Elizabeth Lavenza

“ Elizabeth rose on the following morning, her bosom glowing with a sensation of acknowledged happiness. So much of young love brooded in her heart, as quickened its pulsations, as gave lightness and joy to her thoughts. ”

“ Sweet and beloved Elizabeth! I read and re-read her letter, and some softened feelings stole into my heart, and dared to whisper paradisaical dreams of love and joy; but the apple was already eaten, and the angel's arm bared to drive me from all hope. Yet I would die to make her happy. If the monster executed his threat, death was inevitable; yet, again, I considered whether my marriage would hasten my fate. ”

“ Thus the poor sufferer tried to comfort others and herself. She indeed gained the resignation she desired. But I, the true murderer, felt the never-dying worm alive in my bosom, which allowed of no hope or consolation. Elizabeth also wept and was unhappy, but hers also was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides but cannot tarnish its brightness. Anguish and despair had penetrated into the core of my heart; I bore a hell within me which nothing could extinguish. ”

“ I could not answer. "No, Justine," said Elizabeth; "he is more convinced of your innocence than I was; for even when he heard that you had confessed, he did not credit it."
"I truly thank him. In these last moments I feel the sincerest gratitude towards those who think of me with kindness. How sweet is the affection of others to such a wretch as I am! It removes more than half my misfortune; and I feel as if I could die in peace, now that my innocence is acknowledged by you, dear lady, and your cousin." ”

“ My journey had been my own suggestion, and Elizabeth therefore acquiesced, but she was filled with disquiet at the idea of my suffering, away from her, the inroads of misery and grief. It had been her care which provided me a companion in Clerval—and yet a man is blind to a thousand minute circumstances which call forth a woman’s sedulous attention. She longed to bid me hasten my return; a thousand conflicting emotions rendered her mute as she bade me a tearful, silent farewell. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As the period fixed for our marriage drew nearer, whether from cowardice or a prophetic feeling, I felt my heart sink within me. But I concealed my feelings by an appearance of hilarity, that brought smiles and joy to the countenance of my father, but hardly deceived the ever-watchful and nicer eye of Elizabeth. She looked forward to our union with placid contentment, not unmingled with a little fear, which past misfortunes had impressed, that what now appeared certain and tangible happiness, might soon dissipate into an airy dream, and leave no trace but deep and everlasting regret. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To the light-hearted Burmese woman, to whom the marriage tie even with a man of her own race is not a binding cord, these “marriages for a day” are not always things of tragedy, but the curse falls heavily upon the child if there should be one. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The summer wanes and autumn is upon us with all its mists and
shadows of purple and grey. The camphor-trees look from the
distance like great balls of fire, and the eucalyptus-tree, in its dress of
brilliant yellow, is a gaily painted court lady. If one short glimpse of
thee my heart could gladden, then all my soul would be filled with the
beauty of this time, these days of red and gold. But now I seek thee
the long night through, and turn to make my arm thy pillow-- but thou
art gone.
I am thy wife who longs for thee. ”

“ Elizabeth was sad and desponding; she no longer took delight in her ordinary occupations; all pleasure seemed to her sacrilege toward the dead; eternal woe and tears she then thought was the just tribute she should pay to innocence so blasted and destroyed. She was no longer that happy creature, who in earlier youth wandered with me on the banks of the lake, and talked with ecstasy of our future prospects. The first of those sorrows which are sent to wean us from the earth, had visited her, and its dimming influence quenched her dearest smiles. ”

“ Elizabeth is looking down upon the asphodels, stooping to stroke, as if it were a sentient thing, a great plumy plant, like a sort of glorified fennel, out of whose fluthery breast a puissant sheath rises, from which an unfamiliar flower is pushing. What a fascination there is in this alien vegetation, in which every shut calyx holds a delightful secret!
Shall he? For himself, he believes her story implicitly, feeling, indeed, with a shock of mixed surprise and remorse, what a past want of faith in her is evidenced by his unspeakable relief at its being no worse a one. ”

“ Elizabeth was formed to be alive to the better part of love. Her enthusiasm gave ideality, her affectionate disposition warmth, to all her feelings. She loved Falkner, and that with so much truth and delicacy, yet fervour of passion, that scarcely could her virgin heart conceive a power more absolute, a tie more endearing, than the gratitude she had vowed to him; yet she intimately felt the difference that existed between her deep-rooted attachment for him she named and looked on as her father, and the spring of playful, happy, absorbing emotions that animated her intercourse with Neville. ”

“ Her husband does not seem to have attached much importance to his wife's escapades. He knew her craving for excitement, how short a time, as a rule, her fancies lasted, how, as soon as anything ceased to be new and rare, she grew tired of it, and therefore thought her infatuation for Byron would die a natural and speedy death, and that it was better to laugh at it or ignore it than to treat it seriously. ”

“ Elizabeth could never address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over, and though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the sake of what had been, rather than what was. ”

