CHAPTER II.
I LIVED far from the busy haunts of men, and the rumour of wars orpolitical 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 ofhis subjects, and a republic was instituted. Large estates were secured tothe dethroned monarch and his family; he received the title of Earl ofWindsor, and Windsor Castle, an ancient royalty, with its wide demesneswere a part of his allotted wealth. He died soon after, leaving twochildren, a son and a daughter.
The ex-queen, a princess of the house of Austria, had long impelled herhusband to withstand the necessity of the times. She was haughty andfearless; she cherished a love of power, and a bitter contempt for him whohad despoiled himself of a kingdom. For her children's sake alone sheconsented to remain, shorn of regality, a member of the English republic.When she became a widow, she turned all her thoughts to the educating herson 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 thesteady purpose of re-acquiring his lost crown. Adrian was now fifteen yearsof age. He was addicted to study, and imbued beyond his years with learningand talent: report said that he had already begun to thwart his mother'sviews, and to entertain republican principles. However this might be, thehaughty Countess entrusted none with the secrets of her family-tuition.Adrian was bred up in solitude, and kept apart from the natural companionsof his age and rank. Some unknown circumstance now induced his mother tosend him from under her immediate tutelage; and we heard that he was aboutto visit Cumberland. A thousand tales were rife, explanatory of theCountess of Windsor's conduct; none true probably; but each day it becamemore certain that we should have the noble scion of the late regal house ofEngland among us.
There was a large estate with a mansion attached to it, belonging to thisfamily, at Ulswater. A large park was one of its appendages, laid out withgreat taste, and plentifully stocked with game. I had often madedepredations on these preserves; and the neglected state of the propertyfacilitated my incursions. When it was decided that the young Earl ofWindsor should visit Cumberland, workmen arrived to put the house andgrounds in order for his reception. The apartments were restored to theirpristine splendour, and the park, all disrepairs restored, was guarded withunusual care.
I was beyond measure disturbed by this intelligence. It roused all mydormant recollections, my suspended sentiments of injury, and gave rise tothe new one of revenge. I could no longer attend to my occupations; all myplans and devices were forgotten; I seemed about to begin life anew, andthat 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 fledbroken-hearted; he would find the ill-fated offspring, bequeathed with suchvain confidence to his royal father, miserable paupers. That he should knowof our existence, and treat us, near at hand, with the same contumely whichhis father had practised in distance and absence, appeared to me thecertain consequence of all that had gone before. Thus then I should meetthis titled stripling--the son of my father's friend. He would be hedgedin by servants; nobles, and the sons of nobles, were his companions; allEngland rang with his name; and his coming, like a thunderstorm, was heardfrom far: while I, unlettered and unfashioned, should, if I came in contactwith him, in the judgment of his courtly followers, bear evidence in myvery person to the propriety of that ingratitude which had made me thedegraded being I appeared.
With my mind fully occupied by these ideas, I might be said as iffascinated, to haunt the destined abode of the young Earl. I watched theprogress of the improvements, and stood by the unlading waggons, as variousarticles of luxury, brought from London, were taken forth and conveyed intothe mansion. It was part of the Ex-Queen's plan, to surround her son withprincely magnificence. I beheld rich carpets and silken hangings, ornamentsof gold, richly embossed metals, emblazoned furniture, and all theappendages of high rank arranged, so that nothing but what was regal insplendour 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 partof the prince's father, of all noble sympathy and generous feeling.Doubtless, he also, whose blood received a mingling tide from his proudmother--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 myjust claims to protection. I strove to think that all this grandeur was butmore glaring infamy, and that, by planting his gold-enwoven flag beside mytarnished and tattered banner, he proclaimed not his superiority, but hisdebasement. Yet I envied him. His stud of beautiful horses, his arms ofcostly workmanship, the praise that attended him, the adoration, readyservitor, high place and high esteem,--I considered them as forciblywrenched from me, and envied them all with novel and tormentingbitterness.
