The Mysteries of Udolpho, etc

Front matter

NOVELS AT 2s. 6d. The Three Musketeers, and Twenty Years After, by Dumas. The Taking of the Bastile, Dumas. Tristram Shandy, and Sentimental VicomtedeBragelonne, 2 vols. Dumas. Lewis Arundel, by Smedley. Frank Fairlegh, by Smedley. Harry Coverdale, by Smedley. The Colville Family, by Smedley. Monte Cristo, Complete, by Dumas. Memoirs of a Physician, by Dumas. Journey, by Sterne. Carleton's Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, complete edition. NOVELS AT TWO S] A. B. EDWARDS. SHILLINGS W. H. AINSWORTH. King's Own Borderers. The White Cockade. Boscobel. The Ladder of Life. Half a Million of Money. Manchester Rebels. Preston Fight, Dick Rodney. First Love & Last Love. The Girl He Married. Lady Wedderburn's Wisb. Miss FERRIER. Marriage. The Inheritance. Destiny. Beau Nash. Oapt. ARMSTRONG.

The Two Midshipmen. The Medora. Jack Manly. Only an Ensign. Adventures of Rob Roy. Under the Red Dragon. The Queen's Cadet. Shall I Win Her? FIELDING. Tom Jones. Joseph Andrews. Amelia. The War Hawk The Young Commander. BERTHA H. BUXTON. Jennie of ' The Prince's.' Won! GERSTAECKER. A Wife to Order. The Two Convicts. The Feathered Arrow. Each for Himself. Fairer than a Fairy. The Secret Dispatch- One of the Six Hundred. Fetterless. Great Grenfell Gardens. Morley Ashton. Did She Love Him? The Ross-shire Buffs. Capt. CHAMIER. Life of a Sailor. Berrffirace. Ton_i3owling. G. R. GLEIG. Chelsea Veterans. The Hussar. Six Years Ago. Vere of Ours. Jack Adams. The Lord Hermitage. The Royal Regiment. The Duke of Albany's Highlanders. The Cameronians. Mrs. GORE. HENRY COCKTON. The Money Lender Pin Money.

The Dowager. Valentine Vox. Stanley Thorn. M. OROMMELIN. The Dead Tryst. My Love She's but a Lassie Yet. JAMES GRANT. Romance of War. The Aide-de-Camp. The Scottish Cavalier. Bothwell. Author of "Guy Livingstone." Guy Livingstone. Barren Honour. Queenie, A Jewel of a Girl. Orange Lily. Black Abbey. Maurice Dering. Brakespeare. Anteros. Jane Seton ; or, The Queen's Advocate. Philip Rollo. Legends of the Black Watch. Mrs. CROWE. Night Side of Nature, Susan Hopley. Linny Lockwood. Breaking a Butterfly. Sans Merci. Mary ot Lorraine. Oliver Ellis ; or, The Fusiliers. Lucy Arden ■ or, Hollywood Hall. Sword, and Gown. CHAS. DICKENS. The Pickwick Papers. Sketches by Boz. Nicholas Nickleby. Oliver Twist. Martin Chuzzlewit. Grimaldi, the Clown. Dombey and Son. THEODORE HOOK. Peregrine Bunce. Cousin Geoffry.

Chapter I

" Home is the resort Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, waere, Supporting and supported, polish'd friends And dear relations mingle into bliss. "—Thomson. On the pleasant bants of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony, stood, in the year 158_, the chateau of Monsieur St. Aubert. From ita windows were seen the pastoral landscapes of Guienne and Gascony stretching along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and vines and plantations of olives. To the south, the view was bounded by the majestic Pyrenees, whose summits, veiled in clouds, or exhibiting awful forms, seen, and lost again as the partial vapors rolled along, were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of ai", and some times frowned with forests of gloomy pine that swept downward to their base. These tremendous precipices were contrasted by the soft green of the pastures and woods tbat hung upon their skirts ; among whose slocks, andherds, and simple cottages, the eye, after having scaled the cliffs above, delighted to repose.

