ft ' 
 
 I i 3 J 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE 
 WORDSWORTH COLLECTION 
 
 FOUNDED BY 
 CYNTHIA MORGAN ST. JOHN 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 VICTOR EMANUEL 
 
 OF THE CLASS OF I9I9 
 
^ 
 
^^MISERRIMUS." 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY W. WILCOCKSOX, VVHITEFniARS. 
 
4i 
 
 iWt0rrriinu0/' 
 
 ON A GRAVESTONE IN WORCESTER CATHEDRAL 
 IS THIS EMPHATIC INSCRIPTION, 
 
 MISEREIMTJSj 
 
 WITH NEITHER NAME NOR DATE, COMMENT NOR TEXT, 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 ^* La duree de nos passions ne depend pas plus de nous, que la 
 duree de notre vie/' 
 
 *' Plus on aime une ma'itresse, et plus on est pres de la hair." 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 T H O ]\I A S HOOK IT A M. 
 
 OLD BOND- STREET. 
 MDCCCXXXIII. 
 
^Ir=l-^,i^ 
 
 /\ U2>J3 f $ 
 
 
 
 (: 
 
 :Xa1'> 
 
 :l 
 
 \ '■ \ 
 
TO 
 
 WILLIAM GODWIN, ESQ. 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS INSCRIBED, 
 
 AS A SINCERE, THOUGH TRIFLING, TOKEN 
 
 OF 
 
 REGARD AND ESTEEM. 
 
r^3 
 
 '< 
 
 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tinis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924104104314 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 TO THE 
 
 FIRST EDITION. 
 
 This little volume was originally printed 
 for private circulation ; but, in consequence 
 of circumstances of a simply individual nature, 
 and therefore unworthy of record, it is now 
 presented to the public in a new typogra- 
 phical form. 
 
 As, during the narrative, allusion is rarely 
 made to the era, and to the character of the 
 times, the reader is requested to bear in 
 mind, that the principal events occurred in 
 the reign of Charles the Second ; when the 
 
8 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 internal government of the country was so 
 lax, that in the remote and thinly peopled 
 provinces, the wealthy and the powerful 
 might have perpetrated, with little fear of 
 legal retribution, the wildest act of social 
 oppression and delinquency. So long as his 
 more exalted subjects abstained from poli- 
 tical indiscretions, neither the king nor his 
 cabinet cared to examine too closely into 
 their private enormities. 
 
 On a gravestone in Worcester Cathedral is 
 this emphatic inscription, Miserrimus. No 
 name, date, symbol, text, or comment is 
 appended; nor any clue to the country, 
 station, or career of the individual thus un- 
 happily and terribly distinguished. Wliether 
 a clue has or has not been found, and 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 9 
 
 whether the following pages are a genuine or 
 fictitious auto-biography, are questions which 
 must be submitted to the solution of the 
 reader ; who will, no doubt, decide according 
 to the confidence or suspicion with which 
 Nature has endowed him. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 TO THE 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 It has been observed by a most respectable 
 publication^ that the hero of the following 
 pages does not embody the idea which the 
 inscription on the tombstone would naturally 
 beget in the mind of a reflective person. The 
 word ^'^ Miser rhnus y^'' it is asserted, engenders 
 feelings of charity and sympathy, and invests 
 with a tender and plaintive interest the in- 
 dividual to whom it has been applied ; 
 whereas, the principal personage of this 
 volume has been endowed with so fiery and 
 villanous a character, that he fairly merits 
 the designation of Furiosissimus. 
 
 The word "Miserrimus," attached by him- 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. H 
 
 self, or by another^ to a living and guiltless 
 person, would certainly invest him with a 
 tender and plaintive interest; but, considered 
 as an epitaph, it assumes a very different 
 aspect, it no longer characterizes existing 
 
 misfortune, but the memory of the dead. The 
 greater the sufferings of a good man in this 
 mortal state, the greater his happiness in 
 escaping from it; only so long as he en- 
 dures the ills of humanity is he " Most 
 Wretched :" his bequest for his tombstone 
 would be Felicissimus. No sorrow can ex- 
 tend beyond the grave, but that which 
 originates in a life of sin. 
 
 These are the reasons which have led the 
 author to his interpretation of this impressive 
 epithet, and to the portraiture of his hero as 
 a villain of the darkest die ; but, not so con- 
 
12 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 sistently callous as to be incapable of ex- 
 periencing the most heart-rending remorse. 
 
 The author never would have adopted this 
 epitaph as the ground-work for a fiction, had 
 he been aware that the name and career of 
 the individual who selected it were known ; 
 but he received the first intimation of their 
 publicity through the medium of the periodicals 
 which reviewed his work. In them it was 
 stated, that he was a conscientious priest, 
 whose sufferings arose in his adherence to 
 his religion. But, the exception does not con- 
 stitute the rule : few virtuous men would be 
 guilty of the eccentricity of stigmatizing their 
 memories with the epithet of " Miserrimus." 
 
 The author's first knowledge of the ex- 
 istence of this epitaph originated in a con- 
 versation with Mr. Wordsworth; who after- 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 13 
 
 wards wrote a sonnet upon it^ which was 
 published some five or six years ago in the 
 " Keepsake." This avowal would have been 
 made in the advertisement to the First Edi- 
 tion, but the author was then unwilling to 
 appear in his own proper character. 
 
 An objection has been urged against the 
 grammar of the title-page . It is averred that 
 it is erroneous to declare that there is no " text " 
 upon the tombstone ; for '^ Miserrimus " is 
 the text upon which a fiction of two hundred 
 pages has been constructed. These censors 
 forget that many of our English words possess 
 various and discrepant significations ; that 
 the word bull, for instance, may denote " a 
 blunder/' a '^ papal letter/' and the ^'^male of 
 black cattle ;" and that " text " may mean a 
 " scriptural quotation." 
 
"MISERRIMUS." 
 
 On a gravestone in Worcester Cathedral is this in- 
 scription — Miserrimus ; with neither name nor date, 
 comment nor text. 
 
 The hand of the fiend was on me at my 
 birth. 
 
 Even in extreme infancy I exhibited the 
 utmost violence of character. I was frequently 
 a prey to tempestuous bursts of passion^ which 
 intimidated the weak^ and inspired the more 
 reflecting with pain and disgust. 
 
 It were of little consequence to the interest 
 of the fearful history which I purpose to re- 
 late, were I to reveal the names and fortunes 
 of my parents. Even^ however, if they had 
 
16 MISERRTMUS. 
 
 possessed the celebrity of rank, honour, and 
 station, been ennobled rogues with all the 
 delusion of ancestral splendour and iniquity 
 attached to them, I would not have attempted 
 to have palliated my vices beneath the here- 
 ditary claim to flagitious indulgence. But, as 
 they were honest and obscure, I will not drag 
 them into infamous notoriety by declaring 
 that they were so unhappy as to give birth to 
 that most wretched being, who, under a name 
 too celebrated, contrived, during a long series 
 of years, to direct the attention of Europe to 
 his talents,his successes, and his delinquencies. 
 The thoughtless are too prone to under- 
 value the claims of boyhood to intelligence 
 and energy. To the adult's superficial view 
 of the feelings and perceptions of youth may 
 be attributed the after errors of many a way- 
 
MISERRIMUS . 17 
 
 ward spirit. Had I been so fortunate as to 
 have possessed parents who could have studied 
 the depths of my character, and have availed 
 themselves of their knowledge, I might not 
 now have to recur to a life of unparalleled 
 crime. 
 
 I was naturally crafty, and often in my 
 earliest years have I gloried in the conscious- 
 ness of successful deceit. Often have I listened 
 to some inconsiderate confession while I ap- 
 peared engrossed by my puerile amusements ; 
 and often have I planned some intricate re- 
 venge while I have laughed with the individual 
 I sought to injure. And, afterwards, in all the 
 ecstasy of triumphant malevolence, I have said 
 to myself, " They deem me inoffensive — a hoy 
 — a mere boy ; but the poison of the upas 
 tree is within, and I will carry its desolation 
 
 c 
 
18 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 into the homes of the happy, and their hearts 
 I will lay waste as with fire and sword.— How 
 little were those who superintended my educa- 
 tion inclined to suppose that I could have 
 entertained such thoughts as these ! 
 
 Let those interested in the instruction of 
 youth be assured that the passions of the boy 
 are as strong as_, if not stronger than, those of 
 the man ; though fortunately he has not the 
 same power of gratifying them, or their effects 
 would indeed be fearful. 
 
 Almost the earliest incident of which I have 
 now a recollection was a visit I was permitted 
 to make at the house of a school-fellow. We 
 lay in different beds in the same room. He 
 was a quiet, affectionate, kind boy, who by 
 his good-humour and endearing vivacity had 
 won the hearts of all who domesticated with 
 
MISERRIMUS. 19 
 
 him. In the morning he asked me how I 
 had slept? I replied;, in a voice that howled 
 with rage, and with the spirit of the demon 
 looking out at my eyes, '^I have remained 
 awake the whole night, and I have cried 
 through every minute of it, in order that I 
 may be able to show a sick face to your 
 father, and declare that you have tormented 
 and beaten me." 
 
 This anecdote may appear frivolous, but it 
 is too emphatically indicative of my character 
 to be omitted. 
 
 We returned to school ; and my antipathy 
 to this boy increased to a fearful degree, 
 simply, I believe, because, in spite of all my 
 wiles, he was more popular than I. Oh, if 
 there be on earth a passion which carries a 
 
 c2 
 
20 MISER RIMUS. 
 
 hell into the bosom of its possessor, it is the 
 hate which is the offspring of envy ! 
 
 My detestation for my school-fellow even- 
 tually attained that height, and the insults 
 and aggressions which I practised upon him 
 were so ferocious, that, at last, even his mild- 
 ness was turned into gall. He resented some 
 provocation, I struck him, and we fought. 
 Heart-broken as I now am, the rage and 
 malice of that moment appear to me like 
 a dream. I can scarcely imagine that this 
 enervated, prostrated mind can ever have 
 entertained passions so violent and so de- 
 moniac. 
 
 I fought with my spirit even more than 
 with my body — my whole soul was in every 
 blow ; but still I did not succeed. At last, I 
 
MISERRIMUS. 21 
 
 fell senseless on the grass, and my enemy 
 remained the conqueror of his oppressor. 
 
 From that moment;, the darkest feelings 
 which can disgrace poor human nature took 
 possession of my breast. I lived only in the 
 expectation of revenge ; and an opportunity 
 for attaining it offered itself too soon. I was 
 tyrannising over an unfortunate boy, who 
 was weeping and writhing beneath my in- 
 flictions;, when a violent blow suddenly felled 
 me to the earth. I rose, and discovered that 
 I had endured this indignity at the hand 
 of the being I most loathed. He reproached 
 me for my dastardly conduct, and then 
 walked placidly and triumphantly away. I 
 meditated for a moment ; then crept stealthily 
 after him, drew my knife from its sheath, 
 and plunged it up to its handle in his back. 
 
22 mSERRlMUS. 
 
 In his turii;, he fell to the ground, and I 
 stood over him, in thought, if not in deed, 
 a murderer ! 
 
 His wound, though a very severe one, 
 having been pronounced not to endanger his 
 life, his relatives and friends were content 
 that my only punishment should be a dis- 
 missal from the school with every circum- 
 stance of igRominy. Accordingly, on one 
 bright sunny day, when not a cloud inter- 
 posed its friendly shade to obscure the 
 expression of the emotion which malice, 
 hatred, and shame begot on my distorted coun- 
 tenance, I was led to the principal entrance, 
 and, amidst the execrations and revilings 
 of my assembled school-fellows, and the 
 reproofs and disgust of the officials, thrust 
 through the old arch. Its iron gates closed 
 
MISERRIMUS. 23 
 
 with a clash that vibrated to my very soul ; 
 the entire crovrd of spectators raised one 
 general acclamation of scorn and defiance, 
 and I walked on my course, solitary, dis- 
 honoured, and debased. 
 
 This detail of puerile incidents may, I re- 
 peat, appear frivolous ; but, as mine is rather 
 a history of passions and emotions than of 
 actions, I feel that I ought not to omit the 
 recapitulation of any feature that might tend 
 to convey a correct estimate of the general 
 
 tenor of my anomalous mind. 
 
 Anomalous indeed ! — but in this possession 
 
 I am not singular. Anomaly enters into the 
 composition of us all ; impar sibi is the bio- 
 graphy of every created being, and I have 
 proved no exception to the rule. 
 
 Aftermyignominious expulsion from school. 
 
24 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 I returned to my parents. My father was an 
 extensive landholder in a northern county, 
 who himself farmed the estate which he in- 
 herited from a long line of respectable ancestry, 
 and lived in the narrow circle of rural society, 
 unknowing and unknown to the great world. 
 With him I led an idle life, and flourished 
 in body, if not in mind, until I grew into 
 vigorous youth. At the age of eighteen, my 
 fond father seeing that I manifested no re- 
 pugnance to his occupation, and none more 
 ambitious offering itself, at his instigation, I 
 
 became a tiller of the land, and pursued my 
 avocations at first with industry, and at last 
 with interest. There is something in the 
 tenor of this employment which is inimical 
 to the strength of the evil passions ; as the 
 exposition to the air braces the body, the 
 
MISERRIMUS. 25 
 
 communion with nature softens the mind. 
 The most innocent period of my life was the 
 three first years which I devoted to agri- 
 culture. 
 
 For a long time, an estate that immediately 
 adjoined the property which my father cul- 
 tivated had been untenanted. It was of con- 
 siderable extent, and, in addition to many 
 acres of fine arable and pasture land, com- 
 prised a good house and park, gardens, wood, 
 water, and all the ornamental features which 
 a wealthy family could desire. It was in 
 A.D. 1670, and on the very day on which I 
 entered into my twenty-second year, this 
 domain found a purchaser and an occupant. 
 I heard of the event with apathy, for little 
 did I then imagine its consequences. 
 
 A short time afterwards, I first encountered 
 
26 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 her whom destiny had selected to be the in- 
 strument of my moral and physical, my 
 worldly and eternal ruin. The morning was 
 exquisitely beautiful ; both earth and heaven 
 smiled. It was the poet's month of May ; 
 and nature, animate and inanimate, held a 
 universal jubilee. Listening to the carols of 
 the birds, and watching the gambols of the 
 deer, I was straying, in a happy state of 
 animal enjoyment, along the banks of a lovely 
 stream, when I heard the notes of a harp 
 accompanying a female voice exquisitely me- 
 lodious. To this hour the subject of that 
 song haunts me ; for, independently of the 
 deep impression it then made, I had after- 
 wards too fatal a reason for never forgetting 
 it: it was the famous hymn to the Virgin, 
 Maria saiitissima, madre amata. With all 
 
MISERRIMUS. 27 
 
 the fervour of religion, and the beautiful in- 
 tonations of natural sensibility, conjoined to 
 the skill of a practised musician, the invisible 
 singer poured forth her heavenly strains. 
 Rooted to the spot under the influence of this 
 divine charm, I listened in an intensity of 
 sympathy and rapture, until I felt the warm 
 tears trickling down my cheek. Aroused by 
 this proof to the consciousness of a weakness 
 which I had never before experienced, and 
 which I deemed degrading, I cautiously pro- 
 ceeded in the direction of the sounds, and at 
 last discovered, though unseen by her, the 
 being who had so moved me. 
 
 Oh, God ! if ever the spirit of an angel 
 abode on earth, it was incarnate in that girl ! 
 So hallowed, and yet so brilliant was her 
 beauty, she seemed a personification of light ! 
 
28 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 Her bright eyes — her bright hair — her pure 
 skin — her perfect form — her upturned coun- 
 tenance, radiant with the devotion of her soul, 
 and the scarcely brighter sun which shone in 
 deceptive beams through the interstices of the 
 foliage, above, around, and upon her, all 
 combined to strengthen the illusion. 
 
 With a broken and a bleeding heart, and 
 as an act of expiation, willingly would I 
 compel myself to expatiate on the whole detail 
 of her charms, and summon before me, feature 
 by feature, the image of the being who 
 consecrated humanity ; whose life was one 
 continued career of innocence, honour, and 
 happiness, until, like a demon, I swept across 
 her path, and blasted the peace of her un- 
 sullied heart. Willingly would I impose upon 
 myself any, and every, infliction ; but this I 
 
MISERRIMUS. 29 
 
 cannot, dare not endure. In the most em- 
 phatic sense of the term, she was beautiful; 
 and here I abandon the theme. 
 
 We met : and we met again and again. It 
 is not essential to the development, or to the 
 interest of my narrative, to relate how the 
 deeper tone of our intercourse began, or pro- 
 ceeded. Words, indeed, could but feebly 
 express its progress ; for every faculty was 
 engaged more than that of language, in pro- . 
 moting it. We had not exchanged more than 
 the most meanless phrases of formal inter- 
 course, when a mutual, though scarcely con- 
 scious, intelligence was established. And yet 
 she spoke, and spoke most eloquently; but 
 her eye was the organ of her eloquence. 
 
 Her father, our new neighbour, did not 
 disdain to visit, on terms of perfect equality. 
 
30 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 our less pretending abode. He was a widower, 
 and possessed this only daughter, and a son, 
 an officer in the navy, who was then serving 
 on a foreign station. He was descended from 
 an ancient though not a noble family ; he had 
 been a Member of the Commons, and the 
 political part he played during the Revolution, 
 rendered him no favourite with the existing: 
 government. Though not remarkable for in- 
 tellectual energy, he was a mild, worthy man, 
 and a doting parent. 
 
 I had two sisters, artless, endearing girls, 
 who rapidly conceived an enthusiastic friend- 
 ship for her, which she as speedily returned. 
 This intimacy induced a still closer union 
 between us ; and in the park, in the glen, on 
 the lake, in the village church, in our respec- 
 tive homes, we repeatedly encountered. Tran- 
 
MISERRIMUS. 31 
 
 scendently fond of the charms of nature, we 
 used to pass hour after hour, roving beneath 
 the open sky, inhaling the pure air by the 
 side of the brook, or on the brow of the hill. 
 Selecting the most beautiful spots for our 
 resting-place, we would sit and while away 
 many a happy morn and eve, in that delicious 
 indolence which can only be felt by the 
 healthful and the contented. Whilst my sis- 
 ters supported a desultory conversation, in 
 which she occasionally attempted to join, I 
 gazed on her countenance with undisguised 
 admiration, and lost myself in dreams of hap- 
 piness without alloy. With the beautiful and 
 graceful modesty of youth and innocence, in 
 sweet confusion she would strive to appear 
 unconscious of my scrutiny ; but, ever and 
 again, with the exultation, the happiness 
 
32 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 which a lover alone can know, I marked her 
 emotion rise beneath her transparent skin, 
 and crimson her whole face with one exquisite 
 blush. 
 
 How accurate is the observation of La 
 Bruyere : — " Etre avec les gens quon ahne, 
 cela suffi,t ; rever, leurparler, ne leurparler 
 point, penser a eux,penser a des choses plus 
 indifferenteS) mats aupres d'eux, tout est 
 ^gaiy To the truth of this passage all who 
 have really loved can willingly testify. But 
 how few have really loved ; how many millions 
 are born without the power of entertaining 
 this dangerous happiness. 
 
