Part 94 (2/2)
RANDAL.--”I should not have said that of the 'Vicar of Wakefield.' A pretty book enough, though the story is most improbable. But how is it instructive?”
PARSON.--”By its results: it leaves us happier and better. What can any instruction do more? Some works instruct through the head, some through the heart. The last reach the widest circle, and often produce the most genial influence on the character. This book belongs to the last. You will grant my proposition when you have read it.”
Randal smiled and took the volume.
MRS. DALE.--”Is the author known yet?”
RANDAL.--”I have heard it ascribed to many writers, but I believe no one has claimed it.”
PARSON.--”I think it must have been written by my old college friend, Professor Moss, the naturalist,--its descriptions of scenery are so accurate.”
MRS. DALE.--”La, Charles dear! that snuffy, tiresome, prosy professor?
How can you talk such nonsense? I am sure the author must be young, there is so much freshness of feeling.”
MRS. HAZELDEAN (positively).--”Yes, certainly, young.”
PARSON (no less positively).--”I should say just the contrary. Its tone is too serene, and its style too simple, for a young man. Besides, I don't know any young man who would send me his book, and this book has been sent me, very handsomely bound, too, you see. Depend upon it Moss is the loan--quite his turn of mind.”
MRS. DALE.--”You are too provoking, Charles dear! Mr. Moss is so remarkably plain, too.”
RANDAL.--”Must an author be handsome?”
PARSON.--”Ha! ha! Answer that if you can, Carry.” Carry remained mute and disdainful.
SQUIRE (with great naivete).--”Well, I don't think there's much in the book, whoever wrote it; for I've read it myself, and understand every word of it.”
MRS. DALE.--”I don't see why you should suppose it was written by a man at all. For my part, I think it must be a woman.”
MRS. HAZELDEAN.--”Yes, there's a pa.s.sage about maternal affection, which only a woman could have written.”
PARSON.--”Pooh! pooh! I should like to see a woman who could have written that description of an August evening before a thunderstorm; every wild-flower in the hedgerow exactly the flowers of August, every sign in the air exactly those of the month. Bless you! a woman would have filled the hedge with violets and cowslips. n.o.body else but my friend Moss could have written that description.”
SQUIRE.--”I don't know; there's a simile about the waste of corn-seed in hand-sowing, which makes me think he must be a farmer!”
MRS. DALE (scornfully).--”A farmer! In hobnailed shoes, I suppose! I say it is a woman.”
MRS. HAZELDEAN.--”A WOMAN, and A MOTHER!”
PARSON.--”A middle-aged man, and a naturalist.”
SQUIRE.--”No, no, Parson, certainly a young man; for that love-scene puts me in mind of my own young days, when I would have given my ears to tell Harry how handsome I thought her; and all I could say was, 'Fine weather for the crops, Miss.' Yes, a young man and a farmer. I should not wonder if he had held the plough himself.”
RANDAL (who had been turning over the pages).--”This sketch of Night in London comes from a man who has lived the life of cities and looked at wealth with the eyes of poverty. Not bad! I will read the book.”
”Strange,” said the parson, smiling, ”that this little work should so have entered into our minds, suggested to all of us different ideas, yet equally charmed all,--given a new and fresh current to our dull country life, animated us as with the sight of a world in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s we had never seen before save in dreams: a little work like this by a man we don't know and never may! Well, that knowledge is power, and a n.o.ble one!”
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