CHAPTER II.
The scenes that once so brilliant shone are past, and can return no more to cheer the pensive heart; and memory recalls them with a tear; some lowering cloud succeeds, and all the gay delusive landscape fades.
[On the Death of a Friend and Schoolfellow (here from "Poetical Essays" in _Gentleman"s Magazine_, vol. 32, 1762), opening lines:
Scarce rolls, alas! o"er mortal buds a year, But claims afresh the tributary tear: Soon each fair hope some lowering cloud invades, And all the gay delusive landscape fades.]
While Alida remained at the village school, surrounded by the festive scenes of childhood, and pursuing her studies with a.s.siduous emulation, with the hope of meriting, in future time, the praises of her fond parents, an unforeseen misfortune awaited her that no human foresight could have power to arrest.
The health of her mother had been long declining, and her illness at this time increased so far as to render medical a.s.sistance useless, and baffled the skill of the ablest physicians. A trial so new, so afflicting, and so grievous to her youthful mind, to lose one of her honoured parents, and to be unexpectedly summoned to her parental home to receive the last benediction of a beloved mother, and at this early period of her life to be deprived of her kind care and protection, was unfortunate in the extreme.
[["Baffled the skill of the ablest physicians" was a stock phrase.]]
Every anxious solicitude and responsibility now rested alone upon a widowed father, who mourned deeply their common bereavement, while he felt conscious that all his fatherly care and caresses could never supply to Alida all the necessary requisitions that she had unhappily lost in so dear and interested a friend. When he observed her spirits languish, and the tear frequently starting in her eye, and her former sprightly countenance shaded with the deep tinges of melancholy, he saw that the cheerfulness and gaiety of her natural disposition had received a powerful check, which promised to be lasting.
[["Sprightly" is a favorite adjective in _Alonzo and Melissa_; by the time of _Alida_ it was going out of fashion.]]
From this unhappy period she remained at home a long time with her father. In kindred grief there was derived a congenial sympathy, and her society contributed in some degree to allay his sorrow, as the deep concern he felt in her welfare caused him sometimes to restrain the flow of it in her presence. Self-exertion roused him in a measure from his lethargy, and by thus a.s.suming serenity, to become in reality something more composed. Nevertheless, he would often witness the excess of anguish which had taken place in the bosom of his child, and behold her interesting face bathed in tears, and her youthful brow clouded with a sadness that nothing seemingly could dissipate.
[_NY Weekly_: Mrs. Mordaunt:
to me they were inexpressibly soothing, from kindred grief there was derived a congenial sympathy.
Their happiness, the education of my child, and self-exertion, roused me from the lethargy of grief, and diffused a calm over my mind I never hoped to have experienced.]
His situation now became more sequestered than ever; he roamed in solitude, or pleased himself in ranging through silent glens in loneliness. His thoughts were absorbed in the gloomy experience of the misery of a painful separation from a dear and beloved object; he wept for her whose mild and winning graces had power to soften and illuminate the darkest shades of life, or alleviate the distressful scenes of adversity.
[[This unidentified paragraph about Alida"s widowed father reads like the description of a young romantic hero.]]
His mind was wholly absorbed in those gloomy reflections that scarcely admitted a ray of consolation, when the weekly newspaper arrived from the neighbouring village; he took it up, hoping to find something to amuse his thoughts; he opened it to read the news of the day; he ran his eye hastily over it, and was about to lay it aside, "when the death list arrested his attention by a display of broad black lines," and he, who had not yet become reconciled to his present misfortune, was now about to experience another equally severe.
[_A&M_ (Alonzo reads of Melissa"s death):
He returned, and as he was entering the door he saw the weekly newspaper of the town, which had been published that morning, and which the carrier had just flung into the hall. The family had not yet arisen. He took up the paper, carried it to his chamber, and opened it to read the news of the day. He ran his eye hastily over it, and was about to lay it aside, when the death list arrested his attention, by a display of broad black lines.]
