39. CHAPTER XXXIX.
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR BRIEFLY PHILOSOPHIZES ON MAN.
On a previous page, we undertook to say what a Tale,
with Richard and sundry things in it, was like. We did
not state what Richard, with sundry things in him, was like.
How, with emotion succeeding emotion, excitement spooming
across excitement, and the suppression of all elementary
hope and life, could he exist at all? We found him joyous
and glad in “Knuckle Lane” and Melicent, upset by Miss
Eyre, trembling before Melicent at the gate, calm in Mayflower
Glen, lively in the Hennery, and now “crushed” by
Clover. Wave follows wave in the human breast, tumult
vies with tumult. But what is the human breast? What
is left of Richard now? Let him have a good night's sleep,
some one says, and he will wake up feeling better. Nay,
and let it be all solemnly said, there is an Underworking, as
well as All-Encompassing God, who knits together the shattered
fibres of existence, and repairs the breaches in the
foundations of the soul. The great reaper, Sorrow, did seem
to have clipped Richard close and clean, and stooked him out
for aye; but there remained charity, truth, duty, and absolute
submission to God. And Richard had the spirit of
Christ; — or, at least, we shall for the present beg so much
out of the main question at issue. He was so thoroughly in
the feeling of his Master, that, in this his last trial, as it
were instinctively and unconsciously, he expressed himself
in those words which have become a formula of agony and
piety in all ages. His moral existence, his self-counterpoise,
his capability of sustained exertion, would seem to be
annihilated by the unremitting stroke of misfortune; yet
he lived and worked on. How could this be, except through
the power of God, in which he trusted, and unto which
he clave? There is the Gulf Stream, which moves on
betimes and proportionately, straight forwards, forevermore.
The winds would head it off; — they only fret its surface.
The tides invade it; — it lifts them up, and bears them in
its arms. There may be a Gulf Stream of piety, conscientiousness,
rectitude, and faith in man. We hope there was
one in Richard.
