Helen Felton's Question. A problem in a Novel

Chapter I

1 At time. a feeling os sadness Pass'd o'er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in the moonlight.' Evangelinc. p||* §p| WISH I were always as happy as you &H| S|?5 seem to be,' said Helen Felton to her .<l£___l$__ sister Lucy, as she put aside her books in order to go in to luncheon. ' You always look so bright, and are so merry. I do not under stand it.' ' Poor child,' returned her elder sister, ' it is because you are mewed up so in this study, and work so hard. I cannot think why papa is so particular about you. There are only two of us left, and I really think you might now be allowed to give up study altogether and come out. I think it is absurd of him. Mary, too, is quite of A my opinion. She came out soon after she was seventeen, and you are already sixteen.' 'Ah!' returned Helen, 'she was the eldest, and I am the youngest.

Papa will never be persuaded that I am anything but a baby.' ' It is nonsense, and I will make Mary attack him again on the subject. No wonder you get the blues here, thinking and thinking, and doing those tiresome exercises, and reading those stupid German books all day long.' ' But, Lucy, I do not want to give up studying. It's the only thing I really enjoy ; and I am not at all sure that going out night after night to parties, as you do, would make me any happier. After all, I am very much afraid that life altogether is not worth having. So stupid — going on day after day.' Lucy turned round her bright, pretty face on her sister with a look of dismay. 'Oh, Helen!' she exclaimed, 'you must be ill to talk so. Life stupid ! oh, it is the most delightful, bewitching thing. Why, it is nice to be alive — and in such lovely weather, too.

I'll tell you what : you shall not sit here to get so dolorous alone. Mary is coming to take me to the Kensington Gardens this afternoon ; the band will be there ; and I will get her to take you. You must come with us.' ' But I cannot, dear Lucy ; for you know my German master comes after lunch, and I have translated ever so much for him ; besides, he promised to let me begin Faust to-day, and he is to bring the book with him. No, I cannot go ; I would rather not.' But her sister had already left the room, saying, ' Nonsense, Nellie ; you must come : and don't be late for lunch ; you will hear the bell in a minute.' The books were soon replaced ; and then Helen went to the window to look out, though with a sad gaze, on the scene before her. Not that she was indifferent to the beauties of nature.

She admired the pretty grassy expanse, the trees dressed in their fresh mantle of sweet green ; all external nature seemed, as Jonathan Edwards so beautifully ex presses it, 'rejoicing in calm rapture;' and yet in that young girl's heart there was neither rejoicing nor gladness. Yet she had everything that should, in the opinion of all her friends, have made her happy. She was the youngest of a rather large family. She and the sister Lucy, whom we have mentioned, were the only two left at home. Her mother had died many years before ; indeed, while Helen was too young to feel her loss. And since her death, a lady, a very distant connexion of the family, had been residing with them ; filling, to the best of her ability, the place of governess to the girls, and of housekeeper to Mr. Felton. The two elder daughters had been married some years.

One was with her husband in India ; the other lived in London, and was the constant friend of the younger ones, continually endeavouring to give them pleasure, and always willing to do any thing for them which seemed to her likely to pro mote their happiness. Their father, Mr. Felton, was a thoroughly amiable and kind-hearted man, very fond of his children ; and, though somewhat obstinate, as they called him — firm, as he called himself — he was withal kind and indulgent. He was rich, generous to a fault, and had gained, and still continued to keep up, a high reputation as a barrister. Of his sons, the two elder were abroad, serving with their regiments in India; while the third, the next in age to Lucy, was with his father, and was said to be doing well. Such was the family to which we wish to introduce our readers ; and perhaps no one will wonder at their being spoken of among all their friends as fortunate and happy, or be astonished that Mr. Felton always called himself an uncommonly lucky man.

To have all his elder children so well settled ; not a 'black sheep' among the lot; his two younger girls the pets of his home ; and to know that among them all, and with himself, there sub sisted the most complete union ; to be sufficiently rich to be able to live not only in ease but in affluence, and surrounded with all the luxuries which they could desire, without any fear of carking pecuniary cares : surely, with all this, he ' s Question. 5 was justified in calling himself, and his friends were right in calling him, a ' very fortunate man.' Yet there was one of his family whom all this did not satisfy, and that was the youngest — ' little Nellie,' as her brothers and sisters still persisted in calling her, though her height was hardly in ferior to that of her elder sister Mary. See her as she stands at the study window on this bright spring morning.

