I
A First-class old lady is the most precious social possession of a
New-England town. I have been in places where this office of Select
Woman had languished for want of a proper incumbent,--that is, where the
feminine element was always supplicatory, never authoritative. In such a
place you may find the Select Men as vulgar and unclean as are some of
the more pretentious politicians of State or nation; the variety-store
sands its sugar quite up to the city-standard; and the parson is as
timid a timeserver as the Bishop of Babylon. No rich local tone and
character are to be found in such a place.
This deplorable state of things had never existed in Foxden. When
strangers took a carriage at the depot and asked to be shown whatever
was noteworthy in the town, they were driven to a many-gabled house
shaded by a majestic oak, and informed that there lived Mrs. Widesworth,
the grand-daughter of Twynintuft, the famous elocutionist. They were
also assured that the oak was no other than the Twynintuft Oak,
celebrated in the well-known sonnet of a distinguished American poet.
Moreover, they were instructed that the room just to the right of the
porch was a study added by Twynintuft himself in the year '87, and that
the shattered shed in the background was originally an elocutionary
laboratory which had seen the forming of many Congressional orators.
In so confident a way was this information imparted, that visitors were
compelled to receive it in all humbleness, and as a matter of course.
They could only feign that Twynintuft had been a household word from
their tenderest infancy, and that they have made pilgrimage to Foxden to
gaze upon the earthly abiding-place of this remarkable man. Accordingly,
young ladies sent their best respects from the hotel, and "Would dear
Mrs. Widesworth spare them a few leaves from her grandfather's oak?" And
simple young gentlemen, with a morbid passion for notorieties and moral
sentiments, forwarded little books, bound in sheepskin heavily gilt,
inscribed, "World-Thoughts of My Country's Gifted Minds," and "Mrs.
Widesworth is requested to write any maxim which her experience of life
may have suggested on page 209 of this volume, just between the remarks
of the Living Skeleton and the autograph of the Idiot Albino."
If invited to visit any one of consideration in Foxden, you would no
sooner have deposited your travelling-bag and subsided into the
arm-chair than you would perceive a curious nervous twitching about the
features of your host, which would finally culminate in these, accents
of patronizing triumph:--"My dear Sir, I shall be glad to take you
across the street to pay your respects to Mrs. Widesworth!" Every
householder quivered with anxiety until this rite had been solemnly
performed.
Mrs. Widesworth, the actual, was a plump, well-to-do widow, of
threescore years. She lived among her fellow-creatures, but not of
them,--and that in a sense far more comfortable than Byronic misanthropy
could imagine. She managed to keep all the tumult and competition of
this rough world just outside the little whitewashed fence which
inclosed her premises. No solitary saint of the Middle Ages floated in a
more lofty independence of the foolish heresies of vulgar humanity. The
mission of woman must, of necessity, be identical with the mission of
Mrs. Widesworth,--and this was, to bestow a mellow patronage upon all
creation. That whatever is is right, and that this is the best possible
of worlds, were to Mrs. Widesworth propositions which her perfect health
and unmitigated prosperity continually proved. That, in a theological
point of view, everything was wrong, she considered an esoteric
condiment to add piquancy to the loaves and fishes which Providence had
set before her.
Concerning the eminent Twynintuft, it may be remarked that he had
devoted a long life to elocution, and produced a bulky manual full of
illustrative quavers. And as it happened that his work was the first of
the sort published in America, it obtained a pretty general circulation
in schools and colleges, and was even patronisingly noticed in a British
Review,--at that time the apotheosis of our native authorship. But, alas
for the perishable nature of literary productions! "Twynintuft on the
Human Voice" had long been superseded, and lay comfortably buried in
that cemetery of dead textbooks from which there is no resurrection.
Yet, as he had once been one of the notables of Foxden, the inhabitants
of the town indulged themselves in the soothing fiction that his memory
was still verdant among men, and did pious homage to his representative.
Until the correspondence of Colonel Prowley had drawn Miss Hurribattle
to Foxden, Mrs. Widesworth reigned by divine right. All quilting-bees
and charitable fairs seemed but manifestations of her pervading
vitality. Every social detail was submitted to her arbitrament. She
hovered over the gossips of the town like Fate in a Greek tragedy,--but
it was a reformed Fate, with a wholesome respect for family and
condition.
