green platforms which separate their summits are so many stages by means of
which you may reach, through some difficult paths, that cone of hanging and
inaccessible rocks, called the Thumb. At the foot of that cone is a
stretching slope of ground, covered with lofty trees, and which is so high
and steep that it appears like a forest in air, surrounded by tremendous
precipices. The clouds, which are attracted round the summit of those
rocks, supply innumerable rivulets, which rush from so immense a height
into that deep valley situated behind the mountain, that from this elevated
point we do not hear the sound of their fall. On that spot you can discern
a considerable part of the island with its precipices crowned with their
majestic peaks; and, amongst others, Peterbath, and the three Peaks, with
their valley filled with woods. You also command an extensive view of the
ocean, and even perceive the Isle of Bourbon forty leagues towards the
west. From the summit of that stupendous pile of rocks Paul gazed upon the
vessel which had borne away Virginia, and which, now ten leagues out at
sea, appeared like a black spot in the midst of the ocean. He remained a
great part of the day with his eyes fixed upon this object: when it had
disappeared, he still fancied he beheld it: and when, at length, the traces
which clung to his imagination were lost amidst the gathering mists of the
horizon, he seated himself on that wild point, for ever beaten by the
winds, which never cease to agitate the tops of the cabbage and gum trees,
and the hoarse and moaning murmurs of which, similar to the distant sound
of organs, inspire a deep melancholy. On that spot. I found Paul, with his
head reclined on the rock, and his eyes fixed upon the ground. I had
followed him since break of day, and after much importunity, I prevailed
with him to descend from the heights, and return to his family. I conducted
him to the plantation, where the first impulse of his mind, upon seeing
Madame de la Tour, was to reproach her bitterly for having deceived him.
Madame de la Tour told us, that a favourable wind having arose at three
o'clock in the morning, and the vessel being ready to set sail, the
governor, attended by his general officers, and the missionary, had come
with a palanquin in search of Virginia, and that, notwithstanding her own
objections, her tears, and those of Margaret, all the while exclaiming that
it was for the general welfare they had carried away Virginia almost dying.
'At least,' cried Paul, 'if I had bid her farewell, I should now be more
calm. I would have said to her, Virginia, if, during the time we have lived
together, one word may have escaped me which has offended you, before you
leave me for ever, tell me that you forgive me. I would have said to her,
since I am destined to see you no more, farewell, my dear Virginia,
farewell! Live far from me, contented and happy!'
"When he saw that his mother and Madame de la Tour were weeping, 'You must
now,' said he, 'seek some other than me to wipe away your tears;' and then,
rushing out of the house, he wandered up and down the plantation. He flew
eagerly to those spots which had been most dear to Virginia. He said to the
goats and their kids which followed him, bleating, 'What do you ask of me?
You will see her no more who used to feed you with her own hand.' He went
to the bower called the Repose of Virginia; and, as the birds flew around
him, exclaimed, 'Poor little birds! you will fly no more to meet her who
cherished you!' and observing Fidele running backwards and forwards in
search of her, he heaved a deep sigh, and cried, 'Ah! you will never find
her again.' At length he went and seated himself upon the rock where he had
conversed with her the preceding evening; and at the view of the ocean,
upon which he had seen the vessel disappear, which bore her away, he wept
bitterly.
"We continually watched his steps, apprehending some fatal consequence from
the violent agitation of his mind. His mother and Madame de la Tour
conjured him, in the most tender manner, not to increase their affliction
by his despair. At length Madame de la Tour soothed his mind by lavishing
upon him such epithets as were best calculated to revive his hopes. She
called him her son, her dear son, whom she destined for her daughter. She
prevailed with him to return to the house, and receive a little
nourishment. He seated himself with us at table, next to the place which
used to be occupied by the companion of his childhood, and, as if she had
still been present, he spoke to her, and offered whatever he knew was most
agreeable to her taste; and then, starting from this dream of fancy, he
began to weep. For some days he employed himself in gathering together
every thing which had belonged to Virginia; the last nosegays she had worn,
the cocoa shell in which she used to drink; and after kissing a thousand
times those relics of his friend, to him the most precious treasures which
the world contained, he hid them in his bosom. The spreading perfumes of
the amber are not so sweet as the objects which have belonged to those we
love. At length, perceiving that his anguish increased that of his mother
and Madame de la Tour, and that the wants of the family required continual
labour, he began, with the assistance of Domingo, to repair the garden.
