Anna St. Ives Part 45

Henley!--d.a.m.n Mr. Henley!--But she may be necessary; and, as she is entirely governed by the gull Edward, I must submit to bring myself into his favour. The thing may easily be done.

The lordly uncle Fitz-Allen is secure. I frequently dine with him on what he calls his open day; he being overwhelmed with business, as blockheads usually are; and I do not fail to insinuate the relationship in which, if care be not taken, he may hereafter chance to stand to a gardener's son. His face flames at the supposition, and his red nose burns more bright! What will it do, should I make him my tool, when he finds to what good purpose he has been an abettor? Be that his concern; it neither is nor ever shall be mine.

But none of these are the exact agent I want; nor have I found him yet.

They at best can only act as auxiliaries. Laura indeed may be eminently useful; but the plotting, daring, mischievous, malignant yet subaltern imp incarnate, that should run, fly, dive, be visible and invisible, and plunge through frost or fire to execute my behests, is yet to be discovered.

Were I in Italy, disburse but a few sequins and battling legions would move at my bidding: but here we have neither cicisbeos, carnivals, confessors, bravoes nor sanctuaries. No--We have too few priests and too much morality for our n.o.ble corps to flourish in full perfection.

I know not that all this may be necessary, but I suspect it will, and I must prepare for the worst; for I will accomplish my purpose in despite of h.e.l.l or honesty!--Ay, Fairfax, will!--Gentle means, insinuation, and hypocrisy shall be my first resource; and if these fail me, then I will order my engines to play!

I have been once more reading my copy of this unaccountable paper, and though every word is engraven in my memory, it dropped from my hand with new astonishment! Her history of her Mr. Henley, the yearnings of her heart toward him, and her unabashed justification of all she has said, all she has thought and all she has done are not to be paralleled in the records of female extravagance.

She comes however to the point at last--Calculation is in favour of celibacy--For once, lady, you are in the right!--We may appear to agree on cases more dubious, but on that it will be miraculous if we ever hereafter differ.

I cannot but again applaud myself, for keeping my preconcerted resolution of silence and reserve so firmly. I rejoice in my fort.i.tude and my foresight; for her efforts were so strenuous, and her emotions so catching, that had I been less prepared all had been lost.

C. CLIFTON

LETTER Lx.x.xI

_c.o.ke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_

_London, Dover Street_

Yes, yes, Fairfax! She takes the sure and resolute road to ruin, and travels it with unwearied ardour!--What think you she has done now?--An earthquake would have been more within my calculation!--She labours hard after the marvellous!--She has been angling again in the muddy pool of paradox, and has hooked up a new dogma!--And what is it?--Why nothing less than an a.s.severation that the promise she made me is not binding!--Promises are non-ent.i.ties: they mean nothing, stand for nothing, and nothing can claim.

So be it--It is a maxim, divine apostate, that will at least serve my turn as effectually as yours. To own the truth, I never thought promises made to capricious ladies stood for much; nor were my scruples at present likely to have been increased. If she, a woman, be simple enough to have faith in the word of man, 'tis her fault. Let her look to it!

This is not all: the doctrine is not of her own invention! Mr. Henley, the eternal Mr. Henley again appears upon the scene, from which he is scarcely ever a moment absent!--Were it possible I could relent, she is determined I shall not. But they are both down in my tablets, in large and indelible characters; on the black list; and there for a time at least they shall remain.

My plan, Fairfax, is formed; and I believe completely. When I was first acquainted with her, as you know, my meaning was honest and my heart sincere. I was a fool at least for a fortnight; for that was the shortest period before I began at all to waver. I was indeed deeply smitten! Nor is desire cooled: delay, opposition, and neglect have only changed its purpose. She soon indeed taught me to treat her in some manner like the rest of her s.e.x, and to begin to plot. 'Tis well for me that I have a fertile brain: and it had been well for her could she have been contented with the conquest she had made, and have treated me with generosity equal to my deserts. But a hypocrite she has made me, and a hypocrite she shall find me; ay and a deep one.

