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

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, and his author longed to get him across his knee, and correct him in the good old way. But meantime the point of the young warrior's sword was getting unpleasantly near the left breast-pocket of the author's dressing gown (which he wore at the time), and the latter happened to recollect, with a nervous thrill, that this was the sword which mortally wounded the traitor lover (for whom Sam evidently mistook him) during the stirring combat so vividly described in the twenty-second chapter. Could he but have foreseen the future, what a different ending that engagement should have had! But again it was too late, and the author sprang behind the big easy chair with astonishing agility, and from that vantage ground endeavored to bring on