A DISQUISITION ON TRUE LOVE
"Love," said his lordship, laying down his fishing rod, "love, from
the philosophically materialistic standpoint, is an unease, a disquiet
of the mind, fostered in the male by hallucination, and in the female
by determined self-delusion."
"Sir," said I, "your meaning is somewhat involved, I would beg you to
be a little more explicit."
"Then pray observe me, Peregrine! An ordinary young man falls in love
with an ordinary young woman because, for some inexplicable reason,
she appears to him a mystery, bewitchingly incomprehensible. Suffering
under this strange hallucination, he wooes, whereupon our ordinary
young woman, shutting her eyes to the ordinariness of our very
ordinary young man, now deliberately deludes herself into the firm
belief that he is the virile presentment of her own impossible,
oft-dreamed ideal. So they are wed (to the infinite wonder of their
relations) and hence the perpetuation of the species."
"My lord, you grow a little cynical, I think," said I, "surely Love
has dowered these apparently so ordinary people with a vision to
behold in each other virtues and beauties undreamed of by the world in
general. Surely Love possesses the only seeing eye?"
"The Greeks thought differently, Peregrine, or wherefore their
blindfolded Eros?"
"Sir, the mind of man has soared since those far times, I venture to
think?"
"Perhaps!" said his lordship, shaking his head. "But love between man
and woman is much the same, a power to ennoble or debase, angel of
light or demon of hell, a thing befouled and shamed by brutish
selfishness or glorified by sacrifice. Yes, love is to-day as it was
when mighty Babylon worshipped Bel. Yesterday, to-day and for ever,
love was, is, and will be the same--the call of nature coming to each
of us through the senses to the soul for evil or for good."
"But, my lord," said I, stirred beyond myself, "ah, sir, be love what
it may--no two ever loved as Diana and I, so truly, so deeply--"
"O my lovely, loving lover--O sublime egoist!" exclaimed my companion.
"How many other lovers through the ages have thought and said and
written the very same?
'Others may have loved mayhap,
But never, oh, never as thou and I.'
"This is the song of all the amorists of all the ages. Man has been
saying this since ever he was man. Here is love's universal, deathless
song, written or sung to-day and by lovers long, long forgotten,
'Whoever loved like thou and I,
No lovers ever loved as we!'"
"Nor did they, sir!" I maintained doggedly. "My love for Diana is a
thing wholly apart, an inspiration to all things good and great."
"Then prove this, my egoist, prove it!"
"But sir--sir," I stammered, nonplussed by his words and the piercing
look that accompanied them, "how--in what manner would you have me do
this?"
"By forgetting yourself in your love for her! By foregoing awhile your
present joys for her future good. Give her into my care for two
years."
"My lord!" I exclaimed aghast. "I--indeed I do not understand."
"Peregrine, God has bestowed on her a mind capable of great things--a
wonderful voice. Place her in my charge for two years--I am solitary
and very rich--she shall see the world and its wonders; I will have
her educated, bestow on her all the refinements that great wealth can
command. Nature has given her a glorious voice, Art shall make her a
great singer. Forego your present happiness for her future good and
your gipsy maid shall become a great lady and a peerless woman. Do
this, Peregrine, and here, truly, shall be love indeed."
Now at this I was silent a long while, staring down blindly at the
hurrying waters of the brook; glancing up at last, I found him
regarding me with his keen, bright eyes and was struck anew by the
strength of his personality, his resolute face with its indomitable
mouth and chin, his serene air of dignity and assured power.
"She would be safe with me, Peregrine," said he gently, "secure from
every evil--and from every chance of molestation."
"I know that, sir."
"She would be cherished and loved as sacredly as--my own
daughter--might have been."
"I am sure of it, sir--and yet--"
"Well, Peregrine?"
"Two years, sir," I faltered. "It--it is an age--"
"You are both children, Peregrine, but in two years, as I understand,
you will be of age, a man, master of your fortune--and she a woman,
clever, accomplished and perhaps famous."
"And may have forgotten me!"
"Do you think so, Peregrine?"
"No!" said I. "No!"
"Nor do I, boy. Such as she, being deep and reverent of soul, do not
love lightly, and never forget. On the contrary, with her growing
knowledge and experience, surely her love for you will grow also; it
must do. If she loves you to-day, child of nature as she is, how much
greater will be her capacity for love as an educated woman, knowing
that it is to your unselfishness, first and foremost, that she owes so
very much?"
After this was silence again wherein I watched my companion disjoint
his fishing rod.
"Sir," said I at last, "yours is a very noble and generous offer--"
"Tush!" he exclaimed a little sharply. "I am a solitary old man who
yearns for a daughter."
"Sir, in less than a fortnight is--the day--our wedding day--"
"Then," said his lordship, rising, "God's blessing on that day,
Peregrine, and on each of you."
"You ask of me a very great thing, sir!" I groaned.
"Indeed, yes, Peregrine, so very great that only the greatest love
could possibly grant it."
