Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion
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William Hazlitt >> Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion
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The snow on the mountain would not let us ascend; and being weary of
waiting and of being visited by the guide every two hours to let us know
that the weather would not do, we returned, you homewards, and I to
London--
"Italiam, Italiam!"
You know the anxious expectations with which I set out:--now hear the
result--
As the vessel sailed up the Thames, the air thickened with the
consciousness of being near her, and I "heaved her name pantingly
forth." As I approached the house, I could not help thinking of the
lines--
"How near am I to a happiness, That earth exceeds not! Not another like
it. The treasures of the deep are not so precious As are the conceal'd
comforts of a man Lock'd up in woman's love. I scent the air Of
blessings when I come but near the house. What a delicious breath true
love sends forth! The violet-beds not sweeter. Now for a welcome Able
to draw men's envies upon man: A kiss now that will hang upon my lip, As
sweet as morning dew upon a rose, And full as long!"
I saw her, but I saw at the first glance that there was something amiss.
It was with much difficulty and after several pressing intreaties that
she was prevailed on to come up into the room; and when she did, she
stood at the door, cold, distant, averse; and when at length she was
persuaded by my repeated remonstrances to come and take my hand, and I
offered to touch her lips, she turned her head and shrunk from my
embraces, as if quite alienated or mortally offended. I asked what it
could mean? What had I done in her absence to have incurred her
displeasure? Why had she not written to me? I could get only short,
sullen, disconnected answers, as if there was something labouring in her
mind which she either could not or would not impart. I hardly knew how
to bear this first reception after so long an absence, and so different
from the one my sentiments towards her merited; but I thought it
possible it might be prudery (as I had returned without having actually
accomplished what I went about) or that she had taken offence at
something in my letters. She saw how much I was hurt. I asked her, "If
she was altered since I went away?"--"No." "If there was any one else
who had been so fortunate as to gain her favourable opinion?"--"No,
there was no one else." "What was it then? Was it any thing in my
letters? Or had I displeased her by letting Mr. P---- know she wrote to
me?"--"No, not at all; but she did not apprehend my last letter required
any answer, or she would have replied to it." All this appeared to me
very unsatisfactory and evasive; but I could get no more from her, and
was obliged to let her go with a heavy, foreboding heart. I however
found that C---- was gone, and no one else had been there, of whom I had
cause to be jealous.--"Should I see her on the morrow?"--"She believed
so, but she could not promise." The next morning she did not appear
with the breakfast as usual. At this I grew somewhat uneasy. The
little Buonaparte, however, was placed in its old position on the
mantelpiece, which I considered as a sort of recognition of old times.
I saw her once or twice casually; nothing particular happened till the
next day, which was Sunday. I took occasion to go into the parlour for
the newspaper, which she gave me with a gracious smile, and seemed
tolerably frank and cordial. This of course acted as a spell upon me.
I walked out with my little boy, intending to go and dine out at one or
two places, but I found that I still contrived to bend my steps towards
her, and I went back to take tea at home. While we were out, I talked
to William about Sarah, saying that she too was unhappy, and asking him
to make it up with her. He said, if she was unhappy, he would not bear
her malice any more. When she came up with the tea-things, I said to
her, "William has something to say to you--I believe he wants to be
friends." On which he said in his abrupt, hearty manner, "Sarah, I'm
sorry if I've ever said anything to vex you"--so they shook hands, and
she said, smiling affably--"THEN I'll think no more of it!" I
added--"I see you've brought me back my little Buonaparte"--She answered
with tremulous softness--"I told you I'd keep it safe for you!"--as if
her pride and pleasure in doing so had been equal, and she had, as it
were, thought of nothing during my absence but how to greet me with this
proof of her fidelity on my return. I cannot describe her manner. Her
words are few and simple; but you can have no idea of the exquisite,
unstudied, irresistible graces with which she accompanies them, unless
you can suppose a Greek statue to smile, move, and speak. Those lines
in Tibullus seem to have been written on purpose for her--
Quicquid agit quoquo vestigil vertit, Componit furtim, subsequiturque
decor.
