CHAPTER X.
In the month of November of the same year in which the queen did visit Lord and Lady Surrey at the Charter House, a person, who mentioned not his name, delivered into the porter's hands at our gate a letter for me, which I found to be from my good father, and which I do here transcribe, as a memorial of his great piety toward God, and tender love for me his unworthy child.
"MY DEARLY BELOVED DAUGHTER (so he),—Your comfortable letter has not a little cheered me; and the more so that this present one is like to be the last I shall be able to write on this side of the sea, if it so happen that it shall please God to prosper my intent, which is to pass over into Flanders at the first convenient opportunity: for the stress of the times, and mine own earnest desire to live within the compass of a religious life, have moved me to forsake for a while this realm, and betake myself to a place which shall afford opportunity and a sufficiency of leisure for the prosecution of my design. The comfortable report Edmund made of thy health, increased height, and good condition, as also of thy exceeding pleasant and affectionate behavior to him, as deputed from thy poor father to convey to thee his paternal blessing, together with such tokens as a third person may exhibit of that most natural and tender affection which he bears to thee, his sole child, whom next to God he doth most entirely value and love,—of which charge this good youth assured me he did acquit himself as my true son in Christ, which indeed he now is,—and my good brother's letter and thine, which both do give proof of the exceeding great favor shown toward thee in his house, wherein he doth reckon my Constance not so much a niece (for such be his words) as a most cherished daughter, whose good qualities and lively parts have so endeared her to his family, that the greatest sorrow which could befal them should be to lose her company; which I do not here recite for to awaken in thee motions of pride or a vain conceit of thine own deserts, but rather gratitude to those whose goodness is so great as to overlook thy defects and magnify thy merits;—Edmund's report, I say, coupled with these letters, have yielded me all the contentment I desire at this time, when I am about to embark on a perilous voyage, of which none can foresee the course or the end; one in which I take the cross of Christ as my only staff; his words, "Follow me," for my motto; and his promise to all such as do confess him before men, as the assured anchor of my hope.
"Our ingenuous youth informed thee (albeit I doubt not in such wise as to conceal, if it had been possible, his own ability, which, with his devotedness, do exceed praise) how he acquitted both me and others of much trouble and imminent danger by his fortunate despatch with that close prisoner. I had determined to place him with some of my acquaintance, lest perhaps he should return, not without some danger of his soul, to his own friends; but when he understood my resolution, he cried out with like words to those of St. Lawrence, 'Whither goeth my master without his servant? Whither goeth my father without his son?' and with tears distilling from his eyes, he humbly entreated he might go together with me, saying, as it were with St. Peter, 'Master, I am [{611}] ready to go with you to prison, yea to death;' but, forecasting his future ability, as also to try his spirit a little further, I made him answer it was impossible; to which our Edmund replied, 'Alas! and is it impossible? Shall my native soil restrain free will? or home-made laws alter devout resolutions? Am I not young? Can I not study? May I not in time get what you now have got—learning for a scholar? yea, virtue for a priest, perhaps; and so at length obtain that for which you now are ready? Direct me the way, I beseech you; and let me, if you please, be your precursor. Tell me what I shall do, or whither I must go; and for the rest, God, who knows my desire, will provide and supply the want. Can it be possible that he who clothes the lilies of the field, and feeds the fowls of the air, will forsake him who forsakes all to fulfil his divine precept, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all other things shall be given to you?"' Finally, he ended, to my no small admiration, by reciting the words of our Saviour, 'Whosoever shall forsake home, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, for my sake and the gospel's, shall receive a hundredfold and possess life everlasting.'
"By these impulses, often repeated with great fervor of spirit, I perceived God Almighty's calling in him, and therefore at last condescended to let him take his adventures, procuring him commendations to such friends beyond seas as should assist him in his purpose, and furnishing him with money sufficient for such a journey; not judging it to be prudent to keep him with me, who have not ability to warrant mine own passage; and so noted a recusant, that I run a greater risk to be arrested in any port where I embark. And so, in all love and affection, we did part; and I have since had intelligence, for the which I do return most humble and hearty thanks to God, that he hath safely crossed the seas, and has now reached a sure harbor, where his religious desires may take effect. And now, daughter Constance, mine own good child, fare thee well! Pray for thy poor father, who would fain give thee the blessing of the elder as of the younger son—Jacob's portion and Esau's also. But methinks the blessings of this world be not at the present time for the Catholics of this land; and so we must needs be content, for our children as for ourselves (and a covetous man he is which should not therewith be satisfied), with the blessings our Lord did utter on the mountain, and mostly with that in which he doth say, 'Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you, and revile you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my name's sake; for great is your reward in heaven.'
"Your loving father in natural affection and ten thousand times more in the love of Christ, H. S."
Oh, what a gulf of tenfold separation did those words "beyond seas" suggest betwixt that sole parent and his poor child! Thoughts travel not with ease beyond the limits which nature hath set to this isle; and what lies beyond the watery waste wherewith Providence hath engirdled our shores offers no apt images to the mind picturing the invisible from the visible, as it is wont to do with home-scenes, where one city or one landscape beareth a close resemblance to another. And if, in the forsaking of this realm, so much danger did lie, yea, in the very ports whence he might sail, so that I, who should otherwise have prayed that the winds might detain him, and the waves force him back on his native soil, was constrained to supplicate that they should assist him to abandon it,—how much greater, methought, should be the perils of his return, when, as he indeed hoped, a mark should be set on him which in our country dooms men to a cruel death! Many natural tears I shed at this parting, which until then had not seemed so desperate and final; [{612}] and for a while would not listen to the consolations which were offered by the good friends who were so tender to me, but continued to wander about in a disconsolate manner in the garden, or passionately to weep in my own chamber, until Muriel, the sovereign mistress of comfort to others, albeit ever ailing in her body, and contemned by such as dived not through exterior deformity into the interior excellences of her soul, with sweet compulsion and authoritative arguments drawn from her admirable faith and simple devotion, rekindled in mine the more noble sentiments sorrow had obscured, not so much through diverting, as by elevating and sweetening, my thoughts to a greater sense of the goodness of God in calling my father, and peradventure Edmund also, to so great an honor as the priesthood, and never more honorable than in these days, wherein it oftentimes doth prove the road to martyrdom.
In December of that year my Lord and my Lady Surrey, by the Duke of Norfolk's desire, removed for some weeks to Kenninghall for change of air, and also Lady Lumley, his grace judging them to be as yet too young to keep house alone. My lord's brothers and Mistress Bess, with her governess, were likewise carried there. Lady Surrey wrote from that seat, that, were it not for the duke's imprisonment and constant fears touching his life, she should have had great contentment in that retirement, and been most glad to have tarried there, if it had pleased God, so long as she lived, my lord taking so much pleasure in field-sports, and otherwise so companionable, that he often offered to ride with her; and in the evenings they did entertain themselves with books, chiefly poetry, and sometimes played at cards. They had but few visitors, by reason of the disgrace and trouble his grace was in at that time; only such of their neighbors as did hunt and shoot with the earl her husband; mostly Sir Henry Stafford and Mr. Rookwood's two sons, whom she commended; the one for his good qualities and honest carriage, and the other for wit and learning; as also Sir Hammond l'Estrange, a gentleman who stayed no longer away from Kenninghall, she observed, than thereunto compelled by lack of an excuse for tarrying if present, or returning when absent. He often procured to be invited by my lord, who used to meet him out of doors, and frequently carried him back with him to dine or to sup, and often both.
