Part 11

The prince had a half-brother, who came from the wars along with him to Messina. This brother (his name was Don John) was a melancholy, discontented man, whose spirits seemed to labour in the contriving of villanies. He hated the prince his brother, and he hated Claudio, because he was the prince’s friend, and determined to prevent Claudio’s marriage with Hero, only for the malicious pleasure of making Claudio and the prince unhappy; for he knew the prince had set his heart upon this marriage, almost as much as Claudio himself: and to effect this wicked purpose, he employed one Borachio, a man as bad as himself, whom he encouraged with the offer of a great reward. This Borachio paid his court to Margaret, Hero’s attendant; and Don John, knowing this, prevailed upon him to make Margaret promise to talk with him from her lady’s chamber window that night, after Hero was asleep, and also to dress herself in Hero’s clothes, the better to deceive Claudio into the belief that it was Hero; for that was the end he meant to compass by this wicked plot.

Don John then went to the prince and Claudio, and told them that Hero was an imprudent lady, and that she talked with men from her chamber window at midnight. Now this was the evening before the wedding, and he offered to take them that night, where they should themselves hear Hero discoursing with a man from her window; and they consented to go along with him, and Claudio said, “If I see anything to-night why I should not marry her, to-morrow in the congregation, where I intended to wed her, there I will shame her.” The prince also said, “And as I assisted you to obtain her, I will join with you to disgrace her.”

When Don John brought them near Hero’s chamber that night, they saw Borachio standing under the window, and they saw Margaret looking out of Hero’s window, and heard her talking with Borachio; and Margaret being dressed in the same clothes they had seen Hero wear, the prince and Claudio believed it was the lady Hero herself. Nothing could equal the anger of Claudio, when he had made (as he thought) this discovery. All his love for the innocent Hero was at once converted into hatred, and he resolved to expose her in the church, as he had said he would, the next day; and the prince agreed to this, thinking no punishment could be too severe for the naughty lady, who talked with a man from her window the very night before she was going to be married to the noble Claudio.

The next day, when they were all met to celebrate the marriage, and Claudio and Hero were standing before the priest, and the priest or friar, as he was called, was proceeding to pronounce the marriage-ceremony, Claudio, in the most passionate language, proclaimed the guilt of the blameless Hero, who, amazed at the strange words he uttered, said meekly, “Is my lord well, that he does speak so wide?” Leonato, in the utmost horror, said to the prince, “My lord, why speak not you?” “What should I speak?” said the prince: “I stand dishonored, that have gone about to link my dear friend with an unworthy woman. Leonato! upon my honor, myself, my brother, and this grieved Claudio, did see and hear her last night at midnight talk with a man at her chamber-window.” Benedick, in astonishment at what he heard, said, “This looks not like a nuptial.”

“True, O God!” replied the heart-struck Hero; and then this hapless lady sank down in a fainting fit, to all appearance dead. The prince and Claudio left the church, without staying to see if Hero would recover, or at all regarding the distress into which they had thrown Leonato, so hard-hearted had anger made them. Benedick remained, and assisted Beatrice to recover Hero from her swoon, saying, “How does the lady?” “Dead, I think,” replied Beatrice in great agony, for she loved her cousin; and, knowing her virtuous principles, she believed nothing of what she had heard spoken against her. Not so the poor old father; he believed the story of his child’s shame, and it was piteous to hear him lamenting over her, as she lay like one dead before him, wishing she might never more open her eyes.

But the ancient friar was a wise man, and full of observation on human nature, and he had attentively marked the lady’s countenance when she heard herself accused, and noted a thousand blushing shames to start into her face, and then he saw an angel-like whiteness bear away those blushes, and in her eye he saw a fire that did belie the error that the prince did speak against her maiden truth, and he said to the sorrowing father, “Call me a fool; trust not my reading, nor my observation; trust not my age, my reverence, nor my calling, if this sweet lady lie not guiltless here under some biting error.”

When Hero recovered from the swoon into which she had fallen, the friar said to her, “Lady, what man is he you are accused of?” Hero replied, “They know that do accuse me; I know of none.” Then turning to Leonato, she said, “O my father, if you can prove that any man has ever conversed with me at hours unmeet, or that I yesternight changed words with any creature, refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.” “There is,” said the friar, “some strange misunderstanding in the prince and Claudio;” and then he counseled Leonato, that he should report that Hero was dead; and he said that the death-like swoon in which they had left Hero would make this easy of belief; and he also advised him that he should put on mourning, and erect a monument for her, and do all rites that appertain to a burial. “What shall become of this?” said Leonato; “What will this do?” The friar replied, “This report of her death shall change slander into pity; that is some good, but that is not all the good I hope for. When Claudio shall hear she died upon hearing his words, the idea of her life shall sweetly creep into his imagination. Then shall he mourn, if ever love had interest in his heart, and wish he had not so accused her; yea, though he thought his accusation true.” Benedick now said, “Leonato, let the friar advise you; and though you know well I love the prince and Claudio, yet, on my honor, I will not reveal this secret to them.”