To tlie north, and to the east, the plains of Guienne and Languedoc were lost in the mist of distance; on tho west, Gascony was bounded by the waters of Biscay. M. St. Aubert loved to wander, with his wife and daughter, on tho margin of the Garonne, and to listen to the music that Boated on its waves. He had known lile in other forms than those of pastoral simplicity, having mingled in the gay and in the busy scenes of the world ; but the flattering portrait of mankind, which his heart had delineated in early youth, his experience had too sorrowfully corrected. Yet, amidst the changing visions of life, his principles remained unshaken, his benevolence unchilled ; and he retired from the multitnde, more in pity than in anger, to scenes of simple nature, to the pure delights ot literature, and to the exercise of domestic virtues.

He was a descendant from the younger branch of an illustrious family, ind it was designed, that the deficiency of his patrimonial wealth should be supplied either by a splendid alliance in marriage, or by success in the intrigues of public affairs. But St. Aubert had too nice a sense ot honor to fultil the latter hope, and too small a portion of ambition to sacrifice what lie called happiness to tne attainment of wealth. After the death of his father he r.arried a very amiable woman, his equal ia birth, and not his superior in fortune. The late Monsieur St. Aubert's liberality, or extravagance, had so much involved his affairs, that his sea found it necessary to dispose ofa part of the family domain ; and, some years after his marriage, he sold it to Monsieur Quesnel, the brother oi his wife, and retired to a small estate in Gascony, where conjugal felicity and parental duties divided his attention with the treasures of knowledge and the illuminations of genius.

To this spot he had been attached from his infancy. J-6 had often made excursions to it when a boy ; and the impression of delight given to his mind by the homely kindness of the gray-headed peasant, to whom it was intrusted, and whose fruit and cream never failed, had nut been obliterated by succeeding circumstances. The green past_res, along which he had so often bounded in the exultation of health and youthful freedom — the woods, under whose refreshing shade he had first indulged that pensive melancholy, which afterwards made a strong feature of his character — the wild walks of the mountains — the river, on whoso waves he had floated, and the distant plains, which seemed boundless as his early hopes — were never after remembered by St. Aubert but with enthusiasm and regret. At length he disengaged himself from the world, and retired hither, to realize the wishes of many years.

The building, as it then stood, was merely a summer cottage, rendered interesting to a stranger by its neat simplicity, or the beauty ofthe sur rounding scene; and considerable additions were necessary to make i. a comfortable family residence. St. Aubert felt a kind of affection for every part of the fabric, which he remembered in his youth, and would not suffer a stone of it to be removed; so that the new building, adapted to the style of the old one, formed with it only a simrle and elegant residence. The taste of Madame St. Aubert was conspicuous iu its internal finishing, where the same chaste simplicity was observable in the furniture, and in the few ornaments of the apartments, that charac terized the manners of its inhabitants. The hbrary occupied the west side of the chateau, and was enriched by a collection of the best books in t_e ancient aud modern languages.

This room opened upon a grove, which stood on the brow of a gentle declivity that fell towards the river, and tho tall trees gave it a melancholy and pleasing shade ; while from the windows the eye caught, be neath the spreading branches, the gay and luxuriant landscape stretching to the west, and overlooked on the left by the bold precipices of the Pyrenees. Adjoining the library was a greejhouse, stored with scarce and beautiful plants ; for one of the amusements of St. Aubert was the study of botany ; and among the neighboring mountains, which afforded a luxurious feast to the mind of the natura_ 't, he often passed the day in the pursuits of his favorite science. He was sometimes accompanied in the.e little excursions by Madame St. Aubert, and frequently by his daughter ; when, with a small osier basket tu receive plants, and another filled with cold refreshments, such ao *' e cabin of the shepherd did not afford, they wandered away among _r» nost romantic, nnd magnificent scenes, nor suffered the charms of IW'.re's lowly children to abstract them from the observance of her stupendous works.

"When weary o. sauntering among cliffs that seemed scarcely accessible but to the steps of thc enthusiast, and where no track appeared on the vegetation, but what the foot of the izard had left, they would seek one of those green recesses, which so beautifully adorn the bosom of these mountains ; where, under the shade of the lofty larch or cedar, they enjoyed their simple repast, made sweeter by the waters of the cool stream that crept along the turf, and by the breath of wild-flowers and aromatic plants, that fringed the rocks and inlaid tire grass. Adjoining the eastern side of the greenhouse, looking towards the plains of Languedoc, was a room, which Emily called hers, and which contained her books, her drawings, her musical instruments, with some favorite birds and plants. Here she usually exercised herself in elegant arts, cultivated only because they were congenial to her taste, and in which native genius, assisted by the instructions of Monsieur and Madame St. Aubert, made her nn early proficient.

