JOHN
A LOVE STORY
BY
MRS OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF ‘CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,’ ETC.
VOL. II.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXX
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE
| Chapter XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., XIX., XX., XXI., XXII., XXIII., XXIV., XXV., XXVI., XXVII., XXVIII., XXIX., XXX. |
JOHN.
CHAPTER XV.
There is nothing so hard in human experience as to fit in theexceptional moments of life into their place, and bring them into acertain harmony with that which surrounds them; and in youth it isdoubly hard to understand how it is that the exceptional can comeonly in moments. When the superlative either of misery or happinessarrives, there is nothing so difficult to an imaginative mind as todescend from that altitude and allow that the commonplace must return,and the ordinary resume its sway. And perhaps, more than any othercrisis, the crisis of youthful passion and romance is the one whichit is most diffi[Pg 2]cult to come down from. It has wound up the youngsoul to an exaltation which has scarcely any parallel in life; evento the least visionary, the event which has happened—the union whichhas taken place between one heart and another—the sentiment which hasconcentrated all beauty and lovableness and desirableness in one being,and made that being his—is something too supreme and dazzling to fallsuddenly into the light of common day. John Mitford was not matter offact, and the situation to him was doubly exciting. It was attended,besides, by the disruption of his entire life; and though he wouldreadily have acknowledged that the rest of his existence could not bepassed in those exquisite pangs and delights—that mixture of absoluterapture in being with her, and visionary despair at her absence—whichhad made up the story of his brief courtship; yet there was in hima strong unexpressed sense that the theory of life altogether musthenceforward be framed on a higher level—that a finer ideal was beforehim, higher harmonies, a more perfect state of being; instead of allwhich dreams,[Pg 3] when he came to himself he was seated on a high stool,before a desk, under the dusty window of Mr Crediton’s bank, with thesound of the swinging door, and the voices of the public, and thecrackle of notes, and the jingle of coin in his ears, and a tedioustrade to learn, in which there seemed to him no possib