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_ Chapter X - Containing a letter of a very curious kind.
"The major's wound," continued Booth, "was really as slight as he
believed it; so that in a very few days he was perfectly well; nor was
Bagillard, though run through the body, long apprehending to be in any
danger of his life. The major then took me aside, and, wishing me
heartily joy of Bagillard's recovery, told me I should now, by the
gift (as it were) of Heaven, have an opportunity of doing myself
justice. I answered I could not think of any such thing; for that when
I imagined he was on his death-bed I had heartily and sincerely
forgiven him. 'Very right,' replied the major, 'and consistent with
your honour, when he was on his death-bed; but that forgiveness was
only conditional, and is revoked by his recovery.' I told him I could
not possibly revoke it; for that my anger was really gone.--'What hath
anger,' cried he, 'to do with the matter? the dignity of my nature
hath been always my reason for drawing my sword; and when that is
concerned I can as readily fight with the man I love as with the man I
hate.'--I will not tire you with the repetition of the whole argument,
in which the major did not prevail; and I really believe I sunk a
little in his esteem upon that account, till Captain James, who
arrived soon after, again perfectly reinstated me in his favour.
"When the captain was come there remained no cause of our longer stay
at Montpelier; for, as to my wife, she was in a better state of health
than I had ever known her; and Miss Bath had not only recovered her
health but her bloom, and from a pale skeleton was become a plump,
handsome young woman. James was again my cashier; for, far from
receiving any remittance, it was now a long time since I had received
any letter from England, though both myself and my dear Amelia had
written several, both to my mother and sister; and now, at our
departure from Montpelier, I bethought myself of writing to my good
friend the doctor, acquainting him with our journey to Paris, whither
I desired he would direct his answer.
"At Paris we all arrived without encountering any adventure on the
road worth relating; nor did anything of consequence happen here
during the first fortnight; for, as you know neither Captain James nor
Miss Bath, it is scarce worth telling you that an affection, which
afterwards ended in a marriage, began now to appear between them, in
which it may appear odd to you that I made the first discovery of the
lady's flame, and my wife of the captain's.
"The seventeenth day after our arrival at Paris I received a letter
from the doctor, which I have in my pocket-book; and, if you please, I
will read it you; for I would not willingly do any injury to his
words."
The lady, you may easily believe, desired to hear the letter, and
Booth read it as follows:
"MY DEAR CHILDREN--For I will now call you so, as you have neither of
you now any other parent in this world. Of this melancholy news I
should have sent you earlier notice if I had thought you ignorant of
it, or indeed if I had known whither to have written. If your sister
hath received any letters from you she hath kept them a secret, and
perhaps out of affection to you hath reposited them in the same place
where she keeps her goodness, and, what I am afraid is much dearer to
her, her money. The reports concerning you have been various; so is
always the case in matters where men are ignorant; for, when no man
knows what the truth is, every man thinks himself at liberty to report
what he pleases. Those who wish you well, son Booth, say simply that
you are dead: others, that you ran away from the siege, and was
cashiered. As for my daughter, all agree that she is a saint above;
and there are not wanting those who hint that her husband sent her
thither. From this beginning you will expect, I suppose, better news
than I am going to tell you; but pray, my dear children, why may not
I, who have always laughed at my own afflictions, laugh at yours,
without the censure of much malevolence? I wish you could learn this
temper from me; for, take my word for it, nothing truer ever came from
the mouth of a heathen than that sentence:
'---_Leve fit quod bene fertur onus_.'
[Footnote: The burthen becomes light by being well borne.]
And though I must confess I never thought Aristotle (whom I do not
take for so great a blockhead as some who have never read him) doth
not very well resolve the doubt which he hath raised in his Ethics,
viz., How a man in the midst of King Priam's misfortunes can be called
happy? yet I have long thought that there is no calamity so great that
a Christian philosopher may not reasonably laugh at it; if the heathen
Cicero, doubting of immortality (for so wise a man must have doubted
of that which had such slender arguments to support it), could assert
it as the office of wisdom, _Humanas res despicere atque infra se
positas arbitrari._[Footnote: To look down on all human affairs as
matters below his consideration.]
"Which passage, with much more to the same purpose, you will find in
the third book of his Tusculan Questions.
