II.
What, then, is the cause which has effected this mighty reality, as great as earth, as old as time, as marvellous as heaven, and whose name among us is Christianity? Nineteen hundred years ago, a little Child was borne in an obscure village of a poor country. His parents were poor and of no account; he himself lived a poor man, unknown and unnoticed, save in one or two instances plying during thirty years a lowly trade in a forgotten corner of the world. Of a sudden, however, he breaks silence: he preaches, all untaught as he seemed, a doctrine which earth had never before heard, and confirming it by signs earth had never before seen. Public attention is arrested: he becomes the hero of the hour, and parties spring up for and against him. Two years and a half go by in uneasy peace, but a day comes when his enemies get the upper hand, and denounce him to the civil tribunals of the country, whose cowardly justice, while declaring him to be innocent, yet allows popular prejudice and the threat of imperial displeasure to wrest from it an unwilling condemnation. The innovator is nailed to a gibbet, and his brief history, hardly three years old, seems for ever ended, and ended in what manner? By a sentence of capital punishment, and a memory left stained with ignominy by the hand of the public executioner.
Here, then, is the cause we seek: A Jew! a poor, unknown, untaught Jew! a Jew condemned to a shameful death by the justice of his country, and executed on the public road among other malefactors; a Jew, and, if we dare to say the word, a felon!
Listen and weigh well that which you shall hear. You have seen the cause, you have seen the effect. Between the two rises the great question. How could such a cause produce such an effect? This we purpose to examine in a few words:
There are three explanations from which your choice may be made, and which pretend to connect a cause so radically powerless with an effect so immeasurably disproportionate. They are these: Either mankind has believed for two thousand years and actually believes in Christianity without sufficient reason, without adequate proof. In that case, humanity is mad, and for twenty centuries has been so, and I myself, who am speaking to you, am out of my senses.
Or else mankind believes with fully adequate proof, perfectly calculated to convince it, and yet what it believes is false. In that case, God has deceived us during twenty, forty, sixty centuries, since the beginning of the world. In that case, Providence is a mockery, and its sway over the universe has been from the very first hour of creation but one long mystification, one scornful derision of our human reason. Or again, if you cannot believe either that mankind has mistaken God, or that God has deceived mankind, there is but one hypothesis left, namely, that Jesus Christ is God!
In order that you may choose more deliberately between these three possibilities, it will be necessary to afford them fuller development. The first of these compels you to infer that mankind for the last two thousand years has been bereft of reason, and that at the present moment a considerable portion of it, myself included, is in a hopeless state of insanity.
This may seem to you an exaggerated proposition, got up simply to prop the weakness of an untenable argument, but it is nothing if not an absolute truth, most easy of demonstration. Let us suppose that to-morrow, the 18th of December of the year of grace 1865, there shall enter into this great capital, through one of its numerous gates and towards the dusk of evening, a poor and ragged beggar, the dust of his journey still upon him, and his ignorance of the language of the country painfully conspicuous. Let us suppose this man presenting himself before the populace, the magistracy, the priesthood, the army, and before the Emperor himself, and speaking to him thus: “Sire, a few years ago, your majesty was pleased to order the public execution, in a remote province of the Empire, of a Jew. This Jew was the Messiah, the Saviour, God himself! Therefore, O Cæsar! come down from your throne, bend your knee, be baptized, and confess your sins; for, mark it well, this crucified Jew is none other than your God.” What would you say, my brethren, to the man who should speak thus to-day? You would fitly account him a madman, and madder yet the people and the priesthood, the army and the monarch, who should believe in his wild words.
Well, then, this strange tale is a true one, it is a historical fact. One day, many ages ago, an old Jew, baptized by the name of Peter, entered, a beggar, ragged, and dust-begrimed, through one of the gates of the greatest capital of the mightiest empire of the world—ancient Rome.
In Rome, he actually preached the unheard-of sermon I have just quoted, and which, repeated in that form to-day, would cause only a burst of derision. Why did Rome not mock him? Why did the priesthood not hoot him? Why did Cæsar not scorn him? Why, on the contrary, did this beggar, with his rough staff and scrip, with his barbarous Latin sounding harshly on the ears of those who could yet remember the voice of Cicero on the rostrum—why did he shake the foundations of the mightiest empire of the world, and why, instead of provoking laughter, did the people pale and tremble before him in the Forum, the magistrates quail beneath their robes of office, the priesthood shrink affrighted to their doomed temples, and Nero, the emperor, forget to trust in his blood-stained purple? Why does the deserted Palatine look to-day upon the opposite hill of the Vatican, and behold there a dome whose summit may well be said to seek to scale the heavens—a dome that crowns a tomb, that of the beggar Peter, a tomb which, though but the fane of the dead, is nevertheless the centre of Europe and the world? For this tomb bears a throne at once the most ancient and the most sacred in Europe, the only one which represents an empire whose boundaries are the boundaries of the universe. And why all this? Only because Peter proved by signs and wonders, by miracles wrought both in life and in death, that he spoke indeed in the name of him whom heaven and earth obeyed, because he was their Maker. Because he wrought these signs, his word was believed. And I am free to confess that, had the men of his time believed in him without such an irrefragable proof of his mission, they would have been madmen indeed, and we, who are now the heirs of their faith, would have been only the successors to their folly. For two thousand years, I repeat it, the history of mankind would have been a long dream of insanity, an act of stupendous folly, and, as a climax to this incalculable confusion, there would have sprung from this folly the most incomprehensible of contradictions—wisdom and glory, light and virtue, civilization and progress—in a word, that great wonder which holds all lesser marvels within itself, namely, Christianity.
If I mistake not, your common sense has already set aside this hypothesis as untenable. We admit it, you may say to me; to make mankind believe in the—humanly speaking—unbelievable, there must have been proofs capable of proving and making certain, so to speak, the very impossible itself. We must admit it, unless we accuse the whole world of madness. But if Peter and the apostles, and all the preachers of the Gospel, confirmed their teaching by signs that were accounted miracles, might this not be explained by a chain of fortuitious coincidences, happy accidents, seeming miracles, which are every day elucidated by the progress of investigation until they utterly disappear in the full light of science? A discussion of the nature and essence of the Gospel miracles would be utterly out of place at this moment. I will therefore confine myself to this: if the miracles which, among outward causes, are the principal explanation of the world’s conversion to Christianity, are false, then it is no longer mankind unconsciously duped and led away, but Heaven itself, the deceiver and seducer, whom we must indignantly accuse.
There is no alternative, my brethren: either madness on the part of earth, or crime on the part of heaven. Either man is bereft of reason, or God is no longer just. Either man unknowingly deceives himself, or God wilfully deceives him. Choose ye, therefore!
