'TO ONE THING CONSTANT NEVER'
'I am the very child of caprice,' said Waverley to himself, as he bolted
the door of his apartment, and paced it with hasty steps.--'What is it
to me that Fergus Mac-Ivor should wish to marry Rose Bradwardine?--I
love her not.--I might have been loved by her, perhaps; but I rejected
her simple, natural, and affecting attachment, instead of cherishing it
into tenderness, and dedicated myself to one who will never love mortal
man, unless old Warwick, the King-maker, should arise from the dead.
The Baron, too--I would not have cared about his estate, and so the
name would have been no stumbling-block, The devil might have taken the
barren moors, and drawn off the royal CALIGAE, for anything I would have
minded. But, framed as she is for domestic affection and tenderness, for
giving and receiving all those kind and quiet attentions which sweeten
life to those who pass it together, she is sought by Fergus Mac-Ivor. He
will not use her ill, to be sure--of that he is incapable--but he will
neglect her after the first month; he will be too intent on subduing
some rival chieftain, or circumventing some favourite at court, on
gaining some heathy hill and lake, or adding to his bands some new troop
of caterans, to inquire what she does, or how she amuses herself.
And then will canker sorrow eat her bud,
And chase the native beauty from her cheek;
And she will look as hollow as a ghost,
And dim and meagre as an ague fit,
And so she'll die.
And such a catastrophe of the most gentle creature on earth might have
been prevented, if Mr. Edward Waverley had had his eyes! Upon my word,
I cannot understand how I thought Flora so much--that is, so very
much--handsomer than Rose. She is taller, indeed, and her manner more
formed; but many people think Miss Bradwardine's more natural; and she
is certainly much younger. I should think Flora is two years older than
I am--I will look at them particularly this evening.'
And with this resolution Waverley went to drink tea (as the fashion was
Sixty Years since) at the house of a lady of quality attached to the
cause of the Chevalier, where he found, as he expected, both the ladies.
All rose as he entered, but Flora immediately resumed her place, and
the conversation in which she was engaged. Rose, on the contrary, almost
imperceptibly, made a little way in the crowded circle for his advancing
the corner of a chair. 'Her manner, upon the whole, is most engaging,'
said Waverley to himself.
A dispute occurred whether the Gaelic or Italian language was most
liquid, and best adapted for poetry; the opinion for the Gaelic, which
probably might not have found supporters elsewhere, was here fiercely
defended by seven Highland ladies, who talked at the top of their lungs,
and screamed the company deaf, with examples of Celtic EUPHONIA. Flora,
observing the Lowland ladies sneer at the comparison, produced some
reasons to show that it was not altogether so absurd; but Rose, when
asked for her opinion, gave it with animation in praise of Italian,
which she had studied with Waverley's assistance. 'She has a more
correct ear than Flora, though a less accomplished musician,' said
Waverley to himself. 'I suppose Miss Mac-Ivor will next compare
Mac-Murrough nan Fonn to Ariosto!'
Lastly, it so befell that the company differed whether Fergus should
be asked to perform on the flute, at which he was an adept, or Waverley
invited to read a play of Shakespeare; and the lady of the house
good-humouredly undertook to collect the votes of the company for poetry
or music, under the condition, that the gentleman whose talents were not
laid under contribution that evening, should contribute them to enliven
the next. It chanced that Rose had the casting vote. Now Flora, who
seemed to impose it as a rule upon herself never to countenance any
proposal which might seem to encourage Waverley, had voted for music,
providing the Baron would take his violin to accompany Fergus. 'I wish
you joy of your taste, Miss Mac-Ivor,' thought Edward, as they sought
for his book. 'I thought it better when we were at Glennaquoich; but
certainly the Baron is no great performer, and Shakespeare is worth
listening to.'
ROMEO AND JULIET was selected, and Edward read with taste, feeling, and
spirit, several scenes from that play. All the company applauded with
their hands, and many with their tears. Flora, to whom the drama was
well known, was among the former; Rose, to whom it was altogether new,
belonged to the latter class of admirers. 'She has more feeling, too,'
said Waverley, internally.
The conversation turning upon the incidents of the play, and upon the
characters, Fergus declared that the only one worth naming, as a man of
fashion and spirit, was Mercutio. 'I could not,' he said, 'quite follow
all his old-fashioned wit, but he must have been a very pretty fellow,
according to the ideas of his time.'
'And it was a shame,' said Ensign Maccombich, who usually followed his
Colonel everywhere, 'for that Tibbert, or Taggart, or whatever was his
name, to stick him under the other gentleman's arm while he was redding
the fray.'
The ladies, of course, declared loudly in favour of Romeo; but this
opinion did not go undisputed. The mistress of the house, and several
other ladies, severely reprobated the levity with which the hero
transfers his affections from Rosalind to Juliet. Flora remained silent
until her opinion was repeatedly requested, and then answered, she
thought the circumstance objected to not only reconcilable to nature,
but such as in the highest degree evinced the art of the poet. 'Romeo
is described,' said she, 'as a young man, peculiarly susceptible of
the softer passions; his love is at first fixed upon a woman who could
afford it no return; this he repeatedly tells you,--
From love's weak childish bow she lives unharmed;
and again,--
She hath forsworn to love.
Now, as it was impossible that Romeo's love, supposing him a reasonable
being, could continue to subsist without hope, the poet has, with great
art, seized the moment when he was reduced actually to despair, to throw
in his way an object more accomplished than her by whom he had been
rejected, and who is disposed to repay his attachment. I can scarce
conceive a situation more calculated to enhance the ardour of Romeo's
affection for Juliet, than his being at once raised by her from the
state of drooping melancholy in which he appears first upon the scene,
to the ecstatic state in which he exclaims--
--come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short moment gives me in her sight.'
'Good, now, Miss Mac-Ivor,' said a young lady of quality, 'do you mean
to cheat us out of our prerogative? will you persuade us love cannot
subsist-without hope, or that the lover must become fickle if the lady
is cruel? Oh, fie! I did not expect such an unsentimental conclusion.'
'A lover, my dear Lady Betty,' said Flora, 'may, I conceive, persevere
in his suit under very discouraging circumstances. Affection can (now
and then) withstand very severe storms of rigour, but not a long polar
frost of downright indifference. Don't, even with YOUR attractions, try
the experiment upon any lover whose faith you value. Love will subsist
on wonderfully little hope, but not altogether without it.'
'It will be just like Duncan Mac-Girdie's mare,' said Evan, 'if your
ladyships please; he wanted to use her by degrees to live without meat,
and just as he had put her on a straw a day, the poor thing died!'
Evan's illustration set the company a-laughing, and the discourse took
a different turn. Shortly afterwards the party broke up, and Edward
returned home, musing on what Flora had said. 'I will love my Rosalind
no more,' said he: 'she has given me a broad enough hint for that; and
I will speak to her brother, and resign my suit. But for a Juliet--would
it be handsome to interfere with Fergus's pretensions?--though it
is impossible they can ever succeed: and should they miscarry, what
then?--why then ALORS COMME ALORS.' And with this resolution, of being
guided by circumstances, did our hero commit himself to repose.