Vanessa

“ Vanessa insensibly became his pupil, and he insensibly became the object of her impassioned affection. Her letters reveal a spirit full of ardour and enthusiasm, and warped by that perverse bent which leads so many women to prefer a tyrant to a companion. Swift, on the other hand, was devoid of passion. Of friendship, even of tender regard, he was fully capable, but not of love. The spiritual realm, whether in divine or earthly things, was a region closed to him, where he had never set foot. As a friend he must have greatly preferred Stella to Vanessa. ”

“ Wherein his genius was below The skill of every common beau, Who, though he cannot spell, is wise Enough to read a lady's eyes, And will each accidental glance Interpret for a kind advance. But what success Vanessa met, Is to the world a secret yet. Whether the nymph, to please her swain, Talks in a high romantic strain; Or whether he at last descends To act with less seraphic ends; Or to compound the business, whether They temper love and books together; Must never to mankind be told, Nor shall the conscious Muse unfold. Meantime the mournful Queen of Love Led but a weary life above. ”

“ He was agitated, as all "clean-minded" young men are, whose amorous passions have for once got the better of their qualms, and he breathed very heavily,—rather like a draft-ox at the turn of the plough. He was gauche, timid, thoroughly unskilled in the art of wooing, not even up to the wiles of the most guileless male animal or bird; and Vanessa felt only a sensation of extreme discomfiture as he blurted out his longings to her. ”

“ Swift's are found pretty often in Vanessa's parlour. He likes to be admired and adored. He finds Miss Vanhomrigh to be a woman of great taste and spirit, and beauty and wit, and a fortune too. He sees her every day; he does not tell Stella about the business: until the impetuous Vanessa becomes too fond of him, until the doctor is quite frightened by the young woman's ardour, and confounded by her warmth. ”

“ Vanhomrigh, Vanessa's mother, was the widow of a Dutch merchant who held lucrative appointments in King William's time. The family settled in London in 1709, and had a house in Bury Street, St. James's—a street made notable by such residents us Swift and Steele; and, in our own time, Moore and Crabbe.53.“Vanessa was excessively vain. The character given of her by Cadenus is fine painting, but in general fictitious. She was fond of dress; impatient to be admired; very romantic in her turn of mind; superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex; full of pertness, gaiety, and pride ”

“ If we assume a secret marriage with Stella, indeed, the subsequent portion of the Vanessa story becomes more explicable. On this assumption we are to imagine Swift continuing his letters to Vanessa, and his occasional visits to her at Selbridge on the old footing, for some years after the marriage, with the undivulged secret ever in his mind, increasing tenfold his former awkwardness in encountering her presence. ”

“ Nothing beneath that fierce August sun escaped the keen comprehending eye of Vanessa Vollenberg. The mother and the two daughters with whom she found her present lot cast, gave her food enough for meditation and secret comment; but while their acumen and penetration were hardly inferior to her own, she felt an adult among people not completely grown up. It was as if they still retained more of the ingenuousness of primitive womanhood than she, and thus she "circumnavigated" them, while they, all too self-centred, had barely discovered in which hemisphere her shores were to be found. ”

“ Vanessa who was the only person present whose nimble mind foresaw Lord Henry's conclusion, cheered at this point.
"Very well, then," he continued. "A man who casts his thought or his emotion into a poetical or mnemonic form, implies that he is dealing with thoughts or emotions that are important or vital enough to be remembered. If they fall short of this standard, he is dressing asses in lions' skins!"
Stephen and Vanessa looked at each other and smiled approvingly. ”

“ Vanessa, besides musing over her unhappy attachment, had, during her residence in this solitude, the care of nursing the declining health of her younger sister, who at length died about 1720. This event, as it left her alone in the world, seems to have increased the energy of her fatal passion for Swift, while he, on the contrary, saw room for still greater reserve, when her situation became that of a solitary female without the society or countenance of a female relation. ”

