Part 19 (2/2)
_Algernon._ I take that to be impossible.
Morgana blushed, held down her head, and made no reply. Algernon looked at her in silent admiration. A new light seemed to break in on him.
Though he had had so many opportunities of forming a judgment on the point, it seemed to strike him for the first time with irresistible conviction that he had never before heard such a sweet voice, nor seen such an expressive and intelligent countenance. And in this way they continued like two figures in a _tableau vivant,_ till the entrance of other parties broke the spell which thus had fixed them in their positions.
A few minutes more, and their destinies might have been irrevocably fixed. But the interruption gave Mr. Falconer the opportunity of returning again to his Tower, to consider, in the presence of the seven sisters, whether he should not be in the position of a Roman, who was reduced to the dilemma of migrating without his household deities, or of suffering his local deities to migrate without him; and whether he could sit comfortably on either of the horns of this dilemma. He felt that he could not. On the other hand, could he bear to see the fascinating Morgana metamorphosed into Lady Curryfin? The time had been when he had half wished it, as the means of restoring him to liberty. He felt now that when in her society he could not bear the idea; but he still thought that in the midst of his domestic deities he might become reconciled to it.
He did not care for horses, nor keep any for his own use. But as time and weather were not always favourable to walking, he had provided for himself a comfortable travelling-chariot, without a box to intercept the view, in which, with post-horses after the fas.h.i.+on of the olden time, he performed occasional migrations. He found this vehicle of great use in moving to and fro between the Grange and the Tower; for then, with all his philosophy, Impatience was always his companion: Impatience on his way to the Grange, to pa.s.s into the full attraction of the powerful spell by which he was drawn like the fated s.h.i.+p to the magnetic rock in the _Arabian Nights_: Impatience on his way to the Tower, to find himself again in the 'Regions mild of pure and serene air,' in which the seven sisters seemed to dwell, like Milton's ethereal spirits 'Before the starry threshold of Jove's court.' Here was everything to soothe, nothing to irritate or disturb him: nothing on the spot: but it was with him, as it is with many, perhaps with all: the two great enemies of tranquillity, Hope and Remembrance, would still intrude: not like a bubble and a spectre, as in the beautiful lines of Coleridge:{1}
Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, On him but seldom, Power divine, Thy spirit rests. Satiety, And sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, Mock the tired worldling. Idle Hope, And dire Remembrance, interlope, And vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: The bubble floats before: the spectre stalks behind.
--Coleridge's Ode to Tranquillity.
for the remembrance of Morgana was not a spectre, and the hope of her love, which he cherished in spite of himself, was not a bubble: but their forces were not less disturbing, even in the presence of his earliest and most long and deeply cherished a.s.sociations.
He did not allow his impatience to require that the horses should be put to extraordinary speed. He found something tranquillising in the movement of a postilion in a smart jacket, vibrating on one horse upwards and downwards, with one invariable regulated motion like the cross-head of a side-lever steam-engine, and holding the whip quietly arched over the neck of the other. The mechanical monotony of the movement seemed less in contrast than in harmony with the profound stillness of the wintry forest: the leafless branches heavy with rime frost and glittering in the sun: the deep repose of nature, broken now and then by the traversing of deer, or the flight of wild birds: highest and loudest among them the long lines of rooks: but for the greater part of the way one long deep silence, undisturbed but by the rolling of the wheels and the iron tinkling of the hoofs on the frozen ground. By degrees he fell into a reverie, and meditated on his last dialogue with _Morgana._
'It is a curious coincidence,' he thought, 'that she should have been dwelling in a pa.s.sage, in which her namesake enchantress inflicted punishment on Orlando for having lost his opportunity. Did she a.s.sociate Morgana with herself and Orlando with me? Did she intend a graceful hint to me not to lose _my_ opportunity? I seemed in a fair way to seize the golden forelock, if we had not been interrupted. Do I regret that I did not? That is just what I cannot determine. Yet it would be more fitting, that whatever I may do should be done calmly, deliberately, philosophically, than suddenly, pa.s.sionately, impulsively. One thing is clear to me. It is now or never: this or none. The world does not contain a second Morgana, at least not of mortal race. Well: the opportunity will return. So far, I am not in the predicament in which we left Orlando. I may yet ward off the scourge of _La Penitenza?_
But his arrival at home, and the sight of the seven sisters, who had all come to the hall-door to greet him, turned his thoughts for awhile into another channel.
He dined at his usual hour, and his two Hebes alternately filled his gla.s.s with Madeira. After which the sisters played and sang to him in the drawing-room; and when he had retired to his chamber, had looked on the many portraitures of his Virgin Saint, and had thought by how many charms of life he was surrounded, he composed himself to rest with the reflection: 'I am here like Ra.s.selas in the Happy Valley: and I can now fully appreciate the force of that beautiful chapter: _The wants of him who wants nothing?_'
CHAPTER XXI
SKATING--PAS DE DEUX ON THE ICE--CONGENIALITY--FLINTS AMONG BONES
Ubi lepos, joci, risus, ebrietas decent, Gratias, decor, hilaritas, atque delectatio, Qui quaerit alia his, malum videtur quaerere.
--Plautus: In Pseudolo.
Where sport, mirth, wine, joy, grace, conspire to please, He seeks but ill who seeks aught else than these.
The frost continued. The lake was covered over with solid ice. This became the chief scene of afternoon amus.e.m.e.nt, and Lord Curryfin carried off the honours of the skating. In the dead of the night there came across his memory a ridiculous stave:
There's Mr. Tait, he cuts an eight, He cannot cut a nine:
and he determined on trying if he could not out-do Mr. Tait.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Trying if he could not out-do Mr. Tait 187-157]
He thought it would be best to try his experiment without witnesses: and having more than an hour's daylight before breakfast, he devoted that portion of the morning to his purpose. But cutting a nine by itself baffled his skill, and treated him to two or three tumbles, which, however, did not abate his ardour. At length he bethought him of cutting a nine between two eights, and by s.h.i.+fting his feet rapidly at the points of difficulty, striking in and out of the nine to and from the eights on each side. In this he succeeded, and exhibiting his achievement in the afternoon, adorned the surface of the ice with successions of 898, till they amounted to as many s.e.xtillions, with their h.o.m.ogeneous sequences. He then enclosed the line with an oval, and returned to the bank through an admiring circle, who, if they had been as numerous as the spectators to the Olympic games, would have greeted him with as loud shouts of triumph as saluted Epharmostus of Opus.{1}
Among the spectators on the bank were Miss Niphet and Mr. MacBorrowdale, standing side by side. While Lord Curryfin was cutting his s.e.xtillions, Mr. MacBorrowdale said: 'There is a young gentleman who is capable of anything, and who would s.h.i.+ne in any pursuit, if he would keep to it.
He s.h.i.+nes as it is, in almost everything he takes in hand in private society: there is genius even in his failures, as in the case of the theatrical vases; but the world is a field of strong compet.i.tion, and affords eminence to few in any sphere of exertion, and to those few rarely but in one.'
_Miss Niphet._ Before I knew him, I never heard of him but as a lecturer on Fish; and to that he seems to limit his public ambition. In private life, his chief aim seems to be that of pleasing his company. Of course, you do not attach much value to his present pursuit. You see no utility in it.
_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ On the contrary, I see great utility in it. I am for a healthy mind in a healthy body: the first can scarcely be without the last, and the last can scarcely be without good exercise in pure air. In this way, there is nothing better than skating. I should be very glad to cut eights and nines with his lords.h.i.+p: but the only figure I should tut would be that of as many feet as would measure my own length on the ice.
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