Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete
alone, I might yet find a home, a comforter, a charitable and soothing
friend. This you could give to me; and with a heart and a form alike
faithful to a love that deserved not so enduring a devotion. But I--what
can I bestow on you? Your station is equal to my own; your fortune
satisfies your simple wants. 'Tis true the exchange is not equal, Alice.
Adieu!"
"Cruel!" said Alice, approaching him with timid steps. "If I could--I,
so untutored, so unworthy--if I could comfort you in a single care!"
She said no more, but she had said enough; and Maltravers, clasping her
to his bosom, felt once more that heart which never, even in thought,
had swerved from its early worship, beating against his own!
He drew her gently into the open air. The ripe and mellow noonday of the
last month of summer glowed upon the odorous flowers, and the broad sea,
that stretched beyond and afar, wore upon its solemn waves a golden and
happy smile.
"And ah," murmured Alice, softly, as she looked up from his breast,
"I ask not if you have loved others since we parted--man's faith is so
different from ours--I only ask if you love me now?"
"More! oh, immeasurably more, than in our youngest days!" cried
Maltravers, with fervent passion. "More fondly, more reverently, more
trustfully, than I ever loved living being!--even her, in whose youth
and innocence I adored the memory of thee! Here have I found that which
shames and bankrupts the Ideal! Here have I found a virtue, that, coming
at once from God and Nature, has been wiser than all my false philosophy
and firmer than all my pride! You, cradled by misfortune,--your
childhood reared amidst scenes of fear and vice, which, while they
seared back the intellect, had no pollution for the soul,--your very
parent your tempter and your foe; you, only not a miracle and an angel
by the stain of one soft and unconscious error,--you, alike through the
equal trials of poverty and wealth, have been destined to rise above all
triumphant; the example of the sublime moral that teaches us with what
mysterious beauty and immortal holiness the Creator has endowed our
human nature when hallowed by our human affections! You alone suffice
to shatter into dust the haughty creeds of the Misanthrope and Pharisee!
And your fidelity to my erring self has taught me ever to love, to
serve, to compassionate, to respect the community of God's creatures to
which--noble and elevated though you are--you yet belong!"
He ceased, overpowered with the rush of his own thoughts. And Alice was
too blessed for words. But in the murmur of the sunlit leaves, in the
breath of the summer air, in the song of the exulting birds, and the
deep and distant music of the heaven-surrounded seas, there went a
melodious voice that seemed as if Nature echoed to his words, and blest
the reunion of her children.
Maltravers once more entered upon the career so long suspended. He
entered with an energy more practical and steadfast than the fitful
enthusiasm of former years; and it was noticeable amongst those who
knew him well, that while the firmness of his mind was not impaired, the
haughtiness of his temper was subdued. No longer despising Man as he
is, and no longer exacting from all things the ideal of a visionary
standard, he was more fitted to mix in the living World, and to minister
usefully to the great objects that refine and elevate our race. His
sentiments were, perhaps, less lofty, but his actions were infinitely
more excellent, and his theories infinitely more wise.
Stage after stage we have proceeded with him through the MYSTERIES OF
LIFE. The Eleusinia are closed, and the crowning libation poured.
And Alice!--Will the world blame us if you are left happy at the
last? We are daily banishing from our law-books the statutes that
disproportion punishment to crime. Daily we preach the doctrine that we
demoralize wherever we strain justice into cruelty. It is time that we
should apply to the Social Code the Wisdom we recognize in Legislation!
It is time that we should do away with the punishment of death for
inadequate offences, even in books; it is time that we should allow the
morality of atonement, and permit to Error the right to hope, as the
reward of submission to its suffering. Nor let it be thought that the
close to Alice's career can offer temptation to the offence of its
commencement. Eighteen years of sadness, a youth consumed in silent
sorrow over the grave of Joy, have images that throw over these pages a
dark and warning shadow that will haunt the young long after they turn
from the tale that is about to close! If Alice had died of a broken
heart, if her punishment had been more than she could bear, _then_, as
in real life, you would have justly condemned my moral; and the human
heart, in its pity for the victim, would have lost all recollection of
the error.--My tale is done.
THE END.