"With how much greater confidence may a good Christian despise, and
even deride, all temporary and short transitory evils! If the poor
wretch, who is trudging on to his miserable cottage, can laugh at the
storms and tempests, the rain and whirlwinds, which surround him,
while his richest hope is only that of rest; how much more chearfully
must a man pass through such transient evils, whose spirits are buoyed
up with the certain expectation of finding a noble palace and the most
sumptuous entertainment ready to receive him! I do not much like the
simile; but I cannot think of a better. And yet, inadequate as the
simile is, we may, I think, from the actions of mankind, conclude that
they will consider it as much too strong; for, in the case I have put
of the entertainment, is there any man so tender or poor-spirited as
not to despise, and often to deride, the fiercest of these
inclemencies which I have mentioned? but in our journey to the
glorious mansions of everlasting bliss, how severely is every little
rub, every trifling accident, lamented! and if Fortune showers down
any of her heavier storms upon us, how wretched do we presently appear
to ourselves and to others! The reason of this can be no other than
that we are not in earnest in our faith; at the best, we think with
too little attention on this our great concern. While the most paultry
matters of this world, even those pitiful trifles, those childish
gewgaws, riches and honours, are transacted with the utmost
earnestness and most serious application, the grand and weighty affair
of immortality is postponed and disregarded, nor ever brought into the
least competition with our affairs here. If one of my cloth should
begin a discourse of heaven in the scenes of business or pleasure; in
the court of requests, at Garraway's, or at White's; would he gain a
hearing, unless, perhaps, of some sorry jester who would desire to
ridicule him? would he not presently acquire the name of the mad
parson, and be thought by all men worthy of Bedlam? or would he not be
treated as the Romans treated their Aretalogi,[Footnote: A set of
beggarly philosophers who diverted great men at their table with
burlesque discourses on virtue.] and considered in the light of a
buffoon? But why should I mention those places of hurry and worldly
pursuit? What attention do we engage even in the pulpit? Here, if a
sermon be prolonged a little beyond the usual hour, doth it not set
half the audience asleep? as I question not I have by this time both
my children. Well, then, like a good-natured surgeon, who prepares his
patient for a painful operation by endeavouring as much as he can to
deaden his sensation, I will now communicate to you, in your
slumbering condition, the news with which I threatened you. Your good
mother, you are to know, is dead at last, and hath left her whole
fortune to her elder daughter.--This is all the ill news I have to
tell you. Confess now, if you are awake, did you not expect it was
much worse; did not you apprehend that your charming child was dead?
Far from it, he is in perfect health, and the admiration of everybody:
what is more, he will be taken care of, with the tenderness of a
parent, till your return. What pleasure must this give you! if indeed
anything can add to the happiness of a married couple who are
extremely and deservedly fond of each other, and, as you write me, in
perfect health. A superstitious heathen would have dreaded the malice
of Nemesis in your situation; but as I am a Christian, I shall venture
to add another circumstance to your felicity, by assuring you that you
have, besides your wife, a faithful and zealous friend. Do not,
therefore, my dear children, fall into that fault which the excellent
Thucydides observes is too common in human nature, to bear heavily the
being deprived of the smaller good, without conceiving, at the same
time, any gratitude for the much greater blessings which we are
suffered to enjoy. I have only farther to tell you, my son, that, when
you call at Mr. Morand's, Rue Dauphine, you will find yourself worth a
hundred pounds. Good Heaven! how much richer are you than millions of
people who are in want of nothing! farewel, and know me for your
sincere and affectionate friend."
"There, madam," cries Booth, "how do you like the letter?"
"Oh! extremely," answered she: "the doctor is a charming man; I always
loved dearly to hear him preach. I remember to have heard of Mrs.
Harris's death above a year before I left the country, but never knew
the particulars of her will before. I am extremely sorry for it, upon
my honour."
"Oh, fy! madam," cries Booth; "have you so soon forgot the chief
purport of the doctor's letter?"
"Ay, ay," cried she; "these are very pretty things to read, I
acknowledge; but the loss of fortune is a serious matter; and I am
sure a man of Mr. Booth's understanding must think so." "One
consideration, I must own, madam," answered he, "a good deal baffled
all the doctor's arguments. This was the concern for my little growing
family, who must one day feel the loss; nor was I so easy upon
Amelia's account as upon my own, though she herself put on the utmost
chearfulness, and stretched her invention to the utmost to comfort me.
But sure, madam, there is something in the doctor's letter to admire
beyond the philosophy of it; what think you of that easy, generous,
friendly manner, in which he sent me the hundred pounds?"
"Very noble and great indeed," replied she. "But pray go on with your
story; for I long to hear the whole." _
Read next: VOLUME I: BOOK III: CHAPTER XI
Read previous: VOLUME I: BOOK III: CHAPTER IX
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