Leonato, thus persuaded, yielded; and he said sorrowfully, “I am so grieved, that the smallest twine may lead me.” The kind friar then led Leonato and Hero away to comfort and console them, and Beatrice and Benedick remained alone; and this was the meeting from which their friends, who had contrived the merry plot against them, expected so much diversion; these friends who were now overwhelmed with affliction, and from whose minds all thought of merriment seemed forever banished.

Benedick was the first who spoke, and he said, “Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?” “Yes, and I will weep a while longer,” said Beatrice. “Surely,” said Benedick, “I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.” “Ah!” said Beatrice, “how much might that man deserve of me who would right her!” Benedick then said, “Is there any way to show such friendship? I do love nothing in the world so well as you; is not that strange?” “It were as possible,” said Beatrice, “for me to say I loved nothing in the world so well as you; but believe me not, and yet I lie not. I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.” “By my sword,” said Benedick, “you love me, and I protest I love you. Come, bid me do anything for you.” “Kill Claudio,” said Beatrice. “Ha! not for the wide world,” said Benedick; for he loved his friend Claudio, and he believed he had been imposed upon. “Is not Claudio a villain, that has slandered, scorned, and dishonored my cousin?” said Beatrice; “O that I were a man!” “Hear me, Beatrice!” said Benedick. But Beatrice would hear nothing in Claudio’s defense; and she continued to urge on Benedick to revenge her cousin’s wrongs; and she said, “Talk with a man out of the window; a proper saying! Sweet Hero! she is wronged; she is slandered; she is undone. O that I were a man for Claudio’s sake; or that I had any friend who would be a man for my sake; but valor is melted into courtesies and compliments. I can not be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.” “Tarry, good Beatrice,” said Benedick; “by this hand I love you.” “Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it,” said Beatrice. “Think you on your soul that Claudio has wronged Hero?” asked Benedick. “Yea,” answered Beatrice, “as sure as I have a thought, or a soul.” “Enough,” said Benedick, “I am engaged; I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear from me, so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin.”

While Beatrice was thus powerfully pleading with Benedick, and working his gallant temper by the spirit of her angry words, to engage in the cause of Hero, and fight even with his dear friend Claudio, Leonato was challenging the prince and Claudio to answer with their swords the injury they had done his child, who, he affirmed, had died for grief. But they respected his age and his sorrow, and they said, “Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.” And now came Benedick, and he also challenged Claudio to answer with his sword the injury he had done to Hero; and Claudio and the prince said to each other, “Beatrice has set him on to do this.” Claudio nevertheless must have accepted this challenge of Benedick, had not the justice of Heaven at the moment brought to pass a better proof of the innocence of Hero than the uncertain fortune of a duel.

While the prince and Claudio were yet talking of the challenge of Benedick, a magistrate brought Borachio as a prisoner before the prince. Borachio had been overheard talking with one of his companions of the mischief he had been employed by Don John to do. Borachio made a full confession to the prince in Claudio’s hearing, that it was Margaret dressed in her lady’s clothes that he had talked with from the window, whom they had mistaken for the lady Hero herself; and no doubt continued on the minds of Claudio and the prince of the innocence of Hero. If a suspicion remained it must have been removed by the flight of Don John, who finding his villanies were detected, fled from Messina to avoid the just anger of his brother.

The heart of Claudio was sorely grieved, when he found he had falsely accused Hero, who, he thought, had died upon hearing his cruel words; and the memory of his beloved Hero’s image came over him, in the rare semblance that he loved it first; and the prince asking him if what he heard did not run like iron through his soul, he answered, that he felt as if he had taken poison while Borachio was speaking. And the repentant Claudio implored forgiveness of the old man Leonato for the injury he had done his child; and promised, that whatever penance Leonato would lay upon him for his fault in believing the false accusation against his betrothed wife, for her dear sake he would endure it. The penance Leonato enjoined him was, to marry the next morning a cousin of Hero’s, who, he said, was now his heir, and in person very like Hero. Claudio, regarding the solemn promise he had made to Leonato, said he would marry this unknown lady, even though she was an Ethiop: but his heart was very sorrowful, and he passed that night in tears, and in remorseful grief, at the tomb which Leonato had erected for Hero.

