The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860

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Herein may we find a key to the riddle of governmental vicissitudes
in France. People so easily satisfied with illusions, so fertile in
superficial expedients, are like children and savages in their sense of
what is novel and amusing, and their love of excitement,--and make
no such demands upon reality as full-grown men and educated citizens
instinctively crave. Their powers, in this regard, have not been
disciplined,--their wants but vaguely realized. Accustomed to look out
of themselves for a law of action, to consult authority upon every
occasion, to defer to official sources for guidance in every detail of
municipal and personal affairs,--the lesson of self-dependence,
the courage and the knowledge needful for efficiency are wanting.
"_Savez-vous_," asks an epicure, "_ce qui a chasse la gaite? C'est la
politique_." They rally at the voice of command, submit to interference,
and take for granted a prescribed formula, partly because it is
troublesome to think, and partly on account of inexperience in assuming
responsibility. De Tocqueville has remarked, that, in every instance
of attempted colonization, they have adapted themselves to, instead of
elevating savage tribes. They have never gone through the process of
state-education by the inevitable claim of personal duty, like the
Anglo-Saxons. Hence their need of a master, and the feeling of stability
realized among them only under legitimacy and despotism. Shallow
reasoners argue from the mere acknowledgment of this state of things
that it is an ultimate public blessing when the man appears with wit and
will enough to regulate and keep from chaos a society thus destitute of
political training. But those who look deeper know that this political
inefficiency is but the external manifestation or the latent cause of
more serious defects: by impeding healthful development in one way, it
occasions a morbid development in another. If citizenship in its most
free and active privilege were enjoyed, there would be less devotion to
amusement, a more virile national character, and the sanctities of
life would have observance. Public spirit and a political career are
incentives to manly ambition,--to an employment of mind and feeling
that wins men from trifling pursuits and vain diversion; they are the
national basis of private usefulness; to thwart them is to condemn
humanity to perpetual childhood,--to render members of a state machines.

The social evils and kinds of crime in France are referable in no
small degree to the absence of great motives,--the limited spheres and
hopeless routine involved in arbitrary government, unsustained by any
elevated sentiment. Such a rule makes literature servile, enterprise
mercenary, and manners profligate: all history proves this. It is not,
therefore, rational to infer, from the apparent want of ability in the
nation to take care of its own affairs, that a military despotism is
justifiable; when the truth is equally demonstrated, that such a sway,
by indefinitely postponing the chance to acquire the requisite training,
keeps down and throws back the national impulse and destiny. The man who
thus abuses power is none the less a traitor and a parricide.

THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

"Mr. Geer!"

Mr. Geer was unquestionably asleep.

This certainly did not indicate a sufficiently warm appreciation of Mrs.
Geer's social charms; but the enormity of the offence will be greatly
modified by a brief review of the attending circumstances. If you will
but consider that the crackling of burning wood in a huge Franklin
stove is strongly soporific in its tendencies,--that the cushion of a
capacious arm-chair, constructed and adjusted as if with a single eye
to a delicious dose, nay, to a long succession of doses, is a powerful
temptation to a sleepy soul,--that the regular, and, it must be
confessed, somewhat monotonous _click, click, click_ of Mrs. Geer's
knitting-needles only served to measure, without disturbing the
silence,--and, lastly, that they had been husband and wife for thirty
years,--you will not cease to wonder that Mr. Geer

"was glorious,
O'er all the ills of life victorious."

To most men, an interruption at such a time would have been particularly
annoying; but when Mrs. Geer spoke in that way, Mr. Geer, asleep or
awake, always made a point of hearing; so he roused himself, and turned
his round, honest face and placid blue eyes on the partner of his bosom,
who went on,--

"Mr. Geer, our Ivy will be seventeen, come fall."

"Possible?" replied Mr. Geer. "Who'd 'a' thunk it?"

Mr. Geer, as you may infer, was eminently a free-thinker, or rather, a
free-actor, in respect of irregular verbs. In fact, he tyrannized over
all parts of speech: wrested nouns and verbs from their original shape,
till you could hardly recognize their distorted faces; and committed
that next worst sin to murdering one's mother, namely,--murdering one's
mother-tongue, with an _abandon_ that was absolutely fascinating. Having
delivered his opinion thus sententiously, he at once subsided, closed
his placid eyes, and retired into his inner world of--thought, perhaps.

"_Mr. Geer!_"

This time he fairly jumped from his seat, and cast about him scared,
blinking eyes.

"Mr. Geer, how can you sleep away your precious time so?"

"Sleep? I--I--am sure, I was never wider awake in my life."

