TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
I had just finished my last by the beams of a gloriously setting sun, when I was startled by a pebble being thrown in at my window. I looked out, and perceived Father John in the act of flinging up another, which the hand of Glorvina (who was leaning on his arm) presented.
‘If you are not engaged in writing to your mistress,’ said he, ‘come down and join us in a ramble.’
‘And though I were,’ I replied, ‘I could not resist your challenge.’ And down I flew — Glorvina laughing, sent me back for my hat, and we proceeded on our walk.
‘This is an evening,’ said I, looking at Glorvina, ‘worthy of the morning of the first of May, and we have seized it in that happy moment so exquisitely described by Collins:
—‘While now the bright hair’d sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
O’erhang his wavy bed.’
‘O! that beautiful Ode!’ exclaimed Glorvina, with all her wildest enthusiasm — ‘never can I read — never hear it repeated, but with emotion. The perusal of Ossian’s “Song of other Times,” the breezy respiration of my harp at twilight, the last pale rose that outlives its season, and bears on its faded breast the frozen tears of the wintry dawn, and Collins’s “Ode to Evening”, awaken in my heart and fancy the same train of indescribable feeling, of exquisite yet unspeakable sensation. Alas! the solitary pleasure of feeling thus alone the utter impossibility of conveying to the bosom of another those ecstatic emotions by which our own is sublimed.’
While my very soul followed this brilliant comet to her perihelium of sentiment and imagination, I fixed my eyes on her ‘mind-illumin’d face,’ and said,
‘And is expression then necessary for the conveyance of such profound, such exquisite feeling? May not a similarity of refined organization exist between souls, and produce that mutual intelligence which sets the necessity of cold verbal expression at defiance? May not the sympathy of a kindred sensibility in the bosom of another, meet and enjoy those delicious feelings by which yours is warmed, and, sinking beneath the inadequacy of language to give them birth, feel like you in silent and sacred emotion?’
‘Perhaps,’ said the priest, with his usual simplicity, ‘this sacred sympathy between two refined, elevated and sensible souls, in the sublime and beautiful of the moral and natural world, approaches nearest to the rapturous and pure emotions which uncreated spirits may be supposed to feel in their heavenly communion, than any other human sentiment with which we are acquainted.’
For all the looks of blandishment which ever flung their spell from beauty’s eye, I would not have exchanged the glance which Glorvina at that moment cast on me. While the priest, who seemed to have been following up the train of thought awakened by our preceding observations, abruptly added, after a silence of some minutes —
‘There is a species of metaphorical taste, if I may be allowed the expression, whose admiration for certain objects is not deducible from the established rules of beauty, order, or even truth; which should be the basis of our approbation; yet which ever brings with it a sensation of more lively pleasure; as for instance, a chromatic passion in music, will awaken a thrill of delight which a simple chord could never effect.’
‘Nor would the most self-evident truth,’ said I, ‘awaken so vivid a sensation, as when we find some sentiment of the soul illustrated by some law or principle in science. To an axiom we grant our assent, but we lavish our most enthusiastic approbation when Rousseau tells us that, “Les âmes humaines veulent être accomplies pir valoir toute leurs prix, et la force unie des âmes comme celles des larmes d’un aimant artificial, est incomparablement plus grands que la somme de leurs force particulier.”’
As this quotation was meant all for Glorvina, I looked earnestly at her as I repeated it. A crimson torrent rushed to her cheek, and convinced me that she felt the full force of a sentiment so applicable to us both.
‘And why,’ said I, addressing her in a low voice, ‘was Rousseau excluded from the sacred coalition with Ossian, Collins, your twilight harp, and winter rose?’
Glorvina made no reply; but turned full on me her ‘eyes of dewy light.’ Mine almost sunk beneath the melting ardor of their soul-beaming glance.
Oh! child of Nature! child of genius and of passion! why was I withheld from throwing myself at thy feet; from offering thee the homage of that soul thou hast awakened; from covering thy hands with my kisses, and bathing them with tears of such delicious emotion, as thou only hast power to inspire?
While we thus ‘buvames à longs traits le philter de l’amour, Father John gradually restored us to common-place conversation on the fineness of the weather, promising aspect of the season, &c. until the moon, as it rose sublimely above the summit of the mountain, called forth the melting tones of my Glorvina’s syren voice.
Casting up her eyes to that Heaven whence they seem to have caught their emanation, she said, ‘I do not wonder that unenlightened nations should worship the moon. Our ideas are so intimately connected with our senses, so ductilely transferable from cause to effect, that the abstract thought may readily subside in the sensible image which awakens it. When, in the awful stillness of a calm night, I fix my eyes on that mild and beautiful orb, the created has become the awakening medium of that adoration I offered to the Creator.’
