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diff --git a/7761.txt b/7761.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..687d319 --- /dev/null +++ b/7761.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3829 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Falkland, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Falkland, Complete + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 16, 2009 [EBook #7761] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALKLAND, COMPLETE *** + + + + +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, an + 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? + + + + + + +BOOK II. + +It is dangerous for women, however wise it be for men, "to commune with +their own hearts, and to be still!" Continuing to pursue the follies of +the world had been to Emily more prudent than to fly them; to pause, to +separate herself from the herd, was to discover, to feel, to murmur at +the vacuum of her being; and to occupy it with the feelings which it +craved, could in her be but the hoarding a provision for despair. + +Married, before she had begun the bitter knowledge of herself, to a man +whom it was impossible to love, yet deriving from nature a tenderness +of soul, which shed itself over everything around, her only escape from +misery had been in the dormancy of feeling. The birth of her son had +opened to her a new field of sensations, and she drew the best charm of +her own existence from the life she had given to another. Had she not +met Falkland, all the deeper sources of affection would have flowed into +one only and legitimate channel; but those whom he wished to fascinate +had never resisted his power, and the attachment he inspired was in +proportion to the strength and ardour of his own nature. + +It was not for Emily Mandeville to love such as Falkland without feeling +that from that moment a separate and selfish existence had ceased to be. +Our senses may captivate us with beauty; but in absence we forget, or +by reason we can conquer, so superficial an impression. Our vanity may +enamour us with rank; but the affections of vanity are traced in sand; +but who can love Genius, and not feel that the sentiments it excites +partake of its own intenseness and its own immortality? It arouses, +concentrates, engrosses all our emotions, even to the most subtle and +concealed. Love what is common, and ordinary objects can replace or +destroy a sentiment which an ordinary object has awakened. Love what we +shall not meet again amidst the littleness and insipidity which surround +us, and where can we turn for a new object to replace that which has no +parallel upon earth? The recovery from such a delirium is like return +from a fairy land; and still fresh in the recollections of a bright and +immortal clime, how can we endure the dulness of that human existence to +which for the future we are condemned? + +It was some weeks since Emily had written to Mrs. St. John; and her last +letter, in mentioning Falkland, had spoken of him with a reserve which +rather alarmed than deceived her friend. Mrs. St. John had indeed a +strong and secret reason for fear. Falkland had been the object of her +own and her earliest attachment, and she knew well the singular and +mysterious power which he exercised at will over the mind. He had, it is +true, never returned, nor even known of, her feelings towards him; and +during the years which had elapsed since she last saw him, and in the +new scenes which her marriage with Mr. St. John had opened, she had +almost forgotten her early attachment, when Lady Emily's letter renewed +its remembrance. She wrote in answer an impassioned and affectionate +caution to her friend. She spoke much (after complaining of Emily's late +silence) in condemnation of the character of Falkland, and in warning of +its fascinations; and she attempted to arouse alike the virtue and the +pride which so often triumph in alliance, when separately they would so +easily fail. In this Mrs. St. John probably imagined she was actuated +solely by friendship; but in the best actions there is always some +latent evil in the motive; and the selfishness of a jealousy, though +hopeless not conquered, perhaps predominated over the less interested +feelings which were all that she acknowledged to herself. + +In this work it has been my object to portray the progress of the +passions; to chronicle a history rather by thoughts and feelings than +by incidents and events; and to lay open those minuter and more subtle +mazes and secrets of the human heart, which in modern writings have been +so sparingly exposed. It is with this view that I have from time to time +broken the thread of narration, in order to bring forward more vividly +the characters it contains; and in laying no claim to the ordinary +ambition of tale-writers, I have deemed myself at liberty to deviate +from the ordinary courses they pursue. Hence the motive and the excuse +for the insertion of the following extracts, and of occasional letters. +They portray the interior struggle when Narration would look only to +the external event, and trace the lightning "home to its cloud," when +History would only mark the spot where it scorched or destroyed. + + + +EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. + +Tuesday.--More than seven years have passed since I began this journal! +I have just been looking over it from the commencement. Many and various +are the feelings which it attempts to describe--anger, pique, joy, +sorrow, hope, pleasure, weariness, ennui; but never, never once, +humiliation or remorse!--these were not doomed to be my portion in the +bright years of my earliest youth. How shall I describe them now? I have +received--I have read, as well as my tears would let me, a long letter +from Julia. It is true that I have not dared to write to her: when shall +I answer this? She has showed me the state of my heart; I more than +suspected it before. Could I have dreamed two months--six weeks--since +that I should have a single feeling of which I could be ashamed? He has +just been here He--the only one in the world, for all the world seems +concentred in him. He observed my distress, for I looked on him; and my +lips quivered and my eyes were full of tears. He came to me--he sat next +to me--he whispered his interest, his anxiety--and was this all? Have +I loved before I even knew that I was beloved? No, no; the tongue was +silent, but the eye, the cheek, the manner--alas! these have been but +too eloquent! + +Wednesday.--It was so sweet to listen to his low and tender voice; to +watch the expression of his countenance--even to breathe the air that he +inhaled. But now that I know its cause, I feel that this pleasure is a +crime, and I am miserable even when he is with me. He has not been here +to-day. It is past three. Will he come? I rise from my seat--I go to +the window for breath--I am restless, agitated, disturbed. Lady Margaret +speaks to me--I scarcely answer her. My boy--yes, my dear, dear Henry +comes, and I feel that I am again a mother. Never will I betray that +duty, though I have forgotten one as sacred though less dear! Never +shall my son have cause to blush for his parent! I will fly hence--I +will see him no more! + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON. + +Write to me, Monkton--exhort me, admonish me, or forsake me for ever. +I am happy yet wretched: I wander in the delirium of a fatal fever, in +which I see dreams of a brighter life, but every one of them only brings +me nearer to death. Day after day I have lingered here, until weeks have +flown--and for what? Emily is not like the women of the world--virtue, +honour, faith, are not to her the mere _convenances_ of society. "There +is no crime," said Lady A., "where there is concealment." Such can never +be the creed of Emily Mandeville. She will not disguise guilt either in +the levity of the world, or in the affectations of sentiment. She will +be wretched, and for ever. I hold the destinies of her future life, and +yet I am base enough to hesitate whether to save or destroy her. Oh, how +fearful, how selfish, how degrading, is unlawful love! + +You know my theoretical benevolence for everything that lives; you have +often smiled at its vanity. I see now that you were right; for it seems +to me almost superhuman virtue not to destroy the person who is dearest +to me on earth. + +I remember writing to you some weeks since that I would come to London +Little did I know of the weakness of my own mind. I told her that I +intended to depart. She turned pale--she trembled--but she did not +speak. Those signs which should have hastened my departure have taken +away the strength even to think of it. + +I am here still! I go to E------ every day. Sometimes we sit in silence; +I dare not trust myself to speak. How dangerous are such moments! +_Ammutiscon lingue parlen l'alme_. + +Yesterday they left us alone. We had been conversing with Lady Margaret +on indifferent subjects. There was a pause for some minutes. I looked +up; Lady Margaret had left the room. The blood rushed into my cheek--my +eyes met Emily's; I would have given worlds to have repeated with my +lips what those eyes expressed. I could not even speak--I felt choked +with contending emotions. There was not a breath stirring; I heard my +very heart beat. A thunderbolt would have been a relief. Oh God! if +there be a curse, it is to burn, swell, madden with feelings which you +are doomed to conceal! This is, indeed, to be "a cannibal of one's own +heart." [Bacon] + +It was sunset. Emily was alone upon the lawn which sloped towards the +lake, and the blue still waters beneath broke, at bright intervals, +through the scattered and illuminated trees. She stood watching the sun +sink with wistful and tearful eyes. Her soul was sad within her. The ivy +which love first wreathes around his work had already faded away, and +she now only saw the desolation of the ruin it concealed. Never more +for her was that freshness of unwakened feeling which invests all things +with a perpetual daybreak of sunshine, and incense, and dew. The +heart may survive the decay or rupture of an innocent and lawful +affection--"la marque reste, mais la blessure guerit"--but the love of +darkness and guilt is branded in a character ineffaceable--eternal! +The one is, like lightning, more likely to dazzle than to destroy, and, +divine even in its danger, it makes holy what it sears; but the other +is like that sure and deadly fire which fell upon the cities of old, +graving in the barrenness of the desert it had wrought the record and +perpetuation of a curse. A low and thrilling voice stole upon Emily's +ear. She turned--Falkland stood beside her. "I felt restless and +unhappy," he said, "and I came to seek you. If (writes one of the +fathers) a guilty and wretched man could behold, though only for a few +minutes, the countenance of an angel, the calm and glory which it wears +would so sink into his heart, that he would pass at once over the gulf +of gone years into his first unsullied state of purity and hope; perhaps +I thought of that sentence when I came to you." + +"I know not," said Emily, with a deep blush at this address, which +formed her only answer to the compliment it conveyed; "I know not why +it is, but to me there is always something melancholy in this +hour--something mournful in seeing the beautiful day die with all its +pomp and music, its sunshine, and songs of birds." + +"And yet," replied Falkland, "if I remember the time when my feelings +were more in unison with yours (for at present external objects have +lost for me much of their influence and attraction), the melancholy you +perceive has in it a vague and ineffable sweetness not to be exchanged +for more exhilarated spirits. The melancholy which arises from no cause +within ourselves is like music--it enchants us in proportion to its +effect upon our feelings. Perhaps its chief charm (though this it +requires the contamination of after years before we can fathom and +define) is in the purity of the sources it springs from. Our feelings +can be but little sullied and worn while they can yet respond to the +passionless and primal sympathies of Nature; and the sadness you speak +of is so void of bitterness, so allied to the best and most delicious +sensations we enjoy, that I should imagine the very happiness of Heaven +partook rather of melancholy than mirth." + +There was a pause of some moments. It was rarely that Falkland alluded +even so slightly to the futurity of another world; and when he did, it +was never in a careless and commonplace manner, but in a tone which sank +deep into Emily's heart. "Look," she said, at length, "at that beautiful +star! the first and brightest! I have often thought it was like the +promise of life beyond the tomb--a pledge to us that, even in the depths +of midnight, the earth shall have a light, unquenched and unquenchable, +from Heaven!" + +Emily turned to Falkland as she said this, and her countenance sparkled +with the enthusiasm she felt. But his face was deadly pale. There +went over it, like a cloud, an expression of changeful and unutterable +thought; and then, passing suddenly away, it left his features calm and +bright in all their noble and intellectual beauty. Her soul yearned to +him, as she looked, with the tenderness of a sister. + +They walked slowly towards the house. "I have frequently," said Emily, +with some hesitation, "been surprised at the little enthusiasm you +appear to possess even upon subjects where your conviction must be +strong." + +"_I have thought enthusiasm away!_" replied Falkland; "it was the loss +of hope which brought me reflection, and in reflection I forgot to feel. +Would that I had not found it so easy to recall what I thought I had +lost for ever!" Falkland's cheek changed as he said this, and Emily +sighed faintly, for she felt his meaning. In him that allusion to his +love had aroused a whole train of dangerous recollections; for Passion +is the avalanche of the human heart--a single breath can dissolve it +from its repose. + +They remained silent; for Falkland would not trust himself to speak, +till, when they reached the house, he faltered out his excuses for not +entering, and departed. He turned towards his solitary home. The grounds +at E------ had been laid out in a classical and costly manner which +contrasted forcibly with the wild and simple nature of the surrounding +scenery. Even the short distance between Mr. Mandeville's house and +L------ wrought as distinct a change in the character of the country as +any length of space could have effected. Falkland's ancient and ruinous +abode, with its shattered arches and moss-grown parapets, was situated +on a gentle declivity, and surrounded by dark elm and larch trees. It +still retained some traces both of its former consequence, and of +the perils to which that consequence had exposed it. A broad ditch, +overgrown with weeds, indicated the remains of what once had been a +moat; and huge rough stones, scattered around it, spoke of the outworks +the fortification had anciently possessed, and the stout resistance they +had made in "the Parliament Wars" to the sturdy followers of Ireton and +Fairfax. The moon, that flatterer of decay, shed its rich and softening +beauty over a spot which else had, indeed, been desolate and cheerless, +and kissed into light the long and unwaving herbage which rose at +intervals from the ruins, like the false parasites of fallen greatness. +But for Falkland the scene had no interest or charm, and he turned with +a careless and unheeding eye to his customary apartment. It was the +only one in the house furnished with luxury, or even comfort. Large +bookcases, inlaid with curious carvings in ivory; busts of the few +public characters the world had ever produced worthy, in Falkland's +estimation, of the homage of posterity; elaborately-wrought hangings +from Flemish looms; and French fauteuils and sofas of rich damask, +and massy gilding (relics of the magnificent days of Louis Quatorze), +bespoke a costliness of design suited rather to Falkland's wealth than +to the ordinary simplicity of his tastes. + +A large writing-table was overspread with books in various languages, +and upon the most opposite subjects. Letters and papers were scattered +amongst them; Falkland turned carelessly over the latter. One of the +epistolary communications was from Lord ------, the --. He smiled +bitterly, as he read the exaggerated compliments it contained, and saw +to the bottom of the shallow artifice they were meant to conceal. He +tossed the letter from him, and opened the scattered volumes, one after +another, with that languid and sated feeling common to all men who have +read deeply enough to feel how much they have learned, and how little +they know. "We pass our lives," thought he, "in sowing what we are never +to reap! We endeavour to erect a tower, which shall reach the heavens, +in order to escape one curse, and lo! we are smitten by another! We +would soar from a common evil, and from that moment we are divided by +a separate language from our race! Learning, science, philosophy, the +world of men and of imagination, I ransacked--and for what? I centred +my happiness in wisdom. I looked upon the aims of others with a scornful +and loathing eye. I held commune with those who have gone before me; +I dwelt among the monuments of their minds, and made their records +familiar to me as friends: I penetrated the womb of nature, and went +with the secret elements to their home: I arraigned the stars before +me, and learned the method and the mystery of their courses: I asked the +tempest its bourn, and questioned the winds of their path. This was not +sufficient to satisfy my thirst for knowledge, and I searched in this +lower world of new sources to content it. Unseen and unsuspected, I saw +and agitated the springs of the automaton that we call 'the Mind.' I +found a clue for the labyrinth of human motives, and I surveyed the +hearts of those around me as through a glass. Vanity of vanities! What +have I acquired? I have separated myself from my kind, but not from +those worst enemies, my passions! I have made a solitude of my soul, but +I have not mocked it with the appellation of Peace. + + "Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."--TACITUS. + "They make a solitude, and call it peace."