FullReads

I did not understand him–in fact, I did not understand many things that he said, for he had a habit of talking to me as if he were speaking to himself; but I had a general idea of his meaning, and said (very truly), “I cannot fancy you doing wrong.”

I was puzzled again by the curious expression of his face; but he only said, “Shall I tell you a story?”

I knew his stories of old, and gave an eager “Yes.”

“It is a sad one,” he said.

“I do not think I should like a very funny one just now,” I replied. “Is it true?”

“Quite,” he answered. “It is about myself.” He was silent for a few moments, as if making up his mind to speak; and then, laying his head, as he sometimes did, on my shoulder, so that I could not see his face, he began.

“When I was a boy (older than you, so I ought to have been better), I might have been described in the words of Scripture–I was ‘the only son of my mother, and she was a widow.’ We were badly off, and she was very delicate, nay, ill–more ill, GOD knows, than I had any idea of. I had long been used to the sight of the doctor once or twice a week, and to her being sometimes better and sometimes worse; and when our old servant lectured me for making a noise, or the doctor begged that she might not be excited or worried, I fancied that doctors and nurses always did say things of that sort, and that there was no particular need to attend to them.

“Not that I was unfeeling to my dear mother, for I loved her devotedly in my wilful worldly way. It was for her sake that I had been so vexed by the poverty into which my father’s death had plunged us. For her sake I worried her, by grumbling before her at our narrow lodgings and lost comforts. For her sake, child, in my madness, I wasted the hours in which I might have soothed, and comforted, and waited on her, in dreaming of wild schemes for making myself famous and rich, and giving her back all and more than she had lost. For her sake I fancied myself pouring money at her feet, and loading her with luxuries, while she was praying for me to our common Father, and laying up treasure for herself in Heaven.

“One day I remember, when she was remonstrating with me over a bad report which the schoolmaster had given of me (he said I could work, but wouldn’t), my vanity overcame my prudence, and I told her that I thought some fellows were made to ‘fag,’ and some not; that I had been writing a poem in my dictionary the day that I had done so badly, and that I hoped to be a poet long before my master had composed a grammar. I can see now her sorrowful face as, with tears in her eyes, she told me that all ‘fellows’ alike were made to do their duty ‘before GOD, and Angels, and Men.’ That it was by improving the little events and opportunities of every day that men became great, and not by neglecting them for their own presumptuous fancies. And she entreated me to strive to do my duty, and to leave the rest with GOD. I listened, however, impatiently to what I called a ‘jaw’ or a ‘scold,’ and then (knowing the tender interest she took in all I did) I tried to coax her by offering to read my poem. But she answered with just severity, that what she wished was to see me a good man, not a great one; and that she would rather see my exercises duly written than fifty poems composed at the expense of my neglected duty. Then she warned me tenderly of the misery which my conceit would bring upon me, and bade me, when I said my evening prayers, to add that prayer of King David, ‘Keep Thy servant from presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me.’