Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

In this story of diverse characters, the two pillars, which might be said to uphold the arch, under which the long procession of the narrative passes, are the elder Peveril and his wealthy neighbor Bridgenorth. Alice Bridgenorth was reared under the same roof with young Peveril; and strange to say, in the difference arising between the elder Peveril and Bridgenorth, she also is transported to the home of relatives in a romantic glen of the island of Man. But the course of true love was not destined even in this little island to run entirely smooth; for the old spirit of Bridgenorth is awakened to restore England to the greatness of the days of Cromwell. He endeavors to arouse the same zeal in young Peveril; he had just returned from the south of France, and had many stories to tell of the French Huguenots, who already began to sustain those vexations, which a few years afterward were summed up by the revocation of the edict of Nantz. He had been in Hungary, and spoke from personal knowledge of the leaders of the great Protestant insurrection. He talked also of Savoy, where those of the reformed religion still suffered a cruel persecution. He had even visited America, more especially he said: “The country of New England, into which our land has shaken from her lap, as a drunkard flings from him his treasures, so much that is precious in the eyes of God and of his children. There thousands of our best and most godly men—such whose righteousness might come between the Almighty and his wrath, and prevent the ruin of cities—are content to be the inhabitants of the desert, rather encountering the unenlightened savages, than stooping to extinguish, under the oppression practiced in Britain, the light that is within their own minds. There I remained for a time, during the wars which the colonies maintained with Philip, a great Indian chief, or sachem as they were called, who seemed a messenger sent from Satan to buffet them. His cruelty was great—his dissimulation profound; and the skill and promptitude with which he maintained a destructive and desultory warfare inflicted many dreadful calamities on the settlement. I was by chance at a small village in the woods, more than thirty miles from Boston, and in its situation exceedingly lonely, and surrounded with thickets. It was on a Sabbath morning, when we had assembled to take sweet counsel together in the Lord’s house. Our temple was but constructed of wooden logs; but when shall the chant of trained hirelings, or the sounding of tin and brass tubes amid the aisles of a minster, arise so sweetly to heaven, as did the psalm in which we united at once our voices and our hearts! An excellent worthy, long the companion of my pilgrimage, had just begun to wrestle in prayer, when a woman, with disordered looks and disheveled hair, entered our chapel in a distracted manner, screaming incessantly, ‘The Indians! the Indians!’ In that land no man dares separate himself from his means of defense, and whether in the city or in the field, in the ploughed land or the forest, men keep beside them their weapons, as did the Jews at the re-building of the temple. So we sallied forth with our guns and our pikes, and heard the whoop of these incarnate devils already in possession of a part of the town. It was pitiful to hear the screams of women and children amid the report of guns and the whistling of bullets, mixed with the ferocious yells of these savages. Several houses in the upper part of the village were soon on fire. The smoke which the wind drove against us gave great advantage to the enemy, who fought, as it were invisible, and under cover, whilst we fell fast by their unerring fire. In this state of confusion, and while we were about to adopt the desperate project of evacuating the village, and, placing the women and children in the center, of attempting a retreat to the nearest settlement, it pleased heaven to send us unexpected assistance. A tall man of a reverend appearance, whom no one of us had ever seen before, suddenly was in the midst of us. His garments were of the skin of the elk, and he wore sword and carried gun; I never saw anything more august than his features, overshadowed by locks of gray hair, which mingled with a long beard of the same color. ‘Men and brethren,’ he said in a voice like that which turns back the flight, ‘why sink your hearts? and why are you thus disquieted? Follow me, and you shall see this day that there is a captain in Israel!’ He uttered a few brief but distinct orders, in the tone of one who was accustomed to command; and such was the influence of his appearance, his mien, his language, and his presence of mind, that he was implicitly obeyed by men who had never seen him until that moment. We were hastily divided into two bodies; one of which maintained the defense of the village with more courage than ever; while, under cover of the smoke, the stranger sallied forth from the town, at the head of the other division of New England men, and fetching a circuit, attacked the red warriors in the rear. The heathens fled in confusion, abandoning the half-won village, and leaving behind them such a number of the warriors, that the tribe hath never recovered its loss. Never shall I forget the figure of our venerable leader, when our men, and women and children of the village, rescued from the tomahawk and scalping knife, stood crowded around him. ‘Not unto me be the glory,’ he said, ‘I am but an implement, frail as yourselves, in the hand of Him who is strong to deliver.’ I was nearest to him as he spoke; we exchanged glances; it seemed to me that I recognized a noble friend whom I had long since deemed in glory; but he gave me no time to speak, had speech been prudent. Sinking on his knees, and signing us to obey him, he poured forth a strong and energetic thanksgiving for the turning back of the battle, which, pronounced with a voice loud and clear as a war trumpet, thrilled through the joints and marrows of the hearers. I have heard many an act of devotion in my life; but such a prayer as this, uttered amid the dead and the dying, with a rich tone of mingled triumph and adoration, was beyond them all—it was like the song of the inspired prophetess who dwelt beneath the palm-tree between Ramah and Bethel. He was silent; and for a brief space we remained with our faces bent to the earth—no man daring to lift his head. At length we looked up, but our deliverer was no longer amongst us, nor was he ever again seen in the land which he had rescued.”

