BUT DEEP THIS truth impress’d my mind —
Thro’ all his works abroad,
The heart benevolent and kind
The most resembles God. — BURNS.
THE sun had set upon the last evening of a cold and bleak December, and from the frosty sky, a few stars looked down upon the crowded streets of one of the largest towns in England; a motley scene, in which the actors, both gay and sorrowful, went whirling and winding onwards, altogether unconscious of other scrutiny than from the busy eyes of their fellows. It was still early, and the whole scrambling restless world of the great town was astir, pouring out its many-tongued din over the cheerful pavements, bright with the light from its open shops and warehouses, and throwing its wide stream, in ceaseless and ever-spreading volumes, through street and lane and alley. Working men were hastening homewards, with baskets of tools slung over their stalwart shoulders, and empty pitchers dangling “ at the cold fingers end.” Dignified merchants, lean men of arts and letters, spruce commercial gentlemen, blended among each other like ripples in a river. Here there was an eddy, where the stream, branching out, swept off in another direction; there a whirlpool, where the flood pouring in, from a world of converging ways, involved itself for a moment in mazy bewilderment, before it found its purposed channel once more: but everywhere there was the same full and incessant flow, bearing in its broad bosom the unfailing concomitants of loud-voiced mirth and secret misery, of anger and of peacefulness, poverty and wealth, apathy and ambition, which marked its stream for human.
It is not with these many-voiced brilliant streets we have to do to-night, but with a household in one of them. A very quiet house you may see it is, though not a gloomy one, for light is shining from the yet uncurtained windows, pleasant thoughtful cheering firelight, and the room has about it the indefinable comfort and brightness of home. It has at present but one occupant, and she — there is nothing about her appearance at all extraordinary — she is not very young — not less than thirty summers have past over those grave and thoughtful features, and given experience to the quiet intelligence of those clear eyes — nor beautiful, though those who knew it, loved to look upon her face, and thought there was there something higher than beauty. You would not think, to see her now, how blithe her nature was, and how unusual this sadness; but she is sorrowful to-night. It may be, that in her cheerful out-goings and in-comings, she has not time to indulge in any sad recollections, but that they have overcome her, in such a quiet evening hour as this. The shadows are gathering thicker and deeper, and the windows of neighbouring houses are all bright, but this room retains its twilight still. Its solitary tenant leans her head upon her hand, and gazes into the vacant air, as though she sought for some retiring figure and found it not. And why may she not be sad? She is a Christian thoughtful and pure-minded, and the last hours of another year are wearing themselves away, and is there no food for sadness here?
But there are voices that breathe no sorrow nor sadness coming in through the half-open door. There is one, a sweet indefinite tone, which speaks half of childhood, and half of graver years; there is boisterous rejoicing and obstreperous boyishness in another, and there is a grave voice, as joyful, but deep and quiet; and, here they come, each one more mirthful than the other. There is a sprightly girl of some fifteen summers, a youth her proud superior by two undoubted twelvemonths, and an elder brother, whose maturer features bear a yet more striking resemblance to the silent sister, the eldest of them all, about whose ears a storm of fun and reproof comes rattling down.
“Christian had no time!” says the sage wisdom of seventeen; “yet here is grave Christian dreaming away her hours in the dim firelight.”
“You were too busy, Christian, to go out with me,” remonstrates little Mary — for the endearing caressing epithet “little,” though often protested against, was still in use in the household— “and you are doing nothing now.”
But Christian only smiles: strange it seems, that Christian should smile so sadly!
Now the youthful tongues are loosed. They have been on an important visit: to-morrow is to see that grave and blushing brother the master of another house, and that house has this night been subjected to the admiration and criticism of the younger members of the family, and all they have seen and wondered at must needs be told now for Christian’s information; but the elder sister listens with vacant inattentive ear, and irresponsive eye, until Robert grows indignant, and protests with boyish fervour, that “It’s a shame for her to be so grave and sad, and James going to be married to-morrow!” James, the bridegroom, does not however seem to think so, for he checks his youthful brother, and bends over Christian tenderly, and Christian’s eyes grow full, and tears hang on the long lashes. What can make Christian so sad? Let us go with her to her chamber, and we shall see.
