It is difficult to exaggerate the effect that this discovery produced
on Leonard's train of thought. Some one belonging to his own humble
race had, then, preceded him in his struggling flight towards the
loftier regions of Intelligence and Desire. It was like the mariner
amidst unknown seas, who finds carved upon some desert isle a familiar
household name. And this creature of genius and of sorrow--whose
existence he had only learned by her song, and whose death created, in
the simple heart of her sister, so passionate a grief, after the lapse
of so many years--supplied to the romance awaking in his young heart
the ideal which it unconsciously sought. He was pleased to hear that
she had been beautiful and good. He paused from his books to muse on
her, and picture her image to his fancy. That there was some mystery
in her fate was evident to him; and while that conviction deepened his
interest, the mystery itself, by degrees, took a charm which he was not
anxious to dispel. He resigned himself to Mrs Fairfield's obstinate
silence. He was contented to rank the dead amongst those holy and
ineffable images which we do not seek to unveil. Youth and Fancy have
many secret hoards of idea which they do not desire to impart, even to
those most in their confidence. I doubt the depth of feeling in any man
who has not certain recesses in his soul into which none may enter.
Hitherto, as I have said, the talents of Leonard Fairfield had been
more turned to things positive than to the ideal; to science and
investigation of fact than to poetry, and that airier truth in which
poetry has its element. He had read our greater poets, indeed, but
without thought of imitating; and rather from the general curiosity
to inspect all celebrated monuments of the human mind, than from that
especial predilection for verse which is too common in childhood and
youth to be any sure sign of a poet. But now these melodies, unknown to
all the world beside, rang in his ear, mingled with his thoughts--set,
as it were, his whole life to music. He read poetry with a different
sentiment--it seemed to him that he had discovered its secret. And so
reading, the passion seized him, and "the numbers came."
To many minds, at the commencement of our grave and earnest pilgrimage,
I am Vandal enough to think that the indulgence of poetic taste and
reverie does great and lasting harm; that it serves to enervate the
character, give false ideas of life, impart the semblance of drudgery
to the noble toils and duties of the active man. All poetry would not
do this--not, for instance, the Classical, in its diviner masters--not
the poetry of Homer, of Virgil, of Sophocles--not, perhaps, even that
of the indolent Horace. But the poetry which youth usually loves and
appreciates the best--the poetry of mere sentiment--does so in minds
already over predisposed to the sentimental, and which require bracing
to grow into healthful manhood.
On the other hand, even this latter kind of poetry, which is peculiarly
modern, does suit many minds of another mould--minds which our modern
life, with its hard positive forms, tends to produce. And as in
certain climates plants and herbs, peculiarly adapted as antidotes to
those diseases most prevalent in the atmosphere, are profusely sown,
as it were, by the benignant providence of nature--so it may be that
the softer and more romantic species of poetry, which comes forth in
harsh, moneymaking, unromantic times, is intended as curatives and
counter-poisons. The world is so much with us, now-a-days, that we need
have something that prates to us, albeit even in too fine an euphuism,
of the moon and stars.
Certes, to Leonard Fairfield, at that period of his intellectual life,
the softness of our Helicon descended as healing dews. In his turbulent
and unsettled ambition, in his vague grapple with the giant forms of
political truths, in his bias towards the application of science to
immediate practical purposes, this lovely vision of the Muse came in
the white robe of the Peacemaker; and with upraised hand, pointing to
serene skies, she opened to him fair glimpses of the Beautiful, which
is given to Peasant as to Prince--showed to him that on the surface
of earth there is something nobler than fortune--that he who can view
the world as a poet is always at soul a king; while to practical
purpose itself, that larger and more profound invention, which poetry
stimulates, supplied the grand design and the subtle view--leading
him beyond the mere ingenuity of the mechanic, and habituating him to
regard the inert force of the matter at his command with the ambition
of the Discoverer. But, above all, the discontent that was within
him finding a vent, not in deliberate war upon this actual world,
but through the purifying channels of song--in the vent itself it
evaporated, it was lost. By accustoming ourselves to survey all things
with the spirit that retains and reproduces them only in their lovelier
or grander aspects, a vast philosophy of toleration for what we before
gazed on with scorn or hate insensibly grows upon us. Leonard looked
into his heart after the enchantress had breathed upon it; and through
the mists of the fleeting and tender melancholy which betrayed where
she had been, he beheld a new sun of delight and joy dawning over the
landscape of human life.
Thus, though she was dead and gone from his actual knowledge, this
mysterious kinswoman--"a voice, and nothing more"--had spoken to him,
soothed, elevated, cheered, attuned each discord into harmony; and, if
now permitted from some serener sphere to behold the life that her soul
thus strangely influenced, verily, with yet holier joy, the saving and
lovely spirit might have glided onward in the Eternal Progress.
We call the large majority of human lives _obscure_. Presumptuous that
we are! How know we what lives a single thought retained from the dust
of nameless graves may have lighted to renown?