together in it, except by the forcing system, which is a mighty narrow
piece of business. You can't make a village or a parish or a family
think alike, yet you suppose that you can make a world pinch its
beliefs or pad them to a single pattern! Why, the very life of an
ecclesiastical organization is a life of _induction_, a state of
perpetually disturbed equilibrium kept up by another charged body in
the neighborhood. If the two bodies touch and share their respective
charges, down goes the index of the electrometer!
Do you know that every man has a religious belief peculiar to himself?
Smith is always a Smithite. He takes in exactly Smith's-worth of
knowledge, Smith's-worth of truth, of beauty, of divinity. And Brown
has from time immemorial been trying to burn him, to excommunicate him,
to anonymous-article him, because he did not take in Brown's-worth of
knowledge, truth, beauty, divinity. He cannot do it, any more than a
pint-pot can hold a quart, or a quart-pot be filled by a pint. Iron is
essentially the same everywhere and always; but the sulphate of iron is
never the same as the carbonate of iron. Truth is invariable; but the
_Smithate_ of truth must always differ from the _Brownate_ of truth.
The wider the intellect, the larger and simpler the expressions in
which its knowledge is embodied. The inferior race, the degraded and
enslaved people, the small-minded individual, live in the details which
to larger minds and more advanced tribes of men reduce themselves to
axioms and laws. As races and individual minds must always differ just
as sulphates and carbonates do, I cannot see ground for expecting the
Broad Church to be founded on any fusion of _intellectual_ beliefs,
which of course implies that those who hold the larger number of
doctrines as essential shall come down to those who hold the smaller
number. These doctrines are to the _negative_ aristocracy what the
quarterings of their coats are to the _positive_ orders of nobility.
The Broad Church, I think, will never be based on anything that
requires the use of _language_. Freemasonry gives an idea of such a
church, and a brother is known and cared for in a strange land where no
word of his can be understood. The apostle of this church may be a deaf
mute carrying a cup of cold water to a thirsting fellow-creature. The
cup of cold water does not require to be translated for a foreigner to
understand it. I am afraid the only Broad Church possible is one that
has its creed in the heart, and not in the head, - that we shall know
its members by their fruits, and not by their words. If you say this
communion of well-doers is no church, I can only answer, that all
_organized_ bodies have their limits of size, and that, when we find a
man a hundred feet high and thirty feet broad across the shoulders, we
will look out for an organization that shall include all Christendom.
Some of us do practically recognize a Broad Church and a Narrow Church,
however. The Narrow Church may be seen in the ship's boats of humanity,
in the long boat, in the jolly boat, in the captain's gig, lying off
the poor old vessel, thanking God that _they_ are safe, and reckoning
how soon the hulk containing the mass of their fellow-creatures will go
down. The Broad Church is on board, working hard at the pumps, and very
slow to believe that the ship will be swallowed up with so many poor
people in it, fastened down under the hatches ever since it floated.
- - All this, of course, was nothing but my poor notion about these
matters. I am simply an "outsider," you know; only it doesn't do very
well for a nest of Hingham boxes to talk too much about outsiders and
insiders!
After this talk of ours, I think these two young people went pretty
regularly to the Church of the Galileans. Still they could not keep
away from the sweet harmonies and rhythmic litanies of Saint Polycarp
on the great Church festival-days; so that, between the two, they were
so much together, that the boarders began to make remarks, and our
landlady said to me, one day, that, though it was noon of her business,
them that had eyes couldn't help seein' that there was somethin' goin'
on between them two young people; she thought the young man was a very
likely young man, though jest what his prospecs was was unbeknown to
her; but she thought he must be doin' well, and rather guessed he would
be able to take care of a femily, if he didn't go to takin' a house;
for a gentleman and his wife could board a great deal cheaper than they
could keep house; - but then that girl was nothin' but a child, and
wouldn't think of bein' married this five year. They was good boarders,
both of 'em, paid regular, and was as pooty a couple as she ever laid
eyes on.
