Orange Grove (Wall)/Chapter 6
"There blend the ties that strengthen
Our hearts in times of grief,
The silver links that lengthen,
Joy's visits when most brief."
Drear and lone upon the window pane sounded the ceaseless patter of the rain, as two little naked feet shivered on the door step, and two sad, but piercing eyes, peered through the casement into the cheerfully lighted drawing room, ere the puny hand ventured to raise the knocker that would admit the little mendicant into the rich man's mansion. Scarcely had she produced a sound when the dog set up a loud bark, which frightened the little homeless wanderer into the desolate street again, until the watchman should provide a scarcely more inviting shelter.
"What is the matter with Ponto?" said Walter, looking up from his task.
"I thought I saw a glimpse of somebody as I passed the window just then, but it was so faint, if there was any one, I could not tell whether it was man, woman or child," answered Rosalind, and resumed her reading.
"There's no one at the door, Milly? "inquired Mrs. Claremont, as she entered.
"No," replied she, "as I was passing through the hall I heard something that sounded like an attempt to raise the knocker, but there was no one to be seen."
"Perhaps it was the wind."
"It must be a very trickish wind to set the dog barking, raise knockers and make you see apparitions, Rosa."
"I hope nobody is cast away in such a storm as this, I am sure."
"You are so absorbed in your book you fancy yourself on Crusoe's desolate island I really believe, talking as if any body could be cast away on land. Read on: I suppose when you get through you will favor us with some of your sage reflections, won't you Rosa? for you look amazingly puzzled sometimes, as if you had got into a quandary and didn't know how to get out."
"Well, I have read it through at last, and there is a striking resemblance between it and Pilgrim's Progress," said Rosalind, after a few moments of silence, as she pushed from her an elegantly bound volume of Robinson Crusoe, with such force as to startle from her slumbers the old gray cat who had been permitted to take her evening nap upon the table.
"Is that all," said Walter, holding up his hands with a comical gesture, "I thought some very important announcement was coming from the flourish you made, something that might possibly affect the moon's setting or the sun's rising."
"More likely dispel some of the clouds that darken the intellects of men."
"Really then, you are turning philosopher, and so I guppose, havedrawn your comparisons. It would be a grand idea for you to write a book and make yourself the heroine.
"And get shipwrecked on the same island and finally become Crusoe's wife,"
"Oh fie! can't have a book without turning it into a love story. I wish somebody would offer a prize for the most interesting novel that can be written without mentioning that subject. I believe it would be a benefit to the human race. Some of the girls at school are fairly bewitched with some novels which they bring with them sometimes, and when they can catch a moment that the teacher's back is turned, steal them out from under their other books and pretend to be studying very hard when he looks towards them again. It excited my curiosity, and one day I watched my opportunity to get hold of one of them, and such a silly mess of stuff I never saw."
"That is the way you pass judgment is it, assume that all other stories bear the same stamp."
"Oh, don't talk to me any more, I want to finish this equation. Wouldn't it be a joke on Tom Middleton if I should do it without any, assistance, he was so confident none of us could, because his brother couldn't, and as for his part he was not going to try. A great fellow three years older than any body else in school, and so self conceited, he thinks he knows as much more as he is older. One day he perched himself on the desk, getting off his airs, when John Hincks, a smart, running little fellow, gave him a slight push that sent him sprawling on the floor. He is good natured, and never gets offended, so we like him after all."
"Is there any prize offered to the one who gets the right answer without assistance?"
"No. Mr. Spindlebotham,—that is such a funny name I always want to laugh when I speak it,—told lis to see who could do it alone, and Tom had so much to say about it that three of us resolved to try our best, as much for a joke on him as anything, he amuses us so with his airs. One morning, being late at school, he wanted to be very polite, so he touched his hand to his forehead and said, 'Good morning Mr. Spindlebotham,' which made us all laugh, for none of us ever think of addressing him by name. Now Rosa you must not talk to me any more, for I have almost got it if you have not put it out of my head,—x plus y equals"
"I should think you were a little beside yourself to-night, when you have done all the talking, to turn round and charge it to me. Never mind, go on."
After watching him for a few moments in silence, until he appeared about as much puzzled as he represented her to be, she rose, took the cat and pressed her closely around his neck, to which pussy responded by a faint mew.
"Father, I wish you would take care of Rosa, do see how she acts with us both."
