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Title: The Last Man

Author: Mary Shelley

Release Date: April 24, 2006 [EBook #18247]

Language: English

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The Last Man

Mary W. Shelley

First edition.
Henry Colburn
London
1826




VOL. I.




INTRODUCTION.


I VISITED Naples in the year 1818. On the 8th of December of that year, my
companion and I crossed the Bay, to visit the antiquities which are
scattered on the shores of Baiae. The translucent and shining waters of the
calm sea covered fragments of old Roman villas, which were interlaced by
sea-weed, and received diamond tints from the chequering of the sun-beams;
the blue and pellucid element was such as Galatea might have skimmed in her
car of mother of pearl; or Cleopatra, more fitly than the Nile, have chosen
as the path of her magic ship. Though it was winter, the atmosphere seemed
more appropriate to early spring; and its genial warmth contributed to
inspire those sensations of placid delight, which are the portion of every
traveller, as he lingers, loath to quit the tranquil bays and radiant
promontories of Baiae.

We visited the so called Elysian Fields and Avernus: and wandered through
various ruined temples, baths, and classic spots; at length we entered the
gloomy cavern of the Cumaean Sibyl. Our Lazzeroni bore flaring torches,
which shone red, and almost dusky, in the murky subterranean passages,
whose darkness thirstily surrounding them, seemed eager to imbibe more and
more of the element of light. We passed by a natural archway, leading to a
second gallery, and enquired, if we could not enter there also. The guides
pointed to the reflection of their torches on the water that paved it,
leaving us to form our own conclusion; but adding it was a pity, for it led
to the Sibyl's Cave. Our curiosity and enthusiasm were excited by this
circumstance, and we insisted upon attempting the passage. As is usually
the case in the prosecution of such enterprizes, the difficulties decreased
on examination. We found, on each side of the humid pathway, "dry land for
the sole of the foot."

At length we arrived at a large, desert, dark cavern, which the Lazzeroni
assured us was the Sibyl's Cave. We were sufficiently disappointed--Yet
we examined it with care, as if its blank, rocky walls could still bear
trace of celestial visitant. On one side was a small opening. Whither does
this lead? we asked: can we enter here?--"Questo poi, no,"--said the
wild looking savage, who held the torch; "you can advance but a short
distance, and nobody visits it."

"Nevertheless, I will try it," said my companion; "it may lead to the real
cavern. Shall I go alone, or will you accompany me?"

I signified my readiness to proceed, but our guides protested against such
a measure. With great volubility, in their native Neapolitan dialect, with
which we were not very familiar, they told us that there were spectres,
that the roof would fall in, that it was too narrow to admit us, that there
was a deep hole within, filled with water, and we might be drowned. My
friend shortened the harangue, by taking the man's torch from him; and we
proceeded alone.

The passage, which at first scarcely admitted us, quickly grew narrower and
lower; we were almost bent double; yet still we persisted in making our way
through it. At length we entered a wider space, and the low roof
heightened; but, as we congratulated ourselves on this change, our torch
was extinguished by a current of air, and we were left in utter darkness.
The guides bring with them materials for renewing the light, but we had
none--our only resource was to return as we came. We groped round the
widened space to find the entrance, and after a time fancied that we had
succeeded. This proved however to be a second passage, which evidently
ascended. It terminated like the former; though something approaching to a
ray, we could not tell whence, shed a very doubtful twilight in the space.
By degrees, our eyes grew somewhat accustomed to this dimness, and we
perceived that there was no direct passage leading us further; but that it
was possible to climb one side of the cavern to a low arch at top, which
promised a more easy path, from whence we now discovered that this light
proceeded. With considerable difficulty we scrambled up, and came to
another passage with still more of illumination, and this led to another
ascent like the former.

After a succession of these, which our resolution alone permitted us to
surmount, we arrived at a wide cavern with an arched dome-like roof. An
aperture in the midst let in the light of heaven; but this was overgrown
with brambles and underwood, which acted as a veil, obscuring the day, and
giving a solemn religious hue to the apartment. It was spacious, and nearly
circular, with a raised seat of stone, about the size of a Grecian couch,
at one end. The only sign that life had been here, was the perfect
snow-white skeleton of a goat, which had probably not perceived the opening
as it grazed on the hill above, and had fallen headlong. Ages perhaps had
elapsed since this catastrophe; and the ruin it had made above, had been
repaired by the growth of vegetation during many hundred summers.

The rest of the furniture of the cavern consisted of piles of leaves,
fragments of bark, and a white filmy substance, resembling the inner part
of the green hood which shelters the grain of the unripe Indian corn. We
were fatigued by our struggles to attain this point, and seated ourselves
on the rocky couch, while the sounds of tinkling sheep-bells, and shout of
shepherd-boy, reached us from above.

At length my friend, who had taken up some of the leaves strewed about,
exclaimed, "This is the Sibyl's cave; these are Sibylline leaves." On
examination, we found that all the leaves, bark, and other substances, were
traced with written characters. What appeared to us more astonishing, was
that these writings were expressed in various languages: some unknown to my
companion, ancient Chaldee, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, old as the
Pyramids. Stranger still, some were in modern dialects, English and
Italian. We could make out little by the dim light, but they seemed to
contain prophecies, detailed relations of events but lately passed; names,
now well known, but of modern date; and often exclamations of exultation or
woe, of victory or defeat, were traced on their thin scant pages. This was
certainly the Sibyl's Cave; not indeed exactly as Virgil describes it, but
the whole of this land had been so convulsed by earthquake and volcano,
that the change was not wonderful, though the traces of ruin were effaced
by time; and we probably owed the preservation of these leaves, to the
accident which had closed the mouth of the cavern, and the swift-growing
vegetation which had rendered its sole opening impervious to the storm. We
made a hasty selection of such of the leaves, whose writing one at least of
us could understand; and then, laden with our treasure, we bade adieu to
the dim hypaethric cavern, and after much difficulty succeeded in rejoining
our guides.

During our stay at Naples, we often returned to this cave, sometimes alone,
skimming the sun-lit sea, and each time added to our store. Since that
period, whenever the world's circumstance has not imperiously called me
away, or the temper of my mind impeded such study, I have been employed in
deciphering these sacred remains. Their meaning, wondrous and eloquent, has
often repaid my toil, soothing me in sorrow, and exciting my imagination to
daring flights, through the immensity of nature and the mind of man. For
awhile my labours were not solitary; but that time is gone; and, with the
selected and matchless companion of my toils, their dearest reward is also
lost to me--

  Di mie tenere frondi altro lavoro
  Credea mostrarte; e qual fero pianeta
  Ne' nvidio insieme, o mio nobil tesoro?

I present the public with my latest discoveries in the slight Sibylline
pages. Scattered and unconnected as they were, I have been obliged to add
links, and model the work into a consistent form. But the main substance
rests on the truths contained in these poetic rhapsodies, and the divine
intuition which the Cumaean damsel obtained from heaven.

I have often wondered at the subject of her verses, and at the English
dress of the Latin poet. Sometimes I have thought, that, obscure and
chaotic as they are, they owe their present form to me, their decipherer.
As if we should give to another artist, the painted fragments which form
the mosaic copy of Raphael's Transfiguration in St. Peter's; he would put
them together in a form, whose mode would be fashioned by his own peculiar
mind and talent. Doubtless the leaves of the Cumaean Sibyl have suffered
distortion and diminution of interest and excellence in my hands. My only
excuse for thus transforming them, is that they were unintelligible in
their pristine condition.

My labours have cheered long hours of solitude, and taken me out of a
world, which has averted its once benignant face from me, to one glowing
with imagination and power. Will my readers ask how I could find solace
from the narration of misery and woeful change? This is one of the
mysteries of our nature, which holds full sway over me, and from whose
influence I cannot escape. I confess, that I have not been unmoved by the
development of the tale; and that I have been depressed, nay, agonized, at
some parts of the recital, which I have faithfully transcribed from my
materials. Yet such is human nature, that the excitement of mind was dear
to me, and that the imagination, painter of tempest and earthquake, or,
worse, the stormy and ruin-fraught passions of man, softened my real
sorrows and endless regrets, by clothing these fictitious ones in that
ideality, which takes the mortal sting from pain.

I hardly know whether this apology is necessary. For the merits of my
adaptation and translation must decide how far I have well bestowed my time
and imperfect powers, in giving form and substance to the frail and
attenuated Leaves of the Sibyl.




CHAPTER I.


I AM the native of a sea-surrounded nook, a cloud-enshadowed land, which,
when the surface of the globe, with its shoreless ocean and trackless
continents, presents itself to my mind, appears only as an inconsiderable
speck in the immense whole; and yet, when balanced in the scale of mental
power, far outweighed countries of larger extent and more numerous
population. So true it is, that man's mind alone was the creator of all
that was good or great to man, and that Nature herself was only his first
minister. England, seated far north in the turbid sea, now visits my dreams
in the semblance of a vast and well-manned ship, which mastered the winds
and rode proudly over the waves. In my boyish days she was the universe to
me. When I stood on my native hills, and saw plain and mountain stretch out
to the utmost limits of my vision, speckled by the dwellings of my
countrymen, and subdued to fertility by their labours, the earth's very
centre was fixed for me in that spot, and the rest of her orb was as a
fable, to have forgotten which would have cost neither my imagination nor
understanding an effort.

My fortunes have been, from the beginning, an exemplification of the power
that mutability may possess over the varied tenor of man's life. With
regard to myself, this came almost by inheritance. My father was one of
those men on whom nature had bestowed to prodigality the envied gifts of
wit and imagination, and then left his bark of life to be impelled by these
winds, without adding reason as the rudder, or judgment as the pilot for
the voyage. His extraction was obscure; but circumstances brought him early
into public notice, and his small paternal property was soon dissipated in
the splendid scene of fashion and luxury in which he was an actor. During
the short years of thoughtless youth, he was adored by the high-bred
triflers of the day, nor least by the youthful sovereign, who escaped from
the intrigues of party, and the arduous duties of kingly business, to find
never-failing amusement and exhilaration of spirit in his society. My
father's impulses, never under his own controul, perpetually led him into
difficulties from which his ingenuity alone could extricate him; and the
accumulating pile of debts of honour and of trade, which would have bent to
earth any other, was supported by him with a light spirit and tameless
hilarity; while his company was so necessary at the tables and assemblies
of the rich, that his derelictions were considered venial, and he himself
received with intoxicating flattery.

This kind of popularity, like every other, is evanescent: and the
difficulties of every kind with which he had to contend, increased in a
frightful ratio compared with his small means of extricating himself. At
such times the king, in his enthusiasm for him, would come to his relief,
and then kindly take his friend to task; my father gave the best promises
for amendment, but his social disposition, his craving for the usual diet
of admiration, and more than all, the fiend of gambling, which fully
possessed him, made his good resolutions transient, his promises vain. With
the quick sensibility peculiar to his temperament, he perceived his power
in the brilliant circle to be on the wane. The king married; and the
haughty princess of Austria, who became, as queen of England, the head of
fashion, looked with harsh eyes on his defects, and with contempt on the
affection her royal husband entertained for him. My father felt that his
fall was near; but so far from profiting by this last calm before the storm
to save himself, he sought to forget anticipated evil by making still
greater sacrifices to the deity of pleasure, deceitful and cruel arbiter of
his destiny.

The king, who was a man of excellent dispositions, but easily led, had now
become a willing disciple of his imperious consort. He was induced to look
with extreme disapprobation, and at last with distaste, on my father's
imprudence and follies. It is true that his presence dissipated these
clouds; his warm-hearted frankness, brilliant sallies, and confiding
demeanour were irresistible: it was only when at a distance, while still
renewed tales of his errors were poured into his royal friend's ear, that
he lost his influence. The queen's dextrous management was employed to
prolong these absences, and gather together accusations. At length the king
was brought to see in him a source of perpetual disquiet, knowing that he
should pay for the short-lived pleasure of his society by tedious homilies,
and more painful narrations of excesses, the truth of which he could not
disprove. The result was, that he would make one more attempt to reclaim
him, and in case of ill success, cast him off for ever.

Such a scene must have been one of deepest interest and high-wrought
passion. A powerful king, conspicuous for a goodness which had heretofore
made him meek, and now lofty in his admonitions, with alternate entreaty
and reproof, besought his friend to attend to his real interests,
resolutely to avoid those fascinations which in fact were fast deserting
him, and to spend his great powers on a worthy field, in which he, his
sovereign, would be his prop, his stay, and his pioneer. My father felt
this kindness; for a moment ambitious dreams floated before him; and he
thought that it would be well to exchange his present pursuits for nobler
duties. With sincerity and fervour he gave the required promise: as a
pledge of continued favour, he received from his royal master a sum of
money to defray pressing debts, and enable him to enter under good auspices
his new career. That very night, while yet full of gratitude and good
resolves, this whole sum, and its amount doubled, was lost at the
gaming-table. In his desire to repair his first losses, my father risked
double stakes, and thus incurred a debt of honour he was wholly unable to
pay. Ashamed to apply again to the king, he turned his back upon London,
its false delights and clinging miseries; and, with poverty for his sole
companion, buried himself in solitude among the hills and lakes of
Cumberland. His wit, his bon mots, the record of his personal attractions,
fascinating manners, and social talents, were long remembered and repeated
from mouth to mouth. Ask where now was this favourite of fashion, this
companion of the noble, this excelling beam, which gilt with alien
splendour the assemblies of the courtly and the gay--you heard that he
was under a cloud, a lost man; not one thought it belonged to him to repay
pleasure by real services, or that his long reign of brilliant wit deserved
a pension on retiring. The king lamented his absence; he loved to repeat
his sayings, relate the adventures they had had together, and exalt his
talents--but here ended his reminiscence.

