Lawrence had been listening intently, and watching the speaker’s animated face; and, at this sudden address, he dropped his eyes, and blushed. Alas for him! his hat had more than once been mashed in a cause little to his credit.
“And now,” continued F. Chevreuse, with triumph, “I have at home in my strong desk two thousand dollars, lacking only fifty, and the fifty is in my pocket. After this, all is plain sailing. There will be no difficulty in meeting the other payments.”
The ladies congratulated him heartily. In this place, the interests of the priest were felt to be the interests of the people. Making himself intimately acquainted with their circumstances, he asked no more than they could reasonably give; and they, seeing his hard and disinterested labors, grieved that they could give so little.
Presently, and perhaps not without an object, F. Chevreuse spoke incidentally of business, and expressed his admiration for pursuits which one of the three, at least, despised.
“There is not only dignity but poetry in almost any kind of business,” he said; “and the dignity does not consist simply in earning an honest living, instead of being a shiftless idler. There is something fine in sending ships to foreign lands, and bringing their produce home; in setting machinery to change one article into another; and in gathering grainfields into garners. I can easily understand a man choosing to do business when there is no necessity for it. I have just come from a sugarstore down-town, where I was astonished to learn that sugar is something besides what you sweeten your tea with. It was there in samples ranged along the counter, from the raw imported article, that was of a soft amber-color, to lumps as white and glittering as hoar-frost. Then there were syrups, gold-colored, crimson, and garnet, and so clear that you might think them jewels. I remembered Keats’
‘Lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon.’
They asked me if I would like to taste these. Would I taste of dissolved rubies and carbuncles? Why not I as well as Cleopatra? Of course I would taste of them. And how do you suppose they presented this repast to me? On a plate or a saucer, a stick or a spoon? By no means. The Ganymede took on his left thumb a delicate white porcelain palette, such as Honora might spread colors on to paint roses, heliotropes, and pinks with, and, lifting the jars one by one with his right hand, let fall on it a single rich drop, till there was a rainbow of deep colors on the white. When I saw that, the sugar business took rank at once beside the fine arts. And it is so with other affairs. If I were in the world, I would prefer, both for the pleasure and the honor of it, to be a mechanic or a merchant, to being in any profession.”
When the priest had gone, Lawrence Gerald went soberly up to his chamber, thinking, as he went, that possibly an ordinary, active life might, after all, be the happiest. The influence of that healthy and cheerful nature lifted for a time, if it did not dispel, his illusions, as a sudden breath of west wind raises momentarily the heavy fogs, which settle again as soon as the breath dies. For one brief view, this diseased soul saw realities thrusting their strong angles through the vague and feverish dreams that had usurped his life. On the one hand, they showed like jagged rocks that had been deceitfully overveiled by sunlighted spray; on the other, like a calm and secure harbor shining through what had looked to be a dark and weary way.
He opened a handkerchief-box, and absently turned over its contents, rejecting with instinctive disdain the coarser linen, curling his lip unconsciously at sight of a large hemstitching, and selecting one that dropped out of fold like a fine, snowy mist. A faint odor of attar of roses floated out of the box, so faint as to be perceptible only to a delicate sense. The same rich fragrance embalmed the glove-box he opened next, and the young man showed the same fastidious taste in selecting.
It appeared trivial in a man, this feminine-daintiness; yet some excuse might be found for it when one contemplated the exquisite beauty of the person showing it. It seemed fitting that only delicate linen and fine cloth should clothe a form so perfect, and that nothing harsh should touch those fair hands, soft and rosy-nailed as a woman’s. Yet how much of the beauty and delicacy had come from careful and selfish fostering, who can tell? Physical beauty is but a frail plant, and needs constant watching; it loses its lustre and freshness in proportion as that care is given to the immortal flower it bears. Both cannot flourish.