Leaving the cat to Walter's mercy, she bounded off into her father's lap, throwing her arms about his neck, in which posture she remained some moments in silence, while he amused himself with twining her curls around his fingers.
She was the first to speak.
"Father, what kind of a place do you think heaven is?"
"Why child, what makes you ask such a question?"
"It must be a place With a good many different apartments in it, to admit all the various sorts of people who expect to get there to the exclusion of all others who differ from them, and with whom they would not wish to associate."
"What have you heen reading or puzzling over now to put that in your head?"
"Oh, nothing particular. How is it that so many sects, as wide apart as the poles, all claiming the Bible on their side, preaching that there is no Other way but their own through which we can expect to be happy, can all be right, or any of them wrong?"
"Oh Rosa," said Walter, "you are a genius certainly! It would take more than a philosopher to understand you. There are as many sides to your character as a cameleon has colors, and as many oddities in your brain as a monkey could act out in six months. I suppose it is on the same principle you draw your comparison between Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrim's Progress. What kind of a problem do you call that where all sides cannot be right and yet none of them wrong?"
"I give it to you as a mathematical problem to solve after you have finished your equation."
"Don't talk any'-more, for I am very busy,—3x plus 4y—"
"Equals the summit of all earthly ambition, and makes one so abstracted that he fancies some one else is talking when he is hearing, himself think. Just as you and I get engaged, father, he will take up the conversation and then scold me for it."
"Well Rosa, what was the idea you intended to bring out?" said her father.
"That if there is a certain standard all men must recognize and live up to in order to be happy, how are we going to know what it is when opinions differ so much? One person says this is the only true faith and another says that."
"I think you are laboring under a misapprehension of terms. You confound theology with intuition. One is spiritual, the other intellectual."
"Theology, how I hate that word! I never could understand it, and what it has to do with a person's life in making him good or bad. Why should we assume to be nearer right than others?"
"That assumption of right is based on a correct principle. In order to start an opinion or truth we must assume its infallibility until convinced of its error. We must have a stand point whence to draw our conclusions, which will be truth to us so long as we conscientiously believe it. The error lies in excluding others from the privilege of exercising the same prerogative, whose opinions are entitled to the same respect as ours. By tolerating and discussing each other's views the errors are detected, over which the truth, from its divine character, must ultimately prevail.
The claim set up by every sect to be founded on the Bible is not so absurd as it seems as first thought. The Bible being an exposition of truth as it has been revealed to different nations in different ages, and receiving its coloring from all varieties of temperament, may be brought to the support of every shade of opinion and every form of belief. But the moment any sect sets up its claim to infallibility and shuns investigation, it begins its career as a spiritual despotism.
The religious element is inherent and will find expression in some form. It gives rise to church organizations which, though an imperfect expression of what the soul would aspire to, are in their origin the outward symbol of a truth yet but dimly revealed to the inner consciousness, destined to become clearer and more spiritual in its conceptions, so long as freedom of thought counteracts the natural tendency of organizations to supplant the living spirit by the dead letter. The great error of the religious world is, its proneness to substitute the infallibility of belief for the immutability of faith, and hence the conflict ever going on between faith and conscience on the one side, and belief and temporary expediency on the other, which makes every age a protest against the religious creed of the preceding one. As there is but one God there can be but one manifestation of his spirit. It is the same trust in him, the same hatred of wrong and oppression, that has inspired the prophets and apostles, the martyrs and reformers of all ages, whether believers in the Jewish rituals, the stern tenets of Calvinism, or the mild and beneficent sway of that eternal and unchanging Love by which the ever merciful Father overrules the sins of all his erring children, that he may draw them unto himself. He has implanted in every human soul a divine instinct which the Quakers call 'the inner light,' which, if properly heeded, will guide us safely through the world, its temptations and perplexities. Through it we may learn to appropriate the pure and good, and as certainly reject the wrong. It also reveals the hidden mysteries and sublime inspiration contained in the Bible, which would otherwise be a sealed book, and confirm us in surperstition, rather than lead us to the light."
"It seems to me there are some very sensible things about the Quakers. If they didn't condemn music, and require their members to be so odd in some things, I should like to join them."
"I should have supposed that would be the very reason why you would like to join them. I think you take pains to be different from others," interrupted Walter.
"Have you finished your equation? I should advise you to attend to that. I don't try to pattern after others. It would be the height of stupidity to do or believe a thing because somebody else did. No, I choose to have an opinion of my own, and it would suit me all the better not to agree exactly with anybody. That shows independence which is a very desirable quality, and one to be commended even if it does sometimes lead to eccentricity."
"So on that principle you anticipate a compliment for yourself, instead of waiting, as the custom is, for others to bestow it, themselves being judges. It is a trait of independence in the Quakers to be so odd in some things, which you have been censuring in them. Not very consistent art thou."
"I don't puzzle my head over consistencies. I want to follow the bent of my own mind. What looks consistent to one may not to another. They believe in following where the spirit moves, and that's what I like. This feeling obliged to do something, because it is right, I don't believe in. If it is right, we must feel a desire to do it to be a virtue."
"I fear, Rosalind," said her father, "you would not be so willing as you think. What they mean by that is not original with them, neither is it confined to them. The dictates of conscience are to be obeyed, let them lead us where they will, as they often do, contrary to our inclinations. That would be hard for you. The cross must come before the crown. Freedom of conscience, which forms the basis of every religious organization at its birth, means the freedom to act according to our convictions of duty, however they may conflict with our own will, or the judgment of others, yet so imperative that only in yielding obedience to them can we obtain the peace of mind essential to happiness.
The higher our faculties, the greater the evil resulting from a perversion of them. Hence it is that religious despotism is more cruel and intolerable than any other, and the reaction in the effort to overthrow it often results in the other extreme, and repudiates, much that is good. The Puritan and the Quaker were the legitimate children of a profligate ministry, and a general corruption of church and state, who, instead of following in the wickedness of their fathers, rose up to protest against it in the name of the religion they professed; and the persecutions inflicted on them for daring, to attack the corruptions, naturally led them to a bolder renunciation of the forms and creeds so tenaciously cherished, and a more rigid adherence to their own convictions. Thus began a superstitious reverence for opinions, often trivial in themselves, and an undue importance attached to questions whose only merit consisted in the defence of the great principle of freedom of thought and expression. Because amusements had not been kept within rational bounds, they were wholly banished, and the divine gift of music condemned."
"I think it is wicked to condemn anything so refining and elevating in its influence as music, and for no other reason than that it is pleasing to the ear. I would go without the crown before I would take up such a cross. It is no more rational than to mortify the flesh as the Catholics do. I had a good deal of sympathy with that Popish priest in Robinson Crusoe. Seems to me he was about the right sort of a man, and Crusoe himself passed through similar experiences to John Bunyan."
"Just as I said," again interrupted Walter, "you can accede to any thing, or draw a comparison or contrast that would never enter another person's head. I guess you'd find some of the graver sort would shake their heads at you for daring to place Robinson Crusoe on the same footing with Pilgrim's Progress."
"I know that Priscilla Greenwood was greatly shocked the other day because I said, when speaking of the two books, that, as a work of fiction, Pilgrim's Progress greatly excelled. She started and exclaimed, 'You don't call that a novel do you?' I laughed, and said, 'Why, what is there so dreadful about that to make you look so frightened? I never thought of calling it a novel, but, come to think of it, why isn't it a religious novel. It is certainly a work of fiction, and so far as an approach to facts is concerned, there is much more of plausibility in the shipwreck of Crusoe on a desolate island, than in the hobgoblin adventures of Christian.' She has been shy of me ever since. What say you father?"
"In the common acceptation of the term, Pilgrim's Progress would hardly be called a novel, although literally it may be proper enough. It is rather a delineation of the spiritual pilgrimage, and as a work of genius, stands unrivalled, not merely for its combination of talent, but also for its adaptation to all ranks and every condition in life, exclusive of no sect or creed."
"So you think father, that it should not be classed with Robinson Crusoe."
"I do not think it will suffer from contamination. I was not comparing the merits of the two, only speaking of their different characters. The other, you know, is not strictly spiritual, but comprises also physical enjoyments and privations, representing outward and material life with the inner, whereas the first represents only the inner."
"So much the more sensible then, for we cannot separate the inner from the outward life on this planet. There is more of the foundation of facts in Crusoe, just as I said, and therefore as a work of fiction, John Bunyan's work is the most romantic."
"Stick to it Rosa, like a hero, perched up there like a queen on a throne. I've just thought of a good sketch of yourself as the heroine of a story. Imagine yourself so original and independent, you long for some sequestered spot where you will be subject to no control, and therefore set sail for some lonely island in the Pacific, where you can reign with such undisputed sway that no human being dare approach you."
