Heart | Page 7

daughters who despise the Lear in old age, or
on the dissolute and graceless youth, whose education cost so much,
and yields so very little. But money cannot compensate that maiden or
that youth for early and habitual injustice done to their budding minds,
their sensitive hearts, their craving souls, in higher, deeper, holier
things than even cash could buy. "Home affections"--this was the
magic phrase inscribed upon the talisman they stole from that graceless
youth; and the loss of home affections is scantily counterbalanced at
the best by a critical acquaintance with 'Dawes's Canons,' and 'Bos on
Ellipses,' in his ardent spring of life, and by a little more of the paternal
earnings which the legacy-office gives him in his manhood.
But let us not condemn generations past and passing, and wink at our
own-time sins; we have many motes yet in our eyes, not to call them
very beams. The infant school, the factory, the Union, and other
wholesale centralizations, ruin the affections of our poor. O, for the
spinning-wheel again within the homely cottage, and those difficult
spellings by the grand-dame's knee! There is wisdom and stability in a
land thick-set with such early local anchorages; but the other is all false,
republican, and unaffectioned. So, too, the luxurious city club has
cheated many a young pair of their just domestic happiness, for the
husband grew dissatisfied with home and all its poor humilities; whilst
a bad political philosophy, discouraging marriage and denouncing
offspring, has insidiously crept into the very core of private families,
setting children against parents and parents against children, because a
cold expediency winks at the decay of morals, and all united social
influences strike at the sacrifice of Heart.
We are forgetting you, poor affectionate Maria, and yet will it comfort
your charity to listen. For the time is coming--yea, now is--when a
more generous, though poorer age will condemn the Mammon phrensy
of that which has preceded it. Boldly do we push our standards in
advance, pressing on the flying foe, certain that a gallant band will
follow. Fearlessly, here and there, is heard the voice of some solitary

zealot, some isolated missionary for love, and truth, and philanthropic
good, some dauntless apostle in the cause of Heart, denouncing selfish
wealth as the canker of society: and, hark! that voice is not alone; there
is a murmur on the breeze as the sound of many waters; it comes, it
comes! and the young have caught it up; and manhood hears the
thrilling strain that sinks into his soul; and old age, feebly listening,
wonders (never too late) that he had not hitherto been wiser; and the
whole social universe electrically touched from man to man, I hear
them in their new-born generosities, penitently shouting "God and
Heart!" even louder than they execrate the memory of Dagon.
CHAPTER IV.
EXCUSATORY.
It really may be numbered among doubts whether it is possible to
exaggerate the dangers into which a fictionist may fall. My marvel is,
that any go unstabbed. How on earth did Cervantes continue to grow
old, after having pointed the finger of derision at all grave Spain? There
is Boccaccio, too; he lived to turn threescore, in spite of the thousand
husbands and wives, who might pretty well imagine that he spoke of
them. Only consider how many villains, drawn to the life, Walter Scott
created. What! were there no heads found to fit his many caps, hats,
helmets, and other capillary properties? What! are we so blind, so few
of friends, that we cannot each pick out of our social circles Mrs.
Gore's Dowager, Mrs. Grey's Flirt, Mrs. Trollope's Widow, and Boz's
Mrs. Nickleby? Who can help thinking of his lawyer, when he makes
acquaintance with those immortal firms Dodson and Fogg, or Quirk,
Snap, and Gammon? Is not Wrexhill libellous, and Dr. Hookwell
personal? Arise! avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why
slumber pistols that, should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives
sheathed, which should have drunk the blood of James? Hath every
"[dash] good-natured friend" forgotten to be officious, and neglected to
demonstrate to relations and acquaintances that this white villain is Mr.
A., and that old virgin poor Miss B.? Speak, Plumer Ward, courageous
veteran, Have the critics yet forgiven Mr. John Paragraph--forgotten, is
impossible? and how is it no house-keeper has arsenicked my soup, O

rash recruit, for the mysteries of perquisite divulged in Mrs. Quarles?
A dangerous craft is the tale-wright's, and difficult as dangerous.
Human nature goes in casts, as garden-pots do. Lo, you! the crowd of
thumb-pots; mean little tiny minds in multitudes, as near alike as
possible. Then there are the frequent thirty-twos, average "clever
creatures" in this mental age, wherein no one can make an ordinary
how-d'ye-do acquaintance without being advertised of his or