Anthony

“ The sublime conceit of a boy of fifteen made him of course think that she had detected in him a nobility that others overlooked, and so Anthony began a gorgeous course of day-dreaming, in which he moved as a kind of king, worshipped and reverenced by this splendid creature, who after a disillusionment from the empty vanities of a Court life and a Queen’s favour, found at last the lord of her heart in a simple manly young countryman. These dreams, however, he had the grace and modesty to keep wholly to himself. ”

“ Old Anthony did never see, my lord,
A swelling show'r, that did continue long:
A climbing tower that did not taste the wind:
A wrathful man not wasted with repent.
I speak of love, my Sylla, and of joy,
To see how fortune lends a pleasant gale
Unto the spreading sails of thy desires;
And, loving thee, must counsel thee withal:
For, as by cutting fruitful vines increase,
So faithful counsels work a prince's peace.
SYLLA. Thou honey-talking father, speak thy mind. ”

“ Fear not, Anthony; that hour may be far distant. God is just. You are innocent; trust in him. Trust firmly, nothing wavering, and he will save you. I have wept for you, prayed for you; would that I could die for you! My soul has been poured forth in tears; but never for one moment have I abused our holy friendship by imagining you guilty. Weep not for me, dear Anthony; I am happy. God is taking me from the evil to come, from the anguish of seeing you the husband of another. Death has no sting; I welcome him as a friend.
"When restored to peace, to happiness, and to Juliet, think kindly of me. ”

“ And, to fret the will with further indecision, Anthony, his eyes intent upon the pale girl in the simple black gown, and balked by the strange gravity that had settled upon the slim dainty figure, perceived the exquisite approach, the delicate fragrance and most subtle atmosphere of the coming of womanhood—an atmosphere which made it doubly difficult for him to commit himself to putting into the brutality of speech what cost him shame even in the thinking. ”

“ Anthony, a little awed, as one is by a range of feelings stretching beyond one’s grasp, comforted himself by the thought that probably the old fellow would have little to say. He wouldn’t want to talk about it. No man would. It must have been a real hell to him.
And then Anthony, at the end of the day in which he had gone through a marriage ceremony with Flora de Barral, ceased to think of Flora’s father except, as in some sort, the captive of his triumph. ”

“ Disgusted with his cousin and his dissipated associates, Anthony withdrew entirely from their society, and shut himself up in his own apartments, rarely leaving his books to mingle in scenes in which he could not sympathize, and in which, from his secluded habits, he was not formed to shine. He became a dreamer. He formed a world for himself, and peopled it with beings whose imaginary perfections had no counterpart on earth. ”

“ He comes and throws at him more talk than he had ever heard boomed out in an hour, and certainly touching the deepest things Anthony had ever discovered in himself, and flings words like "unfair" whose very sound is abhorrent to him. ”

“ Anthony was willing to take him at her valuation. This father may have been the victim of the most atrocious injustice. But what could a man coming out of jail do? An old man too. And then--what sort of man? What would become of them both? Anthony shuddered slightly and the faint smile with which Flora had entered the room faded on her lips. She was used to his impetuous tenderness. ”

“ And Anthony was extremely careful in preparing for himself and for the luckless Flora, an impossible existence. He went about it with no more tremors than if he had been stuffed with rags or made of iron instead of flesh and blood. An existence, mind you, which, on shore, in the thick of mankind, of varied interests, of distractions, of infinite opportunities to preserve your distance from each other, is hardly conceivable; but on board ship, at sea, _en tete-a-tete_ for days and weeks and months together, could mean nothing but mental torture, an exquisite absurdity of torment. ”

“ Anthony trudged along the empty village street, past the gleaming squares of ruddy gold, starting on either side out of the darkness. Now and then he looked furtively backwards. The straight open road lay behind him, glimmering wanly: the organ seemed to have ceased: the figure on the bridge had left the parapet, and appeared to be moving away towards the church. Anthony halted, watching it till it had disappeared into the blackness beneath the churchyard trees. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he left the road, and mounted an upland meadow towards his mother's farm. ”

