Damon and Delia: A Tale
- -
- 100%
- +
The mind of Damon was impressed with the most exalted ideas upon the subject of filial duty. Had his heart been pre-engaged, before the affair of Miss Frampton was proposed to him, he might not perhaps have carried his complaisance so far, as to have married the indifferent person, in spite of all his views and all his prepossessions. But in his estimate, the actual entering into a connection for life in opposition to the will of a parent, was a mode of conduct very different from, and far more exceptionable than the refusing to unite oneself with a person in whose society one had not the smallest reason to look for happiness.
There was another inducement that had much weight with Damon, and even with his more sanguine friend, sir William Twyford. The fortune neither of Damon nor Delia was independent. Lord Thomas Villiers was filled with too many prepossessions and too much pride, easily to retract an opinion he had once adopted, or to forgive an opposition to his judgment. The narrow education of a tradesman it was natural to suppose had rendered the mind of Mr. Hartley still more tenacious, and unmanageable. And neither would sir William have been willing to see his friend, nor would the lover readily have involved his mistress in circumstances of pecuniary distress.
The resolution of Damon was therefore speedily taken. Every motive that could have weight, served to counteract the bias of his inclination. He by no means wanted either firmness or spirit. He resolved to struggle, nor to cease his efforts till he had conquered. With this design he entreated, and, after some difficulties, obtained of his father leave to enter himself in the army, and to make a campaign in America.
The character of his heart seemed particularly formed for military pursuits. He was grave and thoughtful, he was generous and humane. To a mind contemplative and full of sensibility, he united a temper, frank, open, and undisguised. He was usually mild, gentle and pliant. But in a situation, that called for determination and spirit, it was impossible to appear more bold and manly, more cool and decided,–Affectionate was the farewel of his father, and still more affectionate that of his friend. Damon, though he endeavoured to summon all his resolution, could not restrain a sigh when he considered himself as about to sail for distant climates, and recollected, that probably, before his return, his beloved mistress, dearer than life and all its joys, would be united, irrevocably united to another. But here we must take leave of our hero, and return to his fair inamorata.
PART the SECOND
CHAP. I.
In which the Story begins over again
Sir William Twyford had taken care to inform Miss Fletcher, and by her means Delia herself, of every circumstance as it occurred. Delia was indeed flattered by the breach that had taken place with Miss Frampton, and the perfect elucidation, which the story of this lady afforded to the most enigmatical expressions of Damon, in the interesting scene that had passed between them in the alcove. She no longer doubted of the reality of his attachment. Her heart was soothed, and her pride secretly flattered, in recollecting that she had not suffered herself to be caught by one who was perfectly indifferent to her.
But the information that stifled all her hopes, and gave her the prospect of so long, and, too probably, an eternal absence, sat heavy upon her spirits, and preyed upon her delicate constitution. From the persecutions of lord Martin she had no respite. Her eye grew languid, the colour faded in her damask cheek, and her health visibly decayed.
At this time Miss Fletcher proposed a journey to Windsor and other places, and intreated to have her friend to accompany her. Mr. Hartley, with all his foibles, was much attached to his only child, and deeply afflicted with the alteration he perceived in her. He readily therefore gave his consent to the proposed jaunt. "When she returns, it will be time enough," said he to lord Martin, "to bring things to the conclusion, so much desired by both of us. I will not put my darling into your hands, but with that health and gaiety, which have so long been the solace of my old age, and which cannot fail to make any man happy that deserves her."
Delia set out without any other inclination, than to escape from intreaties that were become in the highest degree disagreeable to her. She was addressed no longer upon a topic, of which she wished never to hear. Her eye was no longer wounded with the sight of her insolent admirer. This had an immediate and a favourable effect upon her. The conversation of Miss Fletcher was lively and unflagging, and the simplicity of her remarks proved an inexhaustible source of entertainment to our heroine.
