University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

It is the fashion of the age to be superficial and
showy. My acquaintance with the languages of the East,
could I furnish the printer with their characters, would
enable me to illuminate each of my chapters with
something abundantly new; but as this would be impossible,
I must content myself, in obedience to the
childish pedantry of the day, with heading my several
chapters from such of the ancient and modern languages
of Europe, as the printer can furnish type for. Is it
the rare and amazing that are sought for? Would my
readers be deluded into a belief that the writer of a
novel is profound, learned, acquainted and familiar
with the obsolete and unexplored? Let him lift up his
eyes. I have quoted from the scriptures; and this, I
have done, not in levity, no—but in a feeling of the
deepest veneration. Let him look back upon the motto
of the last chapter, so thrillingly musical—so tender
and touching. That told of constancy, the constancy
of earth, of the voluptuary, of the sensualist. This tells
of the same virtue. But listen—`Thy God shall be my
God! and whither thou goest, I will go! Now look ye
through the wide word; through all the volumes of
genius, and power, and beauty, and point out to me,
even where the most prodigal and adventurous have
dwelt upon the virtue of them that `love truly,' and
show me aught that can compare with the passionate,
sublime, and breathless devotion, the sweet and pure
tenderness, the awful yielding up of body and soul,

that are exhibited in that simple line. Oh, such is the
love of the pure in heart!

It is the love of the married; the hallowed and abiding
passion of them, whose embrace is forever and ever;
of them, with whom Love is Religion.

Harold had been gone a whole week. `I can bear
it no longer,' said the governour, traversing his magnificent
parlour with a hasty step, and eye constantly fixed
upon the distant road, which, for more than three
miles, wound about the hills, within sight of his dwelling—`what
has become of him?'

His anxiety had been growing more and more serious
every day, until it was now of the most distressing
nature. It was that of a parent, over his own, his only
son. He could neither sleep nor eat. `What has become
of him,' he would say, twenty times in an hour,
with his aged hands locked, and his dim eyes lifted to
heaven, `why did I suffer him to leave me?'

`I have sacrificed him,' he would continue, `sent
him, God himself only knows where, to be butchered
and rent by the damnable invention of savages. Gracious
heaven! why did I yield? What possessed me?
Surely it was infatuation. Why not demand whither
he was going, and what his object? And yet, who
could refuse him; who fathom his purpose; who dissuade
him from the deed of his thought? What a
spirit he has! From the first hour that I plucked him
reeking from the detestable evidence of slaughter, blood
and devastation, in which the poor naked creature was
rioting, as in his element, there has always appeared
something portentous and preternatural in his ardour,
something so heroick and fearless, that I am always
quaking for him, always dreading to have him out of my
sight. And yet, who may constrain him?—check him—
withhold him—and what is the consequence? Is he not
always successful? Yea, yea, to all the desperate extremities
of success. Then why check him? In sooth
I know not. I would not lose him—the fiery creature
—childless, solitary as I am—Oh, no, I could not endure
that. I could not survive it, and yet, I would
rather lose him—would I?—yes I would—than have

him grow tamer by inaction Suppose I lose him—lose
him—after all my travail, all my labour and prayer for
him, so perfectly formed as he is for a great man,
so constituted for greatness, and adventure, and authority.
Oh, our Father! let me not lose him until I
have made him, not a savage, but a christian Hero!
If he live, thou knowest, Oh, thou knowest that he
will be great. Wilt thou aid me in moulding him
to be great and good?

The righteous old man fell, involuntarily, upon his
knees, with all the ardour of youth, and all the simplicity
of manhood; he bowed his head upon his hands, and
was praying silently and mightily, like some mother
over the son of her old age, praying as David did for
his sick child, when the door softly opened, and his
young wife entered on tip toe.

She was not astonished at what she saw. She did
not retreat. The attitude and employment of the old
man were intelligible to her, young and beautiful as she
was; and he, who had not learnt to be ashamed of
being caught at his devotions, never raised his head
from his hands, or looked about him, to discover who
might be the intruder.

She approached, and laid her soft palm upon his
forehead: he touched it, and lifted his face, eloquent
with meaning, and abundantly more tranquil than she
had seen it for days. His was the tranquillity of one
suddenly composed, but not violently, in the extremity
of his distress, by the natural and becoming expression
of his helplessness and dependance. What a picture
too for a painter! a gray haired, good old man,
upon his knees, before the majesty of Heaven!

