The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II. Lever Charles James
is to be won by waiting, – nothing more, Michel, – nothing more, believe me, than mere waiting! “All that you tell me, therefore, about titles and dignities, and so forth, is premature. With patience you will be enabled to assume all, from which a momentary precipitation would infallibly see you repulsed. A few of your leading men still cling to the ruinous notion of elevating Ireland; for Heaven’s sake cease not to combat this. It is the Church – the Church alone – for which we combat. Her difficulties are enough, without linking her fortune to such a sinking destiny! you have many able men amongst you, and they ought to see this proposition in its true light. “You are right – though you only threw it out in jest – about the interest I feel for my little Princess and her brother. It was the charity of a relative of theirs – a certain Mr. Godfrey – that first gave me the entrance into my career. He sent me to Louvain as a boy, and thence to Salamanca, and afterwards to Borne. He paid liberally for my education, and I believe intended, had he lived, to have provided handsomely for me. The story has an ugly ending; at least the rumors are gloomy ones; and I would rather not revive their memory. Here have I fallen into a sad track of thought, dear Michel; and now it is past midnight, and all is silent about me, and I feel half as if I ought to tell you everything, and yet that everything resolves itself into nothing; for of my actual knowledge, I possess not one single fact “Can you conceive the position of a man with a great, a glorious future before him, – rewards the very highest his wildest ambition ever fancied, – a sphere to exercise powers that he feels within, and but needing a field for their display? Picture to yourself such a man, and then fancy him tortured by one terrible suspicion, one damning doubt, – that there is a flaw in his just title to all this; that some day or other there may rise up against him – he knows not how or whence or why – from the very earth as it were, a voice to say, ‘you are disowned, disgraced, – you are infamous before men!’ Such a terrible hell have I carried for years within me! Yes, Michel, this ulcer is eating at my very heart, and yet it is only like a vision of evil, – some mind-drawn picture, carried up from infancy through boyhood, and stealing on, year by year, into the prime of life, strengthening its ties on me like a malady. “You will say this is a diseased imagination, – the fruits of an overworked brain, or, not improbably, the result of an overwrought vanity, that would seek consolation for failures in the dim regions of superstition. It may be so; and yet I have found this terror beset me more in the seasons of my strength and activity than in those of sickness and depression. Could I have given a shape and color to my thoughts, I might have whispered them in the confessional, and sought some remedy against their pain; but I could not. They flash on my waking faculties like the memories of a recent dream. I half doubt that they are not real, and look around me for the evidences of some change in my condition. I tremble at the first footstep that draws near my door, lest the new-comer should bring the tidings of my downfall! “I was at Borne – a student of the Irish college – when this cloud first broke over me. Some letter came from Ireland, – some document containing a confession, I believe. I was summoned before the superiors, and questioned as to my family, of which I knew nothing; and as to my means, of which I could tell as little. My attainments at the college were inquired into, and a strict scrutiny aa to my conduct; but though both were above reproach, not a word of commendation escaped them; on the contrary, I overheard, amid their whisperings, the terrible word ‘degradato!’ You can fancy how my heart sank within me at a phrase so significant of shame and debasement! “I was told the next morning that my patron was dead, and that, having no longer the means to support the charges of a student, I should become a ‘laico;’ in other words, a species of servant in the college. These were dreadful tidings; but they were short of what I feared. There was nothing said of ‘degradation.’ I struggled, however, against the hardship of the sentence, – I appealed to my proficiency in study, the prizes I had won, the character I bore, and so on; but although a few months more would have seen me qualified for the priesthood, my prayer was rejected, and I was made a ‘laico.’ Two months afterwards I was sent to the convent of ‘Espiazione,’ at Ancona. Many of my early letters have told you the sufferings of that life! – the awful punishments of that gloomy prison, where all are ‘degradati,’ and where none are to be found save men stained with the foulest crimes. I was seventeen months there, – a ‘laico,’ – a servant of the meanest class, – no consolation of study, no momentary solace in tracing others’ thoughts to relieve the horrible solitude of my own. Labor – incessant debasing labor – my lot from day till dawn. “I have no clew to the nature of my guilt I declare solemnly before Heaven, as I write these lines, that I am not conscious of a crime, save such as the confessional has expiated; and yet the ritual of my daily life implied such. The offices and litanies I had to repeat, the penances I suffered, were those of the ‘Espiazione!’ I dare not trust myself to recall this terrible period, – the only rebellious sentiment my heart has ever known sprang from that tortured existence. As an humble priest in the wildest regions of Alpine snow, as a missionary among the most barbarous tribes, I could have braved hardships, want, death itself; but as the ‘de-gradato,’ dragging out life in failing strength, with faculties each day weaker, watching the ebb of intellect, and wondering how near I was to that moping idiocy about me, and whether in that state suffering and sorrow slept! Oh, Michel! my hands tremble, and the tears blot the paper as I write. Can this ordeal ever work for good? The mass sink into incurable insanity, – a few, like myself, escape; and how do they come back into the world? I speak not of other changes; but what hardness of the heart is engendered by extreme suffering, what indifference to the miseries of others I How compassionless do we become to griefs that are nothing to those we have ourselves endured! you know well that mine has not been a life of indolence, that I have toiled hard and long in the cause of our faith, and yet I have never been able to throw off the dreary influence of that conventual existence. In the excitement of political intrigue I remember it least; in the whirlwind of passions by which men are moved, I can for a time forget the cell, the penance, and the chain. I have strong resentments, too, Michel. I would make them feel that to him they sentenced once to ‘degradation’ must they now come for advice and guidance, – that the poor ‘laico’ can now sit at their councils and direct their acts. There is something so glorious in the tyranny of Rome, so high above the petty sovereignty of mere kings, soaring beyond the bounds of realms and states, crossing Alps and oceans, proclaiming its proud edicts in the great cities of Europe, declaring its truths in the silent forests of the Far West, stirring the heart of the monarch on his throne, thrilling the rugged breast of the Indian in his wigwam, that even to bear a banner in its ranks is a noble privilege. And now I come back to these children, with whose fortunes I feel myself – I know not how – bound up. They were related to this Mr. Godfrey, and that, perchance, may be the secret link which binds us. The girl might have won a grand destiny, – she had beauty, grace, fascination, all that men prize in these days of ours; but there was no high ambition, – nothing beyond the thirst for personal admiration. I watched her anxiously and long. There was a weak goodness about her heart, too, that gave no promise of self-sacrifice. Such, however, as she is, she is mine. As for the boy, I saw him yesterday for the first time; but he cannot be a difficult conquest. Again I hear you ask me, why can I turn from great events and stirring themes to think of these? and again I own that I cannot tell you. Power over every one, the humblest as the highest, the weakest in purpose and the strongest of heart, – power to send forth or to restrain, to crush or to exalt, – this is the prize of those who, like you and me, walk humbly, that we may reign proudly. “And now, dear Michel, good-bye. I have made you a confession, and if I have told little, the fault is not mine. You know all my sentiments on great events, – my hopes and my anticipations. I must leave this to-morrow, or the day after, for there is much to do beyond the Alps. If kings and kaisers but knew as much as we poor priests, the coming would scarce be a merry Christmas with them.
“Yours, in all truth and brotherhood,
“Mathew D’Esmonde.
“Feast of St Pancratras, Hof Thor, Vienna.”
It was already daybreak when D’Esmonde finished his letter; but, instead of retiring to bed, he opened his window, and sat enjoying the fresh air of the morning. Partly from habit, he opened his book of “offices;” but his eyes wandered, even from the oft-repeated lines, to the scene before him, – the spreading glacis, – where already the troops were mustering for parade. “What a strange thing is courage!” thought he.