“ Anthony is at first deafened by the billowy sound of voices. From the summit of the hippodrome to its lowest tiers, he sees only faces painted with rouge, garments checkered and variegated with many colors, flashing jewelry; and the sand of the arena, all white, gleams like a mirror.
The Emperor entertains him. He confides to him many matters of high importance, many secrets; he confesses the assassination of his son Criopus, and even asks Anthony for advice regarding his health. ”

“ Anthony was the last man to condemn conventionally any human being, to scorn and despise even deserved misfortune. He was ready to take old de Barral—the convict—on his daughter’s valuation without the slightest reserve. But love like his, though it may drive one into risky folly by the proud consciousness of its own strength, has a sagacity of its own. And now, as if lifted up into a higher and serene region by its purpose of renunciation, it gave him leisure to reflect for the first time in these last few days. ”

“ That same night he and John Bent, being abroad together, see you cross the road from this Chapel Lane, that leads direct from your house, you know, and enter the Friar's Keep; young Anthony runs over in your wake, and enters it also: and from that blessed moment he is never seen by mortal eyes again. People outside hear a shot and a scream--and that's all. Look dispassionately at the circumstances for yourself, and see if they do not afford grounds for suspicion. ”

“ Under certain conditions of life there is precious little time left for mere breathing. But still a few here and there were indulging in that luxury; yet few as they were Captain Anthony, though the least exclusive of men, resented their presence. Solitude had been his best friend. He wanted some place where he could sit down and be alone. And in his need his thoughts turned to the sea which had given him so much of that congenial solitude. There, if always with his ship (but that was an integral part of him) he could always be as solitary as he chose. ”

“ Anthony had discovered that he was not the proud master but the chafing captive of his generosity. It rose in front of him like a wall which his respect for himself forbade him to scale. He said to himself: “Yes, I was a fool—but she has trusted me!” Trusted! A terrible word to any man somewhat exceptional in a world in which success has never been found in renunciation and good faith. And it must also be said, in order not to make Anthony more stupidly sublime than he was, that the behaviour of Flora kept him at a distance. The girl was afraid to add to the exasperation of her father. ”

“ Anthony presses his hands to his head, and remains silent for a long time. Then, taking a step forward, he places his right hand in that of The Woman. They slowly leave the ground. As they mount in the air the few retarded rays of light utterly vanish, and blackest night confounds the jutting rock with the starless heaven. ”

“ Faithfulness to his old love made him quick to resent for Margaret Hare any injustice done to her daughter, and yet the estrangement from Anthony was very painful to him. He had tried to prevent it, but he could not show that there was perfect trust in his mind, and Anthony was keenly offended. Throughout his boyhood and bright youth the young fellow had been full of sanguine ardour, flushed with dreams and visions of great things to be done, where he was always the champion and deliverer, and would go forth, single-handed if need were, to fight against wrong. ”

“ People are not so much to us what they are as what we see them, so that there are some for whom the world must be full of terrible companions.
And with poor Anthony the colouring he laid on at this time was cold and grey enough. Every gleam of brightness lay behind him in the old days which had suddenly grown a lifetime apart,—school, college, home, where on all sides he was the most popular, the most brilliant, the most full of life. ”

“ A groom took his horse off to the stable, and Anthony himself followed the servant to a little oak-parlour looking on to a lawn with a yew hedge and a dial. He felt as one moving in a dream, bewildered by the rush of interviews, and oppressed by the awful burden that he bore at his heart. Nothing any longer seemed strange; and he scarcely gave a thought to what it meant when he heard the sound of trumpets in the court, as the Queen left the Hall. ”

