Tales and Novels Volume VIII Part 80

You say that "_he is not a judge of female excellence; that he has no real taste; that vanity is his ruling pa.s.sion_." Then if his judgment be dependent on the opinions of others, he will be the more easily led by the public voice, and you will command the suffrages of the public. If he has not taste enough to approve, he will have vanity enough to be proud of you; and a vain man insensibly begins to love that of which he is proud. Why does Lord V---- love his buildings, his paintings, his equipages? It is not for their intrinsic value; but because they are means of distinction to him. Let his wife become a greater distinction to him, and on the same principles he will prefer her. Set an example, then, dear Lady V----, of domestic virtue; your talents shall make it admired, your rank shall make it conspicuous. You are ambitious, Julia, you love praise; you have been used to it; you cannot live happily without it.

Praise is a mental luxury, which becomes from habit absolutely necessary to our existence; and in purchasing it we must pay the price set upon it by society. The more curious, the more avaricious we become of this "aerial coin," the more it is our interest to preserve its currency and increase its value. You, my dear Julia, in particular, who have ama.s.sed so much of it, should not cry down its price, for your own sake!--Do not then say in a fit of disgust, that "you are grown too wise now to value applause."

If, during youth, your appet.i.te for applause was indiscriminate, and indulged to excess, you are now more difficult in your choice, and are become an _epicure_ in your _taste_ for praise.

Adieu, my dear Julia; I hope still to see you as happy in domestic life as

Your ever affectionate and sincere friend,

CAROLINE.

LETTER V.

CAROLINE TO LADY V----.

_On her conduct after her separation from her husband._

A delicacy, of which I now begin to repent, has of late prevented me from writing to you. I am afraid I shall be abrupt, but it is necessary to be explicit. Your conduct, ever since your separation from your husband, has been anxiously watched from a variety of motives, by his family and your own;--it has been blamed. Reflect upon your own mind, and examine with what justice.

Last summer, when I was with you, I observed a change in your conversation, and the whole turn of your thoughts. I perceived an unusual impatience of restraint; a confusion in your ideas when you began to reason,--an eloquence in your language when you began to declaim, which convinced me that from some secret cause the powers of your reason had been declining, and those of your imagination rapidly increasing; the boundaries of right and wrong seemed to be no longer marked in your mind. Neither the rational hope of happiness, nor a sense of duty governed you; but some unknown, wayward power seemed to have taken possession of your understanding, and to have thrown every thing into confusion. You appeared peculiarly averse to philosophy: let me recall your own words to you; you asked "of what use philosophy could be to beings who had no free will, and how the ideas of just punishment and involuntary crime could be reconciled?"

Your understanding involved itself in metaphysical absurdity. In conversing upon literary subjects one evening, in speaking of the striking difference between the conduct and the understanding of the great Lord Bacon, you said, that "It by no means surprised you; that to an enlarged mind, accustomed to consider the universe as one vast _whole_, the conduct of that little animated atom, that inconsiderable part _self_, must be too insignificant to fix or merit attention. It was nothing," you said, "in the general ma.s.s of vice and virtue, happiness and misery." I believe I answered, "that it might be _nothing_ compared to the great _whole_, but it was _every thing_ to the individual." Such were your opinions in theory; you must know enough of the human heart to perceive their tendency when reduced to practice. Speculative opinions, I know, have little influence over the practice of those who _act_ much and think little; but I should conceive their power to be considerable over the conduct of those who have much time for reflection and little necessity for action. In one case the habit of action governs the thoughts upon any sudden emergency; in the other, the thoughts govern the actions. The truth or falsehood then of speculative opinions is of much greater consequence to our s.e.x than to the other; as we live a life of reflection, they of action.

Retrace, then, dear Julia, in your mind the course of your thoughts for some time past; discover the cause of this revolution in your opinions; judge yourself; and remember, that in the _mind_ as well as in the body, the highest pitch of disease is often attended with an unconsciousness of its existence. If, then, Lady V----, upon receiving my letter, you should feel averse to this self-examination, or if you should imagine it to be useless, I no longer advise, I command you to quit your present abode; come to me: fly from the danger, and be safe.

Dear Julia, I must a.s.sume this peremptory tone: if you are angry, I must disregard your anger; it is the anger of disease, the anger of one who is roused from that sleep which would end in death.

I respect the equality of friends.h.i.+p; but this equality permits, nay requires, the temporary ascendancy I a.s.sume. In real friends.h.i.+p, the judgment, the genius, the prudence of each party become the common property of both. Even if they are equals, they may not be so _always_.

Those transient fits of pa.s.sion, to which the best and wisest are liable, may deprive even the superior of the advantage of their reason.

She then has still in her friend an _impartial_, though perhaps an inferior judgment; each becomes the guardian of the other, as their mutual safety may require.

Heaven seems to have granted this double chance of virtue and happiness, as the peculiar reward of friends.h.i.+p.

Use it, then, my dear friend; accept the a.s.sistance you could so well return. Obey me; I shall judge of you by your resolution at this crisis: on it depends your fate, and my friends.h.i.+p.

