Heart

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O, faults and follies of the by-gone times, which lingered even to a
generation now speedily passing away!--ye are waning with it, and a
better dawn has broken on the world. Happily for man, the multiplication
of his kind, and pervading competition in all manner, of things
mercantile, are breaking down monopolies, and hindering unjust
accumulation, with its necessary love of gain. "Satisfied with little"
is young England's cry; a better motto than the "Craving after much" of
their fathers. No longer immersed, single-handed, in a worldly business,
which seven competitors now relieve him of; no longer engrossed with the
mint of gold gains, which a dozen honest rivals now are sharing with him
eagerly, the parent has leisure to instruct his children's minds, to
take an interest in their pursuits, and to cultivate their best
affections. Home is no longer the place perpetually to be driven from;
the voices of paternal duty and domestic love are thrillingly raised to
lead the tuneful chorus of society; and fathers, as well as mothers, are
beginning to desire that their children may be able to remember them
hereafter as the ever-sympathizing friend, the wisely indulgent teacher,
the guide of their religion, and the guardian of their love; quite as
much as the payer of their bills and the filler of their purses.

The misfortune of a past and passing generation has been, too much money
in too few hands; its faults, neglect of duty; its folly, to expect
therefrom the too-high meed of well-earned gratitude; and from this
triple root has grown up social selfishness, a general lack of Heart. No
parent ever yet, since the world was, did his duty properly, as God
intended him to do it, by the affections of the mind and the yearnings
of the heart, as well as by the welfare of the body with its means, and
lived to complain of an ungrateful child. He may think he did his duty;
oh yes, good easy man! and say so too, very, very bitterly; and the
world may echo his most partial verdict, crying shame on the unnatural
Goneril and Regan, bad daughters who despise the Lear in old age, or on
the dissolute and graceless youth, whose education cost so much, and
yields so very little. But money cannot compensate that maiden or that
youth for early and habitual injustice done to their budding minds,
their sensitive hearts, their craving souls, in higher, deeper, holier
things than even cash could buy. "Home affections"--this was the magic
phrase inscribed upon the talisman they stole from that graceless youth;
and the loss of home affections is scantily counterbalanced at the best
by a critical acquaintance with '_Dawes's Canons_,' and '_Bos on
Ellipses_,' in his ardent spring of life, and by a little more of the
paternal earnings which the legacy-office gives him in his manhood.

But let us not condemn generations past and passing, and wink at our
own-time sins; we have many motes yet in our eyes, not to call them very
beams. The infant school, the factory, the Union, and other wholesale
centralizations, ruin the affections of our poor. O, for the
spinning-wheel again within the homely cottage, and those difficult
spellings by the grand-dame's knee! There is wisdom and stability in a
land thick-set with such early local anchorages; but the other is all
false, republican, and unaffectioned. So, too, the luxurious city club
has cheated many a young pair of their just domestic happiness, for the
husband grew dissatisfied with home and all its poor humilities; whilst
a bad political philosophy, discouraging marriage and denouncing
offspring, has insidiously crept into the very core of private families,
setting children against parents and parents against children, because a
cold expediency winks at the decay of morals, and all united social
influences strike at the sacrifice of Heart.

We are forgetting you, poor affectionate Maria, and yet will it comfort
your charity to listen. For the time is coming--yea, now is--when a more
generous, though poorer age will condemn the Mammon phrensy of that
which has preceded it. Boldly do we push our standards in advance,
pressing on the flying foe, certain that a gallant band will follow.
Fearlessly, here and there, is heard the voice of some solitary zealot,
some isolated missionary for love, and truth, and philanthropic good,
some dauntless apostle in the cause of Heart, denouncing selfish wealth
as the canker of society: and, hark! that voice is not alone; there is a
murmur on the breeze as the sound of many waters; it comes, it comes!
and the young have caught it up; and manhood hears the thrilling strain
that sinks into his soul; and old age, feebly listening, wonders (never
too late) that he had not hitherto been wiser; and the whole social
universe electrically touched from man to man, I hear them in their
new-born generosities, penitently shouting "God and Heart!" even louder
than they execrate the memory of Dagon.

CHAPTER IV.

EXCUSATORY.

