Part 19 (2/2)
Notwithstanding an indefinite, indistinct notion which men call faith, they do not actually _believe_ in this eternity; they believe it in a general way, but they do not believe in it practically, personally, influentially.”
While Mr. Stanley was speaking with an energy which evinced how much his own heart was affected, Miss Sparkes, by the impatience of her looks, evidently manifested that she wished to interrupt him. Good breeding, however, kept her silent till he had done speaking: she then said, ”that though she allowed that absolute falsehood, and falsehood used for mischievous purposes, was really criminal, yet there was a danger on the other hand of laying too severe restrictions on freedom of speech. That there might be such a thing as tacit hypocrisy. That people might be guilty of as much deceit by suppressing their sentiments if just, as by expressing such as were not quite correct. That a repulsive treatment was calculated to extinguish the fire of invention. She thought, also, that there were occasions where a harmless falsehood might not only be pardonable, but laudable. But then she allowed, that a falsehood to be allowed, must be inoffensive.”
Mr. Stanley said, ”that an inoffensive falsehood was a perfect anomaly.
But allowing it possible that an individual instance of deceit might be pa.s.sed over, which, however, he never could allow, yet one successful falsehood, on the plea of doing good, would necessarily make way for another, till the limits which divide right and wrong would be completely broken down, and every distinction between truth and falsehood be utterly confounded. If such lat.i.tude were allowed, even to obtain some good purpose, it would gradually debauch all human intercourse. The smallest deviation would naturally induce a pernicious habit, endanger the security of society, and violate an express law of G.o.d.”
”There is no tendency,” said Sir John Belfield, ”more to be guarded against among young persons of warm hearts and lively imaginations. The feeling will think falsehood good if it is meant to _do_ good, and the fanciful will think it justifiable if it is ingenious.”
Ph[oe]be, in presenting her father with a dish of coffee, said in a half whisper, ”Surely, papa, there can be no harm in speaking falsely on a subject where I am ignorant of the truth.”
”There are occasions, my dear Ph[oe]be,” replied her father, ”in which ignorance itself is a fault. Inconsiderateness is always one. It is your duty to deliberate before you speak. It is your duty not to deceive by your negligence in getting at the truth; or by publis.h.i.+ng false information as truth, though you have reason to suspect it may be false.
You well know who it is that a.s.sociates him that _loveth_ a lie, with him that _maketh_ it.”
”But sir,” said Miss Sparkes, ”if by a falsehood I could preserve a life, or save my country, falsehood would then be meritorious, and I should glory in deceiving.”
”Persons, madam,” said Mr. Stanley, ”who, in debate, have a favorite point to carry, are apt to suppose extreme cases, which _can_ and _do_ very rarely if ever occur. This they do in order to compel the acquiescence of an opponent to what ought never to be allowed. It is a proud and fruitless speculation. The infinite power of G.o.d can never stand in need of the aid of a weak mortal to help him out in his difficulties. If he sees fit to preserve the life, or to save the country, he is not driven to such s.h.i.+fts. Omnipotence can extricate himself, and accomplish his own purposes, without endangering an immortal soul.”
Miss Sparkes took her leave soon after, in order, as she said, to go to the stable and take the groom's opinion. Mr. Stanley insisted that her carriage should be brought round to the door, to which we all attended her. He inquired which was the lame horse. Instead of answering, she went directly up to the animal, and after patting him with some technical jockey phrases, she fearlessly took up his hind leg, carefully examined the foot, and while she continued standing in what appeared to the ladies a perilous, and to me a disgusting situation, she ran over all the terms of the veterinary art with the groom, and when Miss Stanley expressed some fear of her danger, and some dislike of her coa.r.s.eness, she burst into a loud laugh, and slapping her on the shoulder, asked her if it was not better to understand the properties and diseases of so n.o.ble an animal, than to waste her time in studying confectionery with old Goody Comfit, or in teaching the catechism to little ragged beggar-brats?
As soon as she was gone, the lively Ph[oe]be, who, her father says, has narrowly escaped being a wit herself, cried out: ”Well, papa, I must say that I think Miss Sparkes, with all her faults, is rather an agreeable woman.” ”I grant that she is amusing,” returned he, ”but I do not allow her to be quite agreeable. Between these, Ph[oe]be, there is a wide distinction. To a correct mind, no one can be agreeable who is incorrect. Propriety is so indispensable to agreeableness, that when a lady allows herself to make any, even the smallest, sacrifice of veracity, religion, modesty, candor, or the decorum of her s.e.x, she may be s.h.i.+ning, she may be showy, she may be amusing, but she can not, properly speaking, be agreeable. Miss Sparkes, I very reluctantly confess, does sometimes make these sacrifices, in a degree to make her friends look about them, though not in a degree to alarm her own principles. She would not tell a direct falsehood for the world; she does not indeed invent, but she embellishes, she enlarges, she exaggerates, she discolors. In her moral grammar there is no positive or comparative degree. Pink with her is scarlet. The noise of a popgun is a cannon. A shower is a tempest. A person of small fortune is a beggar.
One in easy circ.u.mstances is a Cr[oe]sus. A girl, if not perfectly well made, is deformity personified; if tolerable, a Grecian Venus. Her favorites are angels. Her enemies, demons.
