LETTERS TO C. P——, ESQ.
Bees-Inn.
My good friend, Here I am in Scotland (and shall have been here three
weeks, next Monday) as I may say, ON MY PROBATION. This is a lone inn,
but on a great scale, thirty miles from Edinburgh. It is situated on a
rising ground (a mark for all the winds, which blow here
incessantly)—there is a woody hill opposite, with a winding valley
below, and the London road stretches out on either side. You may guess
which way I oftenest walk. I have written two letters to S. L. and got
one cold, prudish answer, beginning SIR, and ending FROM YOURS TRULY,
with BEST RESPECTS FROM HERSELF AND RELATIONS. I was going to give in,
but have returned an answer, which I think is a touch-stone. I send it
you on the other side to keep as a curiosity, in case she kills me by
her exquisite rejoinder. I am convinced from the profound
contemplations I have had on the subject here and coming along, that I
am on a wrong scent. We had a famous parting-scene, a complete quarrel
and then a reconciliation, in which she did beguile me of my tears, but
the deuce a one did she shed. What do you think? She cajoled me out of
my little Buonaparte as cleverly as possible, in manner and form
following. She was shy the Saturday and Sunday (the day of my
departure) so I got in dudgeon, and began to rip up grievances. I asked
her how she came to admit me to such extreme familiarities, the first
week I entered the house. “If she had no particular regard for me, she
must do so (or more) with everyone: if she had a liking to me from the
first, why refuse me with scorn and wilfulness?” If you had seen how
she flounced, and looked, and went to the door, saying “She was obliged
to me for letting her know the opinion I had always entertained of
her”—then I said, “Sarah!” and she came back and took my hand, and
fixed her eyes on the mantelpiece—(she must have been invoking her idol
then—if I thought so, I could devour her, the darling—but I doubt
her)—So I said “There is one thing that has occurred to me sometimes as
possible, to account for your conduct to me at first—there wasn’t a
likeness, was there, to your old friend?” She answered “No, none—but
there was a likeness!” I asked, to what? She said “to that little
image!” I said, “Do you mean Buonaparte?”—She said “Yes, all but the
nose.”—“And the figure?”—“He was taller.”—I could not stand this. So I
got up and took it, and gave it her, and after some reluctance, she
consented to “keep it for me.” What will you bet me that it wasn’t all
a trick? I’ll tell you why I suspect it, besides being fairly out of my
wits about her. I had told her mother half an hour before, that I
should take this image and leave it at Mrs. B.’s, for that I didn’t
wish to leave anything behind me that must bring me back again. Then up
she comes and starts a likeness to her lover: she knew I should give it
her on the spot—“No, she would keep it for me!” So I must come back for
it. Whether art or nature, it is sublime. I told her I should write and
tell you so, and that I parted from her, confiding, adoring!—She is
beyond me, that’s certain. Do go and see her, and desire her not to
give my present address to a single soul, and learn if the lodging is
let, and to whom. My letter to her is as follows. If she shews the
least remorse at it, I’ll be hanged, though it might move a stone, I
modestly think. (See before, Part I. first letter.)
N.B.—I have begun a book of our conversations (I mean mine and the
statue’s) which I call LIBER AMORIS. I was detained at Stamford and
found myself dull, and could hit upon no other way of employing my time
so agreeably.
LETTER II
Dear P——, Here, without loss of time, in order that I may have your
opinion upon it, is little Yes and No’s answer to my last.
“Sir, I should not have disregarded your injunction not to send you any
more letters that might come to you, had I not promised the Gentleman
who left the enclosed to forward it the earliest opportunity, as he
said it was of consequence. Mr. P—— called the day after you left town.
My mother and myself are much obliged by your kind offer of tickets to
the play, but must decline accepting it. My family send their best
respects, in which they are joined by
Yours, truly,
S. L.
The deuce a bit more is there of it. If you can make anything out of it
(or any body else) I’ll be hanged. You are to understand, this comes in
a frank, the second I have received from her, with a name I can’t make
out, and she won’t tell me, though I asked her, where she got franks,
as also whether the lodgings were let, to neither of which a word of
answer. * * * * is the name on the frank: see if you can decypher it by
a Red-book. I suspect her grievously of being an arrant jilt, to say no
more—yet I love her dearly. Do you know I’m going to write to that
sweet rogue presently, having a whole evening to myself in advance of
my work? Now mark, before you set about your exposition of the new
Apocalypse of the new Calypso, the only thing to be endured in the
above letter is the date. It was written the very day after she
received mine. By this she seems willing to lose no time in receiving
these letters “of such sweet breath composed.” If I thought so—but I
wait for your reply. After all, what is there in her but a pretty
figure, and that you can’t get a word out of her? Hers is the Fabian
method of making love and conquests. What do you suppose she said the
night before I left her?
“H. Could you not come and live with me as a friend?
“S. I don’t know: and yet it would be of no use if I did, you would
always be hankering after what could never be!”
I asked her if she would do so at once—the very next day? And what do
you guess was her answer—“Do you think it would be prudent?” As I
didn’t proceed to extremities on the spot, she began to look grave, and
declare off. “Would she live with me in her own house—to be with me all
day as dear friends, if nothing more, to sit and read and talk with
me?”—“She would make no promises, but I should find her the
same.”—“Would she go to the play with me sometimes, and let it be
understood that I was paying my addresses to her?”—“She could not, as a
habit—her father was rather strict, and would object.”—Now what am I to
think of all this? Am I mad or a fool? Answer me to that, Master Brook!
You are a philosopher.
