Julia (Chapter_2)

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-es on you? - When you fill every one with delight that approaches you - when you inspire gaiety & bestow pleasure, how [?] it be possible that you, should not yourself be gay & happy? When you see not only in your mirror, but in every eye that looks upon you, that you are beautiful how can you be ignorant of your beauty? When you are sought for, admired caressed, how can you be dissatisfied with yourself? - and with such angelic artlessness - such a transparency of soul, such a speaking & expressive face, where every emotion of your heat is reflected as in a mirror, how could you conceal the pleasure you feel in pleasing? Yet this consciouness, [?] our power to charm, which is as inevitable as consciousness of identity, is ascribed to you as a fault is called vanity! Would you be more estimable if you were a hypocrite, & pretended that you were ignorant of the charms nature has given you? - Would you be more estimable if you were ungrateful? and despised these [rare?] [blessings?]?"

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"You promised," said Julia, "to speak nothing but the truth. You still flatter, but you longer deceive. The bandage has been torn from my eyes, and I see too plainly that I am vain, thoughtless--{dissipated?}. But I trust--devoutly trust, not unprincipled.-- From this day, I will commence a new life--I will be more domestic, more serious, more dignified. Yes, I will be all a wife and mother ought to be. My head and not my heart has erred--no--she continued, running across the room, and catching her children in her arms, (who had been quietly playing in a corner) and pressing them eagerly to her bosom--"No, not for one moment {how it?} wandered from these precious darlings." The tears streamed down her face, as turning to d'Aubigne she exclaimed. "Henry, in the moments when most intoxicated with admiration, when most communicative and gay, I have not been half as delighted half as happy as when caressing and playing with these dear creatures!" "I believe you, on my soul I believe you Julia," said he, snatching the little Rosa to his bosom and smothering her with kisses. "A heart warm ardent and impassioned as yours, could never be satisfied with admiration-Love--devoted love, is as necessary to your existence as to your happiness."

Julia sighed deeply--after a moments pause, "suffer me to leave you now, " said she gently withdrawing her hand. "I have need of solitude to calm this too agitated bosom--of reflection to confirm the resolutions I have formed." D'aubigne did not oppose her wish, tho' long after she had left him, he continued to ponder on what he had heard, and to wonder that any one could discover a fault, in a creature that seemed to him so faultless. As yet, he knew her only as the innocent and { ?less?} being, whom he had left at the age of fifteen under the guarding and restraining care of a fond mother. Ten years had since passed--and passed too in the midst of an admiring world, amidst the allurements of pleasure and temptations to error, unrestrained and unprotected by the vigilance of affection, or the admonitions of experience. The very sensibility which he supposed would have proved a protection against the frivolities of the world, had drawn her into the vortex of folly, where she had hoped to blunt the poignancy of these feelings, which made her wretched at home. When Julia had reached her own chamber, she locked herself in, and throwing herself on a chair, burst into a passion of tears. Recurring to the last words of D'aubigne she exclaimed, "have devoted love is necessary to your existence; yes, my cousin, you know me well--you have known this fond heart, from the moment of its first pulsation, and you know that love is as necessary to{ any it?} existence, as the vital current of life." "Oh my mother, whhoy was I thus nurtured solely on thy love, why was that face always clothed in smiles--that voice always attuned to tenderness. And my father too!--how fondly did he cherish his Julia, and shield her from every pain, every care incident to life. Basking in the continual sunshine of paternal love, and unclouded happiness, how little was I prepared to endure indifferance or unkindness. And from one, on whom I had bestowed all the tenderness of a too tender heart. Alas I am like the merchant who has embarked his whole capital on

in one vessel, who has nothing left, and should that he ship-wrecked? Yet who would have believed it possible, that such a wreck of happiness awaited me, when I deposited my whole of happiness in the bosom of Clifton, of the ardent, the devoted Clifton. Not my dear Father--no, when he consigned his child to the husband of her choice, he believed he had secured my earthly felicity. Oh could he look down from heaven, and see to what neglect--to what hard unkindness I have been exposed, he, at least would pity and excuse, my errors--my wanderings! Slighted and abandoned by the husband whom I loved. how could I endure the loneliness and wretchedness of home? The recollections of the past. Anxieties of the present--fear of the future, would have destroyed my reason, as well as my peace, had I not sought for some relief. And I hoped--alas vain hope, that by alarming, I might have rekindled a husband's love.--And had one spark--one solitary spark remained--surely my plan would have succceeded.--But all this--the world knows not of--no--nor shall they ever know, that the courted, the admired, the gay Mrs Clifton, is a despised and neglected wife!--Even you my aunt, blame me as you will--even you, shall never know the humiliating truth! The thought awakened all the pride of Julia's proud soul, and as she rose, and with a glowing face and firm step traversed her apartment she felt as if any misery was more tolerable than that of the pity of a vain and frivolous world. "Am I then,"thought she, "tamely to bear indifference and contempt and unkindness? Am I patiently to sit at home, a prey to solitude and sorrow, while my husband is revelling in pleasure, and inhaling the incense of an admiring world. Is he to be received with smiles, and hailed with the plaudits of a grateful country? And is the woman who has lured him from me, to exult in my defeat--to witness my humiliation, and while she is participating his triumph, shall she look with pity on a lonely and forsaken wife?--No---No---No--This shall not--cannot be--all things else could I indure---No---my heart may break--but my spirit never bend--Julia Clifton was not born, to