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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion, by William Hazlitt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion
+
+Author: William Hazlitt
+
+Release Date: January, 2000 [eBook #2049]
+[Most recently updated: December 10, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Christopher Hapka
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIBER AMORIS, OR, THE NEW PYGMALION ***
+
+
+
+
+Liber Amoris,
+or,
+The New Pygmalion
+
+by William Hazlitt
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT
+
+
+The circumstances, an outline of which is given in these pages,
+happened a very short time ago to a native of North Britain, who left
+his own country early in life, in consequence of political animosities
+and an ill-advised connection in marriage. It was some years after that
+he formed the fatal attachment which is the subject of the following
+narrative. The whole was transcribed very carefully with his own hand,
+a little before he set out for the Continent in hopes of benefiting by
+a change of scene, but he died soon after in the Netherlands—it is
+supposed, of disappointment preying on a sickly frame and morbid state
+of mind. It was his wish that what had been his strongest feeling while
+living, should be preserved in this shape when he was no more.—It has
+been suggested to the friend, into whose hands the manuscript was
+entrusted, that many things (particularly in the Conversations in the
+First Part) either childish or redundant, might have been omitted; but
+a promise was given that not a word should be altered, and the pledge
+was held sacred. The names and circumstances are so far disguised, it
+is presumed, as to prevent any consequences resulting from the
+publication, farther than the amusement or sympathy of the reader.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ PART I
+ THE PICTURE
+ THE INVITATION
+ THE MESSAGE
+ THE FLAGEOLET
+ THE CONFESSION
+ THE QUARREL
+ THE RECONCILIATION
+ LETTERS TO THE SAME
+ TO THE SAME
+ WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF ENDYMION
+ A PROPOSAL OF LOVE
+
+ PART II
+ LETTERS TO C. P., ESQ.
+ LETTER II
+ LETTER III
+ LETTER IV
+ LETTER V
+ LETTER VI
+ LETTER VII
+ LETTER VIII
+ TO EDINBURGH
+ A THOUGHT
+ ANOTHER
+ ANOTHER
+ LETTER IX
+ LETTER X
+ LETTER XI
+ TO S. L.
+ LETTER XII.
+ UNALTERED LOVE
+ PERFECT LOVE
+ FROM C. P., ESQ.
+ LETTER XIII
+ LETTER THE LAST
+
+ PART III
+ ADDRESSED TO J. S. K.——
+ TO THE SAME (In continuation)
+ TO THE SAME (In conclusion)
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+
+
+THE PICTURE
+
+
+H. Oh! is it you? I had something to shew you—I have got a picture
+here. Do you know any one it’s like?
+
+S. No, Sir.
+
+H. Don’t you think it like yourself?
+
+S. No: it’s much handsomer than I can pretend to be.
+
+H. That’s because you don’t see yourself with the same eyes that others
+do. _I_ don’t think it handsomer, and the expression is hardly so fine
+as yours sometimes is.
+
+S. Now you flatter me. Besides, the complexion is fair, and mine is
+dark.
+
+H. Thine is pale and beautiful, my love, not dark! But if your colour
+were a little heightened, and you wore the same dress, and your hair
+were let down over your shoulders, as it is here, it might be taken for
+a picture of you. Look here, only see how like it is. The forehead is
+like, with that little obstinate protrusion in the middle; the eyebrows
+are like, and the eyes are just like yours, when you look up and
+say—“No—never!”
+
+S. What then, do I always say—“No—never!” when I look up?
+
+H. I don’t know about that—I never heard you say so but once; but that
+was once too often for my peace. It was when you told me, “you could
+never be mine.” Ah! if you are never to be mine, I shall not long be
+myself. I cannot go on as I am. My faculties leave me: I think of
+nothing, I have no feeling about any thing but thee: thy sweet image
+has taken possession of me, haunts me, and will drive me to
+distraction. Yet I could almost wish to go mad for thy sake: for then I
+might fancy that I had thy love in return, which I cannot live without!
+
+S. Do not, I beg, talk in that manner, but tell me what this is a
+picture of.
+
+H. I hardly know; but it is a very small and delicate copy (painted in
+oil on a gold ground) of some fine old Italian picture, Guido’s or
+Raphael’s, but I think Raphael’s. Some say it is a Madonna; others call
+it a Magdalen, and say you may distinguish the tear upon the cheek,
+though no tear is there. But it seems to me more like Raphael’s St.
+Cecilia, “with looks commercing with the skies,” than anything
+else.—See, Sarah, how beautiful it is! Ah! dear girl, these are the
+ideas I have cherished in my heart, and in my brain; and I never found
+any thing to realise them on earth till I met with thee, my love! While
+thou didst seem sensible of my kindness, I was but too happy: but now
+thou hast cruelly cast me off.
+
+S. You have no reason to say so: you are the same to me as ever.
+
+H. That is, nothing. You are to me everything, and I am nothing to you.
+Is it not too true?
+
+S. No.
+
+H. Then kiss me, my sweetest. Oh! could you see your face now—your
+mouth full of suppressed sensibility, your downcast eyes, the soft
+blush upon that cheek, you would not say the picture is not like
+because it is too handsome, or because you want complexion. Thou art
+heavenly-fair, my love—like her from whom the picture was taken—the
+idol of the painter’s heart, as thou art of mine! Shall I make a
+drawing of it, altering the dress a little, to shew you how like it is?
+
+S. As you please.—
+
+
+
+
+ THE INVITATION
+
+
+H. But I am afraid I tire you with this prosing description of the
+French character and abuse of the English? You know there is but one
+subject on which I should ever wish to talk, if you would let me.
+
+S. I must say, you don’t seem to have a very high opinion of this
+country.
+
+H. Yes, it is the place that gave you birth.
+
+S. Do you like the French women better than the English?
+
+H. No: though they have finer eyes, talk better, and are better made.
+But they none of them look like you. I like the Italian women I have
+seen, much better than the French: they have darker eyes, darker hair,
+and the accents of their native tongue are much richer and more
+melodious. But I will give you a better account of them when I come
+back from Italy, if you would like to hear it.
+
+S. I should much. It is for that I have sometimes had a wish for
+travelling abroad, to understand something of the manners and
+characters of different people.
+
+H. My sweet girl! I will give you the best account I can—unless you
+would rather go and judge for yourself.
+
+S. I cannot.
+
+H. Yes, you shall go with me, and you shall go WITH HONOUR—you know
+what I mean.
+
+S. You know it is not in your power to take me so.
+
+H. But it soon may: and if you would consent to bear me company, I
+would swear never to think of an Italian woman while I am abroad, nor
+of an English one after I return home. Thou art to me more than thy
+whole sex.
+
+S. I require no such sacrifices.
+
+H. Is that what you thought I meant by SACRIFICES last night? But
+sacrifices are no sacrifices when they are repaid a thousand fold.
+
+S. I have no way of doing it.
+
+H. You have not the will.—
+
+S. I must go now.
+
+H. Stay, and hear me a little. I shall soon be where I can no more hear
+thy voice, far distant from her I love, to see what change of climate
+and bright skies will do for a sad heart. I shall perhaps see thee no
+more, but I shall still think of thee the same as ever—I shall say to
+myself, “Where is she now?—what is she doing?” But I shall hardly wish
+you to think of me, unless you could do so more favourably than I am
+afraid you will. Ah! dearest creature, I shall be “far distant from
+you,” as you once said of another, but you will not think of me as of
+him, “with the sincerest affection.” The smallest share of thy
+tenderness would make me blest; but couldst thou ever love me as thou
+didst him, I should feel like a God! My face would change to a
+different expression: my whole form would undergo alteration. I was
+getting well, I was growing young in the sweet proofs of your
+friendship: you see how I droop and wither under your displeasure! Thou
+art divine, my love, and canst make me either more or less than mortal.
+Indeed I am thy creature, thy slave—I only wish to live for your sake—I
+would gladly die for you—
+
+S. That would give me no pleasure. But indeed you greatly overrate my
+power.
+
+H. Your power over me is that of sovereign grace and beauty. When I am
+near thee, nothing can harm me. Thou art an angel of light, shadowing
+me with thy softness. But when I let go thy hand, I stagger on a
+precipice: out of thy sight the world is dark to me and comfortless.
+There is no breathing out of this house: the air of Italy will stifle
+me. Go with me and lighten it. I can know no pleasure away from thee—
+
+“But I will come again, my love,
+An’ it were ten thousand mile!”
+
+
+
+
+ THE MESSAGE
+
+
+S. Mrs. E—— has called for the book, Sir.
+
+H. Oh! it is there. Let her wait a minute or two. I see this is a
+busy-day with you. How beautiful your arms look in those short sleeves!
+
+S. I do not like to wear them.
+
+H. Then that is because you are merciful, and would spare frail mortals
+who might die with gazing.
+
+S. I have no power to kill.
+
+H. You have, you have—Your charms are irresistible as your will is
+inexorable. I wish I could see you always thus. But I would have no one
+else see you so. I am jealous of all eyes but my own. I should almost
+like you to wear a veil, and to be muffled up from head to foot; but
+even if you were, and not a glimpse of you could be seen, it would be
+to no purpose—you would only have to move, and you would be admired as
+the most graceful creature in the world. You smile—Well, if you were to
+be won by fine speeches—
+
+S. You could supply them!
+
+H. It is however no laughing matter with me; thy beauty kills me daily,
+and I shall think of nothing but thy charms, till the last word
+trembles on my tongue, and that will be thy name, my love—the name of
+my Infelice! You will live by that name, you rogue, fifty years after
+you are dead. Don’t you thank me for that?
+
+S. I have no such ambition, Sir. But Mrs. E—— is waiting.
+
+H. She is not in love, like me. You look so handsome to-day, I cannot
+let you go. You have got a colour.
+
+S. But you say I look best when I am pale.
+
+H. When you are pale, I think so; but when you have a colour, I then
+think you still more beautiful. It is you that I admire; and whatever
+you are, I like best. I like you as Miss L——, I should like you still
+more as Mrs. ——. I once thought you were half inclined to be a prude,
+and I admired you as a “pensive nun, devout and pure.” I now think you
+are more than half a coquet, and I like you for your roguery. The truth
+is, I am in love with you, my angel; and whatever you are, is to me the
+perfection of thy sex. I care not what thou art, while thou art still
+thyself. Smile but so, and turn my heart to what shape you please!
+
+S. I am afraid, Sir, Mrs. E—— will think you have forgotten her.
+
+H. I had, my charmer. But go, and make her a sweet apology, all
+graceful as thou art. One kiss! Ah! ought I not to think myself the
+happiest of men?
+
+
+
+
+ THE FLAGEOLET
+
+
+H. Where have you been, my love?
+
+S. I have been down to see my aunt, Sir.
+
+H. And I hope she has been giving you good advice.
+
+S. I did not go to ask her opinion about any thing.
+
+H. And yet you seem anxious and agitated. You appear pale and dejected,
+as if your refusal of me had touched your own breast with pity. Cruel
+girl! you look at this moment heavenly-soft, saint-like, or resemble
+some graceful marble statue, in the moon’s pale ray! Sadness only
+heightens the elegance of your features. How can I escape from you,
+when every new occasion, even your cruelty and scorn, brings out some
+new charm. Nay, your rejection of me, by the way in which you do it, is
+only a new link added to my chain. Raise those downcast eyes, bend as
+if an angel stooped, and kiss me. . . . Ah! enchanting little trembler!
+if such is thy sweetness where thou dost not love, what must thy love
+have been? I cannot think how any man, having the heart of one, could
+go and leave it.
+
+S. No one did, that I know of.
+
+H. Yes, you told me yourself he left you (though he liked you, and
+though he knew—Oh! gracious God! that you loved him) he left you
+because “the pride of birth would not permit a union.”—For myself, I
+would leave a throne to ascend to the heaven of thy charms. I live but
+for thee, here—I only wish to live again to pass all eternity with
+thee. But even in another world, I suppose you would turn from me to
+seek him out who scorned you here.
+
+S. If the proud scorn us here, in that place we shall all be equal.
+
+H. Do not look so—do not talk so—unless you would drive me mad. I could
+worship you at this moment. Can I witness such perfection, and bear to
+think I have lost you for ever? Oh! let me hope! You see you can mould
+me as you like. You can lead me by the hand, like a little child; and
+with you my way would be like a little child’s:—you could strew flowers
+in my path, and pour new life and hope into me. I should then indeed
+hail the return of spring with joy, could I indulge the faintest
+hope—would you but let me try to please you!
+
+S. Nothing can alter my resolution, Sir.
+
+H. Will you go and leave me so?
+
+S. It is late, and my father will be getting impatient at my stopping
+so long.
+
+H. You know he has nothing to fear for you—it is poor I that am alone
+in danger. But I wanted to ask about buying you a flageolet. Could I
+see that which you have? If it is a pretty one, it would hardly be
+worth while; but if it isn’t, I thought of bespeaking an ivory one for
+you. Can’t you bring up your own to shew me?
+
+S. Not to-night, Sir.
+
+H. I wish you could.
+
+S. I cannot—but I will in the morning.
+
+H. Whatever you determine, I must submit to. Good night, and bless
+thee!
+
+[The next morning, S. brought up the tea-kettle as usual; and looking
+towards the tea-tray, she said, “Oh! I see my sister has forgot the
+tea-pot.” It was not there, sure enough; and tripping down stairs, she
+came up in a minute, with the tea-pot in one hand, and the flageolet in
+the other, balanced so sweetly and gracefully. It would have been
+awkward to have brought up the flageolet in the tea-tray and she could
+not have well gone down again on purpose to fetch it. Something,
+therefore, was to be omitted as an excuse. Exquisite witch! But do I
+love her the less dearly for it? I cannot.]
+
+
+
+
+ THE CONFESSION
+
+
+H. You say you cannot love. Is there not a prior attachment in the
+case? Was there any one else that you did like?
+
+S. Yes, there was another.
+
+H. Ah! I thought as much. Is it long ago then?
+
+S. It is two years, Sir.
+
+H. And has time made no alteration? Or do you still see him sometimes?
+
+S. No, Sir! But he is one to whom I feel the sincerest affection, and
+ever shall, though he is far distant.
+
+H. And did he return your regard?
+
+S. I had every reason to think so.
+
+H. What then broke off your intimacy?
+
+S. It was the pride of birth, Sir, that would not permit him to think
+of a union.
+
+H. Was he a young man of rank, then?
+
+S. His connections were high.
+
+H. And did he never attempt to persuade you to any other step?
+
+S. No—he had too great a regard for me.
+
+H. Tell me, my angel, how was it? Was he so very handsome? Or was it
+the fineness of his manners?
+
+S. It was more his manner: but I can’t tell how it was. It was chiefly
+my own fault. I was foolish to suppose he could ever think seriously of
+me. But he used to make me read with him—and I used to be with him a
+good deal, though not much neither—and I found my affections entangled
+before I was aware of it.
+
+H. And did your mother and family know of it?
+
+S. No—I have never told any one but you; nor I should not have
+mentioned it now, but I thought it might give you some satisfaction.
+
+H. Why did he go at last?
+
+S. We thought it better to part.
+
+H. And do you correspond?
+
+S. No, Sir. But perhaps I may see him again some time or other, though
+it will be only in the way of friendship.
+
+H. My God! what a heart is thine, to live for years upon that bare
+hope!
+
+S. I did not wish to live always, Sir—I wished to die for a long time
+after, till I thought it not right; and since then I have endeavoured
+to be as resigned as I can.
+
+H. And do you think the impression will never wear out?
+
+S. Not if I can judge from my feelings hitherto. It is now sometime
+since,—and I find no difference.
+
+H. May God for ever bless you! How can I thank you for your
+condescension in letting me know your sweet sentiments? You have
+changed my esteem into adoration.—Never can I harbour a thought of ill
+in thee again.
+
+S. Indeed, Sir, I wish for your good opinion and your friendship.
+
+H. And can you return them?
+
+S. Yes.
+
+H. And nothing more?
+
+S. No, Sir.
+
+H. You are an angel, and I will spend my life, if you will let me, in
+paying you the homage that my heart feels towards you.
+
+
+
+
+ THE QUARREL
+
+
+H. You are angry with me?
+
+S. Have I not reason?
+
+H. I hope you have; for I would give the world to believe my suspicions
+unjust. But, oh! my God! after what I have thought of you and felt
+towards you, as little less than an angel, to have but a doubt cross my
+mind for an instant that you were what I dare not name—a common
+lodging-house decoy, a kissing convenience, that your lips were as
+common as the stairs—
+
+S. Let me go, Sir!
+
+H. Nay—prove to me that you are not so, and I will fall down and
+worship you. You were the only creature that ever seemed to love me;
+and to have my hopes, and all my fondness for you, thus turned to a
+mockery—it is too much! Tell me why you have deceived me, and singled
+me out as your victim?
+
+S. I never have, Sir. I always said I could not love.
+
+H. There is a difference between love and making me a laughing-stock.
+Yet what else could be the meaning of your little sister’s running out
+to you, and saying “He thought I did not see him!” when I had followed
+you into the other room? Is it a joke upon me that I make free with
+you? Or is not the joke against HER sister, unless you make my
+courtship of you a jest to the whole house? Indeed I do not well see
+how you can come and stay with me as you do, by the hour together, and
+day after day, as openly as you do, unless you give it some such turn
+with your family. Or do you deceive them as well as me?
+
+S. I deceive no one, Sir. But my sister Betsey was always watching and
+listening when Mr. M—— was courting my eldest sister, till he was
+obliged to complain of it.
