RENUNCIATION
When Emily returned from the wastes of ravaged mind, and while yet the
images of memory were hardly distinguished from the ghosts of delirious
dream, the picture that haunted her with most persistency, with an
objective reality the more impressive the clearer her thought became,
was one which she could least comprehend or account for. She saw lying
before her a closely muffled form, the outline seeming to declare it
that of a man. The struggle of new-born consciousness was to associate
such a vision with the events which had preceded her illness. Perchance
for a day, perchance only for an hour, however long the unmeasured
transition from darkness to the dawn of self-knowledge, she suffered the
oppression of this mechanical questioning. At length the presence of her
mother by the bedside became a fact, and it led on to the thought of her
father. Her eyes moved in search for him.
The act of speech, in health a mere emphasis of thought, was only to be
attained by repetition of efforts; several times she believed herself to
have spoken whilst silence still pressed her lips. Only when the
recollection of her last waking day was complete, and when the absence
of her father from the room linked itself to memory of her anguished
waiting for him, did she succeed in uttering the words which represented
her fear. Her mother was bending over her, aware of the new light in her
questioning eyes.
'Where's father?' Emily asked.
'You shall see him, dear,' was the reply. 'Don't speak.'
'He came home?'
'Yes, he came home.'
Emily fell back into thought; this great fear allayed, the only now,
like an angel coming from afar over dark waters, past continued to
rebuild itself within her mind. And now, there gleamed the image of her
love. It had been expelled from memory by the all-possessing woe of
those last hours; it returned like a soothing warmth, an assuagement of
pain. As though soul-easing music sounded about her, she again lost her
hold on outward things and sank into a natural sleep.
Mrs. Hood feared the next waking. The question about her father, she
attributed to Emily's incomplete command of her faculties, for she had
not doubted that the muffled figure on the couch had been consciously
seen by the girl and understood. Yet with waking the error prolonged
itself; it became evident at length that Emily knew nothing of her
coming down to the sitting-room, and still had to learn that her father
no longer lived. It was a new suffering under which the poor woman gave
way. Already her natural affliction was complicated with a sense of
painful mysteries; in her delirium, Emily had uttered words which there
was no explaining, but which proved that there had been some hidden
connection between her mental trouble and her father's failure to return
at the usual hour. Dagworthy's name she had spoken frequently, and with
words which called to mind the sum of money her father had somehow
procured. Mrs. Hood had no strength to face trials such as these. As
long as her child's life seemed in danger, she strove with a mother's
predominant instinct to defend it; but her powers failed as Emily passed
out of peril. Her outlook became blank; physical exhaustion joined with
mental suffering began to render her incapable of further efforts.
Fortunately, Mrs. Baxendale perceived this in time. A nurse was
provided, in addition to the one who had assisted Mrs. Hood, and the
mother became herself the object of care.
Emily had been told that her father was ill, but this fiction it was
soon impossible to maintain. Three days after the last reported
conversation between Wilfrid and Mrs. Baxendale, it was determined that
the latter must take upon herself the office of telling Emily the truth.
Mrs. Hood implored her to do so; the poor mother was sinking into a
state which scarcely left her the command of her mind, and, though she
could not sustain the duty herself, it was her harassing desire that it
might quickly be performed. So at length the revelation was made, made
with all the forbearance and strengthening tenderness of which a
strong-souled woman is capable. But the first syllables prepared Emily
for the whole truth. A secret dread, which she had not dared to confess
to herself on that last evening, though probably it brought about the
crisis in her suffering, and which the false assurances recently given
her had perhaps not wholly overcome, rushed forth as soon as evil was
hinted at. The softened statement that her father had been stricken down
by a natural malady did not for a moment deceive her. She closed her
eyes; the pillows which supported her were scarcely whiter than her
face. But she was soon able to speak with perfect self-control.
'Was he brought home wrapped in something?' she asked. 'With his face
covered?'
'He was, Emily.'