"Well, then, tell me what I said."

"Said? Eh,--eh,--something about Ivy, wasn't it?"

And Mr. Geer nervously twitched up the skirts of his coat, and replaced
his awry cushion, and began to think that perhaps, after all, he had
been asleep. But Mrs. Geer was too much interested in the subject of her
own cogitations to pursue her victory farther; so she answered,--

"Yes, and what is a-going to become of her?"

"Lud, lud! What's the matter?" asked Mr. Geer, wildly.

"Matter? Why, she'll be seventeen, come fall, and doesn't know a thing."

"O Lud! that all? That a'n't nothin'."

And Mr. Geer settled comfortably down into his arm-chair once more.
He felt decidedly relieved. Visions of smallpox, cholera, and
throat-distemper, the worst evils that he could think of and dread for
his darling, had been conjured up by his wife's words; and when he found
the real state of the case, a great burden, which had suddenly fallen on
his heart, was as suddenly lifted.

"But I tell you it _is_ something," continued Mrs. Geer, energetically.
"Ivy is 'most a woman, and has never been ten miles from home in her
life, and to no school but our little district"----

"And she's as pairk a gal," interrupted Mr. Geer, "as any you'll find in
all the ten miles round, be the other who she will."

"She's well enough in her way," replied Mrs. Geer, in all the humility
of motherly pride; "and so much the more reason why she shouldn't be let
go so. There's Mr. Dingham sending his great logy girls to Miss Porter's
seminary. (I wonder if he expects they'll ever turn out anything.) And
here's our Ivy, bright as a button, and you full well able to maintain
her like a lady, and have done nothing but turn her out to grass all her
life, till she's fairly run wild. I declare it's a shame. She ought to
be sent to school to-morrow."

"Nonsense, Sally! nonsense! I a'n't a-goin' lo have no such doin's.
Sha'n't go off to school. What's the use havin' her, if she can't stay
at home with us? Let Mr. Dingham send his gals to Chiny, if he wants to.
All the book-larnin' in the world won't make 'em equal to our Ivy with
only her own head. I don't want her to go to gettin' up high-falutin'
notions. She's all gold now. She don't need no improvin'. Sha'n't budge
an inch. Sha'n't stir a step."

"But do consider, Mr. Geer, the child has got to leave us some time. We
can't have her always."

"Why can't we?" exclaimed Mr. Geer, almost fiercely.

"Sure enough! Why can't we? There a'n't nobody besides you and me, I
suppose, that thinks she's pairk. What's John Herricks and Dan Norris
hangin' round for all the time?"

"And they may hang round till the cows come home! Nary hair of Ivy's
head shall they touch,--nary one on em!"

Just at this juncture of affairs, the damsel in question bounded into
the room.

"Come here, Ivy," said the old man; "your mother's been a-slanderin'
you; says you don't know nothin'."

Ivy knelt before him, rested her arms on his knees, and turned upon him
a pair of palpably roguish eyes.

"Father, it _is_ an awful slander. I do know a sight."

"Lud, child, yes! I knew you did. No more you don't want to marry John
Herricks, do you?"

"Oh, Daddy Geer! O--h--h!"

"Nor Dan Norris? nor none of 'em?"

"Never a one, father."

"Nor don't you ever think of gettin' married and slavin' yourself out
for nobody. I'm plenty well able to take care of you, as long as I live.
You'll never live so happy as you do at home; and you'll break my heart
to go away, Ivy."

"I'll never go, papa." (She pronounced it with the accent on the first
syllable.) "Indeed, I never will. I'll never be married, as long as I
live."

"No more you sha'n't, good child, good child!"

And again Farmer Geer betook himself to the depths of his arm-chair,
with the complacent consciousness of having faithfully discharged his
parental duties. "She should not go to school. She would not be married.
She had said she would not, and of course she would not."

"Of course I shall not," mused Ivy, as she lay in her white bed. "What
could put it into poor papa's head? Marry John Herricks, with his
everlasting smirk, and his diddling walk, and take care of all the
Herricks' sisters and mothers and aunts, and the Herricks' cows and
horses and pigs--and--hens--and--and"----

But Ivy had kept her thoughts on her marriage longer than ever before
in her life; and ere she had finished the inventory of John Herricks's
personal property and real estate, the blue eyes were closed in the
sweet, sound sleep of youth and health.

Mrs. Geer, in her estimate of her daughter's attainments, was partly
right and partly wrong. Ivy had never been "finished" at Mrs. Porter's
seminary, and was consequently in a highly unfinished condition. "Small
Latin and less Greek" jostled each other in her head. German and French,
Italian and Spanish, were strange tongues to Ivy. She could not dance,
nor play, nor draw, nor paint, nor work little dogs on footstools.

