Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ I feel it,–Minna has been predestined to be my bride. Fate, in filling my heart with her face, from the earliest years kept it free from all those passing fancies which would have detracted from the intense devotion of my present love. How wonderfully have we met! Minna–sweet Minna, life owes you much happiness; will it not be my delicious task to pay the debt?”
The night passed in one long, but happy reverie; and the light sleep into which Ernest fell at last was soon broken by the anxiety, which visited even his dreams, to catch the first crimson break of morning. ”

“ If deceived, the whole poetry of life is gone; the very essence of poetry is belief, and how can she, whose sweet eager credulity has once learnt the bitter truth–that its reliance was in vain, how can she ever believe again?
Pauline learnt to know Ernest’s heart by her own, and she felt the difference. Night after night she left the ball-room in all the false flutter of that excitement whose fever destroys the heart which it animates. But once in her own room, the colour left her cheek, and the light, her eye ”

“ The sky, of that intense purple which marks a slight frost, was covered with floating clouds, and on the further edge, sheltered in their shadow, were scattered a few pale stars; but the broadway of heaven was flooded by moonlight; no longer shut out by the thick forest,–her rays silvered whatever they touched, and the long grass of the plain looked like undulating water, so thickly did the crisped dew lie upon it, and so clearly did the moonshine glitter through the frosted moisture. Ernest gazed upon the dark and distant castle with an emotion for which he could not himself have accounted ”

“ While I live, I shall devote myself to the care of my ill-starred Minna, who is the very image of her mother. When I die–and the shadow of death even now rests upon my way–I commend her to her God and to you. You will be to her and to Pauline as a brother. I know I can rely upon you.”
“Married to a maniac–a hopeless maniac!–What will my mother say?”–exclaimed Ernest, as he paced the room. The image of his beautiful bride rose before him; he felt as if his tenderness and his devotion must avail; he would watch her every look–anticipate her very thoughts. ”

“ But we refine–we sadden and we subdue–we call up the hidden and evil spirits of the inner world–we wake from their dark repose those who will madden us. The heart is like the wood on yonder flickering hearth: green and fresh, haunted by a thousand sweet odours, bathed in the warm air, and gladdened by the summer sunshine–so grew it at first upon its native soil. But nature submitteth to art, and man has appointed for it another destiny: it is gathered, and cast into the fire. ”

“ At the first glance, that slight and graceful girl–with the rose on her cheek a little flushed by exercise, her glittering curls falling round her, golden as those of Hope–might have seemed the very ideal of youth and pleasure;–so much for the first glance, and how few go beyond! But whoso had looked closer would have seen that the soft red on the cheek was feverish; and there was that tremulous motion of the lip which bespeaks a heart ill at ease. At first she was looking down, and the long shadow of the curled eyelash rested on the rounded cheek ”

“ Poor Pauline! how will her gentle and affectionate nature be grieved to hear this thing of the father she idolises; it must be kept from her. Wealth, what a subtle tempter thou art! Even my uncle–the man I deemed so noble, so generous, so full of high feeling, and knightly qualities; even he has for thy sake played traitor to the dead, and broken every sacred tie of duty and of affection! I will think no more of it.” This resolve was easily executed; for the image of Minna excluded every other thought. Her beauty, her grace, her childishness had captivated Ernest’s imagination ”

“ Any can assemble a crowd, but few can make it mingle. But Madame von Hermanstadt had a skill which a diplomatist might have studied. She saw–she heard everything; she knew who would and who would not understand each other; she caught at a glance the best position for one lady’s velvets, and for the diamonds of another; she never interrupted those who were engaged–she never neglected those who were not; she took care that great people should be amused, and little people astonished. ”

“ But the words of lovers are a language apart; their melody is a fairy song departing with the one haunted hour; to repeat it is to make it commonplace–cold, yet we can all remember it. Enough, that everything was planned for flight. The following morning they were to meet again; and Minna was only to return to the castle of Lindorf as the bride of Ernest von Hermanstadt. None there could question his right to protect her. The clouds gathered overhead; a vast vapour like a shroud, but black as night, came sweeping over the sky ”

“ All women would have called him interesting–the woman who loved him would have called him beautiful. Had the word fascinating never been used before, it would have been invented for him. Like all of his susceptible organization, Ernest was very variable: sometimes the life of society, with every second word an epigram; at others, grave and absorbed–no stimulus, no flattery, could rouse him to animation. His intimate, his very few intimate friends, said that nothing could exceed his eloquence in graver converse: carried away by his feelings, how could he help being eloquent? ”

“ At last she leant over the balustrade, and her eyes filled with tears as she watched the moonlight turning the flowers to silver.
“I wish,” said she, “I were a flower–happy in the sunshine–happy in the soft night air. No beating heart within, to make me wretched.” And she dropped her head on his arm, and wept.
Before Ernest has time to utter even a few soothing words, a bright blade glittered in the moonlight, and Pauline sunk with a faint scream on the pavement–Minna had stabbed her sister to the heart! ”

