Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 36.djvu/137

 THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY:

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. XXXVI. AUGUST, 1875. No. CCXIV.

RODERICK HUDSON.

vm.

PROVOCATION.

ABOUT a month later, Rowland ad- dressed to his cousin Cecilia a letter of which the following is a portion :

. . . "So much for myself; yet I tell you but a tithe of my own story un- less I let you know how matters stand with poor Hudson, for he gives me more to think about just now than anything else in the world. I need a good deal of courage to begin this subject. You warned me, you know, and I made rath- er light of your warning. I have had all kinds of hopes and fears, but hitherto, in writing to you, I have resolutely put the hopes foremost. Now, however, my pride has forsaken me, and I should like hugely to give expression to a little com- fortable despair. I should like to say, ' My dear wise woman, you were right and I was wrong; you were a shrewd observer and I was a meddlesome don- key ! ' When I think of a little talk we had about the ' salubrity of genius,' I feel my ears tingle. If this is salubrity, give me raging disease ! I 'm pestered to death; I go about with a chronic heart- ache; there are moments when I could shed salt tears. There 's a pretty por- trait of the most placid of men! I wish I could make you understand ; or rather,

I wish you could make me! I don't un- derstand a jot; it 's a hideous, mocking mystery; I give it up! I don't in the least give it up, you know; 1 'm incapa- ble of giving it up. I sit holding my head by the hour, racking my brain, wondering what under heaven is to be done. You told me at Northampton that I took the thing too easily; you would tell me now, perhaps, that I take it too hard. I do, altogether; but it can't be helped. Without flattering my- self, I may say I 'm sympathetic. Many another man before this would have cast his perplexities to the winds and de- clared that Mr. Hudson must lie on his bed as he had made it. Some men, per- haps, would even say that I am making a mighty ado about nothing ; that I have only to give him rope and he will tire himself out. But he tugs at his rope altogether too hard for me to hold it com- fortably. I certainly never pretended the thing was anything else than an experiment; I promised nothing, I an- swered for nothing; I only said the case was hopeful, and that it would be a shame to neglect it. I have done my best, and if the machine is running down I have a right to stand aside and let it scuttle. Amen, amen ! No, I can write that, but I can't feel it. I can't be just; I can only be generous. I love the poor fellow and I can't give him up. As for understand-

Copyright, H. 0. HOUQHTON & Co. 1875.