This beautiful story, true to fact, and so dramatically told, comes upon the reader with a pleasant surprise, and I have quoted it at length not only for its intrinsic beauty, but also as it commemorates a fact in the early history of our country. That venerable man was Richard Whalley, one of the great soldiers of England under Cromwell, and one of the judges who condemned Charles to the block. After the restoration he fled to Massachusetts, and was secreted in the house of the Rev. Mr. Russel at Hadley. It will be remembered that three of the regicides fled to this country—Dixwell, Goffe and Whalley. Dixwell is buried in New Haven in the rear of Center church. Goffe and Whalley are buried in Hadley. It is claimed by some that it was Goffe instead of Whalley who came to the rescue of the village. Scott in his notes assigns the honor to Whalley.

Returning to our story we find that affairs of great moment on the part of the Countess call the young Peveril to London. He finds his father and mother arrested for supposed complicity in a Romish plot. We see the city in great excitement, heated and inflamed by the villain Oates—an episode which Scott weaves gracefully and naturally into the warp and woof of his story. He draws a picture of Colonel Blood, who made the well-known attempt on the crown-jewels, a bold, resolute man, who strange to say, after many acts of violence, lived to enjoy a pension from the king. We see the gay Rochester, still remembered for his celebrated epigrammatic epitaph on Charles the Second, composed at the king’s request, but too pungent, and too true to be relished.

“Here lies our sovereign lord the king,
Whose word no man relies on;
He never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one.”

We see the Duchess of Portsmouth, and many another lady of rank, who had more regard for ancient titles than for ancestral virtues; we see George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, a man of princely fortune and excellent talents, tossed about in a whirlpool of frivolous pleasures, whose character the great Dryden embalmed in vigorous lines:

“A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome;
Stiff in opinions—always in the wrong—
Was everything by starts, but nothing long;
Who in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.”

Through the imprisonment of Julian Peveril we are made acquainted with the Tower and Newgate—a sad picture, but somewhat relieved by Scott’s humor in the portrait that he gives us of the well-known doughty dwarf, Sir Geoffrey Hudson; we see London given over to monopolies, to stock-jobbing, and South Sea speculations; we attend a conventicle held in a secret hall of the city, and trace a conspiracy designed to place the Duke of Buckingham upon the throne; until our story, one of the longest and most carefully prepared of the Waverley series, concludes with a court scene in Whitehall, where the faithful love of Edith Bridgenorth and Julian Peveril is announced to the satisfaction at least of two individuals.

“Old Mortality,” our next volume, deals directly with the Covenanters of Scotland. It will be remembered that Charles the Second, on a former expedition into Scotland, before his restoration, had deliberately sworn to support the Solemn League and Covenant. The Presbyterian Church, alive to its own interests, sent an agent to General Monk, who had declared for a free Parliament, and was on his way to London, holding as it were in his hand the destiny of Britain. The agent sent by the Scottish Church was James Sharpe, a man well educated, logical in mind and commanding in character; but, false to his trust, he bartered his principles for power, and received as the price of his infamy the title and office of Lord Bishop of Saint Andrews, and Primate of Scotland. “The great stain” says Scott, in his Miscellaneous Prose Works, “will always remain, that Sharpe deserted and probably betrayed a cause which his brethren entrusted to him. When he returned to Scotland, he pressed the acceptance of the See of Saint Andrews upon Mr. Robert Douglas, affecting himself no ambition for the prelacy. The stern Presbyterian saw into his secret soul, and, when he had given his own positive rejection, demanded of Sharpe what he would do if the offer was made to him? He hesitated. ‘I perceive,’ said Douglas, ‘you are clear—you will engage—you will be Primate of Scotland; take it then,’ he added, laying his hand on his shoulder, ‘and take the curse of God along with it.’ The subject would suit a painter.” Subsequent history shows that the curse was fulfilled.

In the general joy attendant upon the restoration of Charles, the Parliament thought that the people would submit to almost any indignity or inconvenience. By a single sweeping resolution they annulled and rescinded every statute and ordinance which had been made by those holding supreme authority in Scotland since the commencement of the civil wars; the whole Presbyterian Church government was destroyed, and the Episcopal institutions, to which the nation had shown itself averse, were rashly and precipitately established. Thousands of ministers, who, for conscience sake, could not sign the Act of Conformity, were driven from their pulpits. Mere boys and dissolute young men were hastily summoned from schools and colleges to administer spiritual comfort to an indignant people. The solemn league and covenant, which had been solemnly sworn to by nobility, clergy and people, with weeping eyes and uplifted hands, ay, sworn to by the King himself, was burned at the cross of Edinburgh by an edict of Parliament. The Episcopal court severely punished all who left their own parish church to attend private meetings known as conventicles. A persecution like that of the early Christians at Rome was brought home to the descendants of Knox and of Calvin. As the earlier Christians were compelled to hold their meetings in caves and catacombs, so a persecuted people, in the bright dawn of the Reformation, were compelled to fly to the hills and heaths for a refuge, to lift up their banner in solitary and mountain places in order to foil

“A tyrant’s and a bigot’s laws.”

