WIND AND TIDE.
How that night went by it would be useless to try to tell. Some things
cannot be described. A loosing of all the bands of law and order in the
material world we call chaos; and once in a while the mental nature of
some poor mortal falls for a time into a like condition. No hold of
anything, not even of herself; no clear sense of anything, except of
the disorder and pain; no hope at the moment that could fasten on
either world, the present or the future; no will to lay hold of the
unruly forces within her and reduce them to obedience. An awful night
for Diana, such as she never had spent, nor in its full measure would
ever spend again. Nevertheless, through all the confusion, under all
the tumult, there was one fixed point; indeed, it was the point round
which all the confusion worked, and which Diana was dimly conscious of
all the while; one point of action. At the time she could not steady
herself to look at it; but when the dawn came up in the sky, with its
ineffable promise of victory by and by,--and when the rays of the sun
broke over the hills with their golden performance of conquest begun,
strength seemed to come into her heart. Certainly light has no
fellowship with darkness; and the spiritual and the material are more
closely allied, perhaps, than we wot of. Diana washed herself and
dressed, and felt that she had done with yesterday.
It was a worn and haggard face that was opposite Basil at the breakfast
table; but she sat there, and poured out his tea with not less care
than usual. Except for cups of tea, the meal was not much more than a
pretence. After it was done, Diana followed her husband to his study.
"Basil," she said, "I must go away."
Mr. Masters started, and asked what she meant.
"I mean just that," said Diana. "I must go away Basil, help me!"
"Help you, my child?" said he; "I will help you all I can. But sit
down, Diana; you are not able to stand. Why do you want to go away?"
"I must."
"Where do you wish to go?"
"I do not know. I do not care. Anywhere."
"You have no plan?"
"No; only to get away."
"Why, Diana?" he said very tenderly. "Is it necessary?"
"Yes, Basil. I must go."
"Do you know that it would be extremely difficult for me to leave home
just at present? There are so many people wanting me."
"I know that. I have thought of all that. You cannot go. Let me go, and
baby."
"Where, my dear?
"I don't know," she said with almost a sob. "You must know. You must
help me, Basil."
Basil looked at her, and took several turns up and down the room, in
sorrow and perplexity.
"What is your reason, Di?" he asked gently. "If I understood your
thought better, I should know better how to meet it."
"I must be away," said Diana vaguely. "I must not be here. I musn't be
where I can see--anybody. Nobody must know where I am, Basil--do you
understand? You must send me away, and you must not tell _anybody_."
The minister walked up and down, thinking. He let go entirely the
thought of arguing with Diana. She had the look at moments of a
creature driven to bay; and when not so, the haggard, eager, appealing
face filled his inmost heart with grief and pity. Nobody better than
Basil could manage the unreasonable and bring the disorderly to
obedience; he had a magical way with him; but now he only meditated how
Diana's wish was to be met. It was not just easy, for he had few family
connections in the world, and she had none.
"I can think of nobody to whom I should like to send you," he said.
"Unless"--
He waited, and Diana waited; then he finished his sentence.
"I was going to say, unless a certain old grandaunt of mine. Perhaps
she would do."
"I do not care where or who it is," said Diana.
"I care, though."
"Where does she live?"
"On Staten Island."
"Staten Island?" repeated Diana.
"Yes. It is near New York; about an hour from the city, down the bay."
"The bay of New York?"
"Yes."
"May I go there?" said Diana. "That would do."
"How soon do you wish to go?"
"To-day, if I could!" she said with a half-caught breath. "Can I,
Basil? To-day is best."
Mr. Masters considered again.
"Will you be ready to go by the seven o'clock train this evening?"
"Yes. O yes!"
"Very well. We will take that."
"_We?_" Diana repeated. "Must I take you, Basil, away from your work?
Cannot I go alone?"
He looked up at her with a very sweet grave smile as he answered, "Not
possibly."
"I am a great deal of trouble"--she said with a woful expression.
"Go and make your preparations," he said cheerfully; "and I will tell
you about Aunt Sutphen when we are off."
