Of all the studies to which I was ever impelled in my youth, either by
fear of the birch or by the hope of the laurel or the bays, mythology
was perhaps the most charming. It was refreshing, after trying in vain
to conjugate a verb, and being at last obliged to decline it--after
adding up a column of figures several times, and getting many different
results, and none of them the right one--and after making a vain attempt
to comprehend the only algebraic knowledge that ever was forced into my
unmathematical brain, viz., that _x_ equals an unknown quantity,--it
was, I say, refreshing to turn over the leaves of my Classical
Dictionary, and revel among the gods and heroes whose wondrous careers
were embalmed in its well-thumbed pages. Lempriere was the great
magician who summoned up before my delighted eyes the denizens of a
sphere where existence was unvexed by any pestilent arithmetics, and
where the slavery of the inky desk was unknown. It always seemed to me
as if the knowledge that I gained out of those enchanted chronicles not
only improved my mind, but made my body more robust; for I joined in the
chase, fought desperate battles, as the gods willed it, and breathed all
the while the pure, invigorating air of old Olympus. The consecrated
groves were the dwelling-place of my mind, and I became for a time a
sharer in the joys of beings in whom I believed with all the ardour and
simplicity of childhood. I enjoyed my mythological readings all the more
because they did not generally find favour with my school companions,
most of whom vindicated their nationality by professing their affection
for the Rule of Three. One of them, I remember, was especially severe on
the uselessness of the studies in which I took pleasure. He, _parcus
deorum cultor, et infrequens_, could get no satisfaction out of the
books in which I revelled; if _he_ had got to study or read, he could
not afford to waste his brains over the foolish superstitions of three
thousand years ago. He did not care how much romance and poetic beauty
there might be in the ancient mythology: what did it all come to in the
end? It didn't pay. It was a humbug. Our paths in life separated when we
graduated from jackets and peg-tops. He remained faithful to his boyish
instincts, and pursued the practical as if it were a reality. After a
few years his face lost all its youthful look; an intense spirit of
acquisitiveness gleamed in his calculating eye, and an interest table
seemed to be written in the lines of his care-worn countenance. We
seldom had any conversation in our after years, for he always seemed to
be under some restraint, as if he feared that I wished to borrow a
little money of him, and he did not wish to refuse for the sake of the
old time when we sat at the same desk, although he knew that my note was
good for nothing. His devotion to his deity, the practical, did not go
unrewarded. He became like the only mythological personage whom he would
have envied, had he known any thing of the science he despised. His
touch seemed to transmute every thing into gold. His speculations during
the war of 1812 were all successful. Eastern lands harmed him not. The
financial panic of 1837 only put money in his purse. He rolled up a
large fortune, and was happy. He looked anxious, but of course he was
happy. What man ever devoted his life to the working out of the dreams
of his youth in the acquisition of riches, and succeeded beyond his
anticipations, without being very happy? But, if his gains were
something practical and real, his losses were doubly so. Each one of
them was as a dagger stuck into that sere heart. His only son gave him
much trouble by his wild life, and, what touched him still more, wasted
the money he had laboured to pile up, at the gaming tables of Baden. I
saw him walking down Tremont Street the other day, looking care-worn and
miserable, and I longed to ask him what he thought of the real and
practical after trying them. He would certainly have been willing to
acknowledge that there is more reality in the romance and poetry of
mythology than in the thousands which he invested in the Bay State
Mills. His practical life has brought him vanity and vexation of spirit,
while the old Lempriere, which he used to treat so contemptuously,
flourishes in immortal youth, unhurt amid the wreck of fortunes and the
depreciation of stocks.
But I am not writing an essay on mythology. I wish to treat of one who
is sometimes considered a myth, but who is a living and breathing
personality like all of us. This wide-spread scepticism is one of the
most fatal signs of the times. Because the late Mrs. Sairey Gamp
supposed herself justified in cultivating a little domestic mythology in
the shade of the famous Mrs. Harris, are we to take all the personages
who have illustrated history as myths and unrealities? Shade of
Herodotus, forbid it! There are some unbelieving and irreverent enough
to doubt whether there is really such a person as Mrs. Partington; other
some there are so hardened in their incredulity as to question the
existence of the individual who smote Mr. William Patterson, and even of
the immortal recipient of the blow himself. Therefore we ought not to
think it strange that the lady whose name adorns the title of this
article should not have escaped the profane spirit of the age.
