THE PHILOSOPHER.
“Anxiety and Ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis of the voyage of
Life.”
RAMSAY ON HUMAN HAPPINESS.
The next morning early Emily May was over at the hall. She rode her own
saddle-horse and little Gusty rode another, behind which was fixed a
pillion, upon which Sophie was to return to the Grove—at least, so said
Mrs. May, for she persisted that Heath Hall was neither a safe nor a
proper place of residence for Miss Churchill. But neither coaxing
threats nor arguments would have prevailed with Sophie to leave the
Heath—her antipathy to Emily’s boarder was undiminished. Emily spent the
day with her, and at nightfall left, disappointed.
That evening, after the beldam and the infant were asleep, Sophie as
usual sat alone in her large old parlor. She felt a sense of security
and peace, and plied her knitting-needles diligently—her thoughts
occupied with no heavier matter than the heeling and toeing of little
Hagar’s red worsted stockings, or at most, the well-being of her cow and
calf, or her vegetable garden, for already upon the maiden had descended
matronly cares. She sat there knitting, and presently a rap—a calm,
self-possessed rap was heard at the hall door; she glanced at the old
clock in the corner, it was seven o’clock; she passed to the door and
reached it just as the rap was repeated; she opened it, and Mr. Withers,
the minister, stood before her; his thin dark figure looming up in the
moonshine.
“Good evening, Miss Churchill,” said he, stepping in, taking her hand
and pressing it gently. “You have quite recovered your fright, I trust?”
“Quite, sir,” replied Sophie, laconically, as she reluctantly led the
way into the room and set a chair for her minister on the opposite side
of her workstand. He dropped himself into it, and extending his long
legs towards the little fire, he said,—
“You were not at church last Sabbath, Miss Sophie, and it was with a
view of inquiring the reason of your absence that I came here—may I make
that inquiry now?”
“Except while with Mrs. May I have not been to church for many months.”
“May I inquire, as your pastor, why?”
“The distance is considerable; that, in Summer, would be no objection,
but during the Winter and Spring the roads are nearly impassable to a
foot passenger, and I have no conveyance.”
“Ah!” said the minister, a gleam of pleasure lighting up his dark
countenance, “then I am very happy in possessing the means of obviating
that objection; having just purchased a gig, I shall be very happy in
making a small circuit in my ride, for the purpose of taking you to
church.”
“You will be giving yourself too much trouble, sir,” said Sophie.
“Not so, my dear; you must see that to _me_ at least it will be a
pleasure.”
“You are very obliging, sir.”
Sophie’s eyes were fixed upon her knitting. She appeared to be counting
the stitches. He found it very difficult to support a conversation with
her, but he persevered, questioning her with a pastor’s privilege with a
young parishioner, upon the state of her affairs in general, her income,
the number of slaves on hire, the resources of her farm, her fishing
landing, her moor, her garden, and her dairy. She gave him laconic, but
straightforward answers, and at the end of the colloquy he mused, and,
half to himself, said, that the place had been very much abused, that
with ease it might yet be reclaimed, and a handsome property made of it;
and then, at the end of an hour, he arose and took leave.
Sophie rejoiced that his visit was at an end. Throughout his whole stay
she had not once raised her eyes to his countenance.
Two evenings from that, at the same hour, and in the same place, Sophie
sat alone, a rap was heard at the door, and again she arose, opened it,
and admitted the minister; again he found a seat at the opposite side of
her workstand; and again he freely used his pastoral privilege of
questioning her; but this time it was not upon external circumstances,
but upon the operations of her mind and heart; and how adroitly he did
it—_with his pastoral privilege_—and but for her antipathy, how easy had
been his task, with one of Sophie’s _naiveté_. Yes, she admitted, in
reply to his searching questions, that even she, young as she was,
sometimes felt life to wane and sink as though her very soul was dying
in her bosom, that sometimes life appeared to have no object worth
pursuing.
“You suffer from ennui then, Miss Churchill, perhaps you would not feel
this so much in the company of your friend, Mrs. May, would you?”
“Yes, sir, I have felt dull even with Emily.”
“Do you suffer from _ennui_ when busied in your garden, your dairy, or
at your needle-work?”
“Yes, sir, for it seems to me sometimes a sad waste of life to pass it
_only_ in feeding the stomach and clothing the back.”
Sophie was certainly beginning to be more communicative; the pastor was
drawing her out. He looked at her now with more interest than ever, as
he said—
“And yet, Miss Churchill, there is your friend, Mrs. May, who finds her
happiness in her daily life and household duties. How do you account for
her habitual cheerfulness; or do you suppose that she is ever a victim
to ennui?”
“_Never!_ But then Emily May is a ‘fine woman,’ every one says so—‘an
excellent manager’—the best housekeeper in the county, and she is happy,
busy and happy, because she deserves to be. I am, or if I could afford
it, _should_ be idle, for I am not as fond of household work as Emily
is, and I am discontented, and as idleness and discontent are sin, and
sin is misery, therefore I am sometimes miserable, it is quite plain.”
“Why don’t you overcome this sinful tendency then?”
