Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ The blue satin draperies of the little boudoir, which was fitted up as a tent, were undisturbed, and the silver muslin curtains reflected back the soft light of the lamps; while roses, on which months of care had been bestowed for an hour of lavish bloom, the red light from the cheerful hearth, the rich carpet, over which the step passed noiseless, the perfumes that exhaled their fragrant essence—all mocked the desolation without. Leaning upon a couch near the window was the Comtesse Amalie, pretty as ever, changed in nothing save costume, which was suited to the classical mania of the day ”

“ All great cities present strange contrasts; the infinite varieties of human existence gathered together mock each other with the wildest contrasts; and if this be true of all cities and all times, what must it have been in an hour like that of which we now write, and in a capital like Paris! The revolution was now raging in all its horrors; a terrible desire for blood had risen up in the minds of men, and cruelty had become as much a passion as love. ”

“ There is nothing in nature so impracticable as the obstinacy of your true husband; it is the insurmountable obstacle—the Alps no female vinegar can melt. Amalie knew her destiny, and submitted to it with as good a grace as she could. "Grace," as she afterwards observed, "is a duty which a woman owes to herself on all occasions." The count thanked her, kissed her hand, and bowed out of the room, leaving her to console herself as she could, and Amalie rarely wanted the means of consolation. ”

“ Well, Julian retired to his native valley, to brood over schemes of public benefit and private revenge; but at two-and-twenty it is as much trop tôt for a man to be philosophe as it is for a woman to be dévote. Les beaux yeux of Madame de Boufflers put to flight a thousand schemes for the regeneration of mankind, and Julian forgot wrongs, projects, equality, unity, and the rights of the human race, at the feet of the pretty aristocrat. ”

“ Perhaps—for the wheat and tares of human motives spring up inextricably blended—the young democrat was somewhat dazzled by the rank of the charming countess. I always suspect that the professed despisers of all worldly distinctions take refuge in disdain from desire. For some time Julian sat in moody silence, his gaze fixed on the wood embers, as if absorbed in contemplating their fantastic combinations. Amalie changed her attitude, rallied her lover on his abstraction, and asked him if it was fair to seek one lady’s presence and then think of another. ”

“ The next morning Amalie, who had made up her mind to enact la femme comme il y en a peu, was ready, and they drove off rapidly, after a conjugal dispute as to whether both her pet poodle and paroquet were to have a place in the carriage; but, as is usually the case in trifles, female supremacy carried the day. For many miles the countess was kept awake by hope and reflection; the hope, a sort of vague, romance-reading hope, that some adventure would fall out by the way, and the reflection on the despair which her sudden departure would occasion. ”

“ In the meantime Julian pursued his way through the dark and dreary streets, suffering that agony of disappointed affection which the heart can know but once. Love is very blind indeed, but let the veil once be removed, though but for a moment, and it never can be replaced again. ”

“ Julian, like all of an imaginative turn, deceived himself, and worshipped an idol which he had created rather than an object which existed: a pretty face blinds even a philosopher, and from habits of seclusion and naturally refined taste, he was peculiarly susceptible to the charm and ease of her manners. ”

“ Youth suffers but for a season; the bowed but unbroken spirit resumes its elasticity; the future, unknown and beautiful, wins the present to itself, and the past waits for that dark and overwhelming influence which sooner or later will darken our whole horizon.
Julian arrived in Paris—his heart full of passion, and his head full of poetry—the one to be deceived, and the other to be disappointed. His wealth, his prepossessing appearance, and some scientific introductions, for his father had been the correspondent of eminent men, opened to him several of the first houses in Paris ”

“ He married an English girl, and settling in the valley where he was born, led a life of seclusion, study, and domestic content—a state of existence so often a dream and so rarely a reality. Julian was brought up with every care; his natural talents were cultivated as sedulously as books could cultivate them. But the knowledge of the library is not that of the world; a youth of solitude is bad preparation for a manhood of action; from the earliest age we need to mingle with our kind; the child corrects and instructs the child more than their masters ”

“ The evil spirit of love left his soul for a moment, but returned, though with a strange and lurid aspect, bringing with him other and worse spirits than himself—hate, revenge, blood-thirstiness—all merged in and coloured by the excited and fanatic temper of the time. ”

“ The chateau was, like the general run of chateaux left to a concierge and one or two old retainers, as dilapidated as their dwelling. A ghost had taken possession of one chamber—smoke of a second—a murder, ages ago, had been in a third—and a fourth swarmed with rats. The count sought refuge in shooting partridges from morning till night, and the countess in despair and letter-writing. ”

“ And she started, for she felt that even that stern and sculptured countenance had more of human sympathy than the pale lip and cold eye of the living listener; yet love is desperate in its hope; she flung herself at his feet, she hid her face on the hand which she grasped, for she dared not look up and meet that fixed and passionless face ”

“ The petitioner turned from the dead to the living, whose ashy colour, and wild fierce eye, struck more terror to her soul than the mournful mockery of the head, where life's likeness was fearfully rendered. Julian gazed on the dread memorial which he had snatched from the scaffold, with that strange mixture of hate and love, the mind's most terrible element, whereof comes despair and madness ”

“ But the tyranny of custom, like all other tyrannies, when grown quite unbearable—for it is wonderful what people will endure—had already sown the seeds of its own dissolution. Out of the hardship had grown the repining, and to repine at the exercise of an alleged right is soon to question its authority, and the first question asked shakes the whole ancient and time-honoured fabric of privilege. ”

“ A low, chill wind moaned through the streets of Paris, and a dull, small rain scarcely penetrated the thick fog which hung on the oppressed atmosphere:—in a high wind and a brisk shower there is something that exhilarates the spirits ”

“ Never did any body dress so exquisitely; Raphael himself never managed drapery to such a flow of elegance, Corregio never understood half so well the arrangement of colours, and in the management of fan, flaçon, scarf, handkerchief, and bouquet she was unrivalled—"the power of science could no further go." ”

“ But we have nothing more to do with revolutionary principles than to mark their effect on the mind of Julian, which soon became imbued with the wildest of the doctrines then afloat; to the young it seems so easy to mend everything, simply because they have not tried. Perfect equality, and perfect despotism, are theories equally unreducible to practice ”

“ Then how quicksighted do we become to the errors of our past worship, and mortification adds bitterness to regret. “And is it for one,” exclaimed he, "who holds the factitious advantage of a name, to be better worth than my deep love, that I have sacrificed the cause to which I was vowed, and have paused on the noblest path to which man ever devoted his energies? ”

“ Then began those fearful denunciations, which seemed to loosen every tie of nature—the father witnessed against the son, and the son against the father; the young, the aged, the innocent, the beautiful, were alike marked as victims. ”

“ Every day added one to the crowd of her adorers—people feel so safe in an admiration which is general; to think with others is the best plan of never committing yourself—the unsupported opinion runs such risks. ”

“ The next day she was there, and the young stranger passed quite accidentally; however, she had to show him how much more securely the paroquet was fastened to-day; one word led to another, and the conversation was long and interesting. Amalie discovered that the youth’s name was Julian; and that he was démocrate en misanthrope, but she undertook to convert him. Even with the very prettiest of preceptors conversion is not the work of a day; so leaving it to its progress, we will take the opportunity of stating who Julian was—alas! ”

“ Time past on as lightly as he always steps over flowers, Brussels carpets, marble terraces, green turfs, or whatever simile may best express a path without an impediment. ”