‘Yes,’ said the priest, ‘I remember, that even in your childhood, you used to fix your eyes on the moon, and gaze and wonder. I believe it would have been no difficult matter to have plunged you back in the heathenism of your ancestors, and to have made it one of the gods of your idolatry.’
‘And was the chaste Luna in the album sanctorum of Druidical mythology?’ said I.
‘Undoubtedly,’ said the priest, ‘we read in the life of our celebrated said, St Columba, that on the altar-piece of a Druidical temple, the sun, moon, and stars, were curiously depicted; and the form of the ancient Irish oath of allegiance, was to swear by the sun, moon, and stars, and other deities, celestial as well as terrestrial.’
‘How,’ said I, ‘did you mythology touch so closely on that of the Greeks? had you also your Pans and your Daphnes, as well as your Dians and Apollos?’
‘Here is a curious anecdote that evinces it,’ returned the priest — ‘It is many years since I read it in a black-letter memoir of St Patrick. The Saint, says the biographer, attended by three bishops, and some less dignified of his brethren, being in this very province, arose early one morning, and with his pious associates placed himself near a fountain or well, and began to chaunt a hymn. In the neighbourhood of this honoured fountain, stood the palace of Cruachan, where the two daughters of the Emperor Leogaire were educating in retirement; and as the saints sung by no means sotto voce, [1] their pious strains caught the attention of the royal fair ones, who were enjoying an early ramble, and who immediately sought the sanctified choristers. Full of that curiosity so natural to the youthful recluses, they were by no means sparing of interrogations to the Saint, and among other questions, demanded “and who is your God? where dwells he, in heaven or on earth, or beneath the earth, or in the mountain or the valley; or the sea or the stream?” — And indeed even to this day, we have Irish for a river God, which we call Divona. You perceive, therefore, that our ancient religion was by no means an unpoetical one.’
While he spoke, we observed a figure emerging from a coppice, towards a small well, which issued from beneath the roots of a blasted oak. The priest motioned us to stop, and be silent — the figure (which was that of an ancient female wrapt in a long cloak), approached, and having drank of the well out of a little cup, she went three times round it on her knees, praying with great fervency over her beads; then rising after this painful ceremony, she tore a small part of her under garb, and hung it on the branch of the tree which shaded the well.
‘This ceremony, I perceive,’ said the priest, ‘surprizes you; but you have now witnessed the remains of one of our most ancient superstitions. — The ancient Irish, like the Greeks, were religiously attached to the consecrated fountain, the Vel expiatoria ; and our early missionaries discovering the fondness of the natives for these sanctified springs, artfully averted the course of their superstitious faith, and dedicated them to Christian saints.’
‘There is really,’ said I, ‘something truly classic in this spot; and here is this little shrine of Christian superstition hung with the same votive gifts as Pausanius tells us obscured the statue of Hygeia in Secyonia.’
‘This is nothing extraordinary here,’ said the priest — ‘these consecrated wells are to be found in every part of the kingdom. But of all our Aquæ Sanctificatæ, Lough Derg is the most celebrated. It is the Loretto of Ireland, and votarists from every part of the kingdom resort to it. So great, indeed, is the still-existing veneration among the lower orders for these holy wells, that those who live at too great a distance to make a pilgrimage to one, are content to purchase a species of amulet made of a sliver of the tree which shades the well (and imbued in its waters), which they wear round their necks. These curious amulets are sold at fairs, by a species of sturdy beggar called a Bacagh, who stands with a long pole, with a box fixed at the top of it, for the reception of alms; while he alternately extols the miraculous property of the amulet, and details his own miseries; thus at once endeavouring to interest the faith and charity of the always benevolent, always credulous multitude.’
‘Strange,’ said I, ‘that religion in all ages, and in all countries, should depend so much on the impositions of one half of mankind, and the credulity and indolence of the other. Thus the Egyptians (to whom even Greece herself stood indebted for the principles of those arts and sciences by which she became the most illustrious country in the world), resigned themselves so entirely to the impositions of their priests, as to believe that the safety and happiness of life itself depended on the motions of an ox, or the tameness of a crocodile.’
‘Stop, stop,’ interrupted Father John, smiling — ‘you forget, that though you wear the San-Benito, or robe of heresy yourself, you are in the company of those who — ‘
‘Exactly think on certain points,’ interrupted I, ‘even as my heretical self.’
This observation led to a little controversial dialogue, which, as it would stand very poor chance of being read by you, will stand none at all of being transcribed by me.
When we returned home we found the Prince impatiently watching for us at his window, fearful lest the dews of heaven should have fallen too heavily on the head of his heart’s idol, who finished her walk in silence — either I believe not much pleased with the turn given to the conversation by the priest, or not sufficiently interested to participate in it.