But in choosing, remember that he who accuses God of having deceived the world, or even of having permitted what is called chance to have so deceived it, blasphemes as much against mankind as against God, and commits such treason against humanity as can never be forgiven by it. To accuse God of having allowed evil to triumph in the plausible likeness of good, and to become, behind this mask, the goal, the light, the glory, the life, the very God of mankind, involves nothing less than the negation of Providence, and the abandonment of the world to the blind god of chance, the savage god of fate, the shadowy god of nothingness. Such an accusation confuses all creation, darkens the sun of understanding, casts history back into chaos, the human intellect into doubt, the human heart into despair. If Providence has betrayed mankind from its cradle, why should it not have betrayed me, individually, from my birth? At the slightest hint of such a doubt, what a fearful horizon looms up before me!
I have believed in him who has numbered every hair of my head; and I have been deceived.
I have believed in the prayer of the poor who ask for daily bread, and in the answer of him who gives it, and in whose sight even the sparrow is not forgotten; and I have been deceived! I have believed in the eloquence of tears shed at the feet and the heart of God; in the blessings of mothers registered in heaven; in the fruitfulness of suffering; in the merit of unknown virtue, and of virtue unknown to itself; in defeats that are glorious and success that is shameful; I have believed in all that showed forth God in man, and man in God! But—grief unspeakable!—I have been deceived, since there is no Providence, since for ages and ages an odious and inexplicable chance has ruled humanity, and forced it, humbled, mystified, levelled with the brute, miserably plunged in a stupid and inconceivable idolatry, to bend the knee to the very dust—before what? before whom? Before a man, a Jew—before a scourged and crucified Jew, whom it hearkens to as an oracle, invokes as a master, and worships as a god.
I have reached a limit beyond which I cannot go, and I stop a moment to ask you: Have we not seen enough of these impossibilities jostling one another, enough of absurdities crowding on our bewildered sight, and, as Scripture words it, of deep calling unto deep?
And yet, if you tear from the brow of Jesus Christ the crowning glory of the Godhead, you will be compelled to admit a thousand times more than this, and not only to admit it, but even to believe it fitting and most rational. You are therefore forced to choose between the human madness that believed in and deified an impostor, the guilty and merciless fraud practised by a God whose seal was thus solemnly set to the most appalling scandal ever witnessed by mankind, or the crowning dogma of the divinity of Jesus Christ, a dogma which alone reconciles and explains all mysteries. When you recross the threshold of this church, you must go forth believers, either in a miracle of folly, a miracle of treachery, or a miracle of mercy and love. Mankind must appear before you either as a regenerated, a deceived, or an idolatrous creation.
What will be your choice? Would to God that at the solemn moment of your decision I might come to each one of you, and on my knees beseech you, through the merits of that Precious Blood which, if you will not let it be your salvation, will most assuredly be your eternal condemnation, and the sign that will doom you to doubt in life, to agony in death, to despair in eternity—beseech you, I repeat it ere you have raised your voice in final decision, to free your soul from the interests that bind it, the human respect that fetters it, the sophisms that lead it astray—in a word, from all the passions of flesh and blood whose watchword is eternal hatred to the truth of God.
Then, and only then, in that freedom from all bondage, in the silence of your inmost hearts, make the choice that will lead you to life or to death.
But what words are these, my brethren? There will be no need of choosing then: the choice will be already made; for, as the sun swiftly reaches the last recess of the deepest cavern the moment the obstacle is removed which has hitherto resisted its light, so does Jesus Christ, the sun of the mind, the incarnate truth, flood with his radiance every soul whose own obstinate efforts do not close it against this blessed transfiguration. Open wide your hearts, my brethren, to this God of love and truth, who has vouchsafed to show himself to you in the brightness of such light and the majesty of such conviction.
And thou, Lord Jesus, who art the truth “that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world” (St. John i.), let it not come to pass that one soul out of this great assemblage should return this day from the foot of this pulpit to the common turmoil of the world without bearing within itself the ineffable wound of a dawning conviction. And if, O Lord! thou requirest unto this end the sacrifice of a human life, let this day be my last on earth, and this hour the last hour of my mortal pilgrimage.
AFFIRMATIONS.
“It is the child’s spirit that is to be loved and sympathized with, not his body; the body must be pampered as little as possible.”
“Principle must unite with purpose before it becomes practical.”
“Human nature must do as nature does—cling to the sustainer, and then it will be always producing new fruits.”
“We are none the better for reflecting upon our own ideas of heat, but if we would cease reflecting and let the heat warm us, the heat would itself realize what our reflected reflections never can.”
“There is a communion with God, with saints, and also with angels, and then with each other, but this is not in space and time, or with the space and time man.”
“That which Love requires for the everlasting food, the man of this world expends in heaping up rubbish.”
FLEURANGE.
BY MRS. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF “A SISTER’S STORY.”
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH PERMISSION.
PART FIRST.
THE OLD MANSION.
XII.
Clement remained a moment thoughtful and undecided. Before obeying his mother’s injunction, he felt the need of collecting his thoughts and regaining his self-control. Whatever strength of mind he might manifest, he was very young to experience such painful emotions as he had endured the past day. He crossed the passage of the stairs that led to Fleurange’s room, then passed on and went directly into the garden. Hitherto he had only thought of his parents. At least, he felt all that morning that, as soon as his father and mother knew everything, a great weight would be removed from his mind which would enable him to breathe quite freely. But the terrible revelation was made, and yet he was not relieved. He was still agitated, painfully agitated. Having passed the whole evening shut up in Wilhelm’s office, reckoning up the sad accounts, he felt the need of fresh air. It was the end of June. The weather was cloudy, and somewhat showery. He walked swiftly to the end of the garden, then returned slowly towards the house, and was about to go in search of the children and his cousin when he heard his name called close behind him:
“Clement!”
“Is it you, Gabrielle, here all alone?”
Fleurange was sitting on an obscure bench against the side of the house.
“Yes, I have been here an hour. You are going to tell me everything that has occurred, are you not, Clement? Remain here awhile and tell me. Do not conceal things from me any longer.”
“I do not intend to, Gabrielle, but do not detain me now. Come in, dear cousin. When the children are asleep, I will return and tell you.”
“The children are asleep, Clement, and have been for a long time. It is nearly ten o’clock. Poor little things, do you think they could keep awake till this time? After dinner I took them to the further end of the garden, that their lively prattle might not disturb the house. By eight o’clock they were tired out. I made them go up-stairs, and as soon as they fell asleep I came down to wait for you.”
