When the very soul is annihilated by some sudden and unexpected evil,
the outward frame is calm—no appearance of emotion, of tears, of
repining, gives notice of the approaching evil. Calantha motionless,
re-perused Glenarvon’s letter, and spoke with gentleness to those
who addressed her. Oh! did the aunt that loved her, as she read that
barbarous letter, exhibit equal marks of fortitude? No: in tears, in
reproaches, she vented her indignation: but still Calantha moved not.
There is a disease which it is terrible to name. Ah, see you not its
symptoms in the wild eye of your child. Dread, dread the violence of
her uncurbed passions, of an imagination disordered and overpowered.
Madness to frenzy has fallen upon her. What tumult, what horror, reigns
in that mind: how piercing were the shrieks she uttered: how hollow
the cry that echoed Glenarvon’s name! Lady Margaret held her to her
bosom, and folded her arms around her. No stern looks upbraided her
for her crimes: all was kindness unutterable—goodness that stabbed to
the heart. And did she turn from such indulgence—did her perverted
passions still conquer every better feeling, as even on a bed of
death her last hope was love—her last words Glenarvon!
Sophia approached Calantha with words of kindness and religion;
but the words of religion offered no balm to a mind estranged and
utterly perverted. Her cheeks were pale, and her hollow eyes, glazed
and fixed, turned from the voice of comfort. Mrs. Seymour placed her
children near her; but with tears of remorse she heard them speak,
and shrunk from their caresses. And still it was upon Glenarvon that
she called. Yet when certain death was expected, or far worse, entire
loss of reason, she by slow degrees recovered.
There is a recovery from disease which is worse than death; and it
was her destiny to prove it. She loved her own sorrow too well: she
cherished every sad remembrance: she became morose, absorbed, and
irritated to frenzy, if intruded upon. All virtue is blighted in such
a bosom—all principle gone. It feeds upon its own calamity. Hope
nothing from the miserable: a broken heart is a sepulchre in which
the ruin of every thing that is noble and fair is enshrined.
That which causes the tragic end of a woman’s life, is often but a
moment of amusement and folly in the history of a man. Women, like
toys, are sought after, and trifled with, and then thrown by with
every varying caprice. Another, and another still succeed; but to
each thus cast away, the pang has been beyond thought, the stain
indelible, and the wound mortal. Glenarvon had offered his heart to
another. He had given the love gifts—the chains and the rings which
he had received from Calantha, to his new favourite. Her letters he
had shewn; her secrets he had betrayed; to an enemy’s bosom he had
betrayed the struggles of a guilty heart, tortured with remorse, and
yet at that time at least but too true, and faithful to him. ’Twas
the letters written in confidence which he shewed! It was the secret
thoughts of a soul he had torn from virtue and duty to follow him,
that he betrayed!
And to whom did he thus expose her errors?—To the near relations of her
husband, to the friends, and companions of her youth; and instead of
throwing a veil upon the weakness he himself had caused, when doubt,
remorse and terror had driven her to acts of desperation. Instead
of dropping one tear of pity over a bleeding, breaking heart, he
committed those testimonies of her guilt, and his own treachery, into
the hands of incensed and injured friends. They were human: they saw
but what he would have them see: they knew but what he wished them to
know: they censured her already, and rather believed his plausible
and gentle words, than the frantic rhapsodies of guilt and passion.
They read the passages but half communicated; they heard the insidious
remarks; they saw the letters in which themselves were misrepresented
and unkindly named; nor knew the arts which had been made use of to
alienate Calantha. They espoused the cause of Glenarvon, and turned
with anger and contempt against one whom they now justly despised.
Even Sophia, whom the terror of despair had one moment softened—even
Sophia, had not long been in the society of Glenarvon after her
arrival in England, when she also changed; so powerful were the
arguments which he used to persuade her; or so easily tranquillized
is resentment when we ourselves are not sufferers from the injury.