Earnestly as Maria endeavoured to soothe, by reading, the anguish of
her wounded mind, her thoughts would often wander from the subject she
was led to discuss, and tears of maternal tenderness obscured the
reasoning page. She descanted on “the ills which flesh is heir to,”
with bitterness, when the recollection of her babe was revived by a
tale of fictitious woe, that bore any resemblance to her own; and her
imagination was continually employed, to conjure up and embody the
various phantoms of misery, which folly and vice had let loose on the
world. The loss of her babe was the tender string; against other cruel
remembrances she laboured to steel her bosom; and even a ray of hope,
in the midst of her gloomy reveries, would sometimes gleam on the dark
horizon of futurity, while persuading herself that she ought to cease
to hope, since happiness was no where to be found.—But of her child,
debilitated by the grief with which its mother had been assailed before
it saw the light, she could not think without an impatient struggle.
“I, alone, by my active tenderness, could have saved,” she would
exclaim, “from an early blight, this sweet blossom; and, cherishing it,
I should have had something still to love.”
In proportion as other expectations were torn from her, this tender one
had been fondly clung to, and knit into her heart.
The books she had obtained, were soon devoured, by one who had no other
resource to escape from sorrow, and the feverish dreams of ideal
wretchedness or felicity, which equally weaken the intoxicated
sensibility. Writing was then the only alternative, and she wrote some
rhapsodies descriptive of the state of her mind; but the events of her
past life pressing on her, she resolved circumstantially to relate
them, with the sentiments that experience, and more matured reason,
would naturally suggest. They might perhaps instruct her daughter, and
shield her from the misery, the tyranny, her mother knew not how to
avoid.
This thought gave life to her diction, her soul flowed into it, and she
soon found the task of recollecting almost obliterated impressions very
interesting. She lived again in the revived emotions of youth, and
forgot her present in the retrospect of sorrows that had assumed an
unalterable character.
Though this employment lightened the weight of time, yet, never losing
sight of her main object, Maria did not allow any opportunity to slip
of winning on the affections of Jemima; for she discovered in her a
strength of mind, that excited her esteem, clouded as it was by the
misanthropy of despair.
An insulated being, from the misfortune of her birth, she despised and
preyed on the society by which she had been oppressed, and loved not
her fellow-creatures, because she had never been beloved. No mother had
ever fondled her, no father or brother had protected her from outrage;
and the man who had plunged her into infamy, and deserted her when she
stood in greatest need of support, deigned not to smooth with kindness
the road to ruin. Thus degraded, was she let loose on the world; and
virtue, never nurtured by affection, assumed the stern aspect of
selfish independence.
This general view of her life, Maria gathered from her exclamations and
dry remarks. Jemima indeed displayed a strange mixture of interest and
suspicion; for she would listen to her with earnestness, and then
suddenly interrupt the conversation, as if afraid of resigning, by
giving way to her sympathy, her dear-bought knowledge of the world.
Maria alluded to the possibility of an escape, and mentioned a
compensation, or reward; but the style in which she was repulsed made
her cautious, and determine not to renew the subject, till she knew
more of the character she had to work on. Jemima’s countenance, and
dark hints, seemed to say, “You are an extraordinary woman; but let me
consider, this may only be one of your lucid intervals.” Nay, the very
energy of Maria’s character, made her suspect that the extraordinary
animation she perceived might be the effect of madness. “Should her
husband then substantiate his charge, and get possession of her estate,
from whence would come the promised annuity, or more desired
protection? Besides, might not a woman, anxious to escape, conceal some
of the circumstances which made against her? Was truth to be expected
from one who had been entrapped, kidnapped, in the most fraudulent
manner?”
In this train Jemima continued to argue, the moment after compassion
and respect seemed to make her swerve; and she still resolved not to be
wrought on to do more than soften the rigour of confinement, till she
could advance on surer ground.
