It is dangerous for women, however wise it be for men, “to commune with
their own hearts, and to be still!” Continuing to pursue the follies of
the world had been to Emily more prudent than to fly them; to pause, to
separate herself from the herd, was to discover, to feel, to murmur at
the vacuum of her being; and to occupy it with the feelings which it
craved, could in her be but the hoarding a provision for despair.
Married, before she had begun the bitter knowledge of herself, to a man
whom it was impossible to love, yet deriving from nature a tenderness
of soul, which shed itself over everything around, her only escape from
misery had been in the dormancy of feeling. The birth of her son had
opened to her a new field of sensations, and she drew the best charm of
her own existence from the life she had given to another. Had she not
met Falkland, all the deeper sources of affection would have flowed into
one only and legitimate channel; but those whom he wished to fascinate
had never resisted his power, and the attachment he inspired was in
proportion to the strength and ardour of his own nature.
It was not for Emily Mandeville to love such as Falkland without feeling
that from that moment a separate and selfish existence had ceased to be.
Our senses may captivate us with beauty; but in absence we forget, or
by reason we can conquer, so superficial an impression. Our vanity may
enamour us with rank; but the affections of vanity are traced in sand;
but who can love Genius, and not feel that the sentiments it excites
partake of its own intenseness and its own immortality? It arouses,
concentrates, engrosses all our emotions, even to the most subtle and
concealed. Love what is common, and ordinary objects can replace or
destroy a sentiment which an ordinary object has awakened. Love what we
shall not meet again amidst the littleness and insipidity which surround
us, and where can we turn for a new object to replace that which has no
parallel upon earth? The recovery from such a delirium is like return
from a fairy land; and still fresh in the recollections of a bright and
immortal clime, how can we endure the dulness of that human existence to
which for the future we are condemned?
It was some weeks since Emily had written to Mrs. St. John; and her last
letter, in mentioning Falkland, had spoken of him with a reserve which
rather alarmed than deceived her friend. Mrs. St. John had indeed a
strong and secret reason for fear. Falkland had been the object of her
own and her earliest attachment, and she knew well the singular and
mysterious power which he exercised at will over the mind. He had, it is
true, never returned, nor even known of, her feelings towards him; and
during the years which had elapsed since she last saw him, and in the
new scenes which her marriage with Mr. St. John had opened, she had
almost forgotten her early attachment, when Lady Emily’s letter renewed
its remembrance. She wrote in answer an impassioned and affectionate
caution to her friend. She spoke much (after complaining of Emily’s late
silence) in condemnation of the character of Falkland, and in warning of
its fascinations; and she attempted to arouse alike the virtue and the
pride which so often triumph in alliance, when separately they would so
easily fail. In this Mrs. St. John probably imagined she was actuated
solely by friendship; but in the best actions there is always some
latent evil in the motive; and the selfishness of a jealousy, though
hopeless not conquered, perhaps predominated over the less interested
feelings which were all that she acknowledged to herself.
In this work it has been my object to portray the progress of the
passions; to chronicle a history rather by thoughts and feelings than
by incidents and events; and to lay open those minuter and more subtle
mazes and secrets of the human heart, which in modern writings have been
so sparingly exposed. It is with this view that I have from time to time
broken the thread of narration, in order to bring forward more vividly
the characters it contains; and in laying no claim to the ordinary
ambition of tale-writers, I have deemed myself at liberty to deviate
from the ordinary courses they pursue. Hence the motive and the excuse
for the insertion of the following extracts, and of occasional letters.
They portray the interior struggle when Narration would look only to
the external event, and trace the lightning “home to its cloud,” when
History would only mark the spot where it scorched or destroyed.
EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE.
Tuesday.--More than seven years have passed since I began this journal!
I have just been looking over it from the commencement. Many and various
are the feelings which it attempts to describe--anger, pique, joy,
sorrow, hope, pleasure, weariness, ennui; but never, never once,
humiliation or remorse!--these were not doomed to be my portion in the
bright years of my earliest youth. How shall I describe them now? I have
received--I have read, as well as my tears would let me, a long letter
from Julia. It is true that I have not dared to write to her: when shall
I answer this? She has showed me the state of my heart; I more than
suspected it before. Could I have dreamed two months--six weeks--since
that I should have a single feeling of which I could be ashamed? He has
just been here He--the only one in the world, for all the world seems
concentred in him. He observed my distress, for I looked on him; and my
lips quivered and my eyes were full of tears. He came to me--he sat next
to me--he whispered his interest, his anxiety--and was this all? Have
I loved before I even knew that I was beloved? No, no; the tongue was
silent, but the eye, the cheek, the manner--alas! these have been but
too eloquent!
Wednesday.--It was so sweet to listen to his low and tender voice; to
watch the expression of his countenance--even to breathe the air that he
inhaled. But now that I know its cause, I feel that this pleasure is a
crime, and I am miserable even when he is with me. He has not been here
to-day. It is past three. Will he come? I rise from my seat--I go to
the window for breath--I am restless, agitated, disturbed. Lady Margaret
speaks to me--I scarcely answer her. My boy--yes, my dear, dear Henry
comes, and I feel that I am again a mother. Never will I betray that
duty, though I have forgotten one as sacred though less dear! Never
shall my son have cause to blush for his parent! I will fly hence--I
will see him no more!
FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON.
Write to me, Monkton--exhort me, admonish me, or forsake me for ever.
I am happy yet wretched: I wander in the delirium of a fatal fever, in
which I see dreams of a brighter life, but every one of them only brings
me nearer to death. Day after day I have lingered here, until weeks have
flown--and for what? Emily is not like the women of the world--virtue,
honour, faith, are not to her the mere _convenances_ of society. “There
is no crime,” said Lady A., “where there is concealment.” Such can never
be the creed of Emily Mandeville. She will not disguise guilt either in
the levity of the world, or in the affectations of sentiment. She will
be wretched, and for ever. I hold the destinies of her future life, and
yet I am base enough to hesitate whether to save or destroy her. Oh, how
fearful, how selfish, how degrading, is unlawful love!
You know my theoretical benevolence for everything that lives; you have
often smiled at its vanity. I see now that you were right; for it seems
to me almost superhuman virtue not to destroy the person who is dearest
to me on earth.
I remember writing to you some weeks since that I would come to London
Little did I know of the weakness of my own mind. I told her that I
intended to depart. She turned pale--she trembled--but she did not
speak. Those signs which should have hastened my departure have taken
away the strength even to think of it.
I am here still! I go to E------ every day. Sometimes we sit in silence;
I dare not trust myself to speak. How dangerous are such moments!
_Ammutiscon lingue parlen l’alme_.
Yesterday they left us alone. We had been conversing with Lady Margaret
on indifferent subjects. There was a pause for some minutes. I looked
up; Lady Margaret had left the room. The blood rushed into my cheek--my
eyes met Emily’s; I would have given worlds to have repeated with my
lips what those eyes expressed. I could not even speak--I felt choked
with contending emotions. There was not a breath stirring; I heard my
very heart beat. A thunderbolt would have been a relief. Oh God! if
there be a curse, it is to burn, swell, madden with feelings which you
are doomed to conceal! This is, indeed, to be “a cannibal of one’s own
heart.” [Bacon]
It was sunset. Emily was alone upon the lawn which sloped towards the
lake, and the blue still waters beneath broke, at bright intervals,
through the scattered and illuminated trees. She stood watching the sun
sink with wistful and tearful eyes. Her soul was sad within her. The ivy
which love first wreathes around his work had already faded away, and
she now only saw the desolation of the ruin it concealed. Never more
for her was that freshness of unwakened feeling which invests all things
with a perpetual daybreak of sunshine, and incense, and dew. The
heart may survive the decay or rupture of an innocent and lawful
affection--“la marque reste, mais la blessure guerit”--but the love of
darkness and guilt is branded in a character ineffaceable--eternal!
The one is, like lightning, more likely to dazzle than to destroy, and,
divine even in its danger, it makes holy what it sears; but the other
is like that sure and deadly fire which fell upon the cities of old,
graving in the barrenness of the desert it had wrought the record and
perpetuation of a curse. A low and thrilling voice stole upon Emily’s
ear. She turned--Falkland stood beside her. “I felt restless and
unhappy,” he said, “and I came to seek you. If (writes one of the
fathers) a guilty and wretched man could behold, though only for a few
minutes, the countenance of an angel, the calm and glory which it wears
would so sink into his heart, that he would pass at once over the gulf
of gone years into his first unsullied state of purity and hope; perhaps
I thought of that sentence when I came to you.”
“I know not,” said Emily, with a deep blush at this address, which
formed her only answer to the compliment it conveyed; “I know not why
it is, but to me there is always something melancholy in this
hour--something mournful in seeing the beautiful day die with all its
pomp and music, its sunshine, and songs of birds.”
“And yet,” replied Falkland, “if I remember the time when my feelings
were more in unison with yours (for at present external objects have
lost for me much of their influence and attraction), the melancholy you
perceive has in it a vague and ineffable sweetness not to be exchanged
for more exhilarated spirits. The melancholy which arises from no cause
within ourselves is like music--it enchants us in proportion to its
effect upon our feelings. Perhaps its chief charm (though this it
requires the contamination of after years before we can fathom and
define) is in the purity of the sources it springs from. Our feelings
can be but little sullied and worn while they can yet respond to the
passionless and primal sympathies of Nature; and the sadness you speak
of is so void of bitterness, so allied to the best and most delicious
sensations we enjoy, that I should imagine the very happiness of Heaven
partook rather of melancholy than mirth.”
There was a pause of some moments. It was rarely that Falkland alluded
even so slightly to the futurity of another world; and when he did, it
was never in a careless and commonplace manner, but in a tone which sank
deep into Emily’s heart. “Look,” she said, at length, “at that beautiful
star! the first and brightest! I have often thought it was like the
promise of life beyond the tomb--a pledge to us that, even in the depths
of midnight, the earth shall have a light, unquenched and unquenchable,
from Heaven!”
Emily turned to Falkland as she said this, and her countenance sparkled
with the enthusiasm she felt. But his face was deadly pale. There
went over it, like a cloud, an expression of changeful and unutterable
thought; and then, passing suddenly away, it left his features calm and
bright in all their noble and intellectual beauty. Her soul yearned to
him, as she looked, with the tenderness of a sister.
