 | A TALE OF FAERIE.
THE IDEA BORROWED FROM THE GERMAN. The book of my lady |  |
A TALE OF FAERIE.
THE IDEA BORROWED FROM THE GERMAN.
Where the yellow bees do work;
In the wild grass, in the flow'rs,
Now in sunshine, now in show'rs,
Ever in some sportive play,
They do while the hours away—
Would your eyes their follies see,
And their pleasures?—come with me.”
I had been to the soiree of Isabel Beaumont—young
Isabel, as her neighbours called her—sweet Isabel, as
she truly deserves to be called. I had spent an evening
most pleasantly; and though not extravagantly impressed
with the many blooms and beauties scattered
around me, I was not so much of the stoic as to reject
entirely the influence of their sweet and various associations.
Besides, I had been caressed and flattered.
Isabel, herself a wit and poetess, had freely bestowed
her eulogies upon my own poor efforts in that way;
and though affecting a stubborn indifference to all the
honours of popular renown, I could not altogether resist
the gratification which its applause, coming through
the medium of such sweet lips, necessarily brought
along with it.
“Why do you not come oftener?” she enquired, as
she rebuked me for my past inattention; “why shut
sinners, denying yourselves the sunshine, whether
of nature or society; plotting, no doubt, as much
against the state, as against its female sovereignty?
Are you really so insensible as you pretend? and must
we in truth be taught the mortifying consciousness,
that charms such as ours can do nothing towards making
you more civilised—more human? Be assured,
unless you show signs, and those shortly,—of a better
disposition, in sheer pique and mortification, I shall
quarter myself upon you. I shall penetrate your innermost
sanctuary—break the mystical silence of your dim
abode, with all the various real and imagined terrors
which the proverb has ascribed to the woman voice;
making your ears ring with a peal to which they have
not as yet become accustomed, and which, I flatter myself,
like other severe specifics, warrantable only in
cases the most desperate and hopeless, will go very far
either to cure or—kill you.”
She shook her fan threateningly as she spoke; and,
though trembling with apprehension lest she should, at
some future period, and under the impulse of some one
of those whims which have a large influence, at all
times, upon the female understanding, and sometimes
made away even with hers—actually do as she had
threatened—I made large promises of future amendment.
I even went so far as to utter my satisfaction
with the terms and tenor of the proposed visitation; but
I need not say to the reader, with how much insincerity.
Three quiet bachelors as we were—so unfamiliar to
all noise and bustle—so unwilling to be crowded—so
unprepared for such an intrusion—what an awful
members of our college survive the shock and terrors
of such an infliction. The quiet deities of our worship,
effectually frightened away by the unwonted din
which such a creature would bring along with her,
would never look behind them in their departure, and
surely never contemplate a return; and all the repose
and security to which we had so completely given ourselves
up, would be lost for evermore in the advent of
that terrible power, which, though clothed in petticoats,
is any thing but petty. The subject was quite too
painful for contemplation, and I did not linger long
after this dialogue. All my spirits, animal and mental,
had taken their departure, and I felt the necessity of at
once going after them. I found myself momently growing
more and more sick and stupid; and, as the arrangements
of the party were in rapid progress towards a
country dance, without beat of drum, I sidled along by
the noisy array, and found the stairway pleasantly contiguous.
Be assured, I paused not to number the steps.
I hurried home as quickly as possible; and marvellous
long was the breath I drew on entering once more in
safety the sacred walls of our symposium.
Such had been the hurry in which my exit had been
taken, that I had altogether forgotten to cast from me,
on leaving the abode in which I had suffered so much
peril, a fine, full rosebud, one of the first of the season,
given me at the commencement of the evening by the
fair hostess, with a grace and sweetness of manner
which was irresistible. I had, at the time, placed it,
with an air of the most tragic description, in the folds
of my vest, from whence, with a most lack-a-daisical
my veteran habits, and grave temper, such a foppery
was not only unbecoming, but particularly ungracious
in my own sight; and I gave into it, merely to avoid
reproof for that ruggedness of demeanour which the
vulgar are always apt to couple with the pursuits and
temper of philosophy. Had I not been so thoroughly
troubled and terrified with the threat which had driven
me home, the outré appearance of such an ornament,
would not, as may well be supposed, have been suffered
so long to distinguish the garb of one to whom it could
yield so little satisfaction.