Long after the Earl had limped away, I sat crouched beside the stream,
my head bowed between clasping hands, blind and deaf and unconscious
of all else but the tempest that raged within me, a wild confusion of
doubt and fearful speculation with a passionate rebellion against
circumstance, and a growing despair. Gradually these chaotic thoughts
took form, marshalling themselves against each other, so that it
seemed as two voices argued bitterly within me, thus:
THE FIRST VOICE. To give up Diana for two long, weary years--
THE SECOND VOICE. But for Diana's sake!
THE FIRST VOICE. To forego the joys of Diana's companionship for two,
empty, desolate years.
THE SECOND VOICE. But for Diana's own future good!
THE FIRST VOICE. Why should Love demand such thing of any lover?
THE SECOND VOICE. Because he boasted his love beyond all other. Was it
but an idle boast?
THE FIRST VOICE. No lover would ever do such thing!
THE SECOND VOICE. Except he be indeed greatly true and most unselfish.
THE FIRST VOICE. Diana would never leave me.
THE SECOND VOICE. Never, even though it were the passion of her life!
For truly a woman's love is ever more unselfish than a man's.
THE FIRST VOICE. She loves me too much to endure such parting.
THE SECOND VOICE. She loves you so much she would endure even this to
become your comrade as well as wife, to fit herself that she may take
her place beside you in your world, serene and assured, to become the
woman you can revere for her intellect and refinement.
THE FIRST VOICE. All this I can teach her, all this she shall acquire
after marriage.
THE SECOND VOICE. Never! She will devote herself to you rather than to
herself.
THE FIRST VOICE. Howbeit, I love her well enough as she is--
THE SECOND VOICE. O selfish lover! And what of the future? You cannot
live out your life in her world of the Silent Places, and in your
world your gipsy maid will find small welcome or none.
THE FIRST VOICE. Then her world shall be mine also--
THE SECOND VOICE. O foolish lover! Think you she shall not grieve that
by her love you should lose caste--
THE FIRST VOICE. She need never know--
THE SECOND VOICE. The eyes of a loving woman are marvellous quick to
see.
THE FIRST VOICE. Then Love shall comfort her.
THE SECOND VOICE. Yet still must be her dark hours. Is two years so
long a time?
THE FIRST VOICE. Too long! In two years she may find a thousand new
interests to come between us. In two years she may meet with dashing
gallants richer, higher placed, more versed in knowledge of women and
far more intellectual than myself, who am but what I am. So, having
won her to my love, what folly to let her go--to be wooed perchance by
others.
THE SECOND VOICE. O most despicable lover! Will you be content to win
a maid through and because of her ignorance of all other wooers better
placed than your poor self?
THE FIRST VOICE. Yes.
THE SECOND VOICE. Then is yours a pitiful love, base and most
unworthy.
THE FIRST VOICE. No matter--she shall not go!
THE SECOND VOICE. In such a love can be no true happiness.
THE FIRST VOICE. However, she shall not leave me!
THE SECOND VOICE. How if at some future day, her eyes be opened to see
your love for the petty, selfish thing it is?
THE FIRST VOICE. She will be my wife!
THE SECOND VOICE. So God pity her.
THE FIRST VOICE. Come what will, she shall not leave me! I cannot,
will not part with her!
"Why, Peregrine!" exclaimed a sweet voice. "My dear--my dear, what is
it? Why do you sit here sighing with your dear head between your
hands--this head that I love so! Peregrine dear, what is it?"
She was beside me on her knees, had drawn my face upon her bosom, and
I thrilled to the soft caress of her mouth and the touch of her gentle
fingers in my hair. "Why are you so troubled, my Peregrine?"
"O Diana! Beloved, I imagined a foolish thing--that being far from me
you forgot our love--these dear Silent Places, and learned--to
love--some one more worthy--more generous--altogether better than I.
For Diana--I am--"
"My Peregrine!" she whispered passionately. "My brave lover that is so
fine a gentleman he don't know anything of evil and has treated me
always as if I was a proud lady--as if I was a very holy thing instead
of only a gipsy girl to be kissed and--and--oh, you are so
different--and so it is I love you--love you, worship you, and--all'us
shall, my Peregrine, and long and yearn to be a lady for your sake and
worthy of you--"
"O child," I whispered, "my Diana--hush! You don't know how vilely,
basely selfish I am really--"
"Never--ah, never say so, Peregrine, it hurts me. There now, smile! I
wouldn't ha' left you all the afternoon--not even wi' our pal--no, not
even to try on my wedding gown if I'd thought you'd ha' grieved. Come,
dear, Jessamy's back an' ready for you with the muffles--there, he be
calling!"
So I arose, but stood a while to look into her eyes that met mine with
such sweet frankness.
"And you still wish to learn all those graces and refinements that
make what is called a lady, my Diana?"
"Yes," she answered, a little breathlessly. "Yes--oh, more than
ever--more than anything else in life--except you--"
"Then--God helping, you shall!" said I, between shut teeth. And so we
went on together.
"But, Peregrine," she questioned a little wistfully, "dear Peregrine,
why is your face so stern and why must you sigh still?"
"Because to be unselfish is sometimes--an agony, Diana."
"Dear heart--what do you mean?"
"Only I know now that I do most truly love you."