Falkner by Mary Shelley--Delphi Classics (Illustrated) by Mary Shelley

Author:Mary Shelley [SHELLEY, MARY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Parts Edition 8 of 18 by Delphi Classics
Publisher: Delphi Classics (Parts Edition)
Published: 2017-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X.

After a little explanation, I discovered who my new friends were. The lady and my mother were remotely related; but they had been educated together, and separated only when they married. My mother’s death had prevented my knowing that such a relation existed; far less that she took the warmest interest in the son of her earliest friend. Mrs. Rivers had been the poorer of the two, and for a long time considered that her childhood’s companion was moving in an elevated sphere of life, while she had married a lieutenant in the navy; and while he was away attending the duties of his profession, she lived in retirement and economy, in the rustic, low-roofed, yet picturesque and secluded cottage, whose leaf-shrouded casements and flowery lawn, even now, are before me, and speak of peace. I never call to mind that abode of tranquillity without associating it with the poet’s wish:

‘Mine be a cot beside the hill —

A beehive’s hum shall soothe my ear;

A willowy brook, that turns a mill,

With many a fall shall linger near.’

To any one who fully understands and appreciates the peculiar beauties of England — who knows how much elegance, content, and knowledge can be sheltered under such a roof, these lines must ever, I think, as to me, have a music of their own, and, unpretending as they are, breathe the very soul of happiness. In this embowered cot, near which a clear stream murmured — which was clustered over by a thousand odoriferous parasites — which stood in the seclusion of a beech wood — there dwelt something more endearing even than all this — and one glance at the only daughter of Mrs. Rivers, served to disclose that an angel dwelt in the paradise.

“Alithea Rivers — there is music, and smiles, and tears — a whole life of happiness — and moments of intensest transport, in the sound. Her beauty was radiant; her dark eastern eye, shaded by the veined and darkly fringed lid, beamed with a soft, but penetrating fire; her face of a perfect oval; and lips, which were wreathed into a thousand smiles, or, softly and silently parted, seemed the home of every tender and poetic expression which one longed to hear them breathe forth; her brow clear as day; her swan throat, and symmetrical and fairy-like form, disclosed a perfection of loveliness, that the youngest and least susceptible must have felt, even if they did not acknowledge.

“She had two qualities which I have never seen equalled separately, but which, united in her, formed a spell no one could resist — the most acute sensitiveness to joy or grief in her own person, and the most lively sympathy with these feelings in others. I have seen her so enter heart and soul into the sentiments of one in whom she was interested, that her whole being took the colour of their mood; and her very features and complexion appeared to alter in unison with theirs. Her temper was never

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