They travelled leisurely and visited a variety of parks and seats of noblemen which lay in their way. The taste of Delia was delicate and refined. A continual succession of objects; gardens, architecture, pictures and statues soothed her spirits, and gradually restored her to that gaiety and easiness of temper, which had long rendered her the most lovely and engaging of her sex.
At length they arrived at Windsor. The simple dignity of the castle, its commanding situation, and the beautiful effects of the river from below, rendered it infinitely the most charming spot our heroine had yet seen. Her spirits were on the wing, she was all life and conversation, and the most constant heart, that nature had ever produced, for a moment, forgot her hopes, her fears, her inclinations, and her Damon.
She was now standing at a window that commanded the terrace. The evening was beautiful, and the walk crouded. There were assembled persons of all sexes and of different ranks. All appeared gaiety and splendour. The supple courtier and the haughty country gentleman seemed equally at their ease. There was thoughtless youth and narrative old age. The company passed along, and object succeeded object without intermission.
One of the last that caught the eye of Delia, was that of two gentlemen walking arm in arm, and seeming more grave than the rest of the company. They were both tall and well shaped; but one of them had somewhat more graceful and unembarrassed in his manner than the other. The latter was dressed in black, the former in colours, with much propriety and elegance.
As they turned at the end of the walk the eye of Delia caught in the latter the figure of Damon. She was inexpressibly astonished, she trembled in every limb, and could scarcely support herself to a seat. Miss Fletcher had caught the same object at the same moment, and, though she probably might not otherwise have been clear in her recollection, the disorder of Delia put her conjecture out of doubt. She therefore, before our heroine had time to recollect herself, dispatched her brother, who had attended them in their journey, to inform Damon that a lady in the castle was desirous to speak with him.
In an instant our hero and his companion, escorted by young Fletcher, entered the room. The astonishment of Damon, at being so suddenly introduced to a person, whom he had never expected to see again, was immeasurable. He rushed forward with a kind of rapture; he suddenly recollected himself; but at length advanced with hesitation. There was no one present beside those we have already named. The castle was probably familiar to every person except Delia and her companions. Every one beside was therefore assembled upon the terrace.
Our heroine now gradually recovered from the disorder into which the unexpected sight of Damon had thrown her. She was much surprised at looking up to find him in her presence. "How is this," cried she, "how came you hither?" "The meeting," said our hero, "is equally unexpected to us both. But, ah, my charmer, whence this disorder? Why did you tremble, why look so pale?" "Oh goodness," cried Miss Fletcher, "what should it be? Why it was nothing in all the world, but her seeing you just now from the window." "And were you," cried Damon eagerly, "so kind as to summon me to your presence?" "No, no, my good sir," said the lively lady, "you must thank me for that". "How then at least," said the lover, "must I interpret your disorder?"
Delia was inexpressibly confused at the inconsiderate language of her companion. "I cannot tell," said she, "you must not ask me. You must forget it." "And can I," cried Damon with transport, "ever forget a disorder so propitious, so flattering? Can I hope that the heart of my charmer is not indifferent to her Damon!" "Oh sir, be silent. Do not use a language like this." "Alas," cried he, "too long has my passion been suppressed. Too long have I been obliged to act a studied part, and employ a language foreign to my heart." "I thought," answered Delia, with hesitation, "that you were going to leave the kingdom." "And did my fair one condescend to employ a thought upon me? Did she interest herself in my concern and enquire after my welfare? And how so soon could she have learned my intention?"
This question, joined with the preceding circumstances, completed the confusion of Delia. She blushed, stammered, and was silent. Damon, during this interval, gazed upon her with unmingled rapture. Every symptom she betrayed of confusion, was to him a symptom of something inexpressibly soothing. "Ah," whispered he to himself, "I am beloved, and can I then leave the kingdom? Can I quit this inestimable treasure? Can I slight so pure a friendship, and throw away the jewel upon which all my future happiness depends?"
