Читать книгу: «Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873», страница 4
COMMONPLACE
My little girl is commonplace, you say?
Well, well, I grant it, as you use the phrase
Concede the whole; although there was a day
When I too questioned words, and from a maze
Of hairsplit meanings, cut with close-drawn line,
Sought to draw out a language superfine,
Above the common, scarify with words and scintillate with pen;
But that time's over—now I am content to stand with other men.
It's the best place, fair youth. I see your smile—
The scornful smile of that ambitious age
That thinks it all things knows, and all the while
It nothing knows. And yet those smiles presage
Some future fame, because your aim is high;
As when one tries to shoot into the sky,
If his rash arrow at the moon he aims, a bolder flight we see,
Though vain, than if with level poise it safely reached the nearest tree.
A common proverb that! Does it disjoint
Your graceful terms? One more you'll understand:
Cut down a pencil to too fine a point,
Lo, it breaks off, all useless, in your hand!
The child is fitted for her present sphere:
Let her live out her life, without the fear
That comes when souls, daring the heights of dread infinity, are tost,
Now up, now down, by the great winds, their little home for ever lost.
My little girl seems to you commonplace
Because she loves the daisies, common flowers;
Because she finds in common pictures grace,
And nothing knows of classic music's powers:
She reads her romance, but the mystic's creed
Is something far beyond her simple need.
She goes to church, but the mixed doubts and theories that thinkers find
In all religious truth can never enter her undoubting mind.
A daisy's earth's own blossom—better far
Than city gardener's costly hybrid prize:
When you're found worthy of a higher star,
'Twill then be time earth's daisies to despise;
But not till then. And if the child can sing
Sweet songs like "Robin Gray," why should I fling
A cloud over her music's joy, and set for her the heavy task
Of learning what Bach knew, or finding sense under mad Chopin's mask?
Then as to pictures: if her taste prefers
That common picture of the "Huguenots,"
Where the girl's heart—a tender heart like hers—
Strives to defeat earth's greatest powers' great plots
With her poor little kerchief, shall I change
The print for Turner's riddles wild and strange?
Or take her stories—simple tales which her few leisure hours beguile—
And give her Browning's _Sordello_, a Herbert Spencer, a Carlyle?
Her creed, too, in your eyes is commonplace,
Because she does not doubt the Bible's truth
Because she does not doubt the saving grace
Of fervent prayer, but from her rosy youth,
So full of life, to gray old age's time,
Prays on with faith half ignorant, half sublime.
Yes, commonplace! But if I spoil this common faith, when all is done
Can deist, pantheist or atheist invent a better one?
Climb to the highest mountain's highest verge,
Step off: you've lost the petty height you had;
Up to the highest point poor reason urge,
Step off: the sense is gone, the mind is mad.
"Thus far, and yet no farther, shalt thou go,"
Was said of old, and I have found it so:
This planet's ours, 'tis all we have; here we belong, and those are wise
Who make the best of it, nor vainly try above its plane to rise.
Nay, nay: I know already your reply;
I have been through the whole long years ago;
I have soared up as far as soul can fly,
I have dug down as far as mind can go;
But always found, at certain depth or height,
The bar that separates the infinite
From finite powers, against whose strength immutable we beat in vain,
Or circle round only to find ourselves at starting-point again.
If you must for yourself find out this truth,
I bid you go, proud heart, with blessings free:
'Tis the old fruitless quest of ardent youth,
And soon or late you will come back to me.
You'll learn there's naught so common as the breath
Of life, unless it be the calm of death:
You'll learn that with the Lord Omnipotent there's nothing commonplace,
And with such souls as that poor child's, humbled, abashed, you'll hide your face.
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.
PROBATIONER LEONHARD; OR, THREE NIGHTS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY
CHAPTER IV.
THE TEST—WITH MENTAL RESERVATIONS
Elise went out to gather willow-twigs, as her mother had said when her father asked for her.
A little later in the afternoon, Mr. Albert Spener walked swiftly down the street toward the house occupied by the Rev. Mr. Wenck. While he was yet at a distance Elise saw him approaching, and possibly she thought, "He has seen me and comes to meet me;" and many a pleasant stroll on many an afternoon would have justified the thought.
But it was not until he had, as it were, stumbled upon Elise that he noticed her. He carried in his hand a letter, and when suddenly he stopped upon the sidewalk and looked at her, the changeful aspects of his face were marvelous to behold.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"I was going home," she answered, not a little surprised by the abrupt and authoritative manner of his address.
"I want to talk with you," said he. "Is it to-day that I am to begin to leave off loving you, Elise?"
"That you are—What do you say, Albert?" she asked.
