CHAPTER IX
The dénouement happened in this way:
There was to be a large party at Mrs. Caruther's, a married daughter of Mrs. Bennett. The Bennetts and the Meekers, by the way, always kept up their intimacy. Mr. Bennett is dead. He died the year he was seventy, leaving a large fortune. The widow lives in the old house, and the children are married, and are bringing out their children now.
I say, Mrs. Caruthers was to give a large party. Mrs. Meeker, who invariably attended her daughter, could not go. Belle must not go alone. She arranged, so she said, to drive early in the evening to Mrs. Caruther's, and to stay there all night.
For two or three weeks previous, Belle, under the inspiration of Signor Barbone, who now exercised a complete control over her, had been making, quietly but very efficiently, her arrangements for quitting her father's roof.
By degrees, and with an amazing display of secretiveness, she managed to convey out of the house all that she might require for a considerable absence.
Her jewels were not lost sight of, nor anything else of value. The Signor had provided proper receptacles for all these articles—indeed, had greatly aided the young lady in the selection of what to take. More than this—Signor Barbone (proh pudor!) had suggested that she should fortify herself with such sums of money as she might be able to get together without exciting suspicion.
Strange as you may think, Belle was possessed of so little delicacy, that she actually entered into the spirit of the enterprise—regarding the affair as a capital joke, enabling her to hold out against papa should he prove obstinate, as he might for a few days (it could only be for a few days), and inclined to be severe.
What with all her jewels, including some recent expensive purchases, made for the first time in her life without payment on the spot (this also at the suggestion of the Signor), and with sums quietly got together for several weeks, including some considerable amounts coaxed from her father on various pretences, and a pretty large sum borrowed over night from mamma—I say, with all this, the 'happy pair' were pretty well fortified for their first campaign.
The trying moment arrived.
Mrs. Caruthers, of course, knew nothing of Belle's tale to her mother, that she was to pass the night at her house. She simply expected Belle to grace her party.
Quite early in the day the young lady ordered a handsome ball dress placed in a box, and directed it to be taken to her dressmaker, to receive some trifling alterations before evening. She would call in good season there, so she told her mother, and order it sent to Mrs. Caruthers's.
Then, waiting for Mrs. Meeker, to take her morning drive, she went to her room and hurried on a travelling dress.
She was going down stairs, when Harriet's nurse opened the door of her young mistress's apartment, and asked her to step a moment into the room.
Belle turned with all the composure she could muster; she curbed her impatience, and looked amiable.
'Oh, are you going out, Belle?'
'Yes, dear; you know I am to be early at Mrs. Caruthers's. Mamma can't go with me—so I am to stay all night.'
'Why, you have on your travelling dress!'
'It looks odd, doesn't it I—I have sent my ball dress to Laroche, to be altered a little; and I have to call there now, and I want her to see me in this. Do you know, I don't think she has fitted me well at all?'
'It seems to me quite perfect.'
'Hatty, dear, did you want me?'
This she said still standing, as if in haste to go.
'Oh, no. I thought you were going into the parlor, and I was about to ask you to sit with me a little while. I have something to say to you about Gus. I want you to talk to papa. You know papa will listen to you. Tell him—never mind, dear, to-morrow will do as well—I hope you will have a pleasant evening.'
'Thank you, dear. Good-by.'
She turned and opened the door.
By a sort of instinctive tenderness not denied to any human creature, Belle paused and looked back, and, hesitating a moment, returned; going to where her sister was reclining, she kissed her affectionately, without speaking one word.
Harriet's eyes suffused; she was quite unused to such a demonstration.
'My darling sister,' she whispered.
Belle was already out of the room. She bounded down the staircase, passed hastily through the hall, and was soon walking rapidly along the street.
One hour from that time she was on her way to New Jersey.
A clergyman had been provided in that State to perform the marriage ceremony.
When the six o'clock New York train for Philadelphia passed through Newark, it received on board Mr. and Mrs. Filippo Barbone, who were just starting on their wedding excursion.
