Piccadilly A Fragment of Contemporary Biography — 04 - Part IIIa: Suicide

PART III. SUICIDE.

PICCADILLY, _April_.

Considering the extent to which I have been digressing, it will be perhaps desirable, before I plunge again into the stormy current of my narrative, to define in a few words what, in the language of diplomacy, is termed "the situation."

After I have done so, I shall feel much obliged if you will kindly "grasp" it.

Briefly, it is as follows: I am telegraphed for in frantic terms by an old lady who is under the firm impression that I am engaged to be married to her daughter.

I am violently in love with that daughter, but for certain reasons I have felt it my duty to account for my extraordinary conduct by informing her confidentially that I have occasional fits of temporary insanity.

That daughter, I am positively assured by her mother, is no less violently attached to my most dear and intimate friend.

My most dear and intimate friend returns the affection.

Mamma threatens that if I do not marry her daughter, rather than allow my most dear and intimate friend to do so, she will ally the young lady to an affluent native of Bombay.

So much is known.

On the following points I am still in the dark:-- First, What on earth does Lady Broadhem mean by telling me to come immediately, as delay may be fatal?

--to whom?

to me or to Lady Ursula, or herself?

My knowledge of her ladyship induces me to incline towards the latter hypothesis; the suspense is, however, none the less trying.

Second, Does Lady Ursula imagine that I know how she and Grandon feel towards each other?

Third, Is Grandon under the impression that I have actually proposed and been accepted by Lady Ursula?

Fourth, Does my conduct occasionally amount to something more than eccentricity or not?

Fifth--and this was very unpleasant--Shall I find Grandon at our joint abode?

And if so, what shall I say to him?

Sixth, Have Grandon and Lady Ursula met, and did anything pass between them?

Thank goodness Grandon was at the House.

So, after a hurried toilet, I went on to Grosvenor Square.

The young ladies were both out.

Lady Bridget had taken advantage of the _chaperonage_ of a newly-married rather fast female cousin, to go to a ball.

Lady Ursula had gone to a solitary tea with a crabbed old aunt.

Lady Broadhem was in her own sitting-room, lying on a couch behind a table covered with papers.

She looked wearily up when I entered, and held out a thin hand for me to do what I liked with.

"How good of you to come, dear Frank!"

she said.

It was the first time she had ever called me Frank, and I knew she expected me to acknowledge it by pressing her fingers, so I squeezed them affectionately.

"Broadhem said if I wanted to make sure of you I ought to have brought Ursula's name into the telegraph, but I told him her mother's would do as well."

"What does the----" I am afraid I mentally said 'old girl'--"want, I wonder?

It must be really serious, or she would have shammed agitation.

There is something about this oily calm which is rather portentous.

Then she has taken care to have every member of the family out of the house.

What is she ringing the bell for now?"

"Tell Lady Ursula when she comes home that I am engaged particularly, and will come up and see her in her bedroom before she goes to bed," said Lady Broadhem to the servant who answered it.

"Does not Lady Ursula know of my having come to town in answer to your summons?"

I asked.

"No, dear child; why should I inflict my troubles upon her?

Even Broadhem, to whom I was obliged to speak more openly, only suspects the real state of the case.

I have reserved my full confidence for my future son-in-law."

I lifted up my eyes with a rapturous expression, and played with a paper-knife.

She wanted me to help her on with an obvious remark, which I declined to make; so, after a pause, she went on, with a deep sigh,---- "What sad news we keep on getting of those poor dear Confederates, Frank!"

"Let us hope they will recover," said I, encouragingly.

"Oh, but they do keep on falling so, it is quite dreadful."

"There was no great number of them fell at Wilmington."

"How stupid I am!"

she said; "my poor mind gets quite bewildered.

I was thinking of stock, not men; they went down again three more yesterday, and my broker declines altogether to carry them on from one account to another any more.

I bought at 60, and they have done nothing but go down ever since.

I generally go by Lord Staggerton's advice, and he recommended me to sell a bear some months ago; but that stupid little Spiffy Goldtip insisted that it was only a temporary depression, and now he says how could he know that President Davis would replace Johnston by Hood."

"Very tiresome of Davis: but you should have employed more than one broker," I remarked.

"Persons of limited capital and speculative tendencies should operate mysteriously.

Your right hand should not know what your left hand is doing."

