Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 23, September, 1859», страница 10

When, in the last act, reclining on her sombre couch, she waited through the playing of the "soft music," there came to her a little season of respite and calm. Tender thoughts, and sweet, wild fancies of other days revisited her. The wilted hawthorn-blossoms in her bosom seemed to revive and to pour forth volumes of fragrance, which enveloped her like an atmosphere; and as she rose and advanced slowly toward the foot-lights, winking dimly like funeral lamps amid the gloom of the scene, it strangely seemed to her that she was going down the long, sweet lane of Burleigh Grange. The magic of that perfume, and something of kindred sweetness in the sad, wailing music, brought old times and scenes before her with preternatural distinctness. Then she became conscious of a something making still darker and deeper the gloomy shadows cast by the black hangings of the scene,—a presence, not palpable or visible to the senses, but terribly real to the finer perceptions of the spirit,—a presence unearthly, yet familiar and commanding, persistent, resistless, unappeasable,—moving as she moved, pausing as she paused, clutching at her hands, and searching after her eyes. The air about her seemed heavy with a brooding horror which sought to resolve itself into shape,—the dread mystery of life in death waiting to be revealed. Her own soul seemed groping and beating against the veil which hides the unseen; she gasped, she trembled, and great drops, like the distillation of the last mortal anguish, burst from her forehead.

She was roused by a murmur of applause from the audience. She was acting so well! Nerving herself by an almost superhuman effort, her phantom-haunted soul standing at bay, she approached the table, and began, in a voice but slightly broken, the reading of her melancholy soliloquy. But, as she laid her hand on the skull, she gave a wild start of horror,—not at the touch of the cold, smooth bone, nor at the blank, black stare of the eyeless sockets, but at finding beneath her hand a mass of soft, curling hair, damp, as with night-dew!—at beholding eyes with "speculation" in them,—ay, with human passions, luminous and full,—eyes that now yearned with love, now burned with hate,—ah, God! the eyes of Lawrence Bury!

With a shrill, frenzied shriek, Zelma sprang back and stood for a moment shuddering and crouching in a mute agony of fear. Then she burst into wild cries of grief and passionate entreaty, stretching her tremulous hands into the void air, in piteous imploring.

"She has gone mad! Take her away!" shouted the excited audience; but before any one could reach her, she had fallen on the stage in strong convulsions.

The actors raised her and bore her out; and as they did so, a little stream of blood was seen to bubble from her lips. A medical man, who happened to be present, having proffered his services, was hurried behind the scenes to where the sufferer lay, on a rude couch in the green-room, surrounded by the frightened players, and wept over by her faithful little maid.

The audience lingered awhile within sound of the fitful, frenzied cries of the dying actress, and then dispersed in dismay and confusion.

Zelma remained for some hours convulsed and delirious; but toward morning she sank into a deep, swoon-like sleep of utter exhaustion. She awoke from this, quite sane and calm, but marble-white and cold,—the work of death all done, it seemed, save the dashing out of the sad, wild light yet burning in her sunken eyes. But the bright red blood no longer oozed from her lips, and they told her she was better. She gave no heed to the assurance, but, somewhat in her old, quick, decisive way, called for the manager. Scarcely had he reached her side, when she began to question him eagerly, though in hoarse, failing tones, in regard to the skull used in the play of the preceding night. The manager had procured it of the sexton, he said, and knew nothing more of it.

She sent for the sexton. He came,—a man "of the earth, earthy,"—a man with a grave-ward stoop and a strange uneven gait, caught in forty years' stumbling over mounds. A smell of turf and mould, an odor of mortality, went before him.

He approached the couch of the actress, and looked down upon her with a curious, professional look, as though he were peering into a face newly coffined or freshly exhumed; but when Zelma fixed her live eyes upon him, angry and threatening, and asked, in abrupt, yet solemn tones, "Whose was that skull you brought for me last night?" he fell back with an exclamation of surprise and terror. As soon as he could collect himself sufficiently, he replied, that, to the best of his knowledge, the skull had belonged to a poor play-actor, who had died in the parish some sixteen or, it might be, eighteen years before; and compelled by the merciless inquisition of those eyes, fixed and stern, though dilating with horror, he added, that, if his memory served him well, the player's name was Bury.

