Papers for thoughtful girls, with illustrative sketches of some girl's lives

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I. YOUTH i

Our Sister Grizel 6

I. Youth

HERE is no greater mistake than to suppose that youth is necessarily the choice period, the green spot of life. To some it has not even the buoyancy and light-heartedness which is its ordinary portion. To not a few, cares and trials come while the frame is yet in its fresh vigor, and the eyes are sparkling with their first bold, blithe look-out on the world. To almost all, youth is a power which hurries them to its goal ; the young heart is " hot and restless " ; it will not take time to appreciate its treasures ; it will not be satisfied with its goodly possession; it is full of uncertain desires, and wayward inclinations, and passionate impulses ; it is grasping and straining and striving after a vague, uncomprehended good, an airy or ornate, ill-proportioned ideal ; it is troubled with its ignorance of its own destiny, its unresolved will, its undeveloped circumstances. Youth is not often the cycle of peace. Do not fear, then, young girls, to leave behind you the gayly-jested-over or mincinglymentioned epoch of your teens. Do not dread growing graver or even stouter. With ripe womanhood, and the still, mellow decline of life, are won, and often and often only then won, rest, power, wisdom, content. There may be a great garner in store for your future, there will be an abundant harvest if you will but sow in grace. It is a half pagan, and wholly untrue notion, to associate all blessedness of existence with rash, heady, crude youth. Fight the fight and run the race, and the older you grow the more royally you will prove the conqueror, and the grander will prove your prize.

But the important question now is, how to employ this youth so as to make of its notes some of the sweetest and gladdest of the melody which began softly in the cradle, and which, if not drowned in the clang and discord of idol music, and devil worship, should swell until it joins the chorus of the skies. The writer supposes herself speaking to those who are very weak, very unstable, very erring, very imperfect, as she is ; but who are in earnest, as even girls can be in earnest, about Christianity and their duty ; who would con their lesson, and practise their calling humbly, modestly, perseveringly to the end. She is aware from experience that not a tithe of girls of a contrary spirit would listen to her, even from curiosity; and they do not consequently come within the scope of her argument. Only to them she would say, once and for all, solemnly, wistfully, and affectionately, it is a piteous sentence which they are preparing to pass on themselves, — to refuse to come to the Father for life, the Elder Brother for love, the Holy Spirit for light. Idleness, disobedience, and rebellion, unless great mercy interpose, must sow the wind to reap the whirlwind.

" I do not know what I shall do with myself after I leave school," says many a good girl, doubtfully and regretfully. She need not be ashamed of the difficulty ; her position is a problem of the present day. How to train the faculties of women, to gather up and employ their energies ; how to provide for them a quiet and noble sphere, at once consistent with their dependence and their dignity ; how to furnish with suitable objects the disengaged capacities and activities of mature single women, are considerations engaging a host of the great and good, — enough with a blessing to bring women's affairs to a happy issue. The solution is not found, but it may not be distant. The difficulties run in this direction : — Shall the girl return to the pickling and preserving, the herb -gathering and doctoring, the primitive housewifery and seamstresship of her great-grandmother 1 Shall the Protestant girl borrow a lesson from Catholic humanity, and, while she abjures asceticism, enthusiasm, and unnatural vows, become a deaconess instead of a sister of charity, have her' role regularly laid, down, of teaching the ignorant, nursing the sick, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked % Or, shall she discover her bent like a boy, pursue her profession fearlessly and innocently, achieve independence, and from her own lawful earnings endow and cheer her own dear home, and let the rays from that centre of love and charity stream forth on every poor, stinted, burdened, desolate home on earth % Probably the solution lies in a union of the whole three : in domesticity, alms-deeds, and independence, woven into a Christian

crown.

But while thoughtful men are pondering women's questions, let girls remember that women themselves have labored to impress upon them that the "woman's head is the man." Let them not forget that the great Apostle would not suffer women to usurp authority ; that at fathers' and brothers' and husbands' feet they should sit so loyally and willingly, resting their heads on their knees, taking them as their masters, — the representatives of the Great Master, — and learning of them the truth in submission.

