There is an instance of the absorbing tyranny of every-day life which
must have struck all such of my readers as have ever experienced one of
those portents which are so at variance with every-day life, that the
ordinary epithet bestowed on them is “supernatural.”
And be my readers few or many, there will be no small proportion of them
to whom once, at least, in the course of their existence, a something
strange and eerie has occurred,--a something which perplexed and
baffled rational conjecture, and struck on those chords which vibrate to
superstition. It may have been only a dream unaccountably verified,--an
undefinable presentiment or forewarning; but up from such slighter and
vaguer tokens of the realm of marvel, up to the portents of ghostly
apparitions or haunted chambers, I believe that the greater number of
persons arrived at middle age, however instructed the class, however
civilized the land, however sceptical the period, to which they belong,
have either in themselves experienced, or heard recorded by intimate
associates whose veracity they accept as indisputable in all ordinary
transactions of life, phenomena which are not to be solved by the wit
that mocks them, nor, perhaps, always and entirely, to the contentment
of the reason or the philosophy that explains them away. Such phenomena,
I say, are infinitely more numerous than would appear from the instances
currently quoted and dismissed with a jest; for few of those who have
witnessed them are disposed to own it, and they who only hear of them
through others, however trustworthy, would not impugn their character
for common-sense by professing a belief to which common-sense is a
merciless persecutor. But he who reads my assertion in the quiet of his
own room, will perhaps pause, ransack his memory, and find there, in
some dark corner which he excludes from “the babbling and remorseless
day,” a pale recollection that proves the assertion not untrue.
And it is, I say, an instance of the absorbing tyranny of everyday life,
that whenever some such startling incident disturbs its regular tenor of
thought and occupation, that same every-day life hastens to bury in its
sands the object which has troubled its surface; the more unaccountable,
the more prodigious, has been the phenomenon which has scared and
astounded us, the more, with involuntary effort, the mind seeks to rid
itself of an enigma which might disease the reason that tries to solve
it. We go about our mundane business with renewed avidity; we feel the
necessity of proving to ourselves that we are still sober, practical
men, and refuse to be unfitted for the world which we know, by
unsolicited visitations from worlds into which every glimpse is soon
lost amid shadows. And it amazes us to think how soon such incidents,
though not actually forgotten, though they can be recalled--and recalled
too vividly for health--at our will, are nevertheless thrust, as it
were, out of the mind’s sight as we cast into lumber-rooms the crutches
and splints that remind us of a broken limb which has recovered its
strength and tone. It is a felicitous peculiarity in our organization,
which all members of my profession will have noticed, how soon, when
a bodily pain is once passed, it becomes erased from the
recollection,--how soon and how invariably the mind refuses to linger
over and recall it. No man freed an hour before from a raging toothache,
the rack of a neuralgia, seats himself in his armchair to recollect and
ponder upon the anguish he has undergone. It is the same with certain
afflictions of the mind,--not with those that strike on our affections,
or blast our fortunes, overshadowing our whole future with a sense of
loss; but where a trouble or calamity has been an accident, an episode
in our wonted life, where it affects ourselves alone, where it is
attended with a sense of shame and humiliation, where the pain
of recalling it seems idle, and if indulged would almost madden
us,--agonies of that kind we do not brood over as we do over the death
or falsehood of beloved friends, or the train of events by which we are
reduced from wealth to penury. No one, for instance, who has escaped
from a shipwreck, from the brink of a precipice, from the jaws of
a tiger, spends his days and nights in reviving his terrors past,
re-imagining dangers not to occur again, or, if they do occur, from
which the experience undergone can suggest no additional safeguards. The
current of our life, indeed, like that of the rivers, is most rapid in
the midmost channel, where all streams are alike comparatively slow in
the depth and along the shores in which each life, as each river, has a
character peculiar to itself. And hence, those who would sail with the
tide of the world, as those who sail with the tide of a river, hasten
to take the middle of the stream, as those who sail against the tide
are found clinging to the shore. I returned to my habitual duties and
avocations with renewed energy; I did not suffer my thoughts to dwell on
the dreary wonders that had haunted me, from the evening I first met
Sir Philip Derval to the morning on which I had quitted the house of
his heir; whether realities or hallucinations, no guess of mine could
unravel such marvels, and no prudence of mine guard me against their
repetition. But I had no fear that they would be repeated, any more than
the man who had gone through shipwreck, or the hairbreadth escape from
a fall down a glacier, fears again to be found in a similar peril.
