There can be no doubt that he had profited greatly in his moral

condition, as well as in his bodily health, by the greater

tranquillity which he enjoyed in the society of Mary, and also by the

sympathy which gave full play to his ideas, instead of diverting and

disappointing them. She was, indeed, herself a woman of extraordinary

power, of heart as well as head. Many circumstances conspired to

conceal some of her natural faculties. She lost her mother very young;

her father--speaking with great diffidence, from a very slight and

imperfect knowledge--appeared to me a harsh and ungenial man. She

inherited from him her thin voice, but not the steel-edged sharpness

of his own; and she inherited, not from him, but from her mother, a

largeness of heart that entered proportionately into the working

of her mind. She had a masculine capacity for study; for, though I

suspect her early schooling was irregular, she remained a student all

her life, and by painstaking industry made herself acquainted with

any subject that she had to handle. Her command of history and

her imaginative power are shown in such books as "Valperga" and

"Castruccio"; but the daring originality of her mind comes out most

distinctly in her earliest published work, "Frankenstein." Its leading

idea has been ascribed to her husband, but, I am sure, unduly; and the

vividness with which she has brought out the monstrous tale in all its

horror, but without coarse or revolting incidents, is a proof of the

genius which she inherited alike from both her parents. It is clear,

also, that the society of Shelley was to her a great school, which she

did not appreciate to the full until most calamitously it was taken

away; and yet, of course, she could not fail to learn the greater part

of what it had become to her. This again showed itself even in her

appearance, after she had spent some years in Italy; for, while she

had grown far more comely than she was in her mere youth, she had

acquired a deeper insight into many subjects that interested Shelley,

and some others; and she had learned to express the force of natural

affection, which she was born to feel, but which had somehow been

stunted and suppressed in her youth. In the preface to the collected

edition of his works, she says: "I have the liveliest recollection of

all that was done and said during the period of my knowing him.

Every impression is as clear as if stamped yesterday, and I have no

apprehension of any mistake in my statements, as far as they go. In

other respects I am, indeed, incompetent; but I feel the importance of

the task, and regard it as my most sacred duty. I endeavor to fulfil

it in a manner he would himself approve; and hope in this publication

to lay the first stone of a monument due to Shelley's genius, his

sufferings, and his virtues." And in the postscript, written in

November, 1839, she says: "At my request, the publisher has restored

the omitted passages of 'Queen Mab.' I now present this edition as

a complete collection of my husband's poetical works, and I do not

foresee that I can hereafter add to or take away a word or line." So

writes the wife-editor; and then "The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe

Shelley" begin with a dedication to Harriet, restored to its place

by Mary. While the biographers of Shelley are chargeable with

suppression, the most straightforward and frank of all of them is

Mary, who, although not insensible to the passion of jealousy, and

carrying with her the painful sense of a life-opportunity not fully

used, thus writes the name of Harriet the first on her husband's

monument, while she has nobly abstained from telling those things that

other persons should have supplied to the narrative. I have heard her

accused of an over-anxiety to be admired; and something of the sort

was discernible in society: it was a weakness as venial as it was

purely superficial. Away from society, she was as truthful and simple

a woman as I have ever met,--was as faithful a friend as the world

has produced,--using that unreserved directness towards those whom she

regarded with affection which is the very crowning glory of friendly

intercourse. I suspect that these qualities came out in their greatest

force after her calamity; for many things which she said in her

regret, and passages in Shelley's own poetry, make me doubt whether

little habits of temper, and possibly of a refined and exacting

coquettishness, had not prevented him from acquiring so full a

knowledge of her as she had of him. This was natural for many reasons,

and especially two. Shelley had not the opportunity of retrospectively

studying her character, and his mind was by nature more constructed

than hers was to be preoccupied. If the reader desires a portrait

of Mary, he has one in the well-known antique bust sometimes called

"Isis" and sometimes "Clytie": a woman's head and shoulders rising

from a lotus-flower. It is most probably the portrait of a Roman lady,

is in some degree more elongated and "classic" than Mary; but, on the

other hand, it falls short of her, for it gives no idea of her

tall and intellectual forehead, nor has it any trace of the bright,

animated, and sweet expression that so often lighted up her face.

Attention has often been concentrated on the passage in

"Epipsychidion" which appears to relate Shelley's experiences from

earliest youth until he met with the noble and unfortunate "Lady

Emilia V., now imprisoned in the convent of--," whose own words form

the motto to the poem, and a key to the sympathy which the writer felt

for her:--"The loving soul launches itself out of the created, and

creates in the infinite a world all its own, far different from this

dark and fearful abysm." The passage begins,--

"There was a being whom my spirit oft

Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft,

In the clear golden prime of my youth's

dawn."

And this being was the worshipped object of Shelley's adoring

aspirations in extreme youth; but it passed by him as a vision,

though--

"And as a man with mighty loss dismayed,

I would have followed, though the grave between

Yawned like a gulf whose spectres are unseen:

When a voice said,--'O thou of hearts the weakest,

The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest.'

Then I,--'Where?' The world's echo answered, 'Where'!"

She ever remained the veiled divinity of thoughts that worshipped her,

while he went forth into the world with hope and fear,--

"Into the wintry forest of our life;

And struggling through its error with vain strife,

And stumbling in my weakness and my haste,

And half bewildered by new forms, I passed

Seeking among those untaught foresters

If I could find one form resembling hers

In which she might have masked herself from me."

The passage grows more and more intelligible. Hitherto he has been

simply a dreamy seeker; but now, at last, he thinks that Fate has

answered his questioning exclamation, "Where?"

"There, one whose voice was venomed melody

Sat by a well, under the nightshade bowers;

The breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers;

Her touch was as electric poison; flame

Out of her looks into my vitals came;

And from her living cheeks and bosom flew

A killing air which pierced like honey-dew

Into the core of my green heart, and lay

Upon its leaves,--until, as hair grown gray

O'er a young brow, they hid its unblown prime

With ruins of unseasonable time."

This is a plain and only too intelligible reference to the college

experiences to which I have alluded. The youth for the moment thought

that he had encountered her whom he was seeking, but, instead of the

Florimel, he found her venal, hideous, and fatal _simulacrum_; and

he indicates even the material consequences to himself in his injured

aspect and hair touched with gray. He continues his search.

"In many mortal forms I rashly sought

The shadow of that idol of my thought:

And some were fair,--but beauty dies away;

Others were wise,--but honeyed words betray;

And one was true,--oh! why not true to me?

Then, as a hunted deer that could not flee,

I turned upon my thoughts and stood at bay."

"Oh! why not true to me?" has been taken by some very few who were

cognizant of the facts as constituting an imputation on the one whom

he first married; but I am convinced that the interpretation is wrong,

although the surmise on which that interpretation is based was partly

correct. Nothing is more evident than the fact that Harriet possessed

rather an unusual degree of ability, but enormously less than Shelley

desired in the being whom he sought, and equally less than his

idealizing estimate originally ascribed to her. It is also plain, from

her own letters, that she courted his approval in a way far too common

with the wives of the artist-tribe, and perhaps with most wives: not

being exactly what he wished her to be, and lacking the faculties to

become so, she tried to seem it. The desire was partly sincere, partly

an affectation, as we discern in such little trifles as her suddenly

using the word "thou" in a letter to Hookham where she had previously

been using the ordinary colloquial "you." That she was not quite

ingenuous we also detect in the fast-and-loose conduct which enabled

her, while affecting to become what Shelley deemed her to be, also to

play into the hands of very inferior people, who must sometimes have

counselled her against him behind his back; and this, I am sure, is

what he means by "Oh! why not true to me?" though he may include

in the question a fervent regret for the fate which attended her

wandering from him. "Then like a hunted deer he turned upon his

thoughts and stood at bay," until

"The cold day

Trembled, for pity of my strife and pain,

When, like a noonday dawn, there shone again

Deliverance. One stood on my path who seemed

As like the glorious shape that I had dreamed

As is the Moon, whose changes ever run

Into themselves, to the eternal Sun."

"The cold chaste moon" fails to satisfy the longing of his soul.

"At her silver voice came death and life"; hope and despondency,

expectation from her noble qualities, disappointment at the failure

of response, were feelings that sprang from the exaggerations of his

ideal longings.

"What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep,

Blotting that Moon whose pale and waning lips

Then shrank as in the sickness of eclipse!"

The whole passage is worth perusing; and again wrong interpretation

has been given to this portion of his writing. I am still more firmly

convinced that in the other case, when he says, "The planet of that

hour was quenched," he alludes to nothing more than the partial

failure of his own ideal requirements. At length into the obscure

forest came

"The vision I had sought through grief and shame.

* * * * *

I stood and felt the dawn of my long night

Was penetrating me with living light:

I knew it was the vision veiled from me

So many years,--that it was Emily."

To grasp the entire meaning of this autobiographical episode, we must

remember the extent to which Shelley idealizes. "More popular poets

clothe the ideal with familiar and sensible imagery; Shelley loved

to idealize the real,--to gift the mechanism of the material universe

with a soul and a voice, and to bestow such also on the most delicate

and abstract emotions and thoughts of the mind. Sophocles was

his great master in this species of imagery." The heroine of the

"Epipsychidion" is an imagination; a creature, like Raphael's Galatea,

copied from no living model, but from "_una certa idea_"; a thing

originally created by himself, and suggested only by the living

portrait, as each one of the admired had previously suggested its

ideal counterpart. Emilia, then, was the bride of a dream, and, in the

indulgence of disappointed longing for a fuller satisfaction of his

soul, Shelley mournfully contrasts this vision, who had so eloquently

responded to his idealizing through her convent-bars, with Mary, whose

stubborn, independent realism had checked and daunted him.

