Whether the succeeding hours of the day on which Sir Sidney Delaware
first visited Henry Burrel, did or did not pass with any degree of
impatience, felt on the part of the latter, it is difficult to say.
Burrel had an habitual dislike to the display of what he felt, and
except on special occasions, where the stirred-up feelings broke
through all customary restraint, there might be many far deeper things
passing in his bosom than the eye of a casual observer could discover
from his face.
The hours of that day seemed to fly in perfect tranquillity. He
visited the widow's cottage twice, and marked with pleasure that a
change for the better had taken place in her son; he called upon Mrs.
Darlington at the inn, gossiped over a thousand subjects of
tittle-tattle, and sketched out a plan for re-building her house--a
consideration which seemed to give the good lady so much pleasant
occupation, that Burrel could scarcely find it in his heart to regret
that her house had been burned at all. He then strolled home to write
letters, remarking, with little further comment as he did so, that his
silent servant, Harding, was walking on the other side of the way, in
quiet conversation with the vulgar person who had been for a short
time one of his own companions in the London coach.
Nothing, in short, through the whole day, or the ensuing evening,
could betray that the hours were at all weary to Henry Burrel; and the
only circumstance which led his servant--who had eyes sufficiently
inquisitive and acute--to believe that his master looked upon the
approaching visit with more than ordinary interest, was, that the next
morning, instead of sleeping soundly, as usual, till he was called, he
rang his bell somewhat impatiently full five minutes before his
ordinary hour of rising.
Giving the necessary orders for his dressing apparatus to be brought
up to the mansion before dinner, Burrel sallied forth as soon as he
was dressed, and took his way toward the park gate. He paused upon the
bridge, however, and for a moment gazed up the long open space of park
lawn, broken by old elms and oaks, with the stream flowing calmly on
in the midst, and the swans dipping quietly into its waters, and the
whole, in the soft morning sunshine, bearing an air of peace, with
which even the gray building at the end of the vista harmonized full
well.
With what other thoughts there might be in Burrel's bosom--and there
were a good many different threads that ran across the web in various
directions--we will have nothing to do here, but will follow the one
continuous line which we began to trace before, and only consider the
psychological phenomena that were passing in his heart as far as they
related to Blanche Delaware. That Burrel had thought of her a great
deal since last he saw her, there can be no doubt; and he had thought
of his own situation, too, and what he was about, with a degree of
human perseverity that was quite extraordinary in a hero of romance.
As the beginnings of love must always be imaginative, and as Burrel
had got into a bad habit of laughing at most things under the sun, by
feeling that few were worth considering seriously--from the effects of
which had habit, be it remarked, he himself, his own mind and
peculiarities, were not at all exempt--as a consequence of all this,
he had chosen, in the present case, to image the predicament in which
he stood to his own fancy, under a thousand different forms, most of
them, indeed, ludicrous or trivial. He had been now the moth,
fluttering round the light--now the trout, rising to the hook--but
more frequently still, he had painted himself to himself as the fly
upon the edge of a plate of honey, tasting and retasting the tenacious
sweets till his feet become glued to the place, and he is forced to
remain and die amidst the plundered stores of the bee. There are
several great uses in thus learning to laugh at ourselves. In the
first place, we know all that the world--the good-natured world--may,
can, might, could, would, should, or ought to say of us. In the
next, we can flatter ourselves that we have looked at the most
disagreeable--that is to say, the sneering side of things: and lastly,
the story of galloping across the swamp comes over again, and we get
over a great deal of ground easily, which it would not do to stay and
examine seriously.
Whether it was from any or all of these motives that Burrel acted, or
whether it was a mere affair of habit, does not much matter; for
when he set out on that morning to breakfast at Emberton Park, and
looked up the calm expanse toward the dwelling Blanche Delaware
inhabited--when he entered the old gates, and strolled leisurely up
among the shady trees--when he thought of how fair and how gentle she
was--and when he felt conscious that he was only walking up those
paths for the first time out of many that fate or love destined
him to tread them--he perceived that the matter was somewhat more
serious--that it was too weighty to be raised upon the wings of a
light laugh, or rolled about by an idle sneer.