"Why Walter, I would like to know whether you meant that all as a joke or half in earnest. You do not really mistake me so much as to suppose I spurn all control? It is one of the happiest sensations of my life to be controlled as I often am by you, and if you did not know it then here is my confession."
"I think Walter understands you Rosa, but I am glad to see you come out with so much frankness and arrest even the least suspicion of a misunderstanding. I hope you will act on that principle through life, and not allow yourself to harbor in secret an unkind feeling towards another which might be at once explained away, or shown to be without a cause. How many cases of hatred and ill will, and their still more sinister sister, revenge, might hate been avoided if, instead of allowing the passions to add fuel to the flame, by suggesting a thousand things to the imagination, that had not a shadow of truth, reason and judgment had been followed by going to the source of the matter, and confronting it in its first stage without any exaggeration."
"The theatre is a good place to illustrate this, and now we will discuss that subject. What a quiet time we are having. It seems all the pleasanter for the storm outside. Mother, why don't you speak?"
"You had better give her a chance. She could not get a word in edgewise," said Walter.
"It's you that fill up the chinks. After telling me repeatedly that you did not wish to be interrupted, you have improved every opportunity to slide in some thing, and now do not even allow mother the time to answer a question."
"It seems to me my children delight in running each other to night. Walter, how does your sum progress, or your equation rather?"
"Oh nicely. I shall get it one of these days, that is, if Rosa will let me alone."
"Walter! I wish father would send you from the room till you have finished it."
"I fear if I did, my daughter would be interceding for him to come back. How is it about the theatre, what speculations have you been making upon that?"
"Priscilla Greenwood's mother says it is a very wicked place, and she would not allow a.child of hers to go there upon any consideration. I know you never appeared very anxious for us to go, yet you have taken us there sometimes, and I have enjoyed it. Havn't you Walter?"
"I don't like it. Nothing but love, love, love from the beginning to the end of the chapter. Dying for love, hating for love, and last of all killing somebody for love."
"It would be a marvel for you to agree with me in anything I say to night."
"Walter has not yet entered those mysterious portals," said Mr. Claremont in an undertone to his wife, but sufficient to attract Walter's attention.
"What was that you said, father," demanded he, rising from his seat.
"Something to your credit, though not essential for you to know," replied his father.
"Rosa, won't you tell me," continued he in a pleading voice, coaxingly placing his hand in hers.
"Don't you wish you knew?"
"No, I'll find out by my own knowledge."
"That's what you will if you live long enough; you've gone back to your sum in high dudgeon. The next we shall know it will be done at short notice."
"Walter, I admire your good sense in that remark about the theatre. One of the most pernicious influences resulting from it is the low, sensual character in which it presents the holiest emotion of this mortal life, trifling with that sacred instinct which from its divine and spiritual nature should claim exemption from the vulgar affinity with base-born passions there so invariably and notoriously represented."
"Yet, father," said Rosalind, "such is a true picture of actual life, if history be reliable. It is full of machinations and plots of that description, and Shakspeare's genius, fertile as it was, probably did not exceed the reality. Nothing takes like his plays."
"I know it. We do homage to talent wherever we find it. I suppose it is all we can expect of a theatre since it professes to be only a place of amusement, totally indifferent to the moral or immoral influences engendered, farther than to ensure a successful patronage from the community. I was thinking of the good it might exert, calling into exercise our highest and noblest feelings by arraying in equally attractive colors the triumphs of virtue over vice, instead of displaying so much that is bloody and revengeful, to kindle the passions. Love of the dramatic is implanted within us which it is lawful to gratify within certain limits. I do not think it displays a highly cultivated and refined mind to be a habitual visitor at the theatre, for the reasons I have stated, yet if well disciplined will generally be proof against its debasing effects, from the fact that it can have no affinity with the lower passions. But before the character is formed there may be great danger of vitiating the moral sense with such an indiscriminate mixture of virtue and vice, therefore I have been very guarded in taking you there. I did not think it best to exclude you from it entirely as the time must come when you will have to mix with the world, discover its baseness and hypocrisy, and also be surprised with much that is noble and honorable where you least expect to find it."
"You think then that we may learn something of real life there don't you?"
"Oh yes, as we do in novels. A proper discrimination is to be made. The sickly, sentimental trash that has so disgusted Walter should be universally condemned for the benefit of the human race as he said, but there are those truly exalting and beneficent in their influence, whence we may derive a more thorough knowledge of human nature, than from any other source."
