Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXIII.—April, 1852.—Vol. IV.

"I should be happy, madam, if I were rich," I replied. "Suffering now from the strain of poverty, it is no marvel if I place an undue value on plenty."

"Yet see what it does for me!" continued my companion. "Does it give me back my husband, my brave boys, my beautiful girl? Does it give rest to this weary heart, or relief to this aching head? Does it soothe my mind or heal my body? No! It but oppresses me, like a heavy robe thrown round weakened limbs: it is even an additional misfortune, for if I were poor, I should be obliged to think of other things besides myself and my woes; and the very mental exertion necessary to sustain my position would lighten my miseries. I have seen my daughter wasting year by year and day by day, under the warm sky of the south – under the warm care of love! Neither climate nor affection could save her: every effort was made – the best advice procured – the latest panacea adopted; but to no effect. Her life was prolonged, certainly; but this simply means, that she was three years in dying, instead of three months. She was a gloriously lovely creature, like a fair young saint for beauty and purity – quite an ideal thing, with her golden hair and large blue eyes! She was my only girl – my youngest, my darling, my best treasure! My first real sorrow – now fifteen years ago – was when I saw her laid, on her twenty-first birthday, in the English burial-ground at Madeira. It is on the grave-stone, that she died of consumption: would that it had been added – and her mother of grief! From the day of her death, my happiness left me!"

Here the poor lady paused, and buried her face in her hands. The first sorrow was evidently also the keenest; and I felt my own eyelids moist as I watched this outpouring of the mother's anguish. After all, here was grief beyond the power of wealth to assuage: here was sorrow deeper than any mere worldly disappointment.

"I had two sons," she went on to say, after a short time – "only two. They were fine young men, gifted and handsome. In fact, all my children were allowed to be very models of beauty. One entered the army, the other the navy. The eldest went with his regiment to the Cape, where he married a woman of low family – an infamous creature of no blood; though she was decently conducted for a low-born thing as she was. She was well-spoken of by those who knew her; but what could she be with a butcher for a grandfather! However, my poor infatuated son loved her to the last. She was very pretty, I have heard – young, and timid; but being of such fearfully low origin, of course she could not be recognized by my husband or myself! We forbade my son all intercourse with us, unless he would separate himself from her; but the poor boy was perfectly mad, and he preferred this low-born wife to his father and mother. They had a little baby, who was sent over to me when the wife died – for, thank God! she did die in a few years' time. My son was restored to our love, and he received our forgiveness; but we never saw him again. He took a fever of the country, and was a corpse in a few hours. My second boy was in the navy – a fine, high-spirited fellow, who seemed to set all the accidents of life at defiance. I could not believe in any harm coming to him. He was so strong, so healthy, so beautiful, so bright: he might have been immortal, for all the elements of decay that showed themselves in him. Yet this glorious young hero was drowned – wrecked off a coral-reef, and flung like a weed on the waters. He lost his own life in trying to save that of a common sailor – a piece of pure gold bartered for the foulest clay! Two years after this, my husband died of typhus fever, and I had a nervous attack, from which I have never recovered. And now, what do you say to this history of mine? For fifteen years, I have never been free from sorrow. No sooner did one grow so familiar to me, that I ceased to tremble at its hideousness, than another, still more terrible, came to overwhelm me in fresh misery. For fifteen years, my heart has never known an hour's peace; and to the end of my life, I shall be a desolate, miserable, broken-hearted woman. Can you understand, now, the valuelessness of my riches, and how desolate my splendid house must seem to me? They have been given me for no useful purpose here or hereafter; they encumber me, and do no good to others. Who is to have them when I die? Hospitals and schools? I hate the medical profession, and I am against the education of the poor. I think it the great evil of the day, and I would not leave a penny of mine to such a radical wrong. What is to become of my wealth – ?"

"Your grandson," I interrupted, hastily: "the child of the officer."

