by Edward Kenealy, LL.B.
Originally published in Ainsworth's Magazine: A Miscellany of Romance (Chapman and Hall) vol.10 #6 (1846).
Chapter VII.
I insert in this chapter an autobiographical fragment highly illustrative of the feelings of Edgar Hyde at this period, and which I have found in my friend's handwriting. It is penned on several scraps of paper, pinned. together, and appears to have been composed at hurried intervals. I think it interesting. A sporting friend asked it of me to convert into wadding for his gun; another begged it to light his cigars with. I think the printer will make better use of it than either the partridge shooter or the tobacco-smoker. The devil shall have it before one or the other—poor harmless little printer's devil.
"Vita, vita,
Fugit ita,
Ama—Bibe—Gaude.
When I recall to memory the many strange incidents of my life, I know not whether I should smile or weep. Strange they have been, and sad—but from this sadness I have drawn forth the pearl of deep thought—and this has been the amulet of my existence. * * * *
"I am an only son. My father was a gentleman of good family but of small estate. He idolised me. Our lineage was ancient and respectable, but our fortunes had been impaired by the loyalty of an ancestor. The religious scruples of another—he was a Catholic—sunk it still more. Everard Hyde was a melancholy and haughty man, and the consciousness that the follies of his forefathers prevented him from occupying the position in society to which he was entitled, made him still haughtier. Instead of depressing it added new pinions to his pride. We lived in a large and noble mansion, the sole relic of our former grandeur. It was one of my father's humours to preserve intact the furniture, the books, the portraits that had descended to him from his ancestry. Amid all his early depressions, and they were many, he never sold a shilling's worth of these treasured memorials, and with one of the finest country residences in the kingdom, he had the poorest equipage and the most homely table.
"Our small demesne was situated on the sea-shore; and it was amid the ravines of the wild hills that bounded it, or upon the broad bosom of the silver waters that foamed up almost to our door, that the spell of solitude first came upon my soul, and filled it with its most gentle magic. Thus I became from my earliest years a wild and lonely visionary. The sports of boyhood had for me no charm; the happy communion of heart which springs from intercourse with friends and equals I never knew and never sought to know. Solitude alone had a spell which even m mere childhood I felt to be irresistible. The silent grandeur of inanimate nature was my passion. I worshipped its majesty; I loved its beauty; the bustle of towns I hated; the mute eloquence of wood and water fascinated me. To be alone—alone and happy—all my wishes centred in this point, and in the loneliness of my library, amid my books, amid my busts, amid pictures and casts, I nursed the passion. From that time upward I have adhered to what many would proclaim the capricious whim of the child, and I have found in solitade a more perfect elysium than in busy, luxurious life. Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus. * *
"I became a careless, joyous dreamer of things that are not. I knew of no world, nor cared for any, outside the bright horizon that bounded our mountains. My realm was not of earth—my home was the ideal, And as the sun-born rainbow clothes the form of nature with a charm of beauty, which words can but feebly and insufficiently describe, in like manner does Fancy, like the Iris, colour the picture of the Future, with all that is most exquisite and bewitching; alas! too, with all that is most fallacious. O Life, what * * * *
"The evening walk amid the sombre greenwood, the lonely musing amid the spectral-looking old abbey which lay within a mile of our grounds—the startled deer—the sharp stroke of the woodman's axe—the low soft music of falling waters—the dazzling flutter of the bright-winged pigeon—the murmuring of the summer bees—the shrill note of the blackbird—the rich purple of the twilight—the calm beauty of the moonlit heavens—the night-talk with the lonely stars—the waves sleeping in the sunshine—the morning minstrelsy of the birds—such sights, and sounds, and meditations I loved. My spirit drank deeply of this rare enchantment. Books did but nurse my passion. How often have I strolled forth to that beloved forest nook beneath which, a picture of the Beautiful and the Sublime charmingly mingled, the landscape stretched away to an immense distance, and in the glorious hour of noon, when all around me seemed to breathe the spirit of universal happiness and