CHAPTER XLII.
"The climate, not the heart, he changes who flies across the wave." So said the old Roman, some thousand years ago, and doubtless what he said was true, both in his own day, when men cultivated a firm, fixed spirit within them, and also in the present, in the case of some individuals, to whom has descended the gem-like hardness of the antique mind, on which lines, once engraved, are never to be effaced. Nevertheless, in the rapid change of scene, in the running from land to land, in new sights and new excitements, in the companionship of fresh acquaintances, and even in the every-hour collision with our fellow-creatures which takes place only in travelling, one wears away the sharpness of some sorrows, as the gem which has rolled for ages in the waters of the Tiber, or which is cast up by the waves of the Ægean Sea, though it retains the figures which were cut into it ages ago, loses the sharp outline that it received from the graver's tool.
As there is scarcely a plant on earth from which the bee cannot extract honey, so there is scarcely a scene in the wide world from which the mind that seeks real wisdom cannot draw a moral; and every moral has its consolation. The very aspect of strange cities, whatever be the grief in our heart at the time, brings its comfort, derived we seldom examine how, and often mistake when we do examine, but wrought out justly and reasonably, by the silent working of that spirit within us, which, if we would let it, would always deduce its homily from every object of the senses. We wander through the streets of a great town, we gaze up at the tall houses, we mingle with the busy crowd, we see the sunshine streaming upon some mansions, and the deep shade resting upon others; at one window we behold a group of merry faces, at another the close-drawn curtain, indicative of sickness, anguish, and death. From the one door, with tabor, and pipe, and garlands, and scattered flowers, goes forth the bride to the altar; from another, streams out the dark procession of the grave. On each countenance that we meet is written some tale of joy or sorrow; each street has its history, each dwelling presents an episode in the great poem of human life. We return to our own chamber with a calmness in our sorrows, with a resignation in our melancholy that we have not before felt--and why?
Is it the universality of human misery that gives us a false support? Is it, as the most misanthropical of philosophers has declared, that there is comfort for each man in the sorrows of his fellow-creatures? Is this the process by which we derive consolation from mingling in the busy haunts of unknown races of beings like ourselves, and discovering the same cares, pursuits, and joys, and griefs throughout the world?
Oh, no!--it is, that we are taught our own littleness, as one individual ant in a whole ant-hill; and from the sense of our own littleness we gain humility, and from humility resignation, and from resignation love and admiration for that great God who made the wondrous universe, of which we are an atom--some knowledge of his power--some trust in his wisdom--confidence in his goodness, and some hope in his protecting arm.
Who is there that has ever stood amongst the multitudes of a strange city, that has not asked himself--"What am I in the midst of all these? what are all these to the God that made them? and is not that God mine?" There may be such, but those who seek it will ever find, in the contemplation of any scene where the workings of Almighty will are displayed, some balm for those wounds which almost every man, in the great warfare of the world, carries about beneath his armour; for--to end as we have begun--there is a drop of honey in every flower.
Morley Ernstein had executed his purpose; he had quitted England to search--not for happiness, but for forgetfulness--not forgetfulness of her he loved, but forgetfulness of himself and of his situation. But alas, reader, it must be acknowledged, he sought not the drop of honey in the way that it might most easily be found! The same impatient spirit was upon him, which rebelled against the share of human sorrow that was allotted to him; and, full of its suggestions he struggled to drown thought and reflection, rather than to find comfort by their aid. Pride, too, as we have shewn, had its share in his feelings; he was angry with himself that his heart had bent before any blow. He accused himself of weakness, not knowing where he was really weak; he strove to steel his bosom, and, in fact, only hardened his external demeanour.
A fit of illness which overtook him at Calais, of no very serious character or long duration, only served to increase his irritation and impatience. He had been angry before with the weakness of his mind, as he called it; he now felt a degree of scorn at himself and at human nature, for that weakness of body which yields to any of the trifling accidents of air and climate; and the very irritation which he felt, increased and prolonged the sickness under which he laboured.
At length, however, he was convalescent, and being permitted to go out for an hour or two, walked forth into the town, thinking that in its streets he might find something to call his mind away from himself. But little indeed can the good town, whose name was written upon Mary's heart, display, even to the eyes of an Englishman, to occupy or interest him for a moment. It is a sad, dull place, but in those days the communication between France and England having been interrupted for many years, and only opened for a few, there was a kind of local colouring about Calais which supplied the want of other attractions. There one saw a great many things that one had never beheld before. Postilions were to be found with enormous pigtails, and as much wood as leather in their boots; ropes served for harness, and peasant women came to market covered with great ornaments of gold. The contrast, indeed, was strong between the two sides of the water, and Morley Ernstein's eye soon became occupied, even when he believed his mind was taking no part in any of the objects around him.
