Part 3
“The looks, the thoughts, the sweet employ Of saints, whose treasure is above, Be mine to-day! their zeal, their joy, Their peace, and purity, and love.
“My spirit may with theirs unite, My humble notes with theirs may blend, Although denied the pure delight Thy sacred courts with them to attend.
“The faith and patience of the saints, These I may exercise each hour— When, weak with pain, the body faints, I best may exercise their power.
“O Saviour! with completion crown Desires thou wakenest not in vain; Stoop to thy lowly temple down, Bring all these graces in thy train!
“This is thy day of bounty, Lord! I ask no small, no stinted boon, But showers, rich showers of blessing, poured On me, though worthless and alone.
“If the weak tendril round thee twine, It ne’er is hidden from thine eye: I cling to thee, life-giving Vine, Strength, verdure, fruitfulness supply!”
Hugh White, himself on the bed of sickness, used to send Mrs. Hemans beautiful flowers in her last illness; and perhaps he may have sent her this pretty hymn too. I should like to know that he did, and that it comforted her with the comfort wherewith he himself was comforted: one Christian poet should fitly thus console another.
Having chewed the cud awhile on this sweet hymn, and possibly on one or two others, I begin my toilette with great deliberation. It is indeed always a lengthy process; not on account of any special self-decoration (of course, the “Sabbath robes of richest dress,” in the hymn, have a purely figurative meaning, though I think respect for the day may be shown in the outward garb too), not because I delight in braiding of the hair and costly array; but on account of downright bodily weakness, which necessitates frequent little rests and intermissions: and as I have no one to hurry for, why should I hurry?
However, by eight o’clock I find my way to my sofa in the adjoining room, with the little breakfast table set near the fire in winter, and near the open window in summer. I read a psalm, collect, and the epistle and gospel of the day, to myself, while I recover myself a little. I have no voice for reading aloud before breakfast. My breakfast is no great matter; it does not take long, neither do I hurry it; but when one has nothing to do but to eat and drink, it cannot be a very tedious occupation. Phillis clears the table, brings in her Bible, we read a portion, verse and verse alternately, and then I offer a prayer, and she then goes to her breakfast. Then I lie and meditate a little.
I have put secular books, newspapers, work-baskets, &c., out of the way overnight; so that the room has an orderly, Sabbath-like appearance. The large Bible and little Prayer-book are on the small table beside me: some other book also at hand, in the course of Sunday reading. My canary-bird must be attended to, Sunday as well as week-day. I give him my attention as soon as I am a little rested; and perhaps remain at the window a little, looking at the flowers in the garden-borders, the little children from the hill trooping to the school with their cold dinners in their bags, and the hill itself, girdling in the prospect, and ever calling to mind the verse, “I will look unto the hill from whence cometh my help.”
A widow woman, who nursed me during part of my illness, always comes to cook my dinner, and take care of me while Phillis goes to church. She gets her dinner for her pains, and sits placidly reading while the meat is roasting, now and then with an eye to the spit. Afterwards, she goes to afternoon service. She is too infirm, and too far from the church to be able to go more than once in the day.
Of course, I always have a few pleasant words with Mrs. Goodey; and sometimes she tells me of some case of distress among the cottagers, which I make it my business to relieve, or get some one to look into, the first opportunity. But punctually, as the clock strikes eleven, I commence my solitary prayer service, feeling it a special pleasure, as well as duty, to offer prayer and praise at the same time that my fellow Christians pray and praise.
Now, as I do not slavishly go through those portions (they are but few), which can only be appropriately used collectively (St. Chrysostom’s prayer, for instance), one would think I should arrive at the end of the morning service a good deal sooner than they do in church. Sooner, certainly, but not so much so as one might suppose. For, when thoughts wander, (and, alas! who is there among mortal men, who, in this respect, sometimes sinneth not?) I feel it incumbent on me to go over the ground again. Thus, if I repeat a clause in the litany mechanically, I feel that the least I can do is to repeat it with more attention, and something of contrition. Even the wicked king in “Hamlet” said:
“My words fly up—my thoughts remain below: Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go!”
