"I don't profess the arts you mention; but I doubt the reality of your spectre. I think it is an illusion, depending on an undue excitement in the organ of self-esteem, quite to be dispelled by restoring the healthy action of those other organs—of common sense. Seriously, I'm not competent to advise gentlemen, young or old, in their perplexities, real or fancied; but I certainly would say to any one who had set before him an object of ambition, the attainment of which he thought would be injurious to him,—be manly, have done with it, let it go, give it to the winds. Besides, you know that half the objects which young men set before them, the ambitions which they cherish, are the merest castles in the air, and that all but themselves can see the ridicule of their aspirations."
"You must not go, Miss Fanshawe; you have hot seen the carving you came here to look at. Here is the old church chest; but—but suppose the patient—let us call him—knows that the object of his—his ambition is on all accounts the best and noblest he could possibly have set before him. What then?"
"What then!" echoed Miss Fanshawe. "How can any one possibly tell—but the patient, as you call him, himself—what he should do. Your patient does not interest me; he wearies me. Let us look at this carving."
"Do you think he should despair because there is no present answer to his prayers, and his idol vouchsafes no sign or omen?" persisted Cleve.
"I don't think," she replied, with a cold impatience, "the kind of person you describe is capable of despairing in such a case. I think he would place too high a value upon his merits to question the certainty of their success—don't you?" said the young lady.
"Well, no; I don't think so. He is not an unreal person; I know him, and I know that his good opinion of himself is humbled, and that he adores with an entire abandonment of self the being whom he literally worships."
"Very adoring, perhaps, but rather—that's a great dog like a wolf-hound in that panel, and it has got its fangs in that pretty stag's throat," said Miss Fanshawe, breaking into a criticism upon the carving.
"Yes—but you were saying 'Very adoring, but rather'—what?" urged Cleve.
"Rather silly, don't you think? What business have people adoring others of whom they know nothing—who may not even like them—who may possibly dislike them extremely? I am tired of your good genius—I hope I'm not very rude—and of your friend's folly—tired as you must be; and I think we should both give him very much the same advice, I should say to him, pray don't sacrifice yourself; you are much too precious; consider your own value, and above all, remember that even should you make up your mind to the humiliation of the altar and the knife, the ceremonial may prove a fruitless mortification, and the opportunity of accomplishing your sacrifice be denied you by your divinity. And I think that's a rather well-rounded period: don't you?"
By this time Miss Margaret Fanshawe had reached her cousin, who stood up smiling.