Eugene Aram — Complete. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон

the last few weeks I have scarcely spoken! Her voice rings on my ear, her look dwells on my heart; when I sleep, she is with me; when I wake, I am haunted by her image. Strange, strange! Is love then, after all, the sudden passion which in every age poetry has termed it, though till now my reason has disbelieved the notion?... And now, what is the question? To resist, or to yield. Her father invites me, courts me; and I stand aloof! Will this strength, this forbearance, last?—Shall I encourage my mind to this decision?” Here Aram paused abruptly, and then renewed: “It is true! I ought to weave my lot with none. Memory sets me apart and alone in the world; it seems unnatural to me, a thought of dread—to bring another being to my solitude, to set an everlasting watch on my uprisings and my downsittings; to invite eyes to my face when I sleep at nights, and ears to every word that may start unbidden from my lips. But if the watch be the watch of love—away! does love endure for ever? He who trusts to woman, trusts to the type of change. Affection may turn to hatred, fondness to loathing, anxiety to dread; and, at the best, woman is weak, she is the minion to her impulses. Enough, I will steel my soul,—shut up the avenues of sense,—brand with the scathing-iron these yet green and soft emotions of lingering youth,—and freeze and chain and curdle up feeling, and heart, and manhood, into ice and age!”

       CHAPTER VII.

      THE POWER OF LOVE OVER THE RESOLUTION OF THE STUDENT.—ARAM

      BECOMES A FREQUENT GUEST AT THE MANOR-HOUSE.—A WALK.—

      CONVERSATION WITH DAME DARKMANS.—HER HISTORY.—POVERTY AND

      ITS EFFECTS

             MAD. “Then, as Time won thee frequent to our hearth,

             Didst thou not breathe, like dreams, into my soul

             Nature’s more gentle secrets, the sweet lore

             Of the green herb and the bee-worshipp’d flower?

             And when deep Night did o’er the nether Earth

             Diffuse meek quiet, and the Heart of Heaven

             With love grew breathless—didst thou not unrol

             The volume of the weird chaldean stars,

             And of the winds, the clouds, the invisible air,

             Make eloquent discourse, until, methought,

             No human lip, but some diviner spirit

             Alone, could preach such truths of things divine?

             And so—and so—”

             ARAM. “From Heaven we turned to Earth,

             And Wisdom fathered Passion.”

             ..................

             ARAM. “Wise men have praised the Peasant’s thoughtless lot,

             And learned Pride hath envied humble Toil;

             If they were right, why let us burn our books,

             And sit us down, and play the fool with Time,

             Mocking the prophet Wisdom’s high decrees,

             And walling this trite Present with dark clouds,

             ‘Till Night becomes our Nature; and the ray

             Ev’n of the stars, but meteors that withdraw

             The wandering spirit from the sluggish rest

             Which makes its proper bliss. I will accost

             This denizen of toil.”

       —From Eugene Aram, a MS. Tragedy.

             “A wicked hag, and envy’s self excelling

             In mischiefe, for herself she only vext,

             But this same, both herself and others eke perplext.”

           ...............

             “Who then can strive with strong necessity,

             That holds the world in his still changing state,

           .................

             Then do no further go, no further stray,

             But here lie down, and to thy rest betake.”

                —Spenser.

      Few men perhaps could boast of so masculine and firm a mind, as, despite his eccentricities, Aram assuredly possessed. His habits of solitude had strengthened its natural hardihood; for, accustomed to make all the sources of happiness flow solely from himself, his thoughts the only companion—his genius the only vivifier—of his retreat; the tone and faculty of his spirit could not but assume that austere and vigorous energy which the habit of self-dependence almost invariably produces; and yet, the reader, if he be young, will scarcely feel surprise that the resolution of the Student, to battle against incipient love, from whatever reasons it might be formed, gradually and reluctantly melted away. It may be noted, that the enthusiasts of learning and reverie have, at one time or another in their lives, been, of all the tribes of men, the most keenly susceptible to love; their solitude feeds their passion; and deprived, as they usually are, of the more hurried and vehement occupations of life, when love is once admitted to their hearts, there is no counter-check to its emotions, and no escape from its excitation. Aram, too, had just arrived at that age when a man usually feels a sort of revulsion in the current of his desires. At that age, those who have hitherto pursued love, begin to grow alive to ambition; those who have been slaves to the pleasures of life, awaken from the dream, and direct their desire to its interests. And in the same proportion, they who till then have wasted the prodigal fervours of youth upon a sterile soil; who have served Ambition, or, like Aram, devoted their hearts to Wisdom; relax from their ardour, look back on the departed years with regret, and commence, in their manhood, the fiery pleasures and delirious follies which are only pardonable in youth. In short, as in every human pursuit there is a certain vanity, and as every acquisition contains within itself the seed of disappointment, so there is a period of life when we pause from the pursuit, and are discontented with the acquisition. We then look around us for something new—again follow—and are again deceived. Few men throughout life are the servants to one desire. When we gain the middle of the bridge of our mortality, different objects from those which attracted us upward almost invariably lure us to the descent. Happy they who exhaust in the former part of the journey all the foibles of existence! But how different is the crude and evanescent love of that age when thought has not given intensity and power to the passions, from the love which is felt, for the first time, in maturer but still youthful years! As the flame burns the brighter in proportion to the resistance which it conquers, this later love is the more glowing in proportion to the length of time in which it has overcome temptation: all the solid and, concentred faculties ripened to their full height, are no longer capable of the infinite distractions, the numberless caprices