# Ethel Churchill/Chapter 25

CHAPTER XXV.
THE RESULT.
And this, then, is love's ending. It is like The history of some fair southern clime: Hot fires are in the bosom of the earth, And the warm'd soil puts forth its thousand flowers, Its fruits of gold—summer's regality; And sleep and odours float upon the air, Making it heavy with its own delight. At length the subterranean element Bursts from its secret solitude, and lays All waste before it. The red lava stream Sweeps like a pestilence: and that which was A garden for some fairy tale's young queen Is one wild desert, lost in burning sand. Thus it is with the heart. Love lights it up With one rich flush of beauty. Mark the end: Hopes that have quarrelled even with themselves, And joys that make a bitter memory; While the heart, scorched and withered, and o'erwhelmed By passion's earthquake, loathes the name of love.
Both stood for a few moments gazing on the picture; when Lord Norbourne exclaimed, as ​he saw his nephew's look of admiration,—"Yes, the bait was fair enough; and how was I repaid for my utter devotion—for the sacrifice of my future? By desertion. She left me for another—how immeasurably my inferior! I had my revenge, for I followed them abroad. She had already been false to him as to me. He was alone, but not the less did I avenge my dishonour: we met, and he fell. Years afterward, and I met her also; changed, but lovely, amid sickness and want. I saved her from destitution, and saw her once more; for I stood by her death-bed, and forgave her. There is a grave, without a name, in yonder chapel: she so fair, and so frail, sleeps below."
Norbourne again grasped his uncle's hand. He could not speak: it was as if, for the first time in his life, he had looked beyond the seeming surface of humanity. Was it possible that the calm, the polished, the worldly Lord Norbourne could have been shaken by such fierce passion—touched by such soft feelings as he had really known? And yet so it ever is. ​How little do we know of even our most familiar associates! Hopes, feelings, and passion, petrify one after another; the crust of experience soon hardens over the hidden past; and who, looking on the levelled and subdued exterior, could dream of the wreck and ravage that lies below?
"I bought my experience dearly," continued Lord Norbourne; "but I did buy it. Henceforth woman assumed with me her natural destiny: a toy, if fair, for a vacant hour; a tool, if rich, for advancement in the world. I next married for fortune and family, and I found I had acted wisely. Lady Norbourne and myself got on perfectly together. My house was one of the best appointed in London, and her relations deemed it due to one connected with their family to take every opportunity of serving me. We never descended to the vulgarism of a quarrel. People said that neither of us had a heart, but it appears to me that politeness is an excellent substitute. I really felt very uncomfortable when she died. But I hear my travelling ​carriage; and business has long been to me duty, inclination, mistress, friend. But tell me that we part kindly?"
"My dear uncle!" replied Norbourne, who accompanied the traveller to his carriage with very different feelings from what, an hour before, he had deemed it possible that he could have entertained.
A feather on the wind, a straw on the stream—such are, indeed, the emblems of humanity. We resolve, and our resolutions melt away with a word and a look: we are the toys of an emotion. And yet I think Norbourne was right in his sudden revulsion in favour of his uncle. We are rarely wrong when we act from impulse. By that I do not mean every rash, and wayward, and selfish fantasy; but by allowing its natural course to the first warm and generous feeling that springs up in the heart. Second thoughts are more worldly, more cold, and calculate on some advantage. This is what the ancients meant when they said that the impulse came from the gods, but the motive from men. Our eager belief, our ​ready pity, our kindly sensations—these are the materials of good within us. As one of our poets says, with equal truth and beauty, "The heart is wise." We should be not only happier, but better, if we attended more to its dictates. Half the misery in the world arises from want of sympathy. We do not assist each other as we might do, because we rarely pause to ask, do they need our assistance? And this works out the moral of suffering: we need to suffer, that we may learn to pity.