To crown my vexation of spirit, Perdita, the visionary Perdita, seemed toawake to real life with transport, when she told me that the Earl ofWindsor 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 thedescendant of our kings, the first noble of the land: every one admires andloves 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 soliterally, that you forget the while the proofs we have of the Earl'svirtues; his generosity to us is manifest in our plenty, his bravery in theprotection he affords us, his affability in the notice he takes of us. Hisrank his least merit, do you say? Why, all his virtues are derived from hisstation only; because he is rich, he is called generous; because he ispowerful, brave; because he is well served, he is affable. Let them callhim so, let all England believe him to be thus--we know him--he is ourenemy--our penurious, dastardly, arrogant enemy; if he were gifted withone particle of the virtues you call his, he would do justly by us, if itwere 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 toassociate with the royal ingrate. We, descendants from the one and theother, must be enemies also. He shall find that I can feel my injuries; heshall learn to dread my revenge!"
A few days after he arrived. Every inhabitant of the most miserablecottage, went to swell the stream of population that poured forth to meethim: 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 afterparty of the country people, in their holiday best, descending the hills,escaped to their cloud-veiled summits, and looking on the sterile rocksabout me, exclaimed--"They do not cry, long live the Earl!" Nor, whennight 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 mylimbs 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 andexcuse 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 thatthe latter might be wholly unconscious of his parent's neglect of us; andas I struck my aching head with my hand, I cried: "He shall hear of this! Iwill be revenged! I will not suffer like a spaniel! He shall know, beggarand 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 manyadder'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 seemedpoisoned by his presence, and my very native English was changed to a vilejargon, since every phrase I heard was coupled with his name and honour. Ipanted to relieve this painful heart-burning by some misdeed that shouldrouse 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 deignhimself to afford any demonstration that he was aware that I even lived tofeel them.
It soon became known that Adrian took great delight in his park andpreserves. He never sported, but spent hours in watching the tribes oflovely and almost tame animals with which it was stocked, and ordered thatgreater care should be taken of them than ever. Here was an opening for myplans of offence, and I made use of it with all the brute impetuosity Iderived from my active mode of life. I proposed the enterprize of poachingon his demesne to my few remaining comrades, who were the most determinedand lawless of the crew; but they all shrunk from the peril; so I was leftto achieve my revenge myself. At first my exploits were unperceived; Iincreased in daring; footsteps on the dewy grass, torn boughs, and marks ofslaughter, at length betrayed me to the game-keepers. They kept betterwatch; I was taken, and sent to prison. I entered its gloomy walls in a fitof triumphant extasy: "He feels me now," I cried, "and shall, again andagain!"--I passed but one day in confinement; in the evening I wasliberated, as I was told, by the order of the Earl himself. This newsprecipitated me from my self-raised pinnacle of honour. He despises me, Ithought; but he shall learn that I despise him, and hold in equal contempthis punishments and his clemency. On the second night after my release, Iwas again taken by the gamekeepers--again imprisoned, and again released;and again, such was my pertinacity, did the fourth night find me in theforbidden park. The gamekeepers were more enraged than their lord by myobstinacy. They had received orders that if I were again taken, I should bebrought to the Earl; and his lenity made them expect a conclusion whichthey considered ill befitting my crime. One of them, who had been from thefirst the leader among those who had seized me, resolved to satisfy his ownresentment, before he made me over to the higher powers.
The late setting of the moon, and the extreme caution I was obliged to usein this my third expedition, consumed so much time, that something like aqualm of fear came over me when I perceived dark night yield to twilight. Icrept along by the fern, on my hands and knees, seeking the shadowy covertsof the underwood, while the birds awoke with unwelcome song above, and thefresh morning wind, playing among the boughs, made me suspect a footfall ateach turn. My heart beat quick as I approached the palings; my hand was onone of them, a leap would take me to the other side, when two keeperssprang from an ambush upon me: one knocked me down, and proceeded toinflict a severe horse-whipping. I started up--a knife was in my grasp; Imade a plunge at his raised right arm, and inflicted a deep, wide wound inhis hand. The rage and yells of the wounded man, the howling execrations ofhis comrade, which I answered with equal bitterness and fury, echoedthrough the dell; morning broke more and more, ill accordant in itscelestial beauty with our brute and noisy contest. I and my enemy werestill struggling, when the wounded man exclaimed, "The Earl!" I sprang outof the herculean hold of the keeper, panting from my exertions; I castfurious glances on my persecutors, and placing myself with my back to atree, resolved to defend myself to the last. My garments were torn, andthey, as well as my hands, were stained with the blood of the man I hadwounded; one hand grasped the dead birds--my hard-earned prey, the otherheld the knife; my hair was matted; my face besmeared with the same guiltysigns that bore witness against me on the dripping instrument I clenched;my whole appearance was haggard and squalid. Tall and muscular as I was inform, I must have looked like, what indeed I was, the merest ruffian thatever trod the earth.
