The Clergyman's Wife and Other Sketches/Make the Best of It; or, Fairy Gifts

by Anna Cora Mowatt

Make the Best of It; or,

Fairy Gifts.

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he chamber was large and luxurious; the first rays of morning stole through window curtains of rose-colored silk, and diffused an auroral hue over draperies of finely-wrought lace, that canopied the bed, where a youthful mother reposed in that pleasant state of dreamy consciousness when the mind hovers delightfully between waking and slumber. The flushed cheek of a sleeping boy was pressed to her own; a fair-featured girl nestled closely on the other side; in the richly decorated cradle, standing near the couch, slumbered a babe, a very pearl in its velvet casket. So, at least, the young Cornelia thought, for she often styled these three precious, human gems, worn with happy pride upon her maternal bosom, her diamond, her ruby, her pearl.

Few steps had she yet taken upon the journey of life, so few that the waves of time had not rolled far back into the past, the days when she gave credence to the existence of those diminutive "good people" called fairies, and now, in her semi-somnolence, that half-forgotten faith washed the shores of memory again, and she murmured, dreamily: "Oh! if some fairy would bestow upon them each a wondrous gift!"

Scarcely had she spoken, when the rose-light, that tinted every object in the room, changed to a mellower dye; prismatic hues flashed fitfully through the golden radiance, gradually forming themselves into a rainbow of marvellous vividness; and, as the mother steadfastly gazed, beneath the resplendent arch, a form that seemed fashioned of moonlight, became visible. The ærial shape was clad in an amethyst robe, its unbound tresses rolled, like a mantle of molten amber, down to the shining feet; its luminous brow was crowned with a chaplet of lilies, each lily a living opal. Never had Cornelia beheld a countenance so touching, so indescribably lovely in its holy tenderness; as it bent over her, the violet iris emitted soft rays which penetrated into her breast, and warmed and gladdened her heart.

While she contemplated the celestial presence, in joyful amazement, a voice, like the sound of zephyrs sweeping over an Æolian harp, charmed her ear.

It said, "Your wish is granted, I am sent to accord one gift to each of these sweet slumberers."

Rapture rendered the mother speechless.

"Speak! What will you choose?" asked the unearthly visitant.

Then the mother's eyes, which had been riveted upon that beautiful apparition, turned to the boy, her eldest born, the diamond among her jewels; and, laying her hand fondly on his forehead, she smoothed back the tangled locks from his high, intellectual brow. Even at that light touch he started; his arms were tossed above his head, his attitude expressed disquiet, his color deepened, then paled again, his lips moved inaudibly; that he possessed a nervous, ardent temperament, it was easy to divine.

"Give him genius! Great genius!" she murmured fondly.

What delicious perfume stole through the chamber? It was the Fairy's soundless sigh.

"Ronald shall have genius!" she answered.

"What gift will you bestow upon your daughter?"

The mother gazed tenderly upon the little maiden, slumbering by her side, the ruby of her carcanet. Long, black lashes swept over the blooming cheek of the child, dark, clustering ringlets, waved in shining luxuriance about her snowy temples and throat, a half smile parted the exquisite mouth, the delicate outline of a symmetrical form was visible through the white raiment.

"She will be a woman; give her beauty, great beauty!" said the mother, enthusiastically.

"Cynthia shall have beauty!" replied the fairy, and this time her sigh was like the moan of a gentle breeze, and again her breath loaded the air with fragrance, like the aroma of a crushed flower.

"And what gift will you bestow upon this pearl of purity?" she asked, gliding noiselessly towards the cradle.

Love unutterable beamed from the mother's eyes when they rested upon that snow-drop of infancy. As she hesitated and pondered, the fairy said, softly, "You have gifted the others, leave the choice of her gift to me."

"Oh, gladly!" replied the mother, "but let it not be inferior to theirs."

"My gift to little Viola," responded the fairy, "is the sweet faculty of making the best of everything through life? Of trials and sufferings, as of pleasures and triumphs, she shall make the best!"

The mother half started from her pillow with an exclamation of disappointment and remonstrance, but the golden light faded, the effulgent rainbow vanished, the unsubstantial form melted away; the roseate dye, reflected from the silken curtains, prevaded the room as before. Cornelia was half inclined to believe that she had slept, and the sudden movement had awakened her from a delicious dream.

Time passed. In a few years Roland began to be regarded as a prodigy. His talents excited general wonder and admiration. He drew and painted with surprising ease; his musical powers seemed a sort of instinct; he was a natural poet, too, and verse flowed spontaneously from his lips or pen. Every emanation of his young mind bore the insignia of genius, and loud prognostics of future celebrity were constantly trumpeted in his ears. But his brain was taxed to the exhaustion of his vital powers, and his health grew feeble. He was morbidly sensitive, untranquil, unsatisfied. Fickly ruled by the feeling of the moment, impulse was his guide; inclination his law. When the task he had commenced with ardor began to weary, he threw it aside. He performed on several instruments, but chiefly by ear; instruction bored him; he could not rein down his high-soaring genius with the needful curbs of arbitrary rules. Now and then he made a feeble effort to acquire skill and correctness, but was quickly overcome by fatigue, and often left the instrument in disgust. The necessity for application always disheartened him. He commenced, with enthusiasm, sketches that gave great promise, but seldom finished even the best. The mood had passed away, he said, and he could not work when the spirit was not upon him. He could not force his will, nor conquer his indolence. So with his poems; he dashed them off rapidly, in a species of poetic furor, but the gemlike thoughts, scattered carelessly through these rude inspirations, needed polish to bring out their lustre, and he could not tone down, condense, elaborate; thus his fatal facility prevented his ever reaching high excellence.

