“Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserved; it is lifes undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room, from which we go forth to more careful and guarded intercourse, leaving behind...cast-off and everyday clothing.”
”
“Simply an essay on Little Foxes,” said I, “by which I mean those
unsuspected, unwatched, insignificant _little_ causes, that nibble away
domestic happiness, and make home less than so noble an institution
should be.
“You may build beautiful, convenient, attractive houses,--you may hang
the walls with lovely pictures and stud them with gems of Art; and there
may be living there together persons bound by blood and affection in one
common interest, leading a life common to themselves and apart from
others; and these persons may each one of them be possessed of good and
noble traits; there may be a common basis of affection, of generosity,
of good principle, of religion; and yet, through the influence of some
of these perverse, nibbling, insignificant little foxes, half the
clusters of happiness on these so promising vines may fail to come to
maturity. A little community of people, all of whom would be willing to
die for each other, may not be able to live happily together; that is,
they may have far less happiness than their circumstances, their fine
and excellent traits, entitle them to expect.
“The reason for this in general is that home is a place not only of
strong affections, but of entire unreserves; it is life’s undress
rehearsal, its back-room, its dressing-room, from which we go forth to
more careful and guarded intercourse, leaving behind us much _débris_ of
cast-off and every-day clothing. Hence has arisen the common proverb,
‘No man is a hero to his _valet-de-chambre_’; and the common warning,
‘If you wish to keep your friend, don’t go and live with him.’”
“Which is only another way of saying,” said my wife, “that we are all
human and imperfect; and the nearer you get to any human being, the more
defects you see. The characters that can stand the test of daily
intimacy are about as numerous as four-leaved clovers in a meadow; in
general, those who do not annoy you with positive faults bore you with
their insipidity. The evenness and beauty of a strong, well-defined
nature, perfectly governed and balanced, is about the last thing one is
likely to meet with in one’s researches into life.”
“But what I have to say,” replied I, “is this,--that, family-life being
a state of unreserve, a state in which there are few of those barriers
and veils that keep people in the world from seeing each other’s defects
and mutually jarring and grating upon each other, it is remarkable that
it is entered upon and maintained generally with less reflection, less
care and forethought, than pertain to most kinds of business which men
and women set their hands to.
“Friendships are discovered rather than made.”
Van Arsdel," said I, "do you remember the lines of Longfellow: 'I
shot an arrow through the air?'"
"What are they?" she said.
I repeated:
"I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
"I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
"Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend."
"Do you know," I said, "that this expresses exactly what a poet wants?
It is not admiration, it is sympathy. Poems are test papers, put in the
atmosphere of life to detect this property; we can find by them who
really _feel_ with us; and those who do, whether near or far, are
_friends_. The making of friends is the most precious gift for which
poetic utterance is given."
"I don't think," said she, "you should say '_make_ friends'--friends are
_discovered_, rather than made. There are people who are in their own
nature friends, only they don't know each other; but certain things like
poetry, music, and painting, are like the free-mason's signs--they
reveal the initiated to each other."
And so on we went, deliciously talking and ranging through portfolios of
engravings that took us through past days; rambling through all our
sunny Italian life, up the Campanile, through the old Duomo; sauntering
through the ilexes of the Boboli Garden; comparing notes on the pictures
in the Pitti and the Belle Arte--in short, we had one of that blessed
kind of times which come when two enthusiasts go back together over the
brightest and sunniest passages of their experience.
My head swam; a golden haze was around me, and I was not quite certain
whether I was in the body or not. It seemed to me that we two must
always have known each other, so very simple and natural did it seem for
us to talk together, and to understand one another. "But," she said,
suddenly checking herself, "if we get to going on all these things there
is no end to it, and I promised sister Ida that I would present you in
her study to-night.
“The bitterest tear shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone”
They live with those they love dearly, whom a few more
words and deeds expressive of this love would make so much happier,
richer, and better; and they cannot, will not, turn the key and give it
out. People who in their very souls really do love, esteem, reverence,
almost worship each other, live a barren, chilly life side by side,
busy, anxious, preoccupied, letting their love go by as a matter of
course, a last year’s growth, with no present buds and blossoms.
Are there not sons and daughters who have parents living with them as
angels unawares,--husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, in whom the
material for a beautiful life lies locked away in unfruitful
silence,--who give time to everything but the cultivation and expression
of mutual love?
The time is coming, they think, in some far future, when they shall find
leisure to enjoy each other, to stop and rest side by side, to discover
to each other these hidden treasures which lie idle and unused.
Alas! time flies and death steals on, and we reiterate the complaint of
one in Scripture,--“It came to pass, while thy servant was busy hither
and thither, the man was gone.”
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and
deeds left undone. “She never knew how I loved her.” “He never knew what
he was to me.” “I always meant to make more of our friendship.” “I did
not know what he was to me till he was gone.” Such words are the
poisoned arrows which cruel Death shoots backward at us from the door of
the sepulchre.
