not a whit more the lover.--Lover!--Preposterous! I am merely interested
for this girl on a philosophical principle, I long to study the purely
national, natural character of an Irish woman: In fine, I long to behold
any woman in such lights and shades of mind, temper, and disposition, as
nature has originally formed her in. Hitherto I have only met servile
copies, sketched by the finger of art and finished off by the polished
touch of fashion I fear, however, that this girl is already spoiled by
the species of education she has received. The priest has more than once
spoke of her erudition! _Erudition!_ the pedantry of a school-boy of the
third class, I suppose. How much must a woman lose, and how little can
she gain, by that commutation which gives her our acquirements for her
own graces! For my part, you know, I have always kept clear of the
_basbleus_; and would prefer one playful charm of a _Ninon_ to all the
classic lore of a _Dacier_.
But you will say, I could scarcely come off worse with the pedants
than I did with the dunces; and you will say right. And, to confess the
truth, I believe I should have been easily led to desert the standard
of the pretty _fools_, had female pedantry ever stole on my heart under
such a form as the little _soi-disant_ Princess of Inis-more. ’Tis
indeed, impossible to look _less_ like one who spouts Latin with
the priest of the parish than this same Glorvina. There is something
beautifully wild about her air and look, that is indescribable; and,
without a very perfect regularity of feature, she possesses that
effulgency of countenance, that bright _lumine purpureo_, which poetry
assigns to the dazzling emanations of divine beauty. In short, there
are a thousand little fugitive graces playing around her, which are not
beauty, but the cause of it; and were I to personify the word _spell_,
she should sit for the picture........ A thousand times she swims before
my sight, as I last beheld her; her locks of living gold parting on
her brow of snow, yet seeming to separate with reluctance, as they were
lightly shaken off with that motion of the head, at once so infantile
and graceful; a motion twice put into play, as her recumbent attitude
poured the luxuriancy of her tresses over her face and neck, for she was
unveiled, and a small gold bodkin was unequal to support the redundancy
of that beautiful hair, which I more than once apostrophized in the
words of Petrarch:
“Onde totse amor l’oro e di qual vena
Per far due treccie bionde, &c.
I understand a servant is dispatched once a week to the next post town,
with and for letters; and this intelligence absolutely amazed me; for I
am astonished that these beings, who
“Look not like the inhabitants of the earth,
And yet are on it,”
should hold an intercourse with the world.
This is post day, and this packet is at last destined to be finished
and dispatched. On looking it over, the title of princes and princess
so often occur, that I could almost fancy myself at the court of some
foreign potentate, basking in the warm sunshine of regal favour, instead
of being the chance guest of a poor Irish gentleman, who lives on the
produce of a few rented farms, and, infected with a species of pleasant
mania, believes himself as much a prince as the heir apparent of
boundless empire and exhaustless treasures.
Adieu! Direct as usual: for though I certainly mean to accept the
invitation of a Prince, yet I intend, in a few days, to return home,
to obviate suspicion, and to have my books and wardrobe removed to the
Lodge, which now possesses a stronger magnet of attraction than when I
first fixed on it as my headquarters.
LETTER VII.
TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.
This is the sixth day of my convalescence, and the first of my descent
from my western tower; for I find it is literally in a tower, or turret,
which terminates a wing of these ruins, I have been lodged. These good
people, however, would have persuaded me into the possession of a slow
fever, and confined me to my room another day, had not the harp of
Glorvina, with “supernatural solicitings,” spoken more irresistibly to
my heart than all their eloquence.
I have just made my _toilette_, for the first time since my arrival at
the castle; and with a black ribbon of the nurse’s across my forehead,
and a silk handkerchief of the priest’s supporting my arm, with my
own “customary suit of solemn black,” tintless cheek, languid eye, and
pensive air, I looked indeed as though “melancholy had marked me for
her own or an excellent personification of pining atrophy” in its last
stage of decline.
While I contemplated my _memento mori_ of a figure in the glass, I heard
a harp tuning in an underneath apartment. The Prince I knew had not yet
left his bed, for his infirmities seldom permit him to rise early; the
priest had rode out; and the venerable figure of the old harper at that
moment gave a fine effect to a ruined arch under which he was passing,
led by a boy, just opposite my window. “It is Glorwna then,” said I,
“and alone!” and down I sallied; but not with half the intrepidity that
Sir Bertram followed the mysterious blue flame along the corridors of
the enchanted castle.
