Wilfrid Cumbermede by George MacDonald (desktop ebook reader txt) 📕

of some lovely secret behind, of which itself was but the half-modelled representation, and therefore the reluctant outcome.'

'Suppose I rejected the latter half of what you say, admitting the former, but judging it only the fortuitous result of the half-necessary, half-fortuitous concurrences of nature. Suppose I said:-The air which is necessary to our life, happens to be blue; the stars can't help shining through it and making it look deep; and the clouds are just there because they must be somewhere till they fall again; all which is more agreeable to us than fog because we feel more comfortable in weather of the sort, whence, through complacency and habit, we have got to call it beautiful:-suppose I said this, would you accept it?'

'Such a theory would destroy my delight in nature altogether.'

'Well, isn't it the truth?'

'It would be easy to show that the sense of beauty does not spring from any amount of comfort; but I do not care to pursue the argument from that starting-point.-I confess when you have once waked the questioning spirit, and I look up at the clouds and the stars with what I may call sharpened eyes-eyes, that is, which assert their seeing, and so render themselves incapable for the time of submitting to impressions, I am as blind as any Sadducee could desire. I see blue, and white, and gold, and, in short, a tent-roof somewhat ornate. I dare say if I were in a miserable mood, having been deceived and disappointed like Hamlet, I should with him see there nothing but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. But I know that when I am passive to its powers, I am aware of a presence altogether different-of a something at once soothing and elevating, powerful to move shame-even contrition and the desire of amendment.'

'Yes, yes,' said Charley hastily. 'But let me suppose further-and, perhaps you will allow, better-that this blueness-I take a part for the whole-belongs essentially and of necessity to the atmosphere, itself so essential to our physical life; suppose also that this blue has essential relation to our spiritual nature-taking for the moment our spiritual nature for granted-suppose, in a word, all nature so related, not only to our physical but to our spiritual nature, that it and we form an organic whole full of action and reaction between the parts-would that satisfy you? Would it enable you to look on the sky this night with absolute pleasure? would you want nothing more?'

I thought for a little before I answered.

'No, Charley,' I said at last-'it would not satisfy me. For it would indicate that beauty might be, after all, but the projection of my own mind-the name I gave to a harmony between that around me and that within me. There would then be nothing absolute in beauty. There would be no such thing in itself. It would exist only as a phase of me when I was in a certain mood; and when I was earthly-minded, passionate, or troubled, it would be no where. But in my best moods I feel that in nature lies the form and fashion of a peace and grandeur so much beyond anything in me, that they rouse the sense of poverty and incompleteness and blame in the want of them.'

'Do you perceive whither you are leading yourself?'

'I would rather hear you say.'

'To this then-that the peace and grandeur of which you speak must be a mere accident, therefore an unreality and pure appearance , or the outcome and representation of a peace and grandeur which, not to be found in us, yet exist, and make use of this frame of things to set forth and manifest themselves in order that we may recognize and desire them.'

'Granted-heartily.'

'In other words-you lead yourself inevitably to a God manifest in nature-not as a powerful being-that is a theme absolutely without interest to me-but as possessed in himself of the original pre-existent beauty, the counterpart of which in us we call art, and who has fashioned us so that we must fall down and worship the image of himself which he has set up.'

'That's good, Charley. I'm so glad you've worked that out!'

'It doesn't in the least follow that I believe it. I cannot even say I wish I did:-for what I know, that might be to wish to be deceived. Of all miseries-to believe in a lovely thing and find it not true-that must be the worst.'

'You might never find it out, though,' I said. 'You might be able to comfort yourself with it all your life.'

'I was wrong,' he cried fiercely. 'Never to find it out would be the hell of all hells. Wilfrid, I am ashamed of you!'

'So should I be, Charley, if I had meant it. I only wanted to make you speak. I agree with you entirely. But I do wish we could be quite sure of it; for I don't believe any man can ever be sure of a thing that is not true.'

