To age and experience, I doubt not that this period of my life seems
childish and aimless. There is something in a pair of spectacles,
astride the wrinkled noses of maturity, that makes the world of
sentiment seem a mere nursery where growing boys and girls amuse
themselves carelessly before stepping into their manhood or womanhood.
Can it be that this glowing love of which poets sing, is, after all,
survived by such a short, uncertain thing as a human life? When we are
young it is so easy to believe our love will last unto the very end,
and this conviction darts a golden sunbeam across the unborn years: a
sunbeam in which our heaviest sorrows become dancing motes, a sunbeam
which spans the full interval allotted us between this world and the
next. But it is only rational to fear that some of those huge, black
shadows which are ever flitting through the "corridors of time" will
cross our sunbeam when we least expect it, and yet this is a warning
we will not hear, until a personal experience teaches it to our hearts
in sorrowful accents.
I had toyed with my own conjectures and speculations all through the
gay season. Every where I went I met the same people. I saw the
origin, progress, and final consummation of many a love-match, from
the formal introduction of both parties, to the glittering tell-tale
diamond on the finger of a dainty hand. I had learned many lessons
both from passive observation and active experience, and now as the
season of feasting and flirting and merry-making was waning into the
quietude of advancing spring, I had only to sit me down and rehearse
the wonderful little past which had come and gone, bringing wonderful
changes to many another heart besides Amey Hampden's.
May came, with its dazzling sunshine and its whispers of summer
warmth, and the birds carolled as birds have done every spring-time
since the world began. June came, and the bare branches sent forth
their tender buds to greet it. The birds flitted from bough to bough
and carolled louder and lustier than ever. It was the early
summer-time; that short but blissful interval between the ravages of
spring and the tyranny of scorching mid-summer. It is our misfortune
in Canada to know nothing whatever of the beauty of that spring-time
which has been flattered and idolized by poets' pens in every age.
With us this intermediate season is nothing more nor less than an
eminently uninteresting transition, invariably announced by such
harbingers as bare and brown and dirty roads; slushy pathways, running
with melted snow and ice; a warm, wet and foggy atmosphere, with great
drops falling constantly from the twigs of the trees and the drenched,
black eaves of the houses. It is a time for macintoshes and sound
rubbers; a golden age for patent cough mixtures and freckles, the
sworn destroyer of artificial curls and long clothes. It is true that
a glad, golden sunshine floods the earth at times, but what of that,
when sullied, muddy streams are rushing and bubbling on with a roaring
speed, plunging into hollow drains at every street-corner; when sulky
foot-passengers pick their uncomfortable way through all the debris of
what had been the beauty of the dead season. Fashionable young men,
with the extremities of their expensive tweeds turned carefully up,
choose their steps over the treacherous crossways, leaning upon their
silk umbrellas with an unfeigned expression of utter disapproval, and
ladies in trim ulsters and very short skirts pilot themselves along
the unclean thoroughfares, with very emphatic airs of impatience and
disgust. This is certainly not the season, in those Canadian cities
whose winters are so severe, when "the young man's fancy lightly turns
to thoughts of love." If there is a time in the year when this worthy
sentiment is ignored, and I may say deliberately ostracised, by
Canadian youth, it is in the spring. But like all earthly
circumstances, this, too, dies a natural death, and is succeeded by a
truly enjoyable and suggestive period, that of early summer. It has
been my experience to meet with many people who become the victims of
a depressing melancholy in the spring. Some acknowledge that it is a
presentiment, and resign themselves to many morbid feelings about the
uncertain issue of this period of the year; but common sense rejects
this theory. It is only natural that after having indulged our every
energy while the air was bracing and cold, after having walked and
talked, and feasted and danced, and made merry without interruption
day and night during the winter months, we should feel a physical
prostration in the end, and as a consequence something of a mental
depression as well. For my own part, I have always had a reflective
and serious spell in the spring-time. Those things that a few months
before would have dazzled my eyes and tempted my senses, seem empty
and vapid and worthless, and I go on wondering over my recent follies
and weaknesses as if I were never to commit them again. It is true
that the contemporary season of Lent has something to do with these
effects. "Remember, man, thou art but dust," is not the most
enlivening of warnings which can be submitted to us for moral
digestion, and we who carry these solemn words back from church on
Ash-Wednesday morning need not be surprised if our gayer inclinations
desert us almost immediately.