 In her presence, I rarely spoke ; my feel- 
 ings were too strong for utterance. Intense 
 passion is ever taciturn and contemplative ; 
 yet how many women are won by vivacity 
 
MISERRIMUS. 33 
 
 and fluency of speech. They are amused; 
 and insensibly they attach a value to the 
 society of the individual who amuses them. 
 They marry, and discover, when too late, that 
 they have found a companion, but not a 
 lover : that they are united to a head, but 
 not to a heart. How well is this sentiment 
 expressed in this pretty quatrain : — 
 
 c< 
 
 Qui ne sent rien, parle a merveiEe ; 
 
 Doutes d'un amant rempli d'esprit ; 
 C est ton coeur, et non ton oreille. 
 
 Qui doit ecouter ce qu'il dit. 
 
 • A_ yy 
 
 Strange that I, who stand with my eyes 
 opened on the grave, who have abjured the 
 things of this world, should yet derive a 
 morbid gratification from the discussion of 
 this worldly theme. Yes, even in this mo- 
 ment, the ruling passion of a life can make 
 
 D 
 
34 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 itself felt. Behold the nature of man ; the 
 littleness and inconsistency of his character 
 adhere to him even in the hour of his death. 
 It has been repeatedly observed;, that an in- 
 finitely greater number of individuals termi- 
 nate their lives by drownings, in the summer, 
 than in the winter ; the dread of the cold 
 shock of the immersion possessing more in- 
 fluence over the minds of the fastidious 
 wretches than the dread of the dread here- 
 after. 
 
 At this period a striking change occurred 
 in my character. The efl'ect of passion is to 
 brutalize ; but the efl'ect of love is to elevate. 
 The man who really adores, dares not even 
 secretly transgress ; he feels as though he 
 were ever beneath the eye of his mistress. 
 Hitherto I had been the slave of many a way- 
 
MISERRTMUS. 35 
 
 ward and sensual caprice ; but under the con- 
 secrating influence of her purity, a new and 
 better spirit grew within me. The coarseness 
 of man's nature forsook me, and an unknown 
 delicacy, a refinement, a fastidiousness of sen- 
 timent, arose in its place. I turned from my 
 former thoughts and reflections with disgust ; 
 I loathed the vulgar levity which might 
 once have amused me ; and the voice of 
 the libertine and the bacchanalian became 
 abominations in my ears. 
 
 There are many who imagine that they love. 
 Would they seek to learn whether their con- 
 jecture be well or ill founded, — let them ask 
 themselves if they desire to insult the object 
 of their attachment by either deed or word. 
 Should they hear a small still voice answer 
 
 d2 
 
36 MI6ERRIMUS. 
 
 in tlie affirmative, let them be assured that 
 '^ the truth is not in them." 
 
 When we did not expatiate on our own 
 feelings and anticipations, almost her only 
 topic of discourse was her absent brother, of 
 whom she was passionately fond. The af- 
 fection which this ardent girl entertained for 
 him, could scarce be conceived by a mind 
 naturally less enthusiastic, or more subdued 
 by worldly discipline. Romantic, gifted with 
 a powerful imagination, and glowing with 
 feeling, when she descanted on the qualities 
 and excellencies of her brother, her speech 
 rose into the highest order of eloquence. In 
 those moments, with her flushed cheek and 
 sparkling eye, her varying tone and animated 
 gesture, she realized my youthful dream of 
 
MISERRIMUS. 37 
 
 the inspired Pythia of Delphi, revealing the 
 oracle of her god ; before, I need not add, 
 the rude Thessalian had caused the young and 
 the lovely to be superseded by the staid matron 
 of fifty. 
 
 After my own heart was she formed ; had 
 I been endowed with the power of Prometheus, 
 I could not have created a being that would 
 have more perfectly embodied ail my ideas of 
 female excellence. All that she said, looked, 
 and did, possessed a grace peculiarly her own. 
 The wealthy and the gay are too often the 
 apathetic and the unfeeling ; engrossed in 
 their narrow egotism, they are not even con- 
 scious that they possess not the power of 
 sympathising in the welfare or the wo of others. 
 But she was the child of sensibility, cjuick to 
 joy, and quick to mourn ; with a smile for the 
 
38 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 vivacious, and a tear for the sorrowing. Un- 
 like the rigid^ frigid woman of the world, 
 never did I see her in a state of passiveness ; 
 always awake to the interest of the passing 
 scene, her life was one endless variety of 
 emotion. 
 
 Aflectionately attached to her parent, her 
 reliance on him was boundless ; whatever he 
 taught, she believed; the possibility of his 
 erring could never even have entered into 
 her imagination. I often dwelt with pleasure 
 on this trait in her character, and thought 
 that one who had been so fond a daughter 
 could never prove a heartless wife ; and there 
 was, is, and ever will be, truth in this mode 
 of judgment. Learned, and skilled in all the 
 attainments and arts adapted to a female mind 
 and hand, she was wise without aifectation. 
 
MISERRIMUS. 39 
 
 or even the consciousness of her knowleds-e 
 Ignorant of the pride of birth, fortune, or 
 station, she possessed, in its fullest extent, 
 the pride of integrity, sincerity, and deHcacy. 
 Elegant, but not fastidious; lively, but not 
 volatile ; dignified, but not severe ; refined, 
 but not artificial ; feminine, but not enervate ; 
 the daughter of field and plain, not of the 
 sickly city, she could dance upon her native 
 soil, with step as light, and limb as free, as 
 Euphrosyne's, " when the merry bells ring 
 round." Like Ariel, too, she could " climb 
 the mountain," and could have " plunged the 
 deep" as boldly, had the usages of her time 
 and sex permitted her ; for though timid as a 
 fawn, and as graceful in her timidity, she pos- 
 sessed none of the idle apprehensions which 
 
40 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 oppress the languid mind and body of the 
 pallid slave of the crowded town. 
 
 And yet she was no angel ; she was that 
 better thing — a lovely woman. She had fail- 
 ings — failings which originating in her very 
 virtues, served only to enhance the power of 
 her fascinations. She had all the softness, 
 pliancy, and impetuous tenderness of her sex ; 
 yet she sometimes exhibited a masculine vigor 
 of mind. Variable as an April day ; the crea- 
 ture of impulse and passion, warm, generous, 
 and affectionate, in a pre-eminent degree, I 
 occasionally thought, or fancied, that her zeal 
 might be hurried into rashness, her confidence 
 into credulity, and her energy into obstinacy. 
 But then, I remembered that the surface of 
 our earth produces flowers and fruit, though 
 
MISERRIMUS. 41 
 
 many a volcano may lie sleeping beneath it ; 
 and I loved not her virtues the less, because 
 they might cover a disposition to error, which 
 time itself might never develop. But it is 
 one of the strongest evidences of the traces 
 of the original sin, and of the consequent im- 
 perfection of our state, that, that very quick- 
 ness and excitability of amiable and virtuous 
 feeling, which bestow on a woman her greatest 
 charm, constitute her principal liability to 
 temptation and folly. Whether I judged her 
 correctly, the sequel will show. 
 
 Her brother was her frequent correspondent ; 
 and one fine summer morning, she cam.e to 
 me in the wood, joyously displaying the letter 
 which announced his immediate return. I 
 thought that I had never seen her looking 
 so radiantly beautiful. 
 
42 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 In spite of the intimate communion which 
 existed between us_, I had not yet dared to 
 declare to her the sentiments with which she 
 inspired me. For though I may say that I 
 entertained the conviction that she did not 
 regard them unfavourably ; for though^, in 
 short, in moments when reason exerted her 
 sway, I even felt assured that she loved me ; 
 yet never did I resolve to speak boldly of my 
 love, but a morbid sensitiveness intervened, 
 and filled me with doubt, hesitation, and sus- 
 picion. Thus, though her looks, her acts, 
 her deep emotions, sufficiently proclaimed it 
 to an uninterested observer, I never yet had 
 obtained from her that decisive avowal of her 
 passion, which could alone satisfy me. 
 
 Like all those who have ever loved in- 
 tensely, I was the unconscious victim of the 
 
MISERRIMUS. 43 
 
 awe which she excited in me. It were im- 
 possible to express, scarcely possible to con- 
 ceive, the fear, the apprehension, and the 
 agitation I have endured in her presence. 
 She had attained that mastery over me, that 
 ever when I first appeared before her after a 
 separation, however brief, my whole frame 
 quivered, and every muscle and every nerve 
 were spasmodic with emotion. I felt a dif- 
 ficulty even when alone in uttering her name ; 
 there appeared to me a profanation in breath- 
 ing it to the silence and solitude of night — 
 and at this moment I dare not record it ; but, 
 like Mary and her Calais, it will be found 
 after my death engraven on my heart. 
 
 During the interview to which I am now 
 recurring, I made repeated efforts to induce 
 the conversation which I so intensely desired. 
 
44 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 I felt more paid more deeply that she loved me, 
 
 loved me devotedly ; but when I sought to 
 
 declare my own sentiments and demand the 
 
 avowal of hers, my tongue cleaved to my 
 
 mouth, and the unintelligible words died in 
 
 disjointed syllables on my parched lips. 
 
 She left me, and I remained on the spot in 
 
 a transport of passion, invoking curses on my 
 
 weakness, all the violence of my nature again 
 
 breaking forth in the bitterness of this fancied 
 degradation. I then swore with many a deep 
 
 imprecation that no earthly power should pre- 
 vent me from repairing to her that evening, 
 and obtaining from her the final and irre- 
 vocable interchange of vows. 
 
 In this determination I commenced my re- 
 turn to my home. I emerged into the high 
 road at the foot of a rather steep hill, which 
 
MISERRIMUS. 45 
 
 1 was musingly and abstractedly ascending, 
 when, at some little distance below me, a 
 carriage stopped, and a gentleman alighted 
 from it. Unconsciously I noticed this pro- 
 ceeding, but took no heed of the individual. 
 Leisurely I continued my path, still absorbed 
 in my irritation, when I became aware that 
 footsteps were rapidly overtaking me. Turn- 
 ing round, I perceived almost at my side the 
 stranger whom I had previously so imperfectly 
 remarked. But how shall I express the emo- 
 tions which assailed me, when, on a nearer 
 scrutiny, I recognised in that stranger the foe 
 of my youth, the object of my hatred, the 
 cause of my crime ! 
 
 He recollected me. All the demon began 
 to stir within me. The aversion, rancour, 
 and fury, which during so many years had 
 
46 MISERRIMUS, 
 
 been suppressed, not extirpated, awoke, in 
 renewed vigour, dilated my frame, and flashed 
 from my eyes. What were his first emotions 
 on meeting me I know not; but, stimulated, 
 perhaps, by my undisguised hostility, he 
 quickly retorted with looks of scorn and de- 
 fiance. We walked side by side for some 
 moments, at each step slightly approaching 
 nearer to the other. Neither spoke ; but, 
 wrapped in silence, and in our own dark 
 thoughts, both appeared to be contemplating 
 the act of violence, which neither knew how 
 to commence. At length we came into per- 
 sonal collision. 
 
 He suddenly stopped ; and, with a strong- 
 effort controlling his passion, in a stern voice, 
 and with a stately gesture, exclaimed : — 
 
 '^'^ Pass on! — We are not fit companions. 
 
MISERRIMUS. 47 
 
 The world is wide ; and east and west, nortli 
 and south must be our relative course through 
 life." 
 
 " What I" I cried, " you fear me ! — Am 
 I then a lion in your path? — I knew not that 
 I was so terrible." 
 
 " A lion !" he repeated with a bitter sneer, 
 and his dark eyes glowed with contempt ; 
 " a lion ? — ^yes — a stuffed one — stuffed with 
 your own self-esteem. Know, redoutable 
 man, that the most opposite causes will some- 
 times produce the same result. From the 
 lion I might turn in fear ; but you I deem as 
 a reptile in my path, and I turn from you in 
 disgust !" 
 
 " Stay," I cried, gasping with the violence 
 of my passion, " and hear my defiance, vil- 
 
48 MISERRIMUS, 
 
 lain that I loathe^, — villain that I cursC;, — 
 villain that I will annihilate !" 
 
 " Murderer 1''^ he shouted in a voice of 
 thunder . 
 
 I raised my arm, — he caught it in his grasp, 
 and held it extended in the air with an 
 amazing strength. Without motion, without 
 effort, with our muscles rigid and distended 
 with the animosity and mahgnity of our 
 hearts, we stood for some moments, mutually 
 regarding the face of the other with the ex- 
 pression and feeling of hyenas. 
 
 At length, withdrawing my arm, I ex- 
 claimed, " Not blows, but blood!'' 
 
 " Agreed," he replied ; " ours is a feud 
 whicli can only end with the life of one or 
 both." 
 
{( 
 
 C( 
 
 MISERRIMUS. 49 
 
 " When and where shall we meet ?" 
 In yonder wood^ to-morrow, at sun-rise." 
 And the weapons ?" 
 
 " Pistol and sword ; we will not want for 
 tools to dig ourselves a grave/' 
 
 "^ My hatred is such/' I rejoined, "that I 
 cannot extend to you the courtesies of social 
 life, nor wear before you the mask of reserved 
 politeness. I cannot say farewell to one 
 whom I wish every ill. I leave you now, my 
 living, loathed, and loathing foe ; when next 
 we separate, I hope to leave you on the red 
 grass 
 
 We parted ; and I returned to arrange the 
 business which this rencontre had carved out 
 for me. I obtained the promise of a friend 
 to attend me on the following morning ; and 
 I completed some testamentary documents, 
 
 E 
 
 i'» 
 
50 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 by which I bequeathed the whole of the little 
 property I possessed to her. To her I then 
 addressed every thought; and this train of 
 reflection induced an enervation which made 
 me tremble at the recollection of the risk I 
 was about to incur. That danger, however, 
 rendered me still more resolved to finally de- 
 termine that evening the unreal doubts which 
 had so long, and so unnecessarily, agitated me. 
 
 With the greatest impatience I awaited 
 the arrival of the hour when we were ac- 
 customed to meet in the garden, if not by an 
 acknowledged pre-arrangement, at least by a 
 tacit convention. Never did time appear 
 to travel more slowly ; but at length the 
 moment arrived, and I commenced my walk. 
 
 When I reached the spot, I found that 
 she was already there. She heard my foot 
 
MISERRIMUS. 51 
 
 steps, and turning round, abruptly confronted 
 me. I then saw that she was violently 
 agitated ; her face was flushed, and the traces 
 of tears were in her eyes. I rushed forward 
 to meet her. She receded. In overwhelming 
 anxiety, with outstretched arms, I still ad- 
 vanced, but she still withdrew. 
 
 ^^ In the name of heaven,^' I cried, '^' tell 
 me, I beseech you, what has befallen you'?" 
 but she returned no reply. 
 
 I caught her in my arms. 
 
 '^^ Dearest ," I exclaimed, address- 
 ing her by her name, and folding her to my 
 bosom, " speak, I implore, conjure you — 
 what is the cause of this affliction ?" 
 
 She slightly attempted to extricate herself 
 from my embrace, but answered not. 
 
 " Torture me not, my loved, and may I 
 
 e2 
 
52 MISERRrMUS. 
 
 not add_, my loving one? I came here 
 stimulated by the pangs and doubts of two 
 long years to entreat you to assure me that 
 you reciprocated in my affection, and this is 
 the reception you yield me ! — What has dis- 
 turbed you? — ^Who has aggrieved you? — 
 Name him, and by the heaven above, he shall 
 not escape an awful retribution, if on earth 
 there can be a man so base as voluntarily 
 to cause the tears to flow from such eyes as 
 these ! Suffer me to hear your voice. — Oh, 
 God, how terrible is this silence ! — Speak to 
 me, dear, adored one, in your own soft tones 
 — tell me that your grief is unfounded ; 
 and, oh ! tell me, tell me, that you will be 
 mine /'' 
 
 " Never !" she exclaimed, with a mighty 
 voice, and a fearful emphasis. 
 
MISERRIMUS. 53 
 
 I stood as though in a dream; my arms 
 no longer retained the power of embracing 
 her ; they fell by my side, and she availed 
 herself of her release to withdraw a few paces 
 from me. 
 
 At length I awoke from my prostration, 
 and the power of utterance returned. 
 
 " Never r I repeated ; '' oh, M , 
 
 retract this dreadful resolution !" 
 
 '^ Retract !" she cried, with wild energy ; 
 ^' what ! wed a murderer — a murderer in 
 mind, if not in deed — the murderer of my 
 dear, dear brother!" and she sobbed con- 
 vulsively. 
 
 God of heaven ! what were then my feel- 
 ings ! 
 
 " Go !" she exclaimed, with an enthusiasm 
 that seemed almost supernatural ; " go ! I 
 
54 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 hate you, I loathe you, I despise you ! The 
 dream is fled, the delusion is dissolved, and I 
 see the heart of a tiger beneath the disguise 
 of a man. Go, fiend! I denounce you! the 
 stain of blood is on you — ^hence! with the 
 curse of a fond sister, and a deceived woman, 
 to wander like Cain over the face of the land, 
 abhorred and abhorring!" 
 
 Bowed to the earth, I remained before 
 her, during this torrent of inspired passion. 
 Powerfully then did remorse work within 
 me ; mighty was the expanse which it then 
 comprised. The distant past recurred with a 
 fearful distinctness ; and the present, and the 
 fancied future, lay open before me. I looked 
 into myself, and I saw the evil of my heart ; 
 and I resolved to pluck it out. Had she 
 then but listened to my fervent protestations 
 
MISERRIMUS. 55 
 
 of atonement and expiation ; had she been 
 softened by the agony of my self-reproaches, 
 and the intensity of my self-debasement, and 
 accepted the sincerest repentance that ever 
 was offered by a contrite sinner, I might have 
 lived to have been a wise and a good man, 
 instead of the thing I am. Oh, why did not 
 heaven in that moment inspire her with its 
 own beautiful precept, " There is more joy 
 over one sinner that repenteth, than over 
 ninety-nine just persons who need no re- 
 pentance ?" But the power of the fiend pre- 
 vailed ; she was inexorable ; and I was lost. 
 " Treasure not," she exclaimed, " one hope, 
 one little hope, in the corner of your corrupt 
 heart. Between you and me fate has placed 
 a gulf impassable. Your crimes have more 
 
56 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 than extirpated my affection ; they have en- 
 grafted aversion in its place." 
 
 Still I implored. 
 
 " Begone!" she cried: " or stay, and hear 
 me swear never again to entertain for you 
 any feeling but that of unmitigated hatred 
 and contempt ! " 
 
 Hell entered into my heart, and fury 
 flashed from my eyes. 
 
 " Woman !" I exclaimed, with all the fe- 
 rocity of insanity, " urge me not too far, or 
 by the heaven above, you shall live to learn 
 that I can be a murderer !" and I ground my 
 teeth, and beat the earth, in the paroxysm of 
 my desperation. 
 
 She trembled beneath my violence ; the 
 colour fled from her cheeks, and the tears 
 
MISERRIMUS. 57 
 
 gushed from her eyes, as she turned on me 
 a look of imploring anguish. I could not 
 resist this pathetic appeal ; and my passion 
 immediately flowed in another channel. 
 
 " Curses on my cruelty !" I cried; " but 
 had I loved you less, I had been more for- 
 bearing. Now listen to me, while once more, 
 and for the last time, I implore your mercy ; 
 reflect, then, before you reply. Punish me 
 not for the crime of my youth ; forgive me, 
 and the rest of my days shall be passed in 
 expiating it. Consider well my in treaty — 
 my life, my salvation, are dependent on your 
 decision. Answer not, deny me not rashly. 
 — Oh, God ! gift me with the powers of per- 
 suasion, inspire me with the words of con- 
 viction, and every future hour shall be de- 
 voted to thy honour and service.— — Turn 
 
58 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 not away; let me gaze on your face, while 
 on my knees I pray, for your own sake, for 
 your brother's sake, reject not my contrition ; 
 but pardon, pardon, pardon !" and I lay on 
 the earth before her. 
 
