TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
M— House
It is all over — the spell is dissolved, and the vision for ever vanished: yet my mind is not what it was, ere this transient dream of bliss ‘wrapt it in Elysium.’ Then I neither suffered or enjoyed: now –!
When I had folded my letter to you, I descended to breakfast, but the priest did not appear, and the things were removed untouched. I ordered my horse to be got ready, and waited all day in expectation of a message from the prince; loitering, wandering, unsettled, and wretched, the hours dragged on: no message came: I fancied I was impatient to receive it, and to be gone; but the truth is, my dear friend, I was weak enough almost to rejoice at the detention. While I walked from room to room with a book in my hand, I saw no one but the servants, who looked full of mystery; save once, when, as I stood at the top of the corridor, I perceived Glorvina leave her father’s room; she held her handkerchief to her eyes, and passed on to her own apartment. Oh! why did I not fly and wipe away those tears, inquire their source, and end at once the torture of suspense; but I had not the power to move. The dinner hour arrived: I was summoned to the parlour; the priest met me at table, shook me with unusual cordiality by the hand, and affectionately enquired after my health. He then became silent and thoughtful, and had the air of a man whose heart and office are at variance; who is deputed with a commission his feelings will not suffer him to execute. After a long pause he spoke of the prince’s illness, the uneasiness of his mind, the unpleasant state of his affairs, his attachment and partiality to me, and his ardent wish always to have it in his power to retain me with him; then paused again, and sighed, and again endeavoured to speak, but failed in the effort. I now perfectly understood the nature of his incoherent speech; my pride served as an interpreter between his feelings and my own, and I was determined to save his honest heart the pang of saying, ‘Go, you are no longer a welcome guest.’
I told him then in a few words, that it was my intention to have left the castle that morning for Bally, on my way to England; but that I waited for an opportunity of bidding farewel to the prince: as that however seemed to be denied me, I begged that he (father John) would have the goodness to say for me all —. Had my life depended on it, I could not articulate another word. The priest arose in evident emotion. I too not unagitated left my seat: the good man took my hand, and pressed it affectionately to his heart, then turned aside, I believe, to conceal the moisture of his eyes; not were mine dry, yet they seemed to burn in their sockets. The priest then put a paper in the hand he held, and again pressing it with ardour, hurried away. I trembled as I opened it: it was a letter from the prince, containing a bank-note, a plain gold ring which he constantly wore, and the following lines written with the trembling hand of infirmity or emotion:
‘Young and interesting Englishman, farewell! Had I not known thee, I never had lamented that God had not blessed me with a son.
O’MELVILLE,
Prince of Inismore.’
I sunk overcome on a chair. When I could sufficiently command myself, I wrote with my pencil on the cover of the prince’s letter the following incoherent lines:
‘You owe me nothing: to you I stand indebted for life itself, and all that could once render life desirable. With existence only will the recollection of your kindness be lost; yet though generously it was unworthily bestowed; for it was lavished on an Imposter. I am not what I seem: to become an inmate of your family, to awaken an interest in your estimation, I forfeited the dignity of truth, and stooped for the first time to the meanness of deception. Your money therefore I return, but your ring — that ring so often worn by you — worlds would not tempt me to part with.
‘I have a father, sir; this father once so dear, so precious to my heart! but since I have been your guest, he, the whole world was forgotten. The first tye of nature was dissolved; and from your hands I seemed to have received a new existence. Best and most generous of men, be this recollection present to your heart! should some incident as yet unforeseen discover to you who, and what I am. Remember this — and then forgive him, who, with the profoundest sense of all your goodness, bids you a last farewel!’
When I had finished these lines, written with an emotion that almost rendered them illegible, I rung the bell and inquired (from the servant who answered) for the priest: he said he was shut up in the prince’s room.
‘Alone, with the prince!’ said I.
‘No,’ he returned, ‘for he had seen the lady Glorvina enter at the same time with Father John.’ I did not wish to trust the servant with this open billet, I did not wish the prince to get it till I was gone; in a word, though I was resolved to leave the castle that evening, yet I did not wish to go, till, for the last time, I had seen Glorvina.
I therefore wrote the following lines in French to the priest. ‘Suffer me to see you; in a few minutes I shall leave Inismore for ever.’ As I was putting the billet into the man’s hand, the stable boy passed the window; I threw up the sash and ordered him to lead round my horse. All this was done with the agitation of mind, which a criminal feels who hurries on his execution, to terminate the horrors of suspense.