- To come back to what I began to speak of before, - the
divinity-student was exercised in his mind about the Little Gentleman,
and, in the kindness of his heart, - for he was a good young man, - and
in the strength of his convictions, - for he took it for granted that he
and his crowd were right, and other folks and their crowd were
wrong, - he determined to bring the Little Gentleman round to his faith
before he died, if he could. So he sent word to the sick man, that he
should be pleased to visit him and have some conversation with him; and
received for answer that he would be welcome.
The divinity-student made him a visit, therefore, and had a somewhat
remarkable conversation with him, which I shall briefly report, without
attempting to justify the positions taken by the Little Gentleman. He
found him weak, but calm. Iris sat silent by his pillow.
After the usual preliminaries, the divinity-student said, in a kind
way, that he was sorry to find him in failing health, that he felt
concerned for his soul, and was anxious to assist him in making
preparations for the great change awaiting him.
I thank you, Sir, - said the Little Gentleman; - permit me to ask you,
what makes you think I am not ready for it, Sir, and that you can do
anything to help me, Sir?
I address you only as a fellow-man, - said the divinity-student, - and
therefore a fellow-sinner.
I am _not_ a man, Sir! - said the Little Gentleman. - I was born into
this world the wreck of a man, and I shall not be judged with a race to
which I do not belong. Look at this! - he said, and held up his withered
arm. - See there! - and he pointed to his misshapen extremities. - Lay
your hand here! - and he laid his own on the region of his misplaced
heart. - I have known nothing of the life of your race. When I first
came to my consciousness, I found myself an object of pity, or a sight
to show. The first strange child I ever remember hid its face and would
not come near me. I was a broken-hearted as well as broken-bodied boy.
I grew into the emotions of ripening youth, and all that I could have
loved shrank from my presence. I became a man in years, and had nothing
in common with manhood but its longings. My life is the dying pang of a
worn-out race, and I shall go alone down into the dust, out of this
world of men and women, without ever knowing the fellowship of the one
or the love of the other. I will not die with a lie rattling in my
throat. If another state of being has anything worse in store for me, I
have had a long apprenticeship to give me strength that I may bear it.
I don't believe it, Sir! I have too much faith for that. God has not
left me wholly without comfort, even here. I love this old place where
I was born; - the heart of the world beats under the three hills of
Boston, Sir! I love this great land, with so many tall men in it, and
so many good, noble women. - His eyes turned to the silent figure by his
pillow. - I have learned to accept meekly what has been allotted to me,
but I cannot honestly say that I think my sin has been greater than my
suffering. I bear the ignorance and the evil-doing of whole generations
in my single person. I never drew a breath of air nor took a step that
was not a punishment for another's fault. I may have had many wrong
thoughts, but I cannot have done many wrong deeds, - for my cage has
been a narrow one, and I have paced it alone. I have looked through the
bars and seen the great world of men busy and happy, but I had no part
in their doings. I have known what it was to dream of the great
passions; but since my mother kissed me before she died, no woman's
lips have pressed my cheek, - nor ever will.
- - The young girl's eyes glittered with a sudden film, and almost
without a thought, but with a warm human instinct that rushed up into
her face with her heart's blood, she bent over and kissed him. It was
the sacrament that washed out the memory of long years of bitterness,
and I should hold it an unworthy thought to defend her.
The Little Gentleman repaid her with the only tear any of us ever saw
him shed.
The divinity-student rose from his place, and, turning away from the
sick man, walked to the other side of the room, where he bowed his head
and was still. All the questions he had meant to ask had faded from his
memory. The tests he had prepared by which to judge of his
fellow-creature's fitness for heaven seemed to have lost their virtue.
He could trust the crippled child of sorrow to the Infinite Parent. The
kiss of the fair-haired girl had been like a sign from heaven, that
angels watched over him whom he was presuming but a moment before to
summon before the tribunal of his private judgment.
Shall I pray with you? - he said, after a pause. - A little before he
would have said, Shall I pray _for_ you? - The Christian religion, as
taught by its Founder, is full of _sentiment_. So we must not blame the
divinity-student, if he was overcome by those yearnings of human
sympathy which predominate so much more in the sermons of the Master
than in the writings of his successors, and which have made the parable
of the Prodigal Son the consolation of mankind, as it has been the
stumbling-block of all exclusive doctrines.
