"I am going to build a cathedral one of these days," said I to my
wife, as I sat looking at the slant line of light made by the
afternoon sun on our picture of the Cathedral of Milan.
"That picture is one of the most poetic things you have among your
house ornaments," said Rudolph. "Its original is the world's chief
beauty,--a tribute to religion such as Art never gave before and never
can again,--as much before the Pantheon as the Alps, with their virgin
snows and glittering pinnacles, are above all temples made with hands.
Say what you will, those Middle Ages that you call Dark had a glory of
faith that never will be seen in our days of cotton-mills and
Manchester prints. Where will you marshal such an army of saints as
stands in yonder white-marble forest, visibly transfigured and
glorified in that celestial Italian air? Saintship belonged to the
medieval Church; the heroism of religion has died with it."
"That's just like one of your assertions, Rudolph," said I. "You might
as well say that Nature has never made any flowers since Linnaeus shut
up his herbarium. We have no statues and pictures of modern saints;
but saints themselves, thank God, have never been wanting. 'As it was
in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be'"--
"But what about your cathedral?" said my wife.
"Oh yes!--my cathedral,--yes. When my stocks in cloud-land rise, I'll
build a cathedral larger than Milan's; and the men, but more
particularly the women, thereon, shall be those who have done even
more than Saint Paul tells of in the saints of old, who 'subdued
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, quenched the violence of fire,
escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed
valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.' I am not
now thinking of Florence Nightingale, nor of the host of women who
have been walking worthily in her footsteps, but of nameless saints of
more retired and private state,--domestic saints, who have tended
children not their own through whooping-cough and measles, and borne
the unruly whims of fretful invalids,--stocking-darning, shirt-making
saints,--saints who wore no visible garment of haircloth, bound
themselves with no belts of spikes and nails, yet in their inmost
souls were marked and seared with the red cross of a lifelong
self-sacrifice,--saints for whom the mystical terms self-annihilation
and self-crucifixion had a real and tangible meaning, all the stronger
because their daily death was marked by no outward sign. No mystical
rites consecrated them; no organ-music burst forth in solemn rapture
to welcome them; no habit of their order proclaimed to themselves and
the world that they were the elect of Christ, the brides of another
life: but small, eating cares, daily prosaic duties, the petty
friction of all the littleness and all the inglorious annoyances of
every day, were as dust that hid the beauty and grandeur of their
calling even from themselves; they walked unknown even to their
households, unknown even to their own souls; but when the Lord comes
to build his New Jerusalem, we shall find many a white stone with a
new name thereon, and the record of deeds and words which only He that
seeth in secret knows. Many a humble soul will be amazed to find that
the seed it sowed in such weakness, in the dust of daily life, has
blossomed into immortal flowers under the eye of the Lord.
"When I build my cathedral, that woman," I said, pointing to a small
painting by the fire, "shall be among the first of my saints. You
see her there, in an every-day dress-cap with a mortal thread-lace
border, and with a very ordinary worked collar, fastened by a
visible and terrestrial breastpin. There is no nimbus around her
head, no sign of the cross upon her breast; her hands are clasped
on no crucifix or rosary. Her clear, keen, hazel eye looks as if it
could sparkle with mirthfulness, as in fact it could; there are in
it both the subtile flash of wit and the subdued light of humor;
and though the whole face smiles, it has yet a certain decisive
firmness that speaks the soul immutable in good. That woman shall be
the first saint in my cathedral, and her name shall be recorded as
Saint Esther. What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished
from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and
greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic. To
be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in
the insipid details of every-day life, is a virtue so rare as to be
worthy of canonization,--and this virtue was hers. New England
Puritanism must be credited with the making of many such women.