Let girls especially, while conflicting opinions are at work, think more of their duties than their rights. Woman's rights ! Foolish women have made the words a scandal in the ears of the community. True and tender women in their integrity and delicacy have revolted at the term, and avowed they had enough, they had what they would, they were satisfied, they felt their lots were in their own keeping ; they would have none of such bold, boisterous, bragging advocacy. They sympathized with good old Mrs. Grant of Laggan, when she wrote, "I have no ambition to hear the modern belles declare their ' dark sayings on the harp,' till such time as I am convinced that they stay more at home, have less vanity, and make better wives and daughters than formerly."

It is a great fact, that under Providence a girl's lot is comparatively in her own hands. She may not have the clearness, the conviction, or the satisfaction which she might enjoy from a direct road in life plainly set before her, and a busy heart, head, and hand improving its rough places and its smooth ; she may sigh, long, pray, after what would be at once greater guidance and greater freedom ; but all things that are essential to her safety and happiness are hers. When her poor little head is puzzled with doubts and distractions, when her brothers and cousins laugh at her wants and distresses, and tell her that a woman should only be ornamental, that the more useless she is the more she is answering their sense of fitness, that a strong-minded woman is an anomaly, and therefore the weaker-minded she proves the better for her and every one connected with her ; when one friend is all for meditation and endurance, and another for reform and activity ; when one speaks out her experience, and another veils it to her last breath, — let the little one escape from the labyrinth by thinking not of herself, by doing what is nearest and simplest to her hand, by living as much as possible in the well-being of others. The intricacies of artificial life will never entangle and confound her more than she is able to bear. The ram has been caught in the thicket that will atone for her errors, as well as for her sins. If it be the Divine will that compulsory waiting and irregular working, which men so largely ordain for women, should last as long as the universe, if actually the rule is irreversible and unavoidable, and men are as innocent of it as women themselves, nevertheless let her lift up her head, for her redemption draweth nigh.

The secret of happiness here and hereafter, the gold thread of youth, lies in loving God and loving our neighbor, loving them early if it be yet possible, loving them well ; losing one's own life in theirs, becoming guileless and docile, meek and reverent in our intercourse with them, loving them long, yea, forever. These Papers are written with a diffident but yearning wish to aid young girls in their aim at so lofty and beautiful a purpose. They are intended to steady their views, to comfort and confirm them, to help them in trying to contemplate by the broad light of God and the Gospel, some of the things which are before them. These things consist of those gifts and faculties (in which youth is included) which necessarily and inevitably occupy much of their notice ; those pursuits which form part of the nurture and growth of the soul ; those stumbling-blocks which beset their road ; those encouragements which will enable them to lift holy hands, without wrath or doubting, which will preserve them our own bright, trusting, eager, joyous young people, till God shall please to lay upon them the responsibilities and the labors of more advanced years.

OUR SISTER GRIZEL.

TWO hundred years ago, down in the south of Scotland, stood an old turreted house, the home of a county family of rank and consequence. It was a grim enough dwelling, nevertheless, with slits of windows, high, steep roof, and low, battered door. The pleasureground was limited to a neglected herb-garden, which closely adjoined the churchyard of a homely little parish church, so that the farm-yard and poultry-yard presented the liveliest attractions of the policies. The whole aspect of the house was bleak ; and within its damp-stained lichened walls reigned strict discipline, heavily overclouded by family reverses, troubles, and dangers. It was a hard home for a fanciful young girl, yet here was born, grew, and flourished our sister Grizel. The chill east wind swept blightingly around her, and pinched the very elder-bush by the kirkyard wall, but she and the blue-bells flourished notwithstanding. Her diet of catechism and unquestioning obedience was as ample as her diet of cake and pudding was scant, but she throve upon them both, grew up straight-backed and open-faced, and sang as she span at her wheel. Fortunately for her, she was not the only child of engrossed parents, nor the only charge of those stern, rough, but, upon the whole, not unkind servants. She had many brothers and sisters, and probably they were her benign safeguards against austerity and fanaticism ; yet it is wellnigh impossible to imagine Grizel growing up morbid and harsh under any circumstances. If all our girls were but as hardy and affectionate as her ! In these two qualities, quite as much as in her tender imagination, lay her double success. Which of our girls has a home so barren of comfort, indulgence, and sprightliness, so burdened with sorrow as hers] And yet her youth, like her age, was bountiful in benevolence and joy.