What, then, could she do?

_Imprimis_, she could climb a tree like a squirrel. _Secundo_, she could
walk across the great beam in the barn like a year-old kitten. In the
pursuit of hens' eggs she knew no obstacles; from scaffold to scaffold,
from haymow to haymow, she leaped defiant. She pulled out the hay from
under the very noses of the astonished cows, to see if, perchance, some
inexperienced pullet might there have deposited her golden treasure.
With all four-footed beasts she was on the best of terms. The matronly
and lazy old sheep she unceremoniously hustled aside, to administer
consolation and caresses to the timid, quaking lamb in the corner
behind. Without saddle or bridle she could

"Ride a black horse
To Banbury Cross."

(N.B.--I don't say she actually did. I only say she could; and under
sufficiently strong provocation, I have no doubt she would.) She knew
where the purple violets and the white innocence first flecked the
spring turf, and where the ground-sparrows hid their mottled eggs.
All the little waddling, downy goslings, the feeble chickens, and
faint-hearted, desponding turkeys, that broke the shell too soon, and
shivered miserably because the spring sun was not high enough in the
morning to warm them, she fed with pap, and cherished in cotton-wool,
and nursed and watched with eager, happy eyes. O blessed Ivy Geer! True
Sister of Charity! Thrice blessed stepmother of a brood whose name was
Legion!

From the conjugal and filial conversation which I have faithfully
reported, a casual observer, particularly if young and inexperienced,
might infer that the question of Miss Ivy's education was definitively
settled, and that she was henceforth to remain under the paternal roof.
I should, myself, have fallen into the same error, had not a long and
intimate acquaintance with the female sex generated and cherished
a profound and mournful conviction of the truth of the maxim, that
appearances are deceitful. E.g., a woman has set her heart on something,
and is refused. She pouts and sulks: that is clouds, and will soon blow
over. She scolds, storms, and raves (I speak in a figure; I mean she
does something as much like that as a tender, delicate, angelic woman
can): that is thunder, and only clears the air. She betakes herself to
tears, sobs, and embroidered cambric: that's a shower, and everything
will be greener and fresher after it. You may go your ways,--one to his
farm, another to his merchandise; the world will not wind up its affairs
just yet. But, put the case, she goes on the even tenor of her way
unmoved:

"Beware! beware!
Trust her not; she is fooling thee."

Thus Mrs. Geer, who was a thorough tactician. Like Napoleon, she was
never more elated than after a defeat. Before consulting her husband
at all, she had contemplated the subject in all its bearings, and had
deliberately decided that Ivy was to go to school. The consent of the
senior partner of the firm was a secondary matter, which time
and judicious management would infallibly secure. Consequently,
notwithstanding the unpropitious result of their first colloquy, she the
next day commenced preparations for Ivy's departure, as unhesitatingly,
as calmly, as assiduously, as if the day of that departure had been
fixed.

Mrs. Geer was right. She knew she was, all the time. She had a sublime
faith in herself. She felt in her soul the divine afflatus, and pressed
forward gloriously to her goal. Mr. Geer had as much firmness, not to
say obstinacy, as falls to the lot of most men; but Mrs. Geer had more;
and as Launce Outram, hard beset, so pathetically moaned, "A woman in
the very house has such deused opportunities!" so Farmer Geer grumbled,
and squirmed, and remonstrated, and--yielded.

Mrs. Geer was _not_ right. She had reckoned without her host. Her
affairs were gliding down the very Appian Way of prosperity in a
chariot-and-four, with footmen and outriders, when, presto! they turned
a sharp and unexpected corner, and over went the whole establishment
into a mirier mire than ever bespattered Dr. Slop.

To speak without a parable. When her expected Hegira was announced to
Miss Mary Ives Geer, that young lady, to the ill-concealed vexation of
her mother, and the not-attempted-to-be-concealed exultation of her
father, expressed decided disapprobation of the whole scheme. As she
was the chief _dramatis persona_, the very Hamlet of the play, this
unlooked-for decision somewhat interfered with Mrs. Geer's plans. All
the eloquence of that estimable woman was brought to bear on this one
point; but this one point was invincible. Expostulation and entreaty
were alike vain. Neither ambition nor pleasure could hold out any
allurements to Ivy. Maternal authority was at length hinted at, only
hinted at, and the spoiled child declared that she had not had her own
will and way for sixteen years to give up quietly in her seventeenth.
One last resort, one forlorn hope,--one expedient, which had never
failed to overcome her childish stubbornness: "Would she grieve her
parents so much as to oppose this their darling wish?" And Ivy burst
into tears, and begged to know if she should show her love to her father
and mother by going away from them. This drove the nail into her old
father's heart, and then the little vixen clenched it by throwing
herself into his arms, and sobbing, "Oh, papa! would you turn your Ivy
out of doors and break her heart?"

