PART XIV.
NO. XIX.—MOTIVE POWER (concluded).
The next day the atmosphere was much cooler, refreshed by a heavy shower that had fallen at dawn; and when, not long after noon, Percival and I, mounted on ponies bred in the neighbouring forests, were riding through the narrow lanes towards the house we had agreed to visit, we did not feel the heat oppressive. It was a long excursion; we rode slowly, and the distance was about sixteen miles.
We arrived at last at a little hamlet remote from the highroads. The cottages, though old-fashioned, were singularly neat and trim—flower-plots before them, and small gardens for kitchen use behind. A very ancient church, with its parsonage, backed the broad village-green; and opposite the green stood one of those small quaint manor-houses which satisfied the pride of our squires two hundred years ago. On a wide garden-lawn in front were old yew-trees cut into fantastic figures of pyramids and obelisks and birds and animals; beyond the lawn, on a levelled platform immediately before the house, was a small garden, with a sundial, and a summer-house or pavilion of the date of William III., when buildings of that kind, for a short time, became the fashionable appendage to country-houses, frequently decorated inside with musical trophies, as if built for a music-room; but, I suspect, more generally devoted to wine and pipes by the host and his male friends. At the rear of the house stretched an ample range of farm-buildings in very good repair and order, the whole situated on the side of a hill, sufficiently high to command an extensive prospect, bounded at the farthest distance by the sea, yet not so high as to lose the screen of hills, crested by young plantations of fir and larch; while their midmost slopes were, in part, still abandoned to sheep-walks; in part, brought (evidently of late) into cultivation; and farther down, amid the richer pastures that dipped into the valley, goodly herds of cattle indolently grazed or drowsily reposed.
We dismounted at the white garden-gate. A man ran out from the farmyard and took our ponies; evidently a familiar acquaintance of Tracey’s, for he said heartily, “that he was glad to see his honour looking so well,” and volunteered a promise that the ponies should be well rubbed down, and fed. “Master was at home; we should find him in the orchard swinging Miss Lucy.”
So, instead of entering the house, Tracey, who knew all its ways, took me round to the other side, and we came into one of those venerable orchards which carry the thought back to the early day when the orchard was, in truth, the garden.
A child’s musical laugh guided us through the lines of heavy-laden apple-trees to the spot where the once famous prizeman—the once brilliant political thinker—was now content to gratify the instinctive desire tentare aërias vias—in the pastime of an infant.
He was so absorbed in his occupation that he did not hear or observe us till we were close at his side. Then, after carefully arresting the swing, and tenderly taking out the little girl, he shook hands with Percival; and when the ceremony of mutual introduction was briefly concluded, extended the same courtesy to myself.
Gray was a man in the full force of middle life, with a complexion that seemed to have been originally fair and delicate, but had become bronzed and hardened by habitual exposure to morning breezes and noonday suns. He had a clear bright blue eye, and a countenance that only failed of being handsome by that length and straightness of line between nostril and upper lip, which is said by physiognomists to be significant of firmness and decision. The whole expression of his face, though frank and manly, was, however, rather sweet than harsh; and he had one of those rare voices which almost in themselves secure success to a public speaker—distinct and clear, even in its lowest tone, as a silvery bell.
I think much of a man’s nature is shown by the way in which he shakes hands. I doubt if any worldly student of Chesterfieldian manners can ever acquire the art of that everyday salutation, if it be not inborn in the kindness, loyalty, and warmth of his native disposition. I have known many a great man who lays himself out to be popular, who can school his smile to fascinating sweetness, his voice to persuasive melody, but who chills or steels your heart against him the moment he shakes hands with you.
But there is a cordial clasp which shows warmth of impulse, unhesitating truth, and even power of character—a clasp which recalls the classic trust in the “faith of the right hand.”
And the clasp of Hastings Gray’s hand at once propitiated me in his favour. While he and I exchanged the few words with which acquaintance commences, Percival had replaced Miss Lucy in the swing, and had taken the father’s post. Lucy, before disappointed at the cessation of her amusement, felt now that she was receiving a compliment, which she must not abuse too far; so she very soon, of her own accord, unselfishly asked to be let down, and we all walked back towards the house.
“You will dine with us, I hope,” said Gray. “I know when you come at this hour, Sir Percival, that you always meditate giving us that pleasure.” (Turning to me,) “It is now half-past three, we dine at four o’clock, and that early hour gives you time to rest, and ride back in the cool of the evening.”
“My dear Gray,” answered Percival, “I accept your invitation for myself and my friend. I foresaw you would ask us, and left word at home that we were not to be waited for. Where is Mrs Gray?”
“I suspect that she is about some of those household matters which interest a farmer’s wife. Lucy, run and tell your mamma that these gentlemen will dine with us.”
Lucy scampered off.
“The fact is,” said Tracey, “that we have a problem to submit to you. You know how frequently I come to you for a hint when something puzzles me. But we can defer that knotty subject till we adjourn, as usual, to wine and fruit in your summer-house. Your eldest boy is at home for the holidays?”
“Not at home, though it is his holidays. He is now fifteen, and he and a school friend of his are travelling on foot into Cornwall. Nothing, I think, fits boys better for life than those hardy excursions in which they must depend on themselves, shift for themselves, think for themselves.”
“I daresay you are right,” said Tracey; “the earlier each of us human beings forms himself into an individual God’s creature, distinct from the servum pecus, the better chance he has of acquiring originality of mind and dignity of character. And your other children?”
“Oh, my two younger boys I teach at home, and one little girl—I play with.” Here addressing me, Gray asked “If I farmed?”
“Yes,” said I, “but very much as les Rois Fainéants reigned. My bailiff is my Maire du Palais. I hope, therefore, that our friend Sir Percival will not wound my feelings as a lover of Nature by accusing me of wooing her for the sake of her turnips.”
“Ah!” said Gray, smiling, “Sir Percival, I know, holds to the doctrine that the only pure love of Nature is the æsthetic; and looks upon the intimate connection which the husbandman forms with her as a cold-blooded mariage de convenance.”