All these changes had followed fast upon the receding items of my
interesting season, and it was now summer time. My half-brother came
back from college, an altered youth, as uninteresting in his
transition as the season I have just described. He was an overgrown
boy, of that age when boys are seldom interesting except to one
another; that age of physical, mental and moral conflict, when the
anxious mother can scarcely trust the testimony of her confidence in
the future greatness of her growing son; when the calculating father
becomes agitated in his eagerness to know if his bashful heir will
favor religious, professional, or commercial tendencies, and when the
grown-up sister tries to anticipate in a grown-up sisterly way what
sort of a drawing room item her now unsophisticated relative will
prove to be. This last is the most trying speculation of all. How big
a boy's feet invariably look in a fashionable sister's eyes! how long
his arms, and how shapeless his hands! Poor blushing youth, is not the
ordeal worst for himself, at that period when he scarcely dares trust
the most modest of monosyllabic discourses to be articulated by those
lips that are warning a waiting public of the dawn of whiskerdom!
Freddy, once so lithe and graceful and pretty, had been transformed
into an ungainly being, all length, without breadth or thickness. He
had not even the advantage of the average immatured youth, he had
neither muscle nor physical bulk. He was still a delicate boy with a
nervous cough and a fretted look. He was more than ever peevish and
self-willed, with this only difference. In his earlier years his
selfishness was at least manifested in a dependent sort of way; his
thousand wants were made known in impatient requests. Now, it spoke in
imperative accents and decided in its own favor, regardless of the
comfort or concern of any other person. Of course I was not surprised,
for "as the twig is bent so is the tree inclined," but my step-mother
was disappointed with the results of all her anxious solicitude, and
began to see when it was vain, how thankless such indulgent efforts
prove in the end. Freddy's soul was altogether absorptive, taking in
whatever offerings gratified him, but yielding no return, and I ask,
is there anything so discouraging to an ardent love as this cold
neutrality, which proves, without a scruple, that all affection
lavished upon it is an irretrievable waste.
As fortune or accident would have it, I was destined to see very
little of this relation. Before he had been a fortnight at home I
received a letter from Hortense de Beaumont's mother, informing me of
the serious illness of my little friend, and entreating me, if it were
at all possible or convenient, to go to them for a little while, as my
name was constantly on the lips of the dear invalid.
I had begun to wonder at the breach in the correspondence between
Hortense and myself, but it had not then been so protracted as to have
excited my fears. I attributed her delay to a thousand and one
possible impediments, and went on, hoping each day would put an end to
my vague conjectures. That day was come at length but the tidings were
not what I had prepared myself to hear. I persuaded myself that her
mother's excessive love had exaggerated the unfortunate condition of
my little friend's health, but, nevertheless determined to go to her
as soon as possible. I showed the letter to my father, who had long
ago become familiar with the name and attributes of this loved
companion, and having obtained his sanction to my eager proposals, I
set about making immediate preparations for my journey.
Before ten days had elapsed I was nearing my destination and Hortense
de Beaumont's home. My father had entrusted me to the wife of a
professional friend of his who was travelling with her son, and whose
route opportunely corresponded with mine at this particular time. But
I may say with truth that I travelled alone, for with the exception of
a few crude observations now and then, the silence of discretion was
unbroken between us. The lady was old, bulky, and the victim of a
prolonged bilious attack all the way. The son was a red-haired
gentleman with very new gold-rimmed spectacles and a scented silk
handkerchief. We travelled by rail to Prescott, keeping our peace in
contemplative sullenness all the while. The day was hot and dusty, and
the car as uncomfortable as it could possibly be.