peace, have I opened those dear, well-remembered pages of the immortal allegorist of old—Spenser—and filled my mind with those celestial visions of loveliness which colour his pages like some magnificent arras, and seem to move before you like glimpses of that Arabian Paradise which the shepherd of the East sometimes beholds when wandering in the far wilderness. And Plato—Plato, too, in the centre of scenes like these has been my companion, my friend, my adviser, my preceptor. And there, in moments of inspiration, how often have I wished that my spirit, disenthralled from earth, were free to roam at will amid eternal space, and become the Seer of the Future. Then how often have I wished that the hour had arrived when I too might partake of the majesty of immortality, and become one of those omniscient spirits to whom All Beauty is as a household scene. The noble view of wood and water before me; the wild mountains around; heaven, the sun, and the winged stars above; these were the things that linked my soul unto them; these were the magicians by whose spells of loveliness and power my spirit was lifted from the low desires of earth. * * It was in one of these sweet evening rambles through the woods and by the blue waters, that the first dawn of love came upon me like sunshine. I had been unusually abstracted all day. In vain did I search amid my books for the accustomed attraction. I turned over the pages of the poets; I communed with the philosophers of the past; I mingled in the fictions of romance. From Shakspeare to Bacon, from Plato to Ariosto I passed in turn, and found in neither a charm which could amuse. I rode out—I galloped with unusual rapidity: even this did not arouse me from listlessness to pleasure, I returned, and flinging myself into a library-chair, reverted to the Past and looked forward to the Future. Both were a blank. My life had been like one of those summer streams upon which men of the multitude look with contempt. It had glided away imperceptibly and calmly to its own music. But such was not the manner of existence which a heart constituted like mine, dazzled with the brilliant dreams of History, Romance, and Song, and smitten with the barb of strong excitement—for the loneliest dreamers are those whose visions are generally the most wild, inspiriting, and bustling—could regard with satisfaction or complacency. It panted for a passion; it looked forth upon the external world, and longed to hold sympathy with it or with its creatures. I had no pursuit. Knowledge, though an inexhaustible mine, and exquisitely gladdening to trace through, will pall at times. So of all earthly pursuits. Besides, I had laid up within my mind no ordinary store of erudition. I had learned to think when others had not yet ceased to read. Our library was not the most extensive, and I had nearly exhausted its stores. * *
"Oh that I could describe to you the seraph loveliness of Edith Carleton! Ringlets black and shining as the starry night fell upon shoulders whose whiteness was absolutely dazzling; her eyes were dark, and full, and large as those of a Jewess; her nose was of that delicate aquiline outline which gives even to faces the most homely an intellectual charm; and her cheek blushed with a hue resembling the softened pink that tinges the lip of an Indian shell; her teeth were little and perfectly regular—they resembled milk-white flowers or snow in the centre of a rose-bud; her lips ripe and full, and her accent the most melodious in the world. Is it not something to have won the love of so bright a creature as this? And yet it was brought about in the simplest manner possible.
* * * * *
"Her cottage is about two miles distant from this place. It is charmingly situated at the foot of a gentle hill, surrounded by trees; a murmuring stream overhung with willows and evergreens runs just beside it, and the fields around it undulate into beauty. A fit abode for Innocence and Peace it seems. The laughing honeysuckles climb its rustic walls; they cluster round the latticed windows; they mantle in verdant blossomings over the broad and sheltering porch. The grass in front of the cottage is soft as velvet and green as emeralds; lilies, hyacinths, and the large-flowering rhododendron laugh in rich luxuriance before the door and windows, and seem to wrap as if in a summer wreath of everlasting verdure all the lower portion of the house. The perfume of wild thyme wafted sweetly on the air attracts the bees to this favoured spot, and the silver gliding of the waters falls on the ear deliciously; the sunshine seems to rest upon it lazily the whole day and never to depart, but the sheltering trees afford a sweet retreat from the more fervid rays of the sun.