A thousand times since my arrival in this transmundane region, I have
had reason to feel how much we are the creatures of situation; how
insensibly our minds and our feelings take their tone from the influence
of existing circumstances. You have seen me frequently the very
prototype of _nonchalence_, in the midst of a circle of birthday
beauties, that might have put the fabled charms of the _Mount Ida
triumviri_ to the blush of inferiority. Yet here I am, groping my way
down the dismantled stone stairs of a ruined castle in the wilds of
Connaught, with my heart fluttering like the pulse of green eighteen, in
the presence of its first love, merely because on the point of appearing
before a simple rusticated girl, whose father calls himself _a prince_,
with a _potatoe ridge for his dominions!_ O! with what indifference
I should have met her in the drawingroom, or at the opera!--there she
would have been merely a woman!--here she is the fairy vision of my
heated fancy.
Well, having finished the same circuitous journey that a squirrel
diurnally performs in his cage, I found myself landed in a stone
passage, which was terminated by the identical chamber of fatal memory
already mentioned, and through the vista of a huge folding door, partly
thrown back, beheld the form of Glorvina! She was alone, and bending
over her harp; one arm was gracefully thrown over the instrument, which
she was tuning; with the other she was lightly modulating on its chords.
Too timid to proceed, yet unwilling to retreat, I was still hovering
near the door, when turning round, she observed me, and I advanced.
She blushed to the eyes, and returned my profound bow with a slight
inclination of the head, as if I were unworthy a more marked obeisance.
Nothing in the theory of sentiment could be more diametrically opposite,
than the bashful indication of that crimson blush, and the haughty
spirit of that graceful bow. What a logical analysis would it have
afforded to Father John on innate and acquired ideas! Her blush was the
effusion of nature; her bow the result of inculcation--the one spoke the
native woman; the other the _ideal_ princess.
I endeavoured to apologize for my intrusion; and she, in a manner
that amazed me, congratulated me on my recovery; then drawing her harp
towards her, she seated herself on the great Gothic couch, with a motion
of the hand, and a look, that seemed to say, “there is room for you
too.” I bowed my acceptance of the silent welcome invitation.
Behold me then seated _tete-a-tete_ with this Irish Princess!--my right
arm thrown over her harp, and her eyes riveted on my left.
“Do you still feel any pain from it?” said she, so naturally, as though
we had actually been discussing the accident it had sustained.
Would you believe it! I never thought of making her an answer; but
fastened my eyes on her face. For a moment she raised her glance to
mine, and we both coloured, as if she read there--I know not what!
“I beg your pardon,” said I, recovering from the spell of this magic
glance--“you made some observation, Madam?”
“Not that I recollect,” she replied, with a slight confusion of manner,
and running her finger carelessly over the chords of the harp, till it
came in contact with my own, which hung over it. The touch circulated
like electricity through every vein. I impulsively arose, and walked to
the window from whence I had first heard the tones of that instrument
which had been the innocent accessory to my present unaccountable
emotion. As if I were measuring the altitude of my fall, I hung half
my body out of the window, thinking, Heaven knows, of nothing less than
_that_ fall, of nothing more than its fair cause, until abruptly drawing
in my dizzy head, I perceived her’s (such a cherub head you never
beheld!) leaning against her harp, and her eye directed towards me.
I know not why, yet I felt at once confused and gratified by this
observation.
“My fall,” said I, glad of something to say, to relieve my school-boy
bashfulness, “was greater than I suspected.”
“It was dreadful!” she replied shuddering “What could have led you to so
perilous a situation?”------
“That,” I returned, “which has led to more certain destruction, senses
more strongly fortified than mine--the voice of a syren!”
I then briefly related to her the rise, decline, and fall of my physical
empire; obliged, however, to qualify the gallantry of my _debut_ by the
subsequent plainness of my narration, for the delicate reserve of her
air made me tremble, lest I had gone too far.
By heavens I cannot divest myself of a feeling of inferiority in her
presence, as though I were actually that poor, wandering, unconnected
being I have feigned myself.
