CHAPTER XIV.If any indifferent person approach us, it either is disagreeable, or at least unimportant; but when it is a person we love, it thrills through the heart, and we are unable to speak or to think. Could she have imagined, that Lord Glenarvon felt for her, she had been lost. But that was impossible; and yet his manner;—it was so marked, there could be no doubt. She was inexperienced, we may add, innocent; though no doubt sufficiently prepared to become every thing that was the reverse. Yet in a moment she felt her own danger, and resolved to guard against it. How then can so many affirm, when they know that they are loved, that it is a mere harmless friendship! how can they, in palliation of their errors, bring forward the perpetually repeated excuse,that they were beguiled! The heart that is chaste and pure will shrink the soonest from the very feeling that would pollute it:—in vain it would attempt to deceive itself: the very moment we love, or are loved, something within us points out the danger:—even when we fly from him, to whom we could attach ourselves, we feel a certain embarrassment—an emotion, which is not to be mistaken; and, in a lover’s looks, are there not a thousand assurances and confessions which no denial of words can affect to disguise?Lord Glenarvon had denied to Calantha the possibility of his ever again feeling attachment. This had not deceived her; but she was herself too deeply and suddenly struck to the heart to venture to hope for a return. Besides, she did not think of this as possible:—he seemed to her so far above her—so far above everything. She considered him as entirely different from all others; and, if not superior, at least dissimilar and consequentlynot to be judged of by the same criterion.It is difficult to explain Calantha’s peculiar situation with respect to Lord Avondale. Yet it is necessary briefly to state in what manner they were situated at this particular period; for otherwise, all that is related must appear like a mere fable, improbable and false. They were dearer to each other perhaps, than any two who had been so long united in marriage. They loved each other with more passion, more enthusiasm than is often retained; but they were, from a thousand circumstances, utterly estranged at this time; and that apparently by mutual consent—like two violent spirits which had fretted and chafed and opposed each other, till both were sore and irritated.In the course of years, they had said every thing that was most galling and bitter; and though the ardent attachment they really felt, had ever followed those momentary bursts of fury, the veil hadbeen torn aside—that courtesy, which none should ever suffer themselves to forget, had been broken through, and they had yielded too frequently to the sudden impulse of passion, ever to feel secure that the ensuing moment might not produce a scene of discord.A calm, a deliberate tyrant, had vanquished Calantha; a violent one could not. When provoked, Lord Avondale was too severe; and when he saw her miserable and oppressed, it gave him more suffering than if he had himself been subdued. There are few spirits which cannot be overcome if dexterously attacked; but with the fierce and daring, force and violence will generally be found useless. It should be remembered that, like madness, these disturbed characters see not things as they are; and, like martyrs and fanatics, they attach a degree of glory to every privation and punishment in the noble cause of opposition to what they conceive is unjust authority.Such a character is open and guileless; but unhappily, the very circumstance that makes it sincere, renders it also, if misturned, desperate and hardened.During the first years of their marriage, these tumultuous scenes but strengthened the attachment they felt for each other; but when Lord Avondale’s profession absorbed his mind, he dreaded a recurrence of what had once so fully engrossed his thoughts. He left Calantha, therefore, to the guidance of that will, which she had so long and pertinaciously indulged. Absent, pre-occupied, he saw not, he heard not, the misuse she made of her entire liberty. Some trifle, perhaps, at times, reached his ear; a scene of discord ensued; much bitterness on both sides followed: and the conviction that they no longer loved each other, added considerably to the violence of recrimination. They knew not how deeply rooted affection such as they had once felt, must everbe—how the very ties that compelled them to belong to each other, strengthened, in fact, the attachment which inclination and love had first inspired; but, with all the petulance and violence of character natural to each, they fled estranged and offended from each other’s society.Lord Avondale sought, in an active and manly profession, for some newer interest, in which every feeling of ambition could have part; and she, surrendering her soul to the illusive dream of a mad and guilty attachment, boasted that she had found again the happiness she had lost; and contrasted even the indifference of her husband, to the ardour, the devotion, the refined attention of a newly acquired friend.