+
+H. That I can understand, but not the other. You may remember, when
+your servant Maria looked in and found you sitting in my lap one day,
+and I was afraid she might tell your mother, you said “You did not
+care, for you had no secrets from your mother.” This seemed to me odd
+at the time, but I thought no more of it, till other things brought it
+to my mind. Am I to suppose, then, that you are acting a part, a vile
+part, all this time, and that you come up here, and stay as long as I
+like, that you sit on my knee and put your arms round my neck, and feed
+me with kisses, and let me take other liberties with you, and that for
+a year together; and that you do all this not out of love, or liking,
+or regard, but go through your regular task, like some young witch,
+without one natural feeling, to shew your cleverness, and get a few
+presents out of me, and go down into the kitchen to make a fine laugh
+of it? There is something monstrous in it, that I cannot believe of
+you.
+
+S. Sir, you have no right to harass my feelings in the manner you do. I
+have never made a jest of you to anyone, but always felt and expressed
+the greatest esteem for you. You have no ground for complaint in my
+conduct; and I cannot help what Betsey or others do. I have always been
+consistent from the first. I told you my regard could amount to no more
+than friendship.
+
+H. Nay, Sarah, it was more than half a year before I knew that there
+was an insurmountable obstacle in the way. You say your regard is
+merely friendship, and that you are sorry I have ever felt anything
+more for you. Yet the first time I ever asked you, you let me kiss you;
+the first time I ever saw you, as you went out of the room, you turned
+full round at the door, with that inimitable grace with which you do
+everything, and fixed your eyes full upon me, as much as to say, “Is he
+caught?”—that very week you sat upon my knee, twined your arms round
+me, caressed me with every mark of tenderness consistent with modesty;
+and I have not got much farther since. Now if you did all this with me,
+a perfect stranger to you, and without any particular liking to me,
+must I not conclude you do so as a matter of course with everyone?—Or,
+if you do not do so with others, it was because you took a liking to me
+for some reason or other.
+
+S. It was gratitude, Sir, for different obligations.
+
+H. If you mean by obligations the presents I made you, I had given you
+none the first day I came. You do not consider yourself OBLIGED to
+everyone who asks you for a kiss?
+
+S. No, Sir.
+
+H. I should not have thought anything of it in anyone but you. But you
+seemed so reserved and modest, so soft, so timid, you spoke so low, you
+looked so innocent—I thought it impossible you could deceive me.
+Whatever favors you granted must proceed from pure regard. No betrothed
+virgin ever gave the object of her choice kisses, caresses more modest
+or more bewitching than those you have given me a thousand and a
+thousand times. Could I have thought I should ever live to believe them
+an inhuman mockery of one who had the sincerest regard for you? Do you
+think they will not now turn to rank poison in my veins, and kill me,
+soul and body? You say it is friendship—but if this is friendship, I’ll
+forswear love. Ah! Sarah! it must be something more or less than
+friendship. If your caresses are sincere, they shew fondness—if they
+are not, I must be more than indifferent to you. Indeed you once let
+some words drop, as if I were out of the question in such matters, and
+you could trifle with me with impunity. Yet you complain at other times
+that no one ever took such liberties with you as I have done. I
+remember once in particular your saying, as you went out at the door in
+anger—“I had an attachment before, but that person never attempted
+anything of the kind.” Good God! How did I dwell on that word BEFORE,
+thinking it implied an attachment to me also; but you have since
+disclaimed any such meaning. You say you have never professed more than
+esteem. Yet once, when you were sitting in your old place, on my knee,
+embracing and fondly embraced, and I asked you if you could not love,
+you made answer, “I could easily say so, whether I did or not—YOU
+SHOULD JUDGE BY MY ACTIONS!” And another time, when you were in the
+same posture, and I reproached you with indifference, you replied in
+these words, “Do I SEEM INDIFFERENT?” Was I to blame after this to
+indulge my passion for the loveliest of her sex? Or what can I think?
+
+S. I am no prude, Sir.
+
+H. Yet you might be taken for one. So your mother said, “It was hard if
+you might not indulge in a little levity.” She has strange notions of
+levity. But levity, my dear, is quite out of character in you. Your
+ordinary walk is as if you were performing some religious ceremony: you
+come up to my table of a morning, when you merely bring in the
+tea-things, as if you were advancing to the altar. You move in
+minuet-time: you measure every step, as if you were afraid of offending
+in the smallest things. I never hear your approach on the stairs, but
+by a sort of hushed silence. When you enter the room, the Graces wait
+on you, and Love waves round your person in gentle undulations,
+breathing balm into the soul! By Heaven, you are an angel! You look
+like one at this instant! Do I not adore you—and have I merited this
+return?
+
+S. I have repeatedly answered that question. You sit and fancy things
+out of your own head, and then lay them to my charge. There is not a
+word of truth in your suspicions.
+
+H. Did I not overhear the conversation down-stairs last night, to which
+you were a party? Shall I repeat it?
+
+S. I had rather not hear it!
+
+H. Or what am I to think of this story of the footman?
+
+S. It is false, Sir, I never did anything of the sort.
+
+H. Nay, when I told your mother I wished she wouldn’t * * * * * * * * *
+(as I heard she did) she said “Oh, there’s nothing in that, for Sarah
+very often * * * * * *,” and your doing so before company, is only a
+trifling addition to the sport.
+
+S. I’ll call my mother, Sir, and she shall contradict you.
+
+H. Then she’ll contradict herself. But did not you boast you were “very
+persevering in your resistance to gay young men,” and had been “several
+times obliged to ring the bell?” Did you always ring it? Or did you get
+into these dilemmas that made it necessary, merely by the demureness of
+your looks and ways? Or had nothing else passed? Or have you two
+characters, one that you palm off upon me, and another, your natural
+one, that you resume when you get out of the room, like an actress who
+throws aside her artificial part behind the scenes? Did you not, when I
+was courting you on the staircase the first night Mr. C—— came, beg me
+to desist, for if the new lodger heard us, he’d take you for a light
+character? Was that all? Were you only afraid of being TAKEN for a
+light character? Oh! Sarah!
+
+S. I’ll stay and hear this no longer.
+
+H. Yes, one word more. Did you not love another?
+
+S. Yes, and ever shall most sincerely.
+
+H. Then, THAT is my only hope. If you could feel this sentiment for
+him, you cannot be what you seem to me of late. But there is another
+thing I had to say—be what you will, I love you to distraction! You are
+the only woman that ever made me think she loved me, and that feeling
+was so new to me, and so delicious, that it “will never from my heart.”
+Thou wert to me a little tender flower, blooming in the wilderness of
+my life; and though thou should’st turn out a weed, I’ll not fling thee
+from me, while I can help it. Wert thou all that I dread to think—wert
+thou a wretched wanderer in the street, covered with rags, disease, and
+infamy, I’d clasp thee to my bosom, and live and die with thee, my
+love. Kiss me, thou little sorceress!
+
+S. NEVER.
+
+H. Then go: but remember I cannot live without you—nor I will not.
+
+
+
+
+ THE RECONCILIATION
+
+
+H. I have then lost your friendship?
+
+S. Nothing tends more to alienate friendship than insult.
+
+H. The words I uttered hurt me more than they did you.
+
+S. It was not words merely, but actions as well.
+
+H. Nothing I can say or do can ever alter my fondness for you—Ah,
+Sarah! I am unworthy of your love: I hardly dare ask for your pity; but
+oh! save me—save me from your scorn: I cannot bear it—it withers me
+like lightning.
+
+S. I bear no malice, Sir; but my brother, who would scorn to tell a lie
+for his sister, can bear witness for me that there was no truth in what
+you were told.
+
+H. I believe it; or there is no truth in woman. It is enough for me to
+know that you do not return my regard; it would be too much for me to
+think that you did not deserve it. But cannot you forgive the agony of
+the moment?
+
+S. I can forgive; but it is not easy to forget some things!
+
+H. Nay, my sweet Sarah (frown if you will, I can bear your resentment
+for my ill behaviour, it is only your scorn and indifference that
+harrow up my soul)—but I was going to ask, if you had been engaged to
+be married to any one, and the day was fixed, and he had heard what I
+did, whether he could have felt any true regard for the character of
+his bride, his wife, if he had not been hurt and alarmed as I was?
+
+S. I believe, actual contracts of marriage have sometimes been broken
+off by unjust suspicions.
+
+H. Or had it been your old friend, what do you think he would have said
+in my case?
+
+S. He would never have listened to anything of the sort.
+
+H. He had greater reasons for confidence than I have. But it is your
+repeated cruel rejection of me that drives me almost to madness. Tell
+me, love, is there not, besides your attachment to him, a repugnance to
+me?
+
+S. No, none whatever.
+
+H. I fear there is an original dislike, which no efforts of mine can
+overcome.
+
+S. It is not you—it is my feelings with respect to another, which are
+unalterable.
+
+H. And yet you have no hope of ever being his? And yet you accuse me of
+being romantic in my sentiments.
+
+S. I have indeed long ceased to hope; but yet I sometimes hope against
+hope.
+
+H. My love! were it in my power, thy hopes should be fulfilled
+to-morrow. Next to my own, there is nothing that could give me so much
+satisfaction as to see thine realized! Do I not love thee, when I can
+feel such an interest in thy love for another? It was that which first
+wedded my very soul to you. I would give worlds for a share in a heart
+so rich in pure affection!
+
+S. And yet I did not tell you of the circumstance to raise myself in
+your opinion.
+
+H. You are a sublime little thing! And yet, as you have no prospects
+there, I cannot help thinking, the best thing would be to do as I have
+said.
+
+S. I would never marry a man I did not love beyond all the world.
+
+H. I should be satisfied with less than that—with the love, or regard,
+or whatever you call it, you have shown me before marriage, if that has
+only been sincere. You would hardly like me less afterwards.
+
+S. Endearments would, I should think, increase regard, where there was
+love beforehand; but that is not exactly my case.
+
+H. But I think you would be happier than you are at present. You take
+pleasure in my conversation, and you say you have an esteem for me; and
+it is upon this, after the honeymoon, that marriage chiefly turns.
+
+S. Do you think there is no pleasure in a single life?
+
+H. Do you mean on account of its liberty?
+
+S. No, but I feel that forced duty is no duty. I have high ideas of the
+married state!
+
+H. Higher than of the maiden state?
+
+S. I understand you, Sir.
+
+H. I meant nothing; but you have sometimes spoken of any serious
+attachment as a tie upon you. It is not that you prefer flirting with
+“gay young men” to becoming a mere dull domestic wife?
+
+S. You have no right to throw out such insinuations: for though I am
+but a tradesman’s daughter, I have as nice a sense of honour as anyone
+can have.
+
+H. Talk of a tradesman’s daughter! you would ennoble any family, thou
+glorious girl, by true nobility of mind.
+
+S. Oh! Sir, you flatter me. I know my own inferiority to most.
+
+H. To none; there is no one above thee, man nor woman either. You are
+above your situation, which is not fit for you.
+
+S. I am contented with my lot, and do my duty as cheerfully as I can.
+
+H. Have you not told me your spirits grow worse every year?
+
+S. Not on that account: but some disappointments are hard to bear up
+against.
+
+H. If you talk about that, you’ll unman me. But tell me, my love,—I
+have thought of it as something that might account for some
+circumstances; that is, as a mere possibility. But tell me, there was
+not a likeness between me and your old lover that struck you at first
+sight? Was there?
+
+S. No, Sir, none.
+
+H. Well, I didn’t think it likely there should.
+
+S. But there was a likeness.
+
+H. To whom?
+
+S. To that little image! (looking intently on a small bronze figure of
+Buonaparte on the mantelpiece).
+
+H. What, do you mean to Buonaparte?
+
+S. Yes, all but the nose was just like.
+
+H. And was his figure the same?
+
+S. He was taller!
+
+[I got up and gave her the image, and told her it was hers by every
+right that was sacred. She refused at first to take so valuable a
+curiosity, and said she would keep it for me. But I pressed it eagerly,
+and she look it. She immediately came and sat down, and put her arm
+round my neck, and kissed me, and I said, “Is it not plain we are the
+best friends in the world, since we are always so glad to make it up?”
+And then I added “How odd it was that the God of my idolatry should
+turn out to be like her Idol, and said it was no wonder that the same
+face which awed the world should conquer the sweetest creature in it!”
+How I loved her at that moment! Is it possible that the wretch who
+writes this could ever have been so blest! Heavenly delicious creature!
+Can I live without her? Oh! no—never—never.
+
+“What is this world? What asken men to have,
+Now with his love, now in the cold grave,
+Alone, withouten any compagnie!”
+
+
+Let me but see her again! She cannot hate the man who loves her as I
+do.]
+
+
+
+
+ LETTERS TO THE SAME
+
+
+Feb., 1822.
+
+—You will scold me for this, and ask me if this is keeping my promise
+to mind my work. One half of it was to think of Sarah: and besides, I
+do not neglect my work either, I assure you. I regularly do ten pages a
+day, which mounts up to thirty guineas’ worth a week, so that you see I
+should grow rich at this rate, if I could keep on so; AND I COULD KEEP
+ON SO, if I had you with me to encourage me with your sweet smiles, and
+share my lot. The Berwick smacks sail twice a week, and the wind sits
+fair. When I think of the thousand endearing caresses that have passed
+between us, I do not wonder at the strong attachment that draws me to
+you; but I am sorry for my own want of power to please. I hear the wind
+sigh through the lattice, and keep repeating over and over to myself
+two lines of Lord Byron’s Tragedy—
+
+“So shalt thou find me ever at thy side
+Here and hereafter, if the last may be.”—
+
+
+applying them to thee, my love, and thinking whether I shall ever see
+thee again. Perhaps not—for some years at least—till both thou and I
+are old—and then, when all else have forsaken thee, I will creep to
+thee, and die in thine arms. You once made me believe I was not hated
+by her I loved; and for that sensation, so delicious was it, though but
+a mockery and a dream, I owe you more than I can ever pay. I thought to
+have dried up my tears for ever, the day I left you; but as I write
+this, they stream again. If they did not, I think my heart would burst.
+I walk out here of an afternoon, and hear the notes of the thrush, that
+come up from a sheltered valley below, welcome in the spring; but they
+do not melt my heart as they used: it is grown cold and dead. As you
+say, it will one day be colder.—Forgive what I have written above; I
+did not intend it: but you were once my little all, and I cannot bear
+the thought of having lost you for ever, I fear through my own fault.
+Has any one called? Do not send any letters that come. I should like
+you and your mother (if agreeable) to go and see Mr. Kean in Othello,
+and Miss Stephens in Love in a Village. If you will, I will write to
+Mr. T——, to send you tickets. Has Mr. P—— called? I think I must send
+to him for the picture to kiss and talk to. Kiss me, my best beloved.
+Ah! if you can never be mine, still let me be your proud and happy
+slave.
+
+H.
+
+
+
+
+ TO THE SAME
+
+
+March, 1822.
+
+—You will be glad to learn I have done my work—a volume in less than a
+month. This is one reason why I am better than when I came, and another
+is, I have had two letters from Sarah. I am pleased I have got through
+this job, as I was afraid I might lose reputation by it (which I can
+little afford to lose)—and besides, I am more anxious to do well now,
+as I wish you to hear me well spoken of. I walk out of an afternoon,
+and hear the birds sing as I told you, and think, if I had you hanging
+on my arm, and that for life, how happy I should be—happier than I ever
+hoped to be, or had any conception of till I knew you. “But that can
+never be”—I hear you answer in a soft, low murmur. Well, let me dream
+of it sometimes—I am not happy too often, except when that favourite
+note, the harbinger of spring, recalling the hopes of my youth,
+whispers thy name and peace together in my ear. I was reading something
+about Mr. Macready to-day, and this put me in mind of that delicious
+night, when I went with your mother and you to see Romeo and Juliet.
+Can I forget it for a moment—your sweet modest looks, your infinite
+propriety of behaviour, all your sweet winning ways—your hesitating
+about taking my arm as we came out till your mother did—your laughing
+about nearly losing your cloak—your stepping into the coach without my
+being able to make the slightest discovery—and oh! my sitting down
+beside you there, you whom I had loved so long, so well, and your
+assuring me I had not lessened your pleasure at the play by being with
+you, and giving me your dear hand to press in mine! I thought I was in
+heaven—that slender exquisitely-turned form contained my all of heaven
+upon earth; and as I folded you—yes, you, my own best Sarah, to my
+bosom, there was, as you say, A TIE BETWEEN US—you did seem to me, for
+those few short moments, to be mine in all truth and honour and
+sacredness—Oh! that we could be always so—Do not mock me, for I am a
+very child in love. I ought to beg pardon for behaving so ill
+afterwards, but I hope THE LITTLE IMAGE made it up between us, &c.
+
+[To this letter I have received no answer, not a line. The rolling
+years of eternity will never fill up that blank. Where shall I be? What
+am I? Or where have I been?]
+
+
+
+
+ WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF ENDYMION
+
+
+I want a hand to guide me, an eye to cheer me, a bosom to repose on;
+all which I shall never have, but shall stagger into my grave, old
+before my time, unloved and unlovely, unless S. L. keeps her faith with
+me.
+
+
+—But by her dove’s eyes and serpent-shape, I think she does not hate
+me; by her smooth forehead and her crested hair, I own I love her; by
+her soft looks and queen-like grace (which men might fall down and
+worship) I swear to live and die for her!
+
+
+
+
+ A PROPOSAL OF LOVE
+
+
+(Given to her in our early acquaintance)
+
+
+“Oh! if I thought it could be in a woman
+(As, if it can, I will presume in you)
+To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love,
+To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
+Outliving beauties outward with a mind
+That doth renew swifter than blood decays:
+Or that persuasion could but thus convince me,
+That my integrity and truth to you
+Might be confronted with the match and weight
+Of such a winnowed purity in love—
+How were I then uplifted! But, alas,
+I am as true as truth’s simplicity,
+And simpler than the infancy of truth.”