Her eyes lighted with devotion. He raised his head,
folded his arms about the treasure of his soul, and held
her to his bosom. What could she reply? Her heart
was full. He was her husband. His God was to be her
God; and whither he went, there was she to go. She
knelt by his side. They bowed together, prayed together,
wept together. A warmer, a more intimate and
blessed communion, more ethereal, more sublimated,
more spiritualized, like sunshine, was felt in both of their

natures at the same moment. There was no passion, no
fever in it; nothing but a chaste, quiet tenderness, with
the most delicate and hallowed emotion, like that of two
surviving creatures, purified, and clinging to each other,
amid the fiery wreck and whirling desolation of a world.
He pressed his trembling mouth to her forehead; and
their tears, of thankfulness, fell together upon their
locked hands.

`Join with me, my beloved,' said he, gently disengaging
his arms, `join with me, once more—Let us
pray for one that especially deserves our prayer.'
Again they knelt—their hands together, upon the same
book, and their foreheads bowed at the same altar, together.

`Our father who art in heaven!' said the old man, in
a tone of thrilling solemnity, `he is in thy care; in the
hollow of thy hand; and with thee are all the ends of
the earth. Oh, bless him! protect him! restore him to
us, Oh, our father! for he is very dear to us. Do thou,
Almighty God, thou, who hast endowed and sustained
him, hitherto; do thou complete him for the work of
emancipation. Strengthen and confirm, we pray thee,
the heroick qualities of his nature! Urge him forward
with thy chosen impulses, to the great work that thou
hast appointed unto him: and Oh, be thou with him,
forever and ever! Amen.'

Why rose the lady? The prayer was not yet done.
Yet her arms have fallen from the shoulders of her lord,
and she has risen—her face glowing with—what? Is
it the crimson of shame or indignation? Her husband
saw it not, nor suspected it, until, in offering some excuse
for her momentary forgetfulness, he observed that
her voice trembled.

`My love,' said he, laying his hand soothingly upon
her flushed forehead, and pressing it with the devotion
of one who does love—yea, to idolatry, some youthful,
and gentle and confiding woman, `My love, I would
not reproach thee; cannot rebuke thee—and yet, surely,
there is something of levity in this impatience. Is there
not?'

`Forgive me. I acknowledge it. Nay, I blush for it.
Often, Oh, how often, my own, my beloved, have I

wept for it. But forgive me. I know you will. Attribute
these things to their right cause—my early education—the
misfortunes of my (she faultered, and her
voice changed)—my house, my change of religious instructors;
great constitutional vivacity and imprudence.
Many, my good husband, feel as I do, but few dare to
act so.'

`Ah, Ah! so it is! Your very acknowledgment of
errour is a defence, an irresistible defence. Who may
assail thee, woman? Nay, who may resist thee. Yes,
thou art right, my chosen one. It is thy vivacity that
endangers thee. It is thy pride that protects thee. And
may I add—that—that—it is thy peculiar spirit of—
is it not contradiction—?—that—'

`Contradiction! my lord,' she exclaimed, in a tone of
affected spirit. Her blue eyes sparkled, and her beautiful
lip was put up like that of a spoilt child. `Charge
me, a woman, with contradiction! Oh, for the days that
have gone by! I am half inclined to charge you with
apostacy. Where now is that romantick gallantry of
spirit, that old school of chevaliers and chivalry, which
captivated me?'

Who could scold such a creature, at such a moment?
Her round, white, dimpled arms were dangling
over his shoulder and breast, and she was peering
archly, upward, as he strove again and again to be
very dignified, and rebuke her manfully for her pouting.
In vain!—he was brought to capitulate, and settle
the terms, by another kiss.

Every lineament of her face grew luminous with
expression and significance. He attempted to pinion
her arms; in the struggle to avoid it, her beautiful hair,
finer and glossier than the web of the silk worm, broke
loose from the blue ribbon, fell and floated all about
her naked shoulders, and swelling bosom, which from
the nature of her position, and struggling, as she leant
backward, were visible for a moment.

The governour trembled with delight. Elvira saw
the direction of his eyes, and sprang from his embrace,
blushing all over, and agitated from head to foot. The
pearl clasp at her throat was soon fastened, and she

returned; but her playfulness was gone. Embarrassment,
a delicate and scrupulous embarrassment had
succeeded. Was it so serious a matter? What else
could be expected in a game of romps with an old man?

`Yes, love, contradiction,' resumed the governour,
`what made thee my wife? contradiction: what made
thee abandon the religion of thy fathers? contradiction:
what made of you, a very bigotted little catholick (he
grew serious): what made you, my love, (the tears
filled his eyes) a rank infidel? contradiction.'

