Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873

I am resolved: I will write, and will ask him to come to me, and when he comes I will say what I feel. Some mistaken hesitation is keeping him away. I will say, "We love one another: let us unite our lives and live them together, yoked in all exercise of noble end."

Letter from Henry Lawrence to George Manning

DECEMBER 11.

DEAR GEORGE: I will begin by telling the truth, and here it is: I am in a scrape. I know you won't think much of the simple fact, but the scrape is very different from any of my former ones, and I don't see how I can get out of it honorably. I can see you raise your eyebrows, and hear you say with an incredulous smile, "Why, Harry, I have heard you ridicule honor a thousand times where women are concerned, and of course this scrape involves a woman." You are right there—it does; or rather a woman has involved me, and there lies the scrape. As for honor, I laugh at most of the things I believe in, just because it's the fashion of the day—and I belong to the day I live in—not to wear one's heart on one's sleeve. Then, too, sometimes one finds that logically one thinks a thing, an idea, a feeling absurd, and yet when one's life comes into collision with it, somehow up springs something within you which I suppose might be called an instinct, and forces you to respect and cherish and uphold the very feeling or idea which you have always ridiculed.

Well, I'll tell you my story, and then perhaps you'll tell me what to do. About—let me see—a month ago I went with some men one evening, out of pure idleness, to a public meeting. The men who spoke were all stupid, and roared and mouthed stuff "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," and I was thinking how I could get away and have a game of cards at the club, when suddenly a voice like music smote upon my astonished ears. I looked up, and there on the platform stood a woman, speaking, by Jove! and doing it well, too. I listened and looked, and should have enjoyed it if it had not disgusted me so in theory. I must confess, barring the fact of her being there, there was nothing objectionable about her. She was handsome, and had a magnificent voice: she talked a hundred per cent, better than the men who preceded her; and it was well for the meeting that it was over when she stopped: any other speaker would have made a terrible anti-climax. The two fellows with me proposed our being introduced to her, and half from curiosity, half—I swore to speak the truth—half, George, from attraction (hear me out, old fellow: she was feminine-looking and very handsome)—I went forward and was presented. She interested and attracted me, the more so perhaps that from the moment our eyes met I was conscious that there existed between us a strong natural affinity, latent, but capable of being developed. I called on her the next day, and made my cousin Clara invite her to a party. Clara, who is thoroughly unconventional, and would do anything to please me, did so without a second thought. But imagine my distress when, as I entered the drawing-room a little late, I saw my fair Amazon standing in a doorway, not only alone, but alone in the midst of curious and scornful glances. My courtesy was at stake, my chivalry was roused, and she looked very handsome and very like any other woman brought to bay. She had the most charming expression, compounded of bewilderment and defiance, on her face when my eyes fell on her, and it changed to one that pleased me still better (which I won't describe) when our eyes met. You, you unbelieving dog, think that because she is "strong-minded" she must be repulsive and immodest. But there is a charming inconsistency about female human nature.

