Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. by Various
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Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI.
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"'I should not have thought it would have been allowed! Did not the
deacons turn him out?' exclaimed Mrs. Hunesley, in great astonishment.
"'Turn him out! Why, Madam, he was a deacon himself, and the most
popular man in the parish.'
"'Well, I had no idea that such things had ever been permitted in this
country! I should have supposed that the fear of such an example on the
young would have induced people to keep him in confinement.'
"'Good heavens, Madam!' remonstrated the Colonel, roused to a desperate
vindication of the family-honor, 'let me tell you that his excellent
influence on the young was the crowning virtue of his character. He used
to go about town with his pockets filled with nuts and gingerbread to
reward them when they were good.'
"'It is enough,' replied the lady; 'our views of propriety are so
totally different that we will not pursue the subject. I will only say
that--really--in that dress, _I don't see where he could have had any
pockets!_'"
Deacon Reyner laughed heartily at these strictures upon the proprieties
of his predecessor, and said,--
"Of course, the last remark must have brought about an explanation."
"Why, yes," said Colonel Prowley; "but when we see how slight an
accident resolved the mystery, we should receive with doubt much of the
personal scandal which is tossing about the world."
The clergyman assented very cordially to this proposition, and added,
that it was a reflection that those of his flock then present would do
well to bear in mind that very evening at Doctor Dastick's bone-party.
I confess to being a little startled at the spectral name of this
entertainment, and began to puzzle myself whether the Doctor gave
a levee to rapping spirits, or moralized over the skulls in his
collection, like Hamlet in the church-yard. Miss Hurribattle seemed
wandering in the mazes of a similar perplexity, and finally said,--
"What is a bone-party? Is it given out of compliment to the dead or the
living?"
"Nay," said the Deacon, "I don't see how it could be much of a
compliment to the dead."
"Except upon the principle, _De mortuis nil, nisi bone 'em!_" suggested
Miss Hurribattle, with such perfect gravity that neither Miss Prowley
nor the clergyman suspected the jocular atrocity that was hidden in her
speech.
"The bone-parties of old Doctor Dastick," explained the Colonel, "are
entertainments peculiar to Foxden; and as there is to be one this
evening to which we are all invited, any anticipation of the diversion
seems likely to diminish whatever of satisfaction may be in prospect. I
will, however, remark, that some of the Doctor's guests are grievously
oppressed by somnolence during his scholastic expositions; as a
protection against which infirmity of the flesh, I do commend an
after-dinner nap. It has been the fashion of the house since the days
of my grandfather; and as he lived to a ripe old age, I do not think it
could have been deleterious."
Soon after this, Colonel Prowley pushed back his chair from the table
as a signal for the dispersal of the party. And I betook myself to
my chamber, a sober apartment, with very uneven floor and very small
windows, through one of which I peered out upon the box before the
house, and thought over the people whose acquaintance I had just made.
Once only were these musings interrupted by snatches of a conversation
between my host and hostess as they passed across the piazza.
"When this comes about, sister, as I still believe it must, you shall
adorn a page of my diary with one of your illustrative drawings. A pair
of doves would be appropriate, or perhaps a vine clinging round an oak."
"And which of our guests is to be represented by the oak?" asked Miss
Prowley, in a tone which betrayed a woman's perception of matrimonial
incongruities.
"Nay, sister, our young friend has a steadiness of character which would
be ill-mated with some giddy girl from the nursery. So make your vine a
little woody, and the union will be all the firmer."
As there was no chance of taking a nap after this, I presently descended
to walk in the garden. And there I encountered Miss Hurribattle, who did
not seem to be one of the convenient visitors who can be put to sleep
after dinner. The conversation which I had the honor of renewing with
the lady, though it did not at all advance the whimsical project of
Colonel Prowley, increased my respect for the high instincts of Nature
which prompted her concern in the elevation of woman. She showed me how
a reform, presenting on its surface much that was meagre and partial,
was sustained by those accomplished in the study of the question, no
less from the rigorous necessities of logic than from the demonstrations
of history and experiment.
And here, perchance, the reader observes that we make but slight
progress towards a solution of the inquiry proposed some pages back.
