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"I now hasten to the more moving part of my story. I shall
relate events that impressed me with feelings which, from what
I had been, have made me what I am.
"Spring advanced rapidly; the weather became fine, and the
skies cloudless. It surprised me that what before was desert
and gloomy should now bloom with the most beautiful flowers
and verdure. My senses were gratified and refreshed by a
thousand scents of delight, and a thousand sights of beauty.
"It was on one of these days, when my cottagers periodically
rested from labour--the old man played on his guitar, and the
children listened to him--that I observed the countenance of
Felix was melancholy beyond expression; he sighed frequently;
and once his father paused in his music, and I conjectured by
his manner that he inquired the cause of his son's sorrow.
Felix replied in a cheerful accent, and the old man was
recommencing his music when some one tapped at the door.
"It was a lady on horseback, accompanied by a countryman as
a guide. The lady was dressed in a dark suit, and covered with
a thick black veil. Agatha asked a question; to which the
stranger only replied by pronouncing, in a sweet accent, the
name of Felix. Her voice was musical, but unlike that of
either of my friends. On hearing this word, Felix came up
hastily to the lady; who, when she saw him, threw up her veil,
and I beheld a countenance of angelic beauty and expression.
Her hair of a shining raven black, and curiously braided; her
eyes were dark, but gentle, although animated; her features of
a regular proportion, and her complexion wondrously fair, each
cheek tinged with a lovely pink.
"Felix seemed ravished with delight when he saw her, every
trait of sorrow vanished from his face, and it instantly
expressed a degree of ecstatic joy, of which I could hardly
have believed it capable; his eyes sparkled as his cheek
flushed with pleasure; and at that moment I thought him as
beautiful as the stranger. She appeared affected by different
feelings; wiping a few tears from her lovely eyes, she held out
her hand to Felix, who kissed it rapturously, and called her,
as well as I could distinguish, his sweet Arabian. She did not
appear to understand him, but smiled. He assisted her to
dismount, and dismissing her guide, conducted her into the cottage.
Some conversation took place between him and his father; and
the young stranger knelt at the old man's feet, and would have
kissed his hand, but he raised her, and embraced her affectionately.
"I soon perceived that, although the stranger uttered
articulate sounds, and appeared to have a language of her own,
she was neither understood by, not herself understood, the
cottagers. They made many signs which I did not comprehend;
but I saw that her presence diffused gladness through the
cottage, dispelling their sorrow as the sun dissipates the
morning mists. Felix seemed peculiarly happy, and with smiles
of delight welcomed his Arabian. Agatha, the ever-gentle
Agatha, kissed the hands of the lovely stranger; and, pointing
to her brother, made signs which appeared to me to mean that he
had been sorrowful until she came. Some hours passed thus,
while they, by their countenances, expressed joy, the cause of
which I did not comprehend. Presently I found, by the frequent
recurrence of some sound which the stranger repeated after
them, that she was endeavouring to learn their language; and
the idea instantly occurred to me that I should make use of the
same instructions to the same end. The stranger learned about
twenty words at the first lesson, most of them, indeed, were
those which I had before understood, but I profited by the others.
"As night came on, Agatha and the Arabian retired early.
When they separated, Felix kissed the hand of the stranger,
and said, `Good night, sweet Safie.' He sat up much longer,
conversing with his father; and, by the frequent repetition of
her name, I conjectured that their lovely guest was the subject
of their conversation. I ardently desired to understand them,
and bent every faculty towards that purpose, but found it
utterly impossible.
"The next morning Felix went out to his work; and, after the
usual occupations of Agatha were finished, the Arabian sat at
the feet of the old man, and, taking his guitar, played some
airs so entrancingly beautiful that they at once drew tears of
sorrow and delight from my eyes. She sang, and her voice
flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or dying away, like a
nightingale of the woods.
"When she had finished, she gave the guitar to Agatha, who at
first declined it. She played a simple air, and her voice
accompanied it in sweet accents, but unlike the wondrous strain
of the stranger. The old man appeared enraptured, and said
some words, which Agatha endeavoured to explain to Safie, and
by which he appeared to wish to express that she bestowed on
him the greatest delight by her music.
