It was eight o’clock on a still summer evening, and, the ladies having retired, two men were lingering in a pleasant, indolent fashion over their wine in the dining-room of Roylands Grange. To be exact, only the elder gentleman was paying any attention to his port, for the young man who sat at the head of the table stared vaguely on his empty glass, and at his equally empty plate, as if his thoughts were miles away, which was precisely the case. Youth was moody, age was cheerful, for, while the former indulged in a brown study, the latter cracked nuts and sipped wine, with a just appreciation of the excellence of both. Judging from this outward aspect of things, there was something wrong with Maurice Roylands, for if reverend age in the presentable person of Rector Carriston could be merry, there appeared to be no very feasible reason why unthinking youth should be so ineffably dreary. Yet woe was writ largely on the comely face of the moody young man, and he joined but listlessly in the jocund conversation of his companion, which was punctuated in a very marked manner by the cracking of filberts.

Outside, a magical twilight brooded over the landscape, and the chill odors of eve floated from a thousand sleeping flowers into the mellow atmosphere of the room, which was irradiated by the soft gleam of many wax candles rising white and slender from amid the pale roses adorning the dinner-table. All was pleasant, peaceful, and infinitely charming; yet Maurice Roylands, aged thirty, healthy, wealthy, and not at all bad-looking, sat moodily frowning at his untasted dessert, as though he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders.

In truth, Mr. Roylands, with the usual self-worship of latter-day youth, thought he was being very hardly treated by Destiny, as that all-powerful goddess had given him everything calculated to make a mortal happy, save the capability of being happy. This was undeniably hard, and might be called the very irony of fate, for one might as well offer a sumptuous banquet to a dyspeptic, as give a man all the means of enjoyment, without the faculty of taking advantage of such good fortune. Roylands had considerable artistic power, an income of nearly six thousand a year, a fine house, friends innumerable—of the summer season sort; yet he neither cared about nor valued these blessings, for the simple reason that he was heartily sick of them, one and all. He would have been happier digging a patch of ground for his daily bread, than thus idling through life on an independent income, for Ennui, twin sister of Care, had taken possession of his soul, and in the midst of all his comforts he was thoroughly unhappy.

The proverb that “The rich are more miserable than the poor,” is but a trite one on which to preach a sermon, for did not Solomon say all that there was to be said in the matter? It was an easier task to write a new play on the theme of Hamlet, than to compose a novel discourse on the “All is vanity” text; for on some subjects the final word has been said, and he who preaches thereon says nothing new, but only repeats the ideas of former orators, who in their turn doubtless reiterated the sayings of still earlier preachers, and so on back to Father Adam, to whom the wily serpent possibly delivered a sermon on the cynically wise saying illustrated so exhaustively by Solomon ben David. Therefore, to remark that Maurice was miserable amid all his splendors is a plagiarism, and they who desire to study the original version for themselves must read Ecclesiastes, which gives a minute analysis of the whole question, with cruelly true comments thereon.

When Roylands ten years before had gone to London, against the desire of his father, to take up the profession—if it can be called so—of a sculptor, he was full of energy and ambition. He had fully determined to set the Thames on fire by the creation of statues worthy of Canova, to make a great name in the artistic world, to become a member of the Academy, to inaugurate a new era in the history of English sculpture; so, with all this glory before him, he turned his back on the flesh-pots of Egypt and went to dwell in the land of Bohemia. In order to bring the lad to his senses, Roylands senior refused to aid him with a shilling until he gave up the pitiful trade—in this country squire’s opinion—of chipping figures out of marble. Supplies being thus stopped, Maurice suffered greatly in those artistic days for lack of an assured income; yet in spite of all his deprivations, he was very happy in Bohemia until he lived down his enthusiasms. When matters came to that pass, the wine of life lost its zest for this young man, and he became a victim to melancholia, that terrible disease for which there is rarely—if any cure. He lived because he did not agree with Addison’s Cato regarding the virtues of self-destruction, but as far as actual dying went it mattered to him neither one way nor the other. If he had done but little good during his life, at least he had done but little harm, so, thinking he could scarcely be punished severely for such a negative existence, he was quite willing to leave this world he found so dreary, provided the entrance into the next one was not of too painful a nature.

