I must be forgiven if I now introduce myself on the stage. Sophia
Westwyn is the friend of Constantia, and the writer of this narrative.
So far as my fate was connected with that of my friend, it is worthy to
be known. That connection has constituted the joy and misery of my
existence, and has prompted me to undertake this task.
I assume no merit from the desire of knowledge and superiority to
temptation. There is little of which I can boast; but that little I
derived, instrumentally, from Constantia. Poor as my attainments are, it
is to her that I am indebted for them all. Life itself was the gift of
her father, but my virtue and felicity are her gifts. That I am neither
indigent nor profligate, flows from her bounty.
I am not unaware of the divine superintendence,--of the claims upon my
gratitude and service which pertain to my God. I know that all physical
and moral agents are merely instrumental to the purpose that he wills;
but, though the great Author of being and felicity must not be
forgotten, it is neither possible nor just to overlook the claims upon
our love with which our fellow-beings are invested.
The supreme love does not absorb, but chastens and enforces, all
subordinate affections. In proportion to the rectitude of my perceptions
and the ardour of my piety, must I clearly discern and fervently love
the excellence discovered in my fellow-beings, and industriously promote
their improvement and felicity.
From my infancy to my seventeenth year, I lived in the house of Mr.
Dudley. On the day of my birth I was deserted by my mother. Her temper
was more akin to that of tigress than woman. Yet that is unjust; for
beasts cherish their offspring. No natures but human are capable of that
depravity which makes insensible to the claims of innocence and
helplessness.
But let me not recall her to memory. Have I not enough of sorrow? Yet to
omit my causes of disquiet, the unprecedented forlornness of my
condition, and the persecutions of an unnatural parent, would be to
leave my character a problem, and the sources of my love of Miss Dudley
unexplored. Yet I must not dwell upon that complication of iniquities,
that savage ferocity and unextinguishable hatred of me, which
characterized my unhappy mother.
I was not safe under the protection of Mr. Dudley, nor happy in the
caresses of his daughter. My mother asserted the privilege of that
relation: she laboured for years to obtain the control of my person and
actions, to snatch me from a peaceful and chaste asylum, and detain me
in her own house, where, indeed, I should not have been in want of
raiment and food; but where--
O my mother! Let me not dishonour thy name! Yet it is not in my power to
enhance thy infamy. Thy crimes, unequalled as they were, were perhaps
expiated by thy penitence. Thy offences are too well known; but perhaps
they who witnessed thy freaks of intoxication, thy defiance of public
shame, the enormity of thy pollutions, the infatuation that made thee
glory in the pursuit of a loathsome and detestable trade, may be
strangers to the remorse and the abstinence which accompanied the close
of thy ignominious life.
For ten years was my peace incessantly molested by the menaces or
machinations of my mother. The longer she meditated my destruction, the
more tenacious of her purpose and indefatigable in her efforts she
became. That my mind was harassed with perpetual alarms was not enough.
The fame and tranquillity of Mr. Dudley and his daughter were hourly
assailed. My mother resigned herself to the impulses of malignity and
rage. Headlong passions, and a vigorous though perverted understanding,
were hers. Hence, her stratagems to undermine the reputation of my
protector, and to bereave him of domestic comfort, were subtle and
profound. Had she not herself been careless of that good which she
endeavoured to wrest from others, her artifices could scarcely have been
frustrated.
In proportion to the hazard which accrued to my protector and friend,
the more ardent their zeal in my defence and their affection for my
person became. They watched over me with ineffable solicitude. At all
hours and in every occupation, I was the companion of Constantia. All my
wants were supplied in the same proportion as hers. The tenderness of
Mr. Dudley seemed equally divided between us. I partook of his
instructions, and the means of every intellectual and personal
gratification were lavished upon me.
The speed of my mother's career in infamy was at length slackened. She
left New York, which had long been the theatre of her vices. Actuated by
a now caprice, she determined to travel through the Southern States.
Early indulgence was the cause of her ruin, but her parents had given
her the embellishments of a fashionable education. She delighted to
assume all parts, and personate the most opposite characters. She now
resolved to carry a new name, and the mask of virtue, into scenes
hitherto unvisited.
She journeyed as far as Charleston. Here she met an inexperienced youth,
lately arrived from England, and in possession of an ample fortune. Her
speciousness and artifices seduced him into a precipitate marriage. Her
true character, however, could not be long concealed by herself, and her
vices had been too conspicuous for her long to escape recognition. Her
husband was infatuated by her blandishments. To abandon her, or to
contemplate her depravity with unconcern, were equally beyond his power.
Romantic in his sentiments, his fortitude was unequal to his
disappointments, and he speedily sunk into the grave. By a similar
refinement in generosity, he bequeathed to her his property.
