Chapter V: A Sermon

The kind reception of Mrs. Arlbery, and all the animation of her discourse, were thrown away upon Camilla. An absent smile, and a few faint acknowledgments of her goodness were all she could return: Eugenia abandoned when she might have been served, Edgar contemning when he might have been approving ... these were the images of her mind, which resisted entrance to all other.

Tired of fruitless attempts to amuse her, Mrs. Arlbery, upon their arrival at the Grove, conducted her to an apartment prepared for her, and made use of no persuasion that she would leave it before dinner.

Camilla then, too unhappy to fear any injunction, and resigned to whatever she might receive, read the discourse of Mr. Tyrold.

_For Miss_ Camilla Tyrold.

It is not my intention to enumerate, my dear Camilla, the many
blessings of your situation; your heart is just and affectionate,
and will not forget them: I mean but to place before you your
immediate duties, satisfied that the review will ensure their
performance.

Unused to, because undeserving control, your days, to this period,
have been as gay as your spirits. It is now first that your
tranquillity is ruffled; it is now, therefore, that your fortitude
has its first debt to pay for its hitherto happy exemption.

Those who weigh the calamities of life only by the positive, the
substantial, or the irremediable mischiefs which they produce,
regard the first sorrows of early youth as too trifling for
compassion. They do not enough consider that it is the suffering,
not its abstract cause, which demands human commiseration. The man
who loses his whole fortune, yet possesses firmness, philosophy, a
disdain of ambition, and an accommodation to circumstances, is less
an object of contemplative pity, than the person who, without one
real deprivation, one actual evil, is first, or is suddenly forced
to recognise the fallacy of a cherished and darling hope.

That its foundation has always been shallow is no mitigation of
disappointment to him who had only viewed it in its
super-structure. Nor is its downfall less terrible to its
visionary elevator, because others had seen it from the beginning
as a folly or a chimæra; its dissolution should be estimated, not
by its romance in the unimpassioned examination of a rational
looker on, but by its believed promise of felicity to its credulous
projector.

Is my Camilla in this predicament? had she wove her own destiny in
the speculation of her wishes? Alas! to blame her, I must first
forget, that delusion, while in force, has all the semblance of
reality, and takes the same hold upon the faculties as truth. Nor
is it till the spell is broken, till the perversion of reason and
error of judgment become wilful, that Scorn ought to point 'its
finger' or Censure its severity.

But of this I have no fear. The love of right is implanted
indelibly in your nature, and your own peace is as dependant as
mine and as your mother's upon its constant culture.

Your conduct hitherto has been committed to yourself. Satisfied
with establishing your principles upon the adamantine pillars of
religion and conscience, we have not feared leaving you the entire
possession of general liberty. Nor do I mean to withdraw it, though
the present state of your affairs, and what for some time past I
have painfully observed of your precipitance, oblige me to add
partial counsel to standing precept, and exhortation to advice. I
shall give them, however, with diffidence, fairly acknowledging and
blending my own perplexities with yours.

The temporal destiny of woman is enwrapt in still more impenetrable
obscurity than that of man. She begins her career by being involved
in all the worldly accidents of a parent; she continues it by being
associated in all that may environ a husband: and the difficulties
arising from this doubly appendant state, are augmented by the next
to impossibility, that the first dependance should pave the way for
the ultimate. What parent yet has been gifted with the foresight to
say, 'I will educate my daughter for the station to which she shall
belong?' Let us even suppose that station to be fixed by himself,
rarely as the chances of life authorise such a presumption; his
daughter all duty, and the partner of his own selection solicitous
of the alliance: is he at all more secure he has provided even for
her external welfare? What, in this sublunary existence, is the
state from which she shall neither rise nor fall? Who shall say
that in a few years, a few months, perhaps less, the situation in
which the prosperity of his own views has placed her, may not
change for one more humble than he has fitted her for enduring, or
more exalted than he has accomplished her for sustaining? The
conscience, indeed, of the father is not responsible for events,
but the infelicity of the daughter is not less a subject of pity.

Again, if none of these outward and obvious vicissitudes occur, the
proper education of a female, either for use or for happiness, is
still to seek, still a problem beyond human solution; since its
refinement, or its negligence, can only prove to her a good or an
evil, according to the humour of the husband into whose hands she
may fall. If fashioned to shine in the great world, he may deem the
metropolis all turbulence; if endowed with every resource for
retirement, he may think the country distasteful. And though her
talents, her acquirements, may in either of these cases be set
aside, with an only silent regret of wasted youth and application;
the turn of mind which they have induced, the appreciation which
they have taught of time, of pleasure, or of utility, will have
nurtured inclinations and opinions not so ductile to new sentiments
and employments, and either submission becomes a hardship, or
resistance generates dissention.

If such are the parental embarrassments, against which neither
wisdom nor experience can guard, who should view the filial without
sympathy and tenderness?

