This triumph over his affection was, in fact, only the conquest of one passion over another. His attachment to Susan Connor was certainly sincere, and ere the prospects of his entering Maynooth were unexpectedly brought near him, by the interference of Father Finnerty, his secret purpose all along had been to enter with her into the state of matrimony, rather than into the church. Ambition, however, is beyond all comparison the most powerful principle of human conduct, and so Denny found it. Although his unceremonious abandonment of Susan appeared heartless and cruel, yet it was not effected on his part without profound sorrow and remorse. The two principles, when they began to struggle in his heart for supremacy, resembled the rival destinies of Caesar and Mark Antony. Love declined in the presence of ambition; and this, in proportion as all the circumstances calculated to work upon the strong imagination of a young man naturally fond of power, began to assume an appearance of reality. To be, in the course of a few years, a bona fide priest; to possess unlimited sway over the fears and principles of the people; to be endowed with spiritual gifts to he knew not what extent; and to enjoy himself as he had an opportunity of seeing Father Finnerty and his curate do, in the full swing of convivial pleasure, upon the ample hospitality of those who, in addition to this, were ready to kiss the latchet of his shoes—were, it must be admitted, no inconsiderable motives in influencing the conduct of a person reared in an humble condition of life. The claims of poor Susan, her modesty, her attachment, and her beauty—were all insufficient to prevail against such a host of opposing motives; and the consequence, though bitter, and subversive of her happiness, was a final determination on the part of Denny, to acquaint her, with a kind of ex-officio formality, that all intercourse upon the subject of their mutual attachment must cease between them. Notwithstanding his boasted knowledge, however, he was ignorant of sentiment, and accordingly confined himself, as I have intimated, to a double species of argument; that is to say, first, the danger and sin of opposing the wishes of the church which had claimed him, as he said, to labor in the vineyard; and secondly, the undoubted fact, that there were plenty of good husbands besides himself in the world, from some one of which, he informed her, he had no doubt, she could be accommodated.
In the meantime, her image, meek, and fair, and uncomplaining, would from time to time glide into his imagination; and the melody of her voice send its music once more to his vaccillating heart. He usually paused then, and almost considered himself under the influence of a dream; but ambition, with its train of shadowy honors, would immediately present itself, and Susan was again forgotten.
When he rejoined the company, to whom he had given the slip, he found them all gone, except about six or eight whom his father had compelled to stop for dinner. His mind was now much lighter than it had been before his interview with Susan, nor were his spirits at all depressed by perceiving that a new knife and fork lay glittering upon the dresser for his own particular use.
“Why, thin, where have you been all this time,” said the father, “an' we wantin' to know whether you'd like the mutton to be boiled or roasted!”
“I was soliloquizing in the glen below,” replied Denny, once more assuming his pedantry, “meditating upon the transparency of all human events; but as for the beef and mutton, I advise you to boil the beef, and roast the mutton, or vice versa, to boil the mutton, and roast the beef. But I persave my mother has anticipated me, and boiled them both with that flitch of bacon that's playing the vagrant in the big pot there. Tria juncla in uno, as Horace says in the Epodes, when expatiating upon the Roman Emperors—ehem!”
“Misther Denis,” said one of those present, “maybe you'd tell us upon the watch, what the hour is, if you plase, sir; myself never can know right at all, except by the shadow of the sun from the corner of our own gavel.”
“Why,” replied Denis, pulling it out with much pomp of manner, “it's just half-past two to a quarter of a minute, and a few seconds.”
“Why thin what a quare thing entirely a watch is,” the other continued; “now what makes you hould it to your ear, Misther Denis, if you plase?”
“The efficient cause of that, Larry, is, that the drum of the ear, you persave—the drum of the ear—is enabled to catch the intonations produced by the machinery of its internal operations—otherwise the fact of applying it to the ear would be unnecessary—altogether unnecessary.”
“Dear me! see what it is to have the knowledge, any way! But isn't it quare how it moves of itself like a livin' crathur? How is that, Misther Denis?”