Night visions may befriend;--
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dream’d
Of things impossible.--(Could sleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual, in perpetual change;
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!--
How richly were my noontide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictured joys!
Joy behind, joy in endless perspective.
YOUNG’S NIGHT THOUGHTS.
With Reginald’s departure the summer of Ernest’s life passed away,
and autumn in more senses than one set in. He was left alone,--alone
in his home, alone in his intellect, alone in his heart,--and his
spirits sank beneath the solitude. Rousing himself from depression,
he endeavoured then to turn his whole mind to his duties, to act
upon his flitting dreams of improvement; but the fresh and ardent
spirit which he had brought to the scene of his labours,--and which
seems to have been allotted to new duties for the very purpose of
overcoming the difficulties attendant upon them--superseded by a
higher excitement, had died away; and it was but with a languid step
and joyless eyes that he devoted himself to his tasks. He had been
basking in the sun of this world’s happiness, and he was thirsting
for it still; he had been blessed with a sight of this world’s
beauty, and he pined for it still; he had been dreaming dreams of
this world’s greatness and heroism, and his own simple duties filled
him with shrinking and disgust.
But there is nothing hopeless except self-deception, and in Ernest’s
sincerity there was ever the golden thread that was to draw him
upward again. He had been beguiled into wastefulness of his time, and
if not into absolute neglect, yet into omission of duty; but now that
the time was passed, and that the voice of the charmer was still,
he _felt_ what the effects had been; and in truth and humility,
acknowledging his weakness and unworthiness, he resolved to arouse
himself to fight and to overcome.
He resolved,--and a sincere resolution is full of strength; but
almost before the resolution had passed his lips, and entered into
his heart, a change in Camilla’s manner plunged him into excitement
more fatal than before.
His love for her, though indulged, though acknowledged, had hitherto
lain as passive and hopeless within him, as if he had indulged in
devotion to a bright particular star. He did not even argue the
point,--a combination of feelings, insensibly and unquestioned,
pronouncing that hope was not for him. Good sense and good feeling
told him that, with _her_ youth and _his_ poverty, he should not
seek for it to be; natural diffidence told him that it could not be;
and that possibly which gave life and strength to all the others’
voices, Camilla’s frank and fearless manner, proclaimed aloud her
utter indifference. So contentedly he had been satisfied to love her,
contented to yield with thoughts far removed from selfish ones, the
entire and reverential devotion of an unwasted heart.
But under Miss Vincent’s influence a new era came. First, conscious
and shrinking, Camilla startled the word _hope_ into his heart,
then--she must, I fear, greatly fall in the estimation of my readers,
but it must be owned that she began to flirt with him. She was
herself unconscious of it; she was utterly indifferent to Ernest;
she neither understood the kind and depth of his love, nor, indeed,
understood in any degree that love was anything but an amusement at
all; but, hearing the subject perpetually discussed by Miss Vincent,
she began to take some interest in it,--began to be pleased with the
idea of Ernest’s devotion,--began childishly to wish for some outward
signs of her power. It was but too natural; but to poor Ernest it was
fatal.
He did not learn to believe that she loved him; for her manner was so
childish and changeable, that as fast as the idea arose it vanished
again. If a blush or a sweet smile entranced him with rapture, a
careless word plunged him the very next moment into despair. But
this uncertainty it was that destroyed him: it led him to pass
“The night, the dawn, the noon, the dewy eve
In the sweet serious idleness of love!”
The livelong day it laid him at Camilla’s feet, in spirit not in
reality, questioning the meaning of her sunny smiles, and the glances
of her speaking eyes. It plunged him into that excitement from which
there is no escape,--the excitement of the mind. Outward excitements
leave time for rest,--the most dissipated have their moments of
repose; but in the mental fever there is no pause. It bore him
company in his solitary home,--it made his heart beat in the silence
of night,--it entered with him into the house of God, and followed
him with syren whispers even to the couch of sickness and the bed of
death!
But such dreams do not last for ever: they must receive either a
check, or rise into more tangible being. After a fortnight’s mad
excitement Ernest awoke,--and it was his own boldness which awoke him.
He called one day at Clare Abbey while Lady Vere was driving, and was
admitted by mistake. He found Camilla alone in the drawing-room.
“Mamma is out,” she said, going forward with her winning manner to
meet him. “Did you know it; or did you expect to find her here?”
“I certainly expected to find her here,” he replied, with a smile.
“Ah,” she said, shaking her head laughingly, “I thought it was a new
thing that you should come to see _me_. But, now that you are come,
though by mistake, will you stay?”
“May I stay?” he asked, hesitatingly,--for Lady Vere was particular
on points of etiquette and propriety; not more particular than she
should have been, but more careful of the letter than the spirit of
such rules.
“I don’t know about _may_; I only ask you if you _will_ stay? I have
got a cough, and that makes me stupid; and the day is so dark, and
the wind so howling, it makes one dreary; and I am reading a novel of
Miss Vincent’s, which really is too melancholy. So I ask you, out of
charity, to stay and cheer me a little. Will you stay?”--she smiled
very sweetly as she spoke.
