perilous and fair as calypso is the imagination to the mind of man. a strong soul girds the elf in tender subjection. like wine, the imagination fires the senses; they are saffron spray bubbling in an iris bowl, red poppies smothered in an ecstasy of green, stars, diamonds, and the long glimmer of a moonlit sea. odors beat upon the imaginative brain; colors burn its vision. like a siren’s voice falls the chant of the wind through the rose-red halls of summer. to the poet the world leaps like a young lover into the bosom of the sunset. seas clamor and the stars tune their strings.
gabriel was an imaginative man. his heart’s cords were subtle, swift, and mystical. songs born of the infinite strangeness of beauty were ever throbbing at his ear. his senses were as godly as apollo’s. the scent of a pinewood smote him from afar. he could watch a hawk hovering a glimmering speck beneath the clouds. he was quick and virile, strung to the tense tones of beauty, red and blithe with the blood of june.
with too precocious a wisdom in the vanities of earth, a semi-byronic cynicism had marred his manhood. like joan, he had supped too richly in his april days. knowledge had bred contempt. to gabriel women were so many roses, each with a canker under the petals. he had been unfortunate in his experimental philosophy. no superb contradiction had as yet given his shallow pessimism the lie. he had met women, but not a woman. no shakespearian divinity had shamed the cynicism out of his manhood. to him sarah golightly of the gayety, or mrs. marjoy of saltire, or the numberless worthy daughters of uninteresting neighbors were equally null and unlovable. a melancholy being, he had brought himself to the belief that there were no britomarts in the woman’s world of the day. he believed in the possibility of womanly loveliness, adored the ideal beatrice devoutly, but never prognosticated the flitting of a goddess athwart his earthly path.
on the identical afternoon that mrs. marjoy was waxing charitable over the moral deficiencies of her acquaintances, gabriel and his sister judith were sessioned in the little red drawing-room at the hall. john strong had driven into rilchester, leaving the pair to no unwelcome solitude. saltire hall seemed to breathe anew through its quaint casements and antique galleries when its most victorian master had vanished for a season.
now judith strong was the one woman in the world who reclaimed her brother from the charge of callow pessimism. she was one of those grave, lovable, stately beings who shed over the world a lustre of truth. with hair of red gold, eyes dark and contemplative, a complexion delicately pale, she bore upon her face the benign and tender divineness of a young madonna. her soul was clear and calm as a crystal sky. a sympathetic wisdom had dowered her with a charm that graced her womanhood like a crown of pearls. to gabriel she was sister, friend, and mother. the two loved each other with an inseparable tenderness that was, indeed, christian. judith had learned to comprehend the subtler instincts of her brother’s nature. he was no ordinary man, in her opinion, and she was jealous for his happiness as for her own faith. but for judith saltire would have been a dry desert to the man’s soul.
they had been singing together that afternoon certain old ballads and glees that would have kindled the pepysian ardor. judith’s long, lithe fingers were magical on the keys. her whole being begot music. gabriel had listened to her playing that afternoon with infinite sympathy of soul. she seemed as spiritual to him, as he sat in the window-seat and watched her, as some fair woman stolen from rossetti’s brain.
they partook of tea together by the open window, where roses nodded against a gossamer veil of gold. gardens stretched below into the wastes of the woods, a dim maze of yews and lilacs, laurels and stately firs. it was like some tuscan landscape spread in quaint loveliness upon one of angelico’s frescoes. mystery brooded on the air. the warm hush of the summer noon was unbroken save by the distant sound of reaping in the meadows.
judith and her brother were in a solemn humor. music had inspired them to still thought and tenderness of mood. brother and sister, woman and man, they were glad of each other’s sympathy, grateful for solitude and unbroken union of soul. judith had long been troubled in her heart for her brother’s future. she knew too well the sensitive necessity that watched over such a mind as his. all women are fearful of prophesying pain for those they love. and judith feared in measure for her brother.
“gabriel,” she said, anon, with her stately and simple directness of expression, “it is strange to me that you do not tire of this place and the sameness of its ways. small decorums and small circles seem so foreign to your nature. it is a year since you were in italy. you must chafe at times in saltire. i should have thought liberty essential to a man of your temper.”
her brother smiled at her with an amused melancholy that often found expression on his face.
“you mean that i am too much here?” he said.
“not for us, dear. but you are a man of talent, and—”
she hesitated a moment, gazing with an intensity of thought into the blue distance.
“well?”
“my words were running over fast.”
“my dear girl, say anything you like to me; you are too honest for me to be offended.”
judith drew her chair nearer to his, and, leaning her elbows on its arms, looked into her brother’s face.
“it is not good for a man to live always at home,” she said.
