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POSTHUMOUS WORKS
OF
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.
VOL. I.
POSTHUMOUS WORKS
OF THE
AUTHOR
OF A
VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
* * * * *
VOL. I.
* * * * *
_LONDON:_
PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, NO. 72, ST. PAUL'S
CHURCH-YARD; AND G. G. AND J. ROBINSON,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1798.
THE
WRONGS OF WOMAN:
OR,
MARIA.
A FRAGMENT.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
* * * * *
VOL. I.
PREFACE.
THE public are here presented with the last literary attempt of an
author, whose fame has been uncommonly extensive, and whose talents have
probably been most admired, by the persons by whom talents are estimated
with the greatest accuracy and discrimination. There are few, to whom her
writings could in any case have given pleasure, that would have wished
that this fragment should have been suppressed, because it is a fragment.
There is a sentiment, very dear to minds of taste and imagination, that
finds a melancholy delight in contemplating these unfinished productions
of genius, these sketches of what, if they had been filled up in a manner
adequate to the writer's conception, would perhaps have given a new
impulse to the manners of a world.
The purpose and structure of the following work, had long formed a
favourite subject of meditation with its author, and she judged them
capable of producing an important effect. The composition had been in
progress for a period of twelve months. She was anxious to do justice to
her conception, and recommenced and revised the manuscript several
different times. So much of it as is here given to the public, she was
far from considering as finished, and, in a letter to a friend directly
written on this subject, she says, "I am perfectly aware that some of the
incidents ought to be transposed, and heightened by more harmonious
shading; and I wished in some degree to avail myself of criticism, before
I began to adjust my events into a story, the outline of which I had
sketched in my mind[x-A]." The only friends to whom the author
communicated her manuscript, were Mr. Dyson, the translator of the
Sorcerer, and the present editor; and it was impossible for the most
inexperienced author to display a stronger desire of profiting by the
censures and sentiments that might be suggested[x-B].
In revising these sheets for the press, it was necessary for the editor,
in some places, to connect the more finished parts with the pages of an
older copy, and a line or two in addition sometimes appeared requisite
for that purpose. Wherever such a liberty has been taken, the additional
phrases will be found inclosed in brackets; it being the editor's most
earnest desire, to intrude nothing of himself into the work, but to give
to the public the words, as well as ideas, of the real author.
What follows in the ensuing pages, is not a preface regularly drawn out
by the author, but merely hints for a preface, which, though never filled
up in the manner the writer intended, appeared to be worth preserving.
W. GODWIN.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
THE Wrongs of Woman, like the wrongs of the oppressed part of mankind,
may be deemed necessary by their oppressors: but surely there are a few,
who will dare to advance before the improvement of the age, and grant
that my sketches are not the abortion of a distempered fancy, or the
strong delineations of a wounded heart.
In writing this novel, I have rather endeavoured to pourtray passions
than manners.
In many instances I could have made the incidents more dramatic, would I
have sacrificed my main object, the desire of exhibiting the misery and
oppression, peculiar to women, that arise out of the partial laws and
customs of society.
In the invention of the story, this view restrained my fancy; and the
history ought rather to be considered, as of woman, than of an
individual.
The sentiments I have embodied.
In many works of this species, the hero is allowed to be mortal, and to
become wise and virtuous as well as happy, by a train of events and
circumstances. The heroines, on the contrary, are to be born immaculate;
and to act like goddesses of wisdom, just come forth highly finished
Minervas from the head of Jove.
* * * * *
[The following is an extract of a letter from the author to a friend, to
whom she communicated her manuscript.]
* * * * *
For my part, I cannot suppose any situation more distressing, than for a
woman of sensibility, with an improving mind, to be bound to such a man
as I have described for life; obliged to renounce all the humanizing
affections, and to avoid cultivating her taste, lest her perception of
grace and refinement of sentiment, should sharpen to agony the pangs of
disappointment. Love, in which the imagination mingles its bewitching
colouring, must be fostered by delicacy. I should despise, or rather call
her an ordinary woman, who could endure such a husband as I have
sketched.
