University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.

Pinckney, in the city, under the constant attendance
of the best medical aid which it afforded, recovered
rapidly.

“Langdale,” he said to his friend one day, “I have
arranged my business by letter, and I shall be in no
haste to leave your city.”

“I rejoice at it,” replied Langdale, “and, Pinckney,
I have certain suspicions that there are attractions
for you here, which the north, with all its allurements
of home, cannot offer you. Do you know that you
talk in your sleep? and that one night when I watched
with you, I made discoveries?”

“Ay! of what character were they? If you had
been laid up about the time of Miss Henrietta's cruelties,
some watching friend might also have made
discoveries in your case.”

“Do you believe in second love?”

“Suppose I subscribe myself your convert, what
then?”

“I should say that you were rapidly recovering,
—that the sound state of your mind was a prognostic
of the sound state of your body. Second love, Pinckney,
upon the heart, is like the moonlight upon Rome,
as your favourite bard has described it.

“Ah, Langdale,” replied Pinckney, “your quotation

is poetical, but not true: remember, that the bard
says the moonlight

“Certainly,” rejoined Langdale, interrupting Pinckney,

“That's the idea, my dear Pinckney; all these
`gaps' in the heart on the first love will be `filled up
as 'twere anew' by the second passion. There's poor
Burns who, though peasant-born, had such a capacious
heart for true sentiment—whose songs upon
love are the best and truest that were ever written,
he fell in love with fifty different women.”

“Yes; but do you not believe that his love for highland
Mary—the girl who died, and to whom he addressed
those touching lines to “Mary in heaven”—
Do you not believe that his love for her was the
strongest passion of his heart?”

“He might have thought so; she died after their
loves were plighted, and so strongly plighted, over the
running stream on the Bible, as they were parting.
Nothing occurred—no jealously or suspicion between
them to make one doubt the other. When those
lines were written she was in her grave with associations
of youthful tenderness around her, close as her
shroud—hallowed, not buried by its folds.

“But, remember, all first loves have not such hallowed

remembrances, and all lines to Mary are not to—
Mary in heaven.”

Pinckney laughed. “True as the book,” he said;
“I'll tell you, Langdale, and it is strange, as we are
men of such different views of life, that I should wish
to tell you. But `'mid the chief beauties of almighty
Rome' on such a night as the bard has described I
made the acquaintance of a lady who has considerable
influenced my destinies, at least the destinies of
my heart for some time. Though descended from
American parents she was an Italian. She had that
style of beauty; the dark hair and eye, and the voluptious
grace—but I won't weary you with a description
of a loveliness that I thought equal to anything that
sculptor or artist of that fairy land had ever fancied;
you would laugh at me. She was some one or two
years my elder, and knew the world. I have since
discovered this, like one on whom had been particularly
conferred its master-key. I left home for foreign
travel full of deep-wrought sentiment and romance.
After some rough trials, I had received by the death
of a dear relative, a very large fortune, and, like the
o'ertasked labourer when the day of feasting comes,
I plunged too deeply into pleasure, forgetful of the
high hopes to which before I had been sacrificing my
health. Pleasure did quickly, what study was slowly
doing. My energies were prostrated. I wanted an
object in life, and I determined on travel, as I have
said. To Italy I looked as the land on which the
Promethean fire descended. There I promised myself
all that the prospects of the beautiful which one
of our own country's best bard has painted as well as
ever yet did poet paint them. Did you know my namesake,
Edward C. Pinkney, of Baltimore, the poet?”

“No: I have often heard of him; was he a relation
of yours?”

“No, not relations; he spells his name without the

c; he was a son of the celebrated lawyer. I knew
him slightly. He was one of the handsomest men I
have ever seen. He was older than I—I met him
some years ago when I was in my teens, in New
York. He presented me with a copy of his poems.
They are beautiful exceedingly—gems all. That serenade
of his, `Look out upon the stars my love,' is the
best in the language. It puts one in mind of the two
or three fragments we have of Lovelace, the chevalier
poet of the olden time, who wrote so touchingly to
his mistress from prison:

“How beautiful, hey?—again:

“There is the spirit of the loves of the knights of
old in that; and then his piece called `The Health.'
I made his poems my companion. I have been
wandering. I introduced his name to say, that I
looked upon Italy as he has described it in a short
poem bearing that title. Pardon me, if I quote a
stanza or two.”