+
+
+TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS TO C. P——, ESQ.
+
+
+Bees-Inn.
+
+My good friend, Here I am in Scotland (and shall have been here three
+weeks, next Monday) as I may say, ON MY PROBATION. This is a lone inn,
+but on a great scale, thirty miles from Edinburgh. It is situated on a
+rising ground (a mark for all the winds, which blow here
+incessantly)—there is a woody hill opposite, with a winding valley
+below, and the London road stretches out on either side. You may guess
+which way I oftenest walk. I have written two letters to S. L. and got
+one cold, prudish answer, beginning SIR, and ending FROM YOURS TRULY,
+with BEST RESPECTS FROM HERSELF AND RELATIONS. I was going to give in,
+but have returned an answer, which I think is a touch-stone. I send it
+you on the other side to keep as a curiosity, in case she kills me by
+her exquisite rejoinder. I am convinced from the profound
+contemplations I have had on the subject here and coming along, that I
+am on a wrong scent. We had a famous parting-scene, a complete quarrel
+and then a reconciliation, in which she did beguile me of my tears, but
+the deuce a one did she shed. What do you think? She cajoled me out of
+my little Buonaparte as cleverly as possible, in manner and form
+following. She was shy the Saturday and Sunday (the day of my
+departure) so I got in dudgeon, and began to rip up grievances. I asked
+her how she came to admit me to such extreme familiarities, the first
+week I entered the house. “If she had no particular regard for me, she
+must do so (or more) with everyone: if she had a liking to me from the
+first, why refuse me with scorn and wilfulness?” If you had seen how
+she flounced, and looked, and went to the door, saying “She was obliged
+to me for letting her know the opinion I had always entertained of
+her”—then I said, “Sarah!” and she came back and took my hand, and
+fixed her eyes on the mantelpiece—(she must have been invoking her idol
+then—if I thought so, I could devour her, the darling—but I doubt
+her)—So I said “There is one thing that has occurred to me sometimes as
+possible, to account for your conduct to me at first—there wasn’t a
+likeness, was there, to your old friend?” She answered “No, none—but
+there was a likeness!” I asked, to what? She said “to that little
+image!” I said, “Do you mean Buonaparte?”—She said “Yes, all but the
+nose.”—“And the figure?”—“He was taller.”—I could not stand this. So I
+got up and took it, and gave it her, and after some reluctance, she
+consented to “keep it for me.” What will you bet me that it wasn’t all
+a trick? I’ll tell you why I suspect it, besides being fairly out of my
+wits about her. I had told her mother half an hour before, that I
+should take this image and leave it at Mrs. B.’s, for that I didn’t
+wish to leave anything behind me that must bring me back again. Then up
+she comes and starts a likeness to her lover: she knew I should give it
+her on the spot—“No, she would keep it for me!” So I must come back for
+it. Whether art or nature, it is sublime. I told her I should write and
+tell you so, and that I parted from her, confiding, adoring!—She is
+beyond me, that’s certain. Do go and see her, and desire her not to
+give my present address to a single soul, and learn if the lodging is
+let, and to whom. My letter to her is as follows. If she shews the
+least remorse at it, I’ll be hanged, though it might move a stone, I
+modestly think. (See before, Part I. first letter.)
+
+N.B.—I have begun a book of our conversations (I mean mine and the
+statue’s) which I call LIBER AMORIS. I was detained at Stamford and
+found myself dull, and could hit upon no other way of employing my time
+so agreeably.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER II
+
+
+Dear P——, Here, without loss of time, in order that I may have your
+opinion upon it, is little Yes and No’s answer to my last.
+
+“Sir, I should not have disregarded your injunction not to send you any
+more letters that might come to you, had I not promised the Gentleman
+who left the enclosed to forward it the earliest opportunity, as he
+said it was of consequence. Mr. P—— called the day after you left town.
+My mother and myself are much obliged by your kind offer of tickets to
+the play, but must decline accepting it. My family send their best
+respects, in which they are joined by
+
+Yours, truly,
+S. L.
+
+The deuce a bit more is there of it. If you can make anything out of it
+(or any body else) I’ll be hanged. You are to understand, this comes in
+a frank, the second I have received from her, with a name I can’t make
+out, and she won’t tell me, though I asked her, where she got franks,
+as also whether the lodgings were let, to neither of which a word of
+answer. * * * * is the name on the frank: see if you can decypher it by
+a Red-book. I suspect her grievously of being an arrant jilt, to say no
+more—yet I love her dearly. Do you know I’m going to write to that
+sweet rogue presently, having a whole evening to myself in advance of
+my work? Now mark, before you set about your exposition of the new
+Apocalypse of the new Calypso, the only thing to be endured in the
+above letter is the date. It was written the very day after she
+received mine. By this she seems willing to lose no time in receiving
+these letters “of such sweet breath composed.” If I thought so—but I
+wait for your reply. After all, what is there in her but a pretty
+figure, and that you can’t get a word out of her? Hers is the Fabian
+method of making love and conquests. What do you suppose she said the
+night before I left her?
+
+“H. Could you not come and live with me as a friend?
+
+“S. I don’t know: and yet it would be of no use if I did, you would
+always be hankering after what could never be!”
+
+I asked her if she would do so at once—the very next day? And what do
+you guess was her answer—“Do you think it would be prudent?” As I
+didn’t proceed to extremities on the spot, she began to look grave, and
+declare off. “Would she live with me in her own house—to be with me all
+day as dear friends, if nothing more, to sit and read and talk with
+me?”—“She would make no promises, but I should find her the
+same.”—“Would she go to the play with me sometimes, and let it be
+understood that I was paying my addresses to her?”—“She could not, as a
+habit—her father was rather strict, and would object.”—Now what am I to
+think of all this? Am I mad or a fool? Answer me to that, Master Brook!
+You are a philosopher.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER III
+
+
+Dear Friend, I ought to have written to you before; but since I
+received your letter, I have been in a sort of purgatory, and what is
+worse, I see no prospect of getting out of it. I would put an end to my
+torments at once; but I am as great a coward as I have been a dupe. Do
+you know I have not had a word of answer from her since! What can be
+the reason? Is she offended at my letting you know she wrote to me, or
+is it some
+new affair? I wrote to her in the tenderest, most respectful manner,
+poured my soul at her feet, and this is the return she makes me! Can
+you account for it, except on the admission of my worst doubts
+concerning her? Oh God! can I bear after all to think of her so, or
+that I am scorned and made a sport of by the creature to whom I had
+given my whole heart? Thus has it been with me all my life; and so will
+it be to the end of it!—If you should learn anything, good or bad, tell
+me, I conjure you: I can bear anything but this cruel suspense. If I
+knew she was a mere abandoned creature, I should try to forget her; but
+till I do know this, nothing can tear me from her, I have drank in
+poison from her lips too long—alas! mine do not poison again. I sit and
+indulge my grief by the hour together; my weakness grows upon me; and I
+have no hope left, unless I could lose my senses quite. Do you know I
+think I should like this? To forget, ah! to forget—there would be
+something in that—to change to an idiot for some few years, and then to
+wake up a poor wretched old man, to recollect my misery as past, and
+die! Yet, oh! with her, only a little while ago, I had different hopes,
+forfeited for nothing that I know of! * * * * * * If you can give me
+any consolation on the subject of my tormentor, pray do. The pain I
+suffer wears me out daily. I write this on the supposition that Mrs. ——
+may still come here, and that I may be detained some weeks longer.
+Direct to me at the Post-office; and if I return to town directly as I
+fear, I will leave word for them to forward the letter to me in
+London—not at my old lodgings. I will not go back there: yet how can I
+breathe away from her? Her hatred of me must be great, since my love of
+her could not overcome it! I have finished the book of my conversations
+with her, which I told you of: if I am not mistaken, you will think it
+very nice reading.
+
+Yours ever.
+
+Have you read Sardanapalus? How like the little Greek slave, Myrrha, is
+to HER!
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER IV
+
+
+(Written in the Winter)
+
+My good Friend, I received your letter this morning, and I kiss the rod
+not only with submission, but gratitude. Your reproofs of me and your
+defences of her are the only things that save my soul from perdition.
+She is my heart’s idol; and believe me those words of yours applied to
+the dear saint—“To lip a chaste one and suppose her wanton”—were balm
+and rapture to me. I have LIPPED HER, God knows how often, and oh! is
+it even possible that she is chaste, and that she has bestowed her
+loved “endearments” on me (her own sweet word) out of true regard? That
+thought, out of the lowest depths of despair, would at any time make me
+strike my forehead against the stars. Could I but think the love
+“honest,” I am proof against all hazards. She by her silence makes my
+dark hour; and you by your encouragements dissipate it for twenty-four
+hours. Another thing has brought me to life. Mrs. —— is actually on her
+way here about the divorce. Should this unpleasant business (which has
+been so long talked of) succeed, and I should become free, do you think
+S. L. will agree to change her name to ——? If she WILL, she SHALL; and
+to call her so to you, or to hear her called so by others, would be
+music to my ears, such as they never drank in. Do you think if she knew
+how I love her, my depressions and my altitudes, my wanderings and my
+constancy, it would not move her? She knows it all; and if she is not
+an INCORRIGIBLE, she loves me, or regards me with a feeling next to
+love. I don’t believe that any woman was ever courted more passionately
+than she has been by me. As Rousseau said of Madame d’Houptot (forgive
+the allusion) my heart has found a tongue in speaking to her, and I
+have talked to her the divine language of love. Yet she says, she is
+insensible to it. Am I to believe her or you? You—for I wish it and
+wish it to madness, now that I am like to be free, and to have it in my
+power to say to her without a possibility of suspicion, “Sarah, will
+you be mine?” When I sometimes think of the time I first saw the sweet
+apparition, August 16, 1820, and that possibly she may be my bride
+before that day two years, it makes me dizzy with incredible joy and
+love of her. Write soon.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER V
+
+
+My dear Friend, I read your answer this morning with gratitude. I have
+felt somewhat easier since. It shewed your interest in my vexations,
+and also that you know nothing worse than I do. I cannot describe the
+weakness of mind to which she has reduced me. This state of suspense is
+like hanging in the air by a single thread that exhausts all your
+strength to keep hold of it; and yet if that fails you, you have
+nothing in the world else left to trust to. I am come back to Edinburgh
+about this cursed business, and Mrs. —— is coming from Montrose next
+week. How it will end, I can’t say; and don’t care, except as it
+regards the other affair. I should, I confess, like to have it in my
+power to make her the offer direct and unequivocal, to see how she’d
+receive it. It would be worth something at any rate to see her
+superfine airs upon the occasion; and if she should take it into her
+head to turn round her sweet neck, drop her eye-lids, and say—“Yes, I
+will be yours!”—why then, “treason domestic, foreign levy, nothing
+could touch me further.” By Heaven! I doat on her. The truth is, I
+never had any pleasure, like love, with any one but her. Then how can I
+bear to part with her? Do you know I like to think of her best in her
+morning-gown and mob-cap—it is so she has oftenest come into my room
+and enchanted me! She was once ill, pale, and had lost all her
+freshness. I only adored her the more for it, and fell in love with the
+decay of her beauty. I could devour the little witch. If she had a
+plague-spot on her, I could touch the infection: if she was in a
+burning fever, I could kiss her, and drink death as I have drank life
+from her lips. When I press her hand, I enjoy perfect happiness and
+contentment of soul. It is not what she says or what she does—it is
+herself that I love. To be with her is to be at peace. I have no other
+wish or desire. The air about her is serene, blissful; and he who
+breathes it is like one of the Gods! So that I can but have her with me
+always, I care for nothing more. I never could tire of her sweetness; I
+feel that I could grow to her, body and soul? My heart, my heart is
+hers.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER VI
+
+
+(Written in May)
+
+
+Dear P——, What have I suffered since I parted with you! A raging fire
+is in my heart and in my brain, that never quits me. The steam-boat
+(which I foolishly ventured on board) seems a prison-house, a sort of
+spectre-ship, moving on through an infernal lake, without wind or tide,
+by some necromantic power—the splashing of the waves, the noise of the
+engine gives me no rest, night or day—no tree, no natural object varies
+the scene—but the abyss is before me, and all my peace lies weltering
+in it! I feel the eternity of punishment in this life; for I see no end
+of my woes. The people about me are ill, uncomfortable, wretched
+enough, many of them—but to-morrow or next day, they reach the place of
+their destination, and all will be new and delightful. To me it will be
+the same. I can neither escape from her, nor from myself. All is
+endurable where there is a limit: but I have nothing but the blackness
+and the fiendishness of scorn around me—mocked by her (the false one)
+in whom I placed my hope, and who hardens herself against me!—I believe
+you thought me quite gay, vain, insolent, half mad, the night I left
+the house—no tongue can tell the heaviness of heart I felt at that
+moment. No footsteps ever fell more slow, more sad than mine; for every
+step bore me farther from her, with whom my soul and every thought
+lingered. I had parted with her in anger, and each had spoken words of
+high disdain, not soon to be forgiven. Should I ever behold her again?
+Where go to live and die far from her? In her sight there was Elysium;
+her smile was heaven; her voice was enchantment; the air of love waved
+round her, breathing balm into my heart: for a little while I had sat
+with the Gods at their golden tables, I had tasted of all earth’s
+bliss, “both living and loving!” But now Paradise barred its doors
+against me; I was driven from her presence, where rosy blushes and
+delicious sighs and all soft wishes dwelt, the outcast of nature and
+the scoff of love! I thought of the time when I was a little happy
+careless child, of my father’s house, of my early lessons, of my
+brother’s picture of me when a boy, of all that had since happened to
+me, and of the waste of years to come—I stopped, faultered, and was
+going to turn back once more to make a longer truce with wretchedness
+and patch up a hollow league with love, when the recollection of her
+words—“I always told you I had no affection for you”—steeled my
+resolution, and I determined to proceed. You see by this she always
+hated me, and only played with my credulity till she could find some
+one to supply the place of her unalterable attachment to THE LITTLE
+IMAGE. * * * * * I am a little, a very little better to-day. Would it
+were quietly over; and that this misshapen form (made to be mocked)
+were hid out of the sight of cold, sullen eyes! The people about me
+even take notice of my dumb despair, and pity me. What is to be done? I
+cannot forget HER; and I can find no other like what SHE SEEMED. I
+should wish you to call, if you can make an excuse, and see whether or
+no she is quite marble—whether I may go back again at my return, and
+whether she will see me and talk to me sometimes as an old friend.
+Suppose you were to call on M—— from me, and ask him what his
+impression is that I ought to do. But do as you think best. Pardon,
+pardon.
+
+P.S.—I send this from Scarborough, where the vessel stops for a few
+minutes. I scarcely know what I should have done, but for this relief
+to my feelings.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER VII
+
+
+My dear Friend, The important step is taken, and I am virtually a free
+man. * * * What had I better do in these circumstances? I dare not
+write to her, I dare not write to her father, or else I would. She has
+shot me through with poisoned arrows, and I think another “winged
+wound” would finish me. It is a pleasant sort of balm (as you express
+it) she has left in my heart! One thing I agree with you in, it will
+remain there for ever; but yet not very long. It festers, and consumes
+me. If it were not for my little boy, whose face I see struck blank at
+the news, looking through the world for pity and meeting with contempt
+instead, I should soon, I fear, settle the question by my death. That
+recollection is the only thought that brings my wandering reason to an
+anchor; that stirs the smallest interest in me; or gives me fortitude
+to bear up against what I am doomed to feel for the ungrateful.
+Otherwise, I am dead to every thing but the sense of what I have lost.
+She was my life—it is gone from me, and I am grown spectral! If I find
+myself in a place I am acquainted with, it reminds me of her, of the
+way in which I thought of her,
+
+—“and carved on every tree
+The soft, the fair, the inexpressive she!”
+
+
+If it is a place that is new to me, it is desolate, barren of all
+interest; for nothing touches me but what has a reference to her. If
+the clock strikes, the sound jars me; a million of hours will not bring
+back peace to my breast. The light startles me; the darkness terrifies
+me. I seem falling into a pit, without a hand to help me. She has
+deceived me, and the earth fails from under my feet; no object in
+nature is substantial, real, but false and hollow, like her faith on
+which I built my trust. She came (I knew not how) and sat by my side
+and was folded in my arms, a vision of love and joy, as if she had
+dropped from the Heavens to bless me by some especial dispensation of a
+favouring Providence, and make me amends for all; and now without any
+fault of mine but too much fondness, she has vanished from me, and I am
+left to perish. My heart is torn out of me, with every feeling for
+which I wished to live. The whole is like a dream, an effect of
+enchantment; it torments me, and it drives me mad. I lie down with it;
+I rise up with it; and see no chance of repose. I grasp at a shadow, I
+try to undo the past, and weep with rage and pity over my own weakness
+and misery. I spared her again and again (fool that I was) thinking
+what she allowed from me was love, friendship, sweetness, not
+wantonness. How could I doubt it, looking in her face, and hearing her
+words, like sighs breathed from the gentlest of all bosoms? I had
+hopes, I had prospects to come, the flattery of something like fame, a
+pleasure in writing, health even would have come back with her
+smile—she has blighted all, turned all to poison and childish tears.