Such was the state of the country at the opening of our story in May, 1679. The west of Scotland is aroused. Archbishop Sharpe is murdered in his carriage, by a party of men, of whom Balfour of Burley is the leader. The battle of Loudon Hill is won by the Covenanters, who increase daily in power until a force of six thousand men are assembled at Bothwell Bridge. Engaged in discussing church polemics, they entirely neglect the discipline necessary for success. Without leaders or guidance they are routed by the Duke of Monmouth. Four hundred men are killed. Twelve hundred prisoners are marched to Edinburgh, and imprisoned “like cattle in a fold” in the Greyfriar’s churchyard. Several ministers are tortured and executed, and many prisoners sent as slaves to the plantations. Henry Morton, one of their leaders, as seen in the story, is exiled. Edith Bellenden, one of the royal party, remains true to him. He returns, after long years of absence and military honor, and readers of fiction can readily guess how the story terminates without reading the postscript by the author.

Such is the rude draft of this great romance, which Coleridge pronounces the grandest of Scott’s novels. It is, in fact, a novel that can not be well analyzed. We could speak of Lady Margaret Bellenden, who never forgot that Charles the Second took breakfast with her on his way to meet Cromwell at the field of Worcester; we could speak of the good natured Major, brave, noble, and generous; of Cuddie and his mother; ay, of Guse Gibbie, unfortunate in all fitting regimentals; of the miserly uncle of Henry Morton; of the cannie waiting-maid of Edith, who felt safe in the triumph of either side, as she had a lover in both armies. The reader will laugh and weep at these characters as he meets them in the pages of “Old Mortality.” But it is for us to refer merely to the historical features about which these characters are grouped; to note the ruggedness of Scotch character, destined to triumph at last, and bring victory out of defeat; a character which, perhaps, “shows most to advantage in adversity, when it seems akin to the native sycamore of their hills, which scorns to be biased in its mode of growth, even by the influence of the prevailing wind, but, shooting its branches with equal boldness in every direction, shows no weather side to the storm, and may be broken, but can never be bended.”

In considering the motives, the ambition, the enthusiasm, or fanaticism of these men, we might stir up controversy. We know it was their lofty purpose to convert all England to the Presbyterian faith; and, whenever they were lifted to power, they were quite as arbitrary as the Episcopacy. It was true of both parties that they suffered persecution without learning mercy. Each side felt that, in pushing its own creed, it was doing the Lord’s work; but in this we all delight to-day, that both sides produced brave men, tenacious of their own rights, who struggled on until in our own generation the opposing forces have been adjusted, and out of chaos and confusion the different systems of faith or theology move serenely and calmly in their own spheres around one central and enduring light—the Creator and Father of all.

The Covenanters were indeed the connecting link between the two great revolutions, which beheaded Charles the First and exiled James the Second; and, whatever our prejudices, or “whatever may be thought of the extravagance or narrow-minded bigotry of many of their tenets, it is impossible to deny the praise of devoted courage to a few hundred peasants, who, without leaders, without money, without any fixed plan of action, and almost without arms, borne out only by their innate zeal, and a detestation of the oppression of their rulers, ventured to declare open war against an established government, supported by a regular army and the whole force of three kingdoms.”

It is sometimes claimed that Scott is over partial to Claverhouse—that he paints the man as a hero. If so he has poorly succeeded, for I have yet to meet a reader of “Old Mortality” who is fascinated with the portraiture of that cruel man. Scott makes him what history declares him to be, a cool and calculating soldier, bitter and unrelenting, a man without faith, and with no ambition save worldly glory. It rather seems to me on the contrary, that Scott for the time lays aside his own traditional sentiments as he reports the burning words of these Covenant preachers, as they paint the desolation of the Church, describing her “like Hagar watching the waning life of her infant amid the fountainless desert.” His poetic nature seems moved by brave men repairing “to worship the God of nature amid the fortresses of nature’s own construction.”

There are two dramatic scenes in the volume, which can not be overlooked or forgotten: Burley in the cave, with his clasped Bible in one hand, and his drawn sword in the other. “His figure, dimly ruddied by the light of the red charcoal seems that of a fiend in the lurid atmosphere of Pandemonium striving with an imaginary demon.” The other scene reveals Henry Morton, overpowered, disarmed, bound hand and foot, facing a clock which, at the hour of twelve, was to strike his doom. “Among pale-eyed and ferocious zealots, whose hardened brows were soon to be bent, not merely with indifference, but with triumph upon his execution—without a friend to speak a kindly word, or give a look of either sympathy or encouragement—awaiting till the sword destined to slay him crept out of the scabbard gradually, as it were by straw-breadths, and condemned to drink the bitterness of death drop by drop. His executioners, as he gazed around him, seemed to alter their forms and features, like specters in a feverish dream their figures became larger, and their faces more disturbed; the walls seemed to drop with blood, and the light tick of the clock thrilled on his ear with such loud, painful distinctness, as if each sound were the prick of a bodkin inflicted on the naked nerve of the organ.” The maniac preacher, in an attitude of frenzy, springs upon a chair to push forward the fatal index; the party make ready their weapons for immediate execution, when a noise like the rushing of a brook over the pebbles, or the soughing of wind among the branches stays the executioners; it was the galloping of horse, the door is burst open, and Henry Morton is saved.