Had her account been still longer, Clement would not have thought of interrupting her. He made no reply for a while, but at length said:
“Thank you, Gabrielle. You are—” He stopped. He felt an iron grasp at his throat, and feared he should sob like a child if he attempted to speak. With all his manly energy and precocious gravity, Clement’s young heart was passionately tender. And yet he had not been wanting in firmness throughout the day. Why, then, did it seem to abandon him so suddenly now? How happened it that, after considering, without shrinking, all the consequences of the resolution he was the first to make and propose—after manifesting no hesitation at the sight of his parents, and his brother and sister, he now felt terrified and almost overwhelmed at the thought of the sacrifice that had been made, and the great change about to occur in their lives? He hardly knew why himself, for he had not examined very minutely what was passing in his dreams. Clement was naturally inclined to reverie. He cared but little for the amusements of his age. His mind sought relaxation in secretly brooding over the inspirations of poetry. His friends knew he had a good memory and was familiar with a great number of poems, but they did not suspect he had a deep vein of poetry in his nature which ranked next to the influences of religion. This interior life was so completely veiled that the very eye of his mother scarcely penetrated it. Clement’s aptitude for history and the sciences, his turn for practical studies and a practical life, his skill in a thousand things of a material nature, served to conceal still more the other qualities of his mind. They depended on him to train a horse, settle an account, give a lesson in mathematics or history, plan an excursion, or make arrangements for a journey; but the idea of his wandering in imaginary or poetic regions, absorbed and lost in such waking dreams as are expressed in German by the word Schwärmen, and silently passing a part of his life in an interior world to which he never alluded, was little imagined, even by those who knew him best. And perhaps he himself, as we have said, had never thoroughly analyzed his own nature, for until to-day the actual and the imaginary had never come in conflict. But now all at once he felt there was in his ideal world a sanctuary, a palace, a throne, he must resign himself to see crumble away like the rest, and the courage he manifested at the material loss of wealth to its fullest extent seemed to forsake him now in view of the imaginary ruin of this enchanted domain!
Fleurange, seeing her cousin made no reply, waited quietly awhile, but at length she said, somewhat impatiently:
“Come, Clement, I pray you, keep me no longer in suspense. What are you afraid of? Am I a child? Am I not older than you? And did I not learn long ago the sad meaning of sorrow, suffering, and trial? Speak to me freely, then, and without fear. Nothing frightens me.”
Fleurange’s earnestness roused her cousin, and restored his calmness and self-control. Without any further hesitation, he seated himself beside her, and related the greater part of what he had told his mother some hours before. She thus learned in her turn the extent of the disaster which had befallen them—that all due reparation would be made, that the honor of her uncle’s house and name might remain intact, though his brother, Ludwig Dornthal, would be ruined—for ever ruined.
“And your good father and mother have consented to this renunciation of their rights?”
“Yes, and without any hesitation.”
“O dear and noble soul!” cried Fleurange, clasping her hands in her transport. “And it was you who proposed it?”
“Yes.”
“O Clement, my dear Clement! truly, I love you as I never loved you before!”
“Gabrielle,” said Clement in a low and trembling voice, “do not say that.”
“Why not?” said Fleurange. “I think so, and it is the truth.”
“Because—because, if they are often to be blamed who are wanting in honor and duty, there is nothing particularly praiseworthy in those who are faithful.”
“Nevertheless, my dear cousin, if I love you better than before, you must not be displeased, but I will not say so again if it offends you.”
There was a moment’s silence. Fleurange was lost in profound reverie. She soon resumed, in a grave tone: “Now I understand the state of affairs, I see our life is to assume an entirely new aspect.”
“Yes, entirely,” said Clement, with a dull anguish.
“This dear Old Mansion,” continued Fleurange, “must it be left?”
“Yes,” said Clement; “it will have to be sold, with all it contains, for the produce of this sale is all my father will have to begin life anew with.”
“Sell the house!” replied Fleurange thoughtfully. “Yes, I see it must be so; and afterwards we shall be separated.”
“And why must that be so?” cried Clement with sudden impetuosity. But he presently resumed in a different tone: “However, it would be very selfish in us to wish to retain you, now we have no longer anything to share with you but our poverty.”
“Clement,” said Fleurange hastily, “that is truly a rude and unjust speech, which I hardly merit—” She stopped an instant, then went on in a tone of emotion: “What! when poverty, misery, and hunger—yes, Clement, hunger!—were staring me in the face, your father bethought himself of me, he invited me here, received me into his house, conferred on me—not a happiness I had already experienced, but one hitherto unknown: he became my father, when mine was no more, and gave me a mother, brothers, and sisters whom I had never possessed. Life, youth, and joy had been meaningless words to me. I only comprehended them after I came under his roof, and now—now,” said she in broken accents, no longer able to restrain her tears, “it is his son—Ludwig Dornthal’s son—who tells me it is to escape the misfortunes of his family that I wish to leave them!”
“Gabrielle! Gabrielle!” said Clement in an agitated manner, “forgive me—have some pity on me. Stop, I beseech you; you will drive me mad, if you utter such reproaches at this time.”
Fleurange by degrees grew calm, and, forcing a smile, while great tears stood in her eyes, she soon resumed: “Poor Clement! I am, then, neither allowed to praise you nor blame you, this evening. Well, let us lay aside what relates merely to ourselves, or at least speak of it in a different manner. What I meant just now was that we could no longer remain idle. We must aid our dear parents all we can,” she continued in a softened tone, “and labor for them—”
“Labor!” said Clement. “I must unquestionably; that is a matter of course; but you, Gabrielle—you! There is no reason in what you say.”
“And I also,” said Fleurange calmly. “And that is a point to be considered. I must not only cease to be a burden to your parents, but I must aid them. How happy that will make me! I thank Heaven for the very thought that I may now be able to do something for them to whom I owe everything. This hope relieves my very sadness.”
She rose and held out her hand. “Good-night, cousin. To-morrow I will tell you what inspiration I have received from my good angel during the night.”
He silently pressed her hand, and allowed her to leave him without a word.
The night was cloudy. If Clement caught any glimpses of his cousin’s features during their conversation, it was because, seated beside her, and even favored by the obscurity, he ventured to look at her more closely than he would have done elsewhere. Now, the stars rose only to disappear beneath the sombre clouds. He was no longer afraid of being seen. He remained where Fleurange left him, and, burying his face in his hands, gave vent at last to the tears that for two hours had been suffocating him—tears of sorrow, regret, and affection, which he must shed to keep his young heart from breaking.
But he soon surmounted this violent emotion, and rose up ashamed of his weakness. At that moment he heard a window open above his head. It was Fleurange, who soon appeared on the balcony. He could see her white dress and the regular outline of face against the light from her chamber. He saw her soft glance lost in the darkness. Then she folded her hands and bent down her head. She was praying, but not alone to-night. Clement, kneeling unperceived in the shade, prayed with her. He was in the very place where he heard her say to Felix: “Clement is my brother, and you are not.” He recalled the words now, and renewed in his heart the solemn promise to be for ever faithful to all the obligations they imposed.
XIII.
If the happy inmates of the Old Mansion had been told a month previous they only had a few weeks more to pass within its walls, they would have been greatly dismayed by the prediction, and asked how such a trial could be borne. But there is in life—even in the happiest life when it is ordered aright, that is, when its duties are daily considered and faithfully accomplished—there is, I say, in such a life a latent preparation for the most violent shocks of adversity, and, when they suddenly come, it is surprising to find that they who seemed to enjoy more than others the good things they possessed are the best able to resign themselves to their loss with firmness and serenity. And yet they are not insensible to the calamity. It falls on them with its full weight, but it comes alone, unaccompanied by the two scourges which generally follow in the train of a misfortune resulting from misconduct—trouble and confusion of mind.
