The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 | Page 7

here to make your acquaintance. I
am sure you would all come to the best possible understanding
directly."
"They cannot fathom _me_," exclaimed a strikingly handsome young
man, with pale lofty brow, and dark clustering locks, who was leaning
with proud grace against the mantel-piece. "They may take my life, but
they cannot read my soul." And he laughed, scornfully, as he always
did.
[Illustration: THE NOONING.--AFTER DARLEY.]
This was a passage from that famous ante-mortem soliloquy in which

the hero of the romance indulges in the last chapter but one. The author,
while, of course, he could not deny that the elegance of the diction was
only equaled by the originality of the sentiment, yet felt a slight
uneasiness that his hero should adopt so defiant a tone with those who
were indeed to be the arbiters of his existence.
"I'm afraid there's not enough perception of the comme il faut in him to
suit the every-day world," muttered he. "To be sure, he was not
constructed for ordinary ends. Do you find yourself at home in this life,
madame?" he continued aloud, turning to a young lady of matchless
beauty, whose brief career of passionate love and romantic misery the
author had described in thrilling chapters. She raised her luminous eyes
to his, and murmured reproachfully: "Why speak to me of Life? if it be
not Love, it is Life no longer!"
It was very beautiful, and the author recollected having thought, at the
time he wrote it down, that it was about the most forcible sentence in
that most powerful passage of his book. But it was rather an
exaggerated tone to adopt in the face of such common-place
surroundings. Had this exquisite creature, after all, no better sense of
the appropriate?
"No one can know better than I, my dear Constance," said the author, in
a fatherly tone, "what a beautiful, tender, and lofty soul yours is; but
would it not be well, once in a while, to veil its lustre--to subdue it to a
tint more in keeping with the unvariegated hue of common
circumstance?"
"Heartless and cruel!" sobbed Constance, falling upon the sofa, "hast
thou not made me what I am?"
This accusation, intended by the author to be leveled at the traitor lover,
quite took him aback when directed, with so much aptness, too, at his
respectable self. But whom but himself could he blame, if, when
common sense demanded only civility and complaisance, she persisted
in adhering to the tragic and sentimental? He was provoked that he had
not noticed this defect in time to remedy it; yet he had once considered
Constance as, perhaps, the completest triumph of his genius! There
seemed to be something particularly disenchanting in the atmosphere of
that study.
"I'm afraid you're a failure, ma'am, after all," sighed the author, eyeing
her disconsolately. "You're so one-sided!"

At this heartless observation the lady gave a harrowing shriek, thereby
summoning to her side a broad-shouldered young fellow, clad in
soldier's garb, with a countenance betokening much boldness and
determination. He faced the author with an angry frown, which the
latter at once recognized as being that of Constance's brother Sam.
"Now then, old bloke!" sang out that young gentleman, "what new
deviltry are you up to? Down on your knees and beg her pardon, or, by
George! I'll run you through the body!"
On this character the author had expended much thought and care. He
was the type of the hardy and bold adventurer, rough and unpolished,
perhaps, but of true and sterling metal, who, by dint of his vigorous
common sense and honest, energetic nature, should at once clear and
lighten whatever in the atmosphere of the story was obscure and
sombre; and, by the salutary contrast of his fresh and rugged character
with the delicate or morbid traits of his fellow beings, lend a graceful
symmetry to the whole. The sentence Sam had just delivered with so
much emphasis ought to have been addressed to the traitor lover, when
discovered in the act of inconstancy, and, so given, would have been
effective and dramatic. But at a juncture like the present, the author felt
it to be simply ludicrous, and had he not been so mortified, would have
laughed outright!
"Don't make a fool of yourself, Sam," remonstrated he. "Reflect whom
you're addressing, and in what company you are, and do try and talk
like a civilized being."
"Come, come! no palaver," returned Sam, in a loud and boisterous tone
(to do him justice, he had never been taught any other); "down on your
marrow-bones at once, or here goes for your gizzard!" and he drew his
sword with a flourish.
So this was the rough diamond--the epitome of common sense! Why,
he was a half-witted, impertinent, overbearing booby,