You ask me to give you some sketch of my life, and of that _bel mondo_
which wearied me so soon. Men seldom reject an opportunity to talk of
themselves; and I am not unwilling to re-examine the past, to re-connect
it with the present, and to gather from a consideration of each what
hopes and expectations are still left to me for the future.
But my detail must be rather of thought than of action; most of those
whose fate has been connected with mine are now living, and I would not,
even to you, break that tacit confidence which much of my history would
require. After all, you will have no loss. The actions of another may
interest--but, for the most part, it is only his reflections which come
home to us; for few have acted, nearly all of us have thought.
My own vanity too would be unwilling to enter upon incidents which had
their origin either in folly or in error. It is true that those follies
and errors have ceased, but their effects remain. With years our faults
diminish, but our vices increase.
You know that my mother was Spanish, and that my father was one of that
old race of which so few scions remain, who, living in a distant country,
have been little influenced by the changes of fashion, and, priding
themselves on the antiquity of their names, have looked with contempt
upon the modern distinctions and the mushroom nobles which have sprung up
to discountenance and eclipse the plainness of more venerable and solid
respectability. In his youth my father had served in the army. He had
known much of men and more of books; but his knowledge, instead of
rooting out, had rather been engrafted on his prejudices. He was one of
that class (and I say it with a private reverence, though a public
regret), who, with the best intentions, have made the worst citizens, and
who think it a duty to perpetuate whatever is pernicious by having learnt
to consider it as sacred. He was a great country gentleman, a great
sportsman, and a great Tory; perhaps the three worst enemies which a
country can have. Though beneficent to the poor, he gave but a cold
reception to the rich; for he was too refined to associate with his
inferiors, and too proud to like the competition of his equals. One ball
and two dinners a-year constituted all the aristocratic portion of our
hospitality, and at the age of twelve, the noblest and youngest
companions that I possessed were a large Danish dog and a wild mountain
pony, as unbroken and as lawless as myself. It is only in later years
that we can perceive the immeasurable importance of the early scenes and
circumstances which surrounded us. It was in the loneliness of my
unchecked wanderings that my early affection for my own thoughts was
conceived. In the seclusion of nature--in whatever court she presided--
the education of my mind was begun; and, even at that early age, I
rejoiced (like the wild heart the Grecian poet [Eurip. Bambae, 1. 874.]
has described) in the stillness of the great woods, and the solitudes
unbroken by human footstep.
The first change in my life was under melancholy auspices; my father fell
suddenly ill, and died; and my mother, whose very existence seemed only
held in his presence, followed him in three months. I remember that, a
few hours before her death, she called me to her: she reminded me that,
through her, I was of Spanish extraction; that in her country, I received
my birth, and that, not the less for its degradation and distress, I
might hereafter find in the relations which I held to it a remembrance to
value, or even a duty to fulfil. On her tenderness to me at that hour,
on the impression it made upon my mind, and on the keen and enduring
sorrow which I felt for months after her death, it would be useless to
dwell.
My uncle became my guardian. He is, you know, a member of parliament of
some reputation; very sensible and very dull; very much respected by men,
very much disliked by women; and inspiring all children, of either sex,
with the same unmitigated aversion which he feels for them himself.
I did not remain long under his immediate care. I was soon sent to
school--that preparatory world, where the great primal principles of
human nature, in the aggression of the strong and the meanness of the
weak, constitute the earliest lesson of importance that we are taught;
and where the forced _primitiae_ of that less universal knowledge which
is useless to the many who in after life, neglect, and bitter to the few
who improve it, are the first motives for which our minds are to be
broken to terror, and our hearts initiated into tears.
Bold and resolute by temper, I soon carved myself a sort of career among
my associates. A hatred to all oppression, and a haughty and unyielding
character, made me at once the fear and aversion of the greater powers
and principalities of the school; while my agility at all boyish games,
and my ready assistance or protection to every one who required it, made
me proportionally popular with, and courted by, the humbler multitude of
the subordinate classes. I was constantly surrounded by the most lawless
and mischievous followers whom the school could afford; all eager for my
commands, and all pledged to their execution.
In good truth, I was a worthy Rowland of such a gang; though I excelled
in, I cared little for the ordinary amusements of the school: I was
fonder of engaging in marauding expeditions contrary to our legislative
restrictions, and I valued myself equally upon my boldness in planning
our exploits, and my dexterity in eluding their discovery. But exactly
in proportion as our school terms connected me with those of my own
years, did our vacations unfit me for any intimate companionship but that
which I already began to discover in myself.
Twice in the year, when I went home, it was to that wild and romantic
part of the country where my former childhood had been spent. There,
alone and unchecked, I was thrown utterly upon my own resources. I
wandered by day over the rude scenes which surrounded us; and at evening
I pored, with an unwearied delight, over the ancient legends which made
those scenes sacred to my imagination. I grew by degrees of a more
thoughtful and visionary nature. My temper imbibed the romance of my
studies; and whether, in winter, basking by the large hearth of our old
hall, or stretched, in the indolent voluptuousness of summer, by the
rushing streams which formed the chief characteristic of the country
around us, my hours were equally wasted in those dim and luxurious
dreams, which constituted, perhaps, the essence of that poetry I had not
the genius to embody. It was then, by that alternate restlessness of
action and idleness of reflection, into which my young years were
divided, that the impress of my character was stamped: that fitfulness of
temper, that affection for extremes, has accompanied me through life.
Hence, not only all intermediums of emotion appear to me as tame, but
even the most overwrought excitation can bring neither novelty nor zest.
I have, as it were, feasted upon the passions; I have made that my daily
food, which, in its strength and excess, would have been poison to
others; I have rendered my mind unable to enjoy the ordinary aliments of
nature; and I have wasted, by a premature indulgence, my resources and my
powers, till I have left my heart, without a remedy or a hope, to
whatever disorders its own intemperance has engendered.