Another packet contains some account of the unfortunate Adelaide, lady of the Beacon-Tower; she was a daughter of the house of Carlsheim, and had resolution enough to attend upon her unfortunate husband till his last breath, which he was doomed to breathe out upon the scaffold! Adelaide only left the place of execution to lay herself down, and die.
I possess also the adventures of two Damsels of Sargans, who particularly arrested my attention yesterday in the closet of the Domina.—The picture represented them as two solitary pilgrims, both imprest with beauty and innocence in every feature—features, which seemed to be not totally unknown to me, and which even recalled those to my memory, which my partial friendship once viewed with such fond admiration, while gazing on Constantia and her perfidious sister!—They were represented, as wandering on a barren mountain covered with snow, and endeavouring with inexpressible anxiety in different quarters to discover an out-let from this desolate pass, where they must inevitably perish, unless some higher power should graciously interpose in their behalf. In truth, I fancied that I could discover in the back-ground of the picture a faint shadow, which seemed to beckon one the poor wanderers to advance: probably it meant to convey the idea of a guardian angel, or a saint, who had descended from Heaven to guide the distressed pilgrims out of this fearful labyrinth.
Besides these, I have kept back several other fragments of less interest, which I shall not examine, till all those which I have mentioned have been gone through, and their contents communicated to you, dear Oswald. Into the bargain, the Domina (in hopes, I suppose, of softening my resentment) sent me by the hands of a lay-sister the life of one of her predecessors, who had also belonged to the family of Sargans, and respecting whom she thought, that what she had told me respecting her wisdom and piety, must needs have powerfully excited my curiosity. I took the ponderous roll of parchment with many thanks; I have already ran through it, and returned it, for it contained nothing except that this worthy Abbess was not only a saint, but was also a woman of great learning; that she had sacrificed to the Muses at the same time with Walter of Vogelfeld, the Counts of Hapsburg and Welsh-Neuburg, the Abbot of Einsiedel, and the Bishop of Constance, and had carried off the prize from those distinguished Authors; and finally, that she had instituted a weekly meeting of literati at the house of Rudiger Manstein, the burgo-master of Zurich.
These particulars possest very few charms for me; and the moment that I was left to myself, I had recourse to my precious stolen treasure, of which I shall immediately communicate to you as much, as I have as yet had leisure to peruse. Oh! my kind Oswald, will you not blame me, when I confess, that even this interesting occupation was insufficient to banish Montfort from my mind? Yet to waste another thought on this paragon of human perfidy is too great a weakness—I will return to my parchments, in hopes to collecting from the sorrows of others resolution enough to endure my own with patience.
PART THE SECOND.
MEMOIRS
OF
URANIA VENOSTA.
It affords the mind a melancholy pleasure to look back in the evening of life, and contemplate the path which conducted us to that place of shelter, where tranquillity awaits us, and which at length appears in sight. Yet in such a moment we obtain but an imperfect view of the scenes through which we past; and the sensations which we at the time experienced, have already lost much of their poignancy. The chillness of approaching night makes us almost forget our sufferings, while toiling under the heat of the mid-day sun; and our eye glides easily along the deep vallies in which we feared to lose our way, and over the lofty mountains which it cost us so much labour to ascend—The whole now seems blended together, and we perceive scarcely any thing but a level surface; for the distance of those objects which we have left behind, and the darkness growing deeper with every moment, delude our eyes, and hide from us almost every thing, which once inspired us with such well-founded terror.