But the last year of Shelley's life had involved a very considerable

progress in the formation of his intellectual character. The

"Prometheus Unbound," perhaps at once the most characteristic and the

most perfect of all his works, is identical in spirit and tendency

even with the earliest, "Queen Mab"; but a re-perusal of it in

comparison with the other writings, even the "Revolt of Islam," will

show a more distinct presentment of the original ideas, coupled with

a much more measured suggestion for acting on them, and a far less

bitter allusion to the obstacles; while the charity and love are more

all-embracing and apparent than ever. Imperfect as it is for dramatic

representation, shortcoming even in the power to trace the working

of emotions and ideas in utterly diverse characters, the "Cenci" does

indicate a stronger aptitude for sympathy with other creatures

on their own terms than any other of the poet's writings. He had,

therefore, sobered in judgment, without declining in his inborn

genius; but, on the contrary, with a clearer sense of the limits

placed upon individual action, he had gained strength; and I feel

certain that a corresponding change had taken place in his perception

of the true import and value of characters unlike his own. The last

few months of his life at Lerici had very materially contributed to

this change. Although I cannot recall any distinct statement to that

effect by Mary Shelley, her conversation had left that impression on

me; it is also suggested by the way in which he himself spoke of it,

and is fully confirmed by the tone of the letters addressed to her

from Pisa.

All who have attempted to portray Shelley, either intellectually or

physically, have done so from some appreciable, almost personal point

of view. When many eyes see one object, it presents itself in as many

different aspects, and the description given by each bears often a

slight resemblance to that of others. So it has been with Shelley. The

artistic portraits of him have happened to be particularly imperfect.

I remember seeing a miniature by an amateur friend which actually

suggested a form broad and square. The ordinarily received miniature

is like almost all of its tribe, and resembles Shelley about as

much as a lady in a book of fashions resembles real women; and it

constitutes evidence all the more detrimental and misleading, since it

appears to give as well as to receive a color of verisimilitude from

the usual written description, which represents Shelley as "feminine,"

"almost girlish," "ideal," "angelic," and so forth. The accounts of

him by firmer hands are still cramped by the individuality of the

authorship.

His school-friend, Hogg, is a gentleman of independent property;

Shelley detected the sensitiveness of his nature; and I know that the

man has been capable of truly generous conduct. How is it, then, that

he has written such utterly unintelligible stuff, and has descended to

such evasions as to insert initials, lest people should detect amongst

Shelley's correspondents a most admirable friend, who happened, it

is supposed, to be of plebeian origin? Mr. Thomas Jefferson Hogg,

I surmise, was conscious, somewhat early in life, that his better

qualities were not fully appreciated; and his love of ease, his wit,

his perception of the ludicrous, made him take refuge in cynicism

until he learned almost to forget the origin of the real meaning of

the things he talked about. His account of Shelley is like a figure

seen through fantastically distorting panes of glass.

Thomas Love Peacock, again, is a man to whose extraordinary powers

Shelley did full justice. He has worked through a long official career

without losing his very peculiar dry wit; but a dry wit was not the

man exactly to discern the form of Shelley's mind, or to portray it

with accuracy and distinctness.

Few men knew the poet better than my father; but a mind checked by

"over-refinement," excessive conscientiousness, and an irresistible

tendency to find out niceties of difference,--a mind, in short, like

that of Hamlet, cultivated rather than corrected by the trials

of life, was scarcely suited to comprehend the strong instincts,

indomitable will, and complete unity of idea which distinguished

Shelley. Accordingly we have from my father a very doubtful portrait,

seldom advancing beyond details, which are at once exaggerated and

explained away by qualifications.

Byron, I suspect, through the natural strength of his perceptive

power, was likely to have formed a better design; but the two were

separated soon after he had begun to learn that such a man as Shelley

might be found on the same earth with himself.

One or two others that have written have been mere tourists or

acquaintances. Unquestionably the companion who knew him best of all

was Mary; and although she lacked the power of distinct, positive, and

absolute portraiture, her writings will be found to contain, together

with his own, the best materials for forming an estimate of his

natural character.

The real man was reconcilable with all these descriptions. His traits

suggested everything that has been said of him; but his aspect,

conformation, and personal qualities contained more than any one has

ascribed to him, and more indeed than all put together. A few plain

matters-of-fact will make this intelligible. Shelley was a tall

man,--nearly, if not quite, five feet ten in height. He was peculiarly

slender, and, as I have said already, his chest had palpably

enlarged after the usual growing period. He retained the same kind

of straitness in the perpendicular outline on each side of him; his

shoulders were the reverse of broad, but yet they were not sloping,

and a certain squareness in them was naturally incompatible with

anything feminine in his appearance. To his last days he still

suffered his chest to collapse; but it was less a stoop than a

peculiar mode of holding the head and shoulders,--the face thrown a

little forward, and the shoulders slightly elevated; though the whole

attitude below the shoulders, when standing, was unusually upright,

and had the appearance of litheness and activity. I have mentioned

that bodily vigor which he could display; and from his action when I

last saw him, as well as from Mary's account, it is evident that he

had not abandoned his exercises, but the reverse. He had an oval face

and delicate features, not unlike those given to him in the well-known

miniature. His forehead was high. His fine, dark brown hair, when not

cut close, disposed itself in playful and very beautiful curls over

his brows and round the back of his neck. He had brown eyes, with

a color in his cheek "like a girl's"; but as he grew older, his

complexion bronzed. So far the reality agrees with the current

descriptions; nevertheless they omit material facts. The outline of

the features and face possessed a firmness and _hardness_ entirely

inconsistent with a feminine character. The outline was sharp and

firm; the markings distinct, and indicating an energetic _physique_.

The outline of the bone was distinctly perceptible at the temples, on

the bridge of the nose, at the back portion of the cheeks, and in the

jaw, and the artist could trace the principal muscles of the face.

The beard also, although the reverse of strong, was clearly marked,

especially about the chin. Thus, although the general aspect was

peculiarly slight, youthful, and delicate, yet, when you looked to

"the points" of the animal, you saw well enough the indications of a

masculine vigor, in many respects far above the average. And what I

say of the physical aspect of course bears upon the countenance. That

changed with every feeling. It usually looked earnest,--when

joyful, was singularly bright and animated, like that of a gay young

girl,--when saddened, had an aspect of sorrow peculiarly touching, and

sometimes it fell into a listless weariness still more mournful; but

for the most part there was a look of active movement, promptitude,

vigor, and decision, which bespoke a manly, and even a commanding

character.

The general tendency that all who approached Shelley displayed to

yield to his dictate is a practical testimony to these qualities;

for his earnestness was apt to take a tone of command so generous,

so free, so simple, as to be utterly devoid of offence, and yet to

constitute him a sort of tyrant over all who came within his reach.

The weakness ascribed to Shelley's voice was equally taken from

exceptional instances, and the account of it usually suggests the idea

that he spoke in a falsetto which might almost be mistaken for the

"shriek" of a harsh-toned woman. Nothing could be more unlike the

reality. The voice was indeed quite peculiar, and I do not know where

any parallel to it is likely to be found unless in Lancashire. Shelley

had no ear for music,--the words that he wrote for existing airs

being, strangely enough, inappropriate in rhythm and even in cadence;

and though he had a manifest relish for music and often talked of it,

I do not remember that I ever heard him sing even the briefest snatch.

I cannot tell, therefore, what was the "register" of his singing

voice; but his speaking voice unquestionably was then of a high

natural counter-tenor. I should say that he usually spoke at a pitch

somewhere about the D natural above the base line; but it was in no

respect a falsetto. It was a natural chest-voice, not powerful, but

telling, musical, and expressive. In reading aloud, the strain was

peculiarly clear, and had a sustained, song-like quality, which came

out more strongly when, as he often did, he recited verse. When he

called out in pain,--a very rare occurrence,--or sometimes in comic

playfulness, you might hear the "shrillness" of which people talk; but

it was only because the organ was forced beyond the ordinary effort.

His usual speech was clear, and yet with a breath in it, with an

especially distinct articulation, a soft, vibrating tone, emphatic,

pleasant, and persuasive.

It seems to me that these physical characteristics forcibly illustrate

the moral and intellectual genius of the man. The impulsiveness which

has been ascribed to him is a wrong expression, for it is usually

interpreted to mean the action of sudden motives waywardly,

capriciously, or at least intermittingly working; whereas the

character which Shelley so constantly displayed was an overbearing

strength of conviction and feeling, a species of audacious, but

chivalrous readiness to act upon conviction as promptly as possible,

and, above all, a zealous disposition to say out all that was in his

mind. It is better expressed by the word which some satirist put

into the mouth of Coleridge, speaking of himself, and, instead of

impulsiveness, it should have been called an "utterancy," coupled with

decision and promptitude of action. The physical development of the

man with the progress of time may be traced in the advancement of his

writings. The physical qualities which are equally to be found in his

poetry and prose were quite as manifest in his aspect, and not less

so in his conduct of affairs. It must be remembered that his life

terminated long before he had arrived half-way, "_nel mezzo del cammin

di nostra vita_," when more than one other great intellect has been

but commencing its true work. I believe, that, if Shelley had lived,

he would himself have been the most potent and useful commentator on

his own writings, in the production of other and more complete works.

But meanwhile the true measure of his genius is to be found in the

influence which he has had, not only over those who have proclaimed

their debt to him, but over numbers who have mistrusted and even

denounced him.

THE TEST.

"Farewell awhile, my bonnie darling!

One long, close kiss, and I depart:

I hear the angry trumpet snarling,

The drum-beat tingles at my heart."

Behind him, softest flutes were breathing

Across the vale their sweet recall;

Before him burst the battle, seething

In flame beneath its thunder-pall.

All sights and sounds to stay invited;

The meadows tossed their foam of flowers;

The lingering Day beheld, delighted,

The dances of his amorous Hours.

He paused: again the fond temptation

Assailed his heart, so firm before,

And tender dreams, of Love's creation,

Persuaded from the peaceful shore.

"But no!" he sternly cried; "I follow

The trumpet, not the shepherd's reed:

Let idlers pipe in pastoral hollow,--

Be mine the sword, and mine the deed!

