CHAPTER VII.

Yes! ’tis the influence of that sightless fiend,

Who guides my every footstep, that I feel:

An iron grasp arrests each fluttering sense,

And a fell voice howls in mine anguish’d ear,

“Wretch, thou mayest rest no more.”

Olympia.

How sweet are the scenes endeared to us by ideas which we have

cherished in the society of one we have loved! How melancholy to

wander amongst them again after an absence, perhaps of years; years,

which have changed the tenour of our existence,--have changed even the

friend, the dear friend, for whose sake alone the landscape lives in

the memory, for whose sake tears flow at the each varying feature of

the scenery, which catches the eye of one who has never seen them since

he saw them with the being who was dear to him!

Dark, autumnal, and gloomy was the hour; the winds whistled hollow,

and over the expanse of heaven was spread an unvarying sombreness

of vapour: nothing was heard save the melancholy shriekings of the

nightbird, which, soaring on the evening blast, broke the stillness

of the scene, interrupting the meditations of frenzied enthusiasm;

mingled with the sighing of the wind, which swept in languid and

varying cadence amidst the leafless boughs.

Ah! of whom shall the poor outcast wanderer demand protection? Far,

far, has she wandered. The vice and unkindness of the world hath torn

her tender heart. In whose bosom shall she repose the secret of her

sufferings? Who will listen with pity to the narrative of her woe, and

heal the wounds which the selfish unkindness of man hath made, and then

sent her with them, unbound, on the wide and pitiless world? Lives

there one whose confidence the sufferer might seek?

Cold and dreary was the night: November’s blast had chilled the air. Is

the blast so pitiless as ingratitude and selfishness? Ah, no! thought

the wanderer; it is unkind indeed, but not _so_ unkind as that. Poor

Eloise de St. Irvyne! many, many are in thy situation; but few have a

heart so full of sensibility and excellence for the demoniac malice

of man to deform, and then glut itself with hellish pleasure in the

conviction of having ravaged the most lovely of the works of their

Creator. She gazed upon the sky: the moon had just risen; its full

orb was occasionally shaded by a passing cloud: it rose from behind

the turrets of le Château de St. Irvyne. The poor girl raised her

eyes towards it, streaming with tears: she scarce could recognize the

once-loved building. She thanked God for permitting her again to behold

it; and hastened on with steps tottering from fatigue, yet nerved with

the sanguineness of anticipation.

Yes, St. Irvyne was the same as when she had left it five years ago.

The same ivy mantled the western tower; the same jasmine, which bloomed

so luxuriantly when she left it, was still there, though leafless

from the season. Thus was it with poor Eloise: she had left St.

Irvyne, blooming, and caressed by every one; she returned to it, pale,

downcast, and friendless. The jasmine encircled the twisted pillars

which supported the portal. Alas! whose assistance had prevented Eloise

from sinking to the earth?--no one’s. She knocked at the door--it was

opened, and an instant’s space beheld her in the arms of a beloved

sister. Needless were it to describe the mutual pleasure, needless to

describe the delight, of recognition; suffice it to say, that Eloise

once more enjoyed the society of her dearest friend; and, in the

happiness of her society, forgot the horrors which had preceded her

return to St. Irvyne.

Now were it well to leave Eloise at St. Irvyne, and retrace the

events which, since five years, had so darkly tinged the fate of

the unsuspecting female, who trusted to the promises of man. It was

a beautiful morning in May, and the loveliness of the season had

spread a deeper shade of gloom over the features of Eloise, for she

knew that not long would her mother live. They journeyed on towards

Geneva, whither the physicians had ordered Madame de St. Irvyne to

repair, as the last resort of a hope that she might, thereby, escape

a rapid decline. On account of the illness of her mother, they

proceeded slowly; and ere long they had entered the region of the Alps,

the shades of evening, which rapidly began to increase, announced

approaching night. They had expected, before this time, to have reached

a town; but, either owing to a miscalculation of their route, or the

remissness of the postilion, they had not yet done so. The majestic

moon which hung above their heads, tinged with silver the fleecy clouds

which skirted the far-seen horizon; and, borne on the soft wing of the

evening zephyr, shadowy lines of vapour, at intervals, crossed her

orbit; then vanishing into the dark blue expansiveness of ether, their

fantastic forms, like the phantoms of midnight, became invisible. Now

might we almost suppose, that the sightless spirits of the departed

good, enthroned on the genial breeze of night, watched over those whom

they had loved on earth, and poured into the bosom, to the dictates of

which, in this world, they had listened with idolatrous attention, that

tranquillity and confidence in the goodness of the Creator, which is

necessary for us to experience ere we go to the next. Such tranquillity

felt Madame de St. Irvyne: she tried to stifle the ideas which arose

within her mind; but the more she strove to repress them, in the more

vivid characters were they imprinted on the imagination.

Now had they gained the summit of the mountain, when, suddenly, a crash

announced that the carriage had given way.

“What is to be done?” inquired Eloise. The postilion appeared to take

no notice of her question. “What is to be done?” again she inquired.

“Why, I scarcely know,” answered the postilion; “but ’tis impossible to

proceed.”

“Is there no house nearer than----”

“Oh yes,” replied he; “here is a house quite near, but a little out of

the way; and, perhaps, Ma’am’selle will not----”

“Oh, lead on, lead on to it,” quickly rejoined Eloise.

They followed the postilion, and soon arrived at the house. It was

large and plain; and although there were lights in some of the windows,

it bore an indefinable appearance of desolation.

In a large hall sat three or four men, whose marked countenances

almost announced their profession to be bandits. _One_ of superior and

commanding figure, whispering to the rest, and himself advancing with

the utmost and most unexpected politeness, accosted the travellers. For

the ideas with which the countenance of this man inspired Eloise she in

vain endeavoured to account. It appeared to her that she had seen him

before; that the deep tone of his voice was known to her; and that eye,

scintillating with a coruscation of mingled sternness and surprise,

found some counterpart in herself. Of gigantic stature, yet formed

in the mould of exactest symmetry, was the figure of the stranger who

sate before Eloise. His countenance of excessive beauty even, but dark,

emanated with an expression of superhuman loveliness; not that grace

which may freely be admired, but acknowledged in the inmost soul by

sensations mysterious, and before unexperienced. He tenderly inquired,

whether the night air had injured the ladies, and pressed them to

partake of a repast which the other three men had prepared; he appeared

to unbend a severity, which evidently was habitual, and by extreme

brilliancy and playfulness of wit, joined to talents for conversation

possessed by few, made Madame de St. Irvyne forget that she was dying;

and her daughter, as in rapturous attention she listened to each accent

of the stranger, remembered no more that she was about to lose her

mother.

In the stranger’s society, they almost forgot the lapse of time: a

pause in the conversation at last occurred.

“Can Ma’am’selle sing?” inquired the stranger.

“I can,” replied Eloise; “and with pleasure.”

Song.

How swiftly through heaven’s wide expanse

Bright day’s resplendent colours fade!

How sweetly does the moonbeam’s glance

With silver tint St. Irvyne’s glade!

No cloud along the spangled air,

Is borne upon the evening breeze;

How solemn is the scene! how fair

The moonbeams rest upon the trees!

Yon dark gray turret glimmers white,

Upon it sits the mournful owl;

Along the stillness of the night,

Her melancholy shriekings roll.

But not alone on Irvyne’s tower,

The silver moonbeam pours her ray;

It gleams upon the ivied bower,

It dances in the cascade’s spray.

“Ah! why do darkening shades conceal

The hour, when man must cease to be?[2]

Why may not human minds unveil

The dim mists of futurity?

“The keenness of the world hath torn

The heart which opens to its blast;

Despised, neglected, and forlorn,

Sinks the wretch in death at last.”

She ceased;--the thrilling accents of her interestingly sweet voice

died away in the vacancy of stillness;--yet listened the charmed

auditors; their imaginations prolonged the tender strain; the

uncouth attendants of the stranger were chained in silence, and the

enthusiastic gaze of their host was fixed upon the timid countenance of

Eloise with wild and mysterious expression. It seemed to say to Eloise,

“We meet again;”--and, as the idea struck her imagination, convulsed by

a feeling of indescribable and excessive awe, she started.

At last, the hour being late, they all retired. Eloise sought the

couch prepared for her; her mind, perturbed by emotions, the cause of

which she in vain essayed to develop, could bring its intellectual

energies to act on no one particular point; her imagination was

fertile, and, under its fantastic guidance, she felt her judgment

and reason irresistibly fettered. The image of the fascinating, yet

awful stranger, dwelt on her mind. She sank on her knees to return

thanks to her Creator for his mercies; yet even then, faithless to

the task on which it was employed, her mind returned to the stranger.

She felt no particular affection or esteem for him;--no, she rather

feared him; and, when she endeavoured to connect the chain of ideas

which pressed upon her mind, tears started into her eyes, and she

looked around the apartment with the timid terror of a person who

converses at midnight on a subject at once awful and interesting: but

poor Eloise was no philosopher; and to explain sensations like these,

were even beyond the power of the wisest of them. She felt alarmed,

herself, at the violence of the feelings which shook her bosom, and

attempted to compose herself to sleep. Yet even in her dream was the

stranger present. She thought that she met him on a flowery plain;

that the feelings of her bosom, whether she would or not, impelled her

towards him; that, before she had been enfolded in his arms, a torrent

of scintillating flame, accompanied by a terrific crash of thunder,

made the earth yawn beneath her feet;--the gay vision vanished from

her fancy, and, in place of the flowery plain, a rugged and desolate

heath extended far before her; its monotonous solitude unbroken,

save by the low and barren rocks which rose occasionally from its

surface. From dreams such as these, dreams which left on her mind

painful presentiments of her future life, Eloise arose, restless and

unrefreshed from slumber.

Why gleams that dark eyeball upon the countenance of Eloise, as

she tenderly inquired for the health of her mother? Why did a

hidden expression of exulting joy light up that demoniac gaze, when

Madame de St. Irvyne said to her daughter, “I feel rather faint

to-day, my child;--would we were at Geneva!” It beams with hell and

destruction!--Let me look again: that, when I see another eye which

gleams so fiendishly, I may know that it is a villain’s.--Thus might

have thought the sightless minister of the beneficence of God, as it

hovered round the spotless Eloise. But, hush! what was that scream

which was heard by the ear of listening enthusiasm? It was the shriek

of the fair Eloise’s better genius; it screamed to see the foe of the

innocent girl so near--it is fled fast to Geneva. “There, Eloise, will

we meet again,” methought it whispered; whilst a low hollow tone,

hoarse from the dank vapours of the grave, seemed lowly to howl in the

ear of rapt Fancy, “We meet again likewise.”

Their courteous host conducted Madame de St. Irvyne and Eloise to

their chaise, which was now repaired, and ready for the journey; the

stranger bowed respectfully as they went away. The expression of his

dark eye, as he beheld them for the last time, was even stronger than

ever; it seemed not to affect her mother; but the mystic feelings which

it excited in the bosom of Eloise were beyond description powerful.

The paleness of Madame de St. Irvyne’s cheek, on which the only teint

was an occasional and hectic flush, announced that the illness which

consumed her, rapidly increased, and would soon lead her gently to the

gates of death. She talked calmly of her approaching dissolution, and

only regretted, that to no one protector could she entrust the care

of her orphaned daughters. Marianne, her eldest daughter, had, by her

mother’s particular desire, remained at the château; and though much

wishing to accompany her mother, she urged it no longer, when she knew

Madame de St. Irvyne to be resolved against it. Now had the illness

which had attacked her assumed so serious and so decided an appearance,

that she could no longer doubt the event; could no longer doubt that

she was quickly about to enter a better world.

“My daughter,” said she, “there is a banker at Geneva, a worthy man,

to whom I shall bequeath the guardianship of my child; on that head

are all my doubts quieted. But, Eloise, my child, you are yet young;

you know not the world; but bear in mind these words of your dying

mother, so long as you remember herself:--When you see a man enveloped

in deceit and mystery; when you see him dark, reserved, and suspicious,

carefully avoid him. Should such a man seek your friendship or

affection, should he seek, by any means, to confer an obligation upon

you, or make you confer one on him, spurn him from you as you would a

serpent; as one who aimed to lure your unsuspecting innocence to the

paths of destruction.”