Meanwhile my father, forgotten, could not forget. He repined for the loss
of what was more necessary to him than air or food--the excitements of
pleasure, the admiration of the noble, the luxurious and polished living of
the great. A nervous fever was the consequence; during which he was nursed
by the daughter of a poor cottager, under whose roof he lodged. She was
lovely, gentle, and, above all, kind to him; nor can it afford
astonishment, that the late idol of high-bred beauty should, even in a
fallen state, appear a being of an elevated and wondrous nature to the
lowly cottage-girl. The attachment between them led to the ill-fated
marriage, of which I was the offspring. Notwithstanding the tenderness and
sweetness of my mother, her husband still deplored his degraded state.
Unaccustomed to industry, he knew not in what way to contribute to the
support of his increasing family. Sometimes he thought of applying to the
king; pride and shame for a while withheld him; and, before his necessities
became so imperious as to compel him to some kind of exertion, he died. For
one brief interval before this catastrophe, he looked forward to the
future, and contemplated with anguish the desolate situation in which his
wife and children would be left. His last effort was a letter to the king,
full of touching eloquence, and of occasional flashes of that brilliant
spirit which was an integral part of him. He bequeathed his widow and
orphans to the friendship of his royal master, and felt satisfied that, by
this means, their prosperity was better assured in his death than in his
life. This letter was enclosed to the care of a nobleman, who, he did not
doubt, would perform the last and inexpensive office of placing it in the
king's own hand.

He died in debt, and his little property was seized immediately by his
creditors. My mother, pennyless and burthened with two children, waited
week after week, and month after month, in sickening expectation of a
reply, which never came. She had no experience beyond her father's cottage;
and the mansion of the lord of the manor was the chiefest type of grandeur
she could conceive. During my father's life, she had been made familiar
with the name of royalty and the courtly circle; but such things, ill
according with her personal experience, appeared, after the loss of him who
gave substance and reality to them, vague and fantastical. If, under any
circumstances, she could have acquired sufficient courage to address the
noble persons mentioned by her husband, the ill success of his own
application caused her to banish the idea. She saw therefore no escape from
dire penury: perpetual care, joined to sorrow for the loss of the wondrous
being, whom she continued to contemplate with ardent admiration, hard
labour, and naturally delicate health, at length released her from the sad
continuity of want and misery.

The condition of her orphan children was peculiarly desolate. Her own
father had been an emigrant from another part of the country, and had died
long since: they had no one relation to take them by the hand; they were
outcasts, paupers, unfriended beings, to whom the most scanty pittance was
a matter of favour, and who were treated merely as children of peasants,
yet poorer than the poorest, who, dying, had left them, a thankless
bequest, to the close-handed charity of the land.

I, the elder of the two, was five years old when my mother died. A
remembrance of the discourses of my parents, and the communications which
my mother endeavoured to impress upon me concerning my father's friends, in
slight hope that I might one day derive benefit from the knowledge, floated
like an indistinct dream through my brain. I conceived that I was different
and superior to my protectors and companions, but I knew not how or
wherefore. The sense of injury, associated with the name of king and noble,
clung to me; but I could draw no conclusions from such feelings, to serve
as a guide to action. My first real knowledge of myself was as an
unprotected orphan among the valleys and fells of Cumberland. I was in the
service of a farmer; and with crook in hand, my dog at my side, I
shepherded a numerous flock on the near uplands. I cannot say much in
praise of such a life; and its pains far exceeded its pleasures. There was
freedom in it, a companionship with nature, and a reckless loneliness; but
these, romantic as they were, did not accord with the love of action and
desire of human sympathy, characteristic of youth. Neither the care of my
flock, nor the change of seasons, were sufficient to tame my eager spirit;
my out-door life and unemployed time were the temptations that led me early
into lawless habits. I associated with others friendless like myself; I
formed them into a band, I was their chief and captain. All shepherd-boys
alike, while our flocks were spread over the pastures, we schemed and
executed many a mischievous prank, which drew on us the anger and revenge
of the rustics. I was the leader and protector of my comrades, and as I
became distinguished among them, their misdeeds were usually visited upon
me. But while I endured punishment and pain in their defence with the
spirit of an hero, I claimed as my reward their praise and obedience.

In such a school my disposition became rugged, but firm. The appetite for
admiration and small capacity for self-controul which I inherited from my
father, nursed by adversity, made me daring and reckless. I was rough as
the elements, and unlearned as the animals I tended. I often compared
myself to them, and finding that my chief superiority consisted in power, I
soon persuaded myself that it was in power only that I was inferior to the
chiefest potentates of the earth. Thus untaught in refined philosophy, and
pursued by a restless feeling of degradation from my true station in
society, I wandered among the hills of civilized England as uncouth a
savage as the wolf-bred founder of old Rome. I owned but one law, it was
that of the strongest, and my greatest deed of virtue was never to submit.

Yet let me a little retract from this sentence I have passed on myself. My
mother, when dying, had, in addition to her other half-forgotten and
misapplied lessons, committed, with solemn exhortation, her other child to
my fraternal guardianship; and this one duty I performed to the best of my
ability, with all the zeal and affection of which my nature was capable. My
sister was three years younger than myself; I had nursed her as an infant,
and when the difference of our sexes, by giving us various occupations, in
a great measure divided us, yet she continued to be the object of my
careful love. Orphans, in the fullest sense of the term, we were poorest
among the poor, and despised among the unhonoured. If my daring and courage
obtained for me a kind of respectful aversion, her youth and sex, since
they did not excite tenderness, by proving her to be weak, were the causes
of numberless mortifications to her; and her own disposition was not so
constituted as to diminish the evil effects of her lowly station.

She was a singular being, and, like me, inherited much of the peculiar
disposition of our father. Her countenance was all expression; her eyes
were not dark, but impenetrably deep; you seemed to discover space after
space in their intellectual glance, and to feel that the soul which was
their soul, comprehended an universe of thought in its ken. She was pale
and fair, and her golden hair clustered on her temples, contrasting its
rich hue with the living marble beneath. Her coarse peasant-dress, little
consonant apparently with the refinement of feeling which her face
expressed, yet in a strange manner accorded with it. She was like one of
Guido's saints, with heaven in her heart and in her look, so that when you
saw her you only thought of that within, and costume and even feature were
secondary to the mind that beamed in her countenance.

Yet though lovely and full of noble feeling, my poor Perdita (for this was
the fanciful name my sister had received from her dying parent), was not
altogether saintly in her disposition. Her manners were cold and repulsive.
If she had been nurtured by those who had regarded her with affection, she
might have been different; but unloved and neglected, she repaid want of
kindness with distrust and silence. She was submissive to those who held
authority over her, but a perpetual cloud dwelt on her brow; she looked as
if she expected enmity from every one who approached her, and her actions
were instigated by the same feeling. All the time she could command she
spent in solitude. She would ramble to the most unfrequented places, and
scale dangerous heights, that in those unvisited spots she might wrap
herself in loneliness. Often she passed whole hours walking up and down the
paths of the woods; she wove garlands of flowers and ivy, or watched the
flickering of the shadows and glancing of the leaves; sometimes she sat
beside a stream, and as her thoughts paused, threw flowers or pebbles into
the waters, watching how those swam and these sank; or she would set afloat
boats formed of bark of trees or leaves, with a feather for a sail, and
intensely watch the navigation of her craft among the rapids and shallows
of the brook. Meanwhile her active fancy wove a thousand combinations; she
dreamt "of moving accidents by flood and field"--she lost herself
delightedly in these self-created wanderings, and returned with unwilling
spirit to the dull detail of common life. Poverty was the cloud that veiled
her excellencies, and all that was good in her seemed about to perish from
want of the genial dew of affection. She had not even the same advantage as
I in the recollection of her parents; she clung to me, her brother, as her
only friend, but her alliance with me completed the distaste that her
protectors felt for her; and every error was magnified by them into crimes.
If she had been bred in that sphere of life to which by inheritance the
delicate framework of her mind and person was adapted, she would have been
the object almost of adoration, for her virtues were as eminent as her
defects. All the genius that ennobled the blood of her father illustrated
hers; a generous tide flowed in her veins; artifice, envy, or meanness,
were at the antipodes of her nature; her countenance, when enlightened by
amiable feeling, might have belonged to a queen of nations; her eyes were
bright; her look fearless.

Although by our situation and dispositions we were almost equally cut off
from the usual forms of social intercourse, we formed a strong contrast to
each other. I always required the stimulants of companionship and applause.
Perdita was all-sufficient to herself. Notwithstanding my lawless habits,
my disposition was sociable, hers recluse. My life was spent among tangible
realities, hers was a dream. I might be said even to love my enemies, since
by exciting me they in a sort bestowed happiness upon me; Perdita almost
disliked her friends, for they interfered with her visionary moods. All my
feelings, even of exultation and triumph, were changed to bitterness, if
unparticipated; Perdita, even in joy, fled to loneliness, and could go on
from day to day, neither expressing her emotions, nor seeking a
fellow-feeling in another mind. Nay, she could love and dwell with
tenderness on the look and voice of her friend, while her demeanour
expressed the coldest reserve. A sensation with her became a sentiment, and
she never spoke until she had mingled her perceptions of outward objects
with others which were the native growth of her own mind. She was like a
fruitful soil that imbibed the airs and dews of heaven, and gave them forth
again to light in loveliest forms of fruits and flowers; but then she was
often dark and rugged as that soil, raked up, and new sown with unseen
seed.

She dwelt in a cottage whose trim grass-plat sloped down to the waters of
the lake of Ulswater; a beech wood stretched up the hill behind, and a
purling brook gently falling from the acclivity ran through poplar-shaded
banks into the lake. I lived with a farmer whose house was built higher up
among the hills: a dark crag rose behind it, and, exposed to the north, the
snow lay in its crevices the summer through. Before dawn I led my flock to
the sheep-walks, and guarded them through the day. It was a life of toil;
for rain and cold were more frequent than sunshine; but it was my pride to
contemn the elements. My trusty dog watched the sheep as I slipped away to
the rendezvous of my comrades, and thence to the accomplishment of our
schemes. At noon we met again, and we threw away in contempt our peasant
fare, as we built our fire-place and kindled the cheering blaze destined to
cook the game stolen from the neighbouring preserves. Then came the tale of
hair-breadth escapes, combats with dogs, ambush and flight, as gipsey-like
we encompassed our pot. The search after a stray lamb, or the devices by
which we elude or endeavoured to elude punishment, filled up the hours of
afternoon; in the evening my flock went to its fold, and I to my sister.

It was seldom indeed that we escaped, to use an old-fashioned phrase, scot
free. Our dainty fare was often exchanged for blows and imprisonment. Once,
when thirteen years of age, I was sent for a month to the county jail. I
came out, my morals unimproved, my hatred to my oppressors encreased
tenfold. Bread and water did not tame my blood, nor solitary confinement
inspire me with gentle thoughts. I was angry, impatient, miserable; my only
happy hours were those during which I devised schemes of revenge; these
were perfected in my forced solitude, so that during the whole of the
following season, and I was freed early in September, I never failed to
provide excellent and plenteous fare for myself and my comrades. This was a
glorious winter. The sharp frost and heavy snows tamed the animals, and
kept the country gentlemen by their firesides; we got more game than we
could eat, and my faithful dog grew sleek upon our refuse.

Thus years passed on; and years only added fresh love of freedom, and
contempt for all that was not as wild and rude as myself. At the age of
sixteen I had shot up in appearance to man's estate; I was tall and
athletic; I was practised to feats of strength, and inured to the
inclemency of the elements. My skin was embrowned by the sun; my step was
firm with conscious power. I feared no man, and loved none. In after life I
looked back with wonder to what I then was; how utterly worthless I should
have become if I had pursued my lawless career. My life was like that of an
animal, and my mind was in danger of degenerating into that which informs
brute nature. Until now, my savage habits had done me no radical mischief;
my physical powers had grown up and flourished under their influence, and
my mind, undergoing the same discipline, was imbued with all the hardy
virtues. But now my boasted independence was daily instigating me to acts
of tyranny, and freedom was becoming licentiousness. I stood on the brink
of manhood; passions, strong as the trees of a forest, had already taken
root within me, and were about to shadow with their noxious overgrowth, my
path of life.

I panted for enterprises beyond my childish exploits, and formed
distempered dreams of future action. I avoided my ancient comrades, and I
soon lost them. They arrived at the age when they were sent to fulfil their
destined situations in life; while I, an outcast, with none to lead or
drive me forward, paused. The old began to point at me as an example, the
young to wonder at me as a being distinct from themselves; I hated them,
and began, last and worst degradation, to hate myself. I clung to my
ferocious habits, yet half despised them; I continued my war against
civilization, and yet entertained a wish to belong to it.

