_The Marquis of Pescara to the Marquis of San Severino_
_Cosenza_
My dear lord,
I need not tell you that this place is celebrated for one of the most
beautiful spots of the habitable globe. Every thing now flourishes.
Nature puts on her gayest colours, and displays all her charms. The
walks among the more cultivated scenes of my own grounds, and amidst the
wilder objects of this favoured region are inexpressibly agreeable. The
society of my pensive and sentimental friend is particularly congenial
with the scenery around me. Do not imagine that I am so devoid of taste
as not to derive exquisite pleasure from these sources. Yet believe me,
there are times in which I regret the vivacity of your conversation, and
the amusements of Naples.
Is this, my dear Ferdinand, an argument of a corrupted taste, or an
argument of sound and valuable improvement? Much may be said on both
sides. Of the mind justly polished, without verging to the squeamish and
effeminate, nature exhibits the most delightful sources of enjoyment. He
that turns aside from the simplicity of her compositions with disgust,
for the sake of the over curious and laboured entertainments of which
art is the inventor, may justly be pronounced unreasonably nice, and
ridiculously fastidious.
But then on the other hand, the finest taste is of all others the most
easily offended. The mind most delicate and refined, requires the
greatest variety of pleasures. So much for logic. Let me tell you,
however, be it wisdom or be it folly, I owe it entirely to you. It is a
revolution in my humour, to which I was totally a stranger when I left
Palermo.
I have not yet seen this rich and celebrated heiress of whom you told me
so much. It is several years since I remember to have been in company
where she was, and it is more than probable that I should not even know
her. If however I were to give full credit to the rhapsodies of my good
friend the count, whose description of her, by the way, has something
in it of romantic and dignified, which pleases me better than yours, as
luscious as it is, I should imagine her a perfect angel, beautiful
as Venus, chaste as Diana, majestic as the mother of the gods, and
enchanting as the graces. I know not why, but since I have studied the
persons of the fair under your tuition, I have felt the most impatient
desire to be acquainted with this _nonpareil_.
No person however has yet been admitted into the sanctuary of the
goddess, except the person destined by the late duke to be her husband.
He himself has seen her but for a second time. It should seem, that as
many ceremonies were necessary in approaching her, as in being presented
to his holiness; and that she were as invisible as the emperor
of Ispahan. I am however differently affected by the perpetual
conversations of St. Julian upon the subject, than I am apt to think you
would be. You would probably first laugh at his extravagance, and then
be fatigued to death with his perseverance. For my part, I am agreeably
entertained with the romance of his sentiments, and highly charmed with
their disinterestedness and their virtue.
Yes, my dear marquis, you may talk as you please of the wildness and
impracticability of the sentiments of my amiable solitaire, they are at
least in the highest degree amusing and beautiful. There is a voice
in every breast, whose feelings have not yet been entirely warped by
selfishness, responsive to them. It is in vain that the man of gaiety
and pleasure pronounces them impracticable, the generous heart gives the
lie to his assertions. He must be under the power of the poorest and
most despicable prejudices, who would reduce all human characters to a
level, who would deny the reality of all those virtues that the world
has idolized through revolving ages. Nothing can be disputed with
less plausibility, than that there are in the world certain noble and
elevated spirits, that rise above the vulgar notions and the narrow
conduct of the bulk of mankind, that soar to the sublimest heights of
rectitude, and from time to time realize those virtues, of which the
interested and illiberal deny the possibility.
I can no more doubt, than I do of the truth of these apothegms, that the
count de St. Julian is one of these honourable characters. He treads
without the airy circle of dissipation. He is invulnerable to the
temptations of folly; he is unshaken by the examples of profligacy.
They are such characters as his that were formed to rescue mankind from
slavery, to prop the pillars of a declining state, and to arrest Astraea
in her re-ascent to heaven. They are such characters whose virtues
surprize astonished mortals, and avert the vengeance of offended heaven.
Matilda della Colonna is, at least in the apprehension of her admirer, a
character quite as singular in her own sex as his can possibly appear to
me. They were made for each other. She is the only adequate reward that
can be bestowed upon his exalted virtues. Oh, my Ferdinand, there must
be a happiness reserved for such as these, which must make all other
felicity comparatively weak and despicable. It is the accord of the
purest sentiments. It is the union of guiltless souls. Its nature is
totally different from that of the casual encounter of the sexes, or
the prudent conjunctions in which the heart has no share. In the
considerations upon which it is founded, corporeal fitnesses occupy but
a narrow and subordinate rank, personal advantages and interest are
admitted for no share. It is the sympathy of hearts, it is the most
exalted species of social intercourse.