No one could look at her fair broad forehead, and her dark thoughtful eyes, without seeing that she possessed a great share — perhaps an unusual share — of mind for so young a girl. Yet the expression was not a happy one. Not that she was fretful or complaining, but there was a deep and increasing unrest in her young heart, an unsatisfied longing for something — she did not know what. ' I cannot think why I am so different from Lucy,' was her inward question ing. ' She never feels everything to be stale and profitless. I wonder whether it is that I do study too much, and get the blues, as they say ; and yet I am sure I should not like to give it all up, and do nothing but go out and visit as she does. I am sure that would not make me happy. I wonder if any one ever felt as I do. I never met with any one who could understand me.

I am afraid I must be ver)- discontented. If mamma had lived, perhaps she could have felt for me, and told me what to do to cure this continual wishing for something else. I will ask Mary more about her, and what she was like.' And with this determination she turned and went down stairs, just as the lunch bell had done ringing. On her entrance, Mrs. Layton (the ex-governess, for her duties in that line had become almost no minal for the last few months, as Helen now only took lessons from masters) looked at her anxiously and said, ' Helen, my dear, Lucy tells me you are not well. You are moped. Take my advice, and go with her and Mrs. Milverton to the Gardens this afternoon. You want a little more change ; and I will make your excuses to Mr. Meinhardt.' ' Yes, do, dear Nellie,' said Lucy persuasively.

It will do you good ; and it is such a lovely afternoon.' ' No, thank you,' was Helen's reply, gently but firmly given. ' I would rather not go.' And then, seeing Lucy's disappointed look, she added, ' Dear Lucy, you want to please me, I know ; and I can assure you it would give me more pleasure to remain at home than to go and walk up and down, up and down there. I am queer, you know, as Frank says ; and indeed it will afford me no amusement' ' I think it is a pity,' began Mrs. Layton ; but Lucy saw her sister would rather not be persuaded, so she hastened to say kindly, ' Never mind, Mrs. Layton ; she must be happy in her own way. I s Question. 7 believe she would only be bored intensely if she went. She is certainly the genius of the family. I never took any pleasure in grinding so, as Frank would say ; and I don't see the good of it for girls.

There's Frank himself,' she suddenly exclaimed, as she saw her brother come up the steps, and heard his well-known, somewhat impatient knock. ' Well, Frank,' she said, as he entered the room, ' what brings you home at this unusual hour ?' 'Oh !' he added lightly, 'the governor said there was nothing much doing in the Courts this after noon, so I had better come and look after you, to see that you got into no mischief at the Gardens.' 'Oh, oh, Frank!' was Lucy's laughing reply; ' and who is to look after you, to see that you do not get into mischief ? I suppose you heard Mary say yesterday that she had promised to call for Clara Livingstone. Perhaps you are going to see that she does not get into mischief.' Frank smiled, but did not answer her ; but sud denly turning to Helen, he said, in the bantering yet loving tone that was almost always adopted by all the family to her, ' Well, mousey, and how are you getting on ?

Have you been a naughty girl this morning ? Has Mrs. Layton given you too long a spelling-lesson to learn ? You look so serious and sober. I'll beg you off,' he added, in a pretended whisper, ' if you'll promise to be a crood little g-irl to-morrow.' His playful manner was irresistible, and soon Helen's sober thoughts were banished, at any rate for the time, and she was as gay and merry as Lucy herself. ' I wish you could always come home to luncheon, Frank,' said Mrs. Layton. ' You do that child,' pointing to Helen, ' good. I have not seen her laugh so much for days.' 'Ah, Mrs. Layton,' was Frank's answer; 'do you not know I am always irresistible among young ladies ?' ' Prove that,' said Lucy, ' by persuading Helen to go with us this afternoon, and send her up directly to dress, or we shall not be ready when Mary comes.

I must go at once;' and so saying, she left the room. ' Come now, Nellie, how much persuasion do you want ; because I must go and make myself captivating in a few minutes.' ' Spare yourself all the trouble, because I can not go,' replied Helen, in the firm tone she had before used. ' Is Mrs. Layton so very hard-hearted?' he asked, turning to that lady. ' Can you not let my little sister say her spelling-lesson after she returns ?' Mrs. Layton smiled. ' Indeed I wish she would go. I have been trying to get her to do so ; but her German master is coming this afternoon, and she cannot be induced to give up her lesson.' ' s Question. 9 ' Do you really like it better than dressing your self up, and going and seeing and being seen ?' Helen's answer was a firm and decided ' Much better.' ' Well, then, I give you up.

