The Twins | Page 4

natural human mind, to its destined ends; that it may
turn out, for good, according to its several natures, to be either the
strong-armed, bold-eyed, rough-hewer of God's grand designs, or the
delicate-fingered polisher of His rarest sculptures. Julian, well-trained,
might have grown to be a Luther; and many a gentle soul like Charles,
has turned out a coxcomb and a sensualist.
The boys were born, as I have said, in the regulation order of things, a
few months after Captain Tracy sailed away for India some full score
of years, and more, from this present hour, when we have seen him
seated as a general in the library at Burleigh; and, until the last year,
they had never seen their father--scarcely ever heard of him.
The incidents of their lives had been few and common-place: it would
be easy, but wearisome, to specify the orchards and the bee-hives
which Julian had robbed as a school-boy; the rebellions he had headed;
the monkey tricks he had played upon old fish-women; and the cruel
havoc he made of cats, rats, and other poor tormented creatures, who
had ministered to his wanton and brutalizing joys. In like manner,

wearily, but easily, might I relate how Charles grew up the nurse's
darling, though little of his flaunting mother's; the curly-pated young
book-worm; the sympathizing, innoffensive, gentle heart, whose effort
still it was to countervail his brother's evil: how often, at the risk of
blows, had he interposed to save some drowning puppy: how often paid
the bribe for Julian's impunity, when mulcted for some damage done in
the way of broken windows, upset apple-stalls, and the like: how often
had he screened his bad twin-brother from the flagellatory
consequences of sheer idleness, by doing for him all his school-tasks:
how often striven to guide his insensate conscience to truth, and good,
and wisdom: how often, and how vainly!
And when the youths grew up, and their good and evil grew up with
them, it were possible to tell you a heart-rending tale of Julian's
treachery to more than one poor village beauty; and many a pleasing
trait of Charles's pure benevolence, and wise zeal to remedy his
brother's mischiefs. The one went about doing ill, and the other doing
good: Julian, on account of obligations, more truly than in spite of them,
hated Charles; and yet one great aim of all Charles's amiabilities tended
continually to Julian's good, and he strove to please him, too, while he
wished to bless him. The one had grown to manhood, full of
unrepented sins, and ripe for darker crime: the other had attained a like
age of what is somewhat satirically called discretion, having amassed,
with Solon of old, "knowledge day by day," having lived a life of piety
and purity, and blest with a cheerful disposition, that teemed with
happy thoughts.
They had, of course, in the progress of human life, been both laid upon
the bed of sickness, where, with similar contrast, the one lay muttering
discontent, and the other smiling patiently: they had both been in
dangers by land and by sea, where Julian, though not a little lacking to
himself at the moment of peril, was still loudly minacious till it came
too near; while Charles, with all his caution, was more actually
courageous, and in spite of all his gentleness, stood against the worst
undaunted: they had both, with opposite motives and dissimilar modes
of life, passed through various vicissitudes of feeling, scene, society;
and the influence of circumstance on their different characters,

heightened or diminished, bettered or depraved, by the good or evil
principle in each, had produced their different and probable results.
Thus, strangely dissimilar, the twin-brothers together stand before us:
Julian the strong impersonation of the animal man, as Charles of the
intellectual; Julian, matter; Charles, spirit; Julian, the creature of this
world, tending to a lower and a worse: Charles, though in the world,
not of the world, and reaching to a higher and a better.
Mrs. Tracy, the mother of this various progeny, had been somewhat of
a beauty in her day, albeit much too large and masculine for the taste of
ordinary mortals; and though now very considerably past forty, the vain
vast female was still ambitious of compliment, and greedy of
admiration. That Julian should be such a woman's favourite will
surprise none: she had, she could have, no sympathies with mild and
thoughtful Charles; but rather dreaded to set her flaunting folly in the
light of his wise glance, and sought to hide her humbled vanity from his
pure and keen perceptions. His very presence was a tacit rebuke to her
social dissipation, and she could not endure the mild radiance of his
virtues. He never fawned and flattered her, as Julian would; but had