LETTER IX
FROM SIBELLA VALMONT
TO
CAROLINE ASHBURN
It is now a week since, one evening at sunset, I carried your letters, and that portrait painted by Clement in the days when we knew no sorrow, into the wood; where, shutting out every remembrance, save those of love and friendship, I was for a time wrapped in the sublimity of happiness. Is the mind so much fettered by its earthly clog the body, that it cannot long sustain these lofty flights, soaring as it were into divinity, but must ever sink back to its portion of pains and penalties? For, this I have before experienced; and, at the time of which I speak, pain and grief suddenly burst in upon me. I rushed from the foot of my oak to the monument; and, resting there, wept with a bitterness equal in degree to my former pleasure.
Nina was at my side—and her flying from me into the wood, was a signal that some one approached. I raised my head; and beheld, descending from the Ruin on the Rock, the tall figure of a venerable man, with a white and flowing beard. He was wrapped in a sort of loose gown; a broad hat shaded part of his face; his step was feeble; he frequently tottered; and, when he had come near to me, he leaned both hands on his staff, and addressed me thus.
'Fair virgin, weep not! The spirits of the air gather round you; and form a band so sacred, that the malignant demons hover at a distance, hopeless of approach. Your guardian angel presides over this grove. Here, Mildew, Mischief, and Mischance, cannot harm you. Fair virgin weep not!' He paused, I said, 'Who are you?'
'Once,' he continued, 'I was the hallowed tenant of yon ruined mansion; once, an inhabitant of earth, it was my lot to warn the guilty, and to soothe the mourner. Well may such tears as thine draw me back to earth. I come, the spirit of consolation. Fair virgin, why weepest thou?'
'I know,' I said, 'that the sleep of death is eternal. That the grave never gives back, to form and substance, the mouldering body; and it indeed matters little to me who or what you are, since I well know you cannot be what you would seem.'
I stepped down from the monument; and turned up the wood path, leading to the castle.
'Stay,' cried he. 'Do you doubt my supernatural mission?—View my testimony. Behold, I can renovate old age!'
I looked back, the beard, the hat, the mantle were cast aside; and a young man of graceful form and fine physiognomy appeared before me.