I.
COUSIN JOHN TO COUSIN ALFRED. LONDON, 18— "My dear Alfred, Your last letters put me in pain. This contempt of existence, this listless disdain Of your own life,—its joys and its duties,—the deuce Take my wits if they find for it half an excuse! I wish that some Frenchman would shoot off your leg, And compel you to stump through the world on a peg. I wish that you had, like myself (more's the pity!), To sit seven hours on this cursed committee. I wish that you knew, sir, how salt is the bread Of another—(what is it that Dante has said?) And the trouble of other men's stairs. In a word, I wish fate had some real affliction conferr'd On your whimsical self, that, at least, you had cause For neglecting life's duties, and damning its laws! This pressure against all the purpose of life, This self-ebullition, and ferment, and strife, Betoken'd, I grant that it may be in truth, The richness and strength of the new wine of youth. But if, when the wine should have mellow'd with time, Being bottled and binn'd, to a flavor sublime, It retains the same acrid, incongruous taste, Why, the sooner to throw it away that we haste The better, I take it. And this vice of snarling, Self-love's little lapdog, the overfed darling Of a hypochondriacal fancy appears, To my thinking, at least, in a man of your years, At the midnoon of manhood with plenty to do, And every incentive for doing it too, With the duties of life just sufficiently pressing For prayer, and of joys more than most men for blessing; With a pretty young wife, and a pretty full purse, Like poltroonery, puerile truly, or worse! I wish I could get you at least to agree To take life as it is, and consider with me, If it be not all smiles, that it is not all sneers; It admits honest laughter, and needs honest tears. Do you think none have known but yourself all the pain Of hopes that retreat, and regrets that remain? And all the wide distance fate fixes, no doubt, 'Twixt the life that's within, and the life that's without? What one of us finds the world just as he likes? Or gets what he wants when he wants it? Or strikes Without missing the thing that he strikes at the first? Or walks without stumbling? Or quenches his thirst At one draught? Bah! I tell you! I, bachelor John, Have had griefs of my own. But what then? I push on All the faster perchance that I yet feel the pain Of my last fall, albeit I may stumble again. God means every man to be happy, be sure. He sends us no sorrows that have not some cure. Our duty down here is to do, not to know. Live as though life were earnest, and life will be so. Let each moment, like Time's last ambassador, come: It will wait to deliver its message; and some Sort of answer it merits. It is not the deed A man does, but the way that he does it, should plead For the man's compensation in doing it. "Here, My next neighbor's a man with twelve thousand a year, Who deems that life has not a pastime more pleasant Than to follow a fox, or to slaughter a pheasant. Yet this fellow goes through a contested election, Lives in London, and sits, like the soul of dejection, All the day through upon a committee, and late To the last, every night, through the dreary debate, As though he were getting each speaker by heart, Though amongst them he never presumes to take part. One asks himself why, without murmur or question, He foregoes all his tastes, and destroys his digestion, For a labor of which the result seems so small. 'The man is ambitious,' you say. Not at all. He has just sense enough to be fully aware That he never can hope to be Premier, or share The renown of a Tully;—or even to hold A subordinate office. He is not so bold As to fancy the House for ten minutes would bear With patience his modest opinions to hear. 'But he wants something!' "What! with twelve thousand a year? What could Government give him would be half so dear To his heart as a walk with a dog and a gun Through his own pheasant woods, or a capital run? 'No; but vanity fills out the emptiest brain; The man would be more than his neighbor, 'tis plain; And the drudgery drearily gone through in town Is more than repaid by provincial renown. Enough if some Marchioness, lively and loose, Shall have eyed him with passing complaisance; the goose, If the Fashion to him open one of its doors, As proud as a sultan returns to his boors.' Wrong again! if you think so, "For, primo; my friend Is the head of a family known from one end Of his shire to the other as the oldest; and therefore He despises fine lords and fine ladies. HE care for A peerage? no truly! Secondo; he rarely Or never goes out: dines at Bellamy's sparely, And abhors what you call the gay world. "Then, I ask, What inspires, and consoles, such a self-imposed task As the life of this man,—but the sense of its duty? And I swear that the eyes of the haughtiest beauty Have never inspired in my soul that intense, Reverential, and loving, and absolute sense Of heart-felt admiration I feel for this man, As I see him beside me;—there, wearing the wan London daylight away, on his humdrum committee; So unconscious of all that awakens my pity, And wonder—and worship, I might say? "To me There seems something nobler than genius to be In that dull patient labor no genius relieves, That absence of all joy which yet never grieves; The humility of it! the grandeur withal! The sublimity of it! And yet, should you call The man's own very slow apprehension to this, He would ask, with a stare, what sublimity is! His work is the duty to which