LETTER XX.
TO J. D. ESQ., M. P.
I had just finished my last by the beams of a gloriously setting sun,when I was startled by a pebble being thrown in at my window. I lookedout, and perceived Father John in the act of flinging up another, whichthe hand of Glorvina (who was leaning on his arm) prevented.
“If you are not engaged in writing to your mistress,” said he, “comedown and join us in a ramble.”
“And though I were,” I replied, “I could not resist your challenge.” And down I flew--Glorvina laughing, sent me back for my hat, and weproceeded on our walk.
“This is an evening,” said I, looking at Glorvina, “worthy of themorning of the first of May, and we have seized it in that happy momentso exquisitly described by Collins:
-“'While now the bright hair’d sun
Sits on yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts
With brede etherial wove,
O’erhang his wavy bed.’” >
“O! that beautiful ode!” exclaimed Glorvina, with all her wildestenthusiasm--“never can I read--never hear it repeated but with emotion.The perusal of Ossian’s ‘Song of Other Times,’ the breezy respirationof my harp at twilight, the last pale rose that outlives its season,and bears on its faded breast the frozen tears of the wintry dawn, andCollins’s ‘Ode to Evening,’ awaken in my heart and fancy the same trainof indescribable feeling, of exquisite, yet unspeakable sensation. Alas!the solitary pleasure of feeling thus alone the utter impossibility ofconveying to the bosom of another those ecstatic emotions by which ourown is sublimed.”
While my very soul followed this brilliant comet to her perihelion ofsentiment and imagination, I fixed my eyes on her “mind-illumin’d face,” and said, “And is expression then necessary for the conveyance of suchprofound, such exquisite feeling? May not the similarity of a refinedorganization exist between souls, and produce that mutual intelligencewhich sets the necessity of cold, verbal expression at defiance? May notthe sympathy of a kindred sensibility in the bosom of another, meet andenjoy those delicious feelings by which yours is warmed, and, sinkingbeneath the inadequacy of language to give them birth, feel like you, insilent and sacred emotion?”
“Perhaps,” said the priest, with his usual simplicity, “this sacredsympathy, between two refined and elevated souls, in the sublime andbeautiful of the moral and natural world, approaches nearest to therapturous and pure emotions which uncreated spirits may be supposed tofeel in their heavenly communion, than any other human sentiment withwhich we are acquainted.”
For all the looks of blandishment which ever flung their spell frombeauty’s eye, I would not have exchanged the glance which Glorvinaat that moment cast on me. While the priest, who seemed to havebeen following up the train of thought awakened by our precedingobservations, abruptly added, after a silence of some minutes--
“There is a species of metaphorical taste, if I may be allowed theexpression, whose admiration for certain objects is not deducible fromthe established rules of beauty, order, or even truth; which _should_ bethe basis of our approbation yet which ever brings with it a sensationof more lively pleasure; as for instance, a chromatic passion inmusic will awaken a thrill of delight which a simple chord could nevereffect.”
“Nor would the most self-evident truth,” said I, “awaken so vivid asensation, as when we find some sentiment of the soul illustrated bysome law or principle in science. To an axiom we announce our assent,but we lavish our most enthusiastic approbation when Rosseau tells usthat ‘Les ames humaines veulent etre accomplies pour valoir toute leursprix, et la force unie des ames _comme celles des l’armes d’un aimantartificiel_, est incomparablement plus grands que la somme de leursforce particulier.’”
As this quotation was meant _all_ for Glorvina, I looked earnestlyat her as I repeated it. A crimson torrent rushed to her cheek, andconvinced me that she felt the full force of a sentiment so applicableto us both.
“And why,” said I, addressing her in a low voice, “was Rosseau excludedfrom the sacred coalition with Ossian, Collins, your twilight harp, andwinter rose?”
Glorvina made no reply; but turned full on me her “eyes of dewy light.” Mine almost sunk beneath the melting ardour of their soul-beaming o oglance.