Or what do you think of those in a modern play, which might actually
have been composed with an eye to this little trifler-
--"See with what a waving air she goes Along the corridor. How like a
fawn! Yet statelier. No sound (however soft) Nor gentlest echo telleth
when she treads, But every motion of her shape doth seem Hallowed by
silence. So did Hebe grow Among the gods a paragon! Away, I'm grown The
very fool of Love!"
The truth is, I never saw anything like her, nor I never shall again.
How then do I console myself for the loss of her? Shall I tell you, but
you will not mention it again? I am foolish enough to believe that she
and I, in spite of every thing, shall be sitting together over a
sea-coal fire, a comfortable good old couple, twenty years hence! But
to my narrative.--
I was delighted with the alteration in her manner, and said, referring
to the bust--"You know it is not mine, but yours; I gave it you; nay, I
have given you all--my heart, and whatever I possess, is yours! She
seemed good-humouredly to decline this carte blanche offer, and waved,
like a thing of enchantment, out of the room. False calm!--Deceitful
smiles!--Short interval of peace, followed by lasting woe! I sought an
interview with her that same evening. I could not get her to come any
farther than the door. "She was busy--she could hear what I had to say
there." Why do you seem to avoid me as you do? Not one five minutes'
conversation, for the sake of old acquaintance? Well, then, for the
sake of THE LITTLE IMAGE!" The appeal seemed to have lost its
efficacy; the charm was broken; she remained immoveable. "Well, then I
must come to you, if you will not run away." I went and sat down in a
chair near the door, and took her hand, and talked to her for three
quarters of an hour; and she listened patiently, thoughtfully, and
seemed a good deal affected by what I said. I told her how much I had
felt, how much I had suffered for her in my absence, and how much I had
been hurt by her sudden silence, for which I knew not how to account. I
could have done nothing to offend her while I was away; and my letters
were, I hoped, tender and respectful. I had had but one thought ever
present with me; her image never quitted my side, alone or in company,
to delight or distract me. Without her I could have no peace, nor ever
should again, unless she would behave to me as she had done formerly.
There was no abatement of my regard to her; why was she so changed? I
said to her, "Ah! Sarah, when I think that it is only a year ago that
you were everything to me I could wish, and that now you seem lost to me
for ever, the month of May (the name of which ought to be a signal for
joy and hope) strikes chill to my heart.--How different is this meeting
from that delicious parting, when you seemed never weary of repeating
the proofs of your regard and tenderness, and it was with difficulty we
tore ourselves asunder at last! I am ten thousand times fonder of you
than I was then, and ten thousand times more unhappy!" "You have no
reason to be so; my feelings towards you are the same as they ever
were." I told her "She was my all of hope or comfort: my passion for
her grew stronger every time I saw her." She answered, "She was sorry
for it; for THAT she never could return." I said something about
looking ill: she said in her pretty, mincing, emphatic way, "I despise
looks!" So, thought I, it is not that; and she says there's no one
else: it must be some strange air she gives herself, in consequence of
the approaching change in my circumstances. She has been probably
advised not to give up till all is fairly over, and then she will be my
own sweet girl again. All this time she was standing just outside the
door, my hand in hers (would that they could have grown together!) she
was dressed in a loose morning-gown, her hair curled beautifully; she
stood with her profile to me, and looked down the whole time. No
expression was ever more soft or perfect. Her whole attitude, her whole
form, was dignity and bewitching grace. I said to her, "You look like a
queen, my love, adorned with your own graces!" I grew idolatrous, and
would have kneeled to her. She made a movement, as if she was
displeased. I tried to draw her towards me. She wouldn't. I then got
up, and offered to kiss her at parting. I found she obstinately
refused. This stung me to the quick. It was the first time in her life
she had ever done so. There must be some new bar between us to produce
these continued denials; and she had not even esteem enough left to tell
me so. I followed her half-way down-stairs, but to no purpose, and
returned into my room, confirmed in my most dreadful surmises. I could
bear it no longer. I gave way to all the fury of disappointed hope and
jealous passion. I was made the dupe of trick and cunning, killed with
cold, sullen scorn; and, after all the agony I had suffered, could
obtain no explanation why I was subjected to it. I was still to be
tantalized, tortured, made the cruel sport of one, for whom I would have
sacrificed all. I tore the locket which contained her hair (and which I
used to wear continually in my bosom, as the precious token of her dear
regard) from my neck, and trampled it in pieces. I then dashed the
little Buonaparte on the ground, and stamped upon it, as one of her
instruments of mockery. I could not stay in the room; I could not leave
it; my rage, my despair were uncontroulable. I shrieked curses on her
name, and on her false love; and the scream I uttered (so pitiful and so
piercing was it, that the sound of it terrified me) instantly brought
the whole house, father, mother, lodgers and all, into the room. They
thought I was destroying her and myself. I had gone into the bedroom,
merely to hide away from myself, and as I came out of it, raging-mad
with the new sense of present shame and lasting misery, Mrs. F----
said, "She's in there! He has got her in there!" thinking the cries had
proceeded from her, and that I had been offering her violence. "Oh!