She has herself given me my clue: she has laid open her whole heart.

She has the fatuity to mimic the perfect heroine! Tell her but it is a duty, and with the Bramin wives she would lie down, calmly and resolutely, on the burning pile!

Well then! I will tell her of a duty of which she little dreams! Yes, she shall grant every thing I wish as an act of duty! I will convince her it is one! I! The pretty immaculate lamb must submit in this point to become my pupil; and it shall go hard or I will prove as subtle a logician as herself.

What say you, Fairfax? Is not the project an excellent one? Is it not worthy of the sapient Doctor Clifton? Shall I lose reputation, think you, by carrying it into effect?

I am already become a new man. My whole system is changed. She begins to praise me most unmercifully; and, while my very heart is tickled with my success, the lengthened visage of inspired quaker when the spirit moved was never more demure! I am too pleased, too proud of my own talents, not to persist.

Already I am a convert to one of _her truths_. Do laugh, Fairfax! I have acknowledged that you and your footman are equal! Is it not ridiculous? However I am convinced! Ay and convinced I will remain, till time shall be. She shall teach me a truth a day!--Yet, no--I must not learn too fast; it may be suspicious: though I would be as speedy as I conveniently can in my progress.

The zeal of disputation burns within her; and, as I tell you, I am already one of her very good boys, because the pursuit of my own project makes me now as willing to listen and hunt after deductions, such as I want, as she is to teach and to supply me with those deductions. She starts at no proposition, however extravagant, if it do but appear to result from any one of her favourite systems, of which she has a good round number. Rather than relinquish the least of them, she would suppose the glorious sun a coal-pit; and his dazzling rays no better than volumes of black smoke, polished and grown bright on their travels by attrition. She professes it to be the purpose of her life to free herself from all prejudices. But here she has the modesty to add the saving clause--'If it be practicable.'

Could she, Fairfax, have a more convenient hypothesis? Do you not perceive its fecundity? And, the task being so very difficult, will it not be benevolent in me to lend her my a.s.sistance? What think you? Is it not possible to prove that marriage is a mere prejudice?

She shall find me willing to learn many or perhaps all of her doctrines; and in return I desire to teach her no more than one of mine. Can any thing be more reasonable, more generous? Nay, I will go further! I will not teach it her; she shall have all the honour of teaching it to me! Can man do more?

The most knotty and perplexed part of my plan was to find a contrivance to make the gardener's son an actor in the plot. The thing is difficult, but not impossible. I have various stratagems and schemes, in the choice of which I must be guided by circ.u.mstances. That which pleases me most is to invite him to sit in state, the umpire of our disquisitions.

I think I can depend upon myself, otherwise there would be danger in the project. But if I act my part perfectly, if I have but the resolution to listen coolly to their quiddities, sometimes to oppose, sometimes to recede, and always to own myself conquered on the points which suit me best, I believe both the gentleman and the lady will be sufficiently simple to suppose that in all this there will be nothing apocryphal. They will imagine the gilt statue to be pure gold. I shall be numbered among their elect! I shall rise from the alembic a saint of their own subliming! Shall be a.s.sayed and stamped current at their mint!

Yet I must be cautious. I would put my hand in the fire ere undertake so apparently mad a scheme, with any other couple in Christendom.

Considering how very warm--Curses bite and tingle on my tongue at the recollection!--Considering I say how very warm I know their inclinations toward each other to be, nothing but the proofs I have had could prompt me to commence an enterprize so improbable. But the uncommonness of it is a main part of its merit; and I think I know the ground I have to travel so well that I do not much fear I should lose my road.

I am aware that the enemy I have most to guard against is myself. To pretend a belief in opinions I despise, to sit with saturnine gravity and nod approbation when my sides are convulsed with laughter, to ape admiration at what reason contemns and spurns, and to smooth my features into suavity while my heart is bursting with gall at the intercourse they continually hold, of becks and smiles and approving kind epithets, to do all this is almost too much for mortal man! But I have already made several essays on myself, and I find that the obstinate resolution which an insatiable thirst of ample retribution inspires is not to be shaken, and renders me equal even to this task.