It really may be numbered among doubts whether it is possible to
exaggerate the dangers into which a fictionist may fall. My marvel is,
that any go unstabbed. How on earth did Cervantes continue to grow old,
after having pointed the finger of derision at all grave Spain? There is
Boccaccio, too; he lived to turn threescore, in spite of the thousand
husbands and wives, who might pretty well imagine that he spoke of them.
Only consider how many villains, drawn to the life, Walter Scott
created. What! were there no heads found to fit his many caps, hats,
helmets, and other capillary properties? What! are we so blind, so few
of friends, that we cannot each pick out of our social circles Mrs.
Gore's Dowager, Mrs. Grey's Flirt, Mrs. Trollope's Widow, and Boz's Mrs.
Nickleby? Who can help thinking of his lawyer, when he makes
acquaintance with those immortal firms Dodson and Fogg, or Quirk, Snap,
and Gammon? Is not Wrexhill libellous, and Dr. Hookwell personal? Arise!
avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why slumber pistols that,
should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives sheathed, which should
have drunk the blood of James? Hath every "[dash] good-natured friend"
forgotten to be officious, and neglected to demonstrate to relations and
acquaintances that this white villain is Mr. A., and that old virgin
poor Miss B.? Speak, Plumer Ward, courageous veteran, Have the critics
yet forgiven Mr. John Paragraph--forgotten, is impossible? and how is
it no house-keeper has arsenicked my soup, O rash recruit, for the
mysteries of perquisite divulged in Mrs. Quarles?

A dangerous craft is the tale-wright's, and difficult as dangerous.
Human nature goes in casts, as garden-pots do. Lo, you! the crowd of
thumb-pots; mean little tiny minds in multitudes, as near alike as
possible. Then there are the frequent thirty-twos, average "clever
creatures" in this mental age, wherein no one can make an ordinary
how-d'ye-do acquaintance without being advertised of his or her
surprising talents: and to pass by all intermediate sizes, here and
there standing by himself, in all the prickly pride of an immortal aloe,
some one big pot monopolizes all the cast of earth, domineering over the
conservatory as Brutus's colossal Caesar, or his metempsychosis in a
Wellington.

Again: no painter ever yet drew life-likeness, who had not the living
models at least in his mind's eye: but no good painter ever yet betrayed
the model in his figure; unless (though these instances are rarish too)
we except, _pace_ Lawrence, the mystery of portraiture. He takes indeed
a line here and a colour there; but he softens this and heightens that;
so that none but he can well discover any trace of Homer's noble head in
yonder sightless beggar, or Juno's queenly form in the Welsh woman
trudging with her strawberry load to Covent Garden market.

Flatter not thyself, fair Helen, I have not pictured thee in gentle
Grace: tremble not, my little white friend Clatter, thou art by no means
Simon Jennings. Dark Caroline Blunt, it is true thou hast fine eyes;
nevertheless, in nothing else (I am sorry to assure thee) art thou at
all like Emily Warren. Flaunting Lady Busbury, be calm; if you had not
been so wrathful, I never should have thought of you--undoubtedly you
are not the type of Mrs. Tracy.

Why will all these people don my imaginary characters? Truly, it may
seem to be a compliment, as proving that they speak from heart to heart,
of universal human nature, not unaptly; still is their inventor or
creator embarrassed terribly by such unwelcome honours; your precious
balms oppress him, gentle friends; lift off your palm branches; indeed,
he is unworthy of these petty triumphs; and, to be serious, he detests
them.

No: once and for all, let a plain first person say it, I abjure
personalities; my arrows are shot at a venture; and if they hit any one
at all, it is only that he stands in my shaft's way, and the harness of
his conscience is unbuckled. The target of my feeble aim is general--to
pierce the heart of evil, evil in the form of social heartlessness: it
is no fault of mine, if some alarmed particulars will crowd about the
mark. Ideal characters, ideal incidents, ideal scenes--to these I
honestly pledge myself: but as most men have two eyes, being neither
naturally monocular nor triocular, so most men of their own special cast
have similar distinguishable sympathies.

The overweening love of money is a seed, a soil, and a sun that
generates a certain crop: the aim of my poor husbandry is only to reap
this; but my sickle does not wish to wound the growers: let them stand
aside; or, better far, let them help me cut those rank and clogging
tares, and bind them up in bundles to be burned. Heart is a
sweet-smelling shrub, ill to stand against the chilling breath of
worldliness: my small care desires to cherish this; gather round it,
friends! shelter it beside me. How many fragrant flowers now are
bursting into beauty! how cheering is their scent! how healthful the
aroma of their bloom! Pluck them with me; they are sweet, delicate, and
lustrous to look upon, even as the night-blowing cereus.

