IV
Nov. 2.
I really think I am sick and going to die. Last night I raised a
little blood. I dare not tell mother, it would distress her so, but I
am sure it came from my lungs. Charley said last week he really must
stay away till I got better, for my cough sounded like his mother's.
I have been very lonely, and have shed some tears, but most of the
time have been too sorrowful to cry. If we were married, and I had a
cough, would he go and leave me, I wonder?
Sunday, Nov 18-Poor mother is dreadfully anxious about me. But I
don't see how she can love me so, after the way I have behaved. I
wonder if, after all, mothers are not the best friends there are! I
keep her awake with my cough all night, and am mopy and cross all
day, but she is just as kind and affectionate as she can be.
Nov. 25.-The day I wrote that was Sunday. I could not go to church,
and I felt very forlorn and desolate. I tried to get some comfort by
praying, but when I got on my knees I just burst out crying and could
not say a word. For I have not seen Charley for ten days. As I knelt
there I began to think myself a perfect monster of selfishness for
wanting him to spend his evenings with me, now that I am so unwell
and annoy him so with my cough, and I asked myself if I ought not to
break off the engagement altogether, if I was really in consumption,
the very disease Charley dreaded most of all. It seemed such a proper
sacrifice to make of myself. Then I prayed-yes, I am sure I really
prayed as I had not done for more than a year, the idea of
self-sacrifice grew every moment more beautiful in my eyes, till at
last I felt an almost joyful triumph in writing to poor Charley, and
tell him what I had resolved to do. This is my letter:
My Dear, Dear Charley--I dare not tell you what it costs me to say
what I am about to do; but I am sure you know me well enough by this
time believe that it is only because your happiness is far more
precious to me than my own, that I have decided to write you this
letter. When you first told me that you loved me, you said, and you
have often said so since then, that it was my "brightness and gayety"
that attracted you. I knew there was something underneath my gayety
better worth your love, and was glad I could give you more than you
asked for. I knew I was not a mere thoughtless, laughing girl, but
that I had a heart as wide as the ocean to give you-as wide and as
deep.
But now my "brightness and gayety" have gone; I am sick and perhaps
am going to die. If this is so, it would be very sweet to have your
love go with me to the very gates of death, and beautify and glorify
my path thither. But what a weary task this would be to you, my poor
Charley! And so, if you think it best, and it would relieve you of
any care and pain, I will release you from our engagement and set you
free. Your Little Katy.
I did not sleep at all that night. Early on Monday I sent off my
letter; and my heart beat so hard all day that I was tired and faint.
Just at dark his answer came; I can copy it from memory.
Dear Kate:--What a generous, self-sacrificing little thing you are! I
always thought so, but now you have given me a noble proof of it. I
will own that I have been disappointed to find your constitution so
poor, and that it has been very dull sitting and hearing you cough,
especially as I was reminded of the long and tedious illness through
which poor Jenny and myself had to nurse our mother. I vowed then
never to marry a consumptive woman, and I thank you for making it so
easy for me to bring our engagement to an end. My bright hopes are
blighted, and it will be long before I shall find another to fill
your place. I need not say how much I sympathize with you in this
disappointment. I hope the consolations of religion will now be
yours. Your notes, the lock of your hair, etc., I return with this
now. I will not reproach you for the pain you have cost me; I know it
is not your fault that your health has become so frail. I remain your
sincere friend,
Charles Underhill
Jan. 1, 1834.-Let me finish this story If I can.
My first impulse after reading his letter was to fly to mother, and
hide away forever in her dear, loving arms.
But I restrained myself, and with my heart beating so that I could
hardly hold my pen, I wrote:
Mr. Underhill Sir--The scales have fallen from my eyes, and I see you
at last just as you are. Since my note to you on Sunday last, I have
had a consultation of physicians, and they all agree that my disease
is not of an alarming character, and that I shall soon recover. But I
thank God that before it was too late, you have been revealed to me
just as you are-a heartless, selfish, shallow creature, unworthy the
love of a true-hearted woman, unworthy even of your own self-respect.
