 I visited Naples in the year 1818. On the eighth of December of that year, my companion and I crossed the bay, to visit the antiquities which are scattered on the shores of the bay. The translucent and shining waters of the calm sea covered fragments of old Roman villas, which were interlaced by seaweed, and received diamond tints from the checkering of the sunbeams. The blue and pollucid element was such, as Galataea might have skimmed it in her car of mother of pearl, Ocleopatra, more fitly than the Nile, have chosen as the path of her magic ship. Though it was winter, the atmosphere seemed more appropriate to early spring, and its genial warmth contributed to inspire those sensations of placid delight, which are the portion of every traveller, as he lingers, loathes to quit the tranquil bays and radiant promontories of bayee. We visited the so-called Elysian Fields and Avernus, and wandered through various roined temples, baths, and classic spots. At length we entered the gloomy cavern of the Cumian Sibyl. Our Lazzaroni bore flaring torches which shone red and almost dusky in the murky subterranean passages, whose darkness, sastryly surrounding them, seemed eager to imbibe more and more of the element of light. We passed by a natural archway, leading to a second gallery, and inquired if we could not enter there also. The guides pointed to the reflection of their torches on the water that paved it, leaving us to form our own conclusion, but adding it was a pity, for it led to the Sibyl's cave. Our curiosity and enthusiasm were excited by this circumstance, and we insisted upon attempting the passage. As is usually the case in the prosecution of such enterprises, the difficulties decreased on examination. We found, on each side of the humid pathway, dry land for the sole of the foot. At length we arrived at a large, desert, dark cavern, which the Lazzaroni assured us was the Sibyl's cave. We were sufficiently disappointed, yet we examined it with care, as if its blank, rocky walls could still bear trace of celestial visitant. On one side was a small opening. With it as this lead, we asked, can we enter here? Questa Poi, no, said the wild-looking savage who held the torch. You can advance but a short distance, and nobody visits it. Nevertheless, I will try it, said my companion. It may lead to the real cavern. Shall I go alone, or will you accompany me? I signified my readiness to proceed, but our guides protested against such a measure. With great volubility in their native Neapolitan dialect, with which we were not very familiar, they told us that there were spectres, that the roof would fall in, that it was too narrow to admit us, that there was a deep hole within, filled with water, and we might be drowned. My friend shortened the harangue by taking the man's torch from him, and we proceeded alone. The passage, which had first scarcely admitted us, quickly grew narrower and lower. We were almost bent double, yet still we persisted in making our way through it. At length we entered a wider space, and the low roof heightened, but as we congratulated ourselves on this change our torch was extinguished by a current of air, and we were left in utter darkness. The guides bring with them materials for renewing the light, but we had none. Our only resource was to return as we came. We groped round the widened space to find the entrance, and after a time fancied that we had succeeded. This proved however to be a second passage, which evidently ascended. It terminated, like the former, though something approaching to a ray we could not tell whence, shared a very doubtful twilight in this space. By degrees our eyes grew somewhat accustomed to this dimness, and we perceived that there was no direct passage leading us further, but that it was possible to climb one side of the cavern to a low arch at the top, which promised a more easy path, from whence we now discovered that this light proceeded. With considerable difficulty we scrambled up, and came to another passage with still more of illumination, and this led to another ascent like the former. After a succession of these, which our resolution alone permitted us to surmount, we arrived at a wide cavern with an arched dome-like roof, an aperture in the midst let in the light of heaven, for this was overgrown with brambles and underwood, which acted as a veil obscuring the day and giving a solemn religious hue to the apartment. It was spacious and nearly circular, with a raised seat of stone about the size of a Grecian couch at one end. The only sign that life had been here was the perfect snow-white skeleton of a goat which had probably not perceived the opening as it grazed on the hill above, and had fallen headlong. Ages perhaps had elapsed since this catastrophe, and the ruin it had made above had been repaired by the growth of vegetation during many hundred summers. The rest of the furniture of the cavern consisted of piles of leaves, fragments of bark, and a white filmy substance resembling the inner part of the green hood which shelters the grain of the unripe Indian corn. We were fatigued by our struggles to attain this point and seated ourselves on the rocky couch, while the sounds of tinkling sheep bells and shout of shepherd boy reached us from above. At length, my friend, who had taken up some of the leaves strewed about, exclaimed, This is the Sibyl's cave, these are Sibylene leaves. On examination we found that all the leaves, bark, and other substances were traced with written characters. What appeared to us most astonishing was that these writings were expressed in various languages, some unknown to my companion, ancient, shaldi, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, old as the pyramids. Stranger still, some were in modern dialects, English, and Italian. We could make out little by the dim light, but they seemed to contain prophecies, detailed relations of events but lately past, names not well known but of modern date, and often exclamations of exaltation or woe or victory or defeat were traced on their thin scant pages. This was certainly the Sibyl's cave, not indeed exactly as Virgil describes it, but the whole of this land had been so convulsed by earthquake and volcano that the change was not wonderful, though the traces of ruin were effaced by time, and we probably owed the preservation of these leaves to the accident which had closed the mouth of the cavern, and the swift growing vegetation which had rendered its sole opening impervious to the storm. We made a hasty selection of such of the leaves, whose writings one at least of us could understand, and then, laden with our treasure, we bated you to the dim, hypythric cavern, and after much difficulty succeeded in rejoining our guides. During our stay at Naples we often returned to this cave, sometimes alone, skimming the sunlit sea, and each time added to our store. Since that period, whenever the world's circumstance has not imperiously called me away, or the temper of my mind impeded such study, I have been employed in deciphering these sacred remains. Their meaning, wondrous and eloquent, has often repaid my toil, soothing me in sorrow and exciting my imagination to daring flights, through the immensity of nature and the mind of man. For while my labours were not solitary, but that time is gone, and with the selected matchless companion of my toils, their dearest reward is also lost to me. Dimitri Tener afron di altro lavoro, crede a mostrarte, e qualfero pianeta, ne invidio insieme, o mio nobile tesoro, I present the public with the latest discoveries in the slight sibiline pages. Scattered and unconnected as they were, I have been obliged to add links and model the work into a consistent form, but the main substance rests on the truths contained in these poetic rhapsodies, and the divine intuition which the Cumian damsel obtained from heaven. I have often wandered at the subject of her verses, and at the English dress of the Latin poet. Sometimes I have thought that, obscure and chaotic as they are, they owe their present form to me, their decipherer. As if we should give to another artist the painted fragments which form the mosaic copy of Raphael's transfiguration in St. Peter's, he would put them together in a form whose mode would be fashioned by his own peculiar mind and talent. Doubtless the leaves of the Cumian sibil have suffered distortion and diminution of interest and excellence in my hands, my only excuse for thus transforming them is that they were unintelligible in their pristine condition. My labours have cheered long hours of solitude and taken me out of a world which has averted its once benignant face from me to one glowing with imagination and power. Will my readers ask how I could find solace from the narration of misery and woeful change? This is one of the mysteries of our nature which holds full sway over me, and from whose influence I cannot escape. I confess that I have not been unmoved by the development of the tale and that I have been depressed nay agonised at some parts of the recital which I have faithfully transcribed from my materials. Yet such is human nature that the excitement of mind was dear to me and that the imagination, painter of tempest and earthquake, or worse the stormy and ruined fraught passions of man, softened my real sorrows and endless regrets by clothing these fictitious ones in that ideality which takes the mortal sting from pain. I hardly know whether this apology is necessary. For the merits of my adaptation and translation must decide how far I have well bestowed my time and imperfect powers in giving form and substance to the frail and attenuated leaves of the symbol. End of introduction. Recorded by Gesina in May 2008. Chapter 1 I am the native of a sea-surrounded nook, a cloud in shadowed land which, when the surface of the globe with its shoreless ocean and trackless continents presents itself to my mind, appears only as an inconsiderable speck in the immense hole, and yet, when balanced in the scale of mental power, far outweighed countries of larger extent a more numerous population. So true it is, that man's mind alone was the creation of all that was good or great to man, and that nature herself was only his first minister. England, seated far north in the Turbid Sea, now visits my dreams in the semblance of a vast and well-managed ship, which mastered the winds and rode proudly over the waves. In my boyish day she was the universe to me. When I stood on my native hills and saw plain and mountain stretch out to the utmost limits of my vision, speckled by the dwellings of my countrymen, and subdued fertility by their labours, the earth's very centre was fixed for me in that spot, and the rest of her orb was as a fable, to have forgotten which would have cost neither my imagination nor understanding an effort. My fortunes have been, from the beginning, an exemplification of the power that mutability may possess over the very tenor of man's life. With regard to myself, this came almost by inheritance. My father was one of those men, on whom nature had bestowed projectality the envied gifts of wit and imagination, and then left his bark of life to be impelled by these winds, without adding reason as the rudder, or judgement as the pilot for the voyage. His extraction was obscure, but circumstances brought him early into public notice, and his small paternal property was soon dissipated in the splendid scene of fashion and luxury in which he was an actor. During the short years of thoughtless