--BYRON. + +"In flying the herd, I have not escaped from myself; like the wounded +deer, the barb was within me, and that I could not fly!" With these +thoughts he turned from his reverie, and once more endeavoured to charm +his own reflections by those which ought to speak to us of quiet, for +they are graven on the pages of the dead; but his attempts were as idle +as before. His thoughts were still wandering and confused, and could +neither be quieted nor collected: he read, but he scarcely distinguished +one page from another: he wrote--the ideas refused to flow at his call; +and the only effort at connecting his feelings which even partially +succeeded, was in the verses which I am about to place before the +reader. It is a common property of poetry, however imperfectly the gift +be possessed, to speak to the hearts of others in proportion as the +sentiments it would express are felt in our own; and I subjoin the lines +which bear the date of that evening, in the hope that, more than many +pages, they will show the morbid yet original character of the +writer, and the particular sources of feeling from which they took the +bitterness that pervades them. + + + KNOWLEDGE. + + Ergo hominum genus incassum frustraque laborat + Semper, et in curis consumit inanibus aevum.--Lucret. + + 'Tis midnight! Round the lamp which o'er + My chamber sheds its lonely beam, + Is wisely spread the varied lore + Which feeds in youth our feverish dream + + The dream--the thirst--the wild desire, + Delirious yet divine-to know; + Around to roam--above aspire + And drink the breath of Heaven below! + + From Ocean-Earth-the Stars-the Sky + To lift mysterious Nature's pall; + And bare before the kindling eye + In MAN the darkest mist of all-- + + Alas! what boots the midnight oil? + The madness of the struggling mind? + Oh, vague the hope, and vain the toil, + Which only leave us doubly blind! + + What learn we from the Past? the same + Dull course of glory, guilt, and gloom-- + I ask'd the Future, and there came + No voice from its unfathom'd womb. + + The Sun was silent, and the wave; + The air but answer'd with its breath + But Earth was kind; and from the grave + Arose the eternal answer--Death! + + And this was all! We need no sage + To teach us Nature's only truth! + O fools! o'er Wisdom's idle page + To waste the hours of golden youth! + + In Science wildly do we seek + What only withering years should bring + The languid pulse--the feverish cheek + The spirits drooping on their wing! + + To think--is but to learn to groan + To scorn what all beside adore + To feel amid the world alone, + An alien on a desert shore; + + To lose the only ties which seem + To idler gaze in mercy given! + To find love, faith, and hope, a dream, + And turn to dark despair from heaven! + + +I pass on to a wilder period of my history. The passion, as yet only +revealed by the eye, was now to be recorded by the lip; and the scene +which witnessed the first confession of the lovers was worthy of the +last conclusion of their loves! + +E------ was about twelve miles from a celebrated cliff on the seashore, +and Lady Margaret had long proposed an excursion to a spot, curious +alike for its natural scenery and the legends attached to it. A day was +at length fixed for accomplishing this plan. Falkland was of the party. +In searching for something in the pockets of the carriage, his hand met +Emily's, and involuntarily pressed it. She withdrew it hastily, but he +felt it tremble. He did not dare to look up: that single contact had +given him a new life: intoxicated with the most delicious sensations, he +leaned back in silence. A fever had entered his veins--the thrill of +the touch had gone like fire into his system--all his frame seemed one +nerve. + +Lady Margaret talked of the weather and the prospect, wondered how far +they had got, and animadverted on the roads, till at last, like a +child, she talked herself to rest. Mrs. Dalton read "Guy Mannering;" but +neither Emily nor her lover had any occupation or thought in common with +their companions: silent and absorbed, they were only alive to the vivid +existence of the present. Constantly engaged, as we are, in looking +behind us or before, if there be one hour in which we feel only the time +being--in which we feel sensibly that we live, and that those moments of +the present are full of the enjoyment, the rapture of existence--it is +when we are with the one person whose life and spirits have become the +great part and principle of our own. They reached their destination--a +small inn close by the shore. They rested there a short time, and then +strolled along the sands towards the cliff. Since Falkland had known +Emily, her character was much altered. Six weeks before the time I write +of, and in playfulness and lightness of spirits she was almost a +child: now those indications of an unawakened heart had mellowed into a +tenderness full of that melancholy so touching and holy, even amid +the voluptuous softness which it breathes and inspires. But this day, +whether from that coquetry so common to all women, or from some cause +more natural to her, she seemed gayer than Falkland ever remembered to +have seen her. She ran over the sands, picking up shells, and tempting +the waves with her small and fairy feet, not daring to look at him, and +yet speaking to him at times with a quick tone of levity which hurt and +offended him, even though he knew the depth of those feelings she could +not disguise either from him or from herself. By degrees his answers and +remarks grew cold and sarcastic. Emily affected pique; and when it was +discovered that the cliff was still nearly two miles off, she refused to +proceed any farther. Lady Margaret talked her at last into consent, +and they walked on as sullenly as an English party of pleasure possibly +could do, till they were within three quarters of a mile of the place, +when Emily declared she was so tired that she really could not go on. +Falkland looked at her, perhaps, with no very amiable expression of +countenance, when he perceived that she seemed really pale and fatigued; +and when she caught his eyes, tears rushed into her own. + +"Indeed, indeed, Mr. Falkland," she said, eagerly, "this is not +affectation. I am very tired; but rather than prevent your amusement, I +will endeavour to go on." "Nonsense, child," said Lady Margaret, "you +do seem tired. Mrs. Dalton and Falkland shall go to the rock, and I will +stay here with you." This proposition, however, Lady Emily (who knew +Lady Margaret's wish to see the rock) would not hear of; she insisted +upon staying by herself. "Nobody will run away with me; and I can very +easily amuse myself with picking up shells till you comeback." After +along remonstrance, which produced no effect, this plan was at last +acceded to. With great reluctance Falkland set off with his two +companions; but after the first step, he turned to look back. He caught +her eye, and felt from that moment that their reconciliation was sealed. +They arrived, at last, at the cliff. Its height, its excavations, the +romantic interest which the traditions respecting it had inspired, fully +repaid the two women for the fatigue of their walk. As for Falkland, +he was unconscious of everything around him; he was full of "sweet and +bitter thoughts." In vain the man whom they found loitering there, +in order to serve as a guide, kept dinning in his ear stories of the +marvellous, and exclamations of the sublime. The first words which +aroused him were these; "It's lucky, please your Honour, that you have +just saved the tide. It is but last week that three poor people were +drowned in attempting to come here; as it is, you will have to go home +round the cliff." Falkland started: he felt his heart stand still. "Good +God!" cried Lady Margaret, "what will become of Emily?" + +They were--at that instant in one of the caverns, where they had already +been loitering too long. Falkland rushed out to the sands. The tide was +hurrying in with a deep sound, which came on his soul like a knell. +He looked back towards the way they had come: not one hundred yards +distant, and the waters had already covered the path! An eternity would +scarcely atone for the horror of that moment! One great characteristic +of Falkland was his presence of mind. He turned to the man who stood +beside him--he gave him a cool and exact description of the spot where +he had left Emily. He told him to repair with all possible speed to his +home--to launch his boat--to row it to the place he had described. "Be +quick," he added, "and you must be in time: if you are, you shall never +know poverty again." The next moment he was already several yards from +the spot. He ran, or rather flew, till he was stopped by the waters. He +rushed in; they were over a hollow between two rocks--they were already +up to his chest. "There is yet hope," thought he, when he had passed +the spot, and saw the smooth sand before him. For some minutes he was +scarcely sensible of existence; and then he found himself breathless at +her feet. Beyond, towards T----- (the small inn I spoke of), the waves +had already reached the foot of the rocks, and precluded all hope of +return. Their only chance was the possibility that the waters had not +yet rendered impassable the hollow through which Falkland had just +waded. He scarcely spoke; at least he was totally unconscious of what he +said. He hurried her on breathless and trembling, with the sound of the +booming waters ringing in his ear, and their billows advancing to his +very feet. They arrived at the hollow: a single glance sufficed to show +him that their solitary hope was past! The waters, before up to his +chest, had swelled considerably: he could not swim. He saw in that +instant that they were girt with a hastening and terrible death. Can it +be believed that with that certainty ceased his fear? He looked in +the pale but calm countenance of her who clung to him, and a strange +tranquillity, even mingled with joy, possessed him. Her breath was on +his cheek--her form was reclining on his own--his hand clasped hers; if +they were to die, it was thus. What would life afford to him more dear? +"It is in this moment," said he, and he knelt as he spoke, "that I dare +tell you what otherwise my lips never should have revealed. I love--I +adore you! Turn not away from me thus. In life our persons were severed; +if our hearts are united in death, then death will be sweet." She +turned--her cheek was no longer pale! He rose--he clasped her to +his bosom: his lips pressed hers. Oh! that long, deep, burning +pressure!--youth, love, life, soul, all concentrated in that one kiss! +Yet the same cause which occasioned the avowal hallowed also the madness +of his heart. What had the passion, declared only at the approach of +death, with the more earthly desires of life? They looked to heaven--it +was calm and unclouded: the evening lay there in its balm and perfume, +and the air was less agitated than their sighs. They turned towards the +beautiful sea which was to be their grave: the wild birds flew over it +exultingly: the far vessels seemed "rejoicing to run their course." All +was full of the breath, the glory, the life of nature; and in how many +minutes was all to be as nothing! Their existence would resemble the +ships that have gone down at sea in the very smile of the element that +destroyed them. They looked into each other's eyes, and they drew still +nearer together. Their hearts, in safety apart, mingled in peril and +became one. Minutes rolled on, and the great waves came dashing round +them. They stood on the loftiest eminence they could reach. The spray +broke over their feet: the billows rose--rose--they were speechless. He +thought he heard her heart beat, but her lip trembled not. A +speck--a boat! "Look up, Emily! look up! See how it cuts the waters. +Nearer--nearer! but a little longer, and we are safe. It is but a +few yards off;--it approaches--it touches the rock!" Ah! what to them +henceforth was the value of life, when the moment of discovering its +charm became also the date of its misfortunes, and when the death +they had escaped was the only method of cementing their--union without +consummating their guilt? + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON. + +I will write to you at length to-morrow. Events have occurred to alter, +perhaps, the whole complexion of the future. I am now going to Emily to +propose to her to fly. We are not _les gens du monde_, who are ruined by +the loss of public opinion. She has felt that I can be to her far more +than the world; and as for me, what would I not forfeit for one touch of +her hand? + + + +EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. + +Friday.--Since I wrote yesterday in these pages the narrative of our +escape, I have done nothing but think over those moments, too dangerous +because too dear; but at last I have steeled my heart--I have yielded +to my own weakness too long--I shudder at the abyss from which I have +escaped. I can yet fly. He will come here to-day--he shall receive my +farewell. + +Saturday morning, four o'clock.--I have sat in this room alone since +eleven o'clock. I cannot give vent to my feelings; they seem as if +crushed by some load from which it is impossible to rise. "He is gone, +and for ever!" I sit repeating those words to myself, scarcely conscious +of their meaning. Alas! when to-morrow comes, and the next day, and the +next, and yet I see him not, I shall awaken, indeed, to all the agony of +my loss! He came here--he saw me alone--he implored me to fly. I did not +dare to meet his eyes; I hardened my heart against his voice. I knew the +part I was to take--I have adopted it; but what struggles, what misery, +has it not occasioned me! Who could have thought it had been so hard +to be virtuous! His eloquence drove me from one defence to another, +and then I had none but his mercy. I opened my heart--I showed him its +weakness--I implored his forbearance. My tears, my anguish, convinced +him of my sincerity. We have parted in bitterness, but, thank Heaven, +not in guilt! He has entreated permission to write to me. How could +I refuse him? Yet I may not--cannot-write to him again! How could, I +indeed, suffer my heart to pour forth one of its feelings in reply? for +would there be one word of regret, or one term of endearment, which my +inmost soul would not echo? + +Sunday.--Yes, that day--but I must not think of this; my very religion +I dare not indulge. Oh God! how wretched I am! His visit was always the +great aera in the clay; it employed all my hopes till he came, and all +my memory when he was gone. I sit now and look at the place he used to +fill, till I feel the tears rolling silently down my cheek: they come +without an effort--they depart without relief. + +Monday.--Henry asked me where Mr. Falkland was gone; I stooped down to +hide my confusion. When shall I hear from him? To-morrow? Oh that it +were come! I have placed the clock before me, and I actually count the +minutes. He left a book here; it is a volume of "Melmoth." I have read +over every word of it, and whenever I have come to a pencil-mark by him, +I have paused to dream over that varying and eloquent countenance, the +low soft tone of that tender voice, till the book has fallen from my +hands, and I have started to find the utterness of my desolation! + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. ------ Hotel, +London. + +For the first time in my life I write to you! How my hand trembles--how +my cheek flushes! a thousand, thousand thoughts rush upon me, and almost +suffocate me with the variety and confusion of the emotions they awaken! +I am agitated alike with the rapture of writing to you, and with the +impossibility of expressing the feelings which I cannot distinctly +unravel even to myself. You love me, Emily, and yet I have fled from +you, and at your command; but the thought that, though absent, I am not +forgotten, supports me through all. + +It was with a feverish sense of weariness and pain that I found myself +entering this vast reservoir of human vices. I became at once sensible +of the sterility of that polluted soil so incapable of nurturing +affection, and I clasped your image the closer to my heart. It is you, +who, when I was most weary of existence, gifted me with a new life. +You breathed into me a part of your own spirit; my soul feels that +influence, and becomes more sacred. I have shut myself from the idlers +who would molest me: I have built a temple in my heart: I have set +within it a divinity; and the vanities of the world shall not profane +the spot which has been consecrated to you. Our parting, Emily,--do you +recall it? Your hand clasped in mine; your cheek resting, though but +for an instant, on my bosom; and the tears which love called forth, but +which virtue purified even at their source. Never were hearts so near, +yet so divided; never was there an hour so tender, yet so unaccompanied +with danger. Passion, grief, madness, all sank beneath your voice, and +lay hushed like a deep sea within my soul! "Tu abbia veduto il leone +ammansarsi alla sola tua voce." + + 'Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis. + +I tore myself from you; I hurried through the wood; I stood by the lake, +on whose banks I had so often wandered with you: I bared my breast to +the winds; I bathed my temples with the waters. Fool that I was! the +fever, the fever was within! But it is not thus, my adored and beautiful +friend, that I should console and support you. Even as I write, +passion melts into tenderness, and pours itself in softness over your +remembrance. The virtue so gentle, yet so strong; the feelings so +kind, yet so holy; the tears which wept over the decision your lips +proclaimed--these are the recollections which come over me like dew. Let +your own heart, my Emily, be your reward; and know that your lover only +forgets that he adores, to remember that he respects you. + + + +FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME. ---------- Park. + +I could not bear the tumult and noise of London. I sighed for solitude, +that I might muse over your remembrance undisturbed. I came here +yesterday. It is the home of my childhood. I am surrounded on all sides +by the scenes and images consecrated by the fresh recollections of my +unsullied years. They are not changed. The seasons which come and depart +renew in them the havoc which they make. If the December destroys, the +April revives; but man has but one spring, and the desolation of the +heart but one winter! In this very room have I sat and brooded over +dreams and hopes which--but no matter--those dreams could never show +me a vision to equal you, or those hopes hold out to me a blessing so +precious as your love. + +Do you remember, or rather can you ever forget, that moment in which the +great depths of our souls were revealed? Ah! not in the scene in which +such vows should have been whispered to your ear and your tenderness +have blushed its reply. The passion concealed in darkness was revealed +in danger; and the love, which in life was forbidden, was our comfort +amidst the terrors of death! And that long and holy kiss, the first, +the only moment in which our lips shared the union of our souls!