Part 60

I have looked into all the particulars of domestic management, and find the same spirit extend itself throughout the whole. All their lace and embroidery are worked in the house; all their cloth is spun at home, or by poor women supported by their charity. Their wool is sent to the manufactories of the country, from whence they receive cloth, in exchange, for cloathing the servants. Their wine, oil, and bread, are all made at home; and they have woods, of which they cut down regularly what is necessary for firing. The butcher is paid in cattle, the grocer in corn, for the nourishment of his family; the wages of the workmen and the servants are paid out of the produce of the lands they cultivate; the rent of their houses in town serves to furnish those they inhabit in the country; the interest of their money in the public funds furnishes a subsistence for the masters, and also the little plate they have occasion for. The sale of the corn and wine, which remain, furnishes a fund for extraordinary expenses; a fund which Eloisa’s prudence will never permit to be exhausted, and which her charity will not suffer to increase. She allows for matters of mere amusement the profits, only, of the labour done in the house, of the grubbing up uncultivated land, of planting trees, &c. Thus the produce and the labour always compensating each other, the balance cannot be disturbed; and it is impossible, from the nature of things, it should be destroyed.

Add to this, that the abstinence, which Eloisa imposes on herself, through that voluptuous temperance I have mentioned, is at once productive of new means of pleasure, and new resources of economy. For example, she is very fond of coffee, and, when her mother was living, drank it every day. But she has left off that practice, in order to heighten her taste for it, now drinking it only when she has company, or in her favourite dining room, in order to give her entertainments the air of a treat. This is a little indulgence which is the more agreeable, as it costs her little, and at the same time restrains and regulates her appetite. On the contrary, she studies to discover and gratify the taste of her father and husband with an unwearied attention; a charming prodigality which makes them like every thing so much the more, for the pleasure they see she takes in providing it. They both love to sit a little after meals, in the manner of the Swiss; on which occasions, particularly after supper, she never fails to treat them with a bottle of wine more old and delicate than common. I was at first deceived by the fine names she gave to her wines, which, in sac, I found to be extremely good; and, drinking them as wines of the growth of the countries whose names they bore, I took Eloisa to task for so manifest a breach of her own maxims; but she laughed at me and put me in mind of a passage in Plutarch, where Flaminius compares the Asiatic troops of Antiochus, distinguished by a thousand barbarous names, to the several ragouts under which a friend of his had disguised one and the same kind of meat. It is just so, said she, with these foreign wines. The Lisbon, the Sherry, the Malaga, the Champagne, the Syracuse, which you have drank here with so much pleasure, are all, in fact, no other than wines of this country, and you see from hence the vineyard that produced them. If they are inferior in quality to the celebrated wines, whose names they bear, they are also without their inconveniences; and as one is certain of the materials of which they are composed, they may be drank with less danger. I have reason to believe, continued she, that my father and husband like them as well as more scarce and costly wines. Eloisa’s wines, indeed, says Mr. Wolmar to me, have a taste which pleases us better than any others, and that arises from the pleasure she takes in preparing them. Ah! returned she, then they will be always exquisite.

You will judge whether, amidst such a variety of business, that indolence and want of employment, which make company, visitings, and such formal society necessary, can find any place here. We visit our neighbours, indeed, just enough to keep up an agreeable acquaintance, but too little to be slaves to each other’s company. Our guests are always welcome, but are never invited or intreated. The rule here is to see just so much company as to prevent the losing a taste for retirement; rural occupation supplying the place of amusements: and to him, who finds an agreeable and peaceful society in his own family, all other company is insipid. The manner, however, in which we pass our time, is too simple and uniform to tempt many people, but it is the disposition of those, who have adopted it, that makes it delightful. How can persons of a sound mind be wearied with discharging the most endearing and pleasing duties of humanity, and with rendering each other’s lives mutually happy? Satisfied every night with the transactions of the day, Eloisa wishes for nothing different on the morrow. Her constant morning prayer is, that the present day may prove like the past. She is engaged perpetually in the same round of business, because no alteration would give her more pleasure. Thus, without doubt, she enjoys all the happiness of which human life is capable: for is not our being pleased with the continuation of our lot a certain sign that we are happy? One seldom sees in this place those knots of idle people, which are usually called good company; but then one beholds those who interest our affections infinitely more, such as peaceable peasants, without art, and without politeness; but honest, simple, and contented in their station: old officers retired from the service; merchants wearied with application to business, and tired of growing rich; prudent mothers of families, who bring their children to the school of modesty and good manners: such is the company Eloisa assembles about her. To these her husband sometimes adds some of those adventurers, reformed by age and experience, who, having purchased wisdom at their own cost, return, without reluctance, to cultivate their paternal soil, which they wish they had never left. When any one relates at table the occurrences of their lives, they consist not of the marvellous adventures of the wealthy Sindbad, recounting, in the midst of eastern pomp and effeminacy, how he acquired his vast wealth. Their tales are the simple narratives of men of sense, who, from the caprice of fortune, and the injustice of mankind, are disgusted with the vain pursuit of imaginary happiness, and have acquired a taste for the objects of true felicity.

