University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
MOWBRAY OPENS HIS HEART TO HIS NEW FRIEND.

INSTEAD of following the melancholy Jacques to his
chamber, let us return to the meadow in which he
had been saluted by the invisible voice. A brook ran
sparkling like a silver thread across the emerald expanse,
and along this brook were sauntering two students, one
of whom had spoken to the abstracted lover.

He who had addressed Jacques was Mowbray; the
other was Hoffland, the young student who had just
arrived at Williamsburg.

Hoffland is much younger than his companion—indeed,
seems scarcely to have passed beyond boyhood;
his stature is low, his figure is slender, his hair flaxen
and curling, his face ornamented only with a peach-down
mustache. He is clad in a suit of black richly embroidered;
wraps a slight cloak around him spite of the
warmth of the pleasant May afternoon; and his cocked
hat, apparently too large for him, droops over his face,
falling low down upon his brow.

They walk on for a moment in silence.

Then Hoffland says, in a musical voice like that of a
boy before his tone undergoes the disagreeable change
of manhood:

“You have not said how strange you thought this sudden
friendship I express, Mr. Mowbray, but I am afraid
you think me very strange.”

“No, indeed,” replies Mowbray; “I know not why,
but you have already taken a strong hold upon me. Singular!
we are almost strangers, but I feel as though I had
known you all my life!”

“That can scarcely be, for I am but seventeen or eighteen,”
says Hoffland smiling.

“A frank, true age. I regret that I have passed it.”

“Why?”

“Ah, can you ask, Mr. Hoffland?”

“Please do not call me Mr. Hoffland. We are friends:
say Charles; and then I will call you Ernest. I cannot
unless you set me the example.”

“Ernest? How did you discover my name?”

“Oh!” said Hoffland, somewhat embarrassed, “does
not every body know Ernest Mowbray?”

“Very well—as you are determined to give me compliments
instead of reasons, I will not persist. Charles
be it then, but you must call me Ernest.”

“Yes, Ernest.”

The low musical words went to his heart, and broke
down every barrier. They were bosom friends from that
moment, and walked on in perfect confidence.

“Why did you regret your youth, Ernest?” said Hoffland.
“I thought young men looked forward impatiently
to their full manhood—twenty-five or thirty; though I
do not,” he added with a smile.

“They do; but it is only another proof of the blindness
of youth.”

“Is youth blind?”

“Very.”

“How?”

“Blind, because it cannot see that all the delights of

ambition, the victories of mind, the triumphs and successes
of the brain, are mere dust and ashes compared
with what it costs to obtain them—the innocence of the
heart, the illusions of its youthful hope.”

“Ah! are illusions to be desired?”

“At least they are a sweet suffering, a bitter delight.”

“Even when one wakes from them to find every thing
untrue—despair alone left?”

“You paint the reverse truly; but still I hold that the
happiness of life is in what I have styled illusions. Listen,
Charles,” he continued, gazing kindly at the boy, who
turned away his head. “Life is divided into three portions
—three stages, which we must all travel before we can
lie down in that silent bed prepared for us at our journey's
end. In the first, Youth, every thing is rosy, brilliant,
hopeful; life is a dream of happiness which deadens the
senses with its delirious rapture—deadens them so perfectly
that the thorns Youth treads on are such no longer,
they are flowers! stones are as soft as the emerald grass,
and if a mountain or a river rise before it, all Youth
thinks is, What a beautiful summit, or, How fair a river!
and straightway it darts joyously up the ascent, or throws
itself laughing into the bright sparkling waters. The
mountain and the river are not obstacles—they are
delights. Then comes the second portion of life, Manhood,
when the obstacles are truly what they seem—hard
to ascend, trying to swim over. Then comes Age, when
the sobered heart hesitates long before commencing the
ascent or essaying the crossing—when duty only prompts.
Say that duty is greater than hope, and you are right;
but say that duty carries men as easily over obstacles
as joy, which loves those obstacles, and you are mistaken.

Well, all this prosing is meant to show that the real
happiness of life is in illusions. Doubtless you are convinced
of it, however: already one learns much by the
time he has reached eighteen.”

Hoffland mused.

Mowbray drove away his thoughts, and said, smiling
sadly:

“Have you ever loved, Charles?”