“I confess,” answered Percival, “that I agree with the great German philosopher, that the love of Nature is pure in proportion as the delight in her companionship is unmixed with any idea of the gain she can give us. But a pure love may be a very sterile affection; and a mariage de convenance may be prolific in very fine offspring. I concede to you, therefore, that the world is bettered by the practical uses to which Nature has been put by those who wooed her for the sake of her dower: and I no more commend to the imitation of others my abstract æsthetic affection for her abstract æsthetic beauty, than I would commend Petrarch’s poetical passion for Laura to the general adoption of lovers. I give you, then, gentlemen farmers, full permission to woo Nature for the sake of her turnips. Our mutton is all the better for it.”
“And that is no small consideration,” said Gray. “If I had gazed on my sheep-walks with the divine æsthetic eye, and without one forethought of the profit they might bring me, I should not already have converted 200 out of the 1000 acres I possess into land that would let at 30s. per acre, where formerly it let at 5s. But, with all submission to the great German philosopher, I don’t think I love Nature the less because of the benefits with which she repays the pains I have taken to conciliate her favour. If, thanks to her, I can give a better education to my boys, and secure a modest provision for my girl, is it the property of gratitude to destroy or to increase affection? But you see, sir, there is this difference between Sir Percival and myself:—He has had no motive in improving Nature for her positive uses, and therefore he has been contented with giving her a prettier robe. He loves her as a grand seigneur loves his mistress. I love her as a man loves the helpmate who assists his toils. According as in rural life my mind could find not repose, but occupation—according as that occupation was compatible with such prudent regard to fortune as a man owes to the children he brings into the world—my choice of life would be a right or a wrong one. In short, I find in the cultivation of Nature my business as well as my pleasure. I have a motive for the business which does not diminish my taste for the pleasure.”
Tracey and I exchanged looks. So, then, here was a motive for activity. But why was the motive towards activity in pursuits requiring so little of the intellect for which Gray had been characterised, and so little of the knowledge which his youth had acquired, so much stronger than the motive towards a career which proffered an incalculably larger scope for his powers? Here, there was no want of energy—here, there had been no philosophical disdain of ambition—here, no great wealth leaving no stimulant to desires—no niggard poverty paralysing the sinews of hope. The choice of retirement had been made in the full vigour of a life trained from boyhood to the exercises that discipline the wrestlers for renown.
While I was thus musing, Gray led the way towards the farmyard, and on reaching it said to me,—
“Since you do farm, if only by deputy, I must show you the sheep with which I hope to win the first prize at our agricultural show in September.”
“So you still care for prizes?” said I: “the love of fame is not dead within your breast.”
“Certainly not; ‘Pride attends us still.’ I am very proud of the prizes I have already won; last year for my wurzel—the year before, for the cow I bred on my own pastures.”
We crossed the farmyard, and arrived at the covered sheep-pens. I thought I had never seen finer sheep than those which Gray showed me with visible triumph. Then we two conversed with much animation upon the pros and cons in favour of stall-feeding versus free grazing, while Tracey amused himself, first in trying to conciliate a great dog, luckily for him chained up in the adjoining yard, and next, in favouring the escape of a mouse who had incautiously quitted the barn, and ventured within reach of a motherly hen, who seemed to regard it as a monster intent on her chicks.
Reaching the house, Gray conducted us up a flight of oak stairs—picturesque in its homely old-fashioned way—with wide landing-place, adorned by a blue china jar, filled with pot-pourri, and by a tall clock (one of Tompion’s, now rare), in walnut-wood case; consigning us each to a separate chamber, to refresh ourselves by those simple ablutions, with which, even in rustic retirements, civilised Englishmen preface the hospitable rites of Ceres and Bacchus.
The room in which I found myself was one of those never seen out of England, and only there in unpretending country-houses which have escaped the innovating tastes of fashion. A bedstead of the time of George I., with mahogany fluted columns and panels at the bedhead, dark and polished, decorated by huge watch-pockets of some great-grandmother’s embroidery, white spotless curtains, the walls in panel, also painted white, and covered in part with framed engravings a century old. A large high screen, separating the washstand from the rest of the room, made lively by old caricatures and prints, doubtless the handiwork of female hands long stilled. A sweet, not strong, odour of dried lavender escaped from a chest of drawers, polished as bright as the bedstead. The small lattice-paned window opened to the fresh air; the woodbine framing it all round from without; amongst the woodbine the low hum of bees. A room for early sleep and cheerful rising with the eastern sun, which the window faced.
Tracey came into my room while I was still looking out of the casement, gazing on the little gardenplot without, bright with stocks and pinks and heartsease, and said, “Well, you see £600 a-year can suffice to arrest a clever man’s ambition.”
“I suspect,” answered I, “that the ambition is not arrested but turned aside to the object of doubling the £600 a-year. Neither ambition nor the desire of gain is dead in that farmyard.”
“We shall cross-question our host after dinner,” answered Tracey; “meanwhile let me conduct you to the dining-room. A pretty place this, in its way, is it not?”
“Very,” said I, with enthusiasm. “Could you not live as happily here as in your own brilliant villa?”
“No, not quite, but still happily.”
“Why not quite?”
“First, because there is nothing within or without the house which one could attempt to improve, unless by destroying the whole character of what is so good in its way; secondly, where could I put my Claudes and Turners? where my statues? where, oh where, my books? where, in short, the furniture of Man’s mind?”
I made no answer, for the dinner-bell rang loud, and we went down at once into the dining-room—a quaint room, scarcely touched since the date of William III. A high and heavy dado of dark oak, the rest of the walls in Dutch stamped leather, still bright and fresh; a high mantelpiece, also of oak, with a very indifferent picture of still life let into the upper panel; arched recesses on either side, receptacles for china and tall drinking-glasses; heavy chairs, with crests inlaid on their ponderous backs, and faded needlework on their ample seats;—all, however, speaking of comfort and home, and solid though unassuming prosperity. Gray had changed his rude morning dress, and introduced me to his wife with an evident husbandlike pride. Mrs Gray was still very pretty; in her youth she must have been prettier even than Clara Thornhill, and though very plainly dressed, still it was the dress of a gentlewoman. There was intelligence, but soft timid intelligence, in her dark hazel eyes and broad candid forehead. I soon saw, however, that she was painfully shy, and not at all willing to take her share in the expense of conversation. But with Tracey she was more at her ease than with a stranger, and I thanked him inwardly for coming to my relief, as I was vainly endeavouring to extract from her lips more than a murmured monosyllable.