Unfortunately for us, Mrs. Grundy is no myth, but a terrible reality.
She is a widow. The late Mr. Grundy bore it with heroic patience as long
as he could, and then, by a divine dispensation in which he gladly
acquiesced, was relieved of the burden of life. If he be not happy now,
the great doctrine of compensation is nought but a delusion and a sham.
If endless happiness could only be attained through such a purgatory as
poor Grundy's life, few of us, I fear, would yearn to be counted among
the elect. Martyrs, and confessors, and saints of every degree have won
their crowns of beatitude with comparative ease; if they had been
subjected to a twenty years' novitiate with Mrs. Grundy and her tireless
tongue, they would have found how much more terrible that was than the
laborious life or cruel death by which they passed from earth, and fewer
bulls of canonization would have received the Seal of the Fisherman. I
have heard from those who were acquainted with that estimable and
uncomplaining man that he married for love. His wife was a person of
considerable attractions, of an inquiring turn of mind, and of uncommon
energy of character. In her care of his household there was nothing of
which he might with reason complain. She kept a sharp look-out over all
those matters in which the prudent housewife delights to show her skill;
her table was worthy to receive regal legs beneath its shining mahogany
and spotless cloth, and I have even heard that her husband never had
occasion to curse mentally over the lack of a shirt-button. Yet was
Giles Grundy, Esquire, one of the most miserable of men. Of what avail
was it to him that his wife could preserve quinces, if she could not
preserve her own peace of mind? What did it matter how well she cured
hams, if she always failed so miserably in curing her tongue? What
profit was it that her accounts with her butcher and grocer were always
correctly kept, if her accounts of all her neighbours constantly overran
and kept her and her spouse in a perpetual state of moral bankruptcy?
What difference did it make how well she took care of her own family, if
they were to be kept in an unending turmoil by her solicitude concerning
that of every body else?
If you had visited Mrs. Grundy, and remarked the brightness of the
door-knocker, the stair-rods, the andirons, and every other part of her
premises that was susceptible of polish, and the scrupulous cleanliness
that held absolute sway around her, you would have sworn that she was
gifted with the hundred arms of Briareus: if you had listened for
fifteen minutes to her observations of men and things, you would have
had a conviction amounting to absolute certainty that she possessed the
eyes of Argus. Nobody ever doubted that she was a most religious person.
She attended to all her religious duties with most edifying exactness.
She was always in her seat at church, and could tell you, to a bonnet
ribbon, the dress of every person who honoured the sacred edifice with
his or her presence. If you would know who of the congregation were so
lacking in fervour of spirit as to neglect to bow in the creed, or to
commit the impropriety of nodding during the sermon, Mrs. Grundy could
give you all the information you could wish. She carried out the divine
precept to the letter: she watched as well as prayed. But her religion
did not waste itself in mere devotional ecstasy; it took the most
attractive form of religion--that of active benevolence. And her pious
philanthropy was not of that exclusively telescopic character that looks
out for the interests of the Cannibal Islands and the king thereof, and
cannot understand that there is any spiritual destitution nearer home.
She subscribed, it is true, to support the missionaries with their wives
and numerous children, who were devoted to the godly work of converting
the Chinese and the Juggernauts; but she did something also in the way
of food and flannel for the victims of want in her own neighbourhood.
She established a sewing circle in the parish where she lived, and never
appeared happier than when busily engaged with her female companions in
their weekly task and talk. I am afraid that there was other sowing done
in that circle besides plain sewing. The seeds of domestic unhappiness
and strife were carried from thence into all parts of the parish.
Reputations as well as garments took their turn among those benevolent
ladies, and were cut out, and fitted, and basted, and sewed up, and
overcast. The sewing circle was Mrs. Grundy's confessional. Do not
misapprehend me--I would not asperse her character by accusing her of
what are known at the present day as "Romanizing tendencies"; for she
lived long before the "scarlet fever" invaded the University of Oxford
and carried off its victims by hundreds; and nobody ever suspected her
of any desire to tell her own offences in the ear of any human being.