I revolved again and again all that I remembered my mother to have told me
of my father's former life; I contemplated the few relics I possessed
belonging to him, which spoke of greater refinement than could be found
among the mountain cottages; but nothing in all this served as a guide to
lead me to another and pleasanter way of life. My father had been connected
with nobles, but all I knew of such connection was subsequent neglect. The
name of the king,--he to whom my dying father had addressed his latest
prayers, and who had barbarously slighted them, was associated only with
the ideas of unkindness, injustice, and consequent resentment. I was born
for something greater than I was--and greater I would become; but
greatness, at least to my distorted perceptions, was no necessary associate
of goodness, and my wild thoughts were unchecked by moral considerations
when they rioted in dreams of distinction. Thus I stood upon a pinnacle, a
sea of evil rolled at my feet; I was about to precipitate myself into it,
and rush like a torrent over all obstructions to the object of my wishes--
when a stranger influence came over the current of my fortunes, and changed
their boisterous course to what was in comparison like the gentle
meanderings of a meadow-encircling streamlet.




CHAPTER II.


I LIVED far from the busy haunts of men, and the rumour of wars or
political changes came worn to a mere sound, to our mountain abodes.
England had been the scene of momentous struggles, during my early boyhood.
In the year 2073, the last of its kings, the ancient friend of my father,
had abdicated in compliance with the gentle force of the remonstrances of
his subjects, and a republic was instituted. Large estates were secured to
the dethroned monarch and his family; he received the title of Earl of
Windsor, and Windsor Castle, an ancient royalty, with its wide demesnes
were a part of his allotted wealth. He died soon after, leaving two
children, a son and a daughter.

The ex-queen, a princess of the house of Austria, had long impelled her
husband to withstand the necessity of the times. She was haughty and
fearless; she cherished a love of power, and a bitter contempt for him who
had despoiled himself of a kingdom. For her children's sake alone she
consented to remain, shorn of regality, a member of the English republic.
When she became a widow, she turned all her thoughts to the educating her
son Adrian, second Earl of Windsor, so as to accomplish her ambitious ends;
and with his mother's milk he imbibed, and was intended to grow up in the
steady purpose of re-acquiring his lost crown. Adrian was now fifteen years
of age. He was addicted to study, and imbued beyond his years with learning
and talent: report said that he had already begun to thwart his mother's
views, and to entertain republican principles. However this might be, the
haughty Countess entrusted none with the secrets of her family-tuition.
Adrian was bred up in solitude, and kept apart from the natural companions
of his age and rank. Some unknown circumstance now induced his mother to
send him from under her immediate tutelage; and we heard that he was about
to visit Cumberland. A thousand tales were rife, explanatory of the
Countess of Windsor's conduct; none true probably; but each day it became
more certain that we should have the noble scion of the late regal house of
England among us.

There was a large estate with a mansion attached to it, belonging to this
family, at Ulswater. A large park was one of its appendages, laid out with
great taste, and plentifully stocked with game. I had often made
depredations on these preserves; and the neglected state of the property
facilitated my incursions. When it was decided that the young Earl of
Windsor should visit Cumberland, workmen arrived to put the house and
grounds in order for his reception. The apartments were restored to their
pristine splendour, and the park, all disrepairs restored, was guarded with
unusual care.

I was beyond measure disturbed by this intelligence. It roused all my
dormant recollections, my suspended sentiments of injury, and gave rise to
the new one of revenge. I could no longer attend to my occupations; all my
plans and devices were forgotten; I seemed about to begin life anew, and
that under no good auspices. The tug of war, I thought, was now to begin.
He would come triumphantly to the district to which my parent had fled
broken-hearted; he would find the ill-fated offspring, bequeathed with such
vain confidence to his royal father, miserable paupers. That he should know
of our existence, and treat us, near at hand, with the same contumely which
his father had practised in distance and absence, appeared to me the
certain consequence of all that had gone before. Thus then I should meet
this titled stripling--the son of my father's friend. He would be hedged
in by servants; nobles, and the sons of nobles, were his companions; all
England rang with his name; and his coming, like a thunderstorm, was heard
from far: while I, unlettered and unfashioned, should, if I came in contact
with him, in the judgment of his courtly followers, bear evidence in my
very person to the propriety of that ingratitude which had made me the
degraded being I appeared.

With my mind fully occupied by these ideas, I might be said as if
fascinated, to haunt the destined abode of the young Earl. I watched the
progress of the improvements, and stood by the unlading waggons, as various
articles of luxury, brought from London, were taken forth and conveyed into
the mansion. It was part of the Ex-Queen's plan, to surround her son with
princely magnificence. I beheld rich carpets and silken hangings, ornaments
of gold, richly embossed metals, emblazoned furniture, and all the
appendages of high rank arranged, so that nothing but what was regal in
splendour should reach the eye of one of royal descent. I looked on these;
I turned my gaze to my own mean dress.--Whence sprung this difference?
Whence but from ingratitude, from falsehood, from a dereliction on the part
of the prince's father, of all noble sympathy and generous feeling.
Doubtless, he also, whose blood received a mingling tide from his proud
mother--he, the acknowledged focus of the kingdom's wealth and nobility,
had been taught to repeat my father's name with disdain, and to scoff at my
just claims to protection. I strove to think that all this grandeur was but
more glaring infamy, and that, by planting his gold-enwoven flag beside my
tarnished and tattered banner, he proclaimed not his superiority, but his
debasement. Yet I envied him. His stud of beautiful horses, his arms of
costly workmanship, the praise that attended him, the adoration, ready
servitor, high place and high esteem,--I considered them as forcibly
wrenched from me, and envied them all with novel and tormenting
bitterness.

To crown my vexation of spirit, Perdita, the visionary Perdita, seemed to
awake to real life with transport, when she told me that the Earl of
Windsor was about to arrive.

"And this pleases you?" I observed, moodily.

"Indeed it does, Lionel," she replied; "I quite long to see him; he is the
descendant of our kings, the first noble of the land: every one admires and
loves him, and they say that his rank is his least merit; he is generous,
brave, and affable."

"You have learnt a pretty lesson, Perdita," said I, "and repeat it so
literally, that you forget the while the proofs we have of the Earl's
virtues; his generosity to us is manifest in our plenty, his bravery in the
protection he affords us, his affability in the notice he takes of us. His
rank his least merit, do you say? Why, all his virtues are derived from his
station only; because he is rich, he is called generous; because he is
powerful, brave; because he is well served, he is affable. Let them call
him so, let all England believe him to be thus--we know him--he is our
enemy--our penurious, dastardly, arrogant enemy; if he were gifted with
one particle of the virtues you call his, he would do justly by us, if it
were only to shew, that if he must strike, it should not be a fallen foe.
His father injured my father--his father, unassailable on his throne,
dared despise him who only stooped beneath himself, when he deigned to
associate with the royal ingrate. We, descendants from the one and the
other, must be enemies also. He shall find that I can feel my injuries; he
shall learn to dread my revenge!"

A few days after he arrived. Every inhabitant of the most miserable
cottage, went to swell the stream of population that poured forth to meet
him: even Perdita, in spite of my late philippic, crept near the highway,
to behold this idol of all hearts. I, driven half mad, as I met party after
party of the country people, in their holiday best, descending the hills,
escaped to their cloud-veiled summits, and looking on the sterile rocks
about me, exclaimed--"They do not cry, long live the Earl!" Nor, when
night came, accompanied by drizzling rain and cold, would I return home;
for I knew that each cottage rang with the praises of Adrian; as I felt my
limbs grow numb and chill, my pain served as food for my insane aversion;
nay, I almost triumphed in it, since it seemed to afford me reason and
excuse for my hatred of my unheeding adversary. All was attributed to him,
for I confounded so entirely the idea of father and son, that I forgot that
the latter might be wholly unconscious of his parent's neglect of us; and
as I struck my aching head with my hand, I cried: "He shall hear of this! I
will be revenged! I will not suffer like a spaniel! He shall know, beggar
and friendless as I am, that I will not tamely submit to injury!" Each day,
each hour added to these exaggerated wrongs. His praises were so many
adder's stings infixed in my vulnerable breast. If I saw him at a distance,
riding a beautiful horse, my blood boiled with rage; the air seemed
poisoned by his presence, and my very native English was changed to a vile
jargon, since every phrase I heard was coupled with his name and honour. I
panted to relieve this painful heart-burning by some misdeed that should
rouse him to a sense of my antipathy. It was the height of his offending,
that he should occasion in me such intolerable sensations, and not deign
himself to afford any demonstration that he was aware that I even lived to
feel them.

It soon became known that Adrian took great delight in his park and
preserves. He never sported, but spent hours in watching the tribes of
lovely and almost tame animals with which it was stocked, and ordered that
greater care should be taken of them than ever. Here was an opening for my
plans of offence, and I made use of it with all the brute impetuosity I
derived from my active mode of life. I proposed the enterprize of poaching
on his demesne to my few remaining comrades, who were the most determined
and lawless of the crew; but they all shrunk from the peril; so I was left
to achieve my revenge myself. At first my exploits were unperceived; I
increased in daring; footsteps on the dewy grass, torn boughs, and marks of
slaughter, at length betrayed me to the game-keepers. They kept better
watch; I was taken, and sent to prison. I entered its gloomy walls in a fit
of triumphant extasy: "He feels me now," I cried, "and shall, again and
again!"--I passed but one day in confinement; in the evening I was
liberated, as I was told, by the order of the Earl himself. This news
precipitated me from my self-raised pinnacle of honour. He despises me, I
thought; but he shall learn that I despise him, and hold in equal contempt
his punishments and his clemency. On the second night after my release, I
was again taken by the gamekeepers--again imprisoned, and again released;
and again, such was my pertinacity, did the fourth night find me in the
forbidden park. The gamekeepers were more enraged than their lord by my
obstinacy. They had received orders that if I were again taken, I should be
brought to the Earl; and his lenity made them expect a conclusion which
they considered ill befitting my crime. One of them, who had been from the
first the leader among those who had seized me, resolved to satisfy his own
resentment, before he made me over to the higher powers.

The late setting of the moon, and the extreme caution I was obliged to use
in this my third expedition, consumed so much time, that something like a
qualm of fear came over me when I perceived dark night yield to twilight. I
crept along by the fern, on my hands and knees, seeking the shadowy coverts
of the underwood, while the birds awoke with unwelcome song above, and the
fresh morning wind, playing among the boughs, made me suspect a footfall at
each turn. My heart beat quick as I approached the palings; my hand was on
one of them, a leap would take me to the other side, when two keepers
sprang from an ambush upon me: one knocked me down, and proceeded to
inflict a severe horse-whipping. I started up--a knife was in my grasp; I
made a plunge at his raised right arm, and inflicted a deep, wide wound in
his hand. The rage and yells of the wounded man, the howling execrations of
his comrade, which I answered with equal bitterness and fury, echoed
through the dell; morning broke more and more, ill accordant in its
celestial beauty with our brute and noisy contest. I and my enemy were
still struggling, when the wounded man exclaimed, "The Earl!" I sprang out
of the herculean hold of the keeper, panting from my exertions; I cast
furious glances on my persecutors, and placing myself with my back to a
tree, resolved to defend myself to the last. My garments were torn, and
they, as well as my hands, were stained with the blood of the man I had
wounded; one hand grasped the dead birds--my hard-earned prey, the other
held the knife; my hair was matted; my face besmeared with the same guilty
signs that bore witness against me on the dripping instrument I clenched;
my whole appearance was haggard and squalid. Tall and muscular as I was in
form, I must have looked like, what indeed I was, the merest ruffian that
ever trod the earth.

The name of the Earl startled me, and caused all the indignant blood that
warmed my heart to rush into my cheeks; I had never seen him before; I
figured to myself a haughty, assuming youth, who would take me to task, if
he deigned to speak to me, with all the arrogance of superiority. My reply
was ready; a reproach I deemed calculated to sting his very heart. He came
up the while; and his appearance blew aside, with gentle western breath, my
cloudy wrath: a tall, slim, fair boy, with a physiognomy expressive of the
excess of sensibility and refinement stood before me; the morning sunbeams
tinged with gold his silken hair, and spread light and glory over his
beaming countenance. "How is this?" he cried. The men eagerly began their
defence; he put them aside, saying, "Two of you at once on a mere lad--
for shame!" He came up to me: "Verney," he cried, "Lionel Verney, do we
meet thus for the first time? We were born to be friends to each other; and
though ill fortune has divided us, will you not acknowledge the hereditary
bond of friendship which I trust will hereafter unite us?"

As he spoke, his earnest eyes, fixed on me, seemed to read my very soul: my
heart, my savage revengeful heart, felt the influence of sweet benignity
sink upon it; while his thrilling voice, like sweetest melody, awoke a mute
echo within me, stirring to its depths the life-blood in my frame. I
desired to reply, to acknowledge his goodness, accept his proffered
friendship; but words, fitting words, were not afforded to the rough
mountaineer; I would have held out my hand, but its guilty stain restrained
me. Adrian took pity on my faltering mien: "Come with me," he said, "I have
much to say to you; come home with me--you know who I am?"

