Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

“ In Ethel's presence, indeed, he forgot all but her. He loved her fervently, and beheld in her all that he most admired in woman: her clearness of spirit, her singleness of heart, her unsuspicious and ingenuous disposition, were irresistibly fascinating;—and why not spend their lives thus in solitude?—his—their mutual fortune might afford this:—why not for ever thus—the happy—the beloved?—his life might pass like a dream of joy; and that paradise might be realized on earth, the impossibility of which philosophers have demonstrated, and worldlings scoffed at. ”

“ After the first burst of natural grief, Cornelia began to reflect that Lord Lodore might now imagine that every obstacle to their reconciliation was removed. She had looked upon her husband as her enemy and injurer; she had regarded him with indignation and fear;—but now she hated him. Strong aversion had sprung up, during the struggles of passion, in her bosom. She hated him as the eternal barrier between her and one who loved her with rare disinterestedness. The human heart must desire happiness;—in spite of every effort at resignation, it must aspire to the fulfilment of its wish. ”

“ What would this strange world be without that "touch of nature?" It is to the immaterial universe, what light is to the visible creation, scent to the flower, hue to the rainbow; hope, joy, succour, and self-forgetfulness, where otherwise all would be swallowed up in vacant and obscure egotism.
No one could approach Ethel without feeling that she possessed an irresistible charm. The overflowing and trusting affectionateness of her nature was a loadstone to draw all hearts. Each one felt, even without knowing wherefore, that it was happiness to obey, to gratify her. ”

“ All at once the world around grew dark and blank; at every instant his heart asked for Ethel. He thirsted for the sweet delight of gazing on her soft lustrous eyes, touching her hand, listening to her voice, whose tones were so familiar and beloved. He avoided his cousins to hide his regrets; he sought solitude, to commune with memory; and the intense desire kindled within him to return to her, was all but irresistible. He had received a letter from Horace Saville entreating him to join him at Naples; he had contemplated complying, as a means of obtaining forgetfulness. ”

“ The moon hung a glowing orb in the heavens, and lighted up the sea to beauty. A blood-red flash shot up now and then from Vesuvius; a summer softness was in the atmosphere, while a thousand tokens presented themselves of a climate more friendly, more joyous, and more redundant than that of the northern Isle from which they came. It was very late at night when they reached their hotel, and they were heartily fatigued, so that it was not till the next morning, that immediately after breakfast, Villiers left Ethel, and went out to seek the abode of his cousin. ”

“ For one moment they had been united in sentiment; one kindred emotion of perfect affection had, as it were, married their souls one to the other; at the alien sound of poor Bessy's voice the spell fled away on airy wings, leaving them disenchanted. The rudder was turned, the boat reached the shore, and unable to endure frivolous talk about any subject except the one so near his heart, Villiers departed and rode back to town, miserable yet most happy—despairing yet full of joy; to such a riddle, love, which finds its completion in sympathy, and knows no desire beyond, is the only solution. ”

“ This is a trite observation, yet it appears new when it comes home: what is lower, humbler, more despicable than a poor man? Give him learning, give him goodness—see him with manners acquired in poverty, habits dyed in the dusky hues of penury; and if we do not despise him, yet we do not admit him to our tables or society. Refinement may only be the varnish of the picture, yet it is necessary to make apparent to the vulgar eye even the beauties of Raphael."
"To the vulgar eye!" repeated Ethel, emphatically.
"And I seem one of those, by the way I speak," said Edward, smiling. ”

“ A few days found Ethel and her aunt installed at their little villa, and delighted to be away from London. Education made loneliness congenial to both: they might seek transient amusements in towns, or visit them for business; but happiness, the agreeable tenor of unvaried daily life, was to be found in the quiet of the country only;—and Richmond was the country to them; for, cut off from all habits of intercourse with their species, they had but to find trees and meadows near them, at once to feel transported, from the thick of human life, into the most noiseless solitude. ”

“ Are there any words by which I can lay bare my heart to you, Ethel?—None! To speak of my true and entire attachment, is almost an insult; and to tell you, that I tear myself from you for your own sake, sounds like impertinence. Yet all this is true; and it is the reverence that I have for your excellence, the idolatry which your singleness of heart and sincere nature inspires, which prompts me to speak the truth, though that be different from the usual language of gallantry, or what is called love. ”

“ Again and again he thanked her, in broken accents of expressive transport.
"Nothing in the whole world could make me unhappy now!" he cried; and Ethel, who had seen his face look elongated and gloomy at the moment he had entered, felt indeed that Medea, with all her potent herbs, was less of a magician than she, in the power of infusing the sparkling spirit of life into one human frame. It was long before either were coherent in their inquiries and replies. There was nothing, indeed, that either wished to know. Life, and its purposes, were fulfilled, rounded, complete, without a flaw. ”

“ Days, months sped on, and nothing reminded him of his relative wealth or poverty in a way to annoy him, till he knew Ethel. He had been interested for her in America—he had seen her, young and lovely, drowned in grief—sorrowing with the heart's first prodigal sorrow for her adored father. He had left her, and thought of her no more—except, as a passing reflection, that in the natural course of things, she was now to become the pupil of Lady Lodore, and consequently, that her unsophisticated feelings and affectionate heart would speedily be tarnished and hardened under her influence. ”

“ The presence of Saville elevated their pleasures; for he added the living spirit of poetry to their sensations, and associated the treasures of human genius with the sublime beauty of nature. He had a tact, a delicacy, a kind of electric sympathy in his disposition, that endeared him to every one that approached him. His very singularities, by keeping alive an interest in him, added to the charm. Sometimes he was so abstracted as to do the most absent things in the world; and the quick alternations of his gaiety and seriousness were often ludicrous from their excess. ”