'How and where did I see him? For I know I did see him.'
'Your mother has told me that you rose from your bed, and went to the
room below. She did not realise that you were unconscious; she believed
that you knew of this.'
This was her dread vision. As if to protect herself from it, she raised
her hand and laid it across her eyes. Then it fell again to the
coverlet--thin, flower-like hand, which in its translucency of flesh
seemed to have been created by spirit for its chosen abode.
When silence had lasted some moments--
'Now that I know he is dead,' Emily resumed--oh, the sad music of the
last word!--'I can bear to hear the manner of it without disguise. Will
you tell me the whole truth, Mrs. Baxendale?'
It was spoken like herself. Ever clinging to sincerity, ever ready to
face the truth of things, in how many a matter of less moment had the
girl spoken with just this directness, inspiring respect in all who
heard her clear, candid voice.
Mrs. Baxendale sank her eyes, and hesitated.
'He died by his own hand,' Emily said, below her breath.
The lady kept silence. Emily again closed her eyes, and, as she so lay,
felt warm lips touch her forehead.
Mrs. Baxendale believed for a moment that the sufferer had lost
consciousness, but the utterance of her name caused Emily to raise her
lids.
'Why did he do this?' she asked, regarding her friend fixedly.
'No one can say, dear.'
Emily drew a deep sigh; a gleam passed over her face.
'There was an inquest?' she asked.
'Yes.'
'Is it possible for me to see a newspaper in which it was reported?'
'If you really desire it,' said Mrs. Baxendale, with hesitation.
'I do; I wish to read it. Will you do me that great kindness?'
'I will bring it you in a day or two. But would it not be better to
delay--'
'Is there anything,' Emily asked quickly, 'that you have kept from me?'
'Nothing; nothing.'
'Then I need not put off reading it. I have borne the worst.'
As Mrs. Baxendale left the house, she was passed at a short distance
along the road by a man on horseback. This rider gave a sign to the
coachman to stop, and a moment after presented himself at the window of
the brougham. It was Dagworthy; he wished to have news of Mrs. and Miss
Hood. The lady gave him full information.
'I fear I could not see Mrs. Hood?' Dagworthy said.
'Oh, she is far too ill!' was the reply.
Having assured himself on this point, Dagworthy took his leave, and,
when the carriage was remote, rode to the house. He made fast the reins
to the gate, entered, and knocked at the door. A girl who did
subordinate work for the nurses opened.
'I want you,' Dagworthy said, 'to give this note at once to Miss Hood.
You understand?--to Miss Hood. Will you do so?'
'I will, sir.'
He went away, and, immediately after, Emily was reading these lines:
'I wish to tell you that no one has heard, and no one ever will, of the
circumstances you would desire to have unknown. I send this as soon as
you are able to receive it. You will know from whom it comes.'
She knew, and the message aided her. The shook of what she had just
heard was not, in its immediate effect, as severe as others had feared
it would be. Perhaps Emily's own sojourn at the gates of death lessened
the distance between her and him who had passed them; perhaps the vast
misery which lay behind her, the darkness threatening in the future,
brought first to her mind death's attribute of deliverance. This, in the
hours that followed, she strove to dwell upon nothing could touch her
father now, he was safe from trouble. But, as the current in her veins
grew warmer, as life held her with a stronger hand and made her once
more participant in his fears and desires, that apparition of the
motionless veiled form haunted her with access of horror. If she slept
it came into her dreams, and her waking thoughts strove with hideous
wilfulness to unmuffle that dead face. When horror failed, its place was
taken by a grief so intense that it shook the fabric of her being. She
had no relapse in health, but convalescence was severed from all its
natural joys; she grew stronger only to mourn more passionately. In
imagination she followed her father through the hours of despair which
must have ensued on his interview with Dagworthy. She pictured his
struggle between desire to return home, to find comfort among those he
loved, and the bitter shame which forbade it. How had he spent the time?
Did he wander out of the town to lonely places, until daylight failed?