The dinner, however, passed off very pleasantly. Simple old English fare—plenty of it—excellent of its kind. Tracey was the chief talker, and made himself so entertaining, that at last even Mrs Gray’s shyness wore away, and I discovered that she had a well-informed graceful mind, constitutionally cheerful, as was evidenced by the blithe music of her low but happy laugh.
The dinner over, we adjourned, as Percival had proposed, to the summer-house. There we found the table spread with fruits and wine, of which last the port was superb; no better could be dragged from the bins of a college, or blush on the board of a prelate. Mrs Gray, however, deserted us, but we now and then caught sight of her in the garden without, playing gaily with her children—two fine little boys, and Lucy, who seemed to have her own way with them all, as she ought—the youngest child, the only girl—justifiably papa’s pet, for she was the one most like her mother.
“Gray,” said Tracey, “my friend and I have had some philosophical disputes, which we cannot decide to our own satisfaction, on the reasons why some men do so much more in life than other men, without having any apparent intellectual advantage over those who are contented to be obscure. We have both hit on a clue to the cause, in what we call motive power. But what this motive power really is, and why it should fail in some men and be so strong in others, is matter of perplexity, at least to me, and I fancy my friend himself is not much more enlightened therein than I am. So we have both come here to hear what you have to say—you, who certainly had motive enough for ambitious purposes when you swept away so many academical prizes—when you rushed into speech and into print, and cast your bold eye on St Stephen’s. And now, what has become of that motive power? Is it all put into prizes for root-crops and sheep?”
“As to myself,” answered Gray, passing the wine, “I can give very clear explanations. I am of a gentleman’s family, but the son of a very poor curate. Luckily for me, we lived close by an excellent grammar-school, at which I obtained a free admission. From the first day I entered, I knew that my poor father, bent on making me a scholar, counted on my exertions not only for my own livelihood, but for a provision for my mother should she survive him. Here was motive enough to supply motive power. I succeeded in competition with rivals at school, and success added to the strength of the motive power. Our county member, on whose estate I was born, took a kindly interest in me, and gave me leave, when I quitted school, as head boy, to come daily to his house and share the studies of his son, who was being prepared for the university by a private tutor, eminent as a scholar and admirable as a teacher. Thus I went up to college not only full of hope (in itself a motive power, though, of itself, an unsafe one), but of a hope so sustained that it became resolution, by the knowledge that to maintain me at the university my parents were almost literally starving themselves. This suffices to explain whatever energy and application I devoted to my academical career. At last I obtained my fellowship; the income of that I shared with my parents; but if I died before them the income would die also—a fresh motive power towards a struggle for fortune in the Great World. I took up politics, I confess it very frankly, as a profession rather than a creed; it was the shortest road to fame, and, with prudence, perhaps to pecuniary competence. If I succeeded in Parliament I might obtain a living for my father, or some public situation for myself not dependent on the fluctuations of party. A very high political ambition was denied me by the penury of circumstance. A man must have good means of his own who aspires to rank among party chiefs. I knew I was but a political adventurer, that I could only be so considered; and had it not been for my private motive power, I should have been ashamed of my public one. As it was, my scholarly pride was secretly chafed at the thought that I was carrying into the affairs of state the greed of trade. Suddenly, most unexpectedly, this estate was bequeathed to me. You large proprietors will smile when I say that we had always regarded the Grays of Oakden Hall with venerating pride; they were the head of our branch of the clan. My father had seen this place in his boyhood; the remembrance of it dwelt on his mind as the unequivocal witness of his dignity as a gentleman born. He came from the same stock as the Grays of Oakden, who had lived on the land for more than three centuries, entitled to call themselves squires. The relationship was very distant, still it existed. But a dream that so great a place as Oakden Hall, with its 1000 acres, should ever pass to his son—no, my father thought it much more likely that his son might be prime minister! John Gray of Oakden had never taken the least notice of us, except that, when I won the Pitt scholarship, he sent me a fine turkey, labelled ‘From John Gray, Esq. of Oakden.’ This present I acknowledged, but John Gray never answered my letter. Just at that time, however, as appears by the date, he re-made his will, and placed me as remainder-man in case of the deaths, without issue, of two nearer relations, both nephews. These young men died unmarried—the one of rheumatic fever, a few months before old Gray’s decease; the other, two weeks after it; poor fellow, he was thrown from his horse and killed on the spot. So, unexpectedly, I came into this property. Soon afterwards I married. The possession of land is a great tranquilliser to a restless spirit, and a happy marriage is as sedative as potent. Poverty is a spur to action. Great wealth, on the other hand, not unnaturally tends to the desire of display, and in free countries often to the rivalry for political power. The golden mean is proverbially the condition most favourable to content, and content is the antidote to ambition. Mine was the golden mean! Other influences of pride and affection contributed to keep me still. Of pride; for was I not really a greater man here, upon my ancestral acres and my few yearly hundreds, than as a political aspirant, who must commence his career by being a political dependant? How rich I felt here! how poor I should be in London! How inevitably, in the daily expenses of a metropolitan life, and in the costs of elections (should I rise beyond being a mere nominee), I must become needy and involved! So much for the influence of pride. Now for the influence of affection; my dear wife had never been out of these rural shades among which she was born. She is of a nature singularly timid, sensitive, and retiring. The idea of that society to which a political career would have led me terrified her. I loved her the better for desiring no companionship but mine. In fine, my desires halted at once on these turfs; the Attraction of the Earth, of which I had a share, prevailed; the motive power stopped here.”
“You have never regretted your choice?” said Tracey.
“Certainly not; I congratulate myself on it more and more every year. For, after all, here I have ample occupation and a creditable career. I have improved my fortune, instead of wasting it. I have a fixed, acknowledged, instead of an unsettled, equivocal position. I am an authority on many rural subjects of interest besides those of husbandry. I am an active magistrate; and, as I know a little of the law, I am the habitual arbiter upon all the disputes in the neighbourhood. I employ here with satisfaction, and not without some dignity, the energies which, in the great world, would have bought any reputation I might have gained at the price of habitual pain and frequent mortification.”
