University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.

The progress of events and our story necessarily brings
us back to Charlemont. We shall lose sight of William
Hinkley for some time; and here, par parenthese, let us
say to our readers, that this story being drawn from veritable
life, will lack some of that compactness and close
fitness of parts which make our novels too much resemble
the course of a common law case. Instead of having
our characters always at hand, at the proper moment, to
do the business of the artist, like so many puppets, each
working on a convenient wire, and waiting to be whirled
in upon the scene, we shall find them sometimes absent,
as we do in real life, when their presence is most seriously
desired, and when the reader would perhaps prefer that
they should come in, to meet or make emergencies. Some
are gone whom we should rather see; some present,
whose absence, in the language of the Irishman, would be
the best company they could give us; and some, not
forthcoming, like the spirits of Owen Glendower, even
when most stoutly called for. The vast deeps of human
progress do not release their tenants at the beck and call

of ordinary magicians, and we, who endeavour to describe
events as we find them, must be content to take them and
persons, too, only when they are willing. Were we writing
the dramatic romance, we should be required to keep
William Hinkley always at hand, as a convenient foil to
Alfred Stevens. He should watch his progress; pursue
his sinuosities of course; trace him out in all his ill-favoured
purposes, and be ready, at the first act—having,
like the falcon, by frequent and constantly ascending gyrations,
reached the point of command—to pounce down
upon the fated quarry, and end the story and the strife
together. But ours is a social narrative, where people
come and go without much regard to the unities, and without
asking leave of the manager. William Hinkley, too,
is a mere man and no hero. He has no time to spare,
and he is conscious that he has already wasted too much.
He has work to do and is gone to do it. Let it console the
reader, in his absence, to know that he will do it—that his
promise is a good one—and that we have already been
shown, in the dim perspective of the future, glimpses of
his course which compensate him for his mishaps, and
gladden the heart of his adopted father, by confirming its
prophecies and hopes.

The same fates which deny that he should realize the
first fancies of his boyhood, are, in the end, perhaps, not a
jot kinder to others whom they now rather seem to favour.
His absence did not stop the social machine of Charlemont
from travelling on very much as before. There was a
shadow over his mother's heart, and his disappearance
rather aroused some misgiving and self-reproachful sensations
in that of his father. Mr. Calvert, too, had his touch
of hypochondria in consequence of his increased loneliness;
and Ned Hinkley's fighting monomania underwent
startling increase; but, with the rest, the wheel went on
without much sensible difference. The truth is, that,
however mortifying the truth may be, the best of us makes
but a very small sensation in his absence. Death is a
longer absence, in which our friends either forget us, or
recollect our vices. Our virtues are best acknowledged
when we are standing nigh and ready to enforce them.
Like the argumentative eloquence of the Eighth Harry,
they are never effectual until the halberdiers clinch their
rivets forcibly.

It does not necessarily impugn the benevolence or wisdom
of Providence to show that crime is successful for a
season in its purposes. Vice may prevail, and victims
perish, without necessarily disparaging the career, or impeding
the progress of virtue. To show that innocence
may fall, is sometimes to strengthen innocence, so that it
may stand against all assailants. To show vice, even in
its moments of success, is not necessarily to show that
such success is desirable. Far from it! As none of us
can look very deeply into the future, so it happens that
the boon for which we pray sometimes turns out to be
our bane; while the hardship and suffering, whose approach
we deprecate in sackcloth and ashes, may come
with healing on their wings, and afford us a dearer blessing
than any ever yet depicted in the loom of a sanguine and
brilliant imagination. We are, after all, humbling as this
fact may be to our clamorous vanity, only so many agents
and instruments, blind, and scuffling vainly in our blindness,
in the perpetual law of progress. As a soul never
dies, so it is never useless or unemployed. The Deity is
no more profligate in the matter of souls than be is in that
of seeds. They pass, by periodical transitions, from body
to body; perhaps from sphere to sphere; and as the performance
of their trusts have been praiseworthy or censurable,
so will be the character of their trusts in future.
He who has shown himself worthy of confidence in one
state, will probably acquire a corresponding increase of
responsibility in another. He who has betrayed his trusts
or impaired them, will share less of the privileges of the
great moral credit system. In all these transitions, however,
work is to be done. The fact that there is a trust,
implies duty and performance; and the practice of virtue
is nothing more than the performance of this work to the
best of our abilities. Well, we do not do our work. We
fail in our trusts. We abuse them. Such a man as Alfred
Stevens abuses them. Such a woman as Margaret Cooper
fails in them. What then? Do we destroy the slave who
fails in his duty, or chasten him, and give him inferior
trusts? Do you suppose that the Deity is more profligate
in souls than in seeds—that he creates and sends forth
millions of new souls, annually, in place of those which
have gone astray? Not so! He is too good an economist
for that. We learn this from all the analogies. As a soul

