judgment and purity of heart I have the most perfect reliance. Know,
then, that I begin to believe that Leonora’s jealousy was not so
absolutely absurd as I at first supposed. She understood her husband
better than I did. I begin to fear that I have made a serious impression
whilst I meant only to amuse myself. Heaven is my witness, I simply
intended to satisfy my curiosity, and that once gratified, it was my
determination to respect the weakness I discovered. To love Leonora, as
once I imagined I could, is out of my power; but to disturb her peace,
to destroy her happiness, to make use of the confidence she has
reposed in me, the kindness she has shown by making me an inmate of her
house--my soul shudders at these ideas. No--if her husband really
loves me I will fly. Leonora shall see that Olivia is incapable of
treachery--that Olivia has a soul generous and delicate as her own,
though free from the prejudices by which she is fettered. To Leonora
a husband is a lover--I shall consider him as such, and respect her
_property_. You are so little used, my dear Gabrielle, to consider a
husband in this point of view, that you will scarcely enter into my
feelings: but put yourself in my situation, allow for nationality of
principle, and I am persuaded you would act as I shall. Spare me your
raillery; seriously, if Leonora’s husband is in love with me, would you
not advise me, my dearest friend, to fly him, “far as pole from pole?”
Write to me, I conjure you, my Gabrielle--write instantly, and tell me
whether R----is now at Paris. I will return thither immediately if you
advise it. My mind is in such confusion, I have no power to decide; I
will be guided by your advice.
OLIVIA.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXIII.
MADAME DE P---- TO OLIVIA.
Paris.
Advice! my charming Olivia! do you ask me for advice? I never gave
or took advice in my life, except for _les vapeurs noirs_. And your
understanding is so far superior to mine, and you comprehend the
characters of these English so much better than I do, that I cannot
pretend to counsel you. This Lady Leonora is inconceivable with her
passion for her own husband; but how ridiculous to let it be suspected!
If her heart is so tender, cannot she, with all her charms, find a lover
on whom to bestow it, without tormenting that poor Mr. L----? Evidently
he is tired of her: and I am sure I should be worn to death were I in
his place. Nothing so tiresome as love without mystery, and without
obstacles. And this must ever be the case with conjugal love. Eighteen
months married, I think you say, and Lady Leonora expects her husband
to be still at her feet! And she wishes it! Truly she is the most
unreasonable woman upon earth--and the most extraordinary; but I am
tired of thinking of what I cannot comprehend.
Let us pass on to Mr. L----. By your last letters, I should judge that
he might be an agreeable man, if his wife were out of the question.
Matrimonial jealousy is a new idea to me; I can judge of it only by
analogy. In affairs of gallantry, I have sometimes seen one of the
parties continue to love when the other has become indifferent, and then
they go on tormenting one another and being miserable, because they have
not the sense to see that a fire cannot be made of ashes. Sometimes I
have found romantic young people persuade themselves that they can love
no more because they can love one another no longer; but if they had
sufficient courage to say--I am tired--and I cannot help it--they would
come to a right understanding immediately, and part on the best terms
possible; each eager to make a new choice, and to be again in love and
happy. All this to be done with decency, of course. And if there be no
scandal, where is the harm? Can it signify to the universe whether Mons.
Un tel likes Madame Une telle or Madame Une autre? Provided there is
love enough, all the world is in good humour, and that is the essential
point; for without good humour, what becomes of the pleasures of
society? As to the rest, I think of inconstancy, or _infidelity_, as it
is called, much as our good La Fontaine did--“Quand on le sait, c’est
peu de chose--quand on ne le sait pas, ce n’est rien.”
To promise to love one person eternally! What a terrible engagement!
It freezes my heart even to think of it. I am persuaded, that if I were
bound to love him for life, I should detest the most amiable man upon
earth in ten minutes--a husband more especially. Good heavens! how I
should abhor M. de P---- if I saw him in this point of view! On the
contrary, now I love him infinitely--that is to say, as one loves a
husband. I have his interest at heart, and his glory. When I thought
he was going to prison I was in despair. I was at home to no one but
_Brave-et-Tendre_, and to him only to consult on the means of obtaining
my husband’s pardon. M. de P----is sensible of this, and on my part I
have no reason to complain of his liberality. We are perfectly happy,
though we meet perhaps but for a few minutes in the day; and is not this
better than tiring one another for four-and-twenty hours? When I grow
old--if ever I do--he will be my best friend. In the mean time I support
his credit with all my influence. This very morning I concluded an
affair for him, which never could have succeeded, if the intimate friend
of the minister had not been also my lover. Now, why cannot your Lady
Leonora and her Mr. L---- live on the same sort of terms? But if English
manners will not permit of this, I have nothing more to say. Above all
things a woman must respect opinion, else she cannot be well received in
the world. I conclude this is the secret of Lady Leonora’s conduct. But
then jealousy!--no woman, I suppose, is bound, even in England, to be
jealous in order to show her love for her husband. I lose myself again
in trying to understand what is incomprehensible.
As to you, my dear Olivia, you also amaze me by talking of _crimes_ and
_horror_, and _flying from pole to pole_ to avoid a man because you have
made him at last find out that he has a heart! You have done him the
greatest possible service: it may preserve him perhaps from hanging
himself next November--that month in which, according to Voltaire’s
philosophical calendar, Englishmen always hang themselves, because the
atmosphere is so thick, and their ennui so heavy. Lady Leonora, if she
really loves her husband, ought to be infinitely obliged to you for
averting this danger. As to the rest, your heart is not concerned, so
you can have nothing to fear; and as for a platonic attachment on the
part of Mr. L----, his wife, even according to her own rigid principles,
cannot blame you.
Adieu, my charming friend! Instead of laughing at your fit of prudery,
I ought to encourage your scruples, that I might profit by them. If they
should bring you to Paris immediately, with what joy should I embrace
my Olivia, and how much gratitude should I owe to the jealousy of Lady
Leonora L----!
R---- is not yet returned. When I have any news to give you of him,
depend upon it you shall hear from me again. Accept, my interesting
Olivia, the vows of my most tender and eternal friendship.
GABRIELLE DE P----.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXIV.
OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.
L---- Castle, Tuesday.
Your charming letter, my Gabrielle, has at once revived my spirits and
dissipated all my scruples; you mistake, however, in supposing that
Leonora is in love with her husband: more and more reason have I every
hour to be convinced that Leonora has never known the passion of love;
consequently her jealousy was, as I at first pronounced it to be, the
selfish jealousy of matrimonial power and property. Else why does it
subside, why does it vanish, when, if it were a jealousy of the heart,
it has now more provocation, infinitely more than when it appeared in
full force? Leonora could see that her husband distinguished me at a
_fête champêtre_; she could see what the eyes of others showed her;
she could hear what envy whispered, or what scandal hinted; she was
mortified, she was alarmed even to fainting by a public preference, by a
silly country girl’s mistaking me for _the wife_, and doing homage to me
as to the lady of the manor; but Leonora cannot perceive in the object
of her affection the symptoms that mark the rise and progress of _a real
love_. Leonora feels not the little strokes, which would be fatal blows
to the peace of a truly delicate mind; she heeds not “the trifles
light as air” which would be confirmation strong to a soul of genuine
sensibility. My influence over the mind of L----increases rapidly, and
I shall let it rise to its acmè before I seem to notice it. Leonora,
re-assured, I suppose, by a few flattering words, and more, perhaps, by
an exalted opinion of her own merit, has lately appeared quite at her
ease, and blind to all that passes before her eyes. It is not for me
to dissipate this illusion prematurely--it is not for me to weaken this
confidence in her husband. To an English wife this would be death. Let
her foolish security then last as long as possible. After all, how much
anguish of heart, how many pangs of conscience, how much of the torture
of pity, am I spared by this callous temper in my friend! I may indulge
in a little harmless coquetry, without danger to her peace, and without
scruple, enjoy the dear possession of power.
* * * * *
“Say, for you know,” charming Gabrielle, what is the delight of
obtaining power over the human heart? Let the lords of the creation
boast of their power to govern all things; to charm these governors be
ours. Let the logicians of the earth boast their power to regulate the
world by reason; be it ours, Gabrielle, to intoxicate and humble proud
reason to the dust beneath our feet.--And who shall blame in us this
ardour for universal dominion? If they are men, I call them tyrants--if
they are women, I call them hypocrites--and the two vices which I most
detest are tyranny and hypocrisy. Frankly I confess, that I feel in
all its restless activity the passion for general admiration. I cannot
conceive--can you, Gabrielle, a pleasure more transporting than the
perception of extended and extending dominion? The struggle of the
rebel heart for freedom makes the war more tempting, the victory more
glorious, the triumph more splendid. Secure of your sympathy, ma belle
Gabrielle, I shall not fear to tire you by my commentaries.
* * * * *
Male coquetry justifies female retaliation to any imaginable extent.
Upon this principle, on which I have seen you act so often, and so
successfully, I shall now intrepidly proceed. This man makes a show of
resistance; be it at his own peril: he thinks that he is gaining power
over my heart, whilst I am preparing torments for his; he fancies that
he is throwing chains round me, whilst I am rivetting fetters from which
he will in vain attempt to escape. He is proud, and has the insanity of
desiring to be exclusively beloved, yet affects to set no value upon
the preference that is shown to him; appears satisfied with his own
approbation, and stoically all-sufficient to his own happiness. Leonora
does not know how to manage his temper, but I do. The suspense, however,
in which he keeps me is tantalizing: he shall pay for it hereafter: I
had no idea, till lately, that he had so much self-command. At times he
has actually made me doubt my own power. At certain moments I have been
half tempted to believe that I had made no serious impression, that
he had been only amusing himself at my expense, and for Leonora’s
gratification: but upon careful and cool observation I am convinced that
his indifference is affected, that all his stoicism will prove vain. The
arrow is lodged in his heart, and he must fall, whether he turn upon the
enemy in anger, or fly in dismay.
* * * * *
My pride is exasperated. I am not accustomed to such obstinate
resistance. I really almost hate this invincible man, and--strange
inconsistency of the human heart!--almost love him. Heaven and pride
preserve me from such a weakness! But there is certainly something that
piques and stimulates one’s feelings in this species of male coquetry.
L---- understands the business better than I thought he could. One
moment my knowledge of the arts of his sex puts me on my guard; the next
my sensibility exposes me in the most terrible manner. Experience
ought to protect me, but it only shows me the peril and my inability
to escape. Ah! Gabrielle, without a heart how safe we should be, how
dangerous to our lovers! But cursed with sensibility, we must, alas!
submit to our fate. The habit of loving, _le besoin d’aimer_, is more
powerful than all sense of the folly and the danger. Nor is the tempest
of the passions so dreadful as the dead calm of the soul. Why did R----
suffer my soul to sink into this ominous calm? The fault is his; let him
abide the consequences. Why did he not follow me to England? why did he
not write to me? or when he did write, why were his letters so cold,
so spiritless? When I spoke of divorce, why did he hesitate? Why did he
reason when he should have only felt? Tell him, my tender, my delicate
friend, these are questions which the heart asks, and which the heart
only can answer. Adieu.
OLIVIA.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXV.
MADAME DE P---- TO OLIVIA.
Paris.
Je suis excedée! mon coeur. Alive, and but just alive, after such a day
of fatigues! All morning from one minister to another! then home to my
toilette! then a great dinner with a number of foreigners, each to be
distinguished--then au Feydeau, where I was obliged to go to support
poor S----‘s play. It would be really insupportable, if it were not
for the finest music in the world, which, after all, the French music
certainly is. There was a violent party against the piece; and we were
so late, that it was just on the point of perishing. My ears have
not yet recovered from the horrid noise. In the midst of the tumult I
happily, by a master-stroke, turned the fortune of the night. I spied
the shawl of an English woman hanging over the box. This, you know, like
scarlet to the bull, is sufficient to enrage the Parisian pit. To the
shawl I directed the fury of the mob of critics. Luckily for us, the
lady was attended only by an Englishman, who of course chose to assert
his right not to understand the customs of any country, or submit to any
will but his own. He would not permit the shawl to be stirred. À bas! à
bas: resounded from below. The uproar was inconceivable. You would have
thought that the house must have come down. In the mean time the piece
went on, and the shawl covered all its defects. Admire my generalship.
T---- tells me I was born for a general; yet I rather think my forte is
negotiation.