Yet let it be remembered that in real experience the novelist's art of
foreshadowing the end from the beginning and aiming every petty incident
at the final result is very seldom perceptible. "_Il ne faut pas voyager
pour voir, mais pour ne pas voir_," says the proverb; and the journey of
life is included in its application. We do our rarest deeds, we take our
most important steps, by what seems accident. Instead of forming plans
with remote designs, we find it our best policy to seize circumstances
as they run past us,--knowing, that, if we have strength and quickness
enough, we may take from them all that is required.
CHAPTER III.
Doctor Dastick's bone-party was certainly an entertainment of unique
description. A kind old gentleman was its originator, who thought to
turn the enthusiasm for lectures, which the Lyceum had developed in
Foxden, into a private and pleasant channel. Possessed with this
praiseworthy design, the Doctor, who had given up practice by reason of
years and competence, remembered a certain cabinet containing fossils,
crystals, fragments of Indian implements, small pieces of the skeletons
of their proprietors, vertebrae of extinct animals, besides a great
amount of miscellaneous rubbish that refused to come to terms and be
classified. Thus it seemed good to the proprietor of this medical
rag-bag to invite the citizens of Foxden to a series of explanatory
lectures upon its varied contents. This would have done well enough,
if the Doctor could only have persuaded himself to select his most
interesting specimens, and read up upon them, so as to retail a little
fluent information after the manner of the lyceum-philosophers. But,
unfortunately, the professional pride of the lecturer induced him to
speak without preparation or discrimination upon any osteological
article which happened to come to hand: which fact, perhaps, accounted
for the prevalent somnolence of the auditory, concerning which I had
been forewarned.
It is barely possible that these midsummer-night diversions of Doctor
Dastick were suggested by the fame of evenings which, during the
previous winter, several city physicians (men of eminent scientific
attainments) had devoted to the instruction of their friends. And rumor
could scarcely have overestimated the privilege of listening to the
discursive fireside talk of such accurate observers. Having vividly
realized all that was to be known of their subjects of special
investigation, these distinguished gentlemen would steam steadily
athwart the light winds of conversation and bring their company to
a pleasant haven. The Foxden ex-practitioner, however, lacking the
metropolitan attrition which keeps the intellectual engine in
effective polish, drifted vaguely in a sea of fragmentary information;
--occasionally, to be sure, bumping against some encyclopedic argosy,
but, for the most part, making very leisurely progress, with much
apparent waste in the machinery. A brief extract from my note-book may
furnish an idea of these scientific discourses.
"Now, my friends," pursues the Doctor, "let us examine another
curiosity,"--here he would take down something that looked like a
mottled paving-stone in a very crumbling condition,--"let us examine it
carefully through the glass,"--here a pause, during which he performed
the operation in question. "What is it? Is it a fossil turtle? No,"
--with great deliberation,--"I should say it was _not_ a fossil turtle.
Is it a mass of twigs taken from the stomach of a mastodon? No, on the
whole, it can't be a mass of twigs taken from the stomach of a mastodon.
Is it a specimen of the top of Mount Sinai? No, it is not a specimen
of the top of Mount Sinai. What is it, then? _I--don't--know--
what--it--is!_"
Having arrived at this satisfactory conclusion, the Doctor would pass
on to the next specimen, which, having provoked a similar series of
interrogations and negations, would be dismissed with no very different
result.
There is sometimes an advantage in not being a notable person; at all
events, I thought so, when I saw the Prowleys and their guests of chief
consideration, to wit, the clergyman, deacon, and Miss Hurribattle,
accommodated on the first row of chairs, with their faces under grand
illumination by two camphene-lamps upon the Doctor's table. There
they sat, together with Mrs. Hunesley from New York, two or three
distinguished visitors from the hotel, and the elders of Foxden, looking
wistfully at the bones, as if in envy of their fleshless condition that
sultry August evening.
It was with real satisfaction that I perceived I was considered worthy
of no more worshipful company than that of the standing stragglers at
the dark end of the parlor. And as the evening breeze came freshly
through the window at the back of the room, I rejoiced heartily in my
lack of title to the consideration of being snugly penned in a more
honorable position. As I found it might be done without attracting
attention, I obeyed a strong impulse that seized me to pass through the
open window to the piazza. Thence I presently descended, and strolled
about the precise gravel-walks, puzzling myself to conjecture how much
of the rich light was owing to the red glow which lingered in the west,
and how much to the full moon just breaking through the trees. My
investigations were suddenly interrupted by the advent of a carryall,
which drove-with great rapidity to the Doctor's gate. It was the very
railway-omnibus that a few hours before had brought Miss Hurribattle and
myself from the station.