no," I said, "She's in no danger from me; I am not the person;" and
tried to burst from this scene of degradation. The mother endeavoured
to stop me, and said, "For God's sake, don't go out, Mr. -----! for
God's sake, don't!" Her father, who was not, I believe, in the secret,
and was therefore justly scandalised at such outrageous conduct, said
angrily, "Let him go! Why should he stay?" I however sprang down
stairs, and as they called out to me, "What is it?--What has she done to
you?" I answered, "She has murdered me!--She has destroyed me for
ever!--She has doomed my soul to perdition!" I rushed out of the house,
thinking to quit it forever; but I was no sooner in the street, than the
desolation and the darkness became greater, more intolerable; and the
eddying violence of my passion drove me back to the source, from whence
it sprung. This unexpected explosion, with the conjectures to which it
would give rise, could not be very agreeable to the precieuse or her
family; and when I went back, the father was waiting at the door, as if
anticipating this sudden turn of my feelings, with no friendly aspect.
I said, "I have to beg pardon, Sir; but my mad fit is over, and I wish
to say a few words to you in private." He seemed to hesitate, but some
uneasy forebodings on his own account, probably, prevailed over his
resentment; or, perhaps (as philosophers have a desire to know the cause
of thunder) it was a natural curiosity to know what circumstances of
provocation had given rise to such an extraordinary scene of confusion.
When we reached my room, I requested him to be seated. I said, "It is
true, Sir, I have lost my peace of mind for ever, but at present I am
quite calm and collected, and I wish to explain to you why I have
behaved in so extravagant a way, and to ask for your advice and
intercession." He appeared satisfied, and I went on. I had no chance
either of exculpating myself, or of probing the question to the bottom,
but by stating the naked truth, and therefore I said at once, "Sarah
told me, Sir (and I never shall forget the way in which she told me,
fixing her dove's eyes upon me, and looking a thousand tender reproaches
for the loss of that good opinion, which she held dearer than all the
world) she told me, Sir, that as you one day passed the door, which
stood a-jar, you saw her in an attitude which a good deal startled you;
I mean sitting in my lap, with her arms round my neck, and mine twined
round her in the fondest manner. What I wished to ask was, whether this
was actually the case, or whether it was a mere invention of her own, to
enhance the sense of my obligations to her; for I begin to doubt
everything?"--"Indeed, it was so; and very much surprised and hurt I was
to see it." "Well then, Sir, I can only say, that as you saw her
sitting then, so she had been sitting for the last year and a half,
almost every day of her life, by the hour together; and you may judge
yourself, knowing what a nice modest-looking girl she is, whether, after
having been admitted to such intimacy with so sweet a creature, and for
so long a time, it is not enough to make any one frantic to be received
by her as I have been since my return, without any provocation given or
cause assigned for it." The old man answered very seriously, and, as I
think, sincerely, "What you now tell me, Sir, mortifies and shocks me as
much as it can do yourself. I had no idea such a thing was possible. I
was much pained at what I saw; but I thought it an accident, and that it
would never happen again."--"It was a constant habit; it has happened a
hundred times since, and a thousand before. I lived on her caresses as
my daily food, nor can I live without them." So I told him the whole
story, "what conjurations, and what mighty magic I won his daughter
with," to be anything but MINE FOR LIFE. Nothing could well exceed
his astonishment and apparent mortification. "What I had said," he
owned, "had left a weight upon his mind that he should not easily get
rid of." I told him, "For myself, I never could recover the blow I had