These appear to me (matrimonial despotism of heart and conduct) to be the
peculiar Wrongs of Woman, because they degrade the mind. What are termed
great misfortunes, may more forcibly impress the mind of common readers;
they have more of what may justly be termed _stage-effect_; but it is the
delineation of finer sensations, which, in my opinion, constitutes the
merit of our best novels. This is what I have in view; and to show the
wrongs of different classes of women, equally oppressive, though, from
the difference of education, necessarily various.
FOOTNOTES:
[x-A] A more copious extract of this letter is subjoined to the author's
preface.
[x-B] The part communicated consisted of the first fourteen chapters.
ERRATA.
Page 3, line 2, _dele_ half.
P. 81 and 118, _for_ brackets [--], _read_ inverted commas " thus "
CONTENTS.
VOL. I. AND II.
The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria; a Fragment:
to which is added, the First Book
of a Series of Lessons for Children.
VOL. III. AND IV.
Letters and Miscellaneous Pieces.
_WRONGS_
OF
WOMAN.
CHAP. I.
ABODES of horror have frequently been described, and castles, filled with
spectres and chimeras, conjured up by the magic spell of genius to harrow
the soul, and absorb the wondering mind. But, formed of such stuff as
dreams are made of, what were they to the mansion of despair, in one
corner of which Maria sat, endeavouring to recal her scattered thoughts!
Surprise, astonishment, that bordered on distraction, seemed to have
suspended her faculties, till, waking by degrees to a keen sense of
anguish, a whirlwind of rage and indignation roused her torpid pulse. One
recollection with frightful velocity following another, threatened to
fire her brain, and make her a fit companion for the terrific
inhabitants, whose groans and shrieks were no unsubstantial sounds of
whistling winds, or startled birds, modulated by a romantic fancy, which
amuse while they affright; but such tones of misery as carry a dreadful
certainty directly to the heart. What effect must they then have produced
on one, true to the touch of sympathy, and tortured by maternal
apprehension!
Her infant's image was continually floating on Maria's sight, and the
first smile of intelligence remembered, as none but a mother, an unhappy
mother, can conceive. She heard her half speaking cooing, and felt the
little twinkling fingers on her burning bosom--a bosom bursting with the
nutriment for which this cherished child might now be pining in vain.
From a stranger she could indeed receive the maternal aliment, Maria was
grieved at the thought--but who would watch her with a mother's
tenderness, a mother's self-denial?
The retreating shadows of former sorrows rushed back in a gloomy train,
and seemed to be pictured on the walls of her prison, magnified by the
state of mind in which they were viewed--Still she mourned for her child,
lamented she was a daughter, and anticipated the aggravated ills of life
that her sex rendered almost inevitable, even while dreading she was no
more. To think that she was blotted out of existence was agony, when the
imagination had been long employed to expand her faculties; yet to
suppose her turned adrift on an unknown sea, was scarcely less
afflicting.
After being two days the prey of impetuous, varying emotions, Maria began
to reflect more calmly on her present situation, for she had actually
been rendered incapable of sober reflection, by the discovery of the act
of atrocity of which she was the victim. She could not have imagined,
that, in all the fermentation of civilized depravity, a similar plot
could have entered a human mind. She had been stunned by an unexpected
blow; yet life, however joyless, was not to be indolently resigned, or
misery endured without exertion, and proudly termed patience. She had
hitherto meditated only to point the dart of anguish, and suppressed the
heart heavings of indignant nature merely by the force of contempt. Now
she endeavoured to brace her mind to fortitude, and to ask herself what
was to be her employment in her dreary cell? Was it not to effect her
escape, to fly to the succour of her child, and to baffle the selfish
schemes of her tyrant--her husband?
