Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 08

								


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BOOK VIII.


O Fate!  O Heaven!--what have ye then decreed?

                 SOPHOCLES: OEd. Tyr. 738.


"Insolent pride  .  .  .
.  .  .  .  .  .
The topmost crag of the great precipice
Surmounts--to rush to ruin."

                 Ibid. 874.

CHAPTER I.


.  .  .  SHE is young, wise, fair,
In these to Nature she's immediate heir.
.  .  .  .  .  .
.  .  .  Honours best thrive
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers!--All's Well that Ends Well.

LETTER FROM ERNEST MALTRAVERS TO THE HON. FREDERICK CLEVELAND.

EVELYN is free; she is in Paris; I have seen her,--I see her daily!
How true it is that we cannot make a philosophy of indifference!  The
affections are stronger than all our reasonings.  We must take them into
our alliance, or they will destroy all our theories of self-government.
Such fools of fate are we, passing from system to system, from scheme to
scheme, vainly seeking to shut out passion and sorrow-forgetting that
they are born within us--and return to the soul as the seasons to the
earth!  Yet,--years, many years ago, when I first looked gravely into my
own nature and being here, when I first awakened to the dignity and
solemn responsibilities of human life, I had resolved to tame and curb
myself into a thing of rule and measure.  Bearing within me the wound
scarred over but never healed, the consciousness of wrong to the heart
that had leaned upon me, haunted by the memory of my lost Alice, I
shuddered at new affections bequeathing new griefs.  Wrapped in a haughty
egotism, I wished not to extend my empire over a wider circuit than my
own intellect and passions.  I turned from the trader-covetousness of
bliss, that would freight the wealth of life upon barks exposed to every
wind upon the seas of Fate; I was contented with the hope to pass life
alone, honoured, though unloved.  Slowly and reluctantly I yielded to the
fascinations of Florence Lascelles.  The hour that sealed the compact
between us was one of regret and alarm.  In vain I sought to deceive
myself,--I felt that I did not love.  And then I imagined that Love was
no longer in my nature,--that I had exhausted its treasures before my
time, and left my heart a bankrupt.  Not till the last--not till that
glorious soul broke out in all its brightness the nearer it approached
the source to which it has returned--did I feel of what tenderness she
was worthy and I was capable.  She died, and the world was darkened!
Energy, ambition, my former aims and objects, were all sacrificed at her
tomb.  But amidst ruins and through the darkness, my soul yet supported
me; I could no longer hope, but I could endure.  I was resolved that I