Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=KJtWAAAAcAAJ
(The British Library)
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe]
MORLEY ERNSTEIN
OR THE
TENANTS OF THE HEART
A ROMANCE
BY G.P.R. JAMES ESQ.
BRUSSELS.
MELINE, CANS AND CO.
M DCCC XLII
MORLEY ERNSTEIN
OR
THE TENANTS OF THE HEART.
CHAPTER I.
"Pouvons-nous pas dire, qu'il n'y a rien en nous, pendant cette prison
terrestre, purement, ni corporel ni spirituel?" asks good old
Montaigne, and certain it is that in many an act where we imagine the
body alone takes part, the spirit has as great a share; and in many a
thought where the mind seems to divest herself of clay, the impulse
was given by the body, not the soul. But besides the contention
between the corporeal and spiritual part of our nature, and the sort
of swindling that goes on on both sides, he that looks into his own
heart must acknowledge with him of old, that there seem to be two
spirits within us. I do not only mean two spirits distinguished by
their promptings to good and evil, but two principles separate in
their nature, in their objects, and in their ultimate dwelling-place,
the one tending to the earth, the other aspiring to the heavens; the
one the principle of animal existence, the other the principle of
immortal life; the one shared with the brutes that perish, the other
that essence which raises us above them here and hereafter. What shall
we call these two spirits? How shall we distinguish them, the one from
the other, in speaking of them hereafter? Let us name the higher and
the purer one, _the spirit of the soul_; and call the other, _the
spirit of the flesh_; for both are distinct from mere intellect, which
each uses as an agent, as each gains the ascendancy, or appeals to as
a judge when the struggle is nearly equal. It is upon this struggle
between these two principles that turns the greater part of each man's
moral history.
One of the strangest points in that contest is, that _the spirit of
the soul_, as we have called the one, appeals less frequently to the
intellect than her earthly sister, leaving it, in general, to the
latter, as if for her uses in this earth the powers of intellect were
given, while the soul obtains its impulses from other sources, and,
marked out for a higher destiny, receives winged inspirations from the
world to which it tends--faith, conviction, sentiment, feeling,
conscience;--and oh, how often does that better spirit seize the happy
moment to open the eyes which all our powers of mind could not
unclose, and strip the world and all its pleasures of the delusions
which no force of intellect has been equal to dispel!
At the age of one-and-twenty years--It is a beautiful age, full of the
spring, with all the vigour of manhood, without one touch of its
decay; with all the fire of youth, without one touch of its
feebleness! Oh, one-and-twenty! bright one-and-twenty!--wilt thou
never come back to me again? No, never! The cord of the bow has been
so often drawn that it has lost its elasticity; there have been a
thousand flowers cast away that have withered in the dust of Time's
sandy path; there have been a thousand fruits tasted that have left
but the rind in my hand; there have been a thousand travel stains
acquired that never can be washed off till the journey is done. That
which has been lost, and that which has been gained, have both been
gathered into the two baskets of the past; and whatever the future may
have in store, one-and-twenty, with its many hopes, its few fears, its
buoyancy of spirit, its elasticity of limb, its eagerness of
expectation, its activity of pursuit, its aspirations, its desires,
its faith, its confidence, its frankness, its garden of visionary
flowers, and its atmosphere of misty light, can never, never come back
to us, were we to whistle till we broke our hearts. No, no; in the sad
arithmetic of years, multiply by what numbers you will, you can never
get at one-and-twenty more than once.
At the age of one-and-twenty years, Morley Ehrenstein, or Ernstein, as
it had been contracted, a gentleman--descended, as his name evinces,
from a very old German family, who had made themselves a home in a
foreign land, some three centuries before--sat in one of the large
chambers of an English country-house, not many miles from the good
town of Doncaster. No one tenanted the chamber but himself, and though
it was a cheerful day of summer, and the room was one of a bright and
sunny aspect, there was a degree of melancholy on the young man's
countenance, which might be difficult to account for, if we did not
look a little into his heart, and pause for a moment on his previous
history. Let him gaze then at the ceiling, and study the quaint
arabesques into which the plaster of Paris had been drawn; let him
lean his head upon his hand, and examine the pretty nothings with
which his table is covered; let him gaze out of the window into
the far distance, as if he were about to paint a portrait of the
weather-cock on the village church; but let you and I, dear reader,
first put our friend into a microscope, and note down exactly every
limb and feature and sinew, as if we were true Kirbys, anatomising a
moth; and then let us look in the old almanacks, to discover some of
the antecedents of his present state.
