Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems.
conflicts, he would have laughed, or else been angry, even enough to
give her up.
Ah, weakness of the strong! of those strong only where strength is
weakness! Like others, she had the decisions of life to make before she
had light by which to make them. Let none condemn her. Those who have
not erred as fatally should thank the guardian angel who gave them more
time to prepare for judgment, but blame no children who thought at arm's
length to find the moon. Mariana, with a heart capable of highest Eros,
gave it to one who knew love only as a flower or plaything, and bound
her heartstrings to one who parted his as lightly as the ripe fruit
leaves the bough. The sequel could not fail. Many console themselves for
the one great mistake with their children, with the world. This was not
possible to Mariana. A few months of domestic life she still was almost
happy. But Sylvain then grew tired. He wanted business and the world: of
these she had no knowledge, for them no faculties. He wanted in her the
head of his house; she to make her heart his home. No compromise was
possible between natures of such unequal poise, and which had met only
on one or two points. Through all its stages she
"felt
The agonizing sense
Of seeing love from passion melt
Into indifference;
The fearful shame, that, day by day,
Burns onward, still to burn,
To have thrown her precious heart away,
And met this black return,"
till death at last closed the scene. Not that she died of one downright
blow on the heart. That is not the way such cases proceed. I cannot
detail all the symptoms, for I was not there to watch them, and aunt Z.,
who described them, was neither so faithful an observer or narrator as I
have shown myself in the school-day passages; but, generally, they were
as follows.
Sylvain wanted to go into the world, or let it into his house. Mariana
consented; but, with an unsatisfied heart, and no lightness of
character, she played her part ill there. The sort of talent and
facility she had displayed in early days were not the least like what is
called out in the social world by the desire to please and to shine. Her
excitement had been muse-like--that of the improvisatrice, whose
kindling fancy seeks to create an atmosphere round it, and makes the
chain through which to set free its electric sparks. That had been a
time of wild and exuberant life. After her character became more tender
and concentrated, strong affection or a pure enthusiasm might still have
called out beautiful talents in her. But in the first she was utterly
disappointed. The second was not roused within her mind. She did not
expand into various life, and remained unequal; sometimes too passive,
sometimes too ardent, and not sufficiently occupied with what occupied
those around her to come on the same level with them and embellish their
hours.
Thus she lost ground daily with her husband, who, comparing her with the
careless shining dames of society, wondered why he had found her so
charming in solitude.
At intervals, when they were left alone, Mariana wanted to open her
heart, to tell the thoughts of her mind. She was so conscious of secret
riches within herself, that sometimes it seemed, could she but reveal a
glimpse of them to the eye of Sylvain, he would be attracted near her
again, and take a path where they could walk hand in hand. Sylvain, in
these intervals, wanted an indolent repose. His home was his castle. He
wanted no scenes too exciting there. Light jousts and plays were well
enough, but no grave encounters. He liked to lounge, to sing, to read,
to sleep. In fine, Sylvain became the kind but preoccupied husband,
Mariana the solitary and wretched wife. He was off, continually, with
his male companions, on excursions or affairs of pleasure. At home
Mariana found that neither her books nor music would console her.
She was of too strong a nature to yield without a struggle to so dull a
fiend as despair. She looked into other hearts, seeking whether she
could there find such home as an orphan asylum may afford. This she did
rather because the chance came to her, and it seemed unfit not to seize
the proffered plank, than in hope; for she was not one to double her
stakes, but rather with Cassandra power to discern early the sure course
of the game. And Cassandra whispered that she was one of those
"Whom men love not, but yet regret;"
and so it proved. Just as in her childish days, though in a different
form, it happened betwixt her and these companions. She could not be
content to receive them quietly, but was stimulated to throw herself too
much into the tie, into the hour, till she filled it too full for them.
Like Fortunio, who sought to do homage to his friends by building a fire
of cinnamon, not knowing that its perfume would be too strong for their
endurance, so did Mariana. What she wanted to tell they did not wish to
hear; a little had pleased, so much overpowered, and they preferred the
free air of the street, even, to the cinnamon perfume of her palace.
However, this did not signify; had they staid, it would not have availed
her. It was a nobler road, a higher aim, she needed now; this did not
become clear to her.
She lost her appetite, she fell sick, had fever. Sylvain was alarmed,
nursed her tenderly; she grew better. Then his care ceased; he saw not
the mind's disease, but left her to rise into health, and recover the
tone of her spirits, as she might. More solitary than ever, she tried to
raise herself; but she knew not yet enough. The weight laid upon her
young life was a little too heavy for it. One long day she passed alone,
and the thoughts and presages came too thick for her strength. She knew
not what to do with them, relapsed into fever, and died.
