Nature and Art Part 8

"How benevolent!" exclaimed the dean.

"How prudent!" exclaimed Henry.

"What do you mean by prudent?" asked Lord Bendham. "Explain your meaning."

"No, my lord," replied the dean, "do not ask for an explanation: this youth is wholly unacquainted with our customs, and, though a man in stature, is but a child in intellects. Henry, have I not often cautioned you--"

"Whatever his thoughts are upon the subject," cried Lord Bendham, "I desire to know them."

"Why, then, my lord," answered Henry, "I thought it was prudent in you to give a little, lest the poor, driven to despair, should take all."

"And if they had, they would have been hanged."

"Hanging, my lord, our history, or some tradition, says, was formerly adopted as a mild punishment, in place of starving."

"I am sure," cried Lady Bendham (who seldom spoke directly to the argument before her), "I am sure they ought to think themselves much obliged to us."

"That is the greatest hards.h.i.+p of all," cried Henry.

"What, sir?" exclaimed the earl.

"I beg your pardon--my uncle looks displeased--I am very ignorant--I did not receive my first education in this country--and I find I think so differently from every one else, that I am ashamed to utter my sentiments."

"Never mind, young man," answered Lord Bendham; "we shall excuse your ignorance for once. Only inform us what it was you just now called _the greatest hards.h.i.+p of all_."

"It was, my lord, that what the poor receive to keep them from peris.h.i.+ng should pa.s.s under the name of _gifts_ and _bounty_. Health, strength, and the will to earn a moderate subsistence, ought to be every man's security from obligation."

"I think a hundred pounds a great deal of money," cried Lady Bendham; "and I hope my lord will never give it again."

"I hope so too," cried Henry; "for if my lord would only be so good as to speak a few words for the poor as a senator, he might possibly for the future keep his hundred pounds, and yet they never want it."

Lord Bendham had the good nature only to smile at Henry's simplicity, whispering to himself, "I had rather keep my--" his last word was lost in the whisper.

CHAPTER XX.

In the country--where the sensible heart is still more susceptible of impressions; and where the unfeeling mind, in the want of other men's wit to invent, forms schemes for its own amus.e.m.e.nt--our youths both fell in love: if pa.s.sions, that were pursued on the most opposite principles, can receive the same appellation. William, well versed in all the licentious theory, thought himself in love, because he perceived a tumultuous impulse cause his heart to beat while his fancy fixed on a certain object whose presence agitated yet more his breast.

Henry thought himself not in love, because, while he listened to William on the subject, he found their sensations did not in the least agree.

William owned to Henry that he loved Agnes, the daughter of a cottager in the village, and hoped to make her his mistress.

Henry felt that his tender regard for Rebecca, the daughter of the curate of the parish, did not inspire him even with the boldness to acquaint her with his sentiments, much less to meditate one design that might tend to her dishonour.

While William was cautiously planning how to meet in private, and accomplish the seduction of the object of his pa.s.sion, Henry was endeavouring to fortify the object of _his_ choice with every virtue. He never read a book from which he received improvement that he did not carry it to Rebecca--never heard a circ.u.mstance which might a.s.sist towards her moral instruction that he did not haste to tell it her; and once when William boasted

"He knew he was beloved by Agnes;"

Henry said, with equal triumph, "he had not dared to take the means to learn, nor had Rebecca dared to give one instance of her partiality."

Rebecca was the youngest, and by far the least handsome daughter of four, to whom the Reverend Mr. Rymer, a widower, was father. The other sisters were accounted beauties; and she, from her comparative want of personal charms, having been less beloved by her parents, and less caressed by those who visited them, than the rest, had for some time past sought other resources of happiness than the affection, praise, and indulgence of her fellow-creatures. The parsonage house in which this family lived was the forlorn remains of an ancient abbey: it had in later times been the habitation of a rich and learned rector, by whom, at his decease, a library was bequeathed for the use of every succeeding resident. Rebecca, left alone in this huge ruinous abode, while her sisters were paying stated visits in search of admiration, pa.s.sed her solitary hours in reading. She not merely read--she thought: the choicest English books from this excellent library taught her to _think_; and reflection fas.h.i.+oned her mind to bear the slights, the mortifications of neglect, with a patient dejection, rather than with an indignant or a peevish spirit.

