there is nothing more strange, but nothing more certain, than the different influence which the seasons of night and day exercise upon the moods of our minds. him whom the moon sends to bed with a head full of misty meaning the sun-will summon in the morning with a brain clear and lucid as his beam. twilight makes us pensive; aurora is the goddess of activity. despair curses at midnight; hope blesses at noon.
and the bright beams of phoebus — why should this good old name be forgotten? — called up our duke rather later than a monk at matins, in a less sublime disposition than that in which he had paced among the orange-trees of dacre. his passion remained, but his poetry was gone. he was all confidence, and gaiety, and love, and panted for the moment when he could place his mother’s coronet on the only head that was worthy to share the proud fortunes of the house of hauteville.
‘luigi, i will rise. what is going on today?’ ‘the gentlemen are all out, your grace.’
‘and the ladies?’
‘are going to the archery ground, your grace.’
‘ah! she will be there, luigi?’
‘yes, your grace.’
‘my robe, luigi.’
‘yes, your grace.’
‘i forgot what i was going to say. luigi!’
‘yes, your grace.’
‘luigi, luigi, luigi,’ hummed the duke, perfectly unconscious, and beating time with his brush. his valet stared, but more when his lord, with eyes fixed on the ground, fell into a soliloquy, not a word of which, most provokingly, was audible, except to my reader.
‘how beautiful she looked yesterday upon the keep when she tried to find dacre! i never saw such eyes in my life! i must speak to lawrence immediately. i think i must have her face painted in four positions, like that picture of lady alice gordon by sir joshua. her full face is sublime; and yet there is a piquancy in the profile, which i am not sure — and yet again, when her countenance is a little bent towards you, and her neck gently turned, i think that is, after all — but then when her eyes meet yours, full! oh! yes! yes! yes! that first look at doncaster! it is impressed upon my brain like self-consciousness. i never can forget it. but then her smile! when she sang on tuesday night! by heavens!’ he exclaimed aloud, ‘life with such a creature is immortality!’
about one o’clock the duke descended into empty chambers. not a soul was to be seen. the birds had flown. he determined to go to the archery ground. he opened the door of the music-room.
he found miss dacre alone at a table, writing. she looked up, and his heart yielded as her eye met his.
‘you do not join the nymphs?’ asked the duke.
‘i have lent my bow,’ she said, ‘to an able substitute.’
she resumed her task, which he perceived was copying music. he advanced, he seated himself at the table, and began playing with a pen. he gazed upon her, his soul thrilled with unwonted sensations, his frame shook with emotions which, for a moment, deprived him even of speech. at length he spoke in a low and tremulous tone:—
‘i fear i am disturbing you, miss dacre?’
‘by no means,’ she said, with a courteous air; and then, remembering she was a hostess, ‘is there anything that you require?’
‘much; more than i can hope. o miss dacre! suffer me to tell you how much i admire, how much i love you!’
she started, she stared at him with distended eyes, and her small mouth was open like a ring.
‘my lord!’
‘yes!’ he continued in a rapid and impassioned tone. ‘i at length find an opportunity of giving way to feelings which it has been long difficult for me to control. o beautiful being! tell me, tell me that i am blessed!’
‘my lord! i— i am most honoured; pardon me if i say, most surprised.’
‘yes! from the first moment that your ineffable loveliness rose on my vision my mind has fed upon your image. our acquaintance has only realised, of your character, all that my imagination had preconceived, such unrivalled beauty, such unspeakable grace, could only have been the companions of that exquisite taste and that charming delicacy which, even to witness, has added great felicity to my existence. oh! tell me — tell me that they shall be for me something better than a transient spectacle. condescend to share the fortune and the fate of one who only esteems his lot in life because it enables him to offer you a station not utterly unworthy of your transcendent excellence!’
‘i have permitted your grace to proceed too far. for your — for my own sake, i should sooner have interfered, but, in truth, i was so astounded at your unexpected address that i have but just succeeded in recalling my scattered senses. let me again express to you my acknowledgments for an honour which i feel is great; but permit me to regret that for your offer of your hand and fortune these acknowledgments are all i can return.’
‘miss dacre! am i then to wake to the misery of being rejected?’
‘a little week ago, duke of st. james, we were strangers. it would be hard if it were in the power of either of us now to deliver the other to misery.’
