第56章

And if, in the world just as it is, girls did but know themselves! If they did but know how delightful, how noble and ennobling, how gracious and consoling and helpful, they might be, how wearied eyes might love to rest upon them, how sore hearts might be healed, and weak hearts strengthened, by the fragrance of their unfolding youth! There is not one girl in a thousand, North or South, who might not be lovely and beloved. I do not reckon on a difference of race in North and South, as the manner of some is. The great mass of girls whom one meets in schools and public places are the ones who in the South would be the listless, ragged daughters of poverty. The great mass of Southern girls that we see are the cherished and cultivated upper classes, and answer only to our very best.

Like should always be compared with like. And I am not afraid to compare our best, high-born or lowly, with the best of any class or country. They have, besides all that is beautiful, a substantial substratum of sound sense, high principle, practical benevolence, and hidden resources. To behold them, they sparkle like diamonds. To know them, they are beneficent as iron. Let all the others emulate these. Let none be content with being intelligent. Let them determine also to be full of grace.

Among the girls that I saw on my journey who did not please me, there were several who did,--several of whom occasional glimpses promised pleasant things, if only there were opportunity to grasp them,--and two in particular who have left an abiding picture in my gallery. Let me from pure delight linger over the portraiture.

Two sisters taken a-pleasuring by their father,--the younger anywhere from fourteen to eighteen years old, the elder anywhere from sixteen to twenty;--this tall and slender, with a modest, sensitive, quiet, womanly dignity; that animated, unconscious, and entirely girlish;--the one with voice low and soft, the other low and clear. The father was an educated and accomplished Christian gentleman. The relations between the two were most interesting. His demeanor towards them was a charming combination of love and courtesy. Theirs to him was at once confiding and polite. The best rooms, the best seats, the best positions, were not assumed by them or yielded to them with the rude tyranny on one side and mean servility on the other which one too often sees, but pressed upon them with true knightly chivalry, and received, not carelessly as due and usual, but with affectionate deprecation and reluctance. Yet there was not the slightest affectation of affection, than which no affectation is more nauseous. True affection, undoubtedly, does often exist where its expression is caricatured, but the caricature is not less despicable. The pride of the father in his daughters was charming,--it was so natural, so fatherly, so frank, so irresistible, and never offensively exhibited. There was not a taint of show or selfishness in their mutual regard. They had eyes and ears and ready hands for everybody.

And they were admirable travellers. They never had any discomforts. They never found the food bad, or the beds hard, or the servants stupid. They never were tired when anything was to be done, or cross when it had been done, or under any circumstances peevish, or pouty or "offish." They were ready for everything and content with anything. It was a pleasure to give them a pleasure, because their pleasure was so manifest. They looked eagerly at everything and into everything. The younger one, indeed, was so interested, that she often forgot her feet in her bright, observant eyes, which would lead her right on and on, regardless of the course of others, till she was discovered to be missing, a search instituted, and the wanderer returned smiling, but not disconcerted. They were never restless, uneasy, discontented, wanting to go somewhere else, or stay longer when every one was ready to go, or annoying their friends by rushing into needless danger. They never brought their personal tastes into conflict with the general convenience. They were thoroughly free from affectation. They never seemed to say or do anything with a view to the impression it would make, or even to suspect that they should make an impression. They were just fond enough of dress to array themselves with neatness, freshness, a pretty little touch of youthful ornament, and a very nice sense of fitness. But they were never occupied with their dress, and they had only as much as was necessary,--though that may have been a mother's care,--and what of them was not the result of wise parental care? They did not talk about GENTLEMEN. They had evidently been brought up in familiar contact with the thing, so that no glamour hung about the word. They talked of places, people, books, flowers, all simple things, in a simple way. They were interested in music, in pictures, in what they saw and what they did. They sang and played with fresh, natural grace, to the delight and applause of all, and stopped soon enough to make us wish for more, but not soon enough to seem capricious or disobliging or pert.

But my pen fails to picture them to you as I saw them,--the one with her grave, sweet, artless dignity, a perfect Honoria, crowned with the soft glory of a dawning womanhood; but the other docile and sprightly, careless, but not thoughtless. The beauty of their characters lay in the perfect balance. Their qualities were set off against each other, and symmetry was the result. They combined opposites into a fascinating harmony.