Читать книгу Coelebs In Search of a Wife - Hannah More - Страница 17

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The three days previous to my leaving London were passed with Sir John and Lady Belfield. Knowing I was on the wing for Hampshire, they promised to make their long intended visit to Stanley Grove during my stay there.

On the first of these days we were agreeably surprised at the appearance of Dr. Barlow, an old friend of Sir John, and the excellent rector of Mr. Stanley's parish. Being obliged to come to town on urgent business for a couple of days, he was charged to assure me of the cordial welcome which awaited me at the Grove. I was glad to make this early acquaintance with this highly respectable divine. I made a thousand inquiries about his neighbors, and expressed my impatience to know more of a family in whose characters I already felt a more than common interest.

"Sir," said he, "if you set me talking of Mr. Stanley, you must abide by the consequences of your indiscretion, and bear with the loquacity of which that subject never fails to make me guilty. He is a greater blessing to me as a friend, and to my parish as an example and a benefactor than I can describe." I assured him that he could not be too minute in speaking of a man whom I had been early taught to admire, by that exact judge of merit, my late father.

"Mr. Stanley," said the worthy doctor, "is about six-and-forty, his admirable wife is about six or seven years younger. He passed the early part of his life in London, in the best society. His commerce with the world was, to a mind like his, all pure gain; for he brought away from it all the good it had to give, without exchanging for it one particle of his own integrity. He acquired the air, manners, and sentiments of a gentleman, without any sacrifice of his sincerity. Indeed, he may be said to have turned his knowledge of the world to a religious account, for it has enabled him to recommend religion to those who do not like it well enough to forgive, for its sake, the least awkwardness of gesture, or inelegance of manner.

"When I became acquainted with the family," continued he, "I told Mrs. Stanley that I was afraid her husband hurt religion in one sense as much as he recommended it in another; for that some men who would forgive him his piety for the sake of his agreeableness, would be led to dislike religion more than ever in other men in whom the jewel was not so well set. 'We should like your religious men well enough,' will they say, 'if they all resembled Stanley.' Whereas the truth is, they do not so much like Mr. Stanley's religion, as bear with it for the pleasure which his other qualities afford them. She assured me that this was not altogether the case, for that his other qualities having pioneered his way, and hewed down the prejudices which the reputation of piety naturally raises, his endeavors to be useful to them were much facilitated, and he not only kept the ground he had gained, but was often able to turn this influence over his friends to a better account than they had intended. He converted their admiration of him into arms against their own errors.

"He possesses in perfection," continued Dr. Barlow, "that sure criterion of abilities, a great power over the minds of his acquaintance, and has in a high degree that rare talent, the art of conciliation without the aid of flattery. I have seen more men brought over to his opinion by a management derived from his knowledge of mankind, and by a principle which forbade his ever using this knowledge but for good purposes, than I ever observed in any other instance; and this without the slightest deviation from his scrupulous probity.

"He is master of one great advantage in conversation, that of not only knowing what to say that may be useful, but exactly when to say it; in knowing when to press a point, and when to forbear; in his sparing the self-love of a vain man, whom he wishes to reclaim, by contriving to make him feel himself wrong without making him appear ridiculous. The former he knows is easily pardoned, the latter never. He has studied the human heart long enough to know that to wound pride is not the way to cure, but to inflame it; and that exasperating self-conceit will never subdue it. He seldom, I believe, goes into company without an earnest desire to be useful to some one in it; but if circumstances are adverse; if the mollia tempora fandi does not present itself; he knows he should lose more than they would gain, by trying to make the occasion when he does not find it. And I have often heard him say, that when he can not benefit others, or be benefited by them, he endeavors to benefit himself by the disappointment, which does his own mind as much good by humbling him with the sense of his own uselessness, as the subject he wished to have introduced, might have done them.

"The death of his only son, about six years ago, who had just entered his eighth year, is the only interruption his family has had to a felicity so unbroken, that I told Mr. Stanley some such calamity was necessary to convince him that he was not to be put off with so poor a portion as this world has to give. I added that I should have been tempted to doubt his being in the favor of God, if he had totally escaped chastisement. A circumstance which to many parents would have greatly aggravated the blow, rather lightened it to him. The boy, had he lived to be of age, was to have had a large independent fortune from a distant relation, which will now go to a remote branch, unless there should be another son. 'This wealth,' said he to me, 'might have proved the boy's snare, and this independence his destruction. He who does all things well has afflicted the parents, but he has saved the child.' The loss of an only son, however, sat heavy on his heart, but it was the means of enabling him to glorify God by his submission, I should rather say, by his acquiescence. Submission is only yielding to what we can not help. Acquiescence is a more sublime kind of resignation. It is a conviction that the divine will is holy, just, and good. He once said to me, 'We were too fond of the mercy, but not sufficiently grateful for it. We loved him so passionately that we might have forgotten who bestowed him. To preserve us from this temptation, God in great mercy withdrew him. Let us turn our eyes from the one blessing we have lost, to the countless mercies which are continued to us, and especially to the hand which confers them; to the hand which, if we continue to murmur, may strip us of our remaining blessings.'

"I can not," continued Dr. Barlow, "make a higher eulogium of Mrs. Stanley than to say, that she is every way worthy of the husband whose happiness she makes. They have a large family of lovely daughters of all ages. Lucilla, the eldest, is near nineteen; you would think me too poetical were I to say she adorns every virtue with every grace; and yet I should only speak the simple truth. Ph[oe]be, who is just turned fifteen, has not less vivacity and sweetness than her sister, but, from her extreme naïveté and warmheartedness, she has somewhat less discretion; and her father says, that her education has afforded him, not less pleasure, but more trouble, for the branches shot so fast as to call for more pruning."