* * * * *
I know not how it is, but since the morning of the first of May, I feel as though my soul had entered into a sacred covenant with hers — as though our very beings were indissolubly interwoven with each other. And yet the freedom which once existed in our intercourse is fled. I approach her trembling; and she repels the most distant advances with such dignified softness, such chastely modest reserve, that the restraint I sometimes labour under in her presence, is almost concomitant to the bliss it bestows.
This morning, when she came to her drawing-desk, she held a volume of De Moustier in her hand — ‘I have brought this,’ said she, ‘for our bon Pere Directeur to read out to us.’
‘He has commissioned me,’ said I, ‘to make his excuses — he is gone to visit a sick man on the other side of the mountain.’
At this intelligence she blushed to the eyes; but suddenly recovering herself, she put the book into my hands, and said with a smile, ‘then you must officiate for him.’
As soon as she was seated at the drawing desk I opened the book, and by chance at the beautiful description of the Boudoir:
‘J’aime une boudoir etroite qu’un demi jour eclaire,
La mon cour est chez lui, le premier demi jour
Fuit par la volupte, ménage pour l’amour,
La discrete amitiè, veut aussi du mystere.
Quand de nos bons amis dans us lieu limite,
Le cercle peu nombreux pres de nous le rassemble
Le sentiment, la paix, la franche liberté
Preside en commun,’ &c. &c.’
I wish you could see this creature, when any thing is said or read that comes home to her heart, or strikes in immediate unison with the exquisite tone of her feelings. Never sure was there a finer commentary, than her looks and gestures pass on any work of interest which engages her attention. Before I had finished the perusal of this charming little fragment, the pencil had dropped from her fingers; and often she waved her beautiful head and smiled, and breathed a faint exclamation of delight; and when I laid down the book, she said, while she leaned her face on her clasped hands —
‘And I too have a boudoir! — but even a boudoir may become a dreary solitude, except’ — she paused; and I added, from the poem I had just read, ‘except that within its social little limits
‘La confidence ingenû rapproche deux amis.’
Her eyes, half raised to mine, suddenly cast down, beamed a tender acquiescence to the sentiment.
‘But,’ said I, ‘if the being worthy of sharing the bliss of such an intercourse in such a place must confer, is yet to be found, is its hallowed circle inviolable to the intrusive footstep of an inferior, though perhaps not less ardent votarist?’
‘Since you have been here,’ said she, ‘I have scarcely ever visited this once favourite retreat myself.’
‘Am I to take that as a compliment or otherwise?’ said I.
‘Just as it is meant,’ said she — ‘as a fact;’ and she added, with an inadvertent simplicity into which the ardor of her temper often betrays her — ‘I never can devote myself partially to any thing — I am either all enthusiasm or all indifference.’
Not for the world would I have made her feel the full force of this avowal; but requested permission to visit this now deserted boudoir.
‘Certainly,’ she replied — ‘it is a little closet in that ruined tower, which terminates the corridor in which your apartment lies.’
‘Then I am privileged?’ said I.
‘Undoubtedly,’ she returned; and the Prince, who had risen unusually early, entered the room at that moment, and joined us at the drawing-desk.
* * * * *
The absence of the good priest left me to a solitary dinner. Glorvina (as is usual with her) spent the first part of the evening in her father’s room, and thus denied her society, I endeavoured to supply its want — its soul-felt want, by a visit to her boudoir.
There is a certain tone of feeling when fancy is in its acmé, when sentiment holds the senses in subordination, and the visionary joys which float in the imagination shed a livelier bliss on the soul than the best pleasures cold reality ever conferred. Then, even the presence of a beloved object is not more precious to the heart than the spot consecrated to her memory; where we fancy the very air is impregnated with her respiration; every object is hallowed by her recent touch, and that all around breathes of her.
In such a mood of mind, I ascended to Glorvina’s boudoir; and I really believe, that had she accompanied me, I should have felt less than when alone and unseen I stole to the asylum of her pensive thoughts. It lay as she had described; and almost as I passed its threshold, I was sensibly struck by the incongruity of its appearance — it seemed to me as though it had been partly furnished in the beginning of one century, and finished in the conclusion of another. The walls were rudely wainscoted with oak, black with age; yet the floor was covered with a Turkey carpet, rich, new, and beautiful — better adapted to cover a Parisian dressing-room than the closet of a ruined tower. The casements were high and narrow, but partly veiled with a rich drapery of scarlet silk: a few old chairs, heavy and cumbrous, were interspersed with stools of an antique form; one of which lay folded up on the ground, so as to be portable in a travelling trunk. On a pondrous Gothic table (which seemed a fixture coeval with the building), was placed a silver escritoire, of curious and elegant workmanship, and two small, but beautiful antique vases (filled with flowers) of Etrurian elegance. Two little book-shelves, elegantly designed, but most clumsily executed (probably by some hedge carpenter), were filled with the best French, English, and Italian poets; and, to my utter astonishment, not only some new publications scarce six months old, but two London newspapers of no distant date, lay scattered on the table, with some MS music, and unfinished drawings.