There was no bustle in the house that day, there was no undue stir of
making arrangements; but at the time appointed Diana was ready. She had
managed to keep Miss Collins in the dark down to the very last minute,
and answered her questions then with, "I can't tell you. You must ask
Mr. Masters." And Diana knew anybody might as well get the Great
Pyramid to disclose its secrets.
That night's train took them to Boston. The next morning they went on
their way towards New York; and so far Mr. Masters had found no good
time for his proposed explanations. Diana was busied with the baby, and
contrived to keep herself away from him or from communication with him.
He saw that she was engrossed, preoccupied, suffering, and that she
shunned him; and he fell back and waited. In New York, he established
Diana in a hotel and left her, to go himself alone to the Island and
have an interview with his aunt.
Diana alone in a Broadway hotel, felt a little like a person
shipwrecked in mid-ocean. What was all this bustling, restless, driving
multitude around her like, but the waves of the sea, to which Scripture
likens them? and the roar of their tumult almost bewildered her senses.
Proverbially there is no situation more lonely to the feeling than the
midst of a strange crowd; and Diana, sitting at her window and looking
down into the busy street, felt alone and cast adrift as she never had
felt in her life before. _Her_ life seemed done, finished, as far as
regarded hope or joy; nothing left but weary and dragging existence;
and the eager hurrying hither and thither of the city crowd struck on
her view as aimless and fruitless, and so very drear to look at? What
was it all for?--seeing life was such a thing as she had found it. The
wrench of coming away from Pleasant Valley had left her with a reaction
of dull, stunned, and strained nerves; she was glad she had come away,
glad she was no longer there; and that was the only thing she was glad
of in the wide, wide world.
Some degree of rest came with the quiet of those hours alone in the
hotel. Basil was gone until the evening, and Diana had time to recover
a little from the fatigue of the journey, and in the perfect solitude
also from the overstrain of the nerves. She began to remember Basil's
part in all this, and to be sensible how true and faithful and kind he
was; how very unselfish, how patient with her and with pain. Diana
could have wept her heart out over it, if that would have done any
good; and indeed supposing that she could have shed tears at all, which
she could not just then. She only felt sore and sorry for her husband;
and then she took some pains with her toilet, and refreshed herself so
as to look pleasant to his eyes when he came home.
He came home only to a late supper. He looked somewhat weary, but his
eye brightened when he saw Diana, and he came up and kissed her.
"Diana--God is good," he said to her.
"Yes," she answered, looking up drearily, "I believe it."
"But you do not feel it yet. Well, remember, it is true, and you will
feel it some day. It is all right with Aunt Sutphen."
"She will let me come?"
"She is glad to have you come. The old lady is very much alone. And she
does me the honour to say that she expects my wife will know how to
behave herself."
"What does she mean by that?" said Diana, a little startled.
"I don't know! Aunt Sutphen has her own notions respecting behaviour. I
did not inquire, Diana; knowing that, whatever her meaning might be, it
was the same thing so far as you are concerned."
"Basil--you are very good!" Diana said after a pause and with a
trembling lip.
"I can take compliments from Aunt Sutphen," he said with a bit of his
old dry humorous manner, "but from you I don't know what to do with
them. Come to supper, Di; we must take the first boat for Clifton
to-morrow morning, if we can, to let me get back on my way to Pleasant
Valley."
The first boat was very early. The city, however, had long begun its
accustomed roar, so that the change was noticeable and pleasant as soon
as the breadth of a few furlongs was put between the boat and the
wharf. Stillness fell, only excepting the noise made by the dash of the
paddle-wheels and the breathing and groaning of the engine; and that
seemed quietness to Diana, in contrast with the restless hum and roar
of the living multitude. The bay and its shores sparkled in the early
sunlight; the sultry, heated atmosphere of the city was most
refreshingly replaced by the cool air from the salt sea. Diana breathed
it in, filling her lungs with it.
"How good this is!" she said. "Basil, I should think it was dreadful to
live in such a place as that."
"Makes less difference than you would think, when you once get
accustomed to it."
