What Will He Do with It — Volume 08 eBook

He had, at first, thought of hiding somewhere not so far but that once a-week, or once a-month, he might have stolen into the grounds, looked at the house that held her—­left, perhaps, in her walks some little token of himself.  But, on reflection, he felt that that luxury would be too imprudent, and it ceased to tempt him in proportion as he reasoned himself into the stern wisdom of avoiding all that could revive her grief for him.  At the commencement of this tale, in the outline given of that grand melodrama in which Juliet Araminta played the part of the Bandit’s Child, her efforts to decoy pursuit from the lair of the persecuted Mime were likened to the arts of the skylark to lure eye and hand from the nest of his young.  More appropriate that illustration now to the parent-bird than then to the fledgling.  Farther and farther from the nest in which all his love was centred fled the old man.  What if Jasper did discover him now; that very discovery would mislead the pursuit from Sophy.  Most improbable that Losely would ever guess that they could become separated; still more improbable, unless Waife, imprudently lurking near her home, guided conjecture, that Losely should dream of seeking under the roof of the lofty peeress the child that had fled from Mr. Rugge.

Poor old man! his heart was breaking; but his soul was so brightly comforted that there, where many, many long miles off, I see him standing, desolate and patient, in the corner of yon crowded market-place, holding Sir Isaac by slackened string with listless hand—­Sir Isaac unshorn, travel-stained, draggled, with drooping head and melancholy eyes—­yea, as I see him there, jostled by the crowd, to whom, now and then, pointing to that huge pannier on his arm, filled with some homely pedlar wares, he mechanically mutters, “Buy”—­yea, I say, verily, as I see him thus, I cannot draw near in pity—­I see what the crowd does not—­the shadow of an angel’s wing over his grey head; and I stand reverentially aloof, with bated breath and bended knee.

CHAPTER IV.

     A woman too often reasons from her heart—­hence two-thirds of her
     mistakes and her troubles.  A man of genius, too, often reasons from
     his heart-Wence, also, two-thirds of his troubles and mistakes. 
     Wherefore, between woman and genius there is A sympathetic Affinity;
     each has some intuitive comprehension of the secrets of the other,
     and the more feminine the woman, the more exquisite the genius, the
     more subtle the intelligence between the two.  But note well that
     this tacit understanding becomes obscured, if human love pass across
     its relations.  Shakespeare interprets aright the most intricate
     Riddles in woman.  A woman was the first to interpret aright the art
     that is latent in Shakespeare.  But did Anne Hathaway and
     Shakespeare understand each other?