Anna St. Ives Part 20

Yes--

You--you--

I have not seen Mr. Clifton? Right--But I said I had made the promise to _myself_.

Poor Frank could contain no longer! I see, madam, said he, I am despised; and I deserve contempt; I crouch to it, I invite it, and have obtained a full portion of it--Yet why?--What have I done?--Why is this sudden change?--The false glitter that deceives mankind then is irresistible!--But surely, madam, justice is as much my due as if my name were Clifton. Spurn me, trample on me, when I sully myself by vice and infamy! But till then I should once have hoped to have escaped being humbled in the dust, by one whom I regarded as the most benignant, as well as the most deserving and equitable of earthly creatures!

This is indeed a heavy charge: and I am afraid much of it is too true.

Here is company coming. I am sorry I cannot answer it immediately.

I can suffer any thing rather than exist under my present tortures.

Will you favour me so far, madam, as to grant me half an hour's hearing?

Willingly. It is what I wish. Come to my apartment after dinner.

Clifton came up, and I have no doubt read in our countenances that something more than common had pa.s.sed. Indeed I perceived it, or thought so; but his imagination took another turn, in consequence of my informing him, that I had been just telling Frank I had promised myself to be his (Clifton's) partner. He thanked me, his countenance shewed it as well as his words, for my kindness. He was coming, he said, to pet.i.tion, the instant he had heard of the dance. But still he looked at Frank, as if he thought it strange that I should condescend to account to him for my thoughts and promises.

Dinner time came, and we sat down to table. But the mind is sometimes too busy to attend to the appet.i.tes. I and Frank ate but little. He rose first from table, that he might not seem to follow me. His delicacy never slumbers. I took the first opportunity to retire. Frank was presently with me, and our dialogue began. The struggle of the feelings ordained that I should be the first speaker.

I have been thinking very seriously, Frank, of what you said to me this morning.

Would to heaven you could forget it, madam!

Why so?

I was unjust! A madman! A vain fool! An idiot!--Pardon this rude vehemence, but I cannot forgive myself for having been so ready to accuse one whom--! I cannot speak my feelings!--I have deserted myself!--I am no longer the creature of reason, but the child of pa.s.sion!--My mind is all tumult, all incongruity!

You wrong yourself. The error has been mutual, or rather I have been much the most to blame. I am very sensible of, and indeed very sorry for my mistake--Indeed I am--I perceived you indulging hopes that cannot be realized, and--

Cannot, madam?

Never!--I can see you think yourself despised; but you do yourself great wrong.

My mind is so disturbed, by the abrupt and absurd folly with which I accused you, unheard, this morning, that it is less now in a state to do my cause justice than at any other time--Still I will be a man--Your word, madam, was--Cannot!--

It was.

Permit me to ask, is it person--?

No--certainly not. Person would with me be always a distant consideration. [You, Louisa, know how very far from exceptionable the person of Frank is, if that were any part of the question.]

You are no flatterer, madam, and you have thought proper occasionally to express your approbation of my morals and mind.

Yet my expressions have never equalled my feelings!--Never!

Then, madam, where is the impossibility? In what does it consist? The world may think meanly of me, for the want of what I myself hold in contempt: but surely you cannot join in the world's injustice?

I cannot think meanly of you.

I have no t.i.tles. I am what pride calls n.o.body: the son of a man who came pennyless into the service of your family; in which to my infinite grief he has grown rich. I would rather starve than acquire opulence by the efforts of cunning, flattery, and avarice; and if I blush for any thing, relative to family, it is for that. I am either above or below the wish of being what is insolently called well born.

You confound, or rather you do not separate, two things which are very distinct; that which I think of you, and that which the world would think of me, were I to encourage hopes which you would have me indulge.

Your actions, madam, shew how much and how properly you disregard the world's opinion.

But I do not disregard the effects which that opinion may have, upon the happiness of my father, my family, myself, and my husband, if ever I should marry.

If truth and justice require it, madam, even all these ought to be disregarded.

Indubitably.

Did I know a man, upon the face of the earth, who had a still deeper sense of your high qualities and virtues than I have, who understood them more intimately, would study them, emulate them more, and profit better by them, I have confidence enough in myself to say I would resign you without repining. But, when I think on the union between mind and mind--the aggregate--! I want language, madam--!

I understand you.

When I reflect on the wondrous happiness we might enjoy, while mutually exerting ourselves in the general cause of virtue, I confess the thought of renouncing so much bliss, or rather such a duty to myself and the world, is excruciating torture.

Your idea of living for the cause of virtue delights me; it is in full concord with my own. But whether that great cause would best be promoted by our union, or not, is a question which we are incapable of determining: though I think probabilities are for the negative. Facts and observation have given me reason to believe that the too easy gratification of our desires is pernicious to mind; and that it acquires vigour and elasticity from opposition.

And would you then upon principle, madam, marry a man whom you must despise?

No, not despise. If indeed I were all I could wish to be, I am persuaded I should despise no one. I should endeavour to instruct the ignorant, and reform the erroneous. However, I will tell you what sort of a man I should wish to marry. First he must be a person of whom no prejudice, no mistake of any kind, should induce the world, that is, the persons nearest and most connected with me in the world, to think meanly--Shall I be cited by the thoughtless, the simple, and the perverse, in justification of their own improper conduct?--You cannot wish it, Frank!--Nor is this the most alarming fear--My friends!--My relations!--My father!--To incur a father's reproach for having dishonoured his family were fearful: but to meet, to merit, to live under his curse!--G.o.d of heaven forbid!

Must we then never dare to counteract mistake? Must mind, though enlightened by truth, submit to be the eternal slave of error?--What is there that is thus dreadful, madam, in the curse of prejudice? Have not the greatest and the wisest of mankind been cursed by ignorance?