What could equal his bitterness, his surprise and grief, when he read the disastrous news that his youngest son (who had lately gone on a foreign expedition) had died of a fever in a distant land a few weeks previous!
The paper fell from his palsied hand,--a sudden faintness came over him,--he fell back almost senseless in his chair,--exhausted by excess of grief, he remained a long time in a stupifying anguish.
[_A&M_:
The paper fell from his palsied hand--a sudden faintness came upon him--the room grew dark--he staggered, and fell senseless upon the floor.
Exhausted by excess of grief, he now lay in a stupifying anguish....]
The tidings were so unlooked-for of the premature death of his unfortunate son, who about this time was expected to arrive in New-York.
For him an only brother was inconsolable; and Alida, who had long been accustomed to his kindness and caresses, was overcome with a dejection that time alone could alleviate.
Her father observed her affliction in commisseration with his own,--he was dejected and lonely, and the world appeared like a wilderness; nothing could lessen his present evil, or soothe his afflicted mind.
The former peaceful serenity of his life was materially clouded; and in his turn calamitous wo had overtaken him--the inalienable portion of humanity,--and the varied and shifting scenery in the great drama of time had brought with it disaster. His spirit was sunk in despondency, and his sensations became utterly absorbed in melancholy; and all the pious and philosophical reflections that he exerted himself to bring to his remembrance, could scarcely afford even a transitory consolation in this afflicting dispensation.
[_A&M_ (same scene, author"s own voice):
mark well the varied and shifting scenery in the great drama of time ... then say, if disappointment, distress, misery and calamitous woe, are not the inalienable portion of the susceptible bosom.]
[_A&M_ (later scene):
Alonzo was too deeply absorpt in melancholy reflection....]
From foreign lands the tidings borne, With pain to wake a parent"s anguish, O, brother dear, beloved of all, For thee a brother"s heart must languish.
"That eye of brightness glows no more, That beaming glance in night is clouded;"
On Maracaibo"s distant sh.o.r.e, "In death"s dark cell untimely shrouded."
[Tighe, _Verses Written at the Commencement of Spring_, stz. 12, 13 (mid-line ellipses in original):
Haste, sweetest Babe, beloved of all!
Our cheerful hours without thee languish: Ah! hush!.... he hears no more thy call!
Ah! hush!.... nor wake a parents anguish!]
That lip of roses glows no more; That beaming glance in night is clouded; Those bland endearments all are o"er, In death"s dark pall for ever shrouded.]
Alas! for him no kindred near In hopes to minister relief; He sees no tear of pity shed, He sees no parents" anxious grief.
And as still evening came on, In saddest solitude and tears, His thoughts would turn on distant home, On peaceful scenes and happier years.
He thought, too, what a favour"d clime His gallant bark had left behind; He thought how science there, sublime, Beam"d her full radiance on the mind.
Though destined in a stranger"s land, Detain"d from all he held most dear, Yet one kind hand, benevolent, Was found the gloomy hours to cheer.
O, how consoling is the eye Of him who comes to soothe our woes; O, what relief those cares supply Which a kind, watchful friend bestows.
When from this hand full well he found How much can lenient kindness do The generous Briton strives with care His drooping spirits to renew.
Yes, stranger, thou wast kind, humane, With quick a.s.sistance prompt to move; To ease the lingering hours of pain, In pity"s kind endeavour strove.
When sickness o"er thy pallid cheek Had stole the l.u.s.tre from thine eye, When near the doubtful crisis drew, And life approach"d its latest sigh,--
He moved thee to his own retreat, In his own mansion watch"d thee there; Around thy couch he still remained, Thy drooping heart with hopes to cheer.
[Tighe: _Verses Written in Sickness_, stanzas 3-12 (of 15).
Alas! for him whose youth has bowed Beneath the oppressive hand of pain; Whose claim to pity disallowed, Bids him the unheeded groan restrain.
Alas! for him who droops like me, Who mourns life"s fueled vigour flown, But finds no soothing sympathy, No tender cares his loss atone.