"We are more skilful than you think," said Natalia, smiling. "Before you asked, we had the answer down in black and white," handing him as she spoke the letter she had just written. Jarno read the sheet hastily. "What shall I say?" cried he. "Surprise against surprise! I came to tell you that Theresa is not the daughter of her reputed mother. There is no obstacle to her marriage with Lothario: I came to ask you to prepare her for it."
"And what," said Lothario, taking Wilhelm by the hand, "what if your alliance with my sister were the secret article on which depended my alliance with Theresa? These amends the noble maiden has appointed for you; she has vowed that we two pairs should appear together at the altar. 'His reason has made choice of me,' she said; 'his heart demands Natalia: my reason shall assist his heart.'"
Lothario embraced his friend, and led him to Natalia, who, with Theresa, came to meet them. "To my mind, thou resemblest Saul, the son of Kish, who went out to seek his father's asses, and found a kingdom."
"I know not the worth of a kingdom," said Wilhelm, "but I know that I have attained a happiness undeserved, which I would not change for anything in life."
[OLIVER GOLDSMITH]
[The Vicar of Wakefield]
Oliver Goldsmith, the most versatile and perhaps the most unstable of eighteenth century men of letters, was born in Ireland on November 10, 1728. At Trinity College, Dublin, he revealed three characteristics that clung to him throughout his career--high spirits, conversational brilliance, and inability to keep money in his pocket. After a spell of "philosophic vagabondage" on the Continent, he settled in London in 1756, earned money in various ways, and spent it all. "The Vicar of Wakefield," perhaps the greatest of all Goldsmith's works, was published on March 27, 1766, after Dr. Johnson had raised £60 for him on the manuscript of it. The liveliness and grace of Goldsmith's style were never more plainly manifested than in this delightful story; and its faults--it contains many coincidences and improbabilities--are far more than atoned for by the masterly portrait of the simple, manly, generous, and wholly lovable vicar who is the central figure of the story. "It has," says Mitford, "the truth of Richardson, without his minuteness, and the humour of Fielding, without his grossness; if it yields to LeSage in the diversified variety of his views of life, it far excels him in the description of domestic virtues and the pleasing moral of the tale." Goldsmith died on April 4, 1774. (See also Vol. XVII.)
I.--Family Portraits
I was ever of opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a large family did more service than he who continued single and only talked of population. From this motive, I chose my wife, as she did her wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well. There was nothing that could make us angry with the world or each other. We had no revolutions to fear, nor fatigues to undergo; all our adventures were by the fireside, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown.