the pleasures of our early age, your griefs and my own, and every thing
that can for ever bind two unfortunate beings to each other, that if I
remain at home, I will live but for you; that if I go, I will one day
return to be yours. I call you all to witness;--you who have reared me
from my infancy, who dispose of my life, and who see my tears. I swear
by that Heaven which hears me, by the sea which I am going to pass, by
the air I breathe, and which I never sullied by a falsehood."
As the sun softens and precipitates an icy rock from the summit of
one of the Appenines, so the impetuous passions of the young man were
subdued by the voice of her he loved. He bent his head, and a torrent of
tears fell from his eyes. His mother, mingling her tears with his,
held him in her arms, but was unable to speak. Madame de la Tour, half
distracted, said to me, "I can bear this no longer. My heart is quite
broken. This unfortunate voyage shall not take place. Do take my son
home with you. Not one of us has had any rest the whole week."
I said to Paul, "My dear friend, your sister shall remain here.
To-morrow we will talk to the governor about it; leave your family to
take some rest, and come and pass the night with me. It is late; it is
midnight; the southern cross is just above the horizon."
He suffered himself to be led away in silence; and, after a night of
great agitation, he arose at break of day, and returned home.
But why should I continue any longer to you the recital of this history?
There is but one aspect of human pleasure. Like the globe upon which we
revolve, the fleeting course of life is but a day; and if one part of
that day be visited by light, the other is thrown into darkness.
"My father," I answered, "finish, I conjure you, the history which you
have begun in a manner so interesting. If the images of happiness are
the most pleasing, those of misfortune are the more instructive. Tell me
what became of the unhappy young man."
The first object beheld by Paul in his way home was the negro woman
Mary, who, mounted on a rock, was earnestly looking towards the sea. As
soon as he perceived her, he called to her from a distance,--"Where is
Virginia?" Mary turned her head towards her young master, and began to
weep. Paul, distracted, retracing his steps, ran to the harbour. He was
there informed, that Virginia had embarked at the break of day, and
that the vessel had immediately set sail, and was now out of sight. He
instantly returned to the plantation, which he crossed without uttering
a word.
Quite perpendicular as appears the wall of rocks behind us, those green
platforms which separate their summits are so many stages, by means of
which you may reach, through some difficult paths, that cone of sloping
and inaccessible rocks, which is called The Thumb. At the foot of that
cone is an extended slope of ground, covered with lofty trees, and so
steep and elevated that it looks like a forest in the air, surrounded by
tremendous precipices. The clouds, which are constantly attracted round
the summit of the Thumb, supply innumerable rivulets, which fall to so
great a depth in the valley situated on the other side of the mountain,
that from this elevated point the sound of their cataracts cannot be
heard. From that spot you can discern a considerable part of the island,
diversified by precipices and mountain peaks, and amongst others,
Peter-Booth, and the Three Breasts, with their valleys full of woods.
You also command an extensive view of the ocean, and can even perceive
the Isle of Bourbon, forty leagues to the westward. From the summit of
that stupendous pile of rocks Paul caught sight of the vessel which was
bearing away Virginia, and which now, ten leagues out at sea, appeared
like a black spot in the midst of the ocean. He remained a great part of
the day with his eyes fixed upon this object: when it had disappeared,
he still fancied he beheld it; and when, at length, the traces which
clung to his imagination were lost in the mists of the horizon, he
seated himself on that wild point, forever beaten by the winds, which
never cease to agitate the tops of the cabbage and gum trees, and the
hoarse and moaning murmurs of which, similar to the distant sound of
organs, inspire a profound melancholy. On this spot I found him, his
head reclined on the rock, and his eyes fixed upon the ground. I had
followed him from the earliest dawn, and, after much importunity, I
prevailed on him to descend from the heights, and return to his family.
I went home with him, where the first impulse of his mind, on seeing
Madame de la Tour, was to reproach her bitterly for having deceived him.
She told us that a favourable wind having sprung up at three o'clock in
the morning, and the vessel being ready to sail, the governor, attended
by some of his staff and the missionary, had come with a palanquin to
fetch her daughter; and that, notwithstanding Virginia's objections, her
own tears and entreaties, and the lamentations of Margaret, every body
exclaiming all the time that it was for the general welfare, they had
carried her away almost dying. "At least," cried Paul, "if I had bid
her farewell, I should now be more calm. I would have said to
her,--'Virginia, if, during the time we have lived together, one word
may have escaped me which has offended you, before you leave me forever,
tell me that you forgive me.' I would have said to her,--'Since I am
destined to see you no more, farewell, my dear Virginia, farewell! Live
far from me, contented and happy!'" When he saw that his mother and
Madame de la Tour were weeping,--"You must now," said he, "seek some
other hand to wipe away your tears;" and then, rushing out of the house,
and groaning aloud, he wandered up and down the plantation. He hovered
in particular about those spots which had been most endeared to
Virginia. He said to the goats, and their little ones, which followed
him, bleating,--"What do you want of me? You will see with me no more
her who used to feed you with her own hand." He went to the bower called
Virginia's Resting-place, and, as the birds flew around him, exclaimed,
"Poor birds! you will fly no more to meet her who cherished you!"--and
observing Fidele running backwards and forwards in search of her, he
heaved a deep sigh, and cried,--"Ah! you will never find her again."
At length he went and seated himself upon a rock where he had conversed
with her the preceding evening; and at the sight of the ocean upon which
he had seen the vessel disappear which had borne her away, his heart
overflowed with anguish, and he wept bitterly.
We continually watched his movements, apprehensive of some fatal
consequence from the violent agitation of his mind. His mother and
Madame de la Tour conjured him, in the most tender manner, not to
increase their affliction by his despair. At length the latter soothed
his mind by lavishing upon him epithets calculated to awaken his
hopes,--calling him her son, her dear son, her son-in-law, whom she
destined for her daughter. She persuaded him to return home, and to take
some food. He seated himself next to the place which used to be occupied
by the companion of his childhood; and, as if she had still been
present, he spoke to her, and made as though he would offer her whatever
he knew as most agreeable to her taste: then, starting from this
dream of fancy, he began to weep. For some days he employed himself in
gathering together every thing which had belonged to Virginia, the last
nosegays she had worn, the cocoa-shell from which she used to drink; and
after kissing a thousand times these relics of his beloved, to him the
most precious treasures which the world contained, he hid them in his
bosom. Amber does not shed so sweet a perfume as the veriest trifles
touched by those we love. At length, perceiving that the indulgence of
his grief increased that of his mother and Madame de la Tour, and that
the wants of the family demanded continual labour, he began, with the
assistance of Domingo, to repair the damage done to the garden.
But, soon after, this young man, hitherto indifferent as a Creole to
every thing that was passing in the world, begged of me to teach him
to read and write, in order that he might correspond with Virginia. He
afterwards wished to obtain a knowledge of geography, that he might form
some idea of the country where she would disembark; and of history, that
he might know something of the manners of the society in which she would
be placed. The powerful sentiment of love, which directed his present
studies, had already instructed him in agriculture, and in the art of
laying out grounds with advantage and beauty. It must be admitted, that
to the fond dreams of this restless and ardent passion, mankind are
indebted for most of the arts and sciences, while its disappointments
have given birth to philosophy, which teaches us to bear up under
misfortune. Love, thus, the general link of all beings, becomes the
great spring of society, by inciting us to knowledge as well as to
pleasure.
Paul found little satisfaction in the study of geography, which, instead
of describing the natural history of each country, gave only a view of
its political divisions and boundaries. History, and especially modern
history, interested him little more. He there saw only general and
periodical evils, the causes of which he could not discover; wars
without either motive or reason; uninteresting intrigues; with nations
destitute of principle, and princes void of humanity. To this branch
of reading he preferred romances, which, being chiefly occupied by the
feelings and concerns of men, sometimes represented situations similar
to his own. Thus, no book gave him so much pleasure as Telemachus, from
the pictures it draws of pastoral life, and of the passions which are
most natural to the human breast. He read aloud to his mother and Madame
de la Tour, those parts which affected him most sensibly; but sometimes,
touched by the most tender remembrances, his emotion would choke his
utterance, and his eyes be filled with tears. He fancied he had found
in Virginia the dignity and wisdom of Antiope, united to the misfortunes
and the tenderness of Eucharis. With very different sensations he
perused our fashionable novels, filled with licentious morals and
maxims, and when he was informed that these works drew a tolerably
faithful picture of European society, he trembled, and not without some
appearance of reason, lest Virginia should become corrupted by it, and
forget him.
More than a year and a half, indeed, passed away before Madame de la
Tour received any tidings of her aunt or her daughter. During that
period she only accidently heard that Virginia had safely arrived in
France. At length, however, a vessel which stopped here on its way to
the Indies brought a packet to Madame de la Tour, and a letter written
by Virginia's own hand. Although this amiable and considerate girl
had written in a guarded manner that she might not wound her mother's
feelings, it appeared evident enough that she was unhappy. The letter
painted so naturally her situation and her character, that I have
retained it almost word for word.
"MY DEAR AND BELOVED MOTHER,
"I have already sent you several letters, written by my own hand, but
having received no answer, I am afraid they have not reached you. I have
better hopes for this, from the means I have now gained of sending you
tidings of myself, and of hearing from you.
"I have shed many tears since our separation, I who never used to weep,
but for the misfortunes of others! My aunt was much astonished, when,
having, upon my arrival, inquired what accomplishments I possessed, I
told her that I could neither read nor write. She asked me what then I
had learnt, since I came into the world; and when I answered that I
had been taught to take care of the household affairs, and to obey your
will, she told me that I had received the education of a servant. The
next day she placed me as a boarder in a great abbey near Paris, where
I have masters of all kinds, who teach me, among other things, history,
geography, grammar, mathematics, and riding on horseback. But I have
so little capacity for all these sciences, that I fear I shall make but
small progress with my masters. I feel that I am a very poor creature,
with very little ability to learn what they teach. My aunt's kindness,
however, does not decrease. She gives me new dresses every season; and
she had placed two waiting women with me, who are dressed like fine
ladies. She has made me take the title of countess; but has obliged me
to renounce the name of LA TOUR, which is as dear to me as it is to you,
from all you have told me of the sufferings my father endured in order
to marry you. She has given me in place of your name that of your
family, which is also dear to me, because it was your name when a girl.
Seeing myself in so splendid a situation, I implored her to let me send
you something to assist you. But how shall I repeat her answer! Yet you
have desired me always to tell you the truth. She told me then that
a little would be of no use to you, and that a great deal would only
encumber you in the simple life you led. As you know I could not write,
I endeavoured upon my arrival, to send you tidings of myself by another
hand; but, finding no person here in whom I could place confidence, I
applied night and day to learn to read and write, and Heaven, who saw my
motive for learning, no doubt assisted my endeavours, for I succeeded in
both in a short time. I entrusted my first letters to some of the ladies
here, who, I have reason to think, carried them to my aunt. This time I
have recourse to a boarder, who is my friend. I send you her direction,
by means of which I shall receive your answer. My aunt has forbid me
holding any correspondence whatever, with any one, lest, she says, it
should occasion an obstacle to the great views she has for my advantage.
No person is allowed to see me at the grate but herself, and an old
nobleman, one of her friends, who, she says is much pleased with me.
I am sure I am not at all so with him, nor should I, even if it were
possible for me to be pleased with any one at present.
