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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866
Now can the people trust these politicians to the extent of placing in their hands the powers of their State governments, and the representative power of their States in Congress, without exacting irreversible guaranties necessary for the public safety? Can the people uphold, as against Congress, a President whose mind seems to be so much under the influence of these men that he publicly insults the legislature of the nation? Is the President to be supported because he sustains State Rights against Centralization? The only centralization which is to be feared, in this case, is the centralization of all the powers of the government in its executive branch. Is the President to be supported because he represents the principle of "no taxation without representation"? The object of Congress is to see to it that there shall not be a "representation" which, in respect to the national debt, shall endeavor to abolish "taxation" altogether,—which, in respect to the freedmen, shall tax permanently a population it misrepresents,—which, in respect to the balance of political power, shall use the black freemen as a basis of representation, while it excludes them from having a voice in the selection of the representatives. Is the President to be supported because he is determined the defeated South shall not be oppressed? The purpose of Congress is not to commit, but prevent oppression; not to oppress the Rebel whites, but to guard from oppression the loyal blacks; not to refuse full political privileges to the late armed enemies of the nation, but to avoid the intolerable ignominy of giving those enemies the power to play the robber and tyrant over its true and tried friends. Is the President to be supported because he is magnanimous and merciful? Congress doubts the magnanimity which sacrifices the innocent in order to propitiate the guilty, and the mercy which abandons the helpless and weak to the covetousness of the powerful and strong. Is the President to be supported because he aims to represent the whole people? Congress may well suspect that he represents the least patriotic portion, especially when he puts a stigma on all ardent loyalty by denouncing as equally traitorous the "extremists of both sections," and thus makes no distinction between the "fanaticism" which perilled everything in fighting for the government, and the "fanaticism" which perilled everything in fighting against it. And, finally, is the President to be supported because he is the champion of conciliation and peace? Congress believes that his conciliation is the compromise of vital principles; that his peace is the surrender of human rights; that his plan but postpones the operation of causes of discord it fails to eradicate; and that, if the war has taught us nothing else, it has taught us this,—spreading it out indeed before all eyes in letters of fire and blood,—that no conciliation is possible which sacrifices the defenceless, and that no peace is permanent which is unfounded in justice.
GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY
CHAPTER XV
One day, at dinner, Father Francis let them know that he was ordered to another part of the county, and should no longer be able to enjoy their hospitality. "I am sorry for it," said Griffith, heartily; and Mrs. Gaunt echoed him out of politeness; but, when husband and wife came to talk it over in private, she let out all of a sudden, and for the first time, that the spiritual coldness of her governor had been a great misfortune to her all these years. "His mind," said she, "is set on earthly things. Instead of helping the angels to raise my thoughts to heaven and heavenly things, he drags me down to earth. O that man's soul was born without wings!"
Griffith ventured to suggest that Francis was, nevertheless, an honest man, and no mischief-maker.
Mrs. Gaunt soon disposed of this, "O, there are plenty of honest men in the world," said she; "but in one's spiritual director one needs something more than that, and I have pined for it like a thirsty soul in the desert all these years. Poor good man, I love him dearly; but, thank Heaven, he is going."
The next time Francis came, Mrs. Gaunt took an opportunity to inquire, but in the most delicate way, who was to be his successor.
"Well," said he, "I fear you will have no one for the present: I mean no one very fit to direct you in practical matters; but in all that tends directly to the welfare of the soul you will have one young in years but old in good works, and very much my superior in piety."
"I think you do yourself injustice, Father," said Mrs. Gaunt, sweetly. She was always polite; and, to be always polite, you must be sometimes insincere.
"No, my daughter," said Father Francis, quietly, "thank God, I know my own defects, and they teach me a little humility. I discharge my religious duties punctually, and find them wholesome and composing; but I lack that holy unction, that spiritual imagination, by which more favored Christians have fitted themselves to converse with angels. I have too much body, I suppose and too little soul. I own to you that I cannot look forward to the hour of death as a happy release from the burden of the flesh. Life is pleasant to me; immortality tempts me not; the pure in heart delight me; but in the sentimental part of religion I feel myself dry and barren. I fear God, and desire to do his will; but I cannot love him as the saints have done; my spirit is too dull, too gross. I have often been unable to keep pace with you in your pious and lofty aspirations; and this softens my regret at quitting you; for you will be in better hands, my daughter."