The name of the Earl startled me, and caused all the indignant blood thatwarmed my heart to rush into my cheeks; I had never seen him before; Ifigured to myself a haughty, assuming youth, who would take me to task, ifhe deigned to speak to me, with all the arrogance of superiority. My replywas ready; a reproach I deemed calculated to sting his very heart. He cameup the while; and his appearance blew aside, with gentle western breath, mycloudy wrath: a tall, slim, fair boy, with a physiognomy expressive of theexcess of sensibility and refinement stood before me; the morning sunbeamstinged with gold his silken hair, and spread light and glory over hisbeaming countenance. "How is this?" he cried. The men eagerly began theirdefence; 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 wemeet thus for the first time? We were born to be friends to each other; andthough ill fortune has divided us, will you not acknowledge the hereditarybond of friendship which I trust will hereafter unite us?"
As he spoke, his earnest eyes, fixed on me, seemed to read my very soul: myheart, my savage revengeful heart, felt the influence of sweet benignitysink upon it; while his thrilling voice, like sweetest melody, awoke a muteecho within me, stirring to its depths the life-blood in my frame. Idesired to reply, to acknowledge his goodness, accept his profferedfriendship; but words, fitting words, were not afforded to the roughmountaineer; I would have held out my hand, but its guilty stain restrainedme. Adrian took pity on my faltering mien: "Come with me," he said, "I havemuch 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 willpardon my mistakes--my crime."
Adrian smiled gently; and after giving his orders to the gamekeepers, hecame 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 besuspected that it was Adrian's rank, that, from the first, subdued my heartof hearts, and laid my entire spirit prostrate before him. Nor was it Ialone who felt thus intimately his perfections. His sensibility andcourtesy fascinated every one. His vivacity, intelligence, and activespirit of benevolence, completed the conquest. Even at this early age, hewas deep read and imbued with the spirit of high philosophy. This spiritgave a tone of irresistible persuasion to his intercourse with others, sothat he seemed like an inspired musician, who struck, with unerring skill,the "lyre of mind," and produced thence divine harmony. In person, hehardly appeared of this world; his slight frame was overinformed by thesoul that dwelt within; he was all mind; "Man but a rush against" hisbreast, and it would have conquered his strength; but the might of hissmile would have tamed an hungry lion, or caused a legion of armed men tolay their weapons at his feet.
I spent the day with him. At first he did not recur to the past, or indeedto any personal occurrences. He wished probably to inspire me withconfidence, and give me time to gather together my scattered thoughts. Hetalked 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 thepower which they had acquired over the minds of men, through the force oflove and wisdom only. The room was decorated with the busts of many ofthem, and he described their characters to me. As he spoke, I felt subjectto him; and all my boasted pride and strength were subdued by the honeyedaccents of this blue-eyed boy. The trim and paled demesne of civilization,which I had before regarded from my wild jungle as inaccessible, had itswicket opened by him; I stepped within, and felt, as I entered, that I trodmy native soil.
As evening came on, he reverted to the past. "I have a tale to relate," hesaid, "and much explanation to give concerning the past; perhaps you canassist me to curtail it. Do you remember your father? I had never thehappiness 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 theoverflowing goodness of his heart, which he poured in such full measure onhis friends, as to leave, alas! small remnant for himself."
