Chapter I (9)

Now in honor of the day, and of the grand part we had filled in the grand ceremony of the morning, we small people had been arrayed in white from top to toe, Master Martin in a new suit of jean, richly braided, his sister and myself in clear muslin frocks, edged with lace, and long Persian sashes, the whole width of the silk, fringed with silver, while all parties, little boy and little girls, had white beaver hats and heavy ostrich plumes. We young ladies had, as matter of course, that instinctive respect for our own finery which seems an innate principle in womankind; moreover, we were very good children, quiet, orderly, and obedient. Master Martin, on the other hand, our elder by a year, had some way or other imbibed the contempt at once for fine clothes and for the authorities of the nursery, which is not uncommon among his rebellious sex: so the first time it fell to his lot to hide, he ensconced himself in the very innermost recesses of the coal-hole, from which delightful retirement he was dragged, after a long search, by his own maid, who had at last awakened from the joys of gossiping and making believe to help in the housekeeper’s room, to the recollection that Lady Mary might possibly inquire after her children. The state of his apparel and of her temper may be more easily imagined than described. He, duke’s grandson though he were, looked like nothing better or worse than a chimney-sweeper. She stormed like a fury. But as all the storming in the world would not restore the young gentleman or his bridal suit to their pristine state of cleanliness, she took wit in her anger and put him to bed, as a measure partly of punishment, partly of concealment; the result of which was, that he, the culprit, thoroughly tired with excitement and exercise, with play and display, and well stuffed with dainties to keep him quiet, was consigned to his comfortable bed, while we, pattern little girls, had to undergo the penalty of making our appearance and our courtesies in the drawing-room, among all the fine folks of _our_ Camacho’s wedding, and to stay there, weariest of the many weary, two or three hours beyond our accustomed time. With so little justice are the rewards and punishments of this world distributed—even in the nursery!

Married Poets.—Elizabeth Barrett Browning—Robert Browning.

Married poets! Charming words are these, significant of congenial gifts, congenial labor, congenial tastes;—quick and sweet resources of mind and of heart, a long future of happiness, live in those two words. And the reality is as rare as it is charming. Married authors we have had of all ages and of all countries; from the Daciers, standing stiff and stately under their learning, as if it were a load, down to the Guizots, whose story is so pretty, that it would sound like a romance to all who did not know how often romance looks pale beside reality; from the ducal pair of Newcastle, walking stately and stiff under their strawberry-leafed coronets, to William and Mary Howitt, ornaments of a sect to whom coronets are an abomination. Married authors have been plentiful as blackberries, but married poets have been rare indeed! The last instance, too, was rather a warning than an example. When Caroline Bowles changed her own loved and honored name to become the wife of the great and good man Robert Southey, all seemed to promise fairly, but a slow and fatal disease had seized him even before the wedding-day, and darkened around him to the hour of his death. In the pair of whom I am now to speak, the very reverse of this sad destiny has happily befallen, and the health of the bride, which seemed gone forever, has revived under the influence of the climate of Italy, of new scenes, new duties, a new and untried felicity.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning is too dear to me as a friend to be spoken of merely as a poetess. Indeed such is the influence of her manners, her conversation, her temper, her thousand sweet and attaching qualities, that they who know her best are apt to lose sight altogether of her learning and of her genius, and to think of her only as the most charming person that they have ever met. But she is known to so few, and the peculiar characteristics of her writings, their purity, their tenderness, their piety, and their intense feeling of humanity and of womanhood, have won for her the love of so many, that it will gratify them without, I trust, infringing on the sacredness of private intercourse to speak of her not wholly as a poetess, but a little as a woman. When in listening to the nightingale, we try to catch a glimpse of the shy songster, we are moved by a deeper feeling than curiosity.

My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced about fifteen years ago. She was certainly one of the most interesting persons that I had ever seen. Every body who then saw her said the same; so that it is not merely the impression of my partiality, or my enthusiasm. Of a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most expressive face, large tender eyes richly fringed by dark eye-lashes, a smile like a sun-beam, and such a look of youthfulness, that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend, in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the translatress of the “Prometheus” of Æschylus, the authoress of the “Essay on Mind,” was old enough to be introduced into company, in technical language, was _out_. Through the kindness of another invaluable friend, to whom I owe many obligations, but none so great as this, I saw much of her during my stay in town. We met so constantly and so familiarly that, in spite of the difference of age, intimacy ripened into friendship, and after my return into the country, we corresponded freely and frequently, her letters being just what letters ought to be—her own talk put upon paper.

The next year was a painful one to herself and to all who loved her. She broke a blood-vessel upon the lungs, which did not heal. If there had been consumption in the family that disease would have intervened. There were no seeds of the fatal English malady in her constitution, and she escaped. Still, however, the vessel did not heal, and after attending her for above a twelvemonth at her father’s house in Wimpole-street, Dr. Chambers, on the approach of winter, ordered her to a milder climate. Her eldest brother, a brother in heart and in talent worthy of such a sister, together with other devoted relatives, accompanied her to Torquay, and _there_ occurred the fatal event which saddened her bloom of youth, and gave a deeper hue of thought and feeling, especially of devotional feeling, to her poetry. I have so often been asked what could be the shadow that had passed over that young heart, that now that time has softened the first agony it seems to me right that the world should hear the story of an accident in which there was much sorrow, but no blame.

