"Not this evening," Guy said hastily, as he rose, "I am not prepared, uncle, besides, she is strange yet, and it is as well not to thrust too many new faces on her at once, you can mention my name to her if you will, she will feel more at home when we meet." There was a pause of a moment, and then Guy, as he appropriated a cigar from a china stand that tempted him close by, resumed, "this certainly is a strange, unlooked- for incident in your hum-drum life, but it is also a very fortunate one, since she is such a comfort to you and such an acquisition to your home—I fancy, from your description she could scarcely be otherwise. I hope we will all be an agreeable and sociable family yet, and now, if I don't want to be caught, I had better be off at once," saying which, Henry Rayne's handsome nephew shook himself out of comfort's wrinkles, lighted his cheroot, put on his becoming hat, bade his uncle a temporary "good bye," and departed.
I would undertake too common-place a theme, were I to try and interpret the feelings that struggled for ascendancy in the breast of Guy Elersley. How many pens have been stowed away rusty and old from having told no other tale than that of new-born love? How many gray-haired bards have tuned their lay to the sighs from the human breast under the "first loves" influence? How many eyes, even among those that rest upon this very page, have wept the overflowing of their hearts away, at the moment that love's first whispers stole into their souls? How many tired and weary hands are folded on the laps of those who are sitting in the twilight of their years dreaming all over again in bitter joy their "Loves young dream?" Ah! they are many indeed! and so it is superfluous almost to tell the world what it is to love for the first time. That trembling existence that is balancing on Hope and Despair, is an experience so well learned that no one thinks of telling it. It is a strange part of destiny, that even those who have never heard what it is to love, are not surprised when called to teach it to themselves. Instinctively, we hide our emotion, we steady our hand, we check our words. There is the pity; there are grand unspoken thoughts, burning in the souls of many to-day, that may never reach the threshold of the lips. Men are gliding through the world disinterestedly, day by day, and they know not, often care not to know, that there are devoted hearts existing on their memories alone. There are pretty blue eyes weeping over the "garden gate" where "some one" is "waiting" and "wishing in vain." Let them weep. There are miseries in life, that can be learned only by many repetitions. If they don't break the heart at first they perseveringly "try again."
If my belief be not a popular one, I hardly like to be the first to preach it, but it seems to me that few can study society as it is to-day, without concluding very disagreable things; one of these is the deplorable fact that, in our day, the purest selfishness seems to have established itself as the source and promoter of, not only the indifferent, but the apparently best impulses of the human heart. It is a pity indeed, that our analysing tendency has been so strengthened by cultivation, for most often, by prying into the very remotest origin and causes of things we learn a lesson that for ourselves or the world would have been infinitely better unlearned. Hence it is trait in our own day we are not satisfied that certain lavish displays of generosity pass for Christian charity, simply, and without more ado. We will not look upon the givers, with an admiring eye, and spend our enthusiasm, on a religion which teaches the love of our neighbor so effectively, oh no! we must "open the drum to find where the noise is kept," and how, unfortunately, often, do we find, that practical virtues, or at least, what are so called by the world, have nothing more solid at base than the hollow drum. It sounds deplorable, to say that nineteenth century charity is a Dead Sea apple, even the guilty ones will not like to hear that they have subscribed to this fund, or built that asylum, through policy, or as an advertisement, or for the less harmful but still unworthy reason that they like to give something, when there is plenty around them. Nevertheless, is it not true that in all countries, in our own little city, there are men, who drive the starving beggar from their doors, and who yet head a public charity list handsomely. There are people, who, under their parson's eye, wear down-cast look and thump their breasts, but, who behind his back, would much sooner thump any one else's breast, or cast down any other person's eyes. There are members of high society, who feel it their duty to set good example for their social inferiors, and so they feast and dance and gratify themselves all through the hours of the night, and then in half spoiled frizzes and sleepy looks repair to church in the early morning. This may all be right enough, but if so, there is more than one version of right and wrong, and that is impossible. This omnipotent selfishness has even crept into our loves. Men kiss the dainty finger tips of their lady-loves, to-day, with a passionate fondness that is proportionate to the bulk of lucre that dainty hand can hold. The words "be mine" so sweetly answered by fair trusting damsels, are addressed to them, because estates and dowries cannot speak of themselves, and must consequently be wooed and won by proxy. The divine institution as marriage was wont to be considered, is better understood in our day as a "linking transaction", a "speculation in the matrimonial market," or for the man alone, he is either "spliced" or "fleeced."
