spoke. When he paused, the general clasped him round the neck, and
concealing his tears, which were flowing fast, by leaning his head on
his nephew’s shoulder, he exclaimed, “There I recognize the son of Henry
Douglas! Yes, Frederick, you are worthy of the father and the mother from
whom you spring. Your fine disposition shall be indulged, though not in
exactly the manner which you suggest. _You_ shall be lord of Marsden: but
I promise you to take care of Arthur by leaving him such a sum, as shall
free his estate from a portion, at least, of its incumbrances; and now,
dear boy, leave me; I must not lose time, and I am anxious to see Mr.
Peltry. Say nothing, I charge you, of this conversation to your mother
and sisters, I know them too well not to be assured that the recital of
what has passed between us, would give them pain, and I wish to spare
them every uneasiness in my power to prevent them from suffering.”
Your young friend then left the room, the solicitor was sent for, and
such testamentary arrangements were made by this interesting being, who
has just come to make us feel the full value of what we are about to
lose, as reflect the highest honour on his justice and impartiality.
We shall soon set out, and I feel a mournful presentiment that we shall
return to England a diminished number. The progress of my poor friend’s
disease is very slow, and imperceptible, and he has intervals of apparent
improvement, so encouraging to our hopes, that had experience not
frequently proved how delusive are these temporary amendments, we should
be led from time to time to increase the measure of disappointment by
giving way to fallacious expectations.
I am summoned to attend him in an airing, and must say adieu.
Your faithful friend,
ED. OTWAY.
LETTER XXXIV.
MRS. DOUGLAS TO THE REV. MR. OLIPHANT.
My very dear good Friend,
If my pen had kept pace with my heart, my congratulations would have
reached you long ere this; but you know me too well to doubt their truth;
and it would be equally injurious to your confidence, and my sincerity,
were I to expend the short time I allow myself for writing, in apologies
which are unnecessary.
Accept my heart-felt rejoicings on your preferment, which I consider
as providential to myself. Your task was concluded. You had safely
piloted my beloved child through his collegiate course; and would have
missed your wonted employment, while no other sufficiently _marked_ to
occupy your whole time, seemed to detain you henceforward at Glenalta,
I dreaded to hear that you must leave me; but wherever duty called you
would have followed her voice, and could I have asked you to stay if
conscience disapproved the lengthened sojourn? _Now_ you _belong_ to us.
All the energies of your admirable nature will be employed where your old
friends may still benefit by them. You will continue to be our teacher
and friend. You will become our pastor, and be reverenced and beloved
by the poor, whose blessings you have so often felt in grateful showers
on your head. I have settled in my own mind that you will not possess a
comfortable home without inviting your worthy sister and her only child,
to share it with you; and if such be your intention, you must permit me
to assist in furnishing your dwelling for a lady’s reception. Much as
we have been in the habit of looking up to you, I am not _sure_ that we
should defer to your taste in such a matter.
I write by this post to Dublin, from whence you will receive my “bread
and salt,” as the Russians call this species of offering to a new
establishment. Oh, my dear friend, how deep is my gratitude to the
Almighty giver of good, for the mercies I continually experience! It
would have been a great alloy to the happiness of knowing how comfortably
you are placed beyond the reach of those sordid cares which depress the
spirit, had you owed the independence now conferred, to a stranger. I
must have felt _some_ pleasure under _any_ circumstances at your being
enabled to continue that character to which your pupils once assigned
the appellation of the “good Benefico (_the good giant_),” but your
little volatile friend Fanny, said to me a few days ago, and reflected
my own feelings as she spoke, “Mamma, there are but two people in the
world besides you to whom I cannot _grudge_ the delight of making dear
Mr. Oliphant a man of easy fortune; and those two are my uncle and
Mr. Otway.” But this theme, all inspiring as it is, must not make me
forgetful of your request.
You earnestly desire to be made acquainted as minutely as possible with
the progress of my dearly loved brother’s mind towards that heavenly
rest, without the possession of which, the approach of that mysterious
change which awaits all created beings, must be awful beyond description.
