University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
PHILOSOPHICAL, BUT IMPORTANT TO THE STORY, AND THEREFORE
TO BE READ.

To the long winter which followed these startling
and closely crowded disasters, Arthur, in after years,
always looked back as the most delightful and fruitful
of his early life. He was called upon to contrive for
those who could not contrive for themselves—to find
work for those who, tied to the Run by dependent families,
could not go away freely to seek their fortunes
elsewhere. He won to himself the gratitude and the
prayers of the helpless. Joslyn and Cheek were provided
for in Crampton, the latter obtaining the much-coveted
situation of driver of the Crampton coach.
Others were furnished with situations in distant villages.

Bound no longer to the vicinity of the mill, he again
took up his lodgings at home. There, in the daily presence
of her to whom he had once given his idolatrous
love, he learned how stronger than the strongest will is
the power of submission. It was by almost a fiercely
persistent power of will that Dr. Gilbert overcame his
passion for Mary Hammett; and, though he accomplished

his object, he never met her without feeling that
he had been wounded and terribly tried. Arthur, with
no conscious exercise of will, submitted—accepted the
decision made against him—and was at peace. From
her high position in his imagination, Mary Hammett
never fell. On the contrary, she was advanced to a still
higher plane, where his dreams of possession did not
venture to intrude. He was her disciple. She became
to him an inspirer and a guide. In the atmosphere of
her noble womanhood, his own best manhood found
nourishment and growth. Never, for one moment, allowing
his old passion for her to rise, his reserve in her
presence all wore away, and she, instinctively apprehending
the condition of his mind, became to him the
elder sister that he needed

She led him out into new fields of thought. They
read books together, and talked about them. Gradually
he felt himself advancing into a larger realm of life.
His powers, under so genial a sun, developed themselves
grandly, often surprising, by their scope and style
of demonstration, the fair minister who, with earnest
purpose, was striving to feed the fountain whence they
sprang. It was her constant aim to bring his mind into
contact with the minds of others, that new avenues
might be established through which nutriment might
reach him, and that he might gain not only a juster estimate
of his own powers, but of his own deficiencies.

Under this happy nurture, his old thoughts of doing
something in the world, and something for the world,
began to revive. He felt stirring within him prophecies
of a future not altogether like the past. He felt his
nature spreading into broader sympathies with humanity,

and was conscious of enlarging power to follow in the
track of those sympathies with a hearty ministry of good.

The earth sees no spectacle more beautiful than that
of a completed womanhood, looking, by its delicate insight,
into the depths of a half-developed manhood, and
striving to stimulate, and nourish, and harmonize
powers, that it knows and feels will some time rise
above itself, and become, in return, its source of inspiration.
Mary Hammett had a thorough comprehension
of the material she had in hand. She saw its high possibilities—saw
and knew that they were beyond her
own. She thoroughly apprehended the nature and the
limits of her mission. She felt that her work would be
short, but believed that it would be fruitful.

There was one subject discussed by this amiable
pair, that always touched Arthur profoundly. It was
one proposed in a passage of the letter of the young
woman to him, already in the reader's possession.
Those words—“If I have had this influence upon you,
through your love for me, what shall be the influence of
Him who has room in His heart for all the hearts that
have ever throbbed, or ever shall throb in the world!”
—came often to Arthur in his hours of leisure, as if
some angel had recorded them upon a scroll, and waited
always to read them to him when he could hear. It
was a subject which, in their conversations, was never
thrust upon the young man by his Christian-hearted
mentor; but it was one which so interfused her whole
life, that all her thought was colored by it.

It was through these conversations that Arthur
caught his first glimpses of the beauty and the
loveliness of a divine life—a life parallel to, and, in

its measure, identical with, the life of God—a life
above the plane of selfishness, radiant from a heart
indued and informed with love for God and man. Toward
this life his discipline had led him. He had
schooled his powers and passions to self-control. He
had subordinated his own life to the life of others, by
motives of natural affection and manly duty. He had
submitted to a decision that placed forever beyond his
possession the object of his fondest worship. All this
had led him heavenward; it was for his companion to
point him to the door. It was for her to speak to him
of the duty of consecration, and of the charm of that life
whose gracious issues are beneficence, and healing, and
everlasting happiness.

