A Love Story, by a Bushman by - (best mobile ebook reader .txt) 📕

Belliston Græme was an enthusiastic musician; and was in this peculiar,

that he loved the science for its simplicity. Musicians are but too apt

to give to music’s detail and music’s difficulties the homage that

should be paid to music’s self: in this resembling the habitual man of

law, who occasionally forgetteth the great principles of jurisprudence,

and invests with mysterious agency such words as latitat and certiorari.

The soul of music may not have fled;—for we cultivate her

assiduously,—worship Handel—and appreciate Mozart. But music now

springs from the head, not the heart; is not for the mass, but for

individuals. With our increased researches, and cares, and troubles, we

have lost the faculty of being pleased. Past are those careless days,

when the shrill musette, or plain cittern and virginals, could with

their first strain give motion to the blythe foot of joy, or call from

its cell the prompt tear of pity. Those days are gone! Music may affect

some of us as deeply, but none as readily!

Mr. Græme had received from Paris an unpublished opera of Auber’s.

Emily seated herself at the piano—her host took the violin—Clarendon

was an excellent flute player—and the tinkle of the Viscount’s guitar

came in very harmoniously. By the time refreshments were introduced,

Charles Selby too was in his glory. He had already nearly convulsed the

Orientalist by a theory which he said he had formed, of a gradual

metempsychosis, or, at all events, perceptible amalgamation, of the

yellow Qui Hi to the darker Hindoo; which said theory he supported by

the most ingenious arguments.

“How did you like your stay in Scotland, Mr. Selby?” said Sir

Henry Delmé.

“I am a terrible Cockney, Sir Henry,—found it very cold, and was very

sulky. The only man I cared to see in Scotland was at the Lakes; but I

kept a register of events, which is now on the table in my

dressing-room. If Græme will read it, for I am but a stammerer, it is

at your service.”

The paper was soon produced, and Mr. Græme read the following:—

“THE BRAHMIN.

“A stranger arrived from a far and foreign country. His was a mind

peculiarly humble, tremblingly alive to its own deficiencies. Yet,

endowed with this mistrust, he sighed for information, and his soul

thirsted in the pursuit of knowledge. Thus constituted, he sought the

city he had long dreamingly looked up to as the site of truth—Scotia’s

capital, the modern Athens. In endeavouring to explore the mazes of

literature, he by no means expected to discover novel paths, but sought

to traverse beauteous ones; feeling he could rest content, could he meet

with but one flower, which some bolder and more experienced adventurer

might have allowed to escape him. He arrived, and cast around an anxious

eye. He found himself involved in an apparent chaos—the whirl of

distraction—imbedded amidst a ceaseless turmoil of would-be knowing

students, endeavouring to catch the aroma of the pharmacopaeia, or dive

to the deep recesses of Scotch law. He sought and cultivated the

friendship of the literati; and anticipated a perpetual feast of soul,

from a banquet to which one of the most distinguished members of a

learned body had invited him. He went with his mind braced up for the

subtleties of argument—with hopes excited, heart elate. He deemed that

the authenticity of Champolion’s hieroglyphics might now be permanently

established, or a doubt thrown on them which would for ever extinguish

curiosity. He heard a doubt raised as to the probability of Dr. Knox’s

connection with Burke’s murders! Disappointed and annoyed, he returned

to his hotel, determined to seek other means of improvement; and to

carefully observe the manners, customs, and habits of the beings he was

among. He enquired first as to their habits, and was presented with

scones, kippered salmon, and a gallon of Glenlivet; as to their manners

and ancient costume, and was pointed out a short fat man, the head of

his clan, who promenaded the streets without trousers. Neither did he

find the delineation of their customs more satisfactory. He was made

nearly tipsy at a funeral—was shown how to carve haggis—and a fit of

bile was the consequence, of his too plentifully partaking of a

superabundantly rich currant bun. He mused over these defeats of his

object, and, unwilling to relinquish his hitherto fruitless

search,—reluctant to despair,—he bent his steps to that city, where

utility preponderates over ornament; that city which so early encouraged

that most glorious of inventions, by the aid of which he hoped, that the

diminutive barks of his countrymen might yet be propelled, thus

superseding the ponderous paddle of teak, He here expected to be

involved in an intricate labyrinth of mechanical inventions,—in a

stormy discussion on the comparative merits of rival machinery,—to be

immersed in speculative but gigantic theories. He was elected an

honorary member of a news-room; had his coat whitened with cotton; and

was obliged to confess that he knew of no beverage that could equal

their superb cold punch. Our philosopher now gave himself up to despair;

but before returning to his own warm clime, he sought to discover the

reason of his finding the flesh creep, where he had deemed the spirit

would soar. He at length came to the conclusion that we are all slaves

to the world and to circumstances; and as, with his peculiar belief, he

could look on our sacred volume with the eye of a philosopher, felt

impressed with the conviction that the history of Babel’s tower is but

an allegory, which says to the pride of man,

“‘Thus far shall ye go, and no farther.’”

