But how if Swift's worldly
aspirations, and the intrigues they involved him in, were not altogether
selfish? How if he was seeking advancement, in part at least, for
another, and that other a woman who had sacrificed for him not only her
chances of domestic happiness, but her good name? to whom he was bound
by gratitude? and the hope of repairing whose good fame by making her
his own was so passionate in that intense nature as to justify any and
every expedient, and make the patronage of those whom he felt to be his
inferiors endurable by the proudest of men? We believe that this was the
truth, and that the woman was Stella. No doubt there were other motives.
Coming to manhood with a haughtiness of temper that was almost savage,
he had forced himself to endure the hourly humiliation of what could not
have been, however Mr. Forster may argue to the contrary, much above
domestic servitude. This experience deepened in him the prevailing
passions of his life, first for independence and next for consideration,
the only ones which could, and in the end perhaps did, obscure the
memory and hope of Stella. That he should have longed for London with a
persistency that submitted to many a rebuff and overlived continual
disappointment will seem childish only to those who do not consider that
it was a longing for life. It was there only that his mind could be
quickened by the society and spur of equals.
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