cannot perish, so it never remains unemployed. It still
works, though its labours may be confined to a treadmill.

The mere novel reader may regard all this as so much
unnecessary digression. But let him not deceive himself.
It would be the most humiliating and painful thought, indeed,
could we believe that the genius which informs and
delights us—which guides the bark of state through a
thousand storms and dangers to its port of safety—which
conquers and commands—which sings in melodies that
make melodies in human hearts for thousands of succeeding
years—is suddenly to be suspended—to have no more
employment—to do no more work—guide no more states
—make no more melodies! Nay, the pang would be
scarcely less to believe that fair intellect like that of Alfred
Stevens, or wild, irregular genius, like that of Margaret
Cooper—because of its erring, either through perversity
or blindness, are wholly to become defunct, so far as employment
is concerned—that they are to be deprived of all
privilege of working up to the lost places—regaining the
squandered talents—atoning, by industry and humble desire,
the errors and deficiencies of the past! We rather
believe that heaven is a world where the labours are more
elevated, the necessities less degrading; that it is no more
permanent than what we esteem present life; nay, that it
is destined to other transitions; that we may still ascend,
on and on, and that each heaven has its higher heaven yet.
We believe that our immortality is from the beginning;
that time is only a periodical step in eternity—that transition
is the true meaning of life—and death nothing more
than a sign of progress. It may be an upward or a downward
progress, but it is not a toilsome march to a mere
sleep. Lavish as is the bounty of God, and boundless as
are his resources, there is nothing of him that we do know
which can justify the idea of such utter profligacy of material.

We transgress. Our business is with the present doings
of our dramatis personæ and not with the future employment
of their souls. Still, we believe the doctrine which
we teach not only to be more rational, but absolutely more
moral than the conjectures on this subject which are in
ordinary use. More rational as relates to the characteristics
of the Deity, and more moral as it affects the conduct
and the purposes of man himself. There is something

grand beyond all things else, in the conception of
this eternal progress of the individual nature; its passage
from condition to condition; sphere to sphere; life to
life; always busy, working for the mighty master; failing
and sinking to mere menial toils, or achieving and rising
to more noble trusts; but, at all events, still working in
some way in the great world-plantation, and under the
direct eye of the sovereign World-Planter. The torture
of souls on the one hand, and the singing of psalms on
the other, may be doctrines infinitely more orthodox; but,
to our mind, they seem immeasurably inferior in granddeur,
in propriety, in noble conception of the appointments
of the creature, and the wondrous and lovely designs of
the benignant Father.

The defeat of such a soul as that of Margaret Cooper,
can surely be a temporary defeat only. It will recover
strength, it must rise in the future, it must recover the
lost ground, and reassert the empire whose sway it has
unwillingly abandoned; for it is not through will, wholly,
by which we lose the moral eminence. Something is
due to human weaknesses; to the blindness in which a
noble spirit is sometimes suffered to grow into stature;
disproportioned stature—that, reaching to heaven, is yet
shaken down and overthrown by the merest breath of
storm that sweeps suddenly beneath its skies. The very
hopelessness of Margaret Cooper's ambition, which led her
to misanthropy, was the source of an ever fertile and upsprung
confidence. Thus it was that the favouring opinions
which Alfred Stevens expressed—a favouring opinion
expressed by one whom she soon discovered was well able
to form one—accompanied by an assurance that the dream
of fame which her wild imagination had formed should
certainly be realized, gave him a large power over her confidence.
Her passion was sway—the sway of mind over
mind—of genius over sympathy—of the syren Genius
over the subject Love. It was this passion which had made
her proud, which had filled her mind with visions, and
yielded to her a world by itself, and like no other, filled
with all forms of worship and attraction; chivalrous faith,
unflagging zeal, generous confidence, pure spirits, and
the most unquestioning loyalty! Ignorant of the world
which she had not seen, and of those movements of
human passion which she had really never felt, she naturally