LETTER III
Dear Friend, I ought to have written to you before; but since I
received your letter, I have been in a sort of purgatory, and what is
worse, I see no prospect of getting out of it. I would put an end to my
torments at once; but I am as great a coward as I have been a dupe. Do
you know I have not had a word of answer from her since! What can be
the reason? Is she offended at my letting you know she wrote to me, or
is it some
new affair? I wrote to her in the tenderest, most respectful manner,
poured my soul at her feet, and this is the return she makes me! Can
you account for it, except on the admission of my worst doubts
concerning her? Oh God! can I bear after all to think of her so, or
that I am scorned and made a sport of by the creature to whom I had
given my whole heart? Thus has it been with me all my life; and so will
it be to the end of it!—If you should learn anything, good or bad, tell
me, I conjure you: I can bear anything but this cruel suspense. If I
knew she was a mere abandoned creature, I should try to forget her; but
till I do know this, nothing can tear me from her, I have drank in
poison from her lips too long—alas! mine do not poison again. I sit and
indulge my grief by the hour together; my weakness grows upon me; and I
have no hope left, unless I could lose my senses quite. Do you know I
think I should like this? To forget, ah! to forget—there would be
something in that—to change to an idiot for some few years, and then to
wake up a poor wretched old man, to recollect my misery as past, and
die! Yet, oh! with her, only a little while ago, I had different hopes,
forfeited for nothing that I know of! * * * * * * If you can give me
any consolation on the subject of my tormentor, pray do. The pain I
suffer wears me out daily. I write this on the supposition that Mrs. ——
may still come here, and that I may be detained some weeks longer.
Direct to me at the Post-office; and if I return to town directly as I
fear, I will leave word for them to forward the letter to me in
London—not at my old lodgings. I will not go back there: yet how can I
breathe away from her? Her hatred of me must be great, since my love of
her could not overcome it! I have finished the book of my conversations
with her, which I told you of: if I am not mistaken, you will think it
very nice reading.
Yours ever.
Have you read Sardanapalus? How like the little Greek slave, Myrrha, is
to HER!
LETTER IV
(Written in the Winter)
My good Friend, I received your letter this morning, and I kiss the rod
not only with submission, but gratitude. Your reproofs of me and your
defences of her are the only things that save my soul from perdition.
She is my heart’s idol; and believe me those words of yours applied to
the dear saint—“To lip a chaste one and suppose her wanton”—were balm
and rapture to me. I have LIPPED HER, God knows how often, and oh! is
it even possible that she is chaste, and that she has bestowed her
loved “endearments” on me (her own sweet word) out of true regard? That
thought, out of the lowest depths of despair, would at any time make me
strike my forehead against the stars. Could I but think the love
“honest,” I am proof against all hazards. She by her silence makes my
dark hour; and you by your encouragements dissipate it for twenty-four
hours. Another thing has brought me to life. Mrs. —— is actually on her
way here about the divorce. Should this unpleasant business (which has
been so long talked of) succeed, and I should become free, do you think
S. L. will agree to change her name to ——? If she WILL, she SHALL; and
to call her so to you, or to hear her called so by others, would be
music to my ears, such as they never drank in. Do you think if she knew
how I love her, my depressions and my altitudes, my wanderings and my
constancy, it would not move her? She knows it all; and if she is not
an INCORRIGIBLE, she loves me, or regards me with a feeling next to
love. I don’t believe that any woman was ever courted more passionately
than she has been by me. As Rousseau said of Madame d’Houptot (forgive
the allusion) my heart has found a tongue in speaking to her, and I
have talked to her the divine language of love. Yet she says, she is
insensible to it. Am I to believe her or you? You—for I wish it and
wish it to madness, now that I am like to be free, and to have it in my
power to say to her without a possibility of suspicion, “Sarah, will
you be mine?” When I sometimes think of the time I first saw the sweet
apparition, August 16, 1820, and that possibly she may be my bride
before that day two years, it makes me dizzy with incredible joy and
love of her. Write soon.
LETTER V
My dear Friend, I read your answer this morning with gratitude. I have
felt somewhat easier since. It shewed your interest in my vexations,
and also that you know nothing worse than I do. I cannot describe the
weakness of mind to which she has reduced me. This state of suspense is
like hanging in the air by a single thread that exhausts all your
strength to keep hold of it; and yet if that fails you, you have
nothing in the world else left to trust to. I am come back to Edinburgh
about this cursed business, and Mrs. —— is coming from Montrose next
week. How it will end, I can’t say; and don’t care, except as it
regards the other affair. I should, I confess, like to have it in my
power to make her the offer direct and unequivocal, to see how she’d
receive it. It would be worth something at any rate to see her
superfine airs upon the occasion; and if she should take it into her
head to turn round her sweet neck, drop her eye-lids, and say—“Yes, I
will be yours!”—why then, “treason domestic, foreign levy, nothing
could touch me further.” By Heaven! I doat on her. The truth is, I
never had any pleasure, like love, with any one but her. Then how can I
bear to part with her? Do you know I like to think of her best in her
morning-gown and mob-cap—it is so she has oftenest come into my room
and enchanted me! She was once ill, pale, and had lost all her
freshness. I only adored her the more for it, and fell in love with the
decay of her beauty. I could devour the little witch. If she had a
plague-spot on her, I could touch the infection: if she was in a
burning fever, I could kiss her, and drink death as I have drank life
from her lips. When I press her hand, I enjoy perfect happiness and
contentment of soul. It is not what she says or what she does—it is
herself that I love. To be with her is to be at peace. I have no other
wish or desire. The air about her is serene, blissful; and he who
breathes it is like one of the Gods! So that I can but have her with me
always, I care for nothing more. I never could tire of her sweetness; I
feel that I could grow to her, body and soul? My heart, my heart is
hers.
LETTER VI
(Written in May)
Dear P——, What have I suffered since I parted with you! A raging fire
is in my heart and in my brain, that never quits me. The steam-boat
(which I foolishly ventured on board) seems a prison-house, a sort of
spectre-ship, moving on through an infernal lake, without wind or tide,
by some necromantic power—the splashing of the waves, the noise of the
engine gives me no rest, night or day—no tree, no natural object varies
the scene—but the abyss is before me, and all my peace lies weltering
in it! I feel the eternity of punishment in this life; for I see no end
of my woes. The people about me are ill, uncomfortable, wretched
enough, many of them—but to-morrow or next day, they reach the place of
their destination, and all will be new and delightful. To me it will be
the same. I can neither escape from her, nor from myself. All is
endurable where there is a limit: but I have nothing but the blackness
and the fiendishness of scorn around me—mocked by her (the false one)
in whom I placed my hope, and who hardens herself against me!—I believe
you thought me quite gay, vain, insolent, half mad, the night I left
the house—no tongue can tell the heaviness of heart I felt at that
moment. No footsteps ever fell more slow, more sad than mine; for every
step bore me farther from her, with whom my soul and every thought
lingered. I had parted with her in anger, and each had spoken words of
high disdain, not soon to be forgiven. Should I ever behold her again?