Having gratified my curiosity, by examining the singular incongruities of this paradoxical boudoir, I leaned for some time against one of the windows, endeavouring to make out some defaced lines cut on its panes with a diamond, when Glorvina herself entered the room.
As I stood concealed by the silken drapery, she did not perceive me. A basket of flowers hung on her arm, from which she replenished the vases, having first flung away their faded treasures. As she stood thus engaged, and cheering her sweet employment with a murmured song, I stole swiftly behind her, and my breath disturbing the ringlets which had escaped from the bondage of her bodkin, and seemed to cling to her neck for protection, she turned quickly round, and with a start, a blush, and a smile, said, ‘Ah! so soon here!’
‘You perceive,’ said I, ‘your immunity was not lost on me! I have been here this half hour!’
‘Indeed!’ she replied, and casting round a quick inquiring glance, hastily collected the scattered papers, and threw them into a drawer; adding, ‘I intended to have made some arrangements in this deserted little place, that you might see it in its best garb; but had scarcely began the necessary reform this morning, when I was suddenly called to my father, and could not till this moment find leisure to return hither.’
While she spoke I gazed earnestly at her. It struck me there was a something of mystery over this apartment, yet wherefore should mystery dwell where all breathes the ingenuous simplicity of the golden age. Glorvina moved towards the casement, threw open the sash, and laid her fresh gathered flowers on the seat. Their perfume scented the room; and a new fallen shower still glittered on the honeysuckle which she was endeavouring to entice through the window, round which it crept.
The sun was setting with rather a mild than a dazzling splendour, and the landscape was richly impurpled with his departing beams, which, as they darted through the scarlet drapery of the curtain, shed warmly over the countenance and figure of Glorvina, ‘Love’s proper hue.’
We both remained silent, until her eye accidentally meeting mine, a more ‘celestial rosy red’ invested her cheek. She seated herself in the window, and I drew a chair, and sat near her. All within was the softest gloom — all without the most solemn stillness. The grey vapours of twilight were already stealing amidst the illumined clouds that floated in the atmosphere — the sun’s golden beams no longer scattered round their rich suffusion; and the glow of retreating day was fading even from the horizon where its parting glories faintly lingered.
‘It is a sweet hour,’ said Glorvina, softly sighing.
‘It is a boudoirizing hour,’ said I.
‘It is a golden one for a poetic heart,’ she added.
‘Or am enamoured one,’ I returned. ‘It is the hour in which the soul best knows herself; when every low-thoughted care is excluded, and the pensive pleasures take possession of the dissolving heart.
‘Ces douces lumiere
Ces somber clarités
Sont les jours de la volupté.’
And what was the voluptas of Epicurus, but those refined and elegant enjoyments which must derive their spirit from virtue and from health; from a vivid fancy, susceptible feelings, and a cultivated mind; and which are never so fully tasted as in this sweet season of the day? then the influence of sentiment is buoyant over passion; the soul, alive to the sublimest impression, expands in the region of pure and elevated mediation: the passions, slumbering on the soft repose of Nature, leave the heart free to the reception of the purest, warmest, tenderest sentiments — when all is delicious melancholy, or pensive softness — when every vulgar wish is hushed, and a rapture, an indefinable rapture, thrills with sweet vibration on every nerve.’
‘It is thus I have felt,’ said the all impassioned Glorvina, clasping her hands, and fixing her humid eyes on mine — ‘thus, in the dearth of all kindred feeling, I felt. But never, Oh! till now — never!’ — and she abruptly paused, and drooped her head on the back of my chair, over which my hand rested, and felt the soft pressure of her glowing cheek, while her balmy sigh breathed its odour on my lip.
Oh! had not her celestial confidence, her angelic purity, sublimed every thought, restrained every wish — at that moment — that too fortunate — too dangerous moment!!! — Yet even as it was, in the delicious agony of my soul, I secretly exclaimed, with the legislator of Lesbos — ‘It is too difficult to be always virtuous!’ while I half audibly breathed on the ear of Glorvina —
‘Nor I, O first of all created beings! never, never till I beheld thee, did I know the pure rapture which the intercourse of a kindred soul awakens — of that sacred communion with a superior intelligence, which, while it raises me in my own estimation, tempts me to emulate that excellence I adore.’
