Our cousin the curate loved, while he was yet a boy, Flora, of the
sparkling eyes and the ringing voice. His devotion was absolute. Flora
was flattered, because all the girls, as I said, worshiped him; but
she was a gay, glancing girl, who had invaded the student's heart with
her audacious brilliancy, and was half-surprized that she had subdued
it. Our cousin--for I never think of him as my cousin only--wasted
away under the fervor of his passion. His life exhaled an incense
before her. He wrote poems to her, and sang them under her window, in
the summer moonlight. He brought her flowers and precious gifts. When
he had nothing else to give, he gave her his love in a homage so
eloquent and beautiful that the worship was like the worship of the
wise men. The gay Flora was proud and superb. She was a girl, and the
bravest and best boy loved her. She was young, and the wisest and
truest youth loved her. They lived together, we all lived together, in
the happy valley of childhood. We looked forward to manhood as
island-poets look across the sea, believing that the whole world
beyond is a blest Araby of spices.
[Footnote 55: From Chapter VII of "Prue and I."]
The months went by, and the young love continued. Our cousin and Flora
were only children still, and there was no engagement. The elders
looked upon the intimacy as natural and mutually beneficial. It would
help soften the boy and strengthen the girl; and they took for granted
that softness and strength were precisely what were wanted. It is a
great pity that men and women forget that they have been children.
Parents are apt to be foreigners to their sons and daughters. Maturity
is the gate of paradise, which shuts behind us; and our memories are
gradually weaned from the glories in which our nativity was cradled.
The months went by, the children grew older, and they constantly
loved. Now Prue always smiles at one of my theories; she is entirely
skeptical of it; but it is, nevertheless, my opinion that men love
most passionately, and women most permanently. Men love at first and
most warmly; women love last and longest. This is natural enough; for
nature makes women to be won, and men to win. Men are the active,
positive force, and therefore, they are more ardent and
demonstrative....
Why our cousin should have loved the gay Flora so ardently was hard to
say; but that he did so, was not difficult to see. He went away to
college. He wrote the most eloquent and passionate letters; and when
he returned in vacations, he had no eyes, ears, nor heart for any
other being. I rarely saw him, for I was living away from our early
home, and was busy in a store--learning to be bookkeeper--but I heard
afterward from himself the whole story.
One day when he came home for the holidays, he found a young foreigner
with Flora--a handsome youth, brilliant and graceful. I have asked
Prue a thousand times why women adore soldiers and foreigners. She
says it is because they love heroism and are romantic. A soldier is
professionally a hero, says Prue, and a foreigner is associated with
all unknown and beautiful regions. I hope there is no worse reason....
Our cousin came home and found Flora and the young foreigner
conversing. The young foreigner had large, soft, black eyes, and the
dusky skin of the tropics. His manner was languid and fascinating,
courteous and reserved. It assumed a natural supremacy, and you felt
as if here were a young prince traveling before he came into
possession of his realm....
Our cousin the curate no sooner saw the tropical stranger and marked
his impression upon Flora than he felt the end. As the shaft struck
his heart, his smile was sweeter, and his homage even more poetic and
reverential. I doubt if Flora understood him or herself. She did not
know, what he instinctively perceived, that she loved him less. But
there are no degrees in love; when it is less than absolute and
supreme, it is nothing. Our cousin and Flora were not formally
engaged, but their betrothal was understood by all of us as a thing of
course. He did not allude to the stranger; but as day followed day, he
saw with every nerve all that passed. Gradually--so gradually that she
scarcely noticed it--our cousin left Flora more and more with the
soft-eyed stranger, whom he saw she preferred. His treatment of her
was so full of tact, he still walked and talked with her so familiarly
that she was not troubled by any fear that he saw what she hardly saw
herself. Therefore, she was not obliged to conceal anything from him
or from herself; but all the soft currents of her heart were setting
toward the West Indian. Our cousin's cheek grew paler, and his soul
burned and wasted within him. His whole future--all his dream of
life--had been founded upon his love. It was a stately palace built
upon the sand, and now the sand was sliding away. I have read
somewhere that love will sacrifice everything but itself. But our
cousin sacrificed his love to the happiness of his mistress. He ceased
to treat her as peculiarly his own. He made no claim in word or manner
that everybody might not have made. He did not refrain from seeing
her, or speaking of her as of all his other friends; and, at length,
altho no one could say how or when the change had been made, it was
evident and understood that he was no more her lover, but that both
were the best of friends.
