Auto kath' auto meth' autou, mono eides aei ou.
Itself--alone by itself--eternally _one_ and single.
_Plato_. _Sympos_.
With a feeling of deep but most singular affection I regarded my
friend Morella. Thrown by accident into her society many years ago, my
soul, from our first meeting, burned with fires it had never
known--but the fires were not of Eros--and bitter and tormenting to my
eager spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in no manner
define their unusual meaning, or regulate their vague intensity. Yet
we met; and Fate bound us together at the altar: and I never spoke of
love, or thought of passion. She, however, shunned society, and,
attaching herself to me alone, rendered me happy. It is a happiness to
wonder. It is a happiness to dream.
Morella's erudition was profound. As I hope to live, her talents were
of no common order--her powers of mind were gigantic. I felt this, and
in many matters became her pupil. I soon, however, found that Morella,
perhaps on account of her Presburg education, laid before me a number
of those mystical writings which are usually considered the mere dross
of the early German literature. These, for what reasons I could not
imagine, were her favorite and constant study: and that in process of
time they became my own, should be attributed to the simple but
effectual influence of habit and example.
In all this, if I err not, my reason had little to do. My convictions,
or I forget myself, were in no manner acted upon by my imagination,
nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read, to be discovered,
unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my deeds or in my thoughts.
Feeling deeply persuaded of this I abandoned myself more implicitly to
the guidance of my wife, and entered with a bolder spirit into the
intricacy of her studies. And then--then, when poring over forbidden
pages I felt the spirit kindle within me, would Morella place her cold
hand upon my own, and rake up from the ashes of a dead philosophy some
low singular words, whose strange meaning burnt themselves in upon my
memory: and then hour after hour would I linger by her side, and dwell
upon the music of her thrilling voice, until at length its melody was
tinged with terror and fell like a shadow upon my soul, and I grew
pale, and shuddered inwardly at those too unearthly tones--and thus
Joy suddenly faded into Horror, and the most beautiful became the most
hideous, as Hinnon became Ge-Henna.
It is unnecessary to state the exact character of these disquisitions,
which, growing out of the volumes I have mentioned, formed, for so
long a time, almost the sole conversation of Morella and myself. By
the learned in what might be termed theological morality they will be
readily conceived, and by the unlearned they would, at all events, be
little understood. The wild Pantheism of Fitche--the modified [Greek:
Palingenesia] of the Pythagoreans--and, above all, the doctrines of
_Identity_ as urged by Schelling were generally the points of
discussion presenting the most of beauty to the imaginative Morella.
That _Identity_ which is not improperly called _Personal_, I think Mr.
Locke truly defines to consist in the sameness of a rational being.
And since by person we understand an intelligent essence having
reason, and since there is a consciousness which always accompanies
thinking, it is this which makes us all to be that which we call
_ourselves_--thereby distinguishing us from other beings that think,
and giving us our personal identity. But the Principium
Individuationis--the notion of that Identity _which at death is, or is
not lost forever_, was to me, at all times, a consideration of intense
interest, not more from the mystical and exciting nature of its
consequences, than from the marked and agitated manner in which
Morella mentioned them.
But, indeed, the time had now arrived when the mystery of my wife's
manner oppressed me like a spell. I could no longer bear the touch of
her wan fingers, nor the low tone of her musical language, nor the
lustre of her melancholy eyes. And she knew all this but did not
upbraid. She seemed conscious of my weakness, or my folly--and,
smiling, called it Fate. She seemed also conscious of a cause, to me
unknown, for the gradual alienation of my regard; but she gave me no
hint or token of its nature. Yet was she woman, and pined away daily.
In time the crimson spot settled steadily upon the cheek, and the blue
veins upon the pale forehead became prominent: and one instant my
nature melted into pity, but in the next I met the glance of her
meaning eyes, and my soul sickened and became giddy with the giddiness
of one who gazes downward into some dreary and fathomless abyss.
Shall I then say that I long'd with an earnest and consuming desire
for the moment of Morella's decease? I did. But the fragile spirit
clung to its tenement of clay for many days--for many weeks and
irksome months--until my tortured nerves obtained the mastery over my
mind, and I grew furious with delay, and with the heart of a fiend I
cursed the days, and the hours, and the bitter moments which seemed to
lengthen, and lengthen as her gentle life declined--like shadows in
the dying of the day.
But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay still in Heaven, Morella
called me to her side. There was a dim mist over all the earth, and a
warm glow upon the waters, and amid the rich October leaves of the
forest a rainbow from the firmament had surely fallen. As I came, she
was murmuring in a low under-tone, which trembled with fervor, the
words of a Catholic hymn:
Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes
Upon the sinner's sacrifice
Of fervent prayer, and humble love,
From thy holy throne above.
At morn, at noon, at twilight dim,
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn.
In joy and wo, in good and ill,
Mother of God! be with me still.
When my hours flew gently by,
And no storms were in the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy love did guide to thine and thee.
Now, when clouds of Fate o'ercast
All my Present, and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine.
'It is a day of days'--said Morella--'a day of all days either to live
or die. It is a fair day for the sons of Earth and Life--ah! more fair
for the daughters of Heaven and Death.'