Oh! child of Nature! child of genius and of passion! why was I withheldfrom throwing myself at thy feet; from offering thee the homage of thatsoul thou hast awakened; from covering thy hands with my kisses, andbathing them with tears of such delicious emotion, as thou only hastpower to inspire?
While we thus “_buvames a longs traits le philtre de l’amour,_” FatherJohn gradually restored us to commonplace existence, by a commonplaceconversation on the fineness of the weather, promising aspect of theseason, &c., until the moon, as it rose sublimely above the summit ofthe mountain, called forth the melting tones of my Glorvina’s syrenvoice.
Casting up her eyes to that Heaven whence they seem to have caught theiremanation, she said, “I do not wonder that unenlightened nations shouldworship the moon. Our ideas are so intimately connected with our senses,so ductilely transferable from cause to effect, that the abstractthought may readily subside in the sensible image which awakens it.When, in the awful stillness of a calm night, I fix my eyes on the mildand beautiful orb, the _created_ has become the awakening medium of thatadoration I offered to the _Creator_.”
“Yes,” said the priest, “I remember that even in your childhood, youused to fix your eyes on the moon, and gaze and wonder. I believe itwould have been no difficult matter to have plunged you back into theheathenism of your ancestors, and to have made it one of the gods ofyour idolatry.”
“And was the chaste Luna in the _album sanctorum_ of your Druidicalmythology?” said I.
“Undoubtedly,” said the priest, “we read in the life of our celebratedsaint, St. Columba, that on the altar-piece of a Druidical temple,the sun, moon, and stars were curiously depicted; and the form of theancient Irish oath of allegiance, was to swear by the sun, moon, andstars, and other deities, celestial as well as terrestrial.”
“How,” said I, “did your mythology touch so closely on that of theGreeks? Had you also your Pans and your Daphnes, as well as your Diansand Apollos?”
“Here is a curious anecdote that evinces it,” returned the priest--“Itis many years since I read it in a black-letter memoir of St. Patrick.The Saint, says the biographer, attended by three bishops, and some lessdignified of his brethren, being in this very province, arose early onemorning, and with his pious associates, placed himself near a fountainor well, and began to chant a hymn. In the neighbourhood of thishonoured fountain stood the palace of _Cruachan_, where the twodaughters of the Emperor Laogare were educating in retirement; and asthe saints sung by no means _sotto voce_, * their pious strains caughtthe attention of the royal fair ones, who were enjoying an early ramble,and who immediately sought the sanctified choristers. Full of thatcuriosity so natural to the youthful recluses, they were by no meanssparing of interrogations to the Saint, and among other questionsdemanded, ‘and who is your God? Where dwells he, in heaven or on theearth, or beneath the earth, or in the mountain, or in the valley, orthe sea, or the stream?’--And indeed, even to this day, we have Irishfor a river god, which we call _Divona_.--You perceive, therefore, thatour ancient religion was by no means an unpoetical one.”
* A musical voice was an indispensable quality in an Irish Saint, and “lungs of leather” no trivial requisite towards obtaining canonization. St. Columbkill, we are told, sung so loud, that, according to an old Irish poem, called “Amhra Chioluim chille,” or The Vision of Columbkill, “His hallow’d voice beyond a mile was heard.”
While we spoke, we observed a figure emerging from a coppice towards asmall well, which issued beneath the roots of a blasted oak. The priestmotioned us to stop, and be silent--the figure (which was that of anancient female wrapped in a long cloak,) approached, and having drankof the well out of a little cup, she went three times round it on herknees, praying with great fervency
over her beads; then rising afterthis painful ceremony, she tore a small part of her under garb, and hungit on the branch of the tree which shaded the well.