There was something startling in the sensation; and he felt that where
the happiness of the whole of that space out of eternity, which we are
destined to pass amidst the warm relationships of earth, is concerned,
the matter is grave when rightly considered, if not solemn. But then,
as he went on thinking, even though the morning, pouring through the
dim old trees, had something serious in its very gray tranquillity,
yet the object that connected itself with every idea, the sweet form,
the bright, sunshiny smile of Blanche Delaware, came flitting across
his dreams, and cast a light from itself over the whole future
prospect. Then would Burrel look around him, and weave many a fairy
project of conferring happiness; and he would twine, in fancy, many a
jewel and a wreath to bind the fair brows of the fair girl he thought
of, and would lead her through scenes of splendor, and of beauty, and
of joy, to mansions of domestic happiness and bowers of tranquil
repose.
Thus went it on, till at length he woke up at the door of the
dwelling-house, and found himself as great an enthusiast at heart as
ever lived and loved. Ascending the steps from the terrace, he rang
the large bell, which was answered in a moment by the appearance of an
honest-faced country servant, who was the only male domestic in a
house which, had it been all inhabited, would have required a dozen at
least. A little to the man's surprise, Burrel, who was still thinking
of something else, and whose heart beat more than he thought proper,
walked directly forward to the door of the library, and was raising
his hand to open it, too, when, recollecting himself, he paused, and
suffered the servant to announce him. His hand was cordially shaken by
Captain Delaware, almost as he entered; and there was a glow of
pleasure on the face of the young sailor, not only because he was
really glad to see a man whom he personally liked, but that what he
looked upon as a reproach to the hospitality of their house was wiped
away.
Sir Sidney Delaware was at the further end of the room, which was well
furnished--for books are always furniture--and they were many and
choice. He, too, immediately rose, and advanced to welcome his guest
most cordially; for the service that Burrel had rendered his child had
completely opened his heart; and, when it was once opened, there was
room enough within, though the door had been somewhat narrowed, in
order to shut out the cold air of the world.
Burrel's eyes ran round the library, but Blanche Delaware was not
there; and though he would have probably laughed, had any one called
him a modest man, yet he found that he could not inquire after her
with so easy an air as he might have done two or three days before,
and therefore he did not inquire after her at all, expecting every
instant to see her appear. He felt uncomfortable, however, when her
father at length proposed that they should go to the breakfast-room;
and he asked himself whether she could be absent from home.
Burrel's mind was put at ease the moment after; for, on passing
forward to the little breakfast-room--to which he seemed to find his
way instinctively, without his host having to say, "Turn here," or
"Turn there"--the first object that presented itself was Blanche
Delaware, on hospitable thoughts intent, making the tea, and--as
probably Eve was the most beautiful creature ever created--looking as
like Eve as possible.
But let us pause one moment, and expatiate upon an English
breakfast-room. There is nothing like it in all the world besides. It
is an emanation from the morning heart of Englishmen. It is a type of
the character of the people. Good Heaven! when one comes down on a
fine autumn morning, and finds the snowy table-cloth, the steaming
urn, the clean polished furniture, the simple meal, and all the
implements for dispensing it, shining in the morning sunshine, as if
the goddess of tidiness had burnished them; together with a rich
English landscape looking in at the windows, and, round the table,
half a dozen smiling faces, and fair forms, all arrayed in that
undeviating neatness which is also purely English, how the heart is
opened to all that is good, and kindly, and social--how it is
strengthened, and fortified, and guarded against the cares and labours
and ills of the ensuing day!
Blanche looked up as Burrel entered, and there were one or two slight
circumstances which might have made him believe that his presence was
not unpleasant to her, had he been in a mood to remark any thing but
the simple fact of her being there. There was the same fitful blush,
the same sparkle of the eyes, that would not be repressed, the same
sweet smile, as he gave her the morning's greeting, which he had seen
separately before; but, what was more to the purpose, she withdrew the
tea-pot before she remembered to stop the urn, spilled the water on
the table-cloth, and got into some confusion both at her embarrassment
and at its cause. Captain Delaware smiled; and Blanche, though she
knew that her brother was not very, very learned in woman's heart,
attributed more meaning to his smile than it deserved, and would have
been more embarrassed still, had there not been a degree of warmth,
and a subdued tenderness in Burrel's manner, that was very consoling.