"I think it would be a great advantage to Mrs. Greenwood to read something in that line besides Pilgrim's Progress. She has the most narrow, contracted mind of any body I ever knew,' and thinks there can be no good people but those who believe as she does. She will not allow Priscilla to leave her apron strings except to go to school, and then gives her strict orders how to behave, forbidding her to join the other girls in any of their sports. If she happens to laugh out loud at home her mother is as cross and crabbed as a sea owl. I should be perfectly miserable to live so. I couldn't. She wouldn't control me as she does her."
"That's what she wouldn't; you spoke the truth then, Rosa, but what kind of an animal is the sea owl?" ejaculated Walter.
"Seeing you are so smart, you may find out that by your own knowledge, too."
"How happens it that you and she have contracted so much of an intimacy when there is no resemblance between yon, and you do not like her mother well enough to enjoy going there very much."
"Of course that's reason enough for her to like her," said Walter.
"Well, she talks upon subjects that I like to talk about, and though we do not agree, I enjoy drawing her out, and sometimes she gets pretty well puzzled with my arguments. I think she has a superior mind, but it has always been cramped up in a nut shell. Her mother would not like to have her associate with me if it were not for our grave conversation. She has no fear of my influence over her, and indulges great hopes that her's over me may be an instrument for my salvation, for with all her crossness she thinks the world of Priscilla, and well she may."
"My dear daughter, I am afraid you judge Mrs. Greenwood too harshly. Nature has not endowed her with the soft, musical voice of your mother, or that genial temperament which carries smiles and content wherever it goes. Besides, her plans for life were thwarted in her youth, and she seems to have borne the cross ever since without anticipating a crown, and seems conscientiously bent in training her daughter just so."
"Did you know her when she was young?"
"Oh yes. She was one of the gayest girls that ever tripped the floor at the fashionable balls in the city, though without her parents' knowledge. They lived in the country a few miles distant, and were strict Calvinists. A young man of respectable connexions, and for ought I know, of respectable character, sought and secured her love. The bitter opposition of her parents, on account of his different religious views, wrought so upon her fears and conscientiousness, that she broke the engagement, and soon after joining the church, became a scrupulous observer of its rituals; but it was evident to all who had previously known her, that it was not a willing sacrifice. She grew morose and reserved, carefully avoiding all her former associates."
"I never could see how Mr. Greenwood could fancy her, he is such a contrast. I know his religious views are as rigid as hers, but he is always so pleasant and agreeable, and so handsome too, any one could not help liking him."
"Handsome, Rosa! If that isn't the weakest speech I ever heard you make, as if beauty would make us love a person any better," observed Walter.
"How you do take me up in every thing I say. Affection is not founded on beauty, but you cannot deny that beauty is attractive and very properly so, but the want of it never weakens our attachment nor prevents us from loving as much. I think mother is handsomer than you, father, but I must say I love you a little the most. You will not be jealous, will you mother?"
"No, my darling, I shall never be jealous of the love your father wins."
"Crackee! I didn't think beauty was coming under discussion. Mother, don't you care! I believe I love you a little the most, not because you are the handsomest, but because you are my mother—a good reason. But Rosa is so different from other folks; and somehow—don't you think I care any thing about it, father,—it always seems to me as if you love Rosa a little bit more."
"Than I do you? All secrets seem to be coming out to night. Come here a moment Walter, and rest awhile, though I do not think you have hurt yourself by close application. Can you give any reason for thinking so?"
"No, father, I told you I did not care any thing about it. I feel as mother does."
"That is not answering my question frankly, as you generally do. Do not fear that you will displease me. You will observe that I have not yet disputed you, but I have a curiosity to know in what light you view it. Then I will talk it over."
"I don't believe you will get me to say any more than I have said."
"Wouldn't you like to have me speak for you Walter. I know where the pinch is. He is afraid he will have to give himself too much credit. He knows that I have been so much more trouble than he has,—"
"Why don't you go on Rosa? that's smart to leave right off there," said Walter.