--do not +tell me that it is wrong to recall it!--do not tell me that I sin, +when I own to you the hours I sit alone, and nurse the delirium of that +voluptuous remembrance. The feelings you have excited may render me +wretched, but not guilty; for the love of you can only hallow the +heart--it is a fire which consecrates the altar on which it burns. I +feel, even from the hour that I loved, that my soul has become more +pure. I could not believe that I was capable of so unearthly an +affection, or that the love of woman could possess that divinity of +virtue which I worship in yours. The world is no fosterer of our young +visions of purity and passion: embarked in its pursuits, and acquainted +with its pleasures, while the latter sated me with what is evil, the +former made me incredulous to what is pure. I considered your sex as +a problem which my experience had already solved. Like the French +philosophers, who lose truth by endeavouring to condense it, and who +forfeit the moral from their regard to the maxim, I concentrated my +knowledge of women into aphorism and antitheses; and I did not dream +of the exceptions, if I did not find myself deceived in the general +conclusion. I confess that I erred; I renounce from this moment +the colder reflections of my manhood,--the fruits of a bitter +experience,--the wisdom of an inquiring yet agitated life. I return with +transport to my earliest visions of beauty and love; and I dedicate them +upon the altar of my soul to you, who have embodied, and concentrated, +and breathed them into life! + + + +EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. + +Monday.--This is the most joyless day in the whole week; for it can +bring me no letter from him. I rise listlessly, and read over again and +again the last letter I received from him--useless task! it is graven on +my heart! I long only for the day to be over, because to-morrow I may, +perhaps, hear from him again. When I wake at night from my disturbed and +broken sleep, I look if the morning is near; not because it gives light +and life, but because it may bring tidings of him. When his letter is +brought to me, I keep it for minutes unopened--I feed my eyes on the +handwriting--I examine the seal--I press it with my kisses, before I +indulge myself in the luxury of reading it. I then place it in my bosom, +and take it thence only to read it again and again,--to moisten it with +my tears of gratitude and love, and, alas! of penitence and remorse! +What can be the end of this affection? I dare neither to hope that it +may continue or that it may cease; in either case I am wretched for +ever! + +Monday night, twelve o'clock.--They observe my paleness; the tears which +tremble in my eyes; the listlessness and dejection of my manner. I think +Mrs. Dalton guesses the cause. Humbled and debased in my own mind, I +fly, Falkland, for refuge to you! Your affection cannot raise me to my +former state, but it can reconcile--no--not reconcile, but support me in +my present. This dear letter, I kiss it again--oh! that to-morrow were +come! + +Tuesday.--Another letter, so kind, so tender, so encouraging: would that +I deserved his praises! alas! I sin even in reading them. I know that +I ought to struggle more against my feelings--once I attempted it; I +prayed to Heaven to support me; I put away from me everything that could +recall him to my mind--for three days I would not open his letters. I +could then resist no longer; and my weakness became the more confirmed +from the feebleness of the struggle. I remember one day that he told us +of a beautiful passage in one of the ancients, in which the bitterest +curse against the wicked is, that they may see virtue, but not be able +to obtain it; [Persius]--that punishment is mine! + +Wednesday.--My boy has been with me: I see him now from the windows +gathering the field-flowers, and running after every butterfly which +comes across him. Formerly he made all my delight and occupation; now +he is even dearer to me than ever; but he no longer engrosses all my +thoughts. I turn over the leaves of this journal; once it noted down the +little occurrences of the day; it marks nothing now but the monotony of +sadness. He is not here--he cannot come. What event then could I notice? + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. + + [Most of the letters from Falkland to Lady E. Mandeville + I have thought it expedient to suppress.] +--------- Park. + +If you knew how I long, how I thirst, for one word from you--one word +to say you are well, and have not forgotten me!--but I will not distress +you. You will guess my feelings, and do justice to the restraint I +impose on them, when I make no effort to alter your resolution not to +write. I know that it is just, and I bow to my sentence; but can you +blame me if I am restless and if I repine? It is past twelve; I always +write to you at night. It is then, my own love, that my imagination can +be the more readily transport me to you: it is then that my spirit holds +with you a more tender and undivided commune. In the day the world can +force itself upon my thoughts, and its trifles usurp the place which +"I love to keep for only thee and Heaven;" but in the night all things +recall you the more vividly: the stillness of the gentle skies,--the +blandness of the unbroken air,--the stars, so holy in their loveliness, +all speak and breathe to me of you. I think your hand is clasped in +mine; and I again drink the low music of your voice, and imbibe again +in the air the breath which has been perfumed by your lips. You seem to +stand in my lonely chamber in the light and stillness of a spirit, who +has wandered on earth to teach us the love which is felt in Heaven. + +I cannot, believe me, I cannot endure this separation long; it must be +more or less. You must be mine for ever, or our parting must be without +a mitigation, which is rather a cruelty than a relief. If you will not +accompany me, I will leave this country alone. I must not wean myself +from your image by degrees, but break from the enchantment at once. And +when Emily, I am once more upon the world, when no tidings of my fate +shall reach your ear, and all its power of alienation be left to the +progress of time--then, when you will at last have forgotten me, +when your peace of mind will be restored, and, having no struggles of +conscience to undergo, you will have no remorse to endure; then, Emily, +when we are indeed divided, let the scene which has witnessed our +passion, the letters which have recorded my vow, the evil we have +suffered, and the temptation we have overcome; let these in our old age +be remembered, and in declaring to Heaven that we were innocent, add +also--that, we loved. + + + +FROM DON ALPHONSO D'AQUILAR TO DON --------. + +London. + +Our cause gains ground daily. The great, indeed the only ostensible +object of my mission is nearly fulfilled; but I have another charge +and attraction which I am now about to explain to you. You know that +my acquaintance with the English language and country arose from my +sister's marriage with Mr. Falkland. After the birth of their only child +I accompanied them to England: I remained with them for three years, +and I still consider those days among the whitest in my restless and +agitated career. I returned to Spain; I became engaged in the troubles +and dissensions which distracted my unhappy country. Years rolled on, +how I need not mention to you. One night they put a letter into my +hands; it was from my sister; it was written on her death-bed. Her +husband had died suddenly. She loved him as a Spanish woman loves, and +she could not survive his loss. Her letter to me spoke of her country +and her son. Amid the new ties she had formed in England, she had never +forgotten the land of her fathers. "I have already," she said, "taught +my boy to remember that he has two countries; that the one, prosperous +and free; may afford him his pleasures; that the other, struggling and +debased, demands from him his duties. If, when he has attained the age +in which you can judge of his character, he is respectable only from +his rank, and valuable only from his wealth; if neither his head nor +his heart will make him useful to our cause, suffer him to remain +undisturbed in his prosperity _here_: but if, as I presage, he becomes +worthy of the blood which he bears in his veins, then I conjure you, my +brother, to remind him that he has been sworn by me on my death-bed to +the most sacred of earthly altars." + +Some months since, when I arrived in England; before I ventured to find +him out in person, I resolved to inquire into his character. Had he been +as the young and the rich generally are--had dissipation become habitual +to him, and frivolity grown around him as a second nature, then I +should have acquiesced in the former injunction of my sister much more +willingly than I shall now obey the latter. I find that he is perfectly +acquainted with our language, that he has placed a large sum in our +funds, and that from the general liberality of his sentiments he is as +likely to espouse, as (in that case) he would be certain, from his high +reputation for talent, to serve our cause. I am, therefore, upon the eve +of seeking him out. I understand that he is living in perfect retirement +in the county of -------, in the immediate neighbourhood of Mr. +Mandeville, an Englishman of considerable fortune, and warmly attached +to our cause. + +Mr. Mandeville has invited me to accompany him down to his estate for +some days, and I am too anxious to see my nephew not to accept eagerly +of the invitation. If I can persuade Falkland to aid us, it will be by +the influence of his name, his talents, and his wealth. It is not of +him that we can ask the stern and laborious devotion to which we have +consecrated ourselves. The perfidy of friends, the vigilance of foes, +the rashness of the bold, the cowardice of the wavering; strife in the +closet, treachery in the senate, death in the field; these constitute +the fate we have pledged ourselves to bear. Little can any, who do not +endure it, imagine of the life to which those who share the contests of +an agitated and distracted country are doomed; but if they know not +our griefs, neither can they dream of our consolation. We move like the +delineation of Faith, over a barren and desert soil; the rock, and the +thorn, and the stings of the adder, are round our feet; but we clasp +a crucifix to our hearts for our comfort, and we fix our eyes upon the +heavens for our hope! + + + +EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDE VILLE. + +Wednesday.--His letters have taken a different tone: instead of +soothing, they add to my distress; but I deserve all--all that can be +inflicted upon me. I have had a letter from Mr. Mandeville. He is coming +down here for a few days, and intends bringing some friends with him: he +mentions particularly a Spaniard--the uncle of Mr Falkland, whom he +asks if I have seen. The Spaniard is particularly anxious to meet his +nephew--he does not then know that Falkland is gone. It will be some +relief to see Mr. Mandeville alone; but even then how shall I meet him? +What shall I say when he observes my paleness and alteration? I feel +bowed to the very dust. + +Thursday evening.--Mr. Mandeville has arrived: fortunately, it was late +in the evening before he came, and the darkness prevented his observing +my confusion and alteration. He was kinder than usual. Oh! how bitterly +my heart avenged him! He brought with him the Spaniard, Don Alphonso +d'Aguilar; I think there is a faint family likeness between him and +Falkland. Mr. Mandeville brought also a letter from Julia. She will be +here the day after to-morrow. The letter is short, but kind: she does +not allude to him; it is some days since I heard from him. + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON. + +I have resolved, Monkton, to go to her again! I am sure that it will +be better for both of us to meet once more; perhaps, to unite for ever! +None who have once loved me can easily forget me. I do not say this +from vanity, because I owe it not to my being superior to, but different +from, others. I am sure that the remorse and affliction she feels now +are far greater than she would experience, even were she more guilty, +and with me. Then, at least, she would have some one to soothe and +sympathise in whatever she might endure. To one so pure as Emily, the +full crime is already incurred. It is not the innocent who insist upon +that nice line of morality between the thought and the action: such +distinctions require reflection, experience, deliberation, prudence of +head, or coldness of heart; these are the traits, not of the guileless, +but of the worldly. It is the reflections, not the person, of a virtuous +woman, which it is difficult to obtain: that difficulty is the safeguard +to her chastity; that difficulty I have, in this instance, overcome. +I have endeavoured to live without Emily, but in vain. Every moment of +absence only taught me the impossibility. In twenty-four hours I shall +see her again. I feel my pulse rise into fever at the very thought. + +Farewell, Monkton. My next letter, I hope, will record my triumph. + + + + + + +BOOK III. + +EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. + +Friday.--Julia is here, and so kind! She has not mentioned his name, but +she sighed so deeply when she saw my pale and sunken countenance, that +I threw myself into her arms and cried like a child. We had no need +of other explanation: those tears spoke at once my confession and my +repentance. No letter from him for several days! Surely he is not ill! +how miserable that thought makes me! + +Saturday.--A note has just been brought me from him. He is come +back-here! Good heavens! how very imprudent! I am so agitated that I can +write no more. + +Sunday.--I have seen him! Let me repeat that sentence--I have seen him. +Oh that moment! did it not atone for all that I have suffered? I +dare not write everything he said, but he wished me to fly with +him--him--what happiness, yet what guilt, in the very thought! Oh! this +foolish heart--would that it might break! I feel too well the sophistry +of his arguments, and yet I cannot resist them. He seems to have thrown +a spell over me, which precludes even the effort to escape. + +Monday.--Mr. Mandeville has asked several people in the country to dine +here to-morrow, and there is to be a ball in the evening. Falkland is +of course invited. We shall meet then, and how? I have been so little +accustomed to disguise my feelings, that I quite tremble to meet him +with so many witnesses around. Mr. Mandeville has been so harsh to me +to-day; if Falkland ever looked at me so, or ever said one such word, my +heart would indeed break. What is it Alfieri says about the two demons +to whom he is for ever a prey? "_La mente e il cor in perpetua lite_." +Alas! at times I start from my reveries with such a keen sense of agony +and shame! How, how am I fallen! + +Tuesday.--He is to come here to-day and I shall see him! + +Wednesday morning.--The night is over, thank Heaven! Falkland came late +to dinner: every one else was assembled. How gracefully he entered! how +superior he seemed to all the crowd that stood around him! He appeared +as if he were resolved to exert powers which he had disdained before. He +entered into the conversation, not only with such brilliancy, but with +such a blandness and courtesy of manner! There was no scorn on his lip, +no haughtiness on his forehead--nothing which showed him for a moment +conscious of his immeasurable superiority over every one present. After +dinner, as we retired, I caught his eyes. What volumes they told! and +then I had to listen to his praises, and say nothing. I felt angry even +in my pleasure. Who but I had a right to speak of him so well! + +The ball came on: I felt languid and dispirited. Falkland did not dance. +He sat: himself by me--he urged me to--O God! O God! would that I were +dead! + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. + +How are you this morning, my adored friend? You seemed pale and ill when +we parted last night, and I shall be so unhappy till I hear something of +you. Oh, Emily, when you listened to me with those tearful and downcast +looks; when I saw your bosom heave at every word which I whispered in +your ear; when, as I accidentally touched your hand, I felt it tremble +beneath my own; oh! was there nothing in those moments at your heart +which pleaded for me more eloquently than words? Pure and holy as you +are, you know not, it is true, the feelings which burn and madden in me. +When you are beside me, your hand, if it trembles, is not on fire, your +voice, if it is more subdued, does not falter with the emotions it dares +not express: your heart is not like mine, devoured by a parching and +wasting flame: your sleep is not turned by restless and turbulent dreams +from the healthful renewal, into the very consumer, of life. No, Emily! +God forbid that you should feel the guilt, the agony which preys upon +me; but, at least, in the fond and gentle tenderness of your heart, +there must be a voice you find it difficult to silence. Amidst all the +fictitious ties and fascinations of art, you cannot dismiss from your +bosom the unconquerable impulse of nature. What is it you fear?--you +will answer, disgrace! But can you feel it, Emily, when you share it +with me? Believe me that the love which is nursed through shame and +sorrow is of a deeper and holier nature than that which is reared in +pride, fostered in joy. But, if not shame, it is guilt, perhaps, which +you dread? Are you then so innocent now? The adultery of the heart is no +less a crime than that of the deed; and--yet I will not deceive you--it +is guilt to which I tempt you!