Let the veil be dropped upon those experiences of a
great, strong heart, adjusting itself, through prayerful
scrutiny and careful thought, to a scheme of life above
itself—a scheme brought down from heaven by Jesus
Christ! Let no intrusion be made upon the calm joy
of a soul when first it determines to give its life forever
to God and men, to law and love, and feels itself in harmony
with the spirit and economy of the universe, and
knows that its life can only tend, in this world and in
coming worlds, to blessed consummations!

Miss Fanny Gilbert was, of course, frequently a
member of the social circle in Mrs. Blague's quiet dwelling;
and though Arthur had been throughout most of her
girl's life her beau-ideal of young manhood, she never
lost occasion, when alone with Mary Hammett, very good
naturedly, though very perversely, to quarrel about him.
She professed herself unable to understand how a young
man who was truly manly could fail to be ambitious, and

how, being ambitious, he could patiently subject himself
and subordinate his life to those who were beneath
him. If she were a man, she was sure that she should
die, if obliged to do what Arthur Blague had done, and
was still doing. If she were a young man like him, she
would not remain in Crampton a day. It seemed to
her that Arthur was very much more like a woman than
a man.

Miss Hammett's line of defence was, that Arthur
was acquiring his education, under a master whose name
was Necessity; that like all decent young men, he was
tractable and patient under authority; that out of honorable
subjection and self-control springs always the
highest power to subject and control others, and that he
had not got his growth. It was her theory, that a soul
in its development needed time as much as nutriment—
that its growth could never be hurried to its advantage.
Trees live alike upon the earth and upon the atmosphere,
and cannot be too much forced at the root,
without destroying the proper relations between those
visible and invisible influences which contribute to feed
it. There is an atmosphere around each soul, as there
is around each tree, and this God takes care of as he
does the air, and only in a measured time can the soul
gather from it what it contains of nourishment. The
soul, therefore, must have time for growth, or grow unsoundly.
The soul's sympathies are the soul's foliage,
and only when the just relations exist between sympathetic
absorption and the direct imbibition of the nutrient
juices, does the soul grow strongly and healthily.
The prime condition of such a growth as this is time.
Storms must wrestle with it. Winds must breathe

through it. Rains must descend upon it, year after
year. In darkness and in light it must stand and absorb,
even though it be unconsciously, those elements
that minister to its forces and its fibre. A soul thus
growing will become larger and more beautiful than
when forced at the root, beyond the power of absorption
in the leaves.

Fanny admitted the ingenuity of the reasoning, and
believed in its soundness more thoroughly than she was
willing to confess; but it was directly opposite to the
theory of education she had received from her father.
With him, education consisted in the acquisition from
books, of the accepted facts of science and philosophy.
The quicker this could be done, the better. That student
who should the most readily and the most expeditiously
acquire the knowledge contained in a given number and
variety of books was, in his estimate, the best scholar;
and he only could be an educated man who should secure
the particular knowledge prescribed by the schools.
It was in this way that his daughter Fanny had been
educated. With a mind that acquired with wonderful
facility, she had distanced all her associates, and exhausted
the resources of her schools before she had arrived
at full womanhood. The idea that sound growth
required time, had never occurred to him at all; and he
had determined upon putting his little boy through the
same course that his daughter had pursued. He was to
be urged, fired, and fretted with ambition, taught to
labor for the prizes and honors of scholarship, and
brought into life as soon as possible.

Notwithstanding this clash of theories, and Miss
Gilbert's respect for that of her father, there was something

in that of the schoolmistress which gave her serious
thought. It somehow united itself with the words
of the reviewer which had so deeply impressed her.
She felt more than ever that she needed more life—that
she needed time—that there was something which time
would give her that she could obtain by no means
within her province and power to institute. She did
not understand how she could grow without direct feeding;
but she saw before her a woman, evidently her
superior through the ministry of time. She did not
recognize in Mary Hammett powers and acquisitions
that outreached her own, but she apprehended a harmony,
maturity, and poise, to which she could lay no
claim. So, as she said when she finished reading the
review of Tristram Trevanion, “Hurrah for life!” she
concluded her reflections upon Mary Hammett's theories
by the exclamation, “More time, then!”

