POLEMICS AND THE WEATHER.
It is trite to say that error is most dangerous when mingled with
truth; but never was this saying more applicable than in the case of
the Native American or Know-Nothing party. "America for Americans"
was not all a cry of bigotry and exclusion: the hospitality and
freedom of the nation had been abused, and a reform was needed. But,
unfortunately, it was possible to make the question a religious one.
The fact that the greater part of the crime in cities is committed by
foreigners, and that the majority of foreigners in the country are
at least nominally Catholic, could easily, by a lame syllogism, be
turned against the church. But what matter how lame the syllogism,
when prejudice props it on the one side and malice on the other?
Beside this, the masses of any people crave an occasional popular
commotion to vary the monotony of a peaceful national existence,
and nothing else offered at the time. The advent of this party was,
therefore, _à propos_.
How it used its power, we all know. It was, indeed, less a party
than an army, for its measures were violent, invasive, and illegal.
Its street-preachers, from Gavazzi downward, its pulpit-preachers,
who countenanced their brethren of the mob by more decent but not
less malicious attacks, its floods of foul literature penetrating to
every nook and corner of the land, duping and inflaming the ignorant
while it filled the pockets of irresponsible writers, editors, and
publishers--the "_canaille de la littérature_," as Voltaire called
such--its mobs and riots, its churches destroyed and clergymen
maltreated, its committee of Massachusetts legislators, senators, and
volunteers invading and insulting a community of defenceless women,
all are matter of history. The spectacle was a strange and revolting
one, and it was one which the country is not likely to see repeated
with the same results; for it is incredible that American Catholics
would ever again submit to such a persecution. It is more probable
that, should we once more find our liberties threatened and our
sacred places desecrated, there will be
"Thirty thousand Cornish men
To see the reason why."
In this movement, the ambitious town of Seaton was not to be left
behind; but certain circumstances conspired to check for a while any
great demonstration. The utter peacefulness of Father Rasle, and
the undeniably good influence he exercised over his flock, gave no
pretext for overt attack, and the fact that he was prospering and had
built a church could only be cited as dangerous indications. Besides,
Edith Yorke was, quite unconsciously, a shield to the church in her
native town. Her uncle's family assumed steadily that no person
who hoped for any countenance from them would say or do anything
offensive to her. This assumption on the part of Mr. and Mrs. Yorke
would not have had so much effect, but their children were more
powerful. Carl was the idol and hero of the young ladies of the town,
and not for worlds would one of them have seen directed to her that
flashing gaze with which he regarded any person who even remotely
reflected on his "cousin Edith." It did not take much to freeze that
beautiful, laughing face of his when Edith was in question. Melicent
also had a fair, and Clara a large, share of the gallantry of the
town, and the former could disconcert by her haughtiness, the latter
scathe by her passion, any offender against the family dignity. Major
Cleaveland was also a powerful ally. Edith was to him an object of
romantic admiration. He insisted that she ought to have a title, and
used playfully to call her Milady and the Little Countess, and to say
that, though he did not like the Catholic religion for himself or his
family, he liked it for her.
"I naturally associate the thought of her," he said, "with incense,
and lighted altars, and dim, rich aisles." And he quoted:
"Why, a stranger, when he sees her
In the street even, smileth stilly,
Just as you would at a lily.
"And should any artist paint her,
He would paint her, unaware,
With a halo round her hair."
Evidently, Major Cleaveland would not countenance anything likely to
insult the dignity or hurt the feelings of this "radiant maiden";
and Major Cleaveland's countenance was of consequence in the town of
Seaton.
Edith and Edith's religion had yet another protector in Mr. Griffeth.
This gentleman was by far the most popular minister in town,
and drew to himself all the explosive elements there. His manner
of speaking was lively and theatrical, the matter amusing. Those
progressive spirits found it delightful to have a pastor who, when
he did condescend to draw from the Bible, took piquant texts, such
as, _Ephraim is as a cake that is half-baked_. It provoked a smile,
and that was what they wanted. Mr. George MacDonald had not then been
heard of; but Mr. Griffeth already amused his hearers by holding up
for their derision "old granny judgment."
