Night and Morning, Volume 5

Philip had gone through severer trials than Sidney. But, had their earlier fates been reversed, and that spirit, in youth so haughty and self-willed, been lapped in ease and luxury, would Philip now be a better or a happier man? Perhaps, too, for a less tranquil existence than his brother, Philip yet may be reserved; but, in proportion to the uses of our destiny, do we repose or toil: he who never knows pain knows but the half of pleasure. The lot of whatever is most noble on the earth below falls not amidst the rosy Gardels of the Epicurean. We may envy the man who enjoys and rests; but the smile of Heaven settles rather on the front of him who labours and aspires.

And did Philip ever regret the circumstances that had given him Fanny for the partner of his life? To some who take their notions of the Ideal from the conventional rules of romance, rather than from their own perceptions of what is true, this narrative would have been more pleasing had Philip never loved but Fanny. But all that had led to that love had only served to render it more enduring and concentred. Man's strongest and worthiest affection is his last—is the one that unites and embodies all his past dreams of what is excellent—the one from which Hope springs out the brighter from former disappointments—the one in which the MEMORIES are the most tender and the most abundant—the one which, replacing all others, nothing hereafter can replace.

And now ere the scene closes, and the audience, whom perhaps the actors may have interested for a while, disperse, to forget amidst the pursuits of actual life the Shadows that have amused an hour, or beguiled a care, let the curtain fall on one happy picture:—

It is some years after the marriage of Philip and Fanny. It is a summer morning. In a small old-fashioned room at Beaufort Court, with its casements open to the gardens, stood Philip, having just entered; and near the window sat Fanny, his boy by her side. She was at the mother's hardest task—the first lessons to the first-born child; and as the boy looked up at her sweet earnest face with a smile of intelligence on his own, you might have seen at a glance how well understood were the teacher and the pupil. Yes: whatever might have been wanting in the Virgin to the full development of mind, the cares of the mother had supplied. When a being was born to lean on her alone—dependent on her providence for life—then hour after hour, step after step, in the progress of infant destinies, had the reason of the mother grown in the child's growth, adapting itself to each want that it must foresee, and taking its perfectness and completion from the breath of the New Love!

The child caught sight of Philip and rushed to embrace him.

"See!" whispered Fanny, as she also hung upon him, and strange recollections of her own mysterious childhood crowded upon her,—"See," whispered she, with a blush half of shame and half of pride, "the poor idiot girl is the teacher of your child!"

"And," answered Philip, "whether for child or mother, what teacher is like Love?"

Thus saying, he took the boy into his arms; and, as he bent over those rosy cheeks, Fanny saw, from the movement of his lips and the moisture in his eyes, that he blessed God. He looked upon the mother's face, he glanced round on the flowers and foliage of the luxurious summer, and again he blessed God: And without and within, it was Light and MORNING!

THE END