CHAPTER 9.
SOPHIA gone, on receiving Margaret’s promise to follow later in the spring, and undertaking on her part to maintain a strict reserve towards Edmund, Margaret was no sooner left at leisure to indulge in meditation, than she began to repent of her confidences. To a certain extent it had been a pleasure and a relief to her to make them. She had never made a dose friend of one of her own sex before. Her whole life was a sealed book to all except the one love, and it seemed to her to be a sort of treason to him to let any one come into their secret. For a moment she resented it as an intrusion, but she found consolation in the thought that it was by virtue of the very energy of Sophia’s sympathy and affection for Edmund that her confidence had been won. And, after all, what did Sophia know? That Edmund wished to marry her, and that she, though caring for him, had refused him for what she deemed his own good.
But what would he say to Sophia’s interposition? And how could she meet him again, knowing that their love was no longer a secret to themselves? Sophia evidently had an idea that there were no further difficulties in their path; and indeed, the difficulties and objections which Margaret had nourished alone, had vanished in the presence of the practical woman of the world, only, as now seemed, to re-appear in greater force. She was so certain before that she would not be doing her best possible by Noel in linking her own sad and harassed life to his fresh and hopeful one. It would be to wed the past to the future, and burden his career with the weight of her own retrospections.
(p. 501)
And now, to these thoughts were added a fear of the intensity of the happiness that had burst upon her, when Sophia had for a moment so abruptly brushed aside the intervening veil of her scruples. She had never allowed herself to think of it before as a possibility. The brief vision of its realisation now aroused in her a sort of holy awe. She shrank from it as one who deemed herself unworthy: and never, probably, at any moment of her life had Noel’s offer of himself so small a chance of acceptance as in the days that followed immediately upon Sophia’s visit.
Those days of self-communing were suddenly cut short. By dint of intense and unrelaxing application, Noel had reached the conclusion of his book. In it he had written the history of Margaret as it appeared to him. Her character, and all her relations to himself and to James, there lay bare and open as seen by the omniscient eye of love. One sentence, the concluding one, remained unfinished. He would take his manuscript to Margaret, and can upon her to add the word on which hung the completion of his book, the crown and perfection of his life.
Sophia, on her return from Rome, called at Noel’s dwelling, to find that he had
left town some days previously, saying only that he should probably be absent
for some time. Not having anticipated missing him in this way, she returned to
Margaret was once more roused from her reflections by the receipt of a parcel and a letter. The parcel contained the manuscript of Noel’s book, which he had himself brought to her door. The letter ran thus: –
‘Remembering our old talks, dearest friend, you will understand me when I say that I am unable to take any other view of the relations between man, the world, and art (whose triple combination for me constitutes religion), than this: – that it is a duty for any one whose experience has revealed to him aught that appears to him full of beauty and excellence, real or imagined, suggested or enacted, to give expression to it,
(p. 502)
so far as he has ability. A beautiful example should never be lost. It is the province of art to represent it over and over again, for the edification of the generations. How many a life of sorrow and suffering, and even of error, may be sanctified and redeemed by being exalted into an art-example for others. Thus, if I am filled with a conviction that I have seen characters more noble, situations more difficult, and the conduct in them more beautiful, or suggestive of a higher moral beauty, than have been witnessed by many, it seems to me a duty to draw them in such colours as may win man to loftier contemplation than that of the common or the unclean. And if such example be in some way afforded by the experience of any whom one dearly loves, surely there is an additional motive for representing it in its best and noblest aspects.
‘I want your judgment on my work. You once promised, or “threatened,” to paint my portrait. Here I have attempted yours, as seen by me in my heart of hearts. I do not pretend to have succeeded as I desire. There is not a page but seems cold and harsh, in comparison with the feeling that prompted the attempt. All I claim is, not to have flattered you. I claim perfect faithfulness in my copy of the Margaret who is so proud of spirit that she revolts from the idea of her humanity; who wants to be a saint without the ability to be a sinner ; and reckons the very capacity for a feeling which, if yielded to, would cause her to fall, as lowering her to the level of those who have fallen: the Margaret who, with feminine logic, confounds temptation with trespass, victory with defeat, or rather not defeat – that implies resistance – but with cowardly flight and surrender : and so claims rank among the negations of an unhuman perfection.
‘Though the end be still in suspense, the moral is plain: “Live up to one’s best, and perchance a reward may come – a reward even beyond that of so living. Live otherwise, and reward is impossible.”
‘But for the end. Have my hero and heroine earned the right to be happy together, or have they forfeited it? Margaret, they await your sentence – to me the sentence of more than life or death. In one week I return to learn the word with which you will have finished my work.
