Scarcely had Morley's visits in the country been paid, when first came
four invitations to dinner, and then a grand ball was determined on by
a lady, who lived near the county town, and had four sons and six
daughters. Who can tell whether Morley Ernstein's appearance in the
neighbourhood had aught to do with all these gay affairs? Old Miss
Cumbertown, who had seen sixty and more drying summers and freezing
winters pass over her, till all the sweeter essences of her nature
were parched up to a dry haricot, muttered and grinned at all she
heard, and prognosticated that the young gentleman would not be caught
yet awhile. She knew well what it was to be disappointed in the
attempt to catch a lover; and when she heard, some days after this,
that the young master of Morley Court had declined all invitations,
announcing that he was about to go to town on the very day the first
dinner-party was to take place, she grinned a thousand times more. It
is so pleasant to see other people visited by the same misfortunes
that have fallen upon ourselves!
In the meantime the young gentleman was totally unconscious that there
was anything like a design upon him in any of the five invitations, or
that he was creating the least disappointment in the inviters;
although they did not fail to believe--for cunning always fancies
itself opposed by cunning--that he partly saw through their devices.
"Oh, he gives himself great airs!" said one.
"I suppose we must beg his company in very humble terms," cried
another.
But, as we have before declared, Morley was quite unconscious of.
offence, and never once recollected the fact either of his having the
command of a number of votes for the county, or of his being an
eligible match for any lady in the land. Indeed, he thought not at all
of any man's daughter in Europe, except, indeed, of her whose birth,
parentage, and education, he had not been able to discover.
After he had settled the period of his journey, the next thing was to
settle the mode of travelling. It was very natural that, with great
wealth in possession, which he had never been allowed fully to enjoy,
he should dream of tasting the sweets of it in every possible manner,
and that the chariot-and-four should first present itself to his
imagination, as the only fitting way for him to seek the capital. He
had very nearly given orders for the horses, and had visions of going
at least thirteen miles an hour. Rapidity of motion is one of the
inherent joys of youth and vigour--it may be called, almost, a
necessity, and Morley was one of those who enjoy to the highest
extent that peculiar sensation which is produced by the rapid passing
of the fair objects of nature before the eye; tower and town, and
church-steeple, and green fields, and bright rivers, and tall trees,
and rich woods, resting just long enough upon the organs of vision to
call up sweet, but undefined imaginations, and then passing away--like
distant music which swells and falls upon the ear, bringing back
vaguely airs that we have heard elsewhere, and leaving fancy to play
them to an end.
He forgot, however, to give the order for the horses at the hour of
dinner, and afterwards he strolled out into the country round, and
visited the cottages of some of the peasantry who were reported to be
in a state of great poverty. He now saw real misery, for the first
time, and it had a powerful effect upon him. We have not space, dear
reader, to enter into the details; to paint the pale face of squalid
misery, and the eager anxious eyes of hopeless destitution. Suffice
it, that Morley Ernstein was young; his heart had not been hardened in
the furnace of the world, and it was not originally formed of that
adamantine stuff, called selfishness. He was not, as some, lavish in
his bounty, from mere want of any principle of action whatsoever; but
he relieved the unhappy people fully, and on his return home, gave
such directions, as to prevent their falling back into misery again
during his absence, except by their own fault.