I gave you an opportunity to withdraw from our engagement in full
faith, loving you so truly that I was ready to go trembling to my
grave alone if you shrank from sustaining me to it. But I see now
that I did not dream for one moment that you would take me at my word
and leave me to my fate. I thought I loved a man, and could lean on
him when strength failed me; I know now that I loved a mere creature
of my imagination. Take back your letters; loathe the sight of them.
Take back the ring, and find, if you can, a woman who will never be
sick, never out of spirits, and who never will die. Thank heaven it
is not Katherine Mortimer.
These lines came to me in reply:
"Thank God it is not Kate Mortimer. I want an angel for my wife, not
a vixen. C. U."
Jan. 15-What a tempest-tossed creature this birthday finds me. But
let me finish this wretched, disgraceful story, if I can, before I
quite lose my senses.
I showed my mother the letters. She burst into tears and opened her
arms, and I ran into them as a wounded bird flies into the ark. We
cried together. Mother never said, never looked, "I told you so."
All she did say was this,
"God has heard my prayers! He is reserving better things for my
child!"
Dear mother's are not the only arms I have flown to. But it does not
seem as if God ought to take me in because I am in trouble, when I
would not go to him when I was happy in something else. But even in
the midst of my greatest felicity I had many and many a misgiving;
many a season when my conscience upbraided me for my willfulness
towards my dear mother, and my whole soul yearned for something
higher and better even than Charley's love, precious as it was.
Jan. 26.-I have shut myself up in my room to-day to think over
things. The end of it is that I am full of mortification and
confusion of face. If I had only had confidence in mother's judgment
I should never have get entangled in this silly engagement. I see now
that Charley never could have made me happy, and I know there is a
good deal in my heart he never called out. I wish, however, I had not
written him when I was in passion. No wonder he is thankful that he
free from such a vixen. But, oh the provocation was terrible!
I have made up my mind never to tell a human soul about this affair.
It will be so high-minded and honorable to shield him thus from the
contempt he deserves. With all my faults I am glad that there is
nothing mean or little about me!
Jan. 27.-I can't bear to write it down, but I will. The ink was
hardly dry yesterday on the above self-laudation when Amelia came.
She had been out of town, and had only just learned what had
happened. Of course she was curious to know the whole story.
And I told it to her, every word of it! Oh, Kate Mortimer, how
"high-minded" you are! How free from all that is "mean and little"! I
could tear my hair if it would do any good?
Amelia defended Charley, and I was thus led on to say every harsh
thing of him I could think of. She said he was of so sensitive a
nature, had so much sensibility, and such a constitutional aversion
to seeing suffering, that for her part she could not blame him.
"It is such a pity you had not had your lungs examined before you
wrote that first letter," she went on. "But you are so impulsive! If
you had only waited you would be engaged to Charley still!"
"I am thankful I did not wait," I cried, angrily. "Do, Amelia, drop
the subject forever. You and I shall never agree upon it. The truth
is, you are two-thirds in love with him, and have been, all along."
She colored, and laughed, and actually looked pleased. If anyone had
made such an outrageous speech to me I should have been furious.
"I suppose you know," said she, "that old Mr. Underhill has taken
such a fancy to him that he has made him his heir; and he is as rich
as a Jew."
"Indeed!" I said, dryly.
I wonder if mother knew it when she opposed our engagement so
strenuously.
Jan. 31.-I have asked her, and she said she did. Mr. Underhill told
her his intentions when he urged her consent to the engagement. Dear
mother! How unworldly, how unselfish she is!
Feb. 4.-The name of Charley Underhill appears on these pages for the
last time. He is engaged to Amelia! From this moment she is lost to
me forever. How desolate, how mortified, how miserable I am! Who
could have thought this of Amelia! She came to see me, radiant with
joy. I concealed my disgust until she said that Charley felt now that
he had never really loved me, but had preferred her all along. Then I
burst out. What I said I do not know, and do not care. The whole
thing is so disgraceful that I should be a stock or a stone not to
resent it.
Feb. 5.-After yesterday's passion of grief, shame, and anger, I feel
perfectly stupid and languid. Oh, that I was prepared for a better
world, and could fly to it and be at rest!
