Enough of boyhood and its faults and follies. I sought but to show the
reader, as in a glass, the back of a pageant that has past. Oh, how I
sometimes laugh at the fools--the critics. God save the mark! who see no
more in the slight sketch I choose to give, than a mere daub of paint
across the canvas, when that one touch gives effect to the whole
picture. Let them stand back, and view it as a whole; and if they can
find aught in it to make them say "Well done," let them look at the
frame. That is enough for them; their wits are only fitted to deal with
"leather and prunella."
I have given you, reader--kind and judicious reader--a sketch of the
boy, that you may be enabled to judge rightly of the man. Now, take the
lad as I have moulded him--bake him well in the fiery furnace of strong
passion, remembering still that the form is of hard iron--quench and
harden him in the cold waters of opposition, and disappointment, and
anxiety--and bring him forth tempered, but too highly tempered for the
world he has to live in--not pliable--not elastic; no watchspring, but
like a graver's tool, which must cut into everything opposed to it, or
break under the pressure.
Let us start upon our new course some fifteen years after the period at
which our tale began, and view Philip Hastings as that which he had now
become.
Dr. Paulding had passed from this working day world to another and a
better--where we hope the virtues of the heart may be weighed against
vices of the head--a mode of dealing rare here below. Sir John Hastings
and his wife had gone whither their eldest son had gone before them; and
Philip Hastings was no longer the boy. Manhood had set its seal upon his
brow only too early; but what a change had come with manhood!--a change
not in the substance, but in its mode.
Oh, Time! thy province is not only to destroy! Thou worker-out of human
destinies--thou new-fashioner of all things earthly--thou blender of
races--thou changer of institutions--thou discoverer--thou
concealer--thou builder up--thou dark destroyer; thy waters as they flow
have sometimes a petrifying, sometimes a solvent power, hardening the
soft, melting the strong, accumulating the sand, undermining the rock!
What had been thine effect upon Philip Hastings?
All the thoughts had grown manly as well as the body. The slight youth
had been developed into the hardy and powerful man; somewhat
inactive--at least so it seemed to common eyes--more thoughtful than
brilliant, steady in resolution, though calm in expression, giving way
no more to bursts of boyish feeling, somewhat stern, men said somewhat
hard, but yet extremely just, and resolute for justice. The poetry of
life--I should have said the poetry of young life--the brilliancy of
fancy and hope, seemed somewhat dimmed in him--mark, I say seemed, for
that which seems too often is not; and he might perhaps have learnt to
rule and conceal feelings which he could not altogether conquer or
resist.
Still there were many traces of his old self visible: the same love of
study, the same choice of books and subjects of thought, the same
subdued yet strong enthusiasms. The very fact of mingling with the
world, which had taught him to repress those enthusiasms, seemed to have
concentrated and rendered them more intense.
The course of his studies; the habits of his mind; his fondness for the
school of the stoics, it might have been supposed, would rather have
disgusted him with the society in which he now habitually mingled, and
made him look upon mankind--for it was a very corrupt age--with
contempt, if not with horror.
Such, however, was not the case. He had less of the cynic in him than
his father--indeed he had nothing of the cynic in him at all. He loved
mankind in his own peculiar way. He was a philanthropist of a certain
sort; and would willingly have put a considerable portion of his
fellow-creatures to death, in order to serve, and elevate, and improve
the rest.
His was a remarkable character--not altogether fitted for the times in
which he lived; but one which in its wild and rugged strength, commanded
much respect and admiration even then. Weak things clung to it, as ivy
to an oak or a strong wall: and its power over them was increased by a
certain sort of tenderness--a protecting pity, which mingled strangely
with his harder and ruder qualities. He seemed to be sorry for
everything that was weak, and to seek to console and comfort it, under
the curse of feebleness. It seldom offended him--he rather loved it, it
rarely came in his way; and his feeling toward it might approach
contempt but never rose to anger.
He was capable too of intense and strong affections, though he could not
extend them to many objects. All that was vigorous and powerful in him
concentrated itself in separate points here and there; and general
things were viewed with much indifference.
