_dilecta cordis mei,_ or, _cordi meo,_ for either is good grammar--you
see, Susan, the difference between a Christian and a hathen is this:--
a Christian bears disappointments, with fortitude--with what is
denominated Christian fortitude; whereas, on the contrary, a hathen
doesn't bear disappointments at all. Now, Susan, it would cut me to the
heart to find that you would become a hathen on this touching and trying
occasion.”
“I'll pray to God, Denis. Isn't that the way to act under afflictions?”
“Decidedly. There is no other legitimate mode of quelling a heart-ache.
And, Susan, when you go to supplication you are at liberty to mention my
name--no, not yet; but if I were once consecrated you might. However, it
is better to sink this; say nothing about me when you pray, for, to
tell you I truth, I believe you have as much influence above--_super
astra_--as I have. There is one argument which I am anxious to press
upon you. It is a very simple but a very respectable one after all. I
am not all Ireland. You will find excellent good husbands even in this
parish. There is, as the old proverb says, as good fish in the say as
ever were caught. Do you catch one of them. For me, Susan, the
vineyard claims me; I must, as I said, cultivate the grape. We must,
consequently--hem!--we must--hem!--hem!--consequently strive to
forget--hem!--I say, to forget each other. It is a trial--I know--a
desperte visitation, poor fawn, upon your feelings; but, as I said,
destiny will be triumphant. What is decreed, is decreed--I must go to
Maynooth.”
Susan rose, and her eyes flashed with an indignant sense of the
cold-blooded manner in which he advised her to select another husband.
She was an illiterate girl, but the purity of her feeling supplied the
delicacy which reading and a knowledge of more refined society would
have given her.
“Is it from your lips, Denis,” she said, “that I hear sich a mane and
low-minded an advice? Or do you think that with my weak, and I now see,
foolish heart, settled upon you, I could turn round and fix my love upon
the first that might ax me? Denis, you promised before God to be mine,
and mine only; you often said and swore that you loved me above any
human being; but I now see that you only intended to lead me into sin
and disgrace, for indeed, and before God I don't think--I don't--I
don't--believe that you ever loved me.”
A burst of grief, mingled with indignation and affliction, followed the
words she had uttered. Denis felt himself called on for a vindication,
and he was resolved to give it.
“Susan,” he returned, “your imagination is erroneous. By all the
classical authors that ever were written, you are antipodialry opposed
to facts. What harm is there, seeing that you and I can never be joined
in wedlock--what harm is there, I say, in recommending you another
husb--”
Susan would hear no more. She gathered up her stocking and ball of
thread, placed them in her apron, went into her father's house, shut and
bolted the door, and gave way to violent grief. All this occurred in a
moment, and Denis found himself excluded.
He did not wish, however, to part from her in anger; so, after having
attempted to look through the, keyhole of the door, and applied his eye
in vain to the window, he at length spoke.
“Is there any body within but yourself, Susy?”
He received no reply.
“I say, Susy--_dilecta juventutis meae_--touching the
recommendation--now don't be crying--touching the recommendation of
another husband, by all the classics that ever were mistranslated, I
meant nothing but the purest of consolation. If I did, may I be reduced
to primeval and aboriginal ignorance! But you know yourself, that they
never prospered who prevented a _rara avis_ like me from entering the
church--from laboring in the vineyard, and cultivating the grape. Don't
be hathenish; but act with a philosophy suitable to so dignified an
occasion--Farewell! _Macte virtute_, and be firm. I swear again by all
the class--”
The appearance of a neighbor caused him to cut short his oath. Seeing
that the man approached the house, he drew off, and returned home, more
seriously affected by Susan's agitation than he was willing to admit
even to himself.
