"Il va monter en cheval pour bannir son ennui,
"Le chagrin monte en croupe et galoppe après lui."
Finding solitary reflection rather increased than cured his malady, he at last determined to open his heart, to his reverend friend, Mr. Temple; and, alighting at the parsonage, sent his servant back to the hall, to say he should not return to dinner—an intimation which considerably increased the gloom which pervaded the countenance of each individual of the trio, that was seated in silence round the dinner-table. Sir Henry and Mrs. Galton were each occupied by their own reflections; and Selina felt depressed, not only by the unusual absence of Augustus, but also from the effects of that vacuum, which the departure of guests, however few in number, always makes in a country house. After dinner she strolled listlessly from one room to another; took up and laid down, alternately, all the books that lay on the library table; sauntered to the harpsichord, and played parts of several anthems, without finishing any, and stopping every five minutes, in the vain belief that she heard the trampling of Mordaunt's horse. At last, at an hour long before her usual bed-time, she retired to her room, wondering what could keep him so late, and thinking she had never spent so long, so tiresome an evening; whilst she involuntarily contrasted it with the hours winged on swiftest pinions, which the fascinations of Lady Eltondale's manners had so delightfully beguiled the night before.
CHAPTER VIII.
——Men
Can counsel and give comfort to that grief,
Which they themselves not feel.
Much ado about Nothing.
Augustus met with his usual kind reception at the parsonage; nor was it long before he found the opportunity he wished of consulting his earliest and most revered friend; for Mrs. Temple quickly perceived, that something hung heavy on the bosom of this young man, whom she loved almost as a son, and therefore soon retired from the dinner-table, leaving the two gentlemen tête à tête, believing that he would find as much comfort as she ever did, from conversing freely with him who was "her guide, her head;" for, like our first parents, they lived, "he for God only, she for God in him."
No sooner did Augustus find himself alone with Mr. Temple, than his oppressed heart found a ready vent, and he poured into the sympathetic ear of his reverend auditor a full detail of all his feelings. He had first discovered how ardently he loved Selina, at the moment he had learned she was destined for another; and he described, with all the eloquence of passion, the agony, the despair he now experienced. Mr. Temple had not yet forgotten what it was to love; and, "though time had thinn'd his flowing hair," his feelings had not yet become torpid under its benumbing influence. He could listen with patience, and even pity, to the wild effusions of his favourite's grief, while he waited calmly till the first burst of passion should subside, and leave room for the exercise of sober reason.—"Come, come, my dear Augustus," said he, at last, "your case is neither a singular nor a desperate one: there are very few young men of your age, that do not fancy themselves as deeply in love as you do now, and, of the number, not one in five hundred marry the object of their first choice: indeed it is often very fortunate for them they do not."—"But Selina Seymour! where is such another woman to be found?" exclaimed Augustus: and then, with all a lover's vehemence, did he expatiate on her "matchless charms." "I grant you," replied Mr. Temple, "she is a very delightful girl; and, as far as we can judge, is likely to make a most estimable woman. But you know her disposition is naturally volatile in the extreme, and much of her future character will depend on her future guides. Well, well, we will not dispute on the degree of her merits," continued Mr. Temple, seeing Mordaunt ready to take up the gauntlet in her defence;—"hear me only with calmness, and I will promise to confine my observations as much as I can to yourself. You know, my dear boy, you are yet very young, and very inexperienced. It is true you have been three years at Oxford. But of the world you may literally be said to know nothing. Selina is now certainly the most charming woman you have yet seen; but how can you be sure she will always hold her pre-eminence in your estimation? Aye, my dear fellow, you need not tell me;—I know you are at this moment perfectly convinced of your own inviolable constancy, and so forth. But let me tell you, you do not yourself know yet what would, and what would not, constitute your happiness in a wedded life. The girl, whose vivacity and animation we delight in at seventeen, may turn out a frivolous and even contemptible character at seven and twenty. And can you picture to yourself a greater calamity, than being obliged to drag on the lengthened chain of existence with a companion, to whose fate yours is linked for ever, without one tone of feeling in unison with yours; to whom your pleasures and your griefs are alike unknown, or, if known, never comprehended; and where every misery is aggravated by a certainty that your fate is irremediable—when
'Life nothing blighter or darker can bring;'