The Brahmin’s adventures elicited much amusement. In a short time,

Selby was in a hot argument with the French novelist. Every now and

then, as the Frenchman answered him, he stirred his negus, and hummed a

translation of

“I’d be a butterfly.”

“Erim papilio,

Natus in flosculo.”

Chapter IV.

The Postman.

“Not in those visions, to the heart displaying

Forms which it sighs but to have only dream’d,

Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seem’d;

Or, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek

To paint those charms which, imaged as they beam’d,

To such as see thee not, my words were weak;

To those who gaze on thee, what language could they speak?”

Delmé had long designed some internal improvements in the mansion;

and as workmen would necessarily be employed, had proposed that our

family party should pass a few weeks at a watering place, until these

were completed. They were not without hopes, that George might there

join them, as Emily had written to Malta, pressing him to be present

at her wedding.

We have elsewhere said, that Sir Henry had arrived at middle age,

before one feeling incompatible with his ambitious thoughts arose. It

was at Leamington this feeling had imperceptibly sprung up; and to

Leamington they were now going.

Is there an electric chain binding hearts predestined to love?

Hath Providence ordained, that on our first interview with that being,

framed to meet our wishes and our desires—the rainbow to our cloud, and

the sun to our noonday—hath it ordained that there should also be

given us some undefinable token—some unconscious whispering from the

heart’s inmost spirit?

Who may fathom these inscrutable mysteries?

Sir Henry had been visiting an old schoolfellow, who had a country seat

near Leamington. He was riding homewards, through a sequestered and

wooded part of the park, when he was aware of the presence of two

ladies, evidently a mother and daughter. They sate on one side of the

rude path, on an old prostrate beech tree. The daughter, who was very

beautiful, was sketching a piece of fern for a foreground: the mother

was looking over the drawing. Neither saw the equestrian.

It was a fair sight to regard the young artist, with her fine profile

and drooping eyelid, bending over the drawing, like a Grecian statue;

then to note the calm features upturn, and forget the statue in the

breathing woman. At intervals, her auburn tresses would fall on the

paper, and sweep the pencil’s efforts. At such times, she would remove

them with her small hand, with such a soft smile, and gentle grace, that

the very action seemed to speak volumes for her feminine sympathies.

Delmé disturbed them not, but making a tour through the grove of beech

trees, reached Leamington in thoughtful mood.

It was not long before he met them in society. The mother was a Mrs.

Vernon, a widow, with a large family and small means. Of that family

Julia was the fairest flower. As Sir Henry made her acquaintance, and

her character unfolded itself, he acknowledged that few could study it

without deriving advantage; few without loving her to adoration. That

character it would be hard to describe without our description

appearing high-flown and exaggerated. It bore an impress of loftiness,

totally removed from pride; a moral superiority, which impressed all.

With this was united an innate purity, that seemed her birthright; a

purity that could not for an instant be doubted. If the libertine gazed

on her features, it awoke in him recollections that had long slumbered;

of the time when his heart beat but for one. If, in her immediate

sphere, any littleness of feeling was brought to her notice, it was met

with an intuitive doubt, followed by painful surprise, that such

feeling, foreign as she felt it to be to her own nature, could really

have existence in that of another.

Thank God! she had seen few of the trickeries of this restless world, in

which most of us are struggling against our neighbours; and, if we could

look forward with certainty, to the nature of the world beyond this, it

is most likely that we should breathe a fervent prayer that she should

never witness more.

Her person was a fit receptacle for such a mind. A face all softness,

seemed and was the index to a heart all pity. Taller than her

compeers,—in all she said or did, a native dignity and a witching

grace were exquisitely blended. She was one not easily seen without

admiration; but when known, clung Cydippe-like to the heart’s mirror, an

image over which neither time nor absence possessed controul.

The Delmés resided at Leamington the remainder of the winter, which

passed fleetly and happily. Emily, for the first time, gave way to that

one feeling, which, to a woman, is the all-important and engrossing one,

enjoying her happiness in that full spirit of content, which basking in

present joys, attempts not to mar them by ideal disquietudes. The Delmés

cultivated the society of the Vernons; Emily and Julia became great

friends; and Sir Henry, with all his stoicism, was nourishing an

attachment, whose force, had he been aware of it, he would have been at

some pains to repress. As it was, he totally overlooked the possibility

of his trifling with the feelings of another. He had a number of sage

aphorisms to urge against his own entanglement, and, with a moral

perverseness, from which the best of us are not free, chose to forget

that it was possible his convincing arguments, might neither be known

to, nor appreciated by one, on whom their effect might be far from

unimportant.

At this stage, Clarendon thought it his duty to warn Delmé; and, to his

credit be it said, shrunk not from it.

“Excuse me, Delmé,” said he, “will you allow me to say one word to you

on a subject that nearly concerns yourself?”

Sir Henry briefly assented.

“You see a great deal of Miss Vernon. She is a very fascinating and a

very amiable person; but from something you once said to