Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 8th June 1850, Edition Country of 1, Page 20, We should do our utmost to encourage the...

Page 20
Page 20
20 of 24

On this page

  • Departments (1)
    • pntthlin.
  • Text (5)
  • Transcript

    • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

      Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

      260 1&\)T &Tdlt}$T. ^Saturday,

      260 1 &\) t & tdLt } $ t . ^ Saturday ,

      Pntthlin.

      pntthlin .

      We Should Do Our Utmost To Encourage The...

      We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . — Goethe

      Vesta. No ; I Did Not Marry You That You...

      VESTA . No ; I did not marry you That you should enslave my soul j And this right is somewhat new Of an absolute control . Most ignoble is the thought , "Very false the word you say ; Soul and body was I bought On that dreadful marriage day ! No ; in my pure womanhood , I belong to none on earth . Henceforth be it understood That we are of equal birth . Man art thou and woman I ; Soul and body are our own ; We must live and we must die Sovrans of ourselves alone . Tread rebellious passion down ; Purity is man ' s best grace : Fiery gaze and wrathful frown Drive the godlike from his face . Xiearn , dear friend , a nobler lore , Marriage has a sacred dread ; Holy as she was before , Is the maid when she is wed . M .

      The Apprenticeship Of Life. B* G. Ii. Le...

      THE APPRENTICESHIP OF LIFE . B * G . II . LEWES . Chap . XI . —The Rusty Nail . Gagged , bound hand and foot , powerless to call for assistance , powerless to defend himself , Armand lay upon the ground , amidst the angry ruffians who were about to murder him . The lamp had fallen in the struggle , and darkness now lent additional horror to the scene . Curses were mingled with contradictory propositions . A few urged the impolicy of murdering him , and were answered with scornful laughter or with energetic threats . In the minds of the majority the only doubt seemed to be , as to how he should be killed , and how the * body should be disposed of . In the midst of this uj > roar the door was burst open , and a voice exclaimed : — " Renaudot , Renaudot ! quick ! here ' s Lefranc ! " There was a shuffling and scrambling of feet , and in a few seconds Armand was left alone , and the door closed upon him . A confused hubbub of voices sounded from the other room . Any reprieve , if only instantaneous , makes the heart of a man bound with pulses of extravagant hope , and the momentary absence of his enemies gave Armand hope . In a few minutes all was silent . He listened anxiously , but not a sound came to him . It was quite evident they had left the room . For how long ? for what purpose ? He could not imagine ; but it was enough for him that they were gone . He remained for at least an hour—it seemed a day—awaiting their return . Finding they did not return he began to familiarize his mind to the idea that they would not return . The idea seemed extravagant at h ' , but at last it seemed quite plausible . The hours rolled on as he lay there hoping , despairing , plotting , but helpless . At times he resigned himself to death as the easiest issue from the complexity of moral dilemma in which he was involved by his love for Adrienne ; resigned himself with that feeling of weary despair with which our cowardice sometimes oppresses us in front of a difficulty we sec no chance of escaping . Why should he wish to live without Adrienne ? Live with her he could not . Were it not better for him to perish then than to live on eating his heart , making llortense miserable , Adrienne miserable , himself miserable ? But such thoughts were chased away again by others ; the instinct of selfpreservation rose against them ; and in his rage he bit the handkerchief which tied his mouth . That suggested an idea to him . He bit , and bit again . In a little while he had bitten it through , and it fell off . Should he call for assistance ? If his enemies were still in the house that would only bring on his destruction . Ho resolved to efteet his own deliverance if possible Rolling himself towards a chair , he placed it against the wall , and by pressing the leg upon the handkerchief which hound his hands behind him hoped to be able to tear it . It resisted all his efforts , lie was in too cramped a position to use the proper force ; and after a long struggle he gave it up as impossible . He sank back battled an furious . At that moment his coat was torn by a nail protruding from the floor . Never did sound more welcome strike upon human ear . lie groped about until he ascertained the position of this nail , and having ascertained it , was not long before ho had torn the handkerchief in shreds . His hands were free I But as he began untying that which bound his legs , he was startled by the sound of voices and footsteps . They were ascending the stairs , they were returning to despatch him 1 In hi * agitation he twisted the knot tighter

