Chapter 8

CHAPTER VIII. Provocation

About a month later, Rowland addressed to his cousin Cecilia a letter of
which the following is a portion:--

... "So much for myself; yet I tell you but a tithe of my own story
unless I let you know how matters stand with poor Hudson, for he gives
me more to think about just now than anything else in the world. I need
a good deal of courage to begin this chapter. You warned me, you know,
and I made rather light of your warning. I have had all kinds of hopes
and fears, but hitherto, in writing to you, I have resolutely put the
hopes foremost. Now, however, my pride has forsaken me, and I should
like hugely to give expression to a little comfortable despair. I should
like to say, 'My dear wise woman, you were right and I was wrong; you
were a shrewd observer and I was a meddlesome donkey!' When I think of
a little talk we had about the 'salubrity of genius,' I feel my ears
tingle. If this is salubrity, give me raging disease! I 'm pestered to
death; I go about with a chronic heartache; there are moments when I
could shed salt tears. There 's a pretty portrait of the most placid
of men! I wish I could make you understand; or rather, I wish you could
make me! I don't understand a jot; it 's a hideous, mocking mystery; I
give it up! I don't in the least give it up, you know; I 'm incapable
of giving it up. I sit holding my head by the hour, racking my brain,
wondering what under heaven is to be done. You told me at Northampton
that I took the thing too easily; you would tell me now, perhaps, that
I take it too hard. I do, altogether; but it can't be helped. Without
flattering myself, I may say I 'm sympathetic. Many another man before
this would have cast his perplexities to the winds and declared that Mr.
Hudson must lie on his bed as he had made it. Some men, perhaps, would
even say that I am making a mighty ado about nothing; that I have only
to give him rope, and he will tire himself out. But he tugs at his rope
altogether too hard for me to hold it comfortably. I certainly never
pretended the thing was anything else than an experiment; I promised
nothing, I answered for nothing; I only said the case was hopeful, and
that it would be a shame to neglect it. I have done my best, and if
the machine is running down I have a right to stand aside and let it
scuttle. Amen, amen! No, I can write that, but I can't feel it. I can't
be just; I can only be generous. I love the poor fellow and I can't give
him up. As for understanding him, that 's another matter; nowadays I
don't believe even you would. One's wits are sadly pestered over here,
I assure you, and I 'm in the way of seeing more than one puzzling
specimen of human nature. Roderick and Miss Light, between them!...
Have