The Marquis of Lossie Part 32

"But surely," said Florimel, not in the least aware that she was changing sides, "a man ought to hold by the rights that birth and inheritance give him."

"That is by no means so clear, my lady," returned Malcolm, "as you seem to think. A man may be bound to hold by things that are his rights, but certainly not because they are rights. One of the grandest things in having rights is that, being your rights, you may give them up--except, of course, they involve duties with the performance of which the abnegation would interfere."

"I have been trying to think," said Lady Clementina, "what can be the two good things here to choose between."

"That is the right question, and logically put, my lady," rejoined Malcolm, who, from his early training, could not help sometimes putting on the schoolmaster. "The two good things are--let me see--yes--on the one hand the protection of the lady to whom he owed all possible devotion of man to woman, and on the other what he owed to his tenants, and perhaps to society in general--yes --as the owner of wealth and position. There is generosity on the one side and dry duty on the other."

"But this was no case of mere love to the lady, I think," said Clementina. "Did Mr Tyrrel not owe Miss Mowbray what reparation lay in his power? Was it not his tempting of her to a secret marriage, while yet she was nothing more than a girl, that brought the mischief upon her?"

"That is the point," said Malcolm, "that makes the one difficulty.

Still, I do not see how there can be much of a question. He could have no right to do fresh wrong for the mitigation of the consequences of preceding wrong--to sacrifice others to atone for injuries done by himself."

"Where would be the wrong to others?" said Florimel, now back to her former position. "Why could it matter to tenants or society which of the brothers happened to be an earl?"

"Only this, that, in the one case, the landlord of his tenants, the earl in society, would be an honourable man, in the other, a villain--a difference which might have consequences."

"But," said Lady Clementina, "is not generosity something more than duty--something higher, something beyond it?"

"Yes," answered Malcolm, "so long as it does not go against duty, but keeps in the same direction, is in harmony with it. I doubt much, though, whether, as we grow in what is good, we shall not come soon to see that generosity is but our duty, and nothing very grand and beyond it. But the man who chooses to be generous at the expense of justice, even if he give up at the same time everything of his own, is but a poor creature beside him who, for the sake of the right, will not only consent to appear selfish in the eyes of men, but will go against his own heart and the comfort of those dearest to him. The man who accepts a crown may be more n.o.ble than he who lays one down and retires to the desert. Of the worthies who do things by faith, some are sawn asunder, and some subdue kingdoms. The look of the thing is nothing."

Florimel made a neat little yawn over her work. Clementina's hands rested a moment in her lap, and she looked thoughtful. But she resumed her work, and said no more. Malcolm began to read again.

Presently Clementina interrupted him. She had not been listening.

"Why should a man want to be better than his neighbours, any more than to be richer?" she said, as if uttering her thoughts aloud.

"Why, indeed," responded Malcolm, "except he wants to become a hypocrite?"

"Then, why do you talk for duty against generosity?"

"Oh!" said Malcolm, for a moment perplexed. He did not at once catch the relation of her ideas. "Does a man ever do his duty," he rejoined at length, "in order to be better than his neighbours."

If he does, he won't do it long. A man does his duty because he must. He has no choice but do it."

"If a man has no choice, how is it that so many men choose to do wrong?" asked Clementina.

"In virtue of being slaves and stealing the choice," replied Malcolm.

"You are playing with words," said Clementina.

"If I am, at least I am not playing with things," returned Malcolm.

"If you like it better, my lady, I will say that, in declaring he has no choice, the man with all his soul chooses the good, recognizing it as the very necessity of his nature."

"If I know in myself that I have a choice, all you say goes for nothing," persisted Clementina. "I am not at all sure I would not do wrong for the sake of another. The more one preferred what was right, the greater would be the sacrifice."

"If it was for the grandeur of it, my lady, that would be for the man's own sake, not his friend's."

"Leave that out then," said Clementina.

"The more a man loved another, then--say a woman, as here in the story--it seems to me, the more willing would he be that she should continue to suffer rather than cease by wrong. Think, my lady: the essence of wrong is injustice: to help another by wrong is to do injustice to somebody you do not know well enough to love for the sake of one you do know well enough to love. What honest man could think of that twice? The woman capable of accepting such a sacrifice would be contemptible."

"She need not know of it."

"He would know that she needed but to know of it to despise him."

"Then might it not be n.o.ble in him to consent for her sake to be contemptible in her eyes?"

"If no others were concerned. And then there would be no injustice, therefore nothing wrong, and nothing contemptible."

"Might not what he did be wrong in the abstract, without having reference to any person?"