“Then,” said I, “you do not think that a saying of Dr Arnold’s, which I quoted to Tracey as no less applicable to men than to boys, is altogether a true one—viz., that the difference between boys, as regards the power of acquiring distinction, is not so much in talent as in energy; you retain the energies that once raised you to public distinction, but you no longer apply them to the same object.”
“I believe that Dr Arnold, if he be quoted correctly, spoke only half the truth. One difference between boy and boy or man and man, no doubt, is energy; but for great achievements or fame there must be also application—viz., every energy concentred on one definite point, and disciplined to strain towards it by patient habit. My energy, such as it is, would not have brought my sheep-walks into profitable cultivation if the energy had not been accompanied with devoted application to the business. And it is astonishing how, when the energy is constantly applied towards one settled aim—astonishing, I say—how invention is kindled out of it. Thus, in many a quiet solitary morning’s walk round my farm, some new idea, some hint of improvement or contrivance, occurs to me; this I ponder and meditate upon till it takes the shape of experiment. I presume that it is so with poet, artist, orator, or statesman. His mind is habituated to apply itself to definite subjects of observation and reflection, and out of this habitual musing thereon, involuntarily spring the happy originalities of thinking which are called his ‘inspirations.’”
“One word more,” said I. “Do you consider, then, that which makes a man devote himself to fame or ambition is a motive power of which he himself is conscious?”
“No; not always. I imagine that most men entering on some career are originally impelled towards it by a motive which, at the time, they seldom take the trouble to analyse or even to detect. They would at once see what that motive was if early in the career it was withdrawn. In a majority of cases it is the res angusta, yet not poverty in itself, but a poverty disproportioned to the birth, or station, or tastes, or intellectual culture of the aspirant. Thus, the peasant or operative rarely feels in his poverty a motive power towards distinction out of his craft; but the younger son of a gentleman does feel that motive power. And hence a very large proportion of those who in various ways have gained fame, have been the cadets of a gentleman’s family, or the sons of poor clergymen, sometimes of farmers and tradesmen, who have given them an education beyond the average of their class. Other motive powers towards fame have been sometimes in ambition, sometimes in love; sometimes in a great sorrow, from which a strong mind sought to wrest itself; sometimes even in things that would appear frivolous to a philosopher. I knew a young man, of no great talents, but of keen vanity and great resolution and force of character, who, as a child, had been impressed with envy of the red ribbon which his uncle wore as Knight of the Bath. From his infancy he determined some day or other to win a red ribbon for himself. He did so at last, and in trying to do so became famous.
“In great commercial communities a distinction is given to successful trade, so that the motive power of youthful talent nourished in such societies is mostly concentred on gain, not through avarice, but through the love of approbation or esteem. Thus, it is noticeable that our great manufacturing towns, where energy and application abound, have not contributed their proportionate quota of men distinguished in arts or sciences (except the mechanical), or polite letters, or the learned professions. In rural districts, on the contrary, the desire of gain is not associated with the desire of honour and distinction, and therefore, in them, the youth early coveting fame strives for it in other channels than those of gain. But whatever the original motive power, if it has led to a continuous habit of the mind, and is not withdrawn before that habit becomes a second nature, the habit will continue after the motive power has either wholly ceased or become very faint, as the famous scribbling Spanish cardinal is said, in popular legends, to have continued to write on after he himself was dead. Thus, a man who has acquired the obstinate habit of labouring for the public originally from an enthusiastic estimate of the value of public applause, may, later, conceive a great contempt for the public, and, in sincere cynicism, become wholly indifferent to its praise or its censure, and yet, like Swift, go on as long as the brain can retain faithful impressions and perform its normal functions, writing for the public he so disdains. Thus many a statesman, wearied and worn, satisfied of the hollowness of political ambition, and no longer enjoying its rewards, sighing for retirement and repose, nevertheless continues to wear his harness. Habit has tyrannised over all his actions; break the habit, and the thread of his life snaps with it!
“Lastly, however, I am by no means sure that there is not in some few natures an inborn irresistible activity, a constitutional attraction between the one mind and the human species, which requires no special, separate motive power from without to set it into those movements which, perforce, lead to fame. I mean those men to whom we at once accord the faculty which escapes all satisfactory metaphysical definition—Ingenium;—viz., the inborn spirit which we call genius.
“And in these natures, whatever the motive power that in the first instance urged them on, if at any stage, however early, that motive power be withdrawn, some other one will speedily replace it. Through them Providence mysteriously acts on the whole world, and their genius while on earth is one of Its most visible ministrants. But genius is the exceptional phenomenon in human nature; and in examining the ordinary laws that influence human minds we have no measurement and no scales for portents.”
“There is, however,” said Tracey, “one motive power towards careers of public utility which you have not mentioned, but the thought of which often haunts me in rebuke of my own inertness,—I mean, quite apart from any object of vanity or ambition, the sense of our own duty to mankind; and hence the devotion to public uses of whatever talents have been given to us—not to hide under a bushel.”