After this was done, he sat and thought, and ended, by ordering a
servant to go to the neighbouring town, and secure him a place in the
stage-coach to London. His scheme of travelling had been changed by
his visit to the poor; but not in the manner, or from the motives that
many persons may imagine. It was not that he proposed to save small
sums out of a princely fortune, for the purpose of devoting the whole
of that fortune to the poor, for Morley knew right well that the
industrious mechanic, the artisan, the farmer, the builder--all, in
short, who contribute by the labour of their hands and minds to the
convenience, comfort, and welfare of their fellow-creatures, have a
first claim upon those to whom God has entrusted the distribution of
great wealth. He believed that though the poor, the honest and worthy
poor, must be supplied, must be cared for--that though it is a duty to
make up, by active charity, for the inequalities and accidents that
the fundamental constitution of society, and the very nature of man
must always produce--still the industrious of all classes have their
great primary right, which ought to be attended to. It was not that
the actual sight of misery made him purpose to deny himself anything
that was rational and just in the station in which he was placed, or
resolve to refrain from any expense which might encourage the
industrious in all classes, but that sight had called up _the spirit
of the soul_ to speak within him, and to check the animal spirit which
had fired his imagination. After he returned from those poor cottages,
he found no pleasure in the idea of the gay postilions and foaming
horses; his mind took a sadder, a more thoughtful tone. He felt almost
ashamed of the bright eagerness of pampered life in the presence of
the dim eyes and tear-stained cheeks of misery. His whole scheme
changed. "I will go to the capital," he said, "quietly and modestly. I
will not present myself in that gay place as the rich man, coming to
enjoy, but as the thoughtful man, going to examine and to consider. I
will not, indeed, conceal myself; but I will retire rather than
advance, till I have good cause to do so. I will seek to find friends
rather than to make acquaintances, and rather than simply endeavour to
spend my income, I will endeavour to spend it well."
Nothing occurred to check _the spirit of the soul_, and he continued
in the same mood till the stage-coach passed by the gates of his park,
the next day. A number of passengers covered the outside of the
vehicle, so that there was no room for him in that part which
Englishmen always choose in preference to the interior, as if they
loved the dust of summer, the rain of autumn and spring, and the cold
winds of winter, better than any other of the enjoyments of those
seasons. To foreigners this seems an extraordinary taste; but the
origin of it probably is that the Englishman, who pushes almost all
his affections to extravagance, loves, with a vehemence that few other
people can feel, the free air of heaven. Morley would willingly have
changed places with the poorest traveller on the outside of the coach;
but as that could not be done, he took his seat in solitude in the
interior, where he found plenty of room for thought, there being
nobody within it but himself.
The coach rolled on with a celerity which no one who has not travelled
in one of those small, inconvenient, but wonderfully rapid, vehicles,
can imagine to be produced by any animal under the sun. The nearer
objects flew past like lightning, the further ones kept gradually
changing their place with a quickness proportioned to their respective
distances from the coach, which, for its part, like the mind of a vain
man, seemed the centre of a circle round which all other objects were
running; and Morley's impetuosity was well nigh satisfied with the
rate of progression at which they were going.
After all, movement is the grand principle of animal life; it runs in
our veins, it beats in our hearts, it advances with our ideas, it
enters into every change, is more rapid in youth, slower in infancy
and age, fails as desires are extinguished or objects wanting, grows
dull in sickness, pauses in sleep, and ends alone in death.
After driving on at the same pace for three-quarters of an hour,
during which, Morley gave himself up to the sort of dreamy pleasure
which I have mentioned, of feeling himself whirled on through a
thousand beautiful objects, the coach stopped to change horses, and
one of the travellers from the outside came in, and took his seat by
the previously solitary tenant of the interior.
"It is as hot as if it were summer on the outside," he said,
addressing nobody, "and the seat I had got was so unpleasant, that I
am not sorry to quit it."
Morley did not answer; but--with the sort of habitual coldness which
affects almost all Englishmen, in part pride, in part timidity, in
part contempt for all other beings than themselves, in part fear that
others should entertain the same contempt for them--he sat silent,
gazing out of the window, following his own meditations, and quite
willing that his travelling companion should follow his likewise.
The personage who had entered was not one, however, that had anything
repulsive in his manners or appearance. He was tall, gracefully
formed, with an air of distinction, and a countenance often full of
fire and animation, although the habitual expression was that of quick
but easy-flowing thought. His brow was high and fine, his eyes
peculiarly large and bright, and his hair strongly curled; the only
feature in his face which could be termed even not good, was the
mouth, the lips being somewhat thick and heavy. His complexion was
dark, and the skin very brown, apparently with exposure to the air and
sun, but the whole exterior was extremely pleasing; and had Morley
looked at him at all, he would in all probability have spoken in
return; but the young gentleman did not look at him, and the stranger,
after pausing for a moment, spoke again--resolved, it would seem, to
make some impression upon his temporary companion.