--it is a fall from the proud eminence +you hold now. I grant this, and I offer you nothing in recompense but +my love. If you loved like me, you would feel that it was something of +pride--of triumph--to dare all things, even crime, for the one to whom +all things are as nought! As for me, I know that if a voice from Heaven +told me to desert you, I would only clasp you the closer to my heart! + +I tell you, my own love, that when your hand is in mine, when your head +rests upon my bosom, when those soft and thrilling eyes shall be fixed +upon my own, when every sigh shall be mingled with my breath, and every +tear be kissed away at the very instant it rises from its source--I tell +you that then you shall only feel that every pang of the past, and every +fear for the future, shall be but a new link to bind us the firmer to +each other. Emily, my life, my love, you cannot, if you would, desert +me. Who can separate the waters which are once united, or divide the +hearts which have met and mingled into one? + + +Since they had once more met, it will be perceived that Falkland had +adopted a new tone in expressing his passion to Emily. In the book of +guilt another page, branded in a deeper and more burning character, had +been turned. He lost no opportunity of summoning the earthlier emotions +to the support of his cause. He wooed her fancy with the golden language +of poetry, and strove to arouse the latent feelings of her sex by the +soft magic of his voice, and the passionate meaning it conveyed. But +at times there came over him a deep and keen sentiment of remorse; and +even, as his experienced and practised eye saw the moment of his triumph +approach, he felt that the success he was hazarding his own soul +and hers to obtain, might bring him a momentary transport, but not a +permanent happiness. There is always this difference in the love of +women and of men; that in the former, when once admitted, it engrosses +all the sources of thought, and excludes every object but itself; but +in the latter, it is shared with all the former reflections and feelings +which the past yet bequeaths us, and can neither (however powerful be +its nature) constitute the whole of our happiness or woe. The love +of man in his maturer years is not indeed so much a new emotion, as a +revival and concentration of all his departed affections to others; and +the deep and intense nature of Falkland's passion for Emily was linked +with the recollections of whatever he had formerly cherished as tender +or dear; it touched--it awoke a long chain of young and enthusiastic +feelings, which arose, perhaps, the fresher from their slumber. Who, +when he turns to recall his first and fondest associations; when he +throws off, one by one, the layers of earth and stone which have grown +and hardened over the records of the past: who has not been surprised to +discover how fresh and unimpaired those buried treasures rise again upon +his heart? They have been laid up in the storehouse of Time; they have +not perished; their very concealment has preserved them! _We remove the +lava, and the world of a gone day is before us_! + +The evening of the day on which Falkland had written the above letter +was rude and stormy. The various streams with which the country abounded +were swelled by late rains into an unwonted rapidity and breadth; +and their voices blended with the rushing sound of the winds, and the +distant roll of the thunder, which began at last sullenly to subside. +The whole of the scene around L------ was of that savage yet sublime +character, which suited well with the wrath of the aroused elements. +Dark woods, large tracts of unenclosed heath, abrupt variations of +hill and vale, and a dim and broken outline beyond of uninterrupted +mountains, formed the great features of that romantic country. + +It was filled with the recollections of his youth, and of the wild +delight which he took then in the convulsions and varieties of nature, +that Falkland roamed abroad that evening. The dim shadows of years, +crowded with concealed events and corroding reflections, all gathered +around his mind, and the gloom and tempest of the night came over him +like the sympathy of a friend. + +He passed a group of terrified peasants; they were cowering under a +tree. The oldest hid his head and shuddered; but the youngest looked +steadily at the lightning which played at fitful intervals over the +mountain stream that rushed rapidly by their feet. Falkland stood beside +them unnoticed and silent, with folded arms and a scornful lip. To +him, nature, heaven, earth had nothing for fear, and everything for +reflection. In youth, thought he (as he contrasted the fear felt at +one period of life with the indifference at another), there are so many +objects to divide and distract life, that we are scarcely sensible of +the collected conviction that we live. We lose the sense of what is by +thinking rather of what is to be. But the old, who have no future to +expect, are more vividly alive to the present, and they feel death more, +because they have a more settled and perfect impression of existence. + +He left the group, and went on alone by the margin of the winding and +swelling stream. "It is (said a certain philosopher) in the conflicts +of Nature that man most feels his littleness." Like all general maxims, +this is only partially true. The mind, which takes its first ideas from +perception, must take also its tone from the character of the objects +perceived. In mingling our spirits with the great elements, we partake +of their sublimity; we awaken thought from the secret depths where it +had lain concealed; our feelings are too excited to remain riveted to +ourselves; they blend with the mighty powers which are abroad; and as, +in the agitations of men, the individual arouses from himself to become +a part of the crowd, so in the convulsions of nature we are equally +awakened from the littleness of self, to be lost in the grandeur of the +conflict by which we are surrounded. + +Falkland still continued to track the stream: it wound its way through +Mandeville's grounds, and broadened at last into the lake which was +so consecrated to his recollections. He paused at that spot for some +moments, looking carelessly over the wide expanse of waters, now dark +as night, and now flashing into one mighty plain of fire beneath the +coruscations of the lightning. The clouds swept on in massy columns, +dark and aspiring-veiling, while they rolled up to, the great heavens, +like the shadows of human doubt. Oh! weak, weak was that dogma of the +philosopher! There is a pride in the storm which, according to his +doctrine, would debase us; a stirring music in its roar; even a savage +joy in its destruction: for we can exult in a defiance of its power, +even while we share in its triumphs, in a consciousness of a superior +spirit within us to that which is around. We can mock at the fury of the +elements, for they are less terrible than the passions of the heart; at +the devastations of the awful skies, for they are less desolating than +the wrath of man; at the convulsions of that surrounding nature which +has no peril, no terror to the soul, which is more indestructible and +eternal than itself. Falkland turned towards the house which contained +his world; and as the lightning revealed at intervals the white columns +of the porch, and wrapt in sheets of fire, like a spectral throng, the +tall and waving trees by which it was encircled, and then as suddenly +ceased, and "the jaws of darkness" devoured up the scene; he compared, +with that bitter alchymy of feeling which resolves all into one crucible +of thought, those alternations of sight and shadow to the history of +his own guilty love--that passion whose birth was the womb of Night; +shrouded in darkness, surrounded by storms, and receiving only from the +angry heavens a momentary brilliance, more terrible than its customary +gloom. + +As he entered the saloon, Lady Margaret advanced towards him. "My dear +Falkland," said she, "how good it is in you to come in such a night. We +have been watching the skies till Emily grew terrified at the lightning; +formerly it did not alarm her." And Lady Margaret turned, utterly +unconscious of the reproach she had conveyed, towards Emily. + +Did not Falkland's look turn also to that spot? Lady Emily was sitting +by the harp which Mrs. St. John appeared to be most seriously employed +in tuning: her countenance was bent downwards, and burning beneath the +blushes called forth by the gaze which she felt was upon her. + +There was in Falkland's character a peculiar dislike to all outward +display of less worldly emotions. He had none of the vanity most men +have in conquest; he would not have had any human being know that he was +loved. He was right! No altar should be so unseen and inviolable as +the human heart! He saw at once and relieved the embarrassment he +had caused. With the remarkable fascination and grace of manner +so peculiarly his own, he made his excuses to Lady Margaret of his +disordered dress; he charmed his uncle, Don Alphonso, with a quotation +from Lope de Vega; he inquired tenderly of Mrs. Dalton touching the +health of her Italian greyhound; and then, nor till then--he ventured to +approach Emily, and speak to her in that soft tone, which, like a fairy +language, is understood only by the person it addresses. Mrs. St. John +rose and left the harp; Falkland took her seat. He bent down to whisper +Emily. His long hair touched her cheek! it was still wet with the night +dew. She looked up as she felt it, and met his gaze: better had it been +to have lost earth than to have drunk the soul's poison from that eye +when it tempted to sin. + +Mrs. St. John stood at some distance: Don Alphonso was speaking to her +of his nephew, and of his hopes of ultimately gaining him to the cause +of his mother's country. "See you not," said Mrs. St. John, and her +colour went and came, "that while he has such attractions to detain him, +your hopes are in vain?" "What mean you?" replied the Spaniard; but his +eye had followed the direction she had given it, and the question came +only from his lips. Mrs. St. John drew him to a still remoter corner of +the room, and it was in the conversation that then ensued between them, +that they agreed to unite for the purpose of separating Emily from +her lover--"I to save my friend," said Mrs. St. John, "and you your +kinsman." Thus is it with human virtue:--the fair show and the good +deed without--the one eternal motive of selfishness within. During the +Spaniard's visit at E------, he had seen enough of Falkland to perceive +the great consequence he might, from his perfect knowledge of the +Spanish language, from his singular powers, and, above all, from his +command of wealth, be to the cause of that party he himself had adopted. +His aim, therefore, was now no longer confined to procuring Falkland's +goodwill and aim at home: he hoped to secure his personal assistance in +Spain: and he willingly coincided with Mrs. St. John in detaching his +nephew from a tie so likely to detain him from that service to which +Alphonso wished he should be pledged. + +Mandeville had left E------ that morning: he suspected nothing of +Emily's attachment. This, on his part, was Bulwer, less confidence than +indifference. He was one of those persons who have no existence +separate from their own: his senses all turned inwards; they reproduced +selfishness. Even the House of Commons was only an object of interest, +because he imagined it a part of him, not he of it. He said, with the +insect on the wheel, "Admire our rapidity." But did the defects of his +character remove Lady Emily's guilt? No! and this, at times, was her +bitterest conviction. Whoever turns to these pages for an apology +for sin will be mistaken. They contain the burning records of its +sufferings, its repentance, and its doom. If there be one crime in the +history of woman worse than another, it is adultery. It is, in fact, +the only crime to which, in ordinary life, she is exposed. Man has a +thousand temptations to sin--woman has but one; if she cannot resist it, +she has no claim upon our mercy. The heavens are just! Her own guilt is +her punishment! Should these pages, at this moment, meet the eyes of one +who has become the centre of a circle of disgrace--the contaminator of +her house--the dishonour of her children,--no matter what the excuse for +her crime--no matter what the exchange of her station--in the very +arms of her lover, in the very cincture of the new ties which she has +chosen--I call upon her to answer me if the fondest moments of rapture +are free from humiliation, though they have forgotten remorse; and if +the passion itself of her lover has not become no less the penalty than +the recompense of her guilt? But at that hour of which I now write, +there was neither in Emily's heart, nor in that of her seducer, any +recollection of their sin. Those hearts were too full for thought--they +had forgotten everything but each other. Their love was their creation: +beyond all was night--chaos--nothing! + +Lady Margaret approached them. "You will sing to us, Emily, to-night? +it is so long since we have heard you!" It was in vain that Emily +tried--her voice failed. She looked at Falkland, and could scarcely +restrain her tears. She had not yet learned the latest art which sin +teaches us-its concealment! "I will supply Lady Emily's place," said +Falkland. His voice was calm, and his brow serene the world had left +nothing for him to learn. "Will you play the air," he said to Mrs. St. +John, "that you gave us some nights ago? I will furnish the words." Mrs. +St. John's hand trembled as she obeyed. + + + SONG. + + 1. + Ah, let us love while yet we may, + Our summer is decaying; + And woe to hearts which, in their gray + December, go a-maying. + + 2. + Ah, let us love, while of the fire + Time hath not yet bereft us + With years our warmer thoughts expire, + Till only ice is left us! + + 3. + We'll fly the bleak world's bitter air + A brighter home shall win us; + And if our hearts grow weary there, + We'll find a world within us. + + 4. + They preach that passion fades each hour, + That nought will pall like pleasure; + My bee, if Love's so frail a flower, + Oh, haste to hive its treasure. + + 5. + Wait not the hour, when all the mind + Shall to the crowd be given; + For links, which to the million bind, + Shall from the one be riven. + + 6. + But let us love while yet we may + Our summer is decaying; + And woe to hearts which, in their gray + December, go a-maying. + + +The next day Emily rose ill and feverish. In the absence of Falkland, +her mind always awoke to the full sense of the guilt she had incurred. +She had been brought up in the strictest, even the most fastidious, +principles; and her nature was so pure, that merely to err appeared like +a change in existence--like an entrance into some new and unknown world, +from which she shrank back, in terror, to herself. + +Judge, then, if she easily habituated her mind to its present +degradation. She sat, that morning, pale and listless; her book lay +unopened before her; her eyes were fixed upon the ground, heavy with +suppressed tears. Mrs. St. John entered: no one else was in the room. +She sat by her, and took her hand. Her countenance was scarcely less +colourless than Emily's, but its expression was more calm and composed. +"It is not too late, Emily," she said; "you have done much that you +should repent--nothing to render repentance unavailing. Forgive me, if +I speak to you on this subject. It is time--in a few days your fate will +be decided. I have looked on, though hitherto I have been silent: I have +witnessed that eye when it dwelt upon you; I have heard that voice when +it spoke to your heart. None ever resisted their influence long: do +you imagine that you are the first who have found the power? Pardon me, +pardon me, I beseech you, my dearest friend, if I pain you. I have known +you from your childhood, and I only wish to preserve you spotless to +your old age." + +Emily wept, without replying. Mrs. St. John continued to argue and +expostulate. What is so wavering as passion? When, at last, Mrs. St. +John ceased, and Emily shed upon her bosom the hot tears of her anguish +and repentance, she imagined that her resolution was taken, and that she +could almost have vowed an eternal separation from her lover; Falkland +came that evening, and she loved him more madly than before. + +Mrs. St. John was not in the saloon when Falkland entered. Lady Margaret +was reading the well-known story of Lady T----- and the Duchess of ---, +in which an agreement had been made and kept, that the one who died +first should return once more to the survivor. As Lady Margaret +spoke laughingly of the anecdote, Emily, who was watching Falkland's +countenance, was struck with the dark and sudden shade which fell over +it. He moved in silence towards the window where Emily was sitting. "Do +you believe," she said, with a faint smile, "in the possibility of such +an event?" "I believe--though I reject--nothing!" replied Falkland, +"but I would give worlds for such a proof that death does not destroy." +"Surely," said Emily, "you do not deny that evidence of our immortality +which we gather from the Scriptures?