I continued walking up and down the room in such agony of feeling, that a cold dew, colder than ice, hung upon my aching brow. I heard a footstep approach — I became motionless; the door opened, and the priest appeared leading Glorvina. God of Heaven! The priest supported her on his arm, her veil was drawn over her eyes; I could not advance to meet them, I stood spell bound, — they both approached; I had not the power even to raise my eyes. ‘You sent for me,’ said the priest in a faultering accent. I presented him my letter for the prince; suffocation choaked my utterance; I could not speak. He put the letter in his bosom, and taking my hand, said, ‘You must not think of leaving us this evening; the prince will not hear of it.’ While he spoke my horse passed the window; I summoned up those spirits my pride, my wounded pride, retained in its service. ‘It is necessary I should depart immediately,’ said I, ‘and the sultriness of the weather renders the evening preferable.’ I abruptly paused — I could not finish the sentence, simple as it was.
‘Then,’ said the priest, ‘ any evening will do as well as this.’ But Glorvina spoke not; and I answered with vehemence, that I should have been off long since; and my determination is now fixed.
‘If you are thus positive,’ said the priest, surprised by a manner so unusual, ‘your friend, your pupil here, who came to second her father’s request, must change her solicitations to a last farewell.’
Glorvina’s head reposed on his shoulder; her face was enveloped in her veil; he looked on her with tenderness and compassion, and I repeated a ‘last farewell!’ Glorvina, you will at least then say, ‘ Farewell. ’ The veil fell from her face. God of heaven, what a countenance! In the universe I saw nothing but Glorvina; such as I had once believed her, my own, my loving and beloved Glorvina, my tender friend, and impassioned mistress. I fell at her feet; I seized her hands, and pressed them to my burning lips. I heard her stifled sobs; her tears of soft compassion fell upon my cheek; I thought them tears of love, and drew her to my breast; but the priest held her in one arm, while with the other he endeavoured to raise me, exclaiming in violent emotion, ‘Oh God, I should have foreseen this! I, I, alone am to blame. Excellent and unfortunate young man, dearly beloved child!’ and at the same moment he pressed us both to his paternal bosom. The heart of Glorvina throbbed to mine, our tears flowed together, our sighs mingled. The priest sobbed over us like a child. It was a blissful agony; but it was insupportable. Then to have died would have been to have died most blest. The priest, the cruel priest, dispelled the transient dream. He forcibly put me from him. He stifled the voice of nature and of pity in his breast. His air was sternly virtuous — ‘Go,’ said he, but spoke still in vain. I still clung to the drapery of Glorvina’s robe; he forced me from her, and she sunk on a couch. ‘I now,’ he added, ‘behold the fatal error to which I have been an unconscious accessory. Thank God, it is retrievable; go, amiable but imprudent young man; it is honour, it is virtue commands your departure.’
While he spoke he had almost dragged me to the hall.
‘Stay,’ said I, in a faint voice, ‘let me but speak to her.’
‘It is in vain,’ replied the inexorable priest, ‘for she can never be yours; then spare her, spare yourself.’
‘Never!’ I exclaimed.
‘Never,’ he firmly replied.
I burst from his grasp and flew to Glorvina. I snatched her to my breast, and wildly cried ‘Glorvina, is this then a last farewell?’ She answered not; but her silence was eloquent. ‘Then,’ said I, pressing her more closely to my heart, ‘ farewell for ever.’
In continuation
I mounted the horse that waited for me at the door, and galloped off; but with the darkness of the night I returned, and all night I wandered about the environs of Inismore; to the last I watched the light of Glorvina’s window. When it was extinguished, it seemed as though I parted from her again. A grey dawn was already going to the labours of the day. It was requisite I should go. Yet when I ascended the mountain of Inismore I involuntarily turned, and beheld those dear ruins which I had first entered under the influence of such powerful, such prophetic emotion. What a train of recollection rushed on my mind! What a climax did they form! I turned away my eyes, sick, sick at heart, and pursued my solitary journey. Within twelve miles of M. House, as I readed an eminence, I again paused to look back, and caught a last view of the mountain of Inismore. It seemed to float like a vapour on the horizon. I took a last farewell of this almost loved mountain. Once it had risen on my gaze like the pharos to my haven of enjoyment; for never, until this sad moment, had I beheld it but with transport.