"Hush, Frank!

you can surely be business-like without being profane.

I

was completely in Spiffy's hands; Lady Mundane told me she always let him do for her, and"--here Lady Broadhem lowered her voice--"I _know_ he has access to the best sources of information.

I used to employ Staggerton, but he is so selfish that he never told me the best things;

besides which, of course, I was obliged to have him constantly to dinner; and his great delight was always to say things which were calculated to shock my religious friends.

Moreover, he has lately been doing more as a promoter of new companies than in buying and selling.

Now Spiffy is so very useful in society, and has so much tact, that although there are all kinds of stories against him, still I did not think there was any sufficient reason to shut him out of the house.

There was quite a set made against the poor little man at one time--worldly people are so hard and uncharitable; so, partly for the sake of his aunt, Lady Spiffington, who was my dear friend, and partly, indeed, because Staggerton had really become useless and intolerable, I put my affairs entirely into Spiffy's hands."

"And the result is?"

I asked.

"That I must pay up L27,000 to-morrow," said Lady Broadhem, with the impenitent sigh of a hardened criminal.

"You should have kept his lordship to act as a check on the Honourable Spiffington," I said; "but I cannot advise now, unless I know everything."

A faint tinge suffused Lady Broadhem's cheek as she said, "What more do you want to know?"

"Exactly what money you possess, and exactly how it is invested."

"I don't see that that is at all necessary.

Here is Spiffington's letter, from which you will see how much I must pay to-morrow; my assurance that I cannot produce so large a sum at such short notice is enough."

"You can surely have no difficulty in finding some one who would lend you the money, provided you were to pay a sufficiently high rate of interest."

The tinge which had not left Lady Broadhem's cheek deepened as she answered me, "Frank, it was on no hasty impulse that I telegraphed for you.

I do not feel bound to enter into all the details of my private affairs, but I do feel that if there is one man in the world upon whom, at such a crisis, I have a right to rely, it is he to whom I have promised my daughter, and who professes to be devotedly attached to her."

"In short, Lady Broadhem," said I, rising and taking up my hat, "you are willing to part with your daughter to me on condition of my paying a first instalment of L27,000 down, with the prospect of 'calls' to an unlimited extent looming in the background.

I doubt whether you will find Chundango prepared to go into such a very hazardous speculation, but I should recommend you to apply to him."

At that moment I heard Lady Ursula's voice in the hall, and the rustle of her dress as she went up-stairs.

I was on my way to the door, but I stopped abruptly, and turned upon Lady Broadhem.

She was saying something to which I was not attending, but now was suddenly paralysed and silenced as I looked at her fixedly.

If a glance can convey meaning, I flatter myself my eyes were not devoid of expression at that moment.

"What!"

I thought, "is it reserved for the mother of the girl I love to make me call her 'a hazardous speculation'?"

It is impossible for me to describe the intensity of the hatred which I felt at this moment for the woman who had caused me for one second to think of Ursula as a marketable commodity, who should be offered for purchase to an Oriental adventurer.

The only being I despised more than Lady Broadhem was myself;--because she chose to take my angel off the pedestal on which I had placed her and throw her into the dirt, was I calmly to acquiesce in the proceeding?

The storm raging within me seemed gradually to blind me to external objects; my great love was battling with remorse, indignation, and despair; and I stood wavering and distracted, looking, as it were, within for rest and without for comfort, till the light seemed to leave my eyes, and the fire which had flashed from them for a moment became suddenly extinguished.

I was recalled to consciousness by an exclamation from Lady Broadhem.

"Heavens, Frank, don't stare so wildly--you quite frighten me!

I have only asked for your advice, and you make use of expressions and fly off in a manner which nothing but the excitability of your temperament can excuse.

I assure you I am worried enough without having my cares added to by your unkindness.

There, if you want to know the exact state of my affairs, look through my papers--you will find I am a woman of business;

and I have got an accurate list which I shall be able to explain.

Of course all the more important original documents are at my solicitor's." I sat moodily down without answering this semi-conciliatory, semi-plaintive speech.

I did not even take the trouble to analyse it.

I

felt morally and physically exhausted.

The long journey, the suspense, and this _denouement_, had prostrated me.

I took up the papers Lady Broadhem offered me, and turned them vacantly over.

I read the list, but failed to attach any meaning to the items over which my gaze listlessly wandered.