+Yet the barbed arrow is in my heart—I can neither endure it, nor draw
+it out; for with it flows my life’s-blood. I had conversed too long
+with abstracted truth to trust myself with the immortal thoughts of
+love. THAT S. L. MIGHT HAVE BEEN MINE, AND NOW NEVER CAN—these are the
+two sole propositions that for ever stare me in the face, and look
+ghastly in at my poor brain. I am in some sense proud that I can feel
+this dreadful passion—it gives me a kind of rank in the kingdom of
+love—but I could have wished it had been for an object that at least
+could have understood its value and pitied its excess. You say her not
+coming to the door when you went is a proof—yes, that her complement is
+at present full! That is the reason she doesn’t want me there, lest I
+should discover the new affair—wretch that I am! Another has possession
+of her, oh Hell! I’m satisfied of it from her manner, which had a
+wanton insolence in it. Well might I run wild when I received no
+letters from her. I foresaw, I felt my fate. The gates of Paradise were
+once open to me too, and I blushed to enter but with the golden keys of
+love! I would die; but her lover—my love of her—ought not to die. When
+I am dead, who will love her as I have done? If she should be in
+misfortune, who will comfort her? when she is old, who will look in her
+face, and bless her? Would there be any harm in calling upon M——, to
+know confidentially if he thinks it worth my while to make her an offer
+the instant it is in my power? Let me have an answer, and save me, if
+possible, FOR her and FROM myself.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER VIII
+
+
+My dear Friend, Your letter raised me for a moment from the depths of
+despair; but not hearing from you yesterday or to-day (as I hoped) I
+have had a relapse. You say I want to get rid of her. I hope you are
+more right in your conjectures about her than in this about me. Oh no!
+believe it, I love her as I do my own soul; my very heart is wedded to
+her (be she what she may) and I would not hesitate a moment between her
+and “an angel from Heaven.” I grant all you say about my
+self-tormenting folly: but has it been without cause? Has she not
+refused me again and again with a mixture of scorn and resentment,
+after going the utmost lengths with a man for whom she now disclaims
+all affection; and what security can I have for her reserve with
+others, who will not be restrained by feelings of delicacy towards her,
+and whom she has probably preferred to me for their want of it. “SHE
+CAN MAKE NO MORE CONFIDENCES”—these words ring for ever in my ears, and
+will be my death-watch. They can have but one meaning, be sure of
+it—she always expressed herself with the exactest propriety. That was
+one of the things for which I loved her—shall I live to hate her for
+it? My poor fond heart, that brooded over her and the remains of her
+affections as my only hope of comfort upon earth, cannot brook this new
+degradation. Who is there so low as me? Who is there besides (I ask)
+after the homage I have paid her and the caresses she has lavished on
+me, so vile, so abhorrent to love, to whom such an indignity could have
+happened? When I think of this (and I think of nothing else) it stifles
+me. I am pent up in burning, fruitless desires, which can find no vent
+or object. Am I not hated, repulsed, derided by her whom alone I love
+or ever did
+love? I cannot stay in any place, and seek in vain for relief from the
+sense of her contempt and her ingratitude. I can settle to nothing:
+what is the use of all I have done? Is it not that very circumstance
+(my thinking beyond my strength, my feeling more than I need about so
+many things) that has withered me up, and made me a thing for Love to
+shrink from and wonder at? Who could ever feel that peace from the
+touch of her dear hand that I have done; and is it not torn from me for
+ever? My state is this, that I shall never lie down again at night nor
+rise up in the morning in peace, nor ever behold my little boy’s face
+with pleasure while I live—unless I am restored to her favour. Instead
+of that delicious feeling I had when she was heavenly-kind to me, and
+my heart softened and melted in its own tenderness and her sweetness, I
+am now inclosed in a dungeon of despair. The sky is marble to my
+thoughts; nature is dead around me, as hope is within me; no object can
+give me one gleam of satisfaction now, nor the prospect of it in time
+to come. I wander by the sea-side; and the eternal ocean and lasting
+despair and her face are before me. Slighted by her, on whom my heart
+by its last fibre hung, where shall I turn? I wake with her by my side,
+not as my sweet bedfellow, but as the corpse of my love, without a
+heart in her bosom, cold, insensible, or struggling from me; and the
+worm gnaws me, and the sting of unrequited love, and the canker of a
+hopeless, endless sorrow. I have lost the taste of my food by feverish
+anxiety; and my favourite beverage, which used to refresh me when I got
+up, has no moisture in it. Oh! cold, solitary, sepulchral breakfasts,
+compared with those which I promised myself with her; or which I made
+when she had been standing an hour by my side, my guardian-angel, my
+wife, my sister, my sweet friend, my Eve, my all; and had blest me with
+her seraph kisses! Ah! what I suffer at present only shews what I have
+enjoyed. But “the girl is a good girl, if there is goodness in human
+nature.” I thank you for those words; and I will fall down and worship
+you, if you can prove them true: and I would not do much less for him
+that proves her a demon. She is one or the other, that’s certain; but I
+fear the worst. Do let me know if anything has passed: suspense is my
+greatest punishment. I am going into the country to see if I can work a
+little in the three weeks I have yet to stay here. Write on the receipt
+of this, and believe me ever your unspeakably obliged friend.
+
+
+
+
+ TO EDINBURGH
+
+
+—“Stony-hearted” Edinburgh! What art thou to me? The dust of thy
+streets mingles with my tears and blinds me. City of palaces, or of
+tombs—a quarry, rather than the habitation of men! Art thou like
+London, that populous hive, with its sunburnt, well-baked, brick-built
+houses—its public edifices, its theatres, its bridges, its squares, its
+ladies, and its pomp, its throng of wealth, its outstretched magnitude,
+and its mighty heart that never lies still? Thy cold grey walls reflect
+back the leaden melancholy of the soul. The square, hard-edged,
+unyielding faces of thy inhabitants have no sympathy to impart. What is
+it to me that I look along the level line of thy tenantless streets,
+and meet perhaps a lawyer like a grasshopper chirping and skipping, or
+the daughter of a Highland laird, haughty, fair, and freckled? Or why
+should I look down your boasted Prince’s Street, with the beetle-browed
+Castle on one side, and the Calton Hill with its proud monument at the
+further end, and the ridgy steep of Salisbury Crag, cut off abruptly by
+Nature’s boldest hand, and Arthur’s Seat overlooking all, like a
+lioness watching her cubs? Or shall I turn to the far-off Pentland
+Hills, with Craig-Crook nestling beneath them, where lives the prince
+of critics and the king of men? Or cast my eye unsated over the Firth
+of Forth, that from my window of an evening (as I read of AMY and her
+love) glitters like a broad golden mirror in the sun, and kisses the
+winding shores of kingly Fife? Oh no! But to thee, to thee I turn,
+North Berwick-Law, with thy blue cone rising out of summer seas; for
+thou art the beacon of my banished thoughts, and dost point my way to
+her, who is my heart’s true home. The air is too thin for me, that has
+not the breath of Love in it; that is not embalmed by her sighs!
+
+
+
+
+ A THOUGHT
+
+
+I am not mad, but my heart is so; and raves within me, fierce and
+untameable, like a panther in its den, and tries to get loose to its
+lost mate, and fawn on her hand, and bend lowly at her feet.
+
+
+
+
+ ANOTHER
+
+
+Oh! thou dumb heart, lonely, sad, shut up in the prison-house of this
+rude form, that hast never found a fellow but for an instant, and in
+very mockery of thy misery, speak, find bleeding words to express thy
+thoughts, break thy dungeon-gloom, or die pronouncing thy Infelice’s
+name!
+
+
+
+
+ ANOTHER
+
+
+Within my heart is lurking suspicion, and base fear, and shame and
+hate; but above all, tyrannous love sits throned, crowned with her
+graces, silent and in tears.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER IX
+
+
+My dear P——, You have been very kind to me in this business; but I fear
+even your indulgence for my infirmities is beginning to fail. To what a
+state am I reduced, and for what? For fancying a little artful vixen to
+be an angel and a saint, because she affected to look like one, to hide
+her rank thoughts and deadly purposes. Has she not murdered me under
+the mask of the tenderest friendship? And why? Because I have loved her
+with unutterable love, and sought to make her my wife. You say it is my
+own “outrageous conduct” that has estranged her: nay, I have been TOO
+GENTLE with her. I ask you first in candour whether the ambiguity of
+her behaviour with respect to me, sitting and fondling a man
+(circumstanced as I was) sometimes for half a day together, and then
+declaring she had no love for him beyond common regard, and professing
+never to marry, was not enough to excite my suspicions, which the
+different exposures from the conversations below-stairs were not
+calculated to allay? I ask you what you yourself would have felt or
+done, if loving her as I did, you had heard what I did, time after
+time? Did not her mother own to one of the grossest charges (which I
+shall not repeat)—and is such indelicacy to be reconciled with her
+pretended character (that character with which I fell in love, and to
+which I MADE LOVE) without supposing her to be the greatest hypocrite
+in the world? My unpardonable offence has been that I took her at her
+word, and was willing to believe her the precise little puritanical
+person she set up for. After exciting her wayward desires by the
+fondest embraces and the purest kisses, as if she had been “made my
+wedded wife yestreen,” or was to become so to-morrow (for that was
+always my feeling with respect to her)—I did not proceed to gratify
+them, or to follow up my advantage by any action which should declare,
+“I think you a common adventurer, and will see whether you are so or
+not!” Yet any one but a credulous fool like me would have made the
+experiment, with whatever violence to himself, as a matter of life and
+death; for I had every reason to distrust appearances. Her conduct has
+been of a piece from the beginning. In the midst of her closest and
+falsest endearments, she has always (with one or two exceptions)
+disclaimed the natural inference to be drawn from them, and made a
+verbal reservation, by which she might lead me on in a Fool’s Paradise,
+and make me the tool of her levity, her avarice, and her love of
+intrigue as long as she liked, and dismiss me whenever it suited her.
+This, you see, she has done, because my intentions grew serious, and if
+complied with, would deprive her of THE PLEASURES OF A SINGLE LIFE!
+Offer marriage to this “tradesman’s daughter, who has as nice a sense
+of honour as any one can have;” and like Lady Bellaston in Tom Jones,
+she CUTS you immediately in a fit of abhorrence and alarm. Yet she
+seemed to be of a different mind formerly, when struggling from me in
+the height of our first intimacy, she exclaimed—“However I might agree
+to my own ruin, I never will consent to bring disgrace upon my family!”
+That I should have spared the traitress after expressions like this,
+astonishes me when I look back upon it. Yet if it were all to do over
+again, I know I should act just the same part. Such is her power over
+me! I cannot run the least risk of offending her—I love her so. When I
+look in her face, I cannot doubt her truth! Wretched being that I am! I
+have thrown away my heart and soul upon an unfeeling girl; and my life
+(that might have been so happy, had she been what I thought her) will
+soon follow either voluntarily, or by the force of grief, remorse, and
+disappointment. I cannot get rid of the reflection for an instant, nor
+even seek relief from its galling pressure. Ah! what a heart she has
+lost! All the love and affection of my whole life were centred in her,
+who alone, I thought, of all women had found out my true character, and
+knew how to value my tenderness. Alas! alas! that this, the only hope,
+joy, or comfort I ever had, should turn to a mockery, and hang like an
+ugly film over the remainder of my days!—I was at Roslin Castle
+yesterday. It lies low in a rude, but sheltered valley, hid from the
+vulgar gaze, and powerfully reminds one of the old song. The straggling
+fragments of the russet ruins, suspended smiling and graceful in the
+air as if they would linger out another century to please the curious
+beholder, the green larch-trees trembling between with the blue sky and
+white silver clouds, the wild mountain plants starting out here and
+there, the date of the year on an old low door-way, but still more, the
+beds of flowers in orderly decay, that seem to have no hand to tend
+them, but keep up a sort of traditional remembrance of civilization in
+former ages, present altogether a delightful and amiable subject for
+contemplation. The exquisite beauty of the scene, with the thought of
+what I should feel, should I ever be restored to her, and have to lead
+her through such places as my adored, my angelwife, almost drove me
+beside myself. For this picture, this ecstatic vision, what have I of
+late instead as the image of the reality? Demoniacal possessions. I see
+the young witch seated in another’s lap, twining her serpent arms round
+him, her eye glancing and her cheeks on fire—why does not the hideous
+thought choke me? Or why do I not go and find out the truth at once?
+The moonlight streams over the silver waters: the bark is in the bay
+that might waft me to her, almost with a wish. The mountain-breeze
+sighs out her name: old ocean with a world of tears murmurs back my
+woes! Does not my heart yearn to be with her; and shall I not follow
+its bidding? No, I must wait till I am free; and then I will take my
+Freedom (a glad prize) and lay it at her feet and tell her my proud
+love of her that would not brook a rival in her dishonour, and that
+would have her all or none, and gain her or lose myself for ever!—
+
+You see by this letter the way I am in, and I hope you will excuse it
+as the picture of a half-disordered mind. The least respite from my
+uneasiness (such as I had yesterday) only brings the contrary
+reflection back upon me, like a flood; and by letting me see the
+happiness I have lost, makes me feel, by contrast, more acutely what I
+am doomed to bear.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER X
+
+
+Dear Friend, Here I am at St. Bees once more, amid the scenes which I
+greeted in their barrenness in winter; but which have now put on their
+full green attire that shews luxuriant to the eye, but speaks a tale of
+sadness to this heart widowed of its last, its dearest, its only hope!
+Oh! lovely Bees-Inn! here I composed a volume of law-cases, here I
+wrote my enamoured follies to her, thinking her human, and that “all
+below was not the fiend’s”—here I got two cold, sullen answers from the
+little witch, and here I was —— and I was damned. I thought the
+revisiting the old haunts would have soothed me for a time, but it only
+brings back the sense of what I have suffered for her and of her
+unkindness the more strongly, till I cannot endure the recollection. I
+eye the Heavens in dumb despair, or vent my sorrows in the desart air.
+“To the winds, to the waves, to the rocks I complain”—you may suppose
+with what effect! I fear I shall be obliged to return. I am tossed
+about (backwards and forwards) by my passion, so as to become
+ridiculous. I can now understand how it is that mad people never remain
+in the same place—they are moving on for ever, FROM THEMSELVES!
+
+Do you know, you would have been delighted with the effect of the
+Northern twilight on this romantic country as I rode along last night?
+The hills and groves and herds of cattle were seen reposing in the grey
+dawn of midnight, as in a moonlight without shadow. The whole wide
+canopy of Heaven shed its reflex light upon them, like a pure crystal
+mirror. No sharp points, no petty details, no hard contrasts—every
+object was seen softened yet distinct, in its simple outline and
+natural tones, transparent with an inward light, breathing its own mild
+lustre. The landscape altogether was like an airy piece of mosaic-work,
+or like one of Poussin’s broad massy landscapes or Titian’s lovely
+pastoral scenes. Is it not so, that poets see nature, veiled to the
+sight, but revealed to the soul in visionary grace and grandeur! I
+confess the sight touched me; and might have removed all sadness except
+mine. So (I thought) the light of her celestial face once shone into my
+soul, and wrapt me in a heavenly trance. The sense I have of beauty
+raises me for a moment above myself, but depresses me the more
+afterwards, when I recollect how it is thrown away in vain admiration,
+and that it only makes me more susceptible of pain from the
+mortifications I meet with. Would I had never seen her! I might then
+not indeed have been happy, but at least I might have passed my life in
+peace, and have sunk into forgetfulness without a pang.—The noble
+scenery in this country mixes with my passion, and refines, but does
+not relieve it. I was at Stirling Castle not long ago. It gave me no
+pleasure. The declivity seemed to me abrupt, not sublime; for in truth
+I did not shrink back from it with terror. The weather-beaten towers
+were stiff and formal: the air was damp and chill: the river winded its
+dull, slimy way like a snake along the marshy grounds: and the dim
+misty tops of Ben Leddi, and the lovely Highlands (woven fantastically
+of thin air) mocked my embraces and tempted my longing eyes like her,
+the sole queen and mistress of my thoughts! I never found my
+contemplations on this subject so subtilised and at the same time so
+desponding as on that occasion. I wept myself almost blind, and I gazed
+at the broad golden sunset through my tears that fell in showers. As I
+trod the green mountain turf, oh! how I wished to be laid beneath it—in
+one grave with her—that I might sleep with her in that cold bed, my
+hand in hers, and my heart for ever still—while worms should taste her
+sweet body, that I had never tasted! There was a time when I could bear
+solitude; but it is too much for me at present. Now I am no sooner left
+to myself than I am lost in infinite space, and look round me in vain
+for suppose or comfort. She was my stay, my hope: without her hand to
+cling to, I stagger like an infant on the edge of a precipice. The
+universe without her is one wide, hollow abyss, in which my harassed
+thoughts can find no resting-place. I must break off here; for the
+hysterica passio comes upon me, and threatens to unhinge my reason.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER XI
+
+
+My dear and good Friend, I am afraid I trouble you with my querulous
+epistles, but this is probably the last. To-morrow or the next day
+decides my fate with respect to the divorce, when I expect to be a free
+man. In vain! Was it not for her and to lay my freedom at her feet,
+that I consented to this step which has cost me infinite perplexity,
+and now to be discarded for the first pretender that came in her way!
+If so, I hardly think I can survive it. You who have been a favourite
+with women, do not know what it is to be deprived of one’s only hope,
+and to have it turned to shame and disappointment. There is nothing in
+the world left that can afford me one drop of comfort—THIS I feel more
+and more. Everything is to me a mockery of pleasure, like her love. The
+breeze does not cool me: the blue sky does not cheer me. I gaze only on
+her face averted from me—alas! the only face that ever was turned
+fondly to me! And why am I thus treated? Because I wanted her to be
+mine for ever in love or friendship, and did not push my gross
+familiarities as far as I might. “Why can you not go on as we have
+done, and say nothing about the word, FOREVER?” Was it not plain from
+this that she even then meditated an escape from me to some less
+sentimental lover? “Do you allow anyone else to do so?” I said to her
+once, as I was toying with her. “No, not now!” was her answer; that is,
+because there was nobody else in the house to take freedoms with her. I
+was very well as a stopgap, but I was to be nothing more. While the
+coast was clear, I had it all my own way: but the instant C—— came, she
+flung herself at his head in the most barefaced way, ran breathless up
+stairs before him, blushed when his foot was heard, watched for him in
+the passage, and was sure to be in close conference with him when he
+went down again. It was then my mad proceedings commenced. No wonder.