With this accession of wealth, she returned to her ancient abode. The
mask lately worn seemed preparing to be thrown aside, and her profligate
habits to be resumed with more eagerness than ever; but an unexpected
and total revolution was effected, by the exhortations of a Methodist
divine. Her heart seemed, on a sudden, to be remoulded, her vices and
the abettors of them were abjured, she shut out the intrusions of
society, and prepared to expiate, by the rigours of abstinence and the
bitterness of tears, the offences of her past life.
In this, as in her former career, she was unacquainted with restraint
and moderation. Her remorses gained strength in proportion as she
cherished them. She brooded over the images of her guilt, till the
possibility of forgiveness and remission disappeared. Her treatment of
her daughter and her husband constituted the chief source of her
torment. Her awakened conscience refused her a momentary respite from
its persecutions. Her thoughts became, by rapid degrees, tempestuous and
gloomy, and it was at length evident that her condition was maniacal.
In this state, she was to me an object, no longer of terror, but
compassion. She was surrounded by hirelings, devoid of personal
attachment, and anxious only to convert her misfortunes to their own
advantage. This evil it was my duty to obviate. My presence, for a time,
only enhanced the vehemence of her malady; but at length it was only by
my attendance and soothing that she was diverted from the fellest
purposes. Shocking execrations and outrages, resolutions and efforts to
destroy herself and those around her, were sure to take place in my
absence. The moment I appeared before her, her fury abated, her
gesticulations were becalmed, and her voice exerted only in incoherent
and pathetic lamentations.
These scenes, though so different from those which I had formerly been
condemned to witness, were scarcely less excruciating. The friendship of
Constantia Dudley was my only consolation. She took up her abode with
me, and shared with me every disgustful and perilous office which my
mother's insanity prescribed.
Of this consolation, however, it was my fate to be bereaved. My mother's
state was deplorable, and no remedy hitherto employed was efficacious. A
voyage to England was conceived likely to benefit, by change of
temperature and scenes, and by the opportunity it would afford of trying
the superior skill of English physicians. This scheme, after various
struggles on my part, was adopted. It was detestable to my imagination,
because it severed me from that friend in whose existence mine was
involved, and without whose participation knowledge lost its attractions
and society became a torment.
The prescriptions of my duty could not be disguised or disobeyed, and we
parted. A mutual engagement was formed to record every sentiment and
relate every event that happened in the life of either, and no
opportunity of communicating information was to be omitted. This
engagement was punctually performed on my part. I sought out every
method of conveyance to my friend, and took infinite pains to procure
tidings from her; but all were ineffectual.
My mother's malady declined, but was succeeded by a pulmonary disease,
which threatened her speedy destruction. By the restoration of her
understanding, the purpose of her voyage was obtained, and my impatience
to return, which the inexplicable and ominous silence of my friend daily
increased, prompted me to exert all my powers of persuasion to induce
her to revisit America.
My mother's frenzy was a salutary crisis in her moral history. She
looked back upon her past conduct with unspeakable loathing, but this
retrospect only invigorated her devotion and her virtue; but the thought
of returning to the scene of her unhappiness and infamy could not be
endured. Besides, life, in her eyes, possessed considerable attractions,
and her physicians flattered her with recovery from her present disease,
if she would change the atmosphere of England for that of Languedoc and
Naples.
I followed her with murmurs and reluctance. To desert her in her present
critical state would have been inhuman. My mother's aversions and
attachments, habits and views, were dissonant with my own. Conformity of
sentiments and impressions of maternal tenderness did not exist to bind
us to each other. My attendance was assiduous, but it was the sense of
duty that rendered my attendance a supportable task.
Her decay was eminently gradual. No time seemed to diminish her appetite
for novelty and change. During three years we traversed every part of
France, Switzerland, and Italy. I could not but attend to surrounding
scenes, and mark the progress of the mighty revolution, whose effects,
like agitation in a fluid, gradually spread from Paris, the centre, over
the face of the neighbouring kingdoms; but there passed not a day or an
hour in which the image of Constantia was not recalled, in which the
most pungent regrets were not felt at the inexplicable silence which had
been observed by her, and the most vehement longings indulged to return
to my native country. My exertions to ascertain her condition by
indirect means, by interrogating natives of America with whom I chanced
to meet, were unwearied, but, for a long period, ineffectual.
During this pilgrimage, Rome was thrice visited. My mother's
indisposition was hastening to a crisis, and she formed the resolution
of closing her life at the bottom of Vesuvius. We stopped, for the sake
of a few days' repose, at Rome. On the morning after our arrival, I
accompanied some friends to view the public edifices. Casting my eyes
over the vast and ruinous interior of the Coliseum, my attention was
fixed by the figure of a young man whom, after a moment's pause, I
recollected to have seen in the streets of New York. At a distance from
home, mere community of country is no inconsiderable bond of affection.
The social spirit prompts us to cling even to inanimate objects, when
they remind us of ancient fellowships and juvenile attachments.