How much more we might make of our family life, of our friendships, if
every secret thought of love blossomed into a deed! We are not now
speaking merely of personal caresses. These may or may not be the best
language of affection. Many are endowed with a delicacy, a
fastidiousness of physical organization, which shrinks away from too
much of these, repelled and overpowered. But there are words and looks
and little observances, thoughtfulnesses, watchful little attentions,
which speak of love, which make it manifest, and there is scarce a
family that might not be richer in heart-wealth for more of them.
It is a mistake to suppose that relations must of course love each other
because they are relations.
“Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship, with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary institution, by which closely-packed heathen are brought over to enjoy the light of the Gospel.”
He had a healthful,
kindly animal nature, and so his inwardness did not ferment and turn
to Byronic sourness and bitterness; nor did he needlessly parade to
everybody in his vicinity the great gulf which lay between him and
them. He was called a good fellow,—only a little lumpish,—and as he was
brave and faithful, he rose in time to be a shipmaster. But when came
the business of making money, the aptitude for accumulating, George
found himself distanced by many a one with not half his general powers.
What shall a man do with a sublime tier of moral faculties, when the
most profitable business out of his port is the slave-trade? So it
was in Newport in those days. George’s first voyage was on a slaver,
and he wished himself dead many a time before it was over,—and ever
after would talk like a man beside himself if the subject was named.
He declared that the gold made in it was distilled from human blood,
from mothers’ tears, from the agonies and dying groans of gasping,
suffocating men and women, and that it would sear and blister the
soul of him that touched it: in short, he talked as whole-souled,
unpractical fellows are apt to talk about what respectable people
sometimes do. Nobody had ever instructed him that a slave-ship,
with a procession of expectant sharks in its wake, is a missionary
institution, by which closely-packed heathens are brought over to enjoy
the light of the gospel.
So, though George was acknowledged to be a good fellow, and honest as
the noon-mark on the kitchen floor, he let slip so many chances of
making money as seriously to compromise his reputation among thriving
folks. He was wastefully generous,—insisted on treating every poor dog
that came in his way, in any foreign port, as a brother,—absolutely
refused to be party in cheating or deceiving the heathen on any
shore, or in skin of any colour,—and also took pains, as far as in
him lay, to spoil any bargains which any of his subordinates founded
on the ignorance or weakness of his fellow-men. So he made voyage
after voyage, and gained only his wages and the reputation among his
employers of an incorruptibly honest fellow.
To be sure, it was said that he carried out books in his ship, and
read and studied, and wrote observations on all the countries he saw,
which Parson Smith told Miss Dolly Persimmon would really do credit to
a printed book; but then they never _were_ printed, or, as Miss Dolly
remarked of them, they never seemed to come to anything—and coming to
anything, as she understood it, meant standing in definite relations to
bread and butter.
“So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to the master -- so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil -- so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best-regulated administration of slavery.”
”
Perhaps the mildest form of the system of slavery is to be seen in the
State of Kentucky. The general prevalence of agricultural pursuits of a
quiet and gradual nature, not requiring those periodic seasons of hurry
and pressure that are called for in the business of more southern
districts, makes the task of the negro a more healthful and reasonable
one; while the master, content with a more gradual style of
acquisition, has not those temptations to hardheartedness which always
overcome frail human nature when the prospect of sudden and rapid gain
is weighed in the balance, with no heavier counterpoise than the
interests of the helpless and unprotected.
Whoever visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-humored
indulgence of some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty
of some slaves, might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend
of a patriarchal institution, and all that; but over and above the
scene there broods a portentous shadow—the shadow of _law_. So long as
the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and
living affections, only as so many _things_ belonging to a master,—so
long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the
kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind
protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil,—so long
it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best
regulated administration of slavery.
Mr. Shelby was a fair average kind of man, good-natured and kindly, and
disposed to easy indulgence of those around him, and there had never
been a lack of anything which might contribute to the physical comfort
of the negroes on his estate. He had, however, speculated largely and
quite loosely; had involved himself deeply, and his notes to a large
amount had come into the hands of Haley; and this small piece of
information is the key to the preceding conversation.
Now, it had so happened that, in approaching the door, Eliza had caught
enough of the conversation to know that a trader was making offers to
her master for somebody.
She would gladly have stopped at the door to listen, as she came out;
but her mistress just then calling, she was obliged to hasten away.
Still she thought she heard the trader make an offer for her boy;—could
she be mistaken? Her heart swelled and throbbed, and she involuntarily
strained him so tight that the little fellow looked up into her face in
astonishment.