"O, do you think so! It seems to me there is nothing pleasant there to
see or to hear."
"Ay, you are a true wood-thrush," said her husband. "But there is
plenty to do in a city, Diana; and that is the main thing."
"So there is in the country."
"I sometimes think I might do more,--reach more people, I mean,--if I
were somewhere else. But yes, Di, I grant you, apart from that one
consideration, there is no comparison. Green hills are a great deal
better company than hot brick walls."
"And how wonderful, how beautiful, this water is!"
"The water is a new feature to you. Well, you will have plenty of it.
Aunt Sutphen lives just on the edge of the shore. I am very sorry I
cannot stay to see you domesticated. Do you mind it much, beginning
here alone?"
"O no."
Diana did not mind that or anything else, in her content at having
reached a safe harbour, a place where she would be both secure and
free. Lesser things were of no account; and alas! the presence of her
husband just now with her was no pleasure. Diana felt at this time,
that if she were to live and keep her reason she must have breathing
space. Above all things, she desired to be quite alone; to have leisure
to think and pray, and review her ground and set up her defences. Basil
could not help her; he was better out of sight. So, when he had put her
into the little carriage that was in waiting at the landing, and with a
last gesture of greeting turned back to the boat, while Diana's eyes
filled with tears, she was, nevertheless, nothing but glad at heart.
She gathered her baby closer in her arms, and sat back in the carriage
and waited.
It was only a short drive, and along the edge of the bay the whole
distance. The smell of the salt water was strange and delicious. The
morning was still cool. Now that she had left the boat behind her, or
rather the boat had left her, the stillness began to be like that of
Pleasant Valley; for the light wheels rolled softly over a smooth road.
Then they stopped before a low, plain-looking cottage.
It was low and plain, yet it was light and pleasant. Windows opening
like doors upon the piazza, and the piazza running all round the house,
and the pillars of the piazza wreathed thick with honeysuckles, some of
them, and some with climbing roses. The breath of the salt air was
smothered in perfumes. Through one of the open window-doors Diana went
into a matted room, where everything gave her the instant impression of
neatness and coolness and quiet, and a certain sweet summer freshness,
which suited her exactly. There was no attempt at richness of
furnishing. Yet the old lady who stood there waiting to receive her was
a stately lady enough, in a spotless morning dress of white, dainty and
ruffled, and a little close embroidered cap above her clustering grey
curls. The two looked at each other.
"So you're his wife!" said the elder lady. "I declare, you're handsomer
than he is. Come in here, my dear; if you are as good as he is, you are
welcome." She opened an inner door and led the way into a bedchamber
adjoining, opening like the other room by window-doors upon the piazza,
matted and cool and furnished in white. All this Diana took in with the
first step into the room. But she answered Mrs. Sutphen's peculiar
welcome.
"Did you ever know anybody so good as he is, ma'am?"
"Breakfast will be on table as soon as you are ready," Mrs. Sutphen
went on without heeding her words. "It is half-past seven, and I always
have it at seven. I waited for you, and now I want my cup of tea. How
soon will you be ready?"
"Immediately."
"What will you do with the baby?"
"I will lay her down. She is asleep."
"You'll have to have somebody to look after her. Well, come then, my
dear."
Diana followed the old lady, who was half imperative and half
impatient. She never forgot that hour in all her life, everything was
so new and strange. The windows open towards the water, the fresh salt
air coming in, the India matting under her feet, made her feel as if
she had got into a new world. The dishes were also in part strange to
her, and her only companion fully strange. The good cup of tea she
received was almost the only familiar thing, for the very bread was
like no bread she had ever seen before. Diana sipped her tea
gratefully; all this novelty was the most welcome thing in the world to
her overstrained nerves. She sipped her tea as in a dream; the old lady
studied her with eyes wide awake and practical.
"Where did Basil pick you up, my dear?"
Diana started a little, looked up, and flushed.
"Where did you come from?"
"From the place where Mr. Masters has been settled these three or four
years."
"In the mountains! What sort of people have you got there? More of your
sort?"