Glorvina raised her head — he melting eyes met mine, and her cheek rivalled the snow of that hand which was pressed with passionate ardor to my lips. Then her eyes were bashfully withdrawn — she again drooped her head — not on the chair, but on my shoulder. What followed, angels might have attested — but the eloquence of bliss is silence.
Suffice to say, that I am now certain of at least being understood; and that in awakening her comprehension, I have roused my own. In a word, I now feel I love!! — for the first time I feel it. For the first time my heart is alive to the most profound, the most delicate, the most ardent, and most refined of all human passions. I am now conscious that I have hitherto mistaken the senses for the heart, and the blandishments of a vitiated imagination for the pleasures of the soul. In short, I now feel myself in that state of beatitude, when the fruition of all the heart’s purest wishes leaves me nothing to desire, and the innocence of those wishes nothing to fear. You know but little of the sentiment which now pervades my whole being, and blends with every atom of my frame, if you suppose I have formerly told Glorvina that I loved her, or that I appear even to suspect that I am (rapturous thought!) beloved in return. On the contrary, the same mysterious delicacy, the same delicious reserve still exist. It is a sigh, a glance, a broken sentence, an imperceptible motion (imperceptible to all eyes but our own), that betrays us to each other. Once I used to fall at the feet of the ‘Cynthia of the moment,’ avow my passion, and swear eternal truth. Now I make no genuflexion, offer no vows, and swear no oaths; and yet more than ever — More! — dare I then place in the scale of comparison what I now feel with what I ever felt before? The thought is sacrilege!
This Child of Nature appears to me each succeeding day, in a phasis more bewitchingly attractive than the last. She now feels her power over me (with woman’s intuition, where the heart is in question!); and this consciousness gives to her manners a certain roguish tyranny, that renders her the most charming tantalizing being in the world. In a thousand little instances she contrives to teaze me; most, when most she delights me! and takes no pains to conceal my simple folly from others, while she triumphs in it herself. In short, she is the last woman in the world who would incur the risk of satiating him who was blest in her love; for the variability of her manner, always governed by her ardent, though volatilized, feelings, keeps suspense on the eternal qui vive! and the sweet assurance given by the eyes one moment, is destroyed in the next by some arch sally of the lip.
To day I met her walking with the nurse. The old woman, very properly, made a motion to retire as I approached. Glorvina would not suffer this, and twined her arm round that of her foster-mother. I was half inclined to turn on my heel, when a servant came running to the nurse for keys. It was impossible to burst them from her side, and away she hobbled after the bare-footed laquais. I looked reproachfully at Glorvina, but her eyes, were fixed on an arbutus tree rich in blossom.
‘I wish I had that high branch,’ said she, ‘to put in my vase.’ In a moment I was climbing up the tree like a great school-boy, while she, standing beneath, received the blossoms in her extended drapery; and I was on the point of descending, when a branch, lovelier than all I had culled, attracted my eye: this I intended to present in propria persona, that I might get a kiss of the hand in return. With my own hands sufficiently engaged in effecting my descent, I held my Hesperian branch in my teeth, and had nearly reached the ground, when Glorvina playfully approached her lovely mouth to snatch the prize from mine. We were just in contact — I suddenly let fall the branch — and — Father John appeared walking towards us; while Glorvina, who, it seems, had perceived him before she had placed herself in the way of danger, now ran towards him, covered in blushes and malignant little smiles. In short, she makes me feel in a thousand trivial instances, the truth of Epicretus’s maxim, that to bear and forbear, are the powers that constitute a wise man: to forbear alone, would, in my opinion, be a sufficient test.
Adieu!
H.M.
LETTER XXI
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
I cannot promise you any more Irish history. I fear my Hiberniana is closed, and a volume of more dangerous, more delightful tendency, draws towards its bewitching subject every truant thought. To him who is deep in the Philosophia Amatoria, every other science is cold and vapid.
The oral legend of the Prince and the historic lore of the priest, all go for nothing! I shake my head, look very wise, and appear to listen, while my eyes are riveted on Glorvina — who, not unconscious of the ardent gaze, sweeps with a feathery touch the chords of her harp, or plies her fairy wheel with double viligance. Meantime, however, I am making a rapid progress in the Irish language, and well I may; for besides that I now listen to the language of Ossian with the same respect a Hindoo would to the Shanscrit of the Bramins, the Prince, the priest, and even Glorvina, contribute their exertions to my progress. The other evening, as we circled round the evening fire in the great hall, the Prince would put my improvements to the test, and taking down a grammar, he insisted on my conjugating a verb. The verb her chose was ‘to love.’ — ‘Glorvina,’ said he, seeing me hesitate, ‘go through the verb.’
Glorvina had it at her fingers’ ends; and in her eyes swam a thousand delicious comments on the text she was expounding.