+Had I not reason to be jealous of every appearance of familiarity with
+others, knowing how easy she had been with me at first, and that she
+only grew shy when I did not take farther liberties? What has her
+character to rest upon but her attachment to me, which she now denies,
+not modestly, but impudently? Will you yourself say that if she had all
+along no particular regard for me, she will not do as much or more with
+other more likely men? “She has had,” she says, “enough of my
+conversation,” so it could not be that! Ah! my friend, it was not to be
+supposed I should ever meet even with the outward demonstrations of
+regard from any woman but a common trader in the endearments of love! I
+have tasted the sweets of the well practiced illusion, and now feel the
+bitterness of knowing what a bliss I am deprived of, and must ever be
+deprived of. Intolerable conviction! Yet I might, I believe, have won
+her by other methods; but some demon held my hand. How indeed could I
+offer her the least insult when I worshipped her very footsteps; and
+even now pay her divine honours from my inmost heart, whenever I think
+of her, abased and brutalised as I have been by that Circean cup of
+kisses, of enchantments, of which I have drunk! I am choked, withered,
+dried up with chagrin, remorse, despair, from which I have not a
+moment’s respite, day or night. I have always some horrid dream about
+her, and wake wondering what is the matter that “she is no longer the
+same to me as ever?” I thought at least we should always remain dear
+friends, if nothing more—did she not talk of coming to live with me
+only the day before I left her in the winter? But “she’s gone, I am
+abused, and my revenge must be to LOVE her!”—Yet she knows that one
+line, one word would save me, the cruel, heartless destroyer! I see
+nothing for it but madness, unless Friday brings a change, or unless
+she is willing to let me go back. You must know I wrote to her to that
+purpose, but it was a very quiet, sober letter, begging pardon, and
+professing reform for the future, and all that. What effect it will
+have, I know not. I was forced to get out of the way of her answer,
+till Friday came.
+
+Ever yours.
+
+
+
+
+ TO S. L.
+
+
+My dear Miss L——, EVIL TO THEM THAT EVIL THINK, is an old saying; and I
+have found it a true one. I have ruined myself by my unjust suspicions
+of you. Your sweet friendship was the balm of my life; and I have lost
+it, I fear for ever, by one fault and folly after another. What would I
+give to be restored to the place in your esteem, which, you assured me,
+I held only a few months ago! Yet I was not contented, but did all I
+could to torment myself and harass you by endless doubts and jealousy.
+Can you not forget and forgive the past, and judge of me by my conduct
+in future? Can you not take all my follies in the lump, and say like a
+good, generous girl, “Well, I’ll think no more of them?” In a word, may
+I come back, and try to behave better? A line to say so would be an
+additional favour to so many already received by
+
+Your obliged friend,
+
+And sincere well-wisher.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER XII.
+
+
+TO C. P——
+
+I have no answer from her. I’m mad. I wish you to call on M—— in
+confidence, to say I intend to make her an offer of my hand, and that I
+will write to her father to that effect the instant I am free, and ask
+him whether he thinks it will be to any purpose, and what he would
+advise me to do.
+
+
+
+
+ UNALTERED LOVE
+
+
+“Love is not love that alteration finds:
+Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
+That looks on tempests and is never shaken.”
+
+
+Shall I not love her for herself alone, in spite of fickleness and
+folly? To love her for her regard to me, is not to love her, but
+myself. She has robbed me of herself: shall she also rob me of my love
+of her? Did I not live on her smile? Is it less sweet because it is
+withdrawn from me? Did I not adore her every grace? Does she bend less
+enchantingly, because she has turned from me to another? Is my love
+then in the power of fortune, or of her caprice? No, I will have it
+lasting as it is pure; and I will make a Goddess of her, and build a
+temple to her in my heart, and worship her on indestructible altars,
+and raise statues to her: and my homage shall be unblemished as her
+unrivalled symmetry of form; and when that fails, the memory of it
+shall survive; and my bosom shall be proof to scorn, as hers has been
+to pity; and I will pursue her with an unrelenting love, and sue to be
+her slave, and tend her steps without notice and without reward; and
+serve her living, and mourn for her when dead. And thus my love will
+have shewn itself superior to her hate; and I shall triumph and then
+die. This is my idea of the only true and heroic love! Such is mine for
+her.
+
+
+
+
+ PERFECT LOVE
+
+
+Perfect love has this advantage in it, that it leaves the possessor of
+it nothing farther to desire. There is one object (at least) in which
+the soul finds absolute content, for which it seeks to live, or dares
+to die. The heart has as it were filled up the moulds of the
+imagination. The truth of passion keeps pace with and outvies the
+extravagance of mere language. There are no words so fine, no flattery
+so soft, that there is not a sentiment beyond them, that it is
+impossible to express, at the bottom of the heart where true love is.
+What idle sounds the common phrases, adorable creature, angel,
+divinity, are? What a proud reflection it is to have a feeling
+answering to all these, rooted in the breast, unalterable, unutterable,
+to which all other feelings are light and vain! Perfect love reposes on
+the object of its choice, like the halcyon on the wave; and the air of
+heaven is around it.
+
+
+
+
+ FROM C. P., ESQ.
+
+
+London, July 4th, 1822.
+
+I have seen M——! Now, my dear H——, let me entreat and adjure you to
+take what I have to tell you, FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH—neither for less,
+nor more. In the first place, I have learned nothing decisive from him.
+This, as you will at once see, is, as far as it goes, good. I am
+either to hear from him, or see him again in a day or two; but I
+thought you would like to know what passed inconclusive as it was—so I
+write without delay, and in great haste to save a post. I found him
+frank, and even friendly in his manner to me, and in his views
+respecting you. I think that he is sincerely sorry for your situation;
+and he feels that the person who has placed you in that situation is
+not much less awkwardly situated herself; and he professes that he
+would willingly do what he can for the good of both. But he sees great
+difficulties attending the affair—which he frankly professes to
+consider as an altogether unfortunate one. With respect to the
+marriage, he seems to see the most formidable objections to it, on both
+sides; but yet he by no means decidedly says that it cannot, or that it
+ought not to take place. These, mind you, are his own feelings on the
+subject: but the most important point I learn from him is this, that he
+is not prepared to use his influence either way—that the rest of the
+family are of the same way of feeling; and that, in fact, the thing
+must and does entirely rest with herself. To learn this was, as you
+see, gaining a great point.—When I then endeavoured to ascertain
+whether he knew anything decisive as to what are her views on the
+subject, I found that he did not. He has an opinion on the subject, and
+he didn’t scruple to tell me what it was; but he has no positive
+knowledge. In short, he believes, from what he learns from herself (and
+he had purposely seen her on the subject, in consequence of my
+application to him) that she is at present indisposed to the marriage;
+but he is not prepared to say positively that she will not consent to
+it. Now all this, coming from him in the most frank and unaffected
+manner, and without any appearance of cant, caution, or reserve, I take
+to be most important as it respects your views, whatever they may be;
+and certainly much more favourable to them (I confess it) than I was
+prepared to expect, supposing them to remain as they were. In fact as I
+said before, the affair rests entirely with herself. They are none of
+them disposed either to further the marriage, or throw any
+insurmountable obstacles in the way of it; and what is more important
+than all, they are evidently by no means CERTAIN that SHE may not, at
+some future period, consent to it; or they would, for her sake as well
+as their own, let you know as much flatly, and put an end to the affair
+at once.
+
+Seeing in how frank and straitforward a manner he received what I had
+to say to him, and replied to it, I proceeded to ask him what were HIS
+views, and what were likely to be HERS (in case she did not consent) as
+to whether you should return to live in the house;—but I added, without
+waiting for his answer, that if she intended to persist in treating you
+as she had done for some time past, it would be worse than madness for
+you to think of returning. I added that, in case you did return, all
+you would expect from her would be that she would treat you with
+civility and kindness—that she would continue to evince that friendly
+feeling towards you, that she had done for a great length of time, &c.
+To this, he said, he could really give no decisive reply, but that he
+should be most happy if, by any intervention of his, he could conduce
+to your comfort; but he seemed to think that for you to return on any
+express understanding that she should behave to you in any particular
+manner, would be to place her in a most awkward situation. He went
+somewhat at length into this point, and talked very reasonably about
+it; the result, however, was that he would not throw any obstacles in
+the way of your return, or of her treating you as a friend, &c., nor
+did it appear that he believed she would refuse to do so. And, finally,
+we parted on the understanding that he would see them on the subject,
+and ascertain what could be done for the comfort of all parties: though
+he was of opinion that if you could make up your mind to break off the
+acquaintance altogether, it would be the best plan of all. I am to hear
+from him again in a day or two.—Well, what do you say to all this? Can
+you turn it to any thing but good—comparative good? If you would know
+what _I_ say to it, it is this:—She is still to be won by wise and
+prudent conduct on your part; she was always to have been won by
+such;—and if she is lost, it has been not, as you sometimes suppose,
+because you have not carried that unwise, may I not say UNWORTHY?
+conduct still farther, but because you gave way to it at all. Of course
+I use the terms “wise” and “prudent” with reference to your object.
+Whether the pursuit of that object is wise, only yourself can judge. I
+say she has all along been to be won, and she still is to be won; and
+all that stands in the way of your views at this moment is your past
+conduct. They are all of them, every soul, frightened at you; they have
+SEEN enough of you to make them so; and they have doubtless heard ten
+times more than they have seen, or than anyone else has seen. They are
+all of them including M—— (and particularly she herself) frightened out
+of their wits, as to what might be your treatment of her if she were
+yours; and they dare not trust you—they will not trust you, at present.
+I do not say that they will trust you, or rather that SHE will, for
+it all depends on her, when you have gone through a probation, but I am
+sure that she will not trust you till you have. You will, I hope, not
+be angry with me when I say that she would be a fool if she did. If she
+were to accept you at present, and without knowing more of you, even I
+should begin to suspect that she had an unworthy motive for doing it.
+Let me not forget to mention what is perhaps as important a point as
+any, as it regards the marriage. I of course stated to M—— that when
+you are free, you are prepared to make her a formal offer of your hand;
+but I begged him, if he was certain that such an offer would be
+refused, to tell me so plainly at once, that I might endeavour, in that
+case, to dissuade you from subjecting yourself to the pain of such a
+refusal. HE WOULD NOT TELL ME THAT HE WAS CERTAIN. He said his opinion
+was that she would not accept your offer, but still he seemed to think
+that there would be no harm in making it!—-One word more, and a very
+important one. He once, and without my referring in the slightest
+manner to that part of the subject, spoke of her as a GOOD GIRL, and
+LIKELY TO MAKE ANY MAN AN EXCELLENT WIFE! Do you think if she were a
+bad girl (and if she were, he must know her to be so) he would have
+dared to do this, under these circumstances?—And once, in speaking of
+HIS not being a fit person to set his face against “marrying for love,”
+he added “I did so myself, and out of that house; and I have had reason
+to rejoice at it ever since.” And mind (for I anticipate your cursed
+suspicions) I’m certain, at least, if manner can entitle one to be
+certain of any thing, that he said all this spontaneously, and without
+any understood motive; and I’m certain, too, that he knows you to be a
+person that it would not do to play any tricks of this kind with. I
+believe—(and all this would never have entered my thoughts, but that I
+know it will enter yours) I believe that even if they thought (as you
+have sometimes supposed they do) that she needs whitewashing, or making
+an honest woman of, YOU would be the last person they would think of
+using for such a purpose, for they know (as well as I do) that you
+couldn’t fail to find out the trick in a month, and would turn her into
+the street the next moment, though she were twenty times your wife—and
+that, as to the consequences of doing so, you would laugh at them, even
+if you couldn’t escape from them.—I shall lose the post if I say more.
+
+Believe me,
+Ever truly your friend,
+C. P.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER XIII
+
+
+My dear P——, You have saved my life. If I do not keep friends with her
+now, I deserve to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. She is an angel from
+Heaven, and you cannot pretend I ever said a word to the contrary! The
+little rogue must have liked me from the first, or she never could have
+stood all these hurricanes without slipping her cable. What could she
+find in me? “I have mistook my person all this while,” &c. Do you know
+I saw a picture, the very pattern of her, the other day, at Dalkeith
+Palace (Hope finding Fortune in the Sea), just before this blessed news
+came, and the resemblance drove me almost out of my senses. Such
+delicacy, such fulness, such perfect softness, such buoyancy, such
+grace! If it is not the very image of her, I am no judge.—You have the
+face to doubt my making the best husband in the world; you might as
+well doubt it if I was married to one of the Houris of Paradise. She is
+a saint, an angel, a love. If she deceives me again, she kills me. But
+I will have such a kiss when I get back, as shall last me twenty years.
+May God bless her for not utterly disowning and destroying me! What an
+exquisite little creature it is, and how she holds out to the last in
+her system of consistent contradictions! Since I wrote to you about
+making a formal proposal, I have had her face constantly before me,
+looking so like some faultless marble statue, as cold, as fixed and
+graceful as ever statue did; the expression (nothing was ever like
+THAT!) seemed to say—“I wish I could love you better than I do, but
+still I will be yours.” No, I’ll never believe again that she will not
+be mine; for I think she was made on purpose for me. If there’s anyone
+else that understands that turn of her head as I do, I’ll give her up
+without scruple. I have made up my mind to this, never to dream of
+another woman, while she even thinks it worth her while to REFUSE TO
+HAVE ME. You see I am not hard to please, after all. Did M—— know of
+the intimacy that had subsisted between us? Or did you hint at it? I
+think it would be a CLENCHER, if he did. How ought I to behave when I
+go back? Advise a fool, who had nearly lost a Goddess by his folly. The
+thing was, I could not think it possible she would ever like ME. Her
+taste is singular, but not the worse for that. I’d rather have her
+love, or liking (call it what you will) than empires. I deserve to call
+her mine; for nothing else CAN atone for what I’ve gone through for
+her. I hope your next letter will not reverse all, and then I shall be
+happy till I see her,—one of the blest when I do see her, if she looks
+like my own beautiful love. I may perhaps write a line when I come to
+my right wits.—Farewel at present, and thank you a thousand times for
+what you have done for your poor friend.
+
+P. S.—I like what M—— said about her sister, much. There are good
+people in the world: I begin to see it, and believe it.
+
+
+
+
+ LETTER THE LAST
+
+
+Dear P——, To-morrow is the decisive day that makes me or mars me. I
+will let you know the result by a line added to this. Yet what
+signifies it, since either way I have little hope there, “whence alone
+my hope cometh!” You must know I am strangely in the dumps at this
+present writing. My reception with her is doubtful, and my fate is then
+certain. The hearing of your happiness has, I own, made me thoughtful.
+It is just what I proposed to her to do—to have crossed the Alps with
+me, to sail on sunny seas, to bask in Italian skies, to have visited
+Vevai and the rocks of Meillerie, and to have repeated to her on the
+spot the story of Julia and St. Preux, and to have shewn her all that
+my heart had stored up for her—but on my forehead alone is
+written—REJECTED! Yet I too could have adored as fervently, and loved
+as tenderly as others, had I been permitted. You are going abroad, you
+say, happy in making happy. Where shall I be? In the grave, I hope, or
+else in her arms. To me, alas! there is no sweetness out of her sight,
+and that sweetness has turned to bitterness, I fear; that gentleness to
+sullen scorn! Still I hope for the best. If she will but HAVE me, I’ll
+make her LOVE me: and I think her not giving a positive answer looks
+like it, and also shews that there is no one else. Her holding out to
+the last also, I think, proves that she was never to have been gained
+but with honour. She’s a strange, almost an inscrutable girl: but if I
+once win her consent, I shall kill her with kindness.—Will you let me
+have a sight of SOMEBODY before you go? I should be most proud. I was
+in hopes to have got away by the Steam-boat to-morrow, but owing to the
+business not coming on till then, I cannot; and may not be in town for
+another week, unless I come by the Mail, which I am strongly tempted to
+do. In the latter case I shall be there, and visible on Saturday
+evening. Will you look in and see, about eight o’clock? I wish much to
+see you and her and J. H. and my little boy once more; and then, if she
+is not what she once was to me, I care not if I die that instant. I
+will conclude here till to-morrow, as I am getting into my old
+melancholy.—
+
+It is all over, and I am my own man, and yours ever—
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+
+
+ ADDRESSED TO J. S. K.——
+
+
+My dear K——, It is all over, and I know my fate. I told you I would
+send you word, if anything decisive happened; but an impenetrable
+mystery hung over the affair till lately. It is at last (by the merest
+accident in the world) dissipated; and I keep my promise, both for your
+satisfaction, and for the ease of my own mind.