I hurried into the garden immediately on my return.
I felt too much disquietude to take my usual seat in the
sanctum, and had no wish for supper, in the discussion
of which I saw that my two companions were
already lustily engaged. I threw myself upon a bench
that lay half buried in the long grass of our arbour, and
gave myself up to meditation. While speculating upon
the subjects suggested by the manner in which my evening
had been passed, I unconsciously took the flower
from my bosom, and proceeded to pull it to pieces. It
was a beautiful bud, of the largest size, swollen almost
to bursting, and promising in a few hours to unfold itself
and all its sweetness to the desiring sense. At another
moment, and in another mood, I should not have destroyed
it.—I should have regarded the act as inhuman.
But now I was fairly roused and ruffled; and,
with a malicious delight, mingled pretty evenly with
an abstract wandering of my thought, I beheld leaf
by leaf torn away rudely from the purple mansion of
fingers. As I thus toiled, I mused and murmured.
“Yes, her tongue would make a fine abode for the
student—we should never hear the end of it—there
would `be no sleep for all the house,' any more than
for that of Dunsinane. The same cry might fill our
ears as filled that of Macbeth. She would not only
murder sleep, but one would not be permitted a snore
beyond one's breath—she would murder silence too.”
And, as I soliloquised, sentence by sentence, the
rose, leaf by leaf, was undergoing demolition; until but
the last circlet, the innermost fold of the poor flower
was all that survived, in mournful attestation, as well
of its own beauty, as of the misplaced generosity of
Isabel Beaumont. I paused as my fingers approached
this last recess. I shuddered at my own barbarity. I
could not help the thought which rebuked me for thus
wantonly destroying that which gave so much, though
perhaps momentary, gratification, and was at the same
time, intrinsically, so sweet and beautiful. How many
senses, so much more deserving than my own, had I
not deprived and defrauded of their proper solace?
What life had I not wronged of its true subsistence?
Though, possibly, not constituted myself to find luxury
or delight in a source so humble, were there not thousands
to whom the bud which I had destroyed and
trampled, would have been both cheering and charming?
Would not the waning life of the consumptive
have gathered something from its fine odour and delicate
tints, well adapted to gladden senses attenuated to
kindred and like delicacy? I shuddered at my thoughtless
brutality, and was about to restore the remnant of
sigh rose from the still unbroken petals, which audibly
commanded my attention. I paused and listened. In
a few seconds, something, savouring of human tones
and familiar language, struck upon my senses, and I
bent down to hear. They had not deceived me, for
after a slight interval, a voice again syllabled forth,
from the bosom of the flower, sounds which, though
confused and broken, I was yet enabled to understand.
What did this mean?—I was almost tempted to dash
the mysterious blossom to my feet, when the prisoner,
for such he was, as if comprehending my emotion and
design, appealed to me in terms of energy and feeling;
calling upon me in language of the utmost entreaty to
conclude the labour I had begun, and by destroying
his dungeon, release him from his captivity.
I did as he desired. I tore away the few leaves that
still adhered to the stem, and then, for the first time,
discovered the cause of that great size, which had
made it remarkable. A tiny and glittering form, with
shape like our own, but of dimensions the most diminutive,
rose from the recumbent and contracted position,
which the tightly drawn leaves had forced upon it. It
was slender and graceful—symmetrically perfect in
every feature; and, with a face whose expression,
though delineated in a compass the most pigmy and
insignificant, was that of winning, yet manly beauty.
Its dress seemed that of the first and freshest leaves
of the early summer, the green of which was curiously
and gorgeously adorned with hues of gold, of saffron,
and purple, inwrought and intermingled with the main
texture. Golden wings depended from its shoulders,
black, while the down of their extremities was of the
most brilliant yet delicate crimson. It was altogether
a being of light and loveliness. I gazed with wonder,
coupled with unqualified delight, and, for a while, had
no words to express either my astonishment or curiosity.