When the morning came, the prince accompanied Claudio to the church, where the good friar, and Leonato and his niece, were already assembled, to celebrate a second nuptial; and Leonato presented to Claudio his promised bride; and she wore a mask, that Claudio might not discover her face. And Claudio said to the lady in the mask, “Give me your hand, before this holy friar; I am your husband, if you will marry me.” “And when I lived, I was your other wife,” said this unknown lady; and taking off her mask, she proved to be no niece (as was pretended), but Leonato’s very daughter, the lady Hero herself. We may be sure that this proved a most agreeable surprise to Claudio, who thought her dead, so that he could scarcely for joy believe his eyes: and the prince, who was equally amazed at what he saw, exclaimed, “Is not this Hero, Hero that was dead?” Leonato replied, “She died, my lord, but while her slander lived.” The friar promised them an explanation of this seeming miracle, after the ceremony was ended; and was proceeding to marry them when he was interrupted by Benedick, who desired to be married at the same time to Beatrice. Beatrice making some demur to this match, and Benedick challenging her with her love for him, which he had learned from Hero, a pleasant explanation took place; and they found they had been both tricked into a belief of love, which had never existed, and had become lovers in truth by the power of a false jest: but the affection, which a merry invention had cheated them into, was grown too powerful to be shaken by a serious explanation; and since Benedick proposed to marry, he was resolved to think nothing to the purpose that the world could say against it; and he merrily kept up the jest, and swore to Beatrice, that he took her but for pity, and because he heard she was dying of love for him; and Beatrice protested, that she yielded but upon great persuasion, and partly to save his life, for she heard he was in a consumption. So these two mad wits were reconciled, and made a match of it, after Claudio and Hero were married; and to complete the history, Don John, the contriver of the villany, was taken in his flight, and brought back to Messina; and a brave punishment it was to this gloomy, discontented man, to see the joy and feastings which, by the disappointment of his plots, took place at the palace in Messina.

THE HEAD AND THE HEART.

By JOHN G. SAXE.

The head is stately, calm and wise, And bears a princely part; And down below in secret lies The warm, impulsive heart.

The lordly head that sits above, The heart that beats below, Their several office plainly prove, Their true relation show.

The head erect, serene, and cool, Endowed with Reason’s art, Was set aloft to guide and rule The throbbing, wayward heart.

And from the head, as from the higher, Comes every glorious thought; And in the heart’s transforming fire All noble deeds are wrought.

Yet each is best when both unite To make the man complete; What were the heat without the light? The light, without the heat?

DEFECTS IN OUR AMERICAN HOMES.[M]

DR. VINCENT: The subject for conference this evening at this hour is “Defects in Our American Homes.” This is not a lecture; it is a conversation. You are to give your thoughts, I am to record them, and we shall then discuss them.

Every organization has a spirit in it, and out of the spirit come influence and action. Out of wrong ideas come mistakes. Out of impotency—where one has an ideal, and not moral force enough to carry it out—comes failure. In the Syrian homes there are defects that belong to their civilization, their doctrines, their modes of life, their limitations. In Italian homes there are defects; so in German and in English homes. The defects of the Italian home differ from those of the English. There are defects in our American homes. What are they? There are defects which characterize us as well as other nations, in this nineteenth century; and defects which are the products or the results of our peculiar doctrines of society and of government. As we go about in our neighborhoods; as we travel to and fro in the land, read the papers and listen to lectures and sermons on the subject, we find peculiar evils that exist to-day in American families. It is to look at the dark side of the American home that we are met to-night. I want you to think and I want you to speak. If any of you has a thought to give, and don’t like to speak it out, write it and I shall be glad to read it for the instruction of all. We take the American home, and I ask you for a list of the defects which belong to the average American home. First—What?

[The various defects mentioned by different speakers are given without the names of the speakers; the comments usually are by Dr. Vincent.]

Selfishness.

REV. B. ADAMS: I should group the defects of the homes, as I know them, in the region where I live, under the following letters: I, irreligion; second I, indulgence; third I, ignorance; P, pride; C, covetousness; four L’s, laziness, lying, levity and lust.

DR. VINCENT: Where do you live? [Laughter.]

MR. ADAMS: In the State of Connecticut, where there is one divorce in every nine marriages. I propose to try to reform my part of it.

Want of parental control.

The separation of the young from the old, and the separation of the sexes in the family.

DR. VINCENT: What do you mean?

I mean that the young people try to get off by themselves, when they would better mix with the older people; and the result is a tendency to disintegration of the elements of the family.

Want of helpfulness.

Failure to provide proper literature for the home.

Lack of true parental example.

Failure to supply proper amusements.

Irreverence among young people for older persons.

Too much unnecessary labor; working for fashion, etc. Ladies spend too much time dressing, and men spend too much time in smoking: too much tobacco in the family. [Laughter.]

Too much responsibility in the matter of education devolved upon the wife.

The fallacy that the son is influenced more by the mother than by the father.

Men spend too much time away from home.

Too much time is spent at home by mothers.