--are they not all that a voice from +the dead could be?" Falkland was silent for a few moments: he did not +seem to hear the question; his eyes dwelt upon vacancy; and when he at +last spoke, it was rather in commune with himself than in answer to her. +"I have watched," said he, in a low internal tone, "over the tomb: I +have called, in the agony of my heart, unto her--who slept beneath; I +would have dissolved my very soul into a spell, could it have summoned +before me for one, one moment the being who had once been the spirit of +my life! I have been, as it were, entranced with the intensity of my own +adjuration; I have gazed upon the empty air, and worked upon my mind to +fill it with imaginings; I have called aloud unto the winds and +tasked my soul to waken their silence to reply. All was a waste--a +stillness--an infinity--without a wanderer or a voice! The dead answered +me not, when I invoked them; and in the vigils of the still night I +looked from the rank grass and the mouldering stones to the Eternal +Heavens, as man looks from decay to immortality! Oh! that awful +magnificence of repose--that living sleep--that breathing yet +unrevealing divinity, spread over those still worlds! To them also I +poured my thoughts--but in a whisper. I did not dare to breathe aloud +the unhallowed anguish of my mind to the majesty of the unsympathising +stars! In the vast order of creation--in the midst of the stupendous +system of universal life, my doubt and inquiry were murmured forth--a +voice crying in the wilderness and returning without an echo unanswered +unto myself!" + +The deep light of the summer moon shone over Falkland's countenance, +which Emily gazed on, as she listened, almost tremblingly, to his words. +His brow was knit and hueless, and the large drops gathered slowly over +it, as if wrung from the strained yet impotent tension of the thoughts +within. Emily drew nearer to him--she laid her hand upon his own. +"Listen to me," she said: "if a herald from the grave could satisfy your +doubt, I would gladly die that I might return to you!" "Beware," said +Falkland, with an agitated but solemn voice; "the words, now so lightly +spoken, may be registered on high." "Be it so!" replied Emily firmly, +and she felt what she said. Her love penetrated beyond the tomb, and she +would have forfeited all here for their union hereafter. + +"In my earliest youth," said Falkland, more calmly than he had yet +spoken, "I found in the present and the past of this world enough to +direct my attention to the futurity of another: if I did not credit all +with the enthusiast, I had no sympathies with the scorner: I sat +myself down to examine and reflect: I pored alike over the pages of the +philosopher and the theologian; I was neither baffled by the subtleties +nor deterred by the contradictions of either. As men first ascertained +the geography of the earth by observing the signs of the heavens, I did +homage to the Unknown God, and sought from that worship to inquire into +the reasonings of mankind. I did not confine myself to books--all +things breathing or inanimate constituted my study. From death itself +I endeavoured to extract its secret; and whole nights I have sat in the +crowded asylums of the dying, watching the last spark flutter and decay. +Men die away as in sleep, without effort, or struggle, or emotion. +I have looked on their countenances a moment before death, and the +serenity of repose was upon them, waxing only more deep as it approached +that slumber which, is never broken: the breath grew gentler and +gentler, till the lips it came from fell from each other, and all was +hushed; the light had departed from the cloud, but the cloud itself, +gray, cold, altered as it seemed, was as before. They died and made no +sign. They had left the labyrinth without bequeathing us its clew. It +is in vain that I have sent my spirit into the land of shadows--it has +borne back no witnesses of its inquiry. As Newton said of himself, 'I +picked up a few shells by the seashore, but the great ocean of truth lay +undiscovered before me.'" + +There was a long pause. Lady Margaret had sat down to chess with the +Spaniard. No look was upon the lovers: their eyes met, and with that one +glance the whole current of their thoughts was changed. The blood, which +a moment before had left Falkland's cheek so colourless, rushed back +to it again. The love which had so penetrated and pervaded his whole +system, and which abstruser and colder reflection had just calmed, +thrilled through his frame with redoubled power. As if by an involuntary +and mutual impulse, their lips met: he threw his arm round her; he +strained her to his bosom. "Dark as my thoughts are," he whispered, +"evil as has been my life, will you not yet soothe the one, and guide +the other? My Emily! my love! the Heaven to the tumultuous ocean of my +heart--will you not be mine--mine only--wholly--and for ever?" She did +not answer--she did not turn from his embrace. Her cheek flushed as +his breath stole over it, and her bosom heaved beneath the arm which +encircled that empire so devoted to him. "Speak one word, only one +word," he continued to whisper: "will you not be mine? Are you not mine +at heart even at this moment?" Her head sank upon his bosom. Those deep +and eloquent eyes looked up to his through their dark lashes. "I will +be yours," she murmured: "I am at your mercy; I have no longer any +existence but in you. My only fear is, that I shall cease to be worthy +of your love!" + +Falkland pressed his lips once more to her own: it was his only answer, +and the last seal to their compact. As they stood before the open +lattice, the still and unconscious moon looked down upon that record of +guilt. There was not a cloud in the heaven to dim her purity: the very +winds of night had hushed themselves to do her homage: all was silent +but their hearts. They stood beneath the calm and holy skies, a guilty +and devoted pair--a fearful contrast of the sin and turbulence of this +unquiet earth to the passionless serenity of the eternal heaven. The +same stars, that for thousands of unfathomed years had looked upon the +changes of this nether world, gleamed pale, and pure, and steadfast +upon their burning but transitory vow. In a few years what of the +condemnation or the recorders of that vow would remain? From other lips, +on that spot, other oaths might be plighted; new pledges of unchangeable +fidelity exchanged: and, year after year, in each succession of scene +and time, the same stars will look from the mystery of their untracked +and impenetrable home, to mock, as now, with their immutability, the +variations and shadows of mankind! + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. + +At length, then, you are to be mine--you have consented to fly with me. +In three days we shall leave this country, and have no home--no world +but in each other. We will go, my Emily, to those golden lands where +Nature, the only companion we will suffer, woos us, like a mother, to +find our asylum in her breast; where the breezes are languid beneath the +passion of the voluptuous skies; and where the purple light that invests +all things with its glory is only less tender and consecrating than the +spirit which we bring. Is there not, my Emily, in the external nature +which reigns over creation, and that human nature centred in ourselves, +some secret and undefinable intelligence and attraction? Are not the +impressions of the former as spells over the passions of the later? and +in gazing upon the loveliness around us, do we not gather, as it were, +and store within our hearts, an increase of the yearning and desire of +love? What can we demand from earth but its solitudes--what from heaven +but its unpolluted air? All that others would ask from either, we can +find in ourselves. Wealth--honour--happiness--every object of ambition +or desire, exist not for us without the circle of our arms! But the +bower that surrounds us shall not be unworthy of your beauty or our +love. Amidst the myrtle and the vine, and the valleys where the summer +sleeps and "the rivers that murmur the memories and the legends of old +amidst the hills and the glossy glades," and the silver fountains, +still as beautiful as if the Nymph and Spirit yet held and decorated an +earthly home; amidst these we will make the couch of our bridals, and +the moon of Italian skies shall keep watch on our repose. + +Emily!--Emily!--how I love to repeat and to linger over that beautiful +name! If to see, to address, and, more than all, to touch you, has +been a rapture, what word can I find in the vocabulary of happiness +to express the realisation of that hope which now burns within me--to +mingle our youth together into one stream, wheresoever it flows; to +respire the same breath; to be almost blent in the same existence; to +grow, as it were, on one stem, and knit into a single life the feelings, +the wishes, the being of both! + +To-night I shall see you again: let one day more intervene, and--I +cannot conclude the sentence. As I have written, the tumultuous +happiness of hope has come over me to confuse and overwhelm everything +else. At this moment my pulse riots with fever; the room swims before +my eyes; everything is indistinct and jarring--a chaos of emotions. Oh! +that happiness should ever have such excess! + +When Emily received and laid this letter to her heart, she felt nothing +in common with the spirit which it breathed. With that quick transition +and inconstancy of feeling common in women, and which is as frequently +their safety as their peril, her mind had already repented of the +weakness of the last evening, and relapsed into the irresolution and +bitterness of her former remorse. Never had there been in the human +breast a stronger contest between conscience and passion;--if, indeed, +the extreme softness (notwithstanding its power) of Emily's attachment +could be called passion it was rather a love that had refined by the +increase of its own strength; it contained nothing but the primary guilt +of conceiving it, which that order of angels, whose nature is love, +would have sought to purify away. To see him, to live with him, to +count the variations of his countenance and voice, to touch his hand at +moments when waking, and watch over his slumbers when he slept--this +was the essence of her wishes, and constituted the limit to her desires. +Against the temptations of the present was opposed the whole history of +the past. Her mind wandered from each to each, wavering and wretched, +as the impulse of the moment impelled it. Hers was not, indeed, a strong +character; her education and habits had weakened, while they rendered +more feminine and delicate, a nature originally too soft. Every +recollection of former purity called to her with the loud voice of duty, +as a warning from the great guilt she was about to incur; and whenever +she thought of her child--that centre of fond and sinless sensations, +where once she had so wholly garnered up her heart--her feelings melted +at once from the object which had so wildly held them riveted as by a +spell, to dissolve and lose themselves in the great and sacred fountain +of a mother's love. + +When Falkland came that evening, she was sitting at a corner of the +saloon, apparently occupied in reading, but her eyes were fixed upon her +boy, whom Mrs. St. John was endeavouring at the opposite end of the +room to amuse. The child, who was fond of Falkland, came up to him as he +entered: Falkland stooped to kiss him; and Mrs. St. John said, in a +low voice which just reached his ear, "Judas, too, kissed before he +betrayed." Falkland's colour changed: he felt the sting the words were +intended to convey. On that child, now so innocently caressing him, he +was indeed about to inflict a disgrace and injury the most sensible and +irremediable in his power. But who ever indulges reflection in passion? +He banished the remorse from his mind as instantaneously as it arose; +and, seating himself by Emily, endeavoured to inspire her with a portion +of the joy and hope which animated himself. Mrs. St. John watched them +with a jealous and anxious eye: she had already seen how useless had +been her former attempt to arm Emily's conscience effectually against +her lover; but she resolved at least to renew the impression she had +then made. The danger was imminent, and any remedy must be prompt; and +it was something to protract, even if she could not finally break off, +an union against which were arrayed all the angry feelings of jealousy, +as well as the better affections of the friend. Emily's eye was already +brightening beneath the words that Falkland whispered in her ear, when +Mrs. St. John approached her. She placed herself on a chair beside them, +and unmindful of Falkland's bent and angry brow, attempted to create a +general and commonplace conversation. Lady Margaret had invited two or +three people in the neighbourhood; and when these came in, music and +cards were resorted to immediately, with that English politesse, which +takes the earliest opportunity to show that the conversation of our +friends is the last thing for which we have invited them. But Mrs. St. +John never left the lovers; and at last, when Falkland, in despair +at her obstinacy, arose to join the card-table, she said, "Pray, Mr. +Falkland, were you not intimate at one time with * * * *, who eloped +with Lady * * *?" "I knew him but slightly," said Falkland; and then +added, with a sneer, "the only times I ever met him were at your house." +Mrs. St. John, without noticing the sarcasm, continued:--"What an +unfortunate affair that proved! They were very much attached to one +another in early life--the only excuse, perhaps for a woman's breaking +her subsequent vows. They eloped. The remainder of their history is +briefly told: it is that of all who forfeit everything for passion, and +forget that of everything it is the briefest in duration. He who had +sacrificed his honour for her, sacrificed her also as lightly for +another. She could not bear his infidelity; and how could she reproach +him? In the very act of yielding to, she had become unworthy of, his +love. She did not reproach him--she died of a broken heart! I saw her +just before her death, for I was distantly related to her, and I could +not forsake her utterly even in her sin. She then spoke to me only of +the child by her former marriage, whom she had left in the years when +it most needed her care: she questioned me of its health--its +education--its very growth: the minutest thing was not beneath her +inquiry. His tidings were all that brought back to her mind 'the +redolence of joy and spring.' I brought that child to her one day: he +at least had never forgotten her. How bitterly both wept when they were +separated! and she--poor, poor Ellen--an hour after their separation +was no more!" There was a pause for a few minutes. Emily was deeply +affected. Mrs. St. John had anticipated the effect she had produced, +and concerted the method to increase it. "It is singular," she resumed, +"that, the evening before her elopement, some verses were sent to her +anonymously--I do not think, Emily, that you have ever seen them. Shall +I sing them to you now?" and, without waiting for a reply, she placed +herself at the piano; and with a low but sweet voice, greatly aided +in effect by the extreme feeling of her manner, she sang the following +verses: + + 1. + And wilt thou leave that happy home, + Where once it was so sweet to live? + Ah! think, before thou seek'st to roam, + What safer shelter Guilt can give! + + 2. + The Bird may rove, and still regain + With spotless wings, her wonted rest, + But home, once lost, is ne'er again + Restored to Woman's erring breast! + + 3. + If wandering o'er a world of flowers, + The heart at times would ask repose; + But thou wouldst lose the only bowers + Of rest amid a world of woes. + + 4. + Recall thy youth's unsullied vow + The past which on thee smile so fair; + Then turn from thence to picture now + The frowns thy future fate must wear! + + 5. + No hour, no hope, can bring relief + To her who hides a blighted name; + For hearts unbow'd by stormiest _grief_ + Will break beneath one breeze of _shame_! + + 6. + And when thy child's deserted years + Amid life's early woes are thrown, + Shall menial bosoms soothe the tears + That should be shed on thine alone? + + 7. + When on thy name his lips shall call, + (That tender name, the earliest taught!) + Thou wouldst not Shame and Sin were all + The memories link'd around its thought! + + 8. + If Sickness haunt his infant bed, + Ah! what could then replace thy care? + Could hireling steps as gently tread + As if a Mother's soul was there? + + 9. + Enough! 'tis not too late to shun + The bitter draught thyself wouldst fill; + The latest link is not undone + Thy bark is in the haven still. + + 10. + If doom'd to grief through life thou art, + 'Tis thine at least unstain'd to die! + Oh! better break at once thy heart + Than rend it from its holiest tie! + + +It were vain to attempt describing Emily's feelings when the song +ceased. The scene floated before her eyes indistinct and dark. The +violence of the emotions she attempted to conceal pressed upon her +almost to choking. She rose, looked at Falkland with one look of such +anguish and despair that it froze his very heart, and left the room +without uttering a word. A moment more--they heard a noise--a fall. They +rushed out--Emily was stretched on the ground, apparently lifeless. She +had broken a blood-vessel. + + + + + +BOOK IV. + +FROM MRS. ST. JOHN TO ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ. + +At last I can give a more favourable answer to your letters. Emily is +now quite out of danger. Since the day you forced yourself, with such a +disinterested regard for her health and reputation, into her room, she +grew (no thanks to your forbearance) gradually better. I trust that she +will be able to see you in a few days. I hope this the more, because she +now feels and decides that it will be for the last time. You have, it +is true, injured her happiness for life her virtue, thank Heaven, is yet +spared; and though you have made her wretched, you will never, I trust, +succeed in making her despised. + +You ask me, with some menacing and more complaint, why I am so bitter +against you. I will tell you. I not only know Emily, and feel confident, +from that knowledge, that nothing can recompense her for the reproaches +of conscience, but I know you, and am convinced that you are the last +man to render her happy. I set aside, for the moment, all rules of +religion and morality in general, and speak to you (to use the cant +and abused phrase) "without prejudice" as to the particular instance. +Emily's nature is soft and susceptible, yours fickle and wayward in +the extreme. The smallest change or caprice in you, which would not be +noticed by a mind less delicate, would wound her to the heart. You +know that the very softness of her character arises from its want of +strength. Consider, for a moment, if she could bear the humiliation and +disgrace which visit so heavily the offences of an English wife? She has +been brought up in the strictest notions of morality; and, in a mind, +not naturally strong, nothing can efface the first impressions of +education. She is not--indeed she is not--fit for a life of sorrow or +degradation. In another character, another line of conduct might be +desirable; but with regard to her, pause, Falkland, I beseech you, +before you attempt again to destroy her for ever. I have said all. +Farewell. + +Your, and above all, Emily's friend. + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. + +You