The old woman's face gradually softened. "Ah! he is a lovely boy," she said; "but I don't love him – no, I don't," she repeated, vehemently. "If I set my heart on him, he will die or turn out ill: take to the low ways of his wretched mother, or die some horrible death. I steel my heart against him, and shut him out from my calculations of the future. He is a sweet boy: interesting, affectionate, lovely; but I will not allow myself to love him, and I don't allow him to love me! But you ought to see him. His hair is like my own daughter's – long, glossy, golden hair; and his eyes are large and blue, and the lashes curl on his cheek like heavy fringes. He is too pale and too thin: he looks sadly delicate; but his wretched mother was a delicate little creature, and he has doubtless inherited a world of disease and poor blood from her. I wish he was here though, for you to see; but I keep him at school, for when he is much with me, I feel myself beginning to be interested in him; and I do not wish to love him – I do not wish to remember him at all! With that delicate frame and nervous temperament, he must die; and why should I prepare fresh sorrow for myself, by taking him into my heart, only to have him plucked out again by death?"

All this was said with the most passionate vehemence of manner, as if she were defending herself against some unjust charge. I said something in the way of remonstrance. Gently and respectfully, but firmly, I spoke of the necessity for each soul to spiritualize its aspirations, and to raise itself from the trammels of earth; and in speaking thus to her, I felt my own burden lighten off my heart, and I acknowledged that I had been both foolish and sinful in allowing my first disappointment to shadow all the sunlight of my existence. I am not naturally of a desponding disposition, and nothing but a blow as severe as the non-success of my "Finding the Body of Harold by Torch-light" could have affected me to the extent of mental prostration, as that under which I was now laboring. But this was very hard to bear! My companion listened to me with a kind of blank surprise, evidently unaccustomed to the honesty of truth; but she bore my remarks patiently, and when I had ended, she even thanked me for my advice.

"And now, tell me the cause of your melancholy face?" she asked, as we were nearing Birmingham. "Your story can not be very long, and I shall have just enough time to hear it."

I smiled at her authoritative tone, and said quietly: "I am an artist, madam, and I had counted much on the success of my first historical painting. It has failed, and I am both penniless and infamous. I am the 'presumptuous dauber' of the critics – despised by my creditors – emphatically a failure throughout."

"Pshaw!" cried the lady, impatiently; "and what is that for a grief! a day's disappointment which a day's labor can repair! To me, your troubles seem of no more worth than a child's tears when he has broken his newest toy! Here is Birmingham, and I must bid you farewell. Perhaps you will open the door for me? Good-morning: you have made my journey pleasant, and relieved my ennui. I shall be happy to see you in town, and to help you forward in your career."

And with these words, said in a strange, indifferent, matter-of-fact tone, as of one accustomed to all the polite offers of good society, which mean nothing tangible, she was lifted from the carriage by a train of servants, and borne off the platform.

I looked at the card which she placed in my hand, and read the address of "Mrs. Arden, Belgrave-square."

I found my friend waiting for me; and in a few moments was seated before a blazing fire in a magnificent drawing-room, surrounded with every comfort that hospitality could offer, or luxury invent.

"Here, at least, is happiness," I thought, as I saw the family assemble in the drawing-room before dinner. "Here are beauty, youth, wealth, position – all that makes life valuable. What concealed skeleton can there be in this house to frighten away one grace of existence? None – none! They must be happy; and, oh! what a contrast to that poor lady I met with to-day; and what a painful contrast to myself!"

And all my former melancholy returned like a heavy cloud upon my brow; and I felt that I stood like some sad ghost in a fairy-land of beauty, so utterly out of place was my gloom in the midst of all this gayety and splendor.

One daughter attracted my attention more than the rest. She was the eldest, a beautiful girl of about twenty-three, or she might have been even a few years older. Her face was quite of the Spanish style – dark, expressive, and tender; and her manners were the softest and most bewitching I had ever seen. She was peculiarly attractive to an artist, from the exceeding beauty of feature, as well as from the depth of expression which distinguished her. I secretly sketched her portrait on my thumb-nail, and in my own mind I determined to make her the model for my next grand attempt at historical composition – "the Return of Columbus." She was to be the Spanish queen; and I thought of myself as Ferdinand; for I was not unlike a Spaniard in appearance, and I was almost as brown.

I remained with my friend a fortnight, studying the midnight effects of the iron-foundries, and cultivating the acquaintance of Julia. In these two congenial occupations, the time passed like lightning, and I woke as from a pleasant dream, to the knowledge of the fact, that my visit was expected to be brought to a close. I had been asked, I remembered, for a week, and I had doubled my furlough. I hinted at breakfast, that I was afraid I must leave my kind friends to-morrow, and a general regret was expressed, but no one asked me to stay longer; so the die was unhappily cast.

