Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing
Then answered once again the still, small voice: "For shame, Mr. Cleveland, for shame! You will ruin your soul if you thus darken the light within. You know better than all this, and you are sinning against yourself. You want to be happy; well, you may be so. There is a wide field of duty open before you; enter, in God's name, and go to work like a man. What you say about having helped yourself, is perfectly true, and you deserve all credit for it. But remember that the majority of the poor are entirely destitute of your advantages. You had the foundation rightly laid. A thousand circumstances in your early life conspired to render you energetic and self-relying. You had the right sort of education, and Providence also helped to train you. Besides, once more I ask you, did your Master stop to inquire how human misery was brought about before he relieved it? Away with this unmanly, selfish policy! Follow thy generous impulses, follow out the yearnings of thy heart, without which you never can have peace; above, all, follow Christ."
Mr. Cleveland shut the window, heaved a deep sigh, and took several more turns across the room. "I believe it is all true," at length he said, "and I have been a confounded fool. I'll turn about, and lead a different life, so help me Heaven! I have wealth, and not a chick nor a child to spend it on, nor to leave it to when I die, and so I'll spend it in doing good, if I can only find out the best way; that's the trouble. But never mind, I'll be my own executor." He now rang the bell for Tom.
Tom immediately appeared, with his usual "Yer's me, sir."
"Tom," said Mr. Cleveland, "put me in mind in the morning, to send a load of wood to old Mrs. Peters."
"Yes, sir," said Tom, "an' you better sen' some bacon, 'cause I bin yerry (hear) little Mas Jack Peter say him ain't bin hab no meat for eat sence I do' know de day when. I rispec dey drudder hab de meat sted o' de wood, 'cause dey can pick up wood nuf all about."
"You mind your own business, sir," said Mr. Cleveland, "I'll send just what I please. How long is it since I came to you for advice? Confound the fellow!" he muttered aside, "I meant to send the woman some meat, and now if I do it, that impudent fellow will think I do it because he advised it. Any how, I'll not send bacon, I'll send beef or mutton."
Just at this moment, there was a knock at the door, and Tom, going to open it, admitted Dick, the coachman.
"What do you want, Dick, at this time of night?" inquired his master.
"Dere's a man down stays, sir," replied Dick, "and he seem to be in great 'fliction. He says dey is campin' out 'bout half a mile below, sir, and de trees is fallin' so bad he is 'fraid dey will all be killed. He ask you if you kin let dem stay in one of de out-houses tell to-morrow."
"Camping out such a night as this?" exclaimed Mr. Cleveland, "the Lord have pity on them! How many are there of them, Dick?"
"He, an' his wife, and six little children, sir," answered Dick.
"No negroes?" inquired his master.
"Not a nigger, sir," said Dick. "I ain't like poor buckrah, no how, sir, but I 'spect you best take dese people in, lest dey might die right in our woods."
Tom, knowing his master's dislike of advice, and fearing that Dick had taken the surest method to shut them out, now chimed in, and said, "Massa, ef I bin you, I no would tek dem in none 't all."
"What do you mean, sir?" exclaimed Mr. Cleveland; "you surely must be taking leave of your senses. Dick, you'll have to give that boy of yours a thrashing. I'll not stand his insolence much longer. Don't stand there, grinning at me, sir."
"No, sir," snickered Tom, skulking behind Dick, who was his father.
"Let the man come up here, Dick," said Mr. Cleveland.
When the traveller made his appearance, Mr. Cleveland was startled at his wan and wo-begone appearance. "Sit down, my man," said he.
"I thank you, sir," replied the stranger, "but I must be back as soon as possible to my family. Can you grant us a night's lodging, sir?"
"Certainly, sir," replied Mr. Cleveland; "have you any means of getting your family hither? I am told you have six little ones."
"They must walk, sir," replied the stranger, "for our only horse has been killed by a falling tree; but I have not a word to say. It might have been my wife or one of my little ones, and, poor as I am, I can spare none of them."
Mr. Cleveland, whose feelings were at this time in an usually softened state, got up, and walked rapidly to the book-case to conceal his emotion, dashed away a tear, and muttered to himself, as was his wont, "'Tis confoundedly affecting, that's a fact." Then turning to the stranger, who was in the act of leaving the room, he said, "If you will wait a few moments I will have my carriage got; your wife and little ones must not walk on such a night as this."
