Books: Nature and Art
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Mrs Inchbald >> Nature and Art
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His uncle went to him, and asked him "What was the matter."
"Oh!" cried Henry, "when I first came to your door with my poor
father's letter, I shook for fear you would not look upon me; and I
cannot help feeling even more now than I did then."
The dean embraced him with warmth--gave him confidence--and retired
to the other side of the study, to observe his whole demeanour on
this new occasion.
As he beheld his features varying between the passions of humble
fear and fervent hope, his face sometimes glowing with the rapture
of thanksgiving, and sometimes with the blushes of contrition, he
thus exclaimed apart:-
"This is the true education on which to found the principles of
religion. The favour conferred by Heaven in granting the freedom of
petitions to its throne, can never be conceived with proper force
but by those whose most tedious moments during their infancy were
NOT passed in prayer. Unthinking governors of childhood! to insult
the Deity with a form of worship in which the mind has no share;
nay, worse, has repugnance, and by the thoughtless habits of youth,
prevent, even in age, devotion."
Henry's attention was so firmly fixed that he forgot there was a
spectator of his fervour; nor did he hear young William enter the
chamber and even speak to his father.
At length closing his book and rising from his knees, he approached
his uncle and cousin, with a sedateness in his air, which gave the
latter a very false opinion of the state of his youthful companion's
mind.
"So, Mr. Henry," cried William, "you have been obliged, at last, to
say your prayers."
The dean informed his son "that to Henry it was no punishment to
pray."
"He is the strangest boy I ever knew!" said William, inadvertently.
"To be sure," said Henry, "I was frightened when I first knelt; but
when I came to the words, FATHER, WHICH ART IN HEAVEN, they gave me
courage; for I know how merciful and kind a FATHER is, beyond any
one else."
The dean again embraced his nephew, let fall a tear to his poor
brother Henry's misfortunes; and admonished the youth to show
himself equally submissive to other instructions, as he had done to
those which inculcate piety.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The interim between youth and manhood was passed by young William
and young Henry in studious application to literature; some casual
mistakes in our customs and manners on the part of Henry; some too
close adherences to them on the side of William.
Their different characters, when boys, were preserved when they
became men: Henry still retained that natural simplicity which his
early destiny had given him; he wondered still at many things he saw
and heard, and at times would venture to give his opinion,
contradict, and even act in opposition to persons whom long
experience and the approbation of the world had placed in situations
which claimed his implicit reverence and submission.
Unchanged in all his boyish graces, young William, now a man, was
never known to infringe upon the statutes of good-breeding; even
though sincerity, his own free will, duty to his neighbour, with
many other plebeian virtues and privileges, were the sacrifice.
William inherited all the pride and ambition of the dean--Henry, all
his father's humility. And yet, so various and extensive is the
acceptation of the word pride, that, on some occasions, Henry was
proud even beyond his cousin. He thought it far beneath his dignity
ever to honour, or contemplate with awe, any human being in whom he
saw numerous failings. Nor would he, to ingratiate himself into the
favour of a man above him, stoop to one servility, such as the
haughty William daily practised.
"I know I am called proud," one day said William to Henry.
"Dear cousin," replied Henry, "it must be only, then, by those who
do not know you; for to me you appear the humblest creature in the
world."
"Do you really think so?"
"I am certain of it; or would you always give up your opinion to
that of persons in a superior state, however inferior in their
understanding? Would else their weak judgment immediately change
yours, though, before, you had been decided on the opposite side?
Now, indeed, cousin, I have more pride than you; for I never will
stoop to act or to speak contrary to my feelings."
"Then you will never be a great man."
"Nor ever desire it, if I must first be a mean one."
There was in the reputation of these two young men another mistake,
which the common retailers of character committed. Henry was said
to be wholly negligent, while William was reputed to be extremely
attentive to the other sex. William, indeed, was gallant, was
amorous, and indulged his inclination to the libertine society of
women; but Henry it was who LOVED them. He admired them at a
reverential distance, and felt so tender an affection for the
virtuous female, that it shocked him to behold, much more to
associate with, the depraved and vicious.