I sheltered my tell-tale face behind a friendly paper, and distracted
myself with an impartial view of the surrounding country. It was early
in the afternoon, and the full sunshine lay hot and strong upon the
tilled and furrowed fields that stretched away as far as the eye could
see on either side. Picturesque little farm houses skirted the road
here and there, and stalwart men with their bronzed arms bared to the
elbows rested pleasantly on their instruments of toil as the train
rushed past them, shouting and waving their broad-rimmed hats until we
had left them far behind. Immediately in front of me propped up by
innumerable coats and bundles, my lady patron dozed heavily. The thick
green veil that screened her bilious expression from the general view
quivered and heaved as each deep-drawn breath escaped her powerful
nostrils. In her fat lap lay her folded hands with their half-gloves
of thick black lace, the pitiful victims of countless flies. The
exertion of eating a sandwich had sent her to sleep. The remnants of
this popular refreshment were now being actively appreciated by a
hungry, buzzing multitude that made their very best of their golden
opportunity. Her hopeful heir sat at a little distance on the same
seat twirling his thumbs with an apparently decided purpose. Once or
twice he drew his scented handkerchief from his side pocket with an
artful flourish and frightened the troublesome swarm away from his
parent's sleeping form, but seeing their undaunted determination to
restore themselves almost immediately, he respectfully stowed the
scented article away with a final flourish and re-applied himself to
the interrupted pleasure or task of twirling his thumbs with an
apparent purpose.
Busied with my own intimate thoughts I escaped an _ennui_ that would
otherwise have proved almost unbearable, and was pleasantly enough
distracted until the first monotony of fields and farm houses was
broken by the outskirts of the romantic town of Prescott--romantic,
because to the traveler who steps from the dusty afternoon train and
alights amid its unpropitious surroundings, it suggests itself
strongly as a living illustration of a "deserted village," as
melancholy to look upon as ever sweet Auburn could have been. My
drowsy chaperone was awakened too suddenly, and was therefore very
cross and ill-humored for some time after. It was with difficulty we
persuaded her to follow us along the track, at the end of which loomed
up a dismal wooden building whither we directed our vagrant steps, not
knowing what better to do. Here we deposited our sundry parcels and
awaited some crisis, we hardly knew what. We were informed that our
boat would not reach there before evening, and to escape the monotony
of our new surroundings we decided to board the ferry which was now
nearing shore, and spend the intervening hours with our neighbors
across the line. The comfort and compensation which my drowsy
chaperone found in a capacious rocking-chair on the upper deck of the
ferry restored her ruffled temperament to its original neutrality,
much to her hopeful heir's gratification, and sinking into its
sympathetic depths, she made a worthy effort to repair her recent
rudely broken slumbers.
Her son, with alarming gallantry, placed an easy-chair near the
railing of the deck for me, paid the triple fare and discreetly kept
at a distance. His bashfulness and timid reserve recommended him to my
genuine admiration as much as if it had been pure amiability, or a
desire to do me a good turn that had prompted him to leave me to
myself.
I was gathering experience on new grounds and I feared interruption
from any one. The briny odor of the St. Lawrence carried on the soft
summer breeze was grateful and refreshing to me. The brightest
sunlight I ever saw was dancing and riding on the green sparkling
ripples that wrinkled the broad surging surface before me. Beside me
on a bench under the awning sat a party of American ladies from the
other side--at least so I conjectured, and with reason. A look decided
it. They were clad in pronouncedly cool costumes, dresses that would
make a full ball toilet in Canada, but which exposed much prettiness
to the ruthless action of the sun and wind on this hot midsummer
afternoon. They were using their lips and tongues in a violent manner,
accompanying commonplace remarks with the most exaggerated varieties
of facial expressions I ever saw. But they were only harbingers of
what one meets on landing. These strangely attired damsels in
elaborate head-gear and high-heeled shoes strutted about the streets
of Ogdensburg in any number. They give life to the pretty town I must
admit, and excite the interest of the uninitiated tourist who is
accustomed to judge women, especially, according to the standard
peculiar to Canada. It is a wonder to me that the drowsy and vapid
condition of Ogdensburg's _vis-a-vis_ does not check, in some measure,
the animation and spirit of that busy town. There was more life there
on that sleepy summer afternoon than I have seen in a month in some of
our cities, with all their pretensions. It is only fair to the United
States to admit that the spirit of progress and enterprise underlies
every square inch of its soil and animates every fibre of its
constitution.