This resignation to injury and contumely gave to her perfect symmetry of person, a timid eye, a retiring manner, and spread upon her face a placid sweetness, a pale serenity indicating sense, which no wise connoisseur in female charms would have exchanged for all the sparkling eyes and florid tints of her vain and vulgar sisters. Henry's soul was so enamoured of her gentle deportment, that in his sight she appeared beautiful; while she, with an understanding competent to judge of his worth, was so greatly surprised, so prodigiously astonished at the distinction, the attention, the many offices of civility paid her by him, in preference to her idolised sisters, that her grat.i.tude for such unexpected favours had sometimes (even in his presence, and in that of her family) nearly drowned her eyes with tears. Yet they were only trifles, in which Henry had the opportunity or the power to give her testimony of his regard--trifles, often more grateful to the sensible mind than efforts of high importance; and by which the proficient in the human heart will accurately trace a pa.s.sion wholly concealed from the dull eye of the unskilled observer.

The first cause of amazement to Rebecca in the manners of Henry was, that he talked with _her_ as well as with her sisters; no visitor else had done so. In appointing a morning's or an evening's walk, he proposed _her_ going with the rest; no one had ever required her company before.

When he called and she was absent, he asked where she was; no one had ever missed her before. She thanked him most sincerely, and soon perceived that, at those times when he was present, company was more pleasing even than books.

Her astonishment, her grat.i.tude, did not stop here. Henry proceeded in attention; he soon selected her from her sister to tell her the news of the day, answered her observations the first; once gave her a sprig of myrtle from his bosom in preference to another who had praised its beauty; and once--never-to-be-forgotten kindness--sheltered her from a hasty shower with his _parapluie_, while he lamented to her drenched companions,

"That he had but _one_ to offer."

From a man whose understanding and person they admire, how dear, how impressive on the female heart is every trait of tenderness! Till now, Rebecca had experienced none; not even of the parental kind: and merely from the overflowings of a kind nature (not in return for affection) had she ever loved her father and her sisters. Sometimes, repulsed by their severity, she transferred the fulness of an affectionate heart upon birds, or the brute creation: but now, her alienated mind was recalled and softened by a sensation that made her long to complain of the burthen it imposed. Those obligations which exact silence are a heavy weight to the grateful; and Rebecca longed to tell Henry "that even the forfeit of her life would be too little to express the full sense she had of the respect he paid to her." But as modesty forbade not only every kind of declaration, but every insinuation purporting what she felt, she wept through sleepless nights from a load of suppressed explanation; yet still she would not have exchanged this trouble for all the beauty of her sisters.

CHAPTER XXI.

Old John and Hannah Primrose, a prudent hardy couple, who, by many years of peculiar labour and peculiar abstinence, were the least poor of all the neighbouring cottagers, had an only child (who has been named before) called Agnes: and this cottage girl was reckoned, in spite of the beauty of the elder Miss Rymers, by far the prettiest female in the village.

Reader of superior rank, if the pa.s.sions which rage in the bosom of the inferior cla.s.s of human kind are beneath your sympathy, throw aside this little history, for Rebecca Rymer and Agnes Primrose are its heroines.

But you, unprejudiced reader, whose liberal observations are not confined to stations, but who consider all mankind alike deserving your investigation; who believe that there exists, in some, knowledge without the advantage of instruction; refinement of sentiment independent of elegant society; honourable pride of heart without dignity of blood; and genius dest.i.tute of art to render it conspicuous--you will, perhaps, venture to read on, in hopes that the remainder of this story may deserve your attention, just as the wild herb of the forest, equally with the cultivated plant in the garden, claims the attention of the botanist.

Young William saw in young Agnes even more beauty than was beheld by others; and on those days when he felt no inclination to ride, to shoot, or to hunt, he would contrive, by some secret device, the means to meet with her alone, and give her tokens (if not of his love) at least of his admiration of her beauty, and of the pleasure he enjoyed in her company.