"Pray, whose house is that?" he demanded, pointing to a handsome
mansion on the right.
"I do not know," replied Morley, turning round, and gazing at him, for
the first time.
"Indeed!" said the stranger; "I thought you were well acquainted with
this country. The coachman told me that you were Sir Something
Ernstein, and that the park, at the gates of which we took you up,
belongs to you."
Morley smiled. "It is all very true," he answered; "but, nevertheless,
I do not know. I have not been in this part of England for six or
seven years."
The stranger mused; but between two men not absolutely repulsive in
themselves, nor particularly disposed by any circumstances mutually to
repel each other--the poles of whose minds, in short, are not
reversed--conversation soon establishes itself after a few words have
been spoken. A single syllable will often do the whole with people
whose characters are well balanced, and a word act like the hair
trigger of a pistol, upon which hangs the fate of a life.
Oh, how strange and complicated is the web of God's will! How the
smallest, the most pitiful, the most empty of things, by his great and
wise volition, act their part in mighty changes! How a look, a tone, a
sound, a pebble in our path, a grain of dust in our eyes, a headache,
a fit of gloom, a caprice, a desire, may not only change the whole
current of one man's existence, but affect the being of states and
empires, and alter human destinies to the end of time! The present
state of France, the whole mass of facts, circumstances, incidents,
accidents, and events, which are there going on, may all be owing to a
lady, whom I knew well, having splashed her stocking fifty years ago.
"As how, in the name of Heaven?" demands the reader.
Thus! She was going out of her house with a relation in the town of
Douai, when, carelessly putting her foot on a stone, she splashed her
stocking. She went back to change it; the delay occupied a quarter of
an hour. When she went on again, she met, at the corner of the
_Place_, a man, since too famous in history, then scarcely known as
anything but a clever fop. His name was Francis Maximilian
Robespierre. Instead of going on, he turned with her and her relation,
and walked up and down the _Place_ with them for half an hour. In one
of the houses hard by, a debating society was in the act of canvassing
some political question. As they passed to and fro, Robespierre
listened at the door from time to time, and at length, pronouncing the
debaters to be all fools together, he rushed in to set them right.
From that moment, he entered vehemently into all the fiery discussions
which preceded the revolution, in which he had never taken part
before, and grasped at power, which opened the doors of the cage, and
let out the tiger in his heart. Thus, had the lady not splashed her
stocking, she would not have met the future tyrant; he would have
pursued his way, and would not have turned back to the _Place_; he
would never have heard the debate that first called him into action,
for he was going to quit Douai the next day, and who can say how that
one fact, in the infinite number of its combinations with other
things, might have affected the whole social world at present?
The stranger mused, as we have said, but after a moment's thought, he
replied, in a meditative tone--
"How strange is the sensation when, after a long absence from
any place, we return to it suddenly! How different everything
appears!--how shrunk, and changed, and withered, seem many objects
that we thought beautiful and bright!--how many a light gone out!--how
many a sweet sound silent! I believe that it is very happy for us that
in point of time we cannot go back again, as we can in space."
"Nay, I do not think so," answered Morley, growing interested in his
companion's conversation; "I cannot, indeed, judge from experience,
but I should imagine that many an old man would willingly return to
the days of his youth; that every man, indeed, when he finds life
beginning to lose its energies, health failing, the muscle relaxing,
the eye growing dim, the limbs feeble, would willingly go back to the
time when all were in their perfection."
"They would do so willingly, beyond all doubt," replied his companion;
"but whether they would do so wisely is another thing. We all wish to
see again the scenes of our boyhood, when we have been separated from
them long; but when we are gratified, we are always disappointed."
Morley smiled, to find the stranger speaking to all his late
sensations, as if he would have divined them; but he only enquired--
"Always?"