They walked slowly towards the house. “I have frequently,” said Emily,
with some hesitation, “been surprised at the little enthusiasm you
appear to possess even upon subjects where your conviction must be
strong.”
“_I have thought enthusiasm away!_” replied Falkland; “it was the loss
of hope which brought me reflection, and in reflection I forgot to feel.
Would that I had not found it so easy to recall what I thought I had
lost for ever!” Falkland’s cheek changed as he said this, and Emily
sighed faintly, for she felt his meaning. In him that allusion to his
love had aroused a whole train of dangerous recollections; for Passion
is the avalanche of the human heart--a single breath can dissolve it
from its repose.
They remained silent; for Falkland would not trust himself to speak,
till, when they reached the house, he faltered out his excuses for not
entering, and departed. He turned towards his solitary home. The grounds
at E------ had been laid out in a classical and costly manner which
contrasted forcibly with the wild and simple nature of the surrounding
scenery. Even the short distance between Mr. Mandeville’s house and
L------ wrought as distinct a change in the character of the country as
any length of space could have effected. Falkland’s ancient and ruinous
abode, with its shattered arches and moss-grown parapets, was situated
on a gentle declivity, and surrounded by dark elm and larch trees. It
still retained some traces both of its former consequence, and of
the perils to which that consequence had exposed it. A broad ditch,
overgrown with weeds, indicated the remains of what once had been a
moat; and huge rough stones, scattered around it, spoke of the outworks
the fortification had anciently possessed, and the stout resistance they
had made in “the Parliament Wars” to the sturdy followers of Ireton and
Fairfax. The moon, that flatterer of decay, shed its rich and softening
beauty over a spot which else had, indeed, been desolate and cheerless,
and kissed into light the long and unwaving herbage which rose at
intervals from the ruins, like the false parasites of fallen greatness.
But for Falkland the scene had no interest or charm, and he turned with
a careless and unheeding eye to his customary apartment. It was the
only one in the house furnished with luxury, or even comfort. Large
bookcases, inlaid with curious carvings in ivory; busts of the few
public characters the world had ever produced worthy, in Falkland’s
estimation, of the homage of posterity; elaborately-wrought hangings
from Flemish looms; and French fauteuils and sofas of rich damask,
and massy gilding (relics of the magnificent days of Louis Quatorze),
bespoke a costliness of design suited rather to Falkland’s wealth than
to the ordinary simplicity of his tastes.
A large writing-table was overspread with books in various languages,
and upon the most opposite subjects. Letters and papers were scattered
amongst them; Falkland turned carelessly over the latter. One of the
epistolary communications was from Lord ------, the --. He smiled
bitterly, as he read the exaggerated compliments it contained, and saw
to the bottom of the shallow artifice they were meant to conceal. He
tossed the letter from him, and opened the scattered volumes, one after
another, with that languid and sated feeling common to all men who have
read deeply enough to feel how much they have learned, and how little
they know. “We pass our lives,” thought he, “in sowing what we are never
to reap! We endeavour to erect a tower, which shall reach the heavens,
in order to escape one curse, and lo! we are smitten by another! We
would soar from a common evil, and from that moment we are divided by
a separate language from our race! Learning, science, philosophy, the
world of men and of imagination, I ransacked--and for what? I centred
my happiness in wisdom. I looked upon the aims of others with a scornful
and loathing eye. I held commune with those who have gone before me;
I dwelt among the monuments of their minds, and made their records
familiar to me as friends: I penetrated the womb of nature, and went
with the secret elements to their home: I arraigned the stars before
me, and learned the method and the mystery of their courses: I asked the
tempest its bourn, and questioned the winds of their path. This was not
sufficient to satisfy my thirst for knowledge, and I searched in this
lower world of new sources to content it. Unseen and unsuspected, I saw
and agitated the springs of the automaton that we call ‘the Mind.’ I
found a clue for the labyrinth of human motives, and I surveyed the
hearts of those around me as through a glass. Vanity of vanities! What
have I acquired? I have separated myself from my kind, but not from
those worst enemies, my passions! I have made a solitude of my soul, but
I have not mocked it with the appellation of Peace.
“Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.”--TACITUS.
“They make a solitude, and call it peace.”--BYRON.
“In flying the herd, I have not escaped from myself; like the wounded
deer, the barb was within me, and that I could not fly!” With these
thoughts he turned from his reverie, and once more endeavoured to charm
his own reflections by those which ought to speak to us of quiet, for
they are graven on the pages of the dead; but his attempts were as idle
as before. His thoughts were still wandering and confused, and could
neither be quieted nor collected: he read, but he scarcely distinguished
one page from another: he wrote--the ideas refused to flow at his call;
and the only effort at connecting his feelings which even partially
succeeded, was in the verses which I am about to place before the
reader. It is a common property of poetry, however imperfectly the gift
be possessed, to speak to the hearts of others in proportion as the
sentiments it would express are felt in our own; and I subjoin the lines
which bear the date of that evening, in the hope that, more than many
pages, they will show the morbid yet original character of the
writer, and the particular sources of feeling from which they took the
bitterness that pervades them.