youth, he was adored by the hybrid trifles of the day, nor least by the youthful sovereign, who escaped from the intrigues of party and the arduous duties of kingly business, to find never-ending amusement and exhilaration of spirit in his society. My father's impulses, never under his own control, perpetually led him to difficulties from which his ingenuity alone could extract him, and the accumulating pile of debt of honour and of trade, which would have bent to earth any other, or supported by him with a light spirit and tameless hilarity. While his company was so necessary yet to the tables and assemblies of the rich, that his derelictions were considered venial, and he himself received with intoxicating flattery, this kind of popularity, like every other, is evanescent, and the difficulties of every kind with which he had to contend increased in a frightful ratio compared to the small means of extracting himself. At such times the king, in his enthusiasm for him, would come to his relief, and then kindly take his friend to task. My father gave the best promises for amendment, but his social disposition, his craving for the usual diet of admiration, and more than all, the fiend of gambling which fully possessed him, made his good resolutions transient, his promises vain. With the quick sensibility peculiar to his temperament, he perceived his power in the brilliant circle to be on the wane. The king married, and the haughty princess of Austria, who became, as Queen of England, the head of fashion, looked with harsh eyes on his defects, and with contempt on the affection her royal husband entertained for him. My father felt that his fall was near, but so far from profiting by this last calm before the storm to save himself, he sought to forget anticipated evil by making still greater sacrifices to the deity of pleasure, deceitful and cruel arbiter of his destiny. The king, who was a man of excellent dispositions, but easily led, had now become a willing disciple of his imperious consort. He was induced to look with extreme disapprobation, and at last would distaste, on my father's imprudence and follies. It is true that his presence dissipated these clouds. His warm-hearted frankness, brilliant sallies, and confiding demeanour were irresistible. It was only when, at a distance, while still renewed tales of his errors were poured into his royal friend's ears, that he lost his influence. The queen's dexterous management was employed to prolong these absences, and gather together accusations. At length the king was brought to see him in a source of perpetual disquiet, knowing that he should pay for the short-lived pleasure of his society by tedious homilies, and more painful narrations of excess, the truth of which he could not disprove. The result was that he would make one more attempt to reclaim him, and, in case of ill success, cast him off for ever. Such a scene must have been one of deepest interest and high-raught passion. A powerful king, conspicuous for a goodness which had, here to form, made him meek, and now lofty in his admonitions, with alternate entreaty and reproof, besought his friend to attend to his real interests, resolutely to avoid those fascinations which, in fact, were fast asserting him, and to spend his great powers on a worthy field in which he, his sovereign, would be his prop, his stay, and his pioneer. My father felt this kindness. For a moment ambitious dreams floated before him, and he thought it would be well to exchange his present pursuits for nobler duties. With sincerity and fervor he gave the required promise. As a pledge of continued favour, he received from his world master a sum of money to defray passing debts, and enable him to enter under good auspices his new career. That very night, while yet full of gratitude and good resolves, this whole sum, and its amount doubled, was lost at the gambling-table. In his despair to repair his first losses, my father risked double stakes, and thus incurred a debt of honour he was wholly unable to pay. Ashamed to apply again to the king, he turned his back upon London, its false delights in clinging miseries, and, with poverty for his sole companion, buried himself in solitude among the hills and lakes of Cumberland. His wit, his bon-mose, the record of his personal attractions, fascinating manners and social talents, were long remembered and repeated from mouth to mouth. Ask where now was this favourite of fashion, this companion of the noble, this excelling beam, which guilt with alien splendour the assemblies of the court and the gay. You heard that he was under a cloud, a lost man. Not one thought it belonged to him to repay pleasure by real services, or that his long reign of brilliant wit deserved a pension on retiring. The king lamented his absence, who loved to repeat his sayings, relate to the adventures they had had together, and exalt his talents. But here ended his reminiscence. Meanwhile my father, forgotten, could not forget. He repined for the loss of what was more necessary to him than air or food. The excitement of pleasure, the admiration of the noble, the luxurious and polished living of the great. A nervous fever was the consequence, during which he was nursed by the daughter of a poor cottageer, under whose roof he lodged. She was lovely, gentle, and above all kind to him. Nor can it afford astonishment that the late idol of high-bred beauty should, even in a fallen state, appear a being of an elevated and wondrous nature to the lowly cottage girl. The attachment between them led to the ill-fated marriage of which I was the offspring. Notwithstanding the tenderness and sweetness of my mother, her husband still deployed his degraded state. Unaccustomed to industry, he knew not in what way to contribute to the support of his increasing family. Sometimes he thought of applying to the king. Pride and shame for a while withheld him. And before his necessities became so imperious as to compel him to some kind of exertion, he died. For one brief interval before this catastrophe, he looked forward to the future and contemplated with anguish the desolate situation in which his wife and children would be left. His last effort was a letter to the king, full of touching eloquence and of occasional flashes of that brilliant spirit, which was an integral part of him. He bequeathed his widow and orphans to the friendship of his royal master, and felt satisfied that, by this means, their prosperity was better assured in his death than in his life. This letter was enclosed to the care of a nobleman, who, he did not doubt, would perform the last and inexpensive office of placing it in the king's own hand. He died in debt, and his little property was seized immediately by his creditors. My mother, penniless and birthened with two children, waited week after week, and month after month in sickening expectation of a reply which never came. She had no experience beyond her father's cottage, and the mansion of the lord of the manor was the chiefest type of grandeur she could conceive. During my father's life she had been made familiar with the name of royalty and the courtly circle. But such things, ill-according with her personal experience, appeared, after the loss of him, who gave substance and reality to them, vague and fantastical. If, under any circumstances, she could have acquired sufficient courage to address the noble persons mentioned by her husband. The ill success of his own application caused her to banish the idea. She saw therefore no escape from dire punery. Perpetual care joined to sorrow for the loss of the wondrous being, whom she continued to contemplate, with ardent admiration. Hard labour and naturally delicate health, at length released her from the sad continuity of want and misery. The condition of her orphaned children was peculiarly desolate. Her own father had been an immigrant from another part of the country, and had died long since. They had no one relation to take them by the hand. They were outcasts, paupers, unfriended beings, to whom the most scanty pittance was a matter of favour, and who had treated merely as children of peasants, yet poorer than the poorest, who, dying, had left them a thankless bequest to the close-handed charity of the land. I, the elder of the two, was five years older than my mother died. A remembrance of the discourses of my parents, and the communications which my mother endeavoured to impress upon me concerning my father's friends, in slight hope that I might one day derive benefit from the knowledge, floated like an indistinct dream through my brain. I conceived that I was different and superior to my protectors and companions, but I knew not how or whereof. The sense of injury associated with the name of King and Noble clung to me, but I could draw no conclusions from such feelings to serve as a guide to action. My first real knowledge of myself was as an unprotected orphan among the valleys and fells of Cumberland. I was in the service of a farmer, and with crook in hand, my dog at my side, I shepherded a numerous flock on the near uplands. I cannot say much in praise of such a life, and its pains far exceeded its pleasures. There was freedom in it, a companionship with nature, and a reckless loneliness. But to these, romantic as they were, did not accord with the love of action and desire for human sympathy characteristic of youth. Neither the care of my flock nor the change of seasons was sufficient to tame my eager spirit. My outdoor life and unemployed time were the temptations that led me early into lawless habits. I associated with other friendless like myself. I formed them into a band. I was their chief and captain. All shepherd boys alike, while our flocks were spread over the pastures, we schemed and executed many a mischievous prank, which drew on us the anger and revenge of the rustics. I was the leader and protector of my comrades, and as I became distinguished among them, their misdeeds were usually visited upon me. But while I endured punishment and pain in their defence, with the spirit of a hero, I claimed as my reward their praise and obedience. In such a school my disposition became rugged but firm. The appetite for admiration and small capacity for self-control, which I inherited from my father, nursed by adversity, made me daring and reckless. I was rough as the elements, and unlearned as the animals I tended. I often compared myself to them, and finding that my chief superiority consisted in power, I soon persuaded myself that it was in power only that I was inferior to the chiefest potentates of the earth. Thus untought in refined philosophy, and pursued by a restless feeling of degradation from my true station in society, I wandered among the hills of civilised England, as uncouth as savage as the wolf-breed founder of Old Rome. I owned but one law. It was that of the strongest, and my greatest deed of virtue was never to submit. Yet let me a little retract from this sentence I have passed on myself. My mother, when dying, had, in addition to her other half-forgotten and misapplied lessons, committed, with solemn excitation, her other child, to my fraternal guardianship. And this one duty I performed to the best of my ability, with all the zeal and affection of which my nature was capable. My sister was three years younger than myself. I had nursed her as an infant, and, when the difference of our sexes, by giving us various occupations in a great measure, divided us, yet she continued to be the object of my careful love. Orphans, in