But neither can it forget its injuries!
What are they?
The time was when I met you with joy, addressed you with delight, and
gazed on you with rapture!--Nay I gaze so still!
Poor, weak man!
Yes, madam, I know how much you despise me! A thousand repeated wrongs
inform me of it: they have risen, one over another, in mountainous
oppression to my heart, till it could endure no more.
Feeble, mistaken man!
In those happy days when I approached you first, my thoughts were
loyal, my means were honest, and my intentions pure.
Pure?
Yes, madam, pure.
You never yet knew what purity meant!
I came void of guile, with an open and honourable offer of my heart. I
made no difficulties, felt no scruples, harboured no suspicions. In
return for which I was doubted, catechised, chidden, trifled with, and
insulted. When I hoped for sympathy I met rebuke; and while my
affections glowed admiration yours retorted contempt. Your heart was
prepossessed: it had no room for me: it excluded me, scorned me, and at
the first opportunity avowed its hatred.
Go on!--Neither your mistakes, your accusations, nor your anger shall
move me--I pity your errors. Continue to ascribe that to my injustice,
or to a worse motive, if a worse you can find, which was the proper
fruit of your irascible and vindictive temper. Reconcile your own
actions to your own heart, if you can; and prove to yourself I merit
the perfidy, assault, and imprisonment you have practised upon me: as
well as the mischief which I have every reason to suppose you intend.
Then, madam, avoid it! Spare both yourself and me the violence you
forebode?
What! Sink before unruly passion? Stand in awe of vice? Willingly
administer to shameless appetites, and a malignant spirit of
revenge?--Never, while I have life!
Stop!--Beware!--I am not master of my own affections! I am in a state
little short of phrensy! Be the means fair or foul, mine you shall
be--The decrees of Fate are not more fixed--I have sworn it, and though
fire from Heaven waited to devour me, I will keep my oath!--Could you
even yet but think of me as perhaps I deserve--! I say, could you,
madam--
I cannot will not marry you! Nothing you can say, nothing you can
threaten, nothing you can act shall make me!
Be less hasty in your contempt!--Fear me not!--Scorn for scorn, injury
for injury, and hate for hate!
I hate only your errors! I scorn nothing but vice--On the virtues of
which a mind like yours is capable my soul would dilate with ecstasy,
and my heart would doat! But you have sold yourself to crookedness!
Base threats, unmanly terrors, and brute violence are your despicable
engines!--Wretched man! They are impotent!--They turn upon yourself; me
they cannot harm!--I am above you!
I care not for myself--I have already secured infamy--I have paid
the price and will enjoy the forfeiture--Had you treated me with the
generous ardent love I so early felt for you, all had been well--I the
happiest of men, and you the first of women! But your own injustice
has dug the pit into which we must all down--It is wide and welcome
ruin!--Even now, contemned as I have been, scorned as I am, I would
fain use lenity and feel kindness. I will take retribution--no power
shall prevent me--but I would take it tenderly.
Oh shame upon you, man!--Tenderly?--Can the mischief and the misery in
which you have involved yourself and so many others, can treachery,
brutal force, bruises, imprisonment, and rape be coupled with
tenderness? If you have any spark of noble feeling yet remaining in
your heart, cherish it: but if not, speak truth to yourself! Do not
attempt to varnish such foul and detestable guilt with fair words.
I would advise, not varnish! What I have done I have done--I know my
doom--I am already branded! Opprobrium has set her indelible mark upon
me! I am indexed to all eternity!
You mistake, Clifton!--Beware!--You mistake! You mistake! [It is
impossible to imagine, Fairfax, the energy with which these
exclamations burst from her--It was a fleeting but false cordial to my
heart.] Of all your errors that is the most fatal! Whatever rooted
prejudices or unjust laws may assert to the contrary, we are
accountable only for what we do, not for what we have done. Clifton
beware! Mark me--I owe you no enmity for the past: I combat only with
the present.
Do not delude me with shadows. Bring your doctrine to the test: if you
bear me no enmity, if what I have done can be forgotten, and what I
would do--! Madam--! Anna--!--Once more, and for the last time--take
me!
It cannot be!--It cannot be!
Then, since you will shew no mercy, expect none.
Your menaces are vain, man! I tell you again I do not fear you! I will
beg no pity from you--I dare endure more than you dare inflict!
I am not to be braved from my purpose! The basis of nature is not more
unshaken! High as your courage is, you will find a spirit in me that
can mount still higher!