Where go to live and die far from her? In her sight there was Elysium;
her smile was heaven; her voice was enchantment; the air of love waved
round her, breathing balm into my heart: for a little while I had sat
with the Gods at their golden tables, I had tasted of all earth’s
bliss, “both living and loving!” But now Paradise barred its doors
against me; I was driven from her presence, where rosy blushes and
delicious sighs and all soft wishes dwelt, the outcast of nature and
the scoff of love! I thought of the time when I was a little happy
careless child, of my father’s house, of my early lessons, of my
brother’s picture of me when a boy, of all that had since happened to
me, and of the waste of years to come—I stopped, faultered, and was
going to turn back once more to make a longer truce with wretchedness
and patch up a hollow league with love, when the recollection of her
words—“I always told you I had no affection for you”—steeled my
resolution, and I determined to proceed. You see by this she always
hated me, and only played with my credulity till she could find some
one to supply the place of her unalterable attachment to THE LITTLE
IMAGE. * * * * * I am a little, a very little better to-day. Would it
were quietly over; and that this misshapen form (made to be mocked)
were hid out of the sight of cold, sullen eyes! The people about me
even take notice of my dumb despair, and pity me. What is to be done? I
cannot forget HER; and I can find no other like what SHE SEEMED. I
should wish you to call, if you can make an excuse, and see whether or
no she is quite marble—whether I may go back again at my return, and
whether she will see me and talk to me sometimes as an old friend.
Suppose you were to call on M—— from me, and ask him what his
impression is that I ought to do. But do as you think best. Pardon,
pardon.
P.S.—I send this from Scarborough, where the vessel stops for a few
minutes. I scarcely know what I should have done, but for this relief
to my feelings.
LETTER VII
My dear Friend, The important step is taken, and I am virtually a free
man. * * * What had I better do in these circumstances? I dare not
write to her, I dare not write to her father, or else I would. She has
shot me through with poisoned arrows, and I think another “winged
wound” would finish me. It is a pleasant sort of balm (as you express
it) she has left in my heart! One thing I agree with you in, it will
remain there for ever; but yet not very long. It festers, and consumes
me. If it were not for my little boy, whose face I see struck blank at
the news, looking through the world for pity and meeting with contempt
instead, I should soon, I fear, settle the question by my death. That
recollection is the only thought that brings my wandering reason to an
anchor; that stirs the smallest interest in me; or gives me fortitude
to bear up against what I am doomed to feel for the ungrateful.
Otherwise, I am dead to every thing but the sense of what I have lost.
She was my life—it is gone from me, and I am grown spectral! If I find
myself in a place I am acquainted with, it reminds me of her, of the
way in which I thought of her,
—“and carved on every tree
The soft, the fair, the inexpressive she!”
If it is a place that is new to me, it is desolate, barren of all
interest; for nothing touches me but what has a reference to her. If
the clock strikes, the sound jars me; a million of hours will not bring
back peace to my breast. The light startles me; the darkness terrifies
me. I seem falling into a pit, without a hand to help me. She has
deceived me, and the earth fails from under my feet; no object in
nature is substantial, real, but false and hollow, like her faith on
which I built my trust. She came (I knew not how) and sat by my side
and was folded in my arms, a vision of love and joy, as if she had
dropped from the Heavens to bless me by some especial dispensation of a
favouring Providence, and make me amends for all; and now without any
fault of mine but too much fondness, she has vanished from me, and I am
left to perish. My heart is torn out of me, with every feeling for
which I wished to live. The whole is like a dream, an effect of
enchantment; it torments me, and it drives me mad. I lie down with it;
I rise up with it; and see no chance of repose. I grasp at a shadow, I
try to undo the past, and weep with rage and pity over my own weakness
and misery. I spared her again and again (fool that I was) thinking
what she allowed from me was love, friendship, sweetness, not
wantonness. How could I doubt it, looking in her face, and hearing her
words, like sighs breathed from the gentlest of all bosoms? I had
hopes, I had prospects to come, the flattery of something like fame, a
pleasure in writing, health even would have come back with her
smile—she has blighted all, turned all to poison and childish tears.
Yet the barbed arrow is in my heart—I can neither endure it, nor draw
it out; for with it flows my life’s-blood. I had conversed too long
with abstracted truth to trust myself with the immortal thoughts of
love. THAT S. L. MIGHT HAVE BEEN MINE, AND NOW NEVER CAN—these are the
two sole propositions that for ever stare me in the face, and look
ghastly in at my poor brain. I am in some sense proud that I can feel
this dreadful passion—it gives me a kind of rank in the kingdom of
love—but I could have wished it had been for an object that at least
could have understood its value and pitied its excess. You say her not
coming to the door when you went is a proof—yes, that her complement is
at present full! That is the reason she doesn’t want me there, lest I
should discover the new affair—wretch that I am! Another has possession
of her, oh Hell! I’m satisfied of it from her manner, which had a
wanton insolence in it. Well might I run wild when I received no
letters from her. I foresaw, I felt my fate. The gates of Paradise were
once open to me too, and I blushed to enter but with the golden keys of
love! I would die; but her lover—my love of her—ought not to die. When
I am dead, who will love her as I have done? If she should be in
misfortune, who will comfort her? when she is old, who will look in her
face, and bless her? Would there be any harm in calling upon M——, to
know confidentially if he thinks it worth my while to make her an offer
the instant it is in my power? Let me have an answer, and save me, if
possible, FOR her and FROM myself.
