Ay, mine own fortune is my misery.
SHAKSPEARE.
Go thither, and with unattainted eye
Compare her face with some that I shall show.
IBID.
His letters bear his mind.
IBID.
’Tis hatched and shall be so.
IBID.
The letter, which had been thus carefully forwarded by the stranger,
had by no means a treasonable exterior; it was directed to “The Right
Honourable ----, &c. &c. &c. &c., one of H. M. Principal Secretaries
of State,” and contained an inner envelope to “Wm. St. Clair, Esq.”
It began as follows:--
“MY DEAR ST. CLAIR:
“When I consider the official atmosphere in which this will be
opened, and that it is to be read by a person now filling a
situation with such a dry unromantic name as _précis_ writer, I
can hardly hope for that sympathy in some of the feelings it wall
describe, which, even in earlier days, your more worldly mind was
sometimes inclined either to withhold, or to mix up with a little
unwelcome ‘persiflage.’ You have often told me, that with every
kind disposition to pity the peculiar hardships of high rank, and
the severe burthen of a large fortune, still I was the friend
whose misfortunes you would the most readily share. But the very
circumstance of your quizzing me a little on this head, by showing me
that you cannot flatter, makes me believe that you may feel for me,
when I complain of those irksome advantages of wealth and situation
which have prevented my being ever convinced that any one really
cared for me for myself alone. With men, I do not so much mind that:
the sterling ore of friendship is too weighty for the exchange of
every-day intercourse, and the paper-currency of popularity passes
just as well. But with women, from my earliest acquaintance with
them, I have always been haunted with the consciousness that true
love is not to be bought, and by the constant idea that I could
not be loved for myself; a distrustful suspicion that, I grieve
to say, experience has hitherto only tended to confirm. In every
situation, wherever I have been known, I have always had the same
fear, but too often the same conviction of its justice. I have
fancied I could trace the same expression in every female face, from
the hacknied smiles of venal beauty, in whose profusion one could
plainly read ‘he pays well,’ up to the would-be attractive simper
of the shy debutante, which had been already tutored to follow the
maternal whisper. I have tried in foreign countries to escape the
unfortunate fame of my wealth and liberality, but in vain: many
half-formed illusions of the ‘grand passion’ have been dispelled by
the exclamation, ‘_Milor qui est si riche_.’
“The first severe lesson of this kind I received, you will have
heard in the world told in different ways. During my minority, I was
induced to raise money to pay the debts of Lady Madelina Manfred,--I
don’t like trusting the post with names, but about her there can
be no scandal. The demand staggered me. I believe I was half cured
before; however, I paid the money, and dropped the connexion. She
affected indignation at my fickleness and desertion, which at her
time of life was rather a blow, but secured at the same time the
whole sum, (ten thousand pounds, I think it was,) and then eloped to
spend it with a Captain O’Connor, in Connaught, and poor Manfred is
still in the rules for her debts.
“I did not think so much of this at the time; I was then very young,
and attributed it to my own folly in having allowed myself to be
inveigled by a woman old enough to be my mother, all whose better
feelings had been hardened by an habitual disregard of her marriage
vow.
“The next year I was very much in love with----you may, perhaps, have
heard the story in the scandal of the world, but I will not here
publish the name, because still unchanged, for she is yet unmarried.
“My guardians asserted, which was the only reason why I doubted it,
that I was then much too young to marry. But I was at that time sick
of intrigue; I thought it would be a glorious thing to monopolize for
ever the first affections of one then so universally admired.
“Her mother, Lady ----, was always talking to me of her daughter’s
youth and innocence, to which I attributed the reserve with which my
attentions had been at first received, pleased as I was to find it
gradually lessening during their continuance.
“The newspapers had already hinted, in unmistakable initials, at a
marriage in high life; I had as yet said nothing, but was determined,
as I knew the paragraph must have been seen, to observe first what
effect that had produced. The paragraph went the round of the papers
uncontradicted: perhaps I ought to have contradicted it; but as I
observed no diminution of cordiality in consequence, I believe I
should instead have declared myself, but that just at this time a
military cousin of mine returned with despatches from the Peninsula.
He was a _very, very younger_ brother, that is, one of a very large
family, with very little fortune to divide. I had not seen much of
him lately, but as we had been together as children, and I was one
of his nearest collateral relations, he came to consult me on an
engagement which he said he had formed previous to his joining the
army in Spain, and upon the possibility of procuring the consent
of the family of the young lady, at whose house it appears he had
visited from country quarters.
“He owned that he had nothing but his profession, in which, however,
his hope of promotion was now great. But the young lady had herself
some money, and to prove that her affections were sufficiently
engaged to justify him in venturing, he showed me some letters he
had received, full of assurances and unutterable attachment from the
nameless beauty, who had since been receiving my addresses! The
letters, it is true, were not of a very recent date, but this the
time occupied in his voyage homewards had prevented his remembering.
