Julia_Chapter_19

renovating fountain, which devine goodness supplies--how eagerly would you have flown to it--But Julia knew not that in the desert of life, a rock had been struck which poured forth such healing and reviving streams.

Chapter 19

Twice was she summoned, before she found strength to go to Capt Mirvan. He was walking the hall with hasty and perturbed steps; as she entered he turned, his countenance which was dark and stern, instantly changed into tenderness and mildness, when he saw her pallid face--her sunken eye, and her infirm and trembling steps--he had come prepared by what Madam Luneville had written, to meet an intrepid woman, proud in her virtue and confident in her strength, and he had come prepared to crush that pride and vanquish that strength. But the mild, the gentle and subdued Julia, melted the sternness of his purpose, and hastening to her, he tenderly supported, while he as tenderly enquired into the cause of her evident debility. This was too much for Julia--she too, came prepared for a different meeting. That dark and threatening look, while it appalled, likewise roused a spirit of resistance--a proud defiance and a determination not to yield her fired determination, a determination to forbid future visists--to break the chain that bound her to him. But now when her eye was lifted to his face--no dark and threatening look lingered there--it beamed with love and tenderness--nay even with passion--{lend?}all Julia's power of resistance melted away beneath its kindly warmth. He passed his supporting arm round her trembling form and it was not for some moments that she was sensible that she was pressed against his bosom, a slight convulsive start, thrilled through her frame--as she gently, but firmly withdrew herself from his arms. "Oh this will never--never do," thought Julia--"I am lost, undone--if I cannot conquer this overwhelming { ? ness--"} She could not speak--Captain Mirvan would not be still, held her reluctant hand while he looked steadily and earnestly on her down cast face--Julia felt that he did so--"All," thought she, he is reading all the

weakness. all the doubts struggling in my bosom. he must not-he must not discover how very weak I am." And she raised her eyes to his, intending they should convey an appearance of her resolution. but again they sunk beneath the earnestness of his enquiring glance. "The crisis has come," said Julia to herself, "one effort and all will be over. If I can but pronounce--farewell Captain Mirvan--go--never to return. I have chosen the alternative, and prefer virtue and ruin--to wealth and vice." "This is all I need say," thought Julia, as she arranged the very words-"Only the short sentence and the spell will be broken." But she could not speak--she tried in vain; the unarticulated words died away in murmurs on her lips. The colia of his sorrow--his disappointment, melted the firmness of her purpose. The colia of his rage, his fury--his vengeance--the image of her husband is jail--or bleeding by hand of Capt Mirvan--intimidated her. He witnessed, he watched the struggle-but he said not a word. He fervently pressed her hand--he sighed from the very bottom of his heart he sighed--and Julia's responded it from the bottom of hers. "This is dreadful," she exclaimed as she started on her feet. Captain Mirvan threw around a hasty glance, to discover the cause of her alarm--and seeing nothing--enquired the meaning of her exclamation--"I feel ill," said she, and her looks confirmed her words. "I shall be better in the open air." The struggle was past--the last opposing struggle of human weakness and virtue triumphed. "Yes," said Julia as she walked down the garden breathed more freely, "I am better here now that I feel the air and see the light of heaven." And as she cast her eyes upwards she repeated, "glows in the sun--refreshes in the breeze." My Creator! I feel thy presence, my Father! I implore thy support." Oh what a holy--what a purifying, what a supporting influence is there in the felt presence of Duty! Capt Mirvan, unable to grasp the cause, looked with surprise on her now calm and brightened countenance, on her clear, heaven directed eye, and experienced an involuntary awe. "The air has indeed benefited you my dear friend," he observed. She did not reply--she was musing in how she should open her subject