An entertainment widely famous as "Mrs. Widesworth's Semiannual
Singing-School" brought forth every spring and fall the entire strength
of this excellent lady. The origin of this festivity was of ancient
date. The early settlers in Foxden, while holding decided opinions
concerning the mischief of church-organs, were unusually tolerant of
vocal music. They doubted not that a preached gospel might be worthily
seconded by a vigorous psalmody. Weekly meetings of the young men and
maidens were allowed for practice, and the pot of beans, surmounted by
its crisp coronal of pork, closed the evening in simple conviviality.
This singing-school had descended through the generations, and in solemn
rotation visited the families of all church-members. Under the fostering
care of Mrs. Widesworth, the occasion grew to a musical festival of
considerable importance. When the meeting was at her house, there were
invited many citizens of distinction from the neighboring towns; also,
there was summoned all that was lively, pretty, or profound in Foxden.
From three in the afternoon until nine in the evening the old house
broke out into singing, chatting, love-making, and sermonizing in rich
variety. The ancient bean-pot gave place to a tea-table loaded with
everything which might be baked or fried or stewed. Upon that day people
in wise foresight made but slender dinners. The hostess was known to
possess a culinary experience of no ordinary scope, and the air of the
house was heavy with the delicate incense of waffles and dough-nuts.
When the evening happened to be mild, and that comfortable estate of
fulness whose adjectives the Latin Grammar tells us require the ablative
had been attained, there was more music, secular, but highly decorous,
beneath the rustling boughs of the oak. Then the merriment grew hearty,
and mocked the sombre night. In vain the crickets chirped their shrill
jeer at fallen humanity; the crackling leaves whispered,--but no more
audibly than to the painted Indians who once danced beneath the tree
which the unborn Twynintuft was to monopolize.
Perhaps you think Mrs. Widesworth a kind-hearted, charitable,
respectable old lady,--in short, a model citizeness! Many Foxden people
thought so, until, in the fulness of time, they were drugged with
iconoclastic logic, ghastly and fierce. Then this worthy person suddenly
loomed before them as a patron and upholder of every social abuse. She
was a trampler upon the rights of her sex, and deeply involved in the
guilt of baby-selling at Charleston. Above all, she was a _Moderate
Drinker_, (half a glass of Sherry with her dinner, you know,) and, as
such, could be proved to be the bulwark of the bar-room, and directly
responsible for the ruin of the most talented graduates of Harvard
College. The brutalities of every wife-beating drunkard just landed upon
our shores might be logically credited to Mrs. Widesworth, and to those
_respectable_ (with great sarcasm) _church-members_ (sarcasm more
intense) who countenanced the moderate use of intoxicating drinks.
For now there had come upon Foxden that political, sanatory,
anti-everything revival, which, in those days, thrilled through our
river-towns and took the place of the theological revival, which the
churches seemed too feeble to produce. And--but this is addressed only
to simple souls who think that Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, and Luther
instituted the Reformation--the settlement of Miss Patience Hurribattle
in a Foxden boarding-house produced the social upheaval which shook the
place. Of course, the enlightened reader of the "Atlantic" is well aware
that the mighty personages of history may be philosophically bejuggled
out of all claim to the admiration or reprobation of men. What did they
do but react on the society which created them?--what were they but the
average tendencies of an age clad in petticoats or top-boots, as the
case might be? So let it be written, that the great Cosmos-machine had
ground itself to the precise point which necessitated a reformatory
tumult in Foxden, and it mattered little who happened to be there to
patronize it.
For several previous years Miss Hurribattle had borne about her an
uncomfortable turbulence of heroic effort. She had gradually accustomed
herself to regard our crooked humanity as something capable of being
caught up and reformed by a rapacious philanthropist. She had reached a
mental condition to which the time was as thoroughly out of joint as it
ever appeared to Hamlet, although, unlike that impracticable character,
she took great comfort in the belief that she was especially born to set
it right. The choice varieties of _men_ know that truth as it is and
truth as it appears to them are very different matters. But, thank
Heaven, the feminine nature is bound by no such doleful barrier! The man
who thinks is limited; the woman who feels may expand indefinitely. Miss
Hurribattle's mission was to attract the world's capital of unemployed
sentiment, and to set it to work in the mills of society. Let it be said
of this woman, that, without wealth of talent or any exact culture, she
possessed the sweetest accompaniments of the highest masculine
genius,--enthusiasm and simplicity.