Courage? Oh shame! Name it not! Where was your courage when you decoyed
my defender from me? The man you durst not face?--Where is he?--What
have you done with him?--Laura has given you my letter--Should your
practices have reached his life!--But no! It cannot be! An act
so very vile as that not even the errors of your mind could
reach!--Courage?--Even me you durst not face in freedom! Your courage
employed a band of ruffians against me, singly; a woman too, over whom
your manly valour would tower! But there is no such mighty difference
as prejudice supposes. Courage has neither sex nor form: it is an
energy of mind, of which your base proceedings shew I have infinitely
the most. This bids me stand firm, and meet your worst daring
undauntedly! This be assured will make me the victor! I tell you, man,
it places me above you!
Urge me no more!--Beware of me! You have driven me mad! Do not tempt a
desperate man! Resistance will be destruction to you, no matter that to
me it be perdition! My account is closed, and I am reconciled to
ruin!--You shall be mine!--Though hell gape for me you shall be
mine!--Once more beware! I warn you not to contend!
Why, man, what would you do? Is murder your intent?--While I have life
I fear you not!--And think you that brutality can taint the dead? Nay,
think you that, were you endowed with the superior force which the vain
name of man supposes, and could accomplish the basest purpose of your
heart, I would falsely take guilt to myself; or imagine I had received
the smallest blemish, from impurity which never reached my mind? That I
would lament, or shun the world, or walk in open day oppressed by shame
I did not merit? No!--For you perhaps I might weep, but for myself I
would not shed a tear! Not a tear!--You cannot injure me--I am above
you!--If you mean to deal me blows or death, here I stand ready to
suffer: but till I am dead, or senseless, I defy you to do me
harm!--Bethink you, Clifton! I see the struggles of your soul: there
is virtue among them. Your eye speaks the reluctance of your
hand. Your heart spurns at the mischief your passions would
perpetrate!--Remember--Unless you have recourse to some malignant, some
cruel, some abominable means, you never shall accomplish so base a
purpose!--But you cannot be so guilty, Clifton!--You cannot!--I know
not by what perverse fatality you have been misled, for you have a mind
fitted for the sublimest emanations of virtue!--No, you cannot!--There
is something within you that lays too strong a hand upon you! Malice
so black is beyond you! Your very soul abhors its own guilt, and is
therefore driven frantic!--Oh, Clifton! You that were born to be the
champion of truth, the instructor of error, and the glory of the
earth!--My heart yearns over you--Awake!--Rise!--Be a man!
Divine, angelic creature!--Fool, madman, villain!
With these exclamations I instantly burst from the chamber--Conviction,
astonishment, remorse, tenderness, all the passions that could subdue
the human soul rushed upon me, till I could support no more.
Of all the creatures God ever formed she is the most wonderful!--I have
repeated something like her words; but had you seen her gestures, her
countenance, her eye, her glowing indignant fortitude at one moment,
and her kindling comprehensive benevolence the next, like me you would
have felt an irresistible impulse to catch some spark of a flame so
heavenly!
And now what is to be done? I am torn by contending passions!--If I
release her there is an end to all; except to my disgrace, which will
be everlasting--Give her to the arms of Henley?--I cannot bear it,
Fairfax!--I cannot bear it!--Death, racks, infamy itself to such a
thought were infinitude of bliss!
What can I do? She says truly: conquest over her, by any but brutal
means, is impossible--Shall I be brutal?--And more brutal even than my
own ruffian agents?
She has magnanimity--But what have those cyphers of beings who call
themselves her relations? Shall they mount the dunghill of their
vanity, clap their wings, and exult, as if they too had conquered a
Clifton? Even the villain Mac Fane would not fail to scout at me! Nay
the very go-between, the convenient chamber-maid herself, forgetting
the lightness of her own heels, would bless herself and claim her share
in the miraculous virtue of the sex! What! Become the scoff of the
tea-table, the bugbear of the bed-chamber, and the standing jest of the
tavern?--I will return this instant, Fairfax, and put her boasted
strength and courage to the proof--Madness!--I forget that nothing less
than depriving her of sense can be effectual. She knows her strong
hold: victory never yet was gained by man, singly, over woman, who was
not willing to be vanquished.
I will not yield her up, Fairfax!--She never shall be Henley's!--Again
and again she never shall!--I dared not meet him!--So she told
me!--Ha!--Dare not?--I will still devise a means--I will have my
revenge!--This vaunted Henley then shall know how much I dare!--I will
conquer!--Should I be obliged to come like Jove to Semele, in flames,
and should we both be reduced to ashes in the conflict, I will enjoy
her!--Let one urn hold our dust; and when the fire has purified it of
its angry and opposing particles, perhaps it may mingle in peace.