received. I thought, however, for her own sake, she ought to alter her
present behaviour. Her marked neglect and dislike, so far from
justifying, left her former intimacies without excuse; for nothing could
reconcile them to propriety, or even a pretence to common decency, but
either love, or friendship so strong and pure that it could put on the
guise of love. She was certainly a singular girl. Did she think it
right and becoming to be free with strangers, and strange to old
friends?" I frankly declared, "I did not see how it was in human nature
for any one who was not rendered callous to such familiarities by
bestowing them indiscriminately on every one, to grant the extreme and
continued indulgences she had done to me, without either liking the man
at first, or coming to like him in the end, in spite of herself. When
my addresses had nothing, and could have nothing honourable in them, she
gave them every encouragement; when I wished to make them honourable,
she treated them with the utmost contempt. The terms we had been all
along on were such as if she had been to be my bride next day. It was
only when I wished her actually to become so, to ensure her own
character and my happiness, that she shrunk back with precipitation and
panic-fear. There seemed to me something wrong in all this; a want both
of common propriety, and I might say, of natural feeling; yet, with all
her faults, I loved her, and ever should, beyond any other human being.
I had drank in the poison of her sweetness too long ever to be cured of
it; and though I might find it to be poison in the end, it was still in
my veins. My only ambition was to be permitted to live with her, and to
die in her arms. Be she what she would, treat me how she would, I felt
that my soul was wedded to hers; and were she a mere lost creature, I
would try to snatch her from perdition, and marry her to-morrow if she
would have me. That was the question--"Would she have me, or would she
not?" He said he could not tell; but should not attempt to put any
constraint upon her inclinations, one way or other. I acquiesced, and
added, that "I had brought all this upon myself, by acting contrary to
the suggestions of my friend, Mr. -----, who had desired me to take no
notice whether she came near me or kept away, whether she smiled or
frowned, was kind or contemptuous--all you have to do, is to wait
patiently for a month till you are your own man, as you will be in all
probability; then make her an offer of your hand, and if she refuses,
there's an end of the matter." Mr. L. said, "Well, Sir, and I don't
think you can follow a better advice!" I took this as at least a sort
of negative encouragement, and so we parted.
TO THE SAME
(In continuation)
My dear Friend, The next day I felt almost as sailors must do after a
violent storm over-night, that has subsided towards daybreak. The
morning was a dull and stupid calm, and I found she was unwell, in
consequence of what had happened. In the evening I grew more uneasy,
and determined on going into the country for a week or two. I gathered
up the fragments of the locket of her hair, and the little bronze
statue, which were strewed about the floor, kissed them, folded them up
in a sheet of paper, and sent them to her, with these lines written in
pencil on the outside--"Pieces of a broken heart, to be kept in
remembrance of the unhappy. Farewell." No notice was taken; nor did I
expect any. The following morning I requested Betsey to pack up my box
for me, as I should go out of town the next day, and at the same time
wrote a note to her sister to say, I should take it as a favour if she
would please to accept of the enclosed copies of the Vicar of
Wakefield, The Man of Feeling and Nature and Art, in lieu of three
volumes of my own writings, which I had given her on different
occasions, in the course of our acquaintance. I was piqued, in fact,
that she should have these to shew as proofs of my weakness, and as if I
thought the way to win her was by plaguing her with my own performances.