The little creature, in the meanwhile, as if desiring
more perfectly to comprehend his freedom, leapt gracefully
into the air, making a dozen circuits, with a whirling
rapidity indicative of his rapture, then, suddenly,
with an expression of the utmost confidence, stooping,
at last, and perching himself upon a clump of boxwood
that grew beside me.
“And who and what are you?” was my enquiry
upon his return.
“Who?—I? I am a fairy—a prince among the
fairies. My name is Sweet William. You, mortals,
have a beautiful flower which you call after me.”
“Wonderful! And how came you in prison—where
do you live—where are your people? Tell me your
story—tell me all about you—and, how came you in
prison?”
“You shall hear, but first, let me thank you for the
prompt and friendly manner in which you released
me from my dungeon; but never pull a flower to
pieces so roughly again. I was in terror, lest you
should take off one of my wings, which had never
been so much jeoparded before. As it is, I have sustained
divers rents and bruises which will call for care
and a leech.”
“Well, well!”—I exclaimed somewhat impatiently—
“I'm sorry I've hurt you; but to your story. I am
curious to know all about you.”
“Know then, that I belong to, and form one of, the
Spring tribe of fairies—a tribe which enjoys its existence
more perfectly at this than any other season. Indeed,
we know no other. We follow the season in its
round through the different countries of the globe, and
though we should not perish, yet we should suffer
greatly were we to be left in the enjoyment of another
period, for the influence and effects of which our
habits have not prepared us. Thus, for example, we
dwell with you in April and May, and as the season
becomes oppressive, we fly to a region less advanced.
It is thus we live, and, in this way, in the course of the
year, we have the entire possession of the globe. I am
one of the heirs to the chief rule of our tribe, and, but
for my misfortunes, and the injustice I have met with,
would be, even now, upon the sun-flower throne of my
fathers. But, adverse fate and fortune, with us and
ours, as with you and your people, has had its way;
and, instead of being a prince in authority, with an entire
people in obedience at my feet, my legitimate sway
has been usurped and appropriated by another—my
sister has been forced to become the wife of the usurper,
in this way to afford some countenance to his usurpation,
and, defeated in an effort to restrain these objects, I have
been placed in the custody from which you have just effected
my release.”
“And who is this usurper, and by what agency did
he obtain so great an influence with your people as to
bring about such a revolution?”
“His name was John Quill, or rather, that was the
only name by which our people knew him. He was
an obscure wretch—an author,—a paltry fellow, who
wrote politics, and history, and criticism, and verses.”
“Le diable! and could such a creature effect so
much? It is not credible. The pursuit of letters, quite
abstract and reserved as it usually is, would seem to
forbid any approach to the strifes and terrors of popular
life, particularly at a season of wars and revolutions.”
“Why, so it is thought, but I am persuaded incorrectly.
Once aroused, and always an irritable and discontented
race, I am satisfied of all creatures, these poets
are the most difficult to manage—the most dangerous
to deal with. The only reason, perhaps, why they so
unfrequently interfere in the concerns of state and government,
is, simply, because they affect to regard the
prizes and honours of popular life, as unworthy and beneath
the true dignity of their aim. Mere popularity
is not enough for those who are perpetually clamouring
for, and claiming, immortality.”
“You may be right, and, indeed, we too have some
authority for your notion, in our own experience; but
I am anxious to hear your story in detail:—will it
please your princeship to go on with it?”
“It is long, and you may find it tedious; but, since
you desire it, that is no concern of mine. You pluck
for yourself the difficulty, and may not complain of its
thorns. Thus, then, as I have already told you, I am
the legitimate male heir to the Sunflower empire. My
father, whose name I bear, having reached the allotted
term of one life on this, was transferred, during the last
season, to another planet, and I was left in the peaceable
I was wandering up the Oronico, in company
with the Star nation, for one of the daughters of which
I had imbibed a high admiration. The news was
brought me by our old and favourite servant, Will o'
the Whisp, who urged my immediate return. I delayed,
however, unfortunately, and in the delay, the evil
had been done. John Quill, always a moody and somewhat
savage thing, who had commenced his life with
writing eulogies upon my father, but who, failing thereby
to acquire place and pension, had become his most
bitter satirist, now appealed to the populace, and made
a faction among the vulgar. He talked of reform and
such other things, and by referring perpetually to the
supposed interests of the herd, he did not long want for
an attentive auditory. He went about making speeches
like the most thorough-paced demagogue. He called
my father a bloody tyrant, and me, he set down, as
little, if any, better. All the evils, whether of the laws
or of the seasons, were laid to our account respectively.