"I live in all the splendour of affluence, and have not a sous at
my disposal. They say I might make an improper use of money. Even my
clothes belong to my femmes de chambre, who quarrel about them before I
have left them off. In the midst of riches I am poorer than when I lived
with you; for I have nothing to give away. When I found that the great
accomplishments they taught me would not procure me the power of doing
the smallest good, I had recourse to my needle, of which happily you had
taught me the use. I send several pairs of stockings of my own making
for you and my mamma Margaret, a cap for Domingo, and one of my red
handkerchiefs for Mary. I also send with this packet some kernels, and
seeds of various kinds of fruits which I gathered in the abbey park
during my hours of recreation. I have also sent a few seeds of violets,
daisies, buttercups, poppies and scabious, which I picked up in the
fields. There are much more beautiful flowers in the meadows of this
country than in ours, but nobody cares for them. I am sure that you and
my mamma Margaret will be better pleased with this bag of seeds, than
you were with the bag of piastres, which was the cause of our separation
and of my tears. It will give me great delight if you should one day
see apple trees growing by the side of our plantains, and elms blending
their foliage with that of our cocoa trees. You will fancy yourself in
Normandy, which you love so much.
"You desired me to relate to you my joys and my griefs. I have no
joys far from you. As far as my griefs, I endeavour to soothe them by
reflecting that I am in the situation in which it was the will of God
that you should place me. But my greatest affliction is, that no one
here speaks to me of you, and that I cannot speak of you to any one. My
femmes de chambre, or rather those of my aunt, for they belong more
to her than to me, told me the other day, when I wished to turn the
conversation upon the objects most dear to me: 'Remember, mademoiselle,
that you are a French woman, and must forget that land of savages.' Ah!
sooner will I forget myself, than forget the spot on which I was
born and where you dwell! It is this country which is to me a land of
savages, for I live alone, having no one to whom I can impart those
feelings of tenderness for you which I shall bear with me to the grave.
I am,
"My dearest and beloved mother,
"Your affectionate and dutiful daughter,
"VIRGINIE DE LA TOUR."
"I recommend to your goodness Mary and Domingo, who took so much care of
my infancy; caress Fidele for me, who found me in the wood."
Paul was astonished that Virginia had not said one word of him,--she,
who had not forgotten even the house-dog. But he was not aware that,
however long a woman's letter may be, she never fails to leave her
dearest sentiments for the end.
In a postscript, Virginia particularly recommended to Paul's attention
two kinds of seed,--those of the violet and the scabious. She gave him
some instructions upon the natural characters of these flowers, and
the spots most proper for their cultivation. "The violet," she said,
"produces a little flower of a dark purple colour, which delights to
conceal itself beneath the bushes; but it is soon discovered by its
wide-spreading perfume." She desired that these seeds might be sown
by the border of the fountain, at the foot of her cocoa-tree. "The
scabious," she added, "produces a beautiful flower of a pale blue, and a
black ground spotted with white. You might fancy it was in mourning; and
for this reason it is also called the widow's flower. It grows best in
bleak spots, beaten by the winds." She begged him to sow this upon the
rock where she had spoken to him at night for the last time, and that,
in remembrance of her, he would henceforth give it the name of the Rock
of Adieus.
She had put these seeds into a little purse, the tissue of which was
exceedingly simple; but which appeared above all price to Paul, when
he saw on it a P and a V entwined together, and knew that the beautiful
hair which formed the cypher was the hair of Virginia.
The whole family listened with tears to the reading of the letter of
this amiable and virtuous girl. Her mother answered it in the name of
the little society, desiring her to remain or to return as she thought
proper; and assuring her, that happiness had left their dwelling since
her departure, and that, for herself, she was inconsolable.
Paul also sent her a very long letter, in which he assured her that he
would arrange the garden in a manner agreeable to her taste, and mingle
together in it the plants of Europe with those of Africa, as she had
blended their initials together in her work. He sent her some fruit from
the cocoa-trees of the fountain, now arrived at maturity telling her,
that he would not add any of the other productions of the island, that
the desire of seeing them again might hasten her return. He conjured her
to comply as soon as possible with the ardent wishes of her family, and
above all, with his own, since he could never hereafter taste happiness
away from her.
Paul sowed with a careful hand the European seeds, particularly the
violet and the scabious, the flowers of which seemed to bear some
analogy to the character and present situation of Virginia, by whom they
had been so especially recommended; but either they were dried up in
the voyage, or the climate of this part of the world is unfavourable to
their growth, for a very small number of them even came up, and not one
arrived at full perfection.
In the meantime, envy, which ever comes to embitter human happiness,
particularly in the French colonies, spread some reports in the island
which gave Paul much uneasiness. The passengers in the vessel which
brought Virginia's letter, asserted that she was upon the point of being
married, and named the nobleman of the court to whom she was engaged.
Some even went so far as to declare that the union had already taken
place, and that they themselves had witnessed the ceremony. Paul at
first despised the report, brought by a merchant vessel, as he knew that
they often spread erroneous intelligence in their passage; but some of
the inhabitants of the island, with malignant pity, affecting to bewail
the event, he was soon led to attach some degree of belief to this cruel
intelligence. Besides, in some of the novels he had lately read, he had
seen that perfidy was treated as a subject of pleasantry; and knowing
that these books contained pretty faithful representations of European
manners, he feared that the heart of Virginia was corrupted, and had
forgotten its former engagements. Thus his new acquirements had already
only served to render him more miserable; and his apprehensions were
much increased by the circumstance, that though several ships touched
here from Europe, within the six months immediately following the
arrival of her letter, not one of them brought any tidings of Virginia.
This unfortunate young man, with a heart torn by the most cruel
agitation, often came to visit me, in the hope of confirming or
banishing his uneasiness, by my experience of the world.
I live, as I have already told you, a league and a half from this
point, upon the banks of a little river which glides along the Sloping
Mountain: there I lead a solitary life, without wife, children, or
slaves.
After having enjoyed, and lost the rare felicity of living with a
congenial mind, the state of life which appears the least wretched is
doubtless that of solitude. Every man who has much cause of complaint
against his fellow-creatures seeks to be alone. It is also remarkable
that all those nations which have been brought to wretchedness by their
opinions, their manners, or their forms of government, have produced
numerous classes of citizens altogether devoted to solitude and
celibacy. Such were the Egyptians in their decline, and the Greeks of
the Lower Empire; and such in our days are the Indians, the Chinese,
the modern Greeks, the Italians, and the greater part of the eastern and
southern nations of Europe. Solitude, by removing men from the miseries
which follow in the train of social intercourse, brings them in some
degree back to the unsophisticated enjoyment of nature. In the midst of
modern society, broken up by innumerable prejudices, the mind is in a
constant turmoil of agitation. It is incessantly revolving in itself a
thousand tumultuous and contradictory opinions, by which the members of
an ambitious and miserable circle seek to raise themselves above each
other. But in solitude the soul lays aside the morbid illusions which
troubled her, and resumes the pure consciousness of herself, of nature,
and of its Author, as the muddy water of a torrent which has ravaged the
plains, coming to rest, and diffusing itself over some low grounds out
of its course, deposits there the slime it has taken up, and, resuming
its wonted transparency, reflects, with its own shores, the verdure of
the earth and the light of heaven. Thus does solitude recruit the powers
of the body as well as those of the mind. It is among hermits that are
found the men who carry human existence to its extreme limits; such
are the Bramins of India. In brief, I consider solitude so necessary to
happiness, even in the world itself, that it appears to me impossible
to derive lasting pleasure from any pursuit whatever, or to regulate
our conduct by any pursuit whatever, or to regulate our conduct by
any stable principle, if we do not create for ourselves a mental void,
whence our own views rarely emerge, and into which the opinions
of others never enter. I do not mean to say that man ought to live
absolutely alone; he is connected by his necessities with all mankind;
his labours are due to man: and he owes something too to the rest of
nature. But, as God has given to each of us organs perfectly adapted to
the elements of the globe on which we live,--feet for the soil, lungs
for the air, eyes for the light, without the power of changing the use
of any of these faculties, he has reserved for himself, as the Author of
life, that which is its chief organ,--the heart.
I thus passed my days far from mankind, whom I wished to serve, and by
whom I have been persecuted. After having travelled over many countries
of Europe, and some parts of America and Africa, I at length pitched my
tent in this thinly-peopled island, allured by its mild climate and its
solitudes. A cottage which I built in the woods, at the foot of a tree,
a little field which I cleared with my own hands, a river which glides
before my door, suffice for my wants and for my pleasures. I blend with
these enjoyments the perusal of some chosen books, which teach me to
become better. They make that world, which I have abandoned, still
contribute something to my happiness. They lay before me pictures of
those passions which render its inhabitants so miserable; and in the
comparison I am thus led to make between their lot and my own, I feel a
kind of negative enjoyment. Like a man saved from shipwreck, and thrown
upon a rock, I contemplate, from my solitude, the storms which rage
through the rest of the world; and my repose seems more profound from
the distant sound of the tempest. As men have ceased to fall in my way,
I no longer view them with aversion; I only pity them. If I sometimes
fall in with an unfortunate being, I try to help him by my counsels, as
a passer-by on the brink of a torrent extends his hand to save a
wretch from drowning. But I have hardly ever found any but the innocent
attentive to my voice. Nature calls the majority of men to her in vain.
Each of them forms an image of her for himself, and invests her with his
own passions. He pursues during the whole of his life this vain phantom,
which leads him astray; and he afterwards complains to Heaven of the
misfortunes which he has thus created for himself. Among the many
children of misfortune whom I have endeavoured to lead back to the
enjoyments of nature, I have not found one but was intoxicated with his
own miseries. They have listened to me at first with attention, in the
hope that I could teach them how to acquire glory or fortune, but when
they found that I only wished to instruct them how to dispense with
these chimeras, their attention has been converted into pity, because I
did not prize their miserable happiness. They blamed my solitary life;
they alleged that they alone were useful to men, and they endeavoured to
draw me into their vortex. But if I communicate with all, I lay myself
open to none. It is often sufficient for me to serve as a lesson to
myself. In my present tranquillity, I pass in review the agitating
pursuits of my past life, to which I formerly attached so much
value,--patronage, fortune, reputation, pleasure, and the opinions which
are ever at strife over all the earth. I compare the men whom I have
seen disputing furiously over these vanities, and who are no more, to
the tiny waves of my rivulet, which break in foam against its rocky
bed, and disappear, never to return. As for me, I suffer myself to
float calmly down the stream of time to the shoreless ocean of futurity;
while, in the contemplation of the present harmony of nature, I elevate
my soul towards its supreme Author, and hope for a more happy lot in
another state of existence.
Although you cannot descry from my hermitage, situated in the midst of
a forest, that immense variety of objects which this elevated spot
presents, the grounds are disposed with peculiar beauty, at least to
one who, like me, prefers the seclusion of a home scene to great and
extensive prospects. The river which glides before my door passes in a
straight line across the woods, looking like a long canal shaded by all
kinds of trees. Among them are the gum tree, the ebony tree, and that
which is here called bois de pomme, with olive and cinnamon-wood trees;
while in some parts the cabbage-palm trees raise their naked stems
more than a hundred feet high, their summits crowned with a cluster of
leaves, and towering above the woods like one forest piled upon another.
Lianas, of various foliage, intertwining themselves among the trees,
form, here, arcades of foliage, there, long canopies of verdure. Most
of these trees shed aromatic odours so powerful, that the garments of a
traveller, who has passed through the forest, often retain for hours the
most delicious fragrance. In the season when they produce their lavish
blossoms, they appear as if half-covered with snow. Towards the end
of summer, various kinds of foreign birds hasten, impelled by some
inexplicable instinct, from unknown regions on the other side of immense
oceans, to feed upon the grain and other vegetable productions of the
island; and the brilliancy of their plumage forms a striking contrast to
the more sombre tints of the foliage embrowned by the sun. Among these
are various kinds of parroquets, and the blue pigeon, called here the
pigeon of Holland. Monkeys, the domestic inhabitants of our forests,
sport upon the dark branches of the trees, from which they are easily
distinguished by their gray and greenish skin, and their black visages.