Mrs. Gaunt was touched by her old friend's humility, and gave him both hands, with the tears in her eyes. But she said nothing; the subject was delicate; and really she could not honestly contradict him.
A day or two afterwards he brought his successor to the house; a man so remarkable that Mrs. Gaunt almost started at first sight of him. Born of an Italian mother, his skin was dark, and his eyes coal-black; yet his ample but symmetrical forehead was singularly white and delicate. Very tall and spare, and both face and figure were of that exalted kind which make ordinary beauty seem dross. In short, he was one of those ethereal priests the Roman Catholic Church produces every now and then by way of incredible contrast to the thickset peasants in black that form her staple. This Brother Leonard looked and moved like a being who had come down from some higher sphere to pay the world a very little visit, and be very kind and patient with it all the time.
He was presented to Mrs. Gaunt, and bowed calmly, coldly, and with a certain mixture of humility and superiority, and gave her but one tranquil glance, then turned his eyes inward as before.
Mrs. Gaunt, on the contrary, was almost fluttered at being presented so suddenly to one who seemed to her Religion embodied. She blushed, and looked timidly at him, and was anxious not to make an unfavorable impression.
She found it, however, very difficult to make any impression at all. Leonard had no small talk, and met her advances in that line with courteous monosyllables; and when she, upon this, turned and chatted with Father Francis, he did not wait for an opening to strike in, but sought a shelter from her commonplaces in his own thoughts.
Then Mrs. Gaunt yielded to her genuine impulse, and began to talk about the prospects of the Church, and what might be done to reconvert the British Isles to the true faith. Her cheek flushed, and her eye shone with the theme; and Francis smiled paternally; but the young priest drew back. Mrs. Gaunt saw in a moment that he disapproved of a woman meddling with so high a matter uninvited. If he had said so, she had spirit enough to have resisted; but the cold, lofty look of polite but grave disapproval dashed her courage and reduced her to silence.
She soon recovered so far as to be piqued. She gave her whole attention to Francis, and, on parting with her guests, she courtesied coldly to Leonard, and said to Francis, "Ah, my dear friend, I foresee I shall miss you terribly."
I am afraid this pretty speech was intended as a side cut at Leonard.
"But on the impassive ice the lightnings play."Her new confessor retired, and left her with a sense of inferiority, which would have been pleasing to her woman's nature if Leonard himself had appeared less conscious of it, and had shown ever so little approval of herself; but, impressed upon her too sharply, it piqued and mortified her.
However, like a gallant champion, she awaited another encounter. She so rarely failed to please, she could not accept defeat.
Father Francis departed.
Mrs. Gaunt soon found that she really missed him. She had got into a habit of running to her confessor twice a week, and to her director nearly every day that he did not come of his own accord to her.
Her good sense showed her at once she must not take up Brother Leonard's time in this way. She went a long time, for her, without confession; at last she sent a line to Leonard asking him when it would be convenient to him to confess her. Leonard wrote back to say that he received penitents in the chapel for two hours after matins every Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday.
This implied, first come, first served; and was rather galling to Mrs. Gaunt.
However, she rode one morning, with her groom behind her, and had to wait until an old woman in a red cloak and black bonnet was first disposed of. She confessed a heap. And presently the soft but chill tones of Brother Leonard broke in with these freezing words: "My daughter, excuse me; but confession is one thing, gossip about ourselves is another."
This distinction was fine, but fatal. The next minute the fair penitent was in her carriage, her eyes filled with tears of mortification.
"The man is a spiritual machine," said she; and her pride was mortified to the core.
In these happy days she used to open her heart to her husband; and she went so far as to say some bitter little feminine things of her new confessor before him.
He took no notice at first; but at last he said one day: "Well, I am of you mind; he is very poor company compared with that jovial old blade, Francis. But why so many words, Kate? You don't use to bite twice at a cherry; if the milk-sop is not to your taste, give him the sack and be d–d to him." And with this homely advice Squire Gaunt dismissed the matter and went to the stable to give his mare a ball.
