CHAPTER I

home is the resort

Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,

Supporting and supported, polish’d friends

And dear relations mingle into bliss.

THOMSON

On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony,

stood, in the year 1584, the château of Monsieur St. Aubert. From its

windows were seen the pastoral landscapes of Guienne and Gascony

stretching along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and vine, and

plantations of olives. To the south, the view was bounded by the

majestic Pyrenees, whose summits, veiled in clouds, or exhibiting awful

forms, seen, and lost again, as the partial vapours rolled along, were

sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and

sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy pine, that swept downward to

their base. These tremendous precipices were contrasted by the soft

green of the pastures and woods that hung upon their skirts; among

whose flocks, and herds, and simple cottages, the eye, after having

scaled the cliffs above, delighted to repose. To the north, and to the

east, the plains of Guienne and Languedoc were lost in the mist of

distance; on the west, Gascony was bounded by the waters of Biscay.

M. St. Aubert loved to wander, with his wife and daughter, on the

margin of the Garonne, and to listen to the music that floated on its

waves. He had known life in other forms than those of pastoral

simplicity, having mingled in the gay and in the busy scenes of the

world; but the flattering portrait of mankind, which his heart had

delineated in early youth, his experience had too sorrowfully

corrected. Yet, amidst the changing visions of life, his principles

remained unshaken, his benevolence unchilled; and he retired from the

multitude “more in _pity_ than in anger,” to scenes of simple nature,

to the pure delights of literature, and to the exercise of domestic

virtues.

He was a descendant from the younger branch of an illustrious family,

and it was designed, that the deficiency of his patrimonial wealth

should be supplied either by a splendid alliance in marriage, or by

success in the intrigues of public affairs. But St. Aubert had too nice

a sense of honour to fulfil the latter hope, and too small a portion of

ambition to sacrifice what he called happiness, to the attainment of

wealth. After the death of his father he married a very amiable woman,

his equal in birth, and not his superior in fortune. The late Monsieur

St. Aubert’s liberality, or extravagance, had so much involved his

affairs, that his son found it necessary to dispose of a part of the

family domain, and, some years after his marriage, he sold it to

Monsieur Quesnel, the brother of his wife, and retired to a small

estate in Gascony, where conjugal felicity, and parental duties,

divided his attention with the treasures of knowledge and the

illuminations of genius.

To this spot he had been attached from his infancy. He had often made

excursions to it when a boy, and the impressions of delight given to

his mind by the homely kindness of the grey-headed peasant, to whom it

was intrusted, and whose fruit and cream never failed, had not been

obliterated by succeeding circumstances. The green pastures along which

he had so often bounded in the exultation of health, and youthful

freedom—the woods, under whose refreshing shade he had first indulged

that pensive melancholy, which afterwards made a strong feature of his

character—the wild walks of the mountains, the river, on whose waves he

had floated, and the distant plains, which seemed boundless as his

early hopes—were never after remembered by St. Aubert but with

enthusiasm and regret. At length he disengaged himself from the world,

and retired hither, to realise the wishes of many years.

The building, as it then stood, was merely a summer cottage, rendered

interesting to a stranger by its neat simplicity, or the beauty of the

surrounding scene; and considerable additions were necessary to make it

a comfortable family residence. St. Aubert felt a kind of affection for

every part of the fabric, which he remembered in his youth, and would

not suffer a stone of it to be removed, so that the new building,

adapted to the style of the old one, formed with it only a simple and

elegant residence. The taste of Madame St. Aubert was conspicuous in

its internal finishing, where the same chaste simplicity was observable

in the furniture, and in the few ornaments of the apartments, that

characterised the manners of its inhabitants.

The library occupied the west side of the château, and was enriched by

a collection of the best books in the ancient and modern languages.

This room opened upon a grove, which stood on the brow of a gentle

declivity, that fell towards the river, and the tall trees gave it a

melancholy and pleasing shade; while from the windows the eye caught,

beneath the spreading branches, the gay and luxuriant landscape

stretching to the west, and overlooked on the left by the bold

precipices of the Pyrenees. Adjoining the library was a green-house,

stored with scarce and beautiful plants; for one of the amusements of

St. Aubert was the study of botany, and among the neighbouring

mountains, which afforded a luxurious feast to the mind of the

naturalist, he often passed the day in the pursuit of his favourite

science. He was sometimes accompanied in these little excursions by

Madame St. Aubert, and frequently by his daughter; when, with a small

osier basket to receive plants, and another filled with cold

refreshments, such as the cabin of the shepherd did not afford, they

wandered away among the most romantic and magnificent scenes, nor

suffered the charms of Nature’s lowly children to abstract them from

the observance of her stupendous works. When weary of sauntering among

cliffs that seemed scarcely accessible but to the steps of the

enthusiast, and where no track appeared on the vegetation, but what the

foot of the izard had left; they would seek one of those green

recesses, which so beautifully adorn the bosom of these mountains,

where, under the shade of the lofty larch, or cedar, they enjoyed their

simple repast, made sweeter by the waters of the cool stream, that

crept along the turf, and by the breath of wild flowers and aromatic

plants, that fringed the rocks, and inlaid the grass.