It was the commencement of the honeymoon.
No wonder, the next day, that Belle is late. We who are in the secret will not be astonished; neither does Mrs. Meeker think it at all strange that Belle should not return in the morning after the excitement of a grand evening display such as Mrs. Caruthers will be sure to have.
The day wears on. As the dinner hour approaches, Mrs. Meeker decides to send the carriage for her.
The coachman soon drives up before Mrs. Caruthers's; and the footman, descending, announces simply that he has called for Miss Belle. The answer which is brought to him is, that Miss Belle is not in the house. He returns and reports accordingly.
Although this little incident is very annoying to Mrs. Meeker, still she has no other idea than that Belle has stopped to make some call or do some shopping on her way home.
Had she considered a moment, she would have perceived how unreasonable was such a supposition. But, as Mrs. Meeker could not have the slightest suspicion of the truth, she was forced to imagine something.
In the midst of her perplexity, Hiram entered. He was so accustomed, and especially of late, to his daughter's greeting at the door, that he missed these affectionate tokens of her presence when he entered the house.
'Where is Belle?' he said, as he came into the parlor.
'Belle has not returned yet from Mrs. Caruthers's. It is rather strange. I have just sent the carriage for her. Wakeman brings back word that she is not there.'
'Wakeman is an idiot!' exclaimed Hiram, with a degree of temper so unusual, that Mrs. Meeker started—'an idiot! I dare say he did not make his message intelligible.'
Now, 'Wakeman' was Mrs. Meeker's private servant—a family servant, she was pleased to say; thereby meaning, not that he had been in the employ of her father, honest Thorn the plumber, nor yet in the service of her mother, the "poor relation," but that in fact he was her servant before she was married, and had remained par excellence her servant ever since.
She therefore rose in arms at once, in vindication of her favorite, and was about to work herself into one of her customary manifestations, which Hiram was evidently in no state of mind to bear, when there was suddenly a ring at the door. An instant's parley, and the servant entered, bearing a note to Mr. Meeker.
The superscription was in Belle's handwriting.
A 'terrible sagacity' informed Hiram's heart of something dreadful about to shock it. He tore open the envelope with fierceness, and read as follows:
'Dear Papa: Don't be angry with me. I was married yesterday to Filippo Barbone. I married him because I love him, and could never love any one else. I knew you would not consent, but I could not live without him. Forgive your little girl, dear papa, and write me to come back to you with my dear Filippo. Oh, I know you will like him. Send to me at the Gresham House, Philadelphia. I shall be in agony till I hear from you. Love to dear mamma and Harriet. If I only had your forgiveness, how happy I should be, dear, dear papa!
'Your little Belle.'
[This letter, mainly the production of the Signor, was prepared and put into the hands of his accomplice before the runaways set off, with directions to watch for Hiram's entrance into his house, and deliver immediately after.]
Never before did Hiram Meeker give way to such an exhibition of rage.
He glared fiercely about him, as if endeavoring to find some person on whom to vent it.
There was no one but his wife, who stood directly before him, her angry reply in favor of 'Wakeman' having been cut short by the entrance of the servant with the note.
As Hiram's glance fell on her, a sudden suspicion seized him that she was in some way privy to the affair. In an instant he had grasped her arm, and, shaking her with all his might, he exclaimed: 'Wretch!—monster!—she-devil!—limb of Satan!'
The affair was seriously enough certainly, but it had a ludicrous aspect. There was Arabella, without having the slightest idea of what could cause such a violent outbreak, tossed about like a whirligig by the usually calm, sedate, and self-possessed Hiram, who seemed suddenly transported into a very demon.
Portions of her headdress began to come down. A pair of side curls dropped—a first-rate shot, a sportsman would say—the effect of a double shake and a sudden fetch-up. Next a profusion of hair from the back of the head tumbled off. Teeth began to chatter, and various portions of the structure in which she was encased, to give way.
All this time, Arabella was vainly endeavoring to give utterance to various exclamations, but she could only gasp out some unintelligible sound, while her eyes flashed fire and her cheeks burned with rage.