The windows of this room were particularly pleasant; they descended to the floor, and, opening npon the little lawn that surrounded the house, the eye was led between groves of almond, palm-trees, flowering ash, and myrtle, to the distant landscape, where the Garonne wandered. The peasants of this gay climate were often seen on an evening, when the day's labor was done, dancing in groups on the margin of the river. Their sprightly melodies, debonnaire steps, the fanciful figure of their dances, with the' tasteful and capricious manner in which the girls adjusted their simple dress, gave a character to the scene entirely French. The front of the chateau, which, having a southern aspect, opened upon the grandeur of the mountains, was occupied on the ground-floor by a rustic hasl and two excellent sitting-rooms.

The first floor (for the cottage had no second story) was laid out in bedchambers, except one apartment that opened to a balcony, and which was generally used for a breakfast-room. In the surrounding ground, St. Aubert had made very tasteful im provements ; yet such was his attachment to objects he had remembered from bis boyish days, that he had in some instances sacrificed taste to sentiment. There were two old larches that shaded the building, and interrupted the pro. pect ; St. Aubert had sometimes declared that he believed he should have been weak enough to have wept at their fall. In addition to these larches, he planted a little grove of beech, pine, and mountain ash. On a lofty terrace, formed by the swelling bank of the river, rose a plantation oi orange, lemon, and palm trees, whose fruit, in the coolness of evening, breathed delicious fragrance.

With these were mingled a few trees of other species. Here, under the ample shade of a palm-tree, that spread its majestic canopy towards the river, St. Aubert loved to sit in the fine evenings of summer, with his wife and children, watching beneath its foliage the setting sun, the mild splendor of its light fading from tho distant landscape, till the shadows of twilight melted its various features into one tint of sober gray. Here, too, he loved to read and to converse with Madame St. Aubert. or to play with his children, resigning himself to the influence of those sweet affections which are ever attendant on simplicity and nature. He had often said, while tears of pleasure trembled in his eyes, that these were moments infinitely more delightful than any passed an?; 1 the brisliant ant. tumultuous scenes that are courted by the world.

His heart wr_ o^.«v'ied ; it had, what can be so rarely said, no wish for a happiness beyond what it experienced. The consciousness of acting right diffused a serenity over his manners which nothing else could impart to a man of moral percep tions like his, and which refined his sense of every surrounding blessing. The deepest shade of twilight did not send him from his favorite palm tree. He loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through ether, and are reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour which, of all others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, aud often elevates it to sublime con templation. AVhen the moon shed her soft rays among the foliage, he still lingered, and his pastoral supper of cream and fruits was often spread beneath it.

Then, on the stillness of night, came the song of the nightingale, breathing sweetness and awakening melancholy. The first interruptions to the happiness he had known since his retirement, were occasioned by the death of his two sons. He lost them at that age when infantine simplicity is so fascinating ; and though, in consideration of Madame St. Aubert's distress, he restrained the expres sion of his own, and endeavored to bear it as he meant, with philosophy, he had, in truth, no philosophy that could render him calm to such losses. One daughter was now his only surviving child; and, while he watched the unfolding of her infant character with anxious fondness, he endeavored, with unremitting effort, to counteract those traits in her disposition which might hereafter lead her from happiness.

She had discovered in her early years uncommon delicacy of mind, warm affec tions, and ready benevolence ; but with these was observable a degree of susceptibility too exquisite to admit of lasting peace. As she advanced in youth, this sensibility gave a pensive tone to her spirits, and a softness to her manner, which added grace to beauty, and rendered her a very interesting object to persons ofa congenial disposition. But St. Aubert had too much good sense to prefer a charm to a virtue ; and had penetration enough to see that this charm was too dangerous to its possessor to be allowed the character ofa blessing. He endeavored, therefore, to strengthen her mind ; to inure her to habits of self-command ; to teach her to reject the first impulse of her feelings, and to look, with cool examination, upon the disappointments he sometimes threw in her way.