“I do not think,” answered Gray, “that when a man feels he is doing good in his own way he need reproach himself that he is not doing good in some other way to which he is not urged by special duty, and from which he is repelled by constitutional temperament. I do not, for instance, see that because you have a very large fortune you are morally obliged to keep correspondent establishments, and adopt a mode of life hostile to your tastes; you sufficiently discharge the duties of wealth if the fair proportion of your income go to objects of well-considered benevolence and purposes not unproductive to the community. Nor can I think that I, who possess but a very moderate fortune, am morally called upon to strive for its increase in the many good speculations which life in a capital may offer to an eager mind, provided always that I do nevertheless remember that I have children, to whose future provision and wellbeing some modest augmentations of my fortune would be desirable. In improving my land for their benefit, I may say also that I add, however trivially, to the wealth of the country. Let me hope that the trite saying is true, that ‘he who makes two blades of corn grow where one grew before,’ is a benefactor to his race. So with mental wealth: surely it is permitted to us to invest and expend it within that sphere most suited to those idiosyncrasies, the adherence to which constitutes our moral health. I do not, with the philosopher, condemn the man who, irresistibly impelled towards the pursuit of honours and power, persuades himself that he is toiling for the public good when he is but gratifying his personal ambition;—probably he is a better man thus acting in conformity with his own nature, than he would be if placed beyond all temptation in Plato’s cave. Nor, on the other hand, can I think that a man of the highest faculties and the largest attainments, who has arrived at a sincere disdain of power or honours, would be a better man if he were tyrannically forced to pursue the objects from which his temperament recoils, upon the plea that he was thus promoting the public welfare. No doubt, in every city, town, street, and lane, there are bustling, officious, restless persons, who thrust themselves into public concerns, with a loud declaration that they are animated only by the desire of public good; they mistake their fidgetiness for philanthropy. Not a bubble company can be started, but what it is with a programme that its direct object is the public benefit, and the ten per cent promised to the shareholders is but a secondary consideration. Who believes in the sincerity of that announcement? In fine, according both to religion and to philosophy, virtue is the highest end of man’s endeavour; but virtue is wholly independent of the popular shout or the lictor’s fasces. Virtue is the same, whether with or without the laurel crown or the curule chair. Honours do not sully it, but obscurity does not degrade. He who is truthful, just, merciful, and kindly, does his duty to his race, and fulfils his great end in creation, no matter whether the rays of his life are not visibly beheld beyond the walls of his household, or whether they strike the ends of the earth; for every human soul is a world complete and integral, storing its own ultimate uses and destinies within itself; viewed only for a brief while, in its rising on the gaze of earth; pressing onward in its orbit amidst the infinite, when, snatched from our eyes, we say, ‘It has passed away!’ And as every star, however small it seem to us from the distance at which it shines, contributes to the health of our atmosphere, so every soul, pure and bright in itself, however far from our dwelling, however unremarked by our vision, contributes to the wellbeing of the social system in which it moves, and, in its privacy, is part and parcel of the public weal.”
Shading my face with my hand, I remained some moments musing after Gray’s voice had ceased. Then looking up, I saw so pleased and grateful a smile upon Percival Tracey’s countenance, that I checked the reply by which I had intended to submit a view of the subject in discussion somewhat different from that which Gray had taken from the Portico of the Stoics. Why should I attempt to mar whatever satisfaction Percival’s reason or conscience had found in our host’s argument? His tree of life was too firmly set for the bias of its stem to swerve in any new direction towards light and air. Let it continue to rejoice in such light and such air as was vouchsafed to the site on which it had taken root. Evening, too, now drew in, and we had a long ride before us. A little while after, we had bid adieu to Oakden Hall, and were once more threading our way through the green and solitary lanes.
We conversed but little for the first five or six miles. I was revolving what I had heard, and considering how each man’s reasoning moulds itself into excuse or applause for the course of life which he adopts. Percival’s mind was employed in other thoughts, as became clear when he thus spoke:—
“Do you think, my dear friend, that you could spare me a week or two longer? It would be a charity to me if you could, for I expect, after to-morrow, to lose my young artist, and, alas! also the Thornhills.”
“How! The Thornhills? So soon!”
“I count on receiving to-morrow the formal announcement of Henry’s promotion and exchange into the regiment he so desires to enter, with the orders to join it abroad at once. Clara, I know, will not stay here; she will be with her husband till he sails, and after his departure will take her abode with his widowed mother. I shall miss them much. But Thornhill feels that he is wasting his life here; and so—well—I have acted for the best. With respect to the artist, this morning I received a letter from my old friend Lord ——. He is going into Italy next week; he wishes for some views of Italian scenery for a villa he has lately bought, and will take Bourke with him, on my recommendation, leaving him ultimately at Rome. Lord ——‘s friendship and countenance will be of immense advantage to the young painter, and obtain him many orders. I have to break it to Bourke this evening, and he will, no doubt, quit me to-morrow to take leave of his family. For myself, as I always feel somewhat melancholy in remaining on the same spot after friends depart from it, I propose going to Bellevue, where I have a small yacht. It is glorious weather for sea excursions. Come with me, my dear friend! The fresh breezes will do you good; and we shall have leisure for talk on all the subjects which both of us love to explore and guess at.”
No proposition could be more alluring to me. My recent intercourse with Tracey had renewed all the affection and interest with which he had inspired my youth. My health and spirits had been already sensibly improved by my brief holiday, and an excursion at sea had been the special advice of my medical attendant. I hesitated a moment. Nothing called me back to London except public business, and, in that, I foresaw but the bare chance of a motion in Parliament which stood on the papers for the next day; but my letters had assured me that this motion was generally expected to be withdrawn or postponed.
So I accepted the invitation gladly, provided nothing unforeseen should interfere with it.
Pleased by my cordial assent, Tracey’s talk now flowed forth with genial animation. He described his villa overhanging the sea, with its covered walks to the solitary beach—the many objects of interest and landscapes of picturesque beauty within reach of easy rides, on days in which the yacht might not tempt us. I listened with the delight of a schoolboy, to whom some good-natured kinsman paints the luxuries of a home at which he invites the schoolboy to spend the vacation.
By little and little our conversation glided back to our young past, and thence to those dreams, nourished ever by the young;—love and romance, and home brightened by warmer beams than glow in the smile of sober friendship. How the talk took this direction I know not; perhaps by unconscious association, as the moon rose above the forest-hills, with the love-star by her side. And, thus conversing, Tracey for the first time alluded to that single passion which had vexed the smooth river of his life—and which, thanks to Lady Gertrude, was already, though vaguely, known to me.
“It was,” said he, “just such a summer night as this, and, though in a foreign country, amidst scenes of which these woodland hills remind me, that the world seemed to me to have changed into a Fairyland; and, looking into my heart, I said to myself, ‘This, then, is—love.’ And a little while after, on such a night, and under such a moon, and amidst such hills and groves, the world seemed blighted into a desert—life to be evermore without hope or object; and, looking again into my heart, I said, ‘This, then, is love denied!’”
“Alas!” answered I, “there are few men in whose lives there is not some secret memoir of an affection thwarted; but rarely indeed does an affection thwarted leave a permanent influence on the after-destinies of a man’s life. On that question I meditate an essay, which, if ever printed, I will send to you.”
I said this, wishing to draw him on, and expecting him to contradict my assertion as to the enduring influence of a disappointed love. He mused a moment or so in silence, and then said, “Well, perhaps so; an unhappy love may not permanently affect our after-destinies, still it colours our after-thoughts. It is strange that I should have only seen, throughout my long and various existence, one woman whom I could have wooed as my wife—one woman in whose presence I felt as if I were born for her and she for me.”