"Have you not seen Brother Wenck's letter to your father, Elise?"
She shook her head.
"The lot—the lot—" he repeated, but his voice refused to help him tell the tale.
"Albert, may I see the letter?" Father and Mother Loretz might have rejoiced in their daughter could they have seen and heard her in those trying moments. Her gentleness and her serene dignity said for her that she would not be over-thrown by the storm which had burst upon her in a moment, unlocked for as tempest and whirlwind out of a clear sky.
Spener thrust into her hands the letter addressed to him that morning by the minister. It contained an announcement of the decision rendered by the lot, couched in terms more brief, perhaps, than those which conveyed the same intelligence to the father of Elise.
She gave it back to him without a word.
"If Brother Wenck is going to stand by it," said he, "there'll be no room for him in this place. I was just going to his house to tell him so. Will you go with me? I should like to have a witness. I'll make short work of it."
"No," said Elise, shrinking back amazed from her companion. "I will not go with you to insult that good man."
"You will go with me—not to his house, then! Come, Elise, we must talk about this. You must help me untie this knot. I cannot imagine how I ever permitted things to take their chance. I have never heard of a sillier superstition than I seem to have encouraged. Talk about faith! Let a man act up to light and take the consequences. I can see clear enough now. You never looked for this to happen, Elise?"
She shook her head. Indeed, she never had—no, not for a moment.
"To think I should have permitted it to go on!"
"But you did let it go on—and I—consented. Do not let me forget that," she exclaimed. "I will go home, Albert."
"Ha, Elise! I wish I could feel more confidence in your teachers when you get there."
"I need no one to tell me what my duty is just here," she answered.
"Have you ever loved me, child? Child! I am talking to a rock. You do not yield to this?" He waved the letter aloft, and as if he would dash it from him. Elise looked at him, and did not speak. "Sister Benigna will of course feel called upon to bless the Lord," said he. "But Wenck shall find a way out of this difficulty. Then we will have done with them both, my own."
"Am I to have no voice in this matter?" she asked. "What if I say—"
Spener grasped her hand so suddenly that, as if in her surprise she had forgotten what she was about to say, Elise added, "Sister Benigna is my best friend. She knows nothing about the lot."
"Does not?"
"I told you, Albert, that it was to be so. And—you do not mean to threaten Mr. Wenck?"
"I mean to have him find a way out of this difficulty. He ought to have said to your father that this lot business belongs to a period gone by. He did hint at it. I supposed, of course, that he would see the thing came out right, since he let it go on."
"Did you then believe it was only a play or a trick?" exclaimed Elise indignantly.
"Not quite, but I did not suppose that we were a company who would stand by an adverse decision. You know, if you are the Elise I have loved so long, that I must love you always—that I am not going to give you up. Your father was bent on the test, but look at him and tell me if he expected this turn. He is twenty years older than he was yesterday. Folks used to resort to the lot in deciding about marriages, and it was all well enough if they didn't care how it turned out, or hadn't faith to believe in their own ability to choose. A pretty way of doing business, though! Suppose I had tried it on this place! I have always asked for God's blessing, and tried to act so that I need not blush when I asked it; but a man must know his own mind, he must act with decision. I say again, I don't like your teachers, Elise. Between Sister Benigna and Mr. Wenck, now, what would be my chances if I could submit to such a pair?"
"You and I have no quarrel," said Elise gently. "I suppose that you acted in good faith. You know how much I care—how humiliated I shall feel if you attack in any way a man so good as Mr. Wenck. You do not understand Sister Benigna."
It was well that she had these to speak of, and that she need not confine herself to the main thought before them, for Albert could do anything he attempted. Had not her father always said, "Let Spener alone for getting what he wants: he'll have it, but he's above-board and honest;" and what hopes, heaven-cleaving, had spread wing the instant her eyes met his!
"It is easy to say that I do not understand," said he. "One has only to assume that another is so excellent and virtuous a character as to be beyond your comprehension, and then your mouth is stopped."
"Ah, how bitter you are!" exclaimed Elise. Her voice was full of pain.
Spener silently reproached himself, and said, with a tenderness that was irresistible, "You don't know what temptations beset a man in business and everywhere, Elise. It would be easier far to lie down and die, I have thought sometimes, than to stand up and meet the enemy like a man. You will never convince me that my duty is to let you go, to give you up. I can think of nothing so wicked."
These words, which had a joyful sound to which she could not seal her ears, made Elise stop suddenly, afraid of Albert, afraid of herself. "I think," she said after a moment, "we had best not walk together any longer. There is nothing we can say that will satisfy ourselves or ought to satisfy each other."