She sent me word back that the books I had sent were of no use to her,
and that I should have those I wished for in the afternoon; but that she
could not before, as she had lent them to her sister, Mrs. M-----. I
said, "very well;" but observed (laughing) to Betsey, "It's a bad rule
to give and take; so, if Sarah won't have these books, you must; they
are very pretty ones, I assure you." She curtsied and took them,
according to the family custom. In the afternoon, when I came back to
tea, I found the little girl on her knees, busy in packing up my things,
and a large paper parcel on the table, which I could not at first tell
what to make of. On opening it, however, I soon found what it was. It
contained a number of volumes which I had given her at different times
(among others, a little Prayer-Book, bound in crimson velvet, with green
silk linings; she kissed it twenty times when she received it, and said
it was the prettiest present in the world, and that she would shew it to
her aunt, who would be proud of it)--and all these she had returned
together. Her name in the title-page was cut out of them all. I
doubted at the instant whether she had done this before or after I had
sent for them back, and I have doubted of it since; but there is no
occasion to suppose her UGLY ALL OVER WITH HYPOCRISY. Poor little
thing! She has enough to answer for, as it is. I asked Betsey if she
could carry a message for me, and she said "YES." "Will you tell your
sister, then, that I did not want all these books; and give my love to
her, and say that I shall be obliged if she will still keep these that I
have sent back, and tell her that it is only those of my own writing
that I think unworthy of her." What do you think the little imp made
answer? She raised herself on the other side of the table where she
stood, as if inspired by the genius of the place, and said--"AND THOSE
ARE THE ONES THAT SHE PRIZES THE MOST!" If there were ever words spoken
that could revive the dead, those were the words. Let me kiss them, and
forget that my ears have heard aught else! I said, "Are you sure of
that?" and she said, "Yes, quite sure." I told her, "If I could be, I
should be very different from what I was." And I became so that
instant, for these casual words carried assurance to my heart of her
esteem--that once implied, I had proofs enough of her fondness. Oh! how
I felt at that moment! Restored to love, hope, and joy, by a breath
which I had caught by the merest accident, and which I might have pined
in absence and mute despair for want of hearing! I did not know how to
contain myself; I was childish, wanton, drunk with pleasure. I gave
Betsey a twenty-shilling note which I happened to have in my hand, and
on her asking "What's this for, Sir?" I said, "It's for you. Don't you
think it worth that to be made happy? You once made me very wretched by
some words I heard you drop, and now you have made me as happy; and all
I wish you is, when you grow up, that you may find some one to love you
as well as I do your sister, and that you may love better than she does
me!" I continued in this state of delirium or dotage all that day and
the next, talked incessantly, laughed at every thing, and was so
extravagant, nobody could tell what was the matter with me. I murmured
her name; I blest her; I folded her to my heart in delicious fondness; I
called her by my own name; I worshipped her: I was mad for her. I told
P---- I should laugh in her face, if ever she pretended not to like me
again. Her mother came in and said, she hoped I should excuse Sarah's
coming up. "Oh, Ma'am," I said, "I have no wish to see her; I feel her
at my heart; she does not hate me after all, and I wish for nothing.
Let her come when she will, she is to me welcomer than light, than life;
but let it be in her own sweet time, and at her own dear pleasure."
Betsey also told me she was "so glad to get the books back." I,
however, sobered and wavered (by degrees) from seeing nothing of her,
day after day; and in less than a week I was devoted to the Infernal
Gods. I could hold out no longer than the Monday evening following. I
sent a message to her; she returned an ambiguous answer; but she came
up. Pity me, my friend, for the shame of this recital. Pity me for the
pain of having ever had to make it! If the spirits of mortal creatures,
purified by faith and hope, can (according to the highest assurances)
ever, during thousands of years of smooth-rolling eternity and balmy,
sainted repose, forget the pain, the toil, the anguish, the
helplessness, and the despair they have suffered here, in this frail
being, then may I forget that withering hour, and her, that fair, pale
form that entered, my inhuman betrayer, and my only earthly love! She
said, "Did you wish to speak to me, Sir?" I said, "Yes, may I not speak
to you? I wanted to see you and be friends." I rose up, offered her an
arm-chair which stood facing, bowed on it, and knelt to her adoring.