It is a bad thing for a young man to thus take to the pessimistic school of philosophy as exemplified by Schopenhauer, as, having nothing to look back at, nothing to look forward to, and nothing to hold on by, the scheme of his life falls into a ruinous condition, so, being without the safety anchor of Hope, he drifts aimlessly through existence, a nuisance to himself and to every one around him. Maurice, listless and despairing, did no more work than was absolutely necessary to earn a bare subsistence, and lived his life in a semi-dreamy, semi-lethargic condition, with no very distinct idea as to what was to be the ultimate end of all this dreariness. When night fell he was then more at rest, for in sleep he found a certain amount of compensation for the woes of his waking hours. As to his modelling, he took a positive dislike to it, and for this reason improved but little in his work during the last years of his Bohemian existence. Profoundly disgusted, without any positive reason, with himself, his art, the world, and his fellow-men, heaven only knows what would have become of him, had not an event happened which, by placing him in a new position, seemed to promise his redemption from the gloomy prison of melancholia.

The event in question was none other than the death of his father, and Maurice, as in duty bound, came down to the funeral. When the will of the late Squire was read, it was discovered that, with the exception of one or two trifling bequests, all the real and personal property was left to his only son; thus this fortunate young man at the age of thirty found himself independent of the world for the rest of his days, provided always he did not squander his paternal acres, a thing he had not the slightest intention of doing. Maurice had no leanings towards what is vulgarly termed a “fast life,” for he detested horse-racing, cared but little for wine, and neither cards nor women possessed any fascination for him. Not that he was a model young man by any means, but his tastes were too refined, his nature too intellectual, to admit of his finding pleasure in drinking, gaming, and their concomitants. As to love, he did not know the meaning of the word,—at least not the real meaning,—which was rather a mistake, as it would certainly have given him an interest in life, and perhaps have prevented him yielding so readily to the influence of “black care,” which even the genial Venusian knew something about, seeing he made her an equestrian.

Of course, he was sorry for the death of his father, but there had been so little real sympathy between them, that he could not absolutely look upon the event as an irreparable calamity. Maurice had always loved his mother more than his father, and when she died as he was leaving home for college he was indeed inconsolable; but he saw the remains of the late Mr. Roylands duly committed to the family vault without any violent display of grief, after which he returned to live the life of a country gentleman at the Grange, and wonder what would be the upshot of this new phase of his existence.

Solitude was abhorrent to him, as his thoughts were so miserable; therefore, for the sake of having some one to drive away the evil spirit, he invited his aunt, the Hon. Mrs. Dengelton, to stay at the Grange for a week or so. She came without hesitation, and brought her daughter Eunice also, upon which Maurice, finding two women more than an unhappy bachelor could put up with, asked the new poet Crispin, for whom he had a great liking, to come down to Roylands, which that young man did very willingly, as he was in love with Eunice, a state of things half guessed and wholly hated by Mrs. Dengelton, who much desired her daughter to marry the new Squire.

On this special evening, the Rev. Stephen Carriston, Rector of Roylands, had come to dinner, and, Crispin having retired to the drawing-room with the ladies, he found himself alone with his former pupil, much to his satisfaction, as he wished greatly to have a quiet talk with Maurice. Mr. Carriston was the oldest friend the young man had, having been his tutor in the long ago, and prepared him for college. Whatever success Maurice gained at Oxford—and such success was not inconsiderable—was due to the admirable way in which he had been coached by the rubicund divine.

Certainly the Rector loved the good things of this life, and looked as if he did, which is surely pardonable enough, especially in a bachelor; for at sixty-five years of age the Rector was still single, and much beloved by his parishioners, to whom he preached short, pithy sermons on the actions of their daily lives, which was assuredly much better than muddling their dull brains with theological hair-splitting. Being very fond of Maurice, he was greatly concerned to see the marked change which six years of London life had made in the young fellow. The merry, ambitious lad, who had departed so full of resolution to succeed, had now returned a weary-looking, worn-out man; and as the Rector, during the intervals of his nut-cracking, glanced at his former pupil, he was struck by the extreme melancholy which pervaded the whole face. Comely it was certainly, of the fresh-colored Saxon type, but the color had long since left those haggard cheeks, there were deep lines in the high forehead, the mouth was drawn downward in a dismal fashion under the trim mustache, and from the eyes looked forth an unhappy soul.

