Maria Edgeworth

“ I meant not to insinuate such an idea: even your worst enemy, Sir Philip Baddely, would acquit you there. I meant but to hint, my dear Belinda, that a heart such as yours is formed for love in its highest, purest, happiest state.”
A pause ensued.
“Such happiness can be secured only,” resumed Belinda, “by a union with a man of sense and virtue.”
“A man of sense and virtue, I suppose, means Mr. Vincent,” said Lady Delacour: “no doubt you have lately learned in the same sober style that a little love will suffice with a great deal of esteem.” ”

“ A stupid man cannot readily be persuaded out of his senses—what he sees he sees, and neither more nor less; but ‘tis the easiest thing in the world to catch hold of a man of genius: you have nothing to do but to appeal from his senses to his imagination, and then he sees with the eyes of his imagination, and hears with the ears of his imagination; and then no matter what the age, beauty, or wit of the charmer may be—no matter whether it be Lady Delacour or Belinda Portman. ”

“ Helena, one morning, was playing with Mr. Vincent’s large dog, of which he was excessively fond. It was called Juba, after his faithful servant.
“Helena, my dear,” said Lady Delacour, “take care! don’t trust your hand in that creature’s monstrous mouth.”
“I can assure your ladyship,” cried Mr. Vincent, “that he is the very quietest and best creature in the world.”
“No doubt,” said Belinda, smiling, “since he belongs to you; for you know, as Mr. Percival tells you, every thing animate or inanimate that is under your protection, you think must be the best of its kind in the universe.” ”

“ You are no lover, if you be not jealous.”
“I am not jealous,” said Clarence, “yet I am a lover—a passionate lover.”
“A passionate lover!” cried Lady Delacour, stopping short as they were crossing the antechamber:—“then I have done nothing but mischief. In love with Virginia? I will not—cannot believe it.”
“In love with Belinda!—Cannot you, will not you believe it?”
“My dear Clarence, I never doubted it for an instant. But are you at liberty to own it to any body but me?” ”

“ How I reproach myself for having been for years the torment of this man’s life!”
“You may do better than reproach yourself, my dear Lady Delacour,” said Belinda; “you may yet live for years to be the blessing and pride of his life. I am persuaded that nothing but your despair of obtaining domestic happiness has so long enslaved you to dissipation; and now that you find a friend in your husband, now that you know the affectionate temper of your little Helena, you will have fresh views and fresh hopes; you will have the courage to live for yourself, and not for what is called the world.” ”

“ Well, we shall not force you to be in raptures with it—shall we, Miss Portman? A man may be tired of the most beautiful face in the world, or the most beautiful picture; but really there is so much sweetness, so much innocence, such tender melancholy in this countenance, that, if I were a man, I should inevitably be in love with it, and in love for ever! Such beauty, if it were in nature, would certainly fix the most inconstant man upon earth.”
Belinda ventured to take her eyes for an instant from the picture, to see whether Clarence Hervey looked like the most inconstant man upon earth. ”

“ I will then stand my trial for life or death; and if I live I will be, what I have never yet been, a mother to Helena. If I die, you and Clarence Hervey will take care of her; I know you will. That young man is worthy of you, Belinda. If I die, I charge you to tell him that I knew his value; that I had a soul capable of being touched by the eloquence of virtue.” Lady Delacour, after a pause, said, in an altered tone, “Do you think, Belinda, that I shall survive this operation?” ”

“ I forgive you, that is all I can do: but we must part, Lady Delacour!” said he, breaking from her with agony expressed in his countenance.
“The man has a heart, a soul, I protest! You knew him better than I did, Miss Portman. Nay, you are not gone yet, my lord! You really love me, I find.”
“No, no, no,” cried he, vehemently: “weak as you take me to be, Lady Delacour, I am incapable of loving a woman who has disgraced me, disgraced herself, her family, her station, her high endowments, her—” His utterance failed.
“Oh, Lady Delacour!” cried Belinda, “how can you trifle in this manner?” ”

“ Ormond, a woman whom he had been accustomed to consider as far his inferior in capacity, he now felt was superior to him in prudence, merely because she was undisturbed by passion. He resolved to master his own mind: to consider that it was not a mistress, but a wife he wanted in Virginia; that a wife without capacity or without literature could never be a companion suited to him, let her beauty or sensibility be ever so exquisite and captivating. The happiness of his life and of hers were at stake, and every motive of prudence and delicacy called upon him to command his affections. ”

