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I LIVED far from the busy haunts of men, and the
rumour of wars or political changes came worn to a mere sound, to our
mountain abodes. England had been the scene of momentous struggles, during
my early boyhood. In the year 2073,
In the twentieth century futuristic utopias and--more often--dystopias have proliferated: from Gilman, Orwell, Huxley, Zamyatin, Pynchon, Chute, and Burgess, to (more recently) William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Octavia Butler, as well as numerous television shows, films, and computer games.
(It is also possible to speculate about the significance of particular dates in the novel, set three hundred years in the future from the French Revolutionary period.)
the last of its kings, the ancient friend of my father, had abdicated in compliance with the gentle force of the remonstrances of his subjects, and a republic was instituted. Large estates were secured to the dethroned monarch and his family; he received the title of Earl of Windsor, and Windsor Castle,The ex-queen, a princess of the house of Austria, A major county in the English lake district,
Cumberland was by the 1820s strongly associated with the poetry of
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, then known as the "Lake School"
and since canonized as the first generation of Romantics. It
represents in this novel a "northern," traditional way of life,
close to nature and the English past. This provides a
significant context for Lionel Verney's early rustic life. And the
lake of Ulswater, in Cumberland, is the site of Perdita's rural
cottage. (I.1)
There was a large estate with a mansion attached to it, belonging to this
family, at Ulswater. A large park was one of its appendages, laid out with
great taste, and plentifully stocked with game. I had often made
depredations on these preserves; and the neglected state of the property
facilitated my incursions. When it was decided that the young Earl of
Windsor should visit Cumberland, workmen arrived to put the house and
grounds in order for his re-
I was beyond measure disturbed by this intelligence. It roused all my dormant
recollections, my suspended sentiments of injury, and gave rise to the new
one of revenge. I could no longer attend to my occupations; all my plans and
devices were forgotten; I seemed about to begin life anew, and that under no
good auspices. The tug of war, I thought, was now to begin. He would come
triumphantly to the district to which my parent had fled broken-hearted; he
would find the ill-fated offspring, bequeathed with such vain confidence to
his royal father, miserable paupers. That he should know of our existence,
and treat us, near at hand, with the same contumely which his father had
practised in distance and absence, appeared to me the certain consequence of
all that had gone before. Thus then I should meet this titled stripling--the
son of
With my mind fully occupied by these ideas, I might be said as if fascinated,
to haunt the destined abode of the young Earl. I watched the progress of the
improvements, and stood by the unlading waggons, as various articles of
luxury, brought from London, were taken forth and conveyed into the mansion.
It was part of the Ex-Queen's plan, to surround her son with princely
magnificence. I beheld rich carpets and silken hangings, ornaments of gold,
richly embossed metals, emblazoned furniture, and all the appendages of high
rank arranged,
To crown my vexation of spirit, Perdita, the visionary Perdita, seemed to awake to real life with transport, when she told me that the Earl of Windsor was about to arrive.
"And this pleases you?" I observed, moodily.
"Indeed it does, Lionel," she replied; "I quite long to see him; he is the descendant of our kings, the first noble of the land: every one admires and loves him, and they say that his rank is his least merit; he is generous, brave, and affable."
"You have learnt a pretty lesson, Perdita," said I, "and repeat it so
literally, that you forget the while the proofs we have of the Earl's
virtues; his generosity to us is manifest in our plenty, his bravery in the
protection he affords us, his affability in the notice he takes of us. His
rank his least merit, do you say? Why, all his virtues are derived from his
station only;
A few days after he arrived. Every inhabitant of the most miserable cottage,
went to swell the stream of population that poured forth to meet him: even
Perdita, in spite of my late philippic, crept near the highway, to behold
Each day, each hour added to these exaggerated wrongs. His praises were so many adder's stings infixed in my vulnerable breast. If I saw him at a distance, riding a beautiful horse, my blood boiled with rage; the air seemed poisoned by his presence, and my very native English was changed to a vile jargon, since every phrase I heard was coupled with his name and honour. I panted to relieve this painful heart-burning by some misdeed that should rouse him to a sense of my antipathy. It was the height of his offending, that he should occasion in me such intolerable sensations, and not deign himself to afford any demonstration that he was aware that I even lived to feel them.