Margrave had departed, whither I knew not, and, with his departure,
ceased all sense of his influence. A certain calm within me, a
tranquillizing feeling of relief, seemed to me like a pledge of
permanent delivery.
But that which did accompany and haunt me, through all my occupations
and pursuits, was the melancholy remembrance of the love I had lost in
Lilian. I heard from Mrs. Ashleigh, who still frequently visited
me, that her daughter seemed much in the same quiet state of
mind,--perfectly reconciled to our separation, seldom mentioning my
name, if mentioning it, with indifference; the only thing remarkable in
her state was her aversion to all society, and a kind of lethargy that
would come over her, often in the daytime. She would suddenly fall into
sleep and so remain for hours, but a sleep that seemed very serene and
tranquil, and from which she woke of herself. She kept much within her
own room, and always retired to it when visitors were announced.
Mrs. Ashleigh began reluctantly to relinquish the persuasion she had so
long and so obstinately maintained, that this state of feeling towards
myself--and, indeed, this general change in Lilian--was but temporary
and abnormal; she began to allow that it was best to drop all thoughts
of a renewed engagement,--a future union. I proposed to see Lilian in
her presence and in my professional capacity; perhaps some physical
cause, especially for this lethargy, might be detected and removed.
Mrs. Ashleigh owned to me that the idea had occurred to herself: she
had sounded Lilian upon it: but her daughter had so resolutely opposed
it,--had said with so quiet a firmness “that all being over between us,
a visit from me would be unwelcome and painful,”--that Mrs. Ashleigh
felt that an interview thus deprecated would only confirm estrangement.
One day, in calling, she asked my advice whether it would not be better
to try the effect of change of air and scene, and, in some other place,
some other medical opinion might be taken? I approved of this suggestion
with unspeakable sadness.
“And,” said Mrs. Ashleigh, shedding tears, “if that experiment prove
unsuccessful, I will write and let you know; and we must then consider
what to say to the world as a reason why the marriage is broken off. I
can render this more easy by staying away. I will not return to L----
till the matter has ceased to be the topic of talk, and at a distance
any excuse will be less questioned and seem more natural. But
still--still--let us hope still.”
“Have you one ground for hope?”
“Perhaps so; but you will think it very frail and fallacious.”
“Name it, and let me judge.”
“One night--in which you were on a visit to Derval Court--”
“Ay, that night.”
“Lilian woke me by a loud cry (she sleeps in the next room to me, and
the door was left open); I hastened to her bedside in alarm; she was
asleep, but appeared extremely agitated and convulsed. She kept calling
on your name in a tone of passionate fondness, but as if in great
terror. She cried, ‘Do not go, Allen--do not go--you know not what you
brave!--what you do!’ Then she rose in her bed, clasping her hands. Her
face was set and rigid; I tried to awake her, but could not. After a
little time, she breathed a deep sigh, and murmured, ‘Allen, Allen!
dear love! did you not hear, did you not see me? What could thus baffle
matter and traverse space but love and soul? Can you still doubt me,
Allen?--doubt that I love you now, shall love you evermore?--yonder,
yonder, as here below?’ She then sank back on her pillow, weeping, and
then I woke her.”
“And what did she say on waking?”
“She did not remember what she had dreamed, except that she had passed
through some great terror; but added, with a vague smile, ‘It is over,
and I feel happy now.’ Then she turned round and fell asleep again, but
quietly as a child, the tears dried, the smile resting.”
“Go, my dear friend, go; take Lilian away from this place as soon as you
can; divert her mind with fresh scenes. I hope!--I do hope! Let me know
where you fix yourself. I will seize a holiday,--I need one; I will
arrange as to my patients; I will come to the same place; she need not
know of it, but I must be by to watch, to hear your news of her. Heaven
bless you for what you have said! I hope!--I do hope!”