No More Learning

He was born in London January 30, 1803;, his father, Samuel Jer-
rold, being actor and theatre lessee of the not too successful kind.
Douglas William (the son's full name) had no regular education: he
learned to read and write from a member of a theatrical company,
and being of a studious turn, got by his
own exertions such knowledge of Latin,
French, and Italian as should enable him
to make the acquaintance of their dramatic
literature. He acted occasionally as a boy
and young man, but never cared for a play-
er's life. For the two years between 1813
and 1815 he served as midshipman in the
navy: the episode was not ill suited to his
careless, generous nature. He returned to
London in 1816 and apprenticed himself to
a printer. The family was poor, and Doug-
las eked out his actor-father's income by
doing journalistic work and articles for peri- DOUGLAS JERROLD
odicals. Soon he began dramatic composi-
tion with the play (More Frightened than Hurt,' which was produced
in London in 1820; and although looked at askance by managers at
first, was eventually translated into French, and twice retranslated into
English and played under other names. His earliest genuine hit, how-
ever, was the lively comedy-farce (Black-Eyed Susan: or, All in the
Downs) (1829), which was brought out at the Surrey Theatre, and was
acted four hundred times that year. From this encouragement Jer-
rold made forty plays during twenty-odd years, many of the dramas
scoring successes. Other well-known pieces are (The Rent Day,'
Nell Gwynne,' (Time Works Wonders,' and 'The Bubbles of the
Day. ' In 1836 he managed the Strand Theatre, which proved a bad
venture.
XIV-517

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## p. 8258 (#458) ###########################################

8258
DOUGLAS JERROLD
All this dramatic activity, even, does not represent Jerrold's best
work; nor did it call out his most typical and welcome powers. He
continued to do other literary work, and his journalistic career was
strenuous. He contributed to leading papers like the Athenæum and
Blackwood's, and edited various periodicals, such as the Illuminated
Magazine, the Shilling Magazine, and the Heads of the People,- in
most cases with a disastrous financial result. He made a success,
however, of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, for which he wrote in each
number three columns of leaders and did literary reviews, receiving
£1,000 salary.
When Punch was founded in 1841, Jerrold's happiest vein sought
an outlet. He at once became a contributor, and continued to be
one for the rest of his life, some sixteen years. His articles, signed
Q. , were one of the features of that famous purveyor of representative
British fun, pictorial and literary.
The series of Punch papers per-
haps most familiar to the general public appeared as a book in 1846,
under the title (Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures. ) "Punch's Letters to
his Son' and Cakes and Ale) are also widely known. Jerrold him-
self cared most for his writings in which his serious views and deeper
purpose came out: the Chronicles of Clovernook,' his pet book, is
an example. Indeed, the fact that he was an advanced thinker, a
broad-minded humanitarian preacher, is illustrated in such a moral
allegory as that here selected. Jerrold's reputation as a wit has
naturally enough deflected attention from this aspect of his work,
which well deserves appreciation. A collective edition of his works
in eight volumes appeared in 1851-4; and in 1888 his son, William
Blanchard Jerrold, edited in book form the Wit and Wisdom of
Douglas Jerrold. '
Jerrold was short and stocky in person, with clear-cut features,
blue eyes, and in his later years picturesque gray hair. He was of
a social nature; fond of music, a good singer himself; impulsive,
fiery, hasty often in letting loose the arrows of his wit, – but sim-
ple, almost boyish in manner, and a warm-hearted man whose interest
in the right was intense. Always impractical, he left his affairs in
a complicated condition. In short, his was a character whose faults
are palpable but which is withal very lovable.


