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am I , —heartily glad , —to have in some -way heLped the fulfilment of your desire !—Remember , love , you have an heir—one who wilL uphold tie family name and honour . I know it , I am sure of it ! One child may be a source of pain to you ; the other -will bring nothing but joy and noble pride to your heart ! Bui , —listen to me , dear one , — if it - were otherwise , if you , Frank , and Arundel were all to become madmen—idiotsdo you think / should shrink from you—cease to love yon—regret that you were my husband and my children ? No ! — You are min « , I am yours ! I care not what you are ; be you madman—slave—traitor— -villain—all that the world holds -vilest , Hove you , I am your -wife , and not even your Temorse should drive me from you . Remorse ! Hemorse for wbat you have done to me , ? Ah I Come to the heart that loves you ; there is no pulsation there that is not caused by love far you and the children—fear for you—hope for you ! Do not talk of regret for the past ! There is nothing to regret— " I ought to have been warned !"—say you?—I thank my God that I was not warned ! —Had I been warned , I should not have been yours ; for I did not knowwrhat love meant till after I was your wife . I thank God I -was not warned ; or I might have shrunk from being yours , because you -were stricke-n by Him ? "
Lady Carleton dies . The following extract describes an interview , in long after years , between Lord Caileton and his Jirst love , Margaret Hastings , -who had refused him in her youth on principle . She has struggled nobly , her life long , with hep feelings , her reward is the usual one , —she is supposed to be without feeling . None but a woman could have realised the full suffering of the scene we quote . Miss Hastings is death-stricken when it takes place . He is speaking of Ms late -wife : — " She knew « f our eariy girl and boy attachment , and gave me credit for my taste —and . for my constancy , too . " And le smiled . " New that the feeling has quite
gone , I can speak to you openly on the subject—You , with your quiet , passionless nature , will scarcely credit it , perhaps , but my love for you , or , rather , for my own imagination of you , as a girl , lasted till after my marriage—What absurd mistakes about character we make when we are boys !—1 used , to think you were of a passionate , loving" nature—that your heart controlled yoixr intellect , and would force it to minister to Its demands . In short , I fancied you were what I found Caroline to be ; —It was long before I read your true character in your conduct . A noble , lofty character , —loving -work and science for their own sakes , and for the sake of the . general good—as unselfish in your universal benevolence as Caroline iii her particulax affection . She used to say that you were tie most unselfish : person she knew !
" There is no one on earth , except my boys , ' for whom-1 entertain so strong an affection as for you , Margaret ! I respect aad reverence you for your intellect and your steady adherence to principle . I am bound , to jou by gratitude as a . father —by the memory of my early love—although it was mistaken , and you never loved me , as I once fancied . —You , with your calm nature , discovered your error soon enough , not to suffer much from it . —Was it not so , my- friend ?" "I never deceived myself on that point ! " she replied , faintly;—finding that lie ¦ waited for an answer . "No matter ! Whether you . were loving o > r loveless in those past days , you and I can never be -wholly indifferent to each other , Margaret !" " Never . '—neither here nor beyond the grave ! " she said quickly , and as if the words were forced from her . Lord Carleton's manner became warmer .
" God bless you , my friend !—There was something : like affection in those -wordssomething which makes me hope you . will let me add to your happiness by enabling you to exercise your benevolence in a larger sphere than you have hitherto done-Something that makes me almost sure my Caroline ' s wish was prophetic , and that you will consent to become the second Lady Carleton—rule my household—be a mother to my boys—and the best and wisest friend to one who tells you candidly that he has no love to give . Will you be my wife , now , Margaret ? You refused me once , twice , thrice . We were young then , and we loved ^—at least , / loved . —We are growing' old now ! - —Shall we grow old together , Margaret ? " He had taken her hand . She returned the pressure of his , and looked at hint with a strange expression . " What is this?— -You are ill ?—I have been thoughtless to enter on this matter now!—Let me lead you to the house ! " he said , with alarm .
