Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion
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William Hazlitt >> Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion
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S. NEVER.
H. Then go: but remember I cannot live without you--nor I will not.
THE RECONCILIATION
H. I have then lost your friendship?
S. Nothing tends more to alienate friendship than insult.
H. The words I uttered hurt me more than they did you.
S. It was not words merely, but actions as well.
H. Nothing I can say or do can ever alter my fondness for you--Ah,
Sarah! I am unworthy of your love: I hardly dare ask for your pity; but
oh! save me--save me from your scorn: I cannot bear it--it withers me
like lightning.
S. I bear no malice, Sir; but my brother, who would scorn to tell a lie
for his sister, can bear witness for me that there was no truth in what
you were told.
H. I believe it; or there is no truth in woman. It is enough for me to
know that you do not return my regard; it would be too much for me to
think that you did not deserve it. But cannot you forgive the agony of
the moment?
S. I can forgive; but it is not easy to forget some things!
H. Nay, my sweet Sarah (frown if you will, I can bear your resentment
for my ill behaviour, it is only your scorn and indifference that harrow
up my soul)--but I was going to ask, if you had been engaged to be
married to any one, and the day was fixed, and he had heard what I did,
whether he could have felt any true regard for the character of his
bride, his wife, if he had not been hurt and alarmed as I was?
S. I believe, actual contracts of marriage have sometimes been broken
off by unjust suspicions.
H. Or had it been your old friend, what do you think he would have said
in my case?
S. He would never have listened to anything of the sort.
H. He had greater reasons for confidence than I have. But it is your
repeated cruel rejection of me that drives me almost to madness. Tell
me, love, is there not, besides your attachment to him, a repugnance to
me?
S. No, none whatever.
H. I fear there is an original dislike, which no efforts of mine can
overcome.
S. It is not you--it is my feelings with respect to another, which are
unalterable.
H. And yet you have no hope of ever being his? And yet you accuse me
of being romantic in my sentiments.
S. I have indeed long ceased to hope; but yet I sometimes hope against
hope.
H. My love! were it in my power, thy hopes should be fulfilled
to-morrow. Next to my own, there is nothing that could give me so much
satisfaction as to see thine realized! Do I not love thee, when I can
feel such an interest in thy love for another? It was that which first
wedded my very soul to you. I would give worlds for a share in a heart
so rich in pure affection!
S. And yet I did not tell you of the circumstance to raise myself in
your opinion.
H. You are a sublime little thing! And yet, as you have no prospects
there, I cannot help thinking, the best thing would be to do as I have
said.
S. I would never marry a man I did not love beyond all the world.
H. I should be satisfied with less than that--with the love, or regard,
or whatever you call it, you have shown me before marriage, if that has
only been sincere. You would hardly like me less afterwards.
S. Endearments would, I should think, increase regard, where there was
love beforehand; but that is not exactly my case.
H. But I think you would be happier than you are at present. You take
pleasure in my conversation, and you say you have an esteem for me; and
it is upon this, after the honeymoon, that marriage chiefly turns.
S. Do you think there is no pleasure in a single life?
H. Do you mean on account of its liberty?
S. No, but I feel that forced duty is no duty. I have high ideas of
the married state!
H. Higher than of the maiden state?
S. I understand you, Sir.
H. I meant nothing; but you have sometimes spoken of any serious
attachment as a tie upon you. It is not that you prefer flirting with
"gay young men" to becoming a mere dull domestic wife?
S. You have no right to throw out such insinuations: for though I am
but a tradesman's daughter, I have as nice a sense of honour as anyone
can have.
H. Talk of a tradesman's daughter! you would ennoble any family, thou
glorious girl, by true nobility of mind.
S. Oh! Sir, you flatter me. I know my own inferiority to most.
H. To none; there is no one above thee, man nor woman either. You are
above your situation, which is not fit for you.
S. I am contented with my lot, and do my duty as cheerfully as I can.
H. Have you not told me your spirits grow worse every year?
S. Not on that account: but some disappointments are hard to bear up
against.
H. If you talk about that, you'll unman me. But tell me, my love,--I
have thought of it as something that might account for some
circumstances; that is, as a mere possibility. But tell me, there was
not a likeness between me and your old lover that struck you at first
sight? Was there?
S. No, Sir, none.
H. Well, I didn't think it likely there should.
S. But there was a likeness.
H. To whom?
S. To that little image! (looking intently on a small bronze figure of
Buonaparte on the mantelpiece).