They ought to come to Chautauqua. [Laughter.]

Worldly conversation too abundant and prominent at home.

Too much indifference to the family altar.

Children are allowed to visit the theater, when parents should hold up something better for them.

Enough attention is not paid to the associations of the children.

Want of care in the formation of the habits of the children.

Gossip in the family.

Want of promptness on all sides: in getting up, in coming to meals, in going to bed, and in attending to duty generally.

Unfair dependence of the wife and mother upon the husband and father in regard to money matters at home. [Laughter.]

DR. VINCENT: I could talk on that subject. I have no doubt that there might be stories told here founded on fact, relative to the consummate and ineffable meanness of some men, who dole out a pittance to their wives, pocketing and otherwise managing to control their funds, leaving the woman, who does the most of the work and bears the heaviest burden, to feel like a beggar most of the time. [Applause.] And the contempt with which that man should be regarded I have no words, in the English or any other language, to describe. [Amen.]

The growing habit of beer drinking in the family, and hard cider, too.

The evil habit of criticising sermons, preachers and other Christian people before children, and thus making sceptics and infidels of them.

Dressing children for pleasure and not for health.

The mother saying to the disobedient boy, “I will tell your father of you:” transfer of authority from father to mother, and _vice versa_.

Repression of natural child-life in the home.

Want of the manifestation of affection which ought to be manifested in the home. Husbands and wives don’t kiss each other as often as they ought to.

Too much fun made of old maids; making girls marry through fear of becoming unlovely and unlovable old maids.

Want of politeness in the family.

The husband, when he carves for the family, carving out the top pieces for the wife and family, and keeping the tenderloin for himself. [Laughter.]

Want of attention to the laws of health.

Assuming the inferiority of the woman’s intellect.

Failure to train the children to sit with the parents in church.

Late hours.

Want of early consecration of the children to God.

Allowing children to run at large in the street, and to select their own playmates.

Encouraging forwardness in young children.

Trusting children to Roman Catholic servants, and sending our girls to nunneries and those institutions that are organized for the purpose of propagandism and proselytism. [Applause.] Americans can not be too careful in this respect.

Failure to properly regard the Sabbath in the home.

Sending children to Sabbath-school, instead of taking them.

Allowing children to go to three or four Sabbath-schools.

The use of slang in the home.

Too little familiarity in the conversation between parents and children on religious matters.

Lack of artistic attractions in the home.

What are people going to do, who cannot afford to buy costly oil paintings, and fill up their houses with splendid furniture, etc.?

Keep clean; have chromos, flowers, engravings, smiles, clay modeling, whitewash.

Good bread. There is no subject on which America needs more light than on that of good bread and good coffee. [Laughter.]

Upholding the children as against the public school teacher.

DR. VINCENT: We are in a regular fault-finding mood to-night. Keep at it; it is wholesome.

Mother or father allowing the child to speak disrespectfully of the other parent, without reproof.

Too much frying-pan. [Amen, and laughter.]

Want of harmony between the father and mother in the government of the children; so that the child appeals from the decision of the one to the other.

Preventing young children from attending temperance meetings on the Lord’s day.

DR. VINCENT: Well, there are certain types of temperance meeting that I would not allow my child to attend on the Lord’s day. Some temperance meetings are conducted in so irreverent a way that I would not blame parents who are careful where they send their children on the Lord’s day, if they do prevent them from attending such meetings. Nevertheless, it is a great mistake not to commit our children to total abstinence.

Not knowing where the children are after dark.

Not knowing the needs of the children, and the neglect to provide for them in the matter of literature, taste, associations, and all that.

Parents deceiving their children. They begin this very early; sometimes telling the children horrible stories about horrible things, if the child goes “out of that door;” and the child finds that his mother told a downright lie, though she punished him the other day for telling a lie.

Not enough real work for the children, in which the whole family can take an interest.

Children sitting up too late nights.

Children allowed to go away from home at too early an age, without permission from parents.

Young girls graduating from school and college, and spending their time in reading novels.

Parents loading the plates of their children with a variety of dishes, and then doctoring them for some trouble of the stomach.

Laughing at children’s big stories, thus teaching them to be untruthful as they grow older. We should not punish a child for having told a big story of something he saw, without the most careful examination of the case. The child lives in the domain of the imagination; and many a time a child has been flogged and cruelly treated for telling a thing while he honestly believed that which he told was true.

Fretting. There is an immense amount of misery caused in the household by fretting; and children brought up in a fretting atmosphere grow up to make other people miserable by fretting themselves.

Failure to train the daughters in the art of cookery. [Applause.]

Infidelity on the subject of children’s conversion. This is partly because of some soft, silly and irrational processes which are sometimes resorted to for what is called “Getting the children converted.” [That is true.]