"Then you have been a seer and a prophet," replied I, "all along. Allow me to bow to your superior wisdom. I never dreamed of such a thing; yet would it not have been as it has turned out, but for my advice, my judgment."
"What on earth could you have had to do with this wretched business?" inquired L——. "Pray, pray, do not confuse me more than you can help."
"I am going rather to enlighten you, L——," said I, "and must beg you seriously to attend now to me. You know that I was summoned to attend upon Mr. Randolph Maxwell, the first cousin of your mother. Well, I found him in almost a dying state,—weak, exhausted, dejected in the extreme, without a wish to live. I inquired into the symptoms of his malady. I could gain no information from his words; but those melancholy yet beautiful eyes of his gave me a suspicion. Having obtained a clue, and not having the same contemptible and erroneous opinion of my patient as yourself, I arrived at length at the truth, and found that this 'demon,' as you are pleased to call him, was falling a sacrifice to his high sense of honour, and delicacy to his idolised wife's feelings. He had adored her ever, and believed firmly, when he wrote that last epistle to her which you saw, that he was capable of keeping his word; that the society of his Emma as a friend and sister only would fully satisfy every desire of his heart. But in living with her, in receiving her smiles, and hearing himself called 'Randolph,' 'dear Randolph,' by lips so lovely and beloved, he found that he was human, and had human wishes to gratify. Thus, like Tantalus, did he languish and droop, yet without a hope, uttering a complaint, or making a single effort to draw her compassion, or even to let his sufferings be understood by her. By heavens! L——, that man, small as he is in stature, deformed and unpleasant to look upon, is one of the greatest heroes, ay, martyrs, let it be added,—I speak as a medical man,—that history has to boast of!"—I paused as I said this, and waited for some observation from my young friend; but he merely leaned his cheek upon his hand, and cast his eyes upon the ground.—"Shall I proceed?" asked I.
"I can finish the narrative myself," said he: "you communicated the state of her friend, of course, to my mother, and she,—to save his life,——"
"—Told me," cried I, "that she had now been so long accustomed to his presence, so familiarised with his uncouth appearance, that she scarcely noticed his deformities; that his attentions, his delicacy, his devotedness to her for so long a time, had taken from her all repugnance to his person; and that she could truly say, 'she loved him even as he was.'" L—— groaned aloud. "Oh!" continued I, "I wish I could describe to you the feelings of this man with the club-foot,—this being so despised, so loathed by you,—when I repeated to him, word for word, what his adored wife had imparted to me,—when the delightful conviction stole into his mind that there was one woman in the world, and that one the most valued and the most lovely, who could look upon him, dwarf, hunchback as he was, with eyes of returning affection,—that he was loved in some measure with a return.—After all, L——, what is there in the outside?"
"Is my mother happy?" at length inquired L—— with a burning cheek, but a softening tone of voice.
"The only drawback on her felicity is from the waywardness, the morbid temper, and the cruel prejudices of her only son," said I. "What is there in a mere form, the husk, the shell, the covering of the immortal mind? Would you have treated Socrates as you have treated Mr. Maxwell?—thus have despised Alexander Pope?"
"Socrates had not a club-foot," answered he; but I fancied that an air of pleasantry accompanied the observation: "Pope had not this deformity."
"But other great men had," I replied, "who were as inferior to the gentleman we have been speaking of in true heroism, as they excelled him in other mere personal attractions. Remember the adage, L——, 'Handsome is who handsome does.'"