If there came no rains to allay the burning heats of the
sands on which we were to dance by night, it was all
the doing of one or other of us. If our sun-flower
crops happened to be limited in productiveness, and,
our people, in consequence, were compelled to emigrate
to other sections of country, we were the guilty—
and ours must be the punishment. In short, every
thing evil or unfortunate in our affairs, was laid at our
door, and, however wild the charge, the result you
must already have foreseen. You know enough of the
nature of a thoughtless and ignorant populace, wrought
upon by unanticipated misfortune, to understand how
imagined grievances—however extravagant his suggestions—however
dishonourable his motives, can always
most readily gather his faction, and will never want for
attentive consideration among them. When I returned
home, I was hailed with reproaches, and my reception
was blows. Unsuspecting conspiracy or assault, I was
made a prisoner, and placed in the dungeon in which
you found me, and for my release from which I am
solely indebted to yourself. John Quill, assuming to
himself the titular distinctions of our family, to which
he had not the most solitary pretension, seized upon
my sister and compelled her to marry him. He has
seated himself most complacently upon the throne of
my father, the golden sunflower of our exclusive inheritance,
and sways its sovereignty with a despotism
as wild and reckless as were his denunciations of our
rule. Our tribe is ground down by a taxation, the
most villanous and partial. My fathers, and my own
friends, are the victims of his wanton injustice. Their
property, if they dare complain, is wrested from them,
on the slightest pretences, and appropriated to the use
of his creatures. Nothing, indeed, can exceed the
gloom and misery which now overhang our unhappy
nation. Nor, as far as I can see, is there any apparent
remedy—at least, not for the present. The usurper
has surrounded himself with his guards and mercenaries—he
has expended upon them and the materials of
warfare, all the wealth of the country, and, in this way,
he contrives to keep in subjection the large body of my
own and father's friends, who might be disposed to declare
in my behalf, while the fruits of their industry are
are employed in keeping them in subjection.”
“This is, indeed, a horrible state of things; but why,
let me ask, do the sufferers not unite in the common
cause for resistance to this tyranny?”
“They would do so, if they could at less disadvantage.
The usurper is in power, and has all its advantages
at command. He holds the purse, and controls
the armoury of the nation. The idle, the dissolute and
desperate, considerable in number, are the merest mercenaries
in his employ. A rebellion would be rash,
and almost hopeless, under circumstances such as
these.”
“But did your friends and party make no effort for
you at the outset? Did they suffer you quietly to be put
down?”
“No—they did what they could—but taken by surprise,
and imperfectly prepared for conflict, they made
head in vain. They were defeated in a pitched battle,
with considerable loss, and once dispersed, and without
a leader to direct, they have not had the spirit to reassemble
for another conflict. Now that I am free,
though, as I have reason to think, surrounded by the
spies of the usurper, I shall proceed to organise and
rally them, as well for the recovery of their rights as
my own.”
“Well, what you have told, surprises me greatly. I
had always been taught to believe that you fairies were
the most sportive, pleasant and happy of all God's creatures—that
there was nothing of strife, of sadness or
suffering among you. That you lived only among sweets,
and sunbeams, and zephyrs, with a life as sweetly sinless
which was not, at least, playfully, and not injuriously,
so. I grieve to hear that passions and a pride
like ours, disfigure your lives and blot up your enjoyments.”
“This has been the notion of your poets, but they
knew little in truth about us, and their fancies did not
go very far in their better education. We have our wars,
for have we not our women?—we have our hates, for
we also have our loves: we have our fears, for we are
not without our hopes: we have our jealousies, for we
are not less ambitious of place, power and glory, than
yourselves. Judge then, for yourself, in how much,
possessing such characteristics, we should hope for escape
from the trials and troubles of your humanity.”