This triumph over his affection was, in fact, only the conquest of
one passion over another. His attachment to Susan Connor was
certainly sincere, and ere the prospects of his entering Maynooth were
unexpectedly brought near him, by the interference of Father Finnerty,
his secret purpose all along had been to enter with her into the state
of matrimony, rather than into the church. Ambition, however, is beyond
all comparison the most powerful principle of human conduct, and so
Denny found it. Although his unceremonious abandonment of Susan appeared
heartless and cruel, yet it was not effected on his part without
profound sorrow and remorse. The two principles, when they began to
struggle in his heart for supremacy, resembled the rival destinies of
Caesar and Mark Antony. Love declined in the presence of ambition; and
this, in proportion as all the circumstances calculated to work upon
the strong imagination of a young man naturally fond of power, began to
assume an appearance of reality. To be, in the course of a few years,
a _bona fide_ priest; to possess unlimited sway over the fears and
principles of the people; to be endowed with spiritual gifts to he knew
not what extent; and to enjoy himself as he had an opportunity of
seeing Father Finnerty and his curate do, in the full swing of convivial
pleasure, upon the ample hospitality of those who, in addition to this,
were ready to kiss the latchet of his shoes--were, it must be admitted,
no inconsiderable motives in influencing the conduct of a person reared
in an humble condition of life. The claims of poor Susan, her modesty,
her attachment, and her beauty--were all insufficient to prevail against
such a host of opposing motives; and the consequence, though bitter, and
subversive of her happiness, was a final determination on the part of
Denny, to acquaint her, with a kind of _ex-officio_ formality, that
all intercourse upon the subject of their mutual attachment must cease
between them. Notwithstanding his boasted knowledge, however, he was
ignorant of sentiment, and accordingly confined himself, as I have
intimated, to a double species of argument; that is to say, first, the
danger and sin of opposing the wishes of the church which had claimed
him, as he said, to labor in the vineyard; and secondly, the undoubted
fact, that there were plenty of good husbands besides himself in the
world, from some one of which, he informed her, he had no doubt, she
could be accommodated.
In the meantime, her image, meek, and fair, and uncomplaining, would
from time to time glide into his imagination; and the melody of her
voice send its music once more to his vaccillating heart. He usually
paused then, and almost considered himself under the influence of a
dream; but ambition, with its train of shadowy honors, would immediately
present itself, and Susan was again forgotten.
When he rejoined the company, to whom he had given the slip, he found
them all gone, except about six or eight whom his father had compelled
to stop for dinner. His mind was now much lighter than it had been
before his interview with Susan, nor were his spirits at all depressed
by perceiving that a new knife and fork lay glittering upon the dresser
for his own particular use.
“Why, thin, where have you been all this time,” said the father, “an' we
wantin' to know whether you'd like the mutton to be boiled or roasted!”
“I was soliloquizing in the glen below,” replied Denny, once more
assuming his pedantry, “meditating upon the transparency of all human
events; but as for the beef and mutton, I advise you to boil the beef,
and roast the mutton, or vice versa, to boil the mutton, and roast the
beef. But I persave my mother has anticipated me, and boiled them both
with that flitch of bacon that's playing the vagrant in the big pot
there. _Tria juncla in uno_, as Horace says in the Epodes, when
expatiating upon the Roman Emperors--ehem!”
“Misther Denis,” said one of those present, “maybe you'd tell us upon
the watch, what the hour is, if you plase, sir; myself never can know
right at all, except by the shadow of the sun from the corner of our own
gavel.”
“Why,” replied Denis, pulling it out with much pomp of manner, “it's
just half-past two to a quarter of a minute, and a few seconds.”
“Why thin what a quare thing entirely a watch is,” the other continued;
“now what makes you hould it to your ear, Misther Denis, if you plase?”
“The efficient cause of that, Larry, is, that the drum of the ear,
you persave--the drum of the ear--is enabled to catch the intonations
produced by the machinery of its internal operations--otherwise the fact
of applying it to the ear would be unnecessary--altogether unnecessary.”
“Dear me! see what it is to have the knowledge, any way! But isn't it
quare how it moves of itself like a livin' crathur? How is that, Misther
Denis?”
“Why, Larry,--ehem--you see the motions of it are--that is--the works
or operations, are all continually going; and sure it is from that
explanation that we say a watch goes well. That's more than you ever
knew before, Larry.”
“Indeed it surely is, sir, an' is much oblaged to you, Misther Denis;
sure if I ever come to wear a watch in my fob, I'll know something about
it, anyhow.”