KNOWLEDGE.
Ergo hominum genus incassum frustraque laborat
Semper, et in curis consumit inanibus aevum.--Lucret.
‘Tis midnight! Round the lamp which o’er
My chamber sheds its lonely beam,
Is wisely spread the varied lore
Which feeds in youth our feverish dream
The dream--the thirst--the wild desire,
Delirious yet divine-to know;
Around to roam--above aspire
And drink the breath of Heaven below!
From Ocean-Earth-the Stars-the Sky
To lift mysterious Nature’s pall;
And bare before the kindling eye
In MAN the darkest mist of all--
Alas! what boots the midnight oil?
The madness of the struggling mind?
Oh, vague the hope, and vain the toil,
Which only leave us doubly blind!
What learn we from the Past? the same
Dull course of glory, guilt, and gloom--
I ask’d the Future, and there came
No voice from its unfathom’d womb.
The Sun was silent, and the wave;
The air but answer’d with its breath
But Earth was kind; and from the grave
Arose the eternal answer--Death!
And this was all! We need no sage
To teach us Nature’s only truth!
O fools! o’er Wisdom’s idle page
To waste the hours of golden youth!
In Science wildly do we seek
What only withering years should bring
The languid pulse--the feverish cheek
The spirits drooping on their wing!
To think--is but to learn to groan
To scorn what all beside adore
To feel amid the world alone,
An alien on a desert shore;
To lose the only ties which seem
To idler gaze in mercy given!
To find love, faith, and hope, a dream,
And turn to dark despair from heaven!
I pass on to a wilder period of my history. The passion, as yet only
revealed by the eye, was now to be recorded by the lip; and the scene
which witnessed the first confession of the lovers was worthy of the
last conclusion of their loves!
E------ was about twelve miles from a celebrated cliff on the seashore,
and Lady Margaret had long proposed an excursion to a spot, curious
alike for its natural scenery and the legends attached to it. A day was
at length fixed for accomplishing this plan. Falkland was of the party.
In searching for something in the pockets of the carriage, his hand met
Emily’s, and involuntarily pressed it. She withdrew it hastily, but he
felt it tremble. He did not dare to look up: that single contact had
given him a new life: intoxicated with the most delicious sensations, he
leaned back in silence. A fever had entered his veins--the thrill of
the touch had gone like fire into his system--all his frame seemed one
nerve.
Lady Margaret talked of the weather and the prospect, wondered how far
they had got, and animadverted on the roads, till at last, like a
child, she talked herself to rest. Mrs. Dalton read “Guy Mannering;” but
neither Emily nor her lover had any occupation or thought in common with
their companions: silent and absorbed, they were only alive to the vivid
existence of the present. Constantly engaged, as we are, in looking
behind us or before, if there be one hour in which we feel only the time
being--in which we feel sensibly that we live, and that those moments of
the present are full of the enjoyment, the rapture of existence--it is
when we are with the one person whose life and spirits have become the
great part and principle of our own. They reached their destination--a
small inn close by the shore. They rested there a short time, and then
strolled along the sands towards the cliff. Since Falkland had known
Emily, her character was much altered. Six weeks before the time I write
of, and in playfulness and lightness of spirits she was almost a
child: now those indications of an unawakened heart had mellowed into a
tenderness full of that melancholy so touching and holy, even amid
the voluptuous softness which it breathes and inspires. But this day,
whether from that coquetry so common to all women, or from some cause
more natural to her, she seemed gayer than Falkland ever remembered to
have seen her. She ran over the sands, picking up shells, and tempting
the waves with her small and fairy feet, not daring to look at him, and
yet speaking to him at times with a quick tone of levity which hurt and
offended him, even though he knew the depth of those feelings she could
not disguise either from him or from herself. By degrees his answers and
remarks grew cold and sarcastic. Emily affected pique; and when it was
discovered that the cliff was still nearly two miles off, she refused to
proceed any farther. Lady Margaret talked her at last into consent,
and they walked on as sullenly as an English party of pleasure possibly
could do, till they were within three quarters of a mile of the place,
when Emily declared she was so tired that she really could not go on.
Falkland looked at her, perhaps, with no very amiable expression of
countenance, when he perceived that she seemed really pale and fatigued;
and when she caught his eyes, tears rushed into her own.
“Indeed, indeed, Mr. Falkland,” she said, eagerly, “this is not
affectation. I am very tired; but rather than prevent your amusement, I
will endeavour to go on.” “Nonsense, child,” said Lady Margaret, “you
do seem tired. Mrs. Dalton and Falkland shall go to the rock, and I will
stay here with you.” This proposition, however, Lady Emily (who knew
Lady Margaret’s wish to see the rock) would not hear of; she insisted
upon staying by herself. “Nobody will run away with me; and I can very
easily amuse myself with picking up shells till you comeback.” After
along remonstrance, which produced no effect, this plan was at last
acceded to. With great reluctance Falkland set off with his two
companions; but after the first step, he turned to look back. He caught
her eye, and felt from that moment that their reconciliation was sealed.
