"Many things," answered Algernon Grey, with a faint smile; "some treachery, some disappointment, some burdensome bonds, formed by good, misjudging friends, which can neither be broken nor shaken off."
"A bad case," answered Christian of Anhalt; "but, methinks, were I you, I would never suffer things that cannot be mended to weigh down my light free heart, but would rather throw them back upon fate's hands, and be merry in spite of fortune."
"A good philosophy," answered Algernon Grey; "and I am resolved to try it; but yet you may one day find it difficult to practise what you teach."
"Nay, not a whit," replied his companion. "We may learn philosophy even from the brute beasts; they sigh not over the morrow or the yesterday. It is only because we make curses of powers that were given for blessings, and use our memory and our foresight, not for warning and precaution, but for regret and despair."
"Excellent good," cried Lovet, who was riding but a step behind. "The same doctrine I have been preaching to him for the last two months! Me he would never listen to; now he will be all docility; for a prophet is no prophet in his own country; and a cousin's counsels like the ale of the servant's hall, always taste pricked to the master of the house."
"There is some difference between your sage advice, William, and our noble comrade's," answered Algernon Grey.
"Not a bit," cried Lovet. "Enjoy the present; forget the past; let the future take care of itself. Such is the cream of the morality of each; and you only think otherwise because a stale pie tastes fresh upon a clean napkin--But here we are coming to the square--On my life, a mighty fine body of men, and in good order, too. There must have been a shrewd head to marshal them."
CHAPTER X.
The morning was fair, but sultry; the pace at which the cavalcade proceeded was, for several miles, very quick; and the exhilarating effect of rapid motion would probably again have raised the spirits of all, had it not been for a certain oppressive feeling in the air, which rendered the application of the spur necessary, even to strong and high-blooded horses, at the end of five miles. Algernon Grey felt the influence of the atmosphere as much as any one. In vain he endeavoured to shake off the gloom which hung over him, to laugh and talk with those around, to give back to Lovet jest for jest; the thoughts which he wished to banish would return and struggle to possess him wholly. We all know we must all have felt the influence of particular states of the air, not alone upon our corporeal frame, but also upon the very energies of the mind; when, without losing in the slightest degree our power over the intellect, we cannot command that finer and more supple element in our complicated nature--whatever it be called--which gives birth to the feelings of the moment. Reason is vain against it; resolution is useless; we may govern the external display, but we cannot avoid the internal sensation; and a lustrous brightness, or a dim cloud, spreads over every subject of contemplation from some hidden source of light and shadow within us. Who can say, "I will be merry to-day?" The man who does so is a fool; for not the brightest gifts of fortune, not the sunshine of all external things, not every effort of a strong determination, not the exercise of wit, wisdom, and philosophy, will enable him to succeed, unless the spirit of cheerfulness be in his own heart. He may say, indeed, "I will be calm;" and many a man has been so, in the midst of intense sufferings--to the eye of the world. Many a man, perhaps, has been so even in his own opinion; but I much doubt whether some one of the many modifications of vanity was not, then, putting a cheat upon him.
With Algernon Grey the effort was vain; he felt depressed, and he struggled against the depression; but the enemy conquered, and, foot by foot, gained ground upon him. First, he gave way so far as to think of Agnes Herbert, to dwell upon the recollection of her beauty and her excellence. Then he strove to cast his eyes forward into the future, and to think only of the coming events; but what a sad contrast did they present to the images just banished! war, and strife, and the fiery turbulence of ambition, and the low, mean intrigues of courts, and cold pageantry, and idle revelling; in place of beauty, and love, and hope, and sweet domestic peace! It was too painful to rest upon; and his mind turned to her he loved again; but the same bright visions, in which he had indulged for a moment, would not now come back at his bidding. He thought of Agnes, it is true; but at the same time he remembered that he was leaving her for ever; that he was voluntarily casting away the early joy of first love, the only refuge in which his heart could now find peace, the sweetest light that had ever dawned upon existence, all that imagination could have pictured of happiness and contentment. And deep, deep, to his very heart, he felt the sacrifice; and his spirit writhed in the torture which he inflicted on himself.