Nearly a twelvemonth had passed, and the invalid, still attended by her affectionate companions, had derived much benefit from the mild sea breezes of Devonshire. One fine summer morning her favorite brother, together with two other fine young men, his friends, embarked on board a small sailing-vessel, for a trip of a few hours. Excellent sailors all, and familiar with the coast, they sent back the boatmen, and undertook themselves the management of the little craft. Danger was not dreamt of by any one; after the catastrophe, no one could divine the cause, but in a few minutes after their embarkation, and in sight of their very windows, just as they were crossing the bar, the boat went down, and all who were in her perished. Even the bodies were never found. I was told by a party who was traveling that year in Devonshire and Cornwall, that it was most affecting to see on the corner houses of every village street, on every church-door, and almost on every cliff for miles and miles along the coast, handbills, offering large rewards for linens cast ashore marked with the initials of the beloved dead; for it so chanced that all the three were of the dearest and the best; one, I believe, an only son, the other the son of a widow.

This tragedy nearly killed Elizabeth Barrett. She was utterly prostrated by the horror and the grief, and by a natural but a most unjust feeling, that she had been in some sort the cause of this great misery. It was not until the following year that she could be removed in an invalid carriage, and by journeys of twenty miles a day, to her afflicted family and her London home. The house that she occupied at Torquay had been chosen as one of the most sheltered in the place. It stood at the bottom of the cliffs, almost close to the sea; and she told me herself, that during that whole winter the sound of the waves rang in her ears like the moans of one dying. Still she clung to literature and to Greek; in all probability she would have died without that wholesome diversion to her thoughts. Her medical attendant did not always understand this. To prevent the remonstrances of her friendly physician, Dr. Barry, she caused a small edition of Plato to be so bound as to resemble a novel. He did not know, skillful and kind though he were, that to her such books were not an arduous and painful study, but a consolation and a delight.

Returned to London, she began the life which she continued for so many years, confined to one large and commodious but darkened chamber admitting only her own affectionate family and a few devoted friends (I, myself, have often joyfully traveled five-and-forty miles to see her, and returned the same evening, without entering another house); reading almost every book worth reading in almost every language, and giving herself, heart and soul, to that poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess.

Gradually her health improved. About four years ago she married Mr. Browning, and immediately accompanied him to Pisa. They then settled at Florence; and this summer I have had the exquisite pleasure of seeing her once more in London, with a lovely boy at her knee, almost as well as ever, and telling tales of Italian rambles, of losing herself in chestnut forests, and scrambling on mule-back up the sources of extinct volcanoes. May Heaven continue to her such health and such happiness!

The same visit to London that brought me acquainted with my beloved friend, Elizabeth Barrett, first gave me a sight of Mr. Browning. It was at a period that forms an epoch in the annals of the modern drama—the first representation of “Ion.”

I had the honor and pleasure of being the inmate of Mr. and Mrs. Serjeant Talfourd (my accomplished friend has since worthily changed his professional title—but his higher title of poet is indelible), having been, I believe, among the first who had seen that fine play in manuscript. The dinner party consisted merely of Mr. Wordsworth, Mr. Landor, and I think Mr. Forster. By a singular coincidence it was our host’s birthday, and no one present can forget the triumph of the evening—a triumph of no common order as regarded the number, the quality, or the enthusiasm of the audience; the boxes being crammed to the ceiling, and the pit filled, as in an elder day, with critics and gentlemen.

A large party followed the poet home to supper, a party comprising distinguished persons of almost every class; lawyers, authors, actors, artists, all were mingled around that splendid board; healths were drunk and speeches spoken, and it fell to the lot of the young author of “Paracelsus” to respond to the toast of “The Poets of England.” That he performed this task with grace and modesty, and that he looked still younger than he was, I well remember; but we were not introduced, and I knew him only by those successive works which redeemed the pledge that “Paracelsus” had given, until this very summer, when going to London purposely to meet my beloved friend, I was by her presented to her husband. Ah! I hope it will not be fifteen years before we look each other in the face again!

Incidents Of A Visit At The House Of William Cobbett.

The name of Blamire has always a certain interest for me, in consequence of a circumstance, which, as it took place somewhere about five-and-forty years ago, and has reference to a flirtation of twenty years previous, there can not now be much harm in relating.

Being with my father and mother on a visit about six miles from Southampton, we were invited by a gentleman of the neighborhood to meet the wife and daughters of a certain Dr. Blamire. “An old friend of yours and mine,” quoth our inviter to my father. “Don’t you remember how you used to flirt with the fair lady when you and Babington were at Haslar? Faith, if Blamire had not taken pity on her, it would have gone hard with the poor damsel! However, he made up to the disconsolate maiden, and she got over it. Nothing like a new love for chasing away an old one. You must dine with us to-morrow. I shall like to see the meeting.”

