Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

“ We are now one, Gerard; united by our love and honour for your wronged mother's memory, and by our revenge; dissimilar only in this, that my desire to repair her injuries is more vehement even than yours." Sir Boyvill pressed his son's hand, and left him. A few minutes afterward, it would seem, he quitted the house.
"Now to my task," thought Neville; "and O, thou God, who watchest over the innocent, and yet gavest the innocent into the hands of the destroyer, rule thou the throbbings of my heart; that neither mad hate nor hunger for revenge take away my human nature, and turn me into a fiend!" ”

“ My husband mistrusts me, I acknowledge it—by torture you force the truth—he does not understand, and you would pervert me; in God and my own heart I put my trust, and I will never do that which my conscience tells me is wrong—and despite both I shall be happy. A mother is, in my eyes, a more sacred name than wife. My life is wrapped in my boy; in him I find blameless joy, though all the rest pierce my heart with poisoned arrows.'
"'You shall, sweet Alithea,' I cried, 'preserve him, and every other blessing. ”

“ Dear Elizabeth, you may one day hate me, when you know the misery I have caused to those who deserved better at my hands. The cry of my victim rings in my ears, and I am base to survive my crime. Let me, dearest, make my own the praise, that nothing graced my life more than the leaving it. To live a coward and a drone, suits vilely with my former acts of violence and ill. Let me gain peace of mind by exposing my life to danger. By advocating a just cause I may bring a blessing down upon my endeavours. I shall go to Greece. ”

“ Call me Elizabeth—"
Neville took her hand. "I am," he said, "a selfish, odious being; you are full of self-sacrifice, of thought for others, of every blessed virtue. I think of myself—and hate myself while I yield to the impulse. Dear, dear Elizabeth, since thus I may call you, are you not all I have ever imagined of excellent? I love you beyond all thought or word; and have for many, many months, since first I saw you at Marseilles. Without reflection, I knew and felt you to be the being my soul thirsted for. ”

“ Yet where was Gerard Neville? Where the looks of love and rapturous sense of sympathy, before which all the other joys of life fade into dimness? Love causes us to get more rid of our haunting identity, and to give ourselves more entirely away than any other emotion; it is the most complete, the most without veil or shadow to mar its beauty. Every other human passion occupies but a distinct portion of our being. This assimilates with all, and turns the whole into bliss or misery. Elizabeth did not fear that Gerard would forget her. ”

“ Neville. Indeed, dear Elizabeth, you must not question me, for I know nothing; much less than you. Gerard puts much faith in the innocence of Mr. Falkner."
"Bless him for that!" cried Elizabeth, tears gushing into her eyes. "Oh yes, I knew that he would be just and generous. My poor, poor father! by what fatal mistake is your cause judged by one incapable of understanding or appreciating you?"
"Yet," said Lady Cecil, "he cannot be wholly innocent; the flight, the catastrophe, the concealment of his victim's death; is there not guilt in these events?" ”

“ That she should be loved to desperation could excite no wonder—but what had been the effects of this love? a distant home across the ocean—a home of privation and sorrow—the yearning for her lost children—the slow breaking of the contrite heart; a life dragged on despite the pangs of memory—or a nameless grave. Such were the conjectures caused by the letter of the American.
At length Neville returned. Each turned her eye on his face, to read the intelligence he had acquired in his speaking countenance. It was sad. "She lives and is lost," thought Lady Cecil; "He mourns her dead!" ”

“ I could almost wish that Sophia would disregard appearances, and hasten to her side; although her connexion with our family would render that too strange. But you, Mrs. Raby, what should stop you? she is your niece—how vain to attempt to conceal this from the world—it must be known—through me, I fondly trust, it will be known—who shall claim her as Miss Raby—when, as Elizabeth Falkner, I could never see her more. And, when it is known, will not your desertion be censured? Be wise, be generous—win that noblest and gentlest heart by your kindness now, and the very act will be your reward. ”

“ Accept existence as an immediate gift from Heaven; and begin life, from this moment, with new hopes, new resolves. Whatever your error was, which you so bitterly repent, it belonged to another state of being. Your remorse, your resignation, has effaced it; or if any evil results remain, you will rather exert yourself to repair them—than uselessly to lament."
"To repair my error—my crime!" cried Falkner, in an altered voice, while a cloud gathered over his face; "no, no! that is impossible! never, till we meet in another life, can I offer reparation to the dead. ”

“ But there was more of the genuine attachment of mind for mind in her sentiment for Neville. Falkner was gloomy and self-absorbed. Elizabeth might grieve for, but she found it impossible to comfort him. With Gerard it was far otherwise. Elizabeth had opened in his soul an unknown spring of sympathy, to relieve the melancholy which had hitherto overwhelmed him. With her he gave way freely to the impulses of a heart which longed to mingle its hitherto checked stream of feeling with other and sweeter waters. In every way he excited her admiration as well as kindness. ”