“This ceremony, I perceive,” said the priest, “surprises you; but youhave now witnessed the remains of one of our ancient superstitions. Theancient Irish, like the Greeks, were religiously attached to theconsecrated fountain, the _Vel expiatoria_; and our early missionaries,discovering the fondness of the natives for these sanctified springs,artfully diverted the course of their superstitious faith, and dedicatedthem to Christian saints.”
“There is really,” said I, “something truly classic in this spot; andhere is this little shrine of Christian superstition hung with the samevotive gifts as Pausanius informs us obscured the statue of Hygeia inSecyonia.”
“This is nothing extraordinary here,” said the priest; “theseconsecrated wells are to be found in every part of the kingdom. But ofall our _Acquo Sanctificato_, Lough Derg is the most celebrated. It isthe _Loretto_ of Ireland, and votarists from every part of the kingdomresort to it. So great, indeed, is the still-existing veneration amongthe lower orders for these holy wells, that those who live at toogreat a distance to make a pilgrimage to one, are content to purchasea species of amulet made of a sliver of the tree which shades the well,(and imbued with its waters,) which they wear round their necks. Thesecurious amulets are sold at fairs, by a species of sturdy beggar, calleda _Bacagh_, who stands with a long pole, with a box fixed at the topof it, for the reception of alms; while he alternately extols themiraculous property of the amulet, and details his own miseries; thusat once endeavouring to interest the faith and charity of the alwaysbenevolent, always credulous multitude.”
“Strange,” said I, “that religion in all ages and in all countriesshould depend so much on the impositions of one half of mankind, and thecredulity and indolence of the other. Thus the Egyptians (to whom evenGreece herself stood indebted for the principles of those arts andsciences by which she became the most illustrious country in the world)resigned themselves so entirely to the impositions of their priests, asto believe that the safety and happiness of life itself depended on themotions of an ox, or the tameness of a crocodile.”
“Stop, stop,” interrupted Father John, smiling; “you forget, that thoughyou wear the _San-Benito_, or robe of heresy yourself, you are in thecompany of those who----”
“Exactly think on _certain points_,” interrupted I, “even as myheretical self.”
This observation led to a little controversial dialogue, which, as itwould stand a very poor chance of being read by you, will stand none atall of being transcribed by me.
When we returned home we found the Prince impatiently watching for usat the window, fearful lest the dews of heaven should have fallentoo heavily on the head of his heart’s idol, who finished her walk insilence; either, I believe, not much pleased with the turn given to theconversation by the priest, or not sufficiently interested in it.
*****
I know not how it is, but since the morning of the first of May, I feelas though my soul had entered into a covenant with hers; as though ourvery beings were indissolubly interwoven with each other. And yet thefreedom which once existed in our intercourse is fled. I approach hertrembling; and she repels the most distant advances with such dignifiedsoftness, such chastely modest reserve, that the restraint I sometimeslabour under in her presence, is almost concomitant to the bliss itbestows.
This morning, when she came to her drawing-desk, she held a volume of_De Moustier_ in her hand--“I have brought this,” said she, “for ou _bonPere Directeur_ to read out to us.”
“He has commissioned me,” said I, “to make his excuses; he is gone tovisit a sick man on the other side of the mountain.”
At this intelligence she blushed to the eyes; but suddenly recoveringherself, she put the book into my hands, and said with a smile, “thenyou must officiate for him.”
As soon as she was seated at the drawing-desk, I opened the book, and bychance at the beautiful description of the _Boudoir_:
“J’amie une boudoir étroite qu’un demi jour eclaire,
La mon cour est chez lui, le premier demi jour
Fruit par la volupté, menage pour l’amour,
La discrete amitié, veut aussi du mystère,
Cluand de nos bons amis dans un lieu limitie,
Le cercle peu nombreux près de nous rassemble
Le sentiment, la paix, la franche liberté
Preside en commun,” &c.
