How are you this morning, my adored friend? You seemed pale and ill when
we parted last night, and I shall be so unhappy till I hear something of
you. Oh, Emily, when you listened to me with those tearful and downcast
looks; when I saw your bosom heave at every word which I whispered in
your ear; when, as I accidentally touched your hand, I felt it tremble
beneath my own; oh! was there nothing in those moments at your heart
which pleaded for me more eloquently than words? Pure and holy as you
are, you know not, it is true, the feelings which burn and madden in me.
When you are beside me, your hand, if it trembles, is not on fire, your
voice, if it is more subdued, does not falter with the emotions it dares
not express: your heart is not like mine, devoured by a parching and
wasting flame: your sleep is not turned by restless and turbulent dreams
from the healthful renewal, into the very consumer, of life. No, Emily!
God forbid that you should feel the guilt, the agony which preys upon me;
but, at least, in the fond and gentle tenderness of your heart, there
must be a voice you find it difficult to silence. Amidst all the
fictitious ties and fascinations of art, you cannot dismiss from your
bosom the unconquerable impulse of nature. What is it you fear?--you
will answer, disgrace! But can you feel it, Emily, when you share it
with me? Believe me that the love which is nursed through shame and
sorrow is of a deeper and holier nature than that which is reared in
pride, fostered in joy. But, if not shame, it is guilt, perhaps, which
you dread? Are you then so innocent now? The adultery of the heart is
no less a crime than that of the deed; and--yet I will not deceive you--
it is guilt to which I tempt you!--it is a fall from the proud eminence
you hold now. I grant this, and I offer you nothing in recompense but my
love. If you loved like me, you would feel that it was something of
pride--of triumph--to dare all things, even crime, for the one to whom
all things are as nought! As for me, I know that if a voice from Heaven
told me to desert you, I would only clasp you the closer to my heart!
I tell you, my own love, that when your hand is in mine, when your head
rests upon my bosom, when those soft and thrilling eyes shall be fixed
upon my own, when every sigh shall be mingled with my breath, and every
tear be kissed away at the very instant it rises from its source--I tell
you that then you shall only feel that every pang of the past, and every
fear for the future, shall be but a new link to bind us the firmer to
each other. Emily, my life, my love, you cannot, if you would, desert
me. Who can separate the waters which are once united, or divide the
hearts which have met and mingled into one?
Since they had once more met, it will be perceived that Falkland had
adopted a new tone in expressing his passion to Emily. In the book of
guilt another page, branded in a deeper and more burning character, had
been turned. He lost no opportunity of summoning the earthlier emotions
to the support of his cause. He wooed her fancy with the golden language
of poetry, and strove to arouse the latent feelings of her sex by the
soft magic of his voice, and the passionate meaning it conveyed. But at
times there came over him a deep and keen sentiment of remorse; and even,
as his experienced and practised eye saw the moment of his triumph
approach, he felt that the success he was hazarding his own soul and hers
to obtain, might bring him a momentary transport, but not a permanent
happiness. There is always this difference in the love of women and of
men; that in the former, when once admitted, it engrosses all the sources
of thought, and excludes every object but itself; but in the latter, it
is shared with all the former reflections and feelings which the past yet
bequeaths us, and can neither (however powerful be its nature) constitute
the whole of our happiness or woe. The love of man in his maturer years
is not indeed so much a new emotion, as a revival and concentration of
all his departed affections to others; and the deep and intense nature of
Falkland's passion for Emily was linked with the recollections of
whatever he had formerly cherished as tender or dear; it touched--
it awoke a long chain of young and enthusiastic feelings, which arose,
perhaps, the fresher from their slumber. Who, when he turns to recall
his first and fondest associations; when he throws off, one by one, the
layers of earth and stone which have grown and hardened over the records
of the past: who has not been surprised to discover how fresh and
unimpaired those buried treasures rise again upon his heart? They have
been laid up in the storehouse of Time; they have not perished; their
very concealment has preserved them! _We remove the lava, and the world
of a gone day is before us_!
