The Young Seigneur by Wilfrid Chateauclair

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* * * * *

To return to our current day however; in the evening Chamilly came into
the drawing room with some more manuscript, which he handed to Chrysler.

"Here is the rest of the story I have been writing," said he, "take it
sir and may it amuse you a little; it is the key to the rest. I am going
out on the River." And he went-out of the Manoir door into the storm.

The manuscript proceeded as follows:

BOOK III.

BOOK OF ENTHUSIASMS (CONTINUED.)

CHAPTER XLII.

QUINET'S CONTRIBUTION

"O, skyward-looking, fleet-winged soul,
Earth hath no name for thine ideal flower!"

--MARY MORGAN.

For a night and a day after my talk with my father; I was a fool.
Swelling names of ancestors rang proudly in my ears, and I shudder to
think how easily I might have ended in a genealogist.

"Salut, Milord de Quinet."

"Bon soir, Chamilly," replied he, soberly.

"Aha, thou melancholy friend, the liver again, eh?".

We were strolling along the half illuminated Grosvenor street under the
elms. The dim, substantial mansions in their grounds and trees, pleased
my foreign eyes and I was glad to find the city of Alexandra able to vie
with the great cities of the world, and I thought of her as near, and
for, the moment, could not understand the humor of Quinet.

"You don't seem to know," said he, "at least, I thought I would tell
you--that Miss Grant has gone away,"--he stopped and looked at me
earnestly.--"I sympathise with you."

"Away!" I caught my breath. My spirits sank with disappointment. Alas!
Heaven seemed to ordain that my passion for her should never become, a
close communion, but only keep this light, ethereal touch upon me.

And so Quinet knew. "I do not ask you how: evidently you have known it
all along?" (It was the first time I had been spoken to about my love
for her, and it made me feel peculiarly.) "Mon ami, Quinet, tu es
heureux ne pas aimer. Que penses tu de ma chere?"

"Go on, my friend Chamilly; be steadfast, for thou could'st not have
chosen a sweeter, lovelier, holier divinity. O my friend, be steadfast
and be happy. Yes, as thou hast said, I have known this."

Quinet was diverting our steps along up leading streets which tended
towards the Mountain, and soon we reached the head of one, where a wall
met us.

"This way," he said, striking aside into a field which formed part of
the Park. "Adieu, civilization of street lights!" and he pressed up into
a dark grove where I stumbled after, and next, under the twilight of a
sky full of stars, could descry dim outlines of the surroundings of our
path and even of the Mountain, silent above us like a huge black ghost.
We toiled up the steep stair, guiding ourselves by feeling, and in a few
minutes Were at Prospect Point, that jutting bit of turf on the
precipice's edge where the trees draw back and allow in daytime a wide
view of the city and surrounding country, and we both stood breathless
there in the dimness, in front of a sight bewilderingly grand enough to
of itself take one's breath away.

Above were the radiant constellations. Below, between a belt of weird
horizon and the dark abyss at our feet, the city shone, its dense
blackness mapped out in stars as brilliant and myriad-seeming as those
overhead,--a Night above, a Night below! Once before had I looked from
that crag upon Montreal, in a memorable sunset hour, and remembered my
impression of its beauty. Below, the scarped rock fell: the tops of
trees which grew up the steep face lost themselves, lower, in a mass of
grove that flourished far out, and besieged the town in swollen
battalions and columns of foliage. Half overwhelmed by this friendly
assault, the City sat in her robes of grey and red, proud mistress of
half-a continent, noble in situation as in destiny. A hundred spires
and domes pointed up, from streets full of quaint names of saints and
deeds of heroes. The pinnacled towers of Notre Dame rose impressively in
the distance. Past ran the glorious St. Lawrence, with its lovely
islands of St. Helen's and the Nuns'.

Now, however, it seemed no longer a place upon earth at all. It was a
living spirit. Quiet as the sky itself, its bright eyes looked far
upward, and it was communing, in the lowliness of Nature, with the
constellations.

"This is Life!" cried Quinet, who had hitherto been excited with
suppressed feeling. "The vast winds come in to us from Ether. Night
hides all that is common, and sprinkles the dark-blue vault with
gold-dust; the planets gleam far and pure amidst it, and Space sings his
awful solo."