Some hang, suspended by the tail, and swing themselves in air; others
leap from branch to branch, bearing their young in their arms. The
murderous gun has never affrighted these peaceful children of nature.
You hear nothing but sounds of joy,--the warblings and unknown notes of
birds from the countries of the south, repeated from a distance by the
echoes of the forest. The river, which pours, in foaming eddies, over
a bed of rocks, through the midst of the woods, reflects here and there
upon its limpid waters their venerable masses of verdure and of shade,
along with the sports of their happy inhabitants. About a thousand paces
from thence it forms several cascades, clear as crystal in their fall,
but broken at the bottom into frothy surges. Innumerable confused sounds
issue from these watery tumults, which, borne by the winds across the
forest, now sink in distance, now all at once swell out, booming on the
ear like the bells of a cathedral. The air, kept ever in motion by
the running water, preserves upon the banks of the river, amid all the
summer heats, a freshness and verdure rarely found in this island, even
on the summits of the mountains.
At some distance from this place is a rock, placed far enough from the
cascade to prevent the ear from being deafened with the noise of its
waters, and sufficiently near for the enjoyment of seeing it, of feeling
its coolness, and hearing its gentle murmurs. Thither, amidst the heats
of summer, Madame de la Tour, Margaret, Virginia, Paul, and myself,
sometimes repaired, to dine beneath the shadow of this rock. Virginia,
who always, in her most ordinary actions, was mindful of the good of
others, never ate of any fruit in the fields without planting the seed
or kernel in the ground. "From this," said she, "trees will come, which
will yield their fruit to some traveller, or at least to some bird."
One day, having eaten of the papaw fruit at the foot of that rock, she
planted the seeds on the spot. Soon after, several papaw trees sprang
up, among which was one with female blossoms, that is to say, a
fruit-bearing tree. This tree, at the time of Virginia's departure, was
scarcely as high as her knee; but, as it is a plant of rapid growth, in
the course of two years it had gained the height of twenty feet, and
the upper part of its stem was encircled by several rows of ripe fruit.
Paul, wandering accidentally to the spot, was struck with delight at
seeing this lofty tree, which had been planted by his beloved; but the
emotion was transient, and instantly gave place to a deep melancholy,
at this evidence of her long absence. The objects which are habitually
before us do not bring to our minds an adequate idea of the rapidity of
life; they decline insensibly with ourselves: but it is those we behold
again, that most powerfully impress us with a feeling of the swiftness
with which the tide of life flows on. Paul was no less over-whelmed and
affected at the sight of this great papaw tree, loaded with fruit, than
is the traveller when, after a long absence from his own country, he
finds his contemporaries no more, but their children, whom he left at
the breast, themselves now become fathers of families. Paul sometimes
thought of cutting down the tree, which recalled too sensibly the
distracting remembrance of Virginia's prolonged absence. At other times,
contemplating it as a monument of her benevolence, he kissed its trunk,
and apostrophized it in terms of the most passionate regret. Indeed,
I have myself gazed upon it with more emotion and more veneration than
upon the triumphal arches of Rome. May nature, which every day destroys
the monuments of kingly ambition, multiply in our forests those which
testify the beneficence of a poor young girl!
At the foot of this papaw tree I was always sure to meet with Paul when
he came into our neighbourhood. One day, I found him there absorbed in
melancholy and a conversation took place between us, which I will relate
to you, if I do not weary you too much by my long digressions; they are
perhaps pardonable to my age and to my last friendships. I will relate
it to you in the form of a dialogue, that you may form some idea of the
natural good sense of this young man. You will easily distinguish the
speakers, from the character of his questions and of my answers.
_Paul._--I am very unhappy. Mademoiselle de la Tour has now been gone
two years and eight months and a half. She is rich, and I am poor;
she has forgotten me. I have a great mind to follow her. I will go
to France; I will serve the king; I will make my fortune; and then
Mademoiselle de la Tour's aunt will bestow her niece upon me when I
shall have become a great lord.
_The Old Man._--But, my dear friend, have not you told me that you are
not of noble birth?
_Paul._--My mother has told me so; but, as for myself, I know not what
noble birth means. I never perceived that I had less than others, or
that others had more than I.
_The Old Man._--Obscure birth, in France, shuts every door of access to
great employments; nor can you even be received among any distinguished
body of men, if you labour under this disadvantage.
_Paul._--You have often told me that it was one source of the greatness
of France that her humblest subject might attain the highest honours;
and you have cited to me many instances of celebrated men who, born in
a mean condition, had conferred honour upon their country. It was your
wish, then, by concealing the truth to stimulate my ardour?
_The Old Man._--Never, my son, would I lower it. I told you the truth
with regard to the past; but now, every thing has undergone a great
change. Every thing in France is now to be obtained by interest alone;
every place and employment is now become as it were the patrimony of a
small number of families, or is divided among public bodies. The king
is a sun, and the nobles and great corporate bodies surround him like so
many clouds; it is almost impossible for any of his rays to reach you.
Formerly, under less exclusive administrations, such phenomena have been
seen. Then talents and merit showed themselves every where, as newly
cleared lands are always loaded with abundance. But great kings, who can
really form a just estimate of men, and choose them with judgment, are
rare. The ordinary race of monarchs allow themselves to be guided by the
nobles and people who surround them.
_Paul._--But perhaps I shall find one of these nobles to protect me.
_The Old Man._--To gain the protection of the great you must lend
yourself to their ambition, and administer to their pleasures. You would
never succeed; for, in addition to your obscure birth, you have too much
integrity.
_Paul._--But I will perform such courageous actions, I will be so
faithful to my word, so exact in the performance of my duties, so
zealous and so constant in my friendships, that I will render myself
worthy to be adopted by some one of them. In the ancient histories, you
have made me read, I have seen many examples of such adoptions.
_The Old Man._--Oh, my young friend! among the Greeks and Romans, even
in their decline, the nobles had some respect for virtue; but out of
all the immense number of men, sprung from the mass of the people, in
France, who have signalized themselves in every possible manner, I
do not recollect a single instance of one being adopted by any great
family. If it were not for our kings, virtue, in our country, would
be eternally condemned as plebeian. As I said before, the monarch
sometimes, when he perceives it, renders to it due honour; but in the
present day, the distinctions which should be bestowed on merit are
generally to be obtained by money alone.
_Paul._--If I cannot find a nobleman to adopt me, I will seek to please
some public body. I will espouse its interests and its opinions: I will
make myself beloved by it.
_The Old Man._--You will act then like other men?--you will renounce
your conscience to obtain a fortune?
_Paul._--Oh no! I will never lend myself to any thing but the truth.
_The Old Man._--Instead of making yourself beloved, you would become an
object of dislike. Besides, public bodies have never taken much interest
in the discovery of truth. All opinions are nearly alike to ambitious
men, provided only that they themselves can gain their ends.
_Paul._--How unfortunate I am! Every thing bars my progress. I am
condemned to pass my life in ignoble toil, far from Virginia.
As he said this he sighed deeply.
_The Old Man._--Let God be your patron, and mankind the public body
you would serve. Be constantly attached to them both. Families,
corporations, nations and kings have, all of them, their prejudices and
their passions; it is often necessary to serve them by the practice of
vice: God and mankind at large require only the exercise of the virtues.
But why do you wish to be distinguished from other men? It is hardly a
natural sentiment, for, if all men possessed it, every one would be at
constant strife with his neighbour. Be satisfied with fulfilling your
duty in the station in which Providence has placed you; be grateful for
your lot, which permits you to enjoy the blessing of a quiet conscience,
and which does not compel you, like the great, to let your happiness
rest on the opinion of the little, or, like the little, to cringe to the
great, in order to obtain the means of existence. You are now placed
in a country and a condition in which you are not reduced to deceive or
flatter any one, or debase yourself, as the greater part of those who
seek their fortune in Europe are obliged to do; in which the exercise
of no virtue is forbidden you; in which you may be, with impunity, good,
sincere, well-informed, patient, temperate, chaste, indulgent to others'
faults, pious and no shaft of ridicule be aimed at you to destroy your
wisdom, as yet only in its bud. Heaven has given you liberty, health, a
good conscience, and friends; kings themselves, whose favour you desire,
are not so happy.
_Paul._--Ah! I only want to have Virginia with me: without her I have
nothing,--with her, I should possess all my desire. She alone is to me
birth, glory, and fortune. But, since her relations will only give her
to some one with a great name, I will study. By the aid of study and of
books, learning and celebrity are to be attained. I will become a man of
science: I will render my knowledge useful to the service of my country,
without injuring any one, or owning dependence on any one. I will become
celebrated, and my glory shall be achieved only by myself.
_The Old Man._--My son, talents are a gift yet more rare than either
birth or riches, and undoubtedly they are a greater good than either,
since they can never be taken away from us, and that they obtain for
us every where public esteem. But they may be said to be worth all
that they cost us. They are seldom acquired but by every species of
privation, by the possession of exquisite sensibility, which often
produces inward unhappiness, and which exposes us without to the malice
and persecutions of our contemporaries. The lawyer envies not, in
France, the glory of the soldier, nor does the soldier envy that of the
naval officer; but they will all oppose you, and bar your progress to
distinction, because your assumption of superior ability will wound
the self-love of them all. You say that you will do good to men; but
recollect, that he who makes the earth produce a single ear of corn
more, renders them a greater service than he who writes a book.
_Paul._--Oh! she, then, who planted this papaw tree, has made a more
useful and more grateful present to the inhabitants of these forests
than if she had given them a whole library.
So saying, he threw his arms around the tree, and kissed it with
transport.
_The Old Man._--The best of books,--that which preaches nothing but
equality, brotherly love, charity, and peace,--the Gospel, has served as
a pretext, during many centuries, for Europeans to let loose all their
fury. How many tyrannies, both public and private, are still practised
in its name on the face of the earth! After this, who will dare to
flatter himself that any thing he can write will be of service to his
fellow men? Remember the fate of most of the philosophers who have
preached to them wisdom. Homer, who clothes it in such noble verse,
asked for alms all his life. Socrates, whose conversation and example
gave such admirable lessons to the Athenians, was sentenced by them to
be poisoned. His sublime disciple, Plato was delivered over to slavery
by the order of the very prince who protected him; and, before them,
Pythagoras, whose humanity extended even to animals, was burned alive
by the Crotoniates. What do I say?--many even of these illustrious names
have descended to us disfigured by some traits of satire by which
they became characterized, human ingratitude taking pleasure in thus
recognising them; and if, in the crowd, the glory of some names is come
down to us without spot or blemish, we shall find that they who have
borne them have lived far from the society of their contemporaries;
like those statues which are found entire beneath the soil in Greece
and Italy, and which, by being hidden in the bosom of the earth, have
escaped uninjured, from the fury of the barbarians.