Did he then come back under the shadow of the night, come back all but
to the very door of his dwelling, make one last effort to face those
within, pass on in blind agony? Was he on the heath at the very hour
when she crossed it to go to Dagworthy's house? Oh, had that been his
figure which, as she hurried past, she had seen moving in the darkness
of the quarry?
A pity which at times grew too vast for the soul to contain absorbed her
life, the pity which overwhelms and crushes, which threatens reason.
That he should have lived through long years of the most patient
endurance, keeping ever a hope, a faith, so simple-hearted, so void of
bitter feeling, so kindly disposed to all men--only to be vanquished at
length by a moment of inexplicable weakness, only to creep aside, and
hide his shame, and die. Her father, whom it was her heart's longing to
tend and cherish through the brighter days of his age--lying there in
his grave, where no voice could reach him, remote for ever from the
solace of loving kindness, his death a perpetuation of woe. The cruelty
of fate had exhausted itself; what had the world to show more pitiful
than this?
No light ever came to her countenance; no faintest smile ever touched
her lips. Through the hours, through the days, she lay heedless of
things around her, solely occupied with the past, with affliction, with
remorse. Had it not been in her power to save him? A word from her, and
at this moment he would have been living in cheerfulness such as he had
never known. She would have had but to turn her head, and his smile
would have met her; the rare laugh, so touching to her always, would
have become less rare; his struggles would have been over. She had
willed that he should die, had sent him forth relentlessly to his last
trial, to his forsaken end. Without a leave-taking he had gone forth;
his last look had been at her blank windows. That hour was passed into
eternity, and with it the better part of her life.
On the first day that she rose from her bed, she went, with the nurse's
aid, to her mother's room. What she saw there was a new shock; her
mother's face had aged incredibly, and wore a look of such feeble
intelligence that to meet her eyes was more than painful. Upon the
artificial maintenance of her strength throughout Emily's illness had
followed a collapse of the vital powers; it seemed doubtful whether she
would ever regain her normal state of mind and body. She knew her
daughter, and, when Emily kissed her, the muscles of her haggard face
contracted in what was meant for a smile; but she could not use her
voice above a whisper, and her words were seldom consequent.
Two days later Mrs. Baxendale again paid a visit. Emily was sitting in
her bed-room, unoccupied, on her countenance the sorrow-stricken gravity
which never quitted it. The visitor, when she had made her inquiries,
seemed to prepare herself to speak of some subject at once important and
cheerful.
'For a fortnight,' she said, 'I have had staying with me someone whom
you will be glad to hear of--your nearest friend.'
Emily raised her eyes slowly to the speaker's face; clearly she
understood, but was accustoming herself to this unexpected relation
between Mrs. Baxendale and Wilfrid.
'Mr. Athel came from Switzerland as soon as he heard of your illness.'
'How did he hear?' Emily inquired, gravely.
'My niece, Miss Redwing, whom you knew, happened to be visiting me. She
wrote to Mrs. Rossall.'
Emily was silent. The lines of her mouth showed a slight tremor, but no
colour sought her cheeks. The news was affecting her strongly, but only
in the way in which she now received every impression; physical weakness
had the effect of reducing outward demonstration of feeling, and her
spiritual condition favoured passiveness.
'He has asked me to give you a letter, Emily,' pursued Mrs. Baxendale,
saddened by the sight of such intense sadness.
Emily took the letter, and laid it on a table near her, murmuring her
thanks.
'He is well?' she asked, as the other did not speak.
'Quite; his holiday has completely restored him. You can't think how
glad I am to have come to know him, and to have him near me. Such
excellent friends we are! You can think how anxious he has been; and his
father scarcely less so. The inquiries have been constant. The others
have just got home; Mr. Athel had a letter from London this morning. The
little girls send you a message; I believe you will find the letter
enclosed.'
At the mention of the twins, the slightest smile came upon Emily's lips.