Thus, of course, the more I detect inattention, the more I lengthen the service. And then again, in the lessons, I frequently read the consecutive chapters, perhaps two or three. So that, sometimes, Mrs. Goodey comes in, to my surprise, to lay the cloth, before I have finished. But, more generally, I have done earlier, and lain back on my sofa-cushion, and taken a good rest, gazing on my Sunday nosegay, and on my dear father’s portrait on the wall. I have no likeness of my mother—not even a _silhouette_; she never would have one taken: but her face is indelibly stamped on my memory and heart.
Then Phillis bustles in with the one hot dish; and generally has brought home some scrap of news, which she is in haste to impart.
“Master Frank preached to-day.” (The Rev. Francis Sidney is always, with her, Master Frank). “How well he do speak up, to be sure! The deafest in church might hear ’un. Well, I can’t justly mind what ’twas about, but ’twas charity, I think, or else hope. No, ’twas charity; because he brought in, ‘But the greatest of these is charity.’ Yes, I know he did. Yes, yes—’twas on charity.”
Then she adds that Mrs. Stowe’s twins are going to be christened in the afternoon, by the names of Esau and Jacob. And then I observe that Esau and Jacob indeed were twins, but that I hope the little Stowes will love one another more than they did; adding that, as if to show the universal sinfulness of the human heart, a remarkable instance was given us in them, that even the proverbial love of twins for one another was insufficient to prevent one from over-reaching the other. To which Phillis, with a grunt, rejoins, “The young Stowes ha’n’t got no birthright.”
In the afternoon Phillis generally comes in, and we read the prayers, psalms, and lessons together; but sometimes Miss Secker drops in, and then Phillis and I defer our reading till the evening, unless she goes to church. Miss Secker brings a sermon with her, and sometimes I speculate a little, beforehand, whether it will be by Barrow, or Bishop Wilson, or Jeremy Taylor, or by Douglas Forsyth, or Melville, or Henry Vaughan of Crickhowel. We generally talk it over afterwards, and though our remarks may not be very original or deep, they refresh and animate me, being my only intellectual intercourse during the day.
Often our remarks make us turn to our Bibles to verify and illustrate them; which sometimes unexpectedly opens up a new subject fertile in interest. Thus, last Sunday, we lighted on that wonderful statistical account of the ancient glory and wealth of Tyre, as vivid and minute as if the details were of yesterday:—how that its famous merchant-ships, the instruments of its mighty commerce, were built of deal from Senir, _i. e._ Mount Hermon, and their masts were of cedar from Lebanon, their oars of oak from Bashan, their benches of ivory from Chittim, their sails manufactured in Egypt, their awnings from the isles of Elishah; how that the mariners of these ships were from Sidon, their pilots picked men of Tyre, their caulkers the men of Gebal; and then the details of their armies, their merchants, their great fairs and markets, and the endless variety of merchandize brought to them from all parts of the civilised world. It gave us a great deal to think of:—and very likely it seemed as incredible to the Tyrians, that their proud city should ever become a mere desolate rock, on which the lonely fisherman should dry his nets, as it would to us that London should be reduced to its condition before the days of Julius Cæsar, when old King Lud changed its name from Trinovant to Lud-town.
Another time, finding that Nathanael was by some eminent scholars supposed to be the same with the apostle Bartholomew, we hunted up all we could on the question; and came to the conclusion that, as he was supposed to be the son of Tholomai, or Ptolemy, Bartholomew, or Bartholomai, might be the surname given him by our Lord to signify the son of Tholomai; in like manner as he called Peter, Bar-jona, or the son of Jona. Questions of this sort will continually arise to interested readers of the Scriptures; for the more we search them, the more do little twinkling lights disclose themselves to us, reflecting light on one another.