Feb. 6.-Now that it is all over, how ashamed I am of the fury I have
been in, and which has given Amelia such advantage over me! I was
beginning to believe that I was really living a feeble and
fluttering, but real Christian life, and finding some satisfaction in
it. But that is all over now. I am doomed to be a victim of my own
unstable, passionate, wayward nature, and the sooner I settle down
into that conviction, the better. And yet how my very soul craves the
highest happiness, and refuses to be comforted while that is wanting.
Feb. 7.-After writing that, I do not know what made me go to see Dr.
Cabot. He received me in that cheerful way of his that seems to
promise the taking one's burden right off one's back.
"I am very glad to see you, my dear child," he said.
I intended to be very dignified and cold. As if I was going to have
any Dr. Cabot's undertaking to sympathize with me! But those few kind
words just upset me, and I began to cry.
"You would not speak so kindly," I got out at last, "if you knew what
a dreadful creature I am. I am angry with myself, and angry with
everybody, and angry with God. I can't be good two minutes at a time.
I do everything I do not want to do, and do nothing I try and pray to
do. Everybody plagues me and tempts me. And God does not answer any
of my prayers, and I am just desperate."
"Poor child!" he said, in a low voice, as if to himself. "Poor,
heart-sick, tired child, that cannot see what I can see, that its
Father's loving arms are all about it?"
I stopped crying, to strain my ears and listen. He went on.
"Katy, all that you say may be true. I dare say it is. But God loves
you. He loves you."
"He loves me," I repeated to myself. "He loves me! Oh, Dr. Cabot, if
I could believe that! If I could believe that, after all the promises
I have broken, all the foolish, wrong things I have done and shall
always be doing, God perhaps still loves me!"
"You may be sure of it," he said, solemnly. "I, minister, bring the
gospel to you to-day. Go home and say over and over to yourself, 'I
am a wayward, foolish child. But He loves me! I have disobeyed and
grieved Him ten thousand times. But He loves me! I have lost faith in
some of my dearest friends and am very desolate. But He loves me! I
do not love Him, I am even angry with Him! But He loves me! '"
I came away, and all the way home I fought this battle with myself,
saying, "He loves me!" I knelt down to pray, and all my wasted,
childish, wicked life came and stared me in the face. I looked at it,
and said with tears of joy, "But He loves me!" Never in my life did I
feel so rested, so quieted, so sorrowful, and yet so satisfied.
Feb 10.-What a beautiful world this is, and how full it is of truly
kind, good people! Mrs. Morris was here this morning, and just one
squeeze of that long, yellow old hand of hers seemed to speak a
bookful! I wonder why I have always disliked her so, for she is
really an excellent woman. I gave her a good kiss to pay her for the
sympathy she had sense enough not to put into canting words, and if
you will believe it, dear old Journal, the tears came into her eyes,
and she said:
"You are one of the Lord's beloved ones, though perhaps you do not
know it."
I repeated again to myself those sweet, mysterious words, and then I
tried to think what I could do for Him. But I could not think of
anything great or good enough. I went into mother's room and put my
arms round her and told her how I loved her. She looked surprised and
pleased.
"Ah, I knew it would come!" she said, laying her hand on her Bible.
"Knew what would come, mother?"
"Peace," she said.
I came back here and wrote a little note to Amelia, telling her how
ashamed and sorry I was that I could not control myself the other
day. Then I wrote a long letter to James. I have been very careless
about writing to him.
Then I began to hem those handkerchiefs mother asked me to finish a
month ago. But I could not think of anything to do for God. I wish I
could. It makes me so happy to think that all this time, while I was
caring for nobody but myself, and fancying He must almost hate me, He
was loving and pitying me.
Feb. 15.-I went to see Dr. Cabot again to-day. He came down from his
study with his pen in his hand.
"How dare you come and spoil my sermon on Saturday?" he asked,
good-humoredly.
Though he seemed full of loving kindness, I was ashamed of my
thoughtlessness. Though I did not know he was particularly busy on
Saturdays. If I were a minister I am sure I would get my sermons done
early in the week.
"I only wanted to ask one thing," I said. "I want to do something for
God. And I cannot think of anything unless it is to go on a mission.
