Delphi Complete Works of William Godwin 1st ed. (2022), page 245
part #1 of Delphi Classics Series
How changed was our position! It was eighteen years since I had seen him. This lengthened period could not have been without leaving its traces and the marks of its varied fortune upon the persons of both. We had been young when we parted; we were now somewhat beyond the middle period of human life. When we parted, Cloudesley had already passed several months in the service of a liberal master. He had consequently contracted the alertness, the docile and obedient spirit, and the complacent gesture and turn of countenance, incident to that walk of life. He had spent all the interval in a state of independence. His look therefore now betokened the erect and self-centred spirit of an English yeoman, with a slight surface of the manner, at once animated and officious, of that class of Italian gentry with whom he had been in frequent intercourse. Such was his appearance, as he stood unabashed in my presence.
But the alteration in me was much more memorable. He had known me in the most brilliant and faultless period of my life. I had already conquered the jealous and envious temper which had disfigured my youth. I loved my brother with a generous sincerity, and had formed myself upon his model. I had served with distinction in the imperial armies, under the command of the incomparable Eugene. I was no disadvantageous specimen of a younger branch of the English nobility. At the time we parted, the demon of avarice, injustice and fraud had entered my bosom; but there had not been time for the effecting a radical change in my exterior and my general demeanour. But now he saw me after the thoughts of guilt, remorse and shame had been for eighteen years the inmates of my breast. Mine was the roving and suspicious eye; mine the worm of conscience veiled under a fair outside; mine the complexion of dun and tarnished red, the colour uniform through every region of the face, which told that no food had to me the effect of kindly nourishment, and that no beam of serenity and cheerfulness ever gladdened my soul by night or by day.
I said to him, with as firm and lofty an air as I could assume, as he entered, What make you here? [sic] This is a violation of the contract between us.
I have not come, retorted Cloudesley in a determined manner, from Florence to the south of Ireland, without having first maturely considered my purpose. The lands and seas I have traversed are a pledge to you, that I will not return without a perfect success. I have been driven by an impulse that it was out of my power to control, by a voice from heaven; and I swear that I will not leave this house of my ward and his ancestors, till I have accomplished the purpose for which I came.
We meet as two guilty creatures. In the face of the world we might blush and hang down our heads, if mankind could read the secret of our souls: but to each other we are familiar, and have arrived beyond the reach of shame.
There was a day when we entered into a hellish contract, and mutually agreed on that which might worthily expel us from every ‘good man’s feast,’ and shut us out of such societies ‘where bells have knolled to church.’ My oblivion of the great bond by which communities are held together, was short; I have expiated my sin in undying repentance; I have sought by every means in my power to atone for and repair my injustice. You have rioted in impunity for eighteen years; no moment of compunction has visited you; you have not thought for an instant of retracing your downward steps. This error, this guilt, this usurpation, this breach of every thing that is holy, must have an end; and I am come to put a close to all further delay and reprieve. Let your reparation be open and without reserve; it is your wisdom to make it so; for, in one way or the other, I come to tell you that this house and these revenues shall no longer be yours, and that the title you bear must be laid down for ever.
This is the essence of guilt. I drank the cup of bitterness to the very dregs. There is but one thing that can truly humble a man; and that is crime. I was born a nobleman; I was bred a military commander, having numbers of human creatures implicitly under my control. In each of these characters with what disdain should I have looked down upon this man, this cockney, this serf, born to be sold with the land he tilled, had it not been for the guilt that broke down the energies of my soul! Homer says, that the day that takes from a man his personal liberty, takes away half his worth. How much more truly may it be affirmed, of the day that takes from a man his integrity and innocence! I was compelled to endure the presence of this Cloudesley, while he loaded me with all varieties of opprobrious appellation, and threatened me, as if he were the man of station, and I the slave. But why do I say, it was much for me to bear it from him? Had I kept my integrity, I would not have borne it from a satrap or a prince.
To the liege lord of my dear native land
I owe a subject’s homage:
but even from him I would not have borne, what I bore from Cloudesley. If I could not have defied him, it I could not have smote him with my sword, at least I would not have stood in his presence, I would not have breathed the same air, I would not have dwelt on the same soil. I would have endenisened myself in a country where I could make myself respected; I would have dwelt in a community where my treatment should be that which a gentleman expects from his inferiors, or from those who are essentially his equals.
But, as it was, I was compelled to endure every thing, to digest every thing. This fellow had me in his meshes; and it was necessary for me to keep terms with him. What he could do, I knew not; whether formally and by law he could eject me from all that I possessed, and all which, further than this, I expected. But he could at least beard me, not as now, man to man in my private apartment; but on the theatre of the world. He could tell ‘a shameful tale for public sport,’ could make me the subject of base discussion with every clown, could cause them to point the finger, and thrust out the lip, in scorn against me. No: this I would never encounter.
’Twas fixed, I’d die, rather than bear the insolence
Of each dissembling wretch should tell my story.
