"Would you had thought twice,
Ah! if you had but follow'd my advice."
--_Byron._
We left Guy in Mr. Rayne's study, in sore trouble as to how he could
evade the task set him, and join his rioting friends in their proposed
amusement. He scratched his head and made countless agonizing grimaces;
he walked the room in long strides, until his patience had reached an
almost impossible limit. Then he thought better of it, and decided to
hold a calm, cool and collected council with himself. It was plain to
his one-sided judgment that he was called upon to act, and to act
immediately. But this was easier said than done. It is simple enough for
a fellow to strike splendid chords on the piano, merely by ear, or in a
moment of impromptu genius he may construct some wonderful little piece
of mechanism; Guy felt that he could achieve countless feats such as
these, but he'd be blessed if he could master a double-locked window, or
door, through any innate talent, on a dark night, when every one is just
asleep sound enough to start at the slightest noise. He had persuaded
himself, by means of such fallacies, as come unbidden to the susceptible
heart in the hour of temptation, that he must go out to-night by fair
means or foul. Once decided, he did not hesitate to act, every one had
retired, and surely he might steal out unobserved. The chances were he
could get back the same way, and there would be nothing more about his
little escapade. Noiselessly, stealthily, he collected the articles of
his street wear, and rolling them up in a bundle, laid them by the
window. Then nervously, and fearfully, he began the work of undoing the
fierce looking bolt over the window. Every one of those queer little
noises, the voices of the night, seemed to Guy the words of his uncle
reproaching him with his disobedience. Once as he was just about to
raise the lower part of the window, a coal gave away in the grate, and
the rattle that followed its fall made him quake with fear.
Finally all was silent as Guy held his breath in eager listening, and
making a desperate attempt he lifted the ponderous frame slowly and
secured it above. Directly under it was the roof of a small balcony that
shaded the side of the house. In the summer time it was covered with
green vines, which climbed to the very top, but now the stiff withered
leaves and dry branches, rustled and cracked in a horrible way as Guy
threw down first his bundle, and then proceeded to follow it himself
"the devils' children, have the devils' luck," it is said, and it
certainly often looks as if that luck was the luckiest of all.
Without scratch, or hindrance of any kind, Elersley reached the ground,
and as he buttoned up his overcoat, matters commenced to look
beautifully smooth and easy. He half-expected that the jolly dogs had
started on their trip without him, but he was sure of finding company in
a great many other places besides, if the first failed him. He was
emerging in all possible haste from the gate-way of his uncle's house
when he was accosted by the police-man on beat in that vicinity. Here
was a "fix." Guy was almost in despair, and it was only on producing
cards, and letters, and other substantial proofs of his identity that he
was left go. He made a quiet determination to have a good time after
such hardships as he had endured, and indeed his determination did not
fall too short of the mark. It would scarcely interest the readers to
follow Guy Elersley any farther than the gloomy street corner to-night;
though perhaps many of them may have often followed his prototype in
spirit to such haunts as midnight revellers frequent. Did we accompany
him we would have to tear away that opaque barrier, that many young
polished gentlemen, have built up before the eyes of their _day_
acquaintances; we would have to call forth tears of bitter bitter
anguish, from trusting sorrowing mothers, who are at this same moment
praying God on bended knees, to save their wild wayward boys. We would
pierce the hearts of many pure confiding girls, who are buried in dreams
of future happiness, and who would not dare suspect the awful truths
that are born of the midnight hours. There are, therefore, too many
innocent ones interested; too many mothers to wail; too many sisters to
bow their heads in shame; too many young loving hearts that would burst
were one to spell out the truth in legible characters. "They have eyes
and they see not," let us mercifully leave them in their blindness.