“ He employed mythology, as we put on a wig, ill-timed, wearily and scornfully. His best piece, "Cadenus and Vanessa," [696] is a poor, threadbare allegory. To praise Vanessa, he supposes that the nymphs and shepherds pleaded before Venus, the first against men, the second against women; and that Venus, wishing to end the debates, made in Vanesso a model of perfection. What can such a conception furnish but flat apostrophes and pedantic comparisons? Swift, who elsewhere gives a recipe for an epic poem, is here the first to make use of it. ”

“ Swift has been severely blamed for continuing his connexion with Vanessa after his marriage with Stella: But be it remembered, that though in this point he erred, his motive was such as, though it could not justify, certainly palliated the crime. He wanted resolution mortally to wound the peace of one who loved so well. Justice and nature contested the point; and those who in this instance may censure, cannot regret the triumph of the latter. It is likewise more than probable, that one of the motives which induced Swift to conceal his marriage, was a wish to spare Vanessa so severe a pang ”

“ Swift with the eyes of love."
Whoever compares this picture, with that drawn for Vanessa in the poem, will hardly conceive it possible that they should both be copies of the same original. In the one, she is represented as a model of perfection, adorned with every grace and virtue that could raise her above her sex: in the other as not possessed of one good quality, either of mind or person, and replete with such foibles, and bad dispositions, as must degrade her to the lowest rank. ”

“ Some biographers say that at her urgence a form of marriage was solemnized between them (1716) ; but if so, it was undeclared and unregarded. Vanessa, too, has her tortures; she has knowledge of Stella and her friend, and of their attitude with respect to the deanery; so, in a moment of high, impetuous daring, she writes off to Mistress Hester Johnson asking what rights she has over her friend the Dean? Poor Stella wilts at this blow; but is stirred to an angry woman’s reply, making (it is said) avowal of the secret marriage. To the Dean, who is away, she encloses Vanessa’s letter ”

“ At length, however, Vanessa's impatience prevailed, and she ventured on the decisive step of writing to Mrs Johnson herself, requesting to know the nature of that connection. Stella, in reply, informed her of her marriage with the dean; and, full of the highest resentment against 184 Swift for having given another female such a right on him as Miss Vanhomrigh's inquiries implied, she sent to him her rival's letter of interrogation, and, without seeing him or awaiting his reply, retired to the house of Mr Ford, near Dublin. Every reader knows the consequence. ”

“ No uncomfortable accidents ever happened to her. Blacks never settled on her face, the buttons never came off her gloves, she never lost her umbrella, and in the windiest weather no loose untidy wisps escaped from her thick heavy shining hair to wander unbecomingly round the ears that were pearly and pink like the little shells of Vanessae. ”

“ Like most larvæ of the genus Vanessa, these caterpillars are extremely voracious and soon eat themselves out of house and home. Those feeding on the tree nettle have an unlimited supply of leaves available both for food and shelter, but in the case of larvæ, which are dependent on the dwarf nettle for their supplies, no doubt individuals must occasionally die of starvation, as we sometimes observe large patches of the Urtica incisa completely destroyed by the larvæ of this butterfly. ”

“ Since she was fourteen, for seven years, this had been her life. A life as open to the public as the life of an actress, as easy of access as that of the stenographer in the hotel lobby. As a result, the girl had encased herself in a defensive armor of hardness and distrust, a protection which was rendered futile by the loveliness of her face, by the softness of her voice, by the deep, brooding eyes, and the fine forehead on which, like a crown, rested the black waves of her hair.
In her work Vera accepted, without question, the parts to which Vance assigned her. ”

“ Jean said little. In her own hour of blackness she had discovered the futility of words, but in a hundred quiet, exquisitely tactful ways she forced upon Vanna the importance of what remained: of the place which she occupied in so many lives; of her own love and need.
“You will never know what you have been to me, Vanna! I have often wanted to tell you; but it isn’t easy to speak of these things. I think after one has married and settled down, one needs a woman friend more than ever. There is so much that even the best and tenderest of men can’t understand. ”