 Intense seemed the stillness around ; and 
 her low and sweetly musical tones sounded 
 with an awful distinctness in my ears, as she 
 deliberately, firmly, and solemnly replied, 
 
 " Never ! never will I unite my fate to 
 yours !" 
 
 " Devil" I cried, starting to my feet, " fly, 
 and fly quickly ! fly, ere I tear from your 
 breast your false heart ! Yet stay — stay, I 
 command you, and hear me first retort your 
 hatred : I hurl it in your teeth, proud, scorn- 
 ful, unfeeling, vindictive woman! — I defy 
 thee, I hate thee, and I despise thee! — Now 
 
JVJISERRIMUS. 59 
 
 listen ; mark me^ and forget not^ I have fore- 
 warned you : whatever portion of life may 
 remain to me, I devote to evil — evil to thee 
 and thine ! I tear thee from my hearty and I 
 sicken with disgust that such a silly, worthless 
 toy should ever have possessed it ! — Oh that 
 I had words to make thee writhe as I desire, 
 thou fickle, loathsome thing !" 
 
 With an effort of almost superhuman self- 
 control, I watched her until she had dis- 
 appeared ; and then, rushing into the wood, 
 I abandoned myself to the madness of my 
 despair. I tossed my arms in the air, in unholy 
 defiance of Heaven, and, in the strength of 
 my wickedness, blasphemously invoked and 
 dared the divine interposition ; then, casting 
 myself on the earth, I dug its flinty face with 
 my distended fingers, till, jagged and muti- 
 
60 MIRERRIMUS. 
 
 lated, even in the extremity of my agony I 
 became conscious of their wounds. Goaded 
 into additional fury by this corporeal smart, 
 I rose with a hoarse shriek of passion, and, in 
 a paroxysm of desperation^, like a maddened 
 bull, hurled myself against the solid timber of 
 a mighty oak. I felt the sharp and gnarled 
 points enter my brain ; a torrent of blood 
 blinded my eyes ; a fearful sensation subdued 
 me, and I sank on the earth in utter in- 
 sensibility. 
 
 When I recovered my senses, the darkness 
 of night was around: I gazed on the sky, 
 but neither moon nor stars were there ; all 
 was wrapped in a pitchy darkness. The 
 heavy dews which had fallen on me, and the 
 loss of blood which I had sustained, had in- 
 duced a stiffness in my limbs which at first 
 
MISERRIMUS. 61 
 
 rendered me incapable of all motion. At 
 length, after many eftorts, and infinite bodily 
 torture, I succeeded in rising, and again looked 
 around me in much anxiety, for I knew not 
 how far the night was advanced. Having, 
 however, somewhat re-assured myself, by ob- 
 serving no trace of day, I slowly commenced 
 my painful return. 
 
 When I arrived at my home, I found, to 
 my great relief, that midnight was scarcely 
 passed. Several hours, therefore, must elapse 
 before the rencontre of the following morning ; 
 hours most welcome, for never did exhausted 
 nature more require repose than mine at that 
 moment. 
 
 I slumbered uneasily until the first break 
 of dawn, and then arose, but slightly refreshed . 
 My wounds and bruises were still rigid and 
 
62 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 painful, and I felt heavy in mind and in body. 
 But, when I regarded myself in my mirror by 
 the fitful light of a flickering taper, never 
 shall I forget the transport of rage with which 
 I was seized. Though never a vain man, 
 for my temperament was far too fiery to be 
 ruled by the base passion of vanity, yet I at- 
 tached that value to personal beauty which 
 is the offspring of a desire to please those 
 whom we love. Not, therefore, without grati- 
 fication have I been conscious that I possessed 
 a manly form and harmonious features. 
 
 But how shall I describe the image which 
 now met my view ? — Hideousness is a word 
 far too feeble to represent it. My head was 
 swoln to a fearful size ; my eyes were starting 
 from their sockets ; a large and frightful 
 gash divided my forehead ; and my face and 
 
MISERRIMUS. (53 
 
 hair were incrusted with coagulated blood. 
 Yet it was not this distortion^ but the con- 
 sciousness of the cause of it, which so madly 
 exasperated me. I thought not on the loss 
 of personal comeliness; but it was the asso- 
 ciation, the vivid retrospect which that loss 
 excited, that made me call down curses 
 on the head of the woman I had so recently 
 adored. 
 
 All existence then seemed to me to be 
 concentrated in one single word, revenge. 
 Writhing under the intensity of this feeling, 
 thirsting for another's blood to atone for the 
 loss of my own, I repaired to the appointed 
 spot. My friend had already arrived, and, 
 after a few moments^ my adversary and his 
 second approached. In the misty and uncer- 
 
\ 
 
 64 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 tain morning light, he did not observe the 
 change, in my appearance, until we were 
 almost in contact. He started, and evidently 
 did not recognise in the monster before him, 
 the foe of his youth and of his manhood. 
 He gazed around him as though he expected 
 an explanation from the parties present, or 
 the arrival of a third person; when I ex- 
 claimed, 
 
 " Turn, fool ! and see before you the man 
 who loves your company so well, he would 
 cheerfully die the death of Samson, and 
 immolate himself, rather than allow the Phi- 
 listine of his wrath and his abomination to 
 survive this hour of atonement! — Now do 
 you know me ?" 
 
 "I do," he cried; '^less by your avowal. 
 
MISERRIMUS. 65 
 
 — for truth is a stranger to your heart and to 
 your tongue — than by the malice of your 
 sentiments." 
 
 " Believe me," I retorted, " I seek that my 
 actions should not disgrace my words. See 
 — the mist is before the sun ; it is frail and 
 transient : but, by the heaven that hears me, 
 I swear, it shall be more enduring than one 
 of us ! Both, perhaps, may never again look 
 on a cloudless sky. — And yet, I could almost 
 rejoice to escape the doom I would bring on 
 you ; for I would rather endure the curse of 
 existence, than share with you, even in that 
 last best blessing — the grave !" 
 
 " Strange and unfathomable being," he 
 impressively rejoined, " I gaze on you with 
 wonder and with awe. — Are you above, or 
 
 F 
 
66 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 below, our mortal nature ? for, surely so vast 
 a wickedness cannot be of earth." 
 
 " I excite your wonder and your awe ! 
 What ! can this external frame, this husk of 
 the passions, so powerfully impress you ? Oh 
 that I could illumine my heart before you ; 
 then, indeed, you might quail ! — Yes, look 
 upon me well — you do not wrong me, — I 
 have discarded the sympathies of my race : — 
 and here I stand, a very reckless, a very 
 desolate, and a very desperate man, possessed 
 of no immortal, and of only one earthly hope, 
 — that of spilling your blood." 
 
 " Consistent fiend!" he passionately ex- 
 claimed, " cannot you even here, on this spot, 
 with the grave opening before you, entertain 
 one human feeling ? '' 
 
MISERRIMUS. Q7 
 
 " Yes ; I could be inspired with that of 
 Mezentius^ when he tied face to face the 
 living and the dead ; and could love to see 
 you bound to your sister's corpse,, only that 
 then^ she would be beyond my farther ven- 
 geance !" 
 
 Will it be believed that^ even in the very 
 act of expressing this odious wish^ I was 
 conscious that I still loved her whose de- 
 struction was the object of it? — Yet such 
 was my inmost feeling, for such is mortal 
 consistency ! 
 
 But, resolved as I am to endure the pang 
 of representing my character minutely and 
 faithfully, without the slightest concealment 
 or mitigation of its iniquitous features, yet 
 I need not farther pursue this offensive pic- 
 
 f2 
 
68 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 ture of ferocious hate ; but confine myself to 
 the detail of its results. 
 
 It was agreed that we should commence 
 the combat with our pistols, and, if they failed, 
 we were to determine it by our swords. The 
 ground was measured, and, at the distance of 
 eight paces, my antagonist and I stood face 
 to face. Our seconds had arranged that the 
 challenged party should fire first. We were 
 asked if we were prepared, and having re- 
 plied in the aflfirmative, the signal was given. 
 I saw the flash, and trembled to and fro for 
 a few seconds, then fell backward on the 
 
 earth : the ball of my foe had passed through 
 my body. 
 
 Dreadful, excruciating were the sensations 
 
 which I endured during the few succeeding 
 
MISERRIMUS. 69 
 
 minutes^, while I lay on the grass — the crimson 
 grass, which I had prophesied should be the 
 bed of my enemy. In spite of the great 
 effusion of blood, which, conjoined to what 
 I had previously lost, induced a mortal weak- 
 ness, I yet retained a vivid consciousness of 
 all that passed around me. 
 
 My antagonist had thrown the discharged 
 pistol on the earth, and stood with his arms 
 folded across his breast, regarding with a 
 stern and fixed countenance the wound from 
 which my life-blood was fast issuing. Mo- 
 tionless and impenetrable as a statue, it was 
 impossible to infer from his impassive counte- 
 nance the nature of his feelings ; but he ap- 
 peared to be awaiting the result without 
 anxiety, and without exultation. 
 
 My second advanced to assist me ; but I 
 
70 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 snatched the handkerchief from his grasp, 
 and applied it myself to the wound. An in- 
 creased feebleness then subdued me^ and I fell 
 back on the grass, still keeping my eyes fixed 
 on the countenance of my adversary, who re- 
 torted with an equally immoveable gaze. 
 
 I had thus lain during what appeared to 
 me an eternity, but in reality, perhaps, did 
 
 not exceed a couple of minutes, when his 
 
 « 
 second approached him, and advised him to 
 
 depart. 
 
 " No, no !" I shrieked in the agony of my 
 dread lest my anticipated victim should escape 
 me: " stay, stay, I command you! — I am 
 prepared, and capable of firing ;" and I pre- 
 sented my pistol. 
 
 But the second of my adversary interfered, 
 and stated that so long as I remained prostrate 
 
MISERRIMUS. 71 
 
 on the ground, the laws of duelling required 
 that I should be considered hors de combat ; 
 and that unless I arose, he could not consent 
 that my foe should sustain my fire. 
 
 My friend then approached, in the in- 
 tention of aiding me to rise ; but the opposing 
 second again intervened, and declared that 
 unless I could stand, and fire without as- 
 sistance, he should remove his principal from 
 the ground. 
 
 I groaned with anguish ; and nothing, I 
 fear, prevented me from sending my bullet 
 through the head of this zealous adviser, but 
 the dread of thereby suffering my far more 
 hated antagonist to escape. I instigated my 
 second to protest against the injustice of this 
 proceeding ; but his remonstrances were vain ; 
 for, as we both too well knew the other was 
 
72 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 acting in accordance with the common rules 
 and precedents on these occasions. 
 
 During this discussion, I was momentarily 
 growing weaker. Hastily, therefore, in the 
 fear of becoming utterly incapacitated, I strug- 
 gled to rise, and partially succeeded, but im- 
 mediately fell again. A second time, I made 
 a still more violent effort, and contrived, with 
 the assistance of the pistol, to raise myself on 
 one knee. But the pain I then suffered was 
 excruciating, and the great difficulty was yet 
 to be surmounted. How vividly intense, even 
 at this moment, is my recollection of the 
 scene. My foe was still intently regarding 
 me with the same impassive, inscrutable gaze. 
 Not an emotion was apparent in the stony 
 rigidity of his fixed and pale features. He 
 neither quailed beneath my wrathful glances. 
 
MISERRIMUS. 73 
 
 nor retorted with a similar expression. His 
 dark, deep-set eyes seemed to penetrate the 
 inmost recesses of my soul, but offered no clue 
 to the secrets of his own. 
 
 At length I succeeded in attaining my feet. 
 For a moment I reeled as though in a state 
 of utter ebriety ; then with one final, I may 
 almost say, superhuman exertion of my re- 
 maining strength, I stood for a single moment 
 as firm and motionless as a rock, deliberately 
 levelled my pistol at his throat, and fired. 
 With the fierce shriek of the death-agony he 
 sprang convulsively into the air, and with a 
 dull heavy sound fell on the earth a corpse. 
 I saw the result — saw that my prophecy was 
 fulfilled, that the green grass was red beneath 
 him, uttered a faint cry of exultation, and 
 sank into the arms of my second. 
 
74 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 But another spectacle was yet reserved for 
 me. I was aroused by a shriek so fierce, so 
 terrible, that it might have awakened the 
 dead on the judgment-day. Before me, pro- 
 strate on the ground, with the body of her 
 brother intertwined in her embrace, her white 
 garments and hair dabbled in blood, lay the 
 unfortunate object of my love and my wrath. 
 Suddenly she sprang to her feet with the 
 rapidity of lightning, and raised her bare and 
 crimsoned arm in threatening denunciation 
 against me. I heard not her words ; every 
 faculty was benumbed ; and motionless, 
 speechless, fascinated as though under the 
 influence of a basilisk, I gazed in awe un- 
 utterable on this sight of horror. With the 
 red spot of frenzy on her forehead, her pallid 
 cheek, contracted brow, dilated nostril, and 
 
MISERRIMUS. 75 
 
 quivering lip^ she looked the personification 
 of War^ or the type of the Destroying Angel. 
 The hair bristled on my head ; my eyes be- 
 came infected by the weakness of my brain ; 
 her form seemed to dilate until it stood above 
 me like a tower, and I swooned beneath my 
 terror and my agony. 
 
 For many after weeks I lay suspended be- 
 tween life and death. Often the natural 
 strength of my constitution made an effort 
 which would have restored me, but the mo- 
 ment I returned to my senses,, the violence 
 and impetuosity of my feelings induced an 
 agitation which invariably renewed my dis- 
 order with redoubled force. She, whom in 
 the perversion of my heart I then believed to 
 be the unhappy source of all my woes and 
 all my crimes, was the incessant object of 
 
76 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 my thoughts and my inquiries. But I could 
 gain no information with regard to her. 
 Since the fatal day of her brother's death, 
 she had never been seen to quit the house 
 of her father ; and none of the neighbour- 
 hood knew aught of the privacy of her life, 
 save that she existed in solitude and in 
 sorrow. 
 
 The family of my opponent having de- 
 clined to take any legal steps to avenge his 
 death, when I recovered, I was spared the 
 necessity of concealment, or the pain and 
 shame of a public trial. The first use I 
 made of my restored strength and freedom 
 was in personally endeavouring to acquire 
 some account of her. By conciliation, by 
 bribery, by stratagem, I strove to obtain 
 from the servants whom I could encounter. 
 
MISERRIMUS. 77 
 
 the knowledge of any domestic incident, how- 
 ever trivial, which related to her. But all 
 my attempts were vain. I could learn, in- 
 deed, that she was clad in black; that she 
 was frequently discovered in convulsive grief, 
 and that she rarely left her chamber; but 
 nothing of her conduct which could enable 
 me to form the remotest surmise with regard 
 to the sentiments she might now entertain for 
 me. Neither in the agony of her sorrow, 
 nor in the violence of her indignation, could 
 any one declare that she had been heard to 
 mention the name, or even to allude to the 
 existence of her brother's murderer. 
 
 Hour after hour, and day after day, have 
 I passed in wandering round her father's 
 domain, in the vague hope of discerning her 
 lischt form in the distance, or even of tracing 
 
78 MISERRIMTJS. 
 
 a vestige of her step in the long grass, or on 
 the gravelly soil. Evening has again ar- 
 rived ; yet still have I staid loitering with 
 the same indefinite and deceptive feeling, 
 gazing on the window of her chamber, until 
 the light that rendered it visible was extin- 
 guished : then, I retired to curse the folly of 
 my pursuit, and to rue that I was born. In 
 storm and in calm, in heat and in cold, this 
 was the occupation of my nights and days. 
 
 How wild and vain were then my fancies ! 
 How often, while I wandered through the 
 thick darkness with my strained eyes eternally 
 fixed on that inaccessible light, have I thought 
 on the tales of the eastern poets, and on the 
 legends of our own land, and longed to have 
 existed in the times when I might have bar- 
 tered my soul with Eblis, or Beelzebub, for 
 
MISERRIMUS. 79 
 
 a flying Car^ or winged Girdle, that would 
 have enabled me to hover for but one moment 
 around that illuminated window. My mind 
 has even become so utterly enervated by de- 
 spondency, that more than once I seriously 
 recalled to my recollection the superstition of 
 my school-days, when I believed that the 
 recital of Christ's prayer, backwards, was a 
 spell that would summon the Evil One from 
 his den ; and I felt almost inclined to practise 
 the absurd impiety. 
 
 But what was the source of this exquisite 
 interest ? Was it love of her ? or, was it love 
 of revenge ? Did I wish to woo her ? or, did 
 I wish to devote her to the fate of her brother ? 
 I was inflamed by neither of these motives 
 separately, but by a combination of them all. 
 
80 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 and of all the inconsistent passions which ever 
 agitated the human breast. I revered her 
 many virtues, but I loathed her fickleness ; 
 for, in the perversity of my blindness, even to 
 this base quality, which dwells but in feeble 
 or in vitiated minds, did I attribute her 
 abandonment of me. I desired to retain her 
 love, but I still more desired to make her 
 atone for the sorrow and the guilt which 
 she had entailed upon me. I adored her as 
 the source of former bliss, but I detested her 
 as the origin of my present misery. 
 
 These were the opposing sensations which 
 she excited in me ; and under their torturing 
 influence I knew not where to turn to hide 
 me from myself. I writhed too under the 
 shame of conscious weakness ; for I felt that 
 
MISERRIMUS. 81 
 
 Fate had indeed separated us for ever. The 
 sister could never be the wife of the brother's 
 murderer. 
 
 After a prolonged endurance of these mad- 
 dening conflicts^ I at length gained sufficient 
 strength to enable me to resolve to quit tlie 
 country, and remain in foreign lands until I 
 should recover a more healthful tone of mind. 
 Having a relative in Smyrna engaged in ex- 
 tensive trade, 1 determined to join him, em- 
 bark in his speculations, and endeavour to 
 obliterate, in the suspense and excitation of 
 commercial pursuits, all recollection of my 
 previous life. 
 
 But, before I departed, I sought to leave 
 my sting behind me. I wrote the following 
 letter, which I contrived should be delivered 
 to her after I had sailed. 
 
 G 
 
82 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 " Your curse is upon me ; and like Cain_, 
 a fugitive and a vagabond, I am about to 
 wander over the surface of tlie earth. The 
 voice of thy brother's blood crieth up to me 
 from the ground ; and I, too, can reply, in 
 the beautifully pathetic language of Scripture, 
 ' My punishment is greater than I can bear/ 
 
 " When first I knew you, whatever I might 
 previously have been, I was walking in the 
 path of rectitude ; I sinned neither in deed 
 nor in thought. If not inspired by any en- 
 thusiastic passion for virtue, yet my mind was 
 in a state of quiescence, which habit and 
 reflection might have strengthened into a re- 
 ligious stability. 
 
 " You appeared, and my whole nature 
 changed ; my slumbering energies were 
 awakened, and I laid them at your feet, for 
 
MTSERRTMUS. 83 
 
 you to direct to good or evil. How you have 
 fulfilled this trust, ask your own heart. 
 