Yes, the Rector was considerably puzzled to account for this change, and resolved to find out what ailed the lad, but he hardly knew how to set about this delicate task, the more so, as he feared the consolations of religion would do but little good in this case; for Maurice, without being absolutely a sceptic, yet held opinions of a heterodox type, quite at variance with the declarations of the Thirty-Nine Articles in which the good Rector so firmly believed.

At length Mr. Carriston grew weary of cracking nuts and sipping port wine without the digestive aid of pleasant conversation, and therefore began to talk to his quondam pupil, with the firm determination to keep on talking until he discovered the secret of the young man’s melancholy.

“Are you not going to fill your glass, Maurice?”

“No, thank you, sir. I am rather tired of port.”

“Inexplicable creature!” said the Rector, holding up his glass to the light. “Ah, well, ‘De gustibus,’ my dear lad. I have no doubt you can finish the quotation. Why not try claret?”

“I’m tired of claret.”

“It seems to me, sir,” observed Mr. Carriston leisurely, “that you are tired of all things.”

“I am—including myself.”

“Strange! A young man of thirty years of age, sound of mind and body, who is fortunate enough to inherit six thousand a year, ought to be happy.”

“Money does not bring happiness.”

“Ah, that proverb is quite worn out,” replied the Rector cheerily; “try another, my boy, try another.”

Maurice, leaning forward with a sigh, took a handful of nuts, which he proceeded to crack in a listless fashion. The Rector said nothing, but waited for Maurice to speak, which he was obliged to do out of courtesy, although much disinclined to resume the argument.

“I’ve tried everything, and I’m tired of everything.”

“Even of that marble-chipping you call art?”

“I am more tired of that than of anything else,” said Maurice emphatically.

“A bad case,” murmured the Rector, shaking his gray head; “a very bad case, which needs curing. ‘Nothing’s new! nothing’s true! and no matter,’ says my Oxford fine gentleman. Maurice, I must assert my privilege as an old friend, and reason with you in this matter. I am sadly afraid, my dear lad, that you need whipping.”

The ghost of a smile played over the tired face of the young man, and he assented heartily to the observation of his old tutor—nay, even added an amendment thereto.

“I do, sir, I do!” he said sombrely; “we all need whipping more or less—men, women, and children.”

“I am afraid the last-named get the most of it,” replied Carriston, with dry humor.

“With the birch, yes. But ’tis not so pleasant to be whipped by Fate.”

“My dear lad, you cannot say she has whipped you.”

“To continue your illustration, Rector, there are several modes of whipping,—the birch which pains the skin, poverty which pains the body, and despair which pains the soul. The latter is my case. I have health, wealth, and youth; but I feel the stings of the rod all the same.”

“Yes?” queried Carriston interrogatively; “in what way?”

“I have not the capability of enjoying the blessings I possess.”

“How so? Explain this riddle.”

“I cannot explain it. I simply take no pleasure in life. Rich or poor, old or young, well or ill, I would still be as miserable as I am now.”

“Hum! Let us look at the question from three points of view—comprehensive points. The legal, the medicinal, the religious. One of these, if properly applied, will surely solve the enigma.”

“I doubt it.”

“Ah, that is because you have made up your mind to doubt. ‘None so blind as those who won’t see.’”

“Who is quoting proverbs now, Mr. Carriston?”

“I am, sir, even I who dislike such arid chips of wisdomwisdom; but ’tis an excellent proverb, which has borne the wear and tear of centuries. Come now, Maurice, are you in any trouble connected with money? are you involved in any law-suit, or—or—well,” said the Rector, delicately eying his glass, “I hardly know how to put it,—er—er—are you involved in any love affair?”

“No; my worldly position is all right, and I am not mixed up in any feminine trouble.”

“Good! that settles the legal point. Now for the medical. Your liver must be out of order.”

“I assure you, sir, I never felt better in my life.”

Mr. Carriston’s face now assumed a grave expression as he put the last question to his host.

“And the religious point?”

“I am not troubled on that score, sir.”

The Rev. Stephen looked doubtful.

“Whatever my religious views may be,” resumed Maurice, seeing the Rector was but half convinced, “and I am afraid they can hardly be called orthodox, I at least can safely say that my past life is not open to misconstruction.”

“Good! good! I always had confidence in you, Maurice. Yours is not the nature to find pleasure in gutter-raking. Well, it seems that none of those three points meet the case. Can you not give me some understandable reason for this melancholy which renders your life so bitter?bitter?”

