_The Count de St. Julian to the Marquis of Pescara_
_Palermo_
My dear lord,
Avocations of no agreeable kind, and with which it probably will not
be long before you are sufficiently acquainted, have of late entirely
engrossed me. You will readily believe, that they were concerns of no
small importance, that hindered me from a proper acknowledgment and
attention to the communications of my friend. But I will dismiss my own
affairs for the present, and make a few of the observations to which you
invite me upon the contents of your letters.
Alas! my Rinaldo is so entirely changed since we used to wander together
among the groves and vallies, and along the banks of that stream which I
now see from my window, that I scarcely know him for the same. Where
is that simplicity, where that undisguised attachment to virtue and
integrity, where that unaccommodating system of moral truth, that used
to live in the bosom of my friend? All the lines of his character seem
to suffer an incessant decay. Shall I fear that the time is hastening
when that sublime and generous spirit shall no longer be distinguished
from the San Severinos, the men of gaiety and pleasure of the age? And
can I look back upon this alteration, and apprehensions thus excited,
and say, "all this has taken place in six poor months?"
Do not imagine, my dear lord, that I am that severe monitor, that rigid
censor, that would give up his friend for every fault, that knows not
how to make any allowance for the heedless levity of youth. I can
readily suppose a man with the purest heart and most untainted
principles, drawn aside into temporary error. Occasion, opportunity,
example, an accidental dissipation of mind are inlets to vice, against
which perhaps it is not in humanity to be always guarded.
Confidence, my dear friend, unsuspicious confidence, is the first source
of error. In favour of the presumptuous man, who wantonly incurs danger
and braves temptation, heaven will not interest itself. There can be
no mistake more destitute of foundation, than that which supposes man
exempt from frailty.
Had not my Rinaldo, trusting too much to his own strength, laid himself
open to dangerous associates, he would now have contemplated those
actions he has been taught to excuse, with disgust and horror. His own
heart would never have taught him that commodious morality he has been
induced to patronize. But he feared them not. He felt, as he assured me,
that firmness of resolution, and ardour of virtue, that might set
these temptations at defiance. Be ingenuous, my friend. Look back, and
acknowledge your mistake. Look back, and acknowledge, that to the purest
and most blameless mind indiscriminate communications are dangerous.
I had much rather my dear marquis had once deviated from that line of
conduct he had marked out to himself, than that he had undertaken to
defend the deviation, and exerted himself to unlearn principles that did
him honour. You profess to believe that indulgences of this sort are
unavoidable, and the temptations to them irresistible. And is man then
reduced to a par with the brutes? Is there a single passion of the soul,
that does not then cease to be blameless, when it is no longer directed
and restrained by the dictates of reason? A thousand considerations of
health, of interest, of character, respecting ourselves; and of benefit
and inconvenience to society, will be taken into the estimate by the
wise and the good man.
But these considerations are superseded by that which cannot be
counteracted. And does not the reciprocal power of motives depend upon
the strength and vivacity with which they are exhibited to the mind? The
presence of a superior would at any time restrain us from an unbecoming
action. The sense of a decided interest, the apprehension of a certain,
and very considerable detriment, would deprive the most flattering
temptation of all its blandishments. And are not this sense and this
apprehension in a great degree in the power of every man?
Tell me, my friend; Shall that action which in a woman is the utter
extinction of all honour, be in a man entirely faultless and innocent?
But the world is not quite so unjust. Such a conduct even in our sex
tends to the diminution of character, is considered in the circle of the
venerable and the virtuous as a subject of shame and concealment, and
if persisted in, causes a person universally to be considered, as alike
unfit for every arduous pursuit, and every sublime undertaking.
Is it possible indeed, that the society of persons in the lowest state
of profligacy, can be desirable for a man of family, for one who
pretends to honour and integrity? Is it possible that they should not
have some tendency to pollute his ideas, to debase his sentiments, and
to reduce him to the same rank with themselves? If the women you have
described irreclaimable, let it at least be remembered that your
conduct tends to shut up against them the door of reformation and
return, and forces upon them a mode of subsistence which they might not
voluntarily have chosen.
Thus much for your first letter. Your second calls me to a subject
of greater seriousness and magnitude. My Rinaldo makes hasty strides
indeed! Scarcely embarked in licentious and libertine principles,
he seems to look forward to the last consummation of the debauchee.
Seduction, my dear lord, is an action that will yield in horror to no
crime that ever sprang up in the degenerate breast.