"And albeit" (so my lady wrote) "I doubt not but he doth set a reasonable value on my lord's society,—who, although young enough to be his son, is exceedingly conversable and pleasant, as every one who knows him doth testify,—and mislikes not, I ween, the good cheer, or the wine from his grace's cellar; yet I warrant thee, good Constance, 'tis not for the sake only of our poor company or hospitable table that this good knight doth haunt us, but rather from the passion I plainly see he hath conceived for our Milicent since a day when he hurt his arm by a fall not far from hence, and I procured she should dress it with that rare ointment of thine, which verily doth prove of great efficacy in cases where the skin is rubbed off. Methinks the wound in his arm was then transplanted into his heart, and the good man so bewitched with the blue eyes and dove-like countenance of his chirurgeon, that he has fallen head-over-ears in love, and is, as I hope, minded to address her in a lawful manner. His wound did take an exceeding long time in healing, to the no small discredit of thy ointment; for he came several days to have it dressed, and I could not choose but smile when at last our sweet practitioner did ask him, in an innocent manner, if the wound did yet smart, for indeed she could see no appearance in it but what betokened it to be healed. He answered, 'There be wounds, Mistress Milicent, which smart, albeit no outward marks of such suffering do show themselves.' [{613}] 'Ay,' quoth Milicent, 'but for such I be of opinion further dressing is needless; and with my lady's licence, I will furnish you, sir, with a liquid which shall strengthen the skin, and so relieve the aching, if so you be careful to apply it night and morning to the injured part, and to cork the bottle after using it.' 'My memory is so bad, fair physician,' quoth the knight, 'that I am like to forget the prescription.' She answered, he should stand the bottle so as it should meet his eyes when he rose, and then he must needs remember it.
"And so broke off the discourse. But when he is here I notice how his eyes do follow her when she sets the table for primero, or works at the tambour-frame, or plays with Bess, to whom he often talks as she sits on her knees, who, if I mistake not, shall be, one of these days, Lady l'Estrange, and is as worthy to be so well married as any girl in the kingdom, both as touching her birth and her exceeding great virtue and good disposition. He is an extreme Protestant, and very bitter against Catholics; but as she, albeit mild in temper, is as firmly settled in the new religion as he is, no difference will exist between them on a point in which 'tis most of all to be desired husbands and wives should be agreed. Thou mayst think that I have been over apt to note the signs of this good knight's passion, and to draw deductions from such tokens as have appeared of it, visible maybe to no other eyes than mine; but, trust me, Constance, those who do themselves know what 'tis to love with an engrossing affection are quick to mark the same effects in others. When Phil is in the room, I find it a hard matter at times to restrain mine eyes from gazing on that dear husband, whom I do so entirely love that I have no other pleasure in life but in his company. And not to seem to him or to others too fond, which is not a beseeming thing even in a wife, I study to conceal my constant thinking on him by such devices as cunningly to provoke others to speak of my lord, and so appear only to follow whereunto my own desire doth point, or to propose questions,—a pastime wherein he doth excel,—and so minister to mine own pride in him without direct flattery, or in an unbecoming manner setting forth his praise. And thus I do grow learned in the tricks of true affection, and to perceive in such as are in love what mine own heart doth teach me to be the signals of that passion."
So far my lady; and not long after, on the first day of February, I had a note from her, written in great distraction of mind at the Charter House, where she and all his grace's children had returned in a sudden manner on the hearing that the queen had issued a warrant for the duke's execution on the next Monday. Preparations were made with the expectation of all London, and a concourse of many thousands to witness it, the tread of whose feet was heard at night, like to the roll of muffled drums, along the streets; but on the Sunday, late in the night, the queen's majesty entered into a great misliking that the duke should die the next day, and sent an order to the sheriffs to forbear until they should hear further. His grace's mother, the dowager countess, and my Lady Berkeley his sister (now indeed lowering her pride to most humble supplication), and my Lord Arundel from his sick-bed, and the French ambassador, together with many others, sued with singular earnestness to her majesty for his life, who, albeit she had stayed the execution of his sentence, would by no means recall it. I hasted to the Charter House, Mistress Ward going with me, and both were admitted into her ladyship's chamber, with whom did sit that day the fairest picture of grief I ever beheld—the Lady Margaret Howard, who for some months had resided with the Countess of Sussex, who was a very good lady to her and all these afflicted children. Albeit Lady Surrey had often greatly commended this young lady, and styled her so rare a piece of perfection that no one [{614}] could know and not admire her, the loveliness of her face, nobility of her figure, and attractiveness of her manners exceeded my expectations. The sight of these sisters minded me then of what Lady Surrey had written when they were yet children, touching my Lord Surrey, styling them "two twin cherries on one stalk;" and methought, now that the lovely pair had ripened into early maturity, their likeness in beauty (though differing in complexion) justified the saying. Lady Margaret greeted us as though we had not been strangers, and in the midst of her great and natural sorrow showed a grateful sense of the share we did take in a grief which methinks was deeper in her than in any other of these mourners.
Oh, what a period of anxious suspense did follow that first reprieve! what alternations of hope and fear! what affectionate letters were exchanged between that loving father and good master and his sorrowful children and servants; now writing to Mr. Dyx, his faithful steward:
"Farewell, good Dyx! your service hath been so faithful unto me, as I am sorry that I cannot make proof of my good-will to recompense it. I trust my death shall make no change in you toward mine, but that you will faithfully perform the trust that I have reposed in you. Forget me, and remember me in mine. Forget not to counsel and advise Philip and Nan's unexperienced years; the rest of their brothers' and sisters' well-doing resteth much upon their virtuous and considerate dealings. God grant them his grace, which is able to work better in them than my natural well-meaning heart can wish unto them. Amen. And so, hoping of your honesty and faithfulness when I am dead, I bid you this my last farewell. T. H."
Now to another trusty friend and honest dependent:
"Good friend George, farewell. I have no other tokens to send my friends but my books; and I know how sorrowful you are, amongst the rest, for my hard hap, whereof I thank God; because I hope his merciful chastisement will prepare me for a better world. Look well throughout this book, and you shall find the name of duke very unhappy. I pray God it may end with me, and that others may speed better hereafter. But if I might have my wish, and were in as good a state as ever you knew me, yet I would wish for a lower degree. Be a friend, I pray you, to mine; and do my hearty commendations to your good wife and to gentle Mr. Dennye. I die in the faith that you have ever known me to be of. Farewell, good friend.
"Yours dying, as he was living,
"NORFOLK."
These letters and some others did pass from hand to hand in that afflicted house; and sometimes hope and sometimes despair prevailed in the hearts of the great store of relatives and friends which often assembled there to confer on the means of softening the queen's anger and moving her to mercy; one time through letters from the king of France and other princes, which was an ill shot, for to be so entreated by foreign potentates did but inflame her majesty's anger against the duke; at others, by my Lord Sussex and my Lord Arundel, or such persons in her court as nearly approached her highness and could deal with her when she was merry and chose to condescend to their discourse. But the wind shifts not oftener than did the queen's mind at that time, so diverse were her dispositions toward this nobleman, and always opposed to such as appeared in those who spoke on this topic, whether as pressing for his execution, or suing for mercy to be extended to him. I heard much talk at that time touching his grace's good qualities: how noble had been his spirit; how moderate his disposition; how plain his attire; how bountiful his alms.
