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of Reverie, and wander, ghost-like, out of castles in the air. And my mind found a playfellow in his, where, in other men's minds, as richly cultured, it found only companions or competitors in task-work. Towards dawn, I fell asleep, and dreamt that I was a child once more, gathering bluebells and chasing dragonflies amidst murmuring water-reeds. The next day I came down late; all had done breakfast. The Painter was already gone; the Librarian had retired into his den. Henry Thornhill was walking by himself to and fro, in front of the window, with folded arms and downcast brow. Percival was seated apart, writing letters. Clara was at work, stealing every now and then a mournful glance towards Henry. Lady Gertrude, punctiliously keeping her place by the teaurn, filled my cup, and pointed to a heap of letters formidably ranged before my plate. I glanced anxiously and rapidly over these unwelcomed epistles. Thank heaven, nothing to take me back to London! My political correspondent informed me, by a hasty line, that the dreaded motion which stood first on the parliamentary paper for that day would in all probability be postponed, agreeably to the request of the Government. The mover of it had not, however, given a positive answer; no doubt he would do so in the course of the night (last night); and there was little doubt that, as a professed supporter of the Government, he would yield to the request that had been made to him.

So, after I had finished my abstemious breakfast, I took Percival aside and told him that I considered myself free to prolong my stay, and asked him, in a whisper, if he had yet received the official letter he expected, announcing young Thornhill's exchange and promotion.

"Yes," said he, " and I only waited for you to announce its contents to poor Henry; for I wish you to tell me whether you think the news will make him as happy as yesterday he thought it would."

Tracey and I then went out, and

joined Henry in his walk. The young man turned round on us an impatient countenance.

"So we have lost Bourke," said Tracey. "I hope he will return to England with the reputation he goes forth to seek."

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Ay," said Henry, "Bourke is a lucky dog to have found, in one who is not related to him, so warm and so true a friend."

"Every dog, lucky or unlucky, has his day," said Percival, gravely. "Every dog except a house-dog," returned Henry. A house-dog is thought only fit for a chain and a kennel."

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"Ah, happy if his happiness he knew!" replied Tracey. "But I own that liberty compensates for the loss of a warm litter and a good dinner. Away from the kennel and off with the chain! Read this letter, and accept my congratulations— Major Thornhill!"

The young man started; the colour rushed to his cheeks; he glanced hastily over the letter held out to him; dropped it; caught his kinsman's hand, and pressing it to his heart, exclaimed, “Oh, sir, thanks, thanks! So then, all the while I was accusing you of obstructing my career you were quietly promoting it! How can you forgive me my petulance, my ingratitude?"

"Tut," said Percival, kindly, "the best-tempered man is sometimes cross in his cups; and nothing, perhaps, more irritates a young brain than to get drunk on the love of glory."

At the word glory the soldier's crest rose, his eye flashed fire, his whole aspect changed, it became lofty and noble. Suddenly his eye caught sight of Clara, who had stepped out of the window, and stood gazing on him. His head drooped, tears rushed to his eyes, and with a quivering, broken voice, he muttered, "Poor Clara-my wife, my darling! Oh, Sir Percival, truly you said how bitterly I should repent every unkind word and look. Ah, they will haunt me!"

"Put aside regrets now. Go and break the news to your wife: sup

port, comfort her; you alone can. I have not dared to tell her."

Henry sighed and went, no longer joyous, but with slow step and paling cheek, to the place where Clara stood. We saw him bend over the hand she held out to him, kiss it humbly, and then passing his arm round her waist, he drew her away into the farther recesses of the garden, and both disappeared from our

eyes.

"No," said I," he is not happy; like us all, he finds that things coveted have no longer the same charm when they are things possessed. Clara is avenged already. But you have done wisely. Let him succeed or let him fail, you have removed from Clara her only rival. If you had debarred him from honour you would have estranged him from love. Now you have bound him to Clara for life. She has ceased to be an obstacle to his dreams, and henceforth she herself will be the dream which his waking life will sigh to regain."

"Heaven grant he may come back with both his legs and both his arms; and, perhaps, with a bit of ribbon, or five shillings' worth of silver on his breast," said Percival, trying hard to be lively. "Of all my kinsmen, I think I like him the best. He is rough as the east wind, but honest as the day. Heigho! they will both leave us in an hour or two. Clara's voice is so sweet; I wonder when she will sing again! What a blank the place will seem without those two young faces! As soon as they are gone, we two will be off. Aunt Gertrude does not like Bellevue, and will pay a visit for a few days to a cousin of hers on the other side of the county. I must send on before to let the housekeeper at Bellevue prepare for our coming. Meanwhile, pardon me if I leave you-perhaps you have letters to write; if so, despatch them."

I was in no humour for writing letters, but when Percival left me I strolled from the house into the garden, and, reclining there on a bench opposite one of the fountains,

enjoyed the calm beauty of the summer morning. Time slipped by. Every now and then I caught sight of Henry and Clara among the lilacs in one of the distant walks, his arm still round her waist, her head leaning on his shoulder. At length they went into the house, doubtless to prepare for their departure.

