Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850.

By virtues, I mean acts which are performed with a certain difficulty, under the sense of responsibility to duty, under the self-discipline of right principle; by qualities, I mean what is spontaneous. Constitutional good qualities are spontaneous. Such as natural sweetness of temper – natural delicacy of feeling – natural intrepidity; others are the result of habit, and end by being spontaneous – by being a second nature: justly are habits called so. Gentleness of tone and manner – attention to conventional proprieties – to people's little wants and feelings – are of these. This same politeness being a sort of summary of such, I will end this little didactic digression by advising all those who have the rearing of the young in their hands, carefully to form them in matters of this description, so that they shall attain habits– so that the delicacy of their perceptions, the gentleness of their tones and gestures, the propriety of their dress, the politeness of their manners, shall become spontaneous acts, done without reference to self, as things of course. By which means, not only much that is disagreeable to their is avoided, and much that is amiable attained, but a great deal of reference to self is in after life escaped; and temptations to the faults of vanity – pride – envious comparisons with our neighbors, and the feebleness of self-distrust very considerably diminished.

And so, to return, the politeness of the general and Mrs. Melwyn led to this result, the leaving Miss Arnold undisturbed to make her reflections and her observations, before commencing the task which Mrs. Melwyn, for the last time, undertook for her, of reading the newspaper and playing the hit.

Lettice could not help feeling rejoiced to be spared this sort of public exhibition of her powers, till she was in a slight degree better acquainted with her ground; and she was glad to know, without being directly told, what it was customary to do in these respects. But in every other point of view, she had better, perhaps, have been reader than listener. For, if she gained a lesson as to the routine to be followed, she paid for it by receiving at the same time, a considerably alarming impression of the general's ways of proceeding.

"Shall I read the newspaper this evening?" began Mrs. Melwyn, timidly.

"I don't care if you do," roughly.

Polite men, be it observed, en passant, do not at all make it a rule to exercise that habit to their wives. The wife is a thing apart from the rest of the world, out of the category of such proprieties. To be rude to his wife is no impeachment of a man's gentleman-like manners at all.

"Is there any thing worth reading in it?"

"I am sure I don't know what you will think worth reading. Shall I begin with the leading article?"

"What is it all about?"

"I am sure I can't say."

"Can't you look?"

"The sugar question, I think."

"Well, what has the fool to say about that?"

"The speech of Lord **** last night upon the much discussed subject of the sugar question, has no doubt been read and commented upon, in their various ways, and according to their different impressions – shall we say prejudices? – by our readers. The performance, it is upon all hands agreed, was masterly, and, as far as eloquence is concerned, that the accomplished statesman who uttered this remarkable speech did only justice to…"

"Well – well – well —well," in a sneering tone – "I really do wonder how long you could go on droning and dinning, and dinning and droning such palpably empty editorial nonsense as that into a man's ears. Now, I would be glad to ask you – merely to ask you, as a rational woman, Mrs. Melwyn – what possible amusement or profit can be drawn from a long exordium which says absolutely nothing – tells one absolutely nothing but what every one knew before – stuff with which all editors of newspapers seem to think it necessary to preface their remarks. What in the name of – is the use of wasting your breath and my patience – can't you skip? Are you a mere reading machine, madam?"

"Shall I pass on to the next subject?"

"No, that's not my meaning – if you could take a meaning. What I want is only what every rational person expects when these confounded lucubrations of a stupid newspaper editor are read up – that the reader will have the sense to leave all these useless phrases and useless syllables out, and give the pith and marrow to the listener. Well – well, never mind – if you can't, you can't: get on, at all events."

Mrs. Melwyn colored faintly, looked nervous and uneasy – glanced down the columns of the newspaper, and hesitated.

"Well – can't you go on? What's the use of sitting there looking like a child of six years old, who's afraid of being whipped? If you can't, you can't – if you haven't the sense you haven't, but for – sake get on."

