I mind me, when we parted at the door, How strange his good-night sounded,—like good-night Beside a deathbed, where the morrow’s sun Is sure to come too late for more good-days:— And all that night I thought.... ‘Good-night,’ said he.
And so, a month passed. Let me set it down At once,—I have been wrong, I have been wrong. We are wrong always, when we think too much Of what we think or are; albeit our thoughts Be verily bitter as self-sacrifice, We’re no less selfish. If we sleep on rocks Or roses, sleeping past the hour of noon We’re lazy. This I write against myself. I had done a duty in the visit paid To Marian, and was ready otherwise To give the witness of my presence and name Whenever she should marry.—Which, I thought, Sufficed. I even had cast into the scale An overweight of justice toward the match; The Lady Waldemar had missed her tool, Had broken it in the lock as being too straight For a crooked purpose, while poor Marian Erle Missed nothing in my accents or my acts: I had not been ungenerous on the whole, Nor yet untender; so, enough. I felt Tired, overworked: this marriage somewhat jarred; Or, if it did not, all the bridal noise ... The pricking of the map of life with pins, In schemes of ... ‘Here we’ll go,’ and ‘There we’ll stay,’ And ‘Everywhere we’ll prosper in our love,’ Was scarce my business. Let them order it; Who else should care? I threw myself aside, As one who had done her work and shuts her eyes To rest the better. I, who should have known, Forereckoned mischief! Where we disavow Being keeper to our brother, we’re his Cain.
I might have held that poor child to my heart A little longer! ’twould have hurt me much To have hastened by its beats the marriage-day, And kept her safe meantime from tampering hands, Or, peradventure, traps? What drew me back From telling Romney plainly, the designs Of Lady Waldemar, as spoken out To me ... me? had I any right, ay, right, With womanly compassion and reserve To break the fall of woman’s impudence?— To stand by calmly, knowing what I knew, And hear him call her good? Distrust that word. ‘There is none good save God,’ said Jesus Christ. If He once, in the first creation-week, Called creatures good,—for ever, afterward, The Devil only has done it, and his heirs, The knaves who win so, and the fools who lose; The word’s grown dangerous. In the middle age, I think they called malignant fays and imps Good people. A good neighbour, even in this, Is fatal sometimes,—cuts your morning up To mince-meat of the very smallest talk, Then helps to sugar her bohea at night With your reputation. I have known good wives, As chaste, or nearly so, as Potiphar’s; And good, good mothers, who would use a child To better an intrigue; good friends, beside, (Very good) who hung succinctly round your neck And sucked your breath, as cats are fabled to do By sleeping infants. And we all have known Good critics, who have stamped out poet’s hopes; Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state; Good patriots, who, for a theory, risked a cause; Good kings, who disembowelled for a tax; Good popes, who brought all good to jeopardy; Good Christians, who sate still in easy chairs, And damned the general world for standing up.— Now, may the good God pardon all good men!
How bitterly I speak,—how certainly The innocent white milk in us is turned, By much persistent shining of the sun!— Shake up the sweetest in us long enough With men, it drops to foolish curd, too sour To feed the most untender of Christ’s lambs.
I should have thought ... a woman of the world Like her I’m meaning,—centre to herself, Who has wheeled on her own pivot half a life In isolated self-love and self-will, As a windmill seen at distance radiating Its delicate white vans against the sky, So soft and soundless, simply beautiful,— Seen nearer ... what a roar and tear it makes, How it grinds and bruises!... if she loves at last, Her love’s a re-adjustment of self-love, No more; a need felt of another’s use To her one advantage,—as the mill wants grain, The fire wants fuel, the very wolf wants prey; And none of these is more unscrupulous Than such a charming woman when she loves. She’ll not be thwarted by an obstacle So trifling as ... her soul is, ... much less yours!— Is God a consideration?—she loves you, Not God; she will not flinch for Him indeed: She did not for the Marchioness of Perth, When wanting tickets for the birthnight-ball. She loves you, sir, with passion, to lunacy; She loves you like her diamonds ... almost. Well, A month passed so, and then the notice came; On such a day the marriage at the church. I was not backward. Half St. Giles in frieze Was bidden to meet St. James in cloth of gold, And, after contract at the altar, pass To eat a marriage-feast on Hampstead Heath. Of course the people came in uncompelled, Lame, blind, and worse—sick, sorrowful, and worse, The humours of the peccant social wound All pressed out, poured out upon Pimlico, Exasperating the unaccustomed air With hideous interfusion: you’d suppose A finished generation, dead of plague, Swept outward from their graves into the sun, The moil of death upon them. What a sight! A holiday of miserable men Is sadder than a burial-day of kings.
They clogged the streets, they oozed into the church In a dark slow stream, like blood. To see that sight, The noble ladies stood up in their pews, Some pale for fear, a few as red for hate, Some simply curious, some just insolent, And some in wondering scorn,—‘What next? what next?’ These crushed their delicate rose-lips from the smile That misbecame them in a holy place, With broidered hems of perfumed handkerchiefs; Those passed the salts with confidence of eyes And simultaneous shiver of moiré silk; While all the aisles, alive and black with heads, Crawled slowly toward the altar from the street, As bruised snakes crawl and hiss out of a hole With shuddering involutions, swaying slow From right to left, and then from left to right, In pants and pauses. What an ugly crest Of faces, rose upon you everywhere, From that crammed mass! you did not usually See faces like them in the open day: They hide in cellars, not to make you mad As Romney Leigh is.—Faces!—O my God, We call those, faces? men’s and women’s ... ay, And children’s;—babies, hanging like a rag Forgotten on their mother’s neck,—poor mouths, Wiped clean of mother’s milk by mother’s blow, Before they are taught her cursing. Faces!... phew, We’ll call them vices festering to despairs, Or sorrows petrifying to vices: not A finger-touch of God left whole on them; All ruined, lost—the countenance worn out As the garments, the will dissolute as the acts, The passions loose and draggling in the dirt To trip the foot up at the first free step!— Those, faces! ’twas as if you had stirred up hell To heave its lowest dreg-fiends uppermost In fiery swirls of slime,—such strangled fronts, Such obdurate jaws were thrown up constantly, To twit you with your race, corrupt your blood, And grind to devilish colours all your dreams Henceforth, ... though, haply, you should drop asleep By clink of silver waters, in a muse On Raffael’s mild Madonna of the Bird.