"Always, I think," said the other; "because it is in the nature of
things that it should be so. Enjoyment is a harmony--the person that
is pleased with anything and the object of his pleasure must be
adapted to each other. Thus the boy loves a particular scene of his
youth, returns to it as a man, and does not find the same delight; not
because it is changed, but because it has remained the same, and he is
altered; he has lost his fitness for it. It suited the boy; but it no
more suits the man than would the wooden sword and the rocking horse."
"I do not know," replied Morley, "but I should think that the memory
of enjoyment would make up for the change in his own nature. Memory is
the hope of the past, and both brighten the objects that they rest
upon."
"True!" answered his companion; "but then that which he enjoys is not
the same, but the memory of his own pleasure therein. Oh no! the life
of man is still, forward--forward! Each period of existence,
doubtless, has its powers and its joys, as well as its hopes and its
desires."
"But I have heard many that I have loved and respected, declare," said
Morley, "that in their own case the pure joys of youth were those on
which memory had rested through life with the greatest satisfaction."
"Simply because they were the furthest off," replied the other; "but
why call them the pure joys of youth? I do not see why they should be
purer than those of any other period. Surely all joys are pure--I mean
those that are not criminal. Anything that gives me pleasure, or by
which I can give others pleasure, and which injures no one, is just as
pure as the gathering of a flower, or the pruning of a tree--certainly
more pure than crucifying a worm upon a hook, or shooting an
inoffensive bird, or many another of those sports and pastimes of
which youth is fond."
Morley was silent for some little time; he felt that there was
something dangerous in his companion's doctrines, if pushed to the
extreme; but still, as far as he had expressed them, there was nothing
Of which he could take hold. The other seemed to perceive, with fine
tact, that the young man who sat beside him, had taken alarm at the
indefinite nature of his argument, and he added in haste--
"You will understand that I mean strictly to limit enjoyment to that
which is not criminal--which is not wrong--in short, all I mean to say
is, that the wisest plan for man to pursue is, to go on without ever
turning back his eyes to the past; to enjoy all that is natural for
his period of life, without regretting others that are gone. Each
pleasure is as a precious stone, picked up upon the sea-shore, a thing
to be treasured by memory; but because we find an emerald at one
moment, that is no reason why we should neglect the diamond that we
find the next, or the ruby that comes a little further on. Our
capabilities of enjoyment were intended to be used, and he who does
not do so, fails to fulfil one of the great obligations of his
nature."
Morley was better satisfied, but still not completely so; and had he
been older and more experienced, he might have thought that his
conversation with his travelling companion, is like that which
Conscience and Desire sometimes hold together, when temptation is very
strong. Desire still finds an argument to lead us up to the very verge
of wrong, assuring Conscience all the time that we are upon the safe
ground of right, and trusting to some momentary impulse to make us
leap the barrier when we have reached it.
Morley, however, was too young, too inexperienced, and be it added,
too innocent even in heart, to have had many such debates with
conscience, and to be experimentally acquainted with the tactics of
temptation. There was certainly something in his companion's arguments
which did not satisfy, but at the same time there was a peculiar charm
in his manner, in his conversation, in his very look, which made words
that might otherwise have failed to produce any effect, now sink into
the mind, and remain, like seeds, to produce fruit at a future period.
The manner and the look that we have just spoken of, were certainly
very fascinating apart, but still more so together; not so much
because they harmonized as because they differed. The manner was
gentle, soft, and though full of rapid thought, yet easy, and glowing
with a sort of conviction that made assent easy; and yet there was
nothing in the least presumptuous in it. On the contrary--indeed,
every word appeared to be spoken, more as a suggestion than a
decision; while the soft richness of the speaker's voice seemed
calculated to persuade and lead. The look on the other hand was full
of quick vivacity and fire--the eye brightened up at a word, the lip
changed its expression twenty times in a minute, and withal there was
an air of reckless joyousness, of rapid careless quickness, which
contrasted wonderfully with the metaphysical themes he touched upon,
and by contrast, gave the stronger effect to his deeper thoughts.