Neither of these followed ruin into Ludwig Dornthal’s house. Externally the disaster was complete, but peace and order were maintained within. All their decisions—even the most painful—were made deliberately, and executed calmly and without delay. They did not dissemble the greatness of their sacrifice; they made no pretence to an insensibility they did not feel; but they quietly made their preparations—tears often blinding their eyes the while—like a brave and worthy crew wrecked by a tempest and forced to abandon their vessel.
It was thus they made all the arrangements for leaving their dear home and disposing of their library, paintings, and objects of virtu, which the professor had selected with so much care and pride, and were his only source of pleasure apart from the society of his family and friends. And from the latter also he was to be separated. When Ludwig Dornthal announced his intention of resuming the career he abandoned twenty years before, positions were offered him on all sides, especially in the city where he resided. But on account of the strict economy he must henceforth practise, as well as a secret repugnance to a different social position in a place where he had been so prosperous, he decided, after some hesitation, to leave Frankfort, and accept a modest situation offered him at the University of Heidelberg. He succeeded in purchasing a small house in that place at a low price—somewhat rustic, it is true, but situated without the city walls, on the banks of the Neckar, and surrounded by a garden. He could easily walk to the university every morning, and the perspective of the rural repose that awaited him at the end of the day would enable him to endure its labors more cheerfully. He therefore decided to take possession of it as speedily as possible, and all the necessary arrangements had to be made during the few weeks they were to remain in the Old Mansion before leaving it for ever.
Clement took charge of all the preliminaries of the somewhat extensive sale that was to take place. He wished to relieve his father from so sad a task, and perform the painful and fatiguing business without any assistance, but it was made much easier for him than he anticipated. Fleurange insisted on his accepting her aid. She set herself to work, silently going to and fro with her sleeves turned back, carrying the rare china carefully from one place to another with her small but efficient hands, and dusting, arranging, and numbering the books according to her cousin’s directions. Of course she greatly lightened his labors. In the evening they seated themselves in the library, now nearly stripped of its treasures, and wrote lists or inserted notes in the large registers concerning the precious manuscripts and books that were to be disposed of. It was, in short, a work that required the vigor and activity of youth, as well as much thought and assiduous labor. To say that, while performing this double task, they never found it tiresome, that no shade ever came over their brows, and that their eyes were never tearful while handling so many objects they were never to see again, would be false; it would be equally so to say that Clement, in spite of the fatigue, was greatly to be pitied during these days.
There came a time, long after, when, looking back on the past, it seemed to him that these hours passed in the light of Fleurange’s beautiful eyes, sometimes cast down as she bent over the large registers, and anon raised to ask a question or give him a friendly glance—it seemed to him, I say, that these vanished hours were among the most delightful of his life.
At length came the day their task would be completed, and, while they were working together for the last time, Fleurange raised her eyes. “Clement,” she said, “we are nearly done. I have been waiting for this moment to tell you something.”
Clement dropped his work at once, and looked up interrogatively.
“No, no; finish what you are doing, and I will tell you afterward.”
Clement soon finished. Fleurange closed the great book before her, and resumed: “Do you remember our conversation in the garden a fortnight ago?”
“I do, most assuredly.”
“Well, after leaving you that evening, I passed the night in reflection, and ended by writing to the best, and, indeed, the only gentleman-friend I have in the world out of this house.”
“Dr. Leblanc?” said Clement, aware, of course, of all the circumstances that preceded his cousin’s arrival.
“Yes, Dr. Leblanc. I wrote him all I had just learned. I made known the situation my uncle and his family would soon be in, and my desire, my ardent desire, not only to cease to be a burden, but to fulfil a daughter’s duty with regard to them. His own daughters have other duties, now they are married, but I have only this, and it is one so precious—so precious,” repeated Fleurange in the soft tone that sometimes made her simplest words penetrate to the depths of the listener’s heart, “that I shall consider my life happy and well-spent if I can consecrate it entirely to this duty!”
Clement bent down his head, and took up his pen as if to correct a mistake on the paper before him. She must not see the effect of her words on his countenance—no! she must not.
“Well,” said he presently, without looking up, “what did Dr. Leblanc say?”
“Here, Clement, read the letter I received from him two days ago.”
Clement took the letter, but, while reading it, he was all at once filled with a similar anguish to that he experienced after the conversation that night in the garden which Fleurange had just alluded to. He was obliged to make a violent effort to restrain his feelings, and not tear the letter in his hands into a thousand pieces. Fortunately he succeeded, for it would have been the most foolish act he ever committed. And there was really nothing in Dr. Leblanc’s letter to justify such a mad desire. It read as follows:
“My dear young Friend: I cannot tell you how much I am at once distressed and edified by the sad account you have given me. I have long known what kind of a man your uncle is. I now see there are but few to be compared with him, even among the best, and I never had a keener desire than to make his acquaintance. You know I have always hoped for this gratification. It will probably be afforded me sooner than I anticipated. And this leads me to the second part of your letter.
“I understand your wish, and would like to second it. Besides, I have not forgotten my promise to aid you in gaining a livelihood, should it ever be necessary. Poor child! I hoped never to be called upon to fulfil it, but, as things have come to that pass, I must tell you of a letter I received yesterday which, coinciding with yours, seems to be a providential indication. This letter is from the Princess Catharine Lamianoff, a Russian lady, who is one of my patients. She is now at Munich, and has sent for me to go there. I have already prescribed for her with success, and, from what she tells me of her state, I think my visit may be beneficial. I have therefore decided on the journey, and shall be absent a fortnight. I shall go by the way of Frankfort on purpose to see you. But, first, I must tell you what there is in the letter to interest you. The princess earnestly requests me to find a young lady, carefully educated and with good manners, to be her demoiselle de compagnie. She is an invalid and requires to be entertained, so the office would be a charitable as well as a lucrative one. We will talk all this over before another week. Meanwhile, rely always, as you have the right to do, on my sincere and affectionate devotedness. I say nothing about my sister, as she is writing you in a similar tone by the same mail.
“P.S.—The princess has been married twice, but is again a widow. She is very wealthy, and offers the young lady she commissions me to find one hundred and fifty louis a year.”
Clement remained silent for some time. “And you think of accepting such a proposal?” said he, at length, in a tone of irritation quite at variance with his usual manner. “What folly!”
“No, it is not folly,” replied Fleurange mildly. “If, after talking with Dr. Leblanc, I discover no reason for declining the situation, I cannot possibly see the folly of accepting it.”
