_From the Confessions of an Ambitious Student._
A fit, one bright spring morning, came over me--a fit of poetry. From
that time the disorder increased, for I indulged it; and though such of
my performances as have been seen by friendly eyes have been looked upon
as mediocre enough, I still believe, that if ever I could win a lasting
reputation, it would be through that channel. Love usually accompanies
poetry, and, in my case, there was no exception to the rule.
"There was a slender, but pleasant brook, about two miles from our
house, to which one or two of us were accustomed, in the summer days, to
repair to bathe and saunter away our leisure hours. To this favourite
spot I one day went alone, and crossing a field which led to the brook,
I encountered two ladies, with one of whom, having met her at some house
in the neighbourhood, I had a slight acquaintance. We stopped to speak
to each other, and I saw the face of her companion. Alas! were I to live
ten thousand lives, there would never be a moment in which I could be
alone--nor sleeping, and that face not with me!
"My acquaintance introduced us to each other. I walked home with them to
the house of Miss D----(so was the strange, who was also the younger
lady named.) The next day I called upon her; the acquaintance thus
commenced did not droop; and, notwithstanding our youth--for Lucy D----
was only seventeen, and I nearly a year younger--we soon loved, and with
a love, which, full of poesy and dreaming, as from our age it
necessarily must have been, was not less durable, nor less heart-felt,
than if it had arisen from the deeper and more earthly sources in which
later life only hoards its affections.
"Oh, God! how little did I think of what our young folly entailed upon
us! We delivered ourselves up to the dictates of our hearts, and forgot
that there was a future. Neither of us had any ulterior design; we did
not think--poor children that we were--of marriage, and settlements, and
consent of relations. We touched each other's hands, and were happy; we
read poetry together--and when we lifted up our eyes from the page,
those eyes met, and we did not know why our hearts beat so violently;
and at length, when we spake of love, and when we called each other Lucy
and ----; when we described all that we had thought in absence--and all
we had felt when present--when we sat with our hands locked each in
each--and at last, growing bolder, when in the still and quiet
loneliness of a summer twilight we exchanged our first kiss, we did not
dream that the world forbade what seemed to us so natural; nor--feeling
in our own hearts the impossibility of change--did we ever ask whether
this sweet and mystic state of existence was to last for ever!
"Lucy was an only child; her father was a man of wretched character. A
profligate, a gambler--ruined alike in fortune, hope, and reputation, he
was yet her only guardian and protector. The village in which we both
resided was near London; there Mr. D---- had a small cottage, where he
left his daughter and his slender establishment for days, and
sometimes for weeks together, while he was engaged in equivocal
speculations--giving no address, and engaged in no professional mode of
life. Lucy's mother had died long since, of a broken heart--(that fate,
too, was afterwards her daughter's)--so that this poor girl was
literally without a monitor or a friend, save her own innocence--and,
alas! innocence is but a poor substitute for experience. The lady with
whom I had met her had known her mother, and she felt compassion for the
child. She saw her constantly, and sometimes took her to her own house,
whenever she was in the neighbourhood; but that was not often, and only
for a few days at a time. Her excepted, Lucy had no female friend.
"One evening we were to meet at a sequestered and lonely part of the
brook's course, a spot which was our usual rendezvous. I waited
considerably beyond the time appointed, and was just going sorrowfully
away when she appeared. As she approached, I saw that she was in
tears--and she could not for several moments speak for weeping. At
length I learned that her father had just returned home, after a long
absence--that he had announced his intention of immediately quitting
their present home and going to a distant part of the country,
or--perhaps even abroad.
* * * * *
"It is an odd thing in the history of the human heart, that the times
most sad to experience are often the most grateful to recall; and of all
the passages in our brief and checkered love, none have I clung to so
fondly or cherished so tenderly, as the remembrance of that desolate and
tearful hour. We walked slowly home, speaking very little, and lingering
on the way--and my arm was round her waist all the time. There was a
little stile at the entrance of the garden round Lucy's home, and
sheltered as it was by trees and bushes, it was there, whenever we met,
we took our last adieu--and there that evening we stopped, and lingered
over our parting words and our parting kiss--and at length, when I tore
myself away, I looked back and saw her in the sad and grey light of the
evening still there, still watching, still weeping! What, what hours of
anguish and gnawing of heart must one, who loved so kindly and so
entirely as she did, have afterwards endured.
"As I lay awake that night, a project, natural enough, darted across me.
