University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
MORBID BROODING.

TO the million who are suffering in mind or body
there certainly comes in this world moments
of repose, when pain ceases; and the respite seems
so delicious in contrast that it may well suggest the
“rest that remaineth.” Thinking of neither the
past nor the future, Walter for a little time gave
himself up to the sense of present and luxurious
comfort. With closed eyes and mind almost as
quiet as his motionless body he let the moments
pass, feeling dimly that he would ask no better
heaven than the eternal continuance of this painless
half-dreaming lethargy.

He was soon aroused, however, by a knocking at
the door, and a decent middle-aged serving-woman
placed before him a tempting plate of Albert biscuit
and a glass of home-made currant wine of indefinite
age. The quaint and dainty little lunch caught his
appetite as exactly as if manna had fallen from
heaven adapted to his need: but it soon stimulated
him out of his condition of partial non-existence.
With returning consciousness of the necessity of living
and acting came the strong desire to spend as much
of his vacation as possible in his old home, and he

determined to avail himself of Mr. Walton's invitation
to the utmost limit that decency would permit.

His awakened mind gave but little thought to his
entertainers, and he did not anticipate much pleasure
from their society. He was satisfied that they
were refined, cultured people, with whom he could
be as much at ease as would be possible in any companionship,
but he hoped and purposed to spend the
most of his time alone in wandering amid old scenes
and brooding over the past. The morbid mind is
ever full of unnatural contradictions, and he found a
melancholy pleasure in turning his back on the
future and recalling the time when he was happy
and hopeful. In his egotism, he found more in his
past and vanished self to interest than anything
in the world around. Evil and ill health had so
enfeebled his body, narrowed his mind, and blurred
the future that his best solace seemed a vain and
sentimental recalling of the crude yet comparatively
happy period of childhood.

This is sorry progress. A man must indeed have
lived radically wrong when he looks backward for
the best of his life. Gray-haired Mr. Walton was
looking forward. Walter's habit of self-pleasing—
of acting according to his mood—was too deeply
seated to permit even the thought of returning the
hospitality he hoped to enjoy by a cordial effort on
his part to prove himself an agreeable guest. Polite
he ever would be, for he had the instincts and training
of a gentleman in society's interpretation of the
word, but he had lost the power to feel a generous

solicitude for the feelings and happiness of others.
Indeed, he rather took a cynical pleasure in discovering
defects in the character of those around him,
and in learning that their seeming enjoyment of life
was but hollow and partial.

Conscious of being evil himself, he liked to think
others were not much better, or would not be if
tempted. Therefore, with a gloomy skepticism, he
questioned all the seeming happiness and goodness
he saw.

“It is either unreal or untried,” he was wont to
say bitterly.

About seven o'clock Hannah, the waitress, again
appeared saying:

“Supper is ready, but the ladies beg you will
not come down unless you feel able. I can bring
your tea up on a tray if you wish.”

Thinking first and only of self, he at once
decided not to go down. He felt sufficiently rested
and revived, but was in no mood to talk common-place
to comparative strangers. His cosey chair,
glowing fire, and listless ease were so much better
than noisy children, inquisitive ladies, and the unconscious
reproach of Mr. Walton's face, as he would
look in vain for the lineaments of his lost friend.
Therefore he said suavely:

“Please say to the ladies that I am so wearied
that I would make but a dull companion; and so for
their sakes as well as my own had better not leave
my room again this evening.”

Coarse grasping and snatching for self in swinish

style is very revolting, but the same spirit can be
prettily disguised. It is the perfection of art in selfishness
to make it appear as if you were thinking
only of others. This was the design of Walter's
polite message. Soon a bit of tender steak, a roast
potatoe, tea and toast were smoking appetizingly
beside him, and he congratulated himself that he
had escaped the bore of company for one evening.

Notwithstanding his misanthropy and cherished
desolation the supper was so inviting that he was
tempted to partake of it heartily. Then encasing
himself in his ample dressing-gown he placed his
slippered feet on the fender before a cheery fire,
lighted a choice Havana, and proceeded to be miserable
after the fashion that indulged misery often
affects.