But it seems, the action you propose to yourself is divested of some
of the aggravations of seduction. I will acknowledge it. Had my friend
received this crime into his bosom in all its deformity, dear as he is
to me, I would have thrown him from my heart with detestation. Yes, I am
firmly persuaded, that the man who perpetrates it, however specious he
may appear, was never conscious to one generous sentiment, never knew
the meaning of rectitude and integrity, but was at all times wrapped up
in that narrow selfishness, that torpid insensibility, that would not
disgrace a fiend.
He undermines innocence surrounded with all her guard of ingenuous
feelings and virtuous principles. He forces from her station a
defenceless woman, who, without his malignant interposition, might have
filled it with honour and happiness. He heaps up disgrace and misery
upon a family that never gave him provocation, and perhaps brings down
the grey hairs of the heads of it to the grave with calamity.
Of all hypocrites this man is the most consummate and the most odious.
He dresses his countenance in smiles, while his invention teems with
havoc and ruin. He pretends the sincerest good will without feeling one
sentiment of disinterested and honest affection. He feigns the warmest
attachment that he may the more securely destroy.
This, my friend, is not the crime of an instant, an action into which
he is hurried by unexpected temptation, and the momentary violence of
passion. He goes about it with deliberation. He lays his plans with all
the subtlety of a Machiavel, and all the flagitiousness of a Borgia.
He executes them gradually from day to day, and from week to week. And
during all this time he dwells upon the luxurious idea, he riots in the
misery he hopes to create. He will tell you he loves. Yes, he loves, as
the hawk loves the harmless dove, as the tyger loves the trembling kid.
And is this the man in whose favour I should ever have been weak enough
to entertain a partiality? I would tear him from my bosom like an adder.
I would crush him like a serpent.
But your case has not the same aggravations. Here is no father who
prizes the honour of his family more than life, and whose heart is bound
up in the virtue of his only child. Here is no mother a stranger to
disgrace, and who with unremitted vigilance had fought to guard every
avenue to the destruction of her daughter. Even the victim herself has
never learned the beauty of virgin purity, and does not know the value
of that she is about to lose.
And yet, my Rinaldo, after all these deductions, there is something in
the story of this uninstructed little innocent, even as stated by him
who is ready to destroy her, that greatly interests my wishes in her
favour. She does not know it seems all the calamity of the fate that is
impending over her. She is blindfolded for destruction. She plays with
her ruin, and views with a thoughtless and a partial eye the murderer of
her virtue and her happiness.
_And, oh, poor helpless nightingale, thought I,
How sweet thou sing'st, how near the deadly snare!_
But if you do not accept the proposal that is made you, it is but too
probable what her fate will be, and how soon the event will take
place. And is this an excuse for my friend to offer? Thousands are the
iniquities that are now upon the verge of action. An imagination the
most fertile in horror can scarcely conceive the crimes that will
probably be committed. And shall I therefore with malignant industry
forestal the villain in all his black designs? You do not mean it.
Permit me yet to suggest one motive more. A connection like that you
have proposed to yourself, might probably make you a father. Of all
the charities incident to the human character, those of a parent are
abundantly the most exquisite and venerable. And can a man of the
smallest sensibility think with calmness, of bringing children into the
world to be the heirs of shame? When he gives them life he entails upon
them dishonour. The father that should look upon them with joy, as a
benefit conferred upon society, and the support of his declining age,
regards them with coldness and alienation. The mother who should
consider them as her boast and her honour, cannot behold them without
opening anew all the sluices of remorse, cannot own them without a
blush.
This, my Rinaldo, is what you might do, and in doing it you would
perpetrate an action that would occasion to an ingenuous mind an eternal
regret. But there is another thing also that you might do, and that a
mind, indefatigable in the pursuit of rectitude, as was once that of my
friend, would not need to have suggested to it by another. Instead
of treasuring up remorse, instead of preparing for an innocent and
unsuspecting victim a life of misery and shame, you might redeem her
from impending destruction. You might obtain for her an honest and
industrious partner, and enable her to acquire the character of a
virtuous matron, and a respectable mother of a family.
Reflect for a moment, my dear marquis, on this proposal, which I hope
is yet in your power. Think you, that conscious rectitude, that the
exultation of your heart when you recollect the temptation you have
escaped, and the noble turn you have given it, will not infinitely
overbalance the sordid and fleeting pleasure you are able to attain?
Imagine to yourself that you see her offspring growing up under the care
of a blameless mother, and coming forward to thank you for the benefit
you bestowed upon them before they had a being. Is not this an object
over which a heart susceptible to one manly feeling may reasonably
triumph?