A strong shudder shivered through the poor woman's frame at this confirmation of the awful revealment of the previous night; but she replied calmly, though with added sternness,—"He was my husband. How dared you disturb his bones? Are you a ghoul, that you burrow among graves and steal from the dead?"

The poor man eagerly denied being anything so inhuman. The skull had rolled into a grave he had been digging by the side of the almost forgotten grave of the poor player; and, as the manager had bespoken one for the play, he had thought it no harm to furnish him this. But he would put it back carefully into its place that very day.

"See that you do it, man, if you value the repose of your own soul!" said Zelma, with an awful impressiveness, raising herself on one elbow and looking him out of the room.

When he was gone, she sunk back and murmured, partly to herself, partly to her little maid, who wept through all, the more that she did not understand,—"I knew it was so; it was needless to ask. Well, 'tis well; he will forgive me, now that I come when he calls me, accomplishing to the utmost my vow. He will make peace with me, when I take my old place at his side,—when my head shall lie as low as his,—when he sees that all the laurels have dropped away,—when he sees the sorrow shining through the dark of my hair in rifts of silver."

After a little time she grew restless, and would return to her lodgings.

As the doctor and her attendant were about placing her in a sedan-chair to bear her away, a strange desire seized her to behold the theatre and tread the boards once more. They conducted her to the centre of the stage, and seated her on the black couch of Calista. There they left her quite alone for a while, and stood back where they could observe without disturbing her. They saw her gaze about her dreamily and mournfully; then she seemed to be recalling and reciting some favorite part. To their surprise, the tones of her voice were clear and resonant once more; and when she had ceased speaking, she rose and walked toward them, slowly, but firmly, turning once or twice to bow proudly and solemnly to an invisible audience. Just before she reached them, she suddenly pressed her hand on her heart, and the next instant felt forward into the arms of her maid. The young girl could not support the weight—the dead weight, and sank with it to the floor. Zelma had made her last exit.

The Murder of the Innocents

A Second Epistle to Dolorosus

So you are already mending, my dear fellow? Can it be that my modest epistle has done so much service? Are you like those invalids in Central Africa, who, when the medicine itself is not accessible, straightway swallow the written prescription as a substitute, inwardly digest it, and recover? No,—I think you have tested the actual materia medica recommended. I hear of you from all directions, walking up hills in the mornings and down hills in the afternoons, skimming round in wherries like a rather unsteady water-spider, blistering your hands upon gymnastic bars, receiving severe contusions on your nose from cricket-balls, shaking up and down on hard-trotting horses, and making the most startling innovations in respect to eating, sleeping, and bathing. Like all our countrymen, you are plunging from one extreme to the other. Undoubtedly, you will soon make yourself sick again; but your present extreme is the safer of the two. Time works many miracles; it has made Louis Napoleon espouse the cause of liberty, and it may yet make you reasonable.

After all, that advice of mine, which is thought to have benefited you so greatly, was simply that which Dr. Abernethy used to give his patients: "Don't come to me,—go buy a skipping-rope." If you can only guard against excesses, and keep the skipping-rope in operation, there are yet hopes for you. Only remember that it is equally important to preserve health as to attain it, and it needs much the same regimen. Do not be like that Lord Russell in Spence's Anecdotes, who only went hunting for the sake of an appetite, and who, the moment he felt any sensation of vitality in the epigastrium, used to turn short round, exclaiming, "I have found it!" and ride home from the finest chase. It was the same Lord Russell, by the way, who, when he met a beggar and was implored to give him something, because he was almost famished with hunger, called him a happy dog, and envied him too much to relieve him. From some recent remarks of your boarding-house hostess, my friend, I am led to suppose that you are now almost as well off, in point of appetite, as if you were a beggar; and I wish to keep you so.

