Marriage of my eldest brother—The bridesmaid, Miss D. W.—Female
attractions not dependent on personal beauty—Mutual
attachment—Illustration of the French phrase _je ne sais
quoi_—Betrothal of the author, and his departure for London, to study
for the Bar.
My father still conceived that the military profession was best suited
to my ardent and volatile spirit. I was myself, however, of a different
opinion; and fortune shortly fixed my determination. An accident
occurred, which, uniting passion, judgment, and ambition, led me to
decide that the Bar was the only road to my happiness or celebrity; and
accordingly I finally and irrevocably resolved that the law should be
the future occupation of my life and studies.
The recollection of the incident to which I have alluded excites, even
at this moment, all the sensibility and regret which can survive a grand
climacteric, and four-and-forty years of vicissitude. I shall not dilate
upon it extensively; and, in truth, were it not that these personal
fragments would be otherwise still more incomplete, I should remain
altogether silent on a subject which revives in my mind so many painful
reflections.
My elder brother married the only daughter of Mr. Edwards, of Old Court,
County Wicklow (niece to Mr. Tennison, M. P. County Monaghan). The
individuals of both families attended that marriage, which was indeed a
public one. The bridemaid of Miss Edwards was the then admired Miss D.
Whittingham. This lady was about my own age: her father had been a
senior fellow of Dublin University, and had retired on large church
preferments. Her uncle, with whom she was at that time residing, was a
very eminent barrister in the Irish capital. She had but one sister, and
I was soon brought to think she had no equal whatever.
They who read this will perhaps anticipate a story of a volatile lad
struck, in the midst of an inspiring ceremony, by the beauty of a lively
and engaging female, and surrendering without resistance his boyish
heart to the wild impulse of the moment. This supposition is, I admit, a
natural one; but it is unfounded. Neither beauty, nor giddy passion, nor
the glare of studied attractions, ever enveloped me in their labyrinths.
Nobody admired female loveliness more than myself; but beauty in _the
abstract_ never excited within me that delirium which has so impartially
made fools of kings and beggars—of heroes and cowards; and to which the
wisest professors of law, physic, and divinity, have from time
immemorial surrendered their liberty and their reason.
Regularity of feature is very distinct from expression of countenance,
which I never yet saw mere symmetry successfully rival. I thank Heaven,
that I never was either the captive or the victim of “perfect beauty;”
in fact, I never loved any handsome woman save one, who still lives, and
I hope will do so long: those whom I admired most (when I was of an age
to admire any) had no great reason to be grateful for her munificence to
creating Nature.
Were I to describe the person of D. Whittingham, I should say that she
had no beauty; but, on the contrary, seemed rather to have been selected
as a foil to set off the almost transparent delicacy of the bride whom
she attended. Her figure was graceful, it is true: her limbs fine, her
countenance _speaking_; yet I incline to think that few ladies would
have envied her perfections. Her dark and deep-sunk, yet animated and
penetrating eyes could never have reconciled their looking-glasses to
the sombre and swarthy complexion which surrounded them; nor the carmine
of her pouting lips to the disproportioned extent of feature which it
tinted. In fine, as I began, so will I conclude my personal
description—she had _no beauty_. But she seems this moment before me as
in a vision. I see her countenance, busied in unceasing converse with
her heart;—now illuminated by wit, now softened by sensibility—the wild
spirit of the former changing like magic into the steadier movements of
the latter;—the serious glance silently commanding caution, whilst the
counteracting smile at the same moment set caution at defiance. But upon
this subject I shall desist, and only remark further, that before I was
aware of the commencement of its passion, my whole heart was hers!
Miss Whittingham was at that time _the fashion_ in high society: many
admired, but I know of none who loved her save myself; and it must have
been through some attractive congeniality of mind that our attachment
became mutual.
It will doubtless appear unaccountable to many, whence the spell arose
by which I was so devoted to a female, from whom personal beauty seems
to have been withheld by Nature. I am unable to solve the enigma. I once
ventured myself to ask D. Whittingham if she could tell me _why_ I loved
her? She _answered_ by _returning the question_; and hence, neither of
us being able to give an explicit reason, we mutually agreed that the
query was _unanswerable_.
There are four short words in the French language which have a power of
expressing what in English is inexplicable—_Je ne sais quoi_; and to
these, in my dilemma, I resorted. I do not now wish the phrase to be
understood in a mere _sentimental_ vein,—or, in the set terms of young
ladies, as “a _nice_ expression!” In my mind it is an _amatory idiom_;
and, in those few words, conveys more meaning than could a hundred
pages: I never recollect its being seriously applied by any man till he
had got into a decided _partiality_.
I have said that the phrase is inexplicable; but, in like manner as we
are taught to aim at perfection whilst we know it to be unattainable, so
will I endeavour to characterise the _Je ne sais quoi_ as meaning a
species of indefinable grace which gives despotic power to a female.
When we praise in detail the abstract beauties or merits of a woman,
each of them may form matter for argument, or a subject for the exercise
of various tastes; but of the _Je ne sais quoi_ there is no
specification, and upon it there can be no reasoning. It is that
fascinating enigma which expresses _all_ without expressing _any thing_;
that mysterious source of attraction which we can neither discover nor
account for; and which nor beauty, nor wit, nor education, nor any
thing, but _nature_, ever can create.
D. Whittingham was the _fashion_:—but she depended solely, as to
fortune, on her father and her uncle. I was the third son of a largely
estated, but not at all prudent family, and was entitled to a younger
child’s portion, in addition to some exclusive property of my own (from
my grandmother): but I had passed twenty-one, and not even fixed on a
profession—therefore, the only probable result of our attachment seemed
to be misery and disappointment. Notwithstanding, when in the same
neighbourhood, we met,—when separate, we corresponded; but her good
sense at length perceived that some end must be put to this state of
clandestine correspondence, from which, although equally condemning it,
we had not been able to abstain. Her father died, and she became
entitled to a third of his estate and effects; but this accession was
insufficient to justify the accomplishment of our union. I saw, and,
with a half-broken heart, acquiesced in, her view of its impossibility
until I should have acquired some productive profession. She suggested
that there was no other course but the Bar, which might conciliate her
uncle. The hint was sufficient, and we then agreed to have a ceremony of
_betrothal_ performed by a clergyman, and to separate the next moment,
never to meet again until Fortune, if ever so disposed, should smile
upon us.
The ceremony was accordingly performed by a clerical person in the
parlour of the post-office at Bray, County Wicklow; and immediately
afterward I went on board a packet for England, determined, if possible,
to succeed in a profession which held out a reward so essential to my
happiness.
I did succeed in that profession: but, alas! she for whose sake my toil
was pleasure had ceased to exist. I never saw her more! Her only sister
still lives in Merrion Square, Dublin, and in her has centred all the
property of both the father and uncle. She is the widow of one of my
warmest friends, Mr. Burne, a king’s counsel.
I hasten to quit a subject to me so distressing. Some very peculiar
circumstances attended, as I learned, the death of that most excellent
of women; but a recital of these would only increase the impression
which I fear I have already given grounds for, that I am deeply
superstitious. However, I have not concealed so important an incident of
my life hitherto not published, and I have done.