The conversation, from the peculiar circumstances of the lovers, had so immediately become interesting, that the gentlemen had not had an opportunity of quitting them. During the short silence that prevailed the friend of Damon took young Fletcher by the hand, and led him into the garden. The lovers were now under less restraint. Delia, perceiving that she could no longer conceal her sentiments, confessed them with ingenuous modesty. Damon on the other hand was ravished at so unexpected a discovery, and in a few minutes had lived an age in love.
He now began to recollect himself. "Where," said he, "are all my resolutions? What are become of all the plans I had formed, and the designs in which I had embarked? What an unexpected revolution? No," said he, addressing himself to Delia, "I will never quit you. Do thou but smile, and let all the world beside abandon me. Can you forgive the sacrilegious intention of deserting you, of flying from you to the extremities of the globe? Oh, had I known a thought of Damon had harboured in one corner of your heart, I would sooner have died." "And do you think," cried Delia, "that I will tempt you to disobedience? No. Obey the precepts of your father and your own better thoughts. Heaven designed us not for each other. Neither your friends nor mine can ever be reconciled to the union. Go then and forget me. Go and be happy. May your sails be swelled with propitious gales! May victory and renown attend your steps!" "Ah cruel Delia, and do you wish to banish me? Do you enjoin upon me the impracticable talk, to forget all that my heart holds dear? And will my Delia resign herself to the arms of a more favoured lover?" "Never," cried she with warmth. "I will not disobey my father. I will not marry contrary to his inclinations. But even the authority of a parent shall not drag me to the altar with a man my soul detests." "Propitious sounds! Generous engagements! Thus let me thank thee."–And he kissed her hand with fervour. "Thus far," cried Delia, "I can advance. I employ no disguise. I confess to you all my weakness. Perhaps I ought to blush. But never will I have this reason to blush, for that my love has injured the object it aspires to bless. Go in the path of fortune. Deserve success and happiness by the exemplariness of your duty. And may heaven shower down blessings without number!"
CHAPTER II.
The History of Mr. Godfrey
In expostulations like these our lovers spent their time without coming to any conclusion, till the evening and Miss Fletcher warned them that it was time to depart. Damon was to proceed for London early the next morning. He therefore intreated of Delia to permit his friend Mr. Godfrey, who was obliged to continue in the place some days longer, to wait upon her with his last commands. He informed himself of the time when she was to return to Southampton, and he trusted to be there not long after her. In the mean time, as his situation was at present very precarious, he prevailed upon her to permit him to write to her from time to time, and to promise to communicate to him in return any thing of consequence that might happen to herself.
During the remainder of the evening Miss Fletcher made several ingenious observations upon what had passed. Delia gently blamed her for having so strangely occasioned the interview, though in reality she was by no means displeased by the event it had produced. "Bless us, child, you are as captious as any thing. Why I would not but have seen it for ever so much. Well, he is a sweet dear man, and so kind, and so polite, for all the world I think him just such another as Mr. Prattle. But then he is grave, and makes such fine speeches, it does one's heart good to hear him. I vow I wish I had such a lover. Sir William never says any thing half so pretty. Bless us, my dear, he talks about love, just as if he were talking about any thing else."
The next morning after breakfast, Mr. Godfrey appeared. He brought from Damon a thousand vows full of passion and constancy. He had parted, he said, more determined not to leave England, more resolute to prosecute his love than ever.
Having discharged his commission, he offered his service to escort the ladies in any party they might propose for the present day. He said, that being perfectly acquainted with Windsor and its environs, he flattered himself he might be able to contribute to their entertainment. The very gallant manner in which this offer was made, determined Miss Fletcher, as something singular and interesting in the appearance of Mr. Godfrey did our heroine, cheerfully to close with the proposal.
The person of Mr. Godfrey as we have already said was tall and genteel. There was a diffidence in his manner, that seemed to prove that he had not possessed the most extensive acquaintance with high life; but he had a natural politeness that amply compensated for the polish and forms of society. His air was serious and somewhat melancholy; but there was a fire and animation in his eye that was in the highest degree striking.
