Italian Letters Part 7

Trouble, thou mayest tear this frame like a whirlwind! But never shall all thy terrors shake my constant mind, or teach me to swerve for a moment from the path I have marked out to myself! All other consolation may be taken from me, but from the bulwark of innocence and integrity I will never be separated.

Letter IX

_The Marquis of Pescara to the Count de St. Julian_

_Cosenza_

I can never sufficiently thank you for the indefatigable friends.h.i.+p you have displayed in the whole progress of my Spanish affairs. I have just received a letter from the first minister of that court, by which I am convinced that it cannot be long before they be terminated in the most favourable manner. I scarcely know how, after all the obligations you have conferred upon me, to intreat that you would complete them, by paying a visit to Zamora before you quit the kingdom, and putting my affairs there in some train, which from the negligence incident to a disputed t.i.tle, can scarcely fail to be in disorder.

Believe me there is nothing for which I have more ardently longed, than to clasp you once again in my arms. The additional procrastination which this new journey will create, cannot be more afflicting to you than it is to me. Abridge then, I intreat you, as much as possible, those delays which are in some degree inevitable, and let me have the agreeable surprize of holding my St. Julian to my breast before I imagined I had reason to expect his return.

Letter X

_The Answer_

_Zamora_

My dear lord,

It is with the utmost pleasure that I have it now in my power to a.s.sure you that your affair is finally closed at the court of Madrid, in a manner the most advantageous and honourable to your name and family. You will perceive from the date of this letter that I had no need of the request you have made in order to remind me of my duty to my friend.

I was no sooner able to quit the capital with propriety, than I immediately repaired hither. The derangement however of your affairs at this place is greater than either of us could have imagined, and it will take a considerable time to reduce them to that order, which shall render them most beneficial to the peasant, and most productive to the lord.

The employment which I find at this place, serves in some degree to dissipate the anguish of my mind. It is an employment embellished by innocence, and consecrated by friends.h.i.+p. It is therefore of all pursuits that which has the greatest tendency to lull the sense of misery.

Rinaldo, I had drawn the pangs of absence with no flattering pencil. I had expressed them in the most harsh and aggravated colours. But dark and gloomy as were the prognostics I had formed to myself, they, alas, were but shadows of what was reserved for me. The event laughs to scorn the conceptions I had entertained. Explain to me, best, most faithful of friends, for you only can, what dark and portentous meaning is concealed beneath the silence of Matilda. So far from your present epistle a.s.sisting the conjectures of my madding brain, it bewilders me more than ever. My friend dates his letter from the very place in which she resides, and yet by not a single word does he inform me how, and what she is.

It is now six tedious months since a single line has reached me from her hand. I have expostulated with the voice of apprehension, with the voice of agony, but to no purpose. Had it not been for the tenfold obligation in which I am bound to the best of friends, I had long, very long ere this, deserted the kingdom of Spain for ever. The concerns of no man upon earth, but those of my Rinaldo, could have detained me. Had they related to myself alone, I had not wasted a thought on them. And yet here I am at a greater distance from the centre of my solicitude than ever.

You, my friend, know not the exquisite and inexpressible anguish of a mind, in doubt about that in which he is most interested. I have not the most solitary and slender clue to guide me through the labyrinth. All the events, all the calamities that may have overtaken me, are alike probable and improbable, and there is not one of them that I can invent, which can possibly have escaped the knowledge of that friend, into whose hands I committed my all. Sickness, infidelity, death itself, all the misfortunes to which humanity is heir, are alike certain and palpable.

Oh, my Rinaldo, it was a most ill-judged and mistaken indulgence, that led you to suppress the story of my disaster. Give me to know it. It may be distressful, it may be tremendous. But be it as it will, there is not a misfortune in the whole catalogue of human woes, the knowledge of which would not be elysium to what I suffer. To be told the whole is to know the worst. Time is the medicine of every anguish. There is no malady incident to a conscious being, which if it does not annihilate his existence, does not, after having attained a crisis, insensibly fall away and dissolve. But apprehension, apprehension is h.e.l.l itself. It is infinite as the range of possibility. It is immortal as the mind in which it takes up its residence. It gains ground every moment.

Compounded as it is of hope and fear, there is not a moment in which it does not plume the wings of expectation. It prepares for itself incessant, eternal disappointment. It grows for ever. At first it may be trifling and insignificant, but anon it swells its giant limbs, and hides its head among the clouds.

Lost as I am to the fate, the character, the present dispositions of Matilda, I have now no prop to lean upon but you. Upon you I place an unshaken confidence. In your fidelity I can never be deceived. I owe you greater obligations than ever man received from man before. When I was forlorn and deserted by all the world, it was then you flew to save me.

You left the blandishments that have most power over the unsuspecting mind of youth, you left the down of luxury, to search me out. It was you that saved my life in the forest of Leontini. They were your generous offers that afforded me the first specimens of that benevolence and friends.h.i.+p, which restored me from the annihilation into which I was plunged, to an existence more pleasant and happy than I had yet known.

Rinaldo, I committed to your custody a jewel more precious than all the treasures of the east. I have lost, I am deprived of her. Where shall I seek her? In what situation, under what character shall I discover her?