I happened, unguardedly, to drop something about these pleasant readings to Miss Burt, when she put me into a sad fright by exclaiming, “Oh, _I’ll_ come and read to you some day!” for I did not like her reading, which is too much of the denunciatory sort. However, happily for me, she found it would not consist with her more important engagements; she therefore not only refrained, but took some pains to prevent Miss Secker from coming to me too, telling her that if she had any time to abstract from her own devotional exercises between morning and evening services, she thought she might just as well devote it to some of the poor, who could neither read nor write, as on a friend who could do both, and had every comfort around her. However, Miss Secker did not see it exactly in the same light, and therefore has continued to drop in once every two or three weeks, to my great comfort and obligation. She rarely stays more than an hour; and when she does not come, Phillis and I have our little service together, and then I read or meditate in quiet till tea.
Mary Cole, a great favourite of Phillis’s, then drops in to have tea in the kitchen, and take charge of the house while Phillis goes to church. I can’t say Mary is quite as great a favourite of mine as she is of Phillis’s; but that is no great matter, as she comes to see Phillis, not me. Thus, Phillis has a companion at both her Sabbath meals: it makes a little change for her, and prevents her hankering for more holidays than I can grant. And the visitors, neither of whom are capable of walking a second time to the distant church, get their meal and a little variety in return for their charge. People of their rank are seldom much of readers, and it is well to give them a little sober intercourse in lieu of their falling asleep with their heads on the kitchen-table. To whom little is given, of them will less be required than of others more favoured.
Mary Cole, though a heavy girl, is gifted with a sweet voice and correct ear for music; and as she sits all alone, she beguiles the evening hours by singing hymns, often to my solace and delight. Sometimes it is my favourite “Wiltshire,” sometimes “St. David’s,” another time the plaintive penitential psalm,
“From lowest depths of woe,”
to the rare old tune called Irish, which fills my eyes with quiet tears.
* * * * *
In that twilight hour known as “blind man’s holiday,” I lay this evening mentally colouring a picture of what I had just been reading, till it became distinct and real.
A desert place, all sand and stones, with scattered tombs hewn here and there in the rocks, or mere cairns heaped rudely over human remains, gleaming white and ghastly in the fitful moonlight. A single living figure, making night hideous by leaping among these tombs—wildly shrieking as the moon drifts through the clouds and casts strange shadows—yelling in ecstasy of fear, to the dismay of far-off travellers, who hasten on their journey in dread of they know not what. Can anything be more forlorn than the state of this poor wretch? His fellow men, at a loss how to treat him, bound him with strong chains, which he snapped in their faces, and then he fled. And now, unless indeed, some fellow-sufferer be glaring at him, silent and unseen, from among those tombs, he is alone—alone with his tormentors, for he feels possessed by myriads of evil spirits, whom he can no more cast out of his loathing _self_, than he can tear out his brain. If he can frame a connected thought, it is of despair.
But three little boats are crossing that surging lake, in the darkness of night. When they quitted the opposite shore, early in the evening, the waters of that lake were still. The chief of the little company lay down wearily to rest, and fell asleep, with his head on a pillow. The others toiled at their oars, and looked anxiously about, as clouds gathered, winds rose, and the waves became high and rough, and threatened to engulf their little barks. The night wore on, and became more and more tempestuous; they were, seemingly, in great jeopardy: and all this peril and distress were being incurred that the Son of God might, unsought, go and heal that one poor man.
He recognises the Lord at once. “Oh!” he says, in anguish, “have you come to torment me before the time?” Torment you, poor man! oh, how little you know! You are possessed, you say, by a legion. Well, that legion shall, if you will, take visible possession of those two thousand swine feeding on the mountains—swine, which, they who keep shall deservedly lose, seeing that their own law prohibits them as unclean. There!—the real Master of those swine has driven them all, impetuously, into the sea: and _you_—_feel_ yourself delivered. Ah, well you may fall at His feet, and look up to Him so meekly, gratefully, and lovingly; well you may suffer yourself to be clothed by His compassionate disciples; and, while they who have lost their swine roughly desire Him to depart out of their coasts, well may you, fearing the evil ones may return unto you in His absence, and make you seven-fold worse, beseech Him to let you ever abide with Him. No safety, no sweetness, like that of being ever with Jesus.