"Farewell to Love!" he murmured, sighing:

"Perchance I lose what most is dear;

But better there, struck down and dying,

Than be a man and wanton here!"

He went where battle's voice was loudest;

He pressed where danger nearest came;

His hand advanced, among the proudest,

Their banner through the lines of flame.

And there, when wearied Carnage faltered,

He, foremost of the fallen, lay,

While Night looked down with brow unaltered,

And breathed the battle's dust away.

There lying, sore from wounds untended,

A vision crossed the starry gleam:

The girl he loved beside him bended,

And kissed him in his fever-dream.

"Oh, love!" she cried, "you fled, to find me;

I left with you the daisied vale;

I turned from flutes that wailed behind me,

To hear your trumpet's distant hail.

"Your tender vows, your peaceful kisses,

They scarce outlived the moment's breath;

But now we clasp immortal blisses

Of passion proved on brinks of Death!

"No fate henceforward shall estrange her

Who finds a heart more brave than fond;

For Love, forsook this side of danger,

Waits for the man who goes beyond!"

THE PREACHER'S TRIAL.

Sitting in my New-England study, as do so many of my tribe, to peruse

the "Atlantic," I wonder whether, like its namesake, hospitable to

many persons and things, it will for once let me write as well as

read, and launch from my own calling a theme on its bosom. Our cloth

has been worn so long in the world, I doubt how far it may suit with

new fashions in fine company-parlors; but, seeing room is so cordially

made for some of my brethren, as the Reverend Mr. Wilbur and "The

Country Parson," to keep up the dignity of the profession, I am

emboldened to come for a day with what the editorial piety may accept,

"rejected article" as it might be elsewhere.

The pulpit has lost something of its old sacredness in the general

mind. There is little popular superstition to endure its former

dictation. No exclusive incarnate theocracy in any particular persons

is left, Leviticus and the Hebrew priesthood are gone. Church,

ministry, and Sabbath are the regular targets taken out by our moral

riflemen and archers, though so seldom to hit fair in the centre, that

we may find ourselves, like spectators at the match, respecting the

old targets more than we do the shots. Yet homilies and exporters are

thought fair game. I have even heard splendid lecturers whose wit

ran so low or who were so pushed for matter as to talk of what

divinity-students wear round their necks, which seems a superficial

consideration. The anciently venerated desk has two sharp enemies,

the radical and the conservative, aiming their artillery from opposite

sides, putting it somewhat in the position of the poor fish who is in

danger from diverse classes of its fellow-creatures, one in the air

and one in the water, and knows not whether to dive or rise to the

surface, till it can conclude which is the more pleasant exit from

life, to be hawked at or swallowed outright.

While, however, critics and reformers fail to furnish a fit substitute

for the sermon, and the finest essays show not only Bacon's "dry

light," but a very cold one too, and the wit and humor of the lyceum

fall short of any mark in the conscience of mankind, and philanthropy

uses stabbing often instead of surgery, a clerical institution, on

whose basis direct admonition can be administered by individuals

without egotism or impertinence, maintains an indefeasible claim.

Indeed, as was fancied of the innocent in the ordeal by fire, or like

the children from the furnace, it comes out the other side of all

censure, with some odor of sanctity yet on its unsinged robes and new

power in higher quarters in its hands. Defective, indeed, it is. If

some of its organs could speak a little more in their natural voice,

and could, moreover, wash off the deformity of this Indian war-paint

of high-wrought rhetoric,--if they could use a little more of the

colloquial earnestness of the street and table in their style, instead

of those freaks of eloquence which, among all our associations,

there ought to be a society to put down,--they would more honor their

vocation, and effect its purpose of saving human souls. Let us not be

so loudmouthed, or bluster as we do. Our declamation will have to hush

its barbarian noise some time. Nothing but conversation will be

left in heaven; and it were well, could we have on earth sober and

thoughtful assemblies, at blood-warmth instead of fever-heat, rather

than those over-crowded halls from which _hundreds go away unable to

obtain admission_.

But the present design is a plea for justice, not a fresh charge.

The pulpit is to teach religion in application to life. But when we

reflect what life is, how deep in the soul, how wide in the world,

how complicated and delicate in its affairs and ties,--and when, we

consider what religion is, the whole truth of heaven respecting

all the operations of earth,--a kindly judgment is required for

unavoidable short-comings and ministerial mistakes. With different

ages, sexes, experiences, states of mind, degrees of intelligence and

impressibleness in a congregation, it is a rare felicity for a sermon

to reach all its members with equal impressiveness or acceptance. Who

ever heard a uniform estimate of any discourse? There seems almost a

curse upon the preacher's office from its very greatness, so that it

is never finished, and no portion of it can be done perfectly well and

secure against all objection. If he try to unfold the deep things

of the Spirit, and bring his best thoughts, which he would not throw

away, before his audience, though in language clearer than many a

chapter of Paul's Epistles, _some_ will call the topic obscure, and

complain that their children cannot understand it, quoting, perhaps,

the old sentence, that all truth necessary to salvation is so plain

that he who runs may read, and the wayfaring man, though a fool,

cannot err therein, and commending superficial homilies on other

tongues to censure whatever is profound from his. But should the

poor occupant of the desk venture to emulate this eulogized sonorous

exhortation, exerting himself to come down to the ignorant and the

young, there will be _some_ to stigmatize that, too, as a sort of

trifling and disrespect to mature minds. He has by a senior now and

then been blamed for excessive attention to the lambs of his flock,

and annoyed with the menace to stay away, if they were especially

to be noticed. If a visitation of special grace or an exaltation of

physical strength make the mortal incumbent happy in his exposition,

so that he is listened to with edification and delight, it is, by

some, not passed over to his credit at the ebb-tide of his power. Half

the time the house is not half full, as though the institution which

all order to be conducted nobody but he is bound to shoulder. If the

preacher labor to express the mysterious relationship between God and

Christ, the divine and human nature, he will be considered by _some_

a sectarian, controversialist, or heretic. If he unfold what is

above all denominational disputes, he will be fortunate to escape

accusations of transcendentalism, pantheism, spiritualism. If, lucky

man, he go scot-free of such indictment, a last stunning stroke, in

the gantlet he runs, will be sure to fetch him up, in the vague and

unanswerable imputation of being _very peculiar in his views_. If

he insist on the miracles as literal facts, he will be laughed at as

old-fashioned in one pew; if he slight them, he will be mourned over

as unsound in the next. Men grumble at taxes and tolls; alas! nobody

is stopped at so many gates and questioned in so many ways as he. If

he take in hand the tender matter of consoling stricken hearts, the

ecstasy of his visions will not save his topic from being regarded by

some as painful, and by others as a mere shining of the moon. He will

receive special requests not to harrow up the feelings he only meant

to bind up in balm. He may be informed of an aversion, more or less

extensive, to naming the _grave_ or _coffin_ and what it contains,

though he only puts one foot by pall or bier to plant the other in

paradise. If he turn the everlasting verities he is intrusted with to

events transpiring on the public stage, though he never sided with any

party in his life, and has no more committed himself to men than did

his Master, _some_ will be grieved at his _preaching politics_. His

head has throbbed, his heart ached, his eyes were hot and wet

once before he uttered himself; but he must suffer and weep worse

afterwards, because he went too far for one man and not far enough for

another. He is told, one day, that he is too severe on seceders, and

the next, ironically, that, with such merciful sentiments towards

them, he ought always to wear a cravat completely white. One man is

amused at his sermon, and another thinks the same is sad. He will be

asked if he cannot give a little less of one thing or more of another,

as though he were a dealer in wares or an exhibiter of curious

documents for a price, and could take an article from this or that

shelf, or a paper from any one of a hundred pigeon-holes, when, if he

be a servant of the Lord and organ of the Holy Ghost, he has no choice

and is shut up to his errand,--necessity is laid upon him, woe is unto

him if he deliver it not, but, like another Jonah, flee to Tarshish

when the Lord tells him to go to Nineveh and cry against its

wickedness; and he feels through every nerve that truth is not a

thing to be carried round as merchandise or peddled out at all to suit

particular tastes, to retain old friends or win new ones, hard as it

may go, to the anguish of his soul, to lose the good-will of those he

loves, and whose distrust is a chronic pang, though they come to love

him again all the more for what he has suffered and said. But if,

passing by discussions of general interest, and exposing himself

to the hint of being behind the times, he grapple with the sins

immediately about him, board the false customs of society and trade,

and strike with the sword of the Lord at private vices and family

faults, he will be blamed as very _personal_, and be apprised of his

insults to those of whom in his delivery he never thought, as he may

never preach _at_ anybody, or even _to_ anybody, in his most direct

thrusting, more than to himself, reaching others only through his own

wounded heart. Meantime, some of his ecclesiastical constituents

will suspect him, in his local ethics, of leniency to wide-spread

corruption; and professed philanthropists will brand him as a trimmer

and coward, recreant, fawning, and dumb,--the term _spaniel_ having

been flung at one of the best men and most conscientious ministers

that ever lived, simply because he could not vituperate as harshly

as some of his neighbors. Some would have him remember only those in

bonds; others say they cannot endure from him even the word _slavery_.

Blessed, if, from all these troubles, he can, for solace, and with a

sense of its significance, bethink himself of Christ's saying to

his disciples, "Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!"

Thrice blessed, if he have an assurance and in that inward certificate

possess the peace which passeth understanding!

