First Love. Mrs. Loudon
in imparting knowledge. Let others prove the wonders, the properties, the virtues of all that the material world affords; and, admired be their curious, and respected their useful labours; but the natural philosophy in which he delighted, was the development of the young mind. In his mode, too, of communicating instruction, there was a peculiar felicity. He never required of a pupil an arbitrary act of mere memory: “indeed,” he would say, “there is no such a power as mere memory.” What is commonly called having a good memory, he considered as nothing more than the natural result of fixing the attention, awaking the feelings, and forming the associations. These last, he termed the roots, by which remembrances entwine themselves with our whole constitution, till the very heart vibrates to a sound, a colour, or but the scent of a flower, plucked in the day of joy, or of sorrow. He, therefore, always endeavoured to lead the understanding to facts, through their causes; and, again, to interest the feelings in the consequences of those facts: thus were the lessons he taught never to be effaced. Above all things, he hasted to supply the infant mind with salutary associations, on every subject tending to implant principles and form character; considering every avenue of the soul, not thus timely fortified, as laid open to the incursions of wrong, perhaps, fatal opinions. For instance, whilst others railed, with common-place argument, against bribing children, as they termed it, into goodness; he maintained that the lowest animal gratification of the infant, (that is, before it can understand any other,) may be so judiciously bestowed, as to become the first seed of that grand principle, a thorough conviction that the virtuous only can enjoy happiness. If the child’s daily and hourly experience prove to it, that when it is good it has all from which it knows how to derive pleasure; and that when it is not good, the reverse is the case; must it not soon learn to connect, so thoroughly, goodness with happiness, that, through after-life, the ideas can never present themselves apart. “As mind is developed,” he would say, “let the sources of the child’s happiness be ennobled: teach it to prize, as its best reward, the love and approval of its parent; to dread, as its greatest punishment, the withholding such. And, to acquire this power, let your tenderest indulgence, the perpetual sunshine of your countenance, be the very atmosphere in which your child is reared; and soon, the sight of features on which no smile appears, will be chastisement sufficient, and you be spared the brutalizing and alienating your offspring, by beating it into forced obedience, and spontaneous hatred.”
That such a man as we have described, was ever found, in the fulfilment of his active duties as a pastor, the conscientious and benevolent Christian, we need scarcely add.
The income arising from Mr. Jackson’s living was considerable; and, as he had also private property, he was quite independent; it was, therefore, entirely as a favour; that Mrs. Montgomery meditated requesting him to take charge of Edmund’s education. He, on his part, came into all her plans and wishes, with as much readiness and warmth, as his enthusiastic praises of our hero had led her to hope.
The parsonage, to which Mr. Jackson had built very elegant additions, stands within a short walk of Lodore House. Its own situation is beautiful. Indeed, it is scarcely possible to choose a spot in this immediate neighbourhood which is not so. Every distance is terminated by magnificent mountains. More or less ample views of the lake, are almost everywhere to be descried through trees that grow with luxuriance to the water’s-edge; the long vista of each opening, carpeted with a velvet sod of the tenderest green; while, where the wooding climbs the feet of the hills, bare rocks, like the sides and turrets of ruined castles, protrude in many parts, giving much beauty and variety to the scenery. One of the highest of these lifts itself conspicuously above the grove which embowers Mr. Jackson’s dwelling, and stands just in view of his study-windows. It is crowned by a rent and blasted oak, the outer branches of which still bud forth every spring, displaying a partial verdure, while the naked roots are bound around the rock’s hard brow, with a grasp which has maintained its hold from age to age, against the winds and rains of countless winters. Beyond the woods, stupendous Skiddaw rears its lofty head, enveloped in perpetual clouds, in much the same manner, that it backs the view of Lodore House; for in this wild region, that mountain holds so conspicuous a place in every scene, that it may almost be said to be omnipresent.
A window to the south presents some slight traces of human existence, not discernible from any of the others: a curious bridge, roughly constructed, its date unknown, and crossing a spot where there is now no water; and a single chimney, with its blue smoke, peeping from the cleft of a rock, within which is concealed the little habitation to which it belongs. The study itself, from which these prospects are enjoyed, contains an excellent library: it opens with French windows on the lawn, and communicates with the drawing-room by means of a green-house in the corridor form, in imitation of that at Lodore, from which it had been stored with choice plants. Beyond the drawing-room, in the old part of the building, is situated a comfortable dining-room. To this literary Eden, our hero each day repaired, reaping from his visits all the advantages which might be expected. Thus did matters proceed for about four years, except that we omitted to mention that he spent all periods of Mrs. Montgomery’s absence from Lodore House entirely at Mr. Jackson’s dwelling, by that gentleman’s particular request. Edmund had become the consolation of his worthy preceptor’s lonely hours, the centre of his affections. Those had, indeed, no other object. Within the first three years of Mr. Jackson’s marriage, he had lost a wife to whom he had been attached from early youth; and, more recently, the measles had robbed him of both the boys she had left him.
CHAPTER XII.
“Did jealous hate inspire thee?”
Meanwhile the unamiable Henry, every time he returned from his school for the vacations, was filled with fresh envy and hatred on beholding Edmund more and more established in the rank of a child of the family, and more and more beloved by every one; while he, Henry, felt as if at enmity with the whole world, merely because his own unworthy nature could not divest itself of an instinctive consciousness, that he did not deserve to be loved. He, however, explained the business very differently: he persuaded himself that the beggar-brat (as he called Edmund in his own thoughts, for Mrs. Montgomery would not suffer him to do so to be heard) had got into his place, and deprived him of every body’s regard.
As soon as Mrs. Montgomery had been aware of her nephew’s lodging, she had had him removed to one more eligible; but his low habits were too strongly confirmed to be much amended by this salutary change. He still spent his leisure hours at the butcher’s house, and carried thither the fruits of all his depredations, namely, the spoils of robbed orchards, and scaled poultry-yards. There the wife and daughter would first cook for him, and then, joining in the carousal, help to demolish. His rompings too, with Miss Betsy Park, for so was the butcher’s daughter named, grew daily more frequent.
The sagacious mother did not choose to interfere, observing, that though Betsy had become very saucy to Mr. Henry, and sometimes even gave him a smart slap in the face, he, instead of threatening to beat, and not unfrequently to kick her, as he used to do, was now often heard to menace her with a good kissing if she did not behave herself. The damsel, however, by no means alarmed, would most generally repeat her offence, and, snapping her fingers, tell him she defied him; upon which he would pursue her round the house, back yard, or garden, to put his threat into execution. On such occasions, however, he could not so entirely get rid of his old habits, as to let Miss Betsy off, without following up his new species of vengeance, by some of those cruel pinches which, in childhood, had so often diversified the snowy surface of the young lady’s skin, with the various tints of black, blue, and green.
Yet Miss Betsy was, by this time, become a very fine girl: she was fair, had a glowing colour, a quantity of light auburn hair, laughing blue eyes, a saucy nose, full pouting lips, good white teeth, and was tall and well made, though, if any thing, a little too fat; but, in consequence of her youth, this, at present, rather gave luxuriance to her beauty, than coarseness to her appearance.
It may be asked, why any thing in the shape of a mother sanctioned such scenes as we have alluded to. But too many S—B—mothers, in Mrs. Park’s way, speculated on marrying their daughters to scholar lads, as the boys and young men are indiscriminately termed; and the questionable