"All is one mighty Being. There he moves, the Great Creature, his
crystal boundlessness encompassing his countless shapes. He faces us
from every point. His God-soul looks through to us. He rises at our
feet. He surrounds us in ourselves; speaks and lives in us. Is he not
resplendent, wondrous?"

"We are out of the world of vain phantoms, Chamilly! We are above the
chatter of a wretched spot, a narrow life. Down there, nothing is not
ridiculed that is not some phase of a provinciality. The dances in
certain houses, the faces of some conceited club, long-spun names,
business or gossip, or to drive a double carriage, are the gaslight
boundaries of existence! Pah! it is a courtyard, bounded by four square
walls, a path or two to walk in, and the eyes of busybodies to order our
doings and sneer us out of our souls. How they deny us that the centre
of the systems is immeasurably off there in Pleiades! What fools we are.
We follow trifles we value at the valuation of idiots; we cherish mean
ideas; we believe contracted doctrines; we do things we are ashamed of;
dropping at last like the animals, with alarm that we die."

"Look, off into the heart of It! the heart of It! beyond there!" he
exclaimed, stretching his arm. "Forget our courtyard! Nay, returning
there, let us remember that this infinite ocean is above it--a boundless
sea beneath and around, an unknown universe within. Take in this scene
and feel the rich thrills of its majesty stir you. You are of it; you
came out of it; it is your mother, father, lover; it will never let you
die; that heart of it to which your utmost straining cannot pierce, was
once and will again be known to you. Its beauty caresses your soul from
another world, and it is Love Divine which moves those stars.[J] Your
own sweet passion, Chamilly, is the child of that divine Love, and in it
you mount towards the heavens, and yearn as by inspiration, for a
mysterious ideal existence? The poets and romancers lightly say of it "a
divine power:" they think they say a metaphor--a lie; but I tell you it
is true! May it assist you to live the life of the universe."

[Footnote J: Dante--Divina Commedia.]

"Each man," he cried, "who pursues his highest is a prophet! Ever there
is an inward compulsion in our race to press on, and we hear the heroes
of the front as they fall, crying 'Forward, forward, forward, forward,
forward!'"

While he spoke, for he said much besides, many of the lights were
disappearing, we seemed to be being left alone, and the church-towers of
the city chorussed the hour of ten.

CHAPTER XLIII.

HAVILAND'S PRINCIPLE

The final step in the progression of influences was, strange to say, a
dream. Our residence was then on Grosvenor street,--a Florid Gothic one
after the model of Desdemona's House in Venice. My own little room was
fitted up in a Moorish fashion.

After the scene with Quinet on Prospect Point, I sat up till a late
hour, for I found a letter from Grace, telling jocularly of their
journey just commenced in the delightful Old World, and seriously of
Alexandra's ambitions. I sat thinking with my arms folded on the table
till I fell asleep. Then I felt at first that I was lifted up on the
Mountain again, and leaving that presently, was carried out into space
far away among the stars. Phosphorescent mists and cloud masses passed
over the region, and among these appeared various figures, the last of
which was, that of a certain old Professor of ours.

The most apparently dissimilar things come to us in dreams. A lecture of
the Professor's had once greatly impressed me: "Conscience is Reason,"
he said. "To do a right thing is to do simply the reasonable thing; to
do wrong is to do what is unreasonable.--

"Now think," he said, "what this means."

What could such words have to do with a dream?

"What is Duty?" he proceeded, "Whence the conviction, the mysterious
fact, that whatever my inclination may be, I _ought_ to do some
act--ought to do it though the cup of pleasure be dashed from the
lifting hand, though a loved face most pale, though the stars in their
high courses reel, and the gulfs of perdition smoke,--why is it that the
grave, unalterable 'Ought' must still demand reverence?"

His voice rose.

"Immanuel Kant!"

The familiar name caught my ear, and I attended.

"To him Heaven gave it to solve the problem. Think what Reason is! Be
men for once and attend to one deep matter! Think what Reason is!--the
divinest part of us, and common with the Divine, as with every
Intelligence; speaking not of the voice of the individual, but one sound
everywhere to all. It is more truth than metaphor to name it the VOICE
OF GOD."

