Corinne Volume 1 (of 2) Read online

  Chapter i.

  Oswald, Lord Nelville, Peer of Scotland, quitted Edinburgh for Italyduring the winter of 1794-5. He possessed a noble and handsome figure,an abundance of wit, an illustrious name, and an independent fortune,but his health was impaired by deeply-rooted sorrow, and his physicians,fearing that his lungs were attacked, had prescribed him the air of theSouth. Though indifferent as to the preservation of his life, hefollowed their advice. He expected, at least, to find in the diversityof objects he was about to see, something that might divert his mindfrom the melancholy that preyed upon it. The most exquisite ofgriefs--the loss of a father--was the cause of his malady; this washeightened by cruel circumstances, which, together with a remorseinspired by delicate scruples, increased his anguish, which was stillfurther aggravated by the phantoms of the imagination. Those who suffer,easily persuade themselves that they are guilty, and violent grief willextend its painful influence even to the conscience.

  At twenty-five years of age he was dissatisfied with life, his mindanticipated every thing that it could afford, and his woundedsensibility no longer enjoyed the illusions of the heart. Nobodyappeared more complacent, more devoted to his friends when he was ableto render them service; but not even the good he performed could affordhim a pleasurable sensation.

  He incessantly sacrificed his own taste to that of others; but it wasimpossible to explain, upon principles of generosity alone, this totalabnegation of every selfish feeling, most frequently to be attributed tothat species of sadness which no longer permitted him to take anyinterest in his own fate. Those indifferent to him enjoyed thisdisposition so full of benignity and charm; but those who loved himperceived that he sought the happiness of others like a man who nolonger expected any himself; and they almost experienced a pain from hisconferring a felicity for which it was impossible to make him a returnin kind.

  He was, notwithstanding, of a nature susceptible of emotion, sensibilityand passion; he combined every thing that could evoke enthusiasm inothers and in himself; but misfortune and repentance had taught him totremble at that destiny whose anger he sought to disarm by forbearing tosolicit any favour at her hands.

  He expected to find in a strict attachment to all his duties, and in arenunciation of every lively enjoyment, a security against those pangsthat tear the soul. What he had experienced struck fear into his heart;and nothing this world can afford, could, in his estimation, compensatethe risk of those sufferings; but when one is capable of feeling them,what mode of life can shelter us from their power?

  Lord Nelville flattered himself that he should be able to quit Scotlandwithout regret, since he resided in it without pleasure; but theunhappy imagination of the children of sensibility is not so formed: hedid not suspect what ties attached him to those scenes which were mostpainful to him,--to the home of his father. There were in thishabitation, chambers, places, which he could not approach withoutshuddering, and, nevertheless, when he resolved to quit them, he felthimself still more solitary. His heart became dried up; he was no longerable to give vent to his sufferings in tears; he could no longer call upthose little local circumstances which affected him deeply; hisrecollections no longer possessed anything of the vivid semblance ofreal existence; they were no longer in affinity with the objects thatsurrounded him; he did not think less on him whose loss he lamented, buthe found it more difficult to recall his presence.

  Sometimes also he reproached himself for abandoning those abodes wherehis father had dwelt. "Who knows," said he to himself, "whether theshades of the departed are allowed to pursue every where the objects oftheir affection? Perhaps it is only permitted them to wander about thespot where their ashes repose! Perhaps at this moment my father regretsme, while distance prevents my hearing his voice exerted to recall hisson. Alas! while he was living must not a concourse of strange eventshave persuaded him that I had betrayed his tenderness, that I was arebel to my country, to his paternal will, to everything that is sacredon earth?"--These recollections excited in Lord Nelville a grief soinsupportable that not only was he unable to confide it to others, buteven dreaded himself to sound it to the bottom. So easily do our ownreflections become to us an irreparable evil.

  It costs us more to quit our native country when to leave it we musttraverse the sea; all is solemn in a journey of which ocean marks thefirst steps. An abyss seems to open behind you, and to render yourreturn for ever impossible. Besides, the sublime spectacle which the seapresents must always make a deep impression on the imagination; it isthe image of that Infinity which continually attracts our thoughts, thatrun incessantly to lose themselves in it. Oswald, supporting himself onthe helm, his eyes fixed on the waves, was apparently calm, for hispride, united to his timidity, would scarcely ever permit him todiscover, even to his friends, what he felt; but he was internallyracked with the most painful emotions.

  He brought to mind the time when the sight of the sea animated his youthwith the desire of plunging into her waves, and measuring his forceagainst her's.--"Why," said he to himself, with the most bitter regret,"why do I yield so unremittingly to reflection? How many pleasures arethere in active life, in those exercises which make us feel the energyof existence? Death itself then appears but an event, perhaps glorious,at least sudden, and not preceded by decline. But that death which comeswithout having been sought by courage, that death of darkness whichsteals from you in the night all that you hold most dear, which despisesyour lamentations, repulses your embrace, and pitilessly, opposes to youthe eternal laws of nature and of time! such a death inspires a sort ofcontempt for human destiny, for the impotence of grief, for all thosevain efforts that dash and break themselves upon the rock of necessity."

  Such were the sentiments that tormented Oswald; and what particularlycharacterised his unhappy situation, was the vivacity of youth united tothoughts of another age. He entered into those ideas which he conceivedmust have occupied his father's mind in the last moments of his life;and he carried the ardour of twenty-five into the melancholyreflections of old age. He was weary of every thing, and yet stillregretted happiness, as if her illusions were still within his grasp.This contrast, quite in hostility with the ordinance of nature, whichgives uniformity and graduation to the natural course of things, threwthe soul of Oswald into disorder; but his manners always possessedconsiderable sweetness and harmony, and his sadness, far from souringhis temper, only inspired him with more condescension and goodnesstowards others.

  Two or three times during the passage from Harwich to Empden the sea puton the appearance of approaching storm; Lord Nelville counselled thesailors, restored confidence to the passengers, and when he himselfassisted in working the ship, when he took for a moment the place of thesteersman, there was in all he did, a skill and a power which could notbe considered as merely the effect of the agility of the body,--therewas soul in all that he did.

  On his quitting the vessel all the crew crowded around Oswald to takeleave of him; they all thanked him for a thousand little services whichhe had rendered them during the voyage, and which he no longerremembered. Upon one occasion, perhaps, it was a child which hadoccupied a large share of his attention; more often an old man, whosetottering steps he had supported when the wind agitated the ship. Such ageneral attention, without any regard to rank or quality, was perhapsnever met with. During the whole day he would scarcely bestow a singlemoment upon himself: influenced alike by melancholy and benevolence, hegave his whole time to others. On leaving him the sailors said to himwith one voice, "My dear Lord, may you be more happy!" Oswald had notonce expressed the internal pain he felt; and the men of another rank,who had accompanied him in his passage, had not spoken a word to him onthat subject. But the common people, in whom their superiors rarelyconfide, accustom themselves to discover sentiments and feelings byother means than speech: they pity you when you suffer, though they areignorant of the cause of your grief, and their spontaneous pity isunmixed with either blame or advice.