But I have not yet come to your affairs, for which alone I could undergo
the fatigue of writing at this moment. Guess, my Olivia, what apparition
I met at the door of my box to-night. But the enclosed note will save
you the trouble of guessing. I could not avoid permitting him to slide
his billet-doux into my hand as he put on my shawl. Adieu. I must refuse
myself the pleasure of conversing longer with my sweet friend. Fresh
toils await me. Madame la Grande will never forgive me if I do not
appear for a moment at her soirée: and la petite Q---- will be jealous
beyond recovery, if I do not give her a moment: and it is Madame R----‘s
night. There I must be; for all the ambassadors, as usual, will be
there; and as some of them, I have reason to believe, go on purpose to
meet me, I cannot disappoint their Excellencies. My friends would never
forgive it. I am positively quite weary of this life of eternal bustle;
but once in the eddy, one is carried round and round; there is no
stopping. Adieu, adieu. I write under the hands of Victoire. O that she
had your taste to guide her, and to decide my too vacillating judgment!
we should then have no occasion to dread even the elegant simplicity of
Madame R----‘s toilette.
GABRIELLE DE P----.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXVI.
OLIVIA TO MADAME DE F----.
My Gabrielle, I have read R----‘s note enclosed in your charming
sprightly letter. What a contrast! So cold! so formal! A thousand times
rather would I not have heard from him, than have received a letter so
little in unison with my feelings. He talks to me of business. Business!
What business ought to detain a man a moment from the woman he loves?
The interests of his ambition are nothing to me. What are all these to
love? Is he so mean as to hesitate between them? then I despise him! and
Olivia can never love the being she despises!
Does R---- flatter himself that his power over my heart is omnipotent?
Does he imagine that Olivia is to be slighted with impunity? Does R----
think that a woman, who has even nominally the honour to reign over his
heart, cannot meditate new conquests? Oh, credulous vanity of man!
He fancies, perhaps, that he is secure of the maturer age of one, who
fondly devoted to him her inexperienced youth. “Security is the curse of
fools.” Does he in his wisdom deem a woman’s age a sufficient pledge for
her constancy? He might every day see examples enough to convince him of
his error. In fact, the age of women has nothing to do with the number
of their years. Possibly, however, the gallant gentleman may be of
opinion with Leonora’s Swiss, that Lady Olivia is _un peu passée_.
Adieu, my dear friend; you, who always understand and sympathize in my
feelings, you will express them for me in the best manner possible. I
shall not write to R----. You will see him; and Olivia commits to
you what to a woman of delicacy is more dear than her love--her just
resentment.
OLIVIA.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXVII.
OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.
L---- Castle.
Pity me, dearest Gabrielle, for I am in need of all the pity which
your susceptible heart can bestow. Never was woman in such a terrible
situation! Yes, Gabrielle, this provoking, this incomprehensible, this
too amiable man, has entangled your poor friend past recovery. Her
sentiments and sensations must henceforward be in eternal opposition
to each other. Friendship, gratitude, honour, virtue, all in tremendous
array, forbid her to think of love; but love, imperious love, will not
be so defied: he seizes upon his victim, and now, as in all the past,
will be the ruler, the tyrant of Olivia’s destiny. Never was confusion,
amazement, terror, remorse, equal to mine, Gabrielle, when I first
discovered that I loved him. Who could have foreseen, who could have
imagined it? I meant but to satisfy an innocent curiosity, to indulge
harmless coquetry, to gratify the natural love of admiration, and to
enjoy the possession of power. Alas! I felt not that, whilst I was
acquiring ascendancy over the heart of another, I was beguiled of all
command over my own. I flattered myself that, when honour should bid
me stop, I could pause without hesitation, without effort: I promised
myself, that the moment I should discover that I was loved by the
husband of my friend I should fly from him for ever. Alas! it is no
longer time--to fly from him is no longer in my power. Oh. Gabrielle! I
love him: he knows that I love him. Never did woman suffer more than I
have done since I wrote to you last. The conflict was too violent for
my feeble frame. I have been ill--very ill: a nervous fever brought me
nearly to the grave. Why did I not die? I should have escaped the deep
humiliation, the endless self-reproach to which my future existence is
doomed.--Leonora!--Why do I start at that name? Oh! there is horror in
the sound! Even now perhaps she knows and triumphs in my weakness. Even
now, perhaps, her calm insensible soul blesses itself for not being made
like mine. Even now perhaps her husband doubts whether he shall accept
Olivia’s love, or sacrifice your wretched friend to Leonora’s pride. Oh,
Gabrielle, no words can describe what I suffer! But I must be calm, and
explain the progress of this fatal passion. Explain--Heavens! how shall
I explain what I cannot recollect without heart-rending anguish and
confusion! Oh, Gabrielle! pity
Your distracted
OLIVIA.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXVIII.
MADAME DE P---- TO OLIVIA.
Monday.
My dear romantic Olivia! you must have a furious passion for tormenting
yourself, when you can find matter for despair in your present
situation. In your place I should rejoice to find that in the moment an
old passion had consumed itself, a new one, fresh and vigorous, springs
from its ashes. My charming friend, understand your own interests, and
do not be the dupe of those fine phrases that we are obliged to employ
to deceive others. Rail at Cupid as much as you please to the men in
public, _par façon_; but always remember for your private use, that
love is essential to our existence in society. What is a woman when
she neither loves nor is loved? a mere _personage muet_ in the drama of
life. Is it not from our lovers that we derive our consequence? Even
a beauty without lovers is but a queen without subjects. A woman who
renounces love is an abdicated sovereign, always longing to resume her
empire when it is too late; continually forgetting herself, like the
pseudo-philosophic Christina, talking and acting as though she had still
the power of life and death in her hands; a tyrant without guards or
slaves; a most awkward, pitiable, and ridiculous personage. No, my fair
Olivia, let us never abjure love; even when the reign of beauty passes
away, that of grace and sentiment remains. As much delicacy as you
please: without delicacy there is no grace, and without a veil, beauty
loses her most captivating charms. I pity you, my dear, for having let
your veil be blown aside _malheureusement_. But such accidents will
happen. Who can control the passions or the winds? After all, _l’erreur
d’un moment_ is not irretrievable, and you reproach yourself too
bitterly, my sweet friend, for your involuntary injustice to Lady
Leonora. Assuredly it could not be your intention to sacrifice your
repose to Mr. L----. You loved him against your will, did you not? And
it is, you know, by the intention that we must judge of actions: the
positive harm done to the world in general is in all cases the only just
measure of criminality. Now what harm is done to the universe, and what
injury can accrue to any individual, provided you keep your own counsel?
As long as your friend is deceived, she is happy; it therefore becomes
your duty, your virtue, to dissemble. I am no great casuist, but all
this appears to me self-evident; and these I always thought were your
principles of philosophy. My dear Olivia, I have drawn out my whole
store of metaphysics with some difficulty for your service; I flatter
myself I have set your poor distracted head to rights. One word
more--for I like to go to the bottom of a subject, when I can do so
in two minutes: virtue is desirable because it makes us happy;
consequently, to make ourselves happy is to be truly virtuous. Methinks
this is sound logic.
To tell you the truth, my dear Olivia, I do not well conceive how you
have contrived to fall in love with this half-frozen Englishman. ‘Tis
done, however--there is no arguing against facts; and this is only one
proof more of what I have always maintained, that destiny is inevitable
and love irresistible. Voltaire’s charming inscription on the statue of
Cupid is worth all the volumes of reasoning and morality that ever were
or ever will be written. Banish melancholy thoughts, my dear friend;
they serve no manner of purpose but to increase your passion. Repentance
softens the heart; and every body knows, that what softens the heart
disposes it more to love: for which reason I never abandon myself to
this dangerous luxury of repentance. Mon Dieu! why will people never
benefit by experience? And to what purpose do they read history? Was not
La Vallière ever penitent, and ever transgressing? ever in transports or
in tears? You, at all events, my Olivia, can never become a Carmelite or
a Magdalen. You have emancipated yourself from superstition: but whilst
you ridicule all religious orders, do not inflict upon yourself their
penances. The habit of some of the orders has been thought becoming. The
modest costume of a nun is indeed one of the prettiest dresses one can
wear at a masquerade ball, and it might even be worn without a mask,
if it were fashionable: but nothing that is not fashionable can be
becoming.
Adieu, my adorable Olivia: I will send you, by the first opportunity,
your Lyons gown, which is really charming.
GABRIELLE DE P----.
* * * * *
LETTER XXXIX.
OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.
Nov. 30th, --
Your truly philosophical letter, my infinitely various Gabrielle,
infused a portion of its charming spirit into my soul. My mind was
fortified and elevated by your eloquence. Who could think that a woman
of such a lively genius could be so profound? and who could expect from
a woman who has passed her life in the world, such original and deep
reflections? You see you were mistaken when you thought that you had no
genius for philosophic subjects.
After all that has been said by metaphysicians about the existence and
seat of the moral sense, I think I can solve every difficulty by a
new theory. You know some philosophers suppose the moral sense to be
intuitive and inherent in man: others who deny the doctrine of innate
ideas, treat this notion of innate sentiments as equally absurd. There
they certainly are wrong, for sentiments are widely different from
ideas, and I have that within me which convinces my understanding that
sentiments must be innate, and proportioned to the delicacy of our
sensibility; no person of common sense or feeling can doubt this. But
there are other points which I own puzzled me till yesterday: some
metaphysicians would seat the moral sense inherently in the heart,
others would place it intuitively in the brain, all would confine it to
the soul; now in my opinion it resides primarily and principally in the
nerves, and varies with their variations. Hence the difficulty of making
the moral sense a universal guide of action, since it not only differs
in many individuals, but in the same persons at different periods of
their existence, or (as I have often experienced) at different hours of
the day. All this must depend upon the mobility of the nervous system:
upon this may _hinge_ the great difficulties which have puzzled
metaphysicians respecting consciousness, identity, &c. If they had
attended less to the nature of the soul, and more to the system of the
nerves, they would have avoided innumerable errors, and probably would
have made incalculably important discoveries. Nothing is wanting but
some great German genius to bring this idea of a moral sense in the
nerves into fashion. Indeed, if our friend Mad. ---- would mention it
in the notes to her new novel, it would introduce it, in the most
satisfactory manner possible, to all the fashionable world abroad; and
we take our notions in this country implicitly from the continent. As
for you, my dear Gabrielle, I know you cut the Gordian knot at once, by
referring, with your favourite moralist, every principle of human
nature to self-love. This does not quite accord with my ideas; there is
something harsh in it that is repugnant to my sensibility; but you have
a stronger mind than I have, and perhaps your theory is right.
“You tell me I contradict myself continually,” says the acute and witty
Duke de la Rochefoucault: “No, but the human heart, of which I treat, is
in perpetual contradiction to itself.” Permit me to avail myself of this
answer, dear Gabrielle, if you should accuse me of contradicting in
this letter all that I said to you in my last. A few hours after I had
despatched it, the state of my nerves changed; I saw things of course
in a new light, and repented having exposed myself to your raillery by
writing in such a Magdalen strain. My nerves were more in fault than I.
When one’s mind, or one’s nerves grow weak, the early associations and
old prejudices of the nursery recur, and tyrannize over one’s reason:
from this evil your liberal education and enviable temperament have
preserved you; but have charity for my feminine weakness of frame, which
too often counteracts the masculine strength of my soul. Now that I have
deprecated your ridicule for my last nervous nonsense, I will go on in a
more rational manner. However my better judgment might have been clouded
for a moment, I have recovered strength of mind enough to see that I am
in no way to blame for any thing that has happened. If a man is amiable,
and if I have taste and sensibility, I must see and feel it. “To love,”
as I remember your friend G---- once finely observed to you, “to love,
is a crime only in the eyes of demons, or of priests, who resemble
demons.” This is a general proposition, to which none but the prejudiced
can refuse their assent: and what is true in general, must be true
in particular. The _accident_, I use the term philosophically, not
popularly, the accident of a man’s being married, or, in other words,
having entered imprudently into a barbarous and absurd civil contract,
cannot alter the nature of things. The essence of truth cannot be
affected by the variation of external circumstances. Now the proper
application of metaphysics frees the mind from vulgar prejudices, and
dissipates the baby terrors of an ill-educated conscience. To fall in
love with a married man, and the husband of your intimate friend! How
dreadful this sounds to some ears! even mine were startled at first,
till I called reason to my assistance. Then I had another difficulty to
combat--to own, and own unasked, a passion to the object of it, would
shock the false delicacy of those who are governed by common forms, and
who are slaves to vulgar prejudices: but a little philosophy liberates
our sex from the tyranny of custom, teaches us to disdain hypocrisy, and
to glory in the simplicity of truth.