He sat down. He knew that he should not stay: he knew that, under his
present feelings, it was dangerous to him to be alone with her,--and
yet he stayed. As to refusing her anything when she looked as she
then did, he could not do it. He sat down in silence, conscious of
his weakness, warned that he was wrong, but with a strange feeling of
pleasure.
“I ought not to be stupid and dreary to-day,” she began, after a
moment; “for I have had a letter from Reginald this morning, full of
his plans and his hopes, and he says he shall be here in three weeks.
That is good news, is it not?--I was half afraid his degree would
keep him dawdling at Oxford.”
“Good news, indeed,” Ernest said, warmly, “for me as well as for you.”
“I thought you would be glad. Do you know, Mr. De Grey, I really
think you like Reginald as much as he deserves.”
“_Like_ him!” Ernest repeated gravely, for the thought of Reginald
brought feelings of self-condemnation; “no! that is not what _I_
ought to say--I _reverence_ him.”
“So do I,” she said, smiling; “on that one single point we agree.”
“Only on that one?”
“Only on that one, I think; at least I cannot remember any other. I
think we always disagree.”
“I should be very sorry to think so,” he said with a good deal of
earnestness.
“Why, don’t you know that the strongest disagreements make the
strongest friendships? so at least this book says,” touching the
novel that lay beside her; “and so I suppose that _we_ are to be very
great friends.”
He made no answer. She spoke so lightly, so carelessly--it was one of
the moments when the vision suddenly faded; but suddenly, swiftly,
and never so brightly, the next instant it rose again before him;
for, leaning forward on her arm, a faint blush on her lovely face,
and a faint tone of pique, or rather of reproach, in her sweet voice,
she said,--
“You don’t seem to care for that. I thought you would have been glad
to think that we should be friends.”
He almost started; and with more than earnestness--with agitation in
voice, and look, and manner, he replied, “You do not think so: you
know too well what I hope, if I could but dare to say so.”
He was leaning forward, his eyes intently resting upon her. She had
forced him so to look, and so to speak: but he never had so forgotten
himself before; and alarmed and displeased, and unconscious what he
meant, she drew back with a quick movement, and a deep and startled
blush.
And the vision suddenly and silently disappeared,--not for the moment
flitting and returning again,--but the mist dispersed, he awoke.
He also drew back, and sate, his hat in his hand, in profound
meditation. How wrongly had he judged her--so he mused; and how
wrongly he had acted. With her careless innocent charm of manner
she was but inviting him to ease and to confidence; and how had he
rewarded her?--He had put a meaning to her words they did not bear;
he had taken advantage of her thoughtless frankness,--of the intimacy
into which circumstances had thrown them. He was a wretch, unworthy
to be admitted into her society;--this was his conclusion. But he
would repair what he had done,--there, in her presence, he would bind
himself by the most solemn vow to be tempted to such a forgetfulness
of duty no more.
The silence caused by these meditations lasted for a considerable
time. It was Camilla who first recovered herself, and laughing to
conceal a little embarrassment, and, as if to invite a return to
their former easy footing, addressed him:
“Will you never speak again, Mr. De Grey? You are not very civil.”
“I beg your pardon!” he said, getting up with a grave smile;
“but I had forgotten myself. I have a good many things to take
up my thoughts; but I ought to remember that it is very rude and
ill-mannered to bring my thoughts here. I ought to have remembered
it before.”
“But I don’t think it rude; I hope you don’t think I do. You know,”
she continued with the same enchanting blush, influenced to speak by
a feeling of pity which at the moment she scarcely understood, and
did not pause to analyze; “you know, if we are to be great friends,
we must not be ready to take offence at every little trifle.”
“You are very kind to say so,” Ernest replied steadily and
composedly, still under the influence of his new resolutions; “but I
hope I shall not try you again. It is a bad day with me in every way:
I know that I have offended in more ways than one.” He held out his
hand, and disappeared before she had time to say more.
Camilla quickly forgot the impression of that one look and those
few words which had startled her; and in their occasional meetings
all went on as it had done before. She was very childish,--very
thoughtless; this was her only excuse, and she needed one.
The trials of life are various. Some have one hard fight, and coming
off victorious, are for ever at peace. The conquest is so complete,
the root of the evil so completely cut off, that they are assailed no
more. Others live in warfare all their life long,--never so yielding
as utterly to fall, never so conquering as entirely to triumph! These
are they who are
“Pinioned with mortality
As an entangled, hamper’d thing.”
These are they whose thirst for earthly happiness is too intense;
these are they whose strong affections make strong afflictions, and
raise for themselves trials in paths so peaceful and flowery, that
men for the most part would pass along them with a dancing step,--and
such an one was poor Ernest!
He returned with something of renewed attention to his duties.
He resisted the impression of Camilla’s manner; he resisted, or
thought he resisted, the risings of fresh hope; but he was restless
and depressed, and as he went about his unloved tasks, he was
unceasingly asking himself why object after object on which his heart
was set was denied to him,--why desire after desire was withheld!
And while thus repiningly pondering, he forgot--as many are apt in
disappointment to forget--that while a few things were withheld from
him, a shower of abundant and unmerited blessings were falling upon
his head.