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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7757.txt b/7757.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f788b99 --- /dev/null +++ b/7757.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1336 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook Falkland, by E. B. Lytton, Book 1. +#184 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: Falkland, Book 1. + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7757] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on May 27, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALKLAND, BY LYTTON, V1 *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + +FALKLAND + +By Edward Bulwer-Lytton + + + +PREFATORY NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. + +"FALKLAND" is the earliest of Lord Lytton's prose fictions. Published +before "Pelham," it was written in the boyhood of its illustrious author. +In the maturity of his manhood and the fulness of his literary popularity +he withdrew it from print. This is one of the first English editions of +his collected works in which the tale reappears. It is because the +morality of it was condemned by his experienced judgment, that the author +of "Falkland" deliberately omitted it from each of the numerous reprints +of his novels and romances which were published in England during his +lifetime. + +With the consent of the author's son, "Falkland" is included in the +present edition of his collected works. + +In the first place, this work has been for many years, and still is, +accessible to English readers in every country except England. The +continental edition of it, published by Baron Tauchnitz, has a wide +circulation; and since for this reason the book cannot practically be +withheld from the public, it is thought desirable that the publication of +it should at least be accompanied by some record of the abovementioned +fact. + +In the next place, the considerations which would naturally guide an +author of established reputation in the selection of early compositions +for subsequent republication, are obviously inapplicable to the +preparation of a posthumous standard edition of his collected works. +Those who read the tale of "Falkland" eight-and-forty years ago' have +long survived the age when character is influenced by the literature of +sentiment. The readers to whom it is now presented are not Lord Lytton's +contemporaries; they are his posterity. To them his works have already +become classical. It is only upon the minds of the young that the works +of sentiment have any appreciable moral influence. But the sentiment of +each age is peculiar to itself; and the purely moral influence of +sentimental fiction seldom survives the age to which it was first +addressed. The youngest and most impressionable reader of such works as +the "Nouvelle Hemise," "Werther," "The Robbers," "Corinne," or "Rene," is +not now likely to be morally influenced, for good or ill, by the +perusal of those masterpieces of genius. Had Byron attained the age at +which great authors most realise the responsibilities of fame and genius, +he might possibly have regretted, and endeavoured to suppress, the +publication of "Don Juan;" but the possession of that immortal poem is an +unmixed benefit to posterity, and the loss of it would have been an +irreparable misfortune. + +"Falkland," although the earliest, is one of the most carefully finished +of its author's compositions. All that was once turbid, heating, +unwholesome in the current of sentiment which flows through this history +of a guilty passion, "Death's immortalising winter" has chilled and +purified. The book is now a harmless, and, it may be hoped, a not +uninteresting, evidence of the precocity of its author's genius. As +such, it is here reprinted. + +[It was published in 1827] + + + + +FALKLAND. + +BOOK I. + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON. + +L---, May --, 1822. + +You are mistaken, my dear Monkton! Your description of the gaiety of +"the season" gives me no emotion. You speak of pleasure; I remember no +labour so wearisome; you enlarge upon its changes; no sameness appears to +me so monotonous. Keep, then, your pity for those who require it. From +the height of my philosophy I compassionate you. No one is so vain as a +recluse; and your jests at my hermitship and hermitage cannot penetrate +the folds of a self-conceit, which does not envy you in your suppers at +D---- House, nor even in your waltzes with Eleanor. + +It is a ruin rather than a house which I inhabit. I have not been at +L----- since my return from abroad, and during those years the place has +gone rapidly to decay; perhaps, for that reason, it suits me better, _tel +maitre telle maison_. + +Of all my possessions this is the least valuable in itself, and derives +the least interest from the associations of childhood, for it was not at +L----- that any part of that period was spent. I have, however, chosen +it from my present retreat, because here only I am personally unknown, +and therefore little likely to be disturbed. I do not, indeed, wish for +the interruptions designed as civilities; I rather gather around myself, +link after link, the chains that connected me with the world; I find +among my own thoughts that variety and occupation which you only +experience in your intercourse with others; and I make, like the Chinese, +my map of the universe consist of a circle in a square--the circle is my +own empire and of thought and self; and it is to the scanty corners which +it leaves without, that I banish whatever belongs to the remainder of +mankind. + +About a mile from L----- is Mr. Mandeville's beautiful villa of E-----, +in the midst of grounds which form a delightful contrast to the savage +and wild scenery by which they are surrounded. As the house is at +present quite deserted, I have obtained, through the gardener, a free +admittance into his domains, and I pass there whole hours, indulging, +like the hero of the _Lutrin, "une sainte oisivete,"_ listening to a +little noisy brook, and letting my thoughts be almost as vague and idle +as the birds which wander among the trees that surround me. I could +wish, indeed, that this simile were in all things correct--that those +thoughts, if as free, were also as happy as the objects of my comparison, +and could, like them, after the rovings of the day, turn at evening to a +resting-place, and be still. We are the dupes and the victims of our +senses: while we use them to gather from external things the hoards that +we store within, we cannot foresee the punishments we prepare for +ourselves; the remembrance which stings, and the hope which deceives, the +passions which promise us rapture, which reward us with despair, and the +thoughts which, if they constitute the healthful action, make also the +feverish excitement of our minds. What sick man has not dreamt in his +delirium everything that our philosophers have said?* But I am growing +into my old habit of gloomy reflection, and it is time that I should +conclude. I meant to have written you a letter as light as your own; if +I have failed, it is no wonder.