LETTER VIIL From Bellamour to Carlos, relating the story of his I AM glad to find you so entirely satisfied, so completely blessed, amidst the noise and amusements of the town. I congratulate your enjoyment of assemblies, operas, and masquerades. But all your boasted pleasures cannot raise my envy at present, nor tempt me back from the country. My mind is in such a fantastic disposition, that I find more satisfaction in talking to trees, streams, and echoes, than to reasonable creatures. I converse frequently with a row of willows, that grow on the banks of a neigh bouring river, and have often called them to witness what they neither hear nor understand. The streams are often swelled with my tears, without ever rising to a deluge; and the rocks melted at my complaints without losing one atom of their bulk. But while I laugh at myself, I shall easily forgive you, if you should take the same liberty, and enter into the ridicule of my character. You are a lover yourself of the modern jovial kind, quite the reverse of the solemn antiquated form of Pastor Fido, Don Quixote, and your humble servant. All this raillery is forced, and only used in policy. that I may tell my story with a good grace to a man of your gaiety. You know how the young Elvira was left to my-father's care by her mother; and, by a contract between both our parents, was, from her childhood, designed a wife for me. But neither her beauty nor vast fortune have had the least influence on me to make any addresses to her. I have conversed with her with great indifference, and thought I had reason to believe she had the same for me, But my father, in order to make good his engagements, when he was on his death-bed, desired me to promise him, with the greatest solemnity, to mar ry her. As he had been the best of parents, I promised him, without any reluctance, on condition that Elvira did not refuse me; of which I had some secret hopes.However, as I then had no other inclination, I was in no manner of care whether she accepted or refused me. But when I was last in town, and walking in the Mall, I met one of the most agreeable women I ever saw. She was tall, and exactly shaped; her eyes large and fine; with something soft and persuasive in her air; something of thought, of wit, of significancy, which I cannot express. Whether I then met my fellow-mind, that had been paired for me by destiny; or whether in some preexistent state we had been acquainted, I know not; but I flattered myself she observed me without contempt. I spent my time in following, or endeavouring to meet her; and at last had made myself so remarkable, that she seemed to think herself obliged to avoid me, As far as I could, without being ridiculous by my curiosity, I in quired after her; but left the walks uninformed who she was. I was in a day or two forced to go into the country; where I was detained for some months, endeavouring in vain to forget the fair stranger I had seen. In this temper I was taking a solitary ramble from my own seat, till I came to the entrance of a wood that was near the Earl of's park. Here I found, surprising as a heavenly vision, the lovely form that had charmed me, sitting with a Milton in her hand; which she was reading with such attention, that I spoke to her before she saw me. She immediately withdrew into the park: but I followed her, and told her the happiness of my life depended on her attention; which in the most modest manner she at last granted, and heard the soft relation. That little success gave me such hopes, that I pursued the affair on every opportunity I could prevail with her to give me. For, as my fortune and rank were superior to her's, which was only dependent, she acted with great caution; and convinced me, that she possessed all that true grandeur of mind that conscious virtue inspires. Her wit, the elegance of her behaviour, with a thousand graces that attended her whole conduct, secured her con quest, and confined all my hopes of earthly happiness to the possession of the charming maid. Nor did I fear the least obstacle to my wishes; for I had told her my engagement to my father, and the full certainty I had (as indeed I thought) of Elvira's refusal; which I now went to ask with a perfect assurance that I should receive it. Her coldness did not seem to have the air of affectation, but rather the effect of a secret aversion. I looked on myself to be a sort of incumbrance entailed on her by her ancestors, of which she would be joyfully freed; and in the gaiety of my heart, made her an offer of my person, such as it was, without the least expectation of being accepted; as I was, to my unspeakable confusion. She perceived my disappointment with a modest, but tender concern; and put me into a disorder that I could not easily recover. I knew my love to the beautiful Almeda was a secret to every body but ourselves; and if it had been known, I would do Elvira the justice to confess, that there was a sweetness in her temper, almost incapable of malice. However, I durst not discover the affair without Almeda's consent: to whom I went, in the height of my distress, to let her know the disappointment. She grew pale at the relation, sunk into my arms, and only spoke with tears; but soon left me, without letting me know her resolution, till within a few hours I received the. inclosed. To Bellamour. I BEG you to forget, and never think of seeing me again; nor let any thing tempt you to violate your 6 engagement to a dying father. It would be barbarous in you to abandon the fair Elvira, who was an orphan cast on the protection of your family. Do not enter tain one anxious thought for me: I was the care of • Providence when I was unknown to you, and that will be my refuge in all future distress.-Adieu for ever! ALMEDA.' I am just going to discover our mutual passion to Elvira, and to shew her this letter, in hopes that compassion will prevail with her to refuse me; and cannot but flatter myself with success, from the gentleness of her disposition. I am, in all the changes of fortune, My dear Carlos, Sincerely yours, BELLAMOUR. [See the sequel of this story in letter 17. part II.] LETTER IX. To Philario from the Duke of on his death-bed. written BEFORE you receive this, my final state will be determined by the Judge of all the earth in a few days at most, perhaps in a few hours, the inevitable sentence will be passed, that shall raise me to the heights of happiness, or sink me to the depths of misery. While you read these lines, I shall either be groaning under the agonies of absolute despair, or triumphing in fulness of joy. [ It is impossible for me to express the present disposition of my soul, the vast uncertainty I am struggling with. No words can paint the force and vivacity of my apprehensions. Every doubt wears the face of horror; and would perfectly overwhelm me, but for some faint beams of hope which dart across the tremendous gloom. What tongue can utter the anguish of a soul suspended between the extremes of infinite joy, or eternal misery! I am throwing my last stake for eternity, and tremble and shudder for the important event. Good God! how have I employed myself! what inchantment has held me! in what delirium has my life' been passed! what have I been doing while the sun in its race, and the stars in their courses, have lent their beams, perhaps only to light me to perdition, I never waked till now. I have but just commenced the dignity of a rational being. Till this instant, I had a wrong apprehension of every thing in nature: I have pursued shadows, entertained myself with dreams; I have been treasuring up dust, and sporting myself with the wind. I look back on my past life; and, but for some memorials of infamy and guilt, it is all a blank, a perfect vacancy. I might have grazed with the beasts of the field, or sung with the winged inhabitants in the woods, to much better purpose than any for which I have lived. And, oh! but for some faint hope, a thousand times more blessed had I been to have slept with the clods of the valley, and never heard the Almighty Fiat, nor waked into life at his command! I never had a just apprehension of the solemnity of the part I am to act till now. I have often met death insulting on the hostile plain, and with a stupid boast defied his terrors. With a courage as brutal as that of the warlike horse, I have rushed into the battle, laughed at the glittering spear, and rejoiced at the sound of the trumpet; nor had a thought of any state beyond the grave, nor the great tribunal, to which I must have been summoned : Where all my secret guilt had been reveal'd, It is this which arms death with all its terrors; else I could still mock at fear, and smile in the face of the gloomy monarch. It is not giving up my breath, it is. not being for ever insensible, is the thought at which I shrink; it is the terrible hereafter, the something beyond the grave, at which I recoil. Those great realities, which, in the hours of mirth and vanity, I have treated as phantoms, as the idle dreams of superstitious brains; these start forth, and dare me now in their most terrible demonstration. My awakened conscience feels something of that eternal vengeance I have often defied. To what heights of madness is it possible for human nature to reach? What extravagance is it to jest with death? to laugh at damnation! to sport with eternal chains, and recreate a jovial fancy with the scenes of infernal misery! |