"Yes," I exclaimed, "I do believe that I now know you, and that you will
pardon my mistakes--my crime."

Adrian smiled gently; and after giving his orders to the gamekeepers, he
came up to me; putting his arm in mine, we walked together to the mansion.

It was not his rank--after all that I have said, surely it will not be
suspected that it was Adrian's rank, that, from the first, subdued my heart
of hearts, and laid my entire spirit prostrate before him. Nor was it I
alone who felt thus intimately his perfections. His sensibility and
courtesy fascinated every one. His vivacity, intelligence, and active
spirit of benevolence, completed the conquest. Even at this early age, he
was deep read and imbued with the spirit of high philosophy. This spirit
gave a tone of irresistible persuasion to his intercourse with others, so
that he seemed like an inspired musician, who struck, with unerring skill,
the "lyre of mind," and produced thence divine harmony. In person, he
hardly appeared of this world; his slight frame was overinformed by the
soul that dwelt within; he was all mind; "Man but a rush against" his
breast, and it would have conquered his strength; but the might of his
smile would have tamed an hungry lion, or caused a legion of armed men to
lay their weapons at his feet.

I spent the day with him. At first he did not recur to the past, or indeed
to any personal occurrences. He wished probably to inspire me with
confidence, and give me time to gather together my scattered thoughts. He
talked of general subjects, and gave me ideas I had never before conceived.
We sat in his library, and he spoke of the old Greek sages, and of the
power which they had acquired over the minds of men, through the force of
love and wisdom only. The room was decorated with the busts of many of
them, and he described their characters to me. As he spoke, I felt subject
to him; and all my boasted pride and strength were subdued by the honeyed
accents of this blue-eyed boy. The trim and paled demesne of civilization,
which I had before regarded from my wild jungle as inaccessible, had its
wicket opened by him; I stepped within, and felt, as I entered, that I trod
my native soil.

As evening came on, he reverted to the past. "I have a tale to relate," he
said, "and much explanation to give concerning the past; perhaps you can
assist me to curtail it. Do you remember your father? I had never the
happiness of seeing him, but his name is one of my earliest recollections:
he stands written in my mind's tablets as the type of all that was gallant,
amiable, and fascinating in man. His wit was not more conspicuous than the
overflowing goodness of his heart, which he poured in such full measure on
his friends, as to leave, alas! small remnant for himself."

Encouraged by this encomium, I proceeded, in answer to his inquiries, to
relate what I remembered of my parent; and he gave an account of those
circumstances which had brought about a neglect of my father's testamentary
letter. When, in after times, Adrian's father, then king of England, felt
his situation become more perilous, his line of conduct more embarrassed,
again and again he wished for his early friend, who might stand a mound
against the impetuous anger of his queen, a mediator between him and the
parliament. From the time that he had quitted London, on the fatal night of
his defeat at the gaming-table, the king had received no tidings concerning
him; and when, after the lapse of years, he exerted himself to discover
him, every trace was lost. With fonder regret than ever, he clung to his
memory; and gave it in charge to his son, if ever he should meet this
valued friend, in his name to bestow every succour, and to assure him that,
to the last, his attachment survived separation and silence.

A short time before Adrian's visit to Cumberland, the heir of the nobleman
to whom my father had confided his last appeal to his royal master, put
this letter, its seal unbroken, into the young Earl's hands. It had been
found cast aside with a mass of papers of old date, and accident alone
brought it to light. Adrian read it with deep interest; and found there
that living spirit of genius and wit he had so often heard commemorated. He
discovered the name of the spot whither my father had retreated, and where
he died; he learnt the existence of his orphan children; and during the
short interval between his arrival at Ulswater and our meeting in the park,
he had been occupied in making inquiries concerning us, and arranging a
variety of plans for our benefit, preliminary to his introducing himself to
our notice.

The mode in which he spoke of my father was gratifying to my vanity; the
veil which he delicately cast over his benevolence, in alledging a duteous
fulfilment of the king's latest will, was soothing to my pride. Other
feelings, less ambiguous, were called into play by his conciliating manner
and the generous warmth of his expressions, respect rarely before
experienced, admiration, and love--he had touched my rocky heart with his
magic power, and the stream of affection gushed forth, imperishable and
pure. In the evening we parted; he pressed my hand: "We shall meet again;
come to me to-morrow." I clasped that kind hand; I tried to answer; a
fervent "God bless you!" was all my ignorance could frame of speech, and I
darted away, oppressed by my new emotions.

I could not rest. I sought the hills; a west wind swept them, and the stars
glittered above. I ran on, careless of outward objects, but trying to
master the struggling spirit within me by means of bodily fatigue. "This,"
I thought, "is power! Not to be strong of limb, hard of heart, ferocious,
and daring; but kind compassionate and soft."--Stopping short, I clasped
my hands, and with the fervour of a new proselyte, cried, "Doubt me not,
Adrian, I also will become wise and good!" and then quite overcome, I wept
aloud.

As this gust of passion passed from me, I felt more composed. I lay on the
ground, and giving the reins to my thoughts, repassed in my mind my former
life; and began, fold by fold, to unwind the many errors of my heart, and
to discover how brutish, savage, and worthless I had hitherto been. I could
not however at that time feel remorse, for methought I was born anew; my
soul threw off the burthen of past sin, to commence a new career in
innocence and love. Nothing harsh or rough remained to jar with the soft
feelings which the transactions of the day had inspired; I was as a child
lisping its devotions after its mother, and my plastic soul was remoulded
by a master hand, which I neither desired nor was able to resist.

This was the first commencement of my friendship with Adrian, and I must
commemorate this day as the most fortunate of my life. I now began to be
human. I was admitted within that sacred boundary which divides the
intellectual and moral nature of man from that which characterizes animals.
My best feelings were called into play to give fitting responses to the
generosity, wisdom, and amenity of my new friend. He, with a noble goodness
all his own, took infinite delight in bestowing to prodigality the
treasures of his mind and fortune on the long-neglected son of his father's
friend, the offspring of that gifted being whose excellencies and talents
he had heard commemorated from infancy.

After his abdication the late king had retreated from the sphere of
politics, yet his domestic circle afforded him small content. The ex-queen
had none of the virtues of domestic life, and those of courage and daring
which she possessed were rendered null by the secession of her husband: she
despised him, and did not care to conceal her sentiments. The king had, in
compliance with her exactions, cast off his old friends, but he had
acquired no new ones under her guidance. In this dearth of sympathy, he had
recourse to his almost infant son; and the early development of talent and
sensibility rendered Adrian no unfitting depository of his father's
confidence. He was never weary of listening to the latter's often repeated
accounts of old times, in which my father had played a distinguished part;
his keen remarks were repeated to the boy, and remembered by him; his wit,
his fascinations, his very faults were hallowed by the regret of affection;
his loss was sincerely deplored. Even the queen's dislike of the favourite
was ineffectual to deprive him of his son's admiration: it was bitter,
sarcastic, contemptuous--but as she bestowed her heavy censure alike on
his virtues as his errors, on his devoted friendship and his ill-bestowed
loves, on his disinterestedness and his prodigality, on his pre-possessing
grace of manner, and the facility with which he yielded to temptation, her
double shot proved too heavy, and fell short of the mark. Nor did her angry
dislike prevent Adrian from imaging my father, as he had said, the type of
all that was gallant, amiable, and fascinating in man. It was not strange
therefore, that when he heard of the existence of the offspring of this
celebrated person, he should have formed the plan of bestowing on them all
the advantages his rank made him rich to afford. When he found me a
vagabond shepherd of the hills, a poacher, an unlettered savage, still his
kindness did not fail. In addition to the opinion he entertained that his
father was to a degree culpable of neglect towards us, and that he was
bound to every possible reparation, he was pleased to say that under all my
ruggedness there glimmered forth an elevation of spirit, which could be
distinguished from mere animal courage, and that I inherited a similarity
of countenance to my father, which gave proof that all his virtues and
talents had not died with him. Whatever those might be which descended to
me, my noble young friend resolved should not be lost for want of culture.

Acting upon this plan in our subsequent intercourse, he led me to wish to
participate in that cultivation which graced his own intellect. My active
mind, when once it seized upon this new idea, fastened on it with extreme
avidity. At first it was the great object of my ambition to rival the
merits of my father, and render myself worthy of the friendship of Adrian.
But curiosity soon awoke, and an earnest love of knowledge, which caused me
to pass days and nights in reading and study. I was already well acquainted
with what I may term the panorama of nature, the change of seasons, and the
various appearances of heaven and earth. But I was at once startled and
enchanted by my sudden extension of vision, when the curtain, which had
been drawn before the intellectual world, was withdrawn, and I saw the
universe, not only as it presented itself to my outward senses, but as it
had appeared to the wisest among men. Poetry and its creations, philosophy
and its researches and classifications, alike awoke the sleeping ideas in
my mind, and gave me new ones.

I felt as the sailor, who from the topmast first discovered the shore of
America; and like him I hastened to tell my companions of my discoveries in
unknown regions. But I was unable to excite in any breast the same craving
appetite for knowledge that existed in mine. Even Perdita was unable to
understand me. I had lived in what is generally called the world of
reality, and it was awakening to a new country to find that there was a
deeper meaning in all I saw, besides that which my eyes conveyed to me. The
visionary Perdita beheld in all this only a new gloss upon an old reading,
and her own was sufficiently inexhaustible to content her. She listened to
me as she had done to the narration of my adventures, and sometimes took an
interest in this species of information; but she did not, as I did, look on
it as an integral part of her being, which having obtained, I could no more
put off than the universal sense of touch.

We both agreed in loving Adrian: although she not having yet escaped from
childhood could not appreciate as I did the extent of his merits, or feel
the same sympathy in his pursuits and opinions. I was for ever with him.
There was a sensibility and sweetness in his disposition, that gave a
tender and unearthly tone to our converse. Then he was gay as a lark
carolling from its skiey tower, soaring in thought as an eagle, innocent as
the mild-eyed dove. He could dispel the seriousness of Perdita, and take
the sting from the torturing activity of my nature. I looked back to my
restless desires and painful struggles with my fellow beings as to a
troubled dream, and felt myself as much changed as if I had transmigrated
into another form, whose fresh sensorium and mechanism of nerves had
altered the reflection of the apparent universe in the mirror of mind. But
it was not so; I was the same in strength, in earnest craving for sympathy,
in my yearning for active exertion. My manly virtues did not desert me, for
the witch Urania spared the locks of Sampson, while he reposed at her feet;
but all was softened and humanized. Nor did Adrian instruct me only in the
cold truths of history and philosophy. At the same time that he taught me
by their means to subdue my own reckless and uncultured spirit, he opened
to my view the living page of his own heart, and gave me to feel and
understand its wondrous character.

The ex-queen of England had, even during infancy, endeavoured to implant
daring and ambitious designs in the mind of her son. She saw that he was
endowed with genius and surpassing talent; these she cultivated for the
sake of afterwards using them for the furtherance of her own views. She
encouraged his craving for knowledge and his impetuous courage; she even
tolerated his tameless love of freedom, under the hope that this would, as
is too often the case, lead to a passion for command. She endeavoured to
bring him up in a sense of resentment towards, and a desire to revenge
himself upon, those who had been instrumental in bringing about his
father's abdication. In this she did not succeed. The accounts furnished
him, however distorted, of a great and wise nation asserting its right to
govern itself, excited his admiration: in early days he became a republican
from principle. Still his mother did not despair. To the love of rule and
haughty pride of birth she added determined ambition, patience, and
self-control. She devoted herself to the study of her son's disposition. By
the application of praise, censure, and exhortation, she tried to seek and
strike the fitting chords; and though the melody that followed her touch
seemed discord to her, she built her hopes on his talents, and felt sure
that she would at last win him. The kind of banishment he now experienced
arose from other causes.

The ex-queen had also a daughter, now twelve years of age; his fairy
sister, Adrian was wont to call her; a lovely, animated, little thing, all
sensibility and truth. With these, her children, the noble widow constantly
resided at Windsor; and admitted no visitors, except her own partizans,
travellers from her native Germany, and a few of the foreign ministers.
Among these, and highly distinguished by her, was Prince Zaimi, ambassador
to England from the free States of Greece; and his daughter, the young
Princess Evadne, passed much of her time at Windsor Castle. In company with
this sprightly and clever Greek girl, the Countess would relax from her
usual state. Her views with regard to her own children, placed all her
words and actions relative to them under restraint: but Evadne was a
plaything she could in no way fear; nor were her talents and vivacity
slight alleviations to the monotony of the Countess's life.