Severe as was her discipline, and harsh as seems now her rule, we
have yet to see whether women will be born of modern systems of
tolerance and indulgence equal to those grand ones of the olden
times whose places now know them no more. The inconceivable
austerity and solemnity with which Puritanism invested this mortal
life, the awful grandeur of the themes which it made household
words, the sublimity of the issues which it hung upon the commonest
acts of our earthly existence, created characters of more than Roman
strength and greatness; and the good men and women of Puritan
training excelled the saints of the Middle Ages, as a soul fully
developed intellectually, educated to closest thought, and exercised
in reasoning, is superior to a soul great merely through impulse
and sentiment.
"My earliest recollections of Aunt Esther, for so our saint was known,
were of a bright-faced, cheerful, witty, quick-moving little
middle-aged person, who came into our house like a good fairy whenever
there was a call of sickness or trouble. If an accident happened in
the great roystering family of eight or ten children (and when was not
something happening to some of us?), and we were shut up in a
sick-room, then duly as daylight came the quick step and cheerful face
of Aunt Esther,--not solemn and lugubrious like so many sick-room
nurses, but with a never failing flow of wit and story that could
beguile even the most doleful into laughing at their own afflictions.
I remember how a fit of the quinsy--most tedious of all sicknesses to
an active child--was gilded and glorified into quite a fete by my
having Aunt Esther all to myself for two whole days, with nothing to
do but amuse me. She charmed me into smiling at the very pangs which
had made me weep before, and of which she described her own
experiences in a manner to make me think that, after all, the quinsy
was something with an amusing side to it. Her knowledge of all sorts
of medicines, gargles, and alleviatives, her perfect familiarity with
every canon and law of good nursing and tending, was something that
could only have come from long experience in those good old New
England days when there were no nurses recognized as a class in the
land, but when watching and the care of the sick were among those
offices of Christian life which the families of a neighborhood
reciprocally rendered each other. Even from early youth she had obeyed
a special vocation as sister of charity in many a sick-room, and, with
the usual keen intelligence of New England, had widened her powers of
doing good by the reading of medical and physiological works. Her
legends of nursing in those days of long typhus fever and other
formidable and protracted forms of disease were to our ears quite
wonderful, and we regarded her as a sort of patron saint of the
sick-room. She seemed always so cheerful, so bright, and so devoted,
that it never occurred to us youngsters to doubt that she enjoyed,
above all things, being with us, waiting on us all day, watching over
us by night, telling us stories, and answering, in her lively and
always amusing and instructive way, that incessant fire of questions
with which a child persecutes a grown person.
"Sometimes, as a reward of goodness, we were allowed to visit her in
her own room, a neat little parlor in the neighborhood, whose
windows looked down a hillside on one hand, under the boughs of an
apple-orchard, where daisies and clover and bobolinks always
abounded in summer time; and on the other faced the street, with a
green yard flanked by one or two shady elms between them and the
street. No nun's cell was ever neater, no bee's cell ever more
compactly and carefully arranged; and to us, familiar with the
confusion of a great family of little ones, there was always something
inviting about its stillness, its perfect order, and the air of
thoughtful repose that breathed over it. She lived there in
perfect independence, doing, as it was her delight to do, every office
of life for herself. She was her own cook, her own parlor and
chamber maid, her own laundress; and very faultless the cooking,
washing, ironing, and care of her premises were. A slice of Aunt
Esther's gingerbread, one of Aunt Esther's cookies, had, we all
believed, certain magical properties such as belonged to no other
mortal mixture. Even a handful of walnuts that were brought from the
depths of her mysterious closet had virtues in our eyes such as no
other walnuts could approach. The little shelf of books that hung
suspended by cords against her wall was sacred in our regard; the
volumes were like no other books; and we supposed that she derived
from them those stores of knowledge on all subjects which she
unconsciously dispensed among us,--for she was always telling us
something of metals, or minerals, or gems, or plants, or animals,
which awakened our curiosity, stimulated our inquiries, and, above
all, led us to wonder where she had learned it all. Even the
slight restrictions which her neat habits imposed on our breezy and
turbulent natures seemed all quite graceful and becoming. It was
right, in our eyes, to cleanse our shoes on scraper and mat with
extra diligence, and then to place a couple of chips under the heels
of our boots when we essayed to dry our feet at her spotless
hearth. We marveled to see our own faces reflected in a thousand
smiles and winks from her bright brass andirons,--such andirons we
thought were seen on earth in no other place,--and a pair of radiant
brass candlesticks, that illustrated the mantelpiece, were viewed
with no less respect.