Would you believe that even the conversation of peasants hath its charms for these elevated minds, of whom the philosopher himself might be glad to profit in wisdom? The judicious Wolmar discovers in their rural simplicity more characteristical distinction, more men that think for themselves, than under the uniform mask worn in great cities, where every one appears what other people are, rather than what he is himself. The affectionate Eloisa finds their hearts susceptible of the smallest offers of kindness, and that they esteem themselves happy in the interest she takes in their happiness. Neither their hearts nor understandings are formed by art; they have not learned to model themselves after the fashion, and are less the creatures of men than those of nature.

Mr. Wolmar often picks up, in his rounds, some honest old peasant, whose experience and understanding give him great pleasure. He brings him home to Eloisa, by whom he is received in a manner which denotes, not her politeness, or the dignity of her station, but the benevolence and humanity of her character. The good man is kept to dinner; Eloisa placing him next herself, obligingly helping him, and asking kindly after his family and affairs. She smiles not at his embarrassment, nor takes notice of the rusticity of his manners; but by the ease of her own behaviour frees him from all restraint, maintaining throughout that tender and affectionate respect, which is due to an infirm old age, honoured by an irreproachable life. The venerable old man is enraptured, and, in the fullness of heart, seems to experience again the vivacity of youth. In drinking healths to a young and beautiful lady, his half-frozen blood grows warm; and he begins to talk of former times, the days of his youth, his amours, the campaigns he has made, the battles he has been in, of the magnanimity and feats of his fellow soldiers, of his return to his native country, of his wife, his children, his rural employments, the inconveniencies he has remarked, and the remedies he thinks may be applied to remove them: during which long detail, he often lets fall some excellent, moral, or useful lesson in agriculture, the dictates of age and experience; but be there even nothing in what he says, so long as he takes a pleasure in saying it, Eloisa would take pleasure in hearing.

After dinner she retires into her own apartment, to fetch some little present for the wife or daughter of the good old man. This is presented to him by the children, who in return receive some trifle of him, with which she had secretly provided him for that purpose. Thus she initiates them betimes, to that intimate and pleasing benevolence, which knits the bond of society between persons of different conditions. The children are accordingly accustomed to respect old age, to esteem simplicity of manners, and to distinguish merit in all ranks of people. The young peasants, on the other hand, seeing their fathers thus entertained at a gentleman’s house, and admitted to the master’s table, take no offence at being themselves excluded; they think such exclusion not owing to their rank, but their age; they don’t say, We are too poor, but, we are too young to be thus treated. Thus the honour done to their aged parents, and their hope of one day enjoying the same distinction, make them amends for being debarred from it at present, and excite them to become worthy of it. At his return home to his cottage, their delighted guest impatiently produces the presents he has brought his wife and children, who are over-joyed at the honour done them; the good old man, at the same time, eagerly relating to them the reception he met with, the dainties he has eaten, the wines he has tasted, the obliging discourse and conversation, the affability of the gentlefolks, and the assiduity of the servants; in the recital of all which, he enjoys it a second time, and the whole family partake of the honour done to their head. They join in concert to bless that illustrious house, which affords at once an example to the rich and an asylum for the poor, and whose generous inhabitants disdain not the indigent, but do honour to grey hairs. Such is the incense that is pleasing to benevolent minds; and, if there be any prayers to which heaven lends a gracious ear, they are certainly, not those which are offered up by meanness and flattery, in the hearing of the person prayed for, but such as the grateful and simple heart dictates in secret, beneath its own roof.

