William Carleton

“ Yes, mamma, both are painted on that serene brow; for no art of the limner could conceal their mournful traces, nor remove the veil of sorrow which an unhappy destiny threw over your beauty. There, in that clear and gentle eye, is still the image of your love and sympathy—there is that smile so full of sweetness and suffering. Alas, alas! how closely do we resemble each other in all things. Sweet and blessed saint, if it be permitted, descend and let your spirit be with me—to guide, to soothe, and to support me; your task will not be a long one, beloved parent. ”

“ Who has not experienced the gentle and serene influence of a calm spring evening? and perhaps there is not in the whole circle of the seasons anything more delightful than the exquisite emotion with which a human heart, not hardened by vice, or contaminated by intercourse with the world, is softened into tenderness and a general love for the works of God, by the pure spirit which breathes of holiness, at the close of a fine evening in the month of March or April.
The season of spring is, in fact, the resurrection of nature to life and happiness. ”

“ It is a shadow, a deception; a thing, like religion, that has no existence, but takes our senses, our interests, and our passions, and works with them under its own mask. Yet why am I afraid of my daughter? and why do I, in my heart, reverence her as a being so far superior to myself? Why is it that I could murder—ay, murder—this worthless object that thrust himself, or would thrust himself, or might thrust himself, between me and the hereditary honors of my name, were it not that her very presence, if I did it, would, I feel, overpower and paralyze me with a sense of my guilt? ”

“ I say in this, because it is now, when all about me is darkness, and pain, and suffering, that I feel the consolation which arises from our trust in another. This consolation, however, though true, is sad, and the very joy it gives is melancholy, because it arises from that mysterious change which withdraws us from existence; and when it leads us to happiness we cannot forget that it is through the gate of the grave. But still it is a consolation, and a great one—to a sufferer like me, the only one—we must all die. ”

“ You seldom jest, papa; but I hope you do so now.”
“I am not disposed to make a jest of your happiness, Miss Gourlay.”
“Nor of my misery, papa. You surely cannot but know—nay, you cannot but feel—that a marriage between me and Lord Dunroe is impossible. His profligacy is so gross, that his very name is indelicate in the mouth of a modest woman. And is this the man to whom you would unite your only child and daughter? But I trust you still jest, sir. As a man, and a gentleman, much less as a parent, you would not think seriously of making such a proposal to me?” ”

“ Mamma, sir, was all truth, all goodness, all affection. She was at once an angel and a martyr, and I will not hear her blessed memory insulted by the very man who, above all others, ought to protect and revere it. I am not, papa, to be intimidated by looks. If it be our duty to defend the absent, is it not ten thousand times more so to defend the dead? Shall a daughter hear with acquiescence the memory of a mother, who would have died for her, loaded with obloquy and falsehood? ”

“ I perceive you are excited, Miss Gourlay; but, believe me, all this sentimental affection for another will soon disappear after marriage, as it always does; and your eyes will become open to a sense of your enviable position. Yes, indeed, you will live to wonder at these freaks of a heated imagination; and I have no doubt the day will come when you will throw your arms about my neck, and exclaim, 'My dear Dunroe, or Cullamore (you will then be my countess, I hope) , what a true prophet you have been! And what a proof it was of your good sense to overcome my early folly! ”

“ I was unhappy; unhappy, not only in my present wife, but in the recollection of the gentle and affectionate Maria. I now felt the full enormity of my crime against that patient and angelic being. Her memory began to haunt me—her virtues were ever in my thoughts; her quiet, uncomplaining submission, her love, devotion, tenderness, all rose up in fearful array against me, until I felt that the abiding principle of my existence was a deep remorse, that ate its way into my happiness day by day, and has never left me through my whole subsequent life. ”