While he instructed her to resist first impressions, and to acquire that steady dignity of mind that can alone counterbalance the passions, and bear us, as tar as is compatible with our nature, above tbe reach of circumstance, be taught himself a lesson of fortitude ; for he was often obliged to witness, with seeming indifference, the tears and struggles which his caution occasioned her. In person, Emily resembled her mother ; having the same elegant symmetry of form, the same delicacy of features, and the same blue eyes, full of tender sweetness. But lovely as was her person, it was the varied expression of her countenance, as conversation awakened the nicer emo tions of her mind, that threw such a captivating wace around her : " Those tender tints, that shun tbe car. 1. «s eye, And, in the world's contagious circle, die."

St. Aubert cultivated her understanding with the most scrupulous care. He g_-e her a general view of the sciences, and an exact acquaintance with every part of elegant literature. He taught her Latin and English, chiefly that she might understand the sublimity of their bost poets. She discovered in her early years a taste for works of genius; and it was St. Aubert's principle, as well as his inclination, to promote every innocent means of happiness. A well-informed mind, he would say, is the best security against tlie contagion of folly and of vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief; and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the world without will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from the world within.

Thought and cultivation are necessary equally to the happiness of a country and a city life: in the first they prevent the uneasy sensations of indolence, and afford a sublime pleasure in the taste they create for the beautiful and the grand ; in the latter they make dissipation less an object of necessity, and consequently of interest. It was one of Emily's earliest pleasures to ramble among the scenes of nature; nor was it in the soft and glowing landscape that she most delighted ; she loved more the wild wood-walks that skirted the mountain ; and still more the mountain's stupendous recesses, where the silence and grandeur of solitude impressed a sacred awe upon her heart. aud lifted her thoughts to the God of heaven and earth. In scenes, like these she would often lingfgr alone, wrapped in a melancholy charm, till the last gleam of day faded from the west : till the lonely sound of a sheep-bell, or the distant barking of a watch-dog, was all that broke the stillness of the evening.

Then the gloom of the woods ; the trembling of their leaves, at intervals, in the breeze ; the bat, flitting on the twilight ; the cottage lights, now seen, and now lost — were circumstances that awakened her mind into effort, and led to enthusiasm and poetry. Her favorite walk was to a little fishing-house belonging to St. Aubert, in a woody glen, on the margin of a rivulet that descended from the Pyrenees, and, after foaming among their rocks, wound its silent way beneath the shades it reflected. Above the woods that screened this glen, rose the lofty summits of the Pyrenees, which often burst boldly on the eye, through the glades below. Sometimes the shattered face of a rock only was seen, crowned with wild shrubs; or a shepherd's cabin seated on a cliff, overshadowed by dark cypress or waving ash.

Emerging from the deep recesses of the woods, the glade opened to the distant landscape, where the rich pastures and vine-covered slopes of Gascony gradually declined to the plains ; and there, on the winding shores of the Garonne, groves, and hamlets, and villas — their outlines softened by distance — melted from the eye into one rich, harmonious tint. This, too, was the favorite retreat of St. Aubert, to which he frequently withdrew from the fervor of noon, with his wife, his daughter, and hia books ; or came at the sweet evening hour to welcome the silent dusk, ur to listen for the music of the nightingale. Sometimes, too. he brought music of his own, and awakened every fair echo with the tender accents ofhis oboe; and often have the tones of Emily's voice drawn sveet':e<>8 trom .he waves over which they trembled.

It was in one of her excursions to this spot that she observed tho following fines written with a pencil on a part of the wain_cot : SONNET. Go, pencil ! faithful to thy master's sighs ! Go— tell the goddess of this fairy scene, When next her light steps wind these wood-walks gTeen, Whence all his tears, his tender sorrows, riso I Ah ! paint her form, her soul-illumined eyes, The sweet expression of her pensive face, The lightening smile, the animated grnco — The portrait well the lover's voice supplies; Speaks all his heart must feel, his tongue would say: Yet ah ! not all his heart must 6adly feel I How oft the floweret's silken leaves conceal The drug that steals tbe vital spark away 1 And who, that gazes on that angel smile, Would feel its charm, or think it could beguile! These lines were not inscribed to any person ; Emily therefore could not apply them to herself, though she was undoubtedly the nymph ol these shades.

