Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/133



CHAPTER XX.

EACH GENERATION HAS ITS OWN CRITICAL CANONS IN POETRY AS WELL AS IN  POLITICAL CREEDS, FINANCIAL SYSTEMS, OR WHATEVER OTHER CHANGEABLE MATTERS OF TASTE ARE CALLED "SETTLED QUESTIONS" AND "FIXED OPINIONS."

George, musing much over all that his uncle had said respecting Darrell, took his way to Lionel's lodgings. The young man received him with the cordial greeting due from Darrell's kinsman to Colonel Morley's nephew, but tempered by the respect no less due to the distinction and the calling of the eloquent preacher.

Lionel was perceptibly affected by learning that Darrell had thus suddenly returned to the gloomy beech-woods of Fawley; and he evinced his anxious interest in his benefactor with so much spontaneous tenderness of feeling that George, as if in sympathy, warmed into the same theme. "I can well conceive," said he, "your affection for Mr. Darrell. I remember, when I was a boy, how powerfully he impressed me, though I saw but little of him. He was then in the zenith of his career, and had but few moments to give to a boy like me; but the ring of his voice and the flash of his eye sent me back to school, dreaming of fame and intent on prizes. I spent part of one Easter vacation at his house in town; he bade his son, who was my schoolfellow, invite me."

LIONEL.--"You knew his son? How Mr. Darrell has felt that loss!"

GEORGE.--"Heaven often veils its most provident mercy in what to man seems its sternest inflictions. That poor boy must have changed his whole nature, if his life had not, to a father like Mr. Darrell, occasioned grief sharper than his death."

LIONEL.--"You amaze me. Mr. Darrell spoke of him as a boy of great promise."

GEORGE.--"He had that kind of energy which to a father conveys the idea of promise, and which might deceive those older than himself--a fine bright-eyed, bold-tongued boy, with just enough awe of his father to bridle his worst qualities before him."

LIONEL.--"What were those?"

GEORGE.--"Headstrong arrogance--relentless cruelty. He had a pride which would have shamed his father out of