"Not e'en the dearest heart, and next our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh."
"True," said Julian; for he had long observed that some heavy weight lay
on Kennedy's mind, and with deep sorrow noticed that their intercourse
was less cordial, less frequent, less intimate than before. Not that he
loved Kennedy, or that Kennedy loved him less than of old, for, on the
contrary, Kennedy yearned more than ever for the full cherished
unreserve of their old friendship; but, alas there was not, there could
not be complete confidence between them, and where there is not
confidence, the pleasure of friendship grows dim and pale. And, besides
this, new tastes were growing up in Edward Kennedy, and, by slow and
fatal degrees, were developing into passions.
Hazlet had come to Camford not so much innocent as ignorant. He had
never learnt to restrain and control the strong tendencies which, in the
quiet shades of Ildown, had been sheltered from temptation. A few
months before he would have heard with unmitigated horror the
delinquencies which he now committed without a scruple, and defended
without a blush. None are so precipitate in the career of sin and folly
as backsliders; none so unchecked in the downward course as those to
whom the mystery of iniquity is suddenly displayed when they have had
none of the gradual training whereby men are armed to resist its
seductions.
Who does not know from personal observation that the cycle of sins is
bound together by a thousand invisible filaments, and that myriads of
unknown connections unite them to one another? Hazlet, when he had once
"forsaken the guide of his youth, and forgotten the covenant of his
God," did not stop short at one or two temptations, and yield only to
some favourite vice. With a rapidity as amazing as it was disastrous,
he developed in the course of two or three months into one of the most
shameless and dissipated of the worst Saint Werner's set. There was
something characteristic in the way in which he frothed out his own
shame, boasting of his infamous liberty with an arrogance which
resembled his former conceit in spiritual superiority.
Julian, who now saw less of him than ever, had no opportunity of
speaking to him as to his course of life; but at last an incident
happened which persuaded him that further silence would be a culpable
neglect of his duty to his neighbour.
Montagu, of Roslyn School, came up to Camford to spend a Sunday with
Owen, and Owen asked Julian and Lillyston to meet him. They liked each
other very much, and Julian rapidly began to regard Montagu as a real
friend. In order to see as much of each other as possible, they all
agreed to take a four-oar on the Saturday morning, and row to Elnham; at
Elnham they dined, and spent two pleasant hours in visiting the
beautiful cathedral, so that they did not get back to Camford till
eleven at night.
Their way from the boats to Saint Werner's lay through a bad part of the
town, and they walked quickly, Owen and Montagu being a little way in
front.
A few gas-lights were burning at long intervals in the narrow lane
through which they had to pass, and as they walked under one of them
they observed a group of four standing half in shadow. One of them
Julian instantly recognised as the very vilest of the Saint Werner "fast
men;" another was Hazlet; there could be no doubt as to the company in
which he was.
For one second, Julian turned back to look in sheer astonishment,--he
could hardly believe the testimony of his own eyes. The figure which he
took to be Hazlet hastily retreated, and Julian half-persuaded himself
that he was mistaken.
"Did you see who that was?" asked Lillyston sadly.
"Yes," said Julian; "one of the simple ones; `but he knoweth not that
the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell.'"
"You must speak to him, Julian."
"I will."
As Hazlet was out when he called, Julian wrote on his card, "Dear H,
will you come to tea at 8? Yours ever, J Home."
At 8 o'clock accordingly Hazlet was seated, as he had not been for a
very long time, by Julian's fireside. Julian's conversation interested
him, and he could not help feeling a little humbled at the unworthiness
which prevented him from more frequently enjoying it. It was not till
after tea, when they had pulled their chairs to the fire, that Julian
said, "Hazlet, I was sorry to see you in bad company last night."
"Me!" said Hazlet, feigning surprise.
"You!"
Hazlet saw that all attempt at concealment was useless. "For God's
sake, don't tell my mother, or any of the Ildown people," he said,
turning pale.
"Is it likely I should? Yet my doing so would be the very least harm
that could happen to you, Hazlet, if you adopt these courses. I had
rather see you afraid of the sin than of the detection."
Hazlet stammered out in self-defence one of those commonplaces which he
had heard but too often in the society of those who "put evil for good
and good for evil."