* * * * *

Men seem neither to understand their riches nor their strength—of the former they believe much more than they should; of the latter much less. Self-reliance and self-denial will teach a man to drink out of his own cistern, and eat his own sweet bread, and to learn and labor truly to get his living, and carefully to expend the good things committed to his trust.—_Bacon._

A PRIVATE CHARITY OF PARIS.

Translated from the French for THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

Among the many interesting charitable institutions of Paris there is none more noteworthy than the private asylum for the blind conducted by the Sisters of St. Paul. This work was begun in 1850, by a woman of great piety, energy and sense, Anne Bergunion. Two blind girls were confided to her care. She proved to be remarkably adapted to training the peculiar characters which the nature of this affliction almost invariably causes. Gradually there grew up a large institution under her supervision. A writer in a late number of the _Revue des deux Mondes_ has given an exhaustive account of the work. The details are most interesting and suggestive. After describing the home of the Sisters and their work, he says: “They have reserved the least comfortable part of the building for themselves, and have given over to the blind the large rooms where the circulation is free, and there is opportunity for exercise. Passing from the convent into the asylum for the blind, I entered the workshop. Twenty workingwomen, whose ages ranged from twenty-five to fifty, started up at the sound of strange footsteps. The sight was pitiful; the faces and eyes seemed expressionless. There was nothing to warm up their terrible pallor, and in their attitude there was a restless attention, as if they were troubled by a presence which they could not define nor understand.

“There is great difference between the different forms of blindness. There are eyes that have been paralyzed, which appear living, but yet are dead. They show neither joy nor sorrow, but remain fixed. A blind person does not move the eye when questioned, but by an unconscious gesture turns the ear to the speaker. Others are projecting, and seem almost bursting from their watery eyelids; they look like those marbles of whitish glass with which the children play; others again are almost invisible, showing only an inflamed line between the nearly closed eyelids. With some the lids are immovable; others continually flutter, like the wings of a frightened bird.

“I saw no coquettishness in the arrangement of the hair, in the pose of the head or the body. Shut up in darkness, they are ignorant of the resources of feminine graces; hearing and touch teach them nothing of them. Their tidiness is extreme, however. If well taught, a blind person can not endure on his garments a particle of dust or drop of water; it wounds his sensitive touch.

“The most of the inmates were born blind, or at least became blind so young that they have no remembrance of the light. For them the sun is bright, not because it shines, but because it is warm. There are some among them who have been made completely blind by an accident or a criminal action. Here is one whose eyes seem to have been torn out, and eyelids to have closed over the void. When she was quite a little girl, she owned a tame finch; at night it slept in its cage, but all day it was at the side of its young mistress, now on her head, again on her shoulders; it drank from the same glass with her and took the food from her lips. One day the eyes of the child attracted it; it picked at them and destroyed the sight. There is another who had a pet chicken. She had been accustomed to taking it in her little arms, rocking it, cuddling it, adoring it; they played together until suddenly, one day, the chicken, dashing itself against the face of the child, tore out both its eyes.

“I have noticed among the inmates a woman whose eyes are white; a faint shade marks the outline of the iris. She seems to be about fifty years old; her complexion is sallow, and above her prominent forehead the brown hair is traced by silver; her mouth has a sad, almost bitter expression; her form is thin, and her bony fingers move very swiftly as she knits. When twenty-three years old she was sought in marriage by a young man for whom she did not care. He insisted, she refused. One evening he came to see her with a gun on his shoulder, and demanded: “Will you marry me? Yes, or no.” “No,” she replied. He drew his weapon and fired. The entire charge hit the upper part of her face. When they had picked her up and wiped away the blood, they saw that she was blind, and hopelessly so. Before the court the fellow did not lie. “It is her own fault. I will marry her all the same, if she is willing.” The poor girl did not think it best to give her hand, when asked in this way. She found the Sisters of St. Paul, and has been with them for twenty-five years.

“It seemed very silent to me in the work-room. I am sorry for it. Conversation is as necessary to the blind as light for those who see; to them silence is night, noise is light. This is so true that in the Institution for Blind Young People, the black cell, the cell in which unruly members are confined as a punishment, is one where no sound is heard. I believe that conversation should always be allowed. The blind find an inspiration in it which gives zest to their work.