'My father is sure that the love of nature is not only a delusion, but a snare. I should have no right to object, were he not equally sure of the existence of a God who created and rules it. By the way, if I believed in a God, I should say create s not create d. I told him once, not long ago, when he fell out upon nature-he had laid hands on a copy of Endymion belonging to me-I don't know how the devil he got it-I asked him whether he thought the devil made the world. You should have seen the white wrath he went into at the question! I told him it was generally believed one or the other did make the world. He told me God made the world, but sin had unmade it. I asked him if it was sin that made it so beautiful. He said it was sin that made me think it so beautiful. I remarked how very ugly it must have looked when God had just finished it! He called me a blasphemer, and walked to the door. I stopped him for a moment by saying that I thought, after all, he must be right, for according to geologists the world must have been a horrible place, and full of the most hideous creatures, before sin came and made it lovely. When he saw my drift, he strode up to me like-well, very like his own God, I should think-and was going to strike me. I looked him in the eyes without moving, as if he had been a madman. He turned and left the room. I left the house, and went back to London the same night.'

'Oh! Charley, Charley, that was too bad!'

'I knew it, Wilfrid, and yet I did it! But if your father had made a downright coward of you, afraid to speak the truth, or show what you were thinking, you also might find that, when anger gave you a fictitious courage, you could not help breaking out. It's only another form of cowardice, I know; and I am as much ashamed of it as you could wish me to be.'

'Have you made it up with him since?'

'I've never seen him since.'

'Haven't you written, then?'

'No. Where's the use? He never would understand me. He knows no more of the condition of my mind than he does of the other side of the moon. If I offered such, he would put aside all apology for my behaviour to him-repudiating himself, and telling me it was the wrath of an offended God, not of an earthly parent, I had to deprecate. If I told him I had only spoken against his false God-how far would that go to mend the matter, do you think?'

'Not far, I must allow. But I am very sorry.'

'I wouldn't care if I could be sure of anything-or even sure that, if I were sure, I shouldn't be mistaken.'

'I'm afraid you're very morbid, Charley.'

'Perhaps. But you cannot deny that my father is sure of things that you believe utterly false.'

'I suspect, however, that, if we were able to get a bird's-eye view of his mind and all its workings, we should discover that what he called assurance was not the condition you would call such. You would find it was not the certainty you covet.'

'I have thought of that, and it is my only comfort. But I am sick of the whole subject. See that cloud! Isn't it like Death on the pale horse? What fun it must be for the cherubs, on such a night as this, to go blowing the clouds into fantastic shapes with their trumpet cheeks!'

Assurance was ever what Charley wanted, and unhappily the sense of intellectual insecurity weakened his moral action.

Once more I reveal a haunting uneasiness in the expression of a hope that the ordered character of the conversation I have just set down may not render it incredible to my reader. I record the result alone. The talk itself was far more desultory, and in consequence of questions, objections, and explanations, divaricated much from the comparatively direct line I have endeavoured to give it here. In the hope of making my reader understand both Charley and myself, I have sought to make the winding and rough path straight and smooth.


CHAPTER XXXVI.


TAPESTRY.

Having heard what I was about at the Hall, Charley expressed a desire to take a share in my labours, especially as thereby he would be able to see more of his mother and sister. I took him straight to the book-rooms, and we were hard at work when Clara entered.

'Here is your old friend Charley Osborne,' I said. 'You remember Miss Coningham, Charley, I know.'

He advanced in what seemed a strangely embarrassed-indeed, rather sheepish manner, altogether unlike his usual bearing. I attributed it to a doubt whether Clara would acknowledge their old acquaintance. On her part, she met him with some frankness, but I thought also a rather embarrassed look, which was the more surprising as I had let her know he was coming. But they shook hands, and in a little while we were all chatting comfortably.

'Shall I go and tell Mrs Osborne you are here?' she asked.

'Yes, if you please,' said Charley, and she went.

In a few minutes Mrs Osborne and Mary entered. The meeting was full of affection, but to my eye looked like a meeting of the living and the dead in a dream-there was such an evident sadness in it, as if each was dimly aware that they met but in appearance, and were in reality far asunder. I could not doubt that however much they loved him, and however little they sympathized with his father's treatment of him, his mother and sister yet regarded him as separated from them by a great gulf-that of culpable unbelief. But they seemed therefore only the more anxious to please and serve him-their anxiety revealing itself in an eagerness painfully like the service offered to one whom the doctors had given up, and who may now have any indulgence he happens to fancy.

'I say, mother,' said Charley, who seemed to strive after an airier manner even than usual-'couldn't you come and help us? It would be so jolly!'

'No, my dear; I mustn't leave Lady Brotherton. That would be rude, you know. But I dare say Mary might.'

'Oh, please, mamma! I should like it so much-especially