They went up the road, to strike into East Street, instead of down; and as the road, after passing the house, ceased almost entirely, they soon found themselves in a narrow forest track. Over their heads hung the splendid crimson and gold canopy of maples and beeches mingled, and vines ran through every glowing tone from garnet-black up to rose-color, or hung in deep purple masses. The mountain-ash bent to offer its clusters of red berries, and there was no tiniest shrub nor leaf but had its gala autumn dress. A blue mist showed faintly through the long forest reaches, and rich earth-odors rose on the moist air.
The immense conversation which was to have been held seemed to be forgotten; scarcely a word was said till they came out into the eastern road. Then Edith pointed across the way, and said, "Is it not lovely?" and they stopped a moment to look.
There was a tract of low swampy land there silvered over with mist, that seemed scarcely to rise a foot above it. Through this mist showed a fine emerald-green thick with pink and purple blooms, and over it swam a yellow-bird, in smooth undulations, as if it floated on a tide.
The two stood there for some time in silence, till that picture was perfectly painted on the memory of each. Then they walked on into the village. In a few minutes after they reached the hotel, the coach came down from Major Cleaveland's with Mr. and Mrs. Williams in it, the fare-wells were said, and they were gone.
CHAPTER X.
A DESPAIRING CHAPTER.
After all, no person's story can be truly told without beginning at the creation of the world. Not that we would invoke Darwinian aid, or inquire into the family peculiarities of the sponge—"O philoprogenitive sponge!" Nor would we intimate that the soul is as passive to circumstances as a rudderless ship to wind and wave, but assert rather that it is like the steamer, the great struggling creature, with a will at heart. But circumstances are strong, even very old circumstances, and our ancestors have a word to say, not as to our final destination, but as to the road by which we shall reach it. Coarser natures get their bent after the manner commemorated by the Mohammedan legend: some Eblis of an ancestor spurned their clay with his foot when the angels had kneaded it, and the dent is long in filling out; but finer souls are strung like the wind-harp, and from the long line-gale of ghosts preceding them is stretched now and then a viewless finger, which sets vibrating some silent inherited chord. Is it a vanishing and perpetually recurring strain of a Gregorian chant, breaking awfully into the pauses of a godless life? Is it an airily riotous Bacchic wreathing the slow minims of a choral? Catch up the strain and repeat it as you will, all your life shall be a palimpsest with Te Deum laudamus written largely over the fading errors; still the merit of good-will is not all your own. Or trip as your dutiful measure may, tangled in that wild song; the fault is not all yours. Many a Cassius may claim indulgence on the score of some rash inherited humor.
Does the reader perceive that we are trying to excuse somebody?
The truth is, Carl has disappointed us. We meant him to be an exquisite and heroic creation, perfect in every way; and we had a right to expect that our intentions would be realized; did not we make him ourself? But just as the clay model was finished, and we were complacently admiring it, into our atelier stepped the grand antique mother, Nature. She came with a sound of scornful sweet laughter, which seemed to roll cloud-wise under her feet, and curl up around the strong and supple form, and wreathe the wide slope of her shoulders. "Look you," she said, and pointed her finger, a little shaken with merriment, "that is not the way I make men. There are no muscles in those limbs, there is no sight under that brow, there is no live heart beating in that narrow chest. You have left no chance for a soul to get into your manikin." So saying, she stretched her finger yet further, and mockingly pushed it through the skull of our model; then disappeared, leaving all the air behind her tremulous with mirth.
Let us hurry over the present of this Carl with a hole in his head, out of which all his ideal perfections are escaping, but into which his true soul may some day enter. Outwardly he is studying law, inwardly he is studying chaos. What books Mr. Griffeth gave him to read, we know not; but we do know that the sentences were like smooth, strong fingers untying from him many of the restraints of his former education. With Theodore Parker, he could call the sacred Scriptures the "Hebrew mythology," and describe baptism as "being ecclesiastically sprinkled with water;" and having got so far—"What," said he, "is the use of Mr. Theodore Parker?" and so dropped him. The conversations Mr. Griffeth held with him we know little of, but may presume that they were not profitable. We only know that they were frequent. The two were constantly together, more constantly than suited Mr. Yorke, who lost faith in the minister. "He has no pity," he said. "He seems to have studied theology only to see how many sins he can commit without losing his soul." But this disapprobation of his step-father's had no effect on the young man, who was perfectly infatuated with his new friend. This quiet life of Carl's had produced a mental stagnation, from which arose all sorts of miasmata. He dimly knew them as such, but that did not prevent his breathing and poisoning himself with them. Perhaps he also suspected that Mr. Griffeth's wings would melt off if he were exposed to a strong and searching light; but the companionship was fascinating, and Carl fancied that he had found his like. It was not so; they were alike only as sharp six and flat seven are; they had identical moods; but Carl stooped to where his new friend rose.
One of the fine things the young man learned was the use of opium. "It makes you feel like a god while it lasts," says Mr. Griffeth, "puts you into a perfectly Olympian state. But I warn you," he added, with a tardy touch of conscience, "it does not last long, and from Olympia you sink to Hades."