"Soon after, this young man, till now indifferent as a Creole with respect
to what was passing in the world, desired I would teach him to read and
write, that he might carry on a correspondence with Virginia. He then
wished to be instructed in geography, in order that he might form a just
idea of the country where she had disembarked; and in history, that he
might know the manners of the society in which she was placed. The powerful
sentiment of love, which directed his present studies, had already taught
him the arts of agriculture, and the manner of laying out the most
irregular grounds with advantage and beauty. It must be admitted, that to
the fond dreams of this restless and ardent passion, mankind are indebted
for a great number of arts and sciences, while its disappointments have
given birth to philosophy, which teaches us to bear the evils of life with
resignation. Thus, nature having made love the general link which binds all
beings, has rendered it the first spring of society, the first incitement
of knowledge as well as pleasure.
"Paul found little satisfaction in the study of geography, which, instead
of describing the natural history of each country, only gave a view of its
political boundaries. History, and especially modern history, interested
him little more. He there saw only general and periodical evils of which he
did not discern the cause; wars for which there was no reason and no
object; nations without principle, and princes without humanity. He
preferred the reading of romances, which being filled with the particular
feelings and interests of men, represented situations similar to his own.
No book gave him so much pleasure as Telemachus, from the pictures which it
draws of pastoral life, and of those passions which are natural to the
human heart. He read aloud to his mother and Madame de la Tour those parts
which affected him most sensibly, when, sometimes, touched by the most
tender remembrances, his emotion choked his utterance, and his eyes were
bathed in tears. He fancied he had found in Virginia the wisdom of Antiope,
with the misfortunes and the tenderness of Eurcharis. With very different
sensations he perused our fashionable novels, filled with licentious maxims
and manners. And when he was informed that those romances drew a just
picture of European society, he trembled, not without reason, lest Virginia
should become corrupted, and should forget him.
"More than a year and a half had indeed passed away before Madame de la
Tour received any tidings of her daughter. During that period she had only
accidentally heard that Virginia had arrived safely in France. At length a
vessel, which stopped in its way to the Indies, conveyed to Madame de la
Tour a packet, and a letter written with her own hand. Although this
amiable young woman had written in a guarded manner, in order to avoid
wounding the feelings of a mother, it was easy to discern that she was
unhappy. Her letter paints so naturally her situation and her character,
that I have retained it almost word for word.
"'My dear and beloved mother, I have already sent you several letters,
written with my own hand but having received no answer, I fear they have
not reached you. I have better hopes for this, from the means I have now
taken of sending you tidings of myself, and of hearing from you. I have
shed many tears since our separation; I, who never used to weep, but for
the misfortunes of others! My aunt was much astonished, when, having, upon
my arrival, inquired what accomplishments I possessed, I told her that I
could neither read nor write. She asked me what then I had learnt since I
came into the world; and, when I answered that I had been taught to take
care of the household affairs, and obey your will, she told me that I had
received the education of a servant. The next day she placed me as a
boarder in a great abbey near Paris, where I have masters of all kinds, who
teach me, among other things, history, geography, grammar, mathematics and
riding. But I have so little capacity for all those sciences, that I make
but small progress with my masters.
"'My aunt's kindness, however, does not abate towards me. She gives me new
dresses for each season; and she has placed two waiting women with me, who
are both dressed like fine ladies. She has made me take the title of
countess, but has obliged me to renounce the name of La Tour, which is as
dear to me as it is to you, from all you have told me of the sufferings my
father endured in order to marry you. She has replaced your name by that of
your family, which is also dear to me, because it was your name when a
girl. Seeing myself in so splendid a situation, I implored her to let me
send you some assistance. But how shall I repeat her answer? Yet you have
desired me always to tell you the truth. She told me then, that a little
would be of no use to you, and that a great deal would only encumber you in
the simple life you led.
