"They say the maxim is not new,
That good and evil mixed must be
In every thing this world can show."
--_Patty_
The next morning dawned a calm, mild day. The snow was knee-deep on the
ground and covered the housetops with a thick soft mantle. On how many
utterly different scenes the stray sunbeams rested that winter morning.
Nearly all the heroines of Miss Teazle's ball were sunk in heavy, tired
slumber, in rooms strewn with laces and flowers and other fragments of
last night's dissipation. The poor over-exerted mammas are neither able
to rise nor to sleep, and their pitiably puckered brows and sour looking
faces would excite the sympathy of the most cynical misanthrope.
And yet, perhaps if not reminded, some readers would be tasteless enough
to overlook the noble sacrifice these mothers were making of the comfort
of their lives in order to "chaperone" their stylish daughters to all
the haunts of pleasure. These poor fashionable women must indeed drain
life's cup of bitterness to the dregs, if we can judge from the worldly
girl's soliloquy.
Who rigs herself in satins light,
And goes to parties every night,
To chaperone her daughters bright?
My mother
Who eats late suppers to her grief,
Of jellied turkeys and roast beef,
And finds no dyspeptic relief
My mother
Who tries to talk with pompous air,
And saturates with dye her hair,
To gratify her daughters fair?
My mother
Who snubs our neighbor Mrs. Bell,
In poorer days we knew so well,
And tales of woe did often tell?
My mother
Who calls at Ridleau and all round,
Where rank and titles do abound,
And boasts of cousins newly found?
My mother
Who fears to bow to poorer kin,
For fear her daughters will begin
To growl and scold as though 'twere sin!
My mother.
I give the intelligent reader ten minutes to pause and moralize after
digestion.
I anticipate the look of stupid wonder that must necessarily envelope
the face. If there is so much in individual influence in the lower
circle, what can one expect from the multitude that must submit to a
thousand other decrees coming imperatively from the infallible (?) lips
of society herself? How can we do otherwise than substitute for truth
and simplicity, deception and affectation? What else can we do but fail
to recognise one another in the characters we are forced to assume? Is
it surprising that good and wise men from their corners of seclusion
call the world degenerate, and wonder at the persistent wrong-doing of
those who are the work of such merciful hands? Strange to say, most of
us know, or pretend to know, that life is all deception; that the world
itself, and those who belong to it are essentially, almost necessarily,
selfish; that the goodness and charity which circulate at rare intervals
are only the superfluidities of comfort, proceeding from no generous
impulse whatever. It is not dealt out at the sacrifice of a crust of
bread. It is given so that it may not be left.
Oh, the weakness of humanity after nineteen centuries of fortification!
Oh, the despicable degradation of a race conceived in an Eternal Mind,
created by an Infinite Hand, redeemed by the voluntary sacrifice of a
God, and sanctified by the Spirit that pervades the universe!
Knowing this, realizing this, as most of us do, why do we not make a
move towards independence? Not the independence of the State, that
gratifies the paltry ambition of thousands, not that social independence
whose meaning has of late been so shamefully misapplied, not even the
individual independence that satisfies many. These are but names. I mean
that independence that leaves one unfettered by one's self, that makes
one victor over one's own evil tendencies and impulses--for man has no
enemy so cunning as himself. If he cannot conquer his own inclinations
to error, how is he going to subdue them in others?
If we are slaves, mentally and morally to our sensual selves--if we
raise the material element above the spiritual within us, we then lose
the right of opinion on good or evil, for a man that is passion's slave
is the mouth-piece of evil, and an active agent of the enemy of mankind!
If we open our volumes of literature, every page bears a reflection of
some kind on these things.
For instance, see what a great writer says, speaking of the deception in
life:
"I am weary
Of the bewildering masquerade of life--
Where strangers walk as friends and friends as strangers,
Where whispers overhead betray false hearts;
And through the mazes of the crowd we chase
Some form of loveliness that smiles and beckons.
And cheats us with fair words, to leave us
A mockery and a jest, maddened, confused--
Not knowing friend from foe."
Every one who chooses to think at all has a thought in common on the
question. In a biography of George Eliot, Hutton speaks of the manners
of good society as "a kind of social costume or disguise which is in
fact much more effective in concealing how much of depth ordinary
characters have, and in restraining the expression of universal human
instincts and feelings, than in hiding individualities the
distinguishing inclinations, talents, bias and tastes of those who
assume them. After all, what we care chiefly to know of men and women is
not so much their special bias or tastes as the general depths and mass
of the human nature that is in them--the breadth and power of their
life, its comprehensiveness of grasp, its tenacity of instinct, its
capacity for love and its need for trust."