These thoughts roused her sleeping spirit, and the self-possession
returned, that seemed to have abandoned her in the infernal solitude into
which she had been precipitated. The first emotions of overwhelming
impatience began to subside, and resentment gave place to tenderness, and
more tranquil meditation; though anger once more stopt the calm current
of reflection, when she attempted to move her manacled arms. But this
was an outrage that could only excite momentary feelings of scorn, which
evaporated in a faint smile; for Maria was far from thinking a personal
insult the most difficult to endure with magnanimous indifference.
She approached the small grated window of her chamber, and for a
considerable time only regarded the blue expanse; though it commanded a
view of a desolate garden, and of part of a huge pile of buildings, that,
after having been suffered, for half a century, to fall to decay, had
undergone some clumsy repairs, merely to render it habitable. The ivy had
been torn off the turrets, and the stones not wanted to patch up the
breaches of time, and exclude the warring elements, left in heaps in the
disordered court. Maria contemplated this scene she knew not how long; or
rather gazed on the walls, and pondered on her situation. To the master
of this most horrid of prisons, she had, soon after her entrance, raved
of injustice, in accents that would have justified his treatment, had not
a malignant smile, when she appealed to his judgment, with a dreadful
conviction stifled her remonstrating complaints. By force, or openly,
what could be done? But surely some expedient might occur to an active
mind, without any other employment, and possessed of sufficient
resolution to put the risk of life into the balance with the chance of
freedom.
A woman entered in the midst of these reflections, with a firm,
deliberate step, strongly marked features, and large black eyes, which
she fixed steadily on Maria's, as if she designed to intimidate her,
saying at the same time--"You had better sit down and eat your dinner,
than look at the clouds."
"I have no appetite," replied Maria, who had previously determined to
speak mildly, "why then should I eat?"
"But, in spite of that, you must and shall eat something. I have had many
ladies under my care, who have resolved to starve themselves; but, soon
or late, they gave up their intent, as they recovered their senses."
"Do you really think me mad?" asked Maria, meeting the searching glance
of her eye.
"Not just now. But what does that prove?--only that you must be the more
carefully watched, for appearing at times so reasonable. You have not
touched a morsel since you entered the house."--Maria sighed
intelligibly.--"Could any thing but madness produce such a disgust for
food?"
"Yes, grief; you would not ask the question if you knew what it was." The
attendant shook her head; and a ghastly smile of desperate fortitude
served as a forcible reply, and made Maria pause, before she added--"Yet
I will take some refreshment: I mean not to die.--No; I will preserve my
senses; and convince even you, sooner than you are aware of, that my
intellects have never been disturbed, though the exertion of them may
have been suspended by some infernal drug."
Doubt gathered still thicker on the brow of her guard, as she attempted
to convict her of mistake.
"Have patience!" exclaimed Maria, with a solemnity that inspired awe. "My
God! how have I been schooled into the practice!" A suffocation of voice
betrayed the agonizing emotions she was labouring to keep down; and
conquering a qualm of disgust, she calmly endeavoured to eat enough to
prove her docility, perpetually turning to the suspicious female, whose
observation she courted, while she was making the bed and adjusting the
room.
"Come to me often," said Maria, with a tone of persuasion, in consequence
of a vague plan that she had hastily adopted, when, after surveying this
woman's form and features, she felt convinced that she had an
understanding above the common standard; "and believe me mad, till you
are obliged to acknowledge the contrary." The woman was no fool, that is,
she was superior to her class; nor had misery quite petrified the
life's-blood of humanity, to which reflections on our own misfortunes
only give a more orderly course. The manner, rather than the
expostulations, of Maria made a slight suspicion dart into her mind with
corresponding sympathy, which various other avocations, and the habit of
banishing compunction, prevented her, for the present, from examining
more minutely.