Encouraged by this encomium, I proceeded, in answer to his inquiries, torelate what I remembered of my parent; and he gave an account of thosecircumstances which had brought about a neglect of my father's testamentaryletter. When, in after times, Adrian's father, then king of England, felthis situation become more perilous, his line of conduct more embarrassed,again and again he wished for his early friend, who might stand a moundagainst the impetuous anger of his queen, a mediator between him and
theparliament. From the time that he had quitted London, on the fatal night ofhis defeat at the gaming-table, the king had received no tidings concerninghim; and when, after the lapse of years, he exerted himself to discoverhim, every trace was lost. With fonder regret than ever, he clung to hismemory; and gave it in charge to his son, if ever he should meet thisvalued 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 noblemanto whom my father had confided his last appeal to his royal master, putthis letter, its seal unbroken, into the young Earl's hands. It had beenfound cast aside with a mass of papers of old date, and accident alonebrought it to light. Adrian read it with deep interest; and found therethat living spirit of genius and wit he had so often heard commemorated. Hediscovered the name of the spot whither my father had retreated, and wherehe died; he learnt the existence of his orphan children; and during theshort interval between his arrival at Ulswater and our meeting in the park,he had been occupied in making inquiries concerning us, and arranging avariety of plans for our benefit, preliminary to his introducing himself toour notice.
The mode in which he spoke of my father was gratifying to my vanity; theveil which he delicately cast over his benevolence, in alledging a duteousfulfilment of the king's latest will, was soothing to my pride. Otherfeelings, less ambiguous, were called into play by his conciliating mannerand the generous warmth of his expressions, respect rarely beforeexperienced, admiration, and love--he had touched my rocky heart with hismagic power, and the stream of affection gushed forth, imperishable andpure. 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; afervent "God bless you!" was all my ignorance could frame of speech, and Idarted away, oppressed by my new emotions.
I could not rest. I sought the hills; a west wind swept them, and the starsglittered above. I ran on, careless of outward objects, but trying tomaster 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 claspedmy 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 weptaloud.
As this gust of passion passed from me, I felt more composed. I lay on theground, and giving the reins to my thoughts, repassed in my mind my formerlife; and began, fold by fold, to unwind the many errors of my heart, andto discover how brutish, savage, and worthless I had hitherto been. I couldnot however at that time feel remorse, for methought I was born anew; mysoul threw off the burthen of past sin, to commence a new career ininnocence and love. Nothing harsh or rough remained to jar with the softfeelings which the transactions of the day had inspired; I was as a childlisping its devotions after its mother, and my plastic soul was remouldedby a master hand, which I neither desired nor was able to resist.
This was the first commencement of my friendship with Adrian, and I mustcommemorate this day as the most fortunate of my life. I now began to behuman. I was admitted within that sacred boundary which divides theintellectual and moral nature of man from that which characterizes animals.My best feelings were called into play to give fitting responses to thegenerosity, wisdom, and amenity of my new friend. He, with a noble goodnessall his own, took infinite delight in bestowing to prodigality thetreasures of his mind and fortune on the long-neglected son of his father'sfriend, the offspring of that gifted being whose excellencies and talentshe had heard commemorated from infancy.
After his abdication the late king had retreated from the sphere ofpolitics, yet his domestic circle afforded him small content. The ex-queenhad none of the virtues of domestic life, and those of courage and daringwhich she possessed were rendered null by the secession of her husband: shedespised him, and did not care to conceal her sentiments. The king had, incompliance with her exactions, cast off his old friends, but he hadacquired no new ones under her guidance. In this dearth of sympathy, he hadrecourse to his almost infant son; and the early development of talent andsensibility rendered Adrian no unfitting depository of his father'sconfidence. He was never weary of listening to the latter's often repeatedaccounts 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 favouritewas ineffectual to deprive him of his son's admiration: it was bitter,sarcastic, contemptuous--but as she bestowed her heavy censure alike onhis virtues as his errors, on his devoted friendship and his ill-bestowedloves, on his disinterestedness and his prodigality, on his pre-possessinggrace of manner, and the facility with which he yielded to temptation, herdouble shot proved too heavy, and fell short of the mark. Nor did her angrydislike prevent Adrian from imaging my father, as he had said, the type ofall that was gallant, amiable, and fascinating in man. It was not strangetherefore, that when he heard of the existence of the offspring of thiscelebrated person, he should have formed the plan of bestowing on them allthe advantages his rank made him rich to afford. When he found me avagabond shepherd of the hills, a poacher, an unlettered savage, still hiskindness did not fail. In addition to the opinion he entertained that hisfather was to a degree culpable of neglect towards us, and that he wasbound to every possible reparation, he was pleased to say that under all myruggedness there glimmered forth an elevation of spirit, which could bedistinguished from mere animal courage, and that I inherited a similarityof countenance to my father, which gave proof that all his virtues andtalents had not died with him. Whatever those might be which descended tome, 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 toparticipate in that cultivation which graced his own intellect. My activemind, when once it seized upon this new idea, fastened on it with extremeavidity. At first it was the great object of my ambition to rival themerits of my father, and render myself worthy of the friendship of Adrian.But curiosity soon awoke, and an earnest love of knowledge, which caused meto pass days and nights in reading and study. I was already well acquaintedwith what I may term the panorama of nature, the change of seasons, and thevarious appearances of heaven and earth. But I was at once startled andenchanted by my sudden extension of vision, when the curtain, which hadbeen drawn before the intellectual world, was withdrawn, and I saw theuniverse, not only as it presented itself to my outward senses, but as ithad appeared to the wisest among men. Poetry and its creations, philosophyand its researches and classifications, alike awoke the sleeping ideas inmy mind, and gave me new ones.
I felt as the sailor, who from the topmast first discovered the shore ofAmerica; and like him I hastened to tell my companions of my discoveries inunknown regions. But I was unable to excite in any breast the same cravingappetite for knowledge that existed in mine. Even Perdita was unable tounderstand me. I had lived in what is generally called the world ofreality, and it was awakening to a new country to find that there was adeeper meaning in all I saw, besides that which my eyes conveyed to me. Thevisionary Perdita beheld in all this only a new gloss upon an old reading,and her own was sufficiently inexhaustible to content her. She listened tome as she had done to the narration of my adventures, and sometimes took aninterest in this species of information; but she did not, as I did, look onit as an integral part of her being, which having obtained, I could no moreput off than the universal sense of touch.
We both agreed in loving Adrian: although she not having yet escaped fromchildhood could not appreciate as I did the extent of his merits, or feelthe same sympathy in his pursuits and opinions. I was for ever with him.There was a sensibility and sweetness in his disposition, that gave atender and unearthly tone to our converse. Then he was gay as a larkcarolling from its skiey tower, soaring in tho
ught as an eagle, innocent asthe mild-eyed dove. He could dispel the seriousness of Perdita, and takethe sting from the torturing activity of my nature. I looked back to myrestless desires and painful struggles with my fellow beings as to atroubled dream, and felt myself as much changed as if I had transmigratedinto another form, whose fresh sensorium and mechanism of nerves hadaltered the reflection of the apparent universe in the mirror of mind. Butit 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, forthe 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 thecold truths of history and philosophy. At the same time that he taught meby their means to subdue my own reckless and uncultured spirit, he openedto my view the living page of his own heart, and gave me to feel andunderstand its wondrous character.
The ex-queen of England had, even during infancy, endeavoured to implantdaring and ambitious designs in the mind of her son. She saw that he wasendowed with genius and surpassing talent; these she cultivated for thesake of afterwards using them for the furtherance of her own views. Sheencouraged his craving for knowledge and his impetuous courage; she eventolerated his tameless love of freedom, under the hope that this would, asis too often the case, lead to a passion for command. She endeavoured tobring him up in a sense of resentment towards, and a desire to revengehimself upon, those who had been instrumental in bringing about hisfather's abdication. In this she did not succeed. The accounts furnishedhim, however distorted, of a great and wise nation asserting its right togovern itself, excited his admiration: in early days he became a republicanfrom principle. Still his mother did not despair. To the love of rule andhaughty pride of birth she added determined ambition, patience, andself-control. She devoted herself to the study of her son's disposition. Bythe application of praise, censure, and exhortation, she tried to seek andstrike the fitting chords; and though the melody that followed her touchseemed discord to her, she built her hopes on his talents, and felt surethat she would at last win him. The kind of banishment he now experiencedarose from other causes.