"'Mr. **** rose, and in a manner upon which we can not exactly bestow our approbation, but which, nevertheless, seemed to us in an unaccountable manner to obtain the ear and the attention of a very crowded house, &c., &c.'"

"There you are again! why the deuce can't you pass over all that, and tell us what the confounded blockheads on that side did really say?"

"I read this debate to you yesterday, you know. These are only the editor's remarks upon it. Shall I give you the summary of last night's debate?"

"No, let's hear what the fool says upon this cursed sugar question. He's against the measure, that's one comfort."

"He does not seem to be so exactly," glancing down the page.

"I'll take the liberty of judging that matter myself, Mrs. Melwyn, if you'll only be so particularly obliging as to read on."

Which she did. Now reproached for reading in such a low, cluttering manner, with that d – d soft voice of hers, that it was impossible to hear; and when she raised it, asked, "What the deuce was the use of shouting so as to be heard by the fellows in the servants' hall?"

In this style the newspaper was at last, for better for worse, blundered through, in the most uncomfortable manner possible, by the terrified reader.

Lettice sat by, deeply attentive. She was a brave, high-spirited girl, and she did not feel dismayed; her predominant sentiment was self-congratulation that she should be able to spare that sweet, soft, kind Mrs. Melwyn the ungrateful task.

She sat observing, and laying down her own plans of proceeding. It was not the first time in her life she had been exposed to what is called scolding; a thing every day, I verily believe – and am most happy to do so – going more and more out of fashion, though still retained, as a habit, by many people otherwise well-meaning enough. It was retained in its full vigor by the general, who was not well-meaning at all; he usually meant nothing on earth by what he did, but the indulgence of the present humor, good, bad, or indifferent. Lettice had lived in a sphere of life where this sort of domestic violence used to be very common; and she had learned to bear it, even from the lips of those she loved, with patience. She knew this very well, and she thought to herself, "if I could get into the habit of hardly caring for it from those very near and dear to me, surely it will be easy enough to meet it with indifference from a poor, cross, peevish, suffering old man, whom I don't care for in the least. The way must be, to get into the habit of it from the first, to let the words

"Pass by me as the idle wind which I regard not."

I must put all my vanity, all my spirit, all my own little tempers, quietly out of the way; and never trouble myself with what he says, but go reading on in the best way I can, to please him, but with the most unruffled outward appearance of tranquillity; and the utmost secret indifference as to whether I succeed or not. He shall be sooner tired of scolding, than I of looking as if I never heard it. He'll give over if I can persevere, instead of looking all colors and all ways, as that dear, gentle Mrs. Melwyn does."

The trial at backgammon was, if such a thing could be, worse. It seemed as if it was impossible to give satisfaction here. The general not only played his own game, but insisted upon playing that of his adversary; and was by turns angry at her stupidity in missing an advantage through want of skill, asking, "What could be the possible interest or pleasure of playing with such a mere child?" and vexed, if the plan he pointed out ended in his own discomfiture, for he could not bear to lose.

Backgammon, too, was an unlucky game to be played with one of a temper such as his. Every favorable throw of the dice, it is true, filled him with a disagreeable sarcastic exultation; but a positively bad one, and still more, a succession of bad ones, drove him furious. After a long course of provoking throws, such as sometimes happen, he would seem half mad, storm, curse, and swear, in the most ridiculous, if it had not been blasphemous, manner; and sometimes end by banging the tables together, and vowing he would never play at this confounded game again as long as he lived.

There was an exhibition of this sort that very evening. Mrs. Melwyn looked much distressed, and almost ashamed, as she glanced at Lettice to see how she took it; but Lettice appeared to be too much engaged with a knot in her netting to seem to take it at all, which evidently relieved Mrs. Melwyn. The scene had not, however, been lost upon our friend, who had observed it with a smile of secret contempt.