Now, had Blanche Delaware laid a systematic design against Burrel's
heart, and had she endeavoured to make herself appear the very wife
suited to him, from every thing she had seen of his character, she
would have taken great care not to let the urn deluge the table-cloth,
and would have believed her whole plan ruined for ever, if she had
done so; for Burrel had certainly, at Mrs. Darlington's, affected a
sort of fastidiousness--altogether in jest, but done seriously enough
to deceive--which would have rendered such a little accident fatal.
But Blanche Delaware had not the slightest idea of such a design in
the world. Burrel, it is true, was the handsomest man in person, and
the most elegant man in manners, that she had ever met with. His
character she had heard from Dr. Wilton--one she was accustomed to
reverence. His conversation had pleased, amused, and fascinated her.
At the risk of his own life he had carried her close to his heart,
through the midst of a tremendous fire. He had saved her life, and, in
the enthusiasm of doing so, had called her "Dear girl!" and had
perhaps pressed her a little closer to his bosom, when he found that
they were safe. Of the last particular, however, she was not quite
sure; but so much does the heart of man expand to those we protect and
save, that, even if he did, it was quite natural. All this had given
her different feelings towards Burrel, from those that she experienced
towards any other man; and though she kept a tight rein upon
imagination, and would not even suffer the sweet folly of
castle-building to enter her heart in this instance, yet she felt
sufficiently agitated and pleased by his presence, to become alarmed
at her own sensations, and to feel unwittingly consoled by the marked
difference between his manner to herself, and to others. She was
therefore vexed at the little accident, it is true, but she was vexed
solely because she thought it might betray more agitation than she
believed that she felt; not because she feared, by a trifle, to lose a
heart for which she had set no traps, and of whose possession she was
determined not to dream at all.
So much for nothings! But as nothings are the small casters on which
the great machine of the world goes lumbering along, one may pause to
mark them for a moment, without a fault. But now to more serious
matters. Burrel soon recovered that degree of ease which he had never
lost in the eyes of any other person, although he felt the loss
himself, and the breakfast passed over in that sort of light and
variable conversation which allows all to shine in turn who are
capable of shining.
It was about the time of some serious disturbances in France; and
those events naturally suggested themselves, at least to the three
gentlemen, as the most interesting topic of the day. "What think you,
then, Mr. Burrel," demanded Sir Sidney Delaware, "of La---- coming
forth in his old age to renew the scenes which, in his youth, he first
excited, and then lamented?"
"The great misfortune is," replied Burrel, "that his name should be
able to do so much, when he himself is unable to do any thing."
"You mean that he is in his dotage," said Captain Delaware. "Is it not
so?"
"I mean merely," replied Burrel, "that he is in that state of mental
decrepitude where the plaudits of a mob of any kind, either of porters
or peers, would make him commit any folly for the brief moment of
popularity. With poor old La---- it is only now the fag-end of the
great weakness of his life, vanity--that sort of gluttonous vanity
that can gorge upon the offal of base and ignorant applause."
"Ay, there lies the fault," replied Sir Sidney Delaware. "The man who
seeks the applause of the good, the wise, and the generous, is next in
honorable ambition to him who seeks the approbation of his God; but he
whose depraved appetite finds food in the gratulating shout of an
assemblage of the ignorant, the base, and the vicious--like--like--I
could mention many, but I will not--he, however, who does so, is a
moral swine, and only swills the filth of the public kennel in another
sense."
"Papa, papa!" cried Blanche Delaware. "In pity, let me finish
breakfast before you indulge in such figures of rhetoric. William, in
mercy change the subject! Can not you tell us some of the pretty
stories about Sicily and its beloved _Mongibeddo_, with which you
charmed my ears when first you came from the Mediterranean?"
"Not I, indeed, Blanche!" replied her brother; "for, on the faith of
those stories, you had nearly persuaded my father to go abroad, which
would not suit my views of promotion at all."