--"Notre coeur est un instrument +incomplet--une lyre ou il manque des cordes, et ou nous sommes forces de +rendre les accens de la joie, sur le ton consacre aux soupirs." + + * Quid aegrotus unquam somniavit quod philosophorum aliquis non + dixerit?--LACTANTIUS. + + + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. + +You ask me to give you some sketch of my life, and of that _bel mondo_ +which wearied me so soon. Men seldom reject an opportunity to talk of +themselves; and I am not unwilling to re-examine the past, to re-connect +it with the present, and to gather from a consideration of each what +hopes and expectations are still left to me for the future. + +But my detail must be rather of thought than of action; most of those +whose fate has been connected with mine are now living, and I would not, +even to you, break that tacit confidence which much of my history would +require. After all, you will have no loss. The actions of another may +interest--but, for the most part, it is only his reflections which come +home to us; for few have acted, nearly all of us have thought. + +My own vanity too would be unwilling to enter upon incidents which had +their origin either in folly or in error. It is true that those follies +and errors have ceased, but their effects remain. With years our faults +diminish, but our vices increase. + +You know that my mother was Spanish, and that my father was one of that +old race of which so few scions remain, who, living in a distant country, +have been little influenced by the changes of fashion, and, priding +themselves on the antiquity of their names, have looked with contempt +upon the modern distinctions and the mushroom nobles which have sprung up +to discountenance and eclipse the plainness of more venerable and solid +respectability. In his youth my father had served in the army. He had +known much of men and more of books; but his knowledge, instead of +rooting out, had rather been engrafted on his prejudices. He was one of +that class (and I say it with a private reverence, though a public +regret), who, with the best intentions, have made the worst citizens, and +who think it a duty to perpetuate whatever is pernicious by having learnt +to consider it as sacred. He was a great country gentleman, a great +sportsman, and a great Tory; perhaps the three worst enemies which a +country can have. Though beneficent to the poor, he gave but a cold +reception to the rich; for he was too refined to associate with his +inferiors, and too proud to like the competition of his equals. One ball +and two dinners a-year constituted all the aristocratic portion of our +hospitality, and at the age of twelve, the noblest and youngest +companions that I possessed were a large Danish dog and a wild mountain +pony, as unbroken and as lawless as myself. It is only in later years +that we can perceive the immeasurable importance of the early scenes and +circumstances which surrounded us. It was in the loneliness of my +unchecked wanderings that my early affection for my own thoughts was +conceived. In the seclusion of nature--in whatever court she presided-- +the education of my mind was begun; and, even at that early age, I +rejoiced (like the wild heart the Grecian poet [Eurip. Bambae, 1. 874.] +has described) in the stillness of the great woods, and the solitudes +unbroken by human footstep. + +The first change in my life was under melancholy auspices; my father fell +suddenly ill, and died; and my mother, whose very existence seemed only +held in his presence, followed him in three months. I remember that, a +few hours before her death, she called me to her: she reminded me that, +through her, I was of Spanish extraction; that in her country, I received +my birth, and that, not the less for its degradation and distress, I +might hereafter find in the relations which I held to it a remembrance to +value, or even a duty to fulfil. On her tenderness to me at that hour, +on the impression it made upon my mind, and on the keen and enduring +sorrow which I felt for months after her death, it would be useless to +dwell. + +My uncle became my guardian. He is, you know, a member of parliament of +some reputation; very sensible and very dull; very much respected by men, +very much disliked by women; and inspiring all children, of either sex, +with the same unmitigated aversion which he feels for them himself. + +I did not remain long under his immediate care. I was soon sent to +school--that preparatory world, where the great primal principles of +human nature, in the aggression of the strong and the meanness of the +weak, constitute the earliest lesson of importance that we are taught; +and where the forced _primitiae_ of that less universal knowledge which +is useless to the many who in after life, neglect, and bitter to the few +who improve it, are the first motives for which our minds are to be +broken to terror, and our hearts initiated into tears. + +Bold and resolute by temper, I soon carved myself a sort of career among +my associates. A hatred to all oppression, and a haughty and unyielding +character, made me at once the fear and aversion of the greater powers +and principalities of the school; while my agility at all boyish games, +and my ready assistance or protection to every one who required it, made +me proportionally popular with, and courted by, the humbler multitude of +the subordinate classes. I was constantly surrounded by the most lawless +and mischievous followers whom the school could afford; all eager for my +commands, and all pledged to their execution. + +In good truth, I was a worthy Rowland of such a gang; though I excelled +in, I cared little for the ordinary amusements of the school: I was +fonder of engaging in marauding expeditions contrary to our legislative +restrictions, and I valued myself equally upon my boldness in planning +our exploits, and my dexterity in eluding their discovery. But exactly +in proportion as our school terms connected me with those of my own +years, did our vacations unfit me for any intimate companionship but that +which I already began to discover in myself. + +Twice in the year, when I went home, it was to that wild and romantic +part of the country where my former childhood had been spent. There, +alone and unchecked, I was thrown utterly upon my own resources. I +wandered by day over the rude scenes which surrounded us; and at evening +I pored, with an unwearied delight, over the ancient legends which made +those scenes sacred to my imagination. I grew by degrees of a more +thoughtful and visionary nature. My temper imbibed the romance of my +studies; and whether, in winter, basking by the large hearth of our old +hall, or stretched, in the indolent voluptuousness of summer, by the +rushing streams which formed the chief characteristic of the country +around us, my hours were equally wasted in those dim and luxurious +dreams, which constituted, perhaps, the essence of that poetry I had not +the genius to embody. It was then, by that alternate restlessness of +action and idleness of reflection, into which my young years were +divided, that the impress of my character was stamped: that fitfulness of +temper, that affection for extremes, has accompanied me through life. +Hence, not only all intermediums of emotion appear to me