## p. 8259 (#459) ###########################################

DOUGLAS JERROLD
8259
THE TRAGEDY OF THE TILL
THE HERMIT'S STORY
(
* I
-
T is a strange tale, but it hath the recommendation of brev-
ity. Some folks may see nothing in it but the tricksiness
of an extravagant spirit; and some perchance may pluck a
heart of meaning out of it. However, be it as it may, you shall
hear it, sir.
“There was a man called Isaac Pugwash, a dweller in a mis-
erable slough of London, a squalid denizen of one of the foul
nooks of that city of Plutus. He kept a shop; which, though
small as a cabin, was visited as granary and storehouse by half
the neighborhood. All the creature comforts of the poor - from
—
bread to that questionable superfluity, small beer — were sold by
Isaac. Strange it was that with such a trade Pugwash grew not
rich. He had many bad debts, and of all shopkeepers was most
unfortunate in false coin. Certain it is, he had neither eye nor
ear for bad money. Counterfeit semblances of majesty beguiled
him out of bread and butter, and cheese, and red herring, just
as readily as legitimate royalty struck at the mint. Malice might
impute something of this to the political principles of Pugwash;
who, as he had avowed himself again and again, was no lover of
a monarchy. Nevertheless, I cannot think Pugwash had so little
regard for the countenance of majesty as to welcome it as readily
when silvered copper as when sterling silver. No: a wild, foolish
enthusiast was Pugwash; but in the household matter of good
and bad money he had very wholesome prejudices. He had a
reasonable wish to grow rich, yet was entirely ignorant of the
byways and short cuts to wealth. He would have sauntered
through life with his hands in his pockets and a daisy in his
mouth; and dying with just enough in his house to pay the
undertaker, would have thought himself a fortunate fellow,-
he was, in the words of Mrs. Pugwash, such a careless, foolish,
dreaming creature. He was cheated every hour by a customer
of some kind; and yet to deny credit to anybody — he would as
soon have denied the wife of his bosom. His customers knew
the weakness, and failed not to exercise it. To be sure, now
and then, fresh from conjugal counsel, he would refuse to add
a single herring to a debtor's score: no, he would not be sent
to the workhouse by anybody. A quarter of an hour after, the
denied herring, with an added small loaf, was given to the little


## p. 8260 (#460) ###########################################

8260
DOUGLAS JERROLD
girl sent to the shop by the rejected mother: he couldn't bear
to see poor children wanting anything. '
"Pugwash had another unprofitable weakness. He was fond of
what he called Nature, though in his dim close shop he could
give her but a stilling welcome. Nevertheless he had the earliest
primroses on his counter,-'they threw,' he said, such a nice
light about the place. A sly, knavish customer presented Isaac
with a pot of polyanthuses; and won by the flowery gift, Pug-
wash gave the donor ruinous credit. The man with wall-flowers
regularly stopped at Isaac's shop, and for only sixpence Pugwash
would tell his wife he had made the place a Paradise. If we
can't go to Nature, Sally, isn't it a pleasant thing to be able to
bring Nature to us? Whereupon Mrs. Pugwash would declare
that a man with at least three children to provide for had no
need to talk of Nature. Nevertheless, the flower-man made his
weekly call. Though at many a house the penny could not every
week be spared to buy a hint, a look of Nature for the darkened
dwellers, Isaac, despite of Mrs. Pugwash, always purchased. It
is a common thing, an old familiar cry,” said the Hermit, “to
see the poor man's florist, to hear his loud-voiced invitation
to take his nosegays, his penny roots; and yet is it a call, a con-
juration of the heart of man overlabored and desponding — walled
in by the gloom of a town — divorced from the fields and their
sweet healthful influences — almost shut out from the sky that
reeks in vapor over him; it is a call that tells him there are
things of the earth besides food and covering to live for; and that
God in his great bounty hath made them for all men. Is it not
so ? ) asked the Hermit.
“Most certainly,” we answered: “it would be the very sinful-
ness of avarice to think otherwise. ”
"Why, sir," said the Hermit benevolently smiling, thus con-
sidered, the loud-lunged city bawler of roots and Aowers becomes
a high benevolence, a peripatetic priest of Nature. Adown dark
lanes and miry alleys he takes sweet remembrances-touching
records of the loveliness of earth, that with their bright looks
and balmy odors cheer and uplift the dumpish heart of man;
that make his soul stir within him; and acknowledge the beau-
tiful. The penny, the ill-spared penny--for it would buy a
wheaten roll — the poor housewife pays for a root of primrose, is
her offering to the hopeful loveliness of Nature; is her testimony
of the soul struggling with the blighting, crushing circumstance
»
((
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## p. 8261 (#461) ###########################################