+
+You remember the morning when I said “I will go and repose my sorrows
+at the foot of Ben Lomond”—and when from Dumbarton Bridge its
+giant-shadow, clad in air and sunshine, appeared in view. We had a
+pleasant day’s walk. We passed Smollett’s monument on the road (somehow
+these poets touch one in reflection more than most military
+heroes)—talked of old times; you repeated Logan’s beautiful verses to
+the cuckoo,* which I wanted to compare with Wordsworth’s, but my
+courage failed me; you then told me some passages of an early
+attachment which was suddenly broken off; we considered together which
+was the most to be pitied, a disappointment in love where the
+attachment was mutual or one where there has been no return, and we
+both agreed, I think, that the former was best to be endured, and that
+to have the consciousness of it a companion for life was the least evil
+of the two, as there was a secret sweetness that took off the
+bitterness and the sting of regret, and “the memory of what once had
+been” atoned, in some measure, and at intervals, for what “never more
+could be.” In the other case, there was nothing to look back to with
+tender satisfaction, no redeeming trait, not even a possibility of
+turning it to good. It left behind it not cherished sighs, but stifled
+pangs. The galling sense of it did not bring moisture into the eyes,
+but dried up the heart ever after. One had been my fate, the other had
+been yours!
+
+[* “Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green,
+Thy sky is ever clear;
+Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
+No winter in thy year.”
+
+
+So they begin. It was the month of May; the cuckoo sang shrouded in
+some woody copse; the showers fell between whiles; my friend repeated
+the lines with native enthusiasm in a clear manly voice, still resonant
+of youth and hope. Mr. Wordsworth will excuse me, if in these
+circumstances I declined entering the field with his profounder
+metaphysical strain, and kept my preference to myself.]
+
+
+You startled me every now and then from my reverie by the robust voice,
+in which you asked the country people (by no means prodigal of their
+answers)—“If there was any trout fishing in those streams?”—and our
+dinner at Luss set us up for the rest of our day’s march. The sky now
+became overcast; but this, I think, added to the effect of the scene.
+The road to Tarbet is superb. It is on the very verge of the lake—hard,
+level, rocky, with low stone bridges constantly flung across it, and
+fringed with birch trees, just then budding into spring, behind which,
+as through a slight veil, you saw the huge shadowy form of Ben Lomond.
+It lifts its enormous but graceful bulk direct from the edge of the
+water without any projecting lowlands, and has in this respect much the
+advantage of Skiddaw. Loch Lomond comes upon you by degrees as you
+advance, unfolding and then withdrawing its conscious beauties like an
+accomplished coquet. You are struck with the point of a rock, the arch
+of a bridge, the Highland huts (like the first rude habitations of men)
+dug out of the soil, built of turf, and covered with brown heather, a
+sheep-cote, some straggling cattle feeding half-way down a precipice;
+but as you advance farther on, the view expands into the perfection of
+lake scenery. It is nothing (or your eye is caught by nothing) but
+water, earth, and sky. Ben Lomond waves to the right, in its simple
+majesty, cloud-capt or bare, and descending to a point at the head of
+the lake, shews the Trossacs beyond, tumbling about their blue ridges
+like woods waving; to the left is the Cobler, whose top is like a
+castle shattered in pieces and nodding to its ruin; and at your side
+rise the shapes of round pastoral hills, green, fleeced with herds, and
+retiring into mountainous bays and upland valleys, where solitude and
+peace might make their lasting home, if peace were to be found in
+solitude! That it was not always so, I was a sufficient proof; for
+there was one image that alone haunted me in the midst of all this
+sublimity and beauty, and turned it to a mockery and a dream!
+
+The snow on the mountain would not let us ascend; and being weary of
+waiting and of being visited by the guide every two hours to let us
+know that the weather would not do, we returned, you homewards, and I
+to London—
+
+“Italiam, Italiam!”
+
+
+You know the anxious expectations with which I set out:—now hear the
+result—
+
+As the vessel sailed up the Thames, the air thickened with the
+consciousness of being near her, and I “heaved her name pantingly
+forth.” As I approached the house, I could not help thinking of the
+lines—
+
+“How near am I to a happiness,
+That earth exceeds not! Not another like it.
+The treasures of the deep are not so precious
+As are the conceal’d comforts of a man
+Lock’d up in woman’s love. I scent the air
+Of blessings when I come but near the house.
+What a delicious breath true love sends forth!
+The violet-beds not sweeter. Now for a welcome
+Able to draw men’s envies upon man:
+A kiss now that will hang upon my lip,
+As sweet as morning dew upon a rose,
+And full as long!”
+
+
+I saw her, but I saw at the first glance that there was something
+amiss. It was with much difficulty and after several pressing
+intreaties that
+she was prevailed on to come up into the room; and when she did, she
+stood at the door, cold, distant, averse; and when at length she was
+persuaded by my repeated remonstrances to come and take my hand, and I
+offered to touch her lips, she turned her head and shrunk from my
+embraces, as if quite alienated or mortally offended. I asked what it
+could mean? What had I done in her absence to have incurred her
+displeasure? Why had she not written to me? I could get only short,
+sullen, disconnected answers, as if there was something labouring in
+her mind which she either could not or would not impart. I hardly knew
+how to bear this first reception after so long an absence, and so
+different from the one my sentiments towards her merited; but I thought
+it possible it might be prudery (as I had returned without having
+actually accomplished what I went about) or that she had taken offence
+at something in my letters. She saw how much I was hurt. I asked her,
+“If she was altered since I went away?”—“No.” “If there was any one
+else who had been so fortunate as to gain her favourable opinion?”—“No,
+there was no one else.” “What was it then? Was it any thing in my
+letters? Or had I displeased her by letting Mr. P—— know she wrote to
+me?”—“No, not at all; but she did not apprehend my last letter required
+any answer, or she would have replied to it.” All this appeared to me
+very unsatisfactory and evasive; but I could get no more from her, and
+was obliged to let her go with a heavy, foreboding heart. I however
+found that C—— was gone, and no one else had been there, of whom I had
+cause to be jealous.—“Should I see her on the morrow?”—“She believed
+so, but she could not promise.” The next morning she did not appear
+with the breakfast as usual. At this I grew somewhat uneasy. The little
+Buonaparte, however, was placed in its old position on the mantelpiece,
+which I considered as a sort of recognition of old times. I saw her
+once or twice casually; nothing particular happened till the next day,
+which was Sunday. I took occasion to go into the parlour for the
+newspaper, which she gave me with a gracious smile, and seemed
+tolerably frank and cordial. This of course acted as a spell upon me. I
+walked out with my little boy, intending to go and dine out at one or
+two places, but I found that I still contrived to bend my steps towards
+her, and I went back to take tea at home. While we were out, I talked
+to William about Sarah, saying that she too was unhappy, and asking him
+to make it up with her. He said, if she was unhappy, he would not bear
+her malice any more. When she came up with the tea-things, I said to
+her, “William has something to say to you—I believe he wants to be
+friends.” On which he said in his abrupt, hearty manner, “Sarah, I’m
+sorry if I’ve ever said anything to vex you”—so they shook hands, and
+she said, smiling affably—“THEN I’ll think no more of it!” I added—“I
+see you’ve brought me back my little Buonaparte”—She answered with
+tremulous softness—“I told you I’d keep it safe for you!”—as if her
+pride and pleasure in doing so had been equal, and she had, as it were,
+thought of nothing during my absence but how to greet me with this
+proof of her fidelity on my return. I cannot describe her manner. Her
+words are few and simple; but you can have no idea of the exquisite,
+unstudied, irresistible graces with which she accompanies them, unless
+you can suppose a Greek statue to smile, move, and speak. Those lines
+in Tibullus seem to have been written on purpose for her—
+
+Quicquid agit quoquo vestigià vertit,
+Componit furtim, subsequiturque decor.
+
+
+Or what do you think of those in a modern play, which might actually
+have been composed with an eye to this little trifler—
+
+—“See with what a waving air she goes
+Along the corridor. How like a fawn!
+Yet statelier. No sound (however soft)
+Nor gentlest echo telleth when she treads,
+But every motion of her shape doth seem
+Hallowed by silence. So did Hebe grow
+Among the gods a paragon! Away, I’m grown
+The very fool of Love!”
+
+
+The truth is, I never saw anything like her, nor I never shall again.
+How then do I console myself for the loss of her? Shall I tell you, but
+you will not mention it again? I am foolish enough to believe that she
+and I, in spite of every thing, shall be sitting together over a
+sea-coal fire, a comfortable good old couple, twenty years hence! But
+to my narrative.—
+
+I was delighted with the alteration in her manner, and said, referring
+to the bust—“You know it is not mine, but yours; I gave it you; nay, I
+have given you all—my heart, and whatever I possess, is yours! She
+seemed good-humouredly to decline this carte blanche offer, and waved,
+like a thing of enchantment, out of the room. False calm!—Deceitful
+smiles!—Short interval of peace, followed by lasting woe! I sought an
+interview with her that same evening. I could not get her to come any
+farther than the door. “She was busy—she could hear what I had to say
+there.” Why do you seem to avoid me as you do? Not one five minutes’
+conversation, for the sake of old acquaintance? Well, then, for the
+sake of THE LITTLE IMAGE!” The appeal seemed to have lost its efficacy;
+the charm was broken; she remained immoveable. “Well, then I must come
+to you, if you will not run away.” I went and sat down in a chair near
+the door, and took her hand, and talked to her for three quarters of an
+hour; and she listened patiently, thoughtfully, and seemed a good deal
+affected by what I said. I told her how much I had felt, how much I had
+suffered for her in my absence, and how much I had been hurt by her
+sudden silence, for which I knew not how to account. I could have done
+nothing to offend her while I was away; and my letters were, I hoped,
+tender and respectful. I had had but one thought ever present with me;
+her image never quitted my side, alone or in company, to delight or
+distract me. Without her I could have no peace, nor ever should again,
+unless she would behave to me as she had done formerly. There was no
+abatement of my regard to her; why was she so changed? I said to her,
+“Ah! Sarah, when I think that it is only a year ago that you were
+everything to me I could wish, and that now you seem lost to me for
+ever, the month of May (the name of which ought to be a signal for joy
+and hope) strikes chill to my heart.—How different is this meeting from
+that delicious parting, when you seemed never weary of repeating the
+proofs of your regard and tenderness, and it was with difficulty we
+tore ourselves asunder at last! I am ten thousand times fonder of you
+than I was then, and ten thousand times more unhappy!” “You have no
+reason to be so; my feelings towards you are the same as they ever
+were.” I told her “She was my all of hope or comfort: my passion for
+her grew stronger every time I saw her.” She answered, “She was sorry
+for it; for THAT she never could return.” I said something about
+looking ill: she said in her pretty, mincing, emphatic way, “I despise
+looks!” So, thought I, it is not that; and she says there’s no one
+else: it must be some strange air she gives herself, in consequence of
+the approaching change in my circumstances. She has been probably
+advised not to give up till all is fairly over, and then she will be my
+own sweet girl again. All this time she was standing just outside the
+door, my hand in hers (would that they could have grown together!) she
+was dressed in a loose morning-gown, her hair curled beautifully; she
+stood with her profile to me, and looked down the whole time. No
+expression was ever more soft or perfect. Her whole attitude, her whole
+form, was dignity and bewitching grace. I said to her, “You look like a
+queen, my love, adorned with your own graces!” I grew idolatrous, and
+would have kneeled to her. She made a movement, as if she was
+displeased. I tried to draw her towards me. She wouldn’t. I then got
+up, and offered to kiss her at parting. I found she obstinately
+refused. This stung me to the quick. It was the first time in her life
+she had ever done so. There must be some new bar between us to produce
+these continued denials; and she had not even esteem enough left to
+tell me so. I followed her half-way down-stairs, but to no purpose, and
+returned into my room, confirmed in my most dreadful surmises. I could
+bear it no longer. I gave way to all the fury of disappointed hope and
+jealous passion. I was made the dupe of trick and cunning, killed with
+cold, sullen scorn; and, after all the agony I had suffered, could
+obtain no explanation why I was subjected to it. I was still to be
+tantalized, tortured, made the cruel sport of one, for whom I would
+have sacrificed all. I tore the locket which contained her hair (and
+which I used to wear continually in my bosom, as the precious token of
+her dear regard) from my neck, and trampled it in pieces. I then dashed
+the little Buonaparte on the ground, and stamped upon it, as one of her
+instruments of mockery. I could not stay in the room; I could not leave
+it; my rage, my despair were uncontrollable. I shrieked curses on her
+name, and on her false love; and the scream I uttered (so pitiful and
+so piercing was it, that the sound of it terrified me) instantly
+brought the whole house, father, mother, lodgers and all, into the
+room. They thought I was destroying her and myself. I had gone into the
+bedroom, merely to hide away from myself, and as I came out of it,
+raging-mad with the new sense of present shame and lasting misery, Mrs.
+F—— said, “She’s in there! He has got her in there!” thinking the cries
+had proceeded from her, and that I had been offering her violence. “Oh!
+no,” I said, “She’s in no danger from me; I am not the person;” and
+tried to burst from this scene of degradation. The mother endeavoured
+to stop me, and said, “For God’s sake, don’t go out, Mr. ——! for God’s
+sake, don’t!” Her father, who was not, I believe, in the secret, and
+was therefore justly scandalised at such outrageous conduct, said
+angrily, “Let him go! Why should he stay?” I however sprang down
+stairs, and as they called out to me, “What is it?—What has she done to
+you?” I answered, “She has murdered me!—She has destroyed me for
+ever!—She has doomed my soul to perdition!” I rushed out of the house,
+thinking to quit it forever; but I was no sooner in the street, than
+the desolation and the darkness became greater, more intolerable; and
+the eddying violence of my passion drove me back to the source, from
+whence it sprung. This unexpected explosion, with the conjectures to
+which it would give rise, could not be very agreeable to the precieuse
+or her family; and when I went back, the father was waiting at the
+door, as if anticipating this sudden turn of my feelings, with no
+friendly aspect. I said, “I have to beg pardon, Sir; but my mad fit is
+over, and I wish to say a few words to you in private.” He seemed to
+hesitate, but some uneasy forebodings on his own account, probably,
+prevailed over his resentment; or, perhaps (as philosophers have a
+desire to know the cause of thunder) it was a natural curiosity to know
+what circumstances of provocation had given rise to such an
+extraordinary scene of confusion. When we reached my room, I requested
+him to be seated. I said, “It is true, Sir, I have lost my peace of
+mind for ever, but at present I am quite calm and collected, and I wish
+to explain to you why I have behaved in so extravagant a way, and to
+ask for your advice and intercession.” He appeared satisfied, and I
+went on. I had no chance either of exculpating myself, or of probing
+the question to the bottom, but by stating the naked truth, and
+therefore I said at once, “Sarah told me, Sir (and I never shall forget
+the way in which she told me, fixing her dove’s eyes upon me, and
+looking a thousand tender reproaches for the loss of that good opinion,
+which she held dearer than all the world) she told me, Sir, that as you
+one day passed the door, which stood a-jar, you saw her in an attitude
+which a good deal startled you; I mean sitting in my lap, with her arms
+round my neck, and mine twined round her in the fondest manner. What I
+wished to ask was, whether this was actually the case, or whether it
+was a mere invention of her own, to enhance the sense of my obligations
+to her; for I begin to doubt everything?”—“Indeed, it was so; and very
+much surprised and hurt I was to see it.” “Well then, Sir, I can only
+say, that as you saw her sitting then, so she had been sitting for the
+last year and a half, almost every day of her life, by the hour
+together; and you may judge yourself, knowing what a nice
+modest-looking girl she is, whether, after having been admitted to such
+intimacy with so sweet a creature, and for so long a time, it is not
+enough to make any one frantic to be received by her as I have been
+since my return, without any provocation given or cause assigned for
+it.” The old man answered very seriously, and, as I think, sincerely,
+“What you now tell me, Sir, mortifies and shocks me as much as it can
+do yourself. I had no idea such a thing was possible. I was much pained
+at what I saw; but I thought it an accident, and that it would never
+happen again.”—“It was a constant habit; it has happened a hundred
+times since, and a thousand before. I lived on her caresses as my daily
+food, nor can I live without them.” So I told him the whole story,
+“what conjurations, and what mighty magic I won his daughter with,” to
+be anything but MINE FOR LIFE. Nothing could well exceed his
+astonishment and apparent mortification. “What I had said,” he owned,
+“had left a weight upon his mind that he should not easily get rid of.”
+I told him, “For myself, I never could recover the blow I had received.
+I thought, however, for her own sake, she ought to alter her present
+behaviour. Her marked neglect and dislike, so far from justifying, left
+her former intimacies without excuse; for nothing could reconcile them
+to propriety, or even a pretence to common decency, but either love, or
+friendship so strong and pure that it could put on the guise of love.
+She was certainly a singular girl. Did she think it right and becoming
+to be free with strangers, and strange to old friends?” I frankly
+declared, “I did not see how it was in human nature for any one who was
+not rendered callous to such familiarities by bestowing them
+indiscriminately on every one, to grant the extreme and continued
+indulgences she had done to me, without either liking the man at first,
+or coming to like him in the end, in spite of herself. When my
+addresses had nothing, and could have nothing honourable in them, she
+gave them every encouragement; when I wished to make them honourable,
+she treated them with the utmost contempt. The terms we had been all
+along on were such as if she had been to be my bride next day. It was
+only when I wished her actually to become so, to ensure her own
+character and my happiness, that she shrunk back with precipitation and
+panic-fear. There seemed to me something wrong in all this; a want both
+of common propriety, and I might say, of natural feeling; yet, with all
+her faults, I loved her, and ever should, beyond any other human being.