“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”
They live with those they love dearly, whom a few more
words and deeds expressive of this love would make so much happier,
richer, and better; and they cannot, will not, turn the key and give it
out. People who in their very souls really do love, esteem, reverence,
almost worship each other, live a barren, chilly life side by side,
busy, anxious, preoccupied, letting their love go by as a matter of
course, a last year’s growth, with no present buds and blossoms.
Are there not sons and daughters who have parents living with them as
angels unawares,--husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, in whom the
material for a beautiful life lies locked away in unfruitful
silence,--who give time to everything but the cultivation and expression
of mutual love?
The time is coming, they think, in some far future, when they shall find
leisure to enjoy each other, to stop and rest side by side, to discover
to each other these hidden treasures which lie idle and unused.
Alas! time flies and death steals on, and we reiterate the complaint of
one in Scripture,--“It came to pass, while thy servant was busy hither
and thither, the man was gone.”
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and
deeds left undone. “She never knew how I loved her.” “He never knew what
he was to me.” “I always meant to make more of our friendship.” “I did
not know what he was to me till he was gone.” Such words are the
poisoned arrows which cruel Death shoots backward at us from the door of
the sepulchre.
How much more we might make of our family life, of our friendships, if
every secret thought of love blossomed into a deed! We are not now
speaking merely of personal caresses. These may or may not be the best
language of affection. Many are endowed with a delicacy, a
fastidiousness of physical organization, which shrinks away from too
much of these, repelled and overpowered. But there are words and looks
and little observances, thoughtfulnesses, watchful little attentions,
which speak of love, which make it manifest, and there is scarce a
family that might not be richer in heart-wealth for more of them.
It is a mistake to suppose that relations must of course love each other
because they are relations.
“So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesnt somebody wake up to the beauty of old women”
It
was plain to see how old and firm the girlish heart was grown under the
discipline of heavy sorrow; and when, anon, her large dark eye was
raised to follow the gambols of her little Harry, who was sporting,
like some tropical butterfly, hither and thither over the floor, she
showed a depth of firmness and steady resolve that was never there in
her earlier and happier days.
By her side sat a woman with a bright tin pan in her lap, into which
she was carefully sorting some dried peaches. She might be fifty-five
or sixty; but hers was one of those faces that time seems to touch only
to brighten and adorn. The snowy lisse crape cap, made after the strait
Quaker pattern,—the plain white muslin handkerchief, lying in placid
folds across her bosom,—the drab shawl and dress,—showed at once the
community to which she belonged. Her face was round and rosy, with a
healthful downy softness, suggestive of a ripe peach. Her hair,
partially silvered by age, was parted smoothly back from a high placid
forehead, on which time had written no inscription, except peace on
earth, good will to men, and beneath shone a large pair of clear,
honest, loving brown eyes; you only needed to look straight into them,
to feel that you saw to the bottom of a heart as good and true as ever
throbbed in woman’s bosom. So much has been said and sung of beautiful
young girls, why don’t somebody wake up to the beauty of old women? If
any want to get up an inspiration under this head, we refer them to our
good friend Rachel Halliday, just as she sits there in her little
rocking-chair. It had a turn for quacking and squeaking,—that chair
had,—either from having taken cold in early life, or from some
asthmatic affection, or perhaps from nervous derangement; but, as she
gently swung backward and forward, the chair kept up a kind of subdued
“creechy crawchy,” that would have been intolerable in any other chair.
But old Simeon Halliday often declared it was as good as any music to
him, and the children all avowed that they wouldn’t miss of hearing
mother’s chair for anything in the world. For why? for twenty years or
more, nothing but loving words, and gentle moralities, and motherly
loving kindness, had come from that chair;—head-aches and heart-aches
innumerable had been cured there,—difficulties spiritual and temporal
solved there,—all by one good, loving woman, God bless her!
“And so thee still thinks of going to Canada, Eliza?
“A man builds a house in England with the expectation of living in it and leaving it to his children; we shed our houses in America as easily as a snail does his shell”
They said
that this course was much urged by some philanthropists, on the ground
that it was the only day when the working classes could find any leisure
to visit it, and that it seemed hard to shut them out entirely from all
the opportunities and advantages which they might thus derive; that to
exclude the laborer from recreation on the Sabbath, was the same as
saying that he should never have any recreation. I asked, why the
philanthropists could not urge employers to give their workmen a part of
Saturday for this purpose; as it seemed to me unchristian to drive trade
so that the laboring man had no time but Sunday for intellectual and
social recreation. We rather came to the conclusion that this was the
right course; whether the people of England will, is quite another
matter.
The grounds of the Dingle embrace three cottages; those of the two
Messrs. Cropper, and that of a son, who is married to a daughter of Dr.
Arnold. I rather think this way of relatives living together is more
common here in England than it is in America; and there is more idea of
home permanence connected with the family dwelling-place than with us,
where the country is so wide, and causes of change and removal so
frequent. A man builds a house in England with the expectation of living
in it and leaving it to his children; while we shed our houses in
America as easily as a snail does his shell. We live a while in Boston,
and then a while in New York, and then, perhaps, turn up at Cincinnati.
