Dark broken outlines of trees and rock, with here and there the glimmer and twinkle of a light, the murmur of broken wavelets touching the shore on every side, and the faint sound of happy human voices somewhere in the misty distance, were what greeted my eyes and ears. I could see nothing defined in the wild panorama about me, only that the darkness was broken here and there, by a darker something, from which tall pine-tops reared themselves majestically, less shrouded than the rest. It was a soul-stirring sight, so gloomy, so misty, so silent. I was almost sorry later to have looked upon the same scene by daylight, although the hand of man has put an artificial touch here and there, which, by the light of day, improves the general view.
After all, what are nature's grandest phases to us unless they suggest something of our own selves? I have never been able to look upon mountain or valley with other than my corporal eyes, and I have always admired those places in a half-regretful way, where the print of human footsteps is unknown. There is no perfect beauty in the external world without the presence of man, and all that silent waste of prairie land and towering mountain, which stretches away in an unbroken monotony towards our northern limits, is to me a lifeless, useless mass, and will be so until it has submitted every inch of its wild, untrodden surface to the honest industry of toiling humanity. When these giant mountain-tops look down in friendly patronage upon the gables and towers, and curling smoke-wreaths of some struggling hamlets lying at their feet, I shall see their grandeur and admire it, but where dumb nature sits in lone and pensive solitude away from the hum of golden industry, beyond the reach and influence of civilization, it has for me only a cold surface of beauty like the sleep of death.
This thought came back to me on the following day, when we were riding the restless waters of Lake Ontario. As far as the eye could see in any direction nothing was visible but waves and sky. I tried to imagine myself doomed to live alone with nature's reckless beauty, such as I saw it then above and around me, and my heart shivered at the mere thought of such a terrible destiny. I know "there is society where none intrude," but I prefer to believe "it is not good for man to be alone." All the richest and rarest charms of Nature or of Art have never had more than a relative value for me, but give me one short moment of sympathetic human companionship, and with its borrowed light I see beauty above and around me everywhere. Yet how hard it is for us to find this influence that gifts the hours of time with golden opinions, and bears them away as if to the measure of some hallowed strains. There were human souls of every nature beside me, while I leaned over that sunny deck, looking vacantly out upon miles and miles of heaving water, and yet it was to me as if I stood alone calling after friends that could not hear my far-off voice, no bond of mutual interest, care or devotion united me to any one among that motley crowd. To them perhaps, I was not even a definite individual, but only a fraction of the bulk that moved about the boat in moody silence.
If circumstances such as these did not cross our daily lives at certain intervals, I wonder what would become of all the wholesale moralising and reflections which they engender for most of us. We, who are the playthings of the moods of fate, what would we do with ourselves if these moments of quiet reverie and placid realizations were taken away from us altogether? One thing is certain. Many a noble generous deed, the outgrowth of one pensive hour, would never have been performed; many lives now re-united and happy on account of some calm impartial meditation, would be drifting in lonely wretchedness asunder, the victims of some hasty, ill-explained impediment, that a little reason could easily have removed.
Thus busily entertained by my own peculiar cogitations, time sped without bringing me as much ennui as I had feared. When night fell again we were in view of Toronto City and looked upon our journey as well nigh accomplished. So much is suggested by the distant prospect of giant towers and steeples, the glimmer of countless lights and the muffled buzz of active reality, as one sees and hears them from the deck of a steamer nearing the shore. There were the lusty shouts of boatmen on the wharf, rising above the ringing of discordant bells, and the rumble of railway trains. There was clanging and clashing of metal on every side, hauling of ropes, pitching and heaving of merchandise, with now a shrill scream from the throat of some dainty craft hard by, and again a hoarse sepulchral response from a larger vessel as it came or went. There was a buzz of human voices expressive of every sort of agitation and confusion, and quietly through it all, the great waves slapped against the shore with a heavy monotonous splashing, and bounded back in sullen fury into the depths beyond.
The half-hour after ten rang clearly out from an illuminated clock in a distant tower, as we picked our steps along the narrow gangway, and deposited ourselves with a sense of infinite relief on terra firma once more.
CHAPTER IX.
Hortense was very ill and Madame de Beaumont very disconsolate, when I reached them. The lively, sparkling look was all gone from the pretty face I had learned to love so dearly, only a wasted remnant of her former beauty remained. Who could detect the change more keenly than I? I, who had feasted upon every line and curve that constituted her physical perfection, whose memory had been fed upon the recollection of their rare loveliness, and whose hope had lived upon this expectation of seeing her soon again.
When I arrived she was sleeping, the still quiet sleep of an infant, her breast scarcely heaving as the feeble breath came and went. Her mother was standing by the open doorway in an adjoining room looking in upon the peaceful invalid with tearful eyes. She advanced on tip-toe to meet me, and twining her arms around me led me away down a dimly-lit corridor into a cosy sitting-room at the end, where a cheerful gas-light greeted us. Our noiseless entrance disturbed the solitary occupant, who, as we crossed the threshold, rose up abruptly from where he sat by a small table near the window, and gathering up the books which he had been reading, strode eagerly towards a curtained doorway opposite, and vanished behind the waving drapery, just as we passed into the room.