At last Hiram was exhausted, and with exhaustion came some little thought of what he had been doing. He relinquished his hold of his wife, picked up the note which he had dropped on the floor, put it into her hands, and quit the room.
Hiram stood a moment in the hall, quite overcome by the revulsion that succeeded the storm. Then he slowly mounted the stairs, and proceeded to the room of his invalid child.
Harriet was so struck with the change in her father's countenance, that she started up and exclaimed: 'Why, papa, what is the matter?'
'We are disgraced, my child!' said Hiram, in a hollow voice.
'How? What do you mean?'
'Your sister has run away with a low, vile swindler. My curse rest on her forever!'
'Oh, not so—say not so!' replied Harriet, imploringly.
'Tell me, my child,' said Hiram, mournfully, while he seated himself by her side and took her hand—'tell your father truly, did you know anything about this?'
'No, papa. I do not even now know what you mean.'
Quite calmly Hiram told his daughter what had occurred. The travelling dress, and Belle's last kiss, flashed on her mind. She repeated the circumstance.
'And you know nothing of this Filippo Barbone?' said Hiram, forcing himself with difficulty to pronounce the name.
'Nothing.'
'And your mother?' continued he, slowly, and in a tone which terrified his child.
'Oh, I am sure she knew nothing about it, perfectly sure. I know she did not wish Belle to go to Mrs. Caruthers's, because she could not go with her; and even after Belle made the arrangement to stay all night, mamma did not seem to be at all satisfied.'
Hiram was convinced, and the want of an object on which to wreak his anger now served to exhaust it.
He leaned his face upon the side of his daughter's couch, and groaned.
Harriet put her hand gently upon his cheek. 'Papa,' she said, timidly, 'may I tell you what to do?'
Hiram raised his head. His face was very haggard, but he made no reply.
'Send for Belle to come back, and her husband too, and let us make them happy,' said Harriet, almost abruptly.
'Never! My curse is on her! She is no longer my child—I disinherit her!'
'Give her my portion, then—I shall not require it.'
Hiram started—a new idea had struck him. It was as if somehow he had received a new accession of wealth by the surrender of Harriet's share. A strange confusion of ideas, certainly; but the thought grew on him, as we shall see by-and-by. Now, however, it gave place to the dominant feeling.
Harriet, encouraged by his silence, broke in again: 'Won't you, papa?' she whispered.
Hiram turned and looked at her angrily, but was compelled to lower his countenance before his daughter's earnest, truthful, heavenly gaze.
He started up and went back to the parlor. He began to feel ashamed of his violence toward his wife, and was anxious to dispose of the matter as soon as possible.
To return to Arabella.
As soon as her husband had left her, she proceeded to read the note he placed in her hands. That accomplished, she took the precaution to ring the bell several times with great energy; and, having disposed of the little articles which lay scattered on the floor, she threw herself on the sofa, in violent hysterics.
When Hiram entered, these were at once renewed. Her husband understood this phase of her constitution; and, directing the maid servants to remove their mistress to her own room, he ordered dinner to be served.
I will do him the justice to say he ate little or nothing.
Two or three times the waiter observed that his master put his hand to his head and then to his heart, as if endeavoring to tranquillize himself.
After dinner, he mounted his horse, and rode several miles. When he returned, one would not have known, to look at him, that anything unusual had happened.
During the nest week Hiram was occupied in making his will. A new and important idea seemed to have possession of him.
From that period he never permitted his daughter's name to be mentioned, and would receive no communication from her.
Arabella's hysterics continued, at intervals for several days. Her husband, in view of his violence toward her, was very considerate, but the affair was never alluded to by either.
Arabella, perhaps, felt that she deserved some punishment for tolerating the 'Count in disguise;' and Hiram never got over a certain feeling of mortification when he thought of the scene in the parlor.
Here we leave all the parties for the present.