So you see Mrs. Gaunt was discontented with Francis for not being an enthusiast, and nettled with Leonard for being one.
The very next Sunday morning she went and heard Leonard preach. His first sermon was an era in her life. After twenty years of pulpit prosers, there suddenly rose before her a sacred orator; an orator born; blest with that divine and thrilling eloquence that no heart can really resist. He prepared his great theme with art at first; but, once warm, it carried him away, and his hearers went with him like so many straws on the flood, and in the exercise of this great gift the whole man seemed transfigured; abroad, he was a languid, rather slouching priest, who crept about, a picture of delicate humility, but with a shade of meanness; for, religious prejudice apart, it is ignoble to sweep the wall in passing as he did, and eye the ground: but, once in the pulpit, his figure rose and swelled majestically, and seemed to fly over them all like a guardian angel's; his sallow cheek burned, his great Italian eye shot black lightning at the impenitent, and melted ineffably when he soothed the sorrowful.
Observe that great, mean, brown bird in the Zoölogical Gardens, which sits so tame on its perch, and droops and slouches like a drowsy duck! That is the great and soaring eagle. Who would believe it, to look at him? Yet all he wants is to be put in his right place instead of his wrong. He is not himself in man's cages, belonging to God's sky. Even so Leonard was abroad in the world, but at home in the pulpit; and so he somewhat crept and slouched about the parish, but soared like an eagle in his native air.
Mrs. Gaunt sat thrilled, enraptured, melted. She hung upon his words; and when they ceased, she still sat motionless, spell-bound; loath to believe that accents so divine could really come to an end.
Even whilst all the rest were dispersing, she sat quite still, and closed her eyes. For her soul was too high-strung now to endure the chit-chat she knew would attack her on the road home,—chit-chat that had been welcome enough coming home from other preachers.
And by this means she came hot and undiluted to her husband; she laid her white hand on his shoulder, and said, "O Griffith, I have heard the voice of God."
Griffith looked alarmed, and rather shocked than elated.
Mrs. Gaunt observed that, and tacked on, "Speaking by the lips of his servant." But she fired again the next moment, and said, "The grave hath given us back St. Paul in the Church's need; and I have heard him this day."
"Good heavens! where?"
"At St. Mary's Chapel."
Then Griffith looked very incredulous. Then she gushed out with, "What, because it is a small chapel, you think a great saint cannot be in it. Why, our Saviour was born in a stable, if you go to that."
"Well, but my dear, consider," said Griffith; "who ever heard of comparing a living man to St. Paul, for preaching? Why, he was an apostle, for one thing; and there are no apostles now-a-days. He made Felix tremble on his throne, and almost persuaded Whatsename, another heathen gentleman, to be a Christian."
"That is true," said the lady, thoughtfully; "but he sent one man that we know of to sleep. Catch Brother Leonard sending any man to sleep! And then nobody will ever say of him that he was long preaching."
"Why, I do say it," replied Griffith. "By the same token, I have been waiting dinner for you this half-hour, along of his preaching."
"Ah, that's because you did not hear him," retorted Mrs. Gaunt; "if you had, it would have seemed too short, and you would have forgotten all about your dinner for once."
Griffith made no reply. He even looked vexed at her enthusiastic admiration. She saw, and said no more. But after dinner she retired to the grove, and thought of the sermon and the preacher: thought of them all the more that she was discouraged from enlarging on them. And it would have been kinder, and also wiser, of Griffith, if he had encouraged her to let out her heart to him on this subject, although it did not happen to interest him. A husband should not chill an enthusiastic wife, and, above all, should never separate himself from her favorite topic, when she loves him well enough to try and share it with him.
Mrs. Gaunt, however, though her feelings were quick, was not cursed with a sickly or irritable sensibility; nor, on the other hand, was she one of those lovely little bores who cannot keep their tongues off their favorite theme. She quietly let the subject drop for a whole week; but the next Sunday morning she asked her husband if he would do her a little favor.
"I'm more likely to say ay than nay," was the cheerful reply.