Mentally, however, congratulating herself upon her good, robust nerves; such things, she well knew, being perilous to those cursed with delicacy of that sort. The best endeavors, the best intentions, would be without avail in such cases, such sufferers would find their powers of endurance destroyed by these successive acts of violence, till it would be impossible to meet them tolerably. Again she looked at Mrs. Melwyn, and with great pity. Again she rejoiced in the idea of saving her from what she perceived was indeed, to such a frame and temper as hers, a source of very great suffering; and again she resolved to keep up her own spirits, and maintain the only true defense, courage and indifference. She felt sure, if she could only, by a little effort, do this for a short time, the effort would terminate in a habit; after which it would cost her little or nothing more.

The general, though polite to Lettice in their first communications, held her in far too little esteem to care one doit what he did or said before her. He was an excessively proud man; and the idea that a girl, so greatly his inferior in every way, should keep him in check, or venture even to make a remark upon him, far less presume to judge his conduct, never entered his head. I wonder what he would have felt, if he could have been made aware of that secret smile.

Now a tray with wine, spirits, and water, was introduced. The general took his accustomed glass of whisky and water, then opened his cigar-box, and began to smoke. This process invariably made Mrs. Melwyn feel rather sick, and she rose this evening to go away; but being asked what she was moving for, she resumed her seat, and sat till two cigars had been smoked, and the clock told half-past ten; when, as the general loved early hours, she was suffered to take her departure.

The servant entered with lighted candles. Mrs. Melwyn took one, and bade him give Miss Arnold another; and they went up stairs together.

"Good night, my dear," said the lady of the house, with a wearied, worn air, and a tone in which there was a good deal of sadness.

She never could get used to these scenes, poor thing; every time the general was cross she felt it acutely; he had grown dreadfully cross since Catherine married. Mrs. Melwyn hardly knew what to do with him, or how to bear it.

"Good night, my dear, I hope you will sleep comfortably."

"Can I be of any further use to you, madam, to-night."

"Oh, no, thank you; don't come into my dressing-room – Randall is very particular: she considers that her own territory. She does not like any one to come in, especially at night; but just let me look whether your fire burns," she added, entering Lettice's room.

The fire was blazing merrily; Mrs. Melwyn put her candle down upon the chimney-piece, and stood there a little while before it, looking again irresolute. It seemed as if she wished, and did not know how, to say something. Lettice stood at a short distance, respectfully expectant.

"I declare it's very cold to-night," with a little shiver.

"I did not feel it cold, but then this is so thoroughly comfortable a house."

"Do you think so? Shall you find it so? The wind comes sharply down the passages sometimes, but I wish, I hope, you won't care much for that … or … or … or … any little painful things; they can't be helped, you know, in this world."

"Ah, madam! if I may venture to say so, there is one good thing one gets out of great hardships – little things do seem so very little afterward."

"Ay, if they are really little, but – "

"Things that are … that don't seem little to people of more gentle nurture, who have lived in a different way, seem, and are, little to those who have roughed it till they are themselves roughened. That was what I intended to say. One is so very happy to escape dreadful, real, positive distress, that all the rest is like mere play."

Mrs. Melwyn looked at her in a pensive, anxious, inquiring manner. She wanted to see if she was understood; she saw that she was. She saw something truly heartening and encouraging in the young girl's countenance. She shook hands with her and bade her good night very affectionately, and went to her own dressing-room.

Randall was as cross that night as it was possible for the most tyrannical servant to be, but some way or other, Mrs. Melwyn did not feel as if she cared for it quite so much as usual; she had her mind filled with the image of Lettice. Something so very nice about her – she thought to herself – in one respect even better than Catherine. She should not be so afraid of her being distressed by disagreeable things; she should venture to tell her about Randall, and other vexations which she had carefully concealed from Catherine, lest they should make her unhappy. Thus she represented it to herself: the truth was, lest Catherine should make a point of Randall being parted with, an effort she knew herself quite incompetent to make.

She should be able to complain of Randall, without feeling that she should be urged to conquer her weakness, and part with her. There was something very comfortable in this; so Randall pouted away, and Mrs. Melwyn heeded it not very much, not nearly so much as usual; and when Randall perceived this, she was excessively offended, and more and more cross and disagreeable. She had quite quickness enough to perceive how much her despotism must be weakened by the rule being thus divided, and she saw even so early something of the effects she deprecated. The observation, however, did not tend to soften her or to render her more obliging, it was not the least in her plan to contend with the new comer in this way; she meant to meet her, and her mistress, with open defiance, and bear both down by main force.