You have been brought up, my dear child, without any specific
expectation. Your mother and myself, mutually deliberating upon the
uncertainty of the female fate, determined to educate our girls
with as much simplicity as is compatible with instruction, as much
docility for various life as may accord with invariable principles,
and as much accommodation with the world at large, as may combine
with a just distinction of selected society. We hoped, thus, should
your lots be elevated, to secure you from either exulting
arrogance, or bashful insignificance; or should they, as is more
probable, be lowly, to instil into your understandings and
characters such a portion of intellectual vigour as should make you
enter into an humbler scene without debasement, helplessness, or
repining.

It is now, Camilla, we must demand your exertions in return. Let
not these cares, to fit you for the world as you may find it, be
utterly annihilated from doing you good, by the uncombated sway of
an unavailing, however well-placed attachment.

We will not here canvass the equity of that freedom by which women
as well as men should be allowed to dispose of their own
affections. There cannot, in nature, in theory, nor even in common
sense, be a doubt of their equal right: but disquisitions on this
point will remain rather curious than important, till the
speculatist can superinduce to the abstract truth of the position
some proof of its practicability.

Meanwhile, it is enough for every modest and reasonable young woman
to consider, that where there are two parties, choice can belong
only to one of them: and then let her call upon all her feelings of
delicacy, all her notions of propriety, to decide: Since Man must
choose Woman, or Woman Man, which should come forward to make the
choice? Which should retire to be chosen?

A prepossession directed towards a virtuous and deserving object
wears, in its first approach, the appearance of a mere tribute of
justice to merit. It seems, therefore, too natural, perhaps too
generous, to be considered either as a folly or a crime. It is only
its encouragement where it is not reciprocal, that can make it
incur the first epithet, or where it ought not to be reciprocal
that can brand it with the second. With respect to this last, I
know of nothing to apprehend:--with regard to the first--I grieve
to wound my dearest Camilla, yet where there has been no subject
for complaint, there can have been none for expectation.

Struggle then against yourself as you would struggle against an
enemy. Refuse to listen to a wish, to dwell even upon a
possibility, that opens to your present idea of happiness. All that
in future may be realised probably hangs upon this conflict. I mean
not to propose to you in the course of a few days to reinstate
yourself in the perfect security of a disengaged mind. I know too
much of the human heart to be ignorant that the acceleration, or
delay, must depend upon circumstance: I can only require from you
what depends upon yourself, a steady and courageous warfare against
the two dangerous underminers of your peace and of your fame,
imprudence and impatience. You have champions with which to
encounter them that cannot fail of success, ... good sense and
delicacy.

Good sense will shew you the power of self-conquest, and point out
its means. It will instruct you to curb those unguarded movements
which lay you open to the strictures of others. It will talk to you
of those boundaries which custom forbids your sex to pass, and the
hazard of any individual attempt to transgress them. It will tell
you, that where allowed only a negative choice, it is your own best
interest to combat against a positive wish. It will bid you, by
constant occupation, vary those thoughts that now take but one
direction, and multiply those interests which now recognise but one
object: and it will soon convince you, that it is not strength of
mind which you want, but reflection, to obtain a strict and
unremitting control over your passions.

This last word will pain, but let it not shock you. You have no
passions, my innocent girl, at which you need blush, though enough
at which I must tremble!--For in what consists your constraint,
your forbearance? your wish is your guide, your impulse is your
action. Alas! never yet was mortal created so perfect, that every
wish was virtuous, or every impulse wise!

Does a secret murmur here demand: if a discerning predilection is
no crime, why, internally at least, may it not be cherished? whom
can it injure or offend, that, in the hidden recesses of my own
breast, I nourish superior preference of superior worth?

This is the question with which every young woman beguiles her
fancy; this is the common but seductive opiate, with which
inclination lulls reason.

The answer may be safely comprised in a brief appeal to her own
breast.

I do not desire her to be insensible to merit; I do not even demand
she should confine her social affections to her own sex, since the
most innocent esteem is equally compatible, though not equally
general with ours: I require of her simply, that, in her secret
hours, when pride has no dominion, and disguise would answer no
purpose, she will ask herself this question, 'Could I calmly hear
that this elect of my heart was united to another? Were I to be
informed that the indissoluble knot was tied, which annihilates all
my own future possibilities, would the news occasion me no
affliction?' This, and this alone, is the test by which she may
judge the danger, or the harmlessness of her attachment.

I have now endeavoured to point out the obligations which you may
owe to good sense. Your obligations to delicacy will be but their
consequence.

Delicacy is an attribute so peculiarly feminine, that were your
reflections less agitated by your feelings, you could delineate
more distinctly than myself its appropriate laws, its minute
exactions, its sensitive refinements. Here, therefore, I seek but
to bring back to your memory what livelier sensations have
inadvertently driven from it.