"Hello, Cap'n," called out the driver, complimenting me with that
military title, "can you give a hand to this trunk? I've got to go right
slap back after two more fares."
I was near the gate, and of course cheerfully acceded to this request. A
heavy trunk was lifted out, and placed just behind the lilac-bushes at
the edge of the lawn. The driver jumped into his omnibus and hurried
away with all speed, lest his two fares should pay themselves to a rival
conveyance. Behind him, however, he had left the proprietress of the
trunk,--a lady of about five-and-twenty, in whose countenance I detected
that strange sort of familiarity that entire strangers sometimes carry
about them.
"This is Doctor Dastick's, is it not? Do you know whether Mrs. Hunesley
expected me?" she asked, with a grace of manner that was quite
irresistible.
I informed her that I was a stranger in the place, and was only at the
Doctor's for a single evening; but that I could not think that Mrs.
Hunesley expected anybody, as I had just seen that lady firmly fixed in
the front row of chairs before the Doctor's table,--whence, owing to the
crowd of sitters behind, she would have some difficulty in extricating
herself.
"Oh, I would not have her called for the world!" gayly exclaimed my
companion. "She has told me all about the dear old Doctor's lectures;
and I would not disturb his learned explanations on any account."
"I do not think that the company in general would regret an interlude of
modern life and interest," said I.
"Perhaps not; but nothing seems to me so rude and disagreeable as to
interrupt people, or disturb their attention, when assembled for a
definite object."
We walked up the gravel-path, and softly entered the hall, where
a shawl and bonnet were deposited. The Doctor's discourse was very
audible, and the unexpected visitor seemed disposed to establish herself
upon one of the hall-chairs, and wait till it was over. There was a
graceful confidence in her movement, which is to me more captivating
than a pretty face; and when I had opportunity to observe more closely,
I was greatly attracted by the sensibility and refinement expressed
through a countenance which otherwise would have been plain. As I seemed
to be whimsically cast in the part of host, and as I perceived the lady
was too well-bred to make my position at all awkward, I proposed the
piazza as a pleasanter place of waiting than that she had chosen.
And here let me make one of those weighty observations, derived from a
profound experience, which I trust will have a redeeming savor to
the judicious, should this tale of mine fail to command that general
popularity to which I have begun to suspect its title. I have found
that all the fine passages that lighten and enlighten this life of ours
seldom run into the traps we set for them, but seem to take a perverse
satisfaction in descending upon us when we are least prepared for
their reception. I have never been asked out to dine with a gentleman,
devoted, we will say, to the same speciality in which I have a humble
interest, without being sadly disappointed in the talk that my host had
kindly promised me. And when I am going to another country, and a dear
friend gives me a letter to some one whom he tells me I shall be glad to
meet, and from whom I shall gain great instruction, I accept the letter,
knowing very well that the man I shall really be glad to meet, and from
whom I shall truly gain instruction, will present himself on the top
of a diligence, or take a seat at my table at some cheap _cafe_ or
chop-house. Thus it is, that, when there is every reason why people
should break through the commonplace rubbish on the surface, and
disclose a pure vein of thought and feeling, they rarely contrive to do
it, but reserve their best things for the chances that touch them, when
self-consciousness is asleep, and the unconstrained humanity within
expands to absorb its like. Is it not in every one's experience that
there are persons with whom chance has thrown us for a few hours, whom
we know better, and who know us better, than the friends with whom we
have babbled of green fields, thermometers, and dirty pavements for a
score of years? As I confidently expect an affirmative reply to this
question, I fear no censure in saying that the evening passed on
Doctor Dastick's piazza made me feel there was a possibility of social
intercourse resembling the extravagant spirituality of the mystics, when
the soul bounds to the height of joyful knowledge, and without process
or medium knows complete satisfaction.
How we came to talk of many things, I cannot remember; but we somehow
found ourselves speaking of matters of near and deep experience without
consciousness of singularity. We admitted those puzzling life-questions
that present themselves, on a still summer evening, when we long to
escape from the conditions of finite being, and yet contemplate
the necessity of working at our tasks shackled by a thousand iron
circumstances.