“Gabrielle,” said Clement, without changing his tone, “you know the course you wish to take is insupportable to me! This rôle belongs to me—me alone. It is my place to labor for my parents, my brother and sister, and for you. If you had the least regard for me, you would feel this is a favor you have no right to refuse me.”
“Come, Clement,” said Fleurange calmly, “let us talk it over in a reasonable manner. When everything is sold, and your parents are settled in their new home at Heidelberg, you are perfectly aware that your father’s small salary, even with what you can add to it, will barely enable them and Frida to live comfortably. You will remain at Frankfort, where, notwithstanding your youth, you have the choice of several situations. But Fritz—have you forgotten our calculations yesterday? Will you have sufficient means to send him to the excellent gymnasium you were so desirous he should enter, that he might be enabled to become independent in his turn? No, Clement, you know well you could not do it. Whereas,” she continued with animation, “if this good lady likes me, I can send all my salary, with the exception of a small part, to my dear brothers. This will ensure Fritz’s education, and my dear aunt will be freed from all anxiety about him as well as me. And do you not see, Clement, that I shall be a thousand times happier far away from you all, even though treated like a slave by this princess, than among you, useless, inactive, and adding by my presence to your difficulties, instead of aiding to diminish them?”
Clement, with his elbows resting on the table, and his face buried in his hands, did not answer a word.
“Come, come, dear Clement, put off that frown,” said Fleurange in a caressing tone, taking him softly by the hand. “We shall see each other, like school-children, during our vacations. From time to time we shall meet on the banks of the Neckar! That will always be our home, where we shall all gather around the hearth, as here, on great festivals.”
What reply could poor Clement make? What objection could he offer? Must he not for ever conceal all he had hoped in his vanished dreams to confess some day? Was he not now reduced to constant labor for subsistence? Had not his life henceforth a single aim that nothing must turn him from? And were it otherwise, did she not look upon him as a mere boy? Was he not destitute of every quality that could please her? And had he not always foreseen that his enchanting dreams would vanish at the very first breath of reality?
He took his cousin’s small hand in his, and, with his usual frank and cordial look, said: “You are right, Gabrielle, forgive me. I appear ungrateful, but I am not. May God reward you! You are an angel!”
And he added in a tone too low for her to hear: “An angel from whom I am more widely separated than from the angels in heaven!”
XIV.
From that day forth Clement displayed no more interest in his cousin’s project: at least, he never alluded to it, and the plan was discussed before him without his taking any part in the conversation.
Madame Dornthal, capable herself of the most generous devotedness, knew also how to accept it from others—a rarer gift, but perhaps not less noble. She thoroughly understood Fleurange’s disposition, and was unwilling at such a time to deprive a heart like hers of the most exquisite joy it can taste.
“Yes, dear child,” she said, folding her in her arms, “I accept the aid you offer me, and with gratitude. Thanks to you, I shall be relieved from all anxiety respecting two of my children, and, if Dr. Leblanc reassures me as to my Gabrielle, I shall let her follow the generous impulse of her heart.”
But Madame Dornthal kept to herself, or only communicated to her husband, another motive for her consent. Fleurange would thus be preserved from some of the privations of their new life. “She would continue to enjoy comforts we could no longer give her. She would be happier and more cheerful away from us, the poor child! than with us at such a time.”
“Yes,” replied the professor, “it would indeed be a pity to bury her youth in a cottage. I could not bear it. I have so often blessed God within a month for having assured the destiny of our dear daughters! And yet,” added poor Ludwig, sighing, “their young faces were so cheering around us!”
“We shall soon see them again, Ludwig. Hilda and Karl are awaiting our visit, and Clara will pass the winter near us, Julian having received a great number of orders from the vicinity of Heidelberg. O my dear Ludwig! as long as God leaves us these blessings, let us resign, not only without a murmur, but without regret, all he has taken from us!”
Those who are absorbed in the acquisition of wealth, and make it the special object of their lives, are no less liable to misfortune than others. Indeed, it may be said, they are more frequently overtaken by adversity. Would it not be well, then, for them to reflect a little beforehand on the means of singularly modifying the features of this stern visitant, and giving it the aspect it now wore in the Old Mansion? It is true, to do this they must begin by thinking of something higher than the mere acquisition of riches.
Dr. Leblanc arrived, as he promised, about ten days after his letter. His visit at the Old Mansion coincided with the last days its inmates were to pass within its walls, and this circumstance would have made him hesitate to come, had not the professor cordially encouraged him. They had long wished to know each other, for in their different spheres they were equally renowned, and Fleurange, under so many obligations to both, was a tie between them. The doctor was therefore received by M. Dornthal quite otherwise than as a stranger. The tendency of their minds, the nature of their studies, and even the prominent features of their character, were very dissimilar, but there was the same foundation to their nature, and they aimed at the same end by different means. They therefore soon discovered that, though their lives were drawing to a close without even having met before, they were born intimate friends.
How many unknown friends thus pass their whole lives without ever meeting, or even suspecting the sympathy that unites them! Who can tell how many ties of this kind will be discovered in heaven? And who knows but this discovery may be one of the sweetest surprises of another life, and, like all the joys we have a foretaste of here below, and perhaps more abundantly accorded to those who on earth were the most destitute?
The hospitable doors of the Old Mansion were closed, the library shelves bare, the panels stripped of the rich paintings that adorned them, and all was now humiliation and sacrifice where once reigned satisfaction and enjoyment, and yet Dr. Leblanc probably would not have felt so lively a sensation of respect and emotion had he visited the Dornthals for the first time during the days of their prosperity.
As to them, this new friend seemed to have always occupied the place he now took in their midst, and, in spite of the sadness of the present as well as of the future, Fleurange enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing them brought together for a few brief hours, and, though on the eve of leaving her friends, did not find the last days she spent among them the least happy.
Madame Dornthal gathered nothing from her conversations with Dr. Leblanc that was unfavorable to Fleurange’s project; but she learned that the Princess Catharine was only making a temporary visit at Munich on her way from a watering-place where she passed her summers and would soon leave for Florence, where she owned a palace which was her residence in winter.
After some correspondence, it was decided Fleurange should accept the princess’ offer, and go to Munich under the doctor’s care. She would thus have the double advantage of her old friend’s protection during the journey, and his presence during the first days of her new career among strangers.
While all this was being decided, the time passed sadly and rapidly away, and the last day they were to spend in the Old Mansion came—the last day their eyes would linger on the venerable walls which had witnessed all the happiness of the past, the garden with its velvet sward, the borders of flowers, and the wide alleys through the overshadowing trees, full of remembrances they would not another spring be able to retrace, or indeed any spring of their future lives.
Clement, silent as he often was, but more agitated than usual, hastily collected the small number of books which were to form part of his luggage the following day. His cousin’s generous sacrifice enabled him to fulfil his wishes at once with regard to Fritz. This only left him the more completely alone—the care of the child would have added to the young man’s difficulties and become later a serious burden; but Clement loved his little brother, and had looked upon the necessity of keeping him with him as a consoling feature of his future life. This necessity no longer existed. Clement, left free, decided to make choice of the most laborious career offered him—the one least conformed to his tastes, but the best adapted to second his desire of aiding his parents.
