Is there a reader so little experienced in the human heart, so forgetful
of his own, as not to feel the possibility of the following fact?
A series of uncommon calamities had been for many years the lot of the
elder Henry; a succession of prosperous events had fallen to the share of
his brother William. The one was the envy, while the other had the
compassion, of all who thought about them. For the last twenty years,
William had lived in affluence, bordering upon splendour, his friends,
his fame, his fortune, daily increasing, while Henry throughout that very
period had, by degrees, lost all he loved on earth, and was now existing
apart from civilised society; and yet, during those twenty years, where
William knew one happy moment, Henry tasted hundreds.
That the state of the mind, and not outward circumstances, is the nice
point on which happiness depends is but a trite remark; but that
intellectual power should have the force to render a man discontented in
extraordinary prosperity, such as that of the present bishop, or
contented in his brother's extreme of adversity, requires illustration.
The first great affliction to Henry was his brother's ingratitude; but
reasoning on the frailty of man's nature, and the force of man's
temptations, he found excuses for William, which made him support the
treatment he had received with more tranquillity than William's proud
mind supported his brother's marriage.
Henry's indulgent disposition made him less angry with William than
William was with him.
The next affliction Henry suffered was the loss of his beloved wife. That
was a grief which time and change of objects gradually alleviated; while
William's wife was to him a permanent grief, her puerile mind, her
talking vanity, her affected virtues, soured his domestic comfort, and,
in time, he had suffered more painful moments from her society than his
brother had experienced, even from the death of her he loved.
In their children, indeed, William was the happier; his son was a pride
and pleasure to him, while Henry never thought upon _his_ without
lamenting his loss with bitterest anguish. But if the elder brother had
in one instance the advantage, still Henry had a resource to overbalance
this article. Henry, as he lay imprisoned in his dungeon, and when, his
punishment being remitted, he was again allowed to wander, and seek his
subsistence where he would, in all his tedious walks and solitary resting-
places, during all his lonely days and mournful nights, had _this
resource_ to console him--
"I never did an injury to any one; never was harsh, severe, unkind,
deceitful. I did not merely confine myself to do my neighbour no harm; I
strove to do him service."
This was the resource that cheered his sinking heart amidst gloomy
deserts and a barbarous people, lulled him to peaceful slumber in the hut
of a savage hunter, and in the hearing of the lion's roar, at times
impressed him with a sense of happiness, and made him contemplate with a
longing hope the retribution of a future world.
The bishop, with all his comforts, had no comfort like this; he had _his_
solitary reflections too, but they were of a tendency the reverse of
these. "I used my brother ill," was a secret thought of most powerful
influence. It kept him waking upon his safe and commodious bed; was sure
to recur with every misfortune by which he was threatened to make his
fears still stronger, and came with invidious stabs, upon every
successful event, to take from him a part of his joy. In a word, it was
_conscience_ which made Henry's years pass happier than William's.
But though, comparatively with his brother, William was the less happy
man, yet his self-reproach was not of such magnitude, for an offence of
that atrocious nature as to banish from his breast a certain degree of
happiness, a sensibility to the smiles of fortune; nor was Henry's self-
acquittal of such exquisite kind as to chase away the feeling of his
desolate condition.
As he fished or hunted for his daily dinner, many a time in full view of
his prey, a sudden burst of sorrow at his fate, a sudden longing for some
dear associate, for some friend to share his thoughts, for some kind
shoulder on which to lean his head, for some companion to partake of his
repast, would make him instantaneously desist from his pursuit, cast him
on the ground in a fit of anguish, till a shower of tears and his
_conscience_ came to his relief.
It was, after an exile of more than twenty-three years, when, on one
sultry morning, after pleasant dreams during the night, Henry had waked
with more than usual perception of his misery, that, sitting upon the
beach, his wishes and his looks all bent on the sea towards his native
land, he thought he saw a sail swelling before an unexpected breeze.
"Sure I am dreaming still!" he cried. "This is the very vessel I last
night saw in my sleep! Oh! what cruel mockery that my eyes should so
deceive me!"
Yet, though he doubted, he leaped upon his feet in transport, held up his
hands, stretched at their length, in a kind of ecstatic joy, and, as the
glorious sight approached, was near rushing into the sea to hail and meet
it.
For awhile hope and fear kept him in a state bordering on distraction.
Now he saw the ship making for the shore, and tears flowed for the
grateful prospect. Now it made for another point, and he vented shrieks
and groans from the disappointment.
It was at those moments, while hope and fear thus possessed him, that the
horrors of his abode appeared more than ever frightful. Inevitable
afflictions must be borne; but that calamity which admits the expectation
of relief, and then denies it, is insupportable.
After a few minutes passed in dreadful uncertainty, which enhanced the
wished-for happiness, the ship evidently drew near the land; a boat was
launched from her, and while Henry, now upon his knees, wept and prayed
fervently for the event, a youth sprang from the barge on the strand,
rushed towards him, and falling on his neck, then at his feet, exclaimed,
"My father! oh, my father!"
William! dean! bishop! what are your honours, what your riches, what all
your possessions, compared to the happiness, the transport bestowed by
this one sentence, on your poor brother Henry?