No, she detested the Roman confessional in a becoming manner; but she
upheld, by word and example, that most scriptural institution, the
sewing circle--the Protestant confessional, where each one confesses,
not her own sins, but the sins of her neighbours. Mrs. Grundy's success
with her favourite institution encouraged others to emulate her example;
and now sewing circles are common wherever the mother tongue of that
benevolent lady is spoken. It must in justice be acknowledged that there
are few institutions of human invention which have departed from the
spirit of their original founder so little as the sewing circle.
Yet, in spite of all her virtues as a housekeeper, a philanthropist, and
a Christian, Mrs. Grundy had her enemies. Some people were uncharitable
enough to say that she was the cause of more trouble than all the rest
of the female population of the town. They accused her of setting
herself up as a censor, and giving judgments founded upon hearsay
testimony rather than sound legal evidence. They even said that she made
her visits among the poor a cloak for the gratification of her
inquisitiveness; and, if it is ever pardonable to judge of the motives
of a fellow-being, I think that, in consideration of their exasperation,
they must be excused for making so unkind a charge, it seemed to be so
well founded. Far be it from me to say that Mrs. Grundy ever wilfully
misrepresented. She would have shrunk instinctively from a falsehood.
But she delighted to draw inferences; and no fact or rumour ever came to
her without being classified properly in her mental history of her
neighbours, and being made to shed its full influence upon her next
conversation. It is astonishing how much one pair of eyes and ears will
do in the collection of information when a person is devoted to it in
earnest. In her younger days, Mrs. Grundy had taken pleasure in watching
her neighbours and keeping up a running commentary on their movements;
as she advanced in life, it became her business. Her efforts in that way
were rather in the style of an amateur up to the time of her marriage;
afterwards she adopted a professional air. She placed herself at her
favourite window, ornamenting its seat with her spools, and though she
stitched away with commendable industry, nothing escaped her that came
within range of her keen powers of observation.
If Mr. Brown called on Mrs. White over the way, Mrs. Grundy set it down
as a remarkable occurrence: if he repeated his visit a week later, she
would not declare it positively scandalous, but it was evident that her
nicer sense of propriety was deeply wounded: if he passed by the door
without calling, it was clear that there had been a falling out--that
Mrs. White had seen the error of her ways, or that her husband had, and
had given Brown a warning. If a stranger was seen exercising Jones's
bell-pull on two consecutive days, this indefatigable woman allowed not
her eyes to sleep nor her eyelids to slumber until she had satisfied
herself concerning his name and purpose. If Mr. Thompson waited upon
pretty Miss Jenkins home in a shower, and treated her kindly and
politely, (and who could do otherwise with a young angel in blue and
drab, who might charm a Kaffir or a Sepoy into urbanity?) Mrs. Grundy
straightway instituted inquiries among all the neighbours as to whether
it was true that they were engaged. After this fashion did Mrs. Grundy
live. Her words have been known to blast a reputation which under the
sunshine of prosperity and the storms of misfortune had sustained itself
with equal grace and honour. It was useless to bring up proofs of a life
of integrity against her sentence or her knowing smile. There was no
appeal from her decision. Not that she was uncharitable,--only it did
seem as if she were rather more willing to believe evil of her
neighbours than good; and she appeared slow to trust in the repentance
of any one who had ever fallen into sin, especially if the person were
of her own sex. I am not complaining of this peculiarity; we must be
circumspect and strict, and mercy is a quality too rare and divine to be
wasted on every trivial occasion. But I cannot help thinking that, if
the penitent found it as hard to gain the absolving smile of that Power
to which alone we are answerable for our misdeeds as to reinstate
himself in the good graces of Mrs. Grundy, how few of us could have any
hope of the beatific vision!
