Her experience had been so much larger than mine, and so wholly
different, and she possessed such unbounded facility of recounting all
she had seen and felt, and absolute sincerity and unreserve in this
respect were so fully established between us, that I can imagine nothing
equally instructive and delightful with her conversation. Books are cold, jejune, vexatious in their sparingness of information at
one time and their impertinent loquacity at another. Besides, all they
choose to give they give at once; they allow no questions, offer no
further explanations, and bend not to the caprices of our curiosity. They talk to us behind a screen. Their tone is lifeless and monotonous. They charm not our attention by mute significances of gesture and looks. They spread no light upon their meaning by cadences and emphasis and
pause. How different was Mrs. Fielding's discourse! So versatile; so bending to
the changes of the occasion; so obsequious to my curiosity, and so
abundant in that very knowledge in which I was most deficient, and on
which I set the most value, the knowledge of the human heart; of
society as it existed in another world, more abundant in the varieties
of customs and characters, than I had ever had the power to witness. Partly selfish I have said my motives were, but not so, as long as I saw
that my friend derived pleasure, in her turn, from my company. Not that
I could add directly to her knowledge or pleasure, but that expansion of
heart, that ease of utterance and flow of ideas which always were
occasioned by my approach, were sources of true pleasure of which she
had been long deprived, and for which her privation had given her a
higher relish than ever. She lived in great affluence and independence, but made use of her
privileges of fortune chiefly to secure to herself the command of her
own time. She had been long ago tired and disgusted with the dull and
fulsome uniformity and parade of the play-house and ballroom. Formal
visits were endured as mortifications and penances, by which the
delights of privacy and friendly intercourse were by contrast increased. Music she loved, but never sought it in places of public resort, or from
the skill of mercenary performers; and books were not the least of her
pleasures. As to me, I was wax in her hand. Without design and without effort, I
was always of that form she wished me to assume. My own happiness became
a secondary passion, and her gratification the great end of my being. When with her, I thought not of myself. I had scarcely a separate or
independent existence, since my senses were occupied by her, and my mind
was full of those ideas which her discourse communicated. To meditate on
her looks and words, and to pursue the means suggested by my own
thoughts, or by her, conducive, in any way, to her good, was all my
business. "What a fate," said I, at the conclusion of one of our interviews, "has
been yours! But, thank Heaven, the storm has disappeared before the age
of sensibility has gone past, and without drying up every source of
happiness. You are still young; all your powers unimpaired; rich in the
compassion and esteem of the world; wholly independent of the claims and
caprices of others; amply supplied with that means of usefulness,
called money; wise in that experience which only adversity can give. Past evils and sufferings, if incurred and endured without guilt, if
called to view without remorse, make up the materials of present joy. They cheer our most dreary hours with the widespread accents of 'well
done,' and they heighten our pleasures into somewhat of celestial
brilliancy, by furnishing a deep, a ruefully-deep, contrast. "From this moment, I will cease to weep for you. I will call you the
happiest of women. I will share with you your happiness by witnessing
it; but that shall not content me. I must some way contribute to it. Tell me how I shall serve you. What can I do to make you happier? Poor
am I in every thing but zeal, but still I may do something. What--pray
tell me, what can I do?" She looked at me with sweet and solemn significance. What it was exactly
I could not divine, yet I was strangely affected by it. It was but a
glance, instantly withdrawn. She made me no answer. "You must not be silent; you _must_ tell me what I can do for you. Hitherto I have done nothing. All the service is on your side. Your
conversation has been my study, a delightful study, but the profit has
only been mine. Tell me how I can be grateful: my voice and manner, I
believe, seldom belie my feelings." At this time, I had almost done what
a second thought made me suspect to be unauthorized. Yet I cannot tell
why. My heart had nothing in it but reverence and admiration. Was she
not the substitute of my lost mamma? Would I not have clasped that
beloved shade? Yet the two beings were not just the same, or I should
not, as now, have checked myself, and only pressed her hand to my lips. "Tell me," repeated I, "what can I do to serve you? I read to you a
little now, and you are pleased with my reading. I copy for you when you
want the time. I guide the reins for you when you choose to ride. Humble
offices, indeed, though, perhaps, all that a raw youth like me can do
for you; but I can be still more assiduous. I can read several hours in
the day, instead of one. I can write ten times as much as now. "Are you not my lost mamma come back again? And yet, not _exactly_ her,
I think. Something different; something better, I believe, if that be
possible. At any rate, methinks I would be wholly yours. I shall be
impatient and uneasy till every act, every thought, every minute,
someway does you good. "How!" said I, (her eye, still averted, seemed to hold back the tear
with difficulty, and she made a motion as if to rise,) "have I grieved
you? Have I been importunate? Forgive me if I have offended you." Her eyes now overflowed without restraint. She articulated, with
difficulty, "Tears are too prompt with me of late; but they did not
upbraid you. Pain has often caused them to flow, but now
it--is--_pleasure_." "What a heart must yours be!" I resumed. "When susceptible of such
pleasures, what pangs must formerly have rent it!--But you are not
displeased, you say, with my importunate zeal. You will accept me as
your own in every thing. Direct me; prescribe to me. There must be
_something_ in which I can be of still more use to you; some way in
which I can be wholly yours----"

"_Wholly mine!_" she repeated, in a smothered voice, and rising. "Leave
me, Arthur. It is too late for you to be here. It was wrong to stay so
late." "I have been wrong; but how too late? I entered but this moment. It is
twilight still; is it not?" "No: it is almost twelve. You have been here a long four hours; short
ones I would rather say,--but indeed you must go." "What made me so thoughtless of the time? But I will go, yet not till
you forgive me."