For the remainder of that day Denis was as learned and consequential
as ever; his friends, when their hearts were opened by his father's
hospitality, all promised him substantial aid in money, and in presents
of such articles as they supposed might be serviceable to him in
Maynooth. Denny received their proffers of support with suitable dignity
and gratitude. A scene of bustle and preparation now commenced among
them, nor was Denny himself the least engaged; for it somehow happened,
that notwithstanding his profound erudition, he felt it necessary to
read night or day in order to pass with more eclat the examination which
he had to stand before the bishop ere his appointment to Maynooth. This
ordeal was to occur upon a day fixed for the purpose, in the ensuing
month; and indeed Denis occupied as much of the intervening period in
study as his circumstances would permit. His situation was, at this
crisis, certainly peculiar. Every person related to him in the
slightest degree contrived to revive their relationship; his former
school-fellows, on hearing that he was actually destined to be of the
church, renewed their acquaintance with him, and those who had been
servants to his father, took the liberty of speaking to him upon the
strength of that fact. No child, to the remotest shade of affinity, was
born, for which he did not stand godfather; nieces and nephews thickened
about him, all with remarkable talents, and many of them, particularly
of the nieces, said to be exceedingly genteel--very thrifty for their
ages, and likely to make excellent housekeepers. A strong likeness to
himself was also pointed out in the features of his nephews, one of whom
had his born nose--another his eyes--and a third again had his brave
high-flown way with him. In short, he began to feel some of the
inconveniences of greatness; and, like it, to be surrounded by cringing
servility and meanness. When he went to the chapel he was beset, and
followed from place to place, by a retinue of friends who were all
anxious to secure to themselves the most conspicuous marks of his
notice. It was the same thing in fair or market; they contended with
each other who should do him most honor, or afford to him and his
father's immediate family the most costly treat, accompanied by the
grossest expressions of flattery. Every male infant born among them was
called Dionysius; and every female one Susan, after his favorite sister.
All this, to a lad like Denis, already remarkable for his vanity, was
very trying; or rather, it absolutely turned his brain, and made him
probably as finished a specimen of pride, self-conceit, and domineering
arrogance, mingled with a kind of lurking humorous contempt for his
cringing relations, as could be displayed in the person of some shallow
but knavish prime minister, surrounded by his selfish sycophants, whom
he encourages and despises.
At home he was idolized--overwhelmed with respect and deference. The
slightest intimation of his wish was a command to them; the beef, and
fowl, and mutton, were at hand in all the variety of culinary skill,
and not a soul in the house durst lay a hand upon his knife and fork
but himself. In the morning, when the family were to be seen around
the kitchen table at their plain but substantial breakfast, Denis was
lording it in solitary greatness over an excellent breakfast of tea and
eggs in another room.
It was now, too, that the king's English, as well as the mutton, was
carved and hacked to some purpose; epithets prodigiously long and
foreign to the purpose were pressed into his conversation, for no other
reason than because those to whom he spoke could not understand them;
but the principal portion of his time was devoted to study. The bishop,
he had heard, was a sound scholar, and exceedingly scrupulous in
recommending any to Maynooth, except such as were well versed in the
preparatory course. Independently of this, he was anxious, he said, to
distinguish himself in his examination, and, if possible, to sustain
as high a character with the bishop and his fellow-students, as he did
among the peasantry of his own neighborhood.
At length the day approached. The bishop's residence was not distant
more than a few hours' ride, and he would have sufficient time to arrive
there, pass his examination, and return in time for dinner. On the eve
of his departure, old Denis invited Father Finnerty, his curate and
about a dozen relations and friends, to dine with him the next day;
when--Denis having surmounted the last obstacle to the accomplishment of
his hopes--their hearts could open without a single reflection to check
the exuberance of their pride, hospitality, and happiness.
I have often said to my friends, and I now repeat it in print, that
after all there is no people bound up so strongly to each other by the
ties of domestic life as the Irish. On the night which preceded this
joyous and important day, a spirit of silent but tender affection dwelt
in every heart of the O'Shaughnessys. The great point of interest was
Denis. He himself was serious, and evidently labored under that strong
anxiety so natural to a youth in his circumstances. A Roman Catholic
bishop, too, is a personage looked upon by the people with a kind of
feeling that embodies in it awe, reverence, and fear. Though, in this
country, an humble man possessing neither the rank in society,
outward splendor, nor the gorgeous profusion of wealth and pomp
which characterize a prelate of the Established Church; yet it is
unquestionable that the gloomy dread, and sense of formidable power with
which they impress the minds of the submissive peasantry, immeasurably
surpass the more legitimate influence which any Protestant dignitary
could exercise over those who stand, with respect to him, in a more
rational and independent position.
