ART AND LITERATURE

Wellington Independent, Volume I, Issue 16, 24 May 1845, Page 4

ART AND LITERATURE

THE DUELLIST,

' Thou takest a life away — A holy, human life—the life God gave!" A few months ago, in company with a professional friend, I visited a lunatic asylum, in the neighbourhood of one of our most populous cities. It was a mild autumn day, of that rich and breathing kind which wears less of earth than heaven, when the garniture of the } y ear displays a loveliness like the cheek of beauty tinted with the hectic of coming dissolution, which seems more a herald ot life and promise than of death or decay. The institution I have mentioned stood upon an eminence, surrounded by groves, waving like a mass of rainbows in the air. The scene from its side was beautiful in the extreme. High hills melted afar into the sky; fair vales and bright rivers smiled and rolled between; the city was near at hand, with its towers and battlements, ' and banners floating in the sunny air;' all was delightful, all serene. My spirit received into its utmost depths the harmonizing influences of the view, and I could not help contrasting the peaceful calmness that lay like a charm upon the landscape around, with the murmurs of phrenzy which reached my ear, as I stood with my friend at the great door of the asylum, waiting, for a moment, to enjoy the prospect before we entered. Voices were heard, in various tones and measure, singing, talking, and howling, in mingled confusion. It was as if Limbo had been dispeopled, and we were listening to the wailings of its miserable inhabitants.

As'we entered, I was struck with the regularity and order which everywhere prevailed in the appeavance of the mansion. It seemed a place where reason, could it be permitted to enjoy so sweet a retreat alone, might wrap itself in the mantle of undisturbed reflection ; where love might nestle and be delighted, and whence the baneful passions of our nature might be utterly banished. As we strayed along the solemn corridors, catching ever and anon rich views of the distant scenery from the windows and embrasures, I could not but admire the generosity which had planned such a refuge. It had been very successful. The exertions of its officers and various superintendents had been so well rewarded, as to give pleasure to every philanthropist in the large community of liberal hearts to whom their yearly reports were submitted. Blessed, surely, of heaven, will those be, who thus bind up the weary bosoms that have been pierced by the bitter shafts of affliction—who re-unite the disjointed links of memory and reason, and cause the stream of thought to flow with the renewal of a fresh and healthy impulse through the soul!

Wo entered many of the apartments. Several contained females, sitting in gentle abstraction, humming some half-forgotten song, and repeating in audible cadence the disordered images that rose to the mind, like the changeful hues of a kaleidoscope, in a thousand beautiful but fantastic and momentary forms.

At the extremity of a wide gallery, extending the entire length o{ the mansion, were two rooms, larger than any on the same floor, and, when the doors were shut, with no communication whatever, even in sight, between them. One was occupied by a female, the other by a young gentleman, who scarcely seemed

1 Less than Archaneel ruined, or the excess Of glory obscured." He was tall, and of an erect, manly form. He was pacing his apartment, and separated from the observer, as his door opened, by a close iron palisade, which extended into the room about a foot from the door, On one ancle was a chain, which clanked incessantly, as he strode to and fro through the apartment, like a lion in his cage. He scarcely deigned a look at us, but wandered on, turning ac regular intervals, and sometimes pausing for a moment, with flushed features, to place his hand on his forehead, as if to repress a tide of swelling thoughts, which seemed ready to burst the boundary of the brain. His forehead yvas wide, but not high. Around it the dark hair hung in masses of gloomy shadow, or drooped into the lank dampness of perspiration. There was an expression of stern and implacable bitterness about the lip; but it was in the eye that the direful meaning of phrensy were the most convincingly exhibited. The pupils were dilated with a fearful expression, while now and then, he would lengthen and retard his pace, as if measuring a piece of ground accurately with his tread. Then he would stand sidewise, in a soldier's attitude, and with his eye fixed closely on some distant object, lift his arm to the level of his breast," reach strongly out from his side, his shifting eye quickly following the curl of his fore-finger, as if taking aim for a pistol shot. In this position he would remain for nearly a minute, at the end of which his eye closed as if from horror; a shuddering ran through his limbs, and his arm dropped nervelessly by his side. Then he would curse, and weep such tears! They seemed wrung like life-blood from the very fountain of his heart.