Think of all that Guy had encountered to gratify the paltry ambition
born of a moment s passionate desire; a soul so young, almost fresh from
the hands of the Creator, and yet to be so covered with iniquities! How
soon he had learned to jest and laugh at good, and to make his religion
the worship of the senses. Saying with Byron,
"Man being reasonable, must get drunk,
The best of lift is but intoxication,"
and striving to find in the wine-cup, the satisfaction that our inner
nature craves, trying to feed a soul, hungry for the beauties and
perfections of the invisible world, with the poisonous food of
sensuality. Let us say to it with Shakspeare,
"O thou invisible spirit of wine,
If thou hast no name to be known by
Let us call thee 'devil.'"
And lest these words betray any of the personal indignation that
suggests itself at the moment the reflections upon such lives are
indulged in, the voice of this same great poet ran be heard again
telling in his emphatic terms,
"I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
The knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine."
But we have only to look around us intelligently to find the secret out
ourselves. Society is at the acme of sensuality; it has reached the
strangest antithetical condition. It is degraded in its excessive
refinement; it is coarse and repulsive in its cultivation, it is
ignorant in its enlightenment. Necessarily all this is the effect of a
cause, but such a pitiful cause! The total wreck of man's best element.
The once individual corruption has spread its fearful contagion until it
has become universal; falsehood is disguised in truth, vice in virtue,
and fraud and diplomacy in honesty. If women are expected to live in
blissful ignorance of this movement, that expectation is a crowning
audacity, for woman's life is destined to be one of action, and she will
not sacrifice her noble mission through purely human motives. She means
to save her brother, her lover, her husband, her son, even if the effort
includes the forfeiture of her title of woman in the eyes of society.
Thus it is, we have been persuaded into an unpremeditated leniency
towards the sterner sex, blotting out the pictures of their vicious
lives, not indeed to spare them in the very least, but only to save the
blush, the sigh, the tear of many a woman whose heart is nigh enough to
breaking without a stronger hand striking the last blow in the cruel
work of laying bare the awful, the contemptible reality which fills
their lives with bitterness and heart-burnings.
We will, then, caution and advise without explaining, and call on our
co-laborers to make a grand effort towards reformation, telling them
that from the heart of the great cities there rises a wail of sorrow and
desolation, that must fall on their ears like a cry of distress from the
poor suffering stricken ones, that they must rise bravely,
spontaneously, and joining hands they must come nobly to the rescue. It
is their lawful, binding duty to reclaim. We must save from the wreck at
least those "little ones" that are growing up around us, "for of such is
the Kingdom of Heaven." Why need they ever know the experience that is
drunk in the wine cup? Why must they, too, walk in the well-printed
footsteps of vice that their elders are treading before them? They must
not; they shall not; they dare not! if they have noble women to direct
them, to inspire them with great and holy and generous thoughts, to draw
them round the family fireside, to gratify their eager hearts with
innocent amusements that elevate the mind and bring the soul nearer to
God. Where are the mothers now, who, like Blanche of Castile, can say to
their sons, "My child, I would rather see thee dead at my feet than that
thou shouldst offend God mortally." Alas! if in our city alone, mothers
were to re-echo that wish and have it granted, many a strong youth would
be laid in his coffin before night!
Mothers and sisters will ask, "What can one woman do by herself?" What
good? If every mother sends a St. Louis to eternity before her, is not
that a magnificent influence on society, and who denies it? Be not
discouraged then--withdraw the misplaced sympathies that have been
enlisted by thrilling manuscripts or exciting anecdotes in the cause of
missions and religious undertakings abroad. At home, within your own
most intimate circle you have a mighty field for your labors. Hearts to
which you are closely attached are sadly in need of your attention, and
while you are so solicitous in providing for corporal necessities and
comforts, forget not the poverty, the destitution of the moral nature.
Wrap the robe of innocence and repentance round the heart that is naked
and susceptible to all the influences of foul weather. Go bravely forth
in the bark of divine charity and save the soul that is tossing
helplessly on an angry sea, without food or support or safety, plunging
into irremediable debauchery, as Guy Elersley is to-night.