Delia engaged him to talk of the character and qualities of Damon. Upon this subject, Mr. Godfrey spoke with the warmth of an honest friendship. He represented Damon as of a disposition perfectly singular and unaccommodated to what he stiled "the debauched and unfeeling manners of the age." He acknowledged with readiness and gratitude, that he owed to him the most important obligations. By degrees Delia collected from him several circumstances of a story, which she before apprehended to be interesting. She observed, that, as he shook off the embarrassment of a first introduction, his language became fluent, elegant, pointed, and even sometimes poetical. Since however he related his own story imperfectly and by piece meal, we shall beg leave to state it in our own manner. And we the rather do it, as we apprehend it to be interesting in itself, and as we foresee that he will make a second appearance in the course of this narrative. We will not however deprive our readers of the reflections he threw out upon the several situations in which he had been placed. We will give them without pretending to decide how far they may be considered as just and well-founded.
Mr. Godfrey was not born to affluent circumstances. At a proper age he had been placed at the university of Oxford, and here it was that he commenced his acquaintance with Damon. At Oxford his abilities had been universally admired. His public exercises, though public exercises by their very nature ought to be dull, had in them many of those sallies, by which his disposition was characterised, and much of that superiority, which he indisputably possessed above his contemporaries. But though admired, he was not courted. In our public places of education, a wide distance is studiously preserved between young men of fortune, and young men that have none. But Mr. Godfrey had a stiffness and unpliableness of temper, that did not easily bend to the submission that was expected of him. He could neither flatter a blockhead, nor pimp for a peer. He loved his friend indeed with unbounded warmth, and it was impossible to surpass him in generousness and liberality. But he had a proud integrity, that whispered him, with, a language not to be controled, that he was the inferior of no man.
He was destined for the profession of a divine, and, having finished his studies, retired upon a curacy of forty pounds a year. His ambition was grievously mortified at the obscurity in which he was plunged; and his great talents, in spite of real modesty, forcibly convinced him, that this was not the station for which nature had formed him. But he had an enthusiasm of virtue, that led him for a time to overlook these disadvantages. "I am going," said he, "to dwell among scenes of unvitiated nature. I will form the peasant to generosity and sentiment. I will teach laborious industry to look without envy and without asperity upon those above them. I will be the friend and the father of the meanest of my flock. I will give sweetness and beauty to the most rugged scenes. The man, that banishes envy and introduces contentment; the man, that converts the little circle in which he dwells into a terrestrial paradise, that renders men innocent here, and happy for ever, may be obscure, may be despised by the superciliousness of luxury; but it shall never be said that he has been a blank in creation. The Supreme Being will regard him with a complacency, which he will deny to kings, that oppress, and conquerors, that destroy the work of his hands."
Such were the suggestions of youthful imagination. But Mr. Godfrey presently found the truth of that maxim, as paradoxical as it is indisputable, that the heart of man is naturally hard and unamiable. He conducted himself in his new situation with the most unexceptionable propriety, and the most generous benevolence. But there were men in his audience, men who loved better to criticise, than to be amended; and women, who felt more complacency in scandal, than eulogium. He displeased the one by disappointing them; it was impossible to disappoint the other. He laboured unremittedly, but his labours returned to him void. "And is it for this," said he, "that I have sacrificed ambition, and buried talents? Is humility to be rewarded only with mortification? Is obscurity and retirement the favourite scene of uneasiness, ingratitude, and impertinence? They shall be no longer my torment. In no scene can I meet with a more scanty success."
He now obtained a recommendation to be private tutor to the children of a nobleman. This nobleman was celebrated for the politeness of his manners and the elegance of his taste. It was his boast and his ambition to be considered as the patron of men of letters. With his prospect therefore in this connection, Mr. Godfrey was perfectly satisfied. "I shall no longer," said he, "be the slave of ignorance, and the victim of insensibility. My talents perhaps point me a step higher than to the business of forming the minds of youth. But, at least, the youth under my care are destined to fill the most conspicuous stations in future life. If propitious fortune might have raised me to the character of a statesman; depressed by adversity, I may yet have the honour of moulding the mind, and infusing generosity into the heart, of a future statesman. I have heard the second son of my patron celebrated for the early promises of capacity. To unfold the springing germs of genius, to direct them in the path of general happiness, is an employment by no means unworthy of a philosopher."
