Maria Edgeworth

“ Return to your country, your friends, and yourself, Vivian! Your day is not yet over! Your sun is not yet set!—Resume your energy—recover your self-confidence—carry your good resolutions into effect—and you may yet be an honour to your family, a delight to your fond mother, and the pride of your friend Russell. Your remorse has been poignant and sincere; let it be salutary and permanent in its consequences: this is the repentance which religion requires. The part of a man of sense and virtue is to make his past errors of use to his future conduct. ”

“ Vivian, I trust that I am not deficient in maidenly modesty,” said Lady Julia, “when it is not incompatible with what I deem a higher virtue—sincerity. Now and ever, frankness is, and shall be, my only policy. The confidence I am about to repose in you, sir, is the strongest proof of my esteem, and of the gratitude I feel for your attachment.—My heart is no longer in my power to bestow. It is—young as I am, I dare to pronounce the words—irrevocably fixed upon one who will do honour to my choice. ”

“ Wharton.
“A platonic attachment!—Fashionable, dangerous sophistry!” said Lady Mary.
“Why so, ma’am?” said her son, warmly; “and why should we mind what the world says? The world is so fond of scandal, that a man and woman cannot have any degree of friendship for one another without a hue and cry being immediately raised—and all the prudes and coquettes join at once in believing, or pretending to believe, that there must be something wrong. No wonder such a pretty woman as Mrs. Wharton cannot escape envy, and, of course, censure; but her conduct can defy the utmost malice of her enemies.” ”

“ I could almost as soon wish for my brother’s death as desire to see him united to any woman, let her beauty and accomplishments be what they might, who had a mean or frivolous character, such as could consider money as the greatest good, or dissipation as the prime object of life. I am firmly persuaded, my dear Almeria, that however you may be dazzled by the first view of what is called fashionable life, you will soon see things as they really are, and that you will return to your former tastes and feelings. ”

“ When the carriage drove under the great gateway and stopped, Vivian exclaimed, “What a fine old castle! how surprised Selina Sidney would be, how delighted, to see my house metamorphosed into such a castle!”
“It is a magnificent castle, indeed!” said Lady Mary, with a sigh: “I think there are the Lady Lidhursts on the terrace; and here comes my Lord Glistonbury with his son.”
“My pupil?” said Russell; “I hope the youth is such as I can become attached to. Life would be wretched indeed without attachment—of some sort or other. ”

“ To declaim about political integrity, and all that, is not the language of a man who knows any thing of business—any thing of the world.—But why do I say all this?” cried Lord Glistonbury, checking himself and assuming an air of more reserved displeasure.—“Mr. Vivian certainly knows all this as well as I do; I know how my nephew Marmaduke, who, with all his faults, is no fool, would interpret your present language: he would say, as I have often heard him say, that political integrity is only a civil put off.” ”

“ What a disappointment! What a terrible disappointment!”
“Business!” said Mr. Beaumont: “curse his business! he should think of his friends first.”
“Most likely his business is for his friends,” said Miss Walsingham.
“That’s right, my dear little defender of the absent,” said Mr. Walsingham.
“Business!” repeated Mr. Palmer. “Hum! I like business better than pleasure—I will be patient, if it is really business that keeps him away from us.”
“Depend upon it,” said Miss Walsingham, “nothing but business can keep him away from us; his pleasure is always at home.” ”

“ In the whole course of his life he had depended on Russell’s friendship as a solid blessing, of which he could never be deprived by any change of circumstances—by any possible chance in human affairs; and now to have lost such a friend by his own folly, by his own weakness, was a misfortune of which he could hardly believe the reality. At the same moment, too, he learned how nobly Russell had behaved towards him, in the most trying situation in which the human heart can be placed. Russell’s love for Selina Sidney, Vivian had never till this instant suspected. ”

“ But we have all our foibles, I suppose. And since it is so with Amelia, why do let me see this baronet-swain of hers, and let me try what good I can find out in him, and let me bring myself, if I can, over my prejudices. And then you, my dear madam, so good and kind a mother as you are, will make an effort too on your part; for we must see the girl happy, if it is not out of all sense and reason. And if the man be worthy of her, it is not his fault that he is a sprig of quality; and we must forgive and forget, and give our consent, my dear Mrs. Beaumont. ”