The questioning spirit gradually took form in various radical clubs and
associations. Pleasing themselves with shining symbols, and
complimenting each other with antique titles of nobility, a large
majority of the Foxden shop-keepers enlisted in the sacred crusade. This
new physical revival, like the old religious revivals, soon got into the
schools, and processions of children, fluttering many-colored ribbons,
paraded the streets. There was an Anti-Spirit League and an
Anti-Tea-and-Coffee League; also an Anti-Tobacco League was in hopeful
process of formation. And soon professional reformers of most
destructive character were attracted to the place, and, having once
attached themselves, hung like leeches upon the community. The
celebrated Mrs. Romulus, and the great socialist, Mr. Stellato, snuffing
their victims afar off, left their work unfinished in towns of less
importance, and hurried to Foxden. Shrewd wasps were these, bent upon
getting up beehives of cooperative activity. Less and less grew the
stanch garrison who must defend the conservative citadel against the
daring hordes. Nevertheless, some boldly stood out, and showed a
spirit--or shall it be said an obstinacy?--which cowed unpractised
assailants. Deacon Greenlaw had not yet been persuaded to burn his
cider-mill,--although committees of matrons had visited him to ascertain
when he proposed to do so,--although bevies of children had been dressed
in white and set upon Mrs. Greenlaw,--although Mr. Stellato, as Chief
of the Progressive Gladiators, had called in person to demand a public
destruction of that accursed instrument for the ruin of men. The Deacon
defied the moral sentiment of the town. Doctor Dastick sturdily
maintained that tea and coffee were not injurious, and had got hold of
the preventing-waste-of-tissue theory in respect to more potent
beverages. The old-fashioned hospitable soul of Colonel Prowley took
cognizance of the fact that the Odes of Horace made no unkindly mention
of ripe Falernian, and that the most admirable heroes of Plutarch do not
appear to have been teetotalers. Mrs. Widesworth, good lady, rode like a
cork upon the deep unrest of society: she thought the whole business
infidel as well as absurd, and, so thinking, did not trouble herself
much about it. Mr. Clifton had preached a sermon in which he took the
ground that morality could be best promoted by regulating, instead of
extirpating, human propensities.
Then the rising tide of reform beat heavily upon the church-doors. By
stiff, inexorable logic, those clergymen who refused to join the popular
charge against the outworks of Evil were declared to be in intimate
alliance with its very Essence. Although the Bible, as a whole, was held
in little regard by the leading reformers, they were wonderfully expert
in plucking out texts here and there, and dove-tailing them into
scaffolding to sustain their platform. The grand denunciations of
Jeremiah were shown to have been shot point-blank at our poor little
New-England meeting-houses. It was _their_ fasts and _their_ new moons
which the prophet (his prophetic claims were here generously admitted)
aimed at. Some churches stood the shock of the angry elements. But many
young ministers were borne away before the storm, and carried their
side-aisles and galleries along with them. What! had a theological
_simulacrum_ of Satan excited their fathers to doughty deeds,--and
should they hold back, when challenged to meet him in proper person,
hand to hand? Thus persuading themselves, these ardent divines caught up
bitter words which had drifted out of the dictionary, and laid about
them with a spirit not wholly removed from the old ecclesiastical rancor
which would kill where it could not convince. And taking it for granted
that it is the mission of the intellect to rectify what is wrong in the
world, fruition seemed to answer their efforts. Society was put to its
purgation in very plausible fashion. Songs about Temperance and various
desirable perfections of the outward man were shouted in bar-rooms hired
for the purpose at considerable expense. Then there was dimly seen a
further "progress," of which certain movers of the people were the warm
advocates. Having got the machinery well to work, might it not be
twitched and pulled to effect a wider purification? It began to be
hinted that the use of wine in the sacred offices of religion could not
be countenanced, if its employment elsewhere were the monster iniquity
it was shown to be. That philosophical friend of humanity, Mr. Stellato,
began to denounce the consumers of animal food with every unpleasant
illustration the shambles could be made to supply. In very select
companies of sympathizers, as well as in the Graduating Circle of
Progressive Gladiators, it was known that Mrs. Romulus maintained a
hideous doctrine subversive of that sacrament of the family which raises
the life of man above the life of the wolf and ape.
