Charles Dickens

“ But there may be sisters, Grace, who, in the broad world out of doors, and underneath its free sky, and in its crowded places and among its busy life, and trying to assist and cheer it and to do some good,—learn the same lesson; and, with hearts still fresh and young, and open to all happiness and means of happiness, can say the battle is long past, the victory long won. ”

“ More and more company came flocking in. Bright eyes sparkled upon Marion; smiling lips gave her joy of his return; sage mothers fanned themselves, and hoped she mightn’t be too youthful and inconstant for the quiet round of home; impetuous fathers fell into disgrace, for too much exaltation of her beauty; daughters envied her; sons envied him; innumerable pairs of lovers profited by the occasion; all were interested, animated, and expectant.
Mr. and Mrs. Craggs came arm in arm, but Mrs. Snitchey came alone. “Why, what’s become of him?” inquired the Doctor. ”

“ They lurked and lingered for a long time, but survived in little things, for Nature, far above the evil passions of men, soon recovered Her serenity, and smiled upon the guilty battle-ground as she had done before, when it was innocent. The larks sang high above it, the swallows skimmed and dipped and flitted to and fro, the shadows of the flying clouds pursued each other swiftly, over grass and corn and turnip-field and wood, and over roof and church-spire in the nestling town among the trees, away into the bright distance on the borders of the sky and earth, where the red sunsets faded. ”

“ She answered with a smile; a mournful smile, but full of sisterly affection: and as she looked in her sister’s face, and listened to the quiet music of her voice, picturing the happiness of this return, her own face glowed with hope and joy.
And with a something else: a something shining more and more through all the rest of its expression: for which I have no name. It was not exultation, triumph, proud enthusiasm. They are not so calmly shown. It was not love and gratitude alone, though love and gratitude were part of it. ”

“ In this office, nevertheless, Snitchey and Craggs made honey for their several hives. Here sometimes they would linger, of a fine evening, at the window of their council-chamber, overlooking the old battle-ground, and wonder (but that was generally at assize time, when much business had made them sentimental) at the folly of mankind, who couldn’t always be at peace with one another, and go to law comfortably. ”

“ But now the Bird of Paradise was seen to flutter down the middle; and the little bells began to bounce and jingle in poussette; and the Doctor’s rosy face spun round and round, like an expressive pegtop highly varnished; and breathless Mr. Craggs began to doubt already, whether country dancing had been made “too easy,” like the rest of life; and Mr. Snitchey, with his nimble cuts and capers, footed it for Self, and Craggs, and half a dozen more.
Now, too, the fire took fresh courage, favored by [113] the lively wind the dance awakened, and burnt clear and high. ”

“ My heart has known no other love, my hand has never been bestowed apart from it, I am still your maiden sister: unmarried, unbetrothed: your own old loving Marion, in whose affection you exist alone, and have no partner, Grace! ”

“ Except his partner in attendance, Clemency Newcome; who, rousing him with one of those favorite joints, her elbows, inquired, in a reproachful whisper, what he laughed at.
“Not you!” said Britain.
“Who then?”
“Humanity,” said Britain. “That’s the joke.”
“What between master and them lawyers, he’s getting more and more addle-headed every day!” cried Clemency, giving him a lunge with the other elbow, as a mental stimulant. “Do you know where you are? Do you want to get warning?”
“I don’t know anything,” said Britain, with a leaden eye and an immovable visage. “I don’t care for anything. ”

“ Let no old loving word or tone rise up in judgment against thy deserter; but if thou canst look harshly and severely, do, in mercy to the Penitent!’”
“Dear Marion, read no more to-night,” said Grace—for she was weeping.
“I cannot,” she replied, and closed the book. “The words seem all on fire!”
The Doctor was amused at this; and laughed as he patted her on the head.
“What! overcome by a story-book!” said Doctor Jeddler. “Print and paper! Well, well, it’s all one. It’s as rational to make a serious matter of print and paper as of anything else. But dry your eyes, love, dry your eyes. ”

“ Snitchey,” said Alfred, “there are quiet victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble acts of heroism, in it—even in many of its apparent lightnesses and contradictions—not the less difficult to achieve, because they have no earthly chronicle or audience; done every day in nooks and corners, and in little households, and in men’s and women’s hearts—any one of which might reconcile the sternest man to such a world, and fill him with belief and hope in it, though two-fourths of its people were at war, and another fourth at law ”

“ The Doctor, in his dressing-gown and slippers, with his feet spread out upon the warm rug, leaned back in his easy chair, and listened to the book, and looked upon his daughters.
They were very beautiful to look upon. Two better faces for a fireside, never made a fireside bright and sacred. Something of the difference between them had been softened down in three years’ time; and enthroned upon the clear brow of the younger sister, looking through her eyes, and thrilling in her voice, was the same earnest nature that her own motherless youth had ripened in the elder sister long ago. ”

“ It involved the only idea of which he did not stand seised and possessed in equal moieties with Snitchey; but he had some partners in it among the wise men of the world.
“It’s made a great deal too easy,” said Mr. Craggs.
“Law is?” asked the Doctor.
“Yes,” said Mr. Craggs, “everything is. Everything appears to me to be made too easy, now-a-days. It’s the vice of these times. If the world is a joke (I am not prepared to say it isn’t) , it ought to be made a very difficult joke to crack. It ought to be as hard a struggle, Sir, as possible. That’s the intention. But it’s being made far too easy. ”

“ Many a lonely moon was bright upon the battle-ground, and many a star kept mournful watch upon it, and many a wind from every quarter of the earth blew over it, before the traces of the fight were worn away. ”