"The days now passed as peaceably as before, with the sole
alteration that joy had taken place of sadness in the
countenances of my friends. Safie was always gay and happy;
she and I improved rapidly in the knowledge of language, so
that in two months I began to comprehend most of the words
uttered by my protectors.
"In the meanwhile also the black ground was covered with
herbage, and the green banks interspersed with innumerable
flowers, sweet to the scent and the eyes, stars of pale
radiance among the moonlight woods; the sun became warmer, the
nights clear and balmy; and my nocturnal rambles were an
extreme pleasure to me, although they were considerably
shortened by the late setting and early rising of the sun; for
I never ventured abroad during daylight, fearful of meeting
with the same treatment I had formerly endured in the first
village which I entered.
"My days were spent in close attention, that I might more
speedily master the language; and I may boast that I improved
more rapidly than the Arabian, who understood very little, and
conversed in broken accents, whilst I comprehended and could
imitate almost every word that was spoken.
"While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of
letters, as it was taught to the stranger; and this opened
before me a wide field for wonder and delight.
"The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney's _Ruins
of Empires_. I should not have understood the purport of this
book, had not Felix, in reading it, given very minute
explanations. He had chosen this work, he said, because the
declamatory style was framed in imitation of the eastern
authors. Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge of
history, and a view of the several empires at present existing
in the world; it gave me an insight into the manners,
governments, and religions of the different nations of the
earth. I heard of the slothful Asiatics; of the stupendous
genius and mental activity of the Grecians; of the wars and
wonderful virtue of the early Romans--of their subsequent
degenerating--of the decline of that mighty empire; of
chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the discovery of
the American hemisphere, and wept with Safie over the hapless
fate of its original inhabitants.
"These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings.
Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and
magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time
a mere scion of the evil principle, and at another as all that
can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and
virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a
sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have
been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject
than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time
I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his
fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when
I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I
turned away with disgust and loathing.
"Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new wonders to me.
While I listened to the instructions which Felix bestowed
upon the Arabian, the strange system of human society was
explained to me. I heard of the division of property, of
immense wealth and squalid poverty; of rank, descent, and
noble blood.
"The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that
the possessions most esteemed by your fellow-creatures were high
and unsullied descent united with riches. A man might be
respected with only one of these advantages; but, without
either, he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a
vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the
profits of the chosen few! And what was I? Of my creation and
creator I was absolutely ignorant; but I knew that I possessed
no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides,
endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was
not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than
they, and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes
of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far
exceeded theirs. When I looked around, I saw and heard of none
like me. Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from
which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?
"I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections
inflicted upon me: I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only
increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had for ever remained in
my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of
hunger, thirst, and heat!
"Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind,
when it has once seized on it, like a lichen on the rock.
I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling; but I
learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation
of pain, and that was death--a state which I feared yet did not
understand. I admired virtue and good feelings, and loved the
gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers; but I was
shut out from intercourse with them, except through means which
I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and unknown, and which
rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming
one among my fellows. The gentle words of Agatha, and the
animated smiles of the charming Arabian, were not for me.
The mild exhortations of the old man, and the lively conversation
of the loved Felix, were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch!
"Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply.
I heard of the difference of sexes; and the birth and growth of
children; how the father doated on the smiles of the infant,
and the lively sallies of the older child; how all the life and
cares of the mother were wrapped up in the precious charge; how
the mind of youth expanded and gained knowledge; of brother,
sister, and all the various relationships which bind one human
being to another in mutual bonds.
"But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched
my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and
caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a
blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my
earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and
proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me, or who
claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The question
again recurred, to be answered only with groans.
"I will soon explain to what these feelings tended; but allow
me now to return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me
such various feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but
which all terminated in additional love and reverence for my
protectors (for so I loved, in an innocent, half painful
self-deceit, to call them).
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