will see me, Emily, now that you are recovered sufficiently to do so +without danger. I do not ask this as a favour. If my love has deserved, +anything from yours, if past recollections give me any claim over you, +if my nature has not forfeited the spell which it formerly possessed +upon your own, I demand it as a right. + +The bearer waits for your answer. + + + +FROM LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE TO ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ. + +See you, Falkland! Can you doubt it? Can you think for a moment that +your commands can ever cease to become a law to me? Come here whenever +you please. If, during my illness, they have prevented it, it was +without my knowledge. I await you; but I own that this interview will be +the last, if I can claim anything from your mercy. + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. + +I have seen you, Emily, and for the last time! My eyes are dry--my hand +does not tremble. I live, move, breathe, as before--and yet I have seen +you for the last time! You told me--even while you leaned on my bosom, +even while your lip pressed mine--you told me (and I saw your sincerity) +to spare you, and to see you no more. You told me you had no longer +any will, any fate of your own; that you would, if I still continued to +desire it, leave friends, home, honour, for me; but you did not disguise +from me that you would, in so doing, leave happiness also. You did not +conceal from me that I was not sufficient to constitute all your world: +you threw yourself, as you had done once before, upon what you called +my generosity: you did not deceive yourself then; you have not deceived +yourself now. In two weeks I shall leave England, probably for ever. +I have another country still more dear to me, from its afflictions and +humiliation. Public ties differ but little in their nature from private; +and this confession of preference of what is debased to what is exalted, +will be an answer to Mrs. St. John's assertion, that we cannot love in +disgrace as we can in honour. Enough of this. In the choice, my poor +Emily, that you have made, I cannot reproach you. You have done wisely, +rightly, virtuously. You said that this separation must rest rather with +me than with yourself; that you would be mine the moment I demanded it. +I will not now or ever accept this promise. No one, much less one whom I +love so intensely, so truly as I do you, shall ever receive disgrace at +my hands, unless she can feel that that disgrace would be dearer to her +than glory elsewhere; that the simple fate of being mine was not so much +a recompense as a reward; and that, in spite of worldly depreciation and +shame, it would constitute and concentrate all her visions of happiness +and pride. I am now going to bid you farewell. May you--I say this +disinterestedly, and from my very heart--may you soon forget how much +you have loved and yet love me! For this purpose, you cannot have +a better companion than Mrs. St. John. Her opinion of me is loudly +expressed, and probably true; at all events, you will do wisely to +believe it. You will hear me attacked and reproached by many. I do not +deny the charges; you know best what I have deserved from you. God bless +you, Emily. Wherever I go, I shall never cease to love you as I do now. +May you be happy in your child and in your conscience! Once more, God +bless you, and farewell! + + + +FROM LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE TO ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ. + +O Falkland! You have conquered! I am yours--yours only--Wholly and +forever. When your letter came, my hand trembled so, that I could not +open it for several minutes; and when I did, I felt as if the very earth +had passed from my feet. You were going from your country; you were +about to be lost to me for ever. I could restrain myself no longer; all +my virtue, my pride, forsook me at once. Yes, yes, you are indeed +my world. I will fly with you anywhere--everywhere. Nothing can be +dreadful, but not seeing you; I would be a servant--a slave--a dog, +as long as I could be with you; hear one tone of your voice, catch one +glance of your eye. I scarcely see the paper before me, my thoughts are +so straggling and confused. Write to me one word, Falkland; one word, +and I will lay it to my heart, and be happy. + + + +FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND TO LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. -------- Hotel, London. + +I hasten to you, Emily--my own and only love. Your letter has restored +me to life. To-morrow we shall meet. + + +It was with mingled feelings, alloyed and embittered, in spite of the +burning hope which predominated over all, that Falkland returned to +E------. He knew that he was near the completion of his most ardent +wishes; that he was within the grasp of a prize which included all the +thousand objects of ambition, into which, among other men, the desires +are divided; the only dreams he had ventured to form for years were +about to kindle into life. He had every reason to be happy;--such is the +inconsistency of human nature, that he was almost wretched. The morbid +melancholy, habitual to him, threw its colourings over every emotion +and idea. He knew the character of the woman whose affections he had +seduced; and he trembled to think of the doom to which he was about to +condemn her. With this, there came over his mind a long train of +dark and remorseful recollections. Emily was not the only one whose +destruction he had prepared. All who had loved him, he had repaid with +ruin; and one--the first--the fairest--and the most loved, with death. + +That last remembrance, more bitterly than all, possessed him. It will +be recollected that Falkland, in the letters which begin this work, +speaking of the ties he had formed after the loss of his first love, +says, that it was the senses, not the affections, that were engaged. +Never, indeed, since her death, till he met Emily, had his heart been +unfaithful to her memory. Alas! none but those who have cherished in +their souls an image of the death; who have watched over it for long and +bitter years in secrecy and gloom; who have felt that it was to them as +a holy and fairy spot which no eye but theirs could profane; who have +filled all things with recollections as with a spell, and made the +universe one wide mausoleum of the lost;--none but those can understand +the mysteries of that regret which is shed over every after passion, +though it be more burning and intense; that sense of sacrilege with +which we fill up the haunted recesses of the spirit with a new and a +living idol and perpetrate the last act of infidelity to that buried +love, which the heavens that now receive her, the earth where we beheld +her, tell us, with, the unnumbered voices of Nature, to worship with the +incense of our faith. + +His carriage stopped at the lodge. The woman who opened the gates gave +him the following note: + +"Mr. Mandeville is returned; I almost fear that he suspects our +attachment. Julia says, that if you come again to E------, she will +inform him. I dare not, dearest Falkland, see you here. What is to be +done? I am very ill and feverish: my brain burns so, that I can +think, feel, remember nothing, but the one thought, feeling, and +remembrance--that through shame, and despite of guilt, in life, and till +death, I am yours. E. M." + +As Falkland read this note, his extreme and engrossing love for Emily +doubled with each word: an instant before, and the certainty of seeing +her had suffered his mind to be divided into a thousand objects; now, +doubt united them once more into one. + +He altered his route to L------, and despatched from thence a short note +to Emily, imploring her to meet him that evening by the lake, in order +to arrange their ultimate flight. Her answer was brief, and blotted with +her tears; but it was assent. + +During the whole of that day, at least from the moment she received +Falkland's letter, Emily was scarcely sensible of a single idea: she sat +still and motionless, gazing on vacancy, and seeing nothing within her +mind, or in the objects which surrounded her, but one dreary blank. +Sense, thought, feeling, even remorse, were congealed and frozen; and +the tides of emotion were still, bid they were ice! + +As Falkland's servant had waited without to deliver the note to Emily, +Mrs. St. John had observed him: her alarm and surprise only served +to quicken her presence of mind. She intercepted Emily's answer under +pretence of giving it herself to Falkland's servant. She read it, and +her resolution was formed. After carefully resealing and delivering it +to the servant, she went at once to Mr. Mandeville, and revealed Lady +Emily's attachment to Falkland. In this act of treachery, she was solely +instigated by her passions; and when Mandeville, roused from his wonted +apathy to a paroxysm of indignation, thanked her again and again for +the generosity of friendship which he imagined was all that actuated her +communication, he dreamed not of the fierce and ungovernable jealousy +which envied the very disgrace which her confession was intended to +award. Well said the French enthusiast, "that the heart, the most serene +to appearance, resembles that calm and glassy fountain which cherishes +the monster of the Nile in the bosom of its waters." Whatever reward +Mrs. St. John proposed to herself in this action, verily she has had the +recompense that was her due. Those consequences of her treachery, which +I hasten to relate, have ceased to others--to her they remain. Amidst +the pleasures of dissipation, one reflection has rankled at her mind; +one dark cloud has rested between the sunshine and her soul; like the +murderer in Shakespeare, the revel where she fled for forgetfulness +has teemed to her with the spectres of remembrance. O thou untameable +conscience! thou that never flatterest--thou that watchest over the +human heart never to slumber or to sleep--it is thou that takest from +us the present, barrest to us the future, and knittest the eternal chain +that binds us to the rock and the vulture of the past! + +The evening came on still and dark; a breathless and heavy apprehension +seemed gathered over the air: the full large clouds lay without motion +in the dull sky, from between which, at long and scattered intervals, +the wan stars looked out; a double shadow seemed to invest the grouped +and gloomy trees that stood unwaving in the melancholy horizon. The +waters of the lake lay heavy and unagitated as the sleep of death; and +the broken reflections of the abrupt and winding banks rested upon their +bosoms, like the dreamlike remembrance of a former existence. + +The hour of the appointment was arrived: Falkland stood by the spot, +gazing upon the lake before him; his cheek was flushed, his hand was +parched and dry with the consuming fire within him. His pulse beat thick +and rapidly; the demon of evil passions was upon his soul. He stood so +lost in his own reflections, that he did not for some moments perceive +the fond and tearful eye which was fixed upon him on that brow and +lip, thought seemed always so beautiful, so divine, that to disturb its +repose was like a profanation of something holy; and though Emily came +towards him with a light and hurried step, she paused involuntarily to +gaze upon that noble countenance which realised her earliest visions of +the beauty and majesty of love. He turned slowly, and perceived her; +he came to her with his own peculiar smile; he drew her to his bosom in +silence; he pressed his lips to her forehead: she leaned upon his bosom, +and forgot all but him. Oh! if there be one feeling which makes Love, +even guilty Love, a god, it is the knowledge that in the midst of +this breathing world he reigns aloof and alone; and that those who are +occupied with his worship know nothing of the pettiness, the strife, +the bustle which, pollute and agitate the ordinary inhabitants of earth! +What was now to them, as they stood alone in the deep stillness of +Nature, everything that had engrossed them before they had met and +loved? Even in her, the recollections of guilt and grief subsided: she +was only sensible of one thought--the presence of the being who stood +beside her, + + That ocean to the rivers of her soul. + +They sat down beneath an oak: Falkland stooped to kiss the cold and pale +cheek that still rested upon his breast. His kisses were like lava: the +turbulent and stormy elements of sin and desire were aroused even to +madness within him. He clasped her still nearer to his bosom: her lips +answered to his own: they caught perhaps something of the spirit which +they received: her eyes were half-closed; the bosom heaved wildly that +was pressed to his beating and burning heart. The skies grew darker and +darker as the night stole over them: one low roll of thunder broke upon +the curtained and heavy air--they did not hear it; and yet it was the +knell of peace--virtue--hope--lost, lost for ever to their souls! + +They separated as they had never done before. In Emily's bosom there was +a dreary void--a vast blank-over which there went a low deep voice like +a Spirit's--a sound indistinct and strange, that spoke a language she +knew not; but felt that it told of woe-guilt-doom. Her senses were +stunned: the vitality of her feelings was numbed and torpid: the first +herald of despair is insensibility. "Tomorrow then," said Falkland--and +his voice for the first time seemed strange and harsh to her--"we +will fly hence for ever: meet me at daybreak--the carriage shall be in +attendance--we cannot now unite too soon--would that at this very moment +we were prepared!"--"To-morrow!" repeated Emily, "at daybreak!" and as +she clung to him, he felt her shudder: "to-morrow-ay-to-morrow!--" one +kiss--one embrace--one word--farewell--and they parted. + +Falkland returned to L------, a gloomy foreboding rested upon his mind: +that dim and indescribable fear, which no earthly or human cause +can explain--that shrinking within self--that vague terror of the +future--that grappling, as it were, with some unknown shade--that +wandering of the spirit--whither?--that cold, cold creeping dread--of +what? As he entered the house, he met his confidential servant. He gave +him orders respecting the flight of the morrow, and then retired into +the chamber where he slept. It was an antique and large room: the +wainscot was of oak; and one broad and high window looked over the +expanse of country which stretched beneath. He sat himself by the +casement in silence--he opened it: the dull air came over his forehead, +not with a sense of freshness, but, like the parching atmosphere of the +east, charged with a weight and fever that sank heavy into his soul. He +turned:--he threw himself upon the bed, and placed his hands over his +face. His thoughts were scattered into a thousand indistinct forms, but +over all, there was one rapturous remembrance; and that was, that +the morrow was to unite him for ever to her whose possession had only +rendered her more dear. Meanwhile, the hours rolled on; and as he lay +thus silent and still, the clock of the distant church struck with +a distinct and solemn sound upon his ear. It was the half-hour after +midnight. At that moment an icy thrill ran, slow and curdling, through +his veins. His heart, as if with a presentiment of what was to follow, +beat violently, and then stopped; life itself seemed ebbing away; cold +drops stood upon his forehead; his eyelids trembled, and the balls +reeled and glazed, like those of a dying man; a deadly fear gathered +over him, so that his flesh quivered, and every hair in his head seemed +instinct with a separate life, the very marrow of his bones crept, and +his blood waxed thick and thick, as if stagnating into an ebbless and +frozen substance. He started in a wild and unutterable terror. There +stood, at the far end of the room, a dim and thin shape like moonlight, +without outline or form; still, and indistinct, and shadowy. He gazed +on, speechless and motionless; his faculties and senses seemed locked in +an unnatural trance. By degrees the shape became clearer and clearer to +his fixed and dilating eye. He saw, as through a floating and mist-like +veil, the features of Emily; but how changed!