"Do you mean that you accept this decision?" said he.
"I promised, Albert. So did you."
"We will not talk about it. But we can at least walk together, Elise. You need not speak. What you confessed just now is true—you cannot say anything to the purpose."
So they walked on together. Silently, past all Spenersberg's dwelling-places they walked, till they came to the cemetery, and ascending the hill they strolled about that pleasant place among the graves, and thought, perhaps, How blessed are the dead! and oh to be lying there in a dreamless sleep beneath the blooming wild roses, and where dirges were sounding through the cedars day and night! Elise might have thought thus, but not her companion. He was the last man to wish to pass from the scene of his successes merely because a great failure threatened him. Looking upon the slight young figure beside him and her grave sweet face, a wrathful contempt was aroused within him that he should have allowed himself to be placed in a situation so absurd. As they walked down the hill again, he startled his companion by a merry outbreak. "Tell me you are not mine!" he said: "there never was a joke like it!"
CHAPTER V.
SISTER BENIGNA
On her return home Elise found Sister Benigna seated at the piano, attuning herself, as she said, after her work among the restive children of her school.
When she looked upon her friend and recalled the bitter words Albert had spoken against her, Elise felt their injustice. It was true, as she had told him, he did not understand Sister Benigna.
Sitting down beside the window, Elise began to busy herself over the dainty basket she was elaborately decorating. After a few moments Sister Benigna left the piano and stood looking at Elise and her work. She had something to say, but how should she say it? how approach the heart which had wrapped itself up in sorrow and surrounded itself with the guards of silence?
Presently Elise looked at her, but not until she had so long resisted the inclination to do so that there was something like violence in the effort. When her eyes met the gaze of Sister Benigna the warm blood rushed to her cheeks, and she looked quickly down again. Did Sister Benigna know yet about the letter Mr. Wenck had written?
A sad smile appeared on Benigna's face. She shook her head. If she did not know what had happened, she no doubt understood that some kind of trouble had entered the house.
Drawing a roll of needlework from her pocket, she quietly occupied herself with it until Elise, unable to endure the silence longer, said, "Oh, Sister Benigna, is it not time we did something about the Sisters' House? I have been reading about one: I forget where it is. What a beautiful Home you and I could make for poor people, and sick girls not able to work, and old women! We ought to have such a Home in Spenersberg. I have been thinking all day it is what we must have, and it is time we set about it."
"I do not agree with you," was the quiet answer. "There is no real need for it here, and perhaps there never will be. Work that is so unnecessary might better be avoided. In Spenersberg it is better that the poor and the old and the sick should be cared for in their homes, by their own households: there is no want here."
"Will you read what I have been reading?" said Elise, hesitating, not willing yet to give up the project which looked so full of promise.
"I know all about Sisters' Houses, and they are excellent institutions, but if you will go from house to house here you will find that you would probably keep house by yourself a long time if you opened such an establishment. No, no: you have your work all prepared for you, and I certainly have mine. There is a good deal to be done yet for the festival. Tomorrow, after five, come to the schoolroom and we will practice a while. And we might do something here tonight. The children surprise me: I seem to be surrounded by a little company of angels while they sing."
"Oh, Sister Benigna," exclaimed Elise throwing down her work in despair, "I don't in the least care about the festival. I should be glad to know it was all given up. I cannot sing at it. I think I have lost my voice: I do, indeed. I tried it this afternoon, and I croaked worse than anything you ever heard."
"Croaked? We must see to that," said Sister Benigna; but, though her voice was so cheerful, she closed her eyes as she spoke, and passed her hands over them, and in spite of herself a look of pain was for an instant visible on her always pale face. She rose quickly and walked across the room, and crossed it twice before she came again to the window.
"You don't understand me to-day," said Elise impetuously; "and I don't want you to." But Elise would not have spoken at all had she looked at Sister Benigna.
A silence of many seconds, which seemed much longer to Elise, followed her words. She did not dare to go on. What was Sister Benigna thinking? Would she never speak? Had she nothing to say? Elise was about to rise also, because to sit still in that silence or to break it by words had become equally impossible, when Sister Benigna, approaching gently, laid her hand upon her and said, "Wait one moment: I have something to tell you, Elise."
And so Elise sat down. She could not summon the strength to go with that voice in her ear and the touch of that hand arresting her.
"I once had a friend as young as you are, of whom you often remind me," said Benigna. "She had a lover, and their faith led them to seek a knowledge of the Lord's will concerning their marriage. It was inquired for them, and it was found against the union. You often remind me of her, I said, but your fortunes are not at all like hers."