"And did Miss Delaware really wish to visit foreign lands?" demanded
Burrel. "We should not easily have forgiven you."
"It was but to see all those things one dreams so much about!" replied
Blanche Delaware, "and to return to my own land after they were seen;
for I can assure you, I have neither hope nor wish ever to find any
country half so fair in my eyes as our own England."
"That is both just and patriotic," answered Burrel; "more than
one-half of what we like in any and every land, is association, and
if, without one classic memory of the great past, you were to visit
Italy itself, half the marvels of that land of beauties would be lost.
The Colosseum would stand a cold brown ruin, cumbering the ground;
Rome, a dull heap of ill-assorted buildings; the Capitol a molehill;
and the Tiber a ditch. But under the magic wand of association, every
thing becomes beautiful. It is not alone the memories of one age or of
one great epoch that rise up to people Italy with majestic things; but
all the acts of glory and of majesty that thronged two thousand years,
before the eye of fancy, walk in grand procession through the land,
and hang a wreath of laurels on each cold ruin as they pass. Yet it is
all association; and where can we find such associations as those
connected with our native land?"
The question was tolerably general, but the tone and manner were to
Blanche Delaware; and she replied, "It would be difficult, I am
afraid, to raise up for any country such as those you have conjured up
for Italy; but still I should never be afraid of forgetting England.
It is where I was born," she added, thinking over all her reasons for
loving it, and looking down at the pattern on the table-cloth, as she
counted them one by one; "I have spent in it so many happy hours and
happy days. Every thing in it is connected with some pleasant thought
or some dear memory; and the associations, though not so grand, would
be more sweet--though not so vast, would be more individual--would not
perhaps waken any very romantic feelings, but would come more home to
my own heart."
Burrel answered nothing; but when she raised her eyes, which had been
cast down while she spoke, they found his fixed upon her; and she felt
from that moment that she was beloved.
Blanche Delaware turned very pale, though the consciousness was any
thing but painful. It was so oppressive, however, that the agitation
made her feel faint; but her brother's voice recalled her to herself.
"Well spoken, my dear little patriot sister!" he said; "but if you had
been a sailor, like your brother, you would have added, that England
is not wanting in associations of glory and freedom, and noble actions
and noble endeavors; and in this view the associations connected with
our native land are more extended than those of any other country; for
in whatever corner of the world an Englishman may be, when he catches
but a glimpse of the salt sea, the idea of the glory of his native
land rushes upon his mind, and he sees, waving before the eye of fancy
the flag that 'for a thousand years, has stood the battle and the
breeze.'"
Burrel smiled; but there was no touch of a sneer in it. "The song from
which you quote," he said, "must have been written surely under such
enthusiasm as that with which you now speak. I know scarcely so
spirit-stirring a composition in the English language. Indeed, all
Campbell's smaller poems are full of the same _vivida vis animi_."
"And yet," said Sir Sidney Delaware, "you, as well as I, must have
heard fools and jolter-heads say, that Campbell is no poet, because
now and then, in his longer pieces, when he gets tired of the mere
mechanism, he suffers a verse or two to become tame--out of pure
idleness, I have no doubt."
"Those who say he is no poet, do not know what poetry is," replied
Burrel, somewhat eagerly. "Scattered through every one of his poems
there are beauties of the first order; and almost all of his smaller
pieces stand perfectly alone in poetry. He has contrived sometimes to
compress into four or five of the very shortest lines that can be
produced, more than nine poets out of ten could cram into a long
Spenserian stanza, with a thundering Alexandrine at the end."
"Do you know Mr. Campbell personally?" asked Miss Delaware.
"I do," answered Burrel, laughing; "but do not suppose my praise of
him is exaggerated from personal friendship. On the contrary, I am
bound, by all the laws and usages of the world in general, to hate him
cordially."
"Indeed! and why so?" demanded Blanche, half afraid that she had
touched upon some delicate subject.
"Simply because we differ on politics," answered Burrel. "Can there be
a more mortal offense given or received?"
"As we are speaking of poets, however," continued Miss Delaware, "I
will ask you one more question, Mr. Burrel: Do you know Wordsworth?"