“Never,” murmured the boy.

“That is the master illusion,” sighed Mowbray.

“And is it a happy one?”

“A painful happiness.”

These short words were uttered with so much sadness,
that the boy stole a look of deep interest at his companion's
face.

“Do not be angry with me, Ernest,” he said, “but
may I ask you if you have ever loved?”

His head drooped, and he murmured, “Yes.”

“Deeply?”

“Yes.”

“Were you disappointed?”

“Yes.”

And there was a long pause. They walked on in
silence.

“It is a beautiful afternoon,” said Mowbray at length.

“Lovely,” murmured the boy.

“This stream is so fresh and pure—no bitterness in
it.”

“Is there in love?”

Mowbray was silent for a moment. Then he raised
his head, and said to his companion:

“Charles, listen! What I am going to tell you, may

serve to place you upon your guard against what may
cause you great suffering. I know not why, but I take a
strange interest in you—coming alone into the great world
a mere youth as you are, leaving in the mountains from
which you say you come all those friends whose counsel
might guide you. Listen to me, then, as to an elder
brother—a brother who has grown old early in thought
and feeling, who at twenty-five has already lived half
the life of man—at least in the brain and heart. Listen.
I was always impulsive and sanguine, always proud and
self-reliant. My father was wealthy. I was told from
my boyhood that I was a genius—that I had only to
extend my hand, and the slaves of the lamp, as the
Orientals say, would drop into it all the jewels of the
universe. Success in politics, poetry, law, or letters—
the choice lay with me, but the event was certain
whichever I should select. Well, my father died—his
property was absorbed by his debts—I was left with an
orphan sister to struggle with the world.

“I arranged our affairs—we had a small competence
after all debts were paid. We live yonder in a small
cottage, and in half an hour I shall be there. I seldom
take these strolls. Half my time is study—the rest,
work upon our small plot of ground. This was necessary
to prepare you for what I have to say.

“I had never been in love until I was twenty-four and
a half—that is to say, half a year ago. But one day I
saw upon a race-course a young girl who strongly attracted
my attention, and I went home thinking of her.
I did not know her name, but I recognised in her bright,
frank, bold face—it was almost bold—that clear, strong
nature which has ever had an inexpressible charm for

me. I had studied that strange volume called Woman,
and had easily found out this fact: that the wildest and
most careless young girls are often far more delicate,
feminine, and innocent than those whose eyes are always
demurely cast down, and whose lips are drawn habitually
into a prudish and prim reserve. Do you understand
my awkward words?”

“Yes,” said the boy quietly.

“Well,” pursued Mowbray, “in forty-eight hours the
dream of my life was to find and woo that woman.
I instinctively felt that she would make me supremely
happy—that the void which every man feels in his
heart, no matter what his love for relatives may be, could
be filled by this young girl alone—that she would perfect
my life. Very well—now listen, Charles.”

“Yes,” said the boy, in a low tone.

“I became acquainted with her—for when did a lover
ever fail to discover the place which contained his mistress?—and
I found that this young girl whom I had
fallen so deeply in love with was a great heiress.”

“Unhappy chance!” exclaimed the boy; “I understand
easily that this threw an ignoble obstacle in the
way. Her friends——”

“No—there you are mistaken, Charles,” said Mowbray;
“the obstacle was from herself.”

“Did she not love you?”

Mowbray smiled sadly.

“You say that in a tone of great surprise,” he replied;
“there is scarcely ground for such astonishment.”

“I should think any woman might love you,” murmured
the boy.

Mowbray smiled again as sadly as before, and said:

“Well, I see you are determined to make me your
devoted friend, by reaching my heart through my vanity.
But let me continue. I said that the obstacles in my way
were not objections on the part of Philippa's friends—
that was her name, Philippa: do not ask me more.”

“No,” said the boy.

“The barrier was her own nature. I had mistaken
it; in the height of my pride I had dreamed that my
vision had pierced to the bottom of her nature, to the
inmost recesses of her heart: I was mistaken. I had
gazed upon the woman, throwing the heiress out of
the question; you see I was hopelessly enslaved by the
woman before dreaming of the heiress,” he added, with
a melancholy smile.