“There is one matter on which I should like to be
informed. How is it, that, in the possession of spiritual
and other agencies, superior to ours, it should be permitted
me to release you from a captivity imposed upon
you by one of your own species?”
“Did you not assume for our condition a destiny far
more grateful and elevated than it really is, you might,
without difficulty, answer your own enquiry. Superior
though we may be in many things to you, the Creator
of our common tribes, with that equal eye which is the
prominent feature in our ideas of the eternal justice, has
found it necessary to restrain our pride and power as
well as yours, by denying many attributes to the one in
common with the other. With this reason, a mortal is
sometimes permitted the performance of an act which
a fairy may not think of—and in this way we live as
mutual restraints upon one another. Do you not perceive,
Providence, your race would be entirely at the
mercy of ours? At our caprice, were it not so, you
would perish; as it is, we may and do annoy and torment
you in a thousand ways, though your philosophies
have traced your annoyances to any other than the true
cause. It is well for both of us that we are under the
same equal protection from one another—there being
cases of exception, only, in which nations, differing so
decidedly from, and in some respects so adverse to
one another, may mingle together, and furnish in few
instances mutual checks and impediments to the progress
or the desires of each other. It is thus, that a
fairy, enthralled by a fairy, may be so spelled in his
prison that fairy power may not effect his release. My
place of confinement on this occasion, happened to be
one, which, by our nature, we are not permitted to destroy.
The rose is sacred in our estimation and is utterly
beyond our power. For this reason, it was chosen
as my prison, by my cunning enemy. The fairy who destroys
a rose, descends from his grade, and on some
obscurer planet passes into a lower condition of life.”
“I understand; but, let me ask, if your enemy had
been malignantly disposed towards you, why did he not
destroy you? Why did he place you in a prison, from
which the chances of escape were so numerous?”
“You mistake again. His malignity was certainly
not less than I now describe it. He would have destroyed
me had he well dared. But it would have been
a doubtful policy to have done so, since, even with his
own faction, there are some, with whom the blood of
legitimacy is still, to a certain degree, considered
favour—and he feared it—in the event of an open attempt
upon my life. He chose a mode, however, less
fruitful in peril, but almost as certain to bring about my
destruction as the most direct design. He knew how
much the fortunes of the flower were under the control
of mortals; and relied upon the strong probability of my
being torn in pieces, or crushed under feet, as soon as
the little perfume of my prison-house had been exhausted.
Such, most probably, would have been my
fortune, had it not suited your mood to articulate a long
soliloquy, as leaf by leaf, with measured determination,
you tore away the walls of my dungeon; nor, as it is,
have I entirely escaped. You see by the rents in my
wings how much I have suffered in the mode of my release.”
I was about to condole with the little prince on his
misfortunes, and to offer my assistance, such as it was,
in his cause, when, all of a sudden, his countenance exhibited
the strongest signs of mental agitation. His
eyes were turned scrutinisingly and quickly in all directions
of the garden, and without a word, leaping to the
rose-bush which stood near, he tore away several of the
largest thorns, and took an attitude and put on an air
of the most manly defiance.
“As I feared,” said he, “my enemies are upon me.
The spies of the usurper have apprised him of my escape
from prison, and the whole garden is surrounded
by his myrmidons.”
I looked as he spoke, and, to my great surprise, beheld
a numerous array, armed with long spears of pointed
cane, bows of yew, blow-guns of willow, and arrows
They approached the young prince, who stood firmly
the assault. At their head came one, whose fierce gesture,
manner and authority, at once, in my mind, determined
him to be the usurper, John Quill, himself. I
was right. Despising all humbler enemies, the dethroned
prince, without waiting for the assault, and with a
rashness only commendable in the desperateness of his
situation, rushed fearlessly upon him, and challenged a
single combat. But he was not so to be encountered.
The whole force of the foe hemmed him round, and
pressed in upon him—they girt him in with their weapons—he,
struggling and raging gallantly, striking
down an enemy at every blow, and resolutely rushing
on, and aiming at, their chief. But valour and skill
were nothing to the odds against him. He fought in vain.
