Lady Stella and Her Lover - Forgotten Books

LA DY S T E L LA

A N D H E R L O V E R .

H ENRY SOLLY,

AUT H OR OF“CH ARLES DAYRELL

,

”&c.

Ah,for some retreat

Deep in yonder shining Orient , where my life began t o beat .

Or to burst all links of habit—there to wander far away ,On from island unto island, at the gat eways of the day .

Larger constellat iops burnmg, mellow moons, and happy skies,Breadths of t roplc shade and palms in cluster, knot s of Paradl se.

Never comes the trader, never float s a. European flag,Shdes the bird o

’

er lustrous woodland , swings the tral ler from the crag

Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the heavy-fruited treeSummer 1sles of E den lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

T ENNYSON . Locl sley H a ll .

JTF IYIBENE P71LZLMHES .

VWIL. I.

gonbon

WARD DOWNEY,

IQ YOR ! S T R E E T, OO V E N T G AR D E N .

1888 .

!All Rzghts Reserved ]

WOR! S BY T H E SAM E AUT H OR.

CHARLES DAYRELL or, the Worship of Joy.

Crown 8vo . Price 3s .

The state of Oriel at the t ime,the influences Which surrounded alike

the undergraduat es and the Fel lows, the new leaven working in the old

form s,the aspirat ion s for freedom ,

purity,t rue beauty , and self - sacnfice

for the sake of ot hers, the high ideal of a man ly,noble l ife ai e

exceedingly t ruthfully and vigorously poi t rayed.

”—The Guardwn.

Oxford life set before a s in a very l i felike way . T he sceneo f t h i s rep t es ent at ion The Bacchanals —is described With muchgraphic force .

”—Spectator .

“ Th is volume,though in the form o f a fic tion

,embodie s a vast deal of

experience and thought .

”—Brztish Quarterly Review.

This,t o us

,deeply int erest ing and sugges t ive volume .

t eachings are pure and beaut iful . ”—Christmn World .

This is a good s tory full of thought and experience.

M r. Solly ski lfully keeps up the int eres t . It s lof ty aim i s neverforgot t en .

”—Nonconformist .“An eloquen t expos it ion of what the author conceives t o be the t ruesp irit of Bacchus . A s a p icture , t oo . of Oxford life some sixtyyears ago, it is well worth reading .

—P a ll fif al l Gaz et te.

T he concept ion is good. The ideas of unbounded energy and

spont aneous Joy in luring .

—Oa:ford JIIagaz me.

In m any respect s M r. So lly ’s hero is a fine characte1*, quite unmedicated,but he somet imes does strange things . ”—Cambr idge Revi ew.

T he novelty and boldness of hl S main i dea in thi s remai kable t alecannot fal l t o command at ten t ion .

—]Zlustm te(l LondonNews .

For his Spii it of generous sympathy W it h all f01ms of fai th Wh ich re

gard act ive benevolence as a, cardinal V ir tue,no encomium could be t oo

large .

"—T/ze Graphzc.

THE SH EPH ERD’

S DREAM . R ice 33 .

The poet ical spir it and dramat ic vigour of the Rev.Henry Solly’s

Gon z aga,’ published some t ime since,are more than equalled in his new

dramat ic romance, t o Which he has given the t 1t le of ‘ T he Shepherd ’sDream .

’T he scene of the play is laid in Suffolk and in London

,in the

reigns of E dward V I. and Queen M ary , and t he t ender,fanciful love

st ory Whi ch furnishes t he element of romant ic in teres t is skilfully int erwoven with t okens of the spir1t of those tronblous t imes . The

charac ter of the heroine,Lady Adela, Whose nat ural playfulnes s o f dis

posi t ion is allied With a s trong will and deep earnestness,only requ iring

mee t occasion for their exercise,is sketched W it h remai kable subt lety in

M r. Solly ’ s beaut iful semi-past oral drama .

”—Daily News .

JAM ES WOODFORD CARPENTER CHARTIST .

T wo vols. Denny 8vo . Price 5s .

This work is calcula ted t o have a vast influence for good amongworking men.

”—Illustra ted Carpenter and Builder.

LADY STELLAAND HERLOVER.

CHAPTER I.

YEs—it was a brilliant ball which was given thatwarm night in June

,187 At least everybody

said so. H ow coul d it be otherwise ? A Fancy-dressball at the Countess of Glenalvon’

s in the heightof the season l— This revival of a somewhat ancientbut most charming festival was certainly a brightidea .

There were many guests present, thr onging the

spacious rooms in varied and splendid costumes ;innumerable coloured lamps, Chinese lanterns , andbrilliant sun- lights ; beautiful flowers and flowering

shrubs in profusion,capital music, graceful dancing

with old- fashioned minuets and Sir Roger de

Coverley at intervals ; rivers of champagne and allthe delicacies of the season .

’2 Charming little alcovesand conservatories naturally predestined for subdued

b

\conversation and more or les s serious flirtat ions ;above all, lovely women and agreeable men. Whatmore could be desired by mortal man ?There was one young mortal man among the

V OL. 1. 1

2 LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER .

guests,however

,in a Spenserian dress—which by

the-bye was generally supposed to indicate Hamletas the wearer—who when he was young

,. as he

pensively remarked to an intimate friend , hadimmensely enj oyed all aesthetic delights of a re

fined description, but on this occasion was wandering restlessly about

,like one distraught. The said

friend, an old Oxford chum,encountering him with

mild surprise and pleasure,chaffed him on too

closely resembling the Prince of Denmark,for

“ man delights you not,nor evidently, women

either, nor this brave o’

erhanging firmament , frettedWith golden and Chinese fire. Yet , my dear fellow,

continued his friend,here is a fine opportunity

for indulging in that Worship of Joy —pa frd0n, I

forgot your father was lately murdered by a usurping King of Denmark . Well, well

‘ Life ’s a jest , and all thi ngs show itMost of a ll to a sucking poet

,

You thought so once,and now you know it

And constancy l ives in realms above,And l ife i s thorny and youth is vain .

’

Farewell . You taught me apt quotations andmust take the consequences .”

Sad to say the melancholy poet or prince re

fused to be comforted, and responded not to hisfriend’s chaff, save by a compassionate glance . H e

wa s ambitious , dreamy, highly-gifted, self- centred

(not self- indulgent), foolishly romantic, j ust twentyfour

,and passionately in love . There were probably

LADY STELLA AND H ER LOVER . 3

ninety and nine young m en that night, extremely

like him , in Oxford, Cambridge, London , Boston,U.S. , and Berlin . But he was none the les s to bepitied for that reason—thought his friend (whofigured as one of Charles L’

s cavaliers )— and who,though cyni cal

,had much regard for poor Hamlet

in spite of himself. H e was about to make one

more attempt to cheer him up before part ing byanother appropriate , though not exactly novel

,

quotation,when the prince or embryo poet whi s

pered suddenly“ I say, Ellerslie , who

’s that infernal fool apingFrancis I. standing up to waltz with

“ Don’t know. Never had much acquainta ncewith fools— except one— (sotto voce) . Turn yourthoughts away

,my friend . Listen to a writer who,

certainly, was no foolThe lamps shone o

’

er fair women and brave men,

A t housand heart s bea t happi ly.

Then why not thine, poetic friend —No answer!

so he continuedAnd when

Mus i c arose wi th its voluptuous swell ,Soft eyes looked love to eyes that spake again ,And all went merry as a. marri age—belL’

Depend upon it your marriage-bell will ringsome day, old fellow,

and if you haven’t picked a

quarrel wi th m e by that time,I’ll dance at your

wedding.

”

“ I rather doubt it , replied the Melancholy One .

Thank you, however, all the same—for nothing .


Eyes soft or hard don't now-a-days look love toany other eyes , as far as my experience goes .

Your vision is slightly limited . There i s morethan one pair of eyes here to-night

,if I’m not

much mistaken, that would speak again if theauthor of a certain new poem spake to them inlove fashion . But talking of hard and soft

,added

the Oxford friend, seeing the poet look a little impat ient, have you heard the last new riddle ? No ?

Well then,what i s the difference between hard

water and soft ? My laundress in Lincoln’s Inntold me this morning in confidence

,that she heard

her little boy say to his father last night— ‘ Daddy,I hear mother talk about hard and soft waterwhat is hard water ? ’ ‘ Now don’t you think

,sir,

she added, ‘ he must be rather a clever child ? ’ ‘ Butwhat did your husband an swer ? ’

I inquired ‘ Oh,he said, “ Ice

,my boy.

” Then what is soft watersaid the child ‘Why, woman

’s tears,

’ says I to besure .

’ ‘ Ah, M rs. Privet,’ I replied, ‘ with such a

mother,your son ought to become a great man .

“ Oh, come !”

exclaimed Hamlet, with recoveredanimation, “ that’s too good to be true ! But thanksfor inventing it . I am better already. Nevertheless,

the worship of Joy is not for this sub- luna-ticspere,

’ as I believe your laundres s would call it . Andyou awaken painful thoughts . Tears ! I have rarelybeheld woman ’s tears—hope I never shall again .

They do weep, I believe, however—but only whenmen are unkind .

LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER . 5

Oh yes I’

ve been told they do occasionally whenthey cannot get a new bonnet , or their own way, orwhen deluded men don’t propose .

”

Ah ! that betrays the weakness of their sex ; butall the suppositions imply m ale cruelty .

”

“ Not much of that weakness, I suspect, repliedEllerslie , in a certain lady of your and myacquaintance . I see she’ s here to-night. Great

power of re sistance in her, eh ? Sturdy and selfwilled, though elegant.

Don’t be profane .

”

Forgive me I am only compassionate, and grieveto see so good a fellowBut the mournful poet moved disdainfully away.

3,

Two stalwart young fellows , in Hotspur andPrince H a attire, one of them with a well-bronzedface and military bearing, the other with a veryunmediaeval eye

-glass in his eye, next sauntered by.

“ So this is a Fancy ball . Only fancy,

” remarkedthe military individual, in the fashionable flippant

style . But,I say, Lynnecourt , who 758 that hand

some girl in a Hungarian costume, with a diamondstar on her forehead I

’

m new just now to England,you know

,but I m et her the other night in a crowd

at the French ambassador’s , and, by Jove , I foundshe haunted me .

”

Oh ! that’s Lady Stella Faulconhurst , but tonight known only as the Princess Silver Star— Transylvanian fairy princes s, I suppose . Handsome— yes,I believe you, and fine figure . Good- looking fellow

6 LADY STELLA AND H ER LOVER .

waltzing with her. They call him Francis I.,who

ever that may be . Young Lord Edendale , in the

Foreign Office, you know. Queer fish ! Did youhear of his doings at the ‘ Devonshire ’

the nightbefore last ? M agnificent dress ! But you seem

absorbed“ I am

,in wondering now who that wiry, sallow

faced young fellow,dark hair

,can be— got up as

Hamlet, isn’t he ? Look

,he

’

s watching that couplewaltzing

,like an Italian innamorato or the bravo

he’

s just hired . Eyes like a oat - o’

“ Oh, yes ! That

’s young Dayrell , late of Orielgrandson of old Charlie Dayrell. Did you ever hearof that eccentric genius ? ”

I should think so. Had him pointed out to m e

when I was in Rome five years ago. H e was quite theold man then, but a fine , plucky old dog. They say

he rode to hounds till he was nearly eighty.

That’s the man . Your Italian bravo has a deuceof a lot of the warm Dayrell blood in him

,but none

of their sunny sparkle . I never can make him out,and don’t want to . Mother was younger daughterof the Duke of dropped the courtesy title whenshe married because her husband hadn’t got one .

”

“ What bosh ! ”

H er son inherits eccentricity from all sides . H e

was desperately unsociable at Oxford,except with a

very small clique . Never touche s a card, I believe .

Smile s sarcastic ’ if you talk ' ot women or suggesta lark .

”


Ah,I can believe it . H e looks a deal too good

for my taste . Sulky and m isanthropio, eh ? Hasn’t

go t the Dayrell physique either .N0 ; but he

’s a regular devil at polo and in the

pink. But here come s the Star—Princes s and herenamoured swain .

The speakers formed a part of the crowd of youngm en who sauntered and buzzed about in the gildedsalons ” of the We st End that season . They wereeldest sons

,one of a celebrated sporting baronet,

the other of an eminent Conservative p eer,but were

not otherwise particularly distinguished . They hadbeen at Eton together, and a S imilarity of tastes madethem associates in amusements

,folly and mischief

not friends . The heir to the country baronet was inthe Guards

,had been in some African campaign ,

came home invalided,and since then had been on

the Continent,rehabilitating . H e had lately returned

to London in time for the usual round of societydoings in May and June .

When the dancers had pas sed, and the young officer

had given a long lingering gaze at the Princess ’sretreating form

,he softly ej aculated :

“ I say, that girl’s one to give a fellow the heart

ache . Whose daughter i s she and he beganmoving away to the refreshment quarter.

The late Earl of Clevedon had the honour ofbeing her sire . But he departed this life years ago,and her mother afterwards married Sir MichaelRonhead, of H urstleigh Manor, when this


damsel was a mere chit. H er mother died before the

girl was out of the nursery, and as she has neitherbrother or sister

,she’ll inherit both properties .

”

“ Crickey ! what a catchSo- so . They are both heavily encumbered . I

’

ve

inquired, and don’t believe she ’ll have a clear six or

seven thousand a year.”

The young men by this time had gained the supperroom , and saw the lady and her partner engaged inlively conversation by the side-board . A bright youngmaiden, “ Queen Mab

,j ust then came up with her

partner to Lady Stella .“ Who is that pretty girl ?” asked the officer.

That’s a cousin , I believe, of Lady Stella, wholives chiefly at H urst leigh Manor . Rather captiy ating, eh ? But, I say, don

’t stare at that brightparticular diamond star ’ quite so hard, or her loverWill

,

“ Not much return in store for him,replied the

officer,“ judging by the keen , pitiles s look in the

lady’s great eyes . Cold, cold as Artemis— and ascruel .

“ Cruel , if you like ; but cold, no . If you had98,

heard her singing the other night at Lady Byou’d have said there was fire enough in her to thawthe Caucasus , or a dozen London dandies .

”

The Lady Stella, arm- in-arm with her partner,now passed on, her shapely head, covered with itsauburn looks , a little thrown back, the star fixedabove her broad white forehead flashing hither and

LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER. 9

thither brightly enough, yet scarcely more so thanthe pair of eye s beneath

,while, though the nose

from its Grecian ,

'form was unable to turn up inscorn at all the folly of the world

,the beautiful

short upper lip was equal to expres sing any amountof that sentiment, all the more so from frequentpractice. H er fortunate (or unfortunate) partner so

contemptuously alluded to by the heir to the Conservat ive nobleman

,was a lively and energetic

specimen of the English aristocracy. Like a fewmore of his companions, he divided his time this

particular season between ardent attentions to the

young lady with Whom he had just been waltzing

,discussions and speculations concerning Ascot

,

or Goodwood, and the refreshment buffet at the

Criterion , the Pavilion, or at any fashionable man

sion wherein he might be “ chasing the laughinghours with flying feet . Yet in some respects hewas superior to many of his confreres . Tall andhandsome, lively yet sentimental, he wrote beautiful verses, and even went occasionally to churchfrequently, in fact, when his mother or sistersasked his arm to conduct them to a very fashionable ritualistic place of worship in their neighbourhood. Quite recently he had fallen desperatelyin love with the Lady Stella Faulconhurst , whooccasionally attended there, and wooed her withall the ardour and quasi- chivalry of his nature .

And,no doubt

,there had once been the making of

a fine character in him, but neither the moral or

10 LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER.

intellectual element appeared to have been cultiy ated . H e had rattled through youth at Harrow

,

and early manhood at Cambridge, without learningmuch at either, except to love poetry, art, andcricket on the aesthetic and “ play—impulse department of his nature, and that he must take careof “ Number One ” as regarded the serious side oflife . Hence, when he was attracted by the peerlessmaiden with the auburn hair and pitiles s eyes ,who was somewhat painfully aware that she at

tracted men ’s admiration wherever she went, hislove was rather of the superficial and selfish order,though he fully himself believed he was a mode lof a knightly lover and something of a poet.

There was no depth,no real m anliness, no true

chivalry, in either his poetry or his love . But theLady Stella

,when a young girl making her first

appearance in society,had been fascinated by his

good looks,winning manners , and reputation as

one of the most rising young men of the day.

”

When he first asked her to dance , she trembledwith pleasure . His poems were laid under her

pillow,and she furtively read every notice of his

writings,or his doings

,of which she could obtain

posses sion .

Fortunately for her, the obj ect of her secretadmiration was altogether ignorant of it , and wasat that time himself in love with a popularactres s . So Lady Stella, having heard a little

about his views of wom en generally, and seen


through the superficial varnish of his character,recovered from her delusion before he, in his

turn, awoke to the perception of her growingbeauty

,and queenly intellectual graces . Thus it

fell out that when at length he sought her amongthe crowd of elegant and charming girls at ballsor garden-parties

,plaintively pleaded for a third or

fourth dance, whispered sweet nonsense in her ear,

and sent her brilliant or pathetic rhymes , she

described him as “ whipped cream ” — a sobriquet

that stuck to him for two seasons—began to despiseherself for the fleeting fancy of her girlish nu

sophisticated days , and disliked him heartily forhaving made such a fool of her . At first , nodoubt

, she had struggled angrily and unsuccessfully against what she regarded as a mere degrading glamour ; but this season she m et him witha complacent smile (

“ very like that,

” as Ellersliesuggested

,on the face of ‘

the amiable animalwith whom a young lady of Riga ’ ventured to takea ride , returning in a shelteredand a t riumphant consciousness of freedom in her

heart . So the young lordling found the Fanoy—ballthat night unsatisfactory, felt he had better raise

There was a young lady of R iga,Who went for a r ide on a t iger,They cam e back from t heir rideT he lady inside,

And a sm i le on the face of the t iger .The wit t iest product

,as some think

,of the N inet eenth century

with a pologies t o M r. Lear .


the siege for the present and renew it on a morepropitious occasion—which perhaps never came .

In the meantime Lady Stella, as her cousingravely remarked to herself on returning one

Sunday from church,was as a bird escaped out

of the snare of the fowler.Yet

,when her early idol-worship was shattered

in the dust, there was nothing of a nobler cultto take its place . She was considered by her

family and her one or two intimate friends tobe sadly devoid alike of religious feelings andbelief ; and as she disliked going to church orreading devotional books , and gave a wide berthto all clergymen and the meetings and societie swith which they were connected

,she also began

to consider herself “ a hopeless infidel . With herusual Spirit of independence— not to say, defiance

—she rej oiced in assum ing a hostile attitude towards what she could not heartily embrace, fromwhich

,in fact

,she often shrank with mingled fear

and aversion , lest it might enslave her soul andbind her again in what she thought would be only

another form of the cringing human idolatry fromwhich she had so recently escaped .

The fact is she had been brought up since hermother’s death under the fostering care of anexemplary high- class governess, of strictly evan

gelical principles and lady- like deportment, Whom ,

as her pupil advanced from the nursery to the

school-room,Stella regarded with increasing disap

LADY STELLA AND H ER LOVE R. 13

proval . Indeed it is to be feared that this precocious young lady, when scarcely in her teens

,

looked on the exemplary governess not only withantipathy but even with amusement and contempt .

For unfortunately she perceived,and doubtles s

(with the impertinence of ill-regulated y outh) ex

aggerated, the various little selfish weaknes ses andunamiable infirmities of temper which

,from the

want of Christian charity and consideration forothers, to say nothing of generosity, unhappilymarked that lady’s character. Hence it is not sur

prising that on her sixteenth birthday Stella persuaded her affectionate step- father to give the

stately governess her congé , and to invite hiswidowed sister

,Mrs . Grey, with her daughter

Frances,to come and reside a considerable part of

each year at the Manor-house .

Under this arrangement, however, it was stipalated that the Lady Stella, (cunning little puss ,)should be absolute mistress of the household, underher father’s suz erainty, and that her aunt andcousin were simply there as guests . Thus becoming practically her own mistres s, at too early anage, thi s wild, proud, and headstrong girl had apernicious liberty of development which, but forthe restraint put upon it by a naturally noble andhigh-minded disposition, might have had

,some

would say did have, highly disastrous results .For among her other vagaries was the style in

which she insisted on pursuing her own education,


especially in the theological line . That educationwas certainly very fitful and diversified in itscharacter s She read a vast variety of books indiscriminat ely, and voraciously studied eagerly andsuccessively, for a few months at a time

,under

able day- governesses and tutors

,mathematics

,

history, astronomy, mental philosophy, even political

economy, and whatever in addition they. recom

mended . But naturally, alas, she soon wearied ofthem all, except history, which with poetry

,

biography, and polemical theology of a destructivecharacter

,alone seemed to retain for her any

permanent interest .About the t ime now referred to, when in her

twentieth year, Lady Stella’s interest was deeply

engrossed (except j ust during the London season)by eager researche s into all the newest revelationsof modern theological criticism . Scient ific exposuresof t he historical and mythical absurdities , errors

,

and fallacies of the Bible,of the impossibility of

m iracles, of the endless contradictions, inconsis

t encies, and futilities of Christianity, demonstrationseven of the groundlessness of a belief in apersonal God, knowable at least by human intellect, of Agnosticism,

in short,in any form, were

e specially sweet to her soul . She smiled cont emptuously on all the dreams and unrealimaginings of the poets and seers concerningwhat is called “ Revealed religion — was quitesure she recognized in herself none of those deep

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social evils she was either entirely ignorant,or scarcely

recognized their existence ; for her whole temperamentand nature resolutely resisted, ignored, or trampled onthe faintest suggestions of the basenes s and corruptionthat were in the world . As for piety, we have seenthe subj ect was for her altogether out of the range ofreality. And domestic life, with its affections andconventionalities , bonds and drudgery, was nearly asrepugnant to her “ being’s end and aim

,

” as thecage to the freed skylark

,singing and soaring in

the blue depths of heaven.

Yet this scornful sceptical maiden had been knownmore than once to go secretly to nurse a poor sickwoman in the village through a long weary night,or to keep a lot of little dirty children amused foran hour together by a poor cottage fire, that theymight not disturb some sufferer in the room above,st ifling, in her ardent desire to help, all her naturaldisgust at such surroundings, and any fears or warnings about the danger of infect ion . No doubt she

heartily despised herself for yielding to such im

pulses when the excitement of native benevolencehad passed away ; yet she was j ust as ready to dothe same, or greater, servi ces for any one lyingwounded by the wayside of life, on some other occasion ; though fitfully, it must be admitted, and withcaprice . But woe to the blundering booby of either sex,

particularly if it were an innocent and Pharisaic youngcurate, who might, unluckily, discover the lady

’s weak

ness,and presume to compliment her on her behaviour .


Poor child ! The mother who,in the language of

an ancient Hebrew enthusiast, might have “ guidedher feet into the way of peace,

”was too soon t aken

away. H er step—father was dotingly fond of herwhen he saw her ; but his fatherly attentions wererather intermittent, and were seldom exhibited duringsix months of the year, except for half- an-hour atbreakfast and dinner, or again when she awoke himfrom his evening nap to hand him a cup of tea.

During the hunting season, however, when oldenough to be lift ed on to a Shet land pony

,and be

led by a groom to a neighbouring “ meet,” Stella

came in for a considerable increase of those attentions which appeared to wax and wane according toher riding capacities and her interest in fox—huntinggenerally . That int erest, in her early years, !

was

prodigious ; so that,between Sir Michael and herself

(though, as she thought,he was sometimes very oh

stinat e and troublesome) there was a great deal ofwarm regard and sympathy. The M . F. H . was

proud of his clever, distinguée daughter, who, when inher teens, could ride nearly as straight acros s thecountry,

.

if she chose , as he could himself. H e fre

quently brought her little presents, devised amusements for her, and let her have her own way, forthe most part in everything, which was to her

thinking, best of all. Only now and then , as heonce expressed it confident ially to an old friend, “ I

pull her up sharp on the curb, you see, just to keepup discipline .

V OL. I.


Of course, when those daring researches of theyoung lady into the mysterious theological specu

lat ions j ust mentioned gradually became known inthe family circle, her conduct was as perplexing tothe good Sir Michael as it was alarming to herhunt and cousin . In the eyes of these ladies it soclosely resembled the proceedings of their commongrandmother E ve

,that fatal consequences of some

description must be expected to ensue . A sharpperemptory interdict was at length obtained by Mrs .Grey from her brother

,which , however, was met

by the daught er '

of Eve with such unexpected resistance

,and caused such unpleasant results ' to both the

“ high contracting parties,” that ere very long it

was allowed to fall into abeyance, and the wilful

girl continued her explorations among the forEbidden- fruit ” trees . When, in the course of thel ively discussions which took place during the first

outbreak of this civil war, Stella was confrontedwith the narrative in the book of Genesis , ands olemnly warned as to the sad consequences whichhad once resulted from plucking the fruit of thet ree of knowledge

,it seems she replied with a hardi

hood and acutenes s astounding to her distressedrelatives that it i s only by knowing good and evilthat we can learn to embrace the one and eschewthe other . The young lady was dancing “ a sworddance, and the naked blades were rather risky.

Happily her burly j ovial step—father was a man ofthe finer type of old English country gentlemen ,


and beneath all hi s boisterous freedom and sportinghila rity there was a ground-work of high principlewith a definite standard of honour and moral worth

,

l imited,but very genuine , and often, (though not in

variably,) found in the fox—hunting, game-preserving

squires of a past generation . Then, again, her aunt’ s

character, manners, and views of moral philosophy,though like her brother’s rather limited

,were essen

t ially lady—like , motherly, gentle, and refined. LadyStella from infancy felt the shaping force and benefito f influences such as these, and in addition, inheriteda sense of her high family traditions , with a profoundc onsciousness of the truth that noblesse oblige.

CHAPTER II.

THOSE fortunate persons who may have attentivelyperused the imperfect record given some yearsago of the pure Bacchantic life of a certain Oxfordstudent named CHARLES DAYRELL, will possibly re

member that nearly at the close of that recordthere i s a quotation from a letter written by anold friend of his

,a M r. Rivers , to one of his grandsons ,

then at Eton . The hint contained in that letter,explanatory of the peaceful and even cheerful submission with which the once impetuous , daring,worshipper of Dionysus accepted the increasing

privat ions of helples s age, may possibly be interesting to aged pilgrims , but why the writer of the saidletter called the young Etonian “ a fine lad, anyonemight have been puzzled to explain . The boywas slightly built, not tall for his age, out nogreat figure in the cricket-ground, and in fact, butfor his face and head, would have been called in

significant—looking . Certainly he had a fine coun

t enance and a rather remarkable mass of brainbehind it , so that the really fine

,tall lads who

carried all before them at cricket and footballwere rather disgusted at finding themselves constantly inferior to Wilfrid Dayrell in the class-room

,

LADY STELLA AND H ER LOVER. 21

and there, figuratively, sitting at his feet. Butthe writer of the letter above referred to had probably noted the lad’s enthusiastic love and rever

ence for his grandfather, as well as his rather extraordinary intellectual powers , and was j udging himby a higher than a muscular standard . When theboy began to reali ze his inferiority in all athleticprowes s to his ance stor he was mortified j ust in

proportion to his admiration and love for the oldman

,and for a time no intellectual triumphs seemed

any consolation . Yet there was one line in which

he cou ld emulate him— he could r ide—ride tohounds and in steeplechases , though long solitarygallops over moor and mountain pleased him be st.H e could ride the fastest, the fiercest , the mostvicious horses that were offered him . H e refusedever to be beaten— never rested till he had masteredthe most obstinate or dangerous brutes to be found,whether at Eton , Oxford, or on his native countryside . The vision of his grandfather’s delight in“ noble horsemanship rose ever before him ; andthe thought that in this, at least, he might be

not an unworthy descendant of his great exemplar,consoled him under many an ignominious failure inother manly exercises .A s he grew up, however, and gained considerable

increase of bodily vigour, he went in for a fewathletic sports with re solute pluck, and speciallydi stinguished himself in the running and highj ump competitions . But he did it all in honour

22 LADY STELLA AND HER LOV ER.

of the illustrious dead, not from love of the sportsthemselves— never became popular with his com

panions either at school or college , and evidentlyhad no desire to be so. Looking back in afterlife on bygone years , he make s a curious confe ssion .

In a queer kind of diary,kept under circumstances

to be hereafter explained, he says, “ I believe thatin those days I was very unsociable , with savagetendencie s that often made m e decidedly ‘ nasty ’

in my temper and conduct . I wonder now how Imade or kept any friends at all . Yet heaven knowshow I longed for love , not for applause, nor evenesteem , nor for the affection and regard of abovethree or four of my own sex— not much even fortheirs . I liked t alking and e specially arguing withthem if they were clever, well- read m en. Butbehind all that I know there was a passionat ecraving for love— woman’s love . With men I oftenfelt cross and snappish—with women , never ; even

when they were vain and silly I was happy intheir company

,felt drawn towards them whatever

their rank or want of outward attractions , unles sindeed they were unfeminine .

” No wonder ifwomen , therefore, were usually attracted to him .

‘ M y child ,’ said Dr . Doddridge once to his little

daughter ; ‘ how is it that everybody love s you ? ’

“ ‘ I don’t know, papa ,’ replied the little maid,

unless it i s that I love everybody .

’

“ Hard,arrogant

,domineering women, he adds ,

I hated as David hated the enemie s of the Lord ,


What a wondrous power Nature exerts over us

when, with her spells of enchantment , she transport s us into a realm of radiant ble s sedness

,in

which we behold vast and misty Visions of suchexceeding j oy and lovelines s— visions

,too, in which

we seem to live a sublime, far-reaching existence,wherein we gain all knowledge, pierce to the heartof all mysteries , win all love and power, and walktriumphantly through a universe of worshipping

,

grateful disciples, adorers continually drawingnearer and nearer to the Central Source and Fountainof all Light

,and Love, and Power. Then

there were seasons when I seemed to approach verynigh , also, to gentle, loving hearts , to all whowere full of womanly grace and beauty andtendernes s . But there was one

,only one

living,breathing form that at length remained con

t inuously by my side in those sweet visions, andshe— how can I speak of that inefTable brightnes s ,sweetnes s , tender grace and love I Yet ,

like the sea, so soft and smiling in the sunshine—ah

,it can change to tempest and grandest storm .

”

The writer’s emotions appear to have preventedany further entries in his j ournal for many days .Wild and intellectually lawless as were evidently

this young fellow’s aims and passions, yet vice wasalways associated in his mind with coarseness andwith a certain baseness of character which inspired


him only with scorn and loathing . Hence it wasresolutely, or rather, instinctively by him avoided .

Wilfrid Dayrell’

s romantic aspirations and loftydreams preserved him from the corruption of the

world around him but they could not protect himfrom the extravagant idolatry, the exaggerated es

t imates and imaginings , the feverish ambitions , and

romantic restless yearnings,which had dominated

his mind through boyhood and youth with in

creasing Violence to the period now described .

Young Dayrell had left his University amid anaccumulation of honours which would have turnedthe head of a les s cynical victor. A high place inthe schools

,a double first—class in classics and

history,were not the whole of his achievements .

The Newdigate prize poem was adjudged to be t heproduction of his brilliant fancy

,though that is

not necessarily saying very much for it—and his

recitation of that poem,coupled with his other

successes , drew down shouts of applause evenfrom gownsmen who heartily disliked the man,though they thus generously extolled the victor.H is family connections and social position gavehim at once, , on coming to London

,an entrance

into so- called good society,” and before long the

Lady Stella heard on every side the brief buzz ofpopular eulogium which resounded through fashionable gatherings wherever the young Oxoniantriumphans

” moved . The women, !

with the excep

tion of two or three acidulated dowagers,univer


sally pronounced him “ a most interesting youngman,

” “ bearing the stamp of genius in everyfeature, and for a few months he was discussed,invited, flat tered in many quarters admission toWhich was coveted in vain by, perhaps , muchworthier m en. But the hero or victim of theseattentions was unconscious of the flattering opinionthey implied

,altogether indifferent to them as re

garded any personal vanity or pride . H e rej oicedin them only as they brought him into delightfulrelations with highly cultivated m en, and withwomen

,the fairest of their sex among the Upper

T en.

”

After a time, however, he found it was possibleto have too much even of good things . H e hadpreviously known comparatively little of womankind . His m other was beloved in a way, and wasabove criticism -his young sisters were beneath it ;and he began to think that possibly “ distance ” had“ lent enchantment to the View.

”So that, though

it was merely the extravagance of his worship thatwas checked

, yet a certain amount of disillu

sioniz ing, no doubt, took place . But the achingvoid in young Dayrell

’

s heart remained unfilled,

and when he returned to the solitude of his roomsin the Albany, from some brilliant assembly, andsighed over the hollow mockery of happiness, as

he began to regard it , with which the fashionableworld regaled him ,

he longed more ardently thanever for those “ Isles of the Blest,

” which, with the


true Dayrell instinct. he felt assured were somewhere to be found .

