- What was there in it? - said the schoolmistress, - and, upon my word, her tones were so very musical, that I almost wished I had said three voices instead of two, and not made the unpatriotic remark above reported.- Oh, I said, it had so much WOMAN in it, -MULIEBRITY, as well as FEMINEITY; - no self-assertion, such as free suffrage introduces into every word and movement; large, vigorous nature, running back to those huge-limbed Germans of Tacitus, but subdued by the reverential training and tuned by the kindly culture of fifty generations.Sharp business habits, a lean soil, independence, enterprise, and east winds, are not the best things for the larynx.Still, you hear noble voices among us, - I have known families famous for them, - but ask the first person you meet a question, and ten to one there is a hard, sharp, metallic, matter-of-business clink in the accents of the answer, that produces the effect of one of those bells which small trades-people connect with their shop-doors, and which spring upon your ear with such vivacity, as you enter, that your first impulse is to retire at once from the precincts.
- Ah, but I must not forget that dear little child I saw and heard in a French hospital.Between two and three years old.Fell out of her chair and snapped both thigh-bones.Lying in bed, patient, gentle.Rough students round her, some in white aprons, looking fearfully business-like; but the child placid, perfectly still.Ispoke to her, and the blessed little creature answered me in a voice of such heavenly sweetness, with that reedy thrill in it which you have heard in the thrush's even-song, that I hear it at this moment, while I am writing, so many, many years afterwards.-C'EST TOUT COMME UN SERIN, said the French student at my side.
These are the voices which struck the key-note of my conceptions as to what the sounds we are to hear in heaven will be, if we shall enter through one of the twelve gates of pearl.There must be other things besides aerolites that wander from their own spheres to ours; and when we speak of celestial sweetness or beauty, we may be nearer the literal truth than we dream.If mankind generally are the shipwrecked survivors of some pre-Adamitic cataclysm, set adrift in these little open boats of humanity to make one more trial to reach the shore, - as some grave theologians have maintained, - if, in plain English, men are the ghosts of dead devils who have "died into life," (to borrow an expression from Keats,) and walk the earth in a suit of living rags which lasts three or four score summers, - why, there must have been a few good spirits sent to keep them company, and these sweet voices I speak of must belong to them.
- I wish you could once hear my sister's voice, - said the schoolmistress.
If it is like yours, it must be a pleasant one, - said I.
I never thought mine was anything, - said the schoolmistress.
How should you know? - said I.- People never hear their own voices, - any more than they see their own faces.There is not even a looking-glass for the voice.Of course, there is something audible to us when we speak; but that something is not our own voice as it is known to all our acquaintances.I think, if an image spoke to us in our own tones, we should not know them in the least.- How pleasant it would be, if in another state of being we could have shapes like our former selves for playthings, - we standing outside or inside of them, as we liked, and they being to us just what we used to be to others!
- I wonder if there will be nothing like what we call "play," after our earthly toys are broken, - said the schoolmistress.
Hush, - said I, - what will the divinity-student say?
[I thought she was hit, that time; - but the shot must have gone over her, or on one side of her; she did not flinch.]
Oh, - said the schoolmistress, - he must look out for my sister's heresies; I am afraid he will be too busy with them to take care of mine.
Do you mean to say, - said I, - that it is YOUR SISTER whom that student -[The young fellow commonly known as John, who had been sitting on the barrel, smoking, jumped off just then, kicked over the barrel, gave it a push with his foot that set it rolling, and stuck his saucy-looking face in at the window so as to cut my question off in the middle; and the schoolmistress leaving the room a few minutes afterwards, I did not have a chance to finish it.
The young fellow came in and sat down in a chair, putting his heels on the top of another.
Pooty girl, - said he.
A fine young lady, - I replied.
Keeps a first-rate school, according to accounts, - said he, -teaches all sorts of things, - Latin and Italian and music.Folks rich once, - smashed up.She went right ahead as smart as if she'd been born to work.That's the kind o' girl I go for.I'd marry her, only two or three other girls would drown themselves, if Idid.
I think the above is the longest speech of this young fellow's which I have put on record.I do not like to change his peculiar expressions, for this is one of those cases in which the style is the man, as M.de Buffon says.The fact is, the young fellow is a good-hearted creature enough, only too fond of his jokes, - and if it were not for those heat-lightning winks on one side of his face, I should not mind his fun much.]
[Some days after this, when the company were together again, Italked a little.]
