Chapter 21
She also published, in a little volume by itself, an enthusiastic poem in praise of the Cambrian Arden, Llangollen Valley, adorned with an engraving of the landscape as seen from the home of its Rosalind and Celia. They fully appreciated her affection, and returned it. They sent her the gift of a jewel consisting of the head and lyre of Apollo, making a ring and seal in one. In acknowledgment of this, the pleased and grateful poet wrote, "I have to thank you, dearest ladies, for a beautiful but too costly present. It is a fine gem in itself, and a rich and elegant circlet for the finger."
When Lady Butler and Miss Ponsonby left their splendid family residences in Ireland to seek in Wales a retirement where they might spend their days in the culture of letters and friendship, a faithful and affectionate servant who pined for them, after a few months of their absence, set out to search for them in England. She had no clew to direct her pursuit; since, to avoid solicitations to return, they had kept their place of abode secret even from their nearest relatives. Learning, however, of her attempt, they sent for her. She went, and was their fond servitor until her death, thirty years afterward. Miss Seward once writes to Lady Eleanor, "I was concerned to hear that you had lately been distressed by the illness and alarmed for the life of your good Euryclea. That she is recovering, I rejoice. The loss of a domestic, faithful and affectionate as Orlando's Adam, must have cast more than a transient gloom over the Cambrian Arden: the Rosalind and Celia of real life give Llangollen Valley a right to that title." When this endeared servant died, her mourning mistresses buried her in the grave which they had prepared for themselves, and inscribed above her a cordial tribute in verse.
Drawn by the pleasing sentiment that invests the story of these ladies, the writer, being then in England, made a pilgrimage from London to Llangollen in the early autumn of 1865.
It was Saturday afternoon when I arrived at the little Welsh inn. The next morning I found my way to the classic cottage. The fingers of Time had indeed been busy on it. The vestiges of its former glory were still apparent, but the ornaments were crumbled and dim. The prismatic lantern over the door was a mixture of garishness and dust. The bowers were broken, the vines and plants dead, the walks draggled and uneven, the gates rickety, the fences tottering or prostrate. The numerous tokens of art and care in the past made the present ruinousness and desolation more pathetic. I could not help recalling the final couplet of Miss Seward's poem, prophesying the fame of this place:
While all who honor virtue gently mourn Llangollen's vanished Pair, and wreathe their sacred urn.
Threading the briery dell, and following the brook that prattled down the steep slope, I climbed the hill which directly overhangs the hamlet. It was church-time as I sat down on the top, and slowly drank in the charms of that celebrated landscape. To such a scene, at such an hour, the very heart-strings grow. The fields were clothed with a dense velvety-green. Across the narrow glen, on the strange cone of Dinas Bran, frowned threateningly, in dark mass, unsoftened by distance, the huge, bare fragments of an old castle, the immemorial type of an iron age when the hearts of men were iron. Beneath my feet, the vapors of the morning floated here and there in the sunshine, like torn folds of a satin gauze. A hundred smokes curled from the village chimneys, and the tones of the sabbath bells were wafted up to me with no mixture of profane toils. The very cattle seemed to know the holy day, and to browse and gaze, or ruminate and look around, with an unusual assurance of repose and satisfaction. But the spell must be broken, however reluctantly.
Descending into the village, just as the religious service was ended, I went into the churchyard, and copied from the triangular tomb in which the Ladies of Llangollen sleep, with their favorite servant, amid the magical loveliness of the pastoral scenery, these three inscriptions. On the first side:
IN MEMORY OF MRS. MARY CARRYL, Deceased 22 November, 1809, This Monument is erected by Eleanor Butler And Sarah Ponsonby, of Plas Newydd, in this Parish.
Released from earth and all its transient woes, She, whose remains beneath this stone repose, Steadfast in faith resigned her parting breath, Looked up with Christian joy, and smiled in death. Patient, industrious, faithful, generous, kind, Her conduct left the proudest far behind. Her virtues dignified her humble birth, And raised her mind above this sordid earth. Attachment (sacred bond of grateful breasts) Extinguished but with life, this tomb attests; Reared by two friends who will her loss bemoan, Till with her ashes here shall rest their own.
