CHAPTER L.
A SURPRISE.
It was late upon the following day ere I awoke from the long deep sleep that closed my labours in Strasbourg. In the confusion of my waking thoughts, I imagined myself still before a crowded and enthusiastic audience—the glare of the foot-lights—the crash of the orchestra—the shouts of “l’Auteur,” “l’Auteur,” were all before me, and so completely possessed me, that, as the waiter entered with hot water, I could not resist the impulse to pull off my night-cap with one hand, and press the other to my heart in the usual theatrical style of acknowledgments for a most flattering reception. The startled look of the poor fellow as he neared the door to escape, roused me from my hallucination, and awakened me to the conviction that the suspicion of lunacy might be a still heavier infliction than the personation of Monsieur Meerberger.
With thoughts of this nature, I assumed my steadiest demeanour—ordered my breakfast in the most orthodox fashion—eat it like a man in his senses; and when I threw myself back in the wicker conveniency they call a caleche, and bid adieu to Kehl, the whole fraternity of the inn would have given me a certificate of sanity before any court in Europe.
“Now for Munich,” said I, as we rattled along down the steep street of the little town. “Now for Munich, with all the speed that first of postmasters and slowest of men, the Prince of Tour and Taxis, will afford us.”
The future engrossed all my thoughts; and puzzling as my late adventures had been to account for, I never for a moment reverted to the past. “Is she to be mine?” was the ever-rising question in my mind. The thousand difficulties that had crossed my path might long since have terminated a pursuit where there was so little of promise, did I not cherish the idea in my heart, that I was fated to succeed. Sheridan answered the ribald sneers of his first auditory, by saying, “Laugh on; but I have it in me, and by —— it shall come out.” So I whispered to myself:—Go on Harry. Luck has been hitherto against you, it is true; but you have yet one throw of the dice, and something seems to say, a fortunate one in store; and, if so——, but I cannot trust myself with such anticipations. I am well aware how little the world sympathises with the man whose fortunes are the sport of his temperament—that April-day frame of mind is ever the jest and scoff of those hardier and sterner natures, who, if never overjoyed by success, are never much depressed by failure. That I have been cast in the former mould, these Confessions have, alas! plainly proved; but that I regret it, I fear also, for my character for sound judgment, I must answer “No.”
Better far to be
In utter darkness lying,
Than be blest with light, and see
That light for ever flying
Is, doubtless, very pretty poetry, but very poor philosophy. For myself—and some glimpses of sunshine this fair world has afforded me, fleeting and passing enough, in all conscience—and yet I am not so ungrateful as to repine at my happiness, because it was not permanent, as I am thankful for those bright hours of “Love’s young dream,” which, if nothing more, are at least delightful souvenirs. They form the golden thread in the tangled web of our existence, ever appearing amid the darker surface around, and throwing a fair halo of brilliancy on what, without it, were cold, bleak, and barren. No, no—
The light that lies
In woman’s eyes,
were it twice as fleeting—as it is ten times more brilliant—than the forked lightning, irradiates the dark gloom within us for many a long day after it has ceased to shine upon us. As in boyhood it is the humanizing influence that tempers the fierce and unruly passions of our nature, so in manhood it forms the goal to which all our better and higher aspirations tend, telling us there is something more worthy than gold, and a more lofty pinnacle of ambition than the praise and envy of our fellow-men; and we may rest assured, that when this feeling dies within us, that all the ideal of life dies with it, and nothing remains save the dull reality of our daily cares and occupations. “I have lived and have loved,” saith Schiller; and if it were not that there seems some tautology in the phrase, I should say, such is my own motto. If Lady Jane but prove true—if I have really succeeded—if, in a word—but why speculate upon such chances?—what pretensions have I?—what reasons to look for such a prize? Alas! and alas! were I to catechise myself too closely, I fear that my horses’ heads would face towards Calais, and that I should turn my back upon the only prospect of happiness I can picture to myself in this world. In reflections such as these, the hours rolled over, and it was already late at night when we reached the little village of Merchem. While fresh horses were being got ready, I seized the occasion to partake of the table d’hote supper of the inn, at the door of which the diligence was drawn up. Around the long, and not over-scrupulously clean table, sat the usual assemblage of a German “Eilwagen”—smoking, dressing salad, knitting, and occasionally picking their teeth with their forks, until the soup should make its appearance. Taking my place amid this motley assemblage of mustachioed shopkeepers and voluminously-petticoated frows, I sat calculating how long human patience could endure such companionship, when my attention was aroused by hearing a person near me narrate to his friend the circumstances of my debut at Strasbourg, with certain marginal notes of his own that not a little surprised me.
“And so it turned out not to be Meerberger, after all,”: said the listener.