My father did not attempt to deny the matter. Men never do. He laughed, as all that wicked sex do laugh at such sins twenty years after, and professed that he should be very glad to shake hands with his old acquaintance. So the next day we met.

I was a little curious to see how my own dear mother, my mamma that was, and the stranger lady, my mamma that might have been, would bear themselves on the occasion. At first, my dear mother, an exceedingly ladylike, quiet person, had considerably the advantage, being prepared for the _recontre_ and perfectly calm and composed; while Mrs. Blamire, taken, I suspect, by surprise, was a good deal startled and flustered. This state of things, however, did not last. Mrs. Blamire having got over the first shock, comported herself like what she evidently was, a practiced woman of the world—would talk to no one but ourselves—and seemed resolved not only to make friends with her successful rival, but to strike up an intimacy. This by no means entered into my mother’s calculations. As the one advanced the other receded, and, keeping always within the limits of civility, I never heard so much easy chat put aside with so many cool and stately monosyllables in my life.

The most diverting part of this scene, very amusing to a stander-by, was, that my father, the only real culprit, was the only person who throughout maintained the appearance and demeanor of the most unconscious innocence. He complimented Mrs. Blamire on her daughters (two very fine girls)—inquired after his old friend, the Doctor, who was attending his patients in a distant town—and laughed and talked over bygone stories with the one lady, just as if he had not jilted her—and played the kind and attentive husband to the other, just as if he had never made love to any body except his own dear wife.

It was one of the strange domestic comedies which are happening around us every day, if we were but aware of them, and might probably have ended in a renewal of acquaintance between the two families but for a dispute that occurred toward the end of the evening between Mrs. Blamire and the friend in whose house we were staying, which made the lady resolve against accepting his hospitable invitations, and I half suspect hurried her off a day or two before her time.

This host of ours was a very celebrated person—no other than William Cobbett. Sporting, not politics, had brought about our present visit and subsequent intimacy. We had become acquainted with Mr. Cobbett two or three years before, at this very house, where we were now dining to meet Mrs. Blamire. Then my father, a great sportsman, had met him while on a coursing expedition near Alton—had given him a grayhound that he had fallen in love with—had invited him to attend another coursing meeting near our own house in Berkshire—and finally, we were now, in the early autumn, with all manner of pointers, and setters, and grayhounds, and spaniels, shooting ponies, and gun-cases, paying the return visit to him.

He had at that time a large house at Botley, with a lawn and gardens sweeping down to the Bursledon River, which divided his (Mr. Cobbett’s) territories from the beautiful grounds of the old friend where we had been originally staying, the great squire of the place. His own house—large, high, massive, red, and square, and perched on a considerable eminence—always struck me as not being unlike its proprietor. It was filled at that time almost to overflowing. Lord Cochrane was there, then in the very height of his warlike fame, and as unlike the common notion of a warrior as could be. A gentle, quiet, mild young man, was this burner of French fleets and cutter-out of Spanish vessels, as one should see in a summer day. He lay about under the trees reading Selden on the Dominion of the Seas, and letting the children (and children always know with whom they may take liberties) play all sorts of tricks with him at their pleasure. His ship’s surgeon was also a visitor, and a young midshipman, and sometimes an elderly lieutenant, and a Newfoundland dog; fine sailor-like creatures all. Then there was a very learned clergyman, a great friend of Mr. Gifford, of the “Quarterly,” with his wife and daughter—exceedingly clever persons. Two literary gentlemen from London and ourselves completed the actual party; but there was a large fluctuating series of guests for the hour, or guests for the day, of almost all ranks and descriptions, from the earl and his countess to the farmer and his dame. The house had room for all, and the hearts of the owners would have had room for three times the number

I never saw hospitality more genuine, more simple, or more thoroughly successful in the great end of hospitality, the putting every body completely at ease. There was not the slightest attempt at finery, or display, or gentility. They called it a farm-house, and every thing was in accordance with the largest idea of a great English yeoman of the old time. Every thing was excellent—every thing abundant—all served with the greatest nicety by trim waiting damsels; and every thing went on with such quiet regularity that of the large circle of guests not one could find himself in the way. I need not say a word more in praise of the good wife, very lately dead, to whom this admirable order was mainly due. She was a sweet, motherly woman, realizing our notion of one of Scott’s most charming characters, _Ailie Dinmont_, in her simplicity, her kindness, and her devotion to her husband and her children.

