Charles James Lever

“ Some secret dread of what you would say or think has delayed the marriage hitherto; but once you have taken your leave and are fairly off,—not to return for years,—the event will no longer be deferred.”
“Oh, May, how you grieve me! I cannot tell you the misery you have put into my heart.”
“It is out of my own sorrow I have given you to drink,” said she, bitterly. “You are a man, and have a man's career before you, with all its changeful chances of good or evil; I, as a woman, must trust my hazard of happiness to a home, and very soon I shall have none.” ”

“ The really high and great rewards of England are given to wealth, to political intrigue, to legal success. It's your banker, your orator, or your scheming barrister, who win the great prizes in our State Lottery. Find out some secret by which life can be restored to the drowned, convert an atmosphere of pestilence into an air of health and vigor, discover how an avalanche may be arrested in its fall, and, if you be an Englishman, you can do nothing better with your knowledge than sell it to a company, and make it marketable through shareholders. ”

“ Stocmar,” said Mrs. Morris, sneeringly. “Pray confess yourself surprised.”
“Call it ignorance, mamma, and you'll give it the right name. What do I know of the world, save from guide and road books? and, from the little I have gleaned, many a village would be pleasanter to me than Paris.”
“More philosophy, sir. You perceive what a treasure of wisdom is about to be intrusted to your charge.”
“Pray bear that in mind, sir,” said Clara, with a light laugh; “and don't forget that though the casket has such a leaden look, it is all pure gold.” ”

“ To feel that one can be compromised, and, if compromised, ruined at any moment,—to walk with a half-drawn indictment over one,—to mingle in a world where each fresh arrival may turn out accuser,—is very, very wearisome, and I long for security. It is for this reason I have decided on marrying Sir William instead of his son. The indiscretion of a man of his age taking a wife of mine will naturally lead to retirement and reclusion from the world, and we shall seek out some little visited spot where no awkward memories are like to leave their cards on us. ”

“ It is the kind of debt of honor she can appreciate best of all, and, it must be owned, it is one she knows how to deal with in a noble and generous spirit To the man so placed with regard to her she will observe an undying fidelity; she will defend him at any cost; she will uphold him at any sacrifice. Now, May not only confessed to Clara that Layton had made her the offer of his heart, but she told how heavily on her conscience lay the possible—if it were so much as possible—sin of having given him any encouragement. ”

“ The man who consents to gamble existence, has all the violent ecstasies of joy and grief that wait on changeful fortunes.
“Shall I hit upon the right number this time? Will red win once more? Is the run of luck good or ill, or, it may be, exhausted?” These are questions ever rising to his mind; and what contrivance, what preparation, what spirit of exigency do they evoke! Theirs is a hand-to-hand conflict with Fate; they can subsidize no legions, skulk behind no parapets; in open field must the war be carried on; and what a cruel war it becomes when every wound festers into a crime! ”

“ The Heathcotes had gone to Rome for the winter, and the Villa was shut up and untenanted. It had been a cherished wish of poor Layton to visit the spot as soon as he could venture abroad; and Quackinboss, the faithful friend who had nursed him through his whole illness, had that day yielded to his persuasion and brought him there.
Who could have recognized the young and handsome youth in the broken-down, feeble, careworn man who now leaned over the palings of a little flower-garden, and gazed mournfully at a rustic bench beneath a lime-tree? ”

“ Why, man, there is an atmosphere of credulity about a theatre that makes one credit anything, except what is palpably true. Every manager fancies he is making a fortune; every tenor imagines he is to marry a princess; and every fiddler in the orchestra firmly believes in the time when a breathless audience will be listening to his 'solo.'”
“I wish, with all my heart, I was on the stage, then,” exclaimed Paten. “I should certainly like to imbibe some of this sanguine spirit.”
“You are too old a dram-drinker, Ludlow, to be intoxicated with such light tipple,” said Stocmar. ”