      ¦ instead of loosening it . The door of the first room opened . His heart throbbed violently , as he wrenched the handkerchief in vain . Could he but once free his legs , he might have a desperate struggle for his life . Armed . with a chair he might knock dov / n the first who approached , and as they were not expecting to find him free the unexpectedness of the attack would give him an advantage . But the bonds were not to be loosed ! He gnashed his teeth , as he heard the door open , and still felt himself powerless . " Holloa" exclaimed a voice , " Nobody here . " " The whole place in darkness , " added another . " They must have been informed . Perhaps Lefranc called on his way to tell them . " " Well , " said a third , " let us lose no more time , or else the attack will be made without us . " They all left . Armand , who had remained breathless , crouching at the far end of the room , and whose eyes were familiar with the darkness so that he saw them who could not see him , now with wild and throbbing heart saw them retire and heard them hurry down stairs . He guessed it all . Renaudot and the rest formed part of a club , and that club had evidently determined upon some immediate action which called them away . Hastily loosening the knot , he now really found himself free and having allowed the last visitors time to quit the house , he quietly walked out of it , and hastened homewards . Chap . XII . —The Sacrifice . Let us return to Hortense , we have seen but little of her lately . There is something so saddening in the contemplation of decaying love , that I may be excused for having hurried over it , contenting myself with merely indicating the fact . Why linger over scenes painful in themselves , and leading to no fresh truth or wiser moral ? Hortense had foreseen—too clearly foreseen—that the time would come when Armand ' s love would fail her ; and that terrible clear-sightedness had , perhaps , hastened its arrival , for by rendering her jealous and suspicious of her own powers of pleasing it rendered her less pleasing : it cramped her moral development , as restraint always does ; it threw up a slight barrier between them . Strange , indeed , was their position . He was uniformly kind to her , both in thought and manner , for his was a kind and generous nature ; but this very kindness often seemed to her the proof that he no longer loved her , it seemed like a conscious reparation of the involuntary wrong his heart was guilty of towards her . They were both unhappy , because both felt the misery of their position ; but there was nothing ignoble or degrading in it . They never quarrelled . They did not disgrace their lives with those wretched squabbles in which we trample out the last few sparks of affection , and having killed love , also kill respect , esteem , and confidence : squabbles in . which our uneasy consciousness of wrong strives to throw upon another the burden of our guilt , and vents its exasperation in those burning cruel words which crush the ideal in our hearts , and which no after explanation or repentance can efface . Yet do not think the chain was lighter because borne with greater fortitude ! On one side and on the other there was the constant , bitter retrospective glance , which told them of the rashness and the folly of their past , a bitter prospective glance which showed them all the misery of their future . What a deep and saddening shame , what a deep disheartening shame is that which humbles us in looking back upon the past , and leading thereas in characters of fire traced on its dark curtain—the legible process of our destinies , as they are swayed by our unreflecting acts , the terrible reprisals of Consequence taken on our Folly or our Vice ! To look upon that Yesterday from this To-day , and while seeing with painful distinctness how irresistibly each consequence has followed each act , and at the same time to see how we ourselves are the authors of our own sorrow , and how easily all might have otherwise ! The Yesterday which cannot be recalled—the folly which cannot be undone—the rash word which cannot be unspoken—the crime which cannot be recalled—how it saddens and humbles us ! Why docs it not also better us , and make the future less like the past ? Poor human nature ! moved by impulses divine and devilish , with the sad privilege of looking back upon and weeping over follies and errors which we rise from our tears to perpetrate as before ! Bitter , bitter tears did Hortense shed in secret over her waning charms , believing that , could they continue , Armand ' s love would continue also . But when she saw that he loved Adrienne , a new resolution grew up slowly in her soul . She watched Adrienne with greater jealousy than ever a fond mother watched the character of her son ' s betrothed striving to read the prospects of future happiness . Having thoroughly convinced herself that ^ Armand loved Adrienne , and that she was one capable of making him happy , a noble thought of self-sacrifice began to haunt her . The vision constantly recurred of the old Baronnc seated in her high backed chair on that solemn evening when unfolding the experience of a happy existence . She told Hortense that the one great heroism in her life had been self-sacrifice ; and Hortense vowed if the hour of trial came she would do more than lay down her life for Armand—she would lay down her love for him . She now , in sickness of heart , prepared to execute that vow . As Armand returned home that night , having escaped assassination in the manner we have seen , he saw a letter lying on the table . The well-known hand made him tremble as he broke the seal . It was from llortense , and ran thus : " My own beloved ! I need tlie greatest calmness to write what I must write , ami my heart is agitated to its very depths . Try to understand me .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), June 8, 1850, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08061850/page/20/