A servant was despatched to summon this stranger, who recognised a
countrywoman with a pleasure equal to that which I had received. On
nearer view, this person, whose name was Courtland, did not belie my
favourable prepossessions. Our intercourse was soon established on a
footing of confidence and intimacy.
The destiny of Constantia was always uppermost in my thoughts. This
person's acquaintance was originally sought chiefly in the hope of
obtaining from him some information respecting my friend. On inquiry, I
discovered that he had left his native city seven months after me.
Having tasked his recollection and compared a number of facts, the name
of Dudley at length recurred to him. He had casually heard the history
of Craig's imposture and its consequences. These were now related as
circumstantially as a memory occupied by subsequent incidents enabled
him. The tale had been told to him, in a domestic circle which he was
accustomed to frequent, by the person who purchased Mr. Dudley's lute
and restored it to its previous owner on the conditions formerly
mentioned.
This tale filled me with anguish and doubt. My impatience to search out
this unfortunate girl, and share with her her sorrows or relieve them,
was anew excited by this mournful intelligence. That Constantia Dudley
was reduced to beggary was too abhorrent to my feelings to receive
credit; yet the sale of her father's property, comprising even his
furniture and clothing, seemed to prove that she had fallen even to this
depth. This enabled me in some degree to account for her silence. Her
generous spirit would induce her to conceal misfortunes from her friend
which no communication would alleviate. It was possible that she had
selected some new abode, and that, in consequence, the letters I had
written, and which amounted to volumes, had never reached her hands.
My mother's state would not suffer me to obey the impulse of my heart.
Her frame was verging towards dissolution. Courtland's engagements
allowed him to accompany us to Naples, and here the long series of my
mother's pilgrimages closed in death. Her obsequies were no sooner
performed, than I determined to set out on my long-projected voyage. My
mother's property, which, in consequence of her decease, devolved upon
me, was not inconsiderable. There is scarcely any good so dear to a
rational being as competence. I was not unacquainted with its benefits,
but this acquisition was valuable to mo chiefly as it enabled me to
reunite my fate to that of Constantia.
Courtland was my countryman and friend. He was destitute of fortune, and
had been led to Europe partly by the spirit of adventure, and partly on
a mercantile project. He had made sale of his property on advantageous
terms, in the ports of France, and resolved to consume the produce in
examining this scene of heroic exploits and memorable revolutions. His
slender stock, though frugally and even parsimoniously administered, was
nearly exhausted; and, at the time of our meeting at Rome, he was making
reluctant preparations to return.
Sufficient opportunity was afforded us, in an unrestrained and domestic
intercourse of three months, which succeeded our Roman interview, to
gain a knowledge of each other. There was that conformity of tastes and
views between us which could scarcely fail, at an age and in a situation
like ours, to give birth to tenderness. My resolution to hasten to
America was peculiarly unwelcome to my friend. He had offered to be my
companion, but this offer my regard to his interest obliged me to
decline; but I was willing to compensate him for this denial, as well as
to gratify my own heart, by an immediate marriage.
So long a residence in England and Italy had given birth to friendships
and connections of the dearest kind. I had no view but to spend my life
with Courtland, in the midst of my maternal kindred, who were English. A
voyage to America and reunion with Constantia were previously
indispensable; but I hoped that my friend might be prevailed upon, and
that her disconnected situation would permit her to return with me to
Europe. If this end could not be accomplished, it was my inflexible
purpose to live and die with her. Suitably to this arrangement,
Courtland was to repair to London, and wait patiently till I should be
able to rejoin him there, or to summon him to meet me in America.
A week after my mother's death, I became a wife, and embarked the next
day, at Naples, in a Ragusan ship, destined for New York. The voyage was
tempestuous and tedious. The vessel was necessitated to make a short
stay at Toulon. The state of that city, however, then in possession of
the English and besieged by the revolutionary forces, was adverse to
commercial views. Happily, we resumed our voyage on the day previous to
that on which the place was evacuated by the British. Our seasonable
departure rescued us from witnessing a scene of horrors of which the
history of former wars furnishes us with few examples.
A cold and boisterous navigation awaited us. My palpitations and
inquietudes augmented as we approached the American coast. I shall not
forget the sensations which I experienced on the sight of the Beacon at
Sandy Hook. It was first seen at midnight, in a stormy and beclouded
atmosphere, emerging from the waves, whose fluctuation allowed it, for
some time, to be visible only by fits. This token of approaching land
affected me as much as if I had reached the threshold of my friend's
dwelling.
At length we entered the port, and I viewed, with high-raised but
inexplicable feelings, objects with which I had been from infancy
familiar. The flagstaff erected on the Battery recalled to my
imagination the pleasures of the evening and morning walks which I had
taken on that spot with the lost Constantia. The dream was fondly
cherished, that the figure which I saw loitering along the terrace was
hers.
On disembarking, I gazed at every female passenger, in hope that it was
she whom I sought. An absence of three years had obliterated from my
memory none of the images which attended me on my departure.