I intend not, by my simple story, which has in it no fiction, to add

to the lamentations of the old prophet, nor will allow Jeremiah to

represent all my mood. It is perfectly fit the laity should criticize

the clergy. The minister,--who is he but one of the people, set apart

to particular functions, open to a judgment on the manner of their

discharge, from which no sacred mission or supposed apostolic

succession can exempt, the Apostles having been subject to it

themselves? Under their robes and ordinances, in high-raised desks,

priest and bishop are but men, after all. Ministers should be grateful

for all the folk's frankness. Only let the criticism be considerate

and fair; and in order to its becoming so, let us ascertain the

perfect model of their calling. Did not their Master give it, when he

said, "The field is the world"? If so, then to everything in the world

must the pulpit apply the moral law. What department of it shall be

excused? _Politics_,--because it embraces rival schools in the same

worshipping body, and no disinterested justice in alluding to its

principles can be expected from a preacher, or because whoever

disagrees with his opinions must be silent, there being on Sunday and

in the sanctuary no decency allowed of debate or reply, and therefore

whatever concerns the civil welfare and salvation of the community is

out of the watchman's beat now, though God so expressly bade him warn

the city of old? _Commerce_,--because a minister understands nothing

of the elements and necessities of business, and must blunder in

pointing to banks and shops or any transactions of the street, though

an old preacher, called Solomon, in his Proverbs refers so sharply to

the buyer and the seller? _Pleasure_,--because the servant of the Lord

cannot be supposed to sympathize with, but only to denounce, amusement

which poor tired humanity employs for its recreation, though Miriam's

smiting of her timbrel, which still rings from the borders of the

raging Red Sea, and David's dancing in a linen ephod with all his

might before the Lord, when the ark on a new cart came into the

city, were a sort of refreshment of triumphant sport? _The social

circle_,--because of course he cannot go to parties or comprehend the

play of feeling in which the natural affections run to and fro,

and should rather be at home reading his Bible, turning over his

Concordance, and writing his sermon, letting senate and dance, market

and exchange, opera and theatre, fights and negotiations go to the

winds, so he only comes duly with his _exegesis_ Sunday morning to his

place? In short, is the minister's concern and call of God only, with

certain imposing formalities and prearranged dogmas, to greet in their

Sunday-clothes his friends who have laid aside their pursuits and

delights with the gay garments or working-dress of the week, never

reminding them of what, during the six days, they have heard or where

they have been? "No!" let him say; "if this is to be a minister, no

minister can I be!" For what is left of the field the Lord sends the

minister into? It is cut up and fenced off into countless divisions,

to every one of which some earthly-agent or interest brings a

title-deed. The minister finds the land of the world, like some vast

tract of uncivilized territory, seized by wild squatters, owned and

settled by other parties, and, as a famous political-economist said

in another connection, there is no cover at Nature's table for him.

As with the soldier in the play, whose wars were over, _his_

"occupation's gone."

What is the minister, then? A ghost, or a figure like some in the

shop-window, all made up of dead cloth and color into an appearance of

life? Verily, he comes almost to that. But no such shape, no spectre

from extinct animation of thousands of years ago, like the geologist's

skeletons reconstructed from lifeless strata of the earth, can answer

the vital purposes of the revelation from God. Of no pompous or

abstract ritual administration did the Son of God set an example. He

had a parable for the steward living when _He_ did; He called

King Herod, then reigning, _a fox_, and the Scribes and Pharisees

hypocrites; He declared the prerogatives of His Father beyond Cæsar's;

He maintained a responsibility of human beings coextensive with the

stage and inseparable from the smallest trifle of their existence. He

did not limit His marvellous tongue to antiquities and traditions. He

used the mustard-seed in the field and the leaven in the lump for His

everlasting designs. His finger was stretched out to the cruel stones

of self-righteousness flying through the air, and phylacteries of

dissimulation worn on the walk. He was so _political_, He would have

saved Jerusalem and Judea from Roman ruin, and wept because He could

not, with almost the only tears mentioned of His. Those who teach in

His name should copy after His pattern.

"_Confine yourselves to the old first Gospel, preach Christianity,

early Christianity_," we ministers are often told. But what is

Christianity, early or late, and what does the Gospel mean, but a rule

of holy living in every circumstance now? Grief and offence may come,

as Jesus says they must; misapplications and complaints, which are

almost always misapprehensions, may be made; but are not these better

than indifference and death? No doubt there is a prudence, and still

more an impartial candor and equity, in treating every matter, but

no beauty in timid flight from any matter there is to treat. The

clergyman, like every man, speaks at his peril, and is as accountable

as any one for what he says. He ought justly and tenderly to remember

the diverse tenets represented among his auditors, to side with

no sect as such, to give no individual by his indorsement a mean

advantage over any other, nor any one a handle of private persecution

by his open anathema. Moreover, he should abstain from that

particularity in secular themes which so easily wanders from all

sight of spiritual law amid regions of uncertainty and speculative

conjecture. He should shun explorations less fit for prophets than for

experts. He should lay his finger on no details in which questions of

right and wrong are not plainly involved. He must be public-spirited;

he cannot be more concerned for his country and his race, that

righteousness and liberty and love may prevail, than divine seers have

ever been, as their books of record show; but, if he becomes a mere

diplomatist, financier, secretary-of-state, or military general, in

his counsels or his tone, he evacuates his own position, flees as

a craven from his post, and assumes that of other men. Yet it is an

extreme still worse for him to resort to lifeless generalities of

doctrine and duty, producing as little effect as comes from electric

batteries or telegraphic wires when no magnetic current is established

and no object reached. What section, of the world should evade or defy

the law of God?

O preachers, beware of your sentimental descant on the worth of

goodness, the goodness of being good, and the sinfulness of sin,

without specifying either! It is a blank cartridge, or one of

treacherous sand instead of powder, or a spiked gun, only whose

priming explodes without noise or execution. Let nobody dodge the sure

direction of that better than lead or iron shot with which from you

the conscience is pierced and iniquity slain. Suffer not the statesman

to withdraw his policy, nor the broker his funds, nor the captain the

cause he fights for, from the sentence of divine truth on the good or

evil in all the acts of men.

The preacher, however, as he pronounces or reports that sentence, must

never forget the bond he is under in his own temper to the spirit of

impartial love. Whatever is vindictive vitiates his announcement all

the more that he cannot be rebuked for it, as he ought to be, on the

spot. Only let not the hearers mistake earnestness for vindictiveness.

If kindly and with intense serenity he communicates what he has

struggled long and hard to attain, then for their own sake, if not for

his, they should beware of visiting him either with silent distrust or

open reproach. He, just like them, must stand or fall according to his

fidelity to the oracles of God. Only, once more, let him and let

the Church comprehend that those oracles are not summed up in any

laborious expounding of verbal texts. "The letter killeth," unless

itself enlivened through the immediate Providence.

To be true to God, the preacher must be true to his time, as the

Prophets, Jesus, and the Apostles were to theirs. The pulpit dies of

its dignity, when it creeps into the exhausted receiver of foregone

conclusions, and has nothing to say but of Adam and Pharaoh, Jew

and Gentile, Palestine and Tyre so far away. Its decorum of being

inoffensive to others is suicidal for itself. It is the sleep of

death for all. As the inductive philosopher took all knowledge for

his province, it must take all life. We have, indeed, a glorious and

venerable charter of inestimable worth in our map of the religious

history of mankind through centuries that are gone. We must study

the true meaning of the Bible, _the book_ and chief collection of

the records of faith, precious above all for the immortal image and

photograph, in so many a shifting light and various expression, of

the transcendent form of divinity through manhood in Him to be ever

reverently and lovingly named, Jesus Christ. But there is a spirit in

man. "The word of God," says an Apostle, "is not bound"; nor can it

be wholly bound up. The Holy Spirit of God that first descended never

died, and never ceased to act on the human soul. The day of miracles

is not past,--or, if none precisely like those of Jesus are

still wrought, miracles of grace, the principal workings of the

supernatural, of which external prodigies are the lowest species, are

performed abundantly in the living breast. Jesus Himself, after all

the sufficient and summary grandeur of His instructions, assures

His followers of the Spirit that would come to lead them, beyond

whatsoever He had said, into all truth. In that dispensation of the

Spirit we live. Its sphere endures through all change, impregnable.

It is "builded far from accident." No progress of earthly science can

threat or hurt its eternal proportions. It is the supreme knowledge,

and to whoever enters it a whisper comes whose only response is the

confession of our noble hymn,--

"True science is to read Thy name."

Much is said of a contradictory relation of science to faith. But the

statement is a misnomer. True faith is the lushest science, even the

knowledge of God. Putting fishes or birds, shells or flowers, stones

or stars, in a circle or a row is a lower science than the sublime

intercommunication of the soul by prayer and love with its Father.

Mere physical, without spiritual science, has no bottom to hold

anything, and no foundation of peace. The king of science is not the

naturalist as such, but the saint conversing with Divinity,--not so

much Humboldt or La Place as Fénelon or Luther. So far as the progress

of outward science saps accredited writings, they must give way, or

rather any false conceptions of Nature they imply must yield, leaving

whatever spirituality there is in them untouched. But this is from

no essential contradiction between science and religious faith. What

faith or religion is there in believing the world was made in six

days? Less than in calculating, with Agassiz, by the coral reefs of

Florida, that to make one bit of it took more than sixty thousand

years. Religious faith, what is it? It is the trembling transport with

which the soul hearkens and gives itself up to God, in sympathy with

all likewise entranced souls. But from such consecrated listening to

the voice of Deity, fresh in our bosom or echoed from without by those

He has inspired, we verify the rule already affirmed, and fetch

advice and command for all the affairs of life. It is emphatically

the minister's duty thus to join the vision to the fact, that they

may strike through and through one another. Certainly, so the true

minister's speech should run. Let him stand up and boldly say, or

always imply, "I so construe it; and if the _Church_ interpret it

otherwise, the Church is no place for me. If the _world_ will accept

no such method, the world is no place for me. I see not why I was

born, or what with Church or world I have to do. From Church and world

I should beg leave to retire, trusting that God's Universe, somewhere

beyond this dingy spot, is true to the persuasion of His mind. I must

apply religion universally to life, or not at all. If, when my country

is in peril, I cannot bring her to the altar and ask that she may be

lifted up in the arms of a common supplication,--if, in the terrible

game of honesty with political corruption, when '_Check_' is said

to the adverse power, I cannot wish and pray that '_Checkmate_' may

follow,--when some huge evil, sorely wounded, in its fierce throes

spreads destruction about, as the dying monster in Northern seas casts

up boat-loads of dying men who fall bruised and bleeding among the

fragments into the waves with the threshing of its angry tail, if

then I cannot hope that the struggle may be short, and the ship of the

Republic gather back her crew from prevailing in the conflict to sail

prosperous with all her rich cargo of truth and freedom on the voyage

over the sea of Time,--if no sound of the news-boy's cry must mix with

the echoes of solemn courts, and no reflection of wasting fires in

which life and treasure melt can flash through their windows, and

no deeds of manly heroism or womanly patriotism are to have applause

before God and Christ in the temple,--if nothing but some preexisting

scheme of salvation, distinct from all living activity, must absorb

the mind,--then I totally misunderstand and am quite out of my place.