Pray! - said the Little Gentleman.
The divinity-student prayed, in low, tender tones, that God would look
on his servant lying helpless at the feet of his mercy; that he would
remember his long years of bondage in the flesh; that he would deal
gently with the bruised reed. Thou hast visited the sins of the fathers
upon this their child. Oh, turn away from him the penalties of his own
transgressions! Thou hast laid upon him, from infancy, the cross which
thy stronger children are called upon to take up; and now that he is
fainting under it, be Thou his stay, and do Thou succor him that is
tempted! Let his manifold infirmities come between him and Thy
judgment; in wrath remember mercy! If his eyes are not opened to all
thy truth, let thy compassion lighten the darkness that rests upon him,
even as it came through the word of thy Son to blind Bartimeus, who sat
by the wayside, begging!
Many more petitions he uttered, but all in the same subdued tone of
tenderness. In the presence of helpless suffering, and in the
fast-darkening shadow of the Destroyer, he forgot all but his Christian
humanity, and cared more about consoling his fellow-man than making a
proselyte of him.
This was the last prayer to which the Little Gentleman ever listened.
Some change was rapidly coming over him during this last hour of which
I have been, speaking. The excitement of pleading his cause before his
self-elected spiritual adviser, - the emotion which overcame him, when
the young girl obeyed the sudden impulse of her feelings and pressed
her lips to his cheek, - the thoughts that mastered him while the
divinity-student poured out his soul for him in prayer, might well
hurry on the inevitable moment. When the divinity-student had uttered
his last petition, commending him to the Father through his Son's
intercession, he turned to look upon him before leaving his chamber.
His face was changed. - There is a language of the human countenance
which we all understand without an interpreter, though the lineaments
belong to the rudest savage that ever stammered in an unknown barbaric
dialect. By the stillness of the sharpened features, by the blankness
of the tearless eyes, by the fixedness of the smileless mouth, by the
deadening tints, by the contracted brow, by the dilating nostril, we
know that the soul is soon to leave its mortal tenement, and is already
closing up its windows and putting out its fires. - Such was the aspect
of the face upon which the divinity-student looked, after the brief
silence which followed his prayer. The change had been rapid, though
not that abrupt one which is liable to happen at any moment in these
cases. - The sick man looked towards him. - Farewell, - he said. - I thank
you. Leave me alone with her.
When the divinity-student had gone, and the Little Gentleman found
himself alone with Iris, he lifted his hand to his neck, and took from
it, suspended by a slender chain, a quaint, antique-looking key, - the
same key I had once seen him holding. He gave this to her, and pointed
to a carved cabinet opposite his bed, one of those that had so
attracted my curious eyes and set me wondering as to what it might
contain.
Open it, - he said, - and light the lamp. - The young girl walked to the
cabinet and unlocked the door. A deep recess appeared, lined with black
velvet, against which stood in white relief an ivory crucifix. A silver
lamp hung over over it. She lighted the lamp and came back to the
bedside. The dying man fixed his eyes upon the figure of the dying
Saviour. - Give me your hand, - he said; and Iris placed her right hand
in his left. So they remained, until presently his eyes lost their
meaning, though they still remained vacantly fixed upon the white
image. Yet he held the young girl's hand firmly, as if it were leading
him through some deep-shadowed valley and it was all he could cling to.
But presently an involuntary muscular contraction stole over him, and
his terrible dying grasp held the poor girl as if she were wedged in an
engine of torture. She pressed her lips together and sat still. The
inexorable hand held her tighter and tighter, until she felt as if her
own slender fingers would be crushed in its gripe. It was one of the
tortures of the Inquisition she was suffering, and she could not stir
from her place. Then, in her great anguish, she, too, cast her eyes
upon that dying figure, and, looking upon its pierced hands and feet
and side and lacerated forehead, she felt that she also must suffer
uncomplaining. In the moment of her sharpest pain she did not forget
the duties of her tender office, but dried the dying man's moist
forehead with her handkerchief, even while the dews of agony were
glistening on her own. How long this lasted she never could tell.
