My cigar is in a fine glow; but it has gone out once, and it may go out again.
—You begin to talk of marriage; but some obstinate papa or guardian uncle thinks that it will never do—that it is quite too soon, or that Nelly is a mere girl. Or some of your wild oats—quite forgotten by yourself—shoot up on the vision of a staid mamma and throw a very damp shadow on your character. Or the old lady has an ambition of another sort, which you, a simple, earnest, plodding bachelor, can never gratify—being of only passable appearance, and unschooled in the fashions of the world, you will be eternally rubbing the elbows of the old lady’s pride.
All this will be strangely afflicting to one who has been living for quite a number of weeks, or months, in a pleasant dreamland, where there were no five per cents. or reputations, but only a very full and delirious flow of feeling. What care you for any position except a position near the being that you love? What wealth do you prize, except a wealth of heart that shall never know diminution; or for reputation, except that of truth and of honor? How hard it would break upon these pleasant idealities to have a weazen-faced old guardian set his arm in yours and tell you how tenderly he has at heart the happiness of his niece, and reason with you about your very small and sparse dividends and your limited business, and caution you—for he has a lively regard for your interests—about continuing your addresses?
—The kind old curmudgeon!
Your man Tom has grown suddenly a very stupid fellow, and all your charity for withered wall-flowers is gone. Perhaps in your wrath the suspicion comes over you that she too wishes you were something higher, or more famous, or richer, or anything but what you are!—a very dangerous suspicion: for no man with any true nobility of soul can ever make his heart the slave of another’s condescension.
But no—you will not, you can not believe this of Nelly; that face of hers is too mild and gracious; and her manner, as she takes your hand, after your heart is made sad, and turns away those rich blue eyes—shadowed more deeply than ever by the long and moistened fringe; and the exquisite softness and meaning of the pressure of those little fingers; and the low, half sob, and the heaving of that bosom in its struggles between love and duty—all forbid. Nelly, you could swear, is tenderly indulgent, like the fond creature that she is, toward all your short-comings, and would not barter your strong love and your honest heart for the greatest magnate in the land.
What a spur to effort is the confiding love of a true-hearted woman! That last fond look of hers, hopeful and encouraging, has more power within it to nerve your soul to high deeds than all the admonitions of all your tutors. Your heart, beating large with hope, quickens the flow upon the brain, and you make wild vows to win greatness. But alas, this is a great world—very full, and very rough:
——all up-hill work when we would do;
All down-hill, when we suffer.[[3]]
[3]. Festus.