"The climate, not the heart, he changes who flies across the wave." So
said the old Roman, some thousand years ago, and doubtless what he
said was true, both in his own day, when men cultivated a firm, fixed
spirit within them, and also in the present, in the case of some
individuals, to whom has descended the gem-like hardness of the
antique mind, on which lines, once engraved, are never to be effaced.
Nevertheless, in the rapid change of scene, in the running from land
to land, in new sights and new excitements, in the companionship of
fresh acquaintances, and even in the every-hour collision with our
fellow-creatures which takes place only in travelling, one wears away
the sharpness of some sorrows, as the gem which has rolled for ages in
the waters of the Tiber, or which is cast up by the waves of the Ægean
Sea, though it retains the figures which were cut into it ages ago,
loses the sharp outline that it received from the graver's tool.
As there is scarcely a plant on earth from which the bee cannot
extract honey, so there is scarcely a scene in the wide world from
which the mind that seeks real wisdom cannot draw a moral; and every
moral has its consolation. The very aspect of strange cities, whatever
be the grief in our heart at the time, brings its comfort, derived we
seldom examine how, and often mistake when we do examine, but wrought
out justly and reasonably, by the silent working of that spirit within
us, which, if we would let it, would always deduce its homily from
every object of the senses. We wander through the streets of a great
town, we gaze up at the tall houses, we mingle with the busy crowd, we
see the sunshine streaming upon some mansions, and the deep shade
resting upon others; at one window we behold a group of merry faces,
at another the close-drawn curtain, indicative of sickness, anguish,
and death. From the one door, with tabor, and pipe, and garlands, and
scattered flowers, goes forth the bride to the altar; from another,
streams out the dark procession of the grave. On each countenance that
we meet is written some tale of joy or sorrow; each street has its
history, each dwelling presents an episode in the great poem of human
life. We return to our own chamber with a calmness in our sorrows,
with a resignation in our melancholy that we have not before felt--and
why?
Is it the universality of human misery that gives us a false support?
Is it, as the most misanthropical of philosophers has declared, that
there is comfort for each man in the sorrows of his fellow-creatures?
Is this the process by which we derive consolation from mingling in
the busy haunts of unknown races of beings like ourselves, and
discovering the same cares, pursuits, and joys, and griefs throughout
the world?
Oh, no!--it is, that we are taught our own littleness, as one
individual ant in a whole ant-hill; and from the sense of our own
littleness we gain humility, and from humility resignation, and from
resignation love and admiration for that great God who made the
wondrous universe, of which we are an atom--some knowledge of his
power--some trust in his wisdom--confidence in his goodness, and some
hope in his protecting arm.
Who is there that has ever stood amongst the multitudes of a strange
city, that has not asked himself--"What am I in the midst of all
these? what are all these to the God that made them? and is not that
God mine?" There may be such, but those who seek it will ever find, in
the contemplation of any scene where the workings of Almighty will are
displayed, some balm for those wounds which almost every man, in the
great warfare of the world, carries about beneath his armour; for--to
end as we have begun--there is a drop of honey in every flower.
Morley Ernstein had executed his purpose; he had quitted England to
search--not for happiness, but for forgetfulness--not forgetfulness of
her he loved, but forgetfulness of himself and of his situation. But
alas, reader, it must be acknowledged, he sought not the drop of honey
in the way that it might most easily be found! The same impatient
spirit was upon him, which rebelled against the share of human sorrow
that was allotted to him; and, full of its suggestions he struggled to
drown thought and reflection, rather than to find comfort by their
aid. Pride, too, as we have shewn, had its share in his feelings; he
was angry with himself that his heart had bent before any blow. He
accused himself of weakness, not knowing where he was really weak; he
strove to steel his bosom, and, in fact, only hardened his external
demeanour.
A fit of illness which overtook him at Calais, of no very serious
character or long duration, only served to increase his irritation and
impatience. He had been angry before with the weakness of his mind, as
he called it; he now felt a degree of scorn at himself and at human
nature, for that weakness of body which yields to any of the trifling
accidents of air and climate; and the very irritation which he felt,
increased and prolonged the sickness under which he laboured.
At length, however, he was convalescent, and being permitted to go out
for an hour or two, walked forth into the town, thinking that in its
streets he might find something to call his mind away from himself.
But little indeed can the good town, whose name was written upon
Mary's heart, display, even to the eyes of an Englishman, to occupy or
interest him for a moment. It is a sad, dull place, but in those days
the communication between France and England having been interrupted
for many years, and only opened for a few, there was a kind of local
colouring about Calais which supplied the want of other attractions.
There one saw a great many things that one had never beheld before.