Adjoining the eastern side of the green-house, looking towards the

plains of Languedoc, was a room, which Emily called hers, and which

contained her books, her drawings, her musical instruments, with some

favourite birds and plants. Here she usually exercised herself in

elegant arts, cultivated only because they were congenial to her taste,

and in which native genius, assisted by the instructions of Monsieur

and Madame St. Aubert, made her an early proficient. The windows of

this room were particularly pleasant; they descended to the floor, and,

opening upon the little lawn that surrounded the house, the eye was led

between groves of almond, palm-trees, flowering-ash, and myrtle, to the

distant landscape, where the Garonne wandered.

The peasants of this gay climate were often seen on an evening, when

the day’s labour was done, dancing in groups on the margin of the

river. Their sprightly melodies, _debonnaire_ steps, the fanciful

figure of their dances, with the tasteful and capricious manner in

which the girls adjusted their simple dress, gave a character to the

scene entirely French.

The front of the château, which, having a southern aspect, opened upon

the grandeur of the mountains, was occupied on the ground floor by a

rustic hall, and two excellent sitting rooms. The first floor, for the

cottage had no second story, was laid out in bed-chambers, except one

apartment that opened to a balcony, and which was generally used for a

breakfast-room.

In the surrounding ground, St. Aubert had made very tasteful

improvements; yet, such was his attachment to objects he had remembered

from his boyish days, that he had in some instances sacrificed taste to

sentiment. There were two old larches that shaded the building, and

interrupted the prospect; St. Aubert had sometimes declared that he

believed he should have been weak enough to have wept at their fall. In

addition to these larches he planted a little grove of beech, pine, and

mountain-ash. On a lofty terrace, formed by the swelling bank of the

river, rose a plantation of orange, lemon, and palm-trees, whose fruit,

in the coolness of evening, breathed delicious fragrance. With these

were mingled a few trees of other species. Here, under the ample shade

of a plane-tree, that spread its majestic canopy towards the river, St.

Aubert loved to sit in the fine evenings of summer, with his wife and

children, watching, beneath its foliage, the setting sun, the mild

splendour of its light fading from the distant landscape, till the

shadows of twilight melted its various features into one tint of sober

grey. Here, too, he loved to read, and to converse with Madame St.

Aubert; or to play with his children, resigning himself to the

influence of those sweet affections, which are ever attendant on

simplicity and nature. He has often said, while tears of pleasure

trembled in his eyes, that these were moments infinitely more

delightful than any passed amid the brilliant and tumultuous scenes

that are courted by the world. His heart was occupied; it had, what can

be so rarely said, no wish for a happiness beyond what it experienced.

The consciousness of acting right diffused a serenity over his manners,

which nothing else could impart to a man of moral perceptions like his,

and which refined his sense of every surrounding blessing.

The deepest shade of twilight did not send him from his favourite

plane-tree. He loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light

die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through æther, and are

reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all

others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates

it to sublime contemplation. When the moon shed her soft rays among the

foliage, he still lingered, and his pastoral supper of cream and fruits

was often spread beneath it. Then, on the stillness of night, came the

song of the nightingale, breathing sweetness, and awakening melancholy.

The first interruptions to the happiness he had known since his

retirement, were occasioned by the death of his two sons. He lost them

at that age when infantine simplicity is so fascinating; and though, in

consideration of Madame St. Aubert’s distress, he restrained the

expression of his own, and endeavoured to bear it, as he meant, with

philosophy, he had, in truth, no philosophy that could render him calm

to such losses. One daughter was now his only surviving child; and,

while he watched the unfolding of her infant character, with anxious

fondness, he endeavoured, with unremitting effort, to counteract those

traits in her disposition, which might hereafter lead her from

happiness. She had discovered in her early years uncommon delicacy of

mind, warm affections, and ready benevolence; but with these was

observable a degree of susceptibility too exquisite to admit of lasting

peace. As she advanced in youth, this sensibility gave a pensive tone

to her spirits, and a softness to her manner, which added grace to

beauty, and rendered her a very interesting object to persons of a

congenial disposition. But St. Aubert had too much good sense to prefer

a charm to a virtue; and had penetration enough to see, that this charm

was too dangerous to its possessor to be allowed the character of a

blessing. He endeavoured, therefore, to strengthen her mind; to enure

her to habits of self-command; to teach her to reject the first impulse

of her feelings, and to look, with cool examination, upon the

disappointments he sometimes threw in her way. While he instructed her

to resist first impressions, and to acquire that steady dignity of

mind, that can alone counterbalance the passions, and bear us, as far

as is compatible with our nature, above the reach of circumstances, he

taught himself a lesson of fortitude; for he was often obliged to

witness, with seeming indifference, the tears and struggles which his

caution occasioned her.