How much the spirits rise with health! A family of children is a very different sight to a healthy man and to a dyspeptic. What pleasure you now take in yours! You are going to live more in their manner and for their sakes, henceforward, you tell me. You are to enter upon business again, but in a more moderate way; you are to live in a pleasant little suburban cottage, with fresh air, a horse-railroad, and good schools. For I am startled to find that your interest In your offspring, like that of most American parents, culminates in the school-room. This important matter you have neglected long enough, you think, foolishly absorbed in making money for them. Now they shall have money enough, to be sure, but wisdom in plenty. Angelina shall walk in silk attire, and knowledge have to spare. To which school shall you send her? you ask me, with something of the old careworn expression, pulling six different prospectuses from your pocket. Put them away, Dolorosus; I know the needs of Angelina, and I can answer instantly. Send the girl, for the present at least, to that school whose daily hours of session are the shortest, and whose recess-times and vacations are of the most formidable length.

No, anxious parent, I am not joking. I am more anxious for your children than you are. On the faith of an ex-teacher and ex-school-committee-man,—for what respectable middle-aged American man but has passed through both these spheres of uncomfortable usefulness?—I am terribly in earnest. Upon this point asserted,—that the merit of an American school, at least so far as Angelina is concerned, is in inverse ratio to the time given to study,—I will lay down incontrovertible propositions.

Sir Walter Scott, according to Carlyle, was the only perfectly healthy literary man who ever lived,—in fact, the one suitable text, he says, for a sermon on health. You may wonder, Dolorosus, what Sir Walter Scott has to do with Angelina, except to supply her with novel-reading, and with passages for impassioned recitation, at the twilight hour, from the "Lady of the Lake." But that same Scott has left one remark on record which may yet save the lives and reasons of greater men than himself, more gifted women (if that were possible) than Angelina, if we can only accept it with the deference to which that same healthiness of his entitles it. He gave it as his deliberate opinion, in conversation with Basil Hall, that five and a half hours form the limit of healthful mental labor for a mature person. "This I reckon very good work for a man," he said,—adding, "I can very seldom reach six hours a day; and I reckon that what is written after five or six hours' hard mental labor is not good for much." This he said in the fulness of his magnificent strength, and when he was producing, with astounding rapidity, those pages of delight over which every new generation still hangs enchanted.

He did not mean, of course, that this was the maximum of possible mental labor, but only of wise and desirable labor. In later life, driven by terrible pecuniary involvements, he himself worked far more than this. Southey, his contemporary, worked far more,—writing, in 1814, "I cannot get through more than at present, unless I give up sleep, or the little exercise I take (walking a mile and back, after breakfast); and, that hour excepted, and my meals, (barely the meals, for I remain not one minute after them,) the pen or the book is always in my hand." Our own time and country afford a yet more astonishing instance. Theodore Parker, to my certain knowledge, has often spent in his study from twelve to seventeen hours daily, for weeks together. But the result in all these cases has sadly proved the supremacy of the laws which were defied; and the nobler the victim, the more tremendous the warning retribution.

Let us return, then, from the practice of Scott's ruined days to the principles of his sound ones. Supposing his estimate to be correct, and five and a half hours to be a reasonable limit for the day's work of a mature brain, it is evident that even this must be altogether too much for an immature one. "To suppose the youthful brain," says the recent admirable report by Dr. Ray, of the Providence Insane Hospital, "to be capable of an amount of work which is considered an ample allowance to an adult brain is simply absurd, and the attempt to carry this fully into effect must necessarily be dangerous to the health and efficacy of the organ." It would be wrong, therefore, to deduct less than a half-hour from Scott's estimate, for even the oldest pupils in our highest schools; leaving five hours as the limit of real mental effort for them, and reducing this, for all younger pupils, very much farther.

