Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  The burden ceases to gall when we have learned how to carry it. We can suffer patiently if we see any good come of it, and say, as an old black woman of our acquaintance did, of an event that crossed her purpose, “Well, Lord, if it’s you, send it along.”

  But that this may be done, that home life, in our unsettled, changing state of society, may become peaceful and restful, there is one Christian grace, much treated of by mystic writers, that must return to its honour in the Christian Church. I mean — THE GRACE OF SILENCE.

  No words can express, no tongue can tell, the value of NOT SPEAKING. “Speech is silvern, but silence is golden,” is an old and very precious proverb.

  “But,” say many voices, “what is to become of us, if we may not speak? Must we not correct our children, and our servants, and each other? Must we let people go on doing wrong to the end of the chapter?”

  “No; fault must be found; faults must be told, errors corrected. Reproof and admonition are duties of householders to their families, and of all true friends to one another.

  But, gentle reader, let us look over life, our own lives and the lives of others, and ask, How much of the fault-finding which prevails has the least tendency to do any good? How much of it is well-timed, well-pointed, deliberate, just, and so spoken as to be effective?

  “A wise reprover upon an obedient ear,” is one of the rare things spoken of by Solomon, — the rarest, perhaps, to be met with. How many really religious people put any of their religion into their manner of performing this most difficult office? We find fault with a stove or furnace which creates heat only to go up the chimney and not to warm the house. We say it is wasteful. Just so wasteful often seem prayer-meetings, church-services, and sacraments; they create and excite lovely, gentle, holy feelings, — but, if these do not pass out into the atmosphere of daily life, and warm and clear the air of our homes, there is a great waste in our religion.

  We have been on our knees, confessing humbly that we are as awkward in heavenly things, as unfit for the Heavenly Jerusalem, as Biddy and Mike, and the little beggar-girl on our door-steps, are for our parlours. We have deplored our errors daily, hourly, and confessed that “the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable,” and then we draw near in the Sacrament to that Incarnate Divinity whose infinite love covers all our imperfections with the mantle of His perfections. But when we return, do we take our servants and children by the throat because they are as untrained and awkward and careless in earthly things as we have been in heavenly? Does no remembrance of Christ’s infinite patience temper our impatience, when we have spoken seventy times seven, and our words have been disregarded? There is no mistake as to the sincerity of the religion which tho church excites. What we want is to have it used in common life, instead of going up like hot air in a fireplace to lose itself in the infinite abysses above.

  In reproving and fault-finding, we have beautiful examples in Holy Writ. When St. Paul has a reproof to administer to delinquent Christians, how does he temper it with gentleness and praise! how does he first make honourable note of all the good there is to be spoken of! how does he give assurance of his prayers and love! — and when at last the arrow flies, it goes all the straighter to the mark for this carefulness.

  But there was a greater, a purer, a lovelier than Paul, who made his home on earth, with twelve plain men, ignorant, prejudiced, slow to learn, — and who to the very day of his death were still contending on a point which he had repeatedly explained, and troubling His last earthly hours with the old contest, “Who should be greatest.” When all else failed, on His knees before them as their servant, tenderly performing for love the office of a slave, He said, “If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

  When parents, employers, and masters learn to reprove in this spirit, reproofs will be more effective than they now are. It was by the exercise of this spirit that Fenélon transformed the proud, petulant, irritable, selfish Duke of Burgundy, making him humble, gentle, tolerant of others and severe only to himself: it was he who had for his motto, that “Perfection alone can bear with imperfection.”

  But apart from the fault-finding which has a definite aim, how much is there that does not profess or intend or try to do anything more than give vent to an irritated state of feeling! The nettle stings us, and we toss it with both hands at our neighbour; the fire burns us, and we throw coals and hot ashes at all or sundry of those about us.

  There is fretfulness, a mizzling, drizzling rain of discomforting remark; there is grumbling, a north-east storm that never clears: there is scolding, the thunderstorm with lightning and hail. All these are worse than useless; they are positive sins, by whomsoever indulged, — sins as great and real as many that are shuddered at in polite society.

  All these are for the most part but the venting on our fellow-beings of morbid feelings resulting from dyspepsia, overtaxed nerves, or general ill health.

  A minister eats too much mince-pie, goes to his weekly lecture, and, seeing only half a dozen people there, proceeds to grumble at those half-dozen for the sins of such as stay away. “The church is cold, there is no interest in religion,” and so on: a simple outpouring of the blues.

  You and I do in one week the work we ought to do in six; we overtax nerve and brain, and then have weeks of darkness in which everything at home seems running to destruction. The servants never were so careless, the children never so noisy, the house never so disorderly, the State never so ill-governed, the Church evidently going over to Antichrist. The only thing, after all, in which the existing condition of affairs differs from that of a week ago is, that we have used up our nervous energy, and are looking at the world through blue spectacles. We ought to resist the devil of fault-finding at this point, and cultivate silence as a grace till our nerves are rested. There are times when no one should trust himself to judge his neighbours, or reprove his children and servants, or find fault with his friends, — for he is so sharp-set that he cannot strike a note without striking too hard. Then is the time to try the grace of silence, and, what is better than silence, the power of prayer.

  But it being premised that we are never to fret, never to grumble, never to scold, and yet it being our duty in some way to make known and get rectified the faults of others, it remains to ask how; and on this head we will improvise a parable of two women.

  Mrs. Standfast is a woman of high tone, and possessed of a power of moral principle that impresses one even as sublime. All her perceptions of right and wrong are clear, exact, and minute; she is charitable to the poor, kind to the sick and suffering, and devoutly and earnestly religious. In all the minutiæ of woman’s life she manifests an inconceivable precision and perfection. Everything she does is perfectly done. She is true to all her promises to the very letter, and so punctual that railroad time might be kept by her instead of a chronometer.

  Yet, with all these excellent traits, Mrs. Standfast has not the faculty of making a happy home. She is that most hopeless of fault-finders, — a fault-finder from principle. She has a high correct standard for everything in the world, from the regulation of the thoughts down to the spreading of a sheet or the hemming of a towel; and to this exact standard she feels it her duty to bring every one in her household. She does not often scold, she is not actually fretful, but she exercises over her household a calm, inflexible severity rebuking every fault; she overlooks nothing; she excuses nothing; she will accept of nothing in any part of her domain but absolute perfection; and her reproofs are aimed with a true and steady point, and sent with a force that makes them felt by the most obdurate.

  Hence, though she is rarely seen out of temper, and seldom or never scolds, yet she drives every one around her to despair by the use of the calmest and most elegant English. Her servants fear, but do not love her. Her husband — an impulsive, generous man, somewhat inconsiderate and careless in his habits — is at times perfectly desperate under the accumulated load of her disa
pprobation. Her children regard her as inhabiting some high, distant, unapproachable mountain-top of goodness, whence she is always looking down with reproving eyes on naughty boys and girls. They wonder how it is that so excellent a mamma should have children who, let them try to be good as hard as they can, are always sure to do something dreadful every day.

  The trouble with Mrs. Standfast is, not that she has a high standard, and not that she purposes and means to bring every one up to it, but that she does not take the right way. She has set it down that to blame a wrong-doer is the only way to cure wrong. She has never learned that it is as much her duty to praise as to blame, and that people are drawn to do right by being praised when they do it, rather than driven by being blamed when they do not.

  Right across the way from Mrs. Standfast is Mrs. Easy, a pretty little creature, with not a tithe of her moral worth, — a merry, pleasure-loving woman, of no particular force of principle, whose great object in life is to avoid its disagreeables and to secure its pleasures.

  Little Mrs. Easy is adored by her husband, her children, her servants, merely because it is her nature to say pleasant things to every one. It is a mere tact of pleasing which she uses without knowing it. While Mrs. Standfast, surveying her well-set dining-table, runs her keen eye over everything, and at last brings up with, “Jane, look at that black spot on the salt-spoon! I am astonished at your carelessness!” — Mrs. Easy would say, “Why, Jane, where did you learn to set a table so nicely? All looking beautifully, except — ah! let’s see — just give a rub to this salt-spoon; — now all is quite perfect.” Mrs. Standfast’s servants and children hear only of their failures; these are always before them and her. Mrs. Easy’s servants hear of their successes. She praises their good points; tells them they are doing well in this, that, and the other particular; and finally exhorts them, on the strength of having done so many things well, to improve in what is yet lacking. Mrs. Easy’s husband feels that he is always a hero in her eyes, and her children feel that they are dear good children, notwithstanding Mrs. Easy sometimes has her little tiffs of displeasure, and scolds roundly when something falls out as it should not.

  The two families show how much more may be done by a very ordinary woman, through the mere instinct of praising and pleasing, than by the greatest worth, piety, and principle, seeking to lift human nature by a lever that never was meant to lift it by.

  The faults and mistakes of us poor human beings are as often perpetuated by despair as by any other one thing. Have we not all been burdened by a consciousness of faults that we were slow to correct because we felt discouraged? Have we not been sensible of a real help sometimes from the presence of a friend who thought well of us, believed in us, set our virtues in the best light, and put our faults in the background?

  Let us depend upon it, that the flesh and blood that are in us — the needs, the wants, the despondencies — are in each of our fellows, in every awkward servant and careless child.

  Finally, let us all resolve, —

  First, to attain to the grace of SILENCE.

  Second, to deem all FAULT-FINDING that does no good, a SIN; and to resolve, when we are happy ourselves, not to poison the atmosphere for our neighbours by calling on them to remark every painful and disagreeable feature of their daily life.

  Third, to practise the grace and virtue of PRAISE. We have all been taught that it is our duty to praise God, but few of us have reflected on our duty to praise men; and yet, for the same reason that we should praise the divine goodness, it is our duty to praise human excellence.

  We should praise our friends, — our near and dear ones; we should look on and think of their virtues till their faults fade away; and when we love most, and see most to love, then only is the wise time wisely to speak of what should still be altered.

  Parents should look out for occasions to commend their children, as carefully as they seek to reprove their faults; and employers should praise the good their servants do as strictly as they blame the evil.

  Whoever undertakes to use this weapon will find that praise goes farther in many cases than blame. Watch till a blundering servant does something well, and then praise him for it, and you will see a new fire lighted in the eye, and often you will find that in that one respect at least you have secured excellence thenceforward.

  When you blame, which should be seldom, let it be alone with the person, quietly, considerately, and with all the tact you are possessed of. The fashion of reproving children and servants in the presence of others cannot be too much deprecated. Pride, stubbornness, and self-will are aroused by this, while a more private reproof might be received with thankfulness.

  As a general rule, I would say, treat children in these respects just as you would grown people; they are grown people in miniature, and need as careful consideration of their feelings as any of us.

  Lastly, let us all make a bead-roll, a holy rosary, of all that is good and agreeable in our position, our surroundings, our daily lot, of all that is good and agreeable in our friends, our children, our servants, and charge ourselves to repeat it daily, till the habit of our minds be to praise and to commend; and so doing, we shall catch and kill one Little Fox who hath destroyed many tender grapes.

  II. IRRITABILITY.

  IT was that Christmas-day that did it; I’m quite convinced of that; and the way it was is what I am going to tell you.

  You see, among the various family customs of us Crowfields, the observance of all sorts of fêtes and festivals has always been a matter of prime regard; and among all the festivals of the round, ripe year, none is so joyous and honoured among us as Christmas.

  Let no one upon this prick up the ears of Archæology, and tell us that by the latest calculations of chronologists our ivy-grown and holly-mantled Christmas is all a hum, — that it has been demonstrated, by all sorts of signs and tables, that the august event it celebrates did not take place on the 25th of December. Supposing it be so, what have we to do with that? If so awful, so joyous an event ever took place on our earth, it is surely worth commemoration. It is the event we celebrate, not the time. And if all Christians for eighteen hundred years, while warring and wrangling on a thousand other points, have agreed to give this one 25th of December to peace and good-will, who is he that shall gainsay them, and, for an historic scruple, turn his back on the friendly greetings of Christendom? Such a man is capable of rewriting Milton’s Christmas Hymn in the style of Sternhold and Hopkins.

  In our house, however, Christmas has always been a high day, a day whose expectation has held waking all the little eyes in our bird’s nest, when as yet there were only little ones there, each sleeping with one eye open, hoping to be the happy first to wish the merry Christmas and grasp the wonderful stocking.

  This year, our whole family train of married girls and boys, with the various toddling tribes thereto belonging, held high festival around a wonderful Christmas-tree, the getting-up and adorning of which had kept my wife and Jennie and myself busy for a week beforehand. If the little folks think these trees grow up in a night, without labour, they know as little about them as they do about most of the other blessings which rain down on their little thoughtless heads. Such scrambling and clambering and fussing and tying and untying, such alterations and rearrangements, such agilities in getting up and down and everywhere, to tie on tapers and gold balls and glittering things innumerable, — to hang airy dolls in graceful positions, — to make branches bear stiffly up under loads of pretty things which threaten to make the tapers turn bottom upward! Part and parcel of all this was I, Christopher, most reckless of rheumatism, most careless of dignity, the round, bald top of my head to be seen emerging everywhere from the thick boughs of the spruce, now devising an airy settlement for some gossamer-robed doll, now adjusting far back on a stiff branch Tom’s new little skates, now balancing bags of sugar-plums and candy, and now combating desperately with some contumacious taper that would turn slantwise or crosswise, or anywise but upward as a Christian taper should, —
regardless of Mrs. Crowfield’s gentle admonitions and suggestions, sitting up to most dissipated hours, springing out of bed suddenly, to change some arrangement in the middle of the night, and up at dawn, long before the lazy sun, to execute still other arrangements. If that Christmas-tree had been a fort to be taken, or a campaign to be planned, I could not have spent more time and strength on it. My zeal so far outran even that of sprightly Miss Jennie, that she could account for it only by sancily suggesting that papa must be fast getting into second childhood.

  But didn’t we have a splendid lighting-up? Didn’t I and my youngest grandson, little Tom, head the procession magnificent in paper soldier caps, blowing tin trumpets and beating drums, as we marched round the twinkling glories of our Christmas-tree, all glittering with red and blue and green tapers, and with a splendid angel on top with great gold wings, the cutting-out and adjusting of which had held my eyes waking for nights before? I had had oceans of trouble with that angel, owing to an unlucky sprain in his left wing, which had required constant surgical attention through the week, and which I feared might fall loose again at the important and blissful moment of exhibition: but no, the Fates were in our favour; the angel behaved beautifully, and kept his wings as crisp as possible, and the tapers all burned splendidly, and the little folks were as crazy with delight as my most ardent hopes could have desired; and then we romped and played and frolicked as long as little eyes could keep open, and long after; and so passed away our Christmas.

  I had forgotten to speak of the Christmas-dinner, that solid feast of fat things on which we also luxuriated. Mrs. Crowfield outdid all household traditions in that feast: the turkey and the chickens, the jellies and the sauces, the pies and the pudding, behold, are they not written in the tablets of Memory which remain to this day?