At this time William Cobbett was at the height of his political reputation; but of politics we heard little, and should, I think, have heard nothing, but for an occasional red-hot patriot, who would introduce the subject, which our host would fain put aside, and get rid of as speedily as possible. There was something of _Dandie Dinmont_ about him, with his unfailing good-humor and good spirits—his heartiness—his love of field sports, and his liking for a foray. He was a tall, stout man, fair, and sun-burnt, with a bright smile, and an air compounded of the soldier and the farmer, to which his habit of wearing an eternal red waistcoat contributed not a little. He was, I think, the most athletic and vigorous person that I have ever known. Nothing could tire him. At home in the morning he would begin his active day by mowing his own lawn, beating his gardener, Robinson, the best mower, except himself, in the parish, at that fatiguing work.

For early rising, indeed, he had an absolute passion, and some of the poetry that we trace in his writings, whenever he speaks of scenery or of rural objects, broke out in his method of training his children into his own matutinal habits. The boy who was first down stairs was called the lark for the day, and had, among other indulgences, the pretty privilege of making his mother’s nosegay, and that of any lady visitors. Nor was this the only trace of poetical feeling that he displayed. Whenever he described a place, were it only to say where such a covey lay, or such a hare was found sitting, you could see it, so graphic—so vivid—so true was the picture. He showed the same taste in the purchase of his beautiful farm at Botley, Fairthorn; even in the pretty name. To be sure, he did not give the name, but I always thought that it unconsciously influenced his choice in the purchase. The beauty of the situation certainly did. The fields lay along the Bursledon River, and might have been shown to a foreigner as a specimen of the richest and loveliest English scenery. In the cultivation of his garden, too, he displayed the same taste. Few persons excelled him in the management of vegetables, fruit, and flowers. His green Indian corn—his Carolina beans—his water-melons, could hardly have been exceeded at New York. His wall-fruit was equally splendid, and much as flowers have been studied since that day, I never saw a more glowing or a more fragrant autumn garden than that at Botley, with its pyramids of hollyhocks, and its masses of china-asters, of cloves, of mignonnette, and of variegated geranium. The chances of life soon parted us, as, without grave faults on either side, people do lose sight of one another; but I shall always look back with pleasure and regret to that visit.

While we were there, a grand display of English games, especially of single-stick and wrestling, took place under Mr. Cobbett’s auspices. Players came from all parts of the country—the south, the west, and the north—to contend for fame and glory, and also, I believe, for a well-filled purse; and this exhibition which—quite forgetting the precedent set by a certain princess, _de jure_, called Rosalind, and another princess, _de facto_, called Celia—she termed barbarous, was the cause of his quarrel with my mamma that might have been, Mrs. Blamire.

In my life I never saw two people in a greater passion. Each was thoroughly persuaded of being in the right, either would have gone to the stake upon it, and of course the longer they argued the more determined became their conviction. They said all manner of uncivil things; they called each other very unpretty names; she got very near to saying, “Sir, you’re a savage;” he did say, “Ma’am, you’re a fine lady;” they talked, both at once, until they could talk no longer, and I have always considered it as one of the greatest pieces of Christian forgiveness that I ever met with, when Mr. Cobbett, after they had both rather cooled down a little, invited Mrs. Blamire to dine at his house the next day. She, less charitable, declined the invitation, and we parted.

As I have said, my father and he had too much of the hearty English character in common not to be great friends; I myself was somewhat of a favorite (I think because of my love for poetry, though he always said not), and I shall never forget the earnestness with which he congratulated us both on our escape from such a wife and such a mother. “She’d have been the death of you!” quoth he, and he believed it. Doubtless, she, when we were gone, spoke quite as ill of him, and believed it also. Nevertheless, excellent persons were they both; only they had quarreled about the propriety or the impropriety of a bout at single-stick! Such a thing is anger!

A Reminiscence Of The French Emigration.

In my childhood I knew many of the numerous colony which took refuge in London from the horrors of the First French Revolution. The lady at whose school I was educated, and he was so much the more efficient partner that it was his school rather than hers, had married a Frenchman, who had been secretary to the Comte de Moustiers, one of the last embassadors, if not the very last, from Louis Seize to the Court of St. James’s. Of course he knew many emigrants of the highest rank, and indeed of all ranks; and being a lively, kind-hearted man, with a liberal hand, and a social temper, it was his delight to assemble as many as he could of his poor countrymen and countrywomen around his hospitable supper-table.

Something wonderful and admirable it was to see how these dukes and duchesses, marshals and marquises, chevaliers and bishops, bore up under their unparalleled reverses! How they laughed and talked, and squabbled, and flirted, constant to their high heels, their rouge, and their furbelows, to their old liaisons, their polished sarcasms, their cherished rivalries! They clung even to their _marriages de convenance_, and the very habits which would most have offended our English notions, if we had seen them in their splendid hôtels of the Faubourg St. Germain, won tolerance and pardon when mixed up with such unaffected constancy, and such cheerful resignation.

