It is a kind of oil and balm for whatever was stormy or harmful: it gives a permanence to the smile of existence. It does not make the sea of your life turbulent with high emotions, as if a strong wind were blowing, but it is as if an Aphrodite had broken on the surface, and the ripples were spreading with a sweet, low sound, and widening far out to the very shores of time.
There is no need now, as with the boy, to bolster up your feelings with extravagant vows; even should you try this in her presence, the words are lacking to put such vows in. So soon as you reach them they fail you, and the oath only quivers on the lip, or tells its story by a pressure of the fingers. You wear a brusque, pleasant air with your acquaintances, and hint—with a sly look—at possible changes in your circumstances. Of an evening you are kind to the most unattractive of the wall-flowers—if only your Nelly is away; and you have a sudden charity for street beggars with pale children. You catch yourself taking a step in one of the new polkas upon a country walk, and wonder immensely at the number of bright days which succeed each other, without leaving a single stormy gap for your old melancholy moods. Even the chambermaids at your hotel never did their duty one-half so well; and as for your man Tom, he is become a perfect pattern of a fellow.
My cigar is in a fine glow; but it has gone out once, and it may go out again.
—You begin to talk of marriage; but some obstinate papa or guardian uncle thinks that it will never do—that it is quite too soon, or that Nelly is a mere girl. Or some of your wild oats—quite forgotten by yourself—shoot up on the vision of a staid mamma and throw a very damp shadow on your character. Or the old lady has an ambition of another sort, which you, a simple, earnest, plodding bachelor, can never gratify—being of only passable appearance, and unschooled in the fashions of the world, you will be eternally rubbing the elbows of the old lady’s pride.
All this will be strangely afflicting to one who has been living for quite a number of weeks, or months, in a pleasant dreamland, where there were no five per cents. or reputations, but only a very full and delirious flow of feeling. What care you for any position except a position near the being that you love? What wealth do you prize, except a wealth of heart that shall never know diminution; or for reputation, except that of truth and of honor? How hard it would break upon these pleasant idealities to have a weazen-faced old guardian set his arm in yours and tell you how tenderly he has at heart the happiness of his niece, and reason with you about your very small and sparse dividends and your limited business, and caution you—for he has a lively regard for your interests—about continuing your addresses?