“As yet I have not been able to do it, I resolve—”
“‘And re-resolve,’ and will be likely to ‘die the same,’ if you do not
get to the root of your malady and understand it. Your explanation” (and
the pastor smiled a slightly cynical smile) “is an orthodox piece of
theology enough, as far as it goes. Idleness is certainly sinful and a
fruitful cause of discontent, because it is opposed to the principles of
our organization; there is no atom in the universe idle for a single
instant, nor are we, even our bodies, _ever_ idle, even when sleeping,
for the heart, lungs, and brain continue to perform their functions,
even when _dead_; for when the dust returns to dust, its particles,
through a thousand ramifications, perform a thousand services in the
universe. And the mind? Is the mind _ever_ idle? Has the course of
thought been once really arrested since it first began? It has flowed in
countless millions of courses; it has been suddenly turned aside, but
has it ever stopped? Your heart has beaten, your brain worked for twenty
years, to what purpose? No, Miss Churchill, by _idleness_ you mean
misdirection of energies; and by _discontent_ the pain that naturally
follows therefrom. Listen to me, Miss Churchill.”
Sophie was listening to him with interest—these thoughts, however old,
were to the unopened mind of the young girl new and striking.
“Listen, I can explain your friend’s happiness and your own misery,
better and more satisfactorily than you have done—and by doing so,
illustrate the lesson I wish to give you; and further and more
completely to illustrate my theory, I must bring in another acquaintance
of ours, Mrs. Gardiner Green; what is her character, Sophie?”
“An elegant woman, all the neighbors say, but always in a bustle, always
overheated about something, always anxious.”
“I thought so! she will do for an illustration of my first class _à
merveille_.
“Listen then, Miss Churchill—the secret of happiness is _this_: the
striking of a just balance between the desires and the faculties; if the
desires are greater than the faculties, they will goad you on to efforts
beyond your strength, and anxiety will destroy happiness, as in the case
of Mrs. Gardiner Green, whose desires Heaven knows are low enough—being
only to shine as the bright particular star of a country neighborhood—to
have the best house, the best equipage, to wear the best dresses, and
give the best dinners; grovelling as these wishes are, they yet exceed
her faculties for accomplishing them—hence her eternal fret. I can
further illustrate this class of unfortunates by a notorious name, Aaron
Burr; brilliant as were his faculties his desires yet transcended
them—he wished to rule alike despotically over the hearts and minds of
men and women, and over the nations of the earth. In both these cases
that I have cited, one from the highest, the other from the lowest grade
of mind, the evil was the same—the balance between the faculties and the
desires was not struck. Well, Miss Churchill, you are musing—upon what?”
“I was thinking, had Aaron Burr had the power of accomplishing his
ambitious desires, or had Mrs. Gardiner Green the ability to carry out
her vain ones, would either be any happier?”
“That involves another question of moral philosophy to which we have not
arrived, and which we will not discuss just now. We are speaking of
present and positive causes of unhappiness, and not of future
contingencies, Sophie—I beg your pardon, Miss Churchill.”
“Call me Sophie, I am more accustomed to that name,” said she, rather
timidly. Truly Miss Churchill was “coming round,” and the minister felt
it, for he replied gently,
“And I am more accustomed to hear you called Sophie—and,” added he
softly, “to _think_ of you as Sophie.”
She avoided meeting his eyes, which she felt fixed upon her, and a
strange pain, dissipating all the intellectual pleasures she was
beginning to receive from his society, crept into her heart—she blamed
herself for having spoken in the manner she did.
He resumed,
“You, Sophie, belong to the second class of my unfortunates, the class
whose _faculties_ transcend their desires, whose peculiar torment is
_ennui_. You, Sophie, have some noble faculty or faculties unemployed,
and they are corroding in your bosom, and you call your suffering
discontent. Your remedy is to discover these latent faculties (for very
often these are as unknown or unsuspected by their possessor, as is some
obscure physical disease), and develope and cultivate them—it is their
suppressed life that is torturing you now—bring them out, use them, give
them a field and you will be happy.”
“But how?” said Sophie, looking up again.
“I will teach you by-and-by. Pass we now to the third class, or those
whose faculties and desires are fairly balanced, who suffer neither from
ennui on the one side nor anxiety on the other. Your friend, Mrs. May,
is a perfect example of this happy organization; her whole soul is in
her house and family; she has no wish beyond the well ordering of her
dwelling, the propriety of her dress, her table, her manners and
conversation, and the education of her son, and her faculties are fully
equal to, and not greater than her wishes; thus she is always calmly
busy and serenely happy.”
He now arose to take leave, and Sophie took the lamp to light him to the
door. When they got there he held out his hand to bid her good night; he
caught her hand, held it a moment while his glance sought her eyes, met
them, and he murmured in a low earnest voice, “Sophie.”
She withdrew her hand, dropped her eyes, and a chill crept over her
frame. He whispered “good night,” set his hat upon his head, and walked
off. His tall thin figure was soon seen stalking up and down the
undulating hills that descended to the river.
Two or three days passed and Miss Churchill saw no more of the minister.
