The Island of Fantasy: A Romance
9781465617835
100 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
It was eight o’clock on a still summer evening, and, the ladies having retired, two men were lingering in a pleasant, indolent fashion over their wine in the dining-room of Roylands Grange. To be exact, only the elder gentleman was paying any attention to his port, for the young man who sat at the head of the table stared vaguely on his empty glass, and at his equally empty plate, as if his thoughts were miles away, which was precisely the case. Youth was moody, age was cheerful, for, while the former indulged in a brown study, the latter cracked nuts and sipped wine, with a just appreciation of the excellence of both. Judging from this outward aspect of things, there was something wrong with Maurice Roylands, for if reverend age in the presentable person of Rector Carriston could be merry, there appeared to be no very feasible reason why unthinking youth should be so ineffably dreary. Yet woe was writ largely on the comely face of the moody young man, and he joined but listlessly in the jocund conversation of his companion, which was punctuated in a very marked manner by the cracking of filberts. Outside, a magical twilight brooded over the landscape, and the chill odors of eve floated from a thousand sleeping flowers into the mellow atmosphere of the room, which was irradiated by the soft gleam of many wax candles rising white and slender from amid the pale roses adorning the dinner-table. All was pleasant, peaceful, and infinitely charming; yet Maurice Roylands, aged thirty, healthy, wealthy, and not at all bad-looking, sat moodily frowning at his untasted dessert, as though he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders. In truth, Mr. Roylands, with the usual self-worship of latter-day youth, thought he was being very hardly treated by Destiny, as that all-powerful goddess had given him everything calculated to make a mortal happy, save the capability of being happy. This was undeniably hard, and might be called the very irony of fate, for one might as well offer a sumptuous banquet to a dyspeptic, as give a man all the means of enjoyment, without the faculty of taking advantage of such good fortune. Roylands had considerable artistic power, an income of nearly six thousand a year, a fine house, friends innumerable—of the summer season sort; yet he neither cared about nor valued these blessings, for the simple reason that he was heartily sick of them, one and all. He would have been happier digging a patch of ground for his daily bread, than thus idling through life on an independent income, for Ennui, twin sister of Care, had taken possession of his soul, and in the midst of all his comforts he was thoroughly unhappy. The proverb that “The rich are more miserable than the poor,” is but a trite one on which to preach a sermon, for did not Solomon say all that there was to be said in the matter? It was an easier task to write a new play on the theme of Hamlet, than to compose a novel discourse on the “All is vanity” text; for on some subjects the final word has been said, and he who preaches thereon says nothing new, but only repeats the ideas of former orators, who in their turn doubtless reiterated the sayings of still earlier preachers, and so on back to Father Adam, to whom the wily serpent possibly delivered a sermon on the cynically wise saying illustrated so exhaustively by Solomon ben David. Therefore, to remark that Maurice was miserable amid all his splendors is a plagiarism, and they who desire to study the original version for themselves must read Ecclesiastes, which gives a minute analysis of the whole question, with cruelly true comments thereon.