My compliment was received with a smile and a blush; and to the eulogium
which rounded my detail on the benevolence and hospitality of the family
of Inismore, she replied, that “had the accident been of less material
consequence to myself, the family of Inismore must have rejoiced at
the event which enriched its social circle with so desirable an
acquisition.”
The _matter_ of this little _politesse_ was nothing; but the _manner_,
the air, with which it was delivered! Where can she have acquired this
elegance of manner?--reared amidst rocks, and woods, and mountains!
deprived of all those graceful advantages which society confers--a
manner too that is at perpetual variance with her looks, which are so
_naif_---I had almost said so wildly simple--that while she speaks in
the language of a court, she looks like the artless inhabitant of a
cottage:--a smile, and a blush, rushing to her cheek, and her lip, as
the impulse of fancy or feeling directs, even when smiles and blushes
are irrevalent to the etiquette of the moment.
This elegance of manner, then, must be the pure result of elegance of
soul; and if there is a charm in woman, I have hitherto vainly sought,
and prized beyond all I have discovered, it is this refined, celestial,
native elegance of soul, which effusing its spell through every thought,
word, and motion, of its enviable possessor, resembles the peculiar
property of gold, which subtilely insinuates itself through the most
minute and various particles, without losing any thing of its own
intrinsic nature by the amalgamation.
In answer to the flattering observation which had elicited this
digression I replied:
That far from regretting the consequences, I was emamoured of an
accident that had procured me such happiness as I now enjoyed (even with
the risk of life itself;) and that I believed there were few who, like
me, would not prefer peril to security, were the former always the
purchase of such felicity as the latter, at least on me, had never
bestowed.
Whether this reply savoured too much of the world’s commonplace
gallantry, or that she thought there was more of the head than the
heart in it, I know not; but, by my soul, in spite of a certain haughty
motion of the head not unfrequent with her, I thought she looked
wonderfully inclined to laugh in my face, though she primed up her
mouth, and fancied she looked like a nun, when her lip pouted with the
smiling archness of a Hebe.
In short, I never felt more in all its luxury the comfort of looking
like a fool; and to do away the no very agreeable sensation which the
conviction of being laughed at awakens, as a _pis-aller_, I began to
examine the harp, and expressed the surprise I felt at its singular
construction.
“Are you fond of music?” she asked with _naivette_.
“Sufficiently so,” said I, “to risk my life for it.”
She smiled, and cast a look at the window, as much as to say, “I
understand you.”
As I now was engaged in examining her harp, I observed that it resembled
less any instrument of that kind I had seen, than the drawing of the
Davidic lyre in Montfaucon.
“Then,” said she, with animation, “this is another collateral proof of
the antiquity of its origin, which I never before heard adduced, and
which sanctions that universally received tradition among us, by which
we learn, that we are indebted to the first Milesian colony that settled
here for this charming instrument, although some modern historians
suppose that we obtained it from Scandinavia.” *
* It is reserved for the national Lyre of Erin only, to
claim a title independent of a Gothic origin. For “Clar-
seach,” is the only Irish epithet for the harp, a name more
in unison with the cithera of the Greeks, and even the
chinor of the Hebrew, than the Anglo-Saxon harp. “I cannot
but think the clarseach, or Irish harp, one of the most
ancient instruments we have among us, and had perhaps its
origin in remote periods of antiquity.”--Dr. Bedford’s Essay
on the construction, &c. of the Irish Harp.
“And is this, Madam,” said I, “the original ancient Irish harp?”
“Not exactly, for I have strung it with gut instead of wire, merely for
the gratification of my own ear; but it is, however, precisely the same
form as that preserved in the Irish university, which belonged to one of
the most celebrated of our heroes, Brian Boni; for the warrior and
the bard often united in the character of our kings, and they sung the
triumphs of those departed chiefs whose feats they emulated.”
“You see,” she added with a smile, while my eager glance pursued the
kindling animation of her countenance as she spoke,--“you see, that in
all which concerns my national music, I speak with national enthusiasm;
and much indeed do we stand indebted to the most charming of all the
sciences for the eminence it has obtained us; for in _music only_, do
_you_ English allow us poor Irish any superiority; and therefore your
King, who made the _harp_ the armorial bearing of Ireland, perpetuated
our former musical celebrity beyond the power of time or prejudice to
destroy it.”