It is vain to suggest, at this point, that the application of Scott's estimate is not fair, because the mental labor of our schools is different in quality from his, and therefore less exhausting. It differs only in being more exhausting. To the robust and affluent mind of the novelist, composition was not, of itself, exceedingly fatiguing; we know this from his own testimony; he was able, moreover, to select his own subject, keep his own hours, and arrange all his own conditions of labor. And on the other hand, when we consider what energy and genius have for years been brought to bear upon the perfecting of our educational methods,—how thoroughly our best schools are now graded and systematized, until each day's lessons become a Procrustes-bed to which all must fit themselves,—how stimulating the apparatus of prizes and applauses, how crushing the penalties of reproof and degradation,—when we reflect, that it is the ideal of every school, that the whole faculties of every scholar should be concentrated upon every lesson and every recitation from beginning to end, and that anything short of this is considered partial failure,—it is not exaggeration to say, that the daily tension of brain demanded of children in our best schools is altogether severer, while it lasts, than that upon which Scott based his estimate. But Scott is not the only authority in the case; let us ask the physiologists.

So said Horace Mann, before us, in the days when the Massachusetts school system was in process of formation. He asked the physiologists, in 1840, and in his next Report printed the answers of three of the most eminent. The late Dr. Woodward, of Worcester, promptly said, that children under eight should never be confined more than one hour at a time, nor more than four hours a day; and that, if any child showed alarming symptoms of precocity, it should be taken from school altogether. Dr. James Jackson, of Boston, allowed the children four hours' schooling in winter and five in summer, but only one hour at a time, and heartily expressed his "detestation of the practice of giving young children lessons to learn at home." Dr. S. G. Howe, reasoning elaborately on the whole subject, said, that children under eight should not be confined more than half an hour at a time,—"by following which rule, with long recesses, they can study four hours daily"; children between eight and fourteen should not be confined more than three-quarters of an hour at a time, having the last quarter of each hour for exercise in the playground,—and he allowed six hours of school in winter, or seven in summer, solely on condition of this deduction of twenty-five per cent, for recesses.

Indeed, the one thing about which doctors do not disagree is the destructive effect of premature or excessive mental labor. I can quote you medical authority for and against every maxim of dietetics beyond the very simplest; but I defy you to find one man who ever begged, borrowed, or stole the title of M.D., and yet abused those two honorary letters by asserting, under their cover, that a child could safely study as much as a man, or that a man could safely study more than six hours a day. Most of the intelligent men in the profession would probably admit, with Scott, that even that is too large an allowance in maturity for vigorous work of the brain.

Taking, then, five hours as the reasonable daily limit of mental effort for children of eight to fourteen years, and one hour as the longest time of continuous confinement, (it was a standing rule of the Jesuits, by the way, that no pupil should study more than two hours without relaxation,) the important question now recurs, To what school shall we send Angelina?

Shall we send her, for instance, to Dothegirls' Hall? At that seminary of useful knowledge, I find by careful inquiry that the daily performance is as follows, at least in summer. The pupils rise at or before five, A.M.; at any rate, they study from five to seven, two hours. From seven to eight they breakfast. From eight to two they are in the schoolroom, six consecutive hours. From two to three they dine. From three to five they are "allowed" to walk or take other exercise,—that is, if it is pleasant weather, and if they feel the spirit for it, and if the time is not all used up in sewing, writing letters, school politics, and all the small miscellaneous duties of existence, for which no other moment is provided during day or night. From five to six they study; from six to seven comes the tea-table; from seven to nine study again; then bed and (at least for the stupid ones) sleep.

Eleven solid hours of study each day, Dolorosus! Eight for sleep, three for meals, two during which out-door exercise is "allowed." There is no mistake about this statement; I wish there were. I have not imagined it; who could have done so, short of Milton and Dante, who were versed in the exploration of kindred regions of torment? But as I cannot expect the general public to believe the statement, even if you do,—and as this letter, like my previous one, may accidentally find its way into print,—and as I cannot refer to those who have personally attended the school, since they probably die off too fast to be summoned as witnesses,—I will come down to a rather milder statement, and see if you will believe that.

