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faces. Mankind have been hoping the same thing for at least four thousand years. But when you find a brave, quiet, heroic man-who tells you of your faults not of your virtues, and makes no promises of doing good, but has already fought with resolute despair against powerful evil, cling to him, help him, redden his flag with your heart's blood, if it be necessary, for if he renders you no other service, he has at least given you the costliest of boons, truth, which his future failures cannot deprive you of. But when you see bullies, sycophants, flatterers, liars, spaniels, apes, peacocks, jewel-snouted swine,-men who gorge themselves with garbage, and bribe you with the remains of it, -do not ask what party they are of; be sure that they are of the devil's family, and so certain of his help as to stand in little need of yours. Then as to this Mr Everard. Let him eat his mess as he can out of a gilded, perhaps one day a coronetted trough, but do you neither wreath the vessel with flowers, nor throw in your children's food to swell the swinish meal. I will tell you something of him. He is well-spoken, civil, lively, or at least was so before he became a great man. There was then a thin plating of sympathy on the surface of the mass of lead and copper, which the world has, I suppose, by this time worn away. A man whom I know, knew him in the youth of both, and became intimate with him. Everard's father possessed a large income, and brought up his son expensively, but died and left him without a farthing. His friend had about £400 a year of his own, and, with the careless profusion of his age, at once settled half of this on Everard, who sold the annuity, and began to push his fortune with the capital thus ob tained. Soon afterwards his benefactor was ruined by the failure of a commercial house, and left penniless. Everard was certainly not bound to refund the money, which, indeed, he could not; but his friend might have expected kindness and consolation from him, and met instead with coldness and neglect, and at last was compelled to turn his back, and vow he never again would seek an interview with a spirit so akin to the dirtiest of kennels. Now I do not say that such a man may not be useful to a political party; on the contrary, I think him likely to be specially serviceable for

many purposes, and I am sure he will rise, as there is no service for which he will not exact full payment. He will coin his inmost heart to mud where mud is the required currency. But what can those who think of man not of parties, of truth not of speeches, in short, of hard rude realities, not of fluent liquid dirt, what can such persons have to do with a thing like him? Oh, my friend, whatever else you are, lord or bishop, artist or slave, do not give up being a man. Do not let your manhood slip through your fingers while you are plotting, voting, speechmaking, working. A stage hero, who pretends to be what he is not, is but like the snuff of a candle compared with the stage candle-snuffer, who wears no tinsel armour, and mouths no blank verse, but honestly earns the bread he eats by making the tallowcandles burn. A mere scheming statesman is but a white paper, full of mire, tied up with a red tape, and sealed with the king's seal. And so with all other trades and pretensions. Have nothing to do with them. Stand up openly for truth, and all true men; and let this, and this only, be your creed and your party. Though you will often be trampled on, and will be ground at last, as we must all be, to that dust which the strong wind of. time blows away before it, you will at least not be the dupe of others, and, best of all, you will not dupe yourself."

"But is there no party which honestly seeks what is right?"

"I do not know. But I shall believe there is, I shall believe there is some conscience and heart under all the trash and parade of laws and government, when I see any body of men not slightly and occasionally, but with their whole souls and sinews, standing up for the necessity of educating the people. If any one of these men found a son who had been stolen away in infancy, and had grown up among beggars and thieves, knowing and caring for nothing but gluttony and drunkenness, the first thing he would do would be to put him in the hands of some one who would cultivate the man, which lurks, however closely, within the human beast, and so, in the phrase of society, to fit him for his station in the world. That is what I want-to have every man fitted as well as art, and pains, and money, and energy, and conscience can do it, for

his station in the world. But what is the station? It is that of a being at the very summit of nature, and looking up from thence, however dimly, to some God who embodies, though perhaps vaguely and weakly, all of highest conception man can know. This is the station not of Reginald and Marmaduke, not of Jack and Tom, not of the prince and the baron, or the ploughman, the blacksmith, and the parish-foundling, but of every human creature; and it is for this station that he ought to be trained. To train him for this is in truth the only business, and not merely the chief one, of all laws, and all society, and yet it is the one which is the least earnestly thought of. Fleets, armies, tribunals, parliaments, sovereignties, palaces, and gaols, are but the rude framework round the space in which this work is to be carried on. But it is not to be done by drilling, and compressing, and carving, and stamping words upon the living, fervent, sensitive-oh, how keenly sensitive !-spirit, as if it were a plate of metal on a death-coffin, and not the subtle blazing life, likest of all things in this vast universe to the God whom these vile tinkers of the soul profess to worship. There are three things requisite in every