H. What, do you mean to Buonaparte?
S. Yes, all but the nose was just like.
H. And was his figure the same?
S. He was taller!
[I got up and gave her the image, and told her it was hers by every
right that was sacred. She refused at first to take so valuable a
curiosity, and said she would keep it for me. But I pressed it eagerly,
and she look it. She immediately came and sat down, and put her arm
round my neck, and kissed me, and I said, "Is it not plain we are the
best friends in the world, since we are always so glad to make it up?"
And then I added "How odd it was that the God of my idolatry should turn
out to be like her Idol, and said it was no wonder that the same face
which awed the world should conquer the sweetest creature in it!" How I
loved her at that moment! Is it possible that the wretch who writes
this could ever have been so blest! Heavenly delicious creature! Can I
live without her? Oh! no--never--never.
"What is this world? What asken men to have, Now with his love, now in
the cold grave, Alone, withouten any compagnie!"
Let me but see her again! She cannot hate the man who loves her as I
do.]
LETTERS TO THE SAME
Feb., I822.
--You will scold me for this, and ask me if this is keeping my promise
to mind my work. One half of it was to think of Sarah: and besides, I
do not neglect my work either, I assure you. I regularly do ten pages a
day, which mounts up to thirty guineas' worth a week, so that you see I
should grow rich at this rate, if I could keep on so; AND I COULD KEEP
ON SO, if I had you with me to encourage me with your sweet smiles, and
share my lot. The Berwick smacks sail twice a week, and the wind sits
fair. When I think of the thousand endearing caresses that have passed
between us, I do not wonder at the strong attachment that draws me to
you; but I am sorry for my own want of power to please. I hear the wind
sigh through the lattice, and keep repeating over and over to myself two
lines of Lord Byron's Tragedy--
"So shalt thou find me ever at thy side Here and hereafter, if the last
may be."--
applying them to thee, my love, and thinking whether I shall ever see
thee again. Perhaps not--for some years at least--till both thou and I
are old--and then, when all else have forsaken thee, I will creep to
thee, and die in thine arms. You once made me believe I was not hated
by her I loved; and for that sensation, so delicious was it, though but
a mockery and a dream, I owe you more than I can ever pay. I thought to
have dried up my tears for ever, the day I left you; but as I write
this, they stream again. If they did not, I think my heart would burst.
I walk out here of an afternoon, and hear the notes of the thrush, that
come up from a sheltered valley below, welcome in the spring; but they
do not melt my heart as they used: it is grown cold and dead. As you
say, it will one day be colder.--Forgive what I have written above; I
did not intend it: but you were once my little all, and I cannot bear
the thought of having lost you for ever, I fear through my own fault.
Has any one called? Do not send any letters that come. I should like
you and your mother (if agreeable) to go and see Mr. Kean in Othello,
and Miss Stephens in Love in a Village. If you will, I will write to
Mr. T----, to send you tickets. Has Mr. P---- called? I think I must
send to him for the picture to kiss and talk to. Kiss me, my best
beloved. Ah! if you can never be mine, still let me be your proud and
happy slave.
H.
TO THE SAME
March, I822.
--You will be glad to learn I have done my work--a volume in less than a
month. This is one reason why I am better than when I came, and another
is, I have had two letters from Sarah. I am pleased I have got through
this job, as I was afraid I might lose reputation by it (which I can
little afford to lose)--and besides, I am more anxious to do well now,
as I wish you to hear me well spoken of. I walk out of an afternoon,
and hear the birds sing as I told you, and think, if I had you hanging
on my arm, and that for life, how happy I should be--happier than I ever
hoped to be, or had any conception of till I knew you. "But that can
never be"--I hear you answer in a soft, low murmur. Well, let me dream
of it sometimes--I am not happy too often, except when that favourite
note, the harbinger of spring, recalling the hopes of my youth, whispers
thy name and peace together in my ear. I was reading something about
Mr. Macready to-day, and this put me in mind of that delicious night,
when I went with your mother and you to see Romeo and Juliet. Can I
forget it for a moment--your sweet modest looks, your infinite propriety
of behaviour, all your sweet winning ways--your hesitating about taking
my arm as we came out till your mother did--your laughing about nearly
losing your cloak--your stepping into the coach without my being able to
make the slightest discovery--and oh! my sitting down beside you there,
you whom I had loved so long, so well, and your assuring me I had not
lessened your pleasure at the play by being with you, and giving me your
dear hand to press in mine! I thought I was in heaven--that slender
exquisitely-turned form contained my all of heaven upon earth; and as I
folded you--yes, you, my own best Sarah, to my bosom, there was, as you
say, A TIE BETWEEN US--you did seem to me, for those few short
moments, to be mine in all truth and honour and sacredness--Oh! that we
could be always so--Do not mock me, for I am a very child in love. I
ought to beg pardon for behaving so ill afterwards, but I hope THE
LITTLE IMAGE made it up between us, &c.