“Music is their great passion, and some excel in it; the ear is most sensitive; at a sound in the least out of tune their foreheads will contract painfully. A woman sang for me here. She was about thirty-five years old, with pale face and fine features. She sang a fandango intended to be gay, but which was very mournful, coming from her discolored lips. Her voice was true but weak and worn. The poor girl is a worn-out artist. She had been dragged from city to city; had “done” the watering places and springs, had given concerts, and never touched the proceeds. When she had ruined her voice the manager had abandoned her. The poor child, hungry and cold, sought the St. Paul Asylum. She has a shelter here while she lives. She knits, sings, and, perhaps, sighs for the time when she heard the crowd clap after she had sung her piece.

“A blind Sister, with one who has her sight, looks after the workshop. There is but one kind of work here—knitting; it seems to have become mechanical; they knit without thinking, as one breathes without knowing it. Four of the young girls sang a quartette for us, but they knit all the time without ceasing; the blind Sister beat time with her head, but continued to knit; the women in the shop turned toward the singers, listened, and knit. The blind Sisters teach this work. It takes about six weeks to make a skillful knitter, and initiate her into all the mysteries. They earn very little money in this way, however. The wool and patterns are furnished by the contractor, and for the knitting of a pair of child’s socks they will pay but a few cents. It takes a skillful knitter at least four hours to do the work, and then the work must be finished off by some one who sees, the buttons put on, the buttonholes made, and the ornaments attached. In spite of the great industry of the workers the shop earns in this way only about 1,300 francs per year. The great curse which burdens the blind, above all blind women, is that they can not earn a livelihood. It is safe to say that were it not for the Sisters of St. Paul all the persons whom I saw there would have died of hunger. There has been an effort made to find a trade for blind women by which they could at least earn their bread; it has not succeeded. The affliction is so heavy that it seems to paralyze their energies. One trade which seems peculiarly suitable for them, which is learned quickly and requires only a little attention, is that of making lines for fishing, and the like; the tools needed are not costly, and the trade is easy. Many of the blind practice it, and some are very skillful; yet, by the busiest day’s work, they can not earn more than fifteen cents. It is ridiculous to think of furnishing food, clothing and lodgings, on this sum. There has been a great deal of ingenuity spent in trying to teach them trades which require great skill; tact, however, can never take the place of sight. This fact has been forgotten by those who have tried to profit by the services of the blind, rather than put the means of earning their daily bread into their hands. An attempt was made to teach them to turn articles, but the results were curious rather than useful. The trade which they are taught should be as easy as possible; the method should be simple, the tools few and easily handled. Knitting is the model work for them.

“Passing from the work-room we enter the children’s department. There are three classes, corresponding to the ages of the pupils: the intermediate, primary, and the school for the very young. Every one is blind, and as in the work-room, they knit, or rather learn to knit in the intervals between their lessons and play. I find that the same methods for teaching reading and writing are used as are common in institutions for the blind. The instruments for writing are the point, the tablet, and the guide invented by Louis Brille. This system satisfies the intellectual needs of the blind, but does not permit them to enter into communication with persons who have not studied the system. In this system each letter of the alphabet, each figure, each punctuation mark forms in relief a certain number of points. By pressing the ends of the fingers over the projecting points of these letters a blind person will read as rapidly as a person who sees will read the printed volume. Often I have seen the blind follow the lines of one of these books with his left hand, while with his right he reproduced it on M. Brille’s apparatus. A blind man named Foucant invented a very ingenious instrument composed of ten blunt points fastened in an iron triangle, and furnished with a spring. The instrument is mounted on a guide whose ten ends move in the groove of a frame. The apparatus moves on the guide from left to right, as in writing, and the guide moves up and down to mark the lines. The base of six points are placed in juxtaposition, and rest on a sheet of lead, the black surface of which is applied to a sheet of white paper; by striking the head of the point there is obtained a black point. By this means Roman letters are formed, each letter being composed of several points; in one word I counted fifty-eight. By this instrument some of the blind write very rapidly, and it is very valuable to them, as it gives them an opportunity to correspond with those who see; but this writing, clear as it is, has one great drawback; the blind can not read it. The impression produced by the stroke of the point is too feeble to be perceptible to the most delicate touch. After this invention, there still remained the problem of giving the blind a method of writing which could be read by them and by those who see. I believe that the problem has been solved. Count Jay de Beaufort has invented a very simple system. Abandoning the methods of Brille and Foucant, the Roman letters and the English writing, he has adopted a kind of heavy sloping style of writing which resembles the round hand, and is written wrong side to, like engravers’ and lithographers’ work. A little time and attention enables the pupil to master this style. A sheet of paper, which is at the same time solid and soft, is placed on a frame containing a tablet which is marked with deep, straight and longitudinal furrows. By these furrows a straight line is obtained, and the distance between them determines the height of the letters. A light cloth covers the tablet. When the paper is placed on the frame and over the cloth, a letter made on it will of course be raised. That is, the layer of cloth underneath the paper causes each mark to indent the paper without breaking it. With a point or style the letters are traced on the paper. When the page is detached and turned over, the raised letters appear, recognizable to the eyes, and to the touch of the finger. The blind greatly appreciate this system, which is superior to all that have been invented for them, for it is the only one which puts into their hands a sure means of communication with those who see. Count Jay de Beaufort kindly gives lessons at the Institution for Blind Young People, and among the Sisters of St. Paul has trained several teachers, who in their turn are instructing their pupils.