Julia was melancholy. I could not but observe it; and I confess that the observation caused me more pleasure than pain. Could it be sorrow at my departure? We had been daily, almost hourly, companions for fourteen days, and the surmise was not unreasonable. She had always shown me particular kindness, and she could not but have seen my marked preference for her. My heart beat wildly as I gazed on her pale cheek and drooping eyelid; for though she had been always still and gentle, I had never seen – certainly I had never noticed – such evident traces of sorrow, as I saw in her face to-day. Oh, if it were for me, how I would bless each pang which pained that beautiful heart! – how I would cherish the tears that fell, as if they had been priceless diamonds from the mine! – how I would joy in her grief and live in her despair! It might be that out of evil would come good, and from the deep desolation of my unsold "Body" might arise the heavenly blessedness of such love as this! I was intoxicated with my hopes; and was on the point of making a public idiot of myself, but happily some slight remnant of common sense was left me. However, impatient to learn my fate, I drew Julia aside; and, placing myself at her feet, while she was enthroned on a luxurious ottoman, I pretended that I must conclude the series of lectures on art, and the best methods of coloring, on which I had been employed with her ever since my visit.

"You seem unhappy to-day, Miss Reay," I said, abruptly, with my voice trembling like a girl's.

She raised her large eyes languidly. "Unhappy? no, I am never unhappy," she said, quietly.

Her voice never sounded so silvery sweet, so pure and harmonious. It fell like music on the air.

"I have, then, been too much blinded by excess of beauty to have been able to see correctly," I answered. "To me you have appeared always calm, but never sad; but to-day there is a palpable weight of sorrow on you, which a child might read. It is in your voice, and on your eyelids, and round your lips; it is on you like the moss on the young rose – beautifying while vailing the dazzling glory within."

"Ah! you speak far too poetically for me," said Julia, smiling. "If you will come down to my level for a little while, and will talk to me rationally, I will tell you my history. I will tell it you as a lesson for yourself, which I think will do you good."

The cold chill that went to my soul! Her history! It was no diary of facts that I wanted to hear, but only a register of feelings – a register of feelings in which I should find myself the only point whereto the index was set. History! what events deserving that name could have troubled the smooth waters of her life?

I was silent, for I was disturbed; but Julia did not notice either my embarrassment or my silence, and began, in her low, soft voice, to open one of the saddest chapters of life which I had ever heard.

"You do not know that I am going into a convent?" she said; then, without waiting for an answer, she continued: "This is the last month of my worldly life. In four weeks, I shall have put on the white robe of the novitiate, and in due course I trust to be dead forever to this earthly life."

A heavy, thick, choking sensation in my throat, and a burning pain within my eyeballs, warned me to keep silence. My voice would have betrayed me.

"When I was seventeen," continued Julia, "I was engaged to my cousin. We had been brought up together from childhood, and we loved each other perfectly. You must not think, because I speak so calmly now, that I have not suffered in the past. It is only by the grace of resignation and of religion, that I have been brought to my present condition of spiritual peace. I am now five-and-twenty – next week I shall be six-and-twenty: that is just nine years since I was first engaged to Laurence. He was not rich enough, and indeed he was far too young, to marry, for he was only a year older than myself; and if he had had the largest possible amount of income, we could certainly not have married for three years. My father never cordially approved of the engagement, though he did not oppose it. Laurence was taken partner into a large concern here, and a heavy weight of business was immediately laid on him. Youthful as he was, he was made the sole and almost irresponsible agent in a house which counted its capital by millions, and through which gold flowed like water. For some time, he went on well – to a marvel, well. He was punctual, vigilant, careful; but the responsibility was too much for the poor boy: the praises he received, the flattery and obsequiousness which, for the first time, were lavished on the friendless youth, the wealth at his command, all turned his head. For a long time, we heard vague rumors of irregular conduct; but as he was always the same good, affectionate, respectful, happy Laurence, when with us, even my father, who is so strict, and somewhat suspicious, turned a deaf ear to them. I was the earliest to notice a slight change, first in his face, and then in his manners. At last, the rumors ceased to be vague, and became definite. Business neglected; fatal habits visible, even in the early day; the frightful use of horrible words, which once he would have trembled to use; the nights passed at the gaming-table, and the days spent in the society of the worst men on the turf – all these accusations were brought to my father by credible witnesses; and, alas! they were too true to be refuted. My father – heaven and the holy saints bless his gray head! – kept them from me as long as he could. He forgave him again and again, and used every means that love and reason could employ to bring him back into the way of right; but he could do nothing against the force of such fatal habits as those to which my poor Laurence had now become wedded. With every good intention, and with much strong love for me burning sadly amid the wreck of his virtues, he yet would not refrain: the evil one had overcome him; he was his prey here and hereafter. Oh, no – not hereafter!" she added, raising her hands and eyes to heaven, "if prayer, if fasting, patient vigil, incessant striving, may procure him pardon – not forever his prey! Our engagement was broken off; and this step, necessary as it was, completed his ruin. He died…" Here a strong shudder shook her from head to foot and I half rose, in alarm. The next instant she was calm.