"There is no wrong man can do but is a thwarting of the living Right. Surely you believe, my lady, that there is a living Power of right, whose justice is the soul of our justice, who will have right done, and causes even our own souls to take up arms against us when we do wrong."

"In plain language, I suppose you mean--Do I believe in a G.o.d?"

"That is what I mean, if by a G.o.d you mean a being who cares about us, and loves justice--that is, fair play--one whom therefore we wrong to the very heart when we do a thing that is not just."

"I would gladly believe in such a being, if things were so that I could. As they are, I confess it seems to me the best thing to doubt it. I do doubt it very much. How can I help doubting it, when I see so much suffering, oppression, and cruelty in the world? If there were such a being as you say, would he permit the horrible things we hear of on every hand?"

"I used to find that a difficulty. Indeed it troubled me sorely until I came to understand things better. I remember Mr Graham saying once something like this--I did not understand it for months after: 'Every kind hearted person who thinks a great deal of being comfortable, and takes prosperity to consist in being well off must be tempted to doubt the existence of a G.o.d.--And perhaps it is well they should be so tempted,' he added."

"Why did he add that?"

"I think because such are in danger of believing in an evil G.o.d.

And if men believed in an evil G.o.d, and had not the courage to defy him, they must sink to the very depths of savagery. At least that is what I ventured to suppose he meant."

Clementina opened her eyes wide, but said nothing. Religious people, she found, could think as boldly as she.

"I remember all about it so well!" Malcolm added, thoughtfully.

"We had been talking about the Prometheus of .AEschylus--how he would not give in to Jupiter."

"I am trying to understand," said Clementina, and ceased--and a silence fell which for a few moments Malcolm could not break.

For suddenly he felt as if he had fallen under the power of a spell. Something seemed to radiate from her silence which invaded his consciousness. It was as if the wind which dwells in the tree of life had waked in the twilight of heaven, and blew upon his spirit. It was not that now first he saw that she was beautiful; the moment his eyes fell upon her that morning in the park, he saw her beautiful as he had never seen woman before. Neither was it that now first he saw her good, even in that first interview her heart had revealed itself to him as very lovely. But the foolishness which flowed from her lips, n.o.ble and unselfish as it was, had barred the way betwixt his feelings and her individuality as effectually as if she had been the loveliest of Venuses lying uncarved in the lunar marble of Carrara. There are men to whom silliness is an absolute freezing mixture; to whose hearts a plain, sensible woman at once appeals as a woman, while no amount of beauty can serve as sweet oblivious antidote to counteract the nausea produced by folly.

Malcolm had found Clementina irritating, and the more irritating that she was so beautiful. But at the first sound from her lips that indicated genuine and truthful thought, the atmosphere had begun to change; and at the first troubled gleam in her eyes, revealing that she pursued some dim seen thing of the world of reality, a nameless potency throbbed into the spiritual s.p.a.ce betwixt her and him, and embraced them in an aether of entrancing relation. All that had been needed to awake love to her was, that her soul, her self should look out of its windows--and now he had caught a glimpse of it. Not all her beauty, not all her heart, not all her courage, could draw him while she would ride only a hobby horse, however tight its skin might be stuffed with emotions. But now who could tell how soon she might be charging in the front line of the Amazons of the Lord--on as real a horse as any in the heavenly army? For was she not thinking--the rarest human operation in the world?

"I will try to speak a little more clearly, my lady," said Malcolm.

"If ease and comfort, and the pleasures of animal and intellectual being, were the best things to be had, as they are the only things most people desire, then that maker who did not care that his creatures should possess or were deprived of such, could not be a good G.o.d. But if the need with the lack of such things should be the means, the only means, of their gaining something in its very nature so much better that--"

"But," interrupted Clementina, "if they don't care about anything better--if they are content as they are?"

"Should he then who called them into existence be limited in his further intents for the perfecting of their creation, by their notions concerning themselves who cannot add to their life one cubit?--such notions being often consciously dishonest? If he knows them worthless without something that he can give, shall he withhold his hand because they do not care that he should stretch it forth? Should a child not be taught to ride because he is content to run on foot?"

"But the means, according to your own theory, are so frightful!"

said Clementina.

"But suppose he knows that the barest beginnings of the good he intends them would not merely reconcile them to those means, but cause them to choose his will at any expense of suffering! I tell you, Lady Clementina," continued Malcolm, rising, and approaching her a step or two, "if I. had not the hope of one day being good like G.o.d himself, if I thought there was no escape out of the wrong and badness I feel within me and know I am not able to rid myself of without supreme help, not all the wealth and honours of the world could reconcile me to life."

"You do not know what you are talking of," said Clementina, coldly and softly, without lifting her head.

"I do," said Malcolm.