Evadne was eighteen years of age. Although they spent much time together at
Windsor, the extreme youth of Adrian prevented any suspicion as to the
nature of their intercourse. But he was ardent and tender of heart beyond
the common nature of man, and had already learnt to love, while the
beauteous Greek smiled benignantly on the boy. It was strange to me, who,
though older than Adrian, had never loved, to witness the whole heart's
sacrifice of my friend. There was neither jealousy, inquietude, or mistrust
in his sentiment; it was devotion and faith. His life was swallowed up in
the existence of his beloved; and his heart beat only in unison with the
pulsations that vivified hers. This was the secret law of his life--he
loved and was beloved. The universe was to him a dwelling, to inhabit with
his chosen one; and not either a scheme of society or an enchainment of
events, that could impart to him either happiness or misery. What, though
life and the system of social intercourse were a wilderness, a
tiger-haunted jungle! Through the midst of its errors, in the depths of its
savage recesses, there was a disentangled and flowery pathway, through
which they might journey in safety and delight. Their track would be like
the passage of the Red Sea, which they might traverse with unwet feet,
though a wall of destruction were impending on either side.

Alas! why must I record the hapless delusion of this matchless specimen of
humanity? What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards
pain and misery? We are not formed for enjoyment; and, however we may be
attuned to the reception of pleasureable emotion, disappointment is the
never-failing pilot of our life's bark, and ruthlessly carries us on to the
shoals. Who was better framed than this highly-gifted youth to love and be
beloved, and to reap unalienable joy from an unblamed passion? If his heart
had slept but a few years longer, he might have been saved; but it awoke in
its infancy; it had power, but no knowledge; and it was ruined, even as a
too early-blowing bud is nipt by the killing frost.

I did not accuse Evadne of hypocrisy or a wish to deceive her lover; but
the first letter that I saw of hers convinced me that she did not love him;
it was written with elegance, and, foreigner as she was, with great command
of language. The hand-writing itself was exquisitely beautiful; there was
something in her very paper and its folds, which even I, who did not love,
and was withal unskilled in such matters, could discern as being tasteful.
There was much kindness, gratitude, and sweetness in her expression, but no
love. Evadne was two years older than Adrian; and who, at eighteen, ever
loved one so much their junior? I compared her placid epistles with the
burning ones of Adrian. His soul seemed to distil itself into the words he
wrote; and they breathed on the paper, bearing with them a portion of the
life of love, which was his life. The very writing used to exhaust him; and
he would weep over them, merely from the excess of emotion they awakened in
his heart.

Adrian's soul was painted in his countenance, and concealment or deceit
were at the antipodes to the dreadless frankness of his nature. Evadne made
it her earnest request that the tale of their loves should not be revealed
to his mother; and after for a while contesting the point, he yielded it to
her. A vain concession; his demeanour quickly betrayed his secret to the
quick eyes of the ex-queen. With the same wary prudence that characterized
her whole conduct, she concealed her discovery, but hastened to remove her
son from the sphere of the attractive Greek. He was sent to Cumberland; but
the plan of correspondence between the lovers, arranged by Evadne, was
effectually hidden from her. Thus the absence of Adrian, concerted for the
purpose of separating, united them in firmer bonds than ever. To me he
discoursed ceaselessly of his beloved Ionian. Her country, its ancient
annals, its late memorable struggles, were all made to partake in her glory
and excellence. He submitted to be away from her, because she commanded
this submission; but for her influence, he would have declared his
attachment before all England, and resisted, with unshaken constancy, his
mother's opposition. Evadne's feminine prudence perceived how useless any
assertion of his resolves would be, till added years gave weight to his
power. Perhaps there was besides a lurking dislike to bind herself in the
face of the world to one whom she did not love--not love, at least, with
that passionate enthusiasm which her heart told her she might one day feel
towards another. He obeyed her injunctions, and passed a year in exile in
Cumberland.




CHAPTER III.


HAPPY, thrice happy, were the months, and weeks, and hours of that year.
Friendship, hand in hand with admiration, tenderness and respect, built a
bower of delight in my heart, late rough as an untrod wild in America, as
the homeless wind or herbless sea. Insatiate thirst for knowledge, and
boundless affection for Adrian, combined to keep both my heart and
understanding occupied, and I was consequently happy. What happiness is so
true and unclouded, as the overflowing and talkative delight of young
people. In our boat, upon my native lake, beside the streams and the pale
bordering poplars--in valley and over hill, my crook thrown aside, a
nobler flock to tend than silly sheep, even a flock of new-born ideas, I
read or listened to Adrian; and his discourse, whether it concerned his
love or his theories for the improvement of man, alike entranced me.
Sometimes my lawless mood would return, my love of peril, my resistance to
authority; but this was in his absence; under the mild sway of his dear
eyes, I was obedient and good as a boy of five years old, who does his
mother's bidding.

After a residence of about a year at Ulswater, Adrian visited London, and
came back full of plans for our benefit. You must begin life, he said: you
are seventeen, and longer delay would render the necessary apprenticeship
more and more irksome. He foresaw that his own life would be one of
struggle, and I must partake his labours with him. The better to fit me for
this task, we must now separate. He found my name a good passport to
preferment, and he had procured for me the situation of private secretary
to the Ambassador at Vienna, where I should enter on my career under the
best auspices. In two years, I should return to my country, with a name
well known and a reputation already founded.

And Perdita?--Perdita was to become the pupil, friend and younger sister
of Evadne. With his usual thoughtfulness, he had provided for her
independence in this situation. How refuse the offers of this generous
friend?--I did not wish to refuse them; but in my heart of hearts, I made
a vow to devote life, knowledge, and power, all of which, in as much as
they were of any value, he had bestowed on me--all, all my capacities and
hopes, to him alone I would devote.

Thus I promised myself, as I journied towards my destination with roused
and ardent expectation: expectation of the fulfilment of all that in
boyhood we promise ourselves of power and enjoyment in maturity. Methought
the time was now arrived, when, childish occupations laid aside, I should
enter into life. Even in the Elysian fields, Virgil describes the souls of
the happy as eager to drink of the wave which was to restore them to this
mortal coil. The young are seldom in Elysium, for their desires,
outstripping possibility, leave them as poor as a moneyless debtor. We are
told by the wisest philosophers of the dangers of the world, the deceits of
men, and the treason of our own hearts: but not the less fearlessly does
each put off his frail bark from the port, spread the sail, and strain his
oar, to attain the multitudinous streams of the sea of life. How few in
youth's prime, moor their vessels on the "golden sands," and collect the
painted shells that strew them. But all at close of day, with riven planks
and rent canvas make for shore, and are either wrecked ere they reach it,
or find some wave-beaten haven, some desart strand, whereon to cast
themselves and die unmourned.

A truce to philosophy!--Life is before me, and I rush into possession.
Hope, glory, love, and blameless ambition are my guides, and my soul knows
no dread. What has been, though sweet, is gone; the present is good only
because it is about to change, and the to come is all my own. Do I fear,
that my heart palpitates? high aspirations cause the flow of my blood; my
eyes seem to penetrate the cloudy midnight of time, and to discern within
the depths of its darkness, the fruition of all my soul desires.

Now pause!--During my journey I might dream, and with buoyant wings reach
the summit of life's high edifice. Now that I am arrived at its base, my
pinions are furled, the mighty stairs are before me, and step by step I
must ascend the wondrous fane--

  Speak!--What door is opened?

Behold me in a new capacity. A diplomatist: one among the pleasure-seeking
society of a gay city; a youth of promise; favourite of the Ambassador. All
was strange and admirable to the shepherd of Cumberland. With breathless
amaze I entered on the gay scene, whose actors were

 --the lilies glorious as Solomon,
  Who toil not, neither do they spin.

Soon, too soon, I entered the giddy whirl; forgetting my studious hours,
and the companionship of Adrian. Passionate desire of sympathy, and ardent
pursuit for a wished-for object still characterized me. The sight of beauty
entranced me, and attractive manners in man or woman won my entire
confidence. I called it rapture, when a smile made my heart beat; and I
felt the life's blood tingle in my frame, when I approached the idol which
for awhile I worshipped. The mere flow of animal spirits was Paradise, and
at night's close I only desired a renewal of the intoxicating delusion. The
dazzling light of ornamented rooms; lovely forms arrayed in splendid
dresses; the motions of a dance, the voluptuous tones of exquisite music,
cradled my senses in one delightful dream.

And is not this in its kind happiness? I appeal to moralists and sages. I
ask if in the calm of their measured reveries, if in the deep meditations
which fill their hours, they feel the extasy of a youthful tyro in the
school of pleasure? Can the calm beams of their heaven-seeking eyes equal
the flashes of mingling passion which blind his, or does the influence of
cold philosophy steep their soul in a joy equal to his, engaged

  In this dear work of youthful revelry.

But in truth, neither the lonely meditations of the hermit, nor the
tumultuous raptures of the reveller, are capable of satisfying man's heart.
From the one we gather unquiet speculation, from the other satiety. The
mind flags beneath the weight of thought, and droops in the heartless
intercourse of those whose sole aim is amusement. There is no fruition in
their vacant kindness, and sharp rocks lurk beneath the smiling ripples of
these shallow waters.

Thus I felt, when disappointment, weariness, and solitude drove me back
upon my heart, to gather thence the joy of which it had become barren. My
flagging spirits asked for something to speak to the affections; and not
finding it, I drooped. Thus, notwithstanding the thoughtless delight that
waited on its commencement, the impression I have of my life at Vienna is
melancholy. Goethe has said, that in youth we cannot be happy unless we
love. I did not love; but I was devoured by a restless wish to be something
to others. I became the victim of ingratitude and cold coquetry--then I
desponded, and imagined that my discontent gave me a right to hate the
world. I receded to solitude; I had recourse to my books, and my desire
again to enjoy the society of Adrian became a burning thirst.

Emulation, that in its excess almost assumed the venomous properties of
envy, gave a sting to these feelings. At this period the name and exploits
of one of my countrymen filled the world with admiration. Relations of what
he had done, conjectures concerning his future actions, were the
never-failing topics of the hour. I was not angry on my own account, but I
felt as if the praises which this idol received were leaves torn from
laurels destined for Adrian. But I must enter into some account of this
darling of fame--this favourite of the wonder-loving world.

Lord Raymond was the sole remnant of a noble but impoverished family. From
early youth he had considered his pedigree with complacency, and bitterly
lamented his want of wealth. His first wish was aggrandisement; and the
means that led towards this end were secondary considerations. Haughty, yet
trembling to every demonstration of respect; ambitious, but too proud to
shew his ambition; willing to achieve honour, yet a votary of pleasure,--
he entered upon life. He was met on the threshold by some insult, real or
imaginary; some repulse, where he least expected it; some disappointment,
hard for his pride to bear. He writhed beneath an injury he was unable to
revenge; and he quitted England with a vow not to return, till the good
time should arrive, when she might feel the power of him she now despised.

He became an adventurer in the Greek wars. His reckless courage and
comprehensive genius brought him into notice. He became the darling hero of
this rising people. His foreign birth, and he refused to throw off his
allegiance to his native country, alone prevented him from filling the
first offices in the state. But, though others might rank higher in title
and ceremony, Lord Raymond held a station above and beyond all this. He led
the Greek armies to victory; their triumphs were all his own. When he
appeared, whole towns poured forth their population to meet him; new songs
were adapted to their national airs, whose themes were his glory, valour,
and munificence. A truce was concluded between the Greeks and Turks. At the
same time, Lord Raymond, by some unlooked-for chance, became the possessor
of an immense fortune in England, whither he returned, crowned with glory,
to receive the meed of honour and distinction before denied to his
pretensions. His proud heart rebelled against this change. In what was the
despised Raymond not the same? If the acquisition of power in the shape of
wealth caused this alteration, that power should they feel as an iron yoke.
Power therefore was the aim of all his endeavours; aggrandizement the mark
at which he for ever shot. In open ambition or close intrigue, his end was
the same--to attain the first station in his own country.

This account filled me with curiosity. The events that in succession
followed his return to England, gave me keener feelings. Among his other
advantages, Lord Raymond was supremely handsome; every one admired him; of
women he was the idol. He was courteous, honey-tongued--an adept in
fascinating arts. What could not this man achieve in the busy English
world? Change succeeded to change; the entire history did not reach me; for
Adrian had ceased to write, and Perdita was a laconic correspondent. The
rumour went that Adrian had become--how write the fatal word--mad: that
Lord Raymond was the favourite of the ex-queen, her daughter's destined
husband. Nay, more, that this aspiring noble revived the claim of the house
of Windsor to the crown, and that, on the event of Adrian's incurable
disorder and his marriage with the sister, the brow of the ambitious
Raymond might be encircled with the magic ring of regality.

Such a tale filled the trumpet of many voiced fame; such a tale rendered my
longer stay at Vienna, away from the friend of my youth, intolerable. Now I
must fulfil my vow; now range myself at his side, and be his ally and
support till death. Farewell to courtly pleasure; to politic intrigue; to
the maze of passion and folly! All hail, England! Native England, receive
thy child! thou art the scene of all my hopes, the mighty theatre on which
is acted the only drama that can, heart and soul, bear me along with it in
its development. A voice most irresistible, a power omnipotent, drew me
thither. After an absence of two years I landed on its shores, not daring
to make any inquiries, fearful of every remark. My first visit would be to
my sister, who inhabited a little cottage, a part of Adrian's gift, on the
borders of Windsor Forest. From her I should learn the truth concerning our
protector; I should hear why she had withdrawn from the protection of the
Princess Evadne, and be instructed as to the influence which this
overtopping and towering Raymond exercised over the fortunes of my friend.