In my dream, the Professor repeated, as if with mystic significance, the
cry: "Conscience is Reason!" and as these words vaguely reached me, his
figure dissolved into a rolling cloud, which grew at once into a shape
of giant form, and addressed me in echoing tones: "The unalterable
Ought! the unalterable Ought!" reverberating from the depths and
heights.

I awoke at the sound, and collecting my energies--for I had been
half-asleep,--stretched out my hand to my note-book, looked up the
lecture, and with the words swaying before me, read sleepily:--

"Leave us Reason in any existence;--strip us of sight, sound, touch, and
all the external constitution of nature, clothe us with whatever
feelings and powers, place us in whatever scenes may come--but gift us
with this universal faculty, our power of knowing truth. Otherwise, with
rudder lost, we are dreamers on a drifting wreck, and where were the
Divine One, and this harmonious architecture of the universe, and all
things trustworthy, proportioned, eternal, exalting?"

"Leave us Reason, and, children of God, we may from any point start out
to see Our Father, His voice indicating from within the paths to Him
which somewhere surely lie near to everywhere. Leave us Reason, and,
brothers of men, we recognize that each Intelligence is of value equal
to ourselves, and more precious than aught else can be, and we perceive
the due relations of an orderly world."

"The voice within in simple dignity commands"--

But the lines swam before me: I could not hold my head up: the Moorish
room expanded to the height and magnificence of a Hall of Magic, the
dream of starry space returned and the pure lights circled in it singing
to me in chorus. Space itself seemed to become the veiled countenance of
a Mysterious Power, which "half-revealed and half-concealed" itself on
every hand, and out of the midst of a dark-blue sky, appeared the form
and face of Alexandra, like a Princess-Madonna, smiling, O so earnestly
and kindly.

I started, and woke again. The Professor's notes were still under my
eyes, and I read the words, "Lose yourself and live as if you were one
of the others. Exalted on this pinnacle you are prepared for any
existence; you have learnt your path through eternity, and the world and
its vicissitudes may sweep by you like winds past a statue."

As I slowly thought over all the dream, and comprehended its remarkable
character, I conceived it as a revelation.

"The highest things,--I have found them at last!" I exultantly cried, in
a final enthusiasm--"the total subjection of self and obedience of the
whole life to Reason! What shall I care more for events and opinions, or
any matter that but concerns myself and a fleeting world! I will seek in
my actions ever the greater, finer, nobler thing for all, and the rule
will be aim sufficient!"

"I saw that DUTY is the Secret of the World."

It was only a question to choose my largest, finest, noblest field of
work for all. Difficulties disappeared, and the great aim soon appeared
before me of the cultivation of the national spirit.

The nation must found and shape its own work on the same deep idea.

CHAPTER XLIV.

DAUGHTER OF THE GODS.

"Soft was the breath of balmy spring
In that fair month of May"

--GEO MURRAY.

Time flew brightly for some days, as an early spring, having poured its
thousand rivulets out of the melting snows, began to dry the soil and
instil into the willows and birches the essences that soon cover them
with refreshing green, and earth suddenly teems with leafing and flying
life, with odor of buds and laughing variety of shade and sun.

I, as is my nature, was deeply under the spell.

"Rossignolet du bois joli,
Emporte-moi-t-une lettre!"

Alexandra was coming home!

St. Helen's Island, named affectionately by Champlain after his fair
young wife, Helene, stretches its half-mile of park along the middle of
the River opposite the city of Montreal. It is at all times a graceful
sight; in summer by the refreshing shade of its deep groves beheld from
the dusty city; in winter by the contrast of its flowing purple crest of
trees with the flat white expanse of ice-covered river. The lower end,
towards which the outlines of its double hill tend, is varied by the
walls and flagstaffs of a military establishment, comprising some grey
barracks, a row of officers' quarters, and a block-house, higher on the
hill. In former times, when British redcoats were stationed here, and
military society made the dashing feature in fashionable life, when gay
and high-born parties scattered their laughter through the trim groves,
improved and kept in shape by labor of the rank and file, and "the
Fusileers and the Grenadiers" marched in or out with band and famous
colors flying, and the regimental goat or dog, and shooting practice,
officers' cricket and football matches, and mess dinners, kept the
island lively and picturesque, St. Helen's was a theatre of unceasing
charm to the citizens.