Was he right, then , he sometime s asked himself,

in thus sighing for happines s,right in believing in

that W'

orship of Joy which one whom he so deeplyhonoured ‘ had held up for universal devotion

, especi

ally for the acceptance of modern Englishmen, as noles s fitt ing now than for early Greeks, in the Youthof the world ? There was a strange fierce conte st inhis heart over that matter, for naturally he was al

ways inclined to look on the dark side of things, t oanticipate evil, and to revel in gloomy views of Providence, mankind, and life generally . This tendencyhad been fostered by desperate endeavours to writea tragic drama of dismal purpose in his various longvacations ; but although his sense of the constantpressure or approach of evil filled his life withcontinually recurring gloom , it did not blast itwith the worst of all agonies, Fear. H e had in

herit ed the Dayrell high-bred courage, and cherishedit as one of his chief treasures . Whether the

cynical stoicism which took the place of that ignoble cowardice that in some form afflict s so manyotherwise pure and noble masculine souls, as wellas women and children, sick people, and thieveswas a happier or more righteous state of mind,might be a question that, as yet , had neveroccurred to him .

Another question, however, of some little momentto the happiness of himself and his friends, had


also not occurred to him,but nevertheless it had

to be answered .

“ Don’t you think, Dayrell, said his Oxford friend,Fred Ellerslie, one day

,that you are rather an

unforgiving sort of fellow ? I should be sorry to fallout with you if it could be conveniently avoided,for I know you would never make it up again .

”

“ Probably not,my dear old Diogenes , for you

might be rude, and rudeness , let m e tell you, i smuch harder to forgive than a serious injury. Butif I didn’t forgive you it would be becauseI should always esteem and like you to the end ofthe chapter, do what you would . If I didn’t respector care for you I should forgive you in the courseof twentyfour hours, had you been ever so rude .

”

That’s one of your everlasting paradoxes,

”re

plied Ellerslie , with a slight touch of goodhumoured contempt “ But you mean well

,and

knowing my own worth, I accept your complimentary Opinion of m e— yet with gratitude . But

your remark is paradoxical .”

“ Not a bit of it . Look here ! I have greatauthority for it . One of the wisest of m en (next,in fact

,to Solomon) , Lavater, the German sage

,

says ‘ H e who forgives a trespass of sentimentto a friend is as unworthy of friendship as thatfriend himself. ‘

Oh,gammon exclaimed Ellerslie .

“ Don’tyou believe it ; not for a moment .

“ I do believe it,old boy

,and shall to the day


of my death, and have acted upon it , and willagain

, ad infinitum . Perhaps he was wrong,after

all,and lived to see that even the wisest of men,

including both Solomon and Lavater, may for oncein their lives be fatally mista ken, thereby ruinouslymisleading many fools .Yet Dayrell was no fool . Sad to say

,our wisdom

and our folly, our strength and weakness , ourvirtues and vices

,appear to spring from the

same root ; and the evil that is in us doubtles sworks the greater mischief because it i s often partof the outcome of all that is best and noblest inour characters . That was a good expression of theshrewd Frenchman’s— “ les dé fauts de ses qualité s ”

bonnes” qualité s, remember, being meant).

Dayrell had many “ bonnes qualité s,

” and cer

tainly great abilities , but they had their “ dé fauts .”

When Ellerslie quoted the witty Frenchman’ssaying, Dayrell had capped it with a remark froman old dramatist

The web of our l ife i s of a mingled yarn , good and ill t ogetherour virtues would be p roud, if our faul t s whipped them not and ourcrimes would despair if t hey were not cheri shed by our V irtues. ”

Splendid ! ” said Ellerslie .

“ Where did you get

itFrom the man who knew and told us every

thing concerning human character and doings—theSwan of Avon

,in All’s well that ends well .” And

he put it in the mouth of a subordinate character

Act . iv. ,Se. 3 .

30 LADY STE LLA AND HER LOVER .

a man not even named . What boundless prodi

gality ! Shakespeare makes all aspiring!

youngEnglishmen want to write dramas , and— despair ofsucce s s .”

What a mercy,murmured Fred, for us humbler

folk,that Dayrell has a few défauts to whip his

innumerable virtues I


august, mysterious recesses of her dread abode,knew well that both these individuals were of anature too noble to be sat isfied with mere negations ,and that deep in their souls there might be an indestructible passionate desire, childish or child- like,for something they had not yet found .

The early days of their intercourse in society werenot propitious . Greatly as Dayrell could not helpsometimes being

~

enamoured of the young lady, be

yet every now and then felt towards her that indescribable antipathy which is so real when it occurs

,

and so difficult either to account for or overcome .

Yet not so very difficult after all, to account for,if you look for an explanation in the right place .

One evening, in a small, select, and brilliantcircle assembled at the house of a celebrated leaderof fashion

,Dayrell had been speaking with a

subdued animation and earnestnes s that enchainedthe attention of several of that lady’s guests ; andthen , with a simple and sublime unconsciousness

,

finished off his remarks by a striking and patheticquotation in illustration of his Views , from one ofhis own poems ! When the murmur of interest andapproval which followed had died away, Lady Stella,who had been one of the listeners , was heard asking

her pretty cousin Frances if she was acquaintedwith Winthrop M . Praed

'

s charming poems, es

pecially one called Beauty and her Visitors ”

that is,

”she added “ Lady Julia (their lovely

hostess) and ourselves .


Oh,do let us hear it ! ” exclaimed two or three

voices .“ I remember only what happened to one of

her visitors," answered Stella

,

“ and I think it runsthus

Then Gen ius snat ched his golden lute,And told a. t ale of Love and Glory ;

The crowd around were hushed and mut eTo hear so sad and sweet 3. st ory .

And Beauty marked the minst rel ’s cheek,So very pale—no bust was paler

Vowed she could l i st en for a weekBut really he should change his tai lor.

Amid the hearty laughter of most of the listeners— some only smiled, and severely. Among these lastwas the pretty and sentimental, yet frivolous youngcousin, to whom the quotation had been chiefly

addressed, and who took the first opportunityof whispering to Lady Stella

“ It’

s bad enough for a man to sniff and scoffat sentiment and sacred things, but in a womanit

’

s horrid . To make mock of love,and worship,

and religion,as you do

Is a superfluity of naughtiness , I grant, interrupted Stella “ Yet the object of your love andworship, M r. Wilfrid, the sublime and beautiful

,

himself does the same .

The cousin,blushing, turned away with a pained

and scornful denial, adding angrily :“ Do you not see you have forced the young

man to leave the room ? For shame ! ”

V OL. I.


The Princess Silver—Star (as she was called sincethe fancy-ball) did not, however, appear to feel anysense of shame

,but rather to enj oy her triumph .

Nevertheless, Frances noticed a few days later thatshe took an early Opportunity of asking M r. Dayrell

’

s

forgiveness in so sweet, yet comical a manner, thatit is a wonder that gentleman did not find

,ex

perimentally, the truth of an old classic quotationrespecting the Amanttum tow so sedulously in

stilled int o every Eton schoolboy (at one end orthe other), and, indeed, every student of thatimmortal grammar .But find it , he didn’t ; and for a time nursed

his wrath and vexed his wounded feelings .Nevertheless, an impressionable, imaginative young

man like our poet, who had once been desperatelyin love with such a girl as Stella Faulconhurst ,

could not behold her striking face and figure

whenever they m et , or listen to her singing, herconversation , her quizzing, and her wit, unmovedespecially when he caught her speaking eyes fixedon himself, as he answered in his curt , incisivefashion some of the clever questions propounded bya little circle of amused or admiring guest s .There were, indeed, many points of similarity

between the Star-princes s and himself— a circumstance, however, which it has been remarked doesnot always tend to attract, though it does conduce

to swift mutual understanding . Both of themdespised the homage they called forth ; still more

LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER. 3 5

that craving desire for it or for any kind of popularapplause, and which they saw tormenting the livesof the less highly- gifted beings , both men andwomen around them .

The fact is , the lady was weary of the admirationof empty-headed coxcombs , of their frivolous chatter,their slang and smoking, their “ horsey ” talk andmuscular athletic prowess ; especially of their illconcealed and base delight in ballet-dancers andburlesques . If there was anywhere on earth anobler life lived by human beings , she knew littleof it , save when she happened to read in the

newspapers of the rescue of drowning men by lifeboats in a raging storm : and while she generallyrespected the “ matrons ” of society

,the young ladies

she regarded with kindly but illconcealed con

tempt . “ Vanity of vanities ! all i s vanity, wa sher favourite quotation , and the only settledarticle of her creed . Wilfrid Dayrell shared her

wearines s and disappointment concerning all earthlyenj oyments , and to some extent in regard to allordinary article s of religious belief. Like her, he wassuffering from the reaction of disappoint ed lovea first love . But in his case it had been the love ,not of mortal maiden , but of an ideal— the love ofBeauty, of Joy, and of Nature— and then of allthe surroundings and aims of University lifeof all that the enthusiasm and genius of his grandfather had fostered in his young soul . And fromthe glamour

,the dreams , and the worship that

3— 2

36 LADY STELLA AND H ER LOVER.

had thus for a t ime filled his whole being,he

awoke to de spise and scorn — with what the

elder Dayrell would have regarded as miserableblindness— alike himself and his idols

,his worship

and his faith . When in the darknes s of the nighthe lifted his eye s to the s ilent stars

,and despair

ingly asked why his state was so different fromthat of the noble dead— the hero of the Dionysiaccult—an answer came . But he heard it not. The

difference between a life self- centred , and one

spent for others , was not, yet , to him quiteapparent .Hence

,both these young people were, or had recent

ly been , in a highly advantageous position for makingmock of faith

,adoration , love . No doubt there were

lucid intervals, especially in Dayrell’

s case, when theyfelt as strongly as ever, if not the old capacity foradoration and faith

, yet the passionate longing to feelit . And as the young man found himself ever andanon unexpectedly sliding deeper and deeper intoan admiration and thence into a passionate love andworship for the gifted

,star- crowned maiden, he felt

once again a capacity for true heart-worship ofsomething beyond

,and above, mortal and earthly

charms , kindled within him . While as for the ladyherself, she was certainly beginning to see thatsome , at least, of her contempt for all that she

had heard called relig ion and worship was generatedby the influences of the frivolous, debasing, or superstitious world in which

,when in London, she had


chiefly lived . Thence she also was beginning tosuspect that she had a dual existence , and to learnshe was a different being in the sweet rural life ofH urst leigh Manor from that which London madeher, or “ London Society conceived her to be .

If the course of Wilfrid Dayrell’

s love had run alittle smoother

,and had evoked a corresponding at

t achment in the lady’s heart , they might perhaps,in spite of London Society

,have even then dis

covered their way to those Isles of Joy — the

new Atlantis— to that lofty realm of worship, faith,and love, aye and at length , perhaps , to that celestial peace

,of which now, at intervals, they could

only dream .

But Dayrell’

s love,whether true or transient, cer

tainly did not run a very smooth course . And

his exclamation to himself as he returned to hi s

chambers after that evening party, when LadyStella was quoting Praed, did not look at all favourable to such a consummation . Unfeminine, sar

cast ic, arrogant ! She wants to make everybodybow down

,or give way, to her ! ‘ Fa num habet tn

com m! I’

m a fool if in future, at all events, I

let myself be gored and tossed .

” Hence for a time

antipathy was in the ascendant. Stella returned itwith interest. For she could not endure what she

fancied was his as sumption of superiority, nor con

t ent edly resign her supremacy in the social circle .

She was piqued at what she thought his studiedblindnes s to her claims of universal empire , showing


thereby, it may be, that he was not entirely anobj ect of indifference to herself. But when he was

sending up sky- rockets of brilliant epigrams

,anec

dote , and philosophic aphorism in the social circle,she could not help standing still to watch withsomething like admiration , and wistful sympathy,the sparkling coruscations of his youthful and fant ast ic genius .Moreover, since in spite of all obstacles to friendly

rapprochement, there were so many subj ects of common and deep interest between them,

it necessarilyhappened every now and then

,each heard the

I.other,when they m e t in company,

” utter something that made their heart beat quickly and theireyes turn to each other instantaneously with swiftsympathetic and j oyous glance . And all the time

they knew this sympathy was in Spite of themselves , in spite of divers firm resolutions formed incooler and solitary or angry hours .


them . Thence,antipathy lost for a time in a

fathomless sea of mutual delight, they glided intothe later history of that glorious nation , and foundthemselves in perfect sympathy of indignation overthe continued cruel subj ugation of some of itsfairest provinces by the ruthless Turk . They joinedin fervent aspirations for its complete emancipationand final restoration to the position it once held inEurope

,ere the ferocious hordes from Central Asia

conquered and crushed those lovely regions ofEastern Europe .

It is the worship they gave to Beauty andTruth

,said Lady Stella, half aloud, which has

won the admiration of the world .

”

“ Yes,” replied her companion, turning to her

With a quick keen admiring glance .

“ And that isa worship which need be neither feared nor scorned .

It cannot be claimed by Superstition“ Nor be defiled by Bigotry or Fear, added the

lady.

Thereupon came an interval of meditation— eachmeandering along, lost in blissful reverie .

But yet ,” said young Dayrell at length , “ I

doubt if a mere abstract cult like that would everhave secured to Greece her wonderful fascinationover our Western hearts and minds . What is itthat has given her Norman , Celt, and Saxon forWilling adorers during all succeeding ages ?

”

H er glorious legends, answered the lady withkindling enthusiasm . H er fables

,her poetry

,all

LADY STELLA AND HE R LOVER. 41

bodying forth in concrete forms her worship of theBeautiful and Sublim&

”

But— pardon m e— how do you reconcile— I meanI have heard you decry, even severely denounce,worship and worshippers with indignant scorn .

”

Have you ? ” replied Lady Stella, but her tonewas not scornful now— rather it was softened

,gentle,

as if she were a little pleased that he should havenoticed remarks of hers . “ Ah, but that was whensome of those terrible saints had been talking aboutwhat they call public worship and ‘ divine service,

’

and all the mumm eries and shams those posturemasters , candle-worshippers , and orthodox mil linerstake refuge in to save themselves from some ima

ginary vengeful deity.

”

But the ancient Greeks believed in vengefuldeities ”

True , but they did not at the same time, withexquis ite irony, call them , or any one of them ,

3 ”their ‘ Father in heaven .

“ And oh, how pale and poor is the so- called worship of these modern Chr istians

,

” replied Dayrell ,“ compared wi th that of the early Greeks .

“ Aye, and how cold and lifeless ,”

exclaimed hiscompanion, now thoroughly roused, are the ima

ginary obj ects of modern worship, and Christianfetichism , compared wi th the thought in the Grecian ,still more in the Persian , mind concerning theirgods ? It may be all imagination , M r. Dayrell ,may it not ? Both their and

"

our gods exis t only


in our own fond desiring souls ,’ as your favourite

poet hath it— but I feel I could worship Apolloin the Sun

,or Diana in that lovely moon

,and

even the sacred Fire itself, with all my heart andsoul .

Or the Goddess of Wisdom in some grand Parthenon, open to the stars .

”

“ Or Dionysus in the purple vintage, added the

lady, turning a momentary half-playful,half- sarcast ic

glance at her companion .

“ Keep to the loftier realm, Lady Stella, repliedDayrell stoutly, as your celestial name should teachyou .

”H e anticipated a frown or a glance of con

tempt,but was answered by a gracious smile .

Emerging from a shrubbery walk, they came upona far- stretching view into Richmond Park with justa glimpse of a bit of the Surrey hills in the distance .

Involuntarily they stopped and gazed in silence.

Certainly it was a lovely scene . The Sun had latelyset

,and a silvery crescent moon float ed over the

place of his rest. The Evening Star in all its softbrilliancy was shining near her Queen .

See,” said Dayrell

,

“ there is your prototype, lookingup to its beautiful Sovereign Lady in worship andlove— itself the Star of Love and Beauty, and therefore ruling your destiny.

“ Ah me,replied the lady with a sigh .

“ Are allmen fiat t erers ? But if it were even as yousay

,

”she continued in soft yet slightly mock-heroic

tones , methinks that radiant ,orb were far happier

LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER .

than this poor child of Earth who,you say

,owns its

rule . For it has a Queen to worship, worthy of itsadoration

,and it hears no flat t ery, has no lovers , or

else like the noble Artemis, heeds them not . Butwhere can I find an obj ect worthy of worship

, eitheramong the Lights of heaven or the ignes fa tui ofearth—Among my own fri volous sex ? or, as you woul ddoubtless hint, among the coarse and selfish stuffcalled Superior Man 9

“ Dear Lady Disdain,said Dayrell with calm

masterful ness,must Worship then be limited to

created forms or to the foolish children of the dust ?

And may we not sometimes miss the trueworship

,not because there is no fit t ing obj ect of

adoration,but from our own want of power and will

to adore .

”

Lady Stella looked at her companion admiringlythen, for an instant, as if she would have liked tosay,

“ Do not think I am going to worship you .

”

But her eye fell before his, and she replied, “ VVho

ever could not worship in such an hour as this,were

poor and mean indeed . As they turned away towardsthe house Dayrell replied

,Yes, the old Greek

worship of the Beautiful, while Time lasts, will holdits power over noble minds . A soul like yours, LadyStella, cannot rest in itself, but amidst such scenes asthose we have j ust been looking on

,goes up to that

which 18 Higher than itself in measureless adorationand love ! ” H e scarcely knew why, but he foundhe had taken the lady’s hand in the excitement of


the hour. In an instant it was withdrawn— yet notapparently in anger or surprise

,while its owner said

slowly, with suppressed enthusiasm,

“ Ah,I know that

ever since I thought at all on such subj ects , I havefelt incomparably more true worship as I, and I thinkyou , understand the word, when listening to exquisitemusic or standing by the sea- shore

,in a thunder

storm , or on a mountain top , than I ever did inchurch— except when the presiding musical geniithere accidentally allowed some glorious strains fromHandel or Mozart.”

Certainly, it is music like theirs that best plumes9

the wings of worship,

’ replied Dayrell, but why,oh

why can we not have grand organ music and the

Vision of a sunset sky combined ? ”

Just for want of two little accessories— the Grecianclimate

,and the Grecian soul,

” replied the lady.

For the climate, alas , we must live in Greece,said Dayrell— “ and why not ? But for the Greciansoul, may it not inspire us here and now ?” Thenhe spoke about Grecian poets, and legends, Grecianheroes and philosophers— of Plato and Pericles , ofGrecian worship and gods and goddesses, as he hadnever spoken before , and as the lady had never before heard any mortal discourse, —until , fairly carriedout of herself by his burning enthusiasm , brightimaginings

,and most musical voice, she seemed lost

in his thoughts and living only in his life . The

change from her habitual and often cynical coldnessof manner was wonderfully fascinating . If a young


enthusiast’s glacial period is sometimes transformedinto a lava flood under such exceptional circumstancesone need not be surprised— no, nor even if the glacialperiod should occasionally return .

“ Arrested dev‘ elopment, indeed, is a phenomenon ,some cynics tell us, that not unfrequently occurs evenin the most Violent courtship. And although

,during

Dayrell’

s impassioned outbursts , Lady Stella hadlistened with fixed and delighted attention, yet in themomentary pause which followed she actually foundthose provoking lines of Praed s humming in her

head

And Beauty marked the minst rel ’s cheek ,x x

Vowed she could l i sten for a week .

and only saved herself from asking her companionif he did not think he really ought to change histailor, by abruptly inquiring what it was he had beenasking the Dean of Westminster in the conservatory,in the reply to which some of her witty friendsseemed interested .

“ Oh, it was nothing— nothing worth repeat ing,"

answered Dayrell .“ But if I choose to ask you

,retorted the lady

loftily.

“ Oh yes, of course, your wishes are law, rej oinedthe gentleman . It was only that the Dean withhis usual good sense was censuring the extremevagaries of some of the Ritualistic clergy, but sayingthat there was much more in it than you and others


seemed to think because there was so much symholism .

”

Oh yes, I heard all that funny stuff, interruptedthe lady impatient ly .

“ But what passed just afterthat ?”

“ Why,a demented young cleric who unluckily

overheard him turned full upon him ,with so much

impertinent acrimony, that I couldn’t help diverting

the tide by asking him if he knew why the letter Hwas the most absurdly superstitious letter in the

alphabet . Youthful cleric was obliged to s top andconsider, but found no answer, and looked uncomfortable . So I modestly answered, ‘ Because it make sthat hallowed which otherwise is but allowed.

’

“ Good,

” said Stella .

“ I wish I had seen him

extinguished .

”

Oh,but he wasn’t extinguished, replied Dayrell .

The Dean and most of us left him in the conservatory, declaiming on posture s and millinery to afew benighted women .

“ Ah,

” said Stella .

“ I wish I could have shownthem my marmoset monkey. H e preaches in a whitesurplice— beautifully

,and always turns to the East

at breakfast . But turning to something even moreinteresting

,did you hear what that dear delightful

M r. Dean was saying as he left the conservatory,about the j oy with which he seemed to think the

Hebrew race used to celebrate their worship ? andthen he Spoke beautifully, though rather gushingly,of the j oy and comfort with which those musty old


I think old M r. Dayrell was very fond of these

exquisite Greek myths and legends“ As all noble souls ,

” answered the young manimpulsively

,must be who desire to unfold and

perfect their nature in the higher forms which history and imagination

,alike, show are attainable .

I tell you, fair lady, smile sceptically as you may,that the legend of those ‘ Isles of Jov,

’ far,far away

in the east or west, where, too, i s found the

fountain of perpetual youth, have in them a kernelof immortal truth . Oh , believe m e

,it was not a

3,false,deceiving dream .

“ I did not know I smiled , said the lady, “or

if I did, she added softly, it was not in scorn ,

but I think in gladness . Perhaps my evil naturefor the time was conquered . And the young dreamerwent on encouraged

“ May there not be life,Lady Stella

,which is

perpetual youth ? Are we not as much meant forit as the unfledged Skylark for the blue sky

“

?

“ Meant for it ?” said the lady in a melancholytone .

“ Tending towards it , then , fit ted, destined— anything you please to call it i Only let us believe init as the goal to which we have to strive . Shouldwe not, can we not, do much even now to reachit ? to live again in that glorious, blessed springtime ?”

“ Go on, murmured Lady Stella, “ I like to hear

you talk all this imaginative nonsense . It does


me good . Then turning to him with that superbgrace and winning sweetness which were among herchief characteristics, she added with a charming buthypocritical deference, Have you never gazed withGray, since you left Eton, on those distant spiresand antique towers ,

’ and whispered to the fairscenes of your youth,

I feel the gales that from ye blowA momentary bl i ss best ow

,

As , waving fresh t heir g ladsome wing,

My weary sou l they seem t o soo theAnd redolent of j oy and yout hTo breathe a second spring

Aye , responded Dayrell eagerly, If I could amomentary bliss on you bestow

Wave, were then fresh , thy gladsome wi ng,So redolent of youth

,

continued Lady Stella

Wave it again, yet once again ,

Over my weary soul .”

Who could look on that queenly face now changedfrom its usual hard satirical appearance

,to a soft

,

indeed, almost tender and playful expression , and not

feel swept away into at least a momentary transportof admiration and love ? Certainly not young Dayrell .But j ust as he thought the supreme moment of

life and love was come,and he was on the point

of seizing her hand, not this time to let it be

withdrawn, the lady, provokingly, stepped quickly

forward yet , when a little ahead of him,and well

out of danger, she looked back with a saucy smile,VOL. 1. 4


saying,You don’t seem to be waving a very glad

some wing just now. If you can’t think of anything original , such as a poet ought at once toimprovise in reply to my quotation , under such circumstances do as I did , and quote.

”

“ I will,

”exclaimed Dayrell, impetuously, though

with effort . But if I quote from Wordsworth ’sglorious ode, remember, he added, it is not with acontroversial View. I don’t say for a moment— don’tin the remotest way even hint— whatever I may believe— that there is the slightest chance of what Iknow too well you don’t believe in— a life beyond the

grave . All I ask you to hope for is what poets ,prophets , philosophic seers , have beheld in gloriousvision— a World of Beauty and

'

H armony, a Life ofLove and Joy realized on this earth . And justbecause you cannot share in V V

ordsworth’

s hope ofimmortality, let us all the more believe that we,and all true believers , may renew our ‘ goldenprime

’ and bring back the ‘ Juventus mundi,

’

the

glorious youth of our race even here and now inthis grand world . For

in a season of fair weatherThough inland far we be

,

Our souls have s ight o f that immorta l seaWhich brought us hither

Can i n a moment travel thi ther,

And see the ch i ldren sport upon the shore,

’

And with them sport and ba t heIn that bright sea of Beauty, Love, et ernal Youth .

Stella shook her head, but took up the strain ,soft ly singing

Oh, j oy that i n thine embers,

The ashes of thy yout h ,Is something t hat doth l iveThat Dayrell yet remembersWhat was so fugi t ive

But which, responded Dayrell,We yet shall cause again to l iveTi ll it shall be the fountai n l ight of all our day.

’

It seems to m e as if the gods had given us

once in the evolution of ages a vision of man’strue ideal life, of perfect humanity and gladnes sof exultant, j oyous , musica l existence

,in those

Grecian ‘ children ’ of our race, in that Hellenicland of loveliness, in those dreams of theirs , ofbeauty and freedom, of love and j oy, wherein we

see them sport upon the shore,’ that mankind

might have at least one pure well from which torefresh their weary souls, and one ideal to whichthey should evermore aspire . See that glorioussunset sky, opening out into far- off realms ofheavenly j oy and beauty . Does it not seem

As i f to grace the gorgeous West ,The Spirit of depart ing Light

had given us a momentary glimpse into the

brighter world beyond the sea,’ where those Isles

of Joy,’

are indeed awaiting all beautiful and heroicsouls

,and of which we have so many exquisite

visions given us now, to reveal to us our true andgladsome destiny. Ah, Lady Stella, may we nothope and strive to reach it ! The ghost of Hamlet’sfather appeared to his unhappy son to goad him


t o revenge a foul unnatural wrong . The Spirit ofmy honoured grandsire rises before m e ever andanon

, not only in ‘ pale glimpses of the moon,

’ butin glorious sunny dawn— as he was once on earth ,is now perhaps for ever— full of buoyant youthfulgladness

,calling m e to herald and proclaim the

kingdom,and the holy loving worship of divine

eternal Joy . There ! added the speaker, as hefaced his amused and, in spite of her amusement ,sympathizing list ener— for he dreaded lest she shouldthink him too much in earnest . “ Beat that

,Lady

Stella, if you can . But,

”he continued

,gradually

sinking his voice into a low,deep

,pleading whisper

,

but oh,believe in it all, and believe j ust a litt le,

in me . Will you not ? ”

It is infinitely refreshing, replied the ladyslowly

,to know that any one with brains still

believes in the worship of Joy,and to hear him

speak of it as you do . But sometime sI think— nay very often—pacc my paladin

prophet-priest of the Dionysiac cult— (that’s you ,

Sir VVilfrid)— that there is no longer any j oy leftin this English world, or in this mortal life , to beworshipped at all . The world is growing senile ; itseems to m e, m en find t heir chief delight in bettingand gambling, in speculation and smoking, or intrigue . They understand nothing of real ‘ Play

,

’ butmake a business and exhausting toil of nearly all

amusements,and recruit the ir jaded spirits with bur

lesques and ballet-dancing, lulling themselves with


tobacco, or exciting themselves with drink . The

worship of Joy ! nay, preach it not to m e . Ah, M r.

Dayrell, how indescribably sad and dreary is allThe fair speaker paused, then gazing for an in

stant on her lover with an expression that made hisheart beat high with hope

, she exclaimed . Not Joy,not Peace, but—INTELLECT—Yes, I can worship that lThere was profound stillness in the air— soft

ensuing silence,broken only now and then by the

last notes of a song-bird, or the distant lowing ofone or two home- sick kine .

It cannot be denied that at this moment therewas grave reason to apprehend that Lady StellaFaulconhurst and Wilfrid Dayrell were very neareach other in heart and soul, nearer than they hadever been before . For both of them—as it wouldseem to the cynical world—were in reality alikeinjudiciously enthusiastic and dangerously romantic .But imaginative natures are given to romance , whileromantic enthusiasm is not necessarily combinedwith a capacity for deep unselfish love ; such naturesmoreover are liable to sharp reaction and suddendepression, as well as

’ to an oppressive egotism .

i? t

It was growing dusk, dark in fact under the trees,but they had unknowingly come very near the

house, where on the lawn the rest of the guestswere assembling preparatory to taking their de

parture, sipping claret—cup and negus . Sounds ofmus ic is sued from the open windows of the drawing


room ,and they stood a few moments silent, hidden

by flowering shrubs . A rich contralto voice was

heard singing that exquisite little Spanish song,Juanita . The effect was magical, but not exactly

the same on both the deluded young persons who werelistening concealed . Dayrell was entranced withdelight ; not so the lady. H e turned towards herwith impassioned gesture, j ust as she caught sightof her aunt and cousin evidently in search of them ,

and heard them ment ion her name to a youngcouple on the lawn . The latter looked in the

direction where she and her lover were standing .

The dreadful thought occurred, H ad they not caughtsight of her already, accompanied by Dayrell ; orif she waited another moment might they notwitness something even more ridiculous 9 Clearlyshe was placed in an absurd and equivocal position

,

even if only by returning so late with the younggentleman from their ramble Hence

,as the last

sweet note s of the song died away, she suddenlywithdrew her hand from his arm , turned haughtilyfrom him

,and exclaiming with infinit e contempt

,

“ Sentimental nonsense abruptly left her companion

,and advanced alone towards the party on

the lawn . Dayrell felt much as if a j ealous rivalhad stabbed him under the regulation rib, and re

covered consciousnes s only to hear Lady Stellaremarking, with perfect saazg

—froid and with the oldcynical smile , to one of the ladie s whom she met

How much more sensible and agreeable to be out


And like the Venetian renegade, they met allthe pitiful pleading of their secret souls

,or of

nearest friends , for some concession, some admissionof wrong committed, some riving asunder by the

Angel of Humility of the dark cloud of wrath thatoverhung them with the answer

,

No— though that cloud were t hunder ’s wors tAnd charged to crush t hem— let it burst .

”

All this little secret quasi- comic tragedy was merelya piquant farce , or at the best a poor nine- days ’

wonder to such members of “ Society as were competent to observe and discuss it . It enlivened morethan one box at the theatre, and filled up sundrypauses in the dance for a week or two ; then some

other specta cle— tragi- comedy, operetta , ballet, scandal ,or farce— swept along and absorbed the general int erest .

But it was not altogether safe (as one or two inconsiderate , flippant young persons of the light ersort found to their cost) to attempt to rally eitherof the two principal actors and sufferers in this specialdramatic performance on their supposed dej ection .

Fred Ellerslie, indeed, though heartily regrettingthat his friend had come such a cropper,

” and generally showing only respectful as well as kindly sym

pathy, could not refrain one night from mentioningto some light—minded friend in Dayrell

’

s hearing acurious incident which had occurred only an hourpreviously.

“ Coming up the Blackfriars Road, said he, this

LAD Y STELLA AND HER LOVER. 57

most gloomy and detestable evening, where I hadbeen taking a ‘ constitutional,

’ and was studying thefauna and flora of that terra, incog. , I noticed twoold beldames crooning to each other a little in frontof me . A s I passed them I distinctly heard one ofthem say : And so you see he were crossed in lovethat is , he were run over the werry day afore he werea-going to be married .

’

A general and hearty laugh ensued, in which,however

,Dayrell didn’t j oin . Some incredulity was

expressed as to the genuineness of the story, andone of the listeners declared that he didn’t thinkEllerslie had been witty enough to invent such acapital j oke .

Neither em I, replied Fred .

“ I defy any fellowto have concocted that explanation . I assure you,seriously, I heard those very words not two hoursago . The old lady had evidently m et with the ex

pres sion being ‘ crossed in love ,’ had probably often

been in danger herself of being run over at crossings ,took it for granted in her beautiful innocence thatany one about to be married must be in love— muddled all these ideas , and the tragic event, up into one

grand though hazy Turneresque conception, and contributed her immortal saying to the wit and wisdomof our national street folk- lore . Fortunate that Iwas at hand to pre serve and record it .

”

As Dayrell departed, he shook hands with his friendand said privately

I forgive you . No erring mortal could have re

58 LADY STELLA AND H ER LOV ER.

sisted the temptation to tell that story, and I acquityou of malicious intent or invention . I wouldn’t havemissed hearing it for something—only don’t imagine Imyself am in any special danger of dying in that way .

But friends were generally discreet and considerate,while the lovers ’ kind-heart ed relative s on either sidewere careful to avoid (or repress in their presence) allreference to sunsets , poetry, music, and the worshipof Joy generally, as well as to Greek myths and

legends in particular . But there was very little outside show of dej ection or disappointment anywhere .