“The pupils that I saw in the children’s classes are not yet large enough to be set at Beaufort’s system. The studies taught there resemble those in all primary schools: Reading, writing, numbers, history and geography. They omit sewing, which is too difficult, and embroidery, which is impossible. Very often they have lessons in composition to teach them to unravel their thoughts and express them with precision, a thing which is difficult for those who see, but which must be very painful for the blind. I wished at one time to assure myself of the degree of advancement in the intermediate class, where the girls were from fourteen to sixteen years old, and I asked the three most advanced pupils to write an essay on a given subject—a walk into the country. Of course the subject was interesting only as it was being written on by the blind, and I hoped to find some expressions which would denote the peculiar feelings which they experienced. But, no; their instruction had come from those who could see, and they employed the language of their teachers, not even modifying it to fit their infirmity. The three essays were very little different in form. They all described a trip which they had taken to the suburbs of Paris. “It was a beautiful morning of spring time.” “It was a beautiful morning in the month of May,” was the general tone; but I shrugged my shoulders in impatience when I read: “What a delightful prospect met our view.” It made me think of a composition prepared by a deaf mute in which he spoke of “The symphony of the song of the birds, and the musical murmur of crystalline springs.” In their desire to appropriate feelings which they can not understand, these poor people try to reproduce a language which to them can mean nothing.

“There is much that is strange about the dreams of the blind. I was struck with this while talking with some young people in the Institute for the Blind. They told me complacently of what they “saw” in their dreams. I was puzzled to know whether the dream of a blind person was like that of one who could see. I have found that the blind who have had their sight up to the age of reason, for a long time preserve the dreams of the time when they could see, as if the stored-up images reproduced themselves in the night. Little by little these images grow feeble, become dull, confused, and end by disappearing after fifteen or twenty years of blindness. As for those who are born blind, their dreams are in black. I convinced myself of this at Saint Paul, where I often talked with three blind Sisters, who were very intelligent. They explained to me that the phenomena of their dreams were borrowed from the sense of touch and hearing, and never from sight.”

SELF-DEPENDENCE.

By MATTHEW ARNOLD.

“Ah, once more,” I cried, “ye stars, ye waters,
On my heart your mighty charm renew;
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,
Feel my soul becoming vast like you!”

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,
Over the lit sea’s unquiet way,
In the rustling night-air came the answer:
“Wouldst thou _be_ as these are? _Live_ as they.

“Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
These demand not that the things without them
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

“And with joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long moon-silver’d roll;
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.

“Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God’s other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.”

DUTIES OF WOMEN AS MISTRESSES OF HOUSEHOLDS.

By FRANCES POWER COBBE.

I have no sympathy at all with those ladies who are seeking to promote coöperative housekeeping—in other words, to abolish the institution of the home. There may be, indeed, specially gifted women—artists, musicians, literary women—whom I could imagine finding it an interruption to their pursuits to take charge of a house. But, strange to say, though I have had a pretty large acquaintance with many of the most eminent of such women, I have almost invariably found them particularly proud of their housekeeping, and clever at the performance of all household duties, not excepting the ordering of “judicious” dinners. Not to make personal remarks on living friends, I will remind you that the greatest woman mathematician of any age, Mary Somerville, was renowned for her good housekeeping, and, I can add from my own knowledge, was an excellent judge of a well-dressed _déjeuner_; while Madame de Staël, driven by Napoleon from her home, went about Europe, as it was said, “preceded by her reputation and followed by her cook.”

Rather, I suspect, it is not higher genius, but feeble inability to cope with the problems of domestic government, which generally inspires the women who wish to abdicate their little household thrones. Some sympathy may be given to them, but I should be exceedingly sorry to see many women catching up the cry and following their leading to the dismal _disfranchisement_ of the home—the practical homelessness of American boarding-houses or Continental _pensions_. I think for a woman to fail to make and keep a happy home is to be a “failure” in a truer sense than to have failed to catch a husband.

The making of a true home is really our peculiar and inalienable right—a right which no man can take from us; for a man can no more make a home than a drone can make a hive. He can build a castle or a palace; but—poor creature!—be he wise as Solomon and rich as Crœsus, he can not turn it into a home. No masculine mortal can do that. It is a woman, and only a woman—a woman all by herself, if she likes, and without any man to help her—who can turn a house into a home. Woe to the wretched man who disputes her monopoly, and thinks, because he can arrange a club, he can make a home! Nemesis overtakes him in his old bachelorhood, when a home becomes the supreme ideal of his desires; and we see him—him who scorned the home-making of a _lady_—obliged to put up with the oppression of his cook or the cruelty of his nurse!

