Letter IX. The Count de St. Julian to Signor Hippolito Borelli, Messina

You, my dear Hippolito, were the only one of my fellow-collegians, to whom I communicated all the circumstances of that unfortunate situation which obliged me to take a final leave of the university. The death of a father, though not endeared by the highest reciprocations of mutual kindness, must always make some impressions upon a susceptible mind. The wound was scarcely healed that had been made by the loss of a mother, a fond mother, who by her assiduous attentions had supplied every want, and filled up every neglect, to which I might otherwise have been exposed.

When I quitted Palermo, I resolved before I determined upon any thing, to proceed to the residence of my family at Leontini. My reception was, as I expected, cold and formal. My brother related to me the circumstances of the death of my father, over which he affected to shed tears. He then produced his testament for my inspection, pretended to blame me that though I were the elder, I had so little ingratiated myself in his favor, and added, that he could not think of being guilty of so undutiful a conduct, as to contravene the last dispositions of his father. If however he could be of any use to me in my future plans of life, he would exert himself to serve me.

The next morning I quitted Leontini. My reflexions upon the present posture of my affairs, could not but be melancholy. I was become as it were a native of the world, discarded from every family, cut off from every country. Born to a respectable rank and a splendid fortune, I was precluded in a moment from expectations so reasonable, and an inheritance which I might have hoped at this time to reap. Many there are, I doubt not, who have no faculties by which to comprehend the extent of this misfortune. The loss of possessions sufficiently ample, and of the power and dignity annexed to his character, who is the supporter of an ancient name, they would confess was to be regretted. But I had many resources left. My brother would probably have received me into his family, and I might have been preserved from the sensations of exigency and want. And could I think of being obliged for this to a brother, who had always beheld me with aversion, who was not of a character to render the benefits he conferred insensible to the receiver, and who, it was scarcely to be supposed, had not made use of sinister and ungenerous arts to deprive me of my inheritance? But the houses of the great were still open. My character was untainted, my education had been such as to enable me to be useful in a thousand ways. Ah, my Hippolito, the great are not always possessed of the most capacious minds. There are innumerable little slights and offenses that shrink from description, but which are sufficient to keep alive the most mortifying sense of dependency, and to make a man of sensibility, and proud honor constantly unhappy. And must I, who had hoped to be the ornament and boast of my country, thus become a burden to my acquaintance, and a burden to myself?

Such were the melancholy reflexions in which I was engaged. I had left Leontini urged by the sentiments of miscarriage and resentment. I fled from the formality of condolence, and the useless parade of friendship. I would willingly have hid myself from every face I had hitherto known. I would willingly have retired to a desart. My thoughts were all in arms. I revolved a thousand vigorous resolutions without fixing upon one.

I had now proceeded somewhat more than two leagues upon my journey, and had gained the center of that vast and intricate forest which you remember to be situated at no great distance from Leontini. In this place there advanced upon me in a moment four of those bravoes, for which this place is particularly infamous, and who are noted for their daring and hazardous atchievements. Myself and my servant defended ourselves against them for some time. One of them was wounded in the beginning of the encounter. But it was impossible that we could have resisted long. My servant was hurt in several places, and I had received a wound in my arm. In this critical moment a cavalier, accompanied by several attendants, and who appeared to be armed, advanced at no great distance. The villains immediately took up their disabled companion, and retired with precipitation into the thickest part of the wood. My deliverer now ordered some of his attendants to pursue them, while himself with one servant remained to assist us.

Imagine, my dear friend, what were my emotions, when I discovered in my preserver, the marquis of Pescara! I recollected in a moment all our former intimacy, and in what manner it had so lately been broken off. Little did I think that I should almost ever have seen him again. Much less did I think that I should ever have owed him the most important obligations.

The expression of the countenance of both of us upon this sudden recognition was complicated. Amid all the surprize and gratitude, that it was impossible not to testify, my eyes I am convinced had something in them of the reproach of violated friendship. I thought I could trace, and by what followed I could not be mistaken, in the air of my Rinaldo, a confession of wrong, united with a kind of triumph, that he had been enabled so unexpectedly and completely to regain that moral equilibrium which he had before lost.