Henceforth then, social circle, feel at peace with such as I am, whose
public parable would teach, without any thought of personality, entirely
disclaiming private interpretations: there are other people stout
besides one's uncle, other people deaf besides one's aunt. Sir Thomas
Dillaway is not Alderman Bunce, nor any other friend or foe I wot of; a
mere creature of the counting-house, he is a human ledger-mushroom: rub
away the mildew from your hearts, if any seem to see yourselves in him:
neither have I ventured to transplant Miss Cassiopeia Curtis's red hair
to dear Maria's head: imitate her graces, if you will, maiden; but
charge me not with copying your locks. Though "my son Jack" be a
boisterous big rogue, on 'Change, and off it--let not mine own honest
stock-broker put that hat upon his head, in the mono-mania that it fits
him, because he may heretofore have been both bull and bear; and as for
any other heroes yet to come upon this scene, to enact the tragedy or
comedy of Heart--"Know all men by these presents,"--your humble
servant's will is to smite bad principles, not offending persons; to
crusade against evil manners, not his guilty fellow-men.

Wo is me! who am I, that I should satirize my brethren?--Yet, wo is
me--if I silently hide the sin I see. Make me not an offender for a
word, seeing that my purposes are good. Be not hypercritical, for
Heart's sake, against a man whose aim it is to help the cause of Heart.
Neither count it sufficient to answer me with an inconclusive "_tu
quoque_:" I know it, I feel it, I confess it, I would away with it.
Heaven send to him that writes, as liberally as to those who read (yea,
more, according to his deeper needs and failings) the grace to
counteract all mammonizing blights, and to cultivate this garden of the
Heart.

CHAPTER V.

WHEREIN A WELL-MEANING MOTHER ACTS VERY FOOLISHLY.

Returned from her unsuccessful embassage, Lady Dillaway
determined--kind, calm soul--to hide the bitter truth from poor Maria,
that her father was inexorably adverse. A scene was of all things that
indentical article least liked by the quiescent mother; and that her
warm-hearted daughter would enact one, if she heard those echoes of
paternal love, was clearly a problem requiring no demonstration.

Accordingly, with well-intentioned kindliness, but shallowish wisdom,
and most questionable propriety, Maria was persuaded to believe that her
father had hem'd and haw'd a little, had objected no doubt to Henry's
lack of money, but would certainly, on second thoughts, consider the
affair more favourably:

"You know your father's way, my love; leave him to himself, and I am
sure his better feeling will not fail to plead your cause: it will be
prudent, however, just for quiet's sake, to see less of Henry Clements
for a day or two, till the novelty of my intelligence blows over.
Meantime, do not cry, dear child; take courage, all will be well; and I
will give you my free leave to console your Henry too."

"Dearest, dearest mamma, how can I thank you sufficiently for all this?
But why may I not now at once fly to papa, tell him all I feel and wish
cordially and openly, and touch his dear kind heart? I am sure he would
give us both his sanction and his blessing, if he only knew how much I
love him, and my own dear Henry."

"Sweet child," sighed out mamma, "I wish he would, I trust he would, I
believe indeed he will some day: but be advised by me, Maria, I know
your father better than you do; only keep quiet, and all will come round
well. Do not broach the subject to him--be still, quite still; and,
above all, be careful that your father does not yet awhile meet Mr.
Clements."

"But, dearest mamma, how can I be so silent when my heart is full? and
then I hate that gloomy sort of secresy. Do let me ask papa, and tell
him all myself. Perhaps he himself will kindly break the ice for me, now
that your dear mouth has told him all, mamma. How I wish he would!"

"Alas, Maria, you always are so sanguine: your father is not very much
given, I fear, to that sort of sociality. No, my love; if you only will
be ruled by me, and will do as I do, managing to hold your tongue, I
think you need not apprehend many conversational advances on your
father's part."

Poor Maria had more than one reason to fear all this was true, too true;
so her lip only quivered, and her eyes overflowed as usual.

Thereafter, Lady Dillaway had all the talk to herself, and she smoothly
whispered on without let or hindrance; and what between really hoping
things kindly of her husband's better feelings, and desiring to lighten
the anxieties of dear Maria's heart, she placed the whole affair in such
a calm, warm, and glowing Claude-light, as apparently to supply an
emendation (no doubt the right reading) to the well known aphorism--

"The course of true love never did run smooth-_er_."

In fine, our warm and confiding Maria ran up to her own room quite
elated after that interview; and she heartily thanked God that those
dreaded obstacles to her affection were so easily got over, and that her
dear, dear father had proved so kind.