Josephine had been perfuming my hair, and I was sitting reading at my
toilette; the door of my dressing-room happened to be half open; L----
was crossing the gallery, and as he passed I suppose his eye was caught
by my hair, or perhaps he paused a moment, I am not certain how it
was--my eyes were on my book.
“Ah! vous avez raison, monsieur, c’est la plus belle chevelure! Mais
entrez donc, monsieur,” cried Josephine, whom I can never teach to
comprehend or respect English customs, “Eh! entrez, entrez, monsieur;
madame est à sa toilette.”
As I looked up I could not forbear smiling at the extreme ease and
decision of Josephine’s manner, and the excessive doubt and anxiety
in the gentleman’s appearance. My smile, which, Heaven knows, meant
no encouragement, decided him; timidity instantly gave way to joy; he
entered. What was to be done? I could not turn him out again; I was not
answerable for any foolish conclusions he might draw, from what he ought
in politeness to have considered as a thing of course. All I could do
was to blame Josephine for being a French woman. To defend her, and
flatter me, was the gentleman’s part; and, for an Englishman, he really
acquitted himself with tolerable grace. Josephine at least was pleased,
and she found such a perpetual employment for monsieur, and his advice
was so necessary, that there was no chance of his departure: so we
talked of French _toilettes_, &c. &c. in French, for Josephine’s
edification: L---- paid me some compliments upon the recovery of my
looks after my illness--I thought I looked terribly languid--but he
assured me that this languor, in his eyes, was an additional grace; I
could not understand this: he fancied that must be because he did not
express himself well in French; he explained himself more clearly in
English, which Josephine, you know, does not understand, so that she
was now forced to be silent, and I was compelled to take my share in
the conversation. L---- made me comprehend, that languor, indicating
sensibility of heart, was to him the most touching of female charms; I
sighed, and took up the book I had been reading; it was the new novel
which you sent me, dear Gabrielle; I talked of it, in hopes of
changing the course of the conversation; alas! this led to one far more
dangerous: he looked at the passage I had been reading. This brought us
back to sensibility again--to sentiments and descriptions so terribly
apposite! we found such a similarity in our tastes! Yet L---- spoke only
in general, and he preserved a command over himself, which provoked me,
though I knew it to be coquetry; I saw the struggle in his mind, and
was determined to force him to be candid, and to enjoy my triumph. With
these views I went farther than I had intended. The charm of sensibility
he had told me was to him irresistible. Alas! I let him perceive all
the weakness of my heart.--Sensibility is the worst time-keeper in
the world. We were neither of us aware of its progressive motion. The
Swiss--my evil genius--the Swiss knocked at the door to let me know
dinner was served. Dinner! on what vulgar incidents the happiness of
life depends! Dinner came between the discovery of my sentiments and
that declaration of passion which I now must hear--or die.
“Le diner! mon Dieu!” cried Josephine. “Mais--finissons donc--la
toilette de madame.”
I heard the impertinent Swiss at the other end of the gallery at his
master’s door, wondering in broken English where his master could be,
and conjecturing forty absurdities about his boots, and his being out
riding, &c. &c. To sally forth in conscious innocence upon the enemy’s
spies, and to terminate the adventure as it was begun, _à la Françoise_,
was my resolution. L---- and Josephine understood me perfectly.
“Eh! Monsieur de Vaud,” said Josephine to the Swiss, whom we met on
the landing-place of the stairs, “madame n’est elle pas coeffée à
ravir aujourd’hui? C’est que monsieur vient d’assister à la toilette de
madame.” The Swiss bowed, and said nothing. The bow was to his master,
not to me, and it was a bow of duty, not of inclination. I never saw a
man look so like a machine; he did not even raise his eyes upon me or my
_coëffure_ as we passed.
“Bah!” cried Josephine, with an inexpressible accent of mingled
indignation and contempt. She ran down stairs, leaving the Swiss to
his stupidity. I was more afraid of his penetration. But I entered the
dining-room as if nothing extraordinary had happened; and after all,
you know, my dear Gabrielle, nothing extraordinary had befallen us.
A gentleman had assisted at a lady’s toilette. Nothing more simple,
nothing, more proper in the meridian of Paris; and does propriety change
with meridians? There was company at dinner, and the conversation was
general and uninteresting; L---- endeavoured to support his part with
vivacity; but he had fits of absence and silence, which might have
alarmed Leonora, if she had any suspicion. But she is now perfectly
secure, and absolutely blind: therefore you see there can be no
danger for her happiness in my remaining where I am. For no earthly
consideration would I disturb her peace of mind; there is no sacrifice
I would hesitate for a moment to make to friendship or virtue, but I
cannot surely be called upon to _plant a dagger in my own heart_ to
destroy, for ever to destroy my own felicity without advantage to my
friend. My attachment to L----, as you say, is involuntary, and my love
as pure as it is fervent. I have reason to believe that his sentiments
are the same for me; but of this I am not yet certain. There is the
danger, and the only real danger for Leonora’s happiness; for whilst
this uncertainty and his consequent fits of absence and imprudence last,
there is hazard every moment of her being alarmed. But when L---- once
decides, every thing arranges itself, you know, Gabrielle, and prudence
becomes a duty to ourselves and to Leonora. No word, or look, or
coquetry could then escape us; we should be unpardonable if we did not
conduct ourselves with the most scrupulous delicacy and attention to her
feelings. I am amazed that L----, who has really a good understanding,
does not make these reflections, and is not determined by this
calculation. For his, for my own, but most for Leonora’s sake, I
wish that this cruel suspense were at an end. Adieu, dear and amiable
Gabrielle.--These things are managed better in France.
OLIVIA.
* * * * *
LETTER XL.
MRS. C---- TO MISS B----.
DEAR MARGARET, L---- Castle.
I arrived here late yesterday evening in high spirits, and high hopes of
surprising and delighting all the world by my unexpected appearance;
but my pride was checked, and my tone changed the moment I saw Leonora.
Never was any human being so altered in her looks in so short a time.
I had just, and but just presence of mind enough not to say so. I am
astonished that it does not strike Mr. L----. As soon as she left the
room, I asked him if Lady Leonora had been ill? No; perfectly well!
perfectly well!--Did not he perceive that she looked extremely ill? No;
she might be paler than usual: that was all that Mr. L---- had observed.
Lady Olivia, after a pause, added, that Leonora certainly had not
appeared well lately, but this was nothing extraordinary in her
_situation_. _Situation!_ nonsense! Lady Olivia went on with sentimental
hypocrisy of look and tone, saying fine things, to which I paid little
attention. Virtue in words, and vice in actions! thought I. People, of
certain pretensions in the court of sentiment, think that they can pass
false virtues upon the world for real, as some ladies, entitled by their
rank to wear jewels, appear in false stones, believing that it will be
taken for granted they would wear nothing but diamonds. Not one eye in
a hundred detects the difference at first, but in time the hundredth eye
comes, and then they must for ever hide their diminished rays. Beware!
Lady Olivia, beware!
Leonora is ill, or unhappy, or both; but she will not allow that she
is either. On one subject she is impenetrable: a hundred, a thousand
different ways within these four-and-twenty hours have I led to it, with
all the ingenuity and all the delicacy of which I am mistress; but all
to no purpose. Neither by provocation, persuasion, laughing, teazing,
questioning, cross, or round about, pushing, squeezing, encompassing,
taking for granted, wondering, or blundering, could I gain my point.
Every look guarded--every syllable measured--yet unequivocal--
“She said no more than just the thing she ought.”
Because I could find no fault, I was half angry. I respect the motive
of this reserve; but towards me it is misplaced, and ill-judged, and it
must not exist. I have often declared that I would never condescend to
play the part of a confidante to any princess or heroine upon earth. But
Leonora is neither princess nor heroine, and I would be her confidante,
but she will not let me. Now I am punished for my pride. If she would
only trust me, if she would only tell me what has passed since I went,
and all that now weighs upon her mind, I could certainly be of some use.
I could and would say every thing that she might scruple to hint to Lady
Olivia, and I will answer for it I would make her raise the siege. But
I cannot believe Mr. L---- to be such a madman as to think of attaching
himself seriously to a woman like Olivia, when he has such a wife as
Leonora. That he was amusing himself with Olivia I saw, or thought I
saw, some time ago, and I rather wondered that Leonora was uneasy: for
all husbands will flirt, and all wives must bear it, thought I. When
such a coquette as this fell in his way, and made advances, he would
have been more than man if he had receded. Of course, I thought, he must
despise and laugh at her all the time he was flattering and gallanting
her ladyship. This would have been fair play, and comic; but the comedy
should have ended by this time. I am now really afraid it will turn into
a tragedy. I, even I! am alarmed. I must prevail upon Leonora to speak
to me without reserve. I see her suffer, and I must share her grief.
Have not I always done so from the time we were children? and now, when
she most wants a friend, am not I worthy to share her confidence? Can
she mistake friendship for impertinent curiosity? Does not she know that
I would not be burthened with the secrets of any body whom I did not
love? If she thinks otherwise, she does me injustice, and I will tell
her so before I sleep. She does not know how well I love her.
* * * * *
My dear Margaret, Leonora and I have had a quarrel--the first serious
quarrel we ever had in our lives; and the end of it is, that she is an
angel, and I am a fool. Just as I laid down my pen after writing to you,
though it was long past midnight, I marched into Leonora’s apartment,
resolved to surprise or to force her confidence. I found her awake, as
I expected, and up and dressed, as I did not expect, sitting in her
dressing-room, her head leaning upon her hand. I knew what she was
thinking of; she had a heap of Mr. L----‘s old letters beside her. She
denied that she was in tears, and I will not swear to the tears, but
I think I saw signs of them notwithstanding. I spoke out;--but in
vain--all in vain. At last I flew into a passion, and reproached her
bitterly. She answered me with that air of dignified tenderness which
is peculiar to her--“If you believe me to be unhappy, my dear Helen,
is this a time to reproach me unjustly?” I was brought to reason and to
tears, and after asking pardon, like a foolish naughty child, was kissed
and forgiven, upon a promise never to do so any more; a promise which I
hope Heaven will grant me grace and strength of mind enough to keep. I
was certainly wrong to attempt to force her secret from her. Leonora’s
confidence is always given, never yielded; and in her, openness is a
virtue, not a weakness. But I wish she would not contrive to be always
in the right. In all our quarrels, in all the variations of my humour,
I am obliged to end by doing homage to her reason, as the Chinese
mariners, in every change of weather, burn incense before the needle.
Your affectionate
HELEN C----.
* * * * *
LETTER XLI.
MR. L---- TO GENERAL B----.
MY DEAR GENERAL, L---- Castle, Friday.
I hoped that you would have favoured us with a passing visit in your
way from town, but I know you will tell me that friendship must not
interfere with the interests of the service. I have reason to curse
those interests; they are for ever at variance with mine. I had a
particular desire to speak to you upon a subject, on which it is not
agreeable to me to write. Lady Leonora also wished extremely, and
disinterestedly, for your company. She does not know how much she
is obliged to you. The laconic advice you gave me, some time ago,
influenced my conduct longer, than counsel which is in opposition to
our passions usually does, and it has haunted my imagination
perpetually:--“My dear L----, do not end by being the dupe of a
_Frenchified coquette_.”
My dear friend, of that there is no danger. No man upon earth despises
or detests coquettes more than I do, be they French or English. I think,
however, that a foreign-born, or foreign-bred coquette, has more of the
ease of _practice_, and less of the awkwardness of conscience, than
a home-bred flirt, and is in reality less blamable, for she breaks no
restraints of custom or education; she does only what she has seen her
mother do before her, and what is authorized by the example of most of
the fashionable ladies of her acquaintance. But let us put flirts and
coquettes quite out of the question. My dear general, you know that I am
used to women, and take it upon my word, that the lady to whom I allude
is more tender and passionate than vain. Every woman has, or has had,
a tincture of vanity; but there are a few, and those are to me the most
amiable of the sex, who
“Feel every vanity in fondness lost.”
You know that I am delicate, even fastidious, in my taste for female
manners. Nothing can in my opinion make amends for any offence against
propriety, except it be sensibility--genuine, generous sensibility.