That he was a man of station and high breeding one would scarcely
doubt; and in his dress there was that scrupulous neatness which is
one of the distinguishing marks of a gentleman in youth. In older
life, a man may well lose a part of that attention to his apparel
which no young man should be without; but before the grand passage of
forty-five, no one should deem himself old enough to go out in a bad
hat if he can get a good one, or wear ill-blacked boots. The neatness
of his dress did not at all approach to puppyism, but every article of
his clothing was so well adapted to the other, that the whole
harmonized perfectly, and gave that peculiar and undefinable tone to
his appearance which has a vague sort of connexion with the mind
within, a reflection perhaps we might call it, of the habitual
thoughts and feelings influencing the dress without the wearer knowing
it. Man is but a species of chameleon, in general taking all his tints
from the things that surround him; but when these fail--like the stalk
of the balsam plant--his external colouring is affected by that which
passes within; and a man's fondness for particular hues, or sounds, or
scents, is often no bad indication of the character of his mind.
Morley Ernstein felt not a little impressed in favour of the stranger.
He was, indeed, not without strong good sense himself, but still there
was a charm that he could not resist; and never dreaming that he was
doing aught but passing agreeably an hour which might otherwise have
proved tedious, he soon renewed the conversation, but on a different
subject.
Let no one, however, venture to think that even a brief half-hour's
conversation with another man of strong mind can be a matter of mere
indifference--indeed, I know not that it ever is so, with any one,
wise or foolish, ugly or pretty, good or bad. We are all nothing but
traders in this world, mere hucksters, travelling packmen, with a
stock continually changing, increasing, diminishing. We go forth into
the world carrying a little wallet of ideas and feelings; and with
every one to whom we speak for a moment, we are trafficking in those
commodities. If we meet with a man of wisdom and of virtue, sometimes
he is liberal, and supplies us largely with high and noble thoughts,
receiving only in return sweet feelings of inward satisfaction;
sometimes, on the other hand, he will only trade upon equal terms, and
if we cannot give him wisdom for wisdom, shuts up his churlish shop
and will deal with us no more. If we go to a bad man we are almost
always sure to be cheated in our traffic, to get evil or useless
wares, and often those corrupted things which, once admitted to our
stock, spread the mould and mildew to all around. Often, often, too,
in our commerce with others do we pay for the poisons which we buy as
antidotes, all that we possess of good, both in feeling and idea. But
when we sit down by beauty, and gentleness, and virtue, what a world
of sweet images do we gain for the little that we can give in
exchange! Ay, and even in passing a few light moments with a dear,
innocent child, how much of bright and pure do we carry away in
sensation!--how much of deep and high may we gain in thought! Oh
no!--it is no indifferent thing, with whom we converse, if ideas be
the riches of the spirit.
Thoughtful men, and men of rapid combinations, are almost always
abrupt in conversation. A topic is started, two of them pursue it like
hunters for some time together, mutually hallooing on one another; but
the time comes when they separate, ride rapidly on alone, till they
have run down the game, and then they come back to rouse a new quarry.
Thus Morley Ernstein had soon got far away from the subject of their
former discourse; and had followed the thoughts suggested by it to an
end, with many a collateral idea likewise, before he spoke again. When
he did so, it was merely of an object that attracted the corporeal
eye.
"What a beautiful sunset!" he said, gazing out of the window of the
coach towards a spot where, through a break in the large wood by which
they were passing, the last rays of day were streaming in floods of
gold and crimson, seeming to make the forest air thick and misty with
light--"What a beautiful sunset! Might not one imagine the glades of
that wood filled at this moment with every sort of fairy and fanciful
being, to which the curious superstitions of old times gave birth?"
"One might, indeed!" replied the stranger. "It is a haunt formed
expressly for the 'good people,' as you call them, in this country.
Here the belief in such beings is very nearly extinct, even in the
lowest classes. In my country, such is by no means the case; and there
is scarcely one of us, whatever be his grade, in whose bosom, if you
were able to search into all its hidden corners, you would not find
some belief--ay, and a strong belief, too--not only in the existence
of spirits, but in their assuming tangible forms and opening a
communication with man."