"My plan of life, so far as I have any, seems to point to education,"
said my companion. "I am thrown in great measure upon my own activity
for support, and have an aunt who is very zealous in the work, and who
has often asked me to become her fellow-laborer. Until now I could never
well leave home; but she has written to me again since"--she stopped, as
if distressed, and with a woman's tact glanced at her mourning-dress to
tell me the story;--"she has written to me earnestly of late upon the
subject. I feel how noble an object it is to live for, and I want an
object, Heaven knows; but there are reasons--perhaps I should say
feelings, not reasons--why I hesitate. I am asked to bind myself for ten
years to the work in a Western college. There are many advantages in a
permanent position, both for the teacher and the institution, but"--
Her voice faltered; and I felt that Nature had at times made other
suggestions to that fresh young spirit, other possibilities had dawned
through the future; perhaps they were certainties,--and the thought
passed me with a shudder.
"Teaching is a terrible drudgery," I said; "the labor and devotion of
the true teacher are yet unrecognized by the world."
"I am not afraid of the vexations," she replied: "I am very fond of
being with young people; yet I have been taught to think it was happier,
if our affections could be somewhat more concentrated than--In short,
I had better finish an awkward sentence, by saying that I do not feel
quite ready to pledge myself to give up all possibilities connected with
my New-England home."
It was spoken with such sweet ingenuousness that I was only charmed. The
simple sincerity of the confession seemed to me much better than the
flippant jest and pert talk with which I had heard such subjects treated
while making my observations upon what my city-acquaintances had assured
me was good society. Is it not Sterling who exclaims that a luxurious
and polished life without a true sense of the beautiful and the great is
more barren and sad to see than that of the ignorant and the brutalized?
And if this be true, how shall we imagine a greater satisfaction than to
find the fresh truth of Nature set in a polished and graceful form? For
since it is through form that we take cognizance of all we love and all
we believe, it is well that the sign and idea should merge, and come
complete and whole to govern us aright.
I should have no objection to meditating after this manner for a page or
two, as well as further hinting what important nothings sparkled upon
Doctor Dastick's piazza that pleasant summer night. But as I must
curtail this biographical fragment in some part or other, it seems best
to do it about that portion where I may trust that the experience of
every reader will supply the deficiency.
How harshly sounded the creaking of the furniture, and how strangely
commercial and matter-of-fact the voices of the people that announced
the conclusion of the lecture! Mrs. Hunesley managed to get out among
the first, and was heartily glad to see my newly acquired friend,
calling her, "My dear Kate,"--which I thought was a very pretty
name,--and saying that she had not expected her quite so soon.
I looked into the parlor and saw the Prowley party tumbling over chairs,
and scaling settees, in their haste to meet the cooling breezes of the
piazza. But when they finally accomplished their purpose, and I was
advancing with inquiries and congratulations, I started at seeing the
surprise depicted in the countenance of Miss Hurribattle, as she gazed
in the direction where I stood.
"Why, Aunt Patience!" exclaimed a voice at my side.
"Why, Kate Hurribattle!" was the response.
"How in the name of wonder did you get to Foxden?"
"How under the sun did _you_ get to Foxden?"
"Why _I_ am here naturally enough as the guest of my friend Colonel
Prowley."
"And _I_ am here naturally enough as the guest of my friend Mrs.
Hunesley."
Now if I had dramatized the little event I have been trying to relate, I
should have reached the precise point where the auditor would button up
his coat, put on his hat, let his patent spring-seat go up with a click,
and begin to leave the theatre with all expedition. What would it matter
to him that I had prepared a circumstantial account of how all petty
objections were got over, or that I had elaborated a peculiarly
felicitous _tag_ which Colonel Prowley would speak at a few backs as
they disappeared into the lobby? The auditor referred to has got an
inkling of how things are to end, and can guess out the particulars as
he hurries off to his business. And here will be observed our decided
advantage in having made sure of the Moral by a vigorous assertion of
the same at the commencement of this narrative; for, thus relieved of
the necessity of a final flutter into the empyrean of ethics, we may
part company in a few easy sentences.
Although the circumstances I have set down, from being awkwardly packed
in a small compass, may not appear to fit into each other with all the
exactness of a dissecting-map, I am sure, that, as they really occurred
spread over a necessary time, they seemed natural and simple enough.