_Time_ and _thirst_ are two things you and I talk about; but the
victims whom holy men and righteous judges used to stretch on their
engines knew better what they meant than you or I! - What is that great
bucket of water for? said the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, before she
was placed on the rack. - _For you to drink_, - said the torturer to the
little woman. - She could not think that it would take such a flood to
quench the fire in her and so keep her alive for her confession. The
torturer knew better than she.
After a time not to be counted in minutes, as the clock
measures, - without any warning, there came a swift change of his
features; his face turned white, as the waters whiten when a sudden
breath passes over their still surface; the muscles instantly relaxed,
and Iris, released at once from her care for the sufferer and from his
unconscious grasp, fell senseless, with a feeble cry, - the only
utterance of her long agony.
Perhaps you sometimes wander in through the iron gates of the Copp's
Hill burial-ground. You love to stroll round among the graves that
crowd each other in the thickly peopled soil of that breezy summit. You
love to lean on the free-stone slab which lies over the bones of the
Mathers, - to read the epitaph of stout John Clark, "despiser of little
men and sorry actions," - to stand by the stone grave of sturdy Daniel
Malcom and look upon the splintered slab that tells the old rebel's
story, - to kneel by the triple stone that says how the three
Worthylakes, father, mother, and young daughter, died on the same day
and lie buried there; a mystery; the subject of a moving ballad, by the
late BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, as may be seen in his autobiography, which will
explain the secret of the triple gravestone; though the old philosopher
has made a mistake, unless the stone is wrong.
Not very far from that you will find a fair mound, of dimensions fit to
hold a well-grown man. I will not tell you the inscription upon the
stone which stands at its head; for I do not wish you to be _sure_ of
the resting-place of one who could not bear to think that he should be
known as a cripple among the dead, after being pointed at so long among
the living. There is one sign, it is true, by which, if you have been a
sagacious reader of these papers, you will at once know it; but I fear
you read carelessly, and must study them more diligently before you
will detect the hint to which I allude.
The Little Gentleman lies where he longed to He, among the old names
and the old bones of the old Boston people. At the foot of his
resting-place is the river, alive with the wings and antennae of its
colossal water-insects; over opposite are the great war-ships, and the
long guns, which, when they roar, shake the soil in which he lies; and
in the steeple of Christ Church, hard by, are the sweet chimes which
are the Boston boy's _Ranz des Vaches_, whose echoes follow him all the
world over.
_In Pace!_
I told you a good while ago that the Little Gentleman could not do a
better thing than to leave all his money, whatever it might be, to the
young girl who has since that established such a claim upon him. He did
not, however. A considerable bequest to one of our public institutions
keeps his name in grateful remembrance. The telescope through which he
was fond of watching the heavenly bodies, and the movements of which
had been the source of such odd fancies on my part, is now the property
of a Western College. You smile as you think of my taking it for a
fleshless human figure, when I saw its tube pointing to the sky, and
thought it was an arm under the white drapery thrown over it for
protection. So do I smile _now_; I belong to the numerous class who are
prophets after the fact, and hold my nightmares very cheap by daylight.
I have received many letters of inquiry as to the sound _resembling a
woman's voice_, which occasioned me so many perplexities. Some thought
there was no question that he had a second apartment, in which he had
made an asylum for a deranged female relative. Others were of opinion
that he was, as I once suggested, a "Bluebeard" with patriarchal
tendencies, and I have even been censured for introducing so Oriental
an element into my record of boarding-house experience.