the fullest sense of the term, we were poorest among the poor, and despised among the unhonoured. If my daring and courage obtained for me a kind of respectful aversion, her youth and sex, since they did not excite tenderness by proving her to be weak, were the causes of numberless mortifications to her. And her own disposition was not so constituted as to diminish the evil effects of her lowly station. She was a singular being. And, like me, inherited much of the peculiar disposition of our father. Her countenance was all expression. Her eyes were not dark, but impenetrably deep. You seemed to discover, space after space, in their intellectual glance, and to feel that the soul which was their soul comprehended a universe of thought in its ken. She was pale and fair, and her golden hair clustered on her temples, contrasting its rich hue with the living marble beneath. Her coarse peasant dress, little consonant, apparently with the refinement of feeling which her face expressed, yet in a strange manner recorded with it. She was like one of Guido's saints, with heaven in her heart and in her look, so that when you saw her, you only thought of that within, and costume and even feature were secondary to the mind that beamed in her countenance. Yet, though lovely and full of noble feeling, my poor Perdita, for this was the fanciful name my sister had received from her dying parent, was not altogether saintly in her disposition. Her manners were cold and repulsive. If she had been nurtured by those who had regarded her with affection, she might have been different. But unloved and neglected, she repaid want of kindness with distrust and silence. She was submissive to those who held authority over her, but a perpetual cloud dwelt on her brow. She looked as if she expected enmity from everyone who approached her, and her actions were instigated by the same feeling. All the time she could command, she spent in solitude. She would ramble to the most unfrequented places, and scale dangerous heights, that in those envisaged spots she might wrap herself in loneliness. Often she passed whole hours walking up and down the paths of the woods. She wove garlands of flowers and ivy, or watched the flickering of the shadows and glancing of the leaves. Sometimes she sat beside a stream, and as her thoughts passed through flowers or pebbles into the waters, watching how those swam and these sank. Or she would set afloat boats, formed a bark of trees or leaves with a feather for a sail, and intensely watched the navigation of her craft among the rapids and shallows of the brook. Meanwhile her active fancy wove a thousand combinations. She dreamt of moving accidents by flood and field. She lost herself delightedly in these self-created wonderings, and returned with unwilling spirit to the dull detail of common life. Poverty was the cloud that veiled her excellences, and all that was good in her seemed about to perish from want of the genial due of affection. She had not even the same advantage as I in the recollection of her parents. She clung to me, her brother, as her only friend. But her alliance with me completed the distaste that her protectors felt for her. And every error was magnified by them into crimes. If she had been bred into that sphere of life to which by inheritance the delicate framework of her mind and person was adapted, she would have been the object almost of adoration. For her virtues were as eminent as her defects. All the genius that knowled the blood of her father illustrated hers. A generous tide flowed in her veins. Artifice, envy, or meanness were at the antipodes of her nature. Her countenance, when enlightened by amiable feeling, might have belonged to a queen of nations. Her eyes were bright, her look fearless. Although by our situation and dispositions we were almost equally cut off from the usual forms of social intercourse, we formed a strong contrast to each other. I always required the stimulations of companionship and applause. Perdita was all sufficient to herself. Notwithstanding my lawless habits, my disposition was sociable, hers recluse. My life was spent among tangible realities, hers was a dream. I might be said even to love my enemies, since, by exciting me, they in a sort bestowed happiness upon me. Perdita almost disliked her friends, for they interfered with her visionary moods. All my feelings, even of exaltation and triumph, were chained to bitterness, if unparticipated. Perdita, even in joy, fled to loneliness, and could go on from day to day, neither expressing her emotions, nor seeking a fellow feeling in another mind. Nay, she could love and dwell with tenderness on the look and voice of her friend, while her demeanour expressed the coldest reserve. A sensation with her became a sentiment, and she never spoke until she had mangled her perceptions of outward objects, with others which were the native growth of her own mind. She was like a fruitful soil that imbibed the airs and dews of heaven, and gave them forth again to light in loveliest forms of fruits and flowers. But then she was often dark and rugged as that soil, raked up and new sown with unseen seed. She dwelt in a cottage, whose trimmed grass-plate sloped down to the waters of the lake of Oldswater. A beech wood stretched up the hill behind, and a pearling brook gently falling from the eclivity, ran through poplar-shaded banks into the lake. I lived with a farmer whose house was built higher up among the hills. A dark crag rose behind it, and, exposed to in the north, the snow-lame its crevices the summer threw. Before dawn I led my flock to the sheep walks, and guarded them through the day. It was a life of toil for rain and cold were more frequent than sunshine. But it was my pride to contend the elements. My trusty dog watched the sheep, as I slipped away to the rendezvous of my comrades, and thence to the accomplishment of our schemes. At noon we met again, and we threw away in contempt our peasant fair, as we built our fireplace, and kindled the cheering blaze distant to cook the game stolen from the neighbouring preserves. Then came the tale of harebred escapes, combats with dogs, ambush and flight, as gypsy-like we encompassed our pot. The search after a stray lamb, all the devices by which we elued or endeavoured to elude punishment, filled up the hours of afternoon. In the evening my flock went to its fold, and I to my sister. It was seldom indeed that we escaped, to use an old-fashioned phrase, scot-free. Our dainty fare was often exchanged for blows and imprisonment. Once, when thirteen years of age, I was sent from month to the county jail. I came out, my morals unimproved, my hatred to my oppressors increased tenfold. Bread and water did not tame my blood, nor solitary confinement inspired me with gentle thoughts. I was angry, impatient, miserable. My only happy hours were those during which I devised schemes of revenge. These were perfected in my forced solitude. So that, during the whole of the following season, and I was freed early in September, I never failed to provide excellent and plenteous fare for myself and my comrades. This was a glorious winter. The sharp frost and heavy snows tamed the animals, and kept the country gentlemen by their firesides. We got more game than we could eat, and my faithful dog grew sleek upon our refuse. Thus years passed on, and years only added fresh love of freedom and contempt for all that was not as wild and rude as myself. At the age of sixteen I had shot up in appearance to man's estate. I was tall and athletic. I was practised to feats of strength, and anew to the inclemency of the elements. My skin was embrowned by the sun. My step was firm with conscious power. I feared no man and loved none. In afterlife I looked back with wonder to what I then was. How utterly worthless I should have become if I had pursued my lawless career. My life was like that of an animal, and my mind was in danger of degenerating into that which informs brute nature. Until now my savage habits had done me no radical mischief. My physical powers had grown up and flourished under their influence, and my mind, undergoing the same discipline, was impugned with all the hardy virtues. But now my boasted independence was daily instigating me to acts of tyranny, and freedom was becoming licentiousness. I stood on the brink of manhood. Passions, strong as the trees of a forest, had already taken root within me, and were about to shadow with their noxious overgrowth my path of life. I panted for enterprises beyond my childish exploits, and formed distempered dreams of future action. I avoided my ancient comrades, and I soon lost them. They arrived at the age when they were sent to fulfil their destined situations in life, while I, an outcast, with none to lead or drive me forward, paused. The old began to point at me as an example, the young to wonder at me as a being distinct from themselves. I hated them, and began, last and worth degradation, to hate myself. I clung to my ferocious habits, yet half despised them. I continued my war against civilisation, and yet entertained a wish to belong to it. I revolved again and again all that I remembered my mother to have told me of my father's former life. I contemplated the few relics I possessed belonging to him, which spoke of greater refinement than could be found among the mountain cottages. But nothing in all this served as a guide to lead me to another and pleasant a way of life. My father had been connected with nobles, but all I knew of such connection was subsequent to neglect. The name of the king, he to whom my dying father had dressed his latest prayers, and who had barbarously slighted them, was associated only with the ideas of unkindness, injustice, and consequent resentment. I was born for something greater than I was, and greater I would become. But greatness, at least to my distorted perceptions, was no necessary associate of goodness, and my wild thoughts were unchecked by moral considerations, when they rioted in dreams of distinction. Thus I stood upon a pinnacle, a sea of evil rolled at my feet. I was about to precipitate myself into it, and rushed like a torrent over all obstructions to the object of my wishes. When a stranger influence came over the current of my fortunes, and changed their boisterous course to what was in comparison, like the gentle meanderings of a meadow-encircling streamlet. CHAPTER II I lived far from the busy haunts of men, and the rumour of wars or political changes came worn to a mere sound to our mountain abodes. England had been the scene of momentous struggles during my early boyhood. In the year 2073 the last of its kings, the ancient friend of my father, had abdicated in compliance with the gentle force of the remonstrances of his subjects, and a republic was instituted. Large estates were secured to the dethroned monarch in his family, and he received the title of Earl of Windsor, and Windsor Castle, an ancient royalty, with its wide domains were a part of his allotted wealth. He died soon after, leaving two children, a son and a daughter. The ex-queen, a princess of the house of Austria, had long impelled her husband to withstand the necessity of the times. She was haughty and fearless. She cherished a love of power, and a bitter contempt for him who had despoiled himself of a kingdom. For her children's sake alone she consented to remain, shorn of regality, a member of the English Republic. When she became a widow she turned all her thoughts to the educating of her son