Helen H. Gardener

“ What is to be done for suffering in this world? It is life that is hard to bear, not death. Sympathy with the unfortunate is good. Kind words and gentle tones as your priest recounts their woes are touching. Yes, and when they are drawn to fit the truth would melt a heart of stone; but unless action wings the sympathy and dries the tears, the object of his tenderness is in no wise bettered—indeed, is injured. Why? Because he lulls to sleep man's conscience and thereby gives relief from pangs that otherwise had found an outlet through an open purse. ”

“ The young prosecutor sat mute. The eyes of the judge widened in astonishment. For the moment he was the man and neighbor only. He forgot his office. She was talking rapidly, and all were listening.
"I am the thief, judge. Let me tell you. It is not right that he should suffer for my crime. Poor boy, his life has been a hell on earth for me—for me! And he has never understood. I could not tell him. I shall now. He shall understand. You shall, judge. Oh, God, if only a woman sat where you do—a mother! But let me tell you; I can. ”

“ The time allotted anyone was long since overrun; but no one thought of that, and she went on:
"'With love!' Ah, there is where the iron can burn and scar and open every wound afresh each day, make poverty a curse, a blight, a scourge, a vulture, iron-beaked, with claws of burning steel, that leave no nerve untouched, no drop of blood unshed.
"'With love!' 'Tis there the hand of Poverty can deal the deadliest blows, and show, as nowhere else on earth, the value of that slandered, hoarded thing called wealth." ”

“ She had blamed herself for even unconsciously touching the secret spring of sorrow in the girl's heart. It was a strange sight, the two women clinging to each other, the one sobbing, the other laughing, each trying in vain to check the other.
At last Nellie said, still almost in a whisper: "But, Florence, you do not know. You do not understand. You are too good to know. It is you who will scorn and hate me when I tell you. O Florence, Florence, I can never dare to tell you!" Her friend, still laughing, made little ejaculations of satirical import as the girl grew more and more hysterical. ”

“ You were my doctor—I your patient. What our family relations, wardrobes, or political affiliations might be seem to me quite aside from that. We may choose to talk of them together, or we may not, as the case may be. And in my case, it would not be—edifying." There was a moment's pause, then she said, rather impatiently, but as if the new topic were a relief to her: "The idea that a woman must be ticketed as married or unmarried, to every chance acquaintance, is repellent to me. Men are not so ticketed—and that is right. ”

“ Meantime, little girl no one shall harm you. You shall be let alone; you are all right! Be sure of that. I am. Now, good-night;" and she kissed the still sobbing girl on the forehead and hands, in spite, of her protests and self-accusations.
Suddenly Nellie sank on her knees again, and grasped Florence's dress as she had turned to go:
"O Florence! O Florence! are you human? How can you? You are not like other women! O my God! if I could only be like you; but you frighten me! You are so calm. How cold your hands are! ”

“ The granddaughter was made to feel that she was in the way—was a burden. Her mother would urge her to become indispensable to the old General. To read to him, talk brightly to him, sing and play for him, watch his moods and meet them cleverly. It was all done as a race for his affections. Julia raced with her, setting her beauty and the other great fact that she was the child of his old age over against the entertaining qualities of her rival."
Mr. Bailey drew his handkerchief across his brow and looked helplessly perplexed, while Cuthbert responded with a dreary shake of the head. ”

“ I'll tell the truth—all of it—all. But it is hard to do it—here.
"I bought the little wardrobe; but remember, judge, the months and months of daily building, bone on bone, fibre within fibre, thought on thought that is moulded into shape for human beings!
"I knew your father, judge. Your eyes are like his, but all your mental life—your temperament—you got from other blood than filled his veins.
"Your father's mother gave you your character. Your gentle heart is hers—your patient thoughtfulness. I knew her well. I knew your mother, too. She was the teacher of my motherhood. ”

“ Why, dearie, it seems to me that you might as reasonably feel angry with me because my hair is brown as toward Midge because her envy sometimes overbears her better qualities. The real fault lies—"
"O Nora, suppose you take the stump! Lecture on 'Whatever is is right,' and have done with it."
"Aha, my dear," laughed his wife, "I have caught you napping again. I do not say that it is right; but I do say that it is natural for Margaret to be just what she is. That is just the point people always overlook, it seems to me. Nature is wrong about half of the time—even inanimate nature. ”

