ページの画像
PDF
ePub

circumstance over which you had no controul! Where is the man, possessed of the commonest humanity, who could have done less? O Mildred, sweet Mildred, your encomiums almost mortify me; I feel so little deserving of them. I feel that you have so little understood me, if for one instant you could suppose me capable of any other conduct-suppose that that conduct really merits the praises you so inconsiderately lavish upon it.

"What! if I said that, that very circumstance which you, alas! consider as reflecting such disgrace on you, only elevated you in my estimation; only rendered you an object of more holy veneration and tenderness; a sublime commiseration blending with the love and admiration your beauty excited?

"What! if I said, which I do before heaven, that my whole study has been to spare you the remotest shadow of pain; that I have with tears, implored my God to spare my senses unto the grave; lest, in the transports of a wild delirium, I might betray that which I would willingly have given my life to have had hidden from your knowledge for ever? Then you might, in the prodigal bounty of your heart, have vouchsafed to thank me. "Oh, my beloved how is the life I would have consecrated to your repose, for ever now imbittered by the certainty, that you do know the fatal secret, and deny me the happiness of consoling you, of leading you to the forgetfulness of it; or, the belief that the shame of a mother ought not, cannot reflect on her innocent, virtuous child. Yet do not think, do not imagine, that I shall, whilst I exist, cease to love you, cease to hope that you will still be mine? No, Mildred, no! only with death will I resign you, only with death; for, rest assured a man never parts with an adored object, when conscious that his affection is reciprocated;-no, sweetest, no,-had you really been desirous of submission, had you expected it, you should have concealed the blest assurance of your love. Why! I loved you, worshipped you, breathed but for you, when I did not for an instant dare to hope for a return; and now, and now when there is no reasonable obstacle to our happiness, I should be mad indeed to obey you. By confessing your attachment you have rendered yourself powerless of defence, and I shall come as a victor to bid you surrender!

"I have a sweet surprise for you, I can come proudly to claim you now, for I have no longer the fear of being thought mercenary, (which heaven knows I never was,) having obtained an appointment which will enable me to offer you the elegance and luxury you have been so accustomed to, so deserving of. O! Mildred! what a glory for me to be rich enough to gratify your every wish! what a glory for me, to feel that you will condes

cend to share my wealth, to dispose of it all; to lend it the sole value it ever can possess in my estimation, that of being useful to you. Oh! how my heart throbs with delight at the idea of laying myself and fortune at your idolized feet!

"I shall instantly follow this letter, I dare not allow you time to deliberate, I must see you now that you are subdued. Now, that an angelic humility inclines your young heart to a divine pity. Mildred! I cannot paint to you the sublime melting of my soul, when meditating on your beauty, softened as it now is by the tender shame of a mother's fault; with a clear and transparent tear, welling up from the pure fountain of your artless bosom, to dim the brightness of the flashing eye, whose lustre was too dazzling for a timid love like mine to brave!

"Sweet, precious tear! perhaps lingering in its fall, for me to kiss off!

"I do not know of what extravagance I may be guilty when we meet; but pardon all, impute all to the intoxication, the rapture, the exquisite pleasure of knowing, at last, that I am not indifferent to you, that the devoted Algernon is loved by his angel Mildred."

"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Belmont, triumphantly, "there! did I not say that he would be faithful? Happy, happy Mildred !"

Mildred lifted up her tearful face from the bosom of her aunt, and shaking her head, sorrowfully, said, "Wretched, wretched Mildred, you mean aunt,-- most, most wretched, to be obliged to lose such a man!"

"Lose him! you have not lost him. I knew that he would prove himself the most generous, the most exalted of human beings. I knew he would, but I did not know until now, that my niece would ever merit such a husband. Nor would she, had she not been schooled by affliction, to appreciate the blessing now bestowed on her by a gracious Providence. Yes, now I am convinced that my Mildred is deserving of Algernon Seymour, that she will study his happiness, and strictly endeavour to realize to the full, the brilliant anticipations of his heart; for, corrected as your own heart now is, my precious love, you will soon be conscious that it is not by caprice and tyranny, that a wife retains the affection her beauty awakened; but, by that grace of mind, that chastened temper, that meek piety, which alone are derived from such a lesson as you have just learnt; and which assure a man, that in the woman of his early selection, he has secured to himself a good beyond the evanescent charms which first captivated his imagination, for that more mature period of life, when passion, subsiding to esteem, demands the more solid attractions of a virtuous and well-organized

mind, to strengthen and render permanent the constancy too prone to vacillate from the decline of mere personal loveliness.

"Had you married in ignorance of that terrible event, which, by probing your heart to its inmost core, has purified it from the gangrenous festerings of inordinate vanity and self-love, so destructive of comfort, so pernicious to happiness; your union could only have been productive of mutual misery and sorrow; your arrogance testing his forbearance beyond the power of even Christian endurance, and driving his patience almost to the verge of despair. Algernon might, in a moment of desperation, have uttered that which now he will never breathe even in a dream, to harrow your feelings."