LETTER VIII
My dear Friend, Your letter raised me for a moment from the depths of
despair; but not hearing from you yesterday or to-day (as I hoped) I
have had a relapse. You say I want to get rid of her. I hope you are
more right in your conjectures about her than in this about me. Oh no!
believe it, I love her as I do my own soul; my very heart is wedded to
her (be she what she may) and I would not hesitate a moment between her
and “an angel from Heaven.” I grant all you say about my
self-tormenting folly: but has it been without cause? Has she not
refused me again and again with a mixture of scorn and resentment,
after going the utmost lengths with a man for whom she now disclaims
all affection; and what security can I have for her reserve with
others, who will not be restrained by feelings of delicacy towards her,
and whom she has probably preferred to me for their want of it. “SHE
CAN MAKE NO MORE CONFIDENCES”—these words ring for ever in my ears, and
will be my death-watch. They can have but one meaning, be sure of
it—she always expressed herself with the exactest propriety. That was
one of the things for which I loved her—shall I live to hate her for
it? My poor fond heart, that brooded over her and the remains of her
affections as my only hope of comfort upon earth, cannot brook this new
degradation. Who is there so low as me? Who is there besides (I ask)
after the homage I have paid her and the caresses she has lavished on
me, so vile, so abhorrent to love, to whom such an indignity could have
happened? When I think of this (and I think of nothing else) it stifles
me. I am pent up in burning, fruitless desires, which can find no vent
or object. Am I not hated, repulsed, derided by her whom alone I love
or ever did
love? I cannot stay in any place, and seek in vain for relief from the
sense of her contempt and her ingratitude. I can settle to nothing:
what is the use of all I have done? Is it not that very circumstance
(my thinking beyond my strength, my feeling more than I need about so
many things) that has withered me up, and made me a thing for Love to
shrink from and wonder at? Who could ever feel that peace from the
touch of her dear hand that I have done; and is it not torn from me for
ever? My state is this, that I shall never lie down again at night nor
rise up in the morning in peace, nor ever behold my little boy’s face
with pleasure while I live—unless I am restored to her favour. Instead
of that delicious feeling I had when she was heavenly-kind to me, and
my heart softened and melted in its own tenderness and her sweetness, I
am now inclosed in a dungeon of despair. The sky is marble to my
thoughts; nature is dead around me, as hope is within me; no object can
give me one gleam of satisfaction now, nor the prospect of it in time
to come. I wander by the sea-side; and the eternal ocean and lasting
despair and her face are before me. Slighted by her, on whom my heart
by its last fibre hung, where shall I turn? I wake with her by my side,
not as my sweet bedfellow, but as the corpse of my love, without a
heart in her bosom, cold, insensible, or struggling from me; and the
worm gnaws me, and the sting of unrequited love, and the canker of a
hopeless, endless sorrow. I have lost the taste of my food by feverish
anxiety; and my favourite beverage, which used to refresh me when I got
up, has no moisture in it. Oh! cold, solitary, sepulchral breakfasts,
compared with those which I promised myself with her; or which I made
when she had been standing an hour by my side, my guardian-angel, my
wife, my sister, my sweet friend, my Eve, my all; and had blest me with
her seraph kisses! Ah! what I suffer at present only shews what I have
enjoyed. But “the girl is a good girl, if there is goodness in human
nature.” I thank you for those words; and I will fall down and worship
you, if you can prove them true: and I would not do much less for him
that proves her a demon. She is one or the other, that’s certain; but I
fear the worst. Do let me know if anything has passed: suspense is my
greatest punishment. I am going into the country to see if I can work a
little in the three weeks I have yet to stay here. Write on the receipt
of this, and believe me ever your unspeakably obliged friend.
TO EDINBURGH
—“Stony-hearted” Edinburgh! What art thou to me? The dust of thy
streets mingles with my tears and blinds me. City of palaces, or of
tombs—a quarry, rather than the habitation of men! Art thou like
London, that populous hive, with its sunburnt, well-baked, brick-built
houses—its public edifices, its theatres, its bridges, its squares, its
ladies, and its pomp, its throng of wealth, its outstretched magnitude,
and its mighty heart that never lies still? Thy cold grey walls reflect
back the leaden melancholy of the soul. The square, hard-edged,
unyielding faces of thy inhabitants have no sympathy to impart. What is
it to me that I look along the level line of thy tenantless streets,
and meet perhaps a lawyer like a grasshopper chirping and skipping, or
the daughter of a Highland laird, haughty, fair, and freckled? Or why
should I look down your boasted Prince’s Street, with the beetle-browed
Castle on one side, and the Calton Hill with its proud monument at the
further end, and the ridgy steep of Salisbury Crag, cut off abruptly by
Nature’s boldest hand, and Arthur’s Seat overlooking all, like a
lioness watching her cubs? Or shall I turn to the far-off Pentland
Hills, with Craig-Crook nestling beneath them, where lives the prince
of critics and the king of men? Or cast my eye unsated over the Firth
of Forth, that from my window of an evening (as I read of AMY and her
love) glitters like a broad golden mirror in the sun, and kisses the
winding shores of kingly Fife? Oh no! But to thee, to thee I turn,
North Berwick-Law, with thy blue cone rising out of summer seas; for
thou art the beacon of my banished thoughts, and dost point my way to
her, who is my heart’s true home. The air is too thin for me, that has
not the breath of Love in it; that is not embalmed by her sighs!
A THOUGHT
I am not mad, but my heart is so; and raves within me, fierce and
untameable, like a panther in its den, and tries to get loose to its
lost mate, and fawn on her hand, and bend lowly at her feet.
ANOTHER
Oh! thou dumb heart, lonely, sad, shut up in the prison-house of this
rude form, that hast never found a fellow but for an instant, and in
very mockery of thy misery, speak, find bleeding words to express thy
thoughts, break thy dungeon-gloom, or die pronouncing thy Infelice’s
name!
ANOTHER
Within my heart is lurking suspicion, and base fear, and shame and
hate; but above all, tyrannous love sits throned, crowned with her
graces, silent and in tears.
