She like a solitary rose that springs
In the first warmth of summer days, and flings
A perfume the more sweet because alone
Just bursting into beauty, with a zone--
Half girl's--half woman's.--_Marcian Colonna_.
The gentle ease, and simple tranquillity which reigned at Chalgrave,
found me its most obedient vassal. I lounged in the library the whole
day, devouring with a morbid appetite, romance, poetry, and light
fantasy. I shunned the gay circle of its inmates, not through
misanthropy or boyish modesty, but from an utter contempt of the form
and spirit of social intercourse. I communed alone with myself, and in
the wanton dreams which a sickly fancy conjured before me, I was
alternately the victim of caprice, restlessness, and disquietude.
Though secluded I was not solitary--though a hermit I was not a
misanthrope. Arthur Ludwell was a little nucleus, about whom the
affections and friendships of the whole household gathered themselves.
His occasional visits to the library--his frank and open address, and
his serious and manly sense, all conspired to teach me the value of
his usefulness, and the degradation of my own worthlessness. He could
laugh at my sentimental reveries, yet he had a deep and chastened
taste for poetry; and though he was in the full tide of elastic youth,
he could read me a homily on the errors of an ill regulated mind, with
all the grave solemnity of referend age. His expostulations--the
remonstrances of my mother, and the broad hints about bad breeding
which the old dining-room servant gave me, could not seduce me from my
much loved retreat. I adhered to its fascinations even as the ivy to
the falling tower, and was simple enough to believe that wisdom was
gained by the bopeep game between reason, fancy and folly.
One morning while I was engaged in my usual speculations, the door of
the library was suddenly opened, and Lucy entered, exclaiming! "Your
cousin Isa has arrived; shut your books! and do, my dear Lionel,
arrange your disordered dress. Look at your dishevelled hair. 'Twill
curl in graceful ringlets! and now do take it away from your pale and
melancholy brow." Twining her fingers in my hair, "I declare," cried
she, "I will not leave you till you come into the parlor. Isa is a
lovely girl, and is now receiving the affectionate salutations of the
whole family. Do, for my sake! for our mother's! and for the character
of the name you bear, grant my request." I could not hesitate, when
she impressed her entreaty with a kiss; and promising that I would
appear before my cousin, I soon commenced the unusual labors of my
toilette. I felt a wish, from some unaccountable emotion, to impress
my cousin with my appearance, and went into my toilette as a warrior
into an armory. Scipio's countenance was lit up with joy, when I
summoned his assistance; and with much deference he ventured to hope
that I would now let the old books rest--that I would sometimes sail
in our pleasure boat--that I would look at the Janus colts--that I
would let him go with me to our old walks, and that we would be boys
again.
So soon as I had descended into the parlor, my mother advancing
towards me, led me to a recess in the dormant window; and with much
solemnity introduced me in due form to my cousin Isa Gordon! My fair
relative was much abashed at the gravity of my introduction, and
something like fear checked the furtive glance which was beaming over
her countenance. For my own part I was confused, alarmed, and
agitated, and trembled beneath that silent eloquence, and impassioned
sympathy, which in making woman lovely, ever makes man a fool. To me
the situation was painful and singular, for I had never before quailed
under the smiles or frowns of female society. I had gained their
contempt by apathy; and studiously avoiding the little attentions
demanded by the honor of gallantry, I stood among them a heartless
being, whose company was tolerated only because his satire was
dangerous.
"I am truly happy to see you at Chalgrave," were the first words which
were stammered through my confusion!
She blushed more deeply when I had spoken, and was hesitating a reply,
when Lucy advancing relieved her from her embarrassment. At the call
of my mother they moved across the room, and I was left gazing in mute
rapture, at the grace and sylph-like gentleness, which characterized
the footsteps of my cousin.