he was born; He accepts it, without ostentation or scorn: And this man is no uncommon type (I thank Heaven!) Of this land's common men. In all other lands, even The type's self is wanting. Perchance, 'tis the reason That Government oscillates ever 'twixt treason And tyranny elsewhere. "I wander away Too far, though, from what I was wishing to say. You, for instance, read Plato. You know that the soul Is immortal; and put this in rhyme, on the whole, Very well, with sublime illustration. Man's heart Is a mystery, doubtless. You trace it in art:— The Greek Psyche,—that's beauty,—the perfect ideal. But then comes the imperfect, perfectible real, With its pain'd aspiration and strife. In those pale Ill-drawn virgins of Giotto you see it prevail. You have studied all this. Then, the universe, too, Is not a mere house to be lived in, for you. Geology opens the mind. So you know Something also of strata and fossils; these show The bases of cosmical structure: some mention Of the nebulous theory demands your attention; And so on. "In short, it is clear the interior Of your brain, my dear Alfred, is vastly superior In fibre, and fulness, and function, and fire, To that of my poor parliamentary squire; But your life leaves upon me (forgive me this heat Due to friendship) the sense of a thing incomplete. You fly high. But what is it, in truth, you fly at? My mind is not satisfied quite as to that. An old illustration's as good as a new, Provided the old illustration be true. We are children. Mere kites are the fancies we fly, Though we marvel to see them ascending so high; Things slight in themselves,—long-tail'd toys, and no more: What is it that makes the kite steadily soar Through the realms where the cloud and the whirlwind have birth But the tie that attaches the kite to the earth? I remember the lessons of childhood, you see, And the hornbook I learn'd on my poor mother's knee. In truth, I suspect little else do we learn From this great book of life, which so shrewdly we turn, Saving how to apply, with a good or bad grace, What we learn'd in the hornbook of childhood. "Your case Is exactly in point. "Fly your kite, if you please, Out of sight: let it go where it will, on the breeze; But cut not the one thread by which it is bound, Be it never so high, to this poor human ground. No man is the absolute lord of his life. You, my friend, have a home, and a sweet and dear wife. If I often have sigh'd by my own silent fire, With the sense of a sometimes recurring desire For a voice sweet and low, or a face fond and fair, Some dull winter evening to solace and share With the love which the world its good children allows To shake hands with,—in short, a legitimate spouse, This thought has consoled me: 'At least I have given For my own good behavior no hostage to heaven.' You have, though. Forget it not! faith, if you do, I would rather break stones on a road than be you. If any man wilfully injured, or led That little girl wrong, I would sit on his head, Even though you yourself were the sinner! "And this Leads me back (do not take it, dear cousin, amiss!) To the matter I meant to have mention'd at once, But these thoughts put it out of my head for the nonce. Of all the preposterous humbugs and shams, Of all the old wolves ever taken for lambs, The wolf best received by the flock he devours Is that uncle-in-law, my dear Alfred, of yours. At least, this has long been my unsettled conviction, And I almost would venture at once the prediction That before very long—but no matter! I trust, For his sake and our own, that I may be unjust. But Heaven forgive me, if cautious I am on The score of such men as with both God and Mammon Seem so shrewdly familiar. "Neglect not this warning. There were rumors afloat in the City this morning Which I scarce like the sound of. Who knows? would he fleece At a pinch, the old hypocrite, even his own niece? For the sake of Matilda I cannot importune Your attention too early. If all your wife's fortune Is yet in the hands of that specious old sinner, Who would dice with the devil, and yet rise up winner, I say, lose no time! get it out of the grab Of her trustee and uncle, Sir Ridley McNab. I trust those deposits, at least, are drawn out, And safe at this moment from danger or doubt. A wink is as good as a nod to the wise. Verbum sap. I admit nothing yet justifies My mistrust; but I have in my own mind a notion That old Ridley's white waistcoat, and airs of devotion, Have long been the only ostensible capital On which he does business. If so, time must sap it all, Sooner or later. Look sharp. Do not wait, Draw at once. In a fortnight it may be too late. I admit I know nothing. I can but suspect; I give you my notions. Form yours and reflect. My love to Matilda. Her mother looks well. I saw her last week. I have nothing to tell Worth your hearing. We think that the Government here Will not last our next session. Fitz Funk is a peer, You will see by the Times. There are symptoms which show That the ministers now are preparing to go, And finish their feast of the loaves and the fishes. It is evident that they are clearing the dishes, And cramming their pockets with bonbons. Your news Will be always acceptable. Vere, of the Blues, Has bolted with Lady Selina. And so You have met with that hot-headed Frenchman? I know That the man is a sad mauvais sujet. Take care Of Matilda. I wish I could join you both there; But before I am free, you are sure to be gone. Good-by, my dear fellow. Yours, anxiously, JOHN."