The affecting solemnity of her voice, as thus she spoke, touched Eloise

deeply; she wept. “I must remember my mother for ever,” was her almost

inarticulate reply; deep sobs burst from her agitated bosom; and the

varying crowds of imagery which followed each other in her mind, were

too complicated to be defined. Still, though deeply grieved at the

approaching death of her mother, was the mysterious stranger uppermost

in her thoughts; his image excited ideas painful and unpleasant. She

wished to turn the tide of them; but the more she attempted it, with

the more painful recurrence of almost _mechanical_ force, did his

recollection press upon her disturbed intellect.

Eloise de St. Irvyne was a girl, whose temper and disposition was most

excellent; she was, indeed, too, possessed of uncommon sensibility;

yet was her mind moulded in an inferior degree of perfection. She was

susceptible of prejudice, to a great degree; and resigned herself,

careless of the consequences which might follow, to the feelings of

the moment. Every accomplishment, it is true, she enjoyed in the

highest excellence; and the very convent at which she was educated,

which afforded the adventitious advantages so highly esteemed by the

world, prevented her mind from obtaining that degree of expansiveness

and excellence which, otherwise, might have rendered Eloise nearer

approaching to perfection; the very routine of a convent education gave

a false and pernicious bias to the ideas, as, luxuriant in youth, they

unfolded themselves; and those sentiments which, had they been allowed

to take the turn which nature intended, would have become coadjutors

of virtue, and strengtheners of that mind, which now they had rendered

_comparatively_ imbecile. Such was Eloise, and as such she required

unexampled care to prevent those feelings which agitate every mind

of sensibility, to get the better of the judgment which had, by an

erroneous system of education, become relaxed. Her mother was about to

die--who now would care for Eloise?

They entered Geneva at the close of a fine, yet sultry day. The

illness of Madame de St. Irvyne had increased so as now to threaten

instant danger: she was conveyed to bed. A deadly paleness sat on her

cheek: it was flushed, however, as she spoke, with momentary hectics;

and, as she conversed with her daughter, a fire which almost partook

of ethereality, shone in her sunken eye. It was evening; the yellow

beams of the sun, as his orb shed the parting glory on the verge of

the horizon, penetrated the bed-curtains; and by their effulgence

contrasted the deadliness of her countenance. The poor Eloise sat,

watching, with eyes dimmed by tears, each variation in the countenance

of her mother. Silent, from an ecstasy of grief, she gazed fixedly upon

her, and felt every earthly hope die within her, when the conviction

of a fast-approaching dissolution pressed upon her disturbed brain.

Madame de St. Irvyne, at length exhausted, fell into a quiet slumber;

Eloise feared to disturb her, but, motionless with grief, sate behind

the curtain. Now had sunk the orb of day, and the shades of twilight

began to scatter duskiness through the chamber of death. All was

silent; and, save by the catchings of breath in her mother’s slumber,

the stillness was uninterrupted. Yet even in this awful, this terrific

crisis of her existence, the mind of Eloise seemed compelled to exert

its intellectual energies but on one subject;--in vain she essayed to

pray;--in vain she attempted to avert the horror of her meditations,

by contemplating the pallid features of her dying mother; her thoughts

were not within her own control, and she trembled as she reflected on

the appalling and mysterious influence which the image of a man, whom

she had seen but once, and whom she neither loved nor cared for, had

gained over her mind. With the indefinable terror of one who dreads

to behold some phantom, Eloise fearfully cast her eyes around the

gloomy apartment; occasionally she shrank from the ideal form which an

unconnected imagination had conjured up, and could scarcely but suppose

that the _stranger’s_ gaze, as last he had looked upon her, met her

own with an horrible and mixed scintillation of mysterious cunning

and interest. She felt no prepossession in his favour; she rather

detested him, and gladly would never have again beheld him. Yet, were

the circumstances which introduced him to their notice alluded to, she

would turn pale, and blush, by turns; and Jeanette, their maid, was

fully persuaded in her own mind, and prided herself on her penetration

in the discovery, that Ma’am’selle was violently in love with the

hospitable Alpine hunter.

Madame de St. Irvyne had now awakened; she beckoned her daughter to

approach. Eloise obeyed; and, kneeling, kissed the chill hand of her

mother, in a transport of sorrow, and bathed it with her tears.

“Eloise,” said her mother, her voice trembling from excessive weakness,

“Eloise, my child, farewell--farewell for ever. I feel I am about

to die; but, before I die, willingly would I say much to my dearest

daughter. You are now left on the hard-hearted, pitiless world; and

perhaps, oh! perhaps, about to become an immolated victim of its

treachery. Oh!----” Here, overcome by extreme pain, she fell backwards;

a transient gleam of animation lighted up her expressive countenance;

she smiled, and--expired. All was still; and over the gloomy chamber

reigned silence and horror. The yellow moonbeam, with sepulchral

effulgence, gleamed on the countenance of her who had expired, and

lighted her features, sweet even in death, with a dire and horrible

contrast to the dimness which prevailed around! Ah! such was the

contrast of the peace enjoyed by the spirit of the departed one, with

the misery which awaited the wretched Eloise. Poor Eloise! she had now

lost almost her only friend!

In excessive and silent grief, knelt the mourning girl; she spoke

not, she wept not; her sorrow was too violent for tears, but, oh! her

heart was torn by pangs of unspeakable acuteness. But even amid the

alarm which so melancholy an event must have excited, the idea of the

_stranger in the Alps_ sublimed the soul of Eloise to the highest

degree of horror, and despair the most infuriate. For the ideas which

crowded into her mind at this crisis, so eventful, so terrific, she

endeavoured to account; but, alas! her attempt was fruitless! Still

knelt she; still did she press to her burning lips the lifeless hand

of departed excellence, when the morning’s ray announced to her

that longer continuing there might excite suspicion of intellectual

derangement. She arose, therefore, and, quitting the apartment,

announced the melancholy event which had taken place. She gave orders

for the funeral; it was to be solemnized as soon as decency would

permit, as the poor friendless Eloise wished speedily to quit Geneva.

She wrote to announce the fatal event to her sister. Slowly dragged the

time. Eloise followed to its latest bed the corpse of her mother, and

was returning from the convent, when a stranger put into her hand a

note, and quickly disappeared:--

“Will Eloise de St. Irvyne meet her friend at ---- Abbey, to-morrow

night, at ten o’clock?”

[2] These two lines are taken _verbatim_ from Byron’s _Hours of

Idleness_.--Ed.

CHAPTER VIII.

----Why then unbidden gush’d the tear?

* * * * *

Then would cold shudderings seize his brain,

As gasping he labour’d for breath;

The strange gaze of his meteor eye,

Which, frenzied, and rolling dreadfully,

Glared with hideous gleam,

Would chill like the spectre gaze of Death,

As, conjured by feverish dream,

He seems o’er the sick man’s couch to stand,

And shakes the fell lance in his skeleton hand.

Wandering Jew.[3]

Yes;--they fled from Genoa; they had eluded pursuit and justice, but

could not escape the torments of an outraged and avenging conscience,

which, with stings the most acute, pursued them whithersoever they

might go. Fortune even seemed to favour them: for fortune will,

sometimes, in this world, appear to side with the wicked. Wolfstein had

received notice that an uncle, possessed of immense wealth, had died

in Bohemia, and bequeathed to him the whole of his estate. Thither,

then, with Megalena, went Wolfstein. Their journey produced no event

of consequence; suffice it to say, that they arrived at the spot where

Wolfstein’s possessions were situated.

Dark and desolate were the scenes which surrounded the no less desolate

castle. Gloomy heaths, in unvarying sadness of immensity, stretched far

and wide. A scathed pine or oak, blasted by the thunderbolts of heaven,

alone broke the monotonous sameness of the imagery. Needless were it

to describe the castle, built like all those of the Bohemian barons,

in mingled Gothic and barbarian architecture. Over the dark expanse

the dim moon beaming, and faintly, with its sepulchral radiance,

dispersing the thickness of the vapours which lowered around (for her

waning horn, which hung low above the horizon, added but tenfold horror

to the terrific desolation of the scene); the night-raven pouring on

the dull ear of evening her frightful screams, and breaking on the

otherwise uninterrupted stillness,--were the melancholy greetings to

their new habitation.

They alighted at the antique entrance, and passing through a vast

and comfortless hall, were conducted into a saloon not much less so.

The coolness of the evening, for it was late in the autumn, made the

wood fire, which had been lighted, disperse a degree of comfort; and

Wolfstein, having arranged his domestic concerns, continued talking

with Megalena until midnight.

“But you have never yet correctly explained to me,” said Megalena,

“the mystery which encircled that strange man whom we met at the inn

at Breno. I think I have seen him once since, or I should not now have

thought of the circumstance.”

“Indeed, Megalena, I know of no mystery. I suppose the man was mad, or

wished to make us think so; for my part, I have never thought of him

since; nor intend to think of him.”

“Do you not?” exclaimed a voice, which enchained motionless to his

seat the horror-struck Wolfstein--when turning round, and starting

in agonized frenzy from his chair, Ginotti himself--_Ginotti_--from

whose terrific gaze never had he turned unappalled, stood in cool and

fearless contempt before him!

“Do you not?” continued the mysterious stranger. “Never again intendest

thou to think of me?--me! who have watched each expanding idea,

conscious to what I was about to apply them, conscious of the great

purpose for which each was formed. Ah! Wolfstein, by my agency shalt

thou----” He paused, assuming a smile expressive of exultation and

superiority.

“Oh! do with me what thou wilt, strange, inexplicable being!--Do with

me what thou wilt!” exclaimed Wolfstein, as an ecstasy of frenzied

terror overpowered his astonished senses. Megalena still sat unmoved:

she was surprised, it is true; but most was she surprised, that an

event like this should have power so to shake Wolfstein; for even then

he stood gazing in enhorrored silence on the majestic figure of Ginotti.

“Fool, then, that thou art, to deny me!” continued Ginotti, in a tone

less solemn, but more severe. “Wilt thou promise me that, when I come

to demand what thou covenantedst with me at Breno, I meet no fears,

no scruples, but that, then, thou wilt perform what there thou didst

swear, and that _this_ oath shall be inviolable?”

“It shall,” replied Wolfstein.

“Swear it.”

“As I keep my vows with you, may God reward me hereafter!”

“’Tis done, then,” returned Ginotti. “Ere long shall I claim the

performance of this covenant--now farewell.” Speaking thus, Ginotti

dashed away; and, mounting a horse which stood at the gate, sped

swiftly across the heath. His form lessened in the clear moonlight; and

when it was no longer visible to the straining eyeballs of Wolfstein,

he felt, as it were, a spell which had enthralled him, to be dissolved.

Reckless of Megalena’s earnest entreaties, he threw himself into a

chair, in deep and gloomy melancholy; he answered them not, but,

immersed in a train of corroding ideas, remained silent. Even when

retired to repose, and he could, occasionally, sink into a transitory

slumber, would he again start from it, as he thought that Ginotti’s

majestic form leaned over him, and that the glance which, last, his

fearful eye had thrown, chilled his breast with indescribable agony.

Slowly lagged the time to Wolfstein: Ginotti, though now gone, and

far away perhaps, dwelt in his disturbed mind; his image was there

imprinted in characters terrific and indelible. Oft would he wander

along the desolate heath; on every blast of wind which sighed over the

scattered remnants of what was once a forest, Ginotti’s, the terrific

Ginotti’s voice seemed to float; and in every dusky recess, favoured

by the descending shades of gloomy night, his form appeared to lurk,

and, with frightful glare, his eye to penetrate the conscience-stricken

Wolfstein as he walked. A falling leaf, or a hare starting from her

heathy seat, caused him to shrink with affright; yet, though dreading

loneliness, he was irresistibly compelled to seek for solitude.

Megalena’s charms had now no longer power to speak comfort to his soul:

ephemeral are the friendships of the wicked, and involuntary disgust

follows the attachment founded on the visionary fabric of passion or

interest. It sinks in the merited abyss of ennui, or is followed by

apathy and carelessness, which amply its origin deserved.

The once ardent and excessive passion of Wolfstein for Megalena,

was now changed into disgust and almost detestation; he sought to

conceal it from her, but it was evident, in spite of his resolution.