 " Others have a thousand pursuits : am- 
 bition, pleasure, all the paths of wisdom, or 
 frivolity, are open before them. In policy, 
 in literature, in art, in all the various pro- 
 fessions, men have a stake and an interest, 
 and toil for gold, power, or renown. But I 
 possessed none of these resources, virtuous or 
 vicious. I had set my life upon a cast; I had 
 but one thought, one object in existence ; 
 and, directly or indirectly, every action, every 
 desire was associated with it. You were that 
 object ; and in you were comprised my life, 
 and m7/ world. Again, I demand you to 
 ask yourself, how you have replied to this 
 devotion ? 
 
 " Now, hear my ansAver. On tlie showing 
 
 n 2 
 
84 MTSERRIMUS. 
 
 of an aggrieved, and therefore a partial, wit- 
 ness, you learn the crime of my youth. Your 
 blood is inflamed by this exaggerated state- 
 ment ; and, without considering that the man 
 may regret the errors of the boy, you indulge 
 the impetuosity of your vindictiveness. This 
 was not just ; yet, so far, your conduct was 
 comparatively venial. But my tale ends not 
 liere. Remorselessly, relentlessly, in spite of 
 the most abject humiliation, though I stood 
 before you in heart-broken penitence, and so- 
 lemnly warned you of the consequences of 
 your implacability — warned you, that on 
 your decision depended the lives of two and 
 the salvation of one — yet, in cold-blooded 
 self-possession, when the delirium of passion 
 was past, deliberately, callously you cast me 
 oft' from you for ever. This was your deed ; 
 
MISERRIMUS. 85 
 
 and verily it has met — ay, and shall continue 
 to meet — its reward. 
 
 " What may be my future fate, I know 
 not : but should sorrow and suffering so far 
 undermine the little moral strength which 
 remains to me, as to induce me to perpetrate 
 the last, and weakest act of human folly, 
 believe, and tremble at my propliecy, — Here- 
 after, my blood will be required at your 
 
 hands. 
 
 " Ponder on what I have written — and live 
 — live for ever — to lament that you were 
 born." 
 
 In framing this letter, I was the victim of 
 contending emotions. The love which 1 still 
 
86 MISER RIMUS. 
 
 felt for her, perpetually instigated me to in- 
 troduce expressions of tenderness and charity; 
 but, my misanthropy prevailed. I looked on 
 myself, and I said. Behold what she has made 
 me ! And is she, the cause of all, to be ex- 
 empt from retribution? Am I to be the 
 only victim ? No ! let her drink, and drink 
 to the dregs, of the waters she has herself 
 spontaneously imbittered ! 
 
 And I smiled exultingly as I pictured to 
 myself her cheek of health — her radiant eye 
 — her elastic step — her soft and blooming 
 cheek, converted into sickliness and emacia- 
 tion — into sorrow and prostration : and I an- 
 ticipated the bliss of saying. This is my 
 work. 
 
 During my voyage, I vainly endeavoured 
 to withdraw my thoughts from the considera- 
 
MISERRIMUS. 87 
 
 tion of this all-painful theme. I struggled, 
 and struggled intrepidly and consistently ; 
 but the curse of rejection was on me ; and I 
 writhed beneath its fatal infliction. Love, 
 hatred, pride, shame, pity, and vengeance, 
 were the conflicting passions which made my 
 breast the arena for their strife, and retained 
 both body and mind in an equal state of un- 
 manly enervation. 
 
 We arrived at Smyrna ; and I immediately 
 plunged into all the intricacies of commercial 
 speculation. My attention was most assi- 
 duous ; and I devoted the whole of the day 
 to the execution of the schemes which I often 
 passed the night in projecting. This applica- 
 tion was the result of my strong determination 
 to struggle against my thoughts ; but, I be- 
 lieve, had my mind been unoccupied, that I 
 
88 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 should naturally have derived a gratification 
 from this pursuit; for in its excitation^ its 
 comprehensiveness^ there was something pe- 
 culiarly congenial to the general tone of my 
 character. 
 
 The unreserved confidence of my uncle 
 was speedily gained ; and before I had passed 
 six months in laboriously and consistently 
 perfecting myself in the routine and detail of 
 business, he entrusted me with the entire 
 control of his extensive negotiations. 
 
 Then I felt a sort of diplomatic spirit arise 
 within me; a love of intrigue, calculation, 
 and of the arrangement of all that mental 
 machinery which directs and governs gigantic 
 schemes in their remotest ramifications. In- 
 stigated by an ambition naturally as boundless 
 as tliat of a Goer(z, a Ripperda, or an Al- 
 
MISERRIMUS. 89 
 
 beroni, had Fate in earlier life aflforded me an 
 opportunity for its development, I endeavoured 
 to make the success of the last speculation but 
 a means of increasing the magnitude of the 
 succeeding one. In every instance^, without 
 exception_, Fortune favoured my exertions. 
 War raged throughout Europe, but never 
 was a ship of ours captured; they usually 
 sailed to and fro the crowded seas without 
 meeting an enemy ; but, if they did, they 
 escaped ; or, as occurred more than once, 
 the merchant ship repulsed the armed vessel. 
 Hurricanes, fire, all the casualties attached 
 to our profession, passed heedlessly, harm- 
 lessly over us ; scarcely could we believe 
 that such dangers existed. Perhaps neither 
 Jacques Coeur, nor Cosmo de' Medici ever 
 
90 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 conducted a more prosperous or extensive 
 commerce. 
 
 Thus was I occupied during nearly two 
 years ; but then the stimulus failed. By the 
 continued exertion of my energy, I had 
 hitherto repressed that foe of my peace, the 
 one great passion of my heart; but, alas, I 
 too soon discovered that I had suspended, not 
 weakened its power. Occasionally I unwit- 
 tingly lost myself in recurrences to the past ; 
 in dreams of love, regret, and of anticipated 
 vengeance ; but I would rouse myself from 
 the thrall, and rush into the tumult and ab- 
 straction of my worldly pursuits. Yet night 
 — night, the fell tyrant, with its solitude, and 
 its calm, its blackness, and its sleeplessness, I 
 could not escape. When once the thought of 
 
MISERRIMUS. 91 
 
 home, and of her, had seized on my prostrated 
 mind, I wandered again through the green 
 woods, on the hill, in the valley, and then — I 
 lay in hopeless torture, the unresisting victim 
 of my remorse, my love, and my hate, until 
 the blessed light of dawn, and the voices and 
 stir of men, arose to my succour, with their 
 gaiety and their life. 
 
 And yet, as though my grief was not suf- 
 iicent, I possessed an artificial mode of foster- 
 ing it. During the commencement of our 
 intimacy, one lovely autumnal day, while 
 walking in her garden, 1 discerned her from 
 the summit of an adjoining eminence, and in 
 fear and trembling advanced to meet her. 
 She received me courteously, though formally, 
 and we were pursuing a desultory, and some- 
 what restrained discourse, when «he plucked 
 
92 MlSERRIxMUS. 
 
 a flower from that beautiful plant the scabious. 
 Professing to be ignorant of its perfume, I 
 made a i^iotion as though I would willingly 
 have withdrawn it from her grasp, if I had 
 dared. Confused and surprised, uncertain 
 whether she ought to dissent or comply, in 
 the indecision of her action, our hands met ; I 
 seized the flower, and in spite of all my re- 
 verence and all my timidity, never returned 
 it. That evening I reached my home, thrilling 
 in every nerve and vein with pleasure and 
 exultation. 
 
 This flower I had artificially dried, and had 
 ever since guarded with such care that after 
 the lapse of three years, it was still in a state 
 of perfect preservation. It accompanied me 
 on my voyage ; and during my sojourn in the 
 East, many and many a bitter hour have I 
 
MTSERRIMUS. 93 
 
 endured in contemplating it. Divided by so 
 vast a distance, and still more widely by force 
 of circumstance, it were vain to attempt to 
 depict the sad, the painful, the dreadful 
 thoughts engendered by this little memorial 
 of hope, of home, and of happiness. None 
 but an ardent lover can estimate the extent of 
 its power in imparting a vividness to the past. 
 It was a relic that addressed itself to the most 
 powerful senses ; one that I could see, that I 
 could scent, that I could touch. It seemed 
 to carry me through time and space into 
 actual contact with her who had gathered it ; 
 and again, and again, without any effort of 
 volition, was acted before me the scene I have 
 described. In the delicious climate of the 
 East, amid every inducement to repose and 
 enjoyment, and surrounded by all the en- 
 
94 MISEERIMUS. 
 
 cliantmeiit and luxury which that enchanted 
 and luxurious land can alone supply ; beneath 
 the glittering dome of the gorgeous palace ; 
 in the fairy garden ;, by the side of the fountain^ 
 with its marble columns of exquisite white- 
 ness in beautiful union with the noble foliap'e 
 of the date, the palm, and the pomegranate 
 tree ; while the Persian sang, and the dark- 
 eyed, graceful Georgian danced beneath the 
 liquid light of the silver moon, have 1 sat 
 gazing on that little flower until my sorrow 
 rose in my throat, and I felt as though my 
 heart-strings would have cracked. And yet 
 such was my infatuation, that though this 
 memorial of past happiness but served to aug- 
 ment my anguish, I never could acquire the 
 fortitude to abandon, or destroy it. 
 
 To this extent, however, had I succeeded 
 
MISERRIMUS. 95 
 
 in controlling the dictates of my passion, 
 neither directly, nor indirectly, in any of my 
 letters, had I ventured to allude to her. 
 Though no previous communication on the 
 subject had occurred between us, my sisters, 
 my principal correspondents, seemed to feel 
 the force of this omission ; for they never in- 
 formed me of aught that in the remotest 
 degree related to her, or to her family : and 
 despite the temptations which I repeatedly 
 endured, this silence remained inviolate. 
 
 I had passed two entire years in the East 
 when my uncle died, bequeathing to me the 
 whole of his immense wealth and extensive 
 trade. Then came upon me an indomitable 
 desire of returning to England. Yielding to 
 the impulse which I could not control, and 
 mentally attemjDting to palliate my weakness 
 
96 MTSERRIMUS. 
 
 by the adoption of the Oriental creed^, that 
 man is born to fulfil his destiny, I prepared 
 to return to the land of my birth. During 
 the few ensuing months, I was as industriously 
 engaged in contracting the dealings of our 
 house, as I had previously been in enlarging 
 them. At length, having converted the 
 greater portion of my merchandize into gold, 
 and so limited and arranged my commercial 
 transactions as to enable a confidential agent 
 to conduct them with safety, I departed from 
 the East. 
 
 The hand of disease was still upon me ; I 
 had never recovered the blow which I had 
 received. The pernicious effects of an ener- 
 vating climate, the anxieties which I endured, 
 and the exertions which I made in the se- 
 dulous prosecution of my arduous avocation, 
 
MISERRTMUS. 97 
 
 all tended to prolong the malady engendered 
 by a wounded frame and a broken heart : 
 and I stepped on my native shore, dejected 
 and careworn, hopeless, fearless, reckless — a 
 man without a smile, and without a tear. 
 Great were the changes which I found that 
 
 my family had experienced. My only sur- 
 viving parent had been dead several months ; 
 and I afterwards learned that the letter which 
 bore me this afflicting intelligence had arrived 
 in Smyrna on the very day I quitted it. My 
 elder sister, married to a man of rank and 
 affluence, had gone to reside in the metro- 
 polis ; and my younger sister, warned by me 
 of my approaching return, alone remained to 
 welcome me to the home of my fathers. 
 
 But great as were these changes, how much 
 greater were those which the family of my 
 
 H 
 
98 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 unfortunate mistress had experienced. For 
 many months after the death of his son, 
 her father had led a life as secluded as 
 that of his daughter. At last, instigated 
 perhaps by the hope of excitement and dis- 
 traction, he embarked a small portion of his 
 fortune in mercantile adventure. He was 
 eminently successful; and impelled by his 
 success, he was induced to enter into some 
 mining speculations of enormous magnitude. 
 The consequence was, that, on my return to 
 England, I found him utterly ruined. His 
 estate, his last remaining property, was an- 
 nounced for public sale ; and in the course of 
 two short weeks, he and his daughter, would 
 be driven from it, friendless, houseless men- 
 dicants, to live, or starve, on the narrow gifts 
 of contumelious charity. 
 
MISERRIMUS. 99 
 
 And how did I receive this information ? — ^ 
 With utter, unalloyed exultation ! But let 
 it not be thought that I hoped to revenge 
 my supposed wrongs by persecution ; no, for 
 I hoped to revenge them still more deeply 
 by kindness. I sought to fortify, not to 
 weaken her affection ; I sought to punish 
 her through the self-reproaches of her own 
 heart, not through any external infliction : I 
 sought to force her to believe that she had 
 been the spontaneous source of our mutual 
 unhappiness ; and I only rejoiced in her ruin, 
 because I anticipated that it would afford me 
 an opportunity of overwhelming her with 
 
 benefits, and of exciting in her a sense of 
 painful and hopeless gratitude. Miserable as 
 I was, my misery would have been increased 
 even a hundred-fold, had I been assured th*' 
 
100 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 she had ceased to love me ; for, in defiance of 
 my crime and of my violence, I deduced from 
 the intensity of her former affection, the en- 
 thusiasm and tenderness of her nature, and 
 the solitude of her life — which, offering no 
 theme for present contemplation, forces the 
 mind to dwell on the memory of the past — 
 that, despite of all her efTorts to eradicate it, 
 she must still retain her passion for me. Thus, 
 with a ruthless exultation, I had long been 
 accustomed to dwell on the idea, that at some 
 future, perhaps, not distant period of my life, 
 I should experience that greatest earthly hap- 
 piness of seeing her at my feet, and of then 
 contemning her proffered love as she had re- 
 jected mine. Little, however, did I purpose 
 to persist in this contempt ; I meant but to 
 mete unto her as she had meted unto me, and 
 
MISERRIMUS. 101 
 
 then to take her to my bosom, and devote the 
 rest of my days to eradicate the impression of 
 
 the past — to force her to say that the last 
 state of this man is not worse than the first. 
 These were my dreams, and fearful was their 
 realization. 
 
 In prosecution of these intentions, I pur- 
 chased through a confidential agent, the en- 
 tire estate of her father. At a very large 
 pecuniary sacrifice, I paid all his debts, and 
 placed him again in uncontrolled possession 
 of his property ; working so secretly, that no 
 effort of his could ever have enabled him to 
 trace the hand to which he was indebted. But 
 I was aware that they knew of my return ; 
 and I left her to feel that I was their bene- 
 factor. None but those who have possessed 
 passions such as mine, can imagine the wild 
 
102 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 and proud pleasure I derived from this first 
 exercise of my power over her who had seen 
 me at her feet and trampled on my contrition. 
 
 For several months after these occurrences, 
 I patiently awaited some manifestation,, direct 
 or indirect, from her or her parent, of their 
 consciousness that I was the author of them. 
 I haunted as before, in gloom and despond- 
 ency, the environs of the park ; but I could 
 not even obtain a glimpse of her form. After 
 the fatal duel, all intercourse between our fa- 
 milies had ceased ; no hostility had been ex- 
 hibited, but my sisters naturally felt that the 
 sight of them could not but be painful to the 
 bereaved father and daughter. 
 
 But, heedless of this honorable dehcacy, 
 and instigated by the agony of my impa- 
 tience, I now prevailed upon my sister to visit 
 
MISERRIMUS. 103 
 
 their solitary abode. She was received with 
 solemn courtesy ; and at the end of along; half 
 hour she returned to fill me with despair. 
 
 Often, with a reckless profaneness, had 1 
 said unto myself, Behold and see ! there is no 
 sorrow like unto my sorrow ! but the tale of 
 my sister proved the fallacy of my judgment : 
 I had not yet known what Heaven destined 
 me to bear. She described a painful change 
 in the appearance of both father and daugh- 
 ter ; she dwelt on the fixed gloom which had 
 engraven itself on her features ; on the tones 
 of their voices, the sombre character of their 
 demeanour, their heart-breaking dejection and 
 prostration of spirit. She had availed herself 
 of an opportunity of mentioning my name : the 
 father started beneath the sound, but the 
 daughter exliibited no emotion. 
 
104 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 " With the beautiful resignation and sub- 
 lime suffering of a saint/' pursued my sister, 
 " she seems only to exist in the anticipation 
 of a future state, and to regard herself as 
 eternally severed from the ties which bind 
 frail mortality to the earth. She recalls 
 to me the picture I saw, when in Paris with 
 my sister, of that lovely but erring lady. La 
 Valiere, in her conventual garments, suppli- 
 cating her Creator to sustain her in her hour 
 of affliction. Though dissimilar in feature, 
 precisely the same heavenly expression of 
 humility, benevolence, and exquisite sorrow, 
 beams in the large, humid, and yet pellucid 
 eye of both. Believe me, my dear brother, 
 that for worlds I would not willingly distress 
 you ; but you really must suffer me to say, 
 that I cannot conceive a sight more touch- 
 
MISERRIMUS. 105 
 
 ingly pathetic^ more painfully interesting, than 
 this afflicted father and daughter." 
 
 The words of ray sister smote me to my 
 heart, and for a time I remained plunged in 
 bitter retrospection ; but, soon recovering my- 
 self, I multiplied question on question, to en- 
 deavour to extract some evidence of the nature 
 of the feelings with which I might now inspire 
 her. But I could derive no consolation from 
 the answers ; not a word, look, or tone, had 
 revealed the shadow of even a passing interest 
 in my existence. 
 
 " Why torment yourself by these inquiries, 
 my brother?" cried my sister: "I will not 
 affect to be ignorant of their motive, and the 
 love I bear you would induce me to deceive 
 you, but that I believe it is better for your 
 happiness that you should know the truth. 
 
106 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 Unreservedly^ then, will I confess to you that 
 I watched her narrowly for your sake ; and 
 you know the piercing power of a woman's 
 eye, in detecting the secrets of the heart in her 
 own sex, is proverbial — nous nous ressem- 
 blons toutes, et nous connoissons notre se- 
 cret. I fear, then, I do not err, when I say, 
 that I am. convinced that the past can never 
 be recalled. I think she has endeavoured to 
 banish you from her mind ; but, if you ever re- 
 cur to it, I am sure that the image induces no 
 pleasurable feelings. I speak thus sincerely 
 and thus harshly to you, my dear brother, be- 
 cause I loathe to see you pining and fretting in 
 the indulgence of a fallacious hope, wasting a 
 life that might be useful to others, and happy 
 and honorable to yourself. Believe me, 
 teach yourself that you are separated for 
 
MISERRIMUS. 107 
 
 ever, and your natural strength of mind ivill 
 emancipate you from the fetters of this un- 
 manly despondency." 
 
 My sister judged truly. Hitherto I had 
 only existed in the idea that she must still re- 
 tain her affection for me in her inmost soul, 
 however much the exhibition of it might be 
 suppressed. But now, and now only, I began 
 to suggest to myself the possibility, nay, the 
 more than probability, of her having ceased 
 to love me. Like the Sirocco, the thought 
 swept across my heart, and left all desolate. 
 
 Nerved I y lesperation no longer to endure 
 the agony of suspense, that same naoriGECig I 
 addressed a letter to her, which I commanded, 
 with the most threatening injunctions, my 
 messenger to fail not himself to place in her 
 hands. My order wa?! obeyed; and, during 
 
108 MISERRIMUS . 
 
 the evening, my letter was returned to me un- 
 opened. 
 