I fear we will never find this among the leading men and women of our
day. Great minds, like George Eliot's, when they wish to spend their
genius in written books, will leave the lighted hall where refinement
and _bon-ton_ hold their nightly revels, and will descend to the huts of
laborers and mechanics that form one distinct phase of English life.
Like Charlotte Bronte, and some others, she seeks substance for her work
in a true, open character, and that is rarely found among the educated
classes, who learn from books to unlearn the lessons of nature.
We will now leave the "lollipop" darlings of material nature and pass on
out of their dishevelled untidy rooms, leaving their painted faces and
powdered heads to spin out the late morning among the blankets,--and
seek gratification elsewhere. It is breakfast-time in Henry Rayne's
house and the curling steam rises in graceful clouds from the hot tasty
dishes that Mrs. Potts concocts with so much art. Honor, Nanette and Mr.
Rayne are as usual the only participants of the wholesome things. Honor
has just come in, fresh and rosy, all smiles as she steps up to Mr.
Rayne's chair with a cheery good-morning. Then kneeling beside her
guardian, and looking into his kindly face, she says shyly:
"I have something to tell you all, a surprise, and don't begin breakfast
before you know it. If I were not a little orphan this morning, I would
let it pass likely, but having only you and Nanette I must tell you,
that you may not spare your kind wishes for me. To-day is my twentieth
birthday!"
Mr. Rayne rose instantly to his feet and his eyes looked suspiciously
moist as he kissed her tenderly on the brow. Then Honor turned to
Nanette, but the poor woman was weeping mournfully in her blue
handkerchief.
"I'll never forgive myself," she was saying, "to have forgotten your
birthday above everything else, and your dear kind father when he gave
you to me, a tiny thing in my arms, said, 'she will be a year the 24th
February, don't ever forget the day,' and there it slipped from me this
time and I never thought of it."
Honor flung her arms round the old creature's neck and drowned her
reproaches in a volley of kisses.
"Don't mind that Nanny dear, say you wish me a good Christian life for
the next year and you will have done your duty."
"God grant it you, my pretty child."
"Amen," answered Mr. Rayne's deep voice as he left the room.
Honor looked up surprised, but in a few moments her guardian returned
with a morocco jewel case in his hands. He placed it in hers, saying,
"My you live to wear it out in goodness and virtue, and may God spare
you from the snares of this wicked world."
With trembling fingers Honor opened the little box which revealed to
view a spangling collection of diamonds. It was an oval locket,
profusely set with diamonds with her initials turned artfully on the
surface. Inside were the miniature pictures of her father and mother.
She laid down the costly gift and went over to her benefactor with
tear-dimmed eyes. She put both her slender arms around his neck and
pressed one long fervent kiss upon the old man's brow.
"Are you determined, dear Mr. Rayne, to put me under an everlasting
obligation to you? Are you not satisfied with bestowing those tokens
that I might in time repay by constant love and care, without forcing
such a splendid gift as this on me? Really your kindness begins to make
me uncomfortable, for it is amounting to a debt I can never repay. And
where did you get these dear, dear pictures, and how did you have it
ready and all for my birthday?"
"Well, my dear, say we sit down and I'll answer all your questions to
the music of knives and forks. I have had a miniature likeness of your
father in my possession for many years, and it had often struck me, if I
could but procure one of your mother's too, how it would please me to
have them set together in a locket for you. The other day I was taken
nicely out of my dilemma by finding an old-fashioned locket of yours by
the fire in the library. I borrowed it for the short space of a few days
until I had copies taken from it, and then Nanette kindly slipped it
back into your jewel-case for me. I then ordered the little receptacle
that you have admired so much and I only received the whole last night.
Strangely enough too, that it should have come just in time. I would
have given it to you immediately anyway, because of something I am going
to discuss with you in the library after breakfast."
Honor was still looking intently down at the open case beside her plate
when he finished the last sentence, but she looked up suddenly as he
ceased, with a glance of eager inquiry in her eyes.
"It may startle you, Honor, or may not, but we'll see to that."
A little more rattling of plates and cutlery, a few more clouds of steam
from the rich coffee, a series of disconnected gay sentences and
ejaculations and the meal was over. The grave tones of Mr. Rayne's voice
filled the room in a prayer of thanksgiving, and with the last echo of
the "Amen," Honor and her guardian came out from the dining-room into
the library arm in arm.