There is somewhere in Lord Lytton's writings--writings so numerous that I
may be pardoned if I cannot remember where-a critical definition of the
difference between dramatic and narrative art of story, instanced by that
marvellous passage in the loftiest of Sir Walter Scott's works, in which
all the anguish of Ravenswood on the night before he has to meet Lucy's
brother in mortal combat is conveyed without the spoken words required in
tragedy. It is only to be conjectured by the tramp of his heavy boots to
and fro all the night long in his solitary chamber, heard below by the
faithful Caleb. The drama could not have allowed that treatment; the
drama must have put into words, as "soliloquy," agonies which the non-
dramatic narrator knows that no soliloquy can describe. Humbly do I
imitate, then, the great master of narrative in declining to put into
words the conflict between love and reason that tortured the heart of
Graham Vane when, dropping noiselessly the letter I have just
transcribed, he covered his face with his hands and remained--I know not
how long--in the same position, his head bowed, not a sound escaping from
his lips.
He did not stir from his rooms that day; and had there been a Caleb's
faithful ear to listen, his tread, too, might have been heard all that
sleepless night passing to and fro, but pausing oft, along his solitary
floors.
Possibly love would have borne down all opposing seasonings, doubts, and
prejudices, but for incidents that occurred the following evening. On
that evening Graham dined _en famille_ with his cousins the Altons.
After dinner, the Duke produced the design for a cenotaph inscribed to
the memory of his aunt, Lady Janet King, which he proposed to place in
the family chapel at Alton.
"I know," said the Duke, kindly, "you would wish the old house from which
she sprang to preserve some such record of her who loved you as her son;
and even putting you out of the question, it gratifies me to attest the
claim of our family to a daughter who continues to be famous for her
goodness, and made the goodness so lovable that envy forgave it for being
famous. It was a pang to me when poor Richard King decided on placing
her tomb among strangers; but in conceding his rights as to her resting-
place, I retain mine to her name,--Nostris liberis virtutis exemplar."
Graham wrung his cousin's hand-he could not speak, choked by suppressed
tears.
The Duchess, who loved and honoured Lady Janet almost as much as did her
husband, fairly sobbed aloud. She had, indeed, reason for grateful
memories of the deceased: there had been some obstacles to her marriage
with the man who had won her heart, arising from political differences
and family feuds between their parents, which the gentle meditation of
Lady Janet had smoothed away. And never did union founded on mutual and
ardent love more belie the assertions of the great Bichat (esteemed by
Dr. Buckle the finest intellect which practical philosophy has exhibited
since Aristotle), that "Love is a sort of fever which does not last
beyond two years," than that between those eccentric specimens of a class
denounced as frivolous and artless by philosophers, English and French,
who have certainly never heard of Bichat.
When the emotion the Duke had exhibited was calmed down, his wife pushed
towards Graham a sheet of paper, inscribed with the epitaph composed by
his hand. "Is it not beautiful," she said, falteringly--"not a word too
much or too little?"
Graham read the inscription slowly, and with very dimmed eyes. It
deserved the praise bestowed on it; for the Duke, though a shy and
awkward speaker, was an incisive and graceful writer.
Yet, in his innermost self, Graham shivered when he read that epitaph, it
expressed so emphatically the reverential nature of the love which Lady
Janet had inspired--the genial influences which the holiness of a
character so active in doing good had diffused around it. It brought
vividly before Graham that image of perfect spotless womanhood. And a
voice within him asked, "Would that cenotaph be placed amid the monuments
of an illustrious lineage if the secret known to thee could transpire?
What though the lost one were really as unsullied by sin as the world
deems, would the name now treasured as an heirloom not be a memory of
gall and a sound of shame?"
He remained so silent after putting down the inscription, that the Duke
said modestly: "My dear Graham, I see that you do not like what I have
written. Your pen is much more practised than mine. If I did not ask
you to compose the epitaph, it was because I thought it would please you
more in coming, as a spontaneous tribute due to her, from the
representative of her family. But will you correct my sketch, or give me
another according to your own ideas?"
"I see not a word to alter," said Graham; "forgive me if my silence
wronged my emotion; the truest eloquence is that which holds us too mute
for applause."
"I knew you would like it. Leopold is always so disposed to underrate
himself," said the duchess, whose hand was resting fondly on her
husband's shoulder. "Epitaphs are so difficult to write-especially
epitaphs on women of whom in life the least said the better. Janet was
the only woman I ever knew whom one could praise in safety."
"Well expressed," said the Duke, smiling: "and I wish you would make that
safety clear to some lady friends of yours, to whom it might serve as a
lesson. Proof against every breath of scandal herself, Janet King never
uttered and never encouraged one ill-natured word against another. But I
am afraid, my dear fellow, that I must leave you to a _tete-a-tete_ with
Eleanor. You know that I must be at the House this evening--I only
paired till half-past nine."
"I will walk down to the House with you, if you are going on foot."
"No," said the Duchess; "you must resign yourself to me for at least half
an hour. I was looking over your aunt's letters to-day, and I found one
which I wish to show you; it is all about yourself, and written within
the last few months of her life." Here she put her arm into Graham's,
and led him into her own private drawing-room, which, though others might
call it a boudoir, she dignified by the name of her study. The Duke
remained for some minutes thoughtfully leaning his arm on the
mantelpiece. It was no unimportant debate in the Lords that night, and
on a subject in which he took great interest, and the details of which he
had thoroughly mastered. He had been requested to speak, if only a few
words, for his high character and his reputation for good sense gave
weight to the mere utterance of his opinion. But though no one had more
moral courage in action, the Duke had a terror at the very thought of
addressing an audience, which made him despise himself.
"Ah!" he muttered, "if Graham Vane were but in Parliament, I could trust
him to say exactly what I would rather be swallowed up by an earthquake
than stand up and say for myself. But now he has got money he seems to
think of nothing but saving it."