_The Count de St. Julian to the Marchioness of Pescara_
_Leontini_
Madam,
I have waited with patience for the expiration of twelve months, that
I might not knowingly be guilty of any indecorum, or intrude upon that
sorrow, which the tragical fate of the late marquis so justly claimed.
But how shall I introduce the subject upon which I am now to address
you? Where shall I begin this letter? Or with what arguments may I best
propitiate the anger I have so justly incensed, and obtain that boon
upon which the happiness of my future life is so entirely suspended?
Among all the offences of which I have been guilty, against the simplest
and gentlest mind that ever adorned this mortal stage, there is none
which I less pardon to myself, than that unjust and precipitate letter,
which I was so inconsiderate as to address to you immediately after I
had steeped my hand in the murder of your husband. Was it for me, who
had so much reason to be convinced of the innocence and disinterested
truth of Matilda, to harbour suspicions so black, or rather to affront
her with charges, the most hideous and infamous? What crime is
there more inexcusable, than that of attributing to virtue all the
concomitants of vice, of casting all those bitter taunts, all that
aggravated and triumphant opprobrium in the face of rectitude, that
ought to be reserved only for the most profligate of villains? Yes,
Matilda, I trampled at once upon the exemptions of your sex, upon
the sanctity of virtue, upon the most inoffensive and undesigning of
characters. And yet all this were little.
What a time was it that I chose for an injury so atrocious! A beautiful
and most amiable woman had just been deprived, by an unforeseen event,
of that husband, with whom but a little before she had entered into the
most sacred engagements. The state of a widow is always an afflictive
and unprotected one. Rank does not soften, frequently aggravates the
calamity. A tragedy had just been acted, that rendered the name of
Matilda the butt of common fame, the subject of universal discussion.
How painful and humiliating must this situation have been to that
anxious and trembling mind; a mind whose highest ambition coveted only
the tranquility that reigns in the shade of retreat, the silence and
obscurity that the wisest of philosophers have asserted to be the most
valuable reputation of her sex? Such was the affliction, in which I
might then have known that the mistress of my heart was involved.
But I have since learned a circumstance before which all other
aggravations of my inhumanity fade away. The moment that I chose for
wanton insult and groundless arraignment, was the very moment in which
Matilda discovered all the horrid train of hypocrisy and falsehood by
which she had been betrayed. What a shock must it have given to her
gentle and benevolent mind, that had never been conscious to one
vicious temptation, that had never indulged the most distant thought of
malignity, to have found herself surprized into a conduct, to the nature
of which she had been a stranger, and which her heart disavowed? Of all
the objects of compassion that the universe can furnish, there is none
more truly affecting, than that of an artless and unsuspecting mind
insnared by involuntary guilt. The astonishment with which it is
overwhelmed, is vast and unqualified. The remorse with which it
is tortured, are totally unprepared and unexpected, and have been
introduced by no previous gradation. It is true, the involuntarily
culpable may in some sense be pronounced wholly innocent. The guilty
mind is full of prompt excuses, and ready evasions, but the untainted
spirit, not inured to the sophistry of vice, cannot accommodate itself
with these subterfuges. If such be the state of vulgar minds involved
in this unfortunate situation, what must have been that of so soft and
inoffensive a spirit?
Oh, Matilda, if tears could expiate such a crime, ere this I had been
clear as the guileless infant. If incessant and bitter reproaches could
overweigh a guilt of the first magnitude, mine had been obliterated. But
no; the words I wrote were words of blood. Each of them was a barbed
arrow pointed at the heart. There was no management, there was no
qualification. And when we add to this the object against which all my
injuries were directed, what punishment can be discovered sufficiently
severe? The mind that invented it, must have been callous beyond all
common hardness. The hand that wrote it must be accursed for ever.
And yet, Matilda, it is not merely pardon that I seek. Even that would
be balm to my troubled spirit. It would somewhat soften the harsh
outlines, and the aggravated features of a crime, which I shall never,
never forgive to my own heart. But no, think, most amiable of women, of
the height of felicity I once had full in view, and excuse my present
presumption. While indeed my mind was guiltless, and my hand unstained
with blood, while I had not yet insulted the woman to whose affections I
aspired, nor awakened the anger of the gentlest nature, of a heart made
up of goodness, and tenderness and sympathy, I might have aspired with
somewhat less of arrogance. Neither your heart nor mine, Matilda, were
ever very susceptible to the capricious distinctions of fortune.
But, alas, how hard is it for a mind naturally ambitious to mould and to
level itself to a state of degradation. Believe me, I have put forth an
hundred efforts, I have endeavoured to blot your memory from a soul, in
which it yet does, and ever will reign unrivalled. No, it is to fight
with impassive air, it is to lash the foaming tempest into a calm. Time,
which effaces all other impressions, increases that which is indelibly
written upon my heart. A man whose countenance is pale and wan, and who
every day approaches with hasty and unremitted strides to the tomb, may
forget his situation, may call up a sickly smile upon his countenance,
and lull his mind to lethargy and insensibility. Such, Matilda, is all
the peace reserved for me, if yet I have no power in influencing the
determinations of your mind. Stupidity, thou must be my happiness!
Torpor, I will bestow upon thee all the endearing names, that common
mortals give to rapture!
And yet, Matilda, if I retain any of that acute sensibility to virtue
and to truth, in which I once prided myself, there can be no conduct
more proper to the heir of the illustrious house of Colonna, than that
which my heart demands. You have been misguided into folly. What is more
natural to an ingenuous heart, than to cast back the following scandal
upon the foul and detested authors, with whom the wrong originated. You
have done that, which if all your passions had been hushed into silence,
and the whole merits of the cause had lain before you, you would never
have done. What reparation, Matilda, does a clear and generous spirit
dictate, but that of honestly and fearlessly acknowledging the mistake,
treading back with readiness and haste the fatal path, and embracing
that line of conduct which a deliberate judgment, and an informed
understanding would always have dictated?
Is it not true,--tell me, thou mistress of my soul,--that upon your
determination in this one instance all your future reputation is
suspended? Accept the hand of him that adores you, and the truth will
shine forth in all its native splendour, and none but the blind can
mistake it. Refuse him, and vulgar souls will for ever confound you
with the unfortunate Rinaldo, and his detested seducer. Fame, beloved
charmer, is not an object that virtuous souls despise. To brave the
tongue of slander cannot be natural to the gentle and timid spirit of
Matilda.
But, oh, I dare not depend upon the precision of logic, and the
frigidity of argumentation. Let me endeavour to awaken the compassion
and humanity of your temper. Recollect all the innocent and ecstatic
endearments with which erewhile our hours were winged. Never was
sublunary happiness so pure and unmingled. It was tempered with the
mildest and most unbounded sympathy, it was refined and elevated with
all the sublimity of virtue. These happy, thrice happy days, you, and
only you, can recall. Speak but the word, and time shall reverse his
course, and a new order of things shall commence. Think how much virtue
depends upon your fiat. Satisfied with felicity ourselves, our hearts
will overflow with benevolence for the world. Never will misery pass us
unrelieved, never shall we remit the delightful task of seeking out the
modest and the oppressed in their obscure retreat. We will set mankind
an example of integrity and goodness. We will retrieve the original
honours of the wedded state. Methinks, I could rouze the most lethargic
and unanimated with my warning voice! Methinks, I could breathe a spirit
into the dead! Oh, Matilda, let me inspire ambition into your breast!
Let me teach that tender and right gentle heart, to glow with a mutual
enthusiasm!