Adrian, Second Earl of Windsor, so as to accomplish her ambitious ends, and with his mother's milk he imbibed, and was intended to grow up in the steady purpose of re-acquiring his lost crown. Adrian was now fifteen years of age. He was addicted to study, and imbued beyond his years with learning and talent. Report said that he had already begun to thwart his mother's views, and to entertain republican principles. However this might be, the haughty countess entrusted none with the secrets of her family tuition. Adrian was bred up in solitude, and kept apart from the natural companions of his age and rank. Some unknown circumstance now induced his mother to send him from under her immediate tutelage, and we heard that he was about to visit Cumberland. A thousand tales were rife, explanatory of the Countess of Windsor's conduct, none true, probably, but each day it became more certain that we should have the noble scion of the late regal house of England among us. There was a large estate with a mansion attached to it belonging to this family at Ulcewater. A large park was one of its appendages, laid out with great taste, and plentifully stocked with game. I had often made depredations on these preserves, and the neglected state of the property facilitated my incursions. When it was decided that the young Earl of Windsor should visit Cumberland, workmen arrived to put the house and grounds in order for his reception. The apartments were restored to their pristine splendor, and the park, all disrepairs restored, was guarded with unusual care. I was beyond measure disturbed by this intelligence. It roused all my dormant recollections, my suspended sentiments of injury, and gave rise to the new one of revenge. I could no longer attend to my occupations, all my plans and devices were forgotten. I seemed about to begin life anew, and that under no good auspices. The tug of war, I thought, was now to begin. He would come triumphantly to the district to which my parent had fled, brokenhearted. He would find the ill-fated offspring bequeathed with such vain confidence to his royal father, miserable paupers. That he should know of our existence and treat us near at hand, with the same contumely which his father had practised in distance and absence, appeared to me the certain consequence of all that had gone before. Thus, then, I should meet this titled stripling, the son of my father's friend. He would be hedged in by servants. Nobles and the sons of nobles were his companions. All England rang with his name, and his coming, like a thunderstorm, was heard from far, while I, unlettered and unfashioned, should, if I came in contact with him, in the judgment of his courtly followers, bear evidence in my very person to the propriety of that ingratitude which had made me that great a being I appeared. With my mind fully occupied by these ideas I might be said as if fascinated to haunt the destined abode of the young earl. I watched the progress of the improvements and stood by the unlading wagons, as various articles of luxury brought from London were taken forth and conveyed into the mansion. It was part of the ex-Queen's plan to surround her son with princely magnificence. I beheld rich carpets and silken hangings, ornaments of gold, richly embossed metals, emblazoned furniture, and all the appendages of high rank arranged, so that nothing but what was regal and splendour should reach the eye of one of royal descent. I looked on these, I turned my gaze to my own mean dress. Whence sprung this difference? Whence but from ingratitude, from falsehood, from a dereliction on the part of the prince's father, of all noble sympathy and generous feeling? Thatless he also, whose blood received a mingling tide from his proud mother, he, the acknowledged focus of the kingdom's wealth and nobility, had been taught to repeat my father's name with disdain, and to scoff at my just claims to protection. I strove to think that all this grandeur was but more glaring infamy, and that, by planting his gold-enwoven flag beside my tarnished and tattered banner, he proclaimed not his superiority, but his debasement. Yet I envied him. His stud of beautiful horses, his arms of costly workmanship, the praise that attended him, the adoration, ready servitor, high place and high esteem. I considered them as forcibly wrenched from me, and envied them all with novel and tormenting bitterness. To crown my vexation of spirit, Perdita, the visionary Perdita, seemed to awake to real life with transport, when she told me that the Earl of Windsor was about to arrive. And this pleases you, I observed moodily. Indeed it does, Lionel, she replied. I quite long to see him. He is the descendant of our kings, the first noble of the land. Everyone admires and loves him, and they say that his rank is his least merit. He is generous, brave and affable. You have learned a pretty lesson, Perdita, said I, and repeat it so literally, that you forget the while, the proofs we have of the Earl's virtues. His generosity to us is manifest in our plenty, his bravery in the protection he affords us, his affability in the notice he takes of us. His rank his least merit, do you say? Why all his virtues are derived from his station only, because he is rich, he is called generous. Because he is powerful, brave. Because he is well served, he is affable. Let them call him so. Let all England believe him to be thus. We know him. He is our enemy, our pernurious, dastardly, arrogant enemy. If he were gifted with one particle of the virtues you call his, he would do justly by us, if it were only to shoe, that if he must strike it should not be a fallen foe. His father injured my father. His father, unassailable on his throne, dare despise him who only stooped beneath himself when he deigned to associate with the royal ingrate. We, descendants from the one and the other, must be enemies also. He shall find that I can feel my injuries, and he shall learn to dread my revenge. A few days after he arrived, every inhabitant of the most miserable cottage went to swell the stream of population that poured forth to meet him, even Perdita, in spite of my late Philippic, crept near the highway to behold this idol of all hearts. I, driven half mad, as I met party after party of the country people in their holiday best descending the hills, escaped to their cloud-veiled summits, and looking on the sterile rocks about me exclaimed, They do not cry, long live the earl. Nor, when night came, accompanied by drizzling rain and cold, would I return home, for I knew that each cottage rang with the praises of Adrian, as I felt my limbs grow numb and chill, my pain served as food for my insane aversion. Nay, I almost triumphed in it, since it seemed to afford me reason and excuse for my hatred of my unheating adversary. All was attributed to him, for I confounded so entirely the idea of father and son, that I forgot that the latter might be wholly unconscious of his parents' neglect of us. And as I struck my aching head with my hand, I cried, He shall hear of this, I will be revenged, I will not suffer like a spaniel, he shall know, beggar and friendless as I am, that I will not tamely submit to injury. Each day, each hour added to these exaggerated wrongs, his praises were so much utter stings infixed in my vulnerable breast. If I saw him at a distance, riding a beautiful horse, my blood boiled with rage, the air seemed poisoned by his presence, and my very native English was changed to a vile jargon, since every phrase I heard was coupled with his name and honour. I panted to relieve this painful heart-burning by some misdeed that should rouse him to a sense of my antipathy. It was the height of his offending that he should occasion in me such intolerable sensations, and not dane himself to afford any demonstration that he was aware that I even lived to feel them. It soon became known that Adrian took great delight in his park and preserves. He never sported, but spent hours in watching the tribes of lovely and almost tame animals with which it was stocked, and ordered that greater care should be taken of them than ever. Here was an opening for my plans of offence, and I made use of it with all the brute impetuosity I derive from my active mode of life. I proposed the enterprise of poaching on his domain to my few remaining comrades, who were the most determined and lawless of the crew, but they all shrunk from the peril, so I was left to achieve my revenge myself. At first my exploits were unperceived. I increased in daring, footsteps on the dewy grass, torn bows, and marks of slaughter, at length betrayed me to the gamekeepers. They kept better watch. I was taken and sent to prison. I entered its gloomy walls in a fit of triumphant ecstasy. He feels me now, I cried, and shall again and again. I passed but one day in confinement. In the evening I was liberated, as I was told, by the order of the Earl himself. This noose precipitated me from my self-raised pinnacle of honour. He despises me, I thought, but he shall learn that I despise him, and hold in equal contempt his punishments and his clemency. On the second night after my release I was again taken by the gamekeepers, again imprisoned, and again released, and again, such was my pertinacity, did the fourth night find me in the Forbidden Park. The gamekeepers were more enraged than their Lord by my obstinacy. They had received orders that if I were taken again I should be brought to the Earl, and his lunity made them expect a conclusion which they considered ill-befitting my crime. One of them, who had been from the first, the leader among those who had seized me, resolved to satisfy his own resentment before he made me over to the higher powers. The late setting of the moon and the extreme caution I was obliged to use in this my third expedition consumed so much time that something like a qualm of fear came over me when I perceived dark night yield to twilight. I crept along by the fern on my hands and knees, seeking the shadowy coverts of the underwood, while the birds awoke with unwelcome song above, and the fresh morning wind playing among the boughs made me suspect a footfall at each turn. My heart beat quick as I approached the palings. My hand was on one of them, a leap would take me to the other side, when two keepers sprang from an ambush upon me. One knocked me down, and proceeded to inflict a severe horse-whipping. I started up. A knife was in my grasp. I made a plunge at his raised right arm and inflicted a deep wide wound in his hand. The rage and yells of the wounded man, the howling execrations of his comrade, which I answered with equal bitterness and fury, echoed through the dell. Morning broke more and more, ill-accordant in its celestial beauty with our brute and noisy contest. I and my enemy were still struggling when the wounded man exclaimed, The Earl! I sprang out of the herculean hold of the keeper, panting for my exertions. I cast furious glances on my persecutors, and placing myself with my back to a tree, resolved to defend myself to the last. My garments were torn, and they, as well as my hands, were stained with the blood of the man I had wounded. One hand grasped the dead birds, my heart earned prey, the other held the knife. My hair was matted, my face bespeared with the same guilty signs that bore witness against me on the dripping instrument I clenched. My whole appearance was haggard and squalid. Tall and muscular as I was in form, I must have looked like what indeed I was, the nearest ruffian that ever trod