"If our dear children see by our conduct how little we care for the petty vanities of this life, if they see that our minds are fixed upon nobler objects than the adorning of our poor perishing forms, they will learn to estimate at their true value such trifles as these"--Mrs. Vernon was handing the feathers to her daughter in-law--"and are not likely to fall into the childish folly into which our poor Lyddie has to-day been betrayed."
"Ah! here is 'The Master-Mind'" cried Emma, suddenly, diving into the lowest recess of her trunk, and bringing from thence two old soiled volumes. It is not impossible that a desire to change the subject of conversation had quickened her perceptions, and led her to make the discovery which turned it into a more agreeable channel. "This is the novel which you are so impatient to read. Here are the first and third volumes; I think that the second must be lost; but doubtless it is all the same to you, you could never spare enough of your valuable time for the perusal of more than two."
Mrs. Vernon took the work, and laid it aside; she had not at that hour leisure for reading. But when the children had gone to rest, and their mother retired to her own room, when the day's duties had all been fulfilled, and the still summer night had closed in, Mrs. Vernon, in her own quiet apartment, opened the first volume of the work of Sir Amery.
She soon became strongly interested both in the characters and the plot. "The Master-Mind" had been written by a master's hand; the author's powers had not been over-rated. Sir Amery described his hero as one distinguished by birth, but yet more by exalted talents. He was generous, humane, chivalrous and constant, possessing every virtue but piety, every grace but the grace of God, every gift but "the one thing needful." Not that he was represented as one destitute of every sentiment of religion. He was made to revere with lofty devotion an almighty Creator, but not a righteous Judge; one so merciful that he could not punish, so lenient that he would not destroy. The hero was not a believer in revelation--his lofty mind could not bow to the mysterious truths which his reason could not grasp; but his scepticism was represented as candour, his pride as greatness of soul--he was placed in bright contrast to hard, narrow-minded bigots, who denounce sin because God hath condemned it, and fear hell because divine truth hath declared that its terrors await the impenitent.
Mrs. Vernon read on and on, and wondered as she read. She had seen very few novels in her life, and all appeared to her strange and new. Sometimes she was filled with admiration by a generous sentiment or a noble deed; then she was startled by some idea, veiled in sublime language and beautiful imagery, but which, as it appeared to her, was contrary to the simple truth of the Scriptures.
The close of the first volume left the hero deeply, passionately loving a fair and highly-principled girl, the daughter of parents who, under the garb of great sanctity, were drawn as worldly, heartless and unforgiving. He was resolved to win her under circumstances of difficulty which, to love less ardent and a spirit less firm, must have presented obstacles insuperable. Mrs. Vernon closed the book and glanced at her candle. It had burnt quite down to the socket. She rose and lighted another. Was it a strange fascination that made her sit down again, with her pale cheek and her heavy aching eyes, to resume her unwonted occupation? Was the interest of a mere novel so strong that it could render her careless of needful rest? It was that in the hero Mrs. Vernon was reading the character of the author--that she, almost unconsciously, connected the gentle heroine with her own fondly-loved child.
"I see the moral of the tale," said the widow to herself: "Virgilius, ennobled by his affection for a worthy object, enlightened by experience, and improved by trials, will find out the errors into which his fine mind has been led; he will become religious as well as moral, and all will end happily at last."
All did end happily in the novel, but not in the way which Mrs. Vernon expected. Hypocrisy was unmasked, bigotry disgraced, but infidelity triumphed in success! The brilliant winding-up of the work was almost a paraphrase of the celebrated line,
"He can't be wrong whose life is in the right;"--
as if any life could be right in which the chief end of our existence, the glory of God, is disregarded! It is as though we should speak of the perfection of the ocean without water, or of the universe without the sun!