Julian very quietly tore the miserable sophism to shreds, and said,
"There is but one way to describe these vices, Hazlet,--they are deadly,
bitter, ruinous."
"Oh, they are very common. Lots of men--"
"Tush!" said Julian; "their commonness, if indeed it be so, does not
diminish their deadliness. Not to put the question on the religious
ground at all, I fully agree with Carlyle that, on the mere
consideration of expedience and physical fact, nothing can be more
fatal, more calamitous than `to burn away in mad waste the divine aromas
and celestial elements from our existence; to change our holy of holies
into a place of riot; to make the soul itself hard, impious, barren.'"
Hazlet, ashamed and bewildered, confused his present position with old
reminiscences, and muttered some balderdash about Carlyle "not being
sound."
"Carlyle not sound?" said Julian; "good heavens! You can still retain
the wretched babblements of your sectarianism while your courses are
what they are!"
He was inclined to drop the conversation in sheer disgust, but Hazlet's
pride was now aroused, and he began to bluster about the impertinence of
interference on Julian's part, and his right to do what he chose.
"Certainly," said Julian, sternly, "the choice lies with yourself. Run,
if you will, as a bird to the snare of the fowler, till a dart strike
you through. But if you are dead and indifferent to your own miserable
soul, think that in this sin you cannot sin alone; think that you are
dragging down to the nethermost abyss others besides yourself. Remember
the wretched victims of your infamous passions, and tremble while you
desecrate and deface for ever God's image stamped on a fair human soul.
Think of those whom your vileness dooms to a life of loathliness, a
death of shame and anguish, perhaps an eternity of horrible despair.
Learn something of the days they are forced to spend, that they may
pander to the worst instincts of your degraded nature; days of squalor
and drunkenness, disease and dirt; gin at morning, noon, and night;
eating infection, horrible madness, and sudden death at the end. Can
you ever hope for salvation and the light of God's presence, while the
cry of the souls of which you have been _the murderer_--yes, do not
disguise it, the _murderer_, the cruel, willing, pitiless murderer--is
ringing upwards from the depths of hell?"
"What do you mean by the murderer?" said Hazlet, with an attempt at
misconception.
"I mean this, Hazlet; setting aside all considerations which affect your
mere personal ruin--not mentioning the atrophy of spiritual life and the
clinging sense of degradation which is involved in such a course as
yours--I want you to see if you will be honest, that the fault is yet
more deadly, because you involve _other_ souls and _other_ lives in your
own destruction. Is it not a reminiscence sufficient to kill any man's
hope, that but for his own brutality some who are now perhaps raving in
the asylum might have been clasping their own children to their happy
breasts, and wearing in unpolluted innocence the rose of matronly
honour? Oh, Hazlet, I have heard you talk about missionary societies,
and seen your name in subscription lists, but believe me you could not,
by myriads of such conventional charities, cancel the direct and awful
quota which you are now contributing to the aggregate of the world's
misery and shame."
It took a great deal to abash a mind like Hazlet's. He said that he was
going to be a clergyman, and that it was necessary for him to see
something of life, or he would never acquire the requisite experience.
"Loathly experience!" said Julian with crushing scorn. "And do you ever
hope, Hazlet, by centuries of preaching such as yours, to repair one
millionth part of the damage done by your bad passions to a single
fellow-creature? Such a hateful excuse is verily to carry the Urim with
its oracular gems into the very sty of sensuality, and to debase your
religion into `a procuress to the lords of hell.' I have done; but let
me say, Hazlet, that your self-justification is, if possible, more
repulsive than your sin."
He pushed back his chair from the fire, and turned away, as Hazlet, with
some incoherent sentences about "no business of his," left the room, and
slammed the door behind him.
What are words but weak motions of vibrating air? Julian's words passed
by the warped nature of Hazlet like the idle wind, and left no more
trace upon him than the snow-flake when it has melted into the purpling
sea. As the weeks went on, his ill-regulated passions grew more and
more free from the control of reason or manliness, and he sank
downwards, downwards, downwards, into the most shameful abysses of an
idle, and evil, and dissipated life.
And the germ of that ruin was planted by the hand of the clever, and
gay, and handsome Vyvyan Bruce.