"Of rank I have not so much regard, as of the man who bears it. Neither do I think that wealth confers any high condition on its owner. In too many cases it lowers him. You will believe me when I say that neither of those questions causes my regret at what you told me. I live for only two things now—the happiness of my darling child, and the improvement of the noble race to which I happen to belong. I have also bitter wrongs, and the happiness of my life snatched from me. The love of revenge is in Eastern blood, and a very hard force it is to overcome. You of English race cannot enter into that, because it is not born in you. But I know what the indignation is, when the sense of justice rises."
His quiet eyes flashed as if his heart was roused by the words it had given way to. And glad was I, not to be the man presented by it in the portraiture of memory.
"Why do I admire the British race?" he continued, with his better tone recovered; "not for their energy and manliness alone, not even for their love of freedom, and great spirit of truth and justice, but most of all because they alone of all the nations I have mingled with are born without this cursed taint of savage and vile vindictiveness. If a man wrongs you, you have it out with him. You thrash him, if nature has enabled you. You vent your wrath upon him, and you go your way. The world is large enough for both of you. If you hear of his misery, and woe, and death, you only say, 'Poor fellow, there may have been more good in him than I thought.' But with us of the Eastern and the Southern blood, that blood is turned to poison by a deep and bitter wrong. By the grace of God, and the grandeur of our Christ, I have struggled long against this birth of Satan in me; but even now I have not overcome it, utterly and for ever, as a larger mind would crush it. But what has this to do with you? A great deal, if you have really set your heart upon my daughter. Are you sure that you have done that with true English strength and thoroughness? No passing whim, no delight of the eyes, as a flower or a picture catches them; but a power that will last as long as you do, and longer than the earthly part of you?"
No fellow likes to be cross-examined thus; and to tell the plain truth, I had scarcely gone into myself in this awful manner. But I soon perceived that he was speaking rather at the prompting of his own remembrance, than of set form and purpose for probing me. So as the picture arose before me of Dariel and her little bird, I spared no word that I could think of; though none were half strong enough, none half staunch enough; nothing that came to my lips had any right to go out as if it spoke for me. Truly I had not been so touched by the piety, mystery, exalted beauty, and lovely maidenhood of my love, as I was by the sight of her tender self indulging her loving nature.
"I am satisfied about that, my friend," her father said, when I began to be ashamed, as we ought to be, of all our higher feelings; "and I know enough of you to be sure that you have a strong and steadfast mind. I have not spoken of your friends, because you have never invited me to do so. That obstacle, if there is one, is your consideration, more than mine. But the obstacles on our part are of a very different nature. Of English ladies I know not much, though I had the honour of being introduced to some of what you call the high society, when I came first to this island; and they seemed to me to be endowed with virtues well adapted to their beauty. But they have to contend with this great danger—they are allowed to choose their own partners in life, whenever the money is abundant, before they have attained good intelligence. With our daughters this is not the case. The parents make a wise selection for them, sometimes even dispensing with much revenue, when there are great qualities to compensate."
"We never go quite so far as that," I said, "unless the lady behaves in such a way that it is impossible for us to help it."
"But I have been surprised to find," he continued, with a smile which left me doubtful whether it were of paternal pride, or of that quiet humour which he sometimes showed, "that my daughter seems to take most kindly to the modes of thought and the greater independence which the ladies of this country have permitted to themselves. It may be in the air, or it may be in the nature; but I am often quite astonished at the sayings and doings of my Dariel. She has been brought up by a lady who is partly of English birth, and for a month or two with English children; but still her unusual style of judging for herself is amazing and terrifying to our elder women, who being of a different rank—and that reminds me, if my daughter has a fault, and I suppose she must have, it is, Mr. Cranleigh, the pride of birth. Not an ignoble fault, but still a very serious one, especially as it can never be expelled.
"Through her mother she is of higher birth than I am, though not of more ancient lineage perhaps, as I happen to be one of the Kheusurs. But all these things you cannot understand, even if you wish to do so, without a knowledge of my long sad tale, which I have not told as yet to any person living. Even my daughter has not heard it, and I hope she never may; for it would serve perhaps to do mischief to her young mind with anxiety. The Lord governs all things on earth; all of our race begin to feel that, when their little strength is stripped from them. But you are too young to see things so; and never has the tale of one man's life had any effect upon another's, unless it were to lead him into wild adventures, easy to talk about, hard to go through. Be content without them."
I looked at him with some hesitation. Would it be kind of me, even if I had the right, to put him through all these griefs again, which had changed him from a bold young Chief, primed with excitement, and peril, and love, into a quiet exile, and a Christian moraliser, a founder of type with hard blue hands, and oh, saddest fate of all, an experimental Publisher? No, it would be a cruel thing, a selfish call upon sad memory, a mere abuse of large goodwill, and a vile advantage taken of an over-tender conscience. With these finer feelings, I almost said, "I entreat you, sir, not to tell me;" when the Spirit that hates the human race whispered to me that there has never been a man, and probably never will be one, who cannot find pleasure in talking of himself, however dark the subject. And why should I doubt that it would do him good, as soon as he got into full swing?