You see, then, that to acquire the glory which a turbulent literary
career can give you, you must not only be virtuous, but ready, if
necessary, to sacrifice life itself. But, after all, do not fancy that
the great in France trouble themselves about such glory as this. Little
do they care for literary men, whose knowledge brings them neither
honours, nor power, nor even admission at court. Persecution, it
is true, is rarely practised in this age, because it is habitually
indifferent to every thing except wealth and luxury; but knowledge and
virtue no longer lead to distinction, since every thing in the state
is to be purchased with money. Formerly, men of letters were certain
of reward by some place in the church, the magistracy, or the
administration; now they are considered good for nothing but to write
books. But this fruit of their minds, little valued by the world at
large, is still worthy of its celestial origin. For these books
is reserved the privilege of shedding lustre on obscure virtue, of
consoling the unhappy, of enlightening nations, and of telling the truth
even to kings. This is, unquestionably, the most august commission with
which Heaven can honour a mortal upon this earth. Where is the author
who would not be consoled for the injustice or contempt of those who are
the dispensers of the ordinary gifts of fortune, when he reflects that
his work may pass from age to age, from nation to nation, opposing a
barrier to error and to tyranny; and that, from amidst the obscurity
in which he has lived, there will shine forth a glory which will efface
that of the common herd of monarchs, the monuments of whose deeds perish
in oblivion, notwithstanding the flatterers who erect and magnify them?
_Paul._--Ah! I am only covetous of glory to bestow it on Virginia, and
render her dear to the whole world. But can you, who know so much, tell
me whether we shall ever be married? I should like to be a very learned
man, if only for the sake of knowing what will come to pass.
_The Old Man._--Who would live, my son, if the future were revealed
to him?--when a single anticipated misfortune gives us so much useless
uneasiness--when the foreknowledge of one certain calamity is enough
to embitter every day that precedes it! It is better not to pry too
curiously, even into the things which surround us. Heaven, which has
given us the power of reflection to foresee our necessities, gave us
also those very necessities to set limits to its exercise.
_Paul._--You tell me that with money people in Europe acquire dignities
and honours. I will go, then, to enrich myself in Bengal, and afterwards
proceed to Paris, and marry Virginia. I will embark at once.
_The Old Man._--What! would you leave her mother and yours?
_Paul._--Why, you yourself have advised my going to the Indies.
_The Old Man._--Virginia was then here; but you are now the only means
of support both of her mother and of your own.
_Paul._--Virginia will assist them by means of her rich relation.
_The Old Man._--The rich care little for those, from whom no honour is
reflected upon themselves in the world. Many of them have relations
much more to be pitied than Madame de la Tour, who, for want of their
assistance, sacrifice their liberty for bread, and pass their lives
immured within the walls of a convent.
_Paul._--Oh, what a country is Europe! Virginia must come back here.
What need has she of a rich relation? She was so happy in these huts;
she looked so beautiful and so well dressed with a red handkerchief or
a few flowers around her head! Return, Virginia! leave your sumptuous
mansions and your grandeur, and come back to these rocks,--to the shade
of these woods and of our cocoa trees. Alas! you are perhaps even now
unhappy!"--and he began to shed tears. "My father," continued he, "hide
nothing from me; if you cannot tell me whether I shall marry Virginia,
tell me at least if she loves me still, surrounded as she is by noblemen
who speak to the king, and who go to see her."
_The Old Man._--Oh, my dear friend! I am sure, for many reasons, that
she loves you; but above all, because she is virtuous. At these words he
threw himself on my neck in a transport of joy.
_Paul._--But do you think that the women of Europe are false, as they
are represented in the comedies and books which you have lent me?
_The Old Man._--Women are false in those countries where men are
tyrants. Violence always engenders a disposition to deceive.
_Paul._--In what way can men tyrannize over women?
_The Old Man._--In giving them in marriage without consulting their
inclinations;--in uniting a young girl to an old man, or a woman of
sensibility to a frigid and indifferent husband.
_Paul._--Why not join together those who are suited to each other,--the
young to the young, and lovers to those they love?
_The Old Man._--Because few young men in France have property enough
to support them when they are married, and cannot acquire it till the
greater part of their life is passed. While young, they seduce the wives
of others, and when they are old, they cannot secure the affections of
their own. At first, they themselves are deceivers: and afterwards, they
are deceived in their turn. This is one of the reactions of that eternal
justice, by which the world is governed; an excess on one side is sure
to be balanced by one on the other. Thus, the greater part of Europeans
pass their lives in this twofold irregularity, which increases
everywhere in the same proportion that wealth is accumulated in the
hands of a few individuals. Society is like a garden, where shrubs
cannot grow if they are overshadowed by lofty trees; but there is this
wide difference between them,--that the beauty of a garden may result
from the admixture of a small number of forest trees, while the
prosperity of a state depends on the multitude and equality of its
citizens, and not on a small number of very rich men.
_Paul._--But where is the necessity of being rich in order to marry?
_The Old Man._--In order to pass through life in abundance, without
being obliged to work.
_Paul._--But why not work? I am sure I work hard enough.
_The Old Man._--In Europe, working with your hands is considered a
degradation; it is compared to the labour performed by a machine. The
occupation of cultivating the earth is the most despised of all. Even an
artisan is held in more estimation than a peasant.
_Paul._--What! do you mean to say that the art which furnishes food for
mankind is despised in Europe? I hardly understand you.
_The Old Man._--Oh! it is impossible for a person educated according to
nature to form an idea of the depraved state of society. It is easy to
form a precise notion of order, but not of disorder. Beauty, virtue,
happiness, have all their defined proportions; deformity, vice, and
misery have none.
_Paul._--The rich then are always very happy! They meet with no
obstacles to the fulfilment of their wishes, and they can lavish
happiness on those whom they love.
_The Old Man._--Far from it, my son! They are, for the most part
satiated with pleasure, for this very reason,--that it costs them no
trouble. Have you never yourself experienced how much the pleasure of
repose is increased by fatigue; that of eating, by hunger; or that of
drinking, by thirst? The pleasure also of loving and being loved is
only to be acquired by innumerable privations and sacrifices. Wealth, by
anticipating all their necessities, deprives its possessors of all these
pleasures. To this ennui, consequent upon satiety, may also be added
the pride which springs from their opulence, and which is wounded by
the most trifling privation, when the greatest enjoyments have ceased to
charm. The perfume of a thousand roses gives pleasure but for a moment;
but the pain occasioned by a single thorn endures long after the
infliction of the wound. A single evil in the midst of their pleasures
is to the rich like a thorn among flowers; to the poor, on the contrary,
one pleasure amidst all their troubles is a flower among a wilderness
of thorns; they have a most lively enjoyment of it. The effect of every
thing is increased by contrast; nature has balanced all things. Which
condition, after all, do you consider preferable,--to have scarcely any
thing to hope, and every thing to fear, or to have every thing to hope
and nothing to fear? The former condition is that of the rich,
the latter, that of the poor. But either of these extremes is with
difficulty supported by man, whose happiness consists in a middle
station of life, in union with virtue.
_Paul._--What do you understand by virtue?
_The Old Man._--To you, my son, who support your family by your labour,
it need hardly be defined. Virtue consists in endeavouring to do all the
good we can to others, with an ultimate intention of pleasing God alone.
_Paul._--Oh! how virtuous, then, is Virginia! Virtue led her to seek for
riches, that she might practise benevolence. Virtue induced her to quit
this island, and virtue will bring her back to it.
The idea of her speedy return firing the imagination of this young man,
all his anxieties suddenly vanished. Virginia, he was persuaded, had not
written, because she would soon arrive. It took so little time to come
from Europe with a fair wind! Then he enumerated the vessels which had
made this passage of four thousand five hundred leagues in less than
three months; and perhaps the vessel in which Virginia had embarked
might not be more than two. Ship-builders were now so ingenious, and
sailors were so expert! He then talked to me of the arrangements he
intended to make for her reception, of the new house he would build for
her, and of the pleasures and surprises which he would contrive for her
every day, when she was his wife. His wife! The idea filled him with
ecstasy. "At least, my dear father," said he, "you shall then do no more
work than you please. As Virginia will be rich, we shall have plenty of
negroes, and they shall work for you. You shall always live with us, and
have no other care than to amuse yourself and be happy;"--and, his heart
throbbing with joy, he flew to communicate these exquisite anticipations
to his family.
In a short time, however, these enchanting hopes were succeeded by the
most cruel apprehensions. It is always the effect of violent passions to
throw the soul into opposite extremes. Paul returned the next day to my
dwelling, overwhelmed with melancholy, and said to me,--"I hear nothing
from Virginia. Had she left Europe she would have written me word of her
departure. Ah! the reports which I have heard concerning her are but
too well founded. Her aunt has married her to some great lord. She,
like others, has been undone by the love of riches. In those books which
paint women so well, virtue is treated but as a subject of romance. If
Virginia had been virtuous, she would never have forsaken her mother
and me. I do nothing but think of her, and she has forgotten me. I am
wretched, and she is diverting herself. The thought distracts me; I
cannot bear myself! Would to Heaven that war were declared in India! I
would go there and die."
"My son," I answered, "that courage which prompts us to court death is
but the courage of a moment, and is often excited by the vain applause
of men, or by the hopes of posthumous renown. There is another
description of courage, rarer and more necessary, which enables us to
support, without witness and without applause, the vexations of life;
this virtue is patience. Relying for support, not upon the opinions
of others, or the impulse of the passions, but upon the will of God,
patience is the courage of virtue."
"Ah!" cried he, "I am then without virtue! Every thing overwhelms me
and drives me to despair."--"Equal, constant, and invariable virtue,"
I replied, "belongs not to man. In the midst of the many passions which
agitate us, our reason is disordered and obscured: but there is an
everburning lamp, at which we can rekindle its flame; and that is,
literature.
"Literature, my dear son, is the gift of Heaven, a ray of that wisdom by
which the universe is governed, and which man, inspired by a celestial
intelligence, has drawn down to earth. Like the rays of the sun, it
enlightens us, it rejoices us, it warms us with a heavenly flame, and
seems, in some sort, like the element of fire, to bend all nature to
our use. By its means we are enabled to bring around us all things, all
places, all men, and all times. It assists us to regulate our manners
and our life. By its aid, too, our passions are calmed, vice is
suppressed, and virtue encouraged by the memorable examples of great and
good men which it has handed down to us, and whose time-honoured images
it ever brings before our eyes. Literature is a daughter of Heaven who
has descended upon earth to soften and to charm away all the evils of
the human race. The greatest writers have ever appeared in the worst
times,--in times in which society can hardly be held together,--the
times of barbarism and every species of depravity. My son, literature
has consoled an infinite number of men more unhappy than yourself:
Xenophon, banished from his country after having saved to her ten
thousand of her sons; Scipio Africanus, wearied to death by the
calumnies of the Romans; Lucullus, tormented by their cabals; and
Catinat, by the ingratitude of a court. The Greeks, with their
never-failing ingenuity, assigned to each of the Muses a portion of the
great circle of human intelligence for her especial superintendence;
we ought in the same manner, to give up to them the regulation of our
passions, to bring them under proper restraint. Literature in this
imaginative guise, would thus fulfil, in relation to the powers of
the soul, the same functions as the Hours, who yoked and conducted the
chariot of the Sun.
"Have recourse to your books, then, my son. The wise who have written
before our days are travellers who have preceded us in the paths of
misfortune, and who stretch out a friendly hand towards us, and invite
us to join in their society, when we are abandoned by every thing else.
A good book is a good friend."
"Ah!" cried Paul, "I stood in no need of books when Virginia was here,
and she had studied as little as myself; but when she looked at me, and
called me her friend, I could not feel unhappy."
"Undoubtedly," said I, "there is no friend so agreeable as a mistress
by whom we are beloved. There is, moreover, in woman a liveliness and
gaiety, which powerfully tend to dissipate the melancholy feelings of a
man; her presence drives away the dark phantoms of imagination produced
by over-reflection. Upon her countenance sit soft attraction and tender
confidence. What joy is not heightened when it is shared by her? What
brow is not unbent by her smiles? What anger can resist her tears?
