A Passage in the History of Edith Carleton.
by Edward Keneally, LL.B.
Originally published in Ainsworth's Magazine: A Miscellany of Romance (Chapman and Hall) vol.11 #4 (1847).
The spirits infused into corporeal bodies, and moulded by His heavenly hand, are pure and sinless—they live on earth in perfect virtue and depart from it to some other world of splendour and ambrosial loveliness.
But may it not happen—and in the supposition there is nothing repugnant to the pure and beautiful truths of Christianity, otherwise, I need scarcely say, I would not dare to hazard it—that the Power of Evil can infuse life into bodies of his own creating, or can animate them by spiritual essences, immortal, though condemned; and that hence Vice arises in the world?
Among the thousand and one wild eccentric speculations on our Past and Future, which have been supported by the Rabbis, the Talmudists, the Mystic Philosophers, is the following:
That the race of men are a race of Angels, or Δαίμονες, sent into this world to expiate by the myriad evils that attend existence here, the crimes committed in some other period of being; and that when they have been purified by this ordeal, they ascend to their original state of innocence, excellence, and undying beauty; their pilgrimage on earth, in exile from the skies, operating as a sort of cleansing Purgatory of their past misdeeds.
This theory also, it may be added, is in no way repugnant to the divine truths of Revelation, but perfectly consistent with them. Against these truths nothing shall ever fall from my pen.
Nor is it destitute of probability, when we contemplate that strange and wondrous compound of spirit, the soul of man—half angel—half demons—striving at one moment after its fair ideal of immortal beauty—at another, clogged, impeded, and debased to the earth, by the earthy body in which it is bound; glowing now with all that is most akin to holiness, to innocence, to truth, to celestial harmony, in all its primal brightness, of Angel or Δαίμον—now burning with wild and criminal feelings, wishes and promptings, which reduce it in a moment from heaven to the lowest abyss of wretchedness and hell. In thought how like a god; in deed how like a beast. Angel-Devil!
O bright and beautiful souls of my two beloved friends—O Edgar! O Edith! from God, assuredly, ye came. And unto his bright bosom let us humbly hope ye have returned.
O dark, accursed spirit of R.H., whence, then, didst thou come?
From Heaven?
No.
Whence then?
* * * * *
Can it be doubted, if there be indeed any truth in the Rabbinical belief, that annihilation was thy doom?—that thou wert immediately when thy guilty spirit faced its Maker, reduced into nothingness?
Or, sleepest thou now, accursed soul, in the centre of undying fire? Let us charitably suppose the first. Annihilation were, for thee, a blessing indeed.
Or, if thou wert once of angelic essence, as others may suppose, and sent to earth on thy purificatory mission, how deep, how dark and deadly has been thy relapse into guilt! How numerous the cycle of ages before thou shalt be restored.
And yet how entirely elegant he seemed. In exterior excellence all beauty—but within all ugliness. In shape Achilles—in act Thersites.
For what in all creation—what crawling toad—so vile and ugly as vice?
He fulfilled the old sneer of the cynic Diogenes, "In eburnâ virginâ plumbeus gladius." Yes! the soul indeed was of lead—the vilest of metals—but the body was pure and white as ivory.
In all that can render a man accomplished, polished, and refined; in the most complete tact, in a mastery of such knowledge as is best fitted to govern the many, in skill, in daring, in acuteness, in plausibility, in the art of attracting friends and subduing them immediately to his own purposes, in veiling under the specious light of virtue and wisdom, vices the most abhorrent and profane, in the science of the drawing-room, in the most exquisite softness and winningness of manner to both men and women, in an unbounded acquaintance with that difficult problem—the human heart, in courtesy, in outward kindness, in benevolent sentiments, in the ready assumption of virtuous and philanthropic principles—in all these things this man was perfect.
So indefatigably had he studied Vice, that if he had bestowed but half the pains in learning Virtue, he would have been one of the most estimable characters on earth.
The world—alas! that it should be said—is full of such men; inspired by a most devilish spirit, glorying in vice for its own sake, and giving daily proofs of who their base creator is. From the hand of God their souls assuredly do not proceed. The Principle of Evil has animated them with life, and it is his behests they obey.
This miscreant was the bosom friend of Hyde. My poor beloved Edgar relied on him, trusted him, believed him to be the most excellent of men. I know ten thousand others who once thought the same.
He was, in my absence, trusted by Edgar—and oh! how exquisite a proof of affection was conveyed in that trust !—with the secret of his deep devoted attachment to sweet Edith Carleton.
Little did my friend know or suspect that Hardress had already fixed his deadly eyes upon that fair and tender flower, and sworn she should be his.--
But I anticipate. I fear that I am but a very bad romance-writer, for I let my readers into the secret before the time. Alas! I cannot help it. My heart is full of this sad subject, and the truth involuntarily flowed out from my pen before I was half conscious of it. There are times, when my hand mechanically writes, though my thoughts are far, far away, and when I read over the manuscript I feel astonished at the strangeness of what I have written. No matter. I shall not erase the foregoing sentence, though, according to all the rules of romance, this secret ought to have been reserved for some time yet!
The reader, therefore, will please to learn that Edith Carleton had two lovers, Edgar Hyde and Richard Hardress: the one acting openly, honourably, and sincerely; the other secretly and basely. The former confiding firmly in his friend; the latter trusted by that friend, but betraying him every hour of the day—just as Judas did.
Edith Carleton was ignorant of R.H.'s passion. The latter had never presumed to declare himself. But he laboured hard to cause a breach between the lovers; and this accomplished, he trusted to his own arts for consequent success. The tiger watches not its destined prey with half such revenous eagerness, as R. H. watched thee, my poor Edith.
Iago, the craftiest scoundrel ever drawn by human wit, is represented by Shakspeare, as dealing principally in the working out of his infernal plottings, by insinuation. The noble Moor, assailed at every point by this most damnable device, circumvented by vile suspicions, hints, nods, winks, shrugs, and grimace, yet ever unconvinced, is wrought at last to madness; and but for sodas would still have remained in ignorance of the wily villain's arts by whom he was robbed in the same instant of his love, his honour, and his life. Observe the wondrous cunning wherewith Iago founds, and then accomplishes his design. All candour and friendship, he wears his heart written in his face; he acts to perfection the part of the most trusty friend; to those whose ruin he has meditated he always assumes the guise of fondest affection, or the most devoted respect;—Othello—Desdemona—Cassio—Roderigo—his blunt humour masks a world of mischief; his honesty has passed into a proverbial saying. As he scarcely ever advances a direct charge against his principal victim, he flatters himself not merely with certain victory, but with assured impunity. He has said or done scarcely any thing of which immediate hold can be laid, so as to enmesh himself with his intended prey. The finest natures are always the most open, and the least suspicious. The brave Othello, to whom falsehood was as little known as cowardice or any other species of dishonour, true and faithful himself, dreams not that the opposite vices are to be found in another; and the more especially when that other is his trusted friend, and most experienced officer. Hour after hour, day after day, the accomplished villain drops the leperous distilment of insinuation into his hearer's heart, until at length aroused to madness, half-doubting, half-desperate, now dreaming passionately of Desdemona's love, now wildly sorrowful at the supposed change in her affections, and violently inflamed against him for whom she, his bride beloved, has been so changed, he rushes recklessly on a career of blood;—and murder, suicide, and desolation mark his path.