Scarcely any body with us is living where they expect to live and die.
The man that dies in the house he was born in is a wonder. There is
something pleasant in the permanence and repose of the English family
estate, which we, in America, know very little of. All which is apropos
to our having finished our walk, and got back to the ivy-covered porch
again.
The next day at breakfast, it was arranged that we should take a drive
out to Speke Hall, an old mansion, which is considered a fine specimen
of ancient house architecture. So the carriage was at the door. It was
a cool, breezy, April morning, but there was an abundance of wrappers
and carriage blankets provided to keep us comfortable. I must say, by
the by, that English housekeepers are bountiful in their provision for
carriage comfort. Every household has a store of warm, loose over
garments, which are offered, if needed, to the guests; and each carriage
is provided with one or two blankets, manufactured and sold expressly
for this use, to envelope one's feet and limbs; besides all which,
should the weather be cold, comes out a long stone reservoir, made flat
on both sides, and filled with hot water, for foot stools.
“Everyone confesses in the abstract that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us all; but practically most people do all they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than circumstances drive them to do.”
Then were to be seen families of daughters, handsome, strong females,
rising each day to their indoor work with cheerful alertness,--one to
sweep the room, another to make the fire, while a third prepared the
breakfast for the father and brothers who were going out to manly
labor; and they chatted meanwhile of books, studies, embroidery,
discussed the last new poem, or some historical topic started by
graver reading, or perhaps a rural ball that was to come off the next
week. They spun with the book tied to the distaff; they wove; they did
all manner of fine needlework; they made lace, painted flowers, and,
in short, in the boundless consciousness of activity, invention, and
perfect health, set themselves to any work they had ever read or
thought of. A bride in those days was married with sheets and
tablecloths of her own weaving, with counterpanes and toilet-covers
wrought in divers embroidery by her own and her sisters' hands. The
amount of fancy work done in our days by girls who have nothing else
to do will not equal what was done by these, who performed besides,
among them, the whole work of the family.
For many years these habits of life characterized the majority of our
rural towns. They still exist among a class respectable in numbers and
position, though perhaps not as happy in perfect self-satisfaction and
a conviction of the dignity and desirableness of its lot as in former
days. Human nature is above all things--lazy. Every one confesses in
the abstract that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and
mind is the best thing for us all; but practically most people do all
they can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more
than circumstances drive him to do. Even I would not write this
article were not the publication-day hard on my heels. I should read
Hawthorne and Emerson and Holmes, and dream in my armchair, and
project in the clouds those lovely unwritten stories that curl and
veer and change like mist-wreaths in the sun. So also, however
dignified, however invigorating, however really desirable, are habits
of life involving daily physical toil, there is a constant evil demon
at every one's elbow, seducing him to evade it, or to bear its weight
with sullen, discontented murmurs.
I will venture to say that there are at least, to speak very
moderately, a hundred houses where these humble lines will be read and
discussed, where there are no servants except the ladies of the
household. I will venture to say, also, that these households, many of
them, are not inferior in the air of cultivation and refined elegance
to many which are conducted by the ministration of domestics. I will
venture to assert furthermore that these same ladies who live thus
find quite as much time for reading, letter-writing, drawing,
embroidery, and fancy work as the women of families otherwise
arranged.
“I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place.”
How much of it is true and obligatory, each one can determine only
for himself; for on Protestant ground there is no room for papal
infallibility. All Christendom professes to believe in the inspiration
of the volume, and at the same time all Christendom is by the ears as
to its real teachings. Surely you would not have me disloyal to my
conscience. How do you prove that you are not trammeled by educational
or traditional notions as to the entire sanctity of the book? Indeed,
it seems to me very evident that you are not free in spirit, in view of
the apprehension and sorrow you feel because you find your conceptions
of the Bible controverted in the 'Liberator,' else why such disquietude
of mind? 'Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just.'"
In answer to this Mrs. Stowe writes:--
I did not reply to your letter immediately, because
I did not wish to speak on so important a subject
unadvisedly, or without proper thought and reflection.
The greater the interest involved in a truth the more
careful, self-distrustful, and patient should be the
inquiry.
I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being
sure I had a better one to put in its place, because,
such as it is, it is better than nothing. I notice
in Mr. Parker's sermons a very eloquent passage on
the uses and influences of the Bible. He considers it
to embody absolute and perfect religion, and that no
better mode for securing present and eternal happiness
can be found than in the obedience to certain religious
precepts therein recorded. He would have it read and
circulated, and considers it, as I infer, a Christian
duty to send it to the heathen, the slave, etc. I
presume you agree with him.
These things being supposed about the Bible would
certainly make it appear that, if any man deems it
his duty to lessen its standing in the eyes of the
community, he ought at least to do so in a cautious and
reverential spirit, with humility and prayer.
