Weighed and Wanting | Page 8

left unread, and was
too lazy or effeminate or prudent to encounter the wind and rain that
beset the path betwixt him and the nearest bookshop. None of his
father's books had any attraction for him. Neither science, philosophy,
history, nor poetry held for him any interest. A drearier soul in a
drearier setting could hardly be imagined than the soul of this youth in
that day's weather at Burcliff.
Does a reader remark, "Well, wherein was the poor fellow to blame?
No man can make himself like this or like that! The thing that is a
passion to one is a bore to another! Some with both ear and voice have
no love for music. Most exquisite of sonatas would not to them make
up for a game of billiards! They cannot help it: they are made so"?--I
answer, It is true no one can by an effort of the will care for this or that;
but where a man cares for nothing that is worth caring for, the fault
must lie, not in the nature God made, but in the character the man
himself has made and is making. There is a moral reason why he does
not and cannot care. If Cornelius had begun at any time, without other
compulsion than the urging within him, to do something he knew he
ought to do, he would not now have been the poor slave of
circumstances he was--at the call and beck of the weather--such, in fact,
as the weather willed. When men face a duty, not merely will that duty
become at once less unpleasant to them, but life itself will immediately
begin to gather interest; for in duty, and in duty only, does the
individual begin to come into real contact with life; therein only can he
see what life is, and grow fit for it.
He threw himself on his bed--for he dared not smoke where his father
was--and dozed away the hours till lunch, then returned and dozed
again, with more success, till tea time. This was his only resource
against the unpleasantness of the day. The others were nowise

particularly weighed down by it, and the less that Cornelius was so
little in the room, haunting the window with his hands in his pockets.
When tea was over, he rose and sauntered once more to the window,
the only outlook he ever frequented.
"Hullo!" he cried, turning from it quickly. "I say, Hester! here's a lark!
the sun's shining as if his grandmother had but just taught him how!
The rain's over, I declare--at least for a quarter of an hour! Come, let's
have a walk. We'll go and hear the band in the castle-gardens. I don't
think there's any thing going on at the theatre, else I would take you
there."
The sight of the sun revives both men and midges.
"I would rather walk," said Hester. "It is seldom one sees good acting
in the provinces. At best there is but one star. I prefer a jewel to a gem,
and a decent play to a fine part."
"Hester," said Cornelius with reproof, "I believe you think it a fine
thing to be hard to please! I know a fellow that calls it a kind of suicide.
To allow a spot to spoil your pleasure in a beauty is to be too fond of
perfection."
"No, Corney," answered his sister, "that is hardly my position. What I
would say is rather, that one point of excellence is not enough to make
a whole beautiful--a face, or a play--or a character."
Hester had a rather severe mode of speaking, especially to this brother,
which, if it had an end, failed of it. She was the only person in the
house who could ever have done any thing with him, and she lost her
advantage--let me use a figure--by shouting to him from a distance,
instead of coming close up to him and speaking in a whisper. But for
that she did not love him enough, neither was she yet calm enough in
herself to be able for it. I doubt much, however, if he would have been
in any degree permanently the better for the best she could have done
for him. He was too self-satisfied for any redemption. He was afraid of
his father, resented the interference of his mother, was as cross as he
pleased with his sister, and cared little whether she was vexed with him
or not. And he regarded the opinion of any girl, just because she was a
girl, too little to imagine any reflection on himself in the remark she
had just made.
While they talked he had been watching the clouds.
"Do go, Hester," he said. "I give you my word it will be a