the earth. The name of the Earl startled me, and caused all the indignant blood that warned my heart to rush into my cheeks. I had never seen him before. I figured to myself a haughty, assuming youth, who would take me to task if he deigned to speak to me, with all the arrogance of superiority. My reply was ready. A reproach I deemed calculated to sting his very heart. He came up the while, and his appearance blew aside, with gentle western breath, my cloudy wrath. A tall, slim, fair boy, with a physiognomy expressive of the excess of sensibility and refinement stood before me. The morning sunbeams tinged with gold his silken hair, and spread light and glory over his beaming countenance. How is this? he cried. The men eagerly began their defence. He put them aside, saying, Two of you at once, on a mere lad, for shame. He came up to me. Verney, he cried, Lionel Verney, do we meet thus for the first time? We were born to be friends to each other, and though ill fortune has divided us, will you not acknowledge the hereditary bond of friendship which I trust will hear after unite us? As he spoke, his earnest eyes fixed on me seemed to read my very soul. My heart, my savage, revengeful heart, felt the influence of sweet, benignity, sink upon it, while his thrilling voice, like sweetest melody, awoke a mute echo within me, stirring to its depths the life-blood in my frame. I desired to reply, to acknowledge his goodness, accept his proffered friendship, but words, fitting words, were not afforded to the rough mountaineer. I would have held up my hand, but its guilty stain restrained me. Adrian took pity on my faltering mean. Come with me, he said. I have much to say to you. Come home with me. You know who I am? Yes, I exclaimed. I do believe that I now know you, that you will pardon my mistakes, my crime. Adrian smiled gently, and after giving his orders to the gamekeepers, he came up to me, putting his arm in mine, and we walked together to the mansion. It was not his rank, after all that I have said, surely it will not be suspected that it was Adrian's rank, that from the first subdued my heart of hearts, and laid my entire spirit prostrate before him. Nor it was I alone who felt thus intimately his perfections. His sensibility and courtesy fascinated everyone. His vivacity, intelligence, and active spirit of benevolence completed the conquest. Even at this early age he was deep red and imbued with the spirit of high philosophy. This spirit gave a tone of irresistible persuasion to his intercourse with others, so that he seemed like an inspired musician who struck with unerring skill the liar of mind and produced thence the vine harmony. In person he hardly appeared of this world. His slight frame was over-informed by the soul that dwelt within it. He was all-mind, man but a rush against his breast, and it would have conquered his strength, but the might of his smile would have tamed a hungry lion, or caused a legion of armed men to lay their weapons at his feet. I spent the day with him. At first he did not recur to the past, or indeed to any personal occurrences. He wished probably to inspire me with confidence, and give me time to gather together my scattered thoughts. He talked of general subjects and gave me ideas I had never before conceived. We sat in his library, and he spoke of the old Greek sages and of the power which they had acquired over the minds of men through the force of love and wisdom only. The room was decorated with the busts of many of them, and he described their characters to me. As he spoke I felt subject to him, and all my boasted pride and strength were subdued by the honeyed accents of this blue-eyed boy. The trim and pale domain of civilization which I had before regarded from my wild jungle as inaccessible had its wicket opened by him. I stepped within and felt as I entered that I trod my native soil. As evening came on he reverted to the past. I have a tale to relate, he said, and much explanation to give concerning the past. Perhaps you can assist me to curtail it. Do you remember your father? I had never the happiness of seeing him, but his name is one of my earliest recollections. He stands written in my mind's tablets as the type of all that was gallant, amiable, and fascinating in man. His wit was not more conspicuous than the overflowing goodness of his heart, which he poured in such full measure on his friends as to leave alas small remnant for himself. Encouraged by this encomium I proceeded in answer to his inquiries to relate what I remembered of my parent, and he gave an account of those circumstances which had brought about a neglect of my father's testamentary letter. When, in aftertimes, Adrian's father, then King of England, felt his situation become more perilous, his line of conduct more embarrassed, again and again he wished for his early friend, who might stand amount against the impetuous anger of his queen, a mediator between him and the Parliament. From the time that he quitted London on the fatal night of his defeat at the gaming-table, the king had received no tidings concerning him, and when, after the lapse of years, he exerted himself to discover him every trace was lost. With fonder regret than ever he clung to his memory, and gave it in charge to his son, if ever he should meet this valued friend, in his name to bestow every sucker, to assure him that, to the last, his attachment survive separation and silence. A short time before Adrian's visit to Cumberland, the heir of the noblemen to whom my father had confided his last appeal to his royal master, put this letter, its seal unbroken, into the young Earl's hands. It had been found cast aside with a mass of papers of old date, an accident alone brought it to light. Adrian read it with deep interest, and found there that living spirit of genius and wit he had so often heard commemorated. He discovered the name of the spot with which my father had retreated, and where he died, he learned the existence of his orphan children, and during the short interval between his arrival at Earl's water and our meeting in the park, he had been occupied in making inquiries concerning us, and arranging a variety of plans for our benefit, preliminary to his introducing himself to our notice. The mode in which he spoke of my father was gratifying to my vanity, the veil which he delicately cast over his benevolence in alleging a dubious fulfillment of the king's latest will was soothing to my pride. Other feelings, less ambiguous, were called into play by his conciliating manner and the generous warmth of his expressions, respect rarely before experienced, admiration and love. He touched my rocky heart with his magic power, and the stream of affection gushed forth, imperishable and pure. In the evening we parted. He pressed my hand. We shall meet again. Come to me to-morrow. I clasped that kind hand. I tried to answer. A fervent, God bless you, was all my ignorance could frame of speech. And I darted away, oppressed by my new emotions. I could not rest. I sought the hills. A west wind swept them, and the stars glittered above. I ran on, careless of outward objects, but trying to master the struggling spirit within me by means of bodily fatigue. This, I thought, is power, not to be strong of limb, heart of heart, ferocious and daring, but kind, compassionate and soft. Stopping short I clasped my hands, and with a fervor of a new proselyte cried, Doubt me not, Adrian, I also will become wise and good. And then, quite overcome, I wept aloud. As this gust of passion passed from me I felt more composed. I lay on the ground, and giving the range to my thoughts, repassed in my mind my former life, and began, fold by fold, to unwind the many errors of my heart, and to discover how brutish, savage and worthless I had hitherto been. I could not, however, at that time feel remorse, for me thought I was born anew. My soul threw off the burden of past sin, to commence a new career in innocence and love. Nothing harsh or rough remained to jar with the soft feelings which the transactions of the day had inspired. I was as a child, lisping its devotions after its mother, and my plastic soul was remolded by a master hand, which I neither desired, nor was able to resist. This was the first commencement of my friendship with Adrian, and I must commemorate this day as the most fortunate of my life. I now began to be human. I was admitted within that sacred boundary which divides the intellectual and moral nature of man from that which characterizes animals. My best feelings were called into play to give fitting responses to the generosity, wisdom, and amenity of my new friend. He, with a noble goodness all his own, took infinite delight in bestowing to prodigality the treasures of his mind and fortune on the long-neglected son of his father's friend, the offspring of that gifted being whose excellencies and talents he had heard commemorated from infancy. After his abdication the late king had retreated from the sphere of politics, yet his domestic circle afforded him small content. The ex-queen had none of the virtues of domestic life, and those of courage and daring which she possessed were rendered null by the secession of her husband. She despised him, and did not care to conceal her sentiments. The king had, in compliance with her exactions, cast off his old friends, but he had acquired no new ones under her guidance. In this stirs of sympathy he had recourse to his almost infant son, and the early development of talent and sensibility rendered Adrian no unfitting depository of his father's confidence. He was never weary of listening to the latter's often-repeated accounts of old times, in which my father had played a distinguished part. His keen remarks were repeated to the boy and remembered by him. His wit, his fascinations, his very faults were hallowed by the regret of affection. His loss was sincerely deplored. Even the queen's dislike of the favour was ineffectual to deprive him of his son's admiration. It was bitter, sarcastic, contemptuous, but as she bestowed her heavy censure alike on his virtues as his errors, on his devoted friendship and his ill bestowed loves, on his disinterestedness and his prodigality, on his prepossessing grace of manner, and the facility with which he yielded to temptation, her double shot proved too heavy and fell short of the mark. Nor did her angry dislike prevent Adrian from imaging my father, as he had said, the type of all that was gallant, amiable, and fascinating in man. It was not strange, therefore, that when he heard of the existence of the offspring of this celebrated person, he should have formed the plan of bestowing on them all the advantages his rank made him rich to afford. When he found me a vagabond shepherd of the hills, a poacher, an unlettered savage, still his kindness did not fail. In addition to the opinion he entertained, that his father was to a degree culpable of neglect towards us, and that he was bound to every possible reparation, he was pleased to say that under all my ruggedness there glimmered forth an elevation of spirit which could be distinguished from mere animal courage, and that I inherited a similarity of countenance to my father which gave proof that all his virtues and talents had not died with him. Whatever those might be which descended to me, my noble young friend resolved should not be lost for want of culture. Acting upon this plan in our subsequent intercourse he led me to wish to participate in that cultivation which graced his own