On my arrival here I found a letter from my father, simply stating that by the time it reached me he would probably be on his way to Ireland, accompanied by my intended bride, and her father, concluding thus: ‘In beholding you honourably and happily established, thus secure in a liberal, a noble independence, the throb of incessant solicitude you have hitherto awakened will at least be stilled, and your prudent compliance in this instance will bury in eternal oblivion the suffering, the anxieties which, with all your native virtue and native talent, your imprudence has hitherto caused to the heart of an affectionate and indulgent father.’
This letter which even a few days back would have driven me to distraction I now read with the apathy of a stoic. It is to me a matter of indifference how I am disposed of. I have no wish, no will of my own.
To the return of that mortal torpor from which a late fatally cherished sentiment had roused me, is now added the pang of my life’s severest disappointment, like the dying wretch who is only roused from total insensibility, by the quivering pains which, at intervals of fluttering life, shoot through his languid frame.
In continuation
It is two days since I began this letter, yet I am still here; I have not power to move, though I know not what secret spell detains me. But whither I shall go, and to what purpose? the tye which once bound me to physical and moral good, to virtue, and felicity, is broken, for ever broken. My mind is changed, dreadfully changed within these few days. I am ill too, a burning fever preys upon the very springs of life; all around me is solitary and desolate. Sometimes my brain seems on fire, and hideous phantoms float before my eyes; either my senses are disordered by indisposition, or the hand of heaven presses heavily on me. My blood rolls in torrents through my veins. Sometimes I think it should, it must have vent. I feel it is in vain to think that I shall ever be fit for the discharge of any duty in this life. I shall hold a place in the creation to which I am a dishonour. I shall become a burthen to the few who are obliged to feel an interest in my welfare.
It is the duty of every one to do that which his situation requires, to act up to the measure of judgment bestowed on him by Providence. Should I continue to drag on this load of life, it would be for its wretched remnant a mere animal existence. A moral death! What! I become again like the plant I tread under my feet; endued with a vegetative existence, but destitute of all sensation, of all feeling. I who have so lately revelled in the purest wildest joys of spiritual felicity. I who have tasted of heaven’s own bliss; who have known, oh God! that even the recollection, the simple recollection should diffuse through my chilled heart, through my whole languid frame such vital warmth, such cheering renovating ardour.
I have gone over calmly, deliberately gone over every circumstance connected with the recent dream of my life. It is evident that the object of her heart’s first election is that of her father’s choice. Her passion for me, for I swear most solemnly she loved me. Oh, in that I could not be deceived; every look, every word betrayed it; her passion for me was a paroxism. Her tender, her impassioned nature required some object to receive the glowing ebullitions of its affectionate feelings; and in the absence of another, in that unrestrained intimacy by which we were so closely associated; in that sympathy of pursuit which existed between us, they were lavished on me. I was the substituted toy of the moment. And shall I then sink beneath a woman’s whim, a woman’s infidelity, unfaithful to another as to me? I who, from my early days, have suffered by her arts and my own credulity. But what were all my sufferings to this? A drop of water to ‘the multitudinous ocean.’ Yet in the moment of a last farewell she wept so bitterly! tears of pity! Pitied and deceived!
I am resolved I will offer myself an expiatory sacrifice on the altar of parental wrongs. The father whom I have deceived and injured shall be retributed. This moment I have receieved a letter from him, the most affectionate and tender; he is arrived in Dublin, and with him Mr D. and his daughter! It is well! If he requires it the moment of our meeting shall be that of my immolation. Some act of desparation would be now most consonant to my soul! Adieu.
H.M.
Adieu!
LETTER XXX
TO J.D. ESQ. M.P.
Dublin
I am writing to you from the back room of a noisy hotel in the centre of a great and bustling city: my only prospect the gloomy walls of the surrounding houses. The contrast! — Where now are those refreshing scenes on which my rapt gaze so lately dwelt; those wild sublimities of nature — the stupendous mountain, the Alpine cliff, the boundless ocean, and the smiling characters; those habits, those manners, to me at least so striking and so new? All vanished like a dream! —
‘The baseless fabric of a vision!’
I arrived here late in the evening, and found my father waiting to receive me. Happily the rest of the party were gone to the theatre; for his agitation was scarcely less than my own. You know, that owing to our late misunderstanding it is some months since we met. He fell on my neck and wept. I was quite overcome. He was shocked at my altered appearance, and his tenderest solicitudes were awakened for my health. I was so vanquished by his goodness that more than once I was on the point of confessing all to him. It was my good angel checked the imprudent avowal; for what purpose could it now serve, but to render me more contemptible in his eyes, and to heighten his antipathy against those who have been in some degree the unconscious accessories to my egregious folly and incurable imprudence. But does he feel an antipathy against the worthy prince? Can it be otherwise? Have not all his conciliatory offers been rejected with scorn? Yet to me he never mentioned the prince’s name; this silence surprises me — long may it continue. I dare not trust myself. In your bosom only is the secret safely reposed.
As I rode day and night since I left M. House, weariness and indisposition obliged me almost on my arrival to go to bed: my father sat by my side till the return of the party from the theatre. What plans for my future aggrandizement and happiness did his parental solicitude canvas and devise! The prospect of my brilliant establishment in life seems to have given him a new sense of being. On our return to England, I am to set up for the borough of —. My talents are calculated for the senate: fame, diginity, and emolument, are to wait upon their successful exertion. I am to become an object of popular favor and royal esteem; and all this time, in the fancied triumph of his parental hopes, he sees not that the heart of their object is breaking.
Were you to hear him! were you to see him! What a father! what a man! Such intelligence — such abilities. A mind so dignified, an heart so tender; and still retaining all the ardour, all the enthusiam of youth. In what terms he spoke of my elected bride! He indeed dwelt chiefly on her personal charms, and the simplicity of her unmodified character. Alas! I once found both united to genius and sensibility.
‘How delightful,’ he exclaimed, ‘to form this young and ductile mind, to mould it to your desires, to breathe inspiration into this lovely image of primeval innocence, to give soul to beauty, and intelligence to simplicity, to watch the ripening progress you have yourself created.’
And this was spoken with an energy, an enthusiasm, as though he had himself experienced all the pleasure he now painted for me. Happily, however, in the warmth of his own feelings he perceived not the coldness, the torpidity of his son’s.
They are fast weaving for me the web of my destiny. I look on and take no part in the work. It is over — I have been presented in form. They say she is beautiful — it may be so; — but the blind man cannot be persuaded of the charms of the rose, when his finger is wounded by its thorns. She met me with some confusion, which was natural, considering she had been ‘won unsought.’ Yet I thought it was the bashfulness of a hoyden, rather than that soul-born delicate bashfulness, which I have seen accompanied with every grace. How few there are who do or can distinguish this in woman; yet in nature, there is nothing more distinct than the modesty of sentiment and of constitution.
The father was as usual boisterously good-humoured, and vulgarly pleasant; he talked over our sporting adventures last winter, as if the topic was exhaustless. For my part, I was so silent, that my father looked uneasy, and I then made amends for my former taciturnity by talking incessantly, and on every subject with vehemence and rapidity. A woman of common sense or common delicacy would have been disgusted, but she is a child; they would fain drag me after them into public, but my plea of ill health has been received by my indulgent father. My gay young mistress seems already to consider me as her husband, and treats me accordingly with indifference. In short, she finds that love in the solitude of the country, and amidst the pleasures of a town, is a very different sentiment; yet her vanity I believe is piqued by my neglect: for to-day she said, when I excused myself from accompanying her to a morning concert, Oh! I should much rather have your father with me: he is the younger man of the two! I indeed never saw him in such health and spirits; he seems to tread on air. Oh! that he were my rival! My successful rival! In the present morbid state of my feelings I give into every thing but when it comes to a crisis, will this stupid acquiescence still befriend their wishes? Impossible!
In continuation
I have had a short but extraordinary conversation with my father. Would you believe it? he has for some time back cherished an attachment of the tenderest nature; but to his heart the interests of his children have ever been an object of the first and dearest concern. Having secured their establishment in life, and, as he hopes and believes, effected their happiness, he now feels himself warranted in consulting his own. In short, he had given me to understand that there is a probability if his marriage with a very amiable and deserving person closely following after my brother’s and mine. The lady’s name he refused to mention, until every thing was finally arranged; and whoever she is, I suspect her rank is inferior to her merits, for he said, ‘the world will call the union disproportioned — disproportioned in every sense; but I must, in this instance, prefer the approval of my own heart to the world’s opinion.’ He then added (but in an equivocal manner), that had he been able to follow me immediately to Ireland, as he had at first proposed, he would have related to me some circumstances of peculiar interest, but that I should yet know all! and seemed, I thought, to lament that disparity of character between my brother and him, which prohibited that flow of confidence his heart seems panting to indulge in. You know Edward takes no pains to conceal that he smiles at those ardent virtues in his father’s character, to which the phlegmatic temperament of his own gives the name of romance.
The two fathers settle every thing as they please. A property which fell to my father a few weeks back by the death of a rich maiden aunt, with every thing not entailed, he has made over to me even during his life. Expostulation was in vain, he would not hear me: for himself he has retained nothing but his purchased estates in Connaught, which are infinitely more extensive than that he possesses by inheritance. What if he resides at the Lodge, in the very neighbourhood of —. Oh! my good friend, I fear I am deceiving myself: I fear I am preparing for the heart of the best of fathers a mortal disappointment. — When the throes of wounded pride shall have subsided; when the resentments of a doating, a deceived heart shall have gradually abated, and the recollection of former bliss shall have soothed away the pangs of recent suffering; will I then submit to the dictates of an imperious duty, or resign myself unresisting to the influence of morbid apathy?
Sometimes my father fixes his eyes so tenderly on me, yet with a look as if he would search the most secret folds of my heart. He has never once asked my opinion of my elected bride, who, gay and happy as the first circles of this dissipated city can make her, cheerfully receives the plea which my ill health affords (attributed to a heavy cold), of not attending her in her pursuits of pleasure. The fact is, I am indeed ill; my mind and body seem declining together, and nothing in this life can give me joy but the prospect of its delivery.
By this I suppose the mysterious friend is arrived. It was expedient, therefore, that I should be dismissed. By this I suppose she is… So closely does my former weakness cling round my heart, that I cannot think of it without madness.
After having contemplated for a few minutes the sun’s cloudless radiancy, the impression left on the averted gaze is two dark spots, and the dazzled organ becomes darkened by a previous excess of lumination. It is thus with my mind; its present gloom is proportioned to its former light. Oh! it was too, too much! Rescued from that moral death, that sicklied satiety of feeling, that state of chill hopeless existence, in which the torpid faculties were impalpable to every impression, when to breathe, to move, constituted all the powers of being: and then suddenly, as if by an intervention of Providence (and what an agent did it appoint for the execution of its divine will!) raised to the summit of human thought, human feeling, human felicity, only again to be plunged in endless night. It was too much.
* * * * *
Good God! would you believe it! My father is gone to M— House, to prepare for the reception of the bridal party. We are to follow, and he proposes spending the summer there: there too, he says my marriage with Miss D— is to be celebrated; he wishes to conciliate the good will, not only of the neighbouring gentry, but of his tenantry in general, and thinks this will be a fair occasion. Well, be it so; but I shall not hold myself answerable for the consequences; my destiny is in their hands — let them look to the result.
Since my father left us, I am of necessity obliged to pay some attention to his friends ; but I should be a mere automaton by the side of my gay mistress, did I not count an artificial flow of spirits, by means to me the most detestable. In short, I generally contrive to leave my senses behind me at the drinking table; or rather my reason and my spirits, profiting by its absence, are roused to boisterous anarchy: my bride (my bride) is then quite charmed with my gaiety, and fancies she is receiving the homage of a lover, when she is insulted by the extravagance of a maniac; but she is a simple child, and her father an insensible fool. God knows how little of my thoughts are devoted to either. Yet the girl is much followed for her beauty, and the splendid figure which the fortune of the father enables them to make has procured them universal attention from persons of the first rank.
* * * * *
A thousand times the dream of short slumbers gives her to my arms as I last beheld her. A thousand times I am awakened from an heavy unrefreshing sleep by the fancied sound of her harp and voice. There was one old Irish air she used to sing like an angel, and in the idiom of her national music sighed out certain passages with an heart-breaking thrill, that used to rend my very soul! Well, this song I cannot send from my memory; it breathes around me, it dies upon my ear, and in the weakness of emotion I weep — weep like a child. Oh! this cannot be much longer endured. I have this moment received your letter; I feel all the kindness of your intention, but I must insist on your not coming over; it would now answer no purpose. Besides, a new plan of conduct has suggested itself. In a word, my father shall know all: my unfortunate adventure may come to his ears: it is best he should know it from myself. I will then resign my fate into his hands: surely he will not forget I am still his son. Adieu.
H.M.