[To this letter I have received no answer, not a line. The rolling
years of eternity will never fill up that blank. Where shall I be?
What am I? Or where have I been?]
WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF ENDYMION
I want a hand to guide me, an eye to cheer me, a bosom to repose on; all
which I shall never have, but shall stagger into my grave, old before my
time, unloved and unlovely, unless S. L. keeps her faith with me.
* * * * * * * * * * *
--But by her dove's eyes and serpent-shape, I think she does not hate
me; by her smooth forehead and her crested hair, I own I love her; by
her soft looks and queen-like grace (which men might fall down and
worship) I swear to live and die for her!
A PROPOSAL OF LOVE
(Given to her in our early acquaintance)
"Oh! if I thought it could be in a woman (As, if it can, I will presume
in you) To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love, To keep her
constancy in plight and youth, Outliving beauties outward with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays: Or that persuasion could but
thus convince me, That my integrity and truth to you Might be confronted
with the match and weight Of such a winnowed purity in love-- How were I
then uplifted! But, alas, I am as true as truth's simplicity, And
simpler than the infancy of truth."
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
PART II
LETTERS TO C. P----, ESQ.
Bees-Inn.
My good friend, Here I am in Scotland (and shall have been here three
weeks, next Monday) as I may say, ON MY PROBATION. This is a lone
inn, but on a great scale, thirty miles from Edinburgh. It is situated
on a rising ground (a mark for all the winds, which blow here
incessantly)--there is a woody hill opposite, with a winding valley
below, and the London road stretches out on either side. You may guess
which way I oftenest walk. I have written two letters to S. L. and got
one cold, prudish answer, beginning SIR, and ending FROM YOURS
TRULY, with BEST RESPECTS FROM HERSELF AND RELATIONS. I was going to
give in, but have returned an answer, which I think is a touch-stone. I
send it you on the other side to keep as a curiosity, in case she kills
me by her exquisite rejoinder. I am convinced from the profound
contemplations I have had on the subject here and coming along, that I
am on a wrong scent. We had a famous parting-scene, a complete quarrel
and then a reconciliation, in which she did beguile me of my tears, but
the deuce a one did she shed. What do you think? She cajoled me out of
my little Buonaparte as cleverly as possible, in manner and form
following. She was shy the Saturday and Sunday (the day of my
departure) so I got in dudgeon, and began to rip up grievances. I asked
her how she came to admit me to such extreme familiarities, the first
week I entered the house. "If she had no particular regard for me, she
must do so (or more) with everyone: if she had a liking to me from the
first, why refuse me with scorn and wilfulness?" If you had seen how
she flounced, and looked, and went to the door, saying "She was obliged
to me for letting her know the opinion I had always entertained of
her"--then I said, "Sarah!" and she came back and took my hand, and
fixed her eyes on the mantelpiece--(she must have been invoking her idol
then--if I thought so, I could devour her, the darling--but I doubt
her)--So I said "There is one thing that has occurred to me sometimes as
possible, to account for your conduct to me at first--there wasn't a
likeness, was there, to your old friend?" She answered "No, none--but
there was a likeness!" I asked, to what? She said "to that little
image!" I said, "Do you mean Buonaparte?"--She said "Yes, all but the
nose."--"And the figure?"--"He was taller."--I could not stand this. So
I got up and took it, and gave it her, and after some reluctance, she
consented to "keep it for me." What will you bet me that it wasn't all
a trick? I'll tell you why I suspect it, besides being fairly out of my
wits about her. I had told her mother half an hour before, that I
should take this image and leave it at Mrs. B.'s, for that I didn't wish
to leave anything behind me that must bring me back again. Then up she
comes and starts a likeness to her lover: she knew I should give it her
on the spot--"No, she would keep it for me!" So I must come back for
it. Whether art or nature, it is sublime. I told her I should write
and tell you so, and that I parted from her, confiding, adoring!--She is
beyond me, that's certain. Do go and see her, and desire her not to
give my present address to a single soul, and learn if the lodging is
let, and to whom. My letter to her is as follows. If she shews the
least remorse at it, I'll be hanged, though it might move a stone, I
modestly think. (See before, Part I. first letter.)