"God bless you, sir!" said the stranger, in a trembling voice; "but I am too uneasy to stay a moment longer."
"Well, go on," said Mr. Cleveland, "and the carriage shall come after you, and I will go in it myself." The stranger brushed his hand across his eyes, and left the room without speaking a word; while Dick and Tom exchanged glances of surprise at their master's uncommon fit of philanthropy; Tom feeling fully assured that the "poor buckrahs," as he termed them, owed their good fortune to his seasonable interference.
The carriage was soon in readiness, and Mr. Cleveland rode in it to the spot. He found the family all gathered around the dead horse, and lamenting over it; while the father, having just arrived, was expatiating upon his kind reception by Mr. Cleveland. It took them some little time to stow themselves away in the carriage, and Mr. Cleveland actually carried two sturdy children on his knees. Yes, there he was, riding through the dreadful storm, in danger every moment from the trees which were falling all around him, with an infant in its mother's arms squalling with all its might, and a heavy boy on each knee, and squeezed almost to death into the bargain—for there were nine in the carriage—and yet feeling so happy! ay, far happier than he had felt for many a long day. Truly, charity brings its own reward.
When they arrived at Mr. Cleveland's house, instead of being stowed away in an out-building, as the poor man had modestly requested, they were comfortably provided for beneath his own roof. That night, as he laid his head upon his pillow, he could not help feeling surprised at his sudden accession of happiness. "Well, I will go on," he soliloquized; "I will pursue the path I have this night taken, and if I always feel as I do now, I am a new man, and will never again talk about blowing my brains out." He slept that night the sleep of peace, and rose in the morning with a light heart and buoyant spirits.
His first care was to take the father of the family aside, and gather from him the story of his misfortunes. It was a long and mournful tale, and Mr. Cleveland was obliged, more than once, to pretend a sudden call out of the room, that he might hide his emotion. And the tale was by no means told in vain. True to his new resolutions, Mr. Cleveland thankfully accepted the work which Providence had given him to do, and the family of emigrants, to this day, mention the name of Cleveland with tears of gratitude and love, and, when they implore God's mercy for themselves, never forget to invoke, for their kind benefactor, Heaven's choicest blessings. Nor is that the only family whose hearts glow at the mention of Mr. Cleveland's name. Far and wide his name is known, and honoured, and beloved.
And Mr. Cleveland has found out the real secret of happiness. It is true that he and Tom still have their squabbles, for Tom is really a provoking fellow, and Mr. Cleveland is, and always will be, an eccentric, impulsive man, but his heart, which, when we first introduced him to our readers, was far from being right with God, or with his fellow-men, is now the dwelling-place of love and kindness, and the experience of every day contributes to strengthen the new principles he has imbibed, and to confirm him in the right.
Reader! art thou sad or solitary? I can offer thee a certain cure for all thy woes. Contemplate the life of Him who spake as never man spake. Follow him through all those years of toil and suffering. See him wherever called by the sorrows of his human brethren, and witness his deeds of mercy and his offices of love, and then—"go thou and do likewise."
REBECCA
HER words were few, without pretenceTo tricks of courtly eloquence,But full of pure and simple thought,And with a guileless feeling fraught,And said in accents which conferredPoetic charm on household word.She needed not to speak, to beThe best loved of the company—She did her hands together pressWith such a child-like gracefulness;And such a sweet tranquillityUpon her silent lips did lie,And such unsullied purityIn the blue heaven of her eye.She moved among us like to oneWho had not lived on earth alone;But felt a dim, mysterious senseOf a more stately residence,And seemed to have a consciousnessOf an anterior happiness—To hear, at times, the echoes sentFrom some unearthly instrumentWith half-remembered voices blent—And yet to hold the friendships dear,And prize the blessings of our sphere—In sweet perplexity to knowWhich of the two was dreamy show,The dark green earth, the deep blue skies,The love which shone in mortal eyes,Or those faint recollections, tellingOf a more bright and tranquil dwelling.We could not weep upon the dayWhen her pure spirit passed away;We thought we read the mysteryWhich in her life there seemed to be—That she was not our own, but lentTo us little while, and sentAn angel child, what others preachOf heavenly purity, to teach,In ways more eloquent than speech—And chiefly by that raptured eyeWhich seemed to look beyond the sky,And that abstraction, listeningTo hear the choir of seraphs sing.We thought that death did seem to herOf long-lost joy the harbinger—Like an old household servant, comeTo take the willing scholar home;The school-house, it was very dear,But then the holidays were near;And why should she be lingering here?Softly the servant bore the childWho at her parting turned and smiled,And looked back to us, till the nightFor ever hid her from our sight.LIFE A TREADMILL
WHO says that life is a treadmill?