Close observers might remark that Dayrell was morethan usually smart and snappish in his repartees

,and

even in his ordinary talk ; but he wrote more brilliant ly and to the purpose in prose, and more stinginglyand wittily in verse, than ever . While the LadyStella was wonderfully improved in her behaviour toeverybody except her quondam suitor (whom she m et

disdainfully or turned from contemptuously) , so thatSociety pronounced her to be much more sociableand less dangerous than formerly.

a afczle/v

CHAPTER V .

TIM E , nevertheles s, somehow or other, wore on

wearily, painfully, or pleasantly . Another season cameround . Dayrell and Lady Stella in the meantime hadseen very little of each other since that exciting conversation and its dismal ending at the Richmondgarden party. The course of their inner life

,with all

it s conflict ing thoughts and emotions,its ridiculously

morbid regrets and bitter resentments , or remorseful,t ormenting self- reproaches

,need not be further m en

t ioned here . For these moods of heart and mindin glowing or gloomy youth are often as changefulas they are tumultuous

,and as passionate as painful ,

useful,perhaps , to be known as warnings, but scarcely

edifying to the public . It is enough,and perhaps

more than enough, to know that in natures like thoseof the two young companions in that garden walk,there are often effects produced by such scenes whichdo not pass away

,but leave indelible marks of bane

or bles sing . And in the hearts of both, there was notonly the changing and conflict ing t ide of passion, buta deep aching sense i n each (oi which they werebut half conscious) that they had then made greatfools of themselves

,had come very near the true

perfection of their earthly life and happiness, and


been wrenched asunder by some cruel and destroyingfate, or some shameful outbreak of temper andpride, resentment or folly

,which had left them

like a stranded vessel , still near to the broad riverof a mutual and immortal love , but on which theycould now never hope to

launch away,

And spread their whi te-w inged sails to the l i ght of an Eastern day .

Yet when the London season came round againthe following year, and in spite of their profes sedindifference to the ordinary dissipations of the

fashionable world, the lady and her irreconcilablelover were continually being drawn into the vortex,each was frequently condemned to hear of some

remarkable sayings or doings attributed by ad

miring or satirical followers to the other . LadyStella’s beauty, accomplishments , and wit (all themore enj oyed for its pungency and sarcasm) , herbrilliant singing, and singularly graceful dancingwhen induced to give way which was not seldom)to that frivolous and enchanting amusement, werethe theme of a hundred tongues, especially of hermany masculine admirers ; so that Dayrell inevitably heard enough to keep him at chronic feverpoint, in spite of all the cold water douches he em

ployed to extinguish the flame . While on her part,M r. Dayrell

’

s verses and reputation for classic learning,not of the prosy but the fascinating kind, his articlesin leading periodicals , h is conversation on the dramaand politics of the day, above all, his enchanting


tableaux vivants, charades , and drawing-room theatricals, were so much the lionizing rage amongst the

upper T en,

” that her pretty little frivolous cousinactually composed a short parable for a certain Sundayschool magazine, respecting the danger in which alovely humming-bird was once placed of being fascinat ed by the rattle of a deadly serpent

,as a warning

to young girls in regard to the race of fascinatinghuman serpents generally.

There was, however, one great safeguard for thelovely humming-bird against any danger of a renewalof young Dayrell

’

s attentions whereof she was notaware . If the fact that she would inherit a considerableproperty at her father’s death, and probably receivea large dowry should she marry in his lifetime, everoccurred to herself, she thought of it simply as apleasant means of enabling the man of her choice ,whoever he might be

,to enj oy many advantages

and luxuries he might not otherwise possess , as wellas give her considerable power over him . But whenfirst Wilfrid Dayrell realized that fact, it came onhim with a sharp pain, and seemed to make any,even the remotest, idea of renewing his suit absolutelyimpossible , supposing all other obstacles removed ;for his father had decided not to make an eldestson of him

,but had rightly left his widow in pos

session for her lifetime of his not very large estate,and divided it equally among his children afterwards .Thus

,then, the lovers went stumbling, blundering

on, fancying themselve s very fine, high-minded young


people, utterly unsuspicious of their blindness andpoverty, egotism and folly, and perhaps equally unconscious of their true greatnes s in virtue of certaindivine relationships which the angels thought theyboth possessed, but which they themselve s strictlyignored .

Under circumstances like these, however, it is notsurprising that

,with Ellerslie’s advice and guidance ,

Dayrell began reading tremendously hard for thebar— nor that in course of t ime he took it muchmore easily.


standing, their hands clasped, but their faces , on

which the light still shone,averted from each other

,

as if in the act of parting . And on those faceswas depicted an expres sion of subdued anguish

,es

pecially on that of the young man, almost terribleto behold .

The name of the picture in the catalogue wasm erely In the gloaming,

” but underneath w erethe explanatory line s

In the gloam ing— broken-heart edH ow or why t hey scarcely knewOnly knew

,though now they part ed

,

Once their love was deep and t rue.

The provoking part of the busines s was that thegift ed young artist would not let himself he lionized ,accepted no invitations , resisted all attempts todraw him from his seclusion

,returned no calls . In

fact,the good lady who took in M r. Grantley’s

letters at the addres s given in the catalogue,said

he came there only now and then since his painting had been finished and taken away . So noprogress could be made either by “ lion-hunters ,

”

genuine admirers and generous artists , or patronsof art . But the picture was sold for a considerablesum within a fortnight of its being exhibited .

There was generally a crowd round it in the

earlier part of the day . But one evening, soon

after the opening day, when the throng of Visitorsto the Exhibition had considerably le ssened, a younglady stood gazing at it long and silently. As she


t urned round she encountered Wilfrid Dayrell, andslightly started . Their eye s m et , wandered to the

picture , then back again,and for an instant they

l ooked in each other’s faces As the lady bowedand turned away with a ri sing colour

,she said

softlyI did not know you had learned to paint in oils ;

adding, and were not ashamed to sail underfalse colours .”

“ Ladies often change their names from meresentimental nonsense ,

” replied the young man,

“ whymay not m en do the same ? ”

The Lady Stella did not look at any more picturesin the Academy that evening

,nor did she seem in

clined to visit it again for some time . Horace Grantley’s picture continued to adorn the wall s of Burlingt on House, and when the Academy closed he

was speedily forgotten .

But a day or two after that rencontre a rathereminent statesman called at Sir Michael Ronhead’s

house in Portman Square . H e had done so severaltimes previously, had dined there, had manifestedon such occasions something of the intellectualgrasp and that power of expression which had wonhim a distingui shed position in the political world .

No wonder Lady Stella listened with rapt attention to his converse . His daughter (for he was awidower) had also call ed, and had been at LadyStell a’s parties, and had tried, without any remarkable fai lure or succes s, to make herself agreeable

V OL. 1. 5


to the young heires s . The father,’

in'

fact, seemedmore successful in that line than“

the'

daughter . H e

was still in the prime of life,having married when

only twenty, and exerted with no sl ight skill his powerof discoursing to ' the young lady on all political affairs ,past

,present, and future . In his company Stella’s

cynicisms and sarcasms alike disappeared . H er ambition and her imagination were evidently captivated ;and, above all, her intellect was satisfied and grat ifiedbeyond her expectations . ‘

Yet , strange to say, she

had a heart, which she always endeavoured to ignore—sometimes (perhaps often) in vain— and which wasnow far from content . Memories of other conversat ions, Visions of a pale young face and fire-dartingeyes , momentary yet passionate desires to feel oncemore the touch of a vanished hand

,

”

t o’

hear the sound of a voice thatmight never reach her ears again—these had keptthat woman’s heart of hers in stout rebellion againsther dominant intellect and ambition . And thencame the sight of that picture, and the lines beneath it

,and the presence of the artist, and the

sound of the musical Voice that for her had longbeen still .But the eminent statesman knew only of the

evident interest felt by the lady ln his visits andconversation -nothing of the rebellion . How shouldhé ? H e h ad inherited from ?his excellent parentsbut little of what are called the affections , and hadcertainly,

never Cultivated jwhat little xhe possessed;

LADY STE LLA AND ’ H ER LOVER .

’

67

Hence he had'

called more than once in PortmanSquare, had held long and interesting conversationsWith the zsharm ing , wi tty, handsome , highly- educated,clever daughter of his old friend, the andthought himself deeply in

'

love . At length he

sought an interview with that friend at their club,and as a result of the interview, proceeded withstately step and self- complacent ! pride to the house“

in ‘Portman Square as above mentioned . H e was

only a few days too late— had a rather agitatinginterview with t he lady, and, to his great surpriseand disgust , found that it was unde sirable he shouldcall on her again .

I thought you wou ld have accepted that greatman,

” said Frances ; he argued with you so beautifully .

“ Yes,replied Stella . In courtship he con

descended to argue , but in wedded bliss he wouldhave been omniscient, and woe to the wife thatmay occasionally differ from him .

The M MF H was much disappointed and very cros sfor at least three days .

.But as the hunting season,

beginning with the mystery of "‘ cub-hunting,” wasnow within a measurable distance of say two months ,and he was on the point of quitting this wretchedstupid London for his beloved country seat withall its rural delights, he ,

soon recovered his temperand good spirits . His daughter, however, remainedin semi-disgrace until she explained her disinclina,

tion to b eing bored about matrimonial proj ects in


so peremptory a manner that the old gentleman wasfain to patch up a peace at rather short notice .

The young gentleman whom it most concernedhad heard of the proj ected alliance between the

statesman and the heire ss,from Ellerslie without

wonder,but not without serious and nearly fatal

questionings as to the soundnes s of Plato’s reasoning and the wisdom of following Cato’s example whenin great tribulation . At length he gave up the

use of razors , locked them away with his revolver,got on to a Derbyshire moor on the twelfth ofAugust, and blazed away over the farms of Aldclyffe Priory among the stubble , woods , and turnipsthrough September and October , till he could settlehimself well in the saddle behind Sir Michael’s pets .One bright December morning that season a lithe

and practised young rider cantered along to the

meet ” on a gallant chestnut mare over the springyt urf with a fresh breeze in his teeth and a sense ofrecovered j oy long absent from his mind . Thencame the burst from cover amid universal gaiety,and the mad rush after the full-voiced pack, andthen the wi ld excitement wi th which fence afterfence was taken , and then the determined charge atthe great cx- fence, from which many a gallant horseand rider recoiled, but at which young Dayrell flewwith frantic gladnes s as he cheered his steed to flyover it with a bound which—had the ground on theother side been firm


On the other side of that fence, the next moment,after a few struggles , rider and horse lay still . One

never moved again .

CHAPTER V II.

“ T H IS i s a sad business .What ? ”

Oh , haven’t you heard ? But you won’t hear

now, if you care to attend only to that wretchedlittle monkey

The monkey, his tricks , his quasi-human in

t elligence , his position in creation—I mean, in Evolut ion his probable close relationship to ourselves ,all afford m e profound instruction and amusement .May not the weary tedium of human existencebe relieved by monkeys ? Else why should theyexist

“ Thoughtless girl ! You forget your theology .

Have you not just indicated the raison d’

étrc ? Without them , could we have been ? But it’s hardly atime for fooling , when a bright, young, noble life, inwhich we have all rej oiced , is suddenly struck down .

”

The speaker’s voice became a little husky.

“ Haven’tyou heard ? Young M r. Wilfrid Dayrell, of the

Priory Ah, you are interested at last, are

you ? But any misfortune to a near neighbourought

“ Yes, yes, I know ; don’t preach . What is it ,

Frances ?”


so supremely ridiculous a light that now she neverwould j oin the hunt . Moreover, she had angeredher father tremendously by

' sarcastic remarksthereon, more than once, and the whole subj ectthenceforth was tabooed . In the summer months

,

however, they had a great deal of pleasant ridingtogether, though Frances , who was constitutionallyrather timid, did not often accompany them,

forthey were given to sudden dashing escapades . Thatyoung lady’s mother, Mrs . Grey, was just now awayin a distant county at the bedside of a sufferingmarried daughter .

Sir Michael came home from the fatal hunting

field late in the afternoon , having waited at the

Priory till the provincial practitioner could give him areport of young Dayrell

’

s condition , and seen atelegram dispatched to fetch an eminent surgeonfrom London . Stella and her cousin thought theyhad never seen him look so miserable .

In the course of a day or two, however, he

brought them word that the patient ’s life wouldprobably be spared, but that he would lose the use

of his lower limbs .Soon after this announcement

,when the young

ladies were alone in the evening, Lady Stella brokea long musing silence by saying abruptly, “ Whatcan we do to cheer up his poor mother and sisters ?

We must try to do something . They are such near9neighbours . ’ H er cousin agreed, and they discussed

plans accordingly . But nothing seemed at once


feasible and convenable. The professed obj ect, ofcourse, was to bring some brightness to the homesand hearts of ‘

the ladies as they watched andtended the pallid and dej ected sufferer, who layall day on a luxurious - sofa by the fire- side . But

that sufferer himself may, possibly, have often been

in the foreground of their thoughts .“ I have it i” at last exclaimed the heiress . The

best way to brighten up the women, of course, isto cheer up the young man . Now don’t youremember what a mad passionate sort of interesthe always seemed to take in everything relating tohis old grandfather Dayrell, and especially in hisgrands ire’s recollection of Greece and the War of

Independence, and Lord Byron’s heroic efforts andmartyr deathCertainly I do, answered her cousin with a

flushing cheek . And I suppose that is what hasmade this young man such an enthusiastic admirerof Byron’s poetry.

”

“ Aye, that— and a good deal more, repliedStella musingly.

“ But,” rej oined her cousin , “ what makes him

such a fond idolater ’ of the hero of that funnypatchwork memoir of the Modern Bacchanal ? I

never could feel the least enthusiasm myself for the

mad- cap votary of Dionysus .”

Could you not —now—really said LadyStella, looking down at her cousin with a curi ousmixture , of affection and contempt. What a mist


fortune for— M r. Charles Dayrell . Well, I confess Idid . But then

,Frances , you are too young

to be all' evil . ’ We are not very much alike, are we,dear ? And yet

— and yet— I love youj’

t she .added,as she . threw her arms round her cousin’s aneck.

“ Well, but you darling old ogre ,” said Frances

as soon as she was released , What did this youngman know of his grandfather ? Could he ever haveseen him

‘ In that ‘ patchwork memoir,’ as you disrespect

fully call it , but which seems so only to paper-knifereviewers and the superficial eye (for one greatthought runs through the whole, finding its express

sion in varied forms) , perhaps you don’t remember

how,very near the e nd, it is said that a friend who

knew Charles Dayrell well, and wishedYes

, yes,” said Frfances, “ I remember .

“ Well, continued Stella, that young gentlemanlying there on the sofa at Aldclytfe Priory was theEton lad there mentioned , doted on by his grandsire

,and giving .

'

him in return a sort of romanticlove and worship before which even Greek andGuebre idolatry grows pale .

”

“ I see,” meekly replied the cousin.

“ And I thinkI have heard all about it once or twice before . ButI really don’t see why we are therefore to give ourselves up to a study of old M r. Dayrell because he

was young M r . Dayrell’

s hero , or of this profiigate

Lord Byron . I don 't, indeed,”

she repeated, inspite of that withering frown of yours, or s even that


d isdainful smile . The world in general i s notbitten now with the Byron mania—so much the

better.~ “ Fie on thee ! ” exclaimed Stella, “ cold and

.undiscerning sceptic ! The world,

the shallowfawning . literary world has been bowi ng down inslavish admiration many a day

,before meaner idols ,

who were not worthy to dust the pedestal on whichByron s tands enthroned for ever. But that’s notthe question .

”

“ Granted, granted. Smooth your rutfled plumes ,my dear. If you only want me to see that thebest thing we can do

,if the doctor approves , and

his mother rises to the hint,is to arrange for a

few conversations , readings, &c . , round the patient’ssofa, I agree at once , even to the extent of eriticising and renouncing Byron and all his works— andI promise you I’ll second your benevolent schemes .

“ Benevolent ! Fudge ; have you ever known me

benevolen tNot violently . Rather the other thing, in general,

I confess . But then why make such a pother aboutthis maimed young madman and his rather prosyrelations

“ Becaus e at this season of the year, with Parliament j ust opened and all the m en gone up to town,t he country may be wh olesome— but— it is distinctlydull ; whi le, on the other hand, *

the unlucky lunatic

is— a poet .”

Ah, I know too well you are poetical ,~

if not


benevolent— romantic if not amiable . You nevercreep out in the dark dull November evenings to callon some poor goodyw never feel a gentle interest ingifted young suffering poets and painters

“ Do shut up your foolish twaddle , Frances . I’llnever confide to you again if you so pervert . Why,what can you be dreaming of ? I tell you you are

utterly mistaken . I have not— never had —a particleof what is ca lled love for that poor young maneven in - and her voice trembled slightly even inhis better days ,

’ as shop-keepers phrase it . But now,of course, you dear silly dreamer, you can hardlysuppose the tender passion is very likely to be evolved .

Can’t a girl feel a genuine interest in, a real attachment to, one of the stupid sex without being ‘ in

love ? (the last words uttered in a tone of subli

mest scorn .) But you read trashy sensational orsentimental novels till your thoughts run on nothingbut all that foolery . Now, are you convinced of sinand— squashed

I don’t feel a bit like it . Pity’s a-kin to love .

Well, you pity him ,my fair coz—therefore, &c.

Allons, done Take your candle and go to bed.

”

The thrust, though intended for a parry, had thedesired effect . For though cousin Frances hadn’tthe slightest tender feeling except pity, and perhapsnever had, for poor Wilfrid Dayrell, she was nervouslysensitive , like many o ther young ladies , at beingchatted about any particular young gentleman .

The doctor, on being consulted respecting visits from


the Manor, was in favour of a little mental excitement, if not too long continued . It would promotethe action of the liver, and assist vitality in the lower

The patient’s mother and sisters were charmedwith the idea . So meetings for reading and conversation were arranged . The heiress of H urst leighManor and her cousin planned the programme foreach réunion, and manifested the wisdom of theserpent beneath the silky sweetness of the dove . Theycommenced with j udicious selections from “ ElegantExtracts ,

”

passing over the real gems in that delightful but rather mixed ” repertory

,and administering

lengthy supplies of superior dulness , until the

whole party were unmistakably bored, and the doctordeclared that these afternoon séances were positivelyretarding

'

his patient’s recovery . Thereupon LadyStella confident ially suggested that it would probablyanswer better if they could get young M r. Dayrellto talk a little himself. Ah , my dear,

” replied M rs.

Dayrell with a sigh , that would be very well if weonly knew what he would care to talk about. Buthe has lost all his old interest in every subj ect under

limbs .

the sun.

”

“ Even in himself Stella asked— but not aloud .

To his mother she blandly answered— “ Yes, butnot in what once was under the sun, and livedin its light, diffused its light— and now,

”she added

to herself,lives , some people think, in far brighter

light. I mean ,”she continued aloud, the fine old

man— the bold, plucky, gallant, handsome old gentle

78 LADY STELLA AND “

H ER LOV ER.

man,beloved at Eton and Oxford, in Greece and White

chapel ! Ah,Mrs . Dayrell, we never now m eet with

young m en equal to the old ones , do we ? But we can ,perhaps , hear a little about this particular patriarch .

Lead your suffering son to talk of his grandfather, andsee if his eye doesn

’t brighten,and his health improve

in spite of his medicine .

“ Yes, yes, my dear,

” replied M rs. Dayrell,you

have made a valuable suggestion .

”

Hit the gold, my dear, added the frivolous youngcousin softly— “ just like the Son of Venus .”

Young Dayrell’

s sunken eyes did “ brighten considerably at the proposal , but still more when he heardwho had made it . Yet he felt and said he didn’tthink he could do much in the talking—line .

Then writ e what you have to say and read it tous, responded Stella, breaking her usually cold andslightly cynical serenity , with unwonted Vivacity ofexpression , and making the sufferer on his couch turnhis eye s with momentary brightnes s on the speaker.Presently, raising himself on his elbow

,he

broke the silence by saying, with some emotion“ Thank you all, very much . I will write what

I remember. It won ’t be much— and perhaps notinterest you— but it will pass the time .

”

As he lay back wi th a half- suppres sed groan,

Stella gently replied“ Nay

,it wi ll interest us if it helps u s to

understand how M r.

l

Dayrell threw off the . wearyweight of life . You see, M r. Wilfrid, and she

80 LADY STELLA AND HER LOVE R.

in thinking that Stella would listen to it withsome amount of intere st . But his first feelingswere not at all delightful . The poor maimedcripple had to work off a whole Mount O s sa-onPelion of morbid , self- conscious wretchedness . H e

seems from that surviving M S. quoted above tohave thought he could do this best by starting adiary

,which begins , accordingly, in the following

characteristic fashion

“ JOURNAL BY A SPOILED CH ILD,’

AND A RUINED

SPENDTH RIFT .

”

Well , I am writing as she bade me— but notfor her or any one else to see . I remember she

said,among other st range things, she wanted

they wanted— to understand how my grandfatherlearnt to throw off all this weary, weary weightof life and ill that presses on as all so heavily.

But I can’t help them . She referred to

the letter written to “ Dayrell’

s eldest grandson,a remarkably fine Eton lad,

”&c . H a

, ha ! There

are the words . Read them, oh, ye owls ! till you,like me , are sick of the sight . Was I a fine ladthen ? How the grinning fiends, who dog andtorture us, must enj oy that notion now ! PerhapsI had some “

go” in me then ; and, like my

grandsire, could now and then show a few ofthem the way on the river, or when the merrycurs were giving tongue with a breast-high scent ;and in later days I believe I rowed stroke in my


college boat, and was near pulling in the

University e ight, and have ridden a dozen steeplechases

,and danced through the night

,and been

— in— love - ha, ha ! And now here I lie , maimedfor all my days . Ah

,my God, help m e '

if there be a God . Too late , too late .

There may be a God for others— not forme . Why is all this miserable farce

,this

wretched, t antalizing pretence kept up any longer,by which we are first induced to believe in aloving God, and then in a cruel demon— givingwith one hand and filching or rending away withthe other ?There was once a man named Charle s Dayrell

,

Who rode and ran, leaped, laughed, dined, foughtand danced

,worshipped and rej oiced in worship

, .

loved and twooed, and was beloved again, for fiftyor sixty years in this glorious world— as he called

it— and his grandson longed,and craved

,and“

strove to go and do likewise . And that livelyyouth now lies at the gate of the temple “ calledBeautiful,

” crippled for life, and never a Peteror John able or willing to take him by the

hand and say, Rise up and walk .

9k at as are

The “ Modern Bacchanal (as the friend who

wrote M r. Dayrell’

s memoirs somewhat indiscreetly,though most appropriately, called him in his titlepage) thought he understood the character andcareer of that marvellous Spanish knight, monk ,

V OL. I. 6


and organizer, Ignatius Loyola,by sympathy— by

reflecting on what he himself might have becomehad he been struck down like the Founder of theJesuits in early

'

manhood . Aye , he might havebeen as great a Christian organizer as Loyola, hadhe , too, been crippled in his twenties ; wouldhave been in that case, I think . But Loyolalived in the Ages of Fa ith, and my grandsirebreathed the air o f the Revival of Belief, and wasfilled full with what is called the “ Christian life .

”

But the world in which I, too, once lived ,dreamed, worshipped, is now, for m e

,shattered

for ever, and with it has vanished every shredof faith, h0pe, love . What now to m e are the

glorious Grecian myths,their gods and worship ?

Hunting, rowing, dancing,society in manifold

forms , chances of a political career— all gone ;chance

,even

,of literary and poetic achievement ,

for with the outward life has gone the inwardinspiration— even if I drag on existence— and withthem whatever little chance there was of one

day winning her love— gone,gone , utterly gone

and for ever ! A score of manly young j ackanape s—stay ! No fool, coxcomb, profligat e, will haveany chance there— but— bu t there are m en worthyeven of her, who will woo her

,and one of them

not in vain , while I lie here, till I’

m carried outin a box !

And the merry sound of her marriage bellWill serve for the crippled dreamer’s funeral knell .


I rather wonder now I let them keep me

alive to write this . Well,they say there

’s no foollike an old one . If so, it i s only because folly is so

natural to youth that nothing is then thought of it— else I think I should never have let the surgeon’sknife alone that night till it had gone across mywind-pipe as well as into my bones . Howremarkably consistent all this rhodomontade is withthe character and spirit of him whom I have hadfor an example, as an infinit e privilege—whom I haveloved, honoured, since I could first toddle— and witha deeper reverence and affection than I care to prateabout now. Ye t— yet

— Merciful Heaven ! hewas never st ruck down in mid career, in the midstof health and strength and rej oicing life and power .

Is that true ? Not suddenly struck“

d own,

I grant— but what was that letter written to me , atEton

,to explain ? Something I could not under

s tand then— nor,it seems, now. H e was not pulled

up at the age of five- and- twenty nor at sixty- four .H e was going the pace long after three- scor

’

e years .But a little later ou

,what then ? Yes, he lived to

see one act ivity after another taken from him— growing weaker and weaker, till he sat like a helples slog in his arm- chair— lived to feel

'

all his sense ofenjoyment deadened

,and at length des troyed— to

find all whom he loved most dearly leaving him—alone— those of his own generation all gone before

t o the Dark Land and this went on for fouror five years . Was not that, then , a harder

‘

trial

6—2

84 i LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER .

than mine ? Heaven knows— not I. But I do knowhe was cheerful, kindly , patient, sweet- tempered t o

the last . Why ? She has asked m e“ why ? ”

and I am writing about myself instead of him .

February 27th.— She asked m e to—day how I got

on with my “ Recollections , and when I said thategotism was painfully predominant and “ blotted outlike a thick cloud

,

thoughts concerning one farworthier to be written about than myself, she assuredme earnestly, may I not say tenderly ? that my lifewas so interwoven , she though t , with his , that Imust not shrink from speaking of myself. KindAngels ! I’ll take her at her word . But it is hard ,bitter hard to be pitied when I— wanted

to be loved . Well,well, to be weak is

miserable ! We have it on the authority of an arch

fiend, according to his biographer. Oh , ye gods and

fiends ! we know it in the bitternes s of our own

soul s without your telling . Weaknes s ! growing

weakness— feeling one power after another going fromyou— feeling yourself more and more defenceles sagainst Visible and invisible evils— against all the illsaround and within you— more helple s sly dependent

long to see you under the sod, and you know yourself to be de spised as well as hated ! This is whatan old man has to face— the possibility, probability,daily

,hourly danger, of this , if not its actual reality.

And I, at twenty-five, have to face it

LADY STELLA AND H ER LOV ER . 85

But he, my hero , was weak and not miserablenot harassed by fears , nor tortured by the dislike

,

hatred, or contempt of those around him . Nob lehearted, honoured, peaceful to the las t— CharlesDayrell— tell m e how this was ! You loved me well

,

I know,in your lifetime , and would have done any

thing, then , to make m e a happier and better fellow.

I know,well, too, you would come back t o me from

the ‘echo- les s shore,

’ if they would let you, to showme now the way to strength and peace . But— toolate— too late . Oh why

,if I must be crushed into

this helples s mass of clay, why was it not while youwere still living to teach m e how to bear it ? orwhy have I lived to face this lot alone ?

Let me look again at his friend’s letter t o m e .

That friend knew him altogether— and he saysMen ’s mot ives no doubt are usually m ixed— and the ir moods change

w i th the changing t ides . And large natures o f ten overflow. But i nst rong natures you w i ll always find some predominat ing idea and des i re

,good or evi l . When your grandfather was young, he craved

pas s i onat ely to get—when a li t t le older to give— all o f freedom ,beauty

,

and joy that could be gained or given . Grasping,eager , loving , filled

w i t h marvellous l i fe and energy,he t hen seemed to know nei ther res t

nor peace. But now that he i s old and infirm,he rest s calmly, lovingly

i n H im who i s “the Foun tain al ike of E nergy and Peace .

” Whenyour facult ies of body and m ind

,now so full of l ife

,decay, may you ,

l i ke him,en t er in t o your

A friendly wish— and charmingly fulfilled. Facultie sof body and mind have decayed— and pretty quicklytoo . What has become of that “ Rest he wishes Imay enter into ? Ah, but then I have not lived auseful and noble life of ceaseles s toil for the welfare

’7' “ Charles Dayrell, a M odern Bacchanal , p. 457.


of others , like the old h ero of Oriel and the backslums . I have done nothing to earn th’at Rest .Herein lies the leaden weight of this curse of pain

,

weaknes s , and decay that has fallen on me .

But I think there’s something more said abouthis re st and serenity in that memoir . Let m e

look at it again . The writer declares that thoughCharles Dayrell in his old age,

“ regarded himselfas utterly useless

'

in the world, and had a hardfight sometimes to avoid repining at his forcedinaction ,

” his friends truthfully affirmed that he

made their lives all the better and happier for9continuing to abide among them .

’ Some of thosefriends who had known him in the full rush ofhis youth and manhood, could not comprehend hisquietness ” and peace now . Those who knew that

“ strength ” may be “ made perfect in weakness ,”

understood the matter ; and whether they did ornot, it is certain , I know , that he was peaceful,cheerful, a bles sing to all around him . And, lookhere , they don

’t say this was because he had liveda useful life . I know he himself never felt he hadbeen of much use in the world . It seemed tohim

,I always thought, as if hi s plan s and labours ,

after all, had been little better than a series offailures . True, he had worked very hard at everything he took in hand . But so have I ; both atschool and college, and since and though the timewas short it was all I had to work in. There musthave been some other and deeper cause, and I


same privations , rested calmly, lovingly in H im

who is the Fountain at once of Energy andPeace .

”

Yes, to him , possibly— but to me the fountain ofweakness , misery, restlessness , despair H e had

done his work , and might rest contented . But Ihad not even begun mine, when I was struck intothis frightful grey beard dotage ! How can I“ rest ” in the author of it ?Is it then

,chiefly because I shall be unable to

do a stroke or two of good work in the world, thatI am now whining and groaning over my mishap ?Or, is it not rather because I shall never enj oy theworld and its thousand pleasures ? What if I um

m iserable because there is no happiness left for me

on earth .

Hark to Carlyle— “ Foolish Soul . Art thouthen nothing other than a Vulture , seeking aftersomewhat to eat ; and shrieking dolefully becaus ecarrion enough is not given thee ? Close thy Byron ;

open thy Goethe.

Pooh , pooh , thou Nineteenth century prophet .Thou didst n ot half understand thy Byron , and Idon 't quite believe in thy Goethe . Thou sayest truly,there is in m en a H IGH ER than Love of Happines s ”

—but falsely that “ M an can do without Happine ss ,whatever he may find instead That other herbprophet

,he of the golden prime , and he also, the

modern Bacchanal ” of a later day who worshipped

Charming . Essay on Fenelon .

”

LADY STELLA AND H ER LOVER .

that Joy—bringing Son of Semele, are we to desecrateand fling down that altar and renounce for ever theworship of Gladness ? “ Because thou art virtuous,&c. , &c . Yet I remember once when thatdisciple of Dionysus was looking back on his pastlife—(how it all comes back on m e —we werestanding together on the Malvern Hills , to the topof which he had come up in a pony- chaise, lookingover to the far west where the sun had set in softserene beauty— as I once saw it in Richmond Park—I remember how sadly he said half to himself,Aye , I loved the world well— too well .

” “ Is that,Sir, said I presently, but in a low voice, for Ifeared a little asking him— “ what is meant bybeing worldly-minded ?” H e didn’t answer at first ,and then he said with a great sigh , “ Yes—beeause

I didn’t love with 'my whole heart Him who madethe world and all its beauty and j oys , all that mademe rej oice in them and should have made me rej oicein Him . All other worship would have been right ifonly that worship had been first and deepest .” Iremember I became so much interested in what hesaid then and afterwards

,that after each conver

sation I wrote down all I could recollect ; and I see

that I" next asked him how he knew that he

deserved such heavy condemnation . H e answeredwith a kind of pensive dreamy smile

,still looking t o

the sunset, “ Because the first thing I thought of

in the morning, always , was what enj oyment Ishould get that day. It was very long before

90 LADY STE LLA AND H ER LOVER .

my early or later thoughts were how I could bestserve or please God . And let m e tell you, myboy

,

”he continued, putting his hand kindly on my

head,one ’s first thoughts on waking and rising are

a mighty good test of your habitual character andtendencies . For then

,you see, your will has scarcely

come into play, and you are more under the influence of habit . So look well to your wakingmorning thoughts, my lad . My habit of mind,I have seen clearly enough , was then not to thinkof God

,or to find any happiness in Him . I revered

Him,tried to obey Him— but my happiness, the

great desires of my life— ah , they were far away .

Yet sometimes I saw all this and knew it waswrong . And that was one reason

,my lad, why I

longed so deeply to see God under brighter , morebeautiful and tender aspects than the usualtheology supplies . For I know I did sometimeswant

,very greatly, to love Him better, and (as

the old Book says,you know) ,

‘ to have Him inall my thoughts .’ Yet I didn’t do ituntil, until I was laid aside . And then he

drew a heavy sigh . Did he not j udge himself toohardly ?March l st .— Oh

,how those words come back to m e

now as clearly as if I heard them yesterday !Just so it has been with m e . Is that, then , why Iam lying here , helpless, m iserable ? Would God,then , have m e come to Him now, in my youth instead of letting m e neglect Him till I’m old ?