DOUGLAS JERROLD
8261
of sordid earth, and sometimes yearning towards earth's sweetest
aspects. Amidst the violence, the coarseness, and the suffering
that may surround and defile the wretched, there must be mo-
ments when the heart escapes, craving for the innocent and
lovely; when the soul makes for itself even of a flower a com-
fort and a refuge. ”
The Hermit paused a moment, and then in blither voice re-
sumed. “But I have strayed a little from the history of our
small tradesman Pugwash. Well, sir, Isaac for some three or four
years kept on his old way, his wife still prophesying in loud and
louder voice the inevitable workhouse. He would so think and
talk of Nature when he should mind his shop; he would so often
snatch a holiday to lose it in the fields, when he should take
stock and balance his books. What was worse, he every week
lost more and more by bad money. With no more sense than a
buzzard, as Mrs. Pugwash said, for a good shilling, he was the
victim of those laborious folks who make their money, with a
fine independence of the State, out of their own materials. It
seemed the common compact of a host of coiners to put off their
base-born offspring upon Isaac Pugwash; who, it must be con-
fessed, bore the loss and the indignity like a Christian martyr.
At last, however, the spirit of the man was stung. A guinea-as
Pugwash believed, of statute gold — was found to be of little less
value than a brass button. Mrs. Pugwash clamored and screamed
as though a besieging foe was in her house; and Pugwash him-
self felt that further patience would be pusillanimity. Where-
upon, sir, what think you Isaac did? Why, he suffered himself to
be driven by the voice and vehemence of his wife to a conjurer,
who in a neighboring attic was a sidereal go-between to the
neighborhood - a vender of intelligence from the stars to all
who sought and duly fee'd him. This magician would declare to
Pugwash the whereabouts of the felon coiner, and — the thought
was anodyne to the hurt mind of Isaac's wife — the knave would
be law-throttled.
“With sad indignant spirit did Isaac Pugwash seek Father
Lotus; for so, sir, was the conjurer called. He was none of your
common wizards. Oh no! he left it to the mere quack-salvers
and mountebanks of his craft to take upon them a haggard so-
lemnity of look, and to drop monosyllables heavy as bullets upon
the ear of the questioner. The mighty and magnificent hocus-
pocus of twelvepenny magicians was scorned by Lotus. There


## p. 8262 (#462) ###########################################

8262
DOUGLAS JERROLD
a
was nothing in his look or manner that showed him the worse
for keeping company with spirits; on the contrary, perhaps the
privileges he enjoyed of them served to make him only the more
blithe and jocund. He might have passed for a gentleman at
once easy and cunning in the law; his sole knowledge, that
of labyrinthine sentences made expressly to wind poor common-
sense on parchment. He had an eye like a snake, a constant
smile upon his lip, a cheek colored like an apple, and an activity
of movement wide away from the solemnity of the conjurer. He
was a small, eel-figured man of about sixty, dressed in glossy
black, with silver buckles and flowing periwig. It was impossible
not to have a better opinion of sprites and demons, seeing that
so nice, so polished a gentleman was their especial pet. And
then, his attic had no mystic circle, no curtain of black, no
death's-head, no mummy of apocryphal dragon,- the vulgar
catchpennies of fortune-telling trader. There was not even
pack of cards to elevate the soul of man into the regions of the
mystic world. No, the room was plainly yet comfortably set out.
Father Lotus reposed in an easy-chair, nursing a snow-white cat
upon his knee; now tenderly patting the creature with one hand,
and now turning over a little Hebrew volume with the other.
If a man wished to have dealings with sorry demons, could he
desire a nicer little gentleman than Father Lotus to make the
acquaintance for him? In few words Isaac Pugwash told his
story to the smiling magician. He had, amongst much other bad
.
money, taken a counterfeit guinea: could Father Lotus discover
the evil-doer ?
« Yes, yes, yes,' said Lotus, smiling, of course - to be sure;
but that will do but little: in your present state But let me
look at your tongue. ' Pugwash obediently thrust the organ
forth. Yes, yes, as I thought. 'Twill do you no good to hang
the rogue; none at all. What we must do is this, — we must
cure you of the disease. '
«Disease! ) cried Pugwash. Bating the loss of my money, I
was never better in all my days. '
« Ha! my poor man,' said Lotus, it is the benevolence of
nature, that she often goes on quietly breaking us up, ourselves
knowing no more of the mischief than a girl's doll when the girl
rips up its seams. Your malady is of the perceptive organs.
Leave you alone and you'll sink to the condition of a baboon. '
«God bless me! ' cried Pugwash.
(
(