as tame, but +even the most overwrought excitation can bring neither novelty nor zest. +I have, as it were, feasted upon the passions; I have made that my daily +food, which, in its strength and excess, would have been poison to +others; I have rendered my mind unable to enjoy the ordinary aliments of +nature; and I have wasted, by a premature indulgence, my resources and my +powers, till I have left my heart, without a remedy or a hope, to +whatever disorders its own intemperance has engendered. + + + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. + +When I left Dr. -----'s, I was sent to a private tutor in D-----e. Here +I continued for about two years. It was during that time that--but what +then befell me is for no living ear! The characters of that history are +engraven on my heart in letters of fire; but it is a language that none +but myself have the authority to read. It is enough for the purpose of +my confessions that the events of that period were connected with the +first awakening of the most powerful of human passions, and that, +whatever their commencement, their end was despair! and she--the object +of that love--the only being in the world who ever possessed the secret +and the spell of my nature--her life was the bitterness and the fever of +a troubled heart,--her rest is the grave + + Non la conobbe il mondo mentre l'ebbe + Con ibill'io, ch'a pianger qui rimasi. + +That attachment was not so much a single event, as the first link in a +long chain which was coiled around my heart. It were a tedious and +bitter history, even were it permitted, to tell you of all the sins and +misfortunes to which in afterlife that passion was connected. I will +only speak of the more hidden but general effect it had upon my mind; +though, indeed, naturally inclined to a morbid and melancholy philosophy, +it is more than probable, but for that occurrence, that it would never +have found matter for excitement. Thrown early among mankind, I should +early have imbibed their feelings, and grown like them by the influence +of custom. I should not have carried within the one unceasing +remembrance, which was to teach me, like Faustus, to find nothing in +knowledge but its inutility, or in hope but its deceit; and to bear like +him, through the blessings of youth and the allurements of pleasure, the +curse and the presence of a fiend. + + + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. + +It was after the first violent grief produced by that train of +circumstances to which I must necessarily so darkly allude, that I began +to apply with earnestness to books. Night and day I devoted myself +unceasingly to study, and from this fit I was only recovered by the long +and dangerous illness it produced. Alas! there is no fool like him who +wishes for knowledge! It is only through woe that we are taught to +reflect, and we gather the honey of worldly wisdom, not from flowers, but +thorns. + +"Une grande passion malheureuse est un grand moyen de sagesse." From the +moment in which the buoyancy of my spirit was first broken by real +anguish, the losses of the heart were repaired by the experience of the +mind. I passed at once, like Melmoth, from youth to age. What were any +longer to me the ordinary avocations of my contemporaries? I had +exhausted years in moments--I had wasted, like the Eastern Queen, my +richest jewel in a draught. I ceased to hope, to feel, to act, to burn; +such are the impulses of the young! I learned to doubt, to reason, to +analyse: such are the habits of the old! From that time, if I have not +avoided the pleasures of life, I have not enjoyed them. Women, wine, the +society of the gay, the commune of the wise, the lonely pursuit of +knowledge, the daring visions of ambition, all have occupied me in turn, +and all alike have deceived me; but, like the Widow in the story of +Voltaire, I have built at last a temple to "Time, the Comforter:" I have +grown calm and unrepining with years; and, if I am now shrinking from +men, I have derived at least this advantage from the loneliness first +made habitual by regret; that while I feel increased benevolence to +others, I have learned to look for happiness only in myself. + +They alone are independent of Fortune who have made themselves a separate +existence from the world. + + + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. + +I went to the University with a great fund of general reading, and habits +of constant application. My uncle, who, having no children of his own, +began to be ambitious for me, formed great expectations of my career at +Oxford. I staid there three years, and did nothing! I did not gain a +single prize, nor did I attempt anything above the ordinary degree. The +fact is, that nothing seemed to me worth the labour of success. I +conversed with those who had obtained the highest academical reputation, +and I smiled with a consciousness of superiority at the boundlessness of +their vanity, and the narrowness of their views. The limits of the +distinction they had gained seemed to them as wide as the most extended +renown; and the little knowledge their youth had acquired only appeared +to them an excuse for the ignorance and the indolence of maturer years. +Was it to equal these that I was to labour? I felt that I already +surpassed them! Was it to gain their good opinion, or, still worse, that +of their admirers? Alas! I had too long learned to live for myself to +find any happiness in the respect of the idlers I despised. + +I left Oxford at the age of twenty-one. I succeeded to the large estates +of my inheritance, and for the first time I felt the vanity so natural to +youth when I went up to London to enjoy the resources of the Capital, and +to display the powers I possessed to revel in whatever those resources +could yield. I found society like the Jewish temple: any one is admitted +into its threshold; none but the chiefs of the institution into its +recesses. + +Young, rich, of an ancient and honourable name, pursuing pleasure rather +as a necessary excitement than an occasional occupation, and agreeable to +the associates I drew around me because my profusion contributed to their +enjoyment, and my temper to their amusement--I found myself courted by +many, and avoided by none. I soon discovered that all civility is but +the mask of design. I smiled at the kindness of the fathers who, hearing +that I was talented, and knowing that I was rich, looked to my support in +whatever political side they had espoused. I saw in the notes of the +mothers their anxiety for the establishment of their daughters, and their +respect for my acres; and in the cordiality of the sons who had horses to +sell and rouge-et-noir debts to pay, I detected all that veneration for +my money which implied such contempt for its possessor. By nature +observant, and by misfortune sarcastic, I looked upon the various +colourings of society with a searching and philosophic eye: I unravelled +the intricacies which knit servility with arrogance and meanness with +ostentation; and I traced to its sources that universal vulgarity of +inward sentiment and external manner, which, in all classes, appears to +me to constitute the only unvarying characteristic of our countrymen. In +proportion as I increased my knowledge of others, I shrunk with a deeper +disappointment and dejection into my own resources. The first moment of +real happiness which I experienced for a whole year was when I found +myself about to seek, beneath the influence of other skies, that more +extended acquaintance with my species which might either draw me to them +with a closer connection, or at last reconcile me to the ties which +already existed. + +I will not dwell upon my adventures abroad: there is little to interest +others in a recital which awakens no interest in one's self. I sought +for wisdom, and I acquired but knowledge. I thirsted for the truth, the +tenderness of love, and I found but its fever and its falsehood. Like +the two Florimels of Spenser, I mistook, in my delirium, the delusive +fabrication of the senses for the divine reality of the heart; and I only +awoke from my deceit when the phantom I had worshipped melted into snow. +Whatever I pursued partook of the energy, yet fitfulness of my nature; +mingling to-day in the tumults of the city, and to-morrow alone with my +own heart in the solitude of unpeopled nature; now revelling in the +wildest excesses, and now tracing, with a painful and unwearied search, +the intricacies of science; alternately governing others, and subdued by +the tyranny which my own passions imposed--I passed through the ordeal +unshrinking yet unscathed. "The education of life," says De Stael, +"perfects the thinking mind, but depraves the frivolous." I do not +inquire, Monkton, to which of these classes I belong; but I feel too +well, that though my mind has not been depraved, it has found no +perfection but in misfortune; and that whatever be the acquirements of +later years, they have nothing which can compensate for the losses of our +youth. + + + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. + +I returned to England. I entered again upon the theatre of its world; +but I mixed now more in its greater than its lesser pursuits. I looked +rather at the mass than the leaven of mankind; and while I felt aversion +for the few whom I knew, I glowed with philanthropy for the crowd which I +knew not. + +It is in contemplating men at a distance that we become benevolent. When +we mix with them, we suffer by the contact, and grow, if not malicious +from the injury, at least selfish from the circumspection which our +safety imposes but when, while we feel our relationship, we are not +galled by the tie; when neither jealousy, nor envy, nor resentment are +excited, we have nothing to interfere with those more complacent and +kindliest sentiments which our earliest impressions have rendered natural +to our hearts. We may fly men in hatred because they have galled us, but +the feeling ceases with the cause: none will willingly feed long upon +bitter thoughts. It is thus that, while in the narrow circle in which we +move we suffer daily from those who approach us, we can, in spite of our +resentment to them, glow with a general benevolence to the wider +relations from which we are remote; that while smarting beneath the +treachery of friendship, the stinging of ingratitude, the faithfulness of +love, we would almost sacrifice our lives to realise some idolised theory +of legislation; and that, distrustful, calculating, selfish in private, +there are thousands who would, with a credulous fanaticism, fling +themselves as victims before that unrecompensing Moloch which they term +the Public. + +Living, then, much by myself, but reflecting much upon the world, I +learned to love mankind. Philanthropy brought ambition; for I was +ambitious, not for my own aggrandisement, but for the service of others-- +for the poor--the toiling--the degraded; these constituted that part of +my fellow-beings which I the most loved, for these were bound to me by +the most engaging of all human ties--misfortune! I began to enter into +the intrigues of the state; I extended my observation and inquiry from +individuals to nations; I examined into the mysteries of the science +which has arisen in these later days to give the lie to the wisdom of the +past, to reduce into the simplicity of problems the intricacies of +political knowledge, to teach us the fallacy of the system which had +governed by restriction, and imagined that the happiness of nations +depended upon the perpetual interference of its rulers, and to prove +to us that the only unerring policy of art is to leave a free and +unobstructed progress to the hidden energies and province of Nature. +But it was not only the theoretical investigation of the state which +employed me. I mixed, though in secret, with the agents of its springs. +While I seemed only intent upon pleasure, I locked in my heart the +consciousness and vanity of power. In the levity of the lip I disguised +the workings and the knowledge of the brain; and I looked, as with a +gifted eye, upon the mysteries of the hidden depths, while I seemed to +float an idler, with the herd, only on the surface of the stream. + +Why was I disgusted, when I had but to put forth my hand and grasp +whatever object my ambition might desire? Alas! there was in my heart +always something too soft for the aims and cravings of my mind. I felt +that I was wasting the young years of my life in a barren and wearisome +pursuit. What to me, who had outlived vanity, would have been the +admiration of the crowd! I sighed for the sympathy of the one! and I +shrunk in sadness from the prospect of renown to ask my heart for the +reality of love! For what purpose, too, had I devoted myself to the +service of men? As I grew more sensible of the labour of pursuing, I saw +more of the inutility of accomplishing, individual measures. There is +one great and moving order of events which we may retard, but we cannot +arrest, and to which, if we endeavour to hasten them, we only give a +dangerous and unnatural impetus. Often, when in the fever of the +midnight, I have paused from my unshared and unsoftened studies, to +listen to the deadly pulsation of my heart,--[Falkland suffered much, +from very early youth, from a complaint in his heart]--when I have felt +in its painful and tumultuous beating the very life waning and wasting +within me, I have sickened to my inmost soul to remember that, amongst +all those whom I was exhausting the health and enjoyment of youth to +benefit, there was not one for whom my life had an interest, or by whom +my death would be honoured by a tear. There is a beautiful passage in +Chalmers on the want of sympathy we experience in the world. From my +earliest childhood I had one deep, engrossing, yearning desire,--and that +was to love and to be loved. I found, too young, the realisation of that +dream--it passed! and I have never known it again. The experience of +long and bitter years teaches me to look with suspicion on that far +recollection of the past, and to doubt if this earth could indeed produce +a living form to satisfy the visions of one who has dwelt among the +boyish creations of fancy--who has shaped out in his heart an imaginary +idol, arrayed it in whatever is most beautiful in nature, and breathed +into the image the pure but burning spirit of that innate love from which +it sprung! It is