Clermont/Chapter 1
CLERMONT.
CHAP. I.
Far retired
Among the windings of a woody vale,
By solitude and deep surrounding shades,
But more by bashful modesty conceal'd,
Together thus they shunn'd the cruel scorn
Which virtue sunk to poverty would meet
From giddy passion and low-minded pride.
Thomson
In a retired part of the province of Dauphiny stood the cottage of Clermont; its remote obscurity was well suited to the mental solitude of its tenant, and its neat simplicity corresponded with his refined taste. Fifteen years he had been an inhabitant of it; and from the elegance of his manners and the dignity of his mein, his rustic neighbours, were of opinion that he had once seen better days. To this impression, however, he studiously avoided giving any sanction; nay, it was evident he wished by every means in his power, to discourage the idea of opulence or greatness having ever been his portion.
His chief employment consisted in superintending a little farm, from which his principal support appeared to be derived, and his highest amusement and pleasure in studying the works of nature, and cultivating the mind of his daughter; who, with an elderly female servant whom he had hired after his arrival at the cottage, were the only human beings that shared with him the fruits of his retirement.
Madeline, but two years old at that period, could consequently recollect nothing previous to it; but, from the striking difference between her father and the surrounding rustics, she could not help adopting their opinion of him, and thinking that he had once moved in a circle very different from that in which he was then placed.
She more than once hinted this opinion, and enquired of her father the cause of their retirement, and whether they had no relatives, no friends, in that great world from which they were secluded? but she never received any satisfactory answer. The agitation he always betrayed at those enquiries, made her at last resolve to suppress a curiosity so painful to his feelings. It however confirmed her belief of his having experienced severe misfortunes; and from this conviction, she redoubled her attention, trusting that, if she could not obliterate, she might at least soften their remembrance.
But to do so in reality, was, alas! beyond her power. 'Tis true, he sometimes forced himself to wear the semblance of cheerfulness, although his heart was ever a stranger to it; oppressed by a sorrow which the boasted efficacy of time, the solicitude of filial attention, or the tenderness of sympathy could not mitigate;—a sorrow, which anticipated the work of time, had already faded his cheek and furrowed his brow, though yet in what might be termed the prime of man's life, not having attained his fortieth year; and sometimes so far overcame him, as to render him unable to bear even the society of his daughter, his only earthly comfort. At those periods he always wandered to the wildest and most sequestered spot that he could find in the neighbourhood of his residence.
'mid
.....thorns and mire;
......all forlorn,
To muse at last, amid the ghostly gloom
Of graves, and hoary vaults, and cloistered cells,
To walk with spectres thro' the midnight shade,
And to the screaming owl's accursed song,
Attune the dreadful workings of his heart.
Though one of his chief sources of pleasure (as I have already said) was derived from the culture of his daughter's mind, he was often tempted to forego this gratification by reflecting on the inutility of accomplishments to her, who, like the desert rose, seemed born to waste her sweetness in obscurity. The task, however, was too delightful to be relinquished; and he at last rejoiced that he had persevered in it; for, as he carefully guarded her against all refinements which could render her dissatisfied with her humble station, he found that the expansion of her mind, by opening new sources of amusement, increased her happiness: he cultivated to the highest perfection that taste which the
Source divine of ever-flowing love,
And his unmeasur'd goodness, not content
With every food of life to nourish man,
Implants within his heart to make,
By kind illusions of the wand'ring sense,
all
beauty to his eye,
And music to his ear;with which
well pleased he scans
The goodly prospect, and with inward smiles,
Treads the gay verdure of the painted plains,
Beholds the azure canopy of heaven,
And living lamps that over-arch his head
With more than regal splendour.
Never did a pupil render the toils of an instructor less difficult than did Madeline those of her father; and as she grew up, her perfect knowledge of the historian's record, and just conception of the poet's beauty, rendered her a companion well qualified to diversify his lonely hours.
She possessed besides an exquisite taste for drawing and music, and accompanied the soft melody of her lute with a voice which, though not strong, was inexpressibly sweet; melodious as that which the rapt poet at the visionary hour of twilight sometimes thinks he hears
chanting from the wood-crown'd hill,
the deep'ning dale, or inmost sylvan glade.
The liveliness of her fancy was equal to the strength of her understanding, and often raised a visionary paradise around her; softness and animation were happily blended in her disposition; and with equal delight she could enjoy the gaiety of innocent mirth and the lonely hour of solitude: feeling and precept had early taught her pity for the woes of others; and with cheerfulness she could tax either convenience or comfort to supply the claims of poverty. To her person Nature had not been less liberal than to her mind; by her prodigality to both, it seemed indeed as if she had been anxious to make amends for the deficiency of fortune.