“ Vivian sighed deeply; but the next instant, conscious that he had sighed, and afraid of giving his wife pain, he endeavoured to turn the course of her thoughts to some other subject. In vain. Poor Lady Sarah said no more, but felt this exquisitely, and with permanent anguish. Thus her imprudence reverted upon herself, and she suffered in proportion to her pride and to her fondness. By such slight circumstances is the human heart alienated from love! Struggling to be free, the restive little deity ruffles and impairs his plumage, and seldom recovers a disposition to tranquillity. ”

“ Lady Julia would see the absolute impossibility of Russell’s returning, or of his accepting her affection; her good sense, her pride, would in time subdue this hopeless passion; and Vivian was generous enough, or sufficiently in love, to feel that the value of her heart would not be diminished, but rather increased in his opinion, by the sensibility she had shown to the talents and virtues of his friend. His friend, Vivian ventured now to call him; for with the hopes of love, the hopes of friendship rose. ”

“ If other fellows of my standing in this wicked world would but speak the truth, however, they would show as much suspicion and more than I do. Bad as I am, and such as I am, you see, and have the whole of me—nobody can say Wharton’s a hypocrite; that’s some comfort. But, seriously, Vivian, I don’t mean to laugh at love and angels—I can just remember the time when I felt all your sort of romance—but that is in the preterpluperfect tense with me—completely past—ambition is no bad cure for love. ”

“ Our heroine must be pardoned by the most prudent, and admired by the most romantic, for being desperately in love with a youth of such a character and such expectations. Whilst the young lady’s passion was growing every hour more lively, her old father was growing every hour more lethargic. He had a superstitious dread of making a will, as if it were a preparation for death, which would hasten the fatal moment. Hodgkinson’s friends tried to conquer this prejudice: but it was in vain to reason with a man who had never reasoned during the whole of his life about any thing except bullocks. ”

“ She has no feeling—none upon earth—scarcely common sense! She thinks of nothing but how she holds her elbows. The formality and importance with which she went on cutting off ends of worsted from that frightful tapestry work, whilst I talked of you, quite put me out of all manner of patience. She has no feeling—none upon earth!”
“Oh, ma’am,” said Vivian, “you do her injustice: she certainly has feeling—for her mother.”
“Ay, for her mother, may be! a kind of mechanical affection!”
“But, ma’am, if you had seen her at the time that her mother was struck with palsy!” ”

“ But I always knew, I always told you, that this pretence to honour and candour, frankness and friendship, with this avowed contempt of all principle and all virtue, could not be safe, could not be sincere, would not stand the test.—No—nothing should make me trust to the private honour of a man so corrupt in public life as Mr. Wharton. A man who sells his conscience for his interest will sell it for his pleasure. A man who will betray his country will betray his friend. ”

“ Platonics have been the ruin of more women, the destruction of the peace of more families, than open profligacy ever could have accomplished. Many a married woman, who would have started with horror at the idea of beginning an intrigue, has been drawn in to admit of a platonic attachment. And many a man, who would as soon have thought of committing murder as of seducing his friend’s wife, has allowed himself to commence a platonic attachment; and how these end, all the world knows.”
Struck by these words, Vivian suddenly quitted his air of raillery, and became serious. ”

“ Return, and distinguish yourself among your countrymen: distinguish yourself by integrity still more than by talents. A certain degree of talents is now cheap in England: integrity is what we want—true patriotism, true public spirit, noble ambition not that vile scramble for places and pensions, which some men call ambition; not that bawling, brawling, Thersites character, which other men call public spirit; not that marketable commodity with which Wharton, and such as he, cheat popular opinion for a season;—but that fair virtue which will endure, and abide by its cause to the last ”

“ With his usual candour, he had laid open his whole character to her, as far as he knew it himself; and had warned her of that vacillation of temper, that easiness to be led, which Russell had pointed out as a dangerous fault in his disposition. But of this propensity Selina had seen no symptoms; on the contrary, the steadiness of her lover in his attachment to her—the only point on which she had yet seen him tried—decided her to trust to the persuasive voice of love and hope, and to believe that Russell’s friendship had in this instance, been too harsh or too timorous in its forebodings. ”

“ He can’t marry Miss P——, nor yet her fortune, nor ever shall! I shall remain at Brussels—I have friends here—and friends who were my friends before I was forced to give my hand to Mr. Wharton, or my smiles to you, sir!—people who will not tease me with talking of remorse and repentance, and such ungallant, ungentlemanlike stuff; nor sit bewailing themselves, like a country parson, instead of dashing out with me here in a fashionable style, as a man of any spirit would have done. But you!—you’re neither good nor bad; and no woman will ever love you, nor ever did. ”

