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Page 32
"Have you really, then, sad forebodings?" inquired Ella, quickly and
earnestly.
"Against my will and sober reason, dear Ella, I must own I have.
Perchance, however, the feeling was only called up by a train of
melancholy meditations. While sitting there to-night, gazing upon
the many bounding forms--some full of beauty and grace, and some of
strength--noting their joyous faces, and listening occasionally to the
lightsome jest, and merry, ringing laugh--I could not avoid contrasting
with the present the time when I was as happy and full full of mirth as
they. I pictured to myself how they would stare and shudder and draw
away from me, did they know my hand was stained with the blood of my
own kin. Then I began, involuntarily as it were, to picture to myself
the fate of each; and they came up before me in the form of a vision,
(though if such, it was a waking one) but in regular order; and I saw
them pass on one after another--some gliding smoothly down the stream of
time to old age--some wretched and crippled, groping their way along
over barren wastes, without water or food, though nearly dying for the
want of both--some wading through streams of blood, with fierce and
angry looks--and some with pale faces, red eyes, and hollow cheeks,
roving amid coffins, sepulchres and bones; but of all, the very fewest
number happy."
"Oh! it was an awful vision!" exclaimed Ella, with a shudder.
"It was awful enough," rejoined Algernon; "and despite of me, it made me
more and more sad as I thought upon it. Could it indeed be a dream? But
no! I was--seemingly at least--as wide awake and conscious as at the
present moment. I saw the dance going on as ever--I saw the merry
smiles, and heard the jest and laugh as before. Could it be some strange
hallucination of the brain--some wild imagining--caused by my previous
exercise and over heat? I pondered upon it long and seriously, but could
not determine. Suddenly--I know not how nor why--that ill-looking
stranger who lodged one night at your uncle's, and departed so
mysteriously, came up in my mind; and almost at the same moment, I
fancied myself riding with you, dear Ella, through a dark and lonely
wood--when all of a sudden there came a fierce yell--several dark,
hideous forms, with him among them, swam around me--I heard you shriek
for aid--and then all became darkness and confusion; from which I was
aroused by some one inquiring if I were ill? What I answered I know not;
but the querist immediately took his leave."
"It all seems very strange, Algernon," observed Ella, thoughtfully; "but
it was probably nothing more than a feverish dream, brought about by
your exercise acting too suddenly and powerfully upon your nervous
system, which doubtless has not as yet recovered from the prostration
caused by your wound."
"So I tried to think, dear Ella," returned Algernon, with a sigh; "but
I have not even yet been able to shake off the gloomy impression, that,
whatever the cause, it was sent as a warning of danger. But I am
foolish, perhaps, to think as I do; and so let us change the subject.
You spoke a few moments since of destiny. You said, if I mistake not,
you believed each individual capable of shaping his own."
"I did," answered Ella; "with the exception, that I qualified it by
saying in a measure. No person, I think, has the power of moulding
himself to an end which is contrary to the law of nature and his own
physical organization; but at the same time he has many ways, some good
and some evil, left open for him to choose; else he were not a free
agent."
"Ay," rejoined Algernon, "by-paths all to the same great end. I look
upon every one here, Ella, as a traveler placed upon the great highway
called destiny--with a secret power within that impels him forward, but
allows no pause nor retrograde. Along this highway are flowers, and
briars, and thistles, and weeds, and shady woods, and barren rocks, and
sterile bluffs, and glassy plots; but proportioned differently to each,
as the Maker of all designs his path to be pleasant or otherwise. Beside
this highway are perhaps a dozen minor paths, all running a similar
course, and all finally merging into it--either near or far, as the case
may be--before its termination at the great gate of death. The free
agency you speak of, is in choosing of these lesser paths--some of which
are full of the snares of temptation, the chasms of ruin, and the
pitfalls of destruction; and some of the flowers of peace, the bowers of
plenty, and the green woods of contentment. But how to follow the proper
one is the difficulty; for they run into one another--cross and recross
in a thousand different ways--so that the best disposed as often hit the
wrong as the right one, and are entrapped before they are aware of their
dangerous course. Worldly wisdom is here put at fault, and the fool as
often goes right as the wise man of lore--thus showing, notwithstanding
our free agency, that circumstances govern us; and that what many put
down as crime, is, in fact, oftentimes, neither more nor less than error
of judgment."
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