In the evening we boarded our boat for the West, and began our journey
in earnest. I shall never forget this trip, and I cannot but wonder
why. I was alone, for the most part, with my thoughts, which were far
from being cheerful companions; still, whenever I steal into the
adytum of my memory I find it there to greet me with its peculiar
associations.
The evening being warm and sultry we remained on deck for many hours
after supper. There was no moon, but heaven's vault was alive with
twinkling stars. I sat a little apart from my friends, leaning over
the railing, looking abstractedly into the dark restless water. I was
disturbed once by my considerate cavalier, who brought me a shawl,
saying the night air was likely to provoke rheumatism or neuralgia, or
such other inconveniences to which our flesh is heir.
I took it with a grateful smile, made a limited remark upon the beauty
of the panorama before us, enquired solicitously about the old lady's
comfort and spirits, and then considering my duty accomplished, I
wrapped myself warmly in the folds of my shawl and settled myself
cosily for another reverie.
With a wonderful acumen, the gaunt gentleman seized the insinuating
situation, and considering himself summarily dismissed, he edged away
by stealthy strides and left me to my cogitations once again.
Strangely enough, I began to think of Mr. Dalton, and my several
interviews with him. He had puzzled me, that was all, there was no
harm in wondering about him, surely, if I did not give too much time
and attention to the possibly dangerous subject. After all, there was
something in him so different from other men, even from Arthur
Campbell. There was always some deep, happy meaning to his simplest
words, and his most commonplace conceptions of things were flavored
with this mystifying attraction whatever it was.
That he had had some peculiar experience was evident in his every
look, and tone, and word. His very reserve betrayed him and excited
people's curiosity about his past career. I had known him all my life,
and he had always been the same. I had sat upon his knee with my tiny
arms twined about his neck, he had told me thrilling tales, had played
with me, and had kissed me--not often--but on two or three occasions
the last time was just before I went to school. Then, when I came
back--how strange it was--he seemed surprised to see me grown and
matured, while he apparently had remained the same.
I suppose he saw that I was no longer the dependent child who confided
to him her petty joys and sorrows, but a young lady, self-conscious
and reserved to a certain extent; a young lady with her own pronounced
tastes and settled opinions, whose life had drilled out into an
independent channel away from the early source which he had been
pleased to control and guide.
Perhaps he was taking the right course, and that I had no need to feel
disappointed over his attitude towards me, but I was disappointed all
the same. I thought he would always be a dear friend, on whom I could
lean and rely, but here my thought was checked. Would I have been
satisfied with his _friendship_? Could I have kept within its narrow
limits and been content to see him lavish something still more
precious upon another?
We are frank at the tribunal of our own most intimate thought, and I
know what answer came whispering itself into my heart at this crisis.
I roused myself from my reverie and looked out at the changing scenery
before us. We were among the Thousand Islands.
Dark broken outlines of trees and rock, with here and there the
glimmer and twinkle of a light, the murmur of broken wavelets touching
the shore on every side, and the faint sound of happy human voices
somewhere in the misty distance, were what greeted my eyes and ears. I
could see nothing defined in the wild panorama about me, only that the
darkness was broken here and there, by a darker something, from which
tall pine-tops reared themselves majestically, less shrouded than the
rest. It was a soul-stirring sight, so gloomy, so misty, so silent. I
was almost sorry later to have looked upon the same scene by daylight,
although the hand of man has put an artificial touch here and there,
which, by the light of day, improves the general view.