"Now, you know my history," continued she. "It is a tragedy of real life, which you will do well, young painter, to compare with your own!" With a kindly pressure of the hand, and a gentle smile – oh! so sweet, so pure and heavenly! – Julia Reay left me; while I sat perfectly awed – that is the only word I can use – with the revelation which she had made both of her history and of her own grand soul.

"Come with me to my study," said Mr. Reay, entering the room; "I have a world to talk to you about. You go to-morrow, you say. I am sorry for it; but I must therefore settle my business with you in good time to-day."

I followed him mechanically, for I was undergoing a mental castigation which rather disturbed me. Indeed, like a young fool – as eager in self-reproach as in self-glorification – I was so occupied in inwardly calling myself hard names, that even when my host gave me a commission for my new picture, "The Return of Columbus," at two hundred and fifty pounds, together with an order to paint himself, Mrs. Reay, and half-a-dozen of their children, I confess it with shame, that I received the news like a leaden block, and felt neither surprise nor joy – not though these few words chased me from the gates of the Fleet, whither I was fast hastening, and secured me both position and daily bread. The words of that beautiful girl were still ringing in my ears, mixed up with the bitterest self-accusations; and these together shut out all other sound, however pleasant. But that was always my way.

I went back to London, humbled and yet strengthened, having learned more of human nature and the value of events, in one short fortnight, than I had ever dreamed of before. The first lessons of youth generally come in hard shape. I had sense enough to feel that I had learned mine gently, and that I had cause to be thankful for the mildness of the teaching. From a boy, I became a man, judging more accurately of humanity than a year's ordinary experience would have enabled me to do. And the moral which I drew was this: that under our most terrible afflictions, we may always gain some spiritual good, if we suffer them to be softening and purifying, rather than hardening influences over us. And also, that while we are suffering the most acutely, we may be sure that others are suffering still more acutely; and if we would but sympathize with them more than with ourselves – live out of our own selves, and in the wide world around us – we would soon be healed while striving to heal others. Of this I am convinced: the secret of life, and of all its good, is in love; and while we preserve this, we can never fail of comfort. The sweet waters will always gush out over the sandiest desert of our lives while we can love; but without it – nay, not the merest weed of comfort or of virtue would grow under the feet of angels. In this was the distinction between Mrs. Arden and Julia Reay. The one had hardened her heart under her trials, and shut it up in itself; the other had opened hers to the purest love of man and love of God; and the result was to be seen in the despair of the one, and in the holy peace of the other.

Full of these thoughts, I sought out my poor lady, determined to do her real benefit if I could. She received me very kindly, for I had taken care to provide myself with a sufficient introduction, so as to set all doubts of my social position at rest: and I knew how far this would go with her. We soon became fast friends. She seemed to rest on me much for sympathy and comfort, and soon grew to regard me with a sort of motherly fondness that of itself brightened her life. I paid her all the attention which a devoted son might pay – humored her whims, soothed her pains; but insensibly I led her mind out from itself – first in kindness to me, and then in love to her grandson.