' Poor fellow!' said my comrade:' three years ago, he was one of the most attractive and promising youths I ever knew. He was the best scholar in his class at college, for learning seemed to come to him without an effort. Energetic and ambitious, but with most unbridled passions, he allowed nothing to stand in the way of his desires. He was beloved by some for his freedom of spirit, but condemned by the judicious for the recklessness of his aims. An unfortunate affair has brought him hither; and I, used as I am to histories of crime and sorrow, have never been able to retain a sufficient mastery of my feelings to relate his story as I know it, even to the most intimate friend. When he first reached the asylum, he was a raving maniac. Several months passed by, and Jus disorder grew more temperate and mild. There were occasions when he would not for

days utter an irrational word. He desired that writing materials should be allowed him, and he wrote many sheets closely full. These he tied together in the form of a book, with fanciful strings of blue and red silk, and used almost daily to read over, marking out, with apparent care, every inelegant or irrelevant word. Earnest hopes were entertained of his recovery, at no distant period, when the admission of a lunatic lady into the opposite apartment, and of whom he caught a glimpse through his open door as she entered, drove him at once into a settled delirium. In this state he has continued ever since. Increasing weakness now marks disorder; his appetite has declined; fitful ravings disturb his repose; no drowsy potion can calm his mind; and he sometimes, especially in summer nights, howls away the doleful watches,--in all 1 the agony of a doomed spirit. A few months, I fear, will seal his destiny.' The conversation of my friend seemed to have no eflect upon the prisoner before us. He appeared wrapt in tbe" thick darkness of his own imagination; and gave none but vague tokens that he recognised our presence. Indeed, until then, he had scarcely glanced in that direction. My friend wished to try the effect of a new face upon him, (as he had seen none but himself and a domestic attendant for several months, strict seclusion having been advised). Accordingly, he retired into the hall, and with his extended cane, (himself unseen,) rapped against the threshold, the usual salute. The maniac turned his face towards me, and started back with wild surprise. ' Why, sir,' said he, ' have you not been to see me before ? I have been imprisoned in this cell, by order of Cleostratus, because I refused to explain his epicycles before the faculty at College. He wrote a note to them ;■ Socrates signed it, Plato stuck his sign-manual on it, aod I was expelled! Sir,' he continued, 'they have got Cleopatra in the other room, and she is trying to kill me. Twenty times in a night, with the fire of a demon in her eye, and tbe poisonous blood coursing over her bosom, does she open that door where you stand, and let loose from a box which she got of Pandora, a swarm of asps and scorpions on my floor. Yes, you know it • for at this moment you are scowling upon me as if you were leagued with her ! Fiend ! What have I done to her, or you? Where is my friend ? My friend—ha! ha! ha!— my friend V I trembled at his manner and his words. He continued to go on, in language similar to that I have quoted, uttered without much connection or relevancy, in a voice hollow and sepulchral. The play of his features was agonizing to behold. What can be mote terrible than a mind in ruins, 'like sweet bells jangled out of time?' The stare of natural idiotcy is not so painful to receive, because we know, as we look on the sufferer, that he has never fallen from a high estate; but when we meet the glances of a disturbed and restless eye, flashing withphrensy, and shifting every way, as if tossed about by the boiling fervors of a heat-oppressed brain ; when we remember that once, ferhapsbut lately, it shone with the scintillations of wit and reason, then it is that we can faintly apprehend tha inherent greatness and delicate dependencies of the immortal mind. It is fearful to see the light of God extinguished in the soul—to behold it reduced to a chaos—to note the obscuration of a spark whose divine lustre, next to the vast spheres of hea\en, affords the most convincing proof of an ever-watchful and omnipotent inte£ ligence, and assures us that man is indeed ' but little lower than tbe angels. , I was so completely absorded in contemp'ating the features and movements of the maniac before me, that 1 felt as if spell-bound in a dream. Whether an influence, akin to sympathy of thought or feeling is conveyed by a lunatic to his observer, I know not; but certain it was, that every glance shut from the penetrating eye of the being before me, awakened a new interest in his behalf. He ceased speaking, and walked on, turning with heavy steps, and humming occasionally the faint notes of disremembered music, that came to his mind half cheerful, half sad —the wrecks, petchance, of sounds that had melted and won his heart in better years. My companion still continued to stand aloof, anxious to know what the consequences of my interview might be. Abstraction seemed to be the maniac's chiaf characteristic. Bitter memories, it was evident, were at work in his mind. At last he stoped suddenly, and said in a deep sober tone: ' Do you know that my chain reaches to that corner, and that desk ? It does upon my honor. Yes, npon my honor. Men fight for honor, they die for honor, they plunge diernselves into rivers of fire and blood for honor! Oh God! I have —/have!'