But to go on with my story. I felt quite like a champion, I assure you, for, after all, it was shabby of the women to give her the cold shoulder, and cowardly of the men to stand aloof; so I devoted myself to her, and asked Alice Wilton to be presented to her. Miss Linton has not a particle of usage du monde, nor is she what would be called high-bred; but she is self-possessed and gentle in her manner, and makes a good enough figure in the company of ladies and gentlemen. Here I confess my weakness. I did think her very attractive, and I was conscious that I had a power over her which I did not forbear to exercise. The result of this was that when we parted she had every reason to expect to see me very soon again, and I had inwardly resolved never to see her again if I could help it. I did keep away, and then luck would have it that I met her taking a walk one snowy afternoon. I suspected she had come out to get away from the remembrance of me, as I had to get away from the desire to see her; and she was so moved by seeing me that I could not help showing her that I cared for her, and perhaps seemed to care more than I did. It was a sore temptation, and I yielded to it. Wrong? Do you think I don't know that it was wrong? But the worst is to come. I walked back with her, and an accident led to our having one of those conversations that people have when they are under the influence of emotion and cannot give it vent in its natural way, but must do something or talk. If I could have put my arms about her and kissed her, we could have got on without words: as it was, I said I hardly know what, and she, being very much in earnest and very unsophisticated, showed me how much she cared for me. I vow, George, if I had had a moment to think, to gather my self-control—But I had not, and so we ended by my finding her arms round my neck, after all. I rushed away with hardly a word, and walked and walked, and thought and thought. The next day comes a note from her—what one would call a manly, straightforward acknowledgment that she had led me into a position that was an unfair one, and that she regretted it. Nothing franker or more generous could have been conceived, but somehow it roused within me the impulse to make her conscious of the weakness of her sex. My masculine conceit rose and demanded an opportunity of self-assertion. I went to her, and she seemed more attractive than ever. Her independence and self-reliance nettled me, and I was mean enough to yield to the desire to see if she could resist me. But I was richly punished, for the knowledge rolled over me like a wave that she loved me, and I left her, stung by the consciousness of having taken an unworthy advantage of a simple and trustful nature. I know that this is high tragedy, and will meet with your displeasure. I can hear you say, "Confound you, Harry! why don't you marry her?"

Very easy to say; but look at the situation, which is not so simple as you probably think. Of course any girl of my own class would never build an edifice of eternal and sacred happiness on such a foundation as a few warm looks and eloquent words, or even a caress, might furnish. In plain words, neither she nor I would think marriage a necessary or even likely sequence to such a preamble. But it is different with Miss Linton. I am sure, I am confident—laugh if you like—that she has never given any man what she has given me, either in degree or kind. Her eccentric notions about women's nature and position would protect her from tampering with her own feelings or those of another; and then, too, there has been so much hard reality, so much serious business, in her life that the sweet follies of girlhood have not been hers. Shall I say that I cannot help feeling her innocence and inexperience make her more attractive? I am not sure, even, that they do not balance her self-reliance and independence, which certainly repel me. All this I did not dream of at first. I am not a scoundrel or a coxcomb. It came to me the other afternoon all at once, when she threw her arms about my neck. I have been selfish, and perhaps stupid. "Why not marry her?" you say. I have asked myself that question, and this is my answer: No passion in the world could make me insensible to the humiliation of her career, and I should be obliged not only to accept it in the past, but to recognize it in the future. My wife must be my social equal and the natural associate of high-bred women. I must be able to take any man by the throat who looks at or speaks of her as does not please me. This woman's character, intellect, manners and appearance are public property for all purposes of criticism and comment. She is unsexed. My wife must be dependent on me, clinging to me. This woman has always stood, and will always stand alone; and yet I have thought that she was capable of such deep, strong, concentrated feeling that the man who owned her heart might do with her as he liked. This, I admit, has tempted me to think of marriage, for, after all, George, it would be a luxury to be very much loved. This woman would love a man in another fashion from that which prevails in society.

But I have put the idea away from me, and here I am, determined not to marry her, and yet feeling that I have unintentionally wronged her. I have not been near her these seven days. I know she expects me—she has every right to expect me—but I will not go till I have decided what to say and do. I am too weak to go otherwise. Write to me, George, and advise me; and remember that she is not like the women of whom we have both known so many. She has no more idea of flirting than had Hippolyta queen of the Amazons or Zenobia queen of Palmyra—those two strong-minded women of old days. I am joking, but I assure you I am not jolly. I am afraid, George, that she truly loves me, and, unsexed though she be, love has made a woman of her, and I fear is unmanning me.

Yours always, HENRY LAWRENCE.

P.S. I open my letter to say that it is too late for you to write when you receive this: it will be over. I have just got a note from her asking to see me. I shall speak frankly, but I feel like a hound. As ever, H.L.

 

Journal

Dec. 11. I am resolved to write it all down as it happened. I wrote him a note this afternoon, and this evening he came—handsome, pale and quiet. He walked up to me, took my hand in his, pressed it and let it go. He did not wait for me to speak, fortunately, for I could not have spoken: I could not have commanded my voice. He said—oh so quietly and steadily!—"I should have come to see you to-night, I think, if you had not asked me: I had so much to say."