“ Sit down—for Heaven’s sake listen to me, to your friend, to Belinda!”
“My friend! my Belinda!” cried Lady Delacour, and she turned from her, and walked away some steps in silence; then suddenly clasping her hands, she raised her eyes to heaven with a fervent but wild expression of devotion, and exclaimed, “Great God of heaven, my punishment is just! the death of Lawless is avenged. May the present agony of my soul expiate my folly! Of guilt—deliberate guilt—of hypocrisy—treachery—I have not—oh, never may I have—to repent!” ”

“ I can and will bear it all—all patiently; for I am innocent, and you are mistaken and unhappy,” said Belinda. “You will love me when you return to your senses; then how can I be angry with you?”
“Fondle me not,” said Lady Delacour, starting back from Belinda’s caresses: “do not degrade yourself to no purpose—I never more can be your dupe. Your protestations of innocence are wasted on me—I am not so blind as you imagine—dupe as you think me, I have seen much in silence. The whole world, you find, suspects you now. ”

“ Clarence, you have a right to Belinda’s hand, and may kiss it too: nay, Miss Portman, it is the rule of the stage. Now, where’s my Lord Delacour? he should be embracing me, to show that we are reconciled. Ha! here he comes—Enter Lord Delacour, with little Helena in his hand—very well! a good start of surprise, my love—stand still, pray; you cannot be better than you are: Helena, my love, do not let go your father’s hand. There! quite pretty and natural! Now, Lady Delacour, to show that she is reformed, comes forward to address the audience with a moral—a moral! ”

“ Do not,” continued he, turning to Clarence Hervey, “expect to see an old-fashioned, spiritless, patient Griselda, in Lady Anne Percival: I can assure you that she is—but I will neither tell you what she is, nor what she is not. Every man who has any abilities, likes to have the pleasure and honour of finding out a character by his own penetration, instead of having it forced upon him at full length in capital letters of gold, finely emblazoned and illuminated by the hand of some injudicious friend: every child thinks the violet of his own finding the sweetest. ”

“ Miss Portman ran down stairs to the hall to receive her: the little girl took her hand in silence. “Your mother was much pleased with the pretty gold fishes,” said Belinda, “and she will be still more pleased, when she knows that they came from you:—she does not know that yet.”
“I hope she is better to-day? I will not make the least noise,” whispered Helena, as she went up stairs on tiptoe.
“You need not be afraid to make a noise—you need not walk on tiptoe, nor shut the doors softly; for Lady Delacour seems to like all noises except the screaming of the macaw. This way, my dear.” ”

“ Some entanglement, some punctilio, some doubt, some delicacy, some folly, prevents him from being just at this moment, where, I confess, he ought to be—at your feet; and you, out of patience, which a young lady ought never to be if she can help it, will go and marry—I know you will—some stick of a rival, purely to provoke him.”
“If ever I marry,” said Belinda, with a look of proud humility, “I shall certainly marry to please myself, and not to provoke any body else; and, at all events, I hope I shall never marry a stick.”
“Pardon me that word,” said Lady Delacour. ”

“ This, sir, is no less a man than Mr. Clarence Hervey, of whose universal genius you have just had a specimen; for which he was crowned with sedges, as he well deserved, by the god of the Serpentine river. Do not be so unjust as to imagine that he has any of the presumption which is sometimes the chief characteristic of a man of universal genius. Mr. Clarence Hervey is, without exception, the most humble man of my acquaintance; for whilst all good judges would think him fit company for Mr. Percival, he has the humility to think himself upon a level with Mr. Rochfort and Sir Philip Baddely. ”

“ Now even if it were not contrary to law, I would never have such a thing in my cane to carry about with me; for when a man’s in a passion he forgets every thing, and would as soon lay about him with a sword as with a cane: so it is better such a thing should not be in his power. And it is the same with wit, which would be safest and best out of the power of some people.”
“But is it fair, my lord, to make use of wit yourself to abuse wit in others?” said Belinda with a smile, which put his lordship into perfect good-humour with both himself and his lady. ”

“ Luttridge the most; for a woman can always hate a woman more than she can hate a man, unless she has been in love with him, which I never was with poor Lord Delacour. Yes! I certainly hate Mrs. Luttridge the most; I cannot count the number of extravagant things I have done on purpose to eclipse her. We have had rival routs, rival concerts, rival galas, rival theatres: she has cost me more than she’s worth; but then I certainly have mortified her once a month at least. My hatred to Mrs. Luttridge, my dear, is the remote cause of my love for you ”