Maria was not permitted to walk in the garden; but sometimes, from her
window, she turned her eyes from the gloomy walls, in which she pined
life away, on the poor wretches who strayed along the walks, and
contemplated the most terrific of ruins—that of a human soul. What is
the view of the fallen column, the mouldering arch, of the most
exquisite workmanship, when compared with this living memento of the
fragility, the instability, of reason, and the wild luxuriancy of
noxious passions? Enthusiasm turned adrift, like some rich stream
overflowing its banks, rushes forward with destructive velocity,
inspiring a sublime concentration of thought. Thus thought Maria—These
are the ravages over which humanity must ever mournfully ponder, with a
degree of anguish not excited by crumbling marble, or cankering brass,
unfaithful to the trust of monumental fame. It is not over the decaying
productions of the mind, embodied with the happiest art, we grieve most
bitterly. The view of what has been done by man, produces a melancholy,
yet aggrandizing, sense of what remains to be achieved by human
intellect; but a mental convulsion, which, like the devastation of an
earthquake, throws all the elements of thought and imagination into
confusion, makes contemplation giddy, and we fearfully ask on what
ground we ourselves stand.
Melancholy and imbecility marked the features of the wretches allowed
to breathe at large; for the frantic, those who in a strong imagination
had lost a sense of woe, were closely confined. The playful tricks and
mischievous devices of their disturbed fancy, that suddenly broke out,
could not be guarded against, when they were permitted to enjoy any
portion of freedom; for, so active was their imagination, that every
new object which accidentally struck their senses, awoke to phrenzy
their restless passions; as Maria learned from the burden of their
incessant ravings.
Sometimes, with a strict injunction of silence, Jemima would allow
Maria, at the close of evening, to stray along the narrow avenues that
separated the dungeon-like apartments, leaning on her arm. What a
change of scene! Maria wished to pass the threshold of her prison, yet,
when by chance she met the eye of rage glaring on her, yet unfaithful
to its office, she shrunk back with more horror and affright, than if
she had stumbled over a mangled corpse. Her busy fancy pictured the
misery of a fond heart, watching over a friend thus estranged, absent,
though present—over a poor wretch lost to reason and the social joys of
existence; and losing all consciousness of misery in its excess. What a
task, to watch the light of reason quivering in the eye, or with
agonizing expectation to catch the beam of recollection; tantalized by
hope, only to feel despair more keenly, at finding a much loved face or
voice, suddenly remembered, or pathetically implored, only to be
immediately forgotten, or viewed with indifference or abhorrence!
The heart-rending sigh of melancholy sunk into her soul; and when she
retired to rest, the petrified figures she had encountered, the only
human forms she was doomed to observe, haunting her dreams with tales
of mysterious wrongs, made her wish to sleep to dream no more.
Day after day rolled away, and tedious as the present moment appeared,
they passed in such an unvaried tenor, Maria was surprised to find that
she had already been six weeks buried alive, and yet had such faint
hopes of effecting her enlargement. She was, earnestly as she had
sought for employment, now angry with herself for having been amused by
writing her narrative; and grieved to think that she had for an instant
thought of any thing, but contriving to escape.
Jemima had evidently pleasure in her society: still, though she often
left her with a glow of kindness, she returned with the same chilling
air; and, when her heart appeared for a moment to open, some suggestion
of reason forcibly closed it, before she could give utterance to the
confidence Maria’s conversation inspired.
Discouraged by these changes, Maria relapsed into despondency, when she
was cheered by the alacrity with which Jemima brought her a fresh
parcel of books; assuring her, that she had taken some pains to obtain
them from one of the keepers, who attended a gentleman confined in the
opposite corner of the gallery.
Maria took up the books with emotion. “They come,” said she, “perhaps,
from a wretch condemned, like me, to reason on the nature of madness,
by having wrecked minds continually under his eye; and almost to wish
himself—as I do—mad, to escape from the contemplation of it.” Her heart
throbbed with sympathetic alarm; and she turned over the leaves with
awe, as if they had become sacred from passing through the hands of an
unfortunate being, oppressed by a similar fate.
Dryden’s Fables, Milton’s Paradise Lost, with several modern
productions, composed the collection. It was a mine of treasure. Some
marginal notes, in Dryden’s Fables, caught her attention: they were
written with force and taste; and, in one of the modern pamphlets,
there was a fragment left, containing various observations on the
present state of society and government, with a comparative view of the
politics of Europe and America. These remarks were written with a
degree of generous warmth, when alluding to the enslaved state of the
labouring majority, perfectly in unison with Maria’s mode of thinking.