If any indifferent person approach us, it either is disagreeable, or at least unimportant; but when it is a person we love, it thrills through the heart, and we are unable to speak or to think. Could she have imagined, that Lord Glenarvon felt for her, she had been lost. But that was impossible; and yet his manner;—it was so marked, there could be no doubt. She was inexperienced, we may add, innocent; though no doubt sufficiently prepared to become every thing that was the reverse. Yet in a moment she felt her own danger, and resolved to guard against it. How then can so many affirm, when they know that they are loved, that it is a mere harmless friendship! how can they, in palliation of their errors, bring forward the perpetually repeated excuse,that they were beguiled! The heart that is chaste and pure will shrink the soonest from the very feeling that would pollute it:—in vain it would attempt to deceive itself: the very moment we love, or are loved, something within us points out the danger:—even when we fly from him, to whom we could attach ourselves, we feel a certain embarrassment—an emotion, which is not to be mistaken; and, in a lover’s looks, are there not a thousand assurances and confessions which no denial of words can affect to disguise?
Lord Glenarvon had denied to Calantha the possibility of his ever again feeling attachment. This had not deceived her; but she was herself too deeply and suddenly struck to the heart to venture to hope for a return. Besides, she did not think of this as possible:—he seemed to her so far above her—so far above everything. She considered him as entirely different from all others; and, if not superior, at least dissimilar and consequentlynot to be judged of by the same criterion.
It is difficult to explain Calantha’s peculiar situation with respect to Lord Avondale. Yet it is necessary briefly to state in what manner they were situated at this particular period; for otherwise, all that is related must appear like a mere fable, improbable and false. They were dearer to each other perhaps, than any two who had been so long united in marriage. They loved each other with more passion, more enthusiasm than is often retained; but they were, from a thousand circumstances, utterly estranged at this time; and that apparently by mutual consent—like two violent spirits which had fretted and chafed and opposed each other, till both were sore and irritated.
In the course of years, they had said every thing that was most galling and bitter; and though the ardent attachment they really felt, had ever followed those momentary bursts of fury, the veil hadbeen torn aside—that courtesy, which none should ever suffer themselves to forget, had been broken through, and they had yielded too frequently to the sudden impulse of passion, ever to feel secure that the ensuing moment might not produce a scene of discord.
A calm, a deliberate tyrant, had vanquished Calantha; a violent one could not. When provoked, Lord Avondale was too severe; and when he saw her miserable and oppressed, it gave him more suffering than if he had himself been subdued. There are few spirits which cannot be overcome if dexterously attacked; but with the fierce and daring, force and violence will generally be found useless. It should be remembered that, like madness, these disturbed characters see not things as they are; and, like martyrs and fanatics, they attach a degree of glory to every privation and punishment in the noble cause of opposition to what they conceive is unjust authority.Such a character is open and guileless; but unhappily, the very circumstance that makes it sincere, renders it also, if misturned, desperate and hardened.
During the first years of their marriage, these tumultuous scenes but strengthened the attachment they felt for each other; but when Lord Avondale’s profession absorbed his mind, he dreaded a recurrence of what had once so fully engrossed his thoughts. He left Calantha, therefore, to the guidance of that will, which she had so long and pertinaciously indulged. Absent, pre-occupied, he saw not, he heard not, the misuse she made of her entire liberty. Some trifle, perhaps, at times, reached his ear; a scene of discord ensued; much bitterness on both sides followed: and the conviction that they no longer loved each other, added considerably to the violence of recrimination. They knew not how deeply rooted affection such as they had once felt, must everbe—how the very ties that compelled them to belong to each other, strengthened, in fact, the attachment which inclination and love had first inspired; but, with all the petulance and violence of character natural to each, they fled estranged and offended from each other’s society.
Lord Avondale sought, in an active and manly profession, for some newer interest, in which every feeling of ambition could have part; and she, surrendering her soul to the illusive dream of a mad and guilty attachment, boasted that she had found again the happiness she had lost; and contrasted even the indifference of her husband, to the ardour, the devotion, the refined attention of a newly acquired friend.