"Man, I never eat anything that has drawn the breath of life," replied Warde. "The first of our race brought death into the world and was permitted to inflict it upon others, for the satisfaction of his own appetites; but it was a permission, and not an injunction--except for sacrifice. I will not be one of the tyrants of the whole creation; I will have no more of the tiger in my nature than is inseparable from it; and as to gorging myself some five or six times a day with unnecessary food--am I a swine, do you think, to eat when I am not hungry, for the sole purpose of devouring? No, no, the simplest food, and that only for necessity, is best for man's body and his mind. We all grow too rank and superfluous."
Thus saying, he approached the table, said a short grace over that which was set before him, and then sitting down, ate till he was satisfied, without exchanging a word with any one during the time that he was thus engaged. It occupied less than five minutes, however, to take all that he required, and then starting up suddenly, he thanked God for what he had given him, took up his hat and turned towards the door.
"I am going out, Osborn," he said, "for my evening walk. Will you come with me?"
"Willingly for half an hour," answered the young officer, and, telling the landlord as he passed that he would be back by the time that his room was ready, he accompanied his eccentric acquaintance out into the streets of Hythe, and thence, through some narrow walks and lanes, to the sea-shore.
[CHAPTER IV.]
The sky was clear and bright; the moonlight was sleeping in dream-like splendour upon the water, and the small waves, thrown up by the tide more than the wind, came rippling along the beach like a flood of diamonds. All was still and silent in the sky, and upon the earth; and the soft rustle of the waters upon the shore seemed but to say "Hush!" as if nature feared that any louder sound should interrupt her calm repose. To the west, stretched out the faint low line of coast towards Dungeness; and to the east, appeared the high cliffs near Folkestone and Dover--grey and solemn; while the open heaven above looked down with its tiny stars and lustrous moon upon the wide extended sea, glittering in the silver veil cast over her sleeping bosom from on high.
Such was the scene presented to the eyes of the two wanderers when they reached the beach, a little way on the Sandgate side of Hythe, and both paused to gaze upon it for several minutes in profound silence.
"This is indeed a night to walk forth upon the sands," said the young officer at length. "It seems to me, that of all the many scenes from which man can derive both instruction and comfort, in the difficulties and troubles of life, there is none so elevating, so strengthening, as that presented by the sea shore on a moonlight night. To behold that mighty element, so full of destructive and of beneficial power, lying tranquilly within the bound which God affixed to it, and to remember the words, 'Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stopped,' affords so grand an illustration of his might, so fine a proof of the truth of his promises, that the heart must be hard indeed and the mind dull, not to receive confirmation of faith, and encouragement in hope."
"More, far more, may man receive," replied his companion, "if he be but willing; but that gross and corrupt insect refuses all instruction, and though the whole universe holds out blessings, still chooses the curse. Where is there a scene whence man may not receive benefit? What spot upon the whole earth has not something to speak to his heart, if he would but listen? In his own busy passions, however, and in his own fierce contentions, in his sordid creeping after gain, in his trickery and his knavery, even in his loves and pleasures, man turns a deaf ear to the great voice speaking to him; and the only scene of all this earth which cannot benefit the eye that looks upon it, is that in which human beings are the chief actors. There all is foulness, or pitifulness, or vice; and one, to live in happiness, and to take the moral of all nature to his heart, should live alone with nature. I will find me out such a place, where I can absent myself entirely, and contemplate nought but the works of God without the presence of man, for I am sick to death of all that I have seen of him and his, especially in what is called a civilized state."
"You have often threatened to do so, Warde," answered the young officer, "but yet methinks, though you rail at him, you love man too much to quit his abodes entirely. I have seen you kind and considerate to savages of the most horrible class; to men whose daily practice it is to torture with the most unheard of cruelty the prisoners whom they take in battle; and will you have less regard for other fellow-creatures, because they are what you call civilized?"