In person, Emily resembled her mother; having the same elegant symmetry

of form, the same delicacy of features, and the same blue eyes, full of

tender sweetness. But, lovely as was her person, it was the varied

expression of her countenance, as conversation awakened the nicer

emotions of her mind, that threw such a captivating grace around her:

Those tend’rer tints, that shun the careless eye,

And, in the world’s contagious circle, die.

St. Aubert cultivated her understanding with the most scrupulous care.

He gave her a general view of the sciences, and an exact acquaintance

with every part of elegant literature. He taught her Latin and English,

chiefly that she might understand the sublimity of their best poets.

She discovered in her early years a taste for works of genius; and it

was St. Aubert’s principle, as well as his inclination, to promote

every innocent means of happiness. “A well-informed mind,” he would

say, “is the best security against the contagion of folly and of vice.

The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge

into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with

ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the

world without, will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from

the world within. Thought, and cultivation, are necessary equally to

the happiness of a country and a city life; in the first they prevent

the uneasy sensations of indolence, and afford a sublime pleasure in

the taste they create for the beautiful, and the grand; in the latter,

they make dissipation less an object of necessity, and consequently of

interest.”

It was one of Emily’s earliest pleasures to ramble among the scenes of

nature; nor was it in the soft and glowing landscape that she most

delighted; she loved more the wild wood-walks, that skirted the

mountain; and still more the mountain’s stupendous recesses, where the

silence and grandeur of solitude impressed a sacred awe upon her heart,

and lifted her thoughts to the GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. In scenes like

these she would often linger along, wrapt in a melancholy charm, till

the last gleam of day faded from the west; till the lonely sound of a

sheep-bell, or the distant bark of a watch-dog, were all that broke on

the stillness of the evening. Then, the gloom of the woods; the

trembling of their leaves, at intervals, in the breeze; the bat,

flitting on the twilight; the cottage-lights, now seen, and now

lost—were circumstances that awakened her mind into effort, and led to

enthusiasm and poetry.

Her favourite walk was to a little fishing-house, belonging to St.

Aubert, in a woody glen, on the margin of a rivulet that descended from

the Pyrenees, and, after foaming among their rocks, wound its silent

way beneath the shades it reflected. Above the woods, that screened

this glen, rose the lofty summits of the Pyrenees, which often burst

boldly on the eye through the glades below. Sometimes the shattered

face of a rock only was seen, crowned with wild shrubs; or a shepherd’s

cabin seated on a cliff, overshadowed by dark cypress, or waving ash.

Emerging from the deep recesses of the woods, the glade opened to the

distant landscape, where the rich pastures and vine-covered slopes of

Gascony gradually declined to the plains; and there, on the winding

shores of the Garonne, groves, and hamlets, and villas—their outlines

softened by distance, melted from the eye into one rich harmonious

tint.

This, too, was the favourite retreat of St. Aubert, to which he

frequently withdrew from the fervour of noon, with his wife, his

daughter, and his books; or came at the sweet evening hour to welcome

the silent dusk, or to listen for the music of the nightingale.

Sometimes, too, he brought music of his own, and awakened every fairy

echo with the tender accents of his oboe; and often have the tones of

Emily’s voice drawn sweetness from the waves, over which they trembled.

It was in one of these excursions to this spot, that she observed the

following lines written with a pencil on a part of the wainscot:

SONNET

Go, pencil! faithful to thy master’s sighs!

Go—tell the Goddess of the fairy scene,

When next her light steps wind these wood-walks green,

Whence all his tears, his tender sorrows, rise;

Ah! paint her form, her soul-illumin’d eyes,

The sweet expression of her pensive face,

The light’ning smile, the animated grace—

The portrait well the lover’s voice supplies;

Speaks all his heart must feel, his tongue would say:

Yet ah! not all his heart must sadly feel!

How oft the flow’ret’s silken leaves conceal

The drug that steals the vital spark away!

And who that gazes on that angel-smile,

Would fear its charm, or think it could beguile!

These lines were not inscribed to any person; Emily therefore could not

apply them to herself, though she was undoubtedly the nymph of these

shades. Having glanced round the little circle of her acquaintance

without being detained by a suspicion as to whom they could be

addressed, she was compelled to rest in uncertainty; an uncertainty

which would have been more painful to an idle mind than it was to hers.

She had no leisure to suffer this circumstance, trifling at first, to

swell into importance by frequent remembrance. The little vanity it had

excited (for the incertitude which forbade her to presume upon having

inspired the sonnet, forbade her also to disbelieve it) passed away,

and the incident was dismissed from her thoughts amid her books, her

studies, and the exercise of social charities.