“ But Lady Caroline, with all her cleverness, was no artist in life, and did not realise that true wisdom and happiness resided in making the most of what she possessed, and that the thing for her to do was to occupy herself with her husband and child. ”

“ Elizabeth alone had the power to draw me from these fits; her gentle voice would soothe me when transported by passion and inspire me with human feelings when sunk in torpor. She wept with me and for me. When reason returned, she would remonstrate and endeavour to inspire me with resignation. Ah! It is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace. The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in indulging the excess of grief.
Soon after my arrival my father spoke of my immediate marriage with Elizabeth. ”

“ Lavender is very unhappy. She is left alone; she knows no one in London; perhaps she does not care to join much in those social amusements that her husband enjoys. I say this poor girl is an old friend of mine; I cannot help trying to do something to make her less wretched; and so I have ventured to come to you to see if you could assist me. Mr. Lavender comes very much to your house, and Sheila is left all by herself ”

“ Elizabeth soon perceived, that though this great lady was not in commission of the peace of the county, she was a most active magistrate in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her by Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to be quarrelsome, discontented, or too poor, she sallied forth into the village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony and plenty. ”

“ Father Jean—one takes him to have been a tolerant, gently wise old gentleman—could see no harm. That is, if Madame Lavigne could afford the luxury. Maybe it was a good fairy. Would bring her luck. And certain it is that the cackling of Madame's hens was heard more often than before, and the weeds seemed fewer in the little patch of garden that Madame Lavigne had rescued from the moor. ”

“ Miss Bingley was very deeply mortified by Darcy's marriage; but as she thought it advisable to retain the right of visiting at Pemberley, she dropt all her resentment; was fonder than ever of Georgiana, almost as attentive to Darcy as heretofore, and paid off every arrear of civility to Elizabeth.
Pemberley was now Georgiana's home; and the attachment of the sisters was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each other even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion in the world of Elizabeth; ”

“ I said, "little happiness remains for us on earth; yet all that I may one day enjoy is centred in you. Chase away your idle fears; to you alone do I consecrate my life, and my endeavours for contentment. I have one secret, Elizabeth, a dreadful one; when revealed to you, it will chill your frame with horror, and then, far from being surprised at my misery, you will only wonder that I survive what I have endured. I will confide this tale of misery and terror to you the day after our marriage shall take place; for, my sweet cousin, there must be perfect confidence between us. ”

“ The beauty of the colour of mule and rider, the black and gold housings of that white beast, the lilac of the rider’s robes, and the tender glory of the embossed Cross—how these things enchant me! An attendant took the Cross as the priest dismounted. Then a flourish of modern Zouave bugles and a sharp roll of the drum intruded the forgotten present day on our notice, and soon on came the gallant gendarmerie and dragoons, and then the coach of His Holiness, seeming to bubble over with molten gold in the sunshine. ”

“ She led the way with the accustomed step of one who knew and loved the place. They came to a marble seat, half hidden by a tangle of vines and scarlet blossoms, and sheltered by overhanging oleander branches, and she sat down and moved her skirts aside that he might sit close to her. Her brown eyes, raised now to his hungry gray ones, looked at him with the softened brilliance he had sometimes seen in those of a happy child. ”

“ It may be easily believed, that however little of novelty could be added to their fears, hopes, and conjectures, on this interesting subject, by its repeated discussion, no other could detain them from it long, during the whole of the journey. From Elizabeth's thoughts it was never absent. Fixed there by the keenest of all anguish, self-reproach, she could find no interval of ease or forgetfulness. ”

“ Harry sat in a window-seat with Eliza Brooks and listened, and talked between the songs, and always the talk turned upon the fair Lavinia Creevy, although at last Eliza spoke of Isabel Done. “How the young men cluster about her! It is like bees around a cherry blossom,” said she.
Harry gave a start and a quick frown, and looked at the cousin whose fair head gleamed dully among her swarm of admiring swains. Then his face relaxed as Eliza spoke again of the fair Lavinia. ”

“ This time Elizabeth Ann didn’t answer, because she herself didn’t know what the matter was. But I do, and I’ll tell you. The matter was that never before had she known what she was doing in school. She had always thought she was there to pass from one grade to another, and she was ever so startled to get a little glimpse of the fact that she was there to learn how to read and write and cipher and generally use her mind, so she could take care of herself when she came to be grown-up. ”

“ He was directly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing that he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down the room together, with either of which motives his joining them would interfere. "What could he mean? She was dying to know what could be his meaning?"—and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him?
"Not at all," was her answer; "but depend upon it, he means to be severe on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing about it." ”

“ LADY PALMERSTON was one of the favourites of fortune. Born of a distinguished family, sister of one Prime Minister and wife of another, the trusted confidante of both, endowed by nature with beauty and charm, with keen intelligence and sprightly wit, she was a queen of society from eighteen to eighty, and for the last thirty years of that period an important factor, through her husband, in the great political affairs of the world. ”