intellect. My active mind, when once it seized upon this new idea, fastened on it with extreme evidity. At first it was the great object of my ambition to rival the merits of my father and render myself worthy of the friendship of Adrian, but curiosity soon awoke, and an earnest love of knowledge which caused me to pass days and nights in reading and study. I was already well acquainted with what I may term the panorama of nature, the change of seasons, and the various appearances of heaven and earth. But I was at once startled and enchanted by my sudden extension of vision when the curtain which had been drawn before the intellectual world was withdrawn, and I saw the universe not only as it presented itself to my outward senses, but as it had appeared to the wisest among men. Poetry and its creations, philosophy and its researches and classifications alike awoke the sleeping ideas in my mind and gave me new ones. I felt as the sailor who from the top mass first discovered the shore of America, and like him I hastened to tell my companions of my discoveries in unknown regions. But I was unable to excite in any breast the same craving appetite for knowledge that existed in mine. Even Perdita was unable to understand me. I had lived in what is generally called the world of reality, and it was awakening to a new country to find that there was a deeper meaning in all I saw besides that which my eyes conveyed to me. The visionary Perdita beheld in all this only a new gloss upon an old reading, and her own was sufficiently inexhaustible to content her. She listened to me as she had done to the narration of my adventures, and sometimes took an interest in this species of information, but she did not, as I did, look on it as an integral part of her being, which having obtained I could no more put off than the universal sense of touch. We both agreed in loving Adrian, although she, not having yet escaped from childhood, could not appreciate as I did the extent of his merits, or feel the same sympathy in his pursuits and opinions. I was forever with him. There was a sensibility and sweetness in his disposition that gave a tender and unorthly tone to our converse. Then he was as gay as a lark, caroling from its sky-tower, soaring and thought as an eagle, innocent as the mild eyed dove. He could dispel the seriousness of Perdita and take the sting from the torturing activity of my nature. I looked back to my restless desires and painful struggles with my fellow beings as to a troubled dream, and felt myself as much changed as if I had transmigrated into another form, whose fresh sensorium and mechanism of nerves had altered the reflection of the apparent universe in the mirror of the mind. But it was not so. I was the same in strength, in earnest craving for sympathy, in my yearning for active exertion. My manly virtues did not desert me, for the witch Urania spared the locks of Samson while he reposed at her feet, but all was softened and humanized. Nor did Adrian instruct me only in the cold truce of history and philosophy. At the same time that he taught me by their means to subdue my own reckless and uncultured spirit, he opened to my view the living page of his own heart and gave me to feel and understand its wondrous character. The ex- queen of England had, even during infancy, endeavored to implant daring and ambitious designs in the mind of her son. She saw that he was endowed with genius and surpassing talent, these she cultivated for the sake of afterwards using them for the furtherance of her own views. She encouraged his craving for knowledge and his impetuous courage. She even tolerated his tameless love of freedom under the hope that this would, as is too often the case, lead to a passion for command. She endeavored to bring him up in a sense of resentment towards and a desire to revenge himself upon those who had been instrumental in bringing about his father's abdication. In this she did not succeed. The accounts furnished him, however distorted, of a great and wise nation asserting its right to govern itself, excited his admiration. In early days he became a Republican from principle. Still his mother did not despair. To the love of rule and haughty pride of birth she added determined ambition, patience, and self-control. She devoted herself to the study of her son's disposition. By the application of praise, censure, and exhortation she tried to seek and strike the fitting chords, and though the melody that followed her touch seemed discord to her, she built her hopes on his talents, and felt sure that she would at last win him. The kind of banishment he now experienced arose from other causes. The ex-queen had also a daughter, now twelve years of age, his fairy sister, Adrienne, was wont to call her, a lovely animated little thing, all sensibility and truth. With these her children the noble widow constantly resided at Windsor and admitted no visitors except her own partisans, travelers from her native Germany, and a few of the foreign ministers. Among these, and highly distinguished by her, was Prince Zaimi, ambassador to England from the Free States of Greece, and his daughter the young Princess Evadney, passed much of her time at Windsor Castle. In company with this sprightly and clever Greek girl, the Countess would relax from her usual state. Her views with regard to her own children placed all her words and actions relative to them under restraint. But Evadney was a plaything she could in no way fear, nor were her talents and vivacities slight alleviations to the monotony of the Countess's life. Evadney was eighteen years of age, although they spent much time together at Windsor, the extreme use of Adrienne prevented any suspicion as to the nature of their intercourse. But he was ardent and tender of heart beyond the common nature of man, and had already learnt to love, while the beauteous Greeks smiled benignantly on the boy. It was strange to me, who, though older than Adrienne, had never loved, to witness the whole heart sacrifice of my friend. There was neither jealousy, inquietude, or mistrust in his sentiment. It was devotion and faith. His life was swallowed up in the existence of his beloved, and his heart beat only in unison with the pulsations that vivified hers. This was the secret law of his life. He loved and was beloved. The universe was to him a dwelling to inhabit with his chosen one, and not either a scheme of society or an enchantment of events that could impart to him either happiness or misery. What, though life and the system of social intercourse were a wilderness, a tiger-haunted jungle, through the mist of its errors and the depths of its savage recesses, there was a disentangled and flowery pathway through which they might journey in safety and delight. Their track would be like the passage of the Red Sea, which they might traverse with unwet feet, though a wall of destruction or impending on either side. Alas, why must I record the hapless delusion of this matchless specimen of humanity? What is there in our nature that is forever urging us on towards pain and misery? We are not formed for enjoyment, and however we may be attuned to the reception of pleasurable emotion, disappointment is the never-failing pilot of our life-spark, and ruthlessly carries us on to the shoals. It was better framed than this highly gifted youth to love and be beloved, and to reap unalienable joy from an unblamed passion. If his heart had slept but a few years longer he might have been saved, but it awoke in its infancy, it had power but no knowledge, and it was ruined even as a too early blowing bud is nipped by the killing frost. I did not accuse Evadney of hypocrisy or a wish to deceive her lover, but the first letter that I saw of hers convinced me that she did not love him. It was written with elegance and foreigner as she was, with great command of language. The handwriting itself was exquisitely beautiful. There was something in her very paper and its folds, which even I, who did not love, was with all unskilled in such matters, could discern as being tasteful. There was much kindness, gratitude, and sweetness in her expression, but no love. Evadney was two years older than Adrian, and who at eighteen ever loved one so much their junior. I compared her placid epistles with the burning ones of Adrian. His soul seemed to distill itself into the words he wrote, and they breathed on the paper, bearing with them a portion of the life of love which was his life. The very writing used to exhaust him, and he would weep over them merely from the excess of emotion they awakened in his heart. Adrian's soul was painted in his countenance, and concealment or deceit were at the antipodes to the dreadless frankness of his nature. Evadney made it her earnest request that the tale of their loves should not be revealed to his mother, and after for a while contesting the point he yielded to her. A vain concession, his demeanor quickly betrayed his secret to the quick eyes of the ex-queen. With the same wary prudence that characterized her whole conduct she concealed her discovery, but hastened to remove her son from the sphere of the attractive Greek. He was sent to Cumberland, but the plan of correspondence between the lovers arranged by Evadney was effectually hidden from her. Thus the absence of Adrian, concerted for the purpose of separating, united them in firmer bonds than ever. To me he discourse ceaselessly of his beloved Ionian. Our country, its ancient annals, its late memorable struggles, were all made to partake in her glory and excellence. He submitted to be away from her because she commanded this submission, but for her influence he would have declared his attachment before England and resisted with unshaken constancy his mother's opposition. Evadney's feminine prudence perceived how useless any assertion of his resolves would be till added years gave weight to his power. Perhaps there was besides a lurking dislike to bind herself in the face of the world to one whom she did not love, not love at least, with that passionate enthusiasm which her heart told her she might one day feel towards another. He obeyed her injunctions and passed a year in exile in Cumberland. Volume 1 Chapter 3 of The Last Man This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Volume 1, Chapter 3. Happy, thrice happy were the months and weeks and hours of that year. Friendship, hand in hand with admiration, tenderness and respect, built a bower of delight in my heart. Late, rough as an untrodwiled in America, as the homeless wind or herbless sea. Insatiate thirst for knowledge and boundless affection for Adrian combined to keep both my heart and understanding occupied, and I was consequently happy. What happiness is so true and unclouded as the overflowing and talkative delight of young people? In our boat, upon my native lake, beside the streams and the pale bordering poplars, in valley and over hill, my crook thrown aside, a nobler flock to ten than silly sheep, even a flock of newborn ideas. I read or listened to Adrian and his discourse, whether it concerned his love or his theories for the improvement of man, alike entranced me. Sometimes my lawless mood would return, my love of peril, my resistance to authority, but this was in his absence. Under the mild sway of his dear eyes I was obedient and good as a boy of five years old who does his mother's bidding. After a residence of about a year at Owlswater, Adrian visited London and came back full of plans for our benefit. You must begin life, he