In the advantages of person Henry was still superior to William; and
yet the latter had no common share of those attractions which
captivate weak, thoughtless, or unskilful minds.
CHAPTER XIX.
About the time that Henry and William quitted college, and had
arrived at their twentieth year, the dean purchased a small estate
in a village near to the country residence of Lord and Lady Bendham;
and, in the total want of society, the dean's family were frequently
honoured with invitations from the great house.
Lord Bendham, besides a good estate, possessed the office of a lord
of the bed-chamber to his Majesty. Historians do not ascribe much
importance to the situation, or to the talents of nobles in this
department, nor shall this little history. A lord of the bed-
chamber is a personage well known in courts, and in all capitals
where courts reside; with this advantage to the inquirer, that in
becoming acquainted with one of those noble characters, he becomes
acquainted with all the remainder; not only with those of the same
kingdom, but those of foreign nations; for, in whatever land, in
whatever climate, a lord of the bed-chamber must necessarily be the
self-same creature: one wholly made up of observance, of obedience,
of dependence, and of imitation--a borrowed character--a character
formed by reflection.
The wife of this illustrious peer, as well as himself, took her hue,
like the chameleon, from surrounding objects: her manners were not
governed by her mind but were solely directed by external
circumstances. At court, humble, resigned, patient, attentive: at
balls, masquerades, gaming-tables, and routs, gay, sprightly, and
flippant; at her country seat, reserved, austere, arrogant, and
gloomy.
Though in town her timid eye in presence of certain personages would
scarcely uplift its trembling lid, so much she felt her own
insignificance, yet, in the country, till Lady Clementina arrived,
there was not one being of consequence enough to share in her
acquaintance; and she paid back to her inferiors there all the
humiliating slights, all the mortifications, which in London she
received from those to whom SHE was inferior.
Whether in town or country, it is but justice to acknowledge that in
her own person she was strictly chaste; but in the country she
extended that chastity even to the persons of others; and the young
woman who lost her virtue in the village of Anfield had better have
lost her life. Some few were now and then found hanging or drowned,
while no other cause could be assigned for their despair than an
imputation on the discretion of their character, and dread of the
harsh purity of Lady Bendham. She would remind the parish priest of
the punishment allotted for female dishonour, and by her influence
had caused many an unhappy girl to do public penance in their own or
the neighbouring churches.
But this country rigour in town she could dispense withal; and, like
other ladies of virtue, she there visited and received into her
house the acknowledged mistresses of any man in elevated life. It
was not, therefore, the crime, but the rank which the criminal held
in society, that drew down Lady Bendham's vengeance. She even
carried her distinction of classes in female error to such a very
nice point that the adulterous concubine of an elder brother was her
most intimate acquaintance, whilst the less guilty unmarried
mistress of the younger she would not sully her lips to exchange a
word with.
Lord and Lady Bendham's birth, education, talents, and propensities,
being much on the same scale of eminence, they would have been a
very happy pair, had not one great misfortune intervened--the lady
never bore her lord a child, while every cottage of the village was
crammed with half-starved children, whose father from week to week,
from year to year, exerted his manly youth, and wasted his strength
in vain, to protect them from hunger; whose mother mourned over her
new-born infant as a little wretch, sent into the world to deprive
the rest of what already was too scanty for them; in the castle,
which owned every cottage and all the surrounding land, and where
one single day of feasting would have nourished for a mouth all the
poor inhabitants of the parish, not one child was given to partake
of the plenty. The curse of barrenness was on the family of the
lord of the manor, the curse of fruitfulness upon the famished poor.
This lord and lady, with an ample fortune, both by inheritance and
their sovereign's favour, had never yet the economy to be exempt
from debts; still, over their splendid, their profuse table, they
could contrive and plan excellent schemes "how the poor might live
most comfortably with a little better management."
The wages of a labouring man, with a wife and half a dozen small
children, Lady Bendham thought quite sufficient if they would only
learn a little economy.
"You know, my lord, those people never want to dress--shoes and
stockings, a coat and waistcoat, a gown and a cap, a petticoat and a
handkerchief, are all they want--fire, to be sure, in winter--then
all the rest is merely for provision."
"I'll get a pen and ink," said young Henry, one day, when he had the
honour of being at their table, "and see what the REST amounts to."