The evening of the day on which Falkland had written the above letter was
rude and stormy. The various streams with which the country abounded
were swelled by late rains into an unwonted rapidity and breadth; and
their voices blended with the rushing sound of the winds, and the distant
roll of the thunder, which began at last sullenly to subside. The whole
of the scene around L------ was of that savage yet sublime character,
which suited well with the wrath of the aroused elements. Dark woods,
large tracts of unenclosed heath, abrupt variations of hill and vale, and
a dim and broken outline beyond of uninterrupted mountains, formed the
great features of that romantic country.
It was filled with the recollections of his youth, and of the wild
delight which he took then in the convulsions and varieties of nature,
that Falkland roamed abroad that evening. The dim shadows of years,
crowded with concealed events and corroding reflections, all gathered
around his mind, and the gloom and tempest of the night came over him
like the sympathy of a friend.
He passed a group of terrified peasants; they were cowering under a tree.
The oldest hid his head and shuddered; but the youngest looked steadily
at the lightning which played at fitful intervals over the mountain
stream that rushed rapidly by their feet. Falkland stood beside them
unnoticed and silent, with folded arms and a scornful lip. To him,
nature, heaven, earth had nothing for fear, and everything for
reflection. In youth, thought he (as he contrasted the fear felt at one
period of life with the indifference at another), there are so many
objects to divide and distract life, that we are scarcely sensible of the
collected conviction that we live. We lose the sense of what is by
thinking rather of what is to be. But the old, who have no future to
expect, are more vividly alive to the present, and they feel death more,
because they have a more settled and perfect impression of existence.
He left the group, and went on alone by the margin of the winding and
swelling stream. "It is (said a certain philosopher) in the conflicts of
Nature that man most feels his littleness." Like all general maxims,
this is only partially true. The mind, which takes its first ideas from
perception, must take also its tone from the character of the objects
perceived. In mingling our spirits with the great elements, we partake
of their sublimity; we awaken thought from the secret depths where it had
lain concealed; our feelings are too excited to remain riveted to
ourselves; they blend with the mighty powers which are abroad; and as, in
the agitations of men, the individual arouses from himself to become a
part of the crowd, so in the convulsions of nature we are equally
awakened from the littleness of self, to be lost in the grandeur of the
conflict by which we are surrounded.
Falkland still continued to track the stream: it wound its way through
Mandeville's grounds, and broadened at last into the lake which was so
consecrated to his recollections. He paused at that spot for some
moments, looking carelessly over the wide expanse of waters, now dark as
night, and now flashing into one mighty plain of fire beneath the
coruscations of the lightning. The clouds swept on in massy columns,
dark and aspiring-veiling, while they rolled up to, the great heavens,
like the shadows of human doubt. Oh! weak, weak was that dogma of the
philosopher! There is a pride in the storm which, according to his
doctrine, would debase us; a stirring music in its roar; even a savage
joy in its destruction: for we can exult in a defiance of its power, even
while we share in its triumphs, in a consciousness of a superior spirit
within us to that which is around. We can mock at the fury of the
elements, for they are less terrible than the passions of the heart; at
the devastations of the awful skies, for they are less desolating than
the wrath of man; at the convulsions of that surrounding nature which has
no peril, no terror to the soul, which is more indestructible and eternal
than itself. Falkland turned towards the house which contained his
world; and as the lightning revealed at intervals the white columns of
the porch, and wrapt in sheets of fire, like a spectral throng, the tall
and waving trees by which it was encircled, and then as suddenly ceased,
and "the jaws of darkness" devoured up the scene; he compared, with that
bitter alchymy of feeling which resolves all into one crucible of
thought, those alternations of sight and shadow to the history of his own
guilty love--that passion whose birth was the womb of Night; shrouded in
darkness, surrounded by storms, and receiving only from the angry heavens
a momentary brilliance, more terrible than its customary gloom.
As he entered the saloon, Lady Margaret advanced towards him. "My dear
Falkland," said she, "how good it is in you to come in such a night. We
have been watching the skies till Emily grew terrified at the lightning;
formerly it did not alarm her." And Lady Margaret turned, utterly
unconscious of the reproach she had conveyed, towards Emily.
Did not Falkland's look turn also to that spot? Lady Emily was sitting
by the harp which Mrs. St. John appeared to be most seriously employed
in tuning: her countenance was bent downwards, and burning beneath the
blushes called forth by the gaze which she felt was upon her.