`True, true, husband. Thank God that I found in
you, at last, one whom I could respect and love: one
who regarded religion, all religions alike; a thing of
the heart, a question between the heart and its Maker.
The first man were you, my husband, who cared nothing
for ceremony, but every thing for reality. This
made me venerate you—love you (there was a slight
hesitation as she added the word love: perhaps it was
only natural to her as a woman; and perhaps it was
only accidental or imaginary—but she appeared to falter).
No, I do not believe that contradiction made
me an infidel. It appears to me the natural result of a
wrong education. I had been taught that many things
were serious and sacred, which I afterwards saw derided
by my teachers themselves. I joined in the derision.
I knew not where to stop. Where was I to distinguish
the material, essential religion, from its appendages?
Where!—I knew not. I had no guide. Therefore
did I scorn it all. My first religion was one of
pomp and parade; pictures, pageantry, and robing; incense
and chanting: so full of material and magnificence,
so sensual, so unspiritual, so ill calculated for
abstract and sublimated devotion. These things drove
me from the extreme of childish credulity, unthinking
and abject, to the contrary extreme of delirious doubt
and daring. How often does this happen!'

Her large blue eyes were waiting on heaven, and her
thin hands were locked and shaking with sincerity.

Her husband gazed upon her with such manifest delight
and exultation, that, as she withdrew her eyes
from above, and caught his countenance, so rapt, so

brightening, so glorying, she coloured again with the
deepest crimson, and then—as women always do, when
detected in any thing especially graceful, she assumed
an air of uncommon seriousness; and then, shaking her
hair all about her glowing countenance, she cried, `proceed!
come, come, go on! This praying—I don't like
praying!'

`Not like praying!'

`No, no, I mean, I mean—I—I don't like petitioning.
I cannot bring myself to believe that the Omnipotent,
the Omniscient, requires any such audible expression
of our desires.'

`No!—I am astonished. Is it not appointed to us all?
Are we not commanded to pray? Is it not natural? In
distress, do we not fly to Him? How often have I seen
thee prostrate in the dust for some mercy, unexpected,
unhoped for; something that had set thy heart in a
flow?—Don't like prayer!'

`Such prayer as that! Oh, that's another matter. I do
not call that prayer. I call it thanksgiving. I never
pray. I cannot pray; that is, I cannot petition for this
thing and that, in such a way, and at such a time. I
even think that I am doing what is childish, unworthy
of my own conceptions of the Deity, as a God and a
Father.'

(She grew serious and energetick, and her countenance
was expressive of the deepest solicitude.)

`When I pray in very general terms, as for a blessing
upon the whole human family, my country, my friends,
some that are gone (a tear fell from her eye), my husband,
or for His especial protection, I reflect that all
have the same right; and the ear of God I think is not
to be won by competition; nor do I believe that his
blessings are to be monopolised by prayer. Nay, my
good husband, do not look so troubled, I speak with
all the sincerity and earnestness of my nature. He will
forgive me. I am sure of it. The prejudices of education
have their hold upon all of us; upon my husband,
I see, as upon his wife.'

`But surely I have seen thee pray, with all thy heart
and soul. Have we not often prayed together?'

`Yes, yes! if that be prayer. When I have been blessed,
signally blessed; when something of unexpected
good fortune; some rescue from sorrow, sickness, calamity,
humiliation, hath happened to some one dear
to me, I cannot suppress my emotion. It will come. I
could lie down and cry with joy. I could run out into
the snow, the water, on the mountain, into the very
street, and kneel down and thank my blessed parent,
our Father who is in heaven, in tears and trembling,
for his goodness and forbearance. Nay, I could rise
from my bed at midnight, when the sense of what I
was and what I am comes over me, and kneel and pray
all night long to him; not for any renewal, not for any
especial repetition of his favour, but simply and unaffectedly,
in thankfulness, that he has remembered me,
and been kind to me, even while legislating for the
universe. In one word, my husband, I cannot, will
not pray. I will not worry my God with importunity
for favours; hut, when they come, I will acknowledge
them; and when, in the course of his providence, they
are withheld from me, and sorrow and dismay are
coming in their stead, I will bear them humbly, meekly.
I may cast myself at his feet, but if I do, it will be, not
to disarm his visitations of their terrour, but to avert
the displeasure of his countenance; not to escape the
wrath of an angry God, but to appease the yearnings of
a Father.'