The dull lethargy which comes upon the spirit of man under the influence of any bitter disappointment, is never so easily thrown off as when fancy is awakened by some of the magic tones of association. There are few places in this good world that are not linked on to some interesting event in history, and even the small, dull town of Calais itself figures in the records of the past on more than one important occasion. Nothing, however, presented itself, in the aspect of the place, or in anything on which his eye rested, that could carry the mind of Morley Ernstein away to other days, till he paused for a moment, after a ramble round the market-place, before a bronze bust, which is not easily to be passed unnoticed.
There are some heads, as the reader must often have remarked, which are very beautiful in painting, but which lose all their interest when sculptured; there are others, however, which seem to demand the marble or the bronze; and if we compare accurately the busts that have come down to us from ancient times with the history of the persons whom they represent, we shall find that the man of fixed and powerful thoughts, of stern and rigid determination, affords almost always the best subject for the statuary, as if the character of his mind required something analogous to receive the expression which it gave to his features. Of all the heads in modern times, perhaps that of the Cardinal de Richelieu was the one which afforded the finest subject for the sculptor. All the paintings of him are weak when compared to his character; it is in bronze that his image ought to go down to posterity.
The moment Morley's eyes fixed upon his bust, the lightning of the mind flashed back into the chasm of past years--the scenes of other days, the block, the axe, the chamber of the torture, and all the dark implements with which that terrible man built up the fabric of his greatness, came before his eyes in a moment, and, for the first time since the cloud of sorrow had fallen upon him, his spirit found a momentary sunshine in the memories of ancient lore.
He stood and gazed, then, with his arms folded on his chest, while the people walking to and fro passed and repassed him, and many a one commented as they went, and assigned him a history and a character from their own imagination. How seldom is it, in the busy world with which we mingle, that any of the conjectures regarding our thoughts, our feelings, our state of existence, are correct! How rarely, from any of the indications that man's external demeanour affords to society, can one single trait of the heart's countenance be divined! Alas, dear reader, that it should be so! but to one another we all wear a mask.
One man, as he passed by Morley Ernstein, and saw the traces of care and thought on his countenance, settled it at once that he was some young prodigal flying from his creditors--a very natural supposition in the town of Calais or Boulogne. Another, moralizing with a friend who walked beside him, declared, from his youth, his gloomy look, and his distinguished attire, that he must have killed his best friend in a duel, or committed some of those other dark crimes which society never punishes, but conscience, sooner or later, always does; another set him down for an indifferent milord:
"Parfait Anglais voyageant sans dessein,
Achetant cher de modernes antiques,
Regardant tout avec un air hautain,
Et méprisant les saints et leurs reliques."
But at that moment there was one near him who knew better; and while Morley continued to gaze at the bust of Richelieu, careless altogether of what any one thought of him--shut up, in short, like the lady of the Arabian giant, in a glass-case of his own sensations and thoughts, through which he could be seen, but could not be approached--he was suddenly roused by hearing his name pronounced, and, turning round, saw a countenance not less striking than that of Richelieu himself, nor, upon the whole, very different in character.
The first impression was not pleasant, for the loneliness of heart that he felt upon him, made him repugnant to all companionship. Neither was the man he saw one in whom he was inclined to trust, or to confide--one whose sympathies were with him, or upon whose counsel he could rely; but yet, to say the truth, when he remembered the charm of his conversation, the power that he seemed to possess of leading the mind of others, with whom he held any communication, away from all that was unpleasant or painful, to brighter objects and to calmer thoughts, the first shrinking feeling of unwillingness passed away, and he stretched out his hand frankly, exclaiming--"Lieberg! I little dreamed of meeting you here."
