Memoirs of Emma Courtney Part 15

'Had the happiness of any human being, the meanest, the vilest, depended as much upon me, as mine has done on you, I would have sacrificed, for their relief, the dearest secret of my heart--the secret, even upon which my very existence had depended. It is true, you did not directly deceive me--but is that enough for the delicacy of humanity? May the past be an affecting lesson to us both--it is written upon my mind in characters of blood. I feel, and acknowledge, my own errors, in yielding to the illusion of vague, visionary, expectation; but my faults have originated in a generous source--they have been the wild, ardent, fervent, excesses, of a vigorous and an exalted mind!

'I checked my tears, as they flowed, and they are already dried--uncalled, unwished, for--why do they, thus, struggle to force their way? my mind has, I hope, too much energy, utterly to sink--I know what it is to suffer, and to combat with, if not to subdue, my feelings--and _certainty_, itself, is some relief. I am, also, supported by the retrospect of my conduct; with all its mistakes, and all its extravagances, it has been that of a virtuous, ingenuous, uncorrupted, mind. You have contemned a heart of no common value, you have sported with its exquisite sensibilities--but it will, still, know how to separate your virtues from your errors.

'You reprove, perhaps justly, my impatience--I can only say, that circ.u.mstanced as you were, I should have stolen an hour from rest, from company, from business, however, important, to have relieved and soothed a fellow-creature in a situation, so full of pain and peril. Every thought, during a day scarcely to be recollected without agony, _was a two-edged sword_--but some hours of profound and refres.h.i.+ng slumber recruited my exhausted spirits, and enabled me, yesterday, to receive my fate, with a fort.i.tude but little hoped for.

'You would oblige me exceedingly by the remarks you allow me to hope for, on my letter of the ----th. You know, I will not shrink from reproof--that letter afforded you the last proof of my affection, and I repent not of it. I loved you, first, for what, I conceived, high qualities of mind--from nature and a.s.sociation, my tenderness became personal--till at length, I loved you, not only rationally and tenderly--_but pa.s.sionately_--it became a pervading and a devouring fire! And, yet, I do not blush--my affection was modest, if intemperate, _for it was individual_--it annihilated in my eyes every other man in the creation. I regret these natural sensations and affections, their forcible suppression injures the mind--it converts the mild current of gentle, and genial sympathies, into a destructive torrent. This, I have the courage to avow it, has been one of the miserable mistakes in morals, and, like all other partial remedies, has increased the evil, it was intended to correct. From monastic inst.i.tutions and principles have flowed, as from a polluted source, streams, that have at once spread through society a mingled contagion of dissoluteness and hypocrisy.

'You have suddenly arrested my affections in their full career--in all their glowing effervescence--you have taken

"The rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And placed a blister there."

'And, yet, I survive the shock, and determine to live, not for future enjoyment--that is now, for ever, past--_but for future usefulness_--Is not this virtue?

'I am sorry your attachment has been and I fear is likely to be, protracted--I know, too well, the misery of these situations, and I should, now, feel a melancholy satisfaction in hearing of its completion--In that completion, may you experience no disappointment! I do not wish you to be beloved, as I have loved you; this, perhaps, is unnecessary; such an affection, infallibly, enslaves the heart that cherishes it; and slavery is the tomb of virtue and of peace.

'I believe it would not be proper for us to meet again--at least at present--should I hear of sickness, or calamity, befalling you, I shall, I suspect, be impelled, by an irresistible impulse to seek you--but I will no more interrupt your repose--Though you have contemned my affection, my friends.h.i.+p will still follow you.

'If you really _love_, I think you ought to make some sacrifices, and not render yourself, and the happy object of your tenderness, the victims of fact.i.tious notions.--Remember--youth and life will quickly fade. Relinquish, call upon her to relinquish, her prejudices--should she refuse, she is unworthy of you, and you will regret, too late, the tender, faithful, ingenuous heart, that you have pierced through and through--_that you have almost broken_! Should she make you happy, I will esteem, though I may never have an opportunity of thanking, her--Were she informed of my conduct, she might rejoice in the trial of your affection--though I should not.

'The spirits, that had crouded round my heart, are already subsiding--a flood of softness, a tide of overwhelming affection, gushes upon it--and I feel sinking into helpless, infantine, distress! Hasten to me your promised remarks--they will rouse, they will strengthen, me--_Truth_ I will never call indelicate or inhuman--it is only the virtuous mind can dare to practise, to challenge, it:--simplicity is true refinement.

'Let us reap from the past all the good we can--a close, and searching, knowledge of the secret springs and foldings of our hearts. Methinks, I could wish you justified, _even at my own expence_.--I ask, unshrinkingly, a frank return.

'A heart-rending sigh accompanies my _farewel_--the last struggles of expiring nature will be far less painful--but my philosophy, now, _sternly_ calls upon me to put its precepts in practice--trembling--shuddering--I obey!

'_Farewel!_ 'EMMA.'

Perhaps it cost me some effort to make the preceding letter so moderate--yet, every victory gained over ourselves is attended with advantages. But this apparent calm was the lethargy of despair--it was succeeded by severer conflicts, by keener anguish. A week pa.s.sed, and near a second--I received no answer.