"Are you not an Englishman, then?" demanded Morley, with so much
astonishment in his countenance at the discovery that one who spoke
his own difficult tongue so well was from another country, as to call
up a smile upon the lip of his companion--"Are you not an Englishman,
then?"
"No!" replied the stranger; "I am not; but some foreigners can speak
your language tolerably, especially when they have lived long in the
land. But, as I was saying, there are very few persons in Germany who
are totally free from such a belief; and, indeed, it is scarcely
reasonable to suppose, if we admit there is another order of created
beings above ourselves, that there should be no means whatever of
communication between the two next links in the same great chain. I
confess, that I cannot conceive such a thing possible. If there be
such things as spirits--if all be not merely material in this moving
clay, there must be some means by which the superhuman being can make
his presence felt and known to his fellow spirit in the earthly
tabernacle. All our great men have certainly believed such to be the
case. Who can read either Goëthe or Schiller, without perceiving that
creed peeping through philosophy, and wit, and history, and poetry?"
"Oh, Goëthe certainly entertained such feelings!" replied Morley. "It
was impossible for any one so to extract intense sublimity from human
superstitions, without being tinctured with them strongly himself. Had
Goëthe written whole volumes to prove that everything is material, a
few lines of the choruses in Faust would have shewn him to be
insincere."
"The picture of Mephistophiles himself," said his companion, "were
surely quite enough."
"Yes," replied Morley; "and yet there are parts of the character of
Mephistophiles which I do not clearly understand. He is all-powerful
over Faust, and yet seems subservient to him. He appears at his
command, obeys his behests, and yet leads, directs, and overpowers
him."
"In short," replied his companion, "he serves but to command; and,
depend upon it, whether it be an allegory or a portrait, the picture
is a true one. It may be, that the great poet meant to represent the
power of the passions. But I imagine that he drew, almost by
inspiration, the likeness of that mighty being, whose fate and
character have been summed up by Milton, in the words--
'Evil, be thou my good!'
You must remember, that the infinite variety of that being is as
wonderful as his power. Milton might draw one portrait; Goëthe
another: both different, but both alike. If Goëthe really meant a
picture rather than an allegory, he shewed that Mephistophiles had
bound himself simply to serve, for a certain time, the views of a vast
mind which otherwise might have escaped him. He ruled Faust by his
wisdom, governed, directed him--ay, even enlightened him; but the
spirit adapted himself to the mortal with whom he had to deal. Even by
the very tone of sadness that pervades the character of
Mephistophiles, the gravity that is in his mirth, the depth that is
below his lightness, he was fitted to deal with Faust. Had the
character of the man been different, so would have been the character
of the spirit. The Magician had power over the finer essence for the
time, and the prince of one class of spirits willingly devoted himself
to the service and instruction of a mortal--nay, more, it is evident,
as far as he could feel affection or pity for a being so placed as
Faust, he felt it for him."
"But," exclaimed Morley, "do you imagine Satan to be capable of
affection and pity?"
"Why not?" demanded his companion--"more, in all probability, than
beings that have never known sorrow or pain."
"You seem inclined to defend the Prince of Darkness!" rejoined Morley,
with a smile.
"Certainly!" answered his companion, laughing--"if I did not defend
him, no one else would; and I am always inclined to take part with the
weaker side."
Almost as the stranger spoke, the coach which had been going down a
long hill with terrible rapidity, swayed from side to side for a
moment, like a ship in a stormy sea. A violent concussion then took
place as the vehicle, in turning the corner of a bridge, struck a
large stone, and the next instant Morley felt that the carriage was
going over towards the side on which he sat. He had but time by one
hasty glance to see that the low parapet of the bridge was close to
the wheels, when the stage went over; the stones gave way beneath it,
and the whole mass rolled headlong into the river below. It fell upon
the top, and struck the stones in the bed of the stream. The
concussion was terrible--the carriage was nearly dashed to pieces, and
Morley Ernstein only felt one violent blow, only saw a thousand bright
sparks flash from his own eyes, and then lost all consciousness, even
that of pain.