“I wonder if he will come to-night,” had been the secret thought of
Sophie as evening approached each day; and half with dread, half with
hope, she listened for his knock. His last visit had been on Wednesday.
Saturday evening came. Sophie had completed her week’s work, and was
sitting at the window with her hands folded on her lap, and looking out
into the moonlit scene. The moon was now full, and the broad river and
the boundless bay were reflected in its light and seen between the
clumps of intervening trees. At last upon the path issuing from the
clump of trees on the left, was seen the tall figure of the minister.
Sophie withdrew from the window, and soon after Mr. Withers was admitted
by old Cumbo, who had not yet retired to bed.
“Well, Miss Churchill,” said he, advancing to her side, “have you
succeeded in discovering those faculties, whose corrosion in idleness is
giving you so much distress?”
“I cannot flatter myself, sir, with the idea of possessing any faculties
above the simple discharge of plain duties.”
“Then you are quite happy in knitting, sewing, and watching old Cumbo
milk the cows and weed the garden; and you never wish these occupations
varied except by rest and recreation?”
Sophie was silent. He had now taken a seat by her side on the settle
under the window. Sophie’s eyes were riveted abstractedly on the
opposite wall, papered with the martyrdom of St. Petronella and the four
noble Roman ladies who suffered with her; the scene represented the
martyrdom at the moment when life was offered the young saint as she
stood upon the scaffold, on condition of her recantation. She stood in
the centre of the scaffold arrayed in a scant white tunic, her white and
slender limbs exposed, her hands clasped upon her bosom, and her fine
blue eyes raised to heaven, her golden locks rolling to her waist;
behind her, leaning on his axe, whose end rested on the block, stood the
executioner; on her left hand stood the group of imperial officers, with
their offer of mercy; on her right knelt her aged father with his grey
locks streaming on the wind, his face upturned to hers in the anguish of
supplication, holding towards her a babe of a few days old—_her_ babe,
of which she had been delivered in prison—appealing to her by the
venerableness of his own grey hairs, the innocence of its infancy, and
the helplessness of both, to avoid death, to recant her faith, and to
live for them; but the eyes of the saint never fell from their high
glance, the look alike above the terror, the bribe, and the love below
her.
“Well, Miss Churchill, when you have contemplated that saint, which the
painter has martyred worse than the Pagans, to your heart’s content, you
will give me an answer, perhaps, or is it so familiar that you never see
it?”
“It is very familiar, sir, but it never wearies me; and now that you
remind me of it, I sometimes, when I have nothing to do in the house,
and when the weather is too inclement for me to go out, reproduce these
scenes with a pencil and paper, and sometimes,” said she, blushing
deeply, “illustrate them with pen and ink.”
“You draw, and write poetry; will you permit me to see some of your
productions?”
“I try, but fail in both, sir; and if you will pardon me, I would prefer
not to expose my folly further.”
The pastor urged his point in vain, Sophie gently but firmly resisted.
But at this moment old Cumbo, who had hobbled out of the room, hobbled
back, and before Sophie suspected her purpose, thrust into the pastor’s
hands a dilapidated old portfolio, grumbling out,
“I telled her so—wouldn’t b’lieve ole nigger, how de church would be
down on top ob her for make de image ob ebery ting in heaben above, in
de earf beneaf, an’ de waters under de earf. I telled her how ’twould
be.”
The minister examined the contents of the portfolio with a critic’s eye;
it was filled with very mediocre drawings, and very common-place
versicles; in vain did the pastor look for one single stray gleam of
genius; no more flashes of the fire divine were to be seen in her work
than in her own soft brown eyes. The minister returned the papers to the
portfolio, and handed it back to the old negress, who stood leaning over
her stick in chuckling expectation of hearing her young mistress soundly
lectured upon breaking the first commandment.
“This is idleness, this is play, this is not your vocation, Miss
Churchill,” and looking upon Sophie’s round face, large soft eyes, and
pouting lips, he said,
“I think after all, those strong faculties that want expression reside
in your _heart_, not in your _head_, Miss Churchill.” Then, as though he
had regretted his speech, he was suddenly silent.
After a while he arose to take leave, saying as he left the house,
“I will call at nine to-morrow, to take you to church, Sophie.”
The next morning he called in his vehicle. He found Sophie seated at the
window with little Hagar on her lap. She was teaching her to read, and
her whole countenance was irradiated with the love of her work. The
child’s little wild dark face was sparkling, too; she had succeeded in
arousing and riveting her mind. As the eyes of the minister fell through
the open window upon this scene he made two silent comments: “Her
vocation is that of a teacher,” and “That child has far more genius than
her instructress;” and then he passed by the window into the house.
“Good morning, Miss Churchill. Come, we are waiting for you. Mrs.
Gardiner Green has been kind enough to ride over with me.”
Sophie gave little Hagar into the charge of old Cumbo, and went away to
put on her bonnet. She was surprised that Mrs. Gardiner Green, who had
scarcely ever condescended to notice her, should have been so kind upon
this occasion; had Sophie Churchill known a little more of the world she
would have seen nothing strange in this change. Even when seated by her
side the affability of the lady became almost oppressive.