"They are all of my sort," said Diana somewhat wonderingly.
"Do you know what your sort is, my dear?"
"I do not understand"--
"I thought you did not. I'll change my question. What sort of work is
Basil doing there?"
"You know his profession?"--Diana said, not knowing much better either
how to take this question.
"Yes, yes. I know his profession; I ought to, for I wanted him to be a
lawyer. But don't you know, my dear, there are all sorts of clergymen?
There are some make sermons as other men make bricks; and some more
like the way children blow soap-bubbles; all they care for is, how big
they are, and how high they will fly, and how long they will last. And
I have heard people preach," the old lady went on, "who seemed most
like as if they were laying out a Chinese puzzle, and you had to look
sharp to see where the pieces fitted. And some, again, preach sermons
as if they were a magistrate reading the Riot Act, only they don't want
the people to disperse by any means. What is Basil's way?"
"He has more ways than all these," said Diana, who could not help
smiling.
"These among 'em?"
"I think not."
"Go on, then, and tell me. What's he like in the pulpit?"
Diana considered how she should humour the old lady's wish.
"Sometimes he is like a shepherd leading his flock to pasture," she
began. "Sometimes he is like a lifeboat going out to pick up drowning
people. Sometimes it is rather a surgeon in a hospital, going round to
find out what is the matter with people and make them well. Sometimes
he is just the messenger of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all his business
is to deliver his message and get people to hear it."
Mrs. Sutphen looked at Diana over the table, and evidently pricked up
her ears; but Diana spoke quite simply, rather slowly; she was thinking
how Basil had often seemed to her in his ministry, in and out of the
pulpit.
"My dear," said the old lady, "if your husband is like that, do you
know you are married to quite a remarkable man?"
"I thought as much a great while ago."
"And what sort of a pastor's wife do you make? You are a very handsome
woman to be a minister's wife."
"Am I? Why should not a handsome woman be the wife of a minister?"
"Why, she should, if she can make up her mind to it. Well, my dear, if
you will have no more breakfast, perhaps you will like to go and rest.
Do you enjoy bathing?"
Diana did not take the bearing of the question.
"I go into the water every morning," the old lady explained. "You had
better do the same. It will strengthen you."
"Into the water! You mean the salt water?"
"Of course I mean the salt water. There isn't any fresh water to go
into, and no good if there was."
"I never tried salt water. I never saw salt water before."
"Do you good," said the old lady. "Well, go and sleep, my dear. Basil
says you want rest."
But that way of taking it was not Diana's need, or purpose. She
withdrew into her cool green-shaded room, and as the baby still slept,
set open the blind doors which made that pleasant green shade, and sat
down on the threshold to be quiet, and enjoy the view. The water was
within a few rods of her window; nothing but a narrow strip of grass
and a little picket fence intervening between the house and the sandy
bit of beach. The waves were rolling in from the Narrows, which here
were but a short distance to the eastward; and across the broad belt of
waters she could see the low shore of Long Island on the other side.
Diana put her head out of the door, and there, seven miles away to the
west and north, she could see where a low, hovering, light smoke cloud
told of the big city to which it owed its origin. Over the bay sails
were flitting, not swiftly, for the air was only very gently stirring;
but they were many, near and far, of different sizes and forms; and the
mighty tide was rushing in with wonderful life and energy in its green
waves. Diana's senses were like those of a person enchanted. She drew
in the salt, lively air; she looked at the cool lights and shadows of
the rushing water, over which here and there still hung bands of
morning mist; she heard the lap of the waves upon the shore as they
went by; and it was to her as if she had escaped from danger and
perplexity into another world, where sorrow might be, indeed, but from
which confusion and fear were banished.
