Fawcett

“ His ever-increasing responsibilities exhilarated Fawcett, and his friendships increased in proportion; he was always accumulating relays of young friends who filled up the sad gaps caused by death. If he had lived to be a Methuselah he would have died regretted by troops of young folks. He and his wife were now much sought after, and they much enjoyed festivities together. Mrs. Fawcett was frequently amused by her husband’s delight in gossip and his irrepressible boyishness. ”

“ Dares, allowing all this, do you consider that Mr. Kindelon was right? Is it all chaos to-day in New York? Is there no gleam of order?" And here Pauline broke into a furtive tremor of laughter. "Must I begin my good work at the very earliest possible beginning if I am to commence at all?"
Mrs. Dares's dark eyes seemed to smile now, if her lips did not. "Yes," she said. "Mr. Kindelon was right. You are to begin at the very beginning.—In London it is so different," she went on, lapsing into the meditative seriousness from which nothing could permanently distract her. ”

“ He was a very old man; he leant on a staff, and was clad in an evident holiday-attire of black, whose rusty broadcloth hung about his shrunken shape with tell-tale looseness; it had too evidently been cut for a far more portly person. He had a wrinkled face, and yet one of rubicund plumpness; a spot of red flushed each cheek, centring in a little crimson net-work of veins there, while the same peculiarity cropped out a third time, as it were, on the ball-like lump at the end of his irregular nose. Claire had a feeling, as she looked at him, that he was a reformed toper. ”

“ Pauline gave a laugh full of accusative satire. "Oh!" she burst forth. "I should like to hear you speak against it before Mrs. Dares—and your friend Miss Cora, too—as you have just done before me!"
The footman had by this time opened the carriage door. He kept one white-gloved hand on the knob, standing, with his cockaded hat and his long-skirted coat, motionless and respectful in the outer gloom.
Kindelon threw up both hands, and waved them in a burlesque of despair. "There is no literary society in New York," he murmured, as if the admission had been wrung from him. ”

“ MISTRESS FAWCETT. Trust any man to take care of himself, let alone a Scot. No doubt he is over on St. Kitts, brewing swizzle with Will Hamilton. Will's house is one of the strongest in the Caribbees. Look!
[One of the heavy shutters has been forced open by the wind, which has shattered the outer glass. Leaves and glass fly into the room. Rachael and her mother hurl themselves against the heavy wooden blind. By exerting all their strength they succeed in fastening it again. Then they examine the other window. Mistress Fawcett sits down, panting, holding her hand to her heart.] ”

“ Mr. Fawcett, as may be imagined, was not pleased at the manner in which his well-intended scheme was received by the telegraphists, but he met all criticism and all opposition with that unflinching courage of the philosopher which was his chiefest trait. An utterance made by him at this period, when speaking at Hackney, November 2, 1881, affords an interesting glimpse into his mind on this question. On that occasion he said, “All experience shows that the sense of wrong remains long after a grievance has been redressed and an injustice remedied.” ”

“ She bore a striking likeness to her father; she possessed his blue eyes, a trifle darker in shade, his broad white forehead, his sloping delicacy of visage, and his erect though slender frame. From him, too, had come the sunny quality of her smile, the gold tints in her chestnut hair, the fine symmetry of hands and feet. Rather from association than heredity she had caught his kindly warmth of manner; but in Claire the cordial impulse was far less spontaneous; she had her black list of dislikes, and she took people on trust with wary prudence. ”

“ The morning after Fawcett’s going, Lady Courtney told the news to her parlourmaid, who had known Fawcett. On entering the kitchen, to her surprise the cook burst out weeping and sat by the table rocking herself to and fro. ‘Why,’ said Lady Courtney, ‘Maria, you didn’t know Mr. Fawcett, did you?’ ‘Ah, yes, your ladyship, I knew him, the kind gentleman. ”