And mother would never let me do that. She thinks girls with delicate
health are not fit for such work."
"At all events I would not go to-day," he replied. "Meanwhile do
everything you do for Him who has loved you and given Himself for
you."
I did not dare to stay any longer, and so came away quite puzzled.
Dinner was ready, and as I sat down to the table, I said to myself:
"I eat this dinner for myself, not for God. What can Dr. Cabot mean?"
Then I remembered the text about doing all for the glory of God, even
in eating and drinking; but I do not understand it at all.
Feb. 19.-It has seemed to me for several days that it must be that I
really do love God, though ever so little. But it shot through my
mind to-day like a knife, that it is a miserable, selfish love at the
best, not worth my giving, not worth God's accepting. All my old
misery has come back with seven other miseries more miserable than
itself. I wish I had never been born! I wish I were thoughtless and
careless, like so many other girls of my age, who seem to get along
very well, and to enjoy themselves far more than I do.
Feb. 21.-Dr. Cabot came to see me to-day. I told him all about it. He
could not help smiling as he said:
"When I see a little infant caressing its mother, would you have me
say to it, 'You selfish child, how dare you pretend to caress your
mother in that way? You are quite unable to appreciate her character;
you love her merely because she loves you, treats you kindly?'"
It was my turn to smile now, at my own folly.
"You are as yet but a babe in Christ," Dr. Cabot continued. "You love
your God and Saviour because He first loved you. The time will come
when the character of your love will become changed into one which
sees and feels the beauty and the perfection of its object, and if
you could be assured that He no longer looked on you with favor, you
would still cling to Him with devoted affection."
"There is one thing more that troubles me," I said. "Most persons
know the exact moment when they begin real Christian lives. But I do
not know of any such time in my history. This causes me many uneasy
moments."
"You are wrong in thinking that most persons have this advantage over
you. I believe that the children of Christian parents, who have been
judiciously trained, rarely can point to any day or hour when they
began to live this new life. The question is not, do you remember, my
child, when you entered this world, and how! It is simply this, are
you now alive and an inhabitant thereof? And now it is my turn to ask
you a question. How happens it that you, who have a mother of rich
and varied experience, allow yourself to be tormented with these
petty anxieties which she is as capable of dispelling as I am?"
"I do not know," I answered. "But we girls can't talk to our mothers
about any of our sacred feelings, and we hate to have them talk to
us."
Dr. Cabot shook his head.
"There is something wrong somewhere," he said, "A young girl's mother
is her natural refuge in every perplexity. I hoped that you, who have
rather more sense than most girls of your age, could give me some
idea what the difficulty is."
After he had gone, I am ashamed to own that I was in a perfect
flutter of delight at what he had said about my having more sense
than most girls. Meeting poor mother on the stairs while in this
exalted state of mind, I gave her a very short answer to a kind
question, and made her unhappy, as I have made myself.
It is just a year ago to-day that I got frightened at my
novel-reading propensities, and resolved not to look into one for
twelve months. I was getting to dislike all other books, and night
after night sat up late, devouring everything exciting I could get
hold of. One Saturday night I sat up till the clock struck twelve to
finish one, and the next morning I was so sleepy that I had to stay
at home from church. Now I hope and believe the back of this taste is
broken, and that I shall never be a slave to it again. Indeed it does
not seem to me now that I shall ever care for such books again.
Feb. 24.-Mother spoke to me this morning for the fiftieth time, I
really believe, about my disorderly habits. I don't think I am
careless because I like confusion, but the trouble is I am always in
a hurry and a ferment about something. If I want anything, I want it
very much, and right away. So if I am looking for a book, or a piece
of music, or a pattern, I tumble everything around, and can't stop to
put them to rights. I wish I were not so-eager and impatient. But I
mean to try to keep my room and my drawers in order, to please
mother.
She says, too, that I am growing careless about my hair and my dress.
But that is because my mind is so full of graver, more important
things. I thought I ought to be wholly occupied with my duty to God.