Postilions were to be found with enormous pigtails, and as much wood
as leather in their boots; ropes served for harness, and peasant women
came to market covered with great ornaments of gold. The contrast,
indeed, was strong between the two sides of the water, and Morley
Ernstein's eye soon became occupied, even when he believed his mind
was taking no part in any of the objects around him.
The dull lethargy which comes upon the spirit of man under the
influence of any bitter disappointment, is never so easily thrown off
as when fancy is awakened by some of the magic tones of association.
There are few places in this good world that are not linked on to some
interesting event in history, and even the small, dull town of Calais
itself figures in the records of the past on more than one important
occasion. Nothing, however, presented itself, in the aspect of the
place, or in anything on which his eye rested, that could carry the
mind of Morley Ernstein away to other days, till he paused for a
moment, after a ramble round the market-place, before a bronze bust,
which is not easily to be passed unnoticed.
There are some heads, as the reader must often have remarked, which
are very beautiful in painting, but which lose all their interest when
sculptured; there are others, however, which seem to demand the marble
or the bronze; and if we compare accurately the busts that have come
down to us from ancient times with the history of the persons whom
they represent, we shall find that the man of fixed and powerful
thoughts, of stern and rigid determination, affords almost always the
best subject for the statuary, as if the character of his mind
required something analogous to receive the expression which it gave
to his features. Of all the heads in modern times, perhaps that of the
Cardinal de Richelieu was the one which afforded the finest subject
for the sculptor. All the paintings of him are weak when compared to
his character; it is in bronze that his image ought to go down to
posterity.
The moment Morley's eyes fixed upon his bust, the lightning of the
mind flashed back into the chasm of past years--the scenes of other
days, the block, the axe, the chamber of the torture, and all the dark
implements with which that terrible man built up the fabric of his
greatness, came before his eyes in a moment, and, for the first time
since the cloud of sorrow had fallen upon him, his spirit found a
momentary sunshine in the memories of ancient lore.
He stood and gazed, then, with his arms folded on his chest, while the
people walking to and fro passed and repassed him, and many a one
commented as they went, and assigned him a history and a character
from their own imagination. How seldom is it, in the busy world with
which we mingle, that any of the conjectures regarding our thoughts,
our feelings, our state of existence, are correct! How rarely, from
any of the indications that man's external demeanour affords to
society, can one single trait of the heart's countenance be divined!
Alas, dear reader, that it should be so! but to one another we all
wear a mask.
One man, as he passed by Morley Ernstein, and saw the traces of care
and thought on his countenance, settled it at once that he was some
young prodigal flying from his creditors--a very natural supposition
in the town of Calais or Boulogne. Another, moralizing with a friend
who walked beside him, declared, from his youth, his gloomy look, and
his distinguished attire, that he must have killed his best friend in
a duel, or committed some of those other dark crimes which society
never punishes, but conscience, sooner or later, always does; another
set him down for an indifferent _milord:_
"Parfait Anglais voyageant sans dessein,
Achetant cher de modernes antiques,
Regardant tout avec un air hautain,
Et méprisant les saints et leurs reliques."
But at that moment there was one near him who knew better; and while
Morley continued to gaze at the bust of Richelieu, careless altogether
of what any one thought of him--shut up, in short, like the lady of
the Arabian giant, in a glass-case of his own sensations and thoughts,
through which he could be seen, but could not be approached--he was
suddenly roused by hearing his name pronounced, and, turning round,
saw a countenance not less striking than that of Richelieu himself,
nor, upon the whole, very different in character.
The first impression was not pleasant, for the loneliness of heart
that he felt upon him, made him repugnant to all companionship.
Neither was the man he saw one in whom he was inclined to trust, or to
confide--one whose sympathies were with him, or upon whose counsel he
could rely; but yet, to say the truth, when he remembered the charm of
his conversation, the power that he seemed to possess of leading the
mind of others, with whom he held any communication, away from all
that was unpleasant or painful, to brighter objects and to calmer
thoughts, the first shrinking feeling of unwillingness passed away,
and he stretched out his hand frankly, exclaiming--"Lieberg! I little
dreamed of meeting you here."
Now the reader may remark, with great justice--"What, then, Morley
Ernstein was by this time willing to seek entertainment!--If so, his
sorrow was on the wane." He may likewise observe, that after all the
acts and deeds committed by the worthy gentleman who now stood before
him, it would surely have been more characteristic of Morley Ernstein
to turn his back than to hold out his hand. True, O courteous
reader!--true, in both cases--with the qualification of a "_but_." Did
you ever happen to take, under the influence of any of the many ills
that flesh is heir to, a dose which seemed somewhat bitter at first,
but which produced great relief to the sick heart, or the aching head?