‘And in deciding, do not be unmindful of the following thought and its illustration. Self-sacrifice for its own sake is not virtue. A thing is not wrong because it is pleasant. For
(p. 503)
you, even on your own theory, virtue would consist doing that which you like, so strongly does your preference set the opposite direction. It is related somewhere, that a knight once set forth from his home, its duties, and its delights, in quest of the Sangrail. After undergoing incredible dangers and hardships, in a manner that stamped him a hero of loftiest prowess, he returned home without having been vouchsafed a glimpse of that which alone he cared to behold. In his dejection at his failure, he dared not lift his eyes from the ground to meet the loving glances which were ever gazing for him from his castle windows. Reaching his gateway, he found crouching beneath it a group of starving wretches, who, flying from the tyranny of a neighbouring lord, had just dragged themselves thither for succour. Seeing their misery, and hearing the dismal story of their wrongs, his compassion strove with his indignation for expression ; and, wearied as he was, even before permitting himself to be attended on, he provided them with food and comforts, and vowed a solemn vow to lose no time in redressing their wrongs, and punishing the evil lord. And as he raised his arm aloft in noble enthusiasm to swear his vow, his haggard face became transfigured into a glory, for he saw the heavens opened, and the Sangrail, bright and throbbing with beams of rosy light, descending towards him. Then he knew that he had been urged on his far and venturous quest rather by the spirit of a selfish devoteeism than by that of a sympathetic humanity. And so he learnt that his happiness and his blessing lay in his duty, and that his duty was not so far to seek.’
Reader, the story which Noel had written, and which Margaret read, shedding over it many burning tears, differed little from the story we have followed thus far. Is she to he blamed if she lacked the heart to blot out one word, or, thus appealed to, to refuse to complete the unfinished sentence with a trembling assent?
When, at the expiration of the week, Noel presented himself for judgment, he found Margaret alone. It was in the garb wherewith she was attired that Noel first read his acceptance. For, as he entered the room, she sat looking down, so that he could not see her face; but the dress that she wore was the one in which she had first beheld him, when they met, riding in the
(p. 504)
mountain
He knelt adoringly before her, and she bent over him, and each murmured words audible only to the heart of each. At length he asked, –
‘And have you finished my sentence thus?’
Margaret rose and led him into the adjoining room, her studio. There, upon a little Mosaic table, close by the easel which stood her painting of Noel, lay his manuscript, with pen and ink beside it.
‘See,’ she said, smiling. ‘While you have been drawing my portrait, I have painted yours. I wonder which of us has flattered the other most?’
Noel stood for some time gazing at the picture, his arm clasped around Margaret, and pressing her dose to his side.
‘I did not mean you to see it so soon,’ she added. Not until you had a wife to whom I could give it, or you were very, very old man.’
Noel turned to the manuscript. E lay open at the last page. The final sentence, which he had written in a large and hurried hand, ran thus: –
‘I ask of you a greater sacrifice than any you have yet made, or offered. I ask you to abandon all your cherished schemes of self-abnegation and mortification, and return to the world of life and love. Can you consent thus to give up your own misery to secure my happiness? If I seem to you too selfish in asking so much, think of me as the drowning wretch whose all of hope is placed in reaching you. Oh, Margaret, my only beloved, now and for ever; abandon me, and I sink indeed. What then will your reflections he? But stretch out your dear hand, and life once more is heaven. Beware, Margaret, lest your native austerity betray you into a selfishness, the indulgence of which will prove as a rock whereon to wreck for ever the life of the one whom you love and who loves you best. Will you give me your hand to keep and to cherish as my best stay and dearest possession? Margaret, will you be my wife?’
Looking close for the expected answer, Noel found written in delicate hand, and in faintest pencilling, as if experimentally, to see how it looked, –
‘I will.’
(p. 505)
‘It is to be irrevocable. I must have it in deeper and firmer lines. Let me see you write it.’ And he placed the pen in her hand.
When she had written it in ink, he kissed the little letters, kissed the hand that trembling had traced them, kissed at last the lies that now were his own for ever. He would have kissed them again and again, but Margaret interrupted him, exclaiming,
‘But Sophia! what will she say to it? You cannot publish without her consent.’
‘Publish what? – the banns?’
‘No, no, the book.’
‘Ah, Sophy always twitted me with not making use of my friends. She, too, is genuine and feminine, and loves a bit of self-sacrifice. She will not grudge me this one. Besides, if you do not object, I do not think that she can.’
‘I can imagine her thinking differently. But her leave must certainly be obtained.’
‘I see you are a little doubtful. Yet I have made her almost a heroine.’
‘Nay, I think quite. But there is no need for haste. Perhaps, after two or three years, you can show it to her – or when she perhaps is married too; and it will seem as if written in that interval. Has it not achieved a sufficient purpose for the present?’