“is it my fault?”
“no. i know father desires to keep you here. he is proud of you, and ambitious—god pardon me—in a mistaken way. but then, my dear gabriel, a father must recognize the individual personality of his son. he can only wrong him till he treats him as a fellow-man and not as a child. both of you may suffer through your amiable apathy.”
“go on.”
“i do not pain you?”
“no, dear.”
“you see, a man to be a man must work out his destiny alone. he must not pander to mere blood relationships. and i am so proud of you that i would not have your character weakened by too much kindly sloth. you cannot develop here as you should. you think too much, see too little. and then—”
“go on, dear.”
“father is a good man, but prejudiced. he does not understand you. and, my dear boy, one must beware of prejudiced affections; they are stable only so long as we please the bestower. i know father wants to make a county gentleman of you, an m.p., and the like. he does not want you to work. and there i disagree with him. he will cramp your intellect and soul if you are not careful.”
gabriel looked in her eyes and smiled.
“you fond traitor!” he said.
“no, i am not that,” she answered. “i only want to save you both pain in the future. it is not likely that you will be content to be a boy forever. some strong circumstance must inevitably set you at variance with father’s prejudices. then will come struggle and rebellion, anger and reproaches, and sad days. you are a strong man, only you do not respect your strength. i do not think that you realize your responsibilities towards yourself. filial obedience is good, but honest and manly independence is better.”
they were silent a moment as in mutual thought. a slight breeze stirred the roses; the noise of reaping waxed in the meadows.
“where did you gather all this wisdom, little woman?”
“from my instincts, dear. instincts are a woman’s reason. i have been thinking much, debating much in my mind. and i am not at ease as to your future. pardon me.”
gabriel reached for judith’s hand. his bronzed fingers clasped her white ones. they looked into each other’s eyes.
“what would you have me do?” he asked.
“not surrender to father’s whims in everything. emancipate yourself by degrees; teach him to respect your individuality; prepare him to recognize your freedom.”
“yes.”
“choose your own sphere; you are six-and-twenty. ask him for an allowance; travel a year or two; work and develop your own powers.”
gabriel pressed her hand.
“any more?”
“and oh, gabriel, don’t let him marry you off-hand from worldly and ambitious motives. be a man; think and choose for yourself. don’t give up your soul to a girl because for one month she seems lovely and desirable.”
the man’s face clouded even in the sun.
“you are very frank with me,” he said.
“i am your sister, and i love you.”
“you are a good woman, dear, and i will ponder what you have said to me.”
“and you are not hurt?”
“who is hurt by a good woman’s love?”
strangely enough, that same evening, over his after-dinner port, john strong expounded his principles with regard to the union of the sexes.
“there are many mistaken notions abroad about matrimony,” he said, snuffing the smoke from a favorite cigar. “people drag too much silly sentimentalism into the question. what is marriage but a delicate investment in flesh. i know life, and i give you my word, my boy, that there’s precious little difference between women when you come to study them in detail. one is tall, another short, some pretty, some plain; they all have tempers, they all love dress, they are all vain—much of a muchness. love is generally a hysterical prejudice. take my advice and marry by reason.”
gabriel besought further paternal advice on the subject. his father expanded. he loved dogmatism and was in his element.
“take a practical view of the question,” he said. “when i see a fine, handsome, good-tempered girl, born of good stock into an excellent social position, possessing grit and savoir faire, then i say to myself, ‘wise william who secures that investment.’ that, sir, is what i call a reasonable marriage.”
gabriel meditated a moment over his claret.
“you do not believe in the worth of the deeper sentiments?” he said.
“poetry, sir, is very well between calf covers and gold lettering, but for god’s sake keep poetical notions out of plain, honest existence. they are ruinous.”
“you think so?”
“i don’t theorize. i know.”
gabriel smiled one of his melancholy smiles. traitor to his own craft, he half believed his father’s dictum to be true. his pessimism with regard to the present levelled his expectations to a mundane tone. sentiment might have suited a laura or a fiametta. it was obsolete according to modern notions. an up-to-date woman did not stand in need of poetry and heroics.
“too much nonsense is talked,” john strong continued, “on mental attraction, psychical magnetism, and the like. common-sense is the thing. consider women as so many nuts. take any one, it doesn’t matter much which, provided it is not worm-eaten. and if one particular nut has a golden shell, nab it, my boy, and don’t talk about psychology. poetical impracticabilities have ruined plenty of clever men. so long as a woman has a pretty face, a healthy body, and a fairly amiable mind, don’t you grumble. give her good pin-money and plenty of honest animal affection and she’ll do. we’ve got to live in this world, not dream.”