“ Vincent, as he looked at the drawing; “and how much more interesting is this picture of domestic happiness than all the pictures of shepherds and shepherdesses, and gods and goddesses, that ever were drawn!”
“Yes,” said Belinda, “and how much more interesting this picture is to us, from our knowing that it is not a fancy-piece; that the happiness is real, not imaginary: that this is the natural expression of affection in the countenance of the mother; and that these children, who crowd round her, are what they seem to be—the pride and pleasure of her life!” ”

“ She trembled at the idea of being under the guidance of one who was so little able to conduct herself: and she could not help blaming her aunt Stanhope severely for placing her in such a perilous situation. It was obvious that some of Lady Delacour’s history must have been known to Mrs. Stanhope; and Belinda, the more she reflected, was the more surprised at her aunt’s having chosen such a chaperon for a young woman just entering into the world. When the understanding is suddenly roused and forced to exert itself, what a multitude of deductions it makes in a short time! ”

“ Vincent to address me. You cannot imagine that I am so base as to treat him with duplicity, or that I consider him only as a pis-aller; no—I have treated, I will treat him honourably. He knows exactly the state of my mind. He shall have a fair trial whether he can win my love; the moment I am convinced that he cannot succeed, I will tell him so decidedly: but if ever I should feel for him that affection which is necessary for my happiness and his, I hope I shall without fear, even of Lady Delacour’s ridicule or displeasure, avow my sentiments, and abide by my choice. ”

“ It was about a year before he had seen Belinda that Clarence Hervey returned from his travels; he had been in France just before the Revolution, when luxury and dissipation were at their height in Paris, and when a universal spirit of licentious gallantry prevailed. Some circumstances in which he was personally interested disgusted him strongly with the Parisian belles; he felt that women who were full of vanity, affectation, and artifice, whose tastes were perverted, and whose feelings were depraved, were equally incapable of conferring or enjoying real happiness. ”

“ But these little gold fishes came from a person who would be very glad to go with you to Harrowgate!” said Clarence Hervey. “Or who would be very glad to stay with you in town,” said Belinda: “from a person who wants nothing from you but—your love.”
“Male or female?” said Lady Delacour.
“Female.”
“Female? I have not a female friend in the world but yourself, my dear Belinda; nor do I know another female in the world, whose love I should think about for half an instant. But pray tell me the name of this unknown friend of mine, who wants nothing from me but love.” ”

“ She was so firmly persuaded of her ladyship’s utter indifference to Lord Delacour, that she never conceived the possibility of her being actuated by the passion of jealousy—by the jealousy of power—a species of jealousy which she had never felt, and could not comprehend. But she had sometimes seen Lady Delacour in starts of passion that seemed to border on insanity, and the idea of her losing all command of her reason now struck Belinda with irresistible force. ”

“ Rantipole, my dear,” continued Lady Delacour, turning to Miss Portman, “is the name of Harriot Freke’s villa in Kent. However strange it may sound to your ears and mine, I can assure you the name has made fortune amongst a certain description of wits. And candour must allow that, if not elegant, it is appropriate; it gives a just idea of the manners and way of life of the place, for every thing at Rantipole is rantipole. But I am really concerned, my lord, you should have ridden yourself down in this way for nothing. Why did not you get better intelligence before you set out? ”

“ Ormond was naturally both of an affectionate disposition and a timid temper; she had become excessively fond of Virginia, and her anxiety was more than in proportion to her love; it sometimes balanced and even overbalanced her regard and respect for Clarence Hervey himself. When he spoke of his attachment to Belinda, and of his doubts respecting Virginia, she could no longer restrain her emotion.
“Oh, indeed, Mr. Hervey,” said she, “this is no time for reasoning and doubting. No man in his senses, no man who is not wilfully blind, could doubt her being distractedly fond of you.” ”

“ I am not able to bear your raillery in my present temper—in one word, I fear that Belinda is unworthy of my esteem: I can tell you no more, except that I am more miserable than I thought any woman could make me.”
“You are in a prodigious hurry to be miserable,” said Dr. X——. “Upon my word I think you would make a mighty pretty hero in a novel; you take things very properly for granted, and, stretched out upon that sofa, you act the distracted lover vastly well—and to complete the matter, you cannot tell me why you are more miserable than ever man or hero was before. ”