Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/825

Rh his panoply of self-content, and grasping facts with unequalled tenacity, goes on trampling upon acuter sensibilities, but somehow shouldering his way successfully through the troubles of the universe. Strength may be combined with stupidity, but even then it is not to be trifled with. Macaulay's sympathy with these qualities led to some annoying peculiarities, to a certain brutal insularity, and to a commonness, sometimes a vulgarity of style which is easily criticised. But, at least, we must confess that, to use an epithet which always comes up in speaking of him, he is a thoroughly manly writer. There is nothing silly or finical about him. He sticks to his colours resolutely and honourably. If he flatters his countrymen, it is the unconscious and spontaneous effect of his participation in their weaknesses. He never knowingly calls black white, or panders to an ungenerous sentiment. He is combative to a fault, but his combativeness is allied to a genuine love of fair play. When he hates a man, he calls him knave or fool with unflinching frankness, but he never uses a base weapon. The wounds which he inflicts may hurt, but they do not fester. His patriotism may be narrow, but it implies faith in the really good qualities, the manliness, the spirit of justice, and the strong moral sense of his countrymen. He is proud of the healthy, vigorous stock from which he springs, and the fervour of his enthusiasm, though it may shock a delicate taste, has embodied itself in writings which will long continue to be the typical illustration of qualities of which we are all proud at bottom—indeed, be it said in passing, a good deal too proud.

 

Mrs. Rushbrooke had gone, Jane sat silent and stirless for a little while; then she took a letter out of her pocket, smiling softly and tenderly to herself as she did so. It was the same letter that she had received, and cried over, on that afternoon when the rector had called.

It was a love-letter, and it was very long; two reasons why it would be a mistake to inflict it upon the reader in its entirety. But a portion of it may save the trouble of explanation.

"I am weary of writing" (this was about the middle of the letter), "and yet I feel that I have said nothing, and worse than that, that it will make no difference to you whether I have or not. I wonder sometimes what you feel when you are reading one of my letters. I try to put myself in your place, to imagine that it is I who receive from you page after page of warm, strong, living love; and it seems to me that if I could have one sentence of real affection, written straight from your heart to mine, I should be too grateful to eat, or sleep, or do anything at all but think of it I do not think I should be happy, not at first; I should be too much stirred for happiness.

"Is it that you cannot love me? or is it, as I suspect sometimes, that you will not? For four years my whole life has been yours; and because I may not know whether you will ever accept that life, it grows less worthy of acceptance. I confess, and with more of sorrow than of shame, that I am growing unworthy of my own self; that my thoughts are given up to weak, idle dreaming-away of all that God has given me, or bid me hope for. Health of soul and mind and body, light and strength and peace, all seem slipping away from me. I have fought with myself; I can, and do still fight; but not with any certainty of victory.

"I think I have never before betrayed to you so completely how weak I can be as in these last pages. I do it with a purpose. It will not move you. I do not even hope this, but it will explain to you one of my strongest reasons for begging you to grant me another interview. Do not refuse me. (Do you know how long it is since I have seen you? And yet you are so present with me that it seems as if it had been but yesterday.) But I must see you again. I go to London to-morrow, and I return on the 10th. Will meet me about six o'clock in the you evening of the 11th? At the old place, Jane; by the river, beyond Mossbridge.

"You say in your letter that this clandestine intercourse, this secret correspondence, lowers you in your own eyes, embitters your whole life, and even prevents you from doing the good in the world that you might do. Can you not then conceive how it affects me? It seems to me sometimes, when I think of the present state of things, that I must have lost all sense of honour or uprightness before I could descend so far. Yet LIVING AGE. VOL. XIV.