Not less remarkable, nor less attractive, was Cynthia, through her extraordinary beauty; a beauty that shone forth not merely in her faultless lineaments, her superb dark eyes, the wealth of her abundant tresses, her statuesque form, but that seemed to permeate her whole being with an unportrayable witchery; a captivating, elf-like piquancy, heightened by her capricious variability of mood, by the restless grace, which resembled that of a humming bird, fluttering its gorgeous pinions before the dazzled vision. When she was pleased, what a laughing sprite she seemed! And who was able to resist her winsome wiles? But alas she was very easily displeased, and frowns. gave an impish character to her chiselled features, though, strange to say, without destroying their beauty. Yet one thing did seriously impair her charms, and that was her own evident consciousness of their power.

Her disposition, under ordinary circumstances, would have been good, and her abilities excellent, but perpetual flattery weakened her intellect, and rendered her temper captious. She experienced an insatiable craving for adulation, and was listless. and dispirited, if, by chance, the unwholesome food were withheld.

If she encountered any difficulty in the pursuit of a desired object, she was quickly discouraged, and, without the faintest struggle to conquer the obstacle, weakly worried and wept over its existence. She could not endure disappointment in any shape. If a party of pleasure happened to be broken up by the rain, she conducted herself as though she were convinced the weather had been ordered expressly for her annoyance, and fretted all day at the unsuitableness of the atmospheric decree. If she chanced to be engaged upon a piece of sewing, embroidery, or knitting, that pleased her, and her thread got knotted, or she took a wrong stitch, or was forced to rip out, or she dropped her knitting needles, she grew vexed and pouted, and felt persecuted by some invisible agency, and was miserable for hours. Even at her toilette, when she was contemplating with only too much complacency, her fair visage in the mirror, if the glossy hair she was braiding, became tangled, or if she found an unlucky rent in some of her garments, or a disfiguring spot upon her dress, all her sunshine was gone; ill humor took possession of her; she was too much out of sorts to partake of the anticipated enjoyment, and unresistingly yielded herself up to the blue devils, who always seemed lying in wait to entrap her.

Little Viola was regarded, by casual observers, as a far more ordinary child than her brother or sister. She was intelligent, but by no means precocious. She acquired by industry and perseverance, not by intuition. In the place of striking beauty, she possessed, in an eminent degree, the loveliness of innocence and placid content, of glowing health, and a gloriously developed physique, strong and untainted as her pure spirit. The more thoughtful gazer noted the softness of her deep blue eyes, the serene, yet earnest, expression of her mild countenance, the happy smile that ever lingered about her rosy mouth; and could not fail to remark that although she lacked the perfect grace of Cynthia's airy, undulating motions, all her movements were purposeful, as though some bright goal to be reached was ever within view. Her light, dancing step seemed the rebound of her leaping heart; her gushing laughter, the echo of her joyous soul; her melodious voice, the vibration of harmonious chords within. And though no one called little Viola "wonderfully gifted," as they did her brother, or "marvellously beautiful," as they did her sister, yet, little by little, all who knew her, received the impression that she was endowed with some nameless gift, that took the place of, or, rather, that surpassed talent,—some gift that conveyed a sense of superlative beauty.

Viola set about every undertaking with cheerful zeal, and pursued it with unwearied steadiness. When a difficulty arose, she paused good humoredly, carefully examined into the nature of the obstacle, threw all her might into the effort to overcome it, and, if no remedy could be found, half warbling her cheerful by-phrase, "make the best of it!" she sought out a way by which the evil might be endured. When she was deprived of an anticipated pleasure, she philosophically endeavored to substitute another, within her reach. A book, some pleasant employment, arranging pressed flowers in her herbarium, adding to her scrap-book, learning a song, sketching a new picture, invariably neutralized the spirit-dampening effects of the unwelcome rain. In short, she accommodated herself to circumstances with such skilful adaptation, made the best of the inevitable with such cheerful tact, that no passing event inconvenienced her, no chance disappointment disturbed her equanimity.

As she grew older, she astonished her parents by correctly executing difficult pieces of music, which had baffled her gifted brother's skill; and completing pictures he had commenced and thrown by in despair. She inherited, too, his faculty for versification, and though her effusions were always short, the music of the rythm, the concentration of thought, the choiceness of the language, and high finish of her verses, placed them far above his more ambitious, but less perfect, poetic flights. By and by, her parents were startled into the admission that Viola's talents were equal, if not superior, to those of her brother; and when her sunny, peaceful face was accidentally placed in contrast with Cynthia's fretful, clouded countenance, in spite of the rich coloring and classic symmetry of the latter, Viola's was pronounced the more beautiful.

"Ah!" exclaimed the mother, remorsefully, when this conviction pressed upon her, "ah! the Fairy was wiser than I! She has given my Viola all gifts in one. 'She shall make the best of everything!' the good spirit said; and, blind that I was, I could not see that to make the best of everything was to have no faculty undeveloped, no power wasted; to let no opportunity be lost, to be conquered by no trial, to pursue the right path steadfastly and unweariedly, to find out the use of the very roughness of the road! That blessed endowment surpasses the boon of genius and beauty, yet gives birth to both! Assuredly, no one can know how abundant are God's blessings, (come they in what shape they may,) until he has made the best of every one!"