 From that hour I became the prey of the 
 combined tortures of hopeless love and hope- 
 less hatred. I wandered about, a miserable 
 man ; and I stood with my head bowed on 
 my breast, and I cried, " From Dan even to 
 Beersheba, all, all is barren." My spirit 
 raged against my kind ; and I wished that 
 all animate nature could be concentrated be- 
 neath my foot, that I might enjoy the ecstasy 
 of crushing it into annihilation. And yet, 
 such is the inconsistency of all human pas- 
 sions, that I, who could entertain these sa- 
 vage thoughts, who could ruthlessly raise my 
 hand against the life of another, and as fear- 
 lessly stake my own on the flight of a bullet 
 or the thrust of a sword, have yet stood trem- 
 
MISERRIMUS. 109 
 
 bling over the lake, the pistol, or the poison, 
 contemplating the suicide which I sought, but 
 dared not to commit ! 
 
 How often, then, in my moments of calmer 
 anguish, has the selfish and painful thought 
 of the hours and days, the months and years 
 which I had so fruitlessly consumed ; of the 
 love, devotion, and energy which I had so 
 fruitlessly lavished, made me recall to myself, 
 and feel in its fullest force and beauty, the 
 exquisite pathos of that most touching speech 
 which history records, " If I had served my 
 God as I have served my king, he would 
 not have forsaken me in these my gray hairs \" 
 
 But in the absorption of this painful recur- 
 rence to one of the severest trials of even my 
 unhappy life, I must not omit to pay a 
 tribute of affection to the memory of my fond 
 
110 MISERRTMUS. 
 
 sisre.t Oh^ woman, woman ! much calum- 
 niated being by the frivolous and the pro- 
 sperous, in the hour of adversity we feel and 
 admit the consciousness of your superiority. 
 The lover assiduously attends the sick bed of 
 his mistress ; the son bewails and caresses his 
 dying parent; and friend cleaves to friend 
 with persevering regard : the surface is fair, 
 but beneath is ths lurking, secret, sometimes, 
 perhaps, even half unconscious, hope of pre- 
 sent or future persond benefit. Woman, 
 woman alone, io capable of genuine unalloyed 
 disinterestedness; and for her alone is re- 
 served the high honor of proving that self-love 
 is not the sole motor of existence. 
 
 Of this nature was my devoted sister : she 
 adored virtue for virtue's sake; and really 
 believed that the practice of it induced its 
 
MISERRIMUS. Ill 
 
 own reward. She saw that I was miserable, 
 far, far beyond the qommon apportionment of 
 misery ; and though, as I afterwards knew, 
 she was at that very time sincerely attached 
 to a neighbouring gentleman of high mind, 
 birth, and character, who felt for her a more 
 than equal affection, yet she cheerfully with- 
 drew herself from the indulgence of this 
 natural and fascinating feeling, to devote 
 herself to my consolation ; not as man may 
 sometimes sacrifice to man in the rigid per- 
 formance of a self-imposed duty, but in 
 the beautiful unconsciousness of heavenly im- 
 pulse. 
 
 While this beloved girl thus attempted, 
 though in vain, to sooth the wretchedness of 
 my state, the father of her who had indirectly 
 caused it died ; brought down to a premature 
 
112 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 grave by the misfortunes he had endured. 
 In spite of her apparent hostility, all that 
 related to her was still a subject of painful 
 interest to me ; and deeply did I lament the 
 grief which I knew this fresh wound would 
 occasion her. 
 
 A few weeks after this event, I had been 
 sitting during several successive hours on the 
 spot where we had first met ; above me, was 
 the intertwined foliage, and below me, was the 
 rapid stream. Oh ! bitterly, bitterly painful 
 was the chain of thought which this location 
 suggested ! And yet, with the infatuation of 
 a morbid mind, pursuing the current of my 
 miserable reflections, I continued to contrast 
 the past with the present moment. Again 
 and again I arrayed before myself all the 
 minutest circumstances which related to that 
 
MISERRTMUS. 113 
 
 scene. I pictured her sunny smile^ her beam- 
 ing eye, her classic form in congenial union 
 with her classic harp ; and I dwelt on her 
 sacred melody, until " Madre amata,'" and 
 each plaintive note, appeared again to tremble 
 on my ear. These were the reminiscences 
 which I tortured myself by placing in com- 
 parison with my actual state. 
 
 Wrapt in the corroding anguish of this 
 retrospection, I grew scarcely conscious of 
 time or place, when suddenly a sound of 
 singular interest aroused me into attention; 
 it seemed the half-suppressed sob of female 
 grief. I listened intently ; it was a woman's 
 voice bewailing; and now, borne on the 
 breeze, came a louder and a deeper burst of 
 sorrow. Excited instantaneously by a feeling 
 which I could not define, into a temporary 
 
114 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 self-oblivion, I stole cautiously along until I 
 obtained a sight of the sufferer. 
 
 God of heaven ! for the first time for four 
 long years I stood within a few yards of the 
 being I adored ! I knew — I felt that it was 
 she;, though I saW not her face. Clinging to 
 the next branch for support, I gazed with a 
 full and bursting soul on the picture she pre- 
 sented — and oh ! how piteous, and yet how 
 beautiful it was ! 
 
 She was seated beneath the trunk of an old 
 and fantastic tree, the huge limbs of which 
 inclining downwards, its thick foliage threw a 
 soft shadow around her. A simple garment 
 of white, not ample enough to conceal the 
 graceful outline of her Phidian form, dis- 
 played a neck of dazzling and exquisitely 
 voluptuous whiteness. One statue-like arm, 
 
MISERRIMUS. 115 
 
 bare to the shoulder, uniting all the fulness 
 and polish of the purest marble with the soft- 
 ness of nature, hung by her side, while the 
 hand, as perfect in symmetry as in hue, 
 ^ rested lightly on the turf. The other pressed 
 her forehead, which, bowed to her knees, was 
 concealed by the dishevelled hair that fell in 
 heavy masses to the earth, where it lay in 
 accumulated clusters of silken brilliancy. She 
 sighed and moaned most piteously ; and heart- 
 rending were the sobs which momentarily 
 convulsed her frame, as she rocked to and 
 fro, with an irregular and painful motion, in 
 the strong agony of her grief. 
 
 This was the spectacle that met my gaze ; 
 and had it been the fabled Medusa, I could 
 not have been more quickly transformed into 
 stone. My blood ceased to flow, my pulse 
 
 j2 
 
116 MTSERRIMUS. 
 
 to beat ; and I stood a breathless statue, in 
 all but the too vivid consciousness of pity, 
 horror, and remorse. 
 
 Suddenly, with fearful vehemence, she cast 
 herself on her knees, and clasping her hands, 
 raised her lovely arms to heaven in energetic 
 prayer. I heard not her vi^ords ; but the ac- 
 tion and the expression denoted the homage 
 of a broken and of a bleeding heart. She 
 ceased; and her arms fell by her side, her 
 head sank on her breast ; the parted lips were 
 motionless, and she seemed for a few mo- 
 ments in all the supineness of overwhelming 
 despair : then, abruptly starting to her feet, she 
 took one long lingering survey of earth and 
 sky, and dashed herself into the stream. The 
 agitated waters seized on her fragile form, 
 and enveloped her in their gloomy depths; 
 
MISERRIMUS. 117 
 
 then tossing her to their surface, bore her 
 rapidly along their raging course of foam and 
 whirlpool. 
 
 What followed I know not, until I found 
 myself standing on the brink of the stream, 
 with her senseless body in my arms. In the 
 madness of that moment, all reason was lost, 
 and I had acted from intuitive and uncon- 
 scious impulse. 
 
 I laid her on the grass, and essayed every 
 remedy that art or affection could suggest to 
 restore her to life, but in vain ; till, frantic 
 with disappointment, in a paroxysm of grief, 
 I threw myself by her side, and insanely 
 kissed her lips, her eyes, and her forehead. 
 The blood began to dance in my veins like 
 burning alcohol, and the pent-up passions of 
 years burst their unnatural confinement. I 
 
118 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 wound my arms around her unresisting form ; 
 I clasped her to my heart with the strong 
 pressure of delirium, and yet I felt as though 
 1 only grasped a vision, a vacancy ; substance 
 itself was not enough substantial, reality not 
 enough real, to glut the insatiate cravings of 
 this fierce transport of blended love and grief. 
 None, but those who may have possessed 
 passions as ungovernable as mine, can picture 
 the savage, the fearful delight which I de- 
 rived from this clandestine embrace of what 
 1 then conceived to be the living and the 
 dead ! 
 
 There she lay before me ; she, whom during 
 four long years I had vainly endeavoured 
 even to behold. There she lay; she, the 
 pure, the rigid, the inflexible, without a tone 
 or a gesture to check the wildest expression 
 
MISERRIMUS. 119 
 
 of my love. And yet, there was the form, 
 and there was the eye, which had once in- 
 spired me with the very intensity of that 
 causeless fear which arises in the excess of 
 passionate affection. '^And now," I cried, 
 raising her arm, and then allowing it to drop 
 heavily on the earth, " the ruled has become 
 the ruler, the slave is converted into the de- 
 spot. I, the trembler, have now but to com- 
 mand, and lo, I am obeyed. I have but to 
 say. Do this, and it doeth it;" and again I 
 raised the arm, and waved it in the air, in 
 awful mockery of the action of life. 
 
 But a flood of tears, and bitter agonizing 
 dejection, soon succeeded to this ebullition of 
 all the ferocious and inhuman passions of my 
 nature. I pressed her hand to my face, I 
 
120 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 bowed my head to the earthy and I wept like 
 a child. 
 
 While wrapt in the bitterness of my grief, 
 I thought that I felt a convulsive movement 
 in the hand enclosed in mine. I gazed in- 
 tently on her face, and distinctly discerned a 
 quivering in the lips. In a transport of hope, 
 I raised her in my arms, and bore her to my 
 home. Medical assistance was immediately 
 summoned ; and before two hours had elapsed 
 she was restored to life. Swayed by the ad- 
 vice of my sister, and by my own dread of 
 the effect which the sight of me might produce 
 on her in her still precarious state, I retired 
 to my room, before she was sufficiently re- 
 covered to recognize the objects around her. 
 
 In anxiety and agitation, I was revolving 
 
MISERRIMUS. 121 
 
 this extraordinary event, speculating on its 
 cause, and endeavouring to surmise its results, 
 when a servant entered, and presented me 
 with a letter which had just been brought 
 by a messenger from the hall. I started in 
 astonishment, and a thrill of painful expecta- 
 tion ran through my veins, as I gazed on 
 her well-known hand. I observed that it 
 bore the date of the previous day ; and then, 
 in doubt and fear, in hope and eagerness, 
 with a trembling hand, and an unsteady eye, 
 proceeded to read that which follows. 
 
 " When this last confession of a fated sin- 
 ner shall be revealed to you, the spirit of her 
 who penned it shall be hovering around you, 
 shall be searching into your heart, shall be 
 striving to commune with you : and if ever 
 
122 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 Heaven allowed the laws of mortal nature to 
 be broken for any other than its own great 
 purposes, doubt not that its presence shall be 
 manifest to you. You shall feel it breathe on 
 your soul, and blend with your being. 
 
 " Bashful, irresolute, apprehensive, the he- 
 reditary slave of prejudice and education, wo- 
 man's career, from generation to generation, 
 is one of continued self-deceit, mistrust, and 
 restraint. But now, standing on the verge of 
 the grave, the betrothed of death, with eyes 
 that pierce into space, and meet on every tree 
 the beckoning antics of the impatient fiend, 
 the iron trammels of factitious habit fall from 
 my mind, and I glory in declaring that — / 
 adore you. I discard the timidity of my na- 
 ture and the pride of my sex, and I avow ex- 
 ultingly, that I linger with delight, as I slowly 
 
MISERRIMUS. 123 
 
 retrace the three little, but oh_, how compre- 
 hensive words, I adore you ! 
 
 " And yet, none can ever know how I have 
 struggled with my passion, how I have schooled 
 myself to repress it. Often in an agony of re- 
 morse have I passed the sleepless night and 
 day in imploring the protection of Heaven ; 
 but it came not. Eve after eve, morn after 
 morn, when I offered up my homage to my 
 Creator, I have sworn to forget you ; but I 
 only slept to dream of you, or awakened to 
 summon before me, incident by incident, the 
 blissful detail of our too fleeting intercourse. 
 Nowhere could I turn for succour. With 
 every action of my life, with every operation 
 of nature, some thought of you was indelibly 
 associated. The rising and the setting sun, 
 the green hills, the gentle gale, the moon, the 
 
124 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 stars^ the scent of flowers, all were so many 
 foes to my peace, for all served in turn but to 
 remind me of you. My books I dared not 
 open, and music was even more fertile in 
 heart-breaking recollection. 
 
 " Strife — constant, ceaseless, internal strife 
 is the history of my life since we parted. And 
 yet, so potent was the effect of my early self- 
 discipline, that during the whole of this eter- 
 nity of suffering, nor word nor look has ever 
 betrayed the weakness of my heart. God 
 only knows what this effort has cost me, nor 
 what I have endured, when I have marked 
 you wandering beneath my window, in re- 
 pressing my desire to offer you some token 
 of my pardon and affection. Ah, relentless, 
 vindictive, implacable, must you then have 
 deemed me ; and little did you think, while 
 
MISERRIMUS. 125 
 
 thus you dissipated health and happiness in 
 the fruitless hope of gazing upon me, the cal- 
 lous, the obdurate, that I passed the equal 
 hour in furtively watching your course, and 
 sympathising in your anguish — that I gave 
 you sigh for sigh, and groan for every groan. 
 " Bitter, oh bitter were those moments of 
 trial ! How often, then, did I repeat to my- 
 self, that but for my own insensate rashness, 
 my guilty violence, this desolation had never 
 been. Our world was a garden of flowers, 
 and I wantonly laid it waste. My poor, poor 
 brother ! I may not, could not if I would, cri- 
 minate his noble, honest nature ; but I can- 
 not consent to die, and suffer you to think me 
 more culpable than I am. The tale of your 
 early life was repeated to me in a moment of 
 excitation, and I have since too often felt that 
 
126 ]MISERRTMUS. 
 
 he may unconsciously have exaggerated the 
 errors of your conduct. Well do I now re- 
 member that he described you with an ani- 
 mosity of which I did not deem him capable ; 
 but, alas ! I knew not then of your encounter 
 and contest on the morn of that very eve, or 
 I might have received his statement with the 
 modification of suspicion. Oh, that it had 
 pleased Heaven to have enlightened me; I 
 might not now have to lament a brother's 
 loss, or to turn to the east and the west, the 
 north and the south, but find no succour. 
 
 " Think not that I would attempt to justify 
 my conduct ; I seek but to make you regard 
 it in its proper light. No ; heinous has been 
 my crime, and fearful must be the atonement ! 
 
 " So long as my poor father remained, I, 
 too, was doomed to support the infliction of 
 
MISERRIMUS. 127 
 
 existence. But now that he has left this hap- 
 less scene, unshackled, unfettered, free as air, 
 I reign the queen of myself; more despotic 
 than the despot, for he but rules another's life, 
 while 1 have attained dominion of my own. 
 I love you — I adore you — and — we are sepa- 
 rated for ever ! A red stream flows between 
 us — it haunts me by day, and it follows me 
 by night. Beyond it I see happiness, elysium, 
 — but I may not pass. On this side is de- 
 spair ; on the other, hope, love, gratitude, 
 sympathy, all the blessings of this mortal 
 state ; but still I may not cross that small 
 dark line of eternal disunion — for it is my 
 brother s blood. This course alone, then, re- 
 mains for my adoption — the sister dare not 
 wed her brother's murderer, but she dares to 
 
128 JVirSERRTMUS. 
 
 die rather than live apart from him whom she 
 more than idolizes. 
 
 '' Now I have unlocked the inmost secrets 
 of my heart; it is as naked before you as 
 before my Creator. Oh, your curse is indeed 
 upon me ! — ^ I do live to lament that I was 
 born !* — Harsh as was that wish, still harsher 
 was the cause you had for framing it. I felt 
 that I deserved it at your hands, and I wept 
 bitter tears over my picture of the agony in 
 which it must have originated. The rest of 
 your letter but increased my sympathy and 
 affection, for I saw in every line the excess of 
 your despair, and I pardoned, nay, almost 
 loved, that acerbity of expression which served 
 but to prove your deep sense of your loss. 
 To me you have ever been all that is good • 
 
MTSERRIMUS. 129 
 
 and oh, how I thank you with mj^ wliole soul, 
 with all the affection of a fond daughter, and 
 with all the fervour of a grateful woman, for 
 your last generous, noble act of kindness to 
 my poor father ! Cease not to remember, 
 that in these sentiments I quitted the world, 
 and let them be a source of consolation to 
 
 « 
 
 you. 
 
 " And now, my beloved, fare you well ! 
 Let me entreat, conjure you to school your- 
 self to think of me without regret. Soothing 
 as is to me the expression of these feelings, I 
 never had revealed them, had I not thought 
 that at some future day, you would be less un- 
 happy in the consciousness of them, than if I 
 had quitted this mortal career, allowing you 
 still to suppose me the vindictive, the unjust, 
 the ingrate ; the artful winner of your love, 
 
 K 
 
130 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 and then the contemner of it ! — Pray Heaven 
 that m adopting this course I may have judged 
 correctly ! 
 
 " Shed not one tear over my grave ; for- 
 get me not, but think on me with serenity. 
 Let my name be to thee an oasis in the desert 
 of memory ! And now, may the Almighty 
 restore you to tranquillity, and ultimately to 
 every blessing which this life can offer. Fare- 
 well again, then, beloved of my soul, and 
 remember this last, this parting prayer — live, 
 and be happy for my sake.'* 
 
 The moment I had completed the perusal 
 of this powerful and extraordinary picture of 
 love and devotion, of weakness and heroism. 
 
MISERRIMUS. 131 
 
 of rectitude and error, of religion and de- 
 spair, I comprehended that it had never been 
 intended to have met my eye while the writer 
 existed ; and instantly the whole machinery of 
 her conduct arrayed itself before me. Unable 
 longer to struggle against her passion, and 
 the consequent disgust of life, she had re- 
 solved to die. In this determination she had 
 written the declaration which I had just read, 
 directing that it should not be delivered into 
 my hands until after a stated period, when 
 she contemplated she should no longer belong 
 to this world of care. She had then left her 
 home ; and but for my intervention her plans 
 would have been too accurately accomplished. 
 These were the thoughts that flashed across 
 me ; and then, with the exultation of a fiend, 
 I strode up and down the chamber, the 
 
 k2 
 
132 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 eventful letter in my hand. She was mine, 
 then, — mine! bound to me by the ties of 
 indivisible afiection. A free career was open 
 to me, and I might glut either my love or 
 my hate. She adored me — had indelibly 
 recorded her adoration — and I then grasped 
 that proof of it which admitted of neither 
 change nor appeal. Was she not beneath 
 my roof, unprotected, friendless, utterly, ir- 
 revocably within my power? Might I not, 
 then, avail myself of her weakness to effect 
 her eternal disgrace, and thus at once gratify 
 the two dearest passions of my heart ? Oh, 
 no ! no ! worlds should not have tempted me 
 to have adopted this course. I loved her too 
 dearly to doom her to endless shame and 
 misery ; but my vindictive, morbid, unhappy 
 nature, could not forgive her the anguish, 
 
MISERRIMUS. 133 
 
 the desolation, which she had caused me. 
 At that moment, had her life been threatened, 
 I could have cheerfully sacrificed mine to 
 have ensured her safety ; but to have pre- 
 served both, I could not have suppressed my 
 feelings of resentment. The theory of the 
 Orientals of two principles, the Good and 
 the Evil, perpetually waging war in the breast 
 of man, can alone represent the inconsistency 
 of my sentiments. 
 