THE MECHANICAL TENDENCY IN MODERN SOCIETY
There is no greater absurdity than the attempt to demonstrate anything from historical evidence, or to frame from it an argument whose cogency shall even approach to a demonstration. Granting the hypothesis that like causes will always produce like effects, we find ourselves unable to show that the cases are exactly, or even proximately, the same. History is not a record of every circumstance, but of those only that were deemed worthy of perpetuation; and even were all circumstances known to us, we must receive them as seen through the opinions of the historian, while the present is as it seems to us; so two cases, while appearing to agree, may in reality be very unlike. And, in addition to this, so many are the events that precede any given effect, that it is impossible to determine which is the cause, and which only the circumstance attending that cause. So, while our literature is flooded, with so many 'demonstrations from history,' many a philosopher finds himself in the situation of the sage who demonstrated that 'Tenterton steeple' was the 'cause of Godwin Sands.'
From this it has arisen that practical men have come to despise not only all reasonings from history, but social science altogether, deeming it a pleasant tissue of thoughts that may amuse a leisure hour, but nothing of practical importance. On most subjects this is unfortunately true, but sometimes in the state of a nation there are indications, repeated again and again, showing the existence of a cause which, unless counteracted, will eventually produce certain disastrous effects. Though seen and pointed out by many wise men, still the existence of the cause cannot be logically proved, nor the time of its effect mathematically calculated. Such were the terrible premonitions which foretold the French Revolution, and such are the signs showing over and over again the existence of a mechanical tendency in our own social state. Very seldom, almost never, do we have mathematical certainty as the ground of our action, but the greater part of our lives is directed by moral or probable evidence; and though most of our reasoning on this subject must be derived from history or social science, we deem it worthy of the same treatment that is given, to other questions. If the probabilities be not as great, let it pass with other schemes and theories, but if those probabilities be great enough to make it of practical and vital importance, then let it become an element in every man's consideration.
There is a great deal of possible confusion in this word mechanical. To most readers it would bring the idea of invention, the increasing number of cotton mills and iron founderies, of steamships and power presses, and such progress would be considered in the highest degree praiseworthy; but the sense in which we use the word is somewhat more general. A machine differs from a man in this respect: the former acts without intelligence and without volition, in accordance with certain laws impressed upon it from without; while a man chooses his own end by his own volition, in the light of his own intelligence, and in the same manner decides upon the means for obtaining that end. A mechanical condition would therefore be one wherein an individual acts without intelligence or volition, according to certain laws or habits coming to him from others; a mechanical state of society, one wherein the government moves on according to the will of one or more men, without thought, love, or even attention from the mass of the people, content only with their acquiescence. On the other hand, a rational condition, both of society and of the individual, would be that in which the thought, will, and love of the individual gave strength and life to every act.
The question whether our social state is becoming mechanical, losing personal thought and volition, is of great and vital importance, on account of the terrible major premise that lies beneath. For prove but once that this is the fact, and there comes upon us the great general truth: 'The nation that is growing mechanical is hastening toward its destruction.' The proof of this assertion is written everywhere in history. The limits of this article render it impossible that a tithe of the proof should be brought forward in its support, and therefore only the most general truths can be laid down for the reader to verify from his own historical knowledge. No fact is more indisputable than that every preceding civilization has had its birth, progress, and death, differing only in length from the life of a mortal man; and in the state of each one, in proportion as this mechanical tendency increased, in that proportion their national life departed.
The first period in every nation has been that called the heroic or golden age. Whether this was, in reality, or only in poetic dream, the best age, depends upon another question: What is the true aim in the life of men and nations? If it be but to live comfortably and without confusion, then the architecture and laws of later times are a proof of progress; but if the great end be to develop the whole man, and live a brave, thoughtful, truthful life, with or without tumult, then is the first the golden age; for, entering on a new mode of life, undirected by habits of thought or action from his ancestors, each man makes use of his personal thought in finding out, and volition in choosing, his method of life. No history has recorded the internal state of such a nation, but only the fact that it has always been successful in preserving its liberties against invasion.