man who is to carry on this work-love, intelligence, energetic will-and, beside these, practical skill and experience. When I see men possessed of these qualities sought for by a government more earnestly than men seek for diamonds, wooed more fondly than boys woo their sweethearts, rewarded more munificently than rich men pay the physician who prolongs their lives, and keeps them from Satan for another week; when I see such men found, for found they will be if they are sought, and appointed as the friends, and guides, and wiser parents of every poor man's child in the country,-I shall think a new age is begun for England, and that new hopes have dawned upon us. Make earnestness on this point your test of every politician who falls in your way, and you will not go far wrong. It is mere cowardly falsehood to pretend that doubt of the amount of good thus attainable is a reason against trying, for it is the only way to do any good at all. A man's whole business on earth as to his own existence is to cultivate himself, and his whole business as to others is to cultivate them."

"I fear," said Andrews, with a smile, "Mr Everard is not our man."

CHAPTER III.

A day had passed after the departure of Andrews, when Collins went on one of his long walking expeditions about the hills, and on his return, towards evening, found himself near the Mount, which was the name of the house occupied by Mr and Mrs Nugent. As he passed under the pailing of a small wood, which lay at the back of the gardens, Maria was entering a little gate into the enclosure, and, after their first greetings, she asked Collins to accompany her. He complied, and they walked side by side on the path which wound among the trees. For a long time he looked about him with rather an eager and anxious expression of countenance, and at last he said "How strange it seems to me that I am in this place! Your mother used to speak to me of it as furnishing some of the pleasantest recollections of her childhood. And now, after many years, I am walking in it with you, her daughter. When I first thought

of fixing myself in some solitude in the country, I believe I was led to choose these heathy hills and retired valleys from the remembrance of the way in which your mother used to describe them to me. Such seemingly slender links bind indissolubly together the past and the future-and I do not regret that I have come here. If it were only that I so keep fresh my image of her, I should be much the gainer. No one can again be to me what she was, for the benefits she rendered me can no more be repeated than the restoration to sight of a blind man, which is done once and for ever. I was young, ignorant of all but a few books and a few men, and my own passions and conceits, and had no opportunity of familiarizing myself with human existence in any wide field. I well recall the arrogant reliance on my own infallibility, which was mingled in me with the weakest bashfulness, and secret dread of every one knowing more of the world, and hav

ing more of its manners, than I. But I became acquainted with your mother, and I shall never forget the impression made on me by her composed self-possessed benignity. At her house I saw not, perhaps, much of society, but far more than I have ever seen elsewhere; and little by little I learned to suppress something of my self-conceit, and at the same time to take an easy footing among others.. I found, indeed, little that I could fully and deeply reverence, and the more I lived the more strongly I felt that she was a really noble, generous, true spirit, cramped and dimmed in an ungenial sphere. But yet she kept her heart alive, and wakened and warmed the hearts of others, so far as they had any relics or germs in them susceptible of the process. I remember as if it were but this morning, that nearly the last time I saw her, and when she was very weak and ill, but with an expression of divine calm and clearness, she questioned me about an acquaintance of her's and mine-a woman. This was a person of great talents and brilliant eloquence, and a kind of large and glowing Italian beauty, with whom I had become intimate. She had restless feelings, always craving more and more excitement, insatiable vanity, ready and warm sympathy, and an imaginative delight in nature, the fine arts, and all the more graceful and the bolder forms of human character. Her presence and conversation wrought on me like a sweet intoxicating odour much as I can conceive the influence of Walsingham might on a womanyoung and susceptible as I then was. Your mother saw through all this, warned me, said That way lies guilt, shame, weakness, remorse, selfcontempt. At the very best,' she continued, go live and grow in that luscious hot-house air, and although your leaves may spread for a time more richly, and your fruit appear to ripen faster, how will you be fit to meet the storms, the cold, the changes of hardy and austere nature? Draw back in time. Perhaps she does not mean to dupe you; but if so, yet assuredly, with your help, she will dupe both herself and you. Your fresh high heart, and daring will, and pictorial fancy, are too new and shining realities not to win and command her. But do not waste yourself in adding another chapter to her overstrained

