Queechy Volume Ii Part 16

"Unfit them for the duties of their station, and make them discontented with it."

"By making it pleasanter?"

"No, no ? not by making it pleasanter."

"By what then, Mr. Stackpole?" said Thorn, to draw him on, and to draw her out, Fleda was sure.

"By lifting them out of it."

"And what objection to lifting them out of it?" said Thorn.

"You can't lift every body out of it," said the gentleman, with a little irritation in his manner ? "that station must be filled ? there must always be poor people."

"And what degree of poverty ought to debar a man from the pleasures of education and a cultivated taste, such as he can attain?"

"No, no, not that," said Mr. Stackpole; "but it all goes to fill them with absurd notions about their place in society, inconsistent with proper subordination."

Fleda looked at him, but shook her head slightly, and was silent.

"Things are in very different order on our side the water,"

said Mr. Stackpole, hugging himself.

"Are they?" said Fleda.

"Yes ? we understand how to keep things in their places a little better."

"I did not know," said Fleda, quietly, "that it was by _design_ of the rulers of England that so many of her lower cla.s.s are in the intellectual condition of our slaves."

"Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, laughing, "what do you say to that, Sir?"

Fleda's face turned suddenly to him with a quick look of apology, which she immediately knew was not needed.

"But this kind of thing don't make the people any happier,"

pursued Mr. Stackpole; ? "only serves to give them uppish and dissatisfied longings that cannot be gratified."

"Somebody says," observed Thorn, "that 'under a despotism all are contented, because none can get on, and in a republic, none are contented, because all can get on.' "

"Precisely," said Mr. Stackpole.

"That might do very well if the world were in a state of perfection," said Fleda. "As it is, commend me to discontent and getting on. And the uppishness, I am afraid, is a national fault, Sir; you know our state motto is 'Excelsior.' "

"We are at liberty to suppose," said Thorn, "that Miss Ringgan has followed the example of her friends, the farmers'

daughters? ? or led them in it?"

"It is dangerous to make surmises," said Fleda, colouring.

"It is a pleasant way of running into danger," said Mr. Thorn, who was leisurely pruning the p.r.i.c.kles from the stem of a rose.

"I was talking to a gentleman once," said Fleda, "about the birds and flowers we find in our wilds; and he told me afterwards gravely, that he was afraid I was studying too many things at once! ? when I was innocent of all ornithology but what my eyes and ears had picked up in the wood, except some childish reminiscences of Audubon."

"That is just the right sort of learning for a lady," said Mr.

Stackpole, smiling at her, however; "women have nothing to do with books."

"What do you say to that, Miss Fleda?" said Thorn.

"Nothing, Sir; it is one of those positions that are unanswerable."

"But, Mr. Stackpole," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I don't like that doctrine, Sir. I do not believe in it at all."

"That is unfortunate ? for my doctrine," said the gentleman.

"But I do not believe it is yours. Why must women have nothing to do with books? what harm do they do, Mr. Stackpole?"

"Not needed, Ma'am; a woman, as somebody says, knows intuitively all that is really worth knowing."

"Of what use is a mine that is never worked?" said Mr.

Carleton.

"It is worked," said Mr. Stackpole. "Domestic life is the true training for the female mind. One woman will learn more wisdom from the child on her breast than another will learn from ten thousand volumes."

"It is very doubtful how much wisdom the child will ever learn from her," said Mr. Carleton, smiling.

"A woman who never saw a book," pursued Mr. Stackpole, unconsciously quoting his author, "may be infinitely superior, even in all those matters of which books treat, to the woman who has read, and read intelligently, a whole library."

"Unquestionably; and it is, likewise, beyond question, that a silver sixpence may be worth more than a washed guinea."

"But a woman's true sphere is in her family ? in her home duties, which furnish the best and most appropriate training for her faculties ? pointed out by nature itself."

"Yes!" said Mr. Carleton ? "and for those duties, some of the very highest and n.o.blest that are entrusted to human agency, the fine machinery that is to perform them should be wrought to its last point of perfectness. The wealth of a woman's mind, instead of lying in the rough, should be richly brought out and fas.h.i.+oned for its various ends, while yet those ends are in the future, or it will never meet the demand. And, for her own happiness, all the more because her sphere is at home, her home stores should be exhaustless ? the stores she cannot go abroad to seek. I would add to strength beauty, and to beauty grace, in the intellectual proportions, so far as possible. It were ungenerous in man to condemn the _best_ half of human intellect to insignificance, merely because it is not his own."

Mrs. Evelyn wore a smile of admiration that n.o.body saw, but Fleda's face was a study while Mr. Carleton was saying this.

Her look was fixed upon him with such intent satisfaction and eagerness, that it was not till he had finished that she became aware that those dark eyes were going very deep into hers, and suddenly put a stop to the inquisition.

"Very pleasant doctrine to the ears that have an interest in it," said Mr. Stackpole, rather discontentedly.

"The man knows little of his own interest," said Mr. Carleton, "who would leave that ground waste, or would cultivate it only in the narrow spirit of a utilitarian. He needs an influence in his family not more refres.h.i.+ng than rectifying; and no man will seek that in one greatly his inferior. He is to be pitied who cannot fall back upon his home with the a.s.surance that he has there something better than himself."

"Why, Mr. Carleton, Sir," said Mrs. Evelyn, with every line of her mouth saying funny things ? "I am afraid you have sadly neglected your own interest ? have you anything at Carleton better than yourself?"

Suddenly cool again, he laughed, and said, "You were there, Mrs. Evelyn."

"But, Mr. Carleton," pursued the lady, with a mixture of insinuation and fun ? "why were you never married?"

"Circ.u.mstances have always forbade it," he answered, with a smile, which Constance declared was the most fascinating thing she ever saw in her life.

Fleda was arranging her flowers, with the help of some very unnecessary suggestions from the donor.

"Mr. Lewis," said Constance, with a kind of insinuation very different from her mother's, made up of fun and dating, ? "Mr.

Carleton has been giving me a long lecture on botany, while my attention was distracted by listening to your _spirituel_ conversation."