Eleanor and I laughed merrily at the anecdote, even if we were not quite converted to Mrs. Arkwright’s views. And I must in justice add that every visit which has taken us from home—every fresh experience which has enlarged our knowledge of the world—has confirmed the truth of her sage and practical advice.
If at home we have still inclined to feel it almost a duty to be proud of intellectual tastes, quite a duty to be proud of orthodox opinions, and, at the worst, a very amiable weakness indeed to think that there are no boys like our boys, a wholesome experience of having other people’s tastes and views crammed down our throats has modified our ideas in this respect. A strong dose of eulogistic biography of the brothers of a gushing acquaintance made the names of Clem and Jack sacred to our domestic circle for ever; and what I have endured from a mangy, over-fed, ill-tempered Skye-terrier, who is the idol of a lady of our acquaintance, has led me sometimes to wonder if visitors at the Vicarage are ever oppressed by the dear boys.
I’m afraid it is possible—poor dear things!
I have positively heard people say that Saucebox is ugly, though he has eyes like a bull-frog, and his tongue hangs quite six inches out of his mouth, and—in warm weather or before meals—further still! However, I keep him in very good order, and never allow him to be troublesome to people who do not appreciate him. For I have observed that there are people who (having no children of their own) hold very just and severe views about spoiled boys and girls, but who (having dogs of their own) are much less clear-sighted on the subject of spoiled terriers and Pomeranians. And I do not want to be like that—dear as the dear boys are!
Certainly, seeing all sorts of people with all sorts of peculiarities is often a great help towards trying to get rid of one’s own objectionable ones. But like the sketching, one sometimes gets into despair about it, and though the process of learning an art may be even pleasanter than to feel one’s self a master in it, one cannot say as much for the process of discovering one’s follies. I should like to get rid of them in a lump.
Eleanor said so one day to her mother, but Mrs. Arkwright said: “We may hate ourselves, as you call it, when we come to realize failings we have not recognized before, and feel that there are probably others which we do not yet see as clearly as other people see them, but this kind of impatience for our perfection is not felt by those who love us, I am sure. It is one’s greatest comfort to believe that it is not even felt by God. Just as a mother would not love her child the better for its being turned into a model of perfection by one stroke of magic, but does love it the more dearly every time it tries to be good, so I do hope and believe our Great Father does not wait for us to be good and wise to love us, but loves us, and loves to help us in the very thick of our struggles with folly and sin.”
But I am becoming as discursive as ever! What I want to put down is about our going out visiting. There is really nothing much to say about our life at home. It was very happy, but there were no great events in it, and Eleanor says it will not do for us to “go off at a tangent,” and describe what happened to the boys at school and college; first, because these biographies are merely to be lives of our own selves, for nobody but us two to read when we are both old maids; and secondly, because if we put down everything we had anything to do with in these ten years, it will be so very long before our biographies are finished. We are very anxious to see them done, partly because we are getting rather tired of them, and Jack is becoming suspicious, and partly because we have got an amateur bookbinding press, and we want to bind them.
Well, as I said, we paid visits to relatives of mine, and to old friends of the Arkwrights. My friends invited Eleanor, and Eleanor’s friends invited me. People are very kind; and it was understood that we were happier together.
I was fortunate enough to find myself possessed of some charming cousins living in a cathedral town; and at their house it was a great pleasure to us to visit. The cathedral services gave us great delight; when I think of the expression of Eleanor’s face, I may almost say rapture. Then there was a certain church-bookseller’s shop in the town, which had manifold attractions for us. Every parochial want that print and paper could supply was there met, with a convenience that bordered on luxury. There was a good store, too, of sacred prints, illuminated texts, and oak frames, from which we carried back sundry additions to the garnishing of our room, besides presents for Jack, who was as fond of such things as we were. Parish matters were, naturally, of perennial interest for us in our Vicarage home; but if ever they became a fad, it was about this period.
But it was to a completely new art that this visit finally led us, which I hardly know how to describe, unless as the art of dressmaking and general ornamentation.