If you have, you will know that though you might nauseate the remedy
at first, you sought it eagerly again as soon as you had experienced
the benefit thereof. Now Morley Ernstein was exactly in that
situation. Under the first pressure of grief, he had turned from the
very thought of amusement with disgust; but in mere occupation he had
found a mitigation of pain; and while gazing at the bust of that great
and terrible man, and suffering his mind to run over the scenes of the
past, he had felt an interval of tranquillity which he had not known
for many a-day. Conscious therefore that in Lieberg's society he would
find more of the same kind of relief than in that perhaps of any other
man living, he was not unwilling to take the same medicine for his
wound again, although there might be still a degree of repugnance
lingering at his heart. In regard to the second point, let it be
recollected, dear reader, that although our good friend, Count
Lieberg, had done everything on earth which Morley Ernstein would have
looked upon as base and villanous, had he been aware of the facts, not
one particular of all those transactions with which the reader is
fully acquainted had been made known to him either by Helen or Juliet;
and he was utterly ignorant of the whole. He looked upon Lieberg
merely as a man of the world, with better feelings than principles;
for although Morley was somewhat philosophically disposed by nature,
he wanted totally that experience which, in the end, convinces us that
the separation between good principles and good feelings is much more
rare than youth and passion are willing to admit.
Principle may be one check upon a man, good feeling another; the man
who has both is sure to go right, but the man who has either will not
go far astray, and in this case too you may know the tree by its
fruits. Of Lieberg's conduct to Helen Barham, of his conduct to her
brother, Morley was ignorant; and though at first, as I have said, he
felt but little disposed to like the society of any one, yet the
second impulse made him hold out his hand, and utter the words that I
have mentioned.
"I as little thought to see you in Calais," said Lieberg, in reply;
"but I did trust to overtake you in Paris; for on my return to town, I
heard that you had suddenly quitted England, that something had gone
wrong with you, and that you were about to make an autumnal wandering
in other lands."
Lieberg paused, seeing that the allusion which he had made to the
cause of his companion's quitting England made Morley's brow knit
heavily, and his eyes seek the ground. "To say the truth," continued
Lieberg, "I am not in the best spirits myself, and I am somewhat
aweary of this working-day world. I tried all the various resources of
Great Britain for shaking off the dulness of this season of the
year--fired a gun or two upon the moors, spent a day at a fashionable
watering-place, and finding that everything was vanity and vexation of
spirit, set off, post haste, to overtake you in Paris, and see if you
would take a grumbling tour with me through foreign lands."
The picture which he gave of his state of mind was adapted with
infinite art to the mood which his keen and penetrating eyes saw at
once was dominant with his companion. A faint, and, as it were,
unwilling smile, was Morley's only reply; but he passed his arm
through that of Lieberg, and as they turned back, towards the inn, the
latter proceeded--"We can go, you know, across from Paris to Cologne,
then ramble along the banks of the Rhine, make our way through the
Tyrol into Italy, spend the cold season at Rome or Naples, and then,
if you like it, '_mitescente hyeme_,' return to England. Or," he
continued, "if that suits you not, we can ramble still farther, plunge
into Calabria, visit the blue shores of Greece, see the fairy-tale
wonders of Constantinople, range through the scenes of the crusades in
Syria and Palestine, and scour on fleet horses the sandy deserts of
Egypt. Where need we stop, Morley? where need we stop? I have no tie
to one quarter of the globe--you have none either, that I know of; the
world is all before us, and the wonders, not only of a hundred
countries, but a hundred ages. Where shall we not find some astounding
record of the mighty past? Some of those marbles, which, in their
slowly perishing grandeur; teach us the littleness of all things
present, and, amongst the rest, of the cares and sorrows that we may
both be suffering? Of those cares and sorrows we will speak no more; I
ask you not what are yours--you question me not regarding mine. But
let us onward, onward together, through all the varied scenes of
earth, pausing no longer anywhere than while enjoyment is in its
freshness, taking the grape while the bloom is upon it, and the flower
before a leaf is shed. Once more, what say you?--shall it be so?"
There was something in the tone in which he spoke, in the picture that
he presented, in the very rapid succession of objects which he
proposed, that seemed addressed with careful calculation to the weaker
part of Morley's character--to the rash, the impetuous, the
excitement-loving spirit, which had been long kept down by the
influence of the better soul within him. There was nothing in the
scheme against which that better soul could raise the warning voice;
there was no one thing suggested which could be branded with the name
of evil. It was like offering to an eager and a fiery horse a wide and
swift career, while, faint at the far extreme, appeared a goal hung
with prizes, which seemed to glitter, though dim and confused from the
distance at which they were placed.
Morley hesitated not, but replied, his eyes for a moment lighting up
with the fire which used once to be kindled so readily in them--"I
will go willingly, Lieberg. It is, in fact, the scheme I had laid out
for myself, only improved and brightened by having you for my
companion. I have been ill since I have been here; but to-morrow they
assure me I shall be ready to continue my journey."