We warrant Grizel rose with the lark, and like the lark was made glad by the mere stinging freshness of the early morning. She did not grudge her morning prayers, she only grieved that she was not always so hearty in her petitions as she should have been. In order to relieve her weary, downcast mother, she presided over the thin porridge and blue milk, for even in the country mansion the distress was so great that the daily provisions were scarce. She dispensed the doles with the most upright exactness, soundly cuffed the little brother who helped himself to an additional spoonful without her permission, but took the infant sister in her lap and fed her out of her own dish. How pretty it was to see Grizel, in the flaxen-haired, bright-cheeked fairness and bloom of her twelve or thirteen summers, holding the year-old child, coaxing it to open its cherry of a mouth, slowly and carefully shovelling in the portion of well-mixed porridge and milk, and drumming the baby triumphantly on the back with the handle of the spoon when the spoonful was over, in all the skilled ease and pleasure of a motherly nurse of fifty. But do you think that breakfast was Grizel's most important duty, or that her lessons, and her spinning, and her attempts at household economy, and exercises at cantering her pony under some laird's Jock, were the limits of her obligations? A world wide of it. Never young girl had a more difficult part to play. In addition to sums in arithmetic, no longer theory but practice, and secrets which might have caused middle-aged heads to grow gray, little, sensible, spirited Grizel was trusted with feats of diplomacy which would have baffled wary, crafty statesmen.

The political and religious disorder and misery of the time were very great. Grizel' s parents were of the protesting, Covenanting party. Her father had been rash, and had anticipated the national constitutional rising which called in the Prince of Orange ; he had aided and abetted, and shown his person in an ineffectual northern landing. He was pursued as a rebel, while he lay in hiding, cooped up in cramps and cold behind the false boarding of a room in his own house ; and at one time he was driven to the dreadful chill and gloom of the family burial-vault in the neighboring kirkyard. All this while the soldiers — the dreadful "red-coats" of the enemy — were perforce quartered on the family, and shared their stinted meals. Grizel was not only cognizant of these facts, but she was employed as the chief agent in managing their complicated machinery. It is passing strange to us how the girl managed ; how she contrived to carry food and comfort to her father, who depended upon her principally both for meat and cheer ; how she eluded the vigilance, and diverted the attention of the soldiers. It is said she propitiated them, and what this amounted to you will know when you reflect that your bailiff of modern days, with his bad name for harshness and coarseness, is a mild, fine gentleman contrasted with the drinking, dicing cursing soldier of Charles the Second's era. It is impossible to suppose that these bearded, gross, violent men could have been other than good-humored and obliging to the child, or else she would never have effected her purpose. The truth was, Grizel had a dash of Jenny Denison in her character ; the bright, io Papers for Thoughtful Girls.

bold, fearless little girl was an innocent coquette. She had ample sympathies and fine discrimination. She could understand something of the original constitution of these bluff soldiers ; she had a lurking admiration for their manliness, befouled as it was with sin. She instinctively seized on what was left of truth and kindness in those case-hardened, corrupted hearts. And the rude, depraved men were won by the little mistress who was not frightened at them, who burst out laughing in their faces at any incongruity in the quantity of meat she first heaped upon her plate and then slipped into her apron. They knew her and spoke of her among themselves as the little greedy wench, who drank their healths (young sprig of Presbyterianism as she was) over the hall-table ; who stopped and asked them of their campaigns as they cleaned their belts and burnished their buckles, whistling round the frontdoor; and who even sat on the kirkyard wall, and sang to them her country songs. Grizel was always famous for her songs. If our girls could sing like her, they would wile the bird from the tree.