'You are fond of them, I see,' said the lady. 'That they ire fond of
you, needs no telling. Oh, and Clara writes from Germany to ask if she
may write to you yet. Shall I let her?'
A few more words, and Mrs. Baxendale rose. Emily retained her hand.
'You have not yet had from me one word of gratitude, Mrs. Baxendale,'
she said. 'Indeed, I have no words in which to thank you.'
The lady kissed her forehead, pressed the thin hand again, and went for
a few moments to Mrs. Hood's room before departing.
It was nearly an hour before Emily took up the letter to open it. When
at length she did so, she found that it covered only a small sheet of
notepaper. Enclosed was a letter from Mr. Athel, announcing the family's
arrival in London, asking in a kind tone for the latest news, and
repeating the message from the twins of which Mrs. Baxendale had spoken.
Wilfrid wrote with admirable delicacy and feeling; he forgot himself
wholly in her affliction, and only in those simplest words which can
still be made the most powerful uttered the tenderness which he hoped
might speak some comfort to her heart. He did not ask to see her; would
she not bid him come to her in her own good time? And only if her
strength rendered it quite easy, he begged for one word of reply. Mrs.
Baxendale would visit her again very shortly, and to her the answer
could be given.
Emily returned the writings to their envelope, and sat through the day
as she had sat since morning, scarcely ever moving, without heed of
things that were said or done in the room. Before quitting the chair for
her bed, she went to spend a quarter of an hour by her mother, whose
hand she held throughout the time. Mrs. Hood lay in the same state of
semi-consciousness alternating with sleep. In the night she generally
wandered a little. But she did not seem to suffer pain.
To-night Emily could not sleep; hitherto her rest had been profound
between sunset and early morning. As she had sat through the day, so she
lay now, her eyes fixed in the same intent gaze, as on something
unfolding itself before her. When the nurses had ceased to move about,
the house was wrapped in a stillness more complete than of old, for the
clock had not been touched since the night when the weight fell. In the
room you might have heard now and then a deep sigh, such sigh as comes
from a soul overcharged.
Mrs. Baxendale allowed one day to intervene, then came again. She did
not directly speak of Wilfrid, and only when she sat in significant
silence, Emily said:
'To-morrow I shall go downstairs. Will you ask Mr. Athel to come and see
me?'
'Gladly I will. At what hour shall he come?'
'I shall be down by eleven.'
Later in the day, Mrs. Cartwright and Jessie called. Hitherto Emily had
begged that no one might be admitted save Mrs. Baxendale; she felt it
would be unkindness to refuse her friends any longer, and the visitors
came up and sat for a while with her. Both were awed by the face which
met them; they talked scarcely above a whisper, and were sadly troubled
by the necessity of keeping a watch upon their tongues.
Emily was now able to descend the stairs without difficulty. The first
sight of the little parlour cost her a renewal of her keenest suffering.
There was the couch on which his dead body had been placed; that the
chair in which he always rested after tea before going up to the
laboratory; in a little frame on the mantelpiece was his likeness, an
old one and much faded. She moved about, laying her hand on this object
and that; she took the seat by the window where she had waited each
evening, till she saw him at the gate, to rise at once and open to him.
She had not shed tears since that last day of his life, and now it was
only a passing mist that dimmed her eyes. Her sorrow was not of the kind
which so relieves itself.
She had come down early, in order to spend some time in the room before
Wilfrid's arrival. She sat in her father's chair, once more in the
attitude of motionless brooding. But her countenance was not as
self-controlled as during the past days; emotions, struggles, at work
within her found their outward expression. At times she breathed
quickly, as if in pain; often her eyes closed. In her worn face, the
features marked themselves with strong significance; it was beauty of a
kind only to be felt by a soul in sympathy with her own. To others she
would have appeared the image of stern woe. The gentleness which had
been so readily observable beneath her habitual gravity was absorbed in
the severity of her suffering and spiritual conflicts; only a touching
suggestion of endurance, of weakness bearing up against terrible
fatality, made its plea to tenderness. Withal, she looked no older than
in the days of her happiness; a young life, a young heart, smitten with
unutterable woe.