Hoffland made no reply.

“Now I come to the end, and I shall not detain you
much longer from the moral. I visited her repeatedly.
I found more to admire than I expected even—more to
be repelled by, however, than my mind had prepared
me for. I found this young girl with many noble qualities—but
these qualities seemed to me obscured by her
eternal consciousness of riches: her suspicion, in itself
an unwomanly trait, was intense.”

“Oh, sir!” cried the boy, “but surely there is some
excuse! Of course,” he added, with an effort to control
his feelings, “I do not know Miss Philippa, but assuredly
a young girl who is cursed with great wealth must discriminate
between those who love her for herself and
those who come to woo her because she is wealthy. Oh,
believe me, it is, it must be very painful to be wealthy,
to have to suspect and doubt—to run the hazard of
wounding some noble nature, who may be by chance

among the sordid crowd who come to kneel to her because
she is an heiress—who would turn their backs
upon her were she portionless. Indeed, we should excuse
much.”

“Yes,” said Mowbray, “and you defend the cause of
heiresses well. But let me come back to my narrative.
The suspicion of this young girl was immense—as her
fortune was. That fortune chilled me whenever I
thought of it. I did not want it. I could have married
her—I had quite enough for both. Heaven decreed
that she should be wealthy, however—that the glitter of
gold should blind her heart—that she should suspect my
motives. Do not understand me to say that she placed
any value upon that wealth herself. No; I believe she
despised, almost regretted it: but still, who can tell?
At least I love her too much still to hazard what may be
unjust—ah! the cinder is not cold.”

And Mowbray's head drooped. They walked on in
silence.

“Well, well,” he continued at length, “I saw her
often. I could not strangle my feelings. I loved her—
in spite of her wealth—not on account of it. But gradually
my sentiment moderated: like a whip of scorpions,
this suspicion she felt struck me, wounding my heart
and inflaming my pride. I tried to stay away; I dragged
through life for a week without seeing her; then, impelled
by a violent impulse, I went to her again, armed
with an impassible pride, and determined to converse
upon the most indifferent subjects—to test her nature
fully, and—to make the test complete—bend all the
energies of my mind to the task of weighing her words,
her looks, her tones, that I might make a final decision.

Well, she almost distinctly intimated, fifteen minutes
after our interview commenced, that I was a fortune-hunter
whom she regarded with a mixture of amusement
and contempt.”

“Oh, sir! could it have been that you——”

The boy stopped.

“How unhappy she must be—to have to suspect such
noble natures as your own,” he added in a low voice.

Mowbray turned away his head; then by a powerful
effort went on.

“You shall judge, Charles,” he said in a voice which
he mastered only by a struggle; “you shall say whether
I am correct in my opinion of her thoughts. She asked
me plainly if I was poor; to which question I replied
with a single word—`Very.' Next, did I hope to become
rich? I did hope so. Her advice then was, she
said, that I should marry some heiress, since that was a
surer and more rapid means than law or politics. She
said it very satirically, and with a glance which killed
my love——”

“Oh, sir!” the boy murmured.

“Yes; and though I was calm, my face not paler, I
believe, than usual, I was led to say what I bitterly regret—not
because it was untrue, for it was not, rather
was it profoundly true—but because it might have been
misunderstood. It was disgraceful to marry for mere
wealth, I said; and I added, `too expensive'—since unhappiness
at any price was dear. I added that money
would never purchase my own heart—schoolboy fashion,
you perceive; and then I left her—never to return.”

A long silence followed these words. Mowbray then
added calmly:

“You deduce from this narrative, Charles, one lesson.
Never give your affections to a woman suddenly; never
make a young girl whom you do not know the queen of
your heart—the fountain of your illusions and your
dreams. The waking will be unpleasant; pray Heaven
you may never wake as I have with a mind which is
becoming sour—a heart which is learning to distrust
whatever is most fair in human nature. Let us dismiss
the subject now. I am glad I felt this impulse to open
my heart to you, a stranger, though a friend. We often
whisper into a strange ear what our closest friends would
ask in vain. See, there is his Excellency's chariot with
its six white horses, and look what a graceful bow he
makes us!”

Mowbray walked on without betraying the least evidence
of emotion. He seemed perfectly calm.