The first post that returned from
‘Only just a line now, dearest, to say that mamma is so pleased. I need not tell you that I am. Only I feel just a very little bit like the school child at a feast who complains to its comrade, “It’s not fair. You are helped twice before I am helped once.” But never mind. I dare say Edmund will not grudge you an occasional opportunity for exercising your favourite virtue (or vice?) of self-sacrifice as his wife. I and your two angel chicks will be your bridesmaids. No, I forgot – widows don’t have bridesmaids. How lucky they are not boys. It would hardly have done for the mother of a Lord Littmass to drop her title and become simply “Mrs. Noel;” which, unless I very much mistake you both, is what you fully intend to do.’
‘What do you think, Margaret, in reference to this last suggestion?’
(p. 506)
‘It never entered my mind at all. I cannot imagine myself ––’ and here she hesitated, and her cheek kindled, and she hid her face on his shoulder.
‘There are two points to be taken into consideration,’ said Noel, affecting indecision; ‘the particular welfare of the children, and the general value of the rank.’
Surely; faltered Margaret, scarce lifting her burning face from its hiding-place, surely it is better for children to believe in the unity of their parents, as implied by community of name, than – than ––’
‘Stupid that I am!’ said Noel; I was thinking only of those which you have already. But about the other point?’
Raising her head quickly as in alarm, she said: –
‘You don’t grudge me your name?’
‘But suppose you were an Empress?’
‘It would make no difference to me.’
‘Margaret, you are an Empress; and more. You are Margaret, my own Margaret.’
‘I fear that is too much for me,’ she said sighing; ‘but, see, here is a postscript to Sophia’s letter: –
‘ “My Roman friend, the Prince di R––, has just written to say he is in
THE END.
OPINIONS OF THE
PRESS.
_________________
‘As to the literary characteristics of Higher Law, readers of The Pilgrim and the Shrine will not need to be informed that it is a work of more than mere cleverness. Something like genius inspires it. The originality of its conceptions, the penetration of its criticisms, the beauty and enthusiasm of its style, its careful study of character, and the ingenuity and independence of its speculations, will commend it to the admiration even of those who differ from its conclusions the most gravely.’ – British Quarterly Review.
‘Those who have read The Pilgrim and the Shrine will need no words of praise from a reviewer to recommend to them a new novel by the same author. . . The method of Higher Law differs from that of the Elective Affinities. Goethe breaks out into a great deal of grossness. In Higher Law the absolute purity of the characters is the great charm of the story. There is a subtle vein of Pantheism – the physical Pantheism of Goethe rather than the spiritual Pantheism of Shelley – running through the whole story, and along with it are touches of a mysticism which reminds us at times of the fancies of Novalis. Considered as a work of art the unity which pervades the story is beyond all praise.’ – Echo.
‘Whether we agree or dissent we can still give the author the same praise for this as we gave him for his former work; that is to say, we can credit him with originality, boldness, and a capacity for philosophical reflection of no mean order. . . Bravery of this particular kind is so very rare that when we do meet with it it should be handsomely acknowledged.’ – Athenæum.
‘Unless the reader is thoroughly acquainted with the great questions of the day,
unless he thoroughly, too, perceives the tendencies of modern thought, unless he
is at home with the last Biblical criticisms, appreciates the lessons of Darwin
and Huxley in science, and has laid to heart the doctrines of the more advanced
school of physiologists, much in this very remarkable book will be perfectly
unintelligible. Yet the book will find a large number of readers, who, as time
goes on, are sure to increase. . . But the most superficial reader need not be
frightened away from it. If he is capable of admiring wit and humour, he will
find both in some of the minor sketches; if he has any love for description, he
will find charming pictures of scenery in Mexico; if, too, he is capable of
appreciating what true love means, he will find himself in a spiritual
atmosphere such as we know of in only one novel of the present day. The whole of
the love scenes are painted with an exquisite sense of poetry and delicacy of
feeling. . . That same purity of style and earnestness of tone, that same depth
of philosophic reflection which marked The
Pilgrim and the Shrine, may all be found
rendered still more attractive by the beauty of the story in the present work.
There is no novel, in short, which can be compared to it for its width of view,
its cultivation, its poetry, and its deep human interest.
. . except
Romola.’ –
_________________
By the same author,
THE PILGRIM AND THE SHRINE.
In one volume, uniform with Higher Law.
Price 7s. 6d.
‘We recognise in the author of The Pilgrim and the Shrine an artist who approaches very near to the ideal that his brilliant pages disclose.’ – Saturday Review.
‘Its aspects are so varied, and the whole so fascinating from whatever point of
view it is seen, that. . . we are forced to pronounce
it a very masterpiece.’ –
Brooklyn Union (
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