The next is the age of leaders, when individual thought has so far departed that they begin to look to others not yet as governors, but directors. This, to a superficial view the noblest age, marks the beginning of a decline. Its great power of invasion, as under Pericles or Cæsar, comes from the fact that, while strength enough is left to carry out the details, there is not enough of independence in thought to mar the unity in the plan of its leader. Its brilliant literature springs from division of labor; life has become so complex that each man cannot comprehend it all—so one takes the department of thought, another of action. The man of thought tries to bring back that courage and virtue which he sees are departing, by singing beautiful songs in their praise; while the man of action, feeling their waning power in himself, makes up, by repeating these praises, the lack of a heroic life.
The next is the mechanical age of society, which life has so outgrown the mind that the man cannot attend to both his own affairs and the state, which latter, therefore, he gladly yields to others. This is the age of standing armies, hired to protect a people too careless to protect themselves. This is the age of tyrants, as the lesser Cæsars or Philip of Macedon. This is the age which ushers in the last period of the nation, a mechanical state of the individual, when thought has so departed that the man is not able to attend even to his own life, and, like a passive machine, the state is impelled and directed in even the least things by one tyranny from without. It is hardly necessary to add that Alexander in Greece, Elagabalus in Rome, Louis XVI in France, were followed by a destruction as certain as the fact that God meant the earth to be inhabited by men and not machines.
Having shown the grave consequence that lies beneath it, we come now to the all-important consideration, whether our own social state has this mechanical tendency. The preceding sketch not only shows the truth which we have deduced from it, that this tendency is a prelude to a nation's death, but it also points out another, namely, that civilization contains within itself certain causes which finally work its destruction. We may, by a diligent study, find out these causes, such as increase of outward knowledge, division of labor, a complexity of outward relations, and a consequent hurried life that leaves no time for thought; but a careful analysis of all these reduces them to one great cause—an undue attention to physical prosperity. This cause existed among ancient nations in sufficient force to bring about their destruction, but it possessed not a tithe of the universality and strength which it holds among the modern, for, whereas it was once individual, it is now national, pervading every part of the social state.
Before the world was thickly settled and the nations established, it was held that the power of a nation consisted in the extent of its dominions, so that while the individual strove for wealth in agriculture, manufactures, or commerce, the state despised such low pursuits, and turned its attention to increase of territory. But when, after the fall of Rome, it was found that the earth was too fully peopled and national power too well established for such means of strength, attention was turned to another source of power in the cultivation of a people's own resources and increase of its wealth. Wealth is obtained by the addition of mental power to physical products, increasing their value for supplying the wants of man. So that attention to physical comfort and prosperity which was despised by the brave nations of antiquity, is now the leading object of government: treaties are made, wars are declared, rebellions break out, not on account of national glory or right, but in consideration of cotton manufacture, facilities of commerce, or freedom of trade. Nations as well as men are absorbed in the same great pursuit, adding mind to matter for production of wealth.
From this undue attention to physical prosperity spring certain subordinate causes, which, upon examination, are found to be the exact differentia of modern times. The characteristics which distinguish our age from all others are the very ones which have been found so destructive to preexistent civilizations. The first characteristic of this kind is the abundance of outward knowledge. In the pursuit of wealth, the ocean, the desert, the isles of the sea have been ransacked for commodities to gratify the desires of man, and, in order that nature may be pliable for the same purpose in the hands of the artisan, its laws have been studied with the greatest success; the bowels of the earth, the depths of the air, the prison of the arctic seas, have all been subject to the same strict scrutiny in this design.