You, merchant, when, after a weary day of measuring cotton-cloth or numbering flower barrels, bowing to customers or taking account of stock, you stumble homeward, thinking to yourself that the moon is a tolerable substitute for gas light, to prevent people from running against the posts—and then, by chance, recall the time when, a school-boy, you read about "chaste Dian" in your Latin books, and discovered a striking resemblance to moonbeams in certain blue eyes that beamed upon you from the opposite side of the school-room.
Ah! those were the days when brick side-walks were as elastic as India rubber beneath your feet; shop windows were an exhibition of transparencies to amuse children and young people, and the world in prospect was one long pleasure excursion. Then you drank the bright effervescence in your glass of soda-water, and now you must swallow the cold, flat settlings, or not get your money's worth. Long ago you found out that the moon is the origin of moonshine, that blue eyes are not quite as fascinating under gray hair and behind spectacles, and that "money answereth all things."
You say so, clerk or bank-teller, when you look up from your books at the new-fallen snow glistening in the morning light, and feel something like the prancing of horses' hoofs in the soles of your boots, and hear the jingling of sleigh bells in your mind's ear, long after the sound of them has passed from your veritable auriculars.
You say so, teacher, while going through the daily drill of your A B C regiments, your multiplication table platoons, and your chirographical battalions.
You say so, factory girl, passing backward and forward from the noise and whirl of wheels in the mills, to the whirl and noise of wheels in your dreams.
You say so, milliner's apprentice, as you sit down to sew gay ribbons on gay bonnets, and stand up to try gay bonnets on gay heads.
You say so, housemaid or housekeeper, when the song of the early bird reminds you of crying children, whose faces are to be washed; when the rustling of fallen leaves in the wind makes you wonder how the new broom is going to sweep; when the aroma of roses suggests the inquiry whether the box of burnt coffee is empty; and when the rising sun, encircled by vapoury clouds, brings up the similitude of a huge fire-proof platter, and the smoke of hot potatoes.
There is a principle in human nature which rebels against repetitions. Who likes to fall asleep, thinking that to-morrow morning he must get up and do exactly the same things that he did to-day, the next day ditto, and so forth, until the chapter of earthly existence is finished!
It is very irksome for these soaring thoughts winged to "wander through eternity," to come down and work out the terms of a tedious apprenticeship to the senses. And yet, what were thoughts unlocalized and unembodied? Mere comets or vague nebulosities in the firmament, without a form, and without a home.
All things have their orbit, and are held in it by the power of two great opposing forces.
Outward circumstances form the centripetal force, which keeps us in ours. Let the eccentric will fly off at ever so wide a tangent for a time, back it must come to a regular diurnal path, or wander away into the "blackness of darkness." And if these daily duties and cares come to us robed in the shining livery of Law, should we not accept them as bearers of a sublime mission?
"What?" you say, "anything sublime in yardstick tactics or ledger columns? Anything sublime in washing dishes or trimming bonnets? The idea is simply ridiculous!"
No, not ridiculous; only a simple idea, and great in its simplicity. For the manner of performing even menial duties, gives you the gauge and dimensions of the doer's inward strength. The power of the soul asserts itself, not so much in shaping favourable circumstances to desired ends, as in resisting the pressure of crushing circumstances, and triumphing over them.
Manufactures, trades, and all the subordinate arts and occupations that keep the car of civilization in motion, may be to you machines moving with a monotonous and unmeaning buzz, or they may be like Ezekiel's vision of wheels involved in wheels, that were lifted up from the earth by the power of the living creature that was in them.
