"Dearest Friend,--Laugh if you like. On reading your letter a second
time--your letters are not, like most others, consigned to the
waste-paper basket--I have even more strongly the same impression which
the first perusal had given me; namely, that, possibly unknown to
yourself, there is to be read between the lines of your letter a
question, which can be answered only by omniscient Fate and by 'Yours
Truly;' and which, seeing Fate is not altogether to be relied upon in
this respect, Yours Truly has the honour and likewise the great
pleasure of answering herewith. Reduced to its simplest formula, then,
the question comes to this: May I marry? Seeing that you do not laugh,
but, on the contrary, look extremely grave, I will not keep you
needlessly on the tenter-hooks of expectation, but will reduce my
reply, too, to the simplest form, viz.:--Yes, best of friends, you may
marry, in spite of your late serious attack; nay, oddly enough, all the
more because of it. For although even before your illness I had no
doubt that your curiously powerful nature would for years continue to
hold its own against the severe damage done (to deny or reason away the
existence of which was unfortunately impossible), I now have hardly any
misgiving in that respect. For your last illness was simply and solely
a remarkably energetic attempt at self-help on the part of nature, and
the attempt has all but succeeded. What remains to be done to complete
the cure is but little, and that this little be done as swiftly and
thoroughly as possible, you can yourself greatly help. How so? Well, by
marrying! You, having always been over-conscientious and abnormally
scrupulous, having ever lived but for ideal aims and for the benefit of
other folk, should now at length begin to live for yourself, should now
at length find that quiet happiness which you so richly deserve, and be
happy in that happiness; though, to be sure, for the last condition
more good sense is required than what the majority of mankind have been
ready to employ. You, my good friend, have that amount of sense.
_Ergo_--marry for goodness' sake, marry for your own good, marry for
the good of those whom you love, and, lastly, marry with my full
consent, without which I know you would not do it at all.
"But now, seeing that you are too accustomed to suffering of some sort
to be able to dispense with it altogether, I owe you a fresh supply to
make up for what I am depriving you of, and I am going to saddle you
with one of the most awful kinds of suffering a free man can be
tormented with in these hard and distressing times--you must stand for
Parliament. There is no help for it; we must have you in the
_Reichstag_. Good old S. can bear the burthen no longer; he is going to
retire. I should have insisted upon it on medical grounds if he had not
at length come to see himself that there was no help for it. He is done
for, and doomed to speedy death. And you, who are vigorously advancing
to complete restoration of health, shall and must take his place--by
order of the Electoral Committee, who met at a late hour last night and
ultimately came to a unanimous conclusion on the subject, all, finally,
voting for you! There is no reason why I should keep back the fact
that, to begin with, O. and B. were opposed to it, and so were a few
others, asserting that you could be of greater use to the common cause
as an outsider. They went on arguing that your absolutely independent
position within the party had hitherto enabled you, and would continue
to enable you, to ventilate certain grievances which really require to
be ventilated, and which it is impossible for ourselves, sitting as
members of the _Reichstag_, to bring forward, because, sitting there,
we must pay a certain regard to ... what not. This great and invaluable
activity of yours, they wisely contended, would be rendered absolutely
barren by your entering the serried ranks of a definite political
phalanx within the House itself. Right they are, I know well enough,
none better; for I have, as you know, always maintained the same view.
But, for all that, you must stand. The need is imperative. We have,
alas! none but you; and therefore our arguments prevailed: and the
requisition I am now forwarding to you in the name of our common party
is, as aforesaid, unanimous. Knowing you as well as I do, and knowing
therefore with what a struggle you make up your mind, ever determined
to adhere unswervingly to a resolution you have once arrived at, I'll
give you three days to think it over. Perhaps you'll talk it over with
our friend G. in W., whose acquaintance you have probably made ere
this; not to get him to appeal to your conscience--small need for that
in your case--but because an old veteran like him may be able, from the
fulness of his experience, to give you some hint or other which may be
of use to you in your candidature. It is very probable that you may
have to appear speedily in the arena. The Government would appear to
feel very confident of success, and will not delay the election. Four
weeks hence everything may be settled. That would leave you another
month before the meeting of Parliament to recover from the fatigue of
the electioneering campaign. The Italian trip will have to be given up,
it is true. But no one can serve two masters; and as for the mistress,
if my conjecture be correct, I do not dread her jealousy. If it were
permitted to harbour any doubt whether you have chosen wisely, or if
there were any need to apply a special test, there could be no surer
touchstone than this. The true gold of a genuine woman's love never
shines more brightly than when a sacrifice has to be made for the sake
of letting a man's worth stand out clearly. Commend me cordially to the
fair unknown, and accept my own affectionate greetings."
The second dinner-bell had rung, and Bertram still sat staring at the
letter. Could this be true? It looked like witchcraft. By what
wonderful ingenuity had his friend rightly interpreted the state of his
heart, judging from hints which were not intended to be hints at all?
Well, if it was a miracle, it was a very auspicious one--one that could
only have had its origin in the great strength of truest friendship.
Impossible for the tempter to have assumed the guise of the best and
noblest of men!
He pressed the letter to his lips, and gazed upward to the blue sky.
And, lo! as he moved, the gossamer thread floated away from his
shoulder, away into the sunny afar.
With glowing eye he followed its flight.
"Right, right! Fly and float with it, ye cowardly thoughts of retreat!
Who fears not death has already half won the battle!"