N.B.--I have begun a book of our conversations (I mean mine and the
statue's) which I call LIBER AMORIS. I was detained at Stamford and
found myself dull, and could hit upon no other way of employing my time
so agreeably.
LETTER II
Dear P----, Here, without loss of time, in order that I may have your
opinion upon it, is little Yes and No's answer to my last.
"Sir, I should not have disregarded your injunction not to send you any
more letters that might come to you, had I not promised the Gentleman
who left the enclosed to forward it the earliest opportunity, as he said
it was of consequence. Mr. P---- called the day after you left town.
My mother and myself are much obliged by your kind offer of tickets to
the play, but must decline accepting it. My family send their best
respects, in which they are joined by
Yours, truly,
S. L.
The deuce a bit more is there of it. If you can make anything out of it
(or any body else) I'll be hanged. You are to understand, this comes in
a frank, the second I have received from her, with a name I can't make
out, and she won't tell me, though I asked her, where she got franks, as
also whether the lodgings were let, to neither of which a word of
answer. * * * * is the name on the frank: see if you can decypher it by
a Red-book. I suspect her grievously of being an arrant jilt, to say no
more--yet I love her dearly. Do you know I'm going to write to that
sweet rogue presently, having a whole evening to myself in advance of my
work? Now mark, before you set about your exposition of the new
Apocalypse of the new Calypso, the only thing to be endured in the above
letter is the date. It was written the very day after she received
mine. By this she seems willing to lose no time in receiving these
letters "of such sweet breath composed." If I thought so--but I wait
for your reply. After all, what is there in her but a pretty figure,
and that you can't get a word out of her? Hers is the Fabian method of
making love and conquests. What do you suppose she said the night
before I left her?
"H. Could you not come and live with me as a friend?
"S. I don't know: and yet it would be of no use if I did, you would
always be hankering after what could never be!"
I asked her if she would do so at once--the very next day? And what do
you guess was her answer--"Do you think it would be prudent?" As I
didn't proceed to extremities on the spot, she began to look grave, and
declare off. "Would she live with me in her own house--to be with me
all day as dear friends, if nothing more, to sit and read and talk with
me?"--"She would make no promises, but I should find her the
same."--"Would she go to the play with me sometimes, and let it be
understood that I was paying my addresses to her?"--"She could not, as a
habit--her father was rather strict, and would object."--Now what am I
to think of all this? Am I mad or a fool? Answer me to that, Master
Brook! You are a philosopher.
LETTER III
Dear Friend, I ought to have written to you before; but since I received
your letter, I have been in a sort of purgatory, and what is worse, I
see no prospect of getting out of it. I would put an end to my torments
at once; but I am as great a coward as I have been a dupe. Do you know
I have not had a word of answer from her since! What can be the reason?
Is she offended at my letting you know she wrote to me, or is it some
new affair? I wrote to her in the tenderest, most respectful manner,
poured my soul at her feet, and this is the return she makes me! Can
you account for it, except on the admission of my worst doubts
concerning her? Oh God! can I bear after all to think of her so, or
that I am scorned and made a sport of by the creature to whom I had
given my whole heart? Thus has it been with me all my life; and so will
it be to the end of it!--If you should learn anything, good or bad, tell
me, I conjure you: I can bear anything but this cruel suspense. If I
knew she was a mere abandoned creature, I should try to forget her; but
till I do know this, nothing can tear me from her, I have drank in
poison from her lips too long--alas! mine do not poison again. I sit
and indulge my grief by the hour together; my weakness grows upon me;
and I have no hope left, unless I could lose my senses quite. Do you
know I think I should like this? To forget, ah! to forget--there would
be something in that--to change to an idiot for some few years, and then
to wake up a poor wretched old man, to recollect my misery as past, and
die! Yet, oh! with her, only a little while ago, I had different hopes,
forfeited for nothing that I know of! * * * * * * If you can give me any
consolation on the subject of my tormentor, pray do. The pain I suffer
wears me out daily. I write this on the supposition that Mrs. ----- may
still come here, and that I may be detained some weeks longer. Direct
to me at the Post-office; and if I return to town directly as I fear, I
will leave word for them to forward the letter to me in London--not at
my old lodgings. I will not go back there: yet how can I breathe away
from her? Her hatred of me must be great, since my love of her could
not overcome it! I have finished the book of my conversations with her,
which I told you of: if I am not mistaken, you will think it very nice
reading.
