Queechy Volume Ii Part 29

"No," said Mr. Carleton, with that eye of deep meaning to which Constance always rendered involuntary homage ? "every one wants, it; if we do not daily take an observation to find where we are, we are sailing about wildly, and do not know whither we are going."

"An observation?" said Constance, understanding part, and impatient of not catching the whole of his meaning.

"Yes," he said, with a smile of singular fascination ? "I mean, consulting the unerring guides of the way to know where we are, and if we are sailing safely and happily in the right direction ? otherwise we are in danger of striking upon some rock, or of never making the harbour; and in either case, all is lost."

The power of eye and smile was too much for Constance, as it had happened more than once before; her own eyes fell, and for a moment she wore a look of unwonted sadness and sweetness, at what from any other person would have roused her mockery.

"Mr. Carleton," said she, trying to rally herself, but still not daring to look up, knowing that would put it out of her power, "I can't understand how you ever came to be such a grave person."

"What is your idea of gravity?" said he smiling. "To have a mind so at rest about the future, as to be able to enjoy thoroughly all that is worth enjoying in the present?"

"But I can't imagine how _you_ ever came to take up such notions."

"May I ask again, why not I?"

"Oh, you know, you have so much to make you otherwise."

"What degree of present contentment ought to make one satisfied to leave that of the limitless future an uncertain thing?"

"Do you think it can be made certain?"

"Undoubtedly! ? why not? the tickets are free ? the only thing is, to make sure that ours has the true signature. Do you think the possession of that ticket makes life a sadder thing?

The very handwriting of it is more precious to me, by far, Miss Constance, than everything else I have."

"But you are a very uncommon instance," said Constance, still unable to look up, and speaking without any of her usual attempt at jocularity.

"No, I hope not," he said, quietly.

"I mean," said Constance, "that it is very uncommon language to hear from a person like you."

"I suppose I know your meaning," he said, after a minute's pause; "but, Miss Constance, there is hardly a graver thought to me, than that power and responsibility go hand in hand."

"It don't generally work so," said Constance, rather uneasily.

"What are you talking about, Constance?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

"Mr. Carleton, Mamma, has been making me melancholy."

"Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I am going to pet.i.tion that you will turn your efforts in another direction. I have felt oppressed all the afternoon, from the effects of that funeral service I was attending ? I am only just getting over it. The preacher seemed to delight in putting together all the gloomy thoughts he could think of."

"Yes," said Mr. Stackpole, putting his hands in his pockets, "it is the particular enjoyment of some of them, I believe, to do their best to make other people miserable."

Mr. Thorn said nothing, being warned by the impatient little hammering of Fleda's worsted needle upon the marble, while her eye was no longer considering her work, and her face rested anxiously upon her hand.

"There wasn't a thing," the lady went on, "in anything he said; in his prayer or his speech, there wasn't a single cheering or elevating consideration ? all he talked and prayed for was, that the people there might be filled with a sense of their wickedness ?"

"It's their trade, Ma'am," said Mr. Stackpole ? "it's their trade! I wonder if it ever occurs to them to include themselves in that pet.i.tion."

"There wasn't the slightest effort made, in anything he said, or prayed for ? and one would have thought that would have been so natural; there was not the least endeavour to do away with that superst.i.tious fear of death which is so common ? and one would think it was the very occasion to do it; he never once asked that we might be led to look upon it rationally and calmly. It's so unreasonable, Mr. Stackpole ? it is so dissonant with our views of a benevolent Supreme Being ? as if it could be according to _his_ will that his creatures should live lives of tormenting themselves ? it so shows a want of trust in his goodness."

"It's a relic of barbarism, Ma'am," said Mr. Stackpole ? it's a popular delusion, and it is like to be, till you can get men to embrace wider and more liberal views of things."

"What do you suppose it proceeds from?" said Mr. Carleton, as if the question had just occurred to him.

"I suppose from false notions received from education, Sir."

"Hardly," said Mr. Carleton; "it is too universal. You find it everywhere; and to ascribe it everywhere to education would be but shifting the question back one generation."

"It is a root of barbarous ages," said Mr. Stackpole ? "a piece of superst.i.tion handed down from father to son ? a set of false ideas which men are bred up and almost born with, and that they can hardly get rid of."

"How can that be a root of barbarism, which the utmost degree of intelligence and cultivation has no power to do away, nor even to lessen, however it may afford motive to control? Men may often put a brave face upon it, and show none of their thoughts to the world; but I think, no one, capable of reflection, has not at times felt the influence of that dread."

"Men have often sought death, of purpose and choice," said Mr.

Stackpole, drily, and rubbing his chin.

"Not from the absence of this feeling, but from the greater momentary pressure of some other."

"Of course," said Mr. Stackpole, rubbing his chin still, "there is a natural love of life ? the world could not get on if there was not."

"If the love of life is natural, the fear of death must be so, by the same reason."

"Undoubtedly," said Mrs. Evelyn, "it is natural ? it is part of the const.i.tution of our nature."

"Yes," said Mr. Stackpole, settling himself again in his chair, with his hands in his pockets ? "it is not unnatural, I suppose ? but then that is the first view of the subject ? it is the business of reason to correct many impressions and prejudices that are, as we say, natural."

"And there was where my clergyman of to-day failed utterly,"

said Mrs. Evelyn ? "he aimed at strengthening that feeling, and driving it down as hard as he could into everybody's mind ? not a single lisp of anything to do it away, or lessen the gloom with which we are, naturally, as you say, disposed to invest the subject."

"I dare say he has held it up as a bugbear till it has become one to himself," said Mr. Stackpole.

"Is it nothing more than the mere natural dread of dissolution?" said Mr. Carleton.

"I think it is that," said Mrs. Evelyn ? "I think that is the princ.i.p.al thing."

"Is there not, besides, an undefined fear of what lies beyond ? an uneasy misgiving, that there may be issues which the spirit is not prepared to meet?"

"I suppose there is," said Mrs. Evelyn ? "but, Sir ?"

"Why, that is the very thing," said Mr. Stackpole ? "that is the mischief of education I was speaking of ? men are brought up to it."

"You cannot dispose of it so, Sir, for this feeling is quite as universal as the other, and so strong, that men have not only been willing to render life miserable, but even to endure death itself, with all the aggravation of torture, to smooth their way in that unknown region beyond."

"It is one of the maladies of human nature," said Mr.

Stackpole, "that it remains for the progress of enlightened reason to dispel."

"What is the cure for the malady?" said Mr. Carleton, quietly.

"Why, Sir, the looking upon death as a necessary step in the course of our existence, which simply introduces us from a lower to a higher sphere ? from a comparatively narrow to a wider and n.o.bler range of feeling and intellect."