“ It is with pride that we say that we endure the worst—there is a very freedom in the thought, that the animosity of all mankind is roused against us—and every engine set at work for our injury—no more can be done—the gulf is passed—the claw of the wild beast is on our heart—but the spirit soars more freely still. To this was added the singular relief which confession brings to the human heart. Guilt hidden in the recesses of the conscience assumes gigantic and distorted dimensions. When the secret is shared by another, it falls back at once into its natural proportion. ”

“ She had shed many tears for Alithea's untimely fate; for the virtues and happiness hurried to a mysterious end—buried in an untold grave. But she had her reward. Long had she been there, where there is no trouble, no strife—her pure soul received into the company of kindred angels. Her heroism would now be known; her actions justified; she would be raised above her sex in praise; her memory crowned with unfading glory. It was Falkner who needed the exertion of present service, to forgive and console. He must be raised from his self-abasement; his despair must be cured. ”

“ Now he was left alone—broken in health—dashed in spirit; consenting to live—wishing to live for Elizabeth's sake—yet haunted still by one pale ghost, and the knowledge that his bosom contained a secret which, if divulged, would acquire for him universal detestation. He did not fear discovery; but little do they know the human heart who are not aware of the throes of shame and anguish that attend the knowledge that we are in reality a cheat, that we disguise our own real selves, and that truth is our worst enemy. Left to himself, Falkner thought of these things with bitterness ”

“ To hear a beloved parent accused of guilt, must indeed be the most bitter wo; to believe her innocent, and to prove her such, the only alleviation. God grant that he may succeed!—and though I wish no ill to any human being, yet rather may the height of evil fall on the head of the true criminal, than continue to cloud the days of a being whose soul is moulded in sensibility and honour!"
"Thus do you pray, heedless Elizabeth! May the true criminal feel the height of evil; may he—whom you have saved from death—endure tortures compared to which a thousand deaths were nothing! ”

“ Oh, the happy days of Oakly! How had each succeeding hour been gilded by the pleasures of a nascent passion, of the existence of which she had never before dreamed—and these were fled for ever! It was impossible to feel assured of so sad a truth, and not to weep over the miserable blight. Elizabeth commanded herself to appear cheerful, but sadness crept over her solitary hours. She felt that the world had grown, from being a copy of paradise, into a land of labour and disappointment; where self-approbation was to be gained through self-sacrifice ”

“ He had been some weeks without receiving any from Elizabeth, and he felt extreme impatience again to be blessed with the sight of her handwriting—he felt how passionately he loved her—how to part from her was to part from every joy of life; he called himself her father—his heart acknowledged the tie in every pulsation; no father ever worshipped a child so fervently; her voice, her smile—and dear loving eyes, where were they?—they were far, but here was something—a little packet of letters, that must for the present stand in lieu of the dearer blessing of her presence. ”

“ At dawn she rose lightly from her bed, and looked out over the blue sea and rocky shore; she prayed, as she gazed, for the safety of her benefactor; and her thoughts, soaring to her mother in heaven, asked her blessing to descend upon her child. Morning was not so fresh as her, as she met its first sweet breath; and, cantering along the beach, she thought of Falkner—his absence, his toils and dangers—with resignation, mingled with a hope that warmed into an ardent desire to see him again. Surely there is no object so sweet as the young in solitude. ”

“ He looked upon the sleeping child, and began to conjecture whether he might not find in her the solace he needed. Should he not adopt her, mould her heart to affection, teach her to lean on him only, be all the world to her, while her gentleness and caresses would give life a charm—without which it were vain to attempt to endure existence?
He reflected what Elizabeth's probable fate would be if he restored her to her father's family. Personal experience had given him a horror for the forbidding, ostentatious kindness of distant relations. ”

“ If sickness or injury approach him, her heart is transfixed by terror: readily, joyfully, she would give her own blood to sustain him. The world is a hideous desert when she is threatened to be deprived of him; and when he is near, and she takes him to the shelter of her bosom, and wraps him in her soft, warm embrace, she cares for nothing beyond that circle; and his smiles and infantine caresses are the life of her life. Such a mother was Alithea; and in Gerard she possessed a son capable of calling forth in its intensity, and of fully rewarding, her maternal tenderness. ”

“ Elizabeth, for the first time in her life, grew a little discontented. "I sacrificed all to him," she thought, "yet I cannot make him happy. Love alone possesses the sceptre and arbitrary power to rule; every other affection admits a parliament of thoughts—and debate and divisions ensue, which may make us wiser, but which sadly derogates from the throned state of what we fancy a master sentiment. I cannot make Falkner happy; yet Neville is miserable through my endeavours—and to such struggle there is no end—my promised faith is inviolable, nor do I even wish to break it." ”

