HOW GEORGE HOWARD WAS CURED.
To give up the battle of life at any age is bad, so long as a flicker of life is left. It is like deserting the doomed ship whilst the groaning planks hold together; like refusing to make one in the forlorn hope, but choosing rather to sit down with closed eyes, and let death come as it may. But to give up the battle of life at five-and-twenty, when the battle can scarcely be said to have begun, whilst the future lies hidden behind an uncertain mist, when the sinews are braced, the eyes clear, the heart hopeful, the hair unsilvered—to give it up then is like deserting the ship whilst all is fair sailing, like sneaking from the ranks at first scent of the enemy. It is as cowardly as for the sentinel to abandon his post or the ensign to surrender without a blow the colors which he swore to defend to death; nay, as for the husband to desert the wife he chose out of all the world before God to be his until death. Yet this was what George Howard had done.
Of course a woman was in it, as she is in most difficulties here below. And is it not her province? If she sometimes happen to be "in it" a little too much, rather in the light of an obstacle than a helper—well, the best and not the worst must be made of her under the awkward circumstances. The first man, if Mr. Darwin will excuse the heresy, set us a good example in this way. It was a pity that Eve did not turn her ear away from the voice of the charmer; but as she did the other thing, and so wrought upon her husband that he followed her example, after all he made the very best of a very bad bargain, and, like a true man, stuck to his wife. But to return from Adam to his XIXth century descendant, Mr. George Howard: Why had that promising young gentleman metaphorically "thrown up the sponge," and drawn aside like a coward from the broad road of life, to linger on uselessly in this little out-of-the-way French town where nobody knew him, where nobody heard of him from the great city at the other side of the ocean, which he left one fine morning a year or more ago without a word of warning or a single good-by to the many friends whose kindly eyes had looked hopefully upon him, and whose friendly lips had prophesied success? Why had he gone out from this busy heart of the New World, palpitating with promise and half-defined yearnings, to bury himself away in this silent nook in an obscure corner of the south of France, doing nothing, caring nothing, planning nothing, wearily waiting for life to end?
As is generally the case with despairing five-and-twenty in the masculine, and despondent seventeen or eighteen in the feminine, sex, it was one of those peculiar difficulties known as "affairs of the heart." Nobody ever knew the exact ins and outs of it; how far the lady was to blame, and how far George had himself to accuse. Like many a passionate, high-souled young man, where he bestowed his heart he expected that heart to absorb and fill up the life and soul of the woman he loved. That effect does follow generally, but by degrees more or less slow. George was apt to love too fiercely and too fast. But young, high-spirited girls like to be wooed before they are won. Though their hearts may have been virtually taken by storm long before the besieging party so much as suspect that a breach has been made in the stubborn fortress, still they like to make a show of surrendering at discretion, and marching out with all the honors of war, rather than be instantly and absolutely overwhelmed by love. There is such a thing as a surfeit of happiness. George Howard had probably made this mistake. Such lovers as he are apt to start at shadows, imagining them realities. The end of it was that George's fortress surrendered to somebody else, married the conqueror, and was disgracefully happy. Whether or not she ever cast a thought back on the bright young fellow that once loved her so fiercely, who can tell? Probably not. She made a good match—and contented wives soon drop romance; sooner than husbands often. It is astonishing how easily the goddess we adore before marriage descends from the clouds, walks the earth like a sturdy woman, and becomes a practical, sensible wife. It may be a little unromantic at first sight, but it is undoubtedly by far the best thing she could do under the circumstances. But when poor George saw his goddess riding about smiling and happy by the side of her husband, and that husband not himself, he could not endure the sight. After lingering a little in misery, he threw up his connections, and left the city for what destination nobody knew.
George Howard was alone in the world. His mother had died early; his father went off when George was twenty, leaving him fortune enough to help him to make life as pleasant as he chose to make it for himself. He was advancing rapidly in his profession—law—and had made a host of friends when the collapse came. As is so often the case, his pride, instead of sustaining him, sank under the blow. Most probably, if the truth were told, the wound inflicted on his self-esteem rankled deeper than that which had killed his love. The thought that another man could succeed where George Howard had failed would have been gall and wormwood to him in any case; but when the object of rivalry was a woman's heart, and George Howard's were the rejected addresses, death would be a small word to express the consummation of that gentleman's misery; it was the annihilation of all that made life worth the living. "Howard the jilted," he seemed to read in everybody's eye, when perhaps not half a dozen persons knew anything about the affair. Jilted by a girl! How could a man recover such a blow? What was there in the wide world to fill up the void left in one when his mighty self shrank to such insignificant proportions?
Common sense might have suggested that there was more than one woman in the world, and that there lay a deeper fund of love in the heart of a man than could be exhausted on the first girl he chanced to meet and admire. It might have suggested also that failure in love did not necessarily mean failure in matters which, after all, as far as the world outside of our little selves is concerned, are of far more importance than love. Man is not sent into this world for the one purpose of being "married and done for," as the phrase goes. But when did common sense find the ear of a lover, particularly of a lover rejected?
So here was George Howard, clever enough, good-looking enough, and by no means a bad fellow, self-stranded on the barren sand-banks of life, with a short five-and-twenty years behind him, a future full of fair promise still before him, hugging a useless sorrow in silent sadness, and making that his bride.
He lived on listlessly from day to day. He mixed with no circle; he knew nobody. He took his meals at his hotel, addressed a few commonplaces to those he happened to meet, and passed most of his time in the open air, taking long strolls into the country, walking up and down the beach by the sea, watching the solitary sails that came and went and faded out of sight—sadly, it seemed to him sometimes, as though beckoning him back to a living world. There were few visitors at the little town, save just during the hottest of the summer months. Such as did come hurried away again as fast as they could. The train rushed through it day after day, a crowd of peering faces would show themselves a few moments at the windows of the cars, strange eyes would stare curiously at the strange place, and pass on a moment after as indifferent as before. Something of the instinct which prompts a wounded animal to seek out a silent covert where it may lie down with its wound and die alone, must have conducted George Howard to this spot.