"Of course, sir, you will begin soon to educate your son yourself?" said
Mr. Squills.
"Of course, sir," said my father, "you have read Martinus Scriblerus?"
"I don't understand you, Mr. Caxton."
"Then you have not read Aiartinus Scriblerus, Mr. Squills!"
"Consider that I have read it; and what then?"
"Why, then, Squills," said my father, familiarly, "you son would know
that though a scholar is often a fool, he is never a fool so supreme, so
superlative, as when he is defacing the first unsullied page of the
human history by entering into it the commonplaces of his own pedantry.
A scholar, sir,--at least one like me,--is of all persons the most unfit
to teach young children. A mother, sir,--a simple, natural, loving
mother,--is the infant's true guide to knowledge."
"Egad! Mr. Caxton,--in spite of Helvetius, whom you quoted the night the
boy was born,--egad! I believe you are right."
"I am sure of it," said my father,--"at least as sure as a poor mortal
can be of anything. I agree with Helvetius, the child should be
educated from its birth; but how? There is the rub: send him to school
forthwith! Certainly, he is at school already with the two great
teachers,--Nature and Love. Observe, that childhood and genius have the
same master-organ in common,--inquisitiveness. Let childhood have its
way, and as it began where genius begins, it may find what genius finds.
A certain Greek writer tells us of some man who, in order to save his
bees a troublesome flight to Hymettus, cut their wings, and placed
before them the finest flowers he could select. The poor bees made no
honey. Now, sir, if I were to teach my boy, I should be cutting his
wings and giving him the flowers he should find himself. Let us leave
Nature alone for the present, and Nature's loving proxy, the watchful
mother."
Therewith my father pointed to his heir sprawling on the grass and
plucking daisies on the lawn, while the young mother's voice rose
merrily, laughing at the child's glee.
"I shall make but a poor bill out of your nursery, I see," said Mr.
Squills.
Agreeably to these doctrines, strange in so learned a father, I thrived
and flourished, and learned to spell, and make pot-hooks, under the
joint care of my mother and Dame Primmins. This last was one of an old
race fast dying away,--the race of old, faithful servants; the race of
old, tale-telling nurses. She had reared my mother before me; but her
affection put out new flowers for the new generation. She was a
Devonshire woman; and Devonshire women, especially those who have passed
their youth near the sea-coast, are generally superstitious. She had a
wonderful budget of fables. Before I was six years old, I was erudite
in that primitive literature in which the legends of all nations are
traced to a common fountain,--Puss in Boots, Tom Thumb, Fortunio,
Fortunatus, Jack the Giant-Killer; tales, like proverbs, equally
familiar, under different versions, to the infant worshippers of Budh
and the hardier children of Thor. I may say, without vanity, that in an
examination in those venerable classics I could have taken honors!
My dear mother had some little misgivings as to the solid benefit to be
derived from such fantastic erudition, and timidly consulted my father
thereon.
"My love," answered my father, in that tone of voice which always
puzzled even my mother to be sure whether he was in jest or earnest, "in
all these fables certain philosophers could easily discover symbolic
significations of the highest morality. I have myself written a
treatise to prove that Puss in Boots is an allegory upon the progress of
the human understanding, having its origin in the mystical schools of
the Egyptian priests, and evidently an illustration of the worship
rendered at Thebes and Memphis to those feline quadrupeds of which they
make both religious symbols and elaborate mummies."
"My dear Austin," said my mother, opening her blue eyes, "you don't
think that Sisty will discover all those fine things in Puss in Boots!"
"My dear Kitty," answered my father, "you don't think, when you were
good enough to take up with me, that you found in me all the fine things
I have learned from books. You knew me only as a harmless creature who
was happy enough to please your fancy. By and by you discovered that I
was no worse for all the quartos that have transmigrated into ideas
within me,--ideas that are mysteries even to myself. If Sisty, as you
call the child (plague on that unlucky anachronism! which you do well to
abbreviate into a dissyllable),--if Sisty can't discover all the wisdom
of Egypt in Puss in Boots, what then? Puss in Boots is harmless, and it
pleases his fancy. All that wakes curiosity is wisdom, if innocent; all
that pleases the fancy now, turns hereafter to love or to knowledge.