This can, in my mind, cover a multitude of faults. There is so much
of selfishness, of hypocrisy, of coldness, in what is visually called
female virtue, that I often turn with distaste from those to whom I am
compelled to do homage, for the sake of the general good of society. I
am not _charlatan_ enough to pretend upon all occasions to prefer the
public advantage to my own. I confess, that let a woman be ever so fair,
or good, or wise:
“Be she with that goodness blest
Which may merit name of best,
If she be not such to me,
What care I how good she be?”
And I will further acknowledge, that I am not easily satisfied with the
manner in which a woman is kind to me: if it be duty-work kindness, I
would not give thanks for it: it is done for her reputation, not for me,
and let the world thank her. To _the best of wives_, I should make the
worst of husbands. No--I should, I hope, pay her in her own coin, with
all due observances, attentions, and respect, but without one grain of
love. Love is only to be had for love; and without it, nothing a woman
can give appears to me worth having. I do not desire to be loved well
enough to satisfy fathers and mothers, and uncles and aunts; well enough
to decide a woman to marry me rather than disoblige her friends, or run
the chance of having _many a worse offer_, and living perhaps to be an
old maid. I do not desire to be loved well enough to keep a woman true
and faithful to me “_till death us do part_:” in short, I do not desire
to be loved well enough for a husband; I desire to be loved sufficiently
for a lover; not only above all other persons, but above all other
things, all other considerations--to be the first and last object in the
heart of the woman to whom I am attached: I wish to feel that I sustain
and fill the whole of her heart. I must be certain that I am every
thing to her, as she is every thing to me; that there is no imaginable
situation in which she would not live with me, in which she would not be
happy to live with me; no possible sacrifice that she would not make for
me; or rather, that nothing she could do should appear a sacrifice. Are
these exorbitant expectations? I am capable of all this, and more, for
a woman I love; and it is my pride or my misfortune to be able to love
upon no other terms. Such proofs of attachment it may be difficult to
obtain, and even to give; more difficult, I am sensible, for a wife
than for a mistress. A young lady who is married _secundum artem_, with
licence and consent of friends, can give no extraordinary instances of
affection. I should not consider it as an indisputable proof of love,
that she does me the honour to give me her hand in a church, or that she
condescends to bespeak my liveries, or to be handed into her own coach
with all the blushing honours of a bride; all the paraphernalia of a
wife secured, all the prudent and necessary provision made both for
matrimonial love and hatred, dower, pin-money, and separate maintenance
on the one hand, and on the other, lands, tenements, and hereditaments
for the future son and heir, and sums without end for younger children
to the tenth and twentieth possibility, _as the case may be, nothing
herein contained to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding_. Such a
jargon Cupid does not understand. A woman may love this most convenient
personage, her lawful husband; but I should think it difficult for the
delicacy of female passion to survive the cool preparations for hymeneal
felicity. At all events, you will allow the lady makes no sacrifice, she
shows no great generosity, and she may, or she may not, be touched at
the altar by the divine flame. My good general, when you are a husband
you will feel these things as I do; till then, it is very easy to talk
as you do, and to admire other men’s wives, and to wish Heaven had
blessed you with such a treasure. For my part, the single idea, that
a woman thinks it her duty to be fond of me, would deprive me of all
pleasure in her love. No man can be more sensible than I am of the
amiable and estimable qualities of Lady Leonora L----; I should be a
brute and a liar if I hesitated to give the fullest testimony in her
praise; but such is the infirmity of my nature, that I could pardon some
faults more easily, than I could like some virtues. The virtues which
leave me in doubt of a woman’s love, I can esteem, but that is all. Lady
Leonora is calm, serene, perfectly sweet-tempered, without jealousy and
without suspicion; in one word, without love. If she loved me, she never
could have been the wife she has been for some months past. You will
laugh at my being angry with a wife for not being jealous. But so it is.
Certain defects of temper I could bear, if I considered them as symptoms
of strong affection. When I for a moment believed that Leonora suffered,
when I attributed her fainting at our fête champêtre to jealousy, I was
so much alarmed and touched, that I absolutely forgot her rival. I did
more; to prevent her feeling uneasiness, to destroy the suspicions which
I imagined had been awakened in her mind, I hesitated not to sacrifice
all the pleasure and all the vanity which a man of my age might
reasonably be supposed to feel in the prospect of a new and not
inglorious conquest; I left home immediately, and went to meet you, my
dear friend, on your return from abroad. This visit I do not set down
to your account, but to that of honour--foolish, unnecessary honour. You
half-persuaded me, that your hearsay Parisian evidence was more to be
trusted than my own judgment, and I returned home with the resolution
not to be the dupe of a coquette. Leonora’s reception of me was
delightful; I never saw her in such spirits, or so amiable. But I could
not help wishing to ascertain whether I had attributed her fainting to
the real cause. This proof I tempted to my cost. Instead of showing any
tender alarm at the renewal of my obvious attentions to her rival, she
was perfectly calm and collected, went on with her usual occupations,
fulfilled all her duties, never reproached me by word or look, never for
one moment betrayed impatience, ill-humour, suspicion, or jealousy; in
short, I found that I had been fool enough to attribute to excess of
affection, an accident which proceeded merely from the situation of her
health. If anxiety of mind had been the cause of her fainting at the
fête champêtre, she would since have felt and shown agitation on a
thousand occasions, where she has been perfectly tranquil. Her friend
Mrs. C----, who returned here a few days ago, seems to imagine that
Leonora looks ill; but I shall not again be led to mistake bodily
indisposition for mental suffering. Leonora’s conduct argues great
insensibility of soul, or great command; great insensibility, I think:
for I cannot imagine such command of temper possible to any, but a
woman who feels indifference for the offender. Yet, even now that I have
steeled myself with this conviction, I am scarcely bold enough to hazard
the chance of giving her pain. Absurd weakness! It has been clearly
proved to my understanding, that my irresolution, my scruples of
conscience, my combats between love and esteem, are more likely to
betray the real state of my mind than any decision that I could make.
I decide, then--I determine to be happy with a woman who has a soul
capable of feeling, not merely what is called conjugal affection, but
the passion of love; who is capable of sacrificing every thing to love;
who has given me proofs of candour and greatness of mind, which I value
far above all her wit, grace, and beauty. My dear general, I know all
that you can tell, all that you can hint concerning her history abroad.
I know it from her own lips. It was told to me in a manner that made her
my admiration. It was told to me as a preservative against the danger
of loving her. It was told to me with the generous design of protecting
Leonora’s happiness; and all this at the moment when I was beloved,
tenderly beloved. She is above dissimulation: she scorns the arts, the
fears of her sex. She knows you are her enemy, and yet she esteems you;
she urged me to speak to you with the utmost openness: “Let me never,”
said she, “be the cause of your feeling less confidence or less
affection for the best of friends.”
R---- is sacrificed to me; that R----, with whose cursed name you
tormented me. My dear friend, she will force your admiration, as she has
won my love.
Yours sincerely,
F. L----.
* * * * *
LETTER XLII.
MRS. C---- TO MISS B----.
L---- Castle.
As I am not trusted with the secret, I may, my dear Margaret, use my
own eyes and ears as I please to find it out; and I know Leonora’s
countenance so well, that I see every thing that passes in her mind,
just as clearly as if she had told it to me in words.
It grieves me, more than I can express, to see her suffering as she
does. I am now convinced that she has reason to be unhappy; and what is
worse, I do not see what course she can follow to recover her happiness.
All her forbearance, all her patience, all her sweet temper, I perceive,
are useless, or worse than useless, injurious to her in her strange
husband’s opinion. I never liked him thoroughly, and now I detest him.
He thinks her cold, insensible! She insensible!--Brute! Idiot! Every
thing that she says or does displeases him. The merest trifles excite
the most cruel suspicions. He totally misunderstands her character, and
sees every thing about her in a false light. In short, he is under
the dominion of an artful fiend, who works as she pleases upon his
passions--upon his pride, which is his ruling passion.
This evening Lady Olivia began confessing that she had too much
sensibility, that she was of an excessively susceptible temper, and
that she should be terribly jealous of the affections of any person she
loved. She did not know how love _could_ exist without jealousy. Mr.
L---- was present, and listening eagerly. Leonora’s lips were silent;
not so her countenance. I was in hopes Mr. L---- would have remarked its
beautiful touching expression; but his eyes were fixed upon Olivia. I
could have ... but let me go on. Lady Olivia had the malice suddenly
to appeal to Leonora, and asked whether she was never jealous of her
husband? Leonora, astonished by her assurance, paused for an instant,
and then replied, “It would be difficult to convince me that I had any
reason to be jealous of Mr. L----, I esteem him so much.”--“I wish to
Heaven!” exclaimed Lady Olivia, her eyes turned upwards with a fine St.
Cecilia expression, whilst Mr. L----‘s attention was fixed upon her,
“Would to Heaven I was blessed with such a _reasonable_ temper!”--“When
you are wishing to Heaven, Lady Olivia,” said I, “had not you better ask
for _all you want_ at once; not only such a reasonable temper, but such
a feeling heart?”
Some of the company smiled. Lady Olivia, practised as she is, looked
disconcerted; Mr. L---- grave and impenetrable; Leonora, blushing,
turned away to the piano-forte. Mr. L---- remained talking with Lady
Olivia, and he neither saw nor heard her. If Leonora had sung like an
angel, it would have made no impression. She turned over the leaves
of her music quickly, to a lively air, and played it immediately, to
prevent my perceiving how much she felt. Poor Leonora! you are but a bad
dissembler, and it is in vain to try to conceal yourself from me.
I was so sorry for her, and so incensed with Olivia this night, that I
could not restrain myself, and I made matters worse. At supper I came
almost to open war with her ladyship. I cannot remember exactly what
I said, but I know that I threw out the most severe inuendoes which
politeness could permit: and what _was_ the consequence? Mr. L----
pitied Olivia and hated me; Leonora was in misery the whole time; and
her husband probably thought that she was the instigator, though she was
perfectly innocent. My dear Margaret, where will all this end? and how
much more mischief shall I do with the best intentions possible?
Yours affectionately,
HELEN C----.
* * * * *
LETTER XLIII.
GENERAL B---- TO MR. L----.
Your letter has travelled after me God knows where, my dear L----, and
has caught me at last with my foot in the stirrup. I have just had time
to look it over. I find, in short, that you are in love. I give you joy!
But be in love like a madman, not like a fool. Call a demirep an angel,
and welcome; but remember, that such angels are to be had any day in
the year; and such a wife as yours is not to be had for the mines of
Golconda. Coin your heart, and drop your blood for it, and you will
never be loved by any other woman so well as you are by Lady Leonora
L----.
As to your jealous hypochondriacism, more of that when I have more
leisure. In the mean time I wish it well cured.
I am, my dear friend,
Yours truly,
J. B.
* * * * *
LETTER XLIV.
OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.
L---- Castle.
I Triumph! dear Gabrielle, give me joy! Never was triumph more complete.
L---- loves me! That I knew long ago; but I have at last forced from his
proud heart the avowal of his passion. Love and Olivia are victorious
over scruples, prejudice, pride, and superstition!
Leonora feels not--sees not: she requires, she excites no pity. Long may
her delusion last! But even were it this moment to dissipate, what cause
have I for remorse? “Who is most to blame, he who ceases to love, or
she who ceases to please?” Leonora perhaps thinks that she loves her
husband; and no doubt she does so in a conjugal sort of a way: he _has_
loved his wife; but be it mine to prove that his heart is suited to far
other raptures; and if Olivia be called upon for sacrifices, _Olivia_
can make them.
“Let wealth, let honour wait the wedded dame,
August her deed, and sacred be her fame;
Before true passion, all those views remove,
Fame, wealth, and honour, what are you to love?”
These lines, though quoted perpetually by the tender and passionate,
can never become stale and vulgar; they will always recur in certain
situations to persons of delicate sensibility, for they at once express
all that can be said, and justify all that can be felt. My amiable
Gabrielle, adieu. Pardon me if to-day I have no soul even for
friendship. This day is all for love.
OLIVIA.
* * * * *
LETTER XLV.
GENERAL B---- TO MR. L----.