For the most part these noble exiles had a trifling pecuniary dependency; some had brought with them jewels enough to sustain them in their simple lodgings in Knightsbridge or Pentonville, to some a faithful steward contrived to forward the produce of some estate too small to have been seized by the early plunderers; to others a rich English friend would claim the privilege of returning the kindness and hospitality of by-gone years. But very many lived literally on the produce of their own industry, the gentlemen teaching languages, music, fencing, dancing, while their wives and daughters went out as teachers or governesses, or supplied the shops with those objects of taste in millinery or artificial flowers for which their country is unrivaled. No one was ashamed of these exertions; no one was proud of them. So perfect and so honest was the simplicity with which they entered upon this new course of life, that they did not even seem conscious of its merit. The hope of better days carried them gayly along, and the present evil was lost in the sunshiny future.

Here and there, however, the distress was too real, too pressing to be forgotten; in such cases our good schoolmaster used to contrive all possible measures to assist and to relieve. One venerable couple I remember well. They bore one of the highest names of Brittany, and had possessed large estates, had lost their two sons, and were now in their old age, their sickness, and their helplessness, almost entirely dependent upon the labor of Mdlle. Rose, their grand-daughter. Rose—what a name for that pallid, drooping creature, whose dark eyes looked too large for her face, whose bones seemed starting through her skin, and whose black hair contrasted even fearfully with the wan complexion from which every tinge of healthful color had long flown!

For some time these interesting persons regularly attended our worthy governess’s supper-parties, the objects of universal affection and respect. Each seemed to come for the sake of the other; Mademoiselle, always bringing with her some ingenious straw-plaiting to make into the fancy bonnets which were then in vogue, rarely raised her head from her work, or allowed herself time to make a hasty meal. It was sad to think how ceaseless must be the industry by which that fair and fragile creature could support the helpless couple who were cast upon her duty and her affection! At last they ceased to appear at the Wednesday parties, and very soon after (Oh! it is the poor that help the poor!) we heard that the good Abbé Calonne (brother to the well-known minister) had undertaken for a moderate stipend the charge of the venerable count and countess, while Mdlle. Rose, with her straw-plaiting, took up her abode in our school-room, working as indefatigably through our verbs and over our exercises as she had before done through the rattle of the tric-trac table and the ceaseless clatter of French talk.

Now this school of ours was no worse than other schools; indeed it was reckoned among the best conducted, but some way or other the foul weed called exclusiveness had sprung up among the half dozen great girls who, fifty years ago, “gave our little senate laws,” to a point that threatened to choke and destroy every plant of a more wholesome influence. Doubtless, long, long ago the world and the world’s trials, prosperity with the weariness and the bitterness it brings, adversity with the joys it takes away, have tamed those proud hearts! But, at the time of which I speak, no committee of countesses deciding upon petitions for vouchers for a subscription ball; no chapter of noble canonesses examining into the sixteen quarters required for their candidate; could by possibility inquire more seriously into the nice questions of station, position, and alliance than the unfledged younglings who constituted our first class. They were merely gentlemen’s daughters, and had no earthly right to give themselves airs; but I suspect that we may sometimes see in elder gentlewomen the same disproportion, and that those who might, from birth, fortune, and position assume such a right, will be the very last to exert their privilege. Luckily for me I was a little girl, protected by my youth and insignificance from the danger of a contagion which it requires a good deal of moral courage to resist. I remember wondering how Mdlle. Rose, with her incessant industry, her open desire to sell her bonnets, and her shabby cotton gown, would escape from our censors. Happily she was spared, avowedly because her birth was noble—perhaps because, with all their vulgar denunciations of vulgarity, their fineries, and their vanities, the young girls were better than they knew, and respected in their hearts the very humility which they denounced.

If, however, there was something about the fair Frenchwoman that held in awe the spirit of girlish impertinence, chance soon bestowed upon them, in the shape of a new pupil, an object which called forth all their worst qualities, without stint and without impediment.

The poor child who was destined to become their victim, was a short, squat figure, somewhere about nine or ten years of age; awkward in her carriage, plain in her features, ill-dressed and over-dressed. She happened to arrive at the same time with the French dancing-master, a marquis of the _ancien régime_, of whom I am sorry to say, that he seemed so at home in his Terpsichorean vocation, that no one could hardly fancy him fit for any other. (Were not _les marquis_ of the old French comedy very much like dancing-masters? I am sure Molière thought so.) At the same time with the French dancing-master did our new fellow-pupil arrive, led into the room by her father; he did not stay five minutes, but that time was long enough to strike Monsieur with a horror evinced by a series of shrugs which soon rendered the dislike reciprocal. I never saw such a contrast between two men. The Frenchman was slim, and long, and pale; and allowing always for the dancing-master air, which in my secret soul I thought never could be allowed for, he might be called elegant. The Englishman was the beau ideal of a John Bull, portentous in size, broad, and red of visage; loud of tongue, and heavy in step; he shook the room as he strode, and made the walls echo when he spoke. I rather liked the man, there was so much character about him, and in spite of the coarseness, so much that was bold and hearty. Monsieur shrugged to be sure, but he seemed likely to run away, especially when the stranger’s first words conveyed an injunction to the lady of the house “to take care that no grinning Frenchman had the ordering of his Betsy’s feet. If she must learn to dance, let her be taught by an honest Englishman.” After which declaration, kissing the little girl very tenderly, the astounding papa took his departure.