I felt that Lady Broadhem was watching me curiously, but every effort I made to grasp the details before me failed hopelessly.

At last I threw the packet down in despair, and, leaning over the table, clasped my bursting forehead with my hands.

"Dear Frank," said Lady Broadhem, and for the first time her voice betrayed signs of genuine emotion, "I know I have been very imprudent, but I did it all for the best.

You can understand now why I hesitated to tell you everything at first.

You don't know how much it has cost me, and to what means I am obliged to resort to keep up my courage; besides, I have got into such a habit of concealment that I could not bear that even you should know the desperate state of our affairs, though I had no idea that in so short a time you could have unravelled such complicated accounts and arrived at the terrible result.

Perhaps you would like me to leave you for a few moments.

I will go and say good-night to Ursula, whom I heard going up-stairs just now."

I heard Lady Broadhem leave the room, but did not raise my head, and indeed only slowly comprehended the purport of her last speech.

As it dawned upon me, the hopelessness of the whole situation seemed to overwhelm me.

Chaos and ruin like gaunt spectres stared me in the face!

What mattered it if the Broadhem family were bankrupt in estate, if I was to become bankrupt in mind?

What matter if they lost all their worldly possessions?

Had I not lost all hope of Ursula since I had heard of her attachment to Grandon, and with her every generous impulse of my nature?

Why should I save the family, even if I could?

Why in this desert of my existence spend a fortune on an oasis I was forbidden ever to enter or enjoy?

Why should I bring offerings to the shrine at which I might never worship?

The whole temple that enclosed it was tottering.

Instead of helping to prop it up, why not, like Samson, drag it down and let it bury me in its ruin?

I threw myself on the couch from which Lady Broadhem had risen, and, turning my face to the wall, longed with an intense desire for an eternal release.

At that moment my hand, which I had thrust under the pillow, came in contact with something hard and cold.

I drew it out, and was startled to find that it was a small vial labelled "POISON."

I am not naturally superstitious, but this immediate response to my thoughts seemed an indication so direct as to be almost supernatural.

I had hardly framed in definite terms the idea of a suicide which should at once end my agony, when the means thereto were actually placed in my very hand.

Even had I doubted, the inward sense, the inspiration to which I trust, and which has never yet failed me, said, Drink!

It even whispered aloud, Drink!

From every corner of the room came soft pleasant murmurs of the same word.

Beautiful sirens floating round me bade me drink.

Every thought of moral evil vanished in connection with this final act.

I looked forward with rapture to the long sleep before me, and with a smile of the most intense and fervent gratitude I raised the bottle to my lips.

I remember thinking at the moment, "The smile is very important--it shall play upon my lips to the end.

Ursula, I die happy, for my last thought is, that in the spirit I shall soon revisit thee," and the liquid trickled slowly down my throat.

It was not until I had drained the last drop that I suddenly recognised the taste.

It was the "pick-me-up" I always get at Harris's, the apothecary in St James's Street, when my fit of nervous exhaustion come on, but there seemed rather more of the spirituous ingredient in it than usual.

The life-stream began to tingle back through all my fibres--my miseries took grotesque forms.

"Ha!

ha!

Lady Broadhem!

the means you take to keep up your courage, which you so delicately alluded to just now, have come in most opportunely.

What a fool I was to make mountains out of molehills, and call the little ills of life miseries!

We will soon see what these little imprudences are the old lady talks of."

And I took up the papers with a hand rapidly becoming steady, and glanced over them with an eye no longer confused and dim.

Oh the pleasure of the sensation of this gradual recovery of vigour of mind and force of body!

I was engaged in this task, and making the most singular and startling discoveries, the nature of which I shall shortly disclose, when I heard Lady Broadhem coming down-stairs.

I felt so angry with her for having been the means of tempting me to commit a great sin, and for the trouble she was causing me generally, that I followed the first impulse which my imagination suggested as the best means of revenging myself upon her.

Accordingly, when the door opened, she found me stretched at full length on the sofa, my form rigid, my face fixed, my eyes staring, my hands clenched, and my whole attitude as nearly that of a person in a fit as I had time to make it.

"Gracious, what is the matter?"

said she.

My lips seemed with difficulty to form the word "poison."

"Frank, speak to me!"

and she seized my hand, which was not so cold as I could have wished it, but which fell helplessly by my side as she let it drop.