true that my manhood has been the undeceiver of my +youth, and that the meditation upon the facts has disenthralled me from +the visionary broodings over fiction; but what remuneration have I found +in reality? If the line of the satirist be not true, "Souvent de tous +nos maux la raison est le pire," [Boileau]--at least, like the madman of +whom he speaks, I owe but little gratitude to the act which, "in drawing +me from my error, has robbed me also of a paradise." + +I am approaching the conclusion of my confessions. Men who have no ties +in the world, and who have been accustomed to solitude, find, with every +disappointment in the former, a greater yearning for the enjoyments which +the latter can afford. Day by day I relapsed more into myself; "man +delighted me not, nor women either." In my ambition, it was not in the +means, but the end, that I was disappointed. In my friends, I complained +not of treachery, but insipidity; and it was not because I was deserted, +but wearied by more tender connections, that I ceased to find either +excitement in seeking, or triumph in obtaining, their love. It was not, +then, in a momentary disgust, but rather in the calm of satiety, that I +formed that resolution of retirement which I have adopted now. + +Shrinking from my kind, but too young to live wholly for myself, I have +made a new tie with nature; I have come to cement it here. I am like a +bird which has wandered, afar, but has returned home to its nest at last. +But there is one feeling which had its origin in the world, and which +accompanies me still; which consecrates my recollections of the past; +which contributes to take its gloom from the solitude of the present:-Do +you ask me its nature, Monkton? It is my friendship for you. + + + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. + +I wish that I could convey to you, dear Monkton, the faintest idea of the +pleasures of indolence. You belong to that class which is of all the +most busy, though the least active. Men of pleasure never have time for +anything. No lawyer, no statesman, no bustling, hurrying, restless +underling of the counter or the Exchange, is so eternally occupied as a +lounger "about town." He is linked to labour by a series of undefinable +nothings. His independence and idleness only serve to fetter and engross +him, and his leisure seems held upon the condition of never having a +moment to himself. Would that you could see me at this instant in the +luxury of my summer retreat, surrounded by the trees, the waters, the +wild birds, and the hum, the glow, the exultation which teem visibly and +audibly through creation in the noon of a summer's day! I am undisturbed +by a single intruder. I am unoccupied by a single pursuit. I suffer one +moment to glide into another, without the remembrance that the next must +be filled up by some laborious pleasure, or some wearisome enjoyment. +It is here that I feel all the powers, and gather together all the +resources, of my mind. I recall my recollections of men; and, unbiassed +by the passions and prejudices which we do not experience alone, because +their very existence depends upon others, I endeavour to perfect my +knowledge of the human heart. He who would acquire that better science +must arrange and analyse in private the experience he has collected in +the crowd. Alas, Monkton, when you have expressed surprise at the gloom +which is so habitual to my temper, did it never occur to you that my +acquaintance--with the world would alone be sufficient to account for +it?--that knowledge is neither for the good nor the happy. Who can touch +pitch, and not be defiled? Who can look upon the workings of grief and +rejoice, or associate with guilt and be pure? It has been by mingling +with men, not only in their haunts but their emotions, that I have +learned to know them. I have descended into the receptacles of vice; I +have taken lessons from the brothel and the hell; I have watched feeling +in its unguarded sallies, and drawn from the impulse of the moment +conclusions which gave the lie to the previous conduct of years. But all +knowledge brings us disappointment, and this knowledge the most--the +satiety of good, the suspicion of evil, the decay of our young dreams, +the premature iciness of age, the reckless, aimless, joyless indifference +which follows an overwrought and feverish excitation--These constitute +the lot of men who have renounced _hope_ in the acquisition of _thought_, +and who, in learning the motives of human actions, learn only to despise +the persons and the things which enchanted them like divinities before. + + + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. + +I told you, dear Monkton, in my first letter, of my favorite retreat in +Mr. Mandeville's grounds. I have grown so attached to it, that I spend +the greater part of the day there. + +I am not one of those persons who always perambulate with a book in their +hands, as if neither nature nor their own reflections could afford them +any rational amusement. I go there more frequently _en paresseux_ than +_en savant_: a small brooklet which runs through the grounds broadens at +last into a deep, clear, transparent lake. Here fir and elm and oak +fling their branches over the margin and beneath their shade I pass all +the hours of noon-day in the luxuries of a dreamer's reverie. It is +true, however, that I am never less idle than when I appear the most so. +I am like Prospero in his desert island, and surround myself with +spirits. A spell trembles upon the leaves; every wave comes fraught to +me with its peculiar music: and an Ariel seems to whisper the secrets of +every breeze, which comes to my forehead laden with the perfumes of the +West. But do not think, Mounton, that it is only good spirits which +haunt the recesses of my solitude. To push the metaphor to +exaggeration--Memory is my Sycorax, and Gloom is the Caliban she +conceives. But let me digress from myself to my less idle occupations;-- +I have of late diverted my thoughts in some measure by a recurrence to a +study to which I once was particularly devoted--history. Have you ever +remarked, that people who live the most by themselves reflect the most +upon others; and that he who lives surrounded by the million never thinks +of any but the one individual--himself? + +Philosophers--moralists-historians, whose thoughts, labours, lives, have +been devoted to the consideration of mankind, or the analysis of public +events, have usually been remarkably attached to solitude and seclusion. +We are indeed so linked to our fellow-beings, that, where we are not +chained to them by action, we are carried to and connected with them by +thought. + +I have just quitted the observations of my favourite Bolingbroke upon +history. I cannot agree with him as to its utility. The more I +consider, the more I am convinced that its study has been upon the whole +pernicious to mankind. It is by those details, which are always as +unfair in their inference as they must evidently be doubtful in their +facts, that party animosity and general prejudice are supported and +sustained. There is not one abuse--one intolerance--one remnant of +ancient barbarity and ignorance existing at the present day, which