CHAPTER VI

"Cowards die many times before their death."

Shakspeare.

The courage of Lettice, as I have told you, was strong, and her nerves good, but in spite of this, assisted by the best resolutions in the world, she did find it a hard matter to stand the general. She was very hopeful the first day or two – the habitual politeness, of which I have spoken, came in aid. It exercised a sort of instinctive and involuntary check upon the old man's rude intemperance of language when irritated. Lettice did her very best to read the newspaper to his satisfaction; skipping every unnecessary word, just as Catherine had been accustomed to do, without hurting the sense in the least; and getting over the ground with all the rapidity the old veteran desired. This was a plan poor Mrs. Melwyn was far too nervous to adopt. If she missed a word it was sure to be the wrong one to miss – one necessary to, instead of encumbering the meaning. It was quite indispensable that she should read simply and straightforwardly what was put before her, or she was certain to get into confusion, and have herself scolded. Even the dreaded and dreadful backgammon did tolerably well, while the general's politeness to the stranger lasted. Lettice was surprised herself, to find how easily the task, which had appeared so awful, was discharged; but she had not long to congratulate herself. Gradually, at first by slow degrees, but afterward like the accelerated descent of a stone down the hill, acquired habit gave way to constitutional ill-humor. Alas, they tell us nature expelled with a pitchfork will make her way back again; most true of the unregenerated nature – most true of the poor blind heathen – or the poor untutored Christian, to all intents and purposes a heathen – too true even of those assisted by better considerations, higher principles, and higher aids.

First it was a little low grumbling; then a few impatient gestures; then a few impatient words – words became sentences; sentences of invective – soon it was with her, just as it had been with others. This graduated progression assisted, however, gradually to harden and prepare her. She was resolved not to look frightened, though her very knees would knock together at times. She was determined never to allow herself to feel provoked or hurt, or ill-used, let the general be ever so rude; and to soften her heart by any such ideas she never allowed herself. Steadily she kept in mind that he was a suffering, ill-disciplined, irritable old man; and by keeping these considerations in view, she actually achieved the most difficult – almost heroic effort. She managed to attain a frame of mind in which she could pity his sufferings, feel indulgence for his faults, and remain quite placid under their effects as regarded herself.

This conduct before a very long time had elapsed produced an effect far more agreeable than she had ever ventured to anticipate.

The general began to like her.

Like many other cross people, he was excessively difficult to be pleased in one article – the way people took his scoldings. He was offended if they were received with cheerfulness – in the way Edgar had tried to laugh them off – he was still more vexed if people seemed hurt or suffering under them: if they cried, it was bad, indeed. Like many others not absolutely wicked and cruel, though he could not control his temper, he really did feel vexed at seeing the pain he had produced. His conscience would cry out a little at such times. Now, nothing made him so uncomfortable and irritable, as having a quarrel with his conscience; a thing that did not very often happen, to be sure – the said conscience being in his case not a very watchful guardian, but it was all the more disagreeable when it spoke. The genuine good temper and habitual self-possession – the calmness without disrespect – the cheerfulness without carelessness – the respectful attention stripped of all meanness or subservience which Lettice managed to preserve in her relations with him – at last made its way quite to his heart, that is to say, to his taste or fancy, for I don't think he had much of a heart. He began to grow quite fond of her, and one day delighted, as much as he surprised Mrs. Melwyn, by saying, that Miss Arnold really was a very pretty sort of young woman, and he thought suited them very well. And so the grand difficulty of managing with the general's faults was got over, but there remained Mrs. Melwyn's and the servants'.

