ROMANCE AND REALITY

"I MET with a most splendid girl last evening," remarked to his friend a young man, whose fine, intellectual forehead, and clear bright eye, gave indications of more than ordinary mental endowments.

"Who is she?" was the friend's brief question.

"Her name is Adelaide Merton. Have you ever seen her?"

"No, but I have often heard of the young lady."

"As a girl of more than ordinary intelligence?"

"O yes. Don't you remember the beautiful little gems of poetry that used to appear in the Gazette, under the signature of Adelaide?"

"Very well. Some of them were exquisite, and all indicative of a fine mind. Was she their author?"

"So I have been told."

"I can very readily believe it; for never have I met with a woman who possessed such a brilliant intellect. Her power of expression is almost unbounded. Her sentences are perfect pictures of the scenes she describes. If she speaks of a landscape, not one of its most minute features is lost, nor one of the accessories to its perfection as a whole overlooked. And so of every thing else, in the higher regions of the intellect, or in the lower forms of nature. For my own part, I was lost in admiration of her qualities. She will yet shine in the world."

The young man who thus expressed himself in regard to Adelaide Merton, was named Charles Fenwick. He possessed a brilliant mind, which had been well stored. But his views of life were altogether perverted and erroneous, and his ends deeply tinctured with the love of distinction, for its own sake. A few tolerably successful literary efforts, had been met by injudicious over praise, leading him to the vain conclusion that his abilities were of so high a character, that no field of action was for him a worthy one that had any thing to do with what he was pleased to term the ordinary grovelling pursuits of life. Of course, all mere mechanical operations were despised, and as a natural consequence, the men who were engaged in them. So with merchandizing, and also with the various branches of productive enterprise. They were mere ministers of the base physical wants of our nature. His mind took in higher aims than these!

His father was a merchant in moderate circumstances, engaged in a calling which was of course despised by the son, notwithstanding he was indebted to his father's constant devotion to that calling for his education, and all the means of comfort and supposed distinction that he enjoyed. The first intention of the elder Mr. Fenwick had been to qualify his son, thoroughly, for the calling of a merchant, that he might enter into business with him and receive the benefits of his experience and facilities in trade. But about the age of seventeen, while yet at college, young Fenwick made the unfortunate discovery that he could produce a species of composition which he called poetry. His efforts were praised—and this induced him to go on; until he learned the art of tolerably smooth versification. This would all have been well enough had he not imagined himself to be, in consequence, of vastly increased importance. Stimulated by this idea, he prosecuted his collegiate studies with renewed diligence, storing a strong and comprehensive mind with facts and principles in science and philosophy, that would have given him, in after life, no ordinary power of usefulness as a literary and professional man, had not his selfish ends paralysed and perverted the natural energies of a good intellect.

The father's intention of making him a merchant was, of course, opposed by the son, who chose one of the learned profession as more honorable—not more useful; a profession that would give him distinction—not enable him to fill his right place in society. In this he was gratified. At the time of his introduction to the reader, he was known as a young physician without a patient. He had graduated, but had not yet seen any occasion for taking an office, as his father's purse supplied all his wants. His pursuits were mainly literary—consisting of essays and reviews for some of the periodicals intermixed with a liberal seasoning of pretty fair rhymes which rose occasionally to the dignity of poetry—or, as he supposed, to the lofty strains of a Milton or a Dante. Occasionally a lecture before some literary association brought his name into the newspapers in connection with remarks that kindled his vanity into a flame. Debating clubs afforded another field for display, and he made liberal use of the facility. So much for Charles Fenwick.

Of Adelaide Merton, we may remark, that she was just the kind of a woman to captivate a young man of Fenwick's character. She was showy in her style of conversation, but exceedingly superficial. Her reading consisted principally of poetry and the popular light literature of the day, with a smattering of history. She could repeat, in quite an attractive style, many fine passages from Homer, Virgil, Milton, Shakspeare, Pope, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, and a host of lesser lights in the poetic hemisphere—and could quote from and criticise the philosophy and style of Bulwer with the most edifying self-satisfaction imaginable—not to enumerate her many other remarkable characteristics.