He regarded her as a woman capable of the most shocking enormities;

since, without any adequate temptation to vice, she had become

sufficiently depraved to consider an inconsequent crime the wilful

and premeditated destruction of a fellow-creature; still, whether it

were from the indolence which he had contracted, or an indefinably

sympathetic connexion of soul, which forbade them to part during

their mortal existence, was Wolfstein irremediably linked to his

mistress, who was as depraved as himself, though originally of a better

disposition. He likewise had, at first, resisted the allurements of

vice; but, overpowered by its incitements, had resigned himself, indeed

reluctantly, to its influence. But Megalena had courted its advances,

and endeavoured to conquer neither the suggestions of crime, nor the

dictates of a nature prone to the attacks of _appetite_--let me not

call it passion.

Fast advanced winter; cheerless and solitary were the days. Wolfstein,

occasionally, followed the chase; but even _that_ was wearisome:

and the bleeding image of the murdered Olympia, or the still more

dreaded idea of the terrific Ginotti, haunted him in the midst of its

tumultuous pleasures, and embittered every moment of his existence. The

pale corpse too of Cavigni, blackened by poison, reigned in his chaotic

imagination and stung his soul with tenfold remorse, when he reflected

that he had murdered one who never had injured him, for the sake of

a being whose depraved society every succeeding day rendered more

monotonous and insipid.

It was one evening when, according to his custom, Wolfstein wandered

late: it was in the beginning of December, and the weather was

peculiarly mild for the season and latitude. Over the cerulean expanse

of ether the dim moon, shrouded in the fleeting fragments of vapour,

which, borne on the pinions of the northern blast, crossed her pale

orb; at intervals, the dismal hooting of the owl, which, searching for

prey, flitted her white wings over the dusky heath; the silver beams

which slept on the outline of the far-seen forests, and the melancholy

stillness, uninterrupted save by these concomitants of gloom, conduced

to sombre reflection. Wolfstein reclined upon the heath; he retraced,

in mental review, the past events of his life, and shuddered at the

darkness of his future destiny. He strove to repent of his crimes; but,

though conscious of the connexion which existed between the ideas, as

often as repentance presented itself to his mind, Ginotti rushed upon

his troubled imagination, and a dark veil seemed to separate him for

ever from contrition, notwithstanding he was constantly subjected

to the tortures inflicted by it. At last, wearied with the corroding

recollections, the acme of which progressively increased, he bent his

steps again towards his habitation.

As he was entering the portal, a grasp of iron arrested his arm,

and, turning round, he recognized the tall figure of Ginotti, which,

enveloped in a mantle, had leaned against a jutting buttress.

Amazement, for a time, chained the faculties of Wolfstein in motionless

surprise: at last he recollected himself, and, in a voice trembling

from agitation, inquired, did he now demand the performance of the

promise?

“I come,” he said, “I come to demand it, Wolfstein! Art thou willing to

perform what thou hast promised?--but come----”

A degree of solemnity, mixed with concealed fierceness, toned his

voice as he spoke; yet was he fixed in the attitude in which first he

had addressed Wolfstein. The pale ray of the moon fell upon his dark

features, and his coruscating eye fixed on his trembling victim’s

countenance, flashed with almost intolerable brilliancy. A chill horror

darted through Wolfstein’s sickening frame; his brain swam around

wildly, and most appalling presentiments of what was about to happen,

pressed upon his agonized intellect. “Yes, yes, I have promised, and

I will perform the covenant I have entered into,” said Wolfstein; “I

swear to you that I will!” and as he spoke, a kind of mechanical and

inspired feeling steeled his soul to fortitude; it seemed to arise

independently of himself; nor could he, though he eagerly desired

to do so, control in the least his _own_ resolves. Such an impulse

as this had first induced him to promise at all. Ah! how often in

Ginotti’s absence had he resisted it! but when the mysterious disposer

of the events of his existence was before him, a consciousness of

the inutility of his refusal compelled him to submit to the mandates

of a being, whom his heart sickening to acknowledge, it unwillingly

confessed as a superior.

“Come,” continued Ginotti; “the hour is late, I must dispatch.”

Unresisting, yet speaking not, Wolfstein conducted Ginotti to an

apartment.

“Bring wine, and light a fire,” said he to his servant, who quickly

obeyed him. Wolfstein swallowed an overflowing goblet, hoping thereby

to acquire courage; for he found that, with every moment of Ginotti’s

stay, the visionary and awful terrors of his mind augmented.

“Do you not drink?”

“No,” replied Ginotti, sullenly.

A pause ensued; during which the eyes of Ginotti, glaring with

demoniacal scintillations, spoke tenfold terrors to the soul of

Wolfstein. He knitted his brows, and bit his lips, in vain attempting

to appear unembarrassed. “Wolfstein!” at last said Ginotti, breaking

the fearful silence; “Wolfstein!”

The colour fled from the cheek of his victim, as thus Ginotti spoke: he

moved his posture, and awaited, in anxious and horrible solicitude, the

declaration which was, as he supposed, to ensue. “My name, my family,

and the circumstances which have attended my career through existence,

it neither boots you to know, nor me to declare.”

“Does it not?” said Wolfstein, scarcely knowing what to say; yet

convinced, from the pause, that something was expected.

“No! nor canst thou, nor any other existent being, even attempt to dive

into the mysteries which envelope me. Let it be sufficient for you to

know, that every event in your life has not only been known to me, but

has occurred under my particular machinations.”

Wolfstein started. The terror which had blanched his cheek now gave way

to an expression of fierceness and surprise; he was about to speak,

but Ginotti, noticing not his motion, thus continued:

“Every opening idea which has marked, in so decided and so eccentric

an outline, the fiat of your future destiny, has not been unknown

to or unnoticed by me. I rejoiced to see in you, whilst young, the

progress of that genius which in mature time would entitle you to the

reward which I destine for you, and for you alone. Even when far,

far away, when the ocean perhaps has roared between us, have I known

your thoughts, Wolfstein; yet have I known them neither by conjecture

nor inspiration. Never would your mind have attained that degree of

expansion or excellence, had not I watched over its every movement,

and taught the sentiment, as it unfolded itself, to despise contented

vulgarity. For this, and for an event far more important than any your

existence yet has been subjected to, have I watched over you: say,

Wolfstein, have I watched in vain?”

Each feeling of resentment vanished from Wolfstein’s bosom, as the

mysterious intruder spoke: his voice at last died, in a clear and

melancholy cadence, away; and his expressive eye, divested of its

fierceness and mystery, rested on Wolfstein’s countenance with a mild

benignity.

“No, no; thou hast not watched in vain, mysterious disposer of my

existence. Speak! I burn with curiosity and solicitude to learn for

what thou hast thus superintended me:” and, as thus he spoke, a feeling

of resistless anxiety to know what would be the conclusion of the

night’s adventure, took place of horror. Inquiringly he gazed on the

countenance of Ginotti, the features of whom were brightened with

unwonted animation. “Wolfstein,” said Ginotti, “often hast thou sworn

that I should rest in the grave in peace:--now listen.”

[3] See vol. iii., p. 91.

CHAPTER IX.

If Satan had never fallen,

Hell had been made for thee.

The Revenge.

Ah! poor, unsuspecting innocence! and is that fair flower about to

perish in the blasts of dereliction and unkindness? Demon indeed must

be he who could gaze on those mildly-beaming eyes, on that perfect

form, the emblem of sensibility, and yet plunge the spotless mind of

which it was an index, into a sea of repentance and unavailing sorrow.

I should scarce suppose even a demon would act so, were there not

many with hearts more depraved even than those of fiends, who first

have torn some unsophisticated soul from the pinnacle of excellence,

on which it sat smiling, and then triumphed in their hellish victory

when it writhed in agonized remorse, and strove to hide its unavailing

regret in the dust from which the fabric of her virtues had arisen.

“_Ah! I fear me, the unsuspecting girl will go_;” she knows not the

malice and the wiles of perjured man--and she is gone!

It was late in the evening, and Eloise had returned from her mother’s

funeral, sad and melancholy; yet, even amidst the oppression of grief,

surprise, and astonishment, pleasure and thankfulness, that any one

should notice her, possessed her mind as she read over and over the

characters traced on the note which she still held in her hand. The

hour was late, the moon was down, yet countless stars bedecked the

almost boundless hemisphere. The mild beams of Hesper slept on the

glassy surface of the lake, as, scarcely agitated by the zephyr of

evening, its waves rolled in slow succession; the solemn umbrage of

the pine-trees, mingled with the poplar, threw their undefined shadows

on the water; and the nightingale, sitting solitary in the hawthorn,

poured on the listening stillness of evening, her grateful lay of

melancholy. Hark! her full strains swell on the silence of night; and

now they die away, with lengthened and solemn cadence, insensibly into

the breeze, which lingers, with protracted sweep, along the valley.

Ah! with what enthusiastic ecstasy of melancholy does he whose friend,

whose dear friend, is far, far away, listen to such strains as these!

perhaps he has heard them with that friend,--with one he loves:

never again may they meet his ear. Alas! ’tis melancholy; I even now

see him sitting on the rock which looks over the lake, in frenzied

listlessness; and counting in mournful review, the days which are past

since they fled so quickly with one who was dear to him.

It was to the ruined abbey which stood on the southern side of the lake

that, so swiftly, Eloise is hastening. A presentiment of awe filled

her mind; she gazed, in inquiring terror, around her, and scarce could

persuade herself that shapeless forms lurked not in the gloomy recesses

of the scenery.

She gained the abbey; in melancholy fallen grandeur its vast ruins

reared their pointed casements to the sky. Masses of disjointed stone

were scattered around; and, save by the whirrings of the bats, the

stillness which reigned, was uninterrupted. Here then was Eloise to

meet the strange one who professed himself to be her friend. Alas! poor

Eloise believed him. It yet wanted an hour to the time of appointment;

the expiration of that hour Eloise awaited. The abbey brought to her

recollection a similar ruin which stood near St. Irvyne; it brought

with it the remembrance of a song which Marianne had composed soon

after her brother’s death. She sang, though in a low voice:--

Song.

How stern are the woes of the desolate mourner,

As he bends in still grief o’er the hallowed bier,

As enanguish’d he turns from the laugh of the scorner,

And drops, to perfection’s remembrance, a tear;

When floods of despair down his pale cheek are streaming,

When no blissful hope on his bosom is beaming,

Or, if lull’d for awhile, soon he starts from his dreaming,

And finds torn the soft ties to affection so dear.

Ah! when shall day dawn on the night of the grave,

Or summer succeed to the winter of death?

Rest awhile, hapless victim, and Heaven will save

The spirit, that faded away with the breath.

Eternity points in its amaranth bower,

Where no clouds of fate o’er the sweet prospect lower,

Unspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower,

When woe fades away like the mist of the heath.

She ceased: the melancholy cadence of her angelic voice died in faint

reverberations of echo away, and once again reigned stillness.

Now fast approached the hour; and, ere ten had struck, a stranger of

towering and gigantic proportions walked along the ruined refectory:

without stopping to notice other objects, he advanced swiftly to

Eloise, who sat on a misshapen piece of ruin, and throwing aside the

mantle which enveloped his figure, discovered to her astonished sight

the stranger of the Alps, who of late had been incessantly present to

her mind. Amazement, for a time, chained each faculty in stupefaction;

she would have started from her seat, but the stranger, with gentle

violence grasping her hand, compelled her to remain where she was.

“Eloise,” said the stranger, in a voice of the most fascinating

tenderness--“Eloise!”

The softness of his accents changed, in an instant, what was passing in

the bosom of Eloise. She felt no surprise that he knew her name: she

experienced no dread at this mysterious meeting with a person, at the

bare mention of whose name she was wont to tremble: no, the ideas which

filled her mind were indefinable. She gazed upon his countenance for a

moment, then, hiding her face in her hands, sobbed loudly.

“What afflicts you, Eloise?” said the stranger: “how cruel, that such a

breast as thine should be tortured by pain!”

“Ah!” cried Eloise, forgetting that she spoke to a stranger; “how can

one avoid sorrow, when there, perhaps, is scarce a being in the world

whom I can call my friend; when there is no one on whom I lay claim for

protection?”

“Say not, Eloise,” cried the stranger, reproachfully, yet benignly;

“say not that you can claim none as a friend--you may claim me. Ah!

that I had ten thousand existences, that each might be devoted to

the service of one whom I love more than myself! Make me then the

repository of your every sorrow and secret. I love you, indeed I do,

Eloise, and why will you doubt me?”