I wish you could see this creature, when anything is said or readthat comes home to her heart, or strikes in immediate unison with theexquisite tone of her feelings. Never sure was there a finer commentarythan her looks and gestures passed on any work of interest which engagesher attention. Before I had finished the perusal of this charming littlefragment, the pencil had dropped from her fingers; and often she wavedher beautiful head and smiled, and breathed a faint exclamation ofdelight; and when I laid down the book, she said, while she leaned herface on her clasped hands----
“And I too have a boudoir!--but even a _bou-doir_ may become a drearysolitude, except”----she paused; and I added, from the poem I had justread, “except that within its social little limits
“La confidence ingénu rapproche deux amis.”
Her eyes, half raised to mine, suddenly cast down, beamed a tenderacquiescence to the sentiment.
“But,” said I, “if the being worthy of sharing the bliss such anintercourse in such a place must confer, is yet to be found, is itshallowed circle inviolable to the intrusive footstep of an inferior,though perhaps not less ardent votarist?”
“Since you have been here,” said she, “I have scarcely ever visited thisonce favourite retreat myself.”
“Am I to take that as a compliment or otherwise?” said I.
“Just as it is meant,” said she--“as a fact;” and she added, with aninadvertent simplicity, into which the ardour of her temper oftenbetrays her--“I never can devote myself partially to anything--I ameither all enthusiasm or all indifference.”
Not for the world would I have made her _feel_ the full force of thisavowal; but requested permission to visit this now deserted boudoir.
“Certainly,” she replied--“it is a little closet in that ruined tower,which terminates the corridor in which your apartment lies.”
“Then, I am privileged?” said I.
“Undoubtedly,” she returned; and the Prince who had risen unusuallyearly, entered the room at that moment, and joined us at thedrawing-desk.
*****
The absence of the good priest left me to a solitary dinner. Glorvina(as is usual with her) spent the first part of the evening in herfather’s room; and thus denied her society, I endeavoured to supply itswant--its soul-felt want, by a visit to her boudoir.
There is a certain tone of feeling when fancy is in its acme, whensentiment holds the senses in subordination, and the visionary joyswhich float in the imagination shed a livelier bliss on the soul, thanthe best pleasures cold reality ever conferred. Then, even the presenceof a beloved object is not more precious to the heart than the spotconsecrated to her memory; where we fancy the very air is impregnatedwith her respiration every object is hallowed by her recent touch, andthat all around breathes of her.
In such a mood of mind, I ascended to Glor-vina’s boudoir; and I reallybelieve, that had she accompanied, I should have felt less than whenalone and unseen I stole to the asylum of her pensive thoughts. Itlay as she had described; and almost as I passed its threshold, I wassensibly struck by the incongruity of its appearance--it seemed to me asthough it had been partly furnished in the beginning of one century, andfinished in the conclusion of another. The walls were rudely wainscottedwith oak, black with age; yet the floor was covered with a Turkeycarpet, rich, new, and beautiful--better adapted to cover a Parisiandressing-room than the closet of a ruined tower. The casements were highand narrow, but partly veiled with a rich drapery of scarlet silk: a fewold chairs, heavy and cum
brous, were interspersed with stools of anantique form; one of which lay folded upon the ground, so as to beportable in a travelling trunk. On a ponderous Gothic table (whichseemed a fixture coeval with the building) was placed a silver_escritoire_, of curious and elegant workmanship, and two small, butbeautiful antique vases (filled with flowers) of Etrurian elegance. Twolittle book-shelves, elegantly designed, but most clumsily executed,(probably by some hedge-carpenter) were filled with the best French,English, and Italian poets; and, to my utter astonishment, not only somenew publications scarce six months old, but two London newspapers of nodistant date, lay scattered on the table, with some MS. music, and someunfinished drawings.
Having gratified my curiosity, by examining the singular incongruitiesof this paradoxical boudoir, I leaned for some time against one of thewindows, endeavouring to make out some defaced lines cut on its paneswith a diamond, when Glorvina herself entered the room.