It is a quiet airy pleasant room, rich enough to please even an Oxford scholar of the olden time, for there are more than “ twenty books clothed in black and red” within its restricted space. There is one windowed corner, at which, in the summer time, the setting sun streams in, and for this cause Christian has chosen it, as the depository of her treasures. There is a portrait hanging on the wall; a mild apostolic face, with rare benignity in its pensive smile, and genius stamped upon its pale and spiritual forehead: too pale, alas! and spiritual; for the first glance tells you, that the original can no longer be in the land of the living. A little table stands below it, covered with books — a few old volumes worthy to be laid beneath the word of truth — and there too lies a Bible. It has a name upon it, and a far-past date, and its pages tell of careful perusal, and its margin is rich with written comments, and brief, yet clear, and forcible remarks. Below the name, a trembling hand has marked another date — you can see it is this day five years — and a text, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they have entered into their rest, and their works do follow them.” The faltering hand was that of Christian Melville, and thus you have the story of her sadness. This place is the favourite sanctuary of that subdued and chastened spirit; a holy trysting-place, that has been filled often with a presence greater than that of earthly king or lord, and Christian is always happy here, even though — yea, verily, because — she does sit among these relics of a bygone time, of youthful hopes and expectations which long ago have come to an end and passed away for ever.
But Christian has other duties now. A heavier step has entered the dwelling, and she goes calm and cheerful again, and hastens to take her seat at the merry table, where the father of the family now sits; their only parent, for they are motherless. Mr. Melville is a good man. There are none more regular, more exemplary, in the whole ranks of the town’s respectability; his pew has never been vacant in the memory of church-going men; his neighbours have not the shadow of an accusation to bring against him; his character is as upright as his bearing; his conscience as pure as his own linen. It has been whispered, that his heart has more affinity to stone than is befitting the heart of a living man; but Mr. Melville is a gentleman of the highest respectability, and doubtless that is a slander. He is of good means, he is just in all his relations, he is courteous, and if he be not pitiful withal, how can so small an omission detract from a character otherwise so unexceptionable? His wife has been dead for two or three years, and he speaks of her, as “his excellent deceased partner.” Christian says, her mother had the spirit of an angel, and her memory is yet adored by all the household; but Mr. Melville is a calm person, and does not like raptures. His family consists of five children. Christian — whose history we have already glanced at, summed up in her precious relics — is the eldest; then, there is the bridegroom, James, an excellent well-disposed young man, just about it to form a connection after his father’s own heart; next in order comes the genius of the family, gay, talented, excitable, generous Halbert, over whose exuberance of heart his correct I parent shakes his head ominously.
This Halbert is a student, and absent from home at present, so we cannot present him to our readers just now. Robert is the next in order, a blithe careless youth, having beneath his boyish gaiety, however, a good deal of the worldly prudence and calculating foresight of his father and eldest brother; and little Mary, the flower of all, finishes the list Mary is the feminine and softened counterpart of her genius-brother; there is light flashing and sparkling in her eyes that owns no kindred with the dull settled gleam of the paternal orbs. There is a generous fire and strength in her spirit which shoots far beyond the coolness and discretion of prudent calculating James, and in her school attainments she has already far surpassed Robert — much to the latter’s chagrin and annoyance at being beaten by a girl — and these two, Halbert and Mary, are Christian’s special care.
It is quite true, that her watchful attention hovers about her cold father in a thousand different ways. It is quite true, that there cannot be a more affectionate sister than Christian to her elder and younger brothers; but little anxiety mingles with her affection for, and care of, them. Their names are not forgotten in her frequent prayers, and her voice is earnest and fervent, and her heart loving, when she craves for them the promised blessings and mercies of the Almighty; but her accents tremble in her supplications when those other names are on her lips, for visions of snares and pitfalls laid for their beloved feet have darkened her foreboding fancy with visions of shipwrecked faith and failing virtue, of ruined hopes and perverted talents, until the very agony of apprehensive love has invested its objects with a higher interest than even that of closest kindred. It is hers to watch over, to lead, to direct, to preserve the purity, to restrain the exuberance of these gifted spirits, and therefore is there a dignity in Christian’s eye when she looks on these children of her affections, that beams not from its clear depths at any other time, and an unconscious solemnity in her pleasant voice when her kind and gentle counsel falls upon their ears, that wonder at — for Christian is young — to be so like a mother.
Such is the family of Mr. Melville, of the prosperous firm of Rutherford and Melville, merchants, in the great English town, to whom we beg to introduce our readers.