Part 27 (1/2)

”It makes me melancholy,” said Charles.

”What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?” asked his mother.

”Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me.”

”Charles always says so,” said Mary; ”he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer.”

”No, it is not that,” said Charles; ”I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death.”

”Surely,” said Mary, ”colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake.”

”No, no,” said Charles, ”we always go by a.s.sociation; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?”

”What next?” said his mother, looking up from her work; ”my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?”

”No, my dear mother,” answered Charles, laughing, ”no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them.”

”A toad look like a cherry, Charles!” persisted Mrs. Reding.

”Oh, my dear mother,” he answered, ”I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have.”

”But,” said Mary, ”why not a.s.sociate pleasant thoughts with autumn?”

”It is impossible,” said Charles; ”it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution.”

”This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles,” said Mary; ”shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you.”

Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, ”Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'”

”So, my dearest Charles,” said Mrs. Reding, ”you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?”

”Oh,” said Charles, laughing, ”it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it.”

”I am glad we have you here, my dear,” said his mother, ”for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all.”

”It's only for a time, ma'am,” said Charles; ”when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school.”

”Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!” said Mary; ”so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!”

”Ah, my dear,” said Mrs. Reding, ”you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything.”

”It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent,” said Mary: ”you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal.”

”True, my love,” answered Mrs. Reding; ”Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!”

Charles sighed. ”Come, Mary,” he said, ”give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'”

”Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!” cried Mary.