Believe me, I have not in all the paroxysms of grief, entertained a doubt of you. I have not for a moment suffered an expression of blame to escape my lips. But may I not at least know from you, what it is that has effected this strange alteration, to what am I to trust, and what is the fate that I am to expect for the remainder of an existence of which I am already weary?

Yes, my dear marquis, life is now a burden to me. There is nothing but the dear business of friends.h.i.+p, and the employment of disinterested affection that could make it supportable. Accept at least this last exertion of your St. Julian. His last vows shall be breathed for your happiness. Fate, do what thou wilt me, but shower down thy choicest blessings on my friend! Whatever thou deniest to my sincere exertions in the cause of rect.i.tude, bestow a double portion upon that artless and ingenuous youth, who, however misguided for a moment, has founded even upon the basis of error, a generous return and an heroic resolution, which the most permanent exertions of spotless virtue scarce can equal!

Letter XI

_Signor Hippolito Borelli to the Count de St. Julian_

_Palermo_

My dear lord,

I have often heard it repeated as an observation of sagacity and experience, that when one friend has a piece of disagreeable intelligence to disclose to another, it is better to describe it directly, and in simple terms, than to introduce it with that kind of periphrasis and circ.u.mlocution, which oftener tends to excite a vague and impatient horror in the reader, than to prepare him to bear his misfortune with decency and fort.i.tude. There are however no rules of this kind that do not admit of exceptions, and I am too apprehensive that the subject of my present letter may be cla.s.sed among those exceptions. St. Julian, I have a tale of horror to unfold! Lay down the fatal scrowl at this place, and collect all the dignity and resolution of your mind. You will stand in need of it. Fertile and ingenious as your imagination often is in tormenting itself, I will defy you to conceive an event more big with horror, more baleful and tremendous in all its consequences.

My friend, I have taken up my pen twenty times, and laid it down as often again, uncertain in what manner to break my intelligence, and where I ought to begin. I have been undetermined whether to write to you at all, or to leave you to learn the disaster and your fate, as fortune shall direct. It is an ungrateful and unpleasant task. Numbers would exclaim upon it as imprudence and folly. I might at least suspend the consummation of your affliction a little longer, and leave you a little longer to the enjoyment of a deceitful repose.

But I am terrified at the apprehension of how this news may overtake you at last. I have always considered the count de St. Julian as one of the most amiable of mankind. I have looked up to him as a model of virtue, and I have exulted that I had the honour to be of the same species with so fair a fame, and so true a heart. I would willingly lighten to a man so excellent the load of calamity. Why is it, that heaven in the mysteriousness of its providence, so often visits with superior affliction, the n.o.blest of her sons? I should be truly sorry, that my friend should act in a manner unworthy of the tenor of his conduct, and the exaltation of his character. You are now, my lord at a distance. You have time to revolve the various circ.u.mstances of your condition, and to fix with the coolest and most mature deliberation the conduct you shall determine to hold.

I remember in how pathetic a manner you complained, in the last letter I received from you before you quitted Italy, of the horrors of banishment. Little did my friend then know the additional horrors that fate had in store for him. Two persons there were whom you loved above all the world, in whom you placed the most unbounded confidence. My poor friend would never have left Italy but to oblige his Rinaldo, would never have quitted the daughter of the duke of Benevento, if he could not have intrusted her to the custody of his Rinaldo. What then will be his astonishment when he learns that two months have now elapsed since the heiress of this ill.u.s.trious house has a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of the marchioness of Pescara?

Since this extraordinary news first reached me, I have employed some pains to discover the means by which an event so surprising has been effected. I have hitherto however met with a very partial success. There hangs over it all the darkness of mystery, and all the cowardice of guilt. There cannot be any doubt that that friend, whom for so long a time you cherished in your bosom, has proved the most detestable of villains, the blot and the deformity of the human character. How far the marchioness has been involved in his guilt, I am not able to ascertain.

Surely however the fickleness and inconstancy of her conduct cannot be unstained with the pollution of depravity. After the most diligent search I have learned a report, which was at that time faintly whispered at Cosenza, that you were upon the point of marriage with the only daughter of the duke of Aranda. Whether any inferences can be built upon so trivial a foundation I am totally ignorant.

But might I be permitted to advise you, you ought to cast these base and dishonourable characters from your heart for ever. The marquis is surely unworthy of your sword. He ought not to die, but in a manner deeply stamped with the infamy in which he has lived. I will not pretend to alledge to a person so thoroughly master of every question of this kind, how poor and inadequate is such a revenge: what a barbarous and unmeaning custom it is, that thus puts the life of the innocent and injured in the scale with that of the destroyer, and leaves the decision of immutable differences to skill, to fortune, and a thousand trivial and contemptible circ.u.mstances. You are not to be told how much more there is of true heroism in refusing than in giving a challenge, in bearing an injury with superiority and virtuous fort.i.tude, than in engaging in a Gothic and savage revenge.