I would seek Lucy's father, communicate our attachment, and sue for his
approbation. We might, indeed, be too young for marriage--but we could
wait, and love each other in the meanwhile. I lost no time in following
up this resolution. The next day, before noon, I was at the door of
Lucy's cottage--I was in the little chamber that faced the garden, alone
with her father.
"A boy forms strange notions of a man who is considered a scoundrel. I
was prepared to see one of fierce and sullen appearance, and to meet
with a rude and coarse reception. I found in Mr. D---- a person who
early accustomed--(for he was of high birth)--to polished society, still
preserved, in his manner and appearance, its best characteristics. His
voice was soft and bland; his face, though haggard and worn, retained
the traces of early beauty; and a courteous and attentive ease of
deportment had been probably improved by the habits of deceiving others,
rather than impaired. I told our story to this man, frankly and fully.
When I had done, he rose; he took me by the hand; he expressed some
regret, yet some satisfaction, at what he had heard. He was sensible how
much peculiar circumstances had obliged him to leave his daughter
unprotected; he was sensible, also, that from my birth and future
fortunes, my affection did honour to the object of my choice. Nothing
would have made him so happy, so proud, had I been older--had I been my
own master. But I and he, alas! must be aware that my friends and
guardians would never consent to my forming any engagement at so
premature an age, and they and the world would impute the blame to him;
for calumny (he added in a melancholy tone) had been busy with his name,
and any story, however false or idle, would be believed of one who was
out of the world's affections.
"All this, and much more, did he say; and I pitied him while he spoke.
Our conference then ended in nothing fixed;--but--he asked me to dine
with him the next day. In a word, while he forbade me at present to
recur to the subject, he allowed me to see his daughter as often as I
pleased: this lasted for about ten days. At the end of that time, when I
made my usual morning visit, I saw D---- alone; he appeared much
agitated. He was about, he said, to be arrested. He was undone for
ever--and his poor daughter!--he could say no more--his manly heart was
overcome--and he hid his face with his hands. I attempted to console
him, and inquired the sum necessary to relieve him. It was considerable;
and on hearing it named, my power of consolation I deemed over at once.
I was mistaken. But why dwell on so hacknied a topic as that of a
sharper on the one hand, and a dupe on the other? I saw a gentleman of
the tribe of Israel--I raised a sum of money, to be repaid when I came
of age, and that sum was placed in D----'s hands. My intercourse with
Lucy continued; but not long. This matter came to the ears of one who
had succeeded my poor aunt, now no more, as my guardian. He saw D----,
and threatened him with penalties, which the sharper did not dare to
brave. My guardian was a man of the world; he said nothing to me on the
subject, but he begged me to accompany him on a short tour through a
neighbouring county. I took leave of Lucy only for a few days as I
imagined. I accompanied my guardian--was a week absent--returned--and
hastened to the cottage; it was shut up--an old woman opened the
door--they were gone, father and daughter, none knew whither!
"It was now that my guardian disclosed his share in this event, so
terribly unexpected by me. He unfolded the arts of D----; he held up his
character in its true light. I listened to him patiently, while he
proceeded thus far; but when, encouraged by my silence, he attempted to
insinuate that Lucy was implicated in her father's artifices--that she
had lent herself to decoy, to the mutual advantage of sire and daughter,
the inexperienced heir of considerable fortunes,--my rage and
indignation exploded at once. High words ensued. I defied his
authority--I laughed at his menaces--I openly declared my resolution of
tracing Lucy to the end of the world, and marrying her the instant she
was found. Whether or not that my guardian had penetrated sufficiently
into my character to see that force was not the means by which I was to
be guided, I cannot say; but he softened from his tone at
last--apologized for his warmth--condescended to soothe and
remonstrate--and our dispute ended in a compromise. I consented to leave
Mr. S----, and to spend the next year, preparatory to my going to the
university, with my guardian: he promised, on the other hand, that if,
at the end of that year, I still wished to discover Lucy, he would throw
no obstacles in the way of my search. I was ill-contented with this
compact; but I was induced to it by my firm persuasion that Lucy would
write to me, and that we should console each other, at least, by a
knowledge of our mutual situation and our mutual constancy. In this
persuasion, I insisted on remaining six weeks longer with S----, and
gained my point; and that any letter Lucy might write, might not be
exposed to any officious intervention from S----, or my guardian's
satellites, I walked every day to meet the postman who was accustomed to
bring our letters. None came from Lucy. Afterwards, I learned that
D----, whom my guardian had wisely bought, as well as intimidated, had
intercepted three letters which she had addressed to me, in her
unsuspecting confidence--and that she only ceased to write when she
ceased to believe in me.