Hannah quietly removed the tea-tray, and Mr.
Walton came up and courteously inquired if there
was anything that would add to his guest's comfort.

“After a few hours of rest and quiet I hope I
shall be able to make better return for your hospitality,”
Walter rejoined with equal politeness.

“Oh, do not feel under any obligation to exert
yourself,” said kind Mr. Walton. “In order to derive
full benefit from your vacation you must simply
rest and follow your moods.”

This view of the case suited Walter exactly, and
the prospect of a visit to his old home grew still
more inviting. After being left alone he gave himself
up wholly to the memories of the past.

At first it was with a pleasurable pain that he
recalled his former life. With an imagination
naturally strong he lived it all over again, commencing
with the date of his first recollections. In
the curling flames and glowing coals on the hearth a
panorama passed before him. He saw a joyous child,
a light-hearted boy, and sanguine youth with the
shifting and familiar scenery of well-remembered
experience. Time softened the pictures, and the
harsh, rough outlines which exist in every truthful
portraiture of life were lost in the haze of distance.
The gentle but steady light of mother love, and
through her a pale, half-recognized reflection of the
love of God, illumined all these years; and his
father's strong, quiet affection made a background
anything but dark. He had been naturally what is
termed a very good boy, full of generous impulses.
There had been no lack of ordinary waywardness or
faults of youth, but they showed a tendency to
yield readily to the correcting influence of love.
Good impulses, however, are not principles, and may
give way to stronger impulses of evil. If only the
influences of his early home had followed him he
would not now be moodily recalling the past as the
exiled convict might watch the shores of his native
land recede.

And yet as in his prolonged reverie the fire
burned low and the ruddy coals turned to ashes the
past faded into distance, and his present life, dull
and leaden, rose up before him, and from regretful
memories that were not wholly painful he passed to

that bitterness of feeling which ever comes when
hope is giving place to despair.

The fire flickered out and died, his head drooped
lower and lower, while the brooding frown upon his
brow darkened almost into a scowl. Outwardly he
made a sad picture for a young man in the prime of
life, but to Him who looks at the attitude of the soul,
what but unutterable love kept him from appearing
absolutely revolting?

Suddenly, like light breaking into a vault, a few
notes of prelude were struck upon the piano in the
parlor below, and a sweet voice, softened by distance,
sang—

How often he had heard the familiar words and
music in that same home. They seemed to crown
and complete all the memories of the place, but
they reminded him more clearly than ever before
that its most inseparable associations were holy,
hopeful, and suggestive of a faith that seemingly he
had lost as hopelessly as if it had been a gem dropped
into the ocean.

He had lived in foreign lands far from his birthplace,
but the power and purpose to return were
thoughts that ever dwelt pleasurably in his mind.
But how could he cross the gulf that yawned between
him and the faith of his childhood? Was
there really anything beyond that gulf save what the
credulous imagination had created? Instinctively
he felt that there was, for he was honest enough

with himself to remember that his skepticism was
the result of an evil life and the influence of an
unbelieving world rather than of patient investigation.
The wish was father of the thought.

Yet sweet, unfaltering, and clear as the voice of
faith ever should be, the hymn went forward in the
room below, his memory supplying the well-known
words that were lost because of distance.

“Oh, when!” he exclaimed bitterly. “What
shall be my experience then? If I continue to fail
in health as I have of late I shall know cursedly
soon. That must be Miss Walton singing. Though
she does not realize it, to me this is almost as cruel
mockery as if an angel sang at the gates of hell.”

The music ceased and the monitone of one reading
followed.

“Family prayers as of old,” he muttered. “How
everything conspires to-day to bring my home-life
back again, and yet there is a fatal lack of something
that is harder to endure than the absence of my own
kindred and vanished youth. I doubt whether I can
stay here long after all. Will not the mocking fable
of Tantalus be repeated constantly, and I see others
drinking daily at a fountain which though seemingly
so near is ever beyond my reach?”

Shivering with the chill of the night and the
deeper chill at heart, he retired to troubled sleep.