William Edgerton was among the guests of Mrs. Clifford. There
had been no previous intimacy between the Edgerton and Clifford
families, yet he had been specially invited. Mrs. C. could have
had but a single motive for inviting him--so I thought--that of
making her evening a jam. She had just that ambition of the lady
of small fashion, who regards the number rather than the quality of
her guests, and would prefer a saloon full of Esquimaux or Kanzas,
and would partake of their sea-blubber, rather than lose the triumph
of making more noise than her rival neighbors, the Sprigginses or
Wigginses.
William Edgerton did not seek me; but, when I left the side of my
wife to pay my respects to some ladies at the opposite end of the
room, he approached her. A keen pang that rendered me unconscious
of everything I was saying--nay, even of the persons to whom I was
addressing myself--shot through my heart, as I beheld him crossing
the floor to the place that I had left. Involuntarily, the gracefulness
of his person and carriage provoked in my mind a contrast most
unfavorable to me, between him and myself. It was no satisfaction
to me at that time to reflect that I was less graceful only because
I was more earnest, more sincere. This is usually the case, and
is reasonably accounted for. Intensity and great earnestness of
character, are wholly inconsistent with a nice attention to forms,
carriage, demeanor. But what does a lady care for such distinction?
Does she even suspect it? Not often. If she could only fancy for
a moment that the well-made but awkward man who traverses the room
before her, carried in his breast a soul of such ardency and volume
that it subjected his very motion arbitrarily to its own excitements,
its own convulsions; that the very awkwardness which offended her
was the result of the most deep and passionate feelings--feelings
which, like the buried flame in the mountain, are continually
boiling up for utterance--convulsing the prison-house which retained
them--shaking the solid earth with their pent throes, that will
not always be pent! Ah! these things do not move ladies' fancies.
There are very few endowed with that thoughtful pride which disdains
surfaces. Julia Clifford was one of these few! But I little knew
it then.
The approach of William Edgerton to my wife was a signal for my
torture all that evening. From that moment my mind was wandering.
I knew little what I said, or looked, or did. My chat with those
around me became, on a sudden, bald and disjointed; and when I
beheld the pair, both nobly formed--he tall, graceful, manly--she,
beautiful and bending as a lily--a purity beaming, amid all their
brightness, from her eyes--a purity which, I had taught myself to
believe, was no longer in her heart--when I beheld them advance into
the floor, conspicuous over all the rest, in most eyes, as they
certainly were in mine--I can not describe--you may conjecture--the
cold, fainting sickness which overcame my soul. I could have lain
myself down upon the lone, midnight rocks, and surrendered myself
to solitude and storm for ever.