This was Isa Gordon! that morning star which still shines on with
purity and brightness over the dark horizon of memory, and which even
now pours its bold and mellow light over the dreary waste of my
affections. Though not of tall stature, her form was one of exquisite
grace and symmetry, and her beauty mingled itself with the eye and
memory of the beholder. Her golden locks relieved a blushing cheek,
where laughing summer had set its seal, while her countenance
expressed a sensibility, intelligence, sweetness of temper and
innocence which disarmed flattery, and kindled affection. She was
grave more from gentle thoughtfulness than melancholy; and the low,
rich and soft music of her voice, stole upon the heart like the
swelling cadence of the Æolian harp. To firmness she united delicacy
of character, and possessing softness without weakness, humility
without arrogance, and beauty without affectation, her life became a
rare and happy combination of dignity, elevation and gentleness, with
the virtues which ennoble man, and the winning graces which endear
woman. She was in all the pride and power of conquering seventeen, yet
still no girlishness weakened the unobtrusive dignity of her
character. Romance might have decked her with all the gorgeous hues of
its fond imaginings. Poetry might have lingered around the silent
purity of her life, but reason alone could truly love--and wisdom
adore her.
On that day I felt a new passion adding itself to my dreamy solitude;
and when I returned to my tranquil room, I found myself the victim of
wild and impassioned love, betraying every symptom of its curious and
wayward power. I was alternately humble and arrogant--stubborn and
infirm--now a gallant cavalier, winning woman's heart by martial
prowess--now a finished coxcomb with a plentiful store of that
harmless folly which is frittered away from common sense, and now a
rhyme stricken poet, drawing inspiration from my own distempered
vanity, and struggling for metre in the odds and ends of language. I
loved with a holy and fervent ardor; yet the purity which I fondly
believed was the characteristic of my passion, was stained into
grossness by individual pride. Self love made me a little deity, and
woman's regard was an offering demanded by my insatiate egotism. I do
not know that I erred more than most young lovers, in thus reasoning
from the cause to the effect, and in believing that the existence of
love arises solely from our own latent merits and fascinations.
Kindness makes us arrogant, while pride deduces from a blush or a
smile, positive evidence of woman's unhesitating love. If she reason
with the folly of our passion, she is cold--if she shew the least
sunshine of tenderness, she is indelicate, and if she exercise the
common prudence of a reasoning being, she is a coquette. Man must have
all the constancy of her love, all the devotion of her guileless
heart, and he alone must mould its delicate texture to the wanton
caprice of his own vanity. He grants her all that love which he can
spare from the faction and turmoil of the world, and demands in return
her esteem for his errors, and her adoration for his infirmities. We
treat them as fools, when we breathe our false and treacherous love,
and thus cheat ourselves into a belief of our own purity and truth. A
woman of dignity will smile at the fantastic tricks which duplicity
enacts before her; and if she truly love she will crush our pride by
coldness, and blind the searching eye of our vanity by indifference.
She risks her total happiness--she nobly throws all her treasured
hopes into the scale of marriage, and when once resolved, she
hesitates no longer over the trembling sacrifice of her implicit
confidence. Man calls the considerations of her judgment
insincerity--and the justifiable warfare of defence--coquetry. He
loves from pride; while prudence teaches her to inspire him with that
true passion, which takes its brightness like the diamond, only from
the attrition of its own fragments.
Excited by the influence of my new passion, I became a being of
different habits, and boldly entered into the spirit of that social
circle whose gaiety I had shunned. The rays of love had beamed athwart
the darkness of my solitude, and I basked in their brilliancy till
seclusion lost its philosophy and study its excitement. I was happy
only in the company of Isa Gordon, and revelled like a martyr, in the
funereal pyre, which consumed my tranquillity. With the quick
penetration of her sex she perceived my love, and though it hourly
disported its vagaries before her, it failed to move either her
serenity of temper, or unbend her dignity of character. In her
intercourse with me she was courteous, kind and polite, and I vainly
labored to find some of those thousand signs of reciprocal attachment
with which egotism flatters pride, and with which vanity sustains
folly. I thought she was cold and heartless, and have often gazed on
her beauty with that chilled rapture which would dwell on the rainbow
that lends its glittering canopy to the brow of the glacier.