She was tall and delicately made; nor was the symmetry of her features inferior to that of her bodily form: but it was not to this symmetry that they owed their most attractive charm,—it was derived from the fascinating sweetness diffused over them. Her eyes, large and of the darkest hazel, ever true to the varying emotions of her soul, languished beneath their long silken lashes with all the softness of sensibility, and sparkled with all the fire of animation; her hair, a rich auburn, added luxuriance to her beauty, and by a natural curl, gave an expression of the greatest innocence to her face; the palest blush of health just tinted her dimpled, fair, and beautifully rounded cheek; and her mouth, adorned by smiles, appeared like the half-blown rose when moistened with the dews of early morn.
Such was Madeline Clermont, who, ignorant of the great world, neither practised its follies, sighed for its pleasures, or dreaded its vices; her highest wish was gratified when she could steal from the brow of her father its usual sadness, and render him for a moment forgetful of his sorrows.
Their house stood on a little eminence, in a deep, romantic, and verdant valley, which wound to a considerable extent between cultivated hills, where the vine spread her treasures to the sun, and the husbandman often gathered a luxuriant harvest; woods of variegated verdure stretched up many of their steep ascent, and the summit of one of the highest was crowned with the ruins of a once noble castle, the residence, according to tradition, of some of the ancient Counts of Dauphiny. This shattered pile, the record of departed greatness and the power of time, was carefully shunned by the peasant after sun-set, for the village legends were swelled with an account of the horrid noises, and still more horrid sights, heard and beheld within its dreary walls: but though feared by superstition, it was the favourite haunt of taste and sensibility; and thither, as the last beams of the sun glimmered o'er the scene, Clermont and Madeline often wandered; they loved to explore its grass-grown court and winding avenues, and picture to themselves the scenes that had once passed to all appearance within them: they also frequently ascended to its broken battlements, covered with wild vegetation, where the birds of night held their unmolested reign, startling by their melancholy cries those persons whom chance or necessity conducted near the spot, from thence to feast on the delicious prospect beneath; whilst the breeze sighed amongst the surrounding trees, (whose ponderous trunks and matted branches declared them long inhabitants of the soil) as if the genius of the pile still haunted their recesses and mourned its desolation. The hills were completely surrounded by a chain of mountains, bleak, barren, and desolate, except in the summer months, when the shepherd led thither his little flock to crop the sweet herbage that then grew amongst their interstices.
A narrow river run through the valley, whose calm current was in many places interrupted by projections of rocks, which served as rude bridges for the villagers to pass from one side to the other; numerous herds enlivened its banks, along which a low brushwood crept, intermingled with a few tall trees, weeping willows, and sweet-smelling shrubs, which formed embowered seats for the solitary angler. A number of neat cottages were scattered about the vale; and it was delightful of a fine evening to behold their young inhabitants dancing to pastoral music on the little grassy lawns before them;—
Like fairy elves,
Whose midnight revels by a forest side,
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees; while over head the moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth
Wheels her pale course, they on their mirth and dance
Intent, with jocund music, charm his ear.
The cottage of Clermont was embosomed in a small grove, through which a broad grassy path, enclosed by a rude paling, led from the valley to the house; o'er the door honeysuckle and wild roses, during the summer, formed a kind of portico, and half shaded its latticed windows; its interior was as simple as its exterior, and it was ornamented, as Madeline grew up, by her fanciful drawings. Midway up the hill that rose at the rear of his cottage, Clermont had continued his garden, as the space which lay between it and his dwelling was too narrow to yield sufficient vegetables for his family, small as it was; a silvery stream descended from this hill that gave fertility to the flowers which Madeline cultivated; and immediately above the garden it projected into craggy points of rock, which allured thither, by the fragrant herbs that grew about them, not only the industrious bee, but the wild and adventurous goat; and though the garden, its fences being readily overleaped, sometimes suffered from having the latter in its vicinity, Clermont could not think of driving away a neighbour, whose appearance on the heights added to the romantic and picturesque scenery of the spot. On the southern side of the hill lay a small vineyard belonging to Clermont, which he diligently cultivated.
Unchequered by incident, unruffled by discontent, the days of Madeline glided away till she had attained her seventeenth year; at which period their calm current was interrupted.