The Last Man
active mind, when once it seized upon this new idea, fastened on it
with extreme avidity. At first it was the great object of my ambition
to rival the merits of my father, and render myself worthy of the
friendship of Adrian. But curiosity soon awoke, and an earnest love of
knowledge, which caused me to pass days and nights in reading and
study. I was already well acquainted with what I may term the panorama
of nature, the change of seasons, and the various appearances of heaven
and earth. But I was at once startled and enchanted by my sudden
extension of vision, when the curtain, which had been drawn before the
intellectual world, was withdrawn, and I saw the universe, not only as
it presented itself to my outward senses, but as it had appeared to the
wisest among men. Poetry and its creations, philosophy and its
researches and classifications, alike awoke the sleeping ideas in my
mind, and gave me new ones.
I felt as the sailor, who from the topmast first discovered the shore
of America; and like him I hastened to tell my companions of my
discoveries in unknown regions. But I was unable to excite in any
breast the same craving appetite for knowledge that existed in mine.
Even Perdita was unable to understand me. I had lived in what is
generally called the world of reality, and it was awakening to a new
country to find that there was a deeper meaning in all I saw, besides
that which my eyes conveyed to me. The visionary Perdita beheld in all
this only a new gloss upon an old reading, and her own was sufficiently
inexhaustible to content her. She listened to me as she had done to the
narration of my adventures, and sometimes took an interest in this
species of information; but she did not, as I did, look on it as an
integral part of her being, which having obtained, I could no more put
off than the universal sense of touch.
We both agreed in loving Adrian: although she not having yet escaped
from childhood could not appreciate as I did the extent of his merits,
or feel the same sympathy in his pursuits and opinions. I was for ever
with him. There was a sensibility and sweetness in his disposition,
that gave a tender and unearthly tone to our converse. Then he was gay
as a lark carolling from its skiey tower, soaring in thought as an
eagle, innocent as the mild-eyed dove. He could dispel the seriousness
of Perdita, and take the sting from the torturing activity of my
nature. I looked back to my restless desires and painful struggles with
my fellow beings as to a troubled dream, and felt myself as much
changed as if I had transmigrated into another form, whose fresh
sensorium and mechanism of nerves had altered the reflection of the
apparent universe in the mirror of mind. But it was not so; I was the
same in strength, in earnest craving for sympathy, in my yearning for
active exertion. My manly virtues did not desert me, for the witch
Urania spared the locks of Sampson, while he reposed at her feet; but
all was softened and humanized. Nor did Adrian instruct me only in the
cold truths of history and philosophy. At the same time that he taught
me by their means to subdue my own reckless and uncultured spirit, he
opened to my view the living page of his own heart, and gave me to feel
and understand its wondrous character.
The ex-queen of England had, even during infancy, endeavoured to
implant daring and ambitious designs in the mind of her son. She saw
that he was endowed with genius and surpassing talent; these she
cultivated for the sake of afterwards using them for the furtherance of
her own views. She encouraged his craving for knowledge and his
impetuous courage; she even tolerated his tameless love of freedom,
under the hope that this would, as is too often the case, lead to a
passion for command. She endeavoured to bring him up in a sense of
resentment towards, and a desire to revenge himself upon, those who had
been instrumental in bringing about his father’s abdication. In this
she did not succeed. The accounts furnished him, however distorted, of
a great and wise nation asserting its right to govern itself, excited
his admiration: in early days he became a republican from principle.
Still his mother did not despair. To the love of rule and haughty pride
of birth she added determined ambition, patience, and self-control. She
devoted herself to the study of her son’s disposition. By the
application of praise, censure, and exhortation, she tried to seek and
strike the fitting chords; and though the melody that followed her
touch seemed discord to her, she built her hopes on his talents, and
felt sure that she would at last win him. The kind of banishment he now
experienced arose from other causes.
The ex-queen had also a daughter, now twelve years of age; his fairy
sister, Adrian was wont to call her; a lovely, animated, little thing,
all sensibility and truth. With these, her children, the noble widow
constantly resided at Windsor; and admitted no visitors, except her own
partizans, travellers from her native Germany, and a few of the foreign
ministers. Among these, and highly distinguished by her, was Prince
Zaimi, ambassador to England from the free States of Greece; and his
daughter, the young Princess Evadne, passed much of her time at Windsor
Castle. In company with this sprightly and clever Greek girl, the
Countess would relax from her usual state. Her views with regard to her
own children, placed all her words and actions relative to _them_ under
restraint: but Evadne was a plaything she could in no way fear; nor
were her talents and vivacity slight alleviations to the monotony of
the Countess’s life.