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I thought of the wild folly with which youth casts away the substance of happiness to seize at the shadow which breaks on the wave that mirrors it; wiser and happier surely the tranquil choice of Gray, though with gifts and faculties far beyond those of the young man who mistook the desire of fame for the power to win it. And then my thoughts settling back on myself, I became conscious of a certain melancholy. How poor and niggard compared with my early hopes had been my ultimate results! How questioned, grudged, and litigated, my right of title to every inch of ground that my thought had discovered or my toils had cultivated! What motive power in me had, from boyhood to the verge of age, urged me on to scorn delight and love laborious days?" Whatever the motive power once had been, I could no longer trace it. If vanity-of which, doubtless, in youth I had my human share—I had long since grown rather too callous than too sensitive to that love of approbation in which vanity consists. I was stung by no penury of fortune, influenced by no feverish thirst for a name that should outlive my grave, fooled by no hope of the rewards which goad on ambition. I had reached the age when Hope weighs her anchor and steers forth so far that her amplest sail seems but a silvery speck on the last line of the horizon. Certainly I flattered myself that my purposes linked my toils to some slight service to mankind; that in graver efforts I was asserting opinions in the value of which to human interests I sincerely believed, and in lighter aims venting thoughts and releasing fancies which might add to the culture of the world-not, indeed, fruitful

harvests, but at least some lowly flowers. But though such intent might be within my mind, could I tell how far I unconsciously exaggerated its earnestness-still less could I tell how far the intent was dignified by success?

"Have I

done aught for which mankind would be the worse were it swept into nothingness to-morrow ?"is a question which many a grand and fertile genius may, in its true humility, address mournfully to itself. It is but a negative praise, though it has been recorded as a high one, to leave

"No line which, dying, we would wish to blot."

If that be all, as well leave no line at all. He has written in vain who does not bequeath lines that, if blotted, would be a loss to that treasure-house of mind which is the everlasting possession of the world. Who, yet living, can even presume to guess if he shall do this? Not till at least a century after his brain and his hand are dust can even critics begin to form a rational conjecture of an author's or a statesman's uses to his kind. Was it, then, as Gray had implied, merely the force of habit which kept me in movement? if so, was it a habit worth all the sacrifice it cost? Thus meditating, I forgot that if all men reasoned thus and acted according to such reasoning, the earth would have no intermediate human dwellers between the hewers and diggers, and the idlers, born to consume the fruits which they do not plant. Farewell, then, to all the embellishments and splendours by which civilised man breathes his mind and his soul into nature. For it is not only the genius of rarest intellects which adorns and aggrandises social states, but the aspirations and the efforts of thousands and millions, all towards the advance and uplifting and beautifying of the integral, universal state, by the energies native to each. Where would be the world fit for Traceys and Grays to dwell in, if all men philo

sophised like the Traceys and the Grays? Where all the gracious arts, all the generous rivalries of mind, that deck and animate the bright calm of peace? Where all the devotion, heroism, self-sacrifice in a common cause, that exalt humanity even amidst the rage and deformities of war, if, throughout well-ordered, close - welded states, there ran not electrically, from breast to breast, that love of honour which is a part of man's sense of beauty, or that instinct towards utility which, even more than the genius too exceptional to be classed amongst the normal regulations of social law, creates the marvels of mortal progress? Not, however, I say, did I then address to myself these healthful and manly questions. I felt only that I repined, and looked with mournful and wearied eyes along an agitated, painful, laborious past. Rousing myself with an effort from these embittered contemplations, the charm of the external nature insensibly refreshed and gladdened me. inhaled the balm of an air sweet with flowers, felt the joy of the summer sun, from which all life around seemed drawing visible happiness, and said to myself gaily, "At least to-day is mine- this blissful sunlit day—

'Nimium breves Flores amænæ ferre jube rose, Dum res et ætas et sororum,

Fila trium patiuntur atra !'"

I

So murmuring, I rose as from a dream, and saw before me a strange figure-a figure, uncouth, sinister, ominous as the evil genius that startled Brutus on the eve of Philippi. I knew by an unmistakable instinct that that figure was an evil genius.

"Do you want me? Who and what are you?" I asked, falteringly. "Please your honour, I come express from the N Station. A telegram."

I opened the scrap of paper extended to me, and read these words,

"O

positively brings on his motion. Announced it last night too late for post. Division certain -probably before dinner. Every vote wanted. Come directly."

Said the Express with a cruel glee, as I dropped the paper, "Sir, the station-master also received a telegram to send over a fly. I have brought one; only just in time to catch the half-past twelve o'clock; no other train till six. You had best be quick, sir."

No help for it. I hurried back to the house, bade my servant follow by the next train with my portmanteau-no moments left to wait for packing; found Tracey in his quiet study-put the telegram into his hands. "You see my excuseadieu."

"Does this motion, then, interest you so much? Do you mean to speak on it?"