Virginia will return with more philosophy than you, and will be quite
surprised to find the garden so unfinished;--she who could think of its
embellishments in spite of all the persecutions of her aunt, and when
far from her mother and from you."
The idea of Virginia's speedy return reanimated the drooping spirits of
her lover, and he resumed his rural occupations, happy amidst his toils,
in the reflection that they would soon find a termination so dear to the
wishes of his heart.
One morning, at break of day, (it was the 24th of December, 1744,)
Paul, when he arose, perceived a white flag hoisted upon the Mountain
of Discovery. This flag he knew to be the signal of a vessel descried at
sea. He instantly flew to the town to learn if this vessel brought any
tidings of Virginia, and waited there till the return of the pilot,
who was gone, according to custom, to board the ship. The pilot did not
return till the evening, when he brought the governor information that
the signalled vessel was the Saint-Geran, of seven hundred tons burthen,
and commanded by a captain of the name of Aubin; that she was now
four leagues out at sea, but would probably anchor at Port Louis the
following afternoon, if the wind became fair: at present there was a
calm. The pilot then handed to the governor a number of letters which
the Saint-Geran had brought from France, among which was one addressed
to Madame de la Tour, in the hand-writing of Virginia. Paul seized upon
the letter, kissed it with transport, and placing it in his bosom, flew
to the plantation. No sooner did he perceive from a distance the family,
who were awaiting his return upon the rock of Adieus than he waved the
letter aloft in the air, without being able to utter a word. No sooner
was the seal broken, than they all crowded round Madame de la Tour,
to hear the letter read. Virginia informed her mother that she had
experienced much ill-usage from her aunt, who, after having in vain
urged her to a marriage against her inclination, had disinherited
her, and had sent her back at a time when she would probably reach
the Mauritius during the hurricane season. In vain, she added, had she
endeavoured to soften her aunt, by representing what she owed to her
mother, and to her early habits; she was treated as a romantic girl,
whose head had been turned by novels. She could now only think of the
joy of again seeing and embracing her beloved family, and would have
gratified her ardent desire at once, by landing in the pilot's boat, if
the captain had allowed her: but that he had objected, on account of the
distance, and of a heavy swell, which, notwithstanding the calm, reigned
in the open sea.
As soon as the letter was finished, the whole of the family, transported
with joy, repeatedly exclaimed, "Virginia is arrived!" and mistresses
and servants embraced each other. Madame de la Tour said to Paul,--"My
son, go and inform our neighbour of Virginia's arrival." Domingo
immediately lighted a torch of bois de ronde, and he and Paul bent their
way towards my dwelling.
It was about ten o'clock at night, and I was just going to extinguish my
lamp, and retire to rest, when I perceived, through the palisades round
my cottage, a light in the woods. Soon after, I heard the voice of Paul
calling me. I instantly arose, and had hardly dressed myself, when
Paul, almost beside himself, and panting for breath, sprang on my neck,
crying,--"Come along, come along. Virginia is arrived. Let us go to the
port; the vessel will anchor at break of day."
Scarcely had he uttered the words, when we set off. As we were passing
through the woods of the Sloping Mountain, and were already on the
road which leads from the Shaddock Grove to the port, I heard some one
walking behind us. It proved to be a negro, and he was advancing with
hasty steps. When he had reached us, I asked him whence he came, and
whither he was going with such expedition. He answered, "I come from
that part of the island called Golden Dust; and am sent to the port, to
inform the governor that a ship from France has anchored under the Isle
of Amber. She is firing guns of distress, for the sea is very rough."
Having said this, the man left us, and pursued his journey without any
further delay.
I then said to Paul,--"Let us go towards the quarter of the Golden Dust,
and meet Virginia there. It is not more than three leagues from hence."
We accordingly bent our course towards the northern part of the island.
The heat was suffocating. The moon had risen, and was surrounded by
three large black circles. A frightful darkness shrouded the sky; but
the frequent flashes of lightning discovered to us long rows of thick
and gloomy clouds, hanging very low, and heaped together over the centre
of the island, being driven in with great rapidity from the ocean,
although not a breath of air was perceptible upon the land. As we walked
along, we thought we heard peals of thunder; but, on listening more
attentively, we perceived that it was the sound of cannon at a distance,
repeated by the echoes. These ominous sounds, joined to the tempestuous
aspect of the heavens, made me shudder. I had little doubt of their
being signals of distress from a ship in danger. In about half an hour
the firing ceased, and I found the silence still more appalling than the
dismal sounds which had preceded it.
We hastened on without uttering a word, or daring to communicate to
each other our mutual apprehensions. At midnight, by great exertion, we
arrived at the sea shore, in that part of the island called Golden
Dust. The billows were breaking against the bench with a horrible noise,
covering the rocks and the strand with foam of a dazzling whiteness,
blended with sparks of fire. By these phosphoric gleams we
distinguished, notwithstanding the darkness, a number of fishing canoes,
drawn up high upon the beach.
At the entrance of a wood, a short distance from us, we saw a fire,
round which a party of the inhabitants were assembled. We repaired
thither, in order to rest ourselves till the morning. While we were
seated near the fire, one of the standers-by related, that late in
the afternoon he had seen a vessel in the open sea, driven towards the
island by the currents; that the night had hidden it from his view; and
that two hours after sunset he had heard the firing of signal guns
of distress, but that the surf was so high, that it was impossible to
launch a boat to go off to her; that a short time after, he thought he
perceived the glimmering of the watch-lights on board the vessel, which,
he feared, by its having approached so near the coast, had steered
between the main land and the little island of Amber, mistaking the
latter for the Point of Endeavour, near which vessels pass in order to
gain Port Louis; and that, if this were the case, which, however, he
would not take upon himself to be certain of, the ship, he thought,
was in very great danger. Another islander informed us, that he had
frequently crossed the channel which separates the isle of Amber from
the coast, and had sounded it, that the anchorage was very good, and
that the ship would there lie as safely as in the best harbour. "I
would stake all I am worth upon it," said he, "and if I were on board,
I should sleep as sound as on shore." A third bystander declared that
it was impossible for the ship to enter that channel, which was scarcely
navigable for a boat. He was certain, he said, that he had seen the
vessel at anchor beyond the isle of Amber; so that, if the wind rose
in the morning, she would either put to sea, or gain the harbour.
Other inhabitants gave different opinions upon this subject, which
they continued to discuss in the usual desultory manner of the indolent
Creoles. Paul and I observed a profound silence. We remained on this
spot till break of day, but the weather was too hazy to admit of our
distinguishing any object at sea, every thing being covered with fog.
All we could descry to seaward was a dark cloud, which they told us was
the isle of Amber, at the distance of a quarter of a league from the
coast. On this gloomy day we could only discern the point of land on
which we were standing, and the peaks of some inland mountains, which
started out occasionally from the midst of the clouds that hung around
them.
At about seven in the morning we heard the sound of drums in the woods:
it announced the approach of the governor, Monsieur de la Bourdonnais,
who soon after arrived on horseback, at the head of a detachment of
soldiers armed with muskets, and a crowd of islanders and negroes. He
drew up his soldiers upon the beach, and ordered them to make a general
discharge. This was no sooner done, than we perceived a glimmering light
upon the water which was instantly followed by the report of a cannon.
We judged that the ship was at no great distance and all ran towards
that part whence the light and sound proceeded. We now discerned through
the fog the hull and yards of a large vessel. We were so near to her,
that notwithstanding the tumult of the waves, we could distinctly hear
the whistle of the boatswain, and the shouts of the sailors, who cried
out three times, VIVE LE ROI! this being the cry of the French in
extreme danger, as well as in exuberant joy;--as though they wished
to call their princes to their aid, or to testify to him that they are
prepared to lay down their lives in his service.
As soon as the Saint-Geran perceived that we were near enough to render
her assistance, she continued to fire guns regularly at intervals of
three minutes. Monsieur de la Bourdonnais caused great fires to be
lighted at certain distances upon the strand, and sent to all the
inhabitants of the neighbourhood, in search of provisions, planks,
cables, and empty barrels. A number of people soon arrived, accompanied
by their negroes loaded with provisions and cordage, which they had
brought from the plantations of Golden Dust, from the district of La
Flaque, and from the river of the Ram part. One of the most aged of
these planters, approaching the governor, said to him,--"We have heard
all night hollow noises in the mountain; in the woods, the leaves of the
trees are shaken, although there is no wind; the sea-birds seek refuge
upon the land: it is certain that all these signs announce a hurricane."
"Well, my friends," answered the governor, "we are prepared for it, and
no doubt the vessel is also."
Every thing, indeed, presaged the near approach of the hurricane. The
centre of the clouds in the zenith was of a dismal black, while their
skirts were tinged with a copper-coloured hue. The air resounded with
the cries of the tropic-birds, petrels, frigate-birds, and innumerable
other sea-fowl, which notwithstanding the obscurity of the atmosphere,
were seen coming from every point of the horizon, to seek for shelter in
the island.
Towards nine in the morning we heard in the direction of the ocean the
most terrific noise, like the sound of thunder mingled with that of
torrents rushing down the steeps of lofty mountains. A general cry was
heard of, "There is the hurricane!" and the next moment a frightful
gust of wind dispelled the fog which covered the isle of Amber and its
channel. The Saint-Geran then presented herself to our view, her deck
crowded with people, her yards and topmasts lowered down, and her flag
half-mast high, moored by four cables at her bow and one at her stern.
She had anchored between the isle of Amber and the main land, inside
the chain of reefs which encircles the island, and which she had passed
through in a place where no vessel had ever passed before. She presented
her head to the waves that rolled in from the open sea, and as each
billow rushed into the narrow strait where she lay, her bow lifted to
such a degree as to show her keel; and at the same moment her stern,
plunging into the water, disappeared altogether from our sight, as if it
were swallowed up by the surges. In this position, driven by the winds
and waves towards the shore, it was equally impossible for her to return
by the passage through which she had made her way; or, by cutting her
cables, to strand herself upon the beach, from which she was separated
by sandbanks and reefs of rocks. Every billow which broke upon the coast
advanced roaring to the bottom of the bay, throwing up heaps of shingle
to the distance of fifty feet upon the land; then, rushing back, laid
bare its sandy bed, from which it rolled immense stones, with a hoarse
and dismal noise. The sea, swelled by the violence of the wind, rose
higher every moment; and the whole channel between this island and the
isle of Amber was soon one vast sheet of white foam, full of yawning
pits of black and deep billows. Heaps of this foam, more than six feet
high, were piled up at the bottom of the bay; and the winds which swept
its surface carried masses of it over the steep sea-bank, scattering it
upon the land to the distance of half a league. These innumerable white
flakes, driven horizontally even to the very foot of the mountains,
looked like snow issuing from the bosom of the ocean. The appearance of
the horizon portended a lasting tempest; the sky and the water seemed
blended together. Thick masses of clouds, of a frightful form, swept
across the zenith with the swiftness of birds, while others appeared
motionless as rocks. Not a single spot of blue sky could be discerned in
the whole firmament; and a pale yellow gleam only lightened up all the
objects of the earth, the sea, and the skies.