‘you are offended, then, at the presumption which, on so slight an acquaintance, has aspired to your hand. it is indeed a high possession. i thought only of you, not of myself. your perfections require no time for recognition. perhaps my imperfections require time for indulgence. let me then hope!’
‘you have misconceived my meaning, and i regret that a foolish phrase should occasion you the trouble of fresh solicitude, and me the pain of renewed refusal. in a word, it is not in my power to accept your hand.’
he rose from the table, and stifled the groan which struggled in his throat. he paced up and down the room with an agitated step and a convulsed brow, which marked the contest of his passions. but he was not desperate. his heart was full of high resolves and mighty meanings, indefinite but great, he felt like some conqueror, who, marking the battle going against him, proud in his infinite resources and invincible power, cannot credit the madness of a defeat. and the lady, she leant her head upon her delicate arm, and screened her countenance from his scrutiny.
he advanced.
‘miss dacre! pardon this prolonged intrusion; forgive this renewed discourse. but let me only hope that a more favoured rival is the cause of my despair, and i will thank you ——’
‘my lord duke,’ she said, looking up with a faint blush, but with a flashing eye, and in an audible and even energetic tone, ‘the question you ask is neither fair nor manly; but, as you choose to press me, i will say that it requires no recollection of a third person to make me decline the honour which you intended me.’
‘miss dacre! you speak in anger, almost in bitterness. believe me,’ he added, rather with an air of pique, ‘had i imagined from your conduct towards me that i was an object of dislike, i would have spared you this inconvenience and myself this humiliation.’
‘at castle dacre, my conduct to all its inmates is the same. the duke of st. james, indeed, hath both hereditary and personal claims to be considered here as something better than a mere inmate; but your grace has elected to dissolve all connection with our house, and i am not desirous of assisting you in again forming any.’
‘harsh words, miss dacre!’
‘harsher truth, my lord duke,’ said miss dacre, rising from her seat, and twisting a pen with agitated energy. ‘you have prolonged this interview, not i. let it end, for i am not skilful in veiling my mind; and i should regret, here at least, to express what i have hitherto succeeded in concealing.’
‘it cannot end thus,’ said his grace: ‘let me, at any rate, know the worst. you have, if not too much kindness, at least too much candour, to part sol’ ‘i am at a loss to understand,’ said miss dacre, ‘what other object our conversation can have for your grace than to ascertain my feelings, which i have already declared more than once, upon a point which you have already more than once urged. if i have not been sufficiently explicit or sufficiently clear, let me tell you, sir, that nothing but the request of a parent whom i adore would have induced me even to speak to the person who had dared to treat him with contempt.’ ‘miss dacre!’
‘you are moved, or you affect to be moved. ’tis well: if a word from a stranger can thus affect you, you may be better able to comprehend the feelings of that person whose affections you have so long outraged; your equal in blood, duke of st. james, your superior in all other respects.’
‘beautiful being!’ said his grace, advancing, falling on his knee, and seizing her hand. ‘pardon, pardon, pardon! like your admirable sire, forgive; cast into oblivion all remembrance of my fatal youth. is not your anger, is not this moment, a bitter, an utter expiation for all my folly, all my thoughtless, all my inexperienced folly; for it was no worse? on my knees, and in the face of heaven, let me pray you to be mine. i have staked my happiness upon this venture. in your power is my fate. on you it depends whether i shall discharge my duty to society, to the country to which i owe so much, or whether i shall move in it without an aim, an object, or a hope. think, think only of the sympathy of our dispositions; the similarity of our tastes. think, think only of the felicity that might be ours. think of the universal good we might achieve! is there anything that human reason could require that we could not command? any object which human mind could imagine that we could not obtain? and, as for myself, i swear that i will be the creature of your will. nay, nay! oaths are mockery, vows are idle! is it possible to share existence with you, beloved girl! without watching for your every wish, without —’
‘my lord duke, this must end. you do not recommend yourself to me by this rhapsody. what do you know of me, that you should feel all this? i may be different from what you expected; that is all. another week, and another woman may command a similar effusion. i do not believe you to be insincere. there would be more hope for you if you were. you act from impulse, and not from principle. this is your best excuse for your conduct to my father. it is one that i accept, but which will certainly ever prevent me from becoming your wife. farewell!’ ‘nay, nay! let us not part in enmity!’ ‘enmity and friendship are strong words; words that are much abused. there is another, which must describe our feelings towards the majority of mankind, and mine towards you. substitute for enmity indifference.’