As the fates of many do in these days hang on the doom of one, much eagerness was shown amongst those who haunted my uncle's house to learn the news afloat concerning the issue of the duke's affair. Some Catholics of note were lying in prison at that time in Norwich, most of them friends of these gentlemen; of which four were condemned to death at that time, and one to perpetual imprisonment and loss of all his property for reconcilement; but whilst the Duke of Norfolk was yet alive, they held the hope he should, if once out of prison, recover the queen's favor and drive from their seats his and their mortal enemies, my Lords Burleigh and Leicester. And verily the axe was held suspended on the head of that duke for four months and more, to the unspeakable anguish of many; and, amongst others, his aged and afflicted mother, the Dowager Countess of Surrey, who came to London from the country to be near her son in this extremity. Three times did the queen issue a warrant for his death and then recalled it; so that those trembling relatives and well-wishers in and out of his house did look each day to hear the fatal issue had been compassed, In the month of March, when her majesty was sick with a severe inflammation and agonizing pain, occasioned, some said, by poison administered by papists, but by her own physicians declared to arise from her contempt of their prescriptions, there was a strange turmoil, I ween, in some men's breasts, albeit silent as a storm brewing on a sultry day. Under their breath, and with faces shaped to conceal the wish which bred the inquiry, they asked of the queen's health; whilst others tore their hair and beat their breasts with no affected grief, and the most part of the people lamented her danger. Oh, what five days were those when the shadow of death did hover over that royal couch, and men's hearts failed them for fear, or else wildly whispered hopes such as they durst not utter aloud,—not so much as to a close friend,—lest the walls should have ears, or the pavement open under their feet! My God, in thy hands lie the issues of life and death. Thou dost assign to each one his space of existence, his length of days. Thy ways are not as our ways, nor thy thoughts as our thoughts. She lived who was yet to doom so many princely heads to the block, so many saintly forms to the dungeon and the rack. She lived whose first act was to stretch forth a hand yet weakened by sickness to sign, a fourth time, a warrant for a kinsman's death, and once again recalled it. Each day some one should come in with various reports touching the queen's dispositions. Sometimes she had been heard to opine that her dangers from her enemies were so great that justice must be done. At others she vehemently spoke of the nearness of blood to herself, of the superiority in honor of this duke; and once she wrote to Lord Burleigh (a copy of this letter Lord Surrey saw in Lord Oxford's hands), "that she was more beholden to the hinder part of her head than she dared trust the forward part of the same;" and expressed great fear lest an irrevocable deed should be committed. But she would not see Lord Surrey, or suffer him to plead in person for his father's life. Yet there were good hopes amongst his friends he should yet be released, till one day—I mind it well, for I was sitting with Lady Surrey, reading out loud to her, as I was often used to do—my Lord Berkeley burst into the chamber, and cried, throwing his gloves on the table and swearing a terrible oath:
"That woman has undone us!"
"What, the queen?" said my lady, white as a smock.
"Verily a queen," he answered gloomily. "I warrant you the Queen of Scots hath ended as she did begin, and dragged his grace into a pit from whence I promise you he will never now rise. A letter writ in her cipher to the Duke of Alva hath been intercepted, in which that luckless royal [{616}] wight, ever fatal to her friends as to herself, doth say, 'that she hath a strong party in England, and lords who favor her cause; some of whom, albeit prisoners, so powerful, that the Queen of England should not dare to touch their lives.' Alack! those words, 'should not dare,' shall prove the death-warrant of my noble brother. Cursed be the day when he did get entangled in that popish siren's plots!"
"Speak not harshly of her, good my lord," quoth Lady Surrey, in her gentle voice. "Her sorrows do bear too great a semblance to our own not to bespeak from us patience in this mishap."
"Nan," said Lord Berkeley, "thou art of too mild a disposition. 'Tis the only fault I do find with thee. Beshrew me, if my wife and thee could not make exchange of some portion of her spirit and thy meekness to the advantage of both. I warrant thee Phil's wife should hold a tight hand over him."
"I read not that precept in the Bible, my lord," quoth she, smiling. "It speaketh roundly of the duty of wives to obey, but not so much as one word of their ruling."
"Thou hadst best preach thy theology to my Lady Berkeley," he answered; "and then she—"
"But I pray you, my lord, is it indeed your opinion that the queen will have his grace's life?"
"I should not give so much as a brass pin, Nan, for his present chance of mercy at her hands," he replied sadly. And his words were justified in the event.
Those relentless enemies of the duke, my Lords Burleigh and Leicester, —who, at the time of the queen's illness, had stood three days and three nights without stirring from her bedside in so great terror lest she should die and he should compass the throne through a marriage with the Queen of Scots, that they vowed to have his blood at any cost if her majesty did recover,—so dealt with parliament as to move it to send a petition praying that, for the safety of her highness and the quieting of her realm, he should be forthwith executed. And from that day to the mournful one of his death, albeit from the great reluctance her majesty had evinced to have him despatched, his friends, yea unto the last moment, lived in expectancy of a reprieve; he himself made up his mind to die with extraordinary fortitude, not choosing to entertain so much as the least hope of life.
One day at that time I saw my Lady Margaret mending some hose, and at each stitch she made with her needle tears fell from her eyes. I offered to assist her ladyship; but she said, pressing the hose to her heart, "I thank thee, good Constance; but no other hands than mine shall put a stitch in these hose, for they be my father's, who hath worn them with these holes for many months, till poor Master Dyx bethought himself to bring them here to be patched and mended, which task I would have none perform but myself. My father would not suffer him to procure a new pair, lest it should be misconstrued as a sign of his hope or desire of a longer life, and with the same intent he refuseth to eat flesh as often as the physicians do order; 'for,' quoth he, 'why should I care to nourish a body doomed to such near decay?'" Then, after a pause, she said, "He will not wear clothes which have any velvet on them, being, he saith, a condemned person."
Lady Surrey took one of the hose in her hand, but Lady Margeret, with a filial jealousy, sadly smiling, shook her head: "Nay, Nan," quoth she, "not even to thee, sweet one, will I yield one jot or tittle of this mean, but, in relation to him who doth own these poor hose, exalted labor." Then she asked her sister if she had heard of the duke's request that Mr. Fox, his old schoolmaster, should attend on him in the Tower, to whom he desired to profess that faith he did first ground him in.
And my Lady Surrey answered yea, that my lord had informed her of [{617}] it, and many other proofs beside that his grace sought to prepare for death in the best manner he could think of.
"Some ill-disposed persons have said," quoth Lady Margaret, "that it is with the intent to propitiate the queen that my father doth show himself to be so settled in his religion, and that he is not what he seems; but tis a slander on his grace, who hath been of this way of thinking since he attained to the age of reason, and was never at any time reconciled, as some have put forth."
This was the last time I did see these afflicted daughters until long after their father's death, who was beheaded in the chapel of the Tower shortly afterward. When the blow fell which, striking at him, struck a no less fatal blow to the peace and well-doing of his children, they all left the Charter House, and removed for a time into the country, to the houses of divers relatives, in such wise as before his death the duke had desired. A letter which I received from Lady Surrey a few weeks after she left London doth best serve to show the manner of this disposal, and the temper of the writer's mind at that melancholy time.
"My OWN DEAR CONSTANCE,—It may like you to hear that your afflicted friend is improved in bodily health, and somewhat recovered from the great suffering of mind which the duke, their good father's death, has caused to all his poor children—mostly to Megg and Phil and me; for their brothers and my sister are too young greatly to grieve. My Lord Arundel is sorely afflicted, I hear, and hath writ a very lamentable letter to our good Lady Sussex concerning this sad mishap. My Lady Berkeley and my Lady Westmoreland are almost distracted with grief for the death of a brother they did singularly love. That poor lady (of Westmoreland) is much to be pitied, for that she is parted from her husband, maybe for ever, and has lost two fair daughters in one year.
"My lord hath shown much affection for his father, and natural sorrow in this sad loss; and when his last letters written a short time before he suffered, and addressed "To my loving children," specially the one to Philip and Nan, reached his hands, he wept so long and bitterly that it seemed as if his tears should never cease. My lord is forthwith to make his chief abode at Cambridge for a year or two; and Meg and I, with Lady Sussex, and I do hope Bess also—albeit his grace doth appear in his letter to be otherwise minded. But methinks he apprehended to lay too heavy a charge on her, who is indeed a good lady to us all in this our unhappy condition, and was loth Megg should be out of my company.
"The parting with my lord is a sore trial, and what I had not looked to; but God's will be done; and if it be for the advantage of his soul, as well as the advancement of his learning, he should reside at the university, it should ill befit me to repine. And now methinks I will transcribe, if my tears do not hinder me, his grace's letters, which will inform thee of his last wishes better than I could explain them; for I would have thee know how tender and forecasting was his love for us, and the good counsel he hath left unto his son, who, I pray to God, may always follow it. And I would have thee likewise note one point of his advice, which indeed I should have been better contented he had not touched upon, forasmuch as his having done so must needs hinder that which thy fond love for my poor self, and resolved adherence to what he calls 'blind papistry,' doth so greatly prompt thee to desire; for if on his blessing he doth charge us to beware of it, and then I should move my lord to so much neglect of his last wishes as at any time to be reconciled, bethink thee with what an ill grace I should urge on him, in other respects, obedience to his commands, which indeed are such as do commend themselves to any Christian soul as most wise and profitable. [{618}] And now, breaking off mine own discourse to transcribe his words—a far more noble and worthy employment of my pen—and praying God to bless thee, I remain thy tender and loving friend,
"ANN SURREY."