"Poison!"

I this time muttered audibly.

"Where did you get it?"

said she, snappishly.

For it began to dawn upon her that I was not poisoned at all, but had discovered her secret.

I

turned my thumb languidly in the direction of under the pillow.

She hastily thrust in her hand and pulled out the empty bottle.

"You fool"--she actually used this expression; I have heard other ladies do the same--"you fool," and she was literally furious, "what did you go poking under the pillow for?

You are no more poisoned than I am; it is a draught I am obliged to take for nervous depression, and your imagination has almost frightened you into a fit.

I put 'poison' on it to keep the servants from prying.

Come, get up, be a man--do," and Lady Broadhem gave me her hand, in consideration for my weakness to help myself up by.

"Dearest Lady Broadhem," said I, pressing it to my lips, "I cannot tell what comfort you give me.

I was just beginning to regret the world I thought I was about to leave for ever, when your assurance that I have not taken poison, but a tonic, makes me feel as grateful to you as if you had saved my life.

I confess that, when I found that you considered your affairs to be so desperate that you had provided the most effectual mode of escape from them, I envied the superior foresight which you had displayed, and determined to repair my error.

If it is worth dear Lady Broadhem's while to poison herself, I thought, it is surely worth mine.

But, after all, suicide is a cowardly act either in a man or a woman;

better far face the ills of life with the aid of stimulants, than fly for refuge in the agony of a financial crisis to the shop of an apothecary."

"You are an incomprehensible creature, Frank," said Lady Broadhem; "I am sure I hope for her own sake that Ursula will understand you better than I do; but as your humours are uncertain, and you seem able to go into these affairs now, I think we had better not waste any more time; only I do wish" (with a wistful glance at the bottle) "you would provide yourself with your own draughts in future."

"How lucky," thought I, as I put on a business-like air, and methodically began arranging the papers according to their docquets.

"Now, if it had been just the other way, and her ladyship had taken the draught instead of me, how completely I should have been at her mercy?

Now I am master of the situation."

"'Greek loan, thirty thousand,'" I read, going down the list; "I am afraid this is rather a losing business.

I see they have been already held over for some months.

I suppose some of the L27,000 is to be absorbed there."

"Yes," said Lady Broadhem; "because if I can carry on for another fortnight, I have got information which makes it certain I shall recover on them."

"What is this?

five hundred pounds' worth of dollar bonds?"

I went on.

"Oh, I only lost a few pounds on them.

I bought them at threepence apiece and sold them at twopence.

Spiffy got me to take them off his hands, and, in fact, made a great favour of it, as he says there is nothing people make money more surely out of than dollar bonds."

"Bubbs's Eating-house and Cigar Divan Company, Holborn.

Well, there is a strong direction.

How do you come by so many shares?"

"Lord Staggerton was one of the promoters, and had them allotted to me," said Lady Broadhem.

"He also was kind enough to put me into two Turkish baths, a monster hotel, and a music-hall.

You will see that I lost heavily in the Turkish baths and the hotel, but the music-hall is paying well.

Spiffy says I ought never to stay so long in anything as I do; in and out again, if it is only half a per cent, is his system; but Staggerton used to look after my interests, and managed them very successfully.

I am afraid that all my troubles commenced when I quarrelled with him.

He is now promoting two companies which I hear most highly spoken of, but he says I must take my chance with others about shares, and he won't advise me in the matter.

One is 'The Metropolitan Crossing-Sweeping Company,' of which he's to be chairman, and the other is the 'Seaside Bathing-Machine Company.'

Spiffy says they will both fail, because Staggerton has not the means of having them properly brought out.

Bodwinkle won't speak to him, and unless either he or the Credit Foncier bring a thing out, there is not the least chance of its taking with the public.

They don't so much look at the merits of the speculation as at the way in which it is put before them; and with this system of rigging the market, so many people go in like me only to get out again, that it is becoming more and more difficult every day to start anything new.

Oh dear," said Lady Broadhem, "how exhausted it always makes me to talk 'City!'

I only want to show you that I understand what I am about, and that if you can only help to tide me over this crisis, something will surely turn up a prize."

"I know you disapprove of cards, but perhaps you will allow me to suggest the word 'trump' as being more expressive than 'prize,'" I said.

"Well, now we have got through the companies, what have we here?