He was overthrown. I saw him borne to the earth—
his foemen upon him—a thousand spears were at his
breast, and I could bear the sight no longer. I seized
a weapon—I dashed forward into the array—I struck
right and left. Already had I stricken the heads from
a couple, the most forward of the enemy—my next
blow, and John Quill himself must have perished, for
my weapon was uplifted and hung over him without the
most distant probability of his escape with life; when
suddenly my arms were pinioned by a superior power—
the weapon wrested from my grasp, and, in the twinkling
of an eye, myself overthrown and struggling for release
upon the soft carpet of our sanctuary.
“Why do you hold me back?” I exclaimed to my two
brother bachelors of the symposium, whom I now found
the stroke of justice upon the head of the tyrant.
“Why, what's the matter, would you break every
thing in the house in your sleep,” was the reply.
I remonstrated with them in vain. “Will you, then,”
I asked, “leave young Prince Sweet William to perish?
Will you permit that tyrannical usurper, John Quill, to
destroy him?”—and as I spoke, I again advanced to the
contiguous garden, which I had just before left in order
to procure the sabre which I had handled so lustily, and
which I now endeavoured to regain; but they interfered
and prevented me. Laughing in my face, they pointed
to the two victims I had overthrown. Alas! they seemed
no longer the emissaries of the tyrant. They were
our two decanters of sherry, from which the heads had
been most adroitly stricken, and through the rents of
which the goodly liquor was now streaming over the
floor. The demijohn well-stored with the same precious
juice, which to my bewildered eyes had personified the
usurpating Quill, had been only preserved from a like
fate by the timely interposition of my comrades.
“What have you seen—what have you dreamed?”
said they in a breath. I was dumb. It was true the
fairies were no longer before me, but I had certainly
been under the power of the incubi. I could not bear
the jest and laughter which assailed me on all hands,
and strangely wondering at the hallucination which had
so wrought upon my senses, I went hurriedly, yet full
of meditation, to my chamber.
I could not sleep. Was it possible that I had been
dreaming?—that a narrative so methodical—so regularly
drawn out to all its proper consequences—so
my wild and wandering senses? I could not even
then believe it. The thing was impossible, and half
distracted between doubt and credulity—between faith
and scepticism, I rose from my couch and took my
seat at the window which looked directly down upon
the garden.
There, all was silent as the grave. The winds had
scarce a whisper. The leaves waved not; and the tall
trees, with an inclination the most slight and shadowy,
barely bent themselves forward beneath the wing of
the zephyr that now and then stooped to take íts shelter
within their branches. Over all, the moon shone forth
with most incomparable and touching brightness, like
some guardian mother pale with watching, and now
keeping careful guardianship over her sleeping progeny.
The scene throughout was one of faery—of the
richest fancy, and it need occasion little wonder when
I say that my faith grew strong in my former vision.
All things seemed to contribute to the madness of my
mood. All things grew spiritual to the eye, in strict
accommodation with the impulses of the mind and
heart over which they had wrought so large an influence.
Surely I dream not now, and what means the long
procession which I see before me? Once more the
garden walk has its throng. The tiny tribes are at
work, and busy in the most various circumstance.
The flowers live—the trees have exercise—not a bush
or a branch lacks its array—they are all in motion.
God of the various world—how wondrous are thy
works—how more than wonderful art thou!
They are engaged in the performance of a mournful
duty. They bear the body of the unfortunate prince,
Sweet William, to the place of sepulture. They form
that class of his former subjects who had not altogether
deserted him, and are now permitted by the politic
usurper to do the last offices at his burial. Did you ever
see a fairy funeral, gentle reader. I would that I could
describe it for your sake. The monotonous hum of
the horn, blown at regular intervals by the trumpeter
beetle. The mourning candles carried by the glow-worm.
The chant of the bee-bird—the occasional
cry of the whip-poor-will keeping time and tune with
the sorrowing cavalcade, attest the loss which they have
all sustained; for the fairy is well beloved by the innocent
populace of his garden regions. He is the
protector and patron of bud, bird, and insect—he
countenances their sports, shares in their pleasures,
and revenges their injuries. Should they not be present
at his funeral?