Mrs. Hunesley, Doctor Dastick's favorite niece, was the schoolmate of
Miss Kate Hurribattle, and what more likely than that she should invite
her friend to pass a few weeks with her at her summer-home in the
country? And could there be a greater necessity than that, meeting daily
as we did through those lovely August weeks, she should become--in
short, that I should marry Miss Hurribattle?
And when this foolish little romance, which had taken nebulous outline
in the fancy of Colonel Prowley, suddenly fell at his feet a serious
indubitability, the dear, delighted old gentleman was the first to
declare, that, as our engagement had existed for the last seventy years,
it certainly did not seem worth while to wait much longer. At all
events, we did not wait longer than the following Thanksgiving; since
which period my experience leads me to declare, that, if the Miss
Hurribattle of my great-great-uncle's day was at all comparable to the
member of her family I met at Foxden, my respected relative made a great
mistake in living a bachelor.
RESIGNATION.
You know how a little child of three or four years old kicks and howls,
if it do not get its own way. You know how quietly a grown-up man takes
it, when ordinary things fall out otherwise than he wished. A letter,
a newspaper, a magazine, does not arrive by the post on the morning
on which it had been particularly wished for, and counted on with
certainty. The day proves rainy, when a fine day was specially
desirable. The grown-up man is disappointed; but he soon gets reconciled
to the existing state of facts. He did not much expect that things would
turn out as he wished them. Yes: there is nothing like the habit of
being disappointed, to make a man resigned when disappointment comes,
and to enable him to take it quietly. And a habit of practical
resignation grows upon most men, as they advance through life.
You have often seen a poor beggar, most probably an old man, with some
lingering remains of respectability in his faded appearance, half ask
an alms of a passer-by; and you have seen him, at a word of repulse, or
even on finding no notice taken of his request, meekly turn away: too
beaten and sick at heart for energy; drilled into a dreary resignation
by the long custom of finding everything go against him in this world.
You may have known a poor cripple, who sits all day by the side of the
pavement of a certain street, with a little bundle of tracts in his
hand, watching those who pass by, in the hope that they may give him
something. I wonder, indeed, how the police suffer him to be there: for,
though ostensibly selling the tracts, he is really begging. Hundreds of
times in the long day, he must see people approaching, and hope that
they may spare him a halfpenny, and find ninety-nine out of each hundred
pass without noticing him. It must be a hard school of Resignation.
Disappointments without number have subdued that poor creature into
bearing one disappointment more with scarce an appreciable stir of
heart. But, on the other hand, kings, great nobles, and the like, have
been known, even to the close of life, to violently curse and swear, if
things went against them; going the length of stamping and blaspheming
even at rain and wind, and branches of trees and plashes of mud, which
were of course guiltless of any design of giving offence to these
eminent individuals. There was a great monarch, who, when any little
cross-accident befell him, was wont to fling himself upon the floor, and
there to kick and scream and tear his hair. And around him, meanwhile,
stood his awe-stricken attendants: all doubtless ready to assure
him that there was something noble and graceful in his kicking and
screaming, and that no human being had ever before with such dignity
and magnanimity torn his hair. My friend Mr. Smith tells me that in his
early youth he had a (very slight) acquaintance with a great prince, of
elevated rank and of vast estates. That great prince came very early to
his greatness; and no one had ever ventured, since he could remember,
to tell him he had ever said or done wrong. Accordingly, the prince had
never learned to control himself, nor grown accustomed to bear quietly
what he did not like. And when any one, in conversation, related to him
something which he disapproved, he used to start from his chair, and
rush up and down the apartment, furiously flapping his hands together,
till he had thus blown off the steam produced by the irritation of his
nervous system. That prince was a good man: and so aware was he of
his infirmity, that, when in these fits of passion, he never suffered
himself to say a single word: being aware that he might say what he
would afterwards regret. And though he could not wholly restrain
himself, the entire wrath he felt passed off in flapping. And after
flapping for a few minutes, he sat down again, a reasonable man once
more. All honor to him! For my friend Smith tells me that that prince
was surrounded by toadies, who were ready to praise everything he might
do, even to his flapping. And in particular, there was one humble
retainer, who, whenever his master flapped, was wont to hold up his
hands in an ecstasy of admiration, exclaiming, "It is the flapping of a
god, and not of a man!"
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