A second visit to Adelaide confirmed the first favorable impression made upon the mind of Fenwick. At the third visit he was half in love with her, and she more than half in love with him. A fourth interview completed the work on both sides. At the fifth, the following conversation terminated the pleasant intercourse of the evening. They were seated on a sofa, and had been talking of poetry, and birds, and flowers, green fields, and smiling landscapes, and a dozen other things not necessary to be repeated at present. A pause of some moments finally succeeded, and each seemed deeply absorbed in thought.

"Adelaide," at length the young man said in a low, musical tone, full of richness and pathos—"Do you not feel, sometimes, when your mind rises into the region of pure thoughts, and ranges free among the beautiful and glorious images that then come and go like angel visitants, a sense of loneliness, because another cannot share what brings to you such exquisite delight?"

"Yes—often and often," replied the maiden lifting her eyes to those of Fenwick, and gazing at him with a tender expression.

"And yet few there are, Adelaide, few indeed who could share such elevating pleasures."

"Few, indeed," was the response.

"Pardon me, for saying," resumed the young man, "that to you I have been indebted for such added delights. Rarely, indeed, have I been able to find, especially among your gentler sex, one who could rise with me into the refining, elevating, exquisite pleasures of the imagination. But you have seemed fully to appreciate my sentiments, and fully to sympathize with them."

To this Adelaide held down her head for a moment or two, the position causing the blood to deepen in her cheeks and forehead. Then looking up with an expression of lofty poetic feeling she said—

"And, until I met you, Mr. Fenwick, I must be frank in saying, that I have known no one, whose current of thought and feeling—no one whose love of the beautiful in the ideal or natural—has seemed so perfect a reflection of my own."

To this followed another pause, longer and more thoughtful than the first. It was at length broken by Fenwick, who said, in a voice that trembled perceptibly.

"I have an inward consciousness, that sprung into activity when the first low murmur of your voice fell upon my ear, that you were to me a kindred spirit. Since that moment, this consciousness has grown daily more and more distinct, and now I feel impelled, by a movement which I cannot resist, to declare its existence. First pardon this freedom, Adelaide, and then say if you understand and appreciate what I have uttered in all frankness and sincerity?"

Not long did our young friend wait for an answer that made him happier than he had ever been in his life—happy in the first thrilling consciousness of love deeply and fervently reciprocated. To both of them, there was a degree of romance about this brief courtship that fully accorded with their views of love truly so called. The ordinary cold matter-of-fact way of coming together, including a cautious and even at times a suspicious investigation of character, they despised as a mere mockery of the high, spontaneous confidence which those who are truly capable of loving, feel in each other—a confidence which nothing can shake. And thus did they pledge themselves without either having thought of the other's moral qualities; or either of them having formed any distinct ideas in regard to the true nature of the marriage relation.

A few months sufficed to consummate their union, when, in accordance with the gay young couple's desire, old Mr. Fenwick furnished them out handsomely, at a pretty heavy expense, in an establishment of their own. As Charles Fenwick had not, heretofore, shown any inclination to enter upon the practice of the profession he had chosen, his father gently urged upon him the necessity of now doing so. But the idea of becoming a practical doctor, was one that Charles could not abide. He had no objection to the title, for that sounded quite musical to his ear; but no farther than that did his fancy lead him.

"Why didn't I choose the law as a profession?" he would sometimes say to his young wife. "Then I might have shone. But to bury myself as a physician, stealing about from house to house, and moping over sick beds, is a sacrifice of my talents that I cannot think of without turning from the picture with disgust."

"Nor can I," would be the wife's reply. "And what is more, I never will consent to such a perversion of your talents."

"Why cannot you study law, even now, Charles?" she asked of him one day. "With your acquirements, and habits of thought, I am sure you would soon be able to pass an examination."