Come in and see me, the Professor, some evening when I have nothing
else to do, and ask me to play you _Tartini's Devil's Sonata_ on that
extraordinary instrument in my possession, well known to amateurs as
one of the master-pieces of _Joseph Guarnerius_. The _vox humana_ of
the great Haerlem organ is very lifelike, and the same stop in the
organ of the Cambridge chapel might be mistaken in some of its tones
for a human voice; but I think you never heard anything come so near
the cry of a _prima donna_ as the A string and the E string of this
instrument. A single fact will illustrate the resemblance. I was
executing some _tours de force_ upon it one evening, when the policeman
of our district rang the bell sharply, and asked what was the matter in
the house. He had heard a woman's screams, - he was sure of it. I had to
make the instrument _sing_ before his eyes before he could be satisfied
that he had not heard the cries of a woman. This instrument was
bequeathed to me by the Little Gentleman. Whether it had anything to do
with the sounds I heard coming from his chamber, you can form your own
opinion; I have no other conjecture to offer. It is _not true_ that a
second apartment with a secret entrance was found; and the story of the
veiled lady is the invention of one of the Reporters.
Bridget, the housemaid, always insisted that he died a Catholic. She
had seen the crucifix, and believed that he prayed on his knees before
it. The last circumstance is very probably true; indeed, there was a
spot worn on the carpet just before this cabinet which might be thus
accounted for. Why he, whose whole life was a crucifixion, should not
love to look on that divine image of blameless suffering, I cannot see;
on the contrary, it seems to me the most natural thing in the world
that he should. But there are those who want to make private property
of everything, and can't make up their minds that people who don't
think as they do should claim any interest in that infinite compassion
expressed in the central figure of the Christendom which includes us
all.
The divinity-student expressed a hope before the boarders that he
should meet him in heaven. - The question is, whether he'll meet
_you_, - said the young fellow John, rather smartly. The
divinity-student hadn't thought of _that_.
However, he is a worthy young man, and I trust I have shown him in a
kindly and respectful light. He will get a parish by-and-by; and, as he
is about to marry the sister of an old friend, - the Schoolmistress,
whom some of us remember, - and as all sorts of expensive accidents
happen to young married ministers, he will be under bonds to the amount
of his salary, which means starvation, if they are forfeited, to think
all his days as he thought when he was settled, - unless the majority of
his people change with him or in advance of him. A hard case, to which
nothing could reconcile a man, except that the faithful discharge of
daily duties in his personal relations with his parishioners will make
him useful enough in his way, though as a thinker he may cease to exist
before he has reached middle age.
- Iris went into mourning for the Little Gentleman. Although, as I have
said, he left the bulk of his property, by will, to a public
institution, he added a codicil, by which he disposed of various pieces
of property as tokens of kind remembrance. It was in this way I became
the possessor of the wonderful instrument I have spoken of, which had
been purchased for him out of an Italian convent. The landlady was
comforted with a small legacy. The following extract relates to Iris:
" - - in consideration of her manifold acts of kindness, but only in
token of grateful remembrance, and by no means as a reward for services
which cannot be compensated, a certain messuage, with all the land
thereto appertaining, situate in - - Street, at the North End, so
called, of Boston, aforesaid, the same being the house in which I was
born, but now inhabited by several families, and known as 'the
Rookery.'" Iris had also the crucifix, the portrait, and the
red-jewelled ring. The funeral or death's-head ring was buried with
him.
It was a good while, after the Little Gentleman was gone, before our
boarding-house recovered its wonted cheerfulness. There was a flavor in
his whims and local prejudices that we liked, even while we smiled at
them. It was hard to see the tall chair thrust away among useless
lumber, to dismantle his room, to take down the picture of Leah, the
handsome Witch of Essex, to move away the massive shelves that held the
books he loved, to pack up the tube through which he used to study the
silent stars, looking down at him, like the eyes of dumb creatures,
with a kind of stupid half-consciousness, that did not worry him as did
the eyes of men and women, - and hardest of all to displace that sacred
figure to which his heart had always turned and found refuge, in the
feelings it inspired, from all the perplexities of his busy brain. It
was hard, but it had to be done.
And by-and-by we grew cheerful again, and the breakfast-table wore
something of its old look. The Koh-i-noor, as we named the gentleman
with the _diamond_, left us, however, soon after that "little mill," as
the young fellow John called it, where he came off second best. His
departure was no doubt hastened by a note from the landlady's daughter,
inclosing a lock of purple hair which she "had valued as a pledge of
affection, ere she knew the hollowness of the vows he had breathed,"
speedily followed by another, inclosing the landlady's bill. The next
morning he was missing, as were his limited wardrobe and the trunk that
held it. Three empty bottles of Mrs. Allen's celebrated preparation,
each of them asserting, on its word of honor as a bottle, that its
former contents were "not a dye," were all that was left to us of the
Koh-i-noor.