"Is she here yet?" I asked, eagerly grasping the hand of Grace, who,
more exceedingly pretty than ever, had invited all their friends to meet
them on the island, in the grove, "I am delighted to see you back. It is
almost worth the absence."

"And I welcome you as Noah the dove, after the waste of waters,"
exclaimed she, laughing. "But I must answer your first question before
it is repeated. No, _mon frere_, I am afraid she is not to be here to
day. She is a little ill with fatigue."

"O my poor friend!" I exclaimed, and led Grace down the avenue of
leafing trees in which we were; for this grove had been planted in
regular walks by the garrison forty years before, and the turf had been
sown with grass that sprang up at that season a vivid green. The dell
had been a theatre of the gaieties of days past. To me it was deserted
loveliness--a scene prepared and not occupied.

"Is she very ill?"

"No; merely tired. You see she is a thousand times more industrious than
I. Nothing could content her over there unless she was putting out her
utmost. She said it was her ambition to improve, like the great men and
women; that she was strong and ought to make up for some of her
imperfections by greater diligence. I never saw anyone so anxious to do
a thing perfectly. The great Bertini in Florence said of her--'She will
certainly be greater than Angelica Kauffman.' ... 'Alexandra,' he said,
'will rank with men.' The egotism of the creature! You see there are
others who admire her besides yourself."

"None more passionately."

"I thought so.--But look this way, Tityrus," said she, wheeling quickly
and stepping forward. "How do you do, Alexandra!"

There she stood, pale and ill, but proud of carriage as ever.

"So you came after all? Here is Mr. Haviland, gladder even than I to see
you!"

I saw Grace, in a moment, the duties of hostess being temporarily
undertaken by Annie, walking down a path with soldierly Lockhart
Mackenzie, who had come over from the "quarters" in his uniform.

Alexandra and I found ourselves wandering into the wood and climbing the
hillside at the loftiest point of the Island, where, on the summit, the
trees permitted us a wide view of the St. Lawrence, its islands and
ships and the open country; while the afternoon sunlight fell brokenly
upon the faint colors of her face and her golden hair.

"Do you admire distant landscapes?" I asked constrainedly.

"They remind me of high aims and the broad views of great minds,"
returned she, looking outward.

"You favor aiming high," I said, "I always thought so of you."

She turned her glance for a moment to me, and asked seriously: "How can
people aim low? Do you know the lines of Goethe:"

"Thou must either strive and rise,
Or thou must sink and die."

Daughter of the immortals!

"I wonder what you will say of _my_ aims," I stammered.

"May you tell them? I should like very much to hear." And as she seemed
to bend from a queen into a womanly companion, I noticed my gift, the
brooch of Roman mosaic, on her breast.

While she listened, for I told her fully the story of my quest for the
highest things, its strange solution, and my present purposes, I was
surprised to discover that her intelligence was master of the whole
without effort. "O, I have often talked philosophy with Mr. Quinet," she
explained. Her spiritual eyes glistened with profound beautiful depths
as she looked down into the forest-shades before us. A color had
suffused itself over her face so lovely that the glorified creature
beside me seemed to surpass my intensest ideal.

"It _is_ the Voice of the Universe," she said, and her cheeks flushed,
"I once heard the Spirit of All, called, 'Heart of Heaven, Heart of
Earth,' and I added 'Heart of Man.' Obey it, obey your best thoughts."
She looked at me with such a glance of sacred sympathy, that--O joy, the
first words filling life with fragrance have been spoken!

* * * * *

It was short, our sweet bridal and few days of united life, and of bliss
at the old chateau d'Esneval. Gravely ill,--worse,--recovering,--then
DEAD. O God, was it possible?

Yes; I saw her lying amid garlands of evergreens and white robes, in a
low-lighted chamber of the chateau, still and transfigured into a
changed, unearthly beauty, the alas! so thin lips lightly parted in a
smile, the abundant golden hair I used to admire brushed neatly away
from her forehead, the darkened eyelids that told of long exhaustion
peacefully closed as if on visions of heaven--as if she saw God, being
pure in heart. Supernaturally lovely as her soul had been through life
the wearied sufferer lay in death, white tuberoses pressing her poor
thin cheek--one purity affectionate to another. Ah, it was a vision. I
never saw one on whom Heaven loved so constantly to breathe sweetness.
Neither health could roughen her beauty nor sickness drive it away: for
the soul, after all, will shine through the body, will lift it up, and
if glorious will leave it worthy of itself.