said, you are seventeen, and longer delay would render the necessary apprenticeship more and more irksome. He foresaw that his own life would be one of struggle, and I must partake his labours with him. The better to fit me for this task we must now separate. He found my name a good passport to perform it, and he had procured for me the situation of private secretary to the ambassador at Vienna, where I should enter on my career under the best auspices. In two years I should return to my country with a name well known and a reputation already founded. And Perdita? Perdita was to become the pupil, friend, and younger sister of Evadny. With his usual thoughtfulness he had provided for her independence in this situation. How refused the offers of this generous friend? I did not wish to refuse them, but in my heart of hearts I made a vow to devote life, knowledge, and power, all of which, and as much as they were of any value, he had bestowed on me, all, all my capacities and hopes, to him alone I would devote. Thus I promised myself as I journeyed towards my destination with roused and ardent expectation, expectation of the fulfillment of all that in boyhood we promise ourselves of power and enjoyment and maturity. Me thought the time was now arrived, when childish occupations laid aside, I should enter into life. Even in the Elysian fields Virgil describes the souls of the happy as eager to drink of the wave which was to restore them to this mortal coil. The young are seldom in Elysium, for their desires outstripping possibility leave them as poor as a moneyless debtor. We are told by the wisest philosophers of the dangers of the world, the deceits of men, and the treason of our own hearts. But not the less fearlessly does each put off his frail bark from the port, spread the sail, and strain his oar to attain the multitudinous streams of the sea of life. How few in use prime moor their vessels on the golden sands and collect the painted shells that strew them. But all, at close of day, with riven planks and rent canvas make for sure, and are either wrecked ere they reach it, or find some wave-beaten haven, some desert strand, whereupon to cast themselves and die unmoor'd. A truce to philosophy. Life is before me, and I rush into possession. Hope, glory, love, and blameless ambition are my guides. And my soul knows no dread. What has been, though sweet, is gone. The present is good only because it is about to change. And then to come is all my own. Do I fear that my heart palpitates? High aspirations cause the flow of my blood. My eyes seem to penetrate the cloudy midnight of time, and to discern within the depths of his darkness the fruition of all my soul desires. Now pause. During my journey I might dream, and with buoyant wings reach the summit of life's high edifice. Not that I am arrived at its base, my pinions are furrowed, and the mighty stairs are before me, and step by step I must ascend the wondrous fane. Speak what door is opened. Behold me in a new capacity, a young diplomatist, one among the pleasure-seeking society of a gay city, a youth of promise, favorite of the ambassador. All was strange and admirable to the shepherd of Cumberland. With breathless amaze I entered on the gay scene whose actors were, the lilies glorious as Solomon, who toil not, neither do they spin. Soon, too soon, I entered the giddy whirl, forgetting my studious hours and the companionship of Adrian. Passionate desire of sympathy and ardent pursuit for a wishful object still characterized me. The sight of beauty entranced me, and attractive manners and man or woman won my entire confidence. I called it rapture when a smile made my heart beat, and I felt the life's blood tingle in my frame when I approached the idol which for a while I worshipped. The mere flow of animal spirits was paradise, and at night's close I only desired a renewal of the intoxicating delusion. The dazzling light of ornamented rooms lovely forms arrayed in splendid dresses. The motions of a dance, the voluptuous tones of exquisite music, cradled my senses in one delightful dream. And is not this in its kind happiness? I appeal to moralists and sages. I ask, if in the calm of their measured reveries, if in the deep meditations which fill their hours they feel the ecstasy of a youthful tyro in the school of pleasure, can the calm beams of their heaven-seeking eyes equal the flashes of mingling passion which bind his, or does the influence of cold philosophy steep their soul in a joy equal to his engaged in this dear work of youthful revelry? But in truth neither the lonely meditations of the hermit nor the tumultuous raptures of the reveler are capable of satisfying man's heart. From the one we gather on quiet speculation from the other sayety the mind flags beneath the weight of thought and droops in the heartless intercourse of those whose soul aim is amusement. There is no fruition in their vacant kindness and sharp rocks lurk beneath the smiling ripples of these shallow waters. Thus I felt when disappointment, weariness, and solitude drove me back upon my heart to gather thence the joy of which it had become barren. My flagging spirits asked for something to speak to the affections, and not finding it I drooped. Thus notwithstanding the thoughtless delight that waited on its commencement the impression I have of my life at Vienna is melancholy. Gersha has said that in youth we cannot be happy unless we love. I did not love, but I was devoured by a restless wish to be something to others. I became the victim of ingratitude and cold coquetry. Then I desponded and imagined that my discontent gave me a right to hate the world. I receded to solitude, I had recourse to my books, and my desire again to enjoy the society of Adrian became a burning thirst. Emulation, that in its excess almost assumed the venomous properties of envy, gave a sting to these feelings. At this period the name and exploits of one of my countrymen filled the world with admiration. Relations of what he had done conjectures concerning his future actions were the never failing topics of the hour. I was not angry on my own account, but I felt as if the praises which this idol received were leaves torn from the laurels destined for Adrian. But I must enter into some account of this darling of fame, this favour of the wonder-loving world. Lord Raymond was the sole remnant of a noble but impoverished family. From early youth he had considered his pedigree with complacency and bitterly lamented his want of wealth. His first wish was a grandisement in the means that led towards this end were secondary considerations. Haughty yet trembling to every demonstration of respect, ambitious but too proud to shoo his ambition, willing to achieve honour yet a votary of pleasure he entered upon life. He was met on the threshold by some insult, real or imaginary, some repulse, where he least expected it, some disappointment hard for his pride to bear. He writhed beneath an injury he was unable to revenge, and he quitted England with a vow not to return, till the good time should arrive when she might feel the power of him she now despised. He became an adventurer in the Greek wars. His reckless courage and comprehensive genius brought him into notice. He became the darling hero of this rising people. His foreign birth, and he refused to throw off his allegiance to his native country, alone prevented him from filling the first offices in the state. But, though others might rank higher in title and ceremony, Lord Raymond held a station above and beyond all this. He led the Greek armies to victory, their triumphs were all his own. When he appeared, whole towns poured forth their population to meet him. New songs were adapted to their national airs, whose themes were his glory, valor, and munificence. Atreus was concluded between the Greeks and the Turks. At the same time Lord Raymond, by some unlooked-for chance, became the possessor of an immense fortune in England, whither he returned, crowned with glory, to receive the meat of honour and distinction before denied to his pretensions. His proud heart rebelled against this change. And what was the despised Raymond not the same? If the acquisition of power in the shape of wealth caused this alteration, that power should they feel as an iron yoke. Power therefore was the aim of all his endeavours. A grandisement the mark at which he forever shot. In open ambition or close intrigue his end was the same, to attain the first station in his own country. This account filled me with curiosity. The events that in succession followed his return to England gave me keener feelings. Among his other advantages Lord Raymond was supremely handsome. Everyone admired him. Of women he was the idol. He was courteous, honey-tongued, and adept in fascinating arts. What could not this man achieve in the busy English world? Change succeeded to change. The entire history did not reach me, for Adrian had ceased to write, and Perdido was a laconic correspondent. The rumor went that Adrian had become, how right the fatal word, mad, that Lord Raymond was the favourite of the ex-queen, her daughter's destined husband. Nay, more, that this aspiring noble revived the claim of the House of Windsor to the crown, and that, on the event of Adrian's incurable disorder and his marriage with the sister, the brow of the ambitious Raymond might be encircled with the magic ring of regality. Such a tale filled the trumpet of many voiced fame. Such a tale rendered my longer stay at Vienna away from the friend of my youth intolerable. Now I must fulfil my vow, now range myself at his side, and be his ally and support till death. Farewell to courtly pleasure, to politic intrigue, to the maze of passion and folly. All hail England! Native England, receive thy child. Thou art the scene of all my hopes, the mighty theatre on which is acted the only drama that can, art and soul, bear me along with it in its development. A voice most irresistible, a power omnipotent, drew me thither. After an absence of two years I landed on its shores, not daring to make any inquiries, fearful of every remark. My first visit would be to my sister, who inhabited a little cottage, a part of Adrian's gift, on the borders of Windsor Forest. From her I should learn the truth concerning our protector. I should hear why she had withdrawn from the protection of Princess Evadney, and be instructed as to the influence which this overtopping and towering raiment exercised over the fortunes of my friend. I had never before been in the neighbourhood of Windsor. The fertility and beauty of the country around now struck me with admiration, which increased as I approached the antique wood. The ruins of majestic oaks which had grown, flourished, and decayed during the progress of centuries, marked with the limits of the forest once reached, while the shattered palings and neglected underwood shooed that this part was deserted for the younger plantations which owed their birth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, and now stood in the pride of maturity. Perdita's humble dwelling was situated on the skirts of the most ancient portion. Before it was stretched Bishopgate Heath, which towards the east appeared interminable, and was bounded to the west by Chapel Wood and the Grove of Virginia Water. Beyond the cottage was shadowed by the venerable fathers of the forest, under which the deer came to graze, and which for the most part hollow and decayed formed fantastic roofs which contrasted with the regular beauty