The ex-queen had also a daughter, now twelve years of age; his fairysister, Adrian was wont to call her; a lovely, animated, little thing, allsensibility and truth. With these, her children, the noble widow constantlyresided 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, ambassadorto England from the free States of Greece; and his daughter, the youngPrincess Evadne, passed much of her time at Windsor Castle. In company withthis sprightly and clever Greek girl, the Countess would relax from herusual state. Her views with regard to her own children, placed all herwords and actions relative to them under restraint: but Evadne was aplaything she could in no way fear; nor were her talents and vivacityslight alleviations to the monotony of the Countess's life.
Evadne was eighteen years of age. Although they spent much time together atWindsor, the extreme youth of Adrian prevented any suspicion as to thenature of their intercourse. But he was ardent and tender of heart beyondthe common nature of man, and had already learnt to love, while thebeauteous Greek smiled benignantly on the boy. It was strange to me, who,though older than Adrian, had never loved, to witness the whole heart'ssacrifice of my friend. There was neither jealousy, inquietude, or mistrustin his sentiment; it was devotion and faith. His life was swallowed up inthe existence of his beloved; and his heart beat only in unison with thepulsations that vivified hers. This was the secret law of his life--heloved and was beloved. The universe was to him a dwelling, to inhabit withhis chosen one; and not either a scheme of society or an enchainment ofevents, that could impart to him either happiness or misery. What, thoughlife and the system of social intercourse were a wilderness, atiger-haunted jungle! Through the midst of its errors, in the depths of itssavage recesses, there was a disentangled and flowery pathway, throughwhich they might journey in safety and delight. Their track would be likethe 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 ofhumanity? What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towardspain and misery? We are not formed for enjoyment; and, however we may beattuned to the reception of pleasureable emotion, disappointment is thenever-failing pilot of our life's bark, and ruthlessly carries us on to theshoals. Who was better framed than this highly-gifted youth to love and bebeloved, and to reap unalienable joy from an unblamed passion? If his hearthad slept but a few years longer, he might have been saved; but it awoke inits infancy; it had power, but no knowledge; and it was ruined, even as atoo early-blowing bud is nipt by the killing frost.
I did not accuse Evadne of hypocrisy or a wish to deceive her lover; butthe 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 commandof language. The hand-writing itself was exquisitely beautiful; there wassomething 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 nolove. Evadne was two years older than Adrian; and who, at eighteen, everloved one so much their junior? I compared her placid epistles with theburning ones of Adrian. His soul seemed to distil itself into the words hewrote; and they breathed on the paper, bearing with them a portion of thelife of love, which was his life. The very writing used to exhaust him; andhe would weep over them, merely from the excess of emotion they awakened inhis heart.
Adrian's soul was painted in his countenance, and concealment or deceitwere at the antipodes to the dreadless frankness of his nature. Evadne madeit her earnest request that the tale of their loves should not be revealedto his mother; and after for a while contesting the point, he yielded it toher. A vain concession; his demeanour quickly betrayed his secret to thequick eyes of the ex-queen. With the same wary prudence that characterizedher whole conduct, she concealed her discovery, but hastened to remove herson from the sphere of the attractive Greek. He was sent to Cumberland; butthe plan of correspondence between the lovers, arranged by Evadne, waseffectually hidden from her. Thus the absence of Adrian, concerted for thepurpose of separating, united them in firmer bonds than ever. To me hediscoursed ceaselessly of his beloved Ionian. Her country, its ancientannals, its late memorable struggles, were all made to partake in her gloryand excellence. He submitted to be away from her, because she commandedthis submission; but for her influence, he would have declared hisattachment before all England, and resisted, with unshaken constancy, hismother's opposition. Evadne's feminine prudence perceived how useless anyassertion of his resolves would be, till added years gave weight to hispower. Perhaps there was besides a lurking dislike to bind herself in theface of the world to one whom she did not love--not love, at least, withthat passionate enthusiasm which her heart told her she might one day feeltowards another. He obeyed her injunctions, and passed a year in exile inCumberland.