But why do I say, I would die? That is a miserable refuge in such a case as mine. I should leave my name to be torn in pieces. I should leave my dust to be trampled on. I should leave my bones to be burned in ignominy, and the ashes to be scattered to all the winds of heaven. As long as I was remembered, my appellation would be used as a by-word of horror.
And what gave this man the ascendancy over me? He was as great an offender as I. We had entered into a common league of infamy, to strip of his rights the infant that had none to help him. But in infamy, it is wisely provided that he who stands highest in the ranks of society, has the heaviest load to sustain. Oh, what would I not give, to creep into enviable obscurity, to have no name by which I could be traced, no lineaments by which I could be recognised, to wash myself from the stains that darken my skin, and are mixed up with my blood, and to come forth a new man, sinless as the unborn infant! Fool that I was, I had thought myself secure. If I were a gainer by the forgery we had concocted, he also, in proportion to his station and his habits, was a gainer too. I thought I had held him in firmest bonds by a provision of five hundred pounds a year. I had not dreamed that he would ever disturb me in my ill-gotten possession, since, as I judged, he could not do so, but by an act that would turn him out a beggar. How short-sighted is guilt!
In fine, I was reduced to the soul-sickening alternative, to expostulate with my tyrant, to endeavour by words to disarm his hostility, and prevail on him to treat me with lenity and forbearance. With a concentred mind, and a pacifying, intreating tone, which it cost me torments inexpressible to adopt, I said:
Cloudesley, it would be the height of felicity to me, if I could recall the past. Oh, that I could place myself now, as I stood when I closed my brother’s eyes at the seat of the baron Stahlhoffen in Bavaria! No man knows the value of innocence and integrity, but he who has lost them. How fearful is the state of mortals, when a single blow that is made, the motion of a finger, the stroke of a pen, the articulation of a syllable, can change a man at once, from being a subject of universal commendation and envy, into the mark for all men’s indignation and scorn, a being that the myrmidons of the law shall hunt, and who can only appease the vengeance of the community against him by an ignominious death! Willingly would I resign all I have, and go out again naked and portionless into the world, if by so doing I could regain my innocence. But, no: that is impossible!
I must therefore retain the part I have chosen. I must preserve the advantage I have purchased. I have bought this world’s honours and wealth for myself and the little son that is left me, at a fearful price; and shall I make a voluntary surrender of them? Give me back, give me back, the mighty store that I gave in exchange, peace of mind, and an unstained conscience, and I am content. But I cannot consent to part at once with what I gave, and what I got. I can now lift up my head in the face of the world, and appear without reproach. The legal evidences of my succession are entire and complete. It is not in your power to shake them. This is the pillar of all the honours my country yields me; and on this foundation will I rest.
And why should you desire to disturb me? Your adopted son is happy at present. How can he be more so? You praise his docility, his acquirements, his generosity, the contentment and cheerfulness of his dispositions. Would he be happier, if he possessed those things to the inheritance of which he was born? Philosophers and moralists have agreed that a moderate condition in life is that which is most to be desired. You would strip me of all I possess. You would take from my child all that from the first dawning of his understanding he has been prompted to expect. You would brand upon my forehead and his the signature of dishonour. You would affix to the name of Herbert, and to the titles of Alton and Danvers, an everlasting disgrace. That disgrace would even contaminate the whole blood of the house, and rebound on your ward. And for what would you do this? To remove him from a situation with which he is satisfied, and place him in one untried, for which no previous habits have prepared him, and in which he might find himself a stranger and a malcontent. You have at present what is to you and to him a competence. If you say, that you hold this by a precarious tenure, and that, when you die, he may be turned out an unprovided wanderer, I am contented to settle it upon the joint lives of both by the strictest bonds that can be devised. Accept these terms. Be satisfied with this, and whatever else I can do, short of upsetting all that is established, signing myself a villain, and bringing down the grey hairs of the earl Danvers, the head of our house, to the grave with anguish.
You possess a fearful power over me. Use it with moderation and temperance. Remember that I am a nobleman, the brother of him who rescued you from a jail, and whose name you reverence beyond every thing that ever bore the form of man. Can you bear to trample me in the dust, to thrust me forth to universal scorn? This you believe to be in your power: but will you use your power to that end? No such evil can happen to your ward, if you yield to my expostulations. He may pass his days in usefulness and honour. He will regret nothing, for he knows not that he has lost anything. You were born the son of a cultivator of the earth, belonging to a cast of society essentially inferior to mine. In the order of things you could not approach to any one of the blood of the Altons and the Danverses, but to offer your services, and to receive our commands. A concurrence of circumstances has put it in your power to destroy me. But is it generous, is it noble, to use your power to that end? Remember too, that I could never have been placed in this precarious, ignoble situation without you. You stood in my presence in the crisis of my fate. There was that in your countenance and manner, which suggested unlawful contemplations, or cherished and warmed them into life, if they existed in embryo already. Cloudesley, you are my evil genius; you were my tempter! Man! having made me what I am, and destroyed my soul, can you have the daring to make use of this predicament in which we stand, to thrust me down to the pit, and think that you shall enter the rank of the angels in heaven? I do not mean to offend you. But I must speak. This is not a time for half-measures and temporising. Begone! Return to Italy from whence you came. Thus far you have done prosperously. You have reaped the advantage of your part of the conspiracy into which we entered. Do not think, having steeped your soul in villainy, to come forth as if you were without spot! Be content!
