Corinne; or, Italy. Madame de Staël
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a security against the sorrows which had distracted him. Nothing in the world seemed worth the risk of these pangs; but while we are still capable of feeling them, to what kind of life can we fly for shelter?
Lord Nevil flattered himself that he should quit Scotland without regret, as he had remained there without pleasure; but the dangerous dreams of imaginative minds are not thus fulfilled; he was sensible of the ties which bound him to the scene of his miseries, the home of his father. There were rooms he could not approach without a shudder, and yet, when he had resolved to fly them, he felt more alone than ever. A barren dearth seized on his heart; he could no longer weep; no more recall those little local associations which had so deeply melted him; his recollections had less of life; they belonged not to the things that surrounded him. He did not think the less of those he mourned, but it became more difficult to conjure back their presence. Sometimes, too, he reproached himself for abandoning the place where his father had dwelt. "Who knows," would he sigh, "if the shades of the dead follow the objects of their affection? They may not be permitted to wander beyond the spots where their ashes repose! Perhaps, at this moment, is my father deploring my absence, powerless to recall me. Alas! may not a host of wild events have persuaded him that I have betrayed his tenderness, turned rebel to my country, to his will, and all that is sacred on earth?"
These remembrances occasioned him such insupportable despair, that, far from daring to confide them to any one, he dreaded to sound their depths himself; so easy is it, out of our own reflections, to create irreparable evils!
It costs added pain to leave one's country, when one must cross the sea. There is such solemnity in a pilgrimage, the first steps of which are on the ocean. It seems as if a gulf were opening behind you, and your return becoming impossible; besides, the sight of the main always profoundly impresses us, as the image of that infinitude which perpetually attracts the soul, and in which thought ever feels herself lost. Oswald, leaning near the helm, his eyes fixed on the waves, appeared perfectly calm. Pride and diffidence generally prevented his betraying his emotions even before his friends; but sad feelings struggled within. He thought on the time when that spectacle animated his youth with a desire to buffet the tides, and measure his strength with theirs.
"Why," he bitterly mused, "why thus constantly yield to meditation? There is such rapture in active life! in those violent exercises that make us feel the energy of existence! then death itself may appear glorious; at least it is sudden, and not preceded by decay; but that death which finds us without being bravely sought—that gloomy death which steals from you, in a night, all you held dear, which mocks your regrets, repulses your embrace, and pitilessly opposes to your desire the eternal laws of time and nature—that death inspires a kind of contempt for human destiny, for the powerlessness of grief, and all the vain efforts that wreck themselves against necessity."
Such were the torturing sentiments which characterized the wretchedness of his state. The vivacity of youth was united with the thoughts of another age; such as might well have occupied the mind of his father in his last hours; but Oswald tinted the melancholy contemplations of age with the ardor of five-and-twenty. He was weary of everything; yet, nevertheless, lamented his lost content, as if its visions still lingered.
This inconsistency, entirely at variance with the will of nature (which has placed the conclusion and the gradation of things in their rightful course), disordered the depths of his soul; but his manners were ever sweet and harmonious; nay, his grief, far from injuring his temper, taught him a still greater degree of consideration and gentleness for others.
Twice or thrice in the voyage from Harwich to Emden the sea threatened stormily. Nevil directed the sailors, reassured the passengers; and while, toiling himself, he for a moment took the pilot's place, there was a vigour and address in what he did, which could not be regarded as the simple effect of personal strength and activity, for mind pervaded it all.
When they were about to part, all on board crowded round him to take leave, thanking him for a thousand good offices, which he had forgotten: sometimes it was a child that he had nursed so long; more frequently, some old man whose steps he had supported while the wind rocked the vessel. Such an absence of personal feeling was scarcely ever known. His voyage had passed without his having devoted a moment to himself; he gave up his time to others, in melancholy benevolence. And now the whole crew cried, with one voice, "God bless you, my Lord! we wish you better."
Yet Oswald had not once complained; and the persons of a higher class, who had crossed with him, said not a word on this subject; but the common people, in whom their superiors rarely confide, are wont to detect the truth without the aid of words; they pity you when you suffer, though ignorant of the cause; and their spontaneous sympathy is unmixed with either censure or advice.
[1] Neither of these names is Scotch. We are not informed whether the hero's Christian name is Oswald, or Nevil his family one, as well as his title. He signs the former to his letters, and constantly calls himself an Englishman.—TRANSLATOR.
CHAPTER II.
Travelling, say what we will, is one of the saddest pleasures in life. If you ever feel at ease in a strange place, it is because you have begun to make it your home; but to traverse unknown lands, to hear a language which you hardly comprehend, to look on faces unconnected with either your past or future, this is solitude without repose or dignity; for the hurry to arrive where no one awaits you, that agitation whose sole cause is curiosity, lessens you in your own esteem, while, ere new objects can become old, they have bound you by some sweet links of sentiment and habit.
Oswald felt his despondency redoubled in crossing Germany to reach Italy, obliged by war to avoid France and its frontiers, as well as the troops, who rendered the roads impassable. This necessity for attending to detail, and taking, almost every instant, a new resolution, was utterly insufferable. His health, instead of improving, often obliged him to stop, while he longed to arrive at some other place, or at least to fly from where he was. He took the least possible care of his constitution; accusing himself as culpable, with but too great severity. If he wished still to live, it was but for the defence of his country.
"My native land," would he sigh—"has it not a parental right over me? but I want power to serve it usefully. I must not offer it the feeble existence which I drag towards the sun, to beg of him some principle of life, that may struggle against my woes. None but a father could receive me thus, and love me the more, the more I was deserted by nature and by fate."
He had flattered himself that a continual change of external objects would somewhat divert his fancy from its usual routine; but he could not, at first, realize this effect. It were better, after any great loss, to familiarize ourselves afresh with all that had surrounded us, accustom ourselves to the old familiar faces, to the house in which we had lived, and the daily duties which we ought to resume; each of these efforts jars fearfully on the heart; but nothing multiplies them like an absence.
Oswald's only pleasure was exploring the Tyrol, on a horse which he had brought from Scotland, and who climbed the hills at a gallop. The astonished peasants began by shrieking with fright, as they saw him borne along the precipice's edge, and ended by chapping their hands in admiration of his dexterity grace, and courage. He loved the sense of danger. It reconciled him for the instant with that life which he thus seemed to regain, and which it would have been easy to lose.
CHAPTER III.
At Inspruck, where he stayed for some time, in the house of a banker, Oswald was much interested by the history of Count d'Erfeuil, a French emigrant, who had sustained the total loss of an immense fortune with perfect serenity. By his musical talents he had maintained himself and an aged uncle, over whom he watched till the good man's death, constantly refusing the pecuniary aid which had been pressed on him. He had displayed the most brilliant valor—that of France—during the war, and an unchangeable gayety in the midst of reverses. He was anxious to visit Rome, that he might find a relative, whose heir he expected to become; and wished for a companion, or rather a friend, with whom to make the journey agreeably.
Lord