heart as a bolt of ice, and the eye shrivel and parch
within its socket. And so intense is the fancy
that when we turn, and all is void, from that very
void we could shape a spectre, as fearful as the image
our terror had foredrawn. Somewhat such feeling
had Mordaunt now, as his steps sounded hollow and
echoless on the stairs, and the stars filled the air
around him with their shadowy and solemn presence.
Breaking by a violent effort from a spell of which
he felt that a frame somewhat overtasked of late was
the real enchanter, he turned once more into the room
which he had left to visit Isabel. He had pledged
his personal attendance at an important motion in the
House of Commons for that night, and some political
papers were left upon his table which he had promised
to give to one of the members of his party.
He entered the room, purposing to stay only a minute;
an hour passed before he left it: and his servant
afterwards observed that, on giving him some orders
as he passed through the hall to the carriage, his
cheek was as white as marble, and that his step, usually
so haughty and firm, reeled and trembled like a fainting
man’s. Dark and inexplicable Fate! weaver
of wild contrasts, demon of this hoary and old world,
that movest through it, as a spirit moveth over the
waters, filling the depths of things with a solemn
mystery and an everlasting change! Thou sweepest
over our graves, and Joy is born from the ashes:
thou sweepest over Joy, and lo, it is a grave!
Engine and tool of the Almighty, whose years cannot
fade, thou changest the earth as a garment, and as
a vesture it is changed; thou makest it one vast sepulchre
and womb united, swallowing and creating life! and
reproducing, over and over, from age to age, from the
birth of creation to the creation’s doom, the
same dust and atoms which were our fathers, and which
are the sole heirlooms that through countless generations
they bequeath and perpetuate to their sons.
CHAPTER LXXXVI.
Methinks, before the issue
of our fate,
A spirit moves within us,
and impels
The passion of a prophet to
our lips.—Anonymous.
O vitae Philosophia dux, virtutis
indagatrix!-Cicero.
["O Philosophy, conductress
of life, searcher after virtue!”]
Upon leaving the House of Commons, Mordaunt was accosted
by Lord Ulswater, who had just taken his seat in the
Upper House. Whatever abstraction or whatever
weakness Mordaunt might have manifested before he
had left his home, he had now entirely conquered both;
and it was with his usual collected address that he
replied to Lord Ulswater’s salutations, and
congratulated him on his change of name and accession
of honours.
It was a night of uncommon calm and beauty; and, although
the moon was not visible, the frosty and clear sky,
“clad in the lustre of its thousand stars,”
[Marlowe] seemed scarcely to mourn either the hallowing
light or the breathing poesy of her presence; and when
Lord Ulswater proposed that Mordaunt should dismiss
his carriage, and that they should walk home, Algernon
consented not unwillingly to the proposal. He
felt, indeed, an unwonted relief in companionship;
and the still air and the deep heavens seemed to woo
him from more unwelcome thoughts, as with a softening
and a sister’s love.