You may imagine, in the innocency of your heart, that what you
would rather perish than utter can never, since untold, be
suspected: and, at present, I am equally sanguine in believing no
surmise to have been conceived where most it would shock you: yet
credit me when I assure you, that you can make no greater mistake,
than to suppose that you have any security beyond what sedulously
you must earn by the most indefatigable vigilance. There are so
many ways of communication independent of speech, that silence is
but one point in the ordinances of discretion. You have nothing, in
so modest a character, to apprehend from vanity or presumption; you
may easily, therefore, continue the guardian of your own dignity:
but you must keep in mind, that our perceptions want but little
quickening to discern what may flatter them; and it is mutual to
either sex to be to no gratification so alive, as to that of a
conscious ascendance over the other.

Nevertheless, the female who, upon the softening blandishment of an
undisguised prepossession, builds her expectation of its
reciprocity, is, in common, most cruelly deceived. It is not that
she has failed to awaken tenderness; but it has been tenderness
without respect: nor yet that the person thus elated has been
insensible to flattery; but it has been a flattery to raise
himself, not its exciter in his esteem. The partiality which we
feel inspires diffidence: that which we create has a contrary
effect. A certainty of success in many destroys, in all weakens,
its charm: the bashful excepted, to whom it gives courage; and the
indolent, to whom it saves trouble.

Carefully, then, beyond all other care, shut up every avenue by
which a secret which should die untold can further escape you.
Avoid every species of particularity; neither shun nor seek any
intercourse apparently; and in such meetings as general prudence
may render necessary, or as accident may make inevitable, endeavour
to behave with the same open esteem as in your days of
unconsciousness. The least unusual attention would not be more
suspicious to the world, than the least undue reserve to the
subject of our discussion. Coldness or distance could only be
imputed to resentment; and resentment, since you have received no
offence, how, should it be investigated, could you vindicate? or
how, should it be passed in silence, secure from being attributed
to pique and disappointment?

There is also another motive, important to us all, which calls for
the most rigid circumspection. The person in question is not merely
amiable; he is also rich: mankind at large, therefore, would not
give merely to a sense of excellence any obvious predilection. This
hint will, I know, powerfully operate upon your disinterested
spirit.

Never from personal experience may you gather, how far from
soothing, how wide from honourable, is the species of compassion
ordinarily diffused by the discovery of an unreturned female
regard. That it should be felt unsought may be considered as a mark
of discerning sensibility; but that it should be betrayed uncalled
for, is commonly, however ungenerously, imagined rather to indicate
ungoverned passions, than refined selection. This is often both
cruel and unjust; yet, let me ask--Is the world a proper confident
for such a secret? Can the woman who has permitted it to go abroad,
reasonably demand that consideration and respect from the
community, in which she has been wanting to herself? To me it would
be unnecessary to observe, that her indiscretion may have been the
effect of an inadvertence which owes its origin to artlessness, not
to forwardness: She is judged by those, who, hardened in the ways
of men, accustom themselves to trace in evil every motive to
action; or by those, who, preferring ridicule to humanity, seek
rather to amuse themselves wittily with her susceptibility, than to
feel for its innocence and simplicity.

In a state of utter constraint, to appear natural is, however, an
effort too difficult to be long sustained; and neither precept,
example, nor disposition, have enured my poor child to the
performance of any studied part. Discriminate, nevertheless,
between hypocrisy and discretion. The first is a vice; the second a
conciliation to virtue. It is the bond that keeps society from
disunion; the veil that shades our weakness from exposure, giving
time for that interior correction, which the publication of our
infirmities would else, with respect to mankind, make of no avail.

It were better no doubt, worthier, nobler, to meet the scrutiny of
our fellow-creatures by consent, as we encounter, per force, the
all-viewing eye of our Creator: but since for this we are not
sufficiently without blemish, we must allow to our unstable
virtues all the encouragement that can prop them. The event of
discovered faults is more frequently callousness than amendment;
and propriety of example is as much a duty to our fellow-creatures,
as purity of intention is a debt to ourselves.

To delicacy, in fine, your present exertions will owe their future
recompence, be your ultimate lot in life what it may. Should you,
in the course of time, belong to another, you will be shielded from
the regret that a former attachment had been published; or should
you continue mistress of yourself, from a blush that the world is
acquainted it was not by your choice.

I shall now conclude this little discourse by calling upon you to
annex to whatever I have offered you of precept, the constant
remembrance of your mother for example.

In our joint names, therefore, I adjure you, my dearest Camilla,
not to embitter the present innocence of your suffering by
imprudence that may attach to it censure, nor by indulgence that
may make it fasten upon your vitals! Imprudence cannot but end in
the demolition of that dignified equanimity, and modest propriety,
which we wish to be uniformly remarked as the attributes of your
character: and indulgence, by fixing, may envenom a dart that as
yet may be gently withdrawn, from a wound which kindness may heal,
and time may close; but which, if neglected, may wear away, in
corroding disturbance, all your life's comfort to yourself, and all
its social purposes to your friends and to the world.

AUGUSTUS TYROLD.