“Though the old lawyer now tried, and tried cleverly, to lead us away to lighter, pleasanter themes, the attempt was a failure; each felt, I suspect, some oppressive weight on his spirits that indisposed him to less serious talk; and again we came back to the Martins, the stranger evidently seeking to learn all he could of the disposition and temper of the young man.
“'It is as I thought,' said he, at last. 'It is the weak, sickly tone of the day has brought all this corruption upon us! Once upon a time the vices and follies of young men took their rise in their several natures,—this one gambled, the other drank, and so on,—the mass, however, was wonderfully sound and healthy; the present school, however, is to ape a uniformity, so that each may show himself in the livery of his fellows, thus imbibing wickedness he has no taste for, and none be less depraved and heartless than those around him. Let the women but follow the fashion, and there 's an end of us, as the great people we boasted to be!'
“I give you, so well as I can trust my memory, his words, Harry, but I cannot give you a certain sardonic bitterness,—a tone of mingled scorn and sorrow, such as I never before witnessed. He gave me the impression of being one who, originally frank, generous, and trustful, had, by intercourse with the world and commerce with mankind, grown to suspect every one and disbelieve in honesty, and yet could not bring his heart to acknowledge what his head had determined. In this wise, at least, I read his character from the opportunities I had of conversing with him on our journey. It was easy to see that he was a gentleman,—taking the word in the widest of its acceptations,—but from things that dropped from him, I could gather that his life had been that of an adventurer. He had been in the sea and land services of many of those new states of Southern America, had even risen to political importance in some of them; had possessed mines and vast tracts of territory one day, and the next saw himself 'without a piastre.' He had conducted operations against the Indians, and made treaties with them, and latterly had lived as the elected chief of a tribe in the west of the Rocky Mountains. But he knew civilized as well as savage life, had visited Spain in the rank of an envoy, and was familiar with all the great society of Rome, and the intrigues of its prince-bishops. The only theme, however, on which he really warmed was sport. The prairies brought out all his enthusiasm, and then he spoke like one carried away by glorious recollections of a time when, as he said himself, 'heart and hand and eye never failed him.'
“When he spoke of family ties or home affections, it was in a spirit of almost mockery, which puzzled me. His reasoning was that the attachments we form are only emanations of our own selfishness. We love, simply to be loved again. Whereas, were we single-hearted, we should be satisfied to know that those dear to us were well and happy, and only seek to serve them without demonstration or display.
“Am I wearying you, Harry, by dwelling on the traits of a man who, for the brief space I have known him, has made the most profound impression upon me? Even where I dissent—as is often the case—from his views, I have to own to myself that were I he, I should think and reason precisely as he does. I fancied at first that, like many men who had quitted civilized life for the rude ways of the 'bush,' he would have contrasted the man of refinement unfavorably with the savage, but he was too keen and acute for such a sweeping fallacy; he saw the good and evil in both, and sensibly remarked how independent of all education were the really strong characteristics of human nature. 'There is not a great quality of our first men,' said he, 'that I have not found to exist among the wild tribes of the Far West, nor is there an excellence of savage nature I have not witnessed amidst the polished and the pampered.'
“From what I can collect, he is only here passingly; some family matter has brought him over to this country; but he is already impatient to be back to his old haunts and associates, and his home beside the Orinoco. He has even asked me to come and visit him there; and from all I can see I should be as likely to attain distinction among the Chaymas as in the House of Commons, and should find the soft turf of the Savannahs as pleasant as the Opposition benches. In fact, Harry, I have half promised to accept his invitation; and if he renew it with anything like earnestness, I am resolved to go.
“I am just setting out for the Hendersons', and while the horses are being harnessed I have re-read your letter. Of course I have 'counted the cost,'—I have weighed the question to a pennyweight! I could already write down the list of those who will not know me at all, those who will know me a little, and the still fewer who will know my wife! Can you not see, my dear friend, that where one drags the anchor so easily, the mooring-ground was never good? The society to which you belong by such slender attachments gives no wound by separation from it.
“My anxiety now is on a very different score: it is that she will still refuse me. The hope I cling to is that she will see in my persistence a proof of sincerity. I would not, if I could, bring any family influence to my aid, and yet, short of this, there is nothing I would not do to insure success.
“I wish I had never re-opened your letter; that vein of sarcastic coolness which runs through it will never turn me from my purpose. You seem to forget, besides, that you are talking to a man of the world, just as hackneyed, just as 'used up' as yourself. I should like to see you assume this indolent dalliance before La Henderson! Take my word for it, Harry, you 'd be safer with the impertinence amongst some of your duchesses in Pall Mall. You say that great beauty in a woman, like genius in a man, is a kind of brevet nobility, and yet you add that the envy of the world will never weary of putting the possessor 'on his title.' How gladly would I accept this challenge! Ay, Harry, I tell you, in all defiance, that your proudest could not vie with her!
“If I wanted a proof of the vassalage of the social state we live in, I have it before me in the fact that a man like yourself, wellborn, young, rich, and high-hearted, should place the judgments and prejudices of half a dozen old tabbies of either sex above all the promptings of a noble ambition—all the sentiments of a generous devotion. Your starling cry of 'the Steward's daughter,' then, does not deter, it only determines the purpose