romance of life.' Partly circumstances, but partly, I hope, also this advice, saved me from the danger. And it was at the hour when I heard of my adviser's death that I vowed never again to meet my siren, at least till years and events should have altered our relative positions. I kept my vow. It was but one of many services that your mother rendered me at a time when most of my acquaintances were only staring at me, or shrinking from me. They had, in general, no more feeling for me as a living suffering human heart, suffering from its own confusions, more bitterly than any of those whom I annoyed,-no more, I say, than if I had been a thing painted on canvass only to be gazed

at.

And a very unattractive sign it would have been in the eyes of most people for any tavern in London, though not quite so obnoxious as I∙ should be now where I am known. But if you consider how I must feel as to your mother, you will not wonder that I have been speaking in this way to you, her daughter, as if I had a right to receive your confidence, or at least to give you mine."

Maria listened with deep interest to this remarkable discourse, and only started and coloured a little at the mention of Walsingham, the allusion to whom she could not misunderstand. Indeed, she even fancied that Collins's whole object had perhaps been to suggest to her his view of the poet's character, and of the danger to be apprehended from him. But she forgave him the more readily because she felt herself secure. At the same time, as Collins went on to speak of her mother, her eyes filled slowly with silent tears, one of which, as she turned and looked earnestly at him, fell upon his hand. He, too, looked at her, and his voice softened and faltered before he made an end of speaking.

Maria said, after some moments,"I am very much obliged to you for speaking to me as you have done. My

my dear mother, I am sure, loved you, and it would be a great happiness to me to believe that you give me any portion of the regard which you felt for her."

"You cannot be to me what your mother was. I cannot feel as I did then. If I told you otherwise I should be lying, for compliments are only lies in court-clothes. I would as lief

see the patients of an hospital, with all their haggardness, tricked out in gala dresses from Monmouth Street. But if you will look on me as a true friend, believe me I am one-and shall be so while I live."

"Thank you!" And she gave him her hand, which he received cordially. "Now," she said, "I will venture to ask you a question which has very often occurred to me, but I never could venture on it before. You have spoken almost as often as I have seen you with bitter contempt of indolence and self-indulgence. I know how deeply and writhingly you feel the existence of so much misery in the world, and that you believe much may be done to remedy it. What I want you to tell me is this- Why, with such views, you spend your life as you now do, with no apparent occupation beyond the skill of a peasant. Often when I have heard you speak, I have fancied that, if you would only try, you would make others hear, understand, feel, and act."

"I told you that you would find me your sincere friend, and so you shall, for I will tell you something of my story, which, perhaps, will diminish your surprise. But to no one have I ever spoken of the matter before, and when you hear it, you will not wonder at my reserve. I have had two male friends in my life, or those whom the world would call so. One of them, the early friend, united to me by youth and circumstances, has turned out altogether worthless. Where I thought I had a diamond dew-drop, I found a stain of the commonest ditch-water. The other was the friend of my commencing manhood, ardent, sympathetic, graceful, expansive, clear of head, and vigorous of heart. He had fortune and appearance in his favour, as well as useful family connexions; and, while I was in the eyes of men an uncouth contentious reprobate, he was regarded with general favour and applause. He took many of his opinions from me, and my influence modified all his pursuits and aims. His taste led him strongly towards literature. He was ambitious of fame, and, as a thinker and creative artist, would perhaps have obtained it. But I felt harshly and fiercely the extent of wrong and grief on earth, and would have cheerfully spent my life blood, and that of my friend, to re

