Strong to consume small troubles; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.
—Aubrey de Vere.
Mildred Lee, at the time of our story, was twenty-eight. She early lost her mother, and now, by the recent death of her father, was left to her own devices. She was fortunate in the devoted attachment of her maiden aunt, Janet, who shared her tastes, and whose views on things in general were, with some important differences, which gave a zest to their discussion, pretty much her own.
Aunt Janet was studious and intellectual, and had exercised a great influence in the development of her niece’s mind. It was she who had formed her tastes, and in a great measure moulded her intellect, while it was yet plastic, on her own exalted pattern. Mildred’s father had been but too glad to confide his only child to her care, and the event proved his wisdom and her salvation, for the devotion of Aunt Janet’s life had found its reward in the beautiful flower of Mildred’s intellectual and moral life, which seemed a reflex of her own. Blessed with Nature’s best endowment at starting, a robust and healthy frame, which often implies a vigorous and healthy mind, Aunt Janet had the initial impetus within her from childhood which kept her always aiming after the noblest and best standard of the good and true. A tendency of phthisis is not the sole cause and stimulus of the religious sentiment, and the strumous diathesis is not the only reason why children take instinctively to books instead of athletics, as some maintain. Certainly none of these things were the causes of Aunt Janet’s devotion to letters, and her constant desire to do something to advance the interests of mankind. The vigour of her thinking capacity, her rapidity in grasping the idea of a subject, her instinctive apprehension of the right way to the essence of things, was equalled by the physical capacity for continued work, and the strain which her system could bear without breaking down or depressing her industry. She was witty, and superabounding in good humour; never dull, never—like so many brilliant leaders of society—the subject of reaction after unusual efforts to amuse and enjoy; but so even, so constant in mental, as in physical health, that all her friends sought her in seasons of depression and mental discomfort, feeling that some subtle healing power for their minds would restore and reinvigorate them. Her niece could have had no better training than the mere daily contact with so normal a mind. Subject of late to fits of melancholy, musing despondently on what she called her unsatisfied longings for a higher life, she was yet daily growing, though she knew it not, into the perfect woman, nourished by all the elements necessary to build up a capacity for a great world’s-work.
Their method was to lose no more time over the small society frivolities, or even its conventional demands, than was absolutely necessary; and when these things were cut down to their lowest convenient point, they found they had time enough to devote to their philanthropic projects and their intellectual pursuits. Aunt Janet had never found time to be in love; she used to say this in a joking manner, but it was perfectly true. Books, and the study of almost everything practicable for her, occupied her whole thoughts from morning till night. Love, she thought, might some day be taken up, when philosophy, botany, and the higher mathematics failed to absorb her; but it was always hidden away in the dim distance, and was as likely to be seriously entertained as a journey to the sources of the Nile. Of the two rather less likely, for distant foreign travel was quite in her line; and as she had more than once packed up and shipped herself off to Eastern climes, for better acquaintance with their history, she might be moved to undertake Central Africa in default of anything better to do. When she undertook the care of her niece, and the superintendence and development of her mind, she found abundant employment, and was busier than ever, so that love and Equatorial Africa receded still farther into distance, and she settled down perfectly contented to be an old maid for life.
Now the influence of such a preceptress on a clever, thoughtful girl like Mildred was just this. She gave herself up to her aunt to learn all she wanted to teach her, and imbibed so much of her spirit and mode of looking at things that she was ashamed to talk, or even think of love, in face of the supreme indifference, if not quite contempt, with which Aunt Janet viewed the tender passion. Her father acquiesced in this state of things. He was too unwilling to part with Mildred, and only hoped the men would keep away from his treasure as long as he wanted it all to himself. Her aunt, for her part, thought her niece much too good to be sacrificed in marriage. It was not the selfishness which animated Dr. Lee that made her wish to keep her niece single, but a real conviction that if a woman could in any way avoid it, marriage was not the best state for her, whatever the world might say to the contrary. As, therefore, she was in no want of a position, what better thing was there for her to do than keep single, be the light of her father’s home, and help her—dear, philanthropic old maid as she was!—in her humanitarian and intellectual schemes—projects which could only be successfully worked out by women, and women who had no husbands, babies, and family ties to engross them, and make them callous to the wants of the great world outside a nursery? If a young woman wants to shield herself from the arrows of Cupid, there is no better defence for her than a wall of books, a science or two, some ologies, and a taste for writing. Behind these bulwarks her pretty face, her figure, her youth, her grace, and her accomplishments are comparatively safe. So Mildred seemed likely to be a second edition of her aunt; and if truth must be told the prospect did not in the least alarm her.
While this calm and uneventful life went on, unbroken by a single disturbing element, each of these happy, pure, and useful women making the world around them better and happier for her presence in it, and reaping in calm contentment the fruits of the good deeds they scattered lavishly, the sad calamity of Sir Martin Lee’s death suddenly fell upon them. Had their lives been hitherto spent in selfish enjoyment of the pleasures of the hour, the blow would have been heavier than it was; but though they were unfamiliar with great troubles of their own, their loving work amongst the poor, the friendless, and the sick had familiarized them with suffering in others, and they knew how to bow the head in meek submission when the storm passed over them, and scattered their hopes in its path. Resignation was now the virtue to be practised, and Mildred did not fail in the hour of trial. A few months after Sir Martin’s death her aunt took her for a long tour through scenes of travel which she was anxious to unfold to her. They had often talked of them, and it was soon resolved to take the St. Gothard route to Italy, and return home by Spain. From Naples they went to Sicily, and made a rather long stay at Taormina, under Etna. It was not till they reached this magnificent spot (perhaps, as has been said, the loveliest on the earth), that Mildred began to recover somewhat from her bereavement. On that lofty height, surrounded by mountain peaks, up which rock-hewn steps led to ancient cities and old-world castles and fortresses, with the great snow-covered volcano rearing its lofty head above the clouds, with the Straits of Messina dividing their shores from those of Calabria, whose purple mountains melted away into the dim distance, she could read the lines which Cardinal Newman wrote amid those scenes with a sweet conviction of their truth.
“Say, hast thou tracked a traveller’s round,
Nor visions met thee there,