I had never before been in the neighbourhood of Windsor; the fertility and
beauty of the country around now struck me with admiration, which encreased
as I approached the antique wood. The ruins of majestic oaks which had
grown, flourished, and decayed during the progress of centuries, marked
where the limits of the forest once reached, while the shattered palings
and neglected underwood shewed that this part was deserted for the younger
plantations, which owed their birth to the beginning of the nineteenth
century, and now stood in the pride of maturity. Perdita's humble dwelling
was situated on the skirts of the most ancient portion; before it was
stretched Bishopgate Heath, which towards the east appeared interminable,
and was bounded to the west by Chapel Wood and the grove of Virginia Water.
Behind, the cottage was shadowed by the venerable fathers of the forest,
under which the deer came to graze, and which for the most part hollow and
decayed, formed fantastic groups that contrasted with the regular beauty of
the younger trees. These, the offspring of a later period, stood erect and
seemed ready to advance fearlessly into coming time; while those out worn
stragglers, blasted and broke, clung to each other, their weak boughs
sighing as the wind buffetted them--a weather-beaten crew.

A light railing surrounded the garden of the cottage, which, low-roofed,
seemed to submit to the majesty of nature, and cower amidst the venerable
remains of forgotten time. Flowers, the children of the spring, adorned her
garden and casements; in the midst of lowliness there was an air of
elegance which spoke the graceful taste of the inmate. With a beating heart
I entered the enclosure; as I stood at the entrance, I heard her
voice, melodious as it had ever been, which before I saw her assured me of
her welfare.

A moment more and Perdita appeared; she stood before me in the fresh bloom
of youthful womanhood, different from and yet the same as the mountain girl
I had left. Her eyes could not be deeper than they were in childhood, nor
her countenance more expressive; but the expression was changed and
improved; intelligence sat on her brow; when she smiled her face was
embellished by the softest sensibility, and her low, modulated voice seemed
tuned by love. Her person was formed in the most feminine proportions; she
was not tall, but her mountain life had given freedom to her motions, so
that her light step scarce made her foot-fall heard as she tript across the
hall to meet me. When we had parted, I had clasped her to my bosom with
unrestrained warmth; we met again, and new feelings were awakened; when
each beheld the other, childhood passed, as full grown actors on this
changeful scene. The pause was but for a moment; the flood of association
and natural feeling which had been checked, again rushed in full tide upon
our hearts, and with tenderest emotion we were swiftly locked in each
other's embrace.

This burst of passionate feeling over, with calmed thoughts we sat
together, talking of the past and present. I alluded to the coldness of her
letters; but the few minutes we had spent together sufficiently explained
the origin of this. New feelings had arisen within her, which she was
unable to express in writing to one whom she had only known in childhood;
but we saw each other again, and our intimacy was renewed as if nothing had
intervened to check it. I detailed the incidents of my sojourn abroad, and
then questioned her as to the changes that had taken place at home, the
causes of Adrian's absence, and her secluded life.

The tears that suffused my sister's eyes when I mentioned our friend, and
her heightened colour seemed to vouch for the truth of the reports that had
reached me. But their import was too terrible for me to give instant credit
to my suspicion. Was there indeed anarchy in the sublime universe of
Adrian's thoughts, did madness scatter the well-appointed legions, and was
he no longer the lord of his own soul? Beloved friend, this ill world was
no clime for your gentle spirit; you delivered up its governance to false
humanity, which stript it of its leaves ere winter-time, and laid bare its
quivering life to the evil ministration of roughest winds. Have those
gentle eyes, those "channels of the soul" lost their meaning, or do they
only in their glare disclose the horrible tale of its aberrations? Does
that voice no longer "discourse excellent music?" Horrible, most horrible!
I veil my eyes in terror of the change, and gushing tears bear witness to
my sympathy for this unimaginable ruin.

In obedience to my request Perdita detailed the melancholy circumstances
that led to this event.

The frank and unsuspicious mind of Adrian, gifted as it was by every
natural grace, endowed with transcendant powers of intellect, unblemished
by the shadow of defect (unless his dreadless independence of thought was
to be construed into one), was devoted, even as a victim to sacrifice, to
his love for Evadne. He entrusted to her keeping the treasures of his soul,
his aspirations after excellence, and his plans for the improvement of
mankind. As manhood dawned upon him, his schemes and theories, far from
being changed by personal and prudential motives, acquired new strength
from the powers he felt arise within him; and his love for Evadne became
deep-rooted, as he each day became more certain that the path he pursued
was full of difficulty, and that he must seek his reward, not in the
applause or gratitude of his fellow creatures, hardly in the success of his
plans, but in the approbation of his own heart, and in her love and
sympathy, which was to lighten every toil and recompence every sacrifice.

In solitude, and through many wanderings afar from the haunts of men, he
matured his views for the reform of the English government, and the
improvement of the people. It would have been well if he had concealed his
sentiments, until he had come into possession of the power which would
secure their practical development. But he was impatient of the years that
must intervene, he was frank of heart and fearless. He gave not only a
brief denial to his mother's schemes, but published his intention of using
his influence to diminish the power of the aristocracy, to effect a greater
equalization of wealth and privilege, and to introduce a perfect system of
republican government into England. At first his mother treated his
theories as the wild ravings of inexperience. But they were so
systematically arranged, and his arguments so well supported, that though
still in appearance incredulous, she began to fear him. She tried to reason
with him, and finding him inflexible, learned to hate him.

Strange to say, this feeling was infectious. His enthusiasm for good which
did not exist; his contempt for the sacredness of authority; his ardour and
imprudence were all at the antipodes of the usual routine of life; the
worldly feared him; the young and inexperienced did not understand the
lofty severity of his moral views, and disliked him as a being different
from themselves. Evadne entered but coldly into his systems. She thought he
did well to assert his own will, but she wished that will to have been more
intelligible to the multitude. She had none of the spirit of a martyr, and
did not incline to share the shame and defeat of a fallen patriot. She was
aware of the purity of his motives, the generosity of his disposition, his
true and ardent attachment to her; and she entertained a great affection
for him. He repaid this spirit of kindness with the fondest gratitude, and
made her the treasure-house of all his hopes.

At this time Lord Raymond returned from Greece. No two persons could be
more opposite than Adrian and he. With all the incongruities of his
character, Raymond was emphatically a man of the world. His passions were
violent; as these often obtained the mastery over him, he could not always
square his conduct to the obvious line of self-interest, but
self-gratification at least was the paramount object with him. He looked on
the structure of society as but a part of the machinery which supported the
web on which his life was traced. The earth was spread out as an highway
for him; the heavens built up as a canopy for him.

Adrian felt that he made a part of a great whole. He owned affinity not
only with mankind, but all nature was akin to him; the mountains and sky
were his friends; the winds of heaven and the offspring of earth his
playmates; while he the focus only of this mighty mirror, felt his life
mingle with the universe of existence. His soul was sympathy, and dedicated
to the worship of beauty and excellence. Adrian and Raymond now came into
contact, and a spirit of aversion rose between them. Adrian despised the
narrow views of the politician, and Raymond held in supreme contempt the
benevolent visions of the philanthropist.

With the coming of Raymond was formed the storm that laid waste at one fell
blow the gardens of delight and sheltered paths which Adrian fancied that
he had secured to himself, as a refuge from defeat and contumely. Raymond,
the deliverer of Greece, the graceful soldier, who bore in his mien a tinge
of all that, peculiar to her native clime, Evadne cherished as most dear--
Raymond was loved by Evadne. Overpowered by her new sensations, she did not
pause to examine them, or to regulate her conduct by any sentiments except
the tyrannical one which suddenly usurped the empire of her heart. She
yielded to its influence, and the too natural consequence in a mind
unattuned to soft emotions was, that the attentions of Adrian became
distasteful to her. She grew capricious; her gentle conduct towards him was
exchanged for asperity and repulsive coldness. When she perceived the wild
or pathetic appeal of his expressive countenance, she would relent, and for
a while resume her ancient kindness. But these fluctuations shook to its
depths the soul of the sensitive youth; he no longer deemed the world
subject to him, because he possessed Evadne's love; he felt in every nerve
that the dire storms of the mental universe were about to attack his
fragile being, which quivered at the expectation of its advent.

Perdita, who then resided with Evadne, saw the torture that Adrian endured.
She loved him as a kind elder brother; a relation to guide, protect, and
instruct her, without the too frequent tyranny of parental authority. She
adored his virtues, and with mixed contempt and indignation she saw Evadne
pile drear sorrow on his head, for the sake of one who hardly marked her.
In his solitary despair Adrian would often seek my sister, and in covered
terms express his misery, while fortitude and agony divided the throne of
his mind. Soon, alas! was one to conquer. Anger made no part of his
emotion. With whom should he be angry? Not with Raymond, who was
unconscious of the misery he occasioned; not with Evadne, for her his soul
wept tears of blood--poor, mistaken girl, slave not tyrant was she, and
amidst his own anguish he grieved for her future destiny. Once a writing of
his fell into Perdita's hands; it was blotted with tears--well might any
blot it with the like--

"Life"--it began thus--"is not the thing romance writers describe it;
going through the measures of a dance, and after various evolutions
arriving at a conclusion, when the dancers may sit down and repose. While
there is life there is action and change. We go on, each thought linked to
the one which was its parent, each act to a previous act. No joy or sorrow
dies barren of progeny, which for ever generated and generating, weaves the
chain that make our life:

  Un dia llama a otro dia
  y ass i llama, y encadena
  llanto a llanto, y pena a pena.

Truly disappointment is the guardian deity of human life; she sits
at the threshold of unborn time, and marshals the events as they
come forth. Once my heart sat lightly in my bosom; all the beauty of the
world was doubly beautiful, irradiated by the sun-light shed from my own
soul. O wherefore are love and ruin for ever joined in this our mortal
dream? So that when we make our hearts a lair for that gently seeming
beast, its companion enters with it, and pitilessly lays waste what might
have been an home and a shelter."

By degrees his health was shaken by his misery, and then his intellect
yielded to the same tyranny. His manners grew wild; he was sometimes
ferocious, sometimes absorbed in speechless melancholy. Suddenly Evadne
quitted London for Paris; he followed, and overtook her when the vessel was
about to sail; none knew what passed between them, but Perdita had never
seen him since; he lived in seclusion, no one knew where, attended by such
persons as his mother selected for that purpose.




CHAPTER IV.


THE next day Lord Raymond called at Perdita's cottage, on his way to
Windsor Castle. My sister's heightened colour and sparkling eyes half
revealed her secret to me. He was perfectly self-possessed; he accosted us
both with courtesy, seemed immediately to enter into our feelings, and to
make one with us. I scanned his physiognomy, which varied as he spoke, yet
was beautiful in every change. The usual expression of his eyes was soft,
though at times he could make them even glare with ferocity; his complexion
was colourless; and every trait spoke predominate self-will; his smile was
pleasing, though disdain too often curled his lips--lips which to female
eyes were the very throne of beauty and love. His voice, usually gentle,
often startled you by a sharp discordant note, which shewed that his usual
low tone was rather the work of study than nature. Thus full of
contradictions, unbending yet haughty, gentle yet fierce, tender and again
neglectful, he by some strange art found easy entrance to the admiration
and affection of women; now caressing and now tyrannizing over them
according to his mood, but in every change a despot.

At the present time Raymond evidently wished to appear amiable. Wit,
hilarity, and deep observation were mingled in his talk, rendering every
sentence that he uttered as a flash of light. He soon conquered my latent
distaste; I endeavoured to watch him and Perdita, and to keep in mind every
thing I had heard to his disadvantage. But all appeared so ingenuous, and
all was so fascinating, that I forgot everything except the pleasure his
society afforded me. Under the idea of initiating me in the scene of
English politics and society, of which I was soon to become a part, he
narrated a number of anecdotes, and sketched many characters; his
discourse, rich and varied, flowed on, pervading all my senses with
pleasure. But for one thing he would have been completely triumphant. He
alluded to Adrian, and spoke of him with that disparagement that the
worldly wise always attach to enthusiasm. He perceived the cloud gathering,
and tried to dissipate it; but the strength of my feelings would not permit
me to pass thus lightly over this sacred subject; so I said emphatically,
"Permit me to remark, that I am devotedly attached to the Earl of Windsor;
he is my best friend and benefactor. I reverence his goodness, I accord
with his opinions, and bitterly lament his present, and I trust temporary,
illness. That illness, from its peculiarity, makes it painful to me beyond
words to hear him mentioned, unless in terms of respect and affection."

Raymond replied; but there was nothing conciliatory in his reply. I saw
that in his heart he despised those dedicated to any but worldly idols.
"Every man," he said, "dreams about something, love, honour, and pleasure;
you dream of friendship, and devote yourself to a maniac; well, if that be
your vocation, doubtless you are in the right to follow it."--

Some reflection seemed to sting him, and the spasm of pain that for a
moment convulsed his countenance, checked my indignation. "Happy are
dreamers," he continued, "so that they be not awakened! Would I could
dream! but 'broad and garish day' is the element in which I live; the
dazzling glare of reality inverts the scene for me. Even the ghost of
friendship has departed, and love"----He broke off; nor could I guess
whether the disdain that curled his lip was directed against the passion,
or against himself for being its slave.