“ For who, of any party, now thinks, really and truly, of any thing but getting power or keeping it? Power, you know, stands for the measure of talent; and every thing else worth having is included in that word power. I speak plainly. And as honour is merely an affair of opinion, and opinion, again, an affair of numbers, and as there are numbers enough to keep one in countenance in these things; really, my dear Vivian, it is quite childish, quite boyish, smells of the lamp. ”

“ I shall tell them that my sentiments are totally changed: I am sure I can say so with perfect truth.—Oh, Vivian, it is you who are to be pitied; every thing may be endured except remorse. Would to Heaven, I could save you from the reproaches of your own heart!—Adieu!
“SELINA SIDNEY.”
The feelings of Vivian’s mind, on reading this letter, cannot be described. Admiration, love, tenderness, remorse, successively seized upon his heart. ”

“ A man at my time of life misses many an old friend on his return to his native country; but then he sees them still in their representatives, and loves them again in their children. Mr. Beaumont looked at me at that instant, so like his father—he is the image of what my friend was, when I first knew him.”
“I am rejoiced you see the likeness,” said Mrs. Beaumont. “Amelia, my dear, pour out the coffee.”
“And Miss Beaumont, too, has just his expression of countenance, which surprises me more, in her delicate features. ”

“ God forbid! How fast your imagination goes, my dear mother!—Is there no difference between saying, that a woman is not a petrifaction, and being in love with her?”
“In love! I never said a word about being in love—I know that’s impossible—I asked only if you had proposed for her?”
“Dear ma’am, no!”
Lady Mary expressed her satisfaction; and, perhaps, the injustice with which she continued, for some days, to asperse Lady Sarah Lidhurst, as being unfeeling, served her more, in Vivian’s opinion, than any other mode in which she could have spoken of her ladyship. ”

“ You think you are speaking to the same Lady Julia you saw yesterday—No!—you are speaking to a very different person—a few hours have made a terrible change. You see before you, sir, one who has been, till this day, the darling and pride of her father; who has lived in the lap of luxury; who has been flattered, admired, by almost all who approached her; who had fortune, and rank, and fair prospects in life, and youth, and spirits, and all the pride of prosperity; who had, I believe, good dispositions, perhaps some talents, and, I may say, a generous heart ”

“ Vivian walked up and down the room in great agony: his mother continued, with increased severity of manner, “I say nothing of your dissimulation with me, nor of all your platonic subterfuges—I know that, with a man of intrigue, falsehood is deemed a virtue. I shall not condescend to inquire farther into your guilty secrets—I now think myself fortunate in having no place in your confidence. But I here declare to you, in the most solemn manner, that I never will see you again until all connexion between you and Mrs. Wharton is utterly dissolved. ”

“ Heaven knows I shall never give any other man a right to dispute with you the sovereignty of my castle, or my cottage, whichever it may be. As to the rest,” pursued Mrs. Beaumont, “you cannot marry against my wishes, my dear Edward; for your wishes on this, as on all other subjects, will ever govern mine.”
Her son kissed her hand with warm gratitude.
“You will not, I hope, think that I seek to prolong my regency, or to assume undue power or influence in affairs,” continued Mrs. Beaumont, “if I hint to you in general terms what I think may contribute to your happiness. ”

“ No one, however, not even Vivian, knew how much pain this separation gave Selina. Her good sense and prudence told her indeed, that it was best, both for her happiness and Vivian’s, that he should see something more of the world, and that she should have some farther proof of the steadiness of his attachment, before she should unite herself with him irrevocably: but whilst she endeavoured to fortify her mind with these reflections, love inspired many painful fears ”

“ Wharton knew how to take advantage both of the weakness of his character and of the generosity of his temper. She fell into transports of grief when she found that Lady Mary Vivian and Miss Sidney were in possession of her secret. It was in vain that Vivian assured her that it would be kept inviolably; she persisted in repeating, “that her reputation was lost; that she had sacrificed every thing for a man who would, at last, desert her in the most treacherous and barbarous manner, leaving her at the mercy of her husband, the most profligate, hard-hearted tyrant upon earth. ”