Before I had time to thank the good doctor for his interesting little narrative, a loud rap announced company. It was Lady Bab Lawless. With her usual versatility she plunged at once into every subject with every body. She talked to Lady Belfield of the news and her nursery, of poetry with Sir John, of politics with me, and religion with Dr. Barlow. She talked well upon most of these points, and not ill upon any of them; for she had the talent of embellishing subjects of which she knew but little, and a kind of conjectural sagacity and rash dexterity, which prevented her from appearing ignorant, even when she knew nothing. She thought that a full confidence in her own powers was the sure way to raise them in the estimation of others, and it generally succeeded.

Turning suddenly to Lady Belfield, she said, "Pray my dear, look at my flowers." "They are beautiful roses, indeed," said Lady Belfield, "and as exquisitely exact as if they were artificial." "Which in truth they are," replied Lady Bab. "Your mistake is a high compliment to them, but not higher than they deserve. Look especially at these roses in my cap. You positively shall go and get some at the same place." "Indeed," said Lady Belfield, "I am thinking of laying aside flowers, though my children are hardly old enough to take them." "What affectation!" replied Lady Bab, "why you are not above two or three and thirty; I am almost as old again, and yet I don't think of giving up flowers to my children, or my grandchildren, who will be soon wanting them. Indeed, I only now wear white roses." I discovered by this, that white roses made the same approximation to sobriety in dress, that three tables made to it in cards. "Seriously, though," continued Lady Bab, "you must and shall go and buy some of Fanny's flowers. I need only tell you, it will be the greatest charity you ever did, and then I know you won't rest till you have been. A beautiful girl maintains her dying mother by making and selling flowers. Here is her direction," throwing a card on the table. "Oh no, this is not it. I have forgot the name, but it is within two doors of your hair-dresser, in what d'ye call the lane, just out of Oxford-street. It is a poor miserable hole, but her roses are as bright as if they grew in the gardens of Armida." She now rung the bell violently, saying she had overstaid her time, though she had not been in the house ten minutes.

Next morning I attended Lady Belfield to the exhibition. In driving home through one of the narrow passages near Oxford-street, I observed that we were in the street where the poor flower-maker lived. Lady Belfield directed her footman to inquire for the house. We went into it, and in a small but clean room, up three pair of stairs, we found a very pretty and very genteel young girl at work on her gay manufacture. The young woman presented her elegant performances with an air of uncommon grace and modesty.

She was the more interesting, because the delicacy of her appearance seemed to proceed from ill health, and a tear stood in her eye while she exhibited her works. "You do not seem well, my dear," said Lady Belfield, with a kindness which was natural to her. "I never care about my own health, madam," replied she, "but I fear my dear mother is dying." She stopped, and the tears which she had endeavored to restrain now flowed plentifully down her cheeks. "Where is your mother, child?" said Lady Belfield. "In the next room, madam." "Let us see her," said her ladyship, "if it won't too much disturb her." So saying, she led the way, and I followed her.

We found the sick woman lying on a little poor, but clean, bed, pale and emaciated, but she did not seem so near her end as Fanny's affection had made her apprehend. After some kind expressions of concern, Lady Belfield inquired into their circumstances, which she found were deplorable. "But for that dear girl, madam, I should have perished with want," said the good woman; "since our misfortunes I have had nothing to support me but what she earns by making these flowers. She has ruined her own health, by sitting up the greatest part of the night to procure me necessaries, while she herself lives on a crust."

I was so affected with this scene, that I drew Lady Belfield into the next room; "if we can not preserve the mother, at least let us save the daughter from destruction," said I; "you may command my purse." "I was thinking of the same thing," she replied. "Pray, my good girl, what sort of education have you had?" "O, madam," said she, "one much too high for my situation. But my parents, intending to qualify me for a governess, as the safest way of providing for me, have had me taught every thing necessary for that employment. I have had the best masters, and I hope I have not misemployed my time." "How comes it then," said I, "that you were not placed out in some family?" "What, sir! and leave my dear mother helpless and forlorn? I had rather live only on my tea and dry bread, which indeed I have done for many months, and supply her little wants, than enjoy all the luxuries in the world at a distance from her."

"What were your misfortunes occasioned by?" said I, while Lady Belfield was talking with the mother. "One trouble followed another, sir," said she, "but what most completely ruined us, and sent my father to prison, and brought a paralytic stroke on my mother; was his being arrested for a debt of seven hundred pounds. This sum, which he had promised to pay, was long due to him for laces, and to my mother for millinery and fancy dresses, from a lady who has not paid it to this moment, and my father is dead, and my mother dying! This sum would have saved them both!"

She was turning away to conceal the excess of her grief, when a venerable clergyman entered the room. It was the rector of the parish, who came frequently to administer spiritual consolation to the poor woman. Lady Belfield knew him slightly, and highly respected his character. She took him aside, and questioned him as to the disposition and conduct of these people, especially the young woman. His testimony was highly satisfactory. The girl, he said, had not only had an excellent education, but her understanding and principles were equally good. He added, that he reckoned her beauty among her misfortunes. It made good people afraid to take her into the house, and exposed her to danger from those of the opposite description.

I put my purse into Lady Belfield's hands, declining to make any present myself, lest, after the remark he had just made, I should incur the suspicions of the worthy clergyman.

We promised to call again the next day, and took our leave, but not till we had possessed ourselves of as many flowers as she could spare. I begged that we might stop and send some medical assistance to the sick woman, for though it was evident that all relief was hopeless, yet it would be a comfort to the affectionate girl's heart to know that nothing was omitted which might restore her mother.