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No, but it must not be carried. Every vote against it is of consequence. Besides, I have promised to vote, and cannot stay away with honour."

"Honour! That settles it. I must go to Bellevue alone; or shall I take Caleb and make him teach me Hebrew? But surely you will join me to-morrow, or the next day?"

66 Yes, if I can. But heavens!" (glancing at the clock)-" not half an hour to reach the station-six miles off. Kindest regards to Lady Gertrude - poor Clara-Henry and all. Heaven bless you!"

I

I am in the fly-I am off. gain the station just in time for the train-arrive at the House of Commons in more than time as to a vote, for the debate not only lasted all that night, but was adjourned till the next week, and lasted the greater part of that, when it was withdrawn, and-no vote at all!

But I could not then return to Tracey. Every man accustomed to business in London knows how, once there, hour after hour, arises a something that will not allow him to depart. When at length freed, I knew Tracey would no longer

VOL. XCIII.-NO. DLXIX.

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need my companionship-his Swedish philosopher was then with him. They were deep in scientific mysteries, on which, as I could throw no light, I should be but a profane intruder. Besides, I was then summoned to my own country place, and had there to receive my own guests, long pre-engaged. So passed the rest of the summer; in the autumn I went abroad, and have never visited the Castle of Indolence since those golden days. In truth I resisted a frequent and a haunting desire to do so. I felt that a second and a longer sojourn in that serene but relaxing atmosphere might unnerve me for the work which I had imposed on myself, and sought to persuade my tempted conscience was an inexorable duty. Experience had taught me that in the sight of that intellectual repose, so calm and so dreamily happy, my mind became unsettled, and nourished seeds that might ripen to discontent of the lot I had chosen for myself. So then, sicut meus est mos, I seize a consolation for the loss of enjoyments that I may not act anew by living them over again, in fancy and remembrance: I give to my record the title of "Motive Power," though it contains much episodical to that thesis, and though it rather sports around the subject so indicated than subjects it to strict analy sis. But I here take for myself the excuse I have elsewhere made for Montaigne, in his loose observance of the connection between the matter and the titles of his essays.

I must leave it to the reader to blame or acquit me for having admitted so many lengthy descriptions, so many digressive turns and shifts of thought and sentiment, through which, as through a labyrinth, he winds his way, with steps often checked and often retrogressive, still, sooner or later, creeping on to the heart of the maze. There I leave him to find the way out. Labyrinths have no interest if we give the clue to them.

MRS CLIFFORD'S MARRIAGE.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.-THE LADIES' OPINION.

"You don't mean to say she's going to be married-not Mary? I don't believe a word of it. She was too fond of her poor husband who put such trust in her. No, no, child-don't tell such nonsense to me."

So said old Miss Harwood when the dreadful intelligence was first communicated to her. The two old sisters, who were both charitable old souls, and liked to think the best of everybody, were equally distressed about this piece of village scandal. "I don't say anything about her poor husband-he was a fool to trust so much to a woman of her age," said Miss Amelia; "but in my opinion Mary Clifford has sense to know when she's well off." The very idea made the sisters angry: a woman with five thousand a-year, with five fine children, with the handsomest house and most perfect little establishment within twenty miles of Summerhayes; a widow, with nobody to cross or contradict her, with her own way and will to her heart's content-young enough to be still admired and paid attention to, and old enough to indulge in those female pleasures without any harm coming of it; to think of a woman in such exceptionally blessed circumstances stooping her head under the yoke, and yielding a second time to the subjection of marriage, was more than either of the Miss Harwoods could believe.

"But I believe it's quite true— indeed, I know it's quite true," said the curate's little wife. "Mr Spencer heard it first from the Miss Summerhayes, who did not know what to think-their own brother, you know; and yet they couldn't forget that poor dear Mr Clifford was their cousin; and then they

are neither of them married themselves, poor dears, which makes them harder upon her."

"We have never been married," said Miss Amelia; "I don't see what difference that makes. It is amusing to see the airs you little creatures give yourselves on the strength of being married. I suppose you think it's all right—it's a compliment to her first husband, eh? and shows she was happy with him?-that's what the men say when they take a second wife; that's how you would do I suppose, if

"Oh, Miss Amelia, don't be so cruel," cried the little wife. "I should die. Do you think I could ever endure to live without Julius? I don't understand what people's hearts are made of that can do such things: but then," added the little woman, wiping her bright eyes, "Mr Clifford was not like my husband. He was very good, I daresay, and all that but he wasn't

Well, I don't think he was a taking man. He used to sit such a long time after dinner. He used to it's very wicked to be unkind to the dead-but he wasn't the sort of man a woman could break her heart for, you know."

"I should like to know who is," said Miss Amelia. "He left her everything, without making provision for one of the children. He gave her the entire power, like a fool, at her age. He did not deserve anything better; but it appears to me that Mary Clifford has the sense to know when she's well off."

"Well, well!" said old Miss Harwood, "I couldn't have believed it, but now as you go on discussing, I daresay it'll turn out true. When a thing comes so far as to be

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