Richard Hardress had studied, methinks, not truantly in this detested school. He was as complete a master of insinuation as Iago himself. Had he lived to the present day, I should perhaps have compared him to the Frenchman, Michelet, whose writings have lately made so great a noise; and who seems to be experimentalising on the world as to the exact amount of dishonesty, falsehood, cunning, impurity, hypoerisy, and slander, which the said world will endure. For that his writings are full of each and all these hideous features, cannot, I think, be doubted by any honest man. This vagabond will merely have us to believe that every Catholic priest is a seducer and adulterer; every Catholic nun an abandoned profligate; and every Catholic matron and daughter a vile assenting instrument of lust in the hands of her spiritual adviser. Had he had the boldness to assert these lies, the world would perhaps listen in disgust and wonder; they could scarcely despise him; for boldness, though on the side of infamy, is almost always secure from contempt. But this petty-larceny scoundrel has no such boldness. He merely, like his prototype—Iago, insinuates it all. Those who read his writings are called upon to believe all this implicitly as Holy Writ—and why?—because an excommunicated villain and defamer, who leaves the traces of his falsehoods as plainly after him in every page, as the serpent leaves its loathsome and slimy tail, chooses to insinuate it in every form and shape that many-coloured mendacity can assume, and so pertinacious withal is this dirty fiction-maker, that were it not the most monstrous lie ever begotten in hell, or in Michelet's brain, which is the same thing, one would be inclined to think he believed it himself.
Am I not right, therefore, when I liken to Iago or to Michelet, such a character as Richard Hardress? The reader will see all the features of resemblance better as we proceed.
Hardress became acquainted with Edith on the introduction of her lover. My absence from the place wherein these scenes were enacted, through Edgar on his own resources: and as there were no slight difficulties to encounter in managing this love affair, without the assistance of a friend, he was obliged to have recourse to Hardress. That such an intervention was originally most repugnant to Edgar's feelings, he has often told me; but accident having first put Hardress in possession of the secret, or of so much of it as would lead speedily to his knowledge of the remainder, Edgar thought it better to make no concealments from him, and he revealed the whole. He introduced him to Edith, and he frequently sent his letters to her by him, and received her's in return. He had afterwards reason to think that both were opened and read by Hardress before delivery. To such an inconceivable depth of baseness, Micheletism, and villany, had this man even then descended.
The numerous opportunities which Hardress had of visiting Edith—for he went to her and from her on constant embassy—put him, in a short time, on a footing of friendship with both her and her mother; and his courteous assiduity in obeying, and often anticipating their wishes, the polished softness of his manners, and his determination to please, were so irresistible, that he soon ingratiated himself quite into the heart of the latter. He was perpetually reminding her of the beauty and innocence of her daughter—sweet Edith! he never could have enlarged sufficiently in praise of either—of the inconstancy and folly of youthful engagements like this which subsisted between her and Edgar; of the fickleness of men, and the haughtiness of the father. "The warmth of his friendship," he said, "for Edgar was great; but it could not render him insensible to the ties of intimacy which bound him for ever to his dearest Mrs. Carleton; and though he might appear unfaithfulto the claims which the first had upon him, still nothing could induce him to forego those of the last." There were times, too, when he hinted that the engagement was becoming public, and that it was, at all events, inconvenient that it should be continued; that every day brought nearer and nearer a chance of discovery, and that what such an unlucky accident as that might lead to, it was impossible to foresee. These things, constantly sounded in the mother's ears, produced the effect which the wily villain intended; while the art with which they were conveyed was so consummate, the earnestness with which Hardress besought her to conceal the subject, nor sever, by discovery, two such friendly hearts as he called Heaven to witness, his and Edgar's were, seemed so real; his protestations of eternal duty and friendship to herself, which he made with tears in his eyes, so convinced this good, guileless creature, that she blessed Providence for throwing in her way so kind, so considerate, so discreet a friend. Mrs. Carleton was always observed to talk anxiously to Edith after these interviews.
Edgar was at this time severely ill, and confined to the house; a circumstance which, though communicated to Edith and her mother, facilitated, in no slight degree, the plots and artifices of Hardress.
