_Signor Hippolito Borelli to the Count de St. Julian_
_Palermo_
My dear lord,
I have often heard it repeated as an observation of sagacity and
experience, that when one friend has a piece of disagreeable
intelligence to disclose to another, it is better to describe it
directly, and in simple terms, than to introduce it with that kind of
periphrasis and circumlocution, which oftener tends to excite a vague
and impatient horror in the reader, than to prepare him to bear his
misfortune with decency and fortitude. There are however no rules of
this kind that do not admit of exceptions, and I am too apprehensive
that the subject of my present letter may be classed among those
exceptions. St. Julian, I have a tale of horror to unfold! Lay down the
fatal scrowl at this place, and collect all the dignity and resolution
of your mind. You will stand in need of it. Fertile and ingenious as
your imagination often is in tormenting itself, I will defy you to
conceive an event more big with horror, more baleful and tremendous in
all its consequences.
My friend, I have taken up my pen twenty times, and laid it down as
often again, uncertain in what manner to break my intelligence, and
where I ought to begin. I have been undetermined whether to write to you
at all, or to leave you to learn the disaster and your fate, as fortune
shall direct. It is an ungrateful and unpleasant task. Numbers would
exclaim upon it as imprudence and folly. I might at least suspend the
consummation of your affliction a little longer, and leave you a little
longer to the enjoyment of a deceitful repose.
But I am terrified at the apprehension of how this news may overtake you
at last. I have always considered the count de St. Julian as one of the
most amiable of mankind. I have looked up to him as a model of virtue,
and I have exulted that I had the honour to be of the same species with
so fair a fame, and so true a heart. I would willingly lighten to a
man so excellent the load of calamity. Why is it, that heaven in
the mysteriousness of its providence, so often visits with superior
affliction, the noblest of her sons? I should be truly sorry, that my
friend should act in a manner unworthy of the tenor of his conduct, and
the exaltation of his character. You are now, my lord at a distance. You
have time to revolve the various circumstances of your condition, and to
fix with the coolest and most mature deliberation the conduct you shall
determine to hold.
I remember in how pathetic a manner you complained, in the last letter
I received from you before you quitted Italy, of the horrors of
banishment. Little did my friend then know the additional horrors that
fate had in store for him. Two persons there were whom you loved above
all the world, in whom you placed the most unbounded confidence. My poor
friend would never have left Italy but to oblige his Rinaldo, would
never have quitted the daughter of the duke of Benevento, if he could
not have intrusted her to the custody of his Rinaldo. What then will be
his astonishment when he learns that two months have now elapsed since
the heiress of this illustrious house has assumed the title of the
marchioness of Pescara?
Since this extraordinary news first reached me, I have employed some
pains to discover the means by which an event so surprising has been
effected. I have hitherto however met with a very partial success. There
hangs over it all the darkness of mystery, and all the cowardice of
guilt. There cannot be any doubt that that friend, whom for so long a
time you cherished in your bosom, has proved the most detestable of
villains, the blot and the deformity of the human character. How far the
marchioness has been involved in his guilt, I am not able to ascertain.
Surely however the fickleness and inconstancy of her conduct cannot
be unstained with the pollution of depravity. After the most diligent
search I have learned a report, which was at that time faintly whispered
at Cosenza, that you were upon the point of marriage with the only
daughter of the duke of Aranda. Whether any inferences can be built upon
so trivial a foundation I am totally ignorant.
But might I be permitted to advise you, you ought to cast these base and
dishonourable characters from your heart for ever. The marquis is surely
unworthy of your sword. He ought not to die, but in a manner deeply
stamped with the infamy in which he has lived. I will not pretend to
alledge to a person so thoroughly master of every question of this
kind, how poor and inadequate is such a revenge: what a barbarous and
unmeaning custom it is, that thus puts the life of the innocent and
injured in the scale with that of the destroyer, and leaves the decision
of immutable differences to skill, to fortune, and a thousand trivial
and contemptible circumstances. You are not to be told how much more
there is of true heroism in refusing than in giving a challenge, in
bearing an injury with superiority and virtuous fortitude, than in
engaging in a Gothic and savage revenge.
It is not easy perhaps to find a woman, deserving enough to be united
for life to the fate of my friend. Certain I am, if I may be permitted
to deliver my sentiments, there is a levity and folly conspicuous in the
temper of her you have lost, that renders her unworthy of being lamented
by a man of discernment and sobriety. What to desert without management
and without regret, one to whom she had vowed eternal constancy, a man,
of whose amiable character, and glorious qualities she had so many
opportunities of being convinced? Oh, shame where is thy blush? If
iniquity like this, walks the world with impunity, where is the vice
that shall be branded with infamy, to deter the most daring and
profligate offender? Let us state the transaction in a light the most
favourable to the fair inconstant. What thin veil, what paltry arts
were employed by this mighty politician to confound and mislead an
understanding, clear and penetrating upon all other subjects, blind and
feeble only upon that in which the happiness of her life was involved?
My St. Julian, the exertion of that fortitude with which nature has so
richly endowed you, was never so completely called for in any other
instance. This is the crisis of your life. This is the very tide, which
accordingly as it is improved or neglected, will give a colour to all
your future story. Let not that amiable man, who has found the art of
introducing heroism into common life, and dignifying the most trivial
circumstances by the sublimity and refinedness of his sentiments, now,
in the most important affair, sink below the common level. Now is the
time to display the true greatness of your mind. Now is the time to
prove the consistency of your character.
A mind, destitute of resources, and unendowed with that elasticity which
is the badge of an immortal nature, when placed in your circumstances,
might probably sink into dereliction and despair. Here in the moral and
useful point of view would be placed the termination of their course.
What a different prospect does the future life of my St. Julian suggest
to me? I see him rising superior to misfortune. I see him refined
like silver from, the furnace. His affections and his thoughts, being
detached by calamity from all consideration of self, he lays out his
exertions in acts of benevolence. His life is one tissue of sympathy and
compassion. He is an extensive benefit to mankind. His influence, like
that of the sun, cheers the hopeless, and illuminates the desolate. How
necessary are such characters as these, to soften the rigour of the
sublunary scene, and to stamp an impression of dignity on the degeneracy
of the human character?