Poor Betsy! there she sat, the tears trickling down her cheeks, little comforted by the kind notice of the governess and the English teacher, and apparently insensible to the silent scorn of her new companions. For my own part, I entertained toward her much of that pity which results from recent experience of the same sort of distress—

“A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.”

I was a little girl myself, abundantly shy and awkward, and I had not forgotten the heart-tug of leaving home, and the terrible loneliness of the first day at school. Moreover, I suspected that in one respect, she was much more an object of compassion than myself; I believed her to be motherless; so when I thought nobody was looking or listening, I made some girlish advances toward acquaintanceship, which she was still too shy or too miserable to return, so that, easily repelled myself, as a bashful child is, our intercourse came to nothing. With my elders and betters, the _cancan_, who ruled the school, Betsy stood if possible lower than ever. They had had the satisfaction to discover not only that he lived in the Borough, but that her father (horror of horrors!) was an eminent cheese-factor!—a seller of Stilton! That he was very rich, and had a brother an alderman, rather made matters worse. Poor Betsy only escaped being sent to Coventry by the lucky circumstance of her going that metaphorical journey of her own accord, and never under any temptation speaking to any body one unnecessary word.

As far as her lessons went she was, from the false indulgence with which she had been treated, very backward for her age. Our school was, however, really excellent as a place of instruction: so no studies were forced upon her, and she was left to get acquainted with the house and its ways, and to fall into the ranks as she could.

For the present she seemed to have attached herself to Mdlle. Rose, attracted probably by the sweetness of her countenance, her sadness, and her silence. Her speech could not have attracted Betsy, for in common with many of her exiled country-folk, she had not in nearly ten years’ residence in England learned to speak five English words. But something had won her affection. She had on first being called by the governess, from the dark corner in which she had ensconced herself, crept to the side of the young Frenchwoman, had watched her as she wove her straw plaits, had attempted the simple art with some discarded straws that lay scattered upon the floor; and when Mademoiselle so far roused herself as to show her the proper way, and to furnish her with the material, she soon became a most efficient assistant in this branch of industry.

No intercourse took place between them. Indeed, as I have said, none was possible, since neither knew a word of the other’s language. Betsy was silence personified; and poor Mdlle. Rose, always pensive and reserved, was now more than ever dejected and oppressed. An opportunity of returning to France had opened to her, and was passing away. She herself was too young to be included in the list of emigrants, and interest had been made with the French Consul for the re-admission of her venerable parents, and perhaps for the ultimate recovery of some property still unsold. But her grandfather was so aged, and her grandmother so sickly, that the expenses of a voyage and a journey, then very formidable to the old and the infirm, were beyond her means, beyond even her hopes. So she sighed over her straw-plaiting, and submitted.

In the mean time the second Saturday arrived, and with it a summons home to Betsy, who, for the first time gathering courage to address our good governess, asked “if she might be trusted with the bonnet Mdlle. Rose had just finished, to show her aunt—she knew she would like to buy that bonnet, because Mademoiselle had been so good as to let her assist in plaiting it.” How she came to know that they were for sale nobody could tell; but our kind governess ordered the bonnet to be put into the carriage, told her the price—(no extravagant one!)—called her a good child, and took leave of her till Monday.

Two hours after Betsy and her father re-appeared in the school-room. “Ma’amselle,” said he, bawling as loud as he could, with the view, as we afterward conjectured, of making her understand him. “Ma’amselle, I’ve no great love for the French, whom I take to be our natural enemies. But you’re a good young woman; you’ve been kind to my Betsy, and have taught her how to make your fallals; and moreover you’re a good daughter: and so’s my Betsy. She says that she thinks you’re fretting, because you can’t manage to take your grandfather and grandmother back to France again;—so as you let her help you in that other handy-work, why you must let her help you in this.” Then throwing a heavy purse into her lap, catching his little daughter up in his arms, and hugging her to the honest breast where she hid her tears and her blushes, he departed, leaving poor Mdlle. Rose too much bewildered to speak or to comprehend the happiness that had fallen upon her, and the whole school the better for the lesson.

THE DREAM OF THE WEARY HEART.

The Weary Heart lay restlessly on his bed, distracted with the strife of the day. Wearied indeed was he in heart, and wavering in the simple faith which had blessed his childhood. The world was no more beautiful to him, his fellow-man was no more trustworthy, and heaven was no longer regarded as his distant, though native home. One thing only seemed, to his changed heart, the same; it was the ever-varying, ever-constant moon, which shed her broad, fair light as serenely on his aching brow as when he nestled, a happy child, upon his mother’s breast.