What the devil would you have of your wife, my dear L----? You would
be loved above all earthly considerations; honour, duty, virtue, and
religion inclusive, would you? and you would have a wife with her
head in the clouds, would you? I wish you were married to one of the
all-for-love heroines, who would treat you with bowl and dagger every
day of your life. In your opinion sensibility covers a multitude of
faults--you would have said _sins_: so it had need, for it produces
a multitude. Pray what brings hundreds and thousands of women to the
Piazzas of Covent Garden but sensibility? What does the colonel’s, and
the captain’s, and the ensign’s mistress talk of but _sensibility_? And
are you, my dear friend, to be duped by this hackneyed word? And should
you really think it an indisputable proof of a lady’s love, that she
would jump out of a two pair of stairs window into your arms? Now I
should think myself sure of such a woman’s love only just whilst I held
her, and scarcely then; for I, who in my own way am jealous as well
as yourself, should in this case be jealous of wickedness, and should
strongly suspect that she would love the first devil that she saw better
than me.
You are always raving about sacrifices. Your Cupid must be a very
vindictive little god. Mine is a good-humoured, rosy little fellow, who
desires no better than to see me laugh and be happy. But to every man
his own Cupid. If you cannot believe in love without sacrifices, you
must have them, to be sure. And now, in sober sadness, what do you think
your heroine would sacrifice for you? Her reputation? that, pardon me,
is out of her power. Her virtue? I have no doubt she would. But before I
can estimate the value of this sacrifice, I must know whether she makes
it to you or to her pleasure. Would she give up in any instance her
pleasure for your happiness? This is not an easy matter to ascertain
with respect to a mistress: but your wife has put it beyond a doubt,
that she prefers your happiness not only to her pleasure, but to her
pride, and to every thing that the sex usually prefer to a husband. You
have been wounded by a poisoned arrow; but you have a faithful wife who
can extract the poison. Lady Leonora’s affection is not a mere fit of
goodness and generosity, such as I have seen in many women, but it is a
steadiness of attachment in the hour of trial, which I have seen in few.
For several months past you have, by your own account, put her temper
and her love to the most severe tests, yet she has never failed for one
moment, never reproached you by word or look.--But may be she has no
feeling.--No feeling! you can have none, if you say so: no penetration,
if you think so. Would not you think me a tyrant if I put a poor fellow
on the picket, and told you, when he bore it without a groan, that it
was because he could not feel? You do worse, you torture the soul of the
woman who loves you; she endures, she is calm, she smiles upon you
even in agony; and you tell me she cannot feel! she cannot feel like an
Olivia! No; and so much the better for her husband, for she will then
have only feeling enough for him, she will not extend her charity to all
his sex. But Olivia has such candour and magnanimity, that I must admire
her! I humbly thank her for offering to make me her confidant, for
offering to tell me what I know already, and what she is certain that
I know. These were good moves, but I understand the game as well as her
ladyship does. As to her making a friend of me; if she means an enemy to
Lady Leonora L----, I would sooner see her--in heaven: but if she would
do me the favour to think no more of your heart, which is too good for
her, and to accept of my--my--what shall I say?--my devoirs, I am at her
command. She shall drive my curricle, &c. &c. She would suit me vastly
well for a month or two, and by that time poor R---- would make his
appearance, or somebody in his stead: at the worst, I should have
a chance of some blessed metaphysical quirk, which would prove that
inconstancy was a virtue, or that a new love is better than an old
one. When it came to that, I should make my best bow, put on my most
disconsolate face, and retire.
You will read all this in a very different spirit from that in which
it is written. If you are angry--no matter: I am cool. I tell you
beforehand, that I will not fight you for any thing I have said in this
letter, or that I ever may say about your Olivia. Therefore, my dear
L----, save yourself the trouble of challenging me. I thank God I have
reputation enough to be able to dispense with the glory of blowing out
your brains.
Yours truly,
J. B.
* * * * *
LETTER XLVI.
OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.
We have been very gay here the last few days: the gallant and
accomplished Prince ---- has been here. H----, the witty H----, who is
his favourite companion, introduced him; and he seems so much
charmed with the old castle, its towers and battlements, and with its
_cynosure_, that I know not when he will be able to prevail upon himself
to depart. To-morrow, he says; but so he has said these ten days:
he cannot resist the entreaties of his kind host and hostess to stay
another day. The soft accent of the beautiful Leonora will certainly
detain him _one day more_, and her gracious smile will bereave him of
rest for months to come. He has evidently fallen desperately in love
with her. Now we shall see virtue in danger.
I have always been of opinion with St. Evremond and Ninon de l’Enclos,
that no female virtue can stand every species of test; fortunately it
is not always exposed to trial. Reputation may be preserved by certain
persons in certain situations, upon very easy terms. Leonora, for
instance, is armed so strong in character, that no common mortal will
venture to attack her. It would be presumption little short of high
treason to imagine the fall of the Lady Leonora L----, the daughter of
the Duchess of ----, who, with a long line of immaculate baronesses
in their own right, each in her armour of stiff stays, stands frowning
defiance upon the adventurous knights. More alarming still to the modern
seducer, appears a judge in his long wig, and a jury with their
long faces, ready to bring in their verdict, and to award damages
proportionate to the rank and fortune of the parties. Then the former
reputation of the lady is talked of, and the irreparable injury
sustained by the disconsolate husband from the loss of the solace and
affection of this paragon of wives. And it is proved that she lived in
the most perfect harmony with him, till the vile seducer appeared; who,
in aggravation of damages, was a confidential friend of the husband’s,
&c. &c. &c. &c. &c.
Brave, indeed, and desperately in love must be the man, who could dare
all these to deserve the fair. But princes are, it is said, naturally
brave, and ambitious of conquering difficulties.
I have insinuated these reflections in a general way to L----, who
applies them so as to plague himself sufficiently. Heaven is my witness,
that I mean no injury to Lady Leonora; yet I fear that there
are moments, when my respect for her superiority, joined to the
consciousness of my own weakness, overpowers me, and I almost envy
her the right she retains to the esteem of the man I love. This is a
blamable weakness--I know it--I reproach myself bitterly; but all I can
do is to confess it candidly. L---- sees my conflicts, and knows how to
value the sensibility of my fond heart. Adieu, my Gabrielle. When shall
I be happy? since even love has its torments, and I am thus doomed to be
ever a victim to the tenderness of my soul.
OLIVIA.
* * * * *
LETTER XLVII.
MRS. C---- TO MISS B----.
I do not know whether I pity, love, or admire Leonora most. Just when
her mind was deeply wounded by her husband’s neglect, and when her
jealousy was worked to the highest pitch by his passion for her
dangerous rival, the Prince ---- arrives here, and struck by Leonora’s
charms of mind and person, falls passionately in love with her. Probably
his highness’s friend H---- had given him a hint of the existing
circumstances, and he thought a more propitious moment could scarcely be
found for making an impression upon a female mind. He judged of Leonora
by other women. And I, like a simpleton, judged of her by myself. With
shame I confess to you, my dear Margaret, that notwithstanding all my
past experience, I did expect that she would have done, as I am afraid
I should have done in her situation. I think that I could not have
resisted the temptation of coquetting a little--a very little--just
to revive the passion of the man whom I really loved. This expedient
succeeds so often with that wise sex, who never rightly know the value
of a heart, except when they have just won it, or at the moment when
they are on the point of losing it. In Leonora’s place and in such
an emergency, I should certainly have employed that frightful monster
jealousy to waken sleeping love; since he, and only he, can do it
expeditiously and effectually. This I have hinted to Leonora, talking
always _in generals_; for, since my total overthrow, I have never dared
to come to particulars: but by putting cases and _confessing myself_, I
contrived to make my thoughts understood. I then boasted of the extreme
facility of the means I would adopt to recover a heart. Leonora answered
in the words of a celebrated great man:--“C’est facile de se servir de
pareils moyens; c’est difficile de s’y résoudre.”
“But if no other means would succeed,” said I, “would not you sacrifice
your pride to your love?”
“My pride, willingly; but not my sense of what is right,” said she, with
an indescribable mixture of tenderness and firmness in her manner.
“Can a little coquetry in a good cause be such a heinous offence?”
persisted I. I knew that I was wrong all the time; but I delighted in
seeing how right she was.
No--she would not allow her mind to be cheated by female sophistry; nor
yet by the male casuistry of, “the end sanctifies the means.”
“If you had the misfortune to lose the affections of the man you love,
and if you were quite certain of regaining them by following my recipe?”
said I.
Never shall I forget the look with which Leonora left me, and the accent
with which she said, “My dear Helen, if it were ever to be my misfortune
to lose my husband’s love, I would not, even if I were certain of
success, attempt to regain it by any unworthy arts. How could I wish to
regain his love at the hazard of losing his esteem, and the certainty of
forfeiting my own!”
I said no more--I had nothing more to say: I saw that I had given pain,
and I have never touched upon the subject since. But her practice is
even beyond her theory. Never, by deed, or look, or word, or thought
(for I see all her thoughts in her eloquent countenance), has
she swerved from her principles. No prudery--no coquetry--no
mock-humility--no triumph. Never for an instant did she, by a proud air,
say to her husband,--See what others think of me! Never did a resentful
look say to him--Inconstant!--revenge is in my power! Never even did a
reproachful sigh express--I am injured, yet I do not retaliate.
Mr. L----is blind; he is infatuated; he is absolutely bereaved of
judgment by a perfidious, ungrateful, and cruel wretch. Let me vent my
indignation to you, dear Margaret, or it will explode, perhaps, when it
may do Leonora mischief. Yours affectionately, Helen C----.
* * * * *
LETTER XLVIII.
OLIVIA TO MADAME DE F----.
L---- Castle.
This Lady Leonora, in her simplicity, never dreamed of love till the
prince’s passion was too visible and audible to be misunderstood:
and then she changed her tone, and checked her simplicity, and was so
reserved, and so dignified, and so _proper_, it was quite edifying,
especially to a poor sinner of a coquette like me; nothing _piquante_;
nothing _agaçante_; nothing _demi-voílée_; no retiring to be pursued;
not a single manoeuvre of coquetry did she practise. This convinces me
that she cares not in the least for her husband; because, if she really
loved him, and wished to reclaim his heart, what so natural or so simple
as to excite his jealousy, and thus revive his love? After neglecting
this golden opportunity, she can never convince me that she is really
anxious about her husband’s heart. This I hinted to L----, and his own
susceptibility had hinted it to him efficaciously, before I spoke.
Though Leonora has been so correct hitherto, and so cold to the prince
in her husband’s presence, I have my suspicions that, if in his absence,
proper means were taken, if her pride were roused by apt suggestions, if
it were delicately pointed out to her that she is shamefully neglected,
that she is a cipher in her own house, that her husband presumes too
much upon her sweetness of temper, that his inconstancy is wondered at
by all who have eyes, and that a little retaliation might become her
ladyship, I would not answer for her forbearance, that is to say if all
this were done by a dexterous man, a lover and a prince! I shall take
care my opinions shall be known; for I cannot endure to have the esteem
of the man I love monopolized. Exposed to temptation, as I have been,
and with as ardent affections, Leonora, or I am much mistaken, would
not have been more estimable. Adieu, my dearest Gabrielle. Nous verrons!
nous verrons!
OLIVIA.
Sunday evening.
P.S. I open my letter to tell you that the prince is actually gone.
Doubtless he will return at a more auspicious moment.
Lady M---- and all the troop of friends are to depart on Monday; all but
_the_ bosom friend, _l’amie intime_, that insupportable Helen, who is
ever at daggers-drawing with me. So much the better! L---- sees her
cabals with his wife; she is a partisan without the art to be so to any
purpose, and her manoeuvres tend only to increase his partiality for his
Olivia.
* * * * *
LETTER XLIX.
OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.
L---- Castle.
* * * * *
* * * * * In short, Leonora has discovered all that she might have seen
months ago between her husband and me. What will be the consequence?
I long, yet almost fear, to meet her again. She is now in her own
apartment, writing, I presume, to her mother for advice.
* * * * *
LETTER L.
LEONORA TO OLIVIA.
[Left on Lady Olivia’s dressing-table.]