And so, my dear, go back to the nursery."
But I should wrong thee, O best of fathers! if I suffered the reader to
suppose that because thou didst seem so indifferent to my birth, and so
careless as to my early teaching, therefore thou wert, at heart,
indifferent to thy troublesome Neogilos. As I grew older, I became more
sensibly aware that a father's eye was upon me. I distinctly remember
one incident, that seems to me, in looking back, a crisis in my infant
life, as the first tangible link between my own heart and that calm
great soul.
My father was seated on the lawn before the house, his straw hat over
his eyes (it was summer), and his book on his lap. Suddenly a beautiful
delf blue-and-white flower-pot, which had been set on the window-sill of
an upper story, fell to the ground with a crash, and the fragments
spluttered up round my father's legs. Sublime in his studies as
Archimedes in the siege, he continued to read,--Impavidum ferient
ruince!
"Dear, dear!" cried my mother, who was at work in the porch, "my poor
flower-pot that I prized so much! Who could have done this? Primmins,
Primmins!"
Mrs. Primmins popped her head out of the fatal window, nodded to the
summons, and came down in a trice, pale and breathless.
"Oh!" said my mother, Mournfully, "I would rather have lost all the
plants in the greenhouse in the great blight last May,--I would rather
the best tea-set were broken! The poor geranium I reared myself, and
the dear, dear flower-pot which Mr. Caxton bought for me my last
birthday! That naughty child must have done this!"
Mrs. Primmins was dreadfully afraid of my father,--why, I know not,
except that very talkative social persons are usually afraid of very
silent shy ones. She cast a hasty glance at her master, who was
beginning to evince signs of attention, and cried promptly, "No, ma'am,
it was not the dear boy, bless his flesh, it was I!"
"You? How could you be so careless? and you knew how I prized them
both. Oh, Primmins!" Primmins began to sob.
"Don't tell fibs, nursey," said a small, shrill voice; and Master Sisty,
coming out of the house as bold as brass, continued rapidly--"don't
scold Primmins, mamma: it was I who pushed out the flower-pot."
"Hush!" said nurse, more frightened than ever, and looking aghast
towards my father, who had very deliberately taken off his hat, and was
regarding the scene with serious eyes wide awake. "Hush! And if he did
break it, ma'am, it was quite an accident; he was standing so, and he
never meant it. Did you, Master Sisty? Speak!" this in a whisper, "or
Pa will be so angry."
"Well," said my mother, "I suppose it was an accident; take care in
future, my child. You are sorry, I see, to have grieved me. There's a
kiss; don't fret."
"No, mamma, you must not kiss me; I don't deserve it. I pushed out the
flower-pot on purpose."
"Ha! and why?" said my father, walking up.
Mrs. Primmins trembled like a leaf.
"For fun!" said I, hanging my head,--"just to see how you'd look, papa;
and that's the truth of it. Now beat me, do beat me!"
My father threw his book fifty yards off, stooped down, and caught me to
his breast. "Boy," he said, "you have done wrong: you shall repair it
by remembering all your life that your father blessed God for giving him
a son who spoke truth in spite of fear! Oh! Mrs. Primmins, the next
fable of this kind you try to teach him, and we part forever!"
From that time I first date the hour when I felt that I loved my father,
and knew that he loved me; from that time, too, he began to converse
with me. He would no longer, if he met me in the garden, pass by with a
smile and nod; he would stop, put his book in his pocket, and though his
talk was often above my comprehension, still somehow I felt happier and
better, and less of an infant, when I thought over it, and tried to
puzzle out the meaning; for he had away of suggesting, not teaching,
putting things into my head, and then leaving them to work out their own
problems. I remember a special instance with respect to that same
flower-pot and geranium. Mr. Squills, who was a bachelor, and well-to-
do in the world, often made me little presents. Not long after the
event I have narrated, he gave me one far exceeding in value those
usually bestowed on children,--it was a beautiful large domino-box in
cut ivory, painted and gilt. This domino-box was my delight. I was
never weary of playing, at dominos with Mrs. Primmins, and I slept with
the box under my pillow.
"Ah!" said my father one day, when he found me ranging the ivory
parallelograms in the parlor, "ah! you like that better than all your
playthings, eh?"