Then let me go. It is high time I were away. I have stayed too long

already." Such should be the speech of the minister, knowing he is

not tempted to be a partisan, and is possessed with but an over-kind

sensibility to dread any ruffling of others' feelings or discord with

those that are dear.

In the first year of a young minister's service, Dr. Channing besought

him to let no possible independence of parochial support relax his

industry: a needless caution to one not constituted to feel seductions

of sloth, in whom active energy is no merit, and who can have no

motive but the people's good. What else is there for him to seek?

There is no by-end open, and no virtue in a devotedness there is no

lure to forego. There is no position he can covet, as politicians are

said to bid for the Presidency. But one thing is indispensable: he

must tell what he thinks; he is strong only in his convictions; the

sacrifice of them he cannot make; it were but his debility, if he did;

and the treasury of all the fortunes of the richest parish were no

more than a cipher to purchase it from any one who, quick as he may

be to human kindness, may have a more tremulous rapture for the

approbation of God.

After all, to his profession and parish the preacher is in debt.

Exquisite rewards his work yields. If controversy arise on some point

with his friends, there may, after a while, be no remnant of hard

feeling,--as there are heavy cannonades, and no bit of wadding picked

up. Those who have striven with or defamed may come to cherish him all

the more for their alienation. Those who could not hear him, or, when

they heard, thought him too long, or what they heard did not like, may

own with him, out of their discontent, closer and sweeter bonds. His

business is expansive in its nature. The seasons of human life in

broad representation are always before him. How many moral springs and

summers, autumns and winters he sees, till he can hardly tell whether

his musing on this curious existence be memory or hope, retrospect

of earth or prospect of heaven! and he begins to think the spiritual

world abolishes distinctions of spheres and times, as parents, that

were his lambs, bring their babes to his arms, and, even in the

flesh, his mortal passing into eternal vision, he beholds, as in

vivid dreaming, other parents leading their children on other shores,

unseen, though hard by. Where, after a score or two of years, is his

church? He has several congregations,--one within the dedicated walls,

one of emigrants whom his fancy instead of the bell assembles, and

a third of elders and little ones gone back through the shadow of

mystery whence they came. In what abides of the flock nothing remains

as it was. Wondrous transformations snow maturity or decline in the

very forms that, to his also changing eye and hand, once wore soft

cheeks and silken locks. In his experience, miracle is less than

creation and lower than truth. He cannot credit Memory's ever losing

her seat, he has such things to remember. The best thereof can never

be written down, published, uttered by orators, or blown from the

trumpet of Fame, whose "brave instrument" must put up with a meaner

message and inferior breath. Out of his affections are born his

beliefs; earth is the cradle of his expectancy and persuasion of

heaven; and not otherwise than through the glass of his experience

could he have sight of a sphere of ineffable glory for better growth

than Nature here affords in all her gardens and fields.

So let the preacher stand by his order. But let him be just, also, to

the constituency from which it springs. Hearty and cheerful, though

obscure worker, let him be. Let him fling his weaver's shuttle still,

daily while he lives, through the crossing party-colored threads of

human life, till, in his factory too, beauty flows from confusion,

contradiction ends in harmony, and the blows with which each one has

been stricken form the perfect pattern from all. There is a unity

which all faithful labor, through whatever jars, consults and creates.

Of all criticisms the resultant is truth; be the conflicts what they

may, the issue shall be peace; and one music of affection is yet

angelically to flow from the many divided notes of human life. Who is

the _minister_, then? No ordained functionary alone, but every man or

woman that has lived and served, loved and lamented, and now, for such

ends, suffers and hopes.

THE GHOST OF LITTLE JACQUES.

How quiet the saloon was, that morning, as I groped my way through the

little white tables, the light chairs, and the dimness of early dawn

to the windows. It was my business to open the windows every morning,

finding my way down as best I could; for it was not permitted to light

the gas at that hour, and no candles were allowed, lest they should

soil the furniture. This morning the glass dome which brightened the

ceiling, and helped to lighten the saloon, was of very little effect,

so cloudy and dusk was the sky. The high houses which shut in the

strip of garden on all sides reflected not a ray of light. A

chill struck through me, as I passed along the marble pavement; a

saloon-dampness, empty, vault-like, hung about the fireless, sunless

place; and the plashing of the fountain which dripped into the marble

basin beyond--dropping, dropping, incessantly--struck upon my ear like

water trickling down the side of a cave.

It had never occurred to me to think the place lonely or dreary

before, or to demur at this morning operation of opening it for the

day; a tawdry, gilded, showy hall, it had seemed to me quite a grand

affair, compared with those in which I had hitherto found employment.

Now I shuddered and shivered, and felt the task, always regarded as a

compliment to my honesty, to be indeed hard and heavy enough.

It might have been--yet I was not a coward--that the little coffin

in that little room at the end of the saloon had something to do with

this uneasiness. On each side of that narrow room (which opened upon a

long hall leading to the front of the building) were the small windows

looking out upon the garden, which I always unbolted first. I say I

do not know that this presence of death had anything to do with my

trepidation. The death of a child was no very solemn or very uncommon

thing in my master's family. He had many children, and, when death

thinned their ranks, took the loss like a philosopher,--as he was,--a

French philosopher. He philosophized that his utmost exertions could

not do much more for the child than bequeath to him just such a

life as he led, and a share in just such a saloon as he owned; and

therefore, if a priest and a coffin insured the little innocent

admission into heaven without any extra charge, he would not betray

such lack of wisdom as to demur at the proposition. Therefore, very

quietly, since I had been in his employ, (about a twelvemonth,) three

of his children, one by one, had been brought down to that little room

at the end of the saloon, and thence through the long hall, through

the crowded street out to some unheard-of burying-ground, where a pot

of flowers and a painted cross supplied the place of a head-stone.

The shop was not shut up on these occasions: that would have been an

unnecessary interference with the comfort of customers, and loss

of time and money. The necessity of providing for his little living

family had quite disenthralled Monsieur C---- from any weakly

sentimentality in regard to his little dead family.

So I do not know why I shuddered, being also myself somewhat of a

philosopher,--of such cool philosophy as grows out inevitably from the

hard and stony strata of an overworked life. The sleeper within

was certainly better cared for now than he ever had been in life.

Monsieur's purse afforded no holiday-dress but a shroud; three of

these in requisition within so short a time quite scanted the wardrobe

of the other children. Little Jacques had always been a somewhat

restless and unhappy baby, longing for fresh air, and a change which

he never got; it seemed likely, so far as the child's promise was

concerned, that the "great change" was his only chance of variety, and

the very best thing that could have happened to him.

And yet, after all, there was something about his death which

individualized it, and hung a certain sadness over its occurrence that

does not often belong to the death of children, or at least had not

marked the departure of his two stout little brothers. Scarlet-fever

and croup and measles are such every-day, red-winged, mottled angels,

that no one is appalled at their presence; they take off the little

sufferer in such vigorous fashion, clutch him with so hearty a

grip, that one is compelled to open the door, let them out, and

feel relieved when the exit is made. It is only when some dim-eyed,

white-robed shape, scarcely seen, scarcely felt, steps softly in and

steals away the little troublesome bundle of life with solemn eye and

hushed lip, that we have time to pause, to look, to grieve.

This little Jacques, when I came to his father's house, was a rampant,

noisy, cunning child, with the vivacity of French and American blood

mingling in his veins, and filling him with strongest tendencies to

mischief, and prompting elfish feats of activity. He was not by any

means a fascinating child,--in fact, no children ever fascinated

me,--but this little fellow was rather disagreeable, a wonder to his

father, a horror to his mother, and a great annoyance generally;

we were all rather cross with him, and he was universally put down,

thrust aside, and ordered out of the way.

This was the state of affairs when I came. It was little Jacques, with

a high forehead, white, tightly curling hair, and mischief-full blue

eye, who made himself translator of all imaginable inquisitorial

French phrases for my benefit,--who questioned, and tormented,

and made faces at me,--who pulled my apron, disappeared with my

carpet-bag, and placed a generous slice of molasses-candy upon the

seat of my chair, when I sat down to rest myself.

Little Jacques ardently loved a sly fishing-expedition on the edge

of the marble fountain-basin, and had lured one or two unthinking

gold-fish to destruction with fly and a crooked pin. He would sit

perched up there at an odd chance, when his father was away, and he

dared venture into the saloon,--his little bare feet twinkling against

the water, his plump figure curled up into the minutest size, but

ready for a spring and a dart up-stairs at the shortest notice of

danger. This piscatory propensity had been severely punished by both

Monsieur and Madame C----, who could not afford to encourage such an

expensive Izaak Walton; but there was no managing the child. He

seemed to possess an impish capability of eluding detection and angry

denunciations. To be sure, circumstances were against any very strict

guard being kept over the youngster. Madame C---- was a very weak

woman, a very weak woman indeed,--she declared that such was the

case,--a nervous, dispirited woman, whom everything troubled, who

could not bear the noise and tramp of life, and altogether sank under

it. Destiny had had no mercy on her weakness, however, and had left

her to get along with an innumerable family of children, a philosophic

husband, who took all her troubles coolly, and a constant demand

for her services either in the shop or at the cradle. She could not,

therefore, have patience with the incessant anxiety which little

Jacques excited by his pranks.