"'I endeavoured, upon my arrival, to send you tidings of myself by another
hand, but finding no person here in whom I could place confidence, I
applied night and day to reading and writing; and Heaven, who saw my motive
for learning, no doubt assisted my endeavours, for I acquired both in a
short time. I entrusted my first letters to some of the ladies here, who, I
have reason to think, carried them to my aunt. This time I have had
recourse to a boarder, who is my friend. I send you her direction, by means
of which I shall receive your answer. My aunt has forbid my holding any
correspondence whatever, which might, she says, be come an obstacle to the
great views she has for my advantage. No person is allowed to see me at the
grate but herself, and an old nobleman, one of her friends, who, she says,
is much pleased with me. I am sure I am not at all so with him; nor should
I, even if it were possible for me to be pleased with any one at present.
"'I live in the midst of affluence, and have not a livre at my disposal.
They say I might make an improper use of money. Even my clothes belong to
my waiting women who quarrel about them before I have left them off. In the
bosom of riches, I am poorer than when I lived with you; for I have nothing
to give. When I found that the great accomplishments they taught me would
not procure me the power of doing the smallest good, I had recourse to my
needle, of which happily you had learnt me the use. I send several pair of
stockings of my own making for you and my mamma Margaret, a cap for
Domingo, and one of my red handkerchiefs for Mary. I also send with this
packet some kernels and seeds of various kinds of fruits, which I gathered
in the fields. There are much more beautiful flowers in the meadows of this
country than in ours, but nobody cares for them. I am sure that you and my
mamma Margaret will be better pleased with this bag of seeds, than you were
with the bag of piastres, which was the cause of our separation and of my
tears. It will give me great delight if you should one day see apple-trees
growing at the side of the plantain, and elms blending their foliage with
our cocoa-trees. You will fancy yourself in Normandy, which you love so
much.
"'You desired me to relate to you my joys and my griefs. I have no joys far
from you. As for my griefs, I endeavour to soothe them by reflecting that I
am in the situation in which you placed me by the will of God. But my
greatest affliction is, that no one here speaks to me of you, and that I
must speak of you to no one. My waiting women, or rather those of my aunt,
for they belong more to her than to me, told me the other day, when I
wished to turn the conversation upon the objects most dear to me,
'Remember, madam, that you are a Frenchwoman, and must forget that country
of savages.' Ah! sooner will I forget myself than forget the spot on which
I was born, and which you inhabit! It is this country which is to me a land
of savages; for I live alone, having no one to whom I can impart, those
feelings of tenderness for you which I shall bear with me to the grave.
'I am,
'My dearest and beloved mother,
'Your affectionate and dutiful daughter,
'VIRGINIA DE LA TOUR."
"'I recommend to your goodness Mary and Domingo, who took so much care of
my infancy. Caress Fidele for me who found me in the wood.'
"Paul was astonished that Virginia had not said one word of him, she who
had not forgotten even the house dog. But Paul was not aware that, however
long may be a woman's letter, she always puts the sentiments most dear to
her at the end.
"In a postscript, Virginia recommended particularly to Paul's care two
kinds of seed, those of the violet and scabious. She gave him some
instructions upon the nature of those plants, and the spots most proper for
their cultivation. 'The first,' said she, 'produces a little flower of a
deep violet, which loves to hide itself beneath the bushes, but is soon
discovered by its delightful odours.' She desired those seeds might be sown
along the borders of the fountain, at the foot of her cocoa tree. 'The
scabious,' she added, 'produces a beautiful flower of a pale blue, and a
black ground, spotted with white. You might fancy it was in mourning; and
for this reason, it is called the widow's flower. It delights in bleak
spots beaten by the winds.' She begged this might be sown upon the rock
where she had spoken to him for the last time, and that, for her sake, he
would henceforth give it the name of the Farewell Rock.
"She had put those seeds into a little purse, the tissue of which was
extremely simple; but which appeared above all price to Paul, when he
perceived a P and a V intwined together, and knew that the beautiful hair
which formed the cipher was the hair of Virginia.
