Part 43 (1/2)
”But surely that is a happiness to have so many tastes,--to enjoy so many beautiful things, when they are within your reach,” said Maggie, musingly. ”It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent,--almost like a carrier-pigeon.”
”It might be a happiness to have many tastes if I were like other men,” said Philip, bitterly. ”I might get some power and distinction by mere mediocrity, as they do; at least I should get those middling satisfactions which make men contented to do without great ones. I might think society at St. Ogg's agreeable then. But nothing could make life worth the purchase-money of pain to me, but some faculty that would lift me above the dead level of provincial existence. Yes, there is one thing,--a pa.s.sion answers as well as a faculty.”
Maggie did not hear the last words; she was struggling against the consciousness that Philip's words had set her own discontent vibrating again as it used to do.
”I understand what you mean,” she said, ”though I know so much less than you do. I used to think I could never bear life if it kept on being the same every day, and I must always be doing things of no consequence, and never know anything greater. But, dear Philip, I think we are only like children that some one who is wiser is taking care of. Is it not right to resign ourselves entirely, whatever may be denied us? I have found great peace in that for the last two or three years, even joy in subduing my own will.”
”Yes, Maggie,” said Philip, vehemently; ”and you are shutting yourself up in a narrow, self-delusive fanaticism, which is only a way of escaping pain by starving into dulness all the highest powers of your nature. Joy and peace are not resignation; resignation is the willing endurance of a pain that is not allayed, that you don't expect to be allayed. Stupefaction is not resignation; and it is stupefaction to remain in ignorance,--to shut up all the avenues by which the life of your fellow-men might become known to you. I am not resigned; I am not sure that life is long enough to learn that lesson. _You_ are not resigned; you are only trying to stupefy yourself.”
Maggie's lips trembled; she felt there was some truth in what Philip said, and yet there was a deeper consciousness that, for any immediate application it had to her conduct, it was no better than falsity. Her double impression corresponded to the double impulse of the speaker.
Philip seriously believed what he said, but he said it with vehemence because it made an argument against the resolution that opposed his wishes. But Maggie's face, made more childlike by the gathering tears, touched him with a tenderer, less egotistic feeling. He took her hand and said gently:
”Don't let us think of such things in this short half-hour, Maggie. Let us only care about being together. We shall be friends in spite of separation. We shall always think of each other. I shall be glad to live as long as you are alive, because I shall think there may always come a time when I can--when you will let me help you in some way.”
”What a dear, good brother you would have been, Philip,” said Maggie, smiling through the haze of tears. ”I think you would have made as much fuss about me, and been as pleased for me to love you, as would have satisfied even me. You would have loved me well enough to bear with me, and forgive me everything. That was what I always longed that Tom should do. I was never satisfied with a _little_ of anything. That is why it is better for me to do without earthly happiness altogether.
I never felt that I had enough music,--I wanted more instruments playing together; I wanted voices to be fuller and deeper. Do you ever sing now, Philip?” she added abruptly, as if she had forgotten what went before.
”Yes,” he said, ”every day, almost. But my voice is only middling, like everything else in me.”
”Oh, sing me something,--just one song. I _may_ listen to that before I go,--something you used to sing at Lorton on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when we had the drawing-room all to ourselves, and I put my ap.r.o.n over my head to listen.”
”_I_ know,” said Philip; and Maggie buried her face in her hands while he sang _sotto voce_, ”Love in her eyes sits playing,” and then said, ”That's it, isn't it?”
”Oh no, I won't stay,” said Maggie, starting up. ”It will only haunt me. Let us walk, Philip. I must go home.”
She moved away, so that he was obliged to rise and follow her.
”Maggie,” he said, in a tone of remonstrance, ”don't persist in this wilful, senseless privation. It makes me wretched to see you benumbing and cramping your nature in this way. You were so full of life when you were a child; I thought you would be a brilliant woman,--all wit and bright imagination. And it flashes out in your face still, until you draw that veil of dull quiescence over it.”
”Why do you speak so bitterly to me, Philip?” said Maggie.
”Because I foresee it will not end well; you can never carry on this self-torture.”
”I shall have strength given me,” said Maggie, tremulously.
”No, you will not, Maggie; no one has strength given to do what is unnatural. It is mere cowardice to seek safety in negations. No character becomes strong in that way. You will be thrown into the world some day, and then every rational satisfaction of your nature that you deny now will a.s.sault you like a savage appet.i.te.”
Maggie started and paused, looking at Philip with alarm in her face.
”Philip, how dare you shake me in this way? You are a tempter.”
”No, I am not; but love gives insight, Maggie, and insight often gives foreboding. _Listen_ to me,--let _me_ supply you with books; do let me see you sometimes,--be your brother and teacher, as you said at Lorton. It is less wrong that you should see me than that you should be committing this long suicide.”
Maggie felt unable to speak. She shook her head and walked on in silence, till they came to the end of the Scotch firs, and she put out her hand in sign of parting.
”Do you banish me from this place forever, then, Maggie? Surely I may come and walk in it sometimes? If I meet you by chance, there is no concealment in that?”
It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become irrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon us--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm conviction, we s.n.a.t.c.h at any sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.