One day after that last conversat ion, I remembersitting in hi s study and asking him if it was not

a trying time when he began to realize his growing weaknes s

,and to know he was getting les s and

les s able to work and enj oy life and go about ashe used to do .

“ Trying ! Yes . At first I resented that increasing weakness as a cruel wrong. I remember onceexplaining in a way that I believe surprised as wellas distressed a dear friend beside m e (for you see ,

Wilfrid, I had played the hypocrite well,and pre

tended to be so peaceful and resigned )—‘ V

V

hat alife this i s ! Eating

,drinking

,sleeping— nothing

else— Shame on it " Then my friend said,

‘ Nay,

you still enj oy reading and being read to .

’ I can’ttell you, my lad, how ashamed I felt of myselfwhen I thought all this over in the silent nightwatches . For then I saw how wonderfully andbeautifully God was arranging my life

,and I

seemed to hear Him saying t o m e,‘ It i s in this

state of bodily helples sness ; My child , that yoursoul’s life i s being best developed .

’ Then I saw

that I was being brought far nearer to God in thatstate than I ever was or could be when in the fullflow of mere physical life and mental energy.

”

“ Is it not,Sir

,

” said I,

“ something the same atthe end of life

,then, as at the beginnmg

? We

don’t think a baby is wasting time or living auseless life when only eating, drinking and sleeping, because it is preparing by those means for a


far nobler life . I’

m sure you are preparing now3,

0for a glorious existence . My grandfatherturned to me with one of those looks I can neverforget, saying, Right, dear boy, right . Ah,

Wilfrid,don’t forget all this when your turn come s .

Watch against that t errible temptation to rebelagainst God’s will and ways . For it often is adesperate temptation ! But there ’s no peace , nolove

,no rightness of any kind till we ’ve cor:

quered it .

”And I

’

m very t hankful now,more than

I can just say , that I once asked him how it wasto be conquered . For he answered, “ Only by cont inued and persevering prayer for God

’s holy spirit,

followed up by strenuous, determined efforts of willonly by absolute unreserved self- surrender to God,

perfect acquiescence in Hi s appointment s , such as

the old Puritans in virtue of their Calvinistic training manife sted .

” But,

” I asked , “ how can one

learn to do this and gain strength and wi ll to doit ?

” I cannot describe the pathet ic solemnity withwhich he answered , In the Easter moonlit night

,

in the Garden of Gethsemane , and by his help whoconquered then ! ”

Not that day but soon after, when he was out ina wheel- chair, I ventured to refer again to what hehad said about living such a useless life— merely eat

ing,drinking

,sleeping, and, I added , You hardly

realize,I think

,how much you are doing for all

who love you merely by living and receiving theirlove. Think

, dear Sir,what a gap you would

LADY STELLA AND H ER LOVE R. 93

leave in our lives if we could no longer come and

wish you good morning, and say‘ H ow d

’

ye do,Grandpapa ? ’ or read to you, or help you to do anything you want . Is it not being very useful whenyou make us all love you as we do

,and make us

happy merely to see you ? ”

"Dear lad,”he answered , “ it’s fine to hear you

chatter in that way— and I hope it’s all true— forit makes living more endurable— and happy .

”

I thought a s he seemed inclined to converse, Iwould t ake the Opportunity (for I a lways thoughteach time I talked with him might be the last) ofbringing up again that point of surrendering ourwills to

.

the will of God ; and with, I fear, something of a boy ’s petulance and perversity

,hinted that

there seemed to be something unmanly and meanin such unqualified sacrifice of one ’s own will to the

will of another, however great and good H e might be .

There are three motives,”he answered

,which may

rightly impel us to do so,without loss of manliness .

First,when we submit to force m aj eure because

there i s no reasonable chance of effectual resistance,and when t o attempt it would only involve othersas well as ourse lve s in ruin . To submit to an un

righteous power, which it is not our duty to obey,and which exercise s rule over us for its own selfish

ends and to our harm,is not manly, is base when

we may, can , and should resist ! ” And I saw the

old man’s eyes gleam and flash, as , I imagine,memories of Greek, Italian

,Hungarian patriots ,

94 LADY STELLA AND HER LOVE R .

crowded on his mind . But as he did not at firstcontinue, I said under my breath

,“ And the

other two motives ? ” Then he continued slowlyand with gravity

,The second is when we

yield our wills to a wiser, better, nobler will thanour own because we feel or know it to be so . We

may do this merely because we think it will be bestfor our own interest s , Wilfrid, or because we knowit to be our duty. But the highest, noblest motiveis that without which the ac t of self—surrender, of

yielding up our will to another being is not perfect,not wholly blessed—I mean the impulse of Love .

”

“ But even that motive , I ventured to say,

would not be complete , would it ? unless we

yielded because we fel t it a d uty as well as be

cause we loved Him to whom we yielded ? ”

“ Right,my lad

,right again ! ” he answered with

more than usual earnestness . Love needs the conscience to make it perfect. Who taught youthat

“ You, Sir, I replied, as he again patted my headaffectionately . You praise m e for hitting with ashaft feathered from your own wing .

9 3Then I won’t praise you,he answered gently

,

as he leant back in his wheel- chair, looked at m e

for a moment with those wonderful big eyes of his ,then closed them and added

,

“ I won’t praise you,

my boy— only love you .

”

H ow was it— oh ‘ heavens how did it come

about that with such a teacher I couldn’t learn the

96 LADY STE LLA AND HER LOVER.

innocent happy young creature on God’s earth . Butnot— meant— to last . Beautiful , and transitory .

Then he t ook up a volume of the ContemporaryReview and presently continued

A splendid critic,writing here on Goethe,

’ and inreference to the charge often brought against him ofbeing simply a ‘ Great Heathen,

’ says,

‘ H e provoked

! that charge]and almost claimed it in his sketch ofV Vinckelmann

,where after enthusiastic praise of the

ancients,and of Winckelmann as an interpreter of

the ancient world , he inserted a chap ter en titled ,‘ Heidnisches

,

’ which begins thus : ‘ This picture ofthe antique spirit

,absorbed in this world and its

good things,leads us d irectly to the reflexion tha t

such excellences are compatible only with a heathenish way of thinking .

’ Ah,we are all of us

little heathens when young, and not about to die .

But,my boy

,what say you ? Would you be a

heathen and a child all your life ! Do you wish youhad never got beyond a go- cart and a rattle ? Pooh !When Goethe felt like that— sage , philosopher, poet ,sweet singer and many- sided mighty m ind, as he

was—he saw but half of man’s nature , powers ,destiny . Stunted

,crippled soul was his , in this

world, after all . H e knows more now. We grow

aged, feeble, crippled, in the body, that we may

hnd our soul’s life and strength , our j oy and peace—in God, in the things that are unseen, and

eternal— in the religi on of the Cross , which means

the fulness of Love, ‘ the fulness of God .

’ And


those words come back to me now, and find me

what ? A stunted soul, in a crippled body.

”

Soon after my grandfather had said those lastwords in a very quiet way, he suddenly exclaimedwith more energy than I thought possible, Butafter all, let us not forget that we know andunderstand a great deal more about the Eternal,and come much closer to Him by selfsacrifice andfaithful effort to please , and serve, and love Him ,

than by any amount of mere emotional transportor aesthetic enj oyment of the Beautiful and Sublime

,

even though we closely identify all that beauty andglory with God . Nevertheless, I am sure thatemotional rapture is infinit ely good and blessed .

Oi both I would say, ‘ This should ye do, and notleave the other undone .

’ But I have left so muchundone .

”

Then I thought I would tell him he had a rightto remember how constantly he had been alwaystrying to make others happier than their poor lotseemed to permit— genuine

,philanthropic work it

seemed to m e .

99“ True, he answered, as I thought somewhatreluctantly, “ I did think a great deal how I couldhelp others , as well as myself, to enj oy existence .

But I fear enj oyment was the grand thing99in my estimation

“.And freedom,

” I added .

“ Yes ; freedom , as the necessary condition ofenj oyment

,and the enj oyment was all to be of a

V OL. 1. 7


pure and noble character, he continued .

“ But

still it was a worship of Joy, perhaps an idolatrousworship . And yet I know that I always wanted tomake it lead up to

,unfold

,cherish a deeper and

might ier love of God than the religious worldgenerally seems to posse ss . But, with regardto what you call my philanthropic work

,we needn’t

say much about that . It was all done on the line sthat most pleased myself. Still , murmured the old

man half to himself,as if fatigued with talking,

“ still it was a right and good thing— I know itas well now on the edge of the grave as at bonnyeighteen— to try and help folks , e specially poorhard-working folks

,to enj oy life , and so to believe

in the love of God and the kingdom of His dearSon .

I asked him on one other occasion , whether whenhis great and terrible trouble came upon him , andhis wife was taken from him , he felt that his faithand trust were strong enough for the strain .

“ No,

”he answered, not at first . I felt swept

away from all anchorage , could not realize God’slove at all , nor get reconciled to H im and Hischastening. Ah , those were dark days, butH e brought me out of them . Though I turnedaga anst Him, he bore with it all, and brought m e

back to Himself lovingly, gently— so that after alittle while I bent my will to His—wholly.

It was during this struggle I first fully understoodthat wonderful passage in Francis Newman

’

s book,


them ! Privileges bring proportionate duties andresponsibilities . And well and faithfully

,forsooth

,

have I not availed myself of mine ! “ As with asword in my bones , my enemie s ”— say , rather, myfriends— “ reproach m e . I hear only the

echo of a desolate cry, “ Where is thy God ? thyDelivererI wrote , and copied out, all the foregoing from

time to time , in a few intervals of freedom frompain ; and when I had finished I marvelled greatlyI had undertaken to furnish any recollections ofthe talk of a man so infinit e ly above m e . But as

I told my little circle of hearers,before I read

what I had written , those “ Recollections of hislife and religious theories published some time

back— called Charles Dayrell : A modern Bacchanal ,or the Worship of Joy ”— were written , no doubtwith excellent intentions and a competent knowledge , but , perhaps, not always wi th a sufficient

apprehension or lucid explanation of my grandfather’s theory and aim of existence . Hence , theyhave not been underst ood as they would be by thosewho conversed with him in hi s latter days . Forthe world goes now at a killing pace , and doesn

’tstop t o guess riddles , or interpret parables . Butthe clergyman , M r. Rivers

,from whose letter to

m e I quoted above, told m e a good deal more ofhis friend

,which I noted down at once . H e also

gave m e sundry MSS .,

so that I fancy I am

better read in the subj ect than I often was in

LADY STELLA AND HER LOV ER. 101

the papers set us in the Oxford Schools . Ispecially noted the following remarks by the goodparson , who, by

- the-bye , wanted me , when I

took my degree , to become a parson myself. Ithought at the time I wasn t quite such an oldwoman, yet , as to entertain tha t idea . But thesematters look rather dificerent ly to me now . Itmight be, I don

’t know,but it might be for me

,

now, a beautiful and blessed life, if only I everbecame worthy and fit for it in body and soul .But I have no strength in the one, and littlefaith in the other. ’ The work itself is very noble—and many of the workers . This very man wasworthy of being M r. Dayrell

’

s friend , for he was

a thoroughly hearty muscular old Christian,had

pulled well in his college eight, and shonein his e leven , was utterly free from humbug

,

or cant,

“ starch,or “ bounce ,

” and has gone inall his life for manly sports , as well as earnestpraying and preaching. Well, this man, I say,

shortly before his death, answered a question ofmine one day, thusIt always seemed to me that the main thought

of the so- called Modern Bacchanal,’ your grand

father,which indeed possessed him with magnifi

cent and over-mastering power— impelling him tospend his life in giving it utterance by every actand word in his power— was this : H e well knewto how large an extent all Joy

,even satisfaction,

wi th one ’s own condition, tends in our days of

102 LADY STE LLA AND H ER LOVER .

strengt h and health to lead us away from Godto make us, in fact , feel independent of Him .

Yet he also believed that there was no permanentsatisfaction and j oy apart from God, that we are

made for infinit e and eternal life in Him,for a

divine life of Love and Joy in Him, and withH im

,and that we find, therefore , only bitterness

and death, ‘ a great and terrible wilderne ss , fieryserpents, and scorpions , and drought,

’ in our wildpassionate strivings after pleasure and freedom .

Nevertheles s,he felt sure that God gave mankind

such abundant j oy in the Youth of the World,and evermore still showers it down upon us inhappy personal childhood, in order to lead us tolong for it , to aspire towards it , as one great end

of our exi stence . How then are we to

impartThe puri ty of heaven to earthly joys

,

Expel the venom and not blun t the dart

how make it safe to enj oy,how make that enj oyment

minister to our upward progres s,and nourish our

higher life instead of cherishing selfishness,sensuality

,

and living without God in the worldNow, I don

’t mean I understood all this when theclergyman said it , nor when I first began to try and

work out more fully my grandfather’s creed ; but

on looking back I can see that these and otherthoughts which were gradually borne in uponm e, trace the line s in which, though not withmuch succes s , I tried to live and work . But for


recent rival and j ealous poets , who not only wereunworthy to loose his shoe- strings , but who oftenhad not the excuse for their censures which writersof high moral purity and piety undoubt edly some

times had .

“ Action and reaction we were toldat school, are equal and contrary ; and the enthu

siast ic admiration of one generation is the naturalprecursor of the indifference or antagonism of the next .But returning to my “ muttons

,

” which I can oftenneither lead nor drive , when I had got as far as thisin my j ournal , I told my kind little circle one sunnyafternoon , I had done as they bade m e , giving aside glance at the Lady Stella , who returned my lookwith a pretty little saucy toss of her head and , Ithought

,with a pleasant smile .

That’s very good of you,so far

,M r. Dayrell,

she said , but now are you going to burn yourj ournal ?”

Probably you will wish to do so, if I begin readingany of it aloud .

”

My bashful humility was voted a weak pretence ,and it was clear they meant to run the risk . So Iread portions of it , here and there , skipping mostof my melancholy—mad— ruminations , but giving all

I had written about my grandfather . When I hadfinished, there was a deep silence— like that which thepoets say may be felt . I know I felt it , for theevening shades had gathered round us, and I thoughtperhaps they were all asleep , or I might have boredthem to death ; and I wished for a moment I had


never written or read a line of the wretched rubbishthen in my hands . Pre sent ly I heard a long-drawnbreath— not a snore , but a deep sigh from one ofthe party, and my mother and sisters whisperedthanks ; and then the voice that used to be to me

the sweetest on earth, yet which had often jarred on

me so painfully, just murmured, Thank you verymuch . It is very intere sting and the voice was softand gentle, and it added, M r. Dayrell

’

s reading is likemusic

,is it not ? ” So I was satisfied for the nonce .

My sleep was very sweet to m e that night .

CHAPTER V III ,

T H E next day, which was a Saturday,the home

party all declared I hadn’t looked so bright andwell since my accident, and that it was quiteclear I must go on writing—and reading what Iwrote . I was about to reply when the dooropened and that j olly young duffer, FredEllerslie , was announced . H e had come to staytill Monday. I was not the only one of the

party delighted to see him . H e was one of thebest and most sensible of all my old collegecronies , and the first to come down to the Prioryafter my accident to inquire and sympathize . Hisdecidedly cynical turn of mind and manner concealed a lot of kind generous feeling, and therewas something in his cool, self- contained pleasantryand quiet

,genial

,though rather shallow philosophy,

that gave the combined impression of sunshine anda bracing sea-breeze . So he was always welcome ,though he could not often spare time to come .

After a while , I began to think he specially eu

j oyed talking to one of my sisters , and didn’t

wonder if her eyes brightened when he came . The

mere sight of him did one good .

Of course he j oined politely in the demand my


chala/rwe that it went to my heart, and almost tookaway my breath . But I was in a weak

,foolish

state , then at all events , if not all my life . And ifnobody else in the whole world had cared aboutByron what would it matter ? But her interest inhim and his poetry made m e sure that some othersWould feel as she did . And certainly it did m e apower of good , reading to her ; for she sat listeningso absorbed that her work was dropped after a time,and it struck me that she shaded her face that wemight not see how much she was interested . Beforebeginning to read, I explained that the writerdescribed the whole scene

,and M r. Dayrell

’

s per

formance of‘

his task that evening at Oriel, now

nearly seventy years ago, j ust as he witnessed it . H e

said that St . Austell had kindly consented to takethe chair, and that Arnold and Milman were bothpresent. H e also mentioned that my grandfatherhad written out his lecture, but gave it extemporefrom a few note s or m emoriter, and that the M S.

which had come into M r. Rivers’ hands was what Iwas about to read, with that gentleman’s owndescriptions . I added that it seemed to m e

eloquent ; but if the ladies thought its style bom

bas tic, they must remember it was delivered by anenthusiastic young undergraduate to m en chiefly

as youthful as himself, and that the enthusiasm ofyouth was sometimes nearer the truth than the

chilling criticisms of age.

“ I am not hitting at you, mother, I added, for


you are youthful and blooming as ever, while the

rest of the party are decidedly juvenile .

”

Lady Stella looked as if she knew of whose crit i

cism s I was most in awe . Then when the t ea- tablewas cleared, I fired away.

T H E CLERGYM AN’

S ACCOUNT or H IS FRIEND AND

FELLOW STUDENT’

S, CH ARLES DAYRELL

’

S, LECTUREON BYRON AT ORIEL IN 18 18 .

Much less of course was then known about thepersonal history of the noble poet than is the casenow ; and I remember that my friend Charlie hadto begin by telling his audience a little concerningByron’s fortune s and early career . H e describedsome of his early school experiences

,j ust glanced

at his mother’s temperament and character, at thedifficult ies attendant on the want of an adequateincome to support the dignity of his title , his first

attempt at versificat ion, his treatment by the press,e specially by the E dinburgh Review. Then the

lecturer glanced at Byron’s first Continental travels,and particularly dwelt on his visit to Greece , hisardent sympathy with the oppressed inhabitants ofthat glorious land , and with the victims of oppres

sion,not only in far—ofi

'

climes , but with his wretchedand unromantic countrymen at home, especially the

Nottingham Frame-breakers . H e adverted to Byron’sspeech in the House of Lords on the 27th February,18 12 , on behalf of t hose unfortunate and deludedm en

,read a few extracts from it , and showed what


a genuine spirit of human brotherhood glowed inhis heart and shone forth in every part of thateloquent composition . Then he dwelt on the poet’ssingularly quick and ready sympathies , with allsorts and conditions of men, on his warm andgenerous affections

,on the strength and ardour of

his youthful friendships ; on the readiness withwhich he yielded to the high and pure influence ofsuch men as M r. Becher, who had rebuked him forthe rather licentious t one of one or two of thepoem s in the first collection he prepared for thepres s . “ I can imagine

,

” said the young ‘advocatus

diaboli,’ as doubtless some considered the speaker,

no greater proof of Lord Byron’s recoil at that earlyage, from al l that his conscience , when roused, toldhim was degrading, than the fact that in one ofthe most exciting moments of his early life

,when

j ust on the eve of sending forth to the world his

first poetic venture , he actually destroyed the wholeimpression , rather than that the obj ectionable poemshou ld go forth to the world .

“ But,

”he continued, “ I know from many sources

of information that the evil in Lord Byron’s characterand life which we must all deeply deplore, and whichwe have no choice but unsparingly to denounce , isnot the vice of a degraded sensualist, of a man whowillingly give s himself to what i s evil

,but of one

who is continually aspiring to a nobler and purer life—of one who , owing to the misfortune of his earlytraining

,to the absence of high moral and religious


he had done quite right in taking the chair. Neverthele ss

,he had great faith in Dayrell , and felt that,

if necessary, he could prote st at the close of thelecture against any heresie s , moral or theological ,too flagrant to pass unnoticed . It was some satisfaction that such eminent clerical gownsmen as M r.

Milman and M r. Thomas Arnold were sitting be sidehim

,and were almost equally compromised with

himself. But those gentlemen’s countenances showedsigns so far of only unqualified satisfaction and deepintere st in all the young orator’s remarks .The speaker himself

,unconscious of the perturba

tion he was causing in some of his hearers, and whollylost in his subj ect

,growing more earnest and im

passioned as he proceeded, continued thusIt seems to m e that Lord By ron’s poetry, his

whole life and soul, are inspired with an intenseand passionate desire for three of the greatest bles sings revealed to man by the Infinit e Father, viz .

,

Freedom,Beauty, Love , and less ardently (unconsciously

as it were , and too often with a cry of de spairingpain) for that Joy which comes from admiring

,wor

shipping,posses sing what is grand and glorious, beau

tiful,ennobling, loving, and lovely . The poet’s moral

and spiritual life seems,in its essence, to be a fiery

ceaseles s aspiration after these bles sings ; and I believehe has been sent among us that we also may behelped to aspire towards them, each of us accordingto our capacity. See, first , how this passion forFreedom glows in him,

and is kindled by him in us

LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER 113

through page after page of some of the finest passage sof modern poetry. I am not now venturing to expres seither approval or censure of the particular form s inwhich he manifests his desire to pas s beyond the dailyround of ordinary life

,to range with unfettered power

over lake and mountain, through distant lands and

O’

er the g lad wa t ers of the dark blue sea,

Our thought s as boundless and our souls as

or the loftier ardour he manife sts, to rise above thebounds of human existence— his longing to soar intohigher and vaster realms of being.

It would occupy far too much of your time if Iwere to quote passage s from his writ ings in illustrat ion of the thoughts now thrown out for yourconsideration ; but if they are not familiar to anyof those present they will find it an interestingstudy to search for them in his works . I havealready reminded you of his generous sympathyWith the enslaved and the oppre s sed , how earnestlyhe showed that his desire for Freedom was not forhimself alone .

”

!Here I remember interrupting myself by saying“ A s a striking confirmation of what my grandfather there urges , let m e quote the following fine

passage from the recent admirable sketch of Byronin the last edition of the E ncyclopcecl ’la Bri tannicaby Professor Minto, of Aberdeen, I am told . H e

has been speaking of Byron’s sympathie s with the

oppressed in all ages , and then adds that hi sardent battle- cry for freedom in the first and

V OL. I. 8


second cant os of C’hilole H arold rang through thiscountry like a clarion peal . And in a luxuriousselfish age , when it was becoming the fashion tosneer at al l generous struggles for liberty, to cringeand truckle to insolent oppre s sion and aristocratictyranny in high places , Byron strode forth on the

side of the oppressed,and has become the greate st

preacher of Liberty and Bro therhood which thisage has produced .

’ Then resuming the reading, Icont inued :]Who does not remember Byron’s eloquent

tribute to the heroism of the Spanish peasants,

and e specially of their women in the life-anddeath struggle of that heroic people against t he

Corsican de spot ? And who c an doubt that thoseimmortal strains of mingled grief, indignat ion, andstirring martial appeal to the enslaved descendantsof Themistocle s

,Miltiade s, Leonidas , to those who

inherit the language , the literature , the name and

fame of Homer and Plato, of sophocles, E schylus,

Euripides , Pericles , will at last rouse them also to afinal and victorious struggle with their cruellicentious tyrant s ? (applause) . Yes , a time willcome when the Oppres sed of every nation will recogniz e what they - owe to this great poet, and the

meaning of his life and writings will one day beunderst ood .

Yet , Freedom , yet— thy banner t orn , though flying,

St ream s l ike the thunder- st orm against the w ind.

Thy t rumpet -voice t hough broken now and dying,The loudest yet the t empest leaves hebind.


this devoted lover of Freedom— I mean his sympathyWith, qualified admiration for, the greatest tyrantof the present, almost of any age

— NapoleonBuonaparte . Doubtles s at one time Lord Byronlooked on him as so many others once did, as theapostle of Liberty, the champion of oppressednationalitie s— all the more because of the tyrannicaland priest-ridden character of the governments withwhom he warred . But when that illusion was

cruelly dispelled,there still remained the spectacle

of a gigantic intellect and almost superhuman will,rising above all obstacles and opposition

,tran

scending the ordinary limits of earthly life andpower, which st ruck so responsive a chord inByron’s soul , and blinded him at times to the baseness of the despot

,while it thrilled him with

admiration for the greatne ss of the conqueror.Looking then to what Byron has done in the cause

of Freedom in such an age as this—lying as it doesat the feet of Carlton House and Beau Brummell,forging degrading fetters for our social life, with thepower of Castlereagh and Sidmouth still paramountfor our political thraldom (of course some marks of

painful dissent challenged the se sentiments ; butArnold and others uttered subdued approval) “ shall

we not honour and thank this man as long as any of

us retain the Virtue s of freemen , and cannot crouchwith satisfaction in the fetters of slave s ? What ! arewe always to be in bondage either t o the hard out

ward yoke Of human Oppressors, or to the miserable

LADY STELLA AND H E R LOVER . 117

delusions and hollow forms of a corrupt social state ?And if we free ourselves from these bonds must westill be in slavery to the senses , to the forms andfetters of Time and Matt er ? If the young eagletbe imprisoned in its shell , do not its folded wingsat least predict and proclaim its future freedom ?

And shall we have the se glorious aspirations foldedup within our souls , and not know of a surety thatit is intended they should one day be gratified ? Iknow that in the earliest stage s of all Progress andCivilization there must be restraint and coercionthat there can be no true freedom without Order andLaw . But when the due sacrifice of a portion of ourliberties has been made to secure true and increasingfreedom , when society and individual s have beenbound down by rigid art ificial fetters

,and women

especially have been tamed and cramped into modelsof servile propriety

,is it not well if some wild god

of Freedom and Joy should come bounding over themountains — that emancipated multitude s should riseat his call and shout ‘ Evoe , Evoe ! All hail, Dithyrambus Yes

,it is good for mankind when the day

of emancipation breaks and a reaction against ourthraldom dawns —when it become s both needful andwise to give full swing to our enthusiasm

,free play

to our impulse s and aspirations for a boundles s liberty,and an unfettered flight .

Rome and her subj ect-world once reposed in peacebeneath the beneficent sway of the Anton ine s andTraj an— in maj e stic tranquillity

,in degrading corrup


tion,bereft of freedom

,filled to the brim with Order,

Law,Security

,Profligacy and— Peace . Then creep

ing slowly,nearer and nearer, came the free children

of German forest and Scythian plain— came first tobe conquered and enslaved— ‘ butchered to make aRoman holiday ’— and then to hurl themselve s withirre sistible fury and accumulating strength on Romancivilization and world-wide putrefaction , an incarnateNemesis

,a myriad-handed avenging deity— purging

the Roman world by fire and blood, until they restoredto European life the Vital force s of individual , social ,and political freedom , by kindling a new spirit ofenterprise, purity, manlines s and truth . The delugeof Barbarism was the infusion of the se elements intoEuropean civilization

,of revolt against all hackneyed

formalisms and lying slaverie s— the re storation of theforce and play of unrestrained individual will andenergy to a system which

,but for that re storation,

must have miserably perished of it s own rottennes sand bonds . And looking to what the condition ofsocial and political life in England has been duringthe last half century— the degraded and efi

’

et e condition to which a sensual and sycophantic civilizationhas reduced it , and which in a neighbouring countrywas so recently and terribly purged by social volcanicfires— I can conceive of few higher titles to our fervent gratitude than the service which Lord Byronhas rendered us by his immortal poems .Turning to the second characteristic of his poetry,

I would ask you to observe his impassioned love for


believe even partially in the failings of such a man .

But it is because I do believe in my heart that Byronhas a glorious work to do for the world in preachingnot only the gospel of Freedom and of Beauty, butalso of Love, that I would ask you to remark two orthree points of vital importance in this matter . Ifhe were the mere dissolute profiigat e which some

would have us believe , he certainly could preach notrue gospel to any human being on so awful andglorious a subj ect . Therefore I would ask you firstt o note his romantic and ardent love for his youngScotch nurse , Mary Duff, in his ninth year (scarcelyas old as Dante when he first fell in love withBeatrice), and then for his cousin , Miss Parker,when not yet in his teens . Then I would remindyou of the depth , fervour, and constancy of his

school-friendships,those pure and ardent attachments

which in the very extravagance of their ardour indicatemore surely even than his later attachments for persons of the opposite sex, the real craving and capacityfor love in his e ssential nature . I know something,I may be permitted to say, respecting Byron

’s friendship for Lord Clare , and of what he felt when theyparted as boys and m et as m en. But, passing overthose ‘ young dreams ,

’

let m e ask you to reflect onhis passion for Miss Chaworth . No youth , I believe,loves a girl older than himself

,and e specially one

who looks on him as a mere boy, except with a verypure and beautiful love . Byron’s romantic attachment to that lady

,and the terrible blight which her


refusal has cast over his life,are to my mind con

vincing evidence of the innate purity of his cravingand capacity for love . But indeed all that I haveever heard on this subj ect (and I think I know nearlyas much as may or ought to be known about it bythe ordinary publi c) proves that he has never reallysought or delighted in coarse or licent ious ways .That he may have been— was— thrown , flung as itwere , momentarily into vice under the fearful reactionof suttering from that disappointment , I have admitted—but I must solemnly affirm that everything tendsto show, in his relations t o the other sex, that he hasalways yearned for a permanent attachment, a truedeep love , not the mere grat ificat ion of a sen

sualist’

s desires .“ After his disappointment, and the reactionary

excesses which may have followed it , it i s manifestto those who have known him and his history that,though seeking woman’s love in a relation whi chneither morality nor religion can sanction, it wasa love deep and pure

,constant and tender,

which held him in its bonds . If you doubt, readhis poem to the memory of ‘ Thyrz a,

’ and neverdoubt again . But doe s not the same truth shineforth clear to the seeing eye and understandingheart from the descriptions of love which aboundin his poems, and which are so constantly pre

sented that they must indubitably flow from the

very depths of his nature ? Is it not sufficient

to refer to the description of Conrad’s love for

122 LADY STE LLA AND HER LOVER .

Medora ‘ tried in temptation , strengthenedby distress , Unmoved by ab sence , firm in everyclime

’ of Z uleika and her lover, of Kaledand Lara , Sardanapalus and Myrrha ? Or turn tothe loves even of Manfred and of Cain , but especially of Torquil and Nenha ? Where will you find

stronger evidence of the existence of the capacityand craving for pure and faithful love than in thesedelineations ? Look , for instance , at that stern denunciat ion of unhallowed passion in the second cantoof ‘ Childe Harold,

’ stanza 3 5 ; and then at thatwonderful description of pure and faithful love in hispoem of The Island ,

’ canto II . , 16, which begins thus

‘And let not this seem st range the devot eeLives not i n earth

,but i n hi s extasy .

Around him davs and worlds are heedless driven ,H i s soul i s gone before hi s dust t o heaven .

Is Love les s pot en t ? No— his pa th is t rod ,Al ike upl ifted glori ously t o God .

Mark how in that ideal conception pure andabsorbing love , even in the humblest hearts , islinked on the one hand with worship , aspiration,and union with God ; on the other, with selfforgetfulnes s , self- abnegation . In the same strainare the lines

Yes , love i ndeed is l ight from HeavenA spark o f t ha t immortal fire

By angels shared , by Allah given ,To l i ft from earth our low des i re.

D evot i on wat t s the m ind above ,But Heaven i t self descends i n loveA feel ing from the Godhead caugh t


Milman looked perplexed . Arnold drew a longbreath

,but turned again t o the speaker with re

newed interest . Charlie pushed on with unabatedardour z)

“ Remember,I am not defending all Byron’s

conduct,nor all the forms in which he has madly

sought the realization of his dreams . But let m e

point you to such passage s as that beginningClarens

,sweet Clarens

,

’ in the third canto of‘ Childe Harold ’

(9 9 th stanza) ; to the stanzas descriptive of Egeria ln the fourth canto and perhap snot least of all

,in addition to those previously

mentioned , to the descriptions of the love ofMarino Faliero and Angiolina in the ‘ Doge ofVenice .

’ Do you think a reckles s , ingrained libertine could have written that singularly pure andnoble t ragedy ? Never ' It s author had aright to ask the goddes s of ‘ Egeria’s fountain ’

— when,in some of the most beautiful verses of

Childe Harold,

’

he i s speaking of love ’s immortaltransports— that crucial question

,

Could thine artMake them indeed immortal

,and impart.

The puri ty of heaven t o earth ly joys

This,

this — the purity of heaven bestowed onearthly love— i s what that great poet has sighedfor wi th all the infinit e longing of a soul createdin the Divine image

,t o share in Divine love .

