"That is a good sign."
"I hope so; that is all I can say now."
The week had not quite passed when I received from my father the letter I am about to place before the reader; and you may judge how earnestly his soul must have been in the task it had volunteered, if you observe how little, comparatively speaking, the letter contains of the subtleties and pedantries (may the last word be pardoned, for it is scarcely a just one) which ordinarily left my father,—a scholar even in the midst of his emotions. He seemed here to have abandoned his books, to have put the human heart before the eyes of his pupil, and said, "Read and un-learn!"
To Pisistratus Caxton.
My Dear Son,—It were needless to tell you all the earlier difficulties I have had to encounter with my charge, nor to repeat all the means which, acting on your suggestion (a correct one), I have employed to arouse feelings long dormant and confused, and allay others long prematurely active and terribly distinct. The evil was simply this: here was the intelligence of a man in all that is evil, and the ignorance of an infant in all that is good. In matters merely worldly, what wonderful acumen; in the plain principles of right and wrong, what gross and stolid obtuseness! At one time I am straining all my poor wit to grapple in an encounter on the knottiest mysteries of social life; at another, I am guiding reluctant fingers over the horn-book of the most obvious morals. Here hieroglyphics, and there pot-hooks! But as long as there is affection in a man, why, there is Nature to begin with! To get rid of all the rubbish laid upon her, clear back the way to that Nature and start afresh,—that is one's only chance.
Well, by degrees I won my way, waiting patiently till the bosom, pleased with the relief, disgorged itself of all "its perilous stuff,"—not chiding, not even remonstrating, seeming almost to sympathize, till I got him, Socratically, to disprove himself. When I saw that he no longer feared me, that my company had become a relief to him, I proposed an excursion, and did not tell him whither.
Avoiding as much as possible the main north road (for I did not wish, as you may suppose, to set fire to a train of associations that might blow us up to the dog-star), and where that avoidance was not possible, travelling by night, I got him into the neighborhood of the old Tower.
I would not admit him under its roof. But you know the little inn, three miles off, near the trout stream? We made our abode there.
Well, I have taken him into the village, preserving his incognito. I have entered with him into cottages, and turned the talk upon Roland. You know how your uncle is adored; you know what anecdotes of his bold, warm-hearted youth once, and now of his kind and charitable age, would spring up from the garrulous lips of gratitude! I made him see with his own eyes, hear with his own ears, how all who knew Roland loved and honored him,—except his son. Then I took him round the ruins (still not suffering him to enter the house); for those ruins are the key to Roland's character,—seeing them, one sees the pathos in his poor foible of family pride. There, you distinguish it from the insolent boasts of the prosperous, and feel that it is little more than the pious reverence to the dead, "the tender culture of the tomb." We sat down on heaps of mouldering stone, and it was there that I explained to him what Roland was in youth, and what he had dreamed that a son would be to him. I showed him the graves of his ancestors, and explained to him why they were sacred in Roland's eyes. I had gained a great way when he longed to enter the home that should have been his and I could make him pause of his own accord and say, "No, I must first be worthy of it." Then you would have smiled—sly satirist that you are—to have heard me impressing upon this acute, sharp-witted youth all that we plain folk understand by the name of Home,—its perfect trust and truth, its simple holiness, its exquisite happiness, being to the world what conscience is to the human mind. And after that I brought in his sister, whom till then he had scarcely named, for whom he scarcely seemed to care,—brought her in to aid the father and endear the home. "And you know," said I, "that if Roland were to die, it would be a brother's duty to supply his place,—to shield her innocence, to protect her name! A good name is something, then. Your father was not so wrong to prize it. You would like yours to be that which your sister would be proud to own!"
While we were talking, Blanche suddenly came to the spot, and rushed to my arms. She looked on him as a stranger, but I saw his knees tremble. And then she was about to put her hand in his, but I drew her back. Was I cruel? He thought so. But when I dismissed her, I replied to his reproach: "Your sister is a part of Home. If you think yourself worthy of either, go and claim both; I will not object."