My sister Clara is four years younger than I am. In form of face, in
complexion, and--except the eyes--in features, she bears a striking
resemblance to my father. Her expressions however, must be very like
what my mother's was. Whenever I have looked at her in her silent and
thoughtful moments, she has always appeared to freshen, and even to
increase, my vague, childish recollections of our lost mother. Her
eyes have that slight tinge of melancholy in their tenderness, and
that peculiar softness in their repose, which is only seen in blue
eyes. Her complexion, pale as my father's when she is neither speaking
nor moving, has in a far greater degree than his the tendency to
flush, not merely in moments of agitation, but even when she is
walking, or talking on any subject that interests her. Without this
peculiarity her paleness would be a defect. With it, the absence of
any colour in her complexion but the fugitive uncertain colour which I
have described, would to some eyes debar her from any claims to
beauty. And a beauty perhaps she is not--at least, in the ordinary
acceptation of the term.
The lower part of her face is rather too small for the upper, her
figure is too slight, the sensitiveness of her nervous organization is
too constantly visible in her actions and her looks. She would not fix
attention and admiration in a box at the opera; very few men passing
her in the street would turn round to look after her; very few women
would regard her with that slightingly attentive stare, that steady
depreciating scrutiny, which a dashing decided beauty so often
receives (and so often triumphs in receiving) from her personal
inferiors among her own sex. The greatest charms that my sister has on
the surface, come from beneath it.
When you really knew her, when she spoke to you freely, as to a
friend--then, the attraction of her voice, her smile her manner,
impressed you indescribably. Her slightest words and her commonest
actions interested and delighted you, you knew not why. There was a
beauty about her unassuming simplicity, her natural--exquisitely
natural--kindness of heart, and word, and manner, which preserved its
own unobtrusive influence over you, in spite of all other rival
influences, be they what they might. You missed and thought of her,
when you were fresh from the society of the most beautiful and the
most brilliant women. You remembered a few kind, pleasant words of
hers when you forgot the wit of the wittiest ladies, the learning of
the most learned. The influence thus possessed, and unconsciously
possessed, by my sister over every one with whom she came in
contact--over men especially--may, I think be very simply accounted
for, in very few sentences.
We live in an age when too many women appear to be ambitious of
morally unsexing themselves before society, by aping the language and
the manners of men--especially in reference to that miserable modern
dandyism of demeanour, which aims at repressing all betrayal of warmth
of feeling; which abstains from displaying any enthusiasm on any
subject whatever; which, in short, labours to make the fashionable
imperturbability of the face the faithful reflection of the
fashionable imperturbability of the mind. Women of this exclusively
modern order, like to use slang expressions in their conversation;
assume a bastard-masculine abruptness in their manners, a
bastard-masculine licence in their opinions; affect to ridicule those
outward developments of feeling which pass under the general
appellation of "sentiment." Nothing impresses, agitates, amuses, or
delights them in a hearty, natural, womanly way. Sympathy looks
ironical, if they ever show it: love seems to be an affair of
calculation, or mockery, or contemptuous sufferance, if they ever feel
it.
To women such as these, my sister Clara presented as complete a
contrast as could well be conceived. In this contrast lay the secret
of her influence, of the voluntary tribute of love and admiration
which followed her wherever she went.
Few men have not their secret moments of deep feeling--moments when,
amid the wretched trivialities and hypocrisies of modern society, the
image will present itself to their minds of some woman, fresh,
innocent, gentle, sincere; some woman whose emotions are still warm
and impressible, whose affections and sympathies can still appear in
her actions, and give the colour to her thoughts; some woman in whom
we could put as perfect faith and trust, as if we were children; whom
we despair of finding near the hardening influences of the world; whom
we could scarcely venture to look for, except in solitary places far
away in the country; in little rural shrines, shut up from society,
among woods and fields, and lonesome boundary-hills. When any women
happen to realise, or nearly to realise, such an image as this, they
possess that universal influence which no rivalry can ever approach.
On them really depends, and by then is really preserved, that claim
upon the sincere respect and admiration of men, on which the power of
the whole sex is based--the power so often assumed by the many, so
rarely possessed but by the few.
It was thus with my sister. Thus, wherever she went, though without
either the inclination, or the ambition to shine, she eclipsed women
who were her superiors in beauty, in accomplishments, in brilliancy of
manners and conversation--conquering by no other weapon than the
purely feminine charm of everything she said, and everything she did.
But it was not amid the gaiety and grandeur of a London season that
her character was displayed to the greatest advantage. It was when she
was living where she loved to live, in the old country-house, among
the old friends and old servants who would every one of them have died
a hundred deaths for her sake, that you could study and love her best.