+I had drank in the poison of her sweetness too long ever to be cured of
+it; and though I might find it to be poison in the end, it was still in
+my veins. My only ambition was to be permitted to live with her, and to
+die in her arms. Be she what she would, treat me how she would, I felt
+that my soul was wedded to hers; and were she a mere lost creature, I
+would try to snatch her from perdition, and marry her to-morrow if she
+would have me. That was the question—“Would she have me, or would she
+not?” He said he could not tell; but should not attempt to put any
+constraint upon her inclinations, one way or other. I acquiesced, and
+added, that “I had brought all this upon myself, by acting contrary to
+the suggestions of my friend, Mr. ——, who had desired me to take no
+notice whether she came near me or kept away, whether she smiled or
+frowned, was kind or contemptuous—all you have to do, is to wait
+patiently for a month till you are your own man, as you will be in all
+probability; then make her an offer of your hand, and if she refuses,
+there’s an end of the matter.” Mr. L. said, “Well, Sir, and I don’t
+think you can follow a better advice!” I took this as at least a sort
+of negative encouragement, and so we parted.
+
+
+
+
+ TO THE SAME
+
+
+(In continuation)
+
+My dear Friend, The next day I felt almost as sailors must do after a
+violent storm over-night, that has subsided towards daybreak. The
+morning was a dull and stupid calm, and I found she was unwell, in
+consequence of what had happened. In the evening I grew more uneasy,
+and determined on going into the country for a week or two. I gathered
+up the fragments of the locket of her hair, and the little bronze
+statue, which were strewed about the floor, kissed them, folded them up
+in a sheet of paper, and sent them to her, with these lines written in
+pencil on the outside—“Pieces of a broken heart, to be kept in
+remembrance of the unhappy. Farewell.” No notice was taken; nor did I
+expect any. The following morning I requested Betsey to pack up my box
+for me, as I should go out of town the next day, and at the same time
+wrote a note to her sister to say, I should take it as a favour if she
+would please to accept of the enclosed copies of the Vicar of
+Wakefield, The Man of Feeling and Nature and Art, in lieu of three
+volumes of my own writings, which I had given her on different
+occasions, in the course of our acquaintance. I was piqued, in fact,
+that she should have these to shew as proofs of my weakness, and as if
+I thought the way to win her was by plaguing her with my own
+performances.
+
+She sent me word back that the books I had sent were of no use to her,
+and that I should have those I wished for in the afternoon; but that
+she could not before, as she had lent them to her sister, Mrs. M——. I
+said, “very well;” but observed (laughing) to Betsey, “It’s a bad rule
+to give and take; so, if Sarah won’t have these books, you must; they
+are very pretty ones, I assure you.” She curtsied and took them,
+according to the family custom. In the afternoon, when I came back to
+tea, I found the little girl on her knees, busy in packing up my
+things, and a large paper parcel on the table, which I could not at
+first tell what to make of. On opening it, however, I soon found what
+it was. It contained a number of volumes which I had given her at
+different times (among others, a little Prayer-Book, bound in crimson
+velvet, with green silk linings; she kissed it twenty times when she
+received it, and said it was the prettiest present in the world, and
+that she would shew it to her aunt, who would be proud of it)—and all
+these she had returned together. Her name in the title-page was cut out
+of them all. I doubted at the instant whether she had done this before
+or after I had sent for them back, and I have doubted of it since; but
+there is no occasion to suppose her UGLY ALL OVER WITH HYPOCRISY. Poor
+little thing! She has enough to answer for, as it is. I asked Betsey if
+she could carry a message for me, and she said “YES.” “Will you tell
+your sister, then, that I did not want all these books; and give my
+love to her, and say that I shall be obliged if she will still keep
+these that I have sent back, and tell her that it is only those of my
+own writing that I think unworthy of her.” What do you think the little
+imp made answer? She raised herself on the other side of the table
+where she stood, as if inspired by the genius of the place, and
+said—“AND THOSE ARE THE ONES THAT SHE PRIZES THE MOST!” If there were
+ever words spoken that could revive the dead, those were the words. Let
+me kiss them, and forget that my ears have heard aught else! I said,
+“Are you sure of that?” and she said, “Yes, quite sure.” I told her,
+“If I could be, I should be very different from what I was.” And I
+became so that instant, for these casual words carried assurance to my
+heart of her esteem—that once implied, I had proofs enough of her
+fondness. Oh! how I felt at that moment! Restored to love, hope, and
+joy, by a breath which I had caught by the merest accident, and which I
+might have pined in absence and mute despair for want of hearing! I did
+not know how to contain myself; I was childish, wanton, drunk with
+pleasure. I gave Betsey a twenty-shilling note which I happened to have
+in my hand, and on her asking “What’s this for, Sir?” I said, “It’s for
+you. Don’t you think it worth that to be made happy? You once made me
+very wretched by some words I heard you drop, and now you have made me
+as happy; and all I wish you is, when you grow up, that you may find
+some one to love you as well as I do your sister, and that you may love
+better than she does me!” I continued in this state of delirium or
+dotage all that day and the next, talked incessantly, laughed at every
+thing, and was so extravagant, nobody could tell what was the matter
+with me. I murmured her name; I blest her; I folded her to my heart in
+delicious fondness; I called her by my own name; I worshipped her: I
+was mad for her. I told P—— I should laugh in her face, if ever she
+pretended not to like me again. Her mother came in and said, she hoped
+I should excuse Sarah’s coming up. “Oh, Ma’am,” I said, “I have no wish
+to see her; I feel her at my heart; she does not hate me after all, and
+I wish for nothing. Let her come when she will, she is to me welcomer
+than light, than life; but let it be in her own sweet time, and at her
+own dear pleasure.” Betsey also told me she was “so glad to get the
+books back.” I, however, sobered and wavered (by degrees) from seeing
+nothing of her, day after day; and in less than a week I was devoted to
+the Infernal Gods. I could hold out no longer than the Monday evening
+following. I sent a message to her; she returned an ambiguous answer;
+but she came up. Pity me, my friend, for the shame of this recital.
+Pity me for the pain of having ever had to make it! If the spirits of
+mortal creatures, purified by faith and hope, can (according to the
+highest assurances) ever, during thousands of years of smooth-rolling
+eternity and balmy, sainted repose, forget the pain, the toil, the
+anguish, the helplessness, and the despair they have suffered here, in
+this frail being, then may I forget that withering hour, and her, that
+fair, pale form that entered, my inhuman betrayer, and my only earthly
+love! She said, “Did you wish to speak to me, Sir?” I said, “Yes, may I
+not speak to you? I wanted to see you and be friends.” I rose up,
+offered her an arm-chair which stood facing, bowed on it, and knelt to
+her adoring. She said (going) “If that’s all, I have nothing to say.” I
+replied, “Why do you treat me thus? What have I done to become thus
+hateful to you?” ANSWER, “I always told you I had no affection for
+you.” You may suppose this was a blow, after the imaginary honey-moon
+in which I had passed the preceding week. I was stunned by it; my heart
+sunk within me. I contrived to say, “Nay, my dear girl, not always
+neither; for did you not once (if I might presume to look back to those
+happy, happy times), when you were sitting on my knee as usual,
+embracing and embraced, and I asked if you could not love me at last,
+did you not make answer, in the softest tones that ever man heard, ‘I
+COULD EASILY SAY SO, WHETHER I DID OR NOT; YOU SHOULD JUDGE BY MY
+ACTIONS!’ Was I to blame in taking you at your word, when every hope I
+had depended on your sincerity? And did you not say since I came back,
+‘YOUR FEELINGS TO ME WERE THE SAME AS EVER?’ Why then is your behaviour
+so different?” S. “Is it nothing, your exposing me to the whole house
+in the way you did the other evening?” H. “Nay, that was the
+consequence of your cruel reception of me, not the cause of it. I had
+better have gone away last year, as I proposed to do, unless you would
+give some pledge of your fidelity; but it was your own offer that I
+should remain. ‘Why should I go?’ you said, ‘Why could we not go on the
+same as we had done, and say nothing about the word FOREVER?’” S. “And
+how did you behave when you returned?” H. “That was all forgiven when
+we last parted, and your last words were, ‘I should find you the same
+as ever’ when I came home? Did you not that very day enchant and madden
+me over again by the purest kisses and embraces, and did I not go from
+you (as I said) adoring, confiding, with every assurance of mutual
+esteem and friendship?” S. “Yes, and in your absence I found that you
+had told my aunt what had passed between us.” H. “It was to induce her
+to extort your real sentiments from you, that you might no longer make
+a secret of your true regard for me, which your actions (but not your
+words) confessed.” S. “I own I have been guilty of improprieties, which
+you have gone and repeated, not only in the house, but out of it; so
+that it has come to my ears from various quarters, as if I was a light
+character. And I am determined in future to be guided by the advice of
+my relations, and particularly of my aunt, whom I consider as my best
+friend, and keep every lodger at a proper distance.” You will find
+hereafter that her favourite lodger, whom she visits daily, had left
+the house; so that she might easily make and keep this vow of
+extraordinary self-denial. Precious little dissembler! Yet her aunt,
+her best friend, says, “No, Sir, no; Sarah’s no hypocrite!” which I was
+fool enough to believe; and yet my great and unpardonable offence is to
+have entertained passing doubts on this delicate point. I said,
+Whatever errors I had committed, arose from my anxiety to have
+everything explained to her honour: my conduct shewed that I had that
+at heart, and that I built on the purity of her character as on a rock.
+My esteem for her amounted to adoration. “She did not want adoration.”
+It was only when any thing happened to imply that I had been mistaken,
+that I committed any extravagance, because I could not bear to think
+her short of perfection. “She was far from perfection,” she replied,
+with an air and manner (oh, my God!) as near it as possible. “How could
+she accuse me of a want of regard to her? It was but the other day,
+Sarah,” I said to her, “when that little circumstance of the books
+happened, and I fancied the expressions your sister dropped proved the
+sincerity of all your kindness to me—you don’t know how my heart melted
+within me at the thought, that after all, I might be dear to you. New
+hopes sprung up in my heart, and I felt as Adam must have done when his
+Eve was created for him!” “She had heard enough of that sort of
+conversation,” (moving towards the door). This, I own, was the
+unkindest cut of all. I had, in that case, no hopes whatever. I felt
+that I had expended words in vain, and that the conversation below
+stairs (which I told you of when I saw you) had spoiled her taste for
+mine. If the allusion had been classical I should have been to blame;
+but it was scriptural, it was a sort of religious courtship, and Miss
+L. is religious!
+
+At once he took his Muse and dipt her
+Right in the middle of the Scripture.
+
+
+It would not do—the lady could make neither head nor tail of it. This
+is a poor attempt at levity. Alas! I am sad enough. “Would she go and
+leave me so? If it was only my own behaviour, I still did not doubt of
+success. I knew the sincerity of my love, and she would be convinced of
+it in time. If that was all, I did not care: but tell me true, is there
+not a new attachment that is the real cause of your estrangement? Tell
+me, my sweet friend, and before you tell me, give me your hand (nay,
+both hands) that I may have something to support me under the dreadful
+conviction.” She let me take her hands in mine, saying, “She supposed
+there could be no objection to that,”—as if she acted on the
+suggestions of others, instead of following her own will—but still
+avoided giving me any answer. I conjured her to tell me the worst, and
+kill me on the spot. Any thing was better than my present state. I
+said, “Is it Mr. C——?” She smiled, and said with gay indifference, “Mr.
+C—— was here a very short time.” “Well, then, was it Mr. ——?” She
+hesitated, and then replied faintly, “No.” This was a mere trick to
+mislead; one of the profoundnesses of Satan, in which she is an adept.
+“But,” she added hastily, “she could make no more confidences.” “Then,”
+said I, “you have something to communicate.” “No; but she had once
+mentioned a thing of the sort, which I had hinted to her mother, though
+it signified little.” All this while I was in tortures. Every word,
+every half-denial, stabbed me. “Had she any tie?” “No, I have no tie!”
+“You are not going to be married soon?” “I don’t intend ever to marry
+at all!” “Can’t you be friends with me as of old?” “She could give no
+promises.” “Would she make her own terms?” “She would make none.”—“I
+was sadly afraid the LITTLE IMAGE was dethroned from her heart, as I
+had dashed it to the ground the other night.”—“She was neither
+desperate nor violent.” I did not answer—“But deliberate and
+deadly,”—though I might; and so she vanished in this running fight of
+question and answer, in spite of my vain efforts to detain her. The
+cockatrice, I said, mocks me: so she has always done. The thought was a
+dagger to me. My head reeled, my heart recoiled within me. I was stung
+with scorpions; my flesh crawled; I was choked with rage; her scorn
+scorched me like flames; her air (her heavenly air) withdrawn from me,
+stifled me, and left me gasping for breath and being. It was a fable.
+She started up in her own likeness, a serpent in place of a woman. She
+had fascinated, she had stung me, and had returned to her proper shape,
+gliding from me after inflicting the mortal wound, and instilling
+deadly poison into every pore; but her form lost none of its original
+brightness by the change of character, but was all glittering,
+beauteous, voluptuous grace. Seed of the serpent or of the woman, she
+was divine! I felt that she was a witch, and had bewitched me. Fate had
+enclosed me round about. _I_ was transformed too, no longer human (any
+more than she, to whom I had knit myself) my feelings were marble; my
+blood was of molten lead; my thoughts on fire. I was taken out of
+myself, wrapt into another sphere, far from the light of day, of hope,
+of love. I had no natural affection left; she had slain me, but no
+other thing had power over me. Her arms embraced another; but her
+mock-embrace, the phantom of her love, still bound me, and I had not a
+wish to escape. So I felt then, and so perhaps shall feel till I grow
+old and die, nor have any desire that my years should last longer than
+they are linked in the chain of those amorous folds, or than her
+enchantments steep my soul in oblivion of all other things! I started
+to find myself alone—for ever alone, without a creature to love me. I
+looked round the room for help; I saw the tables, the chairs, the
+places where she stood or sat, empty, deserted, dead. I could not stay
+where I was; I had no one to go to but to the parent-mischief, the
+preternatural hag, that had “drugged this posset” of her daughter’s
+charms and falsehood for me, and I went down and (such was my weakness
+and helplessness) sat with her for an hour, and talked with her of her
+daughter, and the sweet days we had passed together, and said I thought
+her a good girl, and believed that if there was no rival, she still had
+a regard for me at the bottom of her heart; and how I liked her all the
+better for her coy, maiden airs: and I received the assurance over and
+over that there was no one else; and that Sarah (they all knew) never
+staid five minutes with any other lodger, while with me she would stay
+by the hour together, in spite of all her father could say to her (what
+were her motives, was best known to herself!) and while we were talking
+of her, she came bounding into the room, smiling with smothered delight
+at the consummation of my folly and her own art; and I asked her mother
+whether she thought she looked as if she hated me, and I took her
+wrinkled, withered, cadaverous, clammy hand at parting, and kissed it.
+Faugh!—
+
+I will make an end of this story; there is something in it discordant
+to honest ears. I left the house the next day, and returned to Scotland
+in a state so near to phrenzy, that I take it the shades sometimes ran
+into one another. R—— met me the day after I arrived, and will tell you
+the way I was in. I was like a person in a high fever; only mine was in
+the mind instead of the body. It had the same irritating, uncomfortable
+effect on the bye-standers. I was incapable of any application, and
+don’t know what I should have done, had it not been for the kindness of
+——. I came to see you, to “bestow some of my tediousness upon you,” but
+you were gone from home. Everything went on well as to the law
+business; and as it approached to a conclusion, I wrote to my good
+friend P—— to go to M——, who had married her sister, and ask him if it
+would be worth my while to make her a formal offer, as soon as I was
+free, as, with the least encouragement, I was ready to throw myself at
+her feet; and to know, in case of refusal, whether I might go back
+there and be treated as an old friend. Not a word of answer could be
+got from her on either point, notwithstanding every importunity and
+intreaty; but it was the opinion of M—— that I might go and try my
+fortune. I did so with joy, with something like confidence. I thought
+her giving no positive answer implied a chance, at least, of the
+reversion of her favour, in case I behaved well. All was false, hollow,
+insidious. The first night after I got home, I slept on down. In
+Scotland, the flint had been my pillow. But now I slept under the same
+roof with her. What softness, what balmy repose in the very thought! I
+saw her that same day and shook hands with her, and told her how glad I
+was to see her; and she was kind and comfortable, though still cold and
+distant. Her manner was altered from what it was the last time. She
+still absented herself from the room, but was mild and affable when she
+did come. She was pale, dejected, evidently uneasy about something, and
+had been ill. I thought it was perhaps her reluctance to yield to my
+wishes, her pity for what I suffered; and that in the struggle between
+both, she did not know what to do. How I worshipped her at these
+moments! We had a long interview the third day, and I thought all was
+doing well. I found her sitting at work in the window-seat of the front
+parlour; and on my asking if I might come in, she made no objection. I
+sat down by her; she let me take her hand; I talked to her of
+indifferent things, and of old times. I asked her if she would put some
+new frills on my shirts?—“With the greatest pleasure.” If she could get
+THE LITTLE IMAGE mended? “It was broken in three pieces, and the sword
+was gone, but she would try.” I then asked her to make up a plaid silk
+which I had given her in the winter, and which she said would make a
+pretty summer gown. I so longed to see her in it!—“She had little time
+to spare, but perhaps might!” Think what I felt, talking peaceably,
+kindly, tenderly with my love,—not passionately, not violently. I tried
+to take pattern by her patient meekness, as I thought it, and to subdue
+my desires to her will. I then sued to her, but respectfully, to be
+admitted to her friendship—she must know I was as true a friend as ever
+woman had—or if there was a bar to our intimacy from a dearer
+attachment, to let me know it frankly, as I shewed her all my heart.
