XI.
LIFE IN CAMBRIDGE. (Continued.)
It is the misfortune of those who are often sick to be blamed for their sicknesses in proportion as they are active and laborious when well. Their energy is sure to be considered the cause of subsequent and frequent debility; and if not blamed, they find less compassion or kind consideration than the indolent and self-indulgent. These last may be sick all the time, and it is ascribed only to nature or the providence of God. But the conscientious and energetic, who accomplish wonders for themselves or others in their brief intervals of health, and possibly in sickness likewise, are accused of imprudence and a sinful disregard of self; while in truth it may be only by extreme care and unknown self-denials that they are able to accomplish any thing.
If Mary Ware was ever severely censured, we suppose it to have been in connection with this matter of health. Few women have been blessed with a better constitution, or greater power of action. With an almost masculine frame, there was such a degree of firmness with her gentleness, as always gave the idea of more strength than was wanted. We doubt if in early life she ever thought of saving her strength, so accustomed was she to do any thing that needed to be done, without saying or thinking much about it. She who had been the sole nurse of a sick mother at the age of eleven or twelve, and, as another describes her then, "going through all the offices of the sick-room with the firmness of a woman, holding on leeches with her little hand, and performing all the necessary duties, not absolutely from necessity, but from so much love and so much confidence that no one else was wanted,"—she who had scarcely, from that period until middle life, been free from care and toil for the sick and suffering,—might be pardoned if she became self-relying, or at least self-forgetting. And yet when at last that vigorous frame was impaired, and the overwrought energies of body and mind partially gave way, so that the remainder of her life was subject to constant fluctuations of strength and weakness, powerful exertion and acute suffering, she does not seem to us to have been presumptuous or ever reckless. It is evident now, if it was not at the time, that she made this as much a matter of sober calculation and conscientious questioning as any thing, and much more than is common. Still she tells us that she was blamed for her imprudence; and she brings instances from her own experience to show the frequent error of judging of what one does, or forbears to do, by the apparent result, rather than from knowledge or by principle. "People judge by consequences, or what seem to be consequences, rather than by reasoning upon premises."
It is partly to show how Mrs. Ware defended herself, and at the same time submitted to counsel and was grateful for admonition, and partly to show how singularly insulated she must have been in her early training and her self-formed character, that we introduce the following note, written to a lady who acted the part of a true friend. The date is not given, but the note itself shows that it was written the year of the journey to the South already mentioned, when she accompanied her husband at some risk to herself.
"My dear, good Friend:—
"I cannot thank you as I would for your kind note. I have not words wherewith to picture to you the joy I feel, that there is any one human being in existence who is willing to admonish me freely. If you have told me nothing new, your words are none the less welcome, for one cannot have the truth too frequently presented to the mind and although we may have all knowledge, it is not often that we can grasp it all at one glance, or even that we remember the points most useful to us at the time being.
"You will not think I boast, when I say that one and all the views you present have long formed part of the rule of action by which I have tried to govern myself, because I know you will easily understand the deep-searching, Argus-eyed vigilance, which one wholly self-educated almost inevitably acquires. I never have had, since I can remember, a principle of action suggested to me, or a word said to show me why one action was wrong and another right. For many years a whisper of blame never reached my ears; and when at last it came like a flood upon me, there was no friendly looking-glass near to point out to me the deformity from which my mistakes arose. At ten years of age I waked up to a sense of the danger of the state of indulgence in which I was living. At thirteen, by the death of my mother, I was left wholly to my own guidance, externally as well as internally; and from that time to this I have labored night and day to know, discipline, and govern myself, as I would a child for whose soul I was responsible. Dr. Channing's sermons and conversation are the only effectual human guide I ever had, until I was married. Having no one to whom to speak, and but one friend to whom I could write upon the subject, no wonder that my habits of thought should have been more cultivated than of conversation; no wonder the whole ground of self-deception, self-distrust, self-aggrandizement, should have been gone over again and again until every root was displaced and exposed to view; though, alas! not a hundredth part eradicated. Now this is not to my point, but you will still see that you have done me good by making me feel thus loquacious and unreserved with you.