She read them over and over again; and fancy, treacherous fancy, began
to sketch a character, congenial with her own, from these shadowy
outlines.—“Was he mad?” She reperused the marginal notes, and they
seemed the production of an animated, but not of a disturbed
imagination. Confined to this speculation, every time she re-read them,
some fresh refinement of sentiment, or acuteness of thought impressed
her, which she was astonished at herself for not having before
observed.
What a creative power has an affectionate heart! There are beings who
cannot live without loving, as poets love; and who feel the electric
spark of genius, wherever it awakens sentiment or grace. Maria had
often thought, when disciplining her wayward heart, “that to charm, was
to be virtuous.” “They who make me wish to appear the most amiable and
good in their eyes, must possess in a degree,” she would exclaim, “the
graces and virtues they call into action.”
She took up a book on the powers of the human mind; but, her attention
strayed from cold arguments on the nature of what she felt, while she
was feeling, and she snapt the chain of the theory to read Dryden’s
Guiscard and Sigismunda.
Maria, in the course of the ensuing day, returned some of the books,
with the hope of getting others—and more marginal notes. Thus shut out
from human intercourse, and compelled to view nothing but the prison of
vexed spirits, to meet a wretch in the same situation, was more surely
to find a friend, than to imagine a countryman one, in a strange land,
where the human voice conveys no information to the eager ear.
“Did you ever see the unfortunate being to whom these books belong?”
asked Maria, when Jemima brought her slipper. “Yes. He sometimes walks
out, between five and six, before the family is stirring, in the
morning, with two keepers; but even then his hands are confined.”
“What! is he so unruly?” enquired Maria, with an accent of
disappointment.
“No, not that I perceive,” replied Jemima; “but he has an untamed look,
a vehemence of eye, that excites apprehension. Were his hands free, he
looks as if he could soon manage both his guards: yet he appears
tranquil.”
“If he be so strong, he must be young,” observed Maria.
“Three or four and thirty, I suppose; but there is no judging of a
person in his situation.”
“Are you sure that he is mad?” interrupted Maria with eagerness. Jemima
quitted the room, without replying.
“No, no, he certainly is not!” exclaimed Maria, answering herself; “the
man who could write those observations was not disordered in his
intellects.”
She sat musing, gazing at the moon, and watching its motion as it
seemed to glide under the clouds. Then, preparing for bed, she thought,
“Of what use could I be to him, or he to me, if it be true that he is
unjustly confined?—Could he aid me to escape, who is himself more
closely watched?—Still I should like to see him.” She went to bed,
dreamed of her child, yet woke exactly at half after five o’clock, and
starting up, only wrapped a gown around her, and ran to the window. The
morning was chill, it was the latter end of September; yet she did not
retire to warm herself and think in bed, till the sound of the
servants, moving about the house, convinced her that the unknown would
not walk in the garden that morning. She was ashamed at feeling
disappointed; and began to reflect, as an excuse to herself, on the
little objects which attract attention when there is nothing to divert
the mind; and how difficult it was for women to avoid growing romantic,
who have no active duties or pursuits.
At breakfast, Jemima enquired whether she understood French? for,
unless she did, the stranger’s stock of books was exhausted. Maria
replied in the affirmative; but forbore to ask any more questions
respecting the person to whom they belonged. And Jemima gave her a new
subject for contemplation, by describing the person of a lovely maniac,
just brought into an adjoining chamber. She was singing the pathetic
ballad of old Rob[3] with the most heart-melting falls and pauses.
Jemima had half-opened the door, when she distinguished her voice, and
Maria stood close to it, scarcely daring to respire, lest a modulation
should escape her, so exquisitely sweet, so passionately wild. She
began with sympathy to pourtray to herself another victim, when the
lovely warbler flew, as it were, from the spray, and a torrent of
unconnected exclamations and questions burst from her, interrupted by
fits of laughter, so horrid, that Maria shut the door, and, turning her
eyes up to heaven, exclaimed—“Gracious God!”