" Stay !~ oae moment !—it will keep off one moment !"—she spoke in a gasping-, broken voice , and with a strong effort to master some physical pang , —" Listen !—you do not know me !—my life!—you are wrong ! all wrong !—Frederick ! Be your wife ?—not the wife of your love—tho head housekeeper—care for your sons—your wards—talk with you when you are in the mood—I would even degrade myself to serve you thvs—because—all ! God ! he has not known it!—But there is another obstacle now!—Again , I cannot be your wife !" " What is this ? Calm yourself , my dear friend ! Margaret ! What is the matter ? " he exclaimed , much alarmed at h « r excited manner . — " Say , in ono word , what obstacle there is . " " Another time—I—I " and overcome -with acute pain , she fell back insensible . Lord Carletoa carried her across the lawn to the house , and laid her on a so-fa , in the first room he came to . —Seeing no one about , he rang the bell violently , and gazed with mingled pity and wonder at the emaciated form he remembered so well adorned with all the graces of youth and the imagination of a lover . —There was nothing there , now , that ho could call beautiful .
'' Ah ! if she had lived in the affections instead of in the intellect , " ho thought , " she would have been beautiful an < l amiable , now I Surely her life has been a miatako !—What did she ' mean just now?—Not knoio her ?—How can I bo wrong ?" We could , multiply extracts , and wo are sorry we hsivo not space for one , as striking and as terrible as any wo can remember in the range of tragedy . But we wish , before wo arc compelled to leave the book , to present the resider with some specimens of a loss sorrowful cast , —some of the deep thoughts ar » d happy expressions with which its pages abound : — Goniua is never selfish ; that is , in the bad sqiisb of that word . The ogotism of genius is spiritual , not bohhuiiI ; divine , not worldly . Poor 1 ' iilissyl Though his department of art was not very high , ho haul rcnl genius . Do you think ha did not feel for the wife and children who wanted food , whiLo ho broke up the furniture to feed his furnace ? I will not exculpate him by flaying it was for them he toiled and suflcrcd privation—thnt for tliom l » o pursued hifl experiments into the very Cuve of Dospnir—lighted only by tlio hope of scientific truth .. It was not for them , primarily —not for any human interest thnt ho toiled , and thought , and starved his frail bodily tenement , it waw for tho snko of truth—of tlio dwioveri / ho had to make . Ilo folt that aa an imperial duty calling him oinvurd , find he durod not disobey ita voice .
Wo honour tho following maxim : — " And if your friend should riituippoiut your expectations , and , in some important act of life , do tho thing which liirt uonHuionco did not approve V If ho kIiouIiI bo led by iiaanlon . to Hot , at naught , liiw moral principle , -would your friondtslup cquhuV" I oskwl that question oarnctJtly , for , to way tho truth , It , baa often puzzled mo . Without any hesitation , in a calm ulonr voice , na if li « r mind wore long Bottled on that point , Bho replied , " If it eoidd coaso thun , 1 uhuuld bo convinced that it hud
never been a real friendship . Forsake my friend because he erred ! I should as soon tjink of forsaking his bedside because he had the small-pox . " Here is another charming little bit : — " But if I had lad the making of my own faults , I would have erred on the safe sid « - so that other people should suffer from them instead of myself . .... It is the judgment of little minds I fear , not that of great ones ; and whenever I make a fool of myself , I hope it may be before a wise person—like Miss Hastings . " How true the following is , and how unlike the commonplace notion on the subject : — " You speak as if you really believed in that heresy of half-developed minds , tlat merely to be young , i . e . half-developed , £ s the highest , happiest state of the human being . —I have seen nothing so very desirable in my own youth , or in the youth of all those I love most , that I should mourn its loss . It seems the season for suffering , to all minds not contented with mediocrity and the amenities of commonplace . " We must conclude with the following sketch . To us it is full of the best and bravest philosophy : —
The small delicate hands are folded in her lap ; the mouth is firmly closed , and the corners have a painful expression ) the eyes look out straight before her ; they are still and calm , with an uncommon mixture of keen intelligence and gentle resignation They look aa if she had known a bitter sorrow , and finding that it could not be remedied had submitted to it . There is no effort of a false philosophy in her aspect no determination to seem or to be cheerful—no wilful blindness to the truth . Sie was evidently very unhappy , but it is quite as evident that she could bear to be unhappy without any affectation of trying to believe that it was a good thing , if sle ¦ would hut think so . She was born before the modern system of Epicurean stoicism came into vogue ; and not affecting to have the enlar ged vision of a superhuman
being , did not believe in her leart that what she felt to be a strong , enduring evil , was bat happiness in disguise . She had no notion that she would be fulfilling God ' s will by trying to explain and argue it away into a sort of sublimated spiritual pleasure . If she thought anything about the matter , it was just this s—that when ( Sod sent an affliction upon her , he meant that she should be afflicted . She had a healthy moral nature , but a very poor talent for metaphysical speculation . Though in the countess ' s latest , portrait there was much , sorrow , there was no remorse no self-upbraiding ^ . You felt that she had not been the cause of her own grief—that whatever it was it came from -without , and not from within . There was nothing of self in the sadness—no self-absorption—no self-tormenting . This gave her countenance its dignified calmness and resignation .
