The Project Gutenberg eBook, Daisy Burns (Volume 2), by Julia Kavanagh

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Title: Daisy Burns (Volume 2)

Author: Julia Kavanagh

Release Date: May 18, 2011 [eBook #36158]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAISY BURNS (VOLUME 2)***

Julia Kavanagh (1824-1877), Daisy Burns (1853), volume 2, Tauchnitz edition

Produced by Daniel FROMONT

COLLECTION

OF

BRITISH AUTHORS.

VOL. CCLXIV.

DAISY BURNS BY JULIA KAVANAGH.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

TAUCHNITZ EDITION

By the same Author,

NATHALIE 2 vols.

GRACE LEE 2 vols.

RACHEL GRAY 1 vol.

ADELE 2 vols.

A SUMMER AND WINTER IN THE TOW SICILES 2 vols.

SEVEN YEARS AND OTHER TALES 2 vols.

FRENCH WOMEN OF LETTERS 1 vol.

ENGLISH WOMEN OF LETTERS 1 vol.

QUEEN MAB 2 vols.

BEATRICE 2 vols.

SYBIL'S SECOND LOVE

DORA 2 vols.

SILVIA 2 vols.

BESSIE 2 vols.

JOHN DORRIEN 2 vols.

DAISY BURNS;

A TALE

BY

JULIA KAVANAGH,

AUTHOR OF "NATHALIE."

COPYRIGHT EDITION.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LEIPZIG

BERNHARDT TAUCHNITZ

1853.

JULIA KAVANAGH

DAISY BURNS.

CHAPTER I.

It has chanced that for a week or more this narrative has been laid aside. This evening I thought I would resume it, and, before doing so, I looked back on what I had written.

Alas, how long it takes us to forget the angry and evil feelings of our childhood! How I traced, in this record of the past, a lingering animosity against the enemy of my youth, which years, it seems, had failed to efface from my heart! How sad and humbling a lesson has this been to me, of passion warping judgment and holy charity forgotten!

I have represented Miriam without one redeeming trait, and conscience tells me that she was not thus. I now remember many touches of human feeling and human kindness, which, I feel it remorsefully, need not have been omitted, when all that was evil was so faithfully registered.

She had many high qualities. In worldly affairs she was generous and disinterested. Her word was inviolable; she gave it rarely, and never broke it. She was devoted to her blind old nurse, and patient with her infirm aunt. Her temper was calm and enduring; she had in her something of the spirit which makes martyrs, and could have borne persecution with unshaken fortitude. She never spoke of religion, and I doubt if she had any religious feeling; but she was charitable to the poor; she had sympathy for their misery and compassion too for bodily suffering: I remember that once, when I cut my hand rather severely, she showed a concern which even I felt to be sincere. Had I been wholly in her power, and provoked her to the utmost, I knew she would neither have ill-used me herself, nor allowed me to be neglected by others. Her hatred was pitiless; yet in one sense it was not mean, for it disdained to inflict useless pangs. She had an object in tormenting me, but to do so gave her no pleasure. I know that had I not been so tenacious of the affection of Cornelius, so obstinate and proud, she would never have sought my ruin; but she was not one to brook the rivalry or opposition even of a child; I chose to place myself in her path, and she treated me as an obstacle to be removed, or, if that failed, to be conquered, and, if needful, crushed.

She was one of those outwardly calm persons whose real nature can never be known, unless when drawn forth by something or some one. I do not think that one action to be concealed had marked her life until we met. We were antagonistic principles, and, from our conflict, the worst points of each were displayed. But for her Cornelius would never have suspected my jealous nature; but for that jealousy he would never have known the real character of his betrothed. Even Kate, though she had never liked her, was, as I afterwards learned, taken by surprise, and declared, "Cornelius had had a most fortunate escape from marrying such a cruel, treacherous woman." Was Miriam such? I do not think so. True, she had little principle, and was not stopped by falsehood when she held it necessary: but she was never cruel, never treacherous without a purpose. She might have been good but for one mistaken idea—that good and evil are indifferent in themselves; and great but for one sin—self-idolatry.

She lacked that centre of all hearts—God. He who made us, made us so that in Him alone we shall find peace. We may make idols of honour, duty, love, art; of human ideas and human beings; but even this is not to fall utterly. The sense of honour and duty are His gifts; He gave us hearts to love with, souls to know the beautiful, minds to conceive, feelings to spend and bestow. So long therefore as its action is outward, even our grossest idolatry will be pervaded with the sanctity of adoration and the majesty of God. But self-worship is the sin of Satan: we were never meant to be our own centre, our own hope, our own aim and divinity; there never has been a drearier prison than that which can be to itself a human heart; the other circles of hell are broad and free, compared to this narrowest of dungeons—self locked in self.

It was this that, whilst outwardly she seemed so calm and cool, made Miriam internally so restless and unquiet. There was a healthy serenity in the ardour of Cornelius; but hers was agitated like an ever-troubled sea. She sought not in love its divine oblivion of self, but, on the contrary, a consciousness of existence, rendered more intense by the very tumult of passion.

To love, for her, was not to be merged in some other being, but to absorb that other being in herself. All I know of her first lover was, that he was a captain in the navy, and that he perished