--sunken and hueless, and +set in death. The dropping lip, from which there seemed to trickle a +deep red stain like blood; the lead-like and lifeless eye; the calm, +awful, mysterious repose which broods over the aspect of the dead;--all +grew, as it were, from the hazy cloud that encircled them for one, one +brief, agonising moment, and then as suddenly faded away. The spell +passed from his senses. He sprang from the bed with a loud cry. All was +quiet. There was not a trace of what he had witnessed. The feeble light +of the skies rested upon the spot where the apparition had stood; upon +that spot he stood also. He stamped upon the floor--it was firm beneath +his footing. He passed his hands over his body--he was awake--he was +unchanged: earth, air, heaven, were around him as before. What had thus +gone over his soul to awe and overcome it to such weakness? To these +questions his reason could return no answer. Bold by nature, and +sceptical by philosophy, his mind gradually recovered its original tone: +he did not give way to conjecture; he endeavoured to discard it; he +sought by natural causes to account for the apparition he had seen or +imagined; and, as he felt the blood again circulating in its accustomed +courses, and the night air coming chill over his feverish frame, he +smiled with a stern and scornful bitterness at the terror which had so +shaken, and the fancy which had so deluded, his mind. + +Are there not "more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in +our philosophy"? A Spirit may hover in the air that we breathe: the +depth of our most secret solitudes may be peopled by the invisible; +our uprisings and our downsittings may be marked by a witness from the +grave. In our walks the dead may be behind us; in our banquets they may +sit at the board; and the chill breath of the night wind that stirs the +curtains of our bed may bear a message our senses receive not, from +lips that once have pressed kisses on our own! Why is it that at moments +there creeps over us an awe, a terror, overpowering, but undefined? +Why is it that we shudder without a cause, and feel the warm life-blood +stand still in its courses? Are the dead too near? Do unearthly wings +touch us as they flit around? Has our soul any intercourse which +the body shares not, though it feels, with the supernatural +world--mysterious revealings--unimaginable communion--a language of +dread and power, shaking to its centre the fleshly barrier that divides +the spirit from its race? + +How fearful is the very life which we hold! We have our being beneath a +cloud, and are a marvel even to ourselves. There is not a single thought +which has its affixed limits. Like circles in the water, our researches +weaken as they extend, and vanish at last into the immeasurable and +unfathomable space of the vast unknown. We are like children in the +dark; we tremble in a shadowy and terrible void, peopled with our +fancies! Life is our real night, and the first gleam of the morning, +which brings us certainty, is death. + +Falkland sat the remainder of that night by the window watching the +clouds become gray as the dawn rose, and its earliest breeze awoke. He +heard the trampling of the horses beneath: he drew his cloak round him, +and descended. It was on a turning of the road beyond the lodge that +he directed the carriage to wait, and he then proceeded to the place +appointed. Emily was not yet there. He walked to and fro with an +agitated and hurried step. The impression of the night had in a great +measure been effaced from his mind, and he gave himself up without +reserve to the warm and sanguine hopes which he had so much reason to +conceive. He thought too, at moments, of those bright climates beneath +which he designed their asylum, where the very air is music, and the +light is like the colourings of love; and he associated the sighs of a +mutual rapture with the fragrance of myrtles, and the breath of a Tuscan +heaven. Time glided on. The hour was long past, yet Emily came not! +The sun rose, and Falkland turned in dark and angry discontent from its +beams. With every moment his impatience increased, and at last he could +restrain himself no longer. He proceeded towards the house. He stood for +some time at a distance; but as all seemed still hushed in repose, he +drew nearer and nearer till he reached the door: to his astonishment +it was open. He saw forms passing rapidly through the hall. He heard a +confused and indistinct murmur. At length he caught a glimpse of Mrs. +St. John. He could command himself no more. He sprang forwards--entered +the door--the hall--and caught her by a part of her dress. He could not +speak, but his countenance said all which his lips refused. Mrs. St. +John burst into tears when she saw him. "Good God!" she said, "why are +you here? Is it possible you have yet learned--" Her voice failed her. +Falkland had by this time recovered himself. He turned to the servants +who gathered around him. "Speak," he said calmly. "What has occurred?" +"My lady--my lady!" burst at once from several tongues. "What of her:" +said Falkland, with a blanched cheek, but unchanging voice. There was a +pause. At that instant a man, whom Falkland recognised as the physician +of the neighbourhood, passed at the opposite end of the hall. A light, +a scorching and intolerable light, broke upon him. "She is dying--she +is dead, perhaps," he said, in a low sepulchral tone, turning his eye +around till it had rested upon every one present. Not one answered. He +paused a moment, as if stunned by a sudden shock, and then sprang up the +stairs. He passed the boudoir, and entered the room where Emily slept. +The shutters were only partially closed a faint light broke through, and +rested on the bed: beside it bent two women. Them he neither heeded nor +saw. He drew aside the curtains. He beheld--the same as he had seen it +in his vision of the night before--the changed and lifeless countenance +of Emily Mandeville! That face, still so tenderly beautiful, was +partially turned towards him. Some dark stains upon the lip and neck +told how she had died--the blood-vessel she had broken before had +burst again. The bland and soft eyes, which for him never had but one +expression, were closed; and the long and disheveled tresses half hid, +while they contrasted, that bosom, which had but the night before +first learned to thrill beneath his own. Happier in her fate than she +deserved, she passed from this bitter life ere the punishment of her +guilt had begun. She was not doomed to wither beneath the blight of +shame, nor the coldness of estranged affection. From him whom she had +so worshipped, she was not condemned to bear wrong nor change. She died +while his passion was yet in its spring--before a blossom, a leaf, had +faded; and she sank to repose while his kiss was yet warm upon her lip, +and her last breath almost mingled with his sigh. For the woman who has +erred, life has no exchange for such a death. Falkland stood mute and +motionless: not one word of grief or horror escaped his lips. At length +he bent down. He took the hand which lay outside the bed; he pressed it; +it replied not to the pressure, but fell cold and heavy from his own. He +put his cheek to her lips; not the faintest breath came from them; and +then for the first time a change passed over his countenance: he pressed +upon those lips one long and last kiss, and, without word, or sign, +or tear, he turned from the chamber. Two hours afterwards he was found +senseless upon the ground; it was upon the spot where he had met Emily +the night before. + +For weeks he knew nothing of this earth--he was encompassed with the +spectres of a terrible dream. All was confusion, darkness, horror--a +series and a change of torture! At one time he was hurried through the +heavens in the womb of a fiery star, girt above and below and around +with unextinguishable but unconsuming flames. Wherever he trod, as he +wandered through his vast and blazing prison, the molten fire was his +footing, and the breath of fire was his air. Flowers, and trees, and +hills were in that world as in ours, but wrought from one lurid and +intolerable light; and, scattered around, rose gigantic palaces and +domes of the living flame, like the mansions of the city of Hell. +With every moment there passed to and fro shadowy forms, on whose +countenances was engraven unutterable anguish; but not a shriek, not a +groan, rung through the red air; for the doomed, who fed and inhabited +the flames, were forbidden the consolation of voice. Above there sat, +fixed and black, a solid and impenetrable cloud-Night frozen into +substance; and from the midst there hung a banner of a pale and sickly +flame, on which was written "For Ever." A river rushed rapidly beside +him. He stooped to slake the agony of his thirst--the waves were waves +of fire; and, as he started from the burning draught, he longed to +shriek aloud, and could not. Then he cast his despairing eyes above for +mercy; and saw on the livid and motionless banner "For Ever." + +A change came o'er the spirit of his dream + +He was suddenly borne up on the winds and storms to the oceans of an +eternal winter. He fell stunned and unstruggling upon the ebbless and +sluggish waves. Slowly and heavily they rose over him as he sank: then +came the lengthened and suffocating torture of that drowning death--the +impotent and convulsive contest with the closing waters--the gurgle, the +choking, the bursting of the pent breath, the flutter of the heart, +its agony, and its stillness. He recovered. He was a thousand fathoms +beneath the sea, chained to a rock round which the heavy waters rose as +a wall. He felt his own flesh rot and decay, perishing from his limbs +piece by piece; and he saw the coral banks, which it requires a thousand +ages to form, rise slowly from their slimy bed; and spread atom by atom, +till they became a shelter for the leviathan: their growth, was his only +record of eternity; and ever and ever, around and above him, came +vast and misshapen things--the wonders of the secret deeps; and the +sea-serpent, the huge chimera of the north, made its resting-place by +his side, glaring upon him with a livid and death-like eye, wan, yet +burning as an expiring seta. But over all, in every change, in every +moment of that immortality, there was present one pale and motionless +countenance, never turning from his own. The fiends of hell, the +monsters of the hidden ocean, had no horror so awful as _the human face +of the dead whom he had loved_. + +The word of his sentence was gone forth. Alike through that delirium +and its more fearful awakening, through the past, through the future, +through the vigils of the joyless day, and the broken dreams of the +night, there was a charm upon his soul--a hell within himself; and the +curse of his sentence was--never to forget! + +When, Lady Emily returned home on that guilty and eventful night, she +stole at once to her room: she dismissed her servant, and threw herself +upon the ground in that deep despair which on this earth can never again +know hope. She lay there without the power to weep, or the courage to +pray--how long, she knew not. Like the period before creation, her +mind was a chaos of jarring elements, and knew neither the method of +reflection nor the division of time. + +As she rose, she heard a slight knock at the door, and her husband +entered. Her heart misgave her; and when she saw him close the door +carefully before he approached her, she felt as if she could have sunk +into the earth, alike from her internal shame, and her fear of its +detection. + +Mr. Mandeville was a weak, commonplace character; indifferent in +ordinary matters, but, like most imbecile minds, violent and furious +when aroused. "Is this, Madam, addressed to you?" he cried, in a voice +of thunder, as he placed a letter before her (it was one of Falkland's); +"and this, and this, Madam?" said he, in a still louder tone, as he +flung them out one after another from her own escritoire, which he had +broken open. + +Emily sank back, and gasped for breath. Mandeville rose, and, laughing +fiercely, seized her by the arm. He grasped it with all his force. She +uttered a faint scream of terror: he did not heed it; he flung her from +him, and as she fell upon the ground, the blood gushed in torrents from +her lips. In the sudden change of feeling which alarm created, he raised +her in his arms. She was a corpse! At that instant the clock struck upon +his ear with a startling and solemn sound: it was the half-hour after +midnight. + +The grave is now closed upon that soft and erring heart, with its +guiltiest secret unrevealed. She went to that last home with a blest +and unblighted name; for her guilt was unknown, and her virtues are yet +recorded in the memories of the Poor. + +They laid her in the stately vaults of her ancient line, and her bier +was honoured with tears from hearts not less stricken, because their +sorrow, if violent, was brief. For the dead there are many mourners, but +only one monument--the bosom which loved them best. The spot where the +hearse rested, the green turf beneath, the surrounding trees, the gray +tower of the village church, and the proud halls rising beyond,--all had +witnessed the childhood, the youth, the bridal-day of the being whose +last rites and solemnities they were to witness now. The very bell which +rang for her birth had rung also for the marriage peal; it now tolled +for her death. But a little while, and she had gone forth from that home +of her young and unclouded years, amidst the acclamations and blessings +of all, a bride, with the insignia of bridal pomp--in the first bloom +of her girlish beauty--in the first innocence of her unawakened heart, +weeping, not for the future she was entering, but for the past she was +about to leave, and smiling through her tears, as if innocence had +no business with grief. On the same spot, where he had then waved +his farewell, stood the father now. On the grass which they had then +covered, flocked the peasants whose wants her childhood had relieved; by +the same priest who had blessed her bridals, bent the bridegroom who had +plighted its vow. There was not a tree, not a blade of grass withered. +The day itself was bright and glorious; such was it when it smiled +upon her nuptials. And size--she-but four little years, and all youth's +innocence darkened, and earth's beauty come to dust! Alas! not for her, +but the mourner whom she left! In death even love is forgotten; but in +life there is no bitterness so utter as to feel everything is unchanged, +except the One Being who was the soul of all--to know the world is the +same, but that its sunshine is departed. + + +The noon was still and sultry. Along the narrow street of the small +village of Lodar poured the wearied but yet unconquered band, which +embodied in that district of Spain the last hope and energy of freedom. +The countenances of the soldiers were haggard and dejected; they +displayed even less of the vanity than their accoutrements exhibited of +the pomp and circumstances of war. Yet their garments were such as even +the peasants had disdained: covered with blood and dust, and tattered +into a thousand rags, they betokened nothing of chivalry but its +endurance of hardship; even the rent and sullied banners drooped +sullenly along their staves, as if the winds themselves had become the +minions of fortune, and disdained to swell the insignia of those whom +she had deserted. The glorious music of battle was still. An air of +dispirited and defeated enterprise hung over the whole army. "Thank +Heaven," said the chief, who closed the last file as it marched--on to +its scanty refreshment and brief repose; "thank Heaven, we are at least +out of the reach of pursuit; and the mountains, those last retreats of +liberty, are before us!" "True, Don Rafael," replied the youngest of two +officers who rode by the side of the commander; "and if we can cut our +passage to Mina, we may yet plant the standard of the Constitution in +Madrid." "Ay," added the elder officer, "and I sing Riego's hymn in the +place of the Escurial!" "Our sons may!" said the chief, who was indeed +Riego himself, "but for us--all hope is over! Were we united, we could +scarcely make head against the armies of France; and divided as we are, +the wonder is that we have escaped so long. Hemmed in by invasion, our +great enemy has been ourselves. Such has been the hostility faction has +created between Spaniard and Spaniard, that we seem to have none left to +waste upon Frenchmen. We cannot establish freedom if men are willing to +be slaves. We have no hope, Don Alphonso--no hope--but that of death!" +As Riego concluded this desponding answer, so contrary to his general +enthusiasm, the younger officer rode on among the soldiers, cheering +them with words of congratulation and comfort; ordering their several +divisions; cautioning them to be prepared at a moment's notice; and +impressing on their remembrance those small but essential points of +discipline, which a Spanish troop might well be supposed to disregard. +When Riego and his companion entered the small and miserable hovel +which constituted the headquarters of the place, this man still +remained without; and it was not till he had slackened the girths of his +Andalusian horse, and placed before it the undainty provender which the +_ecurie_ afforded that he thought of rebinding more firmly the bandages +wound around a deep and painful sabre cut in the left arm, which for +several hours had been wholly neglected. The officer, whom Riego had +addressed by the name of Alphonso, came out of the hut just as his +comrade was vainly endeavouring, with his teeth and one hand, to replace +the ligature. As he assisted him, he said, "You know not, my dear +Falkland, how bitterly I reproach myself for having ever persuaded you +to a cause where contest seems to have no hope, and danger no glory." +Falkland smiled bitterly. "Do not deceive yourself, my dear uncle," said +he; "your persuasions would have been unavailing but for the suggestions +of my own wishes. I am not one of those enthusiasts who entered on your +cause with high hopes and chivalrous designs: I asked but forgetfulness +and excitement--I have found them! I would not exchange a single pain +I have endured for what would have constituted the pleasures of other +men:--but enough of this. What time, think you, have we for repose?" +"Till the evening," answered Alphonso; "our route will then most +probably be directed to the Sierre Morena. The General is extremely +weak and exhausted, and needs a longer rest than we shall gain. It is +singular that with such weak health he should endure so great an excess +of hardship and fatigue." During this conversation they entered the +hut. Riego was already asleep. As they seated themselves to the wretched +provision of the place, a distant and indistinct noise was heard. It +came first on their ears like the birth of the mountain wind-low, and +hoarse, and deep: gradually it grew loud and louder, and mingled with +other sounds which they defined too well--the hum, the murmur, the +trampling of steeds, the ringing echoes of the rapid march of armed men! +They heard and knew the foe was upon them!