
ruin, and they knew of nobody else to whom to look for it.
And then Mr. H. was up to his throat in subscriptions to every
charitable society that ever was made or imagined; had a hand in
building all the churches within a hundred miles; occasionally gave four
or five thousand dollars to a college; offered to be one of six to raise
ten thousand dollars for some benevolent purpose, and when four of the
six backed out, quietly paid the balance himself, and said no more about
it. Another of his innocent fancies was to keep always about him any
quantity of tracts and good books, little and big, for children and
grown-up people, which he generally diffused in a kind of gentle shower
about him wherever he moved.
So great was his monomania for benevolence that it could not at all
confine itself to the streets of Boston, the circle of his relatives, or
even the United States of America. Mr. H. was fully posted up in the
affairs of India, Burmah, China, and all those odd, out-of-the-way
places, which no sensible man ever thinks of with any interest, unless
he can make some money there; and money, it is to be confessed, Mr. H.
didn't make there, though he spent an abundance. For getting up printing
presses in Ceylon for Chinese type, for boxes of clothing and what not
to be sent to the Sandwich Islands, for school books for the Greeks, and
all other nonsense of that sort, Mr. H. was without a parallel. No
wonder his rich brother merchants sometimes thought him something of a
bore, since, his heart being full of all these matters, he was rather
apt to talk about them, and sometimes to endeavor to draw them into
fellowship, to an extent that was not to be thought of.
So it came to pass often, that though Mr. H. was a thriving business
man, with some ten thousand a year, he often wore a pretty threadbare
coat, the seams whereof would be trimmed with lines of white; and he
would sometimes need several pretty plain hints on the subject of a new
hat before he would think he could afford one. Now, it is to be
confessed the world is not always grateful to those who thus devote
themselves to its interests; and Mr. H. had as much occasion to know
this as any other man. People got so used to his giving, that his bounty
became as common and as necessary as that of a higher Benefactor, "who
maketh his sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and sendeth rain upon
the just and the unjust;" and so it came to pass that people took them,
as they do the sunshine and the rain, quite as matters of course, not
thinking much about them when they came, but particularly apt to scold
when they did not come.