"The whole family listened with tears to the letter of that amiable and
virtuous young woman. Her mother answered it in the name of the little
society, and desired her to remain or return as she thought proper;
assuring her, that happiness had fled from their dwelling since her
departure, and that, as for herself, she was inconsolable.
"Paul also sent her a long letter, in which he assured her that he would
arrange the garden in a manner agreeable to her taste, and blend the plants
of Europe with those of Africa. He sent her some fruit culled from the
cocoa trees of the mountain, which were now arrived at maturity: telling
her that he would not add any more of the other seeds of the island, that
the desire of seeing those productions again might hasten her return. He
conjured her to comply without delay with the ardent wishes of her family,
and, above all, with his own, since he was unable to endure the pain of
their separation.
"With a careful hand Paul sowed the European seeds, particularly the violet
and the scabious, the flowers of which seem to bear some analogy to the
character and situation of Virginia, by whom they had been recommended: but
whether they were injured by the voyage, or whether the soil of this part
of Africa is unfavourable to their growth, a very small number of them
blew, and none came to perfection.
"Meanwhile that envy, which pursues human happiness, spread reports over
the island which gave great uneasiness to Paul. The persons who had brought
Virginia's letter asserted that she was upon the point of being married,
and named the nobleman of the court with whom she was going to be united.
Some even declared that she was already married, of which they were
witnesses. Paul at first despised this report, brought by one of those
trading ships, which often spread erroneous intelligence in their passage;
but some ill-natured persons, by their insulting pity, led him to give some
degree of credit to this cruel intelligence. Besides, he had seen in the
novels which he had lately read that perfidy was treated as a subject of
pleasantry; and knowing that those books were faithful representations of
European manners, he feared that the heart of Virginia was corrupted, and
had forgotten its former engagements. Thus his acquirements only served to
render him miserable, and what increased his apprehension was, that several
ships arrived from Europe, during the space of six months, and not one
brought any tidings of Virginia.
"This unfortunate young man, with a heart torn by the most cruel agitation,
came often to visit me, that I might confirm or banish his inquietude, by
my experience of the world.
"I live, as I have already told you, a league and a half from hence, upon
the banks of a little river which glides along the Sloping Mountain: there
I lead a solitary life, without wife, children, or slaves.
"After having enjoyed, and lost, the rare felicity of living with a
congenial mind, the state of life which appears the least wretched is that
of solitude. It is remarkable that all those nations which have been
rendered unhappy by their political opinions, their manners, or their forms
of government, have produced numerous classes of citizens altogether
devoted to solitude and celibacy. Such were the Egyptians in their decline,
the Greeks of the lower empire; and such in our days are the Indians, the
Chinese, the modern Greeks, the Italians, and most part of the eastern and
southern nations of Europe.
"Thus I pass my days far from mankind whom I wished to serve, and by whom I
have been persecuted. After having travelled over many countries of Europe,
and some parts of America and Africa, I at length pitched my tent in this
thinly-peopled island, allured by its mild temperature and its solitude. A
cottage which I built in the woods, at the foot of a tree, a little field
which I cultivated with my own hands, a river which glides before my door,
suffice for my wants and for my pleasures. I blend with those enjoyments
that of some chosen books, which teach me to become better. They make that
world, which I have abandoned, still contribute to my satisfaction. They
place before me pictures of those passions which render its inhabitants so
miserable; and the comparison which I make between their destiny and my
own, leads me to feel a sort of negative happiness. Like a man whom
shipwreck has thrown upon a rock, I contemplate, from my solitude, the
storms which roll over the rest of the world; and my repose seems more
profound from the distant sounds of the tempest.
"I suffer myself to be led calmly down the stream of time to the ocean of
futurity, which has no boundaries; while, in the contemplation of the
present harmony of nature, I raise my soul towards its supreme Author, and
hope for a more happy destiny in another state of existence.
