Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/250

 ke 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 that 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 fust-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 I did.

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, I talked a little.]

I don't think I have a genuine hatred for anybody. I am well aware that I differ herein from the sturdy English moralist and the stout American tragedian. I don't deny that I hate _the sight_ of certain people; but the qualities which make me tend to hate the man himself are such as I am so much disposed to pity, that, except under immediate aggravation, I feel kindly enough to the worst of them. It is such a sad thing to be born a sneaking fellow, so much worse than to inherit a hump- back or a couple of club-feet, that I sometimes feel as if we ought to love the crippled souls, if I may use this expression, with a certain tenderness which we need not waste on noble