Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 6, June 1847

by Various

For some months his funds had been getting alarmingly low; and at this period he was forced to part with much of his wardrobe, his books, and other articles. This continued until he had parted with every thing that would procure the means of existence. “I left my home in a state of mind bordering upon insanity. I walked rapidly, with a scowling brow, through the crowded streets, and felt the demon of despair brooding over my heart. I knew myself to be disunited from my kind by misfortune; none could feel sympathy with the starving musician; he is a being apart from the rest—let him die! I had wandered unconsciously out of the city, and found myself in view of the river. My soul seemed to start with joy at the sight. Deliverance was at hand—total oblivion was within my grasp, eternity already seemed gained, and I rushed on wildly to the banks of the Thames. For awhile I remained gazing abstractedly upon the darkly flowing stream, till the floodgates of memory opened upon my soul; my happy, joyous childhood, my mother’s fond and tender smile, my sister’s pure and deep devotion, seemed to call me back to earth. But with my childhood, memory’s pleasures ceased. I recalled my youth passed amidst strangers, in the cold and calculating world; the severing by death of all those sweet endearing ties, and finally, my manhood, barren in aught save misery, without parents, sisters, friends, starving and desolate, my talents unappreciated, my hopes blasted! What had I to live for? Oh! welcome then the oblivion of thy wave, dark river! One plunge, one struggle with mortality, and the world, with its petty, though maddening miseries, is lost forever. Oh, if it be a sin for the soul to resume its immortality, yet surely it were better thus to die, having some hope of forgiveness, than starving, die. Parting with life inch by inch; enduring days of mortal agony, till the overburthened soul, cursing its Maker, dies despairing. I took out my pocket-book, to pencil a short note to the owner of my wretched home, begging her to accept my small stock of worldly goods as a remuneration for her slight pecuniary loss, when, as I opened it to tear from it a leaf, a letter fell upon the ground. I snatched it up; a gleam of hope flashed upon my soul. It was the letter of introduction given to me by my generous friend of a day. I felt the hand of heaven had interposed between me and damnation. The magnitude of the crime I was about to commit came fully before me; my feelings softened, my soul melted into tears; and on my knees, with a heart bowed down by misfortune, and filled with feelings of remorse and gratitude, I poured forth my prayers and thanks to God.”

He returned home once more, with a heart humbled and trusting. In the morning he waited upon the gentleman to whom the note was addressed, and was received in the kindest manner. He led him to speak of his prospects, and asked why the letter had not been delivered before. My poor friend then related how he had relied upon his talents, and recounted all the misfortunes and disappointments which had befallen him. Mr. Singleton seemed much touched by the recital, and begged him to dine with him that day, and in the meantime he would think how he could assist him. With expressions of gratitude Moreton took his departure. The events of the party had better be told in his own words. “On reaching Mr. Singleton’s house, I was introduced to his daughter, a creature so lovely, that to gaze upon was to adore. Of the middle stature, with a form of the most perfect symmetry; her face was oval, with a complexion neath which the warm blood came and went, as warm tints play upon the snow-crowned Alps. An intellectual brow, sad and contemplative; with eyes of great beauty, bespeaking a depth and intensity of passion, whose wildest fires were hidden, and were only to be roused by the emotions of the soul. There was some unutterable charm about every movement of her form or features which entranced me. I felt at once that I had found my destiny, and therefore did not attempt to place any restraint upon my feelings. I could not deny myself the luxury of drinking in love with her every look or word. I felt myself urged toward her by an irresistible impulse, and did not, therefore, attempt to check it. In the evening, Mr. Singleton begged me to publish a song, and dedicate it to him, and said that he should like me to overlook the musical studies of his daughter. Had the proudest fortune been placed at my disposal, it would not have inspired me with the deep joy this privilege bestowed upon me. I should then be near her; should see her often, and be blessed by a smile from those speaking eyes. The past was all forgotten. The sorrows of my past life were all merged in dreams of future happiness.