"No, no accounts," cried my lord, "no summing up; but if you were to
calculate, you must add to the receipts of the poor my gift at
Christmas--last year, during the frost, no less than a hundred
pounds."
"How benevolent!" exclaimed the dean.
"How prudent!" exclaimed Henry.
"What do you mean by prudent?" asked Lord Bendham. "Explain your
meaning."
"No, my lord," replied the dean, "do not ask for an explanation:
this youth is wholly unacquainted with our customs, and, though a
man in stature, is but a child in intellects. Henry, have I not
often cautioned you--"
"Whatever his thoughts are upon the subject," cried Lord Bendham, "I
desire to know them."
"Why, then, my lord," answered Henry, "I thought it was prudent in
you to give a little, lest the poor, driven to despair, should take
all."
"And if they had, they would have been hanged."
"Hanging, my lord, our history, or some tradition, says, was
formerly adopted as a mild punishment, in place of starving."
"I am sure," cried Lady Bendham (who seldom spoke directly to the
argument before her), "I am sure they ought to think themselves much
obliged to us."
"That is the greatest hardship of all," cried Henry.
"What, sir?" exclaimed the earl.
"I beg your pardon--my uncle looks displeased--I am very ignorant--I
did not receive my first education in this country--and I find I
think so differently from every one else, that I am ashamed to utter
my sentiments."
"Never mind, young man," answered Lord Bendham; "we shall excuse
your ignorance for once. Only inform us what it was you just now
called THE GREATEST HARDSHIP OF ALL."
"It was, my lord, that what the poor receive to keep them from
perishing should pass under the name of GIFTS and BOUNTY. Health,
strength, and the will to earn a moderate subsistence, ought to be
every man's security from obligation."
"I think a hundred pounds a great deal of money," cried Lady
Bendham; "and I hope my lord will never give it again."
"I hope so too," cried Henry; "for if my lord would only be so good
as to speak a few words for the poor as a senator, he might possibly
for the future keep his hundred pounds, and yet they never want it."
Lord Bendham had the good nature only to smile at Henry's
simplicity, whispering to himself, "I had rather keep my--" his last
word was lost in the whisper.
CHAPTER XX.
In the country--where the sensible heart is still more susceptible
of impressions; and where the unfeeling mind, in the want of other
men's wit to invent, forms schemes for its own amusement--our youths
both fell in love: if passions, that were pursued on the most
opposite principles, can receive the same appellation. William,
well versed in all the licentious theory, thought himself in love,
because he perceived a tumultuous impulse cause his heart to beat
while his fancy fixed on a certain object whose presence agitated
yet more his breast.
Henry thought himself not in love, because, while he listened to
William on the subject, he found their sensations did not in the
least agree.
William owned to Henry that he loved Agnes, the daughter of a
cottager in the village, and hoped to make her his mistress.
Henry felt that his tender regard for Rebecca, the daughter of the
curate of the parish, did not inspire him even with the boldness to
acquaint her with his sentiments, much less to meditate one design
that might tend to her dishonour.
While William was cautiously planning how to meet in private, and
accomplish the seduction of the object of his passion, Henry was
endeavouring to fortify the object of HIS choice with every virtue.
He never read a book from which he received improvement that he did
not carry it to Rebecca--never heard a circumstance which might
assist towards her moral instruction that he did not haste to tell
it her; and once when William boasted
"He knew he was beloved by Agnes;"
Henry said, with equal triumph, "he had not dared to take the means
to learn, nor had Rebecca dared to give one instance of her
partiality."
Rebecca was the youngest, and by far the least handsome daughter of
four, to whom the Reverend Mr. Rymer, a widower, was father. The
other sisters were accounted beauties; and she, from her comparative
want of personal charms, having been less beloved by her parents,
and less caressed by those who visited them, than the rest, had for
some time past sought other resources of happiness than the
affection, praise, and indulgence of her fellow-creatures. The
parsonage house in which this family lived was the forlorn remains
of an ancient abbey: it had in later times been the habitation of a
rich and learned rector, by whom, at his decease, a library was
bequeathed for the use of every succeeding resident. Rebecca, left
alone in this huge ruinous abode, while her sisters were paying
stated visits in search of admiration, passed her solitary hours in
reading. She not merely read--she thought: the choicest English
books from this excellent library taught her to THINK; and
reflection fashioned her mind to bear the slights, the
mortifications of neglect, with a patient dejection, rather than
with an indignant or a peevish spirit.
