_The Answer_
_Cosenza_
My lord, It is now three weeks since I received that letter, in which
you renew the generous offer of your hand. Believe me, I am truly
sensible of the obligation, and it shall for ever live in my grateful
heart. I am not now the same Matilda you originally addressed. I have
acted towards you in an inexcusable manner. I have forfeited that
spotless character which was once my own. All this you knew, and all
this did not deter you. My lord, for this generosity and oblivion, once
again, and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.
But it is not only in these respects, that the marchioness of Pescara
differs from the daughter of the duke of Benevento. Those poor charms,
my lord, which were once ascribed to me, have long been no more. The
hand of grief is much more speedy and operative in its progress than the
icy hand of age. Its wrinkles are already visible in my brow. The floods
of tears I have shed have already furrowed my cheeks. But oh, my lord,
it is not grief; that is not the appellation it claims. They are the
pangs of remorse, they are the cries of never dying reproach with
which I am agitated. Think how this tarnishes the heart and blunts the
imagination. Think how this subdues all the aspirations of innocence,
and unnerves all the exertions of virtue. Perhaps I was, flattery and
friendship had at least taught me to think myself, something above the
common level. But indeed, my lord, I am now a gross and a vulgar soul.
All the nicer touches are fretted and worn away. All those little
distinctions, those minuter delicacies I might once possess are
obliterated. My heart is coarse and callous. Others, of the same
standard that I am now, may have the same confidence in themselves, the
same unconsciousness of a superior, as nature's most favoured children.
But I am continually humbled by the sense of what I was.
These things, my lord, I mention as considerations that have some
weight with me, and ought perfectly to reconcile you to my unalterable
determination. But these, I will ingenuously confess, are not the
considerations that absolutely decide me. You cannot but sufficiently
recollect the title I bear, and the situation in which I am placed. The
duties of the marchioness of Pescara are very different from those by
which I was formerly bound. Does it become a woman of rank and condition
to fling dishonour upon the memory of him to whom she gave her hand, or,
as you have expressed it, to cast back the scandal to which she may be
exposed upon the author with whom it originated? No, my lord: I must
remember the family into which I have entered, and I will never give
them cause to curse the day upon which Matilda della Colonna was
numbered among them. What, a wife, a widow, to proclaim with her own
mouth her husband for a villain? You cannot think it. It were almost
enough to call forth the mouldering ashes from the cincture of the tomb.
My lord, it would not become me to cast upon a name so virtuous and
venerable as yours, the whisper of a blame. I will not pretend to argue
with you the impropriety and offence of a Gothic revenge. But it is
necessary upon a subject so important as that which now employs my pen,
to be honest and explicit. It is not a time for compliment, it is not
a moment for disguise and fluctuation. Whatever were the merits of the
contest, I cannot forget that your hand is deformed with the blood of my
husband. My lord, you have my sincerest good wishes. I bear you none
of that ill will and covert revenge, that are equally the disgrace of
reason and Christianity. But you have placed an unsuperable barrier
between us. You have sunk a gulph, fathomless and immeasurable. For us
to meet, would not be more contrary to the factitious dignity of rank,
than shocking to the simple and unadulterated feelings of our nature.
The world, the general voice would cry shame upon it. Propriety,
decency, unchanged and eternal truth forbid it.
Yet once more. I have a son. He is all the consolation and comfort that
is left me. To watch over his infancy is my most delightful, and most
virtuous task. I have filled the character, neither of a mistress, nor a
wife, in the manner my ambition aimed at. I have yet one part left, and
that perhaps the most venerable of all, the part of a mother. Excellent,
and exalted name! thee I will never disgrace! Not for one moment will I
forget thee, not in one iota shalt thou be betrayed!
My lord, I write this letter in my favourite haunt, where indeed I pass
hour after hour in the only pleasure that is left me, the nursery of my
child. At this moment I cast my eyes upon him, and he answers me with
the most artless and unapprehensive smile in the world. No, beloved
infant! I will never injure thee! I will never be the author of thy
future anguish! He seems, St. Julian, to solicit, that I would love him
always, and behold him with an unaltered tenderness. Yes, my child, I
will be always thy mother. From that character I will never derogate.
That name shall never be lost in another, however splendid, or however
attractive. Were I to hear you, my lord, they would tear him from my
arms, and I should commend their justice. I should see him no more.
These eyes would no longer be refreshed with that artless and adorable
visage. I should no longer please myself with pouring the accents of
my sorrow into his unconscious ear. Obdurate, unfeeling, relentless,
unnatural mother! These would be the epithets by which I should best be
known. These would be the sentiments of every heart. This would be the
unbought voice, even of those vulgar souls, in which penury had most
narrowed the conceptions, and repressed the enthusiasm of virtue. It is
true, my lord, Matilda is sunk very low. The finger of scorn has pointed
at her, and the whisper of unfeeling curiosity respecting her, has run
from man to man. But yet it shall have its limits. My resolution is
unalterable. To this I will never come.
My lord, among those arguments which you so well know how to urge, you
have told me, that the cause you plead, is the cause of benevolence
and charity. You say, that felicity would open our hearts, and teach our
bosoms to overflow. But surely this is not the general progress of the
human character. I had been taught to believe, and I hope I have found
it true, that misfortune softens the disposition, and bids compassion
take a deeper root. It shall be ever my aim, to make this improvement of
those wasting sorrows, with which heaven has seen fit to visit me. For
you, I am not to learn what is your generous and god like disposition.
My lord, I will confess a circumstance, for which I know not whether
I ought to blush. Animated by that sympathetic concern, which I once
innocently took in all that related to you, I have made the most minute
enquiries respecting your retreat at Leontini. I shall never be afraid,
that the man, whose name dwells in the sweetest accents upon the lips of
the distressed, and is the consolation and the solace of the helpless
and the orphan, will degenerate into hardness. Go on, my lord! You are
in the path of virtue. You are in the line that heaven chalked out for
you. You will be the ornament of humanity, and your country's boast to
the latest posterity.