It is quite a work of supererogation to report how speedily the welcome
news were made known, by _billet-doux_, to Henry Clements; but they
rather smote his conscience, too, when he reflected that he had not yet
made formal petition to the powers on his own account. To be sure, they
(the lovers, to wit) were engaged only yesterday, quite in an
unintended, though delightful, way: and, previously to that important
_tete-a-tete_, however much he may have thought of only dear
Maria--however frequently he found himself beside her in the circle of
their many mutual friends--however happily he hoped for her
love--however foolishly he reveried about her kindness in the solitude
of his Temple garret--still he never yet had seen occasion to screw his
courage to the sticking point, and boldly place his bliss at hard Sir
Thomas's disposal. Some day--not yet--perhaps next week, at any rate not
exactly to-day--these were his natural excuses; and they availed him
even to the other side of that social Rubicon, engagement. Nevertheless,
now at length something must decidedly be done; and, within half an
hour, Finsbury's deserted square echoed to the heroic knock of Mr. Henry
Clements, fully determined upon claiming his Maria at her father's
hands.

The knight was out; probably, or rather certainly, not yet returned from
his counting-house in St. Benet's Sherehog. So, perforce, our hero could
only have an audience with his lady.

The same glossing over of unpalatable truths--the same quiet-breathing
counsel--the same tranquil sort of hopefulness--fully satisfied the
lover that his cause was gained. How could he think otherwise? In the
father's absence, he had broached that mighty topic to the mother, who
even now hailed him as her son, and promised him his father's favour.
What could be more delicious than all this? and what more honourable,
while prudent, too, and filial, than to acquiesce in Lady Dillaway's
fears about her husband's nervousness at the sight of one who was to
take from him an only and beloved daughter? It was delicacy
itself--charming; and Henry determined to make his presence, for the
first few days, as scarce as possible in the sight of that affectionate
father.

And thus it came to pass that two open and most honourable minds,
pledged to heartiest love, could not find one speck of sin in loving on
clandestinely. Nay, was it clandestine at all? Is it, then, merely a
legal fiction, and not a religious truth, that husband and wife are one?
and is it not quite as much a matrimonial as a moral one that father and
mother are so too? Was it not decidedly enough to have spoken to the
latter, especially when she undertook to answer for the former? Sir
Thomas was a man engrossed in business; and, doubtless, left such
affairs of the Heart to the kinder keeping of Lady Dillaway. No; there
was nothing secret nor clandestine in the matter; and I entirely absolve
both Henry and Maria. They could not well have acted otherwise if any
harm should come to it, the mother is to blame.

Lady Dillaway, without doubt, should have known her husband better; but
her tranquil love of our dear Maria seemed to have infatuated her into
simply believing--what she so much wished--her happiness secure. She
heeded not how little sympathy Sir Thomas felt with lovers; and only
encouraged her innocent child to play the dangerous game of unconscious
disobedience. Accordingly, consistent with that same quiet kindness of
character which had smoothed away all difficulties hitherto, the
indulgent mother now allowed the loving pair to meet alone, for the
first time permissively, to tell each other all their happiness. Lady
Dillaway left the drawing-room, and sent Maria to the heart that beat
with hers.

Who shall describe the beauty of that interview--the gush of first
affections bursting up unchecked, unchidden, as hot springs round the
Hecla of this icy world! They loved and were beloved--openly, devotedly,
sincerely, disinterestedly. Henry had never calculated even once how
much the city knight could give his daughter; and as for Maria, if she
had not naturally been a girl all heart, the home wherein she was
brought up had so disgusted her of still-repeated riches, that (it is
easy of belief) the very name of poverty would be music to her ears.
Accordingly, how they flew into each other's arms, and shed many happy
tears, and kissed many kindest kisses, and looked many tenderest things,
and said many loving words, "let Petrarch's spirit in heroics sing:" as
for our present prosaical Muse, she delights in such affections too
naturally and simply to wish to cripple them with rhymes, or confine
them in sonnets; she despises decoration of simple and beautiful
Nature--gilding gold, and painting lilies; and she loves to throw a veil
of secret sanctity over all such heaven-blest attachments. "Hence! ye
profane,"--these are no common lovers: I believe their spirits, still
united in affections that increase with time, will go down to the valley
of death unchangeably together; and will thence emerge to brighter bliss
hand in hand throughout eternity--a double Heart with one pulse, loving
God, and good, and one another!