I am well aware however what dangerous quicksands the pa.s.sions are; and that a good pilot is never sparing of soundings. I will therefore not only keep a rigorous watch upon myself, but take such measures as shall enable me to exclude or retain the grub-monger, as I shall think fit, during our conversations.

Thus you are likely soon to hear more of our metaphysics; nay, if you be but industrious, enough to enable you to set up for yourself, and become the apostle of Paris. I know no place where, if you have but a morsel of the marvellous to detail, you will find hearers better disposed to gape and swallow.

C. CLIFTON

LETTER Lx.x.xII

_Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton_

_London, Grosvenor-Street_

A fortnight has almost elapsed since I last wrote to my Louisa, till my heart begins to cry shame at the delay. Could I plead no other excuse than the trifling occupations of a trifling world I must sign my own condemnation; but your brother has afforded me better employment. Our frequent conversations on many of the best and most dignified of moral enquiries, his acute remarks and objections, and the difficult problems he has occasionally given me to solve, have left me in no danger of being idle.

Oh, Louisa, how exquisite is the pleasure I feel, to see him thus determined, thus incessant in his pursuit! A change so fortunate and so sudden astonishes while it delights!--May it continue!--May it increase!--May?--Vain unworthy wish!--It must--The mind having once seized on the clue of truth can neither quit its hold nor become stationary; it is obliged to advance. And when its powers are equal to those of c.o.ke Clifton, ought we to wonder at its bold and rapid flights?

Still the conquests he daily makes over his own feelings cannot but surprise. His struggles are evident, but they are effectual. He even resolutely casts off the strong prejudices he had conceived against Frank Henley, invites him to aid us in our researches, and appeals to him to explain and decide.

'Let us if we wish to weed out error be sincere in our efforts, and have no remorse for our prejudices.'

This is his own language, Louisa! Oh that I could fully communicate the pleasure this change of character gives me to my friend. Yes, the restraint which too frequent contradiction lays him under will soon wear off, and how great will then be the enthusiasm with which he will defend and promulgate truth!

Nor is it less delightful to observe the satisfaction which this reform sometimes gives to Frank Henley. At others indeed he owns he is disturbed by doubt: but he owns it with feelings of regret, and is eager to prove himself unjust.

Yet respecting me his thoughts never vary--Alas! Louisa, I still 'am his by right.' His tongue is silent, but his looks and manner are sufficiently audible. I surely have been guilty of the error I so much dreaded; my cause was strong, but my arguments were feeble; I have prolonged the warfare of the pa.s.sions which I attempted to eradicate; or rather have left on his mind a deep sense of injustice committed by me--! The thought is intolerable!--Excruciating!

But oh with what equanimity, with what fort.i.tude does he endure his imagined wrongs! Pure most pure must that pa.s.sion be which at once possesses the strength of his and his forbearance! There are indeed but few Frank Henleys!

Surely, Louisa, I may do him justice?--Surely to esteem the virtuous cannot merit the imputation of guilt?--Who can praise him as he deserves? And can that which is right in others be wrong in me?--Yet such are the mistakes to which we are subject, I scarcely can speak or even think of him without suspecting myself of committing some culpable impropriety!

Pardon, Louisa, these wanderings of the mind! They are marauders which uniform vigilance alone can repel. They are ever in arms, and I obliged to be ever alert. But it is petty warfare, and cannot shake the dominion of truth.

My feelings have led me from the topic I intended for the chief subject of this letter.

The course of our enquiries has several times forced us upon that great question, 'the progress of mind toward perfection, and the different order of things which must inevitably be the result.' Yesterday this theme again occurred. Frank was present; and his imagination, warm with the sublimity of his subject, drew a bold and splendid picture of the felicity of that state of society when personal property no longer shall exist, when the whole torrent of mind shall unite in enquiry after the beautiful and the true, when it shall no longer be diverted by those insignificant pursuits to which the absurd follies that originate in our false wants give birth, when individual selfishness shall be unknown, and when all shall labour for the good of all.