“ SIR William Heathcote in his dressing-room, wrapped up with rugs, and his foot on a stool, looked as little like a bridegroom as need be. He was suffering severely from gout, and in all the irritable excitement of that painful malady.
A mass of unopened letters lay on the table beside him, littered as it was with physic bottles, pill-boxes, and a small hand-bell. On the carpet around him lay the newspapers and reviews, newly arrived, but all indignantly thrown aside, uncared for by one too deeply engaged in his sufferings to waste a thought upon the interests of the world. ”

“ Morris went on: “There are few stock subjects people are more eloquent in condemning than what are called long engagements. There are some dozen of easy platitudes that every one has by heart on this theme; and yet, if the truth were to be told, it is the waiting is the best of it,—the marriage is the mistake! That faint little flickering hope that lighted us on for years and years is extinguished at the church door, and never relighted after; so that, May, my advice to you is, never contract a long engagement until you have made up your mind not to marry at the end of it! ”

“ Morris may be,” said she, laughing, as she folded up the letter, and half mechanically regarded the seal. “You ought to change your crest, respectable father mine,” muttered she; “the wags might say that your portcullis was a gallows.” And then, with a weary sigh, she closed her eyes, and fell a-thinking.
That quiet, tranquil, even-tempered category of mankind, whose present has few casualties, and whose future is, so far as human foresight can extend, assured to them, can form not the slightest conception of the mingled pleasure and pain that chequer the life of “the adventurer.” ”

“ Oh, my good reader, has it been amongst your life's experiences to have submitted to an ordeal of this kind,—to be caged up of a wet day with an unwilling guest, whom you are called on to amuse, but know not how to interest; to feel that you are bound to employ his thoughts, with the sad consciousness that in every pause of the conversation he is cursing his hard fate at being in your company; to know that you must deploy all the resources of your agreeability without even a chance of success, your very efforts to amuse constituting in themselves a boredom? ”

“ Penthony Morris stormed the Villa Caprini, established herself, child, maid, and Skye terrier within its walls, and became, ere many days went over, a sort of influence in the place. It is not in chemistry alone that a single ingredient, minute and scarce perceptible, can change the property and alter all the quality of the mass with which it is mingled. Human nature exhibits phenomena precisely alike, and certain individuals possess the marvellous power of tingeing the world they mix in, with their own hue and color, and flavoring society with sweet or bitter, as temper induces them. ”

“ The little cottage at Port-na-Whapple, to which Alfred Layton had repaired to collect the last few relics of his poor mother, had so completely satisfied all his longings for quiet seclusion, that he lingered on there in a sort of dreamy abstractedness far from unpleasing. Quackinboss was with him, but never was there a companion less obtrusive. The honest American delighted in the spot; he was a fisherman, and soon became acquainted with all the choice places for the take of salmon, while he oftentimes strolled inland and whipped the mountain streams with no small success. ”

“ And thus the man that owns the winner of the Derby, a great cup carved by Cellini, or a chef-d'oeuvre of Claude or Turner, may repose upon the fame of his possession, identified as he is with so much greatness. Oh! ye possessors of show places, handsome wives, rare gardens, or costly gems, in what borrowed bravery do ye meet the world! Not that in this happy category Mr. O'Shea had his niche; no, he was only the owner of a ring—a rose-amethyst ring—whose purity was perhaps not more above suspicion than his own. ”

“ More intent upon regarding the man himself than caring to observe his game, O'Shea stationed himself in a position to watch his features, scan their whole expression, and mark every varying change impressed upon them. His experience of the world had made him a tolerable physiognomist, and he read the man before him reasonably well. “He is not a clever fellow,” thought he, “he is only a resolute one; and, even as such, not persistent. Still, he will be very hard to deal with; he distrusts every man.” Just as O'Shea was thus summing up to himself, an exclamation from the crowd startled him. ”

“ Stocmar. I will not pretend it But remember, what would life be if passed upon a tightrope, always poising, always balancing, never a moment without the dread of a fall, never a second without the consciousness that the slightest divergence might be death! Would you counsel me to face an existence like this? Remember, besides, that in the world we live in, they who wreck character are not the calumnious, they are simply the idle,—the men and women who, having nothing to do, do mischief without knowing. ”