This account may be taken as a sample of my intercourse with Lord Raymond.
I became intimate with him, and each day afforded me occasion to admire
more and more his powerful and versatile talents, that together with his
eloquence, which was graceful and witty, and his wealth now immense, caused
him to be feared, loved, and hated beyond any other man in England.

My descent, which claimed interest, if not respect, my former connection
with Adrian, the favour of the ambassador, whose secretary I had been, and
now my intimacy with Lord Raymond, gave me easy access to the fashionable
and political circles of England. To my inexperience we at first appeared
on the eve of a civil war; each party was violent, acrimonious, and
unyielding. Parliament was divided by three factions, aristocrats,
democrats, and royalists. After Adrian's declared predeliction to the
republican form of government, the latter party had nearly died away,
chiefless, guideless; but, when Lord Raymond came forward as its leader, it
revived with redoubled force. Some were royalists from prejudice and
ancient affection, and there were many moderately inclined who feared alike
the capricious tyranny of the popular party, and the unbending despotism of
the aristocrats. More than a third of the members ranged themselves under
Raymond, and their number was perpetually encreasing. The aristocrats built
their hopes on their preponderant wealth and influence; the reformers on
the force of the nation itself; the debates were violent, more violent the
discourses held by each knot of politicians as they assembled to arrange
their measures. Opprobrious epithets were bandied about, resistance even to
the death threatened; meetings of the populace disturbed the quiet order of
the country; except in war, how could all this end? Even as the destructive
flames were ready to break forth, I saw them shrink back; allayed by the
absence of the military, by the aversion entertained by every one to any
violence, save that of speech, and by the cordial politeness and even
friendship of the hostile leaders when they met in private society. I was
from a thousand motives induced to attend minutely to the course of events,
and watch each turn with intense anxiety.

I could not but perceive that Perdita loved Raymond; methought also that he
regarded the fair daughter of Verney with admiration and tenderness. Yet I
knew that he was urging forward his marriage with the presumptive heiress
of the Earldom of Windsor, with keen expectation of the advantages that
would thence accrue to him. All the ex-queen's friends were his friends; no
week passed that he did not hold consultations with her at Windsor.

I had never seen the sister of Adrian. I had heard that she was lovely,
amiable, and fascinating. Wherefore should I see her? There are times when
we have an indefinable sentiment of impending change for better or for
worse, to arise from an event; and, be it for better or for worse, we fear
the change, and shun the event. For this reason I avoided this high-born
damsel. To me she was everything and nothing; her very name mentioned by
another made me start and tremble; the endless discussion concerning her
union with Lord Raymond was real agony to me. Methought that, Adrian
withdrawn from active life, and this beauteous Idris, a victim probably to
her mother's ambitious schemes, I ought to come forward to protect her from
undue influence, guard her from unhappiness, and secure to her freedom of
choice, the right of every human being. Yet how was I to do this? She
herself would disdain my interference. Since then I must be an object of
indifference or contempt to her, better, far better avoid her, nor expose
myself before her and the scornful world to the chance of playing the mad
game of a fond, foolish Icarus. One day, several months after my return to
England, I quitted London to visit my sister. Her society was my chief
solace and delight; and my spirits always rose at the expectation of seeing
her. Her conversation was full of pointed remark and discernment; in her
pleasant alcove, redolent with sweetest flowers, adorned by magnificent
casts, antique vases, and copies of the finest pictures of Raphael,
Correggio, and Claude, painted by herself, I fancied myself in a fairy
retreat untainted by and inaccessible to the noisy contentions of
politicians and the frivolous pursuits of fashion. On this occasion, my
sister was not alone; nor could I fail to recognise her companion: it was
Idris, the till now unseen object of my mad idolatry.

In what fitting terms of wonder and delight, in what choice expression and
soft flow of language, can I usher in the loveliest, wisest, best? How in
poor assemblage of words convey the halo of glory that surrounded her, the
thousand graces that waited unwearied on her. The first thing that struck
you on beholding that charming countenance was its perfect goodness and
frankness; candour sat upon her brow, simplicity in her eyes, heavenly
benignity in her smile. Her tall slim figure bent gracefully as a poplar to
the breezy west, and her gait, goddess-like, was as that of a winged angel
new alit from heaven's high floor; the pearly fairness of her complexion
was stained by a pure suffusion; her voice resembled the low, subdued tenor
of a flute. It is easiest perhaps to describe by contrast. I have detailed
the perfections of my sister; and yet she was utterly unlike Idris.
Perdita, even where she loved, was reserved and timid; Idris was frank and
confiding. The one recoiled to solitude, that she might there entrench
herself from disappointment and injury; the other walked forth in open day,
believing that none would harm her. Wordsworth has compared a beloved
female to two fair objects in nature; but his lines always appeared to me
rather a contrast than a similitude:

  A violet by a mossy stone
  Half hidden from the eye,
  Fair as a star when only one
  Is shining in the sky.

Such a violet was sweet Perdita, trembling to entrust herself to the very
air, cowering from observation, yet betrayed by her excellences; and
repaying with a thousand graces the labour of those who sought her in her
lonely bye-path. Idris was as the star, set in single splendour in the
dim anadem of balmy evening; ready to enlighten and delight the subject
world, shielded herself from every taint by her unimagined distance from
all that was not like herself akin to heaven.

I found this vision of beauty in Perdita's alcove, in earnest conversation
with its inmate. When my sister saw me, she rose, and taking my hand, said,
"He is here, even at our wish; this is Lionel, my brother." Idris arose
also, and bent on me her eyes of celestial blue, and with grace peculiar
said--"You hardly need an introduction; we have a picture, highly valued
by my father, which declares at once your name. Verney, you will
acknowledge this tie, and as my brother's friend, I feel that I may trust
you."

Then, with lids humid with a tear and trembling voice, she continued--
"Dear friends, do not think it strange that now, visiting you for the first
time, I ask your assistance, and confide my wishes and fears to you. To you
alone do I dare speak; I have heard you commended by impartial spectators;
you are my brother's friends, therefore you must be mine. What can I say?
if you refuse to aid me, I am lost indeed!" She cast up her eyes, while
wonder held her auditors mute; then, as if carried away by her feelings,
she cried--"My brother! beloved, ill-fated Adrian! how speak of your
misfortunes? Doubtless you have both heard the current tale; perhaps
believe the slander; but he is not mad! Were an angel from the foot of
God's throne to assert it, never, never would I believe it. He is wronged,
betrayed, imprisoned--save him! Verney, you must do this; seek him out in
whatever part of the island he is immured; find him, rescue him from his
persecutors, restore him to himself, to me--on the wide earth I have none
to love but only him!"

Her earnest appeal, so sweetly and passionately expressed, filled me with
wonder and sympathy; and, when she added, with thrilling voice and look,
"Do you consent to undertake this enterprize?" I vowed, with energy and
truth, to devote myself in life and death to the restoration and welfare of
Adrian. We then conversed on the plan I should pursue, and discussed the
probable means of discovering his residence. While we were in earnest
discourse, Lord Raymond entered unannounced: I saw Perdita tremble and grow
deadly pale, and the cheeks of Idris glow with purest blushes. He must have
been astonished at our conclave, disturbed by it I should have thought; but
nothing of this appeared; he saluted my companions, and addressed me with a
cordial greeting. Idris appeared suspended for a moment, and then with
extreme sweetness, she said, "Lord Raymond, I confide in your goodness and
honour."

Smiling haughtily, he bent his head, and replied, with emphasis, "Do you
indeed confide, Lady Idris?"

She endeavoured to read his thought, and then answered with dignity, "As
you please. It is certainly best not to compromise oneself by any
concealment."

"Pardon me," he replied, "if I have offended. Whether you trust me or not,
rely on my doing my utmost to further your wishes, whatever they may be."

Idris smiled her thanks, and rose to take leave. Lord Raymond requested
permission to accompany her to Windsor Castle, to which she consented, and
they quitted the cottage together. My sister and I were left--truly like
two fools, who fancied that they had obtained a golden treasure, till
daylight shewed it to be lead--two silly, luckless flies, who had played
in sunbeams and were caught in a spider's web. I leaned against the
casement, and watched those two glorious creatures, till they disappeared
in the forest-glades; and then I turned. Perdita had not moved; her eyes
fixed on the ground, her cheeks pale, her very lips white, motionless and
rigid, every feature stamped by woe, she sat. Half frightened, I would
have taken her hand; but she shudderingly withdrew it, and strove to
collect herself. I entreated her to speak to me: "Not now," she replied,
"nor do you speak to me, my dear Lionel; you can say nothing, for you know
nothing. I will see you to-morrow; in the meantime, adieu!" She rose, and
walked from the room; but pausing at the door, and leaning against it, as
if her over-busy thoughts had taken from her the power of supporting
herself, she said, "Lord Raymond will probably return. Will you tell him
that he must excuse me to-day, for I am not well. I will see him to-morrow
if he wishes it, and you also. You had better return to London with him;
you can there make the enquiries agreed upon, concerning the Earl of
Windsor and visit me again to-morrow, before you proceed on your
journey--till then, farewell!"

She spoke falteringly, and concluded with a heavy sigh. I gave my assent to
her request; and she left me. I felt as if, from the order of the
systematic world, I had plunged into chaos, obscure, contrary,
unintelligible. That Raymond should marry Idris was more than ever
intolerable; yet my passion, though a giant from its birth, was too
strange, wild, and impracticable, for me to feel at once the misery I
perceived in Perdita. How should I act? She had not confided in me; I could
not demand an explanation from Raymond without the hazard of betraying what
was perhaps her most treasured secret. I would obtain the truth from her
the following day--in the mean time--But, while I was occupied by
multiplying reflections, Lord Raymond returned. He asked for my sister; and
I delivered her message. After musing on it for a moment, he asked me if I
were about to return to London, and if I would accompany him: I consented.
He was full of thought, and remained silent during a considerable part of
our ride; at length he said, "I must apologize to you for my abstraction;
the truth is, Ryland's motion comes on to-night, and I am considering my
reply."

Ryland was the leader of the popular party, a hard-headed man, and in his
way eloquent; he had obtained leave to bring in a bill making it treason to
endeavour to change the present state of the English government and the
standing laws of the republic. This attack was directed against Raymond and
his machinations for the restoration of the monarchy.

Raymond asked me if I would accompany him to the House that evening. I
remembered my pursuit for intelligence concerning Adrian; and, knowing that
my time would be fully occupied, I excused myself. "Nay," said my
companion, "I can free you from your present impediment. You are going to
make enquiries concerning the Earl of Windsor. I can answer them at once,
he is at the Duke of Athol's seat at Dunkeld. On the first approach of his
disorder, he travelled about from one place to another; until, arriving at
that romantic seclusion he refused to quit it, and we made arrangements
with the Duke for his continuing there."

I was hurt by the careless tone with which he conveyed this information,
and replied coldly: "I am obliged to you for your intelligence, and will
avail myself of it."

"You shall, Verney," said he, "and if you continue of the same mind, I will
facilitate your views. But first witness, I beseech you, the result of this
night's contest, and the triumph I am about to achieve, if I may so call
it, while I fear that victory is to me defeat. What can I do? My dearest
hopes appear to be near their fulfilment. The ex-queen gives me Idris;
Adrian is totally unfitted to succeed to the earldom, and that earldom in
my hands becomes a kingdom. By the reigning God it is true; the paltry
earldom of Windsor shall no longer content him, who will inherit the rights
which must for ever appertain to the person who possesses it. The Countess
can never forget that she has been a queen, and she disdains to leave a
diminished inheritance to her children; her power and my wit will rebuild
the throne, and this brow will be clasped by a kingly diadem.--I can do
this--I can marry Idris."---

He stopped abruptly, his countenance darkened, and its expression changed
again and again under the influence of internal passion. I asked, "Does
Lady Idris love you?"

"What a question," replied he laughing. "She will of course, as I shall
her, when we are married."

"You begin late," said I, ironically, "marriage is usually considered the
grave, and not the cradle of love. So you are about to love her, but do not
already?"

"Do not catechise me, Lionel; I will do my duty by her, be assured. Love! I
must steel my heart against that; expel it from its tower of strength,
barricade it out: the fountain of love must cease to play, its waters be
dried up, and all passionate thoughts attendant on it die--that is to
say, the love which would rule me, not that which I rule. Idris is a
gentle, pretty, sweet little girl; it is impossible not to have an
affection for her, and I have a very sincere one; only do not speak of love
--love, the tyrant and the tyrant-queller; love, until now my conqueror,
now my slave; the hungry fire, the untameable beast, the fanged
snake--no--no--I will have nothing to do with that love. Tell me,
Lionel, do you consent that I should marry this young lady?"

He bent his keen eyes upon me, and my uncontrollable heart swelled in my
bosom. I replied in a calm voice--but how far from calm was the thought
imaged by my still words--"Never! I can never consent that Lady Idris
should be united to one who does not love her."

