Frank Henley to Oliver Trenchard

Wenbourne-Hill

Oliver, I am wretched! The feeble Frank Henley is a poor miserable being! The sun shines, the birds warble, the flowers spring, the buds are bursting into bloom, all nature rejoices; yet to me this mirth, this universal joy, seems mockery—Why is this? Why do I suffer my mind thus to be pervaded by melancholy? Why am I thus steeped in gloom?

She is going—Thursday morning is the time fixed—And what is that to me?—Madman that I am!—Who am I? Does she, can she, ought she to think of me?—And why not? Am I not a man; and is she more than mortal?—She is! She is!—Shew me the mortal who presumes to be her equal!

But what do I wish? What would I have? Is it my intention or my desire to make her wretched? What! Sink her whom I adore in the estimation of the world; and render her the scoff of the foolish, the vain, and the malignant?—I!—I make her wretched!—I!—

Oliver, she treats me with indifference—cold, calm, killing indifference! Yet kind, heavenly kind even in her coldness! Her cheerful eye never turns from me, nor ever seeks me. To her I am a statue—Would I were! Why does she not hate me? Openly and absolutely hate me!—And could I wish her to love? Do I love? Do I? Dare I? Have I the temerity so much as to suspect I love?—Who am I? The insignificant son of—!

And who is she? The daughter of a Baronet—Pshaw! What is a Baronet?—Away with such insolent, such ridiculous distinctions. She is herself! Let Folly and Inferiority keep their distance!

But I?—Low bred and vulgar let Pride and Error call me, but not villain! I the seducer of men's daughters! Noble men and still nobler daughters! I! Why, would I be so very vile a thing? Would I, if I could?

Yet who shall benumb the understanding, chain up the fancy, and freeze sensation? Can I command myself deaf when she sings, dead when she speaks, or rush into idiotism to avoid her enchantments?

Despise me, Oliver, if thou wilt, but the deep sense I have of my own folly does but increase the distemper of my brain. She herself pities me, yet does not suspect my disease. 'Tis evident she does not; for her soul is above artifice. She kindly asked—was I not well? I owned I was not quite so cheerful as I could wish to be; and [wouldst thou think it?] was presumptuous enough to hint that I thought the enlivening air of France might do me good. Thou seest how frantic I am! She answered with the utmost ease, and without the most distant suspicion of my selfish, my audacious motive, that she would speak to Sir Arthur. But I was obliged to request her to forbear, till I had first tried to gain my father's consent, of which indeed I had but feeble hopes.

Every way miserable, why am I obliged to think and speak of my father with so little respect? Indeed he is—Well, well!—He is my father—I am convinced he is become wealthy; nay indeed he gives me to understand as much, when he wishes to gain any purpose, by endeavouring to excite avarice in me, which he hopes is, and perhaps supposes must be, mine and every man's ruling passion. Yet, no; he cannot: his complaints of me for the want of it are too heartfelt, too bitter.

He has kept me in ignorance, as much as was in his power. Reading, writing, and arithmetic is his grand system of education; after which man has nothing more to learn, except to get and to hoard money. Had it not been for the few books I bought and the many I borrowed, together with the essential instruction which thy excellent father's learning and philanthropy enabled and induced him to give me, I should probably have been as illiterate as he could have wished. A son after his own heart! One of his most frequent and most passionate reproaches is 'the time I waste in reading.'

I scarcely need tell thee he was almost in a rage, at my request to accompany Sir Arthur to France; stating, as I did, that it ought to be and must be at his expence. Otherwise he cares but little where I go, being rather regarded by him as a spy on his actions than as his son. Thou canst not conceive the contempt with which he treats me, for my want of cunning. He despises my sense of philanthropy, honour, and that severe probity to which no laws extend. He spurns at the possibility of preferring the good of society to the good of self—But, once again, he is my father.

Prithee lend me thy Petrarch, and send it in return by Thomas. I had nothing to say, though I have written so much, except to ask for this book, and to burden thee with my complaints. Remember me kindly to thy most worthy father, and all the family. Thine,

F. HENLEY