It was not surprising that Denis, who practised upon ignorant people
that petty despotism for which he was so remarkable, should now,
on coming in contact with great spiritual authority, adopt his own
principles, and relapse from the proud pedant into the cowardly slave.
True it is that he presented a most melancholy specimen of independence
in a crisis where moral courage was so necessary; but his dread of the
coming day was judiciously locked up in his own bosom. His silence and
apprehension were imputed to the workings of a mind learnedly engaged in
arranging the vast stores of knowledge with which it was so abundantly
stocked; his moody picture of the bishop's brow; his reflection that he
was going before so sacred a person, as a candidate for the church,
with his heart yet redolent of earthly affection for Susan Connor; his
apprehension that the bishop's spiritual scent might sagaciously smell
it out, were all put down by the family to the credit of uncommon
learning, which, as his mother observed truly, “often makes men do quare
things.” His embarrassments, however, inasmuch as they were ascribed
by them to wrong causes, endeared him more to their hearts than ever.
Because he spoke little, neither the usual noise nor bustle of a large
family disturbed the silence of the house; every word was uttered that
evening in a low tone, at once expressive of tenderness and respect. The
family supper was tea, in compliment to Denis; and they all partook of
it with him. Nothing humbles the mind, and gives the natural feelings
their full play, so well as a struggle in life, or the appearance of its
approach.
“Denis,” said the father, “the time will come when we won't have you at
all among us; but, thank goodness, you'll be in a betther place.”
Denis heard him not, and consequently made no reply.
“They say Maynewth's a tryin' place, too,” he continued, “an' I'd be
sorry to see him pulled down to anatomy, like some of the scarecrows
that come qut of it. I hope you'll bear it betther.”
“Do you speak to me?” said Denis, awaking out of a reverie.
“I do, sir,” replied the father; and as he uttered the words the son
perceived that his eyes were fixed upon him with an expression of
affectionate sorrow and pride.
The youth was then in a serious mood, free from all the dominion of that
learned mania under which he had so frequently signalized himself: the
sorrow of his father, and a consciousness of the deep affection and
unceasing kindness which he had ever experienced from him, joined to
a recollection of their former friendly disputes and companionship,
touched Denny to the quick. But the humility with which he applied
to him the epithet sir, touched him most. What! thought he--ought my
affectionate father to be thrown to such a distance from a son, who
owes everything to his love and goodness! The thought of his stooping so
humbly before him smote the boy's heart, and the tears glistened in his
eyes.
“Father,” said he, “you have been kind and good to me, beyond my
deserts; surely then I cannot bear to hear you address me in that
manner, as if we were both strangers. Nor while I am with you, shall
any of you so address me. Remember that I am still your son and their
brother.”
The natural affection displayed in this speech soon melted the whole
family into tears--not excepting Denis himself, who felt that grief
which we experience when about to be separated for the first time from
those we love.
“Come over, avourneen,” said his mother, drying her eyes with the corner
of her check apron: “come over, _acushla machree_, an' sit beside me:
sure although we're sorry for you, Denis, it's proud our hearts are of
you, an' good right we have, a sullish! Come over, an let me be near you
as long as I can, any way.”
Denis placed himself beside her, and the proud mother drew his head over
upon her bosom, and bedewed his face with a gush of tears.
“They say,” she observed, “that it's sinful to shed tears when there's
no occasion for grief; but I hope it's no sin to cry when one's heart is
full of somethin' that brings them to one's eyes, whether they will or
not.”
“Mave,” said the father, “I'll miss him more nor any of you: but sure
he'll often send letters to us from Maynewth, to tell us now he's
gettin' on; an' we'll be proud enough, never fear.”