This resignation to injury and contumely gave to her perfect
symmetry of person, a timid eye, a retiring manner, and spread upon
her face a placid sweetness, a pale serenity indicating sense, which
no wise connoisseur in female charms would have exchanged for all
the sparkling eyes and florid tints of her vain and vulgar sisters.
Henry's soul was so enamoured of her gentle deportment, that in his
sight she appeared beautiful; while she, with an understanding
competent to judge of his worth, was so greatly surprised, so
prodigiously astonished at the distinction, the attention, the many
offices of civility paid her by him, in preference to her idolised
sisters, that her gratitude for such unexpected favours had
sometimes (even in his presence, and in that of her family) nearly
drowned her eyes with tears. Yet they were only trifles, in which
Henry had the opportunity or the power to give her testimony of his
regard--trifles, often more grateful to the sensible mind than
efforts of high importance; and by which the proficient in the human
heart will accurately trace a passion wholly concealed from the dull
eye of the unskilled observer.
The first cause of amazement to Rebecca in the manners of Henry was,
that he talked with HER as well as with her sisters; no visitor else
had done so. In appointing a morning's or an evening's walk, he
proposed HER going with the rest; no one had ever required her
company before. When he called and she was absent, he asked where
she was; no one had ever missed her before. She thanked him most
sincerely, and soon perceived that, at those times when he was
present, company was more pleasing even than books.
Her astonishment, her gratitude, did not stop here. Henry proceeded
in attention; he soon selected her from her sister to tell her the
news of the day, answered her observations the first; once gave her
a sprig of myrtle from his bosom in preference to another who had
praised its beauty; and once--never-to-be-forgotten kindness--
sheltered her from a hasty shower with his parapluie, while he
lamented to her drenched companions,
"That he had but ONE to offer."
From a man whose understanding and person they admire, how dear, how
impressive on the female heart is every trait of tenderness! Till
now, Rebecca had experienced none; not even of the parental kind:
and merely from the overflowings of a kind nature (not in return for
affection) had she ever loved her father and her sisters.
Sometimes, repulsed by their severity, she transferred the fulness
of an affectionate heart upon birds, or the brute creation: but
now, her alienated mind was recalled and softened by a sensation
that made her long to complain of the burthen it imposed. Those
obligations which exact silence are a heavy weight to the grateful;
and Rebecca longed to tell Henry "that even the forfeit of her life
would be too little to express the full sense she had of the respect
he paid to her." But as modesty forbade not only every kind of
declaration, but every insinuation purporting what she felt, she
wept through sleepless nights from a load of suppressed explanation;
yet still she would not have exchanged this trouble for all the
beauty of her sisters.
CHAPTER XXI.
Old John and Hannah Primrose, a prudent hardy couple, who, by many
years of peculiar labour and peculiar abstinence, were the least
poor of all the neighbouring cottagers, had an only child (who has
been named before) called Agnes: and this cottage girl was
reckoned, in spite of the beauty of the elder Miss Rymers, by far
the prettiest female in the village.
Reader of superior rank, if the passions which rage in the bosom of
the inferior class of human kind are beneath your sympathy, throw
aside this little history, for Rebecca Rymer and Agnes Primrose are
its heroines.
But you, unprejudiced reader, whose liberal observations are not
confined to stations, but who consider all mankind alike deserving
your investigation; who believe that there exists, in some,
knowledge without the advantage of instruction; refinement of
sentiment independent of elegant society; honourable pride of heart
without dignity of blood; and genius destitute of art to render it
conspicuous--you will, perhaps, venture to read on, in hopes that
the remainder of this story may deserve your attention, just as the
wild herb of the forest, equally with the cultivated plant in the
garden, claims the attention of the botanist.