Your sincere and affectionate CAROLINE.

LETTER VI.

CAROLINE TO LADY V----.

_Just before she went to France_.

The time is now come, Lady V----, when I must bid you an eternal adieu.

With what deep regret, I need not, Julia, I cannot tell you.

I burned your letter the moment I had read it. Your past confidence I never will betray; but I must renounce all future intercourse with you.

I am a sister, a wife, a mother; all these connexions forbid me to be longer your friend. In misfortune, in sickness, or in poverty, I never would have forsaken you; but infamy I cannot share. I would have gone, I went, to the brink of the precipice to save you; with all my force I held you back; but in vain. But why do I vindicate my conduct to you now? Accustomed as I have always been to think your approbation necessary to my happiness, I forgot that henceforward your opinion is to be nothing to me, or mine to you.

Oh, Julia! the idea, the certainty, that you must, if you live, be in a few years, in a few months, perhaps, reduced to absolute want, in a foreign country--without a friend--a protector, the fate of women who have fallen from a state as high as yours, the names of L----, of G----, the horror I feel at joining your name to theirs, impels me to make one more attempt to save you.

Companion of my earliest years! friend of my youth! my beloved Julia! by the happy innocent hours we have spent together, by the love you had for me, by the respect you bear to the memory of your mother, by the agony with which your father will hear of the loss of his daughter, by all that has power to touch your mind--I conjure you, I implore you to pause!--Farewell!

CAROLINE.

LETTER VII.

CAROLINE TO LORD V----.

_Written a few months after the date of the preceding letter._

My lord,

Though I am too sensible that all connexion between my unfortunate friend and her family must for some time have been dissolved, I venture now to address myself to your lords.h.i.+p.

On Wednesday last, about half after six o'clock in the evening, the following note was brought to me. It had been written with such a trembling hand that it was scarcely legible; but I knew the writing too well.

"If you ever loved me, Caroline, read this--do not tear it the moment you see the name of Julia: she has suffered--she is humbled. I left France with the hope of seeing you once more; but now I am so near you, my courage fails, and my heart sinks within me. I have no friend upon earth--I deserve none; yet I cannot help wis.h.i.+ng to see, once more before I die, the friend of my youth, to thank her with my last breath.

"But, dear Caroline, if I must not see you, write to me, if possible, one line of consolation.

"Tell me, is my father living--do you know any thing of my children?--I dare not ask for my husband. Adieu! I am so weak that I can scarcely write--I hope I shall soon be no more. Farewell!

"JULIA."

I immediately determined to follow the bearer of this letter. Julia was waiting for my answer at a small inn in a neighbouring village, at a few miles' distance. It was night when I got there: every thing was silent--all the houses were shut up, excepting one, in which we saw two or three lights glimmering through the window--this was the inn: as your lords.h.i.+p may imagine, it was a very miserable place. The mistress of the house seemed to be touched with pity for the stranger: she opened the door of a small room, where she said the poor lady was resting; and retired as I entered.

Upon a low matted seat beside the fire sat Lady V----; she was in black; her knees were crossed, and her white but emaciated arms flung on one side over her lap; her hands were clasped together, and her eyes fixed upon the fire: she seemed neither to hear nor see any thing round her, but, totally absorbed in her own reflections, to have sunk into insensibility. I dreaded to rouse her from this state of torpor; and I believe I stood for some moments motionless: at last I moved softly towards her--she turned her head--started up--a scarlet blush overspread her face--she grew livid again instantly, gave a faint shriek, and sunk senseless into my arms.

When she returned to herself, and found her head lying upon my shoulder, and heard my voice soothing her with all the expressions of kindness I could think of, she smiled with a look of grat.i.tude, which I never shall forget. Like one who had been long unused to kindness, she seemed ready to pour forth all the fondness of her heart: but, as if recollecting herself better, she immediately checked her feelings--withdrew her hand from mine--thanked me--said she was quite well again--cast down her eyes, and her manner changed from tenderness to timidity. She seemed to think that she had lost all right to sympathy, and received even the common offices of humanity with surprise: her high spirit, I saw, was quite broken.

I think I never felt such sorrow as I did in contemplating Julia at this instant: she who stood before me, sinking under the sense of inferiority, I knew to be my equal--my superior; yet by fatal imprudence, by one rash step, all her great, and good, and amiable qualities were irretrievably lost to the world and to herself.

When I thought that she was a little recovered, I begged of her, if she was not too much fatigued, to let me carry her home. At these words she looked at me with surprise. Her eyes filled with tears; but without making any other reply, she suffered me to draw her arm within mine, and attempted to follow me. I did not know how feeble she was till she began to walk; it was with the utmost difficulty I supported her to the door; and by the a.s.sistance of the people of the house she was lifted into the carriage: we went very slowly. When the carriage stopped she was seized with an universal tremor; she started when the man knocked at the door, and seemed to dread its being opened. The appearance of light and the sound of cheerful voices struck her with horror.

I could not myself help being shocked with the contrast between the dreadful situation of my friend, and the happiness of the family to which I was returning.