--a moment more, and the drum +beat to arms. "By St. Pelagio," cried Riego, who had sprung from his +light sleep at the first sound of the approaching danger, unwilling to +believe his fears, "it cannot be: the French are far behind:" and then, +as the drum beat, his voice suddenly changed, "the enemy? the enemy! +D'Aguilar, to horse!" and with those words he rushed out of the hut. The +soldiers, who had scarcely begun to disperse, were soon re-collected. In +the mean while the French commander, D'Argout, taking advantage of the +surprise he had occasioned, poured on his troops, which consisted solely +of cavalry, undaunted and undelayed by the fire of the posts. On, on +they drove like a swift cloud charged with thunder, and gathering wrath +as it hurried by, before it burst in tempest on the beholders. They did +not pause till they reached the farther extremity of the village: there +the Spanish infantry were already formed into two squares. "Halt!" cried +the French commander: the troop suddenly stopped confronting the nearer +square. There was one brief pause-the moment before the storm. "Charge!" +said D' Argout, and the word rang throughout the line up to the clear +and placid sky. Up flashed the steel like lightning; on went the troop +like the clash of a thousand waves when the sun is upon them; and +before the breath of the riders was thrice drawn, came the crash--the +shock--the slaughter of battle. The Spaniards made but a faint +resistance to the impetuosity of the onset: they broke on every side +beneath the force of the charge, like the weak barriers of a rapid and +swollen stream; and the French troops, after a brief but bloody victory +(joined by a second squadron from the rear), advanced immediately upon +the Spanish cavalry. Falkland was by the side of Riego. As the +troop advanced, it would have been curious to notice the contrast of +expression in the face of each; the Spaniard's features lighted up with +the daring enthusiasm of his nature; every trace of their usual languor +and exhaustion vanished beneath the unconquerable soul that blazed +out the brighter for the debility of the frame; the brow knit; the +eye flashing; the lip quivering:--and close beside, the calm, stern; +passionless repose that brooded over the severe yet noble beauty of +Falkland's countenance. To him danger brought scorn, not enthusiasm: he +rather despised than defied it. "The dastards! they waver," said Riego, +in an accent of despair, as his troop faltered beneath the charge of the +French: and so saying, he spurred his steed on to the foremost line. The +contest was longer, but not less decisive, than the one just concluded. +The Spaniards, thrown into confusion by the first shock, never recovered +themselves. Falkland, who, in his anxiety to rally and inspirit the +soldiers, had advanced with two other officers beyond the ranks, was +soon surrounded by a detachment of dragoons: the wound in his left arm +scarcely suffered him to guide his horse: he was in the most imminent +danger. At that moment D'Aguilar, at the head of his own immediate +followers, cut his way into the circle, and covered Falkland's retreat; +another detachment of the enemy came up, and they were a second time +surrounded. In the mean while, the main body of the Spanish cavalry were +flying in all directions, and Riego's deep voice was heard at intervals, +through the columns of smoke and dust, calling and exhorting them in +vain. D'Aguilar and his scanty troop, after a desperate skirmish, broke +again through the enemy's line drawn up against their retreat. The rank +closed after them like waters when the object that pierced them has +sunk: Falkland and his two companions were again environed: he saw his +comrades cut to the earth before him. He pulled up his horse for one +moment, clove down with one desperate blow the dragoon with whom he was +engaged, and then setting his spurs to the very rowels into his horse, +dashed at once through the circle of his foes. His remarkable presence +of mind, and the strength and sagacity of his horse, befriended him. +Three sabres flashed before him, and glanced harmless from his raised +sword, like lightning on the water. The circle was passed! As he +galloped towards Riego, his horse started from a dead body that lay +across his path. He reined up for one instant, for the countenance, +which looked upwards, struck him as familiar. What was his horror, +when in that livid and distorted face he recognised his uncle! The thin +grizzled hairs were besprent with gore and brains, and the blood yet +oozed from the spot where the ball had passed through his temple. +Falkland had but a brief interval for grief; the pursuers were close +behind: he heard the snort of the foremost horse before he again put +spurs into his own. Riego was holding a hasty consultation with his +principal officers. As Falkland rode breathless up to them, they had +decided on the conduct expedient to adopt. They led the remaining square +of infantry towards the chain of mountains against which the village, +as it were, leaned; and there the men dispersed in all directions. "For +us," said Riego to the followers on horseback who gathered around him, +"for us the mountains still promise a shelter. We must ride, gentlemen, +for our lives--Spain will want them yet." + +Wearied and exhausted as they were, that small and devoted troop fled on +into the recesses of the mountains for the remainder of that day--twenty +men out of the two thousand who had halted at Lodar. As the evening +stole over them, they entered into a narrow defile: the tall hills rose +on every side, covered with the glory of the setting sun, as if Nature +rejoiced to grant her bulwarks as a protection to liberty. A small clear +stream ran through the valley, sparkling with the last smile of the +departing day; and ever and anon, from the scattered shrubs and the +fragrant herbage, came the vesper music of the birds, and the hum of the +wild bee. + +Parched with thirst, and drooping with fatigue, the wanderers sprung +forward with one simultaneous cry of joy to the glassy and refreshing +wave which burst so unexpectedly upon them: and it was resolved that +they should remain for some hours in a spot where all things invited +them to the repose they so imperiously required. They flung themselves +at once upon the grass; and such was their exhaustion, that rest was +almost synonymous with sleep. Falkland alone could not immediately +forget himself in repose: the face of his uncle, ghastly and disfigured, +glared upon his eyes whenever he closed them. Just, however, as he was +sinking into an unquiet and fitful doze, he heard steps approaching: he +started up, and perceived two men, one a peasant, the other in the dress +of a hermit. They were the first human beings the wanderers had met; +and when Falkland gave the alarm to Riego, who slept beside him, it was +immediately proposed to detain them as guides to the town of Carolina, +where Riego had hopes of finding effectual assistance, or the means +of ultimate escape. The hermit and his companion refused, with much +vehemence, the office imposed upon them; but Riego ordered them to be +forcibly detained. He had afterwards reason bitterly to regret this +compulsion. + +Midnight came on in all the gorgeous beauty of a southern heaven, and +beneath its stars they renewed their march. As Falkland rode by the side +of Riego, the latter said to him in a low voice, "There is yet escape +for you and my followers: none for me: they have set a price on my +head, and the moment I leave these mountains, I enter upon my own +destruction." "No, Rafael!" replied Falkland; "you can yet fly to +England, that asylum of the free, though ally of the despotic; the +abettor of tyranny, but the shelter of its victims!" Riego answered, +with the same faint and dejected tone, "I care not now what becomes of +me! I have lived solely for Freedom; I have made her my mistress, my +hope, my dream: I have no existence but in her. With the last effort +of my country let me perish also! I have lived to view liberty not only +defeated, but derided: I have seen its efforts not aided, but mocked. In +my own country, those only, who wore it, have been respected who used it +as a covering to ambition. In other nations, the free stood aloof when +the charter of their own rights was violated in the invasion of ours. +I cannot forget that the senate of that England, where you promise me +a home, rang with insulting plaudits when her statesman breathed +his ridicule on our weakness, not his sympathy for our cause; and +I--fanatic--dreamer--enthusiast, as I may be called, whose whole life +has been one unremitting struggle for the opinion I have adopted, am +at least not so blinded by my infatuation, but I can see the mockery +it incurs. If I die on the scaffold to-morrow, I shall have nothing of +martyrdom but its doom; not the triumph--the incense--the immortality of +popular applause: I should have no hope to support me at such a moment, +gleaned from the glories of the future--nothing but one stern and +prophetic conviction of the vanity of that tyranny by which my sentence +will be pronounced." Riego paused for a moment before he resumed, and +his pale and death-like countenance received an awful and unnatural +light from the intensity of the feeling that swelled and burned within +him. His figure was drawn up to its full height, and his voice rang +through the lonely hills with a deep and hollow sound, that had in it a +tone of prophecy, as he resumed "It is in vain that they oppose OPINION; +anything else they may subdue. They may conquer wind, water, nature +itself; but to the progress of that secret, subtle, pervading spirit, +their imagination can devise, their strength can accomplish, no bar: its +votaries they may seize, they may destroy; itself they cannot touch. +If they check it in one place, it invades them in another. They cannot +build a wall across the whole earth; and, even if they could, it +would pass over its summit! Chains cannot bind it, for it is +immaterial--dungeons enclose it, for it is universal. Over the faggot +and the scaffold--over the bleeding bodies of its defenders which they +pile against its path, it sweeps on with a noiseless but unceasing +march. Do they levy armies against it, it presents to them no palpable +object to oppose. Its camp is the universe; its asylum is the bosoms of +their own soldiers. Let them depopulate, destroy as they please, to +each extremity of the earth; but as long as they have a single supporter +themselves--as long as they leave a single individual into whom that +spirit can enter--so long they will have the same labours to encounter, +and the same enemy to subdue." + +As Riego's voice ceased, Falkland gazed upon him with a mingled pity +and admiration. Sour and ascetic as was the mind of that hopeless and +disappointed man, he felt somewhat of a kindred glow at the pervading +and holy enthusiasm of the patriot to whom he had listened; and though +it was the character of his own philosophy to question the purity of +human motives, and to smile at the more vivid emotions he had ceased to +feel, he bowed his soul in homage to those principles whose sanctity he +acknowledged, and to that devotion of zeal and fervour with which +their defender cherished and enforced them. Falkland had joined the +constitutionalists with respect, but not ardour, for their cause. He +demanded excitation; he cared little where he found it. He stood in this +world a being who mixed in all its changes, performed all its offices, +took, as if by the force of superior mechanical power, a leading share +in its events; but whose thoughts and soul were as offsprings of another +planet, imprisoned in a human form, and _longing for their home_! + +As they rode on, Riego continued to converse with that imprudent +unreserve which the openness and warmth of his nature made natural to +him: not one word escaped the hermit and the peasant (whose name +was Lopez Lara) as they rode on two mules behind Falkland and Riego. +"Remember," whispered the hermit to his comrade, "the reward!" + +"I do," muttered the peasant. + +Throughout the whole of that long and dreary night, the--wanderers rode +on incessantly, and found themselves at daybreak near a farm-house: this +was Lara's own home. They made the peasant Lara knock; his own brother +opened the door. Fearful as they were of the detection to which so +numerous a party might conduce, only Riego, another officer (Don Luis +de Sylva), and Falkland entered the house. The latter, whom nothing ever +seemed to render weary or forgetful, fixed his cold stern eye upon the +two brothers, and, seeing some signs pass between them, locked the +door, and so prevented their escape. For a few hours they reposed in the +stables with their horses, their drawn swords by their sides. On waking, +Riego found it absolutely necessary that his horse should be shod. Lopez +started up, and offered to lead it to Arguillas for that purpose. "No," +said Riego, who, though naturally imprudent, partook in this instance of +Falkland's habitual caution: "your brother shall go and bring hither the +farrier." Accordingly the brother went: he soon returned. "The farrier," +he said, "was already on the road." Riego and his companions, who were +absolutely fainting with hunger, sat down to breakfast; but Falkland, +who had finished first, and who had eyed the man since his return with +the most scrutinising attention, withdrew towards the window, looking +out from time to time with a telescope which they had carried about +them, and urging them impatiently to finish. "Why?" said Riego, +"famished men are good for nothing, either to fight or fly--and we +must wait for the farrier." "True," said Falkland, "but--" he stopped +abruptly. Sylva had his eyes on his face at that moment. Falkland's +colour suddenly changed: he turned round with a loud cry. "Up! up! +Riego! Sylva! We are undone--the soldiers are upon us!" "Arm!" cried +Riego, starting up. At that moment Lopez and his brother seized their +own carbines, and levelled them at the betrayed constitutionalists. +"The first who moves," cried the former, "is a dead man!" "Fools!" said +Falkland, with a calm bitterness, advancing deliberately towards them. +He moved only three steps--Lopez fired. Falkland staggered a few paces, +recovered himself, sprang towards Lara, clove him at one blow from the +skull to the jaw, and fell with his victim, lifeless upon the floor. +"Enough!" said Riego to the remaining peasant; "we are your prisoners; +bind us!" In two minutes more the soldiers entered, and they were +conducted to Carolina. Fortunately Falkland was known, when at Paris, +to a French officer of high rank then at Carolina. He was removed to +the Frenchman's quarters. Medical aid was instantly procured. The first +examination of his wound was decisive; recovery was hopeless! + +Night came on again, with her pomp of light and shade--the night that +for Falkland had no morrow. One solitary lamp burned in the chamber +where he lay alone with God and his own heart. He had desired his couch +to be placed by the window and requested his attendants to withdraw. The +gentle and balmy air stole over him, as free and bland as if it were to +breathe for him for ever; and the silver moonlight came gleaming through +the lattice and played upon his wan brow, like the tenderness of a bride +that sought to kiss him to repose. "In a few hours," thought he, as he +lay gazing on the high stars which seemed such silent witnesses of an +eternal and unfathomed mystery, "in a few hours either this feverish and +wayward spirit will be at rest for ever, or it will have commenced a new +career in an untried and unimaginable existence! In a very few hours +I may be amongst the very heavens that I survey--a part of their +own glory--a new link in a new order of beings--breathing amidst the +elements of a more gorgeous world--arrayed myself in the attributes of a +purer and diviner nature--a wanderer among the planets--an associate +of angels--the beholder of the arcana of the great God-redeemed, +regenerate, immortal, or--dust! + +"There is no OEdipus to solve the enigma of life. We are--whence came +we? We are not--whither do we go? All things in our existence have +their object: existence has none. We live, move, beget our species, +perish--and for what? We ask the past its moral; we question the gone +years of the reason of our being, and from the clouds of a thousand +ages there goes forth no answer. Is it merely to pant beneath this weary +load; to sicken of the sun; to grow old; to drop like leaves into the +grave; and to bequeath to our heirs the worn garments of toil and labour +that we leave behind? Is it to sail for ever on the same sea, ploughing +the ocean of time with new furrows, and feeding its billows with new +wrecks, or--" and his thoughts paused blinded and bewildered. + +No man, in whom the mind has not been broken by the decay of the body, +has approached death in full consciousness as Falkland did that moment, +and not thought intensely on the change he was about to undergo; and yet +what new discoveries upon that subject has any one bequeathed us? There +the wildest imaginations are driven from originality into triteness: +there all minds, the frivolous and the strong, the busy and the idle, +are compelled into the same path and limit of reflection. Upon that +unknown and voiceless gulf of inquiry broods an eternal and impenetrable +gloom; no wind breathes over it--no wave agitates its stillness: +over the dead and solemn calm there is no change propitious to +adventure--there goes forth no vessel of research, which is not driven, +baffled and broken, again upon the shore. + +The moon waxed high in her career. Midnight was gathering slowly +over the earth; the beautiful, the mystic hour, blent with a thousand +memories, hallowed by a thousand dreams, made tender to remembrance by +the vows our youth breathed beneath its star, and solemn by the olden +legends which are linked to its majesty and peace--the hour in which, +men should die; the isthmus between two worlds; the climax of the past +day; the verge of that which is to come; wrapping us in sleep after a +weary travail, and promising us a morrow which, since the first birth +of Creation has never failed. As the minutes glided on, Falkland felt +himself grow gradually weaker and weaker. The pain of his wound had +ceased, but a deadly sickness gathered over his heart: the room reeled +before his eyes, and the damp chill mounted from his feet up--up to the +breast in which the life-blood waxed dull and thick. + +As the hand of the clock pointed to the half-hour after midnight the +attendants who waited in the adjoining room heard a faint cry. They +rushed hastily into Falkland's chamber; they found him stretched half +out of the bed. His hand was raised towards the opposite wall; it +dropped gradually as they approached him; and his brow, which was at +first stern and bent, softened, shade by shade, into his usual serenity. +But the dim film gathered fast over his eye, and the last coldness upon +his limbs. He strove to raise himself as if to speak; the effort failed, +and he fell motionless on his face. They stood by the bed for some +moments in silence: at length they raised him. Placed against his +heart was an open locket of dark hair, which one hand still pressed +convulsively. They looked upon his countenance--(a single glance was +sufficient)--it was hushed--proud--passionless--the seal of Death was +upon it. + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Falkland, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FALKLAND, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 7761.txt or 7761.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/7/6/7761/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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