"I now hasten to the more moving part of my
story. I shall relate events that impressed me with feelings which,
from what I had been, have made me what I am.
"Spring
advanced rapidly; the weather became fine, and the skies cloudless.
It surprised me that what before was desert and gloomy should now
bloom with the most beautiful flowers and verdure. My senses were
gratified and refreshed by a thousand scents of delight, and a
thousand sights of beauty.
"It was on one of these days,
when my cottagers periodically rested from labour--the old man
played on his guitar, and the children listened to him--that I
observed the countenance of Felix was melancholy beyond expression;
he sighed frequently; and once his father paused in his music, and I
conjectured by his manner that he inquired the cause of his son's
sorrow. Felix replied in a cheerful accent, and the old man was
recommencing his music when some one tapped at the door.
"It
was a lady on horseback, accompanied by a countryman as a guide. The
lady was dressed in a dark suit, and covered with a thick black
veil. Agatha asked a question; to which the stranger only replied by
pronouncing, in a sweet accent, the name of Felix. Her voice was
musical, but unlike that of either of my friends. On hearing this
word, Felix came up hastily to the lady; who, when she saw him,
threw up her veil, and I beheld a countenance of angelic beauty and
expression. Her hair of a shining raven black, and curiously
braided; her eyes were dark, but gentle, although animated; her
features of a regular proportion, and her complexion wondrously
fair, each cheek tinged with a lovely pink.
"Felix seemed
ravished with delight when he saw her, every trait of sorrow
vanished from his face, and it instantly expressed a degree of
ecstatic joy, of which I could hardly have believed it capable; his
eyes sparkled as his cheek flushed with pleasure; and at that moment
I thought him as beautiful as the stranger. She appeared affected by
different feelings; wiping a few tears from her lovely eyes, she
held out her hand to Felix, who kissed it rapturously, and called
her, as well as I could distinguish, his sweet Arabian. She did not
appear to understand him, but smiled. He assisted her to dismount,
and dismissing her guide, conducted her into the cottage. Some
conversation took place between him and his father; and the young
stranger knelt at the old man's feet, and would have kissed his
hand, but he raised her, and embraced her affectionately.
"I
soon perceived that, although the stranger uttered articulate
sounds, and appeared to have a language of her own, she was neither
understood by, not herself understood, the cottagers. They made many
signs which I did not comprehend; but I saw that her presence
diffused gladness through the cottage, dispelling their sorrow as
the sun dissipates the morning mists. Felix seemed peculiarly happy,
and with smiles of delight welcomed his Arabian. Agatha, the
ever-gentle Agatha, kissed the hands of the lovely stranger; and,
pointing to her brother, made signs which appeared to me to mean
that he had been sorrowful until she came. Some hours passed thus,
while they, by their countenances, expressed joy, the cause of which
I did not comprehend. Presently I found, by the frequent recurrence
of some sound which the stranger repeated after them, that she was
endeavouring to learn their language; and the idea instantly
occurred to me that I should make use of the same instructions to
the same end. The stranger learned about twenty words at the first
lesson, most of them, indeed, were those which I had before
understood, but I profited by the others.
"As night came on,
Agatha and the Arabian retired early. When they separated, Felix
kissed the hand of the stranger, and said, `Good night, sweet
Safie.' He sat up much longer, conversing with his father; and, by
the frequent repetition of her name, I conjectured that their lovely
guest was the subject of their conversation. I ardently desired to
understand them, and bent every faculty towards that purpose, but
found it utterly impossible.
"The next morning Felix went
out to his work; and, after the usual occupations of Agatha were
finished, the Arabian sat at the feet of the old man, and, taking
his guitar, played some airs so entrancingly beautiful that they at
once drew tears of sorrow and delight from my eyes. She sang, and
her voice flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or dying away, like a
nightingale of the woods.
