Infelice

by Augusta J. Evans

"Am I Cerberus, to be coaxed and cheated by a well-buttered sop of flattery? Return to your mutton, reverend sir, and know that I am incorruptible, and disdain to betray my cause for your thirty pieces of potent praise."

"I think," said Mr. Hargrove, taking a bunch of cherries from the fruit-stand on the library table,—"I think the whole matter may be resolved into this; the ambitious clamours and Amazonian excesses of this epoch, are the inevitable consequence of the rigid tyranny of former ages; which sternly banished women to the numbing darkness of an intellectual night, denying them the legitimate and natural right of developing their faculties by untrammelled exercise. This belief in feminine inferiority is still expressed in Mohammedan lands, by the custom of placing a slate or tablet of marble on a woman's grave, while on that of men a pen or penholder is laid, to indicate that female hearts are mere tablets, on which man writes whatever pleases him best. In sociology, as well as physics and dynamics,—the angle of reflection is always equal to the angle of incidence,—the psychologic rebound is ever in proportion to the mental pressure; one extreme invariably impinges upon the opposite,—and when the pendulum has reached one end of the arc, it must of necessity swing back to the other. In all social revolutions the moderate and reasonable concessions which might have appeased the discontent in its incipiency are gladly tendered much too late in the contest, when the insurgents stung by injustice and conscious of their grievances, refuse all temperate compromise, and run riot. This woman's-rights and woman's-suffrage abomination is no suddenly concocted social bottle of yeast: it has been fermenting for ages, and, having finally blown out the cork, is rapidly leavening the mass of female malcontents."

"But, Uncle Peyton, you surely discriminate between a few noisy ambitious sciolists who mistake lyceum notoriety for renown, and the noble band of delicate, refined women whose brilliant attainments in the republic of letters are surpassed only by their beautiful devotion to God, family, and home? Fancy Mrs. Somerville demanding a seat in Parliament, or Miss Herschel elbowing her way to the hustings! Whose domestic record is more lovely in its pure womanliness than Hannah More's, or Miss Mitford's, or Mrs. Browning's? who wears deathless laurels more modestly than Rosa Bonheur? It seems to me, sir, that it is not so much the amount as the quality of the learning that just now ought to engage attention. I see that one of the ablest and strongest thinkers of the day has handled this matter in a masterly way, and with your permission I should like to read a passage: 'In these times the educational tree seems to me to have its roots in the air, its leaves and flowers in the ground; and I confess I should very much like to turn it upside down, so that its roots might be solidly embedded among the facts of Nature, and draw thence a sound nutriment for the foliage and fruit of literature and of art. No educational system can have a claim to permanence, unless it recognizes the truth that education has two great ends, to which everything else must be subordinated. One of these is to increase knowledge; the other is to develop the love of right and the hatred of wrong. At present, education is almost entirely devoted to the cultivation of the power of expression, and of the sense of literary beauty. The matter of having anything to say beyond a hash of other people's opinions, or of possessing any criterion of beauty, so that we may distinguish between the God-like and the devilish, is left aside as of no moment. I think I do not err in saying that if science were made the foundation of education, instead of being at most stuck on as cornice to the edifice, this state of things could not exist.' Such is the system I should like to see established in our own country."

"Provided you could reply upon the moderation of the teachers; for unless wisely and temperately inculcated, this system would soon make utter shipwreck of the noblest interests of humanity. For many years I have watched attentively the doublings of this fox, and while I yield to no man in solemn fidelity to truth, I want to be sure that what I accept as such, is not merely old error under new garbs, only a change of disguising terms. Science has its fetich, as well has superstition, and abstruse terminology does not always conceal its stolid gross proportions. The complete overthrow and annihilation of the belief in a personal, governing, prayer-answering God, is the end and aim of the gathering cohorts of science, and the sooner masking technicalities are thrown aside the better for all parties. Scientific research and analysis, nobly brave, patient, tireless, and worthy of all honour and gratitude, have manipulated, decomposed, and then integrated the universal clay, but despite microscope and telescope, chemical analysis, and vivisection, they can go no further than the whirring of the Potter's wheel, and the Potter is nowhere revealed. The moulding Creative hand and the plastic clay are still as distinct, as when the gauntlet was first flung down by proud ambitious constructive science. Animal and vegetable organisms have been analyzed, and 'the idea of adaptation developed into the conception that life itself, "is the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive in correspondence with external co-existence and sequences."' Now to the masses who are pardonably curious concerning this problem of existence, is this result perfectly satisfactory? The 'Physical basis of life' has been driven into a corner, hunted down, seized at last, and over the heads of an eager, panting, chasing generation, is triumphantly dangled this 'Scientific Fox' brush, 'Nucleated Protoplasm, the structural unit!' But how or whence sprang the laws of 'Protein'? Hatred of certain phrases is more bitter than of the principles they express, and because theologians cling to the words God,' Creative Acts, Divine Wisdom, Providential Adaptation, scientists declare them the dicta of ignorance, superstition, and tradition, and demand that we shall bow before their superior wisdom, and substitute such terms as 'Biogenesis,' 'Abiogenesis,' and 'Xenogenesis.' But where is the economy of credulity? The problems are only crowded by a subtle veil of learned or scientific verbiage, and their solution does not induce the expenditure of faith. The change of names is not worth the strife, for the Clay and the Potter are still distinct, and He who created cosmic laws cannot reasonably or satisfactorily be confounded with, or merged in His own statutes. Creeds, theories, systems are not valuable because they are religious and traditional, or because they are scientific or philosophical, but solely on account of their truth. So, Douglass, I am not sure that your essentially scientific method will teach Regina any more real wisdom in ethics, or in Ætiolgy, than her great-grandmother possessed."