There are very contradictory opinions rife of Grizel's father. Probably he was a passionate man hard pressed ; he certainly was one of the plotters of his generation. He had small scruple in making use of his little Grizel. He not only availed himself of her wit and energy in procuring the supply of his daily wants, but he despatched her on his difficult and dangerous errands. One can fancy that Grizel might have had little enough intercourse with her turbulent, stout Presbyterian father before his adversity. But when he lurked a sorry prisoner where he had ruled with a high hand ; when there were no more stir and strong excitement for him, but he had to endure the dismal blank of a helpless and wellnigh hopeless captivity, then he must have turned to bright Grizel, watched for her light step, listened to her prattle of her strategies, laughed his low, short laugh at her pranks, gradually talked with her of his straits as to an older person, trusted her with his desperate projects, and thought when she left him again in silence and shade, what a clever lass she was, how dutiful and devoted, not falling behind her poor, brokenspirited mother one straw's-breadth. He must have wondered, with long sighs, if he would ever reach those low countries of which he talked, and sail with Grizel in those queer, flat-bottomed boats with the gay houses on their decks, or sit smoking at the windows where the fresh waving trees shaded the dusty streets, with her to fill his pipe, and amuse him with her quick, shrewd observations on the passers-by.

I cannot think that Grizel passed through the kirkyard in the mirk without sore struggles. Her very liveliness was an earnest of her imagination, and she was not a girl of the nineteenth century. The Will-o'-the- Wisp spunkie had grotesque goblin terrors for her ; corpse-candles like death-speals turned her blue, — not fire, nor robbers, nor mad dogs could be more appalling. She was a religiously nurtured child, but her belief was, that in God's great universe more was permitted than philosophers dreamt of.

Winking and stumbling over the gravestones, Grizel's quaking heart was so awed and oppressed with dim supernatural fear, that the very barking of the housedogs was a relief to her. But the barking of the collies was likely to arouse the hardened, profane soldiers, so she had to send a special prayer to the minister to keep his dogs quiet. It was well they were quieted too, for they disturbed her mother's rest, as she lay sick and faint on her ancient silk-hung bed beneath her lozenged quilt \ and they also disturbed other rest than her mother's, even her father's, Sir Patrick, lying wrapped in his horse-cloak and blankets, ill protected from the dank vapors of the family vault, where he was trying his hand at Latin psalms, to while away the time, as well as to lay the spirits of his ancestors.

With her open brow bathed in sweat, and her sensitive flesh creeping, creeping, Grizel went on her loyal errand to her father's hiding-place. Assuredly good angels watched over her, and neither gliding ghost nor mocking imp harmed her. I can compare her to none save the truest of ballad heroines, young Janet, who won her lover, Tarn Lane, from the false kingdom of the fairies.

Sir Patrick did not hesitate on a point or two. Once, on a push, he made Grizel be forwarded as the bearer of a letter to his fellow-rebel and fellow-sufferer, Baillie of Jerviswoode, lying in Edinburgh Tolbooth. No doubt the occasion was an urgent one ; but think of Grizel entering the low-browed, iron-studded doors of the old Heart of Mid-Lothian, with the knowledge of high treason perilling her father's head, and weighing like lead on her heart ; think of her stumbling in her old-fashioned sacque and screen, with her crop of flaxen hair standing on end with sheer terror, — stumbling along those dismal passages and by the barred windows after the gruff, impatient turnkey, who rattled his huge keys, quite dead to the playful wiles which mellowed the lazy roystering soldiers ! Think of Grizel in the cell where Baillie sat in his soiled coat and crushed cravat, spelling out his Bible in the dim light, and mentally calculating what was like to be his short progress between the jail and the Grassmarket ! A marvel that the carrier-pigeon did not drop at his feet.

Jerviswoode must have reckoned his friend at a loss for a servant, but, with many a deep groan and angry ejaculation, he read the letter, in its barbarous cipher, " sent with speed and care by a trusty hand," and requiring an answer to be lodged in the same innocent keeping.