Not for the world would I have annihilated the triumph which this
fancied superiority seemed to give to this patriotic little being, by
telling her, that we thought as little of the music of her country,
as of every thing else that related to it; and that all we knew of the
style of its melodies, reached us through the false medium of comic
airs, sung by some popular actor, who in coincidence with his author,
caricatures those national traits he attempts to delineate.
I therefore simply told her, that though I doubted not the former
musical celebrity of her country, yet that I perceived the _Bardic_
order in Wales seemed to have survived the tuneful race of _Erin_; for
that though every little Cambrian village had its harper, I had not yet
met with one of the profession in Ireland.
She waved her head with a melancholy air, and replied--“the rapid
decline of the Sons of Song, once the pride of our country, is indeed
very evident; and the tones of that tender and expressive instrument
which gave birth to those which now survive them in happier countries,
no longer vibrates in our own; for of course you are not ignorant that
the importation of Irish bards and Irish instruments into Wales, * by
_Griffith ap Conan_, formed an epocha in Welch music, and awakened there
a genius of style in composition, which still breathes a kindred spirit
to that from whence it derived its being, and that even the invention of
Scottish music is given to Ireland.”! **
“Indeed,” said I, “I must plead ignorance to this singular fact, and
almost to every other connected with this _now_ to me most interesting
country.”
“Then suffer me,” said she, with a most insinuating smile, “to indulge
another little national triumph over you, by informing you, that we
learn from musical record, that the first piece of music ever seen
in _score_, in Great Britain, is an air sung time immemmorial in this
country on the opening of summer--an air, which though animated in its
measure, yet still, like all the Irish melodies, breathes the very soul
of melancholy.” ***
* Cardoc (of Lhancarvan) without any of that illiberal
partiality so common with national writers, assures us that
the Irish devised all the instruments, tunes, and measures,
in use among the Welsh. Cambrensis is even more copious in
its praise, when he peremptorily declares that the Irish,
above any other nation, is incomparably skilled in symphonal
music.--Walker’s Hist. Mem. of the Irish Bards
** See Doctor Campbell’s Phil Surv. L. 44; and Walker’s
Hist. Irish Bards, p. 131,32.
*** Called in Irish, “Ta an Samradth teacht,” or, “We
brought Summer along with us.”
“And do your melodies then, Madam, breathe the soul of melancholy?” said
I.
“Our national music,” she returned, “like our national character, admits
of no medium in sentiment: it either sinks our spirit to despondency, by
its heartbreaking pathos, or elevates it to wildness by its exhilarating
animation.
“For my own part, I confess myself the victim of its magic--an Irish
planxty cheers me into maddening vivacity; an Irish lamentation
depresses me into a sadness of melancholy emotion, to which the energy
of despair might be deemed comparative felicity.”
Imagine how I felt while she spoke--but you cannot conceive the feelings
unless you beheld and heard the object who inspired them--unless you
watched the kindling lumination of her countenance, and the varying hue
of that mutable complexion, which seemed to ebb and flow to the impulse
of every sentiment she expressed; while her round and sighing voice
modulated in unison with each expression it harmonized.
After a moment’s pause she continued:
“This susceptibility to the influence of my country’s music, discovered
itself in a period of existence when no associating sentiment of
the heart could have called it into being; for I have often wept in
convulsive emotion at an air, before the sad story it accompanied was
understood: but now--now--that feeling is matured, and understanding
awakened. Oh! you cannot judge--cannot feel--for you have no national
music; and your country is the happiest under heaven!”
Her voice faltered as she spoke--her fingers seemed impulsively to
thrill on the chords of the harp--her eyes, her tear swollen, beautiful
eyes, were thrown up to heaven, and her voice, “low and mournful as the
song of the tomb,” sighed over the chords of her national lyre, as she
faintly murmured Campbell’s beautiful poem to the ancient Irish air of
_Erin go brack!_
Oh! is there on earth a being so cold, so icy, so insensible, as to have
made a comment, even an _encomiastic_ one, when this song of the soul
ceased to breathe! God knows how little I was inclined or empowered
to make the faintest eulogium, or disturb the sacred silence which
succeeded to her music’s dying murmur. On the contrary, I sat silent and
motionless, with my head unconsciously leaning on my broken arm, and my
handkerchief to my eyes: when at last I withdrew it, I found her hurried
glance fixed on me with a smile of such expression! Oh! I could weep
my heart’s most vital drop for such another glance--such another
smile!--they seemed to say, but who dares to translate the language of
the soul, which the eye only can express?
