The Fool Of Quality - Or, The History Of Henry, Earl Of Moreland

THE FOOL OF QUALITY HISTORY OF HENRY EARL OF MORELAND. CHAPTER I. WHEN I look back, my fair cousin, on the passages of my life, it is a matter of amazement to me, that a creature so frail, so feebly and so delicately constituted as man, with nerves so apt to be racked, and a heart to be wrung with anguish, can possibly endure under the weights of calamity that at times are laid upon him. I had not yet dropped a tear. I was in a state of half stupid and half flighty insensibility as one who, having lost every thing, had nothing further to look for, and therefore nothing to regard. But when I sawmy dear old man, my best friend, my father, whelmed under such a depth of affliction, all the sluices of my soul and inmost affections were laid open, and I broke into an avowed passion of tears and exclamations, till, like David in his strife of love with Jonathan, I exceeded. I accused myself of all the evils that had happened to his house and I devoted the day to darkness, and the night to desolation, wherein, bymy presence and connections, I had brought those mischiefs upon him. The good man was greatly struck, and I think partly con- soled, by the excess of my sorrows and, all desolate as he was, he attempted to administer that comfort to me, which he himselfwanted more than any who had life. Break not your heart, my Harry break not your heart, my child he cried. Deprive me not ofthe only consolation that is left me you are now my only trust, my only stay upon earth. A wretched merchant I am, whose whole wealth is cast away, save thee, thou precious casket, thou only remnant of all my possessions My girl, indeed, was thy true lover, the tenderest of all mates her love to thee, my son, was passing the love of woman but we have lost her, we have lost her, and wailing is all the portion that is left us below. As soon as the family heard the voice of our mourning, they too gave a loose to the impatience of their griefs, and all the house was filled with the sound oflamentation. On the following day I summoned the chiefmedical artists, and got the precious remains of my angel embalmed. She was laid under a sumptuous canopy with a silver coffin at her beds foot, and every night when the house was at rest I stole secretly from my bed and stretched myself beside her. I pressed her cold lips to mine I clasped her corpse to my warm bosom, as though I expected to restore it to life by transfusingmy soul into it. I spoke to her as when living I reminded her ofthe several tender and endearing passages of our loves and I reminded her also ofthe loss ofour little ones, by whom we became essentially one, inseparably united in soul and body for ever. There is surely, my cousin, a species of pleasure in grief, a kind of soothing and deep delight, that arises with the tears which are pushed from the fountain of God in the soul, T from the charities and sensibilities of the human heart divine. True, true,, my precious cousin, replied the countess, giving a fresh loose to her tears. O Matilda I would I were with thee True my cousin, I say even now I sink under the weight ofthe sentiment ofyour story. Upon the ninth night, continued -Mr. Clinton, as I lay by the side of all that remained of my Matty, overtoiled and overwatchetl, I fell into a deep sleep...