The Mysteries of Udolpho
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