64. CHAPTER LXIV.
Ah, would my friendship with thee
Might drown the memory of all patterns past!
— Suckling.
Some few days after, riding, as usual, in the afternoon,
Morton saw on the road before him a lady on horseback,
riding in the same direction. At a glance, he recognized
the air and figure of Fanny Euston. This remnant, at least,
of her former spirit remained to her, — she did not hesitate
to ride unattended. Morton checked his horse, reflected
for a little, then touched him with the spur, and in a moment
was at her side. After they had conversed for a while, she
said, —
“I have heard a great deal of your imprisonment from
others, but nothing from yourself. Will you not let me hear
your story from your own lips?”
“It was a long and dull history to live through, and will be
a short and dull one to tell.”
“I have never been able to hear clearly why you were
arrested at all.”
“It was a simple matter. The Austrian government is
like a tyrant and a coward, frightened at shadows. I had
one or two acquaintances at Vienna who had been implicated,
though I did not know it, in plots against the government.
I, being an American, was imagined to be, as a matter of
course, a democrat, and in league with them. It needed very
little more; and they shut me up, as they have done many
an innocent man before me.”
“Looking back at your imprisonment, it must seem to you
a broad, dark chasm in your life.”
“Broad and black enough; but not quite so void as I once
thought.”
“No; in struggling through it, I can see that you have
not come out empty handed.”
“Not I; I should be glad to rid myself of the larger part
of the load. One is sometimes punished with the fulfilment
of his own whims. I remember wishing — and that not so
many years back — that I might sound all the strings of
human joys and sufferings, — try life in all its phases, — in
peace and war, a dungeon, if I remember right, inclusive. I
have had my fill of it, and do not care to repeat the experiment.”
“Some of the damp and darkness of your dungeon still
clings about you, and out of the midst of it, you look back
over the gulf to a shore of light and sunshine, where you
were once standing.”
“You read me like a sibyl, as you always do. None but a
child or a fool will seriously regret any shape of experience
out of which he has come with mind and senses still sound,
though it may have changed the prismatic colors of life into
a neutral tint, a universal gray, a Scotch mist, with light
enough to delve by, and nothing more.”
“One's life is a series of compromises, at best. One must
capitulate with Fate, gain from her as much good as may be,
and as little evil.”
“And then set his teeth and endure. As for myself,
though, if gifts were portioned out among mankind in equal
allotments, I should count myself, even now, as having more
than my share.”
“That idea of equalized happiness is a great fallacy.”
“Every idea of mortal equality is a great fallacy; and all
the systems built on it are built on a quicksand. There is
no equality in nature. There are mountains and valleys,
deserts and meadows, the fertile and the barren. There is
no equality in human minds or human character. Who shall
measure the distance from the noblest to the meanest of men,
or the yet vaster distance from the noblest to the meanest of
women? The differences among mankind are broader than
any but the greatest of men can grasp. With pains enough,
one may comprehend, in a measure, the minds on a level with
his own or below it; but, above, he sees nothing clearly.
To follow the movements of a great man's mind, he must raise
himself almost to an equal greatness.”
“A hopeless attempt with most. Every one has a limit.”
“But men make more limits for themselves than Nature
makes for them.”
“You seem to me a person with a singular capacity of
growth. You push forth fibres into every soil, and draw nutriment
from sources most foreign to you.”
“An indifferent stock needs all the aliment it can find. I
am fortunate in my planting. Companionship is that which
shapes us; and I have found men, and what is more to the
purpose, women, who have met my best requirement. One's
friends have all their special influence with which they affect
him. Yours, to me, was always a rousing and wakening influence,
an electric life. You have shot a ray of sun down into
my shadow, and I am bound at least to thank you for it.”
“I hope, for old friendship's sake, that your shadow may
soon cease to need such farthing-candle illumination. — Here
is my mother's house. She will be glad to see you.”
“I thank you: I will come soon, but not to-day.”
And, taking leave of his companion, he turned his horse
homeward.
“A vain attempt! I thought a light might kindle again;
but it is all dust and ashes, with only a sparkle or two. No
more flame; the fuel is burnt out. Shall I go on? Shall I
offer what is left of my heart? A poor tribute for her.
She should command a better; and there is something in her
manner, warm and cordial as she is, that tells me that I
should offer it in vain.”