"I guess I shall have to speak for both of you, I see you understand it. Rosa is as conscious of her faults as we are, and she will excuse my plainness if I allude to them now. She has been the source of care and anxiety you never were, Walter; not so much for the faults in themselves, which doubtless age and experience would do much towards correcting; but certain tendencies of her mind were very unfortunate for a happy or successful issue, with all the vicissitudes and disappointments that meet us through life. For this reason I have sought earnestly, not to change her character, which I do not desire, but so to guide her that she will of herself perceive and rectify her mistakes. Her perseverance has excited the admiration of us all, and inspired me with the hope that she will display the same energy and fortitude to overcome the obstacles and bear the trials that may beset her future pathway; but still I know that it will not be without suffering and conflict she will attain to that peaceful submission, which in you, Walter, is a state of quiet content inseparable from your uniform, happy nature.
Sympathy with suffering often creates an attachment that would otherwise never exist, and one already existing strengthens, if possible, which is not inconsistent with the law of natural affection; for those who are strong in themselves being less dependent on others for support or enjoyment, can better dispense with it. But what am I saying? My head feels a little confused to-night. I do not mean that Rosa is not strong, or that you are not equally dear to me. I mean that she has imposed upon me the greatest responsibility, and consequently, has engrossed more of my thoughts. If called upon to choose which of you I would most willingly surrender, I fear that it would be a trial like that of the woman whom Solomon judged, and I should cry out, both, if need be, but spare me from choosing." And a voice whispered, "Thou shalt be spared the trial."
For a few moments there was a deep silence. Mournfully the wind swayed the old oak which but a few weeks before had swept the window with its leafy robe, whispering, as it sighed over its present bleak and desolate appearance, of the alternate joys and sorrows of three generations of men, whose home had nestled amid its branches; yet in all the changes time had brought, no woodman's axe had been permitted to invade the luxuriant growth which often interfered with their own convenience.
At length Walter left his father's embrace and, resumed his task, but not until he had reminded Rosa of the burden she might possibly be if she kept her present position much longer. "I am afraid father is tired," said he, in a low voice.
"Oh I never thought of being heavy, I will get down a few minutes, but shall come back again, for I want you to sing to me yet father, as you did when I was a little girl, and mother must play on the piano."
"No, no, sit still, you are not very heavy."
"Then I will get a cricket which will make me a little lighter."
"Sit still Rosa, I'll get you a cricket; it seems to me you are calculating on a pretty long evening. It is already nine o'clock."
"We have talked enough for the present, only there's one thing I'd like to know. Speaking of Shakespeare, do you think there is anything of an immoral tendency in his plays, father?"
"No. He gave a faithful representation of his times, exposing their glaring inconsistencies under the fascinating guise of his own inventive genius. In general the highest order of plays acted at a theatre are his. Their historic character invests them with a deep interest, and impresses the mind so strongly with the pernicious consequences of the low estimate set upon morals, that we instinctively recoil from the gross sensuality masked under such gorgeous colors as the reflection of the perverted moral sentiment of that period, instead of being attracted, as weak minds are, by the sickly sentimentalism which a vulgar taste assimilates to itself in the lower order of theatrical entertainments, sanctioned neither by the general refinement of the present age, nor our own individual convictions of what should constitute a healthy, refined taste. Good and evil are so closely intertwined in this world that it is impossible to define clearly the exact dividing line between them. Our first care must be to build up a genuine, virtuous character, strong enough to be proof against the follies and seductions of the clap-trap of alluring sensations which please, while they fail to exalt, or serve only to debase in whatever guise they come. I received one of the highest impressions ever made upon me at a theatre. In the midst of a battle scene the curtain rose upon six young maidens dressed in white, with olive branches in their hands. Instantly all discord was hushed, every weapon dropped, and all eyes were fixed upon them as if entranced by an angel vision. Even now I seem to feel the inspiration of that hour."
"Do you think it is ever right for men to fight and kill each other?"
This was a hard question for him to answer. He who had dwelt with such enthusiasm upon the heroic details of the Revolutionary war, leaving his native laud to enjoy the blessings of the free institutions which were its glorious fruits; he who had followed Washington, in imagination, through the pains and trials of that eventful struggle, and sympathized with him when, owing a duty to his country his eminent qualifications fitted him to discharge, he was the peculiar mark of jealousy which the pressing emergency of the hour forbade him even to notice; he who had admired the greatness with which, with a single eye to his country's good alone, he triumphed over all and won the imperishable title of "Father of his country," "first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen;" should he dissent from the first and only incident upon which his future fame rested, his success in war, to answer unequivocally as instinct suggested, the simple question of a child?
Perhaps a faint radiance from the opening glories of another sphere just ready to burst upon him, illumined his conceptions at that moment. With a confident voice and a mild assuring look, that met the earnest gaze of Rosalind as her eyes queried the reason of his long silence, he answered, while soul and sense negatived the other answer, which would not have failed to bring on questions he might be still more puzzled to reply to. "I think not, my child."
"Now we will drop our discussion for to-night and sing the rest of the time. I like a stormy evening occasionally. There is such a pleasant contrast between our cheerful room and the howling wind and beating rain outside, but I hope there is no one suffering, especially that little beggar girl. I wonder what has become of her?"
"Then you think there was a beggar at the door? If I had had the least suspicion of it I should have gone out in search of her," said her father.
"I did not think much of it then, as Milly said she went to the door, but Ponto never barks at nothing, and perhaps he frightened her away. The more I think of it, the more confident I am of a glimpse of some sort of a bonnet. Oh Ponto! you must learn better manners. That was not civil. You should frighten only rogues away. There, see how penitent he is, he seems to say, 'Forgive me this time, and I will never do so again.'"
"I've got it, I've got it!" exclaimed Walter. "Halloa, pussy cat, don't rub it out, stretching your long paws out here, and opening your mouth as if you wanted to swallow all the knowledge you can get without working for it. Father, did you ever see such a funny cat? She will sit straight up and go to sleep, and nod just like folks; and if we speak to her she'll open her eyes just a little bit and then nod as if assenting to what we say."
"She's a wonderful cat, no doubt, and one of her most wonderful feats is, as you will think, that she knows your step. She will start out of a sound sleep when she hears it and look for you as eagerly as a child for its mother."
"I've noticed that she's always up and wide awake when I come in, but never stirs afterward? for anybody else."
"Then you've finished your equation have you, let me see it?"
"Yes, Rosa, it is finished at last, and that is wonderful, in the midst of your talk."
"In which you had to take part now and then. Yes, that is right. How smart you will feel now. Sit down on the cricket and lay your head in my lap. Father is going to sing to us, and presently we'll join in concert."
"No indeed, Rosa, I don't come down to that yet, to sit at your feet. You may go back to 'little Johnny Horner, sitting in the corner,'—as most suitable for you, and I will go on—to Cicero," and he whistled merrily away.
"That's a good idea. I wish you would sing little Johnny Horner, father."
So he began with the nursery rhymes of her childhood, gradually waxing on to a more serious strain when she joined her voice with his; and at her solicitation her mother accompanied them on the piano. The rich, musical tones of Mrs. Claremont's voice, the rapturous glow of her countenance, the graceful play of her features suggested, as Milly often observed, the presence of an angel, and perhaps the suggestion was never more apt. It is for such choice spirits one would fain reserve the dispensing power of those celestial harmonies, whose inspiring anthems speak to the lowly sons of earth to raise them heaven ward. Nothing can be more dissonant than listening to them from a voluptuary.
Surely we may pardon much to the superstition of that sect which, recognizing the divine character of music, in their argument that only those whose devotional feelings were sufficiently pure and exalted to prompt them to such sacred expression of them should be permitted to do so, in their zeal banished it altogether to prevent its abuse.
"Home, sweet home," was then sung with a most joyful appreciation of it by this trio. From this they passed to the happy sequel, when, all pain and sorrow ceased, and separations known no more, a blest reunion awaits us, and sung "The better land." When they reached the lines,
"Then those who meet shall part no more,
And those long parted meet again,"
Walter chimed in to complete the family circle though somewhat to impair the melodious symphony of sounds, not having so good a voice as the others. They closed with the hymn,
"Spirit, leave thy house of clay;
Lingering dust, resign thy breath;"
When singing the last line Mr. Claremont felt a sharp pain through his temples, but did not speak of it, and they retired for the night;—Walter, to dream of new triumphs;—Rosalind, to meditate upon this evening's enjoyment, and picture to herself new realms of thought which lured her on, till, lost in rapture, life rose before her as one grand panoramic scene, upon which she would leave no trace of imperfection to mar its beauty, no discordant background to impair its imposing sublimity. Little did she dream that the web of Fate had so closely entangled in her delicate network every cherished anticipation of the future, and every prompting of a noble ambition; that only from the purified incense of a love sanctified through suffering, would she walk victor-crowned as one of the heroic band who have learned to say trustingly, "The Father's will be done," ere permitted to rise higher.