all she could to spoil him. Some excuse – We have but Marmy.
NORTH.
And his father, naturally not quite so sweet-blooded, does all he can to preserve him? Between the two, a pretty Pickle he is. Has thine a temper of his own, too, Seward?
SEWARD.
Hot.
NORTH.
Hereditary.
SEWARD.
No – North. A milder, meeker, Christian Lady than his mother is not in England.
NORTH.
I confess I was at the moment not thinking of his mother. But somewhat too much of this. I hereby authorise the Boys of this Empire to have what tempers they choose – with one sole exception – The Sulky.
BULLER.
The Edict is promulged.
NORTH.
Once, and once only, during one of the longest and best-spent lives on record, was I in the mood proscribed – and it endured most part of a whole day. The Anniversary of that day I observe, in severest solitude, with a salutary horror. And it is my Birthday. Ask me not, my friends, to reveal the Cause. Aloof from confession before man – we must keep to ourselves – as John Foster says – a corner of our own souls. A black corner it is – and enter it with or without a light – you see, here and there, something dismal – hideous – shapeless – nameless – each lying in its own place on the floor. There lies the Cause. It was the morning of my Ninth Year. As I kept sitting high upstairs by myself – one familiar face after another kept ever and anon looking in upon me – all with one expression! And one familiar voice after another – all with one tone – kept muttering at me – "He's still in the Sulks!" How I hated them with an intenser hatred – and chief them I before had loved best – at each opening and each shutting of that door! How I hated myself, as my blubbered face felt hotter and hotter – and I knew how ugly I must be, with my fixed fiery eyes. It was painful to sit on such a chair for hours in one posture, and to have so chained a child would have been great cruelty – but I was resolved to die, rather than change it; and had I been told by any one under an angel to get up and go to play, I would have spat in his face. It was a lonesome attic, and I had the fear of ghosts. But not then – my superstitious fancy was quelled by my troubled heart. Had I not deserved to be allowed to go? Did they not all know that all my happiness in this life depended on my being allowed to go? Could any one of them give a reason for not allowing me to go? What right had they to say that if I did go, I should never be able to find my way, by myself, back? What right had they to say that Roundy was a blackguard, and that he would lead me to the gallows? Never before, in all the world, had a good boy been used so on his birthday. They pretend to be sorry when I am sick – and when I say my prayers, they say theirs too; but I am sicker now – and they are not sorry, but angry – there's no use in prayers – and I won't read one verse in the Bible this night, should my aunt go down on her knees. And in the midst of such unworded soliloquies did the young blasphemer fall asleep.
BULLER.
Young Christopher North! Incredible.
NORTH.
I know not how long I slept; but on awaking, I saw an angel with a most beautiful face and most beautiful hair – a little young angel – about the same size as myself – sitting on a stool by my feet. "Are you quite well now, Christopher? Let us go to the meadows and gather flowers." Shame, sorrow, remorse, contrition, came to me with those innocent words – we wept together, and I was comforted. "I have been sinful" – "but you are forgiven." Down all the stairs hand in hand we glided; and there was no longer anger in any eyes – the whole house was happy. All voices were kinder – if that were possible – than they had been when I rose in the morning – a Boy in his Ninth Year. Parental hands smoothed my hair – parental lips kissed it – and parental greetings, only a little more cheerful than prayers, restored me to the Love I had never lost, and which I felt now had animated that brief and just displeasure. I had never heard then of Elysian fields; but I had often heard, and often had dreamt happy, happy dreams of fields of light in heaven. And such looked the fields to be, where fairest Mary Gordon and I gathered flowers, and spoke to the birds, and to one another, all day long – and again, when the day was gone, and the evening going, on till moon-time, below and among the soft-burning stars.
BULLER.
And never has Christopher been in the Sulks since that day.
NORTH.
Under heaven I owe it all to that child's eyes. Still I sternly keep the Anniversary – for, beyond doubt, I was that day possessed with a Devil – and an angel it was, though human, that drove him out.
SEWARD.
Your first Love?
NORTH.
In a week she was in heaven. My friends – in childhood – our whole future life would sometimes seem to be at the mercy of such small events as these. Small call them not – for they are great for good or for evil – because of the unfathomable mysteries that lie shrouded in the growth, on earth, of an immortal soul.
SEWARD.
May I dare to ask you, sir – it is indeed a delicate – a more than delicate question – if the Anniversary – has been brought round with the revolving year since we encamped?
NORTH.
It has.
SEWARD.
Ah! Buller! we know now the reason of his absence that day from the Pavilion and Deeside – of his utter seclusion – he was doing penance in the Swiss Giantess – a severe sojourn.
NORTH.
A Good Temper, friends – not a good Conscience – is the Blessing of Life.
BULLER.
Shocked to hear you say so, sir. Unsay it, my dear sir – unsay it – pernicious doctrine. It may get abroad.
NORTH.
The Sulks! – the Celestials. The Sulks are hell, sirs – the Celestials, by the very name, heaven. I take temper in its all-embracing sense of Physical, Mental, and Moral Atmosphere. Pure and serene – then we respire God's gifts, and are happier than we desire! Is not that divine? Foul and disturbed – then we are stifled by God's gifts – and are wickeder than we fear! Is not that devilish? A good Conscience and a bad Temper! Talk not to me, Young Men, of pernicious doctrine – it is a soul-saving doctrine – "millions of spiritual creatures walk unseen" teaching it – men's Thoughts, communing with heaven, have been teaching it – surely not all in vain – since Cain slew Abel.
SEWARD.
The Sage!
BULLER.
Socrates.
NORTH.
Morose! Think for five minutes on what that word means – and on what that word contains – and you see the Man must be an Atheist. Sitting in the House of God morosely! Bright, bold, beautiful boys of ours, ye are not morose – heaven's air has free access through your open souls – a clear conscience carries the Friends in their pastimes up the Mountains.
SEWARD.
And