It was not long before his servants returned from an unsuccessful pursuit, and we set forward for a village about a quarter of a league further upon the road from Leontini. It was there that I learned from my friend the occasion and subject of his journey. He had heard at Naples a confused report of the death of my father, and the unexpected succession of my brother. The idea of this misfortune involuntarily afflicted him. At the thought of my distress all his tenderness revived. “And was it,” it was thus that he described the progress of his reflections, “in the moment of so unexpected a blow, that my St. Julian neglected the circumstances of his own situation, to write to me that letter, the freedom of whose remonstrances, and the earnestness of whose exhortations so greatly offended me? How much does this consideration enhance the purity and disinterestedness of his friendship? And is it possible that I should have taken umbrage at that which was prompted only by tenderness and attachment? And did I ever speak of his interference in those harsh and reproachful terms which I so well knew would be conveyed to him again? Could I have been so blinded by groundless resentment, as to have painted him in all the colors of an inflexible dictator, and a presumptuous censor? Could I have imputed his conduct to motives of pride, affectation, and arrogance? How happy had I been, had his advice arrived sooner, and been more regarded?”

But it was not with self-blame and reproach only, that the recovery of my Rinaldo was contented. The idea of the situation of his friend incessantly haunted him. No pursuit, no avocation, could withdraw his attention, or banish the recollection from his mind. He determined to quit Naples in search of me. He left all those engagements, and all those pleasures of which he had of late been so much enamored, and crossing the sea he came into Sicily. Learning that I had quitted Palermo, he resolved to pursue his search of me to Leontini. He had fixed his determination not to quit the generous business upon which he had entered, without discovering me in my remotest retreat, atoning for the groundless resentment he had harbored, and contributing every thing in his power to repair the injustice I had suffered from those of my own family. And in pursuance of these ideas he has made me the most disinterested and liberal proposals of friendship and assistance.

How is it, my Hippolito, that the same man shall be alternately governed by the meanest and most exalted motives: that he shall now appear an essence celestial and divine, and now debase himself by a conduct the most indefensible and unworthy? But such I am afraid is man. Mixed in all his qualities, and inconsistent in all his purposes. The most virtuous and most venerable of us all are too often guilty of things weak, sordid, and disgraceful. And it is to be hoped on the other hand, that there are few so base and degenerate, as not sometimes to perform actions of the most undoubted utility, and to feel sentiments dignified and benevolent. It is in vain that the philosopher fits in his airy eminence, and seeks to reduce the shapeless mass into form, and endeavors to lay down rules for so variable and inconstant a system. Nature mocks his efforts, and the pertinacity of events belies his imaginary hypotheses.

But I am guilty of injustice to my friend. An action which he has so sincerely regretted, and so greatly atoned, ought not to be considered with so much severity. I trust I am not misled by the personal interest I may appear to have in his present conduct. I think I should contemplate it with the same admiration, and allow it the same weight, if its benevolence entirely regarded another. Indeed I am still in the greatest uncertainty how to determine. I am still inclined to prefer my former plan, of entering resolutely upon new scenes and new pursuits, to that of taking up any durable residence in the palace of my friend. There is something misbecoming a man in the bloom of youth, and laboring under no natural disadvantages and infirmities, in the subsisting in any manner upon the bounty of another. The pride of my heart, a pride that I do not seek to extinguish, leads me to prefer an honest independence, in however mean a station, to the most splendid, and the most silken bondage.

Why should not he that is born a nobleman be also born a man? A man is a character superior to all those that civilization has invented. To be a man is the profession of a citizen of the world. A man of rank is a poor shivering, exotic plant, that cannot subsist out of his native soil. If the imaginary barriers of society were thrown down, if we were reduced back again to a state of nature, the nobleman would appear a shiftless and a helpless being; he only who knew how to be a man would show like the creature of God, a being sent into the world with the capacities of subsistence and enjoyment. The nobleman, an artificial and fantastic creation, would then lose all that homage in which he plumed himself, he would be seen without disguise, and be despised by all.

Oh, my Hippolito, in spite of all this parade of firmness and resolution, I cannot quit my native country but with the sincerest regret. I had one tie, why do I mention it? Never did I commit this confidence to any mortal. It was the dream of a poetical imagination. It was a vision drawn in the fantastic and airy colors that flow from the pencil of youth. Fondly I once entertained a hope. I lived upon it. But it is vanished for ever.

I shall go from hence with the marquis of Pescara to Naples. I shall there probably make a residence of several weeks. In that time I shall have fixed my plans, and immediately after shall enter upon the execution of them.