CHAPTER VI.

PLEASANT BROTHER JOHN.

"Ho, ho! I suspected as much; so this fellow Clements has been hanging
about us at parties, and dropping in here so often, for the sake of Miss
Maria, ey?"--For the door had noisily burst open to let in Mr. John
Dillaway, who under grumbled as above.

"Dear John, I am so rejoiced to see you; I am sure it will make you as
happy as myself, brother, to hear the good news: papa and mamma are so
kind, and---- I need not introduce to you my---- you have often met him
here, John--Mr. Henry Clements."

"Sir, your most obedient." The vulgar little purse-proud citizen made an
impudent sort of distant bow, and looked for all the world like a coated
Caliban sarcastically cringing to a well-bred Ferdinand.

Poor Henry felt quite taken aback at such frigid formality; and dear
Maria's very heart was in her mouth: but the brother tartly added, "If
Mr. Clements wishes to see Sir Thomas--that's his knock: he was
following me close behind: I saw him; but, as I make it a point never
to walk with the governor, perhaps it's as well for you two I dropped
in first by way of notice, ey?"

It was a dilemma, certainly--after all that Lady Dillaway had said and
recommended: fortunately, however, her lord the knight, when the street
door was opened to him, hastened straightway to his own "study," where
he had to consult some treatise upon tare and tret, and a recent
pamphlet upon the undoubted social duty, '_Run for Gold_;' so that
awkward rencounter was avoided; and Mr. Clements, taking up his hat, was
enabled to accomplish a dignified retreat.

"Dear John, your manner grieves me; I wish you had been kinder to my--to
Henry Clements."

"Oh, you do, do you? does the governor know of all this? the fellow's a
beggar."

"For shame, John! you shall not call my noble Henry such names: of
course papa has heard all."

"And approves of all this spooneying, ey, miss?"

"Brother, brother, do be gentler with me: mamma's great kindness has
smoothed away all objections, and surely you will be glad, John, to have
at last a brother of your own to love you as I do."

"Ey? what? another thief to go shares with me when the governor cuts up?
Thank you, miss, I'd rather be excused. You are quite enough, I can tell
you, for you make my whole a half; nobody wants a third: much obliged to
you, though." [Interjections may as well be understood.]

"O, dear brother, you hurt me, indeed you do: I am sure (if it were
right to say so) I would not wish to live a minute, if poor Maria's
death could--could make you any happier;--O John, my heart will----"
[Her tears can as readily be understood as his interjections.]

If a domestic railroad could have been cleverly constructed to Maria's
chamber from every room in that great house, it would have stood her in
good stead; for every day, from some room or other, this poor girl of
feeling had to rush up stairs in a torrent of grief. Yearning after
sympathy and love, neither felt nor understood by the minds with whom
she herded, a trio of worldliness, apathy, and coarse brutality, her
bosom ached as an empty void: treated with habitual neglect and cold
indifference, made various (as occasion might present) by stern rebuke
or bitter sarcasm, her heart was sore within its cell, and the poor dear
child lived a life of daily martyrdom, her feelings smitten upon the
desecrated altar of home by the "foes of her own household."

And not least hostile in the band of those home-foes was this only
brother, John. Look at him as he stands alone there, muttering after her
as she ran up stairs, "Plague take the girl!" and let me tell you what I
know of him.

That thick-set form, with its pock-marked face, imprisons as base a
spirit as Baal's. He was a chip of the old block, and something more. If
the father had a heart with "gold" written on it, the son had no heart
at all, but gold was in its place. Thoroughly unscrupulous as to ways
and means, and simply acting on the phrase "_quocunque modo rem_," he
seemed to have neither conscience of evil, nor dread of danger. In two
words, he was a "bold bad" man, divested equally of fear and feeling.
The memoirs of his past life hitherto, without controversy very little
edifying, may be guessed with quite sufficient accuracy for all
characteristic purposes from the coarse, sensual, worldly, and
iniquitous result now standing for his portraiture before us. We will
waste on such a type of heartlessness as few words as possible: let his
conduct show the man.

Just now, this worthy had risen into high favour with his father: we
already know why; he had suddenly got rich on his own account, and for
that very sufficient reason drew any additional sums he pleased on "the
governor's." The trick or two, whereat Sir Thomas hinted, and which so
wise a man would not have blabbed to fools, are worthy of record; not
merely as illustrative of character, but (in one case at least, as we
may find hereafter) for the sake of ulterior consequences.

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