In this situation Mr. Godfrey however once more looked for pleasure, and found disappointment. The nobleman had more the affectation of a patron, than any real enthusiasm in the cause of literature. The abilities of Mr. Godfrey were universally acknowledged. And so long as the novelty remained, he was caressed, honoured, and distinguished. In a short time however, he was completely forgotten by the patron, in the hurry of dissipation, and the pursuits of an unbounded ambition. His eldest care was universally confessed stupid and impracticable. And in the younger he found nothing but the prating forwardness of a boy who had been flattered, without sentiment, and without meaning. Her ladyship treated Mr. Godfrey with superciliousness, as an intruder at her lord's table. The servants caught the example, and showed him a distinction of neglect, which the exquisiteness of his sensibility would not permit him to despise.
Mortified, irritated, depressed, he now quitted his task half finished and threw himself upon the world. "The present age," said he, "is not an age in which talents are overlooked, and genius depressed." He had heard much of the affluence of writers, a Churchil, a Smollet, and a Goldsmith, who had depended upon that only for their support. He saw the celebrated Dr. Johnson caressed by all parties, and acknowledged to be second to no man, whatever were his rank, however conspicuous his station. Full of these ideas, he soon completed a production, fraught with the fire and originality of genius, pointed in its remarks, and elegant in its style. He had now to experience vexations, of which he had before entertained no idea. He carried his work from bookseller to bookseller, and was every where refused. His performance was not seasoned to the times, he was a person that nobody knew, and he had no man of rank, by his importunities and eloquence, to force him into the ranks of fashion. At length he found a bookseller foolish enough to undertake it. But he presently perceived that the gentlemen at the head of that profession were wiser than he. All the motives they had mentioned, and one more, operated against him. The monarchs of the critic realm scouted him with one voice, because his work, was not written in the same cold, phlegmatic insupportable manner as their own.
He had now advanced however too far to retreat. He had too much spirit to resume either of those professions, which for reasons so cogent in his opinion, he had already quitted. He wrote essays, squibs, and pamphlets for an extemporary support. But though these were finished with infinite rapidity, he found that they constituted a very precarious means of subsistence. The time of dinner often came, before the production that was to purchase it was completed; and when completed, it was frequently several days before it could find a purchaser. And his copy money and his taylor's bill were too little proportioned to one another.
He now recollected, what in the gaiety of hope he had forgotten, that many a flower only blows, with its sweetness to refresh the air of a desert. He recollected many instances of works, raised by the breath of fashion to the very pinnacle of reputation, that sunk as soon again. He recollected instances scarcely fewer, of works, exquisite in their composition, pregnant with beauties almost divine, that had passed from the press without notice. Many had been revived by the cooler and more deliberate judgment of a future age; and more had been lost for ever. The instance of Chatterton, as a proof that the universal patronage of genius was by no means the virtue of his contemporaries, flashed in his face. And he looked forward to the same fate at no great distance, as his own.
To Mr. Godfrey however, fortune was in one degree more propitious. Damon was among the few whose judgment was not guided by the dictate of fashion. Having met accidentally with the performance we have mentioned, he was struck with its beauties. As he had heard nothing of it in the politest circles, he concluded, with his usual penetration, that the author of it was in obscure and narrow circumstances. Open as day to sweet humanity, interested warmly in the fortune of the writer of so amiable a performance, he flew to his bookseller's with the usual enquiries. The bookseller stared, and had it not been for the splendour of his dress, and his gilded chariot, would have been tempted to smile at so unfashionable and absurd a question. He soon however obtained the information he desired. And his eagerness was increased, when the name of Godfrey, and the recollection of the talents by which he had been so eminently distinguished, led him to apprehend that he was one, to whose abilities and character he had been greatly attached.