University of Virginia Library

2. II.

February 23d.

Who originated that most exquisite of inquisitions,
the condolence system?

A solid blow has in itself the elements of its
rebound; it arouses the antagonism of the life
on which it falls; its relief is the relief of a
combat.

But a hundred little needles pricking at us, —
what is to be done with them? The hands
hang down, the nerves are feeble. We cannot
so much as gasp, because they are little needles.

I know that there are those who like these
calls; but why, in the name of all sweet pity,
must we endure them without respect of persons,
as we would endure a wedding reception
or make a party-call?

Perhaps I write excitedly and hardly. I feel
excited and hard.

I am sure I do not mean to be ungrateful
for real sorrowful sympathy, however imperfectly

it may be shown, or that near friends (if
one has them), cannot give, in such a time as
this, actual strength, even if they fail of comfort,
by look and tone and love. But it is not
near friends who are apt to wound, nor real
sympathy which sharpens the worst of the
needles. It is the fact that all your chance
acquaintances feel called upon to bring their
curious eyes and jarring words right into the
silence of your first astonishment; taking you
in a round of morning calls with kid gloves
and parasol, and the liberty to turn your heart
about and cut into it at pleasure. You may
quiver at every touch, but there is no escape,
because it is “the thing.”

For instance: Meta Tripp came in this
afternoon, — I have refused myself to everybody
but Mrs. Bland, before, but Meta caught
me in the parlor, and there was no escape.
She had come, it was plain enough, because
she must, and she had come early, because, she
too having lost a brother in the war, she
was expected to be very sorry for me. Very
likely she was, and very likely she did the best
she knew how, but she was — not as uncomfortable
as I, but as uncomfortable as she could
be, and was evidently glad when it was over.

She observed, as she went out, that I should n't
feel so sad by and by. She felt very sad at
first when Jack died, but everybody got over
that after a time. The girls were going to sew
for the Fair next week at Mr. Quirk's, and she
hoped I would exert myself and come.

Ah, well: —

It is not that the child is to be blamed for
not knowing enough to stay away; but her
coming here has made me wonder whether I
am different from other women; why Roy
was so much more to me than many brothers
are to many sisters. I think it must be that
there never was another like Roy. Then we
have lived together so long, we two alone, since
father died, that he had grown to me, heart
of my heart, and life of my life. It did not
seem as if he could be taken, and I be left.

Besides, I suppose most young women of my
age have their dreams, and a future probable
or possible, which makes the very incompleteness
of life sweet, because of the symmetry
which is wanting somewhere. But that was
settled so long ago for me that it makes it very
different. Roy was all there was.

February 26th.

Death and Heaven could not seem very different
to a Pagan from what they seem to me.

I say this deliberately. It has been deliberately
forced upon me. That of which I had
a faint consciousness in the first shock takes
shape now. I do not see how one with such
thoughts in her heart as I have had can possibly
be “regenerate,” or stand any chance of
ever becoming “one of the redeemed.” And
here I am, what I have been for six years, a
member of an Evangelical church, in good and
regular standing!

The bare, blank sense of physical repulsion
from death, which was all the idea I had of
anything when they first brought him home,
has not gone yet. It is horrible. It was
cruel. Roy, all I had in the wide world, —
Roy, with the flash in his eyes, with his smile
that lighted the house all up; with his pretty,
soft hair that I used to curl and kiss about my
finger, his bounding step, his strong arms that
folded me in and cared for me, — Roy snatched
away in an instant by a dreadful God, and laid
out there in the wet and snow, — in the hideous
wet and snow, — never to kiss him, never to
see him any more! * * * *

He was a good boy. Roy was a good boy.
He must have gone to Heaven. But I know
nothing about Heaven. It is very far off. In
my best and happiest days, I never liked to
think of it. If I were to go there, it could do
me no good, for I should not see Roy. Or if
by chance I should see him standing up among
the grand, white angels, he would not be the
old dear Roy. I should grow so tired of singing!
Should long and fret for one little talk,
— for I never said good by, and —

I will stop this.

A scrap from the German of Bürger, which
I came across to-day, shall be copied here.