They bore him to his sepulchre in a green hillock,
over which I had often rambled, Little did I dream
then of its peculiar uses. They wrapped his lifeless
body in the greenest leaves, and laid it with due reverence
in the open grave, freshly hollowed out for the
purpose by the industrious hill-fox. Then came the
chant of the mourners—a melancholy song, reciting
the virtues, and deploring the loss, of the deceased.
It told of his beauty of form, his gentleness of spirit—
how he loved all things that were beautiful, and how
all things that were beautiful came to sorrow at his
departure. They described him now as the occupant
of a brighter and more durable garment of animated
partaker of choicer fruits and flowers—the
sharer in more delicious sports—the loved of more
lasting affections. Their creed was not unlike our
own.
But one lingered by the grave when all had departed.
A delicate form—a gentle beauty—the maiden he had
loved. She was one of the daughters of another tribe,
called the Star nation, and wore its badge in the shape
of a brilliant star, now suffused in sorrowful dews, upon
her forehead. Her name was Anne-Moné. Long
and earnestly did she pour forth her wail over the form
of the buried lover. She planted a rose-tree at his
head, and turned away at last; broken words upon her
lips, and tears streaming from her long eyelashes. She
came towards my window. A sudden bound placed
her upon a branch of the tall tree, which hung directly
before it. I felt my head swim and my senses grow
confused at her approach. My limbs were paralysed
—my strength was gone—my heart ceased its most
perceptible pulsations. She leaned forward, and half
sung and half whispered in my ears—what delicious,
what melancholy music. She told me the story of her
loves—of the misfortunes and the loss of her lover;
and avowed her determination to exile herself henceforward
from all her people, until the hour of her own
departure to the sphere of her lover. It was to fly the
solicitations of another suitor, whom her friends and
family desired to force on her, that she had come to
this determination. This much of herself and hers.
What she next said concerned me alone. She spoke
of my youth—of the wrong I was about to do to my
which I had been prevailed upon to adopt. Was I
happy, or could I be happy, shut in from the associations
of that other sex, the communion with which is
one of the first conditions that comes with existence.
Such was the question, which, asked by her, the widow
and the desolate of love, I knew not well how to answer,
even had speech, at that moment, been permitted
me. She placed her hand upon my own, I was incapable
of resistance. With a word, the import of
which, I could not understand, I was lifted from the
seat, which, in all this time, I had occupied. I was
conscious of motion—of flight—of a whirling rapidity
—but of nothing beside. All then was confusion,
until, after a brief interval, the words of the young
fairy again fell upon my sense, in sounds sweeter than
music!
“You would have saved him, and I would serve you
in return. While I dwell on this planet, let me toil for
the gentle and deserving. You have wronged, and
still continue to wrong your own nature, and I would
bring back your spirit to its better teachings. Look!”
A gorgeous, but dimly burning lamp, lay on a table
before me. I was in an apartment to which I was unfamiliar.
It was a chamber. A richly decorated couch
rose to the ceiling in its centre, and as the light flickered
more brightly at intervals, I beheld extended upon it in
deep and sweet repose, the form of a beautiful woman.
The features are familiar—it is Isabel Beaumont herself—the
coquette, the capricious Isabel, for so I thought,
and as usual, I feared her. What do I hear? It is my
name she has uttered. What delicious tones. Her lips
with an association of sentiment so flattering. She loves
me—me, the ennui—the discontent—the misanthrope;
and, oh! worse than all—the bachelor!
She never looked half so lovely in my eyes before.
Her hair wandered in rich profusion, raven-like, glossy
and of the most silken texture, over a neck white and
spotless as the new fallen snow. The drapery of her
dress had fallen, and I maddened at the prospect. My
soul was on fire—my lips bent down instinctively to hers,
but before they yet pressed that virgin shrine and mansion
of heavenly beauty and deliciousness, I felt the touch
of my fairy companion upon my arm. My limbs were
nerveless. My head swam—I felt myself again in motion,
and knew nothing more, until the close and now
oppressive walls of my own room grew familiar to my
sight. A single sentence the fairy uttered, with uplifted
finger, as she left me—.
“You know—you have seen and heard—deal nobly
by the maiden—she is worthy of all your love.”