“ There is scarcely a profession, or a passion, or a vanity in life, which has not here its representative. Law, religion, physic, the arts, the sciences, all contribute their share to this melancholy picture gallery. Avarice, love, ambition, pride, jealousy, having overgrown the force of reason, are here, as its ideal skeletons, wild and gigantic—fretting, gambolling, moping, grinning, raving, and vaporing—each wrapped in its own Vision, and indifferent to all the influence of the collateral faculties. There, now, is a man, moping about, the very picture of stolidity ”

“ Many a girl, I am sorry to say, would forget Dunroe's profligacy in his rank. Many a girl, in contemplating the man, could see nothing but the coronet; for ambition—the poorest, the vainest, and the most worthless of all kinds of ambition—that of rank, title, the right of precedence—is unfortunately cultivated as a virtue in the world of fashion, and as such it is felt. Be it so, Charles; let me remain unfashionable and vulgar. Perish the title if not accompanied by worth; fling the gaudy coronet aside if it covers not the brow of probity and honor. ”

“ We meet in death. You are now with our mother; and Lucy, your sister, whom you never saw, will soon join you. You are gone! Your wearied and broken spirit fled from disgrace and sorrow. Yes; I shall soon meet you, where your lips will not be passive to the embraces of a sister, and where your eyes will not be closed against those looks of affection and tenderness which she was prepared to give you, but which you could not receive. ”

“ Honest indifference has no intrigues, no elopements, no disgraceful trials for criminal conversation, no divorces. No; your lovers in the yoke of matrimony, when they tilt with each other, do it sharply, with naked weapons; whereas, the worthy indifferents, in the same circumstances, have a wholesome regard for each other, and rattle away only with the scabbards. Upon my honor, Miss Gourlay, I am quite delighted to hear that you are not attached to me. I can now marry upon my own principles. It is not my intention to coax, and fondle, and tease you after marriage ”

“ You have been guilty of great crimes, but you will be guiltier of a greater and a darker still. I read that in your coward spirit, for I know you well. I also am revenged, but I have been punished; and my own sufferings have taught me to feel that I am still a woman. I loved you once—I hated you long; but now I pity you. Yes, Thomas Gourlay, she whom you drove to madness, and imposture, and misery, for long years, can now look down upon you with pity! ”

“ The vengeance which he felt against that individual lay like a black venomous snake coiled round his heart. The loss of the money and the fire-arms he might overlook, but the man, who, in a few moments, taught him to know himself as he was—who dangled him, as it were, over the very precipice of hell—with all his iniquities upon his head, the man who made him feel the crimes of a whole life condensed into one fearful moment, and showed them to him darkened into horror by the black lightning of perdition; such a man, we say, he could never forgive. ”

“ It is said that when a person hanging by some weak branch from the brow of a precipice finds it beginning to give way, and that the plunge below is unavoidable, a certain courage, gained from despair, not only diminishes the terror of the fall, but relieves the heart by a bold and terrible feeling that for the moment banishes fear, and reconciles him to his fate.”
“It is a dreadful analogy, my dear Lucy; but you must take comfort. Who knows what a day may bring forth? You are not yet hanging upon the precipice of life.” ”

“ I ask again, Papa, are you generally happy? Yet you are in possession of all the wealth and property you speak of.”
“Tut, nonsense, silly child! Nothing is more ridiculous than to hear a girl like you, that ought to have no will but mine, reasoning like a philosopher.”
“But, dear papa,” proceeded Lucy, “if you should persist in marrying me to a profligate, merely because he is a nobleman—oh, how often is that honorable name prostituted!—and could give me a title, don't you see how wretched I should be, and how completely your wealth and property would fail to secure my happiness?” ”

“ Nothing could be more delightful, nor, at the same time, more dangerous, than to watch that countenance whilst moving under the influence of melancholy, and to observe how quickly the depths of feeling, or the impulses of tenderness, threw their delicious shadows into its expression—unless, indeed, to watch the same face when lit up by humor, and animated into radiance by mirth. Such is a faint outline of Lucy Gourlay, who, whether in shadow or whether in light, was equally captivating and irresistible. ”