“I do not doubt you, stranger,” replied the unsuspecting girl; “why

should I doubt you? for you could have no interest in saying so, if you

did not.--I thank you for loving one who is quite, quite friendless;

and, if you will allow me to be your friend, I will love you too. I

never loved any one, before, but my poor mother and Marianne. Will you

then, if you are a friend to me, come and live with me and Marianne, at

St. Irvyne’s?”

“St. Irvyne’s!” exclaimed the stranger, almost convulsively, as he

interrupted her; then, as fearing to betray his emotions, he paused,

yet quitted not the grasp of Eloise’s hand, which trembled within his

with feelings which her mind distrusted not.

“Yes, sweet Eloise, I love you indeed,” at last he said,

affectionately. “And I thank you much for believing me; but I cannot

live with you at St. Irvyne’s. Farewell, for to-night, however; for my

poor Eloise has need of sleep.” He then was quitting the abbey, when

Eloise stopped him to inquire his name.

“Frederic de Nempere.”

“Ah! then I shall recollect Frederic de Nempere, as the name of a

friend, even if I never again behold him.”

“Indeed I am not faithless; soon shall I see you again. Farewell,

beloved Eloise.” Thus saying, with rapid step he quitted the ruin.

Though he was now gone, the sound of his tender farewell yet seemed

to linger on the ear of Eloise; but with each moment of his absence,

became lessened the conviction of his friendship, and heightened the

suspicions which, though unaccountable to herself, possessed her bosom.

She could not conceive what motive could have led her to own her love

for one whom she feared, and felt a secret terror, from the conviction

of the resistless empire which he possessed within her: yet though

she shrank from the bare idea of ever becoming his, did she ardently,

though scarcely would she own it to herself, desire again to see him.

Eloise now returned to Geneva: she resigned herself to sleep, but even

in her dreams was the image of Nempere present to her imagination. Ah!

poor deluded Eloise, didst thou think a _man_ would merit thy love

through disinterestedness? didst thou think that one who supposed

himself superior, yet inferior in reality, to you, in the scale of

existent beings, would desire thy society from _love_? yet superior as

the fool here supposes himself to be to the creature whom he injures,

superior as he boasts himself, he may howl with the fiends of darkness,

in never-ending misery, whilst thou shalt receive, at the throne of the

God whom thou hast loved, the rewards of that unsuspecting excellence,

which he who boasts his superiority, shall _suffer_ for trampling

upon. Reflect on _this_, ye libertines, and, in the full career of

the lasciviousness which has unfitted your souls for enjoying the

_slightest_ real happiness here or hereafter, tremble! Tremble! I say;

for the day of retribution will arrive. But the poor Eloise need not

tremble; the victims of your detested cunning need not fear that day:

no!--then will the cause of the broken-hearted be avenged by Him to

whom their wrongs cry for redress.

Within a few miles of Geneva, Nempere possessed a country-house:

thither did he persuade Eloise to go with him; “For,” said he, “though

I cannot come to St. Irvyne’s, yet my friend will live with me.”

“Yes, indeed I will,” replied Eloise; for, whatever she might feel

when he was absent, in his presence she felt insensibly softened,

and a sentiment nearly approaching to love would, at intervals, take

possession of her soul. Yet was it by no means an easy task to lure

Eloise from the paths of virtue; it is true she knew but little, nor

was the expansion of her mind such as might justify the exultations

of a fiend at a triumph over her virtue; yet was it that very timid,

simple innocence which prevented Eloise from understanding to what the

deep-laid sophistry of her false friend tended; and, not understanding

it, she could not be influenced by its arguments. Besides, the

principles and morals of Eloise were such as could not _easily_ be

shaken by the allurements which temptation might throw out to her

unsophisticated innocence.

“Why,” said Nempere, “are we taught to believe that the union of two

who love each other is wicked, unless authorized by certain rites and

ceremonials, which certainly cannot change the tenour of sentiments

which it is destined that these two people should entertain of each

other?”

“It is, I suppose,” answered Eloise, calmly, “because God has willed

it so; besides,” continued she, blushing at she knew not what, “it

would----

“And is then the superior and towering soul of Eloise subjected to

sentiments and prejudices so stale and vulgar as these?” interrupted

Nempere indignantly. “Say, Eloise, do not you think it an insult to

two souls, united to each other in the irrefragable covenants of love

and congeniality, to promise, in the sight of a Being whom they know

not, that fidelity which is certain otherwise?”

“But I do know that Being!” cried Eloise, with warmth; “and when I

cease to know him, may I die! I pray to him every morning, and, when I

kneel at night, I thank him for the mercy which he has shown to a poor

friendless girl like me! He is the protector of the friendless, and I

love and adore him!”

“Unkind Eloise! how canst thou call thyself friendless? Surely,

the adoration of two beings unfettered by restraint, must be most

acceptable!--But, come, Eloise, this conversation is nothing to the

purpose: I see we both think alike, although the _terms_ in which

we express our sentiments are different. Will you sing to me, dear

Eloise?” Willingly did Eloise fetch her harp; she wished not to

scrutinize what was passing in her mind, but, after a short prelude,

thus began:--

Song.

I.

Ah! faint are her limbs, and her footstep is weary,

Yet far must the desolate wanderer roam;

Though the tempest is stern, and the mountain is dreary,

She must quit at deep midnight her pitiless home.

I see her swift foot dash the dew from the whortle,

As she rapidly hastes to the green grove of myrtle;

And I hear, as she wraps round her figure the kirtle,

“Stay thy boat on the lake,--dearest Henry, I come.”

II.

High swell’d in her bosom the throb of affection

As lightly her form bounded over the lea,

And arose in her mind every dear recollection;

“I come, dearest Henry, and wait but for thee.”

How sad, when dear hope every sorrow is soothing,

When sympathy’s swell the soft bosom is moving,

And the mind the mild joys of affection is proving,

Is the stern voice of fate that bids happiness flee!

III.

Oh! dark lower’d the clouds on that horrible eve,

And the moon dimly gleam’d through the tempested air;

Oh! how could fond visions such softness deceive?

Oh! how could false hope rend a bosom so fair?

Thy love’s pallid corse the wild surges are laving,

O’er his form the fierce swell of the tempest is raving;

But, fear not, parting spirit; thy goodness is saving,

In eternity’s bowers, a seat for thee there.

“How soft is that strain!” cried Nempere, as she concluded.

“Ah!” said Eloise, sighing deeply: “’tis a melancholy song; my poor

brother wrote it, I remember, about ten days before he died. ’Tis a

gloomy tale concerning him; he ill deserved the fate he met. Some

future time I will tell it you; but now, ’tis very late.--Good-night.”

Time passed, and Nempere, finding that he must proceed more warily,

attempted no more to impose upon the understanding of Eloise by such

palpably baseless arguments; yet, so great and so unaccountable an

influence had he gained on her unsuspecting soul, that ere long, on

the altar of vice, pride, and malice, was immolated the innocence of

the spotless Eloise. Ah, ye proud! in the severe consciousness of

unblemished reputation, in the fallacious opinion of the world, why

turned ye away, as if fearful of contamination, when yon poor frail

one drew near? See the tears which steal adown her cheek!--_She_ has

repented, _ye_ have not!

And thinkest thou, libertine, from a principle of depravity--thinkest

thou that thou hast raised thyself to the level of Eloise, by trying

to sink her to thine own?--No!--Hopest thou that thy curse has

passed away unheeded or unseen? The God whom thou hast insulted has

marked thee!--In the everlasting tablets of heaven, is thine offence

written!--but poor Eloise’s crime is obliterated by the mercy of Him,

who knows the innocence of her heart.

* * * * *

Yes--thy sophistry hath prevailed, Nempere!--’tis but blackening

the memoir of thine offences! Hark! what shriek broke upon the

enthusiastic silence of twilight? ’Twas the fancied scream of one who

loved Eloise long ago, but now is--dead. It warns thee--alas! ’tis

unavailing!!--’Tis fled, but not for ever.

It is evening; the moon, which rode in cloudless and unsullied majesty,

in the leaden-coloured east, hath hidden her pale beams in a dusky

cloud, as if blushing to contemplate a scene of so much wickedness.

’Tis done; and amidst the vows of a transitory delirium of pleasure,

regret, horror, and misery, arise! they shake their Gorgon locks at

Eloise! appalled she shudders with affright, and shrinks from the

contemplation of the consequences of her imprudence. Beware, Eloise!--a

precipice, a frightful precipice yawns at thy feet! advance yet a step

further, and thou perishest! No, give not up thy religion--it is that

alone which can support thee under the miseries, with which imprudence

has so darkly marked the progress of thine existence!

CHAPTER X.

The elements respect their Maker’s seal!

Still like the scathed pine-tree’s height.

Braving the tempests of the night.

Have I ’scaped the bickering flame.

Like the scathed pine, which a monument stands

Of faded grandeur, which the brands

Of the tempest-shaken air

Have riven on the desolate heath;

Yet it stands majestic even in death,

And rears its wild form there.

Wandering Jew.

Yet, in an attitude of attention, Wolfstein was fixed, and, gazing upon

Ginotti’s countenance, awaited his narrative.

“Wolfstein,” said Ginotti, “the circumstances which I am about to

communicate to you are, many of them, you may think, trivial; but I

must be minute, and, however the recital may excite your astonishment,

suffer me to proceed without interruption.”

Wolfstein bowed affirmatively--Ginotti thus proceeded:--

“From my earliest youth, before it was quenched by complete satiation,

_curiosity_, and a desire of unveiling the latent mysteries of nature,

was the passion by which all the other emotions of my mind were

intellectually organized. This desire first led me to cultivate, and

with success, the various branches of learning which led to the gates

of wisdom. I then applied myself to the cultivation of philosophy,

and the éclât with which I pursued it, exceeded my most sanguine

expectations. _Love_ I cared not for; and wondered why men perversely

sought to ally themselves with weakness. Natural philosophy at last

became the peculiar science to which I directed my eager inquiries;

thence was I led into a train of labyrinthic meditations. I thought

of _death_--I shuddered when I reflected, and shrank in horror from

the idea, _selfish and self-interested_ as I was, of entering a new

existence to which I was a stranger. I must either dive into the

recesses of futurity, or I must not, I cannot die. ‘Will not this

nature--will not the _matter_ of which it is composed--exist to all

eternity? Ah! I know it will; and, by the exertions of the energies

with which nature has gifted me, well I know it shall.’ This was my

opinion at that time: I then believed that there existed no God. Ah!

at what an exorbitant price have I bought the conviction that there

is one!!! Believing that priestcraft and superstition were all the

religion which _man_ ever practised, it could not be supposed that

I thought there existed supernatural beings of any kind. I believed

_nature_ to be self-sufficient and excelling; I supposed not,

therefore, that there could be anything beyond nature.

“I was now about seventeen: I had dived into the depths of metaphysical

calculations. With sophistical arguments had I convinced myself of the

non-existence of a First Cause, and, by every combined modification

of the essences of matter, had I apparently proved that no existences

could possibly be, unseen by human vision. I had lived, hitherto,

completely for myself; I cared not for others; and, had the hand

of fate swept from the list of the living every one of my youthful

associates, I should have remained immoved and fearless. I had not a

friend in the world;--I cared for nothing but _self_. Being fond of

calculating the effects of poison, I essayed one, which I had composed,

upon a youth who had offended me; he lingered a month, and then expired

in agonies the most terrific. It was returning from his funeral,

which all the students of the college where I received my education

(Salamanca) had attended, that a train of the strangest thought pressed

upon my mind. I feared, more than ever, now, to die; and, although I

had no right to form hopes or expectations for longer life than is

allotted to the rest of mortals, yet did I think it were possible to

protract existence. And why, reasoned I with myself, relapsing into

melancholy, why am I to suppose that these muscles or fibres are made

of stuff more durable than those of other men? I have no right to

suppose otherwise than that, at the end of the time allotted by nature,

for the existence of the atoms which compose my being, I must, like all

other men, perish, perhaps everlastingly. Here, in the bitterness of my

heart, I cursed that nature and chance which I believed in; and, in a

paroxysmal frenzy of contending passions, cast myself, in desperation,

at the foot of a lofty ash-tree, which reared its fantastic form over a

torrent which dashed below.

