Deanery

“ When they were gone the Dean set himself to perform a task of the exceeding delicacy of which, to say the least, he was fully conscious. He was not a man to palter with what he deemed his duty. He was certainly not a man to shrink from doing a thing merely because the thing was disagreeable. Therefore, scarcely had the last of his colleagues turned his back on the Deanery than he put the little leather bag into a larger bag, and, with that larger bag grasped firmly in his hand, he strode off to the Palace. ”

“ Deanery, Salisbury, August 15.—I came here yesterday morning to the Venerable Dean Hamilton of eighty-two, and his wife of seventy-two. He was a Cambridge friend of my uncle Julius Hare, and lived in the same circle, of Thirlwall, Whewell, Sedgwick, and the Malcolms, &c. His mind has all its old power, and he has much that is most interesting to tell of all the people he has seen. ”

“ You have choice of good wine, but no choice of good meat.
O Jove! then how fully might all sides be blest,
Would'st thou but agree to this humble request!
Put both deans in one; or, if that's too much trouble,
Instead of the deans, make the deanery double.
↑ Dean Sterne, lord bishop of Clogher, the predecessor of Swift in the deanery of St. Patrick's, was distinguished for his hospitality. ”

“ His deanery [3] is of the old foundation, and in all such foundations the deans have no extraordinary power or privilege, and are nothing more than residentiaries, with a peculiar corps belonging to them as deans; the first of the chapter, but such, whose presence is not necessary toward the dispatch of any one capitular act, the senior residentiary supplying their absence, in every case, with full authority. ”

“ Dean Church, who was perhaps the most freely consulted by the prime minister, says, “Of one thing I am quite certain, that never for hundreds of years has so much honest disinterested pains been taken to fill the primacy—such inquiry and trouble resolutely followed out to find the really fittest man, apart from every personal and political consideration, as in this case.”63
Another ecclesiastical vacancy that led to volumes of correspondence was the deanery of Westminster the year [pg 098] before. In the summer of 1881 Dean Stanley died, and it is interesting to note how easy Mr. ”

“ He repeated the same proposals of any other deanery, &c. I desired he would put me out of the case, and do as he pleased. Then, with great kindness, he said he would consent; but would do it for no man alive but me, &c. And he will speak to the queen to day or to morrow: so, perhaps, something will come of it. I can't tell. Night, own dear MD.
21. The duke of Ormond has told the queen he is satisfied that Sterne should be bishop, and she consents I shall be dean; and I suppose the warrants will be drawn in a day or two. I dined at an alehouse with Parnell and Berkeley ”

“ At one time he seems earnest about obtaining St. Patrick's, and is angry with the treasurer for putting any rub in the way, though in favour of another measure, which would certainly have pleased him more. When he mentions the queen's having consented to Swift's arrangement of the bishoprick and deanery, he adds, much out of humour, "but then out came lord treasurer, and said he would not be satisfied, but that I must be a prebendary of Windsor. ”

“ After breakfast the farmer went and saw the Dean, who lived near his cathedral, and presently returned and brought back to the Dean's house the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
"This is the lady," said the farmer. "This is Dean Murnith." Then he went away.
"Ah," said the Dean, "I understand you were lost the other night in the marshes. It was a terrible night to be lost in the marshes."
"I love the marshes," said the little Wild Thing with the new soul.
"Indeed! How old are you?" said the Dean.
"I don't know," she answered.
"You must know about how old you are," he said. ”

“ I find Deane a pretty able man, and able to do the King service; but, I think, more out of envy to the rest of the officers of the yard, of whom he complains much, than true love, more than others, to the service. He would fain seem a modest man, and yet will commend his own work and skill, and vie with other persons, especially the Petts, but I let him alone to hear all he will say. Whiled away the evening at my office trying to repeat the rules of measuring learnt this day, and so to bed with my mind very well pleased with this day’s work. ”