is not +advocated, and actually confirmed, by some vague deduction from the +bigotry of an illiterate chronicler, or the obscurity of an uncertain +legend. It is through the constant appeal to our ancestors that we +transmit wretchedness and wrong to our posterity: we should require, to +corroborate an evil originating in the present day, the clearest and most +satisfactory proof; but the minutest defence is sufficient for an evil +handed down to us by the barbarism of antiquity. We reason from what +even in old tunes was dubious, as if we were adducing what was certain in +those in which we live. And thus we have made no sanction to abuses so +powerful as history, and no enemy to the present like the past. + + + + + +FROM THE LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE TO MRS. ST. JOHN. + +At last, my dear Julia, I am settled in my beautiful retreat. Mrs. +Dalton and Lady Margaret Leslie are all whom I could prevail upon to +accompany me. Mr. Mandeville is full of the corn-laws. He is chosen +chairman to a select committee in the House. He is murmuring +agricultural distresses in his sleep; and when I asked him occasionally +to come down here to see me, he started from a reverie, and exclaimed-- +"--Never, Mr. Speaker, as a landed proprietor; never will I consent to my +own ruin." + +My boy, my own, my beautiful companion, is with me. I wish you could see +how fast he can run, and how sensibly he can talk. "What a fine figure +he has for his age!" said I to Mr. Mandeville the other day. "Figure! +age!" said his father; "in the House of Commons he shall make a figure to +every age." I know that in writing to you, you will not be contented if +I do not say a great deal about myself. I shall therefore proceed to +tell you, that I feel already much better from the air and exercise! the +journey, from the conversation of my two guests, and, above all, from the +constant society of my dear boy. He was three last birthday. I think +that at the age of twenty-one, I am the least childish of the two. Pray +remember me to all in town who have not quite forgotten me. Beg Lady +------ to send Elizabeth a subscription ticket for Almack's, and--oh, +talking of Almack's, I think my boy's eyes are even more blue and +beautiful than Lady C-----'s. + +Adieu, my dear Julia, Ever, &c. E. M. + + + +Lady Emily Mandeville was the daughter of the Duke of Lindvale. She +married, at the age of sixteen, a man of large fortune, and some +parliamentary reputation. Neither in person nor in character was he much +beneath or above the ordinary standard of men. He was one of Nature's +Macadamised achievements. His great fault was his equality; and you +longed for a hill though it were to climb, or a stone though it were in +your way. Love attaches itself to something prominent, even if that +something be what others would hate. One can scarce feel extremes for +mediocrity. The few years Lady Emily had been married had but little +altered her character. Quick in feeling, though regulated in temper; gay +less from levity, than from that first _spring-tide_ of a heart which has +never yet known occasion to be sad; beautiful and pure, as an +enthusiast's dream of heaven, yet bearing within the latent and powerful +passion and tenderness of earth: she mixed with all a simplicity and +innocence which the extreme earliness of her marriage, and the ascetic +temper of her husband, had tendered less to diminish than increase. She +had much of what is termed genius--its warmth of emotion--its vividness +of conception--its admiration for the grand--its affection for the good, +and that dangerous contempt for whatever is mean and worthless, the very +indulgence of which is an offence against the habits of the world. Her +tastes were, however, too feminine and chaste ever to render her +eccentric: they were rather calculated to conceal than to publish the +deeper recesses of her nature; and it was beneath that polished surface +of manner common to those with whom she mixed, that she hid the treasures +of a mine which no human eye had beheld. + +Her health, naturally delicate, had lately suffered much from the +dissipation of London, and it was by the advice of physicians that she +had now come to spend the summer at E------. Lady Margaret Leslie, who +was old enough to be tired with the caprices of society, and Mrs. Dalton, +who, having just lost her husband, was forbidden at present to partake of +its amusements, had agreed to accompany her to her retreat. Neither of +them was perhaps much suited to Emily's temper, but youth and spirits +make almost any one congenial to us: it is from the years which confirm +our habits, and the reflections which refine our taste, that it becomes +easy to revolt us, and difficult to please. + +On the third day after Emily's arrival at E------, she was sitting after +breakfast with Lady Margaret and Mrs. Dalton. "Pray," said the former, +"did you ever meet my relation, Mr. Falkland? he is in your immediate +neighbourhood." "Never; though I have a great curiosity: that fine old +ruin beyond the village belongs to him, I believe." "It does. You ought +to know him: you would like him so!" "Like him!" repeated Mrs. Dalton, +who was one of those persons of ton who, though everything collectively, +are nothing individually: "like him? impossible!" "Why?" said Lady +Margaret, indignantly--"he has every requisite to please--youth, talent, +fascination of manner, and great knowledge of the world." "Well," said +Mrs. Dalton, "I cannot say I discovered his perfections. He seemed to me +conceited and satirical, and--and--in short, very disagreeable; but then, +to be sure, I have only seen him once." "I have heard many accounts of +him," said Emily, "all differing from each other: I think, however, that +the generality of people rather incline to Mrs. Dalton's opinion than to +yours, Lady Margaret." "I can easily believe it. It is very seldom that +he takes the trouble to please; but when he does, he is irresistible. +Very little, however, is generally known respecting him. Since he came +of age, he has been much abroad; and when in England, he never entered +with eagerness into society. He is supposed to possess very +extraordinary powers, which, added to his large fortune and ancient name, +have procured him a consideration and rank rarely enjoyed by one so +young. He had refused repeated offers to enter into public life; but he +is very intimate with one of the ministers, who, it is said, has had the +address to profit much by his abilities. All other particulars +concerning him are extremely uncertain. Of his person and manners you +had better judge yourself; for I am sure, Emily, that my petition for +inviting him here is already granted." "By all means," said Emily: "you +cannot be more anxious to see him than I am." And so the conversation +dropped. Lady Margaret went to the library; Mrs. Dalton seated herself +on the ottoman, dividing her attention between the last novel and her +Italian greyhound; and Emily left the room in order to revisit her former +and favourite haunts. Her young son was her companion, and she was not +sorry that he was her only one. To be the instructress of an infant, a +mother should be its playmate; and Emily