Wilhelm Müller proposed he should enter a large commercial house where M. Heinrich Dornthal’s worthy and intelligent clerk himself had found a situation similar to that he recently occupied at the banker’s. Clement accepted it. He was at first to receive only a small salary, but it would be increased from year to year. “And later,” explained Wilhelm, “you may have your share in the profits of the house. You are young. Who knows, whatever you may say, that you will not some day become rich again, and as happy and prosperous as you were destined to be?”
Nothing in Clement’s heart responded to this encouraging prophecy, but he did not the less follow Müller’s advice. Moreover, he accepted the kind clerk’s offer of renting him a small chamber in the house he himself occupied.
“Poor Monsieur Clement,” he said, “what I offer you is only a garret, but it is under our roof, and you will feel you have friends around you. My wife is a good housekeeper, and will always be ready to render you a service. The little ones are good children also, though somewhat noisy, and will sometimes divert your sad thoughts.”
“It is all well enough,” said Clement. “Your offer suits me every way, and I thank you, Wilhelm, with all my heart.”
Thus matters were arranged between them.
Fleurange made her appearance in the library while Clement was diligently packing his books. She remained awhile, and learned by questioning him all that has just been related, not omitting the kind clerk’s offer to become his host as well as his colleague.
“Oh! so much the better,” cried Fleurange. “The Müllers are excellent people. I know Bertha, who is an amiable little woman. You can talk with her about me.”
Bertha’s name recalled Fleurange’s journey, which they discussed. This naturally led to her arrival on Christmas Eve, the Midnight Mass, the festival of the following day, and all the other happy days that succeeded.
All these reminiscences were too touching, too poignant, at such a time. Fleurange at last became unable to utter a word. She turned her face away, and started as if to leave the room. But she stopped at the threshold, and remained leaning against the garden window, which at that season was surrounded by honeysuckle. Clement followed, and both stood gazing at the thousand objects gilded by the brilliant rays of the setting sun. There was nothing wanting in the melancholy beauty of that evening hour, either in the sweetness of the air, the clearness of the sky, the perfume of the flowers, or anything that could in their eyes add an unusual charm to all they were about to leave for ever.
And she! how did she appear in the sight of him who feared he might never, after this hour, behold her again as she now stood beside him? What did he think of the effect of the golden lights upon her fair brow and on her black and silky hair?—on the pale azure of her eyes, now so smiling and soft, and again so grave and thoughtful, but in which tenderness was overruled by a will that would ever remain dominant?
We will not state what were his unuttered thoughts. The mingling of sweetness and energy which heightened the attraction Fleurange inspired he was equally gifted with, and what he ought to conceal within his own bosom he knew how to prevent his mouth from uttering or his eyes from ever betraying. He therefore remained near her, calm in appearance, while his heart was a prey to such grief as in youth changes the entire aspect of nature, and makes it almost unendurable to live.
“To-morrow!—to-morrow I shall no longer behold her,” he repeated to himself, with a sensation that one might have in sharpening the instrument of his execution, and the thought deprived him of enjoying the few hours that remained to him.
Fleurange, on her side, dwelt on the fatality that always separated her from those she loved. She recalled the day when the bare thought of ever leaving this spot caused such a painful contraction of the heart. And now, that prophetic anguish was justified!—the frightful dream had become a reality! Sad thoughts crowded on her mind. Another moment, and she would be unable to restrain them, all her firmness was about to give way in a flood of tears, when an effort of her will made her triumph over the emotion, or, at least, prevented her from manifesting it. Putting a stop to her long reverie, she raised her head, and turned toward her cousin:
“Here, Clement,” she said softly, drawing a small book from her pocket, “here is my Dante we have so often read in: keep it, dear friend, in memory of our favorite study, and do not forget our habit of daily reading a canto in it.”
“No, I shall never forget it. Thank you, Gabrielle: the gift is very precious. I shall always prize this little book.” He opened it: “But write my name on this blank leaf. Here is my pencil.”
She took the pencil and wrote: “To Clement.”
“One word more,” said Clement in a supplicating tone. “Pray write also a word, a line, a stanza if you will, from our favorite poet.”
“What shall I write?” said she, turning over the leaves.
“There, that in the second canto,” said he, pointing it out. She wrote it immediately, and then read it over:
“To Clement.
“L’amico mio e non della Ventura.”[58]
“That is right,” said Clement. “Thank you.”
“That is a sad line: I should have chosen a different one.”
“It is appropriate to the present occasion. Now add your name.”
She was about to write it when he stopped her.
“Your real name,” said he. “Write your other name, to-night—the name that suits you so well—Fleurange!”
Fleurange smiled, and shook her head. “Oh! no,” she said. “I gave it up with regret, but I should not have thought of such a thing had I previously known you all. But I have been so happy since I have borne the name of Gabrielle—and you were the first to call me so, Clement—so happy that I no longer love the name associated with the sadness of the past, and, were I to hear any one call me Fleurange now, I should imagine it an ill omen.”
Clement made no reply, but, when she returned the book, he retained her hand a moment: “Gabrielle, one word more—perhaps my last before your departure. Listen to me. Wherever you may be, if you ever need a friend—a friend, do you understand?—that would value no sacrifice for your sake, do not forget that your brother is ready to aid you, not only willingly, but with a pleasure you have no idea of.”
Clement’s voice was grave and solemn, but at the same time agitated and tremulous, as he uttered these words. They were so in conformity with what Fleurange had reason to expect from him that they touched her, but excited no surprise.
“Yes, Clement,” she replied frankly, casting an affectionate glance toward him; “I promise to have recourse to you. I feel I have no better friend in the world than you, and doubt if I ever shall have.”
Were these words sweet or bitter? He hardly knew. The sadness that overwhelmed him it seemed impossible to increase, and equally impossible to alleviate. And yet!—she was still there—beside him—with an air of serenity and hope. There was not a single sentiment of her heart he did not share. She called him her friend, and there was no other she preferred to him. The moment, so full of anguish, was yet a happy one, and he regretted at a later day not having known how to profit more by it.
This was their last conversation in the Old Mansion. Clement preserved the little volume in which she had written the name of Gabrielle as a memento of this interview, and also a sprig of the honeysuckle that touched her forehead.
The remainder of the evening passed swiftly away. Soon after light the next morning came the farewell hour. The Dornthals left their beloved home without the hope of ever entering it again, and Fleurange once more left those she loved, to enter upon a new life that looked a thousand times gloomier and more uncertain than that which was before her when she left Paris. And Clement bade them all farewell, to endure as he could isolation, a laborious and uncongenial life, the privation of the affection and pleasures of his boyhood, and especially all the pain and love a young heart can endure.
PART SECOND.