You know that I was fortunate in seizing upon the character of my
brother’s mind at an early period of our acquaintance. One of the first
outlines that I took, discovered to me his strong aversion to control,
_even_ in conversation. I perceived that having been long accustomed to
exert an unrestrained free will in the regulation of his own occupations
as well as amusements, and having also seen so much of design in the
ordinary intercourse of the world as to make him suspicious of every
formal attack upon his opinions, he met with a sort of predetermined
opposition the slightest attempt to alter his views, upon any subject of
interest. With this clue, I pursued my way, turning aside from, rather
than courting, any opportunity of conversing upon topics respecting which
I burned to know his thoughts. The usual style of our conversation was
of that mixed nature which gave me an early insight into a mind replete
with various powers. Its predominating tone was that of playfulness, and
a common observer might have been borne out in calling General Douglas a
humourist; but though possessed of all the requisites to inspire mirth,
as well as taste its influence, I could see a dark cloud gathering
underneath a smile, and catch a half breathed sigh, that wafted to my
heart’s core the sounds, “All, all is vanity--delusion all,” when gaiety
_seemed_ to dance around his heart. What would I not have given at such
moments to have seized a hand, and with affectionate energy pressed
admission to the sacred repository of gloomy contemplation; but the time
was not come. A premature remark, however tenderly whispered, would have
alarmed a retiring and delicate, as well as proud mind, unaccustomed to
see itself exposed to view. I therefore waited till opportunity should
naturally invite communication; and such presented itself ere long after
my brother’s arrival amongst us at Glenalta.
You may remember the time when you and Frederick were reading Butler’s
Analogy as part of the College course. My dear boy was fond of talking
over with me each chapter as he proceeded, and I determined to read
that inestimable work anew, for the purpose of refreshing my memory, in
conversation with him. One day, employed in this manner, I was sitting
alone in my dressing-room, when my brother tapped at the door, saying
that you wanted me for a few minutes in the study, and asked whether he
might remain till my return, as he also wished to speak with me. On my
return, I found him eagerly devouring the chapter on a future state;
and so absorbed was he, that at first he did not perceive my entrance
into the room. When he did, he started, and said, “Caroline, I have to
apologize for taking up your book to see what you were reading, and I
find something that has struck me: but I make a discovery that _you_ are
fond of these dark themes. Why have you never broached these subjects
with me?” “Because,” said I, “that they _are_ both dark and deep, and lie
hidden between us and our Creator. The controversies of men are seldom
beneficial, and more frequently excite the passions than satisfy the
pride of human presumption.” “Do you mean, then, to say,” replied our
dear inquirer, “that religion is incapable of proof?” “So far from it,”
answered I, “that every object in nature bears proof to demonstration
of the great leading tenets of religion; but I mean to say, such is the
perverseness of our hearts, that we repel, when offered by another,
those arguments which we should be proud to originate ourselves, and
refuse conviction, unless our vanity be gratified by taking some credit
to itself, at _least_ in the _selection_ of those reasons which operate
a change of opinion. For this cause we suffer books to teach, though we
deny a friend the delight of converting us from the evil of our ways,
and why? Alas! in human weakness we have the answer. The choice of a
book is a _free_ act; the continuing to read it is a _free_ act. The
advocacy of its doctrines, if they be arrayed with power, talent, and
genius, reflects honour on our discrimination, and, to a certain degree,
identifies us with the author, who perhaps has vanished from the arena
of our paltry rivalry, having been called to his account; or, should he
still be alive, is removed from the immediate field of competition. I
_know_ these humiliating facts experimentally, for I have doubted, and I
have been perverse.”
From this moment, every reserve on my brother’s part was at an end. He
looked steadfastly in my face, with an expression which seemed to ask,
is this indeed the _truth_, and not said to inveigle me into confidence?