As I stood concealed by the silken drapery, she did not perceive me. Abasket of flowers hung on her arm, from which she replenished the vases,having first flung away their faded treasures. As she stood thus engagedand cheering her sweet employment with a murmured song, I stole softlybehind her, and my breath disturbing the ringlets which had escapedfrom the bondage of her bodkin, and seemed to cling to her neck forprotection, she turned quickly round, and with a start, a blush, and asmile, said, “Ah! _so soon_ here!”
“You perceive,” said I, “your immunity was not lost on me! I have beenhere this half hour!”
“Indeed!” she replied, and casting round a quick inquiring glance,hastily collected the scattered papers, and threw them into a drawer;adding, “I intended to have made some arrangements in this desertedlittle place, that you might see it in its best garb; but had scarcelybegun the necessary reform this morning, when I was suddenly calledto my father, and could not till this moment find leisure to returnhither.”
While she spoke I gazed earnestly at her. It struck me there was asomething of mystery over this apartment, yet wherefore should mysterydwell where all breathes the ingenuous simplicity of the golden age?Glorvina moved towards the casement, threw open the sash, and laid herfresh gathered flowers on the seat. Their perfume scented the room; anda new fallen shower still glittered on the honeysuckle which she wasendeavouring to entice through the window round which it crept.
The sun was setting with rather a mild than a dazzling splendour, andthe landscape was richly impurpled with its departing beams, which, asthey darted through the scarlet drapery of the curtain, shed warmly overthe countenance and figure of Glorvina “_Love’s proper hue_.”
We both remained silent, until her eye accidentally meeting mine, amore “celestial rosy red” invested her cheek. She seated herself in thewindow, and I drew a chair and sat near her. All within was the softestgloom--all without the most solemn stillness. The gray vapours oftwilight were already stealing amidst the illumined clouds that floatedin the atmosphere--the sun’s golden beams no longer scattered roundtheir rich suffusion and the glow of retreating day was fading evenfrom the horizon where its parting glories faintly lingered.
“It is a sweet hour,” said Glorvina, softly sighing.
“It is a _boudoirizing_ hour,” said I.
“It is a golden one for a poetic heart,” she added.
“Or an enamoured one,” I returned. “It is the hour in which the soulbest knows itself; when every low-thoughted care is excluded, and thepensive pleasures take possession of the dis solving heart.
“Ces douces lumières
Ces sombre certes
Sont les jours de la volupté.”
And what was the _voluptas_ of Epicurus, but those refined and elegantenjoyments which must derive their spirit from virtue and from health;from a vivid fancy, susceptible feelings, and a cultivated mind; andwhich are never so fully tasted as in this sweet season of the day; thenthe influence of sentiment is buoyant over passion the soul, alive tothe sublimest impression, expands in the region of pure and elevatedmeditation: the passions, slumbering in the soft repose of Nature,leave the heart free to the reception of the purest, warmest, tenderestsentiments--when all is delicious melancholy, or pensive softness; whenevery vulgar wish is hushed, and a rapture, an indefinable rapture,thrills with sweet vibration on every nerve.”
“It is thus I have felt,” said the all-impassioned Glorvina, claspingher hands and fixing her humid eyes on mine--“thus, in the dearth of all_kindred_ feeling, have I felt. But never, oh! till _now--never!_”--andshe abruptly paused, and drooped her head on the back of my chair, overwhich my hand rested, and felt the soft pressure of her glowing cheek,while her balmy sigh breathed its odour on my lip.
Oh had not her celestial confidence, her angelic purity, sublimed everythought, restrained every wish; at that moment; that too fortunate; toodangerous moment!!!--Yet even as it was, in the delicious agony of mysoul, I secretly exclaimed with the legislator of Lesbos--“_It is toodifficult to be always virtuous!_” while I half audibly breathed on theear of Glorvina--
“Nor I, O first of all created beings! never, never till I beheld thee,did I know the pure rapture which the intercourse of a kindred soulawakens--of that sacred communion with a superior intelligence, which,while it raises me in my own estimation, tempts me to emulate thatexcellence I adore.”