"You remind me that I omitted one item in my defence, the mere mention of which will answer many of your queries. Who can tell how often a person, blamed for the disregard of many considerations which ought to influence the conduct, is inflamed by those very considerations, restrained by those very motives? We see what is done; we cannot see what is forborne. In proof of this, after I recovered from the long illness which followed immediately upon my arrival at home, three and a half years ago, it was five or six months before I felt any thing like elasticity of mind or body; the least effort fatigued me; I looked perfectly well, and every body was asking me why I did not go here, there, and everywhere. I knew from my feelings that I still needed rest, and I took it. Change of air, consequent upon the necessity of attending Mr. Ware in his sickness at Concord, produced a great change in my whole feelings. I seemed well again; but I knew my system had materially suffered while abroad, and I determined religiously to abstain from all effort of all kinds that did not seem perfectly safe. No one knew any thing about it, I was so well. Still I persevered. I literally did not walk across the room, or eat a meal, that winter, without deliberately arguing the case,—was it best or not? In this healthy state, I went to Dr. W.'s lecture, and was very prudent afterward; yet when my severe sickness commenced, it was all laid to that lecture; I was talked to, even in its worst stages, as if to be sick was a crime, and I have not to this day heard the last of it.... Again, I never in my whole life did so imprudent a thing as undertaking the journey I did last spring; there was no one reason against the probability, almost certainty, of its injuring me. I knew the risk; no one else did. I took the risk, because I thought the object authorized it. The result, after much suffering by the way, was favorable, and all was well. Had it been otherwise, there would have been voices enough to point out that it was wrong....
"There is one simple question which I wish to have answered,—How do other people attain infallible correctness of judgment? Is it by experience or intuition? If the former, have they not suffered from their experiments, sometimes erred in their calculations, and should they not have charity for others who are going over the same ground? If by the latter, should they not pity those less favored than themselves? I will not trouble you any more with my egotism. Remember, the best favor you can confer is, when you think I am doing wrong, to check me, ask me why, show me wherein I deceive myself; and never fear to speak plainly to your grateful friend,
"M. L. Ware."
There is another province into which the really high-minded and independent will carry the same conscientiousness, with equal firmness. It is a province often regarded as low and little. Nothing is little that involves principles and affects character. And what does this more than Dress? It is a matter to which few can be indifferent, even in a pecuniary view; and that is by no means the highest view. Love of dress is admitted to be one of the earliest passions that appear in human nature, and may be said to be a universal passion. If it be stronger in one sex than in the other,—a fact more easily assumed than demonstrated,—she is the nobler woman, wife, and mother who gives it its proper place among the elements of education, and both deigns and dares to speak of it and act upon it as a Christian.
So did Mrs. Ware speak and act. The circumstances in which she had always been placed, inducing the habit and the necessity of strict frugality, as we have seen, would alone have prevented her from overlooking so large an item in the domestic and social economy. But besides this, she had regard to the integrity of her principles, and the influence of example. She aimed evidently at two points, not easily attained together,—to make little of the whole matter of dress, and, at the same time, bring it under the control of a high Christian rule. As to her own attire, we should say no one thought of it at all, because of its simplicity, and because of her ease of manners and dignity of character. Yet this impression is qualified, though in one view confirmed, by hearing that, in a new place of residence, so plain was her appearance on all occasions, the villagers suspected her of reserving her fine clothes for some better class,—a suspicion only amusing to those who knew her, but sure to give pain to her benevolent heart. In another note to the female friend last addressed, she expresses her thoughts and describes her practice on this subject, so simply and sensibly, that we cannot hesitate to offer all of it except the specific and personal applications; while these, if they could be given, would show yet more how consistent and thorough she was.