“No. I went to London full of joy, energy, and ambition; but in some way—I cannot tell you how—I lost all those feelings. First joy departed, then ambition fled away, and with these two feelings absent I felt no further energy to do anything. It may be satiety, certainly. I have explored the heights and depths of London life, I have read books new and old, I have studied as far as in me lay my fellow-men, I have tried to fall in love with my fellow-women—and failed dismally. In fact, Mr. Carriston, I have exhausted the world, and find it as empty as this.”

He held up a nut which he had just cracked, and it contained no kernel—an apt illustration of his wasted life.

The rector shook his head again in some perplexity, and filled himself another glass of port, while Maurice, rising from his seat, sauntered to the window, and looked absently at the peaceful scene before him. The moon, rising slowly over the tree-tops, flooded the landscape with her pale gleam, so that the gazer could see the glimmer of the white marble statues far down in the dewy darkness of the lawn, the sombre woods black against the clear sky, and away in the distance the thin streak of silver, which told of the restless ocean. A salt wind was blowing overland from thence, and, dilating his nostrils, opening his mouth, he inhaled the vivifying breeze in long breaths, while dully in his ears sounded the sullen thunder of the far-away billows rolling backward in sheets of shattered foam.

“Oh, Mother Nature! Demeter! Tellus! Isis!” he murmured, half closing his eyes; “tis only from thee I can hope to gain a panacea for this gnawing pain of life. I am weary of the world, tired of this aimless existence, but to thee will I fly to seek solace in thine healing balms.”

“Maurice!”

“Yes, sir.”

It was the rector who spoke, and the sound of his mellow voice roused the young man from his dreaming; therefore, resuming his normal manner, he lighted a cigarette and prepared to listen to the conversation of his old tutor.

“Are you still as good a German scholar as you used to be?” asked the rector deliberately.

“Not quite. My German, like myself, has grown somewhat rusty.”

“Can you translate the word Selbstschmerz?”

“Self-sickness.”

“Yes; that is about as good an English equivalent as can be found. Well, that is what you are suffering from.”

“Oh, wise physician,” retorted Roylands, with irony. “I know the cause of the disease myself, but what of the cure?”

“You must fall in love.”

“No one can fall in love to order.”

“Well, you must make the attempt at all events,” said Carriston, with a genial laugh; “it is the only cure for your disease.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Because it is your egotism makes you miserable. You care for no one but yourself, and are therefore bound to suffer from such selfishness. True happiness lies in self-abnegation, a virtue which all men preach, but few men practise. ‘Every man,’ says Goethe, ‘thinks himself the centre of the universe.’ This is true—particularly true in your case. You have been so much taken up with your own woes and troubles that you have had no time to see those of your fellow-creatures, and such exclusive analysis of one’s inner life leads naturally to self-sickness. You are torturing yourself by yourself; you have destroyed the sense of pleasure, and can therefore see nothing good on God’s earth. You would like to cut the Gordian knot by death, but have neither the courage nor resolution to make away with yourself. Oh, I know the reason of such hesitation.

I have no doubt that is your feeling about the hereafter. Well, with all this you feel you are in prison and cannot escape, because a last remnant of manliness forbids you opening the only door by which you can go hence. Therefore you are forced to remain on earth, and condemned yourself to supply the tortures from which you suffer. Have I not described your condition accurately?”

“You have,” replied Maurice, rather astonished at the rector’s penetration. “I do torture myself, I know, but that is because I cannot escape from my own thoughts. Pin-pricks hurt more than cannon balls, and incessant worries are far more painful than great calamities. But all you have said touches on the disease only, it does not say how the cure you propose will benefit me.”

He had come back to his seat, and was now leaning forward with folded arms, looking at the benevolent face of his friend. The discussion, having roused his interest, made him forget himself for the moment, and with such forgetfulness the moody look passed away from his face. The rector saw this, and immediately made use of it as a point in his favor.

“Ah, if you could but behold yourself in the glass at this moment,” he said approvingly, “you would see the point I am aiming at without need of further discussion. I have interested you, and consequently you have forgotten for the moment your self-torture. That is what love will do. If you love a woman, she will fill your whole soul, your whole being, and give you an interest in life. What she admires you will admire, what she takes an interest in you will take an interest in; and thus, being busy with other things, you will forget to worry your brains about your own perfections or imperfections. And if you are happy enough to become a father, children will give you a great interest in life, and you will find that God has appointed you work to do which is ready to your hand. When you discover the work, aided by wife and children, you will do it, and thus be happy. Remember those fine words of Burns,—

“What you say sounds fine but dull. I don’t care about such wearisome domesticity.”