"Although you do not descry my hermitage, which is situated in the midst of
a forest, among that immense variety of objects which this elevated spot
presents, the grounds are disposed with particular beauty, at least to one
who, like me, loves rather the seclusion of a home scene, than great and
extensive prospects. The river which glides before my door passes in a
straight line across the woods, and appears like a long canal shaded by
trees of all kinds. There are black date plum trees, what we here call the
narrow-leaved dodonea, olive wood, gum trees, and the cinnamon tree; while
in some parts the cabbage trees raise their naked columns more than a
hundred feet high, crowned at their summits with clustering leaves, and
towering above the wood like one forest piled upon another. Lianas, of
various foliage, intertwining among the woods, form arcades of flowers, and
verdant canopies; those trees, for the most part, shed aromatic odours of a
nature so powerful, that the garments of a traveller, who has passed
through the forest, retain for several hours the delicious fragrance. In
the season when those trees produce their lavish blossoms, they appear as
if covered with snow. One of the principal ornaments of our woods is the
calbassia, a tree not only distinguished for its beautiful tint of verdure;
but for other properties, which Madame de la Tour has described in the
following sonnet, written at one of her first visits to my hermitage:
SONNET
TO THE CALBASSIA TREE
Sublime Calbassia, luxuriant tree!
How soft the gloom thy bright-lined foliage throws,
While from thy pulp a healing balsam flows,
Whose power the suffering wretch from pain can free!
My pensive footsteps ever turn to thee!
Since oft, while musing on my lasting woes,
Beneath thy flowery white bells I repose,
Symbol of friendship dost thou seem to me;
For thus has friendship cast her soothing shade
O'er my unsheltered bosom's keen distress:
Thus sought to heal the wounds which love has made,
And temper bleeding sorrow's sharp excess!
Ah! not in vain she lends her balmy aid:
The agonies she cannot cure, are less!
"Towards the end of summer various kinds of foreign birds hasten, impelled
by an inexplicable instinct, from unknown regions, and across immense
oceans, to gather the profuse grains of this island; and the brilliancy of
their expanded plumage forms a contrast to the trees embrowned by the sun.
Such, among others, are various kinds of paroquets, the blue pigeon, called
here the pigeon of Holland, and the wandering and majestic white bird of
the Tropic, which Madame de la Tour thus apostrophised:--
SONNET
TO THE WHITE BIRD OF THE TROPIC.
Bird of the Tropic! thou, who lov'st to stray
Where thy long pinions sweep the sultry line,
Or mark'st the bounds which torrid beams confine
By thy averted course, that shuns the ray
Oblique, enamour'd of sublimer day:
Oft on yon cliff thy folded plumes recline,
And drop those snowy feathers Indians twine
To crown the warrior's brow with honours gay.
O'er Trackless oceans what impels thy wing?
Does no soft instinct in thy soul prevail?
No sweet affection to thy bosom cling,
And bid thee oft thy absent nest bewail?
Yet thou again to that dear spot canst spring
But I my long lost home no more shall hail!
"The domestic inhabitants of our forests, monkeys, sport upon the dark
branches of the trees, from which they are distinguished by their gray and
greenish skin, and their black visages. Some hang suspended by the tail,
and balance themselves in air; others leap from branch to branch, bearing
their young in their arms. The murderous gun has never affrighted those
peaceful children of nature. You sometimes hear the warblings of unknown
birds from the southern countries, repeated at a distance by the echoes of
the forest. The river, which runs in foaming cataracts over a bed of rocks,
reflects here and there, upon its limpid waters, venerable masses of woody
shade, together with the sport of its happy inhabitants. About a thousand
paces from thence the river precipitates itself over several piles of
rocks, and forms, in its fall, a sheet of water smooth as crystal, but
which breaks at the bottom into frothy surges. Innumerable confused sounds
issue from those tumultuous waters, which, scattered by the winds of the
forest, sometimes sink, sometimes swell, and send forth a hollow tone like
the deep bells of a cathedral. The air, for ever renewed by the circulation
of the waters, fans the banks of that river with freshness, and leaves a
degree of verdure, notwithstanding the summer heats, rarely found in this
island, even upon the summits of the mountains.