Book: Night and Morning, Volume 5

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Night and Morning, Volume 5




Philip had gone through severer trials than Sidney. But, had their
earlier fates been reversed, and that spirit, in youth so haughty and
self-willed, been lapped in ease and luxury, would Philip now be a better
or a happier man? Perhaps, too, for a less tranquil existence than his
brother, Philip yet may be reserved; but, in proportion to the uses of
our destiny, do we repose or toil: he who never knows pain knows but the
half of pleasure. The lot of whatever is most noble on the earth below
falls not amidst the rosy Gardels of the Epicurean. We may envy the man
who enjoys and rests; but the smile of Heaven settles rather on the front
of him who labours and aspires.

And did Philip ever regret the circumstances that had given him Fanny for
the partner of his life? To some who take their notions of the Ideal
from the conventional rules of romance, rather than from their own
perceptions of what is true, this narrative would have been more pleasing
had Philip never loved but Fanny. But all that had led to that love had
only served to render it more enduring and concentred. Man's strongest
and worthiest affection is his last--is the one that unites and embodies
all his past dreams of what is excellent--the one from which Hope springs
out the brighter from former disappointments--the one in which the
MEMORIES are the most tender and the most abundant--the one which,
replacing all others, nothing hereafter can replace.

. . . . . .

And now ere the scene closes, and the audience, whom perhaps the actors
may have interested for a while, disperse, to forget amidst the pursuits
of actual life the Shadows that have amused an hour, or beguiled a care,
let the curtain fall on one happy picture:--

It is some years after the marriage of Philip and Fanny. It is a summer
morning. In a small old-fashioned room at Beaufort Court, with its
casements open to the gardens, stood Philip, having just entered; and
near the window sat Fanny, his boy by her side. She was at the mother's
hardest task--the first lessons to the first-born child; and as the boy
looked up at her sweet earnest face with a smile of intelligence on his
own, you might have seen at a glance how well understood were the teacher
and the pupil. Yes: whatever might have been wanting in the Virgin to
the full development of mind, the cares of the mother had supplied. When
a being was born to lean on her alone--dependent on her providence for
life--then hour after hour, step after step, in the progress of infant
destinies, had the reason of the mother grown in the child's growth,
adapting itself to each want that it must foresee, and taking its
perfectness and completion from the breath of the New Love!

The child caught sight of Philip and rushed to embrace him.

"See!" whispered Fanny, as she also hung upon him, and strange
recollections of her own mysterious childhood crowded upon her,--"See,"
whispered she, with a blush half of shame and half of pride, "the poor
idiot girl is the teacher of your child!"

"And," answered Philip, "whether for child or mother, what teacher is
like Love?"

Thus saying, he took the boy into his arms; and, as he bent over those
rosy cheeks, Fanny saw, from the movement of his lips and the moisture in
his eyes, that he blessed God. He looked upon the mother's face, he
glanced round on the flowers and foliage of the luxurious summer, and
again he blessed God: And without and within, it was Light and MORNING!

THE END.

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