"Oh, yes, papa!"
"You would be very sorry if your mamma were to throw that box out of the
window and break it for fun." I looked beseechingly at my father, and
made no answer.
"But perhaps you would be very glad," he resumed, "if suddenly one of
those good fairies you read of could change the domino-box into a
beautiful geranium in a beautiful blue-and-white flower-pot, and you
could have the pleasure of putting it on your mamma's window-sill."
"Indeed I would!" said I, half-crying.
"My dear boy, I believe you; but good wishes don't mend bad actions:
good actions mend bad actions."
So saying, he shut the door and went out. I cannot tell you how puzzled
I was to make out what my father meant by his aphorism. But I know that
I played at dominos no more that day. The next morning my father found
me seated by myself under a tree in the garden; he paused, and looked at
me with his grave bright eyes very steadily.
"My boy," said he, "I am going to walk to--,"a town about two miles off:
"will you come? And, by the by, fetch your domino-box. I should like
to show it to a person there." I ran in for the box, and, not a little
proud of walking with my father upon the high-road, we set out.
"Papa," said I by the way, "there are no fairies now."
"What then, my child?"
"Why, how then can my domino-box be changed into a geranium and a blue-
and-white flower-pot?"
"My dear," said my father, leaning his hand on my shoulder, "everybody
who is in earnest to be good, carries two fairies about with him,--one
here," and he touched my heart, "and one here," and he touched my
forehead.
"I don't understand, papa."
"I can wait till you do, Pisistratus. What a name!"
My father stopped at a nursery gardener's, and after looking over the
flowers, paused before a large double geranium. "Ah! this is finer than
that which your mamma was so fond of. What is the cost, sir?"
"Only 7s. 6d.," said the gardener.
My father buttoned up his pocket. "I can't afford it to-day," said he,
gently, and we walked out.
On entering the town, we stopped again at a china warehouse. "Have you
a flower-pot like that I bought some months ago? Ah! here is one,
marked 3s. 6d. Yes, that is the price. Well; when your mamma's
birthday comes again, we must buy her another. That is some months to
wait. And we can wait, Master Sisty. For truth, that blooms all the
year round, is better than a poor geranium; and a word that is never
broken, is better than a piece of delf."
My head, which had drooped before, rose again; but the rush of joy at my
heart almost stifled me.
"I have called to pay your little bill," said my father, entering the
shop of one of those fancy stationers common in country towns, and who
sell all kinds of pretty toys and knick-knacks. "And by the way," he
added, as the smiling shopman looked over his books for the entry, "I
think my little boy here can show you a much handsomer specimen of
French workmanship than that work-box which you enticed Mrs. Caxton into
raffling for, last winter. Show your domino-box, my dear."
I produced my treasure, and the shopman was liberal in his
commendations. "It is always well, my boy, to know what a thing is
worth, in case one wishes to part with it. If my young gentleman gets
tired of his plaything, what will you give him for it?"
"Why, sir," said the shopman, "I fear we could not afford to give more
than eighteen shillings for it, unless the young gentleman took some of
these pretty things in exchange."
"Eighteen shillings!" said my father; "you would give that sum! Well,
my boy, whenever you do grow tired of your box, you have my leave to
sell it."
My father paid his bill and went out. I lingered behind a few moments,
and joined him at the end of the street.
"Papa, papa," I cried, clapping my hands, "we can buy the geranium; we
can buy the flower-pot." And I pulled a handful of silver from my
pockets.
"Did I not say right?" said my father, passing his handkerchief over his
eyes. "You have found the two fairies!"
Oh! how proud, how overjoyed I was when, after placing vase and flower
on the window-sill, I plucked my mother by the gown and made her follow
me to the spot.
"It is his doing and his money!" said my father; "good actions have
mended the bad."
"What!" cried my mother, when she had learned all; "and your poor
domino-box that you were so fond of! We will go back to-morrow and buy
it back, if it costs us double."
"Shall we buy it back, Pisistratus?" asked my father.
"Oh, no--no--no! It would spoil all," I cried, burying my face on my
father's breast.
"My wife," said my father, solemnly, "this is my first lesson to our
child,--the sanctity and the happiness of self-sacrifice; undo not what
it should teach to his dying day."