From this time forward, the landlady's daughter manifested a decided
improvement in her style of carrying herself before the boarders. She
abolished the odious little flat, gummy side-curl. She left off various
articles of "jewelry." She began to help her mother in some of her
household duties. She became a regular attendant on the ministrations
of a very worthy clergyman, having been attracted to his meetin' by
witnessing a marriage ceremony in which he called a man and a woman a
"gentleman" and a "lady," - a stroke of gentility which quite overcame
her. She even took a part in what she called a _Sabbath_ school, though
it was held on Sunday, and by no means on Saturday, as the name she
intended to utter implied. All this, which was very sincere, as I
believe, on her part, and attended with a great improvement in her
character, ended in her bringing home a young man, with straight, sandy
hair, brushed so as to stand up steeply above his forehead, wearing a
pair of green spectacles, and dressed in black broadcloth. His personal
aspect, and a certain solemnity of countenance, led me to think he must
be a clergyman; and as Master Benjamin Franklin blurted out before
several of us boarders, one day, that "Sis had got a beau," I was
pleased at the prospect of her becoming a minister's wife. On inquiry,
however, I found that the somewhat solemn look which I had noticed was
indeed a professional one, but not clerical. He was a young undertaker,
who had just succeeded to a thriving business. Things, I believe, are
going on well at this time of writing, and I am glad for the landlady's
daughter and her mother. Sextons and undertakers are the cheerfullest
people in the world at home, as comedians and circus-clowns are the
most melancholy in their domestic circle.
As our old boarding-house is still in existence, I do not feel at
liberty to give too minute a statement of the present condition of each
and all of its inmates. I am happy to say, however, that they are all
alive and well, up to this time. That kind old gentleman who sat
opposite to me is growing older, as old men will, but still smiles
benignantly on all the boarders, and has come to be a kind of father to
all of them, - so that on his birthday there is always something like a
family festival. The Poor Relation, even, has warmed into a filial
feeling towards him, and on his last birthday made him a beautiful
present, namely, a very handsomely bound copy of Blair's celebrated
poem, "The Grave."
The young man John is still, as he says, "in fust-rate fettle." I saw
him spar, not long since, at a private exhibition, and do himself great
credit in a set-to with Henry Finnegass, Esq., a professional gentleman
of celebrity. I am pleased to say that he has been promoted to an upper
clerkship, and, in consequence of his rise in office, has taken an
apartment somewhat lower down than number "forty-'leven," as he
facetiously called his attic. Whether there is any truth, or not, in
the story of his attachment to, and favorable reception by, the
daughter of the head of an extensive wholesale grocer's establishment,
I will not venture an opinion; I may say, however, that I have met him
repeatedly in company with a very well-nourished and high-colored young
lady, who, I understand, is the daughter of the house in question.
Some of the boarders were of opinion that Iris did not return the
undisguised attentions of the handsome young Marylander. Instead of
fixing her eyes steadily on him, as she used to look upon the Little
Gentleman, she would turn them away, as if to avoid his own. They often
went to church together, it is true; but nobody, of course, supposes
there is any relation between religious sympathy and those wretched
"sentimental" movements of the human heart upon which it is commonly
agreed that nothing better is based than society, civilization,
friendship, the relation of husband and wife, and of parent and child,
and which many people must think were singularly overrated by the
Teacher of Nazareth, whose whole life, as I said before, was full of
sentiment, loving this or that young man, pardoning this or that
sinner, weeping over the dead, mourning for the doomed city, blessing,
and perhaps kissing, the little children, - so that the Gospels are
still cried over almost as often as the last work of fiction!
But one fine June morning there rumbled up to the door of our
boarding-house a hack containing a lady inside and a trunk on the
outside. It was our friend the lady-patroness of Miss Iris, the same
who had been called by her admiring pastor "The Model of all the
Virtues." Once a week she had written a letter, in a rather formal
hand, but full of good advice, to her young charge. And now she had
come to carry her away, thinking that she had learned all she was
likely to learn under her present course of teaching. The Model,
however, was to stay awhile, - a week, or more, - before they should
leave together.