THE TRIAL.
“Era già l’ora che volge il disio
Ai naviganti e intenerisce il core,
Lo di’ c’han detto a’ dolci amici addio!”—Dante.
It was a beautiful night—brilliant, serene, and starry—a night the uprising moon would soon render as light as day. A fresh breeze from the land swelled the sails of a vessel just leaving Genoa, which, far from impeding its course, only gave it a bolder and more rapid flight over the waves. There were various groups of passengers on deck, some conversing in subdued tones quite in harmony with the mysterious hour of twilight, and others aloud as if it were mid-day. One was playing on a guitar, as an accompaniment to a somewhat remarkable voice, one of those airs everybody knows, sings, or hums as long as they are in the fashion. The music, in itself indifferent, did not seem so on the water and at such an hour. It harmonized with the feelings of those who were sailing over that azure sea, beneath that starry sky, and in sight of those charming shores which the boat scarcely lost sight of during its short sail from Genoa to Leghorn.
Apart from all these groups, and belonging to none of them, we again find Fleurange, who was sitting entirely alone. She had been here some minutes, attracting general attention from the first by the gracefulness of her form, which the cloak in which she was wrapped could not wholly conceal. The hood, half-covering her head, only added a picturesqueness to the striking beauty of her regular features. More than one of her fellow-travellers would gladly have drawn near the place where she was sitting, but, though she was alone and did not appear to be under any one’s protection, there was, in the simple dignity of her attitude, in her evident indifference to the sensation she produced, in her very want of timidity, which was not boldness, but resolution, and in her whole appearance, a something undefinable which intimidated the most lively admiration, and would have disconcerted insolence itself—a remark en passant to those who regard familiarity as only a proof of the attraction they inspire. Therefore, in spite of some whispering, notwithstanding more than one look toward the charming face distinctly visible in the full light of the moon, now risen, Fleurange remained quietly in her corner, abandoned to her own meditations, undisturbed by any one, and without troubling herself in the least about those who surrounded her. Her thoughts were various and complex. A strange fate seemed to pursue her and constantly break the thread of her life, and every time it was broken she found the severance more painful. It was but recently she wept so bitterly at leaving Paris, and Dr. Leblanc, and the dear Mademoiselle Josephine. But the tears were much more bitter she shed at leaving the Old Mansion, and the loved circle where she had first known and tasted in all their fulness the sweet joys of family life.
After leaving Frankfort, Fleurange’s firmness, which had never faltered before, suddenly gave way to such a degree as to make Dr. Leblanc resolve to take her back to her friends if, after his short stay at Munich, he did not find her more resigned to her lot. But Fleurange was not a person to be easily subdued. Her natural strength of character soon asserted itself, and enabled her to persevere in the path she had chosen. Her resolution was strengthened by the very circumstances which would have discouraged many others. At their arrival at Munich, they found the Princess Catharine confined to her bed by a violent attack of her malady, and it was as nurse that Fleurange entered upon her duties. Her complaint, all the physicians declared, was not dangerous, but it was not the less painful, nor the easier to be relieved. That Dr. Leblanc was again successful in his treatment was partly owing to the sudden and lively fancy of his patient for the young companion he had brought her. To tell the truth, the doctor, knowing the princess, had foreseen this attraction, but he knew Fleurange was fully able to justify and sustain this first impression, and he sincerely hoped by bringing them together he had done something no less useful and beneficial for his wealthy patient than for his young protégée.
However this might be, nothing could have been better adapted to dispel the burden of grief that weighed on Fleurange’s heart than the immediate necessity of forgetting herself in active and assiduous care for another. It was rather a sad beginning to pass a succession of days and nights at the bedside of a sick stranger, but in the actual state of her mind it was the best thing she could have done. She possessed all the qualities that constitute an efficient nurse, and, to a degree that excited Dr. Leblanc’s surprise, firmness and promptitude, ease and gentleness in all her movements, vigor and skill, and seasonable attentions—nothing was wanting, and the result was—the never-failing effect of her beauty and grace, added to the sentiments of lively gratitude sick people generally feel for those who know how to relieve them. The princess did not cease thanking the doctor, and the latter, quite pleased with the result of his inspiration, left Fleurange not only without anxiety, but with the most favorable hopes as to her position.
Though scarcely able to travel, the Princess Catharine insisted on leaving Munich, and by easy stages she succeeded in reaching Genoa. Now she was on her way to Leghorn, and thence would go to Florence without delay, as she was eager to arrive at the palace which was her real home, having long been obliged by her health to absent herself from Russia, or at least to live there only during the brief portion of the year known as the pleasant season.
For the first time, almost, since she left her friends, Fleurange was now absolutely alone, and at liberty to indulge freely in her own reflections. She began by recalling the cherished memory of her distant friends, from whom she was every moment drifting away with frightful rapidity. It was the hour sung by the poet:
“The hour that wakens fond desire
In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart,
Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewell”;
and Fleurange’s thoughts for a long time dwelt upon the recent events of her life, so rapid in their current as now to be numbered among the things for ever vanished—upon the happy family now scattered; the days—so few—in which she was permitted to be a member of it and finally, her present isolation, for, notwithstanding the kindness of the princess, she felt extremely isolated. By a singular exchange of rôles, it was she—the unprotected orphan, who now seemed to have become the support of her protectress; and the lady of rank—the rich princess, the poor woman spoiled by fortune—who seemed to seek aid and consolation from her. Fleurange’s kind heart found unexpected relief in these cares, the very success of which was ample reward. She felt her affection increase for the object of these attentions in proportion as she lavished them, but it was rather a feeling one has for a child or an inferior, than one it would have seemed natural to have for a person on whom she was dependent, and to whom she actually owed respect and obedience. She therefore felt solitary, and this loneliness was depressing. And yet in spite of herself—in spite of her melancholy (though this may seem contradictory)—an irresistible sensation of joy quickened the pulsations of her heart.
Who has not experienced this joy that has once seen the beautiful sky of Italy, and left it, and then beheld it again? Who has not greeted with transport the charming and sublime features of its glorious scenery as it appears anew on the horizon, as if beholding once more the face of a beloved friend? And who, after being long deprived of hearing the sweet accents of its musical language, has not heard them again with emotion? All these impressions must have been more deeply experienced in Fleurange’s case than in many others. And as the wind went down, and the moon ascended the clear sky, reflecting a train of light that grew brighter and brighter on the sea, like a pathway of diamonds leading to an enchanted abode, Fleurange, with her eyes fixed on the dazzling waters, felt for a moment transported with joy! All the sadness of the past as well as of the present vanished: she only realized the infinite pleasure of living, of being young, of being here under this sky, on this sea, near that coast whose odors were perceptible; and when she remembered that that coast was Italy, that she would be there in a few hours, a throng of poetic dreams and confused presentiments of happiness added their vague hopes to the secret joy with which she felt, as it were, intoxicated.