LETTER IX
My dear P——, You have been very kind to me in this business; but I fear
even your indulgence for my infirmities is beginning to fail. To what a
state am I reduced, and for what? For fancying a little artful vixen to
be an angel and a saint, because she affected to look like one, to hide
her rank thoughts and deadly purposes. Has she not murdered me under
the mask of the tenderest friendship? And why? Because I have loved her
with unutterable love, and sought to make her my wife. You say it is my
own “outrageous conduct” that has estranged her: nay, I have been TOO
GENTLE with her. I ask you first in candour whether the ambiguity of
her behaviour with respect to me, sitting and fondling a man
(circumstanced as I was) sometimes for half a day together, and then
declaring she had no love for him beyond common regard, and professing
never to marry, was not enough to excite my suspicions, which the
different exposures from the conversations below-stairs were not
calculated to allay? I ask you what you yourself would have felt or
done, if loving her as I did, you had heard what I did, time after
time? Did not her mother own to one of the grossest charges (which I
shall not repeat)—and is such indelicacy to be reconciled with her
pretended character (that character with which I fell in love, and to
which I MADE LOVE) without supposing her to be the greatest hypocrite
in the world? My unpardonable offence has been that I took her at her
word, and was willing to believe her the precise little puritanical
person she set up for. After exciting her wayward desires by the
fondest embraces and the purest kisses, as if she had been “made my
wedded wife yestreen,” or was to become so to-morrow (for that was
always my feeling with respect to her)—I did not proceed to gratify
them, or to follow up my advantage by any action which should declare,
“I think you a common adventurer, and will see whether you are so or
not!” Yet any one but a credulous fool like me would have made the
experiment, with whatever violence to himself, as a matter of life and
death; for I had every reason to distrust appearances. Her conduct has
been of a piece from the beginning. In the midst of her closest and
falsest endearments, she has always (with one or two exceptions)
disclaimed the natural inference to be drawn from them, and made a
verbal reservation, by which she might lead me on in a Fool’s Paradise,
and make me the tool of her levity, her avarice, and her love of
intrigue as long as she liked, and dismiss me whenever it suited her.
This, you see, she has done, because my intentions grew serious, and if
complied with, would deprive her of THE PLEASURES OF A SINGLE LIFE!
Offer marriage to this “tradesman’s daughter, who has as nice a sense
of honour as any one can have;” and like Lady Bellaston in Tom Jones,
she CUTS you immediately in a fit of abhorrence and alarm. Yet she
seemed to be of a different mind formerly, when struggling from me in
the height of our first intimacy, she exclaimed—“However I might agree
to my own ruin, I never will consent to bring disgrace upon my family!”
That I should have spared the traitress after expressions like this,
astonishes me when I look back upon it. Yet if it were all to do over
again, I know I should act just the same part. Such is her power over
me! I cannot run the least risk of offending her—I love her so. When I
look in her face, I cannot doubt her truth! Wretched being that I am! I
have thrown away my heart and soul upon an unfeeling girl; and my life
(that might have been so happy, had she been what I thought her) will
soon follow either voluntarily, or by the force of grief, remorse, and
disappointment. I cannot get rid of the reflection for an instant, nor
even seek relief from its galling pressure. Ah! what a heart she has
lost! All the love and affection of my whole life were centred in her,
who alone, I thought, of all women had found out my true character, and
knew how to value my tenderness. Alas! alas! that this, the only hope,
joy, or comfort I ever had, should turn to a mockery, and hang like an
ugly film over the remainder of my days!—I was at Roslin Castle
yesterday. It lies low in a rude, but sheltered valley, hid from the
vulgar gaze, and powerfully reminds one of the old song. The straggling
fragments of the russet ruins, suspended smiling and graceful in the
air as if they would linger out another century to please the curious
beholder, the green larch-trees trembling between with the blue sky and
white silver clouds, the wild mountain plants starting out here and
there, the date of the year on an old low door-way, but still more, the
beds of flowers in orderly decay, that seem to have no hand to tend
them, but keep up a sort of traditional remembrance of civilization in
former ages, present altogether a delightful and amiable subject for
contemplation. The exquisite beauty of the scene, with the thought of
what I should feel, should I ever be restored to her, and have to lead
her through such places as my adored, my angelwife, almost drove me
beside myself. For this picture, this ecstatic vision, what have I of
late instead as the image of the reality? Demoniacal possessions. I see
the young witch seated in another’s lap, twining her serpent arms round
him, her eye glancing and her cheeks on fire—why does not the hideous
thought choke me? Or why do I not go and find out the truth at once?
The moonlight streams over the silver waters: the bark is in the bay
that might waft me to her, almost with a wish. The mountain-breeze
sighs out her name: old ocean with a world of tears murmurs back my
woes! Does not my heart yearn to be with her; and shall I not follow
its bidding? No, I must wait till I am free; and then I will take my
Freedom (a glad prize) and lay it at her feet and tell her my proud
love of her that would not brook a rival in her dishonour, and that
would have her all or none, and gain her or lose myself for ever!—
You see by this letter the way I am in, and I hope you will excuse it
as the picture of a half-disordered mind. The least respite from my
uneasiness (such as I had yesterday) only brings the contrary
reflection back upon me, like a flood; and by letting me see the
happiness I have lost, makes me feel, by contrast, more acutely what I
am doomed to bear.
LETTER X
Dear Friend, Here I am at St. Bees once more, amid the scenes which I
greeted in their barrenness in winter; but which have now put on their
full green attire that shews luxuriant to the eye, but speaks a tale of
sadness to this heart widowed of its last, its dearest, its only hope!
Oh! lovely Bees-Inn! here I composed a volume of law-cases, here I
wrote my enamoured follies to her, thinking her human, and that “all
below was not the fiend’s”—here I got two cold, sullen answers from the
little witch, and here I was —— and I was damned. I thought the
revisiting the old haunts would have soothed me for a time, but it only
brings back the sense of what I have suffered for her and of her
unkindness the more strongly, till I cannot endure the recollection. I
eye the Heavens in dumb despair, or vent my sorrows in the desart air.
“To the winds, to the waves, to the rocks I complain”—you may suppose
with what effect! I fear I shall be obliged to return. I am tossed
about (backwards and forwards) by my passion, so as to become
ridiculous. I can now understand how it is that mad people never remain
in the same place—they are moving on for ever, FROM THEMSELVES!
Do you know, you would have been delighted with the effect of the
Northern twilight on this romantic country as I rode along last night?