Notwithstanding this weakness, I must ever think of her as a fine sample
of womanhood, born to shed light and life on some palace home. Had she
known more of God and the universe, she would not have given way where
so many have conquered. But peace be with her; she now, perhaps, has
entered into a larger freedom, which is knowledge. With her died a great
interest in life to me. Since her I have never seen a Bandit's Bride.
She, indeed, turned out to be only a merchant's. Sylvain is married
again to a fair and laughing girl, who will not die, probably, till
their marriage grows a "golden marriage."
Aunt Z. had with her some papers of Mariana's, which faintly shadow
forth the thoughts that engaged her in the last days. One of these seems
to have been written when some faint gleam had been thrown across the
path only to make its darkness more visible. It seems to have been
suggested by remembrance of the beautiful ballad, _Helen of Kirconnel
Lee_, which once she loved to recite, and in tones that would not have
sent a chill to the heart from which it came.
"Death
Opens her sweet white arms, and whispers, Peace;
Come, say thy sorrows in this bosom! This
Will never close against thee, and my heart,
Though cold, cannot be colder much than man's."
DISAPPOINTMENT.
"I wish I were where Helen lies."
A lover in the times of old,
Thus vents his grief in lonely sighs,
And hot tears from a bosom cold.
But, mourner for thy martyred love,
Couldst thou but know what hearts must feel.
Where no sweet recollections move,
Whose tears a desert fount reveal!
When "in thy arms bird Helen fell,"
She died, sad man, she died for thee;
Nor could the films of death dispel
Her loving eye's sweet radiancy.
Thou wert beloved, and she had loved,
Till death alone the whole could tell;
Death every shade of doubt removed,
And steeped the star in its cold well.
On some fond breast the parting soul
Relies--earth has no more to give;
Who wholly loves has known the whole;
The wholly loved doth truly live.
But some, sad outcasts from this prize,
Do wither to a lonely grave;
All hearts their hidden love despise,
And leave them to the whelming wave.
They heart to heart have never pressed,
Nor hands in holy pledge have given,
By father's love were ne'er caressed,
Nor in a mother's eye saw heaven.
A flowerless and fruitless tree,
A dried-up stream, a mateless bird,
They live, yet never living be,
They die, their music all unheard.
I wish I were where Helen lies,
For there I could not be alone;
But now, when this dull body dies,
The spirit still will make its moan.
Love passed me by, nor touched my brow;
Life would not yield one perfect boon;
And all too late it calls me now--
O, all too late, and all too soon.
If thou couldst the dark riddle read
Which leaves this dart within my breast,
Then might I think thou lov'st indeed,
Then were the whole to thee confest.
Father, they will not take me home;
To the poor child no heart is free;
In sleet and snow all night I roam;
Father, was this decreed by thee?
I will not try another door,
To seek what I have never found;
Now, till the very last is o'er,
Upon the earth I'll wander round.
I will not hear the treacherous call
That bids me stay and rest a while,
For I have found that, one and all,
They seek me for a prey and spoil.
They are not bad; I know it well;
I know they know not what they do;
They are the tools of the dread spell
Which the lost lover must pursue.
In temples sometimes she may rest,
In lonely groves, away from men,
There bend the head, by heats distressed,
Nor be by blows awoke again.
Nature is kind, and God is kind;
And, if she had not had a heart,
Only that great discerning mind,
She might have acted well her part.
But O this thirst, that nought can fill,
Save those unfounden waters free!
The angel of my life must still
And soothe me in eternity!
It marks the defect in the position of woman that one like Mariana
should have found reason to write thus. To a man of equal power, equal
sincerity, no more!--many resources would have presented themselves. He
would not have needed to seek, he would have been called by life, and
not permitted to be quite wrecked through the affections only. But such
women as Mariana are often lost, unless they meet some man of
sufficiently great soul to prize them.
Van Artevelde's Elena, though in her individual nature unlike my
Mariana, is like her in a mind whose large impulses are disproportioned
to the persons and occasions she meets, and which carry her beyond those
reserves which mark the appointed lot of woman. But, when she met Van
Artevelde, he was too great not to revere her rare nature, without
regard to the stains and errors of its past history; great enough to
receive her entirely, and make a new life for her; man enough to be a
lover! But as such men come not so often as once an age, their presence
should not be absolutely needed to sustain life.
SUNDAY MEDITATIONS ON VARIOUS TEXTS.
MEDITATION FIRST.
"And Jesus, answering, said unto them, Have faith in God."--_Mark_
xi. 22.
O, direction most difficult to follow! O, counsel most mighty of import!
Beauteous harmony to the purified soul! Mysterious, confounding as an
incantation to those yet groping and staggering amid the night, the fog,
the chaos of their own inventions!
Yes, this is indeed the beginning and the end of all knowledge and
virtue; the way and the goal; the enigma and its solution. The soul