But when she was told that no person, excepting the physician appointed
by her family, was to be permitted to see the lady at the end of the
gallery, she opened her keen eyes still wider, and uttered a--"hem!"
before she enquired--"Why?" She was briefly told, in reply, that the
malady was hereditary, and the fits not occurring but at very long and
irregular intervals, she must be carefully watched; for the length of
these lucid periods only rendered her more mischievous, when any vexation
or caprice brought on the paroxysm of phrensy.
Had her master trusted her, it is probable that neither pity nor
curiosity would have made her swerve from the straight line of her
interest; for she had suffered too much in her intercourse with mankind,
not to determine to look for support, rather to humouring their passions,
than courting their approbation by the integrity of her conduct. A deadly
blight had met her at the very threshold of existence; and the
wretchedness of her mother seemed a heavy weight fastened on her innocent
neck, to drag her down to perdition. She could not heroically determine
to succour an unfortunate; but, offended at the bare supposition that she
could be deceived with the same ease as a common servant, she no longer
curbed her curiosity; and, though she never seriously fathomed her own
intentions, she would sit, every moment she could steal from observation,
listening to the tale, which Maria was eager to relate with all the
persuasive eloquence of grief.
It is so cheering to see a human face, even if little of the divinity of
virtue beam in it, that Maria anxiously expected the return of the
attendant, as of a gleam of light to break the gloom of idleness.
Indulged sorrow; she perceived, must blunt or sharpen the faculties to
the two opposite extremes; producing stupidity, the moping melancholy of
indolence; or the restless activity of a disturbed imagination. She sunk
into one state, after being fatigued by the other: till the want of
occupation became even more painful than the actual pressure or
apprehension of sorrow; and the confinement that froze her into a nook of
existence, with an unvaried prospect before her, the most insupportable
of evils. The lamp of life seemed to be spending itself to chase the
vapours of a dungeon which no art could dissipate.--And to what purpose
did she rally all her energy?--Was not the world a vast prison, and women
born slaves?
Though she failed immediately to rouse a lively sense of injustice in the
mind of her guard, because it had been sophisticated into misanthropy,
she touched her heart. Jemima (she had only a claim to a Christian name,
which had not procured her any Christian privileges) could patiently hear
of Maria's confinement on false pretences; she had felt the crushing hand
of power, hardened by the exercise of injustice, and ceased to wonder at
the perversions of the understanding, which systematize oppression; but,
when told that her child, only four months old, had been torn from her,
even while she was discharging the tenderest maternal office, the woman
awoke in a bosom long estranged from feminine emotions, and Jemima
determined to alleviate all in her power, without hazarding the loss of
her place, the sufferings of a wretched mother, apparently injured, and
certainly unhappy. A sense of right seems to result from the simplest act
of reason, and to preside over the faculties of the mind, like the
master-sense of feeling, to rectify the rest; but (for the comparison may
be carried still farther) how often is the exquisite sensibility of both
weakened or destroyed by the vulgar occupations, and ignoble pleasures of
life?
The preserving her situation was, indeed, an important object to Jemima,
who had been hunted from hole to hole, as if she had been a beast of
prey, or infected with a moral plague. The wages she received, the
greater part of which she hoarded, as her only chance for independence,
were much more considerable than she could reckon on obtaining any where
else, were it possible that she, an outcast from society, could be
permitted to earn a subsistence in a reputable family. Hearing Maria
perpetually complain of listlessness, and the not being able to beguile
grief by resuming her customary pursuits, she was easily prevailed on, by
compassion, and that involuntary respect for abilities, which those who
possess them can never eradicate, to bring her some books and implements
for writing. Maria's conversation had amused and interested her, and the
natural consequence was a desire, scarcely observed by herself, of
obtaining the esteem of a person she admired. The remembrance of better
days was rendered more lively; and the sentiments then acquired appearing
less romantic than they had for a long period, a spark of hope roused
her mind to new activity.