It is not easy perhaps to find a woman, deserving enough to be united for life to the fate of my friend. Certain I am, if I may be permitted to deliver my sentiments, there is a levity and folly conspicuous in the temper of her you have lost, that renders her unworthy of being lamented by a man of discernment and sobriety. What to desert without management and without regret, one to whom she had vowed eternal constancy, a man, of whose amiable character, and glorious qualities she had so many opportunities of being convinced? Oh, shame where is thy blush? If iniquity like this, walks the world with impunity, where is the vice that shall be branded with infamy, to deter the most daring and profligate offender? Let us state the transaction in a light the most favourable to the fair inconstant. What thin veil, what paltry arts were employed by this mighty politician to confound and mislead an understanding, clear and penetrating upon all other subjects, blind and feeble only upon that in which the happiness of her life was involved?

My St. Julian, the exertion of that fort.i.tude with which nature has so richly endowed you, was never so completely called for in any other instance. This is the crisis of your life. This is the very tide, which accordingly as it is improved or neglected, will give a colour to all your future story. Let not that amiable man, who has found the art of introducing heroism into common life, and dignifying the most trivial circ.u.mstances by the sublimity and refinedness of his sentiments, now, in the most important affair, sink below the common level. Now is the time to display the true greatness of your mind. Now is the time to prove the consistency of your character.

A mind, dest.i.tute of resources, and unendowed with that elasticity which is the badge of an immortal nature, when placed in your circ.u.mstances, might probably sink into dereliction and despair. Here in the moral and useful point of view would be placed the termination of their course.

What a different prospect does the future life of my St. Julian suggest to me? I see him rising superior to misfortune. I see him refined like silver from, the furnace. His affections and his thoughts, being detached by calamity from all consideration of self, he lays out his exertions in acts of benevolence. His life is one tissue of sympathy and compa.s.sion. He is an extensive benefit to mankind. His influence, like that of the sun, cheers the hopeless, and illuminates the desolate. How necessary are such characters as these, to soften the rigour of the sublunary scene, and to stamp an impression of dignity on the degeneracy of the human character?

Letter XII [A]

_Matilda della Colonna to the Count de St. Julian_

_Cosenza_

I rise from a bed, which you have surrounded with the severest misfortunes, to address myself to you in this billet. It is in vain, that in conformity to the dull round of custom, I seek the couch of repose, sleep is for ever fled from my eyes. I seek it on every side, but on swift wings it flits far, very far, from me. It is now the dead of night. All eyes are closed but mine. The senses of all other creatures through the universe of G.o.d, are steeped in forgetfulness. Oh, sweet, oblivious power, when wilt thou come to my a.s.sistance, when wilt thou shed thy poppies upon this distracted head!

There was a time, when no human creature was so happy as the now forlorn Matilda. My days were full of gaiety and innocence. My thoughts were void of guile, and I imagined all around me artless as myself. I was by nature indeed weak and timid, trembling at every leaf, shuddering with apprehension of the lightest danger. But I had a protector generous and brave, that spread his arms over me, like the wide branches of a venerable oak, and round whom I clung, like ivy on the trunk. Why didst thou come, like a cold and murderous blight, to blast all my hopes of happiness, and to shatter my mellow hangings?

I have often told you that my heart was not tough and inflexible, to be played upon with a thousand experiments, and encounter a thousand trials. But you would not believe me. You could not think my frame was so brittle and tender, and my heart so easily broken. Inexorable, incredulous man! you shall not be long in doubt. You shall soon perceive that I may not endure much more.

[Footnote A: This letter was written several months earlier than the preceding, but was intercepted by the marquis of Pescara.]

How could you deceive me so entirely? I loved you with the sincerest affection. I thought you artless as truth, as free from vice and folly as etherial spirits. When your hypocrisy was the most consummate, your countenance had then in my eye, most the air of innocence. Your visage was clear and open as the day. But it was a cloak for the blackest thoughts and the most complicated designs. You stole upon me unprepared, you found all the avenues to my heart, and you made yourself the arbiter of my happiness before I was aware.

You hear me, thou arch impostor! There are punishments reserved for those, who undermine the peace of virtue, and steal away the tranquility of innocence. This is thy day. Now thou laughest at all my calamity, thou mockest all my anguish. But do not think that thy triumph shall be for ever. That thought would be fond and false as mine have been. The empire of rect.i.tude shall one day be vindicated. Matilda shall one day rise above thee.

But perhaps, St. Julian, it is not yet too late. The door is yet open to thy return. My claim upon thy heart is prior, better every way than that of donna Isabella. Leave her as you left me. It will cost you a repentance less severe. The wounds you have inflicted may yet be healed.

The mischiefs you have caused are not yet irreparable. These fond arms are open to receive you. To this unresentful bosom you may return in safety. But remember, I intreat you, the opportunity will be of no long duration. Every moment is winged with fate. A little more hesitation, and the irrevocable knot is tied, and Spain will claim you for her own.

A little more delay, and this fond credulous heart, that yet exerts itself in a few vain struggles, will rest in peace, will crumble into dust, and no longer be sensible to the misery that devours it. Dear, long expected moment, speed thy flight! To how many more calamitous days must these eyes be witness? In how many more nights must they wander through a material darkness, that is indeed meridian splendour, when compared with the gloom in which my mind is involved?