"O aunt! if I thought I could make him so happy! if I thought that I should never forget my present beneficial change of sentiments."

"You cannot, you never could, my dear Mildred; you never could, the very presence of your husband, his every act of kindness, his every token of affection, would help to foster the perfect growth of the buds of reformation now germinating in your bosom; until they spread out like the palm of the desert, to afford him a shadow in the heat, a shelter in the storm."

"Oh! if I could think so, aunt; if I could believe so!" "You will soon think so, soon believe so, for experience will force conviction on you. Oh! the day that gives you to his arms, will be the happiest of my life, the happiest of your own; for, to secure the protection of a man of worth and honour, who esteems as much as he loves, is the most glorious acquisition a woman can make on earth.”

"Well! aunt, well! I leave all to you,-and to God."

IMPENDING SORROWS.

BY MRS. ABDY.

"Dark clouds hover o'er me-how oft in the distance Have I gazed on those clouds with suspicion and fear;

Now vainly I seek for relief and assistance,

No hand can uphold me, no refuge is near.

I cease from the language of weak supplication,
No ear can it reach, and no heart can it warm;
I can but abide in defenceless prostration,

The force of the pelting and pitiless storm."

"Oh! thou, who thus yieldest thy soul to dejection,
Hath God lost the power his correction to stay?
Can He fill thee with fears, yet deny thee protection?
Can He smite thee, yet turn not his terrors away?

Pursue not thy selfish and idle repining,

Arouse thee-a moment thy lot may reverse;
And soon the soft sunbeams of peace may be shining
Through the light floating clouds as they break and disperse.

But even if thy prayers should be met with denial,
If thou may'st not the storm of affliction elude,
The Power who ordains thee to suffer the trial

Shall graciously bring it to work for thy good.

The flowers of the field gain new fragrance and beauty
When plentiful showers have refreshed the dry sod;
And sorrow may waken thy heart to its duty,

And lead it to give forth its incense to God."

THE INDUSTRIOUS SAVOYARD.

PART I.

HAVE you ever been at Nice? Mind! I do not mean Nice in Bithynia, where a synod of bishops so kindly settled what we were to believe and what not; neither do I mean that Nice which Alexander the Great built in India, and which perhaps you might be troubled to find if you went in search of it. No! the Nice I speak of is a very different place from either of these, and the first courier you meet, standing about in Sherrard Street with his legs astride and blocking up the pavement, will tell you where it is. Neither, when I ask you,

If you have not been at Nice, do I intend to say, Have you been to it, or through it; but by at it I would understand that you have resided there at least for a winter season; for in no less a time can any one be said to have seen that delightful city in all its varied and agreeable aspects.

Nice is not a very large city, for it counts, perhaps, hardly more than fifteen thousand inhabitants: it is not a very regular city, for it has streets in all directions, except at right angles : but then it is a snug city, with its back fairly embedded in a valley overtopped with verdure, and its face open to the warm south. You may go far and near and not find its like. Then, to walk along its sea shore, and look on the rippling water, so clear that you may count the pebbles and the boulders one by one! And be not deceived; for there, where your eye sees to the bottom, shallow as it may appear, it is a full fathom deep: so, if you venture to bathe, walk cautiously in, lest the dazzling lens betray you to your destruction.

Reader, hast thou ever gazed, whilst waiting in a lady's drawing-room on a summer's day, where some careful housemaid had filled the grate with gaudy shavings fantastically arranged and of the brightest colours,-I say, hast thou ever gazed at the very pleasing effect which the gay confusion produces? especially when on the mantelpiece above are set in bright array sundry ornaments of Bohemian glass, vases and candelabra; and to the summit of the chimney rises a superb mirror, reflecting in vivid colours every object around. Well, this is but a faint image of the scenery which surrounds this favoured spot. Let me lead you to the fourth story of the lofty range of houses (palaces rather let me style them) built by that enterprising merchant, Ambrosio Tiranti. Now, cast your eyes on the splendid view which bursts on your bewildered senses. You are all amazement and wonder. I hear your exclamations of delight, and your rapture for a moment only finds utterance in broken sentences-how beautiful! how charming! Beneath your feet are gardens where roses, cactuses, aloes, and oleanders, intermingled with the richest verdure, at once tell you that you breathe the sweet atmosphere of a southern climate. A little beyond rise groves of olive trees, and among them painted villas, such as an English eye has only beheld on the scenes of a playhouse. Farther off, umbrageous woods cover the dark avenues that lead, in devious windings, into the first deep valleys of the mountains covering the water courses, where, in the rainy season, rush down torrents which, but for the walled causeways keeping the impetuous stream in its bed, would inundate the plain, and sweep away the husbandman's labour. Here and there some castellated building, more magnificent and massive

« 前へ次へ »