Soon after this period, her anxiety was awakened by the indisposition

of her father, who was attacked with a fever; which, though not thought

to be of a dangerous kind, gave a severe shock to his constitution.

Madame St. Aubert and Emily attended him with unremitting care; but his

recovery was very slow, and, as he advanced towards health, Madame

seemed to decline.

The first scene he visited, after he was well enough to take the air,

was his favourite fishing-house. A basket of provisions was sent

thither, with books, and Emily’s lute; for fishing-tackle he had no

use, for he never could find amusement in torturing or destroying.

After employing himself, for about an hour, in botanizing, dinner was

served. It was a repast, to which gratitude, for being again permitted

to visit this spot, gave sweetness; and family happiness once more

smiled beneath these shades. Monsieur St. Aubert conversed with unusual

cheerfulness; every object delighted his senses. The refreshing

pleasure from the first view of nature, after the pain of illness, and

the confinement of a sick-chamber, is above the conceptions, as well as

the descriptions, of those in health. The green woods and pastures; the

flowery turf; the blue concave of the heavens; the balmy air; the

murmur of the limpid stream; and even the hum of every little insect of

the shade, seem to revivify the soul, and make mere existence bliss.

Madame St. Aubert, reanimated by the cheerfulness and recovery of her

husband, was no longer sensible of the indisposition which had lately

oppressed her; and, as she sauntered along the wood-walks of this

romantic glen, and conversed with him, and with her daughter, she often

looked at them alternately with a degree of tenderness, that filled her

eyes with tears. St. Aubert observed this more than once, and gently

reproved her for the emotion; but she could only smile, clasp his hand,

and that of Emily, and weep the more. He felt the tender enthusiasm

stealing upon himself in a degree that became almost painful; his

features assumed a serious air, and he could not forbear secretly

sighing—“Perhaps I shall some time look back to these moments, as to

the summit of my happiness, with hopeless regret. But let me not misuse

them by useless anticipation; let me hope I shall not live to mourn the

loss of those who are dearer to me than life.”

To relieve, or perhaps to indulge, the pensive temper of his mind, he

bade Emily fetch the lute she knew how to touch with such sweet pathos.

As she drew near the fishing-house, she was surprised to hear the tones

of the instrument, which were awakened by the hand of taste, and

uttered a plaintive air, whose exquisite melody engaged all her

attention. She listened in profound silence, afraid to move from the

spot, lest the sound of her steps should occasion her to lose a note of

the music, or should disturb the musician. Everything without the

building was still, and no person appeared. She continued to listen,

till timidity succeeded to surprise and delight; a timidity, increased

by a remembrance of the pencilled lines she had formerly seen, and she

hesitated whether to proceed, or to return.

While she paused, the music ceased; and, after a momentary hesitation,

she recollected courage to advance to the fishing-house, which she

entered with faltering steps, and found unoccupied! Her lute lay on the

table; everything seemed undisturbed, and she began to believe it was

another instrument she had heard, till she remembered, that, when she

followed M. and Madame St. Aubert from this spot, her lute was left on

a window seat. She felt alarmed, yet knew not wherefore; the melancholy

gloom of evening, and the profound stillness of the place, interrupted

only by the light trembling of leaves, heightened her fanciful

apprehensions, and she was desirous of quitting the building, but

perceived herself grow faint, and sat down. As she tried to recover

herself, the pencilled lines on the wainscot met her eye; she started,

as if she had seen a stranger; but, endeavouring to conquer the tremor

of her spirits, rose, and went to the window. To the lines before

noticed she now perceived that others were added, in which her name

appeared.

Though no longer suffered to doubt that they were addressed to herself,

she was as ignorant, as before, by whom they could be written. While

she mused, she thought she heard the sound of a step without the

building, and again alarmed, she caught up her lute, and hurried away.

Monsieur and Madame St. Aubert she found in a little path that wound

along the sides of the glen.

Having reached a green summit, shadowed by palm-trees, and overlooking

the valleys and plains of Gascony, they seated themselves on the turf;

and while their eyes wandered over the glorious scene, and they inhaled

the sweet breath of flowers and herbs that enriched the grass, Emily

played and sung several of their favourite airs, with the delicacy of

expression in which she so much excelled.

Music and conversation detained them in this enchanting spot, till the

sun’s last light slept upon the plains; till the white sails that

glided beneath the mountains, where the Garonne wandered, became dim,

and the gloom of evening stole over the landscape. It was a melancholy

but not unpleasing gloom. St. Aubert and his family rose, and left the

place with regret; alas! Madame St. Aubert knew not that she left it

for ever.

