At all these places and periods, when it was my lot to meet
with Julia, she was most usually the belle of the night. A dozen
attendants followed in her train, solicitous of all her smiles, and
only studious how to afford her pleasure. I, only, stood aloof--I,
who loved her with a more intense fervor than all, simply because
I had none, or few besides to love. The heart which has been evermore
denied, will always burn with this intensity. Its passion, once
enkindled, will be the all-absorbing flame. Devoted itself, it
exacts the most religious devotion; and, unless it receives it,
recoils upon its own resources, and shrouds itself in gloom, simply
to hide its sufferings from detection.
I affected that indifference to the charms of this maiden, which
no one of human sensibilities could have felt. Opinions might have
differed in respect to her beauty; but there could be none on
the score of her virtues and her amiability, and almost as few
on the possessions of her mind. Julia Clifford, though singularly
unobtrusive in society, very soon convinced all around her that
she had an excellent understanding, which study had improved, and
grace had adorned by all the most appropriate modes of cultivation.
Her steps were always followed by a crowd--her seat invariably
encircled by a group to itself. I looked on at a distance, wrapped up
in the impenetrable folds of a pride, whose sleeves were momently
plucked, as I watched, by the nervous fingers of jealousy and
suspicion. Sometimes I caught a timid glance of her eye, addressed
to the spot where I stood, full of inquiry, and, as I could not
but believe, of apprehension;--and yet, at such mcments; I turned
perversely from the spot, nor suffered myself to steal another look
at one, all of whose triumphs seemed made at my expense.
On one of these occasions we met--our eyes and hands, accidentally;
and, though I, myself, could not help starting back with a cold
chill at my heart, I yet fancied there was something monstrous
insulting in the evident recoil of her person from the contact with
mine, at the same moment. I was about to turn hurriedly away with
a slight bow of acknowledgment, when the touching tenderness of
her glance, so full of sweetness and sadness, made me shrink with
shame from such a rudeness. Besides, she was so pale, so thin,
and really looked so unwell, that my conscience, in spite of that
blind heart whose perversity would still have kept me to my first
intention, rebuked me, and drove me to my duty. I approached--I
spoke to her--and my words, though few, under the better impulses
of the moment, were gentle and solicitous, as they should have been.
My tones, too, were softened:--wilfully as I still felt, I could
not forbear the exercise of that better ministry of the affections
which was disposed to make amends for previous misconduct. I do not
know exactly what I said--I probably did nothing more than utter
the ordinary phrases of social compliment;--but everything was
obliterated from my mind in an instant, by the startling directness
of what was said by her. Looking at me with a degree of intentness
by which, alone, she was, perhaps, able to preserve her seeming
calmness, she replied by an inquiry as remote from what my observation
called for as possible, yet how applicable to me and my conduct!