"Sister Benigna, why do you tell me this?" asked Elise quickly, in a voice hardly audible. She was afraid to listen. She recalled Albert's words. She did not know if she might trust the friendly voice that spoke.
"Because I have always thought that some time it would be well for you to hear it; but if you do not wish to hear it, I will go no farther."
Elise looked at Benigna—not trust her! "Please go on," she said.
"I knew the poor child very well. She had grown up in an unhappy home, and had never known what it was to have comfort and peace in the house, or even plenty to eat and to wear. She was expected to go out and earn her living as soon as she had learned the use of her hands and feet. Poor child! she felt her fortune was a hard one, but God always cared for her. In one way and another she in time picked up enough knowledge of music to teach beginners. The first real friend she had was the friend who became so dear to her that—I need not try to find words to tell you how dear he was.
"She was soon skilled enough to be able to take more intelligent and advanced pupils, and in the church-music she had the leading parts. By and by the music was put into her hands for festivals and the great days, Christmas and Easter, as it has been put into mine here in Spenersberg. One day he said to her, 'It seems to us the best thing in life to be near each other. Would it might be God's will that we should never part!' She responded to that prayer from the depths of her heart, and a great gulf seemed to open before her, for she thought what would her life be worth if they were destined to part? Then he said, 'Let us inquire the will of our Lord;' and she said, 'Let it be so;' and they had faith that would enable them to abide by the decision. The lot pronounced against them. I do not believe that it had entered the heart of either of them to understand how necessary they had become to each other, and when they saw that all was over it was a sad awaking. For a little while it was with both as if they had madly thrown a birthright away; for, though they had faith, they were not yet perfect in it. Not soon did either see that this life had a blessing for them every day—new every morning, fresh every evening—and that from everlasting to everlasting are the mercies of God. But at last he said, 'I am afraid, my darling'" (Elise started at this word of endearment. It was like a revelation to think that there had been lovers in the world before her time), "'it will go harder with me than with you. I cannot stay here and go on with my work. I must go among new people, and begin again.' And so he went away, and at last, when by the grace of God they met again—surely, surely by no seeking of their own—they were no less true friends because they had for their lifetime been led into separate paths. Their faith saved them."
Low though the voice was in which these last words were spoken, there was a strength and inspiration in them which Elise felt. She looked at Sister Benigna with steady, wondering eyes. Such a story from her lips, and told so, and told now! And her countenance! what divine beauty glowed in it! The moment had a vision that could never be forgotten.
Elise did not speak, but neither, having heard this tale, did she now rise to depart. She folded her hands and bowed her head upon them, and so they sat silent until the first chords of the "Pastoral Symphony" drew the souls of both away up into a realm which is entered only by the pure in heart.
About this time it was that Leonhard Marten, while passing, heard that recitative of a soprano voice which so amazed him. Dropping quickly into the shade of the trees opposite Loretz's house, he listened to the announcement, "There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night," and there remained until he saw two men advancing toward the house, one of them evidently approaching his home.
Through the sleepless night Elise's thoughts were constantly going over the simple incidents of the story Sister Benigna had told her. But they had not by morning yielded all the consolations which the teller of the tale perceived among their possibilities, for the reason, perhaps, that Elise's sympathies had been more powerfully excited by the tale than her faith. It was not upon the final result of the severance effected by the lot that her mind rested dismayed: her heart was full of pain, thinking of that poor girl's early life, and that at last, when all the recollection of it was put far from her by the joy which shone upon her as the sun out of darkness, she must look forward and by its light behold a future so dreary. "How fearful!" she moaned once; and her closed eyes did not see the face that turned toward her full of pain, full of love.
Of all doubts that could afflict the soul of Sister Benigna, none more distracting than this was conceivable: Had she proved the best instructor to this child of her spirit? Had she even been capable of teaching her truest truth? Was it the truth or herself to which Elise was always deferring? Was obedience a duty when not impelled and sanctified by faith? In what did the prime virtue of resignation consist? Would not obedience without faith be merely a debasing superstitious submission to the will of the believing? Her reflections were not suggested by a shrewd guess. She knew that the lot had been resorted to, and that the letters had been written to Elise and Albert which acquainted them with the result; and the peace of her prayerful soul was rent by the thought that a joyless surrender of human will to a higher was, perhaps, no better than the poor helpless slave's extorted sacrifice. The happiness of the household seemed to Benigna in her keeping. If they had gone lightly seeking the oracle of God, as they would have sought a fortune-teller, was not the Most High dishonored? She could not say this to Elise, but could she say it to Albert Spener? Ought she not to say it to him? There was no other to whom it could be said. Had the coming day any duty so imperative as this? She arose to perform it, but Spener, as we know, had gone away the day before.