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A SCHOLAB'S LIFE . Literary Remains of Henry Fynes Clinton , M . A . Edited by the Kev . C J . Frnes Clinton , M . A . Longman . The days when great scholars made great refutations seem , to be gone by . In our time the sage who occupies himself with , the nineteenth century is the sage whom the nineteenth century honours . The eminent men whom we talk most about , ' and . know most ahout now , are men -who lave all more or less directly addressed themselves to the popular wants * tastes , and feelings of the present age . In the sixteenth century , the author of the Fasti Jffellenici and the Fasti Romani would have been a man
of European , fame—even in the eighteenth , his reputation would have been a notable one in his own country—but in the nineteenth , while deservedly honoured within the small circle of great scholars , in the large outer -world of readers and thinlcers in general the very name of Henry Fynes Clinton is probably unknown . And yet , from an autobiography which records the life of a good man and the studies of a consummate scholar , there is surely an interest to be derived , and a lesson of some sort to be learnt usefully by everybody . Although tye of the unlearned majority cannot pretend to judge technically of the labours of the great scholar , we may at least try to gain what we can of pleasure and profit from the history of his life , as written by himself , and modestly and delicately given to the reading world by the brother who has survived him .
Mr . Henry Fynes Clinton was born in the county of Nottingham , la the year 1781 . He was first educated at Southwell School , where he learnt much , and was then removed to Westminster , where lie acquired a little Greek , and " added nothing" to his " stock of Latin authors "—the usual result of that wonderful " public school system , " which is held to have produced our greatest men , and which , next to the House of Lords and the Habeas Corpus Act , is one of the national institutions which every patriotic Englishman reverences most fondly . From Westminster Mr . Fynes Clinton removed to Christ Church College , Oxford , where ho resided for nearly eight years . Hi 9 fondness for classical reading , and his ambition to collect a classical library , became developed as soon as he entered on a university life . Ho began to read diligently , if not deeply—won tho first
Bachelor s Prize—superintended conscientiously and usefully the studies of private pupils—and reached his twenty-fifth year , contemplating no other future than an academical life , which was to end in his taking orders . A very unexpected , and , in a pecuniary point of view , a very fortunate , change was , however , to take p lace in his prospects . A distant maternal relative—one Mr , Grardin < jr--hx . e < l on Mr . Fyn . es Clinton as heir to his property , stipulating beforehand that the young scholar should not take orders . The object of this condition was to make Mr . Fynes Clinton " a country gentleman , capable of secular pursuits" —of what particular nnturo tvo are not informed . If Mr . Gardiner expected his heir to keep a pack of hounds , preserve jjame , imprison poachers , speechify at elections , give toasts at agricultural dinners , and so forth , his heir disappointed him . Tho young man
resigned tho idea of being a clergyman , but he would not resign tho ambition to become a groat scholar . He wont on with his reading at Oxford , took his Muster of Arts tlegroo , began writing u tragedy culled Solgman , and weut deeper and deeper down into tho mine of ancient learning , when he was abruptly summoned back to tho sur / acc-world and tho business of tho paswing day , by another unexpected chaugo in his prospects . Ho was not to have a fortune loft him . on thin occasion—ho was only to bo made a member of Parliament . Ho had junt timo to fuel astonished—amd tlion ho was clouted member for Aldborough . This was in tho year 1800 , when troublesome Kadicala , who would speak out plainly , were put into prison , und « puturuul aristocracy took all the
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December 2 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 1145 " ' ' ' ^— ^^« ¦ ,. i *** . * mm~—m ^ mm ^ m .
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 2, 1854, page 1145, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2067/page/17/
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