regarded Alfred Stevens as one of the noble representatives
of that imaginary empire which her genius
continually brought before her eyes. She saw in him
the embodiment of that faith in her intellect which it was
the first and last hope of her intellect to inspire; and
seeing thus, it will be easy to believe that her full heart,
which, hitherto, had poured itself forth on rocks, and
trees, and solitary places, forgetful of all prudence—a lesson
which she had never learned—and rejoicing in the
sympathy of a being like herself, now gushed forth with
all the volume of its impatient fulness. The adroit art of
her companion led her for ever into herself; she was continually
summoned to pour forth the treasures of her
mind and soul; and, toiling in the same sort of egoisme
in which her life heretofore had been consumed, she was
necessarily diverted from all doubts or apprehensions of
the occult purposes of him who had thus beguiled her
over the long-frequented paths. As the great secret of success
with the mere worlding, is to pry into the secret of
his neighbour while carefully concealing his own, so, it
is the great misfortune of enthusiasm to be soon blinded
to a purpose which its own ardent nature neither allows
it to suspect nor penetrate. Enthusiasm is a thing of
utter confidence; it has no suspicion; it sets no watch on
other hearts; it is too constantly employed in pouring
forth the treasures of its own. It is easy, therefore, to
deceive and betray it, to beguile it into confidence, and
turn all its revelations against itself. How far the frequency
of this usage in the world makes it honourable, is
a question which we need not discuss on this occasion.

Alfred Stevens had now been for some weeks in the
village of Charlemont, where, in the meantime, he had become
an object of constantly increasing interest. The
men shrank from him with a feeling of inferiority; the
women—the young ones being understood—shrank from
him also, but with that natural art of the sex which invites
pursuit, and strives to conquer even in flight. But
it was soon evident enough that Stevens bestowed his
best regards solely upon Margaret Cooper. If he sought
the rest it was simply in compliance with those seeming
duties of his ostensible profession which were necessary
to maintain appearances. Whether he loved Margaret
Cooper or not, he soon found a pleasure in her society

which he sought for in no other quarter of the village.
The days, in spite of the strife with William Hinkley, flew
by with equal pleasantness and rapidity to both. The
unsophisticated mind of Margaret Cooper, left her sensible
to few restraints upon their ordinary intercourse; and,
indeed, if she did know or regard them for an instant, it
was only to consider them as necessary restraints for the
protection of the ignorant and feeble of her sex—a class
in which she never once thought to include herself. Her
attachment to Alfred Stevens, though it first arose from
the pleasure which her mind derived from its intercourse
with his, and not from any of those nice and curious sympathies
of temperament and taste which are supposed to
constitute the essence and comprise the secret of love,
was yet sufficient to blind her judgment to the risks of
feeling, if nothing more, which were likely to arise from
their hourly increasing intimacy; and she wandered with
him into the devious woods, and they walked by moonlight
among the solemn-shaded hills, and the unconscious
girl had no sort of apprehension that the spells of an enslaving
passion were rapidly passing over her soul.

How should she apprehend such spells, how break
them? For the first time in her life had she found intellectual
sympathy—the only moral response which her
heart longed to hear. For the first time had she encountered
a mind which could do justice, and correspond on
any thing like equal terms with her own. How could she
think that evil would ensue from an acquisition which
yielded her the only communion which she had ever
craved. Her confidence in herself, in her own strength,
and her ignorance of her own passions, were sufficient to
render her feelings secure; and then she was too well
satisfied of the superiority and nobleness of his. But, in
truth, she never thought upon the subject. Her mind
dwelt only on the divine forms and images of poetry.
The ideal world had superseded not only the dangers but
the very aspect of the real. Under the magic action of
her fancy, she had come to dwell