 In recurring, after this long lapse of years, 
 to the deeds of this thrice guilty portion of 
 my fated career, I sometimes cannot refrain 
 from fancying that I never could have per- 
 petrated them, unless at the time I had been 
 the pre-ordained victim of confirmed insanity. 
 Quern Deus vult perdere prius dementit, is 
 
134 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 a maxim which frequently in my own despite 
 occurs to me. But, as this idea brings with 
 it a shadow of consolation, I never allow 
 myself to entertain it ; for I am doomed by 
 Heaven and my own will to endure for the 
 remainder of my life the unmitigated horrors 
 of remorse. 
 
 While, jaded in mind and body, the prey 
 of intestine strife, I vainly contended with 
 the evil of my heart, repeated messages from 
 the sick chamber informed me of the state of 
 the invalid. Several hours thus elapsed ; the 
 evening advanced, and darkness had fallen 
 upon the earth, ere I was gladdened by the 
 entrance of my sister. She told me that her 
 precious charge had been slightly delirious, 
 and had addressed a few incoherent words 
 
MISERRIMUS. ]35 
 
 to those around her, but that she had 
 just sunk into a cahn and apparently intense 
 sleep. 
 
 Hitherto, my sister had received no ex- 
 planation of the appearance of her most un- 
 expected guest ; but she now sought a solution 
 of the mystery, and I placed the letter in her 
 hand. Her surprise was boundless. Her in- 
 genuous countenance expressed the emotions 
 which its perusal excited, and her deep 
 blushes revealed the woman's sympathy in 
 the feelings of her friend. Her feminine 
 sensibility appeared to be even more struck 
 by its passionate declarations than by its tone 
 of anguish and despair. 
 
 When she had read it, she gazed on me 
 with astonishment and inquiry ; and I then 
 communicated to her how I had rescued her 
 
136 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 friend from self-destruction_, and that the 
 letter had fallen into my possession because 
 she had not had the power of countermanding 
 its delivery. My sister listened with attention 
 and evidently with satisfaction. 
 
 " The hand of Providence^ brother," she 
 said, " appears to be in this event : I begin 
 to think that you may still be happy. What 
 a noble, though an erring part, has my poor 
 friend played. She could not live without 
 you, but she would rather die than wed the 
 man who was stained with her brother's blood. 
 How heroic, and yet how weak ! how dis- 
 interested, and yet how selfish ! With my 
 whole soul, I pity her ; what a conflict must 
 have been hers ! But, now, it must exist no 
 longer. With that written witness of the 
 violence of her affection in your possession, 
 
MISERRIMUS. 137 
 
 she cannot again attempt to sever from you. 
 Oh, brother, madly you ought to adore her ! 
 How much she is to be admired. Her very 
 frailties are more noble than the virtues of 
 others !" 
 
 Though I admitted the justice, or rather 
 the inadequacy of this praise of my sister, yet 
 it grated on my ears, for it was a tacit reproach 
 to the sentiments I entertained. Shunning, 
 therefore, further colloquy on the subject, I 
 repaired to the sick chamber with a cautious 
 step and a throbbing heart; I felt it beat 
 against my chest as though it would have 
 burst its confinement. My whole frame was 
 agitated as with a convulsion ; and my trem- 
 bling limbs would scarcely support me. With 
 emotions ineffable, noiselessly and tenderly I 
 bent over her, and gazed on her dear coun- 
 
138 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 tenance. Imperfect as was the light, it was 
 sufficient to render every object visible. She 
 lay before me ; her head turned toward the 
 pillow, displayed but a portion of her lovely 
 face, pale and marble-like, under the in- 
 fluence of exhaustion. Her bright, dark au- 
 burne hair, still unconfined, was scattered 
 around her ; and still exposed was her pure 
 symmetrical arm, that pre-eminently fasci- 
 nating, but most rare of female charms. So 
 motionless, so profound her repose, it might 
 have been deemed the sleep of death, but that 
 the beauty of life was on her features. 
 
 Softly approaching my face still nearer to 
 hers, I allowed the warm breath to play on 
 my cheek, until I grew faint beneath the ex- 
 cess of my emotion. Withdrawing a few paces 
 to recover my self-possession, unwittingly 
 
MISERRIMUS. 139 
 
 I again began to reflect on the change which 
 a few short hours had effected in my fortune. 
 When I last beheld her^ I deemed myself the 
 fated victim of her barbarity ; and now, I 
 stood over her the arbiter of her fate. I 
 could not repress a smile of triumph. 
 
 This conflict of passion pursued me during 
 the night. Sometimes I regarded her with 
 all the tenderness of the purest affection ; but 
 then again the evil of my heart arose, and 
 steeled me against the united influence of her 
 faith, her love, and her beauty. I only 
 thought of the sufferings I had endured ; and 
 that she — she, with all her apparent dove-like 
 softness, had been to me as a moral Nemesis, 
 a graven image of Vengeance with heart of 
 iron and claws of brass, a pestilence that goes 
 about seeking: whom it may devour. Then, 
 
140 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 again, feelings of affection and contrition re- 
 vived ; and, in the bitter consciousness of abject 
 weakness, I threw myself upon my knees, and 
 vehemently implored my God to inspire me 
 with the strength to forego the vindictiveness 
 I cherished. But Heaven heeded not the 
 prayers that arose in the despairing ebullitions 
 of an ill-regulated mind, not in the meek and 
 lowly spirit of a holy self-abasement ; and I 
 returned to my moody fitful contemplations. 
 Like Regulus, in his murderous cask, I felt 
 myself rolling darkly onward to conscious and 
 certain destruction, but possessed neither the 
 power of arresting my course, nor of avoiding 
 the tortures which it inflicted. 
 
 Plus on ahne une maitresse, et plus on est 
 pres de la hair. What a strange and start- 
 ling creed ! and yet, when we examine it, we 
 
MTSERRTMUS. 141 
 
 find it is founded in judgment and truth, and 
 reveals a wondrous knowledge of the human 
 heart. The moderate affection of equable 
 minds, originating in reflection and esteem, 
 is often an enduring one, or tranquilly termi- 
 nates in natural decay ; but that very impe- 
 tuosity of character and feeling, which is the 
 source of all passionate love, is also a mine of 
 combustible, which any spark may explode 
 into a conflagration of evil. Pitiable is the 
 man who hates her he once adored ; but my 
 far more hopeless fate was that perfection, or 
 rather that monster, in misfortune — to love 
 and to loathe, in the same moment, the same 
 
 object ! 
 
 How vast the torments of the mind 
 
 That struggles to be strong ! 
 How vast its efforts ! yet we find 
 
 We still pursue the wrong ! 
 
142 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 In vain our soul its danger knows, 
 In vain its fate experience shows, 
 A strength our weakness can't oppose 
 
 Still urges us along ! 
 Until th' exhausted reason seems 
 O'erta'en hy thick and filmy dreams 
 That darkly press the madden'd brain. 
 Till wrought into th' excess of pain. 
 It wakens into sense again ! 
 
 I knew, I admitted to myself, that I had 
 been born in sin ; that, during many years 
 I was innately bad. But, I remembered also 
 that better seed had been sown, and that 
 better thoughts were springing up within me, 
 even before I first met with her. The in- 
 tercourse which then ensued still farther 
 diminished the influence of the evil spirit 
 upon me ; and I felt that on the morn of the 
 accursed interview she had held the scales of 
 my fate ; and that a future life of rectitude. 
 
MTSERRIMUS. 143 
 
 or crime, depended on the decision of that 
 moment. This was the bitter, ceaseless re- 
 flection which cherished, in defiance of every 
 effort of my better nature, my morbid desire 
 of vengeance. 
 
 The night passed, and the day began to 
 gleam through the interstices in the casements. 
 Several times she exhibited symptoms of 
 awakening, and I retired to a part of the 
 chamber, whence I could watch her return to 
 consciousness without being subject to her 
 observation. 
 
 She unclosed her lovely eyes and gazed 
 intently around her, but apparently without 
 alarm. She raised herself slowly, and ex- 
 amined every object with increasing attention 
 and surprise. My sister, who had hitherto 
 been partially concealed, now advanced. The 
 
144 MTSERRIMUS. 
 
 light was still deceptive, and for a few 
 moments she regarded her with a wildly 
 scrutinizing, but doubtful gaze ; then, sud- 
 denly uttering a faint cry of recognition, fell 
 back on the pillow. 
 
 ^'^ Dear girl," cried my sister, clasping her 
 in her arms and passionately embracing her, 
 " welcome, thrice welcome, to life, to friends, 
 to happiness !" 
 
 She closed her eyes, and covered her face 
 with her hands, as though she were incapable 
 of supporting the wide field of speculation 
 which these words suggested. 
 
 '^ God of heaven !" she ejaculated in the 
 low gasping tone of excessive apprehension ; 
 and, after a pause, added slowly and de- 
 liberately, with the manner of one nerved by 
 desperation to ascertain the real extent of the 
 
MISERRIMUS. 145 
 
 anticipated clanger, " I know that voice — it 
 belongs to one fair and kind, and wise and 
 good — it recalls days of happiness long past. 
 By these, I adjure you, to answer my ques- 
 tion. How I have been brought here, I ask 
 not, I seek not to be informed. I recollect 
 too much of a fearful scene to wish that you 
 should now recur to it ; but tell me, oh tell 
 me, I implore you, friend of my girlhood, my 
 choice, and of my heart, who is the owner of 
 this abode ?" 
 
 '^ A kind and good relative, who " 
 
 " And that relative is " 
 
 ^' Your friend." 
 
 '^ And — is your brother?^'' 
 
 " My brother," replied my sister, hesita- 
 tingly. 
 
 ^'Then, I am lost!" she exclaimed with 
 
146 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 ineffable pathos ; but with neither apparent 
 surprise, nor terror. 
 
 With a gentle violence^ my sister removed 
 her hands from her face, and fondly and 
 soothingly kissed the pale cheeks down which 
 the bright tears followed each other in quick 
 succession. All the fountains of her heart 
 unlocked by this warm sympathy, she drew 
 my sister still closer to her, buried her head 
 in her bosom, and sobbed convulsively. Re- 
 turning her embrace with redoubled emotion, 
 my affectionate sister mingled her tears with 
 her unhappy friend's. How beautiful are 
 the manifestations of female friendship in the 
 utter self-abandonment of reciprocated sor- 
 row ! Never was a more elevating, a more 
 heavenly sight than that then presented by 
 those two lovely girls. And yet, even in that 
 
MISERRIMUS. 147 
 
 moment, her rejection, her disdainful rejectiofi 
 — a pestilence on the infernal word ! — recurred 
 to my wounded pride, and filled my soul with 
 fury. 
 
 How calculating is the mind even in its 
 fiercest passions. Strong as were mine, I 
 should not, perhaps, have wanted the power 
 to repress them, had I not been conscious that 
 she had delivered herself over to me eternEdly, 
 irrevocably, and that I might therefore in- 
 dulge them with impunity. 
 
 " Dear friend," exclaimed my sister, " be- 
 lieve me, he adores you. Forget then, your 
 griefs, exert your energy, and resolve never 
 to recur to the past. Maintain this resolu- 
 tion for but a few short months, and your 
 happiness is your own for ever. Rise every 
 morn to enjoy the day, and to anticipate the 
 
 l2 
 
148 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 morrow; but, follow the advice which the 
 wife of Lot neglected, and dare not look be- 
 hind. Come, smile on me, my love, declare 
 to me that you will comply with my intreaties, 
 and obliterate, in a long future of contentment, 
 all recollection of the sorrows that are gone. 
 See my brother, express to him these feelings, 
 and add," continued my sister, smiling through 
 the vestiges of her tears, " that you love him 
 almost as much as he loves you." 
 
 " Yes," she replied, in a tone half sorrowful, 
 half resigned, " the time for self-restraint is 
 past : I can no longer deceive either him or 
 myself, even if I would. I will see him, and 
 avow to him the love I bear him." 
 
 I advanced and stood before her. 
 
 All the blood in her slight form rushed to 
 her pale face, making every feature incarna- 
 
MISERRIMUS. 149 
 
 dined one red ; but quickly revelled, and left 
 the countenance of the hue of death. 
 
 My sister gazed affectionately on us both, 
 and then left the room. Would to heaven 
 that she had remained ! for though love and 
 terror were not strong enough to fetter the 
 demon within me, a feeling of shame might 
 have been more powerful. 
 
 With a violent exertion, resisting the im- 
 pulse which prompted me to throw myself 
 into her arms, I stood moodily gazing on her. 
 In spite of her own emotion, she had suf- 
 ficient self-possession to discover that I was 
 under the influence of an agitation which the 
 circumstances of our meeting might not have 
 been supposed to engender. A pause ensued ? 
 at last, she exclaimed, half affirmatively, half 
 interrogatively. 
 
150 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 ** You have received a letter?" 
 
 « I have." 
 
 " You have read it?" 
 
 " Yes— a thousand times." 
 
 Again she blushed, though not so deeply 
 as before. 
 
 " Then I am unmasked !" 
 
 " You are indeed ; I know every secret 
 nook of your inmost mind and heart." 
 
 Surprised more by the tone than by the 
 sentiment of this reply;, she looked intently 
 on my face ; but she could read there no 
 avowal of the nature of my feelings. 
 
 " Why do you gaze so strangely on me, 
 my beloved?" she affectionately exclaimed. 
 ** You know — I have confessed — why should 
 I not speak it — my eternal attachment. My 
 fate is decided — ^abandoned for ever are all 
 
MISER RIM us. 151 
 
 futile attempts at disguise, and — 1 live only 
 for you. What then do you apprehend?" 
 and she added, with female sensitiveness, 
 " What means this chilling silence ?" Then, 
 with renewed tenderness, she continued, " A 
 third tie of union exists between us ; I long 
 have owed you love, and gratitude, and now 
 I owe you a life. My preserver !" she cried, 
 with enthusiasm, " my preserver from worse 
 than death, from crime, speak to me, 1 im- 
 plore you !" 
 
 But silently I stood before her; fixedly 
 regarding her with an impassive, inscrutable 
 countenance. At last, I replied, 
 
 " You owe me no thanks, for my service is 
 no gift ; it is but the payment of a debt. I 
 once took a life from your house, and now I 
 return it." Before she could rejoin, I pro- 
 
152 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 ceeded with sardonic calmness^, " In your im- 
 passioned letter, I observe, that you never 
 suppose the very possibility of change in me. 
 You infer, I conclude, from the many proofs 
 of affection I persevered in giving so long as 
 I remained in England, that my passion must 
 still continue to exist. But do you forget 
 that two years have since elapsed ; and that 
 I passed them in a land where fidelity is little 
 honored, and less practised ? The women of 
 the East are ardent as their own sun, beautiful, 
 and compliant — not callous, haughty, vin- 
 dictive, and inflexible — not accustomed to 
 reject the homage of their admirers." 
 
 Astonishment, fear, and horror, were blended 
 on her lovely countenance ; at last, under the 
 influence of her agony, she exclaimed, ad- 
 dressinsj herself, rather than me. 
 
MISERRIMUS. 153 
 
 " God of heaven ! can he — can he — have 
 ceased to love me ? Have I unsexed myself, 
 discarded all the pride and modesty of woman's 
 nature, to lay the most sacred feelings of the 
 heart at the feet of one who has ceased to 
 value them? — Oh, no! this may not, must 
 not, shall not be ! — Answer me, in pity answer 
 me, and tell me, that my suspicions are un- 
 founded!" and as she grasped my hand, the 
 warm tears gushed from her eyes, and fell 
 upon it. 
 
 Perhaps, I judge through the medium of 
 my own character, and in the knowledge of 
 my own infirmity ; but, I believe, that all our 
 race are more or less ferocious. Many may 
 live and die ignorant that this vice is latent 
 in their breasts ; but, because circumstances 
 
154 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 have not arisen to develop it, let them not 
 therefore beheve that they do not possess it. 
 The minds of most of us are capable of a 
 mood in which we should derive a demoniac 
 pleasure from the sight of the tears which we 
 ourselves have caused to trickle down the 
 cheek of beauty. They tell an unquestionable 
 tale of feminine softness, affection, and sub- 
 mission; and man, the savage, revels in the 
 callous complacency of gratified vanity, and 
 in the conviction of his power. There tliey 
 stand in her bright eyes, visible, tangible, 
 indisputable proofs of her weakness and of 
 his strength, of her homage and of his 
 supremacy; and he gazes on her exultingly, 
 unpityingly, and glories in the pride of the 
 conquest he has gained. There are few, I 
 
MISERRIMUS. 155 
 
 thinks wliO;, if they will avow the truths will 
 
 not admit that at some portion of their lives, 
 
 they have entertained emotions akin to these. 
 
 What the sight of blood may have been 
 supposed to effect in the minds of a gladiator 
 or a Domitian, the touch of her warm tears 
 then produced on me. They thrilled to my 
 heart through every vein, and left the fire of 
 hell behind. 
 
 " We last met/' I cried, with a stern 
 calmness, " on a fatal day ; but do you 
 j'emember our previous meeting ! Do you 
 remember my tears, my supplications? Do 
 you remember my remorse, my abject sub- 
 mission, my despair, my vows of expiation ? 
 — I humbled myself to the dust before you ; 
 and I cried. Forgive me, but forgive me, and 
 the rest of my life shall be devoted to atone- 
 
156 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 ment ! By every possible claim that the 
 most ardent love and the most sincere con- 
 trition could imagine, I conjured you to 
 pardon me. And how did you reply? — 
 Immutable, inexorable, you stood like Fate 
 over my future fortune, and you said, ^ It 
 shall come to you in darkness and in sorrow ; 
 in weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth/ 
 You gave me curses for my tears, scorn for 
 mj humility, and hatred for my affection. 
 And then my love was turned into bitterness, 
 and I promised that I would be revenged. I 
 ask you whether I have not fulfilled my 
 promise ? Haughty destroyer of my peace 
 on earth, of my salvation hereafter, where 
 and what are you now ? — I left you then, in 
 the height of your pride, in the strength of 
 your despotism, in the inflexibility of your 
 
MISERRIMUS. 157 
 
 vindictiveness. You stood like the destroy- 
 ing angel in my path, flashed the savage 
 lightnings of your vengeance at my heart, and 
 hurled me to the ground like a riven tree, 
 blighted, sapless, blasted! But where and 
 what are you now ? — You will not answer ! 
 Beneath the roof of him you loathed, prostrate 
 at the feet of him you contemned, your self- 
 debasement is too great for utterance ! — Well, 
 listen then to me. When we met that day, 
 
 M , the vigor of youth was on me ; I 
 
 was as energetic in mind as in body. Look 
 on me now — mark this withered arm, this 
 hollow cheek, this emaciated frame. Think 
 you, I will ever forgive the author of this 
 change? Cold-blooded, selfish woman, as ob- 
 stinate as irresolute — as obstinate in evil as 
 irresolute in duty ! And yet you say you 
 
158 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 love me. You love 7ne? Do you remember 
 my claims to your affection ? Forget you so 
 soon the misty morn^ when blood-stained, 
 dishevelled, breathing hatred and vengeance, 
 you stood like a fallen spirit before me, in- 
 voked curses on my head, and denounced me, 
 your adorod notv, as the assassin of your 
 brother? — Faithless, fickle sister, remember 
 you not that in boyhood, like a coward and 
 a fiend, I stabbed him in the back; and that, 
 in manhood, mine was the bullet that sent 
 him to heaven or to hell ? — Ha ! ha ! ha ! 
 even now I can see his convulsive leap ! — 
 It was Ms last!" 
 