It's a pity you were not a man, Nellie. You are as bad as my father. I left him walking up and down West minster Hall with his wig on, and his heavy gown, talking the driest law-talk to another big wig; and I know he prefers it to going with us, as I wanted to persuade him to do. I don't understand you blue people, after all. I only grind as much as is necessary, and I don't enjoy it at all. My opinion exactly coincides with that of the wise man, " Much study is a weariness of the flesh." That is my experience completely.' So saying, he too left the room. Mrs. Layton rang the bell for the servant, and then taking up her novel, in which she had been engaged for some days past, she went up-stairs to read it quietly on one of the sofas in the drawing-room. Helen sat down on a large easy chair by the fire-place, with a discontented feeling which she in vain tried to analyse.

She was not sorry that she had adhered to her determination not to go with her sister, and yet she did not feel happy. Her brother's last words rung in her ears, ' Much study is a weariness of the flesh.' She knew the text was somewhere in the Bible ; she knew Solomon had said those words ; and feeling sure that she should find no Bible in the dining room, she went up-stairs to her little study, for there was one there on the shelves, and she hoped to have time to read the context, and per haps to find the remedy for her own dissatisfied spirit. The Bible she soon found, but the text fairly puzzled her. She looked almost through the Proverbs for it, of course unsuccessfully, and was just making up her mind to go into the library and get a Concordance, when Lucy entered the room. She looked very pretty and graceful in her light spring attire, and Helen could not help ex pressing her admiration. ' I only wish you were coming too,' was Lucy's answer. ' I am sure you'll make yourself ill staying in-doors so much.' ' But I shall not stay in all the afternoon.

I shall go out for a constitutional after Herr Mein hardt is gone. I promised Mrs. Layton to go with her into the park for an hour before dinner, so do not make yourself uncomfortable about me, but go and enjoy yourself ' And leave you working away here !' replied Lucy regretfully, as she came round the table to kiss her sister before she left. As she did so, her glance fell on the book Helen had been reading, and then her exclamation was one of unfeigned as tonishment: ' A Bible, dear Nellie ! how very odd!' Helen blushed as if she were quite ashamed of her occupation, as she answered hastily, ' I was not reading it, Lucy, only looking for a text Frank quoted just now.' ' Frank quote a text ! — what next ?' and then in a different tone she added, ' Now do be persuaded by me, and do not allow yourself to get low spirited.

I shall really think you are going to be ill if you take to reading the Bible.' ' I only want to find a text, Lucy. I am not going to mope over it, I can assure you, or to read it. I can hardly find time for what I do want to read. The days are not long enough for me. But I wish, as you go down, you would go into the library and send me up the Concordance. It is on the bottom shelf with all those volumes of the Bible, — Matthew Henry's. You will easily find it ; and send one of the servants up to me with it ; and good-bye, darling, and don't fancy me unwell. I shall be thoroughly happy presently, when I get immersed in those lovely poems of Schiller's, — I daresay happier than you.' The pretty bright elder sister looked incredu lously down at the earnest eyes and face lifted up to hers, but kissing her affectionately, she did not answer her, but left the room.

In a minute she returned, bringing with her the book her sister wanted. She put it on the table, only saying, ' Here is the Concordance, dearest. I cannot stay, for Mary is come, and is waiting for me;' and hardly remaining to hear Helen's warmly-ex pressed thanks, was gone, leaving her again alone. The text, with the help of the Concordance, was soon found. The verses before it seemed to her to throw no light on the passage, but the one that succeeded it gave her a new impulse. ' Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter,' made her determine to find out what was the beginning of the matter, and so she turned to the first chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes, and began to read it through : ' The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king of Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity.' Here her attention was arrested. 'What!' she thought, 'did Solomon feel exactly what I so constantly experience ?

Did he say everything was vanity ? I thought, too, that he was such a good man ;' and with still greater interest she read on and on. Some of it she could not understand ; much of it seemed strangely contradictory ; yet her heart sank lower and lower as she finished the book. ' If Solomon, who was a man, and so clever and so great, felt how vain and unsatisfactory everything is, what can I expect ? Where is the use of my studying, and trying to improve my mind, if my cry is always to be, as it is now, " Vanity of vanities ; all is vanity ?" The Bible certainly does not seem to throw much light on the subject, or to help one at all ; for as to the conclusion of the whole matter, I do not see much in it. " Fear God and keep his commandments;" that is said to be our whole duty. I believe I do that; I certainly fear God ; and I do not break any of the commandments;' and in her own mind she ran over the precepts of the Decalogue, and in spite of a little feeling that she did not keep them perfectly, she could not exactly accuse herself of breaking any of them. ' If there were only some special com mand — if one's duty was at all specified — it would be easier.

I wonder whether very religious people are really happy ; it seems to me that they are all very gloomy. I don't think being religious would make me any happier; besides, it would vex every one if I were to turn pious ;' and, with a sigh, she shut up the Concordance, and put the Bible back into its place ; and though she took down her Schiller, she could not keep her mind to it, for the great question of questions was making itself audible in her heart : ' What is to be the end and aim of my existence ?' One inquiry after another rose up to trouble her, and there seemed not a single response. ' What am I PUT HERE FOR ? Why did God make me ? Of what use am I ? What ought I to live for?' And when her Ger man master was announced, it required quite an effort to put aside these feelings, and enter into the business that lay immediately before her.

Herr Meinhardt was an elderly man, most tho roughly German in his thoughts and pursuits, profoundly speculative, earnest, and intellectual. He had become much interested in his young pupil. At first he had endeavoured to lead her into conversation, that she might acquire the art of speaking German with ease and fluency ; but he soon discovered that Helen's was a mind of no common order, and it became almost as much pleasure to him to suggest new ideas to his pupil, as it was to her to receive them from him. But she was to-day in an unusually silent and thoughtful mood, and the translation was pro ceeded with in a quiet methodical way. At length, when she had read all she had prepared, he took out of his pocket the copy of Faust, which he had promised to bring, saying — ' There is the Faust, Miss Helen.

If it gives you as much plea sure to read as I imagine it will, you will be more than repaid for the trouble you may have in translating it.' At the sight of this book, for which she had so often longed, her abstractedness of manner was gone at once, and eagerly taking it up, she began looking over it, and reading passages here and there. Then Herr Meinhardt, becoming enthusi astic in Goethe's praise, took it from her hands, and read aloud several stanzas, and at last quoted as a climax his well-known aphorism that ' Piety itself is not an end, but a means whereby, through purest inward peace, we may attain to highest culture.' 'Ah!' he exclaimed with enthusiasm, 'none but Goethe could have written that ; none knew so well as he the infinite pleasure of cultivating the mind to the highest.' Helen's attention was now fully aroused. ' And was he a happy man ?' she asked. ' Did his con tinual self-culture make him happy ?' Herr Meinhardt paused, and looked searchingly at his young pupil. ' It made him great,' he said, after an instant's pause. 'Great!' she repeated. 'Yes it did; but does greatness constitute happiness ?' 'Happiness!' in his turn repeated the German. 'Ah!

Miss Helen, many a one has searched and toiled for happiness, and never found it. I hardly think it lives on earth. One fancies one has it ; but, alas ! as we turn to look on its sweet aspect, it has fled, and left nothing but a memory — fair, indeed; but, ah! so sad!' Helen was touched by his manner. She knew something of the trials through which he had passed. Compelled, soon after his marriage, to leave his native country for political reasons, he had sought refuge in England with his wife and child, to whom he was fondly attached. The health of the former sank rapidly under the priva tions to which she was exposed, and her afflicted husband could do nothing for her, though he made every possible exertion ; for, in a foreign country, and without friends or introductions, he could eke out but a very scanty living.

She only survived her expatriation a little more than a twelvemonth, leaving nothing to console him in his accumulated sorrows but her delicate child. To this daughter he had since been entirely devoted ; but her health had been always, and still continued, so very in different, as to be perpetually a subject of anxiety to him. Both Helen and her teacher were silent for a few moments, as he absently turned over the leaves of his book. At last he said ; ' After all, happiness is not our end and aim. One of your poets — Long fellow, I think — says something to that effect.' As he seemed to hesitate for the exact words, Helen repeated them — ' Not enjoyment and not sorrow Is our destined end and way ; But to live that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day.' ' Yes,' he said ; ' those are the words, and most true they are — as true,' he added, with a smile, 'as if a German had written them.

A man should strive for that — should live for that — to be every day farther than he was the day before. You are doubtful of it, Miss Helen?' he asked, for he saw a questioning look on her face. ' No,' she replied ; ' not for a man — a genius like Goethe ; but for a woman — a girl ; ' and she hesitated, longing, and yet unwilling, to let him know somewhat of her heart's questionings. But he understood her perhaps better than she understood herself. He had often noticed, especially lately, her dissatisfaction with herself and her life. He knew that it was partly his own doing ; that his words, sinking into her heart, had sounded to her like a trumpet-call, telling her of something greater, nobler, grander than her pre sent existence, or than that one of fashionable frivolity on which she was soon to enter ; and his reply was rather to what he knew were her inmost feelings, than to the question she had put. ' Yes,' he said ; ' for a woman — a girl — for you, Miss Helen.

You must not seek happiness ; ani mals seek that : they look only for pleasure. You want something higher, greater, truer. You must seek greatness — intellectual greatness ; it is the only prize worth an immortal being's ambition.' The words, the manner, seemed strangely to stir her soul. ' Greatness ! it sounds grand ; but can I ever attain it?' and the large thoughtful eyes were raised to her master's face, as if to read the answer even before it could be framed into words. 'How do you define greatness?' was his answer. B The earnest look grew troubled, but more earnest than before, and she did not reply. He waited for an instant, and then said : ' Is not this true greatness, to improve to the utmost every talent, every faculty God has given ? The philosopher is the only truly great man ; and he alone is in deed a philosopher, who, abstracting himself from all pettinesses — rising above them into pure intel lectuality — studies how to feed and nourish his soul and his mind.

And this all can do. You, Miss Helen, can do it; nay, more, you must do it. The Deity has given you such a mind that, unlike others of your sex, you cannot be contented with the trivialities and pleasures that satisfy them. You want something higher, nobler, purer; intellectual progress is the only means by which you can obtain true happiness. Ah!' he continued, with an enthusiasm which was partly caught from, and partly reflected in the eyes that seemed to dilate as he proceeded ; ' it is a noble, a great object to live for : to be the greatest, the noblest we ean be ; not to leave a faculty uncultivated, not a power unemployed, but to keep the great end of our existence so before us, that at last we may be able to return to the bosom of the Deity, whence we came, with the proud conscious ness that every one of His gifts has been used and improved.

Is not this to be great, Miss Helen ? Is not this a worthy object in life ?' ' It is indeed. Thank you for telling me of it so plainly ; but, ah ! I am only a girl !' ' Only a girl, Miss Helen ! — only a woman. Ah ! you speak as one who does not know her power and her privileges. Never say, only a woman, as if the Deity had shut out half of his creation from being great and true and noble. You have intel lect, and God has given you opportunities as well as power to cultivate that intellect. Can you then doubt what is your duty ? Believe it, Miss Helen, it is so to live that each day shall " find you farther" as your poet says.' ' But must that " farther" relate only to what is intellectual ?' ' How ?' he asked, puzzled. ' May it not refer to our moral powers,' said Helen timidly ; ' to our becoming every day better in ourselves?' she added, remembering sud denly the conclusion of the wise man, which cer tainly appeared to her rather to refer to the moral than the intellectual faculties. ' Better!' repeated her master, now thoroughly in earnest on his subject. ' And are we not better ?

Is not our moral being raised with our intellectual ? Does not the philosopher, the genius, rise above all littlenesses and wickednesses ? Does he not transcend all the foibles of his humanity ? And you, Miss Helen, must never despair because you are only a woman, as you say. I am not so great a genius as Goethe : am I therefore unhappy ? No ! I cultivate myself to the utmost. I can do no more ; and you too may, or, as I said before, must do the same, before you can lift up a fearless forehead in the presence of the Infinite^; for even, as I just now quoted from Goethe, " Piety itself is but a means to an end ; a means by which, through inward peace, we attain to the highest degree of mental culture." Therefore cultivate piety ; but remember that the Creator requires of us more than mere goodness.' At this moment, and before Helen could reply, a servant came in with a message from Mrs. Layton, to ask her if she intended to walk with her.

Mr. Meinhardt looked at his watch with aston ishment, and found that more than the hour appointed for the lesson had passed. ' It is not with many pupils,' he said, ' that the time goes so rapidly ;' and, bowing, he was about to leave, when Helen held out her hand to him, saying warmly, ' Thank you most sincerely for what you have said to me. You do not know what good your words have done me. I will not forget them.' A look of gratified feeling passed over his face, and in an instant he was gone ; and Helen, with a bright and happy heart, went up into her room to prepare for her walk. ' Great and noble and true, he said I might be. Oh! it is something worth living for. I have found my object. I will henceforth devote myself to self-culture, that I may be able at last to feel I have done my duty, and that my life has not been mis-spent.