It is sufficient, he was thus sustained by light applications of cold-water, until the passing of the storm enabled her to summon to his aid a physician, whose skilful application of the same powerful remedy, even in the “blue-stage” of collapse into which Manton had now fallen, sufficed to relieve him from the disease, with the vital principle yet striving in his frame; though many days must elapse before those starry eyes, that held sleepless watch above him, could impart to his dimmed and incredulous consciousness sufficient strength to enable him to lift his hand, in vague and mournful wonder that he still possessed a being.
Ah, what an awakening was this! Deep, deep, beneath the realms of shadow—dark and deep—he had lain in long and dumb oblivion of consciousness. He knew not that he lived; it was a blank of rayless rest—a peace without sunshine. How profound! how unutterably still! What a contrast with the ceaseless, dreadful tension of the moiling chaos of past years, during which the passions had never slept, but, through his very dreams, had moaned in the weariness of strife. Alas! the rebellious heart, which struggleth in unyielding pride with life, refusing to concede to its conditions, how it must suffer? The world know little of the life-long horrors of that fight—the unidealizing world, the conservative, the compromising world. It little dreams what this self-immolating madman must endure—to what nights of sleepless thought, to what days of bleak and sullen isolation—walking apart from sympathies that are distrusted and scorned, yet yearned for—hating nothing, yet loving nothing which is warmed in the embrace of earth, because that earth may be accursed in his sight: its barren bosom has not yielded to his exacting soul the flowers and streams and echoing groves of the Utopia it has framed within him.
This is the unpardonable sin of pride! He dares to treat with contempt a world that will not turn to his inspired voice, and live as he has dreamed it might live. It is not to be wondered at, that the bolts fall thick and fast about him; but when we see his pale brow scathed and seamed with many a stunning stroke, while his hollow eyes yet glitter with a deathless and defiant fire—when we think of the mortal tension of his unsympathised life—oh, should we not remember, that this painful warrior has been battling, not for base lucre, not for selfish ends, but for the beautiful, as it has been revealed to him—the true, as he has felt it—for the ideal in him; and that, though wretched and suffering and wan, it is, after all,
“Of such stuff as he,
The gods are made.”
It is of his suffering that his prowess comes—of his experiences, his themes—of his solitude, his reach and radiance of thought—of his strong will, his conquering flight at last. Do not think to pity him; may-be he is pitying you. Do not attempt to “save” him; it may be, it is you who will be damned in the effort. Only let him alone—do not persecute him. Let his pride pass—that is what sustains him; but for that, he would be like you, a mere “compromise.” Give him the same chance that you give to others around you, and, although you may not understand him now, only give him time, he will make you understand him; it may be, in wonder and in joy.
But this waking—but this waking of the weary man! Was it a new birth—a new resurrection—or, a mere waking from a light sleep, without a dream? The world upon which his shrinking vision now opened was filled with sunshine—he was blinded with the glory thereof. He closed his thin eyelids, and the splendor came through them, all rosy-hued and dimmed, that he could bear it; but there was a starlight for him too, and he could bear its calm effulgence better.
Yes, there were two stars, and they were tempered, that they might neither freeze nor slay his feeble life. When they came over him, as he lay in a half-trance of weakness, he could feel them through his eyelids and upon his heart; and they were warm, and he felt his heart warm, as buds to the unfolding spring. A dim-remembered music flowed into his soul, faint and dim, but oh, sweetly mellowed, that he might not die!
There was a rustling, too,—it was as of a tempered wind,—and a soft touch; it sent no thrill, but it was of healing—it sunk into his life in strength. A strange, balsamic tenderness, like a new sense of peace and joy, pervaded all his being—and a new growth set in apace, and a dim remembrance of ancient strength flitted into his thought.
Ah, ha! this wondrous presence, what was it? Moione, the ministering Moione! It was she! Ever there, sleeping and awake, she leaned over him. When he dreamed, he dreamed of a fair spirit, that hung upon the air above him, on viewless wings, and ever, with still eyes looking upon his, shedding their soft radiance deep into his soul. No wonder that life, in swift, light waves, came flooding in again; no wonder that the crushed and much-enduring man became as a child once more, and laughed out in the sunshine with a simple joy. The Present was sufficient unto him; he remembered not the Past now—the hideous, the spectre-haunted Past. What was it to him, when serene hope thus smiled? Ah, it was a happy time, that period of rapid convalescence. Yes, rapid, for his heart beat freely again. The natural sun could reach him; no lurid delusion, like miasmatic fog, hung over to intercept the rays.