From the violent rolling of the ship, what we all dreaded happened at
last. The cables which held her bow were torn away: she then swung to a
single hawser, and was instantly dashed upon the rocks, at the distance
of half a cable's length from the shore. A general cry of horror issued
from the spectators. Paul rushed forward to throw himself into the
sea, when, seizing him by the arm, "My son," I exclaimed, "would you
perish?"--"Let me go to save her," he cried, "or let me die!" Seeing
that despair had deprived him of reason, Domingo and I, in order to
preserve him, fastened a long cord around his waist, and held it fast
by the end. Paul then precipitated himself towards the Saint-Geran,
now swimming, and now walking upon the rocks. Sometimes he had hopes of
reaching the vessel, which the sea, by the reflux of its waves, had left
almost dry, so that you could have walked round it on foot; but suddenly
the billows, returning with fresh fury, shrouded it beneath mountains of
water, which then lifted it upright upon its keel. The breakers at the
same moment threw the unfortunate Paul far upon the beach, his legs
bathed in blood, his bosom wounded, and himself half dead. The moment
he had recovered the use of his senses, he arose, and returned with new
ardour towards the vessel, the parts of which now yawned asunder from
the violent strokes of the billows. The crew then, despairing of their
safety, threw themselves in crowds into the sea, upon yards, planks,
hen-coops, tables, and barrels. At this moment we beheld an object
which wrung our hearts with grief and pity; a young lady appeared in the
stern-gallery of the Saint-Geran, stretching out her arms towards him
who was making so many efforts to join her. It was Virginia. She had
discovered her lover by his intrepidity. The sight of this amiable girl,
exposed to such horrible danger, filled us with unutterable despair. As
for Virginia, with a firm and dignified mien, she waved her hand, as
if bidding us an eternal farewell. All the sailors had flung themselves
into the sea, except one, who still remained upon the deck, and who
was naked, and strong as Hercules. This man approached Virginia with
respect, and, kneeling at her feet, attempted to force her to throw
off her clothes; but she repulsed him with modesty, and turned away
her head. Then were heard redoubled cries from the spectators, "Save
her!--save her!--do not leave her!" But at that moment a mountain
billow, of enormous magnitude, ingulfed itself between the isle of Amber
and the coast, and menaced the shattered vessel, towards which it rolled
bellowing, with its black sides and foaming head. At this terrible
sight the sailor flung himself into the sea; and Virginia, seeing death
inevitable, crossed her hands upon her breast, and raising upwards her
serene and beauteous eyes, seemed an angel prepared to take her flight
to Heaven.
Oh, day of horror! Alas! every thing was swallowed up by the relentless
billows. The surge threw some of the spectators, whom an impulse of
humanity had prompted to advance towards Virginia, far upon the beach,
and also the sailor who had endeavoured to save her life. This man,
who had escaped from almost certain death, kneeling on the sand,
exclaimed,--"Oh, my God! thou hast saved my life, but I would have given
it willingly for that excellent young lady, who had persevered in not
undressing herself as I had done." Domingo and I drew the unfortunate
Paul to the ashore. He was senseless, and blood was flowing from his
mouth and ears. The governor ordered him to be put into the hands of a
surgeon, while we, on our part, wandered along the beach, in hopes
that the sea would throw up the corpse of Virginia. But the wind having
suddenly changed, as it frequently happens during hurricanes, our search
was in vain; and we had the grief of thinking that we should not be able
to bestow on this sweet and unfortunate girl the last sad duties. We
retired from the spot overwhelmed with dismay, and our minds wholly
occupied by one cruel loss, although numbers had perished in the wreck.
Some of the spectators seemed tempted, from the fatal destiny of this
virtuous girl, to doubt the existence of Providence: for there are in
life such terrible, such unmerited evils, that even the hope of the wise
is sometimes shaken.
In the meantime Paul, who began to recover his senses, was taken to a
house in the neighbourhood, till he was in a fit state to be removed
to his own home. Thither I bent my way with Domingo, to discharge the
melancholy duty of preparing Virginia's mother and her friend for the
disastrous event which had happened. When we had reached the entrance of
the valley of the river of Fan-Palms, some negroes informed us that
the sea had thrown up many pieces of the wreck in the opposite bay. We
descended towards it and one of the first objects that struck my sight
upon the beach was the corpse of Virginia. The body was half covered
with sand, and preserved the attitude in which we had seen her perish.
Her features were not sensibly changed, her eyes were closed, and her
countenance was still serene; but the pale purple hues of death were
blended on her cheek with the blush of virgin modesty. One of her hands
was placed upon her clothes: and the other, which she held on her heart,
was fast closed, and so stiffened, that it was with difficulty that I
took from its grasp a small box. How great was my emotion when I saw
that it contained the picture of Paul, which she had promised him never
to part with while she lived! As for Domingo, he beat his breast, and
pierced the air with his shrieks. With heavy hearts we then carried the
body of Virginia to a fisherman's hut, and gave it in charge of some
poor Malabar women, who carefully washed away the sand.
While they were employed in this melancholy office, we ascended the hill
with trembling steps to the plantation. We found Madame de la Tour and
Margaret at prayer; hourly expecting to have tidings from the ship. As
soon as Madame de la Tour saw me coming, she eagerly cried,--"Where
is my daughter--my dear daughter--my child?" My silence and my tears
apprised her of her misfortune. She was instantly seized with a
convulsive stopping of the breath and agonizing pains, and her voice was
only heard in sighs and groans. Margaret cried, "Where is my son? I do
not see my son!" and fainted. We ran to her assistance. In a short time
she recovered, and being assured that Paul was safe, and under the care
of the governor, she thought of nothing but of succouring her friend,
who recovered from one fainting fit only to fall into another. Madame de
la Tour passed the whole night in these cruel sufferings, and I became
convinced that there was no sorrow like that of a mother. When she
recovered her senses, she cast a fixed, unconscious look towards heaven.
In vain her friend and myself pressed her hands in ours: in vain we
called upon her by the most tender names; she appeared wholly insensible
to these testimonials of our affection, and no sound issued from her
oppressed bosom, but deep and hollow moans.
During the morning Paul was carried home in a palanquin. He had now
recovered the use of his reason, but was unable to utter a word. His
interview with his mother and Madame de la Tour, which I had dreaded,
produced a better effect than all my cares. A ray of consolation gleamed
on the countenances of the two unfortunate mothers. They pressed close
to him, clasped him in their arms, and kissed him: their tears, which
excess of anguish had till now dried up at the source, began to flow.
Paul mixed his tears with theirs; and nature having thus found relief,
a long stupor succeeded the convulsive pangs they had suffered, and
afforded them a lethargic repose, which was in truth, like that of
death.
Monsieur de la Bourdonnais sent to apprise me secretly that the corpse
of Virginia had been borne to the town by his order, from whence it was
to be transferred to the church of the Shaddock Grove. I immediately
went down to Port Louis, where I found a multitude assembled from all
parts of the island, in order to be present at the funeral solemnity,
as if the isle had lost that which was nearest and dearest to it. The
vessels in the harbour had their yards crossed, their flags half-mast,
and fired guns at long intervals. A body of grenadiers led the funeral
procession, with their muskets reversed, their muffled drums sending
forth slow and dismal sounds. Dejection was depicted in the countenance
of these warriors, who had so often braved death in battle without
changing colour. Eight young ladies of considerable families of the
island, dressed in white, and bearing palm-branches in their hands,
carried the corpse of their amiable companion, which was covered with
flowers. They were followed by a chorus of children, chanting hymns, and
by the governor, his field officers, all the principal inhabitants of
the island, and an immense crowd of people.
This imposing funeral solemnity had been ordered by the administration
of the country, which was desirous of doing honour to the virtues of
Virginia. But when the mournful procession arrived at the foot of this
mountain, within sight of those cottages of which she had been so long
an inmate and an ornament, diffusing happiness all around them, and
which her loss had now filled with despair, the funeral pomp was
interrupted, the hymns and anthems ceased, and the whole plain resounded
with sighs and lamentations. Numbers of young girls ran from the
neighbouring plantations, to touch the coffin of Virginia with their
handkerchiefs, and with chaplets and crowns of flowers, invoking her as
a saint. Mothers asked of heaven a child like Virginia; lovers, a heart
as faithful; the poor, as tender a friend; and the slaves as kind a
mistress.
When the procession had reached the place of interment, some negresses
of Madagascar and Caffres of Mozambique placed a number of baskets of
fruit around the corpse, and hung pieces of stuff upon the adjoining
trees, according to the custom of their several countries. Some Indian
women from Bengal also, and from the coast of Malabar, brought cages
full of small birds, which they set at liberty upon her coffin.
Thus deeply did the loss of this amiable being affect the natives
of different countries, and thus was the ritual of various religions
performed over the tomb of unfortunate virtue.
It became necessary to place guards round her grave, and to employ
gentle force in removing some of the daughters of the neighbouring
villagers, who endeavoured to throw themselves into it, saying that
they had no longer any consolation to hope for in this world, and that
nothing remained for them but to die with their benefactress.
On the western side of the church of the Shaddock Grove is a small copse
of bamboos, where, in returning from mass with her mother and Margaret,
Virginia loved to rest herself, seated by the side of him whom she then
called her brother. This was the spot selected for her interment.
At his return from the funeral solemnity, Monsieur de la Bourdonnais
came up here, followed by part of his numerous retinue. He offered
Madame de la Tour and her friend all the assistance it was in his power
to bestow. After briefly expressing his indignation at the conduct of
her unnatural aunt, he advanced to Paul, and said every thing which he
thought most likely to soothe and console him. "Heaven is my witness,"
said he, "that I wished to insure your happiness, and that of your
family. My dear friend, you must go to France; I will obtain a
commission for you, and during your absence I will take the same care
of your mother as if she were my own." He then offered him his hand; but
Paul drew away and turned his head aside, unable to bear his sight.
I remained for some time at the plantation of my unfortunate friends,
that I might render to them and Paul those offices of friendship that
were in my power, and which might alleviate, though they could not heal
the wounds of calamity. At the end of three weeks Paul was able to
walk; but his mind seemed to droop in proportion as his body gathered
strength. He was insensible to every thing; his look was vacant; and
when asked a question, he made no reply. Madame de la Tour, who was
dying said to him often,--"My son, while I look at you, I think I see my
dear Virginia." At the name of Virginia he shuddered, and hastened away
from her, notwithstanding the entreaties of his mother, who begged him
to come back to her friend. He used to go alone into the garden, and
seat himself at the foot of Virginia's cocoa-tree, with his eyes fixed
upon the fountain. The governor's surgeon, who had shown the most humane
attention to Paul and the whole family, told us that in order to cure
the deep melancholy which had taken possession of his mind, we must
allow him to do whatever he pleased, without contradiction: this, he
said, afforded the only chance of overcoming the silence in which he
persevered.
I resolved to follow this advice. The first use which Paul made of his
returning strength was to absent himself from the plantation. Being
determined not to lose sight of him I set out immediately, and desired
Domingo to take some provisions and accompany us. The young man's
strength and spirits seemed renewed as he descended the mountain. He
first took the road to the Shaddock Grove, and when he was near the
church, in the Alley of Bamboos, he walked directly to the spot where
he saw some earth fresh turned up; kneeling down there, and raising
his eyes to heaven, he offered up a long prayer. This appeared to me
a favourable symptom of the return of his reason; since this mark of
confidence in the Supreme Being showed that his mind was beginning to
resume its natural functions. Domingo and I, following his example, fell
upon our knees, and mingled our prayers with his. When he arose, he bent
his way, paying little attention to us, towards the northern part of the
island. As I knew that he was not only ignorant of the spot where the
body of Virginia had been deposited, but even of the fact that it had
been recovered from the waves, I asked him why he had offered up his
prayer at the foot of those bamboos. He answered,--"We have been there
so often."