"I went to reside with my guardian. A man of a hospitable and liberal
turn, his house was always full of guests, who were culled from the most
agreeable circles in London. We lived in a perpetual round of amusement;
and my uncle, who thought I should be rich enough to afford to be
ignorant, was more anxious that I should divert my mind, than instruct
it. Well, this year passed slowly and sadly away, despite of the gaiety
around me; and, at the end of that time, I left my uncle to go to the
university; but I first lingered in London to make inquiries after
D----. I could learn no certain tidings of him, but heard that the most
probable place to find him was a certain gaming-house in K---- Street.
Thither I repaired forthwith. It was a haunt of no delicate and
luxurious order of vice; the chain attached to the threshold indicated
suspicion of the spies of justice; and a grim and sullen face peered
jealously upon me before I was suffered to ascend the filthy and noisome
staircase. But my search was destined to a brief end. At the head of the
_Rouge et Noir_ table, facing my eyes the moment I entered the evil
chamber, was the marked and working countenance of D----.
"He did not look up--no, not once, all the time he played; he won
largely--rose with a flushed face and trembling hand--descended the
stairs--stopped in a room below, where a table was spread with meats and
wine--took a large tumbler of Madeira, and left the house. I had waited
patiently--I had followed him with a noiseless step--I now drew my
breath hard, clenched my hands, as if to nerve myself for a contest--and
as he paused a moment under one of the lamps, seemingly in doubt whither
to go--I laid my hand on his shoulder, and uttered his name. His eyes
wandered with a leaden and dull gaze over my face before he remembered
me. _Then_ he recovered his usual bland smile and soft tone. He
grasped my unwilling hand, and inquired with the tenderness of a parent
after my health. I did not heed his words. 'Your daughter,' said I,
convulsively.
"'Ah! you were old friends,' quoth he, smiling; 'you have recovered that
folly, I hope. Poor thing! she will be happy to see an old friend. You
know of course--
"'What?' for he hesitated.
"'That Lucy is married!'
"'Married!' and as that word left my lips, it seemed as if my very life,
my very soul, had gushed forth also in the sound. When--oh! when, in the
night-watch and the daily yearning, when, whatever might have been my
grief or wretchedness, or despondency, when had I dreamt, when imaged
forth even the outline of a doom like this? Married! my Lucy, my fond,
my constant, my pure-hearted, and tender Lucy! Suddenly, all the chilled
and revolted energies of my passions seemed to re-act, and rush back
upon me. I seized that smiling and hollow wretch with a fierce grasp.
'You have done this--you have broken her heart--you have crushed mine! I
curse you in her name and my own!--I curse you from the bottom and with
all the venom of my soul!--Wretch! wretch! and he was as a reed in my
hands.'
"'Madman,' said he, as at last he extricated himself from my gripe, 'my
daughter married with her free consent, and to one far better fitted to
make her happy than you. Go, go--I forgive you--I also was once in love,
and with _her_ mother!'
"I did not answer--I let him depart.
"It was a little while after this interview--but I mention it now, for
there is no importance in the quarter from which I heard it--that I
learned some few particulars of Lucy's marriage. There was, and still
is, in the world's gossip, a strange story of a rich, foolish man, awed
as well as gulled by a sharper, and of a girl torn to a church with a
violence so evident that the priest refused the ceremony. But the rite
was afterwards solemnized by special license, in private, and at night.
The pith of that story has truth, and Lucy was at once the heroine and
victim of the romance. Now, then, I turn to somewhat a different strain
in my narrative.
"You, A----, who know so well the habits of a university _life_,
need not be told how singularly monotonous and contemplative it may be
made to a lonely man. The first year I was there, I mixed, as you may
remember, in none of the many circles into which that curious and motley
society is split. My only recreation was in long and companionless
rides; and in the flat and dreary country around our university, the
cheerless aspect of nature fed the idle melancholy at my heart. In the
second year of my college life, I roused myself a little from my
seclusion, and rather by accident than design--you will remember that my
acquaintance was formed among the men considered most able and promising
of our time. In the summer of that year, I resolved to make a bold
effort to harden my mind and conquer its fastidious reserve; and I set
out to travel over the North of England, and the greater part of
Scotland, in the humble character of a pedestrian tourist. Nothing ever
did my character more solid good than that experiment. I was thrown
among a thousand varieties of character; I was continually forced into
bustle and action, and into _providing for myself_--that great and
indelible lesson towards permanent independence of character.