“You'll miss me, Denis,” said his favorite sister, who was also called
Susan; “for you'll find no one in Maynewth that will keep your linen so
white as I did: but never fear, I'll be always knittin' you stockings;
an' every year I'll make you half-a-dozen shirts, and you'll think them
more natural nor other shirts, when you know they came from your own
home--from them that you love! Won't you, Denis?”
“I will, Susy; and I will love the shirts for the sake of the hands that
made them.”
“And I won't allow Susy Connor to help me as she used to do: they'll be
all Alley's sewin' and mine.”
“The poor colleen--listen to her!” exclaimed the affectionate father;
“indeed you will, Susy; ay, and hem his cravats, that we'll send him
ready made an' all.”
“Yes,” replied Denis, “but as to Susy Connor--hem--why, upon
considera--he--hem--upon second thoughts, I don't see why you should
prevent her from helping you; she's a neighbor's daughter, and a
well-wisher, of whose prosperity in life I'd always wish to hear.
“The poor girl's very bad in her health, for the last three weeks,”
observed his other sister Alley: “she has lost her appetite, an' is cast
down entirely in her spirits. You ought to go an' see her, Denis, before
you set out for the college, if it was only on her dacent father's
account. When I was tellin' her yisterday that you wor to get the
bishop's letter for Maynewth to-morrow, she was in so poor a state of
health that she nearly fainted. I had to give her a drink of wather, and
sprinkle her face with it. Well, she's a purty crathur, an' a good girl,
an' was always that, dear knows!”
“Denis achree,” said his mother, somewhat alarmed, “are you any way
unwell? Why your heart's batin' like a new catched chicken! Are you
sick, acushla; or are you used to this?”
“It won't signify,” replied Denis, gently raising himself from his
mother's arms, “I will sit up, mother; it's but a sudden stroke or two
of _tremor cordis_, produced probably by having my mind too much upon
one object.”
“I think,” said his father, “he will be the betther of a little drop of
the poteen made into punch, an' for that matter we can all take a sup
of it; as there's no one here but ourselves, we will have it snug an'
comfortable.”
Nothing resembles an April day more than the general disposition of
the Irish people. When old Denis's proposal for the punch was made, the
gloom which hung over the family--originating, as it did, more in joy
than in soitow--soon began to disappear. Their countenances gradually
brightened, by and by mirth stole out, and ere the punch had
accomplished its first round, laughter, and jest, and good-humor,--each,
in consequence of the occasion, more buoyant and vivacious than usual,
were in full play. Denis himself, when animated by the unexcised liquor,
threw off his dejection, and' ere the night was half spent found himself
in the highest region of pedantry.
“I would not,” said he, “turn my back upon any other candidate in the
province, in point of preparatory excellence and ardency of imagination.
I say, sitting here beside you, my worthy and logical father, I would
not retrograde from any candidate for the honors of the Catholic Church
in the province--in the kingdom--in Europe; and it is not improbable but
I might progradiate another step, and say Christendom at large. And now,
what's a candidate? Father, you have some apprehension in you, and are a
passable second-hand controversialist--what's a candidate? Will you tell
me?”
“I give it up, Denis; but you'll tell us.”
“Yes, I will tell you. Candidate signifies a man dressed in fustian; it
comes from _candidus_, which is partly Greek, partly Latin, and partly
Hebrew. It was the learned designation for Irish linen, too, which in
the time of the Romans was in great request at Home; but it was changed
to signify fustian, because it was found that everything a man promised
on becoming a candidate for any office, turned out to be only fustian
when he got it.”
“Denis, avourneen,” said his mother, “the greatest comfort myself has is
to be thinkin' that when you're a priest, you can be sayin' masses for
my poor sinful sowl.”
“Yes, there is undoubtedly comfort in, that reflection; and depend
upon it, my dear mother, that I'll be sure to clinch your masses in
the surest mode. I'll not fly over them like Camilla across a field
of potato oats, without discommoding a single walk, as too many of my
worthy brethren--I mane as! too many of those whose worthy brother I
will soon be--do in this present year of grace. I'm no fool at the
Latin, but, as I'm an unworthy candidate for Maynooth, I cannot even
understand every fifteenth word they say when reading mass,
independently of the utter scorn with which they treat; these two
Scholastic old worthies, called! Syntax and Prosody.”