Now the reader may remark, with great justice--"What, then, Morley Ernstein was by this time willing to seek entertainment!--If so, his sorrow was on the wane." He may likewise observe, that after all the acts and deeds committed by the worthy gentleman who now stood before him, it would surely have been more characteristic of Morley Ernstein to turn his back than to hold out his hand. True, O courteous reader!--true, in both cases--with the qualification of a "but." Did you ever happen to take, under the influence of any of the many ills that flesh is heir to, a dose which seemed somewhat bitter at first, but which produced great relief to the sick heart, or the aching head? If you have, you will know that though you might nauseate the remedy at first, you sought it eagerly again as soon as you had experienced the benefit thereof. Now Morley Ernstein was exactly in that situation. Under the first pressure of grief, he had turned from the very thought of amusement with disgust; but in mere occupation he had found a mitigation of pain; and while gazing at the bust of that great and terrible man, and suffering his mind to run over the scenes of the past, he had felt an interval of tranquillity which he had not known for many a-day. Conscious therefore that in Lieberg's society he would find more of the same kind of relief than in that perhaps of any other man living, he was not unwilling to take the same medicine for his wound again, although there might be still a degree of repugnance lingering at his heart. In regard to the second point, let it be recollected, dear reader, that although our good friend, Count Lieberg, had done everything on earth which Morley Ernstein would have looked upon as base and villanous, had he been aware of the facts, not one particular of all those transactions with which the reader is fully acquainted had been made known to him either by Helen or Juliet; and he was utterly ignorant of the whole. He looked upon Lieberg merely as a man of the world, with better feelings than principles; for although Morley was somewhat philosophically disposed by nature, he wanted totally that experience which, in the end, convinces us that the separation between good principles and good feelings is much more rare than youth and passion are willing to admit.
Principle may be one check upon a man, good feeling another; the man who has both is sure to go right, but the man who has either will not go far astray, and in this case too you may know the tree by its fruits. Of Lieberg's conduct to Helen Barham, of his conduct to her brother, Morley was ignorant; and though at first, as I have said, he felt but little disposed to like the society of any one, yet the second impulse made him hold out his hand, and utter the words that I have mentioned.
"I as little thought to see you in Calais," said Lieberg, in reply; "but I did trust to overtake you in Paris; for on my return to town, I heard that you had suddenly quitted England, that something had gone wrong with you, and that you were about to make an autumnal wandering in other lands."
Lieberg paused, seeing that the allusion which he had made to the cause of his companion's quitting England made Morley's brow knit heavily, and his eyes seek the ground. "To say the truth," continued Lieberg, "I am not in the best spirits myself, and I am somewhat aweary of this working-day world. I tried all the various resources of Great Britain for shaking off the dulness of this season of the year--fired a gun or two upon the moors, spent a day at a fashionable watering-place, and finding that everything was vanity and vexation of spirit, set off, post haste, to overtake you in Paris, and see if you would take a grumbling tour with me through foreign lands."
The picture which he gave of his state of mind was adapted with infinite art to the mood which his keen and penetrating eyes saw at once was dominant with his companion. A faint, and, as it were, unwilling smile, was Morley's only reply; but he passed his arm through that of Lieberg, and as they turned back, towards the inn, the latter proceeded--"We can go, you know, across from Paris to Cologne, then ramble along the banks of the Rhine, make our way through the Tyrol into Italy, spend the cold season at Rome or Naples, and then, if you like it, 'mitescente hyeme,' return to England. Or," he continued, "if that suits you not, we can ramble still farther, plunge into Calabria, visit the blue shores of Greece, see the fairy-tale wonders of Constantinople, range through the scenes of the crusades in Syria and Palestine, and scour on fleet horses the sandy deserts of Egypt. Where need we stop, Morley? where need we stop? I have no tie to one quarter of the globe--you have none either, that I know of; the world is all before us, and the wonders, not only of a hundred countries, but a hundred ages. Where shall we not find some astounding record of the mighty past? Some of those marbles, which, in their slowly perishing grandeur; teach us the littleness of all things present, and, amongst the rest, of the cares and sorrows that we may both be suffering? Of those cares and sorrows we will speak no more; I ask you not what are yours--you question me not regarding mine. But let us onward, onward together, through all the varied scenes of earth, pausing no longer anywhere than while enjoyment is in its freshness, taking the grape while the bloom is upon it, and the flower before a leaf is shed. Once more, what say you?--shall it be so?"
There was something in the tone in which he spoke, in the picture that he presented, in the very rapid succession of objects which he proposed, that seemed addressed with careful calculation to the weaker part of Morley's character--to the rash, the impetuous, the excitement-loving spirit, which had been long kept down by the influence of the better soul within him. There was nothing in the scheme against which that better soul could raise the warning voice; there was no one thing suggested which could be branded with the name of evil. It was like offering to an eager and a fiery horse a wide and swift career, while, faint at the far extreme, appeared a goal hung with prizes, which seemed to glitter, though dim and confused from the distance at which they were placed.
Morley hesitated not, but replied, his eyes for a moment lighting up with the fire which used once to be kindled so readily in them--"I will go willingly, Lieberg. It is, in fact, the scheme I had laid out for myself, only improved and brightened by having you for my companion. I have been ill since I have been here; but to-morrow they assure me I shall be ready to continue my journey."