"I think that is a good suggestion, Adelaide," her husband replied, thoughtfully. "I should only want a year or eighteen months for preparation, and then I could soon place myself in the front rank of the profession."

The suggestion of Charles Fenwick's wife was promptly adopted. A course of legal studies was entered upon, and completed in about two years. Up to this time, every thing had gone on with our young couple as smoothly as a summer sea. A beautifully furnished house, well kept through the attention of two or three servants, gave to their indoor enjoyments a very important accessory. For money there was no care, as the elder Mr. Fenwick's purse-strings relaxed as readily to the hand of Charles as to his own. A pleasant round of intelligent company, mostly of a literary character, with a full supply of all the new publications and leading periodicals of the day, kept their minds elevated into the region of intellectual enjoyments, and caused them still more to look down upon the ordinary pursuits of life as far beneath them.

But all this could not last forever. On the day Charles was admitted to the bar, he received a note from his father, requesting an immediate interview. He repaired at once to his counting room, in answer to the parental summons.

"Charles," said the old man, when they were alone, "I have, up to this time, supplied all your wants, and have done it cheerfully. In order to prepare you for taking your right place in society, I have spared no expense in your education, bearing you, after your term of college life had expired, through two professional courses, so that, as either a physician or a lawyer, you are fully equal to the task of sustaining yourself and family. As far as I am concerned, the tide of prosperity has evidently turned against me. For two years, I have felt myself gradually going back, instead of forward, notwithstanding my most earnest struggles to maintain at least the position already gained. To-day, the notice of a heavy loss completes my inability to bear the burden of your support, and that of my own family. You must, therefore, Charles, enter the world for yourself, and there struggle as I have done, and as all do around you, for a living. But, as I know that it will be impossible for you to obtain sufficient practice at once in either law or medicine to maintain yourself, I will spare you out of my income, which will now be small in comparison to what it has been, four hundred dollars a year, for the next two years. You must yourself make up the deficiency, and no doubt you can easily do so."

"But, father," replied the young man, his face turning pale, "I cannot, possibly, make up the deficiency. Our rent alone, you know, is four hundred dollars."

"I am aware of that, Charles. But what then? You must get a house at one half that rent, and reduce your style of living, proportionably, in other respects."

"What! And compromise my standing in society? I can never do that, father."

"Charles," said the old man, looking at his son with a sterner countenance than he had ever yet put on when speaking to him, "remember that you have no standing in society which you can truly call your own. I have, heretofore, held you up, and now that my sustaining hand is about to be withdrawn, you must fall or rise to your own level. And I am satisfied, that the sooner you are permitted to do so the better."

The fact was, that the selfish, and to old Mr. Fenwick, the heartless manner in which Charles had received the communication of his changed circumstances, had wounded him exceedingly, and suddenly opened his eyes to the false relation which his son was holding to society.

"You certainly cannot be in earnest, father," the son replied, after a few moments of hurried and painful thought, "in declaring your intention of throwing me off with a meagre pittance of four hundred dollars, before I have had a chance to do any thing for myself. How can I possibly get along on that sum?"

"I do not expect you to live on that, Charles. But the difference you will have to make up yourself. You have talents and acquirements. Bring them into useful activity, and you will need little of my assistance. As for me, as I have already told you, the tide of success is against me, and I am gradually moving down the stream. Four hundred dollars is the extent of what I can give you, and how long the ability to do that may last, Heaven only knows."

Reluctantly the young couple were compelled to give up their elegantly arranged dwelling, and move into a house of about one half of its dimensions. In this there was a fixed, cold, common place reality, that shocked the sensibilities of both even though throughout the progress of the change, each had remained passive in the hands of the elder Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick, who had to choose them a house, and attend to all the arrangements of moving and refitting the new home. For Charles to have engaged in the vulgar business of moving household furniture, would have been felt as a disgrace;—and as for Adelaide, she didn't know how to do any thing in regard to the matter, and even if she had, would have esteemed such an employment as entirely beneath her.