`I will not petition for favours, because we know not
what is good for us; and all the evil passions of our
nature are perpetually vociferating about his throne,
in one form of entreaty or another, praying for what,
if granted, would often be destruction to ourselves or
others. In sorrow, in suffering, I will submit. I never
did repine, and I believe in my heart that I never shall;
and my trials have beeen none of the lightest. Nor
will I ever complain, or pray, other than to say `Our
Father! thy will be done!' Do thou with us and ours,
as it seemest to thee best! This I have said, and this I
can say again and again, in the extremity of mortal
agony.'

The governour shuddered and—embraced her. Oh,
well did he call to mind, how resigned she had been,
and when, and where. Covered with blood and brains,
suffocating amid the slaughtered and dripping remnants
of a whole household, he had found her, lashed to a
tree, lacerated, exposed, a mark for the levelled rifle,
and the hurled tomahawk. Thus had he seen her—
and she neither fainted, nor flinched, nor wept! Upheld
by her heroick spirit, she never yielded, even in
look, until her limbs were unbound, her butchers driven
with sword and bayonet down a precipice, and she
was once more in safety. Then, and then only, did she
tremble; and then, for the first time, were her clear
blue eyes full of tears.

`To acknowledge the providence of heaven, I cannot
believe to be weak or childish, for that does not lead to
absurdity. An event having already happened, it must
be, because of His permission or appointment, the
wisest and best that could have happened; and if it be
overpowering, what then? Can we do better than submit?
Shall we pray to be set free from the pressure?
`in his own good time?' In his own good time, we
shall be set free. What is such a prayer, but mocking
at the wisdom and stability of God? Are we to divert
him from his purpose—turn aside the hand of
the Everlasting, while it is dealing out his retribution?
Is he to be coaxed or persuaded? Is he to be moved,
and can we move him? No—what folly then, what impiety
to attempt it! Suppose the occasion, one of transport,
rapture. Acknowledge it, pour out your whole
soul in thanksgiving. Not that He may be bribed or
flattered into a repetion, no; but first, because it is natural,
to the pure in heart; it is involuntary, spontaneous,
the sublimest instinct of their nature, the unpremeditated,
spontaneous gushing of the bosom, appointed by
God for our relief, under the weight of his benediction.
It is the flow of the grapes from the wine press. The
angel treads upon our rebellious nature, his garments
saturated and transparent with the immortal spirit that
gushes under his feet. This we may do, for it leads
to no contradiction, no absurdity, such as follow from

petitioning. How often happens it that two nations, or
two armies, about to join battle, while the trumpets are
sounding for the onset, will beleaguer the throne of
heaven with prayer, for the utter wasting and extermination
of each other. I cannot endure such things;
they shock and alarm me.'

`But,' she continued in a sprightlier manner, `where
have I rambled? You speak of my spirit of contradiction.
You are right. Contradiction is my master
spring. To it, all my best and worst actions may be
justly attributed. Contradiction led me to scorn and
defy all the maxims of religion. The desire of doing
what few women could do, what fewer dared to do,
hath made me ambitious. Nay more, do you know
why I married?'

`Elvira,' cried the governour, startled and terrified
at her change of countenance, and the abruptness of the
question.

`I'll tell you. It was contradiction.'

She smiled, and that smile brought her husband, almost
sobbing, upon her bosom. She continued.

`I married, thus, a man older than myself; old
enough to be my father—nay, do not look so grave. It
is not very gallant I admit, but, after a moment's reflection,
you will be surer of me for the very courage that
I show in so speaking. It shows that I do not use any
deception with myself; that I am accustomed to thinking
the plain truth respecting my husband. My affection,
therefore, will be permanent. Not being deceived,
not deceiving myself, as most people do, when they
marry, you have nothing to apprehend from my being
undeceived. I speak plainly. It is my duty. Had I
shut my eyes to your age when I married you, they
must have been opened before now, and it would be
no slight symptom of growing disloyalty, if I should
affect to keep them shut.'

`Elvira—love, do not, you distract me.'

`Well then, I married, in contradiction. Few women
would have dared the same. I married, because
age was every thing to others, nothing to me. I chose a
counsellor, a friend, a man; one whom I could respect;

one whom others respected; one who could make the
whole world respect him and me, wherever we might
be thrown. But most of all, I married, to deride the
common frailties of my sex, to signify my loathing and
detestation of the coxcombs that beset me, presumptuous
in their youth and beauty. I hate sensuality—I
wedded in spirit. I worship intellect. Why? In contradiction.
Were other women intellectually elevated,
and could I not outreach them, out-travel them in
speculation and purity, I do not know, my husband,
but I fear that I should become another Cleopatra—a
sensualist—the mistress of Caesars and Antonys.'