But he mildly forbids, and charges you rather to go and declare to others what great things He has done for you; and you cheerfully, implicitly obey. Strange things have you to relate to those wondering friends and kinsfolk, who lately thought the best thing they could do, was to bind you with chains!
* * * * *
I have often thought how capitally I invested five shillings a few years ago, in two apple-trees, which I gave to two poor women living under the hill. One of the trees produced twelve fine apples the second year; the year following, its owner sold a couple of bushels of the fruit. In a cottage full of hungry children, where meat is only tasted on Sundays, a good apple-pudding is no despicable hot dish on the noon-day board. Blackberries, of the children’s gathering, sometimes make a savoury addition to it.
When my cook Hannah married and settled in a cottage of her own, I gave her a few roots of Myatt’s Victoria rhubarb, and some round, white, American early potatoes, with enough onion-seed for a nice little square bed; a quart of peas, a quart of beans, a few early horn carrots, and a little parsley-seed; also pennyworths of canariensis, nasturtium, escolzia Californica, sweet-pea, candytuft, and red and white malope. Her husband immediately dug, raked, and planted the ground, and at once took to gardening after his day’s work. I need not say they are a respectable couple. He cannot read; but she reads _The Leisure Hour_ and _Sunday at Home_ to him.
Though we had a February of almost unprecedented warmth, I am told the primrose is shyly and charily putting forth its blossoms. But soon the warm banks will be gay with them, while the sweet wood-violet will betray itself by its fragrant breath at the roots of old trees. Among the earliest wayside productions is Jack-in-the-hedge, or sauce-alone; as ugly a Jack as one need wish to see, breathing odiously of garlic. Somewhat later, and rarer, is the perfoliate shepherd’s-purse, with its miniature pouches, that remind one of the scrip wherein a young shepherd, who lived to be a king, put five smooth pebbles from the brook. Its leaves, as I lately showed the little Prouts, are perfoliate, that is to say, they look as though the stem runs _through_ them—a very nice and singular distinction, never to be forgotten after being once seen. A fortnight hence I expect to hear the yellow celandine has made its appearance. Wordsworth, who has immortalized it, as much as a poet can immortalize a flower, says, at first his unaccustomed eye saw it nowhere; afterwards, he saw it everywhere.
If the month be genial, we shall, towards its close, see “God’s hand-writing on the wall” of our gardens, in the opening buds and blossoms of our cherry-trees. Sheep are already turned out on the fresh pasture-land: their bleatings and tinkling bells sound prettily. Here and there may be seen a bee, a small fly, a gnat: how soon shall we see the first butterfly?
Toads are curious creatures: there was one that used to sit watching Mr. Cheerlove at his gardening with its beautiful eyes, and sometimes climb a little way up the paling to have a better view. I suppose it varied the monotony of its life. ’Tis of no use to cart them away in a flower-pot; they will return from a considerable distance to their old quarters. If you hurt them, they will look at you very viciously—and why should they not? We have no call to molest the poor wretches; the world is wide enough for us all. Efts and newts are objectionable: they haunt old drains, dust-holes, and any damp, unaired corners. Moles loosen the soil, and make sad work sometimes with the roots of one’s flowers; but yet, on the whole, they are found to do more good than harm. They make themselves subterranean galleries, and are very methodical, taking their walks at stated times. Hence it is very easy to trap them; but if you take one, you may take two, for they are so affectionate that the mate is sure to follow the leader. Hence I always felt a sort of pang in having them destroyed, especially as they have such human-like little hands for paws; and I was glad to be told that the cruelty was unnecessary, and that their loosening the soil did it good, though it might injure particular plants. In moving a stack of firewood at Nutfield, we found underneath it a rat’s nest, containing fifteen partridges’ eggs. How did the rat convey them there? Did he roll them, or carry them on his fore-paws, walking on his hind legs?