Iris was obedient, as she was bound to be. She was respectful,
grateful, as a child is with a just, but not tender parent. Yet
something was wrong. She had one of her trances, and became
statue-like, as before, only the day after the Model's arrival. She was
wan and silent, tasted nothing at table, smiled as if by a forced
effort, and often looked vaguely away from those who were looking at
her, her eyes just glazed with the shining moisture of a tear that must
not be allowed to gather and fall. Was it grief at parting from the
place where her strange friendship had grown up with the Little
Gentleman? Yet she seemed to have become reconciled to his loss, and
rather to have a deep feeling of gratitude that she had been permitted
to care for him in his last weary days.
The Sunday after the Model's arrival, that lady had an attack of
headache, and was obliged to shut herself up in a darkened room alone.
Our two young friends took the opportunity to go together to the Church
of the Galileans. They said but little going, - "collecting their
thoughts" for the service, I devoutly hope. My kind good friend the
pastor preached that day one of his sermons that make us all feel like
brothers and sisters, and his text was that affectionate one from John,
"My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in
deed and in truth." When Iris and her friend came out of church, they
were both pale, and walked a space without speaking.
At last the young man said, - You and I are not little children, Iris!
She looked in his face an instant, as if startled, for there was
something strange in the tone of his voice. She smiled faintly, but
spoke never a word.
In deed and in truth, Iris, - What shall a poor girl say or do, when a
strong man falters in his speech before her, and can do nothing better
than hold out his hand to finish his broken sentence?
The poor girl said nothing, but quietly laid her ungloved hand in
his, - the little, soft white hand which had ministered so tenderly and
suffered so patiently.
The blood came back to the young man's cheeks, as he lifted it to his
lips, even as they walked there in the street, touched it gently with
them, and said, - "It is mine!"
Iris did not contradict him.
* * * * *
The seasons pass by so rapidly, that I am startled to think how much
has happened since these events I was describing. Those two young
people would insist on having their own way about their own affairs,
notwithstanding the good lady, so justly called the Model, insisted
that the age of twenty-five years was as early as any discreet young
lady should think of incurring the responsibilities, etc., etc. Long
before Iris had reached that age, she was the wife of a young Maryland
engineer, directing some of the vast constructions of his native
State, - where he was growing rich fast enough to be able to decline
that famous Russian offer which would have made him a kind of nabob in
a few years. Iris does not write verse often, nowadays, but she
sometimes draws. The last sketch of hers I have seen in my Southern
visits was of two children, a boy and girl, the youngest holding a
silver goblet, like the one she held that evening when I - I was so
struck with her statue-like beauty. If in the later summer months you
find the grass marked with footsteps around that grave on Copp's Hill I
told you of, and flowers scattered over it, you may be sure that Iris
is here on her annual visit to the home of her childhood and that
excellent lady whose only fault was, that Nature had written out her
list of virtues on ruled paper, and forgotten to rub out the lines.
One more thing I must mention. Being on the Common, last Sunday, I was
attracted by the cheerful spectacle of a well-dressed and somewhat
youthful papa wheeling a very elegant little carriage containing a
stout baby. A buxom young lady watched them from one of the stone
seats, with an interest which could be nothing less than maternal. I at
once recognized my old friend, the young fellow whom we called John. He
was delighted to see me, introduced me to "Madam," and would have the
lusty infant out of the carriage, and hold him up for me to look at.
Now, then, - he said to the two-year-old, - show the gentleman how you
hit from the shoulder. - Whereupon the little imp pushed his fat fist
straight into my eye, to his father's intense satisfaction.
Fust-rate little chap, - said the papa. - Chip of the old block. Regl'r
little Johnny, you know.
I was so much pleased to find the young fellow settled in life, and
pushing about one of "them little articles" he seemed to want so much,
that I took my "punishment" at the hands of the infant pugilist with
great equanimity. - And how is the old boarding-house? - I asked.