"One evening, in an obscure part of Cumberland, I was seeking a short
cut to a neighbouring village through a gentleman's grounds, in which
there was a public path. Just within sight of the house (which was an
old, desolate building, in the architecture of James the First, with
gable-ends and dingy walls, and deep-sunk, gloomy windows,) I perceived
two ladies at a little distance before me; one seemed in weak and
delicate health, for she walked slowly and with pain, and stopped often
as she leaned on her companion. I lingered behind, in order not to pass
them abruptly; presently, they turned away towards the house, and I saw
them no more. Yet that frail and bending form, as I too soon afterwards
learned--that form, which I did not recognise--which, by a sort of
fatality, I saw only in a glimpse, and yet for the last time on
earth,--that form--was the wreck of Lucy D----!
"Unconscious of this event in my destiny, I left that neighbourhood, and
settled for some weeks on the borders of the Lake Keswick. There, one
evening, a letter, re-directed to me from London, reached me. The
hand-writing was that of Lucy; but the trembling and slurred characters,
so different from that graceful ease which was wont to characterize all
she did, filled me, even at the first glance, with alarm. This is the
letter--read it--you will know, then, what I have lost:--
"'I write to you, my dear, my unforgotten ----, the last letter this
hand will ever trace. Till now, it would have been a crime to write to
you; perhaps it is so still--but dying as I am, and divorced from all
earthly thoughts and remembrances, save yours, I feel that I cannot
quite collect my mind for the last hour until I have given you the
blessing of one whom you loved once; and when that blessing is given, I
think I can turn away from your image, and sever willingly the last tie
that binds me to earth. I will not afflict you by saying what I have
suffered since we parted--with what anguish I thought of what _you_
would feel when you found me gone--and with what cruel, what fearful
violence, I was forced into becoming the wretch I now am. I was hurried,
I was driven, into a dreadful and bitter duty--but I thank God that I
have fulfilled it. What, what have I done, to have been made so
miserable throughout life as I have been! I ask my heart, and tax my
conscience--and every night I think over the sins of the day; they do
not seem to me heavy, yet my penance has been very great. For the last
two years, I do sincerely think that there has not been one day which I
have not marked with tears. But enough of this, and of myself. You,
dear, dear L----, let me turn to you! Something at my heart tells me
that you have not forgotten that once we were the world to each other,
and even through the changes and the glories of a man's life, I think
you will not forget it. True, L----, that I was a poor and friendless,
and not too-well educated girl, and altogether unworthy of your destiny;
but you did not think so then--and when you have lost me, it is a sad,
but it is a real comfort, to feel that that thought will never occur to
you. Your memory will invest me with a thousand attractions and graces I
did not possess, and all that you recall of me will be linked with the
freshest and happiest thoughts of that period of life in which you first
beheld me. And this thought, dearest L----, sweetens death to me--and
sometimes it comforts me for what has been. Had our lot been
otherwise--had we been united, and had you survived your love for me
(and what more probable!) my lot would have been darker even than it has
been. I know not how it is--perhaps from my approaching death--but I
seem to have grown old, and to have obtained the right to be your
monitor and warner. Forgive me, then, if I implore you to think
earnestly and deeply of the great ends of life; think of them as one
might think who is anxious to gain a distant home, and who will not be
diverted from his way. Oh! could you know how solemn and thrilling a joy
comes over me as I nurse the belief, the certainty, that we shall meet
at length, and for ever! Will not that hope also animate you, and guide
you unerring through the danger and the evil of this entangled life?
"May God bless you, and watch over you--may He comfort and cheer, and
elevate your heart to him! Before you receive this, _I_ shall be no
more--and my love, my care for you will, I trust and feel, have become
eternal.--Farewell:
'L.M.'
"The letter," continued L----, struggling with his emotions, "was dated
from that village through which I had so lately passed; thither I
repaired that very night--Lucy had been buried the day before! I stood
upon a green mound, and a few, few feet below, separated from me by a
scanty portion of earth, mouldered that heart which had loved me so
faithfully and so well!"
_New Monthly Magazine._
* * * * *
A Jew said to the venerable Ali, in argument on the truth of their
religion, "You had not even deposited your prophet's body in the earth,
when you quarrelled among yourselves." Ali replied, "Our divisions
proceeded from the loss of him, not concerning our faith; but your feet
were not yet dry from the mud of the Red Sea, when you cried unto Moses,
saying, 'Make us gods like unto those of the idolaters, that we may
worship them.'" The Jew was confounded.