My objection to the mode in which these things are
handled in the "Liberator" is that the general tone
and spirit seem to me the reverse of this.
“What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic.”
Many a humble soul will be amazed to find that
the seed it sowed in such weakness, in the dust of daily life, has
blossomed into immortal flowers under the eye of the Lord.
"When I build my cathedral, that woman," I said, pointing to a small
painting by the fire, "shall be among the first of my saints. You
see her there, in an every-day dress-cap with a mortal thread-lace
border, and with a very ordinary worked collar, fastened by a
visible and terrestrial breastpin. There is no nimbus around her
head, no sign of the cross upon her breast; her hands are clasped
on no crucifix or rosary. Her clear, keen, hazel eye looks as if it
could sparkle with mirthfulness, as in fact it could; there are in
it both the subtile flash of wit and the subdued light of humor;
and though the whole face smiles, it has yet a certain decisive
firmness that speaks the soul immutable in good. That woman shall be
the first saint in my cathedral, and her name shall be recorded as
Saint Esther. What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished
from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and
greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic. To
be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in
the insipid details of every-day life, is a virtue so rare as to be
worthy of canonization,--and this virtue was hers. New England
Puritanism must be credited with the making of many such women.
Severe as was her discipline, and harsh as seems now her rule, we
have yet to see whether women will be born of modern systems of
tolerance and indulgence equal to those grand ones of the olden
times whose places now know them no more. The inconceivable
austerity and solemnity with which Puritanism invested this mortal
life, the awful grandeur of the themes which it made household
words, the sublimity of the issues which it hung upon the commonest
acts of our earthly existence, created characters of more than Roman
strength and greatness; and the good men and women of Puritan
training excelled the saints of the Middle Ages, as a soul fully
developed intellectually, educated to closest thought, and exercised
in reasoning, is superior to a soul great merely through impulse
and sentiment.
“Human nature is above all thingslazy.”
"What are all the young girls looking for in marriage? Some man with
money enough to save them from taking any care or having any trouble
in domestic life, enabling them, like the lilies of the field, to
rival Solomon in all his glory, while they toil not, neither do they
spin; and when they find that even money cannot purchase freedom from
care in family life, because their servants are exactly of the same
mind with themselves, and hate to do their duties as cordially as they
themselves do, then are they in anguish of spirit, and wish for
slavery, or aristocracy, or anything that would give them power over
the lower classes."
"But surely, Mr. Theophilus," said Jenny, "there is no sin in
disliking trouble, and wanting to live easily and have a good time in
one's life,--it's so very natural."
"No sin, my dear, I admit; but there is a certain amount of work and
trouble that somebody must take to carry on the family and the world;
and the mischief is, that all are agreed in wanting to get rid of it.
Human nature is above all things lazy. I am lazy myself. Everybody is.
The whole struggle of society is as to who shall eat the hard
bread-and-cheese of labor, which must be eaten by somebody. Nobody
wants it,--neither you in the parlor, nor Biddy in the kitchen.
"'The mass ought to labor, and we lie on sofas,' is a sentence that
would unite more subscribers than any confession of faith that ever
was presented, whether religious or political; and its subscribers
would be as numerous and sincere in the free States as in the slave
States, or I am much mistaken in my judgment. The negroes are men and
women, like any of the rest of us, and particularly apt in the
imitation of the ways and ideas current in good society; and
consequently to learn to play on the piano and to have nothing in
particular to do will be the goal of aspiration among colored girls
and woman, and to do housework will seem to them intolerable drudgery,
simply because it is so among the fair models to whom they look up in
humble admiration. You see, my dear, what it is to live in a
democracy.
“I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred - that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt.”
Do not always shrink and yield; do not
conceal and assimilate and endeavor to persuade him and yourself that
you are happy; do not put the very best face to him on it all; do not
tolerate his relapses daily and hourly into his habitual, cold,
inexpressive manner; and don’t lay aside your own little impulsive,
out-spoken ways. Respect your own nature, and assert it; woo him, argue
with him; use all a woman’s weapons to keep him from falling back into
the old Castle Doubting where he lived till you let him out. Dispute
your mother’s hateful dogma, that love is to be taken for granted
without daily proof between lovers; cry down latent caloric in the
market; insist that the mere fact of being a wife is not enough,--that
the words spoken once, years ago, are not enough,--that love needs new
leaves every summer of life, as much as your elm-trees, and new branches
to grow broader and wider, and new flowers at the root to cover the
ground.”
“O, but I have heard that there is no surer way to lose love than to be
exacting, and that it never comes for a woman’s reproaches.”
“All true as Gospel, Emmy. I am not speaking of reproaches, or of
unreasonable self-assertion, or of ill-temper,--you could not use any of
these forces, if you would, you poor little chick! I am speaking now of
the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred,--that
of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt.