Soothed by this pure light, the Weary Heart slept at length; and in his sleep, his troubled and toil-worn mind went back—back to the early hours of life—back to the lone old house, so loved in childhood, so seldom thought of now. In this old home all seemed yet unchanged, and he would fain have busied himself in tracing out memories of the past; but a low sweet voice bade him gaze steadfastly on the lozenge panes of the long lattice window, where the sun of the early spring-tide was shining gayly through the mazy branches of the old elm-tree, and bordering its traceries with glimpses of purple and golden light. But gradually, and even as he looked, the sun became brighter and hotter, and as his heat momentarily strengthened, Weary Heart saw the green leaves creep out, one by one, and place themselves daily between the window and the sun, so as to intercept his fiercest rays; until at length, when the sun had attained his greatest power, these leaves were all arranged so as to shade the window, as a bird overshadows her young; and the room was as much refreshed by the cool green light, as it had formerly been gladdened by the spring-tide beams. Then Weary Heart was softened; yet he feared to breathe, lest the dread winter-time should come, when the cool leaves which brought balm to his heart, should fall away from him and die.

Gradually, however, the sun became lower in the heavens, and his heat was less fervid upon the earth. Then the leaves went noiselessly away, in the same order in which they had come. One by one, they crept silently out of sight, like earnest hearts whose mission is fulfilled; and yet so glad were they for the consciousness of the good which they had been given power to do, that when the Weary Heart observed them more closely, he could see how bright a glow of joy decked even their dying moments, and in how frolicsome a dance many of them delighted ere they lay down on the cold earth to die.

The dark winter had now come on, and anxiously poor Weary Heart watched the lozenged panes. He saw the branches stand up bare and desolate against the gray and chilly sky; but soon he saw beautiful things come and sport upon them. The snow piled itself in fairy ridgeways along the boughs, and even on the slenderest twigs; then the sun would shine brightly out for an hour at mid-day, and melt the quiet snow, and the laughing drops would chase each other along the branches, sometimes losing all identity, each in the bosom of its fellow—sometimes falling in glittering showers to the ground. [And he saw that it was from these glittering showers that the snowdrops sprang]. Then, when the sun was gone down, the frost would come; and in the morning the silver drops would be found, spell-bound in their mirth; some hanging in long, clear pendants, full of bright lights and beautiful thoughts, far above the rest—and others, shorter and less brilliant, with one part transparent, and another part looking more like the snow of which they were born. But these last always hung hand-in-hand. And when the sun came out again by day, these were always the last to disappear; for they also were like faithful and kindly hearts. They were partly raised far above their original nature, and yet they still bore many traces of the source from whence they sprang. And when the beautiful crystals faded away like the brilliant yet chilly mind, which has no sympathy or trust for its fellows, the others would still remain, hand-in-hand, to cheer and deck the naked tree.

Sometimes, too, in the early days of February, the sun would shine fiercely out ere the green leaves had come to shade the room at noon-day; but then came a winged messenger to sit on the dry branches, and to tell the Weary Heart, in a sweet song, that the real spring was not _yet_ upon the earth; but that at the right time the leaves would most surely reappear, and “fail not.” And when he had repeated his message, he would add another stanza, and tell how _he_ needed the shady foliage even more than man himself, but that he pined not for it, because _he knew_ that to all things there was an appointed season; and that when his nesting-time came, so would the green leaves come also to shelter and encircle the frail home of his young ones.

The pale moon went down, and the day broke upon the earth, and Weary Heart went forth to his daily toil. But he bore not with him the fevered mind and the throbbing pulse which had been his companions for long and dreary months. His vision had faded, but the green leaves were ever before his eyes. The song of his dream-bird rang not in his ears, but his faith and trust were restored to him; and he once more took his place in creation as an elevated, yet dependent child of Heaven—one in the mighty brotherhood of human hearts—one in the band of willing students of the teachings of the glorious sun and stars, of the opening flowers and the sparkling streams, of the singing birds and the ever-varying clouds, of every form of beauty in which God has written his message of love, and of mercy, and of truth, for man’s behoof.

NEW DISCOVERIES IN GHOSTS.

Eclipses have been ascribed sometimes to the hunger of a great dragon, who eats the sun, and leaves us in the dark until the blazing orb has been mended. Numerous instances are ready to the memory of any one of us, in illustration of the tendency existing among men to ascribe to supernatural, fantastic causes, events wonderful only by their rarity. All that we daily see differs from these things no more than inasmuch as it is at the same time marvelous and common. We know very well that the moon, seen once by all, would be regarded as an awful spectre: open only to the occasional vision of a few men, no doubt she would be scouted by a large party as a creation of their fancy altogether.

The list of facts that have been scouted in this way, corresponds pretty exactly to the list of human discoveries, down to the recent improvements in street-lighting and steam locomotion. The knowledge of the best of us is but a little light which shines in a great deal of darkness. We are all of us more ignorant than wise. The proportion of knowledge yet lying beyond the confines of our explorations, is as a continent against a cabbage garden. Yet many thousands are contented to believe, that in this little bit of garden lies our all, and to laugh at every report made to the world by people who have ventured just to peep over the paling. It is urged against inquiries into matters yet mysterious—mysterious as all things look under the light of the first dawn of knowledge—Why should we pry into them, until we know that we shall be benefited by the information we desire? All information is a benefit. All knowledge is good. Is it for man to say, “What is the use of seeing?”

