第24章

unaccustomed to, "The Model of all the Virtues."She deserved this title as well as almost any woman.She did really bristle with moral excellences.Mention any good thing she had not done; I should like to see you try! There was no handle of weakness to take hold of her by; she was as unseizable, except in her totality, as a billiard-ball; and on the broad, green, terrestrial table, where she had been knocked about, like all of us, by the cue of Fortune, she glanced from every human contact, and "caromed" from one relation to another, and rebounded from the stuffed cushion of temptation, with such exact and perfect angular movements, that the Enemy's corps of Reporters had long given up taking notes of her conduct, as there was no chance for their master.

What an admirable person for the patroness and directress of a slightly self-willed child, with the lightning zigzag line of genius running like a glittering vein through the marble whiteness of her virgin nature! One of the lady-patroness's peculiar virtues was calmness.She was resolute and strenuous, but still.You could depend on her for every duty; she was as true as steel.She was kind-hearted and serviceable in all the relations of life.She had more sense, more knowledge, more conversation, as well as more goodness, than all the partners you have waltzed with this winter put together.

Yet no man was known to have loved her, or even to have offered himself to her in marriage.It was a great wonder.I am very anxious to vindicate my character as a philosopher and an observer of Nature by accounting for this apparently extraordinary fact.

You may remember certain persons who have the misfortune of presenting to the friends whom they meet a cold, damp hand.There are states of mind in which a contact of this kind has a depressing effect on the vital powers that makes us insensible to all the virtues and graces of the proprietor of one of these life-absorbing organs.When they touch us, virtue passes out of us, and we feel as if our electricity had been drained by a powerful negative battery, carried about by an overgrown human torpedo.

"The Model of all the Virtues" had a pair of searching eyes as clear as Wenham ice; but they were slower to melt than that fickle jewelry.

Her features disordered themselves slightly at times in a surface-smile, but never broke loose from their corners and indulged in the riotous tumult of a laugh,--which, I take it, is the mob-law of the features;--and propriety the magistrate who reads the riot-act.She carried the brimming cup of her inestimable virtues with a cautious, steady hand, and an eye always on them, to see that they did not spill.Then she was an admirable judge of character.Her mind was a perfect laboratory of tests and reagents; every syllable you put into breath went into her intellectual eudiometer, and all your thoughts were recorded on litmus-paper.I think there has rarely been a more admirable woman.Of course, Miss Iris was immensely and passionately attached to her.--Well,--these are two highly oxygenated adverbs,--grateful,--suppose we say,--yes,--grateful, dutiful, obedient to her wishes for the most part,--perhaps not quite up to the concert pitch of such a perfect orchestra of the virtues.

We must have a weak spot or two in a character before we can love it much.People that do not laugh or cry, or take more of anything than is good for them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are admirable subjects for biographies.But we don't always care most for those flat-pattern flowers that press best in the herbarium.

This immaculate woman,--why could n't she have a fault or two?

Is n't there any old whisper which will tarnish that wearisome aureole of saintly perfection? Does n't she carry a lump of opium in her pocket? Is n't her cologne-bottle replenished oftener than its legitimate use would require? It would be such a comfort!

Not for the world would a young creature like Iris have let such words escape her, or such thoughts pass through her mind.Whether at the bottom of her soul lies any uneasy consciousness of an oppressive presence, it is hard to say, until we know more about her.Iris sits between the Little Gentleman and the "Model of all the Virtues," as the black-coated personage called her.--I will watch them all.

--Here I stop for the present.What the Professor said has had to make way this time for what he saw and heard.

-And now you may read these lines, which were written for gentle souls who love music, and read in even tones, and, perhaps, with something like a smile upon the reader's lips, at a meeting where these musical friends had gathered.Whether they were written with smiles or not, you can guess better after you have read them.

THE OPENING OF THE PIANO.

In the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night.

Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came!

What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, When the wondrous boa was opened that had come from over seas, With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys!

Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy, For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy, Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way, But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, "Now, Mary, play."For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm;She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, Or caroling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills.

So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys.

Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, As, floating from lip and finger, arose the "Vesper Hymn."--Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy-red, (Wedded since, and a widow,--something like ten years dead,)Hearing a gush of music such as none before, Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door.

Just as the "Jubilate " in threaded whisper dies, --"Open it! open it, lady!" the little maiden cries, (For she thought't was a singing creature caged in a box she heard,)"Open it! open it, lady! and let me see the bird!"