“In the course of the evening I was introduced to the nephew of my host, a low-browed youth, with a keen grey eye, and a look of habitual cunning, but poorly concealed under a manner of assumed frankness. Months, nay, two years passed away, and found me still attending at the house. My prospects were much improved. I had many pupils, and the few things I had published were highly spoken of. Those years were passed in a state of intoxicating delight. I lived but for her; it was her image that inspired me when I wrote; it was ever before me, and formed at once my blessing and my bane. When I thought of the immense distance which wealth had placed between us, I felt how utterly hopeless was my love—and I was wretched. Then it was that music came to my aid. I would sit for hours at my piano, and in its harmony forget all else beside. While there, what are to me the pomp and luxury of the rich and great? What to me their parties and their feastings? Do they enjoy for one moment the blissful rapture which fills my heart then? Do they revel in rapture, purged of all earthly grossness? These are the remunerating moments of a musician’s wretched life. The soul seems floating in an atmosphere of delicious harmony; a sad but pleasing melancholy comes on; a grateful languor falls upon his heart, and softens it to happiness. How indefinable those feelings; the emotions then felt have no sympathy with things that be; the present has no connection with it; it is like the dream of some dim, far-off land of beauty, the mortal eye never saw, but with which the memory of the soul seems charged. I cannot word the feeling—it is nameless.”

But I must bring the history to a conclusion. A month or two after the date of the last quotation, he was tempted to declare his love, which, to his great joy, was returned with an ardor equal to his own. He had gained her heart’s first love—her young heart’s deep devotion was his, and given with a fervor which nothing could exceed. For months they enjoyed uninterrupted happiness, when, after a short illness, her father died. His property was left entirely, saving an annuity to the nephew, to Adeline, with this proviso, that if she died without heirs, the whole was to revert to the nephew. Expressing at the same time a wish that their fortunes should be united. Time wore on, and at the end of the mourning, Adeline promised to wed Moreton. Her cousin had, by every means in his power, endeavored to gain possession of her hand, but had met with a decided refusal, and to avoid further persecution, Adeline left London on a visit for a few months. The lovers parted with every expression of tenderness and unalterable affection—but they parted to meet no more in happiness. Her cousin, Arlington, maddened by the indignant refusal he had met with, and the probable loss of the property, determined to use every means in his power to frustrate the intended marriage. This he was enabled to effect, by bribing the waiting-maid of Adeline. She was, indeed, the confidant of her mistress. From childhood had she lived with her, and had been treated more as an humble friend than a servant. Many and sore were the poor girl’s struggles of conscience, but the offered reward was too much for honesty to resist, and she fell. A few weeks after Adeline’s departure, Moreton was seized with an illness which proved to be a malignant fever, at that time very prevalent, which confined him to his bed for many weeks. No letters came to him. Between the wanderings of his mind at the fever’s height, he would ask for the letters from Adeline, his wife, and would not believe but that they were kept from him. As health began, though slowly, to come, he wrote to Adeline, telling her of his illness, and complaining of her neglect; to which he received in reply a renouncement of every vow, at the same time declining any further correspondence with the fortune-hunter. The shock occasioned by this letter, so unexpected and so cruel, acting upon a constitution debilitated by a long illness, brought on an inflammatory fever, which rendered him helpless for months. As he recovered, his landlady, a good old babbling soul, used to bring the newspapers and read to him in the hope to divert his mind, and rouse him from his habitual melancholy. He listened, for he would not hurt the feelings of one who had been as a mother to him during his long illness. One morning she read, among other things, that “Miss Adeline Singleton, the rich heiress, would be led to the hymenial altar by her cousin, Alfred Arlington, Esq., to-morrow morning at Hanover Church.” Ernest scarcely started, but begged for the paper, and to be left alone. His course was fixed. . . . . . . .

The bride and bridegroom approached the altar! Ah! never was there a sadder bride—the roses that were placed upon her brow were not more pale than she. Life held but a slight tenure in that fair form, for the hectic spot upon her cheek betrayed that the grave was not far distant. The priest had raised his voice to breathe the prayer that was to join their hands forever, when a form was seen hastening up the aisle, with a tottering and uncertain step—he approached the altar; with a wild, haggard and death-like look, gazed upon the bride, and uttering her name sunk at her feet. The poor girl shrieked out, “Ernest!” and swooned in the arms of her bridemaids. She was carried to her home, never to stir from thence, but to a quieter home—the grave. Moreton, who had left his sick couch to meet her at the altar, was removed to his dwelling, and for three days remained in a state of listless stupor. On the fourth day, a note from Adeline, begging him to come to her, roused him from his lethargy, and, reckless of consequences, he complied with her request. With a beating heart he entered the house; he found her reclining on a couch, with the traces of recent tears upon her cheeks, and very, very pale. On seeing him a bright smile irradiated her countenance; he approached not—anger and love were struggling in his breast for mastery. She held out her hands to him and murmured, “dear Ernest!” Love had triumphed! he was kneeling by her side. Then came that outpouring of the heart—that blissful confidence; sighs, tears, and deep regrets spoken by each, removed ages of sorrow from their hearts.