was, perhaps, wiser than she +imagined, when she ran with a laughing eye and a light foot over the +grass, occupying herself almost with the same earnestness as her child in +the same infantine amusements. As they passed the wood which led to the +lake at the bottom of the grounds, the boy, who was before Emily, +suddenly stopped. She came hastily up to him; and scarcely two paces +before, though half hid by the steep bank of the lake beneath which he +reclined, she saw a man apparently asleep. A volume of; Shakespeare lay +beside him: the child had seized it. As she took it from him in order to +replace it, her eyes rested upon the passage the boy had accidentally +opened. How often in after days was that passage recalled as an omen! +It was the following: + + Ah me! for aught that ever I could read, + Could ever hear by tale or history + The course of true love never did run smooth! + Midsummer Night's Dream. + +As she laid the book gently down she caught a glimpse of the countenance +of the sleeper: never did she forget the expression which it wore, +--stern, proud, mournful even in repose! + +She did not wait for him to wake. She hurried home through the trees. +All that day she was silent and abstracted; the face haunted her like a +dream. Strange as it may seem, she spoke neither to Lady Margaret nor to +Mrs. Dalton of her adventure. Why? Is there in our hearts any +prescience of their misfortunes? + +On the next day, Falkland, who had received and accepted Lady Margaret's +invitation, was expected to dinner. Emily felt a strong yet excusable +curiosity to see one of whom she had heard so many and such contradictory +reports. She was alone in the saloon when he entered. At the first +glance she recognised the person she had met by the lake on the day +before, and she blushed deeply as she replied to his salutation. To her +great relief Lady Margaret and Mrs. Dalton entered in a few minutes, and +the conversation grew general. + +Falkland had but little of what is called animation in manner; but his +wit, though it rarely led to mirth, was sarcastic, yet refined, and the +vividness of his imagination threw a brilliancy and originality over +remarks which in others might have been commonplace and tame. + +The conversation turned chiefly upon society; and though Lady Margaret +had told her he had entered but little into its ordinary routine, Emily +was struck alike by his accurate acquaintance with men, and the justice +of his reflections upon manners. There also mingled with his satire an +occasional melancholy of feeling, which appeared to Emily the more +touching because it was always unexpected and unassumed. It was after +one of these remarks, that for the first time she ventured to examine +into the charm and peculiarity of the countenance of the speaker. There +was spread over it that expression of mingled energy and languor, which +betokens that much, whether of thought, sorrow, passion, or action, has +been undergone, but resisted: has wearied, but not subdued. In the broad +and noble brow, in the chiselled lip, and the melancholy depths of the +calm and thoughtful eye, there sat a resolution and a power, which, +though mournful, were not without their pride; which, if they had borne +the worst, had also defied it. Notwithstanding his mother's country, his +complexion was fair and pale; and his hair, of a light chestnut, fell in +large antique curls over his forehead. That forehead, indeed, +constituted the principal feature of his countenance. It was neither in +its height nor expansion alone that its remarkable beauty consisted; but +if ever thought to conceive and courage to execute high designs were +embodied and visible, they were imprinted there. + +Falkland did not stay long after dinner; but to Lady Margaret he promised +all that she required of future length and frequency in his visits. When +he left the room, Lady Emily went instinctively to the window to watch +him depart; and all that night his low soft voice rung in her ear, like +the music of an indistinct and half-remembered dream. + + + +FROM MR. MANDEVILLE TO LADY EMILY. + +DEAR, EMILY,--Business of great importance to the country has, prevented +my writing to you before. I hope you have continued well since I heard +from you last, and that you do all you can to preserve that retrenchment +of unnecessary expenses, and observe that attention to a prudent economy, +which is no less incumbent upon individuals than nations. + +Thinking that you must be dull at E------, and ever anxious both to +entertain and to improve you, I send you an excellent publication by Mr. +Tooke, together with my own two last speeches, corrected by myself. + +Trusting to hear from you soon, I am, with best love to Henry, + +Very affectionately yours, + +JOHN MANDEVILLE. + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON. + +Well, Monkton, I have been to E-----; that important event in my monastic +life has been concluded. Lady Margaret was as talkative as usual; and a +Mrs. Dalton, who, I find, is an acquaintance of yours, asked very +tenderly after your poodle and yourself. But Lady Emily! Ay, Monkton, +I know not well how to describe her to you. Her beauty interests not +less than it dazzles. There is that deep and eloquent softness in her +every word and action, which, of all charms, is the most dangerous. Yet +she is rather of a playful than of the melancholy and pensive nature +which generally accompanies such gentleness of manner; but there is no +levity in her character; nor is that playfulness of spirit ever carried +into the exhilaration of what we call "mirth." She seems, if I may use +the antithesis, at once too feeling to be gay, and too innocent to be +sad. I remember having frequently met her husband. Cold and pompous, +without anything to interest the imagination, or engage the affections, +I am not able to conceive a person less congenial to his beautiful and +romantic wife. But she must have been exceedingly young when she married +him; and she, probably, knows not yet that she is to be pitied, because +she has not yet learned that she can love. + + Le veggio in fronte amor come in suo seggio + Sul crin, negli occhi--su le labra amore + Sol d'intorno al suo cuore amor non veggio. + +I have been twice to her house since my first admission there. I love to +listen to that soft and enchanting voice, and to escape from the gloom of +my own reflections to the brightness, yet simplicity, of hers. In my +earlier days this comfort would have been attended with danger; but we +grow callous from the excess of feeling. We cannot re-illumine ashes! +I can gaze upon her dream-like beauty, and not experience a single desire +which can sully the purity of my worship. I listen to her voice when it +melts in endearment over her birds, her flowers, or, in a deeper +devotion, over her child; but my heart does not thrill at the tenderness +of the sound. I touch her hand, and the pulses of my own are as calm as +before. Satiety of the past is our best safeguard from the temptations +of the future; and the perils of youth are over when it has acquired that +dulness and apathy of affection which should belong only to the +insensibility of age. + + + +Such were Falkland's opinions at the time he