Young William saw in young Agnes even more beauty than was beheld by
others; and on those days when he felt no inclination to ride, to
shoot, or to hunt, he would contrive, by some secret device, the
means to meet with her alone, and give her tokens (if not of his
love) at least of his admiration of her beauty, and of the pleasure
he enjoyed in her company.
Agnes listened, with a kind of delirious enchantment, to all her
elevated and eloquent admirer uttered; and in return for his praises
of her charms, and his equivocal replies in respect to his designs
towards her, she gave to him her most undisguised thoughts, and her
whole enraptured heart.
This harmless intercourse (as she believed it) had not lasted many
weeks before she loved him: she even confessed she did, every time
that any unwonted mark of attention from him struck with unexpected
force her infatuated senses.
It has been said by a celebrated writer, upon the affection
subsisting between the two sexes, "that there are many persons who,
if they had never heard of the passion of love, would never have
felt it." Might it not with equal truth be added, that there are
many more, who, having heard of it, and believing most firmly that
they feel it, are nevertheless mistaken? Neither of these cases was
the lot of Agnes. She experienced the sentiment before she ever
heard it named in the sense with which it had possessed her--joined
with numerous other sentiments; for genuine love, however rated as
the chief passion of the human heart, is but a poor dependent, a
retainer upon other passions; admiration, gratitude, respect,
esteem, pride in the object. Divest the boasted sensation of these,
and it is not more than the impression of a twelve-month, by
courtesy, or vulgar error, termed love.
Agnes was formed by the rarest structure of the human frame, and
destined by the tenderest thrillings of the human soul, to inspire
and to experience real love: but her nice taste, her delicate
thoughts, were so refined beyond the sphere of her own station in
society, that nature would have produced this prodigy of attraction
in vain, had not one of superior education and manners assailed her
affections; and had she been accustomed to the conversation of men
in William's rank of life, she had, perhaps, treated William's
addresses with indifference; but, in comparing him with her familiar
acquaintance, he was a miracle! His unremitting attention seemed
the condescension of an elevated being, to whom she looked up with
reverence, with admiration, with awe, with pride, with sense of
obligation--and all those various passions which constitute true,
and never-to-be-eradicated, love.
But in vain she felt and even avowed with her lips what every look,
every gesture, had long denoted; William, with discontent, sometimes
with anger, upbraided her for her false professions, and vowed,
"that while one tender proof, which he fervently besought, was
wanting, she did but aggravate his misery by less endearments."
Agnes had been taught the full estimation of female virtue; and if
her nature could have detested any one creature in a state of
wretchedness, it would have been the woman who had lost her honour;
yet, for William, what would not Agnes forfeit? The dignity, the
peace, the serenity, the innocence of her own mind, love soon
encouraged her to fancy she could easily forego; and this same
overpowering influence at times so forcibly possessed her, that she
even felt a momentary transport in the contemplation "of so precious
a sacrifice to him." But then she loved her parents, and their
happiness she could not prevail with herself to barter even for HIS.
She wished he would demand some other pledge of her attachment to
him; for there was none but this, her ruin in no other shape, that
she would deny at his request. While thus she deliberated, she
prepared for her fall.
Bred up with strict observance both of his moral and religious
character, William did not dare to tell an unequivocal lie even to
his inferiors; he never promised Agnes he would marry her; nay, even
he paid so much respect to the forms of truth, that no sooner was it
evident that he had obtained her heart, her whole soul entire--so
that loss of innocence would be less terrifying than separation from
him--no sooner did he perceive this, than he candidly told her he
"could never make her his wife." At the same time he lamented "the
difference of their births, and the duty he owed his parents'
hopes," in terms so pathetic to her partial ear, that she thought
him a greater object of compassion in his attachment even than
herself; and was now urged by pity to remove the cause of his
complainings.
One evening Henry accidentally passed the lonely spot where William
and she constantly met; he observed his cousin's impassioned eye,
and her affectionate yet fearful glance. William, he saw, took
delight in the agitation of mind, in the strong apprehension mixed
with the love of Agnes. This convinced Henry that either he or
himself was not in love; for his heart told him he would not have
beheld such emotions of tenderness, mingled with such marks of
sorrow, upon the countenance of Rebecca, for the wealth of the
universe.
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