One day Madame C---- had gone out for a walk, leaving the children

locked in a room above, five of them, two younger and two older

than Jacques; and these together had been in a state of riotous

insurrection the whole morning. Little Jacques was not of a

disposition to submit to ignominious imprisonment, when human

ingenuity could devise means of escape; while his brothers were

running wild together, he soberly hunted up another key, screwed and

scraped and got it into the key-hole; it turned, and he was out.

Half an hour afterwards, his mother, returning, caught the unfortunate

fugitive contemplatively perched on the edge of the fountain-basin. In

such a frenzy of anger as only unreasonable people are subject to,

she caught the child, shivering with terror, and thrust him into the

water. The gold-fish splashed and swirled, and the water streamed over

the sides of the basin. It was only an instant's work; snatching up

the forlorn fisher, she shook him unmercifully, and set him upon the

floor, dripping and breathless. I saw nothing of them until night.

His mother had then recovered her usual peevishness, weakness, and

inefficiency; the ebullition of energy had entirely subsided. I was

curious to know whether the summary punishment had had any effect upon

Jacques; but he was asleep, as soundly as usual after a day's hard

frolic.

My curiosity was likely to be gratified to satiety. A strange change

came over the little fellow after this. To one accustomed to his apish

activity, and to being annoyed by it, there was something plaintive

in the fact of having got rid of that trouble. The child was silent,

mopish, "good," as his mother said, congratulating herself on the

effect of her summary visitation upon the offender.

When, however, a month passed without any return of the evil

propensities, this continued quiescence grew to be something ghostly,

and, to people who had only their own hands to depend on for a living,

a subject of anxiety and alarm: it was expensive to clothe and feed a

child who promised but little service in future.

"The _enfant_ will never come to anything," said Monsieur; "we could

better have spared him than Jean."

To which his wife shook her head, and solemnly assented.

The '_enfant_,' however, gave no signs of taking the hint. Day after

day his little ministerial head and flaxen curls were visible over

the top of his old-fashioned arm-chair, and day after day his food was

demanded, and his appetite was as good as ever.

Watching the child, whose blue eyes, now the mischief was out of them,

grew utterly vacant of expression, I unaccountably to myself came to

feel an uncomfortable interest in, a morbid sympathy with him,--an

uneasy, unhappy sympathy, more physical than mental.

No fault could have been found with the motherly carefulness and

attention of Madame C----. It was charmingly polite and French. But

the sight of her preparing the child's food, or coaxing him

with unaccustomed delicacies and _bonbons_, grew to be utterly

distasteful,--an infliction so nervously annoying that I could not

overcome it. A secret antipathy which I had nourished against Madame

seemed to be germinating; every action of hers irritated me, every

sound of her sharp, yet well-modulated voice gave me a tremor. The

truth was, that plunge into the water, taking place so unexpectedly in

my presence, had startled and upset me almost as completely as if it

had befallen myself. A hard-working woman had no business with such

nerves. I knew that, and tried to annihilate them; but the more I

cut them down, the more they bled. The thing was a mere trifle,--the

fountain-basin was shallow, the water healthy,--nothing could be more

healthy than bathing,--and, at any rate, it was no affair of mine.

Yet my mind in some unhealthy mood aggravated the circumstances, and

colored everything with its own dark hue.

I could not give up my place, of course not; I was not likely to get

so good a situation anywhere else; I could not risk it; and yet the

servitude of horror under which I was held for a few weeks was almost

enough to reconcile one to starvation. Only that I was kept busy

in the shop most of the time, and had little leisure to observe the

course of affairs, or to be in Madame's society, I should have given

warning,--foolishly enough,--for there was not a tangible thing of

which I had to complain. But a shapeless suspicion which for some days

had been brooding in my mind was taking form, too dim for me to

dare to recognize it, but real enough to make me feel a miserable

fascination to the house while little Jacques still lived, a magnetic,

uncomfortable necessity for my presence, as though it were in some

sort a protection against an impending evil.

Such suspicion I did not, of course, presume to name, scarcely

presumed to think, it seemed so like an unnatural monstrosity of my

own mind. But when, one morning, the child died, holding in his

hands the _bonbons_ his mother had given him, and Madame C----, all

agitation and frenzy and weeping, still contrived to extract them from

the tightly closed, tiny fists, and threw them into the grate, I felt

a horrid thrill like the effect of the last scene in a tragedy. _I

knew that the bonbons were poisoned_.

So that is the reason I shuddered as I passed through the saloon.

Throwing open the window, a dim light flickered through, and a sickly

ray fell upon the fountain. It shivered upon the dripping marble

column in its centre, and struck with an icy hue the water in the

basin below. The fountain was not in my range of vision from the

window; but I often turned to look at it as I opened the shutters,

thinking it a pretty sight when the drops sparkled in the misty light

against the background of the otherwise darkened room. It pleased my

imagination to watch the effect produced by a little more or a little

less opening of the shutters,--a nonsensical morning play-spell, which

quite enlivened me for the sedate occupations of the day. It was,

however, not imagination now which whispered to me that there was

something else to look at beside the jet of water and the shadowy

play of light. Stooping down upon the fountain-brink, absorbed in

contemplating the gold-fish swimming below, and with its naked little

feet touching the water's edge, a tiny figure sat. My first thought

(the first thoughts of fear are never reasonable) was, that some child

from up-stairs had stolen down unawares, (as children are quite as

fond as grown folks of forbidden pleasures,) to amuse itself with the

water. But the children were not risen yet, and the saloon was too

utterly dark and dismal at that hour to tempt the bravest of them.

Second thoughts reminded me of that certainty, and I looked again. The

figure raised its head from its drooping posture, and gazed vacantly,

out of a pair of dim blue eyes, at me. The eyes were the eyes of

little Jacques.

I do not know how I should have been so utterly overcome, but I

started up in terror as I felt the dreamy phantom-gaze fixed upon me,

raising my hands wildly above my head. The hammer which I held in my

hand to drive back the bolts of the shutters flew from my grasp and

struck the great mirror,--the new mirror which had just been bought,

and was not yet hung up. All the savings of a year were shivered to

fragments in an instant. My horror at this catastrophe recalled my

presence of mind; for I was a poor woman, dependent for my bread on

the family. Poor women cannot afford to have fancies; some prompt

reality always startles them out of dream or superstition. My

superstition fled in dismay as I stooped over the fragments of

the looking-glass. What should I do? Where should I hide myself? I

involuntarily took hold of the mirror with the instinctive intention

of turning it to the wall. It was very heavy; I could scarcely lift

it. Pausing a moment, and looking forward at its shattered face in

utter anguish of despair, I saw again, repeated in a hundred jagged

splinters, up and down in zigzag confusion, in demoniac omnipresence,

the uncanny eye, the spectral shape, which had so appalled me. The

little phantom had arisen, its slim finger was outstretched,--it

beckoned, slowly beckoned, growing indistinct, it receded farther and

farther out from the saloon towards the shop.

The fascination of a spell was upon me; I turned and followed the

retreating figure. The shutters of the show-window were not yet taken

down, but thin lines of light filtered through them,--light enough to

see that the apparition made its way to a forbidden spot slyly haunted

by the little boy in his days of mischief,--a certain shelf where a

box of some peculiar sort of expensive confections was kept. I had

seen his mother, with unwonted generosity, give the child a handful of

these a day or two before his death. I could go no farther. A mighty

fear fell upon me, a dimness of vision and a terrible faintness; for

that child-phantom, gliding on before, stopped like a retribution at

that very spot, and, raising its little hand, pointed to that very

box, glancing upward with its solemn eye, as, rising slowly in the

air, it grew indistinct, its outlines fading into darkness, and

disappeared.

I did not fall or faint, however; I hastened out to the saloon again.

The door of the little room where the coffin stood was open, and

Madame stepping out, looked vaguely about her.

"Madame! Madame!" I cried, "oh, I have seen--I have seen a terrible

sight!"

Madame's face grew white, very white. She grasped me harshly by the

arm.

"What _are_ you talking about, you crazy woman? You are getting quite

wild, I think. Do you imagine you can hide your guilt in that way?"

and she shook me with a savage fierceness that made my very bones

ache. "This is carrying it with a high hand, to be sure, to flatter

yourself that such wilful carelessness will not be discovered. Do you

suppose," she cried, pointing to the fragments of glass, "that _my_

nerves could feel a crash like that, and I not come down to see what

had happened?"

She spoke so volubly, and kept so firm a grip of my arm, that I could

not get breath to utter a word of self-defence,--indeed, what defence

could I make? Yet I should say, from my mistress's singular manner,

that _she_ had seen that vision too, so wild were her eyes, so haggard

her face.

Little Jacques was buried. His attentive parents enjoyed a

carriage-ride, with his miniature coffin between them, quite as

well as if the little fellow had accompanied them alive and full of

mischief.

Outside matters, as Monsieur said, being now off his mind, he could

attend to business again.

The mirror belonged to "business." I had been writhing under that

knowledge all the morning of their absence.

Monsieur took the sight of his despoiled glass as calmly as Diogenes

might have viewed a similar disaster from his tub. Monsieur's

philosophy was grounded upon common sense. He knew that the frame

was valuable. He knew also that I had saved enough to pay for the

accident. I knew it, too, and was well aware that he would exact

payment to the uttermost farthing. Monsieur, therefore, was quite

cool. He laughed loudly at Madame's excitement, and the feverish

account she gave of my fright, my deceitfulness, and pretending to see

what nobody else saw.

"Little Jacques!" I heard him exclaim, as I entered the room,

shrugging his shoulders with such a contemptuously good-natured

sneer as only a Frenchman can manufacture; and raising both his hands

derisively, he went off with vivacity to his business.

