“If that means forever, I suspect you 're right,” replied Jack; “but you 'll have the whole story in the morning when you go up there, and doubtless more impartially than I should tell it. And now, good-bye for a brief space. We shall meet soon.” And, without waiting for an answer, he nodded familiarly, stepped briskly to the door, where a post-chaise awaited him, and was gone, before Scanlan had even half recovered from his astonishment and surprise.
CHAPTER XXI. AN AWKWARD VISITOR
It is a singularly impressive sensation, and one, too, of which even frequency will scarcely diminish the effect, to pass from the busy streets and moving population of Dublin, and enter the quiet courts of the University. The suddenness of the change is most striking, and you pass at once from all the bustling interests of life—its cares and ambitions, its pursuits of wealth and pleasure—into the stillness of a cloister. Scarcely within the massive gates, and the noise of the great capital is hushed and subdued, its sounds seem to come from afar, and in their place is an unbroken calm, or the more solemn echoes of its vaulted roofs.
In a corner of the Old Square, and in a building almost entirely occupied by the University authorities, and whose stairs had seldom echoed beneath less reverend footsteps than those of deans and bursars, were the chambers of Joe Nelligan. He had obtained them in this peculiar locality as a special favor from “the Board,” as eminently suited to his habits of study and seclusion; for his was indeed a life of labor,—labor, hard, unremitting, and unbroken! Dreary as was the aspect of the spot, it was one dear to the heart of him who occupied it. If it had been the cell wherein he had passed nights of severest toil and days of intense effort, so had it been the calm retreat into which he had retired as a sanctuary, and at times the scene of the hallowed joy he felt when success had crowned all his labors. Thither had he bent his steps at nightfall, as to a home; thence had he written the few lines which more than once announced his triumph to his father.
Within those halls had he experienced all that he had ever tasted of successful ambition, and in the depths of that old chair had he dreamed away all the visions of a glorious future. The room in which he sat was a large and lofty one, lighted by two windows deeply set in the wall. Its sides were lined with book-shelves, and books littered the tables and even the floor,—for it was one of his caprices to read as he lay at full length, either on the ground or a sofa,—and the paper and pens were scattered about in different quarters, as accident suggested. The only thing like ornament to be seen was a lithographic print of Cro' Martin Castle over the fireplace,—a strange exception would it seem, but traceable, perhaps, to some remote scene of boyish admiration for what had first awakened in him a feeling of awe and admiration; and there it now remained, time-worn and discolored, perhaps unnoticed, or looked on with very different emotions. Ay! these pictures are terrible landmarks of our thoughts! I speak not of such as appeal to our hearts by the features we loved, the eyes into whose depths we have gazed, the lips on whose accents we have hung entranced, but even when they trace the outlines of some spot well known to us in boyhood,—some scene of long, long years ago. It is not alone that the “Then” and “Now” stand out in strongest contrast, that what we were and what we are are in juxtaposition, but that whole memories of what we once hoped to be come rushing over us, and all the spirit-stirring emotions of early ambitions mingle themselves with the stern realities of the present. And, after all, what success in life, however great and seemingly unexpected it may be, ever equals one of the glorious daydreams of our boyish ambition, in which there comes no alloy of broken health, wasted energies, and exhausted spirits? or, far worse again, the envious jealousy of those we once deemed friends, and who, had we lived obscurely, still might be such? Student life is essentially imaginative. The very division of time, the objects which have value to a student's eyes, the seclusion in which he lives, the tranquil frame of mind coexistent with highly strained faculties, all tend to make his intervals of repose periods of day-dream and revery. It is not improbable that these periods are the fitting form of relaxation for overtaxed minds, and that the Imagination is the soothing influence that repairs the wear and tear of Reason.
The peculiar circumstances of young Nelligan's position in life had almost totally estranged him from others. The constraint that attaches to a very bashful temperament had suggested to him a certain cold and reserved manner, that some took for pride, and many were repelled from his intimacy by this seeming haughtiness. The unhappy course of what had been his first friendship—for such was it with Massingbred—had rendered him more distrustful than ever of himself, and more firmly convinced that to men born as he had been the world imposes a barrier that only is passable by the highest and greatest success. It is true, his father's letter of explanation assuaged the poignancy of his sorrow; he saw that Massingbred had proceeded under a misconception, and had believed himself the aggrieved individual; but all these considerations could not obliterate the fact that an insult to his social station was the vengeance adopted by him, and that Massingbred saw no more galling outrage in his power than to reflect upon his rank in life.
There are men who have a rugged pride in contrasting what they were with what they are. Their self-love finds an intense pleasure in contemplating difficulties overcome, obstacles surmounted, and a goal won, all by their own unaided efforts, and to such the very obscurity of their origin is a source of boastful exultation. Such men are, however, always found in the ranks of those whose success is wealth. Wherever the triumphs are those rewarded by station, or the distinctions conferred on intellectual superiority, this vainglorious sentiment is unknown. An inborn refinement rejects such coarse pleasure, just as their very habits of life derive no enjoyment from the display and splendor reflected by riches.
Joe Nelligan felt his lowly station most acutely, because he saw in it a disqualification for that assured and steady temperament which can make most of success. He would have given half of all he might possess in the world for even so much of birth as might exempt him from a sneer. The painful sensitiveness that never rested nor slept—that made him eternally on the watch lest some covert allusion might be made to him—was a severe suffering; and far from decreasing, it seemed to grow with him as he became older, and helped mainly to withdraw him further from the world.
No error is more common than for bashful men to believe that they are unpopular in society, and that the world “will none of them.” They interpret their own sense of difficulty as a feeling of dislike in others, and retire to their solitudes convinced that these are their fitting dwelling-places. To this unpalatable conviction was Joseph Nelligan now come; and as he entered his chambers, and closed the heavy door behind him, came the thought: “Here at least no mortifications can reach me. These old books are my truest and best of friends, and in their intercourse there is neither present pain nor future humiliation!”