When the sound of the opening gate made itself heard, she lay back for a
moment in the very sickness of pain it recalled the past so vividly, and
chilled her heart with the fear of what she had now before her. She
stood, as soon as the knock came at the front door, and kept the same
position as Wilfrid entered.
He was startled at the sight of her, but in an instant was holding both
her hands, gazing deep into her eyes with an ecstasy of tenderness. He
kissed her lips, and, as he did so, felt a shudder in the hands he
pressed. A few whispered words were all that he could speak; Emily kept
silence. Then he sat near to her; her hand was still in his, but gave no
sign of responsive affection, and was very cold.
'It was kind to let me see you so soon,' he said. Her fixed look of hard
suffering began to impress him painfully, even with a kind of fear.
Emily's face at this moment was that of one who is only half sensible to
words spoken. Now she herself spoke for the first time.
'You will forgive me that I did not write. It would have been better,
perhaps; it would have been easier to me. Yet why should I fear to say
to you, face to face, what I have to say?'
The last sentence was like self-questioning uttered aloud; her eyes were
fixed on him, and with appeal which searched his heart.
'Fear to say to me?' Wilfrid repeated, gravely, though without
apprehension. 'Has your suffering made strangers of us?'
'Not in the way you mean, but it has so changed my life that I cannot
meet you as I should have done.' Her utterance quickened; her voice lost
its steadiness. 'Will you be very generous to me--as good and noble as
it is in your heart to be? I ask you to give me back my promise--to
release me.
'Emily!'
He gazed at her in bewilderment. His thought was that she was not
herself; her manner since his entrance seemed to confirm it; the
tortured lines of her face seemed to express illusory fears.
'Emily! Do you know what you say, dearest?'
'Yes; I know what I say, and I know how hard you find it to believe me.
If I could explain to you what it is that makes this change, you would
not wonder at it, you would understand, you would see that I am doing
the only thing I can do. But I cannot give you my reasons; that must be
my sad secret to the end of my life. You feel you have a claim to hear
the truth; indeed, indeed, you have; but you will be forbearing and
generous. Release me, Wilfrid; I ask it as the last and greatest proof
of the love you gave me.'
He rose with a gesture of desperation.
'Emily, I cannot bear this! You are ill, my own darling; I should have
waited till you were stronger. I should have left you more time to turn
your thoughts to me from these terrible things you have passed through.'
He flung himself by her side, grasping her hands passionately. 'Dear
one, how you have suffered! It kills me to look into your face. I won't
speak; let me only stay by you, like this, for a few minutes. Will not
my love calm you--love the purest and tenderest that man ever felt? I
would die to heal your heart of its grief!'
With a great sob of uttermost anguish, she put back his hands, rose from
the chair, and stood apart. Wilfrid rose and gazed at her in dread. Had
the last calamity of human nature fallen upon her? He looked about, as
if for aid. Emily read his thoughts perfectly; they helped her to a
desperate composure.
'Wilfrid,' she said, 'do I speak like one not in her perfect mind?'
'I cannot say. Your words are meaningless to me. You are not the Emily I
knew.'
'I am not,' was her sad answer. 'If you can bring yourself to believe
that truth, you will spare yourself and me.'
'What do you mean when you say that?' he asked, his voice intensified in
suppression. 'If you are in full command of yourself, if your memory
holds all the past, what can have made of you another being? We dare not
play with words at a time such as this. Tell me at least one thing. Do I
know what it was that caused your illness?'
'I don't understand you.'
Her eyes examined him with fear.
'I mean, Emily--was it solely due to that shock you received? Or was
there any previous distress?'
'Has anything led you to think there was?' she asked, urgently.
'Mrs. Baxendale tells me you--Emily, why have I to pain you in this
way?'
'But tell me--tell me What did she say?'
