Three years from this time, Elizabeth found herself in the position she
had vaguely anticipated at the outset, but which every day spent in
Greece showed her as probable, if not inevitable. These three years
brought Falkner to the verge of the death he had gone out to seek. He
lay wounded, a prey of the Greek fever, to all appearance about to die;
while she watched over him, striving, not only to avert the fatal
consequences of disease, but also to combat the desire to die which
destroyed him.
In describing Elizabeth's conduct during these three years, it may be
thought that the type is presented of ideal and almost unnatural
perfection. She was, it is true, a remarkable creature; and unless she
had possessed rare and exalted qualities, her history had not afforded a
topic for these pages. She was intelligent, warm-hearted, courageous,
and sincere. Her lively sense of duty was perhaps her chief peculiarity.
It was that which strung to such sweet harmony the other portions of her
character. This had been fostered by the circumstances of her life. Her
earliest recollection was of her dying parents. Their mutual
consolations, the bereaved widow's lament, and her talk of another and a
better world, where all would meet again who fulfilled their part
virtuously in this world. She had been taught to remember her parents as
inheriting the immortal life promised to the just, and to aspire to the
same. She had learned, from her mother's example, that there is nothing
so beautiful and praiseworthy as the sacrifice of life to the good and
happiness of one beloved. She never forgot her debt to Falkner. She felt
herself bound to him by stronger than filial ties. A father performs an
imperious duty in cherishing his child; but all had been spontaneous
benevolence in Falkner. His very faults and passions made his sacrifice
the greater, and his generosity the more conspicuous. Elizabeth believed
that she could never adequately repay the vast obligation which she was
under to him.
Miss Jervis also had conduced to perfectionize her mind by adding to its
harmony and justness. Miss Jervis, it is true, might be compared to the
rough-handed gardener, whose labours are without elegance, and yet to
whose waterings and vigilance the fragrant carnation owes its peculiar
tint, and the wax-like camellia its especial variety. It was through her
that she had methodised her mind--through her that she had learned to
concentrate and prolong her attention, and to devote it to study. She
had taught her order and industry--and, without knowing it, she had done
more--she had inspired ardour for knowledge, delight in its acquisition,
and a glad sense of self-approbation when difficulties were conquered by
perseverance; and when, by dint of resolution, ignorance was exchanged
for a clear perception of any portion of learning.
It has been said that every clever person is, to a certain degree, mad.
By which it is to be understood, that every person whose mind soars
above the vulgar, has some exalted and disinterested object in view to
which they are ready to sacrifice the common blessings of life. Thus,
from the moment that Elizabeth had brought Falkner to consent to her
accompanying him to Greece, she had devoted herself to the task, first,
of saving his life, if it should be in danger; and, secondly, of
reconciling him in the end to prolonged existence. There were many
difficulties which presented themselves, since she was unaware of the
circumstances that drove him to seek death as a remedy and an atonement;
nor had she any desire to pry into her benefactor's secrets: in her own
heart, she suspected an overstrained delicacy or generosity of feeling,
which exaggerated error, and gave the sting to remorse. But whatever was
the occasion of his sufferings, she dedicated herself to their relief;
and resolved to educate herself so as to fulfil the task of reconciling
him to life, to the best of her ability.
Left at Zante, while he proceeded to join the patriot bands of Greece,
she boarded in the house of a respectable family, but lived in the most
retired manner possible. Her chief time was spent in study. She read to
store her mind--to confirm its fortitude--to elevate its tone. She read,
also, to acquire such precepts of philosophy and religion as might best
apply to her peculiar task, and to learn those secrets of life and death
which Falkner's desire to die had brought so home to her juvenile
imagination.