Glorvina raised her head--her melting eyes met mine, and her cheekrivalled the snow of that hand which was pressed with passionate ardouron my lips. Then her eyes were bashfully withdrawn; she again droopedher head--not on the chair, but on my shoulder. What followed, angelsmight have attested--but the eloquence of bliss is silence.
Suffice it to say, that I am now certain of at least being understood;and that in awakening her comprehension, I have roused my own. In aword, I _now_ feel I love!!--for the first time I feel it. For the firsttime my heart is alive to the most profound, the most delicate, the mostardent, and most refined of all human passions. I am now conscious thatI have hitherto mistaken the senses for the heart, and the blandishmentsof a vitiated imagination for the pleasures of the soul. In short, Inow feel myself in that state of beatitude, when the fruition of all theheart’s purest wishes leaves me nothing to desire, and the innocence ofthose wishes nothing to fear. You know but little of the sentiment whichnow pervades my whole being, and blends with every atom of my frame, ifyou suppose I have formally told Glorvina I loved her, or that I appeareven to suspect that I am (rapturous thought!) beloved in return. Onthe contrary, the same mysterious delicacy, the same delicious reservestill exist. It is a sigh, a glance, a broken sentence, an imperceptiblemotion, (imperceptible to all eyes but our own) that betrays us to eachother. Once I used to fall at the feet of the “_Cynthia of the moment_,” avow my passion, and swear eternal truth. Now I make no genuflection,offer no vows, and swear no oaths; and yet feel more thanever.--More!--dare I then place in the scale of comparison what I nowfeel with what I ever felt before? The thought is sacrilege!
This child of Nature appears to me each succeeding day, in a _phasis_more bewitchingly attractive than the last. She now feels her power overme, (with woman’s _intuition_, where the heart is in question!) andthis consciousness gives to her manners a certain roguish tyranny,that renders her the most charming tantalizing being in the world. In athousand little instances she contrives to teaze me; most, when most shedelights me! and takes no pains to conceal my simple folly from others,while she triumphs in it herself. In short, she is the last woman in theworld who would incur the risk of satiating him who is best in her love;for the variability of her manner, always governed by her ardent, thoughvolatilized feelings, keeps suspense on the eternal _qui vive!_ and thesweet assurance given by the eyes one moment, is destroyed in the nextby some arch sally of the lip.
To-day I met her walking with the nurse. The old woman, very properly,made a motion to retire as I approached. Glorvina would not suffer this,and twined her arm round that of her fostermother. I was half inclinedto turn on my heel, when a servant came running to the nurse for theke
ys. It was impossible to burst them from her side, and away shehobbled after the barefooted _laquais_. I looked reproachfully atGlorvina, but her eyes were fixed on an arbutus tree rich in blossom.
“I wish I had that high branch,” said she, “to put in my vase.” In amoment I was climbing up the tree like a great school-boy, while she,standing beneath, received the blossoms in her extended drapery; and Iwas on the point of descending, when a branch, lovelier than all Ihad culled, attracted my eye: this I intended to present in _propriapersona_, that I might get a kiss of the hand in return. With my ownhands sufficiently engaged in effecting my descent, I held my Hesperianbranch in my teeth, and had nearly reached the ground, when Glorvinaplayfully approached her lovely mouth to snatch the prize from mine. Wewere just in contact--I suddenly let fall the branch--and--FatherJohn appeared walking towards us; while Glorvina, who, it seems, hadperceived him before she had placed herself in the way of danger, nowran towards him, covered with blushes and malignant little smiles. Inshort, she makes me feel in a thousand trivial instances the truth ofEpictetus’s maxim, that to _bear_ and _forbear_, are the powers thatconstitute a wise man: to _forbear_, alone, would, in my opinion, be asufficient test.
Adieu, H. M.