 While I poured forth this devilish rhap- 
 sody, the unhappy girl, in the intenseness of 
 her agony, had raised herself in the bed; 
 and, in this constrained position, remained 
 
MISERRIMUS. 159 
 
 glaring on me with eyes that appeared about 
 to break from their sockets. When I had 
 concluded, she uttered no sound, but the 
 rigidity of her muscles was relaxed, and her 
 head fell on her breast ; then, raising it to- 
 wards heaven, she exclaimed, 
 
 " God is just ! Where I have sinned, there 
 have I been punished. Great is the power of 
 God!" 
 
 Her eyes closed, a ghastly paleness came 
 over her, and she sank on the bed in a death- 
 like swoon. 
 
 I threw myself upon her body — I stamped 
 — I foamed — I cursed — I blasphemed. But 
 why continue this endless picture of revolting 
 ferocity? She recovered from her trance, 
 listened, and yielded to my wildly sincere 
 protestations of contrition ; and thus un- 
 
160 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 wittingly supplied me with the power of re- 
 newing my crimes. Though I felt that mine 
 might prove the triumph of the Gladiator 
 who died in receiving the submission of his 
 enemy, yet I resolved to pursue it. 
 
 I assumed unto myself the power of Hea- 
 ven. I drew an imaginary line, and I said, 
 "^^ So far will I go, and no farther. Such 
 has been her offence, and such is the exact 
 portion of retribution it deserves, and such 
 shall be inflicted. I will then take her to my 
 arms, devote my life to her service, and make 
 her an object of envy to the proudest and to 
 the happiest." 
 
 It was agreed that we should be married as 
 soon as the necessary preparations could be 
 arranged, which I volunteered personally to 
 superintend through all their different de' 
 
 v'» 
 
MTSERRIMUS.. 161 
 
 partments. I instructed my sister to intrust 
 me even with the selection of my bride's 
 wardrobe. 
 
 Eight days passed, during which I was 
 neither attentive nor neglectful, neither af- 
 fectionate nor repulsive. If I did not woo 
 with all the fervor of passion, I did not 
 exhibit the coldness of indifference. — What- 
 ever she might feel, I gave her no opportunity 
 of declaring by word or look her sense of the 
 alteration in my conduct. 
 
 On the ninth day, I was the unseen auditor 
 of a conversation between her and my sister, 
 who was as yet in ignorance of my fiend-like 
 violence on the morning of our interview. 
 Tliey were sitting at a window commanding 
 an uninterrupted view of the magnificent lake 
 
 M 
 
16*2 MISER RIM us. 
 
 beneath, the surface of which was as smooth 
 and unbroken as that of a mirror. 
 
 " How lovely is the day/' said my sister ; 
 "how heavenly! The earth, the sky, the 
 water;, all seem to smile. Surely you must 
 sympathize in this jubilee of nature ; it ought 
 to reanimate the dead. Dear friend, you must 
 learn to surmount this dejection." 
 
 She slowly replied, " I fear that it is too 
 deeply radicated ever to be conquered." 
 
 " Say not so/' rejoined my sister : " if you 
 will not recur to the past, you must be happy 
 — Look to the future :■ — let us talk of your 
 marriage — the weather is in unison with all 
 joyful things. I wonder what festivity my 
 brother is preparing for us ; reserved as he is, 
 I can discover that he is occupied with some 
 
MfSERRIMUS. 103 
 
 project. Are you not curious to learn what 
 it is? — I am. If my mind were not engaged 
 by other interests, I should be very prone to 
 curiosity. It is a woman's privilege, and her 
 duty. — Do you not think so ?" 
 
 The only reply she could obtain was a 
 melancholy smile. 
 
 " I perceive," continued my sister, "that 
 I must talk for both of us. Come, let us plan 
 the routine of your domestic life ; at what 
 hour you will rise, when you will go to bed, 
 the number of your equipages, the extent of 
 your retinue, the situation of your abode, and 
 the harmony of your jewels. Emeralds and 
 diamonds, I think, assort most beautifully ; 
 and yet, there is something exquisitely en- 
 chanting in the modest pearl. My brother, 
 you know, is richer than a king ; and I need 
 
 m2 
 
164 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 not tell j^ou that he will devote himself and 
 his wealth to the promotion of your hap- 
 piness." 
 
 " I hope he will," she said ; " and I feel 
 this desire less for mine than for his own 
 sake." 
 
 " I believe you implicitly, most disinter- 
 ested of human creatures," cried my sister ; 
 " but why appear to throw a doubt on that 
 which is indubitable ? Hope ? — You must 
 be happy. But you have not answered my 
 questions. Tell me, then, where will you re- 
 side ? My brother's power in this district is 
 quite despotic ; will you then settle here, and 
 reign the queen of a feudal establishment, or 
 will you travel for a year or two after your 
 marriage ? Shall we go to Paris, and see the 
 court of the great king ? or to Italy, the land 
 
MISERRIMUS. 165 
 
 of romance and literature, of poetry and paint- 
 ing, of marble palaces and stately ruins ? But, 
 dear sister, you depress me at last ; — how me- 
 lancholy you look ! and that gloomy robe of 
 yours so adds to the piteousness of your ap- 
 pearance ; — ^how glad I shall be to see you in 
 your bridal dress !" 
 
 Their conversation ceased, and I left the 
 place of my concealment with a smile on my 
 countenance — but not of pleasure. 
 
 The tenth, our nuptial day, arrived. My 
 affianced bride arose, wan and languid, with 
 an aching heart and a dejected spirit. Her 
 health had received a fearful blow ; paleness 
 was on her cheek, and melancholy in her dark, 
 beaming eye. And here, though the recur- 
 rence torture me, I feel irresistibly impelled 
 to dwell for a moment on the extraordinary 
 
166 MISERRlMtTS. 
 
 loveliness of those singular eyes. Liquid, 
 mild, and pellucid as the fawn's, yet dark and 
 penetrating, they could flash with the fire of 
 love, or, as I too well knew, with the fire of 
 hate. Sometimes sparkling and playful, more 
 frequently sedate and reflecting, the individual 
 they rested upon, felt conscious that he was 
 under the inspection of one who possessed a 
 mind which could correctly estimate the qua- 
 lities of his own. But their most distinguish- 
 ing feature existed in their peculiar and ex- 
 quisitely beautiful colour. Were I to say 
 that they contained a shade which resembled 
 the dark rich red-brown of the raisin of 
 Smyrna, the homely nature of my simile 
 might suggest an idea the most opposite to 
 my intention ; and yet, I know not to what 
 they could be compared with more accuracy, 
 
MISERRIMUS. 167 
 
 though they sometimes reminded me of the 
 auburne of her own bright hair. 
 
 How often does the expression of those eyes 
 on that memorable morn recur to me ! How 
 often now am I nearly maddened by the re- 
 collection of their piteous, plaintive, exqui- 
 sitely pathetic glances ! and how often now 
 do I consider with wonder how I could have 
 borne them without relenting ! They beamed 
 a melancholy, at once timid, submissive, de- 
 precating, which blight have touched the 
 heart of a fiend — but, I was that worse thing 
 — a bad man, intent on evil. And who, since 
 the days of the first sinner, " that for an apple 
 damned mankind," has ever been known vo- 
 luntarily to turn from the commission of a 
 contemplated and cherished iniquity ? — 
 
 We were at breakfast when her bridal dress 
 
168 MISER RIM us. 
 
 was brought into the room. It was composed 
 entirely of hlack crape. Under the first im- 
 pulse of surprise, she addressed to me a look 
 of inquiring wonder; but marking the ex- 
 pression of my eye, she read that this strange 
 ill-omened apparel originated in no error of a 
 menial, but in the pre-conceived determination 
 of wilful malevolence. 
 
 " Surely," I cried, in reply to her interro- 
 gative glance, " such nuptial rites as ours 
 cannot be solemnized according to common 
 forms. We do not wed under common cir- 
 cumstances. Even in the feudal days of 
 Catholicism and barbarity, when the curb of 
 morality lay loosely on mankind, interdicts 
 have been issued, kingdoms accursed, and 
 churches desecrated, on account of far less 
 unholy marriages. Think not, then, thai in 
 
MISERRIMUS. 169 
 
 these times of purer faith and conduct, I will 
 consent that we shall be united without ex- 
 hibiting at least some external mark of sorrow 
 and penitence. I cannot consider myself su- 
 perstitious, but were I to omit this trifling 
 expiation, I should apprehend some awful 
 catastrophe to our impious and unnatural 
 union." 
 
 While I spoke, the mortal paleness of her 
 cheek increased to a fearful degree ; but she 
 made no reply, and submissively taking the 
 robe from my hand, withdrew to her chamber. 
 
 Shortly afterwards she descended, clothed 
 in her funereal habiliments. I had passed the 
 interim in arraying myself in garments of a 
 similar hue, and I now joined her with an 
 appearance and air as sombre as her own. 
 The tramp of horses was heard. I drew her 
 
170 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 to the window ; and as she gazed on the 
 objects beneath, I felt her hand tremble in 
 my grasp. 
 
 She looked indeed on no festival array ; no 
 glittering retinue, no splendid equipages, no 
 mirthful faces, no marks were there, to tell 
 that one of the richest commoners of England 
 was about to celebrate his union with one of 
 her fairest daughters. And yet, she looked 
 upon our bridal pageant — two carriages 
 covered externally, and internally, with crape ; 
 each of them drawn by six stately horses, 
 black — black as my own heart, in their hue. 
 On their heads they bore a profusion of 
 feathers, of the same funereal colour ; and the 
 two or three attendant menials were as darkly 
 and gloomily arrayed. 
 
 " What think you of our nuptial proces- 
 
MISERRIMUS. 171 
 
 sion ?" I cried : " it is not absurdly gay, 
 but it is congenial to our feelings, and to our 
 relative circumstances." 
 
 She seemed as though her heart were 
 breaking. I gazed on her with an intentness 
 that sought to penetrate her soul. She turned 
 on me her lovely eyes, and said with a holy 
 fervor : — 
 
 " May God in heaven forgive you for this 
 cruelty !" 
 
 My sister sat sobbing violently in a distant 
 corner of the room. Previously she had 
 adopted every means she could imagine to 
 endeavour to divert me from my persecution. 
 She had reasoned, and persuaded ; threatened, 
 and intreated; appealed to every feeling in 
 succession — but in vain. She now arose to 
 make a last effort, but reading on my face 
 
172 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 the stubbornness of my heart, she returned to 
 her seat in silent despair. 
 
 " You do not/' I cried, addressing my in- 
 tended bride with ironical courtesy, " you do 
 not disapprove of the arrangements I have 
 made ?'* 
 
 On her cheek was no trace of a tear ; her 
 grief was beyond this source of alleviation ; 
 but her dry eye beamed with a divine re- 
 signation, as she replied, 
 
 " You have only to inflict, and I will endure 
 in silence, if not in patience." 
 
 A painful smile of assumed incredulity was 
 my only rejoinder to this most touching proof 
 of unequalled meekness and charity — of all 
 that is beautiful in the human heart. 
 
 We descended ; and I supported her into 
 (he iirst carriage. The attendant menials 
 
MISERRIMUS. 173 
 
 slowly arranged themselves ; we began to ad- 
 vance at the solemn and stately pace of a 
 funereal procession ; and we were left alone in 
 that dark prison to our own dark thoughts. 
 
 I had taken my seat opposite to her ; and 
 resolutely fixed my eyes upon her face with 
 the unsteady desperation of a man, consciously 
 sinning. For a moment, she intently examined 
 my countenance ; and then turned away with 
 a mingled expression of hopelessness and pity. 
 I began to feel the full iniquity of my de- 
 moniac conduct. 
 
 She spoke not ; and oppressed, and hum- 
 bled by my strong sense of my own unworthi- 
 ness, I could not force my parched lips to 
 utter an articulate sound. A word, perhaps, 
 might have diminished the intensity of my 
 agony; but, fettered, in that horrid silence. 
 
174 31ISERRIMUS. 
 
 face to face, with my innocent victim, I feel and 
 hope, that the oppressor must have suflfered 
 far more than the oppressed. Every instant 
 seemed an eternity ; my spirit sank as I gazed 
 on the exquisite melancholy of her infinitely 
 beautiful countenance, and I knew not where 
 to turn to hide me from the consciousness of 
 my baseness. I feared to meet her eye ; yet, 
 I was compelled to confront her: and I felt 
 so keenly the ignominy of the tyranny I was 
 acting, that I writhed beneath an agony of 
 shame. How I then pined to escape from 
 the thraldom of that accursed vehicle, and ex- 
 ecrated myself, and the vindictiveness which 
 had brought me there, God, and my own 
 heart, alone can tell ! 
 
 , And yet, even then, in that very moment, 
 I could not resolve to forego the task whicli I 
 
MISERRTMUS. 175 
 
 had imposed on myself. I would have given 
 worlds to have possessed the power of re- 
 treating ; but I was far beyond the eflbrts of 
 self-control. I seemed to myself as though 
 impelled by some dark agency independent of 
 my will ; and it would have been more feasible 
 to have arrested in mid-air a rock hurled from 
 the loftiest battlement, than to have diverted 
 me from my fatal course. 
 
 We reached the village church, and, with 
 a feeling of almost delirious exultation, I 
 sprang from the accursed confinement. My 
 sister, who had followed us in the other car- 
 riage, joined with me in assisting her to alight; 
 and, aifectionately supporting her, gently drew 
 her towards the entrance. As they thus ad- 
 vanced, with their arms interlaced, strange 
 and strikins: was the contrast between the 
 
176 MISERRTMUS. 
 
 funereal apparel of the one, and the white, 
 flowing bridal robe of the other ; for neither 
 by intreaty nor threat could I induce my con- 
 scientious sister to descend to a co-operation 
 in this unholy mockery. Even in that mo- 
 ment, which of the two I loved the more, I 
 did not doubt ; but, such was the blindness 
 of my distempered mind, that my sister was 
 then the one who excited my principal interest 
 and pity. 
 
 A more strange, and yet more impressive 
 contrast awaited us ; perhaps a more startling 
 one can scarcely be imagined, than that whicli 
 presented itself as we left the open day, the 
 green and gay fields, and the fragrant earth 
 and air, and stepped into the little church- 
 Without, all was natural gaiety and life ; 
 within, were assembled all the artificial means 
 
MISERRIMUS. 177 
 
 of inspiring the mind with pain and appre- 
 hension. The walls, pews_, ceiling, and floor, 
 were covered with black crape ; there was not 
 a portion of the interior which revealed the 
 material of which it was composed: wherever 
 the eye turned, it rested on nought but conti- 
 nued blackness. Numerous flambeaux, im- 
 pregnated with a sickly perfume, were scat- 
 tered about; the smoke of which ascended 
 in white heavy clouds to the roof, and then 
 tumbled again to earth, oppressing the senses, 
 and increasing the uncertainty of the gloomy 
 delusion. The windows, too, had all been 
 carefully covered with hangings of the same 
 lugubrious hue ; but in some parts, the bright 
 beams of the broad sun faintly penetrating 
 the insufficient veil, painfully intermingled 
 with the strange glare of the red light of the 
 
 N 
 
178 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 torches. On either side of the altar, and ele- 
 vated to the level of its summit^, by supporters 
 appareled in all the trappings of the grave, 
 were two coffins ; the one bearing my name, 
 the other, her own : blank spaces being re- 
 served for the introduction of the age of the 
 deceased, and the date of the death. 
 
 The general effect of the whole contrivance 
 was such as might have excited uneasiness and 
 displeasure in the minds of the most resolute; 
 but, in the timid and apprehensive, unmitigated 
 awe and terror. And this was the scene I had 
 prepared for the celebration of my marriage. 
 
 But she did not quail ; she looked around 
 her with an unwavering glance, and the agi- 
 tation of her features gradually subsided into 
 the quietude of despair — of that despair which 
 neither hopes nor fears. Once she turned 
 
MISERRIMUS. 179 
 
 upon me her deep liquid eyes, with an ex- 
 pression more piteous than reproachful, then 
 raising them to Heaven, appeared to be ab- 
 sorbed in prayer. She seemed to have been 
 penetrated by a deep sense of my unworthi- 
 ness, and to have lost in this conviction both 
 the power and the desire of combating with 
 
 her grief. 
 
 Advancing to the altar, she resolutely read 
 the inscriptions on the two coffins. Touch- 
 ing gently with her fore-finger the one which 
 described her own name, she said slowly and 
 emphatically, and so calmly that I almost 
 thought a smile rested for an instant on her 
 
 pallid features, 
 
 " You will soon have to supply the omissions 
 in this brief history of my career ; perchance 
 
 n2 
 
180 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 I may require this duty of you within seven 
 days." 
 
 Perhaps of all passions, cruelty is that 
 which is most strengthened by indulgence; 
 the more it attains, the more it desires. The 
 man who has once tasted it, is inspired with 
 an insatiate thirst ; and the last cup of blood 
 he has drained to the dregs, but renders its 
 successor more enticing. Unlike other vices 
 that decay with the strength of the body 
 which engendered them, this flourishes in an 
 inverse ratio, and only departs with the breath 
 of its possessor, unless some rare shock inter- 
 vene to recall him to a consciousness of his 
 guilt. Instigated by the natural bent of their 
 dispositions, the Mariuses, the Syllas, the 
 Domitians, the Maximins, began their career 
 
MISERRIMUS. 181 
 
 of slaughter ; but they continued it long after 
 the original impulse must have ceased, in the 
 mere love of the stimulus to which they had 
 been accustomed. 
 
 These were the reflections of my after life : 
 at the time of the occurrence of the actions 
 which gave rise to them, I was little ca- 
 pable of analyzing the emotions which mad- 
 dened me. 
 
 " You suffer/' I said, " beneath the in- 
 dignities which I am practising upon you. 
 You may yet retreat. The snare is laid, the 
 chain is forged, the bond is prepared, but 
 bondage is not yet upon you. There is the 
 altar ; yonder waits the patient priest — the 
 heifer is found and arrayed for the slaughter ; 
 but your freedom is still your own, and your 
 voice can still prevent the accomplishment of 
 
1 82 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 the sacrifice. Speak ! — mine must be a vo- 
 luntary victim. I seek neither to lure nor 
 to force you into the captivity you may 
 regret ; through your own weakness alone, 
 and not through my strength, must I possess 
 you. I wear no mask ; I stand before you ho- 
 nestly and overtly with the stamp of hell upon 
 me ; and though I may be better, I cannot be 
 worse than I appear. Speak ! spontaneously 
 I invest you with the power of discarding me 
 a second time ;" and I trembled with fear, as 
 in the pride and madness of my heart I wan- 
 tonly provoked this decision of my fate. 
 
 " Oh, avail yourself of the liberty which 
 the tyrant has proffered you \" exclaimed my 
 sister with energy. " Deceive not yourself, 
 dear, suffering angel, with the vain thought 
 that he can still entertain for you one particle 
 
MISERRIMUS, 183 
 
 of genuine afifecti on. Strive not to attribute 
 this infernal usage to the ebullition of passion, 
 however insane ; it is the cold-blooded result 
 of systematized cruelty, and there is no hope, 
 here or hereafter, for the man that can have 
 committed it. Oh, brother, brother ! I live 
 to lament the ties that unite us. In the words 
 of the prophet I denounce you : ' Wo unto 
 the wicked, it shall be ill with him ; for the 
 reward of his hands shall be given to him !' '' 
 As she thus spoke, with all the elevation 
 and the energy of the inspired writer whose 
 language she adopted, she approached her un- 
 fortunate friend, and tenderly and lovingly 
 supporting her, attempted to lead her from 
 the church. But I interposed, in the intention 
 
 of separating them. 
 