“ It seemed to her, then, that the strong arm on which her hand rested underwent a faint tremor.
"It is easy for you to be cruel, where I am concerned."
"Easy!" she repeated, rapidly withdrawing her hand, and using a hurt intonation.
He leaned closer to her, then. "Yes," he said. "And you know why. I have told you of the difference between us. I have told you, because I am incessantly feeling it."
"There is a great difference," she answered, with a brisk little nod, as though of relief and gratification. "You have more intellect than I—far more. ”

“ Is your evasion an answer, Claire? Were your marriage-vows falsehoods?"
His hand grasped her wrist, though not with violence. She rose, unsteadily, and shook the grasp off.
"Oh, Herbert," she said, "I never saw you like this before! Let us think of what we can do in case all is really lost."
He withdrew from her, breaking into a hollow laugh. He stared at her with dilated, accusing eyes.
"You don't dare tell me. But I read it, as I read it yesterday.... What can we do? Ah! you're not the woman to live on a thousand or two a year. You want fine things to wear and to eat. ”

“ You would not for the world be considered a person who cared for the aristocratic purple, and yet you wrap it round you in the most illogical fashion. Mrs. Dares has her evenings; to-night is one of them. You, as yet, have no evenings; your salon is still in embryo. You want to affiliate with her, to be one of her set, her surroundings, her monde. And yet you quietly bid her to your house, as though she were proposing your co-operation, your support, your intimacy, and not you hers!"
Pauline, with perhaps a deepened tinge of color in her cheeks, was staring at the floor when Kindelon ended. ”

“ FAWCETT, JOSHUA (d. 1864) , miscellaneous writer, was the second son of Richard Fawcett, worsted manufacturer, of Bradford, Yorkshire. He was educated at a grammar school at Clapham, London, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, and took the degrees in arts, B.A. in 1829, M.A. in 1836. He was ordained in 1830, and after serving curacies at Pannall, near Harrogate, Yorkshire, and at Everton, near Liverpool, Lancashire, he was presented in 1833 by his brother-in-law, Henry Heap, vicar of Bradford, to the perpetual curacy of Holy Trinity, Wibsey, Low Moor. ”

“ The bitterness of their second winter in Greenpoint had now yielded to the mildness of a second spring. But the vernal change brought no cheer to Claire. In the little yellowish-drab wooden house where they dwelt, with lumber-yards and sloop-wharves blocking all view of the river, with stupid, haggling neighbors on either side of them, with ugliness and stagnation and poverty at arm's-reach, was a girl so weighed upon and crushed by the stern arbitraments of want, that she often felt herself as much a captive as if she could not have moved a limb without hearing the clank of a chain. ”

“ She was so slender and fragile that this solemn mood might have made one think, as he regarded her, of a lily that had found some art to cast aside its droop, while all its lightsome traits of stem or petal still remained.
"Yes, I mean it, Father," she continued, with a very deep seriousness. "I have begun to climb the hill, and I shan't get tired so soon and sit down to rest. You told me I must not, and I won't. I do not want to sit down at all until I shall reach the top.... But you can help me, if you will; you can make it easier for me." ”

“ Are you quite certain that it has escaped you? Does not my face recall it?"
"Your face is a very pretty one, my dear," said [207] Mrs. Arcularius. She looked, while speaking, toward her recent companions, who were moving away, with light touches of their disarranged draperies and sidelong glances at Claire. Her tones were impenetrably civil, but her wandering eye, and the slight averted turn of her large frame, made their civility bear the value, no less, of an impromptu veneer. ”

“ The sky is covered with racing clouds. Suffusing everything is a livid light.
Mistress Fawcett is leaning on her crutch, looking through one of the windows. Two slaves are crouching on the floor. All are in an intense attitude, listening. Suddenly there is heard the quick loud firing of cannon, four guns in rapid succession. The negroes shriek and crouch lower as if they would insinuate their trembling bodies through the floor. Mistress Fawcett hastily closes the window by which she is standing, swings to and bars its shutters. ”