“It was midnight; far had I wandered from Salamanca; the passions which

agitated my brain, almost to delirium, had added strength to my nerves,

and swiftness to my feet; but, after many hours’ incessant walking, I

began to feel fatigued. No moon was up, nor did one star illume the

hemisphere. The sky was veiled by a thick covering of clouds; and,

to my heated imagination, the winds, which in stern cadence swept

along the night-scene, whistled tidings of death and annihilation. I

gazed on the torrent, foaming beneath my feet; it could scarcely be

distinguished through the thickness of the gloom, save at intervals,

when the white-crested waves dashed at the base of the bank on which I

stood. ’Twas then that I contemplated self-destruction; I had almost

plunged into the tide of death, had rushed upon the unknown regions of

eternity, when the soft sound of a bell from a neighbouring convent,

was wafted in the stillness of the night. It struck a chord in unison

with my soul; it vibrated on the secret springs of rapture. I thought

no more of suicide, but, reseating myself at the root of the ash-tree,

burst into a flood of tears;--never had I wept before; the sensation

was new to me; it was inexplicably pleasing. I reflected by what rules

of science I could account for it: _there_ philosophy failed me. I

acknowledged its inefficacy; and, almost at _that_ instant, allowed

the existence of a superior and beneficent _Spirit_, in whose image is

made the soul of man; but quickly chasing these ideas, and, overcome by

excessive and unwonted fatigue of mind and body, I laid my head upon a

jutting projection of the tree, and, forgetful of every thing around

me, sank into a profound and quiet slumber. Quiet, did I say? No--It

was not quiet. I dreamed that I stood on the brink of a most terrific

precipice, far, far above the clouds, amid whose dark forms which

lowered beneath, was seen the dashing of a stupendous cataract: its

roarings were borne to mine ear by the blast of night. Above me rose,

fearfully embattled and rugged, fragments of enormous rocks, tinged

by the dimly gleaming moon; their loftiness, the grandeur of their

misshapen proportions, and their bulk, staggering the imagination; and

scarcely could the mind itself scale the vast loftiness of their aërial

summits. I saw the dark clouds pass by, borne by the impetuosity of the

blast, yet felt no wind myself. Methought darkly gleaming forms rode on

their almost palpable prominences.

“Whilst thus I stood, gazing on the expansive gulf which yawned

before me, methought a silver sound stole on the quietude of night.

The moon became as bright as polished silver, and each star sparkled

with scintillations of inexpressible whiteness. Pleasing images stole

imperceptibly upon my senses, when a ravishingly sweet strain of

dulcet melody seemed to float around. Now it was wafted nearer, and

now it died away in tones to melancholy dear. Whilst I thus stood

enraptured, louder swelled the strain of seraphic harmony; it vibrated

on my inmost soul, and a mysterious softness lulled each impetuous

passion to repose. I gazed in eager anticipation of curiosity on the

scene before me; for a mist of silver radiance rendered every object

but myself imperceptible; yet was it brilliant as the noon-day sun.

Suddenly, whilst yet the full strain swelled along the empyrean sky,

the mist in one place seemed to dispart, and through it, to roll

clouds of deepest crimson. Above them, and seemingly reclining on the

viewless air, was a form of most exact and superior symmetry. Rays

of brilliancy, surpassing expression, fell from his burning eye, and

the emanations from his countenance tinted the transparent clouds

below with silver light. The phantasm advanced towards me; it seemed

then, to my imagination, that his figure was borne on the sweet strain

of music which filled the circumambient air. In a voice which was

fascination itself, the being addressed me, saying, ‘Wilt thou come

with me? wilt thou be mine?’ I felt a decided wish never to be his.

‘No, no,’ I unhesitatingly cried, with a feeling which no language can

either explain or describe. No sooner had I uttered these words, than

methought a sensation of deadly horror chilled my sickening frame; an

earthquake rocked the precipice beneath my feet; the beautiful being

vanished; clouds, as of chaos, rolled around, and from their dark

masses flashed incessant meteors. I heard a deafening noise on every

side; it appeared like the dissolution of nature; the blood-red moon,

whirled from her sphere, sank beneath the horizon. My neck was grasped

firmly, and, turning round in an agony of horror, I beheld a form more

hideous than the imagination of man is capable of portraying, whose

proportions, gigantic and deformed, were seemingly blackened by the

inerasible traces of the thunderbolts of God; yet in its hideous and

detestable countenance, though seemingly far different, I thought I

could recognize that of the lovely vision: ‘Wretch!’ it exclaimed, in a

voice of exulting thunder; ‘saidst thou that thou wouldst not be mine?

Ah! thou art mine beyond redemption; and I triumph in the conviction,

that no power can ever make thee otherwise. Say, art thou willing to be

mine?’ Saying this, he dragged me to the brink of the precipice: the

contemplation of approaching death frenzied my brain to the highest

pitch of horror. ‘Yes, yes, I am thine,’ I exclaimed. No sooner had

I pronounced these words than the visionary scene vanished, and I

awoke. But even when awake, the contemplation of what I had suffered,

whilst under the influence of sleep, pressed upon my disordered fancy;

my intellect, wild with unconquerable emotions, could fix on no one

particular point to exert its energies; they were strained beyond their

power of exerting.

“Ever, from that day, did a deep-corroding melancholy usurp the throne

of my soul. At last, during the course of my philosophical inquiries, I

ascertained the method by which _man_ might exist for ever, and it was

connected with my dream. It would unfold a tale of too much horror to

trace, in review, the circumstances as then they occurred; suffice it

to say, that I became acquainted that a _superior_ being really exists;

and ah! how dear a price have I paid for the knowledge! To one man

alone, Wolfstein, may I communicate this secret of immortal life: then

must I forego _my_ claim to it,--and oh! with what pleasure shall I

forego it! To you I bequeath the secret; but first you must swear that

if ... you wish God may....”

“I swear,” cried Wolfstein, in a transport of delight; burning ecstasy

revelled through his veins; pleasurable coruscations were emitted from

his eyes. “I swear,” continued he; “and if ever ... may God....”

“Needless were it for me,” continued Ginotti, “to expatiate further

upon the _means_ which I have used to become master over your every

action; that will be sufficiently explained when you have followed my

directions. Take,” continued Ginotti, “---- and ---- and ----; mix them

according to the directions which this book will communicate to you.

Seek, at midnight, the ruined abbey near the castle of St. Irvyne, in

France; and there--I need say no more--there you will meet with me.”

CHAPTER XI.

The varying occurrences of time and change, which bring anticipation

of better days, brought none to the hapless Eloise. Nempere now

having gained the point which his villainy had projected, felt little

or no attachment left for the unhappy victim of his baseness; he

treated her indeed most cruelly, and his unkindness added greatly

to the severity of her afflictions. One day, when, weighed down by

the extreme asperity of her woes, Eloise sat leaning her head on her

hand, and mentally retracing, in sickening and mournful review, the

concatenated occurrences which had led her to become what she was, she

sought to change the bent of her ideas, but in vain. The feelings of

her soul were but exacerbated by the attempt to quell them. Her dear

brother’s death, that brother so tenderly beloved, added a sting to her

sensations. Was there any one on earth to whom she was now attracted by

a wish of pouring in the friend’s bosom ideas and feelings indefinable

to any one else? Ah, no! that friend existed not; never, never more

would she know such a friend. Never did she really love any one; and

now had she sacrificed her conviction of right and wrong to a man who

neither knew how to appreciate her excellence, nor was adequate to

excite other sensation than of terror and dread.

Thus were her thoughts engaged, when Nempere entered the apartment,

accompanied by a gentleman, whom he unceremoniously announced as the

Chevalier Mountfort, an Englishman of rank, and his friend. He was

a man of handsome countenance and engaging manners. He conversed

with Eloise with an ill-disguised conviction of his own superiority,

and seemed indeed to assert, as it were, a right of conversing with

her; nor did Nempere appear to dispute his apparent assumption. The

conversation turned upon music; Mountfort asked Eloise her opinion;

“Oh!” said Eloise, enthusiastically, “I think it sublimes the soul to

heaven; I think it is, of all earthly pleasures, the most excessive.

Who, when listening to harmoniously-arranged sounds of music, exists

there, but must forget his woes, and lose the memory of every earthly

existence in the ecstatic emotions which it excites? Do you not think

so, Chevalier?” said she; for the liveliness of his manner enchanted

Eloise, whose temper, naturally elastic and sprightly, had been damped

as yet by misery and seclusion. Mountfort smiled at the energetic

avowal of her feelings; for, whilst she yet spoke, her expressive

countenance became irradiated by the emanation of sentiment.

“Yes,” said Mountfort, “it is indeed powerfully efficient to excite

the interests of the soul; but does it not, by the very act of

resuscitating the feelings, by working upon the, perhaps, long dead

chords of secret and enthusiastic rapture, awaken the powers of grief

as well as pleasure?”

“Ah! it may do both,” said Eloise, sighing.

He approached her at that instant. Nempere arose, as if intentionally,

and left the room. Mountfort pressed her hand to his heart with

earnestness: he kissed it, and then resigning it, said, “No, no,

spotless untainted Eloise; untainted even by surrounding depravity:

not for worlds would I injure you. Oh! I can conceal it no longer--will

conceal it no longer--Nempere is a villain.”

“Is he?” said Eloise, apparently resigned, _now_, to the severest

shocks of fortune: “then, then indeed I know not with whom to seek an

asylum. Methinks all are villains.”

“Listen then, injured innocence, and reflect in whom thou hast

confided. Ten days ago, in the gaming-house at Geneva, Nempere was

present. He engaged in play with me, and I won of him considerable

sums. He told me that he could not pay me now, but that he had a

beautiful girl, whom he would give to me, if I would release him

from the obligation. ‘Est elle une fille de joie?’ I inquired. ‘Oui,

et de vertu praticable.’ This quieted my conscience. In a moment of

licentiousness, I acceded to his proposal; and, as money is almost

valueless to me, I tore the bond for three thousand zechins: but did

I think that an angel was to be sacrificed to the degraded avarice

of the being to whom her fate was committed? By heavens, I will this

moment seek him--upbraid him with his inhuman depravity,--and----” “Oh!

stop, stop,” cried Eloise, “do not seek him; all, all is well--I will

leave him. Oh! how I thank you, stranger, for this unmerited pity to

a wretch who is, alas! too conscious that she deserves it not.”--“Ah!

you deserve every thing,” interrupted the impassioned Mountfort; “you

deserve paradise. But leave this perjured villain; and do not say,

unkind fair-one, that you have no friend: indeed, you have a most warm,

disinterested friend in me.”--“Ah! but,” said Eloise, hesitatingly,

“what will the----”

“World say,” she was about to have added; but the conviction of having

so lately and so flagrantly violated every regard to its opinion--she

only sighed. “Well,” continued Mountfort, as if not perceiving her

hesitation; “you will accompany me to a cottage ornée, which I possess

at some little distance hence? Believe that your situation shall be

treated with the deference which it requires; and, however I may have

yielded to habitual licentiousness, I have too much honour to disturb

the sorrows of one who is a victim to that of another.” Licentious and

free as had been the career of Mountfort’s life, it was by no means

the result of a nature naturally prone to vice; it had been owing to

the unchecked sallies of an imagination not sufficiently refined. At

the desolate situation of Eloise, however, every good propensity in

his nature urged him to take compassion on her. His heart, originally

susceptible of the finest feelings, was touched, and he really and

sincerely--yes, a libertine, but not one from principle, sincerely

meant what he said.

“Thanks, generous stranger,” said Eloise, with energy; “indeed I _do_

thank you.” For not yet had acquaintance with the world sufficiently

bidden Eloise distrust the motives of its disciples. “I accept your

offer, and only hope that my compliance may not induce you to regard me

otherwise than I am.”

“Never, never can I regard you as other than a suffering angel,”

replied the impassioned Mountfort. Eloise blushed at what the energetic

force of Mountfort’s manner assured her was not intended as a

compliment.

“But may I ask my generous benefactor, _how_, _where_, and _when_ am I

to be released?”

“Leave that to me,” returned Mountfort: “be ready to-morrow night at

ten o’clock. A chaise will wait beneath.”

Nempere soon entered; their conversation was uninterrupted, and the

evening passed away uninteresting and slow.

Swiftly fled the intervening hours, and fast advanced the moment when

Eloise was about to try, again, the compassion of the world. Night

came, and Eloise entered the chaise; Mountfort leaped in after her.