"Do not believe," he said, "that God gives all the pain, and the
devil all the pleasure. Indeed, I do not insist on your believing
that there is any devil whatever."
All this was charming to his hearers, so charming that they did not
absolutely require him to abuse Catholicism. Once only a member of
his congregation gave him a hint on the subject, but the minister's
answer was ready:
"I do not like to say the same things which everybody else is saying.
If you wish to hear anti-Catholic sermons, go to Brothers Martin and
Conway: they will satisfy you. I do not suppose that my silence on
the subject will be interpreted as a leaning toward the Church of
Rome."
"No, sir!" the gentleman answered dryly. "It is more likely to be
looked on as a leaning toward the house of Yorke."
Mr. Griffeth colored, but did not deny the "soft impeachment." It
would have been useless to deny it, for his partiality to the family
was evident, though to which member of it his especial regard was
directed, was not so easy to say. Well for him that it was not, or he
would not, perhaps, have been forgiven.
So Edith stood, surrounded by a guard of devoted hearts, between the
church and harm.
The physical and mental growth of this girl was fair to see. It was
like the slow, sweet unfolding of a rose from the bud, with its
baby lip pushed through the green to the rich and gracious beauty
of the bursting flower. That morning look which belongs to the eyes
of ingenuous youth still shed its calm, clear lustre over hers; her
hair had darkened in tint, so as to be no longer a shadowed gold, but
a gilded shadow; and she shot up like a young palm-tree, slender,
but with the rounded, vigorous strength of an Atalanta. She had that
perfect health which makes mere existence a delight, and she was
perfectly happy, for all her wants were satisfied, and all her wishes
were winged with hope. Friends she took as a matter of course. She
did not think much about them, but loved them quietly, as people do
who never wanted for friends. It is need or the fear of losing which
develops intensity of affection.
What she did think of was: How does the wind blow and the sun shine?
What are the names of those worlds in the sky, and how do they move?
How does the seed sprout and grow, and what makes the flower unfold?
Where do the birds go when they disappear in winter, and how do they
know when to return? How does the snow-flake gather itself into a
star-shape, and what shapes and colors the rainbow?
Her interest took in also another subject kindred to these: What
distant people live on the earth? What do their eyes see? How do
they live? How do they speak? Her mother's native land having been
far away, made all far-away lands seem fair to her; and customs
and speech different from those she had known did not repel, but
attracted.
By some happy providence in her nature or her education, or in both,
the girl's curiosity and love of the marvellous and beautiful took
this direction, and therefore her delights did not wither like weeds
when childhood passed: they grew for ever.
But what was best in Edith Yorke's growth was that she began to
perceive the glories of the church of God, and, as her knowledge
touched here and there at remote points, to guess at the grandeur,
the symmetry, and the perfect finish of the whole structure. She had
been ashamed of her religion, even while she clung to it, because
all the professors of it whom she knew were poor and ignorant, and
because she had seen it mocked by a higher class. She soon learned
that all Catholics were not like those she saw, and that some of the
noblest of earth, persons excelling in rank, wealth, learning, and
virtue, had been devoted children of the church. It was a mean reason
for being better satisfied with it, but it was better than no reason,
and it led upward. What was it that these people found to love
and reverence? She looked to see, and, seeing, she also loved and
reverenced, not because the great did, not because any one else did,
but because what she saw was worthy of such homage. Once attaining
this elevation, it was easy for a nature like hers to be entirely and
enthusiastically on the side of God, and to find a beauty and delight
in the fact that had before repelled her, to rejoice that the poor
and the ignorant, as well as the rich and the learned, had a place
in the arms of this bountiful Mother, and that, while human science
built a laborious track on which to crawl toward the heart of God,
simple human love flew straight there, as the bird flies to its nest.
Father Rasle instructed her thoroughly, particularly in controversy.
She must be able not only to defend herself when attacked, but to
attack, if necessary. As yet, of either attack or defence she had
had no need to think. That there was strife in the world, she almost
forgot. The memory of all that had been miserable in her past life
became as a dream, or was only real enough to keep fresh her love
and gratitude toward her early friends, and to bar all intercourse
between her and the village people. She saw them only when they came
to her uncle's house.