Why, Lady Broadhem, you have positively taken no less than seven unfurnished houses this year.

What on earth do you intend to do with them all?"

"My dear Frank, where have you been living for the last few years?

Do with them?

Exactly what dozens of smart people, with very little to live on, do with houses--let them, to be sure.

I made L1100 last year in four houses, and all by adding it on to the premiums.

I don't like furnishing and putting it in the rent.

In the first place, one is apt to have disagreeable squabbles about the furniture, which, however good you give people, they always say is shabby; and in the second, you get much more into the hands of the house-agents."

"Well, but," I said, "here is one of the largest houses in London--rent, unfurnished, L1500 a-year.

That is rather hazardous: who do you expect will take that?"

"Oh, that is the safest speculation of them all," said Lady Broadhem.

"I had an infinity of trouble to get it.

Spiffy first suggested the plan to me, and we found it succeed admirably last year.

It was we who brought out Mrs Gorgon Tompkins and her daughters.

She took the house from me at my own rent on condition that Spiffy managed her balls, and got all the best people in London to go to them.

This year we are going to bring out the Bodwinkles.

It will be much easier, because she is young, and has no family.

He, you know, is a man of immense wealth in the City--in fact, as I said before, his name is almost essential to the success of any new company.

I told his wife I could have nothing to do with them unless he came into Parliament, for they are horridly vulgar, and they were bound to do what they could for themselves before I could think of taking them up.

Lady Mundane positively refused to have anything to do with them, and, in fact, I live so little in the world, though I keep it up to some extent for the sake of my girls, that it was quite an accident my hearing of them.

Now, however, he has got into the House of Commons, and it is arranged that she is to take the house, and Bodwinkle is to help Spiffy in City matters, on condition that he gets all Lady Mundane's list to her first party.

Poor Spiffy is a little nervous, as Bodwinkle actually wanted to put it in writing on a stamped paper; but he is so immensely useful to society, that the least people can do is to be good-natured on an occasion of this kind."

"No fear of them," said I; "if Bodwinkle is the only man who can launch a company in the City, no one can compete with Spiffy in launching a snob in Mayfair.

But I thought you never went to balls."

"I never do; but because I do not approve of dancing, there is no reason why I should not let houses for the purpose.

You might as well say a religious banker ought not to open an account with a theatre, or a good brewer live by his beer, because some people drink too much of it.

If any one was to leave a gin-palace to me in a legacy, I should not refuse the rent."

"Any more than you do the interest of your shares in the music-hall.

And now," said I, coolly, gathering up all her papers and putting them in my pocket, "as it is past one o'clock, and I see you are tired, I will take these away with me, and let you know to-morrow what I think had better be done under the circumstances."

"What are you doing, Frank?

what an unheard-of proceeding!

I insist upon your leaving my papers here."

"If I do, you must look elsewhere for the money.

No, Lady Broadhem"--I felt that my moral ascendancy was increasing every moment, and that I should never have such another opportunity of establishing it--"we had better understand each other clearly.

You regard me at this moment in the light of your future son-in-law, and in that capacity expect me to extricate you and your family from your financial difficulties.

Now I am quite capable of 'behaving badly,' as the world calls it, at the shortest notice.

I told you at Dickiefield that I was totally without principle, and we are both trusting to Ursula to reform me.

But I will relinquish the pleasure of paying your debts, and the advantage of being reformed by your daughter, unless you agree to my terms."

"And they are?"

said her ladyship, doggedly.

"First, that from this evening you put the entire management of your affairs into my hands, and, as a preliminary measure, allow me to take away these papers, giving me a note to your lawyer authorising him to follow my instructions in everything; and, secondly, that you never, under any pretence, enter into any company or speculation of any kind except with my permission."

A glance of very evil meaning shot across her ladyship's eyes as they met mine after this speech, but I frightened it away by the savageness of my gaze, till she was literally obliged to put her hand up to her forehead.

The crisis was exciting me, for Ursula was at stake, and it was just possible my conditions might be refused; but I felt the magnetism of my will concentrating itself in my eyes as if they were burning-glasses.

It seemed to dash itself upon the reefs and barriers of Lady Broadhem's rocky nature; the inner forces of our organisms were engaged in a decisive struggle for the mastery; but the field of battle was in her, not in me.

I had invaded the enemy's country, and her frontier was as long and difficult to defend as ours is in Canada.