II.
This is just the advice I myself would have given To Lord Alfred, had I been his cousin, which, Heaven Be praised, I am not. But it reach'd him indeed In an unlucky hour, and received little heed. A half-languid glance was the most that he lent at That time to these homilies. Primum dementat Quem Deus vult perdere. Alfred in fact Was behaving just then in a way to distract Job's self had Job known him. The more you'd have thought The Duke's court to Matilda his eye would have caught, The more did his aspect grow listless to hers, And the more did it beam to Lucile de Nevers. And Matilda, the less she found love in the look Of her husband, the less did she shrink from the Duke. With each day that pass'd o'er them, they each, heart from heart, Woke to feel themselves further and further apart. More and more of his time Alfred pass'd at the table; Played high; and lost more than to lose he was able. He grew feverish, querulous, absent, perverse,— And here I must mention, what made matters worse, That Lucile and the Duke at the selfsame hotel With the Vargraves resided. It needs not to tell That they all saw too much of each other. The weather Was so fine that it brought them each day all together In the garden, to listen, of course, to the band. The house was a sort of phalanstery; and Lucile and Matilda were pleased to discover A mutual passion for music. Moreover, The Duke was an excellent tenor; could sing "Ange si pure" in a way to bring down on the wing All the angels St. Cicely play'd to. My lord Would also, at times, when he was not too bored, Play Beethoven, and Wagner's new music, not ill; With some little things of his own, showing skill. For which reason, as well as for some others too, Their rooms were a pleasant enough rendezvous. Did Lucile, then, encourage (the heartless coquette!) All the mischief she could not but mark? Patience yet! III.
In that garden, an arbor, withdrawn from the sun, By laburnum and lilac with blooms overrun, Form'd a vault of cool verdure, which made, when the heat Of the noontide hung heavy, a gracious retreat. And here, with some friends of their own little world, In the warm afternoons, till the shadows uncurl'd From the feet of the lindens, and crept through the grass, Their blue hours would this gay little colony pass. The men loved to smoke, and the women to bring, Undeterr'd by tobacco, their work there, and sing Or converse, till the dew fell, and homeward the bee Floated, heavy with honey. Towards eve there was tea (A luxury due to Matilda), and ice, Fruit and coffee. [Greek text omitted]! Such an evening it was, while Matilda presided O'er the rustic arrangements thus daily provided, With the Duke, and a small German Prince with a thick head, And an old Russian Countess both witty and wicked, And two Austrian Colonels,—that Alfred, who yet Was lounging alone with his last cigarette, Saw Lucile de Nevers by herself pacing slow 'Neath the shade of the cool linden-trees to and fro, And joining her, cried, "Thank the good stars, we meet! I have so much to say to you!" "Yes?... "with her sweet Serene voice, she replied to him.... "Yes? and I too Was wishing, indeed, to say somewhat to you." She was paler just then than her wont was. The sound Of her voice had within it a sadness profound. "You are ill?" he exclaim'd. "No!" she hurriedly said. "No, no!" "You alarm me!" She droop'd down her head. "If your thoughts have of late sought, or cared, to divine The purpose of what has been passing in mine, My farewell can scarcely alarm you." ALFRED. Lucile! Your farewell! you go! LUCILE. Yes, Lord Alfred. ALFRED. Reveal The cause of this sudden unkindness. LUCILE. Unkind? ALFRED. Yes! what else is this parting? LUCILE. No, no! are you blind? Look into your own heart and home. Can you see No reason for this, save unkindness in me? Look into the eyes of your wife—those true eyes, Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise The sweet soul shining through them. ALFRED. Lucile! (first and last Be the word, if you will!) let me speak of the past. I know now, alas! though I know it too late, What pass'd at that meeting which settled my fate. Nay, nay, interrupt me not yet! let it be! I but say what is due to yourself—due to me, And must say it. He rushed incoherently on, Describing how, lately, the truth he had known, To explain how, and whence, he had wrong'd her before, All the complicate coil wound about him of yore, All the hopes that had flown with the faith that was fled, "And then, O Lucile, what was left me," he said, "When my life was defrauded of you, but to take That life, as 'twas left, and endeavor to make Unobserved by another, the void which remain'd Unconceal'd to myself? If I have not attain'd, I have striven. One word of unkindness