## p. 8263 (#463) ###########################################

DOUGLAS JERROLD
8263
(
«CA jackass with sense to choose a thistle from a toadstool
will be a reasoning creature to you! for consider, my poor soul,'
said Lotus in a compassionate voice,- in this world of tribula-
tion we inhabit, consider what a benighted nincompoop is man,
if he cannot elect a good shilling from a bad one. '
« I have not a sharp eye for money,' said Pugwash modestly.
It's a gift, sir; I'm assured it's a gift. '
«A sharp eye! an eye of horn,' said Lotus. (Never mind,
I can remedy all that; I can restore you to the world and to
yourself. The greatest physicians, the wisest philosophers, have
in the profundity of their wisdom made money the test of wit.
A man is believed mad; he is a very rich man, and his heir has
very good reason to believe him lunatic: whereupon the heir, the
madman's careful friend, calls about the sufferer a company of
wizards to sit in judgment on the suspected brain, and report a
verdict thereupon. Well, ninety-nine times out of the hundred,
what is the first question put as test of reason? Why, a question
of money. The physician, laying certain pieces of current coin
in his palm, asks of the patient their several value. If he answer
truly, why truly there is hope; but if he stammer or falter at the
coin, the verdict runs, and wisely runs, mad— incapably mad. '
« I'm not so bad as that,' said Pugwash, a little alarmed.
« Don't say how you are — it's presumption in any man,'
(
-
cried Lotus. Nevertheless, be as you may, I'll cure you if you'll
give attention to my remedy. '
«I'll give my whole soul to it,' exclaimed Pugwash.
««Very good, very good; I like your earnestness: but I don't
want all your soul,' said Father Lotus smiling,-'I want only
part of it; that, if you confide in me, I can take from you with
no danger,-ay, with less peril than the pricking of a whitlow.
Now then, for examination. Now to have a good stare at this
soul of yours. ' Here Father Lotus gently removed the white
cat from his knee,- for he had been patting her all the time he
talked,- and turned full round upon Pugwash. “Turn out your
breeches pockets,' said Lotus; and the tractable Pugwash imme-
diately displayed the linings. So! ' cried Lotus, looking narrowly
at the brown holland whereof they were made, very bad indeed;
very bad: never knew a soul in a worse state in all my life. '
Pugwash looked at his pockets, and then at the conjurer; he
was about to speak, but the fixed, earnest look of Father Lotus
held him in respectful silence.
>
(


## p. 8264 (#464) ###########################################

8264
DOUGLAS JERROLD
« Yes, yes,' said the wizard, still eying the brown holland,
I can see it all: a vagabond soul; a soul wandering here and
there, like a pauper without a settlement; a ragamuffin soul. ”
"Pugwash found confidence and breath. Was there ever
such a joke ? he cried: know a man's soul by the linings
of his breeches pockets! ) and Pugwash laughed, albeit uncom-
fortably.
“Father Lotus looked at the man with philosophic compas-
sion. Ha, my good friend! ” he said, that all comes of your
ignorance of moral anatomy. '
"Well, but, Father Lotus-
« (Peace! ' said the wizard, and answer me. You'd have this
soul of yours cured? '
« If there's anything the matter with it,' answered Pugwash.
'Though not of any conceit I speak it, yet I think it as sweet
and as healthy a soul as the souls of my neighbors. I never did
wrong to anybody. '
« Pooh! ) cried Father Lotus.
«I never denied credit to the hungry,' continued Pugwash.
« Fiddle-de-dee! ' said the wizard very nervously.
« I never laid out a penny in law upon a customer; I never
refused small beer to-
«<< Silence! ' cried Father Lotus: don't offend philosophy by
thus bragging of your follies. You are in a perilous condition;
still you may be saved. At this very moment, I much fear
it, gangrene has touched your soul; nevertheless, I can separate
the sound from the mortified parts, and start you new again as
though your lips were first wet with mother's milk. )
Pugwash merely said, — for the wizard began to awe him,-
I'm very much obliged to you. '
«Now,' said Lotus, answer a few questions, and then I'll
proceed to the cure. What do you think of money?
«A very nice thing,' said Pugwash, though I can do with
as little of it as most folks. '
“Father Lotus shook his head. Well, and the world about
(
you ? ?
«<A beautiful world,' said Pugwash; 'only the worst of it is,
I can't leave the shop as often as I would, to enjoy it. I'm shut
in all day long, I may say, a prisoner to brick-dust, herrings, and
bacon.
Sometimes when the sun shines and the cobbler's lark
over the way sings as if he'd split his pipe, why then, do you


