Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 5, November 1852

“How very strange,” said the meek woman. “I am so glad I mentioned it: I should have made my son so unhappy. What a pity she does not hope, sir: poor thing! not to have hope is worse than blindness. Well, sir, have I explained how anxious my husband was that this dear lad should become a righteous man – not a formalist, but a vital Christian – abiding continually in the faith, faithful above all things; believing, like his father, in Christ, and evincing that belief by acts of charity – in word, in deed, in thought – toward his fellow creatures. That, sir, was the religion in which he lived and died; and I should feel unfaithful to his trust if I did not, by prayer, supplication and entreaty, try to keep the lad in the path which his father trod. But he is getting too strong for me: his mind swells like a river after rain. He reads his Bible, to be sure; but he reads other books more frequently. I don’t know if that is quite right. Oh! sir, I weary heaven with prayers to teach me how to keep him in the right; so, that even if he halt, or turn aside, he may return.”

“The boy is a good boy – an excellent lad: I have been turning over in my mind what I could do for him, to put him in the way of bettering his position. He is a right excellent lad,” repeated the bookseller; “and I would have you beware of drawing the rein too tight: I think you are anxious overmuch.”

She shook her head mournfully.

“Sir, I have lived on hope – a holy hope – a hope above the world – the hope of one day seeing him in the courts of his Heavenly Father, met by his earthly father. With that hope to light me, I can walk thankfully into the grave – which, if I live a few months longer, cannot be darker than my sight —certain of the brightness which shall be revealed hereafter. But, oh! sir, if he, his child, should be beguiled by too much worldly wisdom, or learning, to forget God, how could I meet my husband – how could I answer to him for the soul which he left to my care upon his bed of death?”

“My good woman, all the most righteous parents can do is to letter and bind the book carefully, and let the world cut the leaves.”

“Yes,” she answered, “and to pray for him, and keep evil, especially the evil of unbelief, from him, and that is one great reason of my visit, sir. You lent him – ”

“The Works of Benjamin Franklin – I remember.”

“Is it the sort of book do you think, sir, that is fit for my little lad? I know it is full of knowledge, about his catching lightning, and inventing wonderful things, and contains great and good advice to young tradesmen; but I fear, though a great man, he wanted – ”

“What the best of us want, more or less, my good lady,” said the bookseller, with unusual briskness, “and had much that few of us possess.” And then, after some consideration, he added slowly, rather as if talking to himself than addressing another – “Let me see. The early part of his life was stained, like the lives of many – John Bunyan to wit – with faults almost amounting to crimes; and those would have remained untold, unrecorded – indeed, perfectly unknown, even by his most intimate friends – but for the extraordinary truthfulness of the man’s great nature. In the brief account of his own life, he confesses that he was blown about by every wind of doctrine; and to what purpose? to fall into the quagmire of unbelief. Now, this would be dangerous to read and think over for lads of Richard’s age and eager temperament, if the entire honesty of Franklin’s nature – downright, brave, looking-straight-in-the-face truth – had not made him confess and condemn his errors. He was scourged – as all unbelievers are, if they would only admit so much – by his unbelief; he had to endure the bitterness and self-reproach of knowing that the young friends whom his arguments had perverted turned upon and ill-used him: he recalled his own misconduct – born of, and nurtured by unbelief; and, though his nature was neither pious nor enthusiastic like that of John Bunyan, he saw, like Bunyan, the evil of his ways, particularly in a reasoning point of view. He learned that unbelief was the proof of a weak, not of a strong nature: he saw how foolish it would be to call a boy ‘strong-minded,’ because he would not believe what his father told him! As he grew in years, he strengthened in truth: another proof of his great mind. And then his works live in our literature: they keep their place by their own specific gravity. The lad is old enough to understand this man’s greatness, and the value he was to his country – indeed, to all countries – and to imbibe those lessons of usefulness and industry which are taught in his works, without being tainted by his confessed sin. Infidelity is put, and by himself, at such a disadvantage, that it holds out no temptation: it shows from first to last the confessed blot upon a radiant memory. Ay, indeed, this great man – this man so in advance of his time – this true man was, as I have said, scourged by his infidelity, and he shows his stripes. I dare say” (the bookseller was a great phrenologist, and the science engrafted much charity on his simple, yet shrewd mind) “I dare say the organ was depressed at veneration, but large in benevolence; with an almost over-weight of the reasoning faculties. Ah! if historians would only give us the measurement of heads, and their developments, instead of their own crude or prejudiced analysis of character, we should better know where to render our hero-worship – don’t you think so?”