February 27th.

Miss Meta Tripp, in the ignorance of her
little silly heart, has done me a great mischief.

Phœbe prepared me for it, by observing,

when she came up yesterday to dust my room,
that “folks was all sayin' that Mary Cabot” —
(Homer is not an aristocratic town, and Phœbe
doffs and dons my title at her own sweet
will) — “that Mary Cabot was dreadful low
sence Royal died, and had n't ought to stay
shut up by herself, day in and day out. It
was behaving con-trary to the will of Providence,
and very bad for her health, too.” Moreover,
Mrs. Bland, who called this morning with
her three babies, — she never is able to stir
out of the house without those children, poor
thing! — lingered awkwardly on the door-steps
as she went away, and hoped that Mary my
dear would n't take it unkindly, but she did
wish that I would exert myself more to see my
friends and receive comfort in my affliction.
She did n't want to interfere, or bother me,
or — but — people would talk, and —

My good little minister's wife broke down
all in a blush, at this point in her “porochial
duties” (I more than suspect that her husband
had a hand in the matter), so I took pity on
her embarrassment, and said smiling that I
would think about it.

I see just how the leaven has spread. Miss
Meta, a little overwhelmed and a good deal

mystified by her call here, pronounces “poor
Mary Cabot so sad; she would n't talk about
Royal; and you could n't persuade her to come
to the Fair; and she was so sober! — why, it
was dreadful!”

Therefore, Homer has made up its mind
that I shall become resigned in an arithmetical
manner, and comforted according to the
Rule of Three.

I wish I could go away! I wish I could go
away and creep into the ground and die! If
nobody need ever speak any more words to
me! If anybody only knew what to say!

Little Mrs. Bland has been very kind, and I
thank her with all my heart. But she does
not know. She does not understand. Her
happy heart is bound up in her little live
children. She never laid anybody away under
the snow without a chance to say good by.

As for the minister, he came, of course, as it
was proper that he should, before the funeral,
and once after. He is a very good man, but I
am afraid of him, and I am glad that he has
not come again.

Night.

I can only repeat and re-echo what I wrote
this noon. If anybody knew what to say!

Just after supper I heard the door-bell, and,
looking out of the window, I caught a glimpse
of Deacon Quirk's old drab felt hat, on the
upper step. My heart sank, but there was no
help for me. I waited for Phœbe to bring up
his name, desperately listening to her heavy
steps, and letting her knock three times before
I answered. I confess to having taken my
hair down twice, washed my hands to a most
unnecessary extent, and been a long time
brushing my dress; also to forgetting my
handkerchief, and having to go back for it
after I was down stairs. Deacon Quirk looked
tired of waiting. I hope he was.

O, what an ill-natured thing to say! What
is coming over me? What would Roy think?
What could he?

“Good evening, Mary,” said the Deacon,
severely, when I went in. Probably he did not
mean to speak severely, but the truth is, I
think he was a little vexed that I had kept him
waiting. I said good evening, and apologized
for my delay, and sat down as far from him as
I conveniently could. There was an awful
silence.

“I came in this evening,” said the Deacon,
breaking it with a cough, “I came — hem! —
to confer with you —”

I looked up. “I thought somebody had
ought to come,” continued the Deacon, “to
confer with you as a Christian brother on
your spiritooal condition.”

I opened my eyes.

“To confer with you on your spiritooal condition,”
repeated my visitor. “I understand
that you have had some unfortoonate exercises
of mind under your affliction, and I observed
that you absented yourself from the
Communion Table last Sunday.”

“I did.”

“Intentionally?”

“Intentionally.”

He seemed to expect me to say something
more; and, seeing that there was no help for
it, I answered.

“I did not feel fit to go. I should not have
dared to go. God does not seem to me just
now what He used to. He has dealt very bitterly
with me. But, however wicked I may be,
I will not mock Him. I think, Deacon Quirk,
that I did right to stay away.”

“Well,” said the Deacon, twirling his hat
with a puzzled look, “perhaps you did. But
I don't see the excuse for any such feelings as
would make it necessary. I think it my duty

to tell you, Mary, that I am sorry to see you in
such a rebellious state of mind.”