“Here, then, was a more complete explanation of the coldness with
which I had been at first received, than the mother’s palliations
of youth and innocence, and an utter extinction of my own dream
of monopolizing the first affections of a virgin heart. I would
willingly have persuaded myself that it was sensibility to my own
superior merits which had sufficed to obscure a former transient
impression; but when I looked at my cousin’s handsome, sunburnt
features, and thought of his honourable distinctions obtained in
the field-of-battle, and compared it with my own useless, lounging
life, I could not deny that the real nature of the change must have
been the worldly advantages of one “_parti_,” as compared with the
imprudence of the other connexion; for in no personal attractions
could I flatter myself that I surpassed my cousin.
“This conviction operated as a summary cure of my passion, and left
in its stead mingled feelings of disgust, at the deceit which had
been practised on myself, and pity for my cousin.
“Poor fellow! when I saw how deeply his happiness was involved, I
could not bear to take on myself the task of destroying his hopes;
I therefore, without explaining my motives to him, hastened that
departure for the Continent, which my guardians had long been
anxious I should not delay, and left him master of the field to try
his chance. I heard afterwards, that his suit was rejected by her
friends, with an abruptness, probably increased by his being supposed
to have prevented my proposals. I have reason to believe also, that
he was more regretted by the girl herself than would have been
expected from one whose actions were so much those of an automaton;
but however that may be, the first rejection was final, for the next
year my poor cousin was killed at Waterloo, where he was supposed
unnecessarily to have sought danger, not unwilling to close an
irksome existence with a glorious death.
“The whole of these events made a deep impression on me; and,
confirming preconceived opinions, gave me a decided distaste for a
London-bred wife, and extended my distrust of the disinterestedness
of the affections of women in the world in general; which last
feeling you have occasionally remarked upon at some of the many
places abroad, when in the course of your professional attaché-ship,
during the last few years, we have so often met. You will say,
perhaps, that it arose from a determination to judge motives with a
jaundiced eye; but I am every day more convinced, that worldliness
is at the bottom of every woman’s heart whom I have known, of every
country, and in all states, whether maid, wife, or widow--ay! widow
worse than any. Since your return home, I have met on the Continent
one of that class, perhaps at first one of the most fascinating
creatures in the world. I think it very probable you may have met
her. Young Lady Gayland, married at seventeen to an old man, a friend
of her father’s; a widow at nineteen; and now, at one-and-twenty, her
own mistress, with the vivacity of a child, and the wit of a woman of
the world.
“I did hope that her’s was a situation where the affections might
have fair play. Neither perverted by vicious habits, like Lady
Madelina--for Lady Gayland made an excellent wife to old Sir Joseph;
nor warped by maternal manœuvring--for she had no one to please but
herself, and was left with a large fortune, which put her above
prudential considerations,--I was in hopes that she might at once
merit and appreciate that admiration which her beauty excited; but
I was deceived again. I will not enter into particulars, as I have,
I trust, completely escaped from her fascinations; though even at
this distance I think too often of her to feel quite confident on
that head. If you had seen the sudden jerk with which I dashed
away my pen, which had been the instrument of conveying to you in
the last sentence that profession of indifference, you might have
been sceptical as to its sincerity; but a few paces up and down the
smallest of country-inn parlours have brought me to my senses. It is
sufficient to say she deceived me. I was fool enough to think that
I had inspired her with a feeling pure and fervent as my own, when,
in the midst of this vain dream, I was suddenly awakened. Within a
week after the arrival of that confident coxcomb, Frank Melmoth, who
only courted her for her fortune, the melodious tones of her musical
laugh chiming in with all his flippant nonsense, rang on my ears as
the knell of all my hopes. Perhaps, after all, I was too hasty; she
might not really care for him; but I had every reason at the time
to think so, and now it is all over. It is sufficient to say, that
she is spoilt by the world, and can have no real feeling, for she is
disposed to laugh at every thing, and to receive even sentiment with
a smile. Upon one occasion--but I said I would not particularize, nor
will I, because among other reasons, at this distance of time, I do
not feel quite sure but that you might smile likewise. Suffice it to
say, I am at length convinced, that in our rank in life, the feelings
are too early perverted by the world, to hold out to a person, who
thinks like me, any real prospect of happiness.
“No; I will seek something as different as possible from all that
I have hitherto described. No bad second-rate copy of Lady Gayland
could I tolerate; and if I am to be sustained in my fixed resolution
of forgetting her, it must be by seeking contrast, and not imitation,
that I must hope to succeed.
“What my present plan exactly is, I will not say; but once in my
earlier days a vision crossed my path, of a simple child of nature,
fresh and beauteous as the morn. Think of the delight of first
winning her pure affections, as one not elevated above her own rank
in life, (the case is certainly not without precedent,) and then
the pleasure of declaring myself afterwards, and the consciousness
thus derived, that whatever additional gratification may arise from
the advantages of rank and fortune, they could not be the cause of
the connexion, but from their subsequent disclosure were matter of
surprise, not speculation. Now, will you be anxious to find out the
scene of this plot; but even if you get hold of the cover directed
to your ‘chef,’ you will be only misled by the postmark, as that is
intended purposely to deceive.
“But be satisfied with a degree of confidence, such as it is--quite
unusual in these close and uncommunicative days--and pardon the
length to which it is fine-spun; for bulky as the packet is, the
privilege of your place will prevent your paying for it, and the
duties of your office will, I am sure, leave you complete leisure to
read it.
“Your’s,
“CASTLETON.”