How grateful was her attention to Maria! Oppressed by a dead weight of
existence, or preyed on by the gnawing worm of discontent, with what
eagerness did she endeavour to shorten the long days, which left no
traces behind! She seemed to be sailing on the vast ocean of life,
without seeing any land-mark to indicate the progress of time; to find
employment was then to find variety, the animating principle of nature.
CHAP. II.
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 re-perused 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 supper. "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
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!"
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 _Heloïse_; 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 minutiæ 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.
CHAP. III.
WHEN perusing the first parcel of books, Maria had, with her pencil,
written in one of them a few exclamations, expressive of compassion and
sympathy, which she scarcely remembered, till turning over the leaves of
one of the volumes, lately brought to her, a slip of paper dropped out,
which Jemima hastily snatched up.
"Let me see it," demanded Maria impatiently, "You surely are not afraid
of trusting me with the effusions of a madman?" "I must consider,"
replied Jemima; and withdrew, with the paper in her hand.
In a life of such seclusion, the passions gain undue force; Maria
therefore felt a great degree of resentment and vexation, which she had
not time to subdue, before Jemima, returning, delivered the paper.
"Whoever you are, who partake of my fate, accept my sincere
commiseration--I would have said protection; but the privilege of
man is denied me.
"My own situation forces a dreadful suspicion on my mind--I may
not always languish in vain for freedom--say are you--I cannot
ask the question; yet I will remember you when my remembrance can
be of any use. I will enquire, _why_ you are so mysteriously
detained--and I _will_ have an answer.
"HENRY DARNFORD."
By the most pressing intreaties, Maria prevailed on Jemima to permit her
to write a reply to this note. Another and another succeeded, in which
explanations were not allowed relative to their present situation; but
Maria, with sufficient explicitness, alluded to a former obligation; and
they insensibly entered on an interchange of sentiments on the most
important subjects. To write these letters was the business of the day,
and to receive them the moment of sunshine. By some means, Darnford
having discovered Maria's window, when she next appeared at it, he made
her, behind his keepers, a profound bow of respect and recognition.
Two or three weeks glided away in this kind of intercourse, during which
period Jemima, to whom Maria had given the necessary information
respecting her family, had evidently gained some intelligence, which
increased her desire of pleasing her charge, though she could not yet
determine to liberate her. Maria took advantage of this favourable
charge, without too minutely enquiring into the cause; and such was her
eagerness to hold human converse, and to see her former protector, still
a stranger to her, that she incessantly requested her guard to gratify
her more than curiosity.
Writing to Darnford, she was led from the sad objects before her, and
frequently rendered insensible to the horrid noises around her, which
previously had continually employed her feverish fancy. Thinking it
selfish to dwell on her own sufferings, when in the midst of wretches,
who had not only lost all that endears life, but their very selves, her
imagination was occupied with melancholy earnestness to trace the mazes
of misery, through which so many wretches must have passed to this gloomy
receptacle of disjointed souls, to the grand source of human corruption.
Often at midnight was she waked by the dismal shrieks of demoniac rage,
or of excruciating despair, uttered in such wild tones of indescribable
anguish as proved the total absence of reason, and roused phantoms of
horror in her mind, far more terrific than all that dreaming superstition
ever drew. Besides, there was frequently something so inconceivably
picturesque in the varying gestures of unrestrained passion, so
irresistibly comic in their sallies, or so heart-piercingly pathetic in
the little airs they would sing, frequently bursting out after an awful
silence, as to fascinate the attention, and amuse the fancy, while
torturing the soul. It was the uproar of the passions which she was
compelled to observe; and to mark the lucid beam of reason, like a light
trembling in a socket, or like the flash which divides the threatening
clouds of angry heaven only to display the horrors which darkness
shrouded.
