Part 7 (2/2)

Sept. 6.

It cost me much to part with the blue coat which I wore the first time I danced with Charlotte. But I could not possibly wear it any longer.

But I have ordered a new one, precisely similar, even to the collar and sleeves, as well as a new waistcoat and pantaloons.

But it does not produce the same effect upon me. I know not how it is, but I hope in time I shall like it better.

Sept. 12.

She has been absent for some days. She went to meet Albert. To-day I visited her: she rose to receive me, and I kissed her hand most tenderly.

A canary at the moment flew from a mirror, and settled upon her shoulder. ”Here is a new friend,” she observed, while she made him perch upon her hand: ”he is a present for the children. What a dear he is! Look at him! When I feed him, he flutters with his wings, and pecks so nicely. He kisses me, too,--only look!”

She held the bird to her mouth; and he pressed her sweet lips with so much fervour that he seemed to feel the excess of bliss which he enjoyed.

”He shall kiss you too,” she added; and then she held the bird towards me. His little beak moved from her mouth to mine, and the delightful sensation seemed like the forerunner of the sweetest bliss.

”A kiss,” I observed, ”does not seem to satisfy him: he wishes for food, and seems disappointed by these unsatisfactory endearments.”

”But he eats out of my mouth,” she continued, and extended her lips to him containing seed; and she smiled with all the charm of a being who has allowed an innocent partic.i.p.ation of her love.

I turned my face away. She should not act thus. She ought not to excite my imagination with such displays of heavenly innocence and happiness, nor awaken my heart from its slumbers, in which it dreams of the worthlessness of life! And why not? Because she knows how much I love her.

Sept. 15.

It makes me wretched, Wilhelm, to think that there should be men incapable of appreciating the few things which possess a real value in life. You remember the walnut-trees at S----, under which I used to sit with Charlotte, during my visits to the worthy old vicar. Those glorious trees, the very sight of which has so often filled my heart with joy, how they adorned and refreshed the parsonage-yard, with their wide-extended branches! and how pleasing was our remembrance of the good old pastor, by whose hands they were planted so many years ago!

The schoolmaster has frequently mentioned his name. He had it from his grandfather. He must have been a most excellent man; and, under the shade of those old trees, his memory was ever venerated by me.

The schoolmaster informed us yesterday, with tears in his eyes, that those trees had been felled. Yes, cut to the ground! I could, in my wrath, have slain the monster who struck the first stroke. And I must endure this!--I, who, if I had had two such trees in my own court, and one had died from old age, should have wept with real affliction. But there is some comfort left,--such a thing is sentiment,--the whole village murmurs at the misfortune; and I hope the vicar's wife will soon find, by the cessation of the villagers' presents, how much she has wounded the feelings of the neighbourhood. It was she who did it,--the wife of the present inc.u.mbent (our good old man is dead),--a tall, sickly creature, who is so far right to disregard the world as the world totally disregards her. The silly being affects to be learned, pretends to examine the canonical books, lends her aid towards the new-fas.h.i.+oned reformation of Christendom, moral and critical, and shrugs up her shoulders at the mention of Lavater's enthusiasm. Her health is destroyed, on account of which she is prevented from having any enjoyment here below. Only such a creature could have cut down my walnut-trees! I can never pardon it. Hear her reasons. The falling leaves made the court wet and dirty; the branches obstructed the light; boys threw stones at the nuts when they were ripe, and the noise affected her nerves, and disturbed her profound meditations, when she was weighing the difficulties of Kennicot, Semler, and Michaels.

Finding that all the parish, particularly the old people, were displeased, I asked why they allowed it. ”Ah, sir!” they replied, ”when the steward orders, what can we poor peasants do?” But one thing has happened well. The steward and the vicar (who for once thought to reap some advantage from the caprices of his wife) intended to divide the trees between them. The revenue-office, being informed of it, revived an old claim to the ground where the trees had stood, and sold them to the best bidder. There they still lie on the ground. If I were the sovereign, I should know how to deal with them all,--vicar, steward, and revenue-office. Sovereign, did I say? I should in that case care little about the trees that grew in the country.

Oct. 10.

Only to gaze upon her dark eyes is to me a source of happiness! And what grieves me is that Albert does not seem so happy as he--hoped to be--as I should have been--if-- I am no friend to these pauses, but here I cannot express it otherwise; and probably I am explicit enough.

Oct. 12.

Ossian has superseded Homer in my heart. To what a world does the ill.u.s.trious bard carry me! To wander over pathless wilds, surrounded by impetuous whirlwinds, where, by the feeble light of the moon, we see the spirits of our ancestors; to hear from the mountain-tops, mid the roar of torrents, their plaintive sounds issuing from deep caverns, and the sorrowful lamentations of a maiden who sighs and expires on the mossy tomb of the warrior by whom she was adored. I meet this bard with silver hair; he wanders in the valley; he seeks the footsteps of his fathers, and, alas! he finds only their tombs. Then, contemplating the pale moon, as she sinks beneath the waves of the rolling sea, the memory of bygone days strikes the mind of the hero,--days when approaching danger invigorated the brave, and the moon shone upon his bark laden with spoils, and returning in triumph. When I read in his countenance deep sorrow, when I see his dying glory sink exhausted into the grave, as he inhales new and heart-thrilling delight from his approaching union with his beloved, and he casts a look on the cold earth and the tall gra.s.s which is so soon to cover him, and then exclaims, ”The traveller will come,--he will come who has seen my beauty, and he will ask, 'Where is the bard,--where is the ill.u.s.trious son of Fingal?' He will walk over my tomb, and will seek me in vain!”

Then, O my friend, I could instantly, like a true and n.o.ble knight, draw my sword, and deliver my prince from the long and painful languor of a living death, and dismiss my own soul to follow the demiG.o.d whom my hand had set free!

Oct. 19.

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