Having glanced round the little circle of her acquaintance without being detained by a suspicion as to whom they could be ad dressed, she was compelled to rest in uncertainty — an uncertainty which would have been more painful to an idle mind than it was to hers. She had no leisure to suffer this circumstance, trifling at first, to swell inte importance by frequent remembrance. The httle vanity it had excited (for tbe incertitude which forbade her to presume upon having inspired the sonnet, forbade her also to disbelieve it) passed away, and the incident was dismissed from her thoughts amid her books, her studies, aud the exercise of social charities. Soon after this period, her anxiety was awakened by tbe indisposition of her father, who was attacked with a fever, which, though not thought to be of a dangerous kind, gave a severe shock to his constitution.

Madame St. Aubert and Emily attended him with unremitting care; bnt his recovery was very slow, and, as he advanced towards health, Madame seemed to decline. Tbe first scene he visited, after he was well enough to take the air, was his favorite fishing-house. A basket of provisions was sent thither, with books, and Emily's lute : for fishing-tackle he had no use, for ho never could find amusement in torturing or destroying. After employing himself for about an hour in botanizing, dinner was served. It was a repast to which gratitude, for being again permitted to visit this spot, gave sweetness ; and family happiness once more smiled neneath these shades. Monsieur St. Aubert conversed with unusual cheerfulness; every object delighted his senses. The refreshing pleasure from the first view of nature, after the pain of illness, and the confinement of a sick chamber, is above the conceptions, as well as the descrip tions of those in health.

The green woods and pastures, the flowery turf; the balmy air ; the murmur of the limpid stream ; and even the hum of every little insect of the shade, seem to revivify the soul, and make mere existence bliss. M..d_j_e St. Aubert, reanimated by the cheerfulness and the recovery of her husband, was no longer sensible of the indisposition which hail lately oppressed 1 er ; and as she sauntered along the wood-walks of this romantic glen, an 1 conversed with him and with her daughter, she often looked at them alterrately with a degree of tenderness that filled her eyes with tears. St. Aulert observed this more than once, and gentlyre proved her for the emotion; but she could only smile, clasp his hand and that of Emily, and weep the more. He felt the tender enthusiasm stealing upon himself in a degree that became almost painful ; his fea tures assumed a serious air, and he could not forbear secretly sighing— " Perhaps I shall some time look back to these moments, as to the sum mit of my happiness, with hopeless regret.

But let me not misuse them by useless anticipation; let me hope I shall not hve to mourn the loss of those who are dearer to me than life." To reheve, or perhaps to indulge, the pensive temper of his mind, he bade Emily fetch the lute she knew how to touch with such sweet pathos. As she drew near the fishing-house, she was surprised to hear the tones of the instrument, which were awakened by the hand of taste ; and uttered a plaintive air, whose exquisite melody engaged all her at tention. She listened in profound silence, afraid to move from the spot, lest the sound of her steps should occasion her to lose a note of the music, or should disturb the musician. Every thing without the building was still, and no person appeared. She continued to listen, till timidity succeeded to surprise a. d delight — a timidity increased by a remembrance of the pencilled lines she had formerly seen, and she hesitated whether to proceed or return.

M hlle she pans^d, the music ceased; and, after a momentary hesita tion, she re-collected courage to advance to the fishing-house, which she enteied with faltering steps, and found unoccupied! Her lute lay on the table ; every thing seemed undisturbed, and she began to believe it was another instrument she had heard, till she remembered that, when she followed M. and Madame St. Aubert from this spot, her lute was left on the window-seat. She felt alarmed, yet knew not where fore : the melancholy gloom of evening, and the profound stillness of the place, interrupted only by the light trembling of leaves, heightened her fanciful apprehensions, and she was desirous of quitting the build ing, but perceived herself grow faint, and sat down. As she tried to recover lArself. the pencilled lines on the wainscot met her eye : she started, as if she had seen a stranger ; but, endeavoring to conquer the tremor of her spirit, rose and went to the window.