Mrs. Grundy had great influence; she was respected and feared. People
found that she would give her opinion _ex cathedra_, and that, however
unfounded that opinion might be, there were those who would reecho it
until common repetition gave it the force of truth; so they tried to
conciliate her by graduating their actions according to what they
supposed would be her judgment. When this was seen, she began to be
envied by some who had once hated her, and her idiosyncrasies were made
the study of many of her sex who longed to share her empire over the
thoughts and actions of their fellow-creatures. Thus, by a sort of
multiplex metempsychosis, were Mrs. Grundy's virtues perpetuated, and
she was endowed with a species of omnipresence. In this country Mrs.
Grundy is a power. She is the absolute sovereign of America. Her reign
there is none to dispute. Our national motto ought to be, instead of _E
pluribus unum_, "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" There is no class in our
community over which she does not exercise more or less power. Our
politicians, when they cease to regard their influence as a commodity to
be sold to the highest bidder, act, not from any fixed principles, but
with a single eye to the good will of Mrs. Grundy. If a man is buying a
house, it is ten chances to one that Mrs. Grundy's opinion concerning
gentility of situation will carry the day against cosiness and real
comfort. If your wife or daughter goes to buy a dress, Mrs. Grundy's
taste will be consulted in preference to the durability of the fabric or
the condition of your purse. Mrs. Grundy dictates to us how we shall
furnish our houses, and prescribes to us our whole rule of life. Under
her stern sway, multitudes are living beyond their means, and trying to
avert the bankruptcy and unhappiness that inevitably await them. It is
not merely in the management of temporal affairs that Mrs. Grundy makes
her power felt. Her vigilance checks many a generous impulse, stands
between the resolution to do justice and its execution, and is a
fruitful source of hypocrisy. She presides over the pulpit; the power of
wardens and vestrymen is swallowed up by her; and the minister who can
dress up his weekly dish of moral commonplaces so as not to offend her
discriminating taste deserves to retain his place, and merits the
unanimous admiration of the whole sewing circle. She is to be found in
courts of law, animating the opposing parties, and enjoying the contest;
actions of slander are an agreeable recreation to her; petitions for
divorce give her unmixed joy. Like the fury, Alecto, so finely described
by Virgil, Mrs. Grundy can arm brothers to deadly strife against each
other, and stir up the happiest homes with infernal hatred; to her
belong a thousand woful arts--_Sibi nomina mille, mille nocendi artes_.
Mrs. Grundy's philanthropy confines itself to no particular class; it is
universal. Nothing that relates to human kind is alien to her. There is
nothing earthly so high that she does not aspire to control it, nor any
thing too contemptible for her not to wish to know all about it.
Mrs. Grundy is omnipresent. Go where you will, you cannot escape from
her presence. She stands guard unceasingly over your front door and back
windows. Her watchful eye follows you whene'er you take your walks
abroad. Your name is never mentioned that she is not by, and seriously
inclined to hear aught that may increase her baleful stock of knowledge.
It is all the same to her whether you have lived uprightly or viciously;
beneath her Gorgon glance all human actions are petrified alike. And if
she does not succeed in sowing discord around your hearthstone, and in
driving you to despair and self-murder, as she did poor Henry Herbert
the other day, it will be because you are not cursed with his fiery
sensitiveness, and not because she lacks the will to do it.
There is but one way in which the Grundian yoke can be thrown off. We
must treat her as the English wit treated an insignificant person who
had insulted him; we must "let her alone severely." We pay a certain
kind of allegiance to her if we take notice of her for the purpose of
running counter to her notions. We must ignore her altogether. It is
true, this requires a great deal of moral courage, particularly in a
country where every body knows every body else's business; but it is an
easier task to acquire that courage than to submit patiently to Mrs.
Grundy's dictation and interference. Who shall estimate the happiness of
that millennial period when we shall cease to ask ourselves before our
every action, "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" and shall begin in earnest to
live up to the golden rule that counsels us to mind our own business?
When that day comes, what a world this will be! How will superficial
morality and skin-deep propriety, envy and uncharitableness, be
diminished! How will contentment, and mutual good will, and domestic
peace be augmented! Think on these things, O beloved reader; mind your
own business, and the day is not far distant when, for you at least, the
iron sceptre of Dame Grundy shall be powerless, and the spell broken
that held you in so humiliating a thraldom.