 " Touch me not ! touch me not, brother !" 
 
184 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 she exclaimed^ with a startling emphasis, and 
 more startling gesture, '^' or your hand shall 
 be even as the hand of Jeroboam !" 
 
 For a moment, I was disconcerted, nay, 
 arrested, by this impetuous burst of honest 
 passion ; and I angrily and threateningly 
 scowled on the enthusiastic girl ; though even 
 then, I could not forbear from honoring and 
 revering her for her noble affection and in- 
 tegrity. 
 
 But the demon had set his seal upon me ; 
 I was his, for ever; and the interposition of 
 an angel might have failed to have turned me 
 from my purposes. The virtues and example 
 of my high-minded sister caused me not even 
 to waver; they fell harmlessly as pointless 
 darts from the iron of my breast. I resolutely 
 approached, and was more firmly renewing 
 
MISERRIMUS. 185 
 
 my attempt to separate them, when my in- 
 tended bride, gently and tenderly extricating 
 herself from the grasp of her clinging and 
 reluctant friend, thus impressively addressed 
 her : — 
 
 " Kind, consistent, beloved, and affectionate 
 being, interest not yourself in the lot of one 
 who has no longer a stake in this earthly game : 
 Fate has defined for me my course, and I 
 must passively fulfil it. Be not too rigid with 
 your brother ; for he, alas, is not the only 
 sinner; I, too, have committed a sin, and I 
 will expiate it. Had I once listened to his 
 contrition, perhaps he would not now have 
 hardened his heart against my sorrow." 
 
 " O reflect, reflect !" cried her agitated 
 friend ; " for your sake, for my sake, dear. 
 
I" 
 
 186 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 beloved one, do not resign yourself to this bad 
 man ! 
 
 '^ Silence, sister !" I exclaimed, in a thun- 
 dering voice, and in a paroxysm of insane and 
 fearful passion. 
 
 The poor girl bent beneath my fury, and 
 stood tremblingly, tearfully mute, by the side 
 of her still more pallid friend; who with a 
 thousand gentle caresses, affectionately en- 
 deavoured to restore her. Then turning to 
 me, she exclaimed, 
 
 '* Strange and inscrutable being, you seek 
 to wed me, and yet you woo me thus /" and 
 she gazed around her with a look of blended 
 mournfulness and gentle reproach, which was 
 ineffably pathetic. '^'^But doubt not my de- 
 termination. No!" she emphatically cried. 
 
MISERRIMUS. ]87 
 
 " no ! I will not retract. I can now adopt 
 your own words and say, ' I had set my all 
 upon a cast, and I will stand the hazard of the 
 die/ I had long deemed you the possessor of 
 the noblest qualities, of a high and virtuous, 
 though an impetuous mind ; but in discerning 
 the falsity of my valuation, in learning that he 
 whom I had almost elevated into a divinity is 
 but — *' she paused, and then added, " an 
 erring man, I have lost the sole delusion that 
 rendered existence desirable to me. You have 
 embittered even the memory of the past ; I 
 can no longer say ' To-morrow do thy worst, 
 for I have lived to-day.' I possess not even 
 that support, for I feel that there was no 
 reality in my imaginings, and that I have 
 been the shallow victim of my own self-de- 
 ception. Without a hope, without a fear. 
 
188 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 why should I retract? I will not prove 
 apostate to the ardent wish of years; and 
 here I now stand, not in the weakness of abject 
 affection, but in the strength of despair, pre- 
 pared to die — your wife;''^ and she held forth 
 her hand. I seized it, and pressing it in 
 triumph to my lips, led her to the altar. 
 
 The ceremony was concluded. During its 
 celebration she evinced no further emotion, 
 but unresistingly allowed herself to be directed 
 through its various forms in apparent uncon- 
 sciousness, if not in real apathy. 
 
 We emerged from this oppressive and fetid 
 scene of darkness and vapour into the pure air, 
 light, and fragrance of Heaven. The contrast 
 was quite overwhelming ; during a few moments 
 my sister and I remained confounded beneath 
 its dazzling influence. But cold, pale, rigid. 
 
MISERRIMUS. 189 
 
 and impassive^ my unhappy bride exhibited 
 no more consciousness of external impressions 
 than the statue she resembled. 
 
 I suggested that we should walk to our 
 home ; she assented with the docility of in- 
 fantine dependence. In the abstraction of her 
 grief, in the utter prostration of her broken 
 spirit, she seemed no longer to possess a will 
 of her own, but to depend for her impulses 
 on the agency of others. I placed her arm 
 on mine, she allowed me to caress it ; I ad- 
 vanced, she yielded to the movement, and 
 submissively followed. I grasped her hand, 
 she returned the pressure ; I approached my 
 lips to her face, and with unconscious defer- 
 ence she turned her pale cheek to receive the 
 kiss I bestowed. Not when she lay before 
 me in suspended animation was she less the 
 
190 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 mistress of her reason than at this moment. 
 As I contemplated this perfect personification 
 of loveliness congealed by sorrow into a mere 
 mockery of reason, my demoniac resolution 
 began to fail me; but the rejection — the 
 accursed rejection recurred to my mind. Be- 
 neath its blighting influence, like the Pharaoh 
 of old, again my heart was hardened, and I 
 swore that she should drain the cup of retri- 
 bution, even to the dregs. 
 
 During these reflections we had reached 
 the summit of the hill we had been ascending. 
 A portion of the wood close to, and immedi- 
 ately before us, had recently been felled, and 
 in the space thus opened, appeared a hand- 
 some marble structure. The eyes of my sister 
 expressed undisguised surprise and uneasiness, 
 but the countenance of my bride still retained 
 
MISERRIMUS. 191 
 
 its painful rigidity. We advanced still nearer^ 
 and an inscription then became visible, to 
 which in stern silence I motioned the atten- 
 tion of my wife. Aroused by my action, by 
 the singularity of the scene, perhaps by a 
 prophetic apprehension, with a faltering step, 
 and a cheek alarmed into life, as though 
 under the influence of some infernal fascina- 
 tion, she slowly obeyed the lingering motion 
 of my finger, and tracked it until she reached 
 the tomb, and read 
 
 ERECTED m ETERNAL RECORD OF THE 
 CRIME, ON THE SCENE OF ITS PERPETRA- 
 TION, TO THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD; BY 
 HIM WHO COMMITTED THE MURDER, AND 
 THEN MARRIED THE SISTER OF THE MUR- 
 DERED. ' 
 
192 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 As though a bolt from Heaven had pierced 
 her heart, she was hurled to the earth with 
 the weight and lifelessness of a stone. 
 
 We bore her to our home. During six 
 days she lingered in incessant delirium on the 
 verge of eternity. I dare not describe her 
 ravings, her denunciations, or her prayers. 
 Even now, were I minutely to recall those 
 cursed hours of hellish torture, I could think 
 myself into a frenzy equal to her own. 
 
 On the morn of the seventh day, she gave 
 symptoms of returning consciousness ; before 
 noon, she awakened into life. She gazed 
 around her with intentness ; her eyes alighted 
 on my sister and on myself, and she testified 
 her recognition with a melancholy but serene 
 smile. Her attention was then arrested by 
 the sound of the bell of the village-church 
 
MISERRTMUS. 193 
 
 tolling to announce the commencement of tlie 
 service. 
 
 " It is the Sabbath/' she cried; "a day of 
 peace and thanksgiving, and a fitting day for 
 our re-union. My husband, my sister, give 
 me your hands." 
 
 We complied, and she pressed them ten- 
 derly ; her touch was as cold as thawing ice. 
 The expression of her eye, though calm, was 
 painfully plaintive ; and her feeble yet still 
 eminently musical voice thrilled through our 
 hearts as she continued : 
 
 "^ In this last, awful moment, I recur to 
 my past life ; and, save the one fatal act 
 which I am now expiating, I trust that I 
 have not much to lament. Were I doomed 
 to retrace the deluding scene which I am 
 about to quit, in one only respect would I 
 
 O 
 
194 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 seek to depart from the course which I have 
 pursued ; I would more frequently devote 
 my thoughts to a communion with my Cre- 
 ator. The habit of prayer insensibly elevates 
 the mind, and weakens the force of its worldly 
 affections. ' Religion is the only thing found 
 on earth which, like the bee, draws from the 
 bitter and the sweet the same honied juice ; 
 and, though many ways have been devised 
 for man to govern his nature, there is but 
 this one principle which can ever raise him 
 above it.' I now feel with gratitude to 
 Heaven, that I have not neglected this con- 
 solation ; but I have not cultivated it to the 
 extent of my power." 
 
 " You are an angel !" gasped my sobbing 
 sister ; — but I had neither voice nor tears. 
 
 "Be comforted, dear girl," exclaimed my 
 
MISERRIMUS. 195 
 
 unhappy bride, tenderly drawing toward her 
 her affectionate friend, until their lips met. 
 Then, giving her one feeble but long and 
 passionate embrace, she resumed her discourse 
 with more than her previous serenity. 
 
 " I do not ask you not to lament my loss, 
 for I know that you possess not the power of 
 complying with this demand; but I implore 
 you to repress your feelings in this moment, 
 and conceal from me the grief which I cannot 
 alleviate. Death is upon me ; and I feel, and 
 see, and judge with an unwonted perception, 
 as though I were imbued with the spirit of 
 prophecy. Do not, then, I pray, disturb this 
 holy composure, nor again reduce me to the 
 endurance of emotions which partake of the 
 follies and vanities of the world. For your 
 sake, my friend — my husband," she continued, 
 
 o2 
 
196 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 addressing herself to me, '' I could wish to 
 have been spared a little longer, to have 
 devoted myself to the restoration of your 
 peace of mind ; — but God's will be done ! To 
 you and to your love, my sister, I now intrust 
 him ; and the last supplication of your dying 
 friend is, that you will devote every aftection — 
 every energy, to the mitigation of his anguish. 
 Hear me again declare that I feel that I have 
 wronged him. — Had I listened to him in his 
 agony, this retribution had not befallen us 
 both ; but, in the intemperance of my passion, 
 I rejected his contrition, and the evil that has 
 ensued has alighted, I hope — oh, how I 
 hope ! — most heavily on the head of her who 
 was the source of it !" 
 
 She paused for a moment, and then con- 
 tinued : 
 
{f 
 
 MISERRIMUS. 197 
 
 Hear that village bell : how many vain 
 
 associations it suggests ! But though I can- 
 not regard the past without an emotion, I am 
 already above its influence. How lovely is 
 the day! — Open the casement, dear sister, 
 and let me breathe the pure air of heaven. 
 Now move me into the sun ; I long to feel its 
 glorious beams play once more upon these 
 icy limbs ! " 
 
 We did as she directed ; and she closed her 
 eyes, and lay for a few moments silently in- 
 haling the gentle balmy breeze that floated 
 over her pale face. She threw back her hair, 
 and exposed her brow and temples to its 
 refreshing influence. Again she spoke : 
 
 "Earth is fair, and many are the dear 
 
 deliirhts which it contains ; but this which I 
 
198 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 now enjoy is the highest and purest of them 
 all. Often have I stood beneath the blue sky, 
 and, on the lake, or on the hill, revelled m 
 the possession of this best blessing ; but never 
 knew I until this moment the extent of the 
 bliss it could confer ! — And now, my beloved 
 sister, you can yet farther sooth the bitterness 
 of this parting hour. I could wish before I 
 die to be once more under the exalting in- 
 fluence of music : beneath its inspirations, I 
 might better sustain the pang of separation ; 
 and I feel that I need its divine power to raise 
 me above the fascinations which still enthral 
 me, and its buoyant wings to pilot my soul 
 to Heaven. Embrace me then again, dear 
 friend; — and now I entreat you to comply 
 with my request. Descend, and play to me 
 
MISERRIMUS. 199 
 
 that beauteous hymn to the Virgin, Maria 
 santissima, madre amata, which I so loved 
 in the days of my happiness." 
 
 Oh, God ! how did I survive that moment ? 
 — Had this angel victim of my accursed 
 ferocity striven, in the deadliness of revenge, 
 to stab me to the soul, she could have devised 
 no wiser mode than this simple allusion to 
 the hour of our first meeting. But groan, 
 word, nor look betrayed the agony that was 
 consuming me ; though any crime but mine 
 might have been expiated by what I then 
 endured. 
 
 After a last and passionate embrace, with 
 a long, lingering look and a breaking heart, 
 my poor sister left the room ; and soon the 
 magnificent peals of the organ filled and 
 thrilled through the house. The face of my 
 
^^^ MISERRIMUS. 
 
 bride became illuminated with a celestial ex- 
 pression, and the agency of Heaven was 
 visibly upon her. She grasped my hand 
 with a fervent pressure, and, closing her eyes, 
 abandoned herself to her divine aspirations. 
 As the melody proceeded, her hold relaxed, 
 and without a sigh, a look, the shadow of 
 a manifestation, the pure spirit quitted its 
 mortal tenement, and I sustained the arm of 
 the dead. 
 
 Fifty years have passed since that day ; one 
 half of them in the indulgence of every ruth- 
 less and desperate passion. I deemed ex- 
 istence an injury ; I thought myself aggrieved 
 in having been created ; and I felt evil to- 
 wards all my race. In the profligate court 
 of Charles, and afterwards in that of Louis, 
 
MISERRIMUS. 201 
 
 I found an ample field for my misanthropic 
 impulses. Like Ishmael, " my hand was 
 against every man, and every man's hand 
 against me." And yet I prospered in the 
 world, and earned in it those distinctions of 
 name and renown which others only obtain 
 through the exertions of wilful and sys- 
 tematized ambition. At the head of armies, 
 in the strife of courts, in the dangerous in- 
 trigues of internal politics, in foreign diplo- 
 macy, in private faction, or in popular tumult, 
 success invariably attended me. During this 
 long career, I was the envied of the many ; 
 and even now, I could direct universal at- 
 tention to my obscurity, by revealing the 
 designation under which I drew upon myself 
 the eyes of Europe. But neither wealth, 
 power, nor homage softened the agony of my 
 
202 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 remorse ; within me was the worm that never 
 dieth. 
 
 As I advanced in life, the fiery restlessness, 
 which had hitherto involuntarily propelled 
 me into energetic exertion, forsook me ; and 
 the last five and twenty years of my guilty 
 existence have been past, I hope, less erringly 
 than the two first. In solitude and in pe- 
 nitence, in prayer and self-imposed privation, 
 have I striven to subdue the strong wicked- 
 ness of my heart ; but h(Bret lateri lethalis 
 arundoy it goads me night and day, and an 
 ocean of tears could not wash out the memory 
 of the one great crime of my bad life. For 
 ever, and ever, the words of Adoni-bezek 
 
 recur to me : — " As I have done, so God 
 hath requited me." 
 
 No human effort or power can restore me 
 
MISERRIMUS. 203 
 
 to tranquillity. Since the hour of her death, 
 the curse of Heaven has been on me and mine ; 
 my sisters have died childless, and I live the 
 last of my race. In the morning I wish for 
 the evening, and in the night I wish for the 
 day. The heaven above me is as brass, and 
 the earth beneath me is as iron. Above, be- 
 low man's wo and joy, I prowl over the face 
 of the land alone amongst millions ; an alien 
 to the common passions of my race, I can 
 neither weep with the mourner, nor smile with 
 the happy. — And yet, I fear to die ! Exist- 
 ence is my bane, the future is my dread ; I 
 loathe what is, but I tremble at what is to be. 
 — May this expiate — May the Almighty be 
 merciful to a wretch who cannot forgive him- 
 self! 
 
 I do not hope that this gloomy career of 
 
204 MISERRIMUS. 
 
 crime and misery can interest, but it may in- 
 struct. Though I cannot bequeath a moral 
 legacy as striking as that of the Moorish king, 
 I will yet strive to contribute my mite, though 
 a posthumous one, to the welfare of mankind. 
 I have perpetrated and seen so much evil, have 
 so writhed beneath the horrors of remorse, that 
 I would willingly make any exertion to save a 
 fellow-creature from its stings. I shall not 
 then deem this painful record to have been 
 written in vain, if my example and fate serve 
 but to turn one sinner to repentance, or to 
 impress on the mind of one waverer the con- 
 viction that 
 
 VIRTUE IS THE ONLY SOURCE OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 HaeeaaatwaMtJi » f « 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Page 37^ line 3. 
 Before the rude Thessalian had caused the young 
 and the lovely to he superseded by the staid matron of 
 
 The office of priestess in the Temple of Apollo at 
 Delphi was for many years fulfilled by a youthful and 
 beautiful virgin ; but in consequence of a Thessalian 
 of the name of Echecrates having assaulted one of 
 them^ it was decreed that for the future none but women 
 above the age of fifty^ and correspondingly ugly^ should 
 undertake the sacred office. 
 
 Page 67, Hne I, 
 
 / could he inspired with that of Mezentius. 
 A tyrant of Italy, who used to tie the living to the 
 
206 NOTES. 
 
 dead, and leave them without food to perisli in this 
 fearful company. 
 
 Page 140, line 11. 
 Like Regulus in his murderous cask. 
 
 Among other tortures inflicted on Regulus, after he 
 was taken by the Carthaginians, was that of confining 
 him in a barrel Hned with iron spikes, in which he was 
 rolled until he expired in infinite agony. 
 
 Page 160, hne 2. 
 
 The triumph of the Gladiatm; who died in receiving 
 the submission of his enemy. 
 
 An Athenian, of the name of Arrichion, who, pro- 
 strate on the ground, and half suffocated in the grasp 
 of his enemy with a dying effort, seized him by the 
 foot, and broke one of his toes. The anguish of the 
 fracture caused him to cry for quarter, in the very mo- 
 ment that Arrichion himself expired. But he had Uved 
 to be victor, and the judges awarded that his body 
 should be crowned. 
 
NOTES. 207 
 
 Page 184, line 2. 
 
 Or your hand shall he even as the hand of Jeroboam. 
 
 ^^ And it came to pass, when King Jeroboam heard 
 the saying of the man of God, which had cried against 
 the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the 
 altar, saying. Lay hold on him. And his hand which 
 he put forth against him dried up, so that he could not 
 put it in again." — 1 Kings^ chap, xiii. 
 
 Page 202, line 16. 
 As I have done^ so God hath requited me. 
 
 ^' But Adoni-bezek fled, and they pursued after 
 him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his 
 great toes. 
 
 ^^ And Adoni-bezek said. Three score and ten kings 
 having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, 
 gathered their meat under my table : as I have done, 
 so God hath requited me V— The Book of Judges, 
 chap. i. 
 
208 NOTES. 
 
 Page 204, line 2. 
 
 Though I cannot bequeath a moral legacy as striking 
 as that of the Moorish king. 
 
 Abderame, or Abdalrahman the third, the great 
 Caliph of Cordova, who left in his own hand this esti- 
 mate of the value of earthly grandeur and felicity :— 
 " Fifty years have I reigned. Riches, honors, plea- 
 sures, I have enjoyed them all— exhausted them all. 
 The kings, my rivals, fear me, and envy me, yet 
 esteem me. All that men desire has been lavished on 
 me by heaven. In this long space of apparent felicity 
 I have calculated the number of days in which I have 
 been really happy ; they amount to fourteen. Mor- 
 tals, learn how to appreciate greatness, the world, and 
 life." 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY W. w/lCOCKSON, WHITEFP.IARS 
 
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