See him as he walks up and down there before the old house, which I have
elsewhere described. He has grown tall and powerful in frame; and yet
his gait is somewhat slovenly and negligent, although his step is firm
and strong. He is not much more than thirty-one years of age; but he
looks forty at the least; and his hair is even thickly sprinkled with
gray. His face is pale, with some strong marked lines and indentations
in it; yet, on the whole, it is handsome, and the slight habitual frown,
thoughtful rather than stern, together with the massive jaw, and the
slight drawing down of the corners of the mouth, give it an expression
of resolute firmness, that is only contradicted by the frequent
variation of the eye, which is sometimes full of deep thought, sometimes
of tenderness; and sometimes is flashing with a wild and almost
unearthly fire.
But there is a lady hanging on his arm which supports her somewhat
feeble steps. She seems recovering from illness; the rose in her cheek
is faint and delicate; and an air of languor is in her whole face and
form. Yet she is very beautiful, and seems fully ten years younger than
her husband, although, in truth, she is of the same age--or perhaps a
little older. It is Rachael Marshal, now become Lady Hastings.
Their union did not take place without opposition; all Sir John
Hastings' prejudices against the Marshal family revived as soon as his
son's attachment to the daughter of the house became apparent. Like most
fathers, he saw too late; and then sought to prevent that which had
become inevitable. He sent his son to travel in foreign lands; he even
laid out a scheme for marrying him to another, younger, and as he
thought fairer. He contrived that the young man should fall into the
society of the lady he had selected, and he fancied that would be quite
sufficient; for he saw in her character, young as she was, traits, much
more harmonious, as he fancied, with those of his son, than could be
found in the softer, gentler, weaker Rachael Marshal. There was energy,
perseverance, resolution, keen and quick perceptions--perhaps a little
too much keenness. More, he did not stay to inquire; but, as is usual in
matters of the heart, Philip Hastings loved best the converse of
himself. The progress of the scheme was interrupted by the illness of
Sir John Hastings, which recalled his son from Rome. Philip returned,
found his father dead, and married Rachael Marshal.
They had had several children; but only one remained; that gay, light,
gossamer girl, like a gleam darting along the path from sunny rays
piercing through wind-borne clouds. On she ran with a step of light and
careless air, yet every now and then she paused suddenly, gazed
earnestly at a flower, plucked it, pored into its very heart with her
deep eyes, and, after seeming to labor under thought for a moment,
sprang forward again as light as ever.
The eyes of the father followed her with a look of grave, thoughtful,
intense affection. The mother's eyes looked up to him, and then glanced
onward to the child.
She was between nine and ten years old--not very handsome, for it is not
a handsome age. Yet there were indications of future beauty--fine and
sparkling eyes, rich, waving, silky hair, long eyelashes, a fine
complexion, a light and graceful figure, though deformed by the stiff
fashions of the day.
There was a sparkle too in her look--that bright outpouring of the heart
upon the face which is one of the most powerful charms of youth and
innocence. Ah! how soon gone by! How soon checked by the thousand loads
which this heavy laboring world casts upon the buoyancy of youthful
spirits--the chilling conventionality--the knowledge, and the fear of
wrong--the first taste of sorrow--the anxieties, cares, fears--even the
hopes of mature life, are all weights to bear down the pinions of young,
lark-like joy. After twenty, does the heart ever rise up from her green
sod and sing at Heaven's gate as in childhood? Never--ah, never! The
dust of earth is upon the wing of the sky songster, and will never let
her mount to her ancient pitch.
That child was a strange combination of her father and her mother. She
was destined to be their only one; and it seemed as if nature had taken
a pleasure in blending the characters of both in one. Not that they were
intimately mingled, but that they seemed like the twins of Laconia, to
rise and set by turns.
In her morning walk; in her hours of sportive play; when no subject of
deep thought, no matter that affected the heart or the imagination was
presented to her, she was light and gay as a butterfly; the child--the
happy child was in every look, and word, and movement. But call her for
a moment from this bright land of pleasantness--present something to her
mind or to her fancy which rouses sympathies, or sets the energetic
thoughts at work, and she was grave, meditative, studious, deep beyond
her years.
She was a subject of much contemplation, some anxiety, some wonder to
her father. The brightness of her perceptions, her eagerness in the
pursuit of knowledge, her vigorous resolution even as a child, when
convinced that she was right, showed him his own mind reflected in hers.