The Prince, who is as unsuspicious as an infant, would have us repeat it together, that I might catch the pronunciation from her lip!
‘I love,’ faintly articulated Glorvina.
‘I love,’ I more faintly repeated.
This was not enough — the Prince would have us repeat the plural twice over; and again and again we murmured together — ‘we love!’
Heavens and earth! had you at that moment seen the preceptress and the pupil! The attention of the simple Prince was riveted on Vallancy’s grammar: he grew peevish at what he called our stupidity, and said we knew nothing of the verb to love, while in fact we were running through all its moods and tenses with our eyes and looks.
Good God! to how many delicious sensations is the soul alive, for which there is no possible mode of expression.
Adieu! — The little post-boy is at my elbow. I observe he goes more frequently to post than usual; and one morning I perceived Glorvina eagerly watching his return, from the summit of a rock. Whence can this solitude arise? Her father may have some correspondence on business — she can have none.
LETTER XXII
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
This creature is deep in the metaphysics of love. She is perpetually awakening ardor by restraint, and stealing enjoyment from privation. She still persists in bringing the priest with her to the drawing-desk; but it is evident she does not the less enjoy that casual absence which leaves us sometimes alone; and I am now become such an epicure in sentiment, that I scarcely regret the restraint the presence of the priest imposes; since it gives a keener zest to the transient minutes of felicity his absence bestows — even though they are enjoyed in silent confusion. For nothing can be more seducing than her looks, nothing can be more dignified than her manners. If, when we are alone, I even offer to take her hand, she grows pale, and shrinks from my touch. — Yet I regret not that careless confidence which once prompted the innocent request that I could guide her hand to draw a perpendicular line.
* * * * *
‘Solitude (says Spectator) with the person beloved, even to a woman’s mind, has a pleasure beyond all the pomp and splendor in the world.’
O! how my heart subscribes to a sentiment I have so often laughed at, when my ideas of pleasure were very different from what they are at present. I cannot persuade myself that three weeks have elapsed since my return hither; and still less am I willing to believe that it is necessary I should return to M— House. In short, the rocks which embosom the peninsula of Inismore bound all my hopes, all my wishes; and my desires, like the radii of a circle, all point towards one and the same centre. This creature grows on me with boundless influence: her originality, her genius, her sensibility, her youth and person! In short, their united charms in this profound solitude thus closely associated, is a species of witchcraft.
* * * * *
It was indispensably necessary I should return to M— House, as my father’s visit to Ireland is drawing near; and it was requisite I should receive and answer his letters. At least, therefore, I summoned up resolution to plead my former excuses to the Prince for my absence; who insisted on my immediate return — which I promised should be in a day or two; while the eyes of Glorvina echoed her father’s commands, and mine looked implicit obedience. With what different emotions I now left Inismore, to those which accompanied my last departure! My feelings were then unknown to myself — now I am perfectly aware of their nature.
I found M— House, as usual, cold, comfortless, and desolate — with a few wretched looking peasants working languidly about the grounds. In short, every thing breathed the deserted mansion of an absentee.
The evening of my arrival I answered my father’s letters — one from our pleasant but libertine friend D—n — read over yours three times — went to bed — dreamed of Glorvina — and set off for Inismore the next morning. I rode so hard, that I reached the castle about that hour which we usually devoted to the exertions of the pencil. I flew at once to that vast and gloomy room which her presence alone cheers and illumines. Her drawing-desk lay open; she seemed but just to have risen from the chair placed before it; and her work- basket hung on its back. Even this well known little work-basket is to me an object of interest. I kissed the muslin it contained; and in raising it, perceived a small book splendidly bound and gilt. I took it up, and read on its cover, marked in letters of gold — ‘Breviare du Sentiment.’
Impelled by the curiosity which this title excited, I opened it — and found between its first two leaves several faded snowdrops stained with blood. Under them was written, in Glorvina’s hand,
‘Prone to the earth we bowed our pallid flowers —
And caught the drops divine, the purple dyes
Tinging the lustre of our native hues.’
A little lowers in the page was traced — ‘Culled from the spot where he fell — April the 1st, 17—.’
Oh! how quickly my bounding heart told me who was that he, whose vital drops had stained these treasured blossoms, thus, ‘tinging the lustre of their native hues’ — While the sweetest association of ideas convinced me that these were the identical flowers which Glorvina had hallowed with a tear, as she watched by the couch of him with whose blood they were polluted.
While I pressed this sweet testimony of a pure and lively tenderness to my lips, she entered. At sight of me, pleasurable surprize invested every feature; and the most innocent joy lit up her countenance, as she sprang forward and offered me her hand. While I carried it eagerly to my lips, I pointed to the snow-drops. Glorvina, with the hand which was disengaged, covered her blushing face, and would have fled. But the look which preceded this natural motion discovered the wounded feelings of a tender but proud heart. I felt the indelicacy of my conduct, and still clasping her struggling hand, exclaimed —
‘Forgive, forgive, the vain triumph of a being intoxicated by your pity — transported by your condescension.’
‘Triumph!’ repeated Glorvina, in an accent tenderly reproachful, yet accompanied by a look proudly indignant — ‘Triumph!’
How I cursed the coxcomical expression in my heart, while I fell at her feet, and kissing the hem of her robe, without daring to touch the hand I had relinquished, said,
‘Does this look like triumph, Glorvina?’
Glorvina turned towards me a face in which all the witcheries of her sex were blended — playful fondness, affected anger, animated tenderness, and the soul-dissolving languishment. Oh! she should not have looked thus, or I should have been more or less than man.
With a glance of undeniable supplication, she released herself from that glowing fold, which could have pressed her for ever to an heart where she must for ever reign unrivalled. I saw she wished I should think her very angry, and another pardon was to be solicited, for the transient indulgence of that passionate impulse her own seducing looks had called into existence. The pardon, after some little pouting playfulness, was granted, and I was suffered to lead her to that Gothic sofa where our first tête-à-tête had taken place; and partly by artifice, partly by entreaty, I drew from her the little history of the treasured snow-drops, and read in her eloquent eyes, more than her bashful lips will ever dare to express.
Thus, like the assymtotes of an hyperbola, without absolutely rushing into contact, we are, by a sweet impulsion, gradually approximating closer and closer towards each other.
Ah! my dear friend, this is the golden age of love; and I sometimes think, with the refined Weiland, that the passion begins with the first sigh, and ends, in a certain degree, with the first kiss — mine, therefore, is now in its climacteric.
The impetuosity with which I rush on every subject that touches her, often frustrates the intention with which I sit down to address you. I left this letter behind me unfinished, for the purpose of filling it up on my return, with answers to those I expected to receive from you. The arguments which your friendly foresight and prudent solicitude have furnished you, are precisely such as the understanding cannot refute, nor heart subscribe to.
You say my wife she cannot be — and my mistress! — perish the thought! What! I repay the generosity of the father by the destruction of the child! I steal this angelic being from the peaceful security of her native shades, with all her ardent tender feelings thick about her: I
‘Crop this fair rose, and rifle all its sweetness!’
No; you do me but common justice when you say, that though you have sometimes known me affect the character of a libertine, yet never, even for a moment, have you known me forfeit that of a man of honour. I would not be understood to speak in the mere commonplace worldly acceptation of the word, but literally, according to the text of all moral and divine laws.
‘Then what,’ you ask me, ‘is the aim, the object, in pursuing this ignus fatuus of the heart and fancy?’
In a word, then, virtue is my object — felicity my aim; or, rather, I am lured towards the former through the medium of the latter. And whether the tye which binds me at once to moral and physical good, is of fragile tecture and transient existence, or whether it will become ‘close twisted with the fibres of the heart, and breaking, break it,’ time only can determine — to time, therefore, I commit my fate; but while thus led by the hand of virtue, I inebriate at the living spring of bliss,
‘Wild reeling thro’ a wilderness of joy,’
can you wonder that I fling off the goading chain of prudence, and in daring to be free, at once be virtuous and be happy?
My father’s letter is brief, but pithy. My brother is married, and has sold his name and title for a hundred thousand pounds; and his brother has a chance of selling his happiness for ever for something about the same sum. And who, think you, is to be the purchaser? Why our old sporting friend D—. In my last grousing visit at his seat, you may remember the pretty pert little girl, his only daughter, who, he assured us, was that day unkennelled for the first time, in honour of our success, and who rushed upon us from the nursery in all the bloom of fifteen, and all the boldness of a hoyden; whose society was the housekeeper and the chamber-maid, and whose ideas of pleasure extended no further than blind-man’s bluff in the servant’s hall, and a game of hot cockles with the butler and footman in the pantry. I had the good fortune to touch her heart at cross-purposes, and completely vanquished her affections by a romping match in the morning; and so it seems the fair susceptible has pined in thought ever since, but not ‘let concealment prey on her damask cheek,’ for she told her love to an old maiden aunt, who told it to another confidential friend, until the whole neighbourhood was full of the tale of the victim of constancy and the cruel deceiver.