She had come to speak only in the one language, and o

the one topic; and, believing now that she had an auditor
equally able to comprehend and willing to sympathize with
her cravings, she gave free scope to the utterance of her
fancies, and to the headlong impulse of that imagination
which had never felt the curb. The young heart not yet
chilled by the world's denials, will readily comprehend the
beguiling influence of the dreaming and enthusiastic nature
of some dear spirit, in whose faith it has full confidence,
and whose tastes are kindred with its own. How sweet
the luxury of moonlight in commerce with such a congenial
spirit. How heavenly the occasional breath of the
sweet southwest. How gentle and soothing fond the
whispers of night; the twiring progress of sad-shining
stars; the gentle sway of winds among the tree-tops; the
plaintive moan of billows, as they gather and disperse themselves
along the shores. To speak of these delights; to
walk hand in hand, along the gray sands by the sea-side,
and whisper in murmuring tones, that seem to gather sympathies
from those of ocean; to guide the eye of the
beloved associate to the sudden object; to challenge the
kindred fancy which comments upon our own; to remember
together, and repeat, the happy verse of inspired
poets, speaking of the scene, and to the awakened heart
which feels it; and more, to pour forth one's own inspirations
in the language of tenderness and song, and awaken,
in the heart of our companion, the rapture to which our
own has given speech—these, which are subjects of mock
and scorn to the worldling, are substantial, though not
enduring joys, to the young and ardent nature. In this
communion, with all her pride, strength and confidence,
Margaret Cooper was the merest child. Without a feeling
of guile, she was dreaming of the greatness which her
ambition craved, and telling her dreams, with all the artless
freedom of the child who has some golden fancy of the
future, which it seeks to have confirmed by the lips of
experience. The wily Stevens led her on, gave stimulus
to her enthusiasm, made her dreams become reasonable in
her eyes, and laughed at them in his secret heart. She
sung at his suggestion, and sung her own verses with all
that natural tremor which even the most self-assured poet
feels on such an occasion.

“Beautiful!” the arch-hypocrite would exclaim, as if
unconscious of utterance; “beautiful!” and his hand

would possess itself of the trembling fingers of hers.
“But beautiful as it is, Margaret, I am sure that is nothing
to what you could do under more auspicious circumstances.”

“Ah! if there were ears to hear; if there were hearts
to feel, and eyes to weep, I feel, I know, what might be
done. No, no! This is nothing. This is the work of
a child.”

“Nay, Margaret, if the work of a child, it is that of a
child of genius.”

“Ah! do not flatter me, Alfred Stevens, do not deceive
me. I am too willing to believe you, for it is so dear a
feeling to think that I too am a poet. Yet at the first, I
had not the smallest notion of this kind, I neither knew
what poetry was nor felt the desire to be a poet. Yet I
yearned with strange feeling, which uttered themselves in
that form ere I had seen books or read the verses of others.
It was an instinct that led me as it would. I sometimes
fear that I have been foolish in obeying it; for oh! what
has it brought me? What am I? What are my joys?
I am lonely even with my companions. I share not the
sports, and feel not the things which delight my sex.
Their dances and frolics give me no pleasure. I have no
sympathy with them or their cares. I go apart—I am here
on the hills—or deep in the forests—sad, lonely, scarcely
knowing what I am and what I desire.”

“You are not alone, nor are your pleasures less acute
than theirs. If they laugh, their laughter ends in sleep.
If you are sad, you lose not the slightest faculty of perception
or sensibility but rather gain them in consequence.
Laughter and tears are signs neither of happiness nor
grief; and as frequently result from absolute indifference
as from any active emotion. If you are absent from them
you have better company. You can summon spirits to
your communion, Margaret; noble thoughts attend you;
eyes that cheer, lips that assure you, and whispers, from
unknown attendants, that bid you be of good heart for the
time is coming. Ah! Margaret, believe me when I tell
you, that time is at hand. Such genius as yours, such a
spirit cannot always be buried in these woods.”