They arrived, at last, at the cliff. Its height, its excavations, the
romantic interest which the traditions respecting it had inspired, fully
repaid the two women for the fatigue of their walk. As for Falkland,
he was unconscious of everything around him; he was full of “sweet and
bitter thoughts.” In vain the man whom they found loitering there,
in order to serve as a guide, kept dinning in his ear stories of the
marvellous, and exclamations of the sublime. The first words which
aroused him were these; “It’s lucky, please your Honour, that you have
just saved the tide. It is but last week that three poor people were
drowned in attempting to come here; as it is, you will have to go home
round the cliff.” Falkland started: he felt his heart stand still. “Good
God!” cried Lady Margaret, “what will become of Emily?”
They were--at that instant in one of the caverns, where they had already
been loitering too long. Falkland rushed out to the sands. The tide was
hurrying in with a deep sound, which came on his soul like a knell.
He looked back towards the way they had come: not one hundred yards
distant, and the waters had already covered the path! An eternity would
scarcely atone for the horror of that moment! One great characteristic
of Falkland was his presence of mind. He turned to the man who stood
beside him--he gave him a cool and exact description of the spot where
he had left Emily. He told him to repair with all possible speed to his
home--to launch his boat--to row it to the place he had described. “Be
quick,” he added, “and you must be in time: if you are, you shall never
know poverty again.” The next moment he was already several yards from
the spot. He ran, or rather flew, till he was stopped by the waters. He
rushed in; they were over a hollow between two rocks--they were already
up to his chest. “There is yet hope,” thought he, when he had passed
the spot, and saw the smooth sand before him. For some minutes he was
scarcely sensible of existence; and then he found himself breathless at
her feet. Beyond, towards T----- (the small inn I spoke of), the waves
had already reached the foot of the rocks, and precluded all hope of
return. Their only chance was the possibility that the waters had not
yet rendered impassable the hollow through which Falkland had just
waded. He scarcely spoke; at least he was totally unconscious of what he
said. He hurried her on breathless and trembling, with the sound of the
booming waters ringing in his ear, and their billows advancing to his
very feet. They arrived at the hollow: a single glance sufficed to show
him that their solitary hope was past! The waters, before up to his
chest, had swelled considerably: he could not swim. He saw in that
instant that they were girt with a hastening and terrible death. Can it
be believed that with that certainty ceased his fear? He looked in
the pale but calm countenance of her who clung to him, and a strange
tranquillity, even mingled with joy, possessed him. Her breath was on
his cheek--her form was reclining on his own--his hand clasped hers; if
they were to die, it was thus. What would life afford to him more dear?
“It is in this moment,” said he, and he knelt as he spoke, “that I dare
tell you what otherwise my lips never should have revealed. I love--I
adore you! Turn not away from me thus. In life our persons were severed;
if our hearts are united in death, then death will be sweet.” She
turned--her cheek was no longer pale! He rose--he clasped her to
his bosom: his lips pressed hers. Oh! that long, deep, burning
pressure!--youth, love, life, soul, all concentrated in that one kiss!
Yet the same cause which occasioned the avowal hallowed also the madness
of his heart. What had the passion, declared only at the approach of
death, with the more earthly desires of life? They looked to heaven--it
was calm and unclouded: the evening lay there in its balm and perfume,
and the air was less agitated than their sighs. They turned towards the
beautiful sea which was to be their grave: the wild birds flew over it
exultingly: the far vessels seemed “rejoicing to run their course.” All
was full of the breath, the glory, the life of nature; and in how many
minutes was all to be as nothing! Their existence would resemble the
ships that have gone down at sea in the very smile of the element that
destroyed them. They looked into each other’s eyes, and they drew still
nearer together. Their hearts, in safety apart, mingled in peril and
became one. Minutes rolled on, and the great waves came dashing round
them. They stood on the loftiest eminence they could reach. The spray
broke over their feet: the billows rose--rose--they were speechless. He
thought he heard her heart beat, but her lip trembled not. A
speck--a boat! “Look up, Emily! look up! See how it cuts the waters.
Nearer--nearer! but a little longer, and we are safe. It is but a
few yards off;--it approaches--it touches the rock!” Ah! what to them
henceforth was the value of life, when the moment of discovering its
charm became also the date of its misfortunes, and when the death
they had escaped was the only method of cementing their--union without
consummating their guilt?
FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON.
I will write to you at length to-morrow. Events have occurred to alter,
perhaps, the whole complexion of the future. I am now going to Emily to
propose to her to fly. We are not _les gens du monde_, who are ruined by
the loss of public opinion. She has felt that I can be to her far more
than the world; and as for me, what would I not forfeit for one touch of
her hand?
EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE.
Friday.--Since I wrote yesterday in these pages the narrative of our
escape, I have done nothing but think over those moments, too dangerous
because too dear; but at last I have steeled my heart--I have yielded
to my own weakness too long--I shudder at the abyss from which I have
escaped. I can yet fly. He will come here to-day--he shall receive my
farewell.