So I kept on pouring in mesmeric reinforcements, as she sat with her head bent, and her whole moral being in turmoil.

Never before had any man ventured to dictate to this veteran campaigner.

The late Lord had been accustomed to regard her as infallible, and Broadhem has not yet known the pleasures of independence.

She never had friends who were not servile, or permitted herself to be contradicted, except by a few privileged ecclesiastics, and then only in unctuous and deprecatory tones.

That I, of whom the world was accustomed to speak in terms of compassion, and whom she inwardly despised at this moment, should stand over her more unyielding and imperious than herself, caused her to experience a sensation nearly allied to suffocation.

I seemed instinctively to follow the mental processes through which she was passing, and a certain consciousness that I did so demoralised her.

Now, I felt, she is going to take me to task in a "sweet Christian spirit" about the state of my soul, and I brought up "will" reinforcements which I poured down upon her brain through the parting of her front, till she backed suddenly out of the position, and took up a hostile, I might almost say an abusive, attitude.

Here again I met her with such a shower of invective, "uttered not, yet comprehended," that after a silent contest she gave this up too, and finally fell back on the flat rejection of me and my money altogether.

This, I confess, was the critical moment.

She took her hand down when she came to this mental resolution, and she looked at me, I thought, but it might have been imagination, demoniacally.

What had I to oppose to it?

My love for Ursula?

No; that would soften me.

My aversion to Lady Broadhem?

No; for it was not so great as hers for me.

For a moment I wavered; my will seemed paralysed; her gaze was becoming fascinating, while mine was getting clouded, till a mist seemed to conceal her from me altogether.

And now, at the risk of being misunderstood and ridiculed, I feel bound to describe exactly the most remarkable occurrence of my life.

At that moment I saw distinctly, in the luminous haze which surrounded me, a fiery cross.

I have already said that objects of this kind often appeared to me in the dark, apropos of nothing; but upon no former occasion had a lighted room become dim, and a vision manifested itself within which seemed to answer to the involuntary invocation for assistance that I made when I found the powers of my own will beginning utterly to fail me; and, what was still more strange, never before had any such manifestation effected an immediate revolution in my sentiments.

Up to that moment I had been internally fierce and overbearing in my resolution to subdue the nature with which I was contending, and I was actually defeated when I received this supernatural indication of assistance.

Before the dazzling vision had vanished, it had conveyed its lesson of self-sacrifice, and created within me a new impulse, under the influence of which I solemnly vowed that if I triumphed now I should use my victory for the good not only of those I loved, but of her then sitting before me.

The demon of my own nature, which had evidently been struggling with the demon of hers, suddenly deserted me, and his place seemed occupied by an angel of light, furnishing me with the powers of exorcism, which were to be gained only at the sacrifice of self.

My very breath seemed instantly charged with prayers for her, at the moment I felt she regarded me with loathing and hate.

An ineffable calm pervaded my whole being.

A sense of happiness and gratitude deprived the consciousness of the conquest which I had gained of any sentiment of exultation; on the contrary, I felt gentle and subdued myself--anxious to soothe and comfort her with that consolation I had just experienced.

Ah, Lady Broadhem!

at that moment, had I not been in the presence of a "saint," I should have fallen upon my knees.

Perhaps as it was I might have done so, had she not suddenly leant back exhausted.

"Frank," she said, "I seem to have been dreaming.

I am subject to fits of violent nervous depression, and the agitation of this scene has completely overcome me; my brain seems stunned, and all my faculties have become torpid.

I can think of nothing more now, do what you like;

all I want is to go to sleep.

If you ring the bell in that corner, Jenkins will come down.

Good-night; I shall see you to-morrow.

Take the papers with you."

I took Lady Broadhem's hand--it was cold and clammy--and held it till her maid came down.

She had already fallen into a half-mesmeric sleep, but was not conscious of her condition.

I saw her safely on her way to her bedroom on the arm of her maid, and left the house with my pockets full of papers, more fresh and invigorated than I had felt for weeks.

A

new light had indeed dawned upon me.

For the first time one of these "hallucinations," as medical men usually term them, to which I am subject, had contained a lesson.

Not only had I profited from it upon the spot, but it had suggested to me an entirely new line of conduct in the great question which most nearly affected my own happiness, and seemed to guarantee me the strength of will and moral courage which should enable me to carry it out.