On the second side:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The Right Honorable LADY ELEANOR CHARLOTTE BUTLER, Late of Plas Newydd, in this parish, Deceased 2d June, 1829, Aged Ninety Years, Daughter of the Sixteenth, Sister of the Seventeenth Earls of Ormonde and Ossory, Aunt to the late and to the present Marquess of Ormonde.
Endeared to her many friends by an almost Unequalled excellence of heart, and by manners Worthy of her illustrious birth, the admiration And delight of a very numerous acquaintance, From a brilliant vivacity of mind, undiminished To the latest period of a prolonged existence. Her amiable condescension and benevolence Secured the grateful attachment of those By whom they had been so long and so Extensively experienced: her various perfections, Crowned by the most pious and cheerful Submission to the Divine Will, can only be Appreciated where, it is humbly believed, they are Now enjoying their eternal reward; and by her. Of whom for more than fifty years they constituted That happiness which, through our blessed Redeemer, She trusts will be renewed when this Tomb Shall have closed over its Latest Tenant.
On the third side:
SARAH PONSONBY departed this life On the 9th of December, 1831, aged 76.
She did not long survive her beloved companion, Lady Eleanor Butler, with whom she had lived in this Valley for more than half a century of uninterrupted friendship But they shall no more return to their house, neither Shall their place know them any more.
In that sequestered valley, how quietly, with what blessed joy and peace, their lives kept the even tenor of their way Standing beside their grave, in the shadow of the old church, while the little Welsh river ran whispering by, and thinking how the eyes and hearts in which so long and happy a love had burned, were now fallen to atoms, and literally mixed in the dust below, as once they morally mixed in life above, I felt, What a pity that those thus blessed cannot live forever! Then I thought, No, it is better as it is. They were happy. They drained the best cup existence can offer. When the world was becoming an infirmary, and the song of the grasshopper a burden, it was meet that they should sleep. Those only are to be pitied who die without the experience of affection.
This attempt to revive the story and brighten the urn of the Ladies of Llangollen may suggest that friendship lies within the province of women as much as within the province of men; that there are pairs of feminine friends as worthy of fame as any of the masculine couples set by classic literature in the empyrean of humanity; that uncommon love clothes the lives of its subjects with the interest of unfading romance; that the true dignity, happiness, and peace of women and of men, too--are to be found rather in the quiet region of personal culture, and the affections, than in the arena of ambitious publicity. Mrs. Thrale and Fanny Burney were every thing to each other for a long time. But, on the marriage of the former with Mr. Piozzi, a breach occurred, which was never repaired. Four years after this coldness, Fanny writes in her diary, "Oh, little does she know how tenderly, at this moment, I could run into her arms, so often opened to receive me with a cordiality I believed inalienable." Two years after that, Mrs. Piozzi writes in her diary, "I met Miss Burney at an assembly last night. She appeared most fondly rejoiced in good time I answered with ease and coldness, but in exceeding good humor; and all ended, as it should do, with perfect indifference." Thirty- one years later still, Fanny enters in her diary this brief record: "I have just lost my once most dear, intimate, and admired friend, Mrs. Thrale Piozzi."
The young Bettine Brentano, several years before her acquaintance with Goethe, was placed temporarily in the house of a female religious order to pursue her studies. There she soon made the acquaintance of a canoness named Günderode, considerably older than herself, though still young, with rare mental endowments and romantic affections. The cultivated intellect, spirituality, and mystic melancholy of Günderode, under her singularly attractive features and calm demeanor, drew the impassioned and redundant Bettine to her by an irresistible bond. Their companionship ripened into romantic friendship. Their letters, collected and published by the survivor, compose one of the most original and stimulative delineations of the inner life of girlhood to be met with in literature. To cold and shallow readers, this correspondence will prove an unknown tongue; but those who can appreciate the reflection of wonderful personalities, and the workings of intense sentiment, will prize it as a unique treasure.