”She would be thought very religious, and I hope that she will one day become so; yet she sometimes treats serious things with no small levity, and though she would not originally say a very bad word, yet she makes no scruple of repeating, with great glee, profane stories told by others. Besides, she possesses the dangerous art of exciting an improper idea, without using an improper word. Gross indecency would shock her, but she often verges so far toward indelicacy as to make Mrs. Stanley uneasy. Then she is too much of a genius to be tied down by any consideration of prudence. If a good thing occurs, out it comes, without regard to time or circ.u.mstance. She would tell the same story to a bishop as to her chambermaid. If she says a right thing, which she often does, it is seldom in the right place. She makes her way in society, without attaching many friends. Her bon-mots are admired and repeated; yet I never met with a man of sense, though he may join in flattering her, who did not declare, as soon as she was out of the room, that he would not for the world that she should be his wife or daughter. It is irksome to her to converse with her own s.e.x, while she little suspects that ours is not properly grateful for the preference with which she honors us.
”She is,” continued Mr. Stanley, ”charitable with her purse, but not with her tongue; she relieves her poor neighbors, and indemnifies herself by slandering her rich ones. She has, however, many good qualities, is generous, feeling, and humane, and I would on no account speak so freely of a lady whom I receive at my house were it not that, if I were, quite silent, after Ph[oe]be's expressed admiration, she might conclude that I saw nothing to condemn in Miss Sparkes, and might be copying her faults under the notion that being entertaining made amends for every thing.”
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
One morning, Sir John coming in from his ride, gayly called out to me, as I was reading, ”Oh Charles, such a piece of news! The Miss Flams are converted. They have put on tuckers. They were at church twice on Sunday. Blair's Sermons are sent for, and _you_ are the reformer.” This ludicrous address reminded Mr. Stanley that Mr. Flam had told him we were all in disgrace for not having called on the ladies, and it was proposed to repair this neglect.
”Now take notice,” said Sir John, ”if you do not see a new character a.s.sumed. Thinking Charles to be a fine man of the town, the modish racket, which indeed is their natural state, was played off, but it did not answer. As they probably, by this time, suspect your character to be somewhat between the Strephon and the Hermit, we shall now, in return, see something between the wood-nymph and the nun, and I shall not wonder if the extravagantly modish Miss Bell
”Is now Pastora by a fountain's side.”
Though I would not attribute the change to the cause a.s.signed by Sir John, yet I confess we found, when we made our visit, no small revolution in Miss Bell Flam. The part of the Arcadian nymph, the reading lady, the lover of retirement, the sentimental admirer of domestic life, the censurer of thoughtless dissipation, was each acted in succession, but so skillfully touched that the shades of each melted in the other without any of those violent transitions which a less experienced actress would have exhibited: Sir John slyly, yet with affected gravity, a.s.sisting her to sustain this newly adapted character, which, however, he was sure would last no longer than the visit.
When we returned home, we met the Miss Stanleys in the garden and joined them. ”Don't you admire,” said Sir John, ”the versatility of Miss Bell's genius? You, Charles, are not the first man on whom an a.s.sumed fondness for rural delights has been practiced. A friend of mine was drawn in to marry, rather suddenly, a thorough-paced town-bred lady, by her repeated declarations of her pa.s.sionate fondness for the country, and the rapture she expressed when rural scenery was the subject. All she knew of the country was, that she had now and then been on a party of pleasure at Richmond, in the fine summer months; a great dinner at the Star and Garter, gay company, a bright day, lovely scenery, a dance on the green, a partner to her taste, French horns on the water, altogether const.i.tuted a feeling of pleasure from which she had really persuaded herself that she was fond of the country. But when all these concomitants were withdrawn, when she had lost the gay partner, the dance, the horns, the flattery, and the frolic, and nothing was left but her books, her own dull mansion, her domestic employments, and the sober society of her husband, the pastoral vision vanished. She discovered, or rather _he_ discovered, but too late, that the country had not only no charms for her, but that it was a scene of constant ennui and vapid dullness. She languished for the pleasures she had quitted, and he for the comforts he had lost. Opposite inclinations led to opposite pursuits; difference of taste however, needed not to have led to a total disunion, had there been on the part of the lady such a degree of attachment as might have induced a spirit of accommodation, or such a fund of principle as might have taught her the necessity of making those sacrifices which affection, had it existed, would have rendered pleasant, or duty would have made light, had she been early taught self-government.”
Lucilla, smiling, said, ”she hoped Sir John had a little over-charged the picture.” He defended himself by declaring, ”he drew from the life, and that from his long observations he could present us with a whole gallery of such portraits.” He left me to continue my walk with the two Miss Stanleys.
The more I conversed with Lucilla, the more I saw that good breeding in her was only the outward expression of humility, and not an art employed for the purpose of enabling her to do without it. We continued to converse on the subject of Miss Flam's fondness for the gay world. This introduced a natural expression of my admiration of Miss Stanley's choice of pleasures and pursuits so different from those of most other women of her age.
With the most graceful modesty she said, ”Nothing humbles me more than compliments; for when I compare what I hear with what I feel, I find the picture of myself drawn by a flattering friend so utterly unlike the original in my own heart, that I am more sunk by my own consciousness of the want of resemblance, than elated that another has not discovered it.
It makes me feel like an imposter. If I contradict this favorable opinion, I am afraid of being accused of affectation; and if I silently swallow it, I am contributing to the deceit of pa.s.sing for what I am not.” This ingenious mode of disclaiming flattery only raised her in my esteem, and the more, as I told her such humble renunciation of praise could only proceed from that inward principle of genuine piety and devout feeling which made so amiable a part of her character.
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