O you, whom no kindness can touch, whom no honour can bind, whom no
faith can hold, enjoy the torments you have inflicted on me! enjoy the
triumph of having betrayed a confiding friend! Friend no more--affect,
presume no longer to call me friend! I am under no necessity to
dissemble, and dissimulation is foreign to my habits, and abhorrent to
my nature! I know you to be my enemy, and I say so--my most cruel enemy;
one who could, without reluctance or temptation, rob me of all I hold
most dear. Yes, without temptation; for you do not love my husband,
Olivia. On this point I cannot be mistaken; I know too well what it
is to love him. Had you been struck by his great or good and amiable
qualities, charmed by his engaging manners, or seduced by the violence
of his passion; and had I seen you honourably endeavour to repress that
passion; had I seen in you the slightest disposition to sacrifice your
pleasure or your vanity to friendship or to duty, I think I could have
forgiven, I am sure I should have pitied you. But you felt no pity for
me, no shame for yourself; you made no attempt to avoid, you invited the
danger. Mr. L---- was not the deceiver, but the deceived. By every
art and every charm in your power--and you have many--you won upon his
senses and worked upon his imagination; you saw, and made it your pride
to conquer the scruples of that affection he once felt for his wife,
and that wife was your friend. By passing bounds, which he could not
conceive that any woman could pass, except in the delirium of passion,
you made him believe that your love for him exceeds all that I feel. How
he will find himself deceived! If you had loved him as I do, you could
not so easily have forfeited all claim to his esteem. Had you loved him
so much, you would have loved honour more.
It is possible that Mr. L---- may taste some pleasure with you whilst
his delusion lasts, whilst his imagination paints you, as mine once
did, in false colours, possessed of generous virtues, and the victim
of excessive sensibility: but when he sees you such as you are, he will
recoil from you with aversion, he will reject you with contempt.
Knowing my opinion of you, Lady Olivia, you will not choose to remain in
this house; nor can I desire for my guest one whom I can no longer, in
private or in public, make my companion.
Adieu.
Leonora L----.
* * * * *
LETTER LI.
OLIVIA TO MR. L----.
L---- Castle, Midnight.
Farewell for ever!--It must be so--Farewell for ever! Would to Heaven
I had summoned courage sooner to pronounce these fatal, necessary,
irrevocable words: then had I parted from you without remorse, without
the obloquy to which I am now exposed. Oh, my dearest L----! Mine, do
I still dare to call you? Yes, mine for the last time, I must call
you, mine I must fancy you, though for the impious thought the Furies
themselves were to haunt me to madness. My dearest L----, never more
must we meet in this world! Think not that my weak voice alone forbids
it: no, a stronger voice than mine is heard--an injured wife reclaims
you. What a letter have I just received...!--from.....Leonora! She tells
me that she no longer desires for her guest one whom she cannot, in
public or private, make her companion--Oh, Leonora, it was sufficient
to banish me from your heart! She tells me not only that I have for ever
forfeited her confidence; her esteem, her affection; but that I shall
soon be your aversion and contempt. Oh, cruel, cruel words! But I
submit--I have deserved it all--I have robbed her of a heart above all
price. Leonora, why did you not reproach me more bitterly? I desire,
I implore to be crushed, to be annihilated by your vengeance! Most
admirable, most virtuous, most estimable of women, best of wives, I have
with sacrilegious love profaned a soul consecrated to you and conjugal
virtue. I acknowledge my crime; trample upon me as you will, I am
humbled in the dust. More than all your bitterest reproaches, do I
feel the remorse of having, for a moment, interrupted such serenity of
happiness.
Oh, why did you persuade me, L----, and why did I believe that Leonora
was calm and free from all suspicion? How could I believe that any woman
whom you had ever loved, could remain blind to your inconstancy, or feel
secure indifference? Happy woman! in you to love is not a crime; you
may glory in your passion, whilst I must hide mine from every human eye,
drop in shameful secrecy the burning tear, stifle the struggling sigh,
blush at the conflicts of virtue and sensibility, and carry shame
and remorse with me to the grave. Happy Leonora! happy even when most
injured, you have a right to complain to him you love;--he is yours--you
are his wife--his esteem, his affection are yours. On Olivia he has
bestowed but a transient thought, and eternal ignominy must be her
portion. So let it be--so I wish it to be. Would to Heaven I may thus
atone for the past, and secure your future felicity! Fly to her, my
dearest L----, I conjure you! throw yourself at her feet, entreat,
implore, obtain her forgiveness. She cannot refuse it to your tears, to
your caresses. To withstand them she must be more or less than woman.
No, she cannot resist your voice when it speaks words of peace and love;
she will press you with transport to her heart, and Olivia, poor Olivia,
will be for ever forgotten; yet she will rejoice in your felicity;
absolved perhaps in the eye of Heaven, though banished from your
society, she will die content.
Full well am I aware of the consequences of quitting thus precipitately
the house of Lady Leonora L----; but nothing that concerns myself alone
can, for a moment, make me hesitate to do that, which the sentiment of
virtue dictates, and which is yet more strongly urged by regard for
the happiness of one, who once allowed me to call her friend. I know
my reputation is irrecoverably sacrificed; but it is to one for whom I
would lay down my life. Can a woman who feels as I do deem any earthly
good a sacrifice for him she loves? Dear L----, adieu for ever!
Olivia.
* * * * *
LETTER LII.
LEONORA TO THE DUCHESS OF ----.
Dearest Mother,
It is all over--my husband is gone--gone perhaps for ever--all is in
vain--all is lost!
Without saying more to you than I ought, I may tell you, that in
consequence of an indignant letter which I wrote last night to Lady
Olivia, she left my house this morning early, before any of the family
were up. Mr. L---- heard of her departure before I did. He has, I will
not say followed her, for of that I am not certain; but he has quitted
home, and without giving me one kind look at parting, without even
noticing a letter which I left last night upon his table. At what slight
things we catch to save us from despair! How obstinate, how vain is
hope! I fondly hoped, even to the last moment, that this letter, this
foolish letter, would work a sudden change in my husband’s heart, would
operate miracles, would restore me to happiness. I fancied, absurdly
fancied, that laying open my whole soul to him would have an effect upon
his mind. Alas! has not my whole soul been always open to him? Could
this letter tell him any thing but what he knows already, or what he
will never know--how well I love him! I was weak to expect so much from
it; yet as it expressed without complaint the anguish of disappointed
affection, it deserved at least some acknowledgment. Could not he have
said, “My dear Leonora, I thank you for your letter?”--or more colder
still--“Leonora, I have received your letter?” Even that would have been
some relief to me: but now all is despair. I saw him just when he was
going away, but for a moment; till the last instant he was not to be
seen; then, in spite of all his command of countenance, I discerned
strong marks of agitation; but towards me an air of resentment, more
than any disposition to kinder thoughts. I fancy that he scarcely knew
what he said, nor, I am sure, did I. He talked, I remember, of having
immediate business in town, and I endeavoured to believe him. Contrary
to his usual composed manner, he was in such haste to be gone, that I
was obliged to send his watch and purse after him, which he had left on
his dressing-table. How melancholy his room looked to me! His clothes
just as he had left them--a rose which Lady Olivia gave him yesterday
was in water on his table. My letter was not there; so he has it,
probably unread. He will read it some time or other, perhaps--and some
time or other, perhaps, when I am dead and gone, he will believe I loved
him. Could he have known what I felt at the moment when he turned from
me, he would have pitied me; for his nature, his character, cannot be
quite altered in a few months, though he has ceased to love Leonora.
From the window of his own room I watched for the last glimpse
of him--heard him call to the postilions, and bid them “drive
fast--faster.” This was the last sound I heard of his voice. When shall
I hear that voice again? I think that I shall certainly hear from him
the day after to-morrow--and I wish to-day and to-morrow were gone.
I am afraid that you will think me very weak; but, my dear mother, I
have no motive for fortitude now; and perhaps it might have been better
for me, if I had not exerted so much. I begin to fear that all my
fortitude is mistaken for indifference. Something Mr. L---- said
the other day, about sensibility and sacrifices, gave me this idea.
Sensibility!--It has been my hard task for some months past to repress
mine, that it might not give pain or disgust. I have done all that
my reason and my dearest mother counselled; surely I cannot have done
wrong. How apt we are to mistake the opinion or the taste of the man we
love for the rule of right! Sacrifices! What sacrifices can I make?--All
that I have, is it not his?--My whole heart, is it not his? Myself,
all that I am, all that I _can_ be? Have I not lived with him of late,
without recalling to his mind the idea that I suffer by his neglect?
Have I not left his heart at liberty, and can I make a greater
sacrifice? I really do not understand what he means by sacrifices. A
woman who loves her husband is part of him; whatever she does for him
is for herself. I wish he would explain to me what he can mean by
sacrifices--but when will he ever again explain his thoughts and
feelings to me?
My dearest mother, it has been a relief to my mind to write all this to
you; if there is no sense in it, you will forgive and encourage me by
your affection and strength of mind, which, in all situations, have such
power to soothe and support your daughter.
The prince ----, who spent a fortnight here, paid me particular
attention.
The prince talked of soon paying us another visit. If he should, I will
not receive him in Mr. L----‘s absence. This may seem like vanity or
prudery; but no matter what it appears, if it be right.
Well might you, my best friend, bid me beware of forming an intimacy
with an unprincipled woman. I have suffered severely for neglecting your
counsels; how much I have still to endure is yet to be tried: but I can
never be entirely miserable whilst I possess, and whilst I hope that I
deserve, the affection of such a mother.
LEONORA L----.
* * * * *
LETTER LIII.
THE DUCHESS OF ---- TO HER DAUGHTER.
If my approbation and affection can sustain you in this trying
situation, your fortitude will not forsake you, my beloved daughter.
Great minds rise in adversity; they are always equal to the trial, and
superior to injustice: betrayed and deserted, they feel their own force,
and they rely upon themselves. Be yourself, my Leonora! Persevere as
you have begun, and, trust me, you will be happy. I abide by my first
opinion, I repeat my prophecy--your husband’s esteem, affection, love,
will be permanently yours. Change of circumstances, however alarming,
cannot shake the fixed judgment of my understanding. Character, as you
justly observe, cannot utterly change in a few months. Your husband is
deceived, he is now as one in the delirium of a fever: he will recover
his senses, and see Lady Olivia and you such as you are.
You do not explain, and I take it for granted you have good reasons for
not explaining to me more fully, the immediate cause of your letter to
Lady Olivia. I am sorry that any cause should have thrown her upon
the protection of Mr. L----; for a man of honour and generosity feels
himself bound to treat with tenderness a woman who appears to sacrifice
every thing for his sake. Consider this in another point of view, and it
will afford you subject of consolation; for it is always a consolation
to good minds, to think those whom they love less to blame than they
appear to be. You will be more calm and patient when you reflect that
your husband’s absence may be prolonged by a mistaken sense of honour.
From the nature of his connexion with Lady Olivia it cannot last long.
Had she saved appearances, and engaged him in a sentimental affair, it
might have been far more dangerous to your happiness.
I entirely approve of your conduct with respect to the prince: it is
worthy of my child, and just what I should have expected from her. The
artifices of coquettes, and all the _art_ of love is beneath her; she
has far other powers and resources, and need not strive to maintain her
dignity by vengeance. I admire your magnanimity, and I still more admire
your good sense; for high spirit is more common in our sex than
good sense. Few know how, and when, they should sacrifice small
considerations to great ones. You say that you will not receive the
prince in your husband’s absence, though this may be attributed to
prudery or vanity, &c. &c. You are quite right. How many silly women
sacrifice the happiness of their lives to the idea of what women or men,
as silly as themselves, will say or think of their motives. How many
absurd heroines of romance, and of those who imitate them in real life,
do we see, who can never act with common sense or presence of mind: if
a man’s carriage breaks down, or his horse is tired at the end of their
avenues, or for some such ridiculous reason, they must do the very
reverse of all they know to be prudent. Perpetually exposed, by a fatal
concurrence of circumstances, to excite the jealousy of their lovers
and husbands, they create the necessity to which they fall a victim. I
rejoice that I cannot feel any apprehension of my daughter’s conducting
herself like one of these novel-bred ladies.
I am sorry, my dear, that Lady M---- and your friends have left you: yet
even in this there may be good. Your affairs will be made less public,
and you will be less the subject of impertinent curiosity. I advise you,
however, to mix as much as usual with your neighbours in the country:
your presence, and the dignity of your manners, will impose silence upon
idle tongues. No wife of real spirit solicits the world for compassion:
she who does not court popularity ensures respect.
Adieu, my dearest child: the time will come when your husband will feel
the full merit of your fortitude; when he will know how to distinguish
between true and false sensibility; between the love of an Olivia and of
a Leonora. ----.
* * * * *
LETTER LIV.
MRS. C---- TO MISS B----.
Jan. 26.
