M. Quesnel's visit proved an unhappy one to me; he came
to tell me part of the news he has now confirmed. You may have heard me
mention a M. Motteville, of Paris, but you did not know that the
chief of my personal property was invested in his hands. I had great
confidence in him, and I am yet willing to believe, that he is not
wholly unworthy of my esteem. A variety of circumstances have concurred
to ruin him, and--I am ruined with him.' St. Aubert paused to conceal his emotion.
'The letters I have just received from M. Quesnel,' resumed he,
struggling to speak with firmness, 'enclosed others from Motteville,
which confirmed all I dreaded.'
'Must we then quit La Vallee?' said Emily, after a long pause of
silence. 'That is yet uncertain,' replied St. Aubert, 'it will depend
upon the compromise Motteville is able to make with his creditors. My
income, you know, was never large, and now it will be reduced to
little indeed! It is for you, Emily, for you, my child, that I am most
afflicted.' His last words faltered; Emily smiled tenderly upon him
through her tears, and then, endeavouring to overcome her emotion, 'My
dear father,' said she, 'do not grieve for me, or for yourself; we may
yet be happy;--if La Vallee remains for us, we must be happy. We will
retain only one servant, and you shall scarcely perceive the change in
your income. Be comforted, my dear sir; we shall not feel the want of
those luxuries, which others value so highly, since we never had a taste
for them; and poverty cannot deprive us of many consolations. It cannot
rob us of the affection we have for each other, or degrade us in our own
opinion, or in that of any person, whose opinion we ought to value.'
St. Aubert concealed his face with his handkerchief, and was unable
to speak; but Emily continued to urge to her father the truths, which
himself had impressed upon her mind.
'Besides, my dear sir, poverty cannot deprive us of intellectual
delights. It cannot deprive you of the comfort of affording me examples
of fortitude and benevolence; nor me of the delight of consoling a
beloved parent. It cannot deaden our taste for the grand, and the
beautiful, or deny us the means of indulging it; for the scenes
of nature--those sublime spectacles, so infinitely superior to all
artificial luxuries! are open for the enjoyment of the poor, as well as
of the rich. Of what, then, have we to complain, so long as we are not
in want of necessaries? Pleasures, such as wealth cannot buy, will still
be ours. We retain, then, the sublime luxuries of nature, and lose only
the frivolous ones of art.'