Jemima would labour to beguile the tedious evenings, by describing the
persons and manners of the unfortunate beings, whose figures or voices
awoke sympathetic sorrow in Maria's bosom; and the stories she told were
the more interesting, for perpetually leaving room to conjecture
something extraordinary. Still Maria, accustomed to generalize her
observations, was led to conclude from all she heard, that it was a
vulgar error to suppose that people of abilities were the most apt to
lose the command of reason. On the contrary, from most of the instances
she could investigate, she thought it resulted, that the passions only
appeared strong and disproportioned, because the judgment was weak and
unexercised; and that they gained strength by the decay of reason, as the
shadows lengthen during the sun's decline.
Maria impatiently wished to see her fellow-sufferer; but Darnford was
still more earnest to obtain an interview. Accustomed to submit to every
impulse of passion, and never taught, like women, to restrain the most
natural, and acquire, instead of the bewitching frankness of nature, a
factitious propriety of behaviour, every desire became a torrent that
bore down all opposition.
His travelling trunk, which contained the books lent to Maria, had been
sent to him, and with a part of its contents he bribed his principal
keeper; who, after receiving the most solemn promise that he would return
to his apartment without attempting to explore any part of the house,
conducted him, in the dusk of the evening, to Maria's room.
Jemima had apprized her charge of the visit, and she expected with
trembling impatience, inspired by a vague hope that he might again prove
her deliverer, to see a man who had before rescued her from oppression.
He entered with an animation of countenance, formed to captivate an
enthusiast; and, hastily turned his eyes from her to the apartment, which
he surveyed with apparent emotions of compassionate indignation.
Sympathy illuminated his eye, and, taking her hand, he respectfully bowed
on it, exclaiming--"This is extraordinary!--again to meet you, and in
such circumstances!" Still, impressive as was the coincidence of events
which brought them once more together, their full hearts did not
overflow.--[54-A]
* * * * *
[And though, after this first visit, they were permitted frequently to
repeat their interviews, they were for some time employed in] a reserved
conversation, to which all the world might have listened; excepting,
when discussing some literary subject, flashes of sentiment, inforced by
each relaxing feature, seemed to remind them that their minds were
already acquainted.
[By degrees, Darnford entered into the particulars of his story.] In a
few words, he informed her that he had been a thoughtless, extravagant
young man; yet, as he described his faults, they appeared to be the
generous luxuriancy of a noble mind. Nothing like meanness tarnished the
lustre of his youth, nor had the worm of selfishness lurked in the
unfolding bud, even while he had been the dupe of others. Yet he tardily
acquired the experience necessary to guard him against future imposition.
"I shall weary you," continued he, "by my egotism; and did not powerful
emotions draw me to you,"--his eyes glistened as he spoke, and a
trembling seemed to run through his manly frame,--"I would not waste
these precious moments in talking of myself.
"My father and mother were people of fashion; married by their parents.
He was fond of the turf, she of the card-table. I, and two or three other
children since dead, were kept at home till we became intolerable. My
father and mother had a visible dislike to each other, continually
displayed; the servants were of the depraved kind usually found in the
houses of people of fortune. My brothers and parents all dying, I was
left to the care of guardians, and sent to Eton. I never knew the sweets
of domestic affection, but I felt the want of indulgence and frivolous
respect at school. I will not disgust you with a recital of the vices of
my youth, which can scarcely be comprehended by female delicacy. I was
taught to love by a creature I am ashamed to mention; and the other women
with whom I afterwards became intimate, were of a class of which you can
have no knowledge. I formed my acquaintance with them at the theatres;
and, when vivacity danced in their eyes, I was not easily disgusted by
the vulgarity which flowed from their lips. Having spent, a few years
after I was of age, [the whole of] a considerable patrimony, excepting a
few hundreds, I had no recourse but to purchase a commission in a
new-raised regiment, destined to subjugate America. The regret I felt to
renounce a life of pleasure, was counter-balanced by the curiosity I had
to see America, or rather to travel; [nor had any of those circumstances
occurred to my youth, which might have been calculated] to bind my
country to my heart. I shall not trouble you with the details of a
military life. My blood was still kept in motion; till, towards the close
of the contest, I was wounded and taken prisoner.