"It is just to go to chapel with me; and then you can judge for yourself."
Griffith looked rather sheepish at this proposal; and he said he could not very well do that.
"Why not, dearest, just for once?"
"Well, you see, parties run so high in this parish; and everything one does is noted. Why, if I was to go to chapel, they'd say directly, 'Look at Griffith Gaunt, he is so tied to his wife's apron he is going to give up the faith of his ancestors.'"
"The faith of your ancestors! That is a good jest. The faith of your grandfather at the outside: the faith of your ancestors was the faith of mine and me."
"Well, don't let us differ about a word," said Griffith; "you know what I mean. Did ever I ask you to go to church with me? and if I were to ask you, would you go?"
Mrs. Gaunt colored; but would not give in. "That is not the same thing," said she. "I do profess religion: you do not. You scarce think of God on week-days; and, indeed, never mention his name, except in the way of swearing; and on Sunday you go to church—for what? to doze before dinner, you know you do. Come now, with you 't is no question of religion, but just of nap or no nap: for Brother Leonard won't let you sleep, I warn you fairly."
Griffith shook his head. "You are too hard on me, wife. I know I am not so good as you are, and never shall be; but that is not the fault of the Protestant faith, which hath reared so many holy men: and some of 'em our ancestors burnt alive, and will burn in hell themselves for the deed. But, look you, sweetheart, if I'm not a saint I'm a gentleman, and, say I wear my faith loose, I won't drag it in the dirt none the more for that. So you must excuse me."
Mrs. Gaunt was staggered; and if Griffith had said no more, I think she would have withdrawn her request, and so the matter ended. But persons unversed in argument can seldom let well alone; and this simple Squire must needs go on to say, "Besides, Kate, it would come to the parson's ears, and he is a friend of mine, you know. Why, I shall be sure to meet him to-morrow."
"Ay," retorted the lady, "by the cover-side. Well, when you do, tell him you refused your wife your company for fear of offending the religious views of a fox-hunting parson."
"Nay, Kate," said Griffith, "this is not to ask thy man to go with thee; 't is to say go he must, willy nilly." With that he rose and rang the bell. "Order the chariot," said he, "I am to go with our dame."
Mrs. Gaunt's face beamed with gratified pride and affection.
The chariot came round, and Griffith handed his dame in. He then gave an involuntary sigh, and followed her with a hang-dog look.
She heard the sigh, and saw the look, and laid her hand quickly on his shoulder, and said, gently but coldly, "Stay you at home, my dear. We shall meet at dinner."
"As you will," said he, cheerfully: and they went their several ways. He congratulated himself on her clemency, and his own escape.
She went along, sorrowful at having to drink so great a bliss alone; and thought it unkind and stupid of Griffith not to yield with a good grace if he could yield at all: and, indeed, women seem cleverer than men in this, that, when they resign their wills, they do it graciously and not by halves. Perhaps they are more accustomed to knock under; and you know practice makes perfect.
But every smaller feeling was swept away by the preacher, and Mrs. Gaunt came home full of pious and lofty thoughts.
She found her husband seated at the dinner-table, with one turnip before him; and even that was not comestible; for it was his grandfather's watch, with a face about the size of a new-born child's. "Forty-five minutes past one, Kate," said he, ruefully.
"Well, why not bid them serve the dinner?" said she with an air of consummate indifference.
"What, dine alone o' Sunday? Why, you know I couldn't eat a morsel without you, set opposite."
Mrs. Gaunt smiled affectionately. "Well then, my dear, we had better order dinner an hour later next Sunday."
"But that will upset the servants, and spoil their Sunday."
"And am I to be their slave?" said Mrs. Gaunt, getting a little warm. "Dinner! dinner! What? shall I starve my soul, by hurrying away from the oracles of God to a sirloin? O these gross appetites! how they deaden the immortal half, and wall out Heaven's music! For my part, I wish there was no such thing as eating and drinking. 'T is like falling from Heaven down into the mud, to come back from such divine discourse and be greeted with 'Dinner! dinner! dinner!'"
The next Sunday, after waiting half an hour for her, Griffith began his dinner without her.