The hills and groves and herds of cattle were seen reposing in the grey
dawn of midnight, as in a moonlight without shadow. The whole wide
canopy of Heaven shed its reflex light upon them, like a pure crystal
mirror. No sharp points, no petty details, no hard contrasts—every
object was seen softened yet distinct, in its simple outline and
natural tones, transparent with an inward light, breathing its own mild
lustre. The landscape altogether was like an airy piece of mosaic-work,
or like one of Poussin’s broad massy landscapes or Titian’s lovely
pastoral scenes. Is it not so, that poets see nature, veiled to the
sight, but revealed to the soul in visionary grace and grandeur! I
confess the sight touched me; and might have removed all sadness except
mine. So (I thought) the light of her celestial face once shone into my
soul, and wrapt me in a heavenly trance. The sense I have of beauty
raises me for a moment above myself, but depresses me the more
afterwards, when I recollect how it is thrown away in vain admiration,
and that it only makes me more susceptible of pain from the
mortifications I meet with. Would I had never seen her! I might then
not indeed have been happy, but at least I might have passed my life in
peace, and have sunk into forgetfulness without a pang.—The noble
scenery in this country mixes with my passion, and refines, but does
not relieve it. I was at Stirling Castle not long ago. It gave me no
pleasure. The declivity seemed to me abrupt, not sublime; for in truth
I did not shrink back from it with terror. The weather-beaten towers
were stiff and formal: the air was damp and chill: the river winded its
dull, slimy way like a snake along the marshy grounds: and the dim
misty tops of Ben Leddi, and the lovely Highlands (woven fantastically
of thin air) mocked my embraces and tempted my longing eyes like her,
the sole queen and mistress of my thoughts! I never found my
contemplations on this subject so subtilised and at the same time so
desponding as on that occasion. I wept myself almost blind, and I gazed
at the broad golden sunset through my tears that fell in showers. As I
trod the green mountain turf, oh! how I wished to be laid beneath it—in
one grave with her—that I might sleep with her in that cold bed, my
hand in hers, and my heart for ever still—while worms should taste her
sweet body, that I had never tasted! There was a time when I could bear
solitude; but it is too much for me at present. Now I am no sooner left
to myself than I am lost in infinite space, and look round me in vain
for suppose or comfort. She was my stay, my hope: without her hand to
cling to, I stagger like an infant on the edge of a precipice. The
universe without her is one wide, hollow abyss, in which my harassed
thoughts can find no resting-place. I must break off here; for the
hysterica passio comes upon me, and threatens to unhinge my reason.
LETTER XI
My dear and good Friend, I am afraid I trouble you with my querulous
epistles, but this is probably the last. To-morrow or the next day
decides my fate with respect to the divorce, when I expect to be a free
man. In vain! Was it not for her and to lay my freedom at her feet,
that I consented to this step which has cost me infinite perplexity,
and now to be discarded for the first pretender that came in her way!
If so, I hardly think I can survive it. You who have been a favourite
with women, do not know what it is to be deprived of one’s only hope,
and to have it turned to shame and disappointment. There is nothing in
the world left that can afford me one drop of comfort—THIS I feel more
and more. Everything is to me a mockery of pleasure, like her love. The
breeze does not cool me: the blue sky does not cheer me. I gaze only on
her face averted from me—alas! the only face that ever was turned
fondly to me! And why am I thus treated? Because I wanted her to be
mine for ever in love or friendship, and did not push my gross
familiarities as far as I might. “Why can you not go on as we have
done, and say nothing about the word, FOREVER?” Was it not plain from
this that she even then meditated an escape from me to some less
sentimental lover? “Do you allow anyone else to do so?” I said to her
once, as I was toying with her. “No, not now!” was her answer; that is,
because there was nobody else in the house to take freedoms with her. I
was very well as a stopgap, but I was to be nothing more. While the
coast was clear, I had it all my own way: but the instant C—— came, she
flung herself at his head in the most barefaced way, ran breathless up
stairs before him, blushed when his foot was heard, watched for him in
the passage, and was sure to be in close conference with him when he
went down again. It was then my mad proceedings commenced. No wonder.
Had I not reason to be jealous of every appearance of familiarity with
others, knowing how easy she had been with me at first, and that she
only grew shy when I did not take farther liberties? What has her
character to rest upon but her attachment to me, which she now denies,
not modestly, but impudently? Will you yourself say that if she had all
along no particular regard for me, she will not do as much or more with
other more likely men? “She has had,” she says, “enough of my
conversation,” so it could not be that! Ah! my friend, it was not to be
supposed I should ever meet even with the outward demonstrations of
regard from any woman but a common trader in the endearments of love! I
have tasted the sweets of the well practiced illusion, and now feel the
bitterness of knowing what a bliss I am deprived of, and must ever be
deprived of. Intolerable conviction! Yet I might, I believe, have won
her by other methods; but some demon held my hand. How indeed could I
offer her the least insult when I worshipped her very footsteps; and
even now pay her divine honours from my inmost heart, whenever I think
of her, abased and brutalised as I have been by that Circean cup of
kisses, of enchantments, of which I have drunk! I am choked, withered,
dried up with chagrin, remorse, despair, from which I have not a
moment’s respite, day or night. I have always some horrid dream about
her, and wake wondering what is the matter that “she is no longer the
same to me as ever?” I thought at least we should always remain dear
friends, if nothing more—did she not talk of coming to live with me
only the day before I left her in the winter? But “she’s gone, I am
abused, and my revenge must be to LOVE her!”—Yet she knows that one
line, one word would save me, the cruel, heartless destroyer! I see
nothing for it but madness, unless Friday brings a change, or unless
she is willing to let me go back. You must know I wrote to her to that
purpose, but it was a very quiet, sober letter, begging pardon, and
professing reform for the future, and all that. What effect it will
have, I know not. I was forced to get out of the way of her answer,
till Friday came.
Ever yours.
TO S. L.
My dear Miss L——, EVIL TO THEM THAT EVIL THINK, is an old saying; and I
have found it a true one. I have ruined myself by my unjust suspicions
of you. Your sweet friendship was the balm of my life; and I have lost
it, I fear for ever, by one fault and folly after another. What would I
give to be restored to the place in your esteem, which, you assured me,
I held only a few months ago! Yet I was not contented, but did all I
could to torment myself and harass you by endless doubts and jealousy.
Can you not forget and forgive the past, and judge of me by my conduct
in future? Can you not take all my follies in the lump, and say like a
good, generous girl, “Well, I’ll think no more of them?” In a word, may
I come back, and try to behave better? A line to say so would be an
additional favour to so many already received by
Your obliged friend,
And sincere well-wisher.
LETTER XII.
TO C. P——
I have no answer from her. I’m mad. I wish you to call on M—— in
confidence, to say I intend to make her an offer of my hand, and that I
will write to her father to that effect the instant I am free, and ask
him whether he thinks it will be to any purpose, and what he would
advise me to do.
UNALTERED LOVE
“Love is not love that alteration finds:
Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.”