She said (going) "If that's all, I have nothing to say." I replied,
"Why do you treat me thus? What have I done to become thus hateful to
you?" ANSWER, "I always told you I had no affection for you." You
may suppose this was a blow, after the imaginary honey-moon in which I
had passed the preceding week. I was stunned by it; my heart sunk
within me. I contrived to say, "Nay, my dear girl, not always neither;
for did you not once (if I might presume to look back to those happy,
happy times), when you were sitting on my knee as usual, embracing and
embraced, and I asked if you could not love me at last, did you not make
answer, in the softest tones that ever man heard, 'I COULD EASILY SAY
SO, WHETHER I DID OR NOT; YOU SHOULD JUDGE BY MY ACTIONS!' Was I to
blame in taking you at your word, when every hope I had depended on your
sincerity? And did you not say since I came back, 'YOUR FEELINGS TO ME
WERE THE SAME AS EVER?' Why then is your behaviour so different?" S.
"Is it nothing, your exposing me to the whole house in the way you did
the other evening?" H. "Nay, that was the consequence of your cruel
reception of me, not the cause of it. I had better have gone away last
year, as I proposed to do, unless you would give some pledge of your
fidelity; but it was your own offer that I should remain. 'Why should I
go?' you said, 'Why could we not go on the same as we had done, and say
nothing about the word FOREVER?'" S. "And how did you behave when
you returned?" H. "That was all forgiven when we last parted, and your
last words were, 'I should find you the same as ever' when I came home?
Did you not that very day enchant and madden me over again by the purest
kisses and embraces, and did I not go from you (as I said) adoring,
confiding, with every assurance of mutual esteem and friendship?" S.
"Yes, and in your absence I found that you had told my aunt what had
passed between us." H. "It was to induce her to extort your real
sentiments from you, that you might no longer make a secret of your true
regard for me, which your actions (but not your words) confessed." S.
"I own I have been guilty of improprieties, which you have gone and
repeated, not only in the house, but out of it; so that it has come to
my ears from various quarters, as if I was a light character. And I am
determined in future to be guided by the advice of my relations, and
particularly of my aunt, whom I consider as my best friend, and keep
every lodger at a proper distance." You will find hereafter that her
favourite lodger, whom she visits daily, had left the house; so that she
might easily make and keep this vow of extraordinary self-denial.
Precious little dissembler! Yet her aunt, her best friend, says, "No,
Sir, no; Sarah's no hypocrite!" which I was fool enough to believe; and
yet my great and unpardonable offence is to have entertained passing
doubts on this delicate point. I said, Whatever errors I had committed,
arose from my anxiety to have everything explained to her honour: my
conduct shewed that I had that at heart, and that I built on the purity
of her character as on a rock. My esteem for her amounted to adoration.
"She did not want adoration." It was only when any thing happened to
imply that I had been mistaken, that I committed any extravagance,
because I could not bear to think her short of perfection. "She was far
from perfection," she replied, with an air and manner (oh, my God!) as
near it as possible. "How could she accuse me of a want of regard to
her? It was but the other day, Sarah," I said to her, "when that little
circumstance of the books happened, and I fancied the expressions your
sister dropped proved the sincerity of all your kindness to me--you
don't know how my heart melted within me at the thought, that after all,
I might be dear to you. New hopes sprung up in my heart, and I felt as
Adam must have done when his Eve was created for him!" "She had heard
enough of that sort of conversation," (moving towards the door). This,
I own, was the unkindest cut of all. I had, in that case, no hopes
whatever. I felt that I had expended words in vain, and that the
conversation below stairs (which I told you of when I saw you) had
spoiled her taste for mine. If the allusion had been classical I should
have been to blame; but it was scriptural, it was a sort of religious
courtship, and Miss L. is religious!
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