I made no reply.

“Afflictions come from God,” he observed,
looking at me as impressively as if he supposed
that I had never heard the statement before.
“Afflictions come from God, and, however
afflictin' or however crushin' they may be,
it is our duty to submit to them. Glory in
triboolation, St. Paul says; glory in triboolation.”

I continued silent.

“I sympathize with you in this sad dispensation,”
he proceeded. “Of course you was
very fond of Royal; it 's natural you should
be, quite natural —” He stopped, perplexed, I
suppose, by something in my face. “Yes, it 's
very natural; poor human nature sets a great
deal by earthly props and affections. But it 's
your duty, as a Christian and a church-member,
to be resigned.”

I tapped the floor with my foot. I began
to think that I could not bear much more.

“To be resigned, my dear young friend.
To say `Abba, Father,' and pray that the will
of the Lord be done.”

“Deacon Quirk!” said I, “I am not resigned.

I pray the dear Lord with all my
heart to make me so, but I will not say that I
am, until I am, — if ever that time comes. As
for those words about the Lord's will, I would
no more take them on my lips than I would
blasphemy, unless I could speak them honestly,
— and that I cannot do. We had better
talk of something else now, had we not?”

Deacon Quirk looked at me. It struck me
that he would look very much so at a Mormon
or a Hottentot, and I wondered whether he
were going to excommunicate me on the spot.

As soon as he began to speak, however, I
saw that he was only bewildered, — honestly
bewildered, and honestly shocked: I do not
doubt that I had said bewildering and shocking
things.

“My friend,” he said solemnly, “I shall
pray for you and leave you in the hands of
God. Your brother, whom He has removed
from this earthly life for His own wise —”

“We will not talk any more about Roy, if
you please,” I interrupted; “he is happy and
safe.”

“Hem! — I hope so,” he replied, moving
uneasily in his chair; “I believe he never
made a profession of religion, but there is no

limit to the mercy of God. It is very unsafe
for the young to think that they can rely on a
death-bed repentance, but our God is a covenant-keeping
God, and Royal's mother was a
pious woman. If you cannot say with certainty
that he is numbered among the redeemed,
you are justified, perhaps, in hoping so.”

I turned sharply on him, but words died on
my lips. How could I tell the man of that
short, dear letter that came to me in December,
— that Roy's was no death-bed repentance,
but the quiet, natural growth of a life that had
always been the life of the pure in heart; of
his manly beliefs and unselfish motives; of
that dawning sense of friendship with Christ
of which he used to speak so modestly, dreading
lest he should not be honest with himself?
“Perhaps I ought not to call myself a Christian,”
he wrote, — I learned the words by
heart, — “and I shall make no profession to
be such, till I am sure of it, but my life has
not seemed to me for a long time to be my
own. `Bought with a price' just expresses it.
I can point to no time at which I was conscious
by any revolution of feeling of `experiencing
a change of heart,' but it seems to
me that a man's heart might be changed for

all that. I do not know that it is necessary
for us to be able to watch every footprint of
God. The way is all that concerns us, — to see
that we follow it and Him. This I am sure
of; and knocking about in this army life only
convinces me of what I felt in a certain way
before, — that it is the only way, and He the
only guide to follow.”

But how could I say anything of this to
Deacon Quirk? — this my sealed and sacred
treasure, of all that Roy left me the dearest.
At any rate I did not. It seemed both obstinate
and cruel in him to come there and say
what he had been saying. He might have
known that I would not say that Roy had gone
to Heaven, if — why, if there had been the
breath of a doubt. It is a possibility of which
I cannot rationally conceive, but I suppose that
his name would never have passed my lips.

So I turned away from Deacon Quirk, and
shut my mouth, and waited for him to finish.
Whether the idea began to struggle into his
mind that he might not have been making a
very comforting remark, I cannot say; but he
started very soon to go.

