Letter i.
_Lady Olivia to Lady Leonora L----._
What a misfortune it is to be born a woman! In vain, dear Leonora, would
you reconcile me to my doom. Condemned to incessant hypocrisy, or
everlasting misery, woman is the slave or the outcast of society.
Confidence in our fellow-creatures, or in ourselves, alike forbidden us,
to what purpose have we understandings, which we may not use? hearts,
which we may not trust? To our unhappy sex genius and sensibility are
the most treacherous gifts of Heaven. Why should we cultivate talents
merely to gratify the caprice of tyrants? Why seek for knowledge, which
can prove only that our wretchedness is irremediable? If a ray of light
break in upon us, it is but to make darkness more visible; to show us
the narrow limits, the Gothic structure, the impenetrable barriers of
our prison. Forgive me if on this subject I cannot speak--if I cannot
think--with patience. Is it not fabled, that the gods, to punish some
refractory mortal of the male kind, doomed his soul to inhabit upon
earth a female form? A punishment more degrading, or more difficult to
endure, could scarcely be devised by cruelty omnipotent. What dangers,
what sorrows, what persecutions, what nameless evils awaits the woman
who dares to rise above the prejudices of her sex!
"Ah! happy they, the happiest of their kind!"
who, without a struggle, submit their reason to be swathed by all the
absurd bandages of custom. What, though they cripple or distort their
minds; are not these deformities beauties in the eyes of fashion? and
are not these people the favoured nurslings of the _World_, secure of
her smiles, her caresses, her fostering praise, her partial protection,
through all the dangers of youth and all the dotage of age?
"Ah! happy they, the happiest of their kind!"
who learn to speak, and think, and act by rote; who have a phrase, or a
maxim, or a formula ready for every occasion; who follow--
"All the nurse and all the priest have taught."
And is it possible that Olivia can envy these _tideless-blooded_ souls
their happiness--their apathy? Is her high spirit so broken by
adversity? Not such the promise of her early years, not such the
language of her unsophisticated heart! Alas! I scarcely know, I scarcely
recollect, that proud self, which was wont to defy the voice of opinion,
and to set at nought the decrees of prejudice. The events of my life
shall be related, or rather the history of my sensations; for in a life
like mine sensations become events--a metamorphosis which you will see
in every page of my history. I feel an irresistible impulse to open my
whole heart to you, my dear Leonora. I ought to be awed by the
superiority of your understanding and of your character; yet there is
an indulgence in your nature, a softness in your temper, that dissipates
fear, and irresistibly attracts confidence.
You have generously refused to be prejudiced against me by busy,
malignant rumour; you have resolved to judge of me for yourself.
Nothing, then, shall be concealed. In such circumstances I cannot seek
to extenuate any of my faults or follies. I am ready to acknowledge them
all with self-humiliation more poignant than the sarcasms of my
bitterest enemies. But I must pause till I have summoned courage for my
confession. Dear Leonora, adieu!
Olivia.
Letter ij.
_Olivia to Leonora._
Full of life and spirits, with a heart formed for all the enthusiasm,
for all the delicacy of love, I married early, in the fond expectation
of meeting a heart suited to my own. Cruelly disappointed, I
found--merely a husband. My heart recoiled upon itself; true to my own
principles of virtue, I scorned dissimulation. I candidly confessed to
my husband, that my love was extinguished. I proved to him, alas! too
clearly, that we were not born for each other. The attractive moment of
illusion was past--never more to return; the repulsive reality remained.
The living was chained to the dead, and, by the inexorable tyranny of
English laws, that chain, eternally galling to innocence, can be severed
only by the desperation of vice. Divorce, according to our barbarous
institutions, cannot be obtained without guilt. Appalled at the thought,
I saw no hope but in submission. Yet to submit to live with the man I
could not love was, to a mind like mine, impossible. My principles and
my feelings equally revolted from this legal prostitution. We separated.
I sought for balm to my wounded heart in foreign climes.
To the beauties of nature I was ever feelingly alive. Amidst the sublime
scenes of Switzerland, and on the consecrated borders of her classic
lakes, I sometimes forgot myself to happiness. Felicity, how
transient!--transient as the day-dreams that played upon my fancy in the
bright morning of love. Alas! not all creation's charms could soothe me
to repose. I wandered in search of that which change of place cannot
afford. There was an aching void in my heart--an indescribable sadness
over my spirits. Sometimes I had recourse to books; but how few were in
unison with my feelings, or touched the trembling chords of my
disordered mind! Commonplace morality I could not endure. History
presented nothing but a mass of crimes. Metaphysics promised some
relief, and I bewildered myself in their not inelegant labyrinth. But to
the bold genius and exquisite pathos of some German novelists I hold
myself indebted for my largest portion of ideal bliss; for those rapt
moments, when sympathy with kindred souls transported me into better
worlds, and consigned vulgar realities to oblivion.