“ He wished he could summon courage to say, “You shall not do so; there are grander triumphs before you, and we will share them together;” but somehow his “nerve” failed him, and he could not utter the words.
“I see what is passing in your heart, Mr. Stocmar,” said she, plaintively. “You are sorry for me,—you pity me,—but you can't help it. Well, that sympathy will be my comfort many a day hence, when you will have utterly forgotten me. I will think over it and treasure it when many a long mile will separate us.”
Mr. Stocmar went through another paroxysm of temptation. ”

“ Now, one can't live with a snob, though one may dine with him, smoke, flirt, ride, and chat with him. Is it not so?”
“Perfectly true.”
“Sir William is not snobbish. It is his one redeeming quality.”
“I see that. I remarked it the first day we met.”
“Oh dear! oh dear!” sighed she, drearily, “what a tame, poor, commonplace thing life becomes when it is reduced to English cookery for health, and respectability for morals! I could marry Stocmar if I pleased, papa.”
“Of course you could.”
“Or O'Shea,—'the O'Shea,'” said she, with a laugh. “How droll to be the she of that species! ”

“ Oh, the ineffable misery of an exposed shame! the terrible sense that we are to meet abroad and before the world the stern condemnation our conscience has already pronounced, and that henceforth we are to be shunned and avoided! There is not left to us any longer one mood of mind that can bring repose. If we are depressed, it is in the mourning of our guilt we seem to be dressed; if for a moment we assume the air of light-heartedness, it is to shock the world by the want of feeling for our shame! It is written that we are to be outcasts and live apart!
“May I come in, Loo?” ”

“ There is not, perhaps, a more painful position in life than to be obliged to essay a career to which all one's thoughts and instincts are opposed; to do something against which self-respect revolts, and yet meet no sympathy from others,—to be conscious that any backwardness will be construed into self-indulgence, and disinclination be set down as indolence. Now this was Alfred Layton's case. He must either risk a signal failure, or consent to be thought of as one who would rather be a burden to his friends than make an honorable effort for his own support. ”

“ A conservatory opened from one end, and at the other a large folding glass door gave upon a spacious terrace, along which a double line of orange-trees formed an alley of delicious shade. Scarcely had Stocmar passed the threshold than a very silvery voice accosted him from without.
“Oh, do come here, dear Mr. Stocmar, and enjoy the delightful freshness of this terrace. Let me present a very old friend of my family to you,—Captain Holmes. He has just returned from India, and can give you the very latest news of the war.” And the gentlemen bowed, and smiled, and looked silly at each other. ”

“ It is so very hard to believe that we are ourselves more changed than all around. We could have sworn that waterfall was twice as high, and certainly the lake used not to be the mere pond we see it; and the cedars,—surely these are not the cedars we were wont to sit under with Marian long ago? Oh dear! when I think that I once fancied I could pass my life in this spot, and now I am actually impatient for day-dawn that I may leave it!
With something of this humor three persons sat at sunset under the old beech-trees at the Bagni di Lucca. ”

“ Stocmar.”
“Surely, madam, you cannot mean me?” cried he, with a start.
“No other, sir. Had I the whole range of mankind to choose from, you would be the man; you embrace within yourself all the conditions the project requires; you possess all the special knowledge of the subject; you are a man of the world fully competent to decide what should be done, and how; you have the character of being one no stranger to generous motives, and you can combine a noble action with, of course, a very inadequate but still some personal advantage. ”

“ They both laughed very joyously after this, Stocmar breaking out into a second laugh after he had finished.
“Oh! Mr. Stocmar,” cried she, suddenly, and with an impetuosity that seemed beyond her control, “I have no need of a declaration on your part. I can read what passes in your heart by what I feel in my own. We have each of us seen that much of life to make us afraid of rash ventures. We want better security for our investments in affection than we used to do once on a time, not alone because we have seen so many failures, but that our disposable capital is less. ”