“ She raised her head a little from the pillow and a frightened look crept into her eyes—"but now the poor are not so ignorant that it will long be safe to play at cross purposes with suffering made too intelligent to drink in patient faith the bitter draughts of life and wait the crown of gold he promises hereafter—and wears, meanwhile, himself. A little joy on earth, they think, will not bedim the lustre of a life that is to come—if such there be. You see I've thought a little in these wretched days and months just past." ”

“ I do not question that the gentleman has tasted sorrow. All good men have. I do not question that his heart is warm and true and honest, and that he truly thinks what he has said; but"—and here her voice broke a little and her lip trembled—"but he does not know what real suffering is. He cannot. No rich man can." There was a movement of impatience in the room, and some one said, loud enough to be heard, "If she thinks money can bring happiness she is badly left."
There was a slight ripple of laughter at this, and even the serious face of Roland Barker grew almost merry for a moment. ”

“ Is poverty no curse to her?—a curse the deeper for her depth of love? The rich know naught of this. It gives to life its wildest agony, to love its deepest hurt."
She paused. There was a slight stir as if some one had thought to offer applause, and then the silence fell again, and she began anew, with shining eyes and cheeks aflame. She swayed a little as she spoke and clutched the chair as for support. Her voice grew hoarse, and trembled, and she fixed her gaze upon a vacant chair:
"But let me tell you of another case. ”

“ You know very well, Nora, that I saw—" began Cuthbert quite gleefully; but as a salve to her wounded feelings Mr. Bailey added in a tone of conciliation to Nora:
"However, I shall agree to let you test me some day. Present your friend to me, incog., and I'll wager—oh, anything that I shall read her like a book on sight. I'm a splendid judge of a woman. Always was from childhood. I'm sure that I should feel creepy the moment I saw the brilliant but envious granddaughter of the unfortunate old warrior. And by the way, he continues to be the one for whom you have enlisted my sympathy. ”

“ A benevolent-looking old gentleman came puffing up to the desk of the Boler House, and, after registering, proceeded to question the genial proprietor as to his identity.
"Dear me, dear me," he puffed, "and so you are the son of old John Boler, the best hotel-keeper the sun ever shone upon! Why, I remember tossing you up to the rafters under the porch of your father's house when you were only the size of a baked apple and mighty nigh as measly looking. Well, well, to be sure you had grit for a young one. Never got scared. Always yelled for more. ”

“ The fiat of the court is the closing knell to a woman; and although she may know the judge in private life to be a fallible or—more incongruous still—a jovial man, his presence here is overpowering. Of the jury she feels vaguely, dread. Of the judge, awe.
The mother of the prisoner sat near him. Her sad, pale, refined face troubled the young prosecutor sorely and he tugged at his conscience and spurred on his resolution after each glance at her. ”

“ Her punishment is double—and her crime was ignorance!"
This time he took the hand that was held out to him.
"Only ignorance," he added. "It seems an awful punishment for that."
"Ignorance—and poverty and love," said the young prosecutor as the door closed behind him, "and Nature did the rest! What a grip is at our throats! And how we help blind Nature in her cruel work by laws and customs and conditions! What a little way we've come from barbarism yet! How slow we travel. ”

“ And so long as motherhood is serfhood, just so long will this world be populated with a race easy to subjugate, weak to resist oppression, criminal in its instincts of cruelty toward those in its power, and humble and subservient toward authority and domination. Character rises but little above its source. The mother molds the man. If she have the status, the instincts, and the spirit of a subordinate, she will transmit these, and the more enlightened she is the surer is this, because of her consciousness of her own degradation. ”

“ She will be worse than widowed and alone, for ever by her side sits Want, for him, tearing at every chord of heart and soul—not for herself—but for that dearer one, wrecked in the prime of life and left a clod endowed only with strength for cruel wrong, whose hand would sheath a knife in her dear heart and laugh with maniac glee at his mad deeds. ”

“ In a home where comfort is—or wealth—a mother sits, watching by night and day the awful hand of Death reach nearer, closer to her precious babe, and nothing that skill or science can suggest will stay the hand or heal the aching heart; and yet there is comfort in the thought that all was done that love and wealth and skill could do, and that it was Nature's way. ”