Words cannot convey the desperation of his language, or the horror that sa'e upon his countenance, as he gave it breath. It wa3 like the features of the thunder-scarred and dark-browed spirit, in Milton, whose cheek, blanched by tempests of dire hail from the treasuries of the Almighty, was the throne of care.

Suiting his action to his word, the prisoner approached the desk, and took from it the identical manuscript which my friend had described I will give this, , said he to you. It is a deed of all my property. I bequeath it for your benefit. Now I look at you again you seem a friend. xlere, without an effort, or apparent emotion, the large tears came again to his eve He attempted to reach the manuscript to me' but could not. Instantly he approached the window, and grasped one of the wooden bars which crossed it. With desperate energy he drew it from the casement, as easily as Samson disparted the withes wherewith he was bound, lying the coloured strings to the bar, he handed the book to me, through the grating which separated us from each other. I took it, and thanked him for his pains. He made me no answer, but stood like an image of stone He seemed to have dispossessed himself of a burden, and to be disposed for sleep. He approached his palet in the corner, and sank so quietly into slumber, that it seemed like the mimic sleep of an actor, in Richard the Third, when the tyrant sees the ghost of the Pkntagenets,' Clarence and the rest, rising around him. His breathing was heavy and slow; large drops of sweat stood on his temples; and an occasional groan, as if sounding from the heart; moaned through his lip s . ' Now, , said my companion, 'is the tinie to go,

Step lighly, for the least sound will waken him at this hour.' „. , As we turned from his appartment my friend moved a little slide before a pane of glass in the door of the opposite room, and bade me look in A lady was sitting at the window, gazing outward, with a vacant eye, and kissing her hand at the airy nothings of her mind. The noise oi the sliding panel attracted her notice, she glanced towards the door. The moment my ( face was recognized, she sprang towards me. Oh, Henry.' she said, ' are you come ? How long 1 have waited for you! No, no,' she added, pushing her fair hair wildly back from her brow, 'you are not Henry—no; if you were, you would speak to me !' I could not speak to her. I was overpowered, bewildered. She was a beautiful being, seemingly not twenty years of age. The ravages of sorrow had tlunned her features, and saddened brow; but her lips were still feverishly full and red; her blue eye, still bright; the hues of fading loveliness, like the reflected tints of a damask rose, still lingered in her cheek; and her voice! oh, how sweet and musical did its gentle accents fall upon my ear? Every word bespoke the stainless purity of the spirit that fate had steeled in ruin.

I could not bear the sight, and a world could not then have compelled me to the utterance of a word. I closed the panel, with a distressful feeling; and taking the arm of my friend, replied to his attentive offers, that I would see no more.

When I returned to my lodging in the city, I opened the maniac's pages. I have deemed them of interest, and I now give them to the reader, word for word—a melancholy record of passion and crime. 'lam a man, smitten of God. I seize my pen with a trembling hand, to record some of the events in a life that has not been long, but is yet wearing swiftly to its close. A world of sable images is arrayed before the prospect of my soul. I lift the dismal curtain of fate from the gloom of departed years, and discern, over its scenes of horror, the sun of recollection ; bloody and wan, like that pale sphere which hung above Jerusalem, when the veil of the temple was rent asunder; when they who slept in their graves arose, called from their cerements by the moaning of thunders and earthquakes on a thousand hills. The beams of innocence have vanished for ever from my mind; the roses that opened once around my pathway, are changed tor the night-shade and the ivy; my feet have stumbled upon the dark mountains of error; and for the dews of pleasure, or the blossoms of hope, I inhetit the vulture of" regret. Remorse and pain are gnawing at my heart: and like the fabled scorpion in his envenomed circle, I mingle- at once the poison of theadder, with the torpor of the worm. ' The misery of years may be compressed into one short page. I shall be brief. What lam now, I was not always. As I sit by my window, and look out from the bars that hedge me in, upon earth and sky, basking in that sunshine which but faintly shadows the smile of the Creator, I bethink me of all the past. My soul swells with remembrance, my heart with emotion. It is the hour of sunset. The great orb rolls slowly down ; he dips behind the western mountains, and ia gushes of solemn pomp, ethereal brightness flows over their blue outlines, along the landscape. It is a Sabbath evening—the month is June: the distant bells of the city load the fragrant breeze with volumes of tender melody. Around, are aroma, and peace, and music, and holiness—but not with me.