“ Had her child died in her arms—had she closed its innocent eyes with her own hands, and given the mother's last kiss to those pale lips on which the smile of affection was never more to sit—had she been able to go, and, in the fulness of her childless heart, pour her sorrow over his grave—she would have felt that his death, compared with the darkness and uncertainty by which she was enveloped, would have been comparatively a mitigated dispensation, for which the heart ought to feel almost thankful. ”

“ Have pity on me, then, Lord Dunroe. Go to my father, and tell him that you will not be a consenting party to my misery—and accessory to my death. Say what is true; that as I neither do nor can love you, the honor of a gentleman, and the spirit of a man, equally forbid you to act ungenerously to me and dishonorably to yourself. What man, not base and mean, and sunk farther down in degradation of spirit than contempt could reach him, would for a moment think of marrying a woman who, like me, can neither love nor honor him? Go, my lord ”

“ The baronet appeared to be divided between two states of feeling so equally balanced as to leave him almost without the power of utterance. He walked, he paused, he looked at Crackenfudge as if he would speak, then resumed his step with a hasty and rapid stride that betokened the depth of what he felt.
“Well, Crackenfudge,” he said, “your intelligence, after all, is but mere smoke. I thought the fellow in the inn was something beyond the rank of clerk to a tooth-brush maker; he is not worth our talk, neither is that madman Fenton. ”

“ The integrity of my life is beyond your power, the serenity of my conscience beyond your vengeance. You are not of my flock, but if you were, I would say, Sir Thomas, I fear you are a bold, bad man, and have much to repent of in connection with your past and present life—much reparation to make to your fellow-creatures. Yes; I would say, Sir Thomas Gourlay, the deep tempest of strong passions within you has shaken your powerful frame until it totters to its fall. ”

“ All this, however, though inexpressibly painful to me as your daughter, I could overlook without one word of reply; but I never will allow you to cast foul and cowardly reproach upon the memory of the best of mothers—upon the memory of a wife of whom, father, you were unworthy, and whom, to my own knowledge, your harshness and severity hurried into a premature grave. Oh, never did woman pay so dreadful a penalty for suffering herself to be forced into marriage with a man she could not love, and who was unworthy of her affection! ”

“ You are not forced into a marriage with one who possesses not a single sentiment or principle of virtue or honor in common with yourself. No; you are merely—I deprived of a woman whom you love; but you are not forced into marriage with a woman, abandoned and unprincipled, whom you hate. Yes, Charles, you must take comfort, as I said, from the difference of our fates.”
“What, Lucy! do you mean to say I can take comfort from your misery? Am I so selfish or ungenerous as to thank God that you, whose happiness I prefer a thousand times to my own, are more miserable than I am? ”

“ My lord, I implore you to spare me; force me not over the brow of this dreadful precipice; have compassion on me—have generosity—act with honor.”
“I would crown you with honor, if I could, Miss Gourlay.”
“You are about to crown me with fire, my lord; to wring my spirit with torture; to drive me into distraction—despair—madness. But you will not do so. You know that I cannot love you. I am not to blame for this; our affections are not always under our own control. ”

“ Lucy, whilst one spark of mortal life is alive in my body, whilst memory can remember the dreams of only the preceding moment, whilst a single faculty of heart or intellect remains by which your image can be preserved, I shall cling to that image as the shipwrecked sailor would to the plank that bears him through the midnight storm—as a despairing soul would to the only good act of a wicked life that he could plead for his salvation. ”

“ Alley Mahon's grief was loud; Lady Gourlay, Mrs. Mainwaring, Lady Emily, all were in tears.
“I am proud to see this,” said Sir Thomas, bowing, as if he were bound to thank them, and attempting, with his usual tact, to turn their very sympathy into a hollow and untruthful compliment; “I am proud to see this manifestation of strong attachment to my daughter; it is a proof of how she is loved.”
Lucy had not once opened her lips. She had not strength to do so; her very voice had abandoned her. ”