When they reached the fishing-house she missed her bracelet, and

recollected that she had taken it from her arm after dinner, and had

left it on the table when she went to walk. After a long search, in

which Emily was very active, she was compelled to resign herself to the

loss of it. What made this bracelet valuable to her was a miniature of

her daughter to which it was attached, esteemed a striking resemblance,

and which had been painted only a few months before. When Emily was

convinced that the bracelet was really gone, she blushed, and became

thoughtful. That some stranger had been in the fishing-house, during

her absence, her lute, and the additional lines of a pencil, had

already informed her: from the purport of these lines it was not

unreasonable to believe, that the poet, the musician, and the thief

were the same person. But though the music she had heard, the written

lines she had seen, and the disappearance of the picture, formed a

combination of circumstances very remarkable, she was irresistibly

restrained from mentioning them; secretly determining, however, never

again to visit the fishing-house without Monsieur or Madame St. Aubert.

They returned pensively to the château, Emily musing on the incident

which had just occurred; St. Aubert reflecting, with placid gratitude,

on the blessings he possessed; and Madame St. Aubert somewhat

disturbed, and perplexed, by the loss of her daughter’s picture. As

they drew near the house, they observed an unusual bustle about it; the

sound of voices was distinctly heard, servants and horses were seen

passing between the trees, and, at length, the wheels of a carriage

rolled along. Having come within view of the front of the château, a

landau, with smoking horses, appeared on the little lawn before it. St.

Aubert perceived the liveries of his brother-in-law, and in the parlour

he found Monsieur and Madame Quesnel already entered. They had left

Paris some days before, and were on the way to their estate, only ten

leagues distant from La Vallée, and which Monsieur Quesnel had

purchased several years before of St. Aubert. This gentleman was the

only brother of Madame St. Aubert; but the ties of relationship having

never been strengthened by congeniality of character, the intercourse

between them had not been frequent. M. Quesnel had lived altogether in

the world; his aim had been consequence; splendour was the object of

his taste; and his address and knowledge of character had carried him

forward to the attainment of almost all that he had courted. By a man

of such a disposition, it is not surprising that the virtues of St.

Aubert should be overlooked; or that his pure taste, simplicity, and

moderated wishes, were considered as marks of a weak intellect, and of

confined views. The marriage of his sister with St. Aubert had been

mortifying to his ambition, for he had designed that the matrimonial

connection she formed should assist him to attain the consequence which

he so much desired; and some offers were made her by persons whose rank

and fortune flattered his warmest hope. But his sister, who was then

addressed also by St. Aubert, perceived, or thought she perceived, that

happiness and splendour were not the same, and she did not hesitate to

forego the last for the attainment of the former. Whether Monsieur

Quesnel thought them the same, or not, he would readily have sacrificed

his sister’s peace to the gratification of his own ambition; and, on

her marriage with St. Aubert, expressed in private his contempt of her

spiritless conduct, and of the connection which it permitted. Madame

St. Aubert, though she concealed this insult from her husband, felt,

perhaps, for the first time, resentment lighted in her heart; and,

though a regard for her own dignity, united with considerations of

prudence, restrained her expression of this resentment, there was ever

after a mild reserve in her manner towards M. Quesnel, which he both

understood and felt.

In his own marriage he did not follow his sister’s example. His lady

was an Italian, and an heiress by birth; and, by nature and education,

was a vain and frivolous woman.

They now determined to pass the night with St. Aubert; and as the

château was not large enough to accommodate their servants, the latter

were dismissed to the neighbouring village. When the first compliments

were over, and the arrangements for the night made M. Quesnel began the

display of his intelligence and his connections; while St. Aubert, who

had been long enough in retirement to find these topics recommended by

their novelty, listened, with a degree of patience and attention, which

his guest mistook for the humility of wonder. The latter, indeed,

described the few festivities which the turbulence of that period

permitted to the court of Henry the Third, with a minuteness, that

somewhat recompensed for his ostentation; but, when he came to speak of

the character of the Duke de Joyeuse, of a secret treaty, which he knew

to be negotiating with the Porte, and of the light in which Henry of

Navarre was received, M. St. Aubert recollected enough of his former

experience to be assured, that his guest could be only of an inferior

class of politicians; and that, from the importance of the subjects

upon which he committed himself, he could not be of the rank to which

he pretended to belong. The opinions delivered by M. Quesnel, were such

as St. Aubert forebore to reply to, for he knew that his guest had

neither humanity to feel, nor discernment to perceive, what is just.

Madame Quesnel, meanwhile, was expressing to Madame St. Aubert her

astonishment, that she could bear to pass her life in this remote

corner of the world, as she called it, and describing, from a wish,

probably, of exciting envy, the splendour of the balls, banquets, and

processions which had just been given by the court, in honour of the

nuptials of the Duke de Joyeuse with Margaretta of Lorrain, the sister

of the Queen. She described with equal minuteness the magnificence she

had seen, and that from which she had been excluded; while Emily’s

vivid fancy, as she listened with the ardent curiosity of youth,

heightened the scenes she heard of; and Madame St. Aubert, looking on

her family, felt, as a tear stole to her eye, that though splendour may

grace happiness, virtue only can bestow it.