“ Oh, dear! the blindness of men.”
“And the strangeness of women!” Vanna looked at her with her tender, whimsical smile. “You believed it yourself at the time, dear girl. I can imagine how eloquent you would be. No wonder poor Robert was convinced. I was overcome with admiration for you that first week, but being a woman, I knew that the reaction must come. That’s inevitable; but you must live up to yourself, Jean; you’ve created a precedent by being magnificently brave, and you must keep it up.”
“I—can’t!” said Jean, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. ”

“ Vanna shivered, but she held herself erect, and took no heed of the hand held out towards her. She looked round the beautiful, luxurious room, at the glowing stained-glass window, which shut out the grey aspect of the outer world, and as she did so, bitterness arose. Once more the knife-edged question cleft her heart. Why should the ugliness of life be turned into colour and beauty for one traveller, while the other might not even take to herself a crumb of life’s feast without reproach and misgiving? A moment before she had craved for Jean’s sympathy ”

“ The old woman looked at the young one with a long, questioning glance.
“Yes, dear child! I have seen it, and wondered. But you are so young still, and your life is ahead. We shall see you happy like Jean, starting your home with a fine young husband—”
“No!” Vanna held up a warning hand. “Miggles, you have confided in me. I’ll tell you something about myself, but you must never allude to it again. It doesn’t bear speaking of. There is a reason why I can never marry. I can’t tell you what it is, but it is fixed—irrevocable. I shall never be happy like Jean.” ”

“ But Vanna did not answer. Her head fell forward until her face was hidden from sight; her hands burned within his. She was a woman, and for the moment there was no place in her heart for Piers’s lofty self-abnegation. A spiritual love—self-sacrifice and suffering in the hope of future bliss! And she was to be strong and brave, and help him when he failed; she, who was filled with a passion of longing for the dear, human, everyday joys; to whom for the moment they towered above the far-off, spiritual gain. The woman’s birthright of intuition revealed the future with flashlight clarity. ”

“ She wanted to be happy herself—longed to be happy. The selfless life sounded barren and cold; it roused no flicker of joy. “How shall I bear it?” asked Vanna of herself. “How can I live, looking on, always looking on, having no part? Even to-day with Jean—my darling Jean—and that strange man, I felt sore and angry and—bad! He thought me a cross, ungracious girl. His opinion does not matter, but other people will think so too if I behave in the same way; and that would be terrible. I could not exist if people did not care for me. In self-defence I must overcome. ”

“ You ought always to wear a rose,” Vanna said, holding out a bowl of fragrant blooms for approval, and Jean obeyed, casting the while a smilingly defiant glance at the angular woman who sat knitting near at hand. If ever the word spinster was written large over a human creature, it was written over Mrs Goring, wife of the genial Philip, and stepmother to his daughter Jean. Yet she was not only a wife, but a mother, and her husband and the two growing schoolboys regarded her with a sincere if somewhat prosaic affection. ”

“ I am afraid I have not rightly treated my motherless child, Octavia. She has never seen you; never been at home since you became mistress here. I fear that the poor child will think her exile due to your influence, to speak frankly, dear, and that she will regard you with dislike and bitterness, instead of the trust and confidence I want her to feel in you. You are both so dear to me that I shall be unhappy if you do not love each other.”
[36]
“There is time enough to form the acquaintance after Neva leaves school,” said Lady Wynde. “She is but a child yet.” ”

“ That night Vanna lay awake long after lying down, living over again the dramatic happening of the last few days.
“‘It’s a mad world, my masters,’” she said to herself between a smile and a sigh. “No sooner do I receive a sentence of celibacy for life than I am promptly introduced to a new and interesting personality, a nice man, a superlatively nice man, a man, moreover, who shows every sign of returning the compliment and thinking me a superlatively nice girl into the bargain—when, presto! he discovers himself in the light of Jean’s future husband. ”