I have been over to Blanty's. I should have gone yesterday, but it
rained heavily from early morning until after dark. Such days I
consider yours. I had been anxious about Blanty since Sunday, and not
altogether without reason. He has had a threatening of fever. I hope
it will prove a false alarm. I found him sitting at his door, already
better,--but still a good deal cast down, for he was never ill in his
life before. He had been wishing for me, and would have sent to me, if
I had not gone. He could hardly let me come away, but pressed me to
stay one hour longer, one half hour, one quarter. But I had some
things to attend to at home, and, as he did not really need me, I bade
him good-bye resolutely, promising to go to him again next Monday. I
cannot well go sooner.
If I had stayed, I should have missed a visit from Frederic Harvey.
When I came within sight of our gate, on the way back, a horseman was
waiting at it, looking up the road, as if watching for me. He darted
forward, on my appearance,--stopped short, when close beside
me,--dismounted, and greeted me with a warmth which I blamed myself
for finding it hard to return. He did not blame me, apparently.
Perhaps he ascribes the want he may feel in my manner to New-England
reserve; or perhaps he feels no want. He is so assured of the value of
his regard, that he takes full reciprocity for granted. The docile
horse, at a sign, turned and walked along beside us to the gate,
followed us along the path to the house, and took his quiet stand
before the door when we went in.
Frederic Harvey, having paid his respects to my mother, seated himself
in the great arm-chair, which now seems to be always claiming the
Doctor, and which this new, slender occupant filled very inadequately.
"I stayed in New York three weeks too long," he exclaimed, after
looking about him a little--for traces of Harry, it seemed. "Time goes
so fast there! But I thought, from one of my sister's letters, that
Dudley was to go back to World's End after he left you. Is he changed?
Oh, but you cannot tell. You never knew him till now. I need not have
asked, at any rate. He is not one to change. While I knew him, he was
only more himself with every year."
"It is two years since you met, is it not?"
"Yes; but what are two years to men who were children together? We
shall take things up just where we laid them down. Ours is the older
friendship. I shall always have the advantage of you there. But you
and he must have got along very well together. Your notions agree with
his better than mine do. It does not matter. Friendship goes by fate,
I believe. He may hold what opinions he likes, for me; and so may
you."
"I believe that on some important subjects my opinions differ very
much from yours."--I am determined to stand square with Frederic
Harvey.
"In regard to our institutions, you mean? I know, that, spoken or
unspoken, hatred of them is carried in the heart of every
New-Englander. It is sometimes suppressed through politeness or from
interest, but I never saw a Northerner who was good for anything, in
whom it did not break out on the first provocation. I like as well to
have it fairly understood in the outset. I have had a letter from
Harry in answer to one of mine. It is explicit on this point."
I had no doubt it was very explicit. Frederic's eye meeting mine, he
caught my thought, and we had a good laugh together, which made us
better friends.
"The Northerners are brought up in their set of prejudices, as we in
ours. I can judge of the force of theirs by that of my own. I only
wish there was the same unanimity among us. We are a house divided
against itself."
And Frederic's face darkened,--perhaps with the recollection of the
rupture of old ties in Shaler's case,--or rather, as it seemed, with
the rankling of some later, nearer pain. He turned quickly away from
the intrusive thought, whatever it was. He does not like the
unpleasant side of things.
"At any rate, because Harry Dudley and I are to be adverse, it does
not follow that we are to be estranged. I cannot forget our
school-days,--our walks on the boulevards and the quays,--our rides in
the Bois,--our journeys together, when we were like brothers. I was
never so happy as in those days, when I had not a care or a duty in
the world."
He had the air, with his twenty-one years, of a weary
man-of-the-world. There was no affectation in it. Unless report have
done him injustice, the last two years have put a gulf between him and
that time.
I reminded him of the conversation between him and his sister, in
which they spoke of Harry Dudley before I knew who Harry Dudley was.
He remembered it, and returned very readily to the subject of it. He
related many incidents of the tour in Brittany, and spoke warmly of
the pleasure of travelling with a companion who is alive to everything
of interest in every sort. He said his travels in Germany, and even in
Italy, had hardly left with him so lively and enduring impressions as
this little journey into Brittany; for there he had gone to the heart
of things.
"I must see him again. We must meet once more as we used to meet. We
must have one good clasp of the hand; we must, at least, say a kind
good-bye to the old friendship. If, hereafter, we find ourselves
opposed in public life, I shall deal him the worst I can, but with
openness and loyalty like his own, and doing him more justice in my
heart, perhaps, than he will do me."
Frederic Harvey inquired anxiously where Harry was to be found, and I
was obliged to tell him of our intended meeting. I was afraid he would
propose to go with me. He was on the point of doing so, but refrained,
seeing that I was not expecting such a suggestion.
We could easily have arranged to meet at Quickster, which is about the
same distance from him that it is from me. But a ride of twenty miles,
most of them slow ones, beside a man with whom you are not in full
sympathy, is a trial. I did not feel called upon to undergo it for
him. When he took leave of me, he again seemed about to propose
something, and I felt it was this plan which was so natural; but he
was again withheld, by pride or by delicacy. Either feeling I could
sympathize with, and I was more touched by this reserve than by all
his friendly advances; but I hardened my heart. He mounted his horse.
I saw him go slowly down the path to the road, stoop from the saddle
to open the gate,--pass out. And then I was seized with sudden
compunction. I heard the slow step of his horse, receding as if
reluctantly, and ready to be checked at a hint. I ran to the gate.
Frederic was just turning away, as if he had been looking back,
expecting to see me; but in the same instant he gave an intimation to
his horse, and was out of the reach of my repentance.
