A DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER, AND A LONG LETTER; A CHAPTER, ON THE WHOLE,
MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT SEEMS.
THE scenes through which, of late, I have conducted my reader are by no
means episodical: they illustrate far more than mere narration the
career to which I was so honourably devoted.
Dissipation,--women,--wine,--Tarleton for a friend, Lady Hasselton for a
mistress. Let me now throw aside the mask.
To people who have naturally very intense and very acute feelings,
nothing is so fretting, so wearing to the heart, as the commonplace
affections, which are the properties and offspring of the world. We
have seen the birds which, with wings unclipt, children fasten to a
stake. The birds seek to fly, and are pulled back before their wings
are well spread; till, at last, they either perpetually strain at the
end of their short tether, exciting only ridicule by their anguish and
their impotent impatience; or, sullen and despondent, they remain on the
ground, without any attempt to fly, nor creep, even to the full limit
which their fetters will allow. Thus it is with the feelings of the
keen, wild nature I speak of: they are either striving forever to pass
the little circle of slavery to which they are condemned, and so move
laughter by an excess of action and a want of adequate power; or they
rest motionless and moody, disdaining the petty indulgence they /might/
enjoy, till sullenness is construed into resignation, and despair seems
the apathy of content. Time, however, cures what it does not kill; and
both bird and beast, if they pine not to the death at first, grow tame
and acquiescent at last.
What to me was the companionship of Tarleton, or the attachment of Lady
Hasselton? I had yielded to the one, and I had half eagerly, half
scornfully, sought the other. These, and the avocations they brought
with them, consumed my time, and of Time murdered there is a ghost which
we term /ennui/. The hauntings of this spectre are the especial curse
of the higher orders; and hence springs a certain consequence to the
passions. Persons in those ranks of society so exposed to /ennui/ are
either rendered totally incapable of real love, or they love far more
intensely than those in a lower station; for the affections in them are
either utterly frittered away on a thousand petty objects (poor shifts
to escape the persecuting spectre), or else, early disgusted with the
worthlessness of these objects, the heart turns within and languishes
for something not found in the daily routine of life. When this is the
case, and when the pining of the heart is once satisfied, and the object
of love is found, there are two mighty reasons why the love should be
most passionately cherished. The first is, the utter indolence in which
aristocratic life oozes away, and which allows full food for that
meditation which can nurse by sure degrees the weakest desire into the
strongest passion; and the second reason is, that the insipidity and
hollowness of all patrician pursuits and pleasures render the excitement
of love more delicious and more necessary to the "/ignavi terrarum
domini/," than it is to those orders of society more usefully, more
constantly, and more engrossingly engaged.
Wearied and sated with the pursuit of what was worthless, my heart, at
last, exhausted itself in pining for what was pure. I recurred with a
tenderness which I struggled with at first, and which in yielding to I
blushed to acknowledge, to the memory of Isora. And in the world,
surrounded by all which might be supposed to cause me to forget her, my
heart clung to her far more endearingly than it had done in the rural
solitudes in which she had first allured it. The truth was this; at the
time I first loved her, other passions--passions almost equally
powerful--shared her empire. Ambition and pleasure--vast whirlpools of
thought--had just opened themselves a channel in my mind, and thither
the tides of my desires were hurried and lost. Now those whirlpools had
lost their power, and the channels, being dammed up, flowed back upon my
breast. Pleasure had disgusted me, and the only ambition I had yet
courted and pursued had palled upon me still more. I say, the only
ambition, for as yet that which is of the loftier and more lasting kind
had not afforded me a temptation; and the hope which had borne the name
and rank of ambition had been the hope rather to glitter than to rise.
These passions, not yet experienced when I lost Isora, had afforded me
at that period a ready comfort and a sure engrossment. And, in
satisfying the hasty jealousies of my temper, in deeming Isora unworthy
and Gerald my rival, I naturally aroused in my pride a dexterous orator
as well as a firm ally. Pride not only strengthened my passions, it
also persuaded them by its voice; and it was not till the languid yet
deep stillness of sated wishes and palled desires fell upon me, that the
low accent of a love still surviving at my heart made itself heard in
answer.
I now began to take a different view of Isora's conduct. I now began to
doubt where I had formerly believed; and the doubt, first allied to
fear, gradually brightened into hope. Of Gerald's rivalry, at least of
his identity with Barnard, and, consequently, of his power over Isora,
there was, and there could be, no feeling short of certainty. But of
what nature was that power? Had not Isora assured me that it was not
love? Why should I disbelieve her? Nay, did she not love myself? had
not her cheek blushed and her hand trembled when I addressed her? Were
these signs the counterfeits of love? Were they not rather of that
heart's dye which no skill /can/ counterfeit? She had declared that she
could not, that she could never, be mine; she had declared so with a
fearful earnestness which seemed to annihilate hope; but had she not
also, in the same meeting, confessed that I was dear to her? Had not
her lip given me a sweeter and a more eloquent assurance of that
confession than words?--and could hope perish while love existed? She
had left me,--she had bid me farewell forever; but that was no proof of
a want of love, or of her unworthiness. Gerald, or Barnard, evidently
possessed an influence over father as well as child. Their departure
from ------ might have been occasioned by him, and she might have
deplored, while she could not resist it; or she might not even have
deplored; nay, she might have desired, she might have advised it, for my
sake as well as hers, were she thoroughly convinced that the union of
our loves was impossible.