Dreams—half-understood dreams of youth—which are seldom realized, and which at a later day, according as the soul triumphs over or yields to the dangers of life, are transformed into divine and powerful aspirations, or into deceptive and fatal realities!
At this same hour, what was Clement dreaming of, seated at his garret window, and likewise gazing at the starry sky? Ah! if he could have followed her whose image filled his soul, he would now have been beside Fleurange as she was thus wafted away from him, lulled by her confused dreams. His reverie, too, was sad, but there was nothing vague or indefinite about it, and the manly tenderness of his look expressed firmness and resolution rather than softness. The future was clearly defined in his mind. Yes, though he was only twenty years old, he felt capable of cherishing a fond memory in his heart without ever being unfaithful to it. Yes, she should remain there, as in a sanctuary, and, after God, he would offer her the labors, the studies, the poetry, and the purity of his life! Every talent he had received should be cultivated, and bring forth all that was required on the part of the Giver. This motive should quicken his mental faculties, and refresh him after the exertions of the day; stimulate him to arduous labor—sacred in his eyes—which he would pursue with energy and constancy, for it was the source of his parents’ comfort and support, and the reliance of their old age. And if at length!—Perhaps some day!—But when the sudden revival of a forbidden hope gave him all at once a thrill, he repressed it. His judgment, his reason, a painful and invincible presentiment, had for a long time assured him this hope was vain. “Garder l’amour en brisant l’espoir” was his aim and devise—a task painful, difficult, and perhaps even impossible. But at this time such was his fancy and such his dream!
TENNYSON: ARTIST AND MORALIST. [59]
No English voice in the world of letters wakes the pulses of our age to the thrill of joy which greeted Childe Harold and Rob Roy. Those monarchs of the popular heart left no successors; or if their mantle hung for a moment on the shoulders of another, it is now buried in the grave of Dickens. We have yet several novelists. We have many poets. But none has obtained universal appreciation; to none has been awarded with general consent the palm of paramount renown. Yet it will not be questioned that few living writers command a larger following, are remembered with more affection, and heard with greater eagerness than the author of “In Memoriam.”
There are few studies more delightful than the growth of a poet’s mind. In the case of Tennyson we witness the whole process of development. We have seen him in his timid beginnings and in his brilliant prime. More than forty years have passed since a slender volume of poems introduced a young graduate of Cambridge to the English-reading world. The modest offering fell upon a time which had garnered larger and riper fruit. There were giants in those days. Byron indeed was dead, but his fame, although it had passed its zenith, still shone the brightest in the firmament. Shelley had preceded him, but the reputation of that sweet singer and genuine artist was growing, and has not ceased to grow. The lovers of Campbell had not surrendered their faith that the Pleasures of Hope and the story of Gertrude of Wyoming were but a prelude to loftier strains. From the grave of Adonaïs men’s eyes had turned with regret and wonder to the bold outline of Hyperion and the rich shadows of St. Agnes’ Eve. Coleridge was a wreck, but the finger of his Ancient Mariner pointed many a thoughtful gaze toward the untravelled country which fringes the visible world. The master-hand that had swept the chords of Scottish minstrelsy had not yet lost all its original vigor. And Wordsworth’s voice gave loud and clear the signal of poetic reform, and all who were ready to desert the out-worn moulds of classic thought and classic imagery had begun to close around his banner.
Into that circle of splendid names no youthful aspirant could win admittance without a challenge. More fortunate, however, than Keats, Tennyson secured through university friendships some indulgence from the reviews. A few were eager to crown him. It is now acknowledged that their unwinnowed praise discovered less of the judge than of the partisan. The conservative temper of Wilson was provoked by the cordial welcome accorded the new-comer in certain quarters to assume an attitude of repression that was, to say the least, ungenerous. A measured severity might have been amply justified. This first venture was indeed superior to those Hours of Idleness which had drawn the sneer of the Edinburgh Review. But he would have been a bold prophet who in 1830 from “Claribel” and the “Mermaid” would have foretold the “Idylls of the King.”
Tennyson ripened slowly. His next volume was published two years later. It was enriched with the “Lady of Shalott,” the “Lotus-Eaters,” and the “Palace of Art,” but many of the poems were disfigured by his earlier mannerisms, and some discovered an affected mysticism and a hankering after novel expression that was not indicative of health or strength. The poet, too, had betrayed a sensitiveness to criticism that augured ill for the discipline of his powers. It was still an open question whether the great gifts which he unquestionably possessed would be burnished by patient labor, or after some idle brandishings rust in satisfied repose. Nor would he have been the first for whom victory too early and lightly won has twined the poppy with her laurel. A silence of ten years followed, and it seemed probable that another name must be added to those of Campbell and Coleridge on the roll of splendid disappointments.
But during this long interval he had not been idle. He had thought and he had suffered. He had learned much and discarded much. On a sudden, his treasury was opened, and the fruits of energy and discipline fell in glistening showers at the feet of a public which had almost forgotten him. The “Morte d’Arthur,” “Dora,” “Love and Duty,” “Ulysses,” “Locksley Hall,” appealed in divers tones to a charmed and astonished audience. By one sweep, and with no feeble hand, he had planted his standard in many and widely different fields. The bright forecast of his college friends was justified. He had sprung at a bound into the front rank of living poets.
We pass over the “Princess,” which added little to his reputation, and reach 1850, a cardinal point in his career. In that year it is just to say that “Lycidas” and “Adonaïs” were eclipsed by “In Memoriam.” This remarkable work, at once the noblest monody and most impressive of heart histories, interpreted the author’s life and consolidated his fame. “Maud” came next, and, morbid, incoherent, structureless as it is, would have severely tried a credit less firmly rooted. “Maud” indeed seems to owe its origin rather to the blind impulse of crude intemperate youth, or the promptings of some delirious fever, than the deliberate, healthful movement of the poet’s higher faculties. It marks the single break in the progress of his mind.
Not a few of Tennyson’s admirers had always affirmed the “Morte d’Arthur” to be the strongest of his works. That fragment was published in 1842, but it was not until 1859 that four kindred poems were drawn from that Arthurian romance which had early haunted his fancy and has chiefly employed the energies of his riper years. The “Idylls of the King” have had several successors, and the “Last Tournament” completes the cycle.
An effort has lately been made in certain quarters to depreciate Tennyson. We do not object to comparisons if they are fruitful in suggestion, and are instituted in a candid spirit. But perhaps analysis affords the surer test. We ourselves hold Tennyson to be the first of living English poets, and incline to rank him above Byron and beside Wordsworth. In the course of an attempt to indicate his place in literature, we shall quote wherever quotations may sustain or illustrate our ideas. We shall draw mainly from those works which exhibit a writer at his best. The height of mountain ranges is gauged by their loftiest peaks, and the merit of a public benefactor by his virtues, not his shortcomings. A poet is a public benefactor. Not his failures, but his masterpiece, should supply the materials of an honest judgment.