“May I ask you what was her peculiar charm in your eyes; or, if you permit me to ask, can you explain it?”
“No doubt,” answered Tracey, “much must be ascribed to the character of her beauty, which realised the type I had formed to myself from boyhood of womanly loveliness in form and face, and much also to a mind with which a man, however cultivated, could hold equal commune. But to me her predominating attraction was in a simple, unassuming nobleness of sentiment—a truthful, loyal, devoted, self-sacrificing nature. In her society I felt myself purified, exalted, as if in the presence of an angel. But enough of this. I am resigned to my loss, and have long since hung my votive tablet in the shrine of ‘Time the Consoler.’”
“Forgive me if I am intrusive; but did she know that you loved her?”
“I cannot say; probably most women discover if they are loved; but I rejoice to think that I never told her so.”
“Would she have rejected you if you had?”
“Yes, unhesitatingly; her word was plighted to another. And though she would not, for the man to whom she had betrothed herself, have left her father alone in poverty and exile, she would never have married any one else.”
“You believe, then, that she loved your rival with a heart that could not change?”
Tracey did not immediately reply. At last he said, “I believe this—that when scarcely out of girlhood, she considered herself engaged to be one man’s wife, or for ever single. And if, in the course of time, and in length of absence, she could have detected in her heart the growth of a single thought unfaithful to her troth, she would have plucked it forth and cast it from her as firmly as if already a wedded wife, with her husband’s honour in her charge. She was one of those women with whom man’s trust is for ever safe, and to whom a love at variance with plighted troth is an impossibility. So, she lives in my thoughts still, as I saw her last, five-and-twenty years ago, unalterable in her youth and beauty. And I have been as true to her hallowed remembrance as she was true to her maiden vows. May I never see her again on earth! Her or her likeness I may find amidst the stars.” “No,” he added, in a lighter and cheerier tone—“No; I do not think that my actual destinies, my ways of life here below, have been affected by her loss. Had I won her, I can scarcely conceive that I should have become more tempted to ambition or less enamoured of home. Still, whatever leaves so deep a furrow in a man’s heart cannot be meant in vain. Where the ploughshare cuts, there the seed is sown, and there later the corn will spring. In a word, I believe that everything of moment which befalls us in this life—which occasions us some great sorrow—for which, in this life, we see not the uses—has, nevertheless, its definite object, and that that object will be visible on the other side of the grave. It may seem but a barren grief in the history of a life—it may prove a fruitful joy in the history of a soul. For if nothing in this world is accident, surely all that which affects the only creature upon earth to whom immortality is announced, must have a distinct and definite purpose, often not developed till immortality begins.”
Here we had entered on the wide spaces of the park. The deer and the kine were asleep on the silvered grass, or under the shade of the quiet trees. Now, as we cleared a beech-grove, we saw the lights gleaming from the windows of the house, and the moon, at her full, resting still over the peaceful housetop! Truly had Percival said, “That there are trains of thought set in motion by the stars which are dormant in the glare of the sun”—truly had he said, too, “That without such thoughts man’s thinking is incomplete.”
We gained the house, and, entering the library, it was pleasant to see how instinctively all rose to gather round the master. They had missed Percival’s bright presence the whole day.
Some little time afterwards, when, seated next to Lady Gertrude, I was talking to her of the Grays, I observed Tracey take aside the Painter, and retire with him into the adjoining colonnade. They were not long absent. When they returned, Bourke’s face, usually serious, was joyous and elated. In a few moments, with all his Irish warmth of heart, he burst forth with the announcement of the new obligations he owed to Sir Percival Tracey. “I have always said,” exclaimed he, “that, give me an opening and I will find or make my way. I have the opening now; you shall see!” We all poured our congratulations upon the young enthusiast, except Henry Thornhill, and his brow was shaded and his lip quivered. Clara, watching him, curbed her own friendly words to the artist, and, drawing to her husband’s side, placed her hand tenderly on his shoulder. “Pish! do leave me alone,” muttered the ungracious churl.
“See,” whispered Percival to me, “what a brute that fine young fellow would become if we insisted on making him happy our own way, and saving him from the chance of being shot!”
Therewith rising, he gently led away Clara, to whose soft eyes tears had rushed; and looking back to Henry, whose head was bended over a volume of ‘The Wellington Despatches,’ said in his ear, half-fondly, half-reproachfully, “Poor young fool! how bitterly you will repent every word, every look of unkindness to her, when—when she is no more at your side to pardon you!”
That night it was long before I slept. I pleased myself with what is now grown to me a rare amusement—viz., the laying out plans for the morrow. This holiday, with Tracey all to myself; this summer sail on the seas; this interval of golden idlesse, refined by intercourse with so serene an intelligence, and on subjects so little broached in the world of cities, fascinated my imagination; and I revolved a hundred questions it would be delightful to raise, a hundred problems it would be impossible to solve. Though my life has been a busy one, I believe that constitutionally I am one of the most indolent men alive. To lie on the grass in summer noons under breathless trees, to glide over smooth waters, and watch the still shadows on tranquil shores, is happiness to me. I need then no books—then, no companion. But if to that happiness in the mere luxury of repose, I may add another happiness of a higher nature, it is in converse with some one friend, upon subjects remote from the practical work-day world,—subjects akin less to our active thoughts than to our dreamlike reveries,—subjects conjectural, speculative, fantastic, embracing not positive opinions—for opinions are things combative and disputatious—but rather those queries and guesses which start up from the farthest border-land of our reason, and lose themselves in air as we attempt to chase and seize them.
And perhaps this sort of talk, which leads to no conclusions clear enough for the uses of wisdom, is the more alluring to me, because it is very seldom to be indulged. I carefully separate from the business of life all which belong to the visionary realm of speculative conjecture. From the world of action I hold it imperatively safe to banish the ideas which exhibit the cloud-land of metaphysical doubts and mystical beliefs. In the actual world let me see by the same broad sun that gives light to all men; it is only in the world of reverie that I amuse myself with the sport of the dark lantern, letting its ray shoot before me into the gloom, and caring not if, in its illusive light, the thorn-tree in my path take the aspect of a ghost. I shall notice the thorn-tree all the better, distinguish more clearly its shape, when I pass by it the next day under the sun, for the impression it made on my fancy seen first by the gleam of the dark lantern. Now, Tracey is one of the very few highly-educated men it has been my lot to know, with whom one can safely mount in rudderless balloons, drifting wind-tossed after those ideas which are the phantoms of Reverie, and wander, ghost-like, out of castles in the air. And my mind found a playfellow in his, where, in other men’s minds, as richly cultured, it found only companions or competitors in task-work.