To Edith herself he next directed his intrigues. After the most hearty professions of friendship, and of eternal devotion to her interests, he cautiously, and from time to time, with a mastery of skill, dropped hints and insinuations of Edgar's coldness and insensibility—his haughtiness, natural and acquired—his devotion to books alone, and to ambitious aspirings, in preference to all other pursuits. He blamed himself all the while for speaking thus frankly of his friend, but protested that he could not restrain his free thoughts. The illness which oppressed Edgar he assured her was produced, more by his own reflections on the subject of their intimacy, and the difficulties of their position with respect to his father, than by bodily causes ; and though he every day brought her short notes of the most fond and feeling kind, he protested they were written rather to please her, by keeping concealed from her the altered state of Edgar's feelings, than as the genuine promptings of his heart. It must not be supposed that so consummate a master of finesse as Richard Hardress spoke all this so decidedly as it is here written. Such a course would have opened the eyes of Edith instantly. No, it is impossible to describe the art with which it was done, or the length of time which it occupied. Constant dropping wears away the hardest marble, and continued insinuation penetrates into the warmest heart.
He adjured her to be secret, and Edith promised. Ah! why didst thou do so, my sweet friend? Truth never shuns the light.
At first she could scarcely believe what she had heard. To doubt of Edgar Hyde's love seemed to her to be little short of blasphemy. She trembled—alas! as I even now tremble while I write. Oh, sweet, sweet Edith, where art thou? * * * *
Whither was I wandering? I know not.
Spirit of eternal brightness, come tome! Oh, come from thy starry home in heaven! A lonely, old, and wayworn dreamer, how should I exist, were it not for thoughts celestial of thee?—
Whither was I wandering? Why dost thou beat so wildly, my heart? Is she indeed near?
Let me resume. And do thou, dear reader, pardon my digressions. Oh! hadst thou but known her. My poor Edith! my poor Edith!
At last, when she could bear no longer the agony of this dread suspense, she resolved to end it, and by some decisive step ascertain for ever the state of Edgar's feelings. With Hardress at her side, and prompting her to action, she sat down one evening and penned the following letter. I think it one of the most beautiful I ever read—one, also, of the saddest. It is plain and simple, just at it came from the heart:—
Edgar, you have deceived me; but I forgive you. I hope no one whom you may love will deceive you, for then you will never know the anguish I feel this night. When I came home from D—, my mother told me that you had passed her in your walks. Others also told me that you had begun to look on us with coldness and carelessness; and that though you were out every day, still you never visited here. I did not believe them. Edgar, tell me, how could I believe them? I sent a letter to you at the time, which, from what has happened this evening, I suppose you must have received; but still I could not bring myself to believe that you, of all others, who professed so much, should deceive me in the end. Recent circumstances have at last convinced me that, little as I may deserve your love, I have now lost it for ever. You care no more for me. I forgive you. Edgar, still dearest Edgar, I forgive you, and wish that you may never know what it is to have a broken heart. For though you may not credit it now, you were the only person in this world by whom I could say I was beloved, and whom I loved. Circumstances, it is true, may induce you to think otherwise. I certainly was giddy and very inconsiderate; but still I had a heart, a fond, faithful, loving heart, dear Edgar, and a were the only person that possessed it. But it is all over now. I wish you all happiness. Your words have been reported to me. I cannot, I will not wound you to the soul by writing them here. You might have spared me all reproaches. If you wished to give me up, you might have done so without hurting a girl's feelings, who never would have done you any wrong—who would have died, nay, who still would die for you.
I wish you every happiness, my dear friend, as I suppose this is the last time I can say it. May you always be happy, and may no one so unworthy as I am ever torment you again. Good-bye—good-bye! God bless you! Forgive me if I have ever done any thing to you; and may He who searches all hearts look down upon me this night and comfort me. E.C.
Edgar was musing in his library when he received the foregoing letter. When first he began to read it, he rubbed his eyes, as if he were in a dream—he pulled his large lamp closer to his side, and began to study the letter once again. To paint his bewilderment would be impossible. He fell into a reverie.
He heard a knock at the door, and Richard Hardress entered with his usual bright and winning smile. Seizing Edgar by the hand, he exclaimed,
"Ah, my dear friend, how do you do? Why do you look so sad? Is any thing the matter with you?"