“ Perhaps it was the quickening influence of the spring which resurrected it; perhaps Luther's quotation from the remarks of Captain Jedediah Dean had stirred it to rebellion. A man may know, in his heart, that he is no good and still resent having others say that he is, particularly when they say that he and Luther Rogers are birds of a feather. I didn't care for Dean's good opinion; of course I didn't! Nor for that of any one else in Denboro, my mother excepted. But Dean and the rest should keep their opinions to themselves, confound them! ”

“ Deane immersed in the pleasures of a voluptuous city, a dupe to the intrigues of deeper politicians, not awed by the aged philosopher the tools of the French minister, and the supple instrument of military characters, ambitious of rifling into the fair field of glory in America, he wasted the property and bartered away the honors of his country, by promising offices of rank to 50 gentlemen at a time. ”

“ If there was no longer any twinkle behind the dark glasses that Mr. Dean now wore, there was a genial puckering of the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “But I can tell you perhaps when you’ll have an opportunity to get off probation. The game with the Corinthians is a week from to-day, isn’t it? Well, you come to me in the noon intermission that day, and I’ll give you an oral examination.” ”

“ Just before Easter I was called away suddenly on business for a day, and, on returning, was surprised at receiving a visit from the Dean. He appeared annoyed, and complained that his rest had been broken the previous night by someone playing the organ quite into the small hours. He was surprised beyond measure on my informing him of my absence from home. We tried to discover a solution to the mystery, but failed. One day, however, I showed the Dean the old manuscript in my possession, and was surprised to hear that he knew of a tradition of the appearance, once a year, of the apparition. ”

“ Dean, the distinction is this, and it would do you no harm for your next sermon. One is tempted and yields—that is a fall. One does the same action, not from temptation or yielding, but purposely, with one's eyes open—that is another matter, Mr. Dean. I can indeed smile at myself when in that little trouble the other night; very natural and excusable. The poor, at all events, will be able to congratulate themselves.
A letter from my darling Dora, to whom I shall write about my little despoiling of the Philistines. ”

“ Deane watched her as she went.
“Maud’s right,” said he. “She always is. There’s nothing for it but dynamite. I wonder where it’s to be got?”
General Bellairs clapped him on the shoulders.
“Inclined for a turn, Deane? I’m going to see an old servant of mine—Painter’s his name. He married my poor wife’s French maid, and set up as a restaurant-keeper in the Palais-Royal. I always look him up when I come to Paris.” ”

“ After the usual salutations, Silas Deane said to him, "The Doctor and myself, Abbé, were just speaking of the errors of fact into which you have been led in your history." "Oh no, Sir," said the Abbé, "that is impossible. I took the greatest care not to insert a single fact, for which I had not the most unquestionable authority." "Why," says Deane, "there is the story of Polly Baker, and the eloquent apology you have put into her mouth, when brought before a court of Massachusetts to suffer punishment under a law which you cite, for having had a bastard. ”

“ But Jeanie Deans was a plain, true-hearted, honest girl, who, while she acknowledged all the splendour of her old admirer's habitation, and the value of his property, never for a moment harboured a thought of doing the Laird, Butler, or herself, the injustice, which many ladies of higher rank would not have hesitated to do to all three on much less temptation. ”

“ But the question is, what’s to be dune?”
“Nothing,” answered Deans firmly, “but to abide the dispensation that the Lord sees meet to send us. Oh, if it had been His will to take the grey head to rest before this awful visitation on my house and name! But His will be done. ”

“ Deans' household was carried on. Before Myron Holder crossed its threshold, she sent one long look over to the left, where, leafless yet and gray—save where a cedar made a sullen blotch of green—the trees of Mr. Deans' woodland bounded her vision in a semi-circular sweep. As she turned her to the doorway, a new expression had found place within her eyes—upon her lips—poignant but indecipherable. For resolution, resignation, and despair are sometimes so analogous as to be inseparable. ”

“ The ladies’ and Dean’s servants growing fast into the manners and thieveries of the natives; the ladies themselves very much corrupted; the Dean perpetually storming, and in danger of either losing all his flesh, or sinking into barbarity for the sake of peace. ”