"Aunt Esther's cat was a model for all cats,--so sleek, so intelligent,
so decorous and well-trained, always occupying exactly her own cushion
by the fire, and never transgressing in one iota the proprieties
belonging to a cat of good breeding. She shared our affections with
her mistress, and we were allowed as a great favor and privilege,
now and then, to hold the favorite on our knees, and stroke her
satin coat to a smoother gloss.
"But it was not for cats alone that she had attractions. She was in
sympathy and fellowship with everything that moved and lived; knew
every bird and beast with a friendly acquaintanceship. The squirrels
that inhabited the trees in the front yard were won in time by her
blandishments to come and perch on her window-sills, and thence, by
trains of nuts adroitly laid, to disport themselves on the shining
cherry tea-table that stood between the windows; and we youngsters
used to sit entranced with delight as they gamboled and waved their
feathery tails in frolicsome security, eating rations of gingerbread
and bits of seedcake with as good a relish as any child among us.
"The habits, the rights, the wrongs, the wants, and the sufferings of
the animal creation formed the subject of many an interesting
conversation with her; and we boys, with the natural male instinct of
hunting, trapping, and pursuing, were often made to pause in our
career, remembering her pleas for the dumb things which could not
speak for themselves.
"Her little hermitage was the favorite resort of numerous friends.
Many of the young girls who attended the village academy made her
acquaintance, and nothing delighted her more than that they should
come there and read to her the books they were studying, when her
superior and wide information enabled her to light up and explain much
that was not clear to the immature students.
"In her shady retirement, too, she was a sort of Egeria to certain men
of genius, who came to read to her their writings, to consult her in
their arguments, and to discuss with her the literature and politics
of the day,--through all which her mind moved with an equal step, yet
with a sprightliness and vivacity peculiarly feminine.
"Her memory was remarkably retentive, not only of the contents of
books, but of all that great outlying fund of anecdote and story which
the quaint and earnest New England life always supplied. There were
pictures of peculiar characters, legends of true events stranger than
romance, all stored in the cabinets of her mind; and these came from
her lips with the greater force because the precision of her memory
enabled her to authenticate them with name, date, and circumstances of
vivid reality. From that shadowy line of incidents which marks the
twilight boundary between the spiritual world and the present life she
drew legends of peculiar clearness, but invested with the mysterious
charm which always dwells in that uncertain region; and the shrewd
flash of her eye, and the keen, bright smile with which she answered
the wondering question, 'What _do_ you suppose it was?' or, 'What
could it have been?' showed how evenly rationalism in her mind kept
pace with romance.
"The retired room in which she thus read, studied, thought, and
surveyed from afar the whole world of science and literature, and in
which she received friends and entertained children, was perhaps the
dearest and freshest spot to her in the world. There came a time,
however, when the neat little independent establishment was given up,
and she went to associate herself with two of her nieces in keeping
house for a boarding-school of young girls. Here her lively manners
and her gracious interest in the young made her a universal favorite,
though the cares she assumed broke in upon those habits of solitude
and study which formed her delight. From the day that she surrendered
this independency of hers, she had never, for more than a score of
years, a home of her own, but filled the trying position of an
accessory in the home of others. Leaving the boarding-school, she
became the helper of an invalid wife and mother in the early nursing
and rearing of a family of young children,--an office which leaves no
privacy and no leisure. Her bed was always shared with some little
one; her territories were exposed to the constant inroads of little
pattering feet; and all the various sicknesses and ailments of
delicate childhood made absorbing drafts upon her time.
"After a while she left New England with the brother to whose
family she devoted herself. The failing health of the wife and mother
left more and more the charge of all things in her hands; servants
were poor, and all the appliances of living had the rawness and
inconvenience which in those days attended Western life. It became her
fate to supply all other people's defects and deficiencies.
