Ethel Churchill/Chapter 102
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE LETTERS.
It is a weary and a bitter hour
When first the real disturbs the poet's world,
And he distrusts the future. Not for that
Should cold despondency weigh down the soul:
It is a glorious gift, bright poetry,
And should be thankfully and nobly used.
Let it look up to heaven!
"It is earlier than I thought," said Walter Maynard, as the sound of one of the French clocks disturbed the gloomy revery in which he had been plunged; "but I have not spirits to go out. Every day I feel more and more disinclined to the least exertion; and yet I never was in a position that demanded it more. Debts, difficulties, surround me on every side; and yet I cannot force myself to that employment which would soon release me from them.
"The iron has entered into my soul, and it weighs me down to earth. I cannot bear staying here, the office of Sir George's secretary is too degrading. To what use am I turning the talents once destined to achieve such lofty purposes! I am applying them to the meanest deceits,—to gratify the miserable vanity of a man, as much my inferior by nature as he is my superior by fortune. I cannot continue to live with Sir George: I despise him too thoroughly. Every day I decide on leaving him. I act against every sense I have of right in staying; and yet I lack the resolution to leave."
Walter leant his head upon his arm, and remained lost in thought. He did not take into consideration his shattered health; consumption had already begun its work, and he drooped beneath its fever—that fever whose reaction is languor. But he referred his distaste only to the mind, which he felt was exhausted and depressed within.
Few know the demands made by the imagination on those who are once its masters and its victims. Its exercise is so feverish, and so exciting; the cheek burns, the pulse beats aloud, the whole frame trembles with eagerness during the progress of composition. For the time you are what you create. The exhaustion of this process is not felt till some other species of exertion makes its demand on the already overwrought frame, the overstrained nerves begin to discover that they have been wound to the utmost. There is no strength left to bear life's other emotions.
Poverty, the effort made in society; love, fretted out of "the lovely land of dreams," by being often in the presence, and perpetually hearing of the object whose possession is hopeless;—all these combined to wear out Maynard's sensitive and shrinking frame. Moreover, there is a time when every writer asks himself, has he not followed the shadow, not the substance? that his noblest hopes, his most earnest aspirations, have been given those who know not what the gift has cost.
Fame seems afar off, and cold sunshine; and that eager readiness of thought, which, found in the slightest thing matter for some graceful fancy, which at once sprang into music, seems cold and dead within us.
There are times when the poet marvels how he ever wrote, and feels as if he never could write again. Alas! it is this world's worst curse, that the body predominates over the mind; and this was just now the case with Walter Maynard.
He was roused from his meditation by a light touch on the shoulder: it was Lavinia Fenton, of whom he had lately seen but little. The fact was, he had carefully avoided her society; but to-night he felt glad of any one who broke in upon the gloomy shadow of his own thoughts.
"My cold is so bad to-night," said she, "that I cannot venture out; and, not knowing what to do with myself, came to see if I could find amusement here. I have found you, and that is better than nothing."
"I was just thinking," replied Walter, "that I was worse than nothing."
"Well, it is not every one," answered she, laughing, "who forms such a just estimate of themselves. I do not think that modesty is a virtue very often rewarded in this world; however, I shall take upon myself to reward it to-night by drinking tea with you."
"And I will tell you an idea that has struck me," replied he, "as a good ground-work for a drama. I do not know how it is, but I need more encouragement than I used to do, to begin any thing new. Now, talking over a plan, is a sort of beginning; and, careless as you are, you have an intuitive judgment."
"Because," interrupted the actress, "I see things exactly as they are. I calculate my effects, but they do not deceive myself; you, on the contrary, live in a world of illusions, where every thing is called by such an exceedingly fine name, that it seems a downright impertinence to ascertain what it really is."
"Why, as you say," exclaimed Walter, "an epithet does go a great way. It is not so much what a thing is, as what it is called."
Lavinia's only reply was, to hum a stanza from the opera, then in its earliest popularity:—
"'Since laws were made for every degree,
For others, as well as for you and for me;
I wonder we have not better company
On Tyburn tree.'
I am as hoarse as a raven, begging my own pardon for the comparison. Now, what has led to my train of thoughts to-night is, looking over Sir George Kingston's love-letters."
"Does he shew them to you?" asked Walter, with uncontrollable surprise.
"Why, what do you think he keeps them for, but, to shew? They are really quite encouraging to me: there is not so much difference between the green-room and the drawing-room; only to be sure, my coquetry is paid for!"
"How little real love," said Maynard, "there is in the world!—how many other baser feelings usurp its name!"
"They may," cried Lavinia, "be generally classed under two heads,—idleness and vanity. There are more love affairs originating in the want of something to do, than from any other motive. The lover and the physician are each popular from the same cause—we talk to them of nothing but ourselves; I dare say that was the origin of confession—egotism, under the fine name of religion."
"Sir George Kingston is very egotistical," said Walter; "I observe that, let the topic be what it will, it winds round to himself!"
"You would not wonder," returned Lavinia, "if you could but know the world of flattery which he contrives to obtain. Believe me, that a very vain man cannot do better than devote himself to our sex; nowhere else will he have his vanity so soothed, and so fed."
"But," interrupted Walter, "it is man's part to flatter women!"
"Not half so much as women flatter men," cried the actress. "We are more ingenious, more refined and ready, than you are. Besides, we imply, where you express; and flattery, by implication, is the most subtle and penetrating of all. And, lastly, there is more of the heart in what we utter; we do feel a little of what we say."
"And you mean to imply," exclaimed her companion, "that we do not!"
"Yes," answered she. "I lay it down as a rule, the truth of which all experience confirms, that every man behaves as ill as he possibly can to every woman, under every possible circumstance!"
"A sweeping censure!" cried Walter.
"And, like all sweeping censures," said she, "if not true of, perhaps, one or two wonderful exceptions, it applies strictly to the generality. What man has the slightest scruple as to gaining the confidence; making himself not only necessary to her happiness, but that very happiness itself; and then sacrificing her to vanity, caprice, or any slight motive, that would not be held valid for one moment in any other matter!"
"And yet," exclaimed Walter, "what a delicious and a precious trust is that affection which yields its sweetest hopes to your keeping! you are in the place of destiny, to the woman who loves you."
"Do you know, Walter, that, though I know what you are saying is great nonsense," interrupted Lavinia, "I cannot help liking you for the deep, true feeling, you carry into every thing. Still, even you only confirm me in my creed: the warm emotion, the generous faith, only place you in the power of others, and power is what we all abuse. You, with your kind heart, your lofty talents, are you happy?"
"Oh, you know I am not!" exclaimed Walter. "I feel that I shall never be what I have powers to become: I cannot make the future my home, as I used to do."
"A most unsubstantial one!" cried the actress: "give me the praise that rings upon the ear; the applause that comes over the foot-lights! But I am still hoarser with talking, and here comes the tea; and, to console you for my interruption, I will quote your own lines:—
The fairer flowers are those which yield not fruit;
Our highest thoughts grow never into acts."