The knowledge thus obtained comes pouring in by lightning and steam, and is scattered over the world within the reach of the poorest by means of the printing press. The man of to-day is a citizen of the world; he seems to be ubiquitous. It is as though he had a thousand eyes and ears, and, alas! only one mind. Thought has two conditions: first, knowledge, as food and stimulus; second, time for distributing and digesting that knowledge. But the first is so superabundantly fufilled that it entirely obliterates the second. Knowledge comes pouring in from all quarters so rapidly, that the man can hardly receive, much less arrange and think out, the enormous mass of facts daily accumulating upon him. The boasted age of printing presses and newspapers, of penny magazines, and penny cyclopædias, is not necessarily the age of thought. There is a world-
***Transcriber's Note: It is regretted that page 354 is missing and cannot be traced.***
will be the result; but to the working-man division of labor is mental death. The ancients might call these masses the ignobile vulgus, the French nobles might sneer at them as sans-culottes, we may deride them as the 'common herd,' all attempting to ignore their existence in history or politics; but it will be all in vain—for in the end it is the people that rule, be the government of the surface what it may. Either they will raise their rulers by their intelligent freedom, or drag the brilliant crowd down with them to destruction in spite of theory or law. Not only in mad sedition and revolution, but always, the masses govern.
The next great characteristic of the age is the increased complexity of outward relations, while the inner mental power does not increase in the same ratio. The former causes had a mechanical tendency in that they lessened the mental strength, for all volition must have its foundation in thought; but this has the same tendency, inasmuch as it increases the objects of thought beyond the power of the mind to satisfy the demand. If any intelligent man should stop in the midst of his life, and consider the relations by which he is surrounded, and for the satisfying of which he is responsible, he will shrink amazed from their enormous complexity: demands from the state for support and thoughtful fidelity, demands from his fellow men for love and charity, children demanding education and training, his own nature demanding cultivation and development, and, last of all, or rather first of all, his God demanding thoughtful love and service. When he proceeds to consider how he may best satisfy all these, there pours in upon him knowledge unbounded, schemes, theories, and methods innumerable, so that he retreats at last in despair and returns to his business—so he calls it, as though to make money were all that a man was sent into the world for, as though his children, his country, his fellow man, were not all his business. The outer world seems to have risen to overwhelm him, and the reason of it lies in this same great cause of undue attention to outward prosperity.
In the pursuit of wealth, men have aggregated themselves into towns and cities, whose area is measured by square miles, and their population by hundreds of thousands or millions; the mind meanwhile, instead of increasing in proportion to the demands thus made upon it, has rather diminished in power. Added to this, each man finds his own private affairs in the same state. The social barrier of birth is either gone or fast departing, and each man recognizes wealth as the only way to power; but the concentrated attention of men and nations in this direction has so complicated its pursuit that he must give his whole mind and heart to this alone, if he would hope to succeed in it, or even comprehend it. While these two worlds, the objective and the thinking subjective, have thus grown so enormously out of proportion, the world has found a remedy again in division of labor. The different relations, which are the unalienable obligations of every man, have been parcelled out among all, and each takes but one as his vocation, leaving all the rest to the vicarious performance of others. Politicians care for the state, teachers for the children, charitable societies for each man's neighbor, and preachers fulfil his duty to God.
The first mistake in the world's action is this. In this partition, thoughts and actions have become separated, the world is filled and the individual confounded by new religions, methods of education, theories of government, propounded by those par excellence called the thinking men, while the men who work have no time for thought. Wisdom is theory proved by experience, but here, alas! the reasoning man and the practical man are separated, so that we are farther than ever from the living truth.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.'
Behind this first mistake, that one man can do the thinking for another, the great error in the world's reasoning on this subject is this, that one man can perform another's duties at all. The duty is his, the responsibility is his, and none can perform the one or assume the other. Granting that he may supply the thought or mechanical; the dynamical, the love and soul power which would make that logic effectual, can come only from each individual himself.
The duty which each man owes to his children is education and training. Schools and teachers may supply schemes of education, improved methods of study, and instil some facts or even ideas into the mind; but that which vivifies the intellect and brings out every power in its fullest development is the motive of love; and it was meant that the filial affection of the child toward its parent should be the life of its opening mind. The mere logic of religion, Sunday schools and teachers, may supply one day out of seven; but to animate that logic and make it a practical thing, a faith instead of a belief, it must be made concrete and living in the loving life of home. In this case no one does the duty or assumes the responsibility of the parent.