Basil
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Wilkie Collins >> Basil
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To those once connected with him, who are now no more, I need not and
cannot refer again. That part of the dreary Past with which they are
associated, is the part which I still shrink in terror from thinking
on. There are two names which my lips have not uttered for years;
which, in this life, I shall never pronounce again. The night of Death
is over them: a night to look away from for evermore.
To look away from--but, towards what object? The Future? That way, I
see but dimly even yet. It is on the Present that my thoughts are
fixed, in the contentment which desires no change.
For the last five months I have lived here with Clara--here, on the
little estate which was once her mother's, which is now hers. Long
before my father's death we often talked, in the great country house,
of future days which we might pass together, as we pass them now, in
this place. Though we may often leave it for a time, we shall always
look back to Lanreath Cottage as to our home. The years of retirement
which I spent at the Hall, after my recovery, have not awakened in me
a single longing to return to the busy world. Ralph--now the head of
our family; now aroused by his new duties to a sense of his new
position--Ralph, already emancipated from many of the habits which
once enthralled and degraded him, has written, bidding me employ to
the utmost the resources which his position enables him to offer me,
if I decide on entering into public life. But I have no such purpose;
I am still resolved to live on in obscurity, in retirement, in peace.
I have suffered too much; I have been wounded too sadly, to range
myself with the heroes of Ambition, and fight my way upward from the
ranks. The glory and the glitter which I once longed to look on as my
own, would dazzle and destroy me, now. Such shocks as I have endured,
leave that behind them which changes the character and the purpose of
a life. The mountain-path of Action is no longer a path for _me;_ my
future hope pauses with my present happiness in the shadowed valley of
Repose.
Not a repose which owns no duty, and is good for no use; not a repose
which Thought cannot ennoble, and Affection cannot sanctify. To serve
the cause of the poor and the ignorant, in the little sphere which now
surrounds me; to smooth the way for pleasure and plenty, where pain
and want have made it rugged too long; to live more and more worthy,
with every day, of the sisterly love which, never tiring, never
changing, watches over me in this last retreat, this dearest
home--these are the purposes, the only purposes left, which I may
still cherish. Let me but live to fulfil them, and life will have
given to me all that I can ask!
I may now close my letter. I have communicated to you all the
materials I can supply for the conclusion of my autobiography, and
have furnished you with the only directions I wish to give in
reference to its publication. Present it to the reader in any form,
and at any time, that you think fit. On its reception by the public I
have no wish to speculate. It is enough for me to know that, with all
its faults, it has been written in sincerity and in truth. I shall not
feel false shame at its failure, or false pride at its success.
If there be any further information which you think it necessary to
possess, and which I have forgotten to communicate, write to me on the
subject--or, far better, come here yourself, and ask of me with your
own lips all that you desire to know. Come, and judge of the life I am
now leading, by seeing it as it really is. Though it be only for a few
days, pause long enough in your career of activity and usefulness, of
fame and honour, to find leisure time for a visit to the cottage where
we live. This is as much Clara's invitation as mine. She will never
forget (even if I could!) all that I have owed to your
friendship--will never weary (even if I should tire!) of showing you
that we are capable of deserving it. Come, then, and see _her_ as well
as _me_--see her, once more, my sister of old times! I remember what
you said of Clara, when we last met, and last talked of her; and I
believe you will be almost as happy to see her again in her old
character as I am.
Till then, farewell! Do not judge hastily of my motives for persisting
in the life of retirement which I have led for so many years past. Do
not think that calamity has chilled my heart, or enervated my mind.
Past suffering may have changed, but it has not deteriorated me. It
has fortified my spirit with an abiding strength; it has told me
plainly, much that was but dimly revealed to me before; it has shown
me uses to which I may put my existence, that have their sanction from
other voices than the voices of fame; it has taught me to feel that
bravest ambition which is vigorous enough to overleap the little life
here! Is there no aspiration in the purposes for which I would now
live?--Bernard! whatever we can do of good, in this world, with our
affections or our faculties, rises to the Eternal World above us, as a
song of praise from Humanity to God. Amid the thousand, thousand tones
ever joining to swell the music of that song, are those which sound
loudest and grandest _here,_ the tones which travel sweetest and
purest to the Imperishable Throne; which mingle in the perfectest
harmony with the anthem of the angel-choir! Ask your own heart that
question--and then say, may not the obscurest life--even a life like
mine--be dignified by a lasting aspiration, and dedicated to a noble
aim?
I have done. The calm summer evening has stolen on me while I have
been writing to you; and Clara's voice--now the happy voice of the
happy old times--calls to me from our garden seat to come out and look
at the sunset over the distant sea. Once more--farewell!
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