me a fine injury, and you did well to purge the text of their abuse. I
agree with no authority, however immortal, which inquires "What's in a
name?" expecting the answer to be a snap of the fingers. I answer with a
snap of temper that the blood, boots, and bones of my ancestors are in
mine! Do you suppose I could have been the same woman had such names as
Amelia or Bella or Cinderella been clinging leechlike to my consciousness
through all the years of my training? Why, there are names I can think of
which would have made me break down into side-ringlets had I been forced
to wear them audibly.
The effect is not so absolute when it is a second name that can be tucked
away if unpresentable, but even then it is a misfortune. There is C ,
now, who won't marry, I believe, chiefly because of the insane "Annie"
with which she was smitten at the baptismal font by an afterthought. She
regards it as a taint in her constitution which orders her to a lonely
life lest worse might follow. And apply the consideration more publicly:
do you imagine the Prince of Wales will be the same sort of king if, when
he comes to the throne, he calls himself King Albert Edward in florid
Continental fashion, instead of "Edward the Seventh," with a right hope
that an Edward the Eighth may follow after him, to make a neck-and-neck
race of it with the Henries? I don't know anything that would do more to
knit up the English constitution: but whenever I pass the Albert Memorial
I tremble lest filial piety will not allow the thing to be done.
Now of all this I had an instance in the village the day before yesterday.
At the corner house by the post-office, as I went by, a bird opened his
bill and sang a note, and down, down, down, down he went over a golden
scale: pitched afresh, and dropped down another; and then up, up, up, over
the range of both. Then he flung back his shaggy head and laughed. "In all
my father's realm there are no such bells as these!" It was the laughing
jackass. "Who gave you your name?" "My godfathers and my godmothers in my
baptism." Well, his will have that to answer for, however safely for
the rest he may have eschewed the world, the flesh, and the devil. Poor
bird, to be set to sing to us under such a burden: of which, unconscious
failure, he knows nothing.
Here I have remembered for you a bit of a poem that took hold of me some
while ago and touched on the same unkindness: only here the flower is
conscious of the wrong done to it, and looks forward to a day of juster
judgment:
"What have I done? Man came
(There's nothing that sticks like dirt),
Looked at me with eyes of blame,
And called me 'Squinancy-wort!'
What have I done? I linger
(I cannot say that I live)
In the happy lands of my birth;
Passers-by point with the finger:
For me the light of the sun
Is darkened. Oh, what would I give
To creep away, and hide my shame in the earth!
What have I done?
Yet there is hope. I have seen
Many changes since I began.
The web-footed beasts have been
(Dear beasts!) and gone, being part of some wider plan.
Perhaps in His infinite mercy God will remove this man!"
Now I am on sentiment and unjust judgments: here is another instance,
where evidently in life I did not love well enough a character nobler than
this capering and accommodating boy Benjy, who toadies to all my moods.
Calling at the lower farm, I missed him whom I used to nickname "Manger,"
because his dog-jaws always refused to smile on me. His old mistress gave
me a pathetic account of his last days. It was the muzzling order that
broke his poor old heart. He took it as an accusation on a point where,
though of a melancholy disposition, his reputation had been spotless. He
never lifted his head nor smiled again. And not all his mistress' love
could explain to him that he was not in fault. She wept as she told it me.
Good-by, dearest, and for this letter so full of such little worth call me
what names you like; and I will go to Jemima, Keziah, and Kerenhappuch for
the patience in which they must have taken after their father when he so
named them, I suppose for a discipline.
My Beloved, let my heart come where it wants to be. Twilight has been on
me to-day, I don't know why; and I have not written it off as I hoped to
do. All yours and nothing left.
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