_Frank Henley to Oliver Trenchard_
_Wenbourne-Hill_
Oliver, I am wretched! The feeble Frank Henley is a poor miserable
being! The sun shines, the birds warble, the flowers spring, the buds
are bursting into bloom, all nature rejoices; yet to me this mirth,
this universal joy, seems mockery--Why is this? Why do I suffer my mind
thus to be pervaded by melancholy? Why am I thus steeped in gloom?
She is going--Thursday morning is the time fixed--And what is that to
me?--Madman that I am!--Who am I? Does she, can she, ought she to think
of me?--And why not? Am I not a man; and is she more than mortal?--She
is! She is!--Shew me the mortal who presumes to be her equal!
But what do I wish? What would I have? Is it my intention or my desire
to make her wretched? What! Sink her whom I adore in the estimation of
the world; and render her the scoff of the foolish, the vain, and the
malignant?--I!--I make her wretched!--I!--
Oliver, she treats me with indifference--cold, calm, killing
indifference! Yet kind, heavenly kind even in her coldness! Her
cheerful eye never turns from me, nor ever seeks me. To her I am a
statue--Would I were! Why does she not hate me? Openly and absolutely
hate me!--And could I wish her to love? Do I love? Do I? Dare I? Have I
the temerity so much as to suspect I love?--Who am I? The insignificant
son of--!
And who is she? The daughter of a Baronet--Pshaw! What is a
Baronet?--Away with such insolent, such ridiculous distinctions. She is
herself! Let Folly and Inferiority keep their distance!
But I?--Low bred and vulgar let Pride and Error call me, but not
villain! I the seducer of men's daughters! Noble men and still nobler
daughters! I! Why, would I be so very vile a thing? Would I, if I
could?
Yet who shall benumb the understanding, chain up the fancy, and freeze
sensation? Can I command myself deaf when she sings, dead when she
speaks, or rush into idiotism to avoid her enchantments?
Despise me, Oliver, if thou wilt, but the deep sense I have of my own
folly does but increase the distemper of my brain. She herself pities
me, yet does not suspect my disease. 'Tis evident she does not; for her
soul is above artifice. She kindly asked--was I not well? I owned I was
not quite so cheerful as I could wish to be; and [wouldst thou think
it?] was presumptuous enough to hint that I thought the enlivening air
of France might do me good. Thou seest how frantic I am! She answered
with the utmost ease, and without the most distant suspicion of my
selfish, my audacious motive, that she would speak to Sir Arthur. But I
was obliged to request her to forbear, till I had first tried to gain
my father's consent, of which indeed I had but feeble hopes.
Every way miserable, why am I obliged to think and speak of my father
with so little respect? Indeed he is--Well, well!--He is my father--I
am convinced he is become wealthy; nay indeed he gives me to understand
as much, when he wishes to gain any purpose, by endeavouring to excite
avarice in me, which he hopes is, and perhaps supposes must be, mine
and every man's ruling passion. Yet, no; he cannot: his complaints of
me for the want of it are too heartfelt, too bitter.
He has kept me in ignorance, as much as was in his power. Reading,
writing, and arithmetic is his grand system of education; after which
man has nothing more to learn, except to get and to hoard money. Had it
not been for the few books I bought and the many I borrowed, together
with the essential instruction which thy excellent father's learning
and philanthropy enabled and induced him to give me, I should probably
have been as illiterate as he could have wished. A son after his own
heart! One of his most frequent and most passionate reproaches is 'the
time I _waste_ in reading.'
I scarcely need tell thee he was almost in a rage, at my request to
accompany Sir Arthur to France; stating, as I did, that it ought to be
and must be at his expence. Otherwise he cares but little where I go,
being rather regarded by him as a spy on his actions than as his son.
Thou canst not conceive the contempt with which he treats me, for my
want of cunning. He despises my sense of philanthropy, honour, and that
severe probity to which no laws extend. He spurns at the possibility
of preferring the good of society to the good of self--But, once again,
he is my father.
Prithee lend me thy Petrarch, and send it in return by Thomas. I had
nothing to say, though I have written so much, except to ask for this
book, and to burden thee with my complaints. Remember me kindly to thy
most worthy father, and all the family. Thine,