Every body applauded his plans; they were upon a large scale; they redounded to the good of the place, and ruined him.
Bred a lawyer, the unfairness of country practice, the low and degraded crowd it brought him in contact with, caused him to throw up his profession. He took to farming; but he only tried experiments, to the advantage of other people, and his own loss. He got up all sorts of useful societies, which cost him his time, and paid him nothing. He bought all the new works for other people to read; subscribed liberally to reading-rooms and schools. He fatted cattle for the agricultural society, at six times their worth in corn and care. Every body in the village improved their own stock by his; but then all this took money from his pocket.
He did not know the state of his affairs, because he hated settlements. He could not bring himself down to the drudgery of life, but did his farming scientifically, in his study, and left the work to hired hands. He failed, and nobody pitied him. He began to be called a 'poor good-for-nothing fellow,' whose chimeras had brought him down. All his neighbors sued him, and he suffered all who owed him to go undunned. He gave up all for lost; sat himself down in wretchedness, disgusted with the world, and tired of himself.
I was quite intimate with this gentleman. Being much my senior, for he was about fifty, and a bachelor, he took it upon himself to give me a word of advice. He had been in love himself, and that desperately; though unfortunate in his love affairs, as well as all others. The father of the lady objected to him, on the score of his being unfit to make money. He possessed hordes of wealth, himself, and could have made two hearts happy. But no; this would not do. His ideas of excellence consisted in the faculty of making money and keeping it. 'As for literature and refinement, he did not care for them. He was not a literary man,' he said, 'and yet he was rich, and respected; a president of a bank; had been an unsuccessful candidate for congress, which was some honor, and had it in his power to fill any office in the town he would accept. No; he preferred a man of business for a son-in-law.'
He found one; a coarse, rough, unlettered country-merchant, whose ideas were bounded by the length and breadth of his counter; whose whole soul was given to traffic. A sloven, except on Sundays and courting-days, and then only clean on the outside. This fair, delicate, daughter of wealth, possessed of a mind and education much beyond her family's comprehension, was wedded to this 'respectable' man. Her heart was broken by this savage act of parental authority. She died during the first year of her wedlock, and Edward Lang was for two years deranged, and woke from this sleep of reason, to find himself without hope, without motive, without sympathy.
He took to his books; he shut out the world, and dwelt upon the beautiful and good in theory; lived in a love for the generous, the exalted, and happy scenes of his imagination. When forced abroad by his friends, he seemed lost and unhappy; he was disturbed from this resting which an unfortunate mind derives from picturing for others what he knows can never be for him.
By the world at large he was said to nourish false views of things, because he had a higher standard than the world generally live by. By these means he unfitted himself for society, and was voted dull, eccentric, and love-sick. Time, however, softened his regrets, and he came out in the scheming life I have referred to, in which, by acting by principle and science, even in the work of agriculture, he lost his all.
When I was introduced to him, he was living with an old aunt, upon his paternal estate. Though poor, they had about them those marks of refinement, which well-educated people will contrive to weave out of common materials. Whether on the farm, in the garden, at his table, in church, or in the street, no one could see Mr. Lang, and not say with certainty that he was a gentleman. The aunt belonged to the old school of ladies, rather prim and stiff; and yet her benevolent face, her self-possession, and quiet dignity, gave her great influence in society. Her reading and good sense, her piety and patience, were proverbial. Every body called her 'madam,' and treated her with marked respect. I was on the most familiar terms at their house; for I believe they felt that I appreciated them. It was the sympathy of people educated in the same way.
This gentleman was of great service to me. From the examination of his own feelings, he had learned much of the nature of passion; from severe suffering, he had become acquainted with misfortune. I used to confide to him all my sorrows, and I told him my struggles. He saw my remorse, and pitied my irresolution.
Alice, too, had confidence in him. They often rode together; and his age and purity of life, and the nice delicacy of his feelings, induced her to open her heart to him. He felt flattered, as well he might, by the trust this noble girl reposed in him. But, beside, he had read so much of love, thought so much of it, and suffered so much for it, that he engaged in the contemplation of our affairs with the goût of an epicure over a favorite dish. He lived over again hours of past endearment of his own. He felt young and ardent, as he listened to the recital of conversations and difficulties which I, with the greenness of a boy, always told him.