"Because you love her yourself."

"Your Lordship might have spared that taunt; I do not, dare not love her."

"At least," he continued haughtily, "she does not love you. I would not
marry a reigning sovereign, were I not sure that her heart was free. But,
O, Lionel! a kingdom is a word of might, and gently sounding are the terms
that compose the style of royalty. Were not the mightiest men of the olden
times kings? Alexander was a king; Solomon, the wisest of men, was a king;
Napoleon was a king; Caesar died in his attempt to become one, and
Cromwell, the puritan and king-killer, aspired to regality. The father of
Adrian yielded up the already broken sceptre of England; but I will rear
the fallen plant, join its dismembered frame, and exalt it above all the
flowers of the field.

"You need not wonder that I freely discover Adrian's abode. Do not
suppose that I am wicked or foolish enough to found my purposed
sovereignty on a fraud, and one so easily discovered as the truth
or falsehood of the Earl's insanity. I am just come from him. Before I
decided on my marriage with Idris, I resolved to see him myself again, and
to judge of the probability of his recovery.--He is irrecoverably mad."

I gasped for breath--

"I will not detail to you," continued Raymond, "the melancholy particulars.
You shall see him, and judge for yourself; although I fear this visit,
useless to him, will be insufferably painful to you. It has weighed on my
spirits ever since. Excellent and gentle as he is even in the downfall of
his reason, I do not worship him as you do, but I would give all my hopes
of a crown and my right hand to boot, to see him restored to himself."

His voice expressed the deepest compassion: "Thou most unaccountable
being," I cried, "whither will thy actions tend, in all this maze of
purpose in which thou seemest lost?"

"Whither indeed? To a crown, a golden be-gemmed crown, I hope; and yet I
dare not trust and though I dream of a crown and wake for one, ever and
anon a busy devil whispers to me, that it is but a fool's cap that I seek,
and that were I wise, I should trample on it, and take in its stead, that
which is worth all the crowns of the east and presidentships of the west."

"And what is that?"

"If I do make it my choice, then you shall know; at present I dare not
speak, even think of it."

Again he was silent, and after a pause turned to me laughingly. When scorn
did not inspire his mirth, when it was genuine gaiety that painted his
features with a joyous expression, his beauty became super-eminent, divine.
"Verney," said he, "my first act when I become King of England, will be to
unite with the Greeks, take Constantinople, and subdue all Asia. I intend
to be a warrior, a conqueror; Napoleon's name shall vail to mine; and
enthusiasts, instead of visiting his rocky grave, and exalting the merits
of the fallen, shall adore my majesty, and magnify my illustrious
achievements."

I listened to Raymond with intense interest. Could I be other than all ear,
to one who seemed to govern the whole earth in his grasping imagination,
and who only quailed when he attempted to rule himself. Then on his word
and will depended my own happiness--the fate of all dear to me. I
endeavoured to divine the concealed meaning of his words. Perdita's name
was not mentioned; yet I could not doubt that love for her caused the
vacillation of purpose that he exhibited. And who was so worthy of love as
my noble-minded sister? Who deserved the hand of this self-exalted king
more than she whose glance belonged to a queen of nations? who loved him,
as he did her; notwithstanding that disappointment quelled her passion, and
ambition held strong combat with his.

We went together to the House in the evening. Raymond, while he knew that
his plans and prospects were to be discussed and decided during the
expected debate, was gay and careless. An hum, like that of ten thousand
hives of swarming bees, stunned us as we entered the coffee-room. Knots of
politicians were assembled with anxious brows and loud or deep voices. The
aristocratical party, the richest and most influential men in England,
appeared less agitated than the others, for the question was to be
discussed without their interference. Near the fire was Ryland and his
supporters. Ryland was a man of obscure birth and of immense wealth,
inherited from his father, who had been a manufacturer. He had witnessed,
when a young man, the abdication of the king, and the amalgamation of the
two houses of Lords and Commons; he had sympathized with these popular
encroachments, and it had been the business of his life to consolidate and
encrease them. Since then, the influence of the landed proprietors had
augmented; and at first Ryland was not sorry to observe the machinations of
Lord Raymond, which drew off many of his opponent's partizans. But the
thing was now going too far. The poorer nobility hailed the return of
sovereignty, as an event which would restore them to their power and
rights, now lost. The half extinct spirit of royalty roused itself in the
minds of men; and they, willing slaves, self-constituted subjects, were
ready to bend their necks to the yoke. Some erect and manly spirits still
remained, pillars of state; but the word republic had grown stale to the
vulgar ear; and many--the event would prove whether it was a majority--
pined for the tinsel and show of royalty. Ryland was roused to resistance;
he asserted that his sufferance alone had permitted the encrease of this
party; but the time for indulgence was passed, and with one motion of his
arm he would sweep away the cobwebs that blinded his countrymen.

When Raymond entered the coffee-room, his presence was hailed by his
friends almost with a shout. They gathered round him, counted their
numbers, and detailed the reasons why they were now to receive an addition
of such and such members, who had not yet declared themselves. Some
trifling business of the House having been gone through, the leaders took
their seats in the chamber; the clamour of voices continued, till Ryland
arose to speak, and then the slightest whispered observation was audible.
All eyes were fixed upon him as he stood--ponderous of frame, sonorous of
voice, and with a manner which, though not graceful, was impressive. I
turned from his marked, iron countenance to Raymond, whose face, veiled by
a smile, would not betray his care; yet his lips quivered somewhat, and his
hand clasped the bench on which he sat, with a convulsive strength that
made the muscles start again.

Ryland began by praising the present state of the British empire. He
recalled past years to their memory; the miserable contentions which in the
time of our fathers arose almost to civil war, the abdication of the late
king, and the foundation of the republic. He described this republic;
shewed how it gave privilege to each individual in the state, to rise to
consequence, and even to temporary sovereignty. He compared the royal and
republican spirit; shewed how the one tended to enslave the minds of men;
while all the institutions of the other served to raise even the meanest
among us to something great and good. He shewed how England had become
powerful, and its inhabitants valiant and wise, by means of the freedom
they enjoyed. As he spoke, every heart swelled with pride, and every cheek
glowed with delight to remember, that each one there was English, and that
each supported and contributed to the happy state of things now
commemorated. Ryland's fervour increased--his eyes lighted up--his
voice assumed the tone of passion. There was one man, he continued, who
wished to alter all this, and bring us back to our days of impotence and
contention:--one man, who would dare arrogate the honour which was due to
all who claimed England as their birthplace, and set his name and style
above the name and style of his country. I saw at this juncture that
Raymond changed colour; his eyes were withdrawn from the orator, and cast
on the ground; the listeners turned from one to the other; but in the
meantime the speaker's voice filled their ears--the thunder of his
denunciations influenced their senses. The very boldness of his language
gave him weight; each knew that he spoke truth--a truth known, but not
acknowledged. He tore from reality the mask with which she had been
clothed; and the purposes of Raymond, which before had crept around,
ensnaring by stealth, now stood a hunted stag--even at bay--as all
perceived who watched the irrepressible changes of his countenance. Ryland
ended by moving, that any attempt to re-erect the kingly power should be
declared treason, and he a traitor who should endeavour to change the
present form of government. Cheers and loud acclamations followed the close
of his speech.

After his motion had been seconded, Lord Raymond rose,--his countenance
bland, his voice softly melodious, his manner soothing, his grace and
sweetness came like the mild breathing of a flute, after the loud,
organ-like voice of his adversary. He rose, he said, to speak in favour of
the honourable member's motion, with one slight amendment subjoined. He was
ready to go back to old times, and commemorate the contests of our fathers,
and the monarch's abdication. Nobly and greatly, he said, had the
illustrious and last sovereign of England sacrificed himself to the
apparent good of his country, and divested himself of a power which could
only be maintained by the blood of his subjects--these subjects named so
no more, these, his friends and equals, had in gratitude conferred certain
favours and distinctions on him and his family for ever. An ample estate
was allotted to them, and they took the first rank among the peers of Great
Britain. Yet it might be conjectured that they had not forgotten their
ancient heritage; and it was hard that his heir should suffer alike with
any other pretender, if he attempted to regain what by ancient right and
inheritance belonged to him. He did not say that he should favour such an
attempt; but he did say that such an attempt would be venial; and, if the
aspirant did not go so far as to declare war, and erect a standard in the
kingdom, his fault ought to be regarded with an indulgent eye. In his
amendment he proposed, that an exception should be made in the bill in
favour of any person who claimed the sovereign power in right of the earls
of Windsor. Nor did Raymond make an end without drawing in vivid and glowing
colours, the splendour of a kingdom, in opposition to the commercial spirit
of republicanism. He asserted, that each individual under the English
monarchy, was then as now, capable of attaining high rank and power--with
one only exception, that of the function of chief magistrate; higher and
nobler rank, than a bartering, timorous commonwealth could afford. And for
this one exception, to what did it amount? The nature of riches and
influence forcibly confined the list of candidates to a few of the
wealthiest; and it was much to be feared, that the ill-humour and
contention generated by this triennial struggle, would counterbalance its
advantages in impartial eyes. I can ill record the flow of language and
graceful turns of expression, the wit and easy raillery that gave vigour
and influence to his speech. His manner, timid at first, became firm--his
changeful face was lit up to superhuman brilliancy; his voice, various as
music, was like that enchanting.

It were useless to record the debate that followed this harangue. Party
speeches were delivered, which clothed the question in cant, and veiled its
simple meaning in a woven wind of words. The motion was lost; Ryland
withdrew in rage and despair; and Raymond, gay and exulting, retired to
dream of his future kingdom.




CHAPTER IV.


IS there such a feeling as love at first sight? And if there be, in what
does its nature differ from love founded in long observation and slow
growth? Perhaps its effects are not so permanent; but they are, while they
last, as violent and intense. We walk the pathless mazes of society, vacant
of joy, till we hold this clue, leading us through that labyrinth to
paradise. Our nature dim, like to an unlighted torch, sleeps in formless
blank till the fire attain it; this life of life, this light to moon, and
glory to the sun. What does it matter, whether the fire be struck from
flint and steel, nourished with care into a flame, slowly communicated to
the dark wick, or whether swiftly the radiant power of light and warmth
passes from a kindred power, and shines at once the beacon and the hope. In
the deepest fountain of my heart the pulses were stirred; around, above,
beneath, the clinging Memory as a cloak enwrapt me. In no one moment of
coming time did I feel as I had done in time gone by. The spirit of Idris
hovered in the air I breathed; her eyes were ever and for ever bent on
mine; her remembered smile blinded my faint gaze, and caused me to walk as
one, not in eclipse, not in darkness and vacancy--but in a new and
brilliant light, too novel, too dazzling for my human senses. On every
leaf, on every small division of the universe, (as on the hyacinth ai is
engraved) was imprinted the talisman of my existence--SHE LIVES! SHE IS!
--I had not time yet to analyze my feeling, to take myself to task, and
leash in the tameless passion; all was one idea, one feeling, one knowledge
--it was my life!

But the die was cast--Raymond would marry Idris. The merry marriage bells
rung in my ears; I heard the nation's gratulation which followed the union;
the ambitious noble uprose with swift eagle-flight, from the lowly ground
to regal supremacy--and to the love of Idris. Yet, not so! She did not
love him; she had called me her friend; she had smiled on me; to me she had
entrusted her heart's dearest hope, the welfare of Adrian. This reflection
thawed my congealing blood, and again the tide of life and love flowed
impetuously onward, again to ebb as my busy thoughts changed.

The debate had ended at three in the morning. My soul was in tumults; I
traversed the streets with eager rapidity. Truly, I was mad that night--
love--which I have named a giant from its birth, wrestled with despair!
My heart, the field of combat, was wounded by the iron heel of the one,
watered by the gushing tears of the other. Day, hateful to me, dawned; I
retreated to my lodgings--I threw myself on a couch--I slept--was it
sleep?--for thought was still alive--love and despair struggled still,
and I writhed with unendurable pain.

I awoke half stupefied; I felt a heavy oppression on me, but knew not
wherefore; I entered, as it were, the council-chamber of my brain, and
questioned the various ministers of thought therein assembled; too soon I
remembered all; too soon my limbs quivered beneath the tormenting power;
soon, too soon, I knew myself a slave!

Suddenly, unannounced, Lord Raymond entered my apartment. He came in gaily,
singing the Tyrolese song of liberty; noticed me with a gracious nod, and
threw himself on a sopha opposite the copy of a bust of the Apollo
Belvidere. After one or two trivial remarks, to which I sullenly replied,
he suddenly cried, looking at the bust, "I am called like that victor! Not
a bad idea; the head will serve for my new coinage, and be an omen to all
dutiful subjects of my future success."

He said this in his most gay, yet benevolent manner, and smiled, not
disdainfully, but in playful mockery of himself. Then his countenance
suddenly darkened, and in that shrill tone peculiar to himself, he cried,
"I fought a good battle last night; higher conquest the plains of Greece
never saw me achieve. Now I am the first man in the state, burthen of every
ballad, and object of old women's mumbled devotions. What are your
meditations