“Supposing you are right, and Royal was
saved at the eleventh hour,” he said at parting,

with one of his stolid efforts to be consolatory,
that are worse than his rebukes,
“if he is singing the song of Moses and the
Lamb (he pointed with his big, dingy thumb
at the ceiling), he does n't rebel against the
doings of Providence. All his affections are
subdued to God, — merged, as you might say,
— merged in worshipping before the great
White Throne. He does n't think this miser'ble
earthly spere of any importance, compared
with that eternal and exceeding weight
of glory. In the appropriate words of the
poet, —
Those are very spiritooal and scripteral lines,
and it 's very proper to reflect how true they
are.”

I saw him go out, and came up here and
locked myself in, and have been walking round
and round the room. I must have walked a
good while, for I feel as weak as a baby.

Can the man in any state of existence be
made to comprehend that he has been holding
me on the rack this whole evening?

Yet he came under a strict sense of duty,
and in the kindness of all the heart he has! I
know, or I ought to know, that he is a good
man, — far better in the sight of God to-night,
I do not doubt, than I am.

But it hurts, — it cuts, — that thing which he
said as he went out; because I suppose it must
be true; because it seems to me greater than
I can bear to have it true.

Roy, away in that dreadful Heaven, can have
no thought of me, cannot remember how I
loved him, how he left me all alone. The singing
and the worshipping must take up all his
time. God wants it all. He is a “Jealous
God.” I am nothing any more to Roy.

March 2.

And once I was much, — very much to him!

His Mamie, his poor Queen Mamie, — dearer,
he used to say, than all the world to him, — I
don't see how he can like it so well up there as
to forget her. Though Roy was a very good
boy. But this poor, wicked little Mamie, —
why, I fall to pitying her as if she were some
one else, and wish that some one would cry
over her a little. I can't cry.

Roy used to say a thing, — I have not the

words, but it was like this, — that one must be
either very young or very ungenerous, if one
could find time to pity one's self.

I have lain for two nights, with my eyes
open all night long. I thought that perhaps
I might see him. I have been praying for a
touch, a sign, only for something to break the
silence into which he has gone. But there is
no answer, none. The light burns blue, and
I see at last that it is morning, and go down
stairs alone, and so the day begins.

Something of Mrs. Browning's has been
keeping a dull mechanical time in my brain
all day.

But why must He take them? And why
should He keep them there? Shall we ever
see them framed in their glorious gloom?
Will He let us touch them them? Or must we
stand like a poor worshipper at a Cathedral,
looking up at his pictured saint afar off upon
the other side?

Has everything stopped just here? Our
talks together in the twilight, our planning
and hoping and dreaming together; our

walks and rides and laughing; our reading
and singing and loving, — these then are all
gone out forever?

God forgive the words! but Heaven will
never be Heaven to me without them.

March 4.

Perhaps I had better not write any more
here after this.

On looking over the leaves, I see that the
little green book has become an outlet for the
shallower part of pain.

Meta Tripp and Deacon Quirk, gossip and
sympathy that have buzzed into my trouble
and annoyed me like wasps (we are apt to
make more fuss over a wasp-sting than a sabrecut),
just that proportion of suffering which
alone can ever be put into words, — the surface.

I begin to understand what I never understood
till now, — what people mean by the
luxury of grief. No, I am sure that I never
understood it, because my pride suffered as
much as any part of me in that other time.
I would no more have spent two consecutive
hours drifting at the mercy of my thoughts,
than I would have put my hand into the furnace

fire. The right to mourn makes everything
different. Then, as to mother, I was very
young when she died, and father, though I
loved him, was never to me what Roy has
been.

This luxury of grief, like all luxuries, is
pleasurable. Though, as I was saying, it is
only the shallow part of one's heart — I imagine
that the deepest hearts have their shallows
— which can be filled by it, still it brings
a shallow relief.

Let it be confessed to this honest book, that,
driven to it by desperation, I found in it a
wretched sort of content.

Being a little stronger now physically, I
shall try to be a little braver; it will do no
harm to try. So I seem to see that it was
the content of poison, — salt-water poured
between shipwrecked lips.

At any rate, I mean to put the book away
and lock it up. Roy used to say that he did
not believe in journals. I begin to see why.