Читать книгу Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 1 (of 3) - Jonah Barrington - Страница 9

Marriage of my eldest brother – The bridesmaid, Miss D. W. – Female attractions not dependent on personal beauty – Mutual attachment – Illustration of the French phrase je ne sais quoi– Betrothal of the author, and his departure for London, to study for the Bar.

My father still conceived that the military profession was best suited to my ardent and volatile spirit. I was myself, however, of a different opinion; and fortune shortly fixed my determination. An accident occurred, which, uniting passion, judgment, and ambition, led me to decide that the Bar was the only road to my happiness or celebrity; and accordingly I finally and irrevocably resolved that the law should be the future occupation of my life and studies.

The recollection of the incident to which I have alluded excites, even at this moment, all the sensibility and regret which can survive a grand climacteric, and four-and-forty years of vicissitude. I shall not dilate upon it extensively; and, in truth, were it not that these personal fragments would be otherwise still more incomplete, I should remain altogether silent on a subject which revives in my mind so many painful reflections.

My elder brother married the only daughter of Mr. Edwards, of Old Court, County Wicklow (niece to Mr. Tennison, M. P. County Monaghan). The individuals of both families attended that marriage, which was indeed a public one. The bridemaid of Miss Edwards was the then admired Miss D. Whittingham. This lady was about my own age: her father had been a senior fellow of Dublin University, and had retired on large church preferments. Her uncle, with whom she was at that time residing, was a very eminent barrister in the Irish capital. She had but one sister, and I was soon brought to think she had no equal whatever.

They who read this will perhaps anticipate a story of a volatile lad struck, in the midst of an inspiring ceremony, by the beauty of a lively and engaging female, and surrendering without resistance his boyish heart to the wild impulse of the moment. This supposition is, I admit, a natural one; but it is unfounded. Neither beauty, nor giddy passion, nor the glare of studied attractions, ever enveloped me in their labyrinths. Nobody admired female loveliness more than myself; but beauty in the abstract never excited within me that delirium which has so impartially made fools of kings and beggars – of heroes and cowards; and to which the wisest professors of law, physic, and divinity, have from time immemorial surrendered their liberty and their reason.

Regularity of feature is very distinct from expression of countenance, which I never yet saw mere symmetry successfully rival. I thank Heaven, that I never was either the captive or the victim of “perfect beauty;” in fact, I never loved any handsome woman save one, who still lives, and I hope will do so long: those whom I admired most (when I was of an age to admire any) had no great reason to be grateful for her munificence to creating Nature.

Were I to describe the person of D. Whittingham, I should say that she had no beauty; but, on the contrary, seemed rather to have been selected as a foil to set off the almost transparent delicacy of the bride whom she attended. Her figure was graceful, it is true: her limbs fine, her countenance speaking; yet I incline to think that few ladies would have envied her perfections. Her dark and deep-sunk, yet animated and penetrating eyes could never have reconciled their looking-glasses to the sombre and swarthy complexion which surrounded them; nor the carmine of her pouting lips to the disproportioned extent of feature which it tinted. In fine, as I began, so will I conclude my personal description – she had no beauty. But she seems this moment before me as in a vision. I see her countenance, busied in unceasing converse with her heart; – now illuminated by wit, now softened by sensibility – the wild spirit of the former changing like magic into the steadier movements of the latter; – the serious glance silently commanding caution, whilst the counteracting smile at the same moment set caution at defiance. But upon this subject I shall desist, and only remark further, that before I was aware of the commencement of its passion, my whole heart was hers!

Miss Whittingham was at that time the fashion in high society: many admired, but I know of none who loved her save myself; and it must have been through some attractive congeniality of mind that our attachment became mutual.

It will doubtless appear unaccountable to many, whence the spell arose by which I was so devoted to a female, from whom personal beauty seems to have been withheld by Nature. I am unable to solve the enigma. I once ventured myself to ask D. Whittingham if she could tell me why I loved her? She answered by returning the question; and hence, neither of us being able to give an explicit reason, we mutually agreed that the query was unanswerable.

There are four short words in the French language which have a power of expressing what in English is inexplicable —Je ne sais quoi; and to these, in my dilemma, I resorted. I do not now wish the phrase to be understood in a mere sentimental vein, – or, in the set terms of young ladies, as “a nice expression!” In my mind it is an amatory idiom; and, in those few words, conveys more meaning than could a hundred pages: I never recollect its being seriously applied by any man till he had got into a decided partiality.

I have said that the phrase is inexplicable; but, in like manner as we are taught to aim at perfection whilst we know it to be unattainable, so will I endeavour to characterise the Je ne sais quoi as meaning a species of indefinable grace which gives despotic power to a female. When we praise in detail the abstract beauties or merits of a woman, each of them may form matter for argument, or a subject for the exercise of various tastes; but of the Je ne sais quoi there is no specification, and upon it there can be no reasoning. It is that fascinating enigma which expresses all without expressing any thing; that mysterious source of attraction which we can neither discover nor account for; and which nor beauty, nor wit, nor education, nor any thing, but nature, ever can create.

D. Whittingham was the fashion: – but she depended solely, as to fortune, on her father and her uncle. I was the third son of a largely estated, but not at all prudent family, and was entitled to a younger child’s portion, in addition to some exclusive property of my own (from my grandmother): but I had passed twenty-one, and not even fixed on a profession – therefore, the only probable result of our attachment seemed to be misery and disappointment. Notwithstanding, when in the same neighbourhood, we met, – when separate, we corresponded; but her good sense at length perceived that some end must be put to this state of clandestine correspondence, from which, although equally condemning it, we had not been able to abstain. Her father died, and she became entitled to a third of his estate and effects; but this accession was insufficient to justify the accomplishment of our union. I saw, and, with a half-broken heart, acquiesced in, her view of its impossibility until I should have acquired some productive profession. She suggested that there was no other course but the Bar, which might conciliate her uncle. The hint was sufficient, and we then agreed to have a ceremony of betrothal performed by a clergyman, and to separate the next moment, never to meet again until Fortune, if ever so disposed, should smile upon us.

The ceremony was accordingly performed by a clerical person in the parlour of the post-office at Bray, County Wicklow; and immediately afterward I went on board a packet for England, determined, if possible, to succeed in a profession which held out a reward so essential to my happiness.

I did succeed in that profession: but, alas! she for whose sake my toil was pleasure had ceased to exist. I never saw her more! Her only sister still lives in Merrion Square, Dublin, and in her has centred all the property of both the father and uncle. She is the widow of one of my warmest friends, Mr. Burne, a king’s counsel.

I hasten to quit a subject to me so distressing. Some very peculiar circumstances attended, as I learned, the death of that most excellent of women; but a recital of these would only increase the impression which I fear I have already given grounds for, that I am deeply superstitious. However, I have not concealed so important an incident of my life hitherto not published, and I have done.