Do not mistake m e . I am not for a momentpret ending that his actual life has not some

LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER.

time s fallen far below his ideal . Whose doesnot ? That man’s , only, who has no loftier aspiration than that which the poor and base realitie sof his own life , and that of his companions , can

supply. Is it not given us to see that the abounding love Lord Byron manifests for Nature in all

her varied forms , that longing to blend his beingwith hers in reverent yet ardent devotion , springsfrom the same deep source as that craving forhuman love which flashed out so strikingly inthose youthful attachments to which I have alluded,and which has burned so brightly or so luridly in

his maturer years ? I maintain that this longingfor love , this capacity for giving it , this desirefor union , harmony, blended life, this admirationfor the Beautiful and Sublime, are all es sentiallyreligious ; and however mournfully at times perverted or defiled by human weaknes s and sin,

are, in their inmost nature , heavenly and divine .

In a letter written by a man, who is believedby those who know him ' to be one of the deepestthinkers and truest poets of the age , I meanSamuel Taylor Coleridge, which I was privilegedto see the other day, he says : ‘ there is a

religion in a ll deep wre.

’ His words confirm so

strikingly what I have been trying to express ,though referring primarily to a mother’s love, thatI venture to hope you also will admit their truth ,and allow that there is religion in Byron’s deeplove for Nature— aye , and in all deep love of human


beings for one another, even when defiled by some

base alloy .

But has Byron’s worship of Nature and Beauty,

of Freedom and Love , brought him Joy ? H as he

attained to any stat e or condition in any department of human life , whether spiritual or material ,religious or secular, 111 which we can wisely desireto dwell with him , or yet a state to strive afterin our humbler measure ? 1 fear the answer , ifgiven by himself or by those who love and honourhim , would be made, not with exultant songs ofpraise and gladness , but rather with a sigh ofdisappointment, if not with a groan of despair.‘ If it were given did I say ? Alas , it is givenin almost every page of his poetry . It would begiven in yet sadder tone s , I fear, if it were wrungfrom the deeper secrets of his heart .

And if the High-Priest of this faith (ought I notto say

,as some would urge , the Arch-magician) of this

most fascinating,but most delusive worship of Love

,

Beauty, Joy, Lord Byron , has succeeded so ill, himself,

in attaining to Joy and Peace , how has it fared withhis unhappy followers There can be no disputing thevast exten t of Byron ’s influence on Society. Thatfourteen thousand copie s of Lara were sold in aboutsix weeks , is simply one outward proof of the unseenall- pervading power with which his words and thoughtshave laid their grasu upon men’s imaginations andhearts . But what have they done for the happines s ofm en ? Byron can awaken a desire for all he himself


nor Peace , for himself, I fear— no , nor any realand true satisfaction for those high desires . How thencan he confer such infinite blessings on others ? Butthe curse of disappointed hope s , of morbid repinings ,of restles s dissatisfaction , and discontent , tha t un

happily he can and does impart to thousands—well,if

he does not always draw them into those uncleanabysses of sensualism ,

or gambling recklessness,which

so often yawn for souls like his , and for the victims ofhis fearful and most uncanny ’ spells . But if thesebe the melancholy results of aspiring beyond the

limits of our confined and material existence, is it wellto teach us to aspire ? Were it not a fitt er

,perhaps a

nobler task to show us how to accommodate ourselve st o our own humble and limited lot— to make us

content with such modicum of freedom , beauty, love ,as we can obtain amid our daily routine of duty and ofdrudgery ? Yes ! if you ask whether you and I andan innumerable multitude should preach to ourselvesthat doctrine of resignation . No ! a thousand timesno, if you desire that the one man out of a millionmillion , the one glorious soul God has sent into theworld once in the ages to preach his gospel to thedumb, toiling, sufi

'

ering sons of m en should be askedto hold his peace . I tell you there are t en thousandpreachers and t eachers striving to fill our hearts withthe gospel of resignation, wi th a deadening sense ofthe duty of accommodating ourselves to a dreary lot

,

of never ranging beyond the boundaries of commonlife and hackneyed routine, for one that dares try

LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER .1129

t o lift us up to higher and happier realms ofbeing.

“ What the civiliz ed world now wants , it seems tom e, is a prophet who can train, impel m en to aspire.

That world is suffering from hopelessnes s, depres sion ,and fear— from a dull, aching void— a sense of disappointed cravings for a good whi ch it believe s itselfcreated to obtain , but whi ch it has not yet founda j oyles s, unloving wearines s of life , and all the painas well as evil which grow from this state of bondage .

It is the resul t, I imagine, partly of that grand oldPuritan and Calvinistic faith which once bore noblestfruits, but has left us now only apples of the DeadSea filled with venom and bitternes s ; partly alsoof the perennial curse of selfish indulgence, envy

,

apathy,and base animal greed ; and, above all , it is

a consequence of our having lost those great stirringsources of enterprise and self—denying action suppliedby chivalry, by the Crus ades , by the di scovery ofboundle ss realms beyond the seas

,by patriotic wars

of self-defence, wars of religion, and even of aggression

,whi ch, however full of evil in many aspects

,

yet undoubtedly did marvellously help to keep men’ s

minds free from dreamy, morbid repinings, sentimentality, and effeminate self-indulgence .

You complain of the morbid repining and gloomymisanthropy of so much of Lord Byron’s writing,and ask if these are satisfactory resul ts of his‘ cultus and his creed . I answer unhesitatingly,Yes ! If a man with Byron’s genius, lofty aspira

V OL. I. 9


tions, and deep affections, could have lived the lifehe has , and yet have been sa tisfied, I should indeeddespair of our race . His diseased melancholy

,his

frequent complaints and disgust at life,are the true

answer to those who hold our nature in contempt,and who denounce the folly of believing we werecreated for a divine existence . Show me a man ofexalted genius , of noble, pure , unselfish life

,filled

'

with a Christ- like piety, faith, and love— if he i soverwhelmed with morbid misery of the Byronictype I shall abandon my faith in the glorious dest inyawaiting us .

—Not till then .

It is because m en are created and destined forperfection that they never can be sat isfied with astunted life ; and the more nearly they reach the

goal, like Byron , on some lines of advance, if theyare not posses sed with a profound religious faith and '

high moral principle , the further they are almostcertain , like him, to fall away from it on others .What in such a case can be expected but the melancholy and repinings which are fpund so abundantlyin his writings , and which testify as powerfully (ifI may use a t rite but noble illustration) to theexistence of a hidden glory, one day to be revealed ,as the dark cloud with the silver edge witnes sesto the moonlit radiance behind and beyond its

gloom ?Therefore, again I say, let us all be up and

doing that we may sternly and successfully combatboth the false religion and the yet more deadly evil


and ends for ever the dreary farce . Silence him not,

nor the voice in your own hearts which answers tohis

,if you have a grain of faith in God, in im

mortality,in heaven ! Byron is the prophe t of Im

mortal Life . Immortality and Eternity are needful '

to explain him and his message to man , and to

explain our vehement response to his glowing words .Oh

,my brothers , I think m en do not

know, exclaimed the speaker, with a passionate pathos

in his voice , they do not know what a prophet hasbeen sent among them in this man i— sent to deliverthem from the slavery of their social and political,literary and artistic life , as the French Revolution ,however disfigured and defiled at last by terror andcrime, came to burs t the cruel fe tters of millions of

9bondsmen .

’

(Uneasy movements again, but steadfastattention . ) Let me pray you not to allow my im

perfect advocacy to prej udice this great man’s claims

in your eye s , but to see for yourselves that he hasbeen endowed with those glorious gift s not merely

for his own poor enj oyment , of for yours , but thathe may lift m en out of the crushing bondage inwhich modern civilization

,and alas ! t oo often ,

modern religion , holds them . H e comes to bid us

claim our portion in the mountain and the storm,

in the ocean and the stars , in the glory of God’sUniverse, in the love of God which pervades andsustains it— to make us feel that we may, andmust aspire to chant ‘ f ig f ig 5poc ! Evoe, Evoe ! ’

evermore .


But, gentlemen, I beg you earnestly to note thatByron is not merely the prophet of Immort ality,the preacher of upward aspirations out of darknes stowards the light . H e is also and pre

-eminently,the preacher of a gospel of Heaven. His Visionsof beauty and love

,of freedom and of j oy are

surely sent among us to help men to realize heavenamid all the sorrows and sins of earth— to remindthem of what they are created to enj oy, and are

capable of enj oyingIs it not true , exclaimed Dayrell

,vehemently,

that we are‘ saved by Hope ? ’ But oh, what a

thin poor vision , what a m iserable shadowy dream ,

is the thought of heaven for the vast maj ority evenof professing Christians ! while as for the rest ofsociety, they have 710 hope. Oh

,the misery of

letting our religion and our life be wrenched apart— oi having earth and heaven separated by a blackgulf of fear and care and grinding toil, of basefrivolity, or religious gloom ! Why was Earth madeso beautiful , - and earthly life so rich in possibilities ,in capacities for the purest enj oyments ? Not aloneI think not chicfly

— for earthly happiness , but

yet more that we might guess in some faint '

measure what eye hath not seen nor ear heard,

’

but ‘ what God has prepared for those who loveHim .

’ Unhappily,that which God created around

and within us to teach us what our life in Him ismeant to be , priests and worldlings alike,—yes,and even the hol ie st of God’s saints—i—have too


often denounced, scorned and trampled under foot .I know these saints and apostles were right to do sowhile the world was ‘ largely in the clutches of the

flesh and the devil— while earthly j oy and beautywere so fearfully tainted by selfishness, sensualityand greed . But whenever and so far as Christianholiness and selfsacrifice have purified the worldand made the human soul fit for heavenly j oy andfreedom ,

ought not the revelations of a giftedgenius like this great poet to be welcomed withdeepest gratitude as a God-given means of helpingthe world to be saved by Hope , of making a futurelife, and Heaven , glorious realities ? And note thisalso, that although , as some of our finest Universitypreachers have taught us (here D ayrell turnedand bowed to the chairman and those beside him) ,excessive devotedness to Art and Music and to all

the enjoyments of the senses,does , no doubt, tend

with fatal force to increase sensuality and slaveryto the things that are seen and perishing, yet thata reasonable well-balanced pure delight in Natureand Art, in the Beautiful in any form, marvellouslyhelps to lift the soul alike above the degradingtemptations, the change s and chances , the fearsand sorrows of the world , and so tends ‘ to deliverit from the bondage of corruption into the gloriousliberty of the children of God .

’ And t henagain , if m en had but more peace , hope, j oy , in

their own hearts , if they ,understood by experience

more of what our esteemed chairman was ex

136 LADY STELLA AND HER LOV ER .

for such a son,combining all that m other’s fervour

and depth of feeling,imagination and passion

,with

lofty Christ ian principles, and a holy spirit of Christian as well as of mere instinctive love . Under theearly training of a simple devout and affectionatenature free from all cant and superstition

,Byron

might by this time have becom e the greatestreligious preacher— perhaps Reformer— England has

ever seen . And in that case what would be the

nature of his preaching ? and of his reforms ? A skthe Universe whose beauty and glory Byron worships and with which he craves to blend his life !

ask the Spirit of Universal Love which has filled,transfigured and glorified its tempted

,sinning

,

suffering child !Yet here, perhaps , you will quote to me his own

wordsBut quiet to quick bosoms i s a hell ,

’

and you will urge that such a fiery nature as his , withall its marvellous endowments , never could be tamedto that quiet, useful harness , without which no true

preacher or reformer could possibly serve his Lordeffectually, faithfully . Is it so, then ?

’

we sadly ask .

Cannot the Lord be well and truly served by a humanbeing just because H e has showered down upon himsuch a glorious wealth of faculties and powers ? At

first it seems too true . And yet if only this passionfor high adventure ,

’ ‘ which can tire of nought butrest,

’ could only find its t rue sphere of energy— find

its life and j oy in leading m en up to a worship higher


even than that of Nature or of Man— the worshipof a God of Love and Holiness, who has created Natureand Man— in making them more like their God ,happy and holy instead of miserable and uncleanhelping them t o find their glory and their j oy inbringing the influences of music, poetry, and the

drama, of sweet, refining and manly recreation, ofinnocent happines s and m irth, of beautiful scenery,into the lives of their less fortunate brethren— oh ,what a mighty power for good might not such a manas our ideal Byron become ! And, therefore , what a

vast and soul- satisfying Sphere of existence he wouldfind such a life to be ! There are no limits to beset to the influence he might

.

exert by leading the

way in disinterested effort to lift folks up to the

realms of light and gladnes s of which he himself i sby birth a citizen . Imagine him setting himself toinduce high-born and gifted men and women to com e

down from their Olympic heights to give concertsand poetic readings , dramatic performances for theedificat ion of grimy toilers in factories and workshops,to costermongers and roughs

,to hard-worked washer

women and pallid seamstres ses, perhaps singing to

them in the streets and then speaking to themworthily of Love

,Divine and Human, of Duty, and

of Joy— of Heaven above and heaven on earth— of the

gods of Greece and the God of Jesus ! Who couldspeak on such topics like Lord Byron , if only he werethe Byron of the Future, filled with the Spirit ofChrist ? And who could speak with greater power


to persuade m en and women of every rank , thus tolive for others ’ j oy and truest welfare, than he whohad j ust been ministering to their j oy ? Never doubtbut that when men of the highe st genius are alsom en of the highest type of unselfish love and devotedpiety, they will also be the greatest preachers , re

formers , apostles of Christ . For that was a trueprophecy, ‘ And I, if I be lifted up from the earth ,will draw all m en unto m e —a prophecy which shall

yet be fulfilled.

I know,sir, too well, said Dayrell, in conclusion ,

as he turned to the chairman , that I have donethe task to which you and other friends so kindlyinvited me in a very lame and inadequate fashion . Ithank you all sincerely for so patiently listening tomy rambling remarks . But I do hope I have notentirely failed to show the relation in which I conceive that Byron’s life and poetry stand, on the one

hand to ‘ the classic dreams of Greece ’ and all itsbeautiful legends on the other, to that great revivalof Religion in the future

,that practical application of

Christianity to the wants and woes of Humanity onearth , which I trust this nineteenth century is yetto witnes s . In strains as musical as melancholy,the great German poet

,Schiller, has sung his

requiem over those wonderful antique Gods ofGreece,

’ and you will perhaps let m e, in conclusion ,quote a few stanzas from that threnody 111 a fine trans

St . John, Ch. x11. , V . 32 .


And then follows his mournful appeal to thatmysterious entity of which I have had to say so

much to-night,of whom Lord Byron has been so

ardent and devout an adorer, even as Wordsworthand Shelley

,and many another poet

,in their

several sphere s of genius— I mean Nature— call herwhat you will but e s sentially, eternally divine .

Time permits me to quote only a few disseveredlines

All unconsciously her gift s bes t owingBy her own grand features unimprest ,

ar

Gravi ta t i on ’s slavi sh law obeying,

Godless Nature creeps her round .

-x x

Back to the ir own homes the gods have speeded ,Useless in a world to manhood grown .

x

Yes , have speeded home a world forsakingOf it s fairest

,nobles t charm s bereft

-x

From T ime’s al l- dest roying deluge flying ,

On t he height s of Piudar now they stayAnd what

,aye i n song, sha ll bloom undying,

Mus t t o actual sense decay .

Then my friend concluded thus“ But in sad truth is it so

,then ? Is it only in

some beautiful legends,noble tragedy, or lovely

song of ancient Greece and modern poetry that allthe poetry and beauty of those dreams shall bloomundying ’ ? No ! If Byron

,and m en with souls akin

to his,if gifted women

,and ardent lovers of their

race, will but have faith in ‘ love D ivine,’ if they

will but believe that the Gospel of the Cross is also


the Gospel of the Resurrection , that they who bearthat Cross are destined to wear the Crown of Beautyand of Heavenly Life both here and hereafter— onlybelieve that dying to Self means rising to Freedomand Love, to Beauty and eternal Joy, that heaveni s meant for this world as well as for that which isto come— there are those now rej oicing in the irbuoyant youth who may live even on this earthto behold in their tranquil age, at least the dawnof a brighter and more glorious day. And ifHomer, Hesiod, Euripides , all who in former orlater days have sung of the beautiful legends and

gods of ancient Greece, if this noble German singerand our English Byron could look down on earth ahundred years hence , and behold the true prophetpoet of the future, drawi ng millions of earnesthappy souls into a heaven on earth, through lovingloyalty to the Lord of the Christian Church andof the heathen world, might they not take upSchiller’s words in his addres s to those ‘ Gods ofGreece,

’ and adapt them thus to a happier strain 9

O’

er the beaut eous world when ye presided,And in Pleasure ’s gen t ly leading band

,

Happier generat i ons yet ye guided,Lovely Be ings of the Fable- land !Once again

,your joyous worship cheri shed

,

Beams in brightnes s on t hi s fa irer dayFor your glorious V i s ions have not perishedSee t hey rise aga i n in bright array

Venus Amathusia

The young enthusias t resumed his seat amid aburst of vehement applause , which was renewed

142 LADY STELLA A-ND HER LOVER.

when M r. Milman moved, and M r. Arnold seconded,

in terms of glowing commendation , a vote ofthanks to their “ young Oriel brother,

” and 6X4

pres sed their ardent hope that he might live t o

promote,and rej oice in beholding, some portion’

at least of those blissful changes realized,whereof

he had so eloquently discoursed . Charlie modestlyand gratefully acknowledged the compliment

,and

thus that brief happy interlude passed away .

Whether Charles Dayrell at this period of hislife, as in regard to his other hero, Dionysus , and

the Bacchanalian worship,over- estimated the real

goodness and innate purity of Byron’s charact erand influence is not a matter that can be determined here or anywhere , perhaps , on earth . Ifmy friend ever thought ' in after life he had doneso, he certainly never wavered in his convictionthat all he had now said of Byron’s poetry wastrue, eternally true

,and that it was the great

‘xrnpa t g an for every genuine human soul .When I had finished reading the good clergyman

's

M S . ,which took longer than I expected, the silence

was presently broken by my mother and sisters say

ing,

“ Thank you in a very decisive sort of way, asif they meant it and I remember one of my sisters ,Ellen, adding, My grandfather himself must have

had much of the genuine poet in him .

” ThenStella remarked in those low rich tones whichalways carried in them deep feeling or cutting sar

Icasm 2


glorious poetry survive s both their malice and the

paltry venomous attacks upon him of the presentday. But oh , how he writhed under them while helived ! It was not, could not be, in the nature ofthat great poet- soul to be otherwise than bitterlywounded by such t reatment from the world whoselove , admiration, and sympathy he so ardently desired . But can we doubt that a day will come whenhis lofty prophecy will be fulfilled— though perhapsnot until that far- off t ime when he will have learntalike to renounce and despise that personal egoti smwhich those youthful days almost inevitably mingledwith his nobler sentiments ? ”

Which prophecy ? ”asked one of my sisters .

Then I read from the Fourth Canto of ChildeHarold, the l 32nd and following stanzas , beginningwith that m agnificent invocation to

“ NEM ESIS.

”

Fred Ellerslie had been a very attentive listener,but had said l ittle or nothing after the readingwas over

,explaining that his emotions were too

deep to permit of their being clothed in the lan

guage of ordinary mortals . When we were alone,however, he expressed with unwonted fervour hissatisfaction on the whole with the view of Byron’scharacter and work taken by the lecturer .

“ Nevertheless,”he continued (there was always a

‘ nevertheless ' or a ‘ but ’ sure to follow any of Fred’s

encomiums), that brilliant and novel metaphor inyour great ancestor’s praelection about the cloud andits silver lining , allow me to say, with profound

LADY STELLA AND H ER LOVER .3145

deference , was a glaring mistake . It is not the

cloud but t he light on its edges which bears witnes s to the radiance behind .

”

Oh,glorious Criticism ! be thou my god

,I ex

claimed. If fa s est et ah hoste, how much moreis it good ah am ico, docer

fl . Yet even amicus , whenposing as critic, should avoid blundering, himself.How could you discern the cloud on the face of thesky at all, I should like to know— how could youperce ive the faults and stains on Byron’s character,his morbid melancholy and darker sins— were it notfor the radiant glory of the moon and of his soul,which reveals both the cloud on the one and the

sta ins on the other— that light which, shining onthe edges of the cloud, tells what the brightnesswill be when the cloud has passed away ? HadByron been a Hottentot instead of a s plendid Eng~

lish poet, who would have known or noticed the

dark clouds on hi s character and life ? There ! ’

Throw up the sponge, eh

“ By no means . Yet you give food for reflexion,

which is salutary,if not pleasant . But seriously

Dayrell, had the modern Bacchanal read Don Juanwhen he f delivered that flaming eulogium onByron ?”

, No . i .How could he ? The first and secondcantos , thoughflwrit t en,

I believe,at Venice in 1818 ,

were not published - till July, 18 19 , and the re

mainder seyeral years later .”

“ I’

m,

relieyed and— grat ified, replied Ellerslie .

“ IVOL . L 10

146 LADY STELLA AND ' H ER LOVER .

fancy a man like Charles Dayrell would have sungin a different key, had he then come fresh froma perusal of the luscious de script ions with which ,in some parts , that immortal and beast ly productionis adorned .

”

Your epithet is strong— some would say toostrong . But I am rather of your opinion , Fred,

”

I replied.

“ And it staggers one faith , sometimes ,in Byron’s better nature to remember what he

would and did write and— do .

”

I don’t think it need, replied Ellerslie , thoughI’

m no means such an enthusiastic Byron-worshippera s you and your progenitor . For looking back toschool—days

,I remember how loose the whole tone

of the fellows in our house was , and how I used tosay (and if I had been a poet, should then havewritten) , things the bare recollection of which disgusts m e immensely now. Even so with the twoor three m en who were my particular chums atEton . Yet they are manly and gentlemanly enoughfellows now . So much depends— in those earlydays

,and I suppose at any time till one ’s character

is formed— on the tone of the society one lives ih .

Is even Shakspeare entirely free from the impureinfluence s of his day ? B yron tried hard to live inclean and pure companionship for a time , but sub

sequently to Thyrz a’

s death, followed after a t imeby the unfortunate termination of his marriagespeculat ion , he flung himself recklessly into Viciousand disgraceful courses— greatly helped on his way


cases where devotion was repaid by devotion, the

warmth of his gratitude was unbounded . H e loadedpoor Thyrz a

’

s memory with care sses , careles s of whatthe world might say

,remembering only that the

poor girl clung to him with unselfish love and hereturned his sister’s tender regard with an ardourand constancy that showed how highly he prizedand how eagerly he reciprocated sincere affec tion .

Nothing ever racked him with deeper anguishthan the death of her whom he mourned under thename of Thyrz a. To know the bitterness of the

struggle with this sorrow we have only to look atwhat he wrote on the day when the news reachedhim (Oct. 11, Some of his wildest and mostmisanthropical verses as well as

“ some of his sweetest

and saddest belong to that saddest of dates in his

calendar . M r. John Morley,’

the Professorgoes on to say, remarks upon the respectwhich Byron with all his raillery of the marriedstate in modern Society, still shows for the domesticidea . It i s against the art ificial union , the m ariage

de couvenauce, that Byron’ s raillery was directed

In spite of debauchery, he was always pining forsome constant love , and cursing the fate which haddenied it to him . This purer sentiment wasalways enshrined in his heart of hearts, from hisboyhood to the end of his days . Thyrz a, whoappears to have accompanied him in some of hiswanderings in male attire , would really seem to have

been his grand passion . H er dear sacred name his


hand,he says years after

,would have trembled to

write . Later on,

We find him inhis Journal

,with her in his memory writing with

contempt of the amours of some of his acquaintance,and scofiing at the idea of their applying the nameof love to favours which could be purchased withmoney. H e has recorded the fact that whenhe drew the portrait of Z uleika his whole soul wasfull of her (Thyrz a

’

s) memory She is the‘ more than friend ’ commemorated at the close ofthe second canto of Childe Harold , and she is theoriginal of Medora ! and Kaled] as well as the

‘ presiding genius ’ of the whole series of Easternt ales

“ I’

m heartily grateful to you,Dayrell, said Fred,

for letting m e hear all that . I go with it , every word .

"

“ And'

now I think of it , I rej oined, “ there ’s aletter from my grandfather to M r.

-Rivers,written

after reading Don Juan,and in re sponse to a manly

sort of appeal the clergyman had made to his col

lege friend, two or three months after the appearance of the first and second cantos . It wasn’t thekind of thing to bring before the ladies

,for, thank

goodness , I don’t suppose they know much about

t he poem except from some beautiful extract s inHoward’s Beauties of Byron .

’

But'

you are

’

wel

come to see it— in fact I wish not'

only everyadmirer and every detractor but every reader ofByron’s Don Juan could see and ponder over it . Le

voila.


So Ellerslie read the following

Letter from Charles Dayrell to M r . Rivers.

Do not suppose for one moment that Iwould ignore, or even extenuate , the vileness of thosedetestable portions of Don Juan which I imaginehave done more than almost anything else to brandLord Byron’s character with shame . It would be

difficult to hnd words in which to describe alike the

grief and disgust with which one regards many portions of that production . All I ask is that in denouncing what in it is Vile, we should never forget howmuch still remains that is so sweet and beautiful andpure as to be akin to heaven . H e is , perchance,

A fallen angel, but an angel st i l l

—and hence it seems to m e this poem strangelyconfirms all for which I contended, or pleaded, in thatOriel fling. The simple truth is that we hnd in itonly too evident proof of the terrible ordeal throughwhich Lord Byron has , of late years , been passing— oi

the effect produced on him by early vicious training,by the strength of his own passions , by his unhappymarriage, and last, not least, by the cruelly unjusttreatment he has received at the hands of manyof his fellow—countrymen . This treatment, combined with the deadly leprosy of satiety creepingover him in the reaction from excess , and the

disgust he feels with himself and the world, hasthrown him into the slough of cynicism and prurient bravado ; while the innate nobleness of his


like murderers and ministers of religion , after all, are“

but imperfect mortals . Do you expect any of the

greatest saints and heroes of humanity, any of the

most exquisite composers , painters , heroines , goddessesin woman ’s form

,to be without a flaw ? Well does a

wise German say to us Take from Luther his roughness and hery courage ; from Calvin his hectic obst i

nacy from Erasmus his timid prudence hypocrisy

! no , that’s a mistake]and fanaticism from Cromwell ;

from Henry IV. his sanguine character ; mysticismfrom Fenelon (and so on) deduct this oppressive exuberance from each ; rectify them accordingto ‘ your own taste— what will be the result ? Your,own correct, pretty, flat

,useful— for m e , t o be sure,

quite convenient vulgarity . Learn to know thisexuberance , this leaven of each great charact er .that where d, e , f, is there must be a , b, 0 : H e alonehas knowledge of m an

,who knows the ferment that

raises each character,and makes it that which it shall

be , and something more or less than it should be ’

(Lavater’s Aphorisms

,translated by Fuseli

, p. 179

Aye , what right, dear M r. Rivers , have we— full a swe ourselves are of imperfections , to expect faultlessperfection in others— especially in such a temperament as Byron’s ? Only a child

,a tool

,or a madman

should be surprised at meet ing ugliness,discord

,and

sin, side by side with beauty, harmony, purity, love , inhuman character and human life . Ou the otherhand

,I know too well we cannot help being shocked

‘(and ought to be) each time that the deformity of


a half- developed,undisciplined

,ill- taught, yet glorious

creature is revealed t o us in all its repulsive contrasts .Shocked we must be , for is not this the greatestand saddest contrast on earth ? If we did not protes tagainst it , denounce and abj ure the Vileness , we shouldourselves be false to our better nature , traitors toour purest aspirations , and on the high road to coalescing with that deformity . For the hackneyed verse iseverlastingly true

Vice i s a mons ter of'

such frigh tful mi enAs

,t o he hat ed , needs be only seen

But , seen t oo oft,we grow fami l iar w i th her face

We first endure,t hen p i ty

,then embrace

But in the midst of judgment, still let’

us remembermercy, or at least let us not forget JUST ICE , andabstain from expecting freedom from frailty in one

whom divines would truly,I suppose, call an un

regenerate child of the dust. No,nor in an angel

of light if he had been nurtured,like Proser

pine, amid the fairest flowers of earth , and thenbeen dragged for half his days down to the

infernal regions . Tell m e .

— is ' it not true that inproportion as we can hold fast our own - kinship withGod, we shall be able to honour and love , reJowe

in and“

profit by all that is divine in Byron and hisimmortal poetry, without being in danger of yieldingour hearts to that glamour of Satan by which at timesByron is debased and enslaved .

Let m e quote these lines from Don Juan as thekey to the origin of most that 13 evil in that marvellous production .


And if I laugh at any mortal thing’T i s that I may not weep ; and i f I weep,

’Ti s that our nature cannot always bringIt self to apathy for we must s teepOur heart s first i n the depths of Lethe’s springE re what we least w i sh t o behold will sleepThet is bapt i z ed her mortal son in StyxA mor tal mother would on Lethe fix.

Don J uan, Canto IV . 4.

So much for my counter-blast to your earnest andpowerful impeachment . But thank you for it heartilyall the same, and believe me, dear Rivers, ever yourold friend,

CHARLES DAYRELL .

The next day Ellerslie having accompanied mymother and sisters to church , quietly remarked, on hisreturn, that he had seen the Lady Stella and MissFrances Grey there also .Was there anything very wonderful in that ? I

asked.

“ By no means , replied the gentleman only in

the associations which curiously enough her expressivecountenance conjured up in my truant fancy when,reprehensibly, I glanced at it during the service .

”

Explain, Sir Oracle, I rej oined, and as he assuredus he could do so only by a quotation, I insisted on itsproduction , which, when produced , proved to be thefollowing from Byron’s Giaour

Hi s float ing robe around him folding,Slow sweeps he thro ’ the columned aisle,

Wi th dread beheld,with g loom beholding

The rit es that sanct ify the pi le .


mortar,’ all the more because he raised a spectre

that had once and again haunted m e . I used notto mind it , but Since my accident, and ,

while re

calling my grandfather’s notions about religion , Ihad grown sensitive on the subj ect . Nevertheless,

as he looked at m e apologetically, I repressed mysentiments ; and, though I felt savage then , Iknew when he was leaving us next day forOxford, unscathed and serene , I could have givenone of my favourite setters— or sisters , if only Icould have had him always within call, as in the

old Oriel days .\Vhen our lit tle circle next assembled, Lady

Stella began playing softly on the piano, as itwere to herself ; but pre sently she turned roundon her music stool, and said, “ I do feel so

grateful for all M r. Dayrell says in that lecture

respecting Byron’s innate goodness of heart . I’

m

sure the Oxford Bacchant,and those he cites as

witnesses , were right in that . But in regard tohis and Byron

’s religiousnes s , is it not strangepassing strange that f .

”She paused, and

my heart was in my mouth again . I guessedwhat might be coming . I had felt all alongthere might, probably would be , strong dissat is

faction, or, at least, dissent on those points,

mingled with their pleasure , perhaps among all-my auditors , though scarcely a word had been‘ spoken .

’

But presently Stella went on Taken. only in Za

’

poet ical light ; as Schiller meant it in

.LADY STELLA AND H E R LOVER . 157

that noble ode, which , in'

the last verse , 1\Ir. Dayrelladapted '

so skilfully,the worship of the gods i s

beautiful .’

We mu st look up to , revere, worshipsomething ; You have given m e intense delightby that lecture on Byron , M r.

‘ Dayrell . Thankyou, very

'much (pause) . But, taken seriously,these fancies about a God or

' gods Thenagain she paused

,and continued in a hard tone,

as if bracing herself up under strong emotion tosay what she thought might be a hateful thing .

Is it not— are not these so- called re

ligious speculations , after all, a mere delusion ?Then seeing m e turn , and I suppose -glare ather, for I was in a terribly . excitable state, she

added, rather sadly, I don’t mean that yourgrandfather was mistaken about Byron .

But,might not, perhaps, both Byron and he be

under a slight delusion as to religious matters ?

May it not all be a melancholy mistake, a beautiful, sorrowful, self-deception to imagine that wecould know and worship s uch a Being as M r.

Charle s Dayrell spoke of, believed in, and adoredDo you know, dear M rs . Dayrell, she continued

,

“ it always seemed strange to m e how so thoroughlymanly a man as your admirable father-ainrlaw,

could concern himself so much with 1mag1nary

unrealities— vain and shadowy as those about .which

the se- called religion of this day trouble s itself:Beside the stern sad realities of daily life theydo “seem such poor trifies that it ’s a lmost ”

wicked


to give them such a deal of att ention . What canwe possibly know about them ? Surely in the

things we can see, and hear, and touch , in this

actual world in which we live , there is , or oughtto be, enough to occupy all our thoughts andinterest ? What have we to do with things unseen ,

’

especially with some imaginary future world ?”

What ! ” I exclaimed .

“ Does it seem t o youstrange that because Charles Dayrell was so true aman he should have been profoundly religious ?I rather think there have been a good manybrave and manly m en in this world distinguishedfor piety and faith . What do you say to the

Pilgrim Fathers , to Cromwell and his Ironsides ,t o Columbus , and Martin Luther, to John Howard,and the Sm ithfield martyrs ? ”

Yes, yes ; but they were all immersed in their

horrid delusions about Satan and Hell,and eternal

t orments , and, as regarded religion , thought chiefly

about saving their souls . (Here an emphatic No iwas heard from the sofa . ) But. your grandfather wasa thoroughly healthy—minded man , one who believedin this world and its glorious possibilities, and strovet o realize them . H e was not blind to the hell hereupon earth , nor content to postpone heaven to avi sionary future . And, therefore , I say, it seems tom e passing strange he should have had his mind so

much occupied for seventy years with dream s .”