The young man, then, of whom we speak, was above the middle height,
powerful in limb, and though so young, with but little of the
slightness of youth remaining. Health, and strength, and activity,
were to be traced in every swelling muscle, and those who regard what
is merely corporeal, might well pronounce him a fine animal, even when
at rest. When in activity, however--when hunting, swimming, leaping,
or performing any of those rude exercises whereof Englishmen are so
fond, and also so proud, with the glowing cheek and expanded nostril,
the flashing eye, and the strong rounded outline of every limb, he
looked like a fierce young horse, before the bit has taught it the
force of any other power than its own strength. In every moment of
excitement the animal spirit, _the spirit of the flesh_, started up
strong and bold within him; his veins seemed to be filled with molten
fire, his heart to be full of eagerness and impetuosity, his whole
mind one active enthusiasm. He felt within him a thirst for unceasing
action of any and every kind, and had it not been for certain
qualities, which we shall notice hereafter, he would have been merely
one of those who look upon all things round them, as objects on which
to employ their reckless energy, and life itself but as a child's
plaything.
He was young, dear reader, very young, and had neither learned from
the bitter teaching of years nor from any sudden and sad experience,
that the face must be, as it were, a veil to hide the countenance of
the heart. There are few men who reach thirty, without more or less
becoming hypocrites, and still fewer women; at least, as far as the
expression of the features goes. There are some with whom the waters
of time are like those of certain springs, and gradually petrify the
face into a mask. There are others who retain their pliability of
features, but reverse the action; cover hate and sorrow with a smile,
or conceal joy and satisfaction with an air of icy indifference. There
are some endowed by nature with lineaments of marble, and some who, by
habit and by art, form for themselves an India-rubber countenance,
which will stretch to whatsoever they require.
Morley Ernstein was none of these. He was very young, as we have said,
and nature had made his looks the reflection of all that passed in his
heart. His face was as a clear stream, through which one sees to the
very bottom. He had never learned to rule its expressions, and those
impulses which were but too apt to sway his actions, had still more
power over his countenance.
Why then did he now look so sad? Women will imagine that he was in
love, for they are all inclined to say, with Alfred de Musset, that--
"La vie est un sommeil, l'amour en est le rêve."
Men--but especially Frenchmen--may be inclined to suppose, with
Balzac's gamblers, when they first beheld Raphael, that there was,
under his melancholy aspect, "quelque horrible mystère;" and imagine
it proceeded from some "douleur inouïe." Neither of those
suppositions, however, would be correct. There was no one point in his
history or situation, that should have produced anything like gloom.
Morley Ernstein was born to wealth and honour; his father had died
early, leaving but one child, to the care of a fond but a wise mother,
who, though young and beautiful at her husband's death, kept,
throughout the rest of her life, the colours of mourning in her
garments and in her heart. Some six years before the time of which we
now speak, she too had left this world for another state of being, and
her son had fallen into hands of guardians, somewhat strict, but still
prudent and kind. They had seen that his talents were great, that his
mind approached, if it did not absolutely reach, the height of genius,
and they had taken care that it should have such cultivation as the
land afforded. They were as conscientious with the young baronet's
property as with his intellect; and the old family-house had been left
in the care of two faithful good women, who had withered in the
service of his ancestors, and who now shewed themselves scrupulous in
maintaining everything in the same precise order, and clean propriety
which had been kept up during the life of the lady of the mansion.