Bettine was electrical, magical, seeming ever to be overcharged with the spirit of nature; Günderode, cloudy, opalescent, suggesting a spirit native of some realm above nature. The interplaying of the two was strangely delightful to them both; and they made day after day rich by hoarding and sharing what life brought, the wealth of their souls. The fresh vitality of Bettine, her rushing inspiration, her dithyrambic love of wild nature, breathed a balsamic breath over her drooping friend, who yet had a more than counterbalancing depth of consciousness to impart in return.
Günderode, keyed too high for common companionship, too deep and tenacious in her moods, of a delicacy preternaturally lofty and far- reaching in its sensitiveness, was solitary, sad, thoughtful, yearning, prescient of an early death; yet, by the whole impression of her being, she gave birth, in those who lovingly looked on her, to the surmise that she was mysteriously self-sufficing and happy. Bettine writes to her, "I begin to believe thy feelings are enthroned beyond clouds which cast their shadows on the earth; while thou, borne on them, art revelling in celestial light." The best way to indicate briefly what this friendship was, will be to quote a selection of the characteristic expressions of it, though such a compilation of fragments does great wrong to a correspondence so compacted of the sparks of love and genius. Let those who find in this relation only the expression of a fantastic sentimentality, weigh what Sarah Austin says, a woman who speaks with the utmost weight of authority which learning, experience, and wisdom can give: "We, in England and France," Mrs. Austin says, "have no measure for the character of a German girl, brought up in comparative solitude, nurtured on poetry and religion, knowing little of the actual world, but holding close converse with the ideal in its grandest forms. She is capable of an enthusiasm we know not of."
At different times, Günderode writes thus: "I have bad many thoughts of thee, dear Bettine. Some nights ago I dreamed thou wast dead: I wept bitterly at it; and the dream left, for a whole day, a mournful echo in my heart." "My mood is often very sad, and I have not power over it." "Thou art my bit of a sun that warms me, while everywhere else frost falls on me." "Thy letter, dear Bettine, I have sipped as wine from the goblet of Lyus." "I am studying the distinguished Spartan women. If I cannot be heroic, and am always ill from hesitation and timidity, I will at least fill my soul with that heroism, and feed it with that vital power, in which I am so sadly deficient." "Thou seemest to me the clay which a god is moulding with his feet; and what I perceive in thee is the fermenting fire, that, by his transcendent contact, he is strongly kneading into thee." "When I read what I have written some time ago, I think I see myself lying in my coffin, staring at my other self in astonishment."
"Clemens's letters make me think and consider, while over thine I only feel; and they are grateful as a breath of air from the Holy Land." "If two are to understand each other, it requires the inspiring influence of a third divine one. And so I accept our mutual existence as a gift of the gods, in which they themselves play the happiest part."
And thus, on the other side, Bettine at various times writes to Günderode: "I wrote down, To-day I saw Günderode: it was a gift of God. To-day, as I read it again, I would gladly do every thing for the love of thee. How much do I think of thee and of thy words, of the black lashes that shaded thy blue eyes as I saw thee for the first time; of thy kindly mien, and thy hand that stroked my hair!" "Thy letter today has drawn a charmed ring around me." "On the castle of the hill, in the night-dew, it was fair to be with thee. Those were the dearest hours of all my life; and, when I return, we will again dwell together there. We will have our beds close together, and talk all night." "Thou and I think in harmony: we have as yet found no third who can think with us, or to whom we have confided what we think." "Thou art the sweet cadence by which my soul is rocked." "What will become of me, if ever I pass out of the light which beams on me from thine eyes? for thou seemest to me an ever-living look, and as if on that my life hung." "I feel a deep longing to be with thee again; for, beautiful as it is here on the Rhine, it is sad to be without an echo in a living breast. Man is nothing but the desire to feel himself in another." "When I dare look up to thee from my childish pursuits, I think I see a bride whose priestly robes do not betray, nor her face express, whether she is sad or joyous in her ecstasy." "Thou lookest deeper into my breast, knowest more of my spiritual fate, than I, because I need only read in thy soul to find myself." "I would possess every thing, wealth and power of beautiful ideas, art and science, only to give it to thee, to gratify my love to thee, and my pride in thy love." "Formerly, I often thought, Why was I born? but, after thou wert with me, I never asked again." "I see thee wandering past the grove where I am at home, just as a sparrow, concealed by dense foliage, watches a solitary swan swimming on the quiet waters, and, hidden, sees how it bends its neck to dip into the flood, drawing circles around it; sacred signs of its isolation from the impure, the reckless, the unspiritual!" "I have been made happy to-day: some one secretly placed in my room a rose- tree with twenty-seven buds; these are just thy years."