[3] A blank space about ten characters in length occurs here in the
original edition [Publisher’s note].
Several minutes elapsed before Maria could enquire respecting the
rumour of the house (for this poor wretch was obviously not confined
without a cause); and then Jemima could only tell her, that it was
said, “she had been married, against her inclination, to a rich old
man, extremely jealous (no wonder, for she was a charming creature);
and that, in consequence of his treatment, or something which hung on
her mind, she had, during her first lying-in, lost her senses.”
What a subject of meditation—even to the very confines of madness.
“Woman, fragile flower! why were you suffered to adorn a world exposed
to the inroad of such stormy elements?” thought Maria, while the poor
maniac’s strain was still breathing on her ear, and sinking into her
very soul.
Towards the evening, Jemima brought her Rousseau’s Heloise; and she sat
reading with eyes and heart, till the return of her guard to extinguish
the light. One instance of her kindness was, the permitting Maria to
have one, till her own hour of retiring to rest. She had read this work
long since; but now it seemed to open a new world to her—the only one
worth inhabiting. Sleep was not to be wooed; yet, far from being
fatigued by the restless rotation of thought, she rose and opened her
window, just as the thin watery clouds of twilight made the long silent
shadows visible. The air swept across her face with a voluptuous
freshness that thrilled to her heart, awakening indefinable emotions;
and the sound of a waving branch, or the twittering of a startled bird,
alone broke the stillness of reposing nature. Absorbed by the sublime
sensibility which renders the consciousness of existence felicity,
Maria was happy, till an autumnal scent, wafted by the breeze of morn
from the fallen leaves of the adjacent wood, made her recollect that
the season had changed since her confinement; yet life afforded no
variety to solace an afflicted heart. She returned dispirited to her
couch, and thought of her child till the broad glare of day again
invited her to the window. She looked not for the unknown, still how
great was her vexation at perceiving the back of a man, certainly he,
with his two attendants, as he turned into a side-path which led to the
house! A confused recollection of having seen somebody who resembled
him, immediately occurred, to puzzle and torment her with endless
conjectures. Five minutes sooner, and she should have seen his face,
and been out of suspense—was ever any thing so unlucky! His steady,
bold step, and the whole air of his person, bursting as it were from a
cloud, pleased her, and gave an outline to the imagination to sketch
the individual form she wished to recognize.
Feeling the disappointment more severely than she was willing to
believe, she flew to Rousseau, as her only refuge from the idea of him,
who might prove a friend, could she but find a way to interest him in
her fate; still the personification of Saint Preux, or of an ideal
lover far superior, was after this imperfect model, of which merely a
glance had been caught, even to the minutiae of the coat and hat of the
stranger. But if she lent St. Preux, or the demi-god of her fancy, his
form, she richly repaid him by the donation of all St. Preux’s
sentiments and feelings, culled to gratify her own, to which he seemed
to have an undoubted right, when she read on the margin of an
impassioned letter, written in the well-known hand—“Rousseau alone, the
true Prometheus of sentiment, possessed the fire of genius necessary to
pourtray the passion, the truth of which goes so directly to the
heart.”
Maria was again true to the hour, yet had finished Rousseau, and begun
to transcribe some selected passages; unable to quit either the author
or the window, before she had a glimpse of the countenance she daily
longed to see; and, when seen, it conveyed no distinct idea to her mind
where she had seen it before. He must have been a transient
acquaintance; but to discover an acquaintance was fortunate, could she
contrive to attract his attention, and excite his sympathy.
Every glance afforded colouring for the picture she was delineating on
her heart; and once, when the window was half open, the sound of his
voice reached her. Conviction flashed on her; she had certainly, in a
moment of distress, heard the same accents. They were manly, and
characteristic of a noble mind; nay, even sweet—or sweet they seemed to
her attentive ear.
She started back, trembling, alarmed at the emotion a strange
coincidence of circumstances inspired, and wondering why she thought so
much of a stranger, obliged as she had been by his timely interference;
[for she recollected, by degrees all the circumstances of their former
meeting.] She found however that she could think of nothing else; or,
if she thought of her daughter, it was to wish that she had a father
whom her mother could respect and love.