But mother says duty to God includes duty to one's neighbor, and that
untidy hair, put up in all sorts of rough bunches, rumpled cuffs and
collars, and all that sort of thing, make one offensive to all one
meets. I am sorry she thinks so, for I find it very convenient to
twist up my hair almost any how, and it takes a good deal of time to
look after collars and cuffs.
March 14.-To-day I feel discouraged and disappointed. I certainly
thought that if God really loved me, and I really loved Him, I should
find myself growing better day by day. But I am not improved in the
least. Most of the time I spend on my knees I am either stupid;
feeling nothing at all, or else my head is full of what I was doing
before I began to pray, or what I am going to do as soon as I get
through. I do not believe anybody else in the world is like me in
this respect. Then when I feel differently, and can make a nice, glib
prayer, with floods of tears running down my cheeks, I get all puffed
up, and think how much pleased God must be to see me so fervent in
spirit. I go down-stairs in this frame, and begin to scold Susan for
misplacing my music, till all of a sudden I catch myself doing it,
and stop short, crestfallen and confounded. I have so many such
experiences that I feel like a baby just learning to walk, who is so
afraid of falling that it has half a mind to sit down once for all.
Then there is another thing. Seeing mother so fond of Thomas A
Kempis, I have been reading it, now and then, and am not fond of it
at all. From beginning to end it exhorts to self-denial in every form
and shape. Must I then give up all hope of happiness in this world,
and modify all my natural tastes and desires? Oh, I do love so to be
happy! I do so hate to suffer! The very thought of being sick, or of
being forced to nurse sick people, with all their cross ways, and of
losing my friends, or of having to live with disagreeable people,
makes me shudder. I want to please God, and to be like Him. I
certainly do. But I am so young, and it is so natural to want to have
a good time! And now I am in for it I may as well tell the whole
story. When I read the lives of good men and women who have died and
gone to heaven, I find they all liked to sit and think about God and
about Christ. Now I don't. I often try, but my mind flies off in a
tangent. The truth is I am perfectly discouraged.
March 17.-I went to see Dr. Cabot to-day, but he was out, so I
thought I would ask for Mrs. Cabot, though I was determined not to
tell her any of my troubles. But somehow she got the whole story out
of me, and instead of being shocked, as I expected she would be, she
actually burst out laughing! She recovered herself immediately,
however.
"Do excuse me for laughing at you, you dear child you!" she said.
"But I remember so well how I use to flounder through just such
needless anxieties, and life looks so different, so very different,
to me now from what it did then! What should you think of a man who,
having just sowed his field, was astonished not to see it at once
ripe for the harvest, because his neighbor's, after long months of
waiting, was just being gathered in?"
"Do you mean," I asked, "that by and by I shall naturally come to
feel and think as other good people do?"
"Yes, I do. You must make the most of what little Christian life you
have; be thankful God has given you so much, cherish it, pray over
it, and guard it like the apple of your eye. Imperceptibly, but
surely, it will grow, and keep on growing, for this is its nature."
"But I don't want to wait," I said, despondently. "I have just been
reading a delightful book, full of stories of heroic deeds-not
fables, but histories of real events and real people. It has quite
stirred me up, and made me wish to possess such beautiful heroism,
and that I were a man, that I might have a chance to perform some
truly noble, self-sacrificing acts."
"I dare say your chance will come," she replied, "though you are not
a man. I fancy we all get, more or less, what we want."
"Do you really think so? Let me see, then, what I want most. But I am
staying too long. Were you particularly busy?"
"No," she returned smilingly, "I am learning that the man who wants
me is the man I want."
"You are very good to say so. Well, in the first place, I do really
and truly want to be good. Not with common goodness, you know, but-"
"But uncommon goodness," she put in.
"I mean that I want to be very, very good. I should like next best to
be learned and accomplished. Then I should want to be perfectly well
and perfectly happy. And a pleasant home, of course, I must have,
with friends to love me, and like me, too. And I can't get along
without some pretty, tasteful things about me. But you are laughing
at me! Have I said anything foolish?"
"If I laughed it was not at you, but at poor human nature that would
fain grasp everything at once. Allowing that you should possess all
you have just described, where is the heroism you so much admire for
exercise?"
"That is just what I was saying. That is just what troubles me."