My whole soul seemed to take possession of every lineament of my countenance, as I spoke. The fervour of passion penetrated and devoured me. My voice swelled, and seemed to my own ears like the voice of thunder. Cloudesley trembled. For some moments he was speechless. It was easy to perceive that he repented the having placed himself in my presence, exposed himself to hear the bitterness of my reproaches, the confounding truths I set before him, the measure of retaliation to which I was driven. – By degrees he recovered his self-possession and firmness.
It is useless, he said, to consider how far I have myself wandered from the path of integrity and virtue. I am deeply conscious of the wrong I have committed, and for years have steeped the recollection in the hot and bitter tears of repentance. The past is beyond our power. It can no more be reversed, than the calamities and crimes that occurred myriads of years before we were called into existence. The future is the empire of the human will; and I am most anxious to atone for the errors of the past by the rectitude of what is to come.
It belongs neither to you nor to me, to decide in what position the youth under my care, your nephew, will be most happy. According to the laws of all civilised communities he has rights, which we are not entitled to supersede. Let him be invested in those rights, and the principal part of our task, as it relates to him, will have been performed. He has perhaps no friend on the face of the globe but myself. At least, to me his person, his claims, his position in society, are confided. I live but for this object; I have no other passion. My days and nights, my thoughts waking and sleeping, my exertions, my journeys by sea and land, are devoted to this. I will never relax from this sacred undertaking; no motive, no temptation, no bribe, shall turn me aside; and I feel in my inmost heart that it shall be accomplished. He shall be publicly known and acknowledged as baron Alton and earl Danvers; he shall be the lord of this domain, and of the still more splendid mansion in the isle of Axholme.
I shook my head expressively, in rejection of his proposals, and in disregard of his threats.
It is well, said he. What I desired was, that we should act together in the accomplishment of this holy purpose. Together we contrived, and together perpetrated, an unheard-of crime. It was my most earnest wish that we should have cooperated in the generous restoration of the youth we have injured. We have done that, which, if known, would blast our characters in the judgment of all honourable men, nay, of all men, whether virtuous or profligate. It is in our power, uncompelled, of our own free will, by our spontaneous act, to set right that in which we have offended, and to shew that there is in us a principle and spring of justice and truth.
But, if I cannot have your assistance, that shall not turn me from my purpose. In what manner I shall proceed to effect it, as yet I know not. I will not act without mature deliberation, and without much advice. But I will not rest. My proceeding shall be as rapid, as my plan shall be well-digested and firm. Do not therefore for a moment imagine yourself secure. Your ruin shall come when you least expect. Like a thief in the night, it shall take you unawares and unprepared. And, as you refuse to accept, what is now offered you, honour in the event that is to be effected, be assured that I shall entertain no consideration for your feelings, and no forbearance as to the consequences that will follow to your fortune or your peace!
He said all this with a passion and an impetuosity that carried him out of himself. It was like a horse in the full career of his speed, who has the bridle thrown on his neck, and whom neither rocks, nor declivities, nor barriers, nor seas can stop in his course. – Having spoken, he burst from my presence, and quitted the mansion and park where I resided.
I remained for some time motionless, stunned with the scene in which I had been a partaker. What a thing is guilt! I had been pressed down to the earth by the series of calamities that had occurred within my domestic circle. And here came the visit of a man, who was like a savage that had broken loose from the woods, or like Polyphemus, when Ulysses and his companions had unwarily entered his cave, who, having no consideration for the unparalleled sufferings his victims had for years endured, thought only of his own object, and the accomplishment of his unrelenting purpose.
I sat still, and was helpless. I waited one day, and another day, expecting when my adversary would make his second appearance. I dared do nothing, fearful of the consequences of irritating a person who had so much in his power.
If I had dared, I would have asked Cloudesley a thousand questions. I longed to lift the veil, but was terrified at the thought of the appalling, the heart-withering objects it might disclose. In what I had said I had taken it for granted that Julian knew nothing of his true birth and his claims. But was that the case? Had Cloudesley never in the fulness of his soul poured out its fraught into the bosom of the youth he adored? Had he made no other men the confidents of my perilous secret, thus multiplying on every side the persons who would have it in their power, if not to take from me every thing I possessed, at least to publish my shame to the whole world, and make my pretensions a subject of discourse to every one I saw? He had said, that he would not act without mature deliberation, or without much advice. Whom did he purpose to consult? Would he prepare, or would he instruct another so as to cause him to prepare, a brief, containing all the particulars of my disgraceful tale? I would have given the world for an answer to the least of these questions. But I dared not breathe them to the air of my most secret apartment.