Lettice had never laid her account at finding any faults in Mrs. Melwyn. That lady from the first moment she beheld her, had quite won her heart. Her elegance of appearance, the Jove-like softness of her countenance, the gentle sweetness of her voice, all conspired to make the most charming impression. Could there lie any thing under that sweet outside, but the gentlest and most indulgent of temper?

No, she was right there, nothing could be more gentle, more indulgent than was Mrs. Melwyn's temper; and Lettice had seen so much of the rough, the harsh, the captious, and the unamiable during her life, that grant her the existence of those two qualities, and she could scarcely desire any thing more. She had yet to learn what are the evils which attend the timid and the weak.

She had yet to know that there may be much concealed self-indulgence, where there is a most yielding disposition; and that they who are too cowardly to resist wrong and violence courageously, from a weak and culpable indulgence of their own shyness and timidity, will afford a poor defense to those they ought to protect, and expose them to innumerable evils.

Lettice had managed to become easy with the general; she could have been perfectly happy with Mrs. Melwyn, but nothing could get over the difficulties with the servants. Conscious of the misrule they exercised; jealous of the newcomer – who soon showed herself to be a clever and spirited girl – a sort of league was immediately instituted among them; its declared object being either to break her spirit, or get rid of her out of the house. The persecutions she endured; the daily minute troubles and vexations; the difficulties cast in her path by these dangerous yet contemptible foes, it would be endless to describe.

Whatever she wanted she could not get done. Even Bridget, under the influence of the upper-housemaid, proved a broken reed to lean upon. Her fire would never be lighted; nor her room done at the proper time; and when she came down with red hands, purple cheeks, and, worst of all, a red nose, looking this cold spring the very picture of chill and misery, the general would look cross, and Mrs. Melwyn not pleased, and would wonder, "How she could get so starved, and why she did not make them light her fire."

She could make no reply but that she would ask Bridget to be more punctual.

It was worse, when do what she would – ring as she would – nobody would come to fasten her dress for dinner till the last bell was sounding, and when it was impossible for her to pay all those nice attentions to her appearance which the general's critical eye demanded. Though he said nothing he would upon such occasions look as if he thought her a sloven; and Mrs. Melwyn, on her side, seemed excessively fretted and uneasy, that her favorite would do herself so little justice, and run the risk of forfeiting the general's favor; and this last piece of injustice, Lettice did feel it hard to bear.

It was the same in all the other minutiæ of domestic life. Every trifling circumstance, like a midge's sting, though insignificant in itself, was rendered in the sum total most troublesome.

If they were going out walking, Miss Arnold's shoes were never cleaned. She provided herself with several pairs, that one at least might always be ready, and she not keep the general and Mrs. Melwyn waiting. It was of no use. The shoes were never ready. If there were several pairs, they were lost, or odd shoes brought up.

She did not care for labor. She had no foolish pride about serving herself, she had been used to that sort of thing; she had not the slightest wish on earth to be a fine lady; but that was forbidden. It was one of the things Mrs. Melwyn had made a point of, and continued to make a point of; but then, why did she not take care she should be better served?

She, the mistress in her own house! Was it indifference to her guest's comforts? No, her unremitting personal kindness forbade that idea. What was it then, that left her helpless guest thus exposed to want and insult? Yes, want! I may use the word; for in her new sphere of action, the things she required were absolute necessaries. The want in its way was as great as she had ever known. Yes, insult – for every little negligence was felt as an insult – Lettice knew too well that as an insult it was intended. What made this kind Mrs. Melwyn permit such things? Weakness, nothing but weakness – culpable weakness – horror of that which would give her feeble spirit pain.

Lettice found it extremely difficult to be candid in this instance. She who had never experienced what this weakness of the spirit was, found it almost impossible to be indulgent to it. She felt quite vexed and sore. But when she looked so, poor Mrs. Melwyn would put on such a sad, anxious, weary face, that it was impossible not to feel concerned for her, and to forgive her at once. And so this good, generous, kind-hearted being's temper achieved another victory. She was able to love Mrs. Melwyn in spite of all her weakness, and the evils she in consequence suffered; and this indulgent affection made every thing easy.