Chapter V: I Begin to Think

Now that I had consented to the engagement with Carlo, my first and greatest object was to communicate the news to Norah; and I also wrote a letter to Sir Alfred--not exactly for the purpose of informing him of it, but with the endeavour to ascertain the state of his feelings with regard to Norah. He had been abroad ever since the last day I saw him in London; and until some arrangements were made about his debts, he could not return to England.

This Mr. Mordaunt was endeavouring to do, and was bestowing much time and labour to effect it at the least possible sacrifice of the fine property the young baronet had inherited from his father. He heard that he was travelling in the East, where Mr. Mordaunt thought he would be less liable to the temptations of gambling than he would be in a European capital.

“But, confound the fellow!” he wrote to Aunt Jane, “we shall never be sure that he won’t lose more till he is safely married to such a girl as Norah; but I suppose she will be too sensible to consent.”

It was very interesting to watch the gradual revival of Dorina’s health and mind, under Aunt Jane’s judicious treatment. She was becoming quite hopeful, and began to enjoy her daily walks and drives to the villages on her property with quite a childlike eagerness.

The renewed buoyancy of spirits, after such unheard-of misfortune and treachery, I attributed to the strong faith she had in her religion, and I began to see that the _ennui_ and distaste of life I had often felt since my illness was entirely owing to my want of faith. I found it so much more difficult to believe in Revelation since I began to think now than I had done in the thoughtless days of youth. I seemed to have grown so old and practical and prosaic. Life in this world seemed so unsatisfactory and full of misery, that I could not understand why a kind Creator placed us in it, unless it was really a state of trial for an eternity hereafter; and I yet found it so difficult to believe in that eternity, or account for the origin of evil; the momentous question of why evil spirits were created, and why sin was allowed, was ever in my mind.

Aunt Jane attributed one of the reasons of my tendency towards unbelief to the strange anomaly of my father and mother being of different faiths; but I am certain it was not, for I never was troubled about details of dogmas. If I could believe in Revelation, that would suffice. I always felt that, if I could acknowledge the Scriptures as my guide, I should be perfectly happy, for they contain every precept and promise that must ensure an eternity of bliss.

As a child I certainly became rather prejudiced against my mother’s faith, or, rather, some professors of it, from reading (strange to say), the Catholic Bishop of Winchester’s (Dr. Milner’s) history of that ancient town. My father loved the place, from having been at school there; and he used to describe the beautiful Cathedral and other old buildings and ruins there so vividly that I quite fancied I saw them with my own eyes. So it was my favourite book--but the Bishop’s description of the corruption of the secular canons who usurped the monastery, was very painful; and one or two of the monks I saw in Italy as a child tended to revive the unfavourable impression.

At this period of my life the greatest suffering I experienced was want of faith in Revelation. If I could have felt convinced of the truth of Revelation, or even of a future state of reward or punishment awarded to us by a superintending Providence, I should have been easily reconciled to all my misfortunes.

The endeavour to do good, to live up to the beautiful precepts of Scripture, or even to believe, as Plato did, in the eventual overcoming of evil by good--of an immortality of happiness in another world, for the enjoyment of which we had prepared ourselves by a conscientious following of the good and the beautiful here below--this would be making good use of all my trials and disappointments; but, alas! the scoffing spirit of the age, the apparent disbelief in Revelation which _was_ (and still more _is now_) shown in the writings of all the most popular authors, was most infectious.

It is sad to see how much more a spirit of hope and faith in _some_ kind of eventual good is shown by nearly all the ancient heathen writers of Greece than is shown by modern poets, novelists, and so-called philosophers of the present day, although these last have the advantage of a real, or, at all events, written code of morals in Scripture, which is certainly infinitely superior to any of the blundering efforts at hope and goodness of the untaught heathen. I became a regular utilitarian, for I could not think anything signified that would not conduce to eternal happiness.

I will here put down the outline of several conversations with Aunt Jane on these subjects which I had at different times, because they chiefly tended to give me the happy old age I now enjoy. But those readers who do not care to trace the causes of this eventual good, had better skip the chapters.

Aunt Jane, on hearing my foolish complaints, which she said were augmented by my having read many of the German and French writers of the day, broke forth one morning in the following satirical doggrels:

Ye powers of good
And powers of ill
O’erthrow the Rood--
Deny free-will,
Say ’tis not odd
There is no God!
Evangelist,
We will resist
Such foolish stuff
Writ by a muff.
Now, pray remark,
There was no ark,
And Luke and Mark
Were in the dark:
We know more now,
We well know how
All men must end
And never mend:
All men must die:
’Tis all my eye,
To live again.
Yet full of pain
Is this our life
And full of strife:
And so say I
To Hope good-bye,
For in the main
This life’s no gain:
A painful trance
As thinks young France,
And boldly saith
Long life to Death!
Long life to us
Who make this fuss,
And rid mankind
Of all that’s kind.
The world will say
To its last day,
We made an end
Of power to mend,
We said that might
Through wrong was right;
That bad was good--
If understood
That good was bad,
If wish you had
To please yourself
And seize on pelf.
Your neighbour’s nought,
For think you ought
On number one
And have some fun,
If fun can be
When we can see
No hope to save
Beyond the grave.
This life we love,
No power above
No Being bright
To give us light,
No spirit near
To soothe and cheer,
In Death’s dark hour
No healing power
To calm our woes
In life’s last throes:
Or help to send,
For we must end!
We must not hope
But only mope,
For Life is Death
At our last breath.
No power to save
Though we may rave,
And beg and pray,
For we must lay
In the cold tomb,
Endure the Doom,
The enlightened age,
The learned sage,
The matter-God,
Decree we’re sod.
And so to Hope
Good-bye: we ope
The grave, and stay
There, wise men say,
Decay and rot
Both sage and sot,
We live no more
We rot at core,
And thus will cry
Until we die,
On, Sceptics, on!
There’s no St. John.