has never Pass'd my lips to Matilda. Her least wish has ever Received my submission. And if, of a truth, I have fail'd to renew what I felt in my youth, I at least have been loyal to what I DO feel, Respect, duty, honor, affection. Lucile, I speak not of love now, nor love's long regret: I would not offend you, nor dare I forget The ties that are round me. But may there not be A friendship yet hallow'd between you and me? May we not be yet friends—friends the dearest?" "Alas!" She replied, "for one moment, perchance, did it pass Through my own heart, that dream which forever hath brought To those who indulge it in innocent thought So fatal an evil awaking! But no. For in lives such as ours are, the Dream-tree would grow On the borders of Hades: beyond it, what lies? The wheel of Ixion, alas! and the cries Of the lost and tormented. Departed, for us, Are the days when with innocence we could discuss Dreams like these. Fled, indeed, are the dreams of my life! Oh trust me, the best friend you have is your wife. And I—in that pure child's pure virtue, I bow To the beauty of virtue. I felt on my brow Not one blush when I first took her hand. With no blush Shall I clasp it to-night, when I leave you. "Hush! hush! I would say what I wish'd to have said when you came. Do not think that years leave us and find us the same! The woman you knew long ago, long ago, Is no more. You yourself have within you, I know, The germ of a joy in the years yet to be, Whereby the past years will bear fruit. As for me, I go my own way,—onward, upward! "O yet, Let me thank you for that which ennobled regret When it came, as it beautified hope ere it fled,— The love I once felt for you. True, it is dead, But it is not corrupted. I too have at last Lived to learn that love is not—such love as is past, Such love as youth dreams of at least—the sole part Of life, which is able to fill up the heart; Even that of a woman. "Between you and me Heaven fixes a gulf, over which you must see That our guardian angels can bear us no more. We each of us stand on an opposite shore. Trust a woman's opinion for once. Women learn, By an instinct men never attain, to discern Each other's true natures. Matilda is fair, Matilda is young—see her now, sitting there!— How tenderly fashion'd—(oh, is she not? say,) To love and be loved!"
IV.
He turn'd sharply away— "Matilda is young, and Matilda is fair; Of all that you tell me pray deem me aware; But Matilda's a statue, Matilda's a child; Matilda loves not—" Lucile quietly smiled As she answer'd him—"Yesterday, all that you say Might be true; it is false, wholly false, though, today." "How?—what mean you?" "I mean that to-day," she replied, "The statue with life has become vivified: I mean that the child to a woman has grown: And that woman is jealous." "What, she!" with a tone Of ironical wonder, he answer'd—what, she! She jealous!—Matilda!—of whom, pray?—not me!" "My lord, you deceive yourself; no one but you Is she jealous of. Trust me. And thank Heaven, too, That so lately this passion within her hath grown. For who shall declare, if for months she had known What for days she has known all too keenly, I fear, That knowledge perchance might have cost you more dear?" "Explain! explain, madam!" he cried, in surprise; And terror and anger enkindled his eyes. "How blind are you men!" she replied. "Can you doubt That a woman, young, fair, and neglected—" "Speak out!" He gasp'd with emotion. "Lucile! you mean—what! Do you doubt her fidelity?" "Certainly not. Listen to me, my friend. What I wish to explain Is so hard to shape forth. I could almost refrain From touching a subject so fragile. However, Bear with me awhile, if I frankly endeavor To invade for one moment your innermost life. Your honor, Lord Alfred, and that of your wife, Are dear to me,—most dear! And I am convinced That you rashly are risking that honor." He winced, And turn'd pale, as she spoke. She had aim'd at his heart, And she saw, by his sudden and terrified start, That her aim had not miss'd. "Stay, Lucile!" he exclaim'd, "What in truth do you mean by these words, vaguely framed To alarm me? Matilda?—my wife?—do you know?"— "I know that your wife is as spotless as snow. But I know not how far your continued neglect Her nature, as well as her heart, might affect. Till at last, by degrees, that serene atmosphere Of her unconscious purity, faint and yet dear, Like the indistinct golden and vaporous fleece Which surrounded and hid the celestials in Greece From the glances of men, would disperse and depart At the sighs of a sick and delirious heart,— For jealousy is to a woman, be sure, A disease heal'd too oft by a criminal cure; And the heart left too long to its ravage in time May find weakness in virtue, reprisal in crime."