“ He was married on 23 April 1867. His wife was in entire sympathy with his principles, shared his intellectual and political labours, and was a main source of most of the happiness and success of his later life. Upon his marriage Fawcett took a house at 42 Bessborough Gardens, whence in 1874 he moved to 51 The Lawn, Lambeth. In the last year he also took a house at 18 Brookside, Cambridge. He lived in London during the parliamentary session, residing at Cambridge for his lectures, and spending his summers in visits to his family at Salisbury and trips to Scotland and once to Switzerland. ”

“ When Fawcett felt that it was his mission to drive home an idea, so that it would penetrate and permeate unforgettably the minds of his auditors, he set out deliberately to pierce like a steel drill the rock of opposition. His relentless facts bored a hole in the wall of antagonism, which he then tried to fill with the dynamite of action. When embittered and roused to righteous anger, his words were like blows. Often his enemies gave in from sheer weariness, because their reasons were too black and blue to fight his logic any longer.
HENRY FAWCETT
Fawcett’s Bill passed. ”

“ About everything but his sadness under his affliction, Fawcett was frank, but about this sadness he remained bravely reticent.
He soon began candidly to enjoy life, and he seems to have gotten infinitely more of its beauty and happiness than the average person who is without handicaps. He had only had one fear, which he confided to his sister: it would be unbearable for him if through loss of physical force he should become useless. ”

“ Fawcett was a painstaking clergyman, an enthusiastic, somewhat bigoted advocate of total abstinence, and a popular lecturer. During his incumbency he built a new church and parsonage, the former of which was opened in 1837. ”

“ Fawcett, to whom he appealed, immediately called at the offices of the society. The secretary, not recognising his visitor, treated him with considerable insolence. Fawcett brought the man to his senses, extracted certain sums from the society, and took steps to investigate the nature of its business. He had the satisfaction of obtaining something for the poor man, who died not long afterwards. Fawcett did what he could for the family.’
PUNCH OR, THE LONDON CHARIVARI—November 27, 1880. ”

“ A little later she had quitted the main street of the town, and gained an open expanse at whose verge the houses stood with wide gaps between them, as though a forlorn effort had been made to conquer vacancy by ugliness. But vacancy had won the fight; space never resisted time with more complete conquest. An immense drab plain, shorn of the least green feature, now stretched before Claire's gaze. ”

“ While Mary Fawcett was bringing up and marrying her children, managing the household affairs of a large estate, and receiving and returning the visits of the other grandees of the Island, to say nothing of playing her important part in all social functions, life went well enough. Her children, far away from the swamps of Charles Town, throve in the trade winds which temper the sun of Nevis and make it an isle of delight. When they were not studying with their governesses, there were groves and gorges to play in, ponies to ride, and monkeys and land crabs to hunt. ”

“ To the inquiry where any Cambridge man was, and how the fates were treating him, it was the usual thing to say, ‘Ask Fawcett.’ Whether the man had drifted away or had been wrecked financially, socially, or by bad health, the blind man always knew all about it, and had usually tried to set things right. He believed firmly in the need of ‘keeping his friendships in constant repair.’ He did not age prematurely and had the happy talent throughout life of seeing things from a youthful point of view. It was one of his principles to make friendships with younger men. ”

“ Her exuberant figure, which no dexterity of dressmaking and no splendor of combined satins and velvets could turn less unwieldy and cumbrous, bowed and swayed till you almost heard the seams of its rich garb crack their stitches under the fleshly disturbance to which she subjected them.
"Claire! Claire!" she ejaculated; "I have insulted you.... But you'll forgive me—I know you will. I've never forgotten you. You stood up against that horrid Ada Gerrard and her set so finely, years ago! You were good then—yes, just as good as gold,—and I'm sure you're just exactly as good still. ”

“ What wonder that the young planters besieged her gates, that her aspirations soared high, that Mary Fawcett dreamed of a great destiny for this worshipped child of her old age? As for the young planters, they never got beyond the gates, for a dragon stood there. Mistress Fawcett had no mind to run the risk of early entanglements. When Rachael was old enough she would be provided with a distinguished husband from afar, selected by the experienced judgement of a woman of the world. ”