In the first place, if home be our kingdom, it must be our joy and privilege to convert that domain, as quickly and as perfectly as we may, into a little province of the Kingdom of God; for remember that we may look on all our duties in this cheering and beautiful light—first, to set up God’s Kingdom in our own hearts, making them pure and true and loving, and then to make our homes little provinces of the same kingdom, and, lastly, to try to extend that kingdom through the world—the empire of Justice, Truth and Love. We are entirely responsible for our own souls, and very greatly responsible for those of all the dwellers in our homes; and, in a lesser way, we are answerable for each widening circle beyond us. How shall we set about making our homes provinces of the Divine Kingdom?

1. Nobody must be morally the worse for living under our roof, if we can possibly help it. It is the _minimum_ of our duties to make sure that temptations to misconduct or intemperance are not left in any one’s way, or bad feelings suffered to grow up, or habits of moroseness or domineering formed, or quarrels kept hot, as if they were toasts before the kitchen fire. As much as possible, on the contrary, everybody must be helped to be better—not made better by act of the drawing-room, remember—that is impossible—but _helped_ to be better. The way to do this, I apprehend, is neither very much to scold, or exhort, or insist on people going to church whether they like it or not, or reading family prayers (excellent though that practice may be), but rather to spread through the house such an atmosphere of frank confidence and kindliness with servants, and of love and trust with children and relations, that bad feelings and doings will really have no place, no temptation, and, if they intrude, will soon die out.

One such point out of many I may cite as specially concerning us women. Is it not absurd for a lady who spends hundreds of pounds and thousands of hours on her toilet, and takes evident pleasure in attracting admiration in fashionable raiment not always perfectly decent, to turn and lecture poor Mary Ann, her housemaid, on sobriety in attire, and set forth to her the peril and folly of flowers in her bonnet? The mistress who dresses modestly and sensibly may reasonably hope in time that her servants will dress modestly and sensibly likewise; but certainly they will not do so while she exhibits to their foolish young eyes the example of extravagance and folly.

2. Next to the _virtue_ of those who live in our homes, their _happiness_ should occupy us. In the first place, no creature under our roof should ever be miserable, if we can prevent it. In how many otherwise happy homes is there not one such miserable being? Sometimes, it is the sufferers’ own fault; their minds are warped and despairful, and our utmost efforts perhaps can only cheer them a little. But much oftener there is to be found in a large household some poor creature who has fallen, through no fault, into the miserable position of the family _butt_—the object of ill-natured and unfeeling jests and rude speeches, the last person to be given any pleasure, and the first person to be made to suffer any privation or ill-temper. Sometimes, it is a poor governess or tutor; sometimes, an old aunt or poor relation; now and then, but rarely in these days, a stupid servant; most often of all, a child, who is, perhaps, a step-child or nephew or niece of the mistress of the house, or, alas! her own child, only deformed in some way, or deficient in intellect. Then, the hapless, frightened creature, afraid of punishment, looks with furtive glances at the frowning faces about it, tries to escape by some little transparent deception, and only incurs the heavier penalty of falsehood and the name of a liar; and so the evil goes on growing day by day. It is astonishing and horrible to witness how the deep-seated, frightful human passion, which I have elsewhere named _heteropathy_, develops itself in such circumstances—the sight of suffering and down-trodden misery exciting not pity, but the reverse—a sort of cruel _aversion_ in the bystanders, till the whole household sometimes joins in hating the poor, helpless, and isolated victim.

My friends, if you ever see anything approaching to this in your homes, for God’s sake, set your faces like a flint against it! If you dislike and mistrust the poor victim yourself, as you probably will do at first, never mind! Take my word for it, the first thing to be done in the Kingdom of God is to do _justice_ to all—to secure that no creature, however mean or even loathsome, should be treated with injustice. If you are, as I am supposing, mistress of the house, stop this persecution with a high hand; and if you have been in any way to blame in it, if it be _your_ dislike which you see thus reflected in the faces of your dependants, repent your great fault, and make amends to your victim. If you are not mistress, only a guest perhaps, or a humble friend, even then you can and ought to do much; you can look grave and pained whenever the butt is laughed at and jeered; and you can deliberately fix your eyes on him or her with sympathy, and treat him with respect. Even these little tokens of condemnation of what is going on will have (you may be sure) a startling effect on those whose custom it has become to treat the poor soul with contempt; and they will probably be angry with you for exhibiting them. You will never have borne resentment for a better cause.