I am well aware, my Leonora, that you approve not of these my favourite
writers: but yours is the morality of one who has never known sorrow. I
also would interdict such cordials to the happy. But would you forbid
those to taste felicity in dreams who feel only misery when awake? Would
you dash the cup of Lethe from lips to which no other beverage is
salubrious or sweet?
By the use of these opiates my soul gradually settled into a sort of
pleasing pensive melancholy. Has it not been said, that melancholy is a
characteristic of genius? I make no pretensions to genius: but I am
persuaded that melancholy is the habitual, perhaps the natural state of
those who have the misfortune to feel with delicacy.
You, my dear Leonora, will class this notion amongst what you once
called my refined errors. Indeed I must confess, that I see in you an
exception so striking as almost to compel me to relinquish my theory.
But again let me remind you, that your lot in life has been different
from mine. Alas! how different! Why had not I such a friend, such a
mother as yours, early to direct my uncertain steps, and to educate me
to happiness? I might have been----. But no matter what I might have
been----. I must tell you what I have been.
Separated from my husband, without a guide, without a friend at the most
perilous period of my life, I was left to that most insidious of
counsellors--my own heart--my own weak heart. When I was least prepared
to resist the impression, it was my misfortune to meet with a man of a
soul congenial to my own. Before I felt my danger, I was entangled
beyond the possibility of escape. The net was thrown over my heart; its
struggles were to no purpose but to exhaust my strength. Virtue
commanded me to be miserable--and I was miserable. But do I dare to
expect your pity, Leonora, for such an attachment? It excites your
indignation, perhaps your horror. Blame, despise, detest me; all this
would I rather bear than deceive you into fancying me better than I
really am.
Do not, however, think me worse. If my views had been less pure, if I
had felt less reliance on the firmness of my own principles, and less
repugnance to artifice, I might easily have avoided some appearances,
which have injured me in the eyes of the world. With real contrition I
confess, that a fatal mixture of masculine independence of spirit, and
of female tenderness of heart, has betrayed me into many imprudences;
but of vice, and of that meanest species of vice, hypocrisy, I thank
Heaven, my conscience can acquit me. All I have now to hope is, that
you, my indulgent, my generous Leonora, will not utterly condemn me.
Truth and gratitude are my only claims to your friendship--to a
friendship, which would be to me the first of earthly blessings, which
might make me amends for all I have lost. Consider this before, unworthy
as I am, you reject me from your esteem. Counsel, guide, save me!
Without vanity, but with confidence I say it, I have a heart that will
repay you for affection. You will find me easily moved, easily governed
by kindness. Yours has already sunk deep into my soul, and your power is
unlimited over the affections and over the understanding of
Your obliged
Olivia.
Letter iij.
_From Lady Leonora L---- to her mother, the Duchess of ----,
enclosing the preceding letters._
I am permitted to send you, my dear mother, the enclosed letters. Mixed
with what you may not approve, you will, I think, find in them proofs of
an affectionate heart and superior abilities. Lady Olivia is just
returned to England. Scandal, imported from the continent, has had such
an effect in prejudicing many of her former friends and acquaintance
against her, that she is in danger of being excluded from that society
of which she was once the ornament and the favourite; but I am
determined to support her cause, and to do everything in my power to
counteract the effects of malignity. I cannot sufficiently express the
indignation that I feel against the mischievous spirit of scandal,
which destroys happiness at every breath, and which delights in the
meanest of all malignant feelings--the triumph over the errors of
superior characters. Olivia has been much blamed, because she has been
much envied.
Indeed, my dear mother, you have been prejudiced against her by false
reports. Do not imagine that her fascinating manners have blinded my
judgment: I assure you that I have discerned, or rather that she has
revealed to me, all her faults: and ought not this candour to make a
strong impression upon my mind in her favour? Consider how young, how
beautiful she was at her first entrance into fashionable life; how much
exposed to temptation, surrounded by flatterers, and without a single
friend. I am persuaded that she would have escaped all censure, and
would have avoided all the errors with which she now reproaches herself,
if she had been blessed with a mother such as mine.