It was with no small astonishment young Massy heard that he and his
faithful follower were not alone restored to liberty, but that an
order of his Highness had assigned them a residence in a portion of the
palace, and a promise of future employment.
“This smacks of Turkish rather than of European rule,” said the youth.
“In prison yesterday,--in a palace to-day. My own fortunes are wayward
enough, Heaven knows, not to require any additional ingredient of
uncertainty. What think you, Traynor?”
“I'm thinkin',” said Billy, gravely, “that as the bastes of the field
are guided by their instincts to objects that suit their natures, so
man ought, by his reason, to be able to pilot himself in
difficulties,--choosin' this, avoidin' that; seein' by the eye of
prophecy where a road would lead him, and makin' of what seem the
accidents of life, steppin'-stones to fortune.”
“In what way does your theory apply here?” cried the other. “How am I to
guess whither this current may carry me?”
“At all events, there's no use wastin' your strength by swimmin' against
it,” rejoined Billy.
“To be the slave of some despot's whim,--the tool of a caprice that may
elevate me to-day, and to-morrow sentence me to the gallows. The object
I have set before myself in life is to be independent. Is this, then,
the road to it?”
“You 're tryin' to be what no man ever was, or will be, to the world's
end, then,” said Billy. “Sure it's the very nature and essence of our
life here below that we are dependent one on the other for kindness, for
affection, for material help in time of difficulty, for counsel in time
of doubt. The rich man and the poor one have their mutual dependencies;
and if it was n't so, cowld-hearted and selfish as the world is, it
would be five hundred times worse.”
“You mistake my meaning,” said Massy, sternly, “as you often do, to read
me a lesson on a text of your own. When I spoke of independence, I meant
freedom from the serfdom of another's charity. I would that my life
here, at least, should be of my own procuring.”
“_I_ get mine from _you_,” said Traynor, calmly, “and never felt myself
a slave on that account.”
“Forgive me, my dear, kind friend. I could hate myself if I gave you a
moment's pain. This temper of mine does not improve by time.”
“There's one way to conquer it. Don't be broodin' on what's within.
Don't be magnifyin' your evil fortunes to your own heart till you come
to think the world all little, and yourself all great. Go out to your
daily labor, whatever it be, with a stout spirit to do your best, and a
thankful, grateful heart that you are able to do it. Never let it out of
your mind that if there's many a one your inferior, winnin' his way up
to fame and fortune before you, there's just as many better than you
toilin' away unseen and unnoticed, wearin' out genius in a garret, and
carryin' off a Godlike intellect to an obscure grave!”
“You talk to me as though my crying sin were an overweening vanity,”
said the youth, half angrily.
“Well, it's one of them,” said Billy; and the blunt frankness of the
avowal threw the boy into a fit of laughing.
“You certainly do not intend to spoil me, Billy,” said he, still
laughing.
“Why would I do what so many is ready to do for nothing? What does the
crowd that praise the work of a young man of genius care where they 're
leading him to? It's like people callin' out to a strong swimmer,
'Go out farther and farther,--out to the open say, where the waves is
rollin' big, and the billows is roughest; that's worthy of you, in your
strong might and your stout limbs. Lave the still water and the shallows
to the weak and the puny. _Your_ course is on the mountain wave, over
the bottomless ocean.' It's little they think if he's ever to get back
again. 'T is their boast and their pride that they said, 'Go on;' and
when his cold corpse comes washed to shore, all they have is a word of
derision and scorn for one who ventured beyond his powers.”
“How you cool down one's ardor; with what pleasure you check every
impulse that nerves one's heart for high daring!” said the youth,
bitterly. “These eternal warnings--these never-ending forebodings of
failure--are sorry stimulants to energy.”
“Is n't it better for you to have all your reverses at the hands of a
crayture as humble as me?” said Billy, while the tears glistened in his
eyes. “What good am I, except for this?”
In a moment the boy's arms were around him, while he cried out,--
“There, forgive me once more, and let me try if I cannot amend a temper
that any but yourself had grown weary of correcting. I'll work--I'll
labor--I'll submit--I'll accept the daily rubs of life, as others take
them, and you shall be satisfied with me. We shall go back to all our
old pursuits, my dear Billy. I'll join all your ecstasies over Æschylus,
and believe as much as I can of Herodotus, to please you. You shall lead
me to all the wonders of the stars, and dazzle me with the brightness of
visions that my intellect is lost in; and in revenge I only ask that you
should sit with me in the studio, and read to me some of those songs of
Horace that move the heart like old wine. Shall I own to you what it is
which sways me thus uncertainly,--jarring every chord of my existence,
making life a sea of stormy conflict? Shall I tell you?”
He grasped the other's hand with both his own as he spoke, and, while
his lips quivered in strong emotion, went on:--
“It is this, then. I cannot forget, do all that I will, I cannot root
out of my heart what I once believed myself to be. You know what I mean.