"I thought you would never come," I answered.

He rose and walked hurriedly up and down the room, then paused in front of me and said—his words seem burned into my brain—"You are a woman who deserves frankness, and I will be utterly and absolutely frank with you. I have done very wrong in behaving as I have done. I had no right, no justification, for it, and I beg you to forgive me—humbly I beg it on my knees;" and he knelt before me.

I was bewildered and pained beyond measure. I thought I knew not what, but a tissue of wild absurdities rushed through my brain to account for his words—anything rather than think he did not love me.

"With many women this confession would be unnecessary," he went on. "You are genuine and simple, and attach a real meaning to every word and act, because you do not yourself speak or act without meaning. How can I, then, part from you without asking your forgiveness for what I have said and done?"

"Part from me!" I exclaimed, holding out my hands to him: he had risen now. "Oh, Mr. Lawrence, let us be frank with one another. There is no need to part. Do you think your poverty is any barrier between us? It is but an added bond. Can I not work too? And we will learn to think alike where we now differ. Why should we part? We love each other. Why should we not marry? What can part us but our own wills? I love you, you know it, and I think you love me; at least I am sure I could teach you to love me." He stood while I spoke, his arms hanging by his sides. What more I said I hardly know. I think—I am sure, indeed—I told him, standing there, how I loved him. I felt I must speak it once to one human being. A great foresight came to me: I seemed to see my life stretching before me, long, lonely, desolate: no other love like this could come, full well I knew that, and I could not enter on that dreary path without setting free my soul. Yes, I spoke out to him. Words of power they were—power and fire and longing. Perhaps I alone, of all women, have told a man of my love when I knew it to be hopeless. My hope had died when he first spoke. Had he loved me, he had spoken otherwise. That I was woman enough to see; but if it be unwomanly to feel in every pulse-throb the need of expression, to know that I should die of suppressed passion, tenderness, love, if I did not speak it all, did not tell him once how I loved him, how I could have lived his servant, his slave, happy and content—how his smile seemed the sun and his caresses heaven to me—how I was hungry with the hunger of my very soul to spend on him the garnered treasure of my heart,—if this be unwomanly, I was indeed unsexed. I seemed exalted out of myself, and full of power.

He heard me, and it moved him. He spoke again when I had finished. He had not lifted his eyes to mine, and did not then. He said, "I could not marry you: it would be the worst possible thing for both of us. Your life would be miserable—mine most wretched. You must see that there are other things in life besides love, and other things which influence its happiness. Everything would separate us except our personal affinity. Our education, our ideas, beliefs, our past lives, our aims for the future, make a gulf between us. We could never bridge it," He paused.

I laughed aloud: he looked at me then in surprise. "I laugh," said I, "because I see how absurd it was to fancy that you loved me. A bridge between us! If you loved me as I love you, our love would turn water into land, melt mountains into plains: we would cross dry-shod to one another."

"Do you love me so?" he said, his blue eyes gleaming, and making a step toward me. I had power enough to make him feel, and feel strongly, but that was not enough.

"No," I said, "Mr. Lawrence, you must take nothing from me now: I can give nothing now."

"But if I want all?" he said.

I laughed again. "But you do not," I said. "I have told you I love you and would marry you. You cannot, you say. Then that ends all between us. I love you too much to be able to give you only what you give me."

"We cannot marry," he repeated: "it would be ruin to both of us."

"Go away!" I said: "I would rather be alone." I was spent, and felt feeble and weak.

"Let me tell you, first, that I admire you, esteem you, infinitely: let me say this before I go; and you will think of me kindly." He said this pleadingly.

I looked at him wonderingly. Did he not yet know how much I loved him? My courage and pride were ebbing fast away. Faintly I said, "Before you go kneel down in front of me, and let me touch your forehead with my lips." He did so, and I bent forward and took his head in both my hands and kissed it. Somehow as I did it the strange thought came to me that if I had ever had a son, just so I have kissed his head. It was a yearning feeling, with such tenderness in it that my heart seemed dissolving. Many times. I kissed it and held it, and then, "Good-bye, my only love," I said. "I could have loved you very well."