## p. 8265 (#465) ###########################################

DOUGLAS JERROLD
8265
know, I do so long to get into the fields; I do hunger for a bit
of grass like any cow. '
« The wizard looked almost hopelessly on Pugwash. (And
that's your religion and business? Infidel of the counter! Saracen
of the till! However — patience,' said Lotus, and let us con-
clude. — And the men and women of the world, what do you
think of them ? )
«God bless 'em, poor souls! ' said Pugwash. It's a sad
scramble some of 'em have, isn't it? '
« Well,' said the conjurer, for a tradesman, your soul is in
a wretched condition. However, it is not so hopelessly bad that
I may not yet make it profitable to you. I must cure it of its
vagabond desires, and above all make it respectful of money.
You will take this book. ) Here Lotus took a little volume from
a cupboard, and placed it in the hand of Pugwash. Lay it
under your pillow every night for a week, and on the eighth
morning let me see you. '
«Come, there's nothing easier than that,' said Pugwash with
a smile; and reverently putting the volume in his pocket (the
book was closed by metal clasps, curiously chased), he descended
the garret stairs of the conjurer.
“On the morning of the eighth day Pugwash again stood
before Lotus.
« How do you feel now?
' asked the conjurer with a knowing
look.
"I haven't opened the book — 'tis just as I took it,' said Pug-
wash, making no further answer.
«I know that,' said Lotus: the clasps be thanked for your
ignorance. Pugwash slightly colored; for to say the truth, both
he and his wife had vainly pulled and tugged, and fingered
and coaxed the clasps, that they might look upon the necro-
mantic page. “Well, the book has worked, said the conjurer;
I have it. "
« Have it! what? ) asked Pugwash.
«« Your soul,' answered the sorcerer. In all my practice, he
added gravely, I never had a soul come into my hands in worse
condition. '
« Impossible! ' cried Pugwash. If my soul is as you say,
'
(
in your own hands, how is it that I'm alive? How is it that I
can eat, drink, sleep, walk, talk, do everything, just like anybody
else ? )
(
(


## p. 8266 (#466) ###########################################

8266
DOUGLAS JERROLD
(
-
.
« Ha! ' said Lotus, (that's a common mistake. Thousands
and thousands would swear, ay, as they'd swear to their own
noses, that they have their souls in their own possession: bless
you,' and the conjurer laughed maliciously, it's a popular error.
Their souls are altogether out of 'em. '
«Well,' said Pugwash, if it's true that you have indeed my
soul, I should like to have a look at it. '
« (In good time,' said the conjurer, “I'll bring it to your
house and put it in its proper lodging. In another week I'll
bring it to you: 'twill then be strong enough to bear removal. '
« (And what am I to do all the time without it? asked
Pugwash in a tone of banter. Come,' said he, still jesting, if
you really have my soul, what's it like? What's its color? - if
indeed souls have colors. '
“Green - green as a grasshopper, when it first came into
my hands,' said the wizard; 'but 'tis changing daily. More: it
was a skipping, chirping, giddy soul; 'tis every hour mending.
In a week's time, I tell you, it will be fit for the business of the
world.
«And pray, good father,--for the matter has till now escaped
me, -- what am I to pay you for this pain and trouble; for this
precious care of my miserable soul? '
« <
Nothing,' answered Lotus, nothing whatever. The work
is too nice and precious to be paid for; I have a reward you
dream not of for my labor. Think you that men's immortal
souls are to be mended like iron pots, at tinker's price? Oh
no! they who meddle with souls go for higher wages. '
"After further talk Pugwash departed, the conjurer promising
to bring him home his soul at midnight that night week. It
seemed strange to Pugwash, as the time passed on, that he never
seemed to miss his soul; that in very truth he went through the
labors of the day with even better gravity than when his soul
possessed him. And more: he began to feel himself more at
home in his shop; the cobbler's lark over the way continued to
sing, but awoke in Isaac's heart no thought of the fields; and
then for flowers and plants, why, Isaac began to think such mat-
ters fitter the thoughts of children and foolish girls than the
attention of grown men, with the world before them. Even Mrs.
Pugwash saw an alteration in her husband; and though to him
she said nothing, she returned thanks to her own sagacity that
made him seek the conjurer.


## p. 8267 (#467) ###########################################

DOUGLAS JERROLD
8267
(
"At length the night arrived when Lotus had promised to
bring home the soul of Pugwash. He sent his wife to bed, and
sat with his eyes upon the Dutch clock, anxiously awaiting the
conjurer. Twelve o'clock struck, and at the same moment Father
Lotus smote the door-post of Isaac Pugwash.
« Have you brought it? ' asked Pugwash.
« (Or wherefore should I come ? ' said Lotus. 'Quick: show a
light to the till, that your soul may find itself at home. '
« « The till! ' cried Pugwash; 'what the devil should my soul
do in the till ? )
« «Speak not irreverently,' said the conjurer, but show a
light. '
« May I live forever in darkness if I do! cried Pugwash.
“It is no matter,' said the conjurer; and then he cried,
'Soul, to your earthly dwelling-place! Seek it-you know it. '
Then turning to Pugwash, Lotus said, It is all right. Your
soul's in the till. )
« (How did it get there? ' cried Pugwash in amazement.
« Through the slit in the counter,' said the onjurer; and ere
Pugwash could speak again, the conjurer had quitted the shop.
“For some minutes Pugwash felt himself afraid to stir. For
the first time in his life he felt himself ill at ease, left as he was
with no other company save his own soul. He at length took
heart, and went behind the counter that he might see if his soul
was really in the till. With trembling hand he drew the coffer,
and there, to his amazement, squatted like a tailor upon a crown
piece, did Pugwash behold his own soul, which cried out to him
in notes no louder than a cricket's, “How are you? I am com-
fortable. '
“It was a strange yet pleasing sight to Pugwash, to behold
what he felt to be his own soul embodied in a figure no bigger
than the top joint of his thumb. There it was, a stark-naked
thing with the precise features of Pugwash; albeit the complex-
ion was of a yellower hue. The conjurer said it was green,'
cried Pugwash: as I live, if that be my soul - and I begin
to feel a strange, odd love for it — it is yellow as a guinea, .
Ha! ha! Pretty, precious, darling soul! ' cried Pugwash, as the
creature took up every piece of coin in the till, and rang it with
such a look of rascally cunning, that sure I am Pugwash would
in past times have hated the creature for the trick.
day Pugwash became fonder and fonder of the creature in the
But every