"The Duke of Norfolk's letters to his children:
"DEAR CHILDREN,—This is the last letter that ever I think to write to you; and therefore, if you loved me, or that you will seem grateful to me for the special love that I have ever borne unto you, then remember and follow these my last lessons. Oh, Philip, serve and fear God, above all things. I find the fault in myself, that I have (God forgive me!) been too negligent in this point. Love and make much of your wife; for therein, considering the great adversity you are now in, by reason of my fall, is your greatest present comfort and relief, beside your happiness in having a wife which is endued with so great towardness in virtue and good qualities, and in person comparable with the best sort. Follow these two lessons, and God will bless you; and without these, as you may see by divers examples out of the Scripture, and also by ordinary worldly proof, where God is not feared, all goeth to wreck; and where love is not between the husband and wife, there God doth not prosper. My third lesson is, that you show yourself loving and natural to your brothers and sister and sister-in-law. Though you be very young in years, yet you must strive with consideration to become a man; for it is your own presence and good government of yourself that must get friends; and if you take that course, then have I been so careful a father unto you, as I have taken such order as you, by God's grace, shall be well able, beside your wife's lands, to maintain yourself like a gentleman. Marry! the world is greedy and covetous; and if the show of the well government of yourself do not fear and restrain their greedy appetite, it is like that, by undirect means, they will either put you from that which law layeth upon you, or else drive you to much trouble in trying and holding your right. When my grandfather died, I was not much above a year elder than you are now; and yet, I thank God, I took such order with myself, as you shall reap the commodity of my so long passed travel, if you do now imitate the like. Help to strengthen your young and raw years with good counsel. I send you herewith a brief schedule, whom I wish you to make account of as friends, and whom as servants; and I charge you, as a father may do, to follow my direction therein; my experience can better tell what is fit for you than your young years can judge of. I would wish you for the present to make your chief abode at Cambridge, which is the place fittest for you to promote your learning in; and beside, it is not very far hence, whereby you may, within a day's warning, be here to follow your own causes, as occasion serveth. If, after a year or two, you spend some time in a house of the law, there is nothing that will prove more to your commodity, considering how for the time you shall have continual business about your own law affairs; and thereby also, if you spend your time well, you shall be ever after better able to judge in your own causes. I too late repent that I followed not this course that now I wish to you; for if I had, then my case perchance had not been in so ill state as now it is.
"When God shall send you to those years as that it shall be fit for you to keep house with your wife (which I had rather were sooner, than that you should fall into ill company), then I would wish you to withdraw yourself into some private dwelling of your own. And if your hap may be so good as you may so live without being called to higher degree, oh, Philip, Philip, then shall you enjoy that blessed life which your woful father would fain have done, and never could be so happy. Beware of high degree. To a vain-glorious, proud stomach it seemeth at the first sweet. Look into all [{619}] chronicles, and you shall find that in the end it brings heaps of cares, toils in the state, and most commonly in the end utter overthrow. Look into the whole state of the nobility in times past, and into their state now, and then judge whether my lessons be true or no. Assure yourself, as you may see by the book of my accounts, and you shall find that my living did hardly maintain my expenses; for all the help that I had by Tom's lands, and somewhat by your wife's and sister's-in-law, I was ever a beggar. You may, by the grace of God, be a great deal richer and quieter in your low degree, wherein I once again wish you to continue. They may, that shall wish you the contrary, have a good meaning; but believe your father, who of love wishes you best, and with the mind that he is at this present fully armed to God, who sees both states, both high and low, as it were even before his eyes. Beware of the court, except it be to do your prince service, and that, as near as you can, in the lowest degree, for that place hath no certainty; either a man, by following thereof, hath too much of worldly pomp, which, in the end, throws him down headlong, or else he liveth there unsatisfied; either that he cannot attain for himself that he would, or else that he cannot do for his friends as his heart desireth. Remember these notes, and follow them; and then you, by God's help, shall reap the commodity of them in your old years.
"If your brothers may be suffered to remain in your company, I would be most glad thereof, because continuing together should still increase love between you. But the world is so catching of everything that falls, that Tom being, as I believe, after my death, the queen's majesty's ward, shall be begged by one or another. But yet you are sure to have your brother William left still with you, because, poor boy, he hath nothing to feed cormorants withal; to whom you will as well be a father as a brother; for upon my blessing I commit him to your charge to provide for, if that which I have assured him by law shall not be so sufficient as I mean it. If law may take place, your sister-in-law will be surely enough conveyed to his behoof, and then I should wish her to be brought up with some friend of mine; as for the present I allow best of Sir Christopher Heydon, if he will so much befriend you as to receive her to sojourn with him; if not there in some other place, as your friends shall best allow of. And touching the bestowing of your wife and Megg, who I would be loth should be out of your wife's company; for as she should be a good companion for Nan, so I commit Megg of especial trust to her. I think good, till you keep house together, if my Lady of Sussex might be entreated to take them to her as sojourners, there were no place so fit considering her kindred unto you, and the assured friend that I hope you shall find of her; beside she is a good lady. If it will not be so brought to pass, then, by the advice of your friends, take some other order; but in no case I would wish you to keep any house except it be together with your wife.
"Thus I have advised you as my troubled memory can at present suffer me. Beware of pride, stubbornness, taunting, and sullenness, which vices nature doth somewhat kindle in you; and therefore you must with reason and discretion make a new nature in yourself. Give not your mind too much and too greedily to gaming; make a pastime of it, and no toil. And lastly, delight to spend some time in reading of the Scriptures; for therein is the whole comfort of man's life; all other things are vain and transitory; and if you be diligent in reading of them, they will remain with you continually, to your profit and commodity in this world, and to your comfort and salvation in the world to come, whither, in grace of God, I am now with joy and consolation preparing myself. And, upon my blessing, beware of blind papistry, which brings nothing but bondage to men's consciences. [{620}] Mix your prayers with fasting, not thinking thereby to merit; for there is nothing that we ourselves can do that is good,—we are but unprofitable servants; but fast, I say, thereby to tame the wicked affection of the mind, and trust only to be saved by Christ's precious blood; for without a perfect faith therein, there is no salvation. Let works follow your faith; thereby to show to the world that you do not only say you have faith, but that you give testimony thereof to the full satisfaction of the godly. I write somewhat the more herein, because perchance you have heretofore heard, or perchance may hereafter hear, false bruits that I was a papist; [Footnote 123] but trust unto it, I never, since I knew what religion meant (I thank God) was of other mind than now you shall hear that I die in; although (I cry God mercy) I have not given fruits and testimony of my faith as I ought to have done; the which is the thing that I do now chiefliest repent.
[Footnote 123: There would seem to be no doubt that the Duke of Norfolk was a sincere Protestant. The strenuous advice to his children to beware of Popery affords evidence of it. Greatly, however, as it would have tended to their worldly prosperity to have followed their father's last injunctions in this respect, all but one of those he thus counselled were subsequently reconciled to the Catholic Church.
The Duke's letters in this chapter are all authentic. See the Rev. M. Tierney's History of Arundel, and the Appendix to Nott's edition of Lord Surrey's poems.]