It is thus, that agreeable and affectionate sentiments give charms to a life, insipid to indifferent minds: it is thus, that business, labour, and retirement, become amusing by the art of managing them. A sound mind knows how to take delight in vulgar employments, as a healthful body relishes the most simple aliments. All those indolent people, who are diverted with so much difficulty, owe their disgust to their vices, and lose their taste for pleasure only with that of their duty. As to Eloisa, it is directly contrary; the employment, which a certain languor of mind made her formerly neglect, becomes now interesting from the motive that excites to it: One must be totally insensible to be always without vivacity. She formerly sought solitude and retirement, in order to indulge her reflections on the object of her passion; at present she has acquired new activity, by having formed new and different connections. She is not one of those indolent mothers of a family, who are contented to study their duty when they should discharge it, and lose their time in inquiring after the business of others, which they should employ in dispatching their own. Eloisa practises at present what she learnt long ago. Her time for reading and study has given place to that of action. As she rises an hour later than her husband, so she goes an hour later to bed. This hour is the only time she employs in study; for the day is not too long for the various business in which she is engaged.

This, my Lord, is what I had to say to you concerning the economy of this house and of the retired life of those who govern it. Contented in their station, they peaceably enjoy its conveniences; satisfied with their fortune, they seek not to augment it for their children; but to leave them, with the inheritance they themselves received, an estate in good condition, affectionate servants, a taste for employment, order, moderation, and for every thing that can render delightful and agreeable to men of sense the enjoyment of a moderate fortune, as prudently preserved as honestly acquired.

Letter CXXXVII. To Lord B----.

We have had visitors for some days past. They left us yesterday, and we renewed that agreeable society subsisting between us three, which is by so much the more delightful, as there is nothing, even in the bottom of our hearts, that we desire to hide from each other. What a pleasure do I take, in resuming a new being, which renders me worthy of your confidence. At every mark of esteem which I receive from Eloisa and her husband, I say to myself, with an air of self- sufficiency, At length I may venture to appear before Lord B----. It is with your assistance, it is under your eyes, that I hope to do honour to my present situation by my past follies. If an extinguished passion casts the mind into a state of dejection, a passion subdued adds to the consciousness of victory, a new elevation of sentiment, a more lively attachment to all that is sublime and beautiful. Shall I lose the fruit of a sacrifice, which hath cost me so dear? No, my Lord; I feel that, animated by your example, my heart is going to profit by all those arduous sentiments it has conquered. I feel, that it was necessary for me to be what I was, in order for me to become what I am.

After having thrown away six days, in frivolous conversation with persons indifferent to us, we passed yesterday morning, after the manner of the English, in company and silence; tasting at once the pleasure of being together and the sweetness of self-recollection. How small a part of mankind know any thing of the pleasures of this situation! I never saw a person in France who had the least idea of it. The conversation of friends, say they, can never be exhausted. It is true, the tongue may easily find words for common attachments: but friendship, my Lord, friendship! thou animating celestial sentiment! what language is worthy of thee? What tongue presumes to be thy interpreter? Can any thing spoken to a friend equal what is felt in his company? Good God I how many things are conveyed by a squeeze of the hand, by an animating look, by an eager embrace, by a sigh that rises from the bottom of the heart! And how cold in comparison is the first word which is spoken after that! I shall never forget the evenings I passed at Besancon, those delightful moments sacred to silence and friendship. Never, Oh B----! Thou noblest of men! sublimest of friends! No, never have I undervalued what you then did for me; never have my lips presumed to mention it. It is certain, that this state of contemplation affords the greatest delight to susceptible minds. But I have always observed, that impertinent visitors prevent one from enjoying it, and that friends ought to be by themselves, to be at liberty to say nothing. At such a time one should be, if one may use the expression, collected in each other; the least avocation is destructive, the least constraint is insupportable. It is then so sweet to pronounce the dictates of the heart without restraint. It seems as if one dared to think freely only of what one can as freely speak; it seems as if the presence of a stranger restrained the sentiment, and compressed those hearts, which could so fully dictate themselves alone.