Even her tenderness, her strong affections, he could comprehend; for the
same were in his own heart, and though he believed them to be
weaknesses, he could well understand their existence in a child and in a
woman.
But that which he did not understand--that which made him marvel--was
her lightness, her gayety, her wild vivacity--I might almost say, her
trifling, when not moved by deep feeling or chained down by thought.
This was beyond him. Yet strange! the same characteristics did not
surprise nor shock him in her mother--never had surprised or shocked
him; indeed he had rather loved her for those qualities, so unlike his
own. Perhaps it was that he thought it strange, his child should, in any
mood, be so unlike himself; or perhaps it was the contrast between the
two sides of the same character that moved his wonder when he saw it in
his child. He might forget that her mother was her parent as well as
himself; and that she had an inheritance from each.
In his thoughtful, considering, theoretical way, he determined
studiously to seek a remedy for what he considered the defect in his
child--to cultivate with all the zeal and perseverance of paternal
affection, supported by his own force of character, those qualities
which were most like his own--those, in short, which were the least
womanly. But nature would not be baffled. You may divert her to a
certain degree; but you cannot turn her aside from her course
altogether.
He found that he could not--by any means which his heart would let him
employ--conquer what he called the frivolity of the child. Frivolity!
Heaven save us! There were times when she showed no frivolity, but, on
the contrary, a depth and intensity far, far beyond her years. Indeed,
the ordinary current of her mind was calm and thoughtful. It was but
when a breeze rippled it that it sparkled on the surface. Her father,
too, saw that this was so; that the wild gayety was but occasional. But
still it surprised and pained him--perhaps the more because it was
occasional. It seemed to his eyes an anomaly in her nature. He would
have had her altogether like himself. He could not conceive any one
possessing so much of his own character, having room in heart and brain
for aught else. It was a subject of constant wonder to him; of
speculation, of anxious thought.
He often asked himself if this was the only anomaly in his child--if
there were not other traits, yet undiscovered, as discrepant as this
light volatility with her general character: and he puzzled himself
sorely.
Still he pursued her education upon his own principles; taught her many
things which women rarely learned in those days; imbued her mind with
thoughts and feelings of his own; and often thought, when a season of
peculiar gravity fell upon her, that he made progress in rendering her
character all that he could wish it. This impression never lasted long,
however; for sooner or later the bird-like spirit within her found the
cage door open, and fluttered forth upon some gay excursion, leaving all
his dreams vanished and his wishes disappointed.
Nevertheless he loved her with all the strong affection of which his
nature was capable; and still he persevered in the course which he
thought for her benefit. At times, indeed, he would make efforts to
unravel the mystery of her double nature, not perceiving that the only
cause of mystery was in himself: that what seemed strange in his
daughter depended more upon his own want of power to comprehend her
variety than upon anything extraordinary in her. He would endeavor to go
along with her in her sportive moods--to let his mind run free beside
hers in its gay ramble; to find some motive for them which he could
understand; to reduce them to a system; to discover the rule by which
the problem was to be solved. But he made nothing of it, and wearied
conjecture in vain.
Lady Hastings sometimes interposed a little; for in unimportant things
she had great influence with her husband. He let her have her own way
wherever he thought it not worth while to oppose her; and that was very
often. She perfectly comprehended the side of her daughter's character
which was all darkness to the father; and strange to say, with greater
penetration than his own, she comprehended the other side likewise. She
recognized easily the traits in her child which she knew and admired in
her husband, but wished them heartily away in her daughter's case,
thinking such strength of mind, joined with whatever grace and
sweetness, somewhat unfeminine.
Though she was full of prejudices, and where her quickness of perception
failed her, altogether unteachable by reason, yet she was naturally too
virtuous and good to attempt even to thwart the objects of the father's
efforts in the education of his child. I have said that she interfered
at times, but it was only to remonstrate against too close study, to
obtain frequent and healthful relaxation, and to add all those womanly
accomplishments on which she set great value. In this she was not
opposed. Music, singing, dancing, and a knowledge of modern languages,
were added to other branches of education, and Lady Hastings was so far
satisfied.