“It is now twelve years, St. Aubert,” said M. Quesnel, “since I

purchased your family estate.”—“Somewhere thereabout,” replied St.

Aubert, suppressing a sigh. “It is near five years since I have been

there,” resumed Quesnel; “for Paris and its neighbourhood is the only

place in the world to live in, and I am so immersed in politics, and

have so many affairs of moment on my hands, that I find it difficult to

steal away even for a month or two.” St. Aubert remaining silent, M.

Quesnel proceeded: “I have sometimes wondered how you, who have lived

in the capital, and have been accustomed to company, can exist

elsewhere;—especially in so remote a country as this, where you can

neither hear nor see anything, and can in short be scarcely conscious

of life.”

“I live for my family and myself,” said St. Aubert; “I am now contented

to know only happiness;—formerly I knew life.”

“I mean to expend thirty or forty thousand livres on improvements,”

said M. Quesnel, without seeming to notice the words of St. Aubert;

“for I design, next summer, to bring here my friends, the Duke de

Durefort and the Marquis Ramont, to pass a month or two with me.” To

St. Aubert’s enquiry, as to these intended improvements, he replied,

that he should take down the whole east wing of the château, and raise

upon the site a set of stables. “Then I shall build,” said he, “a

_salle à manger_, a _salon_, a _salle au commune_, and a number of

rooms for servants; for at present there is not accommodation for a

third part of my own people.”

“It accommodated our father’s household,” said St. Aubert, grieved that

the old mansion was to be thus improved, “and that was not a small

one.”

“Our notions are somewhat enlarged since those days,” said M.

Quesnel;—“what was then thought a decent style of living would not now

be endured.” Even the calm St. Aubert blushed at these words, but his

anger soon yielded to contempt. “The ground about the château is

encumbered with trees; I mean to cut some of them down.”

“Cut down the trees too!” said St. Aubert.

“Certainly. Why should I not? they interrupt my prospects. There is a

chesnut which spreads its branches before the whole south side of the

château, and which is so ancient that they tell me the hollow of its

trunk will hold a dozen men. Your enthusiasm will scarcely contend that

there can be either use, or beauty, in such a sapless old tree as

this.”

“Good God!” exclaimed St. Aubert, “you surely will not destroy that

noble chesnut, which has flourished for centuries, the glory of the

estate! It was in its maturity when the present mansion was built. How

often, in my youth, have I climbed among its broad branches, and sat

embowered amidst a world of leaves, while the heavy shower has pattered

above, and not a rain drop reached me! How often I have sat with a book

in my hand, sometimes reading, and sometimes looking out between the

branches upon the wide landscape, and the setting sun, till twilight

came, and brought the birds home to their little nests among the

leaves! How often—but pardon me,” added St. Aubert, recollecting that

he was speaking to a man who could neither comprehend, nor allow his

feelings, “I am talking of times and feelings as old-fashioned as the

taste that would spare that venerable tree.”

“It will certainly come down,” said M. Quesnel; “I believe I shall

plant some Lombardy poplars among the clumps of chesnut, that I shall

leave of the avenue; Madame Quesnel is partial to the poplar, and tells

me how much it adorns a villa of her uncle, not far from Venice.”

“On the banks of the Brenta, indeed,” continued St. Aubert, “where its

spiry form is intermingled with the pine, and the cypress, and where it

plays over light and elegant porticos and colonnades, it,

unquestionably, adorns the scene; but among the giants of the forest,

and near a heavy gothic mansion—”

“Well, my good sir,” said M. Quesnel, “I will not dispute with you. You

must return to Paris before our ideas can at all agree. But _à propos_

of Venice, I have some thoughts of going thither, next summer; events

may call me to take possession of that same villa, too, which they tell

me is the most charming that can be imagined. In that case I shall

leave the improvements I mention to another year, and I may, perhaps,

be tempted to stay some time in Italy.”

Emily was somewhat surprised to hear him talk of being tempted to

remain abroad, after he had mentioned his presence to be so necessary

at Paris, that it was with difficulty he could steal away for a month

or two; but St. Aubert understood the self-importance of the man too

well to wonder at this trait; and the possibility, that these projected

improvements might be deferred, gave him a hope, that they might never

take place.

Before they separated for the night, M. Quesnel desired to speak with

St. Aubert alone, and they retired to another room, where they remained

a considerable time. The subject of this conversation was not known;

but, whatever it might be, St. Aubert, when he returned to the

supper-room, seemed much disturbed, and a shade of sorrow sometimes

fell upon his features that alarmed Madame St. Aubert. When they were

alone she was tempted to enquire the occasion of it, but the delicacy

of mind, which had ever appeared in his conduct, restrained her: she

considered that, if St. Aubert wished her to be acquainted with the

subject of his concern, he would not wait on her enquiries.

On the following day, before M. Quesnel departed, he had a second

conference with St. Aubert.