Grumbling man or woman, life is a treadmill to you, because you look doggedly down and see nothing but the dull steps you take. If you would cease grumbling, and look up, your life would be transformed into a Jacob's ladder, and every step onward would be a step upward too. And even if it were a treadmill, to which you and other mortals were condemned for past offences, a kindly sympathy for your fellow-prisoners could carpet the way with velvet, and you might move on smilingly together, as through the mazes of an easy dance.
It is of no use to preach the old sermon of contentment with one condition, whatever it may be, a sermon framed for lands where aristocracies are fixtures, in this generation and on this continent. Discontent is a necessity of republicanism, until the millennium comes.
Yet it is not sensible to complain of the present, until we have gleaned its harvests and drained its sap, and it has become capital for us to draw upon in the future. Most of the dissatisfied grumblers of our day are like children from whom the prospect of a Christmas pie, intended for the climax of a supper, takes away all relish for the more solid and wholesome introductory exercises of bread and butter.
What is it we would have our life? Not princely pop and equipments, nor to "marry the prince's own," which used to form the denouement of every fairy tale, will suffice us now; for every ingenious Yankee school-boy or girl has learned to dissect the puppet show of royalty, and knows that its personages move in a routine the most hampered and helpless of all.
The honour of being four years in stepping from one door of the "White House" to the other, ceases to be the meed of a dignified ambition when it results from a skilful shuffling of political cards, rather than from strength and steadiness of head and an upright gait.
If we ask for freedom from care, and leisure to enjoy life—until we have learned, through the discipline of labour and care, how to appreciate and use leisure—we might as well petition from government a grant of prairie land for Egyptian mummies to run races upon.
If one might get himself appointed to the general overseership of the solar system, still, what would his occupation be but a regular pacing to and fro from the sun to the outermost limits of Le Verrier's calculations, and perhaps a little farther? A succession of rather longish strides he would have to take, to be sure; now burning his soles in the fires of Mercury; now hitting his corns against some of the pebbly Asteroids, and now slipping upon the icy rim of Neptune. Still, if he made drudgery of his work by keeping his soul out of it, he would only have his treadmill life over again, on a large scale.
The monotony of our three-score years and ten is wearisome to us; what can we think then of the poor planets, doomed to the same diurnal spinning, the same annual path, for six thousand years, to our certain knowledge? And, if telescopes tell us the truth, the universe is an ever-widening series of similar monotonies.
Yet space is ample enough to give all systems variety of place. While each planet moves steadily along on the edge of its plane, the whole solar equipage is going forward to open a new track on the vast highway of the heavens.
We too, moving in our several spheres with honest endeavours and aspirations, are, by the stability of our motions, lifting and being lifted, with the whole compact human brotherhood, into a higher elevation, a brighter revelation of the Infinite, the Universe of Wisdom and Love.
And in this view, though our efforts be humble and our toil hard, life can never be a treadmill.
ARTHUR LELAND
ARTHUR LELAND was a young lawyer of some twenty-seven years of age. His office stood a stone's throw from the court-house, in a thriving town in the West. Arthur had taken a full course in a Northern college, both in the collegiate and law department, and with some honour. During his course he had managed to read an amazing amount of English literature, and no man was readier or had a keener taste in such things than he. He had a pleasing personal appearance, a fluent and persuasive manner, an unblemished character. Every morning he came to his office from one of the most pleasant little cottage homes in the world; and if you had opened the little front gate, and gone up through the shrubbery to the house, you would have seen a Mrs. Leland, somewhere in-doors, and she as intelligent and pleasant a lady as you ever saw. You would have seen, moreover, tumbling about the grass, or up to the eyes in some mischief, as noble-looking a little fellow of some three years old as you could well have wished for your own son.
This all looks well enough, but there is something wrong. Not in the house. No; it is as pleasant a cottage as you could wish—plenty of garden, peas and honeysuckles climbing up everywhere, green grass, white paint, Venetian blinds, comfortable furniture.
