Eugene Pickering | Page 9

sea, where we must plunge and dive and feel the breeze

and breast the waves. I stand shivering here on the brink, staring,
longing, wondering, charmed by the smell of the brine and yet afraid of
the water. The world beckons and smiles and calls, but a nameless
influence from the past, that I can neither wholly obey nor wholly resist,
seems to hold me back. I am full of impulses, but, somehow, I am not
full of strength. Life seems inspiring at certain moments, but it seems
terrible and unsafe; and I ask myself why I should wantonly measure
myself with merciless forces, when I have learned so well how to stand
aside and let them pass. Why shouldn't I turn my back upon it all and
go home to--what awaits me?- -to that sightless, soundless country life,
and long days spent among old books? But if a man IS weak, he doesn't
want to assent beforehand to his weakness; he wants to taste whatever
sweetness there may be in paying for the knowledge. So it is that it
comes back--this irresistible impulse to take my plunge--to let myself
swing, to go where liberty leads me." He paused a moment, fixing me
with his excited eyes, and perhaps perceived in my own an irrepressible
smile at his perplexity. "'Swing ahead, in Heaven's name,' you want to
say, 'and much good may it do you.' I don't know whether you are
laughing at my scruples or at what possibly strikes you as my depravity.
I doubt," he went on gravely, "whether I have an inclination toward
wrong-doing; if I have, I am sure I shall not prosper in it. I honestly
believe I may safely take out a license to amuse myself. But it isn't that
I think of, any more than I dream of, playing with suffering. Pleasure
and pain are empty words to me; what I long for is knowledge--some
other knowledge than comes to us in formal, colourless, impersonal
precept. You would understand all this better if you could breathe for
an hour the musty in-door atmosphere in which I have always lived. To
break a window and let in light and air--I feel as if at last I must ACT!"
"Act, by all means, now and always, when you have a chance," I
answered. "But don't take things too hard, now or ever. Your long
confinement makes you think the world better worth knowing than you
are likely to find it. A man with as good a head and heart as yours has a
very ample world within himself, and I am no believer in art for art, nor
in what's called 'life' for life's sake. Nevertheless, take your plunge, and
come and tell me whether you have found the pearl of wisdom." He
frowned a little, as if he thought my sympathy a trifle meagre. I shook
him by the hand and laughed. "The pearl of wisdom," I cried, "is love;

honest love in the most convenient concentration of experience! I
advise you to fall in love." He gave me no smile in response, but drew
from his pocket the letter of which I have spoken, held it up, and shook
it solemnly. "What is it?" I asked.
"It is my sentence!"
"Not of death, I hope!"
"Of marriage."
"With whom?"
"With a person I don't love."
This was serious. I stopped smiling, and begged him to explain.
"It is the singular part of my story," he said at last. "It will remind you
of an old-fashioned romance. Such as I sit here, talking in this wild way,
and tossing off provocations to destiny, my destiny is settled and sealed.
I am engaged, I am given in marriage. It's a bequest of the past--the
past I had no hand in! The marriage was arranged by my father, years
ago, when I was a boy. The young girl's father was his particular friend;
he was also a widower, and was bringing up his daughter, on his side,
in the same severe seclusion in which I was spending my days. To this
day I am unacquainted with the origin of the bond of union between
our respective progenitors. Mr. Vernor was largely engaged in business,
and I imagine that once upon a time he found himself in a financial
strait and was helped through it by my father's coming forward with a
heavy loan, on which, in his situation, he could offer no security but his
word. Of this my father was quite capable. He was a man of dogmas,
and he was sure to have a rule of life--as clear as if it had been written
out in his beautiful copper-plate hand--adapted to the conduct of a
gentleman toward a friend in pecuniary embarrassment. What is more,
he