"When I am gone, forget my condemning, and forgive, I charge you, my false accusers, as I protest to God I do; but have nothing to do with them if they live. Surely, Bannister dealt no way but honestly and truly. Hickford did not hurt me in my conscience, willingly; nor did not charge me with any great matter that was of weight otherways than truly. But the Bishop of Ross, and specially Barber, did falsely accuse me, and laid their own treasons upon my back. God forgive them, and I do, and once again I will you to do; bear no malice in your mind. And now, dear Philip, farewell. Read this my letter sometimes over; it may chance make you remember yourself the better; and by the same, when your father is dead and rotten, you may see what counsel I would give you if I were alive. If you follow these admonitions, there is no doubt but God will bless you; and I, your earthly father, do give you God's blessing and mine, with my humble prayers to Almighty God that it will please him to bless you and your good Nan; that you may both, if it be his will, see your children's children, to the comfort of you both; and afterward that you may be partakers of the heavenly kingdom. Amen, amen. Written by the hand of your loving father. T. H."
"And to Tom his grace did write:
"Tom, out of this that I have written to your brother, you may learn such lessons as are fit for you. That I write to one, that I write to all, except it be somewhat which particularly touches any of you. To fear and serve God is generally to you all; and, on my blessing, take greatest care thereof, for it is the foundation of all goodness. You have, even from your infancy, been given to be stubborn. Beware of that vice, Tom, and bridle nature with wisdom. Though you be her majesty's ward, yet if you use yourself well to my Lord Burleigh, he will, I hope, help you to buy your own wardship. Follow your elder brother's advice, who, I hope, will take such a course as may be to all your comforts. God send him grace so to do, and to you too! I give you God's blessing and mine, and I hope he will prosper you."
"And to Will he saith (whom methinks his heart did incline to, as Jacob's did to Benjamin):
"Will, though you be now young, yet I hope, if it shall please God to send you life, that you will then consider of the precepts heretofore written to your brethren. I have committed the charge of your bringing-up to your elder brother; and therefore I charge you to be obedient to him, as you would have been to me if I had been [{621}] living. If you shall have a liking to my daughter-in-law, Bess Dacres, I hope you shall have it in your own choice to marry her. I will not advise you otherways than yourself, when you are of fit years, shall think good; but this assure yourself, it will be a good augmentation to your small living, considering how chargeable the world groweth to be. As you are youngest, so the more you ought to be obedient to your elders. God send you a good younger brother's fortune in this world, and his grace, that you may ever be his, both in this world and in the world to come."
"To me, his unworthy daughter, were these lines written, which I be ashamed to transcribe, but that his goodness doth appear in his good opinion of me rather than my so poor merits:
"Well-beloved Nan, that hath been as dear to me as if you had been my own daughter, although, considering this ill hap that has now chanced, you might have had a greater marriage than now your husband shall be; yet I hope that you will remember that, when you were married, the case was far otherways; and therefore I hope your dutiful dealings shall be so to your husband, and your sisterly love to your brothers-in-law and sister-in-law, as my friends that shall see it may think that my great affection to you was well bestowed. Thanks be to God, you have hitherto taken a good course; whereby all that wish you well take great hope rather of your going forward therein than backward—which God forbid! I will request no more at your hands, now that I am gone, in recompense of my former love to you, but that you will observe my three lessons: to fear and serve God, flying idleness; to love faithfully your husband; and to be kind to your brothers and sisters—specially committing to your care mine only daughter Megg, hoping that you will not be a sister-in-law to her, but rather a natural sister, yea even a very mother; and that as I took care for the well bestowing of you, so you will take care for the well bestowing of her, and be a continual caller on your husband for the same. If this mishap had not chanced, you and your husband might have been awhile still young, and I would, by God's help, have supplied your wants. But now the case is changed, and you must, at your years of fifteen, attain to the consideration and discretion of twenty; or else, if God send you to live in your age, you shall have cause to repent your folly in youth, beside the endangering the casting away of those who do wholly depend upon your two well-doings. I do not mistrust that you will be mindful of my last requests; and so doing God bless you, and send you to be old parents to virtuous children, which is likeliest to be if you give them good example. Farewell! for this is the last that you shall ever receive from your loving father. Farewell, my dear Nan!"
"And to his own sweet Megg he subjoined in the same letter these words:
"Megg, I have, as you see, committed you to your loving sister. I charge you therefore, upon my blessing, that you obey her in all things, as you would do me or your own mother, if we were living; and then I doubt not but by her good means you shall be in fit time bestowed to your own comfort and contentment. Be good; no babbler, and ever be busied and doing of somewhat; and give your mind to reading in the Bible and such other good books, whereby you may learn to fear God; and so you shall prove, by his help, hereafter the better wife, and a virtuous woman in all other respects. If you follow these my lessons, then God's blessing and mine I give you, and pray that you may both live and die his servant. Amen."
When I read these letters, and my Lady Surrey's comments upon them, what pangs seized my heart! Her [{622}] messenger was awaiting an answer, which he said must be brief, for he had to ride to Bermondsey with a message for my Lord Sussex, and had been long delayed in the city. I seized a pen, and hastily wrote:
"Oh, my dear and honored lady, what grief, what pain, your letter hath caused me! Forgive me if, having but brief time in which to write a few lines by your messenger, I dwell not on the sorrow which doth oppress you, nor on the many excellences apparent in those farewell letters, which give token of so great virtue and wisdom in the writer, that one should be prompted to exclaim he did lack but one thing to be perfect, that being a true faith,—but rather direct my answer to that passage in yours which doth work in me such regret, yea such anguish of heart, as my poor words can ill express. For verily there can be no greater danger to a soul than to be lured from the profession of a true Catholic faith, once firmly received and yet inwardly held, by deceptive arguments, whereby it doth conceal its own weakness under the garb of respect for the dead and duty to the living. For, I pray you, mine own dear lady, what respect and what duty is owing to men which be not rather due to him who reads the heart, and will ask a strict account of such as, having known his will, yet have not done it? Believe me, 'tis a perilous thing to do evil that good may come. Is it possible you should resolve never to profess that religion which, in your conscience, you do believe to be true, nor to move your lord thereunto, for any human respect, however dear and sacred? I hope other feelings may return, and God's hand will support, uphold, and never fail you in your need. I beseech him to guard and keep you in the right way.
"Your humble servant and truly loving poor friend,
"CONSTANCE SHERWOOD."
[TO BE CONTINUED. [Page 748]]
From The Fortnightly Review.
THE HEART AND THE BRAIN.
BY GEORGE HENRY LEWES.
Heart and brain are the two lords of life. In the metaphors of ordinary speech and in the stricter language of science, we use these terms to indicate two central powers, from which all motives radiate, to which all influences converge. They rule the moral and the physical life: the moral owes to them its continuous supply of feelings and ideas; the physical its continuous supply of food and stimulus. All the composite material which serves to build up the bodily fabric, and repair its daily waste, is only so much "carted material" awaiting the architect, until it has twice passed through the heart—until having been sent by the heart to the lungs it has there received its plastic virtues, and returns to the heart to be thence distributed throughout the organism. So much is familiar to every one; but less familiar is the fact that this transmission of the blood from heart to lungs, and its distribution throughout the organism, are rendered possible and made effective only under the influence of the brain. Life is sustained by food and stimulus. The operation of nutrition itself is indissolubly connected with sensibility. Life is a plexus of nutrition and sensation, the threads of which may ideally be separated, but which in reality are so interwoven as to be indissoluble. This is a paradox which even many physiologists will reject; but it is only a paradox because biological questions have constantly been regarded from a chemical point of view.
To render my proposition free from ambiguity, it is needful to premise that the term heart, by a familiar device of rhetoric, here expresses the whole of that great circulatory apparatus of which it is only a part; and in like manner the term brain here expresses the whole of the sensory apparatus. The reader knows perfectly well that in strict anatomical language the heart is only one organ having a definite function; and that the brain—although the term is used with considerable laxity—is only one portion of the complex nervous mechanism, having also its definite functions. But I am not here addressing anatomists, and for purposes of simplification I shall generally speak of the heart as if it were the whole of the vascular system, and of the brain as if it were the whole of the nervous system. And there is a philosophic truth suggested by this departure from the limitations of anatomical definition, namely, that if the brain as a nervous centre requires to be distinguished from all other nervous centres, it also requires to be affiliated on them: it has its special functions as an organ, but it has also a community of property—i.e., sensibility—with all other nervous centres.