dress a portion of the evil. I had been left penniless, and was obliged to work for bread. He offered me half his income, as I had done to another; but that experiment had been too unfortunate, and I would not accept his bounty. Our friendship, however, still continued. I urged him into practical political life, for which he had many qualifications and some outward helps, although but little inclination. There was a large town for which I was anxious that he should be representa tive, and I persuaded him to plunge into the schemes and confusions of its parties. On his first electioneering attempt he failed. But, at another, I furnished him with proofs of the utter public and private baseness of his chief opponent. These he published, and chased the culprit from the field. But the exasperation of this man's partisans impelled one of them, a gentleman by station, to seek a quarrel with him, and challenge him. I was a hundred miles away at the time, but hastened to the place, and found him a corpse. He had been shot by the pistol of a bullying sycophant, which I felt as if I had loaded and pointed at his heart. But the ball pierced mine too, and I was an utterly miserable man. You cannot conceive what I then felt-at least I trust you cannot-and it would be useless to describe it. This was three years ago. The shock turned my hair grey, and drove me from among mankind. The time which has since passed has not been more than enough to restore me to a specious outward tranquillity;-inward peace, even of the hollow fretful kind which I before enjoyed, it has not brought me. Nor will a thousand years do that. You do not knowmay you never learn!-the continual subdued horror of remembering how the whole existence of another, and him one who relied on you, was overthrown and irreparably crushed under a weight first loosened by your hand; I once thought it resembled a perpetual burning alive on the unquenchable funeral pile of another's corpse. The pain, however, of this mortal ulcer in my heart has grown comparatively dull and chronic, and I am regaining the command of my faculties. How, hereafter, I shall exert them, I know not, but probably by speech and writing for humane and moral purposes, rather than by any interference in

what is called politics. I see too many sticking up to their necks in that slough and calling for help, to believe that it would yield me stable footing. But I have never heard of any attempts at good, undertaken indepen

dently of party, in purity of heart, and with quiet consideration of the case and circumstances, which have not more than fulfilled the hopes of the man."

CHAPTER IV.

"It comes on me," said Maria, "like a heavy blow, when I hear any one despair of full and tranquil happiness. I am sure it is to be found by those who seek it; and although there is something grandly heroic in the struggle that is carried on under the certainty of never attaining this good, I cannot but believe that the possession of it would add to all our efforts a sober strength which they must other wise want."

Collins smiled, half sadly, half scornfully, and shook his head. "It is Destiny, not I, that will deprive you one day of that faith."

"I do not know what Destiny means; but I trust in God."

"Take what name you will for the ruling Power of all things. God cannot perform impossibilities."

"Yes; but for Him no good is impossible."

"It may be-nay, I feel it is sothat for a reasonable voluntary being, learning as only he can learn by experience, there will always be errors behind to mourn over, and a vista of unattainable good before, which inevitably lengthens as we advance. It only remains for us to grieve without affectation or imbecility, aud to journey on without turning aside or stopping."

For all the ills you speak of there is, I am sure, a remedy, if I could but make you understand me. I have learned to call it Faith, but I know that it is Blessedness. Now, it would seem, of course, that you must know better than I; but, at least, I have, for the present, the advantage of you, in my more hopeful creed and happier mind. By the way, have you ever seen a poor man who lives in this neighbourhood, of the name of Fowler? I have several times visited him, and he seems to me a beautiful example of peace and joy in circumstances which would naturally produce despair, and might almost seem to justify it. He is a crippled basketmaker, without family

or friends, or settled means of subsistence, and yet, by dint of reliance on a good Power protecting and guiding him, he is full of cheerfulness and hope. I wish you would go and sco him, and make acquaintance with him."

"I will. But both for you and him the day will inevitably come of awa kening to a higher and larger selfconsciousness, and a sadder knowledge of our destination."

"God forbid!-And, my dear Mr Collins, you must not forget that I have been, in former times, when I was about sixteen, as perfectly wretched as I can imagine any one; so that mine is not the mere unreflecting contentment of a child. I was then beginning to think a little for myself, and I found my own heart and life so far from what I saw they ought to be, that I was almost in despair. been a Romanist, I might then have been tempted to turn nun."

Had I

"What changed your views?"

"I will tell you. I was taken, for the first time, to a great party in London, and was thoroughly dazzled and confused by all I saw, and by the excitement of the music and dancing round me. I remember that it seemed to me as if every thing in the world was successively rolling out of its steadfastness, and wheeling away in tangled curves to the sound of necromantic music. I said to myself, Where am I? What am I? Is every thing a dream?'-In the midst of this amazement of mine, a famous singer came forward; silence was obtained, and she sang with such impassioned ravishing melody, that I thought my soul would have flown away upon her aerial warbling. The applause as she ended called off my attention; but then I saw a crowd of faces turned towards her in enthusiastic delight, and deep homage expressed in the eyes and manner of some of the men and women whom I had always heard of as the most to be admired and re

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