* * * * *

Alas, ungovernable, passionate grief! Alas the sight of heart-broken
friends and painful rites of burial, the anguish of bereavement, the
irresistible longing to die and be with her;--and Quinet's grief also;
for then he had confessed that he had loved her too.

* * * * *

And now we who knew her recognise that she was sent into this world for
a season, and tenderly watched and favored of heaven for high
purposes--for the stirring example and strong influence of a short but
lofty life.

In moments of weakness the irresistible longing to go to her returns
upon me, but it is she whose Athene vision impels to throw it off, to
stand ground firmly and push forward with determination towards the
years which must be endured, and the glorious work which calk to be
achieved. Canada, beloved, thy cause is led by an angel!

* * * * *

What of Quinet? Noble friend, when I gave way unlike a man (though that
is with God, who knows how much hearts can bear); he it was who held his
own despair sternly back and put out efforts to solace and quiet mine.
In these years he has grown stronger, but become ascetic towards the
outer world--an Ishmaelite who cares not to own himself a son of
Abraham, but lives wild in the deserts of philosophy on locusts and wild
honey. He will never marry, but has devoted himself to the problems of
the Secret of the World, in which he too believes, though his studies
have led him far more scientifically than me; and yet in his hours of
thought, I know that a vision of beauty and a sweet voice will often
startle him, and he rises then into scenes of his loftiest, grandest
life. O, Alexandra! Alexandra!

CONCLUSION OF CHAMILLY HAVILAND'S NARRATIVE.

CHAPTER XLV.

_NOT_ THE END.

"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis."

--PS. CXIV.

When Chrysler came to this sad close of the story, he woke from his
absorption in the manuscript and became conscious of, the surroundings.
The late hour, the strange place, even the silent-burning candles, and
above all the shock of grief for Chamilly at his great bereavement,
oppressed him into deep loneliness. The wind dashed gusts of rain
against the casement and shook it savagely. He thought of the storm and
blackness without--how the tempest must be hounding the black waves--the
wolfish ferocity of their onward rushes--the dread battle any mortal
would fight who found himself among them on a night like this.

Is Chamilly safe at home again?

Of course, at this hour.

What an unusual fellow. How strange to enjoy such beating rain, such
blinding darkness and fierce contest of strength with nature! How
fearless! How few like him in this or any virtue! Did there in fact
exist another his equal!

No; Haviland stood alone--the climax of a race.

As Chrysler pondered, dull sounds reached him, breaking in on these
meditations. A door opened below, and heavy feet tramped in. Voices, and
then cries of alarm, and then lamentations of all the household startled
him. Steps sounded coming up the stairs, and a man's sob, and then a
gentle knock.

"Open!" Chrysler responded.

Pierre entered, the picture of woe, and broke down: "O monseigneur
Monseigneur Chamilly is dead."

They had found his boat and his body, washed ashore.

The windows of the Parish Church were darkened with thick black
curtains, the altar was heavily draped, the strains of the mournful Mass
of the Dead swayed to the responses of a sorrowing people. In the midst,
raised upon a lofty catafalque whose sable drapery was surrounded with a
starry maze of candle-lights, lay the silent remains of Chamilly
Haviland, who loved Canada. Pure and earnest in life, he receives his
reward in the world of her he loved, who went before him.

A tablet among those of his fathers, facing the Seigniorial pew,
recorded, for a little, the name of the last d'Argentenaye; but now the
proud Cure at length has had his will, and instead of its venerable
house of God, Dormilliere wears in its centre a pretentious nondescript
structure of cut-stone.

Chrysler has done what he could to repair the country's loss by raising
his voice with rejuvenated energy in support of good will and progress,
in the Legislative halls.

"L'idee Canadienne too," Quinet asserts with hope and fire, in his
seer-like editorials, "is not lost; it is founded on the deepest basis
of existence: on the simplicity of common sense; on the true affections,
the true aspirations of the people, on righteousness, on love of God, on
DESTINY!"

THE END.

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