## p. 8268 (#468) ###########################################

8268
DOUGLAS JERROLD
till: it was to him such a counselor and such a blessing. When-
ever the old flower-man came to the door, the soul of Pugwash
from the till would bid him pack with his rubbish; if a poor
woman - an old customer it might be — begged for the credit
of a loaf, the Spirit of the Till, calling through the slit in the
counter, would command Pugwash to deny her. More: Pugwash
never again took a bad shilling. No sooner did he throw the
pocket-piece down upon the counter than the voice from the till
would denounce its worthlessness. And the soul of Pugwash
never quitted the till. There it lived, feeding upon the color of
money, and capering and rubbing its small scoundrel hands in
glee as the coin dropped -- dropped in. In time the soul of Pug.
wash grew too big for so small a habitation, and then Pugwash
moved his soul into an iron box; and some time after he sent
his soul to his banker's, the thing had waxed so big and strong
on gold and silver. ”
"And so,” said we, « the man flourished, and the conjurer
took no wages for all he did to the soul of Pugwash ? ”
“Hear the end,” said the Hermit. « For some time it was
a growing pleasure to Pugwash to look at his soul, busy as it
always was with the world-buying metals. At length he grew
old, very old; and every day his soul grew uglier. Then he
hated to look upon it; and then his soul would come to him,
and grin its deformity at him. Pugwash died, almost rich as an
Indian king; but he died shrieking in his madness to be saved
from the terrors of his own soul. ”
"And such the end, we said; "such the Tragedy of the Till?
A strange romance. ”
«Romance! ” said the Sage of Bellyfule: "sir, 'tis a story true
as life.
For at this very moment how many thousands, blind and
deaf to the sweet looks and voice of nature, live and die with
their souls in a Till! »
(
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## p. 8269 (#469) ###########################################

8269
SARAH ORNE JEWETT
(1849-)
are
HE deeds of young authors, like the deeds of young soldiers,
a continual surprise to the mature. We forget that
Gal characters and situations which pass before us unheeded
from their very familiarity, strike the apprehension of youth from
their very novelty.
Sarah Orne Jewett was born in South Berwick, Maine, in 1849; a
product of the best New England birth and breeding. Besides the
usual school training, she received a deeper culture from her father,
a physician and a man of wide attainments
and keen observation. A country doctor,
he had to make excursions inland and along-
shore to visit his scattered patients; and the
young girl sitting beside him learned to
know the characters she was to immortal-
ize in literature, as she knew the landscape
and the sky. She was a girl not past her
youth when her first book, Deephaven,'
was published in 1877. This was a story of
New England life, told in the form of an
autobiography; and slight as it was in inci-
dent, betrayed a breadth and a refinement
which seemed to come from careful train- SARAH ORNE JEWETT
ing, but which were really the unerring
product of a genuine gift for literature, kindled by the observation
of a fresh mind and an affectionate sympathy.
The effect upon her many readers was like the gift of sight to the
blind. Frequenters of the town — for Deephaven' stands for any
-
fisher village on the Maine coast — recollected having seen “Mrs.
Bonny” searching for a tumbler, the meek widow with the appear-
ance of a black beetle and the wail of a banshee, the funeral pro-
cession on its sad journey, the Captains, the interesting ladies “Mrs.
Kew” and “Mrs. Dockum. ” “Deephaven' was followed by a series
of stories, all breathing forth an air of calm leisure that in its avoid-
ance of hurry or catastrophe suggests the almost forgotten note of
Goldsmith and Irving.
Miss Jewett's portrayal of character, habits, traits, speech, was all
perfectly true, although drawn from that very rural and village New