The guests, after dining at the château, set out in the cool of the day

for Epourville, whither they gave him and Madame St. Aubert a pressing

invitation, prompted rather by the vanity of displaying their

splendour, than by a wish to make their friends happy.

Emily returned, with delight, to the liberty which their presence had

restrained, to her books, her walks, and the rational conversation of

M. and Madame St. Aubert, who seemed to rejoice, no less, that they

were delivered from the shackles, which arrogance and frivolity had

imposed.

Madame St. Aubert excused herself from sharing their usual evening

walk, complaining that she was not quite well, and St. Aubert and Emily

went out together.

They chose a walk towards the mountains, intending to visit some old

pensioners of St. Aubert, which, from his very moderate income, he

contrived to support, though it is probable M. Quesnel, with his very

large one, could not have afforded this.

After distributing to his pensioners their weekly stipends, listening

patiently to the complaints of some, redressing the grievances of

others, and softening the discontents of all, by the look of sympathy,

and the smile of benevolence, St. Aubert returned home through the

woods,

where,

At fall of eve the fairy-people throng,

In various games and revelry to pass

The summer night, as village stories tell.

THOMSON

“The evening gloom of woods was always delightful to me,” said St.

Aubert, whose mind now experienced the sweet calm, which results from

the consciousness of having done a beneficent action, and which

disposes it to receive pleasure from every surrounding object. “I

remember that in my youth this gloom used to call forth to my fancy a

thousand fairy visions, and romantic images; and, I own, I am not yet

wholly insensible of that high enthusiasm, which wakes the poet’s

dream: I can linger, with solemn steps, under the deep shades, send

forward a transforming eye into the distant obscurity, and listen with

thrilling delight to the mystic murmuring of the woods.”

“O my dear father,” said Emily, while a sudden tear started to her eye,

“how exactly you describe what I have felt so often, and which I

thought nobody had ever felt but myself! But hark! here comes the

sweeping sound over the wood-tops;—now it dies away;—how solemn the

stillness that succeeds! Now the breeze swells again. It is like the

voice of some supernatural being—the voice of the spirit of the woods,

that watches over them by night. Ah! what light is yonder? But it is

gone. And now it gleams again, near the root of that large chestnut:

look, sir!”

“Are you such an admirer of nature,” said St. Aubert, “and so little

acquainted with her appearances as not to know that for the glow-worm?

But come,” added he gaily, “step a little further, and we shall see

fairies, perhaps; they are often companions. The glow-worm lends his

light, and they in return charm him with music, and the dance. Do you

see nothing tripping yonder?”

Emily laughed. “Well, my dear sir,” said she, “since you allow of this

alliance, I may venture to own I have anticipated you; and almost dare

venture to repeat some verses I made one evening in these very woods.”

“Nay,” replied St. Aubert, “dismiss the _almost_, and venture quite;

let us hear what vagaries fancy has been playing in your mind. If she

has given you one of her spells, you need not envy those of the

fairies.”

“If it is strong enough to enchant your judgment, sir,” said Emily,

“while I disclose her images, I need _not_ envy them. The lines go in a

sort of tripping measure, which I thought might suit the subject well

enough, but I fear they are too irregular.”

THE GLOW-WORM.

How pleasant is the green-wood’s deep-matted shade

On a mid-summer’s eve, when the fresh rain is o’er;

When the yellow beams slope, and sparkle thro’ the glade,

And swiftly in the thin air the light swallows soar!

But sweeter, sweeter still, when the sun sinks to rest,

And twilight comes on, with the fairies so gay

Tripping through the forest-walk, where flow’rs, unprest,

Bow not their tall heads beneath their frolic play.

To music’s softest sounds they dance away the hour,

Till moonlight steals down among the trembling leaves,

And checquers all the ground, and guides them to the bow’r,

The long haunted bow’r, where the nightingale grieves.

Then no more they dance, till her sad song is done,

But, silent as the night, to her mourning attend;

And often as her dying notes their pity have won,

They vow all her sacred haunts from mortals to defend.

When, down among the mountains, sinks the ev’ning star,

And the changing moon forsakes this shadowy sphere,

How cheerless would they be, tho’ they fairies are,

If I, with my pale light, came not near!

Yet cheerless tho’ they’d be, they’re ungrateful to my love!

For, often when the traveller’s benighted on his way,

And I glimmer in his path, and would guide him thro’ the grove,

They bind me in their magic spells to lead him far astray;

And in the mire to leave him, till the stars are all burnt out,

While, in strange-looking shapes, they frisk about the ground,

And, afar in the woods, they raise a dismal shout,

Till I shrink into my cell again for terror of the sound!

But, see where all the tiny elves come dancing in a ring,

With the merry, merry pipe, and the tabor, and the horn,

And the timbrel so clear, and the lute with dulcet string;

Then round about the oak they go till peeping of the morn.