Wherever a hand failed, there must her hand be. Whenever a foot
faltered, she must step into the ranks. She was the one who thought
for and cared for and toiled for all, yet made never a claim that any
one should care for her.
"It was not till late in my life that I became acquainted with the
deep interior sacrifice, the constant self-abnegation, which all
her life involved. She was born with a strong, vehement, impulsive
nature,--a nature both proud and sensitive,--a nature whose tastes
were passions, whose likings and whose aversions were of the most
intense and positive character. Devoted as she always seemed to
the mere practical and material, she had naturally a deep romance
and enthusiasm of temperament which exceeded all that can be
written in novels. It was chiefly owing to this that a home and a
central affection of her own were never hers. In her early days of
attractiveness, none who would have sought her could meet the high
requirements of her ideality; she never saw her hero, and so never
married. Family cares, the tending of young children, she often
confessed, were peculiarly irksome to her. She had the head of a
student, a passionate love for the world of books. A Protestant
convent, where she might devote herself without interruption to
study, was her ideal of happiness. She had, too, the keenest
appreciation of poetry, of music, of painting, and of natural
scenery. Her enjoyment in any of these things was intensely vivid
whenever, by chance, a stray sunbeam of the kind darted across the
dusty path of her life; yet in all these her life was a constant
repression. The eagerness with which she would listen to any account
from those more fortunate ones who had known these things, showed
how ardent a passion was constantly held in check. A short time before
her death, talking with a friend who had visited Switzerland, she
said, with great feeling: 'All my life my desire to visit the
beautiful places of this earth has been so intense, that I cannot
but hope that after my death I shall be permitted to go and look at
them.'
"The completeness of her self-discipline may be gathered from the fact
that no child could ever be brought to believe she had not a natural
fondness for children, or that she found the care of them burdensome.
It was easy to see that she had naturally all those particular habits,
those minute pertinacities in respect to her daily movements and the
arrangement of all her belongings, which would make the meddling,
intrusive demands of infancy and childhood peculiarly hard for her to
meet. Yet never was there a pair of toddling feet that did not make
free with Aunt Esther's room, never a curly head that did not look up,
in confiding assurance of a welcome smile, to her bright eyes. The
inconsiderate and never ceasing requirements of children and invalids
never drew from her other than a cheerful response; and to my mind
there is more saintship in this than in the private wearing of any
number of haircloth shirts or belts lined with spikes.
"In a large family of careless, noisy children there will be constant
losing of thimbles and needles and scissors; but Aunt Esther was
always ready, without reproach, to help the careless and the luckless.
Her things, so well kept and so treasured, she was willing to lend,
with many a caution and injunction, it is true, but also with a relish
of right good will. And, to do us justice, we generally felt the
sacredness of the trust, and were more careful of her things than of
our own. If a shade of sewing-silk were wanting, or a choice button,
or a bit of braid or tape, Aunt Esther cheerfully volunteered
something from her well-kept stores, not regarding the trouble she
made herself in seeking the key, unlocking the drawer, and searching
out in bag or parcel just the treasure demanded. Never was more
perfect precision, or more perfect readiness to accommodate others.
"Her little income, scarcely reaching a hundred dollars yearly, was
disposed of with a generosity worthy a fortune. One tenth was
sacredly devoted to charity, and a still further sum laid by every
year for presents to friends. No Christmas or New Year ever came
round that Aunt Esther, out of this very tiny fund, did not find
something for children and servants. Her gifts were trifling in
value, but well timed,--a ball of thread-wax, a paper of pins, a
pin-cushion,--something generally so well chosen as to show that
she had been running over our needs, and noting what to give. She
was no less gracious as receiver than as giver. The little articles
that we made for her, or the small presents that we could buy out
of our childish resources, she always declared were exactly what she
needed; and she delighted us by the care she took of them and the
value she set upon them.