But, then, of what nature could be this mysterious authority which
Gerald possessed over her? That which he possessed over the sire,
political schemes might account for; but these, surely, could not have
much weight for the daughter. This, indeed, must still remain doubtful
and unaccounted for. One presumption, that Gerald was either no
favoured lover or that he was unacquainted with her retreat, might be
drawn from his continued residence at Devereux Court. If he loved
Isora, and knew her present abode, would he not have sought her? Could
he, I thought, live away from that bright face, if once allowed to
behold it? unless, indeed (terrible thought!) there hung over it the
dimness of guilty familiarity, and indifference had been the offspring
of possession. But was that delicate and virgin face, where changes
with every moment coursed each other, harmonious to the changes of the
mind, as shadows in a valley reflect the clouds of heaven!--was that
face, so ingenuous, so girlishly revelant of all,--even of the
slightest, the most transitory, emotion,--the face of one hardened in
deceit and inured to shame? The countenance is, it is true, but a
faithless mirror; but what man that has studied women will not own that
there is, at least while the down of first youth is not brushed away, in
the eye and cheek of zoned and untainted Innocence, that which survives
not even the fruition of a lawful love, and has no (nay, not even a
shadowed and imperfect) likeness in the face of guilt? Then, too, had
any worldlier or mercenary sentiment entered her breast respecting me,
would Isora have flown from the suit of the eldest scion of the rich
house of Devereux? and would she, poor and destitute, the daughter of an
alien and an exile, would she have spontaneously relinquished any hope
of obtaining that alliance which maidens of the loftiest houses of
England had not disdained to desire? Thus confused and incoherent, but
thus yearning fondly towards her image and its imagined purity, did my
thoughts daily and hourly array themselves; and, in proportion as I
suffered common ties to drop from me one by one, those thoughts clung
the more tenderly to that which, though severed from the rich argosy of
former love, was still indissolubly attached to the anchor of its hope.
It was during this period of revived affection that I received the
following letter from my uncle:--
I thank thee for thy long letter, my dear boy; I read it over three
times with great delight. Ods fish, Morton, you are a sad Pickle, I
fear, and seem to know all the ways of the town as well as your old
uncle did some thirty years ago! 'Tis a very pretty acquaintance with
human nature that your letters display. You put me in mind of little
Sid, who was just about your height, and who had just such a pretty,
shrewd way of expressing himself in simile and point. Ah, it is easy to
see that you have profited by your old uncle's conversation, and that
Farquhar and Etherege were not studied for nothing.
But I have sad news for thee, my child, or rather it is sad for me to
tell thee my tidings. It is sad for the old birds to linger in their
nest when the young ones take wing and leave them; but it is merry for
the young birds to get away from the dull old tree, and frisk it in the
sunshine,--merry for them to get mates, and have young themselves. Now,
do not think, Morton, that by speaking of mates and young I am going to
tell thee thy brothers are already married; nay, there is time enough
for those things, and I am not friendly to early weddings, nor to speak
truly, a marvellous great admirer of that holy ceremony at any age; for
the which there may be private reasons too long to relate to thee now.
Moreover, I fear my young day was a wicked time,--a heinous wicked time,
and we were wont to laugh at the wedded state, until, body of me, some
of us found it no laughing matter.
But to return, Morton,--to return to thy brothers: they have both left
me; and the house seems to me not the good old house it did when ye were
all about me; and, somehow or other, I look now oftener at the
churchyard than I was wont to do. You are all gone now,--all shot up
and become men; and when your old uncle sees you no more, and recollects
that all his own contemporaries are out of the world, he cannot help
saying, as William Temple, poor fellow, once prettily enough said,
"Methinks it seems an impertinence in me to be still alive." You went
first, Morton; and I missed you more than I cared to say: but you were
always a kind boy to those you loved, and you wrote the old knight merry
letters, that made him laugh, and think he was grown young again (faith,
boy, that was a jolly story of the three Squires at Button's!), and once
a week comes your packet, well filled, as if you did not think it a task
to make me happy, which your handwriting always does; nor a shame to my
gray hairs that I take pleasure in the same things that please thee!