she quitted the room: he remained there for some minutes, leaning on the mantelpiece, and then rushed into the park. he hurried for some distance with the rapid and uncertain step which betokens a tumultuous and disordered mind. at length he found himself among the ruins of dacre abbey. the silence and solemnity of the scene made him conscious, by the contrast, of his own agitated existence; the desolation of the beautiful ruin accorded with his own crushed and beautiful hopes. he sat himself at the feet of the clustered columns, and, covering his face with his hands, he wept.
they were the first tears that he had shed since childhood, and they were agony. men weep but once, but then their tears are blood. we think almost their hearts must crack a little, so heartless are they ever after. enough of this.
it is bitter to leave our fathers hearth for the first time; bitter is the eve of our return, when a thousand fears rise in our haunted souls. bitter are hope deferred, and self-reproach, and power unrecognised. bitter is poverty; bitterer still is debt. it is bitter to be neglected; it is more bitter to be misunderstood. it is bitter to lose an only child. it is bitter to look upon the land which once was ours. bitter is a sister’s woe, a brother’s scrape; bitter a mother’s tear, and bitterer still a father’s curse. bitter are a briefless bag, a curate’s bread, a diploma that brings no fee. bitter is half-pay!
it is bitter to muse on vanished youth; it is bitter to lose an election or a suit. bitter are rage suppressed, vengeance unwreaked, and prize-money kept back. bitter are a failing crop, a glutted market, and a shattering spec. bitter are rents in arrear and tithes in kind. bitter are salaries reduced and perquisites destroyed. bitter is a tax, particularly if misapplied; a rate, particularly if embezzled. bitter is a trade too full, and bitterer still a trade that has worn out. bitter is a bore!
it is bitter to lose one’s hair or teeth. it is bitter to find our annual charge exceed our income. it is bitter to hear of others’ fame when we are boys. it is bitter to resign the seals we fain would keep. it is bitter to hear the winds blow when we have ships at sea, or friends. bitter are a broken friendship and a dying love. bitter a woman scorned, a man betrayed!
bitter is the secret woe which none can share. bitter are a brutal husband and a faithless wife, a silly daughter and a sulky son. bitter are a losing card, a losing horse. bitter the public hiss, the private sneer. bitter are old age without respect, manhood without wealth, youth without fame. bitter is the east wind’s blast; bitter a stepdame’s kiss. it is bitter to mark the woe which we cannot relieve. it is bitter to die in a foreign land.
but bitterer far than this, than these, than all, is waking from our first delusion! for then we first feel the nothingness of self; that hell of sanguine spirits. all is dreary, blank, and cold. the sun of hope sets without a ray, and the dim night of dark despair shadows only phantoms. the spirits that guard round us in our pride have gone. fancy, weeping, flies. imagination droops her glittering pinions and sinks into the earth. courage has no heart, and love seems a traitor. a busy demon whispers in our ear that all is vain and worthless, and we among the vainest of a worthless crew!
and so our young friend here now depreciated as much as he had before exaggerated his powers. there seemed not on the earth’s face a more forlorn, a more feeble, a less estimable wretch than himself, but just now a hero. o! what a fool, what a miserable, contemptible fool was he! with what a light tongue and lighter heart had he spoken of this woman who despised, who spurned him! his face blushed, ay! burnt, at the remembrance of his reveries and his fond monologues! the very recollection made him shudder with disgust. he looked up to see if any demon were jeering him among the ruins.
his heart was so crushed that hope could not find even one desolate chamber to smile in. his courage was so cowed that, far from indulging in the distant romance to which, under these circumstances, we sometimes fly, he only wondered at the absolute insanity which, for a moment, had permitted him to aspire to her possession. ‘sympathy of dispositions! similarity of tastes, forsooth! why, we are different existences! nature could never have made us for the same world or with the same clay! o consummate being! why, why did we meet? why, why are my eyes at length unsealed? why, why do i at length feel conscious of my utter worthlessness? o god! i am miserable!’ he arose and hastened to the house. he gave orders to luigi and his people to follow him to rosemount with all practicable speed, and having left a note for his host with the usual excuse, he mounted his horse, and in half an hour’s time, with a countenance like a stormy sea, was galloping through the park gates of dacre.