"When she had finished, she gave
the guitar to Agatha, who at first declined it. She played a simple
air, and her voice accompanied it in sweet accents, but unlike the
wondrous strain of the stranger. The old man appeared enraptured,
and said some words, which Agatha endeavoured to explain to Safie,
and by which he appeared to wish to express that she bestowed on him
the greatest delight by her music.
"The days now passed as
peaceably as before, with the sole alteration that joy had taken
place of sadness in the countenances of my friends. Safie was always
gay and happy; she and I improved rapidly in the knowledge of
language, so that in two months I began to comprehend most of the
words uttered by my protectors.
"In the meanwhile also the
black ground was covered with herbage, and the green banks
interspersed with innumerable flowers, sweet to the scent and the
eyes, stars of pale radiance among the moonlight woods; the sun
became warmer, the nights clear and balmy; and my nocturnal rambles
were an extreme pleasure to me, although they were considerably
shortened by the late setting and early rising of the sun; for I
never ventured abroad during daylight, fearful of meeting with the
same treatment I had formerly endured in the first village which I
entered.
"My days were spent in close attention, that I
might more speedily master the language; and I may boast that I
improved more rapidly than the Arabian, who understood very little,
and conversed in broken accents, whilst I comprehended and could
imitate almost every word that was spoken.
"While I improved
in speech, I also learned the science of letters, as it was taught
to the stranger; and this opened before me a wide field for wonder
and delight.
"The book from which Felix instructed Safie was
Volney's Ruins of Empires. I should not have understood the
purport of this book, had not Felix, in reading it, given very
minute explanations. He had chosen this work, he said, because the
declamatory style was framed in imitation of the eastern authors.
Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge of history, and a
view of the several empires at present existing in the world; it
gave me an insight into the manners, governments, and religions of
the different nations of the earth. I heard of the slothful
Asiatics; of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the
Grecians; of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romans--of
their subsequent degenerating--of the decline of that mighty empire;
of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the discovery of
the American hemisphere, and wept with Safie over the hapless fate
of its original inhabitants.
"These wonderful narrations
inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so
powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He
appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle, and at
another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a
great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a
sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have
been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than
that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not
conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even
why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of
vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust
and loathing.
"Every conversation of the cottagers now
opened new wonders to me. While I listened to the instructions which
Felix bestowed upon the Arabian, the strange system of human society
was explained to me. I heard of the division of property, of immense
wealth and squalid poverty; of rank, descent, and noble blood.
"The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that
the possessions most esteemed by your fellow-creatures were high and
unsullied descent united with riches. A man might be respected with
only one of these advantages; but, without either, he was
considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a
slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few!
And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely
ignorant; but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind
of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed
and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more
agile than they, and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the
extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature
far exceeded theirs. When I looked around, I saw and heard of none
like me. Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all
men fled, and whom all men disowned?
"I cannot describe to
you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me: I tried to
dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge. Oh, that I
had for ever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond
the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!
"Of what a
strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind, when it has once
seized on it, like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake
off all thought and feeling; but I learned that there was but one
means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death--a state
which I feared yet did not understand. I admired virtue and good
feelings, and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my
cottagers; but I was shut out from intercourse with them, except
through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and
unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had
of becoming one among my fellows. The gentle words of Agatha, and
the animated smiles of the charming Arabian, were not for me. The
mild exhortations of the old man, and the lively conversation of the
loved Felix, were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch!
"Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply. I
heard of the difference of sexes; and the birth and growth of
children; how the father doated on the smiles of the infant, and the
lively sallies of the older child; how all the life and cares of the
mother were wrapped up in the precious charge; how the mind of youth
expanded and gained knowledge; of brother, sister, and all the
various relationships which bind one human being to another in
mutual bonds.
"But where were my friends and relations? No
father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with
smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a
blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my
earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and
proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me, or who
claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The question again
recurred, to be answered only with groans.
"I will soon
explain to what these feelings tended; but allow me now to return to
the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various feelings of
indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated in
additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in
an innocent, half painful self-deceit, to call
them).
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