Saturday morning, four o’clock.--I have sat in this room alone since
eleven o’clock. I cannot give vent to my feelings; they seem as if
crushed by some load from which it is impossible to rise. “He is gone,
and for ever!” I sit repeating those words to myself, scarcely conscious
of their meaning. Alas! when to-morrow comes, and the next day, and the
next, and yet I see him not, I shall awaken, indeed, to all the agony of
my loss! He came here--he saw me alone--he implored me to fly. I did not
dare to meet his eyes; I hardened my heart against his voice. I knew the
part I was to take--I have adopted it; but what struggles, what misery,
has it not occasioned me! Who could have thought it had been so hard
to be virtuous! His eloquence drove me from one defence to another,
and then I had none but his mercy. I opened my heart--I showed him its
weakness--I implored his forbearance. My tears, my anguish, convinced
him of my sincerity. We have parted in bitterness, but, thank Heaven,
not in guilt! He has entreated permission to write to me. How could
I refuse him? Yet I may not--cannot-write to him again! How could, I
indeed, suffer my heart to pour forth one of its feelings in reply? for
would there be one word of regret, or one term of endearment, which my
inmost soul would not echo?
Sunday.--Yes, that day--but I must not think of this; my very religion
I dare not indulge. Oh God! how wretched I am! His visit was always the
great aera in the clay; it employed all my hopes till he came, and all
my memory when he was gone. I sit now and look at the place he used to
fill, till I feel the tears rolling silently down my cheek: they come
without an effort--they depart without relief.
Monday.--Henry asked me where Mr. Falkland was gone; I stooped down to
hide my confusion. When shall I hear from him? To-morrow? Oh that it
were come! I have placed the clock before me, and I actually count the
minutes. He left a book here; it is a volume of “Melmoth.” I have read
over every word of it, and whenever I have come to a pencil-mark by him,
I have paused to dream over that varying and eloquent countenance, the
low soft tone of that tender voice, till the book has fallen from my
hands, and I have started to find the utterness of my desolation!
FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. ------ Hotel,
London.
For the first time in my life I write to you! How my hand trembles--how
my cheek flushes! a thousand, thousand thoughts rush upon me, and almost
suffocate me with the variety and confusion of the emotions they awaken!
I am agitated alike with the rapture of writing to you, and with the
impossibility of expressing the feelings which I cannot distinctly
unravel even to myself. You love me, Emily, and yet I have fled from
you, and at your command; but the thought that, though absent, I am not
forgotten, supports me through all.
It was with a feverish sense of weariness and pain that I found myself
entering this vast reservoir of human vices. I became at once sensible
of the sterility of that polluted soil so incapable of nurturing
affection, and I clasped your image the closer to my heart. It is you,
who, when I was most weary of existence, gifted me with a new life.
You breathed into me a part of your own spirit; my soul feels that
influence, and becomes more sacred. I have shut myself from the idlers
who would molest me: I have built a temple in my heart: I have set
within it a divinity; and the vanities of the world shall not profane
the spot which has been consecrated to you. Our parting, Emily,--do you
recall it? Your hand clasped in mine; your cheek resting, though but
for an instant, on my bosom; and the tears which love called forth, but
which virtue purified even at their source. Never were hearts so near,
yet so divided; never was there an hour so tender, yet so unaccompanied
with danger. Passion, grief, madness, all sank beneath your voice, and
lay hushed like a deep sea within my soul! “Tu abbia veduto il leone
ammansarsi alla sola tua voce.”
‘Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis.
I tore myself from you; I hurried through the wood; I stood by the lake,
on whose banks I had so often wandered with you: I bared my breast to
the winds; I bathed my temples with the waters. Fool that I was! the
fever, the fever was within! But it is not thus, my adored and beautiful
friend, that I should console and support you. Even as I write,
passion melts into tenderness, and pours itself in softness over your
remembrance. The virtue so gentle, yet so strong; the feelings so
kind, yet so holy; the tears which wept over the decision your lips
proclaimed--these are the recollections which come over me like dew. Let
your own heart, my Emily, be your reward; and know that your lover only
forgets that he adores, to remember that he respects you.
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. ---------- Park.
I could not bear the tumult and noise of London. I sighed for solitude,
that I might muse over your remembrance undisturbed. I came here
yesterday. It is the home of my childhood. I am surrounded on all sides
by the scenes and images consecrated by the fresh recollections of my
unsullied years. They are not changed. The seasons which come and depart
renew in them the havoc which they make. If the December destroys, the
April revives; but man has but one spring, and the desolation of the
heart but one winter! In this very room have I sat and brooded over
dreams and hopes which--but no matter--those dreams could never show
me a vision to equal you, or those hopes hold out to me a blessing so
precious as your love.
Do you remember, or rather can you ever forget, that moment in which the
great depths of our souls were revealed? Ah! not in the scene in which
such vows should have been whispered to your ear and your tenderness
have blushed its reply. The passion concealed in darkness was revealed
in danger; and the love, which in life was forbidden, was our comfort
amidst the terrors of death! And that long and holy kiss, the first,
the only moment in which our lips shared the union of our souls!--do not
tell me that it is wrong to recall it!--do not tell me that I sin,
when I own to you the hours I sit alone, and nurse the delirium of that
voluptuous remembrance. The feelings you have excited may render me
wretched, but not guilty; for the love of you can only hallow the
heart--it is a fire which consecrates the altar on which it burns. I
feel, even from the hour that I loved, that my soul has become more
pure. I could not believe that I was capable of so unearthly an
affection, or that the love of woman could possess that divinity of
virtue which I worship in yours. The world is no fosterer of our young
visions of purity and passion: embarked in its pursuits, and acquainted
with its pleasures, while the latter sated me with what is evil, the
former made me incredulous to what is pure. I considered your sex as
a problem which my experience had already solved. Like the French
philosophers, who lose truth by endeavouring to condense it, and who
forfeit the moral from their regard to the maxim, I concentrated my
knowledge of women into aphorism and antitheses; and I did not dream
of the exceptions, if I did not find myself deceived in the general
conclusion. I confess that I erred; I renounce from this moment
the colder reflections of my manhood,--the fruits of a bitter
experience,--the wisdom of an inquiring yet agitated life. I return with
transport to my earliest visions of beauty and love; and I dedicate them
upon the altar of my soul to you, who have embodied, and concentrated,
and breathed them into life!
EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE.
Monday.--This is the most joyless day in the whole week; for it can
bring me no letter from him. I rise listlessly, and read over again and
again the last letter I received from him--useless task! it is graven on
my heart! I long only for the day to be over, because to-morrow I may,
perhaps, hear from him again. When I wake at night from my disturbed and
broken sleep, I look if the morning is near; not because it gives light
and life, but because it may bring tidings of him. When his letter is
brought to me, I keep it for minutes unopened--I feed my eyes on the
handwriting--I examine the seal--I press it with my kisses, before I
indulge myself in the luxury of reading it. I then place it in my bosom,
and take it thence only to read it again and again,--to moisten it with
my tears of gratitude and love, and, alas! of penitence and remorse!
What can be the end of this affection? I dare neither to hope that it
may continue or that it may cease; in either case I am wretched for
ever!
Monday night, twelve o’clock.--They observe my paleness; the tears which
tremble in my eyes; the listlessness and dejection of my manner. I think
Mrs. Dalton guesses the cause. Humbled and debased in my own mind, I
fly, Falkland, for refuge to you! Your affection cannot raise me to my
former state, but it can reconcile--no--not reconcile, but support me in
my present. This dear letter, I kiss it again--oh! that to-morrow were
come!
Tuesday.--Another letter, so kind, so tender, so encouraging: would that
I deserved his praises! alas! I sin even in reading them. I know that
I ought to struggle more against my feelings--once I attempted it; I
prayed to Heaven to support me; I put away from me everything that could
recall him to my mind--for three days I would not open his letters. I
could then resist no longer; and my weakness became the more confirmed
from the feebleness of the struggle. I remember one day that he told us
of a beautiful passage in one of the ancients, in which the bitterest
curse against the wicked is, that they may see virtue, but not be able
to obtain it; [Persius]--that punishment is mine!
Wednesday.--My boy has been with me: I see him now from the windows
gathering the field-flowers, and running after every butterfly which
comes across him. Formerly he made all my delight and occupation; now
he is even dearer to me than ever; but he no longer engrosses all my
thoughts. I turn over the leaves of this journal; once it noted down the
little occurrences of the day; it marks nothing now but the monotony of
sadness. He is not here--he cannot come. What event then could I notice?
FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE.
[Most of the letters from Falkland to Lady E. Mandeville
I have thought it expedient to suppress.]
--------- Park.
If you knew how I long, how I thirst, for one word from you--one word
to say you are well, and have not forgotten me!--but I will not distress
you. You will guess my feelings, and do justice to the restraint I
impose on them, when I make no effort to alter your resolution not to
write. I know that it is just, and I bow to my sentence; but can you
blame me if I am restless and if I repine? It is past twelve; I always
write to you at night. It is then, my own love, that my imagination can
be the more readily transport me to you: it is then that my spirit holds
with you a more tender and undivided commune. In the day the world can
force itself upon my thoughts, and its trifles usurp the place which
“I love to keep for only thee and Heaven;” but in the night all things
recall you the more vividly: the stillness of the gentle skies,--the
blandness of the unbroken air,--the stars, so holy in their loveliness,
all speak and breathe to me of you. I think your hand is clasped in
mine; and I again drink the low music of your voice, and imbibe again
in the air the breath which has been perfumed by your lips. You seem to
stand in my lonely chamber in the light and stillness of a spirit, who
has wandered on earth to teach us the love which is felt in Heaven.
I cannot, believe me, I cannot endure this separation long; it must be
more or less. You must be mine for ever, or our parting must be without
a mitigation, which is rather a cruelty than a relief. If you will not
accompany me, I will leave this country alone. I must not wean myself
from your image by degrees, but break from the enchantment at once. And
when Emily, I am once more upon the world, when no tidings of my fate
shall reach your ear, and all its power of alienation be left to the
progress of time--then, when you will at last have forgotten me,
when your peace of mind will be restored, and, having no struggles of
conscience to undergo, you will have no remorse to endure; then, Emily,
when we are indeed divided, let the scene which has witnessed our
passion, the letters which have recorded my vow, the evil we have
suffered, and the temptation we have overcome; let these in our old age
be remembered, and in declaring to Heaven that we were innocent, add
also--that, we loved.
FROM DON ALPHONSO D’AQUILAR TO DON --------.
London.