It soon became known that Adrian took great delight in his park and
preserves. He never sported, from P.B. Shelley, "On the Game Laws" (1817) (from Oxford
edn.) If a doubt is ever excited in our minds as to whether
the Assembly does or does not provide for the welfare of the
community as well as any Assembly more legally constituted, we need
only consider the legislative provisions in force in this country
for the preservation of Game to set in its clearest point of view,
the despotism which is exercised by an oligarchical minority amongst
us. . . . the laws which are in force for the preservation of Game
will admit of no excuse, and bring home to this assembly, a charge
of corrupting the taste and morals, sacrifizing the lives,
imprisoning the persons, and trampling upon the property of the
inhabitants of this same country; and that with the barefaced
insolence of power, without deigning even to alledge the remotest
pretext of general good, in order that they may indulge themselves
in a barbarous and bloody sport, from which every enlightened and
amiable mind shrinks in abhorrence and disgust.
The late setting of the moon, and the extreme caution I was obliged to use in
this my third expedition, consumed so much time, that something like a qualm
of fear came over me when I perceived dark night yield to twilight. I crept
along by the fern, on my hands and knees, seeking the shadowy coverts of the
underwood, while the birds awoke with unwelcome song above, and the fresh
morning wind, play-
The name of the Earl startled me, and caused all the indignant blood that
warmed my heart to rush into my cheeks; I had never seen him before; I
figured to myself a haughty, assuming youth, who would take me to task, if
he deigned to speak to me, with all the arrogance of superiority. My reply
was ready; a reproach I deemed calculated to sting his very heart. He came
up the while; and his appearance blew aside, with gentle western breath, my
cloudy wrath: a tall, slim, fair boy, with a physiognomy
As he spoke, his earnest eyes, fixed on me, seemed to read my very soul: my
heart, my savage revengeful heart, felt the influence of sweet benignity
sink upon it; while his thrilling voice, like sweetest melody, awoke a mute
echo within me, stirring to its depths the life-blood in my frame. I desired
to reply, to acknowledge his goodness, accept his proffered friendship; but
words, fitting words, were not afforded to
"Yes," I exclaimed, "I do believe that I now know you, and that you will pardon my mistakes--my crime."
Adrian smiled gently; and after giving his orders to the gamekeepers, he came up to me; putting his arm in mine, we walked together to the mansion.
It was not his rank--after all that I have said, surely it will not be
suspected that it was Adrian's rank, that, from the first, subdued the lyre of mind! O grief and shame!Man but a rush against Othello's breast,And he retires. . . .
I spent the day with him. At first he did not recur to the past, or indeed to
any personal occurrences. He wished probably to inspire me with confidence,
and give me time to gather together my scattered thoughts. He talked of
general subjects, and gave me ideas I had never before conceived. We sat in
his library, and he spoke of the old Greek sages, and of the power which
they had acquired over the minds of men,
As evening came on, he reverted to the past. "I have a tale to relate," he
said, "and much explanation to give concerning the past; perhaps you can
assist me to curtail it. Do you remember your father? I had never the
happiness of seeing him, but his name is one of my earliest recollections:
he stands written in my mind's tablets as the type of all that was gallant,
amiable, and fascinating in man. His wit was not more conspicuous than the
overflowing goodness of his heart, which he poured in such full measure
Encouraged by this encomium, I proceeded, in answer to his inquiries, to
relate what I remembered of my parent; and he gave an account of those
circumstances which had brought about a neglect of my father's testamentary
letter. When, in after times, Adrian's father, then king of England, felt
his situation become more perilous, his line of conduct more embarrassed,
again and again he wished for his early friend, who might stand a mound
against the impetuous anger of his queen, a mediator between him and the
parliament. From the time that he had quitted London, on the fatal night of
his defeat at the gaming-table, the king had received no tidings concerning
him; and when, after the lapse of years, he exerted himself to discover him,
every trace was lost. With fonder regret than ever, he clung to his memory;
and gave it in charge to his son, if ever he should meet this valued friend,
in his name to bestow every succour, and
A short time before Adrian's visit to Cumberland, the heir of the nobleman to whom my father had confided his last appeal to his royal master, put this letter, its seal unbroken, into the young Earl's hands. It had been found cast aside with a mass of papers of old date, and accident alone brought it to light. Adrian read it with deep interest; and found there that living spirit of genius and wit he had so often heard commemorated. He discovered the name of the spot whither my father had retreated, and where he died; he learnt the existence of his orphan children; and during the short interval between his arrival at Ulswater and our meeting in the park, he had been occupied in making inquiries concerning us, and arranging a variety of plans for our benefit, preliminary to his introducing himself to our notice.