"You forget, Uncle Peyton, that in this rapidly advancing age only improved educational systems will enable men and women to appreciate the importance of its discoveries."

"My dear boy, are sudden and violent changes always synonymous with advancement? Is transition inevitably improvement? Was the social status of Paris after the revolution of 1790 an appreciable progress from the morals, religious or political, that existed in the days of Fenelon? In mechanical, agricultural, and chemical departments the march is indeed nobly on and upward, the discoveries and improvements are vast and wonderful, and for these physical material blessings we are entirely indebted to Science, toiling, heroic, and truly beneficent Science. In morals, public or private—religion, national or individual—or in civil polity, have we advanced? Has liberty of action kept pace with liberty of opinion? Are Americans as truly free to-day as they certainly were fifty years ago? In æsthetics do we surpass Phidias and Praxiteles, Raphael and Michael Angelo? Is our music more perfect than Pergolesi's or Mozart's? Can we exhibit any marvels of architecture that excel the glory of Philæ, Athens, Pæstum, and Agra? Are wars less bloody, or is crime less rampant? Our arrogant assumption of superiority is sometimes mournfully rebuked. For instance, one of the most eminent and popular scientists of England emphasised his views on the necessity of 'improving natural knowledge,' by ascribing the great plague of 1664, and the great fire of 1666—which in point of population and of houses, nearly swept London from the face of the globe—to ignorance and neglect of sanitary laws, and to the failure to provide suitable organizations for the suppression of conflagrations. He proudly asserted that the recurrence of such catastrophes is now prohibited by scientific arrangements 'that never allow even a street to burn down,' and that 'it is the improvement of our own natural knowledge which keeps back the plague.' I think I am warranted in the assumption that our American Fire Departments, Insurance Companies, and Boards of Health are quite as advanced, progressive, and scientific as similar associations in Great Britain; yet the week after I read his argument, an immense city lay almost in ruins; and ere many months passed, several towns and districts of our land were scourged, desolated by pestilence so fatal, so unconquerable, that the horrors of the plague were revived, and the living were scarcely able to sepulchre the dead. Now and then we have solemn admonitions of the Sisyphian tendency of the attempt so oft defeated, so persistently renewed to banish a Personal and Ruling God, and substitute the scientific fetich, 'Force and Matter,' 'Natural Law,' 'Evolution,' or 'Development.' While I desire that the basis of Regina's education shall be sufficiently broad, liberal, and comprehensive, I intend to be careful what doctrines are propounded; for unfortunately all who sympathize with the atheism of Comte, have not his noble frankness, and fail to print as he did on his title-page:

'Réorganiser sans Dieu ni roi, Par le culte systematique de l'Humanité.'"

"Oh, Peyton! what fearfully, selfishly long sentences you and Douglass inflict upon each other, and upon me! The colons and semicolons gather along the lines of conversation like an army of martyrs, and to my stupidly weary ears that last, that final period, was a most 'sweet boon'—a crowning blessing. If Regina's nightingale soul is to be vexed by such disquisitions as those from which you have been quoting, I must say it made a sorry bargain in exchanging brown feathers for pink flesh, and would have had a better time trilling madrigals in some hawthorn thicket or myrtle grove. I see plainly I might as well carry my dear old Evelyn—fragrant with mint and marjoram—back upstairs, and wrap it up in ancient camphor-scented linen, and put it away tenderly to sleep its last sleep in the venerable cedar chest, where my grandfather's huge knee-buckles, and my great-grandmother's yellow brocaded silk-dress, with its waist the length of my little finger, and the sleeves as wide as a balloon. Gentlemen, permit me one parting paragraph, before I write 'finis' on this matter of education, and 'hereafter for ever hold my peace.' Be it distinctly understood, 'by these presents,' that if that child Regina grows up a blue-stocking, or a metempsychosist, a scientist or a freedom-shrieker, a professor of physics or a practitioner of physic, judge of a court or mayor of a city, biologist, sociologist, heathen or heretic, it will be no work or wish of mine; for to each and all of these threatened, progressive abominations, I, Elise Lindsay, do hold up clean hands, and cry, Avaunt!"

"I thought my sister had long since learned that borrowing trouble necessitated the payment of usurious interest? Just now our little girl carries no gorgon's head; let her alone. The most imperatively demanded change in our system of female training, is the addition of a few years in which to work. American girls are turned out upon society when they should be beginning their apprenticeship under their mothers' eyes in all household arts and sciences; and they are wives and mothers before they are able physically, mentally, or morally to appreciate the sacred, solemn responsibilities that inhere in such positions. If our girls pursued methodically all the branches of a liberal and classical education, including domestic economy, until they were at least twenty, how much misery would be averted! how many more really elegant interesting women would be added to the charm of society, usefulness to country, happiness and sanctity of home! Had I means to bestow in such enterprises, I should like to endow some institution, and stipulate for a chair of household-arts-and-sciences-and-home-duties; and Regina should not go into general society until she had graduated therein."

"Not another word of conspiracy against my little maid's peace! Lean forward a little, Peyton, and look at her yonder, coming along the rose-walk. See how the pigeons follow her. She has been gathering raspberries, and I promised she should make all she could pick into jelly for poor old Tobitha Meggs. How pure and fair she looks in her white dress! Dear little thing! Sometimes I am wicked enough to wish she had no mother, for then she would be wholly ours, and we could keep her always. Listen, she is singing Schubert's 'Ave Maria'."