The guardians of Morley Ernstein had resisted all his entreaties to
let him pass the vacations of school and college in his ancestral
house; but on the day that he was one-and-twenty, a carriage and four
horses were at the door of his temporary abode before six in the
morning, and ere night he was in the dwelling of his youth. Everything
had been prepared to receive him, and he had hastened from room to
room, while all the moonlight joy of memory lit up each chamber with
associations from the past. He slept little, and rose on the following
day, to go through the accounts of guardians and executors, and he
found, as paper after paper was laid before him, new cause to applaud
their care and wisdom--new reason to look upon his situation as one of
the brightest that man could fill. The subsequent night he slept
soundly; but now, when he rose on the day we have mentioned, which was
the one that succeeded, he sat in the large drawing-room, where his
mother used to pass the morning, with his head resting on his hand,
the broad, fine forehead contracted, the bright dark eyes full of
melancholy, the corners of his mouth turned down, gazing at things he
did not see, and forgetting all the bright expectations of youth, and
all the joys that hope had spread out before him.
Of what was it that he thought? Was it of his mother? No! Time had
healed the only wound that fate, within his own memory, had inflicted
on him; and his thoughts were of no external kind whatever: It was
that _the spirit of the soul_ then, for the first time, made her voice
heard strongly. She might have whispered before, but now she spoke
aloud. It was as a warning at the gates of life: it was as if some
hand, for a moment, drew back the glittering veil with which pale
reality covers her wrinkled front, and had shewn him, instead of the
bright young features he expected to see, nothing but deformity and
age. Unhappy is it--at the time, most unhappy--for the man, in whose
mind age and youth can change places, even for an hour. God wills us,
while we are young, to view things youngly, and when the thoughts of
age force themselves upon us in youth, we are like the living clasped
in the cold arms of the dead.
Such, then, were the sensations of Morley Ernstein, as he sat in the
house of his fathers, master thereof, master of himself, master of
fortune, station, youth, strength, and expectation! Oh, how he had
longed for that hour! What bright visions had risen before his eyes,
of enjoyment to come! How he had strode in imagination over every
field--how he had visited every cottage--how he had consoled the old
servants for his long absence--how he had made in fancy every change
that he had devised in boyhood. He had dreamed bright dreams, though
most innocent ones; and now the dream was accomplished--he was there,
with nothing but his own will to control him in any act! Yes, the
dream was accomplished, but it was ended too! Whenever we grasp life's
flowers with too hot a hand, they are sure to wither almost ere they
reach our bosom. He had not felt as much joy as he had expected; he
had been happy certainly, but he had discovered that even happiness is
not the bright thing he had thought it; and now he sat and mused, the
spirit of the soul seeming to tell him, that thus he would still find
it throughout the whole of life; that there is a rich ingredient
wanting in the cup of mortal joy which never can be found on earth.
There was a dull oppression on his heart that he could not account
for; there was a voice rang in his ear, telling of the emptiness of
all human things. "But a few short years ago," he thought, "here
moved my father, filled with plans and purposes, hopes and
expectations,--here crowded round him the gay, the bright, the
beautiful, the wise, the good--here honour waited, wealth supported,
renown followed him--here, too, my mother spent days of joy and
sorrow--here she looked with tenderness upon my cradle--here she
watched with pride my growing years--here she often talked of the
bright future with her beloved son. And they are both gone: their
shadows no longer cross the household floor; the roof tree no longer
echoes back their voices; their tongues are silent, and their smiles
are cold; and the place where they once dwelt, now knows them no more.
Thus, too, shall it be with me ere many years have passed; my joys, my
hopes, my affections shall soon be in the dust with theirs."
Such were his thoughts as he sat there, though the room was full of
sunshine--though the object before his eyes were bright--though
one-and-twenty years were all that he had numbered. Judge then, dear
reader, whether _the spirit of the soul_ was not strong within him,
thus to rise and reprove the animal spirit, even at the very threshold
of youth. Each was indeed powerful: the elements of earthly and
immortal existence had been poured into him profusely; the eager,
impassioned, vehement being of this world, was met by the calm, grand,
mysterious essence of a higher sphere; and sometimes the impetuous
energy of the one, sometimes the stern majesty of the other, gained
the victory, and ruled the course of life.