We Two [137]
it was this, 'Probably no one man has ever had to endure such gross personal insults, such widespread hostility, such perpetual calumny.' Why are you to judge him? Even if you had a special call to it, how could you justly judge him when you will not hear him, or know him, or fairly study his writings, or question his friends? How can you know anything whatever about him? Why, if he judged you and your party as you judge him, you would be furious!"
"My dear, you speak with so much warmth; if you would only discuss things calmly!" said Mr. Fane-Smith. "Remember what George Herbert says: 'Calmness is a great advantage.' You bring too much feeling to the discussion."
"How can I help feeling when you are slandering my father?" exclaimed Erica. "I have tried to be calm, but there are limits to endurance! Would you like Rose to sit silently while my father told her without any ground that you were a wicked man?"
When matters were reversed in this crude way, Mr. Fane-Smith winced a little.
"The cases are different," he suggested.
"Do you think atheists don't love their children as much as Christians?" cried Erica, half choked with indignant anger. A vision of the past, of her dead mother, of her father's never-failing tenderness brought a cloud of tears to her eyes. She brushed them away. "The cases are different, as you say; but does a man care less for his home, when outside it he is badgered and insulted, or does he care infinitely more? Does a man care less for his child because, to get her food, he has had to go short himself, or does he care more? I think the man who has had to toil with all his might for his family loves it better than the rich man can. You say I speak with too much warmth, too much feeling. My complaint is the other way I can't find words strong enough to give you any idea of what my father has always been to me. To leave him would be to wrong my conscience, and to forsake my duty; and to distrust God. I will NEVER leave him!"
With that she got up and left the room, and Mr. Fane-Smith leaned back in his chair with a sigh, his eyes fixed absently upon a portrait of Napoleon above his mantel piece, his mind more completely shaken out of its ordinary grooves than it had been for years. He was a narrow-minded man, but he was honest. He saw that he had judged Raeburn very unfairly. But perhaps what occupied his thoughts the most was the question "Would Rose have been able to say of him all that Erica had said of her father?" He sighed many times, but after awhile slid back into the old habits of thought.
"Erica is a brave, noble, little thing," he said to himself, "but far from orthodox far from orthodox! Socinian tendencies."
CHAPTER XXVII. At Oak Dene Manor
Ah! To how many faith has been No evidence of things unseen, But a dim shadow that recasts the creed of the Phantasiasts.
* * * *
For others a diviner creed Is living in the life they lead. The passing of their beautiful feet Blesses the pavement of the street, And all their looks and words repeat Old Fuller's saying wise and sweet, Not as a vulture, but a dove, The Holy Ghost came from above.
Tales of a Wayside Inn. Longfellow
During the interview Erica had braced herself up to endure, but when it was over her strength all at once evaporated. She dragged herself upstairs somehow, and had just reached her room, when Mrs. Fane-Smith met her. She was preoccupied with her own anxieties, or Erica's exhaustion could not have escaped her notice.
"I am really quite unhappy about Rose!" she exclaimed. "We must send for Doctor L_____. Her cough seems so much worse, I fear it will turn to bronchitis. Are you learned in such things?"
"I helped to nurse Tom through a bad attack once," said Erica.
"Oh! Then come and see her," said Mrs. Fane-Smith.
Erica went without a word. She would not have liked Mrs. Fane-Smith's fussing, but yet the sight of her care for Rose made her feel more achingly conscious of the blank in her own life that blank which nothing could ever fill. She wanted
"My dear, you speak with so much warmth; if you would only discuss things calmly!" said Mr. Fane-Smith. "Remember what George Herbert says: 'Calmness is a great advantage.' You bring too much feeling to the discussion."
"How can I help feeling when you are slandering my father?" exclaimed Erica. "I have tried to be calm, but there are limits to endurance! Would you like Rose to sit silently while my father told her without any ground that you were a wicked man?"
When matters were reversed in this crude way, Mr. Fane-Smith winced a little.
"The cases are different," he suggested.
"Do you think atheists don't love their children as much as Christians?" cried Erica, half choked with indignant anger. A vision of the past, of her dead mother, of her father's never-failing tenderness brought a cloud of tears to her eyes. She brushed them away. "The cases are different, as you say; but does a man care less for his home, when outside it he is badgered and insulted, or does he care infinitely more? Does a man care less for his child because, to get her food, he has had to go short himself, or does he care more? I think the man who has had to toil with all his might for his family loves it better than the rich man can. You say I speak with too much warmth, too much feeling. My complaint is the other way I can't find words strong enough to give you any idea of what my father has always been to me. To leave him would be to wrong my conscience, and to forsake my duty; and to distrust God. I will NEVER leave him!"
With that she got up and left the room, and Mr. Fane-Smith leaned back in his chair with a sigh, his eyes fixed absently upon a portrait of Napoleon above his mantel piece, his mind more completely shaken out of its ordinary grooves than it had been for years. He was a narrow-minded man, but he was honest. He saw that he had judged Raeburn very unfairly. But perhaps what occupied his thoughts the most was the question "Would Rose have been able to say of him all that Erica had said of her father?" He sighed many times, but after awhile slid back into the old habits of thought.
"Erica is a brave, noble, little thing," he said to himself, "but far from orthodox far from orthodox! Socinian tendencies."
CHAPTER XXVII. At Oak Dene Manor
Ah! To how many faith has been No evidence of things unseen, But a dim shadow that recasts the creed of the Phantasiasts.
* * * *
For others a diviner creed Is living in the life they lead. The passing of their beautiful feet Blesses the pavement of the street, And all their looks and words repeat Old Fuller's saying wise and sweet, Not as a vulture, but a dove, The Holy Ghost came from above.
Tales of a Wayside Inn. Longfellow
During the interview Erica had braced herself up to endure, but when it was over her strength all at once evaporated. She dragged herself upstairs somehow, and had just reached her room, when Mrs. Fane-Smith met her. She was preoccupied with her own anxieties, or Erica's exhaustion could not have escaped her notice.
"I am really quite unhappy about Rose!" she exclaimed. "We must send for Doctor L_____. Her cough seems so much worse, I fear it will turn to bronchitis. Are you learned in such things?"
"I helped to nurse Tom through a bad attack once," said Erica.
"Oh! Then come and see her," said Mrs. Fane-Smith.
Erica went without a word. She would not have liked Mrs. Fane-Smith's fussing, but yet the sight of her care for Rose made her feel more achingly conscious of the blank in her own life that blank which nothing could ever fill. She wanted