wrote. Ah! what is so +delusive as our affections? Our security is our danger--our defiance our +defeat! Day after day he went to E-------. He passed the mornings in +making excursions with Emily over that wild and romantic country by which +they were surrounded; and in the dangerous but delicious stillness of the +summer twilights, they listened to the first whispers of their hearts. + +In his relationship to Lady Margaret, Falkland found his excuse for the +frequency of his visits: and even Mrs. Dalton was so charmed with the +fascination of his manner, that (in spite of her previous dislike) she +forgot to inquire how far his intimacy at E------ was at variance with +the proprieties of the world she worshipped, or in what proportion it was +connected with herself. + +It is needless for me to trace through all its windings the formation of +that affection, the subsequent records of which I am about to relate. +What is so unearthly, so beautiful, as the first birth of a woman's +love? The air of heaven is not purer in its wanderings--its sunshine not +more holy in its warmth. Oh! why should it deteriorate in its nature, +even while it increases in its degree? Why should the step which +prints, sully also the snow? How often, when Falkland met that +guiltless yet thrilling eye, which revealed to him those internal +secrets that Emily was yet awhile too happy to discover; when, like a +fountain among flowers, the goodness of her heart flowed over the +softness of her manner to those around her, and the benevolence of her +actions to those beneath; how often he turned away with a veneration too +deep for the selfishness of human passion, and a tenderness too sacred +for its desires! It was in this temper (the earliest and the most +fruitless prognostic of real love) that the following letter was +written. + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON. + +I have had two or three admonitory letters from my uncle. "The summer +(he says) is advancing, yet you remain stationary in your indolence. +There is still a great part of Europe which you have not seen; and since +you will neither enter society for a wife, nor the House of Commons for +fame, spend your life, at least while it is yet free and unshackled, in +those active pursuits which will render idleness hereafter more sweet; or +in that observation and enjoyment among others, which will increase your +resources in yourself." All this sounds well; but I have already +acquired more knowledge than will be of use either to others or myself, +and I am not willing to lose tranquillity here for the chance of +obtaining pleasure elsewhere. Pleasure is indeed a holiday sensation +which does not occur in ordinary life. We lose the peace of years when +we hunt after the rapture of moments. + +I do not know if you ever felt that existence was ebbing away without +being put to its full value: as for me, I am never conscious of life +without being also conscious that it is not enjoyed to the utmost. This +is a bitter feeling, and its worst bitterness is our ignorance how to +remove it. My indolence I neither seek nor wish to defend, yet it is +rather from necessity than choice: it seems to me that there is nothing +in the world to arouse me. I only ask for action, but I can find no +motive sufficient to excite it: let me then, in my indolence, not, like +the world, be idle, yet dependent on others; but at least dignify the +failing by some appearance of that freedom which retirement only can +bestow. + +My seclusion is no longer solitude; yet I do not value it the less. I +spend a great portion of my time at E------. Loneliness is attractive to +men of reflection, nor so much because they like their own thoughts, as +because they dis like the thoughts of others. Solitude ceases to charm +the moment we can find a single being whose ideas are more agreeable to +us than our own. I have not, I think, yet described to you the person of +Lady Emily. She is tall, and slightly, yet beautifully, formed. The ill +health which obliged her to leave London for E------, in the height of +the season, has given her cheek a more delicate hue than I should think +it naturally wore. Her eyes are light, but their lashes are long and +dark; her hair is black and luxuriant, and worn in a fashion peculiar to +herself; but her manners, Monkton! how can I convey to you their +fascination! so simple, and therefore so faultless--so modest, and yet so +tender--she seems, in acquiring the intelligence of the woman, to have +only perfected the purity of the child; and now, after all that I have +said, I am only more deeply sensible of the truth of Bacon's observation, +that "the best part of beauty is that which no picture can express." +I am loth to finish this description, because it seems to me scarcely +begun; I am unwilling to continue it, because every word seems to show me +more clearly those recesses of my heart, which I would have hidden even +from myself. I do not yet love, it is true, for the time is past when +I was lightly moved to passion; but I will not incur that danger, the +probability of which I am seer enough to foresee. Never shall that pure +and innocent heart be sullied by one who would die to shield it from the +lightest misfortune. I find in myself a powerful seconder to my uncle's +wishes. I shall be in London next week; till then, fare well. E. F. + + + +When the proverb said, that "Jove laughs at lovers' vows," it meant not +(as in the ordinary construction) a sarcasm on their insincerity, but +inconsistency. We deceive others far less than we deceive ourselves. +What to Falkland were resolutions which a word, a glance, could over +throw? In the world he might have dissipated his thoughts in loneliness +he concentred them; for the passions are like the sounds of Nature, only +heard in her solitude! He lulled his soul to the reproaches of his +conscience; he surrendered himself to the intoxication of so golden a +dream; and amidst those beautiful scenes there arose, as an offering to +the summer heaven, the incense of two hearts which had, through those +very fires so guilty in themselves, purified and ennobled every other +emotion they had conceived, + + God made the country, and man made the town. + +says the hackneyed quotation; and the feeling awakened in each, differ +with the genius of the place. Who can compare the frittered and divided +affections formed in cities with that which crowds cannot distract by +opposing temptations, or dissipation infect with its frivolities? + +I have often thought that had the execution of Atala equalled its design, +no human work could have surpassed it in its grandeur. What picture is +more simple, though more sublime, than the vast solitude of an unpeopled +wilderness, the woods, the mountains, the face of Nature, cast in the +fresh yet giant mould of a new and unpolluted world; and, amidst those +most silent and mighty temples of THE GREAT GOD, the lone spirit of Love +reigning and brightening over all? + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALKLAND, BY LYTTON, V1 *** + +****** This file should be named 7757.txt or 7757.zip ****** + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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