"I am not so fortunate," answered Burrel; "for, though we should as
certainly differ as we met, upon nine points out of ten, yet I should
much like to know him."
"Then you know and esteem his works, of course?" said Miss Delaware.
"I know them well," replied Burrel; "but I do not like them so much as
you do."
"Nay, nay!" said Blanche Delaware. "I have said nothing in their
favor. What makes you believe I admire them more than yourself?"
"Simply because every body of taste must esteem them highly," replied
Burrel; "and women who do esteem them will always esteem more than men
can do. A woman's heart and mind, Miss Delaware, by the comparative
freshness which it retains more or less through life, can appreciate
the gentle, the sweet, and the simple, better than a man's; and thus,
while the mightier and more majestic beauties of Wordsworth's muse
affect your sex equally with ours, the softer and finer shades of
feeling--the touches of artless nature and simplicity, which appear
almost too weak for us, have all their full effect on you."
"But if you own that, and feel that," said Blanche Delaware, "why can
not you admire the same beauties!"
"For this reason," replied Burrel--"man's mental taste, like his
corporeal power of tasting, gets corrupted, or rather paralyzed, in
his progress through the world, by the various stimulants he applies
to it. He drinks his bottle of strong and heady wine, which gradually
loses its effect, and he takes more, till at length nothing will
satisfy him but Cayenne pepper."
"But if he appreciates gentler pleasures," said Captain Delaware, "he
must be able in some degree to enjoy them."
"Of course," replied Burrel, "there are moments when the cool and
pleasant juice of a peach, or the simple refreshment of a glass of
lemonade will be delightful; and in such moments it is, that he feels
he has stimulated away a sense, and a delightful one. Thus with
poetry, and literature in general; the mind, by reading a great many
things it would be better without, loses its relish for every thing
that does not excite and heat the imagination, which is neither more
nor less than the mental palate; and though there are moments when the
heart, softened and at ease, finds joys in all the sweet simplicity
which would have charmed it forever in an unsophisticated state, yet
still it returns to Cayenne pepper, and only remembers the other
feelings, as of pleasures lost forever. With regard to Wordsworth's
poetry, perhaps no one ever did him more injustice than I did once.
With a very superficial knowledge of his works, I fancied that I
despised them all; and it was only from being bored about them by his
admirers, that I determined to read them every line, that I might hate
them with the more accuracy."
Blanche Delaware smiled, and her father spoke, perhaps, the feelings
of both. "We have found you out, Mr. Burrel," he said, "and understand
your turn for satirizing yourself."
"I am not doing so now, I can assure you," replied Burrel. "What I
state is exactly the fact. I sat down to read Wordsworth's works with
a determination to dislike them, and I succeeded in one or two poems,
which have been cried up to the skies; but, as I went on, I found so
often a majestic spirit of poetical philosophy, clothing itself in the
full sublime of simplicity, that I felt reproved and abashed, and I
read again with a better design. In doing so, though I still felt that
there was much amidst all the splendor that I could neither like nor
admire, yet I perceived how and why others might and would find great
beauties and infinite sweetness in that which palled upon my taste;
and I perceived also, that the fault lay in me far more than in the
poetry. The beauties I felt more than ever; and some of the smaller
pieces, I am convinced, will live for ages, with the works of
Shakspeare and Milton."
"They will, indeed," said Sir Sidney Delaware, "as long as there is a
taste in man. Nevertheless, the poet--who is, perhaps, as great a
philosopher, too, as ever lived--has sacrificed, like many
philosophers, an immense gift of genius to a false hypothesis in
regard to his art, and has, consequently, systematically poured forth
more trash than perhaps any man living. His poems, collected, always
put me in mind of an account I have somewhere read of the diamond
mines of Golconda, where inestimable jewels are found mingled with
masses of soft mud. But you have long done breakfast, Mr. Burrel.
Come, Blanche, I am going to take Mr. Burrel to the terrace, and
descant most dully on all the antiquities of the house. Let us have
your company, my love; for we shall meet with so many old things, it
may be as well to have something young to relieve them!"