At least our century has succeeded in one thing: it is the grandest parody on all that is lofty, or elevated or holy, it is an unparalleled burlesque on any exalted sentiment or practical good. Every ennobling tendency, every redeeming trait is cunningly caricatured, and so cleverly ridiculed that is impossible to respect them afterwards. It is hard to tell what another era may bring forth of good, but it is certain that ours has killed, to the very possibility of a future regeneration, every germ and atom of solid morality, that sustained it. Perhaps that is what was wanted, the end may be achieved now. It has been clearly and undeniably proved to the world, that there is no longer any God, there is no eternity, no atonement, no recompense. We are left to wonder whose business it was to call some of us into this miserable existence, to take us out of it again before we have culled any real happiness, and send us back to—Well, we are not allowed to say where, because there is some inconsistency mixed up with it, but we are sure to go there at all events.
This may seem a most exaggerated deviation from the smooth course of the narrative, but in reality it is not so. The little reflections made may serve to remind the reader, that those great universal movements, social, political and religious, floating as they are at random in the atmosphere, cannot fail, when breathed by our youth to develop into substance with their growth, and to manifest their poisonous influences later, in the lives of their wretched victims. After pondering over such reminders for a moment or more, there will be no call for surprise, when our young men are pictured in their true colors. The mind need not hesitate to enquire, when it views youth and manhood, beautiful and blasé, attractive and cynical, credulous to simplicity in many things, and infidels in the one great act of faith that alone merits anything.
From the taint of this evil, and all its sorrowful consequences I am tempted to exempt Guy Elersley, so handsome, so young, so winning; but I cannot give the lie to obstinate reality. Of course, Guy Elersley was not a bad man, he was exactly what most young men of to-day are—what you, my reader, know them to be, what all the world, but themselves, know them to be. Guy thought he "wasn't such a bad sort of fellow at all," and yet in every movement of his, one could detect him—the victim of the age. He had never professed any direct code of belief. He would have been very much offended if any one called him an "atheist." He knew there was some reason why a fellow should go to church now and then, and not be everlastingly doing mischief. He confided to himself in strict secret that "to die" was about the very last thing he'd like to do; but, somehow, such serious considerations as these never lingered long, a good cigar or "half-a-glass" easily sufficing to turn the current of his thought into a more pleasant course. He had all the "might-have-beens" in the collection of qualities that he possessed, to make any one sorry, but as fast as a new trait developed itself in him, he put it to the worst possible advantage, and made those who took an interest in him intensely sorry for his grave mistakes.
He had early fallen in with the tide, and learned to love himself before and above all else.
One hardly likes to say that this new born enthusiasm of his was a selfish gratification, and yet in its radical sense it was thoroughly so. He delighted in it because of the benefit it brought himself. He had long felt a void within his heart, a want or craving for something, something indefinite, intangible certainly—something that no sensual indulgence could appease, that no light pleasure could distract, and now all at once it seemed to him that long-felt vacuum was filling up. A something, just as ethereal as his craving had been, was creeping into his heart. It felt like the liquid music of a low, serious voice, or it may have been a passion, such as he had seen in the depths of two large, sad, gray eyes, or it might have been the soft soothing influence of a sweet, dreamy smile. It was just as abstract as any of these, and yet just as fascinating and just as exquisite. This was Love for him, a beautiful but a dreadful thing! feeding his hungry soul and quenching his heart's awful thirst, yet swaying him with a merciless tyranny, for love caresses with one hand and smites with the other. If it can be the exponent of certain delicate phases in our spiritual nature, it can also, alas! almost smother the good it does by the pain it so cruelly inflicts. It has a double mission, for in the cry of joy that escapes the lips under its influence there is an echo of pain and despair, and hence it is that love is so violent a passion. If it were a pleasure only to love, we could never prize the object of our wild affection as when it has cost us sighs and tears, and anxiety untold.
It was thus Guy Elersley ruminated as he sauntered through the streets this sear October day, whistling silently to himself, and knocking the clotted leaves recklessly from side to side with his slender cane. He was persuading himself that at last his destiny was beginning to accomplish itself. She would surely see the lines he had traced for her eye in the book he had been reading, and if she were what he supposed her to be, they would be an eloquent appeal in his behalf—but. Here the misery came in—
"Love was never yet without
The pang, the agony, the doubt."