He could consent, however, to be passive only while awaiting some happy turn for propitiating his efforts to escape from the sumptuous scenes, which, with his heart away from them, he now looked upon as obscuring, not illuminating, his existence; since they promoted not the means of arriving at all he began to hold worth pursuit, “Home, sweet home!” which he now severely saw could be reached only by regular assiduity in his profession.
From this time it was with difficulty he could assume spirit sufficient for sustaining his intercourse, hitherto so happy, so lively, with the Grevilles; not alone from the sufferings of absence, but from hard secret conflicts, whether or not to reveal his distress. Mr. Greville, who, a short time back would quickly have discerned his latent uneasiness, was now so occupied by his own new happiness, conjugal and paternal, that though he welcomed young Burney with unabated kindness, his own thoughts, and his observations, were all centered in his two Fannys.
During the first fair breathings of early wedded love, the scoff of the tender passion, the sneer against romance, the contempt of refined reciprocations of sentiment, are done away, even from the most sarcastic, by a newly imbibed consciousness of the felicity of virtuous tenderness; which were its permanence more frequently equal to its enjoyment, would irresistibly convert the scorn of its deriders into envy. But constancy in affection from long dissipated characters, must always, whether in friendship or in love, be as rare as it is right; for constancy requires virtue to be leagued with the passions.
Unmarked, therefore, young Burney kept to himself his unhappiness; though he was not now impeded from communication by fears of the raillery with which, previously to his marriage, Mr. Greville would have held up to mockery a tale of love in a cottage, as a proper pendant to a tale of love in bedlam. But still he was withheld from all genial confidence, by apprehensions of remonstrances which he now considered as mercenary, if not derogatory, against imprudent connexions; and of representations of his own claims to higher views; which he now, from his belief that his incomparable choice would out-balance in excellence all vain attempts at competition, deemed profane if not insane.
Mrs. Greville, having no clew to his secret feelings, was not aware of their disturbance; she might else easily, and she would willingly, have drawn forth his confidence, from the kindly disposition that subsisted, on both sides, to trust and to friendship.
But a discovery the most painful of the perturbed state of his mind, was soon afterwards impelled by a change of affairs in the Grevilles, which they believed would enchant him with pleasure; but which they found, to their unspeakable astonishment, overpowered him with affliction.
This was no other than a plan of going abroad for some years, and of including him in their party.
Concealment was instantly at an end. The sudden dismay of his ingenuous countenance, though it told not the cause, betrayed past recall his repugnance to the scheme.
With parts so lively, powers of observation so ready, and a spirit so delighting in whatever was uncommon and curious, they had expected that such a prospect of visiting new countries, surveying new scenes, mingling with new characters; and traversing the foreign world, under their auspices, in all its splendour, would have raised in him a buoyant transport, exhilarating to behold. But the sudden paleness that overspread his face; his downcast eye; the quiver of his lips; and the unintelligible stammer of his vainly attempted reply, excited interrogatories so anxious and so vehement, that they soon induced an avowal that a secret power had gotten possession of his mind, and sturdily exiled from it all ambition, curiosity, or pleasure, that came not in the form of an offering to its all-absorbing shrine.
Every objection and admonition which he had anticipated, were immediately brought forward by this confession; but they were presented with a lenity that showed his advisers to be fully capable of conceiving, though persuaded that they ought to oppose, his feelings.