Ah, would my friendship with thee
Might drown the memory of all patterns past!--_Suckling_.
Some few days after, riding, as usual, in the afternoon, Morton saw on
the road before him a lady on horseback, riding in the same direction.
At a glance, he recognized the air and figure of Fanny Euston. This
remnant, at least, of her former spirit remained to her,--she did not
hesitate to ride unattended. Morton checked his horse, reflected for a
little, then touched him with the spur, and in a moment was at her
side. After they had conversed for a while, she said,--
"I have heard a great deal of your imprisonment from others, but
nothing from yourself. Will you not let me hear your story from your
own lips?"
"It was a long and dull history to live through, and will be a short
and dull one to tell."
"I have never been able to hear clearly why you were arrested at all."
"It was a simple matter. The Austrian government is like a tyrant and
a coward, frightened at shadows. I had one or two acquaintances at
Vienna who had been implicated, though I did not know it, in plots
against the government. I, being an American, was imagined to be, as a
matter of course, a democrat, and in league with them. It needed very
little more; and they shut me up, as they have done many an innocent
man before me."
"Looking back at your imprisonment, it must seem to you a broad, dark
chasm in your life."
"Broad and black enough; but not quite so void as I once thought."
"No; in struggling through it, I can see that you have not come out
empty handed."
"Not I; I should be glad to rid myself of the larger part of the load.
One is sometimes punished with the fulfilment of his own whims. I
remember wishing--and that not so many years back--that I might sound
all the strings of human joys and sufferings,--try life in all its
phases,--in peace and war, a dungeon, if I remember right, inclusive.
I have had my fill of it, and do not care to repeat the experiment."
"Some of the damp and darkness of your dungeon still clings about you,
and out of the midst of it, you look back over the gulf to a shore of
light and sunshine, where you were once standing."
"You read me like a sibyl, as you always do. None but a child or a
fool will seriously regret any shape of experience out of which he has
come with mind and senses still sound, though it may have changed the
prismatic colors of life into a neutral tint, a universal gray, a
Scotch mist, with light enough to delve by, and nothing more."
"One's life is a series of compromises, at best. One must capitulate
with Fate, gain from her as much good as may be, and as little evil."
"And then set his teeth and endure. As for myself, though, if gifts
were portioned out among mankind in equal allotments, I should count
myself, even now, as having more than my share."
"That idea of equalized happiness is a great fallacy."
"Every idea of mortal equality is a great fallacy; and all the systems
built on it are built on a quicksand. There is no equality in nature.
There are mountains and valleys, deserts and meadows, the fertile and
the barren. There is no equality in human minds or human character.
Who shall measure the distance from the noblest to the meanest of men,
or the yet vaster distance from the noblest to the meanest of women?
The differences among mankind are broader than any but the greatest of
men can grasp. With pains enough, one may comprehend, in a measure,
the minds on a level with his own or below it; but, above, he sees
nothing clearly. To follow the movements of a great man's mind, he
must raise himself almost to an equal greatness."
"A hopeless attempt with most. Every one has a limit."
"But men make more limits for themselves than Nature makes for them."
"You seem to me a person with a singular capacity of growth. You push
forth fibres into every soil, and draw nutriment from sources most
foreign to you."
"An indifferent stock needs all the aliment it can find. I am
fortunate in my planting. Companionship is that which shapes us; and I
have found men, and what is more to the purpose, women, who have met
my best requirement. One's friends have all their special influence
with which they affect him. Yours, to me, was always a rousing and
wakening influence, an electric life. You have shot a ray of sun down
into my shadow, and I am bound at least to thank you for it."
"I hope, for old friendship's sake, that your shadow may soon cease to
need such farthing-candle illumination.--Here is my mother's house.
She will be glad to see you."
"I thank you: I will come soon, but not to-day."
And, taking leave of his companion, he turned his horse homeward.
"A vain attempt! I thought a light might kindle again; but it is all
dust and ashes, with only a sparkle or two. No more flame; the fuel is
burnt out. Shall I go on? Shall I offer what is left of my heart? A
poor tribute for her. She should command a better; and there is
something in her manner, warm and cordial as she is, that tells me
that I should offer it in vain."