CHAPTER IX

A letter from the country made it necessary for me, again, to address Mr Harley, to make some enquiries which respected business of his mother's.

It may be, that I felt a mixture of other motives;--it is certain, that when I wrote, I spoke of more than business.

'I had hoped,' I told him, 'ere this, to have received the promised letter--Yet, I do not take up my pen,' said I, 'either to complain of, or to importune, you. If I have already expressed myself with bitterness, let the harra.s.sed state of my mind be my excuse. My own conduct has been too erroneous, too eccentric, to enable me to judge impartially of your's. Forgive me, if by placing you in an embarra.s.sing situation, I have exposed you to consequent mistake or uneasiness. I feel, that whatever errors we may either of us have committed, _originated only with myself_, and I am content to suffer all the consequences. It is true, had you reposed in me an early, generous, confidence, much misery would have been avoided--I had not been wounded

"There, where the human heart most exquisitely feels!"

'You had been still my friend, and I had been comparatively happy. Every pa.s.sion is, in a great measure, the growth of indulgence: all our desires are, in their commencement, easily suppressed, when there appears no probability of attaining their object; but when strengthened, by time and reflection, into habit, in endeavouring to eradicate them, we tear away part of the mind. In my attachments there is a kind of savage tenacity--they are of an elastic nature, and, being forced back, return with additional violence.

'My affection for you has not been, altogether, irrational or selfish. While I felt that I loved you, as no other woman, I was convinced, would love you--I conceived, could I once engage your heart, I could satisfy, and even, purify it. While I loved your virtues, I thought I saw, and I lamented, the foibles which sullied them. I suspected you, perhaps erroneously, of pride, ambition, the love of distinction; yet your ambition could not, I thought, be of an ign.o.ble nature--I feared that the gratifications you sought, if, indeed, attainable, were fact.i.tious--I even fancied I perceived you, against your better judgment, labouring to seduce yourself!' "He is under a delusion,"

said I, to myself;--"reason may be stunned, or blinded, for awhile; but it will revive in the heart, and do its office, when sophistry will be of no avail." I saw you struggling with vexations, that I was a.s.sured might be meliorated by tender confidence--I longed to pour its balms into your bosom. My sensibility disquieted you, and myself, only _because it was constrained_. I thought I perceived a conflict in your mind--I watched its progress with attention and solicitude. A thousand times has my fluttering heart yearned to break the cruel chains that fettered it, and to chase the cloud, which stole over your brow, by the tender, yet chaste, caresses and endearments of ineffable affection!

My feelings became too highly wrought, and altogether insupportable. Sympathy for your situation, zeal for your virtues, love for your mind, tenderness for your person--a complication of generous, affecting, exquisite, emotions, impelled me to make one great effort.--"[13] The world might call my plans absurd, my views romantic, my pretensions extravagant--Was I, or was I not, guilty of any crime, when, in the very acme of the pa.s.sions, I so totally disregarded the customs of the world?" Ah! what were my sensations--what did I not suffer, in the interval?--and you prolonged that cruel interval--and still you suffer me to doubt, whether, at the moment in my life when I was actuated by the highest, the most fervent, the most magnanimous, principles--whether, at that moment, when I most deserved your respect, I did not for ever forfeit it.

[Footnote 13: Holcroft's Anna St Ives.]

'I seek not to extenuate any part of my conduct--I confess that it has been wild, extravagant, romantic--I confess, that, even for your errors, I am justly blameable--and yet I am unable to bear, because I feel they would be unjust, your hatred and contempt. I cherish no resentment--my spirit is subdued and broken--your unkindness sinks into my soul.

'EMMA.'

Another fortnight wore away in fruitless expectation--the morning rose, the evening closed, upon me, in sadness. I could not, yet, think the mystery developed: on a concentrated view of the circ.u.mstances, they appeared to me contradictory, and irreconcileable. A solitary enthusiast, a child in the drama of the world, I had yet to learn, that those who have courage to act upon advanced principles, must be content to suffer moral martyrdom.[14] In subduing our own prejudices, we have done little, while a.s.sailed on every side by the prejudices of others.

My own heart acquitted me; but I dreaded that distortion of mind, that should wrest guilt out of the most sublime of its emanations.

[Footnote 14: This sentiment may be just in some particular cases, but it is by no means of general application, and must be understood with great limitations.]

I ruminated in gloomy silence, on my forlorn, and hopeless, situation.

'If there be not a future state of being,' said I to myself, 'what is this!--Tortured in every stage of it, "Man cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down--he fleeth, as a shadow, and continueth not!"--I looked backward on my past life, and my heart sickened--its confidence in humanity was shaken--I looked forward, and all was cheerless. I had certainly committed many errors!--Who has not--who, with a fancy as lively, feelings as acute, and a character as sanguine, as mine? "What, in fact," says a philosophic writer,[15] "is character?--the production of a lively and constant affection, and consequently, of a strong pa.s.sion:"--eradicate that pa.s.sion, that ferment, that leaven, that exuberance, which raises and makes the mind what it is, and what remains? Yet, let us beware how we wantonly expend this divine, this invigorating, power. Every grand error, in a mind of energy, in its operations and consequences, carries us years forward--_precious years, never to be recalled_!' I could find no subst.i.tute for the sentiments I regretted--for that sentiment formed my character; and, but for the obstacles which gave it force, though I might have suffered less misery, I should, I suspect, have gained less improvement; still adversity _is a real evil_; and I foreboded that this improvement had been purchased too dear.