I’ve waked and slept through many nights and days Since then,—but still that day will catch my breath Like a nightmare. There are fatal days, indeed, In which the fibrous years have taken root So deeply, that they quiver to their tops Whene’er you stir the dust of such a day.
My cousin met me with his eyes and hand, And then, with just a word, ... that ‘Marian Erle Was coming with her bridesmaids presently,’ Made haste to place me by the altar-stair, Where he and other noble gentlemen And high-born ladies, waited for the bride.
We waited. It was early: there was time For greeting, and the morning’s compliment; And gradually a ripple of women’s talk Arose and fell, and tossed about a spray Of English ss, soft as a silent hush, And, notwithstanding, quite as audible As louder phrases thrown out by the men. —‘Yes, really, if we’ve need to wait in church, We’ve need to talk there.’—‘She? ’Tis Lady Ayr, In blue—not purple! that’s the dowager.’ —‘She looks as young.’—‘She flirts as young, you mean! Why if you had seen her upon Thursday night, You’d call Miss Norris modest.’—‘You again! I waltzed with you three hours back. Up at six, Up still at ten: scarce time to change one’s shoes. I feel as white and sulky as a ghost, So pray don’t speak to me, Lord Belcher.’—‘No, I’ll look at you instead, and it’s enough While you have that face.’ ‘In church, my lord! fie, fie!’ —‘Adair, you stayed for the Division?’—‘Lost By one.’ ‘The devil it is! I’m sorry for’t. And if I had not promised Mistress Grove’ ... —‘You might have kept your word to Liverpool.’ ‘Constituents must remember, after all, We’re mortal.’—‘We remind them of it.’—‘Hark, The bride comes! Here she comes, in a stream of milk!’ —‘There? Dear, you are asleep still; don’t you know The five Miss Granvilles? always dressed in white To show they’re ready to be married.’—‘Lower! The aunt is at your elbow.’—‘Lady Maud, Did Lady Waldemar tell you she had seen This girl of Leigh’s?’ ‘No,—wait! ’twas Mrs. Brookes, Who told me Lady Waldemar told her— No, ’twasn’t Mrs. Brookes.’—‘She’s pretty?’—‘Who? Mrs. Brookes? Lady Waldemar?’—‘How hot! Pray is’t the law to-day we’re not to breathe? You’re treading on my shawl—I thank you, sir.’ —‘They say the bride’s a mere child, who can’t read, But knows the things she shouldn’t, with wide-awake Great eyes. I’d go through fire to look at her.’ —‘You do, I think.’—‘And Lady Waldemar (You see her; sitting close to Romney Leigh; How beautiful she looks, a little flushed!) Has taken up the girl, and organised Leigh’s folly. Should I have come here, you suppose, Except she’d asked me?’—‘She’d have served him more By marrying him herself.’ ‘Ah—there she comes, The bride, at last!’ ‘Indeed, no. Past eleven. She puts off her patched petticoat to-day And puts on May-fair manners, so begins By setting us to wait.’—‘Yes, yes, this Leigh Was always odd; it’s in the blood, I think; His father’s uncle’s cousin’s second son Was, was ... you understand me—and for him, He’s stark!—has turned quite lunatic upon This modern question of the poor—the poor: An excellent subject when you’re moderate; You’ve seen Prince Albert’s model lodging-house? Does honour to his Royal Highness. Good! But would he stop his carriage in Cheapside To shake a common fellow by the fist Whose name was ... Shakspeare? no. We draw a line, And if we stand not by our order, we In England, we fall headlong. Here’s a sight,— A hideous sight, a most indecent sight! My wife would come, sir, or I had kept her back. By heaven, sir, when poor Damiens’ trunk and limbs Were torn by horses, women of the court Stood by and stared, exactly as to-day On this dismembering of society, With pretty troubled faces.’ ‘Now, at last. She comes now.’ ‘Where? who sees? you push me, sir, Beyond the point of what is mannerly. You’re standing, madam, on my second flounce— I do beseech you.’ ‘No—it’s not the bride. Half-past eleven. How late. The bridegroom, mark, Gets anxious and goes out.’ ‘And as I said ... These Leighs! our best blood running in the rut! It’s something awful. We had pardoned him A simple misalliance, got up aside For a pair of sky-blue eyes; our House of Lords Has winked at such things, and we’ve all been young. But here’s an inter-marriage reasoned out, A contract (carried boldly to the light, To challenge observation, pioneer Good acts by a great example) ’twixt the extremes Of martyrised society,—on the left, The well-born,—on the right, the merest mob, To treat as equals!—’tis anarchical! It means more than it says—’tis damnable! Why, sir, we can’t have even our coffee good, Unless we strain it.’ ‘Here, Miss Leigh!’ ‘Lord Howe, You’re Romney’s friend. What’s all this waiting for?’
‘I cannot tell. The bride has lost her head (And way, perhaps!) to prove her sympathy With the bridegroom.’ ‘What,—you also, disapprove!’