Shall I not love her for herself alone, in spite of fickleness and
folly? To love her for her regard to me, is not to love her, but
myself. She has robbed me of herself: shall she also rob me of my love
of her? Did I not live on her smile? Is it less sweet because it is
withdrawn from me? Did I not adore her every grace? Does she bend less
enchantingly, because she has turned from me to another? Is my love
then in the power of fortune, or of her caprice? No, I will have it
lasting as it is pure; and I will make a Goddess of her, and build a
temple to her in my heart, and worship her on indestructible altars,
and raise statues to her: and my homage shall be unblemished as her
unrivalled symmetry of form; and when that fails, the memory of it
shall survive; and my bosom shall be proof to scorn, as hers has been
to pity; and I will pursue her with an unrelenting love, and sue to be
her slave, and tend her steps without notice and without reward; and
serve her living, and mourn for her when dead. And thus my love will
have shewn itself superior to her hate; and I shall triumph and then
die. This is my idea of the only true and heroic love! Such is mine for
her.
PERFECT LOVE
Perfect love has this advantage in it, that it leaves the possessor of
it nothing farther to desire. There is one object (at least) in which
the soul finds absolute content, for which it seeks to live, or dares
to die. The heart has as it were filled up the moulds of the
imagination. The truth of passion keeps pace with and outvies the
extravagance of mere language. There are no words so fine, no flattery
so soft, that there is not a sentiment beyond them, that it is
impossible to express, at the bottom of the heart where true love is.
What idle sounds the common phrases, adorable creature, angel,
divinity, are? What a proud reflection it is to have a feeling
answering to all these, rooted in the breast, unalterable, unutterable,
to which all other feelings are light and vain! Perfect love reposes on
the object of its choice, like the halcyon on the wave; and the air of
heaven is around it.
FROM C. P., ESQ.
London, July 4th, 1822.
I have seen M——! Now, my dear H——, let me entreat and adjure you to
take what I have to tell you, FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH—neither for less,
nor more. In the first place, I have learned nothing decisive from him.
This, as you will at once see, is, as far as it goes, good. I am
either to hear from him, or see him again in a day or two; but I
thought you would like to know what passed inconclusive as it was—so I
write without delay, and in great haste to save a post. I found him
frank, and even friendly in his manner to me, and in his views
respecting you. I think that he is sincerely sorry for your situation;
and he feels that the person who has placed you in that situation is
not much less awkwardly situated herself; and he professes that he
would willingly do what he can for the good of both. But he sees great
difficulties attending the affair—which he frankly professes to
consider as an altogether unfortunate one. With respect to the
marriage, he seems to see the most formidable objections to it, on both
sides; but yet he by no means decidedly says that it cannot, or that it
ought not to take place. These, mind you, are his own feelings on the
subject: but the most important point I learn from him is this, that he
is not prepared to use his influence either way—that the rest of the
family are of the same way of feeling; and that, in fact, the thing
must and does entirely rest with herself. To learn this was, as you
see, gaining a great point.—When I then endeavoured to ascertain
whether he knew anything decisive as to what are her views on the
subject, I found that he did not. He has an opinion on the subject, and
he didn’t scruple to tell me what it was; but he has no positive
knowledge. In short, he believes, from what he learns from herself (and
he had purposely seen her on the subject, in consequence of my
application to him) that she is at present indisposed to the marriage;
but he is not prepared to say positively that she will not consent to
it. Now all this, coming from him in the most frank and unaffected
manner, and without any appearance of cant, caution, or reserve, I take
to be most important as it respects your views, whatever they may be;
and certainly much more favourable to them (I confess it) than I was
prepared to expect, supposing them to remain as they were. In fact as I
said before, the affair rests entirely with herself. They are none of
them disposed either to further the marriage, or throw any
insurmountable obstacles in the way of it; and what is more important
than all, they are evidently by no means CERTAIN that SHE may not, at
some future period, consent to it; or they would, for her sake as well
as their own, let you know as much flatly, and put an end to the affair
at once.
Seeing in how frank and straitforward a manner he received what I had
to say to him, and replied to it, I proceeded to ask him what were HIS
views, and what were likely to be HERS (in case she did not consent) as
to whether you should return to live in the house;—but I added, without
waiting for his answer, that if she intended to persist in treating you
as she had done for some time past, it would be worse than madness for
you to think of returning. I added that, in case you did return, all
you would expect from her would be that she would treat you with
civility and kindness—that she would continue to evince that friendly
feeling towards you, that she had done for a great length of time, &c.
To this, he said, he could really give no decisive reply, but that he
should be most happy if, by any intervention of his, he could conduce
to your comfort; but he seemed to think that for you to return on any
express understanding that she should behave to you in any particular
manner, would be to place her in a most awkward situation. He went
somewhat at length into this point, and talked very reasonably about
it; the result, however, was that he would not throw any obstacles in
the way of your return, or of her treating you as a friend, &c., nor
did it appear that he believed she would refuse to do so. And, finally,
we parted on the understanding that he would see them on the subject,
and ascertain what could be done for the comfort of all parties: though
he was of opinion that if you could make up your mind to break off the
acquaintance altogether, it would be the best plan of all. I am to hear
from him again in a day or two.—Well, what do you say to all this? Can
you turn it to any thing but good—comparative good? If you would know
what _I_ say to it, it is this:—She is still to be won by wise and
prudent conduct on your part; she was always to have been won by
such;—and if she is lost, it has been not, as you sometimes suppose,
because you have not carried that unwise, may I not say UNWORTHY?
conduct still farther, but because you gave way to it at all. Of course
I use the terms “wise” and “prudent” with reference to your object.
Whether the pursuit of that object is wise, only yourself can judge. I
say she has all along been to be won, and she still is to be won; and
all that stands in the way of your views at this moment is your past
conduct. They are all of them, every soul, frightened at you; they have
SEEN enough of you to make them so; and they have doubtless heard ten
times more than they have seen, or than anyone else has seen. They are
all of them including M—— (and particularly she herself) frightened out
of their wits, as to what might be your treatment of her if she were
yours; and they dare not trust you—they will not trust you, at present.
I do not say that they will trust you, or rather that SHE will, for
it all depends on her, when you have gone through a probation, but I am
sure that she will not trust you till you have. You will, I hope, not
be angry with me when I say that she would be a fool if she did. If she
were to accept you at present, and without knowing more of you, even I
should begin to suspect that she had an unworthy motive for doing it.