To the lines before noticed sh_ now perceived that others were added, in which her name appeared. Though to longer suffered to doubt that they were addressed to her self, she was as ignorant as before, by whom they could be written. While she mused, she thought she heard the sound of a step without tho building ; and again alarmed, she caught up her lute and hurried away. Monsieur and Madame St. Autert she found in a httle path that wound along the sides of the glen. Having reached a green summit, shaded by palm-trees, and overlook. in_r the vail, vs and plains of Gascony, they seated themselves on the turf; 1* UDCLP HO. and while tneir eyes wandered over the glorious scene, and they inhale". the sweet breath of flowers and herbs that enriched the grass. Emily played and sung several of their favorite airs, with tlie delicacy ot ex pression in which she so much excelled.

Music and conversation detained them in this enchanting spot, till the sun's last light slept upon the plains ; till the white sails that glided be neath the mountains, where the Garonne wandered, became dim, and the gloom of evening stole over the landscape. It was a melancholy, but not unpleasing gloom. St. Aubert and his family rose, and left the place with regret : alas ! Madame St. Aubert knew not that she left it forever. When they reached the fishing-house she missed her bracelet, and rec ollected that she had taken it from her arm after dinner, and left it on the table when she went to walk. After a long search, in which Emily was very active, she was compelled to resign herself to the loss of it. What made this bracelet valuable to her was a miniature of her daughter, to which it was attached, esteemed a striking resemblance, and which had been painted only a few months before.

When Emily was convin ced that the bracelet was really gone, she blushed and became thoughtful. That some stranger had been in the fishing-house during her ab sence, her lute and the additional lines of a pencil, had already informed her. From the purport of these lines it was not unreasonable to believe, that the poet, the musician, and the thief were the same person. But though the music she had heard, the written hues she had seen, and the disappearance of the picture, formed a combination of circumstances very remarkable, sbe was irresistibly restrained from mentioning them ; se cretly determining, however, never again to visit the fishing-house, without Monsieur or Madame St. Aubert. They returned pensively to the chateau, Emily musing on the incident which had just occurred; St. Aubert reflecting, with placid gratitude, on the blessings he possessed; and Madame St. Aubert somewhat dis turbed and perplexed by the loss of her daughter's picture.

As they drew near the house, they observed an unusual bustle about it ; the sound of voices was distinctly heard, servants and horses were seen pass - ing between the trees, and, at length, the wheels of a carriage rolled along. Having come within view of the front of the chateau, a landeau with smoking horses appeared on the little lawn before it. St. Aubert perceived the liveries of his brother-in-law, and in the parlor he found Monsieur and Madame Quesnel already entered. They had left Paris some days before, and were on the way to their estate, only ten leagues distant from La Vallee, and which Monsieur Quesnel had purchased several y^ars before of St. Aubert. This gentleman was the only brother of Madame St. Aubert; but the ties of relationship having never been strengthened by congeniality of character, the intercourse between them had not been frequent.

M. Quesnel had lived altogether in the world; his aim had been consequence; splendor was the object of his taste ; and his address and knowledge i f character had carried him for ward to the attainment of almost all that he had courted." By a man of such a disposition, it is not surprising that the virtues of St. Aubert rhould be overlooked ; or that his pure taste, simplicity,, and moderated U D O 1. V II O . 11 wishes, were considered as marks of a weak intellect, and of confined views. The marriage of his sister with St. Aubert had been mortifying to his ambition ; for he had designed that the matrimonial connection she formed should assist him to attain the consequence whieh he so much desired ; and some offers were made her by persons whose rank and fortune flattered his warmest hope.

But his sister, who was then addressed also by St. Aubert, perceived, or thought she perceived, that happiness and splendor were not the same ; and she did not hesitate to forego the last for the attainment of the former. AVhether Monsieur Quesnel thought them the same or not, he would readily have sacrificed his sister's peace to the gratification of his own ambition ; and, on her marriage with St. Aubert, expressed in private his contempt for her spiritless conduct, and of the connection which it permitted. Madame St. Aubert, though she concealed this from her husband, felt perhaps, for the first time, resentment lighted in her heart ; and, though a regard for her own dignity, united with considerations of prudence, restrained her expression of this resentment, there was ever after a mild reserve in her manner towards M. Quesnel, which he both understood and leif.