And this time, on her arrival, instead of remonstrating with her, he excused himself. "Nothing," said he, "upsets a man's temper like waiting for his dinner."
"Well, but you have not waited."
"Yes, I did, a good half-hour. Till I could wait no longer."
"Well, dear, if I were you I would not have waited at all, or else waited till your wife came home."
"Ah, dame, that is all very well for you to say. You could live on hearing of sermons and smelling to rosebuds. You don't know what 't is to be a hungry man."
The next Sunday he sat sadly down, and finished his dinner without her. And she came home and sat down to half-empty dishes; and ate much less than she used when she had him to keep her company in it.
Griffith, looking on disconsolate, told her she was more like a bird pecking than a Christian eating of a Sunday.
"No matter, child," said she; "so long as my soul is filled with the bread of Heaven."
Leonard's eloquence suffered no diminution, either in quantity or quality; and, after a while, Gaunt gave up his rule of never dining abroad on the Sunday. If his wife was not punctual, his stomach was; and he had not the same temptation to dine at home he used to have.
And indeed, by degrees, instead of quietly enjoying his wife's company on that sweet day, he got to see less of her than on the week-days.
CHAPTER XVI
Your mechanical preacher flings his words out happy-go-lucky; but the pulpit orator, like every other orator, feels his people's pulse as he speaks, and vibrates with them, and they with him.
So Leonard soon discovered he had a great listener in Mrs. Gaunt: she was always there whenever he preached, and her rapt attention never flagged. Her gray eyes never left his face, and, being upturned, the full orbs came out in all their grandeur, and seemed an angel's, come down from heaven to hear him: for, indeed, to a very dark man, as Leonard was, the gentle radiance of a true Saxon beauty seems always more or less angelic.
By degrees this face became a help to the orator. In preaching he looked sometimes to it for sympathy, and lo, it was sure to be melting with sympathy. Was he led on to higher or deeper thoughts than most of his congregation could understand, he looked to this face to understand him; and lo, it had quite understood him, and was beaming with intelligence.
From a help and an encouragement it became a comfort and a delight to him.
On leaving the pulpit and cooling, he remembered its owner was no angel, but a woman of the world, and had put him frivolous questions.
The illusion, however, was so beautiful, that Leonard, being an imaginative man, was unwilling to dispel it by coming into familiar contact with Mrs. Gaunt. So he used to make his assistant visit her, and receive her when she came to confess, which was very rarely; for she was discouraged by her first reception.
Brother Leonard lived in a sort of dwarf monastery, consisting of two cottages, an oratory, and a sepulchre. The two latter were old, but the cottages had been built expressly for him and another seminary priest who had been invited from France. Inside, these cottages were little more than ceils; only the bigger had a kitchen which was a glorious place compared with the parlor; for it was illuminated with bright pewter plates, copper vessels, brass candlesticks, and a nice clean woman, with a plain gown kilted over a quilted silk petticoat; Betty Scarf, an old servant of Mrs. Gaunt's, who had married, and was now the Widow Gough.
She stood at the gate one day, as Mrs. Gaunt drove by; and courtesied, all beaming.
Mrs. Gaunt stopped the carriage, and made some kind and patronizing inquiries about her; and it ended in Betty asking her to come in and see her place. Mrs. Gaunt looked a little shy at that, and did not move. "Nay, they are both abroad till supper time," said Betty, reading her in a moment by the light of sex. Then Mrs. Gaunt smiled, and got out of her carriage. Betty took her in and showed her everything in doors and out. Mrs. Gaunt looked mighty demure and dignified, but scanned everything closely, only without seeming too curious.
The cold gloom of the parlor struck her. She shuddered, and said, "This would give me the vapors. But, doubtless, angels come and brighten it for him."
"Not always," said Betty. "I do see him with his head in his hand by the hour, and hear him sigh ever so loud as I pass the door. Why, one day he was fain to have me and my spinning-wheel aside him. Says he, 'Let me hear thy busy wheel, and see thee ply it.' 'And welcome,' says I. So I sat in his room, and span, and he sat a gloating of me as if he had never seen a woman spin hemp afore (he is a very simple man): and presently says he—but what signifies what he said?"