The mother looked upward: the spirit’s vision was unimpaired, though the sight was fading day by day. Still she always looked upward, as if all her consolation came from thence.

“I do not understand, sir,” she said, simply, “what you have observed has to do with my Richard; but if you are sure the book won’t harm him, won’t shake his faith, or make him think too highly of worldly gifts – ”

She paused, and then added —

“You, sir, being a Christian man, know best. I am certain it teaches plenty of hope for this world, and great reliance upon human gifts.”

“Your pardon, my good lady,” said the bookseller; “but which of our gifts is not divine?”

“Ay, sir, but we must acknowledge their origin; and, as my dear husband used to say, not be too fond of setting the farthing-candle of reason to give light to the sun of revelation. He made me understand that.”

She rose to withdraw.

“I fear you are not satisfied, even now.”

She shook her head.

“I pray night and day that he may be so guided as to win heaven. I would fain know what to do,” she continued, still more feebly; “you are so good to him, sir – may God bless you for it! But the lad – and that book. I wish he had taken to it when my sight was strong, I could have read it then: now, if he reads it to me, I think he picks out the passages he knows I would like, and leaves the rest.”

“Did he ever read you the great man’s epitaph, written by himself?”

“Yes, sir: there is hope in the last lines about his appearing (after death) in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the Author. Certainly, no bad man (Christianly speaking) could frame that.”

“Bad man!” repeated the bookseller, “Why there are scores of editions of his works!”

This, as a proof of his goodness, did not strike the widow.

“Then, sir, you are quite satisfied with Richard.” The poor woman’s hands trembled as she folded them together, and the long-suppressed tears flowed over her cheeks. “I beg your pardon for troubling you – I have no right to do so, you are so kind to him; only, sir, please to remember that he has two fathers in heaven, and that I – poor creature that I am – feel accountable to both. I cannot sleep by night: I fear I neglect my duty, and yet I fear to overtax his; he gains knowledge so quickly that I tremble for his faith; and when I am sitting alone, between the dimness of my own sight and of the twilight, a thin, filmy shadow stands before me, and I think that I can see the parting of its lips, and hear them whisper – ‘Where is my child – does he seek to win Christ?’”

The compassionate bookseller gazed upon her with deep feeling; the woman so feeble in body, yet so steadfast in what she believed right, was a new interest to him. He rose without a word, went to a dingy escritoir, opened the top, which folded down, and taking out a small bag of gold, selected a sovereign. “Go homewards,” said he, “and as you go, purchase a bottle of Port wine, and what my housekeeper calls a shin of beef. Make it all, mind you, every atom, into beef tea.”

“For Richard?”

“No, woman, for yourself; the weakness of your body adds to the weakness of your sight, and may, eventually, impair your mind. Pray, my good soul, for yourself, as well as for your son. Lay out the money faithfully for the purpose I have named; I know how it is, I know that you feed him– but you devote his surplus earnings to pay your little debts. I have seen you, on a Monday morning, enter a baker’s shop, with a thin, marble-covered book rolled in your hand. I have seen you pay the baker money, and you have left the shop without a loaf. Now, mind what I say.”

