When the pang and peril of the first conflict were over, when the
breath of life was drawn, when he saw the lungs expand and contract,
when he felt the heart beat and discovered life in the eye, he did not
yet offer to foster.
"Prove yourself true ere I cherish you," was his ordinance; and how
difficult he made that proof! What thorns and briers, what flints, he
strewed in the path of feet not inured to rough travel! He watched
tearlessly--ordeals that he exacted should be passed through--
fearlessly. He followed footprints that, as they approached the
bourne, were sometimes marked in blood--followed them grimly, holding
the austerest police-watch over the pain-pressed pilgrim. And when at
last he allowed a rest, before slumber might close the eyelids, he
opened those same lids wide, with pitiless finger and thumb, and gazed
deep through the pupil and the irids into the brain, into the heart,
to search if Vanity, or Pride, or Falsehood, in any of its subtlest
forms, was discoverable in the furthest recess of existence. If, at
last, he let the neophyte sleep, it was but a moment; he woke him
suddenly up to apply new tests: he sent him on irksome errands when he
was staggering with weariness; he tried the temper, the sense, and the
health; and it was only when every severest test had been applied and
endured, when the most corrosive aquafortis had been used, and failed
to tarnish the ore, that he admitted it genuine, and, still in clouded
silence, stamped it with his deep brand of approval.
|