The baby slept on, as if she had been broken off her rest by the
novelties and inconveniences of travelling, and were making up for lost
time; and Diana sat on the threshold of her door and thought. The lull
was inexpressibly sweet, after the storm that had tossed her hither. It
gave her repose just to remember that Evan could not find her out--and
that Basil would leave her alone. Yes, both thoughts came in for a
share in the deep-drawn breaths of relief which from time to time wrung
themselves from Diana's breast. She knew it; she could not help it; and
she soon forgot her husband in thinking of her lover. It seemed to her
she might allow herself that indulgence now; now when she had put a
gulf between them which he could not bridge over, and she would not;
now when she had brought a separation between them which must forever
be final. For she would never see him again. Surely now she might think
of him, and let fancy taste the sweet bitter drops that memory would
distil for her. Diana went back to the old time and lived in it for
hours, till the baby awoke and claimed her; and even then she went on
with her dream. She dreamed all day.
Next morning early, before she was awake, there came a little
imperative tap at her door. Diana sprang up and opened it.
"I am going to take my bath," said her hostess. "Here's a bathing
dress--put it on and come along."
"Now?" said Diana doubtfully.
"Why, of course now! Now's the time. Nobody'll see you, child; and if
they do, it won't matter. Hundreds would see you if you were at Long
Branch or Newport. Come along; you want bracing."
I wonder if I do, thought Diana, as she clothed herself in the loose
gown of brown mohair; then slipped out after her hostess. If she did,
she immediately confessed to herself, this was the thing to give it.
The sun was not yet up; the morning air crisp and fresh and delicious;
the water rolling gently in from the Narrows again, in a mighty tide,
but with no wind, so sending up only little waves to the beach;
however, they looked somewhat formidable to Diana.
"How far do you go in?" she asked.
"As far as I can. I can't swim, child, so I keep to shore. Come after
me, here!"--
And she seized Diana's hand and marched in ahead of her, and marched
on, till Diana would have stopped, but the old lady's hand pulled her
along.
It was never to be forgotten, that first taste of salt water. When they
were in the flood up to their necks, her companion made her duck her
head under; it filled Diana's mouth and eyes at the first gasp with
salt water, but what a new freshness of life seemed at the same time to
come into her! How her brain cleared, and her very heart seemed to grow
strong, and her eyesight true in that lavatory! She came out of the
water for the moment almost gay, and made her toilette with a vigour
and energy she had not brought to it in many a day. Breakfast was
better to her, and the old lady was contented with what she said about
it.
Yet Diana sat and dreamed again all day after that, watching the
rolling tide of waters, and letting her thoughts run on in as
uninterrupted a flow. She dreamed only about Evan; she went over old
times and new, old impressions and new; she recalled words and looks
and tones and gestures, of long ago and lately; at Pleasant Valley she
had not dared; here she thought it was safe, and she might take the
indulgence. She recalled all Evan's looks. How he had improved! More
stately, more manly, more confident (could that be?), more graceful;
with the air of command replacing a comparative repression of manner
(only comparative), even as the full, thick, curly moustache replaced a
velvety dark line which Diana well remembered. As he had been then, she
had fancied him perfect; as he was now, he was to the eye far finer
yet. Basil could not compare with him. Ah, why did fancy torture her by
ever bringing forward the comparison! Basil never pretended to wear a
moustache, and the features of his face were not so regular, and his
eye was not so brilliant, and the indescribable air of authority was
not there, nor the regulated grace of movement. True, Basil could sit a
horse, and ride him, she knew, as well as anybody; and true, Basil's
face had a high grave sweetness which was utterly unknown to the
countenance of that other; and it was also true, that if Mr. Masters
wore no air of command, he knew what the thing meant, especially
command over himself. And there the comparison failed for Evan. In the
contrast, Diana, down deep in the bottom of her heart, was not
satisfied with him, not pleased, not contented. He might know how to
give orders to his company, he had not left off himself being under
orders; he might be strong to enforce discipline among his men, but
alas! alas! he had left the reins loose upon the neck of his passions.
Basil never did that, never. Basil never would in the like
circumstances have sought a weak gratification at her expense. That was
the word; _weak_. Evan had been selfishly weak. Basil was always, so
far as she had known him, unselfishly strong. And yet, and yet!--she
loved the weak one; although it pained her that he should have been
weak.
Days went by. Diana lived in dreams.