His eyes were wet with tears as he raised his head. "I shall never forget you: you are nobleness itself," he said. "God bless and prosper you, Miss Linton!" Then he went.

That is all, all, and life is where it was a month ago; only, "I wear my rue with a difference." He was my inferior. I was higher and nobler and purer than he, but I loved him, and the greatest joy I could know would have been to lead my life with him. So it is over, and this book had best be put away. I will go back to my old life, and see what I can make of it. I am glad to have known what love meant: I shall be gladder after a while, when this ache is over. If he could but have loved me as I loved him—if he could! But he could not, and it was not to be. I must learn to be again a strong-minded woman.

Letter from Henry Lawrence to George Manning

DEAR GEORGE: I'm off for Europe to-morrow. I behaved like a man and broke the whole thing off. She behaved like a man too, told me how much she loved me, and then accepted the position. I feel like a girl who has jilted a fellow, and it's a very poor way to feel. Never flirt with a strong-minded woman. I believe she cared for me, and I think very likely when I'm fifty I shall think I was a fool not to have braved it out and married her. I'm sure if I don't think it then, I shall when I reach the next world; but then, like the girl in Browning's poem, "she will pass, nor turn her face."

I feel very blue, and I think I'd better ask Alice to marry me. Yours, H.L.

MARSHALL NEIL.

THE KING OF BAVARIA

Of all the prominent personages who, through their official position or individual power, or both combined, occupy at present the eye of the public, probably not one is more unjustly criticised or more generally misunderstood than Ludwig II., king of Bavaria. As a reigning monarch, young, handsome, secluded in his habits and unmarried, he is of course exposed to all the inquisitive observation and exaggerated gossip which the feminine curiosity and masculine envy of a court and capital can supply—gossip which is eagerly listened to by the annual crowd of foreigners who spend a few days in Munich to visit the Pinakothek, listen to a Wagner opera, and catch, if possible, a glimpse of the romantic young king; and is by them carried home to find public circulation at third hand through the columns of sensation newspapers. And when to this personal criticism is added the strife of opinion over his political acts, and the ill-will of the extreme Church party in consequence of his liberal tendencies, it may easily be believed that his real character is but little known, and is in many cases deliberately falsified. A brief review of the facts and circumstances of his reign may serve to correct, in some degree, the false impressions which have so long prevailed.

In 1864, in the midst of the confusion of the Schleswig-Holstein war, which was then agitating all Germany, King Max died, and his eldest son, Ludwig, only nineteen years old, was summoned from the quiet routine of his university studies to ascend the throne of Bavaria. In childhood his health had been extremely delicate, and on that account he had been educated in unusual privacy—training which, joined to his naturally reserved and meditative disposition, and the various disenchantments of his public career, may satisfactorily account for his present confirmed love of solitude. The position to which he was so unexpectedly called was an exceedingly difficult one for a mind filled, as his was, with ideal visions of liberty and progress, and totally inexperienced in the ways of a selfish world and in the profundity of Jesuitical intrigues; and the unavoidable embarrassments of the time had been increased by the course of his immediate predecessors. Ludwig I., through a sentimental love of the picturesque, had encouraged the multiplication of monasteries and convents and brotherhoods of wandering friars, and Maximilian, though naturally tolerant, and still more liberalized by the influence of his Protestant queen, was a firm believer in the divine right of kings; and having joined hands with the clerical party in putting down the revolution of 1848, found himself afterward so far compromised in their behalf that he was unable to oppose their aggrandizing plans; so that in his reign the priests, and especially the Jesuits, attained to a greater degree of power than they had ever before known.

The young king for a while carried on the government after his father's policy, and with the same ministerial officers; but he soon began to show signs of independence of character, the first manifestation of which was an attempt to curtail the power of the Jesuits, especially in the matter of public instruction. This was, of course, enough to rouse the enmity of the whole Society of Jesus against him, and its members have been busy ever since in thwarting all his plans and doing their utmost to render him unpopular with his subjects.