I had penetrated into a new world. I was another
creature. I had a new life. What now were my emotions—was
this new feeling love? I could not resolve
my own doubts. I had no answer to the question which
perpetually suggested itself to my sense. I rose a
changed man the next morning. My companions had
no longer the wonted expression. I shrunk from—I
had no further confidence in them—they could have no
sympathy with me. My thought was only upon the sweet
vision I had witnessed the preceding night. Once more
I gazed upon that fair picture of sleeping loveliness.
Once more the broken murmurs of love which then
and excited my heart. But was it not all a dream—a
fond, a foolish delusion. I grew more and more distracted
the more I meditated upon it; until at length,
as night again drew nigh, I sallied forth. “I will see
her,” said I, “I will watch her closely. No passion, no
prejudice shall blind me in my examination; and if she
look but pensive—if she put on no habit of capricious
vagary, I will confide—I will permit myself to—love!”
So I spake. Fond fool! I was already the slave—the
victim of the passion, upon the existence of which I
yet presumed to entertain a will!
She was alone—she was sad. How beautiful was
she—how much more beautiful than ever, with that unaccustomed
sadness. A slight blush (so at least I
dreamed) mantled her cheek on my appearance, and I
became more confident. With a hesitation of manner
and speech, quite foreign to her wonted ease and dignity,
she addressed me, with something of the air of badinage,
which had characterised, on her part, our last conversation,
a sentence or two which appears in the first part
of our narrative.
“So you are come. You would crave forgiveness, I
imagine, for your uncourtly retreat last night, but I shall
not forgive you. What! shall we have no sway in our
own empire—where all are pleased and proud to do
homage, shall one, alone, be permitted to withhold his
knee? It cannot be. The refractory knight must be
taught obedience—he must learn his duty and our
sovereignty.”
She smiled, and the tones of her voice, in correspondence
with the words she uttered, were intended to be
the labour of her manner throughout; and when she
ceased speaking her eyelids dropped—her lips became
slightly depressed, and her glance was pensively vacant.
Isabel, the capricious Isabel, whose sarcasm I had feared,
whose mirth had troubled and terrified me, now appeared
in a character entirely new. She was no longer the
tyrant—the conqueror. She was herself a captive. Her
secret was mine, and mine soon became hers. The college
of bachelors was endangered. The pledge which I
had made my brethren was soon forgotten in the more
attractive influence of other pledges; and night after
night, and hour after hour, of close communion in word
and sentiment, only linked me more directly with the
beautiful, the sweet creature, of whom I have spoken,
in language how far short in expression of a due estimate
of her thousand attractions.
I had her vow, she had mine, and, but a few months
were required to elapse before our union. In that time,
however, we were to be separated—a thousand miles
were to intervene. Business called my attention to
another region, and we parted, sadly, it is true, but full
of hope; without distrust—with no fear, no presentiment.
Sleepless I lay upon my couch in the city of—.
In a week more, and I should commence my homeward
journey. In a month, Isabel should be mine. She would
sleep in my bosom—the pulses of her young heart should
beat in corresponding sympathies with my own. Such
were my fancies—such the dreaming mood of my excited
spirit. A languor suddenly overspread my senses.
I could see and feel, but had no visible motion—no capacity
young fairy before me. Her look was sad; she pressed
her hand upon mine, and shook her head with a melancholy
slowness which had volumes of emphatic meaning
in its manner. A sudden tempest passed over the
garden; the moon was obscured by clouds; the flowers
were prostrate; and, with something of consternation at
these shows of nature, I looked round for explanation
to where stood the fairy girl, but she had gone. There
was something of a strange terror to me in these omens,
and I only waited for the daylight to take my departure.
I lingered not, in my return, by the way. I hurried to
the well-known dwelling—I asked for Isabel—my Isabel—so
soon to be mine, at least—and they showed me—
her grave. There was a sweet sympathy in the fortunes
of the fairy, and the no less spiritual being on whom she
attended. A strain of music that night came to my
ears, as I mourned in the solitude of my chamber on
the desolation of my hopes; and looking forth from my
window, I beheld once more the long procession, and
witnessed for the second time, the melancholy rites,
which like our own, distinguish the funeral of a fairy.
| A TALE OF FAERIE.
THE IDEA BORROWED FROM THE GERMAN. The book of my lady | |