I asked for him just before the midsummer holidays, and with great difficulty obtained an invitation for him to spend them with her. She resisted my entreaties stoutly, but at last was obliged to yield; not to me, nor to my powers of persuasion, but to the holy truth of which I was then the advocate. The child came, and I was there also to receive him, and to enforce by my presence – which I saw, without vanity, had great influence – a fitting reception. He was a pensive, clever, interesting little fellow; sensitive and affectionate, timid, gifted with wonderful powers, and of great beauty. There was a shy look in his eyes, which made me sure that he inherited much of his loveliness from his mother; and when we were great friends, he showed me a small portrait of "Poor mamma;" and I saw at once the most striking likeness between the two. No human heart could withstand that boy, certainly not my poor friend's. She yielded, fighting desperately against me and him, and all the powers of love, which were subduing her, but yielding while she fought; and in a short time the child had taken his proper place in her affections, which he kept to the end of her life. And she, that desolate mother, even she, with her seared soul and petrified heart, was brought to the knowledge of peace by the glorious power of love.

Prosperous, famous, happy, blessed in home and hearth, this has become my fundamental creed of life, the basis on which all good, whether of art or of morality, is rested: of art especially; for only by a tender, reverent spirit can the true meaning of his vocation be made known to the artist. All the rest is mere imitation of form, not insight into essence. And while I feel that I can live out of myself, and love others – the whole world of man – more than myself, I know that I possess the secret of happiness; ay, though my powers were suddenly blasted as by lightning, my wife and children laid in the cold grave, and my happy home desolated forever. For I would go out into the thronged streets, and gather up the sorrows of others, to relieve them; and I would go out under the quiet sky, and look up to the Father's throne; and I would pluck peace, as green herbs from active benevolence and contemplative adoration. Yes; love can save from the sterility of selfishness, and from the death of despair; but love alone. No other talisman has the power; pride, self-sustainment, coldness, pleasure, nothing – nothing – but that divine word of Life which is life's soul!

THE LITTLE SISTERS

Almsgiving takes the place of the work-house system, in the economy of a large part of Europe. The giving of alms to the helpless is, moreover, in Catholic countries, a religious office. The voluntary surrender of gifts, each according to his ability, as a means of grace, is more prominently insisted upon than among Protestants; consequently systematic taxation for the poor is not resorted to. Nor is there so great a necessity for it as in England; for few nations have so many paupers to provide for as the English are accustomed to regard as a natural element in society; and thus it happens, that when, about ten years ago, there was in France no asylum but the hospital, for aged and ailing poor, the want of institutions for the infirm but healthy was not so severe as to attract the public eye.

But there was at that time a poor servant-woman, a native of the village of La Croix, in Brittany – Jeanne Sugon was her name – who was moved by the gentleness of her heart, and the fervor of her religion, to pity a certain infirm and destitute neighbor, to take her to her side as a companion, and to devote herself to her support. Other infirm people earned, by their helplessness, a claim on her attention. She went about begging, when she could not work, that she might preserve life as long as Nature would grant it to her infirm charges. Her example spread a desire for the performance of similar good offices. Two pious women, her neighbors, united with Jeanne in her pious office. These women cherished, as they were able, aged and infirm paupers; nursed them in a little house, and begged for them in the vicinity. The three women, who had so devoted themselves, attracted notice, and were presently received into the order of Sisters of Charity, in which they took for themselves the name of "Little Sisters of the Poor" – Petites Sœrs des Pauvres.

The first house of the Little Sisters of the Poor was opened at St. Servan, in Brittany. A healthy flower scatters seed around. We saw that forcibly illustrated, in the progress, from an origin equally humble, of the Rauhe Haus, near Hamburgh: we see it now again, in the efforts of the Little Sisters, which flourished and fructified with prompt usefulness. On the tenth anniversary of the establishment at St. Servan, ten similar houses had been founded in ten different French towns.

The Petites Sœurs live with their charges in the most frugal way, upon the scraps and waste meat which they can collect from the surrounding houses. The voluntary contributions by which they support their institution, are truly the crumbs falling from the rich man's table. The nurse fares no better than the objects of her care. She lives upon equal terms with Lazarus, and acts toward him in the spirit of a younger sister.

The establishment at Dinan, over which Jeanne Sugon herself presides, being under repair, and not quite fit for the reception of visitors, we will go over the Sisters' house at Paris, which is conducted on exactly the same plan.

