TO Miss GRENVILLE.
The Baron called here this morning. Don't be angry with me, my dearest Louisa, for mentioning his name, this will indeed be the last time. Never more will thy sister behold him. He is gone; yes, Louisa, I shall never see him again. But will his looks, his sighs, and tears, be forgotten? Oh! never, never! He came to bid me adieu, "Could I but leave you happy," he cried in scarce articulate accents—"Was I but blest with the remote hope of your having your merit rewarded in this world, I should quit you with less regret and anguish. Oh! Lady Stanley! best of women! I mean not to lay claim to your gratitude; far be such an idea from my soul! but for your sake I leave the kingdom."
"For mine!" I exclaimed, clasping my hands wildly together, hardly knowing what I said or did, "What! leave me! Leave the kingdom for my sake! Oh! my God! what advantage can accrue to me by losing"—I could not proceed; my voice failed me, and I remained the petrified statue of despair.
"Lady Stanley," said he with an assumed calmness, "be composed, and hear me. In an age like this, where the examples of vice are so many and so prevalent, though a woman is chaste as the icicle that hangs on Diana's temple, still she will be suspected; and, was the sun never to look upon her, yet she would be tainted by the envenomed breath of slander. Lady Anne Parker has dared in a public company to say, that the most virtuous and lovely of her sex will speedily find consolation for the infidelity of her husband, by making reprisals; her malevolence has farther induced her to point her finger to one, who adores all the virtues with which Heaven first endued woman in your form. A voluntary banishment on my side may wipe off this transient eclipse of the fairest and most amiable character in the world, and the beauties of it shine forth with greater lustre, like the diamond, which can only be sullied by the breath, and which evaporates in an instant, and beams with fresh brilliancy. I would not wish you to look into my heart," added he with a softened voice, "lest your compassion might affect you too much; yet you know not, you never can know, what I have suffered, and must for ever suffer.
"Condemn'd, alas! whole ages to deplore,
And image charms I must behold no more."
I sat motionless during his speech; but, finding him silent, and, I believe, from his emotions, unable to proceed, "Behold," cried I, "with what a composed resignation I submit to my fate. I hoped I had been too inconsiderable to have excited the tongue of slander, or fix its sting in my bosom. But may you, my friend, regain your peace and happiness in your native country!"
"My native country!" exclaimed he, "What is my native country, what the whole globe itself, to that spot which contains all? But I will say no more. I dare not trust myself, I must not. Oh Julia! forgive me! Adieu, for ever!" I had no voice to detain him; I suffered him to quit the room, and my eyes lost sight of him—for ever!
I remained with my eyes stupidly fixed on the door. Oh! Louisa, dare I tell you? my soul seemed to follow him; and all my sufferings have been trivial to this. To be esteemed by him, to be worthy his regard, and read his approbation in his speaking eyes; this was my support, this sustained me, nor suffered my feet to strike against a stone in this disfigured path of destruction. He was my polar star. But he is gone, and knows not how much I loved him. I knew it not myself; else how could I promise never to speak, never to think of him again? But whence these wild expressions? Oh! pardon the effusions of phrenetic fancy. I know not what I have said. I am lost, lost!
J.S.