Towards dawn, I fell asleep, and dreamt that I was a child once more, gathering bluebells and chasing dragonflies amidst murmuring water-reeds. The next day I came down late; all had done breakfast. The Painter was already gone; the Librarian had retired into his den. Henry Thornhill was walking by himself to and fro, in front of the window, with folded arms and downcast brow. Percival was seated apart, writing letters. Clara was at work, stealing every now and then a mournful glance towards Henry. Lady Gertrude, punctiliously keeping her place by the tea-urn, filled my cup, and pointed to a heap of letters formidably ranged before my plate. I glanced anxiously and rapidly over these unwelcomed epistles. Thank heaven, nothing to take me back to London! My political correspondent informed me, by a hasty line, that the dreaded motion which stood first on the parliamentary paper for that day would in all probability be postponed, agreeably to the request of the Government. The mover of it had not, however, given a positive answer; no doubt he would do so in the course of the night (last night); and there was little doubt that, as a professed supporter of the Government, he would yield to the request that had been made to him.
So, after I had finished my abstemious breakfast, I took Percival aside and told him that I considered myself free to prolong my stay, and asked him, in a whisper, if he had yet received the official letter he expected, announcing young Thornhill’s exchange and promotion.
“Yes,” said he, “and I only waited for you to announce its contents to poor Henry; for I wish you to tell me whether you think the news will make him as happy as yesterday he thought it would.”
Tracey and I then went out, and joined Henry in his walk. The young man turned round on us an impatient countenance.
“So we have lost Bourke,” said Tracey. “I hope he will return to England with the reputation he goes forth to seek.”
“Ay,” said Henry, “Bourke is a lucky dog to have found, in one who is not related to him, so warm and so true a friend.”
“Every dog, lucky or unlucky, has his day,” said Percival, gravely.
“Every dog except a house-dog,” returned Henry. “A house-dog is thought only fit for a chain and a kennel.”
“Ah, happy if his happiness he knew!” replied Tracey. “But I own that liberty compensates for the loss of a warm litter and a good dinner. Away from the kennel and off with the chain! Read this letter, and accept my congratulations—Major Thornhill!”
The young man started; the colour rushed to his cheeks; he glanced hastily over the letter held out to him; dropped it; caught his kinsman’s hand, and pressing it to his heart, exclaimed, “Oh, sir, thanks, thanks! So then, all the while I was accusing you of obstructing my career you were quietly promoting it! How can you forgive me my petulance, my ingratitude?”
“Tut,” said Percival, kindly, “the best-tempered man is sometimes cross in his cups; and nothing, perhaps, more irritates a young brain than to get drunk on the love of glory.”
At the word glory the soldier’s crest rose, his eye flashed fire, his whole aspect changed, it became lofty and noble. Suddenly his eye caught sight of Clara, who had stepped out of the window, and stood gazing on him. His head drooped, tears rushed to his eyes, and with a quivering, broken voice, he muttered, “Poor Clara—my wife, my darling! Oh, Sir Percival, truly you said how bitterly I should repent every unkind word and look. Ah, they will haunt me!”
“Put aside regrets now. Go and break the news to your wife: support, comfort her; you alone can. I have not dared to tell her.”
Henry sighed and went, no longer joyous, but with slow step and paling cheek, to the place where Clara stood. We saw him bend over the hand she held out to him, kiss it humbly, and then passing his arm round her waist, he drew her away into the farther recesses of the garden, and both disappeared from our eyes.
“No,” said I, “he is not happy; like us all, he finds that things coveted have no longer the same charm when they are things possessed. Clara is avenged already. But you have done wisely. Let him succeed or let him fail, you have removed from Clara her only rival. If you had debarred him from honour you would have estranged him from love. Now you have bound him to Clara for life. She has ceased to be an obstacle to his dreams, and henceforth she herself will be the dream which his waking life will sigh to regain.”
“Heaven grant he may come back, with both his legs and both his arms; and, perhaps, with a bit of ribbon, or five shillings’ worth of silver on his breast,” said Percival, trying hard to be lively. “Of all my kinsmen, I think I like him the best. He is rough as the east wind, but honest as the day. Heigho! they will both leave us in an hour or two. Clara’s voice is so sweet; I wonder when she will sing again! What a blank the place will seem without those two young faces! As soon as they are gone, we two will be off. Aunt Gertrude does not like Bellevue, and will pay a visit for a few days to a cousin of hers on the other side of the county. I must send on before to let the housekeeper at Bellevue prepare for our coming. Meanwhile, pardon me if I leave you—perhaps you have letters to write; if so, despatch them.”
I was in no humour for writing letters, but when Percival left me I strolled from the house into the garden, and, reclining there on a bench opposite one of the fountains, enjoyed the calm beauty of the summer morning. Time slipped by. Every now and then I caught sight of Henry and Clara among the lilacs in one of the distant walks, his arm still round her waist, her head leaning on his shoulder. At length they went into the house, doubtless to prepare for their departure.
I thought of the wild folly with which youth casts away the substance of happiness to seize at the shadow which breaks on the wave that mirrors it; wiser and happier surely the tranquil choice of Gray, though with gifts and faculties far beyond those of the young man who mistook the desire of fame for the power to win it. And then my thoughts settling back on myself, I became conscious of a certain melancholy. How poor and niggard compared with my early hopes had been my ultimate results! How questioned, grudged, and litigated, my right of title to every inch of ground that my thought had discovered or my toils had cultivated! What motive power in me had, from boyhood to the verge of age, urged me on “to scorn delight and love laborious days?” Whatever the motive power once had been, I could no longer trace it. If vanity—of which, doubtless, in youth I had my human share—I had long since grown rather too callous than too sensitive to that love of approbation in which vanity consists. I was stung by no penury of fortune, influenced by no feverish thirst for a name that should outlive my grave, fooled by no hope of the rewards which goad on ambition. I had reached the age when Hope weighs her anchor and steers forth so far that her amplest sail seems but a silvery speck on the last line of the horizon. Certainly I flattered myself that my purposes linked my toils to some slight service to mankind; that in graver efforts I was asserting opinions in the value of which to human interests I sincerely believed, and in lighter aims venting thoughts and releasing fancies which might add to the culture of the world—not, indeed, fruitful harvests, but at least some lowly flowers. But though such intent might be within my mind, could I tell how far I unconsciously exaggerated its earnestness—still less could I tell how far the intent was dignified by success? “Have I done aught for which mankind would be the worse were it swept into nothingness to-morrow?”—is a question which many a grand and fertile genius may, in its true humility, address mournfully to itself. It is but a negative praise, though it has been recorded as a high one, to leave
“No line which, dying, we would wish to blot.”
