Letter XXI. The Count de St. Julian to the Marchioness of Pescara, Leontini

Madam,

I have waited with patience for the expiration of twelve months, that I might not knowingly be guilty of any indecorum, or intrude upon that sorrow, which the tragical fate of the late marquis so justly claimed. But how shall I introduce the subject upon which I am now to address you? Where shall I begin this letter? Or with what arguments may I best propitiate the anger I have so justly incensed, and obtain that boon upon which the happiness of my future life is so entirely suspended?

Among all the offenses of which I have been guilty, against the simplest and gentlest mind that ever adorned this mortal stage, there is none which I less pardon to myself, than that unjust and precipitate letter, which I was so inconsiderate as to address to you immediately after I had steeped my hand in the murder of your husband. Was it for me, who had so much reason to be convinced of the innocence and disinterested truth of Matilda, to harbor suspicions so black, or rather to affront her with charges, the most hideous and infamous? What crime is there more inexcusable, than that of attributing to virtue all the concomitants of vice, of casting all those bitter taunts, all that aggravated and triumphant opprobrium in the face of rectitude, that ought to be reserved only for the most profligate of villains? Yes, Matilda, I trampled at once upon the exemptions of your sex, upon the sanctity of virtue, upon the most inoffensive and undesigning of characters. And yet all this were little.

What a time was it that I chose for an injury so atrocious! A beautiful and most amiable woman had just been deprived, by an unforeseen event, of that husband, with whom but a little before she had entered into the most sacred engagements. The state of a widow is always an afflictive and unprotected one. Rank does not soften, frequently aggravates the calamity. A tragedy had just been acted, that rendered the name of Matilda the butt of common fame, the subject of universal discussion. How painful and humiliating must this situation have been to that anxious and trembling mind; a mind whose highest ambition coveted only the tranquility that reigns in the shade of retreat, the silence and obscurity that the wisest of philosophers have asserted to be the most valuable reputation of her sex? Such was the affliction, in which I might then have known that the mistress of my heart was involved.

But I have since learned a circumstance before which all other aggravations of my inhumanity fade away. The moment that I chose for wanton insult and groundless arraignment, was the very moment in which Matilda discovered all the horrid train of hypocrisy and falsehood by which she had been betrayed. What a shock must it have given to her gentle and benevolent mind, that had never been conscious to one vicious temptation, that had never indulged the most distant thought of malignity, to have found herself surprized into a conduct, to the nature of which she had been a stranger, and which her heart disavowed? Of all the objects of compassion that the universe can furnish, there is none more truly affecting, than that of an artless and unsuspecting mind insnared by involuntary guilt. The astonishment with which it is overwhelmed, is vast and unqualified. The remorse with which it is tortured, are totally unprepared and unexpected, and have been introduced by no previous gradation. It is true, the involuntarily culpable may in some sense be pronounced wholly innocent. The guilty mind is full of prompt excuses, and ready evasions, but the untainted spirit, not inured to the sophistry of vice, cannot accommodate itself with these subterfuges. If such be the state of vulgar minds involved in this unfortunate situation, what must have been that of so soft and inoffensive a spirit?

Oh, Matilda, if tears could expiate such a crime, ere this I had been clear as the guileless infant. If incessant and bitter reproaches could overweigh a guilt of the first magnitude, mine had been obliterated. But no; the words I wrote were words of blood. Each of them was a barbed arrow pointed at the heart. There was no management, there was no qualification. And when we add to this the object against which all my injuries were directed, what punishment can be discovered sufficiently severe? The mind that invented it, must have been callous beyond all common hardness. The hand that wrote it must be accursed for ever.

And yet, Matilda, it is not merely pardon that I seek. Even that would be balm to my troubled spirit. It would somewhat soften the harsh outlines, and the aggravated features of a crime, which I shall never, never forgive to my own heart. But no, think, most amiable of women, of the height of felicity I once had full in view, and excuse my present presumption. While indeed my mind was guiltless, and my hand unstained with blood, while I had not yet insulted the woman to whose affections I aspired, nor awakened the anger of the gentlest nature, of a heart made up of goodness, and tenderness and sympathy, I might have aspired with somewhat less of arrogance. Neither your heart nor mine, Matilda, were ever very susceptible to the capricious distinctions of fortune.

But, alas, how hard is it for a mind naturally ambitious to mold and to level itself to a state of degradation. Believe me, I have put forth an hundred efforts, I have endeavored to blot your memory from a soul, in which it yet does, and ever will reign unrivaled. No, it is to fight with impassive air, it is to lash the foaming tempest into a calm. Time, which effaces all other impressions, increases that which is indelibly written upon my heart. A man whose countenance is pale and wan, and who every day approaches with hasty and unremitted strides to the tomb, may forget his situation, may call up a sickly smile upon his countenance, and lull his mind to lethargy and insensibility. Such, Matilda, is all the peace reserved for me, if yet I have no power in influencing the determinations of your mind. Stupidity, thou must be my happiness! Torpor, I will bestow upon thee all the endearing names, that common mortals give to rapture!

And yet, Matilda, if I retain any of that acute sensibility to virtue and to truth, in which I once prided myself, there can be no conduct more proper to the heir of the illustrious house of Colonna, than that which my heart demands. You have been misguided into folly. What is more natural to an ingenuous heart, than to cast back the following scandal upon the foul and detested authors, with whom the wrong originated. You have done that, which if all your passions had been hushed into silence, and the whole merits of the cause had lain before you, you would never have done. What reparation, Matilda, does a clear and generous spirit dictate, but that of honestly and fearlessly acknowledging the mistake, treading back with readiness and haste the fatal path, and embracing that line of conduct which a deliberate judgment, and an informed understanding would always have dictated?

Is it not true,—tell me, thou mistress of my soul,—that upon your determination in this one instance all your future reputation is suspended? Accept the hand of him that adores you, and the truth will shine forth in all its native splendor, and none but the blind can mistake it. Refuse him, and vulgar souls will for ever confound you with the unfortunate Rinaldo, and his detested seducer. Fame, beloved charmer, is not an object that virtuous souls despise. To brave the tongue of slander cannot be natural to the gentle and timid spirit of Matilda.

But, oh, I dare not depend upon the precision of logic, and the frigidity of argumentation. Let me endeavor to awaken the compassion and humanity of your temper. Recollect all the innocent and ecstatic endearments with which erewhile our hours were winged. Never was sublunary happiness so pure and unmingled. It was tempered with the mildest and most unbounded sympathy, it was refined and elevated with all the sublimity of virtue. These happy, thrice happy days, you, and only you, can recall. Speak but the word, and time shall reverse his course, and a new order of things shall commence. Think how much virtue depends upon your fiat. Satisfied with felicity ourselves, our hearts will overflow with benevolence for the world. Never will misery pass us unrelieved, never shall we remit the delightful task of seeking out the modest and the oppressed in their obscure retreat. We will set mankind an example of integrity and goodness. We will retrieve the original honors of the wedded state. Methinks, I could rouze the most lethargic and unanimated with my warning voice! Methinks, I could breathe a spirit into the dead! Oh, Matilda, let me inspire ambition into your breast! Let me teach that tender and right gentle heart, to glow with a mutual enthusiasm!