My Dear Margaret,
I shall never forgive myself. I fear I have done Leonora irreparable
injury; and, dear magnanimous sufferer, she has never reproached me! In
a fit of indignation and imprudent zeal I made a discovery, which
has produced a total breach between Leonora and Lady Olivia, and in
consequence of this Mr. L---- has gone off with her ladyship
* * * * *
We have heard nothing from Mr. L---- since his departure, and Leonora is
more unhappy than ever, and my imprudence is the cause of this. Yet
she continues to love me. She is an angel! I have promised her not to
mention her affairs in future even in any of my letters to you, dear
Margaret. Pray quiet any reports you may hear, and stop idle tongues.
Yours affectionately,
Helen C----.
* * * * *
LETTER LV.
MR. L---- TO GENERAL B----.
Richmond.
My Dear Friend,
I do not think I could have borne with temper, from any other man
breathing, the last letter which I received from you. I am sensible that
it was written with the best intentions for my happiness; but I must now
inform you, that the lady in question has accepted of my protection, and
consequently no man who esteems me can treat her with disrespect.
It is no longer a question, what she will sacrifice for me; she has
shown the greatest generosity and tenderness of soul; and I should
despise myself, if I did not exert every power to make her happy.--We
are at Richmond; but if you write, direct to me at my house in town.
Yours sincerely,
F. L----.
* * * * *
LETTER LVI.
GENERAL B---- TO MR. L----.
Dream your dream out, my dear L----. Since you are angry with me, as
Solander was with Sir Joseph Banks for awakening him, I shall not take
the liberty of shaking you any more. I believe I shook you rather too
roughly: but I assure you it was for your good, as people always tell
their friends when they do the most disagreeable things imaginable.
Forgive me, and I will let you dream in peace. You will, however, allow
me to watch by you, whilst you sleep; and, my dear somnambulist, I may
just take care that you do not knock your head against a post, or fall
into a well.
I hope you will not have any objection to my paying my respects to Lady
Olivia when I come to town, which, I flatter myself, I shall be able to
do shortly. The fortifications here are almost completed.
Yours truly,
J. B.
* * * * *
LETTER LVII.
OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.
Richmond, ----.
Happy!--No, my dear Gabrielle, nor shall I ever be happy, whilst I
have not exclusive possession of the heart of the man I love. I have
sacrificed every thing to him; I have a right to expect that he should
sacrifice at least a wife for me--a wife whom he only esteems. But L----
has not sufficient strength of mind to liberate himself from the cobwebs
which restrain those who talk of conscience, and who, in fact, are only
superstitious. I see with indignation, that his soul is continually
struggling between passion for me and a something, I know not what to
call it, that he feels for this wife. His thoughts are turning towards
home. I believe that to an Englishman’s ears, there is some magic in
the words _home_ and _wife_. I used to think foreigners ridiculous for
associating the ideas of Milord Anglois with roast beef and pudding; but
I begin to see that they are quite right, and that an Englishman has a
certain set of inveterate _homely_ prejudices, which are necessary to
his well-being, and almost to his existence. You may entice him into the
land of sentiment, and for a time keep him there; but refine and polish
and enlighten him, as you will, he recurs to his own plain sense, as
he terms it, on the first convenient opportunity. In short, it is lost
labour to civilize him, for sooner or later he will _hottentot_ again.
Pray introduce that term, Gabrielle--_you_ can translate it. For
my part, I can introduce nothing here; my manière d’être is really
insupportable; my talents are lost; I, who am accustomed to shine in
society, see nobody; I might, as Josephine every day observes, as well
be buried alive. Retirement and love are charming; but then it must be
perfect love--not the equivocating sort that L---- feels for me,
which keeps the word of promise only to the ear. I bear every sort of
désagrément for him; I make myself a figure for the finger of scorn to
point at, and he insults me with esteem for a wife. Can you conceive
this, my amiable Gabrielle?--No, there are ridiculous points in the
characters of my countrymen which you will never be able to comprehend.
And what is still more incomprehensible, it is my fate to love this man;
yes, passionately to love him!--But he must give me proof of reciprocal
passion. I have too much spirit to sacrifice every thing for him, who
will sacrifice nothing for me. Besides, I have another motive. To you,
my faithful Gabrielle, I open my whole heart.--Pride inspires me as well
as love. I am resolved that Leonora, the haughty Leonora, shall live
to repent of having insulted and exasperated Olivia. In some situations
contempt can be answered only by vengeance; and when the malice of a
contracted and illiberal mind provokes it, revenge is virtue. Leonora
has called me her enemy, and consequently has made me such. ‘Tis she has
declared the war! ‘tis for me to decide the victory!
L----, I know, has the offer of an embassy to Petersburg.--He shall
accept it.--I will accompany him thither. Lady Leonora may, in his
absence, console herself with her august counsellor and mother:--that
proudest of earthly paragons is yet to be taught the extent of Olivia’s
power. Adieu, my charming Gabrielle! I will carry your tenderest
remembrances to our brilliant Russian princess. She has often invited
me, you know, to pay her a visit, and this will be the ostensible object
of my journey. A horrible journey, to be sure!!!--But what will not
love undertake and accomplish, especially when goaded by pride, and
inspirited by great revenge?
OLIVIA.
* * * * *
LETTER LVIII.
OLIVIA TO MR. L----.
Victim to the delusions of passion, too well I know my danger, and now,
even now, foresee my miserable fate. Too well I know, that the delicious
poison which spreads through my frame exalts, entrances, but to destroy.
Too well I know that the meteor fire, which shines so bright on my path,
entices me forward but to plunge me in the depths of infamy. The
long warnings of recorded time teach me, that perjured man triumphs,
disdains, and abandons. Too well, alas! I know these fatal truths; too
well I feel my approaching doom. Yet, infatuated as I am, prescience
avails not; the voice of prudence warns, the hand of Heaven beckons me
in vain.
My friend! my more than friend, my lover! beloved beyond expression! you
to whom I immolate myself, you for whom I sacrifice more than life. Oh,
whisper words of peace! for you, and you alone, can tranquillize this
agitated bosom. Assure me, L----, if with truth you can assure me, that
I have no rival in your affections. Oh, tell me that the name of wife
does not invalidate the claims of love! Repeat for me, a thousand times
repeat, that I am sole possessor of your heart!
The moment you quit me I am overpowered with melancholy forebodings.
Scarcely are you out of my sight, before I dread, that I shall never
see you more, or that some fatality should deprive me of your love.
When shall the sails of love waft us from this dangerous shore? Oh!
when shall I dare to call you mine? Heavens! how many things may
intervene...! Let nothing detain you from Richmond this evening; but
come not at all--come no more, unless to reassure my trembling heart,
and to convince me that love and Olivia have banished every other image.
Olivia.
* * * * *
LETTER LIX.
MR. L---- TO GENERAL B----.
My Dear General,
I am come to a resolution to accept of that embassy to Russia which I
lately refused. My mind has been in such constant anxiety for some
time past, that my health has suffered, and change of air and place are
necessary to me. You will say, that the climate of Russia is a strange
choice for an invalid: I could indeed have wished for a milder; but in
this world we must be content with the least of two evils. I wish to
have some ostensible reason for going abroad, and this embassy is the
only one that presents itself in an unquestionable shape. Any thing
is better than staying where I am, and as I am. My motives are not so
entirely personal and selfish as I have stated them. A man who has a
grain of feeling cannot endure to see the woman whom he loves, whose
only failing is her love, living in a state of dereliction, exposed to
the silent scorn of her equals and inferiors, if not to open insult. All
her fine talents, every advantage of nature and education sacrificed,
and her sensibility to shame a perpetual source of misery. A man must
be a brute if he do not feel for a woman, whose affection for him has
reduced her to this situation. My delicacy as to female manners, and the
high value I set upon public opinion in all that concerns the sex, make
me peculiarly susceptible and wretched in my present circumstances. To
raise the drooping spirits, and support the self-approbation of a woman,
who is conscious that she has forfeited her claim to respect--to make
love supply the place of all she has sacrificed to love, is a difficult
and exquisitely painful task. My feelings render hers more acute, and
the very precautions which I take, however delicate, alarm and wound her
pride, by reminding her of all she wishes to forget. In this country, no
woman, who is not lost to shame, can bear to live without reputation.--I
pass over a great many intermediate ideas, my dear general; your sense
and feeling will supply them. You see the expediency, the necessity of
my accepting this embassy. Olivia urges, how can I refuse it? She wishes
to accompany me. She made this offer with such decision of spirit, with
such passionate tenderness, as touched me to the very soul. A woman
who really loves, absolutely devotes herself, and becomes insensible to
every difficulty and danger; to her all parts of the world are alike;
all she fears is to be separated from the object of her affections.
But the very excess of certain passions proves them to be genuine. Even
whilst we blame the rashness of those who act from the enthusiasm of
their natures, whilst we foresee all the perils to which they seem
blind, we tremble at their danger, we grow more and more interested for
them every moment, we admire their courage, we long to snatch them
from their fate, we are irresistibly hurried along with them down the
precipice.
But why do I say all this to you, my dear general? To no man upon earth
could it be more ineffectually addressed. Let me see you, however,
before we leave England. It would be painful to me to quit this country
without taking leave of you, notwithstanding all that you have lately
done to thwart my inclinations, and notwithstanding all I may expect you
to say when we meet. Probably I shall be detained here some weeks, as
I must wait for instructions from our court. I write this day to Lady
Leonora, to inform her that I am appointed ambassador to Russia. She
shall have all the honours of war; she shall be treated with all the
respect to which she is so well entitled. I suppose she will wish to
reside with her mother during my absence. She cannot do better: she will
then be in the most eligible situation, and I shall be relieved from all
anxiety upon her account. She will be perfectly happy with her mother. I
have often thought that she was much happier before she married me, than
she has been since our union.
I have some curiosity to know whether she will see the Prince when I am
gone. Do not mistake me; I am not jealous: I have too little love, and
too much esteem for Leonora, to feel the slightest jealousy. I have no
doubt, that if I were to stay in Russia for ten years, and if all the
princes and potentates in Europe were to be at her feet, my wife would
conduct herself with the most edifying propriety: but I am a little
curious to know how far vanity or pride can console a virtuous woman for
the absence of love.
Yours truly,
F. L.
* * * * *
LETTER LX.
MADAME DE P---- TO OLIVIA.
Paris.
You are really decided then to go to Russia, my amiable friend, and
you will absolutely undertake this horrible voyage! And you are not
intimidated by the idea of the immense distance between Petersburg and
Paris! Alas! I had hoped soon to see you again. The journey from
my convent to Paris was the longest and most formidable that I ever
undertook, and at this moment it appears to me terrible; you may
conceive therefore my admiration of your courage and strength of mind,
my dear Olivia, who are going to brave the ocean, turning your back on
Paris, and every moment receding from our polished centre of attraction,
to perish perhaps among mountains of ice. Mon Dieu! it makes me shudder
to think of it. But if it please Heaven that you should once arrive at
Petersburg, you will crown your tresses with diamonds, you will envelope
yourself with those superb furs of the north, and smiling at all the
dangers you have passed, you will be yourself a thousand times more
dangerous than they. You, who have lived so long at Paris, who speak our
language in all its shades of elegance; you, who have divined all our
secrets of pleasing, who have caught our very air,
“Et la grace, encore plus belle que la beauté;”
you, who are absolutely a French woman, and a Parisian, what a sensation
you will produce at Petersburg!--Quels succès vous attendent!--Quels
hommages!
You will have the goodness to offer my tenderest sentiments, and the
assurances of my perfect respect, to our dear Princess; you will also
find the proper moment to remind her of the promise she made, to send me
specimens of the fine ermines and sables of her country. For my part, I
used to be, I confess, in a great error with respect to furs: I always
acknowledged them to be rich, but avoided them as heavy; I considered
them as fitter for the stiff magnificence of an Empress of all the
Russias than for the light elegance of a Parisian beauty; but our
charming Princess convinced me that this is a heresy in taste. When I
beheld the grace with which she wore her ermine, and the art with which
she knew how to vary its serpent folds as she moved, or as she spoke,
the variety it gave to her costume and attitudes; the development
it afforded to a fine hand and arm, the resource in the pauses of
conversation, and that soft and attractive air which it seemed to impart
even to the play of her wit, I could no longer refuse my homage to
ermine. Such is the despotism of beauty over all the objects of
taste and fashion; and so it is, that a woman of sense, address, and
sentiment, let her be born or thrown by fate where she may, will always
know how to avail herself of every possible advantage of nature and art.
Nothing will be too trifling or too vast for her genius.