Our cause gains ground daily. The great, indeed the only ostensible
object of my mission is nearly fulfilled; but I have another charge
and attraction which I am now about to explain to you. You know that
my acquaintance with the English language and country arose from my
sister’s marriage with Mr. Falkland. After the birth of their only child
I accompanied them to England: I remained with them for three years,
and I still consider those days among the whitest in my restless and
agitated career. I returned to Spain; I became engaged in the troubles
and dissensions which distracted my unhappy country. Years rolled on,
how I need not mention to you. One night they put a letter into my
hands; it was from my sister; it was written on her death-bed. Her
husband had died suddenly. She loved him as a Spanish woman loves, and
she could not survive his loss. Her letter to me spoke of her country
and her son. Amid the new ties she had formed in England, she had never
forgotten the land of her fathers. “I have already,” she said, “taught
my boy to remember that he has two countries; that the one, prosperous
and free; may afford him his pleasures; that the other, struggling and
debased, demands from him his duties. If, when he has attained the age
in which you can judge of his character, he is respectable only from
his rank, and valuable only from his wealth; if neither his head nor
his heart will make him useful to our cause, suffer him to remain
undisturbed in his prosperity _here_: but if, as I presage, he becomes
worthy of the blood which he bears in his veins, then I conjure you, my
brother, to remind him that he has been sworn by me on my death-bed to
the most sacred of earthly altars.”
Some months since, when I arrived in England; before I ventured to find
him out in person, I resolved to inquire into his character. Had he been
as the young and the rich generally are--had dissipation become habitual
to him, and frivolity grown around him as a second nature, then I
should have acquiesced in the former injunction of my sister much more
willingly than I shall now obey the latter. I find that he is perfectly
acquainted with our language, that he has placed a large sum in our
funds, and that from the general liberality of his sentiments he is as
likely to espouse, as (in that case) he would be certain, from his high
reputation for talent, to serve our cause. I am, therefore, upon the eve
of seeking him out. I understand that he is living in perfect retirement
in the county of -------, in the immediate neighbourhood of Mr.
Mandeville, an Englishman of considerable fortune, and warmly attached
to our cause.
Mr. Mandeville has invited me to accompany him down to his estate for
some days, and I am too anxious to see my nephew not to accept eagerly
of the invitation. If I can persuade Falkland to aid us, it will be by
the influence of his name, his talents, and his wealth. It is not of
him that we can ask the stern and laborious devotion to which we have
consecrated ourselves. The perfidy of friends, the vigilance of foes,
the rashness of the bold, the cowardice of the wavering; strife in the
closet, treachery in the senate, death in the field; these constitute
the fate we have pledged ourselves to bear. Little can any, who do not
endure it, imagine of the life to which those who share the contests of
an agitated and distracted country are doomed; but if they know not
our griefs, neither can they dream of our consolation. We move like the
delineation of Faith, over a barren and desert soil; the rock, and the
thorn, and the stings of the adder, are round our feet; but we clasp
a crucifix to our hearts for our comfort, and we fix our eyes upon the
heavens for our hope!
EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDE VILLE.
Wednesday.--His letters have taken a different tone: instead of
soothing, they add to my distress; but I deserve all--all that can be
inflicted upon me. I have had a letter from Mr. Mandeville. He is coming
down here for a few days, and intends bringing some friends with him: he
mentions particularly a Spaniard--the uncle of Mr Falkland, whom he
asks if I have seen. The Spaniard is particularly anxious to meet his
nephew--he does not then know that Falkland is gone. It will be some
relief to see Mr. Mandeville alone; but even then how shall I meet him?
What shall I say when he observes my paleness and alteration? I feel
bowed to the very dust.
Thursday evening.--Mr. Mandeville has arrived: fortunately, it was late
in the evening before he came, and the darkness prevented his observing
my confusion and alteration. He was kinder than usual. Oh! how bitterly
my heart avenged him! He brought with him the Spaniard, Don Alphonso
d’Aguilar; I think there is a faint family likeness between him and
Falkland. Mr. Mandeville brought also a letter from Julia. She will be
here the day after to-morrow. The letter is short, but kind: she does
not allude to him; it is some days since I heard from him.
FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON.
I have resolved, Monkton, to go to her again! I am sure that it will
be better for both of us to meet once more; perhaps, to unite for ever!
None who have once loved me can easily forget me. I do not say this
from vanity, because I owe it not to my being superior to, but different
from, others. I am sure that the remorse and affliction she feels now
are far greater than she would experience, even were she more guilty,
and with me. Then, at least, she would have some one to soothe and
sympathise in whatever she might endure. To one so pure as Emily, the
full crime is already incurred. It is not the innocent who insist upon
that nice line of morality between the thought and the action: such
distinctions require reflection, experience, deliberation, prudence of
head, or coldness of heart; these are the traits, not of the guileless,
but of the worldly. It is the reflections, not the person, of a virtuous
woman, which it is difficult to obtain: that difficulty is the safeguard
to her chastity; that difficulty I have, in this instance, overcome.
I have endeavoured to live without Emily, but in vain. Every moment of
absence only taught me the impossibility. In twenty-four hours I shall
see her again. I feel my pulse rise into fever at the very thought.
Farewell, Monkton. My next letter, I hope, will record my triumph.