"There is nothing great,
Which religion does not teach; nothing good,
Of which she is not the eternal source;
At once the motive and the recompense."
From the evening of the birth of Lady L.'s babies, it was evident that
our hero, though not yet seven years old, no longer thought himself
little. He assumed a manly air and carriage, and could not bear the
idea of being suspected of wanting assistance or protection. He,
indeed, was always ready to give his assistance, if one of the babies
stretched a little hand for any thing, or his protection, if the
bark of a dog, the sight of a stranger, or any such awful occurrence,
alarmed either of them; or his soothings, if they cried.
He would no longer hold by any one's hand in walking, but would step
out in front of the nursery party, with quite a proud air, looking over
his shoulder, from time to time, and telling the nurses that he was
going first, to see that there was nothing there to hurt the babies.
He often asked if they would ever be as big as he was; and always kept
alive, by perpetual inquiries, and additional caresses, a perfect
recollection of the identity of the eldest baby--the one that had been
held across his arms, the evening it was born; and which, at the moment
it seemed to clasp his finger, had awakened in his little breast the
first emotion of tenderness, that was not accompanied by that almost
awe-inspiring feeling--a grateful looking up, as from an immeasurable
distance, to beings, in whose love and protection he himself sought
shelter.
The partiality evinced by Mr. Jackson for our hero, on the day of the
christening, encouraged Mrs. Montgomery to put in immediate execution
a plan which Lady L. and herself had been for some time meditating;
namely, to request that gentleman to undertake the education of Edmund,
till he was of an age to be sent to the Naval College.
Mr. Jackson was eminently fitted for the task of instructing youth. He
had been a fellow of one of the universities, and distinguished both
for his learning and his talents.
Since his retirement from college on his present living, he had enjoyed
much leisure, and had devoted it to elegant studies: modern classics,
modern languages, the fine arts, late discoveries in science, &c. &c.
In short, to use his own words, he had, since that period, wandered
daily through the pleasure-grounds of literature; not suffering his
mind to sink into utter indolence, yet giving it no more than the
healthful stimulus of gentle exercise. He was born a poet, but had,
through life, indulged more in poetical feelings than in poetical
effusions; unless, indeed, we admit as such, the energetic overflowing
of his spontaneous eloquence in conversation; for his sermons, he took
care, should be plain and practical. He was not a shepherd, who, at the
instigation of vanity, would turn the green pasture-lands of his flock
into beds of tulips. Yet did not the pure and perspicuous style, which
good taste, as well as good feeling, taught him to adopt on sacred
subjects, want for that true sublime which is derived from simplicity,
when the grandeur of the thought itself leaves laboured language far
behind.
The topic on which he was unwearied was, the inseparable connexion
between right faith and right practice, and between both and
happiness. He proved, by the most beautiful and feeling arguments and
illustrations, that, like the root, the blossom, and the fruit, they
grew out of, necessarily produced, and, as necessarily, could not exist
without each other. He then proceeded to show, that the whole chain of
natural causes and effects formed one unbroken, practical revelation
of the Almighty will, ordaining virtue and forbidding vice; inasmuch
as not only is virtue necessary to make us capable of happiness even
here, but out of vice invariably grows suffering, not only moral, but
generally physical also, lest the lowest capacity should be slow to
comprehend this manifestation of the sovereign purpose of him who
called us into being, but bestows upon us that felicity, towards which,
his all-wise government is constituted to lead us; of him who, had it
been possible even to infinite power, to bestow a consciousness of
individuality of spiritual being, without an equal consciousness of
freedom of will, would have rendered it impossible for his creatures
to err; or, in other words, to forfeit that bliss which "eye hath not
seen, ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to
conceive."
"For," our Christian philosopher would add, as he drew his arguments
to their close, "had that emanation of the divinity which is the
soul of man, been without choice between good and evil; or, in other
words, necessitated to act by no other impulse than that of its great
source, the Almighty had created but a material world, all spiritual
intelligence, the whole soul of the universe, had still been God
himself!"
Mr. Jackson's imaginings, especially when he walked alone amid the
majestic scenery that surrounded his dwelling, certainly were poetry;
but he seldom interrupted his pleasing reveries, or checked his nights
of fancy, to place them on paper, or even to arrange them in any
precise order of words. Indeed, it was one of his favourite positions,
(and he was famous for theories of his own,) that a man might be a
poet, without possessing one word of any language whatsoever, in which
to express his poetic ideas.
In judging a new work, too, he seldom descended to verbal criticism;
but, taking an enlarged view of the spirit in which the thing was
written, pronounced it, at once, to want, or to possess, that poetical
spark, that vivifying principle, which must, he maintained, breathe a
soul into every composition, whether prose or verse, worth the trouble
of reading.