“ Solitude is to me no evil, and the delight of my life would be to wait upon you. I am not therefore an object of pity, when fortunes deprives me of the appurtenances of wealth, which rather annoy than serve me. My devotion and sacrifice, as you are pleased to call the intense wish of my heart to contribute to your happiness, are nothing. I sacrifice all, when I give up one hour of your society—there is the sting—there the merit of my permitting you to go without me. ”

“ Far different was the happy Ethel's situation—far otherwise were her thoughts employed than in concealing the pangs of care and shame. The sense of right adorned the devotion of love. She read approbation in Edward's eyes, and drew near him in full consciousness of deserving it. They sat at their supper, and long after, by the cheerful fire, talking of a thousand things connected with the present and the future—the long, long future which they were to spend together; and every now and then their eyes sparkled with the gladness of renewed delight in seeing each other. ”

“ We hope for a better—we hope for Italy. Do you remember Rome and the Coliseum, my love?—Naples, the Chiaja, and San Carlo?—these were better than the savannas of the west. Our hopes are good; it is the present only which is so thorny, so worse than barren: like the souls of Dante, we have a fiery pass to get through before we reach our place of bliss; that we have it in prospect will gift us with fortitude. Meanwhile I must string myself to my task. Ethel, dearest, I shall go to town to-morrow. ”

“ Edward Villiers was eminently sociable in his disposition. He had been brought up in the thick of life, and knew not how to live apart from it. His frank and cordial heart danced within his bosom, when he was among those who sympathized with, and liked him. He was much courted in society, and had many favourites: and how Ethel would like these, and be liked by them, was a question he perpetually asked himself. He knew the worldliness of many,—their defective moral feeling, and their narrow views; but he believed that they were attached to him, and no man was ever less a misanthrope than he. ”

“ All nature reposed, and yet not as a lifeless thing, but with the same enjoyment of rest as gladdened the hearts of the two beings, who, with gratitude and love, drank in the influence of this softest hour of day. The equal splash of the oar, or its dripping when suspended, the clear reflection of tree and lawn in the river, the very colour of the stream, stolen as it was from heaven itself, the plash of the wings of the waterfowl who skimmed the waves towards their rushy nests,—every sound and every appearance was beautiful, harmonious, and soothing. ”

“ That tranquillity yet animation of spirit—that gratitude on closing her eyes at night—that glad anticipation of the morrow's sun—that absence of every harsh and jarring emotion, which is the disposition of the human soul the nearest that we can conceive to perfect happiness, and which now and then visits sad humanity, to teach us of what unmeasured and pure joy our fragile nature is capable, attended her existence, and made each hour of the day a new-born blessing. ”

“ She reviewed the happy days they had spent together—she dwelt on the memory of his unalterable affection and endearing kindness, and then tears rushed into her eyes. "Will any ill ever befall him?" she thought. "O no, none ever can! he must be rewarded for his goodness and his love. How dear he ought to be to me! Did he not take the poor friendless girl from solitude and grief; and disdaining neither her poverty nor her orphan state, give her himself, his care, his affection? O, my Edward! what would Ethel have been without you? ”

“ The beauty of a pastoral picture has but short duration in this cloudy land,—and happiness, the sun of our moral existence, is yet more fitful in its visitations. Villiers and his young wife took their accustomed ride through shady lanes and copses, and through parks, where, though the magnificent features of nature were wanting, the eye was delighted by a various prospect of wood and lawny upland. The soft though wild west wind drove along vast masses of snowy clouds, which displayed in their intervals the deep stainless azure of the boundless sky. ”

“ We fancy then, that if our present and first hope is disappointed, our lives are a mere blank, not worth a "pin's fee;" the singleness of our hearts has not been split into the million hair-like differences, which, woven by time into one texture, clothes us in prudence as with a garment. We are as if exposed naked to the action of passions and events, and receive their influence with keen and fearful sensitiveness. Ethel scarcely heard, and did not listen to nor understand, the change of circumstances that brought Villiers back to her—she only knew, that he was confirmed her own. ”

“ She delivered herself up to a calm reliance upon the future, and saw in the interweaving of duty and affection, the fulfilment of her destiny, and the confirmation of her earthly happiness. They were to be joined never to part more! While each breathed the breath of life, no power could sever them; health or sickness, prosperity or adversity—these became mere words; her health and her riches were garnered in his heart, and while she bestowed the treasures of her affection upon him, could he be poor? ”

“ The good lady longed to go out herself to see if she could not reap equal delight from viewing the grouping of trees, whose various autumnal tints were painted in Ethel's speech with hues too bright for earth, or to discover what there could be so extraordinarily picturesque in a moss-grown cottage, near a brook, with a high bank clothed with wood behind, which she believed must be one Dame Nixon's cottage, in the Vale of Bewling, and which she knew she must have passed a thousand times, and yet she had never noticed its beauty. ”

“ LODORE
CHAPTER I
Excellent creature! whose perfections make
Even sorrow lovely! BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
Mr. Villiers now became the constant visitor of Mrs. Elizabeth and her niece; and all discontent, all sadness, all listlessness, vanished in his presence. There was in his mind a constant spring of vivacity, which did not display itself in mere gaiety, but in being perfectly alive at every moment, and continually ready to lend himself to the comfort and solace of his companions. Sitting in their dingy London house, the spirit of dulness had drawn a curtain between them and the sun ”

“ Lady Lodore had, in the very brightness of her earliest youth, selected a proud and independent position. She had refused to bend to her husband's will, or to submit to the tyranny, as she named it, which he had attempted to exercise. Youth is bold and fearless. The forked tongue of scandal, the thousand ills with which woman is threatened in society, without a guide or a protector—all the worldly considerations which might lead her to unite herself again to her husband, she had rejected with unbounded disdain. ”