He continued his course until we reached the borders of the forest, when
night came on. I set him the example of taking some nourishment, and
prevailed on him to do the same; and we slept upon the grass, at the
foot of a tree. The next day I thought he seemed disposed to retrace his
steps; for, after having gazed a considerable time from the plain upon
the church of the Shaddock Grove, with its long avenues of bamboos, he
made a movement as if to return home; but suddenly plunging into the
forest, he directed his course towards the north. I guessed what was his
design, and I endeavoured, but in vain, to dissuade him from it. About
noon we arrived at the quarter of Golden Dust. He rushed down to the
sea-shore, opposite to the spot where the Saint-Geran had been wrecked.
At the sight of the isle of Amber, and its channel, when smooth as
a mirror, he exclaimed,--"Virginia! oh my dear Virginia!" and fell
senseless. Domingo and I carried him into the woods, where we had some
difficulty in recovering him. As soon as he regained his senses, he
wished to return to the sea-shore; but we conjured him not to renew his
own anguish and ours by such cruel remembrances, and he took another
direction. During a whole week he sought every spot where he had once
wandered with the companion of his childhood. He traced the path by
which she had gone to intercede for the slave of the Black River. He
gazed again upon the banks of the river of the Three Breasts, where she
had rested herself when unable to walk further, and upon that part of
the wood where they had lost their way. All the haunts, which recalled
to his memory the anxieties, the sports, the repasts, the benevolence
of her he loved,--the river of the Sloping Mountain, my house, the
neighbouring cascade, the papaw tree she had planted, the grassy fields
in which she loved to run, the openings of the forest where she used to
sing, all in succession called forth his tears; and those very echoes
which had so often resounded with their mutual shouts of joy, now
repeated only these accents of despair,--"Virginia! oh, my dear
Virginia!"
During this savage and wandering life, his eyes became sunk and hollow,
his skin assumed a yellow tint, and his health rapidly declined.
Convinced that our present sufferings are rendered more acute by the
bitter recollection of bygone pleasures, and that the passions gather
strength in solitude, I resolved to remove my unfortunate friend from
those scenes which recalled the remembrance of his loss, and to lead him
to a more busy part of the island. With this view, I conducted him to
the inhabited part of the elevated quarter of Williams, which he had
never visited, and where the busy pursuits of agriculture and commerce
ever occasioned much bustle and variety. Numbers of carpenters were
employed in hewing down and squaring trees, while others were sawing
them into planks; carriages were continually passing and repassing on
the roads; numerous herds of oxen and troops of horses were feeding on
those wide-spread meadows, and the whole country was dotted with the
dwellings of man. On some spots the elevation of the soil permitted the
culture of many of the plants of Europe: the yellow ears of ripe corn
waved upon the plains; strawberry plants grew in the openings of
the woods, and the roads were bordered by hedges of rose-trees. The
freshness of the air, too, giving tension to the nerves, was favourable
to the health of Europeans. From those heights, situated near the middle
of the island, and surrounded by extensive forests, neither the sea, nor
Port Louis, nor the church of the Shaddock Grove, nor any other object
associated with the remembrance of Virginia could de discerned. Even
the mountains, which present various shapes on the side of Port
Louis, appear from hence like a long promontory, in a straight and
perpendicular line, from which arise lofty pyramids of rock, whose
summits are enveloped in the clouds.
Conducting Paul to these scenes, I kept him continually in action,
walking with him in rain and sunshine, by day and by night. I sometimes
wandered with him into the depths of the forests, or led him over
untilled grounds, hoping that change of scene and fatigue might divert
his mind from its gloomy meditations. But the soul of a lover finds
everywhere the traces of the beloved object. Night and day, the calm
of solitude and the tumult of crowds, are to him the same; time itself,
which casts the shade of oblivion over so many other remembrances, in
vain would tear that tender and sacred recollection from the heart. The
needle, when touched by the loadstone, however it may have been moved
from its position, is no sooner left to repose, than it returns to the
pole of its attraction. So, when I inquired of Paul, as we wandered
amidst the plains of Williams,--"Where shall we now go?" he pointed to
the north, and said, "Yonder are our mountains; let us return home."
I now saw that all the means I took to divert him from his melancholy
were fruitless, and that no resource was left but an attempt to
combat his passion by the arguments which reason suggested I answered
him,--"Yes, there are the mountains where once dwelt your beloved
Virginia; and here is the picture you gave her, and which she held, when
dying, to her heart--that heart, which even in its last moments only
beat for you." I then presented to Paul the little portrait which he
had given to Virginia on the borders of the cocoa-tree fountain. At this
sight a gloomy joy overspread his countenance. He eagerly seized the
picture with his feeble hands, and held it to his lips. His oppressed
bosom seemed ready to burst with emotion, and his eyes were filled with
tears which had no power to flow.
"My son," said I, "listen to one who is your friend, who was the friend
of Virginia, and who, in the bloom of your hopes, has often endeavoured
to fortify your mind against the unforeseen accidents of life. What
do you deplore with so much bitterness? Is it your own misfortunes, or
those of Virginia, which affect you so deeply?
"Your own misfortunes are indeed severe. You have lost the most amiable
of girls, who would have grown up to womanhood a pattern to her sex, one
who sacrificed her own interests to yours: who preferred you to all that
fortune could bestow, and considered you as the only recompense worthy
of her virtues.
"But might not this very object, from whom you expected the purest
happiness, have proved to you a source of the most cruel distress?
She had returned poor and disinherited; all you could henceforth
have partaken with her was your labour. Rendered more delicate by her
education, and more courageous by her misfortunes, you might have beheld
her every day sinking beneath her efforts to share and lighten your
fatigues. Had she brought you children, they would only have served to
increase her anxieties and your own, from the difficulty of sustaining
at once your aged parents and your infant family.
"Very likely you will tell me that the governor would have helped you;
but how do you know that in a colony where governors are so
frequently changed, you would have had others like Monsieur de la
Bourdonnais?--that one might not have been sent destitute of good
feeling and of morality?--that your young wife, in order, to procure
some miserable pittance, might not have been obliged to seek his favour?
Had she been weak you would have been to be pitied; and if she had
remained virtuous, you would have continued poor: forced even to
consider yourself fortunate if, on account of the beauty and virtue of
your wife, you had not to endure persecution from those who had promised
you protection.
"It would have remained to you, you may say, to have enjoyed a pleasure
independent of fortune,--that of protecting a loved being, who, in
proportion to her own helplessness, had more attached herself to you.
You may fancy that your pains and sufferings would have served to endear
you to each other, and that your passion would have gathered strength
from your mutual misfortunes. Undoubtedly virtuous love does find
consolation even in such melancholy retrospects. But Virginia is no
more; yet those persons still live, whom, next to yourself, she held
most dear; her mother, and your own: your inconsolable affliction is
bringing them both to the grave. Place your happiness, as she did hers,
in affording them succour. My son, beneficence is the happiness of the
virtuous: there is no greater or more certain enjoyment on the earth.
Schemes of pleasure, repose, luxuries, wealth, and glory are not suited
to man, weak, wandering, and transitory as he is. See how rapidly one
step towards the acquisition of fortune has precipitated us all to the
lowest abyss of misery! You were opposed to it, it is true; but who
would not have thought that Virginia's voyage would terminate in her
happiness and your own? an invitation from a rich and aged relation, the
advice of a wise governor, the approbation of the whole colony, and the
well-advised authority of her confessor, decided the lot of Virginia.
Thus do we run to our ruin, deceived even by the prudence of those who
watch over us: it would be better, no doubt, not to believe them, nor
even to listen to the voice or lean on the hopes of a deceitful world.
But all men,--those you see occupied in these plains, those who go
abroad to seek their fortunes, and those in Europe who enjoy repose from
the labours of others, are liable to reverses! not one is secure from
losing, at some period, all that he most values,--greatness, wealth,
wife, children, and friends. Most of these would have their sorrow
increased by the remembrance of their own imprudence. But you have
nothing with which you can reproach yourself. You have been faithful in
your love. In the bloom of youth, by not departing from the dictates of
nature, you evinced the wisdom of a sage. Your views were just,
because they were pure, simple, and disinterested. You had, besides, on
Virginia, sacred claims which nothing could countervail. You have lost
her: but it is neither your own imprudence, nor your avarice, nor your
false wisdom which has occasioned this misfortune, but the will of God,
who had employed the passions of others to snatch from you the object of
your love; God, from whom you derive everything, who knows what is most
fitting for you, and whose wisdom has not left you any cause for the
repentance and despair which succeed the calamities that are brought
upon us by ourselves.
"Vainly, in your misfortunes, do you say to yourself, 'I have not
deserved them.' Is it then the calamity of Virginia--her death and her
present condition that you deplore? She has undergone the fate allotted
to all,--to high birth, to beauty, and even to empires themselves. The
life of man, with all his projects, may be compared to a tower, at whose
summit is death. When your Virginia was born, she was condemned to die;
happily for herself, she is released from life before losing her mother,
or yours, or you; saved, thus from undergoing pangs worse than those of
death itself.
"Learn then, my son, that death is a benefit to all men: it is the night
of that restless day we call by the name of life. The diseases, the
griefs, the vexations, and the fears, which perpetually embitter our
life as long as we possess it, molest us no more in the sleep of death.
If you inquire into the history of those men who appear to have been the
happiest, you will find that they have bought their apparent felicity
very dear; public consideration, perhaps, by domestic evils; fortune,
by the loss of health; the rare happiness of being loved, by continual
sacrifices; and often, at the expiration of a life devoted to the good
of others, they see themselves surrounded only by false friends, and
ungrateful relations. But Virginia was happy to her very last moment.
When with us, she was happy in partaking of the gifts of nature; when
far from us, she found enjoyment in the practice of virtue; and even at
the terrible moment in which we saw her perish, she still had cause
for self-gratulation. For, whether she cast her eyes on the assembled
colony, made miserable by her expected loss, or on you, my son, who,
with so much intrepidity, were endeavouring to save her, she must have
seen how dear she was to all. Her mind was fortified against the future
by the remembrance of her innocent life; and at that moment she received
the reward which Heaven reserves for virtue,--a courage superior to
danger. She met death with a serene countenance.
"My son! God gives all the trials of life to virtue, in order to show
that virtue alone can support them, and even find in them happiness and
glory. When he designs for it an illustrious reputation, he exhibits it
on a wide theatre, and contending with death. Then does the courage of
virtue shine forth as an example, and the misfortunes to which it has
been exposed receive for ever, from posterity, the tribute of their
tears. This is the immortal monument reserved for virtue in a world
where every thing else passes away, and where the names, even of the
greater number of kings themselves, are soon buried in eternal oblivion.
"Meanwhile Virginia still exists. My son, you see that every thing
changes on this earth, but that nothing is ever lost. No art of man can
annihilate the smallest particle of matter; can, then, that which
has possessed reason, sensibility, affection, virtue, and religion be
supposed capable of destruction, when the very elements with which it is
clothed are imperishable? Ah! however happy Virginia may have been with
us, she is now much more so. There is a God, my son; it is unnecessary
for me to prove it to you, for the voice of all nature loudly proclaims
it. The wickedness of mankind leads them to deny the existence of a
Being, whose justice they fear. But your mind is fully convinced of
his existence, while his works are ever before your eyes. Do you then
believe that he would leave Virginia without recompense? Do you
think that the same Power which inclosed her noble soul in a form so
beautiful,--so like an emanation from itself, could not have saved her
from the waves?--that he who has ordained the happiness of man here, by
laws unknown to you, cannot prepare a still higher degree of felicity
for Virginia by other laws, of which you are equally ignorant? Before
we were born into this world, could we, do you imagine, even if we were
capable of thinking at all, have formed any idea of our existence here?