"What is the matter with you?" her old friend asked her abruptly one
evening.
"Nothing, I think," said Diana, looking up from her sewing and
answering in some surprise.
"Nothing the matter! Then what did you come here for?"
"I thought"--Diana hesitated in confusion for the moment--"my husband
agreed with me in thinking, that it would be good for me to be away
from home for awhile."
"Wanted change, eh?" Mrs. Sutphen said dryly.
Diana did not know what to add to her words.
"Change and salt air"--the old lady went on.
"Not salt air particularly," Diana answered, feeling that she must
answer. "I did not think of salt air. Though no change could have been
so good for me."
"_Has_ it been good for you?"
"I have enjoyed it more than I can tell," Diana said, looking up again.
"Yes, yes; but that isn't the thing. I know you enjoy it. But do you
think it is making you fat?"
"I don't need that," said Diana, smiling. "I am fat enough."
"You won't be, if you go on losing as you have done since you came. Now
I agree with you that I don't think that is Clifton air. What is it?"
Diana could not reply. She was startled and troubled. She knew the fact
was true.
"Basil won't like it if I let this go on; and I don't mean it shall. Is
anything the matter between you and him?"
"What do you mean?" Diana asked, to gain time.
"You know what I mean. I spoke plain. Have you and he had any sort of a
quarrel or disagreement?"
"Certainly not!"
"Certainly _not?_--then why aren't you happy?"
"Why do you ask me?" said Diana. "Why should you question my being
happy?"
"I've got eyes, child; inconvenient things, for they see. You look and
act like a marble woman; only that you are not cold, and that you move
about. Now, that isn't your nature. What spell has come over you?"
"You know, Mrs. Sutphen," Diana answered with calmness, "there are many
things that come up in the world to try one and trouble one; things one
cannot help, and that one must bear."
"I know that, as well as you do. But a woman with the husband you have
got, ought never to be petrified by anything that comes to her. In the
first place, she has no cause; and in the second place, she has no
right."
There was such an instant assent of Diana's inner nature to at least
the latter of these assertions, that after a minute or two's pause she
said very simply--
"Thank you, That is true."
"He's rather fond of you, isn't he?" the old lady asked with a
well-pleased look at her beautiful neighbour.
"Yes. Too much," said Diana, sighing.
"Can't be too much, as I see, if only you are equally fond of him; it
is bad to have inequality in that matter. But, my dear, whatever you
do, don't turn into marble. There's fire at the heart of the earth,
folks say, but it don't do us much good in winter."
With this oracular statement Mrs. Sutphen closed her lecture. She had
said enough. Diana spent half that night and all the next day in a
quite new set of meditations.
And more days than one. She waked up to see what she had been doing.
What business had she to be thinking of Evan, when she was Basil's
wife?--what right to, be even only in imagination, spending her life
with him? She knew, now that she was called to look at it, that Mrs.
Sutphen had spoken true, and that a process had been going on in
herself which might well be likened to the process of petrifying.
Everything had been losing taste and colour lately; even her baby was
not the delight she had been formerly. Her mind had been warped from
its healthy condition, and was growing morbid. Conscience roused up now
fully, and bade Diana stop short where she was and take another course.
But there she was met by a difficulty; one that many a woman has had to
meet, and that few have ever overcome. To take another course, meant
that she should cease thinking of Evan,--cease thinking of him even at
all; for it was one of those things which you cannot do _a little_. She
tried it; and she found it to be impossible. Everything and anything
would set her upon the track of thinking of him; everything led to him;
everything was bound up with him, either by sympathy or contrast. She
found that she must think of Evan, because she loved him. She said that
to herself, and pleaded it. Then do not love him! was the instant sharp
answer of conscience. And Diana saw a battle set in array.
That day, the day when she got to this point, was one of those which
even in summer one may know on the sea-shore. It was grey and cool, and
a violent easterly wind was driving the waters in from the Narrows. The
moment Diana got a sight of those battle forces opposed to each other
in her spiritual nature, she threw on bonnet and shawl and went out.
