CHAPTER XXXI.
AN OLD MAN'S VIEW OF LIFE.
We tremble even in our happiness;
Hurried and dim, the unknown hours press
Heavy with care or grief, that none may ever guess.
The future is more present than the past:
For one look back a thousand on we cast,
And Hope doth ever Memory outlast.
For Hope say Fear—Hope is a timid thing,
Fearful, and weak, and born in suffering;
At least, such hope as human life can bring.
Its home, it is not here, it looks beyond;
And, while it carries an enchanter's wand,
Its spells are conscious of their earthly bond.
Ethel used often to go of an evening and pass an hour with Sir Jasper Meredith, who was always glad to see her, and always admitted her into his library. A painter might have taken the scene for some laboratory of the olden time, occupied by an Italian alchymist, and one fair child who had grown up, like a dream of human beauty, amid study and seclusion. She was seated on a low seat by the hearth, wrapped still, more from forgetfulness than cold, in her mantle. The firelight, which was flickering and uncertain, left her figure in complete shade, but threw sudden gleams of radiance on her face. What a change had a few weeks wrought there!
On the moonlit evening which collected our young party together by the little fountain, Ethel was the cherub of the circle—a very dream of child-like, roseate, innocent loveliness. She had still that peculiar cast of beauty which the immortal artists of Italy have associated with our idea of angelic nature; but it was now that of a seraph, who has both knowledge and pity. The long fair hair was thrown carelessly back, while the gleams of the hearth kindled it like burning gold. This made the paleness of the face more conspicuous, and there was an impress of sadness, terrible to mark in one so young. The attitude—the hands clasped, and the form drooping carelessly forward—was one of utter dejection. The eye-lashes shone with unshed tears; there was too much uncertainty for the relief of weeping. The large blue eyes were fixed on the fire: dilated and unconscious, they knew not what they saw. Alas! it was too soon with Ethel for the past to engross the spirit, that should have been hopeful and buoyant, so entirely.
"All I hope is," exclaimed Sir Jasper, breaking the silence into which they had gradually sunk,—"that Henrietta will never love. She is guarded against it both by knowledge and ambition. She has not, like most girls, been sedulously kept from considering what is in reality the most important subject they can consider. On the contrary, she has, from the first, been taught to examine and to know the evil which mere selfishness should teach her to shun."
"You think love, then, to be an evil?" asked Ethel, timidly.
"I look upon it," replied the old man, "as the greatest calamity to which our nature is subject. What is it but having our happiness taken out of our own hands, and delivered, bound and bartered, into that of another."
"But that other," exclaimed Ethel, "may delight in making it more precious than their own."
"The chances are fearfully against it," replied the old man. "Nature and fate rarely accord their old dark variance. You are by the one formed to be beloved, and to love. As all experience shows, the probabilities are, that you will waste the rich treasure of your affection on one who has none to give in return, or who is wholly unworthy of the gift."
"But," persisted his companion, "experience also shows instances of mutual and enduring affection."
"And how Fate prepares the path for Love," returned Sir Jasper, "by surrounding it with difficulty, by trying it with poverty and by absence, till the worn-out spirit sinks beneath some last disappointment: but this is an uncommon instance. Mutual and lasting attachment is the rarest shape taken by suffering."
"And the sweetest," said Ethel, in so low a voice as scarcely to be audible.
"But what," continued Meredith, "is the ordinary history of the heart? We yield to some strong and sudden impulse. One sweet face sheds its own loveliness over earth. A subtle pleasure, unknown before, enters into the commonest thing. We gaze on the stars, and dream of an existence spiritual and lovely as their own, far removed from all lower cares, from all the meaner and baser portion of our ordinary path. The face of nature has grown fairer than of old; a thousand graceful phantasies are linked with every leaf and flower. The odour that comes from the violet with the last sobs of a spring shower, is more fragrant from recalling the faint breathing of one beloved mouth. We turn the poet's page, now, to find a thousand hidden meanings, only to be detected by a passionate sympathy; for poetry is the language set apart for love."
"Ah, how true that is!" exclaimed Ethel, stopping short, and colouring at the idea of betraying that secret which, though the soul's dearest mystery, is never kept from others.
"But this brief abode in fairy-land is dearly purchased," continued Sir Jasper; "too late we find that the dominion of another is an iron rule. We doubt, we fear, we dread, only to be at last—how bitterly—undeceived! We find that truth is a mockery; and confidence but a laying bare of the heart to the beak of the vulture. We are mortified because we have been duped, and that by means of our kindliest affections; hence we grow suspicious. Our feelings are checked, and we are afraid of their indulgence—why give weapons against our own peace? Hence, we become cold, doubtful, stern,—how are the elements of happiness departed from us! It is life's first lesson, and its severest; we shall never suffer so bitterly again, because we can never more know such keen enjoyment: yet this first lesson is but the type of all that are to come. Throughout our weary pilgrimage we are duped and betrayed! One hope after another dies away like a star in the dim chill light of morning and reality. Our feelings are exhausted; our memory stored with images of pain. Our mistress deceived us at first, and our friends have gone and done likewise. Tired and embittered, we take refuge in a harsh indifference; the dust of the highway is upon us, and the heart becomes its own tomb. All the better part of us has gone down to the grave, while we sit wearily by its side, the wan shadows of what once we were. Life, after all its fever and struggle, has only one dark hope left; and that hope, is death!"
The old man's voice sank, like a knell, amid the stillness of that gloomy chamber, and he sank back fatigued in his Gothic seat, the very image of the desolate old age he had painted. While Ethel, who sat cowering by the hearth, was equally the image of youthful despondency. Both were silent; for the aged man was sad to think of the past, and the young girl trembled to think of the future. A few minutes passed, when both were aroused from their stupor by the entrance of a servant with a letter from Henrietta.