Another than old Jerviswoode, despondent and displeased, stared at Grizel as at a world's wonder. His son George, a lad of twenty and odds, looked so steadfastly at the brave, intelligent face, cowed as it then presented itself, that he remembered years after, across the seas, with what reluctant, pitiful eyes the child looked on his father's disgrace ; with what implicit confidence she placed her hand in his, the hand still rough, red, and chubby in its child's roughness, the hand that still swung bags and baskets and watering-pans, and flung stones and flourished sticks in games with little brothers, at putting the stone and shinty, — still a boyish hand even in its feminine roundness. He remembered how she grasped his long fingers with a boy's frankness all the way back through the prison courts and passages, and how she told him, as he lifted her on to the big-boned horse at the gate, " the bear was in braird down at Redbraes." The sentence sounded as if she were eager to shut her eyes on this black, beetling, noisy, inhospitable town, and shut out with it all thoughts of men's scrapes and men's rage and anguish, and open them on the green fields of her years and sex.

I would divide Grizel's life into separate panels, and paint them in outline copies of the full and beautiful original. It seems she was the chief stay of the poor exiled family, when they escaped to a ship, stole abroad in disguise, and found refuge in a foreign country \ and when the old household were living in comparative security and peace, but in dulness, economy, and toil, among the storks and frogs, fat burghers and fair Vrows of Holland. The dame her mother comes out confessedly a woman, pure and tender in her weakness, but essentially weak and dependent on the activity and endurance of others. So does the fair, gifted sister Christina, whom Grizel loved well, but with regard to whom she lets it be seen that she was sometimes vexed, because Christina would sit up with her books and musical instrument, dreaming in her genius, doated on by her parents, while she was left to labor alone for the common benefit, unnoticed and disregarded. Girls must be prepared for these silent contrasts, harder and more trying than many a spoken grievance. But while stern justice would summarily put an end to them, declaring that Christina ought to have descended from her heights and trod with her shrinking feet among the thorns and mire, Grizel herself saves us from this harshness. With large-hearted candor and many-sided charity, she shames us by slaying for this sister as well as for the rest.

When God, merciful in the day of his visitation, took Christina the darling, and left Grizel the drudge, the blow struck not the parents so much as poor Grizel to the earth. It caused the dauntless, indefatigable child, the good fairy, the sweet singer of her own songs, to crouch, sobbing, on her knees. " But the death of her friends was always a load too heavy for her," said Grizel' s daughter, speaking long afterwards of her mother's usually buoyant spirit and energetic will. No wonder, Grizel ! What could faithful affection, acute wit, unflinching fortitude, work against the last enemy % All baffled, all lost there. When the yellow fogs travelled on sluggish wings across the damp flats of Holland, and suddenly seized with a chill, tight hand the " little neck " of your dear sister, — that sister who clasped hands with you, gazing with thoughtful eyes on the strange flax-fields, orchards, tileries, and tulip-beds, and comparing them of nights with the broomy braes and hazel dens of the Scotland she would never see again, — when the cold, relentless grasp wrung out the young, swelling, budding life in a few gasps and spasms of mortal agony, then you sank powerless as the dead before you. You did not wail nor cry; you had even feeble flitting visions of submission and resignation piercing the thick pall; for you were a godly child, who had striven to order your conversation aright, and had offered God thanks and praise in many a joyous time that was gone by. But tenacious natures like yours, though sanctified by grace, will weep tears of blood ere they can relinquish their treasures. You passed through the fiery trial, and your life blossomed anew ; but one fibre of your warm heart stretched away from that time to the glorious holy heavens ; one pulse throbbed with patient but wistful throbs for entrance into the pure ranks above ; for renewed communion with one who had grown wise with a guileless but ineffable wisdom, and tender with an inexhaustible tenderness.

