ROMANTIC LOVE PATHOLOGICALLY REGARDED BY FRANK VANCE AND ALBAN
MORLEY.
Vance was before his easel, Lionel looking over his shoulder. Never was
Darrell more genial than he was that day to Frank Vance. The two men
took to each other at once, and talked as familiarly as if the retired
lawyer and the rising painter were old fellow-travellers along the same
road of life. Darrell was really an exquisite judge of art, and his
praise was the more gratifying because discriminating. Of course he gave
the due meed of panegyric to the female heads, by which the artist had
become so renowned. Lionel took his kinsman aside, and, with a mournful
expression of face, showed him the portrait by which, all those varying
ideals had been suggested--the portrait of Sophy as Titania.
“And that is Lionel,” said the artist, pointing to the rough outline of
Bottom.
“Pish!” said Lionel, angrily. Then turning to Darrell: “This is the
Sophy we have failed to find, sir--is it not a lovely face?”
“It is indeed,” said Darrell. “But that nameless refinement in
expression--that arch yet tender elegance in the simple, watchful
attitude--these, Mr. Vance, must be your additions to the original.”
“No, I assure you, sir,” said Lionel: “besides that elegance, that
refinement, there was a delicacy in the look and air of that child to
which Vance failed to do justice. Own it, Frank.”
“Reassure yourself, Mr. Darrell,” said Vance, “of any fears which
Lionel’s enthusiasm might excite. He tells me that Titania is in
America; yet, after all, I would rather he saw her again--no cure for
love at first sight like a second sight of the beloved object after a
long absence.”
DARRELL (somewhat gravely).--“A hazardous remedy--it might kill, if it
did not cure.”
COLONEL MORLEY.--“I suspect, from Vance’s manner, that he has tested its
efficacy on his own person.”
LIONEL.--“NO, mon Colonel--I’ll answer for Vance. He in love! Never.”
Vance coloured--gave a touch to the nose of a Roman senator in the
famous classical picture which he was then painting for a merchant at
Manchester--and made no reply. Darrell looked at the artist with a sharp
and searching glance.
COLONEL MORLEY.--“Then all the more credit to Vance for his intuitive
perception of philosophical truth. Suppose, my dear Lionel, that we
light, one idle day, on a beautiful novel, a glowing romance--suppose
that, by chance, we are torn from the book in the middle of the
interest--we remain under the spell of the illusion--we recall the
scenes--we try to guess what should have been the sequel--we think that
no romance ever was so captivating, simply because we were not allowed
to conclude it. Well, if, some years afterwards, the romance fall again
in our way, and we open at the page where we left off, we cry, in the
maturity of our sober judgment, ‘Mawkish stuff!--is this the same thing
that I once thought so beautiful?--how one’s tastes do alter!’”
DARRELL.--“Does it not depend on the age in which one began the
romance?”
LIONEL.--“Rather, let me think, sir, upon the real depth of the
interest--the true beauty of the--”
VANCE (interrupting).--“Heroine?--Not at all, Lionel. I once fell in
love--incredible as it may seem to you--nine years ago last January. I
was too poor then to aspire to any young lady’s hand--therefore I did
not tell my love, but ‘let concealment,’ et cetera, et cetera. She
went away with her mamma to complete her education on the Continent. I
remained ‘Patience on a monument.’ She was always before my eyes--the
slenderest, shyest creature just eighteen. I never had an idea that
she could grow any older, less slender, or less shy. Well, four years
afterwards (just before we made our excursion into Surrey, Lionel), she
returned to England, still unmarried. I went to a party at which I knew
she was to be-saw her, and was cured.”
“Bad case of small-pox, or what?” asked the Colonel, smiling.
VANCE--“Nay; everybody said she was extremely improved--that was the
mischief--she had improved herself out of my fancy. I had been faithful
as wax to one settled impression, and when I saw a fine, full-formed,
young Frenchified lady, quite at her ease, armed with eyeglass and
bouquet and bustle, away went my dream of the slim blushing maiden.
The Colonel is quite right, Lionel; the romance once suspended, ‘tis
a haunting remembrance till thrown again in our way, but complete
disillusion if we try to renew it; though I swear that in my case the
interest was deep, and the heroine improved in her beauty. So with you
and that dear little creature. See her again, and you’ll tease, me no
more to give you that portrait of Titania at watch over Bottom’s soft
slumbers. All a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lionel. Titania fades back into
the arms of Oberon, and would not be Titania if you could make her--Mrs.
Bottom.”