After turning from one walk to another, till she felt sufficiently renovated and had arranged her discourse she led the way to a seat that was placed in an open part of the garden, whence a large cedar alone shaded the spot. A lawn sloped before them, and opened in a prospect that took in the broad Potomack and its adjacent shores. The sun shone bright--and the deep blue of the other was unstained by a floating vapour, which the waters of the river seemed like a sheet of burnished gold. Julia looked on the glorious scene that cast an appealing look to Captain Mirvan as she said, in a voice that corresponded with the elevated tone of her mind. "Here no indications of littleness, weakness or decay-the immensity of the heavens--the strength of those towering hills, the ever flowing and over renewed fountain of that mighty stream, all speak, the language of immortality--of eternity, Does not such sights my friend, make you feel that if these heavens, this earth and this stream are so enduring, that the soul that animates this scene of things--must be never ending. And our souls," said she with exultation "our souls are emanations from the soul of the Universe!" Capt Mirvan looked at her with astonishment, and could scarcely help saying aloud, "Why she is going mad." But unwilling to offend the ardent enthusiast, he silently pressed her hand, gave her an acquiesing look and she continued-"Strange that this emanation of divinity, should have been imprisoned in an animal form, so weak, perishable, yet so it is--and while thus confined--it must at times be subjected to low and gravelling pursuits--must be governed by its base and brutal affections. What a pity!--it seems almost impossible, but yet it is true, that this frame, looking at her own person, is moulded out of the same clay, as that sod--that it is subject to the same physical laws-the same warm sun the same genial warmth, that draws forth the hidden powers, of vegetation--clothes that clod with verdure and expands

that flower--the same vital heat, circulate in our veins, and glows in our affection. Yes, this now fair, but perishing body is formed of the dust of the earth and subject to the same influences. There is something so humiliating in the thought, that when I most feel such influences, I long for the moment when this degrading union shall be disolved, when this frame shall moulder back to dust; and this freed spirit be re-absorbed--or translated to a purer state of existence. Is it not horrible," said she with a shudder as she cast her eyes on a herd of cattle feeding in a plain below--"is it not horrible for one moment to think we partake of the nature of mere animals--that we are subject to the same impulses--oh it is most horrible, and there are moments when I almost hate myself." Capt Mirvan could scarcely forbear smiling and if he had dared, he would have said, "and yet there are the moments when in my eyes you are more lovely, than when you are all angel, as you now are". But he smiled and the words were repressed, and he answered as if he thought as she did and said something in praise of angelic loveliness. Julia felt that she was not understood-and that tone of voice and the accompanying looks, with which Capt Mirvan applied angelic loveliness to her, made her sensible that at that moment, she was a very woman in his eyes. The elevation of her feelings sunk as suddenly under this conversation, as the mercury of a thermometer does from the application of ice. She was sad and silent--the brightness of her countenance the loftiness of its expression were gone.in Oh Julia--something more than these practical and sublime ideas, are necessary to support the sinking fainting soul in its resistance of temptation may it one day be imparted to you, in all its purity and all its power--but now, for a while you must struggle on with only the beautiful, but feeble light of natures. Captain Mirvan felt rejoiced that this tone of feeling was subdued as he could now speak like a rational being and hope to be understood, "for by my soul ,thought he, she had taken a flight too high for me to follow."

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Julia's plans were thus all deranged--she often did, she had invested Capt Mirvan with qualities he never possessed-her imagination had formed him, as she wished him to be and then she esteemed him for the virtues and graces which existed only in her own fancy. Under the same and elusive influence, she had hoped to excite in his bosom a virtuous enthusiasm, had hoped to sublime his feelings whence the influence of the senses, and then during this momentary elevation, to have announced her virtuous determination, which she thought he might thus be persuaded to submit too. Poor Julia! what an imaginary being thou art? perpetually deceiving theyself--and deceived by others--even the visible tangible objects of creation, seen thro' the medium of thy glowing imagination; appear to her differently from what they appear to others. Eternity is thy fancy, like a Claude Lorrain, colouring objects with hues not their own--when, when will you see things as they really are? Had Julia in a plain, commom sense way, explained to Capt Mirvan her views and wishes--had she made use of her strong powers of mind to enforce her arguments, she might perhaps have succeeded--or at least she would have stood on a firm foundation and had something to hold by.--But her fervid fancy, had carressed her so far above her mark, that her strength was exhausted before the attack was begun--and when she at last announced her purpose, she had no arguments at hand to support it, for in the vehemence of her feelings she forgot all that she had so carefully collected and arranged. However angry Captain Mirvan felt, he carefully concealed it and used only protestations, solicitations, promising the most scrupulous observance of all the restrictions she imposed--and describing his forlorn condition if banished from her presence, "You know, " said he, the dissipation and folly you have rescued me from--would you abandon me again to the same baneful {excesses?} ? This was the only plea that had made Julia waver for a moment--it was however but for a moment--