'That on coming to yourself you did not know of your father's death.'
'It is true; I did not. My illness began before.'
Wilfrid stood with his eyes on the ground.
'Tell me, again,' she said. 'What else did Mrs. Baxendale say?'
'Nothing. Her surprise when she heard this from your mother was as great
as mine when it was repeated to me.'
'It is true,' Emily repeated, more calmly, as if relieved. 'I don't try
to conceal that there is a reason I may not speak of. Will you not
believe that it is strong enough to change my life? If I did not tell
you this, you might indeed refuse to listen to me, thinking I was not
myself. I cannot tell you more--I cannot, I cannot!'
She pressed her palms upon her forehead; it throbbed with pain scarcely
to be borne. Wilfrid, after a moment of wretched hesitation, said
gravely:
'What _you_ forbid me to ask, I may not even wish to know. I have come
to regard your will as the seal upon everything that is true and right.
Knowing this, seeing me here before you with my best hopes at stake, do
you tell me that something has happened which makes the bond between us
of no effect, which lays upon you a duty superior to that of the pledge
you gave me?'
She met his gaze, and answered firmly, 'I do.'
'Some duty,' he continued, with quivering voice, 'compared with which
the sacredness of our love is nothing?'
She trembled from head to foot; then, as if clutching at a last help,
said:
'I do not love you.'
And she waited with her head bowed. Wilfrid, taking up his hat, went to
her and offered his hand. When hers was given:
'Raise your eyes and look at me, Emily.'
She did so.
'You are still in the shadow of a great grief, and it may well be that
all other things seem trivial. I wish to respect you to the uttermost,
and I will try to conceive that there is a motive high enough to justify
you. But those last words must be repeated--when time has come to your
aid--before I can regard them as final.'
He released her hand, and left her....
What was her first sensation, when the door had closed, then the gate
without, and Wilfrid in very deed was gone? Was it hopeless misery,
failure, dread foresight of the life which she still must live? Rather
her mood was that of the martyr who has held firm to the last wrench of
torture, who feels that agony is overcome and fear of self surpassed.
This possibility had there ever been in Emily, though associating with
such variant instincts. Circumstances had brought the occasion which
weighed one part of her nature against the other, and with this result.
You may not judge her coldly; yet it is possible to indicate those
points which connect her enthusiasm of sacrifice with the reasonings and
emotions of the impartial mind. In the moment that she heard of her
father's self-destruction, she knew that her own destiny was cast; the
struggle with desire, with arguments of her self-love, with claims of
others, this also she foresaw and measured. Her resolve came of the
interaction of intense feeling, feeling which only process of time could
reduce from its morbid predominance, and that idealism which was the
keynote of her personality. It was not that she condemned herself for
having refused to pay the price which would have saved her father; she
may have done so in her wildest paroxysms of grief, but in the silences
which ensued she knew that there is an arbiter above natural affection,
and that not with impunity could a life be purchased by the death of a
soul. She had refused; it might be she would still have refused had she
foreseen the worst; but could she move on over her father's body to a
life of joy? Not only did piety forbid it; the compassionate voice of
her heart cried against what she deemed such cruelty. Her father was
dead; nothing that she did henceforth would concern him for good or ill;
none the less in her eyes was his claim upon her, the claim of one she
had tenderly loved calling to her for pity from that desolate grave.
Which of us entirely out-reasons that surviving claim of the beloved
dead? Which of us would, in his purest hour, desire to do so? She could
not save him, but, as she valued her most precious human privileges, she
dared not taste the fruits of life of which he was for ever robbed.
Between her and happiness loomed that agonising face, She might
disregard it, might close her eyes and press on, might live down the old
sacred pity and give herself to absorbing bliss what would be the true
value of that she gained? Nay, it was idle to affect that she had the
choice. She felt that the first memory of that face in the midst of
enjoyment would break her heart. Those last dark hours of his she must
live and relive in her own mind. Dead? He was dead? Oh, did not the
very tones of his voice linger in the rooms where she sat? Could she not
see him enter, hold to her his hand, bend and kiss her? Did she not
fancy constantly that his foot sounded on the floor above her, up in the
bare little room, where she had parted from him unkindly? Why, death
meant but little, for at any moment he was in truth standing by her.