Her life was simple--books, music, and drawing, a little gardening,
and a good deal of riding on horseback. Major Cleaveland had given
her a beautiful saddle-horse, and Carl was her teacher and constant
companion in these rides. Mrs. Yorke, gentle soul! would have fainted
with terror had she seen the reckless manner in which these two flew
over the ground when they were out of her sight.
"You have had no exercise till your cheeks grow red," Carl would
say; and at that challenge Edith would chirrup to her prancing
Thistledown, and they were off on the wings of the wind. Thus
cloistered and fostered, she grew up strong, sweet, and happy, and
with the glance of her clear eyes kept back yet a while many a shaft
that would have been aimed at the church.
One marksman, however, was not dazzled by her. Mr. Conway cried
aloud, sparing not. Denunciation was this man's forte, and he
improved the occasion. It was about this time that Miss Clara Yorke
commented on the astringent qualities of the gentleman's character.
"Why, mamma," Hester Cleaveland said, "he had even the impudence
to come to my house, and exhort me, and to say that we were all in
danger from the influence of Father Rasle and Edith. I got up at
that, and said that, since he had taken the liberty to speak to me in
such a manner of my own family, I should not scruple to excuse myself
from any further conversation with him then or in future. And I made
him one of my most splendid bows, and left him alone; didn't I, you
beautiful creature?"
This question was addressed to a lovely, gray-eyed infant that lay
in the speaker's lap, and was followed by a long and interesting
conversation between the two, the young mother furnishing both
questions and answers, and in that delightful intercourse quite
forgetting Mr. Conway and his impudence. What were all the crabbed
old ministers in the world in comparison to mamma's own baby? Nothing
at all! "Come, Melicent, and see how intelligent his expression is
when I speak to him. He looks right in my face."
"I do not see how he could well help it, if he looks anywhere, since
your face is within an inch of his nose," remarks Melicent dryly.
Hester had at this time been a year married, and was triumphantly,
we must own, a little selfishly happy. There was not in her nature a
particle of malice, but she lacked that sensitive and delicate regard
for the feelings of others less favored than herself, which makes
unselfish persons cautious not to display too much their own superior
advantages. As her father had predicted, Major Cleaveland was to her
the most wonderful man in the world, and as to Major Cleaveland's
youngest son, words could not express his perfections. Their house
was, in some occult way, finer than any other house whatever, their
furniture had a charm of its own, their horses had peculiar qualities
which rendered them more valuable than you would think, their very
bread and butter had an uncommon flavor which distinguished it from
the bread and butter of less fortunate mortals.
The Cleavelands remained in Seaton the first winter after this
baby's birth, greatly to the joy of Hester's family. The winters
passed rather heavily for them, and it was a pleasant break in their
daily life to see Hester's horses turn into the avenue, with a great
jingling of sleigh-bells, and Hester's pretty face smiling out from
her furs behind them. Even Clara, absorbed as she was in the glorious
work of putting the last finishing touches to her first novel--a
novel actually accepted by a publisher, and to be brought out in
the spring--even this inspired person would start up at that cheery
sound, and run down-stairs to chat with her sister, and embrace her
nephew, if he were of the party.
But there were times when no one could come to them, and they could
not go out, but were as close prisoners as though walls of stone
had been built up around them. One might as well have been in the
Bastile as in a solitary country-house in one of those old-fashioned,
down-east snow-storms. One could see them gather on winter days in
a steady purple bank about the horizon, waiting there with leaden
patience for a day or two, perhaps, till all their forces should
come up, or till the air should moderate enough for a fall. There
would be no visible clouds, but a gradual thickening of the air, the
blue losing its brilliancy under the gray film, a flake sidling down
now and then in so reluctant a manner that it seemed every moment
on the point of going up again. Another follows, and another, they
coquette with the earth, seem to talk the matter over in the air,
finally, with a good deal of hesitation, one after another settles,
and presently the storm comes on steadily, and what was a fairy
star of whiteness becomes a thin white veil, then an inch-deep of
swan's-down, then a pile that clogs the feet of men and beasts, and
the wheels or runners of carriages, then an alabaster prison.