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SARAH ORNE JEWETT
England life which other writers, clever and merciless, had convinced
the world to be wholly sordid and melancholy. With wider compre-
hension, she showed that there are differing points of view of any
given conditions, and that a life in these pinched and narrow sur-
roundings may be as complex an affair as one passed in the heart of
London. Her patriotic and kindly part was to portray it with a good
deal of horizon, a clear sky, and vital human interest.
Her gift has been exercised, for the most part, in the field in
which America has only France as her rival, - that of the short story.
She has written one novel, A Country Doctor' ;- for Deephaven'
is a series of figures, landscapes, and interiors, rather than a woven
scheme. Perhaps the rare intuition which taught her the secrets of
her shy reserved characters, revealed to her that her strength does
not lie in the constructive power which holds in its grasp varied and
complex interests, terminating in an inevitable conclusion.
A simple incident suffices for her machinery; her local color is a
part of the substance of her creation, not imposed upon it, and no
more than Hawthorne does she seem to be conscious of the necessity
of making it a setting for her figures. She writes of that into which
she was born; and her creations - even when they are in such foreign
settings as Irish-American life, in the inimitable stories The Bro-
gans,' Between Mass and Vespers,' and A Little Captive Maid'-
glow with that internal personality which is never counterfeited, as
has been said of Hawthorne's Marble Faun. '
The emotion of love as a passion, the essential of a novel, is
almost absent from her sketches; or, treated as one of many other
emotions and principles, has a certain originality due to its abstemi-
ousness. Life indeed, as portrayed by her, proceeds so exactly as it
would naturally proceed, that when the incident has been told, and
the quiet, veracious talk has been retailed, the story comes to an end
because it could not go on without being a different story. This
method would not do for a novel: and yet, little composition as there
seems to be about them, Miss Jewett's stories are as delicately con-
structed, with as true a method and as perfect a knowledge of tech-
nique, as Guy de Maupassant's; and they are permeated with a humor
he never knew. It is not only the delightful mood in which these
little masterpieces are written,” says Mr. Howells of "The King
of Folly Island, “but the perfect artistic restraint, the truly Greek
temperance without one touch too much, which render them exquisite,
make them perfect in their way. ”
Her lovely spirit, sweet and compassionate, is a tacit appeal for
the characters at which her humor bids us smile. Her people are
introduced sitting in their quiet New England homes, going about
their small affairs: housewives, captains unseaworthy through time or


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SARAH ORNE JEWETT
8271
stress of weather, the village schoolmistress or seamstress, the old
soldier, the heroine with blue eyes and rosy cheeks, walking through
the scene without one fluttering ribbon of coquetry,— all these appear
with as little grouping as if we had walked into “Deephaven” or
“Winby” itself. With perfect sympathy she takes under her pro-
tection all those whom irreverence or thoughtlessness has flouted,
or whom personal peculiarities have made ridiculous. With her we
are amused by their quaintness; but human nature, even forlorn
and fallen human nature, is dignified into its true likeness under her
serene and compassionate touch. Her charm is the charm which
Richard Dole found in "A Marsh Island," where he was so willingly a
prisoner; and is that which comes from the view of a landscape,
broad, unaccented, lying under a summer sky, breathing the fragrance
of grass and wild flowers. It does not invite criticism any more
than it deprecates close scrutiny.
If artist may be compared with artist, Miss Jewett may be de-
scribed as a water-colorist; her sketches - resting for their value not
upon dramatic qualities or strong color, but upon their pure tone and
singleness of effort. And she is not sensibly in her story, any more
than a painter is in his picture. It is in this that her engaging
modesty and admirable self-restraint lie.
Miss Jewett is the author of a dozen volumes of fiction, among
the more important of which are —A Marsh Island (1885); 'A White
Heron and Other Stories) (1886); (The King of Folly Island, and
Other People (1888); Strangers and Wayfarers' (1890): A Native
of Winby, and Other Tales' (1893); (The Life of Nancy' (1895); and
(The Country of the Pointed Firs,' 1896.
MISS TEMPY'S WATCHERS
From The King of Folly Island, and Other People. ' Copyright 1888, by
Sarah 0. Jewett. Reprinted by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ,
publishers, Boston.
T"
HE time of year was April; the place was a small farming
town in New Hampshire, remote from any railroad. One
by one the lights had been blown out in the scattered
houses near Miss Tempy Dent's; but as her neighbors took a
last look out of doors, their eyes turned with instinctive curiosity
toward the old house, where a lamp burned steadily. They gave
a little sigh. "Poor Miss Tempy! ” said more than one bereft
“
acquaintance; for the good woman lay dead in her north cham-
ber, and the light was a watchers' light. The funeral was set for
the next day at one o'clock.