Not in Willie, the little scamp. No; rosy, healthy, good head, intelligent eyes, a fine specimen he was of an only son. Full of mischief, of course, he was. Overflowing with uproar and questions and mischief. Mustachios of egg or butter-milk or molasses after each meal, as a matter of course. Cut fingers, bumped forehead, torn clothes, all day long. Yet a more affectionate, easily-managed child never was.
The mischief was not in Lucy, the Mrs. Leland. I assure you it was not. Leland knew, to his heart's core, that a lovelier, more prudent, sensible, intelligent wife it was impossible to exist. Thrifty, loving, lady-like, right and true throughout.
Where was this mischief? Look at Leland. He is in perpetual motion. Reading, writing, walking the streets, he is always fast, in dead earnest. Somewhat too fast. There is a certain slowness about your strong man. You never associate the idea of mental depth and power with your quick-stepping man. You cannot conceive of a Roman emperor or a Daniel Webster as a slight, swift man. The bearing of a man's body is the outward emblem of the bearing of his soul. Leland is rather slight, rather swift. He meets you in his rapid walk. He stops, grasps your hand, asks cordially after your health. There is an open, warm feeling in the man. No hypocrisy whatever. Yet he talks too fast. He don't give you half a chance to answer one of his rapid questions, before he is asking another totally different. He is not at ease. He keeps you from being at ease. You feel it specially in his house. He is too cordial, too full of effort to make your visit pleasant to you. You like him, yet you don't feel altogether at home with him. You are glad when he leaves you to his more composed wife. You never knew or heard of his saying or doing anything wrong or even unbecoming. You look upon him as a peculiar sort of man—well, somehow—but! He is at the bar defending that woman, who sits by him, dressed in mourning—some chancery case. Or it is a criminal case, and it is the widow's only son that Leland is defending. If you had been in his office for the last week, you would have acknowledged that he has studied the case, has prepared himself on it as thoroughly as a man can. He is an ambitious man. He intensely desires to make for himself a fortune and a position. His address to the judge, or to the jury, as the case may be, is a good one. Yet, somehow, he does not convince. He himself is carried away by his own earnestness, but he does not carry away with him his hearers. His remarks are interesting. People listen to him from first to last closely. Yet his arguing does not, somehow, convince. His pathos does not, somehow, melt. He is the sort of man that people think of for the Legislature. No man ever thinks of him in connexion with the Supreme Bench or Senate.
Wherein lies the defect? Arthur Leland is well read, a gentleman of spotless character, of earnest application, of popular manners. Why is not this man a man of more weight, power, standing? Why, you answer, the man is just what he is. He fills just the position up to which his force of mind raises him. Did he have more talent, he would be more. No, sir. Every acquaintance he has known, he himself knows, that he is capable of being much more than he is—somehow, somehow he does not attain to it! It is this singular impression Leland makes upon you. It is this singular, uneasy, unsatisfied feeling he himself is preyed upon by. "He might be, but he is not," say his neighbours. "I am not, yet I might be," worries him as an incessant and eternal truth.
It broke upon him like a revelation.
He was at work one fine morning in his garden, in a square in which young watermelon plants of a choice kind were just springing. Willie was there with him, just emerged fresh for fun from the waters of sleep. Very anxious to be as near as possible to his father, who was always his only playmate, Willie had strayed from the walk in which his father had seated him, and stood beside his father. With a quick, passionate motion, Leland seized his child, and placed him violently back in the walk, with a harsh threat. The child whimpered for a while, and soon forgetting himself, came to his father again over the tender plants. This time Leland seized him still more violently, seated him roughly in the walk, and, with harsh threats, struck him upon his plump red cheek. Willie burst into tears, and wept in passion. His father was in a miserable, uneasy frame of mind. He ceased his work, bared his brow to the delicious morning air. He leaned upon his hoe, and gazed upon his child. He felt there was something wrong. He always knew, and acknowledged, that he was of a rash, irritable disposition. He now remembered that ever since his child's birth he had been exceedingly impatient with it. He remembered how harshly he had spoken to it, how rudely he had tossed it on his knee when it awoke him with its crying at night. He remembered that the little one had been daily with him for now three years, and that not a day had passed in which he had not spoken loudly, fiercely to the child.