Grizel was a poet, too, and I suspect a stronger, sweeter poet than Christina, who has melted away without other record than the unequal balance of contemporary admiration. Hers must have been simple, spontaneous authorship, from fulness of the heart and love of the work, — composing her songs and singing them to lighten the load of her incessant avocations. To give you an idea of what these included, I quote a competent authority : " She went to the market, went to the mill to have their own corn ground (which it seems is the way with good managers), dressed the linen, cleaned the house, made ready the dinner, mended the children's stockings and other clothes, and made what she could for them ; and, in short, did everything." On another occasion the same writer mentions that Grizel would sit up for whole nights to work lace ruffles, in which her brother Patrick might show himself among his fellows. To suppose this wonderful catalogue was accomplished without great bodily exertion, considerable worry of mind, and occasional crossness of temper, even in a notable woman, is impossible. Indeed, I am bound to state it is my private opinion that Grizel rather overdid the thing, and insisted on being always the working horse in the family cart; an injudicious arrangement, which not only offered temptations to others, but must now and then have impaired the peace and prosperity of the household vehicle. But it was a noble fault in a noble character, and so she was often in tune to sing heartily as she worked, to carol like a morning lark while she sat up into the small hours. She was fired by the womanly affectionate ambition, dear heart, to work the lace in which her brother might ruffle with the best of the Scotch gentlemen, and not disgrace the name he bore, or smother his own comeliness. It is my impression the young laird took her offerings to his manhood very sensibly, and wondered the lace was not finer and stiffer, and that sister Grizel' s devotion, which' was so much a matter of course, did not perform still more shining miracles. But I can fancy the same laird, when he was no longer young but old, looking back wistfully on these very ruffles and their worker, calling himself an ungrateful lover, and reflecting somewhat ruefully on the value of the treasure which passed away from their house when they wedded Grizzie to long Geordie Baillie. In truth, what a maiden aunt Grizel would have been, what a grand-aunt, what a single lady with a lass and a lantern for her bodyguard by day and by night. In one or two senses, Grizel was lost to the Humes and to posterity by becoming a wife and mother.

There was a great gathering of douce Scotch folk in that Dutch town-hall where Sir George Baillie was troth-plighted to Grizel Hume. They were exiles ; but the dry Scotch humor, the broad flashes of a strong race's hilarity, rose refreshed and shone forth in compliment to the occasion. If the troubles continued, the plenishing would have been but poor, the housekeeping arranged on the most rigid principles of Scotch thrift ; but do you think for a moment such trifles could dismay Grizel ? She has left to us the song which, in the character of a shepherdess, she sang to the accompaniment of a cracked harpsichord, while enamored Sir George stood by her side, leaning against the great Dutch clock, — its moon of a face encircled with a full-blown wreath of convolvulus and roses.

' ' Though our toom purse had barely twa bodies to clink, And a barley-meal scone were the best in our bink ; Yet he wi' his hirsel, and I \vi' my wheel, Through the howe o' the year we would fend unco weel."

With Grizei's betrothal ends her life in the Lowlands of Holland, and among the plodding Dutch. William of Orange landed in England, and Sir Patrick Hume, and young George Baillie, and many another banished man, returned to the hillsides and holms of Scotland, and their own special haughs and knowes, and gray houses, and old folk, bonniest of all.

In London, or else down at Portsmouth, Grizel was wedded to George Baillie, whom she first met in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. She rode off with him to keep his house of Jerviswoode, and keep him closest company in state or bounty. There are traces of her reign at Jerviswoode ; one piquant glimpse of her as a very old lady smiling and watching over the sports of her grandchildren ; but among these relics I cannot find that she degenerated into the wilfulness and imperiousness, the prejudice and arrogance in which high-spirited chatelaines are believed to end their careers. That she grazed these evils I no more doubt than that peculiar temptations assail peculiar casts of character, but I honestly declare that I do not discover these qualities prominent in Grizel Baillie the dame, any more than in Grizel Hume the maiden. True, George Baillie lived long with her, and he is said to have been a capable lord and master, but he was taken from her, and she was left a widow. Both during George Baillie's life and after his death, I maintain Grizel is the same Grizel she always was, not overmuch an autocrat and termagant. While she was still a rejoicing wife and mother, she bore her husband's burden with him cheerily, helped him ably to order his household and dispense his hospitality, and tried to tolerate his departures to London, to which he was called by the affairs of the Kirk and the State. However, with regard to this last cross, I noticed that she fretted under it, a rare impulse with her ; and so far from being altogether comforted by Sir George's delegated authority, she clung to his letters, and only forgot her troubles on his return.