The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1869-02-02
HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.
ny ANTHONY TROILOPF.
CHAPTER XIV.

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He blew forth quick clouds OF heavy
smoke, as he attempted to make himself
believe that this was all for the best.
What would ssCh one as lie was do
with a wife Or, seeing as did see,
that marriage itself was out of the
question, how could it be good either
for him or her that they should be tied
together by long engagement Such
a future would not at all SUIT the
purpose of his life. In his lie absolute
freedom would be needed freedom
from unnecessary ties, freedom from I'M
necessary burdens. His income was
most precarious, and he certainly would
not make it less so by submission to any
closer thraldom. And he believed him
self TO be BOhemian,-tOo much OF n
Bohemian to enjoy a domestic hreslde
with children and slippers. To be free
to 90 where he liked, and when lie
liked, to think as he pleased: to he driv
en- nowhere by conventional rules; to
use his days, Sundays as well as Mon
days, as he pleased to use them; TO turn
Republican, if his mind should take
him that way,-or Quaker, or Mormon,
or Red Indian, if he wished it, and in SO
turning to do no damage TO any one but
himself,-that was the life which he had
planned for himself. His Aunt Stanbu
nv had not read his character altogether
wrongly, as he thought, when she had
once declared that decency and godli-
ness were both distasteful to him.
Would it not be distraction to such a
one as he was to fall into long, inter
minable engagement with girl, let her
be ever so sweet
But vet, he felt as he sat there filling
pipe after pipe, smoking away till pas I
midnight, that though he could not bear
the idea of trammels, though he was to-
tally unfit for matrimoDy, either present
or in prospect,-he felt that he had
within his breast a double identity, and
that that other division OF himself
would be utterly crushed if il were driv-
en- to divest itself of the idea of love
Whence was to come his poetry, the ro-
nance of his life, the springs of clear
water in which his ignOble thoughts
were to be dipped till they should be-
come pure, if love was 10 he banished
altogether from the list of delights that
we're possible to him : And then he be-
gan to speculate on love,-that love of
which poets wrote, aud of which he
foupd that some sparkle was necessary
30 give light to his life. Was it not the
one particle of divine breath given to
man, of which he had heard since he was
q boy.
And how was this love 10 he come at, I
and was it to be a thug of reality, or .
merely an ldeat Was il pleasure to
De reached, or mystery that charmed .
oH the uiihcniues It the distance,-a
distance that never cOuld be SO passed
that the thing should really Ina reaohed'
Was love TO be ever a delight. vapne "a
is that feeling of una:tainaLia Lsantv
which far, off mountains give, whsn 90,
know that you can never place Nou,saIf
amidst their unseen valleys Aud r.
Love could be reached, the Love Of
which the poets sing, aud of which his
own heart was ever singiug,-wh-t were
10 b. its pleasures' Topress hand, to
kiss lip, to clasp waist, to hear even
the low voice ofti vanQuished confess
ing loved one as she hides her blushing
cheek upon your shoulder,-what is it
all but 10 have reached the once mystic
Tious valley Of your tar-otf mountain,
and to have found that it is as other
valleys, rocks aud stones. with little
grass and a thin stream of running wa
teri But beyond that pressing of the
hand, and that kissing Of the lips,-be-
yond that short-lIved pressure of the
plumage which is common to birds and