It required but a short space of time to array Blanche Delaware for
the walk round the terrace that her father proposed. In less than a
minute she came down in the same identical cottage bonnet--the ugliest
of all things--in which Burrel had first beheld her when with her
brother; but, strange to say, although on that occasion he had only
thought her a pretty country girl, so changed were now all his
feelings--so many beauties had he marked which then lay hid, that, as
she descended with a smiling and happy face to join them at the door
of the hall, he thought her the loveliest creature that he had ever
beheld in any climate, or at any time.
The whole party sallied forth; and as people who like each other, and
whose ideas are not common-place, can make an agreeable conversation
out of any thing, the walk round the old house, and the investigation
of every little turn and corner of the building, passed over most
pleasantly to all, although Blanche and her brother knew not only
every stone in the edifice, but every word almost that could be said
upon them. They were accustomed, however, to look upon their father
with so much affection and reverence; and the misfortunes under which
he labored had mingled so much tenderness with their love, that "an
oft-told tale" from his lips lost its tediousness, being listened to
by the ears of deep regard. Burrel, too, was all attention; and, while
Sir Sidney Delaware descanted learnedly on the buttery, and the wet
and dry larder, and the prior's parlor, and the scriptorium, and
pointed out the obtuse Gothic arches described from four centers,
which characterize the architecture of Henry VIII., he filled up all
the pauses with some new and original observation on the same theme;
and though certainly not so learned on the subject as Sir Sidney
himself, yet he showed that, at all events, he possessed sufficient
information to feel an interest therein, and to furnish easily the
matter for more erudite rejoinder.
By the time the examination of the house itself was over, however, Sir
Sidney Delaware felt fatigued. "I must leave Blanche and William, Mr.
Burrel," he said, "to show you some of the traces of those antique
times which we have just been talking of, that are scattered through
the park, particularly on the side farthest from the town. I myself
think them more interesting than the house itself, and wish I could go
with you; but I am somewhat tired, and must deny myself the pleasure."
Burrel assured him that he would take nothing as a worse compliment
than his putting himself to any trouble about him; and, perhaps not
unwillingly, set out, accompanied only by Blanche and her brother. It
would have been as dangerous a walk as ever was taken had he not been
in love already. There was sunshine over all the world, and the air
was soft and calm. Their way led through the deep high groves and
wilder park scenery that lay at the back of the mansion, now winding
in among hills and dells covered with rich, short grass, now wandering
on by the bank of the stream, on whose bosom the gay-coated
kingfishers and the dark water-hens were skimming and diving in
unmolested security. In the open parts, the old hawthorns perched
themselves on the knolls, wreathing their fantastic limbs in groups of
two or three; and every now and then a decaying oak of gigantic girth,
but whose head had bowed to time, shot out its long lateral branches
across the water, over which it had bent for a thousand years.
The whole party were of the class of people who have eyes--as that
delightful little book the Evenings at Home has it--and at present,
though there were busy thoughts in the bosoms, at least of two of
those present, yet perhaps they strove the more to turn their
conversation to external things, from the consciousness of the
feelings passing within. Those feelings, however, had their effect, as
they ever must have, even when the topics spoken of are the most
indifferent. They gave life, and spirit, and brightness to every
thing.
Blanche Delaware, hanging on the arm of her brother, and yielding to
the influence of the smiles that were upon the face of nature, gave
full way to her thoughts of external things as they arose; and,
together with spirits bright and playful, but never what may be called
_high_--with an imagination warm and brilliant, never wild--there
shone out a heart, that Burrel saw was well fitted to understand and
to appreciate that fund of deeper feelings, that spring of enthusiasm,
tempered a little by judgment, and ennobled by a high moral sense,
which he concealed, perhaps weakly--from a world that he despised.
He felt at every step that the moments near her were almost too
delightful; and, before he had got to the end of that walk, he had
reached the point where love begins to grow terrified at its own
intensity, lest the object should be lost on which the mighty stake of
happiness is cast forever.
Having proceeded thus far--which, by the way, is no small length; for
the great difficulty, as Burrel found it, was to place himself fairly
on a footing of friendship with Sir Sidney Delaware's family--we must
unwillingly abandon the expatiative; and, having more than enough to
do, leave the party on their walk, and turn to characters as
necessary, but less interesting.