To complete Mr. Jackson's qualifications for a preceptor, he himself
found a sensible pleasure in imparting knowledge. Let others prove the
wonders, the properties, the virtues of all that the material world
affords; and, admired be their curious, and respected their useful
labours; but the natural philosophy in which he delighted, was the
development of the young mind. In his mode, too, of communicating
instruction, there was a peculiar felicity. He never required of a
pupil an arbitrary act of mere memory: "indeed," he would say, "there
is no such a power as mere memory." What is commonly called having a
good memory, he considered as nothing more than the natural result
of fixing the attention, awaking the feelings, and forming the
associations. These last, he termed the roots, by which remembrances
entwine themselves with our whole constitution, till the very heart
vibrates to a sound, a colour, or but the scent of a flower, plucked
in the day of joy, or of sorrow. He, therefore, always endeavoured to
lead the understanding to facts, through their causes; and, again, to
interest the feelings in the consequences of those facts: thus were
the lessons he taught never to be effaced. Above all things, he hasted
to supply the infant mind with salutary associations, on every subject
tending to implant principles and form character; considering every
avenue of the soul, not thus timely fortified, as laid open to the
incursions of wrong, perhaps, fatal opinions. For instance, whilst
others railed, with common-place argument, against bribing children, as
they termed it, into goodness; he maintained that the lowest animal
gratification of the infant, (that is, before it can understand any
other,) may be so judiciously bestowed, as to become the first seed of
that grand principle, a thorough conviction that the virtuous only can
enjoy happiness. If the child's daily and hourly experience prove to
it, that when it is good it has all from which it knows how to derive
pleasure; and that when it is not good, the reverse is the case; must
it not soon learn to connect, so thoroughly, goodness with happiness,
that, through after-life, the ideas can never present themselves apart.
"As mind is developed," he would say, "let the sources of the child's
happiness be ennobled: teach it to prize, as its best reward, the
love and approval of its parent; to dread, as its greatest punishment,
the withholding such. And, to acquire this power, let your tenderest
indulgence, the perpetual sunshine of your countenance, be the very
atmosphere in which your child is reared; and soon, the sight of
features on which no smile appears, will be chastisement sufficient,
and you be spared the brutalizing and alienating your offspring, by
beating it into forced obedience, and spontaneous hatred."
That such a man as we have described, was ever found, in the fulfilment
of his active duties as a pastor, the conscientious and benevolent
Christian, we need scarcely add.
The income arising from Mr. Jackson's living was considerable; and,
as he had also private property, he was quite independent; it was,
therefore, entirely as a favour; that Mrs. Montgomery meditated
requesting him to take charge of Edmund's education. He, on his part,
came into all her plans and wishes, with as much readiness and warmth,
as his enthusiastic praises of our hero had led her to hope.
The parsonage, to which Mr. Jackson had built very elegant additions,
stands within a short walk of Lodore House. Its own situation is
beautiful. Indeed, it is scarcely possible to choose a spot in this
immediate neighbourhood which is not so. Every distance is terminated
by magnificent mountains. More or less ample views of the lake,
are almost everywhere to be descried through trees that grow with
luxuriance to the water's-edge; the long vista of each opening,
carpeted with a velvet sod of the tenderest green; while, where the
wooding climbs the feet of the hills, bare rocks, like the sides and
turrets of ruined castles, protrude in many parts, giving much beauty
and variety to the scenery. One of the highest of these lifts itself
conspicuously above the grove which embowers Mr. Jackson's dwelling,
and stands just in view of his study-windows. It is crowned by a rent
and blasted oak, the outer branches of which still bud forth every
spring, displaying a partial verdure, while the naked roots are bound
around the rock's hard brow, with a grasp which has maintained its hold
from age to age, against the winds and rains of countless winters.
Beyond the woods, stupendous Skiddaw rears its lofty head, enveloped
in perpetual clouds, in much the same manner, that it backs the view
of Lodore House; for in this wild region, that mountain holds so
conspicuous a place in every scene, that it may almost be said to be
omnipresent.
A window to the south presents some slight traces of human existence,
not discernible from any of the others: a curious bridge, roughly
constructed, its date unknown, and crossing a spot where there is
now no water; and a single chimney, with its blue smoke, peeping from
the cleft of a rock, within which is concealed the little habitation
to which it belongs. The study itself, from which these prospects are
enjoyed, contains an excellent library: it opens with French windows
on the lawn, and communicates with the drawing-room by means of a
green-house in the corridor form, in imitation of that at Lodore, from
which it had been stored with choice plants. Beyond the drawing-room,
in the old part of the building, is situated a comfortable dining-room.
To this literary Eden, our hero each day repaired, reaping from his
visits all the advantages which might be expected. Thus did matters
proceed for about four years, except that we omitted to mention that
he spent all periods of Mrs. Montgomery's absence from Lodore House
entirely at Mr. Jackson's dwelling, by that gentleman's particular
request. Edmund had become the consolation of his worthy preceptor's
lonely hours, the centre of his affections. Those had, indeed, no other
object. Within the first three years of Mr. Jackson's marriage, he had
lost a wife to whom he had been attached from early youth; and, more
recently, the measles had robbed him of both the boys she had left him.