"Mrs. Carleton is quite an original person. She is perfectly guileless and unsophisticated. She is scarcely fit for this abominable world—she, so innocent and so natural. She spends all her time reading books of poetry, or telling to sweet Edith fairy tales and legends. I almost think she believes them to be true, so often has she told them, and so constantly does her mind dwell on their fantastic wonders. She is proud of Edith—as who would not be? Her husband and she are separated. No one knows where he is—and I believe no one, except his creditors, would care to inquire. Since he parted with his commission he has gone completely to ruin. He endeavoured with all his might to get possession of bis wife's property, but it was so was so firmly settled upon herself, and her brother offered so strenuous a resistance, that out of very shame he has hidden himself in obscurity. They say he is married to another * * under a false name. * *
"The first of these three paragraphs I have written in the past, the second and third in the present, yet both are penned in the same moment. Edith, her mother—all that | have just spoken of as actually being, are all departed and gone. The two first are sleeping in the silent grave, the cottage is a ruin, the cherished flowers are choked with weeds and desolation, I, who survive—if, indeed, my present state can be called 'life'—but for one avenging object; I, too, shall speedily be numbered with the past, the Eumenides of Memory shall soon cease to follow and torment me."
* * * * *
Chapter VIII.
Edith and Edgar had been about four months acquainted. Their meetings were numerous, but for reasons, which I shall presently explain, guarded and secret. I was at that time in a very distant part of the country, and my friend, though constantly corresponding with me, had never even mentioned the fact of this new attachment. His delicacy in matters of this kind was extreme. Had I been with him he would have laid bare his whole heart before me, but he entertained a strong, and I think a becoming objection to writing on the subject. What, indeed, can be more unworthy of a man of honour than committing to treacherous paper a virgin secret of this nature? I think it even worse than divulging to a friend the mystery of an intrigue—although most married ladies will aver that there cannot be a more heinous crime than this.
For my part I never told tales of either when I was a young man.
That Mrs. Carleton was perfectly cognisant of Edgar's attachment to her daughter, and that she permitted, if she did not sanction, their interviews, need not be concealed. But his father was ignorant altogether of the circumstance.
Why should fathers expect to know such things?
He was a man of good heart, but of intolerable pride. He would no more have permitted his son to form an intimacy of this kind, if he had known it, than he would have parted with the title deeds of his family mansion, his old ancestral portraits, or his hereditary silver punch-bowls. Death he would have welcomed in preference to either; so strange does that strange thing, the human heart, entwine itself around antique memorials of this description. It became, therefore, absolutely necessary that he should remain in ignorance of what had happened. Fortunately, the matter was known to but few—and these, the haughtiness of the old man, kept at so complete a distance, that there seemed no chance of his ever getting acquainted with a secret which was so closely connected with the interest and honour of his son. That Edgar Hyde should fall in love with the daughter of a subaltern in the army—a ruined, perhaps a disgraced man, never occurred to him; pride blinding our judgment much more frequently than any other of the passions. I believe, indeed, he did not know that such a person as Mrs. Carleton resided at all in the neighbourhood, Everard Hyde was somewhat of a recluse. He passed his time in his library, and seldom stirred beyond his own grounds, or spoke to any body. As a consequence, nobody spoke to him. He was not pestered by village tattle, the gossip of the ale-house, or the intrigues of the barber's-shop. And I think he was in the right. He was certainly happier than most of our modern country gentlemen, who are compelled to hear these things, and what is infinitely worse, to meddle with them for want of a better employment. Dear Harry Fielding! why are you not now alive to paint this new race? Our old fox-hunting squires are nearly all departed and gone; they have given place to country gentlemen, redolent of Cheapside and Mark Lane. Cut by the old families of the county, they pass their leisure hours in impertinent gossip, in prying into the affairs of the neighbourhood, in knowing everybody's secrets, and in magnifying themselves.
The chemists who reduce every thing to simple substances, ought to attempt an analysis of soul. I should like to see the soul of a city-country gentleman analysed. What is Liebig doing? Why is Berzelius idle?
Addison, in one of his "Spectators," dissects the brain of a fop. But the dissection which I here suggest would be far more curious! I forget whether that queer, mad German, Schubert, in his "History of the Soul,” just published, says any thing on the subject.