Let me not forget to mention what is perhaps as important a point as
any, as it regards the marriage. I of course stated to M—— that when
you are free, you are prepared to make her a formal offer of your hand;
but I begged him, if he was certain that such an offer would be
refused, to tell me so plainly at once, that I might endeavour, in that
case, to dissuade you from subjecting yourself to the pain of such a
refusal. HE WOULD NOT TELL ME THAT HE WAS CERTAIN. He said his opinion
was that she would not accept your offer, but still he seemed to think
that there would be no harm in making it!—-One word more, and a very
important one. He once, and without my referring in the slightest
manner to that part of the subject, spoke of her as a GOOD GIRL, and
LIKELY TO MAKE ANY MAN AN EXCELLENT WIFE! Do you think if she were a
bad girl (and if she were, he must know her to be so) he would have
dared to do this, under these circumstances?—And once, in speaking of
HIS not being a fit person to set his face against “marrying for love,”
he added “I did so myself, and out of that house; and I have had reason
to rejoice at it ever since.” And mind (for I anticipate your cursed
suspicions) I’m certain, at least, if manner can entitle one to be
certain of any thing, that he said all this spontaneously, and without
any understood motive; and I’m certain, too, that he knows you to be a
person that it would not do to play any tricks of this kind with. I
believe—(and all this would never have entered my thoughts, but that I
know it will enter yours) I believe that even if they thought (as you
have sometimes supposed they do) that she needs whitewashing, or making
an honest woman of, YOU would be the last person they would think of
using for such a purpose, for they know (as well as I do) that you
couldn’t fail to find out the trick in a month, and would turn her into
the street the next moment, though she were twenty times your wife—and
that, as to the consequences of doing so, you would laugh at them, even
if you couldn’t escape from them.—I shall lose the post if I say more.
Believe me,
Ever truly your friend,
C. P.
LETTER XIII
My dear P——, You have saved my life. If I do not keep friends with her
now, I deserve to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. She is an angel from
Heaven, and you cannot pretend I ever said a word to the contrary! The
little rogue must have liked me from the first, or she never could have
stood all these hurricanes without slipping her cable. What could she
find in me? “I have mistook my person all this while,” &c. Do you know
I saw a picture, the very pattern of her, the other day, at Dalkeith
Palace (Hope finding Fortune in the Sea), just before this blessed news
came, and the resemblance drove me almost out of my senses. Such
delicacy, such fulness, such perfect softness, such buoyancy, such
grace! If it is not the very image of her, I am no judge.—You have the
face to doubt my making the best husband in the world; you might as
well doubt it if I was married to one of the Houris of Paradise. She is
a saint, an angel, a love. If she deceives me again, she kills me. But
I will have such a kiss when I get back, as shall last me twenty years.
May God bless her for not utterly disowning and destroying me! What an
exquisite little creature it is, and how she holds out to the last in
her system of consistent contradictions! Since I wrote to you about
making a formal proposal, I have had her face constantly before me,
looking so like some faultless marble statue, as cold, as fixed and
graceful as ever statue did; the expression (nothing was ever like
THAT!) seemed to say—“I wish I could love you better than I do, but
still I will be yours.” No, I’ll never believe again that she will not
be mine; for I think she was made on purpose for me. If there’s anyone
else that understands that turn of her head as I do, I’ll give her up
without scruple. I have made up my mind to this, never to dream of
another woman, while she even thinks it worth her while to REFUSE TO
HAVE ME. You see I am not hard to please, after all. Did M—— know of
the intimacy that had subsisted between us? Or did you hint at it? I
think it would be a CLENCHER, if he did. How ought I to behave when I
go back? Advise a fool, who had nearly lost a Goddess by his folly. The
thing was, I could not think it possible she would ever like ME. Her
taste is singular, but not the worse for that. I’d rather have her
love, or liking (call it what you will) than empires. I deserve to call
her mine; for nothing else CAN atone for what I’ve gone through for
her. I hope your next letter will not reverse all, and then I shall be
happy till I see her,—one of the blest when I do see her, if she looks
like my own beautiful love. I may perhaps write a line when I come to
my right wits.—Farewel at present, and thank you a thousand times for
what you have done for your poor friend.
P. S.—I like what M—— said about her sister, much. There are good
people in the world: I begin to see it, and believe it.
LETTER THE LAST
Dear P——, To-morrow is the decisive day that makes me or mars me. I
will let you know the result by a line added to this. Yet what
signifies it, since either way I have little hope there, “whence alone
my hope cometh!” You must know I am strangely in the dumps at this
present writing. My reception with her is doubtful, and my fate is then
certain. The hearing of your happiness has, I own, made me thoughtful.
It is just what I proposed to her to do—to have crossed the Alps with
me, to sail on sunny seas, to bask in Italian skies, to have visited
Vevai and the rocks of Meillerie, and to have repeated to her on the
spot the story of Julia and St. Preux, and to have shewn her all that
my heart had stored up for her—but on my forehead alone is
written—REJECTED! Yet I too could have adored as fervently, and loved
as tenderly as others, had I been permitted. You are going abroad, you
say, happy in making happy. Where shall I be? In the grave, I hope, or
else in her arms. To me, alas! there is no sweetness out of her sight,
and that sweetness has turned to bitterness, I fear; that gentleness to
sullen scorn! Still I hope for the best. If she will but HAVE me, I’ll
make her LOVE me: and I think her not giving a positive answer looks
like it, and also shews that there is no one else. Her holding out to
the last also, I think, proves that she was never to have been gained
but with honour. She’s a strange, almost an inscrutable girl: but if I
once win her consent, I shall kill her with kindness.—Will you let me
have a sight of SOMEBODY before you go? I should be most proud. I was
in hopes to have got away by the Steam-boat to-morrow, but owing to the
business not coming on till then, I cannot; and may not be in town for
another week, unless I come by the Mail, which I am strongly tempted to
do. In the latter case I shall be there, and visible on Saturday
evening. Will you look in and see, about eight o’clock? I wish much to
see you and her and J. H. and my little boy once more; and then, if she
is not what she once was to me, I care not if I die that instant. I
will conclude here till to-morrow, as I am getting into my old
melancholy.—
It is all over, and I am my own man, and yours ever—