Well, there it is still, like the sense of a wrong or foul injustice,
as though I had been robbed and cheated of what never was mine! This
contrast between the life my earliest hopes had pictured, and that which
I am destined to, never leaves me. All your teachings--and I have seen
how devotedly you have addressed yourself to this lesson--have not
eradicated from my nature the proud instincts that guided my childhood.
Often and often have you warmed my blood by thoughts of a triumph to be
achieved by me hereafter,--how men should recognize me as a genius, and
elevate me to honors and rewards; and yet would I barter such success,
ten thousand times told, for an hour of that high station that comes
by birth alone, independent of all effort,--the heirloom of deeds
chronicled centuries back, whose actors have been dust for ages. That is
real pride,” cried he, enthusiastically, “and has no alloy of the petty
vanity that mingles with the sense of a personal triumph.”
Traynor hung his head heavily as the youth spoke, and a gloomy
melancholy settled on his features; the sad conviction came home to him
of all his counsels being fruitless, all his teachings in vain; and as
the boy sat wrapped in a wild, dreamy revery of ancestral greatness, the
humble peasant brooded darkly over the troubles such a temperament might
evoke.
“It is agreed, then,” cried Massy, suddenly, “that we are to accept of
this great man's bounty, live under his roof, and eat his bread. Well,
I accede,--as well his as another's. Have you seen the home they destine
for us?”
“Yes, it's a real paradise, and in a garden that would beat Adam's
now,” exclaimed Traynor; “for there's marble fountains, and statues, and
temples, and grottos in it; and it's as big as a prairie, and as wild as
a wilderness. And, better than all, there's a little pathway leads to
a private stair that goes up into the library of the palace,--a spot
nobody ever enters, and where you may study the whole day long without
hearin' a footstep. All the books is there that ever was written, and
manuscripts without end besides; and the Minister says I'm to have my
own kay, and go in and out whenever I plaze. 'And if there's anything
wantin',' says be, 'just order it on a slip of paper and send it to me,
and you 'll have it at once.' When I asked if I ought to spake to the
librarian himself, he only laughed, and said, 'That's me; but I'm
never there. Take my word for it, Doctor, you 'll have the place to
yourself.'”
He spoke truly. Billy Traynor had it, indeed, to himself. There, the
gray dawn of morning, and the last shadows of evening, ever found him,
seated in one of those deep, cell-like recesses of the windows; the
table, the seats, the very floor littered with volumes which, revelling
in the luxury of wealth, he had accumulated around him. His greedy
avidity for knowledge knew no bounds. The miser's thirst for gold was
weak in comparison with that intense craving that seized upon him.
Historians, critics, satirists, poets, dramatists, metaphysicians, never
came amiss to a mind bent on acquiring. The life he led was like the
realization of a glorious dream,--the calm repose, the perfect stillness
of the spot, the boundless stores that lay about him; the growing
sense of power, as day by day his intellect expanded; new vistas opened
themselves before him, and new and unproved sources of pleasure sprang
up in his nature. The never-ending variety gave a zest, too, to his
labors that averted all weariness; and at last he divided his time
ingeniously, alternating grave and difficult subjects with lighter
topics,--making, as he said himself, “Aristophanes digest Plato.”
And what of young Massy all this while? His life was a dream, too,
but of another and very different kind. Visions of a glorious future
alternated with sad and depressing thoughts; high darings, and hopeless
views of what lay before him, came and went, and went and came again.
The Duke, who had just taken his departure for some watering-place in
Germany, gave him an order for certain statues, the models for which
were to be ready by his return,--at least, in that sketchy state of
which clay is even more susceptible than canvas. The young artist chafed
and fretted under the restraint of an assigned task. It was gall to his
haughty nature to be told that his genius should accept dictation, and
his fancy be fettered by the suggestions of another. If he tried to
combat this rebellious spirit, and addressed himself steadily to labor,
he found that his imagination grew sluggish, and his mind uncreative.
The sense of servitude oppressed him; and though he essayed to subdue
himself to the condition of an humble artist, the old pride still
rankled in his heart, and spirited him to a haughty resistance. His days
thus passed over in vain attempts to work, or still more unprofitable
lethargy. He lounged through the deserted garden, or lay, half-dreamily,
in the long, deep grass, listening to the cicala, or watching the
emerald-backed lizards as they lay basking in the sun. He drank in all
the soft voluptuous influences of a climate which steeps the senses in
a luxurious stupor, making the commonest existence a toil, but giving to
mere indolence all the zest of a rich enjoyment. Sometimes he wandered
into the library, and noiselessly drew nigh the spot where Billy sat
deeply busied in his books. He would gaze silently, half curiously,
at the poor fellow, and then steal noiselessly away, pondering on the
blessings of that poor peasant's nature, and wondering what in his own
organization had denied him the calm happiness of this humble man's
life.