In the study of animal organisms, the scientific artifice called analysis, which separates ideally what nature has indissolubly united, isolating each portion of a complex whole to study it undisturbed by the influences of other portions, has established a division of life into animal and vegetable. The division is as old as Aristotle, but has become the common property of science only since the days of Bichat. It is not exact, but it is convenient. As an artifice it has proved its utility, but like all such distinctions it has a tendency to divert the mind from contemplation of the real synthesis of nature. Even as an artifice the classification is not free from ambiguities; and perhaps it would be less exceptionable if [{624}] instead of vegetal and animal we were to substitute nutritive and sensitive. All the phenomena of growth, development, and decay—phenomena common to plants as to animals—may range under the laws of nutrition. All the phenomena of feeling and motion which specially distinguish animals, will range under the laws of sensibility. Plants, it is true, manifest motion, some few of them even locomotion; but in them it is believed that these phenomena are never due to the stimulus of sensibility.
Viewing the animal organism as thus differentiated, we see on the one hand a complex system of organs—glands, membranes, vessels—all harmoniously working to one end, which is to build up the body, and silently repair its continual waste. They evolve the successive phases of development. They prepare successive generations. On the other hand, we see a complex system of organs—muscles, tendons, bones, nerves, and nerve-centres—also harmoniously co-operative. They stimulate the organs of nutrition. They work first for the preservation of the individual in the struggle of existence; next, for the perfection of the individual in the development of his highest qualities.
But it is important to remember that this division is purely ideal—a scientific artifice, not a reality. Nature knows of none such. In the organism the two lives are one. The two systems interlace, interpenetrate each other, so that the slightest modification of the one is followed by a corresponding change in the other. The brain is nourished by the heart, and were it not for the blood which is momently pumped into it by the heart, its sensibility would vanish. And the heart in turn depends upon the brain, not for food, but for stimulus, for motive power, without which food is inert. That we may feel, it is necessary we should feed; that we may feed, it is necessary we should feel. Nutrition cannot be dissociated from sensation. The blood which nourishes the brain, giving it impulse and sustaining power, could never have become arterial blood, could never have reached the brain, had not the heart which sent it there been subjected to influences from the brain. The blood itself has no locomotive impulse. The heart has no spontaneous power: it is a muscle, and like all other muscles must be stimulated into activity. Unless the sensitive mechanism were in action, the lungs could not expand, the blood would not become oxygenated, the heart would not pump. Look on the corpse from which the life has just vanished. Why is it inert? There is food within it. It has blood in abundance. There is air in the lungs. The muscles are contractile, and the tendons elastic. So little is the wondrous mechanism impaired, that if by any means we could supply a stimulus to awaken the dormant sensibility, the chest would expand, the heart would beat, the blood would circulate, the corpse would revive.
It is unnecessary to point out in detail how dependent the brain is upon the heart; but mention may be made of the fact that more blood is sent to the brain than to any other organ in the body: according to some estimates a fifth of the whole, according to others a third. Not only is a large quantity of blood demanded for the continuous activity of the brain, but such is the peculiar nature of this great nervous centre, that of all organs it is the most delicately susceptible to every variation in the quality of the blood sent to it. If the heart pumps feebly, the brain acts feebly. If the blood be vitiated, the brain is lethargic; and when the brain is lethargic, the heart is weak. Thus do the two great centres interact. They are both lords of life, and both mutually indispensable.
There are two objections which it may be well to anticipate: Nutrition, it may be objected, cannot be so indissolubly blended with sensation as I have affirmed, because, in the first place, most of the nutritive processes go on without the intervention of [{625}] sensibility; and in the second place, the nutritive life of plants is confessedly independent of sensation, since in plants there is no sensitive mechanism whatever. Nutrition is simply a chemical process.
The answers to these objections may be very brief. Nutrition is a biological not a chemical process: it involves the operation of chemical laws, but these laws are themselves subordinated to physiological laws; and one of these laws is the necessary dependence of organic activity on a nervous mechanism wherever such a mechanism exists. Although popular language, and the mistaken views (as I conceive) of physiologists, allow us to say, without any apparent absurdity, that the processes of respiration, digestion, circulation, and secretion go on without feeling or sensation—because these processes do not habitually become distinct in consciousness, but are merged in the general feeling of existence—we have only to replace the word feeling, or sensation, by the phrase "nervous influence," and it then becomes a serious biological error to speak of nutrition as dissociated from the stimulus of nervous centres, as capable of continuance without the intervention of sensibility. The chemical combinations and decompositions do not of course depend on this intervention, but the transport of materials does. All the disputes which have been waged on this subject would have been silenced had the disputants borne in mind this distinction between the chemical and organic elements in every nutritive process. It is not the stoker who makes the steam; but if the stoker were not to supply the fire with coals, and the safety-valve were not to regulate the amount of pressure, steam might indeed be generated, but no steam-engine would perform its useful work. In like manner, it is not the vascular system which makes a secretion; but if the blood did not supply the gland with materials, the secreting process would quickly end, and the blood can only be brought to the gland through the agency of muscular contractions stimulated by nervous influence.
Granting that plants have no sensibility, and that in them the process of nutrition must go on without such an intervention, we are able to demonstrate that in animals in whose organism the sensitive apparatus is an integral portion, the processes of nutrition are more or less under the influence of this apparatus. In saying "more or less," I indicate the greater or less perfection of the organism; for, as every one knows, the perfection of each type is due to the predominance of its sensitive mechanism. In some of the lowest types, no trace of a nervous mechanism can be discovered. A little higher in the scale, the mechanism is very slight and simple. Still higher, it becomes complex and important. It culminates in man. Corresponding with this scale of complexity in the sensitive life is the scale of complexity in the nutritive life. As the two rise in importance they rise in the scale of dependence. Thus a frog or a triton will live long after its brain is removed. I have kept frogs for several weeks without their brains, and tritons without their heads. Redi, the illustrious Italian naturalist, kept a turtle alive five months after the removal of its brain. Now it is needless to say that in higher animals death would rapidly follow the loss of the brain. A somewhat similar parallelism is seen on the removal of the heart. None of the higher animals can survive a serious injury to the heart; but that organ may be removed from a reptile, and the animal will crawl away seemingly as lively as ever. A frog will live several hours without a heart, and will hop, swim, and struggle as if uninjured. Stilling once removed all the viscera from a frog, which, however, continued for one hour to hop, defend itself, and in various ways manifest its vivacity. [Footnote 124]
[Footnote 124: Stilling, Untersuchungen über die Functionen des Rückenmarks, p. 38. ]
In spite of these evidences of a temporary independence of brain and heart, as individual organs, there is nothing more certain than the intimate interdependence of the sensitive and circulating systems; and if in lower animals the interdependence of the two great central organs is less energetic than in the higher, the law of the intervention of sensibility in all processes of nutrition is unaffected. In fact, wherever the motor mechanism is muscular, as it is in all but the simplest animals, the necessary intervention of sensibility is an à priori axiom. Every action in the organs of such animals is a manifestation of muscular contractility, and there is no known means of exciting this contractility except by the stimulus of a nerve.
The heart is a muscle. Some years ago there was a school of physiologists advocating the hypothesis that the action of the heart was due to the irritability of its muscular tissue, which was stimulated by the presence of blood. The great Haller was the head of this school, and his "Memoires sur la nature sensible et irritable des parties" [Footnote 125] is still worthy the attention of experimentalists. And, indeed, when men saw the heart continue its pulsations some time after death, and even after removal from the body, and saw, moreover, that after pulsation had ceased it could be revived by the injection of warm blood, there seemed the strongest arguments in favor of the hypothesis. Unhappily for the hypothesis, the heart continues to beat long after all the blood has been pumped out of it, consequently its beating cannot be due to the stimulus of the blood.