"_I liked him._" With Harry these words mean a great deal. Could Harry
ever have liked him, if he had not been worthy to be liked? How sad
his look was, when he spoke of his happy boyish days!--happier than
these only because they were blameless. Was not this regret itself an
earnest of the power of return? He had good blood in him. He is
Charles Shaler's cousin. He has a weak, shallow mother,--a father
whose good qualities and whose faults are overlaid with the same
worldly varnish impartially. He feels the need of other influences,
and clings to Harry. He comes to me instinctively seeking something he
has not in his home. My mother has always judged him more kindly than
I have. If he had been a poor outcast child, I should have felt his
coming to me so frankly and so persistently to be a sign I was to do
something for him. Is there a greater need than that of sympathy and
honest counsel? I have been selfish, but this pain is punishment
enough. I feel a remorse surely out of proportion to my sin. I do not
prevent his going to meet Harry by not asking him to go with me. He is
not one to give up his wish; and in this case there is no reason that
he should. He will arrive; I am sure of it. And I will atone, at
least in part. I will ask him to join me on the ride home.
Old Jasper has told me stories of Frederic Harvey's good-heartedness
in childhood: tells them to me, indeed, every time he sees me. I
remember one in particular, of the pretty little boy in his foreign
dress, and speaking his foreign language, carrying his own breakfast
one morning to the cabin where the old man lay sick; and another of
his taking away part of her load from a feeble woman; and another of
his falling on a driver and wresting from him the whip with which he
was lashing a fainting boy. But Jasper has only these early stories to
tell of him; and what different ones are current now!
In dear old New England the child is father of the man. There the
lovely infancy is the sure promise of the noble maturity. But where
justice is illegal! where mercy is a criminal indulgence! where youth
is disciplined to selfishness, and the man's first duty is to deny
himself his virtues! If the nephew of Augustus had lived, would he
indeed have been Marcellus? _Heu pietas! Heu prisca fides!_--these
might have been mourned, though Octavia had not wept her son.
THURSDAY, April 18, 1844.
It is thirty-five miles to Omocqua by the common road through Metapora
and Tenpinville; but I shall save myself five, going across fields and
through wood-paths, and coming out at Quickster. You left the Omocqua
road there, and took that to Quarleston. I shall stop half an hour at
Quickster to rest my horse and have a little talk with Barton. I mean
to allow myself ample time for the journey, that Brownie may take it
easily and yet bring me to Omocqua in season for a stroll about the
neighborhood with the Doctor and Harry before nightfall. Some miles of
my way are difficult with tree-stumps and brush; a part of it is
sandy; the last third is hilly. I have never been farther on that road
than Ossian, about three miles beyond Quickster; but the country
between Ossian and Omocqua is, I know, very much like that between
Quarleston and Cyclops, which you found so beautiful and so tiresome.
I do not mean that my parting with Harry shall be a sad one. After
that day at Omocqua, I shall not meet his smile,--his hand will not
clasp mine again; but he will leave with me something of himself which
will not go from me. His courage, the energy of his straightforward
will, shall still nerve and brace me, though his cordial voice may
never again convey their influence to my heart. Wherever he is, I
shall know we are thinking, feeling together, and working together;
for I shall surely do what he asks of me: that he thinks it worth
doing is enough.
And Dr. Borrow does not leave me what he found me. It was with a
continual surprise that I learned how much there is of interest and
variety in our uniform neighborhood for a man who knows the meaning of
what he sees. How many things are full of suggestion now that were
mute before! He has given me glimpses of undreamed-of pleasures. A
practical man, following him in his walks, and gathering up the hints
he lets fall, might turn them to great real use.
What a part the Doctor and such as he, disciples and interpreters of
Nature, would have in the world, how warmly they would be welcomed
everywhere, if these were only times in which men could live as they
were meant to live, happy and diligent, cherishing Earth and adorning
her, receiving her daily needful gifts, and from time to time coming
upon precious ones, which she, fond and wise mother, has kept back for
the surprise of some hour of minuter search or bolder divination!
But now, how can we be at ease to enjoy our own lot, however
pleasantly it may have been cast for us, or to occupy ourselves with
material cares or works, even the most worthy and the most rational?
We are taught to pray, "Thy kingdom come," before we ask for our daily
bread.
To pray for what we do not at the same time strive for, is it not an
impiety?
Dr. Borrow says that Harry is out of place in our time. I should
rather say that it is he himself who is here a century, or perhaps
only a half-century, too soon. Our first need now is of men
clear-sighted to moral truths, and intrepid to announce and maintain
them.
It was through the consciousness, not yet lost, of eternal principles,
that primitive poetry made Themis the mother of the gracious
Hours,--those beneficent guardians, bringers of good gifts, promoters
and rewarders of man's happy labor. When Justice returns to make her
reign on earth, with her come back her lovely daughters, and all the
beautiful attendant train.
When that time arrives, the Doctor will have found his place, and
Harry will not have lost his.
Perhaps I shall not come back until Saturday. According to their plan,
Dr. Borrow and Harry are to leave Omocqua again to-morrow afternoon;
but I shall try to persuade them to remain until the next morning.
While they stay, I shall stay. When they go, Brownie and I take our
homeward road. In any case, I will write to you Friday night, and send
off my budget on Saturday without fail.
To-day has not given me anything to tell of it yet, except that it has
opened as it should, fresh and cloudless. In five hours I shall be on
the road.
My paper is blistered and the writing blurred with wet drops. It is
only that some freshly gathered flowers on my table have let fall
their dew upon the page. You, with the trace of mysticism that lurks
in your man of the world's heart, would be drawing unfavorable
auguries. I am too happy to accept any to-day. If fancy will sport
with this accident, let it feign that these morning tears are of
sympathy, but not of compassion; that they fall, not to dim my hopes,
but to hallow them.