Produced by Dagny; and by David Widger
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O Fate! O Heaven!—what have ye then decreed?
SOPHOCLES: OEd. Tyr. 738.
"Insolent pride . . .
. . . . . .
The topmost crag of the great precipice
Surmounts—to rush to ruin."
Ibid. 874.
. . . SHE is young, wise, fair,
In these to Nature she's immediate heir.
. . . . . .
. . . Honours best thrive
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers!—All's Well that Ends Well.
EVELYN is free; she is in Paris; I have seen her,—I see her daily!
How true it is that we cannot make a philosophy of indifference! Theaffections are stronger than all our reasonings. We must take them intoour alliance, or they will destroy all our theories of self-government.Such fools of fate are we, passing from system to system, from scheme toscheme, vainly seeking to shut out passion and sorrow-forgetting thatthey are born within us—and return to the soul as the seasons to theearth! Yet,—years, many years ago, when I first looked gravely into myown nature and being here, when I first awakened to the dignity andsolemn responsibilities of human life, I had resolved to tame and curbmyself into a thing of rule and measure. Bearing within me the woundscarred over but never healed, the consciousness of wrong to the heartthat had leaned upon me, haunted by the memory of my lost Alice, Ishuddered at new affections bequeathing new griefs. Wrapped in a haughtyegotism, I wished not to extend my empire over a wider circuit than myown intellect and passions. I turned from the trader-covetousness ofbliss, that would freight the wealth of life upon barks exposed to everywind upon the seas of Fate; I was contented with the hope to pass lifealone, honoured, though unloved. Slowly and reluctantly I yielded to thefascinations of Florence Lascelles. The hour that sealed the compactbetween us was one of regret and alarm. In vain I sought to deceivemyself,—I felt that I did not love. And then I imagined that Love wasno longer in my nature,—that I had exhausted its treasures before mytime, and left my heart a bankrupt. Not till the last—not till thatglorious soul broke out in all its brightness the nearer it approachedthe source to which it has returned—did I feel of what tenderness shewas worthy and I was capable. She died, and the world was darkened!Energy, ambition, my former aims and objects, were all sacrificed at hertomb. But amidst ruins and through the darkness, my soul yet supportedme; I could no longer hope, but I could endure. I was resolved that Iwould not be subdued, and that the world should not hear me groan.Amidst strange and far-distant scenes, amidst hordes to whom my verylanguage was unknown, in wastes and forests, which the step of civilizedman, with his sorrows and his dreams, had never trodden, I wrestled withmy soul, as the patriarch of old wrestled with the angel,—and the angelwas at last the victor! You do not mistake me: you know that it was notthe death of Florence alone that worked in me that awful revolution; butwith that death the last glory fled from the face of t