_Frank Henley to Oliver Trenchard_.
_Chateau de Villebrun_
Oh, my friend, my heart is torn! I am on the rack! My thoughts are all
tumult! My passions rebel! I seem to have yielded up the best
prerogative of man, reason; and to have admitted revolt, anarchy, and
desolation!
Her manner is changed! Wholly! She is become cold, reserved; has marked
me out for neglect; smiles on me no more; not a sigh escapes her. And
why? What have I done? I am unconscious. Have I been too presuming?
Perhaps so. But why did her looks never till now speak her meaning as
intelligibly as they do at present? I could not then have mistaken
them. Why, till now, has she seemed to regard me with that sweet
amenity which was so flattering to hope?
Perhaps, in the distraction of my thoughts, I am unjust to her. And
shall I, pretending as I do to love so pure, shall I become her
accuser? What if she meant no more than that commerce of grateful
kindness, which knits together human society, and renders it
delightful?
Yet this sudden change! So evidently intentional! The smiles too which
she bestows on the brother of Louisa, and the haughty airs of triumph
which he assumes, what can these be? Confident in himself, ardent in
his desires, unchecked by those fears which are the offspring of true
delicacy, his passions violent, and his pride almost insufferable, he
thinks he loves. But he is ignorant of the alarms, the tremors, the
'fitful fevers' of love.
I cannot endure my present torture. I must seek a desperate end to it,
by explanation. Why do I delay? Coward that I am! What worse can happen
than despair? And is not despair itself preferable to that worst of
fiends, suspense? What do I mean by despair? Would I, being rejected,
desert my duty, sink into self, and poorly linger in wretchedness; or
basely put an end to existence? Violently end that which ought to be
devoted to the good of others?--How did so infernal a thought enter my
mind?--Can I be so very lost a thing?--No!--Despair is something
confused, something horrid: I know not what. It may intrude upon me, at
black and dismal intervals; but it shall not overwhelm me. I will shake
it off. I will meet my destiny.
The clouds are gathering; the storm approaches; I hear the distant
thunder rolling; this way it drives; it points at me; it must suddenly
burst! Be it so. Grant me but the spirit of a man, and I yet shall
brave its fury. If I am a poor braggart, a half believer in virtue, or
virtuous only in words, the feeble victim then must justly perish.
I cannot endure my torments! Cannot, because there is a way to end
them. It shall be done.
I blush to read, blush to recollect the rhapsodies of my own perturbed
mind! Madman! 'Tis continually thus. Day after day I proceed,
reasoning, reproving, doubting, wishing, believing and despairing,
alternately.
Once again, where is this strange impossibility?--In what does it
consist?--Are we not both human beings?--What law of Nature has placed
her beyond my hopes?--What is rank? Does it imply superiority of mind?
Or is there any other superiority?--Am I not a man?--And who is more?
Have the titled earned their dignities by any proofs of exalted virtue?
Were not these dignities things of accident, in which the owners had no
share, and of which they are generally unworthy? And shall hope be thus
cowed and killed, without my daring to exert the first and most
unalienable of the rights of man, freedom of thought? Shall I not
examine what these high distinctions truly are, of which the bearers
are so vain?
This Clifton--! Thou knowest not how he treats me. And can she approve,
can she second his injustice?--Surely not!--Yet does she not dedicate
her smiles to him, her conversation, her time? Does she not shun me,
discountenance me, and reprove me, by her silence and her averted eyes?
Once again it must and shall have an end!--I have repeated this too
often; but my next shall shew thee I am at length determined.