Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-01-06
OUR NEW YEARS STORY.
THE BISHOPS TRIAL
AND ITS RESULT.

Written for the REcoR- JS1oS by Philip Shirley.
1t was model school. There have been great
many attempts, greet many failures, but St.
Theresa's Hall triumphant success, if We are
to believe such credible witnesses as Bishop Dobell
(he founder Of the institution) the whole corps Of
teachers, and, when by any accident they happened
to speak sincerely, the whoe corps Of students also
1t was such school the Ii rvard Freshman char
aessrizes " Fem Sem :" in fact, girls school
and the pride and joy, the hobby, the plaything
and serious ife-object all OF its founder, the
Right Reverend the Bishop, Richard Dobell.
This right reverend gentleman had seen great
deal Of the world the planet inhabit and US IN
habting the planet, in right reverend way. He
was deeply fastidious and as deeply Episcopal, too
sincerely churchman to permit himself to have
even Catholic taste. He Of lofty and
imperious will, aristocratc hauteur, some scholar
ship, vide reading, and benevolent to the extent of
wishing everybody to be happy, provided they
would submit to be made happy in his way He
man OF ancestors that even travelling English
men Of family admitted to be realities; he had a
library inherited also. He hal wife, but she was
dead, and he would not marry again, bearing in
mind that binding text-proDably composed with
special prophetic reference TO hm-about what con.
sttutes the bamelessress of Bishops in this respect
Possibly, TO be sure, his two sons, Stephen and
Richard left motherless at and twelve years DID,
might have proited by woman's wise influence,
but the book that was Bishop DobelIs guide in
every affair in ite-as the corps OF teachers at St.
Theresa's proudly said-had that little word about
blameessness, and the boys struggled up to
mans estate unblessed by home studies OF the
eternal feminine. In seeing the world the
Bishop precisely that part OF it
which he had determined in his library, before
setting out upon his travels, that he would see in
brief experience as. tutor and guide of his sons,
Stephen and Richard, he came to the decision that
their characters absolutely required the rougher
discipline Of boarding school, and he forthwith
plunged them into one. So much accomplished, the
Bishop felt great project taking shape within his
brain. He h d meant TO be bishop from the time
he was nine years old, when he prayed with such
poetic fervor, with beautiful brown lifted to the
ceiling, that his parents and married sister were
won't to steal to the door to gaze upon his devoons
Among his mates, as a lad he had been firm and
proud, givcg his intended profession with decision
and self-reliance as reason from refraining from
boyish ways and means, which with equal readiness
he admitted to be allowable for others. He had
never been subjected to tsunt or annoyance either
at school or college, had taken high honors, and
after ordination passed from pceferment to prefer
ment, and at last ruled supreme, with his spiritual
kingdom broad based upon the parish will He was
popular beyond his widest dream, revered, quoted,
consulted, but not satisfied His fixed idea was en-
bodied ia the now somewhat can't phrase, +" life
work"
Bishop Dobells Sermons in four volumes had
been kindly reviewed, judiciously advertised, and
widely read, but they not properly Ife-wcrk.
Letters saying, " Dear sir, your sermons are the
light of my home,' were impapable and remote.
The Bishop wished to rule where he could see his
subjects behavior under the scepter When the I'M
easy and rebelious, the quarrelsome and depressed
the indebted and in love of his parish came to con-
suit him about their dilemmas he could not feel alb
soutely certain that they would go forth and fulfill
his suggestions to the letter as he would wish them
to do. The Bishop should have been a Cardinal of
the seventeenth century, much as he imagined that
he repugned the Romish faith for so alone could he
have satisfied his unconscious but allcontrolling de-
sire for absolute power the wills of those with
whom he came in contact. Since however he was
Protestant Bishop OF the nineteenth century he
founded school which he meant should be rot
only model and field for his governing talent
during his lifetime, but should march forever in the
of educational progress waving always aloft the
banner bearing the founders name.
Between q school for boys for girls the Bishop
did not hesitate second. He adored women, he
never so happy as when in their society, and he
was not the ridiculous ecclesiastical pet Of the
ladies. Since he fas.idous he only cared for
women of taste, pride cultivation and intelligence,
and the beauty which, of one sort or another,
always accompanies these attributes. Feminine
conversation, refinement, attitude, enthusiasm,
stimulated all that was highest and brightest in his
intellect His ideal Of them was so chivalrousy ex-
allied that, by curse similar to the one adopted
by MN on hts European travels, he avoided with
prophetic tact any near knowledge OF women who
could breathe single cloud upon the white radi-
of his conception Of right wonanly beng.
The word "Eomanly," there, in note upon the
tastes which would lead man to found girls
school, is misleading Woman as the wife and
mother" and kindred phrases and the mental status
they indicate, bored the Bishop to extinction. He
would bow and look very grave when mediocre men
conversed in this strain, and would change the con-
versstioE soon as possible, with quick, uncom-
Portable sde-gance at the speaker, which meant,
Yeu are even less one of the elect than thought"
Men of did not feel it they pitied the Bishop
because he was Bishop and congratulated them
selves that they had probably expressed the views
ecclessstic would like to hear, the correct thing
as it we're but the women who worshiped at the
Bishops shrine felt for their reverend idol under
these trying cifcunstar ces.
Needless to state that when he married, Bishop
Dobell chose a Womaa simply "impeccable ito
borrow Gallicsm-viewed from the physical, men,
tai, moral or esthetic standpoint. She had will,
courage pride, strength to love and hate the gift
to suffer and the gift to be silent. Did she ove the
Bishop? He thought 50, go did she sometimes.
And did he love her? Indeed, yes, else why care to
WOO and win? Yet she died.
A brilliant and impetuous woman said once when
marriage was the subject Of matron meditation
1T ali be expressed like this some women can
stand it and some can't ~
Mrs. Dobell " stood it =" till her sons, Stephen and
Richard Second, were u and 10 years DID, and then
did, from apparent illness but some subtle,
necessary overstraned fiber seemed to snap in the
restless brain fiery heart, and there no longer
any Mrs Dohell at Riverside. OF the two boys the
elder, Stephen, was very like his mother He had
her well-opened, luminous somewhat stormy blue
gray eyes and back eyebrows, her fins, well.cui
contour, chin and lower lip. His head, which was
unusually weshsped, seemed small for the full
throat that supported it. His brother Richard was
like the Bishop, for whom he named. He
was considered the handsomer of the two though
all the lines of his face tended to roundness
all those Of Stephens to the choicer oval. II
temperament the boys were opposite as theh
physiques would indicate. Richard indolent anC
calm where Stephen was sanguine and nervous
humorous and equal where the other was bitterl!
witty and moody comfortably but not demonstrA
tively affectionate while his brother was atfull,
and fercely passionate. The two rarely clashed
however. Richard looked upon Stephen with LAUGH