For awhile her agitation was excessive. Mountfort at last succeeded in

calming her; “Why, my dearest Ma’am’selle,” said he, “why will you thus

needlessly agitate yourself? I _swear_ to hold your honour far dearer

than my own life; and my companion----”

“What companion?” Eloise interrupted him, inquiringly.

“Why,” replied he, “a friend of mine, who lives at my cottage; he is

an Irishman, and so _very_ moral, and so averse to every species of

_gaieté de cœur_, that you need be under no apprehensions. In short,

he is a love-sick swain, without ever having found what he calls a

_congenial_ female. He wanders about, writes poetry, and, in short, is

much _too sentimental_ to occasion you any alarm on that account. And,

I assure you,” added he, assuming a more serious tone, “although I may

not be quite so far gone in romance, yet I have feelings of honour and

humanity which teach me to respect your sorrows as my own.”

“Indeed, indeed I believe you, generous stranger; nor do I think that

you _could_ have a friend whose principles are dishonourable.”

Whilst yet she spoke, the chaise stopped, and Mountfort springing from

it, handed Eloise into his habitation. It was neatly fitted up in the

English taste.

“Fitzeustace,” said Mountfort to his friend, “allow me to introduce you

to Madame Eloise de ----” Eloise blushed, as did Fitzeustace.

“Come,” said Fitzeustace, to conquer _mauvaise honte_, “supper is

ready, and the lady doubtlessly fatigued.”

Fitzeustace was finely formed, yet there was a languor which pervaded

even his whole figure: his eyes were dark and expressive, and as,

occasionally, they met those of Eloise, gleamed with excessive

brilliancy, awakened doubtlessly by curiosity and interest. He said but

little during supper, and left to his more vivacious friend the whole

of Eloise’s conversation, who, animated at having escaped a persecutor,

and one she hated, displayed extreme command of social powers. Yes,

once again was Eloise vivacious: the sweet spirit of social intercourse

was not dead within,--that spirit which illumes even slavery, which

makes its horrors less terrific, and is not annihilated in the dungeon

itself.

At last arrived the hour of retiring.--Morning came.

The cottage was situated in a beautiful valley. The odorous perfume

of roses and jasmine wafted on the zephyr’s wing, the flowery steep

which rose before it, and the umbrageous loveliness of the surrounding

country, rendered it a spot the most fitted for joyous seclusion.

Eloise wandered out with Mountfort and his friend to view it; and so

accommodating was her spirit, that, ere long, Fitzeustace became known

to her as familiarly as if they had been acquainted all their lives.

Time fled on, and each day seemed only to succeed the other purposely

to vary the pleasures of this delightful retreat. Eloise sung in the

summer evenings, and Fitzeustace, whose taste for music was most

exquisite, accompanied her on his oboe.

By degrees the society of Fitzeustace, to which before she had

preferred Mountfort’s, began to be more interesting. He insensibly

acquired a power over the heart of Eloise, which she herself was not

aware of. She involuntarily almost sought his society; and when, which

frequently happened, Mountfort was absent at Geneva, her sensations

were indescribably ecstatic in the society of his friend. She sat in

mute, in silent rapture, listening to the notes of his oboe, as they

floated on the stillness of evening: she feared not for the future,

but, as it were, in a dream of rapturous delight, supposed that she

must ever be as now--happy; not reflecting that, were he who caused

that happiness absent, it would exist no longer.

Fitzeustace madly, passionately doted on Eloise; in all the energy of

incontaminated nature, he sought but the happiness of the object of his

whole affections. He sought not to investigate the causes of his woe;

sufficient was it for him to have found one who could _understand_,

could _sympathize in_, the feelings and sensations which every child

of nature, whom the world’s refinements and luxury have not vitiated,

must feel,--that affection, that contempt of selfish gratification,

which every one, whose soul towers at all above the multitude, must

acknowledge. He destined Eloise, in his secret soul, for his own. He

resolved to die--he wished to live with her; and would have purchased

one instant’s happiness for her with ages of hopeless torments to

be inflicted on himself. He loved her with passionate and excessive

tenderness: were he absent from her but a moment, he would sigh with

love’s impatience for her return; yet he feared to avow his flame, lest

this, perhaps, baseless dream of rapturous and enthusiastic happiness

might fade;--then, indeed, Fitzeustace felt that he must die.

Yet was Fitzeustace mistaken: Eloise loved him with all the tenderness

of innocence; she confided in him unreservedly; and, though

unconscious of the nature of the love she felt for him, returned each

enthusiastically energetic prepossession of his towering mind with

ardour excessive and unrestrained. Yet did Fitzeustace suppose that she

loved him not. Ah! why did he think so?

Late one evening, Mountfort had gone to Geneva, and Fitzeustace

wandered with Eloise towards that spot which Eloise selected as their

constant evening ramble on account of its superior beauty. The tall

ash and oak, in mingled umbrage, sighed far above their heads; beneath

them were walks, artificially cut, yet imitating nature. They wandered

on, till they came to a pavilion which Mountfort had caused to be

erected. It was situated on a piece of land entirely surrounded by

water, yet peninsulated by a rustic bridge which joined it to the walk.

Hither, urged mechanically, for their thoughts were otherwise employed,

wandered Eloise and Fitzeustace. Before them hung the moon in cloudless

majesty; her orb was reflected by every movement of the crystalline

water, which, agitated by the gentle zephyr, rolled tranquilly.

Heedless yet of the beauties of nature, the loveliness of the scene,

they entered the pavilion.

Eloise convulsively pressed her hand on her forehead.

“What is the matter, my dearest Eloise?” inquired Fitzeustace, whom

awakened tenderness had thrown off his guard.

“Oh! nothing, nothing; but a momentary faintness. It will soon go off;

let us sit down.”

They entered the pavilion.

“’Tis nothing but drowsiness,” said Eloise, affecting gaiety; “’twill

soon go off. I sate up late last night; that I believe was the

occasion.”

“Recline on this sofa, then,” said Fitzeustace, reaching another pillow

to make the couch easier; “and I will play some of those Irish tunes

which you admire so much.”

Eloise reclined on the sofa, and Fitzeustace, seated on the floor,

began to play; the melancholy plaintiveness of his music touched

Eloise; she sighed, and concealed her tears in her handkerchief. At

length she sunk into a profound sleep: still Fitzeustace continued

playing, noticing not that she slumbered. He now perceived that she

spoke, but in so low a tone, that he knew she slept.

He approached. She lay wrapped in sleep; a sweet and celestial smile

played upon her countenance, and irradiated her features with a tenfold

expression of etheriality. Suddenly the visions of her slumbers

appeared to have changed; the smile yet remained, but its expression

was melancholy; tears stole gently from under her eyelids:--she sighed.

Ah! with what eagerness of ecstasy did Fitzeustace lean over her form!

He dared not speak, he dared not move; but pressing a ringlet of hair

which had escaped its band, to his lips, waited silently.

“Yes, yes; I think--it may----” at last she muttered; but so

confusedly, as scarcely to be distinguishable.

Fitzeustace remained rooted in rapturous attention, listening.

“I thought, I thought he looked as if he could love me,” scarcely

articulated the sleeping Eloise. “Perhaps, though he may not love me,

he may allow me to love him.--Fitzeustace!”

On a sudden, again were changed the visions of her slumbers; terrified

she started from sleep, and cried, “Fitzeustace!”

CHAPTER XII.

For love is heaven, and heaven is love.

Lay of the Last Minstrel.

Needless were it to expatiate on their transports; they loved each

other, and that is enough for those who have felt like Eloise and

Fitzeustace.

One night, rather later indeed than it was Mountfort’s custom to

return from Geneva, Eloise and Fitzeustace sat awaiting his arrival.

At last it was too late any longer even to expect him; and Eloise was

about to bid Fitzeustace good-night, when a knock at the door aroused

them. Instantly, with a hurried and disordered step, his clothes

stained with blood, his countenance convulsed and pallid as death, in

rushed Mountfort.

An involuntary exclamation of surprise burst from the terrified Eloise.

“What--what is the matter?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing!” answered Mountfort, in a tone of hurried, yet

desperate agony. The wildness of his looks contradicted his assertions.

Fitzeustace, who had been inquiring whether he was wounded, on finding

that he was not, flew to Eloise.

“Oh! go, go!” she exclaimed. “Something, I am convinced, is wrong. Tell

me, dear Mountfort, what it is--in pity tell me.”

“Nempere is dead!” replied Mountfort, in a voice of deliberate

desperation; then, pausing for an instant, he added in an under

tone: “And the officers of justice are in pursuit of me. Adieu,

Eloise!--Adieu, Fitzeustace! You know I must part with you--you know

how unwillingly. My address is at--London.--Adieu!--once again adieu!”

Saying this, as by a convulsive effort of despairing energy, he darted

from the apartment, and, mounting a horse which stood at the gate,

swiftly sped away. Fitzeustace well knew the impossibility of his

longer stay; he did not seem surprised, but sighed.

“Ah! well I know,” said Eloise, violently agitated, “I well know myself

to be the occasion of these misfortunes. Nempere sought for me; the

generous Mountfort would not give me up; and now is he compelled to

fly--perhaps may not even escape with life. Ah! I fear it is destined

that every friend must suffer in the fatality which environs me.

Fitzeustace!” she uttered this with such tenderness, that, almost

involuntarily, he clasped her hand, and pressed it to his bosom, in the

silent, yet expressive enthusiasm of love. “Fitzeustace! you will not

likewise desert the poor isolated Eloise?”

“Say not isolated, dearest love. Can, can you fear my love, whilst

your Fitzeustace exists? Say, adored Eloise, shall we _now_ be united,

_never, never_ to part again? Say, will you consent to our immediate

union?

“Know you not,” exclaimed Eloise, in a low, faltering voice, “know you

not that I _have been_ another’s?”

“Oh! suppose me not,” interrupted the impassioned Fitzeustace, “the

slave of such vulgar and narrow-minded prejudice. Does the frightful

vice and ingratitude of Nempere sully the spotless excellence of my

Eloise’s soul? No, no,--that must ever continue uncontaminated by the

frailty of the body in which it is enshrined. It must rise superior

to the earth: ’tis that which I adore, Eloise. Say, say, was _that_

Nempere’s?”

“Oh! no, never!” cried Eloise, with energy. “Nothing but _fear_ was

Nempere’s.”

“Then why say you that ever you were _his_?” said Fitzeustace,

reproachfully. “You never _could_ have been his, destined as you were

for mine, from the first instant the particles composing the soul which

I adore, were assimilated by the God whom I worship.”

“Indeed, believe me, dearest Fitzeustace, I love you, far beyond

anything existing--indeed, existence were valueless, unless enjoyed

with you!”

Eloise, though a _something_ prevented her from avowing them, _felt_

the enthusiastic and sanguine ideas of Fitzeustace to be true: her

soul, susceptible of the most exalted virtue and expansion, though

cruelly nipped in its growth, thrilled with delight unexperienced

before, when she found a being who could understand and perceive

the truth of her feelings, and indeed _anticipate_ them, as did

Fitzeustace; and _he_, while gazing on the index of that soul, which

associated with his, and animated the body of Eloise, but for him,

felt delight, which, glowing and enthusiastic as had been his picture

of happiness, he never expected to know. His dark and beautiful

eye gleamed with tenfold lustre; his every nerve, his every pulse,

confessed the awakened consciousness, that _she_, on whom his soul had

doted, ever since he acknowledged the existence of his intellectuality,

was present before him.

A short space of time passed, and Eloise gave birth to the son of

Nempere. Fitzeustace cherished it with the affection of a father; and,

when occasionally he necessarily must be absent from the apartment of

his beloved Eloise, his whole delight was to gaze on the child, and

trace in its innocent countenance the features of the mother who was so

beloved by him.

Time no longer dragged heavily to Eloise and Fitzeustace: happy in the

society of each other, they wished nor wanted other joys; united by the

laws of their God, and assimilated by congeniality of sentiment, they

supposed that each succeeding month must be like this, must pass like

this, in the full satiety of every innocent union of mental enjoyment.

While thus the time sped in rapturous succession of delight, autumn

advanced.