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SARAH ORNE JEWETT
The watchers were two of the oldest friends, Mrs. Crowe and
Sarah Ann Binson. They were sitting in the kitchen, because
it seemed less awesome than the unused best room; and they
beguiled the long hours by steady conversation. One would think
that neither topics nor opinions would hold out, at that rate, all
through the long spring night; but there was a certain degree of
excitement just then, and the two women had risen to an unusual
level of expressiveness and confidence. Each had already told
the other more than one fact that she had determined to keep
secret; they were again and again tempted into statements that
either would have found impossible by daylight. Mrs. Crowe
was knitting a blue yarn stocking for her husband; the foot was
already so long that it seemed as if she must have forgotten to
narrow it at the proper time. Mrs. Crowe knew exactly what she
was about, however; she was of a much cooler disposition than
Sister Binson, who made futile attempts at some sewing, only
to drop her work into her lap whenever the talk was most
engaging
Their faces were interesting,—of the dry, shrewd, quick-witted
New England type, with thin hair twisted neatly back out of the
way.
Mrs. Crowe could look vague and benignant, and Miss Bin-
son was, to quote her neighbors, a little too sharp-set; but the
world knew that she had need to be, with the load she must
carry of supporting an inefficient widowed sister and six unprom-
ising and unwilling nieces and nephews. The eldest boy was at
last placed with a good man to learn the mason's trade. Sarah
Ann Binson, for all her sharp, anxious aspect, never defended
herself when her sister whined and fretted. She was told every
week of her life that the poor children never would have had to
lift a finger if their father had lived; and yet she had kept her
steadfast way with the little farm, and patiently taught the young
people many useful things, for which, as everybody said, they
would live to thank her. However pleasureless her life appeared
to outward view, it was brimful of pleasure to herself.
Mrs. Crowe, on the contrary, was well-to-do; her husband
being a rich farmer and an easy-going man. She was a stingy
woman, but for all that she looked kindly; and when she gave
away anything, or lifted a finger to help anybody, it was thought
a great piece of beneficence, and a compliment indeed, which
the recipient accepted with twice as much gratitude as double the
gift that came from a poorer and more generous acquaintance.


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SARAH ORNE JEWETT
8273
Everybody liked to be on good terms with Mrs. Crowe. Socially
she stood much higher than Sarah Ann Binson. They were
both old schoolmates and friends of Temperance Dent, who had
asked them one day, not long before she died, if they would
not come together and look after the house, and manage every-
thing when she was gone. She may have had some hope that
they might become closer friends in this period of intimate part-
nership, and that the richer woman might better understand the
burdens of the poorer. They had not kept the house the night
before; they were too weary with the care of their old friend,
whom they had not left until all was over.
There was a brook which ran down the hillside very near the
house, and the sound of it was much louder than usual. When
there was silence in the kitchen, the busy stream had a strange
insistence in its wild voice, as if it tried to make the watchers
understand something that related to the past.
«I declare, I can't begin to sorrow for Tempy yet. I am so
glad to have her at rest,” whispered Mrs. Crowe. “It is strange
to set here without her, but I can't make it clear that she has
gone. I feel as if she had got easy and dropped off to sleep, and
I'm more scared about waking her up than knowing any other
feeling. ”
“Yes,” said Sarah Ann, it's just like that, ain't it? But I
tell you we are goin' to miss her worse than we expect. She's
helped me through with many a trial, has Temperance. I ain't
the only one who says the same neither. ”
These words were spoken as if there were
a third person
listening; somebody beside Mrs. Crowe. The watchers could not
rid their minds of the feeling that they were being watched
themselves. The spring wind whistled in the window crack now
and then, and buffeted the little house in a gusty way that had
a sort of companionable effect. Yet on the whole it was a very
still night, and the watchers spoke in a half-whisper.
“She was the freest-handed woman that ever I knew,” said
Mrs. Crowe decidedly. According to her means, she gave away
more than anybody. I used to tell her 'twa'n't right. I used
really to be afraid that she went without too much,- for we have
a duty to ourselves. ”
Sister Binson looked up in a half-amused, unconscious way,
and then recollected herself.
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SARAH ORNE JEWETT
>
Mrs. Crowe met her look with a serious face. “It ain't so
easy for me to give as it is for some,” she said simply, but with
an effort which was made possible only by the occasion. «I
should like to say, while Tempy is laying here yet in her own
house, that she has been a constant lesson to me. Folks are too
kind, and shame me with thanks for what I do. I ain't such a
generous woman as poor Tempy was, for all she had nothin' to
do with, as one may say. ”
Sarah Binson was much moved at this confession, and was
even pained and touched by the unexpected humility.