There was one influence in Arthur's quiet home-life
that his expanding nature drank as a flower drinks the
dew. Little Jamie, his brother, a bright and beautiful
little boy, was a constant source of delight to the young
man. When the little fellow had reached his second
birth-day, there was not a more precious and charming
specimen of childhood in Crampton. Arthur carried
him out in his limited walks, took care of him at night,
and with even more than motherly patience bore with
his petulance when ill, and his natural restlessness when
well. The attachment between those two brothers, so
widely divided by years, was the theme of general remark.
Miss Hammett saw it with delight, and Miss
Gilbert looked on with astonishment, admitting that it
was all very beautiful, but very unaccountable. It

seemed more womanly than any thing she had seen in
Arthur, and she saw few things that did not bear that
complexion.

To Arthur, the opening of that little soul upon the
realities of existence, the unfolding of its budding affections,
the fresh simplicity of a nature newly from the
Creating Hand, the perfect faith and trust of a heart that
had never been deceived, the artless prattle of lips that
knew no guile, the wonderful questions born of childish
wonder, were like angels' food. Out of that little cup
of life he drank daily nectar. He never tired of its
flavor—never thrust it rudely away from him. The
child almost forsook its mother in its love for the strong
arms and great heart of its brother. In this sweet affection
and wonderful intimacy, there was a prophecy
of the future which Arthur could not read. Could he
have done it, he would have sunk on the threshold of
life, and prayed to die. Ah! blessed darkness, that
rests upon each step that lies before us in the future!
Ah! blessed faith, that frankly gives its hand to Providence,
and walks undoubting on!

It was impossible for Miss Hammett to mingle so
freely in the society of Arthur and Fanny, without
thinking of them sometimes in the relation of lovers.
She knew both sufficiently well to see that they did not
understand each other. She knew that Fanny was far
more accomplished than Arthur; yet she knew that
Arthur had powers under whose shadow even Fanny
would at some future day delight to sit. When Mary
talked with Arthur about his ambitious friend, he always
had quite as many objections to her as she was in
the habit of expressing in regard to him. He could not

love a woman who wanted the praise of the world.
Such a woman could only be fit for the world's wife.
He pitied any man who would consent to be known to
the world as the husband of an ambitious and bepraised
notability. Mother Hubbard's dog was a very insignificant
individual. Besides, he disliked a “blue,” and
not only disliked her, but was afraid of her.

Mary Hammett tried to argue Arthur out of notions
like these, not because she was anxious to contrive a
match between her friends, but because she felt that Arthur
was doing Fanny injustice; but she could make no
impression on him. He declined to reason on the subject,
and declared he had no prejudices upon it. He
could only say that he felt as he did because he could
not help it. There was something in her position and
in her aims that offended him. He thought her a
woman of genius, admired her powers, delighted in the
vivacity of her conversation, and felt himself stimulated
by her presence; but the idea of loving and wedding
her was repulsive to him.

Throughout this season of active and productive
social life, Mary Hammett was haunted by a single fear
—a fear that obtruded itself upon all her hours of retirement,
and often came upon her with a pang when in
the presence of her friends. She knew that the villain
who had defrauded her of her earnings, and who had
wound up his career in Crampton by the wholesale robbery
of his employer and the seduction of his daughter,
would exhaust his money. She knew, too, that even the
large sum he had on hand would furnish him with food
for his vices but a short time. She felt certain that his
first resort would be the price of her betrayal. She had

no doubt that her father would give him any reasonable
sum he might claim for discovering to him her retreat.
She felt, therefore, that her stay in Crampton was limited,
and that any week might bring events that would
cut her off forever from the companionships that had
become so pleasant and precious to her.

She had fully contrived her plan of operations in the
event which she so much feared, and when, at last, it
came, she carried it into execution with better success
than she had dared to expect.