Ah,

” observed Mrs . Dayrell, every activeminded man must have some hobby as a relief to


Supper without due worthiness— the unbelieving are

tied, hand and foot, poor things, along with the

abominable and murderers, and all are cast into thelake of fire and brimstone together .”

“ I think it has been shown,

” said Dayrell,that

there ought to be a different interpretation put ontho se passages from what you suppose . But leavingthat, I have heard it asked, and it may be well toconsider, whence you can get any sufficient sanctions for morality and virtue if you bid men

abandon their belief in God. What is the meaningof that word which some of the best m en that everlived call the noblest and m ost awful ever uttered—DUTY . What is

Oh , ‘ a stream of tendency in the human soulmaking for righteousness ’— an innate apprehensionof things concerning right and wrong . But nevertheless, do not for a moment suppose that I canbelieve

,with certain philosophers , it is merely the

result of fortuit ous molecular action, or of ex

perience, or calculations of self—interest . That is aVile notion .

”

“ But then , whence and why this stream oftendency —this innate apprehension ? ”

“ I know not— none can know . Do not lookshocked . Remember

,dear friend, I was brought up

in the strictest sect of Low Churchism, in the

Evangelical faith, pure and undefiled, nurtured on the

39 Articles , the Anxious Inqu'

irer,’

the : ShorterCatechism , and the Athanasian Creed—Ugh

‘ l ” and


the fair speaker shuddered, then rapidly continuedAnd as for Christian worship, M r. Dayrell, why, mostof the church-goers of my acquaintance

,seem to

m e to be inspired, in their devotions , considerablymore by fear of an avenging deity or a craving forhis favour and rewards hereafter other-worldliness ’

as somebody well calls it)— than either by love oradoration . Ah , you think me very naughty

, I

know, but I fear if the truth were told it would beseen that half of you don’t even believe, fear,desire, or worship anything at all while you and

the priest are gabbling over your prayers .”— (The

Dayrell ladies winced a little and smiled faintly atthese amiable remarks , but didn

’t protest ; so the

lady went on.) -“ Now my Christian friends, pray

forgive me , as your creed bids you— but it is a comfort for once and away to speak the truth. Andat all events

,I must say, and you won

’t so muchmind my saying

,that of real worship such as Byron

felt on the Alps by moonlight,or on the lake of

Geneva,and as he makes .m e feel when I read

much of his poetry, or such adoration as I have,and perhaps we all have

,felt when listening to

some grand strains of music— oi that real worshipmost of your church-goers do not seem to have anotion .

”

Oh, oh from two or three of the listeners .Well, not when they are at church at all events ,

and doing what they call saying their prayers .Now you know it

’

s true,dear M rs. Dayrell ; and yet

V OL . L 11


they vaunt their religion as if it were the only trueworship and devotion under the sun ! There ! Nowmay I go further, while I

’

m about it ?“ Yes

,

” replied Mrs . Dayrell, with an air of resignation .

“ Better ‘ cleanse your bosom of all this

perilous stufiC,’ once for all . ’

“ Well,then ,

” resumed Stella,

“ I must confes sthat the God of the Hebrews , ah and even the

Christians’ God no less , are hateful to m e ! ‘ Gladtidings of great j oy,

’ indeed ! a gospel of gladness ! What l— Why apart from all the other sadand miserable doctrines of that so- called evangelicalfaith

,how can it be good news ’ for man that such -a

standard of perfection is offered to us as your go spelcontains

,and that we have to reach it or ‘ depart

into everlasting fire,prepared for the devil and his

angels,

’ where ‘ the worm dieth not , and the fire isnot quenched .

’ It is of course very true thatit would be well for us if we cou ld all be generous ,virtuous and noble, and very sad that we are sobase and selfish and vile— but tell m e , before youscold m e for my heresies , who m ade us what weare ? It is not my will, \ it is not the will of ninetenths of the wretches who live in daily defiance

of the t en or two commandments,to live as we do .

It is not preaching we want . What is the use ofsett ing before us a great example or a perfect ruleof life ? We cannot follow the one or obey the

other . Then the se good people, like M r. Dayrell

(senior), talk of walking with God, as if it were not


if I’m surprised that a man like your ancestor, M r.

Wilfrid, could find strength or peace in walkingwith Him .

”

I had never heard Lady St ella speak out soplainly before . All she had said in former days onthese subj ects was nothing compared to this dynamite business . I used to think she said such thingsrather as a fiighty bravado , than as the result ofserious conviction . But there was no mistaking hermeaning now. After a few minutes I just saidpretty calmly

“ I rather think the revered ancestor in questionhad a very different notion of the nature andcharacter of God from what you have imbibed ,Lady Stella . To him God was always the kind and

loving Friend, the tender compassionate Father, asfar as I understood him . According to his viewI don’t give it as mine, I have none to give— Ishould say Christ lived and died not to protect us

from this Father but to draw us to Him—that thiswas the very purpose for which God sent him intothe world .

” But it was no use . I didn’t feel up tosaying much more . My mother, by way of adiversion , asked my sisters to give us a little music,and rose to ring the bell for candles . I lay quiet,thinking hard

,and didn’t hear a note of the

music .I knew that both Lady Stella and my mother

and sisters held what would be called somewhat

extreme views on all these subj ects, but her

LADY STELLA AND H ER LOV ER . 65

vehement prote st at thi s time half- stunned me . Itwas the more startling, becaus e I felt how muchtruth there was in what she urged, and 1 coul d notanswer her. Yet I was sure there was another sideto the argument, and that a half truth is often a greatlie . I threw myself back on the one whole truth Ithought I had fully grasped, and making a lastattempt, said presently, wi th pretended composure

“ I cannot foll ow you now in all you urge , LadyStell a

,but let me rest on one declaration you made

—that we must look up to, worship something. Yet

a thing is below a person . How can we look upto, adore it , without infinit e degradation ? Youacknowledge—a mind like yours cannot ignore— the

need of worship . Must there not then be , a Person,a Being, infinitely above ourselves, worthy of ouradoration— somewhere in the Universe 3

“ M r. Dayrell, I woul d think life itself not toogreat a sacrifice to gain an absolute cert ainty, aknowledge of such a Being.

”

She said this with more earnestness , almostsolemnity, than I had ever known her manifest.Presently she continued in a lighter tone

“ I feel the force of what you say about personsand things . When I was a chi ld I could, and did,love intensely, a wooden darling of a doll— couldn

’teither love or worship it now. Coul dn’t even lovemy pet here, could I ?

”she said, caressing Jacko ,

whom she had brought, she said, to amuse m e,“ if

he were not a real person, far above an inanimate


thing ! But I admit, oh , Jacko , thou art as yet

hardly enough superior to myself to be worshipped .

”

Was it not one of the darkest curses of slavery,I observed, st ifling a little j ealousy of Jacko , thatit degraded man to the condition of a thing— a

chattel ? ”

“ But, rej oined Stella, “ what, after all, is thedifference ? What is a person ? ”

“ What you feel and know yourself to be , LadyStella— a being possessed of Self- consciousness

,Reason ,

Memory,Will . In seeking God, in loving Him ,

‘

we believe that he is like ourselves , or rather thatin these respect s we are like Him— made in Hisimage . You love that Singularly- favoured being onyour knee more than the wooden doll j ust so faras you have emerged from the rudimentary conditionof childhood and savage life, and in proportion ashe resembles you (save the mark ! ) mentally andmorally more than your doll did . But a higherdevelopment of your nature might lead to yourloving Man , and a higher still to loving God .

“ Ah, my dear preceptor,” replied the lady

,

“ if

you only would and could effect that development Ishould almost worship you

,

”she was going to

say, but paused ; then added , “ Oh , that it were possible ! But unfortunately I have read ‘ Mills’ Logic,

’

and ‘ Bain’s Philosophy,

’ Herbert Spencer, Tyndall,Huxley and Mansell, and I know that it is impossible we should have that k nowledge this sidethe grave, whatever may be revealed on the other.


doing so she just whispered, Will you forgive m e

adding, with a pretty, playful sm ile , And convertme .

” Then,still in a low tone, “ Indeed

,I have

been thinking much of what you said about a Personbeing higher than a thing

,and that worship of aught

that is lower, meaner than our selves 2'

s degrading.

Thank you, M r. Dayrell, for that argument, at all

events .

I suppose I looked very happy as she said thisand she went ou, a bright up- looking expres sion onher face

“ There’s a passage of wonderful truth and depth ,frOm the believing point of view

,in one of the

books in your Bible which has often haunted me

‘ But without faith it is impossible to please God .

For he that cometh to God must believe that H e is ,and that H e i s the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him .

’ No doubt, no doubt . The veryb i sis of all religion is an assured belief, I admitfirst , in the existence of a Personal God, and thenin His caring for us— for each of us individually

,that

i s . But it is just that faith which I haven’t gotnever shall get . I cannot believe in what i s so

utterly beyond my reach,” and the old dreary look

which had more than once pained m e came overher.

“ But,

”she whispered, “ don’t let us quarrel

about it . I must love and worship . Help me .

”

I answered by pressing her hand, which she didnot immediately withdraw, and for the moment Iundutifully wished my mother and sisters were abid


ing in the City of Palms on the banks of the Jordan .

Then we had a reading aloud from the newspaper,a little chit- chat and general literary talk till it wastime to part .T he following evening

,however, those excellent

ladie s did go— not to Jericho, but to a dinner partyabout three or four mile s away, which would haveanswered my desire s quite as well only that theywere able to return so much sooner than they couldhave done from the Promised Land . It was the firstevening, I believe , my mother and sisters hadbeen out together since my accident ; but LadyStella and her cousin had promised to come in andkeep m e company .

The next two or three page s of Wilfrid Dayrell’

s

j ournal are so blurred, blotted, and interlined thatmuch was nearly, and some quite , illegible . Whatappears to have taken place , when thrown into thedue narrative , picturesque form, was this .After t ea, the three young folks were conversing

about London gaietie s , and Dayrell had been speaking with considerable Vivacity

,for him, of the charms

of London concerts , and especially of the opera, whenanything thoroughly good appeared in that line .

“ Are you really fond, then , of good music ?”

a sked Stella .

“ Am I 9 ” replied the sufferer, turning on hiscouch . Rather. I have loved it more intenselythan any other created thing I know of— that is to


say, the music I love at all, if that’s what you call

good music . But for a long time , he added in alowered voice, “ I couldn’t bear any music .

“ Shall I play or sing to you a little now ? ButI don’ t know that you will care for my music, Ihave scarcely practised at all for an age .

”

“ I have never heard any singing or playing, he

answered , which I liked so well . But I haven ’tdared to ask you .

”

She sat down to the piano and played first a piecefrom a Sonat a of Beethoven’s , for which he thankedher and said he liked it , but he was evident ly notenthusiastic . Then she played an old and beautifulair with variations

,called “ Huntsman

,rest,

” whichshe declared ought to suit his c ondition exactly, andthen wandered off into those exquisite variations byThalberg on Home

,sweet Home,

”and the wounded

huntsman lay entranced in ecstasy. When LadyStella had finished he could scarcely speak his thanksbut as she came back to her little work- table by hiscouch she saw how much he was affected as he putout his wasted hand in token of his thanks . Aftera few moments he said softlyI was thinking while you were playing that

there would be a home for some of us, some day,out among yonder stars , and how pleasant it wouldbe there to rest from all this weary pain

,and perhaps

begin a new and brighter ‘ life— very sweet andblessed if only the beloved ones of earth were withm e there .

” But though the words seemed to be


ment . May I come and play or sing to you sometime s , now I know what kind of music you like .

But not if my poor trumpeting makes you sad.

If it does , believe m e , dear Lady Stella , it alsomake s m e glad . And the sadness is good for mycomplaint, he added

,as a wan smile stole over

his face . But she knew that he meant in someway it was good for his spiritual life , and she

shrank from approaching that region of his thought,for it bordered on all the religious emotions andspeculations in which she could not sharefrom which she felt— how painfully ? —repelled .

When his mother came home that night, and

went up on tip—toe to see if her son was sleepingquietly, she found his pulse so high and his cheeksso flushed , that she said his amateur nurses hadmanaged very badly

,and mentally vowed they

should not be allowed to wait on him by themselves again .

During the interchange of views between LadyStella and young Dayrell above recorded, it was

plain that though cousin Frances kindly and dis

cree tly tried to efface herself, she was in a greatfidget , and this probably had a sobering effect onthe other two romantic young people . HenceDayrell found that banishment of his own re

lat ives was not sufficient for his satisfaction, andincluded Stella’s cousin also in his prayer referringto the East .Miss Grey did indeed depart, as soon as their


carriage was announced ; but unfortunately LadyStella had to go with her, leaving the descendantof the Oriel Bacchanal in a very melancholy anddepres sed condition , both of mind and body, quiteunworthy of his ancestry . Hence “ illae lachrymae

when M rs . Dayrell returned .

For the remainder of this narrative, where it has notbeen supplied from Wilfrid Dayrell

’

s j ournal,Lady

Stella’s diary and memory are chiefly responsible .

It appears then that Mis s Frances did not un

burthen her mind that night, and her cousin was

silent as the grave . But the next morning she

spoke out— beginningStella ! ”

The young lady addressed was in a reverie, herthought s were not at H urst leigh Manor at all, butby the couch of a crippled invalid, a few

"

milesfurther off.

Stella ! will you attend ? I have somethingimportant to remark .

”

Say on, ingenuous child, replied her cousin ,bringing back her thoughts , but evidently listeningWith languid interest .I think , Stella, you are much to blameNot possible,

” replied the accused carelessly.

In flirt ing with that poor young man in the

unblushing manner you have lately done .

”

“ I think I have heard that remark from youbefore

,replied the criminal, still with indifference,

not to say contempt.


“ And will again, said Frances , warm ing to herwork

,and a good deal worse, if you don

’t mendyour ways .What a fearful fate awaits m e

,

” murmuredStella .

“ And if that has no effect,continued Frances ,

I shall send for my mother and go back to mykith and kin

,leaving you alone to all your wicked

ness~

and subsequent remorse . I won ’t stay hereto witness and condone, or sanction , your cruelbehaviour .”

Ah ; now you do frighten m e a little bit . Don’t

go, or it will be so dull and lonely that I shallcertainly marry the first fool that makes m e anoffer . Even now you see the country is so dullthat I am obliged to relieve its tedium by a littleharmless ‘

aflaire ole cceur ,’ which , of course, the

other party knows is merely a bit of fun pour

passer te temps !

“ Fie on you, S t ella ! You know he thinks moreof it than that— he may be a hope less nincompoopand crippled for life

,perhaps doomed to an early

death , and marriage, of course, can never be forhim . But you are tearing out his heart , anddigging for him an early grave .

Stella did not immediately reply, but looked outof the window, then answered with a well- concealedeffort .

“ Dear m e ; why only the other day you describedm e as a victim— a lovely humming bird, was it

176 LAD Y STELLA AND H ER LOVER .

volume of poems , neverthele ss , was full ofbeauty and power . And then that picture,‘ In the gloaming ! ’ And oh ! how profoundly interesting all he has been saying andreading about his grandfather, and all that the

old man said when he was a young man about thatglorious poet, Byron ! of whom I wish I knew alittle more . Would I had been born in the

days of chivalry ! in the ages of faith,or in the

Renaissance ; for poets and philosophers , as wellas preua; Cheva liers, swarmed as abundantlythen a s frogs in the time of Pharaoh

,and wooed

and worshipped loyally the weaker sex .

Heigho ! Life now is either frivolous or sad .

But whatever blame might attach to the lady,

surely it was in no spirit of chivalry that youngDayrell was now allowing himself to cherish hisardent passion . Had he not once felt that the

mere fact of her being an heires s was a hugeobstacle in the way of his suit

,even when he was

full of health and buoyant life ? How could he

now reconcile with any standard of Duty or Chivalry,or with anything but the merest selfishness

,his

behaviour in trying to interest this bewitchinggirl in his thoughts

,in himself ? H e never tried to

reconcile it . H e knew their mutual friendship wasdoing him a world of good . The fact may have been ,also, that he had been rendered utterly reckless bythe blow that had fallen on him, and when peoplebecome reckless they necessarily also become selfish.


So as he gained freedom from bodi ly suffering, hesurrendered himself, unthinking of results , uncaringfor consequences , to the only alleviation of his oftenvery grievous pain of heart and mind, yielded to hisintense desire so long and ardently cherished forStell a’s love and sympathy, and silenced all stingsof conscience or remorse .

V OI'O Io

CHAPTER 1X .

BUT that peerles s maiden did not go to play orsing to Wilfrid Dayrell , e ither the next day or the dayafter ; and when they were all once again assembledat his mother’s her m anner was stately and reserved .

H e felt the chill that had unmistakably come overthe ladies from H urst leigh. His mother had beenreading aloud bits from the newspaper

,and looking

up, remarkedHow wonderfully cold it i s for April, considering,

too,that the wind is west .”

“ Yes, replied one of her daughters, but yousee that is accounted for now . Great icebergsreported in the Atlantic

,you read a minute

ago .”

“ I was sure there was something of that sortsaid Dayrell

,looking grimly towards Lady Stella,

and then (drawing himself proudly into his shell)added “ Yet the west wind ought always to be genialand refreshing—would be, I suppose , but for the

icebergs .”

The lady could not quite conceal a faint blushunder Dayrell

’

s scrutinizing gaze ; and to turn the

current, said in a sprightly toneHave you nothing more to read to us, M r.


So on to Ravenna now sped our hero seldom aday passing without coming on scenes made m emor

able by their past history or enchanting by theirpresent beauty, and where , had he not been possessedby one overpowering desire

,he would have gladly

lingered for days or weeks . Whenever he could

get decent riding horse s he used them in preference to the “ carozza

,

” but at Rossena a littlevillage not many miles from Parma

, he was delayed a couple of days from inability to get either .To work off his restlessnes s Charlie started off onfoot, as soon as he had got some refreshment atthe humble osteria , to explore the wild andbeautiful hills and woods among which it was

placed . As he roamed through a rather more ruggedand thickly wooded district than any previouslyreached

,and was forcing his way through some brush

wood,he suddenly found a musket-barrel at his

chest and another pointed at his head, while tworather ferocious- looking peasant s demanded in hoarseand threatening tones what he wanted there . The

inquiry relieved him of the apprehension that hewas about to be robbed and murdered by bandits .Fortunately he had learnt j ust enough Italian toexplain . The words

,Amico mio, sono Inglese,

”

had a magical effect, and his statement respectinghis present circumstances was received with the

greatest courte sy . More peasants , all armed, sooncame up. H e was conducted to an open spaces arrounded by trees and brushwood where at least

LADY STELLA AND H ER LOVER .18 1

fifty picturesque fierce- looking fellows were drilling

,or reclining on the turf. Dayrell had walked

into the centre of a revolutionary band of ItalianCarbonari

,and was welcomed as if he had brought

them tidings that one of their domestic or foreignoppressors had been assassinated . The adventurewas delightful to Charlie in a high degree . H e

soon made himself thoroughly at home with them,

and of course they were delighted with him, part icularly when they found he could speak the irlanguage . H e sat talking with one or more ofthe leaders till dusk, and then partook of theirhumble meal, while they never wearied of pouringforth the melancholy tale of all the cruel oppres

sion from which they were suffering, and askinghis interces sion on their behalf wi th his count rym en wherever, in Italy or the Universe, they migh tbe found . Charlie was lavish of sympathy and haddifficulty in restraining himself from equal prodi

gality of promise s and cash for he knew ~ howardently Lord Byron had intere sted himself inthis oppre ssed nation and even in his rapid j ourney he had already seen and heard enough of thedegradation and sufferings inflict ed on the Italianpeople by Austrian conquerors and their own rul ers ,to be filled with an ardent desire to see thememancipated from their double yoke . But unti lthat evening he had heard little of the effortsand preparations these “ hereditary bondsmen ” weremaking, “ themselves,

” to strike the blow for


their national deliverance . It was a stirring andmemorable scene for Dayrell— one of those epochsin his life which usher a man into a wholly new

world,and perhaps , by their practical as well as

rousing character, colour his whole future life . Herehe was face to face, for the first time in his life ,with that life and death struggle between Law ' andLiberty

,Freedom and Tyranny , of which in its

m ilder romantic and metaphorical forms he hadbeen engaged in, and dreaming oi, all his life . H e

had worshipped Freedom— passionately craved for itin almost every available or impossible form sincehe

‘ had left the cradle -long ed to transgress allbounds

,and to strike off the captive ’s chains wher

ever he beheld them . Don Quixote ’s experiencewith the galley- slaves had indeed taught him alesson , which , like other lessons conveyed by thatimmortal satire , struck him at first with a kind ofsharp pain . It was long indeed before he couldfully harmonize the undeniable truth of thoseteachings with his own enthusiasm and romanticdreams . But he did at last and was a much wiserman in consequence of reading the history of theKnight of La Mancha and his Squire . Beforeleaving his revolutionary friends Charlie had won alltheir hearts ; and while abstaining from any vo

ciferous salutation as he departed, for fear ofattracting attention , they wrung his hand

,and

looked in his face , with an earnestness whichaugured well for their conduct when the time m igh


him an introduction when Charlie called on himin London .

When he again mounted the steps of the Palazza Guiccioli

,with a palpitating heart and full of

a nameless anxiety, he was not a little startled ,yet considerably relieved, by hearing a musical voiceexclaiming in rather a j ovial tone

“ Oh ho ! Here come s our young Oxford Bacchanal l

”

Then the noble poet appeared on the scene , and ,holding out his hand with a curious mixture offrankness and shyness

,gave the Visitor a cordial

welcome . There was something in the whole toneand manner of his reception which at once putCharlie quite at his ease, and somewhat disenchantedhim

,— as if a lowly worshipper at the shrine of the

Ephesian Diana had suddenly beheld the goddessdescend from her pede stal and come dancing towardshim .

“ Glad to see you , young gentleman . Hobhous etold me you were coming . I

’m all alone here :

Where are you staying ? At the hotel ! Oh, garnmon ! don’t stow yourself in that wretched hole .

Come up here . I ’ll send for your traps . I’

m d— d

busy j ust now, and keep queer hours ; but if you’ll

put up with my ways and keep m e company for afew days

,it will be a real pleasure .

And so he rattled ou,till Charlie began to doubt

if he were really awake, or only lost in a strange ,delightful

,and curiously perplexing dream . H e

LADY STE LLA AND HER LOVER. 185

soon found it was decidedly a charming reality .

The fact was that Byron - had been prepared to taketo young Dayrell no t only in consequence of allthat Hobhouse had communicated

,and his own

natural kindnes s of heart, especially towards his

own countrymen if they were gentlemen , but alsoby what Lord Clare had written to him after thatvisit to Oxford, when Charlie was still in honourborne aloft for his performance in The BacchanalsSo, after a few inquirie s about his guest’s exper

snees of travel, the answers to which he heard without much attention , he dashed into the subj ectwhich was much more interesting both to himselfand to Dayrell.Dinner was served at 8 p.m . , and when the meal

was over, Lord Byron began at once on the Dionysiac myth and the Greek drama . H e seemed t o

know little or nothing about the play, but the legendhad evidently once fascinated him , and he was

delighted when he found Dayrell had got both the

play and M r. Milman’s translation of the choruses inhis portmanteau . H e referred more than once witha kind of boyish delight to Charlie

’s endeavour to

get live snake s wherewith to adorn his girdle andhead- gear

,as leader of the chorus

,and stigmatized

the manager and actors as d— d fools for obj ecting to their introduction .

I tell you what, 0 Coryphaeus ! I won’t obj ectto them if you’ll dress up here and recite the

Chorus . ’ There are lots of snake s in these woods,


and we could have a splendid turn- out. I won’tguarantee they are all harmless , but that don’tmatter '”

H e kept up the conversation till long after midnight

,by which time

,in spite of the extraordinary

charm of being in Lord Byron’s presence , poorCharlie

,after a long day’s travel

,could hardly keep

his eyes open,and was compassi onately dismissed

t o bed.

“ Breakfast when you please,said his host . “ I

don’t t ake mine till 2 p.m .

”

Percy Bysshe Shelley, wri t ing to a friend afterspending some days with Byron

,says : “ H e is

cheerful, frank and witty . His more serious conversation is a sort of int oxicat ion m en are held byit as by a spell . What , then , must it have beento women capable of appreciating it ? But althoughCharlie was

‘

not immediately admitted to that innersanctum , his happines s may easily be imagined .

For,as Shelley truly said , no words could describe

the charm of the poet’s conversation and mannerswhen he was really pleased with a guest while anyone who knew the profound sympathy which Dayrellfelt for all that was beautiful and best in Byron’sdeeper nature , could understand what the happinessmust have been of finding himself ere long admittedt o share in the poet’s inner life . It is well knownnow that Byron habitually wore an outside shell ofcynicism or levity to protect the marvellously sen

sitive,poetic, loving, and sentimental nature which

188 LADY STE LLA AND H ER LOVER.

that Dayrell was not a fellow familiarity with

whom would breed license ; that he was not onlya thorough gentleman

,of which , indeed , his

birth and University training gave full assurance ,

but that he was posse s sed by a spirit of profoundreverence for himself. His m anner

, even whenmost at his case with the noble poet, was alwaysrespect ful

,and yet self- respect ing ; and so far

unequivocally deferential a s was consistent withthe status of a gentleman admitted to familiarconverse with one whom he knew to be his

superior in rank and years , and immeasurablyin intellect . This was a great point in hisfavour. For though Byron was fairly free fromvulgar pride of birth

,he was rather sensitive

‘

asto the recognition of his rank , which was thoughtmore of in those t ime s than , perhaps, in the sedays ; and while delighting in perfect social freedom with intimate friends , he shrank withsensitive disgust from any approach to unauthor

iz ed and intrusive familiarity .

But Charlie did not find that he could ge t

much talk with his host on the topics which

intere sted him most deeply , and of which he had

spoken so earnestly in his lecture in the CommonRoom at Oriel . Of course he approached the

subj ect of the poet’s works with great caution ,and Byron always answered any remarks or que stions he ventured to propound, with kindne ss, andfor a little time

,perhaps , with interest . But he


soon saw that the poet was getting bored, andthat he must give it up. One evening Byronasked him a number of que stions about himself,his parents, and home ; seemed intensely interestedin the way Charlie spoke of his mother and ofall that she had been to him ; broke off the

conversation first with a sigh that seemed as ifhe were giving up the ghost, and saying, “ Happyfellow ! Would to God that I and thenfinished off with an oath, as if to conceal the

feelings of which he was ashamed .

Charlie ’s daring experiences in an open boatduring the storm off Naples great ly interestedLord Byron

,and led him to recount some of his

own adventure s in that line, all which led up todescriptions of various feats in swimming, to

Boatswain the Newfoundland, Max ” the re

t riever, 850. But the great success in these talksfor Charlie was when he mentioned, with all hisenthusiasm for liberty, his rencontre with the Car

bonari near Rossena . Byron’ s face lighted up withextraordinary animation as he asked all particulars,and then talked for hours on the miserable condition of Italy under her tyrants , and of the effort sthen being made, which he was strenuously aiding,to throw off that intolerable yoke . All this drewthe two m en closer together than any of theirprevious intercourse, and Dayrell felt as if he hada ctually made or found a friend in the higher senseof the term , where he had expected only to behold

190 LADY STELLA AND H ER LOV ER .

an Olympian deity, indifferent, careless , and havet o worship at a respectful distance .

H e knew but little about, and dwelt less upon ,what lay behind and beneath that glorious demi

'

a

god ’s nobler nature and higher life . And Byronhad no desire to expose that side of his heart andlife whereof he was unutterably weary and ashamed .

If ever a man went down into the depths of vice ,loathing his own baseness , struggling desperatelyagainst the overwhelming force of the hery pas

sions that have too often swayed the heart of man,

it was Dayrell’

s kindly host in the PalazzaGuiccioli . Nothing IS now plainer than that the

sins and excesses into which Byron was again andagain betrayed were not only opposed t o, resistedby, his better self with a strength of which feeblernatures can form no conception , but that hisdegradat ion and Vice were abhorrent to his verysoul .When Charles Dayrell visited him, that intensely

ardent craving to love and to be loved again , which ,as Dayrell urged in his lecture , was by far the strongestelement in his nature, had at last found an obj ecton which it could rest in happy thankfulnes s and

peace, a love which filled and sat isfied his soul , asfar

,

” thought Charlie , as any human soul can besat isfied with only human love .

”

But even now the fatal poison-drop still was in hiscup . The Countess Guiccioli, then residing at a villabelonging to her brother Count Gramba (about fifteen


not considering it either his duty, or his busines s toinquire into Lord Byron’s private life . H e had nocommission to sit in j udgment on his character andconduct

, except in that general way described in hislecture at Oriel . Hence he had never felt repelledfrom his idol

,as unquestionably he would have been

had he known all the facts which have since beenmade fully known .

Lord Byron on the other hand soon saw thatyoung Dayrell Dithyrambus,

” as he called him , wasnot one of those rakish young fellows whom his soulloathed all the more because he had so often beendrawn against his will into their ways ; and hence allthe better part of his nature and character felt free toopen out genially at time s towards his young countryman . H e asked him on one occasion all about hisearly life , delighted in hearing about the New Forestand the gypsies , rattled away about Sherwood Forestand the poor Nottingham frame-breakers and Luddites

,

received with pretended nonchalance but real grat ification Charlie’ s earnest and heartfelt thanks for thegenerous efforts he had made both in Parliament andout of it , on their behalf, brought back the conversation to Dayrell

’

s antecedents , and at last with acuriously fascinating shyne ss and merry twinkle of hisdark eyes asked him if he had ever been in love .

The change which came over the poor youth’s face and

manner told its own tale , as with an effort at com

posure he answered in a low toneYes— but


I see, said his host, taking Dayrell’

s hand for an

instant, in a sympathetic and melancholy fashion .

The old story . But she may yetNo— married .

“ God help you i” cried the poet, throwing awaythe hand he had taken and rising from his seat .“ I

’

m sorry for you,Dayrell, he said, pacing the

room in agitation . I am— by But, Dayrell—be warned l— don’t— for the love of Heaven , don

’

t

let that disappointment drive you into the hog- styesor into any other infernal devilries— hasty marriageamong them , the most accursed of all. You’ve not

yet gone to the devil, I can see that . Keep out ofhis claws and some day you’ll meet with the truegoddess , and then you

’ll love her wi th all your heart,and have no damnable let or hindrance t o make youcut your throat in sheer disgust and despair. Though,

rem ember, if it ever come s to that, pistols are betterthan steel—quicker and cleaner— and they can’t sew

up the wound . But how about friends—youmust have had a friend or two at Oxford you valued

- loved .

”

Aye, indeed, answered Dayrell thoughtfully .

Well and isn’t a true friend— one whom you loveand who

’

is worthy bf it— is he not worth all thewomen that ever ensnared their slavesMy friend was one of the truest, noblest, that

ever But I can’t have much of his companynow . H e

’

s got better friends than myself nowsomewhere.

V OL. I.


“ Gone to glory ?”

Dayrell nodded .

Poor devil,” muttered Byron . That’s the way

Matthews and V Vingfield. Sorry for you, Dayrell— I

am , by Jove .

When they next m et after this conversation Byron’smanner was even kinder and franker than previously

,

and he was willing to talk on the subj ects whereinCharlie was most interested, even about Childe Haroldand the Doge of Venice among the rest

,though he

evidently had a dislike to dwelling on Venetianmemorie s . Once they got on the subj ect of Greeceand then Byron showed extraordinary interest in thehaples s state of that noble country and its oppressed

race .

“ I would give all my fortune, and my lifetoo , to deliver those fellows from the infernal tyrannyof the Turks . Nobody who has not travelled therecan form any conception of what a brutal degradingoppression the Greeks have been living under forthese last four hundred years . And they are such a .

noble— aye, glorious race still, in spite of thosecenturies of slavery .

”

~

“ Can nothing be done to help their emancipation ? ” asked Dayrell .

Don’t know there might,’ replied Byron

musing.

“ But my hands are full here at present .We must first see what can be done to helpthese unhappy devils of Italians , who are suffering almost as much . There ’s an addres s ,” saidhe

,throwi ng a paper on the table, which I

’

ve

196 .LADY STELLA AND H ER LOVER .

And thank Him beyond all conceivable andimaginable bounds that H e has given you such amother as Hobhouse told m e

,and you have shown

m e , yours must be .