of the younger trees. These, the offspring of a later period, stood erect and seemed ready to advance fearlessly into coming time, while those outworn stragglers, blasted and broke, clung to each other, their weak boughs sighing as the wind buffeted them, a weather-beaten crew. A light railing surrounded the garden of the cottage, which, low-roofed, seemed to submit to the majesty of nature, and cower amidst the venerable remains of the forgotten time. Flowers, the children of the spring, adorned her garden encasements. In the midst of lowliness there was an air of elegance which spoke the graceful taste of the inmate. With a beating heart I entered the enclosure, as I stood at the entrance I heard her voice, melodious as it had ever been, which before I saw her assured me of her welfare. A moment more, and Perdita appeared, she stood before me in the fresh bloom of youthful womanhood, different from and yet the same as the mountain girl I had left. Her eyes could not be deeper than they were in childhood, nor her countenance more expressive, but the expression was changed and improved. Intelligence sat on her brow. When she smiled her face was embellished by the softest sensibility, and her low, modulated voice seemed tuned by love. Her person was formed in the most feminine proportions. She was not tall, but her mountain life had given freedom to her motions, so that her light steps scarce made her footfall heard as she tripped across the hall to meet me. When we had parted I had clasped her to my bosom with unrestrained warmth. We met again, and new feelings were awakened, when each beheld the other childhood past, as full-grown actors on this changeful scene. The pause was but for a moment, the flood of association and natural feeling which had been checked, again rushed in full tide upon our hearts, and with tenderest emotion we were swiftly locked in each other's embrace. This burst of passionate feeling over, with calm thoughts we sat together, talking of the past and present. I alluded to the coldness of her letters, but the few minutes we had spent together sufficiently explained the origin of this. New feelings had arisen within her, which she was unable to express in writing to one whom she had only known in childhood, but we saw each other again, and our intimacy was renewed as if nothing had intervened to check it. I detailed the incidents of my sojourn abroad, and then questioned her as to the changes that had taken place at home, the causes of Adrienne's absence, and her secluded life. The tears that suffused my sister's eyes when I mentioned our friend and her heightened color seemed to vouch for the truth of the reports that had reached me. But their import was too terrible for me to give instant credit to my suspicion. Was there indeed anarchy in the sublime universe of Adrienne's thoughts? Did madness scatter the well-appointed legions, and was he no longer the Lord of his own soul? Beloved friend, this ill world was no climb for your gentle spirit. You delivered up its governance to false humanity, which stripped it of its leaves ere wintertime, and laid bare its quivering life to the evil ministration of roughest winds. Have those gentle eyes, those channels of the soul lost their meaning, or do they only in their glare disclose the horrible tale of its aberrations? Does that voice no longer discourse excellent music? Horrible, most horrible, I veil my eyes in terror of the change, and gushing tears bear witness to my sympathy for this unimaginable ruin. In obedience to my request Perdita detailed the melancholy circumstances that led to this event. The frank and unsuspicious mind of Adrienne gifted as it was by every natural grace, endowed with transcendent powers of intellect, unblemished by the shadow of defect, unless his dreadless independence of thought was to be construed into one, was devoted, even as a victim to sacrifice, to his love for Avadne. He entrusted to her keeping the treasures of his soul, his aspirations after excellence, and his plans for the improvement of mankind. As manhood dawned upon him, his schemes and theories, far from being changed by personal and prudential motives, acquired new strength from the powers he felt arise within him. And his love for Avadne became deep-rooted, as he each day became more certain that the path he pursued was full of difficulty, and that he must seek his reward not in the applause or gratitude of his fellow creatures, hardly in the success of his plans, but in the approbation of his own heart and in her love and sympathy, which was to lighten every toil and recompense every sacrifice. In solitude and through many wanderings afar from the haunts of men, he matured his views for the reform of the English government and the improvement of the people. It would have been well if he had concealed his sentiments until he had come into possession of the power which would secure their practical development. But he was impatient of the years that must intervene. He was frank of heart and fearless. He gave not only a brief denial to his mother's schemes, but published his intention of using his influence to diminish the power of the aristocracy, to effect a greater equalization of wealth and privilege and to introduce a perfect system of republican government into England. At first his mother treated his theories as the wild ravings of inexperience, but they were so systematically arranged, and his argument so well supported, that though still in appearance incredulous, she began to fear him. She tried to reason with him and finding him inflexible learned to hate him. Strange to say this feeling was infectious. His enthusiasm for good which did not exist. His contempt for the sacredness of authority, his ardor and imprudence were all at the antipodes of the usual routine of life. The worldly feared him, the young in inexperience did not understand the lofty severity of his moral views, and disliked him as a being different from themselves. Evadney entered but codely into his systems. She thought he did well to assert his own will, but she wished that will to have been more intelligible to the multitude. She had none of the spirit of a martyr, and did not incline to share the shame and defeat of a fallen patriot. She was aware of the purity of his motives, the generosity of his disposition, his true and ardent attachment to her, and she entertained a great affection for him. He repaid this spirit of kindness with the fondest gratitude, and made her the treasure house of all his hopes. At this time Lord Raymond returned from Greece. No two persons could be more opposite than Adrian and he. With all the incongruities of his character Raymond was emphatically a man of the world. His passions were violent, as these often obtained the mastery over him he could not always square his conduct to the obvious line of self-interest, but self-gratification at least was the paramount object with him. He looked on the structure of society as but a part of the machinery which supported the web on which his life was traced. The earth was spread out as a highway for him, the heavens built up as a canopy for him. Adrian felt that he made a part of a great whole. He owned affinity not only with mankind, but all nature was akin to him, the mountains and sky were his friends, the winds of heaven and the offspring of earth his playmates, while he the focus only of this mighty mirror felt his life mingle with the universe of existence. His soul was sympathy and dedicated to the worship of beauty and excellence. Adrian and Raymond now came into contact and a spirit of aversion rose between them. Adrian despised the narrow views of the politician and Raymond held in supreme contempt the benevolent visions of the philanthropist. With the coming of Raymond was formed the storm that laid waste at one fell blow, the gardens of delight and sheltered paths which Adrian fancied that he had secured to himself as a refuge from defeat and contumely. Raymond, the deliverer of Greece, the graceful soldier, who bore in his mean a tinge of all that peculiar to her native climb, Avadne cherished as most dear, Raymond was loved by Avadne. Overpowered by her new sensations she did not pause to examine them or to regulate her conduct by any sentiments except the tyrannical one which suddenly usurped the empire of her heart. She yielded to its influence and the two natural consequence in a mind unattuned to soft emotions was that the attentions of Adrian became distasteful to her. She grew capricious, her gentle conduct towards him was exchanged for asperity and repulsive coldness. When she perceived the wild or pathetic appeal of his expressive countenance she would relent and for a while resume her ancient kindness. But these fluctuations shook to its depths the soul of the sensitive youth. He no longer deemed the world subject to him because he possessed Avadne's love. He felt in every nerve that the dire storms of the mental universe were about to attack his fragile being which quivered at the expectation of its advent. Perdita, who then resided with Avadne, saw the torture that Adrian endured. She loved him as a kind elder brother, a relation to guide, protect, and instruct her without the too frequent tyranny of parental authority. She adored his virtues and with mixed contempt and indignation she saw Avadne pile dear sorrow on his head for the sake of one who hardly marked her. In his solitary despair Adrian would often seek my sister and in covered terms express his misery while fortitude and agony divided the throne of his mind. Soon alas was one to conquer. Anger made no part of his emotion. With whom should he be angry, not with Raymond, who was unconscious of the misery he occasioned? Not with Avadne, for her his soul wept tears of blood, poor, mistaken girl, slave not tyrant was she, and amidst his own anguish he grieved for her future destiny. Once a writing of his fell into Perdita's hand, it was blotted with tears. Well might any blot it with the light. Life, it began thus, is not the thing Romance writers describe it, going through the measures of a dance and after various evolutions arriving at a conclusion when the dancers may sit down and repose. While there is life there is action and change. We go on, each thought linked to the one which was its parent, each act to a previous act. No joy or sorrow dies barren of progeny, which forever generated and generating weaves the chain that makes our life. Andia yama arortodia, ia siyama iancadena, yanto ayanto, ipeina apena. Truly disappointment is the guardian deity of human life. She sits at the threshold of unborn time and marshals the events as they come forth. Once my heart sat lightly in my bosom, all the beauty of the world was doubly beautiful, irradiated by the sunlight shed from my own soul, aware for our love and ruin forever joined in this our mortal dream. So that when we make our hearts allare for that gently seeming beast, its companion enters with it and pityless lays waste what might have been a home and a shelter. By degrees his health was shaken by his misery and then his intellect yielded to the same tyranny. His manners grew wild. He was sometimes ferocious, sometimes absorbed in speechless melancholy. Suddenly Evadny quitted London for Paris. He followed and overtook her when the vessel was about to sail. None knew what passed between them, but Perdita had never seen him since. He lived in seclusion, no one knew where, attended by such persons as his mother selected for that purpose.