A 1, - he answered. - Painted and papered as good as new. Gabs in all the
rooms up to the sky-parlors. Old woman's layin' up money, they say.
Means to send Ben Franklin to college. - Just then the first bell rang
for church, and my friend, who, I understand, has become a most
exemplary member of society, said he must be off to get ready for
meetin', and told the young one to "shake dada," which he did with his
closed fist, in a somewhat menacing manner. And so the young man John,
as we used to call him, took the pole of the miniature carriage, and
pushed the small pugilist before him homewards, followed, in a somewhat
leisurely way, by his pleasant-looking lady-companion, and I sent a
sigh and a smile after him.
That evening, as soon as it was dark, I could not help going round by
the old boarding-house. The "gahs" was lighted, but the curtains, or,
more properly, the painted shades, were not down. And so I stood there
and looked in along the table where the boarders sat at the evening
meal, - our old breakfast-table, which some of us feel as if we knew so
well. There were new faces at it, but also old and familiar ones. - The
land-lady, in a wonderfully smart cap, looking young, comparatively
speaking, and as if half the wrinkles had been ironed out of her
forehead. - Her daughter, in rather dressy half-mourning, with a vast
brooch of jet, got up, apparently, to match the gentleman next her, who
was in black costume and sandy hair, - the last rising straight from his
forehead, like the marble flame one sometimes sees at the top of a
funeral urn. - The poor relation, not in absolute black, but in a stuff
with specks of white; as much as to say, that, if there were any more
Hirams left to sigh for her, there were pin-holes in the night of her
despair, through which a ray of hope might find its way to - an
adorer. - Master Benjamin Franklin, grown taller of late, was in the act
of splitting his face open with a wedge of pie, so that his features
were seen to disadvantage for the moment. - The good old gentleman was
sitting still and thoughtful. All at once he turned his face toward the
window where I stood, and, just as if he had seen me, smiled his
benignant smile. It was a recollection of some past pleasant moment;
but it fell upon me like the blessing of a father.
I kissed my hand to them all, unseen as I stood in the outer darkness;
and as I turned and went my way, the table and all around it faded into
the realm of twilight shadows and of midnight dreams.
* * * * *
And so my year's record is finished. The Professor has talked less than
his predecessor, but he has heard and seen more. Thanks to all those
friends who from time to time have sent their messages of kindly
recognition and fellow-feeling! Peace to all such as may have been
vexed in spirit by any utterance these pages have repeated! They will,
doubtless, forget for the moment the difference in the hues of truth we
look at through our human prisms, and join in singing (inwardly) this
hymn to the Source of the light we all need to lead us, and the warmth
which alone can make us all brothers.
A Sun-Day Hymn.
Lord of all being! throned afar,
Thy glory flames from sun and star;
Centre and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near!
Sun of our life, thy wakening ray
Sheds on our path the glow of day;
Star of our hope, thy softened light
Cheers the long watches of the night.
Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn;
Our noontide is thy gracious dawn;
Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign;
All, save the clouds of sin, are thine!
Lord of all life, below, above,
Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love,
Before thy ever-blazing throne
We ask no lustre of our own.
Grant us thy truth to make us free,
And kindling hearts that burn for thee,
Till all thy living altars claim
One holy light, one heavenly flame!
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
_The Oxford Museum_. By HENRY W. ACLAND, M. D., Regius Professor of
Medicine, and JOHN RUSKIN, M. A., Honorary Student of Christ Church.
London, 1859.
The last ten years have formed a remarkable period in the history of
the ancient and honored University of Oxford. Guided by wise and
discerning counsels, it has made rapid and substantial advance. The
scope of its studies has been greatly enlarged, the standard of its
requirements raised. Its traditionary adherence to old methods and its
bigoted conservatism have been overcome, and with happy pliancy it has
yielded to the demands of the times and adapted itself to the new
desires and growing needs of men. Its aristocratic prejudices have not
been allowed longer to confine its privileges and its operations to one
class alone of the community, - and in identifying itself with the
system of middle-class education, Oxford has won new claims to