Evadne was eighteen years of age. Although they spent much time
together at Windsor, the extreme youth of Adrian prevented any
suspicion as to the nature of their intercourse. But he was ardent and
tender of heart beyond the common nature of man, and had already learnt
to love, while the beauteous Greek smiled benignantly on the boy. It
was strange to me, who, though older than Adrian, had never loved, to
witness the whole heart’s sacrifice of my friend. There was neither
jealousy, inquietude, or mistrust in his sentiment; it was devotion and
faith. His life was swallowed up in the existence of his beloved; and
his heart beat only in unison with the pulsations that vivified hers.
This was the secret law of his life—he loved and was beloved. The
universe was to him a dwelling, to inhabit with his chosen one; and not
either a scheme of society or an enchainment of events, that could
impart to him either happiness or misery. What, though life and the
system of social intercourse were a wilderness, a tiger-haunted jungle!
Through the midst of its errors, in the depths of its savage recesses,
there was a disentangled and flowery pathway, through which they might
journey in safety and delight. Their track would be like the passage of
the Red Sea, which they might traverse with unwet feet, though a wall
of destruction were impending on either side.
Alas! why must I record the hapless delusion of this matchless specimen
of humanity? What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on
towards pain and misery? We are not formed for enjoyment; and, however
we may be attuned to the reception of pleasureable emotion,
disappointment is the never-failing pilot of our life’s bark, and
ruthlessly carries us on to the shoals. Who was better framed than this
highly-gifted youth to love and be beloved, and to reap unalienable joy
from an unblamed passion? If his heart had slept but a few years
longer, he might have been saved; but it awoke in its infancy; it had
power, but no knowledge; and it was ruined, even as a too early-blowing
bud is nipt by the killing frost.
I did not accuse Evadne of hypocrisy or a wish to deceive her lover;
but the first letter that I saw of hers convinced me that she did not
love him; it was written with elegance, and, foreigner as she was, with
great command of language. The hand-writing itself was exquisitely
beautiful; there was something in her very paper and its folds, which
even I, who did not love, and was withal unskilled in such matters,
could discern as being tasteful. There was much kindness, gratitude,
and sweetness in her expression, but no love. Evadne was two years
older than Adrian; and who, at eighteen, ever loved one so much their
junior? I compared her placid epistles with the burning ones of Adrian.
His soul seemed to distil itself into the words he wrote; and they
breathed on the paper, bearing with them a portion of the life of love,
which was his life. The very writing used to exhaust him; and he would
weep over them, merely from the excess of emotion they awakened in his
heart.
Adrian’s soul was painted in his countenance, and concealment or deceit
were at the antipodes to the dreadless frankness of his nature. Evadne
made it her earnest request that the tale of their loves should not be
revealed to his mother; and after for a while contesting the point, he
yielded it to her. A vain concession; his demeanour quickly betrayed
his secret to the quick eyes of the ex-queen. With the same wary
prudence that characterized her whole conduct, she concealed her
discovery, but hastened to remove her son from the sphere of the
attractive Greek. He was sent to Cumberland; but the plan of
correspondence between the lovers, arranged by Evadne, was effectually
hidden from her. Thus the absence of Adrian, concerted for the purpose
of separating, united them in firmer bonds than ever. To me he
discoursed ceaselessly of his beloved Ionian. Her country, its ancient
annals, its late memorable struggles, were all made to partake in her
glory and excellence. He submitted to be away from her, because she
commanded this submission; but for her influence, he would have
declared his attachment before all England, and resisted, with unshaken
constancy, his mother’s opposition. Evadne’s feminine prudence
perceived how useless any assertion of his resolves would be, till
added years gave weight to his power. Perhaps there was besides a
lurking dislike to bind herself in the face of the world to one whom
she did not love—not love, at least, with that passionate enthusiasm
which her heart told her she might one day feel towards another. He
obeyed her injunctions, and passed a year in exile in Cumberland.
CHAPTER III.
Happy, thrice happy, were the months, and weeks, and hours of that
year. Friendship, hand in hand with admiration, tenderness and respect,
built a bower of delight in my heart, late rough as an untrod wild in
America, as the homeless wind or herbless sea. Insatiate thirst for
knowledge, and boundless affection for Adrian, combined to keep both my
heart and understanding occupied, and I was consequently happy. What
happiness is so true and unclouded, as the overflowing and talkative
delight of young people. In our boat, upon my native lake, beside the
streams and the pale bordering poplars—in valley and over hill, my
crook thrown aside, a nobler flock to tend than silly sheep, even a
flock of new-born ideas, I read or listened to Adrian; and his
discourse, whether it concerned his love or his theories for the
improvement of man, alike entranced me. Sometimes my lawless mood would
return, my love of peril, my resistance to authority; but this was in
his absence; under the mild sway of his dear eyes, I was obedient and
good as a boy of five years old, who does his mother’s bidding.
After a residence of about a year at Ulswater, Adrian visited London,
and came back full of plans for our benefit. You must begin life, he
said: you are seventeen, and longer delay would render the necessary
apprenticeship more and more irksome. He foresaw that his own life
would be one of struggle, and I must partake his labours with him. The