After all, what are nature's grandest phases to us unless they suggest
something of our own selves? I have never been able to look upon
mountain or valley with other than my corporal eyes, and I have always
admired those places in a half-regretful way, where the print of human
footsteps is unknown. There is no perfect beauty in the external world
without the presence of man, and all that silent waste of prairie land
and towering mountain, which stretches away in an unbroken monotony
towards our northern limits, is to me a lifeless, useless mass, and
will be so until it has submitted every inch of its wild, untrodden
surface to the honest industry of toiling humanity. When these giant
mountain-tops look down in friendly patronage upon the gables and
towers, and curling smoke-wreaths of some struggling hamlets lying at
their feet, I shall see their grandeur and admire it, but where dumb
nature sits in lone and pensive solitude away from the hum of golden
industry, beyond the reach and influence of civilization, it has for
me only a cold surface of beauty like the sleep of death.
This thought came back to me on the following day, when we were riding
the restless waters of Lake Ontario. As far as the eye could see in
any direction nothing was visible but waves and sky. I tried to
imagine myself doomed to live alone with nature's reckless beauty,
such as I saw it then above and around me, and my heart shivered at
the mere thought of such a terrible destiny. I know "there is society
where none intrude," but I prefer to believe "it is not good for man
to be alone." All the richest and rarest charms of Nature or of Art
have never had more than a relative value for me, but give me one
short moment of sympathetic human companionship, and with its borrowed
light I see beauty above and around me everywhere. Yet how hard it is
for us to find this influence that gifts the hours of time with golden
opinions, and bears them away as if to the measure of some hallowed
strains. There were human souls of every nature beside me, while I
leaned over that sunny deck, looking vacantly out upon miles and miles
of heaving water, and yet it was to me as if I stood alone calling
after friends that could not hear my far-off voice, no bond of mutual
interest, care or devotion united me to any one among that motley
crowd. To them perhaps, I was not even a definite individual, but only
a fraction of the bulk that moved about the boat in moody silence.
If circumstances such as these did not cross our daily lives at
certain intervals, I wonder what would become of all the wholesale
moralising and reflections which they engender for most of us. We, who
are the playthings of the moods of fate, what would we do with
ourselves if these moments of quiet reverie and placid realizations
were taken away from us altogether? One thing is certain. Many a noble
generous deed, the outgrowth of one pensive hour, would never have
been performed; many lives now re-united and happy on account of some
calm impartial meditation, would be drifting in lonely wretchedness
asunder, the victims of some hasty, ill-explained impediment, that a
little reason could easily have removed.
Thus busily entertained by my own peculiar cogitations, time sped
without bringing me as much _ennui_ as I had feared. When night fell
again we were in view of Toronto City and looked upon our journey as
well nigh accomplished. So much is suggested by the distant prospect
of giant towers and steeples, the glimmer of countless lights and the
muffled buzz of active reality, as one sees and hears them from the
deck of a steamer nearing the shore. There were the lusty shouts of
boatmen on the wharf, rising above the ringing of discordant bells,
and the rumble of railway trains. There was clanging and clashing of
metal on every side, hauling of ropes, pitching and heaving of
merchandise, with now a shrill scream from the throat of some dainty
craft hard by, and again a hoarse sepulchral response from a larger
vessel as it came or went. There was a buzz of human voices expressive
of every sort of agitation and confusion, and quietly through it all,
the great waves slapped against the shore with a heavy monotonous
splashing, and bounded back in sullen fury into the depths beyond.
The half-hour after ten rang clearly out from an illuminated clock in
a distant tower, as we picked our steps along the narrow gangway, and
deposited ourselves with a sense of infinite relief on _terra firma_
once more.