I had now been near three weeks at the Grove. Ever since my arrival I
had contracted the habit of pouring out my heart to Mr. and Mrs. Stanley
with grateful affection and filial confidence. I still continued to do
so on all subjects except one.
The more I saw of Lucilla, the more difficult I found it to resist her
numberless attractions. I could not persuade myself that either prudence
or duty demanded that I should guard my heart against such a combination
of amiable virtues and gentle graces: virtues and graces which, as I
before observed, my mind had long been combining as a delightful idea,
and which I now saw realized in a form more engaging than even my own
imagination had allowed itself to picture.
I did not feel courage sufficient to risk the happiness I actually
enjoyed, by aspiring too suddenly to a happiness more perfect. I dared
not yet avow to the parents, or the daughter, feelings which my fears
told me might possibly be discouraged, and which, if discouraged, would
at once dash to the ground a fabric of felicity that my heart, not my
fancy, had erected, and which my taste, my judgment, and my principles
equally approved, and delighted to contemplate.
The great critic of antiquity, in his treatise on the drama, observes
that the introduction of a new person is of the next importance to a new
incident. Whether the introduction of two interlocutors is equal in
importance to two incidents, Aristotle has forgotten to establish. This
dramatic rule was illustrated by the arrival of Sir John and Lady
Belfield, who, though not new to the reader or the writer, were new at
Stanley Grove.
The early friendship of the two gentlemen had suffered little diminution
from absence, though their intercourse had been much interrupted. Sir
John, who was a few years younger than his friend, since his marriage,
having lived as entirely in town as Mr. Stanley had done in the country.
Mrs. Stanley had, indeed, seen Lady Belfield a few times in
Cavendish-square, but her ladyship had never before been introduced to
the other inhabitants of the Grove.
The guests were received with cordial affection, and easily fell into
the family habits, which they did not wish to interrupt, but from the
observation of which they hoped to improve their own. They were charmed
with the interesting variety of characters in the lovely young family,
who in return were delighted with the politeness, kindness, and
cheerfulness of their father's guests.
Shall I avow my own meanness? Cordially as I loved the Belfields, I am
afraid I saw them arrive with a slight tincture of jealousy. They would,
I thought, by enlarging the family circle, throw me at a further
distance from the being whom I wished to contemplate nearly. They would,
by dividing her attention, diminish my proportion. I had been hitherto
the sole guest, I was now to be one of several. This was the first
discovery I made that love is a narrower of the heart. I tried to subdue
the ungenerous feeling, and to meet my valuable friends with a warmth
adequate to that which they so kindly manifested. I found that a wrong
feeling at which one has virtue enough left to blush, is seldom lasting,
and shame soon expelled it.
The first day was passed in mutual inquiries and mutual communications.
Lady Belfield told me that the amiable Fanny, after having wept over the
grave of her mother, was removed to the house of the benevolent
clergyman, who had kindly promised her an asylum till Lady Belfield's
return to town, when it was intended she should be received into her
family; that worthy man and his wife having taken on themselves a full
responsibility for her character and disposition; and generously
promised that they would exert themselves to advance her progress in
knowledge during the interval. Lady Belfield added, that every inquiry
respecting Fanny, whom we must now call Miss Stokes, had been attended
with the most satisfactory result, her principles being as
unquestionable as her talents.
After dinner, I observed that whenever the door opened, Lady Belfield's
eye was always turned toward it, in expectation of seeing the children.
Her affectionate heart felt disappointed on finding that they did not
appear, and she could not forbear whispering to me, who sat next her,
"that she was afraid the piety of our good friends was a little
tinctured with severity. For her part, she saw no reason why religion
should diminish one's affection for one's children, and rob them of
their innocent pleasures." I assured her gravely I thought so too; but
forbore telling her how totally inapposite her application was to Mr.
and Mrs. Stanley. She seemed glad to find me of her opinion, and gave up
all hope of seeing the "little melancholy recluses," as she called them,
"unless," she said, laughing, "she might be permitted to look at them
through the grate of their cells." I smiled, but did not undeceive her,
and affected to join in her compassion. When we went to attend the
ladies in the drawing-room, I was delighted to find lady Belfield
sitting on a low stool, the whole gay group at play around her. A blush
mixed itself with her good-natured smile as we interchanged a
significant look. She was questioning one of the elder ones, while the
youngest sat on her lap singing. Sir John entered, with that kindness
and good humor so natural to him, into the sports of the others, who,
though wild with health and spirits, were always gentle and docile. He
had a thousand pleasant things to entertain them with. He, too, it
seems, had not been without his misgivings.
"Are not these poor miserable recluses?" whispered I maliciously to her
ladyship, "and are not these rueful looks proof positive that religion
diminishes our affection for our children? and is it not abridging their
innocent pleasures, to give them their full range in a fresh airy
apartment, instead of cramming them into an eating-room, of which the
air is made almost fetid by the fumes of the dinner and a crowded table?
and is it not better that they should spoil the pleasure of the company,
though the mischief they do is bought by the sacrifice of their own
liberty?" "I make my _amende_," said she. "I never will be so forward
again to suspect piety of ill nature." "So far from it, Caroline," said
Sir John, "that we will adopt the practice we were so forward to blame;
and I shall not do it," said he, "more from regard to the company, than
to the children, who I am sure will be gainers in point of enjoyment;
liberty, I perceive, is to them positive pleasure, and paramount to any
which our false epicurism can contrive for them."