[Footnote 15: Helvetius.]

CHAPTER X

Weeks elapsed ere the promised letter arrived--a letter still colder, and more severe, than the former. I wept over it, bitter tears!

It accused me 'of adding to the vexations of a situation, before sufficiency oppressive.'--Alas! had I known the nature of those vexations, could I have merited such a reproof? The Augustus, I had so long and so tenderly loved, no longer seemed to exist. Some one had, surely, usurped his signature, and imitated those characters, I had been accustomed to trace with delight. He tore himself from me, _nor would he deign to soften the pang of separation_. Anguish overwhelmed me--my heart was pierced. Reclining my head on my folded arms, I yielded myself up to silent grief. Alone, sad, desolate, no one heeded my sorrows--no eye pitied me--no friendly voice cheered my wounded spirit! The social propensities of a mind forbidden to expand itself, forced back, preyed incessantly upon that mind, secretly consuming its powers.

I was one day roused from these melancholy reflections by the entrance of my cousin, Mrs Denbeigh. She held in her hand a letter, from my only remaining friend, Mrs Harley. I s.n.a.t.c.hed it hastily; my heart, lacerated by the seeming unkindness of him in whom it had confided, yearned to imbibe the consolation, which the gentle tenderness of this dear, maternal, friend, had never failed to administer. The first paragraph informed me--

'That she had, a few days since, received a letter from the person to whom the legacy of her son devolved, should he fail in observing the prescribed conditions of the testator: that this letter gave her notice, that those conditions had already been infringed, Mr Harley having contracted a marriage, three years before, with a foreigner, with whom he had become acquainted during his travels; that this marriage had been kept a secret, and, but very lately, by an accidental concurrence of circ.u.mstances, revealed to the person most concerned in the detection. Undoubted proofs of the truth of this information could be produced; it would therefore be most prudent in her son to resign his claims, without putting himself, and the legal heir, to unnecessary expence and litigation. Ignorant of the residence of Mr Harley, the writer troubled his mother to convey to him these particulars.'

The paper dropped from my hand, the colour forsook my lips and cheeks;--yet I neither wept, nor fainted. Mrs Denbeigh took my hands--they were frozen--the blood seemed congealed in my veins--and I sat motionless--my faculties suspended, stunned, locked up! My friend spake to me--embraced, shed tears over, me--but she could not excite mine;--my mind was pervaded by a sense of confused misery. I remained many days in this situation--it was a state, of which I have but a feeble remembrance; and I, at length, awoke from it, as from a troublesome dream.

With returning reason, the tide of recollection also returned. Oh!

how complicated appeared to me the guilt of Augustus! Ignorant of his situation, I had been unconsciously, and perseveringly, exerting myself to seduce the affections of a _husband_ from his _wife_. He had made me almost criminal in my own eyes--he had risqued, at once, by a disingenuous and cruel reserve, the virtue and the happiness of three beings. What is virtue, but a calculation of _the consequences of our actions_? Did we allow ourselves to reason on this principle, to reflect on its truth and importance, we should be compelled to shudder at many parts of our conduct, which, _taken unconnectedly_, we have habituated ourselves to consider as almost indifferent. Virtue can exist only in a mind capable of taking comprehensive views. How criminal, then, is ignorance!

During this sickness of the soul, Mr Francis, who had occasionally visited me since my residence in town, called, repeatedly, to enquire after my welfare; expressing a friendly concern for my indisposition. I saw him not--I was incapable of seeing any one--but, informed by my kind hostess of his humane attentions, soothed by the idea of having yet a friend who seemed to interest himself in my concerns, I once more had recourse to my pen (Mrs Denbeigh having officiously placed the implements of writing in my way), and addressed him in the wild and incoherent language of despair.

TO MR FRANCIS.

'You once told me, that I was incapable of heroism; and you were right--yet, I am called to great exertions! a blow that has been suspended over my head, days, weeks, months, years, has at length fallen--still I live! My tears flow--I struggle, in vain, to suppress them, but they are not tears of blood!--My heart, though pierced through and through, is not broken!

'My friend, come and teach me how to acquire fort.i.tude--I am wearied with misery--All nature is to me a blank--an envenomed shaft rankles in my bosom--philosophy will not heal the festering wound--_I am exquisitely wretched!_

'Do not chide me till I get more strength--I speak to you of my sorrows, for your kindness, while I was yet a stranger to you, inspired me with confidence, and my desolate heart looks round for support.

'I am indebted to you--how shall I repay your goodness? Do you, indeed, interest yourself in my fate? Call upon me, then, for the few incidents of my life--I will relate them simply, and without disguise. There is nothing uncommon in them, but the effect which they have produced upon my mind--yet, that mind they formed.