[Footnote 125: Lausanne, 1756, in 4 vols. ]
In our own day the difficulty has to a considerable extent been removed by the discovery of a small nervous system specially allotted to the heart,—nerves and ganglia imbedded in its substance, which there do the work of nerves and ganglia everywhere else. Cut the heart into pieces, and each piece containing a ganglion will beat as before; the other pieces will be still. Beside this special cardiac system which influences the regular pulsations, there is the general nervous system, which accelerates and arrests these pulsations at every moment of our lives. The heart is thus connected with the general organism through the intervention of the great sensory apparatus. Filaments of what are called the pneumogastric nerves connect the heart with the spinal chord and cerebral masses; but it is not the influence of these filaments which causes the regular beatings of the heart (as physiologists formerly supposed), and the proof is that these filaments may all be cut, thus entirely isolating the heart from all connection with the great nervous centres, and yet the heart will continue tranquilly beating. What causes this? Obviously the stimulus comes from the heart's own nerves; and these are, presumably, excited by the molecular changes going on within it.
Physiologists, as we said just now, supposed that the filaments of the pneumogastric nerves distributed to the heart caused its beating. What then was their surprise, a few years since, when Weber announced that the stimulation of these fibres, instead of accelerating the heart's action, arrested it! Here was a paradox. All other muscles, it was said (but erroneously said), are excited to increased action when their nerves are stimulated, and here is a muscle which is paralyzed by the stimulation of its nerves. The fact was indisputable; an electric current passed through the pneumogastric did suddenly and invariably arrest the heart. Physiologists were interested. The frogs and rabbits of Europe had a bad time of it, called upon to answer categorically such questions put to their hearts. In a little while it appeared that although a strong electric current arrested the pulsations—and in mammals instantaneously—yet a feeble current accelerated instead of arresting them. The same opposite results followed a powerful and a gentle excitation of the upper region of the spinal chord.
To these very important and suggestive facts, which throw a strong light on many phenomena hitherto obscure, let us add the interesting facts that in a healthy, vigorous animal, the heart quickly recovers its normal activity after the withdrawal of the electric stimulus; but in a sickly or highly sensitive animal the arrest is final.
Who does not read here the physiological explanation of the familiar fact that powerful mental shocks momently arrest the heart, and sometimes arrest it for ever? That which a powerful current will do applied to the pneumogastric nerve, will be done by a profound agitation of grief or joy—truly called a heart-shaking influence. The agitation of the great centres of thought is communicated to the spinal chord, and from it to the nerves which issue to various parts of the body: the limbs are violently moved, the glands are excited to increased activity, the tears flow, the facial muscles contract, the chest expands, laughter or sobs, dances of delight and shouts of joy, these and the manifold expressions of an agitated emotion, are the after results—the first effect is an arrest, more or less fugitive, followed by an increase of the heart's action. If the organism be vigorous, the effect of a powerful emotion is a sudden paleness, indicating a momentary arrest of the heart. This may be but for an instant; the heart pauses, and the lungs pause with it—"the breath is taken away." This is succeeded by an energetic palpitation; the lungs expand, the blood rushes to face and brain with increased force. Should the organism be sickly or highly sensitive, the arrest is of longer duration, and fainting, more or less prolonged, is the result. In a very sensitive or very sickly organism the arrest is final. The shock of joy and the shock of grief have both been known to kill.
The effects of a gentle stimulus we may expect to be very different, since we know that a feeble electric current stimulates the heart's action. The nature of the stimulus is always the same, no matter on what occasion it arises. It may arise from a dash of cold water on the face—as we see in the revival of the heart's action when we throw water on the face of a fainting person. It may arise from inhaling an irritant odor. It may arise from the pleasurable sight of a dear friend, or the thrill of delight at the new birth of an idea. In every case the brain is excited, either through an impression on a sensitive nerve, or through the impulses of thought; and the sensibility thus called into action necessarily discharges itself through one or more of the easiest channels; and among the easiest is that of the pneumogastric nerve. But the heart thus acted on in turn reacts. Its increased energy throws more blood into the brain, which draws its sustaining power from the blood.
Experimentalists have discovered another luminous fact connected with this influence of the brain upon the heart, namely, that although a current of a certain intensity (varying of course with the nature of the organism) will infallibly arrest the heart, if applied at once, yet if we begin with a feeble current and go on gradually increasing its intensity, we may at last surpass the degree which would have produced instantaneous arrest, and yet the heart will continue to beat energetically.
The effect of repetition in diminishing a stimulus is here very noticeable. It will serve to explain why, according to the traditions of familiar experience, we are careful to break the announcement of disastrous news, by intimating something much less calamitous, wherewith to produce the first shock, and then, when the heart has withstood that, we hope it may have energy to meet the more agitating emotions. The same fact will also serve, partly, to explain why from repetition the effect of smoking is no longer as it is at first to produce paleness, sweating, and sickness. The heart ceases to be sensibly affected by the stimulus.
Returning to the effects of a gentle stimulus, we can read therein the rationale of change of scene, especially of foreign travel, in restoring the exhausted energies. The gentle excitement of novel and pleasurable sights is not, as people generally suppose, merely a mental stimulus—a pleasure which passes away without a physical influence; on the contrary, it is inseparably connected with an increased activity of the circulation, and this brings with it an increased activity of all the processes of waste and repair. If the excitement and fatigue be not too great, even the sickly traveller finds himself stronger and happier, in spite of bad food, irregular hours, and many other conditions which at home would have enfeebled him. I have heard a very distinguished physician (Sir Henry Holland) say that such is his conviction of the beneficial influence of even slight nervous stimulus on the nutritive processes, that when the patient cannot have change of scene, change of room is of some advantage—nay, even change of furniture, if there cannot be change of room!
To those who have thoroughly grasped the principle of the indissoluble conjunction of nutrition and sensation, such effects are obvious deductions. They point to the great importance of pleasure as an element of effective life. They lead to the question whether much of the superior health of youth is not due to the greater amount of pleasurable excitement which life affords to young minds.
Certain it is that much of the marvellous activity of some old men, especially of men engaged in politics or in interesting professions, may be assigned to the greater stimulus given to their bodily functions by the pleasurable excitement of their minds. Men who vegetate sink prematurely into old age. The fervid wheels of life revolve upon excitement. If the excitement be too intense, the wheels take fire; but if the mental stimulus be simply pleasurable, it is eminently beneficial.
Every impression reacts on the circulation, a slight impression producing a slight acceleration, a powerful impression, producing an arrest more or less prolonged. The "shock" of a wound and the "pain" of an operation cause faintness, sometimes death. Indeed, it is useful to know that many severe operations are dangerous only because of the shock or pain, and can be performed with impunity if the patient first be rendered insensible by chloroform. On the other hand, the mere irritation of a nerve so as to produce severe pain will produce syncope or death in an animal which is very feeble or exhausted. It is possible to crush the whole of the upper part of the spinal chord (the medulla oblongata) without arresting the action of the heart, if the animal has been rendered insensible by chloroform; whereas without such precautions a very slight irritation of the medulla suffices to arrest the heart.
A moment's reflection will disclose the reason of the remarkable differences observed in human beings in the matter of sensitiveness. The stupid are stupid, not simply because their nervous development is below the average, but also because the connection between the two great central organs, brain and heart, is comparatively languid; the pneumogastric is not in them a ready channel for the discharge of nervous excitement. The sensitive are sensitive because in them the connection is rapid and easy. All nervous excitement must discharge itself through one or more channels; but what channels, will depend on the native and acquired tendencies of the organism. In highly sensitive animals a mere prick on the skin can be proved to affect the beating of the heart; but you may lacerate a reptile without sensibly affecting its pulse. In like manner, a pleasurable sight or a suggestive thought will quicken the pulse of an intelligent man, whereas his stupid brother may be the spectator of festal or solemn scenes and the auditor of noble eloquence with scarcely a change.
The highly sensitive organism is one in which the reactions of sensibility on the circulation, and of the circulation on the sensibility, are most direct and rapid. This is often the source of weakness and inefficiency—as we see in certain feminine natures of both sexes, wherein the excessive sensitiveness does not lie in an unusual development of the nervous centres, but in an unusual development of the direct connection between brain and heart. There are men and women of powerful brains in whom this rapid transmission of sensation to the heart is not observable; the nervous force discharges itself through other channels. There are men and women of small brains in whom "the irritability" is so great that almost every sensation transmits its agitating influence to the heart.