“But a whole sovereign!” she said, “it is too much – might I not pay – ”

“Not a farthing out of that!” he exclaimed, “why you are quite as much of a shadow as when I saw you first. Well, if you are too proud to take it as a gift, your son shall repay it hereafter. And do not be so anxious about Richard; have you ever considered that great anxiety about any earthly thing, is want of faith in almighty wisdom and goodness? Has He not taken your husband, as you believe, into his presence for evermore? At the very time when you feared most for your boy, did not a door open to him? and was not the crooked made straight? It has always seemed most unaccountable to me, how people, and good people like you – who have hope forever on their lips – suffer so much fear to enter their hearts.”

But there was so much to cheer and encourage in the generosity and kindness of the worthy man, and in the faithful, yet unpretending, nature of his words, that the widow’s hope returned, at all events for a time, to her heart as well as to her lips. She might again have wandered – again have inquired if he thought her “little lad was quite safe,” for she never, in her best of days, could embrace more than one subject at a time – but his housekeeper entered with two cups of broth.

“You forget the time,” she said, abruptly, “though I’m thinking it wont return the compliment to either of you; I can’t say much for the broth, for the meat is not what it was long ago.”

“If the master gets a fit,” she continued, turning to the widow, “it will be your fault – keeping him without bit or sup – here, take the broth, it ain’t pison, and master’s no ways proud; I wish he was. If you can’t take your broth here comfortably, come with me to the kitchen.” Holding the cup in one hand, and leading the more than half-blind sempstress with the other, she conducted her down the narrow, dark stairs, as carefully as a mother would lead a child, but before she had seated her by the fire, the bell rang.

“I rang for you,” said her master, “knowing that your heart and words do not always go together – ”

“Then I tell lies; thank ye sir,” she said, courtesying.

“No, only I wish you to bear in mind that Richard’s mother is in a very low, nervous state.”

“How can any one passing through this valley o’ tears be any thing else?” interrupted the incorrigible woman.

Her master seemed as though he heard her not. “And if you speak to her in your usual grumpy, disagreeable manner” – she courtesied more deeply than before – “you add to her misery. I am sure your natural kindness of heart will tell you how cruel that would be.”

“Putting live worms on fishing-hooks, or roasting live cockles would be nothing to it,” observed Matty. Now as the bookseller had a piscatorial weakness, was, moreover, fond of roast cockles, and had recently complained that Matty had forgotten his taste – this was a very hard hit; he looked discomforted, upon which Martha rejoiced. He was by no means ready-witted – but he was occasionally readily angered – and replied to the sarcasm with a bitter oath, producing an effect directly contrary to what he intended. Martha quitted the dusty room, as if suffocated by satisfaction, and went grumbling and tittering down stairs.

“It was a Lucky Penny, sure enough,” she said, “that brought my master and your son together.”

“God bless him!”

“Which him?”

“Both, mistress; we hope he will bless what we love best in the world.”

“Ay, indeed, true for you. I heard tell of a man once who was hung through a ‘Lucky Penny.’”

The widow pushed away the unfinished cup of broth.

“And of another, who made his fortune by one – just as Richard will,” added Matty, relenting.

And yet, despite this and her other sarcasms, it was curious to see how Martha struggled to keep in her bitter words; when she looked at the widow’s shrunk and trembling form, and wasted, though still beautiful features, her better nature triumphed; but if her eyes were fixed upon her kitchen deities, she became sharp and acid immediately. Had she moved in a higher grade of society, with her peculiar talent, she might have been as it was, she kept her master (to whom, from her stern honesty of pocket and purpose, as well as from “habit,” that great enslaver of our “kind,” she was invaluable) on a species of rack, while the only peaceful time Richard spent in her society, was while he read to her what she called, “the state of Europe on the paper.”

“That dangerous thing, a female wit;”

“He will soon have been twelve months in his place,” said the widow, smiling.

“Come next new-year’s-day, if we live to see it; Richard says he’ll watch at the corner for the old gentleman.”

“Bother! I dare say he’s dead long ago.”