Thoughtless, instinctive, unreasoning love and self-sacrifice, such as
many women long to bestow on husband and children, soil and lower the
very objects of their love. _You_ may grow saintly by self-sacrifice;
but do your husband and children grow saintly by accepting it without
return? I have seen a verse which says,--
‘They who kneel at woman’s shrine
Breathe on it as they bow.’
Is not this true of all unreasoning love and self-devotion? If we _let_
our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without a remonstrance,
we are no true lover, no true friend. Any good man soon learns to
discriminate between the remonstrance that comes from a woman’s love to
his soul, her concern for his honor, her anxiety for his moral
development, and the pettish cry which comes from her own personal
wants. It will be your own fault, if, for lack of anything you can do,
your husband relapses into these cold, undemonstrative habits which have
robbed his life of so much beauty and enjoyment.
“Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good to do no harm”
Voice and instrument seemed both living,
and threw out with vivid sympathy those strains which the ethereal
Mozart first conceived as his own dying requiem.
When St. Clare had done singing, he sat leaning his head upon his hand
a few moments, and then began walking up and down the floor.
“What a sublime conception is that of a last judgment!” said he,—“a
righting of all the wrongs of ages!—a solving of all moral problems, by
an unanswerable wisdom! It is, indeed, a wonderful image.”
“It is a fearful one to us,” said Miss Ophelia.
“It ought to be to me, I suppose,” said St. Clare stopping,
thoughtfully. “I was reading to Tom, this afternoon, that chapter in
Matthew that gives an account of it, and I have been quite struck with
it. One should have expected some terrible enormities charged to those
who are excluded from Heaven, as the reason; but no,—they are condemned
for _not_ doing positive good, as if that included every possible
harm.”
“Perhaps,” said Miss Ophelia, “it is impossible for a person who does
no good not to do harm.”
“And what,” said St. Clare, speaking abstractedly, but with deep
feeling, “what shall be said of one whose own heart, whose education,
and the wants of society, have called in vain to some noble purpose;
who has floated on, a dreamy, neutral spectator of the struggles,
agonies, and wrongs of man, when he should have been a worker?”
“I should say,” said Miss Ophelia, “that he ought to repent, and begin
now.”
“Always practical and to the point!” said St. Clare, his face breaking
out into a smile. “You never leave me any time for general reflections,
Cousin; you always bring me short up against the actual present; you
have a kind of eternal _now_, always in your mind.”
“_Now_ is all the time I have anything to do with,” said Miss Ophelia.
“Dear little Eva,—poor child!” said St. Clare, “she had set her little
simple soul on a good work for me.”
It was the first time since Eva’s death that he had ever said as many
words as these to her, and he spoke now evidently repressing very
strong feeling.
“Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.”
Only I’ll
make one suggestion: I’ve seen this child whipped with a poker, knocked
down with the shovel or tongs, whichever came handiest, &c.; and,
seeing that she is used to that style of operation, I think your
whippings will have to be pretty energetic, to make much impression.”
“What is to be done with her, then?” said Miss Ophelia.
“You have started a serious question,” said St. Clare; “I wish you’d
answer it. What is to be done with a human being that can be governed
only by the lash,—_that_ fails,—it’s a very common state of things down
here!”
“I’m sure I don’t know; I never saw such a child as this.”
“Such children are very common among us, and such men and women, too.
How are they to be governed?” said St. Clare.
“I’m sure it’s more than I can say,” said Miss Ophelia.
“Or I either,” said St. Clare. “The horrid cruelties and outrages that
once and a while find their way into the papers,—such cases as Prue’s,
for example,—what do they come from? In many cases, it is a gradual
hardening process on both sides,—the owner growing more and more cruel,
as the servant more and more callous. Whipping and abuse are like
laudanum; you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline. I
saw this very early when I became an owner; and I resolved never to
begin, because I did not know when I should stop,—and I resolved, at
least, to protect my own moral nature. The consequence is, that my
servants act like spoiled children; but I think that better than for us
both to be brutalized together. You have talked a great deal about our
responsibilities in educating, Cousin. I really wanted you to _try_
with one child, who is a specimen of thousands among us.”
“It is your system makes such children,” said Miss Ophelia.
“I know it; but they are _made_,—they exist,—and what _is_ to be done
with them?”
“Well, I can’t say I thank you for the experiment. But, then, as it
appears to be a duty, I shall persevere and try, and do the best I
can,” said Miss Ophelia; and Miss Ophelia, after this, did labor, with
a commendable degree of zeal and energy, on her new subject. She
instituted regular hours and employments for her, and undertook to
teach her to read and sew.
“To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.”