And now that we are in the middle of this gloomy and transitory life,
can we foresee what is beyond the tomb, or in what manner we shall be
emancipated from it? Does God, like man, need this little globe,
the earth, as a theatre for the display of his intelligence and his
goodness?--and can he only dispose of human life in the territory of
death? There is not, in the entire ocean, a single drop of water which
is not peopled with living beings appertaining to man: and does there
exist nothing for him in the heavens above his head? What! is there no
supreme intelligence, no divine goodness, except on this little spot
where we are placed? In those innumerable glowing fires,--in those
infinite fields of light which surround them, and which neither storms
nor darkness can extinguish, is there nothing but empty space and an
eternal void? If we, weak and ignorant as we are, might dare to assign
limits to that Power from whom we have received every thing, we might
possibly imagine that we were placed on the very confines of his empire,
where life is perpetually struggling with death, and innocence for ever
in danger from the power of tyranny!
"Somewhere, then, without doubt, there is another world, where virtue
will receive its reward. Virginia is now happy. Ah! if from the abode of
angels she could hold communication with you, she would tell you, as she
did when she bade you her last adieus,--'O, Paul! life is but a scene of
trial. I have been obedient to the laws of nature, love, and virtue. I
crossed the seas to obey the will of my relations; I sacrificed
wealth in order to keep my faith; and I preferred the loss of life to
disobeying the dictates of modesty. Heaven found that I had fulfilled my
duties, and has snatched me for ever from all the miseries I might have
endured myself, and all I might have felt for the miseries of others. I
am placed far above the reach of all human evils, and you pity me! I
am become pure and unchangeable as a particle of light, and you would
recall me to the darkness of human life! O, Paul! O, my beloved friend!
recollect those days of happiness, when in the morning we felt the
delightful sensations excited by the unfolding beauties of nature; when
we seemed to rise with the sun to the peaks of those rocks, and then
to spread with his rays over the bosom of the forests. We experienced a
delight, the cause of which we could not comprehend. In the innocence of
our desires, we wished to be all sight, to enjoy the rich colours of
the early dawn; all smell, to taste a thousand perfumes at once; all
hearing, to listen to the singing of our birds; and all heart, to be
capable of gratitude for those mingled blessings. Now, at the source
of the beauty whence flows all that is delightful upon earth, my soul
intuitively sees, hears, touches, what before she could only be made
sensible of through the medium of our weak organs. Ah! what language can
describe these shores of eternal bliss, which I inhabit for ever! All
that infinite power and heavenly goodness could create to console the
unhappy: all that the friendship of numberless beings, exulting in the
same felicity can impart, we enjoy in unmixed perfection. Support,
then, the trial which is now allotted to you, that you may heighten the
happiness of your Virginia by love which will know no termination,--by a
union which will be eternal. There I will calm your regrets, I will wipe
away your tears. Oh, my beloved friend! my youthful husband! raise your
thoughts towards the infinite, to enable you to support the evils of a
moment.'"
My own emotion choked my utterance. Paul, looking at me steadfastly,
cried,--"She is no more! she is no more!" and a long fainting fit
succeeded these words of woe. When restored to himself, he said, "Since
death is good, and since Virginia is happy, I will die too, and be
united to Virginia." Thus the motives of consolation I had offered,
only served to nourish his despair. I was in the situation of a man
who attempts to save a friend sinking in the midst of a flood, and who
obstinately refuses to swim. Sorrow had completely overwhelmed his
soul. Alas! the trials of early years prepare man for the afflictions of
after-life; but Paul had never experienced any.
I took him back to his own dwelling, where I found his mother and Madame
de la Tour in a state of increased languor and exhaustion, but Margaret
seemed to droop the most. Lively characters, upon whom petty troubles
have but little effect, sink the soonest under great calamities.
"O my good friend," said Margaret, "I thought last night I saw Virginia,
dressed in white, in the midst of groves and delicious gardens. She said
to me, 'I enjoy the most perfect happiness:' and then approaching Paul
with a smiling air, she bore him away with her. While I was struggling
to retain my son, I felt that I myself too was quitting the earth, and
that I followed with inexpressible delight. I then wished to bid my
friend farewell, when I saw that she was hastening after me, accompanied
by Mary and Domingo. But the strangest circumstance remains yet to be
told; Madame de la Tour has this very night had a dream exactly like
mine in every possible respect."
"My dear friend," I replied, "nothing, I firmly believe, happens in this
world without the permission of God. Future events, too, are sometimes
revealed in dreams."
Madame de la Tour then related to me her dream which was exactly the
same as Margaret's in every particular; and as I had never observed in
either of these ladies any propensity to superstition, I was struck with
the singular coincidence of their dreams, and I felt convinced that
they would soon be realized. The belief that future events are sometimes
revealed to us during sleep, is one that is widely diffused among the
nations of the earth. The greatest men of antiquity have had faith in
it; among whom may be mentioned Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar,
the Scipios, the two Catos, and Brutus, none of whom were weak-minded
persons. Both the Old and the New Testament furnish us with numerous
instances of dreams that came to pass. As for myself, I need only, on
this subject, appeal to my experience, as I have more than once had good
reason to believe that superior intelligences, who interest themselves
in our welfare, communicate with us in these visions of the night.
Things which surpass the light of human reason cannot be proved by
arguments derived from that reason; but still, if the mind of man is an
image of that of God, since man can make known his will to the ends of
the earth by secret missives, may not the Supreme Intelligence which
governs the universe employ similar means to attain a like end? One
friend consoles another by a letter, which, after passing through many
kingdoms, and being in the hands of various individuals at enmity with
each other, brings at last joy and hope to the breast of a single human
being. May not in like manner the Sovereign Protector of innocence come
in some secret way, to the help of a virtuous soul, which puts its trust
in Him alone? Has He occasion to employ visible means to effect His
purpose in this, whose ways are hidden in all His ordinary works?
Why should we doubt the evidence of dreams? for what is our life,
occupied as it is with vain and fleeting imaginations, other than a
prolonged vision of the night?
Whatever may be thought of this in general, on the present occasion the
dreams of my friends were soon realized. Paul expired two months after
the death of his Virginia, whose name dwelt on his lips in his expiring
moments. About a week after the death of her son, Margaret saw her last
hour approach with that serenity which virtue only can feel. She bade
Madame de la Tour a most tender farewell, "in the certain hope," she
said, "of a delightful and eternal re-union. Death is the greatest of
blessings to us," added she, "and we ought to desire it. If life be a
punishment, we should wish for its termination; if it be a trial, we
should be thankful that it is short."
The governor took care of Domingo and Mary, who were no longer able to
labour, and who survived their mistresses but a short time. As for poor
Fidele, he pined to death, soon after he had lost his master.
I afforded an asylum in my dwelling to Madame de la Tour, who bore
up under her calamities with incredible elevation of mind. She had
endeavoured to console Paul and Margaret till their last moments, as if
she herself had no misfortunes of her own to bear. When they were not
more, she used to talk to me every day of them as of beloved friends,
who were still living near her. She survived them however, but one
month. Far from reproaching her aunt for the afflictions she had caused,
her benign spirit prayed to God to pardon her, and to appease that
remorse which we heard began to torment her, as soon as she had sent
Virginia away with so much inhumanity.
Conscience, that certain punishment of the guilty, visited with all its
terrors the mind of this unnatural relation. So great was her torment,
that life and death became equally insupportable to her. Sometimes she
reproached herself with the untimely fate of her lovely niece, and with
the death of her mother, which had immediately followed it. At other
times she congratulated herself for having repulsed far from her two
wretched creatures, who, she said, had both dishonoured their family
by their grovelling inclinations. Sometimes, at the sight of the many
miserable objects with which Paris abounds, she would fly into a rage,
and exclaim,--"Why are not these idle people sent off to the colonies?"
As for the notions of humanity, virtue and religion, adopted by all
nations, she said, they were only the inventions of their rulers, to
serve political purposes. Then, flying all at once to the other extreme,
she abandoned herself to superstitious terrors, which filled her
with mortal fears. She would then give abundant alms to the wealthy
ecclesiastics who governed her, beseeching them to appease the wrath of
God by the sacrifice of her fortune,--as if the offering to Him of the
wealth she had withheld from the miserable could please her Heavenly
Father! In her imagination she often beheld fields of fire, with burning
mountains, wherein hideous spectres wandered about, loudly calling on
her by name. She threw herself at her confessor's feet, imagining every
description of agony and torture; for Heaven--just Heaven, always sends
to the cruel the most frightful views of religion and a future state.
Atheist, thus, and fanatic in turn, holding both life and death in equal
horror, she lived on for several years. But what completed the torments
of her miserable existence, was that very object to which she had
sacrificed every natural affection. She was deeply annoyed at perceiving
that her fortune must go, at her death, to relations whom she hated, and
she determined to alienate as much of it as she could. They, however,
taking advantage of her frequent attacks of low spirits, caused her to
be secluded as a lunatic, and her affairs to be put into the hands of
trustees. Her wealth, thus completed her ruin; and, as the possession
of it had hardened her own heart, so did its anticipation corrupt the
hearts of those who coveted it from her. At length she died; and, to
crown her misery, she retained enough reason at last to be sensible that
she was plundered and despised by the very persons whose opinions had
been her rule of conduct during her whole life.
On the same spot, and at the foot of the same shrubs as his Virginia,
was deposited the body of Paul; and round about them lie the remains of
their tender mothers and their faithful servants. No marble marks the
spot of their humble graves, no inscription records their virtues;
but their memory is engraven upon the hearts of those whom they have
befriended, in indelible characters. Their spirits have no need of the
pomp, which they shunned during their life; but if they still take an
interest in what passes upon earth, they no doubt love to wander beneath
the roofs of these humble dwellings, inhabited by industrious virtue, to
console poverty discontented with its lot, to cherish in the hearts
of lovers the sacred flame of fidelity, and to inspire a taste for
the blessings of nature, a love of honest labour, and a dread of the
allurements of riches.
The voice of the people, which is often silent with regard to the
monuments raised to kings, has given to some parts of this island names
which will immortalize the loss of Virginia. Near the isle of Amber, in
the midst of sandbanks, is a spot called The Pass of the Saint-Geran,
from the name of the vessel which was there lost. The extremity of that
point of land which you see yonder, three leagues off, half covered with
water, and which the Saint-Geran could not double the night before the
hurricane, is called the Cape of Misfortune; and before us, at the end
of the valley, is the Bay of the Tomb, where Virginia was found buried
in the sand; as if the waves had sought to restore her corpse to her
family, that they might render it the last sad duties on those shores
where so many years of her innocent life had been passed.
Joined thus in death, ye faithful lovers, who were so tenderly united!
unfortunate mothers! beloved family! these woods which sheltered you
with their foliage,--these fountains which flowed for you,--these
hill-sides upon which you reposed, still deplore your loss! No one has
since presumed to cultivate that desolate spot of land, or to rebuild
those humble cottages. Your goats are become wild: your orchards are
destroyed; your birds are all fled, and nothing is heard but the cry of
the sparrow-hawk, as it skims in quest of prey around this rocky basin.
As for myself, since I have ceased to behold you, I have felt friendless
and alone, like a father bereft of his children, or a traveller who
wanders by himself over the face of the earth.
Ending with these words, the good old man retired, bathed in tears; and
my own, too, had flowed more than once during this melancholy recital.