Years of unhappiness, and then to be put aside and forgotten as soon as
the heavy clods of earth had fallen upon him? To think of that was to be
driven almost to madness by the impotence of grief. Rather than allow a
joy to tempt her thought, she would cast life from her and be his
companion in that narrow home.
And her character brought it about that the very strength of her love
for Wilfrid acted as another impulse to renunciation. Which had been the
stronger motive in her refusal to sacrifice herself--the preservation of
her chaste womanhood, or the inability to give up him she loved? Could
she, at the tribunal of her conscience, affirm that her decision had
held no mixture of the less pure? Nay, had she not known that revolt of
self in which she had maintained that the individual love was supreme,
that no title of inferiority became it? She saw now more clearly than
then the impossibility of distinguishing those two motives, or of
weighing the higher and the lower elements of her love. One way there
was, and one way only, of proving to herself that she had not fallen
below the worthiness which purest love demanded, that she had indeed
offered to Wilfrid a soul whose life was chastity--and that must be
utterly to renounce love's earthly reward, and in spirit to be faithful
to him while her life lasted. The pain of such renunciation was twofold,
for did she not visit him with equal affliction? Had she the right to do
that? The question was importunate, and she held it a temptation of her
weaker self. Wilfrid would bear with her. He was of noble nature, and
her mere assurance of a supreme duty would outweigh his personal
suffering. On him lay no obligation of faithfulness to his first love; a
man, with the world before him, he would, as was right, find another to
share his life. To think that was no light test of steadfastness in
Emily the image of Wilfrid loving and loved by another woman wrung the
sinews of her heart. That she must keep from her mind; that was more
than her strength could face and conquer. It should be enough to love
him for ever, without hope, without desire. Faithfulness would cost her
no effort to purify herself in ideal devotion would be her sustenance,
her solace.
What of her religion of beauty, the faith which had seen its end in the
nourishment of every instinct demanding loveliness within and without?
What of the ideal which saw the crown of life in passion triumphant,
which dreaded imperfectness, which allowed the claims of sense equally
with those of spirit, both having their indispensable part in the
complete existence? Had it not conspicuously failed where religion
should be most efficient? She understood now the timidity which had ever
lurked behind her acceptance of that view of life. She had never been
able entirely to divest herself of the feeling that her exaltation in
beauty-worship was a mood born of sunny days, that it would fail amid
shocks of misfortune and prove a mockery in the hour of the soul's dire
need. It shared in the unreality of her life in wealthy houses, amid the
luxury which appertained only to fortune's favourites, which surrounded
her only by chance. She had presumptuously taken to herself the religion
of her superiors, of those to whom fate allowed the assurance of peace,
of guarded leisure wherein to cultivate the richer and sweeter flowers
of their nature. How artificial had been the delights with which she
soothed herself! Here, all the time, was the reality; here in this poor
home, brooded over by the curse of poverty, whence should come shame and
woe and death. What to her now were the elegance of art, the loveliness
of nature? Beauty had been touched by mortality, and its hues were of
the corpse, of the grave. Would the music of a verse ever again fill her
with rapture? How meaningless were all such toys of thought to one whose
path lay through the valley of desolation!
Thus did Emily think and feel in this sombre season, the passionate
force of her imagination making itself the law of life and the arbiter
of her destiny. She could not take counsel with time; her temperament
knew nothing of that compromise with ardours and impulses which is the
wisdom of disillusion. Circumstances willed that she should suffer by
the nobleness of her instincts those endowments which might in a happier
lot have exalted her to such perfection of calm joy as humanity may
attain, were fated to be the source of misery inconceivable by natures
less finely cast.