It is not the curse itself that is terrible, but the torture of the person's mind by whom it is uttered!--Nor is it the torture of a minute, or a day, but of years!--His child, his beloved child, on whom his hopes and heart were fixed, to whom he looked for all the bliss of filial obedience, all the energies of virtue, and all the effusions of affection, to see himself deserted by her, unfeelingly deserted, plunged in sorrows unutterable, eternally dishonoured, the index and the bye-word of scandal, scoffed at for the fault of her whom his fond and fatherly reveries had painted faultless, whispered out of society because of the shame of her in whom he gloried, and I this child!

Were the conflict what your imagination has figured it, madam, your terrors would be just--But I have thought deeply on it, and know that your very virtues misguide you. It would not be torture, nor would it be eternal--On the contrary, madam, I, poor as I am in the esteem of an arrogant world, I proudly affirm it would be the less and not the greater evil.

You mistake!--Indeed, Frank, you mistake!--The fear of poverty, the sneers of the world, ignominy itself, were the pain inflicted but confined to me, I would despise. But to stretch my father upon the rack, and with him every creature that loves me, even you yourself!--It must not be!--It must not be!

I too fatally perceive, madam, your mind is subjected by these phantoms of fear.

No, no--not phantoms; real existences; the palpable beings of reason!--Beside what influence have I in the world, except over my friends and family? And shall I renounce this little influence, this only power of doing good, in order to gratify my own pa.s.sions, by making myself the outcast of that family and of that world to whom it is my ambition to live an example?--My family and the world are prejudiced and unjust: I know it. But where is the remedy? Can we work miracles? Will their prejudices vanish at our bidding?--I have already mortally offended the most powerful of my relations, Lord Fitz-Allen, by refusing a foolish peer of his recommendation. He is my maternal uncle; proud, prejudiced, and unforgiving. Previous to this refusal I was the only person in our family whom he condescended to notice. He prophesied, in the spleen of pa.s.sion, I should soon bring shame on my family; and I as boldly retorted I would never dishonour the name of St. Ives--I spoke in their own idiom, and meant to be so understood--Recollect all this!--Be firm, be just to yourself and me!--Indeed indeed, Frank, it is not my heart that refuses you; it is my understanding; it is principle; it is a determination not to do that which my reason cannot justify--Join with me, Frank--Resolve--Give me your hand--Let us disdain to set mankind an example which would indeed be a virtuous and a good one, were all the conditions understood; but which, under the appearances it would a.s.sume, would be criminal in the extreme.

My hand and heart, madam, are everlastingly yours: and it is because this heart yearns to set the world an example, higher infinitely than that which you propose, that thus I plead!--This opportunity is my first and last--I read my doom--Bear with me therefore while I declare my sensations and my thoughts.--The pa.s.sion I feel is as unlike what is usually meant by love as day to night, grace to deformity, or truth to falsehood. It is not your fine form, madam, supremely beautiful though you are, which I love. At least I love it only as an excellent part of a divine whole. It is your other, your better, your more heavenly self, to which I have dared to aspire. I claim relations.h.i.+p to your mind; and again declare I think my claims have a right, which none of the false distinctions of men can supersede. Think then, madam, again I conjure you, think ere you decide.--If the union of two people whose pure love, founded on an unerring conviction of mutual worth, might promise the reality of that heaven of which the world delights to dream; whose souls, both burning with the same ardour to attain and to diffuse excellence, would mingle and act with incessant energy, who, having risen superior to the mistakes of mankind, would disseminate the same spirit of truth, the same internal peace, the same happiness, the same virtues which they themselves possess among thousands; who would admire, animate, emulate each other; whose wishes, efforts, and principles would all combine to one great end, the general good; who, being desirous only to dispense blessings, could not fail to enjoy; if a union like this be not strictly conformable to the laws of eternal truth, or if there be any arguments, any perils, any terrors which ought to annul such a union, I confess that the arguments, the perils, the terrors, and eternal truth itself are equally unknown to me.

We paused for a moment. The beauty, force, and grandeur of the picture he had drawn staggered me. Yet it was but a repet.i.tion of what had frequently presented itself to my mind, in colours almost as vivid as those with which he painted. I had but one answer, and replied--

The world!--My family!--My father!--I cannot encounter the malediction of a father!--What! Behold him in an agony of cursing his child?--Imagination shudders and shrinks from the guilty picture with horror!--I cannot!--I cannot!--It must not be!--To foresee this misery so clearly as I do, and yet to seek it, would surely be detestable guilt!

Again we paused--He perceived my terrors were too violent to cede to any efforts of supposed reason. His countenance changed; the energy of argument disappeared, and was succeeded by all the tenderness of pa.s.sion. The decisive moment, the moment of trial was come. His features softened into that form which never yet failed to melt the heart, and he thus continued.

To the scorn of vice, the scoffs of ignorance, the usurpations of the presuming, and the contumelies of the proud, I have patiently submitted: but to find my great and as I thought infallible support wrested from me; to perceive that divine essence which I imagined too much a part of myself to do me wrong, overlooking me; rejecting me; dead to those sensations which I thought mutually pervaded and filled our hearts; to hear her, whom of all beings on earth I thought myself most akin to, disclaim me; positively, persisting, un--

Unjustly?--Was that the word, Frank?--Surely not unjustly!--Oh, surely not!

And could those heavenly those heart-winning condescensions on which I founded my hopes be all illusory?--Could they?--Did I dream that your soul held willing intercourse with mine, beaming divine intelligence upon me? Was it all a vision when I thought I heard you p.r.o.nounce the ecstatic sentence--_You could love me if I would let you?_