”

A day later Dayrell wrote in his j ournal thefollowing passage

,which , like other portions of that

diary , seems to have been addressed to the Orielfriend he had so recently lost, Archer Hepburn

But to-day I have had another conversationwith him

,which I thought at first would end very

painfully, and that I should have had to clear outfrom here at once . H e had been speaking ofthese unhappy Italians , and the efforts they weremaking to regain their long- lost liberties , but whichhe feared would be fruitless , and then he went off

into one of the saddest wails of melancholy despairabout everybody and everything

,himself e specially

,

I ever heard from human lips . I ventured to say ,“ But, my dear lord, is it not an infinit e privilegeboth for them , and still more for you, to havet his work of emancipation on your hands ? Surely

i t is not our success so much as our faithfulnesst hat is of importance ? ”

H e took my hand withsuch a look, actually of gratitude, and so touching—I can’t describe it— it almost made m e tremble .

But then I felt so very thankful I had been able toknow a little more of this marvellous being— perhaps to give him a moment’s comfort in the midstof all his half- throttling troubles and toils .Soon after, when he had gone for his usual ride


(armed with pistols and a stiletto) , and I was

wandering about through the pine-woods towardsthe sea, whom should I meet but our old friend,Carl Rosenheim , who was out on his summer vacation, and had come to Ravenna with communicationsfor Lord Byron from the Secret Committee atNaples . H e also wanted to get a few note s aboutByron , his doings and ‘ beings ,

’ for an article he

told m e he was writing on Italy, Byron , the Carfor ‘ The Gentleman’s Magazine .

’ Whenhe found where I was staying he wanted to know agreat deal more than of course I felt at liberty totell him ; but he told m e , also , a great deal morethan I cared to hear or believe. Yet the evidencewas only too clear as to much of what he said,knowing what I did previously, and having readportions of his writings , which I confess had fil ledm e with contempt and disgust. And, oh , my dear oldfriend, how can I tell you, you who are dwelling inrealms of purity and light, where nothing thatdefileth ever comes , how very, very sad these factsregarding Lord Byron ’s past life

,which are con

t inually coming out,and now are almost public

property, seem to your idolatrous friend ! I scarcelyknow which makes one -most miserable , his— but no,I need not, must not, write of such things to you .

I may,however

,tell you, and it is a great relief to

tell you (for there is no other living soul whom Icould tell) what passed afterwards . After dinner bereverted to the subj ect of Italian emancipation ; t old


m e he had j oined the Carbonari,supplied them with

arms, and promised any of them ,who might be

hunted down, a refuge in his house, ‘ which ,’ said

he,with great animation , and with a kind of grim

combative j oy I had once or twice noticed before,

“ I am prepared to turn into a fortre ss,if need be .

”

Then he asked if I were ready to shoulder a musketand pike beside the Carbonari . I said, “ Only toogladly, as far as I alone was concerned— shouldn

’t Ilike it i Fancy fighting for Italian freedom ! ” ButI could not help adding that I feared my fatherand mother would be broken-hearted if I flung awaymy life out here . And then I spoke of the longingI had to emancipate my own countrymen fromwhat I knew was their miserable bondage , and that,perhaps

,English peasants , shopmen , or clerks , had

a prior claim on m e ; nevertheless , I should feel itan infinit e privilege to fight , and even die byhis side in the cause of Italian liberty .

Then that wonderful look of melancholy affectioncame again on his face as he glanced at m e , onlymore sweet and touching than ever . Well,after that he drew m e on to speak of my notionsabout Bacchanalian freedom and j oy

,and got im

mensely interested in the choruse s of‘ The Baccha

nals,

’ spoke very highly of Milman’s poetic powers ,and then , all of a sudden, he burst out into amocking laugh

,and exclaimed, Why, Dayrell , I

was acting Dionysus and his Maenads to the verylife in Venice a year ago ! H a, ha, ha ?

” Then all


the Beautiful in Nature and Art, to long for Freedom ,

to believe in Love and Joy, as no other Englishmanhas ever yet done . Some of us know this now ;more will know it by

- and-bye ; none but a verynoble nature could have done what you have done .

That’s why one is so very, very sorry for“ I know, I know, he said, kindly, seeing I was

in a tempest ; but ‘ false ’ is an ugly word .

“ Did you not, I asked, “ once destroy the wholeedition of your first -born because the Rev. JohnBecher told you one poem in it was licentious ? ”

(H e nodded .)“ That was nobly done .

”

Aye , aye , he answered . But it’s too late nowto try and destroy all my naughty poems . It nevercan now be said of m e that ‘ he has writ no linewhich

Dying he could wi sh to blot .

Ah, well, I added, you know as well as— infinit ely better than— I do , that you have gone intoall theseI paused again

,and he broke out

These infernal devilriesAgainst your will,

” I continued ; and he ex

claimed“ D

’

ye think I need to be told that ! Not I. Ihate it all as damnably as you do ! Haven’t Iloathed my very self for these things , and only notblown out my brains because I wanted to redeemthe past after each fresh fall ' Why more than

- once I’

ve cut the whole beastly pack in Venice in


the very height of their spree, and been rowedover the lagune s till morning, and the coast wasclear ! And haven’t I been all my life lookingand longing for one Don’t believe

,

never believe, Dayrell, that I don’t know there’s

something better and higher to live for than whatthe world and its fools falsely swear is all I care

And then I think t ears were in hi s eyes .Dear Lord Byron,

” I said,and I suppose my

voice was a little shaky, no one has helped us

more , in this age, to believe in some higher andhappier—yes and purer— life than yourself.

”

H e looked at m e, grateful ly, I thought, for amoment, and saidGod grant it . But how the devil

,I

want to know, is a fellow to go straight in such ad— d world as this ? ”

Only by higher help and guidance , and then Iseemed to see

~

those fountains of the great deepin hi s religious nature

,in which I had always be

lieved, broken up, and I knew I had not been mistaken in all I had said about him at Oriel .

“ But how, he exclaimed,

“ how,are we to get

that help ? Many, many a time I’

ve cried out intothe dark void and groped, and prayed, but noanswer came .

“ Is not all that you have thought and written sosplendidly, inspired bV One above ? Was not thatthe answer ? ”

2C2 LADY STELLA AND H ER LOVER .

Aye but what’s the use, he exclaimed angrily,of inspiration

,or even of« momentary help

,or any

of your other sanct ified nostrums , if the God desert syou the next hour and leaves you to the beasts ofprey that rend and tear you ?”

“ How can H e continue,” I answered, to dwell

with you when you let unclean beast s and foulspirits dwell there too ? Must not our own willbe on His side— our own resolute ban be placed onthe entrance of what is vile before we can expectHim to continue to abide in our soul ? Would one

you love and honour with all your heart remain beneath your roof if you ever allowed her to be confronted there with the base and miserable wretcheswho make a trade of the ir infamy ? ”

There was a dead silence for some minutes . Icould see he was desperately agitated, and I didn

’tknow what the next explosion might be . But whenhe spoke , it was at first in that careles s, cynicalway which he often puts on, and he merely an

swered

Oh, you are rather fond of public speaking, I’m

told,and of preaching, too .

Then he presently added,in a weary, hollow tone

But you are right,Dayrell , deadly right, I be

lieve . But what next ? We can’t bring back the

past .“ The Future may be yours

,my lord

,I answered .

I think the t rue way of getting out of our devils ’

torments and chains is to throw ourselves into some


t o hnd out the chief of the Carbonari there , and ashe rode off in another direction (he was then goingto Count Gamba’s villa) he called out, “ Come again

,

Charlie Bacchanal ! Come again .

” And thenreining close up to my horse, he half whispered“ Remember I believe all you impudently affirm

about the sweet Arcadian innocence of the earlyBacchanalian revels— at least I believe you believeit . So don’t fear to come again ,

” and he turnedaway singing or shouting, “ Come again ! Come

again I My sturdy Bacchanal I Buae l Evoe !

Bacchanals for ever ! Hurrah I I don’t knowwhen I have felt altogether so thoroughly upset asat that parting and at what pas sed the day before ;and I got no rest or peace till I could sit down inmy room at an inn and pour it all out

,dear old

friend, to you . And yet what a strange madworld of mystery it all is . Here is Byron ’ livingwith another man’s wife , who ought long ago tohave been loosed from the bonds of her unholymarriage to that wretched old Count Guicciol

‘

i ;while the attachment between her and Lord Byron ,apart from their previous history, I

’

m certain, is aspure , devoted and beautiful, as full of blessings toeach, as ever the love of man for woman in thismysterious world . Oh ! my brother, help m e— Godhelp m e— to understand rightly, as H e does, allthis mystery ! Only of one thing I am sure, thatthere is simply an infinit e world of goodnes s inthat great man’s soul ! Enough , with God

’ s help ,


to overcome and utterly consume all the'

baseness

that has crept into and over his life . Some dayit will be known that he is an Archangel, fallenaucl restored.

“ Noble, noble, Dayrell, was, all that Lady Stellaseemed competent to say when the reader hadfinished. The rest of the party, with the exceptionof M rs . Dayrell, uttered some incoherent expres sionsof genuine interest in the narrative . That lady wassilent, evidently from some deep emotion . Pre

sent ly Lady Stella said t o her softly, You lovedand honoured M r. Charle s Dayrell, dear madam ,

Iknow.

”

The only reply the elder lady made was amurmured “ Yes.

”

“ Would that I had known him , cont inii ed

S tella. “ I should have been a better creature al l

my life . But that portrait in your dining-roomgives one some slight notion of what he was—musthave been .

”

“ Ah , my dear, said Mrs . Dayrell, it is goodfor a portrait

,but no picture could give

H e was one of those men whose image, ifa young girl had once known him intimately, evenin his later life , would haunt her for years , so thatall other m en would seem poor and vapid, even mean .

”

But I hope, dear mamma,” said Ellen Dayrell,his perfections did not make you think so of papa .”

“ Well, not exactly,” replied her mother with


a sweet'

but . rather sad s mile . But then you see

your father was a Dayrell, and the son of my idol .”

By thi s time spring was giving way to earlysummer, and the weather had become warm enoughto allow of drive s in an open carriage , which the

invalid was permitted to take , with manifest benefitto his health . One day it was arranged that withhis mother and sisters he should go to lunch atH urst leigh Manor, and on looking wistfully fromthe couch they had laid for him there, in the

dining- room, at the beautiful grounds outside, Stellasaid to him , after luncheon

“ Would you not like to take a turn in the

garden ? I have got a garden chair made on purpose for you . It is on the terrace , and you canbe wheeled out to it at once if you like .

”

H er visitor was grateful and very happy. The airwas delicious . His mother had thrown over him anextra wrap, and after he had been drawn round the

grounds , which were lovely with flowers and foliage,picture sque velvety lawns and groups of trees , withbroad winding walks between, the party halted on

the ‘

smooth- shaven turf. Here beneath a splendidbeech tree there was a charming view of the park,with a sheet of water glittering in the sun, wherea couple of swans could be seen to advantage .

Old Sir Michael Ronhead had given the Visitors a

hearty welcome, and accompanied them round the

grounds,leaving them in due course for his after

noon ride and a little magisterial business .


almost cautiously (for her cousin had made her alittle nervous in conversing with young M r. Dayrellon any topic really interesting to her) working up

to a discussion on the topic that for some weekspast had been deeply interesting to her.

Dayrell soon gave her an openingWhat a charming little beast

,said he, that

familiar spirit of yours is .“ Yes, so play ful and good- tempered . A much

better character altogether than his mistress ; aren’t

99you, Jacky ?“ When I contemplate him and his many virtues ,

graces in fact, I can’t wonder, Lady Stella, you have

faith in Evolution . But really I don’t see how thatgrand theory interferes in the slightest degreewith belief in the doctrine

,as I hnd it in the

Scriptures,of the purely spiritual origin of the

human soul .”

“ Dear M r. Dayrell , replied Stella with Vivacity,“ Is not the afternoon too lovely for discussion onthe origin of man or monkey ? There is anothertopic very near my heart on which in this weatherI should so like you to discourse .

”

Name it , name it "’

exclaimed Dayrell ardently .

Some other time,said his companion , “ I should

very like to follow up that question of ‘ unde derivatum — is that right —the Origin of man . But justnow I want to study that wonderfully developed ape ,

Lord Byron . Perhaps we had better not revert, atpresent, to the question of religion

,whether that


held by Byron, your grandfather, great—grandfather,or any of the patriarchs . Indeed your e steemedmother (looking at Mrs . Dayrell ) would at onceorder m e away if I approached the subj ect . But Ido very much want to hear what you think of theviews your gallant ancestor took, in that lectur eon Byron

,of the poet’s character in relation to

women,and— well, to love and that sort of thing .

It is such a new idea you and Professor Minto putbefore us. Is it not

,Mrs . Dayrell ? And so in

finit ely satisfactory to any one who, like myself,has profoundly loved and admired much of hispoetry .

”

Mrs . Dayrell cordially assented, but by this timethe desire for rest had become paramount in that ’

good lady’s b reast,and shortly after she took her

departure for a season . Hereupon Lady Stella re

marked,as she adjusted the little tent- like curtains

to keep the sun from her companion’s faceYour mother is a most kind-hearted lady, M r.

Dayrell, and those two young ladies, your sistersposses s superhuman excellenc1es . Still I

’

m glad ‘

they’ve all gone , for a while . One can’t talk so

nicely— can you — about really interesting subj ects,

before critical witnesses . Now I must confess Ihave been greatly exercised about an importantquestion which the said lecture and the lecturer’s !

subsequent interviews with Byron raises . I don ’tmean the religious enigma . We

’ll leave that, ifyou please , till after the Deluge ; but about his .

V OL . 1. 14


true character, the spirit of his life , if you don’t

mind a little palaver on that point .”

I am so glad,” replied Dayrell, “ you like to talk

about that man ’ s real character. My mind has longbeen fermenting on the subj ect . And indeed it doesm e a lot of good to talk with you about it . You come

like the Goddes s of the silver bow, the Healthbringer .”

“ That i s worth something, replied Stell a gaily,though perhaps not much . Yet I cannot tell youhow greatly that Oriel lecture of M r. Dayrell

’

s helpedto clear up a difficulty that had secretly oppres sedme since I first began to read Byron’s poems . Butfirst tell m e what you have to say to thosewretched m orbid repinings in Byron’s poetry whichexcite so powerfully Carlyle’s hate and contemptall the more , I suppose , because he was so great

a sinner in that way himself,

”and her musical

little laugh expressed some scorn for both the

philosopher and the poet .“ I think,

” replied Dayrell,that they were

wrung from him not so much by self-pity, asCarlyle says , but rather by the mourning of anexquisitely sensitive soul over the discords ofa Universe , which seemed to him intendedonly for heavenly music and love . It was the

contrast between his wonderfully strong perception of the one and of the other which caused themoaning of the great sea of Byron’s soul the

sweet bells jangled and all out of tune,’ which drove


could write as he constantly did about Love , andNature

,about Liberty and Tyranny, who was filled

wi th such profound love for the Beautiful and suchnoble sympathy with the oppressed

,—and above all

who could give up an enchanting life in an Italianvilla with such a companion— sinful though Isuppose their relation was— as he had at last found

,

to go and die for Greek bond- slaves— that such aone could be the heartless , sensual profiigat e so

many believe him to have been .

"

Nor I. The facts quoted and referred to in thatOxford lecture

,I think , amply prove the contrary .

Did it not remind us that Conrad’s love for Medora ,so touchingly described, is full of unselfishness, andof the tenderes t deepest affection . No mere vulgarpassion -capricious , sensual, selfish. So with the

‘ Giaour,

’ ‘ Lara ,’ ‘ Selim (in the ‘ Bride of

‘ Alp,

’ ‘Manfred,’

they are all depictedas deeply

,devotedly, and exclus ively a ttached

,to

one beloved obj ect — never swerving from theirloyalty to her in the midst of temptation, andwhatever their faults or crimes . This is not the

writing of a profiigat e or debauchee . How differentfrom some recent popular poets of the swi nishbreed ! True ! in some of his writings there is afar lower tone but only as a momentary weakness .or as the passing Victory of the devil over an essent ially glorious but human soul . Therefore you see,

dear lady Star-bright, I go with you wholly. Youare not ‘ making-believe ’ there . But what then ?

LADY STELLA AND HER LOV ER . 213

What is the particular knot you would untie ?The lady hesi tated a minute— then answered :This— that if Byron

’s soul had in it so much o fthe divine in relation to Love— as I devoutly re

j oice to find you too believe,— why does he wri teso mournfully about it— why does he so constantlyask, or compel us to ask ,

Oh,Love, what i s it i n t his world of ours

That makes it fatal t o be loved !Oh

,why w i th cypress boughs hast wreathed thy bowers ,And made thy best i nterpreter a s igh I

Ah, replied Dayrell, if I’m to give you anyanswer to this question it must be a semi—philosophical one . It is the only one I can offer you,and one that has given m e relief from thoughtsthat torture . But won’t philosophy bore you ? ”

Stella was leaning her head on her hand,"

e ver

and anon gazing at him furtively, while he

was speaking . H er large straw hat had fallenby her side, and some of her dark auburnlocks were falling round her face . She raisedherself quickly and answered earnestly

,Oh no

,no .

V orwa'

rts .

’

My answer is not exactly mine,but that of

a much wiser and better man , whose belief it was thatLove i s gradually developed from the low animalinstinct into the tender and passionate affection whichlongs for companionship with the beloved one, forinterchange of thought and feeling, and signs oflove— which seeks t o show kindness and bring j oy


to the obj ect of affection . But in all that there i soften lurking intense selfishness which, if unchecked,gains terrible power, and at length destroys all

genuine love . Above and beyond that stage of de

velopment there is a singularly noble and beautifulgrowt h of love which asks for no reward, and noreturn— but is content and bles sed with only adm ir

ing,loving

,afar off, silent and alone . This is

what Goethe quot e s Spinoza as describing, whenhe says, If I love you what is that to you ?

’ andagain when he says ‘ H e that loves God truly must

love Him without expecting any return .

’ Thus alsoI find another wise and noble Germ an , Lavater,saying H e who silent loves to be with us, he wholove s us in our silence has touched one of the keysthat ravish hearts . ’ Now Byron depicts all thesestages of passion and affection ; but there i s one

more stage of development, higher, more beaut iful, and blessed than any of those , and towhich M r. Dayrell referred though very briefly,

as perhaps you may remember,in that lecture— t lre

state in which the lover longs above all else to doand to be, t o bear and to suffer whatever will mostcontribute to the welfare

,the j oy, the blessednes s

of the beloved— rej oice s to make any sacrifice , t o

toil, to suffer, to die for the obj ect of his lovewhether it be man or God— whether endowed withbeauty, goodness , full of answering love, or be

repulsive, sinful, ungrateful , or degraded . In the

earlier stages I have been taught,I think

,to see


beloved by our fellow creatures, i s it not worthmuch to be made

,even by Byron , to feel and know

something of what love may be ? But you say

Parisina and Hugo’ s love was sinful . The circumstances under which they loved were . H er m arriage

to Hugo’s father (like the Countess Guiccioli’s) wassinful . But she was the victim of cruelty and wrongthe destined bride of Hugo , snatched from him

by his father— and hence came all “

the after- stain .

And‘

are we to rej ect the gold in the ore becauseit is embedded in dross ? All good

,in this world ,

has in some way to be extracted from evil .Think ,

” continued Dayrel l, his voice trembling al ittle , of the m any touching and wonderful waysin which God , if there be a God , seems to be

trying to teach us how beautiful and blessed it ist o love , teaching us by the mother with her child

,

the husband and wife,the lover and his mistres s

— teaching us therefore,above all

,to love Him

,

the Fountain and Inspirer of Love .

The speaker paused— perhaps it was quite time.

And the lady at first did not seem to realizethat he had come to an end

,till

,finding the music

of his voice had ceased , she saidDo go ou . I can’t tell you what all this is to

me . Pray go on. But perhaps you are tired .

”

“ Oh,no

,said Dayrell, I only feared you might

be . But I have said my say .

”

“ Tell m e one thing more , and then, perhaps , Imust not keep you out here longer. People say


that all Byron s heroes , at least, his earlier ones ,are so uninteresting—so one- sided, limited .

”

“ That is densely foolish talk ,”exclaimed Dayrell

,

firing up, and inspired by his sad and lonelymusings during the last few months . It is onlybecause they themselves are so limited and worldlyminded . Byron’s Corsair, Giaour, Lara, &c . , all hisromantic poems set forth , in imperishable forms ,the profoundly pathetic enigma of modern life .

Do we not, when young, find ourselves in a

wonderful Universe , which offers us every sort ofattraction and j oy— with sunny Hope continuallybrightening all our other happiness Do we notlove, admire , passionately long for, freedom andj oy, beauty, love — the ‘ true Bacchanalian cultThen come bitter disappointments

,cruel wrongs .

We believed in Eden,and found ourselves in the

Halls of Eblis . At first our hearts seem crushed .

Then our love is turned to hate— those hearts are

filled with fierce resentment, morbid repinings ,selfish misery . We turn hither and thither

,in

vain , like a wild beast at bay, transfixed with torturing darts . Despair follows for a season

,t empta

tion to suicide, moral death. Is not this the

history of those Byroni c heroes ? the meaning ofall those mournful, terrible wailings, as of a lostsoul ? Are they not full of deepest interes t ? Wasit not well that these awful spectres should be

fairly faced and dauntle ssly described ? And then ,over all this wild waste of waters, this stormy and


most desolate wreck- strewn sea , rise s the Vision ofunselfish love— the living for others, self- sacrificebringing to us the highe st j oy, abiding peace ,through heavenly eternal love , within and around .

This answer to his cry of despair, Byron clearly hadnot found while uttering that cry— did find it part ially , preached it grandly, by the closing scenes of hislifein no other way

,where one very dear to me said

it alone could be fully learnt— at the foot of theCross . There and there alone , he maintained, was

and, I trust, has long since learnt it fully, if

the mystery of Love and of the Universe solved .

”

While the young man was pouring out what,in

former days,Stella would have called a rhetorical

rhapsody, but which was , in reality, the out-burstof long-pent—up thought s and emotions , the lady

,

her eyes shaded by her hand, seemed unable to

take them off his face ; and when he ceased, she

was evidently softly,silently drifting along, Into a

Dream- land far away ,” perhaps into a sunny ocean

of measureles s love .

It may be that the young gentleman himself,when at length he caught her gaze

,if he read her

face aright, was awaking, as he finished, to the

deepest happiness he had ever tasted, and perhaps ,also , to the most harrowing remorse .

For now that consciousness , which he had oncebefore experienced, was again forcing itself upon

him of the possible selfishness of his own ~ conduct,of the father’s probable wrath if he knew what was


as to imagine that this handsom e and accomplishedheire s s

,who could have a dozen suitors at her feet

any moment,would be seriously affected , or have

her future prospects in the least m arred , by his

devotion to her ? Whatever might have been hischances before his accident, of course it wassupremely absurd to imagine he was boundnow to refrain from loving her, or to conceal hisregard for her

,through fear of doing her the

slightest harm . It is difficult at any t ime for am ode st lover

Whose heart the holy form sOi young imag inat i on have kept pure,

to believe that the girl he secretly adores canever care for him . How much more

,then

,when

he lies a crippled and disfigured sufferer, thrownaside from the stirring , glorious race of life .

But even supposing his first feeling of remorsehad any just ificat ion, it was a long way off, at thattime

, from being the full corn in the ear,

” or ofhaving any power to lift him up to noble selfsacrifice, had it been required . Hence he wentdrifting on just as before, immensely happy in the

pre sent state of his relations with his “ Star-Queen ,”

in seeing his power over her, and her answeringgrowing interest in him very happy

,and not at all

anxious as to whether he might be nearing the

“ Rapids .”

There was not‘

much time,however, then for

further reverie or reflect ion, for the three young


ladie s returned from their ramble,and in high

Spirits, Dayrell

’

s si sters vowing that the groupunder the tent looked “ deliciously picturesque ;while France s , in a sarcas tic tone , caught from her

cousin,exclaimed

“ Oh,most romantic ! But what , may we ven

ture to inquire , have you been sagely discussing allthis time, ye learned Thebans ?

”

“ Evolution,answered Stella

,which was true in

a spiritual sense Then , while caressing her

monkey : “ Look at this lovely little being . Maynot his great (up to the ninth power) great grandson ,if only all the intervening de scendant s are dulydeveloped

,become a Sir Philip Sidney ? ”

Later in the day,when the whole party were

gathered in the drawing- room, prior to the departure of the visitors , Dayrell was looking out on

‘

t he

broad park glades from the bay window, where he

had been placed at his reque st . The sun was

setting in regal beauty, and his happines s was atits summit

,when he saw Sir Michael go to the

piano and talk to Miss Grey and Ellen Dayrell,who

had been engaged in playing a duet, for then he

beheld Lady Stella glide gently to his side .

I have been thinking much,

she said,of

what you were so sagely propounding in the garden, and of those striking words of Spinoza

’s andLavater’s . School friendships— how curious and ro

mantic they are ! I think they sometimes illustrateand confirm all you said . I remember passionately


loving one of my school- fellows in that strangeway .

”

“ And I too , replied her companion, more thanonce . At both the schools I went to I was trulyand deeply in love with a school-mate . In eachcase the obj ect of my adoration was unaware of itI loved them because they were so peaceful— re stfulneither of them was distinguished for brilliantcharacteristics or special attractivenes s of any kindone of them in fact, called ‘ Pudding-head

,

’ wasindubitably stupid ”— and the merry laugh whichbroke both from the speaker and his listener, ratherscandalized one of the young ladies talking withthe old gentleman .

“ Yes, continued Dayrell, in a more subduedtone , it is certainly a very pure and disinterestedaffection in such cases . Byron’s love for his schoolfellow, Lord Clare, was j ust an instance of it . The

second obj ect of m y absorbing idolatry, also, knewno more of it than the first . I was nothing more

,

I believe , to either of them than any other boy.

But each morning for weeks together, when I wokemy first thought was , Here ’s another day in whicht o see him , speak to him , perhaps play in some

game with , or be of use to, him . But certainly Iasked no return . It was happines s enough to lovehim .

Stella raised her great dark eyes for an instantto the speaker’s face with an indescribable look ofsympathy and wonder, but quickly dropped them


his delicious name (hush I) -unless indeed at thattime you were even more stupid than himself and

9worshipped him as a superior beingThen the laugh which had been with difficulty

repres sed by both , burst. forth so merrily that oldSir Michael Ronhead observed with cheery sympathy ,“ ’Pon my word , those young folks seem to have al l

the fun to themselves to—night . VV

hereupon LadyStella cont inued in a stage whisper

You know Carlyle says there never was so greata fool but he found a greater to admire him . Asregards the evanescence of those school attachments ,however, I fear school- girls are just as inconstant as

the boys . That’s the worst of those early romanticloves , perhaps prefiguring our later delusions— theyare so evanescent . (A cold chill ran through Day

rell’

s frame . )“ But I suppose, after all , they do

prove the capacity of the human heart for thatdivine and beautiful affection whereof your greatGermans speak . Experiences of this nature help one

to understand Lord Byron— and—Qfi there the ladystopped , and looked out at the sunset .

H er companion looked at her, saying interroga

t ively, as he leant forwardAnd— ourselvesMrs . Dayrell

’

s carriage was announced and that

delightful little visit came , as Stella remarked to

her cousin, like a dying dolphin,or a model

Christian, to a most beautiful end.

CHAPTER X .

ONE morning Dayrell’

s elder si ster t old him thatLady Stella’s aunt, M rs . Grey, had returned tostay at the Manor House— that M rs . Dayrell andherself had been to call on the lady and thatthe whole party from H urst leigh were coming t o

dine with them the next day . That memorableevent accordingly took place. It was the first time

Dayrell had seen his lady love in evening costume

since they had danced together one well- rememberednight at a time which seemed to him now to havebeen before the Flood . She looked (to him atleast, and was no doubt) perfectly enchanting .

H e could not go down with them to dinner, butshe had managed to put in his hand a lovelymoss rose before that entertainment was announced

,

and to say softly,“ Don’t look so disconsolate . We

shan’t sit long after dinner— and I have broughtsome music .” But she did not tell him why her

cousin had summoned her mother back, as a lastre source, to H urstleigh Manor— did not tell him

that this kind-hearted and judicious aunt had beenhaving a long talk with her niece that morning ona mos t delicate matter, viz . , the state of her affec

tions,and had set forth ,

vainly as it seemed, butV OL. 1. 15


in the clearest manner possible , the undesirablenes s ,inexpediency, folly, and impropriety to say the

least,of engaging in a flirtat ion (which must in

evitably lead to mischief on one side or the

other) with wounded young m en cut off by their

m isfortune from all prospect of a happy termina

tion to such fascinating folly.

When the ladie s came up to the drawing- roomafter dinner, Mrs . Grey took care to occupy a seatby young Dayrell

’

s couch and to converse verykindly and pleasantly about himself, his presentpursuits

,hopes , and prospects . But when Stella

began to play a beautiful “ Thema by Mozart ,which she knew was one of his favourites, andafterwards sang Can I forget that night in June

,

it was evident there was no more talk to be got

out of him that night— at lea st by her,Mrs . Grey .

It was a lovely night in June,however, at that

very time , and Mrs . Dayrell invited the whole party,prior to the departure of her guests , into the gar

den where she said a syllabub was prepared oul

the

lawn . Wilfrid Dayrell t ook leave of the companyas they left the drawing- room, on the plea ofnecessity for early hours

,and was then supposed to

retire t o rest . Stella came. up to his couch as there st qu itted the room ,

and a few leave- taking wordswere exchanged which none but themselves and theangels heard . Had the angels, however, been capableof envy, they might perhaps have felt it then .

The shadows of evening had fallen— the drawing


at once, since you have heard of his fortunateescape, and tell him when he next goes to churchto return thanks that I am not to be Lady Edendale .

”

Stella,replied her aunt very gravely, I fear

you are under an unhappy, a most unfortunate , hallucinat ion which prevents your seeing either yourown position or the estimable qualities of more thanone excellent young nobleman in their true light .You are at present carried away both by your sym

pathies, your pity , as well as your cultivated intellect .I must speak plainly if for once, my dear child, youwill give your dear mother’s sister a mother’sprivilege .

”

Dayrell seemed now to see with that preternaturalinsight given in dreams, that Stella was bowing herhead on her hands and listening with hushed re

spect .“ You have been drawn on by pity and common

literary pursuits to regard this young M r. Dayrel lwith an absorbing interest which no woman shouldfeel except in a brother, a father, a husband or anaccepted lover. Thinking it impossible there could

ever be wedded love between you and him, youhave kept no guarded watch over your affections , orconsidered that you might be irrevocably losingyour heart to him and that you could never marryanyone else while he lives— that you were in factflinging away the happiness of well- ordered marriedlife

,and giving all your priceless woman ’s love to


one who, however full of noble thoughts and feelings ,and even of genius , can never be to you the companion for life which a true woman looks for in one

to whom she gives her whole heart ‘ for richer forpoorer, for better for worse, in health and in sick

ness , till death do you

(If M rs . Grey had not been a dream-personage,

no doubt she would have been as much surprised asher niece at the eloquence with which her naturalaffection had thus inspired her. But love, even indreams

,works wonders . )

Then he imagined that Stella lifted her head witha proud sweet smile on her face

,and answered

calmly, yet in a tone of deep feeling

“ Dear Aunt, I thank you and love you for allyour kind and motherly words and feelings . Youare right in thinking that of course I have not

—I

fora moment supposed there could be the poor follycalled wedded life in store for that noble-heartedglorious soul to whom you refer . You are right too inthinking I have loved him with my whole heart,and have given him not indeed the priceless treasure

,as you term it

, of my woman’s love , for it is

only too poor and unworthy of him,but such

as it is . Dear Aunt, you do not quite understand me . Intellectual power to m e is everything .

I have known from childhood that if ever Imet a man who I felt was far above m e in “grasp ofthought

,in lofty aspiration

,in flashes of insight

,in

poetic and creative power, felt that he towered above

230 LADY STELLA AND HER LOV ERJ

and satisfied my intellect, and yet cared for my poorthoughts

,my love—then no matt er what his bodily

condition,ugly

,crippled, scarred, deformed

,I should

be his captive . Oh , believe m e, I could give myselfup to such a man

,if he cared for m e at all

,to be

his loving , devoted Zfriend, his servant , his slave ,for ever ! I could kneel beside him

,read , sing to

him, fetch and carry for him,wait and watch for him

,

bear with his humours,let my whole heart and soul

rest in communion with him lovingly,devotedly, for

Time and Eternity . I have found such a man

and he does love me and I love h im , forever .

Stella, Stella, her aunt seemed to exclaim int one s of the greatest distress , do you think thereare not such m en to be m et with in society full ofhealth and youth, worthy of you, longing to secureyour hand

,with great careers before them 9 ”

“ Ah, there may be such, but not his peers— notone I have ever met . And oh , dear Aunt , you haveknown what it i s to love . This man , struck downin the midst of health and strength, yet full ofglorious thoughts and aspirations still, gifted as noother I have ever known— he loved m e before he

was smitten , loves me still . Shall I desert him now ?7 99And you

,you would tempt m e

And then Dayrell thought he heard her sobbing -r

no other sound . H er aunt had left the room, and

he knew it was no dream .