“ The only bright feature was the congenial feeling which appeared at once to unite Miss Bussey and Sir Roger Deane. They sat together, and, aided by the General’s geniality and Lady Deane’s supramundane calm, carried the meal to a conclusion without an actual breakdown, ending up with a friendly wrangle over the responsibility for the bill. ”

“ It is to royalty that Jeanie Deans is pleading, when she exclaims, “Alas! it is not when we sleep soft and wake merrily ourselves, that we think on other people’s sufferings. Our hearts are waxed light within us then.... But when the hour of trouble comes—and seldom may it visit your leddyship—and when the hour of death comes, that comes to high and low—lang and late may it be yours—O my leddy, then it isna what we hae dune for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that we think on maist pleasantly.” ”

“ Yet I was glad to see her weep, for only first offenders weep, and first offenders are amenable to influence, especially if they [Pg 121] have been led into wrong by impulse and are weak rather than wicked.
Anxious to make no blunder, I resolved, before proceeding further, to learn what I could of the character and antecedents of the suspected one, and this from the only source which offered—Mr. Deane's affianced.
This young lady was a delicate girl, with a face like a flower. Recognizing her sensitive nature, I approached her with the utmost gentleness. ”

“ And then that news of the divorce had come to mock her.
But she must do something for Deane. Deane must not go like that. She had brought pencil and writing tablet with her, thinking that perhaps out of doors, away from the house where she had seemed locked in all winter, she could write to him. She thought of things to say, things that should be said, but she did not seem to have any power to charge them with life. How could the dead rouse the dead? She sat there thinking of her and Deane, of how they had always been able to reach one another. ”

“ And so ended the Dean's ball, the triumph as brief as disastrous of the Gleicester Epicureans. The dreams of the minor canons have not become facts. They may play lawn-tennis, may attend water-parties and amateur theatricals--nay, may play cards for such stakes as they can afford, but the dance is tabooed. The Dean is Dean still, and is still looking hopefully--what Dean is not?--to the immediate future to make him a bishop. ”

“ In the hearing of the pleasant lapse of the waters upon the beaches—while he waits—the Dean sets himself to that pleasant, curious writing of The Minute Philosopher in which he adroitly parries thrusts with the whole tribe of Free Thinkers, and sublimates anew his old and cherished theory—that the spiritual apprehension of material things is the only condition (or cause) of their being.
Children are born to him—and death winnows his small flock—while he waits. ”

“ CHAPTER II SYMPATHY IN SORROW “Give me,” observed Sir Roger Deane, “Cannes, a fine day, a good set to look at, a beehive chair, a good cigar, a cocktail on one side and a nice girl on the other, and there I am! I don’t want anything else.”
General Bellairs pulled his white mustache and examined Sir Roger’s figure and surroundings with a smile.
“Then only Lady Deane is wanting to your complete happiness,” said he.
“Maud is certainly a nice girl, but when she deserts me——”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do,” interposed a young man, who wore an eye—glass and was in charge of a large jug. ”

“ It is an old belief—God knows what of truth there is in it—that at the ringing of the church bell the congregations of the dead break up and give place to the living. Poor Deane! Mark could not speak for him: he has been dumb these twenty years, though one day, please God, he will speak again for his friends—of whom you are not one. And there is another old fancy that belongs to this church, and perhaps had something to do with Deane’s matter. It used to be told among the old society, that are scattered or dead now, that the festival of the Name of Jesus was a great day with the old dead folk. ”

“ The man himself, the landlord of "The Rose and Crown." The Dean reflected. He rubbed his nose with his glasses. "What is it that Mr Boulter can wish to say to me? However, I will see him. Tell him so." The servant vanished. The Dean turned to the assembled clergymen. "It is, perhaps, just as well that I should see the man at once, and let him know clearly what our position is."
"Exactly," said Canon Gorse. "Let him understand that plainly. It will not only be fair to ourselves, but it will also be fair to the man." ”