In (I believe) equal emotion, we both arose at the same moment and
walked to the window. Beyond the mass of ruins which spread in desolate
confusion below, the ocean, calm and unruffled, expanded its awful bosom
almost to infinitude; while a body of dark, sullen clouds, tinged with
the partial beam of a meridian sun, floated above the summits of those
savage cliffs which skirt this bold and rocky coast; and the tall
spectral figure of Father John, leaning on a broken pediment, appeared
like the embodied spirit of philosophy moralizing amidst the ruins of
empires, on the instability of all human greatness.
What a sublime assemblage of images.
“How consonant,” thought I, gazing at Glorvina, “to the sublimated tone
of our present feelings.” Glorvina waved her head in accidence to the
idea, as though my lips had given it birth.
How think you I felt, on this sweet involuntary acknowledgment of a
mutual intelligence?
Be that as it may, my eyes, too faithful I fear to my feelings, covered
the face on which they were passionately riveted with blushes.
At that moment Glorvina was summoned to dinner by a servant, for she
only is permitted to dine with the Prince, as being of royal descent.
The vision dissolved--she was again the proud Milesian Princess, and I
the poor wandering _artist_--the eleemosynary guest of her hospitable
mansion.
The priest and I dined _tete-a-tete_; and, for the first time, he had
all the conversation to himself; and got deep in Locke and Malbranche,
in solving quidities, and starting hypothesis, to which I assented with
great gravity, and thought only of Glorvina.
I again beheld her gracefully drooping over her harp--I again caught
the melody of her song, and the sentiment it conveyed to the soul; and
I entered fully into the idea of the Greek painter, who drew _Love_, not
with a bow and arrow, but a lyre.
I could not avoid mentioning with admiration her great musical powers.
“Yes,” said he, “she inherits them from her mother, who obtained the
appellation of _Glorvina_, from the sweetness of her voice, by which
name our little friend was baptized at her mother’s request.”
Adieu! Glorvina has been confined in her father’s room during the whole
of the evening--to this circumstance you are indebted for this long
letter.
H. M.
LETTER VIII.
TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.
The invitation I received from the hospitable Lord of these ruins, was
so unequivocal, so cordial, that it would have been folly, not
delicacy to think of turning out of his house the moment my health was
re-established. But then, I scarcely felt it warranted that length of
residence here, which, for a thousand reasons, I am now anxious to make.
To prolong my visit till the arrival of my father in this country was
my object; and how to effect the desired purpose, was the theme of my
cogitation during the whole of the restless night which succeeded
my interview with Glorvina; and to confess the truth, I believe
this interview was not the least potent spell which fascinated me to
Inismore.
Wearied by my restlessness, rather than refreshed by my transient
slumbers, I arose with the dawn, and carrying my _port-feuille_ and
pencils with me, descended from my tower, and continued to wander
for some time among the wild and romantic scenes which surround these
interesting ruins, while
“La sainte recueihnent la paisible innocence
Sembler de ces lieus habiter le silence.”
until almost wearied in the contemplation of the varying sublimities
which the changes of the morning’s seasons shed over the ocean’s
boundless expanse, from the first gray vapour that arose from its
swelling wave, to that splendid refulgence with which the risen sun
crimsoned its bosom, I turned away my dazzled eye, and fixed it on the
ruins of Inismore. Never did it appear in an aspect so picturesquely
felicitous: it was a golden period for the poet’s fancy or the painter’s
art; and in a moment of propitious genius, I made one of the most
interesting sketches my pencil ever produced. I had just finished my
successful _ebauche_, when Father John, returning from matins, observed,
and instantly joined me. When he had looked over and commended the
result of my morning’s avocation, he gave my port-folio to a servant who
passed us, and taking my arm, we walked down together to the seashore.