IMy testimony must be given. I hold my uncertain reason as a boon which a breath may dissolve; and as its dawning day continues, I must inscribe my record, before the night shall come. Against myself, lam to place upon these pages a fearful witness. I shall write as one on whom the sleepless eye of God looks with a discerning vision. I shall unveil my heart. I will bare to the day the corruption of its motives, and the deed oi horror to which they have led • the thoughts whereof have withered my form and scathed my brain, like the blast of a samiel. 1 will call up from their dungeons the weird spectres of memory. I will lift the mirror of truth before me, and describe the hideous monster that I behold therein, though the appalling reflection should sere my eyeballs, and make me shudder through every nerve. ' I have been a scholar and a student. I have gone through the studies and trials allotted to those who delve after knowledge. I have explored the treasures of orators, dramatists, annalists, and poets. I have bent over the breathing pages of Cicero, and Homer, and Virgil • of iEschylus and Thucydides, Tacitus, and Livy. I have quaffed long and deep at the fountain of ancient lore; but the only spring that ever cheered me has dried up, and left for my seeking lip the sand alone.

I have loved. There lies the secrect of my torture and my doom. At the junior exhibition of my class, as I was speaking before a large and brilliant assembly in the University chapll Isaw, for the first time, an object that rivited my gaze and secured my admiration, my affecion She was young and oh, how supremely ovely! I paused with a sense of intoxicating transport, Her liquid blue eyes met mine ; he? fine Grecian features seemed lit with an earthly intelligence; the blush of innocence was oTher cheek. The periods of k my saluatory dropped slowly from my li ps; I fo r got mj duties m honours; I was " clothed upon with love!" y When the exercises of the day was over I made inquiries after the fair being who hid bo moved me. She was a partial stranger in town remaining at the dwelling of a relation. A Tear previous *he had visited the city, and been ad dressed by a class-mate with vvh'om m "term of friendship were strict and intimate. He had been accepted as her suitor, and the day of tS union had already been appointed. * . n ™? m & i Passion, I sought her acquaintance. I met her often; and amidst the attrac S« TV S Tu ty not deficient in female IoS. ness, I found her ever the sole ascendant star God ! how I loved her! I waited upon her foot steps, and bent to her beck as nnltl, I the bidding of a celeSalsfet? 3 . iSlrtUβ wS

- - — -- 3:H;= 9sSßßgg«tß friend Henry Rivers, was the choice of h er a 7 fection. *' 1 Rivers was Indeed my friend. We had bes all in all to each other. But causes must v*« duce effects, and coldness soon sprung Un i°" tween us. He loved May Morton with aB I' feet idolatry. I was the foul iconoclast wl destroyed both the worshiper and the inW p ° Woe is me! se, 'My passion could not be concealed. Th pent-up flame defied restraint. One balm afternoon in spring, I sought the apartment n f May Morton. I poured out my soul in kisse* and protestations, on the white, reluctant hand that thrilled in mine. I was answered in tone« of melody, whose fatal sweetness haunts m still, that my suit was vain. Rivers was W betrothed —her hand and her heart were hi own. I heard no more. Pride spread its burn 5 ing colour over my cheek. I ceased to sunnlj" cate ; I bowed, and withdrew. Weeks passed over me, without a knowledge of existence. A malignant fever brought me to the margin ctf the grave j and the delirium of passion and sickness was continually upon me; ' Months elapsed before I recovered. When I came forth again, it was only to hear of the approaching marriage of my rival. A few da"s were to witness its consummation. In all niy sickness, Rivers, forgetting my offence, was nay devoted attendant. He was generous and noble. No office was too arduous for his goodness; and through the watches of many a weary night, he kept his vigil by my side. Alas! how was he repaid!

(To be continued in our n&xt.J