Two hours passed away in this silent extasy, more delightful, a thousand times, than the frigid repose of the deities of Epicurus. After breakfast, the children came, as usual, into the apartment of Eloisa; who, instead of retiring and shutting herself up with them in the work-room, according to custom, kept them with her, as if to make them some amends for the time they had lost without seeing us:----and we none of us parted till dinner. Harriot, who begins to know how to handle her needle, sat at work before Fanny, who was weaving lace, and rested her cushion on the back of her little chair. The two boys were busy at a table turning over the leaves of a book of prints, the subject of which the eldest explained to the younger; Harriot, who knew the whole by heart, being attentive to, and correcting him when wrong: and sometimes, pretending to be ignorant what figures they were at, she made it a pretence to rise, and go backwards and forwards from the chair to the table. During these little lessons, which were given and taken with little pains and less restraint, the younger boy was playing with some counters which he had secreted under the book. Mrs. Wolmar was at work on some embroidery near the window opposite the children, and her husband and I were still sitting at the tea-table, reading the Gazette, to which she gave but little attention. But when we came to the article, which mentions the illness of the king of France, and the singular attachment of his people, unequalled by any thing but that of the Romans for Germanicus, she made some reflections on the disposition of that affectionate and benevolent nation, whom all the world hate, whilst they have no hatred to any one; adding, that she envied only a sovereign the power of making himself beloved. To this her husband replied, You have no need to envy a sovereign, who have so long had us all for your subjects. On which she turned her head, and cast a look on him so affecting and tender, that it struck me prodigiously. She said nothing indeed; for what could she say equal to such a look? Our eyes met: and I could perceive, by the manner in which her husband pressed my hand, that the same emotion had affected us all three, and that the delightful influence of her expansive heart diffused itself around, and triumphed over insensibility itself.

We were thus disposed when that silent scene began, of which I just now spoke: you may judge, that it was not the consequence of coldness or chagrin. It was first interrupted by the little management of the children; who, nevertheless, as soon as we left off speaking, moderated their prattle, as if afraid of disturbing the general silence. The little teacher was the first that lowered her voice, made signs to the others, and ran about on tip toe, while their play became the more diverting by this light constraint. This scene, which seemed to present itself in order to prolong our tenderness, produced its natural effect.

_Ammutiscon le lingue, e parlan l’alme._

How many things may be said without opening one’s lips! How warm the sentiments that may be communicated, without the cold interposition of speech! Eloisa insensibly permitted her attention to be engaged by the same object. Her eyes were fixed on the three children; and her heart, ravished with the most enchanting extasy, animated her charming features with all the affecting sweetness of maternal tenderness.

Thus given up to this double contemplation, Wolmar and I were indulging our reveries, when the children put an end to them. The eldest, who was diverting himself with the prints, seeing the counters prevented his brother from being attentive, took an opportunity, when he had piled them up, to give them a knock and throw them down on the floor. Marcellin fell a crying; and Eloisa, without troubling herself to quiet him, bid Fanny pick up the counters. The child was immediately hushed; the counters were nevertheless not brought him, nor did he begin to cry again as I expected. This circumstance, which however was nothing in itself, recalled to my mind a great many others, to which I had given no attention; and when I think of them, I don’t remember ever to have seen children, with so little speaking to, give so little trouble. They hardly ever are out of their mother’s sight, and yet one can hardly perceive they are in company. They are lively and playful, as children of their age should be, but never clamorous or teizing; they are already discreet, before they know what discretion is. But what surprizes me most, is, that all this appears to be brought about of itself; and that, with such an affectionate tenderness for her children, Eloisa seems to give herself so little concern about them. In fact, one never sees her very earnest to make them speak or hold their tongues, to make them do this or let that alone. She never disputes with them; she never contradicts them in their amusements: so that one would be apt to think she contented herself with seeing and loving them; and that when they have passed the day with her, she had discharged the whole duty of a mother towards them.

But, though this peaceable tranquility appears more agreeable in contemplation than the restless solicitude of other mothers, yet I was not a little surprized at an apparent indolence, so little agreeable to her character. I would have had her even a little discontented, amidst so many reasons to the contrary; so well doth a superfluous activity become maternal affection! I would willingly have attributed the goodness of the children to the care of the mother; and should have been glad to have observed more faults in them, that I might have seen her more solicitous to correct them.