It was in such artful language as this that the arch-hypocrite
flattered and beguiled her. They were wandering
along the edge of the streamlet to which we have more

than once conducted the footsteps of the reader. The sun
was about setting. The autumn air was mild with a gentle
breathing from the south. The woods were still and meek
as the slumbers of an infant. The quiet of the scene
harmonized with the temper of their thoughts and feelings.
They sat upon a fragment of the rock. Margaret was
silent, but her eyes were glistening bright—not with hope
only; but with that first glimmering consciousness of a
warmer feeling, which gives a purple light to hope, and
makes the heart tremble, for the first time, with its own
expectations. It did not escape Alfred Stevens that, for
the first time, her eye sank beneath his glance; for the
first time there was a slight flush upon her cheek. He
was careful not to startle and alarm the consciousness
which these signs indicated. The first feeling which the
young heart has of its dependance upon another, is one little
short of terror—it is a feeling which wakens up suspicion,
and puts all the senses upon the watch. To appear
to perceive this emotion is to make it circumspect; to disarm
it, one must wear the aspect of unconsciousness. The
wily Stevens, practised in the game, and master of the
nature of the unsuspecting girl, betrayed in his looks none
of the intelligence which he felt. If he uttered himself
in the language of admiration, it was that admiration which
would be natural to a profound adorer of literature and all
its professors. His words were those of the amateur.

“I cannot understand, Margaret, how you have studied
—how you have learnt so much—your books are few
—you have had no masters. I never met in my life with
so remarkable an instance of unassisted endeavour.”

“My books were here in the woods—among these old
rocks. My teacher was solitude. Ah! there is no teacher
like one's own heart. My instinct made me feel my deficiencies—my
deficiencies taught me contemplation—and
from contemplation came thoughts and cravings, and you
know, when the consciousness of our lack is greatest, then,
even the dumb man finds a voice. I found my voice in
consequence of my wants. My language you see is that
of complaint only.”

“And a sweet and noble language it is, Margaret; but
it is not in poetry alone that your utterance is so distinct
and beautiful—you sing too with a taste as well as power
which would prove that contemplation was as happy in

bringing about perfection in the one as in the other art.
Do, sing me, Margaret, that little ditty which you sang
here the other night?”

His hand gently detained and pressed hers as he urged
the request.

“I would rather not sing to-night;” she replied, “I do
not feel as if I could, and I trust altogether to feeling. I
will sing for you some other time when you do not ask,
and perhaps would prefer not to hear me.”

“To hear you at all, Margaret, is music to my ears.”

She was silent, and her fingers made a slight movement
to detach themselves from his.

“No, Margaret, do not withdraw them! Let me detain
them thus,—longer,—for ever! My admiration of you has
been too deeply felt not to have been too clearly shown.
Your genius is too dear to me now to suffer me to lose it.
Margaret,—dear Margaret!”

She spoke not—her breathing became quick and hard.

“You do not speak, let me hope that you are not angry
with me?”

“No, no!” she whispered faintly. He continued with
more boldness, and while he spoke, his arm encircled her
waist.

“A blessed chance brought me to your village. I saw
you and returned. I chose a disguise in which I might
study you, and see how far the treasures of your mind
confirmed the noble promise of your face. They have done
more. Like him who finds the precious ore among the
mountains, I cannot part with you so found. I must tear
you from the soil. I must bear you with me. You must
be mine, Margaret,—you must go with me where the
world will see, and envy me my prize.”

He pressed her to his bosom. She struggled slightly.

“Do not, do not, Alfred Stevens, do not press me—do
not keep me. You think too much of me. You think too much of me. I am no treasure—alas!
this is all deception. You cannot—cannot
desire it?”

“Do I not! Ah! Margaret, what else do I desire now?
Do you think me only what I appear in Charlemont?”

“No! no!”

“I have the power of a name, Margaret, in my profession—among
a numerous people—and that power is growing
into wealth and sway. I am feared and honoured,

loved by some, almost worshipped by others; and what
has led me from this sway, to linger among these hills—
to waste hours so precious to ambition—to risk the influence
which I had already secured—what, but a higher
impulse—a dearer prospect—a treasure, Margaret, of equal
beauty and genius.”

Her face was hidden upon his bosom. He felt the beating
of her heart against his hand.

“If you have a genius for song, Margaret Cooper, I,
too, am not without my boast. In my profession, men
speak of my eloquence as that of a genius which has few
equals, and no superior.”