Unfortunately, the king soon gave his people a plausible excuse for fault-finding by the unbounded favor which he bestowed upon Wagner, whose ideas and whose music were at that time alike obnoxious to the majority of Germans. The favorite theory of this great genius, but arrogant and unscrupulous man, was the elevation of the German nation through the aesthetic and moral influence of a properly developed theatre; and the king was ready to offer every facility for the practical realization of this visionary plan. But the Jesuits scented heresy in the alliance between the experienced composer and the youthful dreamer, and the liberal party were indignant that Wagner's affairs should be made a cabinet question at a time of such great national anxiety. The dissatisfaction rose to such a height at last that it became necessary for Wagner to leave Munich, and for his royal patron to break off, apparently at least, the unpopular intimacy. The people were right, to some extent, in denouncing Wagner, whose course in Munich, as elsewhere, had been selfish and ungrateful, and in blaming the king for indulging his individual tastes to the neglect of his duties as a ruler; but the youth and inexperience of the latter were a sufficient excuse for excess of enthusiasm, and reproach may well be forgotten in astonishment and admiration at the capacity of this mere boy to understand and feel those wonderful musical dramas which were then almost universally laughed at or condemned, though their gradual but steady rise in public appreciation seems now to warrant their claim to be considered as "the music of the future."

In December, 1865, a little more than a year after his accession, King Ludwig acknowledged the union of Italy under Victor Emmanuel—an important step, which at once arrayed the Catholic Church against him as its enemy. He also endeavored to effect a reconciliation between Vienna and Berlin, but his mediation did not avail; nor could he hinder the alliance of Bavaria with Austria in the war of 1866. But as soon as peace was concluded he quitted the policy of his father, which he had hitherto, for the most part, followed, and selected as members of his cabinet men of liberal principles and progressive ideas, calling to, its head Prince Hohenlohe, a known friend of Prussia and a firm opposer of the Austrian alliance.

One of the first projects of the new ministry was to free the public schools, as far as possible, from the influence of the clergy. These and other liberal movements aroused the whole force of the Ultramontane party, and a terrible strife ensued, resulting in Hohenlohe's resignation, which the king was unwillingly obliged to accept. Hohenlohe was succeeded by Count Bray, a man devoted to feudalism and the Church, who had been minister under Ludwig I. and Maximilian II. The clerical party were exultant in their triumph. They saw that trouble was brewing between France and Prussia, and trusted that Count Bray would be able to prevent any alliance between the latter state and Bavaria. They would have preferred a coalition with France and Austria against Prussia and the kingdom of Italy, with the ultimate purpose of reinstating the pope as a temporal sovereign. To this end they were willing to degrade Bavaria to a province of Rome, and would gladly have dethroned the king if they could have done so; their hatred of him having been increased in the mean time by his public recognition of Dr. Döllinger's protest against the decree of papal infallibility. But when the crisis came their hopes were speedily frustrated by the king's prompt decision to stand by Prussia in the contest. He at once declared his intention to Parliament, which had until then appeared willing to grant only the supplies necessary to maintain Bavaria in a state of armed neutrality. The decision was the king's alone—"My word is sacred" was his principle of action—but after he had taken the first step his ministers supported him throughout the struggle with patriotic zeal. He immediately issued a proclamation calling his people to arms against their hereditary enemy, and his message, "We South Germans are with you" was the first pledge of sympathy and assistance that cheered the king and the citizens at Berlin.