The evening was late, when, at the usual hour, Eloise and Fitzeustace

took the way to their beloved pavilion. Fitzeustace was unusually

desponding, and his ideas for futurity were marked by the melancholy

of his mind. Eloise in vain attempted to soothe him; the contention of

his mind was but too visible. She led him to the pavilion. They entered

it. The autumnal moon had risen; her dimly-gleaming orb, scarcely now

visible, was shrouded in the darkness of the atmosphere: like the

spirit of the spotless ether, which shrinks from the obtrusive gaze

of man, she hung behind a leaden-coloured cloud. The wind in low and

melancholy whispering sighed among the branches of the towering trees;

the melody of the nightingale, which floated upon its dying cadences,

alone broke on the solemnity of the scene. Lives there, whose soul

experiences no degree of delight, is susceptible of no gradations of

feelings, at change of scenery? Lives there, who can listen to the

cadence of the evening zephyr, and not acknowledge, in his mind, the

sensations of celestial melancholy which it awakens? for, if he does,

his life were valueless, his death were undeplored. Ambition, avarice,

ten thousand mean, ignoble passions, had extinguished within him that

soft, but indefinable sensorium of unallayed delight, with which his

soul, whose susceptibility is not destroyed by the demands of selfish

appetite, thrills exultingly, and wants but the union of another, of

whom the feelings are in unison with his own, to constitute almost

insupportable delight.

Let Epicureans argue, and say, “There is no pleasure but in the

gratification of the senses.” Let them enjoy their own opinion; I want

not _pleasure_, when I can enjoy _happiness_. Let Stoics say, “Every

idea that there are fine feelings, is weak; he who yields to them

is even weaker.” Let those too, wise in their own conceit, indulge

themselves in sordid and degrading hypotheses; let them suppose human

nature capable of no influence from any thing but materiality; so long

as I enjoy the innocent and _congenial_ delight, which it were needless

to define to those who are strangers to it, I am satisfied.

“Dear Fitzeustace,” said Eloise, “tell me what afflicts you; why are

you so melancholy?--Do not we mutually love, and have we not the

unrestrained enjoyment of each other’s society?”

Fitzeustace sighed deeply; he pressed Eloise’s hand. “Why does my

dearest Eloise suppose that I am unhappy?” The tone of his voice was

tremulous, and a deadly settled paleness dwelt on his cheek.

“Are you not unhappy, then, Fitzeustace?”

“I know I ought not to be so,” he replied, with a faint smile;--he

paused--“Eloise,” continued Fitzeustace, “I know I ought not to grieve,

but you will, perhaps, pardon me when I say, that a father’s curse,

whether from the prejudice of education, or the innate consciousness

of its horror, agitates my mind. I cannot leave you, I cannot go to

England; and will you then leave your country, Eloise, to accommodate

me? No, I do not, I ought not to expect it.”

“Oh! with pleasure; what is country? what is everything without you?

Come, my love, dismiss these fears, we yet may be happy.”

“But before we go to England, before my father will see us, it is

necessary that we should be married--nay, do not start, Eloise; I view

it in the light that you do: I consider it an human institution, and

incapable of furnishing that bond of union by which alone can intellect

be conjoined; I regard it as but a chain, which, although it keeps the

body bound, still leaves the soul unfettered: it is not so with love.

But still, Eloise, to those who think like us, it is at all events

harmless; it is but yielding to the prejudices of the world wherein we

live, and procuring moral expediency, at a slight sacrifice of what we

conceive to be right.”

“Well, well, it shall be done, Fitzeustace,” resumed Eloise; “but take

the assurance of _my_ promise that I cannot love you more.”

They soon agreed on a point of, in their eyes, so trifling importance,

and arriving in England, tasted that happiness, which love and

innocence alone can give. Prejudice may triumph for awhile, but virtue

will be eventually the conqueror.

CONCLUSION.

It was night--all was still: not a breeze dared to move, not a sound

to break the stillness of horror. Wolfstein has arrived at the village

near which St. Irvyne stood; he has sped him to the château, and has

entered the edifice; the garden door was open, and he entered the

vaults.

For a time, the novelty of his situation, and the painful recurrence of

past events, which, independently of his own energies, would gleam upon

his soul, rendered him too much confused to investigate minutely the

recesses of the cavern. Arousing himself, at last, however, from this

momentary suspension of faculty, he paced the vaults in eager desire

for the arrival of midnight. How inexpressible was his horror when he

fell on a body which appeared motionless and without life! He raised

it in his arms, and, taking it to the light, beheld, pallid in death,

the features of Megalena. The laugh of anguish which had convulsed her

expiring frame, still played around her mouth, as a smile of horror

and despair; her hair was loose and wild, seemingly gathered in knots

by the convulsive grasp of dissolution. She moved not; his soul was

nerved by almost superhuman powers; yet the ice of despair chilled his

burning brain. Curiosity, resistless curiosity, even in a moment such

as this, reigned in his bosom. The body of Megalena was breathless, and

yet no visible cause could be assigned for her death. Wolfstein dashed

the body convulsively on the earth, and, wildered by the suscitated

energies of his soul almost to madness, rushed into the vaults.

Not yet had the bell announced the hour of midnight. Wolfstein sate

on a projecting mass of stone; his frame trembled with a burning

anticipation of what was about to occur; a thirst of knowledge

scorched his soul to madness; yet he stilled his wild energies,--yet

he awaited in silence the coming of Ginotti. At last the bell struck;

Ginotti came; his step was rapid, and his manner wild; his figure

was wasted almost to a skeleton, yet it retained its loftiness and

grandeur; still from his eye emanated that indefinable expression which

ever made Wolfstein shrink appalled. His cheek was sunken and hollow,

yet was it flushed by the hectic of despairing exertion. “Wolfstein,”

he said, “Wolfstein, part is past--the hour of agonizing horror is

past; yet the dark and icy gloom of desperation braces this soul to

fortitude;--but come, let us to business.” He spoke, and threw his

mantle on the ground. “I am blasted to endless torment,” muttered

the mysterious. “Wolfstein, dost thou deny thy Creator?”--“Never,

never.”--“Wilt thou not?”--“No, no,--anything but that.”

Deeper grew the gloom of the cavern. Darkness almost visible seemed

to press around them; yet did the scintillations which flashed from

Ginotti’s burning gaze dance on its bosom. Suddenly a flash of

lightning hissed through the lengthened vaults; a burst of frightful

thunder seemed to convulse the universal fabric of nature; and,

borne on the pinions of hell’s sulphurous whirlwind, he himself, the

frightful prince of terror, stood before them. “Yes,” howled a voice

superior to the bursting thunder-peal; “yes, thou shalt have eternal

life, Ginotti.” On a sudden Ginotti’s frame mouldered to a gigantic

skeleton, yet two pale and ghastly flames glared in his eyeless

sockets. Blackened in terrible convulsions, Wolfstein expired; over him

had the power of hell no influence. Yes, endless existence is thine,

Ginotti--a dateless and hopeless eternity of horror.

* * * * *

Ginotti is Nempere. Eloise is the sister of Wolfstein. Let then the

memory of these victims to hell and malice live in the remembrance of

those who can pity the wanderings of error; let remorse and repentance

expiate the offences which arise from the delusion of the passions, and

let endless life be sought from Him who alone can give an eternity of

happiness.

AN ADDRESS,

TO THE

IRISH PEOPLE.

* * * * *

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

* * * * *

ADVERTISEMENT.

_The lowest possible price is set on this publication,

because it is the intention of the Author to awaken in

the minds of the Irish poor, a knowledge of their real

state, summarily pointing out the evils of that state,

and suggesting rational means of remedy.--Catholic

Emancipation, and a Repeal of the Union Act, (the latter,

the most successful engine that England ever wielded

over the misery of fallen Ireland,) being treated of in

the following address, as grievances which unanimity and

resolution may remove, and associations conducted with

peaceable firmness, being earnestly recommended, as means

for embodying that unanimity and firmness, which must

finally be successful._

* * * * *

Dublin:

* * * * *

1812.

_Price--5d_.

[Decoration]

AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE.

Fellow men,--I am not an Irishman, yet I can feel for you. I hope

there are none among you who will read this address with prejudice or

levity, because it is made by an Englishman; indeed, I believe there

are not. The Irish are a brave nation. They have a heart of liberty in

their breasts, but they are much mistaken if they fancy that a stranger

cannot have as warm a one. Those are my brothers and my countrymen who

are unfortunate. I should like to know what there is in a man being an

Englishman, a Spaniard, or a Frenchman that makes him worse or better

than he really is. He was born in one town, you in another, but that

is no reason why he should not feel for you, desire your benefit, or

be willing to give you some advice, which may make you more capable

of knowing your own interest, or acting so as to secure it. There are

many Englishmen who cry down the Irish, and think it answers their

ends to revile all that belongs to Ireland: but it is not because

these men are Englishmen that they maintain such opinions, but because

they wish to get money, and titles, and power. They would act in this

manner to whatever country they might belong, until mankind is much

altered for the better, which reform, I hope, will one day be effected.

I address you, then, as my brothers and my fellow-men, for I should

wish to see the Irishman who, if England was persecuted as Ireland is,

who, if France was persecuted as Ireland is, who, if any set of men

that helped to do a public service, were prevented from enjoying its

benefits as Irishmen are--I should like to see the man, I say, who

would see these misfortunes, and not attempt to succour the sufferers

when he could, just that I might tell him that he was no Irishman,

but some bastard mongrel bred up in a court, or some coward fool who

was a democrat to all above him, and an aristocrat to all below him.

I think there are few true Irishmen who would not be ashamed of such

a character, still fewer who possess it. I know that there are some,

not among you, my friends, but among your enemies, who, seeing the

title of this piece, will take it up with a sort of hope that it may

recommend violent measures, and thereby disgrace the cause of freedom,

that the warmth of an heart desirous that liberty should be possessed

equally by all, will vent itself in abuse on the enemies of liberty,

bad men who deserve the contempt of the good, and ought not to excite

their indignation to the harm of their cause. But these men will be

disappointed--I know the warm feelings of an Irishman sometimes carries

him beyond the point of prudence. I do not desire to root out, but to

moderate this honourable warmth. This will disappoint the pioneers of

oppression, and they will be sorry that through this address nothing

will occur which can be twisted into any other meaning but what is

calculated to fill you with that moderation which they have not, and

make you give them that toleration which they refuse to grant to you.

You profess the Roman Catholic religion which your fathers professed

before you. Whether it is the best religion or not, I will not here

inquire: all religions are good which make men good; and the way that

a person ought to prove that his method of worshipping God is best,

is for himself to be better than all other men. But we will consider

what your religion was in old times and what it is now; you may say

it is not a fair way for me to proceed as a Protestant, but I am not

a Protestant nor am I a Catholic, and therefore not being a follower

of either of these religions, I am better able to judge between them.

A Protestant is my brother, and a Catholic is my brother. I am happy

when I can do either of them a service, and no pleasure is so great to

me than that which I should feel if my advice could make men of any

professions of faith, wiser, better, and happier.

The Roman Catholics once persecuted the Protestants, the Protestants

now persecute the Roman Catholics. Should we think that one is as bad

as the other? No, you are not answerable for the faults of your fathers

any more than the Protestants are good for the goodness of their

fathers. I must judge of people as I see them; the Irish Catholics are

badly used. I will not endeavour to hide from them their wretchedness;

they would think that I mocked at them if I should make the attempt.

The Irish Catholics now demand for themselves and proffer for others

unlimited toleration, and the sensible part among them, which I am

willing to think constitutes a very large portion of their body, know

that the gates of Heaven are open to people of every religion, provided

they are good. But the Protestants, although they may think so in their

hearts, which certainly, if they think at all, they must seem to act as

if they thought that God was better pleased with them than with you;

they trust the reins of earthly government only to the hands of their

own sect. In spite of this, I never found one of them impudent enough

to say that a Roman Catholic, or a Quaker, or a Jew, or a Mahometan,

if he was a virtuous man, and did all the good in his power, would

go to Heaven a bit the slower for not subscribing to the thirty-nine

articles--and if he should say so, how ridiculous in a foppish courtier

not six feet high to direct the spirit of universal harmony in what

manner to conduct the affairs of the universe!

The Protestants say that there was a time when the Roman Catholics

burnt and murdered people of different sentiments, and that their

religious tenets are now as they were then. This is all very true.