In the morning I left. Monsieur endeavored to persuade me to stay. But

my business there was finished. I was quite as cool as Monsieur,--in

fact, a little chilly. I was determined to go. Madame was determined

also; we could no longer get along together; each hated and feared

the other; and Madame C---- having used overnight what influence she

possessed to bring her husband to see the necessity of my departure,

his objections were not very difficult to remove.

I could not afford to be out of work, that was true, and it might take

me a long time to get it; but I was tired to death, and glad of any

excuse for a little rest. What, after all, if I did lie by for a

little while? there was not much pleasure or profit either way.

I should not grow rich by my work; I could not grow much poorer

by being idle. The past year, which I had spent in the service of

Monsieur and Madame C----, had been one of constant annoyance and

irritating variety of employment. I had grown fretful in the constant

hurry and drive, and the baneful atmosphere of Madame's peevishness.

Body and soul cried out for a season of release, which never in all my

life of service had I thought of before.

I had my desire now. I had put away my bondage. I had ceased my

unprofitable labor. The rest I had so long craved was at hand. I might

take a jubilee, a siesta, if I pleased, of half a year, and nobody be

the wiser. I was responsible to nobody. Nobody had any demands upon

my time or exertion. Free! I stood in a vacuum; no rush of air, no

tempest or whirlpool stirred its infinite profundity. At length I

was at peace,--a peace which seemed likely to last as long as my slim

purse held out; for employment was not easy to obtain. Did I enjoy it?

Did I lap myself in the long-desired repose in thankful quiescence

of spirit? Perhaps,--I cannot tell; restlessness had become a chronic

disease with me. I felt like a ship drifted from its moorings: the

winds and the tides were pleasant; the ocean was at lull; but the ship

rocked aimless and unsteady upon the waters. The heavy weights of

life and activity so suddenly withdrawn left painful lightness akin to

emptiness. The broken chains trailed noisily after me. The time hung

heavily which I had so long prayed for. Long years of monotonous

servitude had made a very machine of me. I could only rust in

inaction. Some other power, to rack and grind and urge me on, was

necessary to my very existence.

So it happened, that, at last, my holiday having spun out to the end

of my means, I left the city, and engaged work at very low wages in

a country-village. The situation and the remuneration were not in

the least calculated to stimulate ambition or avarice; and I remained

obscurely housed, incessantly busy, and coarsely clothed and fed, in

this place, for two years. They were not long years either. I had

no hard taskmaster, however hard my task, no uneasy, unexplainable

apprehensions, no moody forebodings of evil, no troublesome children

to distress me. At the end of that time I heard of a better situation,

and returned to the city.

I had been engaged about a twelvemonth in my new place, a very

pleasant little shop, though the pay was less and the work harder

than I had had with Monsieur C----, when, one morning, standing at the

shop-window, I saw that gentleman pass: very brisk, very spruce, very

plump he looked. Glancing in, (I flatter myself that a show-window

arranged as I could arrange it would attract any one's eye,) he espied

me. A speedy recognition and a long conversation were the result. It

was early morning, and we had the store to ourselves. Monsieur was

very friendly. His business was very good. Poor Madame! he wished

she could have lived to see it; but she was gone, poor soul! out of a

world of trouble. And Monsieur plaintively fixed his eyes on the black

crape upon his hat. The unhappy exit took place a few months after my

departure. The children had gone to one or another relative. Monsieur

was all alone; he had been away since then himself, had been doing as

well as a bereaved man could do, and, having saved a snug little sum,

had returned to buy out the old stand, and reëstablish himself in the

old place. No one was with him; he wished he could get a good hand to

superintend the concern, now his own hands were so full. It would be a

good situation for somebody. In short, Monsieur came again and again,

until, as I was poor and lonely, and had almost overworked myself

just to keep soul and body together, whose union, after all, was of

no importance to any one save myself, and as I was quite glad to

find some one else who was interested in the preservation of the

partnership, I consented to be his wife. It was a very sensible and

philosophic arrangement for both of us. We could make more money

together than apart, and were stout and well able to help each other,

if only well taken care of. So we settled the business, and settled

ourselves as partners in the saloon.

Three years had passed, and we were in the old place still. We had

been very busy that day. Many orders to fill, many customers to wait

upon. Monsieur, completely worn out, was sound asleep on the sofa

up-stairs. It was late; I was very much fatigued, as I descended,

according to my usual custom, to see that everything was safe about

the house and shop. The place was all shut and empty; the lights were

all out. A cushioned lounge in one corner of the saloon--_my_ saloon

now--attracted my weary limbs, and I threw myself upon it, setting the

lamp upon a marble table by its side. With a complacent sense of rest

settling upon me, I drowsily looked about at the dim magnificence of

loneliness which surrounded me. The night-lamp made more shadow than

shine; but even by its obscured rays one who had known the old place

would have been struck with the wonderful improvement we had made. So

I thought. It was almost like a palace, gilded, and mirrored, and hung

with silken curtains. Monsieur and I had thriven together, had worked

hard and saved much these many years to produce the change. But the

change had been, as everything we effected was, well considered, and

had proved very profitable in the end. Better reception-rooms brought

better customers; higher prices a higher class of patronage. It

was very pleasant, lying there, to reflect that we were actually

succeeding in the world; and a pleasant and quiet mood fell upon me,

as, hopeful of the future, I looked back at the past. I thought of my

old days in that saloon; I thought of little Jacques. Little Jacques

was still a thought of some horror to me, and I generally avoided any

allusion to him. But to-night, in this subdued and contemplative mood,

I even let the little phantom glide into my reverie without being

startled. I even speculated on the old theme which had so haunted

me. I wondered whether my suspicions had been correct, and

whether--whether Madame C---- was guilty of sending her little son

before her into the other world. So thinking,--I might have been

almost dreaming,--a slight rustle in the shop aroused me. I was not

alarmed; my nerves are now much healthier, and I wisely make a point

of not getting them unstrung by violent movements, or unaccustomed

feats of activity, when anything astonishing happens. I therefore

lifted my head calmly and looked about,--it might be a mouse. The

noise ceased that instant, as if the intruder were aware of being

observed. Mice sometimes have this instinct. We had some valuable

new confections, which I had no desire should be disposed of by such

customers. So, taking up my lamp, and peering cautiously about me, I

proceeded to the shop. The light flickered,--flickered on something

tall and white,--something white and shadowy, standing erect,

and shrinking aside, behind the counter. My heart stood still;

a sepulchral chill came over me. My old self, trembling,

angry, foreboding, stepped suddenly within the niche whence the

self-confident, full-grown, sensible woman had vanished utterly. For

an instant, I felt like a ghost myself. It seemed natural that ghosts,

if such there were, should spy me out, and appall my heart with their

presence. For there, in that old, haunted spot, where long years ago

the spectre of little Jacques had lifted its menacing finger, stood

the form of Marie, Madame C----. I knew it well; shuddering and

shivering myself, more like an intruder than one intruded upon, I laid

my hand upon the chill marble counter for support. It was no creation

of imagination; the figure laid its hand also upon the marble, and,

stretching over its gaunt neck, stood and peered into my eyes.

"Madame C----! Madame C----!" I cried; "what in the name of God would

you have of me?"

"Nothing," she answered,--"nothing of you,--and nothing in the name

of God. Oh, you need not shudder at me,--Christine C----! I know _you_

well enough. You haven't got over your old tricks yet. I'm no ghost,

though. Mayhap you'd rather I'd be, for all your nerves, eh?"--and she

shook her head in the old vengeful, threatening way.

It was true enough. "What evil atmosphere surrounded me? What fell

snare environed me? I looked about like a hunted animal brought to

bay,--like a robber suddenly entrapped in the midst of his ill-gotten

gains. For this was no dead woman, but a living vengeance, more

terrible than death, brought to my very door. Some unseen power, it

seemed, full of evil influence, full of malignant justice, stretched

its long arms through my life, and would not let me by any means

escape to peace, to rest. A direful vision of horrible struggles yet

to come--of want, despair, disgrace in reservation--sickened my soul.

"I will call--I will call," said I, gasping,--"I will call Monsieur

C----; he"----

"Don't, don't, I beg of you!" she cried, catching me by the sleeve,

with a sardonic laugh; low, whispering, full of direful meaning, it

stealthily echoed through the saloon. "Don't disturb the good man. He

sleeps so soundly after his well-spent days! _He_ doesn't have any bad

dreams, I fancy,--rid of such a troublesome, vicious wife,--a wife who

harassed her husband to death, and murdered her little boy,--he sleeps

sound, doesn't he? And yet--I declare, in the name of God, Christine

C----,"--and she lifted up her bony finger like an avenging

fate,--"_he did it_!"

I had been endeavoring to calm myself while this woman of spectral

face and form stared at me with her maniac eye across the counter. I

had succeeded. At any rate, this was a tangible horror, and could be

grappled with; it was not beyond human reach, a shadowy retribution

from the invisible world. To face the circumstances, however

repulsive, is less depressing than to await in suspense the coming

of their footsteps, and the descent of that blow we know they will

inflict. I had always found that policy best which was bravest. I

remembered this now. Dropping my high tone, and soothing my excited

features, I beckoned the woman and gave her a chair; I took a chair

myself, wrapping a shawl close about me to repress the shivering I

could not yet overcome, and I and that woman, returned from the grave,

as it seemed to me, sat calmly down in business-fashion, and held a

long conversation.