“I know it—it must be so!”

“Move me not to boast, dear Margaret; it is in your
ears only that I do so,—and only to assure you that, in
listening to my love, you do not yield to one utterly obscure,
and wanting in claims, which, as yours must do, are
already held to be established and worthy of the best
admiration of the intelligent and wise. Do you hear me,
Margaret?”

“I do, I do! It must be as you say. But of love, I
have thought nothing. No, no! I know not, Alfred Stevens,
if I love or not—if I can love.”

“You mistake, Margaret. It is in the heart that the
head finds its inspiration. Mere intellect makes not genius.
All the intellect in the world would fail of this divine
consummation. It is from the fountains of feeling that
poetry drinks her inspiration. It is at the altars of love
that the genius of song first bends in adoration. You have
loved, Margaret, from the first moment when you sung.
It did not alter the case that there was no object of sight.
The image was in your mind—in your hope. One sometimes
goes through life without ever meeting the human
counterpart of this ideal; and the language of such a heart
will be that of chagrin—distaste of life—misanthropy, and
a general scorn of his own nature. Such, I trust, is not
your destiny. No, Margaret, that is impossible. I take
your doubt as my answer, and unless your own lips undeceive
me, dearest Margaret, I will believe that your love
is willing to requite my own.”

She was actually sobbing on his breast. With an effort
she struggled into utterance.

“My heart is so full, my feelings are so strange,—oh!
Alfred Stevens, I never fancied I could be so weak.”

“So weak—to love! surely, Margaret, you mistake the
word. It is in loving only that the heart finds its strength.
Love is the heart's sole business; and not to exercise it in
its duties is to impair its faculties, and deprive it equally
of its pleasures and its tasks. Oh, I will teach you of the
uses of this little heart of yours, dear Margaret—ay, till
it grows big with its own capacity to teach. We will inform
each other, every hour, of some new impulses and
objects. Our dreams, our hopes, our fears, and our desires,
ah! Margaret,—what a study of love will these afford us.
Nor to love only. Ah! dearest, when your muse shall
have its audience, its numerous watching eyes and eager
ears, then shall you discover how much richer will be the
strain from your lips once informed by the gushing fulness
of this throbbing heart.”

She murmured fondly in his embrace, “Ah! I ask no
other eyes and ears than yours.”

In the glow of a new and overpowering emotion, such
indeed was her feeling. He gathered her up closer in his
arms. He pressed his lips upon the rich ripe beauties of
hers, as some hungering bee, darting upon the yet unrifled
flower which it first finds in the shadows of the forest,
clings to, and riots on, the luscious loveliness, as if appetite
could only be sated in its exhaustion. She struggled
and freed herself from his embrace; but, returning home
that evening her eye was cast upon the ground; her step
was set down hesitatingly;—there was a tremor in her
heart; a timid expression in her face and manners! These
were proofs of the discovery which she then seems to
have made for the first time, that there is a power stronger
than mere human will—a power that controls genius;
that mocks at fame; feels not the lack of fortune, and is
independent of the loss of friends! She now first knew
her weakness. She had felt the strength of love! Ah!
the best of us may quail, whatever his hardihood, in the
day when love asserts his strength and goes forth to victory.
Margaret Cooper sought her chamber, threw herself
on the bed, and turned her face in the pillow to hide
the burning blushes which, with every movement of
thought and memory, seemed to increase upon her cheek.
Yet, while she blushed and even wept, her heart throbbed

and trembled with the birth of a new emotion of joy. Ah!
how sweet is our first secret pleasure—shared by one
other only—sweet to that other as to ourself—so precious
to him also. To be carried into our chamber,—to be set
up ostentatiously—there, where none but ourselves may
see—to be an object of our constant tendance, careful
idolatry, keen suspicion, delighted worship! Ah! but if
the other makes it no idol—his toy only—what shall follow
this desecration of the sacred thing! What but shame,
remorse, humiliation, perhaps death!—alas! for Margaret
Cooper, the love which had so suddenly grown into a
precious divinity with her, was no divinity with him. He
is no believer. He has no faith in such things, but like
the tradesman in religion, he can preach deftly the good
doctrines which he cannot feel and is slow to practise.