It is possible to be in a state of desolation under such
circumstances, and it is possible not to be: that depends on the
people, and on the mood they are in. Some groan over the trial;
some, scarcely less agreeable, sit down and endure it with a most
depressing patience; some shut the world out, and invent expedients
to forget what sort of world it is; others, wider of mind and heart
and clearer of sight, take the storm as it comes, and see all the
enchantment of it. In that vast lily-flower that has curled down over
them, and shut them in for a time, they find a honey that sparkles
like wine. Lean out and catch a flake as it falls; it is a star, a
flower, a fairy dumb-bell, a cross, a globe, always a wonder. Think,
then, of the lavish millions of them!
One whom nature holds close to her heart has sung the snow-storm:
"Every pine, and fir, and hemlock,
Wore ermine too dear for an earl;
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch-deep with pearl."
One such snow in Seaton fell all day quietly, and all night, with a
rising wind, and the next morning they woke in chaos. There was no
up and down out of doors, but only a roundabout. There was a whirl,
and a whiteness that dimmed off into grayness; there were no fences
nor posts; a ghost of a pyramid stood where the barn had been; what
had been trees were white giants coming toward them, apparently. They
opened their windows to brush away the snow that piled up on the
sill, and were blinded and baffled; they opened their doors to go
out, and a solid Parian barrier was laid across the step, knee-high;
they tried to shovel a path, and an angry wind and a myriad of little
hands filled it in again. Patrick and Carl made a desperate effort to
reach the village, and, after struggling as far as the avenue gate,
were glad to get back to the house without being suffocated. At the
door they found Edith catching snow-flakes to look at the shapes of
them, and watching with wonder and delight certain thin, sharp drifts
that a breath would have shaken from their airy poise, but which the
wild wind never stirred even to a tremor.
"If one could only see the shapes of the wind!" she said. "Or is it,
Carl, that the shape of the snow is the shape of the wind?"
Clara shook the snow from her brother's coat, and slyly dropped a
snow-ball down his back; even Melicent forgot her dignity so far
as to sit down in a bank, which enthroned her very prettily. Carl
thereupon called her Mrs. Odin, and Melicent smiled involuntarily at
the idea of being Mrs. Anybody. The mother and father, standing side
by side, watched them smilingly from the window, and remembered how
they used to play in the snow when they were children, and felt young
again for a brief moment.
"But the spectres of rheumatism and sore-throat stand between me and
all that folderol now," Mr. Yorke says, with a half-sigh.
"Yes, dear; but it is pretty to look at," says the wife cheerfully.
"And we elders have the fire, which is more beautiful yet."
They pile wood on the fire. It blazes up, and reddens all the dusky
room, and presently Mrs. Yorke wraps a scarlet mantle about her, and
goes, with a little shiver, almost to the door, and calls out in the
sweetest little bird-call: "Come in, children, come in! You'll take
cold."
"Mother looks and sounds like an oriole in there," says Carl. "Come,
girls!"
They all come in with very red cheeks and bright eyes, Edith running
to show her aunt a large star-flake before it melts. Mrs. Yorke,
bending to examine it, breathes on it, and it changes instantly to a
spot of water on Edith's dark-blue sleeve.
The two young Pattens, who have developed into clever scapegraces,
are pushing each other into drifts at the back-door, and pretending
not to hear Betsey's stern calls to them to come to their work.
When she appears at the door with her hands all ready to administer
summary chastisement, they elude her with the skill of practised
gymnasts or of children used to dodging blows, run under her very
elbows into the kitchen, and are busily and gravely employed by
the time she has turned about and come back. Patrick sets his face
resolutely toward the barn, where are certain quadrupeds to be cared
for, and flounders as if he were himself a quadruped, and becomes a
lessening speck, only the head visible, and finally, when they begin
to think that he is lost, triumphantly pushes the barn-door open, and
is greeted by a neigh from the horse, a shake of the head from the
cow, and a welcoming cackle from the hens.