“ That’s not to the purpose.”
“Ah! yes, yes, Doctor Jeddler,” said the young man. “It is to the purpose. Much to the purpose, as my heart bears witness this morning; and as yours does too, I know, if you would let it speak. I leave your house to-day; I cease to be your ward to-day; we part with tender relations stretching far behind us, that never can be exactly renewed, and with others dawning yet before us,” he looked down at Marion beside him, “fraught with such considerations as I must not trust myself to speak of now. Come, come!” ”

“ Life a farce, Doctor Jeddler? With law in it?”
The Doctor laughed, and looked at Alfred.
“Granted, if you please, that war is foolish,” said [33] Snitchey. “There we agree. For example. Here’s a smiling country,” pointing it out with his fork, “once overrun by soldiers—trespassers every man of ’em—and laid waste by fire and sword. He, he, he! The idea of any man exposing himself, voluntarily, to fire and sword! Stupid, wasteful, positively ridiculous; you laugh at your fellow-creatures, you know, when you think of it! But take this smiling country as it stands. ”

“ Abrasions on the elbows are not generally understood, it is true, to range within that class of personal charms called beauty-spots. But it is better, going through the world, to have the arms chafed in that narrow passage, than the temper: and Clemency’s was sound and whole as any beauty’s in the land. ”

“ I had my suspicions, Sir; but it is not six months since I have known the truth, and been assured that you lost her.”
“By whom?” inquired his client.
“By Doctor Jeddler himself, Sir, who at last reposed that confidence in me voluntarily. He, and only he, has known the whole truth, years and years.”
“And you know it?” said his client.
“I do, Sir!” replied Snitchey; “and I have also reason to know that it will be broken to her sister to-morrow evening. They have given her that promise. In the meantime, perhaps you’ll give me the honor of your company at my house; being unexpected at your own. ”

“ Alfred,” said Snitchey. “The combatants are very eager and very bitter in that same battle of Life. There’s a great deal of cutting and slashing, and firing into people’s heads from behind; terrible treading down, and trampling on; it’s rather a bad business.” ”

“ Their streaming hair and fluttering skirts, the elastic grass beneath their feet, the boughs that rustled in the morning air—the flashing leaves, their speckled shadows on the soft green ground—the balmy wind that swept along the landscape, glad to turn the distant windmill, cheerily—everything between the two girls, and the man and team at plough upon the ridge of land, where they showed against the sky as if they were the last things in the world—seemed dancing too. ”

“ Take my love with it,” said the Doctor, imprinting his upon them; “and many happy returns of the—the idea!—of the day. The notion of wishing happy returns in such a farce as this,” said the Doctor to himself, “is good! Ha! ha! ha!”
Doctor Jeddler was, as I have said, a great philosopher; and the heart and mystery of his philosophy was, to look upon the world as a gigantic practical joke: as something too absurd to be considered seriously, by any rational man. His system of belief had been, in the beginning, part and parcel of the battle-ground on which he lived ”

“ I’m sure I do. No one better,” added Clemency, wiping her eyes with her hand.
“And so,” suggested the stranger.
“And so,” said Clemency, taking him up mechanically, and without any change in her attitude or manner, “they at last were married. They were married on her birth-day—it comes round again to-morrow—very quiet, very humble like, but very happy. Mr. Alfred said, one night when they were walking in the orchard, ‘Grace, shall our wedding-day be Marion’s birth-day?’ And it was.”
“And they have lived happily together?” said the stranger.
“Ay,” said Clemency. “No two people ever more so. ”

“ We, in our profession, are little else than mirrors after all, Mr. Alfred; but we are generally consulted by angry and quarrelsome people, who are not in their best looks; and it’s rather hard to quarrel with us if we reflect unpleasant aspects. I think,” said Mr. Snitchey, “that I speak for Self and Craggs?”
“Decidedly,” said Craggs.
“And so, if Mr. Britain will oblige us with a mouthful of ink,” said Mr. Snitchey, returning to the papers, “we’ll sign, seal, and deliver as soon as possible, or the coach will be coming past before we know where we are.” ”

“ At last, arriving at a climax of suspense, and seeing the Doctor still engaged in the perusal of the letter, she came down flat upon the soles of her feet again, and [80] cast her apron, as a veil, over her head, in a mute despair, and inability to bear it any longer.
“Here! Girls!” cried the Doctor. “I can’t help it: I never could keep a secret in my life. There are not many secrets, indeed, worth being kept in such a—well! never mind that. Alfred’s coming home, my dears, directly.”
“Directly!” exclaimed Marion.
“What! The story-book is soon forgotten!” said the Doctor, pinching her cheek. ”

“ The manner of his life, though quiet and remote, had shown him how often men still entertained angels, unawares, as in the olden time; and how the most unlikely forms—even some that were mean and ugly to the view, and poorly clad—became irradiated by the couch of sorrow, want, and pain, and changed to ministering spirits with a glory round their heads. ”

“ Craggs knows—”
Mrs. Snitchey cut this reference very short by hitching her husband to a distance, and asking him to look at that man. To do her the favor to look at him.
“At which man, my dear?” said Mr. Snitchey.
“Your chosen companion; I’m no companion to you Mr. Snitchey.”
“Yes, yes, you are, my dear,” he interposed.
“No no, I’m not,” said Mrs. Snitchey with a majestic smile. “I know my station. Will you look at your chosen companion, Mr. Snitchey; at your referee; at the keeper of your secrets; at the man you trust; at your other self, in short.” ”

“ Craggs and the wicked Snitchey were a recognised fiction with the two wives, as Doe and Roe, incessantly running up and down bailiwicks, were with the two husbands: or perhaps the ladies had instituted, and taken upon themselves, these two shares in the business, rather than be left out of it altogether. But certain it is, that each wife went as gravely and steadily to work in her vocation as her husband did in his: and would have considered it almost impossible for the Firm to maintain a successful and respectable existence, without her laudable exertions. ”