Shall we send her, then, to the famous New York school of Mrs. Destructive? This is recently noticed as follows in the "Household Journal":—"Of this most admirable school, for faithful and well-bred system of education, we have long intended to speak approvingly; but in the following extract from the circular the truth is more expressively given:—'From September to April the time of rising is a quarter before seven o'clock, and from April to July half an hour earlier; then breakfast; after which, from eight to nine o'clock, study,—the school opening at nine o'clock, with reading the Scriptures and prayer. From nine until half past twelve, the recitations succeed one another, with occasional short intervals of rest. From half past twelve to one, recreation and lunch. From one to three o'clock, at which hour the school closes, the studies are exclusively in the French language.... From three to four o'clock in the winter, but later in the summer, exercise in the open air. There are also opportunities for exercise several times in the day, at short intervals, which cannot easily be explained. From a quarter past four to five o'clock, study; then dinner, and soon after, tea. From seven to nine, two hours of study; immediately after which all retire for the night, and lights in the sleeping apartments must be extinguished at half past nine.'" You have summed up the total already, Dolorosus; I see it on your lips;—nine—hours—and—a quarter of study, and one solitary hour for exercise, not counting those inexplicable "short intervals which cannot easily be explained!"

You will be pleased to hear that I have had an opportunity of witnessing the brilliant results of Mrs. Destructive's system, in the case of my charming little neighbor, Fanny Carroll. She has lately returned from a stay of one year under that fashionable roof. In most respects, I was assured, the results of the school were all that could be desired; the mother informed me, with delight, that the child now spoke French like an angel from Paris, and handled her silver fork like a seraph from the skies. You may well suppose that I hastened to call upon her; for the gay little creature was always a great pet of mine, and I always quoted her with delight, as a proof that bloom and strength were not monopolized by English girls. In the parlor I found the mother closeted with the family physician. Soon, Fanny, aged sixteen, glided in,—a pale spectre, exquisite in costume, unexceptionable in manners, looking in all respects like an exceedingly used-up belle of five-and-twenty. "What were you just saying that some of my Fanny's symptoms were, Doctor?" asked the languid mother, as if longing for a second taste of some dainty morsel. The courteous physician dropped them into her eager palm, like sugar-plums, one by one: "Vertigo, headache, neuralgic pains, and general debility." The mother sighed once genteelly at me, and then again, quite sincerely, to herself;—but I never yet saw an habitual invalid who did not seem to take a secret satisfaction in finding her child to be a chip of the old block, though block and chip were both wofully decayed. However, nothing is now said of Miss Carroll's returning to school; and the other day I actually saw her dashing through the lane on the family pony, with a tinge of the old brightness in her cheeks. I ventured to inquire of her, soon after, if she had finished her education; and she replied, with a slight tinge of satire, that she studied regularly every day, at various "short intervals, which could not easily be explained."

Five hours a day the safe limit for study, Dolorosus, and these terrible schools quietly put into their programmes nine, ten, eleven hours; and the deluded parents think they have out-manoeuvred the laws of Nature, and made a better bargain with Time. But these are private, exclusive schools, you may say, for especially favored children. We cannot afford to have most of the rising generation murdered so expensively; and in our public schools, at least, one thinks there may be some relaxation of this tremendous strain. Besides, physiological reformers had the making of our public system. "A man without high health," said Horace Mann, "is as much at war with Nature as a guilty soul is at war with the spirit of God." Look first at our Normal Schools, therefore, and see how finely their theory, also, presents this same lofty view.

"Those who have had much to do with students, especially with the female portion," said a Normal School Report a few years since, "well know the sort of martyr-spirit that extensively prevails,—how ready they often are to sacrifice everything for the sake of a good lesson,—how false are their notions of true economy in mental labor, … sacrificing their physical natures most unscrupulously to their intellectual. Indeed, so strong had this passion for abuse become [in this institution], that no study of the laws of the physical organization, no warning, no painful experiences of their own or of their associates, were sufficient to overcome their readiness for self-sacrifice." And it appears, that, in consequence of this state of things, circulars were sent to all boarding-houses in the village, laying down stringent rules to prevent the young ladies from exceeding the prescribed amount of study.