"To be sure, while perfectly well and happy, in a pleasant home;
with friends to love and admire you--"
"Oh, I did not say admire," I interrupted.
"That was just what you meant, my dear."
I am afraid it was, now I come to think it over.
"Well, with plenty of friends, good in an uncommon way, accomplished,
learned, and surrounded with pretty and tasteful objects, your life
will certainly be in danger of not proving very sublime."
"It is a great pity," I said, musingly.
"Suppose then you content yourself for the present with doing in a
faithful, quiet, persistent way all the little, homely tasks that
return with each returning day, each one as unto God, and perhaps by
and by you will thus have gained strength for a more heroic life."
"But I don't know how."
"You have some little home duties, I suppose?"
"Yes; I have the care of my own room, and mother wants me to have a
general oversight of the parlor; you know we have but one parlor
now."
"Is that all you have to do?"
"Why, my music and drawing take up a good deal of my time, and I read
and study more or less, and go out some, and we have a good many
visitors."
"I suppose, then, you keep your room in nice lady-like order, and
that the parlor is dusted every morning, loose music put out of the
way, books restored to their places-"
"Now I know mother has been telling you."
"Your mother has told me nothing at all."
"Well, then," I said, laughing, but a little ashamed, "I don't keep
my room in nice order, and mother really sees to the parlor herself,
though I pretend to do it."
"And is she never annoyed by this neglect?"
"Oh, yes, very much annoyed."
"Then, dear Katy, suppose your first act of heroism to-morrow should
be the gratifying your mother in these little things, little though
they are. Surely your first duty, next to pleasing God, is to please
your mother, and in every possible way to sweeten and beautify her
life. You may depend upon it that a life of real heroism and
self-sacrifice must begin and lay its foundation in this little
world, wherein it learns its first lesson and takes its first steps."
"And do you really think that God notices such little things?"
"My dear child, what a question! If there is any one truth I would
gladly impress on the mind of a you Christian, it is just this, that
God notices the most trivial act, accepts the poorest, most
threadbare little service, listens to the coldest, feeblest petition,
and gathers up with parental fondness all our fragmentary desires and
attempts at good works. Oh, if we could only begin to conceive how He
loves us, what different creatures we should be!"
I felt inspired by her enthusiasm, though I don't think I quite
understand what she means. I did not dare to stay any longer, for,
with her great host of children, she must have her hands full.
March 25.-Mother is very much astonished to see how nicely I am
keeping things in order. I was flying about this morning, singing,
and dusting the furniture, when she came in and began, "He that is
faithful in that which is least"-but I ran at her my brush, and
would not let her finish. I really, really don't deserve to be praised.
For I have been thinking that, if it is true that God notices every
little thing we do to please Him, He must also notice every cross
word we speak, every shrug of the shoulders, every ungracious look,
and that they displease Him. And my list of such offences is as long
as my life.
March 29-Yesterday, for the first time since that dreadful blow, I
felt some return of my natural gayety and cheerfulness. It seemed to
come hand in hand with my first real effort to go so far out of
myself as to try to do exactly what would gratify dear mother.
But to-day I am all down again. I miss Amelia's friendship, for one
thing. To be sure I wonder how I ever came to love such a superficial
character so devotedly, but I must have somebody to love, and perhaps
I invented a lovely creature, and called it by her name, and bowed
down to it and worshiped it. I certainly did so in regard to him
whose heart less cruelty has left me so sad, so desolate.
Evening.-Mother has been very patient and forbearing with me all day.
To-night, after tea, she said, in her gentlest, tenderest way,
"Dear Katy, I feel very sorry for you. But I see one path which you
have not yet tried, which can lead you out of these sore straits. You
have tried living for yourself a good many years, and the result is
great weariness and heaviness of soul. Try now to live for others.
Take a class in the Sunday-school. Go with me to visit my poor
people. You will be astonished to find how much suffering and
sickness there is in this world, and how delightful it is to
sympathize with and try to relieve it."
This advice was very repugnant to me. My time is pretty fully
occupied with my books, my music and my drawing. And of all places in
the world I hate a sick-room. But, on the whole, I will take a class
in the Sunday-school.