Agnes listened, with a kind of delirious enchantment, to all her elevated and eloquent admirer uttered; and in return for his praises of her charms, and his equivocal replies in respect to his designs towards her, she gave to him her most undisguised thoughts, and her whole enraptured heart.

This harmless intercourse (as she believed it) had not lasted many weeks before she loved him: she even confessed she did, every time that any unwonted mark of attention from him struck with unexpected force her infatuated senses.

It has been said by a celebrated writer, upon the affection subsisting between the two s.e.xes, "that there are many persons who, if they had never heard of the pa.s.sion of love, would never have felt it." Might it not with equal truth be added, that there are many more, who, having heard of it, and believing most firmly that they feel it, are nevertheless mistaken? Neither of these cases was the lot of Agnes. She experienced the sentiment before she ever heard it named in the sense with which it had possessed her--joined with numerous other sentiments; for genuine love, however rated as the chief pa.s.sion of the human heart, is but a poor dependent, a retainer upon other pa.s.sions; admiration, grat.i.tude, respect, esteem, pride in the object. Divest the boasted sensation of these, and it is not more than the impression of a twelve- month, by courtesy, or vulgar error, termed love.

Agnes was formed by the rarest structure of the human frame, and destined by the tenderest thrillings of the human soul, to inspire and to experience real love: but her nice taste, her delicate thoughts, were so refined beyond the sphere of her own station in society, that nature would have produced this prodigy of attraction in vain, had not one of superior education and manners a.s.sailed her affections; and had she been accustomed to the conversation of men in William's rank of life, she had, perhaps, treated William's addresses with indifference; but, in comparing him with her familiar acquaintance, he was a miracle! His unremitting attention seemed the condescension of an elevated being, to whom she looked up with reverence, with admiration, with awe, with pride, with sense of obligation--and all those various pa.s.sions which const.i.tute true, and never-to-be-eradicated, love.

But in vain she felt and even avowed with her lips what every look, every gesture, had long denoted; William, with discontent, sometimes with anger, upbraided her for her false professions, and vowed, "that while one tender proof, which he fervently besought, was wanting, she did but aggravate his misery by less endearments."

Agnes had been taught the full estimation of female virtue; and if her nature could have detested any one creature in a state of wretchedness, it would have been the woman who had lost her honour; yet, for William, what would not Agnes forfeit? The dignity, the peace, the serenity, the innocence of her own mind, love soon encouraged her to fancy she could easily forego; and this same overpowering influence at times so forcibly possessed her, that she even felt a momentary transport in the contemplation "of so precious a sacrifice to him." But then she loved her parents, and their happiness she could not prevail with herself to barter even for _his_. She wished he would demand some other pledge of her attachment to him; for there was none but this, her ruin in no other shape, that she would deny at his request. While thus she deliberated, she prepared for her fall.

Bred up with strict observance both of his moral and religious character, William did not dare to tell an unequivocal lie even to his inferiors; he never promised Agnes he would marry her; nay, even he paid so much respect to the forms of truth, that no sooner was it evident that he had obtained her heart, her whole soul entire--so that loss of innocence would be less terrifying than separation from him--no sooner did he perceive this, than he candidly told her he "could never make her his wife." At the same time he lamented "the difference of their births, and the duty he owed his parents' hopes," in terms so pathetic to her partial ear, that she thought him a greater object of compa.s.sion in his attachment even than herself; and was now urged by pity to remove the cause of his complainings.

One evening Henry accidentally pa.s.sed the lonely spot where William and she constantly met; he observed his cousin's impa.s.sioned eye, and her affectionate yet fearful glance. William, he saw, took delight in the agitation of mind, in the strong apprehension mixed with the love of Agnes. This convinced Henry that either he or himself was not in love; for his heart told him he would not have beheld such emotions of tenderness, mingled with such marks of sorrow, upon the countenance of Rebecca, for the wealth of the universe.

The first time he was alone with William after this, he mentioned his observation on Agnes's apparent affliction, and asked "why her grief was the result of their stolen meetings."

"Because," replied Williams, "her professions are unlimited, while her manners are reserved; and I accuse her of loving me with unkind moderation, while I love her to distraction."