Down yonder glade two lovers steal, to shun the fairy-queen,

Who frowns upon their plighted vows, and jealous is of me,

That yester-eve I lighted them, along the dewy green,

To seek the purple flow’r, whose juice from all her spells can free.

And now, to punish me, she keeps afar her jocund band,

With the merry, merry pipe, and the tabor, and the lute;

If I creep near yonder oak she will wave her fairy wand,

And to me the dance will cease, and the music all be mute.

O! had I but that purple flow’r whose leaves her charms can foil,

And knew like fays to draw the juice, and throw it on the wind,

I’d be her slave no longer, nor the traveller beguile,

And help all faithful lovers, nor fear the fairy kind!

But soon the _vapour of the woods_ will wander afar,

And the fickle moon will fade, and the stars disappear,

Then, cheerless will they be, tho’ they fairies are,

If I, with my pale light, come not near!

Whatever St. Aubert might think of the stanzas, he would not deny his

daughter the pleasure of believing that he approved them; and, having

given his commendation, he sunk into a reverie, and they walked on in

silence.

A faint erroneous ray,

Glanc’d from th’ imperfect surfaces of things,

Flung half an image on the straining eye;

While waving woods, and villages, and streams,

And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retain

The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,

Uncertain if beheld.

THOMSON.

St. Aubert continued silent till he reached the château, where his wife

had retired to her chamber. The languor and dejection, that had lately

oppressed her, and which the exertion called forth by the arrival of

her guests had suspended, now returned with increased effect. On the

following day, symptoms of fever appeared, and St. Aubert, having sent

for medical advice, learned, that her disorder was a fever of the same

nature as that, from which he had lately recovered. She had, indeed,

taken the infection, during her attendance upon him, and, her

constitution being too weak to throw out the disease immediately, it

had lurked in her veins, and occasioned the heavy languor of which she

had complained. St. Aubert, whose anxiety for his wife overcame every

other consideration, detained the physician in his house. He remembered

the feelings and the reflections that had called a momentary gloom upon

his mind, on the day when he had last visited the fishing-house, in

company with Madame St. Aubert, and he now admitted a presentiment,

that this illness would be a fatal one. But he effectually concealed

this from her, and from his daughter, whom he endeavoured to reanimate

with hopes that her constant assiduities would not be unavailing. The

physician, when asked by St. Aubert for his opinion of the disorder,

replied, that the event of it depended upon circumstances which he

could not ascertain. Madame St. Aubert seemed to have formed a more

decided one; but her eyes only gave hints of this. She frequently fixed

them upon her anxious friends with an expression of pity, and of

tenderness, as if she anticipated the sorrow that awaited them, and

that seemed to say, it was for their sakes only, for their sufferings,

that she regretted life. On the seventh day, the disorder was at its

crisis. The physician assumed a graver manner, which she observed, and

took occasion, when her family had once quitted the chamber, to tell

him, that she perceived her death was approaching. “Do not attempt to

deceive me,” said she, “I feel that I cannot long survive. I am

prepared for the event, I have long, I hope, been preparing for it.

Since I have not long to live, do not suffer a mistaken compassion to

induce you to flatter my family with false hopes. If you do, their

affliction will only be the heavier when it arrives: I will endeavour

to teach them resignation by my example.”

The physician was affected; he promised to obey her, and told St.

Aubert, somewhat abruptly, that there was nothing to expect. The latter

was not philosopher enough to restrain his feelings when he received

this information; but a consideration of the increased affliction which

the observance of his grief would occasion his wife, enabled him, after

some time, to command himself in her presence. Emily was at first

overwhelmed with the intelligence; then, deluded by the strength of her

wishes, a hope sprung up in her mind that her mother would yet recover,

and to this she pertinaciously adhered almost to the last hour.

The progress of this disorder was marked, on the side of Madame St.

Aubert, by patient suffering, and subjected wishes. The composure, with

which she awaited her death, could be derived only from the retrospect

of a life governed, as far as human frailty permits, by a consciousness

of being always in the presence of the Deity, and by the hope of a

higher world. But her piety could not entirely subdue the grief of

parting from those whom she so dearly loved. During these her last

hours, she conversed much with St. Aubert and Emily, on the prospect of

futurity, and on other religious topics. The resignation she expressed,

with the firm hope of meeting in a future world the friends she left in

this, and the effort which sometimes appeared to conceal her sorrow at

this temporary separation, frequently affected St. Aubert so much as to

oblige him to leave the room. Having indulged his tears a while, he

would dry them and return to the chamber with a countenance composed by

an endeavour which did but increase his grief.

Never had Emily felt the importance of the lessons, which had taught

her to restrain her sensibility, so much as in these moments, and never

had she practised them with a triumph so complete. But when the last

was over, she sunk at once under the pressure of her sorrow, and then

perceived that it was hope, as well as fortitude, which had hitherto

supported her. St. Aubert was for a time too devoid of comfort himself

to bestow any on his daughter.