We are ushered into a small parlor, scantily furnished, with some Scripture prints upon the walls. A Sister enters to us with such a bright look of cheerfulness as faces wear when hearts beneath them feel that they are beating to some purpose in the world. She accedes gladly to our desire, and at once leads us into another room of larger size, in which twenty or thirty old women are at this moment finishing their dinner; it being Friday, rice stands on the table in the place of meat. The Sister moves and speaks with the gentleness of a mother among creatures who are in, or are near to the state of second childhood. You see an old dame fumbling eagerly over her snuff-box lid. The poor creatures are not denied luxuries; for, whatever they can earn by their spinning is their own money, and they buy with it any indulgences they please; among which nothing is so highly prized or eagerly coveted as a pinch of snuff.

In the dormitories on the first floor, some lie bed-ridden. Gentler still, if possible, is now the Sister's voice. The rooms throughout the house are airy, with large windows, and those inhabited by the Sisters are distinguished from the rest by no mark of indulgence or superiority.

We descend now into the old men's department; and enter a warm room, with a stove in the centre. One old fellow has his feet upon a little foot-warmer, and thinly pipes out, that he is very comfortable now, for he is always warm. The chills of age, and the chills of the cold pavement remain together in his memory; but he is very comfortable now – very comfortable. An other decrepit man, with white hair and bowed back – who may have been proud, in his youth, of a rich voice for love-song, talks of music to the Sister; and, on being asked to sing, blazes out with joyous gestures, and strikes up a song of Béranger's in a cracked, shaggy voice, which sometimes – like a river given to flow under ground – is lost entirely, and then bubbles up again, quite thick with mud.

We go into a little oratory, where all pray together nightly before they retire to rest. Thence we descend into a garden for the men; and pass thence by a door into the women's court. The chapel-bell invites us to witness the assembly of the Sisters for the repetition of their psalms and litanies. From the chapel we return into the court, and enter a large room, where the women are all busy with their spinning-wheels. One old soul immediately totters to the Sister (not the same Sister with whom we set out), and insists on welcoming her daughter with a kiss. We are informed that it is a delusion of her age to recognize in this Sister really her own child, who is certainly far away, and may possibly be dead. The Sister embraces her affectionately, and does nothing to disturb the pleasant thought.

And now we go into the kitchen. Preparation for coffee is in progress. The dregs of coffee that have been collected from the houses of the affluent in the neighborhood, are stewed for a long time with great care. The Sisters say they produce a very tolerable result; and, at any rate, every inmate is thus enabled to have a cup of coffee every morning, to which love is able to administer the finest Mocha flavor. A Sister enters from her rounds out of doors with two cans full of broken victuals. She is a healthy, and, I think, a handsome woman. Her daily work is to go out with the cans directly after she has had her morning coffee, and to collect food for the ninety old people that are in the house. As fast as she fills her cans, she brings them to the kitchen, and goes out again; continuing in this work daily till four o'clock.

You do not like this begging? What are the advertisements on behalf of our own hospitals? what are the collectors? what are the dinners, the speeches, the charity sermons? A few weak women, strong in heart, without advertisement, or dinners, or charity sermons; without urgent appeals to a sympathizing public; who have no occasion to exercitate charity, by enticing it to balls and to theatrical benefits; patiently collect waste food from house to house, and feed the poor with it, humbly and tenderly.

The cans are now to be emptied; the contents being divided into four compartments, according to their nature – broken meat, vegetables, slices of pudding, fish, &c. Each is afterward submitted to the best cookery that can be contrived. The choicest things are set aside – these, said a Sister, with a look of satisfaction, will be for our poor dear sick.

The number of Sisters altogether in this house engaged in attendance on the ninety infirm paupers, is fourteen. They divide the duties of the house among themselves. Two serve in the kitchen, two in the laundry; one begs, one devotes herself to constant personal attendance on the wants of the old men, and so on with the others, each having her special department. The whole sentiment of the household is that of a very large and very amiable family. To feel that they console the last days of the infirm and aged poor, is all the Little Sisters get for their hard work.

HOW GUNPOWDER IS MADE. – VISIT TO HOUNSLOW MILLS