And now we are in a condition to appreciate the truth which was confusedly expressed in the ancient doctrine respecting the heart as the great emotional organ. It still lives in our ordinary speech, but has long been banished from the text-books of physiology, though it is not, in my opinion, a whit more unscientific than the modern doctrine respecting the brain (meaning the cerebral hemispheres) as the exclusive organ of sensation. That the heart, as a muscle, is not endowed with the property of sensibility—a property exclusively possessed by ganglionic tissue—we all admit. But the heart, as the central organ of the circulation, is so indissolubly connected with every manifestation of sensibility, and is so delicately susceptible to all emotional agitations, that we may not improperly regard it as the ancients regarded it, in the light of the chief centre of feeling; for the ancients had no conception of the heart as an organ specially endowed with sensibility—they only thought of it as the chief agent of the sensitive soul. And is not this the conception we moderns form of the brain? We do not imagine the cerebral mass, as a mere mass, and unrelated to the rest of the organism, to have in itself sensibility; but we conceive it as the centre of a great system, dependent for its activity on a thousand influences, sensitive because sensibility is the form of life peculiar to it, but living only in virtue of the vital activities of the whole organism. Thus the heart, because its action is momently involved in every emotion, and because every emotion reacts upon it, may, as truly as the brain, be called the great emotional centre. Neither brain nor heart can claim that title exclusively. They may claim it together.
From The Month.
THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS.
BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.
[Concluded.]
§4.
SOUL.
But hark! upon my sense
Comes a fierce hubbub, which would make me fear,
Could I be frighted.
ANGEL.
We are now arrived
Close on the judgment-court; that sullen howl
Is from the demons who assemble there.
It is the middle region, where of old
Satan appeared among the sons of God,
To cast his jibes and scoffs at holy Job.
So now his legions throng the vestibule,
Hungry and wild, to claim their property,
And gather souls for hell. Hist to their cry.
SOUL.
How sour and how uncouth a dissonance!
DEMONS.
|
Low-born clods Of brute earth, To become gods, By a new birth, And a score of merits, As if ought Of the high thought, Of the great spirits, The powers blest, Of the proud dwelling Dispossessed, Who after expelling |
They aspire And an extra grace, Could stand in place And the glance of fire The lords by right, The primal owners And realm of light, Aside thrust, Chucked down, By the sheer might Of a despot's will, Of a tyrant's frown, Their hosts, gave, Triumphant still, And still unjust, Each forfeit crown To psalm-droners And canting groaners, To every slave, And pious cheat, And crawling knave, Who licked the dust Under his feet. |
ANGEL.
It is the restless panting of their being;
Like beasts of prey, who, caged within their bars,
In a deep hideous purring have their life,
And an incessant pacing to and fro.
DEMONS.
|
The mind bold And independent, The purpose free, So we are told, Must not think To have the ascendant, One whose breath Before his death; Which fools adore, When life is o'er, Which rattle and stink, E'en in the flesh. No flesh hath he; Ha! ha! Afresh, afresh, As priestlings prate, And envy and hate |
What's a saint? Doth the air taint A bundle of bones, Ha! ha! We cry his pardon! For it hath died, 'Tis crucified Day by day, Ha! ha! That holy clay, Ha! ha! And such fudge, Is his guerdon Before the judge, And pleads and atones For spite and grudge, And bigot mood, And greed of blood. |
SOUL.
How impotent they are! and yet on earth
They have repute for wondrous power and skill;
And books describe, how that the very face
Of th' evil one, if seen, would have a force
To freeze the very blood, and choke the life
Of him who saw it.
ANGEL.
In thy trial state
Thou hadst a traitor nestling close at home,
Connatural, who with the powers of hell
Was leagued, and of thy senses kept the keys,
And to that deadliest foe unlocked thy heart.
And therefore is it, in respect of man,
Those fallen ones show so majestical.
But, when some child of grace, angel or saint,
Pure and upright in his integrity
Of nature, meets the demons on their raid,
They scud away as cowards from the fight.
Nay, oft hath holy hermit in his cell,
Not yet disburdened of mortality,
Mocked at their threats and warlike overtures;
Or, dying, when they swarmed like flies, around,
Defied them, and departed to his judge.
DEMONS.
|
Virtue and vice, 'Tis all the same; Of the venomous flame, Give him his price, With sordid aim, |
A knave's pretence. Ha! ha! A coward's plea. Saint though he be, From shrewd good sense Ha! ha! To the heaven above Not from love. |
Dread of hell-fire, Ha! ha! He'll slave for hire; And does but aspire Ha! ha! |
SOUL.
I see not those false spirits; shall I see
My dearest Master, when I reach his throne?
Or hear, at least, his awful judgment-word
With personal intonation, as I now
Hear thee, not see thee, angel? Hitherto
All has been darkness since I left the earth;
Shall I remain thus sight-bereft all through
My penance-time? if so, how comes it then
That I have hearing still, and taste, and touch,
Yet not a glimmer of that princely sense
Which binds ideas in one, and makes them live?
ANGEL.
Nor touch, nor taste, nor hearing hast thou now;
Thou livest in a world of signs and types,
The presentations of most holy truths,
Living and strong, which now encompass thee.
A disembodied soul, thou hast by right
No converse with aught else beside thyself;
But, lest so stern a solitude should load
And break thy being, in mercy are vouchsafed
Some lower measures of perception,
Which seem to thee, as though through channels brought,
Through ear, or nerves, or palate, which are gone.
And thou art wrapped and swathed around in dreams,
Dreams that are true, yet enigmatical;
For the belongings of thy present state,
Save through such symbols, come not home to thee.
And thus thou tell'st of space and time and size,
Of fragrant, solid, bitter, musical,
Of fire, and of refreshment after fire;
As (let me use similitude of earth,
To aid thee in the knowledge thou dost ask)—
As ice which blisters may be said to burn.
Nor hast thou now extension, with its parts
Correlative,—long habit cozens thee,—
Nor power to move thyself, nor limbs to move.
Hast thou not heard of those, who after loss
Of hand or foot, still cried that they had pains
In hand or foot, as though they had it still?
So is it now with thee, who hast not lost
Thy hand or foot, but all which made up man.
So will it be, until the joyous day
Of resurrection, when thou wilt regain
All thou hast lost, new-made and glorified.—
—How, even now, the consummated saints
See God in heaven, I may not explicate:—
Meanwhile let it suffice thee to possess
Such means of converse as are granted thee,
Though till the beatific vision thou art blind;
For e'en thy purgatory, which comes like fire,
Is fire without its light.
SOUL.
His will be done!
I am not worthy e'er to see again
The face of day; far less his countenance,
Who is the very sun. Natheless, in life,
When I looked forward to my purgatory,
It ever was my solace to believe,
That, ere I plunged into th' avenging flame,
I had one sight of him to strengthen me.
ANGEL.
Nor rash nor vain is that presentiment;
Yes,—for one moment thou shalt see thy Lord.
Thus will it be: what time thou art arraigned
Before the dread tribunal, and thy lot
Is cast for ever, should it be to sit
On his right hand among his pure elect,
Then sight, or that which to the soul is sight,
As by a lightning-flash, will come to thee,
And thou shalt see, amid the dark profound,
Whom thy soul loveth, and would fain approach,
One moment; but thou knowest not, my child,
What thou dost ask: that sight of the Most Fair
Will gladden thee, but it will pierce thee too.
SOUL.
Thou speakest darkly, angel; and an awe
Falls on me, and I fear lest I be rash.
ANGEL.
There was a mortal, who is now above
In the mid glory; he, when near to die,
Was given communion with the Crucified,—
Such, that the Master's very wounds were stamped
Upon his flesh; and, from the agony
Which thrilled through body and soul in that embrace,
Learn that the flame of the Everlasting Love
Doth burn, ere it transform. …