Yours ever.
Have you read Sardanapalus? How like the little Greek slave, Myrrha, is
to HER!
LETTER IV
(Written in the Winter)
My good Friend, I received your letter this morning, and I kiss the rod
not only with submission, but gratitude. Your reproofs of me and your
defences of her are the only things that save my soul from perdition.
She is my heart's idol; and believe me those words of yours applied to
the dear saint--"To lip a chaste one and suppose her wanton"--were balm
and rapture to me. I have LIPPED HER, God knows how often, and oh! is
it even possible that she is chaste, and that she has bestowed her loved
"endearments" on me (her own sweet word) out of true regard? That
thought, out of the lowest depths of despair, would at any time make me
strike my forehead against the stars. Could I but think the love
"honest," I am proof against all hazards. She by her silence makes my
dark hour; and you by your encouragements dissipate it for twenty-four
hours. Another thing has brought me to life. Mrs. ----- is actually on
her way here about the divorce. Should this unpleasant business (which
has been so long talked of) succeed, and I should become free, do you
think S. L. will agree to change her name to -----? If she WILL, she
SHALL; and to call her so to you, or to hear her called so by others,
would be music to my ears, such as they never drank in. Do you think if
she knew how I love her, my depressions and my altitudes, my wanderings
and my constancy, it would not move her? She knows it all; and if she
is not an INCORRIGIBLE, she loves me, or regards me with a feeling
next to love. I don't believe that any woman was ever courted more
passionately than she has been by me. As Rousseau said of Madame
d'Houptot (forgive the allusion) my heart has found a tongue in speaking
to her, and I have talked to her the divine language of love. Yet she
says, she is insensible to it. Am I to believe her or you? You--for I
wish it and wish it to madness, now that I am like to be free, and to
have it in my power to say to her without a possibility of suspicion,
"Sarah, will you be mine?" When I sometimes think of the time I first
saw the sweet apparition, August 16, 1820, and that possibly she may be
my bride before that day two years, it makes me dizzy with incredible
joy and love of her. Write soon.
LETTER V
My dear Friend, I read your answer this morning with gratitude. I have
felt somewhat easier since. It shewed your interest in my vexations,
and also that you know nothing worse than I do. I cannot describe the
weakness of mind to which she has reduced me. This state of suspense is
like hanging in the air by a single thread that exhausts all your
strength to keep hold of it; and yet if that fails you, you have nothing
in the world else left to trust to. I am come back to Edinburgh about
this cursed business, and Mrs. ----- is coming from Montrose next week.
How it will end, I can't say; and don't care, except as it regards the
other affair. I should, I confess, like to have it in my power to make
her the offer direct and unequivocal, to see how she'd receive it. It
would be worth something at any rate to see her superfine airs upon the
occasion; and if she should take it into her head to turn round her
sweet neck, drop her eye-lids, and say--"Yes, I will be yours!"--why
then, "treason domestic, foreign levy, nothing could touch me further."
By Heaven! I doat on her. The truth is, I never had any pleasure, like
love, with any one but her. Then how can I bear to part with her? Do
you know I like to think of her best in her morning-gown and mob-cap--it
is so she has oftenest come into my room and enchanted me! She was once
ill, pale, and had lost all her freshness. I only adored her the more
for it, and fell in love with the decay of her beauty. I could devour
the little witch. If she had a plague-spot on her, I could touch the
infection: if she was in a burning fever, I could kiss her, and drink
death as I have drank life from her lips. When I press her hand, I
enjoy perfect happiness and contentment of soul. It is not what she
says or what she does--it is herself that I love. To be with her is to
be at peace. I have no other wish or desire. The air about her is
serene, blissful; and he who breathes it is like one of the Gods! So
that I can but have her with me always, I care for nothing more. I
never could tire of her sweetness; I feel that I could grow to her, body
and soul? My heart, my heart is hers.
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