“ It is not surprising that Miss Anthony writes in her journal at the beginning of the New Year, 1893: "The clouds do not lift from my spirit. I am simply overwhelmed with the feeling that I can not make my way through the work before me." Never a year in all her crowded life opened with such a mountain of things to be attended to—suffrage conventions, council meetings, the great Woman's Congress at the World's Fair, State campaigns, Industrial School matters, lecture engagements—the list seemed to stretch out into infinity, and it is no wonder that it appalled even her dauntless spirit. ”

“ She interrupted him quickly:
"Father is an innocent man. He was cruelly wronged."
"Yes. That's why," Anthony insisted earnestly. "And you are the only human being that can make it up to him. You alone must reconcile him with the world if anything can. But of course you shall. You'll have to find words. Oh you'll know. And then the sight of you, alone, would soothe--"
"He's the gentlest of men," she interrupted again.
Anthony shook his head. "It would take no end of generosity, no end of gentleness to forgive such a dead set. ”

“ Anthony listened respectfully, his thoughts still dwelling upon the beauty of the dusk without, of life. “You have tried a number of things in the past few years without success. I have started you in a small way again and again, only to observe the familiar course of a failure inevitable from your shiftless habits. You are not a bad boy, but you have no ability to concentrate, like a stream spread all over the meadow—you have no course. ”

“ How well he executed his trust, the reader already knows. But how he did it; how he discovered my whereabouts; how he got into Magistus’ employ; how he obtained the post whence he could aid me; his difficulties, his hopes, his fears, his emotions—all were buried with him—alas!
He will tell the whole story to me when I meet him in heaven, as I most assuredly shall.
Poor Anthony! brave to impetuosity, extravagantly generous, meek to the deepest humility, faithful to the last degree! ”

“ He demands too much from others. The inarticulate son had set up a standard for himself with that need for embodying in his conduct the dreams, the passion, the impulses the poet puts into arrangements of verses, which are dearer to him than his own self--and may make his own self appear sublime in the eyes of other people, and even in his own eyes.
Did Anthony wish to appear sublime in his own eyes? I should not like to make that charge; though indeed there are other, less noble, ambitions at which the world does not dare to smile. ”

“ The dead are raised, the sick are healed, the sea is calmed by a glance of St Anthony; even the lowest ranks of the creation are attracted by eloquence more than human, and give marks of sensibility. Fish swim in shoals to hear the word of the Lord; and to convince the obdurate and those accursed whose hearts the false reasoning of the world had hardened, mules and animals the most perversely obstinate humble themselves to the earth when Anthony holds forth the Sacrament, and acknowledge the presence of the Divinity. ”

“ Then suddenly appears—An Aged Woman. Anthony starts to his feet in affright. It seems to him that he beholds his mother arisen.
But this woman is far older, and prodigiously thin.
A shroud, knotted about her head, hangs down, together with her white hair, so as to cover her legs, slender as crutches. The brilliancy of her ivory-coloured teeth make her earthy skin darker still. The orbits of her eyes are full of shadow; and far back within them two flames vacillate, like the lamps of sepulchres. ”

“ And then, drifting across his bewildered senses, came the illusive, the penetrating, the remembered odor of lilacs, like a whisper, a promise, a magic caress.
LI IT was with a puzzled frown that Anthony halted in the heart of the city and considered his present resources, his future, possible plans. He had three dollars and some small silver left from the Hardinges, and he regarded with skepticism the profession of chauffeur; he would rather adventure the heavier work of the garages. ”

“ Anthony, however, returned, according to his custom, alone to his cell, increased his discipline, and sighed daily as he thought of the mansions of heaven, having his desire fixed on them and pondering over the shortness of man's life. ”

“ However, the Anthonys were free from all demoralizing influences. At sea, you know, there is no gallery. You hear no tormenting echoes of your own littleness there, where either a great elemental voice roars defiantly under the sky or else an elemental silence seems to be part of the infinite stillness of the universe.
Remembering Flora de Barral in the depths of moral misery, and Roderick Anthony carried away by a gust of tempestuous tenderness, I asked myself, Is it all forgotten already? ”