“There, is not that most beautiful; surpass that
description from any poet!”

“What became of Mr. Pinkney?”

“He died some years ago. A thousand times have
I beneath Italian skies repeated those lines. I could
not woo a beloved one to go with me to `blooming
Italy,' but I thought I had found one there who would
win me to stay. I had no premonitory symptoms. I
took the disease at first sight; perhaps it was owing
to the climate.”

“Ah, you're getting cured,” said Langdale, laughing,
“inasmuch as you can jest with the wounds, they
will eventually heal over without a scar. Nothing
turns the arrow of the blind god aside like a jest,
after all. But, go on; go on.”

“Her parents being from America—she claiming to
be an American woman, though born in Italy; and
speaking the mutual language when I could not
speak Italian; all this, had she not been so beautiful,
would have thrown me into her society. As it was,
every hour that I possibly could, I devoted to her.

Her mind, naturally strong and highly cultivated; her
manners, though I have thought since, they possessed
no little mannerism and display, were winning beyond
resistance, and her form was such as Pinkney, my
namesake, speaks of in the last stanzas which I repeated
to you. I used frequently to tell her so. I
was a year under her spell. What's the purpose of
dwelling upon what a fool I was; I might have done
so then, but a light has broke in upon me since,
enough to give me an inkling of what a Billy Lackaday
I was.”

Langdale laughed heartily.

“Confound you,” said Pinckney, “your comical
laugh won't let me be sentimental. What a fool I
was to pretend to talk to you on such a subject.”

“Indeed, you were not—believe me, I think you'll
remove the image by an' by. The best way to prevent
its return, remember, is to put another in its place
—but go on.”

“Some other time, Langdale; your laugh has scattered
all my sentimental reminiscences. I could give
you but a history of my feelings. But to probe them
—they are a little sore yet, maybe.”

“You're convalescing. But, believe me, I laughed
in reflecting upon myself, not at you. I think our
characters are alike in many points, but there is a great
difference between them, and in that difference consists
what would make you happy, I believe, as a married
man. That is, provided you did not marry your
Italian love.

“That's a strange remark”—

“Not at all; it is a just one. That fair lady of
`blooming Italy,' I plainly discover, even from what
little you have said, was a splendid—an accomplished
woman—of the world. And from all such deliver me.
She would have spent your fortune—not cared to
have any hold upon your affections, except as she

could hold some purse, and would have worried you
to death with her whines and waywardness.—Kept
all her amiability for company, and all her fault-finding
for your private ear. Such a woman is worse,
Pinckney, in my opinion, than those of her sex who,
in the world's opinion, are deemed the most worthless.”

Pinckney coloured deeply at this remark. 'Tis
strange when one man of the world meets with
another profounder in its knowledge than himself, how
almost child-like he will frequently become when
with him. His elder's knowledge and experience
place him in the predicament of the schoolboy, who
not only feels that his teacher is his superior in knowledge,
but that he thoroughly understands and penetrates
the feelings of his pupils. Pinckney's confinement,
however, and debility, which affected his nerves,
assisted much in producing at the time a state of feeling,
which at another he would not have believed
was natural to him under any circumstances.

“Understand me,” said Langdale, quickly observing
Pinckney's emotion; “let not your feelings be aroused
for the lady. I mean to speak of your class of worldly
women. And maybe she is not of that character—is
without the rule if she is. She may furnish one of
those exceptions that logicians tell us make general
rules stronger.”

Pinckney remained silent, but he smiled archly,
and Langdale continued:

“I'm held to be a man of the world—but as the
world goes, I flatter myself I am not so much so as the
world thinks—not so much so as the generality of its
good people.”

