“But the halls of my ancestors were no longer a home for me, and I felt it strongly during the few days I spent there. The absurd spectacle of the blind infatuation of a man, already on the decline of life, who fed and cherished his vanity into the ridiculous belief that he was still loveable and beloved by a young and artful woman, was—had I been an uninterested spectator of the farce—more laughable than anything else; but, as it was, indignation, instead of merriment, stirred my feelings, and I wished to be out of sight of so disgraceful an exhibition of superannuated folly; and my father, while doting upon his minion, and squandering his fortune upon her in every description of extravagance, actually believed himself to be as attractive and fascinating as any young man of twenty-five. When I recurred to this portion of my father’s life in after years, I always thought of what a young Parisian girl once said to me: ‘Are not those two words, man and vanity, synonymous?’ That young and handsome men should be vain of conquest is not astonishing; but that old men, hackneyed and worn, from misuse of the senses, possessing all the vices of the young, without their personal attractions or their virtues,—that such men should be candidates for the affections of young women, or dare to suppose they can obtain or possess them, is scarcely more reprehensible than ridiculous. The world has always seemed to me a perfect farce—a play: a stage on which all act, and those who play the best are thought the best in the eyes of the undiscriminating world. What part my father and his favorite would have taken in the drama, I am unable to say; but my own opinion is, that a fool’s cap for him, and the symbol of knavery for her, would have suited to a charm.
“Lelia was liberally provided with many attendants, teachers for various languages, and every thing the child could wish in the way of dress or equipage. Being satisfied that her welfare and comfort was attended to, I arranged with father to draw upon his banker in Paris for my means; and, bidding Lelia farewell—who sobbed and wept grievously at my departure—I glanced good-bye to the turreted towers, the lofty archways and imposing battlements of the homes of my forefathers, and took my way to the capital of France, intending to pursue the study of the law.
“But, alas! for the self-promised virtue of youth and inexperience! I had not been in the gay city many weeks before the giddy vortex of Parisian society had enthralled me, and overcame many of my stoical resolves: so little do we know what we shall do until tasked by practice. I at first wondered at the wild and unrestrained dissipations of the youth of the metropolis; but, insensibly, by degrees this wonderment ceased, as I became accustomed to, and shared in these frivolities.
“An old lawyer—in former years a devoted friend of my father—now, in turn, performed the offices of friend to me; i. e. gave me good advice on the temptations and snares of life; the dangers of love affairs, particularly illicit ones; the beauty of propriety of demeanor; the respectability of religion—at least its external appearance, no matter about the sincerity of the heart; and, lastly, the propriety of placing myself under his guidance, and steadfastly following his counsels. Fortunately, I did not take advantage of the kindness extended me; for, had I followed his counsels—or, rather, what one might suppose would have been his counsels, twenty years before—I should have been engulphed in ruin long ago. I followed the dictates of a young, and, at that time, pure heart; and pursued my own way, naturally enough concluding, that every man has a right to his own way of thinking, and his own rule of action, provided he interfered with no one else.
“I studied law with my moral friend for some time; and might at this moment, perhaps, have been an advocate, had not unforeseen events changed the current of my life otherwise.
“While in Paris I became acquainted with a lady of noble rank and ancient family; and, since I am giving you a faithful chronicle of my days, Genevra, I will not conceal from you, that once, and once only, have I loved, in by gone years, a lady, as beautiful, though not as virtuous, or talented, as yourself—loved, I say, as fondly, as blindly, as I now love you.
“Her name was Madame Anacharsis Valliere; and she was the youthful wife of an old banker; she was then one of the most fashionable and admired of any in Paris. I first met her at a ball, and afterwards visited her at her house constantly. I cannot describe the artlessness and playful witchery of her ways, nor that light and play of feature which allured and captivated me—even though I saw the risk I ran, both for myself and her: the remembrance of her haunted me for years after the love had died away, and both passion, and the reciprocity it had met with from her confiding fondness, had faded from my mind.
“That was my first ‘grande passion!’ The woman who pleased me then, would not please me now: so do our tastes and habits change as we go onward: but then, young and warm, yet shy, I required to be led on to love: now, I would rather seek it myself: consequently, I prefer one who rather shrinks from than advances to me.
“Her husband, absorbed in business, and money speculations could not find time to devote much attention to his fair wife; and, trusting to her honor, her sense of duty, and shrinking modesty, to preserve her in the right way, he allowed her to do as she pleased, and go with whom she pleased; it often pleased her then to go with me. He had great confidence in me; I am sorry to say it was misplaced; but undesignedly, at least, I can with conscience say that, I did not intend to love the wife, or injure the husband. When I first became acquainted with them, little by little she grew to love me; if I did not come at the appointed hour, Madame Anacharsis, forgetting her embroidery, music, flowers, visitors, everything, would sit at the window facing the street, whence she regularly expected me, and muse and watch for me; then the sudden start, the smile of welcome when I came, the tears which suffused her eyes when I departed, by all these tokens, and a hundred others, I knew as well as words could speak it, that she loved me; what man is virtuous enough to slight the manifest love of a beautiful woman? I saw my triumph and I felt happy, for my feelings echoed hers.
“I then became her constant visitor, her devoted admirer; I was with her continually, at her morning concerts, her evening soirees: I was ever at her side. The old husband, infatuated in his idolatry of his young wife, saw nothing, suspected nothing; thus we went on till passion crowned the whole; nothing was left for me to wish for. Was I happy then? In the possession of all that I had thought so admirable, so angelic, I have often asked myself that question, and never have been able to answer it satisfactorily. I lost myself then in the mysteries of love, and forgot everything but her.