“Science, knowledge, intelligence, wisdom!” said Mrs. Markland, speaking slowly and thoughtfully. “What a beautiful and orderly series! First we must learn the dead formulas.”
“Yes, the lifeless scientifics, if they may so be called, must first be grounded in the memory. Arrangement and discrimination follow. One fact or truth is compared with another, and the mind thus comes to know, or has knowledge. Mere facts in the mind are lifeless without thought. Thought broods over dead science in the external memory, and knowledge is born.”
“How clear! How beautiful!” ejaculated Mrs. Markland.
“But knowledge is little more than a collection of materials, well arranged; intelligence builds the house.”
“And wisdom is the inhabitant,” said Mrs. Markland, whose quick perceptions were running in advance.
“Yes—all that preceded was for the sake of the inhabitant. Science is first; then knowledge, then intelligence—but all is for the sake of wisdom.”
“Wisdom—wisdom.” Mrs. Markland mused again.
“What is wisdom?”
“Angelic life,” said Mrs. Willet. “One who has thought and written much on heavenly themes, says, ‘Intelligence and wisdom make an angel.’”
Mrs. Markland sighed, but did not answer. Some flitting thought seemed momentarily to have shadowed her spirit.
“To be truly wise is to be truly good,” said Mrs. Willet. “We think of angels as the wisest and best of beings, do we not?”
“Oh, yes.”
“The highest life, then, toward which we can aspire, is angelic life. Their life is a life of goodness, bodying itself in wisdom.”
“How far below angelic life is the natural life that we are leading here!” said Mrs. Markland.
“And therefore is it that a new life is prescribed,—a life that begins in learning heavenly truths first, as mere external formulas of religion. These are to be elevated into knowledge, intelligence, and afterward wisdom. And it is because we are so unwilling to lead this heavenly life that our way in the world is often made rough and thorny, and our sky dark with cloud and tempest.”
Mr. Willet now interrupted the conversation by a remark that turned the thoughts of all from a subject which he felt to be too grave for the occasion, and soon succeeded in restoring a brighter hue to the mind of Mrs. Markland. Soon after, the visitors returned home, all parties feeling happier for the new acquaintance which had been formed, and holding in their hearts a cheerful promise of many pleasant interchanges of thought and feeling.
Many things said by Mr. Willet, and by his mother and sisters, made a strong impression on the mind of Mrs. Markland and her daughter. They perceived some things in a new and clearer light that had been to them vailed in obscurity before.
“Flora is a lovely girl,” said Fanny, “and so wise beyond her years. Many times I found myself looking into her face and wondering not to see the matron there. We are fortunate in such neighbours.”
“Very fortunate, I think,” replied her mother. “I regard them as having minds of a superior order.”
“Flora is certainly a superior girl. And she seems to me as good as she is wise. Her thought appears ever lifting itself upward, and there is a world of new ideas in her mind. I never heard any one talk just as she does.”
“What struck me in every member of the family,” said Mrs. Markland, “was a profound religious trust; a full confidence in that Infinite Wisdom which cannot err, nor be unkind. Ah! my daughter, to possess that were worth more than all this world can offer.”
A servant who had been despatched for letters, brought, late in the day, one for Mrs. Markland from her husband, and one for Fanny from Mr. Lyon. This was the first communication the latter had sent to Fanny direct by post. The maiden turned pale as she received the letter, and saw, by the superscription, from whom it came. Almost crushing it in her hand, she hurried away, and when alone, broke the seal, and with unsteady hands unfolded it, yet scarcely daring to let her eyes rest upon the first words:—
“MY EVER DEAR FANNY.”—[How her heart leaped as she read these words!]—”I write to you direct by post, for there remains no longer any reason why our correspondence should be a concealed one. I have also written to your father, and shall await his response with the deepest anxiety. Let his decision in the matter be what it may, I shall forever bear your image in my heart as a most sacred possession. Will you not write immediately? Conceal nothing of the effect produced on your father’s mind. Send your letter as addressed before, and it will be forwarded to my hands. May heaven bless you, dear Fanny! In haste, suspense, and deep anxiety.
LEE LYON.”
Mrs. Markland’s letter from her husband was very brief, and rather vague as to his purposes:
“I will be home, if possible, this week; but may be kept here, by important business, over Sunday. If so, I will write again. Every thing is progressing to my fullest satisfaction. Little danger, I think, of my dying from ennui in the next twelve months. Head and hands will both be pretty well occupied for that period, if not longer. There is too much vitality about me for the life of a drone. I was growing restless and unhappy from sheer idleness and want of purpose. How does our dear Fanny seem? I feel no little concern about her. Mr. Lyon makes no direct proposition for her hand, but it is evidently his purpose to do so. I wish I knew him better, and that I had, just now, a freer mind to consider the subject. Weigh it well in your thoughts, Agnes; and by all means observe Fanny very closely. Dear child! She is far too young for this experience. Ah, me! The more I think of this matter, the more I feel troubled.
“But good-by, for a little while. I am writing in haste, and cannot say half that is in my thoughts.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
IT was not until the middle of the succeeding week that Mr. Markland returned from New York. He had a look of care that did not escape the observation of his wife. To her inquiries as to the cause of his prolonged absence, he replied vaguely, yet with reference to some business of vast magnitude, in which he had become interested. Two days passed without allusion, on either side, to the subject of their daughter’s relation to Mr. Lyon, and then, to some question of Mrs. Markland, her husband replied in so absent a way, that she did not press the matter on his attention. Fanny was reserved and embarrassed in the presence of her father, and evidently avoided him.
More than a week went by in this unsatisfactory manner, when, on returning one day from the city, Mr. Markland showed an unusual elation of spirits. As soon as there was an opportunity to be alone with his wife, he said—
“I may have to be absent several weeks.”
“Why so?” she asked, quickly, as a shadow fell over her face.
“Business,” was briefly answered.
Mrs. Markland sighed, and her eyes fell to the floor.
“I have been a drone in the world’s busy hive long enough, Agnes; and now I must go to work again, and that in right good earnest. The business that took me to New York is growing daily in importance, and will require my best thought and effort. The more thoroughly I comprehend it, the more clearly do I see its vast capabilities. I have already embarked considerable money in the enterprise, and shall probably see it to my interest to embark more. To do this, without becoming an active worker and director, would neither be wise nor like your husband, who is not a man to trust himself on the ocean of business without studying well the charts, and, at times, taking fast hold upon the rudder.”
“You might have been so happy here, Edward,” said Mrs. Markland, looking into his face and smiling feebly.
“A happy idler? Impossible!”
“You have been no idler, my husband, since our retirement from the city. Look around, and say whose intelligence, whose taste, are visible wherever the eye falls?”