On the disastrous termination of the wedding, the faithless servant, conscience-stricken, disclosed the whole of the scene of heartless treachery acted by her at the instigation of the villain Arlington. How she, assisted by him, had intercepted letters; written others in their place, and, by a system of the most artful deception, contrived to make Moreton appear despicable, and to raise Arlington, in the estimation of Adeline. The continued illness of Moreton materially assisted their plot, as he could not defend himself. His guilt and falsehood were made so apparent, that Adeline could not doubt their existence, and with a woman’s heart, as quick in revenge as in love, and unswerving in both, in mortified pride and wounded feelings, she gave her consent to marry her cousin. But now all doubts were at an end, and they could smile again and hope for the future.

Too true is it, that even in life we are in the midst of death! The thought of Moreton’s falsehood had fixed sorrow too deeply in her heart for health to live there too. During their separation, after the scheming of the plotters began to take effect, she sought earnestly to banish every feeling of love from her heart. But who shall control the heart—a woman’s heart? Her love is not a thing of calculation; she looks not to external circumstances; she asks not even if he be worthy of her affection. If once her love be given, it is given without reserve. The whole volume of that mighty and absorbing passion is laid at his feet. Her all of earthly happiness is placed in his possession; no other passion divides with it the interest of her heart; no other feelings or sensations, save those which have their rise in this all-powerful passion, can dwell therein. All ties of relationship or friendship are trifling, compared to that tie which binds her heart to his, and sink to nothing in the scale when opposed to it. To him she awards all the attributes of virtue and honor; friends may condemn him; fortune may leave him; the present may be a blank, and the future without a hope, but she clings only the closer to him. She feels a sort of selfish joy at being his only comfort; the only thing left him to love, that leads her almost to rejoice in the misfortunes which make her his all in all. Her heart teems with exhaustless affection, that only flows more freely the more sorrow assails the object of her love. Though where this deep feeling exists it must be paramount, yet the correlative passions of self-love and jealousy are also there; and though dormant when no exciting cause is in action, yet, when aroused, they go near to banish love forever from the heart, however deeply based. Adeline’s self-love had been aroused most powerfully; the thought of being loved only for her wealth galled her proud, but warm and confiding soul.

Here at once were scattered all her most cherished hopes. She had hitherto looked upon life as a bright and happy dream, thinking but to wake from it when the grave should have opened to her dazzled sight the glories of our heavenly home. But now the veil was torn aside, and cold deceit was placed before her view, which had hitherto only looked on love and joy. To be thus suddenly awoke from the beautiful but fallacious dreamings which our first love ever weaves around us: to have the world with all its selfishness thrust thus rudely upon our shuddering hearts, is hard indeed. No shock of after years can ever equal its intensity. All the ties and pleasant memories that our past life has created are at once severed; the past has no connection with the present; one is all dream, the other stern and rugged truth. It is not, then, to be wondered at, that so frail a thing as a woman’s heart, under the feeling of her first and only love, should sink beneath the disruption of all her fondest wishes. The idol she worshiped has been unsanctified; its altar desecrated, and her heart lies shattered at its feet, a useless sacrifice. And the same spirit which led her to give her hand to another, to hide from the common gaze her hopeless sufferings, was silently, but surely, undermining her health, and sowing the seeds of that remorseless disease which in a few months removed her broken spirit from its earthly travail. . . . . . .

The disease rapidly assumed a more alarming aspect. Physicians were called in; they advised a change of climate, but at the same time feared that nothing could save her life. She felt that hope was past, and refused to leave her home. For the few months she lived, Ernest never left her. The days were passed in performing acts of the tenderest solicitude, and the nights in feverish slumbers, whose visions showed him his Adeline in all her former loveliness, and pictured forth scenes of deep and holy love, such as might have been his, had Heaven so willed it, only to sink him deeper in despair by the contrast the waking truth presented.

He would read to her the wild and visionary tales of Germany, and her eyes would brighten as she listened to some speculative but beautiful theory of the future, or she would clasp his hand within her own, and gaze up into his eyes with unspeakable affection, as she listened to some tale of deep devotion, and murmur out, “they must have loved as we love.” She would listen to his music for hours, with a breathless attention, absorbed and unconscious of the passing time, as if unwilling to lose one note of that harmony which must soon sound for her in vain. Nothing so heightens and refines the passion of love as music; that passion which would be firm and vigorous without its aid, becomes under its influence more refined, luxurious, more blissful, more yielding, but not less holy. All grossness and sensuality are purged from it; the heart is softened to languor, but at the same time etherealized.