You certainly worship God in the same way that you did when these

barbarities took place, but is that any reason that you should now be

barbarous? There is as much reason to suppose it as to suppose that

because a man’s great-grandfather, who was a Jew, had been hung for

sheep-stealing, that I, by believing the same religion as he did,

must certainly commit the same crime. Let us then see what the Roman

Catholic religion has been. No one knows much of the early times of the

Christian religion until about three hundred years after its beginning;

two great Churches, called the Roman and the Greek Churches, divided

the opinions of men. They fought for a very long time--a great many

words were wasted, and a great deal of blood shed.

This, as you may suppose, did no good. Each party, however, thought

they were doing God a service, and that he would reward them. If they

had looked an inch before their noses, they might have found that

fighting and killing men, and cursing them and hating them, was the

very worst way for getting into favour with a Being who is allowed

by all to be best pleased with deeds of love and charity. At last,

however, these two religions entirely separated, and the popes reigned

like kings and bishops at Rome, in Italy. The Inquisition was set up,

and in the course of one year 30,000 people were burnt in Italy and

Spain for entertaining different opinions from those of the pope and

the priests. There was an instance of shocking barbarity which the

Roman Catholic clergy committed in France by order of the pope. The

bigoted monks of that country, in cold blood, in one night massacred

80,000 Protestants; this was done under the authority of the Pope, and

there was only one Roman Catholic bishop who had virtue enough to

refuse to help. The vices of monks and nuns in their convents were in

those times shameful. People thought that they might commit any sin,

however monstrous, if they had money enough to prevail upon the priests

to absolve them. In truth, at that time the priests shamefully imposed

upon the people; they got all the power into their own hands; they

persuaded them that a man could not be entrusted with the care of his

own soul, and by cunningly obtaining possession of their secrets, they

became more powerful than kings, princes, dukes, lords, or ministers.

This power made them bad men; for although rational people are very

good in their natural state, there are now, and ever have been, very

few whose good dispositions despotic power does not destroy. I have now

given a fair description of what your religion was; and, Irishmen, my

brothers, will you make your friend appear a liar, when he takes upon

himself to say for you that you are not now what the professors of the

same faith were in times of yore? Do I speak false when I say that the

Inquisition is the object of your hatred? Am I a liar if I assert that

an Irishman prizes liberty dearly, that he will preserve that right,

and if it be wrong, does not dream that money can give to a priest,

or the talking of another man erring like himself, can in the least

influence the judgment of the eternal God? I am not a liar if I affirm

in your name, that you believe a Protestant equally with yourself to

be worthy of the kingdom of Heaven, if he be equally virtuous, that

you will treat men as brethren wherever you may find them, and that

difference of opinion in religious matters shall not, does not, in the

least on your part obstruct the most perfect harmony on every other

subject. Ah! no, Irishmen, I am not a liar. I seek your confidence, not

that I may betray it, but that I may teach you to be happy and wise and

good. If you will not repose any trust in me I shall lament; but I will

do everything in my power that is honourable, fair, and open to gain

it. Some teach you that others are heretics, that you alone are right;

some teach that rectitude consists in religious opinions, without which

no morality is good. Some will tell you that you ought to divulge your

secrets to one particular set of men. Beware, my friends, how you

trust those who speak in this way. They will, I doubt not, attempt to

rescue you from your present miserable state, but they will prepare a

worse. It will be out of the frying-pan into the fire. Your present

oppressors, it is true, will then oppress you no longer, but you will

feel the lash of a master a thousand times more bloodthirsty and cruel.

Evil designing men will spring up who will prevent you thinking as you

please--will burn you if you do not think as they do. There are always

bad men who take advantage of hard times. The monks and priests of old

were very bad men; take care no such abuse your confidence again. You

are not blind to your present situation; you are villanously treated;

you are badly used. That this slavery shall cease, I will venture to

prophesy. Your enemies dare not to persecute you longer, the spirit of

Ireland is bent, but it is not broken, and that they very well know.

But I wish your views to embrace a wider scene--I wish you to think for

your children and your children’s children; to take great care (for it

all rests with you) that whilst one tyranny is destroyed, another more

terrible and fierce does not spring up. Take care then of smooth-faced

impostors, who talk indeed of freedom, but who will cheat you into

slavery. Can there be worse slavery than the depending for the safety

of your soul on the will of another man? Is one man more favoured than

another by God? No, certainly, they are all favoured according to the

good they do, and not according to the rank and profession they hold.

God values a poor man as much as a priest, and has given him a soul as

much to himself. The worship that a kind Being must love is that of a

simple affectionate heart, that shows its piety in good works, and not

in ceremonies, or confessions, or burials, or processions, or wonders.

Take care then that you are not led away. Doubt everything that leads

you not to charity, and think of the word “heretic” as a word which

some selfish knave invented for the ruin and misery of the world, to

answer his own paltry and narrow ambition. Do not inquire if a man

be a heretic, if he be a Quaker, a Jew, or a Heathen; but if he be a

virtuous man, if he loves liberty and truth, if he wish the happiness

and peace of human kind. If a man be ever so much a believer and love

not these things, he is a heartless hypocrite, a rascal, and a knave.

Despise and hate him as ye despise a tyrant and a villain. Oh, Ireland!

thou emerald of the ocean, whose sons are generous and brave, whose

daughters are honourable and frank and fair, thou art the isle on whose

green shores I have desired to see the standard of liberty erected--a

flag of fire--a beacon at which the world shall light the torch of

Freedom!

We will now examine the Protestant religion. Its origin is called the

Reformation. It was undertaken by some bigoted men who showed how

little they understood the spirit of reform by burning each other. You

will observe that these men burnt each other, indeed they universally

betrayed a taste for destroying, and vied with the chiefs of the

Roman Catholic religion in not only hating their enemies, but those

men who least of all were their enemies, or anybody’s enemies. Now do

the Protestants or do they not hold the same tenets as they did when

Calvin burnt Servetus? They swear that they do. We can have no better

proof. Then with what face can the Protestants object to Catholic

Emancipation on the plea that Catholics once were barbarous; when their

own establishment is liable to the very same objections, on the very

same grounds? I think this is a specimen of barefaced intoleration,

which I had hoped would not have disgraced this age; this age, which is

called the age of reason, of thought diffused, of virtue acknowledged,

and its principles fixed--oh! that it may be so. I have mentioned the

Catholic and Protestant religions more to show that any objection to

the toleration of the one forcibly applies to the non-permission of

the other, or rather to show that there is no reason why both might

not be tolerated; why every religion, every form of thinking might

not be tolerated. But why do I speak of _toleration_? This word seems

to mean that there is some merit in the person who tolerates: he has

this merit, if it be one, of refraining to do an evil act, but he will

share the merit with every other peaceable person who pursues his own

business, and does not hinder another of his rights. It is not a merit

to tolerate, but it is a crime to be intolerant: it is not a merit in

me that I sit quietly at home without murdering any one, but it is a

crime if I do so. Besides, no act of a national representation can make

anything wrong which was not wrong before; it cannot change virtue and

truth, and for a very plain reason: because they are unchangeable.

An Act passed in the British Parliament to take away the rights of

Catholics to act in that assembly, does not really take them away. It

prevents them from doing it by force. This is in such cases the last

and only efficacious way. But force is not the test of truth; they

will never have recourse to violence who acknowledge no other rule of

behaviour but virtue and justice.

The folly of persecuting men for their religion will appear if we

examine it. Why do we persecute them? to make them believe as we do.

Can anything be more barbarous or foolish? For, although we may make

them say they believe as we do, they will not in their hearts do any

such thing, indeed they cannot; this devilish method can only make them

false hypocrites. For what is belief? We cannot believe just what we

like, but only what we think to be true; for you cannot alter a man’s

opinion by beating or burning, but by persuading him that what you

think is right, and this can only be done by fair words and reason. It

is ridiculous to call a man a heretic because he thinks differently

from you; he might as well call you one. In the same sense the word

orthodox is used; it signifies “to think rightly,” and what can be more

vain, presumptuous in any man or any set of men, to put themselves

so out of the ordinary course of things as to say--“What we think is

right, no other people throughout the world have opinions anything like

equal to ours.” Anything short of unlimited toleration, and complete

charity with all men, on which you will recollect that Jesus Christ

principally insisted, is wrong, and for this reason. What makes a man

to be a good man? Not his religion, or else there could be no good men

in any religion but one, when yet we find that all ages, countries, and

opinions have produced them. Virtue and wisdom always so far as they

went produced liberty or happiness long before any of the religions

now in the world had ever [been] heard of. The only use of a religion

that ever I could see, is to make men wiser and better; so far as it

does this it is a good one. Now, if people are good, and yet have

sentiments differing from you, then all the purposes are answered which

any reasonable man could want, and whether he thinks like you or not

is of too little consequence to employ means which must be disgusting

and hateful to candid minds; nay, they cannot approve of such means.

For, as I have before said, you cannot believe or disbelieve what you

like--perhaps some of you may doubt this, but just try. I will take a

common and familiar instance. Suppose you have a friend of whom you

wish to think well; he commits a crime which proves to you that he is a

bad man. It is very painful to you to think ill of him, and you would

still think well of him if you could. But, mark the word, you _cannot_

think well of him, not even to secure your own peace of mind can you do

so. You try, but your attempts are vain. This shows how little power

a man has over his belief, or rather, that he cannot believe what

he does not think true. And what shall we think now? What fools and

tyrants must not those men be who set up a particular religion, say

that this religion alone is right, and that everyone who disbelieves

it ought to be deprived of certain rights which are really his, and

which would be allowed him if he believed. Certainly if you cannot help

disbelief, it is not any fault in you. To take away a man’s rights and

privileges, to call him a heretic, or to think worse of him, when at

the same time you cannot help owning that he has committed no fault,

is the grossest tyranny and intoleration. From what has been said I

think we may be justified in concluding that people of all religions

ought to have an equal share in the State, that the words heretic and

orthodox were invented by a vain villain, and have done a great deal

of harm in the world, and that no person is answerable for his belief

whose actions are virtuous and moral, that the religion is best whose

members are the best men, and that no person can help either his belief

or disbelief. Be in charity with all men. It does not therefore signify

what your religion _was_, or what the Protestant religion _was_, we

must consider them as we find them. What are they _now_? Yours is not

intolerant; indeed, my friends, I have ventured to pledge myself for

you that it is not. You merely desire to go to Heaven in your own way,

nor will you interrupt fellow travellers, although the road which you

take may not be that which they take. Believe me that goodness of

heart and purity of life are things of more value in the eye of the

Spirit of Goodness, than idle earthly ceremonies and things which may

have anything but charity for their object. And is it for the first

or the last of these things that you or the Protestants contend? It

is for the last. Prejudiced people indeed are they who grudge to the

happiness and comfort of your souls things which can do harm to no one.

They are not compelled to share in these rites. Irishmen! knowledge is

more extended than in the early period of your religion, people have

learned to think, and the more thought there is in the world, the more

happiness and liberty will there be:--men begin now to think less of

idle ceremonies and more of realities. From a long night have they

risen, and they can perceive its darkness. I know no men of thought

and learning who do not consider the Catholic idea of purgatory much

nearer the truth than the Protestant one of eternal damnation. Can

you think that the Mahometans and the Indians, who have done good

deeds in this life, will not be rewarded in the next? The Protestants

believe that they will be eternally damned, at least they swear that

they do. I think they appear in a better light as perjurers than

believers in a falsehood so hurtful and uncharitable as this. I propose

unlimited toleration, or rather the destruction both of toleration

and intoleration. The act permits certain people to worship God after

such a manner, which, in fact, if not done, would as far as in it lay

prevent God from hearing their address. Can we conceive anything more

presumptuous, and at the same time more ridiculous, than a set of men

granting a licence to God to receive the prayers of certain of his

creatures? Oh, Irishmen! I am interested in your cause; and it is not

because you are Irishmen or Roman Catholics that I feel with you and

feel for you; but because you are men and sufferers. Were Ireland at

this moment peopled with Brahmins, this very same Address would have

been suggested by the same state of mind. You have suffered not merely

for your religion, but some other causes which I am equally desirous

of remedying. The Union of England with Ireland has withdrawn the

Protestant aristocracy and gentry from their native country, and with

these their friends and connexions. Their resources are taken from

this country, although they are dissipated in another; the very poor

people are most infamously oppressed by the weight of burden which

the superior ranks lay upon their shoulders. I am no less desirous of

the reform of these evils (with many others) than for the Catholic

Emancipation.