Now turn from theory to practice. What was this "prescribed amount of study" which these desperate young females persisted in exceeding in this model school? It began with an hour's study before daylight (in winter),—a thing most dangerous to eyesight, as multitudes have found to their cost. Then from eight to half past two, from four to half past five, from seven to nine,—with one or two slight recesses. Ten hours and three quarters daily, Dolorosus! as surely as you are a living sinner, and as surely as the Board of Education who framed that programme were sinners likewise. I believe that some Normal Schools have learned more moderation now; but I know also what forlorn wrecks of womanhood have been strewed along their melancholy history, thus far; and at what incalculable cost their successes have been purchased.

But it is premature to contemplate this form of martyrdom, for Angelina, who has to run the gantlet of our common schools and high schools first. Let us consider her prospects in these, carrying with us that blessed maxim, five hours' study a day,—"Nature loves the number five," as Emerson judiciously remarks,—for our aegis against the wiles of schoolmasters.

The year 1854 is memorable for a bomb-shell then thrown into the midst of the triumphant school-system of Boston, in the form of a solemn protest by the city physician against the ruinous manner in which the children were overworked. Fact, feeling, and physiology were brought to bear, with much tact and energy, and the one special point of assault was the practice of imposing out-of-school studies, beyond the habitual six hours of session. A committee of inquiry was appointed. They interrogated the grammar-school teachers. The innocent and unsuspecting teachers were amazed at the suggestion of any excess. Most of them promptly replied, in writing, that "they had never heard of any complaints on this subject from parents or guardians"; that "most of the masters were watchful upon the matter"; that "none of them pressed out-of-school studies"; while "the general opinion appeared to be, that a moderate amount of out-of-school study was both necessary for the prescribed course of study and wholesome in its influence on character and habits." They suggested that "commonly the ill health that might exist arose from other causes than excessive study"; one attributed it to the use of confectionery, another to fashionable parties, another to the practice of "chewing pitch,"—anything, everything, rather than admit that American children of fourteen could possibly be damaged by working only two hours day more than Walter Scott.

However, the committee thought differently. At any rate, they fancied that they had more immediate control over the school-hours than they could exercise over the propensity of young girls for confectionery, or over the improprieties of small boys who, yet immature for tobacco, touched pitch and were defiled. So by their influence was passed that immortal Section 7 of Chapter V. of the School Regulations,—the Magna Charta of childish liberty, so far as it goes, and the only safeguard which renders it prudent to rear a family within the limits of Boston:—

"In assigning lessons to boys to be studied out of school-hours, the instructors shall not assign a longer lesson than a boy of good capacity can acquire by an hour's study; but no out-of-school lessons shall be assigned to girls, nor shall the lessons to be studied in school be so long as to require a scholar of ordinary capacity to study out of school in order to learn them."

It appears that since that epoch this rule has "generally" been observed, "though many of the teachers would prefer a different practice." "The rule is regarded by some as an uncomfortable restriction, which without, adequate reason (!) retards the progress of pupils." "A majority of our teachers would consider the permission to assign lessons for study at home to be a decided advantage and privilege." So say the later reports of the committee.

Fortunately for Angelina and the junior members of the house of Dolorosus, you are not now directly dependent upon Boston regulations. I mention them only because they represent a contest which is inevitable in every large town in the United States where the public-school system is sufficiently perfected to be dangerous. It is simply the question, whether children can bear more brain-work than men can. Physiology, speaking through my humble voice, (the personification may remind you of the days when men began poems with "Inoculation, heavenly maid!") shrieks loudly for five hours as the utmost limit, and four hours as far more reasonable than six. But even the comparatively moderate "friends of education" still claim the contrary. Mr. Bishop, the worthy Superintendent of Schools in Boston, says, (Report, 1855,) "The time daily allotted to studies may very properly be extended to seven hours a day for young persons over fifteen years of age"; and the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, in his recent volume, seems to think it a great concession to limit the period for younger pupils to six.