`Thou! Oh my wife! my wife!'

She blushed from head to foot; but the dazzling,
terrible light of her eyes, which actually deepened their
colour, till they resembled black in their hue and lustre,
betrayed an unconquerable earnestness and sincerity.

`What a creature art thou,' said the governour,
trembling, `verily, I do fear for thee, wife. I shake
to hear thee. That ambition, the workings of which,
at this moment, are convulsing the fair proportions of
thy delicate frame, is so fearful a spirit; so unsparing,
in its mastery, that I cannot gaze upon thee, as I do
now, without a foreboding that is very dreadful. I cannot
sit by thee, and hear thy strange eloquence, the
energy of thy tones and action, and see the unnatural
brilliancy of thine eyes, the witchery of thy beautiful
lip in its quivering excitement, without feeling my
heart hurried and accelerated in its motion, contracting
and dilating, till I am suffocated and gasping with wild
and indefinite apprehension. Would that I were younger,
much younger, for thy sake.'

`Why so, my husband? I do not wish it. Hadst
thou been much younger, I never should have wedded
thee.'

`Nay, do not reproach me. There is no wickedness,
no impurity in my thought. Wife as thou art to me,
I cannot but regard thee rather as my daughter; and
sometimes—nay, nay, do not hang thy head—what tears!
Elvira, forgive me. Thou art my wife; my own beloved,

dear, dear girl, the only, only pride and rapture of
my aged heart. But what I meant to say was this,
(kissing her forehead) were I younger, much younger,
I would be thy help mate up some perilous steep; side
by side would we clamber the precipitous ascent!—in
armour too!—Thou shouldst be there, there! alone,
and unapproachable to all but me, thy long hair streaming
from the ramparts! God! it were worth ten thousand
banners for challenge or invitation!'

`My husband my husband! Oh, my blood thrills!
Thus it is, that I would hear thee talk! Talk to me
thus, and I could listen to thee forever. This it was
that conquered me, this! Oh, how well do I remember,
child that I was, when I saw thee unhorsed, bleeding,
covered with foam and sweat, hewing thy way amid a
multitude, a solid multitude, leaping to my first rescue.
Oh, no, I cannot forget it, Thy hair was already
changing with toil and maturity. Even then, child as
I was, I loved thee. From that moment I thought of
thee, and dreamt of thee, with passion. How they
fell around thee! I can see them now—at this moment,
all is before me. I hear thee shouting. I see thee,
thee! thy red scarf floating and shining in the wind,
and the banner over thee, evolving in thy perpetual
evolution, and the sash about thy arm, streaming outward,
at every sweep, like spouting blood; and thine
eye—the look with which thou didst approach me!
Oh, I can see it—feel it now! From that hour, until
we were united, I had no other feeling, no other passion
or wish than to be near thee, thee, whom I had
seen so awful, so undisturbed in battle.'

Her husband embraced her. Her panting grew audible,
but her glow suddenly faded to an ashy paleness,
and she covered her face with her hands, as her husband
whispered some low words in her ear, among
which could be faintly distinguished—`thou forgettest
—no interval—none! Oscar—'

She fainted.

At this moment a servant entered; and a voice at
the door pronounced the following words, hurriedly,
and departed.

`The council desire a special meeting. They are
already assembled.'

`How dare you,' said the governour, reddening as he
fixed his eye sternly upon the intruder. It was too late.
He was gone, as abruptly as he came.

`Curse that fellow, I must have him out of the army.
He is rude to me, from his hatred to Harold.
This is the second time, and the last.'

`Begone,' said he to the servant, turning toward the
pallid countenance at his side, and wiping off the large
tears that hung upon the lashes of his beloved—`Begone,
and send your lady's woman.' Saying this, he
threw himself upon his knees beside his wife. She
opened her eyes a little; her lids quivered, and a faint
respiration followed. So intense was his watchfulness,
that he would hardly have heard a pistol, had it been
let off at his ear.

He was recalled by a movement near his shoulder.
He leaped upon his feet! His chamber—his very refuge
and hiding place, the sanctuary of his household,
was crowded with strange people! He started, frowned,
covered his face with his hands, and turned to rebuke
them. They were gone! What were they? Noonday
apparitions, with ferocious looks and strange dresses.
Had he seen them before? Yea, and his knees smote
together at the recollection.