"Well, Charles," said Sir John, as soon as he saw me alone, "now tell us
about this Lucilla, this paragon, this nonpareil of Dr. Barlow's. Tell
me what is she? or rather what is she not?"
"First," replied I, "I will as you desire, define her by negatives--she
is _not_ a professed beauty, she is _not_ a professed genius, she is
_not_ a professed philosopher, she is _not_ a professed wit, she is
_not_ a professed any thing; and, I thank my stars, she is _not_ an
artist!" "Bravo, Charles, now as to what she is." "She is," replied I,
"from nature--a woman, gentle, feeling, animated, modest. She is by
education, elegant, informed, enlightened. She is, from religion, pious,
humble, candid, charitable."
"What a refreshment will it be," said Sir John, "to see a girl of fine
sense, more cultivated than accomplished--the creature, not of fiddlers
and dancing-masters, but of nature, of books, and of good company! If
there is the same mixture of spirit and delicacy in her character, that
there is of softness and animation in her countenance, she is a
dangerous girl, Charles."
"She certainly does," said I, "possess the essential charm of beauty
where it exists; and the most effectual substitute for it, where it does
not; the power of prepossessing the beholder by her look and manner, in
favor of her understanding and temper."
This prepossession I afterward found confirmed, not only by her own
share in the conversation, but by its effect on myself; I always feel
that our intercourse unfolds, not only her powers, but my own. In
conversing with such a woman, I am apt to fancy that I have more
understanding, because her animating presence brings it more into
exercise.
After breakfast, next day, the conversation happened to turn on the
indispensable importance of unbounded confidence to the happiness of
married persons. Mr. Stanley expressed his regret, that though it was
one of the grand ingredients of domestic comfort, yet it was sometimes
unavoidably prevented by an unhappy inequality of mind between the
parties, by violence, or imprudence, or imbecility on one side, which
almost compelled the other to a degree of reserve, as incompatible with
the design of the union, as with the frankness of the individual.
"We have had an instance among our own friends," replied Sir John, "of
this evil being produced, not by any of the faults to which you have
adverted, but by an excess of misapplied sensibility, in two persons of
near equality as to merit, and in both of whom the utmost purity of
mind, and exactness of conduct rendered all concealment superfluous. Our
worthy friends Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton married from motives of affection,
and with a high opinion of each other's merit, which their long and
intimate connection has rather contributed to exalt than to lower; and
yet, now at the end of seven years, they are only beginning to be happy.
They contrived to make each other and themselves as uncomfortable by an
excess of tenderness, as some married pairs are rendered by the want of
it. A mistaken sensibility has intrenched, not only on their comfort,
but on their sincerity. Their resolution never to give each other pain
has led them to live in a constant state of petty concealment. They are
neither of them remarkably healthy, and to hide from each other every
little indisposition, have kept up a continual vigilance to conceal
illness on the one part, and to detect it on the other, till it became a
trial of skill which could make the other most unhappy; each suffering
much more by suspicion when there was no occasion for it, than they
could have done by the acknowledgment of slight complaints when they
actually existed.
"This valuable pair, after seven years' apprenticeship to a petty
martyrdom, have at last found out that it is better to submit to the
inevitable ills of life cheerfully and in concert, and to comfort each
other under them cordially, than alternately to suffer and inflict the
pain of perpetual disingenuousness. They have at last discovered that
uninterrupted prosperity is not the lot of man. Each is happier now
with knowing that the other is sometimes sick, than they used to be with
suspecting they were always so. The physician is now no longer secretly
sent for to one, when the other is known to be from home. The apothecary
is at last allowed to walk boldly up the public staircase fearless of
detection.
"These amiable persons have at length attained all that was wanting to
their felicity, that of each believing the other to be well when they
_say_ they are so. They have found out that unreserved communication is
the lawful commerce of conjugal affection, and that all concealment is
contraband."
"Surely," said I, when Sir John had done speaking, "it is a false
compliment to the objects of our affection, if, for the sake of sparing
them a transient uneasiness, we rob them of the comfort to which they
are entitled, of mitigating our sufferings by partaking it. All
dissimulation is disloyal to love. Besides, it appears to me to be an
introduction to wider evils, and I should fear, both for the woman I
loved and for myself, that if once we allowed ourselves concealment in
one point, where we thought the motive excused us, we might learn to
adopt it in others, where the principle was more evidently wrong."
"Besides," replied Mr. Stanley, "it argues a lamentable ignorance of
human life, to set out with an expectation of health without
interruption, and of happiness without alloy. When young persons marry
with the fairest prospects, they should never forget that infirmity is
inseparably bound up with their very nature, and that in bearing one
another's burdens, they fulfill one of the highest duties of the
union."