Yet of the views and endeavors of the great mass of these earnest people
we may speak only with honor and gratitude. Much good work done in that
distant year of grace remains with us to-day. Who is more practical than
the idealist? If I read history aright, it is only the white-heat of
fanaticism which brands a true word into the tough hide of society. A
supreme pursuit of one virtue by the few can alone neutralize a supreme
devotion by the many to the opposite vice. Let us rejoice that some men
and women are under the necessity of thinking no good thought which
they do not attempt to utilize at all hazards. Also, it is well not to
repine overmuch because many conscientious citizens cannot induce a
concentration of vision which directs all feeling, hissing-hot, into one
channel. They save us from the intolerable monotony of a whole world of
heroes, and leave you and me, good reader, in blessed freedom to demand
the theoretically right and ignore the practically expedient.
To the beginnings of this angry perturbation the Reverend Charles
Clifton had returned, after abandoning the Vannelle manuscript under
circumstances detailed in the last number of this magazine. To one in
his position of mind it was of the highest importance to come upon some
work that he was fitted to do. It was his unhappy destiny to be placed
just where such power as he had could accomplish nothing. Timid by
nature, a cautious lover of compromise, self-baffled in a brilliant
flutter for truth, what had he to do in a vulgar conflict of opinion, in
a common, healthy play of free thought and speech? Peering off into
immensity until he had become utterly adrift in theology, the minister
found himself too feeble to stand upon the moral basis of some practical
creed. His regular parish duties afforded but slender occupation; he had
the gift of speaking extemporaneously, or from such notes as might be
made upon the back of a letter half an hour before church; he was not
called upon to do more catechizing or visiting than was agreeable to his
mood. He accordingly yielded to an indolence of disposition which
detained his vanishing illusions, and indulged in such studies as served
to prolong the barren contemplation which had wasted his youth. My
knowledge of the secret committed for eighty years to the Mather Safe
made me the only person to whom Clifton could freely write. At some
private inconvenience, I admitted a tolerably full intercourse with my
new correspondent. He declared that the sympathy of a man in active
affairs was invaluable to a solitary student like himself: he hoped, so
he said, to see through my eyes the facts of life. It was not difficult
to discern the cause of the sad indecision which afflicted him. To state
the case roughly, he had too much knowledge for his will. Busy people
reason by instinct with sufficient accuracy, but with this man no
conviction was for five minutes free from the probe of a metaphysical
argument. Yet from glimpses I had obtained of that overwhelming System
of Things elaborated by the two Vannelles, I could understand the
condition in which its partial apprehension had left Clifton. The more I
considered certain statements, authoritatively made in the portion of
the manuscript I had dared to read, the firmer grew my belief that years
of concentrated thought and fervent speculation had indeed illuminated,
to these men, dim outlines of most august truths,--truths which some
possible, although very distant, advancement of physical science might
inductively realize. But I had made out to dismiss the matter, with the
consideration that whatever it concerned me to know could be tied to no
one method of pursuit,--and, so reflecting, returned contentedly to the
multiplex concerns with which I was then occupied. Clifton, on the
contrary, having always struggled loftily along the same narrow sunbeam,
was utterly unable to accept such available knowledge of a principle as
is sufficient to direct our activity,--he must ever soar skyward to gaze
upon the origin of its authority, until, entangled in a web of
contradictions, he fell impotent to earth.
Week by week, in my city-home, through letters from the minister and
Colonel Prowley, I had been kept informed of the progress of that wild
ferment going on in Foxden. At length the contentious spirit there
evoked seemed ready to summon to trial all ancient and reputable things.
My friends of the protesting minority were surely to be credited with
good Puritan pluck; though there was also something admirable in the
vigor which had marshalled a party for their discomfiture. I began to
think it my duty to visit Clifton; moreover, I was curious to see the
town at the height of its effervescence. A note from Mrs. Widesworth
supplied me with the needed excuse. The singing-school was to hold its
semiannual meeting at her house on Thursday next; would I not come down
for a day and meet many old friends?