“ By Heinrich’s advice they left the castle, that no painful train of thought might be awakened; and they resided in a light, cheerful villa, amid the suburbs of Vienna. Her husband found all the plans of mutual study in which the young student lover had so delighted, were in vain. It was impossible to fix her attention long on anything. Companionship there was none between them, and the call on his attention was unceasing; but his affection became even deeper for its very fear, and it was hallowed by the feeling of how sacred it was as a duty. ”

“ He knew not that often did that bright young head lay down in weariness and sorrow on a pillow wet with frequent tears. Love only rightly interprets love. Pauline saw that her cousin had only for her the calm and gentle tenderness of a brother;–they had been brought up together, and there was nothing in the pretty and playful child, that had grown up beside him, to excite his imagination. But she–she loved him with all that poetry which is only to be found in a woman’s first affection ”

“ Nature is silent–her soft, sweet harmonies are hushed in the great human tumult–man, and man only, is heard. Through many hours of the twenty-four, the ocean of existence rolls on with a sound like thunder–a thousand voices speak at once. The wheels pass and re-pass over the stones–music, laughter, anger, the words of courtesy and of business, mingle together–the history of a day is the history of all time. ”

“ For a woman there is no second-love–youth, hope, belief, are all given to her first attachment; if unrequited, the heart becomes its own Prometheus, creative, ideal, but with the vulture preying upon it for ever. ”

“ Seated on one of the huge stones scattered around–singing a low sweet air, or rather humming it, for the words were inaudible, was a female figure. Ernest could see only a very pretty back–and exquisitely shaped head bending forward, and a profusion of black hair hanging down in plaits–the ends somewhat fancifully fastened with a scarlet flower.
Ernest felt that he was an intruder, but he did–as all other young men would have done–remain rooted to the spot. He knew the melody that she was singing to the music of the splashing fountain ”

“ He delighted too in rambling through the ancient castle–filled with the memory of other days: not a face in the picture gallery but he conjured up its history, and he loved to assign to each some one of the spacious chambers for the site of their adventures. Many of the rooms in the left wing were all but deserted,–and one afternoon, while wandering carelessly along, he found his way into a chamber that had apparently not been opened for years; he was struck with the beauty of some richly wrought oak panels. ”

“ Come, Ernest, would you be the only son in Vienna who would refuse his mother the slight favour of appearing at a ball which is given to introduce him to old friends, whom she at least loves and values? ”

“ My confidence will not be misplaced, for I have noted in you a judgment beyond your years, and a delicacy which will estimate the trust reposed in you. My health is declining rapidly, and I would fain secure protection for my darling Pauline, and another as dear and more unfortunate. I have rejoiced to see that my sister’s plan for a marriage between you and my daughter is not likely to take place. You do not love your cousin–you prefer the solitary study and the lonely ramble–so would not a lover. ”

“ Pure, shy, sensitive, tender, and unreal; it is the most ethereal, yet most lasting feeling life can know. The influence of a woman’s first love is felt on her whole after-existence: never can she dream such dream again. ”

“ Gradually as he became more and more satisfied about Minna, he grew more anxious for Pauline. He saw her drooping day by day; her spirits became unequal, and her eyes were rarely without tears. Too late he discovered how she loved him. Her bodily weakness seemed to render her less capable of repressing her feelings. ”

“ Hours too were past on the winding and lovely river–lost in those vague but impassioned reveries which fade, and for ever, amid the sterner realities of life. The dreaming boyhood prepares for adventurous man; we first fancy, then feel, and, at last, act and think. ”

“ Light and music streamed from the windows, the courtyard was filled with equipages, and a noisy crowd–part servants, part spectators–thronged the gates. Within, all was pomp and gaiety. The Countess von Hermanstadt was unrivalled in her fêtes. She knew how to give them–a knowledge very few possess. The generality labour under the delusion, that when they have lighted and filled their rooms, they have done their all. They never were more in error. Lighting is much–crowding is much also–but there lacks “something more exquisite still.” ”

“ Why should our family calamity be made the topic of idle curiosity? But, in reality, she has resided in this castle–her state requiring constant and often strict restraint. I have been scarcely ever absent from the castle; but, alas! my tenderness has answered but in part. With a caprice incidental to persons in her dreadful situation, she has taken an extreme dislike to me, and fancies that I am her uncle, and imprison her to detain the vast possessions of which she fancies herself the heiress.”
The fatal paper dropped from Ernest’s hand. ”

“ God knows that many of those hushed and darkened houses might have many a scene of waking care within–many a pillow might be but a place of unrest for the aching head–still the outward seeming of all was repose. ”

“ He was a young man of some twenty-two years of age. The richness of part of his costume ill suited the apparently studious recluse; but the task of dressing had been hastily suspended. He had flung a loose robe of sables around him, and leaned back in a large arm-chair, thinking of anything but the festival for which he had begun to prepare. ”

“ He seated himself, and began to read the contents; though the tears swam in his eyes as he saw the handwriting of an uncle who, whatever his faults, had always been kind, very kind, to himself. It ran thus:–
“My beloved Ernest,–For dear to me as a child of my own is the boy who has grown up at my side. I have long been desirous of communicating to you the contents of the following pages, but I have found it too painful to speak–I find that I must write. ”