“ He has stolen from his infancy; but I, not he, am the thief. Now sentence the real criminal, judge. Courts are to punish the guilty—not to further curse the helpless victims. I am the criminal here. Sentence me!"
"Mother! Mother! I never understood my-self before! Oh, mother, mother!"
It was a wild cry from Walter Banks as his mother had risen asking for sentence on herself. He sprang forward, forgetting everything and took her in his arms. There was a great stir in the room.
"Silence in the court!" ”

“ Who dare tell her that riches are a curse? and prate of 'dross' and call on heaven to witness that its loss is only gain of joy and harbinger of higher, holier things? Who dare call her as witness for the bliss of poverty with love?"
She slowly raised her hand and, with a quick-drawn breath, pressed it against her side, and with her eyes still fastened on the vacant chair, and tears upon her cheeks, falling unchecked upon her heaving bosom, she held each listener silent and intent on every word she spoke. ”

“ He truly says that money without love cannot bring happiness; but that is only half the truth, for love with poverty can bring, does bring, the keenest agony that mortals ever bore."
There was a movement of dissent in the hall. She lifted her face a moment, contracted her lips, drew a long breath, and said:
"I will explain. Without the love, poverty were light enough to bear. What does it matter for one's self? ”

“ And those who do not love, perchance, may laugh at all its need can mean; but to the loving, suffering poor bring no more cant, and cease to voice the hollow words of Ignorance and Hypocrisy. It is too cruel, and its deadly breath has long enough polluted sympathy and frozen up the springs of healthy thought, while sheathing venomed fangs in breaking hearts. ”

“ These delicately formed Dresden-china women often carry their age with such an easy grace—it sits upon them so lightly—in spite of ill-health, mental storms, and moral defeats, that while their more robust sisters grow haggard and worn, and hard of feature and tone, under weights less terrible and with feelings less intense, they keep their grace and gentleness of tone in the teeth of every blast. ”

“ One or two of the answers to her advertisement had boldly hinted at this, and when her little stock of money had run out and the little stock of misfortune had swelled into a mountain, and the little pile of insults had increased until she felt that she could endure life no longer, she had concluded to brave another world where she was taught to believe a loving Father awaited her because she had been good and true and pure to the last in spite of storms and disappointments and temptations. ”

“ I wanted to call attention to the fact that a physician and a man of tender heart and lofty soul were compelled to make themselves criminals, before the law, to even be kind to the dead. That conditions are so savage under the present system that such a case is absolutely hopeless while the victims live and outrageous after they are dead. To all of these dictates of impudent authority, to which most story readers pay the tribute of a thoughtless yes, I wanted to call attention in such a way that henceforth a question must arise in their minds. ”

“ A luxury few can afford, you know. It skirts too closely the banks of Tragedy. One is safer on the high seas of Frivolity—don't you think?"
"Much safer, no doubt, my child," said I, taking her hand, which was almost as cold and white as marble; "much safer from those deceived and confiding persons who prescribe 'sulph. 12' for the broken heart and overwrought nerves of a little woman who tries bravely to fly her gay colors in the face of defeat and to whistle a tune at a grave." ”

“ We stood thus silent for a moment, then he said with an inexpressible accent of satire: "Would you advise me to try it, doctor, with anyone else?" I deliberated some time before I replied. Then I said: "No, I am sorry to say that I fear it would not be safe. There is still so much tiger in the human race. No, do not tell your story again to any one; it can do no good. ”

“ The brain of the young prosecutor found only scraps and shreds of thought, in which such words as duty, honor, pity, hospitality, wealth, social order, floated vaguely here and there, buffeted by the one insistent idea that he should go—go quickly—and leave this man alone with his shame and humiliation. ”

“ And when I say an open purse I do not speak of charity, that double blight which kills the self-respect in its recipient and numbs the conscience of the 'benevolent' man who grasps the utmost penny here that he may give with ostentation there, wounding the many that he may heal the few. All this was safe enough, no doubt, while Poverty was ignorant, for ignorance is helpless always ”

“ Fred Mathews had made up his mind—as many a young fellow had done before him—that he would do everything in his power to hold the scales of justice level.
He determined that such ability as he possessed should be used for the benefit of society, and that neither bribe nor threat should ever entice him from the strict performance of his duty to the profession which he had entered. He would never accept a case in which he did not honestly believe. No man's money should buy him and no man's wrath intimidate. ”