Many plaintive presentiments of unknown woe, parting, death, gave a mysterious undertone of sadness to much of the correspondence of these two friends. The forebodings were destined to be more than fulfilled in the tragic reality. Poor Günderode, wrought to madness by a disappointment in love, committed suicide. She drowned herself in a river, where her body was found entangled in the long sedge. Years afterwards, Bettine relates the story in a letter to Goethe, the perusal of which has made many a gentle heart ache. The substance of the tragedy may be briefly told:
"One day," Bettine writes, "Günderode met me with a joyful air, and said, "Yesterday I spoke with a surgeon, who told me it was very easy to make away with one's self. She hastily opened her gown, and pointed to the spot beneath her beautiful breast. Her eyes sparkled with delight. I gazed at her, and felt uneasy. And what shall I do when thou art dead?' I asked. Oh! ere then,' said she, thou wilt not care for me any more; we shall not remain so intimate till then: I will first quarrel with thee.' I turned to the window to hide my tears and my anger. She had gone to the other window, and was silent. I glanced secretly at her: her eye was lifted to heaven; but its ray was broken, as though its whole fire were turned within. After I had observed her awhile, I could no longer control myself: I broke into loud crying, I fell on her neck, I dragged her down to a seat, and sat upon her knee, and wept, and kissed her on her mouth, and tore open her dress, and kissed her on the spot where she had learned to reach the heart. I implored her, with tears of anguish, to have mercy upon me; and fell again on her neck, and kissed her cold and trembling hands. Her lips were convulsed; and she was quite cold, stiff, and deadly pale. Speaking with difficulty, she said slowly, Bettine, do not break my heart.' I wanted to recover myself, and not give her pain. But as, amidst my smiles and tears and sobs, she grew more anxious, and laid herself on the sofa, I jestingly tried to make her believe I had taken all as a joke.
"A few days after, she showed me a dagger with a silver hilt, which she had bought at the mart. She was delighted with the beauty and sharpness of the steel. I took the blade, and pressed on her with it, exclaiming, Rather than suffer thee to kill thyself, I myself will do it.' She retreated in alarm, and I flung the dagger away. I took her by the hand, and led her to the garden, into the vine-bower, and said, Thou mayest depend on me: there is no hour when, if thou wert to utter a wish, I would hesitate for a moment. Come to my window at midnight and whistle, and I will, without preparation, go round the world with thee. What right hast thou to cast me off? How canst thou betray such devotion? Promise me now.' She hung her head and was pale. 'Günderode,' said I, if thou art in earnest, give me a sign. She nodded.
"Two months passed away, when I again came to Frankfort. I ran to the chapter-house of the canonesses, opened the gate, and lo! there she stood, and looked coldly at me. 'Günderode,' I cried, may I come in?' She was silent, and turned away. 'Günderode, say but one word, and my heart beats against thine.' 'No,' she said, 'come no nearer, turn back, we must separate.' 'What does this mean?' I asked. 'Thus much, that we have been deceived, and do not belong to one another.' Ah! I turned away. First despair; first cruel blow, so dreadful to a young heart! I, who knew nothing but entire abandonment to my love, must be thus rejected."