"Her income was a source of the greatest pleasure to her, as
maintaining an independence without which she could not have been
happy. Though she constantly gave to every family in which she lived
services which no money could repay, it would have been the greatest
trial to her not to be able to provide for herself. Her dress, always
that of a true gentlewoman,--refined, quiet, and neat,--was bought
from this restricted sum, and her small traveling expenses were paid
out of it. She abhorred anything false or flashy: her caps were
trimmed with real thread lace, and her silk dresses were of the best
quality, perfectly well made and kept; and, after all, a little sum
always remained over in her hands for unforeseen exigencies.
"This love of independence was one of the strongest features of her
life, and we often playfully told her that her only form of
selfishness was the monopoly of saintship,--that she who gave so much
was not willing to allow others to give to her; that she who made
herself servant of all was not willing to allow others to serve her.
"Among the trials of her life must be reckoned much ill health, borne,
however, with such heroic patience that it was not easy to say when
the hand of pain was laid upon her. She inherited, too, a tendency to
depression of spirits, which at times increased to a morbid and
distressing gloom. Few knew or suspected these sufferings, so
completely had she learned to suppress every outward manifestation
that might interfere with the happiness of others. In her hours of
depression she resolutely forbore to sadden the lives of those around
her with her own melancholy, and often her darkest moods were so
lighted up and adorned with an outside show of wit and humor, that
those who had known her intimately were astonished to hear that she
had ever been subject to depression.
"Her truthfulness of nature amounted almost to superstition. From her
promise once given she felt no change of purpose could absolve her;
and therefore rarely would she give it absolutely, for she _could not_
alter the thing that had gone forth from her lips. Our belief in the
certainty of her fulfilling her word was like our belief in the
immutability of the laws of nature. Whoever asked her got of her the
absolute truth on every subject, and, when she had no good thing to
say, her silence was often truly awful. When anything mean or
ungenerous was brought to her knowledge, she would close her lips
resolutely; but the flash in her eyes showed what she would speak were
speech permitted. In her last days she spoke to a friend of what she
had suffered from the strength of her personal antipathies. 'I thank
God,' she said, 'that I believe at last I have overcome all that too,
and that there has not been, for some years, any human being toward
whom I have felt a movement of dislike.'
"The last year of her life was a constant discipline of unceasing
pain, borne with that fortitude which could make her an entertaining
and interesting companion even while the sweat of mortal agony was
starting from her brow. Her own room she kept as a last asylum, to
which she would silently retreat when the torture became too intense
for the repression of society, and there alone, with closed doors, she
wrestled with her agony. The stubborn independence of her nature took
refuge in this final fastness, and she prayed only that she might go
down to death with the full ability to steady herself all the way,
needing the help of no other hand.
"The ultimate struggle of earthly feeling came when this proud
self-reliance was forced to give way, and she was obliged to leave
herself helpless in the hands of others. 'God requires that I should
give up my last form of self-will,' she said; 'now I have resigned
this, perhaps He will let me go home.'
"In a good old age, Death, the friend, came and opened the door of
this mortal state, and a great soul, that had served a long
appenticeship to little things, went forth into the joy of its Lord; a
life of self-sacrifice and self-abnegation passed into a life of
endless rest."
"But," said Rudolph, "I rebel at this life of self-abnegation and
self-sacrifice. I do not think it the duty of noble women, who have
beautiful natures and enlarged and cultivated tastes, to make
themselves the slaves of the sick-room and nursery."
"Such was not the teaching of our New England faith," said I.
"Absolute unselfishness,--the death of self,--such were its teachings,
and such as Esther's the characters it made. 'Do the duty nearest
thee' was the only message it gave to 'women with a mission;' and from
duty to duty, from one self-denial to another, they rose to a majesty
of moral strength impossible to any form of mere self-indulgence. It
is of souls thus sculptured and chiseled by self-denial and
self-discipline that the living temple of the perfect hereafter is to
be built. The pain of the discipline is short, but the glory of the
fruition is eternal."