He still wrote to her occasionally from college, and his letters were
those of a friend, not of a lover. He could not reproach her. I do
not believe any man is secretly surprized that a woman ceases to love
him. Her love is a heavenly favor won by no desert of his. If it
passes, he can no more complain than a flower when the sunshine leaves
it.
Before our cousin left college Flora was married to the tropical
stranger. It was the brightest of June days, and the summer smiled
upon the bride. There were roses in her hand and orange flowers in her
hair, and the village church bell rang out over the peaceful fields.
The warm sunshine lay upon the landscape like God's blessing, and Prue
and I, not yet married ourselves, stood at an open window in the old
meeting-house, hand in hand, while the young couple spoke their vows.
Prue says that brides are always beautiful, and I, who remember Prue
herself upon her wedding-day--how can I deny it? Truly, the gay Flora
was lovely that summer morning, and the throng was happy in the old
church. But it was very sad to me, altho I only suspected then what
now I know. I shed no tears at my own wedding, but I did at Flora's,
altho I knew she was marrying a soft-eyed youth whom she dearly loved,
and who, I doubt not, dearly loved her.
Among the group of her nearest friends was our cousin the curate. When
the ceremony was ended, he came to shake her hand with the rest. His
face was calm, and his smile sweet, and his manner unconstrained.
Flora did not blush--why should she?--but shook his hand warmly, and
thanked him for his good wishes. Then they all sauntered down the
aisle together; there were some tears with the smiles among the other
friends; our cousin handed the bride into her carriage, shook hands
with the husband, closed the door, and Flora drove away.
I have never seen her since; I do not even know if she be living
still. But I shall always remember her as she looked that June
morning, holding roses in her hand, and wreathed with orange flowers.
Dear Flora! it was no fault of hers that she loved one man more than
another: she could not be blamed for not preferring our cousin to the
West Indian: there is no fault in the story, it is only a tragedy.
Our cousin carried all the collegiate honors--but without exciting
jealousy or envy. He was so really the best, that his companions were
anxious he should have the sign of his superiority. He studied hard,
he thought much, and wrote well. There was no evidence of any blight
upon his ambition or career, but after living quietly in the country
for some time, he went to Europe and traveled. When he returned, he
resolved to study law, but presently relinquished it. Then he
collected materials for a history, but suffered them to lie unused.
Somehow the mainspring was gone. He used to come and pass weeks with
Prue and me. His coming made the children happy, for he sat with them,
and talked and played with them all day long, as one of themselves....
At length our cousin went abroad again to Europe. It was many years
ago that we watched him sail away, and when Titbottom, and Prue, and I
went home to dinner, the grace that was said that day was a fervent
prayer for our cousin the curate. Many an evening afterward, the
children wanted him, and cried themselves to sleep calling upon his
name. Many an evening still our talk flags into silence as we sit
before the fire, and Prue puts down her knitting and takes my hand, as
if she knew my thoughts, altho we do not name his name.
He wrote us letters as he wandered about the world. They were
affectionate letters, full of observation, and thought, and
description. He lingered longest in Italy, but he said his conscience
accused him of yielding to the sirens; and he declared that his life
was running uselessly away. At last he came to England. He was charmed
with everything, and the climate was even kinder to him than that of
Italy. He went to all the famous places, and saw many of the famous
Englishmen, and wrote that he felt England to be his home. Burying
himself in the ancient gloom of a university town, altho past the
prime of life, he studied like an ambitious boy. He said again that
his life had been wine poured upon the ground, and he felt guilty. And
so our cousin became a curate....
Our children have forgotten their old playmate; but I am sure if there
be any children in his parish, over the sea, they love our cousin the
curate, and watch eagerly for his coming. Does his step falter now, I
wonder; is that long fair hair gray; is that laugh as musical in those
distant homes as it used to be in our nursery; has England among all
her great and good men any man so noble as our cousin the curate?
The great book is unwritten; the great deeds are undone; in no
biographical dictionary will you find the name of our cousin the
curate. Is his life therefore lost? Have his powers been wasted?
I do not dare to say it, for I see Bourne on the pinnacle of
prosperity, but still looking sadly for his castles in Spain; I see
Titbottom, an old deputy bookkeeper, whom nobody knows, but with his
chivalric heart loyal to children, his generous and humane spirit,
full of sweet hope and faith and devotion; I see the superb Auriel, so
lovely that the Indians would call her a smile of the Great Spirit,
and as beneficent as a saint of the calendar--how shall I say what is
lost and what is won. I know that in every way and by all His
preachers God is served and His purposes accomplished. How shall I
explain or understand? I, who am only an old bookkeeper in an old
cravat.