So, thou seest, my child, that I have got through thy absence pretty
well, save that I have had no one to read thy letters to; for Gerald and
thou are still jealous of each other,--a great sin in thee, Morton,
which I prithee to reform. And Aubrey, poor lad, is a little too rigid,
considering his years, and it looks not well in the dear boy to shake
his head at the follies of his uncle. And as to thy mother, Morton, I
read her one of thy letters, and she said thou wert a graceless
reprobate to think so much of this wicked world, and to write so
familiarly to thine aged relative. Now, I am not a young man, Morton;
but the word aged has a sharp sound with it when it comes from a lady's
mouth.
Well, after thou hadst been gone a month, Aubrey and Gerald, as I wrote
thee word long since, in the last letter I wrote thee with my own hand,
made a tour together for a little while, and that was a hard stroke on
me. But after a week or two Gerald returned; and I went out in my chair
to see the dear boy shoot,--'sdeath, Morton, he handles the gun well.
And then Aubrey returned alone: but he looked pined and moping, and shut
himself up, and as thou dost love him so, I did not like to tell thee
till now, when he is quite well, that he alarmed me much for him; he is
too much addicted to his devotions, poor child, and seems to forget that
the hope of the next world ought to make us happy in this. Well,
Morton, at last, two months ago, Aubrey left us again, and Gerald last
week set off on a tour through the sister kingdom, as it is called.
Faith, boy, if Scotland and England are sister kingdoms, 'tis a thousand
pities for Scotland that they are not co-heiresses!
I should have told thee of this news before, but I have had, as thou
knowest, the gout so villanously in my hand that, till t' other day, I
have not held a pen, and old Nicholls, my amanuensis, is but a poor
scribe; and I did not love to let the dog write to thee on all our
family affairs, especially as I have a secret to tell thee which makes
me plaguy uneasy. Thou must know, Morton, that after thy departure
Gerald asked me for thy rooms; and though I did not like that any one
else should have what belonged to thee, yet I have always had a foolish
antipathy to say "No!" so thy brother had them, on condition to leave
them exactly as they were, and to yield them to thee whenever thou
shouldst return to claim them. Well, Morton, when Gerald went on his
tour with thy youngest brother, old Nicholls--you know 'tis a garrulous
fellow--told me one night that his son Hugh--you remember Hugh, a thin
youth and a tall--lingering by the beach one evening, saw a man, wrapped
in a cloak, come out of the castle cave, unmoor one of the boats, and
push off to the little island opposite. Hugh swears by more than yea
and nay that the man was Father Montreuil. Now, Morton, this made me
very uneasy, and I saw why thy brother Gerald wanted thy rooms, which
communicate so snugly with the sea. So I told Nicholls, slyly, to have
the great iron gate at the mouth of the passage carefully locked; and
when it was locked, I had an iron plate put over the whole lock, that
the lean Jesuit might not creep even through the keyhole. Thy brother
returned, and I told him a tale of the smugglers, who have really been
too daring of late, and insisted on the door being left as I had
ordered; and I told him, moreover, though not as if I had suspected his
communication with the priest, that I interdicted all further converse
with that limb of the Church. Thy brother heard me with an
indifferently bad grace; but I was peremptory, and the thing was agreed
on.
Well, child, the day before Gerald last left us, I went to take leave of
him in his own room,--to tell thee the truth, I had forgotten his
travelling expenses; when I was on the stairs of the tower I heard--by
the Lord I did--Montreuil's voice in the outer room, as plainly as ever
I heard it at prayers. Ods fish, Morton, I was an angered, and I made
so much haste to the door that my foot slipped by the way: thy brother
heard me fall, and came out; but I looked at him as I never looked at
thee, Morton, and entered the room. Lo, the priest was not there: I
searched both chambers in vain; so I made thy brother lift up the
trapdoor, and kindle a lamp, and I searched the room below, and the
passage. The priest was invisible. Thou knowest, Morton, that there is
only one egress in the passage, and that was locked, as I have said
before, so where the devil--the devil indeed--could thy tutor have
escaped? He could not have passed me on the stairs without my seeing
him; he could not have leaped the window without breaking his neck; he
could not have got out of the passage without making himself a current
of air. Ods fish, Morton, this thing might puzzle a wiser man, than
thine uncle. Gerald affected to be mighty indignant at my suspicions;
but, God forgive him, I saw he was playing a part. A man does not write
plays, my child, without being keen-sighted in these little intrigues;
and, moreover, it is impossible I could have mistaken thy tutor's voice,
which, to do it justice, is musical enough, and is the most singular
voice I ever heard,--unless little Sid's be excepted.