"When I build my cathedral, that woman," I said, pointing to a small
painting by the fire, "shall be among the first of my saints. You
see her there, in an every-day dress-cap with a mortal thread-lace
border, and with a very ordinary worked collar, fastened by a
visible and terrestrial breastpin. There is no nimbus around her
head, no sign of the cross upon her breast; her hands are clasped
on no crucifix or rosary. Her clear, keen, hazel eye looks as if it
could sparkle with mirthfulness, as in fact it could; there are in
it both the subtile flash of wit and the subdued light of humor;
and though the whole face smiles, it has yet a certain decisive
firmness that speaks the soul immutable in good. That woman shall be
the first saint in my cathedral, and her name shall be recorded as
Saint Esther. What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished
from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and
greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic. To
be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in
the insipid details of every-day life, is a virtue so rare as to be
worthy of canonization,--and this virtue was hers. New England
Puritanism must be credited with the making of many such women.
Severe as was her discipline, and harsh as seems now her rule, we
have yet to see whether women will be born of modern systems of
tolerance and indulgence equal to those grand ones of the olden
times whose places now know them no more. The inconceivable
austerity and solemnity with which Puritanism invested this mortal
life, the awful grandeur of the themes which it made household
words, the sublimity of the issues which it hung upon the commonest
acts of our earthly existence, created characters of more than Roman
strength and greatness; and the good men and women of Puritan
training excelled the saints of the Middle Ages, as a soul fully
developed intellectually, educated to closest thought, and exercised
in reasoning, is superior to a soul great merely through impulse
and sentiment.
"My earliest recollections of Aunt Esther, for so our saint was known,
were of a bright-faced, cheerful, witty, quick-moving little
middle-aged person, who came into our house like a good fairy whenever
there was a call of sickness or trouble.
“No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man”
” and then immediately she shut and locked the door.
Legree blustered and swore, and threatened to break down the door; but
apparently thought better of it, and walked uneasily into the
sitting-room. Cassy perceived that her shaft had struck home; and, from
that hour, with the most exquisite address, she never ceased to
continue the train of influences she had begun.
In a knot-hole of the garret, that had opened, she had inserted the
neck of an old bottle, in such a manner that when there was the least
wind, most doleful and lugubrious wailing sounds proceeded from it,
which, in a high wind, increased to a perfect shriek, such as to
credulous and superstitious ears might easily seem to be that of horror
and despair.
These sounds were, from time to time, heard by the servants, and
revived in full force the memory of the old ghost legend. A
superstitious creeping horror seemed to fill the house; and though no
one dared to breathe it to Legree, he found himself encompassed by it,
as by an atmosphere.
No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man. The Christian
is composed by the belief of a wise, all-ruling Father, whose presence
fills the void unknown with light and order; but to the man who has
dethroned God, the spirit-land is, indeed, in the words of the Hebrew
poet, “a land of darkness and the shadow of death,” without any order,
where the light is as darkness. Life and death to him are haunted
grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread.
Legree had had the slumbering moral elements in him roused by his
encounters with Tom,—roused, only to be resisted by the determinate
force of evil; but still there was a thrill and commotion of the dark,
inner world, produced by every word, or prayer, or hymn, that reacted
in superstitious dread.
The influence of Cassy over him was of a strange and singular kind. He
was her owner, her tyrant and tormentor. She was, as he knew, wholly,
and without any possibility of help or redress, in his hands; and yet
so it is, that the most brutal man cannot live in constant association
with a strong female influence, and not be greatly controlled by it.
“One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me.”
"We have just come through a great struggle, in which our women have
borne an heroic part,--have shown themselves capable of any kind of
endurance and self-sacrifice; and now we are in that reconstructive
state which makes it of the greatest consequence to ourselves and the
world that we understand our own institutions and position, and learn
that, instead of following the corrupt and worn-out ways of the Old
World, we are called on to set the example of a new state of
society,--noble, simple, pure, and religious; and women can do more
towards this even than men, for women are the real architects of
society.
"Viewed in this light, even the small, frittering cares of women's
life--the attention to buttons, trimmings, thread, and sewing-silk--may
be an expression of their patriotism and their religion. A noble-hearted
woman puts a noble meaning into even the commonplace details of life.
The women of America can, if they choose, hold back their country from
following in the wake of old, corrupt, worn-out, effeminate European
society, and make America the leader of the world in all that is good."
"I'm sure," said Humming-Bird, "we all would like to be noble and
heroic. During the war, I did so long to be a man! I felt so poor and
insignificant because I was nothing but a girl!"
"Ah, well," said Pheasant, "but then one wants to do something worth
doing, if one is going to do anything. One would like to be grand and
heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be
_very_ something, _very_ great, _very_ heroic; or if not that, then at
least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting
mediocrity that bores me."
"Then, I suppose, you agree with the man we read of, who buried his
one talent in the earth, as hardly worth caring for."