V.
"Such thoughts could have never," he falter'd, "I know, Reach'd the heart of Matilda." "Matilda? oh no! But reflect! when such thoughts do not come of themselves To the heart of a woman neglected, like elves That seek lonely places,—there rarely is wanting Some voice at her side, with an evil enchanting To conjure them to her." "O lady, beware! At this moment, around me I search everywhere For a clew to your words"— "You mistake them," she said, Half fearing, indeed, the effect they had made. "I was putting a mere hypothetical case." With a long look of trouble he gazed in her face. "Woe to him,..." he exclaim'd... "woe to him that shall feel Such a hope! for I swear, if he did but reveal One glimpse,—it should be the last hope of his life!" The clench'd hand and bent eyebrow betoken'd the strife She had roused in his heart. "You forget," she began, "That you menace yourself. You yourself are the man That is guilty. Alas! must it ever be so? Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go, And fight our own shadows forever? O think! The trial from which you, the stronger ones, shrink, You ask woman, the weaker one, still to endure; You bid her be true to the laws you abjure; To abide by the ties you yourselves rend asunder, With the force that has fail'd you; and that too, when under The assumption of rights which to her you refuse, The immunity claim'd for yourselves you abuse! Where the contract exists, it involves obligation To both husband and wife, in an equal relation. You unloose, in asserting your own liberty, A knot, which, unloosed, leaves another as free. Then, O Alfred! be juster at heart: and thank Heaven That Heaven to your wife such a nature has given That you have not wherewith to reproach her, albeit You have cause to reproach your own self, could you see it!"
VI.
In the silence that follow'd the last word she said, In the heave of his chest, and the droop of his head, Poor Lucile mark'd her words had sufficed to impart A new germ of motion and life to that heart Of which he himself had so recently spoken As dead to emotion—exhausted, or broken! New fears would awaken new hopes in his life. In the husband indifferent no more to the wife She already, as she had foreseen, could discover That Matilda had gain'd at her hands, a new lover. So after some moments of silence, whose spell They both felt, she extended her hand to him....
VII. "Well?"
VIII.
"Lucile," he replied, as that soft quiet hand In his own he clasp'd warmly, "I both understand And obey you." "Thank Heaven!" she murmur'd. "O yet, One word, I beseech you! I cannot forget," He exclaim'd, "we are parting for life. You have shown My pathway to me: but say, what is your own?" The calmness with which until then she had spoken In a moment seem'd strangely and suddenly broken. She turn'd from him nervously, hurriedly. "Nay, I know not," she murmur'd, "I follow the way Heaven leads me; I cannot foresee to what end. I know only that far, far away it must tend From all places in which we have met, or might meet. Far away!—onward upward!" A smile strange and sweet As the incense that rises from some sacred cup And mixes with music, stole forth, and breathed up Her whole face, with those words. "Wheresoever it be, May all gentlest angels attend you!" sighed he, "And bear my heart's blessing wherever you are!" And her hand, with emotion, he kiss'd.
IX.
From afar That kiss was, alas! by Matilda beheld. With far other emotions: her young bosom swell'd, And her young cheek with anger was crimson'd. The Duke Adroitly attracted towards it her look By a faint but significant smile.
X.
Much ill-construed, Renown'd Bishop Berkeley has fully, for one, strew'd With arguments page upon page to teach folks That the world they inhabit is only a hoax. But it surely is hard, since we can't do without them, That our senses should make us so oft wish to doubt them!
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg