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Mathilda
By
Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
Contents
PREFACE=
This volume prints for the first ti=
me the
full text of Mary Shelley's novelette Mathilda together with the opening pa=
ges
of its rough draft, The Fields of Fancy. They are transcribed from the
microfilm of the notebooks belonging to Lord Abinger which is in the librar=
y of
Duke University.
The text follows =
Mary
Shelley's manuscript exactly except for the omission of mere corrections by=
the
author, most of which are negligible; those that are significant are includ=
ed
and explained in the notes. Footnotes indicated by an asterisk are Mrs.
Shelley's own notes. She was in general a fairly good speller, but certain
words, especially those in which there was a question of doubling or not do=
ubling
a letter, gave her trouble: untill (though occasionally she deleted the fin=
al l
or wrote the word correctly), agreable, occured, confering, buble, meaness,
receeded, as well as hopless, lonly, seperate, extactic, sacrifise, desart,=
and
words ending in -ance or -ence. These and other mispellings (even those of
proper names) are reproduced without change or comment. The use of sic and =
of
square brackets is reserved to indicate evident slips of the pen, obviously=
incorrect,
unclear, or incomplete phrasing and punctuation, and my conjectures in emen=
ding
them.
I am very gratefu=
l to
the library of Duke University and to its librarian, Dr. Benjamin E. Powell,
not only for permission to transcribe and publish this work by Mary Shelley=
but
also for the many courtesies shown to me when they welcomed me as a visiting
scholar in 1956. To Lord Abinger also my thanks are due for adding his appr=
oval
of my undertaking, and to the Curators of the Bodleian Library for permitin=
g me
to use and to quote from the papers in the reserved Shelley Collection. Oth=
er
libraries and individuals helped me while I was editing Mathilda: the Enoch
Pratt Free Library of Baltimore, whose Literature and Reference Departments
went to endless trouble for me; the Julia Rogers Library of Goucher College=
and
its staff; the library of the University of Pennsylvania; Miss R. Glynn Gry=
lls
(Lady Mander); Professor Lewis Patton of Duke University; Professor Frederi=
ck
L. Jones of the University of Pennsylvania; and many other persons who did =
me
favors that seemed to them small but that to me were very great.
I owe much also to
previous books by and about the Shelleys. Those to which I have referred mo=
re
than once in the introduction and notes are here given with the abbreviated
form which I have used:
Frederick L. Jone=
s,
ed. The Letters of Mary W. Shelley, 2 vols. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1944 (Letters)
---- Mary Shelley=
's
Journal. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1947 (Journal)
Roger Ingpen and =
W.E.
Peck, eds. The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Julian Edition, 10 v=
ols.
London, 1926-1930 (Julian Works)
Newman Ivey White.
Shelley, 2 vols. New York: Knopf, 1940 (White, Shelley)
Elizabeth Nitchie.
Mary Shelley, Author of "Frankenstein." New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1953 (Nitchie, Mary Shelley)
ELIZABETH NITCHIE=
May, 1959
Of all the novels=
and
stories which Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley left in manuscript,[i] only one
novelette, Mathilda, is complete. It exists in both rough draft and final c=
opy.
In this story, as in all Mary Shelley's writing, there is much that is
autobiographical: it would be hard to find a more self-revealing work. For =
an
understanding of Mary's character, especially as she saw herself, and of he=
r attitude
toward Shelley and toward Godwin in 1819, this tale is an important documen=
t.
Although the main narrative, that of the father's incestuous love for his
daughter, his suicide, and Mathilda's consequent withdrawal from society to=
a
lonely heath, is not in any real sense autobiographical, many elements in it
are drawn from reality. The three main characters are clearly Mary herself,
Godwin, and Shelley, and their relations can easily be reassorted to corres=
pond
with actuality.
Highly personal as
the story was, Mary Shelley hoped that it would be published, evidently
believing that the characters and the situations were sufficiently disguise=
d.
In May of 1820 she sent it to England by her friends, the Gisbornes, with a
request that her father would arrange for its publication. But Mathilda,
together with its rough draft entitled The Fields of Fancy, remained
unpublished among the Shelley papers. Although Mary's references to it in h=
er
letters and journal aroused some curiosity among scholars, it also remained=
unexamined
until comparatively recently.
This seeming negl=
ect
was due partly to the circumstances attending the distribution of the family
papers after the deaths of Sir Percy and Lady Shelley. One part of them wen=
t to
the Bodleian Library to become a reserved collection which, by the terms of
Lady Shelley's will, was opened to scholars only under definite restriction=
s.
Another part went to Lady Shelley's niece and, in turn, to her heirs, who f=
or a
time did not make the manuscripts available for study. A third part went to=
Sir
John Shelley-Rolls, the poet's grand-nephew, who released much important
Shelley material, but not all the scattered manuscripts. In this division, =
the
two notebooks containing the finished draft of Mathilda and a portion of The
Fields of Fancy went to Lord Abinger, the notebook containing the remainder=
of
the rough draft to the Bodleian Library, and some loose sheets containing
additions and revisions to Sir John Shelley-Rolls. Happily all the manuscri=
pts
are now accessible to scholars, and it is possible to publish the full text=
of
Mathilda with such additions from The Fields of Fancy as are significant.[i=
i]
The three noteboo=
ks
are alike in format.[iii] One of Lord Abinger's notebooks contains the first
part of The Fields of Fancy, Chapter 1 through the beginning of Chapter 10,=
116
pages. The concluding portion occupies the first fifty-four pages of the
Bodleian notebook. There is then a blank page, followed by three and a half
pages, scored out, of what seems to be a variant of the end of Chapter 1 and
the beginning of Chapter 2. A revised and expanded version of the first par=
t of
Mathilda's narrative follows (Chapter 2 and the beginning of Chapter 3), wi=
th a
break between the account of her girlhood in Scotland and the brief descrip=
tion
of her father after his return. Finally there are four pages of a new openi=
ng,
which was used in Mathilda. This is an extremely rough draft: punctuation is
largely confined to the dash, and there are many corrections and alteration=
s.
The Shelley-Rolls fragments, twenty-five sheets or slips of paper, usually
represent additions to or revisions of The Fields of Fancy: many of them ar=
e numbered,
and some are keyed into the manuscript in Lord Abinger's notebook. Most of =
the
changes were incorporated in Mathilda.
The second Abinger
notebook contains the complete and final draft of Mathilda, 226 pages. It is
for the most part a fair copy. The text is punctuated and there are relativ=
ely
few corrections, most of them, apparently the result of a final rereading, =
made
to avoid the repetition of words. A few additions are written in the margin=
s.
On several pages slips of paper containing evident revisions (quite possibly
originally among the Shelley-Rolls fragments) have been pasted over the
corresponding lines of the text. An occasional passage is scored out and so=
me
words and phrases are crossed out to make way for a revision. Following page
216, four sheets containing the conclusion of the story are cut out of the
notebook. They appear, the pages numbered 217 to 223, among the Shelley-Rol=
ls
fragments. A revised version, pages 217 to 226, follows the cut.[iv]
The mode of telli=
ng
the story in the final draft differs radically from that in the rough draft=
. In
The Fields of Fancy Mathilda's history is set in a fanciful framework. The
author is transported by the fairy Fantasia to the Elysian Fields, where she
listens to the discourse of Diotima and meets Mathilda. Mathilda tells her =
story,
which closes with her death. In the final draft this unrealistic and largely
irrelevant framework is discarded: Mathilda, whose death is approaching, wr=
ites
out for her friend Woodville the full details of her tragic history which s=
he
had never had the courage to tell him in person.
The title of the
rough draft, The Fields of Fancy, and the setting and framework undoubtedly
stem from Mary Wollstonecraft's unfinished tale, The Cave of Fancy, in which
one of the souls confined in the center of the earth to purify themselves f=
rom
the dross of their earthly existence tells to Sagesta (who may be compared =
with
Diotima) the story of her ill-fated love for a man whom she hopes to rejoin=
after
her purgation is completed.[v] Mary was completely familiar with her mother=
's
works. This title was, of course, abandoned when the framework was abandone=
d,
and the name of the heroine was substituted. Though it is worth noticing th=
at
Mary chose a name with the same initial letter as her own, it was probably
taken from Dante. There are several references in the story to the cantos of
the Purgatorio in which Mathilda appears. Mathilda's father is never named,=
nor
is Mathilda's surname given. The name of the poet went through several chan=
ges:
Welford, Lovel, Herbert, and finally Woodville.
The evidence for
dating Mathilda in the late summer and autumn of 1819 comes partly from the
manuscript, partly from Mary's journal. On the pages succeeding the portion=
s of
The Fields of Fancy in the Bodleian notebook are some of Shelley's drafts of
verse and prose, including parts of Prometheus Unbound and of Epipsychidion,
both in Italian, and of the preface to the latter in English, some prose fr=
agments,
and extended portions of the Defence of Poetry. Written from the other end =
of
the book are the Ode to Naples and The Witch of Atlas. Since these all belo=
ng
to the years 1819, 1820, and 1821, it is probable that Mary finished her ro=
ugh
draft some time in 1819, and that when she had copied her story, Shelley to=
ok
over the notebook. Chapter 1 of Mathilda in Lord Abinger's notebook is head=
ed,
"Florence Nov. 9th. 1819." Since the whole of Mathilda's story ta=
kes
place in England and Scotland, the date must be that of the manuscript. Mary
was in Florence at that time.
These dates are
supported by entries in Mary's journal which indicate that she began writing
Mathilda, early in August, while the Shelleys were living in the Villa
Valosano, near Leghorn. On August 4, 1819, after a gap of two months from t=
he
time of her little son's death, she resumed her diary. Almost every day
thereafter for a month she recorded, "Write," and by September 4,=
she
was saying, "Copy." On September 12 she wrote, "Finish copyi=
ng
my Tale." The next entry to indicate literary activity is the one word,
"write," on November 8. On the 12th Percy Florence was born, and =
Mary
did no more writing until March, when she was working on Valperga. It is
probable, therefore, that Mary wrote and copied Mathilda between August 5 a=
nd
September 12, 1819, that she did some revision on November 8 and finally da=
ted the
manuscript November 9.
The subsequent
history of the manuscript is recorded in letters and journals. When the
Gisbornes went to England on May 2, 1820, they took Mathilda with them; they
read it on the journey and recorded their admiration of it in their
journal.[vi] They were to show it to Godwin and get his advice about publis=
hing
it. Although Medwin heard about the story when he was with the Shelleys in
1820[vii] and Mary read it--perhaps from the rough draft--to Edward and Jane
Williams in the summer of 1821,[viii] this manuscript apparently stayed in
Godwin's hands. He evidently did not share the Gisbornes' enthusiasm: his a=
pproval
was qualified. He thought highly of certain parts of it, less highly of oth=
ers;
and he regarded the subject as "disgusting and detestable," saying
that the story would need a preface to prevent readers "from being
tormented by the apprehension ... of the fall of the heroine,"--that i=
s,
if it was ever published.[ix] There is, however, no record of his having ma=
de
any attempt to get it into print. From January 18 through June 2, 1822, Mary
repeatedly asked Mrs. Gisborne to retrieve the manuscript and have it copied
for her, and Mrs. Gisborne invariably reported her failure to do so. The la=
st references
to the story are after Shelley's death in an unpublished journal entry and =
two
of Mary's letters. In her journal for October 27, 1822, she told of the sol=
ace
for her misery she had once found in writing Mathilda. In one letter to Mrs.
Gisborne she compared the journey of herself and Jane to Pisa and Leghorn to
get news of Shelley and Williams to that of Mathilda in search of her fathe=
r, "driving--(like
Matilda), towards the sea to learn if we were to be for ever doomed to
misery."[x] And on May 6, 1823, she wrote, "Matilda foretells even
many small circumstances most truly--and the whole of it is a monument of w=
hat
now is."[xi]
These facts not o=
nly
date the manuscript but also show Mary's feeling of personal involvement in=
the
story. In the events of 1818-1819 it is possible to find the basis for this
morbid tale and consequently to assess its biographical significance.
On September 24,
1818, the Shelleys' daughter, Clara Everina, barely a year old, died at Ven=
ice.
Mary and her children had gone from Bagni di Lucca to Este to join Shelley =
at
Byron's villa. Clara was not well when they started, and she grew worse on =
the
journey. From Este Shelley and Mary took her to Venice to consult a physici=
an,
a trip which was beset with delays and difficulties. She died almost as soo=
n as
they arrived. According to Newman Ivey White,[xii] Mary, in the unreasoning
agony of her grief, blamed Shelley for the child's death and for a time felt
toward him an extreme physical antagonism which subsided into apathy and
spiritual alienation. Mary's black moods made her difficult to live with, a=
nd
Shelley himself fell into deep dejection. He expressed his sense of their
estrangement in some of the lyrics of 1818--"all my saddest poems.&quo=
t;
In one fragment of verse, for example, he lamented that Mary had left him
"in this dreary world alone."
Thy form is here indee=
d--a
lovely one-- But
thou art fled, gone down the dreary road, That leads to Sor=
row's
most obscure abode. Thou sittest on t=
he
hearth of pale despair, =
=
&nb=
sp; Where
For thine o=
wn
sake I cannot follow thee.
Professor White
believed that Shelley recorded this estrangement only "in veiled
terms" in Julian and Maddalo or in poems that he did not show to Mary,=
and
that Mary acknowledged it only after Shelley's death, in her poem "The
Choice" and in her editorial notes on his poems of that year. But this
unpublished story, written after the death of their other child William,
certainly contains, though also in veiled terms, Mary's immediate recogniti=
on
and remorse. Mary well knew, I believe, what she was doing to Shelley. In an
effort to purge her own emotions and to acknowledge her fault, she poured o=
ut
on the pages of Mathilda the suffering and the loneliness, the bitterness a=
nd
the self-recrimination of the past months.
The biographical
elements are clear: Mathilda is certainly Mary herself; Mathilda's father is
Godwin; Woodville is an idealized Shelley.
Like Mathilda Mary
was a woman of strong passions and affections which she often hid from the
world under a placid appearance. Like Mathilda's, Mary's mother had died a =
few
days after giving her birth. Like Mathilda she spent part of her girlhood in
Scotland. Like Mathilda she met and loved a poet of "exceeding
beauty," and--also like Mathilda--in that sad year she had treated him
ill, having become "captious and unreasonable" in her sorrow.
Mathilda's loneliness, grief, and remorse can be paralleled in Mary's later
journal and in "The Choice." This story was the outlet for her em=
otions
in 1819.
Woodville, the po=
et,
is virtually perfect, "glorious from his youth," like "an an=
gel
with winged feet"--all beauty, all goodness, all gentleness. He is also
successful as a poet, his poem written at the age of twenty-three having be=
en
universally acclaimed. Making allowance for Mary's exaggeration and wishful
thinking, we easily recognize Shelley: Woodville has his poetic ideals, the
charm of his conversation, his high moral qualities, his sense of dedication
and responsibility to those he loved and to all humanity. He is Mary's earl=
iest
portrait of her husband, drawn in a year when she was slowly returning to h=
im
from "the hearth of pale despair."
The early
circumstances and education of Godwin and of Mathilda's father were differe=
nt.
But they produced similar men, each extravagant, generous, vain, dogmatic.
There is more of Godwin in this tale than the account of a great man ruined=
by
character and circumstance. The relationship between father and daughter,
before it was destroyed by the father's unnatural passion, is like that bet=
ween
Godwin and Mary. She herself called her love for him "excessive and ro=
mantic."[xiii]
She may well have been recording, in Mathilda's sorrow over her alienation =
from
her father and her loss of him by death, her own grief at a spiritual
separation from Godwin through what could only seem to her his cruel lack of
sympathy. He had accused her of being cowardly and insincere in her grief o=
ver
Clara's death[xiv] and later he belittled her loss of William.[xv] He had a=
lso called
Shelley "a disgraceful and flagrant person" because of Shelley's
refusal to send him more money.[xvi] No wonder if Mary felt that, like
Mathilda, she had lost a beloved but cruel father.
Thus Mary took all
the blame for the rift with Shelley upon herself and transferred the physic=
al
alienation to the break in sympathy with Godwin. That she turned these facts
into a story of incest is undoubtedly due to the interest which she and She=
lley
felt in the subject at this time. They regarded it as a dramatic and effect=
ive theme.
In August of 1819 Shelley completed The Cenci. During its progress he had
talked over with Mary the arrangement of scenes; he had even suggested at t=
he
outset that she write the tragedy herself. And about a year earlier he had =
been
urging upon her a translation of Alfieri's Myrrha. Thomas Medwin, indeed,
thought that the story which she was writing in 1819 was specifically based=
on
Myrrha. That she was thinking of that tragedy while writing Mathilda is evi=
dent
from her effective use of it at one of the crises in the tale. And perhaps =
she
was remembering her own handling of the theme when she wrote the biographic=
al
sketch of Alfieri for Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia nearly twenty years lat=
er.
She then spoke of the difficulties inherent in such a subject, "inequa=
lity
of age adding to the unnatural incest. To shed any interest over such an
attachment, the dramatist ought to adorn the father with such youthful
attributes as would be by no means contrary to probability."[xvii] This
she endeavored to do in Mathilda (aided indeed by the fact that the situati=
on
was the reverse of that in Myrrha). Mathilda's father was young: he married
before he was twenty. When he returned to Mathilda, he still showed "t=
he
ardour and freshness of feeling incident to youth." He lived in the pa=
st
and saw his dead wife reincarnated in his daughter. Thus Mary attempts to
validate the situation and make it "by no means contrary to
probability."
Mathilda offers a
good example of Mary Shelley's methods of revision. A study of the manuscri=
pt
shows that she was a careful workman, and that in polishing this bizarre st=
ory
she strove consistently for greater credibility and realism, more dramatic =
(if sometimes
melodramatic) presentation of events, better motivation, conciseness, and
exclusion of purple passages. In the revision and rewriting, many additions
were made, so that Mathilda is appreciably longer than The Fields of Fancy.=
But
the additions are usually improvements: a much fuller account of Mathilda's
father and mother and of their marriage, which makes of them something more
than lay figures and to a great extent explains the tragedy; development of=
the
character of the Steward, at first merely the servant who accompanies Mathi=
lda
in her search for her father, into the sympathetic confidant whose responses
help to dramatise the situation; an added word or short phrase that marks M=
ary
Shelley's penetration into the motives and actions of both Mathilda and her
father. Therefore Mathilda does not impress the reader as being longer than=
The
Fields of Fancy because it better sustains his interest. And with all the
additions there are also effective omissions of the obvious, of the tautolo=
gical,
of the artificially elaborate.[xviii]
The finished draf=
t,
Mathilda, still shows Mary Shelley's faults as a writer: verbosity, loose
plotting, somewhat stereotyped and extravagant characterization. The reader
must be tolerant of its heroine's overwhelming lamentations. But she is, af=
ter
all, in the great tradition of romantic heroines: she compares her own weep=
ing
to that of Boccaccio's Ghismonda over the heart of Guiscardo. If the reader=
can
accept Mathilda on her own terms, he will find not only biographical intere=
st
in her story but also intrinsic merits: a feeling for character and situati=
on
and phrasing that is often vigorous and precise.
Footnotes:
[i] They are list=
ed
in Nitchie, Mary Shelley, Appendix II, pp. 205-208. To them should be added=
an
unfinished and unpublished novel, Cecil, in Lord Abinger's collection.
[ii] On the basis=
of
the Bodleian notebook and some information about the complete story kindly
furnished me by Miss R. Glynn Grylls, I wrote an article, "Mary Shelle=
y's
Mathilda, an Unpublished Story and Its Biographical Significance," whi=
ch
appeared in Studies in Philology, XL (1943), 447-462. When the other
manuscripts became available, I was able to use them for my book, Mary Shel=
ley,
and to draw conclusions more certain and well-founded than the conjectures =
I had
made ten years earlier.
[iii] A note, pro=
bably
in Richard Garnett's hand, enclosed in a MS box with the two notebooks in L=
ord
Abinger's collection describes them as of Italian make with "slanting =
head
bands, inserted through the covers." Professor Lewis Patton's list of =
the
contents of the microfilms in the Duke University Library (Library Notes, N=
o.
27, April, 1953) describes them as vellum bound, the back cover of the Math=
ilda
notebook being missing. Lord Abinger's notebooks are on Reel 11. The Bodlei=
an
notebook is catalogued as MSS. Shelley d. 1, the Shelley-Rolls fragments as
MSS. Shelley adds c. 5.
[iv] See note 83 =
to
Mathilda, page 89.
[v] See Posthumous
Works of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman (4 vols., Londo=
n,
1798), IV, 97-155.
[vi] See Maria
Gisborne & Edward E. Williams ... Their Journals and Letters, ed. by
Frederick L. Jones (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, [1951]), p. 27.
[vii] See Thomas
Medwin, The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, revised, with introduction and no=
tes
by H. Buxton Forman (London, 1913), p. 252.
[viii] Journal, p=
p.
159, 160.
[ix] Maria Gisbor=
ne,
etc., pp. 43-44.
[x] Letters, I, 1=
82.
[xi] Ibid., I, 22=
4.
[xii] See White,
Shelley, II, 40-56.
[xiii] See Letter=
s,
II, 88, and note 23 to Mathilda.
[xiv] See Shelley=
and
Mary (4 vols. Privately printed [for Sir Percy and Lady Shelley], 1882), II,
338A.
[xv] See Mrs. Jul=
ian
Marshall, The Life and Letters of Mary W. Shelley (2 vols. London: Richard
Bentley & Son, 1889), I, 255.
[xvi] Julian Work=
s,
X, 69.
[xvii] Lives of t=
he
Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal (3
vols., Nos. 63, 71, and 96 of the Rev. Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopae=
dia,
London, 1835-1837), II, 291-292.
[xviii] The most
significant revisions are considered in detail in the notes. The text of the
opening of The Fields of Fancy, containing the fanciful framework of the st=
ory,
later discarded, is printed after the text of Mathilda.
MATHILDA[1]
Florence. Nov. 9th 1819
It is only four
o'clock; but it is winter and the sun has already set: there are no clouds =
in
the clear, frosty sky to reflect its slant beams, but the air itself is tin=
ged
with a slight roseate colour which is again reflected on the snow that cove=
rs
the ground. I live in a lone cottage on a solitary, wide heath: no voice of
life reaches me. I see the desolate plain covered with white, save a few bl=
ack
patches that the noonday sun has made at the top of those sharp pointed hil=
locks
from which the snow, sliding as it fell, lay thinner than on the plain grou=
nd:
a few birds are pecking at the hard ice that covers the pools--for the frost
has been of long continuance.[2]
I am in a strange
state of mind.[3] I am alone--quite alone--in the world--the blight of
misfortune has passed over me and withered me; I know that I am about to die
and I feel happy--joyous.--I feel my pulse; it beats fast: I place my thin =
hand
on my cheek; it burns: there is a slight, quick spirit within me which is n=
ow
emitting its last sparks. I shall never see the snows of another winter--I =
do believe
that I shall never again feel the vivifying warmth of another summer sun; a=
nd
it is in this persuasion that I begin to write my tragic history. Perhaps a
history such as mine had better die with me, but a feeling that I cannot de=
fine
leads me on and I am too weak both in body and mind to resist the slightest
impulse. While life was strong within me I thought indeed that there was a
sacred horror in my tale that rendered it unfit for utterance, and now abou=
t to
die I pollute its mystic terrors. It is as the wood of the Eumenides none b=
ut
the dying may enter; and Oedipus is about to die.[4]
What am I writing=
?--I
must collect my thoughts. I do not know that any will peruse these pages ex=
cept
you, my friend, who will receive them at my death. I do not address them to=
you
alone because it will give me pleasure to dwell upon our friendship in a way
that would be needless if you alone read what I shall write. I shall relate=
my
tale therefore as if I wrote for strangers. You have often asked me the cau=
se
of my solitary life; my tears; and above all of my impenetrable and unkind
silence. In life I dared not; in death I unveil the mystery. Others will to=
ss
these pages lightly over: to you, Woodville, kind, affectionate friend, they
will be dear--the precious memorials of a heart-broken girl who, dying, is
still warmed by gratitude towards you:[5] your tears will fall on the words
that record my misfortunes; I know they will--and while I have life I thank=
you
for your sympathy.
But enough of thi=
s. I
will begin my tale: it is my last task, and I hope I have strength sufficie=
nt
to fulfill it. I record no crimes; my faults may easily be pardoned; for th=
ey
proceeded not from evil motive but from want of judgement; and I believe few
would say that they could, by a different conduct and superior wisdom, have
avoided the misfortunes to which I am the victim. My fate has been governed=
by necessity,
a hideous necessity. It required hands stronger than mine; stronger I do
believe than any human force to break the thick, adamantine chain that has
bound me, once breathing nothing but joy, ever possessed by a warm love &am=
p;
delight in goodness,--to misery only to be ended, and now about to be ended=
, in
death. But I forget myself, my tale is yet untold. I will pause a few momen=
ts,
wipe my dim eyes, and endeavour to lose the present obscure but heavy feeli=
ng
of unhappiness in the more acute emotions of the past.[6]
I was born in
England. My father was a man of rank:[7] he had lost his father early, and =
was
educated by a weak mother with all the indulgence she thought due to a nobl=
eman
of wealth. He was sent to Eton and afterwards to college; & allowed from
childhood the free use of large sums of money; thus enjoying from his earli=
est
youth the independance which a boy with these advantages, always acquires a=
t a public
school.
Under the influen=
ce
of these circumstances his passions found a deep soil wherein they might st=
rike
their roots and flourish either as flowers or weeds as was their nature. By
being always allowed to act for himself his character became strongly and e=
arly
marked and exhibited a various surface on which a quick sighted observer mi=
ght see
the seeds of virtues and of misfortunes. His careless extravagance, which m=
ade
him squander immense sums of money to satisfy passing whims, which from the=
ir
apparent energy he dignified with the name of passions, often displayed its=
elf
in unbounded generosity. Yet while he earnestly occupied himself about the
wants of others his own desires were gratified to their fullest extent. He =
gave
his money, but none of his own wishes were sacrifised to his gifts; he gave=
his
time, which he did not value, and his affections which he was happy in any =
manner
to have called into action.
I do not say that=
if
his own desires had been put in competition with those of others that he wo=
uld
have displayed undue selfishness, but this trial was never made. He was
nurtured in prosperity and attended by all its advantages; every one loved =
him
and wished to gratify him. He was ever employed in promoting the pleasures =
of
his companions--but their pleasures were his; and if he bestowed more atten=
tion
upon the feelings of others than is usual with schoolboys it was because hi=
s social
temper could never enjoy itself if every brow was not as free from care as =
his
own.
While at school,
emulation and his own natural abilities made him hold a conspicuous rank in=
the
forms among his equals; at college he discarded books; he believed that he =
had
other lessons to learn than those which they could teach him. He was now to
enter into life and he was still young enough to consider study as a school=
-boy
shackle, employed merely to keep the unruly out of mischief but as having n=
o real
connexion with life--whose wisdom of riding--gaming &c. he considered w=
ith
far deeper interest--So he quickly entered into all college follies although
his heart was too well moulded to be contaminated by them--it might be light
but it was never cold. He was a sincere and sympathizing friend--but he had=
met
with none who superior or equal to himself could aid him in unfolding his m=
ind,
or make him seek for fresh stores of thought by exhausting the old ones. He
felt himself superior in quickness of judgement to those around him: his
talents, his rank and wealth made him the chief of his party, and in that s=
tation
he rested not only contented but glorying, conceiving it to be the only
ambition worthy for him to aim at in the world.
By a strange
narrowness of ideas he viewed all the world in connexion only as it was or =
was
not related to his little society. He considered queer and out of fashion a=
ll
opinions that were exploded by his circle of intimates, and he became at the
same time dogmatic and yet fearful of not coinciding with the only sentimen=
ts
he could consider orthodox. To the generality of spectators he appeared
careless of censure, and with high disdain to throw aside all dependance on
public prejudices; but at the same time that he strode with a triumphant st=
ride
over the rest of the world, he cowered, with self disguised lowliness, to h=
is own
party, and although its [chi]ef never dared express an opinion or a feeling
until he was assured that it would meet with the approbation of his compani=
ons.
Yet he had one se=
cret
hidden from these dear friends; a secret he had nurtured from his earliest
years, and although he loved his fellow collegiates he would not trust it to
the delicacy or sympathy of any one among them. He loved. He feared that the
intensity of his passion might become the subject of their ridicule; and he
could not bear that they should blaspheme it by considering that trivial and
transitory which he felt was the life of his life.
There was a gentl=
eman
of small fortune who lived near his family mansion who had three lovely
daughters. The eldest was far the most beautiful, but her beauty was only an
addition to her other qualities--her understanding was clear & strong a=
nd
her disposition angelically gentle. She and my father had been playmates fr=
om
infancy: Diana, even in her childhood had been a favourite with his mother;=
this
partiality encreased with the years of this beautiful and lively girl and t=
hus
during his school & college vacations[8] they were perpetually together.
Novels and all the various methods by which youth in civilized life are led=
to
a knowledge of the existence of passions before they really feel them, had
produced a strong effect on him who was so peculiarly susceptible of every
impression. At eleven years of age Diana was his favourite playmate but he
already talked the language of love. Although she was elder than he by near=
ly
two years the nature of her education made her more childish at least in the
knowledge and expression of feeling; she received his warm protestations wi=
th
innocence, and returned them unknowing of what they meant. She had read no
novels and associated only with her younger sisters, what could she know of=
the
difference between love and friendship? And when the development of her
understanding disclosed the true nature of this intercourse to her, her
affections were already engaged to her friend, and all she feared was lest
other attractions and fickleness might make him break his infant vows.
But they became e=
very
day more ardent and tender. It was a passion that had grown with his growth=
; it
had become entwined with every faculty and every sentiment and only to be l=
ost
with life. None knew of their love except their own two hearts; yet althoug=
h in
all things else, and even in this he dreaded the censure of his companions,=
for
thus truly loving one inferior to him in fortune, nothing was ever able for=
a
moment to shake his purpose of uniting himself to her as soon as he could
muster courage sufficient to meet those difficulties he was determined to
surmount.
Diana was fully
worthy of his deepest affection. There were few who could boast of so pure a
heart, and so much real humbleness of soul joined to a firm reliance on her=
own
integrity and a belief in that of others. She had from her birth lived a
retired life. She had lost her mother when very young, but her father had
devoted himself to the care of her education--He had many peculiar ideas wh=
ich
influenced the system he had adopted with regard to her--She was well
acquainted with the heroes of Greece and Rome or with those of England who =
had
lived some hundred years ago, while she was nearly ignorant of the passing =
events
of the day: she had read few authors who had written during at least the la=
st
fifty years but her reading with this exception was very extensive. Thus
although she appeared to be less initiated in the mysteries of life and soc=
iety
than he her knowledge was of a deeper kind and laid on firmer foundations; =
and
if even her beauty and sweetness had not fascinated him her understanding w=
ould
ever have held his in thrall. He looked up to her as his guide, and such was
his adoration that he delighted to augment to his own mind the sense of inf=
eriority
with which she sometimes impressed him.[9]
When he was ninet=
een
his mother died. He left college on this event and shaking off for a while =
his
old friends he retired to the neighbourhood of his Diana and received all h=
is
consolation from her sweet voice and dearer caresses. This short seperation
from his companions gave him courage to assert his independance. He had a f=
eeling
that however they might express ridicule of his intended marriage they would
not dare display it when it had taken place; therefore seeking the consent =
of
his guardian which with some difficulty he obtained, and of the father of h=
is
mistress which was more easily given, without acquainting any one else of h=
is
intention, by the time he had attained his twentieth birthday he had become=
the
husband of Diana.
He loved her with
passion and her tenderness had a charm for him that would not permit him to
think of aught but her. He invited some of his college friends to see him b=
ut
their frivolity disgusted him. Diana had torn the veil which had before kept
him in his boyhood: he was become a man and he was surprised how he could e=
ver
have joined in the cant words and ideas of his fellow collegiates or how fo=
r a
moment he had feared the censure of such as these. He discarded his old fri=
endships
not from fickleness but because they were indeed unworthy of him. Diana fil=
led
up all his heart: he felt as if by his union with her he had received a new=
and
better soul. She was his monitress as he learned what were the true ends of
life. It was through her beloved lessons that he cast off his old pursuits =
and
gradually formed himself to become one among his fellow men; a distinguished
member of society, a Patriot; and an enlightened lover of truth and virtue.=
--He
loved her for her beauty and for her amiable disposition but he seemed to l=
ove her
more for what he considered her superior wisdom. They studied, they rode
together; they were never seperate and seldom admitted a third to their soc=
iety.
Thus my father, b=
orn
in affluence, and always prosperous, clombe without the difficulty and vari=
ous
disappointments that all human beings seem destined to encounter, to the ve=
ry
topmost pinacle of happiness: Around him was sunshine, and clouds whose sha=
pes
of beauty made the prospect divine concealed from him the barren reality wh=
ich lay
hidden below them. From this dizzy point he was dashed at once as he unawar=
es
congratulated himself on his felicity. Fifteen months after their marriage I
was born, and my mother died a few days after my birth.
A sister of my fa=
ther
was with him at this period. She was nearly fifteen years older than he, and
was the offspring of a former marriage of his father. When the latter died =
this
sister was taken by her maternal relations: they had seldom seen one anothe=
r,
and were quite unlike in disposition. This aunt, to whose care I was afterw=
ards
consigned, has often related to me the effect that this catastrophe had on =
my
father's strong and susceptible character. From the moment of my mother's d=
eath
untill his departure she never heard him utter a single word: buried in the
deepest melancholy he took no notice of any one; often for hours his eyes
streamed tears or a more fearful gloom overpowered him. All outward things =
seemed
to have lost their existence relatively to him and only one circumstance co=
uld
in any degree recall him from his motionless and mute despair: he would nev=
er see
me. He seemed insensible to the presence of any one else, but if, as a tria=
l to
awaken his sensibility, my aunt brought me into the room he would instantly
rush out with every symptom of fury and distraction. At the end of a month =
he
suddenly quitted his house and, unatteneded [sic] by any servant, departed =
from
that part of the country without by word or writing informing any one of hi=
s intentions.
My aunt was only relieved of her anxiety concerning his fate by a letter fr=
om
him dated Hamburgh.
How often have I =
wept
over that letter which untill I was sixteen was the only relick I had to re=
mind
me of my parents. "Pardon me," it said, "for the uneasiness I
have unavoidably given you: but while in that unhappy island, where every t=
hing
breathes her spirit whom I have lost for ever, a spell held me. It is broke=
n: I
have quitted England for many years, perhaps for ever. But to convince you =
that
selfish feeling does not entirely engross me I shall remain in this town un=
till
you have made by letter every arrangement that you judge necessary. When I
leave this place do not expect to hear from me: I must break all ties that =
at
present exist. I shall become a wanderer, a miserable outcast--alone!
alone!"--In another part of the letter he mentioned me--"As for t=
hat
unhappy little being whom I could not see, and hardly dare mention, I leave=
her
under your protection. Take care of her and cherish her: one day I may claim
her at your hands; but futurity is dark, make the present happy to her.&quo=
t;
My father remained
three months at Hamburgh; when he quitted it he changed his name, my aunt c=
ould
never discover that which he adopted and only by faint hints, could conject=
ure
that he had taken the road of Germany and Hungary to Turkey.[10]
Thus this towering
spirit who had excited interest and high expectation in all who knew and co=
uld
value him became at once, as it were, extinct. He existed from this moment =
for
himself only. His friends remembered him as a brilliant vision which would
never again return to them. The memory of what he had been faded away as ye=
ars passed;
and he who before had been as a part of themselves and of their hopes was n=
ow
no longer counted among the living.
I now come to my own story. During =
the
early part of my life there is little to relate, and I will be brief; but I
must be allowed to dwell a little on the years of my childhood that it may =
be
apparent how when one hope failed all life was to be a blank; and how when =
the
only affection I was permitted to cherish was blasted my existence was exti=
nguished
with it.
I have said that =
my
aunt was very unlike my father. I believe that without the slightest tinge =
of a
bad heart she had the coldest that ever filled a human breast: it was total=
ly
incapable of any affection. She took me under her protection because she
considered it her duty; but she had too long lived alone and undisturbed by=
the
noise and prattle of children to allow that I should disturb her quiet. She=
had
never been married; and for the last five years had lived perfectly alone o=
n an
estate, that had descended to her through her mother, on the shores of Loch
Lomond in Scotland. My father had expressed a wish in his letters that she
should reside with me at his family mansion which was situated in a beautif=
ul
country near Richmond in Yorkshire. She would not consent to this propositi=
on,
but as soon as she had arranged the affairs which her brother's departure h=
ad
caused to fall to her care, she quitted England and took me with her to her
scotch estate.
The care of me wh=
ile
a baby, and afterwards untill I had reached my eighth year devolved on a
servant of my mother's, who had accompanied us in our retirement for that
purpose. I was placed in a remote part of the house, and only saw my aunt at
stated hours. These occurred twice a day; once about noon she came to my
nursery, and once after her dinner I was taken to her. She never caressed m=
e,
and seemed all the time I staid in the room to fear that I should annoy her=
by
some childish freak. My good nurse always schooled me with the greatest care
before she ventured into the parlour--and the awe my aunt's cold looks and =
few
constrained words inspired was so great that I seldom disgraced her lessons=
or
was betrayed from the exemplary stillness which I was taught to observe dur=
ing
these short visits.[11]
Under my good nur=
se's
care I ran wild about our park and the neighbouring fields. The offspring of
the deepest love I displayed from my earliest years the greatest sensibilit=
y of
disposition. I cannot say with what passion I loved every thing even the
inanimate objects that surrounded me. I believe that I bore an individual a=
ttachment
to every tree in our park; every animal that inhabited it knew me and I lov=
ed
them. Their occasional deaths filled my infant heart with anguish. I cannot
number the birds that I have saved during the long and severe winters of th=
at
climate; or the hares and rabbits that I have defended from the attacks of =
our
dogs, or have nursed when accidentally wounded.
When I was seven
years of age my nurse left me. I now forget the cause of her departure if
indeed I ever knew it. She returned to England, and the bitter tears she sh=
ed
at parting were the last I saw flow for love of me for many years. My grief=
was
terrible: I had no friend but her in the whole world. By degrees I became
reconciled to solitude but no one supplied her place in my affections. I li=
ved
in a desolate country where
------ there were none=
to
praise And =
very
few to love.[A]
It is true that I=
now
saw a little more of my aunt, but she was in every way an unsocial being; a=
nd
to a timid child she was as a plant beneath a thick covering of ice; I shou=
ld
cut my hands in endeavouring to get at it. So I was entirely thrown upon my=
own
resourses. The neighbouring minister was engaged to give me lessons in read=
ing,
writing and french, but he was without family and his manners even to me we=
re
always perfectly characteristic of the profession in the exercise of whose
functions he chiefly shone, that of a schoolmaster. I sometimes strove to f=
orm
friendships with the most attractive of the girls who inhabited the
neighbouring village; but I believe I should never have succeeded [even] had
not my aunt interposed her authority to prevent all intercourse between me =
and
the peasantry; for she was fearful lest I should acquire the scotch accent =
and
dialect; a little of it I had, although great pains was taken that my tongue
should not disgrace my English origin.
As I grew older my
liberty encreased with my desires, and my wanderings extended from our park=
to
the neighbouring country. Our house was situated on the shores of the lake =
and
the lawn came down to the water's edge. I rambled amidst the wild scenery of
this lovely country and became a complete mountaineer: I passed hours on the
steep brow of a mountain that overhung a waterfall or rowed myself in a lit=
tle
skiff to some one of the islands. I wandered for ever about these lovely
solitudes, gathering flower after flower
Ond' era pinta tutta l=
a mia
via[B]
singing as I might
the wild melodies of the country, or occupied by pleasant day dreams. My
greatest pleasure was the enjoyment of a serene sky amidst these verdant wo=
ods:
yet I loved all the changes of Nature; and rain, and storm, and the beautif=
ul
clouds of heaven brought their delights with them. When rocked by the waves=
of
the lake my spirits rose in triumph as a horseman feels with pride the moti=
ons of
his high fed steed.
But my pleasures
arose from the contemplation of nature alone, I had no companion: my warm
affections finding no return from any other human heart were forced to run
waste on inanimate objects.[12] Sometimes indeed I wept when my aunt receiv=
ed
my caresses with repulsive coldness, and when I looked round and found none=
to
love; but I quickly dried my tears. As I grew older books in some degree su=
pplied
the place of human intercourse: the library of my aunt was very small;
Shakespear, Milton, Pope and Cowper were the strangley [sic] assorted poets=
of
her collection; and among the prose authors a translation of Livy and Rolli=
n's
ancient history were my chief favourites although as I emerged from childho=
od I
found others highly interesting which I had before neglected as dull.
When I was twelve
years old it occurred to my aunt that I ought to learn music; she herself
played upon the harp. It was with great hesitation that she persuaded herse=
lf
to undertake my instruction; yet believing this accomplishment a necessary =
part
of my education, and balancing the evils of this measure or of having some =
one
in the house to instruct me she submitted to the inconvenience. A harp was =
sent
for that my playing might not interfere with hers, and I began: she found m=
e a
docile and when I had conquered the first rudiments a very apt scholar. I h=
ad
acquired in my harp a companion in rainy days; a sweet soother of my feelin=
gs
when any untoward accident ruffled them: I often addressed it as my only
friend; I could pour forth to it my hopes and loves, and I fancied that its
sweet accents answered me. I have now mentioned all my studies.
I was a solitary
being, and from my infant years, ever since my dear nurse left me, I had be=
en a
dreamer. I brought Rosalind and Miranda and the lady of Comus to life to be=
my
companions, or on my isle acted over their parts imagining myself to be in
their situations. Then I wandered from the fancies of others and formed
affections and intimacies with the aerial creations of my own brain--but st=
ill clinging
to reality I gave a name to these conceptions and nursed them in the hope of
realization. I clung to the memory of my parents; my mother I should never =
see,
she was dead: but the idea of [my] unhappy, wandering father was the idol o=
f my
imagination. I bestowed on him all my affections; there was a miniature of =
him
that I gazed on continually; I copied his last letter and read it again and
again. Sometimes it made me weep; and at other [times] I repeated with tran=
sport
those words,--"One day I may claim her at your hands." I was to be
his consoler, his companion in after years. My favourite vision was that wh=
en I
grew up I would leave my aunt, whose coldness lulled my conscience, and
disguised like a boy I would seek my father through the world. My imaginati=
on
hung upon the scene of recognition; his miniature, which I should continual=
ly
wear exposed on my breast, would be the means and I imaged the moment to my
mind a thousand and a thousand times, perpetually varying the circumstances.
Sometimes it would be in a desart; in a populous city; at a ball; we should
perhaps meet in a vessel; and his first words constantly were, "My
daughter, I love thee"! What extactic moments have I passed in these
dreams! How many tears I have shed; how often have I laughed aloud.[13]
This was my life =
for
sixteen years. At fourteen and fifteen I often thought that the time was co=
me
when I should commence my pilgrimage, which I had cheated my own mind into
believing was my imperious duty: but a reluctance to quit my Aunt; a remorse
for the grief which, I could not conceal from myself, I should occasion her=
for
ever withheld me. Sometimes when I had planned the next morning for my esca=
pe a
word of more than usual affection from her lips made me postpone my resolut=
ion.
I reproached myself bitterly for what I called a culpable weakness; but this
weakness returned upon me whenever the critical moment approached, and I ne=
ver
found courage to depart.[14]
[A] Wordsworth
[B] Dante
It was on my sixteenth birthday tha=
t my
aunt received a letter from my father. I cannot describe the tumult of emot=
ions
that arose within me as I read it. It was dated from London; he had
returned![15] I could only relieve my transports by tears, tears of unmingl=
ed
joy. He had returned, and he wrote to know whether my aunt would come to Lo=
ndon
or whether he should visit her in Scotland. How delicious to me were the wo=
rds
of his letter that concerned me: "I cannot tell you," it said, &q=
uot;how
ardently I desire to see my Mathilda. I look on her as the creature who will
form the happiness of my future life: she is all that exists on earth that
interests me. I can hardly prevent myself from hastening immediately to you=
but
I am necessarily detained a week and I write because if you come here I may=
see
you somewhat sooner." I read these words with devouring eyes; I kissed
them, wept over them and exclaimed, "He will love me!"--
My aunt would not
undertake so long a journey, and in a fortnight we had another letter from =
my
father, it was dated Edinburgh: he wrote that he should be with us in three
days. "As he approached his desire of seeing me," he said,
"became more and more ardent, and he felt that the moment when he shou=
ld
first clasp me in his arms would be the happiest of his life."
How irksome were
these three days to me! All sleep and appetite fled from me; I could only r=
ead
and re-read his letter, and in the solitude of the woods imagine the moment=
of
our meeting. On the eve of the third day I retired early to my room; I could
not sleep but paced all night about my chamber and, as you may in Scotland =
at
midsummer, watched the crimson track of the sun as it almost skirted the
northern horizon. At day break I hastened to the woods; the hours past on w=
hile
I indulged in wild dreams that gave wings to the slothful steps of time, and
beguiled my eager impatience. My father was expected at noon but when I wis=
hed
to return to me[e]t him I found that I had lost my way: it seemed that in e=
very
attempt to find it I only became more involved in the intracacies of the wo=
ods,
and the trees hid all trace by which I might be guided.[16] I grew impatien=
t, I
wept; [sic] and wrung my hands but still I could not discover my path.
It was past two
o'clock when by a sudden turn I found myself close to the lake near a cove
where a little skiff was moored--It was not far from our house and I saw my
father and aunt walking on the lawn. I jumped into the boat, and well
accustomed to such feats, I pushed it from shore, and exerted all my streng=
th
to row swiftly across. As I came, dressed in white, covered only by my tart=
an
rachan, my hair streaming on my shoulders, and shooting across with greater
speed that it could be supposed I could give to my boat, my father has often
told me that I looked more like a spirit than a human maid. I approached the
shore, my father held the boat, I leapt lightly out, and in a moment was in=
his
arms.
And now I began to
live. All around me was changed from a dull uniformity to the brightest sce=
ne
of joy and delight. The happiness I enjoyed in the company of my father far
exceeded my sanguine expectations. We were for ever together; and the subje=
cts
of our conversations were inexhaustible. He had passed the sixteen years of=
absence
among nations nearly unknown to Europe; he had wandered through Persia, Ara=
bia
and the north of India and had penetrated among the habitations of the nati=
ves
with a freedom permitted to few Europeans. His relations of their manners, =
his
anecdotes and descriptions of scenery whiled away delicious hours, when we =
were
tired of talking of our own plans of future life.
The voice of
affection was so new to me that I hung with delight upon his words when he =
told
me what he had felt concerning me during these long years of apparent forge=
tfulness.
"At first"--said he, "I could not bear to think of my poor
little girl; but afterwards as grief wore off and hope again revisited me I
could only turn to her, and amidst cities and desarts her little fairy form,
such as I imagined it, for ever flitted before me. The northern breeze as it
refreshed me was sweeter and more balmy for it seemed to carry some of your
spirit along with it. I often thought that I would instantly return and tak=
e you
along with me to some fertile island where we should live at peace for ever=
. As
I returned my fervent hopes were dashed by so many fears; my impatience bec=
ame
in the highest degree painful. I dared not think that the sun should shine =
and
the moon rise not on your living form but on your grave. But, no, it is not=
so;
I have my Mathilda, my consolation, and my hope."--
My father was very
little changed from what he described himself to be before his misfortunes.=
It
is intercourse with civilized society; it is the disappointment of cherished
hopes, the falsehood of friends, or the perpetual clash of mean passions th=
at
changes the heart and damps the ardour of youthful feelings; lonly wanderin=
gs
in a wild country among people of simple or savage manners may inure the bo=
dy
but will not tame the soul, or extinguish the ardour and freshness of feeli=
ng incident
to youth. The burning sun of India, and the freedom from all restraint had
rather encreased the energy of his character: before he bowed under, now he=
was
impatient of any censure except that of his own mind. He had seen so many
customs and witnessed so great a variety of moral creeds that he had been
obliged to form an independant one for himself which had no relation to the
peculiar notions of any one country: his early prejudices of course influen=
ced
his judgement in the formation of his principles, and some raw colledge ide=
as
were strangely mingled with the deepest deductions of his penetrating mind.=
The vacuity his h=
eart
endured of any deep interest in life during his long absence from his native
country had had a singular effect upon his ideas. There was a curious feeli=
ng
of unreality attached by him to his foreign life in comparison with the yea=
rs
of his youth. All the time he had passed out of England was as a dream, and=
all
the interest of his soul[,] all his affections belonged to events which had=
happened
and persons who had existed sixteen years before. It was strange when you h=
eard
him talk to see how he passed over this lapse of time as a night of visions;
while the remembrances of his youth standing seperate as they did from his
after life had lost none of their vigour. He talked of my Mother as if she =
had
lived but a few weeks before; not that he expressed poignant grief, but his=
discription
of her person, and his relation of all anecdotes connected with her was thus
fervent and vivid.
In all this there=
was
a strangeness that attracted and enchanted me. He was, as it were, now awak=
ened
from his long, visionary sleep, and he felt some what like one of the seven
sleepers, or like Nourjahad,[17] in that sweet imitation of an eastern tale:
Diana was gone; his friends were changed or dead, and now on his awakening I
was all that he had to love on earth.
How dear to me we=
re
the waters, and mountains, and woods of Loch Lomond now that I had so belov=
ed a
companion for my rambles. I visited with my father every delightful spot,
either on the islands, or by the side of the tree-sheltered waterfalls; eve=
ry
shady path, or dingle entangled with underwood and fern. My ideas were enla=
rged
by his conversation. I felt as if I were recreated and had about me all the=
freshness
and life of a new being: I was, as it were, transported since his arrival f=
rom
a narrow spot of earth into a universe boundless to the imagination and the
understanding. My life had been before as a pleasing country rill, never
destined to leave its native fields, but when its task was fulfilled quietl=
y to
be absorbed, and leave no trace. Now it seemed to me to be as a various riv=
er
flowing through a fertile and lovely lanscape, ever changing and ever beaut=
iful.
Alas! I knew not the desart it was about to reach; the rocks that would tear
its waters, and the hideous scene that would be reflected in a more distort=
ed
manner in its waves. Life was then brilliant; I began to learn to hope and =
what
brings a more bitter despair to the heart than hope destroyed?
Is it not strange=
[18]
that grief should quickly follow so divine a happiness? I drank of an encha=
nted
cup but gall was at the bottom of its long drawn sweetness. My heart was fu=
ll
of deep affection, but it was calm from its very depth and fulness. I had no
idea that misery could arise from love, and this lesson that all at last mu=
st
learn was taught me in a manner few are obliged to receive it. I lament now=
, I must
ever lament, those few short months of Paradisaical bliss; I disobeyed no
command, I ate no apple, and yet I was ruthlessly driven from it. Alas! my
companion did, and I was precipitated in his fall.[19] But I wander from my
relation--let woe come at its appointed time; I may at this stage of my sto=
ry
still talk of happiness.
Three months pass=
ed
away in this delightful intercourse, when my aunt fell ill. I passed a whole
month in her chamber nursing her, but her disease was mortal and she died,
leaving me for some time inconsolable, Death is so dreadful to the living;[=
20]
the chains of habit are so strong even when affection does not link them th=
at
the heart must be agonized when they break. But my father was beside me to =
console
me and to drive away bitter memories by bright hopes: methought that it was
sweet to grieve that he might dry my tears.
Then again he
distracted my thoughts from my sorrow by comparing it with his despair when=
he
lost my mother. Even at that time I shuddered at the picture he drew of his
passions: he had the imagination of a poet, and when he described the whirl=
wind
that then tore his feelings he gave his words the impress of life so vividly
that I believed while I trembled. I wondered how he could ever again have
entered into the offices of life after his wild thoughts seemed to have giv=
en
him affinity with the unearthly; while he spoke so tremendous were the ideas
which he conveyed that it appeared as if the human heart were far too bound=
ed
for their conception. His feelings seemed better fitted for a spirit whose =
habitation
is the earthquake and the volcano than for one confined to a mortal body and
human lineaments. But these were merely memories; he was changed since then=
. He
was now all love, all softness; and when I raised my eyes in wonder at him =
as
he spoke the smile on his lips told me that his heart was possessed by the =
gentlest
passions.
Two months after =
my
aunt's death we removed to London where I was led by my father to attend to
deeper studies than had before occupied me. My improvement was his delight;=
he was
with me during all my studies and assisted or joined with me in every lesso=
n.
We saw a great deal of society, and no day passed that my father did not
endeavour to embellish by some new enjoyment. The tender attachment that he
bore me, and the love and veneration with which I returned it cast a charm =
over
every moment. The hours were slow for each minute was employed; we lived mo=
re
in one week than many do in the course of several months and the variety and
novelty of our pleasures gave zest to each.
We perpetually ma=
de
excursions together. And whether it were to visit beautiful scenery, or to =
see
fine pictures, or sometimes for no object but to seek amusement as it might
chance to arise, I was always happy when near my father. It was a subject of
regret to me whenever we were joined by a third person, yet if I turned wit=
h a
disturbed look towards my father, his eyes fixed on me and beaming with
tenderness instantly restored joy to my heart. O, hours of intense delight!
Short as ye were ye are made as long to me as a whole life when looked back=
upon
through the mist of grief that rose immediately after as if to shut ye from=
my
view. Alas! ye were the last of happiness that I ever enjoyed; a few, a very
few weeks and all was destroyed. Like Psyche[21] I lived for awhile in an
enchanted palace, amidst odours, and music, and every luxurious delight; wh=
en
suddenly I was left on a barren rock; a wide ocean of despair rolled around=
me:
above all was black, and my eyes closed while I still inhabited a universal=
death.
Still I would not hurry on; I would pause for ever on the recollections of
these happy weeks; I would repeat every word, and how many do I remember,
record every enchantment of the faery habitation. But, no, my tale must not
pause; it must be as rapid as was my fate,--I can only describe in short
although strong expressions my precipitate and irremediable change from
happiness to despair.[22]
Among our most assiduous visitors w=
as a
young man of rank, well informed, and agreable in his person. After we had
spent a few weeks in London his attentions towards me became marked and his
visits more frequent. I was too much taken up by my own occupations and
feelings to attend much to this, and then indeed I hardly noticed more than=
the
bare surface of events as they passed around me; but I now remember that my
father was restless and uneasy whenever this person visited us, and when we
talked together watched us with the greatest apparent anxiety although he
himself maintained a profound silence. At length these obnoxious visits
suddenly ceased altogether, but from that moment I must date the change of =
my
father: a change that to remember makes me shudder and then filled me with =
the
deepest grief. There were no degrees which could break my fall from happine=
ss
to misery; it was as the stroke of lightning--sudden and entire.[23] Alas! I
now met frowns where before I had been welcomed only with smiles: he, my be=
loved
father, shunned me, and either treated me with harshness or a more
heart-breaking coldness. We took no more sweet counsel together; and when I
tried to win him again to me, his anger, and the terrible emotions that he
exhibited drove me to silence and tears.
And this was sudd=
en.
The day before we had passed alone together in the country; I remember we h=
ad
talked of future travels that we should undertake together--. There was an
eager delight in our tones and gestures that could only spring from deep &a=
mp;
mutual love joined to the most unrestrained confidence[;] and now the next =
day,
the next hour, I saw his brows contracted, his eyes fixed in sullen fiercen=
ess
on the ground, and his voice so gentle and so dear made me shiver when he a=
ddressed
me. Often, when my wandering fancy brought by its various images now
consolation and now aggravation of grief to my heart,[24] I have compared
myself to Proserpine who was gaily and heedlessly gathering flowers on the
sweet plain of Enna, when the King of Hell snatched her away to the abodes =
of
death and misery. Alas! I who so lately knew of nought but the joy of life;=
who
had slept only to dream sweet dreams and awoke to incomparable happiness, I=
now
passed my days and nights in tears. I who sought and had found joy in the l=
ove-breathing
countenance of my father now when I dared fix on him a supplicating look it=
was
ever answered by an angry frown. I dared not speak to him; and when sometim=
es I
had worked up courage to meet him and to ask an explanation one glance at h=
is
face where a chaos of mighty passion seemed for ever struggling made me tre=
mble
and shrink to silence. I was dashed down from heaven to earth as a silly
sparrow when pounced on by a hawk; my eyes swam and my head was bewildered =
by the
sudden apparition of grief. Day after day[25] passed marked only by my
complaints and my tears; often I lifted my soul in vain prayer for a softer
descent from joy to woe, or if that were denied me that I might be allowed =
to
die, and fade for ever under the cruel blast that swept over me,
------ for what should=
I do
here, Like a
decaying flower, still withering Under his bitter =
words,
whose kindly heat Should give my po=
or
heart life?[C]
Sometimes I said =
to
myself, this is an enchantment, and I must strive against it. My father is
blinded by some malignant vision which I must remove. And then, like David,=
I
would try music to win the evil spirit from him; and once while singing I
lifted my eyes towards him and saw his fixed on me and filled with tears; a=
ll
his muscles seemed relaxed to softness. I sprung towards him with a cry of =
joy
and would have thrown myself into his arms, but he pushed me roughly from h=
im
and left me. And even from this slight incident he contracted fresh gloom a=
nd
an additional severity of manner.
There are many
incidents that I might relate which shewed the diseased yet incomprehensible
state of his mind; but I will mention one that occurred while we were in
company with several other persons. On this occasion I chanced to say that I
thought Myrrha the best of Alfieri's tragedies; as I said this I chanced to
cast my eyes on my father and met his: for the first time the expression of
those beloved eyes displeased me, and I saw with affright that his whole fr=
ame
shook with some concealed emotion that in spite of his efforts half conquer=
ed him:
as this tempest faded from his soul he became melancholy and silent. Every =
day
some new scene occured and displayed in him a mind working as [it] were wit=
h an
unknown horror that now he could master but which at times threatened to
overturn his reason, and to throw the bright seat of his intelligence into a
perpetual chaos.
I will not dwell
longer than I need on these disastrous circumstances.[26] I might waste day=
s in
describing how anxiously I watched every change of fleeting circumstance th=
at
promised better days, and with what despair I found that each effort of min=
e aggravated
his seeming madness. To tell all my grief I might as well attempt to count =
the
tears that have fallen from these eyes, or every sign that has torn my hear=
t. I
will be brief for there is in all this a horror that will not bear many wor=
ds,
and I sink almost a second time to death while I recall these sad scenes to=
my
memory. Oh, my beloved father! Indeed you made me miserable beyond all word=
s,
but how truly did I even then forgive you, and how entirely did you possess=
my whole
heart while I endeavoured, as a rainbow gleams upon a cataract,[D][27] to
soften thy tremendous sorrows.
Thus did this cha=
nge
come about. I seem perhaps to have dashed too suddenly into the description,
but thus suddenly did it happen. In one sentence I have passed from the ide=
a of
unspeakable happiness to that of unspeakable grief but they were thus close=
ly
linked together. We had remained five months in London three of joy and two=
of
sorrow. My father and I were now seldom alone or if we were he generally ke=
pt silence
with his eyes fixed on the ground--the dark full orbs in which before I
delighted to read all sweet and gentle feeling shadowed from my sight by th=
eir
lids and the long lashes that fringed them. When we were in company he affe=
cted
gaiety but I wept to hear his hollow laugh--begun by an empty smile and oft=
en
ending in a bitter sneer such as never before this fatal period had wrinkled
his lips. When others were there he often spoke to me and his eyes perpetua=
lly
followed my slightest motion. His accents whenever he addressed me were cold
and constrained although his voice would tremble when he perceived that my =
full
heart choked the answer to words proffered with a mien yet new to me.
But days of peace=
ful
melancholy were of rare occurence[:] they were often broken in upon by gust=
s of
passion that drove me as a weak boat on a stormy sea to seek a cove for
shelter; but the winds blew from my native harbour and I was cast far, far =
out
untill shattered I perished when the tempest had passed and the sea was
apparently calm. I do not know that I can describe his emotions: sometimes =
he
only betrayed them by a word or gesture, and then retired to his chamber an=
d I
crept as near it as I dared and listened with fear to every sound, yet stil=
l more
dreading a sudden silence--dreading I knew not what, but ever full of fear.=
It was after one
tremendous day when his eyes had glared on me like lightning--and his voice
sharp and broken seemed unable to express the extent of his emotion that in=
the
evening when I was alone he joined me with a calm countenance, and not noti=
cing
my tears which I quickly dried when he approached, told me that in three da=
ys
that [sic] he intended to remove with me to his estate in Yorkshire, and
bidding me prepare left me hastily as if afraid of being questioned.
This determinatio=
n on
his part indeed surprised me. This estate was that which he had inhabited in
childhood and near which my mother resided while a girl; this was the scene=
of
their youthful loves and where they had lived after their marriage; in happ=
ier
days my father had often told me that however he might appear weaned from h=
is
widow sorrow, and free from bitter recollections elsewhere, yet he would ne=
ver
dare visit the spot where he had enjoyed her society or trust himself to see
the rooms that so many years ago they had inhabited together; her favourite
walks and the gardens the flowers of which she had delighted to cultivate. =
And
now while he suffered intense misery he determined to plunge into still mor=
e intense,
and strove for greater emotion than that which already tore him. I was
perplexed, and most anxious to know what this portended; ah, what could it
po[r]tend but ruin!
I saw little of my
father during this interval, but he appeared calmer although not less unhap=
py
than before. On the morning of the third day he informed me that he had
determined to go to Yorkshire first alone, and that I should follow him in a
fortnight unless I heard any thing from him in the mean time that should
contradict this command. He departed the same day, and four days afterwards=
I
received a letter from his steward telling me in his name to join him with =
as
little delay as possible. After travelling day and night I arrived with an =
anxious,
yet a hoping heart, for why should he send for me if it were only to avoid =
me
and to treat me with the apparent aversion that he had in London. I met him=
at
the distance of thirty miles from our mansion. His demeanour was sad; for a
moment he appeared glad to see me and then he checked himself as if unwilli=
ng
to betray his feelings. He was silent during our ride, yet his manner was
kinder than before and I thought I beheld a softness in his eyes that gave =
me
hope.
When we arrived,
after a little rest, he led me over the house and pointed out to me the roo=
ms
which my mother had inhabited. Although more than sixteen years had passed
since her death nothing had been changed; her work box, her writing desk we=
re
still there and in her room a book lay open on the table as she had left it=
. My
father pointed out these circumstances with a serious and unaltered mien, o=
nly
now and then fixing his deep and liquid eyes upon me; there was something
strange and awful in his look that overcame me, and in spite of myself I we=
pt,
nor did he attempt to console me, but I saw his lips quiver and the muscles=
of
his countenance seemed convulsed.
We walked togethe=
r in
the gardens and in the evening when I would have retired he asked me to stay
and read to him; and first said, "When I was last here your mother read
Dante to me; you shall go on where she left off." And then in a moment=
he
said, "No, that must not be; you must not read Dante. Do you choose a
book." I took up Spencer and read the descent of Sir Guyon to the hall=
s of
Avarice;[28] while he listened his eyes fixed on me in sad profound silence=
.
I heard the next
morning from the steward that upon his arrival he had been in a most terrib=
le
state of mind: he had passed the first night in the garden lying on the damp
grass; he did not sleep but groaned perpetually. "Alas!" said the=
old
man[,] who gave me this account with tears in his eyes, "it wrings my
heart to see my lord in this state: when I heard that he was coming down he=
re
with you, my young lady, I thought we should have the happy days over again
that we enjoyed during the short life of my lady your mother--But that woul=
d be
too much happiness for us poor creatures born to tears--and that was why she
was taken from us so soon; [s]he was too beautiful and good for us[.] It wa=
s a
happy day as we all thought it when my lord married her: I knew her when she
was a child and many a good turn has she done for me in my old lady's time-=
-You
are like her although there is more of my lord in you--But has he been thus
ever since his return? All my joy turned to sorrow when I first beheld him =
with
that melancholy countenance enter these doors as it were the day after my
lady's funeral--He seemed to recover himself a little after he had bidden m=
e write
to you--but still it is a woful thing to see him so unhappy."[29] These
were the feelings of an old, faithful servant: what must be those of an
affectionate daughter. Alas! Even then my heart was almost broken.
We spent two mont=
hs
together in this house. My father spent the greater part of his time with m=
e;
he accompanied me in my walks, listened to my music, and leant over me as I
read or painted. When he conversed with me his manner was cold and constrai=
ned;
his eyes only seemed to speak, and as he turned their black, full lustre
towards me they expressed a living sadness. There was somthing in those dark
deep orbs so liquid, and intense that even in happiness I could never meet =
their
full gaze that mine did not overflow. Yet it was with sweet tears; now there
was a depth of affliction in their gentle appeal that rent my heart with
sympathy; they seemed to desire peace for me; for himself a heart patient to
suffer; a craving for sympathy, yet a perpetual self denial. It was only wh=
en
he was absent from me that his passion subdued him,--that he clinched his
hands--knit his brows--and with haggard looks called for death to his despa=
ir,
raving wildly, untill exhausted he sank down nor was revived untill I joined
him.
While we were in
London there was a harshness and sulleness in his sorrow which had now enti=
rely
disappeared. There I shrunk and fled from him, now I only wished to be with=
him
that I might soothe him to peace. When he was silent I tried to divert him,=
and
when sometimes I stole to him during the energy of his passion I wept but d=
id
not desire to leave him. Yet he suffered fearful agony; during the day he w=
as
more calm, but at night when I could not be with him he seemed to give the
reins to his grief: he often passed his nights either on the floor in my
mother's room, or in the garden; and when in the morning he saw me view with
poignant grief his exhausted frame, and his person languid almost to death =
with
watching he wept; but during all this time he spoke no word by which I might
guess the cause of his unhappiness[.] If I ventured to enquire he would eit=
her
leave me or press his finger on his lips, and with a deprecating look that I
could not resist, turn away. If I wept he would gaze on me in silence but h=
e was
no longer harsh and although he repulsed every caress yet it was with
gentleness.
He seemed to cher=
ish
a mild grief and softer emotions although sad as a relief from despair--He
contrived in many ways to nurse his melancholy as an antidote to wilder
passion[.] He perpetually frequented the walks that had been favourites with
him when he and my mother wandered together talking of love and happiness; =
he
collected every relick that remained of her and always sat opposite her pic=
ture
which hung in the room fixing on it a look of sad despair--and all this was
done in a mystic and awful silence. If his passion subdued him he locked
himself in his room; and at night when he wandered restlessly about the hou=
se,
it was when every other creature slept.
It may easily be
imagined that I wearied myself with conjecture to guess the cause of his
sorrow. The solution that seemed to me the most probable was that during his
residence in London he had fallen in love with some unworthy person, and th=
at
his passion mastered him although he would not gratify it: he loved me too =
well
to sacrifise me to this inclination, and that he had now visited this house
that by reviving the memory of my mother whom he so passionately adored he
might weaken the present impression. This was possible; but it was a mere c=
onjecture
unfounded on any fact. Could there be guilt in it? He was too upright and n=
oble
to do aught that his conscience would not approve; I did not yet know of the
crime there may be in involuntary feeling and therefore ascribed his tumult=
uous
starts and gloomy looks wholly to the struggles of his mind and not any as =
they
were partly due to the worst fiend of all--Remorse.[30]
But still do I
flatter myself that this would have passed away. His paroxisms of passion w=
ere
terrific but his soul bore him through them triumphant, though almost destr=
oyed
by victory; but the day would finally have been won had not I, foolish and
presumtuous wretch! hurried him on untill there was no recall, no hope. My
rashness gave the victory in this dreadful fight to the enemy who triumphed
over him as he lay fallen and vanquished. I! I alone was the cause of his d=
efeat
and justly did I pay the fearful penalty. I said to myself, let him receive
sympathy and these struggles will cease. Let him confide his misery to anot=
her
heart and half the weight of it will be lightened. I will win him to me; he=
shall
not deny his grief to me and when I know his secret then will I pour a balm
into his soul and again I shall enjoy the ravishing delight of beholding his
smile, and of again seeing his eyes beam if not with pleasure at least with
gentle love and thankfulness. This will I do, I said. Half I accomplished; =
I gained
his secret and we were both lost for ever.
[C] Fletcher's comedy of the Captai=
n.
[D] Lord Byron
Nearly a year had past since my fat=
her's
return, and the seasons had almost finished their round--It was now the end=
of
May; the woods were clothed in their freshest verdure, and the sweet smell =
of
the new mown grass was in the fields. I thought that the balmy air and the
lovely face of Nature might aid me in inspiring him with mild sensations, a=
nd give
him gentle feelings of peace and love preparatory to the confidence I
determined to win from him.
I chose therefore=
the
evening of one of these days for my attempt. I invited him to walk with me,=
and
led him to a neighbouring wood of beech trees whose light shade shielded us
from the slant and dazzling beams of the descending sun--After walking for =
some
time in silence I seated my self with him on a mossy hillock--It is strange=
but
even now I seem to see the spot--the slim and smooth trunks were many of th=
em wound
round by ivy whose shining leaves of the darkest green contrasted with the
white bark and the light leaves of the young sprouts of beech that grew from
their parent trunks--the short grass was mingled with moss and was partly c=
overed
by the dead leaves of the last autumn that driven by the winds had here and
there collected in little hillocks--there were a few moss grown stumps
about--The leaves were gently moved by the breeze and through their green
canopy you could see the bright blue sky--As evening came on the distant tr=
unks
were reddened by the sun and the wind died entirely away while a few birds =
flew
past us to their evening rest.
Well it was here =
we
sat together, and when you hear all that past--all that of terrible tore our
souls even in this placid spot, which but for strange passions might have b=
een
a paradise to us, you will not wonder that I remember it as I looked on it =
that
its calm might give me calm, and inspire me not only with courage but with
persuasive words. I saw all these things and in a vacant manner noted them =
in
my mind[31] while I endeavoured to arrange my thoughts in fitting order for=
my
attempt. My heart beat fast as I worked myself up to speak to him, for I was
determined not to be repulsed but I trembled to imagine what effect my words
might have on him; at length, with much hesitation I began:[32]
"Your kindne=
ss
to me, my dearest father, and the affection--the excessive affection--that =
you
had for me when you first returned will I hope excuse me in your eyes that I
dare speak to you, although with the tender affection of a daughter, yet al=
so
with the freedom of a friend and equal. But pardon me, I entreat you and li=
sten
to me: do not turn away from me; do not be impatient; you may easily intimi=
date
me into silence, but my heart is bursting, nor can I willingly consent to
endure for one moment longer the agony of uncertitude which for the last fo=
ur
months has been my portion.
"Listen to m=
e,
dearest friend, and permit me to gain your confidence. Are the happy days of
mutual love which have passed to be to me as a dream never to return? Alas!=
You
have a secret grief that destroys us both: but you must permit me to win th=
is
secret from you. Tell me, can I do nothing? You well know that on the whole
earth there is no sacrifise that I would not make, no labour that I would n=
ot
undergo with the mere hope that I might bring you ease. But if no endeavour=
on my
part can contribute to your happiness, let me at least know your sorrow, and
surely my earnest love and deep sympathy must soothe your despair.
"I fear that=
I
speak in a constrained manner: my heart is overflowing with the ardent desi=
re I
have of bringing calm once more to your thoughts and looks; but I fear to
aggravate your grief, or to raise that in you which is death to me, anger a=
nd
distaste. Do not then continue to fix your eyes on the earth; raise them on=
me
for I can read your soul in them: speak to me to me [sic], and pardon my pr=
esumption.
Alas! I am a most unhappy creature!"
I was breathless = with emotion, and I paused fixing my earnest eyes on my father, after I had dash= ed away the intrusive tears that dimmed them. He did not raise his, but after a short silence he replied to me in a low voice: "You are indeed presumptuous, Mathilda, presumptuous and very rash. In the heart of one lik= e me there are secret thoughts working, and secret tortures which you ought not = to seek to discover. I cannot tell you how it adds to my grief to know that I = am the cause of uneasiness to you; but this will pass away, and I hope that so= on we shall be as we were a few months ago. Restrain your impatience or you may mar what you attempt to alleviate. Do not again speak to me in this strain;= but wait in submissive patience the event of what is passing around you."<= o:p>
"Oh, yes!&qu=
ot;
I passionately replied, "I will be very patient; I will not be rash or
presumptuous: I will see the agonies, and tears, and despair of my father, =
my
only friend, my hope, my shelter, I will see it all with folded arms and
downcast eyes. You do not treat me with candour; it is not true what you sa=
y;
this will not soon pass away, it will last forever if you deign not to spea=
k to
me; to admit my consolations.
"Dearest,
dearest father, pity me and pardon me: I entreat you do not drive me to
despair; indeed I must not be repulsed; there is one thing that which [sic]
although it may torture me to know, yet that you must tell me. I demand, and
most solemnly I demand if in any way I am the cause of your unhappiness. Do=
you
not see my tears which I in vain strive against--You hear unmoved my voice
broken by sobs--Feel how my hand trembles: my whole heart is in the words I
speak and you must not endeavour to silence me by mere words barren of mean=
ing:
the agony of my doubt hurries me on, and you must reply. I beseech you; by =
your
former love for me now lost, I adjure you to answer that one question. Am I=
the
cause of your grief?"
He raised his eyes
from the ground, but still turning them away from me, said: "Besought =
by
that plea I will answer your rash question. Yes, you are the sole, the
agonizing cause of all I suffer, of all I must suffer untill I die. Now,
beware! Be silent! Do not urge me to your destruction. I am struck by the
storm, rooted up, laid waste: but you can stand against it; you are young a=
nd
your passions are at peace. One word I might speak and then you would be
implicated in my destruction; yet that word is hovering on my lips. Oh! The=
re
is a fearful chasm; but I adjure you to beware!"
"Ah, dearest
friend!" I cried, "do not fear! Speak that word; it will bring pe=
ace,
not death. If there is a chasm our mutual love will give us wings to pass i=
t,
and we shall find flowers, and verdure, and delight on the other side."=
; I
threw myself at his feet, and took his hand, "Yes, speak, and we shall=
be
happy; there will no longer be doubt, no dreadful uncertainty; trust me, my
affection will soothe your sorrow; speak that word and all danger will be p=
ast,
and we shall love each other as before, and for ever."
He snatched his h=
and
from me, and rose in violent disorder: "What do you mean? You know not
what you mean. Why do you bring me out, and torture me, and tempt me, and k=
ill
me--Much happier would [it] be for you and for me if in your frantic curios=
ity
you tore my heart from my breast and tried to read its secrets in it as its
life's blood was dropping from it. Thus you may console me by reducing me t=
o nothing--but
your words I cannot bear; soon they will make me mad, quite mad, and then I
shall utter strange words, and you will believe them, and we shall be both =
lost
for ever. I tell you I am on the very verge of insanity; why, cruel girl, do
you drive me on: you will repent and I shall die."
When I repeat his
words I wonder at my pertinacious folly; I hardly know what feelings
resis[t]lessly impelled me. I believe it was that coming out with a
determination not to be repulsed I went right forward to my object without =
well
weighing his replies: I was led by passion and drew him with frantic
heedlessness into the abyss that he so fearfully avoided--I replied to his
terrific words: "You fill me with affright it is true, dearest father,=
but
you only confirm my resolution to put an end to this state of doubt. I will=
not
be put off thus: do you think that I can live thus fearfully from day to
day--the sword in my bosom yet kept from its mortal wound by a hair--a word=
!--I
demand that dreadful word; though it be as a flash of lightning to destroy =
me,
speak it.
"Alas! Alas!
What am I become? But a few months have elapsed since I believed that I was=
all
the world to you; and that there was no happiness or grief for you on earth
unshared by your Mathilda--your child: that happy time is no longer, and wh=
at I
most dreaded in this world is come upon me. In the despair of my heart I see
what you cannot conceal: you no longer love me. I adjure you, my father, ha=
s not
an unnatural passion seized upon your heart? Am I not the most miserable wo=
rm
that crawls? Do I not embrace your knees, and you most cruelly repulse me? I
know it--I see it--you hate me!"
I was transported=
by
violent emotion, and rising from his feet, at which I had thrown myself, I
leant against a tree, wildly raising my eyes to heaven. He began to answer =
with
violence: "Yes, yes, I hate you! You are my bane, my poison, my disgus=
t!
Oh! No[!]" And then his manner changed, and fixing his eyes on me with=
an
expression that convulsed every nerve and member of my frame--"you are
none of all these; you are my light, my only one, my life.--My daughter, I =
love
you!" The last words died away in a hoarse whisper, but I heard them a=
nd
sunk on the ground, covering my face and almost dead with excess of sickness
and fear: a cold perspiration covered my forehead and I shivered in every
limb--But he continued, clasping his hands with a frantic gesture:
"Now I have
dashed from the top of the rock to the bottom! Now I have precipitated myse=
lf
down the fearful chasm! The danger is over; she is alive! Oh, Mathilda, lif=
t up
those dear eyes in the light of which I live. Let me hear the sweet tones of
your beloved voice in peace and calm. Monster as I am, you are still, as you
ever were, lovely, beautiful beyond expression. What I have become since th=
is
last moment I know not; perhaps I am changed in mien as the fallen archange=
l. I
do believe I am for I have surely a new soul within me, and my blood riots
through my veins: I am burnt up with fever. But these are precious moments;
devil as I am become, yet that is my Mathilda before me whom I love as one =
was
never before loved: and she knows it now; she listens to these words which I
thought, fool as I was, would blast her to death. Come, come, the worst is
past: no more grief, tears or despair; were not those the words you
uttered?--We have leapt the chasm I told you of, and now, mark me, Mathilda=
, we
are to find flowers, and verdure and delight, or is it hell, and fire, and =
tortures?
Oh! Beloved One, I am borne away; I can no longer sustain myself; surely th=
is
is death that is coming. Let me lay my head near your heart; let me die in =
your
arms!"--He sunk to the earth fainting, while I, nearly as lifeless, ga=
zed
on him in despair.
Yes it was despai=
r I
felt; for the first time that phantom seized me; the first and only time fo=
r it
has never since left me--After the first moments of speechless agony I felt=
her
fangs on my heart: I tore my hair; I raved aloud; at one moment in pity for=
his
sufferings I would have clasped my father in my arms; and then starting back
with horror I spurned him with my foot; I felt as if stung by a serpent, as=
if
scourged by a whip of scorpions which drove me--Ah! Whither--Whither?
Well, this could =
not
last. One idea rushed on my mind; never, never may I speak to him again. As
this terrible conviction came upon him [me?] it melted my soul to tenderness
and love--I gazed on him as to take my last farewell--he lay insensible--his
eyes closed as [and?] his cheeks deathly pale. Above, the leaves of the bee=
ch
wood cast a flickering shadow on his face, and waved in mournful melody ove=
r him--I
saw all these things and said, "Aye, this is his grave!" And then=
I
wept aloud, and raised my eyes to heaven to entreat for a respite to my des=
pair
and an alleviation for his unnatural suffering--the tears that gushed in a =
warm
& healing stream from my eyes relieved the burthen that oppressed my he=
art
almost to madness. I wept for a long time untill I saw him about to revive,
when horror and misery again recurred, and the tide of my sensations rolled
back to their former channel: with a terror I could not restrain--I sprung =
up and
fled, with winged speed, along the paths of the wood and across the fields
untill nearly dead I reached our house and just ordering the servants to se=
ek
my father at the spot I indicated, I shut myself up in my own room[.][33]
My chamber was in a retired part of=
the
house, and looked upon the garden so that no sound of the other inhabitants
could reach it; and here in perfect solitude I wept for several hours. When=
a
servant came to ask me if I would take food I learnt from him that my father
had returned, and was apparently well and this relieved me from a load of a=
nxiety,
yet I did not cease to weep bitterly. As [At] first, as the memory of former
happiness contrasted to my present despair came across me, I gave relief to=
the
oppression of heart that I felt by words, and groans, and heart rending sig=
hs:
but nature became wearied, and this more violent grief gave place to a
passionate but mute flood of tears: my whole soul seemed to dissolve [in] t=
hem.
I did not wring my hands, or tear my hair, or utter wild exclamations, but =
as
Boccacio describes the intense and quiet grief [of] Sigismunda over the hea=
rt of
Guiscardo,[34] I sat with my hands folded, silently letting fall a perpetual
stream from my eyes. Such was the depth of my emotion that I had no feeling=
of
what caused my distress, my thoughts even wandered to many indifferent obje=
cts;
but still neither moving limb or feature my tears fell untill, as if the
fountains were exhausted, they gradually subsided, and I awoke to life as f=
rom
a dream.
When I had ceased=
to
weep reason and memory returned upon me, and I began to reflect with greater
calmness on what had happened, and how it became me to act--A few hours only
had passed but a mighty revolution had taken place with regard to me--the
natural work of years had been transacted since the morning: my father was =
as
dead to me, and I felt for a moment as if he with white hairs were laid in =
his coffin
and I--youth vanished in approaching age, were weeping at his timely
dissolution. But it was not so, I was yet young, Oh! far too young, nor was=
he dead
to others; but I, most miserable, must never see or speak to him again. I m=
ust
fly from him with more earnestness than from my greatest enemy: in solitude=
or
in cities I must never more behold him. That consideration made me breathle=
ss
with anguish, and impressing itself on my imagination I was unable for a ti=
me
to follow up any train of ideas. Ever after this, I thought, I would live in
the most dreary seclusion. I would retire to the Continent and become a nun;
not for religion's sake, for I was not a Catholic, but that I might be for =
ever
shut out from the world. I should there find solitude where I might weep, a=
nd
the voices of life might never reach me.
But my father; my
beloved and most wretched father? Would he die? Would he never overcome the=
fierce
passion that now held pityless dominion over him? Might he not many, many y=
ears
hence, when age had quenched the burning sensations that he now experienced,
might he not then be again a father to me? This reflection unwrinkled my br=
ow,
and I could feel (and I wept to feel it) a half melancholy smile draw from =
my
lips their expression of suffering: I dared indulge better hopes for my fut=
ure
life; years must pass but they would speed lightly away winged by hope, or =
if
they passed heavily, still they would pass and I had not lost my father for
ever. Let him spend another sixteen years of desolate wandering: let him on=
ce
more utter his wild complaints to the vast woods and the tremendous catarac=
ts
of another clime: let him again undergo fearful danger and soul-quelling
hardships: let the hot sun of the south again burn his passion worn cheeks =
and
the cold night rains fall on him and chill his blood.
To this life,
miserable father, I devote thee!--Go!--Be thy days passed with savages, and=
thy
nights under the cope of heaven! Be thy limbs worn and thy heart chilled, a=
nd
all youth be dead within thee! Let thy hairs be as snow; thy walk trembling=
and
thy voice have lost its mellow tones! Let the liquid lustre of thine eyes be
quenched; and then return to me, return to thy Mathilda, thy child, who may
then be clasped in thy loved arms, while thy heart beats with sinless emoti=
on. Go,
Devoted One, and return thus!--This is my curse, a daughter's curse: go, and
return pure to thy child, who will never love aught but thee.
These were my
thoughts; and with trembling hands I prepared to begin a letter to my unhap=
py
parent. I had now spent many hours in tears and mournful meditation; it was
past twelve o'clock; all was at peace in the house, and the gentle air that
stole in at my window did not rustle the leaves of the twining plants that
shadowed it. I felt the entire tranquillity of the hour when my own breath =
and
involuntary sobs were all the sounds that struck upon the air. On a sudden I
heard a gentle step ascending the stairs; I paused breathless, and as it ap=
proached
glided into an obscure corner of the room; the steps paused at my door, but
after a few moments they again receeded[,] descended the stairs and I heard=
no
more.
This slight incid=
ent
gave rise in me to the most painful reflections; nor do I now dare express =
the
emotions I felt. That he should be restless I understood; that he should wa=
nder
as an unlaid ghost and find no quiet from the burning hell that consumed his
heart. But why approach my chamber? Was not that sacred? I felt almost read=
y to
faint while he had stood there, but I had not betrayed my wakefulness by th=
e slightest
motion, although I had heard my own heart beat with violent fear. He had
withdrawn. Oh, never, never, may I see him again! Tomorrow night the same r=
oof
may not cover us; he or I must depart. The mutual link of our destinies is
broken; we must be divided by seas--by land. The stars and the sun must not
rise at the same period to us: he must not say, looking at the setting cres=
cent
of the moon, "Mathilda now watches its fall."--No, all must be
changed. Be it light with him when it is darkness with me! Let him feel the=
sun
of summer while I am chilled by the snows of winter! Let there be the dista=
nce of
the antipodes between us!
At length the east
began to brighten, and the comfortable light of morning streamed into my ro=
om.
I was weary with watching and for some time I had combated with the heavy s=
leep
that weighed down my eyelids: but now, no longer fearful, I threw myself on=
my
bed. I sought for repose although I did not hope for forgetfulness; I knew I
should be pursued by dreams, but did not dread the frightful one that I rea=
lly had.
I thought that I had risen and went to seek my father to inform him of my
determination to seperate myself from him. I sought him in the house, in the
park, and then in the fields and the woods, but I could not find him. At le=
ngth
I saw him at some distance, seated under a tree, and when he perceived me he
waved his hand several times, beckoning me to approach; there was something
unearthly in his mien that awed and chilled me, but I drew near. When at [a]
short distance from him I saw that he was deadlily [sic] pale, and clothed =
in flowing
garments of white. Suddenly he started up and fled from me; I pursued him: =
we
sped over the fields, and by the skirts of woods, and on the banks of river=
s;
he flew fast and I followed. We came at last, methought, to the brow of a h=
uge
cliff that over hung the sea which, troubled by the winds, dashed against i=
ts
base at a distance. I heard the roar of the waters: he held his course righ=
t on
towards the brink and I became breathless with fear lest he should plunge d=
own
the dreadful precipice; I tried to augment my speed, but my knees failed be=
neath
me, yet I had just reached him; just caught a part of his flowing robe, whe=
n he
leapt down and I awoke with a violent scream. I was trembling and my pillow=
was
wet with my tears; for a few moments my heart beat hard, but the bright bea=
ms
of the sun and the chirping of the birds quickly restored me to myself, and=
I
rose with a languid spirit, yet wondering what events the day would bring
forth. Some time passed before I summoned courage to ring the bell for my
servant, and when she came I still dared not utter my father's name. I orde=
red
her to bring my breakfast to my room, and was again left alone--yet still I
could make no resolve, but only thought that I might write a note to my fat=
her
to beg his permission to pay a visit to a relation who lived about thirty m=
iles
off, and who had before invited me to her house, but I had refused for then=
I
could not quit my suffering father. When the servant came back she gave me a
letter.
"From whom is
this letter[?]" I asked trembling.
"Your father
left it, madam, with his servant, to be given to you when you should
rise."
"My father l=
eft
it! Where is he? Is he not here?"
"No; he quit=
ted
the house before four this morning."
"Good God! H=
e is
gone! But tell how this was; speak quick!"
Her relation was
short. He had gone in the carriage to the nearest town where he took a post
chaise and horses with orders for the London road. He dismissed his servants
there, only telling them that he had a sudden call of business and that they
were to obey me as their mistress untill his return.
With a beating heart and fearful, I=
knew
not why, I dismissed the servant and locking my door, sat down to read my
father's letter. These are the words that it contained.
"My dear Chi=
ld
"I have betr=
ayed
your confidence; I have endeavoured to pollute your mind, and have made your
innocent heart acquainted with the looks and language of unlawful and monst=
rous
passion. I must expiate these crimes, and must endeavour in some degree to
proportionate my punishment to my guilt. You are I doubt not prepared for w=
hat
I am about to announce; we must seperate and be divided for ever.
"I deprive y=
ou
of your parent and only friend. You are cast out shelterless on the world: =
your
hopes are blasted; the peace and security of your pure mind destroyed; memo=
ry
will bring to you frightful images of guilt, and the anguish of innocent lo=
ve
betrayed. Yet I who draw down all this misery upon you; I who cast you forth
and remorselessly have set the seal of distrust and agony on the heart and =
brow
of my own child, who with devilish levity have endeavoured to steal away her
loveliness to place in its stead the foul deformity of sin; I, in the
overflowing anguish of my heart, supplicate you to forgive me.
"I do not ask
your pity; you must and do abhor me: but pardon me, Mathilda, and let not y=
our
thoughts follow me in my banishment with unrelenting anger. I must never mo=
re
behold you; never more hear your voice; but the soft whisperings of your
forgiveness will reach me and cool the burning of my disordered brain and
heart; I am sure I should feel it even in my grave. And I dare enforce this
request by relating how miserably I was betrayed into this net of fiery ang=
uish
and all my struggles to release myself: indeed if your soul were less pure =
and bright
I would not attempt to exculpate myself to you; I should fear that if I led=
you
to regard me with less abhorrence you might hate vice less: but in addressi=
ng
you I feel as if I appealed to an angelic judge. I cannot depart without yo=
ur
forgiveness and I must endeavour to gain it, or I must despair.[35] I conju=
re
you therefore to listen to my words, and if with the good guilt may be in a=
ny
degree extenuated by sharp agony, and remorse that rends the brain as madne=
ss perhaps
you may think, though I dare not, that I have some claim to your compassion=
.
"I entreat y=
ou
to call to your remembrance our first happy life on the shores of Loch Lomo=
nd.
I had arrived from a weary wandering of sixteen years, during which, althou=
gh I
had gone through many dangers and misfortunes, my affections had been an en=
tire
blank. If I grieved it was for your mother, if I loved it was your image; t=
hese
sole emotions filled my heart in quietness. The human creatures around me
excited in me no sympathy and I thought that the mighty change that the dea=
th
of your mother had wrought within me had rendered me callous to any future
impression. I saw the lovely and I did not love, I imagined therefore that =
all
warmth was extinguished in my heart except that which led me ever to dwell =
on
your then infantine image.
"It is a str=
ange
link in my fate that without having seen you I should passionately love you.
During my wanderings I never slept without first calling down gentle dreams=
on
your head. If I saw a lovely woman, I thought, does my Mathilda resemble he=
r?
All delightful things, sublime scenery, soft breezes, exquisite music seeme=
d to
me associated with you and only through you to be pleasant to me. At length=
I
saw you. You appeared as the deity of a lovely region, the ministering Ange=
l of
a Paradise to which of all human kind you admitted only me. I dared hardly
consider you as my daughter; your beauty, artlessness and untaught wisdom
seemed to belong to a higher order of beings; your voice breathed forth only
words of love: if there was aught of earthly in you it was only what you
derived from the beauty of the world; you seemed to have gained a grace from
the mountain breezes--the waterfalls and the lake; and this was all of eart=
hly
except your affections that you had; there was no dross, no bad feeling in =
the
composition. You yet even have not seen enough[36] of the world to know the
stupendous difference that exists between the women we meet in dayly life a=
nd a
nymph of the woods such as you were, in whose eyes alone mankind may study =
for
centuries & grow wiser & purer. Those divine lights which shone on =
me
as did those of Beatrice upon Dante, and well might I say with him yet with
what different feelings
E quasi mi perdei gli =
occhi
chini.
Can you wonder,
Mathilda, that I dwelt on your looks, your words, your motions, & drank=
in
unmixed delight?
["]But I am afraid that I wander from my purpose. I must be more brief for night draws = on apace and all my hours in this house are counted. Well, we removed to Londo= n, and still I felt only the peace of sinless passion. You were ever with me, = and I desired no more than to gaze on your countenance, and to know that I was = all the world to you; I was lapped in a fool's paradise of enjoyment and securi= ty. Was my love blamable? If it was I was ignorant of it; I desired only that w= hich I possessed, and if I enjoyed from your looks, and words, and most innocent caresses a rapture usually excluded from the feelings of a parent towards h= is child, yet no uneasiness, no wish, no casual idea awoke me to a sense of gu= ilt. I loved you as a human father might be supposed to love a daughter borne to= him by a heavenly mother; as Anchises might have regarded the child of Venus if= the sex had been changed; love mingled with respect and adoration. Perhaps also= my passion was lulled to content by the deep and exclusive affection you felt for me.<= o:p>
"But when I =
saw
you become the object of another's love; when I imagined that you might be
loved otherwise than as a sacred type and image of loveliness and excellenc=
e;
or that you might love another with a more ardent affection than that which=
you
bore to me, then the fiend awoke within me; I dismissed your lover; and from
that moment I have known no peace. I have sought in vain for sleep and rest=
; my
lids refused to close, and my blood was for ever in a tumult. I awoke to a =
new
life as one who dies in hope might wake in Hell. I will not sully your
imagination by recounting my combats, my self-anger and my despair. Let a v=
eil
be drawn over the unimaginable sensations of a guilty father; the secrets o=
f so
agonized a heart may not be made vulgar. All was uproar, crime, remorse and
hate, yet still the tenderest love; and what first awoke me to the firm res=
olve
of conquering my passion and of restoring her father to my child was the si=
ght
of your bitter and sympathizing sorrows. It was this that led me here: I
thought that if I could again awaken in my heart the grief I had felt at the
loss of your mother, and the many associations with her memory which had be=
en
laid to sleep for seventeen years, that all love for her child would become
extinct. In a fit of heroism I determined to go alone; to quit you, the lif=
e of
my life, and not to see you again untill I might guiltlessly. But it would =
not
do: I rated my fortitude too high, or my love too low. I should certainly h=
ave died
if you had not hastened to me. Would that I had been indeed extinguished!
"And now,
Mathilda I must make you my last confession. I have been miserably mistaken=
in
imagining that I could conquer my love for you; I never can. The sight of t=
his
house, these fields and woods which my first love inhabited seems to have
encreased it: in my madness I dared say to myself--Diana died to give her
birth; her mother's spirit was transferred into her frame, and she ought to=
be
as Diana to me.[37] With every effort to cast it off, this love clings clos=
er,
this guilty love more unnatural than hate, that withers your hopes and dest=
roys
me for ever.
Better have loved desp=
air,
& safer kissed her.
No time or space =
can
tear from my soul that which makes a part of it. Since my arrival here I ha=
ve
not for a moment ceased to feel the hell of passion which has been implante=
d in
me to burn untill all be cold, and stiff, and dead. Yet I will not die; ala=
s!
how dare I go where I may meet Diana, when I have disobeyed her last reques=
t;
her last words said in a faint voice when all feeling but love, which survi=
ves
all things else was already dead, she then bade me make her child happy: th=
at
thought alone gives a double sting to death. I will wander away from you, a=
way
from all life--in the solitude I shall seek I alone shall breathe of human
kind. I must endure life; and as it is my duty so I shall untill the grave
dreaded yet desired, receive me free from pain: for while I feel it will be
pain that must make up the whole sum of my sensations. Is not this a fearful
curse that I labour under? Do I not look forward to a miserable future? My
child, if after this life I am permitted to see you again, if pain can puri=
fy
the heart, mine will be pure: if remorse may expiate guilt, I shall be
guiltless.
*
["]I have be=
en
at the door of your chamber: every thing is silent. You sleep. Do you indeed
sleep, Mathilda? Spirits of Good, behold the tears of my earnest prayer! Bl=
ess
my child! Protect her from the selfish among her fellow creatures: protect =
her
from the agonies of passion, and the despair of disappointment! Peace, Hope=
and
Love be thy guardians, oh, thou soul of my soul: thou in whom I breathe!
*
["]I dare not
read my letter over for I have no time to write another, and yet I fear that
some expressions in it might displease me. Since I last saw you I have been
constantly employed in writing letters, and have several more to write; for=
I
do not intend that any one shall hear of me after I depart. I need not conj=
ure
you to look upon me as one of whom all links that once existed between us a=
re
broken. Your own delicacy will not allow you, I am convinced, to attempt to
trace me. It is far better for your peace that you should be ignorant of my=
destination.
You will not follow me, for when I bannish myself would you nourish guilt by
obtruding yourself upon me? You will not do this, I know you will not. You =
must
forget me and all the evil that I have taught you. Cast off the only gift t=
hat
I have bestowed upon you, your grief, and rise from under my blighting
influence as no flower so sweet ever did rise from beneath so much evil.
"You will ne=
ver
hear from me again: receive these then as the last words of mine that will =
ever
reach you; and although I have forfeited your filial love, yet regard them I
conjure you as a father's command. Resolutely shake of[f] the wretchedness =
that
this first misfortune in early life must occasion you. Bear boldly up again=
st
the storm: continue wise and mild, but believe it, and indeed it is, your d=
uty
to be happy. You are very young; let not this check for more than a moment
retard your glorious course; hold on, beloved one. The sun of youth is not =
set
for you; it will restore vigour and life to you; do not resist with obstina=
te
grief its beneficent influence, oh, my child! bless me with the hope that I
have not utterly destroyed you.
"Farewell,
Mathilda. I go with the belief that I have your pardon. Your gentle nature
would not permit you to hate your greatest enemy and though I be he, althou=
gh I
have rent happiness from your grasp;[38] though I have passed over your you=
ng
love and hopes as the angel of destruction, finding beauty and joy, and lea=
ving
blight and despair, yet you will forgive me, and with eyes overflowing with=
tears
I thank you; my beloved one, I accept your pardon with a gratitude that will
never die, and that will, indeed it will, outlive guilt and remorse.
"Farewell for
ever!"
The moment I fini=
shed
this letter I ordered the carriage and prepared to follow my father. The wo=
rds
of his letter by which he had dissuaded me from this step were those that
determined me. Why did he write them? He must know that if I believed that =
his
intention was merely to absent himself from me that instead of opposing him=
it
would be that which I should myself require--or if he thought that any lurk=
ing feeling,
yet he could not think that, should lead me to him would he endeavour to
overthrow the only hope he could have of ever seeing me again; a lover, the=
re
was madness in the thought, yet he was my lover, would not act thus. No, he=
had
determined to die, and he wished to spare me the misery of knowing it. The =
few
ineffectual words he had said concerning his duty were to me a further
proof--and the more I studied the letter the more did I perceive a thousand
slight expressions that could only indicate a knowledge that life was now o=
ver
for him. He was about to die! My blood froze at the thought: a sickening
feeling of horror came over me that allowed not of tears. As I waited for t=
he
carriage I walked up and down with a quick pace; then kneeling and passiona=
tely
clasping my hands I tried to pray but my voice was choked by convulsive
sobs--Oh the sun shone[,] the air was balmy--he must yet live for if he were
dead all would surely be black as night to me![39]
The motion of the
carriage knowing that it carried me towards him and that I might perhaps fi=
nd
him alive somewhat revived my courage: yet I had a dreadful ride. Hope only
supported me, the hope that I should not be too late[.] I did not weep, but=
I
wiped the perspiration from my brow, and tried to still my brain and heart
beating almost to madness. Oh! I must not be mad when I see him; or perhaps=
it
were as well that I should be, my distraction might calm his, and recall hi=
m to
the endurance of life. Yet untill I find him I must force reason to keep her
seat, and I pressed my forehead hard with my hands--Oh do not leave me; or I
shall forget what I am about--instead of driving on as we ought with the sp=
eed
of lightning they will attend to me, and we shall be too late. Oh! God help=
me!
Let him be alive! It is all dark; in my abject misery I demand no more: no
hope, no good: only passion, and guilt, and horror; but alive! Alive! My
sensations choked me--No tears fell yet I sobbed, and breathed short and ha=
rd;
one only thought possessed me, and I could only utter one word, that half
screaming was perpetually on my lips; Alive! Alive!--
I had taken the
steward[40] with me for he, much better than I[,] could make the requisite
enquiries--the poor old man could not restrain his tears as he saw my deep
distress and knew the cause--he sometimes uttered a few broken words of
consolation: in moments like these the mistress and servant become in a man=
ner
equals and when I saw his old dim eyes wet with sympathizing tears; his gray
hair thinly scattered on an age-wrinkled brow I thought oh if my father wer=
e as
he is--decrepid & hoary--then I should be spared this pain--
When I had arrive=
d at
the nearest town I took post horses and followed the road my father had tak=
en.
At every inn where we changed horses we heard of him, and I was possessed by
alternate hope and fear. A length I found that he had altered his route; at
first he had followed the London road; but now he changed it, and upon enqu=
iry
I found that the one which he now pursued led towards the sea. My dream
recurred to my thoughts; I was not usually superstitious but in wretchedness
every one is so. The sea was fifty miles off, yet it was towards it that he=
fled.
The idea was terrible to my half crazed imagination, and almost over-turned=
the
little self possession that still remained to me. I journied all day; every
moment my misery encreased and the fever of my blood became intolerable. The
summer sun shone in an unclouded sky; the air was close but all was cool to=
me
except my own scorching skin. Towards evening dark thunder clouds arose abo=
ve
the horrizon and I heard its distant roll--after sunset they darkened the w=
hole
sky and it began to rain[,] the lightning lighted up the whole country and =
the thunder
drowned the noise of our carriage. At the next inn my father had not taken
horses; he had left a box there saying he would return, and had walked over=
the
fields to the town of ---- a seacost town eight miles off.
For a moment I was
almost paralized by fear; but my energy returned and I demanded a guide to
accompany me in following his steps. The night was tempestuous but my bribe=
was
high and I easily procured a countryman. We passed through many lanes and o=
ver
fields and wild downs; the rain poured down in torrents; and the loud thund=
er
broke in terrible crashes over our heads. Oh! What a night it was! And I pa=
ssed
on with quick steps among the high, dank grass amid the rain and tempest. My
dream was for ever in my thoughts, and with a kind of half insanity that of=
ten
possesses the mind in despair, I said aloud; "Courage! We are not near=
the
sea; we are yet several miles from the ocean"--Yet it was towards the =
sea
that our direction lay and that heightened the confusion of my ideas. Once,
overcome by fatigue, I sunk on the wet earth; about two hundred yards dista=
nt,
alone in a large meadow stood a magnificent oak; the lightnings shewed its
myriad boughs torn by the storm. A strange idea seized me; a person must ha=
ve felt
all the agonies of doubt concerning the life and death of one who is the wh=
ole
world to them before they can enter into my feelings--for in that state, the
mind working unrestrained by the will makes strange and fanciful combinatio=
ns
with outward circumstances and weaves the chances and changes of nature int=
o an
immediate connexion with the event they dread. It was with this feeling tha=
t I
turned to the old Steward who stood pale and trembling beside me; "Mar=
k, Gaspar,
if the next flash of lightning rend not that oak my father will be alive.&q=
uot;
I had scarcely
uttered these words than a flash instantly followed by a tremendous peal of
thunder descended on it; and when my eyes recovered their sight after the
dazzling light, the oak no longer stood in the meadow--The old man uttered a
wild exclamation of horror when he saw so sudden an interpretation given to=
my
prophesy. I started up, my strength returned; [sic] with my terror; I cried=
, "Oh,
God! Is this thy decree? Yet perhaps I shall not be too late."
Although still
several miles distant we continued to approach the sea. We came at last to =
the
road that led to the town of----and at an inn there we heard that my father=
had
passed by somewhat before sunset; he had observed the approaching storm and=
had
hired a horse for the next town which was situated a mile from the sea that=
he
might arrive there before it should commence: this town was five miles off.=
We
hired a chaise here, and with four horses drove with speed through the stor=
m. My
garments were wet and clung around me, and my hair hung in straight locks o=
n my
neck when not blown aside by the wind. I shivered, yet my pulse was high wi=
th
fever. Great God! What agony I endured. I shed no tears but my eyes wild an=
d inflamed
were starting from my head; I could hardly support the weight that pressed =
upon
my brain. We arrived at the town of ---- in a little more than half an hour.
When my father had arrived the storm had already begun, but he had refused =
to
stop and leaving his horse there he walked on--towards the sea. Alas! it was
double cruelty in him to have chosen the sea for his fatal resolve; it was
adding madness to my despair.[41]
The poor old serv=
ant
who was with me endeavoured to persuade me to remain here and to let him go
alone--I shook my head silently and sadly; sick almost to death I leant upon
his arm, and as there was no road for a chaise dragged my weary steps across
the desolate downs to meet my fate, now too certain for the agony of doubt.
Almost fainting I slowly approached the fatal waters; when we had quitted t=
he
town we heard their roaring[.] I whispered to myself in a muttering voice--=
"The
sound is the same as that which I heard in my dream. It is the knell of my
father which I hear."[42]
The rain had ceas=
ed;
there was no more thunder and lightning; the wind had paused. My heart no
longer beat wildly; I did not feel any fever: but I was chilled; my knees s=
unk
under me--I almost slept as I walked with excess of weariness; every limb
trembled. I was silent: all was silent except the roaring of the sea which
became louder and more dreadful. Yet we advanced slowly: sometimes I thought
that we should never arrive; that the sound of waves would still allure us,=
and
that we should walk on for ever and ever: field succeeding field, never wou=
ld
our weary journey cease, nor night nor day; but still we should hear the
dashing of the sea, and to all this there would be no end. Wild beyond the
imagination of the happy are the thoughts bred by misery and despair.
At length we reac=
hed
the overhanging beach; a cottage stood beside the path; we knocked at the d=
oor
and it was opened: the bed within instantly caught my eye; something stiff =
and
straight lay on it, covered by a sheet; the cottagers looked aghast. The fi=
rst
words that they uttered confirmed what I before knew. I did not feel shocke=
d or
overcome: I believe that I asked one or two questions and listened to the
answers. I har[d]ly know, but in a few moments I sank lifeless to the groun=
d;
and so would that then all had been at an end!
I was carried to the next town: fev= er succeeded to convulsions and faintings, & for some weeks my unhappy spi= rit hovered on the very verge of death. But life was yet strong within me; I recovered: nor did it a little aid my returning health that my recollections were at first vague, and that I was too weak to feel any violent emotion. I= often said to myself, my father is dead. He loved me with a guilty passion, and s= tung by remorse and despair he killed himself. Why is it that I feel no horror? = Are these circumstances not dreadful? Is it not enough that I shall never more = meet the eyes of my beloved father; never more hear his voice; no caress, no loo= k? All cold, and stiff, and dead! Alas! I am quite callous: the night I was ou= t in was fearful and the cold rain that fell about my heart has acted like the waters of the cavern of Antiparos[43] and has changed it to stone. I do not= weep or sigh; but I must reason with myself, and force myself to feel sorrow and despair. This is not resignation that I feel, for I am dead to all regret.<= o:p>
I communed in this
manner with myself, but I was silent to all around me. I hardly replied to =
the
slightest question, and was uneasy when I saw a human creature near me. I w=
as
surrounded by my female relations, but they were all of them nearly strange=
rs
to me: I did not listen to their consolations; and so little did they work
their designed effect that they seemed to me to be spoken in an unknown ton=
gue.
I found if sorrow was dead within me, so was love and desire of sympathy. Y=
et sorrow
only slept to revive more fierce, but love never woke again--its ghost, ever
hovering over my father's grave, alone survived--since his death all the wo=
rld
was to me a blank except where woe had stampt its burning words telling me =
to
smile no more--the living were not fit companions for me, and I was ever
meditating by what means I might shake them all off, and never be heard of
again.
My convalescence
rapidly advanced, yet this was the thought that haunted me, and I was for e=
ver
forming plans how I might hereafter contrive to escape the tortures that we=
re
prepared for me when I should mix in society, and to find that solitude whi=
ch
alone could suit one whom an untold grief seperated from her fellow creatur=
es. Who
can be more solitary even in a crowd than one whose history and the never
ending feelings and remembrances arising from it is [sic] known to no living
soul. There was too deep a horror in my tale for confidence; I was on earth=
the
sole depository of my own secret. I might tell it to the winds and to the
desart heaths but I must never among my fellow creatures, either by word or
look give allowance to the smallest conjecture of the dread reality: I must
shrink before the eye of man lest he should read my father's guilt in my gl=
azed
eyes: I must be silent lest my faltering voice should betray unimagined hor=
rors.
Over the deep grave of my secret I must heap an impenetrable heap of false
smiles and words: cunning frauds, treacherous laughter and a mixture of all
light deceits would form a mist to blind others and be as the poisonous sim=
oon
to me.[44] I, the offspring of love, the child of the woods, the nursling of
Nature's bright self was to submit to this? I dared not.
How must I escape= ? I was rich and young, and had a guardian appointed for me; and all about me w= ould act as if I were one of their great society, while I must keep the secret t= hat I really was cut off from them for ever. If I fled I should be pursued; in = life there was no escape for me: why then I must die. I shuddered; I dared not d= ie even though the cold grave held all I loved; although I might say with Job<= o:p>
Where is now my hope? =
For my
hope who shall see it?
They shall go down tog=
ether
to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is =
in the
dust--[45]
Yes my hope was
corruption and dust and all to which death brings us.--Or after life--No, n=
o, I
will not persuade myself to die, I may not, dare not. And then I wept; yes,
warm tears once more struggled into my eyes soothing yet bitter; and after I
had wept much and called with unavailing anguish, with outstretched arms, f=
or
my cruel father; after my weak frame was exhausted by all variety of plaint=
I
sank once more into reverie, and once more reflected on how I might find th=
at which
I most desired; dear to me if aught were dear, a death-like solitude.
I dared not die, =
but
I might feign death, and thus escape from my comforters: they will believe =
me
united to my father, and so indeed I shall be. For alone, when no voice can=
disturb
my dream, and no cold eye meet mine to check its fire, then I may commune w=
ith
his spirit; on a lone heath, at noon or at midnight, still I should be near
him. His last injunction to me was that I should be happy; perhaps he did n=
ot
mean the shadowy happiness that I promised myself, yet it was that alone wh=
ich
I could taste. He did not conceive that ever [qu. never?] again I could make
one of the smiling hunters that go coursing after bubles that break to noth=
ing
when caught, and then after a new one with brighter colours; my hope also h=
ad
proved a buble, but it had been so lovely, so adorned that I saw none that =
could
attract me after it; besides I was wearied with the pursuit, nearly dead wi=
th
weariness.
I would feign to =
die;
my contented heirs would seize upon my wealth, and I should purchase freedo=
m.
But then my plan must be laid with art; I would not be left destitute, I mu=
st
secure some money. Alas! to what loathsome shifts must I be driven? Yet a w=
hole
life of falsehood was otherwise my portion: and when remorse at being the
contriver of any cheat made me shrink from my design I was irresistably led
back and confirmed in it by the visit of some aunt or cousin, who would tel=
l me
that death was the end of all men. And then say that my father had surely l=
ost
his wits ever since my mother's death; that he was mad and that I was
fortunate, for in one of his fits he might have killed me instead of destro=
ying
his own crazed being. And all this, to be sure, was delicately put; not in
broad words for my feelings might be hurt but
Whispered so and so In dark hint soft=
and
low[E][46]
with downcast eye=
s,
and sympathizing smiles or whimpers; and I listened with quiet countenance
while every nerve trembled; I that dared not utter aye or no to all this bl=
asphemy.
Oh, this was a delicious life quite void of guile! I with my dove's look and
fox's heart: for indeed I felt only the degradation of falsehood, and not a=
ny
sacred sentiment of conscious innocence that might redeem it. I who had bef=
ore
clothed myself in the bright garb of sincerity must now borrow one of divers
colours: it might sit awkwardly at first, but use would enable me to place =
it
in elegant folds, to lie with grace. Aye, I might die my soul with falsehood
untill I had quite hid its native colour. Oh, beloved father! Accept the pu=
re
heart of your unhappy daughter; permit me to join you unspotted as I was or=
you
will not recognize my altered semblance. As grief might change Constance[47=
] so
would deceit change me untill in heaven you would say, "This is not my=
child"--My
father, to be happy both now and when again we meet I must fly from all this
life which is mockery to one like me. In solitude only shall I be myself; in
solitude I shall be thine.
Alas! I even now =
look
back with disgust at my artifices and contrivances by which, after many pai=
nful
struggles, I effected my retreat. I might enter into a long detail of the m=
eans
I used, first to secure myself a slight maintenance for the remainder of my
life, and afterwards to ensure the conviction of my death: I might, but I w=
ill
not. I even now blush at the falsehoods I uttered; my heart sickens: I will
leave this complication of what I hope I may in a manner call innocent dece=
it
to be imagined by the reader. The remembrance haunts me like a crime--I know
that if I were to endeavour to relate it my tale would at length remain
unfinished.[48] I was led to London, and had to endure for some weeks cold
looks, cold words and colder consolations: but I escaped; they tried to bin=
d me
with fetters that they thought silken, yet which weighed on me like iron,
although I broke them more easily than a girth formed of a single straw and=
fled
to freedom.
The few weeks tha=
t I
spent in London were the most miserable of my life: a great city is a frigh=
tful
habitation to one sorrowing. The sunset and the gentle moon, the blessed mo=
tion
of the leaves and the murmuring of waters are all sweet physicians to a
distempered mind. The soul is expanded and drinks in quiet, a lulling
medecine--to me it was as the sight of the lovely water snakes to the bewit=
ched
mariner--in loving and blessing Nature I unawares, called down a blessing o=
n my
own soul. But in a city all is closed shut like a prison, a wiry prison from
which you can peep at the sky only. I can not describe to you what were [si=
c]
the frantic nature of my sensations while I resided there; I was often on t=
he
verge of madness. Nay, when I look back on many of my wild thoughts, though=
ts
with which actions sometimes endeavoured to keep pace; when I tossed my han=
ds high
calling down the cope of heaven to fall on me and bury me; when I tore my h=
air
and throwing it to the winds cried, "Ye are free, go seek my father!&q=
uot;
And then, like the unfortunate Constance, catching at them again and tying =
them
up, that nought might find him if I might not. How, on my knees I have fanc=
ied
myself close to my father's grave and struck the ground in anger that it sh=
ould
cover him from me. Oft when I have listened with gasping attention for the
sound of the ocean mingled with my father's groans; and then wept untill my
strength was gone and I was calm and faint, when I have recollected all thi=
s I
have asked myself if this were not madness. While in London these and many =
other
dreadful thoughts too harrowing for words were my portion: I lost all this
suffering when I was free; when I saw the wild heath around me, and the eve=
ning
star in the west, then I could weep, gently weep, and be at peace.
Do not mistake me=
; I
never was really mad. I was always conscious of my state when my wild thoug=
hts seemed
to drive me to insanity, and never betrayed them to aught but silence and
solitude. The people around me saw nothing of all this. They only saw a poor
girl broken in spirit, who spoke in a low and gentle voice, and from undern=
eath
whose downcast lids tears would sometimes steal which she strove to hide. O=
ne
who loved to be alone, and shrunk from observation; who never smiled; oh, n=
o! I
never smiled--and that was all.
Well, I escaped. I
left my guardian's house and I was never heard of again; it was believed fr=
om
the letters that I left and other circumstances that I planned that I had
destroyed myself. I was sought after therefore with less care than would
otherwise have been the case; and soon all trace and memory of me was lost.=
I
left London in a small vessel bound for a port in the north of England. And=
now
having succeeded in my attempt, and being quite alone peace returned to me.=
The
sea was calm and the vessel moved gently onwards, I sat upon deck under the
open canopy of heaven and methought I was an altered creature. Not the wild,
raving & most miserable Mathilda but a youthful Hermitess dedicated to
seclusion and whose bosom she must strive to keep free from all tumult and
unholy despair--The fanciful nunlike dress that I had adopted;[49] the
knowledge that my very existence was a secret known only to myself; the
solitude to which I was for ever hereafter destined nursed gentle thoughts =
in
my wounded heart. The breeze that played in my hair revived me, and I watch=
ed with
quiet eyes the sunbeams that glittered on the waves, and the birds that cou=
rsed
each other over the waters just brushing them with their plumes. I slept too
undisturbed by dreams; and awoke refreshed to again enjoy my tranquil freed=
om.
In four days we
arrived at the harbour to which we were bound. I would not remain on the sea
coast, but proceeded immediately inland. I had already planned the situation
where I would live. It should be a solitary house on a wide plain near no o=
ther
habitation: where I could behold the whole horizon, and wander far without
molestation from the sight of my fellow creatures. I was not mysanthropic, =
but
I felt that the gentle current of my feelings depended upon my being alone.=
I fixed
myself on a wide solitude. On a dreary heath bestrewen with stones, among w=
hich
short grass grew; and here and there a few rushes beside a little pool. Not=
far
from my cottage was a small cluster of pines the only trees to be seen for =
many
miles: I had a path cut through the furze from my door to this little wood,
from whose topmost branches the birds saluted the rising sun and awoke me t=
o my
daily meditation. My view was bounded only by the horizon except on one sid=
e where
a distant wood made a black spot on the heath, that every where else stretc=
hed
out its faint hues as far as the eye could reach, wide and very desolate. H=
ere
I could mark the net work of the clouds as they wove themselves into thick
masses: I could watch the slow rise of the heavy thunder clouds and could s=
ee
the rack as it was driven across the heavens, or under the pine trees I cou=
ld
enjoy the stillness of the azure sky.
My life was very
peaceful. I had one female servant who spent the greater part of the day at=
a
village two miles off. My amusements were simple and very innocent; I fed t=
he
birds who built on the pines or among the ivy that covered the wall of my
little garden, and they soon knew me: the bolder ones pecked the crumbs fro=
m my
hands and perched on my fingers to sing their thankfulness. When I had lived
here some time other animals visited me and a fox came every day for a port=
ion of
food appropriated for him & would suffer me to pat his head. I had besi=
des
many books and a harp with which when despairing I could soothe my spirits,=
and
raise myself to sympathy and love.
Love! What had I =
to
love? Oh many things: there was the moonshine, and the bright stars; the
breezes and the refreshing rains; there was the whole earth and the sky that
covers it: all lovely forms that visited my imagination[,] all memories of
heroism and virtue. Yet this was very unlike my early life although as then=
I
was confined to Nature and books. Then I bounded across the fields; my spir=
it
often seemed to ride upon the winds, and to mingle in joyful sympathy with =
the
ambient air. Then if I wandered slowly I cheered myself with a sweet song o=
r sweeter
day dreams. I felt a holy rapture spring from all I saw. I drank in joy with
life; my steps were light; my eyes, clear from the love that animated them,
sought the heavens, and with my long hair loosened to the winds I gave my b=
ody
and my mind to sympathy and delight. But now my walk was slow--My eyes were
seldom raised and often filled with tears; no song; no smiles; no careless
motion that might bespeak a mind intent on what surrounded it--I was gather=
ed
up into myself--a selfish solitary creature ever pondering on my regrets and
faded hopes.
Mine was an idle,
useless life; it was so; but say not to the lily laid prostrate by the storm
arise, and bloom as before. My heart was bleeding from its death's wound; I
could live no otherwise--Often amid apparent calm I was visited by despair =
and
melancholy; gloom that nought could dissipate or overcome; a hatred of life=
; a
carelessness of beauty; all these would by fits hold me nearly annihilated =
by
their powers. Never for one moment when most placid did I cease to pray for=
death.
I could be found in no state of mind which I would not willingly have excha=
nged
for nothingness. And morning and evening my tearful eyes raised to heaven, =
my
hands clasped tight in the energy of prayer, I have repeated with the poet-=
-
Before I see another d=
ay Oh, let this body=
die
away!
Let me not be
reproached then with inutility; I believed that by suicide I should violate=
a
divine law of nature, and I thought that I sufficiently fulfilled my part in
submitting to the hard task of enduring the crawling hours &
minutes[50]--in bearing the load of time that weighed miserably upon me and
that in abstaining from what I in my calm moments considered a crime, I
deserved the reward of virtue. There were periods, dreadful ones, during wh=
ich
I despaired--& doubted the existence of all duty & the reality of
crime--but I shudder, and turn from the rememberance.
[E] Coleridge's Fire, Famine and
Slaughter.
Thus I passed two years. Day after =
day so
many hundreds wore on; they brought no outward changes with them, but some =
few
slowly operated on my mind as I glided on towards death. I began to study m=
ore;
to sympathize more in the thoughts of others as expressed in books; to read
history, and to lose my individuallity among the crowd that had existed bef=
ore
me. Thus perhaps as the sensation of immediate suffering wore off, I became
more human. Solitude also lost to me some of its charms: I began again to w=
ish
for sympathy; not that I was ever tempted to seek the crowd, but I wished f=
or
one friend to love me. You will say perhaps that I gradually became fitted =
to
return to society. I do not think so. For the sympathy that I desired must =
be
so pure, so divested of influence from outward circumstances that in the wo=
rld
I could not fail of being balked by the gross materials that perpetually mi=
ngle
even with its best feelings. Believe me, I was then less fitted for any
communion with my fellow creatures than before. When I left them they had
tormented me but it was in the same way as pain and sickness may torment;
somthing extraneous to the mind that galled it, and that I wished to cast
aside. But now I should have desired sympathy; I should wish to knit my sou=
l to
some one of theirs, and should have prepared for myself plentiful draughts =
of
disappointment and suffering; for I was tender as the sensitive plant, all
nerve. I did not desire sympathy and aid in ambition or wisdom, but sweet a=
nd mutual
affection; smiles to cheer me and gentle words of comfort. I wished for one
heart in which I could pour unrestrained my plaints, and by the heavenly na=
ture
of the soil blessed fruit might spring from such bad seed. Yet how could I =
find
this? The love that is the soul of friendship is a soft spirit seldom found
except when two amiable creatures are knit from early youth, or when bound =
by
mutual suffering and pursuits; it comes to some of the elect unsought and
unaware; it descends as gentle dew on chosen spots which however barren they
were before become under its benign influence fertile in all sweet plants; =
but
when desired it flies; it scoffs at the prayers of its votaries; it will
bestow, but not be sought.
I knew all this a=
nd
did not go to seek sympathy; but there on my solitary heath, under my lowly
roof where all around was desart, it came to me as a sun beam in winter to
adorn while it helps to dissolve the drifted snow.--Alas the sun shone on
blighted fruit; I did not revive under its radiance for I was too utterly
undone to feel its kindly power. My father had been and his memory was the =
life
of my life. I might feel gratitude to another but I never more could love o=
r hope
as I had done; it was all suffering; even my pleasures were endured, not
enjoyed. I was as a solitary spot among mountains shut in on all sides by s=
teep
black precipices; where no ray of heat could penetrate; and from which there
was no outlet to sunnier fields. And thus it was that although the spirit of
friendship soothed me for a while it could not restore me. It came as some
gentle visitation; it went and I hardly felt the loss. The spirit of existe=
nce
was dead within me; be not surprised therefore that when it came I welcomed=
not
more gladly, or when it departed I lamented not more bitterly the best gift=
of
heaven--a friend.
The name of my fr=
iend
was Woodville.[51] I will briefly relate his history that you may judge how
cold my heart must have been not to be warmed by his eloquent words and ten=
der
sympathy; and how he also being most unhappy we were well fitted to be a mu=
tual
consolation to each other, if I had not been hardened to stone by the Medusa
head of Misery. The misfortunes of Woodville were not of the hearts core li=
ke mine;
his was a natural grief, not to destroy but to purify the heart and from wh=
ich
he might, when its shadow had passed from over him, shine forth brighter and
happier than before.
Woodville was the=
son
of a poor clergyman and had received a classical education. He was one of t=
hose
very few whom fortune favours from their birth; on whom she bestows all gif=
ts
of intellect and person with a profusion that knew no bounds, and whom under
her peculiar protection, no imperfection however slight, or disappointment
however transitory has leave to touch. She seemed to have formed his mind o=
f that
excellence which no dross can tarnish, and his understanding was such that =
no
error could pervert. His genius was transcendant, and when it rose as a bri=
ght
star in the east all eyes were turned towards it in admiration. He was a Po=
et.
That name has so often been degraded that it will not convey the idea of all
that he was. He was like a poet of old whom the muses had crowned in his
cradle, and on whose lips bees had fed. As he walked among other men he see=
med
encompassed with a heavenly halo that divided him from and lifted him above
them. It was his surpassing beauty, the dazzling fire of his eyes, and his =
words
whose rich accents wrapt the listener in mute and extactic wonder, that made
him transcend all others so that before him they appeared only formed to
minister to his superior excellence.
He was glorious f=
rom
his youth. Every one loved him; no shadow of envy or hate cast even from the
meanest mind ever fell upon him. He was, as one the peculiar delight of the
Gods, railed and fenced in by his own divinity, so that nought but love and
admiration could approach him. His heart was simple like a child, unstained=
by
arrogance or vanity. He mingled in society unknowing of his superiority over
his companions, not because he undervalued himself but because he did not p=
erceive
the inferiority of others. He seemed incapable of conceiving of the full ex=
tent
of the power that selfishness & vice possesses in the world: when I knew
him, although he had suffered disappointment in his dearest hopes, he had n=
ot
experienced any that arose from the meaness and self love of men: his stati=
on
was too high to allow of his suffering through their hardheartedness; and t=
oo
low for him to have experienced ingratitude and encroaching selfishness: it=
is
one of the blessings of a moderate fortune, that by preventing the possessor
from confering pecuniary favours it prevents him also from diving into the =
arcana
of human weakness or malice--To bestow on your fellow men is a Godlike
attribute--So indeed it is and as such not one fit for mortality;--the giver
like Adam and Prometheus, must pay the penalty of rising above his nature by
being the martyr to his own excellence. Woodville was free from all these
evils; and if slight examples did come across him[52] he did not notice them
but passed on in his course as an angel with winged feet might glide along =
the
earth unimpeded by all those little obstacles over which we of earthly orig=
in
stumble. He was a believer in the divinity of genius and always opposed a s=
tern
disbelief to the objections of those petty cavillers and minor critics who =
wish
to reduce all men to their own miserable level--"I will make a scienti=
fic
simile" he would say, "[i]n the manner, if you will, of Dr. Darwi=
n--I
consider the alledged errors of a man of genius as the aberrations of the f=
ixed
stars. It is our distance from them and our imperfect means of communication
that makes them appear to move; in truth they always remain stationary, a
glorious centre, giving us a fine lesson of modesty if we would thus receive
it."[53]
I have said that =
he
was a poet: when he was three and twenty years of age he first published a
poem, and it was hailed by the whole nation with enthusiasm and delight. His
good star perpetually shone upon him; a reputation had never before been ma=
de
so rapidly: it was universal. The multitude extolled the same poems that fo=
rmed
the wonder of the sage in his closet: there was not one dissentient voice.[=
54]
It was at this ti=
me,
in the height of his glory, that he became acquainted with Elinor. She was a
young heiress of exquisite beauty who lived under the care of her guardian:
from the moment they were seen together they appeared formed for each other.
Elinor had not the genius of Woodville but she was generous and noble, and
exalted by her youth and the love that she every where excited above the
knowledge of aught but virtue and excellence. She was lovely; her manners w=
ere frank
and simple; her deep blue eyes swam in a lustre which could only be given by
sensibility joined to wisdom.
They were formed =
for
one another and they soon loved. Woodville for the first time felt the deli=
ght
of love; and Elinor was enraptured in possessing the heart of one so beauti=
ful
and glorious among his fellow men. Could any thing but unmixed joy flow from
such a union?
Woodville was a P=
oet--he
was sought for by every society and all eyes
were turned on him
alone when he appeared; but he was the son of a poor clergyman and Elinor w=
as a
rich heiress. Her guardian was not displeased with their mutual affection: =
the
merit of Woodville was too eminent to admit of cavil on account of his infe=
rior
wealth; but the dying will of her father did not allow her to marry before =
she
was of age and her fortune depended upon her obeying this injunction. She h=
ad just
entered her twentieth year, and she and her lover were obliged to submit to
this delay. But they were ever together and their happiness seemed that of
Paradise: they studied together: formed plans of future occupations, and
drinking in love and joy from each other's eyes and words they hardly repin=
ed
at the delay to their entire union. Woodville for ever rose in glory; and
Elinor become more lovely and wise under the lessons of her accomplished lo=
ver.
In two months Eli=
nor
would be twenty one: every thing was prepared for their union. How shall I
relate the catastrophe to so much joy; but the earth would not be the earth=
it
is covered with blight and sorrow if one such pair as these angelic creatur=
es
had been suffered to exist for one another: search through the world and you
will not find the perfect happiness which their marriage would have caused =
them
to enjoy; there must have been a revolution in the order of things as estab=
lished
among us miserable earth-dwellers to have admitted of such consummate joy. =
The
chain of necessity ever bringing misery must have been broken and the malig=
nant
fate that presides over it would not permit this breach of her eternal laws.
But why should I repine at this? Misery was my element, and nothing but what
was miserable could approach me; if Woodville had been happy I should never
have known him. And can I who for many years was fed by tears, and nourishe=
d under
the dew of grief, can I pause to relate a tale of woe and death?[55]
Woodville was obl=
iged
to make a journey into the country and was detained from day to day in irks=
ome
absence from his lovely bride. He received a letter from her to say that she
was slightly ill, but telling him to hasten to her, that from his eyes she
would receive health and that his company would be her surest medecine. He =
was detained
three days longer and then he hastened to her. His heart, he knew not why
prognosticated misfortune; he had not heard from her again; he feared she m=
ight
be worse and this fear made him impatient and restless for the moment of
beholding her once more stand before him arrayed in health and beauty; for a
sinister voice seemed always to whisper to him, "You will never more
behold her as she was."
When he arrived at
her habitation all was silent in it: he made his way through several rooms;=
in
one he saw a servant weeping bitterly: he was faint with fear and could har=
dly
ask, "Is she dead?" and just listened to the dreadful answer,
"Not yet." These astounding words came on him as of less fearful
import than those which he had expected; and to learn that she was still in
being, and that he might still hope was an alleviation to him. He remembered
the words of her letter and he indulged the wild idea that his kisses breat=
hing
warm love and life would infuse new spirit into her, and that with him near=
her
she could not die; that his presence was the talisman of her life.
He hastened to her
sick room; she lay, her cheeks burning with fever, yet her eyes were closed=
and
she was seemingly senseless. He wrapt her in his arms; he imprinted breathl=
ess
kisses on her burning lips; he called to her in a voice of subdued anguish =
by
the tenderest names; "Return Elinor; I am with you; your life, your lo=
ve.
Return; dearest one, you promised me this boon, that I should bring you hea=
lth.
Let your sweet spirit revive; you cannot die near me: What is death? To see=
you
no more? To part with what is a part of myself; without whom I have no memo=
ry
and no futurity? Elinor die! This is frenzy and the most miserable despair:=
you
cannot die while I am near."
And again he kiss=
ed
her eyes and lips, and hung over her inanimate form in agony, gazing on her
countenance still lovely although changed, watching every slight convulsion,
and varying colour which denoted life still lingering although about to dep=
art.
Once for a moment she revived and recognized his voice; a smile, a last lov=
ely smile,
played upon her lips. He watched beside her for twelve hours and then she
died.[56]
It was six months after this misera=
ble
conclusion to his long nursed hopes that I first saw him. He had retired to=
a
part of the country where he was not known that he might peacefully indulge=
his
grief. All the world, by the death of his beloved Elinor, was changed to hi=
m,
and he could no longer remain in any spot where he had seen her or where her
image mingled with the most rapturous hopes had brightened all around with a
light of joy which would now be transformed to a darkness blacker than midn=
ight
since she, the sun of his life, was set for ever.
He lived for some
time never looking on the light of heaven but shrouding his eyes in a perpe=
tual
darkness far from all that could remind him of what he had been; but as time
softened his grief[57] like a true child of Nature he sought in the enjoyme=
nt
of her beauties for a consolation in his unhappiness. He came to a part of =
the
country where he was entirely unknown and where in the deepest solitude he =
could
converse only with his own heart. He found a relief to his impatient grief =
in
the breezes of heaven and in the sound of waters and woods. He became fond =
of riding;
this exercise distracted his mind and elevated his spirits; on a swift hors=
e he
could for a moment gain respite from the image that else for ever followed =
him;
Elinor on her death bed, her sweet features changed, and the soft spirit th=
at animated
her gradually waning into extinction. For many months Woodville had in vain
endeavoured to cast off this terrible remembrance; it still hung on him unt=
ill
memory was too great a burthen for his loaded soul, but when on horseback t=
he
spell that seemingly held him to this idea was snapt; then if he thought of=
his
lost bride he pictured her radiant in beauty; he could hear her voice, and
fancy her "a sylvan Huntress by his side," while his eyes brighte=
ned
as he thought he gazed on her cherished form. I had several times seen him =
ride
across the heath and felt angry that my solitude should be disturbed. It wa=
s so
long [since] I had spoken to any but peasants that I felt a disagreable
sensation at being gazed on by one of superior rank. I feared also that it
might be some one who had seen me before: I might be recognized, my impostu=
res
discovered and I dragged back to a life of worse torture than that I had be=
fore
endured. These were dreadful fears and they even haunted my dreams.[58]
I was one day sea=
ted
on the verge of the clump of pines when Woodville rode past. As soon as I
perceived him I suddenly rose to escape from his observation by entering am=
ong
the trees. My rising startled his horse; he reared and plunged and the Rider
was at length thrown. The horse then galopped swiftly across the heath and =
the
stranger remained on the ground stunned by his fall. He was not materially
hurt, a little fresh water soon recovered him. I was struck by his exceedin=
g beauty,
and as he spoke to thank me the sweet but melancholy cadence of his voice
brought tears into my eyes.
A short conversat=
ion
passed between us, but the next day he again stopped at my cottage and by
degrees an intimacy grew between us. It was strange to him to see a female =
in
extreme youth, I was not yet twenty, evidently belonging to the first class=
es
of society & possessing every accomplishment an excellent education cou=
ld
bestow, living alone on a desolate health [sic]--One on whose forehead the =
impress
of grief was strongly marked, and whose words and motions betrayed that her
thoughts did not follow them but were intent on far other ideas; bitter and
overwhelming miseries. I was dressed also in a whimsical nunlike habit which
denoted that I did not retire to solitude from necessity, but that I might
indulge in a luxury of grief, and fanciful seclusion.
He soon took great
interest in me, and sometimes forgot his own grief to sit beside me and
endeavour to cheer me. He could not fail to interest even one who had shut
herself from the whole world, whose hope was death, and who lived only with=
the
departed. His personal beauty; his conversation which glowed with imaginati=
on
and sensibility; the poetry that seemed to hang upon his lips and to make t=
he
very air mute to listen to him were charms that no one could resist. He was
younger, less worn, more passionless than my father and in no degree remind=
ed
me of him: he suffered under immediate grief yet its gentle influence inste=
ad
of calling feelings otherwise dormant into action, seemed only to veil that
which otherwise would have been too dazzling for me. When we were together I
spoke little yet my selfish mind was sometimes borne away by the rapid cour=
se
of his ideas; I would lift my eyes with momentary brilliancy until memories=
that
never died and seldom slept would recur, and a tear would dim them.
Woodville for ever
tried to lead me to the contemplation of what is beautiful and happy in the
world.[59] His own mind was constitunially [sic] bent to a former belief in
good [rather] than in evil and this feeling which must even exhilirate the
hopeless ever shone forth in his words. He would talk of the wonderful powe=
rs
of man, of their present state and of their hopes: of what they had been and
what they were, and when reason could no longer guide him, his imagination =
as
if inspired shed light on the obscurity that veils the past and the future.=
He
loved to dwell on what might have been the state of the earth before man li=
ved
on it, and how he first arose and gradually became the strange, complicated,
but as he said, the glorious creature he now is. Covering the earth with th=
eir
creations and forming by the power of their minds another world more lovely
than the visible frame of things, even all the world that we find in their
writings. A beautiful creation, he would say, which may claim this superior=
ity
to its model, that good and evil is more easily seperated[:] the good rewar=
ded
in the way they themselves desire; the evil punished as all things evil oug=
ht
to be punished, not by pain which is revolting to all philanthropy to consi=
der
but by quiet obscurity, which simply deprives them of their harmful qualiti=
es;
why kill the serpent when you have extracted his fangs?
The poetry of his
language and ideas which my words ill convey held me enchained to his
discourses. It was a melancholy pleasure to me to listen to his inspired wo=
rds;
to catch for a moment the light of his eyes[;] to feel a transient sympathy=
and
then to awaken from the delusion, again to know that all this was nothing,-=
-a
dream--a shadow for that there was no reallity for me; my father had for ev=
er
deserted me, leaving me only memories which set an eternal barrier between =
me and
my fellow creatures. I was indeed fellow to none. He--Woodville, mourned the
loss of his bride: others wept the various forms of misery as they visited
them: but infamy and guilt was mingled with my portion; unlawful and detest=
able
passion had poured its poison into my ears and changed all my blood, so tha=
t it
was no longer the kindly stream that supports life but a cold fountain of
bitterness corrupted in its very source.[60] It must be the excess of madne=
ss
that could make me imagine that I could ever be aught but one alone; struck=
off
from humanity; bearing no affinity to man or woman; a wretch on whom Nature=
had
set her ban.
Sometimes Woodvil=
le
talked to me of himself. He related his history brief in happiness and woe =
and
dwelt with passion on his and Elinor's mutual love. "She was["], =
he
said, "the brightest vision that ever came upon the earth: there was
somthing in her frank countenance, in her voice, and in every motion of her
graceful form that overpowered me, as if it were a celestial creature that
deigned to mingle with me in intercourse more sweet than man had ever before
enjoyed. Sorrow fled before her; and her smile seemed to possess an influen=
ce
like light to irradiate all mental darkness. It was not like a human loveli=
ness
that these gentle smiles went and came; but as a sunbeam on a lake, now lig=
ht
and now obscure, flitting before as you strove to catch them, and fold them=
for
ever to your heart. I saw this smile fade for ever. Alas! I could never have
believed that it was indeed Elinor that died if once when I spoke she had n=
ot
lifted her almost benighted eyes, and for one moment like nought beside on
earth, more lovely than a sunbeam, slighter, quicker than the waving plumag=
e of
a bird, dazzling as lightning and like it giving day to night, yet mild and
faint, that smile came; it went, and then there was an end of all joy to
me."
Thus his own sorr=
ows,
or the shapes copied from nature that dwelt in his mind with beauty greater
than their own, occupied our talk while I railed in my own griefs with caut=
ious
secresy. If for a moment he shewed curiosity, my eyes fell, my voice died a=
way
and my evident suffering made him quickly endeavour to banish the ideas he =
had awakened;
yet he for ever mingled consolation in his talk, and tried to soften my des=
pair
by demonstrations of deep sympathy and compassion. "We are both
unhappy--" he would say to me; "I have told you my melancholy tale
and we have wept together the loss of that lovely spirit that has so cruelly
deserted me; but you hide your griefs: I do not ask you to disclose them, b=
ut
tell me if I may not console you. It seems to me a wild adventure to find in
this desart one like you quite solitary: you are young and lovely; your man=
ners
are refined and attractive; yet there is in your settled melancholy, and
something, I know not what, in your expressive eyes that seems to seperate =
you
from your kind: you shudder; pardon me, I entreat you but I cannot help
expressing this once at least the lively interest I feel in your destiny.
"You never
smile: your voice is low, and you utter your words as if you were afraid of=
the
slight sound they would produce: the expression of awful and intense sorrow
never for a moment fades from your countenance. I have lost for ever the
loveliest companion that any man could ever have possessed, one who rather
appears to have been a superior spirit who by some strange accident wandered
among us earthly creatures, than as belonging to our kind. Yet I smile, and
sometimes I speak almost forgetful of the change I have endured. But your s=
ad
mien never alters; your pulses beat and you breathe, yet you seem already to
belong to another world; and sometimes, pray pardon my wild thoughts, when =
you
touch my hand I am surprised to find your hand warm when all the fire of li=
fe
seems extinct within you.
"When I look
upon you, the tears you shed, the soft deprecating look with which you
withstand enquiry; the deep sympathy your voice expresses when I speak of my
lesser sorrows add to my interest for you. You stand here shelterless[.] You
have cast yourself from among us and you wither on this wild plain fo[r]lorn
and helpless: some dreadful calamity must have befallen you. Do not turn fr=
om
me; I do not ask you to reveal it: I only entreat you to listen to me and t=
o become
familiar with the voice of consolation and kindness. If pity, and admiratio=
n,
and gentle affection can wean you from despair let me attempt the task. I
cannot see your look of deep grief without endeavouring to restore you to
happier feelings. Unbend your brow; relax the stern melancholy of your rega=
rd;
permit a friend, a sincere, affectionate friend, I will be one, to convey s=
ome
relief, some momentary pause to your sufferings.
"Do not think
that I would intrude upon your confidence: I only ask your patience. Do not=
for
ever look sorrow and never speak it; utter one word of bitter complaint and=
I
will reprove it with gentle exhortation and pour on you the balm of compass=
ion.
You must not shut me from all communion with you: do not tell me why you gr=
ieve
but only say the words, "I am unhappy," and you will feel relieve=
d as
if for some time excluded from all intercourse by some magic spell you shou=
ld suddenly
enter again the pale of human sympathy. I entreat you to believe in my most
sincere professions and to treat me as an old and tried friend: promise me
never to forget me, never causelessly to banish me; but try to love me as o=
ne
who would devote all his energies to make you happy. Give me the name of
friend; I will fulfill its duties; and if for a moment complaint and sorrow
would shape themselves into words let me be near to speak peace to your vex=
t soul."
I repeat his
persuasions in faint terms and cannot give you at the same time the tone and
gesture that animated them. Like a refreshing shower on an arid soil they
revived me, and although I still kept their cause secret he led me to pour
forth my bitter complaints and to clothe my woe in words of gall and fire. =
With
all the energy of desperate grief I told him how I had fallen at once from
bliss to misery; how that for me there was no joy, no hope; that death howe=
ver bitter
would be the welcome seal to all my pangs; death the skeleton was to be
beautiful as love. I know not why but I found it sweet to utter these words=
to
human ears; and though I derided all consolation yet I was pleased to see it
offered me with gentleness and kindness. I listened quietly, and when he pa=
used
would again pour out my misery in expressions that shewed how far too deep =
my
wounds were for any cure.
But now also I be=
gan
to reap the fruits of my perfect solitude. I had become unfit for any
intercourse, even with Woodville the most gentle and sympathizing creature =
that
existed. I had become captious and unreasonable: my temper was utterly spoi=
lt.
I called him my friend but I viewed all he did with jealous eyes. If he did=
not
visit me at the appointed hour I was angry, very angry, and told him that if
indeed he did feel interest in me it was cold, and could not be fitted for =
me,
a poor worn creature, whose deep unhappiness demanded much more than his wo=
rldly
heart could give. When for a moment I imagined that his manner was cold I w=
ould
fretfully say to him--"I was at peace before you came; why have you
disturbed me? You have given me new wants and now your trifle with me as if=
my
heart were as whole as yours, as if I were not in truth a shorn lamb thrust=
out
on the bleak hill side, tortured by every blast. I wished for no friend, no
sympathy[.] I avoided you, you know I did, but you forced yourself upon me =
and
gave me those wants which you see with triump[h] give you power over me. Oh=
the
brave power of the bitter north wind which freezes the tears it has caused =
to
shed! But I will not bear this; go: the sun will rise and set as before you
came, and I shall sit among the pines or wander on the heath weeping and
complaining without wishing for you to listen. You are cruel, very cruel, to
treat me who bleed at every pore in this rough manner."[61]
And then, when in
answer to my peevish words, I saw his countenance bent with living pity on
me[,] when I saw him
Gli occhi drizzo ver m=
e con
quel sembiante Che madre fa sopra
figlioul deliro
P[a]radiso. C 1.[62]
I wept and said,
"Oh, pardon me! You are good and kind but I am not fit for life. Why a=
m I
obliged to live? To drag hour after hour, to see the trees wave their branc=
hes
restlessly, to feel the air, & to suffer in all I feel keenest agony. My
frame is strong, but my soul sinks beneath this endurance of living anguish.
Death is the goal that I would attain, but, alas! I do not even see the end=
of
the course. Do you, my compassionate friend,[63] tell me how to die peacefu=
lly
and innocently and I will bless you: all that I, poor wretch, can desire is=
a
painless death."
But Woodville's w=
ords
had magic in them, when beginning with the sweetest pity, he would raise me=
by
degrees out of myself and my sorrows until I wondered at my own selfishness:
but he left me and despair returned; the work of consolation was ever to be=
gin
anew. I often desired his entire absence; for I found that I was grown out =
of the
ways of life and that by long seclusion, although I could support my accust=
omed
grief, and drink the bitter daily draught with some degree of patience, yet=
I
had become unfit for the slightest novelty of feeling. Expectation, and hop=
es,
and affection were all too much for me. I knew this, but at other times I w=
as
unreasonable and laid the blame upon him, who was most blameless, and pevis=
hly
thought that if his gentle soul were more gentle, if his intense sympathy w=
ere
more intense, he could drive the fiend from my soul and make me more human.=
I
am, I thought, a tragedy; a character that he comes to see act: now and the=
n he
gives me my cue[64] that I may make a speech more to his purpose: perhaps h=
e is
already planning a poem in which I am to figure. I am a farce and play to h=
im,
but to me this is all dreary reality: he takes all the profit and I bear all
the burthen.
It is a strange circumstance but it=
often
occurs that blessings by their use turn to curses; and that I who in solitu=
de
had desired sympathy as the only relief I could enjoy should now find it an=
additional
torture to me. During my father's life time I had always been of an
affectionate and forbearing disposition, but since those days of joy alas! I
was much changed. I had become arrogant, peevish, and above all suspicious.
Although the real interest of my narration is now ended and I ought quickly=
to
wind up its melancholy catastrophe, yet I will relate one instance of my sad
suspicion and despair and how Woodville with the goodness and almost the po=
wer
of an angel, softened my rugged feelings and led me back to gentleness.[65]=
He had promised to
spend some hours with me one afternoon but a violent and continual rain[66]
prevented him. I was alone the whole evening. I had passed two whole years
alone unrepining, but now I was miserable. He could not really care for me,=
I
thought, for if he did the storm would rather have made him come even if I =
had
not expected him, than, as it did, prevent a promised visit. He would well =
know
that this drear sky and gloomy rain would load my spirit almost to madness:=
if
the weather had been fine I should not have regretted his absence as heavil=
y as
I necessarily must shut up in this miserable cottage with no companions but=
my
own wretched thoughts. If he were truly my friend he would have calculated =
all
this; and let me now calculate this boasted friendship, and discover its re=
al
worth. He got over his grief for Elinor, and the country became dull to him=
, so
he was glad to find even me for amusement; and when he does not know what e=
lse
to do he passes his lazy hours here, and calls this friendship--It is true =
that
his presence is a consolation to me, and that his words are sweet, and, whe=
n he
will he can pour forth thoughts that win me from despair. His words are
sweet,--and so, truly, is the honey of the bee, but the bee has a sting, and
unkindness is a worse smart that that received from an insect's venom. I
will[67] put him to the proof. He says all hope is dead to him, and I know =
that
it is dead to me, so we are both equally fitted for death. Let me try if he
will die with me; and as I fear to die alone, if he will accompany [me] to =
cheer
me, and thus he can shew himself my friend in the only manner my misery will
permit.[68]
It was madness I
believe, but I so worked myself up to this idea that I could think of nothi=
ng
else. If he dies with me it is well, and there will be an end of two misera=
ble
beings; and if he will not, then will I scoff at his friendship and drink t=
he
poison before him to shame his cowardice. I planned the whole scene with an
earnest heart and franticly set my soul on this project. I procured Laudanum
and placing it in two glasses on the table, filled my room with flowers and
decorated the last scene of my tragedy with the nicest care. As the hour for
his coming approached my heart softened and I wept; not that I gave up my p=
lan,
but even when resolved the mind must undergo several revolutions of feeling
before it can drink its death.
Now all was ready=
and
Woodville came. I received him at the door of my cottage and leading him
solemnly into the room, I said: "My friend, I wish to die. I am quite
weary of enduring the misery which hourly I do endure, and I will throw it =
off.
What slave will not, if he may, escape from his chains? Look, I weep: for m=
ore
than two years I have never enjoyed one moment free from anguish. I have of=
ten
desired to die; but I am a very coward. It is hard for one so young who was
once so happy as I was; [sic] voluntarily to divest themselves of all sensa=
tion
and to go alone to the dreary grave; I dare not. I must die, yet my fear ch=
ills
me; I pause and shudder and then for months I endure my excess of wretchedn=
ess.
But now the time is come when I may quit life, I have a friend who will not
refuse to accompany me in this dark journey; such is my request:[69] earnes=
tly
do I entreat and implore you to die with me. Then we shall find Elinor and =
what
I have lost. Look, I am prepared; there is the death draught, let us drink =
it together
and willingly & joyfully quit this hated round of daily life[.]
"You turn fr=
om
me; yet before you deny me reflect, Woodville, how sweet it were to cast off
the load of tears and misery under which we now labour: and surely we shall
find light after we have passed the dark valley. That drink will plunge us =
in a
sweet slumber, and when we awaken what joy will be ours to find all our sor=
rows
and fears past. A little patience, and all will be over; aye, a very little=
patience;
for, look, there is the key of our prison; we hold it in our own hands, and=
are
we more debased than slaves to cast it away and give ourselves up to volunt=
ary
bondage? Even now if we had courage we might be free. Behold, my cheek is
flushed with pleasure at the imagination of death; all that we love are dea=
d.
Come, give me your hand, one look of joyous sympathy and we will go together
and seek them; a lulling journey; where our arrival will bring bliss and ou=
r waking
be that of angels. Do you delay? Are you a coward, Woodville? Oh fie! Cast =
off
this blank look of human melancholy. Oh! that I had words to express the lu=
xury
of death that I might win you. I tell you we are no longer miserable mortal=
s;
we are about to become Gods; spirits free and happy as gods. What fool on a
bleak shore, seeing a flowery isle on the other side with his lost love
beckoning to him from it would pause because the wave is dark and turbid?
"What if some lit=
tle
payne the passage have That makes frayle=
flesh
to fear the bitter wave? Is not short payn=
e well
borne that brings long ease, And lays the soul=
to
sleep in quiet grave?[F]
"Do you mark=
my
words; I have learned the language of despair: I have it all by heart, for =
I am
Despair; and a strange being am I, joyous, triumphant Despair. But those wo=
rds
are false, for the wave may be dark but it is not bitter. We lie down, and
close our eyes with a gentle good night, and when we wake, we are free. Come
then, no more delay, thou tardy one! Behold the pleasant potion! Look, I am=
a
spirit of good, and not a human maid that invites thee, and with winning ac=
cents,
(oh, that they would win thee!) says, Come and drink."[70]
As I spoke I fixe=
d my
eyes upon his countenance, and his exquisite beauty, the heavenly compassion
that beamed from his eyes, his gentle yet earnest look of deprecation and
wonder even before he spoke wrought a change in my high strained feelings
taking from me all the sterness of despair and filling me only with the sof=
test
grief. I saw his eyes humid also as he took both my hands in his; and sitti=
ng
down near me, he said:[71]
"This is a s=
ad
deed to which you would lead me, dearest friend, and your woe must indeed be
deep that could fill you with these unhappy thoughts. You long for death and
yet you fear it and wish me to be your companion. But I have less courage t=
han
you and even thus accompanied I dare not die. Listen to me, and then reflec=
t if
you ought to win me to your project, even if with the over-bearing eloquenc=
e of
despair you could make black death so inviting that the fair heaven should
appear darkness. Listen I entreat you to the words of one who has himself
nurtured desperate thoughts, and longed with impatient desire for death, but
who has at length trampled the phantom under foot, and crushed his sting. C=
ome,
as you have played Despair with me I will play the part of Una with you and
bring you hurtless from his dark cavern. Listen to me, and let yourself be
softened by words in which no selfish passion lingers.
"We know not
what all this wide world means; its strange mixture of good and evil. But we
have been placed here and bid live and hope. I know not what we are to hope;
but there is some good beyond us that we must seek; and that is our earthly
task. If misfortune come against us we must fight with her; we must cast her
aside, and still go on to find out that which it is our nature to desire.
Whether this prospect of future good be the preparation for another existen=
ce I
know not; or whether that it is merely that we, as workmen in God's vineyar=
d,
must lend a hand to smooth the way for our posterity. If it indeed be that;=
if
the efforts of the virtuous now, are to make the future inhabitants of this
fair world more happy; if the labours of those who cast aside selfishness, =
and
try to know the truth of things, are to free the men of ages, now far dista=
nt
but which will one day come, from the burthen under which those who now live
groan, and like you weep bitterly; if they free them but from one of what a=
re
now the necessary evils of life, truly I will not fail but will with my who=
le
soul aid the work. From my youth I have said, I will be virtuous; I will
dedicate my life for the good of others; I will do my best to extirpate evil
and if the spirit who protects ill should so influence circumstances that I=
should
suffer through my endeavour, yet while there is hope and hope there ever mu=
st
be, of success, cheerfully do I gird myself to my task.
"I have powe=
rs;
my countrymen think well of them. Do you think I sow my seed in the barren =
air,
& have no end in what I do? Believe me, I will never desert life untill
this last hope is torn from my bosom, that in some way my labours may form a
link in the chain of gold with which we ought all to strive to drag Happine=
ss
from where she sits enthroned above the clouds, now far beyond our reach, to
inhabit the earth with us. Let us suppose that Socrates, or Shakespear, or =
Rousseau
had been seized with despair and died in youth when they were as young as I=
am;
do you think that we and all the world should not have lost incalculable
improvement in our good feelings and our happiness thro' their destruction.=
I
am not like one of these; they influenced millions: but if I can influence =
but
a hundred, but ten, but one solitary individual, so as in any way to lead h=
im
from ill to good, that will be a joy to repay me for all my sufferings, tho=
ugh they
were a million times multiplied; and that hope will support me to bear them=
[.]
"And those w=
ho
do not work for posterity; or working, as may be my case, will not be known=
by
it; yet they, believe me, have also their duties. You grieve because you are
unhappy[;] it is happiness you seek but you despair of obtaining it. But if=
you
can bestow happiness on another; if you can give one other person only one =
hour
of joy ought you not to live to do it? And every one has it in their power =
to
do that. The inhabitants of this world suffer so much pain. In crowded citi=
es,
among cultivated plains, or on the desart mountains, pain is thickly sown, =
and
if we can tear up but one of these noxious weeds, or more, if in its stead =
we
can sow one seed of corn, or plant one fair flower, let that be motive
sufficient against suicide. Let us not desert our task while there is the
slightest hope that we may in a future day do this.
"Indeed I da=
re
not die. I have a mother whose support and hope I am. I have a friend who l=
oves
me as his life, and in whose breast I should infix a mortal sting if I
ungratefully left him. So I will not die. Nor shall you, my friend; cheer u=
p;
cease to weep, I entreat you. Are you not young, and fair, and good? Why sh=
ould
you despair? Or if you must for yourself, why for others? If you can never =
be
happy, can you never bestow happiness[?] Oh! believe me, if you beheld on l=
ips
pale with grief one smile of joy and gratitude, and knew that you were pare=
nt
of that smile, and that without you it had never been, you would feel so pu=
re
and warm a happiness that you would wish to live for ever again and again to
enjoy the same pleasure[.]
"Come, I see
that you have already cast aside the sad thoughts you before franticly
indulged. Look in that mirror; when I came your brow was contracted, your e=
yes
deep sunk in your head, your lips quivering; your hands trembled violently =
when
I took them; but now all is tranquil and soft. You are grieved and there is
grief in the expression of your countenance but it is gentle and sweet. You
allow me to throw away this cursed drink; you smile; oh, Congratulate me, h=
ope
is triumphant, and I have done some good."
These words are
shadowy as I repeat them but they were indeed words of fire and produced a =
warm
hope in me (I, miserable wretch, to hope!) that tingled like pleasure in my
veins. He did not leave me for many hours; not until he had improved the sp=
ark
that he had kindled, and with an angelic hand fostered the return of somthi=
ng
that seemed like joy. He left me but I still was calm, and after I had salu=
ted
the starry sky and dewy earth with eyes of love and a contented good night,=
I
slept sweetly, visited by dreams, the first of pleasure I had had for many =
long
months.
But this was only=
a
momentary relief and my old habits of feeling returned; for I was doomed wh=
ile
in life to grieve, and to the natural sorrow of my father's death and its m=
ost
terrific cause, immagination added a tenfold weight of woe. I believed myse=
lf
to be polluted by the unnatural love I had inspired, and that I was a creat=
ure
cursed and set apart by nature. I thought that like another Cain, I had a m=
ark set
on my forehead to shew mankind that there was a barrier between me and they
[sic].[72] Woodville had told me that there was in my countenance an expres=
sion
as if I belonged to another world; so he had seen that sign: and there it l=
ay a
gloomy mark to tell the world that there was that within my soul that no
silence could render sufficiently obscure. Why when fate drove me to become
this outcast from human feeling; this monster with whom none might mingle i=
n converse
and love; why had she not from that fatal and most accursed moment, shroude=
d me
in thick mists and placed real darkness between me and my fellows so that I
might never more be seen?, [sic] and as I passed, like a murky cloud loaded
with blight, they might only perceive me by the cold chill I should cast up=
on
them; telling them, how truly, that something unholy was near? Then I should
have lived upon this dreary heath unvisited, and blasting none by my unhall=
owed
gaze. Alas! I verily believe that if the near prospect of death did not dull
and soften my bitter [fe]elings, if for a few months longer I had continued=
to
live as I then lived, strong in body, but my soul corrupted to its core by a
deadly cancer[,] if day after day I had dwelt on these dreadful sentiments I
should have become mad, and should have fancied myself a living pestilence:=
so
horrible to my own solitary thoughts did this form, this voice, and all this
wretched self appear; for had it not been the source of guilt that wants a =
name?[73]
This was
superstition. I did not feel thus franticly when first I knew that the holy
name of father was become a curse to me: but my lonely life inspired me with
wild thoughts; and then when I saw Woodville & day after day he tried to
win my confidence and I never dared give words to my dark tale, I was impre=
ssed
more strongly with the withering fear that I was in truth a marked creature=
, a
pariah, only fit for death.
[F] Spencer's Faery Queen Book 1--C=
anto
[9]
As I was perpetually haunted by the=
se
ideas, you may imagine that the influence of Woodville's words was very
temporary; and that although I did not again accuse him of unkindness, yet I
soon became as unhappy as before. Soon after this incident we parted. He he=
ard
that his mother was ill, and he hastened to her. He came to take leave of m=
e, and
we walked together on the heath for the last time. He promised that he would
come and see me again; and bade me take cheer, and to encourage what happy
thoughts I could, untill time and fortitude should overcome my misery, and I
could again mingle in society.
"Above all o=
ther
admonition on my part," he said, "cherish and follow this one: do=
not
despair. That is the most dangerous gulph on which you perpetually totter; =
but
you must reassure your steps, and take hope to guide you.[74] Hope, and your
wounds will be already half healed: but if you obstinately despair, there n=
ever
more will be comfort for you. Believe me, my dearest friend, that there is a
joy that the sun and earth and all its beauties can bestow that you will one
day feel. The refreshing bliss of Love will again visit your heart, and undo
the spell that binds you to woe, untill you wonder how your eyes could be
closed in the long night that burthens you. I dare not hope that I have
inspired you with sufficient interest that the thought of me, and the affec=
tion
that I shall ever bear you, will soften your melancholy and decrease the
bitterness of your tears. But if my friendship can make you look on life wi=
th
less disgust, beware how you injure it with suspicion. Love is a delicate
sprite[75] and easily hurt by rough jealousy. Guard, I entreat you, a firm
persuasion of my sincerity in the inmost recesses of your heart out of the
reach of the casual winds that may disturb its surface. Your temper is made=
unequal
by suffering, and the tenor of your mind is, I fear, sometimes shaken by
unworthy causes; but let your confidence in my sympathy and love be deeper =
far,
and incapable of being reached by these agitations that come and go, and if
they touch not your affections leave you uninjured."
These were some of
Woodville's last lessons. I wept as I listened to him; and after we had tak=
en
an affectionate farewell, I followed him far with my eyes until they saw the
last of my earthly comforter. I had insisted on accompanying him across the
heath towards the town where he dwelt: the sun was yet high when he left me,
and I turned my steps towards my cottage. It was at the latter end of the m=
onth
of September when the nights have become chill. But the weather was serene,=
and
as I walked on I fell into no unpleasing reveries. I thought of Woodville w=
ith
gratitude and kindness and did not, I know not why, regret his departure wi=
th
any bitterness. It seemed that after one great shock all other change was
trivial to me; and I walked on wondering when the time would come when we
should all four, my dearest father restored to me, meet in some sweet
Paradise[.] I pictured to myself a lovely river such as that on whose banks
Dante describes Mathilda gathering flowers, which ever flows
=
---- bruna, bruna, Sotto l'ombra per=
petua,
che mai Rag=
giar
non lascia sole ivi, nè Luna.[76]
And then I repeat=
ed
to myself all that lovely passage that relates the entrance of Dante into t=
he
terrestrial Paradise; and thought it would be sweet when I wandered on those
lovely banks to see the car of light descend with my long lost parent to be
restored to me. As I waited there in expectation of that moment, I thought =
how,
of the lovely flowers that grew there, I would wind myself a chaplet and cr=
own myself
for joy: I would sing sul margine d'un rio,[77] my father's favourite song,=
and
that my voice gliding through the windless air would announce to him in
whatever bower he sat expecting the moment of our union, that his daughter =
was
come. Then the mark of misery would have faded from my brow, and I should r=
aise
my eyes fearlessly to meet his, which ever beamed with the soft lustre of
innocent love. When I reflected on the magic look of those deep eyes I wept,
but gently, lest my sobs should disturb the fairy scene.
I was so entirely
wrapt in this reverie that I wandered on, taking no heed of my steps until I
actually stooped down to gather a flower for my wreath on that bleak plain
where no flower grew, when I awoke from my day dream and found myself I knew
not where.
The sun had set a=
nd
the roseate hue which the clouds had caught from him in his descent had nea=
rly
died away. A wind swept across the plain, I looked around me and saw no obj=
ect
that told me where I was; I had lost myself, and in vain attempted to find =
my
path. I wandered on, and the coming darkness made every trace indistinct by
which I might be guided. At length all was veiled in the deep obscurity of =
blackest
night; I became weary and knowing that my servant was to sleep that night at
the neighbouring village, so that my absence would alarm no one; and that I=
was
safe in this wild spot from every intruder, I resolved to spend the night w=
here
I was. Indeed I was too weary to walk further: the air was chill but I was
careless of bodily inconvenience, and I thought that I was well inured to t=
he
weather during my two years of solitude, when no change of seasons prevente=
d my
perpetual wanderings.
I lay upon the gr=
ass
surrounded by a darkness which not the slightest beam of light penetrated--=
There
was no sound for the deep night had laid to sleep the insects, the only
creatures that lived on the lone spot where no tree or shrub could afford
shelter to aught else--There was a wondrous silence in the air that calmed =
my
senses yet which enlivened my soul, my mind hurried from image to image and
seemed to grasp an eternity. All in my heart was shadowy yet calm, untill m=
y ideas
became confused and at length died away in sleep.[78]
When I awoke it
rained:[79] I was already quite wet, and my limbs were stiff and my head gi=
ddy
with the chill of night. It was a drizzling, penetrating shower; as my dank
hair clung to my neck and partly covered my face, I had hardly strength to =
part
with my fingers, the long strait locks that fell before my eyes. The darkne=
ss
was much dissipated and in the east where the clouds were least dense the m=
oon was
visible behind the thin grey cloud--
The moon is behind, an=
d at
the full An=
d yet
she looks both small and dull.[80]
Its presence gave=
me
a hope that by its means I might find my home. But I was languid and many h=
ours
passed before I could reach the cottage, dragging as I did my slow steps, a=
nd
often resting on the wet earth unable to proceed.
I particularly ma=
rk
this night, for it was that which has hurried on the last scene of my trage=
dy,
which else might have dwindled on through long years of listless sorrow. I =
was
very ill when I arrived and quite incapable of taking off my wet clothes th=
at
clung about me. In the morning, on her return, my servant found me almost
lifeless, while possessed by a high fever I was lying on the floor of my ro=
om.
I was very ill fo=
r a
long time, and when I recovered from the immediate danger of fever, every
symptom of a rapid consumption declared itself. I was for some time ignoran=
t of
this and thought that my excessive weakness was the consequence of the feve=
r;
[sic] But my strength became less and less; as winter came on I had a cough;
and my sunken cheek, before pale, burned with a hectic fever. One by one th=
ese
symptoms struck me; & I became convinced that the moment I had so much
desired was about to arrive and that I was dying. I was sitting by my fire,=
the
physician who had attended me ever since my fever had just left me, and I
looked over his prescription in which digitalis was the prominent medecine.
"Yes," I said, "I see how this is, and it is strange that I
should have deceived myself so long; I am about to die an innocent death, a=
nd
it will be sweeter even than that which the opium promised."
I rose and walked
slowly to the window; the wide heath was covered by snow which sparkled und=
er
the beams of the sun that shone brightly thro' the pure, frosty air: a few
birds were pecking some crumbs under my window.[81] I smiled with quiet joy;
and in my thoughts, which through long habit would for ever connect themsel=
ves
into one train, as if I shaped them into words, I thus addressed the scene
before me:
"I salute th=
ee,
beautiful Sun, and thou, white Earth, fair and cold! Perhaps I shall never =
see
thee again covered with green, and the sweet flowers of the coming spring w=
ill
blossom on my grave. I am about to leave thee; soon this living spirit whic=
h is
ever busy among strange shapes and ideas, which belong not to thee, soon it
will have flown to other regions and this emaciated body will rest insensat=
e on
thy bosom
"Rolled round in
earth's diurnal course With rocks, and s=
tones,
and trees.
"For it will=
be
the same with thee, who art called our Universal Mother,[82] when I am gone=
. I
have loved thee; and in my days both of happiness and sorrow I have peopled
your solitudes with wild fancies of my own creation. The woods, and lakes, =
and
mountains which I have loved, have for me a thousand associations; and thou,
oh, Sun! hast smiled upon, and borne your part in many imaginations that sp=
rung
to life in my soul alone, and which will die with me. Your solitudes, sweet
land, your trees and waters will still exist, moved by your winds, or still
beneath the eye of noon, though[83] [w]hat I have felt about ye, and all my
dreams which have often strangely deformed thee, will die with me. You will
exist to reflect other images in other minds, and ever will remain the same,
although your reflected semblance vary in a thousand ways, changeable as the
hearts of those who view thee. One of these fragile mirrors, that ever dote=
d on
thine image, is about to be broken, crumbled to dust. But everteeming Natur=
e will
create another and another, and thou wilt loose nought by my destruction.[8=
4]
"Thou wilt e=
ver
be the same. Recieve then the grateful farewell of a fleeting shadow who is
about to disappear, who joyfully leaves thee, yet with a last look of
affectionate thankfulness. Farewell! Sky, and fields and woods; the lovely
flowers that grow on thee; thy mountains & thy rivers; to the balmy air=
and
the strong wind of the north, to all, a last farewell. I shall shed no more
tears for my task is almost fulfilled, and I am about to be rewarded for lo=
ng
and most burthensome suffering. Bless thy child even even [sic] in death, a=
s I
bless thee; and let me sleep at peace in my quiet grave."
I feel death to be
near at hand and I am calm. I no longer despair, but look on all around me =
with
placid affection. I find it sweet to watch the progressive decay of my
strength, and to repeat to myself, another day and yet another, but again I
shall not see the red leaves of autumn; before that time I shall be with my
father. I am glad Woodville is not with me for perhaps he would grieve, and=
I
desire to see smiles alone during the last scene of my life; when I last wr=
ote to
him I told him of my ill health but not of its mortal tendency, lest he sho=
uld
conceive it to be his duty to come to me for I fear lest the tears of
friendship should destroy the blessed calm of my mind. I take pleasure in
arranging all the little details which will occur when I shall no longer be=
. In
truth I am in love with death; no maiden ever took more pleasure in the
contemplation of her bridal attire than I in fancying my limbs already enwr=
apt
in their shroud: is it not my marriage dress? Alone it will unite me to my
father when in an eternal mental union we shall never part.
I will not dwell =
on
the last changes that I feel in the final decay of nature. It is rapid but
without pain: I feel a strange pleasure in it. For long years these are the
first days of peace that have visited me. I no longer exhaust my miserable
heart by bitter tears and frantic complaints; I no longer the [sic] reproach
the sun, the earth, the air, for pain and wretchedness. I wait in quiet
expectation for the closing hours of a life which has been to me most sweet
& bitter. I do not die not having enjoyed life; for sixteen years I was
happy: during the first months of my father's return I had enjoyed ages of
pleasure: now indeed I am grown old in grief; my steps are feeble like thos=
e of
age; I have become peevish and unfit for life; so having passed little more
than twenty years upon the earth I am more fit for my narrow grave than many
are when they reach the natural term of their lives.
Again and again I
have passed over in my remembrance the different scenes of my short life: if
the world is a stage and I merely an actor on it my part has been strange, =
and,
alas! tragical. Almost from infancy I was deprived of all the testimonies of
affection which children generally receive; I was thrown entirely upon my o=
wn resources,
and I enjoyed what I may almost call unnatural pleasures, for they were dre=
ams
and not realities. The earth was to me a magic lantern and I [a] gazer, and=
a
listener but no actor; but then came the transporting and soul-reviving era=
of
my existence: my father returned and I could pour my warm affections on a h=
uman
heart; there was a new sun and a new earth created to me; the waters of
existence sparkled: joy! joy! but, alas! what grief! My bliss was more rapi=
d than
the progress of a sunbeam on a mountain, which discloses its glades &
woods, and then leaves it dark & blank; to my happiness followed madness
and agony, closed by despair.
This was the dram=
a of
my life which I have now depicted upon paper. During three months I have be=
en
employed in this task. The memory of sorrow has brought tears; the memory of
happiness a warm glow the lively shadow of that joy. Now my tears are dried;
the glow has faded from my cheeks, and with a few words of farewell to you,
Woodville, I close my work: the last that I shall perform.
Farewell, my only
living friend; you are the sole tie that binds me to existence, and now I b=
reak
it[.] It gives me no pain to leave you; nor can our seperation give you muc=
h.
You never regarded me as one of this world, but rather as a being, who for =
some
penance was sent from the Kingdom of Shadows; and she passed a few days wee=
ping
on the earth and longing to return to her native soil. You will weep but th=
ey
will be tears of gentleness. I would, if I thought that it would lessen you=
r regret,
tell you to smile and congratulate me on my departure from the misery you
beheld me endure. I would say; Woodville, rejoice with your friend, I trium=
ph
now and am most happy. But I check these expressions; these may not be the
consolations of the living; they weep for their own misery, and not for tha=
t of
the being they have lost. No; shed a few natural tears due to my memory: an=
d if
you ever visit my grave, pluck from thence a flower, and lay it to your hea=
rt; for
your heart is the only tomb in which my memory will be enterred.
My death is rapid=
ly
approaching and you are not near to watch the flitting and vanishing of my
spirit. Do no[t] regret this; for death is a too terrible an [sic] object f=
or
the living. It is one of those adversities which hurt instead of purifying =
the
heart; for it is so intense a misery that it hardens & dulls the feelin=
gs.
Dreadful as the time was when I pursued my father towards the ocean, &
found their [sic] only his lifeless corpse; yet for my own sake I should pr=
efer
that to the watching one by one his senses fade; his pulse weaken--and slee=
plessly
as it were devour his life in gazing. To see life in his limbs & to know
that soon life would no longer be there; to see the warm breath issue from =
his
lips and to know they would soon be chill--I will not continue to trace this
frightful picture; you suffered this torture once; I never did.[85] And the
remembrance fills your heart sometimes with bitter despair when otherwise y=
our
feelings would have melted into soft sorrow.
So day by day I
become weaker, and life flickers in my wasting form, as a lamp about to loo=
se
it vivifying oil. I now behold the glad sun of May. It was May, four years =
ago,
that I first saw my beloved father; it was in May, three years ago that my
folly destroyed the only being I was doomed to love. May is returned, and I
die. Three days ago, the anniversary of our meeting; and, alas! of our eter=
nal seperation,
after a day of killing emotion, I caused myself to be led once more to beho=
ld
the face of nature. I caused myself to be carried to some meadows some miles
distant from my cottage; the grass was being mowed, and there was the scent=
of
hay in the fields; all the earth look[ed] fresh and its inhabitants happy.
Evening approached and I beheld the sun set. Three years ago and on that day
and hour it shone through the branches and leaves of the beech wood and its
beams flickered upon the countenance of him whom I then beheld for the last=
time.[86]
I now saw that divine orb, gilding all the clouds with unwonted splendour, =
sink
behind the horizon; it disappeared from a world where he whom I would seek
exists not; it approached a world where he exists not[.] Why do I weep so
bitterly? Why my [sic] does my heart heave with vain endeavour to cast aside
the bitter anguish that covers it "as the waters cover the sea." =
I go
from this world where he is no longer and soon I shall meet him in another.=
Farewell, Woodvil=
le,
the turf will soon be green on my grave; and the violets will bloom on it.
There is my hope and my expectation; your's are in this world; may they be
fulfilled.[87]
NOTES TO MATHILDA
Abbreviations:
F of F--A The Fie=
lds
of Fancy, in Lord Abinger's notebook F of F--B The Fields of Fancy, in the
notebook in the Bodleian Library S-R fr fragments of The
Fields of Fancy among the papers of the =
late
Sir John Shelley-Rolls, now in the Bodleian Library
[1] The name is
spelled thus in the MSS of Mathilda and The Fields of Fancy, though in the
printed Journal (taken from Shelley and Mary) and in the Letters it is spel=
led
Matilda. In the MS of the journal, however, it is spelled first Matilda, la=
ter
Mathilda.
[2] Mary has here
added detail and contrast to the description in F of F--A, in which the pas=
sage
"save a few black patches ... on the plain ground" does not appea=
r.
[3] The addition =
of
"I am alone ... withered me" motivates Mathilda's state of mind a=
nd
her resolve to write her history.
[4] Mathilda too =
is
the unwitting victim in a story of incest. Like Oedipus, she has lost her
parent-lover by suicide; like him she leaves the scene of the revelation
overwhelmed by a sense of her own guilt, "a sacred horror"; like =
him,
she finds a measure of peace as she is about to die.
[5] The addition =
of
"the precious memorials ... gratitude towards you," by its sugges=
tion
of the relationship between Mathilda and Woodville, serves to justify the
detailed narration.
[6] At this point=
two
sheets have been removed from the notebook. There is no break in continuity,
however.
[7] The descripti= ons of Mathilda's father and mother and the account of their marriage in the ne= xt few pages are greatly expanded from F of F--A, where there is only one brief paragraph. The process of expansion can be followed in S-R fr and in F of F= --B. The development of the character of Diana (who represents Mary's own mother, Mary Wollstonecraft) gave Mary the most trouble. For the identifications wi= th Mary's father and mother, see Nitchie, Mary Shelley, pp. 11, 90-93, 96-97.<= o:p>
[8] The passage
"There was a gentleman ... school & college vacations" is on a
slip of paper pasted on page 11 of the MS. In the margin are two fragments,
crossed out, evidently parts of what is supplanted by the substituted passa=
ge:
"an angelic disposition and a quick, penetrating understanding" a=
nd
"her visits ... to ... his house were long & frequent &
there." In F of F--B Mary wrote of Diana's understanding "that of=
ten
receives the name of masculine from its firmness and strength." This
adjective had often been applied to Mary Wollstonecraft's mind. Mary Shelle=
y's
own understanding had been called masculine by Leigh Hunt in 1817 in the
Examiner. The word was used also by a reviewer of her last published work,
Rambles in Germany and Italy, 1844. (See Nitchie, Mary Shelley, p. 178.)
[9] The account of
Diana in Mathilda is much better ordered and more coherent than that in F of
F--B.
[10] The descript=
ion
of the effect of Diana's death on her husband is largely new in Mathilda. F=
of
F--B is frankly incomplete; F of F--A contains some of this material; Mathi=
lda
puts it in order and fills in the gaps.
[11] This paragra=
ph
is an elaboration of the description of her aunt's coldness as found in F of
F--B. There is only one sentence in F of F--A.
[12] The descript=
ion
of Mathilda's love of nature and of animals is elaborated from both rough
drafts. The effect, like that of the preceding addition (see note 11), is to
emphasize Mathilda's loneliness. For the theme of loneliness in Mary Shelle=
y's
work, see Nitchie, Mary Shelley, pp. 13-17.
[13] This paragra=
ph
is a revision of F of F--B, which is fragmentary. There is nothing in F of =
F--A
and only one scored-out sentence in S-R fr. None of the rough drafts tells =
of
her plans to join her father.
[14] The final pa=
ragraph
in Chapter II is entirely new.
[15] The account =
of
the return of Mathilda's father is very slightly revised from that in F of
F--A. F of F--B has only a few fragmentary sentences, scored out. It resumes
with the paragraph beginning, "My father was very little changed."=
;
[16] Symbolic of
Mathilda's subsequent life.
[17] Illusion, or=
the
Trances of Nourjahad, a melodrama, was performed at Drury Lane, November 25,
1813. It was anonymous, but it was attributed by some reviewers to Byron, a
charge which he indignantly denied. See Byron, Letters and Journals, ed. by
Rowland E. Prothero (6 vols. London: Murray, 1902-1904), II, 288.
[18] This paragra=
ph
is in F of F--B but not in F of F--A. In the margin of the latter, however,=
is
written: "It was not of the tree of knowledge that I ate for no evil
followed--it must be of the tree of life that grows close beside it or--&qu=
ot;.
Perhaps this was intended to go in the preceding paragraph after "My i=
deas
were enlarged by his conversation." Then, when this paragraph was adde=
d,
the figure, noticeably changed, was included here.
[19] Here the MS =
of F
of F--B breaks off to resume only with the meeting of Mathilda and Woodvill=
e.
[20] At the end of
the story (p. 79) Mathilda says, "Death is too terrible an object for =
the
living." Mary was thinking of the deaths of her two children.
[21] Mary had read
the story of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius in 1817 and she had made an Itali=
an
translation, the MS of which is now in the Library of Congress. See Journal,
pp. 79, 85-86.
[22] The end of t=
his
paragraph gave Mary much trouble. In F of F--A after the words, "my ta=
le
must," she develops an elaborate figure: "go with the stream that
hurries on--& now was this stream precipitated by an overwhelming fall =
from
the pleasant vallies through which it wandered--down hideous precipieces to=
a
desart black & hopeless--". This, the original ending of the chapt=
er,
was scored out, and a new, simplified version which, with some deletions and
changes, became that used in Mathilda was written in the margins of two pag=
es
(ff. 57, 58). This revision is a good example of Mary's frequent improvemen=
t of
her style by the omission of purple patches.
[23] In F of F--A
there follows a passage which has been scored out and which does not appear=
in
Mathilda: "I have tried in somewhat feeble language to describe the ex=
cess
of what I may almost call my adoration for my father--you may then in some
faint manner imagine my despair when I found that he shunned [me] & that
all the little arts I used to re-awaken his lost love made him"--. Thi=
s is
a good example of Mary's frequent revision for the better by the omission of
the obvious and expository. But the passage also has intrinsic interest. Ma=
thilda's
"adoration" for her father may be compared to Mary's feeling for
Godwin. In an unpublished letter (1822) to Jane Williams she wrote, "U=
ntil
I met Shelley I [could?] justly say that he was my God--and I remember many
childish instances of the [ex]cess of attachment I bore for him." See
Nitchie, Mary Shelley, p. 89, and note 9.
[24] Cf. the acco=
unt
of the services of Fantasia in the opening chapter of F of F--A (see pp.
90-102) together with note 3 to The Fields of Fancy.
[25] This passage
beginning "Day after day" and closing with the quotation is not i=
n F
of F--A, but it is in S-R fr. The quotation is from The Captain by John
Fletcher and a collaborator, possibly Massinger. These lines from Act I, Sc=
. 3
are part of a speech by Lelia addressed to her lover. Later in the play Lel=
ia
attempts to seduce her father--possibly a reason for Mary's selection of the
lines.
[26] At this point
(f. 56 of the notebook) begins a long passage, continuing through Chapter V=
, in
which Mary's emotional disturbance in writing about the change in Mathilda's
father (representing both Shelley and Godwin?) shows itself on the pages of=
the
MS. They look more like the rough draft than the fair copy. There are numer=
ous
slips of the pen, corrections in phrasing and sentence structure, dashes in=
stead
of other marks of punctuation, a large blot of ink on f. 57, one major dele=
tion
(see note 32).
[27] In the margi=
n of
F of F--A Mary wrote, "Lord B's Ch'de Harold." The reference is to
stanzas 71 and 72 of Canto IV. Byron compares the rainbow on the cataract f=
irst
to "Hope upon a death-bed" and finally
Resembling, 'mid =
the
torture of the scene, Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.
[28] In F of F--A
Mathilda "took up Ariosto & read the story of Isabella." Mary=
's
reason for the change is not clear. Perhaps she thought that the fate of
Isabella, a tale of love and lust and death (though not of incest), was too
close to what was to be Mathilda's fate. She may have felt--and rightly--th=
at
the allusions to Lelia and to Myrrha were ample foreshadowings. The reasons=
for
the choice of the seventh canto of Book II of the Faerie Queene may lie in =
the allegorical
meaning of Guyon, or Temperance, and the "dread and horror" of his
experience.
[29] With this
speech, which is not in F of F--A, Mary begins to develop the character of =
the
Steward, who later accompanies Mathilda on her search for her father. Altho=
ugh
he is to a very great extent the stereptyped faithful servant, he does serv=
e to
dramatize the situation both here and in the later scene.
[30] This clause =
is
substituted for a more conventional and less dramatic passage in F of F--A:
"& besides there appeared more of struggle than remorse in his man=
ner
although sometimes I thought I saw glim[p]ses of the latter feeling in his
tumultuous starts & gloomy look."
[31] These paragr=
aphs
beginning Chapter V are much expanded from F of F--A. Some of the details a=
re
in the S-R fr. This scene is recalled at the end of the story. (See page 80)
Cf. what Mary says about places that are associated with former emotions in=
her
Rambles in Germany and Italy (2 vols., London: Moxon, 1844), II, 78-79. She=
is
writing of her approach to Venice, where, twenty-five years before, little =
Clara
had died. "It is a strange, but to any person who has suffered, a fami=
liar
circumstance, that those who are enduring mental or corporeal agony are
strangely alive to immediate external objects, and their imagination even
exercises its wild power over them.... Thus the banks of the Brenta present=
ed
to me a moving scene; not a palace, not a tree of which I did not recognize=
, as
marked and recorded, at a moment when life and death hung upon our speedy
arrival at Venice."
[32] The remainde=
r of
this chapter, which describes the crucial scene between Mathilda and her
father, is the result of much revision from F of F--A. Some of the revision=
s are
in S-R fr. In general the text of Mathilda is improved in style. Mary adds
concrete, specific words and phrases; e.g., at the end of the first paragra=
ph
of Mathilda's speech, the words "of incertitude" appear in Mathil=
da
for the first time. She cancels, even in this final draft, an over-elaborate
figure of speech after the words in the father's reply, "implicated in=
my
destruction"; the cancelled passage is too flowery to be appropriate h=
ere:
"as if when a vulture is carrying off some hare it is struck by an arr=
ow
his helpless victim entangled in the same fate is killed by the defeat of i=
ts
enemy. One word would do all this." Furthermore the revised text shows
greater understanding and penetration of the feelings of both speakers: the
addition of "Am I the cause of your grief?" which brings out more
dramatically what Mathilda has said in the first part of this paragraph; the
analysis of the reasons for her presistent questioning; the addition of the
final paragraph of her plea, "Alas! Alas!... you hate me!" which
prepares for the father's reply.
[33] Almost all t=
he
final paragraph of the chapter is added to F of F--A. Three brief S-R fr are
much revised and simplified.
[34] Decameron, 4=
th
day, 1st story. Mary had read the Decameron in May, 1819. See Journal, p. 1=
21.
[35] The passage
"I should fear ... I must despair" is in S-R fr but not in F of F=
--A.
There, in the margin, is the following: "Is it not the prerogative of
superior virtue to pardon the erring and to weigh with mercy their
offenses?" This sentence does not appear in Mathilda. Also in the marg=
in
of F of F--A is the number (9), the number of the S-R fr.
[36] The passage
"enough of the world ... in unmixed delight" is on a slip pasted =
over
the middle of the page. Some of the obscured text is visible in the margin,
heavily scored out. Also in the margin is "Canto IV Vers Ult,"
referring to the quotation from Dante's Paradiso. This quotation, with the
preceding passage beginning "in whose eyes," appears in Mathilda
only.
[37] The referenc=
e to
Diana, with the father's rationalization of his love for Mathilda, is in S-=
R fr
but not in F of F--A.
[38] In F of F--A
this is followed by a series of other gloomy concessive clauses which have =
been
scored out to the advantage of the text.
[39] This paragra=
ph
has been greatly improved by the omission of elaborate over-statement; e.g.,
"to pray for mercy & respite from my fear" (F of F--A) becomes
merely "to pray."
[40] This paragra=
ph
about the Steward is added in Mathilda. In F of F--A he is called a servant=
and
his name is Harry. See note 29.
[41] This sentenc=
e,
not in F of F--A, recalls Mathilda's dream.
[42] This passage=
is
somewhat more dramatic than that in F of F--A, putting what is there merely=
a
descriptive statement into quotation marks.
[43] A stalactite
grotto on the island of Antiparos in the Aegean Sea.
[44] A good
description of Mary's own behavior in England after Shelley's death, of the
surface placidity which concealed stormy emotion. See Nitchie, Mary Shelley,
pp. 8-10.
[45] Job, 17: 15-=
16,
slightly misquoted.
[46] Not in F of
F--A. The quotation should read:
Fam. Whisper it,
sister! so and so! In a dark hint, soft and slow.
[47] The mother of
Prince Arthur in Shakespeare's King John. In the MS the words "the lit=
tle
Arthur" are written in pencil above the name of Constance.
[48] In F of F--A
this account of her plans is addressed to Diotima, and Mathilda's excuse for
not detailing them is that they are too trivial to interest spirits no long=
er
on earth; this is the only intrusion of the framework into Mathilda's narra=
tive
in The Fields of Fancy. Mathilda's refusal to recount her stratagems, though
the omission is a welcome one to the reader, may represent the flagging of =
Mary's
invention. Similarly in Frankenstein she offers excuses for not explaining =
how
the Monster was brought to life. The entire passage, "Alas! I even now=
...
remain unfinished. I was," is on a slip of paper pasted on the page.
[49] The comparis=
on
to a Hermitess and the wearing of the "fanciful nunlike dress" ar=
e appropriate
though melodramatic. They appear only in Mathilda. Mathilda refers to her
"whimsical nunlike habit" again after she meets Woodville (see pa=
ge
60) and tells us in a deleted passage that it was "a close nunlike gow=
n of
black silk."
[50] Cf. Shelley,
Prometheus Unbound, I, 48: "the wingless, crawling hours." This
phrase ("my part in submitting ... minutes") and the remainder of=
the
paragraph are an elaboration of the simple phrase in F of F--A, "my pa=
rt
in enduring it--," with its ambiguous pronoun. The last page of Chapter
VIII shows many corrections, even in the MS of Mathilda. It is another pass=
age
that Mary seems to have written in some agitation of spirit. Cf. note 26.
[51] In F of F--A
there are several false starts before this sentence. The name there is Welf=
ord;
on the next page it becomes Lovel, which is thereafter used throughout The
Fields of Fancy and appears twice, probably inadvertently, in Mathilda, whe=
re
it is crossed out. In a few of the S-R fr it is Herbert. In Mathilda it is =
at first
Herbert, which is used until after the rewritten conclusion (see note 83) b=
ut
is corrected throughout to Woodville. On the final pages Woodville alone is
used. (It is interesting, though not particularly significant, that one of =
the
minor characters in Lamb's John Woodvil is named Lovel. Such mellifluous na=
mes
rolled easily from the pens of all the romantic writers.) This, her first p=
ortrait
of Shelley in fiction, gave Mary considerable trouble: revisions from the r=
ough
drafts are numerous. The passage on Woodville's endowment by fortune, for
example, is much more concise and effective than that in S-R fr. Also Mary
curbed somewhat the extravagance of her praise of Woodville, omitting such
hyperboles as "When he appeared a new sun seemed to rise on the day &a=
mp;
he had all the benignity of the dispensor of light," and "he seem=
ed
to come as the God of the world."
[52] This passage
beginning "his station was too high" is not in F of F--A.
[53] This passage
beginning "He was a believer in the divinity of genius" is not in=
F
of F--A. Cf. the discussion of genius in "Giovanni Villani" (Mary
Shelley's essay in The Liberal, No. IV, 1823), including the sentence:
"The fixed stars appear to abberate [sic]; but it is we that move, not
they." It is tempting to conclude that this is a quotation or echo of
something which Shelley said, perhaps in conversation with Byron. I have not
found it in any of his published writings.
[54] Is this wish=
ful
thinking about Shelley's poetry? It is well known that a year later Mary re=
monstrated
with Shelley about The Witch of Atlas, desiring, as she said in her 1839 no=
te,
"that Shelley should increase his popularity.... It was not only that I
wished him to acquire popularity as redounding to his fame; but I believed =
that
he would obtain a greater mastery over his own powers, and greater happines=
s in
his mind, if public applause crowned his endeavours.... Even now I believe =
that
I was in the right." Shelley's response is in the six introductory sta=
nzas
of the poem.
[55] The preceding
paragraphs about Elinor and Woodville are the result of considerable revisi=
on
for the better of F of F--A and S-R fr. Mary scored out a paragraph describ=
ing
Elinor, thus getting rid of several clichés ("fortune had smile=
d on
her," "a favourite of fortune," "turning tears of miser=
y to
those of joy"); she omitted a clause which offered a weak motivation of
Elinor's father's will (the possibility of her marrying, while hardly more =
than
a child, one of her guardian's sons); she curtailed the extravagance of a r=
hapsody
on the perfect happiness which Woodville and Elinor would have enjoyed.
[56] The death sc=
ene
is elaborated from F of F--A and made more melodramatic by the addition of
Woodville's plea and of his vigil by the death-bed.
[57] F of F--A en=
ds
here and F of F--B resumes.
[58] A similar
passage about Mathilda's fears is cancelled in F of F--B but it appears in
revised form in S-R fr. There is also among these fragments a long passage,=
not
used in Mathilda, identifying Woodville as someone she had met in London. M=
ary
was wise to discard it for the sake of her story. But the first part of it =
is
interesting for its correspondence with fact: "I knew him when I first
went to London with my father he was in the height of his glory & happi=
ness--Elinor
was living & in her life he lived--I did not know her but he had been
introduced to my father & had once or twice visited us--I had then gazed
with wonder on his beauty & listened to him with delight--" Shelley
had visited Godwin more than "once or twice" while Harriet was st=
ill
living, and Mary had seen him. Of course she had seen Harriet too, in 1812,
when she came with Shelley to call on Godwin. Elinor and Harriet, however, =
are
completely unlike.
[59] Here and on = many succeeding pages, where Mathilda records the words and opinions of Woodvill= e, it is possible to hear the voice of Shelley. This paragraph, which is much expanded from F of F--B, may be compared with the discussion of good and ev= il in Julian and Maddalo and with Prometheus Unbound and A Defence of Poetry.<= o:p>
[60] In the revis=
ion
of this passage Mathilda's sense of her pollution is intensified; for examp=
le,
by addition of "infamy and guilt was mingled with my portion."
[61] Some phrases=
of
self-criticism are added in this paragraph.
[62] In F of F--B=
this
quotation is used in the laudanum scene, just before Level's (Woodville's) =
long
speech of dissuasion.
[63] The passage
"air, & to suffer ... my compassionate friend" is on a slip of
paper pasted across the page.
[64] This phrase
sustains the metaphor better than that in F of F--B: "puts in a
word."
[65] This entire
paragraph is added to F of F--B; it is in rough draft in S-R fr.
[66] This is chan=
ged
in the MS of Mathilda from "a violent thunderstorm." Evidently Ma=
ry
decided to avoid using another thunderstorm at a crisis in the story.
[67] The passage
"It is true ... I will" is on a slip of paper pasted across the p=
age.
[68] In the revis=
ion
from F of F--B the style of this whole episode becomes more concise and
specific.
[69] An improveme=
nt
over the awkward phrasing in F of F--B: "a friend who will not repulse=
my
request that he would accompany me."
[70] These two
paragraphs are not in F of F--B; portions of them are in S-R fr.
[71] This speech =
is
greatly improved in style over that in F of F--B, more concise in expression
(though somewhat expanded), more specific. There are no corresponding S-R f=
r to
show the process of revision. With the ideas expressed here cf. Shelley, Ju=
lian
and Maddalo, ll. 182-187, 494-499, and his letter to Claire in November, 18=
20
(Julian Works, X, 226). See also White, Shelley, II, 378.
[72] This solecis=
m,
copied from F of F--B, is not characteristic of Mary Shelley.
[73] This paragra=
ph
prepares for the eventual softening of Mathilda's feeling. The idea is some=
what
elaborated from F of F--B. Other changes are necessitated by the change in =
the
mode of presenting the story. In The Fields of Fancy Mathilda speaks as one=
who
has already died.
[74] Cf. Shelley's
emphasis on hope and its association with love in all his work. When Mary w=
rote
Mathilda she knew Queen Mab (see Part VIII, ll. 50-57, and Part IX, ll.
207-208), the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, and the first three acts of
Prometheus Unbound. The fourth act was written in the winter of 1819, but D=
emogorgon's
words may already have been at least adumbrated before the beginning of
November:
To love and bear,=
to
hope till hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates.
[75] Shelley had
written, "Desolation is a delicate thing" (Prometheus Unbound, Ac=
t I,
l. 772) and called the Spirit of the Earth "a delicate spirit"
(Ibid., Act III, Sc. iv, l. 6).
[76] Purgatorio,
Canto 28, ll. 31-33. Perhaps by this time Shelley had translated ll. 1-51 of
this canto. He had read the Purgatorio in April, 1818, and again with Mary =
in
August, 1819, just as she was beginning to write Mathilda. Shelley showed h=
is
translation to Medwin in 1820, but there seems to be no record of the date =
of composition.
[77] An air with =
this
title was published about 1800 in London by Robert Birchall. See Catalogue =
of
Printed Music Published between 1487 and 1800 and now in the British Museum=
, by
W. Barclay Squire, 1912. Neither author nor composer is listed in the
Catalogue.
[78] This paragra=
ph
is materially changed from F of F--B. Clouds and darkness are substituted f=
or
starlight, silence for the sound of the wind. The weather here matches
Mathilda's mood. Four and a half lines of verse (which I have not been able=
to
identify, though they sound Shelleyan--are they Mary's own?) are omitted: o=
f the
stars she says,
=
the wind is in the tree But they are silent;--still t=
hey
roll along Immeasurably
distant; & the vault Built round by those white cl=
ouds,
enormous clouds Still d=
eepens
its unfathomable depth.
[79] If Mary quot=
es
Coleridge's Ancient Mariner intentionally here, she is ironic, for this is =
no
merciful rain, except for the fact that it brings on the illness which lead=
s to
Mathilda's death, for which she longs.
[80] This quotati=
on
from Christabel (which suggests that the preceding echo is intentional) is =
not
in F of F--B.
[81] Cf. the
description which opens Mathilda.
[82] Among Lord
Abinger's papers, in Mary's hand, are some comparable (but very bad)
fragmentary verses addressed to Mother Earth.
[83] At this point
four sheets are cut out of the notebook. They are evidently those with pages
numbered 217 to 223 which are among the S-R fr. They contain the conclusion=
of
the story, ending, as does F of F--B with Mathilda's words spoken to Diotim=
a in
the Elysian Fields: "I am here, not with my father, but listening to
lessons of wisdom, which will one day bring me to him when we shall never p=
art.
THE END." Some passages are scored out, but not this final sentence. T=
enses
are changed from past to future. The name Herbert is changed to Woodville. =
The
explanation must be that Mary was hurrying to finish the revision (quite
drastic on these final pages) and the transcription of her story before her
confinement, and that in her haste she copied the pages from F of F--B as t=
hey
stood. Then, realizing that they did not fit Mathilda, she began to revise
them; but to keep her MS neat, she cut out these pages and wrote the fair c=
opy.
There is no break in Mathilda in story or in pagination. This fair copy also
shows signs of haste: slips of the pen, repetition of words, a number of
unimportant revisions.
[84] Here in F of
F--B there is an index number which evidently points to a note at the botto=
m of
the next page. The note is omitted in Mathilda. It reads:
"Dante in his
Purgatorio describes a grifon as remaining unchanged but his reflection in =
the
eyes of Beatrice as perpetually varying (Purg. Cant. 31) So nature is ever =
the
same but seen differently by almost every spectator and even by the same at
various times. All minds, as mirrors, receive her forms--yet in each mirror=
the
shapes apparently reflected vary & are perpetually changing--"
[85] See note 20.
Mary Shelley had suffered this torture when Clara and William died.
[86] See the end =
of
Chapter V.
[87] This sentenc=
e is
not in F of F--B or in S-R fr.
THE FIELDS OF FANCY[88]=
span>
It was in Rome--the Queen of the Wo=
rld
that I suffered a misfortune that reduced me to misery & despair[89]--T=
he
bright sun & deep azure sky were oppressive but nought was so hateful as
the voice of Man--I loved to walk by the shores of the Tiber which were
solitary & if the sirocco blew to see the swift clouds pass over St. Pe=
ters
and the many domes of Rome or if the sun shone I turned my eyes from the sky
whose light was too dazzling & gay to be reflected in my tearful eyes I=
turned
them to the river whose swift course was as the speedy departure of happine=
ss
and whose turbid colour was gloomy as grief--
Whether I slept I
know not or whether it was in one of those many hours which I spent seated =
on
the ground my mind a chaos of despair & my eyes for ever wet by tears b=
ut I
was here visited by a lovely spirit whom I have ever worshiped & who tr=
ied
to repay my adoration by diverting my mind from the hideous memories that
racked it. At first indeed this wanton spirit played a false part &
appearing with sable wings & gloomy countenance seemed to take a pleasu=
re
in exagerating all my miseries--and as small hopes arose to snatch them fro=
m me
& give me in their place gigantic fears which under her fairy hand appe=
ared
close, impending & unavoidable--sometimes she would cruelly leave me wh=
ile
I was thus on the verge of madness and without consoling me leave me nought=
but
heavy leaden sleep--but at other times she would wilily link less unpleasing
thoughts to these most dreadful ones & before I was aware place hopes
before me--futile but consoling[90]--
One day this love=
ly
spirit--whose name as she told me was Fantasia came to me in one of her
consolotary moods--her wings which seemed coloured by her tone of mind were=
not
gay but beautiful like that of the partridge & her lovely eyes although
they ever burned with an unquenshable fire were shaded & softened by her
heavy lids & the black long fringe of her eye lashes--She thus addressed
me--You mourn for the loss of those you love. They are gone for ever &
great as my power is I cannot recall them to you--if indeed I wave my wand =
over
you you will fancy that you feel their gentle spirits in the soft air that =
steals
over your cheeks & the distant sound of winds & waters may image to=
you
their voices which will bid you rejoice for that they live--This will not t=
ake
away your grief but you will shed sweeter tears than those which full of
anguish & hopelessness now start from your eyes--This I can do & al=
so
can I take you to see many of my provinces my fairy lands which you have not
yet visited and whose beauty will while away the heavy time--I have many lo=
vely
spots under my command which poets of old have visited and have seen those
sights the relation of which has been as a revelation to the world--many sp=
ots
I have still in keeping of lovely fields or horrid rocks peopled by the
beautiful or the tremendous which I keep in reserve for my future
worshippers--to one of those whose grim terrors frightened sleep from the e=
ye I
formerly led you[91] but you now need more pleasing images & although I
will not promise you to shew you any new scenes yet if I lead you to one of=
ten
visited by my followers you will at least see new combinations that will so=
oth
if they do not delight you--Follow me--
Alas! I replied--=
when
have you found me slow to obey your voice--some times indeed I have called =
you
& you have not come--but when before have I not followed your slightest
sign and have left what was either of joy or sorrow in our world to dwell w=
ith
you in yours till you have dismissed me ever unwilling to depart--But now t=
he
weight of grief that oppresses me takes from me that lightness which is
necessary to follow your quick & winged motions alas in the midst of my
course one thought would make me droop to the ground while you would outspe=
ed
me to your Kingdom of Glory & leave me here darkling
Ungrateful! repli=
ed
the Spirit Do I not tell you that I will sustain & console you My wings
shall aid your heavy steps & I will command my winds to disperse the mi=
st
that over casts you--I will lead you to a place where you will not hear
laughter that disturbs you or see the sun that dazzles you--We will choose =
some
of the most sombre walks of the Elysian fields--
The Elysian field=
s--I
exclaimed with a quick scream--shall I then see? I gasped & could not a=
sk
that which I longed to know--the friendly spirit replied more gravely--I ha=
ve
told you that you will not see those whom you mourn--But I must away--follo=
w me
or I must leave you weeping deserted by the spirit that now checks your tea=
rs--
Go--I replied I
cannot follow--I can only sit here & grieve--& long to see those who
are gone for ever for to nought but what has relation to them can I listen-=
-
The spirit left m=
e to
groan & weep to wish the sun quenched in eternal darkness--to accuse the
air the waters all--all the universe of my utter & irremediable
misery--Fantasia came again and ever when she came tempted me to follow her=
but
as to follow her was to leave for a while the thought of those loved ones w=
hose
memories were my all although they were my torment I dared not go--Stay wit=
h me
I cried & help me to clothe my bitter thoughts in lovelier colours give=
me
hope although fallacious & images of what has been although it never wi=
ll be
again--diversion I cannot take cruel fairy do you leave me alas all my joy
fades at thy departure but I may not follow thee--
One day after one=
of
these combats when the spirit had left me I wandered on along the banks of =
the
river to try to disperse the excessive misery that I felt untill overcome by
fatigue--my eyes weighed down by tears--I lay down under the shade of trees
& fell asleep--I slept long and when I awoke I knew not where I was--I =
did not
see the river or the distant city--but I lay beside a lovely fountain shado=
wed
over by willows & surrounded by blooming myrtles--at a short distance t=
he
air seemed pierced by the spiry pines & cypresses and the ground was
covered by short moss & sweet smelling heath--the sky was blue but not
dazzling like that of Rome and on every side I saw long allies--clusters of
trees with intervening lawns & gently stealing rivers--Where am I? [I]
exclaimed--& looking around me I beheld Fantasia--She smiled & as s=
he
smiled all the enchanting scene appeared lovelier--rainbows played in the
fountain & the heath flowers at our feet appeared as if just refreshed =
by
dew--I have seized you, said she--as you slept and will for some little time
retain you as my prisoner--I will introduce you to some of the inhabitants =
of
these peaceful Gardens--It shall not be to any whose exuberant happiness wi=
ll
form an u[n]pleasing contrast with your heavy grief but it shall be to those
whose chief care here is to acquired knowledged [sic] & virtue--or to t=
hose
who having just escaped from care & pain have not yet recovered full se=
nse
of enjoyment--This part of these Elysian Gardens is devoted to those who as
before in your world wished to become wise & virtuous by study & ac=
tion
here endeavour after the same ends by contemplation--They are still unknowi=
ng
of their final destination but they have a clear knowledge of what on earth=
is
only supposed by some which is that their happiness now & hereafter dep=
ends
upon their intellectual improvement--Nor do they only study the forms of th=
is
universe but search deeply in their own minds and love to meet & conver=
se
on all those high subjects of which the philosophers of Athens loved to
treat--With deep feelings but with no outward circumstances to excite their
passions you will perhaps imagine that their life is uniform & dull--but
these sages are of that disposition fitted to find wisdom in every thing &a=
mp;
in every lovely colour or form ideas that excite their love--Besides many y=
ears
are consumed before they arrive here--When a soul longing for knowledge &am=
p; pining
at its narrow conceptions escapes from your earth many spirits wait to rece=
ive
it and to open its eyes to the mysteries of the universe--many centuries are
often consumed in these travels and they at last retire here to digest their
knowledge & to become still wiser by thought and imagination working up=
on
memory [92]--When the fitting period is accomplished they leave this garden=
to
inhabit another world fitted for the reception of beings almost infinitely
wise--but what this world is neither can you conceive or I teach you--some =
of
the spirits whom you will see here are yet unknowing in the secrets of natu=
re--They
are those whom care & sorrow have consumed on earth & whose hearts
although active in virtue have been shut through suffering from knowledge--=
These
spend sometime here to recover their equanimity & to get a thirst of
knowledge from converse with their wiser companions--They now securely hope=
to
see again those whom they love & know that it is ignorance alone that
detains them from them. As for those who in your world knew not the lovelin=
ess
of benevolence & justice they are placed apart some claimed by the evil
spirit & in vain sought for by the good but She whose delight is to ref=
orm
the wicked takes all she can & delivers them to her ministers not to be=
punished
but to be exercised & instructed untill acquiring a love of virtue they=
are
fitted for these gardens where they will acquire a love of knowledge
As Fantasia talke=
d I
saw various groupes of figures as they walked among the allies of the garde=
ns
or were seated on the grassy plots either in contemplation or conversation
several advanced together towards the fountain where I sat--As they approac=
hed
I observed the principal figure to be that of a woman about 40 years of age=
her
eyes burned with a deep fire and every line of her face expressed enthusiasm
& wisdom--Poetry seemed seated on her lips which were beautifully formed
& every motion of her limbs although not youthful was inexpressibly
graceful--her black hair was bound in tresses round her head and her brows =
were
encompassed by a fillet--her dress was that of a simple tunic bound at the
waist by a broad girdle and a mantle which fell over her left arm she was
encompassed by several youths of both sexes who appeared to hang on her wor=
ds
& to catch the inspiration as it flowed from her with looks either of e=
ager
wonder or stedfast attention with eyes all bent towards her eloquent
countenance which beamed with the mind within--I am going said Fantasia but=
I leave
my spirit with you without which this scene wd fade away--I leave you in go=
od
company--that female whose eyes like the loveliest planet in the heavens dr=
aw
all to gaze on her is the Prophetess Diotima the instructress of
Socrates[93]--The company about her are those just escaped from the world t=
here
they were unthinking or misconducted in the pursuit of knowledge. She leads
them to truth & wisdom untill the time comes when they shall be fitted =
for
the journey through the universe which all must one day undertake--farewell=
--
And now, gentlest
reader--I must beg your indulgence--I am a being too weak to record the wor=
ds
of Diotima her matchless wisdom & heavenly eloquence[.] What I shall re=
peat
will be as the faint shadow of a tree by moonlight--some what of the form w=
ill
be preserved but there will be no life in it--Plato alone of Mortals could
record the thoughts of Diotima hopeless therefore I shall not dwell so much=
on
her words as on those of her pupils which being more earthly can better than
hers be related by living lips[.]
Diotima approached
the fountain & seated herself on a mossy mound near it and her disciples
placed themselves on the grass near her--Without noticing me who sat close
under her she continued her discourse addressing as it happened one or othe=
r of
her listeners--but before I attempt to repeat her words I will describe the
chief of these whom she appeared to wish principally to impress--One was a
woman of about 23 years of age in the full enjoyment of the most exquisite
beauty her golden hair floated in ringlets on her shoulders--her hazle eyes
were shaded by heavy lids and her mouth the lips apart seemed to breathe se=
nsibility[94]--But
she appeared thoughtful & unhappy--her cheek was pale she seemed as if
accustomed to suffer and as if the lessons she now heard were the only word=
s of
wisdom to which she had ever listened--The youth beside her had a far diffe=
rent
aspect--his form was emaciated nearly to a shadow--his features were handso=
me
but thin & worn--& his eyes glistened as if animating the visage of
decay--his forehead was expansive but there was a doubt & perplexity in=
his
looks that seemed to say that although he had sought wisdom he had got enta=
ngled
in some mysterious mazes from which he in vain endeavoured to extricate
himself--As Diotima spoke his colour went & came with quick changes &am=
p;
the flexible muscles of his countenance shewed every impression that his mi=
nd
received--he seemed one who in life had studied hard but whose feeble frame
sunk beneath the weight of the mere exertion of life--the spark of intellig=
ence
burned with uncommon strength within him but that of life seemed ever on the
eve of fading[95]--At present I shall not describe any other of this groupe=
but
with deep attention try to recall in my memory some of the words of
Diotima--they were words of fire but their path is faintly marked on my
recollection--[96]
It requires a just
hand, said she continuing her discourse, to weigh & divide the good from
evil--On the earth they are inextricably entangled and if you would cast aw=
ay
what there appears an evil a multitude of beneficial causes or effects clin=
g to
it & mock your labour--When I was on earth and have walked in a solitary
country during the silence of night & have beheld the multitude of star=
s,
the soft radiance of the moon reflected on the sea, which was studded by lo=
vely
islands--When I have felt the soft breeze steal across my cheek & as the
words of love it has soothed & cherished me--then my mind seemed almost=
to
quit the body that confined it to the earth & with a quick mental sense=
to
mingle with the scene that I hardly saw--I felt--Then I have exclaimed, oh
world how beautiful thou art!--Oh brightest universe behold thy
worshiper!--spirit of beauty & of sympathy which pervades all things, &=
amp;
now lifts my soul as with wings, how have you animated the light & the
breezes!--Deep & inexplicable spirit give me words to express my adorat=
ion;
my mind is hurried away but with language I cannot tell how I feel thy
loveliness! Silence or the song of the nightingale the momentary apparition=
of
some bird that flies quietly past--all seems animated with thee & more =
than
all the deep sky studded with worlds!"--If the winds roared & tore=
the
sea and the dreadful lightnings seemed falling around me--still love was mi=
ngled
with the sacred terror I felt; the majesty of loveliness was deeply impress=
ed
on me--So also I have felt when I have seen a lovely countenance--or heard
solemn music or the eloquence of divine wisdom flowing from the lips of one=
of
its worshippers--a lovely animal or even the graceful undulations of trees
& inanimate objects have excited in me the same deep feeling of love &a=
mp;
beauty; a feeling which while it made me alive & eager to seek the cause
& animator of the scene, yet satisfied me by its very depth as if I had
already found the solution to my enquires [sic] & as if in feeling myse=
lf a
part of the great whole I had found the truth & secret of the universe-=
-But
when retired in my cell I have studied & contemplated the various motio=
ns
and actions in the world the weight of evil has confounded me--If I thought=
of
the creation I saw an eternal chain of evil linked one to the other--from t=
he
great whale who in the sea swallows & destroys multitudes & the sma=
ller
fish that live on him also & torment him to madness--to the cat whose
pleasure it is to torment her prey I saw the whole creation filled with
pain--each creature seems to exist through the misery of another & death
& havoc is the watchword of the animated world--And Man also--even in
Athens the most civilized spot on the earth what a multitude of mean
passions--envy, malice--a restless desire to depreciate all that was great =
and
good did I see--And in the dominions of the great being I saw man
[reduced?][97] far below the animals of the field preying on one anothers [=
sic]
hearts; happy in the downfall of others--themselves holding on with bent ne=
cks
and cruel eyes to a wretch more a slave if possible than they to his misera=
ble
passions--And if I said these are the consequences of civilization & tu=
rned
to the savage world I saw only ignorance unrepaid by any noble feeling--a m=
ere
animal, love of life joined to a low love of power & a fiendish love of
destruction--I saw a creature drawn on by his senses & his selfish pass=
ions
but untouched by aught noble or even Human--
And then when I
sought for consolation in the various faculties man is possessed of & w=
hich
I felt burning within me--I found that spirit of union with love & beau=
ty
which formed my happiness & pride degraded into superstition & turn=
ed
from its natural growth which could bring forth only good
fruit:--cruelty--& intolerance & hard tyranny was grafted on its tr=
unk
& from it sprung fruit suitable to such grafts--If I mingled with my fe=
llow
creatures was the voice I heard that of love & virtue or that of
selfishness & vice, still misery was ever joined to it & the tears =
of
mankind formed a vast sea ever blown on by its sighs & seldom illuminat=
ed
by its smiles--Such taking only one side of the picture & shutting wisd=
om
from the view is a just portraiture of the creation as seen on earth
But when I compar=
ed
the good & evil of the world & wished to divide them into two seper=
ate
principles I found them inextricably intwined together & I was again ca=
st
into perplexity & doubt--I might have considered the earth as an imperf=
ect
formation where having bad materials to work on the Creator could only pall=
iate
the evil effects of his combinations but I saw a wanton malignity in many p=
arts
& particularly in the mind of man that baffled me a delight in mischief=
a
love of evil for evils sake--a siding of the multitude--a dastardly applause
which in their hearts the crowd gave to triumphant wick[ed]ness over lowly
virtue that filled me with painful sensations. Meditation, painful &
continual thought only encreased my doubts--I dared not commit the blasphem=
y of
ascribing the slightest evil to a beneficent God--To whom then should I asc=
ribe
the creation? To two principles? Which was the upermost? They were certainly
independant for neither could the good spirit allow the existence of evil or
the evil one the existence of good--Tired of these doubts to which I could =
form
no probable solution--Sick of forming theories which I destroyed as quickly=
as
I built them I was one evening on the top of Hymettus beholding the lovely
prospect as the sun set in the glowing sea--I looked towards Athens & i=
n my
heart I exclaimed--oh busy hive of men! What heroism & what meaness exi=
sts
within thy walls! And alas! both to the good & to the wicked what
incalculable misery--Freemen ye call yourselves yet every free man has ten
slaves to build up his freedom--and these slaves are men as they are yet
d[e]graded by their station to all that is mean & loathsome--Yet in how
many hearts now beating in that city do high thoughts live & magnanimity
that should methinks redeem the whole human race--What though the good man =
is unhappy
has he not that in his heart to satisfy him? And will a contented conscience
compensate for fallen hopes--a slandered name torn affections & all the
miseries of civilized life?--
Oh Sun how beauti=
ful
thou art! And how glorious is the golden ocean that receives thee! My heart=
is
at peace--I feel no sorrow--a holy love stills my senses--I feel as if my m=
ind
also partook of the inexpressible loveliness of surrounding nature--What sh=
all
I do? Shall I disturb this calm by mingling in the world?--shall I with an
aching heart seek the spectacle of misery to discover its cause or shall I =
hopless
leave the search of knowledge & devote myself to the pleasures they say
this world affords?--Oh! no--I will become wise! I will study my own heart-=
-and
there discovering as I may the spring of the virtues I possess I will teach
others how to look for them in their own souls--I will find whence arrises =
this
unquenshable love of beauty I possess that seems the ruling star of my life=
--I
will learn how I may direct it aright and by what loving I may become more =
like
that beauty which I adore And when I have traced the steps of the godlike
feeling which ennobles me & makes me that which I esteem myself to be t=
hen
I will teach others & if I gain but one proselyte--if I can teach but o=
ne
other mind what is the beauty which they ought to love--and what is the
sympathy to which they ought to aspire what is the true end of their
being--which must be the true end of that of all men then shall I be satisf=
ied
& think I have done enough--
Farewell
doubts--painful meditation of evil--& the great, ever inexplicable caus=
e of
all that we see--I am content to be ignorant of all this happy that not res=
ting
my mind on any unstable theories I have come to the conclusion that of the
great secret of the universe I can know nothing--There is a veil before it-=
-my
eyes are not piercing enough to see through it my arms not long enough to r=
each
it to withdraw it--I will study the end of my being--oh thou universal love
inspire me--oh thou beauty which I see glowing around me lift me to a fit
understanding of thee! Such was the conclusion of my long wanderings I soug=
ht
the end of my being & I found it to be knowledge of itself--Nor think t=
his a
confined study--Not only did it lead me to search the mazes of the human
soul--but I found that there existed nought on earth which contained not a =
part
of that universal beauty with which it [was] my aim & object to become
acquainted--the motions of the stars of heaven the study of all that
philosophers have unfolded of wondrous in nature became as it where [sic] t=
he
steps by which my soul rose to the full contemplation & enjoyment of th=
e beautiful--Oh
ye who have just escaped from the world ye know not what fountains of love =
will
be opened in your hearts or what exquisite delight your minds will receive =
when
the secrets of the world will be unfolded to you and ye shall become acquai=
nted
with the beauty of the universe--Your souls now growing eager for the
acquirement of knowledge will then rest in its possession disengaged from e=
very
particle of evil and knowing all things ye will as it were be mingled in the
universe & ye will become a part of that celestial beauty that you
admire--[98]
Diotima ceased an=
d a
profound silence ensued--the youth with his cheeks flushed and his eyes bur=
ning
with the fire communicated from hers still fixed them on her face which was
lifted to heaven as in inspiration--The lovely female bent hers to the grou=
nd
& after a deep sigh was the first to break the silence--
Oh divinest
prophetess, said she--how new & to me how strange are your lessons--If =
such
be the end of our being how wayward a course did I pursue on earth--Diotima=
you
know not how torn affections & misery incalculable misery--withers up t=
he
soul. How petty do the actions of our earthly life appear when the whole
universe is opened to our gaze--yet there our passions are deep &
irrisisbable [sic] and as we are floating hopless yet clinging to hope down=
the
impetuous stream can we perceive the beauty of its banks which alas my soul=
was
too turbid to reflect--If knowledge is the end of our being why are passions
& feelings implanted in us that hurries [sic] us from wisdom to
selfconcentrated misery & narrow selfish feeling? Is it as a trial? On
earth I thought that I had well fulfilled my trial & my last moments be=
came
peaceful with the reflection that I deserved no blame--but you take from me
that feeling--My passions were there my all to me and the hopeless misery t=
hat
possessed me shut all love & all images of beauty from my soul--Nature =
was
to me as the blackest night & if rays of loveliness ever strayed into my
darkness it was only to draw bitter tears of hopeless anguish from my eyes-=
-Oh
on earth what consolation is there to misery?
Your heart I fear,
replied Diotima, was broken by your sufferings--but if you had struggled--if
when you found all hope of earthly happiness wither within you while desire=
of
it scorched your soul--if you had near you a friend to have raised you to t=
he
contemplation of beauty & the search of knowledge you would have found
perhaps not new hopes spring within you but a new life distinct from that of
passion by which you had before existed[99]--relate to me what this misery =
was that
thus engroses you--tell me what were the vicissitudes of feeling that you
endured on earth--after death our actions & worldly interest fade as
nothing before us but the traces of our feelings exist & the memories of
those are what furnish us here with eternal subject of meditation.
A blush spread ov=
er
the cheek of the lovely girl--Alas, replied she what a tale must I relate w=
hat
dark & phre[n]zied passions must I unfold--When you Diotima lived on ea=
rth
your soul seemed to mingle in love only with its own essence & to be
unknowing of the various tortures which that heart endures who if it has not
sympathized with has been witness of the dreadful struggles of a soul encha=
ined
by dark deep passions which were its hell & yet from which it could not=
escape--Are
there in the peaceful language used by the inhabitants of these regions--wo=
rds
burning enough to paint the tortures of the human heart--Can you understand
them? or can you in any way sympathize with them--alas though dead I do and=
my
tears flow as when I lived when my memory recalls the dreadful images of the
past--
--As the lovely g=
irl
spoke my own eyes filled with bitter drops--the spirit of Fantasia seemed to
fade from within me and when after placing my hand before my swimming eyes I
withdrew it again I found myself under the trees on the banks of the Tiber-=
-The
sun was just setting & tinging with crimson the clouds that floated over
St. Peters--all was still no human voice was heard--the very air was quiet I
rose--& bewildered with the grief that I felt within me the recollectio=
n of
what I had heard--I hastened to the city that I might see human beings not =
that
I might forget my wandering recollections but that I might impress on my mi=
nd
what was reality & what was either dream--or at least not of this earth=
--The
Corso of Rome was filled with carriages and as I walked up the Trinita dei'
Montes I became disgusted with the crowd that I saw about me & the vaca=
ncy
& want of beauty not to say deformity of the many beings who meaningles=
sly buzzed
about me--I hastened to my room which overlooked the whole city which as ni=
ght
came on became tranquil--Silent lovely Rome I now gaze on thee--thy domes a=
re
illuminated by the moon--and the ghosts of lovely memories float with the n=
ight
breeze among thy ruins-- contemplating thy loveliness which half soothes my
miserable heart I record what I have seen--Tomorrow I will again woo Fantas=
ia
to lead me to the same walks & invite her to visit me with her visions
which I before neglected--Oh let me learn this lesson while yet it may be u=
seful
to me that to a mind hopeless & unhappy as mine--a moment of forgetfull=
ness
a moment [in] which it can pass out of itself is worth a life of painful
recollection.
CHAP. 2
The next morning while sitting on t=
he
steps of the temple of Aesculapius in the Borghese gardens Fantasia again
visited me & smilingly beckoned to me to follow her--My flight was at f=
irst
heavy but the breezes commanded by the spirit to convoy me grew stronger as=
I
advanced--a pleasing languour seized my senses & when I recovered I fou=
nd
my self by the Elysian fountain near Diotima--The beautiful female who[m] I=
had
left on the point of narrating her earthly history seemed to have waited fo=
r my
return and as soon as I appeared she spoke thus--[100]
NOTES TO THE FIELDS OF FA=
NCY
[88] Here is printed the opening of=
F of
F--A, which contains the fanciful framework abandoned in Mathilda. It has s=
ome
intrinsic interest, as it shows that Mary as well as Shelley had been readi=
ng Plato,
and especially as it reveals the close connection of the writing of Mathilda
with Mary's own grief and depression. The first chapter is a fairly good ro=
ugh
draft. Punctuation, to be sure, consists largely of dashes or is non-existe=
nt,
and there are some corrections. But there are not as many changes as there =
are
in the remainder of this MS or in F of F--B.
[89] It was in Ro=
me
that Mary's oldest child, William, died on June 7, 1819.
[90] Cf. two entr=
ies
in Mary Shelley's journal. An unpublished entry for October 27, 1822, reads:
"Before when I wrote Mathilda, miserable as I was, the inspiration was
sufficient to quell my wretchedness temporarily." Another entry, that =
for
December 2, 1834, is quoted in abbreviated and somewhat garbled form by R.
Glynn Grylls in Mary Shelley (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 19=
4,
and reprinted by Professor Jones (Journal, p. 203). The full passage follow=
s:
"Little harm has my imagination done to me & how much good!--My po=
or
heart pierced through & through has found balm from it--it has been the
aegis to my sensibility--Sometimes there have been periods when Misery has
pushed it aside--& those indeed were periods I shudder to remember--but=
the
fairy only stept aside, she watched her time--& at the first opportunity
her ... beaming face peeped in, & the weight of deadly woe was
lightened."
[91] An obvious
reference to Frankenstein.
[92] With the wor=
ds
of Fantasia (and those of Diotima), cf. the association of wisdom and virtu=
e in
Plato's Phaedo, the myth of Er in the Republic, and the doctrine of love and
beauty in the Symposium.
[93] See Plato's
Symposium. According to Mary's note in her edition of Shelley's Essays, Let=
ters
from Abroad, etc. (1840), Shelley planned to use the name for the instructr=
ess
of the Stranger in his unfinished prose tale, The Coliseum, which was writt=
en
before Mathilda, in the winter of 1818-1819. Probably at this same time Mary
was writing an unfinished (and unpublished) tale about Valerius, an ancient
Roman brought back to life in modern Rome. Valerius, like Shelley's Strange=
r,
was instructed by a woman whom he met in the Coliseum. Mary's story is inde=
bted
to Shelley's in other ways as well.
[94] Mathilda.
[95] I cannot fin=
d a
prototype for this young man, though in some ways he resembles Shelley.
[96] Following th=
is
paragraph is an incomplete one which is scored out in the MS. The comment on
the intricacy of modern life is interesting. Mary wrote: "The world you
have just quitted she said is one of doubt & perplexity often of pain &=
amp;
misery--The modes of suffering seem to me to be much multiplied there since=
I
made one of the throng & modern feelings seem to have acquired an intra=
cacy
then unknown but now the veil is torn aside--the events that you felt deepl=
y on
earth have passed away & you see them in their nakedness all but your k=
nowledge
& affections have passed away as a dream you now wonder at the effect
trifles had on you and that the events of so passing a scene should have
interested you so deeply--You complain, my friends of the"
[97] The word is
blotted and virtually illegible.
[98] With Diotima=
's
conclusion here cf. her words in the Symposium: "When any one ascending
from a correct system of Love, begins to contemplate this supreme beauty, he
already touches the consummation of his labour. For such as discipline
themselves upon this system, or are conducted by another beginning to ascend
through these transitory objects which are beautiful, towards that which is
beauty itself, proceeding as on steps from the love of one form to that of =
two,
and from that of two, to that of all forms which are beautiful; and from be=
autiful
forms to beautiful habits and institutions, and from institutions to beauti=
ful
doctrines; until, from the meditation of many doctrines, they arrive at that
which is nothing else than the doctrine of the supreme beauty itself, in the
knowledge and contemplation of which at length they repose." (Shelley's
translation) Love, beauty, and self-knowledge are keywords not only in Plato
but in Shelley's thought and poetry, and he was much concerned with the pro=
blem
of the presence of good and evil. Some of these themes are discussed by
Woodville in Mathilda. The repetition may have been one reason why Mary
discarded the framework.
[99] Mathilda did
have such a friend, but, as she admits, she profited little from his teachi=
ngs.
[100] In F of F--B
there is another, longer version (three and a half pages) of this incident,
scored out, recounting the author's return to the Elysian gardens, Diotima's
consolation of Mathilda, and her request for Mathilda's story. After wander=
ing
through the alleys and woods adjacent to the gardens, the author came upon
Diotima seated beside Mathilda. "It is true indeed she said our affect=
ions
outlive our earthly forms and I can well sympathize in your disappointment =
that
you do not find what you loved in the life now ended to welcome you here[.]=
But
one day you will all meet how soon entirely depends upon yourself--It is by=
the
acquirement of wisdom and the loss of the selfishness that is now attached =
to
the sole feeling that possesses you that you will at last mingle in that
universal world of which we all now make a divided part." Diotima urges
Mathilda to tell her story, and she, hoping that by doing so she will break=
the
bonds that weigh heavily upon her, proceeds to "tell this history of
strange woe."