Stella,”he murmured as well as his own emo

CHAPTER XI.

OF course a storm was gathering after all this,but it

did not burst at once . N0 one but the two younglovers knew what passed that evening after Mrs . Greyhad left the drawing- room . She had again been hurriedly summoned for a few days to her married daughter’s bedside . So for a little time events pursued theirprevious course during those fair summer afternoons ;and day after day for a brief period, these romantic

young folks as they m et and talked and read together,as the lady played and sang , and he listened silent anden tranced , their foolish hearts danced for j oy . Forthey looked together on fair flowers and trees , or up tot he blue sky and float ing clouds in the warmth andbrightness of the still summer noon, or on lovely

sunsets in the long calm summer evenings , day afterday,

“ making believe ,” when friends were near, that

they were not particularly interesting to each other .When circumstances prevented their meeting, therewas the keen delight of knowing how they both longedto meet again , and the happine ss of j ust that one firstlook into each other’s eyes when they m et

,which they

would fain permit themselves , and then the silentpressure of the hand— and then the long and interesting talks that followed . Ah I folks a-weary of the


world,of themselve s, of wedded life, and jarring strife ,

or vile and dull satiety,” may smile or sneer at senti

ment ” in general and “ Love’s young dream inparticular—but

,except one other phase of Love,perhaps

it has more in it of the taste of heaven than aughtelse on earth .

Dayrell was thinking something of this kind one

day, when he and Stella were alone , and then savingit ; and when Stella asked him what was the one

exception,he answered dreamily

Why,I was thinking of the scene which you and

my mother witnes sed the other day, and of which she

told m e when she returned— a Golden Wedding .

She described it so t ouchingly that the remembrancethereof forced m e, rather unwillingly, to make thatexception , just now. Only a true Golden Wedding ,where hearts as well as hands have been j oined

—

in

wedded love for half a century, can beat that dream .

”

Then he began writing something rapidly.

What are you scrawling there ? ” asked Stella, atlength .

“ Only some doggerel that came into my head,j ust then .

”

Let me have a peep .

H e handed her the paper, and she read aloud

TH E GOLDEN WEDDING-DAY .

When Yout h and Love first met on E arth,And in a golden ring were bound

,

T he Angel s vowed a fai rer sceneIn heaven i t self coul d scarceobe found .


But when by l ight of sunset glow,

The Angel s saw O ld Age and LoveWi thin the ir Golden Wedding shrined ,

’Twas whispered in their bowers above

That Heaven i t self were not comp leteT111Love and Age were sea t ed there

E lse Earth would have a s ight t o showWi th which that Heaven could not compare .

That’s a pretty little conceit , said Stella as she

laid it down with a sigh .

Then why do you sigh , dearest ?”

I suppose I was thinking what a long time fift yyears was to wait for such a lovely apotheosis ofmutual ati

'

ect ion— and of what a deal might happenbefore we were sitting side by side , looking meek andvenerable , in heaven But never mind that .I want to take this lucky chance of my aunt beingafar off

,and of my cousin being obliged to go to the

dentist at T and of your mother going to takecare of her. Even tooth~ ache

,you see

,may sometimes

have a blessing in it . For I’m afraid my father isgoing away to the sea- side for a few weeks— the

doctor recommends it— and I must go with him ,and

we m ay not have another opportunity, and it makes9 9

m e a little unhappy— andOh

, 8 tella, —is it possible IWhat

,that I should have a father ? Yes, quite

possible, and on the whole I’m not sorry, Sir Knight .

Rather glad, strange as you may think it , that hewants my company, and that I can help make himhappy. But then

,you know I shall soon


m e . What I find in it is a fierce protest againstthe false and sinful views of God which were the onlyones that the poet had known— against miscalledorthodoxy—against such views as embittered yourgirlhood

,Stella, and have made you hate the very

name of Christianity. But it is far more than that .Then he drew a little roll of M S. from his desk,

and readThe drama of Cain seems to me the strangest

possible statement of the case, as it were , against theAlmighty for all the innumerable disorders , mist akes ,deceptions , delusions and wrongs under which the

world , the whole race of man , the animal creation,

and our own tortured or guilty souls,suffer so terribly .

You must remember Byron puts the worst of all thosecharges against God not in the mouth of a man butof a hend . It is ‘ Lucifer,

’the fallen ‘ Star of the

Morning ’ who presses on the unhappy child of Adamall these fearful accusations against his Maker, drawsout, foments, whatever evil tendencies are alreadygerminating in the mind of Cain, but you mustalso note that these charges are based far more on so

called evangelical views of the meaning of Scripturethan on the facts of the Universe that those viewshave been deemed utterly erroneous by many of thewisest and most learned interpreters of the Biblethat they dishonour God, and contradict the deepestconvictions of the souls which the Evangelicals as sert

are made in the image of their Maker .But my grandfather’s words and thoughts have

.LADY STELLA AND HER LOVER. 237

driven me to the study of the Christian Gospelsand Epistles themselve s . I have considered the

Archfiend’

s Case ’ by the light of their Case .

’

And I tell you, my Star-crowned Queen, I thinkthat the charges , the indictment brought by Luciferand Cain

,and all the host of accusers from their

day down to John Stuart Mill, Renan , and HerbertSpencer

,against the Maker and Ruler, if there be one

,

of the Universe (remember that ‘ Diabolus ’ m eans

the SLANDERER are absolutely unanswerable if thoseNew Testament histories are not true . Only in thatsublime revelation of God in Christ reconciling theworld unt o Himself, of His endowing Man with freewill

,and in His overcoming all the evil which that

free-will produce s by love and selfsacrifice,only in

that grand reve lation of the Son of God coming toearth

,living and dying to redeem us all from s el

fishness and sensuality, to raise us out of our animalcondition and help us rise to a spiritual life of Love ,holines s , and j oy, can we, as far as I see

,understand

either God , or ourselves , or the Universe. The histories may be false . There may be no such lovingAll-Father, and divine Son as they represent— or nosuch revelation has been made , and the greater partof the stories and epistles in the New Testament maybe founded on delusion , or de ceit. But if that be soI have no answer to give either to Lucifer, or Cain, orMill . I freely acknowledge the sovereignty of thedevil over at least half the realm of Being, and hailhim as a co-equal Power with God .

”


Stella took the ardent enthusiast’s hand as he

finished, and looked anxiously in his somewhat

troubled face, as if trying , but in vain, to mouldher thoughts in words .

“ Deare st,”

she said, do not be unhappy aboutthis ‘ coil of thought . ’ Let us hope . Have youwritten any moreSo presently he continued thus :When we can believe that we really are children

of a Great, Wise , Good and perfect Creatorchildren , remember— therefore made in His imageand therefore endowed with free-will which H e

re spects so pathetically—when we see and realizethe glorious truth that only in unselfish

,self

sacrificing love can we find life and abiding j oy,purity and peace ; then , but never before , we readthe full and wholly sufficient answer to the complaints of Cain and his ‘ diabolus ’ teacher ! then,only, we find the clue to all the terrible mysteriesand even appalling contradictions , not merely in the

world around but in Byron ’s life and poetry,and in

our own souls . It is only in the gospel s (e speciallyin St . John ’s) , I begin t o see a revelation of God asLove, and of His Son as the primal ideal archetypeof man

,as the full revelation of God to Man . We

have that revelation , given alike at Bethlehem , inGalilee , on Calvary, and on the Mount of Ascension

,in all the manifestations of what is called

the Kingdom of God during the Lord ’s ministryin Palestine, e specially in his victory over that


about evil coming from our having free-will andfrom the Creator respecting that free-will

,i s an

immense help to m e . At all events what youpreach is very different from what I have been usedto hear . Only I cannot say

,and mustn’t pretend to

say, that at present I know enough of the New

Testament to tell whether you or the fire- and-brimstone divines are nearest to what it teaches . AndI noticed

,of course

,that even you spoke as if you

were by no means sure that your V is ion was theright one .

”

Yes, indeed—I am only a seeker. Here is alittle m ore that I see I have written The New

Testament may be a mere collection of dreams and

delusions ; the work of impost ors lying for the gloryof God

,or self-deceived enthusiast s

,venting the

heated imaginations, or magnifying the preposteroust raditions

,of a superstitious and fanat ica l age , an

age gone mad in its beliefs and visions withoutrhyme or reason , developing the noblest dreams ofhumanity from the hard, selfish and narrow bigotryof Judea . All I affirm i s

,that if this be so , if the

events there recorded of Christ’s entry into the

world as the Son of God and the Son of Man,of

his mighty works and agonizing death, and gloriousVictory over that agony and death , of his subsequenttriumphs when working through his apostles , are

not facts but inventions ,’ and that for eighteen cen

turies the Christian church has lived and worked ina faith that is folly and a belief that is a lie,


then I repeat, there is no answer to Lucifer, noadequate explanation of the existence of pain or of

the mystery of Sin— of Life in Death or of Death

in Life .

’

“ Nor,I suppose you would say, rej oined Stella,

of the existence of the Christian Church in the

time of the Roman empire, when Christians wentto the flames or the lions, nor indeed any sufficient

explanation of the suffering of Christian Martyrs in

any age .

”

Just so . The Cross without the Resurrection,like every other infernal deed done on our planet,would have been simply an unintelligible , uselesshorror

,and all that grew out of it

,as recorded by

Evangelists and Rom an historians, a mere dance ofmaniacs . The two combined give the solution of

the whole problem of evil,sin, and death . For on

the one hand we can understand— the history ofeighteen centuries shows —how sin and evil can be

conquered by love , and by love only while man’s

will remains free :

The many waves of Thought , the mighty t ides,The ground- swell t hat rolls up from other lands

,

From far-off worlds, from dim E t ernal shores,

Whose echo dashes on L ife’s wave-worn strandsThis vague dark tumu lt of the inner seaGrows ca lm

,grows br ight

,O ri sen Lord

,i n Thee.

Those are grand lines,” said Stella. Are they

your own ? ”

I would they were . They are in a noble hymnby Mrs . H . B. Stowe . But on the other hand, con

V OL . L 16


t inued Dayrell,if Sin

,Evil

,and Death conquered

on Calvary,then they are triumphant

,and we must

bow down in worship before the devil . Cain wasthe true worshipper, and Abel only a deluded rebelor superstitious slave . I do not presume

,of course

,to

say that those who cannot agree to this view are senseless dolts— but I am sure they are unscient ific— asfalse to the great principles of Science , which theyprofess to worship, as those philosophers who denythe existence of a God .

“ False t o scient ific principles I”

Yes, for on what does all scient ific truth and

progre ss depend ? Not on positive certainty,for in

an indisputable sense we are all Agnostics withregard to the Universe . None of its facts and lawsare really and certainly knowable . We do and canknow nothing but what passes in our own minds .The greatest scient ific philosophers , discoverersBacon, Newton , Laplace, Kepler, Faraday— can onlysuggest what seems to them the best workinghypothesis

, the most probable theory, to account forthe various phenomena . And they are accountedunscient ific, irrational, who rej ect the Law of Gravitat ion

,or the theory of Eclipses , because only those

theories best solve the various mysterie s with whichthey deal

,and are but theories after all . By the

same argument I tell you, Lady Stella, theseAgnostics and opponents of Christianity must be

marked as false to scient ific reasoning for rej ectingthe only working hypothesis, the only theory, that


years . But,while lying on this couch, and looking

at all the phenomena of Life and the Universe andthe history of Christianity since Tacitus and Pliny firstnoticed it , I can hnd no theory that meets all thefacts but one . V oila tou t .

Stella was sitting on a low stool beside Dayrell'

s

couch , and had laid her head on the cushion besidehim during his last remarks . As he finished she

raised herself up and looked in his face with sostrange and sad a smile that he was as much puzzledas pained , and clasped her hand in his . Presentlyshe saidThen , dearly-beloved priest , according to Byron s

description of their re spective characters,scepticism ,

and faith,I am the scept ical

,wicked Cain and you

are the believing, virtuous Abel . I hOpe I am notto be your murderer .”

If you are as unlike Cain as I am unlike thatprimal virtuous shepherd

,Abel

,dearest

,I can't be

in much danger . But I rather think you differ in aslight degree from Cain . For remember that, so far,you have given m e LIFE through love

— not death . Andis it not deeply interesting and somewhat curious to seehow this great poet, more or les s unconsciously, underthe influence, possibly, of a divine inspiration and guidance, preache s the same grand doctrine in many otherpoems which is taught even in ‘ Cain ’ by that lovelycreature, ‘ Adah ’—viz . , that Love is the great re

deeming power in the Universe ? And therefore itis that the world has felt so deep an interest in


5

those poems . It would seem as if Byron continuallywanted, though , perhaps (as I

’

ve said before) halfunconsciously, to preach the sublime truth that pureLove hallows, purifies, reconcile s all things and allbeings . Hence he plunges his heroes into guiltand into t errible suffering as the consequence of guilt—and yet evokes our deepest pity for them,

becausethey love so intensely

“ And thus ,” interj ected Stella, “ makes us feel

that they cannot be all evil, cannot in fact belong t oevil, or the Evil One .

”

Just so, and makes us also feel that assuredly

they must at length be redeemed from all evil andsin— and suffering.

“ Yes, yes,” said Stella with hands clasped in a

kind of dreamy rapture .

“ I do like that,oh

, so

much .

”

“ Could you not almost find it in your heart topray for them, Stella ? pray that they and all sinning,suffering, loving hearts, may at length be purified,

redeemed,and unfolded in a higher, nobler, more

beautiful life for evermore ?”

“ At least you and Byron give me another and avery powerful reason for longing to find the Beingto whom I may thus pray

”

“ And that seems to m e, said Dayrell, to havebeen very much the att itude of Byron himself inthese matters— panting for the freedom that has nobounds

,for the love that knows no change , for the

life that has no end. Then when the inevitable dis


appointment comes , and the reaction overwhelms theunhappy aspirant

,

Half dus t , half Doity— a l ike unfit to sink or soar,’

the reign of Satire and Sarcasm supervenes,the fashion

of making mock at all sentiment,all lofty or genuine

passion, the age of persiflage and indifference, ofparody and burlesque .

“ But, oh, pleaded Stella , for she feared her lover

was fashioning a cap to fit her own head,i s not that

alsoneeded to expose and de stroy the works of thedevil who lets loose the fiends of Cant

,and Humbug

,

Superstition and Hypocrisy upon a suffering race ? ”

“ Aye, verily !”

exclaime d Dayrell . “ Oh,what

a world of poisonous rot and rubbish needs to becleared away by those beneficent , albeit uncomelyscavengers of civilized society I But it was not intheir besoms or ash-pits that I meant Lord Byronfound his true and perennial refuge— though onceand again he stooped to them like a dove ‘ lien inthe pots ’— nor that to which he leads his votaries

,

or y ou know that I should hardly have said yourattitude of mind sugge sted a likene s s to his . No

,

Lady Silver-Star, it is because he is alway s seekinga refuge from the basene ss of m en and from his ownlower nature

,from the misery of disappointed hopes

and dreams , in the calm , sweet beauty of nature ,in her grandeur and lovel iness , or in the loftythoughts which the long roll of past age s breedsthat I feel he , too, was seeking God, and , like you ,was longing

,hoping

,one day to rest in the Divine .


with you till we meet again, and after that , for everand a day . Nothing in all the world around us, orin my own life and soul , has given m e so deep aconviction and so strong an impulse in the directionyou desire as your love for m e and mine for you . If

there be a God, and His name be what your Scripture s tell you— Love— and if, as they also say, H e

asks us to love Him,I think you must be right in

saying that H e formed us thus to love one anothernot alone to make us blessed , but also in order thatwe might understand something of His nature , ofHis love for us . Oh

,my beloved puritan-poet, if in

deed it be as you hope and pray, can we wonderthat the se human hearts of ours should be able t o

feel such passionate love , and reveal to us what itmeans— what it can bestow ? Bles sings be with you.

One last kiss— Good-night .

”

The carriage drove up to the door . Mrs . Dayrellalighted, Stella j oined her cousin , and she and Dayrell thought they were parting only for a day or twoat the longe st . It is curious what mist akes are

sometimes made on such occasions .Dayrell lay awake half the night

,sometimes lost

in an ecstasy of happines s— sometime s oppressed withsadnes s for which he could scarcely account .While they were together, remembering her

manner and conduct in former days,he had some

times feared that he might be irreparably alienatingor offending his Star-Queen by his decisive

,almost

imperious, assertion of what he believed to be grea t


and important truths . Ye t,then again

,he could not

but remember that the more earnest and decided hehad been

,the kinder

,gentler and happier, of late, she

seemed to become . The former things had passedaway

,

”he thought, and it was hardly through fear

of having offended Lady Stella that his spirits sankin the hour of darkne s s

,or that some coming evil

loomed gigantic through the gloom .

CHAPTER XII.

THAT night Stella , also, was keeping vigil, for she

was writing and thinking far into the early hours,

and her lover would have been confirmed in the impres sion just mentioned, as he lay on his bed looking up at the stars , could he have peeped over hershoulder and read the first page she wrote .

Lady S tella to Wi lfrid Dayrell, E sq.

I cannot sleep t o-night,my own

,without writing

to you my deepest thanks for all you have beensaying and reading to m e— not this evening only.

1 don’t know how it is,but you seem to take all the

pride out of me when I listen t o you . You makem e feel so humble , even ashamed of myself, and Ibegin to see that this i s good for m e . But thoughat first it was painful

,now I rather like to be made

humble— at least by you. I don’ t think that anybodyelse had better try— not at pre sent. But Iwant to say one thing more before we meet againin regard to what we were talking about . And asmy father has proposed a long ride to-morrow

,and the

next day wants m e to go with him into T whenhe take s the chair at Petty Ses sions

,I shall send

you a letter instead of coming myself for a day or


earnest, and at peace . Oh,what more can I need

My whole mind and soul and being are yours,and

in you I find all I need . It i s my happine s s t oknow your superiority

,to feel and know that you

are greater , wiser, nobler than myself. In your life ,your love, I live and love for evermore .

“ And why should you or any one regard me as

erring and deceived in thinking,feeling thus

Least of all,why should they shudder at it and call

it blasphemy ? If Comte was held blameles s,nay

has been honoured and followed by good and honourable men

,for proclaiming the worship of Humanity

or of woman— if his di sciple s are admitted into goodsociety, regarded as worthy, excellent people

,not

shrieked at as Atheists or blasphemers— ii leadingScientists and philosophers who can neither believein nor discover a personal God

,are honoured and

trusted everywhere— oh, how can it be wrong for m e

when I have found one bit of Humanity who fulfilsmy ideal of that which is noble st in intellect , ininspiration , and in love , if I am sat isfied to worshiphim ? Is not that better than to be reaching vainlyforth into the Infinit e for what I fear I never canfind or know or love as I know and love you Youare a real

,living

,loving being . All the dreams of

Greek , Jewish, Christian worshippers are but ‘ vainimaginations ’ at pre sent it seems to m e

, shadowyfancies , spectral illusions . But you— though youhaunt my dreams, are , thank God, a reality.

“ Look at most of the church-goers whom we have


known—most of the religious people of your acquaintance . Are they not moved to their devotions farmore by fear than by love or worship — a desire topropitiate some inexorable Judge or offended andwrathful Ruler ? Is it not rather a superstitiousfear than a loving, fil ial reverence and adoring worship for the great

,the good

,the beautiful

,the true

-a base craving to be protected from God, not tocome to H im— that fills your churches and conven

t icles and bows the knee of innumerable multitudeseven in their solitary or family prayer ? But afterall

,how are we to believe that this resentful, dan

gerous Being whom the Christians call their God ,and whose wrath could be averted only by the suf

ferings and death of His innocent son, is a bit morereal than Z eus or O siris ? And when Byron or youinvite m e to worship Nature in all her gloriousmaj esty and loveliness

,I answer that my heart and

soul crave s for a personal god or goddess, and thatif I could believe there were such a sweet and grac ious being now living on earth or in heaven as theCatholic goddess

,I would far sooner worship her and

bow down before Raffaelle’

s Madonna,than the

Christian’s God . I do but repeat your own words .But there is no such being . And therefore again ,

I say,it is a person, a real, living, strong-willed, yet

large-hearted personal being, full of love and thought,before whom alone I can bow. You may be so farabove m e that you can see and adore One .whom myeye cannot reach . Earnestly I hope it is so, e lse


you would be without an obj ect of worship,for I am

below you, and though there have been men whomyou could worthily worship

,they are dead and gone

for ever. None such are living now,or if they live

I know nothing of them . Beloved,till I

,by search

ing can find out God,’

be thou to m e instead of theUnknown

, the Unknowable God .

”

49 316

Those who have never experienced the intoxication of a first deep , passionate love

,or who have

lived till they have forgotten what they once felt,and those who have never known the longing

, the

glorious impulse to adore , will treat that letter assheer madness . And perhaps it was . Yet a madness that has been shared by millions since Adamand Eve walked and worshipped and wooed in Eden .

But a brief madnes sYes— for Amor, as well as Ira , brevis furor est .

When Dayrell first read this letter, there was astrange commingling in his mind of intense delightand pain

,but the latter was predominant . The

oftener he read it (and for an hour he did scarcelyanything else) and the more he pondered over it ,the more unhappy he became . It seemed to himsimply terrible that this high-minded

,large—souled

girl he loved so deeply, should be looking up to himjust as he was trying, beginning to look up to

some Being of perfect goodness, wisdom ,power, and

love— the omnipotent Creator of the infinite starry

56 LADY STELLA AND IIER LOVER .

back, and at all events if things became unpleasant ,a good canter or gallop would relieve the tension ofthe hour. So in due course he opened fire— toldStella that his sister, Mrs . Grey, had written to t ellhim that she had refused Lord Edendale , and hadintimated to him that a state of things had cometo pass between her and young Dayrell which filled

him with amazement and disgust . Had the youngman kept his health

,and not been crippled for life,

of course there would have been no obj ectionthough she might have the pick of the county

,

the peerage , or of the VV

est - end for the matter ofthat . But young Dayrell was of a good family

,had

money, would have more, and he himself was notthe man to interfere with a girl’s fancy where allthat was right . But since it had pleased God tovisit the poor fellow with such a misfortune, it wasalike impious, base and unmanly of him to try andgain any girl’s affections

,most of all a girl who was

being courted by such men as young Edendale andscores be sides .Stella heard him with seeming patience and

respect (though her horse fidgeted a good deal)until he stopped to take breath, and then merelysaid

“ I am sorry to have displeased you, sir, but reallyI think I am the best j udge of my own conduct ina matter of this description . I believe I am ofage ?

”

Whereupon the old gentleman naturally waxed


very wroth . Rather high words ensued . Both SirMichael and Lady Stella felt their speeches wereunbecoming

,and for a short time they preserved a

gloomy silence . Then Sir Michael exploded withmingled resentment and fierce indignation, hi ssed outbetween his teeth, “ I

’

d rather see you in your cofiin,

madam,than married to a cripple like that

,

” andclapped spurs to his thorough-bred so vehemently thata le ss-practised rider would have probably been flungto the ground with the plunging which ensued .

Stella was for a moment a little alarmed . But itall ended in what she at any time specially enj oyed,and which was now a great relief, viz . , a rattlinggallop . The grooms on coming to t ake the horses,found to their surprise that their master and youngmistre s s had brought home their st eeds

,contrary to

all approved rules of good horsemanship,in what ,

as they described it,would have been a thundering

lather,but for the animals’ hue condition .

”

Dinner was passed in sullennes s and gloom, andexcept for the presence of poor Frances, would havebeen insupportable . That young lady, when she

went up with her cousin to the drawing-room,

amiably tried to make peace,but soon found as

she expected that she was in sad disgrace herself.Both retired early to rest . The rest was not forlong.

As the great turret clock sounded midnight, therewas a noise of hurried feet in the passages , andslamming of doors . A groom was saddling a horse

V OL. L 17


in hot haste, and soon clattering down the parkdrive , headlong in the dark, for the doctor.Sir Michael Ronhead had been taken suddenly ill

in his room just before going to bed,which he had

been later than usual in doing, and the wholehousehold were roused from their first sleep inconsequence .

Lady Stella,pale, yet self- composed , was quickly

at her father’s bedside,using fomentations

,watching

his livid face , taking his cold hand, or trying towhisper soothing words into his ear. But she hadno large store of these, nor did her cousin seemmuch more competent

,and both looked often and

anxiously at their watches , and listened for“

the

distant sound of carriage wheels . After a delay thatseemed interminable, the doctor came, pronouncedit a very grave case at Sir Michael’s time of life ,and ordered prompt application of remedies . Whenhe left at early dawn

,and m et Lady Stella, who

was waiting for him in the hall, he was startled atthe change a few hours of watching and distress hadwrought in her countenance . In accordance withher request, conveyed as a suggestion , he promisedto telegraph at once, not only to her aunt, but alsoto Sir one of the great London surgeons , andadmitted that this was a de sirable step .

In the course of the morning she had to go into

the Justice ’s Room,

” where,besides magisterial

papers and “ Burn’s Justice,”her father

’

kept all his

hunting and fishing tackle, gardening tools, &c.


youngsters . What mattered his transientscoldings and caprice s now !But his anger against her for re sisting his appeal

in regard to Wilfrid Dayrell,and which had in al l

probability caused his sudden illness,mattered a

great deal . H er aunt arrived in the course of theday, by the same train that brought the Londonsurgeon

,and as they came to the Manor House in

the carriage sent to meet them,that good lady,

being questioned by the great man, hinted at the

distress which the sufferer had felt when she spoketo him about his daughter’s attachment to youngDayrell

,and which she feared might be the cause

of the present attack . The result of a carefulexamination confirmed this view of the case The

great man remained all night ; and as her father thenext day had sufficiently recovered consciousness ,and could utter a few words

,Stella was told that if

she could yield in any way to his wishes , and comply with the demands he had made upon her, it

might be the means of saving his life .

It was a terrible moment for the poor motherles sgirl . H er aunt, her cousin, the medical m en alllooking to her to speak a word which she feltmight be no les s fatal to one whom she loved as

she had never loved before, as she never dreamed itwould be possible to love , than silence might andprobably would be to her father .

She had come into his room, and was standingby his bedside looking at him with deep sorrow


and pity, when he turned and looked at her. Hi shand lay on the coverlet, and she took it uptenderly in her own. But he drew it feebly yet

impatiently away, casting a look at her so full ofreproach and yet of tenderness that it gave her akeen throb of exquisite pain .

What next happened will be best learned from

passages in the following letter

Lady Stella to Wilfrid Dayrell, E sq.

!The first port ion described the events recordedabove, and a conversation which she had just hadwith her aunt . Then she continued thus

“ Would that I might j ust come and kneel besideyour couch, dearest, for a few minutes, and tell youall my trouble , and hear your loving words of comfort and wisdom ! I have no one to go tofor comfort or guidance

,to tell me what I ought to

do— what is right Oh,Wilfrid, I am so utterlyalone—alone . But I could not come even to youfor your advice , for I know you would wholly sacrifice your self— and—me— to what you woul d say was

my duty to my poor father. And so I could nottrust you Have I not a duty to you as well asto him ? Yet he may be dying, and his only hopeof life may be my consenting to do what you oncetold m e would be your death-warrant— and then ISH OULD be Cain , —your murderer. Oh, what shallI— what ought I —to do ? Is there no one in allthis wide world, this Universe, that will take pity

262 LADY STELLA. AND HER LOVER.

on me and tell me ? I cannot sleep,and

it gives me a little peace to be writing to you, myown . Do you remember all you said to me the

last time we met , in that sweet twilight (ah, itseems now so long ago

,and I can hardly believe I

was once so happy )— what you said to me aboutlove hallowing all human actions and events ? I see

in so many things now how true that is . It alonecan sanctity the relation of the sexes , and the dailyintercourse of family life . The family meals, themere act of eating and drinking

,I have heard you

say, may be hallowed, be made sacramental (astrange thought to m e) , if those meals are preparedwith affection

,and partaken of in love . I think

,

too,I have heard you say that while to endure in

sult s and wrongs quietly through fear is base, yetto suffer them in love is beautiful and blessed . So

again, to endure sorrow and suffering calmly (andwith what divine s call resignation), from mere stoicalapathy or stolid indifference

,is the sign of a mean

and somewhat degraded character ; while to sufferin serene peace through a spirit of devoted trustand love towards Him whom you call your God,would be triumphant, noble, nay, sublime . Yes, Ican see all this now as I never used to understandit, that Love refines

,elevates , raises us above mere

animalism— that it i s the mightiest agent in thatevolution of the soul from matter and dust, whichis the crown and fulfilm ent of our heart’s deepestlonging and most pas sionate desires .


“ But, Wilfrid, see now the terrible riddles of this

torturing rapture, this tragi- comedy, called life . Is

it not the deepest, tenderest love of which my

foolish woman’s heart is capable, that now is rending my very life, soul and body asunder ? Lovefor you—love for him who has been to me the

kindest father Forgive these tears, beloved— I did not mean they should blot the page—but Iam alone , and de solate .

“ I could write no more last night, but a littlecrying, dearest, did me good, and I went to sleep,and dreamt that my mother, robed in heavenly white,came from among the stars

,and gave me such a

loving kiss,and it breathed peace into my heart .

Should not God have done this, if there be a God ?Perhaps H e did . Then I awoke refreshed— but, alas !no clearer vision of duty had come to m e from thatvision, nor from the stars . Then some time inthe forenoon my aunt came and said my father wouldbe able to see m e if I went to him . H e could notspeak to me at first , but he took my hand and lookedat m e with something of the old tender kindness ofthe days when I was a child . And I knew and feltin my inmost soul that all he was thinking and hadsaid in this sad business was the outcome of his trueaffection for me . At last he said in a feeble , hesitating voice : Stella, dear, promise me you willgive up visiting that young man .

’ Had he saidno more , I could have promised him,

for that would


not have put an end to all intercourse between us.

But before I could reply he added : ‘ Promise me youwill give up seeing him .

’ Hi s poor hand claspingmine

,trembled so sadly, and his white lips quivered ,

and the dear voice that used to be so cheery, came

out feebly, tremulously . I stood looking athim for two or three moments , and then I said : ‘ I

promise you,father, I will not see him for twelve

months . ’ And he pre s sed my hand and looked atme kindly, and turned away saying, Thank God

but for the moment my heart seemedbroken .

Ou leaving him I went for a long, long walk,and when I came back and was alone in my room ,

I thought, dearest, how soon a year will pass away,and how -much there is you may do in that time ,and that perhaps at the end of it my father maysee matters in a very different light . If in the

course of that time you should recover health andstrength , either he would not oppose our union , orI should feel he was doing wrong, and I should havepower to resist what I knew was evil . If you stillremained my wounded, suffering knight, he couldnot then righteously condemn me if I chose to beyour nurse as long as you liked to keep m e in thatsituation . Ah

,I should be so happy in it , and

want no other j oy except that of varying my attendance on you by comforting and nursing the oldwomen in our village

,and setting on

’the young

women in the right way they should go . How many


paint pot s and brushes about you the other day.

Oh,do try if you cannot sit up to an easel . Paint

a companion picture to the last . Let it be another‘ In the gloaming,

’ showing how in the soft blessedtwilight this time , they were not ‘ parted ’ but behindthe bay window curtains

,came together, and were one

in deep true love for evermore . For I am

thine own— beloved , in weal or woe— weak and worthless as the property be . Fare thee well . My father hasjust been ordered to leave home and go to the southcoast for a few months , which will perhaps make itless painful for both of us

,than if we remained so

near and yet could never meet . I will send you myaddress . Do not write to me till I write you again

,

and then , in Mrs . Hemans’ nursery rhyme

Oh,say that you love me st i ll .

“ STELLA.

When Dayrell read this letter he felt utterlyprostrated . With his usual tendency to take gloomyviews of things in general and immensely exaggeratethe importance of everything in particular, the sen

tence of separation for twelve months now passed onhim , seemed, in his enfeebled condition, equivalentto an order for the Happy Despatch .

” His motherbecame seriously alarmed at his condition and sentfor the doctor. At length her son remembered andrealized the fact that he was not forbidden towrite to her, nor she to him,

though perhaps thecorrespondence should be carried on only at rather


long intervals . And when he did write he hadgrace to feel, as his lady- love had done on her partwhen writing to him, that he must take a cheerful,hopeful tone , and must bear in mind that she neededall the comfort he could give her under the far

greater trouble she was in,from her father’s critical

condition,as well as from her enforc ed separation

from himself. Whether he could overcome the

habits of years , for this purpose, by an efi‘brt of will

was another question .

END OF V OL. I.

m rsn BY

! ELLY AND co . , GATE srus s r , e ccm’s N x rmw s,

AND 1111) a mm , ! INGSTON-ON-T H AM ES .

Lady Stella and Her Lover - Forgotten Books

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