There was in Falkland's character a peculiar dislike to all outward
display of less worldly emotions. He had none of the vanity most men
have in conquest; he would not have had any human being know that he was
loved. He was right! No altar should be so unseen and inviolable as the
human heart! He saw at once and relieved the embarrassment he had
caused. With the remarkable fascination and grace of manner so
peculiarly his own, he made his excuses to Lady Margaret of his
disordered dress; he charmed his uncle, Don Alphonso, with a quotation
from Lope de Vega; he inquired tenderly of Mrs. Dalton touching the
health of her Italian greyhound; and then, nor till then--he ventured to
approach Emily, and speak to her in that soft tone, which, like a fairy
language, is understood only by the person it addresses. Mrs. St. John
rose and left the harp; Falkland took her seat. He bent down to whisper
Emily. His long hair touched her cheek! it was still wet with the night
dew. She looked up as she felt it, and met his gaze: better had it been
to have lost earth than to have drunk the soul's poison from that eye
when it tempted to sin.
Mrs. St. John stood at some distance: Don Alphonso was speaking to her
of his nephew, and of his hopes of ultimately gaining him to the cause
of his mother's country. "See you not," said Mrs. St. John, and her
colour went and came, "that while he has such attractions to detain him,
your hopes are in vain?" "What mean you?" replied the Spaniard; but his
eye had followed the direction she had given it, and the question came
only from his lips. Mrs. St. John drew him to a still remoter corner of
the room, and it was in the conversation that then ensued between them,
that they agreed to unite for the purpose of separating Emily from her
lover--"I to save my friend," said Mrs. St. John, "and you your kinsman."
Thus is it with human virtue:--the fair show and the good deed
without--the one eternal motive of selfishness within. During the
Spaniard's visit at E------, he had seen enough of Falkland to perceive
the great consequence he might, from his perfect knowledge of the Spanish
language, from his singular powers, and, above all, from his command of
wealth, be to the cause of that party he himself had adopted. His aim,
therefore, was now no longer confined to procuring Falkland's goodwill
and aim at home: he hoped to secure his personal assistance in Spain: and
he willingly coincided with Mrs. St. John in detaching his nephew from a
tie so likely to detain him from that service to which Alphonso wished he
should be pledged.
Mandeville had left E------ that morning: he suspected nothing of Emily's
attachment. This, on his part, was Bulwer, less confidence than
indifference. He was one of those persons who have no existence separate
from their own: his senses all turned inwards; they reproduced
selfishness. Even the House of Commons was only an object of interest,
because he imagined it a part of him, not he of it. He said, with the
insect on the wheel, "Admire our rapidity." But did the defects of his
character remove Lady Emily's guilt? No! and this, at times, was her
bitterest conviction. Whoever turns to these pages for an apology for
sin will be mistaken. They contain the burning records of its
sufferings, its repentance, and its doom. If there be one crime in
the history of woman worse than another, it is adultery. It is, in fact,
the only crime to which, in ordinary life, she is exposed. Man has a
thousand temptations to sin--woman has but one; if she cannot resist it,
she has no claim upon our mercy. The heavens are just! Her own guilt is
her punishment! Should these pages, at this moment, meet the eyes of one
who has become the centre of a circle of disgrace--the contaminator of
her house--the dishonour of her children,--no matter what the excuse for
her crime--no matter what the exchange of her station--in the very arms
of her lover, in the very cincture of the new ties which she has chosen
--I call upon her to answer me if the fondest moments of rapture are free
from humiliation, though they have forgotten remorse; and if the passion
itself of her lover has not become no less the penalty than the
recompense of her guilt? But at that hour of which I now write, there
was neither in Emily's heart, nor in that of her seducer, any
recollection of their sin. Those hearts were too full for thought--they
had forgotten everything but each other. Their love was their creation:
beyond all was night--chaos--nothing!
Lady Margaret approached them. "You will sing to us, Emily, to-night?
it is so long since we have heard you!" It was in vain that Emily tried
--her voice failed. She looked at Falkland, and could scarcely restrain
her tears. She had not yet learned the latest art which sin teaches
us-its concealment! "I will supply Lady Emily's place," said Falkland.
His voice was calm, and his brow serene the world had left nothing for
him to learn. "Will you play the air," he said to Mrs. St. John, "that
you gave us some nights ago? I will furnish the words." Mrs. St. John's
hand trembled as she obeyed.