If a time is to be named when the human heart is nearest moral
perfection, most alive, and yet most innocent, aspiring to good, without
a knowledge of evil, the period at which Elizabeth had arrived--from
thirteen to sixteen--is it. Vague forebodings are awakened; a sense of
the opening drama of life, unaccompanied with any longing to enter on
it--that feeling is reserved for the years that follow; but at fourteen
and fifteen we only feel that we are emerging from childhood, and we
rejoice, having yet a sense that as yet it is not fitting that we should
make one of the real actors on the world's stage. A dreamy, delicious
period, when all is unknown; and yet we feel that all is soon to be
unveiled. The first pang has not been felt; for we consider childhood's
woes (real and frightful as those sometimes are) as puerile, and no
longer belonging to us. We look upon the menaced evils of life as a
fiction. How can care touch the soul which places its desires beyond
low-minded thought? Ingratitude, deceit, treason--these have not yet
engendered distrust of others, nor have our own weaknesses and errors
planted the thorn of self-disapprobation and regret. Solitude is no
evil, for the thoughts are rife with busy visions; and the shadows that
flit around and people our reveries have almost the substance and
vitality of the actual world.
Elizabeth was no dreamer. Though brought up abstracted from common
worldly pursuits, there was something singularly practical about her.
She aimed at being useful in all her reveries. This desire was rendered
still more fervent by her affection for Falkner--by her fears on his
account--by her ardent wish to make life dear to him. All her
employments, all her pleasures, referred themselves, as it were, to this
primary motive, and were entirely ruled by it.
She portioned out the hours of each day, and adhered steadily to her
self-imposed rules. To the early morning's ride succeeded her various
studies, of which music, for which she developed a true ear and delicate
taste, formed one: one occupation relieved the other; from her dear
books she had recourse to her needle, and, bending over her embroidery
frame, she meditated on what she read; or, occupied by many conjectures
and many airy dreams concerning Falkner, she became absorbed in revery.
Sometimes, from the immediate object of these, her memory reverted to
the melancholy boy she had seen at Baden. His wild eyes--his haughty
glance--his lively solicitude about the animal he had hurt, and
uncomplaining fortitude with which he had endured bodily pain, were
often present to her. She wished that they had not quitted Baden so
suddenly: if they had remained but a few days longer, he might have
learned to love them; and even now he might be with Falkner, sharing his
dangers, it is true, but also each guarding the other from that rash
contempt of life in which they both indulged.
Her whole mind being filled by duties and affection, each day seemed
short, yet each was varied. At dawn she rose lightly from her bed, and
looked out over the blue sea and rocky shore; she prayed, as she gazed,
for the safety of her benefactor; and her thoughts, soaring to her
mother in heaven, asked her blessing to descend upon her child. Morning
was not so fresh as her, as she met its first sweet breath; and,
cantering along the beach, she thought of Falkner--his absence, his
toils and dangers--with resignation, mingled with a hope that warmed
into an ardent desire to see him again. Surely there is no object so
sweet as the young in solitude. In after years--when death has bereaved
us of the dearest--when cares, and regrets, and fears, and passions,
evil either in their nature or their results, have stained our lives
with black, solitude is too sadly peopled to be pleasing; and when we
see one of mature years alone, we believe that sadness must be the
companion. But the solitary thoughts of the young are glorious dreams--
"Their state,
Like to a lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate."
To behold this young and lovely girl wandering by the lonely shore, her
thoughts her only companions, love for her benefactor her only passion,
no touch of earth and its sordid woes about her, it was as if a new Eve,
watched over by angels, had been placed in the desecrated land, and the
very ground she trod grew into paradise.
Sometimes the day was sadly checkered by bad news brought from the
continent of Greece. Sometimes it was rendered joyous by the arrival of
a letter from her adored father. Sometimes he was with her, and he,
animated by the sense of danger, and the knowledge of his usefulness to
the cause he espoused, was eloquent in his narrations, overflowing in
his affection to her, and almost happy in the belief that he was atoning
for the past. The idea that he should fall in the fields of Greece, and
wash out with his heart's blood the dark blot on his name, gave an
elevation to his thoughts, a strained and eager courage and fortitude
that accorded with his fiery character. He was born to be a soldier; not
the military man of modern days, but the hero who exposed his life
without fear, and found joy in battle and hard-earned victory, when
these were sought and won for a good cause, from the cruel oppressor.