Then, the charm there was in the mere presence of the kind, gentle,
happy young English girl, who could enter into everybody's interests,
and be grateful for everybody's love, possessed its best and brightest
influence. At picnics, lawn-parties, little country gatherings of all
sorts, she was, in her own quiet, natural manner, always the presiding
spirit of general comfort and general friendship. Even the rigid laws
of country punctilio relaxed before her unaffected cheerfulness and
irresistible good-nature. She always contrived--nobody ever knew
how--to lure the most formal people into forgetting their formality,
and becoming natural for the rest of the day. Even a heavy-headed,
lumbering, silent country squire was not too much for her. She
managed to make him feel at his ease, when no one else would undertake
the task; she could listen patiently to his confused speeches about
dogs, horses, and the state of the crops, when other conversations
were proceeding in which she was really interested; she could receive
any little grateful attention that he wished to pay her--no matter how
awkward or ill-timed--as she received attentions from any one else,
with a manner which showed she considered it as a favour granted to
her sex, not as a right accorded to it.
So, again, she always succeeded in diminishing the long list of those
pitiful affronts and offences, which play such important parts in the
social drama of country society. She was a perfect Apostle-errant of
the order of Reconciliation; and wherever she went, cast out the devil
Sulkiness from all his strongholds--the lofty and the lowly alike. Our
good rector used to call her his Volunteer Curate; and declare that
she preached by a timely word, or a persuasive look, the best
practical sermons on the blessings of peace-making that were ever
composed.
With all this untiring good-nature, with all this resolute industry in
the task of making every one happy whom she approached, there was
mingled some indescribable influence, which invariably preserved her
from the presumption, even of the most presuming people. I never knew
anybody venturesome enough--either by word or look--to take a liberty
with her. There was something about her which inspired respect as well
as love. My father, following the bent of his peculiar and favourite
ideas, always thought it was the look of her race in her eyes, the
ascendancy of her race in her manners. I believe it to have proceeded
from a simpler and a better cause. There is a goodness of heart, which
carries the shield of its purity over the open hand of its kindness:
and that goodness was hers.
To my father, she was more, I believe, than he himself ever
imagined--or will ever know, unless he should lose her. He was often,
in his intercourse with the world, wounded severely enough in his
peculiar prejudices and peculiar refinements--he was always sure to
find the first respected, and the last partaken by _her._ He could
trust in her implicitly, he could feel assured that she was not only
willing, but able, to share and relieve his domestic troubles and
anxieties. If he had been less fretfully anxious about his eldest son;
if he had wisely distrusted from the first his own powers of
persuading and reforming, and had allowed Clara to exercise her
influence over Ralph more constantly and more completely than he
really did, I am persuaded that the long-expected epoch of my
brother's transformation would have really arrived by this time, or
even before it.
The strong and deep feelings of my sister's nature lay far below the
surface--for a woman, too far below it. Suffering was, for her,
silent, secret, long enduring; often almost entirely void of outward
vent or development. I never remember seeing her in tears, except on
rare and very serious occasions. Unless you looked at her narrowly,
you would judge her to be little sensitive to ordinary griefs and
troubles. At such times, her eyes only grew dimmer and less animated
than usual; the paleness of her complexion became rather more marked;
her lips closed and trembled involuntarily--but this was all: there
was no sighing, no weeping, no speaking even. And yet she suffered
acutely. The very strength of her emotions was in their silence and
their secresy. I, of all others--I, guilty of infecting with my
anguish the pure heart that loved me--ought to know this best!
How long I might linger over all that she has done for _me!_ As I now
approach nearer and nearer to the pages which are to reveal my fatal
story, so I am more and more tempted to delay over those better and
purer remembrances of my sister which now occupy my mind. The first
little presents--innocent girlish presents--which she secretly sent to
me at school; the first sweet days of our uninterrupted intercourse,
when the close of my college life restored me to home; her first
inestimable sympathies with my first fugitive vanities of embryo
authorship, are thronging back fast and fondly on my thoughts, while I
now write.
But these memories must be calmed and disciplined. I must be collected
and impartial over my narrative--if it be only to make that narrative
show fairly and truly, without suppression or exaggeration, all that I
have owed to her.
Not merely all that I _have_ owed to her; but all that I owe to her
now. Though I may never see her again, but in my thoughts; still she
influences, comforts, cheers me on to hope, as if she were already the
guardian spirit of the cottage where I live. Even in my worst moments
of despair, I can still remember that Clara is thinking of me and
sorrowing for me: I can still feel that remembrance, as an invisible
hand of mercy which supports me, sinking; which raises me, fallen;
which may yet lead me safely and tenderly to my hard journey's end.