Baby was sleeping, and she left her safely in charge of a good-tempered
servant who asked no better.
She went along the shore in the face of the wind, meeting, breasting,
overcoming it, though with the exertion of determined strength and
energy. The gale was rather fierce. It was a sight to see, the rush of
that tide of waters, mighty, sweeping, rolling and tumbling in from the
great sea, restless, endless. Diana did not stop to draw comparisons,
yet I think she felt them even then; the wild accord of the unchained
forces without and the unchained forces within. Who could stay them,
the one or the other? "That is Nature," said Diana to herself; "and
this is Nature; 'the troubled sea that cannot rest.' But that is spoken
of the wicked; am I wicked because I cannot help what I _cannot_ help?
As well put out my tiny hand and sweep back that stormy flood of water
to the ocean where it comes from!--as hopefully, as practicably. What
am I, _I_--but a chip or a shingle tossed and chased along on the power
of the waves? The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest;
that is it, it _cannot_ rest. Look at it, and think of bidding it rest!"
She had walked a long way in the teeth of the storm, and yet, unwilling
even to turn her face homewards with her mind still at war, she had
crouched down to rest under the lee of an old shed which stood near the
edge of the water. Diana drew her shawl closer round her and watched
the wild play of the waves, which grew wilder every moment; taking a
sort of gloomy comfort in the thought that they were not more
irresistible or unopposable than the tempest in her own heart. Then
came in the thought--it stole in--"There was One who could bid it be
still--and the sea heard him and was quiet. If he could do that, could
he not still this other storm? A worse storm, yes; but could not the
hand that did one thing do the other?" Diana knew on the instant that
it could; but with that came another consciousness--that she wished it
could not. She did not want the storm laid. Better the raging forces
than the calm that would follow the death of her love for Evan
Knowlton. "But it could never die!" was the impatient objection of her
heart; and then came the whisper of conscience, "It ought; you know it
ought; and the Lord never bade you do a thing he would not help you to
do, or do for you if you are willing." And she remembered: "If ye shall
say to this mountain, Be thou removed."--Could she be willing? that was
all. Would she say it?
The Lord said, there are some sorts of devils that are only cast out by
prayer and fasting; and I suppose that means, by very great and
determinate laying hold of the offered strength and fullest surrender
to all its dispositions.
This was a battle before which Waterloo sinks to a play of
fire-crackers and Gravelotte to a great wrestling match. There was
struggle on those fields, and bitter determination, and death faced and
death met; and yet the combatants there never went to the front with
the agony which Diana's fight cost her. And if anybody thinks I am
extravagant, I will remind him on what authority we have it, that "he
that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." Let no
one suppose the battle in Diana's instance was soon fought and over. It
was death to give up Evan; not the death of the body, which lived on
and was strong though she grew visibly thin, but the death of the will;
and that is a death harder by far than the other. Diana was in the
struggle of that fight for many a day, and, as I said, growing thin
under it. She was not willing; if she could be delivered from this
passion which was like her life, she was not willing to be delivered.
Yet duty was plain; conscience was inexorable. Diana struggled and
fought till she could fight no longer, and then she dragged herself as
it were to the feet of the Stiller of the waves, with the cry of the
Syro-Phenician woman on her lips and in her heart: "Lord, help me!" But
the help, Diana knew by this time, meant that he should do all the work
himself, not come in aid of her efforts, which were like ropes of straw
in a flame. Let no one think, either, that the first struggle to have
faith was faith itself, or that the first endeavour to submit was
surrender. There is a wide difference, and often a wide distance. But
there came a time--it was slow in coming, but it came--when like a
wearied child Diana ceased from her own efforts, and like a helpless
child threw herself upon strength that she knew. And then the work was
done.
Let no one say, either, that what I have described is an impossibility.
"If ye have faith,"--the Master said,--"nothing shall be impossible to
you." And nothing is. "He is a Rock; his work is perfect." And he who
overcame all our enemies for us can overcome them in us. They are
conquered foes. Only, the Lord will not do the work for those who are
trusting in themselves.