I ruminated in gloomy silence, on my forlorn, and hopeless, situation. 'If there be not a future state of being,' said I to myself, 'what is this!—Tortured in every stage of it, "Man cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down—he fleeth, as a shadow, and continueth not!"—I looked backward on my past life, and my heart sickened—its confidence in humanity was shaken—I looked forward, and all was cheerless. I had certainly committed many errors!—Who has not—who, with a fancy as lively, feelings as acute, and a character as sanguine, as mine? "What, in fact," says a philosophic writer,[15] "is character?—the production of a lively and constant affection, and consequently, of a strong passion:"—eradicate that passion, that ferment, that leaven, that exuberance, which raises and makes the mind what it is, and what remains? Yet, let us beware how we wantonly expend this divine, this invigorating, power. Every grand error, in a mind of energy, in its operations and consequences, carries us years forward—precious years, never to be recalled!' I could find no substitute for the sentiments I regretted—for that sentiment formed my character; and, but for the obstacles which gave it force, though I might have suffered less misery, I should, I suspect, have gained less improvement; still adversity is a real evil; and I foreboded that this improvement had been purchased too dear.
[13:] Holcroft's Anna St Ives.
[14:] This sentiment may be just in some particular cases, but it is by no means of general application, and must be understood with great limitations.
[15:] Helvetius.
CHAPTER X
Weeks elapsed ere the promised letter arrived—a letter still colder, and more severe, than the former. I wept over it, bitter tears! It accused me 'of adding to the vexations of a situation, before sufficiency oppressive.'—Alas! had I known the nature of those vexations, could I have merited such a reproof? The Augustus, I had so long and so tenderly loved, no longer seemed to exist. Some one had, surely, usurped his signature, and imitated those characters, I had been accustomed to trace with delight. He tore himself from me, nor would he deign to soften the pang of separation. Anguish overwhelmed me—my heart was pierced. Reclining my head on my folded arms, I yielded myself up to silent grief. Alone, sad, desolate, no one heeded my sorrows—no eye pitied me—no friendly voice cheered my wounded spirit! The social propensities of a mind forbidden to expand itself, forced back, preyed incessantly upon that mind, secretly consuming its powers.
I was one day roused from these melancholy reflections by the entrance of my cousin, Mrs Denbeigh. She held in her hand a letter, from my only remaining friend, Mrs Harley. I snatched it hastily; my heart, lacerated by the seeming unkindness of him in whom it had confided, yearned to imbibe the consolation, which the gentle tenderness of this dear, maternal, friend, had never failed to administer. The first paragraph informed me—
'That she had, a few days since, received a letter from the person to whom the legacy of her son devolved, should he fail in observing the prescribed conditions of the testator: that this letter gave her notice, that those conditions had already been infringed, Mr Harley having contracted a marriage, three years before, with a foreigner, with whom he had become acquainted during his travels; that this marriage had been kept a secret, and, but very lately, by an accidental concurrence of circumstances, revealed to the person most concerned in the detection. Undoubted proofs of the truth of this information could be produced; it would therefore be most prudent in her son to resign his claims, without putting himself, and the legal heir, to unnecessary expence and litigation. Ignorant of the residence of Mr Harley, the writer troubled his mother to convey to him these particulars.'
The paper dropped from my hand, the colour forsook my lips and cheeks;—yet I neither wept, nor fainted. Mrs Denbeigh took my hands—they were frozen—the blood seemed congealed in my veins—and I sat motionless—my faculties suspended, stunned, locked up! My friend spake to me—embraced, shed tears over, me—but she could not excite mine;—my mind was pervaded by a sense of confused misery. I remained many days in this situation—it was a state, of which I have but a feeble remembrance; and I, at length, awoke from it, as from a troublesome dream.