That evening they had music. Melicent played brilliantly, and Clara
sang them an elfish old song:
"'Wha patters sae late at our gyle-window?'
'Mither, it's the cauld sleet.'
'Come in, come in,' quoth the canny gude-wife,
'An' warm thae frozen feet.'"
When it came time for prayers, Mr. Yorke read that exquisite chapter
in Job wherein God speaks of the incomprehensible mysteries of power
and wisdom hidden in the things that he has made.
Carl, finding himself bored, leaned back in his chair, and clasped
his hands over the top of his head. The leaning back brought within
his range of vision the fold of a dark-blue gown, the toe of a
small shoe, and a pair of lovely folded hands. He turned his face a
little, and looked at Edith, who had drawn her chair near his, and
as he looked his face softened, and he unconsciously changed his
careless position to one more respectful. He saw her profile, with
the lustrous eyes steady as she listened, and so uplifted as to show
their full size. The firelight played over her quiet face, and made
shine a curve or two of the large braid of hair wound round her head.
When Mr. Yorke read: _Hast thou entered into the store-houses of
the snow, or hast thou beheld the treasures of the hail?_ etc., she
glanced at Carl, and smiled. She had known that he was looking at
her, and was pleased that he should. Carl had a particularly pleasant
way of looking at his cousin which she felt as a flower may feel the
sun. It was as though they were talking together without words, and
he knew her thoughts without the trouble of speech.
When the reading was over, Edith said good-night to each one, kissed
her aunt on both cheeks, and went up to her chamber. The last
good-night was to Carl, who opened the door for her.
"He has beautiful manners," she said to herself as she went
up-stairs. "He says so much without speaking a word. He seemed to say
good-night, but he did not speak. I think that, when we go to heaven,
we shall all talk in that silent way. How odd that Carl and I should
begin now!"
She wrapped a shawl about her, and stood before her crucifix, looking
at it, and recollecting herself before saying her prayers. "When I am
going to speak to Carl or to Dick, or to any one, I think of him. If
I were going to speak to a king, I should think of nothing else, and
my heart would beat quickly. I am going to speak to the One who makes
kings."
She bowed her head with a calm reverence. But that was not what she
wanted. Her heart craved emotion. "I am going to speak to the Son
of God. He was poor, he was despised and rejected. When I was the
poorest, I had my little attic to sleep in, but he had not where to
lay his head. O dear Lord! it was pitiful. I will never, never turn
you out in the cold!"
When Melicent softly entered her room, next to Edith's, and stopped
a moment, hesitating whether to speak to her cousin, she heard her
breathe out as she laid her head upon the pillow, "In the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ, I lie down to sleep!"
Melicent stole noiselessly away from the door. She could not address
any trivial word, even any word of common affection, to one who had
just lain down to sleep in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It made
sleep seem awful and sacred as well as sweet. It made guardian angels
seem possible, even necessary. "How beautiful the Catholic religion
is in some of its forms!" she thought, and, after a moment, knelt,
and said a short prayer that she also might be guarded during the
night, and that the Lord would not refuse to let her also rest in his
name. She felt a sense of safety in having her cousin near, and the
door of Edith's chamber seemed to her like the door of a shrine.
The next morning when they waked, the windows were all of a glitter
with sunshine, and wrought over by the artisans of frostland with
samples of every landscape under the sun--cliffs with climbing
spruce-trees, silvery-sanded deserts with palms, an infinite variety.
The sky was a dazzling clearness. The earth was like a stormy sea
that had suddenly been enchanted into a motionless and ineffable
whiteness; the wave curled over, with the spray all ready to slide
down its back; the hollows were arrested in their sinking, the
ripples frozen in their dimpling.
Then when evening came there was a grand display of northern lights,
that pitched their tents of shifting rose and gold, with flags
flying, and armies marching, and stained the snow with airy blood.
