"No," returned Edric; "every scheme of religion falls infinitely below the divine perfection of Christianity; but as Christianity was not in the times we are speaking of, revealed, it cannot be denied that the Egyptians made some approach to wisdom even in their devotions. They worshipped Nature, though they disguised her under the symbols of her attributes, and gratified the vulgar taste by giving them tangible objects to represent ideas too sublime for their unenlightened comprehension. That they entertained the divine idea of a resurrection, and of rewards and punishments in a future life, is evident, not only from their favourite fable of the Phœnix, and the use they made of the now hackneyed image of the Butterfly; but by the care they bestowed upon the preservation of the body; their mournings for the loss of Osiris, and rejoicings when he was found; and the kind of trial to which they subjected the human corpse after death, when, if serious crimes were alleged, and proved against it, it was denied the rites of sepulture, and left to rot, unlamented. Then, can any modern institutions excel the wisdom of the laws enacted by the Pharaohs? or can any modern magnificence equal that displayed in the cities of Memphis and Thebes? And since this will hardly be disputed, what country can be more fitting than that once so highly favoured, to be the scene of the most important discovery ever made by Man? Deride me if you will; I feel a superior power inspires my wishes. I feel irresistibly impelled forward. I feel called upon to act by a force far superior to my own, and I will obey its dictates. You smile, and secretly ridicule my projects; but remember that excessive incredulity sometimes savours as strongly of folly as credulity itself, and that both are alike injurious to the progress of science."
"I do not doubt it," said Father Morris, with provoking coldness; "though it must certainly be allowed not to be the prevailing foible of the present day. However, without staying to discuss that point at present, I humbly suggest, that, as I happen unfortunately to be rather pressed for time, it may be as well to condescend to bestow a few minutes' attention upon the best human means of enabling you to fulfil the high destinies that await you in Egypt—as, notwithstanding the imperious nature of the impulse that invites you there, I presume you are aware that the vulgar agency of money will be necessary, as well as the scientific one of galvanism."
The feelings of Edric were too highly wrought to bear this irony; and, snatching up his hat, he rushed out of the room, casting a look of indignation at the priest, who vainly endeavoured to stop him. Maddened by the conflicting emotions that struggled in his bosom, and disgusted alike with himself, Father Morris, and all the world, Edric hurried on, totally unaware which way he was going, till his career was stopped by his coming suddenly and violently in contact with another person, who was running equally heedlessly with himself, but in an opposite direction. Both recoiled some paces from the shock, and Edric found, to his surprise, it was Abelard whom he had greeted so unceremoniously. Curiosity to know what could have occasioned the abstraction of the worthy butler, (he being generally remarkable for his peculiar attention to matters of ceremony,) diverted the thoughts of Edric from himself, and he, for the moment, forgot his own woes, whilst he inquired into those of Abelard.
"Alas! alas!" said the old man, shaking his grey head, whilst the tears streamed in torrents down his wrinkled cheeks, "that I should ever have lived to see this day! Oh, Master Edric! how could you irritate your respectable progenitor? Alas! alas! I feel my lachrymal gland suffused almost to overflowing, whenever the recollection of what has passed shoots across my piamater."
"For Heaven's sake! tell me what is the matter!"
"Oh dear! oh dear!" sobbed the unhappy butler, "that such longevity should have been granted me only that I might see so promising a young gentleman turned out of doors."
"Tell me the worst; though, indeed, I now fear I comprehend your meaning but too well."
"Sir Ambrose commands that you depart immediately, and never enter again into the mansion of your paternal ancestors."
"What will become of me!" exclaimed Edric, clasping his hands together, and raising his eyes to Heaven; then, after a short pause, he added more composedly, "Well, come what will, I am resigned. Fate urges me onward with irresistible violence, and I feel it would be in vain to attempt to combat against her dictates. I, at least, am prepared to execute her will."
"But where will you go?" sobbed Abelard. "You will want money and friends. Alas! alas! that I should ever see the son of my old master stand in need of pecuniary assistance!"
"He but repeats the words of Father Morris," said Edric; "and yet how differently his doubts affect me. The irony of the priest drove me to despair, but the grief of this old man soothes my wounded spirit. He surely loves me."
These words were uttered in so faint a key, that the name of Father Morris only caught the ear of Abelard, and he replied:
"I don't like Father Morris, and I never did; though it is now twenty years since he first entered the family, and though I have never seen any thing in him to censure particularly, throughout the entire of that long period, yet my aversion remains undiminished. I suppose it must be a natural antipathy, and that the pores of my body don't assimilate in shape with the atoms that emanate from his."
"He drove me almost to madness," said Edric.
"I am not surprised at that," returned Abelard; "for I know he can take a fiend-like pleasure in tormenting. He can employ the most provoking, tantalizing expressions, and yet preserve the same soft, smooth voice, and keep his palebræ half closed, and his visual organs fixed upon the ground. Indeed, I never saw the iris of his eyes dilated in my life; and then he has such a manner of raising his supercilia, curving his nose, and drawing down his depressor anguli oris when he listens to any one or replies to them, as to give the expression of a perpetual sneer to his saturnine countenance."
Edric's own recent personal experience bore testimony only too forcibly to the justice of those remarks; and as the wounded man shrinks from the slightest touch, so did Edric find the words of Abelard jar upon his nerves; as turning away from him to hide his emotions, he encountered the earnest gaze of Father Morris himself.
"Why do you appear astonished?" said the priest, smiling. "You are an infant, Edric; you quarrel with your best friends, and then appear surprised that you do not find them as capricious as yourself. You fancy you are very angry with me, for instance, and yet I am not conscious of having done any thing to offend you. Was it a crime to attempt to moderate an enthusiasm that I feared might mislead you? was it a fault to warn you against the dangers of a world of which as yet you know so little? No, no; I am confident your own reason and excellent good sense will acquit me, if you will but suffer them to act. Your imagination is too vivid, Edric; it sweeps away all before it, like a torrent. If you would view things calmly, you would perceive your folly. The world will teach you wisdom. Go then, travel; experience personal privations and evils of every description, that you may learn to enjoy the pleasures that even now lie within your grasp, but which you spurn from you with contempt. So true it is that we never learn the real value of any blessing till we have experienced the misery that attends its privation."
"If this be the case," replied Edric, soothed in spite of himself, by the insinuating manner of the monk, "why should my feelings be an exception to the general rule? And since all our pleasures acquire a new zest by the force of contrast, and mine have long since lost all relish, is it not even wisdom to try the effect of change?"
"And yet it seems a folly," said Father Morris, in his smooth, plausible, hypocritical voice, with his eyes again fixed upon the ground, "to incur a certain evil in the hope of attaining an uncertain good."
Edric started, and fixed his eyes upon him, with an expression the monk well understood; and, not wishing again to provoke him past endurance, he continued in a different tone: "But it is useless for age to preach lessons of prudence to youth, and as your father says, every one must purchase his own experience; so we will now, if you please, change the subject to that of making preparations for your journey. You are still determined to visit Egypt, I suppose?"
"It is my most ardent wish."
"Return then to your own apartment, and by to-morrow all shall be ready for your departure."
"He must not enter the house!"