“Yes; but his bearing was often much pleasanter than his feelings. He disliked to say or hear ugly words; though he could write savage letters, and could imagine himself being very stern in intercourse; but when he came to the point, he was apt to sweeten off—more, I think, from dread of being tempted to lose his temper than from natural kindliness.”
“You judge him too harshly, because too minutely. Every human motive has its shady side. He was a man—if I may hazard an opinion—who was never so gay and good-humored as under specially trying or perilous circumstances: upon slighter occasions he might be less agreeable.”
“You have chanced upon a truth there,” said Lancaster, apparently somewhat impressed by his interlocutor’s sagacity. “We were once in a boat together on the Lake of Geneva, and a storm put us in imminent danger of our lives for a couple of hours. He was laughing and jesting all the time—not cynically or mockingly, but from genuine light-heartedness. Perhaps you can explain that?”
“No further than to remind you that great or dangerous crises burn the pretense out of a man and leave him sincere: and then it will be known, to others as well as to himself, whether he be brave or craven. In the case of your friend Yorke, with his dread of being accused of fine feelings, imminent peril would annul that dread, because he would perceive that no one about him was likely to be in a state of mind serene enough to be critical: therefore his self-consciousness would leave him, and he would become his spontaneous self. The chief vice of your friend seems to me, indeed, to be that same self-consciousness. He would be for ever watching and speculating about himself. Pray, did you consider him of a fickle disposition?”
“He has given many instances of it, both in mind and heart.”
“Nevertheless,” rejoined Mr. Grant, taking a pinch of snuff between his fingers, and regarding Lancaster with a smile of quiet penetration, “nevertheless I will wager that he was, at bottom, no more fickle than you or I. His fickleness was of the surface merely; within, he was perhaps more constant than most men.”
“You speak confidently, sir.”
“Nay, I am no conjuror, nor no dogmatist either. Your friend’s character is, in reality, not quite so complex as it appears. What are its main elements? Powerful imagination, independence, affability, love of approbation, evidenced by the pride that veils it; a skeptical habit of conversation, to conceal a perhaps too credulous faith, unweariable spiritual curiosity, noble ideals; modesty, unless depreciated, sensitiveness to beauty, and docility unless opposed. That enumeration might be condensed, but let it pass. Here, then, we have a man open to an unusual variety of impressions, and fond of experimenting on himself; in the habit, therefore, of regarding himself as a third person. What more probable than that such a man should imagine changes in his beliefs or affections, and should amuse himself by acting as if those changes were actual? Yet, when it came to some vital matter, his deeper-rooted sense of right and justice would take the reins again, and curb the vagaries of his fancy.”
“But it might happen,” said Lancaster, “that some person became involved in this amusing experiment of his, who should mistake the experiment for earnest. What would my friend’s sense of right and justice have to say to that?”
“Nay, that lies between him and his conscience,” quoth Mr. Grant, applying the pinch of snuff to his nostrils, “and you and I have no concern with it.”