Flimsiest of fallacies! Shallowest of sophists! But she was the only and
beloved child of his old age; so the fallacy passed unchallenged; the
strong arms closed around the naughty girl; and the soothing voice
murmured, "There, there, Ivy! don't cry, child! Lud! lud! you sha'n't
be bothered; no more you sha'n't, lovey!" and the _status quo_ was
restored.

"It is not in the sea nor in the strife
We feel benumbed and wish to be no more,
But in the after silence on the shore,
When all is lost, except a little life,"

said one who had breasted the stormiest sea and plunged into the
fiercest strife. Ivy, who had never read Byron, and therefore could not
be suspected of any Byronical affectations, felt it, when, having gained
her point, she sat down alone in her own room. When her single self had
been pitted against superior numbers, age, experience, and parental
authority, all her heroism was roused, and she was adequate to the
emergency; but her end gained, the excitement gone, the sense of
disobedience alone remaining, and she was thoroughly uncomfortable, nay,
miserable.

"Mamma is right; I know I am a little goose," sobbed she. (The words
were mental, intangible, unspoken; the sobs physical, palpable,
decided.) "I never did know anything, and I never shall,--and I don't
care if I don't. I don't see any good in knowing so much. We don't have
a great while to stay in the world any way, and I don't see why we can't
be let alone and have a good time while we are here, and when we get to
heaven we can take a fresh start. Oh, dear! I never shall go to heaven,
if I am so bad and vex mamma. But then papa didn't care. But then he
would have liked me to go to school. But there, I won't! I won't! I
_will not!_ I'll study at home. Oh, dear! I wish papa was a great man,
and knew everything, and could teach me. Well, he is just as happy, and
just as rich, and everybody likes him just as well, as if he knew the
whole world full; and why can't I do so, too? Rebecca Dingham, indeed!
Mercy! I hope I never shall be like her; I would rather not know my A
B C! What _shall_ I do? There's Mr. Brownslow might teach me; he knows
enough. But, dear me! he is as busy as he can be, all day long; and
Squire Merrill goes out of town every day; and there's Dr. Mix, to be
sure, but he smells so strong of paregoric, and I don't believe he knows
much, either; and there's nobody else in town that knows any more than
anybody else; and there's nothing for it but I must go to school, if I
am ever to know anything." (A renewal of sobs, uninterrupted for several
minutes.) "There's Mr. Clerron!" (A sudden cessation.) "I suppose he
knows more than the whole town tumbled into one; and writes books,
and--mercy! there's no end to his knowledge; and he's rich, and does
everything he likes, all day long. Oh, if I only _did_ know him! I would
ask him straight off to teach me. I should be scared to death. I've a
great mind to ask him, as it is. I can tell him who I am. He never will
know any other way, for he isn't acquainted with anybody. They say he is
as proud as Lucifer. If he were ten times prouder, I would rather ask
him than go to school. He might just as well do something as not. I am
sure, if God had made me him, and him me, I should be glad to help him.
I'll go straight to him the first thing to-morrow morning."

Once seeing a possible way out of her difficulties, her sorrow vanished.
Not quite so gayly as usual, it is true, did she sing about the
house that night; for she was summoning all her powers to prepare an
introductory speech to Felix Clerron, Esq., a gentleman and a scholar.
Her elocutionary attempts were not quite satisfactory to herself, but
she was not to be daunted; and when morning came, she took heart of
grace, slung her broadbrimmed hat over her arm, and began her march
"over the hills and far away," in search of her--fate.

"And did her mother really let her roam away, alone, on such an errand,
to a perfect stranger?"

Humanly speaking, nothing was more unlikely than that Mrs. Geer, a
prudent, modest, and sensible woman, should give her consent to such
an--to use the mildest term--unusual undertaking. Nor did she. The fact
is, her consent was not asked. She knew nothing whatever of the plan.

"Worse and worse! Did the wilful girl go off without leave? without even
informing her parents?"