Madame C---- had loved her husband with that sort of respectful,

awe-filled affection which lower natures experience towards those

which are a grade above them. She had loved her children, too,

although they were her torment. Her inability to manage or keep

them in order fretted and irritated her excessively. Monsieur, as a

philosopher, could not understand the anomaly, that a woman who was

perpetually unhappy and ill-tempered, while her children, young,

buoyant, and mischievous, were about her, should sympathize with

and care for them when sick. He could not understand her

conscience-stricken misery when little Jacques drooped after her

severity towards him. Monsieur was a kind husband, however, and a wise

man in many things. He had studied much in his youth, chiefly medical

works, of which he had quite a collection. He could not understand

the whimsical nervousness of women, but, when so slight a thing as a

child's illness appeared to be the cause of it, could unhesitatingly

undertake to remove the difficulty. He had prescribed attentively

for the two children who died before Jacques, thereby rendering them

comfortable and quiet, and saving quite an item in the doctor's bill.

When little Jacques fell ill, and Madame fretted incessantly about

his loss of vigor and vivacity, Monsieur, with fatherly kindness,

undertook, in the midst of his pressing business, to give the child

his medicine, which had to be most carefully prepared. Sometimes the

powders were disguised in _bonbons_, the more agreeably to dose

the patient little fellow; these were prepared with Monsieur's own

fatherly hands, and during his absence were once in a while left

for Madame to administer. Madame had great faith in these

medicines,--great faith in her husband's skill; but the child's

disease was obstinate, very; no progress could be discovered. It was

a comforting thought, at least, that, if his recovery was beyond

possibility, something had been done to soothe his pain and quiet

the vexed spirit in its bitter struggle with dissolution. Yes, the

medicines were certainly very quieting,--so quieting, so death-like

in their influence,--she could not tell how a suspicion (perhaps the

strange expression of the child's eye, when they were administered)

glided into her imagination (having so great a reverence for her

husband, it took no place in her mind for an instant,--it was merely a

spectral, haunting shadow) that these things were getting the child

no better,--that they were not medicine for keeping him here, but for

helping him away. This suspicion, breathing its baleful breath across

her mind, weak, vacillating, incapable of energetic action, had

rendered her miserable, morose, irritable, more so than ever before.

Yet little Jacques in his last hour hankered for the medicine, and

craved feverishly the delicate powder, the sweet confection, his

father prepared for him.

While inwardly brooding over this unnamed terror, and cowering before

this shapeless thought which loomed in the darkness of her mental

gloom, an idea entered her mind that I, too, was suspicious that

something was going wrong,--that I was watching,--waiting the evil to

come. The child died. Her fear for him was utterly superseded by fear

for her husband. What if I should find him out and betray him? The

anxiety occasioned by this possibility made her hate me. The agony

of her little one's departure, the fear of some dire discovery, the

consciousness of guilt near enough of vicinage almost to seem her

own, combined to nearly distract her mind, and it seemed like a joyful

relief when I departed. The sudden release from that constant pressure

of fear (she knew I could do nothing against them without money,

credit, or friends) made her ill for a time, quite ill, she said. She

knew not what was done for her during this sickness,--who nursed her,

or who gave her medicine. But one morning, on waking from what seemed

a long sleep, in which she had dreamed strangely and talked wildly,

she beheld Monsieur, smiling kindly, standing beside her bed with a

vial and a spoon in his hand.

"It is a cordial, my dear, which will strengthen and bring you round

again very soon. You need a sedative,--something to allay fever and

excitement."

"Is it little Jacques's medicine?"

"Quite similar, my dear,--not the powders,--the liquid. Equally

soothing to the nerves, and promotive of sleep."

She turned her face away. She had slept long enough. She thanked

Monsieur, not daring to look up, but capriciously refused to touch

little Jacques's medicine.

"And Monsieur," she said, "Monsieur was very angry. He said I was a

disobedient wife, who did not wish to get well, but desired to be a

constant expense and trouble to her husband.

"And so, Christine C----, I trembled and shook, and let fall words I

never meant to have uttered to Monsieur, and I said he had killed

the child, and wished to kill me, that he might marry Mademoiselle

Christine. I did not say any more that day. In the morning, Monsieur

and I discoursed together again. I declared I would get well and go

away. Oh! Monsieur knew well I would not betray him. He was willing,

very willing to consent to my departure. He cared for me well, and

gave me much money; and I went away to my old aunt, who lived in

Paris. I have been dead,--I have died to Monsieur. I should never have

returned, but that my good aunt is gone. When I buried her,--shut her

kind eyes, and wrapped her so snugly in her shroud,--I thought it a

horrible thing to be living without a soul to care for me, or comfort

me, or even to wrap me up as I did her when the time was come. I felt

then a thirsty spirit rising within me to see my old place where I had

comfort and shelter long ago, and to see my children. I have been to

see them: they are in B----; they did not know me there. I did not

tell them who I was. I have been faithful to my promise. I tell no one

but you, Christine C----, who have stepped into my place, and stolen

away my home. A prettier home you have made of it for a prettier wife;

but it's the old place yet, with the old stain upon it."

Wishing to consider a moment what I should do, half paralyzed, like

one who is stricken with death, I left that other ME, (for was she not

also my husband's wife?) apparently exhausted, lying upon the sofa,

and went wearily up-stairs, with heavy steps, like one whose life

has suddenly become a weight to him. What, indeed, _should_ I do?

Starvation and misery stared me in the face. If I left the house,

casting its guilt and its comfort behind me, where could I go? I could

do nothing, earn nothing now. My reputation, now that we were so lone

established, would be entirely gone. And if I left all for which I had

labored so hard, for another to enjoy, would that better the matter?

Great God! would _anything_ help me? Before me in terrific vision

rose a dim vista of future ruin, of ineffectual years writhing in the

inescapable power of the law, of long trial, of horrible suspense, of

garish publicity, of my name handed from mouth to mouth, a forlorn,

duped, degraded thing, whose blighted life was a theme of newspaper

comment and cavil. These thoughts swept over me as a tempest sweeps

over the young tree whose roots are not firm in the soil, whose

writhing and wrestling are impotent to defend it from certain

destruction. There was no one I loved especially, no one I cared for

anxiously, to relieve the bitter thoughts which centred in myself

alone. Monsieur awoke as I was sitting thus, in ineffectual effort to

compose myself. Seeing me sitting near him, still dressed, the door

open, and the light burning, he inquired what was the matter. I had

something below requiring his attention, I said, and, taking up the

lamp, ushered him down-stairs. My chaotic thoughts were beginning to

settle themselves,--to form a nucleus about the first circumstance

that thrust itself definitely before them. That poor wretch waiting

below,--that forsaken, abject, dishonored wife,--I would confront him

with her, and charge him with his guilt. Opening the saloon-door, I

stepped in before him. The lamp which I had left upon the stand was

out, and the slender thread of light which fell from the one in my

hand, sweeping across the gloom, rested upon the deserted sofa. The

saloon was empty; no trace, no sign could be discovered of any human

being. The hush, the solemnity of night brooded over the place.

Monsieur mockingly, but unsteadily, inquired what child's game I

was playing,--he was too tired to be fooled with. He spoke hotly and

quickly, as he never had spoken to me before,--like one who has long

been ill at ease, and deems a slight circumstance portentous.

So I turned upon him, with all the bitterness in my heart rising to

my tongue. I told him the story. I charged him with the guilt. He

listened in silence; marble-like he stood with folded arms, and heard

the conclusion of the whole matter. When I was silent, he strode up

to me, and, stooping, peered into my face steadily. His teeth were

clenched, his eyes shot fire; otherwise he was calm, quite composed.

He said, quietly,--

"Would you blame me for making an angel out of an idiot?"

Monsieur's philosophy was too subtile for me. GUILTY seemed a coarse

word to apply to so fine a nature.

He denied having attempted to injure his wife in any way.

"Women are all fools," he said; "they are all alike,--go just as

they are led, and do just as they are taught. They cannot think

for themselves. They have no ideas of justice but just what the law

furnishes them with. It was silly to complain; it argued a narrow mind

to condemn merely because the laws condemn. In that case all should

be acquitted whom the laws acquit,--did we ever do this? Would his

darling Jacques, happy, angelic, condemn his parent for releasing him

from the drudgery of life? Was it not better to play on a golden harp

than to be a confectioner? Were not all men, in fact, more or less

slayers of their brothers? Was I not myself guilty in attributing

to Madame a deed in my eyes worthy of death, and of which she was

innocent? It was only those whose courage induced them to venture a

little farther who received condemnation. In some way or other,

every soul is wearing out and overtasking somebody else's soul, and

shortening somebody's days. A man who should throw his child into the

water, in order to save him from being burned to death, would not

be arraigned for the fierce choice. Little Jacques, if he had lived,

would have lingered in misery and imbecility. Was a lingering death of

torture to be preferred by a tenderhearted woman to one more rapid and

less painful, where the certainty of death left only such preference?

Ah, well! it was consolation that his little son was safe from all

vicissitude, whatever might befall his devoted father!" and Monsieur

wiped his eyes, and drew out a little miniature he always carried in

his bosom. It was the portrait of little Jacques.

Well, as I have said, Monsieur was a philosopher, and I was a

philosopher; and yet I must have been a woman incapable of reason,

incapable of comprehending an argument; for the thought of this thing,

and of being in the presence of a man capable of such a deed, made me

uneasy, restless, unhappy, as though I were in some sort a partaker of

the crime. I could not sleep; I was haunted with horrific dreams; and

when, in few days, among the "accidents" the death of an unknown woman

was recorded, whose body had drifted ashore at night, and I recognized

by the description poor, unknown, uncared-for Madame C----, a wild

fever burned in my veins, a frenzy of anguish akin to remorse, as if

_I_ had wronged the dead, and sent her drifting, helpless, out to the

unknown world. A pitiable soul, who preferred misery for her portion,

rather than betray the man she loved, or become partaker of his crime,

had crept back, after years of self-imposed absence, with death in her

heart, to see the old place and the new wife,--and how had I received

her? With horror and shuddering, as though she were some guilty thing,

to be held at arm's-length. Not as one woman, generous, forgiving,

hoping for mercy hereafter, should receive another, however erring. It

was a sad boon, perhaps, she had endowed me with; yet it was all she

prized and cherished.