His own penetration assured him that I practised no deception. He took my
hand, and spoke to the following effect:
“You are the very being to whom my whole soul shall be unfolded. Much
is locked up within my breast that ‘ferments for want of air.’ You are
right; you have in a few words drawn my picture; and _so_ truly, that
I now confess I should not have acknowledged this moment the fidelity
of your portrait, had you boasted the superiority over me, of one who
had not been drawn aside yourself from the path to which you have
returned. But though your having once doubted, is a bond between us,
like that of a common language in a foreign land; there is much room
yet for discrepancy; and the _nature_ of our stumbling blocks may be
so extremely different that we may lose, rather than gain _accession_
of sympathy by attempting to travel together in a course where so
many intricate bye-paths present themselves to distract attention and
divide our choice. Every thinking mind which has felt what it was to
be perplexed, has been conscious of gradation in the difficulties that
embarrassed its progress: some were but apparent, and vanished on the
approach of knowledge; others, more stubborn, required more time and
pains to conquer, but yielded at length to the force of reason, while
there are some obstacles to Faith so harassing, that no efforts of the
understanding are of any avail in breaking down the barriers which they
present to sincere uncompromising belief:
‘Man never reasons but from what he knows,’
and if all attempts to comprehend, are rendered futile by the
imperfection of his faculties, it is vain to call upon his faith.
Credulity, indeed, may receive all things; but where Heaven has granted
intellect, impalpable and unseen as are its operations, it excludes the
dogmatizing influence of arbitrary control, and will not bend to mere
authority. Tell me then, Caroline, what chiefly puzzled you--what were
the obstructions which principally encumbered your path, and if they
resemble those which block my way. I will next inquire how you removed
them; ask you to be my Hannibal; and prepare to follow in that track
which you shall excavate for me through the rocky defile.”
I told him that after avowing the fact on which I look back with pain,
of having been sceptically inclined in that period of youthful arrogance
when new-born reason, proud of her first flights, imagines that her wing
can soar above the clouds, and penetrate the sanctuaries of the Most
High, I could have no objection to inform him how far I had been enabled
to overcome, as also where my presumption met with its first check, while
Reason was my only guide. I then gave him a brief sketch of my former
uneasy sensations, and the causes which had led to them. He listened
with the deepest attention, and, when I concluded, answered that by a
remarkable coincidence in our views, the only difficulties which had
greatly harassed me were precisely those which still haunted him with
ceaseless perplexity. “I never,” added he, “stuck at the historical
discordances of the Bible, because, though I did not take the trouble
of going minutely into the inquiry myself, I was aware that others of
superior learning did do so; and when such a man as Sir William Jones,
versed in Oriental literature, and examining the records of antiquity
with critical acumen, was satisfied with his researches, so as to
pronounce upon the increase of evidence which every added information
produced to him, confirmatory of Scriptural truth, I could not tarry to
believe that _apparent_ contrarieties only require investigation to be
satisfactorily reconciled to _my_ understanding also, were I patiently
to pursue the testimony which might be collected. I never felt that
Herodotus was to be set aside as a historian, because superstition has
deformed his work, and fable occasionally obscured the truth of his
narrative. Nor have I ever doubted that Cæsar wrote the Commentaries
imputed to his pen, though Hirtius has added a supplement to the book.
Why then should I deny that Moses was author of the Pentateuch, because
the account of that great lawgiver’s death and burial is supplied by
another hand; or conclude it impossible that Joshua, the son of Nun,
should have compiled the narrative ascribed to him, in consequence of
finding a few mistakes in the arrangement of facts, for which he was,
probably, not to blame, and which are the cause of certain unimportant
anachronisms in the story? _My_ difficulties have been of another kind,
and the three points of free-will, the soul’s separate state, and
personal identity, have been with me, as with you, the barrier over which
I have hitherto been unable to pass. I have heard much of a Novel which
has lately appeared, and I brought it with me, though I have not yet
looked into it, feeling how idle it is to expect argument in a _story_.”
I told him that I had read _Tremaine_ with great pleasure, that I thought
it an excellent, though not a faultless work, and should be happy to go
over it again with him.