Pride and Principle CHAPTER 4.
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"Your aunt will be here today, Helen," Mrs. Pimlico said to her daughter, a few hours before the time at which Mrs. Goodwin was expected to arrive. "And I shall expect to see you conduct yourself, when she makes her appearance, with a due sense of propriety. Do not offend me by any vulgar excitement, with exclamations and embraces like a stage actress. Receive your aunt as every lady receives even her dearest friend--with calmness and dignity. A smile, a gentle salutation, and a quiet pressure of the hand, constitute the true mode. To deviate from these materially, is vulgar in the extreme!"
Helen was silent. She felt that it would be utterly impossible for her to follow the prescription of her mother. She loved her aunt with a fervent love; and when she thought of meeting her so soon, she could with difficulty keep back the tears of joy. She knew that, when she did appear, she could no more refrain from throwing herself into her arms and weeping with intense delight, than she could still the pulsations of her heart by an effort of the will.
"Remember," resumed Mrs. Pimlico, seeing that her daughter made no reply, and guessing pretty correctly the reason, "that if you do not govern yourself by my directions, I shall be deeply offended. You have now arrived at a woman's age, and should act like a woman--not like a young and foolish school-girl!"
"But suppose, Mother, I shall not be able to govern myself? I love my aunt, for the affection she so uniformly showed me through all the time I was a member of her family; and when I meet her, I do not see how I can refrain from expressing all that I feel. Is it wrong to feel for my aunt, both gratitude and affection?"
"No, I suppose not."
"Then, if it be not wrong to feel this, how can it be wrong to show it? My aunt has always told me that the natural expression of a good affection cannot be wrong; that, in fact, unless good affections are allowed to come out into ultimate action, they will perish."
"Your aunt, I have before told you, is not governed by the rules which belong to good society. She knows nothing of them. If you persist in making her antiquated notions, a standard of action, you will soon be driven to the outside of the circle into which I am striving to introduce you. So far from this rule of feeling coming out into action, being true, at least for well-bred women, the very reverse is the fact. A true lady never exhibits the slightest feeling on any occasion. She has, at least to all appearance, no feelings whatever."
"Then, it seems to me," Helen said, "that a woman and a lady, are two different things."
"Undoubtedly!" was the reply of Mrs. Pimlico. "Women are to be met with in every circle--but a lady is of rare occurrence."
Poor Helen was deeply disturbed by this conversation. Her mother's doctrine, she could neither comprehend nor approve. The truth of all Mrs. Goodwin's precepts, had been fully apparent. They accorded with her own rational perceptions; but her mother's code of ethics and rules for conduct in society, were, to her straight-forward, sincere mind--wide deviations from true grounds of action. The last, positively uttered axiom, decided her to keep silence, and endeavor, for her mother's sake, to be as composed as it was possible for her to be when her aunt should appear. A few hours brought the trial of this composure. Her aunt came at the time she was expected to arrive. A carriage, with baggage lashed on behind, stopped before the house, and, in a moment after, the bell was rang loudly.
"Oh! There's Aunt Mary!" exclaimed Helen, springing up, and moving quickly towards the door. Her name, uttered in a firm, reproving tone, and a steady glance from Mrs. Pimlico, made her pause, and then slowly retrace her steps and seat herself in the spot from which she had arisen, her heart throbbing heavily. The door soon was opened, there was the sound of quick footsteps in the passage and, in a moment after, Mrs. Goodwin entered. Mrs. Pimlico rose with quiet dignity, and advanced to meet her.
"Sister Mary, I bid you welcome," she murmured, in a calm, yet sweetly-modulated voice, taking the hand extended by Mrs. Goodwin, and bending to salute her.
"Aunt Mary!" said Helen, coming towards her, not with a quick, eager movement, but with forced composure. She could do no more than utter the beloved name. Her heart too full of joy, was repressed by her mother's presence. The effort to give utterance to that joy, would have destroyed her self-control.
"My dear Helen! How glad I am to see you!" Mrs. Goodwin exclaimed, starting forward a few paces to meet her niece, and extending her arms to embrace her.
For a single instant, Helen struggled with her feelings, and then, with the tears of joy gushing from her eyes, she flung herself upon the bosom of her beloved relative, and wept and sobbed like a child.
Of course, such an exhibition of feeling was an outrage upon Mrs. Pimlico.
"Helen!" she said, somewhat sternly, as soon as the maiden's emotion had subsided; "your conduct is altogether unfitting a daughter of mine. I have told you over and over again, that to enact a scene is highly improper. No well-bred woman ever allows herself to be betrayed into any such vulgarities. Why do you oblige me to allude so frequently to these matters? And why mar the pleasure of your aunt's visit, by compelling me to reprove you during the first few minutes that have passed since her entrance into my house?"
"Helen, it seems to me, has done nothing worthy of reproof," Mrs. Goodwin said, after her niece, whose heart was too full to utter a word, had hastily retired from the room, and she had gone up with Mrs. Pimlico to the chamber assigned to her. "I saw only the natural expression of innocent and amiable feelings such as I would encourage, rather thancheck, in a child of mine."
"Such things may do well enough for ordinary people, sister Mary," Mrs. Pimlico replied, with much dignity of tone and manner. "But I wish to make Helen a well-bred woman, and well-bred women never exhibit any feeling."
"Why not?" asked Mrs. Goodwin.
"Because," was the reply, "well-bred people understand so thoroughly the true philosophy of life, that they never permit anything which occurs, to disturb them. The news of the loss of a penny, or the loss of an estate, is received with like composure by a man of true breeding. And a gentlewoman exhibits, on all occasions, the same absence of excitement. True dignity resides in calmness. To be disturbed by every event, marks the weak and vulgar mind."
"Suppose, however, you are really disturbed by an event?"
"Conceal that inward turbulence, by all means. Assume a virtue, if you have it not," Mrs. Pimlico said, dogmatically.
"Then, to indulge a wrong feeling is nothing. The evil lies in permitting it to be seen. The form is rendered of more consequence than the substance. The cause is of secondary consideration. It may be allowed to exist, if the effect can be concealed. I cannot believe such a philosophy, to be the true one. It seems to me to strike at the foundation of all real virtue. It would make a community of hypocrites."
"That is because you have not a just idea of what is meant by a well-bred woman. She need not be a hypocrite. Let her, as she really should, be internally unexcited, no matter what may transpire. Excitement does no good--then why indulge it? It ever, as I have said, marks a vulgar mind. Events take place independent of our control--why fret about them, if adverse? or allow them to betray us into a school-girl's excitement, if prosperous or happy?"
Mrs. Goodwin did not reply to this for some moments; then she said,
"I can see little in all this, but the pride of being thought what we are not. As you have justly said, it is the assumption of a virtue which does not exist. You and I, and everyone around us, even the most well-bred stoic, in appearance, that there is--know too well, that the inner calmness you would assume, does not, and cannot exist in this life. We are, in reality, creatures of excitement. We have joy today, and grief tomorrow. Now, emotions of pleasure swell in our bosoms; and then, we are oppressed by pain. All these have their natural language, and, unless allowed to speak out in some degree, will act injuriously on mind and body.
"A striking fact in illustration of the injurious effects of suppressed emotions upon the body, is given in some medical reports to which my husband called my attention recently. Army surgeons who have seen much service on the field of battle, state, that a much larger proportion of French than English soldiers who are wounded in battle, recover. The French are not ashamed to cry out and groan, and writhe their bodies from pain; while the English think it unfitting and unmanly to exhibit any strong indications of suffering. Thefree expression of the pain of body and anguish of mind they feel, which is but the natural language of suffering, being orderly--tends to health. While the suppression of all external signs of what is felt, being a disorderly and constrained state--tends to internal congestion of the vital organs, and consequently, renders the condition of the sufferer worse by many degrees."
"But I cannot see how this applies to, or condemns exterior calmness in ordinary life."
"It is a strong example, illustrative of a true principle; and applies, I think, with much force to the moral condition of society. If, from the mere pride of exterior composure, all natural emotions be subdued--it cannot but happen that violence will be done to the mind, as in the case of the soldier, it was done to the body. Men and women, who thus suppress, from no higher ends than to appear what they are not, the natural language of the feelings--may, perhaps, stifle all really good and generous emotions. They may become cold and heartless, but they will find, in the end, when these external motives cease to influence them, that the surface of their lives can be ruffled not by the gentle summer breezes, but by the chilling blasts of a dreary autumn. Depend upon it, the life you would have your daughter live, is a false life, and its consequences will be lamentable. Violence is never done to nature--that she does not react upon that violence, sooner or later with pain. It is true of the body, and just as true of the mind, from which the body exists, and which employs the body as its medium of communication with the visible things of creation in the material universe.
"Do not, therefore, rebuke in her what is innocent and orderly. If she feels a generous affection for anyone, let it appear in the tone of her voice, the brightening of her eye, and even in warmly-spoken words--for these are innocent. If she is in pain, let her weep--it will do her good. Let the internal excitement that is innocent, come into external manifestation and pass off--then it can do her no harm. Imprison this excitement, and it will be in her bosom like a hidden serpent!"
But Mrs. Pimlico neither understood nor approved Mrs. Goodwin's mode of reasoning. Her replies were only repeated declarations of the social doctrine, that excitement wasvulgar, and never indulged by a well-bred woman. Pride was her rule, and this never listens to the claims of mere Principle.
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