"To say the truth, I always had something of a sympathy for that man,"
said Pheasant. "I can't enjoy goodness and heroism in homoeopathic
doses. I want something appreciable. What I can do, being a woman, is
a very different thing from what I should try to do if I were a man,
and had a man's chances: it is so much less--so poor--that it is
scarcely worth trying for."
"You remember," said I, "the apothegm of one of the old divines, that
if two angels were sent down from heaven, the one to govern a kingdom,
and the other to sweep a street, they would not feel any disposition
to change works."
"Well, that just shows that they are angels, and not mortals," said
Pheasant; "but we poor human beings see things differently."
"Yet, my child, what could Grant or Sherman have done, if it had not
been for the thousands of brave privates who were content to do each
their imperceptible little,--if it had not been for the poor,
unnoticed, faithful, never-failing common soldiers, who did the work
and bore the suffering?
“I no more thought of style or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and cries for help to save her children from a burning house, thinks of the teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist.”
After all, my brother, the strength and hope of your
oppressed race does lie in the church--in hearts united
to Him of whom it is said, "He shall spare the souls
of the needy, and precious shall their blood be in his
sight." Everything is against you, but Jesus Christ is
for you, and He has not forgotten his church, misguided
and erring though it be. I have looked all the field
over with despairing eyes; I see no hope but in Him.
This movement must and will become a purely religious
one. The light will spread in churches, the tone of
feeling will rise, Christians North and South will give
up all connection with, and take up their testimony
against, slavery, and thus the work will be done.
This letter gives us a conception of the state of moral and religious
exaltation of the heart and mind out of which flowed chapter after
chapter of that wonderful story. It all goes to prove the correctness
of the position from which we started, that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" came
from the heart rather than the head. It was an outburst of deep
feeling, a cry in the darkness. The writer no more thought of style
or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and
cries for help to save her children from a burning house thinks of the
teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist.
A few years afterwards Mrs. Stowe, writing of this story, said, "This
story is to show how Jesus Christ, who liveth and was dead, and now
is alive and forevermore, has still a mother's love for the poor and
lowly, and that no man can sink so low but that Jesus Christ will
stoop to take his hand. Who so low, who so poor, who so despised as
the American slave? The law almost denies his existence as a person,
and regards him for the most part as less than a man--a mere thing,
the property of another. The law forbids him to read or write, to hold
property, to make a contract, or even to form a legal marriage. It
takes from him all legal right to the wife of his bosom, the children
of his body. He can do nothing, possess nothing, acquire nothing, but
what must belong to his master. Yet even to this slave Jesus Christ
stoops, from where he sits at the right hand of the Father, and says,
'Fear not, thou whom man despiseth, for I am thy brother. Fear not, for
I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine.
“Any mind that is capable of real sorrow is capable of good”
There was a small book, which had been
given to Topsy by Eva, containing a single verse of Scripture, arranged
for every day in the year, and in a paper the curl of hair that she had
given her on that memorable day when she had taken her last farewell.
St. Clare was a good deal affected at the sight of it; the little book
had been rolled in a long strip of black crape, torn from the funeral
weeds.
“What did you wrap _this_ round the book for?” said St. Clare, holding
up the crape.
“Cause,—cause,—cause ’t was Miss Eva. O, don’t take ’em away, please!”
she said; and, sitting flat down on the floor, and putting her apron
over her head, she began to sob vehemently.
It was a curious mixture of the pathetic and the ludicrous,—the little
old stockings,—black crape,—text-book,—fair, soft curl,—and Topsy’s
utter distress.
St. Clare smiled; but there were tears in his eyes, as he said,
“Come, come,—don’t cry; you shall have them!” and, putting them
together, he threw them into her lap, and drew Miss Ophelia with him
into the parlor.
“I really think you can make something of that concern,” he said,
pointing with his thumb backward over his shoulder. “Any mind that is
capable of a _real sorrow_ is capable of good. You must try and do
something with her.”
“The child has improved greatly,” said Miss Ophelia. “I have great
hopes of her; but, Augustine,” she said, laying her hand on his arm,
“one thing I want to ask; whose is this child to be?—yours or mine?”
“Why, I gave her to you,” said Augustine.
“But not legally;—I want her to be mine legally,” said Miss Ophelia.
“Whew! cousin,” said Augustine. “What will the Abolition Society think?
They’ll have a day of fasting appointed for this backsliding, if you
become a slaveholder!”
“O, nonsense! I want her mine, that I may have a right to take her to
the free States, and give her her liberty, that all I am trying to do
be not undone.”
“O, cousin, what an awful ’doing evil that good may come’! I can’t
encourage it.”
“I don’t want you to joke, but to reason,” said Miss Ophelia. “There is
no use in my trying to make this child a Christian child, unless I save
her from all the chances and reverses of slavery; and, if you really
are willing I should have her, I want you to give me a deed of gift, or
some legal paper.