We are in the present day upon the trace of a great many important facts relating to the imponderable agencies employed in nature. Light, heat, and electricity are no longer the simple matters, or effects of matter, that they have aforetime seemed to be. New wonders point to more beyond. In magnetism, the researches of Faraday and others, are beginning to open in our own day, the Book of Nature, at a page of the very first importance to the naturalist; but the contents of which until this time have been wholly unsuspected. Behind a cloudy mass of fraud and folly, while the clouds shift, we perceive a few dim stars, to guide us toward the discovery of wondrous truths. There are such truths which will hereafter illustrate the connection, in many ways still mysterious, between the body of man and the surrounding world. Wonderful things have yet to be revealed, on subjects of a delicate and subtle texture. It behooves us in the present day, therefore, to learn how we may keep our tempers free from prejudice, and not discredit statements simply because they are new and strange, nor, on the other hand, accept them hastily without sufficient proof.

On questionable points, which are decided by research and weight of evidence, it would be well if it were widely understood that it is by no means requisite for every man to form an Ay or Nay opinion. Let those who have no leisure for a fair inquiry play a neutral part. There are hundreds of subjects which we have never examined, nor ever could or can examine, upon which we are all, nevertheless, expressing every day stubborn opinions. We all have to acquire some measure of the philosophic mind, and be content to retain a large army of thoughts, equipped each thought with its crooked bayonet, a note of interrogation. In reasoning, also, when we do reason, we have to remember fairly that “not proven” does not always mean untrue. And in accepting matters on testimony, we must rigidly preserve in view the fact, that, except upon gross objects of sense, very few of us are qualified by training as observers. In drawing delicate conclusions from the complex and most dimly comprehended operations of the human frame observed in men and women, the sources of fallacy are very numerous. To detect and acknowledge these, to get rid of them experimentally, is very difficult, even to the most candid and enlightened mind.

I have no faith in ghosts, according to the old sense of the word, and I could grope with comfort through any amount of dark old rooms, or midnight aisles, or over church-yards, between sunset and cock-crow. I can face a spectre. Being at one time troubled with illusions, I have myself crushed a hobgoblin by sitting on its lap. Nevertheless, I do believe that the great mass of “ghost stories,” of which the world is full, has not been built entirely upon the inventions of the ignorant and superstitious. In plain words, while I, of course, throw aside a million of idle fictions, or exaggerated facts, I do believe in ghosts—or, rather, spectres—only I do not believe them to be supernatural.

That, in certain states of the body, many of us in our waking hours picture as vividly as we habitually do in dreams, and seem to see or hear in fair reality that which is in our minds, is an old fact, and requires no confirmation. An ignorant or superstitious man fallen into this state, may find good reason to tell ghost stories to his neighbors. Disease, and the debility preceding death, make people on their death-beds very liable to plays of this kind on their failing faculties; and one solemnity, or cause of dread, thus being added to another, seems to give the strength of reason to a superstitious feeling.

Concerning my own experience, which comes under the class of natural ghost-seeing, above mentioned, I may mention in good faith that, if such phantoms were worth recalling, I could fill up an hour with the narration of those spectral sights and sounds which were most prominent among the illusions of my childhood. Sights and sounds were equally distinct and life-like. I have run up-stairs obedient to a spectral call. Every successive night for a fortnight, my childish breath was stilled by the proceedings of a spectral rat, audible, never visible. It nightly, at the same hour, burst open a cupboard door, scampered across the floor, and shook the chair by my bedside. Wide awake and alone in the broad daylight, I have heard the voices of two nobodies gravely conversing, after the absurd dream fashion, in my room. Then as for spectral sights: During the cholera of 1832, I, then a boy, walking in Holborn, saw in the sky, the veritable flaming sword which I had learned by heart out of a picture in an old folio of “Paradise Lost.” And round the fiery sword there was a regular oval of blue sky to be seen through parted clouds. It was a fact not unimportant, that this phantom sword did not move with my eye, but remained for some time, apparently, only in one part of the heavens. I looked aside and lost it. When I looked back there was the image still. There are hallucinations which arise from a disordered condition of the nervous system; they are the seeing or the hearing of what is not, and they are not by any means uncommon. Out of these there must, undoubtedly, arise a large number of well-attested stories of ghosts, seen by one person only. Such ghosts ought to excite no more terror than a twinge of rheumatism, or a nervous headache.

There can be no doubt, however, that, in our minds or bodies, there are powers latent, or nearly latent, in the ordinary healthy man, which, in some peculiar constitutions, or under the influence of certain agents, or certain classes of disease, become active, and develop themselves in an extraordinary way. It is not very uncommon to find people who have acquired intuitive perception of each other’s current thoughts, beyond what can be ascribed to community of interests, or comprehension of character.