human
I have been impertinent, Miss St. Just, and I beg your pardon.
gpt
No, you have not, said she, quite hastily.
human
You were right, too right,--has it not been proved within the last five minutes? My poor sister! What can be done to mend Mr. Vavasour's temper? I wish you could talk to him, Mr. Headley.
gpt
He is beyond my art. His age, and his talents, and his--his consciousness of them, said Frank, using the mildest term he could find,
human
Can it change a man's character, Mr. Headley? It may make good men better--but can it cure temper?
gpt
Major Campbell must have told you that it can do anything.
human
Ah, yes: with men as wise, and strong, and noble as he is; but with such a weak, vain man--
gpt
Miss St. Just, I know one who is neither wise, nor strong, nor noble: but as weak and vain as any man; in whom God has conquered--as He may conquer yet in Mr. Vavasour--all which makes man cling to life.
human
What all?
gpt
All, I suppose, which it is good for them to have crushed. There are feelings which last on, in spite of all struggles to quench them--I suppose, because they ought to last; because, while they torture, they still ennoble. Death will quench them: or if not, satisfy them: or if not, set them at rest somehow.
human
Death?
gpt
Yes. Our friend, Major Campbell's friend, Death. We have been seeing a good deal of him together lately, and have come to the conclusion that he is the most useful, pleasant, and instructive of all friends.
human
Oh, Mr. Headley, do not speak so! Are you in earnest?
gpt
So much in earnest, that I have resolved to go out as an army chaplain, to see in the war somewhat more of my new friend.
human
Impossible! Mr. Headley; it will kill you!--All that horrible fever and cholera!
gpt
And what possible harm can it do me, if it does kill me, Miss St. Just!
human
Mr. Headley, this is madness! I--we cannot allow you to throw away your life thus--so young, and--and such prospects before you! And there is nothing that my brother would not do for you, were it only for your heroism at Aberalva. There is not one of the family who does not love and respect you, and long to see all the world appreciating you as we do; and your poor mother--
gpt
I have told my mother all, Miss St. Just. And she has said 'Go; it is your only hope.' She has other sons to comfort her. Let us say no more of it. Had I thought that you would have disapproved of it, I would never have mentioned the thing.
human
Disapprove of--your going to die? You shall not! And for me, too: for I guess all--all is my fault!
gpt
All is mine, said he quietly:
human
and at these words his whole voice and manner changed in an instant into wildest passion.
gpt
I must speak--now and never more--I love you still, fool that I am! Would God I had never seen you! No, not that. Thank God for that to the last: but would God I had died of that cholera! that I had never come here, conceited fool that I was, fancying that it was possible, after having once--No! Let me go, go anywhere, where I may burden you no more with my absurd dreams!--You, who have had the same thing said to you, and in finer words, a hundred times, by men who would not deign to speak to me!
human
I never had the same thing said to me!
gpt
Never? How often have fine gentlemen, noblemen, sworn that they were dying for you?
human
They never have said to me what you have done.
gpt
No--I am clumsy, I suppose--
human
Mr. Headley, indeed you are unjust to yourself--unjust to me!
gpt
I--to you? Never! I know you better than you know yourself--see in you what no one else sees. Oh, what fools they are who say that love is blind! Blind? He sees souls in God's own light; not as they have become: but as they ought to become--can become--are already in the sight of Him who made them!
human
And what might I become?
gpt
How can I tell! Something infinitely too high for me, at least, who even now am not worthy to kiss the dust off your feet.
human
Oh, do not speak so: little do you know--! No, Mr. Headley, it is you who are too good for me; too noble, single-eyed, self-sacrificing, to endure my vanity and meanness for a day.
gpt
Madam, do not speak thus! Give me no word which my folly can distort into a ray of hope, unless you wish to drive me mad. No! it is impossible; and, were it possible, what but ruin to my soul? I should live for you, and not for my work. I should become a schemer, ambitious, intriguing, in the vain hope of proving myself to the world worthy of you. No; let it be. 'Let the dead bury their dead, and follow thou me.'
human
Mr. Headley, recollect that this conversation has gone too far for us to avoid coming to some definite understanding--
gpt
Then it shall, Miss St. Just. Then it shall, once and for all: formally and deliberately, it shall end now. Suppose,--I only say suppose,--that I could, without failing in my own honour, my duty to my calling, make myself such a name among good men that, poor parson though I be, your family need be ashamed of nothing about me, save my poverty? Tell me, now and for ever, could it be possible--
human
Say no, as a matter of course, and end it!
gpt
I cannot--dare not say it.
human
It? Which of the two? yes, or no?
gpt
Say that again, and tell me that I am not dreaming. You? the admired! the worshipped! the luxurious!--and no blame to you that you are what you were born--could you endure a little parsonage, the teaching village school-children, tending dirty old women, and petty cares the whole year round?
human
Mr. Headley, answered she, slowly and calmly, in her turn,
gpt
I could endure a cottage,--a prison, I fancy, at moments,--to escape from this world, of which I am tired, which will soon be tired of me: from women who envy me, impute to me ambitions as base as their own; from men who admire--not me, for they do not know me, and never will--but what in me --I hate them!--will give them pleasure. I hate it all, despise it all; despise myself for it all every morning when I wake! What does it do for me, but rouse in me the very parts of my own character which are most despicable, most tormenting? If it goes on, I feel I could become as frivolous, as mean, aye, as wicked as the worst. You do not know--you do not know--. I have envied the nuns their convents. I have envied Selkirk his desert island. I envy now the milkmaids there below: anything to escape and be in earnest, anything for some one to teach me to be of use! Yes, this cholera--and this war--though only, only its coming shadow has passed over me,--and your words too-- cried she, and stopped and hesitated, as if afraid to tell too much--
human
Have you not Major Campbell?
gpt
Yes--but has he taught me? He is dear, and good, and wise; but he is too wise, too great for me. He plays with me as a lion might with a mouse; he is like a grand angel far above in another planet, who can pity and advise, but who cannot--What am I saying?