If that be all, as well leave no line at all. He has written in vain who does not bequeath lines that, if blotted, would be a loss to that treasure-house of mind which is the everlasting possession of the world. Who, yet living, can even presume to guess if he shall do this? Not till at least a century after his brain and his hand are dust can even critics begin to form a rational conjecture of an author’s or a statesman’s uses to his kind. Was it, then, as Gray had implied, merely the force of habit which kept me in movement? if so, was it a habit worth all the sacrifice it cost? Thus meditating, I forgot that if all men reasoned thus and acted according to such reasoning, the earth would have no intermediate human dwellers between the hewers and diggers, and the idlers, born to consume the fruits which they do not plant. Farewell, then, to all the embellishments and splendours by which civilised man breathes his mind and his soul into nature. For it is not only the genius of rarest intellects which adorns and aggrandises social states, but the aspirations and the efforts of thousands and millions, all towards the advance and uplifting and beautifying of the integral, universal state, by the energies native to each. Where would be the world fit for Traceys and Grays to dwell in, if all men philosophised like the Traceys and the Grays? Where all the gracious arts, all the generous rivalries of mind, that deck and animate the bright calm of peace? Where all the devotion, heroism, self-sacrifice in a common cause, that exalt humanity even amidst the rage and deformities of war, if, throughout well-ordered, close-welded states, there ran not electrically, from breast to breast, that love of honour which is a part of man’s sense of beauty, or that instinct towards utility which, even more than the genius too exceptional to be classed amongst the normal regulations of social law, creates the marvels of mortal progress? Not, however, I say, did I then address to myself these healthful and manly questions. I felt only that I repined, and looked with mournful and wearied eyes along an agitated, painful, laborious past. Rousing myself with an effort from these embittered contemplations, the charm of the external nature insensibly refreshed and gladdened me. I inhaled the balm of an air sweet with flowers, felt the joy of the summer sun, from which all life around seemed drawing visible happiness, and said to myself gaily, “At least to-day is mine—this blissful sunlit day—
‘Nimium breves
Flores amænæ ferre jube rosæ,
Dum res et ætas et sororum,
Fila trium patiuntur atra!’”
So murmuring, I rose as from a dream, and saw before me a strange figure—a figure, uncouth, sinister, ominous as the evil genius that startled Brutus on the eve of Philippi. I knew by an unmistakable instinct that that figure was an evil genius.
“Do you want me? Who and what are you?” I asked, falteringly.
“Please your honour, I come express from the N—— Station. A telegram.”
I opened the scrap of paper extended to me, and read these words,—
“O—— positively brings on his motion. Announced it last night too late for post. Division certain—probably before dinner. Every vote wanted. Come directly.”
Said the Express with a cruel glee, as I dropped the paper, “Sir, the station-master also received a telegram to send over a fly. I have brought one; only just in time to catch the half-past twelve o’clock; no other train till six. You had best be quick, sir.”
No help for it. I hurried back to the house, bade my servant follow by the next train with my portmanteau—no moments left to wait for packing; found Tracey in his quiet study—put the telegram into his hands. “You see my excuse—adieu.”
“Does this motion, then, interest you so much? Do you mean to speak on it?”
“No, but it must not be carried. Every vote against it is of consequence. Besides, I have promised to vote, and cannot stay away with honour.”
“Honour! That settles it. I must go to Bellevue alone; or shall I take Caleb and make him teach me Hebrew? But surely you will join me to-morrow, or the next day?”
“Yes, if I can. But heavens!” (glancing at the clock)—“not half an hour to reach the station—six miles off. Kindest regards to Lady Gertrude—poor Clara—Henry—and all. Heaven bless you!”
I am in the fly—I am off. I gain the station just in time for the train—arrive at the House of Commons in more than time as to a vote, for the debate not only lasted all that night, but was adjourned till the next week, and lasted the greater part of that, when it was withdrawn, and—no vote at all!
But I could not then return to Tracey. Every man accustomed to business in London knows how, once there, hour after hour, arises a something that will not allow him to depart. When at length freed, I knew Tracey would no longer need my companionship—his Swedish philosopher was then with him. They were deep in scientific mysteries, on which, as I could throw no light, I should be but a profane intruder. Besides, I was then summoned to my own country place, and had there to receive my own guests, long pre-engaged. So passed the rest of the summer; in the autumn I went abroad, and have never visited the Castle of Indolence since those golden days. In truth I resisted a frequent and a haunting desire to do so. I felt that a second and a longer sojourn in that serene but relaxing atmosphere might unnerve me for the work which I had imposed on myself, and sought to persuade my tempted conscience was an inexorable duty. Experience had taught me that in the sight of that intellectual repose, so calm and so dreamily happy, my mind became unsettled, and nourished seeds that might ripen to discontent of the lot I had chosen for myself. So then, sicut meus est mos, I seize a consolation for the loss of enjoyments that I may not act anew by living them over again, in fancy and remembrance: I give to my record the title of “Motive Power,” though it contains much episodical to that thesis, and though it rather sports around the subject so indicated than subjects it to strict analysis. But I here take for myself the excuse I have elsewhere made for Montaigne, in his loose observance of the connection between the matter and the titles of his essays.
I must leave it to the reader to blame or acquit me for having admitted so many lengthy descriptions, so many digressive turns and shifts of thought and sentiment, through which, as through a labyrinth, he winds his way, with steps often checked and often retrogressive, still, sooner or later, creeping on to the heart of the maze. There I leave him to find the way out. Labyrinths have no interest if we give the clue to them.