Carl stood in the cupola with Edith and Clara clinging to him, both
a little uneasy, and told them stories of Thor, Odin, the Bifrost
bridge, and Valhalla. What they saw was the Scandinavian gods
carousing, he said; or, no, it was a repetition of that fierce battle
of olden time, when, at night, spectators saw the dead arise from the
field, float up into the air, and fight their battle over again in
the sky, that wild legend that Kaulbach painted on canvas.
"Carl," Edith said hesitatingly, "I think that the truth is more
beautiful than any legend."
"But we do not know the truth about northern lights," he replied,
taking a scientific view of the matter.
She hesitated a moment. She was not used to speaking of what came
nearest to her heart. But Father Rasle had given her a charge:
"Whenever you have a chance to say anything beautiful about God, say
it. That is your duty."
"We know that God made them," she faltered.
"Oh! that spoils the poetry of it!" Carl exclaimed involuntarily.
"Pardon me! but to speak of God is to remind me of long,
sanctimonious faces and disagreeable ways, and of a frowning on
everything graceful and grand and beautiful."
"It isn't right!" she said eagerly, forgetting herself; "for it is
God who has made everything grand and beautiful and graceful. When
you see a fine picture, or a piece of statuary, or read a good book,
you think of the artist, and admire him. Reading a play, the other
day, you said, 'What a soul Shakespeare had!' and I heard you say
once that Michael Angelo was a god; and last night, when Melicent
played a sonata you liked, you exclaimed, 'That glorious Beethoven!'
Why not say, 'That great God!' when you see the northern lights?
Besides, God made Beethoven, and Michael Angelo, and Shakespeare,
and taught them everything they knew. I do really think, Carl, that
the truth is more beautiful than any legend. Why isn't it as fine to
say, '_The God of glory thundereth_,' as to talk about Jove throwing
thunderbolts? I don't see anything very admirable in Jove. And why
isn't it as sublime for the sun to hang and shine, and the world to
go whirling about it, because God told them to, as for Phœbus to
drive the chariot of the sun up the East?"
She turned her face, rosy with earnestness and northern lights, and
looked at him with her shining eyes.
"Why, Edith," he said, "you're going to be a poet!"
She shook her head, and hung it a little bashfully. "No, I am not.
But King David was a poet."
And so the matter dropped. But Edith had spoken her word for God, and
may be it had not been entirely lost.
Perhaps we may be allowed here to say a word in defence of the
weather as a subject of conversation. The assertion that Americans,
and especially New Englanders, commence all acquaintanceships and
all social conversations with an atmospheric exordium, has become
classical, and to mention that on any given occasion the weather was
the subject of conversation is to intend to be facetious. But let us
question the good sense of this mockery. Are not the countless phases
of the many-sided weather as noble, as beautiful, as profitable, and
as harmless topics of conversation as ninety-nine out of a hundred
things which people do talk about? Is a dull or a wicked speech, a
dull or a wicked book, a fashion, a horse, your neighbor's character,
a caucus, a candidate, even a song, or a bit of weather on canvas, a
finer topic?
Ah, the weather!--skies of infinite changes, inexhaustible palette in
which the painter's imagination dips its brush; calms, nature holding
her breath; winds, the nearest to spirit of any created thing;
clouds, the aerial chemists of light; showers, overflowing spray from
fountains suspended in air; rains, the asperges of the skies; fogs,
filmy veils which all the king's men cannot tear aside; droughts,
continents in a fever; cold, the horror of nature, at which the
small streams stiffen and die, the mountains whiten to ghosts, and
even iron shrinks; heat, nature's angel of the resurrection blowing
through the golden sunshine, and calling the flowers out of their
graves, and bringing the birds from afar--would that all the bad, the
uncharitable, the silly, the cold, the complaining talk that on this
earth vexes the ear of heaven could be changed to sweet and harmless
talk of the infinitely-varying weather, and of him who planned its
variety!
After this protest and aspiration, it can be said of the Yorkes,
without any intention of reflecting on their intelligence, that the
weather had a good deal to do with their entertainment, from the
spring round through the circle of flowers and snows, till beside the
melting drift they found the first May-flowers making their rosy act
of faith in the coming summer.