Nor is it only human beings who are thus made too often household victims. You must all know houses where some unlucky animal—a cat or dog—beginning by being the object of somebody’s senseless antipathy, becomes the general _souffre-douleur_ of masters and servants. The dog or cat (especially if it happens to be cherished by the human victim) is spoken to so roughly, driven out of every room, and perhaps punished for all sorts of offences it has never committed, that the animal assumes a downcast, sneaking aspect, which inevitably produces fresh and fresh _heteropathy_. You attempt, perhaps, to give it a little pat of sympathy, and the poor frightened beast snaps at you, expecting a blow, or runs off to hide under a sofa. Mistresses of homes, don’t let there be a dog or a cat or a donkey or any other creature, in or about your homes, which shrinks when a man or woman approaches it. And here I may add that, without thus specially victimizing the animals through dislike, a household frequently makes the life of some poor brute one long martyrdom through neglect. The responsibility for this neglect lies primarily with the mistress of the house. She must not only direct her servants, but _see that her directions be carried out_, in the way of affording water and food and needful exercise. A pretty “Kingdom of Heaven” some houses would be, if the poor brutes could speak—houses, possibly, with prayers going on twice a day, and grace said carefully before long, luxurious meals, and all the time the children’s birds and rabbits left untended in foul cages, without fresh food; mice thrown out of the traps on the fire, aged or diseased cats or superfluous puppies given to boys to destroy in any way their cruel invention may suggest, fowls for the consumption of the house carelessly and barbarously killed; and, worst of all, the poor house-dog, perhaps some loving-hearted little Skye or noble old mastiff or retriever, condemned for life to the penalties which we should think too severe for the worst of malefactors; chained up by the neck through all the long, bright summer days, under a burning sun, with its water-trough unfilled for days, or through the winter’s frost in some dark, sunless corner, freezing with cold and in agonies of rheumatism for want of straw or the chance of warming itself at a fire or by a run in the snow. And all this as a reward for the poor brute’s fidelity! When this kind of thing goes on for a certain time, of course the dog becomes horribly diseased. His longing to bound over the fresh grass, expressed so affectingly by his leaps and bounds when we approach his miserable dungeon, is not merely a longing for his natural pleasure, but for that which is indispensable to his health—namely, exercise and the power to eat grass; and, if refused, he very soon falls into disease; his beautiful coat becomes mangy and red; he is irritable, and becomes revolting to everybody, and the nurse cries to the children, who were his only friends and visitors, “Don’t go near that dog!”

I say it deliberately, the mistress of a house in whose yard a dog is thus kept like a _forçat_—only worse treated than any murderer is treated in Italy—is guilty of a _very great sin_; and till she has taken care that the dog has his daily exercise and water, and that the cat and the fowls and every other sentient creature under her roof is well and kindly treated, she may as well, for shame’s sake, give up thinking she is fulfilling her duties by reading prayers and subscribing to missions.

I assume that the master of the house, where there is one, will, as usual, look after the stable department. Where there is no master, or he does not interfere, the mistress is surely responsible for humane treatment of the horses, if she keep any. Further, I think every lady is bound to insist that any horse which draws her shall be free from the misery of a bearing-rein. She ought not to allow her vanity and ambition to be fashionable to induce her to connive at her coachman’s laziness and cruelty.

When the mistress of a house has done all she can to _prevent the suffering_, mental or physical, of any creature, human or infra-human, under her roof, there remains still a delightful field for her ability in actually _giving pleasure_. We all know that life is made up chiefly of little pleasures and little pains, and how many of the former are in the power of the mistress of a house to provide, it is almost impossible to calculate. But let any clever woman simply take it to heart to make everybody about her _as happy as she can_, and the result I believe will always be wonderful. Let her see that, so far as possible, they have the rooms they like best, the little articles of furniture and ornament they prefer. Let her order meals with a careful forethought for their tastes and for the necessities of their health, seeing that every one has what he desires, and making him feel, however humble in position, that his tastes have been remembered. Let her not disdain to pay such attention to the position of the chairs and sofas of the family dwelling-rooms as that every individual may be comfortably placed, and feel that he or she has not been left out in the cold. And, after all these cares, let her try not so much to make her rooms splendid and æsthetically admirable as to make them thoroughly habitable and comfortable for those who are to occupy them; regarding their comfort rather than her own æsthetic gratification. A drawing-room bright and clean, sweet with flowers in summer or with dried rose leaves in winter, with tables at which the inmates may occupy themselves, and easy chairs wherever they are wanted, and plenty of soft light and warmth, or else of coolness adapted to the weather—this sort of room belongs more properly to a woman who seeks to make her house a province of the Kingdom of _Heaven_ than one which might be exhibited at South Kensington as having belonged to the Kingdom of _Queen Anne_!

Then, for the moral atmosphere of the house, which depends so immensely on the tone of the mistress, I will venture to make one recommendation. Let it be as gay as ever she can make it. There are numbers of excellent women—the salt of the earth—who seem absolutely oppressed with their consciences, as if they were congested livers. They are in a constant state of anxiety and care; and perhaps, with the addition of feeble health, find it difficult to get through their duties except in a certain lachrymose and dolorous fashion. Houses where these women reign seem always under a cloud, with rain impending. Now, I conceive that good and even high animal spirits are among the most blessed of possessions—actual wings to bear us up over the dusty or muddy roads of life; and I think that to keep up the spirits of a household is not only indefinitely to add to its happiness, but also to make all duties comparatively light and easy. Thus, however naturally depressed a mistress may be, I think she ought to struggle to be cheerful, and to take pains never to quench the blessed spirits of her children or guests. All of us who live long in great cities get into a sort of subdued-cheerfulness tone. We are neither very sad nor very glad.