GEORGE.—"Alas! my young friend, the preacher must sometimes harden his own heart if he would strike home to another's soul. But I am not sure that Mr. Darrell would need so cruel a kindness. I believe that his clear intellect must have divined some portions of his son's nature which enabled him to bear the loss with fortitude. And he did bear it bravely. But now, Mr. Haughton, if you have the rest of the day free, I am about to make you an unceremonious proposition for its disposal. A lady who knew Mr. Darrell when she was very young has—a strong desire to form your acquaintance. She resides on the banks of the Thames, a little above Twickenham. I have promised to call on her this evening. Shall we dine together at Richmond? and afterwards we can take a boat to her villa."
Lionel at once accepted, thinking so little of the lady that he did not even ask her name. He was pleased to have a companion with whom he could talk of Darrell. He asked but delay to write a few lines of affectionate inquiry to his kinsman at Fawley, and, while he wrote, George took out Arthur Branthwaite's poems, and resumed their perusal. Lionel having sealed his letter, George extended the book to him. "Here are some remarkable poems by a brother-in-law of that remarkable artist, Frank Vance."
"Frank Vance! True, he had a brother-in-law a poet. I admire Frank so much; and, though he professes to sneer at poetry, he is so associated in my mind with poetical images that I am prepossessed beforehand in favour of all that brings him, despite himself, in connection with poetry."
"Tell me then," said George, pointing out a passage in the volume, "what you think of these lines. My good uncle would call them gibberish. I am not sure that I can construe them; but when I was your age, I think I could—what say you?"
Lionel glanced. "Exquisite indeed!—nothing can be clearer—they express exactly a sentiment in myself that I could never explain."
"Just so," said George, laughing. "Youth has a sentiment that it cannot explain, and the sentiment is expressed in a form of poetry that middle age cannot construe. It is true that poetry of the grand order interests equally all ages; but the world ever throws out a poetry not of the grandest; not meant to be durable—not meant to be universal, but following the shifts and changes of human sentiment, and just like those pretty sundials formed by flowers, which bloom to tell the hour, open their buds to tell it, and, telling it, fade themselves from time."
Not listening to the critic, Lionel continued to read the poems, exclaiming, "How exquisite!—how true!"
CHAPTER XXI.
IN LIFE, AS IN ART, THE BEAUTIFUL MOVES IN CURVES.
They have dined.—George Morley takes the oars, and the boat cuts through the dance of waves flushed by the golden sunset. Beautiful river! which might furnish the English tale-teller with legends wild as those culled on shores licked by Hydaspes, and sweet as those which Cephisus ever blended with the songs of nightingales and the breath of violets! But what true English poet ever names thee, O Father Thames, without a melodious tribute? And what child ever whiled away summer noons along thy grassy banks, nor hallowed thy remembrance among the fairy days of life?