Wilfrid cumbermede, p.50
WILFRID CUMBERMEDE, page 50
What sort of man I shall endeavour to find, I think my reader will understand. I will not describe him, beyond saying that he must above all things be just, generous, and free from the petty prejudices of the country gentleman. He must understand that property involves service to every human soul that lives or labours upon it — the service of the elder brother to his less burdened yet more enduring and more helpless brothers and sisters; that for the lives of all such he has in his degree to render account. For surely God never meant to uplift any man at the expense of his fellows; but to uplift him that he might be strong to minister, as a wise friend and ruler, to their highest and best needs — first of all by giving them the justice which will be recognized as such by him before whom a man is his brother’s keeper, and becomes a Cain in denying it.
Lest Lady Brotherton, however, should like to have something to give away, I leave my former will as it was. It is in Marston’s hands.
* * *
Would I marry her now, if I might? I cannot tell. The thought rouses no passionate flood within me. Mighty spaces of endless possibility and endless result open before me. Death is knocking at my door. —
No — no; I will be honest, and lay it to no half reasons, however wise. — I would rather meet her then first, when she is clothed in that new garment called by St Paul the spiritual body. That, Geoffrey has never touched; over that he has no claim.
But if the loveliness of her character should have purified his, and drawn and bound his soul to hers?
Father, fold me in thyself. The storm, so long still, awakes; once more it flutters its fierce pinions. Let it not swing itself aloft in the air of my spirit. I dare not think, not merely lest thought should kindle into agony, but lest I should fail to rejoice over the lost and found. But my heart is in thy hand. Need I school myself to bow to an imagined decree of thine? Is it not enough that, when I shall know a thing for thy will, I shall then be able to say: Thy will be done? It is not enough; I need more. School thou my heart so to love thy will that in all calmness I leave to think what may or may not be its choice, and rest in its holy self.
* * *
She has sent for me. I go to her. I will not think beforehand what I shall say.
Something within tells me that a word from her would explain all that sometimes even now seems so inexplicable as hers. Will she speak that word? Shall I pray her for that word? I know nothing. The pure Will be done!
THE END
George MacDonald, WILFRID CUMBERMEDE