“What you call wearisome domesticity,” said the Rector in a voice of emotion, “is the happiest state in which a man can find himself. Home, wife, children, domestic love, domestic consolations—what more can the heart of man desire? Laurel crowns cure no aching head, but the gentle kiss of a loved wife in time of trouble is indeed balm in Gilead.”

Maurice looked at the old man in amazement, for never had he seen him so moved.

“You speak feelingly, Rector,” he said at length, with a certain hesitation.

“I speak as I feel,” replied Carriston with a sigh. “I also have my story, old and unromantic-looking as I am. Come over to the Rectory to-morrow, my dear lad, and I will tell you something which will make you see how foolish it is to be miserable in God’s beautiful world.”

“I am afraid it will give you pain.”

“No; it will not give me pain. What was my greatest sorrow is now my greatest consolation. You will come and see me to-morrow?”

“If you wish it.”

“I do wish it.”

“Then I will come.”

There was silence for a few moments, each of them being occupied with his own thoughts. The Rector was evidently thinking of that old romance which had stirred him to such an unwonted display of emotion; and Maurice saw for the first time in his selfish life that other men had sorrows as well as he, and that he was not the only person in the world who suffered from Selbstschmerz.

“But come, Maurice,” said the Rector, after a pause, “I was talking about curing you by marriage.”

“Love!”

“Well, marriage in your case, I hope, will be love,” observed Carriston, a trifle reproachfully. “I would be sorry indeed to see you make any woman your wife unless it was for true love’s sake.”

“Well, whom do you want me to love?”

“Ah, that is for you to decide. But, if I may make a suggestion, I should say, Eunice.”

“Eunice!”

“She is a charming girl. Highly educated, good-looking”—

“But so prim.”

“Oh, that is but a suspicion of old maidism, which will wear off after a month or two of married life.”

“Do you think she would make me a good wife?”

“I am sure of it.”

“So am I,” said Maurice, with a faint sneer. “She would look well at the head of my table; she would always be dressed to perfection; she would doubtless be an excellent mother; but there is one great bar to our union.”

“And that is?”

“We only love each other as cousins.”

“It may grow into a warmer feeling.”

“I’m certain it won’t; and, Rector,” continued Maurice, laying his hand on the old man’s arm, “could you advise me to have a mother-in-law like Mrs. Dengelton?”

The Rector laughed heartily, and Maurice joined in his mirth, much to Carriston’s delight.

“Ah, now you are more like the boy I knew!” he said, slipping his arm into that of Roylands, and leading him to the door; “did I not tell you I would cure you? I will complete the cure to-morrow.”

“But it might give you pain.”

“No, no; don’t think about that,” said Carriston hastily. “If I can do you a service, I don’t mind a passing twinge of regret. But here we are at the drawing-room door. Let us join the ladies.”

“And Crispin.”

“By the way,” said the Rector, placing his hand on Roylands as he was about to open the door, “who is Crispin?”

“Every one in London has been trying to find that out for the last two years.”

“What is he?”

“The new poet; the coming Tennyson, the future Browning. No one knows who he is, or where he comes from. He is called Crispin tout court.”

“A most perplexing person. Are you quite sure”—

“If he is fit for respectable society? Oh yes. He goes everywhere in London. Like Disraeli, he stands on his head, for his genius—and he has great genius—has opened all the drawing-rooms of Belgravia to him. Oh, he is quite proper.”

“Still, still!” objected the Rector.

“Well, what objection have you yet to him, my dear sir?”

“I’m afraid, I’m afraid,” whispered Carriston, looking apprehensively at Maurice, “that he loves Eunice.”

“Impossible!”

“Oh, I’m not so old but what I can see the signs and tokens of love; and, placed on my guard by a casual glance, I noticed Eunice and your poet particularly at dinner.”

“In that case,” said Maurice coolly, “I’m afraid Crispin will have to put up with Mrs. Dengelton as a mother-in-law.”

The Rector laughed again, and they entered the drawing-room.