I must make you understand me, my dear Olivia; your Gabrielle is not so
frivolous as simpletons imagine. Frivolity is an excellent, because
an unsuspected mask, under which serious and important designs may be
safely concealed. I would explain myself further, but must now go to
the opera to see the new ballet. Let me know, my interesting, my sublime
Olivia, when you are positively determined on your voyage to Petersburg;
and then you shall become acquainted with your friend as a politician.
Her friendship for you will not be confined to a mere intercourse of
sentiment, but will, if you have courage to second her views, give you
a secret yet decisive weight and consequence, of which you have hitherto
never dreamed.--Adieu.--These gentlemen are so impatient, I must go.
Burn the last page of this letter, and the whole of my next as soon as
you have read it, I conjure you, my dear.
GABRIELLE DE P----.
* * * * *
LETTER LXI.
GENERAL B---- TO MR. L----.
DEAR L----,
I have time but to write one line to satisfy that philosophical
curiosity, which, according to your injunctions, I will not denominate
jealousy--except when I talk to myself.
You have a philosophical curiosity to know whether your wife will
see the Prince in your absence. I saw his favourite yesterday,
who complained to me that his highness had been absolutely refused
admittance at your castle, notwithstanding he had made many ingenious,
and some bold attempts, to see Lady Leonora L---- in the absence of her
faithless husband.
As to your scheme of going to Russia, you will be obliged, luckily, to
wait for some time for instructions, and in the interval, it is to be
hoped you will recover your senses. I shall see you as soon as possible.
Yours truly,
J. B.
* * * * *
LETTER LXII.
MADAME DE P---- TO LADY OLIVIA.
Paris.
As our vanity always endeavours to establish a balance between our own
perfections and those of our friends, I must flatter myself, my dear
Olivia, that in compensation for that courage and ardent imagination in
which you are so much my superior, I possess some little advantages over
you in my scientific, hereditary knowledge of court intrigue, and of
the arts of representation; all which will be necessary to you in your
character of ambassadress: you will in fact deserve this title, for of
course you will govern the English ambassador, whom you honour with
your love. And of course you will appear with splendour, and you will
be particularly careful to have your _traineau_ well appointed. Pray
remember that one of your horses must gallop, whilst the other trots, or
you are nobody. It will also be absolutely necessary to have a
numerous retinue of servants, because this suits the Russian idea of
magnificence. You must have, as the Russian nobles always had in Paris,
four servants constantly to attend your equipage; one to carry the
flambeau, another to open the door, and a couple to carry you into and
out of your carriage. I beseech you to bear in mind perpetually, that
you are to be as helpless as possible. A Frenchman of my acquaintance,
who spent nine years in Russia, told me, that in his first setting out
at Petersburg, he was put on his guard in this particular by a speech of
his Russian valet-de-chambre:--“Sir, the Englishman you visited to-day
cannot be worthy of your acquaintance; he cannot be a gentleman. Son
valet me dit qu’il se déshabille seul!!!”
I suppose you take Josephine with you; she will be an inestimable
treasure; and I shall make it my business to send you the first advices
of Paris fashions, which her talents will not fail to comprehend
and execute. My charming Olivia! you will be the model of taste and
elegance! Do not suspect that dress is carrying me away from politics.
I assure you I know what I am about, and am going straight to my object.
The art of attending to trifles is the art of governing the world, as
all historians know, who have gone to the bottom of affairs. Was not the
face of Europe changed by a cup of tea thrown on Mrs. Masham’s gown,
as Voltaire, with penetrating genius, remarks? Women, without a
doubt, understand the importance of trifles better than men do, and
consequently always move in secret the slight springs of that vast
machine, the civilized world. Is not your ambition roused, my Olivia?
You must, however, lay aside a little of your romance, and not approach
the political machine whilst you are intoxicated with love, else you
will blunder infallibly, and do infinite and irreparable mischief to
yourself and your friends.
Permit me to tell you, that you have been a little spoiled by
sentimental novels, which are good only to talk of when one must show
sensibility, but destructive as rules of action. By the false lights
which these writers, who know nothing of the world, have thrown upon
objects, you have been deluded; you have been led to mistake the means
for the end. Love has been with you the sole end of love; whereas it
ought to be the beginning of power. No matter for the past: the future
is yours: at our age this future must be dexterously managed. A woman of
spirit, and, what is better, of sense, must always take care that in her
heart, the age of love is not prolonged beyond the age of being beloved.
In these times a woman has no choice at a certain period but politics,
or bel esprit; for devotion, which used to be a resource, is no longer
in fashion. We must all take a part, my dear; I assure you I have taken
mine decidedly, and I predict that you will take yours with brilliant
success. How often must one cry in the ears of lovers--Love must die!
must die! must die! But you, my dear Olivia, will not be deaf to
the warning voice of common sense. Your own experience has on former
occasions convinced you, that passion cannot be eternal; and at present,
if I mistake not, there is in your love a certain mixture of other
feelings, a certain alloy, which will make it happily ductile and
manageable. When your triumph over the wife is complete, passion for
the husband will insensibly decay; and this will be fortunate for you,
because assuredly your ambassador would not choose to remain all the
rest of his days in love and in exile at Petersburg. All these English
are afflicted with the maladie du pays; and, as you observe so well, the
words home and wife have ridiculous but unconquerable power over their
minds. What will become of you, my friend, when this Mr. L---- chooses
to return to England to his castle, &c.? You could not accompany him.
You must provide in time against this catastrophe, or you will be a
deserted, disgraced, undone woman, my dear friend.
No one should begin to act a romance who has not well considered the
dénouement. It is a charming thing to mount with a friend in a balloon,
amid crowds of spectators, who admire the fine spectacle, and applaud
the courage of the aërostats: the losing sight of this earth, and the
being in or above the clouds, must also be delightful: but the moment
will come when the travellers descend, and then begins the danger; then
they differ about throwing out the ballast, the balloon is rent in the
quarrel, it sinks with frightful rapidity, and they run the hazard,
like the poor Marquis D’Arlande, of being spitted upon the spire of
the Invalides, or of being entangled among woods and briers--at last,
alighting upon the earth, our adventurers, fatigued and bruised and
disappointed, come out of their shattered triumphal car, exposed to the
derision of the changeable multitude.
Every thing in this world is judged of by success. Your voyage to
Petersburg, my dear Olivia, must not be a mere adventure of romance; as
a party of pleasure it would be ridiculous; we must make something more
of it. Enclosed is a letter to a Russian nobleman, an old lover of mine,
who, I understand, is in favour. He will certainly be at your command.
He is a man possessed by the desire of having reputation among
foreigners, vain of the preference of our sex, generous even to
prodigality. By his means you will be immediately placed on an easy
footing with all the leading persons of the Russian court. You will go
on from one step to another, till you are at the height which I have
in view. Now for my grand object.--No, not now--for I have forty little
notes about nothings to write this morning. Great things hang upon these
nothings, so they should not be neglected. I must leave you, my amiable
Olivia, and defer my grand object till to-morrow.
GABRIELLE DE P----.
* * * * *
LETTER LXIII
LEONORA TO THE DUCHESS OF ----.
DEAR MOTHER,
This moment I have received a letter from Mr. L----. He has accepted
of an embassy to Petersburg. I cannot guess by the few lines he has
written, whether or not he wishes that I should accompany him. Most
ardently I wish it; but if my offer should be refused, or if it should
be accepted only because it could not be well refused; if I should be a
burthen, a restraint upon him, I should wish myself dead.
Perhaps he accepts of this embassy on purpose that he may leave me and
take another person with him: or perhaps, dearest mother (I hardly dare
to hope it)--perhaps he wishes to break off that connexion, and goes
to Russia to leave temptation behind him. I know that this embassy was
offered to him some weeks ago, and he had then no thoughts of accepting
it.--Oh that I could see into his heart--that heart which used to be
always open to me! If I could discover what his wishes are, I should
know what mine ought to be. I have thoughts of going to town immediately
to see him; at least I may take leave of him. Do you approve of it?
Write the moment you receive this; but I need not say that, for I am
sure you will do so. Dearest mother, you have prophesied that his heart
will return to me, and on this hope I live.
Your ever affectionate daughter,
LEONORA L----.
* * * * *
LETTER LXIV.
THE DUCHESS OF ---- TO LEONORA.
Yes, my dear, I advise you by all means to go to town, and to see your
husband. Your desire to accompany him to Russia he will know before you
see him, for I have just written and despatched an express to him with
your last letter, and with all those which I have received from you
within these last six months. Leave Mr. L---- time to read them before
he sees you; and do not hurry or fatigue yourself unnecessarily. You
know that an embassy cannot be arranged in two days; therefore travel by
easy journeys: you cannot do otherwise without hazard. Your courage in
offering to undertake this long voyage with your husband is worthy
of you, my beloved daughter. God bless and preserve you! If you go to
Petersburg, let me know in time, that I may see you before you leave
England. I will be at any moment at any place you appoint.
Your affectionate mother, ----.
* * * * *
LETTER LXV.
THE DUCHESS OF ---- TO MR. L----.
Perhaps this letter may find you at the feet of your mistress. Spare
me, sir, a few moments from your pleasures. You may perhaps expect
reproaches from the mother of your wife; but let me assure you, that
you have none to apprehend. For my daughter’s sake, if not for yours,
I would forbear. Never was departing love recalled by the voice of
reproach; you shall not hear it from me, you have not heard it from
Leonora. But mistake not the cause of her forbearance; let it not be
attributed to pusillanimity of temper, or insensibility of heart.
Enclosed I send you all the letters which my daughter has written to me
from the first day of her acquaintance with Lady Olivia to this hour.
From these you will be enabled to judge of what she has felt for some
months past, and of the actual state of her heart; you will see all the
tenderness and all the strength of her soul.
It has ever been my fixed opinion, that a wife who loves her husband,
and who has possessed his affections, may reclaim them from the lure of
the most artful of her sex, by persevering kindness, temper, and good
sense, unless indeed her husband be a fool or a libertine. I have
prophesied that my daughter will regain your heart; and upon this
prophecy, to use her own expression, she lives. And even now, when its
accomplishment is far removed, I am so steady in my opinion of her and
of you; so convinced of the uniform result of certain conduct upon the
human mind, that undismayed I repeat my prophecy.
Were you to remain in this kingdom, I should leave things to their
natural course; I should not interfere so far even as to send you
Leonora’s letters: but as you may be separated for years, I think it
necessary now to put into your hands incontrovertible proofs of what she
is, and what she has been. Do not imagine that I am so weak as to expect
that the perusal of these letters will work a sudden change: but it is
fit that, before you leave England, you should know that Leonora is not
a cold, sullen, or offended wife; but one who loves you most tenderly,
most generously; who, concealing the agony of her heart, waits with
resignation for the time when she will be your refuge, and the permanent
blessing of your life. ----.
* * * * *
LETTER LXVI.
MADAME DE P---- TO OLIVIA.
Paris.
And now, my charming Olivia, raise your fine eyes as high as ambition
can look, and you will perhaps discover my grand object. You do not see
it yet. Look again.--Do you not see the Emperor of Russia? What would
you think of him for a lover? If it were only for novelty’s sake, it
would really be pleasant to have a Czar at one’s feet. Reign in his
heart, and you in fact seat yourself invisibly on the throne of all the
Russias: thence what a commanding prospect you have of the affairs of
Europe! and how we should govern the world at our ease! The project is
bold, but not impracticable. The ancients represent Cupid riding the
Numidian lion; and why should he not tame the Russian bear? It would
make a pretty design for a vignette. I can engrave as well as La
Pompadour could at least, and anticipating your victory, my charming
Olivia, I will engrave Cupid leading the bear in a chain of flowers.
This shall be my seal. Mon cachet de faveur.
Courage, my fair politician! You have a difficult task; but the glory
is in proportion to the labour; and those who value power properly, are
paid by its acquisition, for all possible fatigue and hardships. With
your knowledge of our modes, you will be at Petersburg the arbitress
of delights. You have a charming taste and invention for fêtes and
spectacles. Teach these people to vary their pleasures. Their monarch
must adore you, if you banish from his presence that most dreadful enemy
of kings, and most obstinate resident of courts, _ennui_. Trust, my
Olivia, neither to your wit, nor your beauty, nor your accomplishments,
but employ your “various arts of trifling prettily,” and, take my word
for it, you will succeed.
As I may not have an opportunity of sending you another private letter,
and as lemon-juice, goulard, and all those sympathetic inks, are subject
to unlucky accidents, I must send you all my secret instructions by the
present safe conveyance.