Though I doubt whether they have in Deutschland or in Sweden such city-country gentlemen as our dear England produces, possesses and propagates. So that neither Liebig nor Berzelius have any materials to work upon.
But whether they have or not, it is certain that Edgar's father knew nothing of his son's attachment to Edith Carleton. There was another person, however, who did; and as this individual will frequently appear before us, I shall introduce him in a separate chapter.
Chapter IX.
The reader will doubtless bear in mind that wild misanthropical episode (it is only a few pages back) in which I favoured him with my opinions about friendship, and supported those opinions by one or two facts. Probably he has, like half-a-hundred other people—good dreamers in Optimism—condemned me for plain speaking, or for erroneous notions; or what is just as likely, and if he has been a man much knocked about in the world, he probably has agreed with every word I wrote. Whichever side he has adopted, he will not object to see the text—or rather a portion of the text—from which my comment was taken.
Fortunately for both of us, Richard Hardress furnishes that text.
Hardress and Hyde had once been educated under the same master. Hardress was considerably older than my friend—nine or ten years at least. But Edgar, of whom it could be said with just as much truth as it was remarked of Gray and Pitt, that he never was a boy, almost always associated with those of his schoolfellows who were in age beyond his own years. His mind, while he was yet but young, had grown to manhood; he selected his acquaintances from among his seniors, though all were, nevertheless, far his juniors in intellect. Among these, unhappily for himself, for Edgar, and oh! still more unhappily for thee, sweet Edith, was Richard Hardress. A blood-red comet enveloping in its lurid light the morning star.
Hardress was a man of singularly fascinating manners—false and fair-foliaged as the manchineel. A serpent was not more sleek and elegant, nor more subtile, nor more envenomed. I have generally found in very smooth, soft men, a wonderful resemblance to the reptile tribe. I know one at present who, in some former state of existence—for the metempsychosis of Pythagoras is not so utterly vain or foolish as our schoolmasters lead us to believe—must have been a snake, or something worse—so smooth, so brilliant, so slippery, so poisonous, so quick. I have found him base, treacherous, and deceitful; at one time crawling on head and belly to his prey, at another time springing at it with deadly aim—but he is still so dazzling, that in a drawing-room I have seen twenty foolish women, poor birds, fix their eyes upon him alone in perfect fascination.
Such a man as this was Richard Hardress.
His appearance was elegant and attractive; his blue eyes seemed to shine with honesty and truth, and there was a beaming cordiality in his smile that disarmed the most suspicious, and at once won favour. His knowledge of the world and of mankind was deep, perhaps perfect. I knew him well, and in his estimate of men and things I scarcely ever found him wrong. Of moderate fortune, but strong and overpowering passions, he plunged headlong into the most vicious excesses, from which he managed to extricate himself by finesse, by falsehood, by trick, and scheme—in a word, by every mode but that of honour. It must not be supposed that these things were known to the world, or that Edgar Hyde, himself so pure, so noble, and so virtuous, would have selected for his friend a wretch like this, a slave to mean and criminal excesses. These things, unhappily, never were known until the injury was done, and too late to be retrieved; for he masked his vices under an exterior of calm and philosophic virtue, which was so admirably managed, that he baffled even his most intimate associates. No wonder that Edgar, himself all guilelessness and truth, should have been deceived.
Richard Hardress!—
I pause upon the name, mute in wonder that Heaven will create such men.
There is an old notion—I believe it, is Rabbinical—that the souls of the wicked are annihilated after death. It is said that the souls of suicides, such as Lucretia, Brutus, Cato, Arria, Portia, are annihilated also. This is at least more charitable than to suppose that they writhe in eternal agonies. But why create such souls as those of the first at all? or what purpose can it serve? In other words, why does Evil exist in the world? A curious but a dangerous question this. The Eternal Fountain of all excellence takes no delight in evil. May it not happen, then—and this also, I believe, is a theory of the Rabbis—that the Principle of Evil possesses the power of infusing into earthly bodies his subordinate spirits of crime ? For I cannot and will not believe that the power of creation—which is an essential attribute of Omnipotent Goodness—can have been bestowed upon the Essence of Vice and Wickedness.