“You are proverbially so,” said Pinckney.

“Well, then, perhaps I am so heartless myself, that
I want a person all heart, as a friend or mistress, to
make up the deficiency on my part. We love our
opposites, you know—I must confess that I have what

is called a liking for a man of the world—one who
has travelled and knows a thing or two, and is withal
a gentleman. I have, I say, for such a man a liking;
and for such a woman, an admiration—and that's all.
If I have not the domestic ties about my hearth, I
have their appreciation about my heart the stronger
—you start?”

“Start!” only think of the history of your first love
which you gave me.”

“True, think of it; the antagonist principles were
then fighting in me, which plainly prove I was not a
worldly man. Had I been such, I should certainly
have married Clarissa Churchill; as it was, I never
even courted her, but went in for love. It is true I
may have wavered for an instant, but never when
brought to the point. The vast majority of young
men would not have wavered for a moment. They
would have fawned, the sycophants of Clarissa, and
never once have thought of Henrietta but as a `poor
girl,' which, from being repeated by them in a depreciating
tone, would soon in their minds have
taken its broadest signification, and they would have
got to denouncing her as a `poor girl in every sense
of the word.”'

“You are too harsh, Langdale, in your opinion of
the world; I don't esteem men so mercenary. I
believe that most young people would make any
sacrifice to their affections.”

“Most of them will tell you so; but I believe in
original sin in that respect if in no other. Selfishness
is inborn in us; it is as strong in the young man as in
the old one; but it has different ways of developing
itself in them, because their aims are different. No
really great scoundrel ever made a confession of his
rascality except on his death-bed, or under the gallows,
and then he was for being heroic and dying game.

I never knew a man yet, who frankly confessed his
vices who had not many virtues. And I never knew
a man who made proclamation that he had all the
virtues, whose vices did not greatly out-number them.
The man who knows himself a thorough-paced scoundrel,
does all he can to hide the least delinquency,
because he fears if one is discovered, it will furnish a
clue to his whole character. The tendency of these
remarks might seem to eulogize a character like my
own, perhaps; but I make them because I know they
are true. I lay my life, this bird of the Italian skies,
and who was just suited for its glories, and pined if met
them—I lay my life she spoke much more plainly to
you about love, and made much freer acknowledgment
of her passion, voluntarily, perchance, than
you could ever wring from Fanny Fitzhurst, though
you had courted her, and she had accepted you.
What we feel deeply, we treasure deeply. Lip service
is easily uttered. And when we are profoundly
good or bad we never tell it; the first from modesty,
the second from interest: but when we would be what
we are not, the lips very easily play their part; 'tis
our actions that betray us. Suppose two streams to
be endowed with language, the shallow one would
no doubt make its ripples tattle to you of its depth,
while the deep one would roll upon its waveless
course, satisfied that it was deep, and wait for the
testing if it was doubted.”

“What, pray tell me, put Miss Fitzhurst in your
thoughts by way of illustration?”

“What caused you to ask me the question? Pinckney,
the condition of a man, as described by Shakspeare,
`between the acting of a heedful thing and
the first motion,' is pretty much like the struggle
between first and second love. Not that the contest
has any ferocity in it:

“No,” said Pinckney smiling, “your illustration to
me is not a good one. My notion is, that between
the first and second love there is an intervention of
a blank, an unimpassioned blank; darkness like the
night between two days—that one gradually fades off
like a summer sunset, leaving the highest hopes last
like the highest hills; and that the other rises out of
deepest darkness, long after the past day has gone to
the years beyond the flood. There is no passing
from the one to the other without a long interval of
calm, like night between.”

“You won't admit any thunder-storm through the
night then,” interrupted Langdale, “engendered by the
heat of the previous day.”

“Oh, yes; perhaps a little through the night to
make pure the atmosphere for the second love; but
if there be any through the day, I claim it as a proof
of what my favourite said: