_The Count de St. Julian to Signor Hippolito Borelli_
_Messina_
You, my dear Hippolito, were the only one of my fellow-collegians, to
whom I communicated all the circumstances of that unfortunate situation
which obliged me to take a final leave of the university. The death of
a father, though not endeared by the highest reciprocations of mutual
kindness, must always make some impressions upon a susceptible mind. The
wound was scarcely healed that had been made by the loss of a mother, a
fond mother, who by her assiduous attentions had supplied every want,
and filled up every neglect, to which I might otherwise have been
exposed.
When I quitted Palermo, I resolved before I determined upon any thing,
to proceed to the residence of my family at Leontini. My reception
was, as I expected, cold and formal. My brother related to me the
circumstances of the death of my father, over which he affected to shed
tears. He then produced his testament for my inspection, pretended to
blame me that though I were the elder, I had so little ingratiated
myself in his favour, and added, that he could not think of being guilty
of so undutiful a conduct, as to contravene the last dispositions of his
father. If however he could be of any use to me in my future plans of
life, he would exert himself to serve me.
The next morning I quitted Leontini. My reflexions upon the present
posture of my affairs, could not but be melancholy. I was become as it
were a native of the world, discarded from every family, cut off from
every country. Born to a respectable rank and a splendid fortune, I
was precluded in a moment from expectations so reasonable, and an
inheritance which I might have hoped at this time to reap. Many there
are, I doubt not, who have no faculties by which to comprehend the
extent of this misfortune. The loss of possessions sufficiently ample,
and of the power and dignity annexed to his character, who is the
supporter of an ancient name, they would confess was to be regretted.
But I had many resources left. My brother would probably have received
me into his family, and I might have been preserved from the sensations
of exigency and want. And could I think of being obliged for this to
a brother, who had always beheld me with aversion, who was not of
a character to render the benefits he conferred insensible to the
receiver, and who, it was scarcely to be supposed, had not made use of
sinister and ungenerous arts to deprive me of my inheritance? But the
houses of the great were still open. My character was untainted, my
education had been such as to enable me to be useful in a thousand
ways. Ah, my Hippolito, the great are not always possessed of the most
capacious minds. There are innumerable little slights and offences that
shrink from description, but which are sufficient to keep alive the most
mortifying sense of dependency, and to make a man of sensibility, and
proud honour constantly unhappy. And must I, who had hoped to be
the ornament and boast of my country, thus become a burden to my
acquaintance, and a burden to myself?
Such were the melancholy reflexions in which I was engaged. I had left
Leontini urged by the sentiments of miscarriage and resentment. I fled
from the formality of condolence, and the useless parade of friendship.
I would willingly have hid myself from every face I had hitherto known.
I would willingly have retired to a desart. My thoughts were all in
arms. I revolved a thousand vigorous resolutions without fixing upon
one.
I had now proceeded somewhat more than two leagues upon my journey,
and had gained the centre of that vast and intricate forest which you
remember to be situated at no great distance from Leontini. In this
place there advanced upon me in a moment four of those bravoes, for
which this place is particularly infamous, and who are noted for their
daring and hazardous atchievements. Myself and my servant defended
ourselves against them for some time. One of them was wounded in the
beginning of the encounter. But it was impossible that we could have
resisted long. My servant was hurt in several places, and I had received
a wound in my arm. In this critical moment a cavalier, accompanied by
several attendants, and who appeared to be armed, advanced at no great
distance. The villains immediately took up their disabled companion,
and retired with precipitation into the thickest part of the wood. My
deliverer now ordered some of his attendants to pursue them, while
himself with one servant remained to assist us.
Imagine, my dear friend, what were my emotions, when I discovered in my
preserver, the marquis of Pescara! I recollected in a moment all our
former intimacy, and in what manner it had so lately been broken off.
Little did I think that I should almost ever have seen him again. Much
less did I think that I should ever have owed him the most important
obligations.
The expression of the countenance of both of us upon this sudden
recognition was complicated. Amidst all the surprize and gratitude, that
it was impossible not to testify, my eyes I am convinced had something
in them of the reproach of violated friendship. I thought I could trace,
and by what followed I could not be mistaken, in the air of my Rinaldo,
a confession of wrong, united with a kind of triumph, that he had been
enabled so unexpectedly and completely to regain that moral equilibrium
which he had before lost.
It was not long before his servants returned from an unsuccessful
pursuit, and we set forward for a village about a quarter of a league
further upon the road from Leontini. It was there that I learned from my
friend the occasion and subject of his journey. He had heard at Naples a
confused report of the death of my father, and the unexpected succession
of my brother. The idea of this misfortune involuntarily afflicted him.
At the thought of my distress all his tenderness revived. "And was it,"
it was thus that he described the progress of his reflections, "in
the moment of so unexpected a blow, that my St. Julian neglected the
circumstances of his own situation, to write to me that letter,
the freedom of whose remonstrances, and the earnestness of whose
exhortations so greatly offended me? How much does this consideration
enhance the purity and disinterestedness of his friendship? And is it
possible that I should have taken umbrage at that which was prompted
only by tenderness and attachment? And did I ever speak of his
interference in those harsh and reproachful terms which I so well
knew would be conveyed to him again? Could I have been so blinded by
groundless resentment, as to have painted him in all the colours of an
inflexible dictator, and a presumptuous censor? Could I have imputed his
conduct to motives of pride, affectation, and arrogance? How happy had I
been, had his advice arrived sooner, and been more regarded?"
But it was not with self-blame and reproach only, that the recovery
of my Rinaldo was contented. The idea of the situation of his friend
incessantly haunted him. No pursuit, no avocation, could withdraw his
attention, or banish the recollection from his mind. He determined to
quit Naples in search of me. He left all those engagements, and all
those pleasures of which he had of late been so much enamoured, and
crossing the sea he came into Sicily. Learning that I had quitted
Palermo, he resolved to pursue his search of me to Leontini. He had
fixed his determination not to quit the generous business upon which he
had entered, without discovering me in my remotest retreat, atoning for
the groundless resentment he had harboured, and contributing every thing
in his power to repair the injustice I had suffered from those of my
own family. And in pursuance of these ideas he has made me the most
disinterested and liberal proposals of friendship and assistance.
How is it, my Hippolito, that the same man shall be alternately governed
by the meanest and most exalted motives: that he shall now appear an
essence celestial and divine, and now debase himself by a conduct the
most indefensible and unworthy? But such I am afraid is man. Mixed
in all his qualities, and inconsistent in all his purposes. The most
virtuous and most venerable of us all are too often guilty of things
weak, sordid, and disgraceful. And it is to be hoped on the other hand,
that there are few so base and degenerate, as not sometimes to perform
actions of the most undoubted utility, and to feel sentiments dignified
and benevolent. It is in vain that the philosopher fits in his airy
eminence, and seeks to reduce the shapeless mass into form, and
endeavours to lay down rules for so variable and inconstant a system.
Nature mocks his efforts, and the pertinacity of events belies his
imaginary hypotheses.
But I am guilty of injustice to my friend. An action which he has so
sincerely regretted, and so greatly atoned, ought not to be considered
with so much severity. I trust I am not misled by the personal
interest I may appear to have in his present conduct. I think I should
contemplate it with the same admiration, and allow it the same weight,
if its benevolence entirely regarded another. Indeed I am still in the
greatest uncertainty how to determine. I am still inclined to prefer my
former plan, of entering resolutely upon new scenes and new pursuits,
to that of taking up any durable residence in the palace of my friend.
There is something misbecoming a man in the bloom of youth, and
labouring under no natural disadvantages and infirmities, in the
subsisting in any manner upon the bounty of another. The pride of my
heart, a pride that I do not seek to extinguish, leads me to prefer an
honest independence, in however mean a station, to the most splendid,
and the most silken bondage.
Why should not he that is born a nobleman be also born a man? A man is a
character superior to all those that civilization has invented. To be a
man is the profession of a citizen of the world. A man of rank is a poor
shivering, exotic plant, that cannot subsist out of his native soil. If
the imaginary barriers of society were thrown down, if we were reduced
back again to a state of nature, the nobleman would appear a shiftless
and a helpless being; he only who knew how to be a man would show like
the creature of God, a being sent into the world with the capacities of
subsistence and enjoyment. The nobleman, an artificial and fantastic
creation, would then lose all that homage in which he plumed himself, he
would be seen without disguise, and be despised by all.
Oh, my Hippolito, in spite of all this parade of firmness and
resolution, I cannot quit my native country but with the sincerest
regret. I had one tie, why do I mention it? Never did I commit this
confidence to any mortal. It was the dream of a poetical imagination. It
was a vision drawn in the fantastic and airy colours that flow from the
pencil of youth. Fondly I once entertained a hope. I lived upon it. But
it is vanished for ever.
I shall go from hence with the marquis of Pescara to Naples. I shall
there probably make a residence of several weeks. In that time I
shall have fixed my plans, and immediately after shall enter upon the
execution of them.