A short period elapsed, when news was brought to Bettine that a young and beautiful lady, who was seen walking a long time at evening beside the Rhine, had been found the next morning, on the bank, among the willows. She had filled her handkerchief with stones, and tied it about her neck, probably intending to sink in the river; but, as she stabbed herself to the heart, she fell backward; and they found her thus lying under the willows by the Rhine, in a spot where the water was deepest. It was the poor, unhappy Günderode.
The next day, Bettine, who was then with her brother and a small party of friends, sailing on the Rhine, landed at Rudesheim. "The story was in every one's mouth. I ran past all with the speed of wind, and up to the summit of Mount Ostein, a mile in height, without stopping. When I had come to the top, I had far outstripped the rest; my breath was gone, and my head burned. There lay the splendid Rhine, with his emerald island gems. I saw the streams descending to him from every side, the rich, peaceful towns on both banks, and the slopes of vines on either side. I asked myself if time would not wear out my loss. And then I resolved to raise myself above grief; for it seemed to me unworthy to utter sorrow which the future would enable me to subdue."
The dithyrambic exuberances in this relation, the romantic extravagances of sentiment, illustrate both the strength and the weakness of a genius bordering close on disease. They show how much such a genius needs to apply to itself the balancing and rectifying criticisms of a sober wisdom. They may also contribute something to awaken and enrich more cold and sluggish natures, which are yet aspiring and docile.
Lucy Aikin has left record of the warm and faithful friendships with which she was blessed by some of the most gifted and amiable women of her time. She was a person of strong character, of highly cultivated talents, and quite remarkable for her powers of conversation, an accomplishment which seems hastening to join the lost arts. The parties which modern fashion gathers, are not so much groups of friends, drawn together for rational and affectionate communion, as they are jabbering herds, among whom all individuality and docile earnestness are lost in the general buzz and clack of simultaneous speech.
One of these friends was Miss Benger, an estimable literary lady, who had considerable celebrity a quarter of a century ago. Miss Aikin has written a brief memoir of her. The following extract sufficiently shows the cordiality and comfort of their union: "To those who knew and enjoyed the friendship of Miss Benger, her writings, pleasing and beautiful as they are, were the smallest part of her merit and her attraction. Endowed with the warmest and most grateful of human hearts, she united to the utmost delicacy and nobleness of sentiment, active benevolence, which knew no limit but the furthest extent of her ability, and a boundless enthusiasm for the good and fair, wherever she discovered them. Her lively imagination, and the flow of eloquence which it inspired, aided by one of the most melodious of voices, lent an inexpressible charm to her conversation; which was heightened by an intuitive discernment of character, rare in itself, and still more so in combination with such fertility of fancy and ardency of feeling. As a companion, whether for the graver or the gayer hour, she had, indeed, few equals; and her constant forgetfullness of self, and unfailing sympathy for others, rendered her the general friend, favorite, and confidante of persons of both sexes, all classes, and all ages. Many would have concurred in judgment with Madame de Staël, when she pronounced Miss Benger the most interesting woman she had seen during her visit to England. Of envy and jealousy there was not a trace in her composition; her probity, veracity, and honor were perfect. Though as free from pride as from vanity, her sense of independence was such, that no one could fix upon her the slightest obligation capable of lowering her in any eyes. She had a generous propensity to seek those most, who needed her offices of friendship. No one was more scrupulously just to the characters and performances of others, no one more candid, no one more deserving of every kind of reliance. It is gratifying to reflect to how many hearts her unassisted merit found its way. Few persons have been more widely or deeply deplored in their sphere of acquaintance; but even those who loved her best could not but confess that their regrets were purely selfish. To her the pains of sensibility seemed to be dealt in even fuller measure than its joys: her childhood and early youth were consumed in a solitude of mind, and under a sense of contrariety between her genius and her fate, which had rendered them sad and full of bitterness; her maturer years were tried by cares, privations, and disappointments, and not seldom by unfeeling slights or thankless neglect. The irritability of her constitution, aggravated by inquietude of mind, had rendered her life one long disease. Old age, which she neither wished nor expected to attain, might have found her solitary and ill-provided: now she has taken the wings of the dove to flee away and be at rest."