King Ludwig's conduct in this matter is especially deserving of praise, because his kingdom is of sufficient size and importance to make its absorption into the empire a great sacrifice of individual pride; particularly when it is remembered that Prussia, of which Bavaria had long been jealous, was to be the leading power in the new union of states, and Prussia's king the emperor. But from the time of Ludwig's accession he had looked forward with hope to a consolidation of the numerous states of Germany into one nation; and the opportunity, though coming sooner than he or any one else had anticipated, found him not unprepared for the change. When the storm against Hohenlohe was at its height, he said, "Does that party really think that the steps which have already been taken toward the unity of Germany will be retracted? Then they do not know me. I have not read Schiller in vain. I too can say, 'All the power, all the influence, which belongs to me as a constitutional prince I will lay in the scale of the idea of the unity of Germany.' I should greatly prefer to devote myself to peaceful pursuits, to clear the way for my people to elevate themselves through education and material prosperity, and to help them open the noble treasure of ideas bequeathed to them by our thinkers and poets; but when a foreign enemy is standing at Germany's gates I hold it my duty not only to give my army, my lands and my property for the public good, but to offer myself to the commander in-chief as a common soldier of the united German empire." On another occasion he said, "I acknowledge in my country only one party—that of truly noble men, who, through extensive knowledge, pure thoughts and useful deeds, serve the commonwealth, whether these be skillful workmen, citizens, peasants, scholars, honest magistrates, who, like myself, serve the people conscientiously, officers who are friends as well as leaders of the soldiers, worthy priests of all confessions, who are real physicians of souls, righteous judges, teachers of my people, or noblemen who add to the distinction of title that of true nobility of soul, and set a worthy example in all good things: all these, and only these, are of my party."

And again: "I desire of my Creator not the satisfaction of gratified ambition, but the joy of knowing that after my death it will be said of me, 'Ludwig II. strove to be a true friend to his people, and he succeeded in making them happier." And again: "It would gratify me more to obtain a true solution of my country's social problems than to become, by force of arms, ruler of all Europe; nor should I be willing to incur the responsibility of a single life lost through my pursuit of any selfish plan."

These quotations are sufficient to show the enlightened views of the king in regard to his duties as a ruler; and his whole conduct since his accession has proved his desire to free his subjects from the chains of bigotry and superstition in which they have so long been bound. His constant opposition to the machinations of the Jesuits, his increasing neglect of the religious shows and ceremonies in which Munich delights, and his open support of Döllinger and the liberal Catholics, indicate plainly enough that he is no slave of the Church of which he is by birth and training a member; but his example and influence cannot, as yet, effect much against the strong majority of Ultramontanists in Parliament and the crowds of priests who still hold spiritual sway over the greater portion of his people. One peculiar hindrance to the success of any progressive measure in Bavaria lies in the absurd regulation which makes every ex-cabinet minister a member of a separate government council, the consent of which must be obtained before any new royal or parliamentary decree can be put in force; and as the majority of these ex-ministers are Ultramontanists or otherwise behind the times, it will be seen that the progressive party, though with the king at their head, are constantly thwarted by this auxiliary force of the Jesuits and old fogies outside the government.

With regard to the private life of the king, his secluded habits are a source of general complaint. The Bavarians, and especially the citizens of Munich, would like him to mix freely with his people in the streets and at places of public resort, as Ludwig I. was in the habit of doing, and to settle down with wife and children around him, after the manner of good King Max; to head all their festive processions, preside at the opening of their annual fairs, and lend himself to legendary customs which have long lost their significance, and to social gayeties in which he can find no pleasure. And because he refuses to take his airings in the crowded streets, to head the processions on Corpus Christi and St. John's Day, to wash the disciples' feet on Holy Thursday, to preside at the Michaelmas horse-races and puppet-shows, and to marry for the sake of increasing the brilliancy of the court and perpetuating the Wittelsbach dynasty, he is denounced alike by devotees and worldlings, who judge him, not by what he does that is good and useful, but by what he does not do to gratify them. Because he spends the greater part of the year in retirement at his castles in the country, coming to Munich only for the session of Parliament in the winter, he is accused of indifference to the prosperity of his state and the welfare of his subjects.

But he himself says, "It is incumbent upon a prince to meditate upon the duties of his calling, which he can surely do better when alone with God and Nature than in the confusion of a court." His ministers and all who have occasion to approach him in a business capacity declare that at every such interview they are surprised at his thorough knowledge of the subject under discussion, as also at his keen insight into character and motives.