The father, as is usual in such cases, was the last to hear of it; and believing me to be an excellent shot, and a keen sportsman, all he requires in a son-in-law, except a good family, he proposed the match to my father, who gladly embraces the offer, and fills his letter with blooms, blushes, and unsophisticated charms; congratulates me on my conquest, and talks either of recalling me shortly to England, or bringing the fair fifteen and old Nimrod to Ireland on a visit with him. But the former he will not easily effect, and the latter I know business will prevent for some weeks, as he writes that he is still up to his ears in parchment deeds, leases, settlements, and jointures. Mean time,
‘Song, beauty, youth, love, virtue, joy, this group
Of bright ideas, flowers of Paradise as yet unforfeit,’
crown my golden hours of bliss; and whatever may be my future destiny, I will at least rescue one beam of unalloyed felicity from its impending clouds — for, oh! my good friend, there is a prophetic something which incessantly whispers me, that in clouds and storms will the evening of my existence expire.
Adieu!
H.M.
LETTER XXIII
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
It is certain, that you men of the world are nothing less than men of pleasure:— would you taste it in all its essence, come to Inismore. Ah! no, pollute not with your presence the sacred palladium of all the primeval virtues; attempt not to participate in those pure joys of the soul it would be death to me to divide even with you. Here Plato might enjoy, and Epicurus revel: here we are taught to feel according to the doctrine of the latter, that the happiness of mankind consists in pleasure, not such as arises from the gratification of the senses, or the pursuits of vice — but from the enjoyments of the mind, the pleasures of the imagination, the affections of the heart, and the sweets of virtue. And here we learn, according to the precepts of the former, that the summit of human felicity may be attained, but removing from the material, and approaching nearer to the intellectual world; by curbing and governing the passions, which are so much oftener inflamed by imaginary than real objects; and by borrowing from temperance, that zest which can alone render pleasure forever poignant, and forever new. Ah! you will say, like other lovers, you now see the moral as well as the natural world through a prism; but would this unity of pleasure and virtue be found in the wilds of Inismore, if Glorvina was no longer there?
I honestly confess to you, I do not think it would, for where yet was pleasure ever found where woman was not? and when does the heart so warmly receive the pure impressions of virtue, as when its essence is imbibed from woman’s lip?
My life passes away here in a species of delectability to which I can give no name; and while, through the veil of delicate reserve which the pure suggestions of the purest nature have flung over the manners of my sweet Glorvina, a thousand little tendernesses unconsciously appear. Her amiable preceptor clings to me with a parent’s fondness; and her father’s increasing partiality for his hereditary enemy, is visible in a thousand instances; while neither of these excellent, but inexperienced men, suspect the secret intelligence which exists between the younger tutor and his lovely pupil. As yet, indeed, it has assumed no determinate character. With me it is a delightful dream, from which I dread to be awakened, yet feel that it is but a dream; while she, bewildered, amazed, at those vague emotions which throb impetuously in her unpractised heart, resigns herself unconsciously to the sweetest of all deliriums, and makes no effort to dissolve the vision!
If, in the refined epicurism of my heart, I carelessly speak of my departure for England in the decline of summer, Glorvina changes colour; the sainted countenance of Father John loses its wonted smile of placidity; and the Prince replies by some peevish observation on the solitude of our lives, and the want of attraction at Inismore to detain a man of the world in its domestic circle.
But he will say, ‘it was not always thus — this hall once echoed to the sound of mirth and the strain of gaiety; for the day was, when none went sad of heart from the castle of Inismore!’
I much fear that the circumstances of this worthy man are greatly deranged, though it is evident his pride would be deeply wounded if it was even suspected. Father John, indeed, hinted to me, that the Prince was a great agricultural speculator some few years back; ‘and even still,’ said he, ‘likes to hold more land in his hands than he is able to manage.’
I have observed too, that the hall is frequently crowded with importunate people, whom the priest seems endeavouring to pacify in Irish; and twice, as I passed the Prince’s room last week, an ill-looking fellow appeared at the door, whom Glorvina was shewing out. Her eyes were moist with tears; and at sight of me she deeply coloured, and hastily withdrew. It is impossible to describe my feelings at that moment!
Notwithstanding, however, the Prince affects an air of grandeur, and opulence — he keeps a kind of open table in his servants’ hall, where a crowd of labourers, dependents, and mendicants, are daily entertained; [2] and it is evident his pride would receive a mortal stab, if he supposed that his guest, and that guest an Englishman, suspected the impoverished state of his circumstances.
Although not a man of very superior understanding, yet he evidently possesses that innate grandeur of soul, which haughtily struggles with distress, and which will neither yield to, nor make terms with misfortune; and when, in the dignity of that pride which scorns the revelation of its woes, I behold him collecting all the forces of his mind, and asserting a right to a better fate, I feel my own character energize in the contemplation of his, and am almost tempted to envy him those trials which call forth the latent powers of human fortitude and human greatness.
H.M.
END OF VOL. II