+She drew out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes “of tears which sacred
+pity had engendered there.” Was it so or not? I cannot tell. But so she
+stood (while I pleaded my cause to her with all the earnestness, and
+fondness in the world) with the tears trickling from her eye-lashes,
+her head stooping, her attitude fixed, with the finest expression that
+ever was seen of mixed regret, pity, and stubborn resolution; but
+without speaking a word, without altering a feature. It was like a
+petrifaction of a human face in the softest moment of passion. “Ah!” I
+said, “how you look! I have prayed again and again while I was away
+from you, in the agony of my spirit, that I might but live to see you
+look so again, and then breathe my last!” I intreated her to give me
+some explanation. In vain! At length she said she must go, and
+disappeared like a
+spirit. That week she did all the little trifling favours I had asked
+of her. The frills were put on, and she sent up to know if I wanted any
+more done. She got the Buonaparte mended. This was like healing old
+wounds indeed! How? As follows, for thereby hangs the conclusion of my
+tale. Listen.
+
+I had sent a message one evening to speak to her about some special
+affairs of the house, and received no answer. I waited an hour
+expecting her, and then went out in great vexation at my
+disappointment. I complained to her mother a day or two after, saying I
+thought it so
+unlike Sarah’s usual propriety of behaviour, that she must mean it as a
+mark of disrespect. Mrs. L—— said, “La! Sir, you’re always fancying
+things. Why, she was dressing to go out, and she was only going to get
+the little image you’re both so fond of mended; and it’s to be done
+this evening. She has been to two or three places to see about it,
+before she could get anyone to undertake it.” My heart, my poor fond
+heart, almost melted within me at this news. I answered, “Ah! Madam,
+that’s always the way with the dear creature. I am finding fault with
+her and thinking the hardest things of her; and at that very time she’s
+doing something to shew the most delicate attention, and that she has
+no greater satisfaction than in gratifying my wishes!” On this we had
+some farther talk, and I took nearly the whole of the lodgings at a
+hundred guineas a year, that (as I said) she might have a little
+leisure to sit at her needle of an evening, or to read if she chose, or
+to walk out when it was fine. She was not in good health, and it would
+do her good to be less confined. I would be the drudge and she should
+no longer be the slave. I asked nothing in return. To see her happy, to
+make her so, was to be so myself.—This was agreed to. I went over to
+Blackheath that evening, delighted as I could be after all I had
+suffered, and lay the whole of the next morning on the heath under the
+open sky, dreaming of my earthly Goddess. This was Sunday. That evening
+I returned, for I could hardly bear to be for a moment out of the house
+where she was, and the next morning she tapped at the door—it was
+opened—it was she—she hesitated and then came forward: she had got the
+little image in her hand, I took it, and blest her from my heart. She
+said “They had been obliged to put some new pieces to it.” I said “I
+didn’t care how it was done, so that I had it restored to me safe, and
+by her.” I thanked her and begged to shake hands with her. She did so,
+and as I held the only hand in the world that I never wished to let go,
+I looked up in her face, and said “Have pity on me, have pity on me,
+and save me if you can!” Not a word of answer, but she looked full in
+my eyes, as much as to say, “Well, I’ll think of it; and if I can, I
+will save you!” We talked about the expense of repairing the figure.
+“Was the man waiting?”—“No, she had fetched it on Saturday evening.” I
+said I’d give her the money in the course of the day, and then shook
+hands with her again in token of reconciliation; and she went waving
+out of the room, but at the door turned round and looked full at me, as
+she did the first time she beguiled me of my heart. This was the last.—
+
+All that day I longed to go down stairs to ask her and her mother to
+set out with me for Scotland on Wednesday, and on Saturday I would make
+her my wife. Something withheld me. In the evening, however, I could
+not rest without seeing her, and I said to her younger sister, “Betsey,
+if Sarah will come up now, I’ll pay her what she laid out for me the
+other day.”—“My sister’s gone out, Sir,” was the answer. What again!
+thought I, That’s somewhat sudden. I told P—— her sitting in the
+window-seat of the front parlour boded me no good. It was not in her
+old character. She did not use to know there were doors or windows in
+the house—and
+now she goes out three times in a week. It is to meet some one, I’ll
+lay my life on’t. “Where is she gone?”—“To my grandmother’s, Sir.”
+“Where does your grandmother live now?”—“At Somers’ Town.” I
+immediately set out to Somers’ Town. I passed one or two streets, and
+at last turned up King Street, thinking it most likely she would return
+that way home. I passed a house in King Street where I had once lived,
+and had not proceeded many paces, ruminating on chance and change and
+old times, when I saw her coming towards me. I felt a strange pang at
+the sight, but I thought her alone. Some people before me moved on, and
+I saw another person with her. THE MURDER WAS OUT. It was a tall,
+rather well-looking young man, but I did not at first recollect him. We
+passed at the crossing of the street without speaking. Will you believe
+it, after all that had past between us for two years, after what had
+passed in the last half-year, after what had passed that very morning,
+she went by me without even changing countenance, without expressing
+the slightest emotion, without betraying either shame or pity or
+remorse or any other feeling that any other human being but herself
+must have shewn in the same situation. She had no time to prepare for
+acting a part, to suppress her feelings—the truth is, she has not one
+natural feeling in her bosom to suppress. I turned and looked—they also
+turned and looked and as if by mutual consent, we both retrod our steps
+and passed again, in the same way. I went home. I was stifled. I could
+not stay in the house, walked into the street and met them coming
+towards home. As soon as he had left her at the door (I fancy she had
+prevailed with him to accompany her, dreading some violence) I
+returned, went up stairs, and requested an interview. Tell her, I said,
+I’m in excellent temper and good spirits, but I must see her! She came
+smiling, and I said, “Come in, my dear girl, and sit down, and tell me
+all about it, how it is and who it is.”—“What,” she said, “do you mean
+Mr. C——?” “Oh,” said I, “Then it is he! Ah! you rogue, I always
+suspected there was something between you, but you know you denied it
+lustily: why did you not tell me all about it at the time, instead of
+letting me suffer as I have done? But, however, no reproaches. I only
+wish it may all end happily and honourably for you, and I am satisfied.
+But,” I said, “you know you used to tell me, you despised looks.”—“She
+didn’t think Mr. C—— was so particularly handsome.” “No, but he’s very
+well to pass, and a well-grown youth into the bargain.” Pshaw! let me
+put an end to the fulsome detail. I found he had lived over the way,
+that he had been lured thence, no doubt, almost a year before, that
+they had first spoken in the street, and that he had never once hinted
+at marriage, and had gone away, because (as he said) they were too much
+together, and that it was better for her to meet him occasionally out
+of doors. “There could be no harm in them walking together.” “No, but
+you may go some where afterwards.”—“One must trust to one’s principle
+for that.” Consummate hypocrite! * * * * * * I told her Mr. M——, who
+had married her sister, did not wish to leave the house. I, who would
+have married her, did not wish to leave it. I told her I hoped I should
+not live to see her come to shame, after all my love of her; but put
+her on her guard as well as I could, and said, after the lengths she
+had permitted herself with me, I could not help being alarmed at the
+influence of one over her, whom she could hardly herself suppose to
+have a tenth part of my esteem for her!! She made no answer to this,
+but thanked me coldly for my good advice, and rose to go. I begged her
+to sit a few minutes, that I might try to recollect if there was
+anything else I wished to say to her, perhaps for the last time; and
+then, not finding anything, I bade her good night, and asked for a
+farewell kiss. Do you know she refused; so little does she understand
+what is due to friendship, or love, or honour! We parted friends,
+however, and I felt deep grief, but no enmity against her. I thought
+C—— had pressed his suit after I went, and had prevailed. There was no
+harm in that—a little fickleness or so, a little over-pretension to
+unalterable attachment—but that was all. She liked him better than
+me—it was my hard hap, but I must bear it. I went out to roam the
+desert streets, when, turning a corner, whom should I meet but her very
+lover? I went up to him and asked for a few minutes’ conversation on a
+subject that was highly interesting to me and I believed not
+indifferent to him: and in the course of four hours’ talk, it came out
+that for three months previous to my quitting London for Scotland, she
+had been playing the same game with him as with me—that he breakfasted
+first, and enjoyed an hour of her society, and then I took my turn, so
+that we never jostled; and this explained why, when he came back
+sometimes and passed my door, as she was sitting in my lap, she
+coloured violently, thinking if her lover looked in, what a denouement
+there would be. He could not help again and again expressing his
+astonishment at finding that our intimacy had continued unimpaired up
+to so late a period after he came, and when they were on the most
+intimate footing. She used to deny positively to him that there was
+anything between us, just as she used to assure me with impenetrable
+effrontery that “Mr. C—— was nothing to her, but merely a lodger.” All
+this while she kept up the farce of her romantic attachment to her old
+lover, vowed that she never could alter in that respect, let me go to
+Scotland on the solemn and repeated assurance that there was no new
+flame, that there was no bar between us but this shadowy love—I leave
+her on this understanding, she becomes more fond or more intimate with
+her new lover; he quitting the house (whether tired out or not, I can’t
+say)—in revenge she ceases to write to me, keeps me in wretched
+suspense, treats me like something loathsome to her when I return to
+enquire the cause, denies it with scorn and impudence, destroys me and
+shews no pity, no desire to soothe or shorten the pangs she has
+occasioned by her wantonness and hypocrisy, and wishes to linger the
+affair on to the last moment, going out to keep an appointment with
+another while she pretends to be obliging me in the tenderest point
+(which C—— himself said was too much). . . .What do you think of all
+this? Shall I tell you my opinion? But I must try to do it in another
+letter.
+
+
+
+
+ TO THE SAME
+
+
+(In conclusion)
+
+I did not sleep a wink all that night; nor did I know till the next day
+the full meaning of what had happened to me. With the morning’s light,
+conviction glared in upon me that I had not only lost her for ever—but
+every feeling I had ever had towards her—respect, tenderness, pity—all
+but my fatal passion, was gone. The whole was a mockery, a frightful
+illusion. I had embraced the false Florimel instead of the true; or was
+like the man in the Arabian Nights who had married a GOUL. How
+different was the idea I once had of her? Was this she,
+
+—“Who had been beguiled—she who was made
+Within a gentle bosom to be laid—
+To bless and to be blessed—to be heart-bare
+To one who found his bettered likeness there—
+To think for ever with him, like a bride—
+To haunt his eye, like taste personified—
+To double his delight, to share his sorrow,
+And like a morning beam, wake to him every morrow?
+
+
+I saw her pale, cold form glide silent by me, dead to shame as to pity.
+Still I seemed to clasp this piece of witchcraft to my bosom; this
+lifeless image, which was all that was left of my love, was the only
+thing to which my sad heart clung. Were she dead, should I not wish to
+gaze once more upon her pallid features? She is dead to me; but what
+she once was to me, can never die! The agony, the conflict of hope and
+fear, of adoration and jealousy is over; or it would, ere long, have
+ended with my life. I am no more lifted now to Heaven, and then plunged
+in the abyss; but I seem to have been thrown from the top of a
+precipice, and to lie groveling, stunned, and stupefied. I am
+melancholy, lonesome, and weaker than a child. The worst is, I have no
+prospect of any alteration for the better: she has cut off all
+possibility of a reconcilement at any future period. Were she even to
+return to her former pretended fondness and endearments, I could have
+no pleasure, no confidence in them. I can scarce make out the
+contradiction to myself. I strive to think she always was what I now
+know she is; but I have great difficulty in it, and can hardly believe
+but she still IS what she so long SEEMED. Poor thing! I am afraid she
+is little better off herself; nor do I see what is to become of her,
+unless she throws off the mask at once, and RUNS A-MUCK at infamy. She
+is exposed and laid bare to all those whose opinion she set a value
+upon. Yet she held her head very high, and must feel (if she feels any
+thing) proportionably mortified.—A more complete experiment on
+character was never made. If I had not met her lover immediately after
+I parted with her, it would have been nothing. I might have supposed
+she had changed her mind in my absence, and had given him the
+preference as soon as she felt it, and even shewn her delicacy in
+declining any farther intimacy with me. But it comes out that she had
+gone on in the most forward and familiar way with both at once—(she
+could not change her mind in passing from one room to another)—told
+both the same barefaced and unblushing falsehoods, like the commonest
+creature; received presents from me to the very last, and wished to
+keep up the game still longer, either to gratify her humour, her
+avarice, or her vanity in playing with my passion, or to have me as a
+dernier resort, in case of accidents. Again, it would have been
+nothing, if she had not come up with her demure, well-composed,
+wheedling looks that morning, and then met me in the evening in a
+situation, which (she believed) might kill me on the spot, with no more
+feeling than a common courtesan shews, who BILKS a customer, and passes
+him, leering up at her bully, the moment after. If there had been the
+frailty of passion, it would have been excusable; but it is evident she
+is a practised, callous jilt, a regular lodging-house decoy, played off
+by her mother upon the lodgers, one after another, applying them to her
+different purposes, laughing at them in turns, and herself the probable
+dupe and victim of some favourite gallant in the end. I know all this;
+but what do I gain by it, unless I could find some one with her shape
+and air, to supply the place of the lovely apparition? That a professed
+wanton should come and sit on a man’s knee, and put her arms round his
+neck, and caress him, and seem fond of him, means nothing, proves
+nothing, no one concludes anything from it; but that a pretty,
+reserved, modest, delicate-looking girl should do this, from the first
+hour to the last of your being in the house, without intending anything
+by it, is new, and, I think, worth explaining. It was, I confess, out
+of my calculation, and may be out of that of others. Her unmoved
+indifference and self-possession all the while, shew that it is her
+constant practice. Her look even, if closely examined, bears this
+interpretation. It is that of studied hypocrisy or startled guilt,
+rather than of refined sensibility or conscious innocence. “She defied
+anyone to read her thoughts?” she once told me. “Do they then require
+concealing?” I imprudently asked her. The command over herself is
+surprising. She never once betrays herself by any momentary
+forgetfulness, by any appearance of triumph or superiority to the
+person who is her dupe, by any levity of manner in the plenitude of her
+success; it is one faultless, undeviating, consistent, consummate piece
+of acting. Were she a saint on earth, she could not seem more like one.
+Her hypocritical high-flown pretensions, indeed, make her the worse:
+but still the ascendancy of her will, her determined perseverance in
+what she undertakes to do, has something admirable in it, approaching
+to the heroic. She is certainly an extraordinary girl! Her retired
+manner, and invariable propriety of behaviour made me think it next to
+impossible she could grant the same favours indiscriminately to every
+one that she did to me. Yet this now appears to be the fact. She must
+have done the very same with C——, invited him into the house to carry
+on a closer intrigue with her, and then commenced the double game with
+both together. She always “despised looks.” This was a favourite phrase
+with her, and one of the hooks which she baited for me. Nothing could
+win her but a man’s behaviour and sentiments. Besides, she could never
+like another—she was a martyr to disappointed affection—and friendship
+was all she could even extend to any other man. All the time, she was
+making signals, playing off her pretty person, and having occasional
+interviews in the street with this very man, whom she could only have
+taken so sudden and violent a liking to him from his looks, his
+personal appearance, and what she probably conjectured of his
+circumstances. Her sister had married a counsellor—the Miss F——’s, who
+kept the house before, had done so too—and so would she. “There was a
+precedent for it.” Yet if she was so desperately enamoured of this new
+acquaintance, if he had displaced THE LITTLE IMAGE from her breast, if
+he was become her SECOND “unalterable attachment” (which I would have
+given my life to have been) why continue the same unwarrantable
+familiarities with me to the last, and promise that they should be
+renewed on my return (if I had not unfortunately stumbled upon the
+truth to her aunt) and yet keep up the same refined cant about her old
+attachment all the time, as if it was that which stood in the way of my
+pretensions, and not her faithlessness to it? “If one swerves from one,
+one shall swerve from another”—was her excuse for not returning my
+regard. Yet that which I thought a prophecy, was I suspect a history.
+She had swerved twice from her avowed engagements, first to me, and
+then from me to another. If she made a fool of me, what did she make of
+her lover? I fancy he has put that question to himself. I said nothing
+to him about the amount of the presents; which is another damning
+circumstance, that might have opened my eyes long before; but they were
+shut by my fond affection, which “turned all to favour and to
+prettiness.” She cannot be supposed to have kept up an appearance of
+old regard to me, from a fear of hurting my feelings by her desertion;
+for she not only shewed herself indifferent to, but evidently triumphed
+in my sufferings, and heaped every kind of insult and indignity upon
+them. I must have incurred her contempt and resentment by my mistaken
+delicacy at different times; and her manner, when I have hinted at
+becoming a reformed man in this respect, convinces me of it. “She hated
+it!” She always hated whatever she liked most. She “hated Mr. C——’s red
+slippers,” when he first came! One more count finishes the indictment.
+She not only discovered the most hardened indifference to the feelings
+of others; she has not shewn the least regard to her own character, or
+shame when she was detected. When found out, she seemed to say, “Well,
+what if I am? I have played the game as long as I could; and if I could
+keep it up no longer, it was not for want of good will!” Her colouring
+once or twice is the only sign of grace she has exhibited. Such is the
+creature on whom I had thrown away my heart and soul—one who was
+incapable of feeling the commonest emotions of human nature, as they
+regarded herself or any one else. “She had no feelings with respect to
+herself,” she often said. She in fact knows what she is, and recoils
+from the good opinion or sympathy of others, which she feels to be
+founded on a deception; so that my overweening opinion of her must have
+appeared like irony, or direct insult. My seeing her in the street has
+gone a good way to satisfy me. Her manner there explains her manner
+in-doors to be conscious and overdone; and besides, she looks but
+indifferently. She is diminutive in stature, and her measured step and
+timid air do not suit these public airings. I am afraid she will soon
+grow common to my imagination, as well as worthless in herself. Her
+image seems fast “going into the wastes of time,” like a weed that the
+wave bears farther and farther from me. Alas! thou poor hapless weed,
+when I entirely lose sight of thee, and for ever, no flower will ever
+bloom on earth to glad my heart again!
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