I am sorry to say she did. In writing a story of real life, one
cannot take that liberty with facts which is quite proper, not to say
indispensable, in history, science, and belles-lettres generally. Duty
compels me to adhere closely to the truth; and for whatever of obloquy
may be heaped upon me, or upon my Ivy, I shall find consolation in the
words of the illustrious Harrison; or perhaps it was the illustrious
Taylor; I am not quite sure, however, that it was not the illustrious
Washington:--"Do right, and let the consequences take care of
themselves." I am therefore obliged to say, that Ivy's departure in
pursuit of knowledge was entirely unknown to her respected and beloved
parents. But you must remember that she was an only child, and a spoiled
child,--spoiled as only stern New England Puritan parents, somewhat
advanced in years, can spoil their children. I do not defend Ivy. On
the contrary, notwithstanding my regard for her, I hand her over to the
reprobation of an enlightened community; and I hereby entreat all young
persons into whose hands this memoir may fall to take warning by the
fate of poor Ivy, and never enter upon any important undertaking, until
they have, to say the least, consulted those who are their natural
guides, their warmest friends, and their most experienced counsellors.

While I have been writing this, Ivy Geer, light of heart, fleet of foot,
and firm of will, has passed over hill-side, through wood-path, and
across meadow-land, and drawn near the domains of Felix Clerron,
Esq. Light of heart perhaps I scarcely ought to say. Certainly, that
enterprising organ had never before beat so furious a tattoo in Ivy's
breast, as when she stood, hat in hand, on the steps of the somewhat
stately dwelling. To do her justice, she had intended to do the penance
of wearing her hat when she should have reached her destination; but
in her excitement she quite forgot it. So, as I said, she stood on the
door-step, as a royal maiden stood three hundred years before, (not
in the same place,) with the "wind blowing her fair hair about her
beautiful cheeks."

There had come to Ivy from the great, gay world a vague rumor, that,
instead of knocking at a door, like a Christian, with your own good
knuckles, for such case made and provided, modern fashion had introduced
"the ringing and the dinging of the bells." This vague rumor found
a local habitation, when Mr. Clerron came down upon the village and
established himself, his men and women and horses and cattle; but as
Ivy stood on his door-step, looking upward, downward, sidewise, with
earnest, peering gaze, no bell, and no sign of bell, was visible;
nothing unusual, save a little door-knob at the right-hand side of the
door,--a thing which could not be accounted for. After long and serious
deliberation, she came to the conclusion that the bell must be inside,
and that the knob was a screw attached to it. So she tried to twist it,
first one way, then the other; but twist it would not. In despair she
betook herself to her fingers and knocked. Nobody came. Twist again.
No use. Knock again. Ditto. Then she went down to the gravelled path,
selected one of the largest pebbles, took up her station before the
door, and began to pound away. In a moment, a gentleman in dressing-gown
and smoking-cap, with a cigar between his fingers, came round the
corner. Seeing her, he threw away his cigar, lifted his velvet cap,
bowed, and, with a polite "allow me," stepped to the door, pulled the
bell, and again passed out of sight. Ivy was not so confused at being
detected in her assault and battery on the door of a respectable,
peaceable, private gentleman, as not to make the silent reflection,
"Pulled the knob, instead of twisting it. How easy it is to do a
thing, if you only know how!"

The summons was soon answered by a black gnome, and Ivy was ushered into
a large room, which, to her dazzled, sun-weary eyes, seemed delightfully
fresh and _green_-looking. Two minutes more of waiting,--then a step in
the hall, a gently opening door, and Ivy felt rather than saw herself in
the presence of the formidable Mr. Clerron. A single glance showed her
that he was the person who had rung the bell for her, though the gay
dressing-gown had been changed for a soberer suit. Mr. Clerron bowed.
Ivy, hardly knowing what she did, faltered forth, "I am Ivy Geer." A
half-curious, half-sarcastic smile glimmered behind the heavy beard, and
gleamed beneath the heavy eyebrows, as he answered, "I am happy to
make your acquaintance"; but another glance at the trembling form, the
frightened, pale face, and quivering lips, changed the smile into one
that was very good-natured, and even kind; and he added, playfully,--

"I am Felix Clerron, very much at your service."

"You write books and are a very learned man," pursued Ivy, hurriedly,
never lifting her eyes from the floor, and never ceasing to twirl her
hat-strings.

There was no possibility of supposing her guilty of committing a little
diplomatic flattery in conveying this succinct bit of information. She
made the assertion with the air of one who has a disagreeable piece of
business on hand, and is determined to go through with it as soon as
possible. He bowed and smiled again; quite unnecessarily,--since, as I
have before remarked, Ivy's eyes were steadfastly fixed on the carpet. A
slight pause for breath and she pitched ahead again.

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