The starry heavens are now very glorious. Jupiter, bright, untwinkling planet, is splendid to behold. There are many more stars to be seen to the east than to the north; no human being knows why. The naked eye beholds what are called stars of the sixth magnitude, whose light left their surfaces a hundred and forty years ago. It is very singular that numerous stars, beyond the range of any but a very powerful telescope, prove to be placed in _couples_: they are called _binary_ stars. Before Sir William Herschell’s death, he had completed a list of three thousand three hundred double stars. His sister Caroline shared his watchings, and took down the result of his observations in writing.
My dear father gave me a taste for astronomy very early in life; and in later years I have found star-gazing to have a strangely calming effect under the pressure of great trouble. I have looked out on the star-lit sky during Eugenia’s last illness, and after her death, till I felt every grief silenced, if not allayed, and every feeling steeped in submission. The stars make us feel so little! our lives so fleeting to a better world! our souls so near to God! O Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Perseus, I owe to you many a consoling and elevating thought of your Maker!
* * * * *
My chimney does not smoke once in six months; but to-day, as ill-luck would have it, an unfortunate little puff came out in the presence of Miss Burt, who immediately declared that my chimney wanted sweeping shockingly; and that if I did not immediately put the chimney-sweeper’s services in requisition, I should not only be endangering my own life,—which I had no right to throw away,—but that of my servant, who would not particularly relish being burnt in her bed.
In vain I assured her that the chimney had not long been swept. Miss Burt talked me down, utterly deaf to the reminder that, being on the ground floor, we could easily walk out of the house in case of any disaster.
“As if _you_ could walk out of the house!” cried Miss Burt, indignantly; and just then, Phillis coming in with coals, “Phillis,” cried she, “have you any mind to be burnt in your bed?”
“I should think not, Miss Burt,” replies Phillis, brisking up, and looking secure of some very entertaining rejoinder.
“You hear,” says Miss Burt, nodding triumphantly at me.
“You may go, Phillis,” said I, softly, which she did with some reluctance.
I was in nervous expectation of a fresh puff, when Miss Burt luckily found herself a new subject.
“There goes Miss Sidney!” said she. “How she does poke to be sure. Any one can see she has never had dancing-lessons. I think Mr. Sidney much to blame. By the way, Frank gave us an excellent sermon on Sunday. I wish you could have heard him.”
“I wish I could,” said I.
“Oh, I don’t suppose you care much about it, as you had Miss Secker to read Jeremy Taylor. Doesn’t she read through her nose?”
“Dear me, no!”
“Well, I should have expected it. Young people waste hours on their music now-a-days, but—commend me to a good reader.”
“Then,” said I, laughing, “I really can commend you to Miss Secker, or at any rate, honestly commend her to _you_; for her reading is neither too fast nor too slow, too loud nor too low; her voice is pleasant and her manner reverent.”
“Ah, I like something _earnest_.”
“She is earnest too. What a favourite word that is now.”
“Is it? Then I’ll drop it! I hate words that are used up:—suggestive, sensuous, subjective, objective. Bad as Shakspere, taste, and the musical glasses!”
She started up, and was going to take leave, when she stopped short and said—
“What do you think that absurd man, Mr. Hitchin, has done? Painted his cypher on his wheel-barrow!”
“Well,” said I, amused, “I cannot emulate him very closely, as I have no wheel-barrow, but I can put my crest on my watering-pot!”
She laughed rather grudgingly, and said, “I suppose you don’t remember the tax on armorial bearings.”
The chimney-sweeper has just called!—Miss Burt met him, and told him there would be no harm in his just looking in, to know if he were wanted!
* * * * *
Can April indeed be here? Yes, the blackbird wakes me at six o’clock, and the nightingale sings long after the sun has set.
The hedges are beginning to sprout, and the banks are decked with primroses and celandine.
“Scant along the ridgy land, The beans their new-born ranks expand; The fresh-turned soil, with tender blades Thinly the sprouting barley shades.”
So sings the sweet rural poet, Thomas Warton; of whom I suspect Harry Prout knows as little as of Waller.
* * * * *