“ I am solicitous beyond measure that Miss Falkner should receive no false impression. Her image is before me, when I saw her first, pale in the agony of fear, bending over her dying father; by day and by night she forgot herself to attend on him. She who loves a parent so well can understand me better than any other. She, I am convinced, will form a true judgment. She will approve my perseverance, and share my doubts and fears; will she not? ask her—or am I too vain, too credulous? Is there in the whole world one creature who will join with me in my faith and my labours? You do not, Sophia ”

“ I should image your solitary wanderings, your lonely hours of sickness and suffering, and my peace of mind would be destroyed."
"It is true," said Falkner, "that I am more friendless than most men; yet I am not so weak and womanish that I need perpetual support. Your society is dear to me, dearer, God, who reads my heart, knows, than liberty or life; I shall return to that society, and again enjoy it; but, for a time, do not fear but that I can form such transitory ties as will prevent solitary suffering. Men and women abound who will feel benevolently towards the lonely stranger ”

“ Oh, what is life, that these dreams of youth and innocence should have conducted her to an untimely grave—him to a felon's cell! The thought came with a sharp pang; again he banished it, and the land of Greece, his perils, and his wanderings with Elizabeth on the shores of Zante, now replaced his other memories. He then bore a burden on his heart, which veiled with dark crape the glories of a sunny climate, the heart-cheering tenderness of his adopted child—this was less bitter, this meeting of fate, this atonement. ”

“ Miss Jervis was much of the latter; but the two served to form Elizabeth to something better than either. She learned from Falkner the uses of learning: from Miss Jervis she acquired the thoughts and experience of other men. Like all young and ardent minds, which are capable of enthusiasm, she found infinite delight in the pages of ancient history: she read biography, and speedily found models for herself, whereby she measured her own thoughts and conduct, rectifying her defects, and aiming at that honour and generosity which made her heart beat and cheeks glow when narrated of others. ”

“ There was poetry in his very essence; and enthusiasm for the ideal of the excellent gave his character a peculiar charm, to any one equally exalted and refined. His mother's decaying form lay beneath the sands on which he was stretched, death was there in its most hideous form; beauty, and even form had deserted that frame-work which once was the dear being, whose caresses, so warm and fond, it yet often thrilled him to remember. He had demanded from Heaven the revelation of his mother's fate, here he found it, here in the narrow grave lay the evidence of her virtues and her death ”

“ Petersburgh, Moscow, Odessa, Constantinople, through Hungary to Vienna. How many thousand miles! miles which, while he traversed, he could possess his soul in freedom—fear no scrutiny—be asked no insidious questions. He could look each man in the face, and none trace his crime in his own.
It was a wild scheme to make so young a child as Elizabeth the companion of these devious and long wanderings, yet it was her idea that shed golden rays on the boundless prospect he contemplated. He could not have undertaken this long journey alone—memory and remorse his only companions. ”

“ Neville, whether in her grave, or, in some obscure retreat, she grieves over the follies of her youth. She has been mourned for, as never mother was mourned before; but be reasonable, dear Elizabeth, and aid me in putting a stop to Gerard's insane career. You can, if you will; he reveres you—he would listen to you. Do not talk of mysterious hands, and Hamlet's ghost, and all that is to carry us away to Fairyland; but of the rational duties of life, and the proper aim of a man, to be useful to the living, and not spend the best years of his life in dreams of the dead. ”

“ And you, Alithea, how fondly, how sweetly did you encourage me—making that appear my duty which was the fulfilment of my wildest dreams of joy. Surely no being ever felt friendship as you have done—sympathizing even in the untold secrets of a timid heart—enjoying the happiness that you conferred with an ardour few can feel, even for themselves. Your transports of delight when you saw me, through your means, blessed, touched me with a gratitude that can never die. And do I show this by asking now for your pity, and saddening you by my grief? ”

“ As he went on, his pen lingered—he trembled to write the words, "Our friend, our Elizabeth, is the daughter of the destroyer." It was unnatural, it was impossible—the very thought added acrimony to his detestation of Falkner—it prevented the compassion his generous nature would otherwise have afforded, and yet roused every wish to spare him, as much as he might be spared, for his heroic daughter's sake. He felt deceived, trepanned, doomed. In after life we are willing to compromise with fate—to take the good with the bad—and are satisfied if we can at all lighten the burden of life. ”

“ I am aware," replied Lady Cecil. "This one good, at least, I have reaped from Sir Boyvill's angry visit. I am permitted to explain to you the causes of our discord, and of dear Gerard's sadness. I shall win your sympathy for him, and exculpate us both. It is a mournful tale—full of unexplainable mystery—shame—and dreaded ill. It fills me perpetually with wonder and regret; nor do I see any happy termination, except in the oblivion, in which I wish that it was buried. Here is the carriage. We will not take any of the children with us, that we may suffer no interruption." ”