Chapter 146
JULIA TO CAROLINE.
In vain, dear Caroline, you urge me to _think_; I profess only to _feel_.
“_Reflect upon my own feelings!_ Analyze my notions of happiness! explain to you my system!”--My system! But I have no system: that is the very difference between us. My notions of happiness cannot be resolved into simple, fixed principles. Nor dare I even attempt to analyze them; the subtle essence would escape in the process: just punishment to the alchymist in morality!
You, Caroline, are of a more sedate, contemplative character. Philosophy becomes the rigid mistress of your life, enchanting enthusiasm the companion of mine. Suppose she lead me now and then in pursuit of a meteor; am not I happy in the chase? When one illusion vanishes, another shall appear, and, still leading me forward towards an horizon that retreats as I advance, the happy prospect of futurity shall vanish only with my existence.
“Reflect upon my feelings!”--Dear Caroline, is it not enough that I do feel?--All that I dread is that _apathy_ which philosophers call tranquillity. You tell me that by continually _indulging_, I shall weaken my natural sensibility;--are not all the faculties of the soul improved, refined by exercise? and why shall _this_ be excepted from the general law?
But I must not, you tell me, indulge my taste for romance and poetry, lest I waste that sympathy on _fiction_ which _reality_ so much better deserves. My dear friend, let us cherish the precious propensity to pity! no matter what the object; sympathy with fiction or reality arises from the same disposition.
When the sigh of compassion rises in my bosom, when the spontaneous tear starts from my eye, what frigid moralist shall “stop the genial current of the soul?” shall say to the tide of passion, _So far shall thou go, and no farther?_--Shall man presume to circumscribe that which Providence has left unbounded?
But oh, Caroline! if our feelings as well as our days are numbered; if, by the immutable law of nature, apathy be the sleep of passion, and languor the necessary consequence of exertion; if indeed the pleasures of life are so ill proportioned to its duration, oh, may that duration be shortened to me!--Kind Heaven, let not my soul die before my body!
Yes, if at this instant my guardian genius were to appear before me, and offering me the choice of my future destiny; on the one hand, the even temper, the poised judgment, the stoical serenity of philosophy; on the other, the eager genius, the exquisite sensibility of enthusiasm: if the genius said to me, “Choose”--the lot of the one is great pleasure, and great pain--great virtues, and great defects--ardent hope, and severe disappointment--ecstasy, and despair:--the lot of the other is calm happiness unmixed with violent grief--virtue without heroism--respect without admiration--and a length of life, in which to every moment is allotted its proper portion of felicity:--Gracious genius! I should exclaim, if half my existence must be the sacrifice, take it; _enthusiasm is my choice_.
Such, my dear friend, would be my choice were I a man; as a woman, how much more readily should I determine!
What has woman to do with philosophy? The graces flourish not under her empire: a woman’s part in life is to please, and Providence has assigned to her _success_, all the pride and pleasure of her being.
Then leave us our weakness, leave us our follies; they are our best arms:--
“Leave us to trifle with more grace and ease, Whom folly pleases and whose follies please”
The moment grave sense and solid merit appear, adieu the bewitching caprice, the “_lively nonsense_,” the exquisite, yet childish susceptibility which charms, interests, captivates.--Believe me, our _amiable defects_ win more than our noblest virtues. Love requires sympathy, and sympathy is seldom connected with a sense of superiority. I envy none their “_painful pre-eminence_.” Alas! whether it be deformity or excellence which makes us say with Richard the Third,
“I am myself alone!”
it comes to much the same thing. Then let us, Caroline, content ourselves to gain in love, what we lose in esteem.
Man is to be held only by the _slightest_ chains; with the idea that he can break them at pleasure, he submits to them in sport; but his pride revolts against the power to which his _reason_ tells him he ought to submit. What then can woman gain by reason? Can she prove by argument that she is amiable? or demonstrate that she is an angel?
Vain was the industry of the artist, who, to produce the image of perfect beauty, selected from the fairest faces their most faultless features. Equally vain must be the efforts of the philosopher, who would excite the idea of mental perfection, by combining an assemblage of party-coloured virtues.
Such, I had almost said, is my _system_, but I mean my _sentiments_. I am not accurate enough to compose a _system_. After all, how vain are systems, and theories, and reasonings!
We may _declaim_, but what do we really know? All is uncertainty--human prudence does nothing--fortune every thing: I leave every thing therefore to fortune; _you_ leave nothing. Such is the difference between us,--and which shall be the happiest, time alone can decide. Farewell, dear Caroline; I love you better than I thought I could love a philosopher.
Your ever affectionate
JULIA.
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