Indeed, she was in heart and mind and body what we should _all_ be but
for the lack of a little public spirit and self-denial (under proper
guidance) during the last few hundred years on the part of a few
thousand millions of our improvident fellow-creatures.
There should be no available ugly frames for beautiful souls to be
hurried into by carelessness or mistake, and no ugly souls should be
suffered to creep, like hermit-crabs, into beautiful shells never
intended for them. The outward and visible form should mark the inward
and spiritual grace; that it seldom does so is a fact there is no
gainsaying. Alas! such beauty is such an exception that its possessor,
like a prince of the blood royal, is pampered and spoiled from the very
cradle, and every good and generous and unselfish impulse is corroded by
adulation--that spontaneous tribute so lightly won, so quickly paid, and
accepted so royally as a due.
So that only when by Heaven's grace the very beautiful are also very
good, is it time for us to go down on our knees, and say our prayers in
thankfulness and adoration; for the divine has been permitted to make
itself manifest for a while in the perishable likeness of our
poor humanity.
A beautiful face! a beautiful tune! Earth holds nothing to beat these,
and of such, for want of better materials, we have built for ourselves
the kingdom of Heaven.
_"Plus oblige, et peut davantage
Un beau visage
Qu'un homme armé--
Et rien n'est meilleur que d'entendre
Air doux et tendre
Jadis aimé!"_
My mother soon became the passionately devoted friend of the divine
Madame Seraskier; and I, what would I not have done--what danger would I
not have faced--what death would I not have died for her!
I did not die; I lived her protestant to be, for nearly fifty years. For
nearly fifty years to recollect the rapture and the pain it was to look
at her; that inexplicable longing ache, that dumb, delicious, complex,
innocent distress, for which none but the greatest poets have ever found
expression; and which, perhaps, they have not felt half so acutely,
these glib and gifted ones, as _I_ did, at the susceptible age of seven,
eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve.
She had other slaves of my sex. The five Napoleonic heroes did homage
each after his fashion: the good Major with a kind of sweet fatherly
tenderness touching to behold; the others with perhaps less unselfish
adoration; notably the brave Capitaine Audenis, of the fair waxed
mustache and beautiful brown tail coat, so tightly buttoned with gilt
buttons across his enormous chest, and imperceptible little feet so
tightly imprisoned in shiny tipped female cloth boots, with buttons of
mother-of-pearl; whose hobby was, I believe, to try and compensate
himself for the misfortunes of war by more successful attempts in
another direction. Anyhow he betrayed a warmth that made my small bosom
a Gehenna, until she laughed and snubbed him into due propriety and
shamefaced self-effacement.
It soon became evident that she favored two, at least, out of all this
little masculine world--the Major myself; and a strange trio we made.
Her poor little daughter, the object of her passionate solicitude, a
very clever and precocious child, was the reverse of beautiful, although
she would have had fine eyes but for her red lashless lids. She wore her
thick hair cropped short, like a boy, and was pasty and sallow in
complexion, hollow-cheeked, thick-featured, and overgrown, with long
thin hands and feet, and arms and legs of quite pathetic length and
tenuity; a silent and melancholy little girl, who sucked her thumb
perpetually, and kept her own counsel. She would have to lie in bed for
days together, and when she got well enough to sit up, I (to please her
mother) would read to her _Le Robinson Suisse_, _Sandford and Merton_,
_Evenings at Home_, _Les Contes de Madame Perrault_, the shipwreck from
"Don Juan," of which we never tired, and the "Giaour," the "Corsair,"
and "Mazeppa"; and last, but not least, _Peter Parleys Natural History_,
which we got to know by heart.
And out of this latter volume I would often declaim for her benefit what
has always been to me the most beautiful poem in the world, possibly
because it was the first I read for myself, or else because it is so
intimately associated with those happy days. Under an engraving of a
wild duck (after Bewick, I believe) were quoted W.C. Bryant's lines "To
a Water-fowl." They charmed me then and charm me now as nothing else has
quite charmed me; I become a child again as I think of them, with a
child's virgin subtlety of perception and magical susceptibility to
vague suggestions of the Infinite.
Poor little Mimsey Seraskier would listen with distended eyes and quick
comprehension. She had a strange fancy that a pair of invisible beings,
"La fée Tarapatapoum," and "Le Prince Charmant" (two favorite characters
of M. le Major's) were always in attendance upon us--upon her and
me--and were equally fond of us both; that is, "La fée Tarapatapoum" of
me, and "Le Prince Charmant" of her--and watched over us and would
protect us through life.
"O! ils sont joliment bien ensemble, tous les deux--ils sont
inséparables!" she would often exclaim, _apropos_ of these visionary
beings; and _apropos_ of the water-fowl she would say--
"Il aime beaucoup cet oiseau-là, le Prince Charmant! dis encore, quand
il vole si haut, et qu'il fait froid, et qu'il est fatigué, et que la
nuit vient, mais qu'il ne veut pas descendre!"