/A propos/ of little Sid. I remember that in the Mall, when I was
walking there alone, three weeks after my marriage, De Grammont and Sid
joined me. I was in a melancholic mood ('sdeath, Morton, marriage tames
a man as water tames mice!)--"Aha, Sir William," cried Sedley, "thou
hast a cloud on thee; prithee now brighten it away: see, thy wife shines
on thee from the other end of the Mall." "Ah, talk not to a dying man
of his physic!" said Grammont (that Grammont was a shocking rogue,
Morton!) "Prithee, Sir William, what is the chief characteristic of
wedlock? is it a state of war or of peace?" "Oh, peace to be sure!"
cried Sedley, "and Sir William and his lady carry with them the emblem."
"How!" cried I; for I do assure thee, Morton, I was of a different turn
of mind. "How!" said Sid, gravely, "why, the emblem of peace is the
/cornucopia/, which your lady and you equitably divide: she carries the
/copia/, and you the /cor/--." Nay, Morton, nay, I cannot finish the
jest; for, after all, it was a sorry thing in little Sid, whom I had
befriended like a brother, with heart and purse, to wound me so
cuttingly; but 'tis the way with your jesters.
Ods fish, now how I have got out of my story! Well, I did not go back
to my room, Morton, till I had looked to the outside of the iron door,
and seen that the plate was as firm as ever: so now you have the whole
of the matter. Gerald went the next day, and I fear me much lest he
should already be caught in some Jacobite trap. Write me thy advice on
the subject. Meanwhile, I have taken the precaution to have the
trap-door removed, and the aperture strongly boarded over.
But 'tis time for me to give over. I have been four days on this
letter, for the gout comes now to me oftener than it did, and I do not
know when I may again write to thee with my own hand; so I resolved I
would e'en empty my whole budget at once. Thy mother is well and
blooming; she is, at the present, abstractedly employed in a prodigious
piece of tapestry which old Nicholls informs me is the wonder of all the
women.
Heaven bless thee, my child! Take care of thyself, and drink
moderately. It is hurtful, at thy age, to drink above a gallon or so at
a sitting. Heaven bless thee again, and when the weather gets warmer,
thou must come with thy kind looks, to make me feel at home again. At
present the country wears a cheerless face, and everything about us is
harsh and frosty, except the blunt, good-for-nothing heart of thine
uncle, and that, winter or summer, is always warm to thee.
WILLIAM DEVEREUX.
P. S. I thank thee heartily for the little spaniel of the new breed
thou gottest me from the Duchess of Marlborough. It has the prettiest
red and white, and the blackest eyes possible. But poor Ponto is as
jealous as a wife three years married, and I cannot bear the old hound
to be vexed, so I shall transfer the little creature, its rival, to thy
mother.
This letter, tolerably characteristic of the blended simplicity,
penetration, and overflowing kindness of the writer, occasioned me much
anxious thought. There was no doubt in my mind but that Gerald and
Montreuil were engaged in some intrigue for the exiled family. The
disguised name which the former assumed, the state reasons which
D'Alvarez confessed that Barnard, or rather Gerald, had for concealment,
and which proved, at least, that some state plot in which Gerald was
engaged was known to the Spaniard, joined to those expressions of
Montreuil, which did all but own a design for the restoration of the
deposed line, and the power which I knew he possessed over Gerald, whose
mind, at once bold and facile, would love the adventure of the intrigue,
and yield to Montreuil's suggestions on its nature,--these combined
circumstances left me in no doubt upon a subject deeply interesting to
the honour of our house, and the very life of one of its members.
Nothing, however, for me to do, calculated to prevent or impede the
designs of Montreuil and the danger of Gerald, occurred to me. Eager
alike in my hatred and my love, I said, inly, "What matters it whether
one whom the ties of blood never softened towards me, with whom, from my
childhood upwards, I have wrestled as with an enemy, what matters it
whether he win fame or death in the perilous game he has engaged in?"
And turning from this most generous and most brotherly view of the
subject, I began only to think whether the search or the society of
Isora also influenced Gerald in his absence from home. After a
fruitless and inconclusive meditation on that head, my thoughts took a
less selfish turn, and dwelt with all the softness of pity, and the
anxiety of love, upon the morbid temperament and ascetic devotions of
Aubrey. What, for one already so abstracted from the enjoyments of
earth, so darkened by superstitious misconceptions of the true nature of
God and the true objects of His creatures,--what could be anticipated
but wasted powers and a perverted life? Alas! when will men perceive
the difference between religion and priestcraft? When will they
perceive that reason, so far from extinguishing religion by a more gaudy
light, sheds on it all its lustre? It is fabled that the first
legislator of the Peruvians received from the Deity a golden rod, with
which in his wanderings he was to strike the earth, until in some
destined spot the earth entirely absorbed it, and there--and there
alone--was he to erect a temple to the Divinity. What is this fable but
the cloak of an inestimable moral? Our reason is the rod of gold; the
vast world of truth gives the soil, which it is perpetually to sound;
and only where without resistance the soil receives the rod which guided
and supported us will our altar be sacred and our worship be accepted.