Time wore away on downy feet, and the period was rapidly approaching
when Isa was to leave Chalgrave, and I was to enter college. I dared
not breathe my love; for though blinded by excess of passion, I had
enough of reason to know that I should be rejected; but could she
refuse when I plainly declared my sentiments? My vanity whispered her
acceptance, and I believed that her indifference proceeded not from
dislike but from my silence on that necessary and important
declaration which the pride and pretended ignorance of every woman
imperiously demands.
"You are singularly romantic, Lionel!" said she, as I was earnestly
employed in repeating some wild stanzas which I had inscribed to the
evening star! "What a curious conceit to make it the bridal torch of
the moon, and why people it with the genius of light. Many a poet has
sighed away his sense in searching for metaphors to exalt it--yet it
still shines on, careless of the poor folly which labors to adorn it."
"There is destiny in it, Isa! and even now as it arrests your gaze,
does it not tell thee of futurity? and does it not give a dreamy
melancholy--an incoherent imagining to thy young, thy cold, thy
uncorrupted heart?"
"My heart cold!" replied she, smiling, "What a happy poet! In one
moment basking in the light of the evening star, and in the next
ungenerously censuring a heart of which you know nothing."
"I do know it! I know that you have chilled its better feelings by the
dictates of reason, and from long obedience to stern prudence, you
cannot, dare not love! You have seen the sincerity of my passion, and
you have trampled on the purity of that love which adores you! Hear
me, dear Isa," I continued, seizing her hand and arresting her
departure, "hear my unworthy love. I am a wretched, desolate being,
and live alone."
"Lionel!" said she, suddenly interrupting me, "I do not love you! You
have noble qualities, and a genius which promises the highest
distinctions of fame. Forget your idle passion, and be assured that I
shall ever retain for you the most affectionate friendship. Enter into
the busy throng of the world, and you will quickly gain that chastened
wisdom which can laugh to scorn all your boyish dreams of romance, and
in the race of ambition you must and will forget your fancied sorrows.
Is it not true that
'Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies
And Venus sets--ere Mercury can rise.'"
"I did not reckon on insult," I replied with much temper, "nor did I
wish you to read me a homily on the extravagance of that passion which
you alone have caused. You may scorn, yet I can love."
Lucy, accompanied by Arthur Ludwell, appeared at this moment, and
relieved me from a scene of distress, confusion, and embarrassment.
They returned with Isa to the parlor; and I, in a state of tempestuous
feeling and subdued pride, sauntered to the shores of the Chesapeake.
A _whip-poor-will_ seated on the leafless branch of a ruined oak, was
carolling his funereal notes to the responsive echoes of the forest.
The moon was rising far in the East, and the broad sea before me had
already flushed its rippled surface in her mellow light. Here and
there in the fretted horizon, might be dimly discovered the diminished
sail, or the frail bark of the silent fisherman. All nature was
slumbering in deathlike solitude, while I alone was the rude string
whose vibrations jarred into discord the peaceful scene around me. In
the bitterness of wounded pride I solemnly resolved to conquer my
unrequited passion. I returned to Chalgrave, proud, stubborn and
unconquerable. I looked up to its dreary grandeur and my eye caught
the light form of Isa flitting athwart a window. My obstinacy vanished
like the mist of the morning, and I was again the creature of love,
hope, and imagination.
On the succeeding day she quitted Chalgrave. Her parting interview was
simple and affecting. A kiss for my mother--a tear for Lucy, and a
smile for me, were the little legacies her affections bequeathed. With
strained eye and intense interest, I watched the chariot which bore
her away, and when it had sunk into the forest, I turned off to
meditate on her virtues and dream on her beauty. My old nurse gently
touching me, placed in my hand a little packet which she said Miss Isa
had left for me. I tore off the envelope, and a golden locket fell at
my feet, on which was inscribed in faint though legible lines, "_Dinna
forget_." That momento is now on my heart--a holy relic of the wreck
of my happiness.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.