The mode in which he spoke of my father was gratifying to my vanity; the veil
which Representations of gender and sexual identity in
A "woman's heart and sensibility"
and even "woman's work" are defined in the early chapters especially
as tied to deep feeling (I.7, II.1, II.2). But both Lionel and
Adrian are described as "effeminate" (e.g., III.6--though Lionel
says there that "a man must repress such girlish ecstacies") and
instances of cross-dressing, homosocial and homoerotic feeling
(e.g., I.2), and the sense that gender and sexual identity, like
other roles, are
In Volume III, chapter 5, a child is assigned shifting pronouns--male, female, and even the neuter "it"--an authorial or editorial mistake, clearly, but one that it has been argued may unconsciously reflect the book's deeper gender ambiguities.
When it comes to female figures from mythology, the novel opens with a Sybil (who may be a type of Cassandra) and contains important evocations of Pandora and Ariadne, as well as the modern myth of Corinne, to name a few, all potentially significant for any reading of representations of gender in
Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so . . . .
Exodus 17:6
I could not rest. I sought the hills; a west wind
As this gust of passion passed from me, I felt more composed. I lay on the
ground, and giving the reins to my thoughts, repassed in my mind my former
life; and began, fold by fold, to unwind the many errors of my heart, and to
discover how brutish, savage, and worthless I had hitherto been. I could not
however at that time feel remorse, for methought I was born anew; my soul
threw off the burthen of past sin, to commence a new career in innocence and
love. Nothing harsh or rough remained to jar with the soft feelings which
the transactions of the day had inspired; I was as a child lisping its
devotions after its mother, and my
This was the first commencement of my
After his abdication the late king had retreated from the sphere of politics,
yet his domestic circle afforded him small content. The ex-queen had none of
the virtues of domestic life, and those of courage and daring which she
possessed were rendered null by the secession of her husband: she despised
him, and did not
Acting upon this plan in our subsequent intercourse, he led me to wish to
participate in that cultivation which graced his own intellect. My active
mind, when once it seized upon this new idea, fastened on it with extreme
avidity. At first it was the great object of my ambition to rival the merits
of my father, and render myself worthy of the friendship of Adrian. But
curiosity soon awoke, and an earnest love of knowledge, which caused me to
pass days and nights in reading and study. I was already well acquainted
with what I may term the panorama of nature, the change of seasons, and the
various appearances of heaven and earth. But I was at once startled and
enchanted by my sudden extension of vision, when the curtain, which had been
drawn before the intellectual world, was withdrawn, and I saw the universe,
not only as it presented itself to my
I felt as the sailor, who from the topmast first discovered the shore of
America; and like him I hastened to tell my companions of my discoveries in
unknown regions. But I was unable to excite in any breast the same craving
appetite for knowledge that existed in mine. Even Perdita was unable to
understand me. I had lived in what is generally called the world of reality,
and it was awakening to a new country to find that there was a deeper
meaning in all I saw, besides that which my eyes conveyed to me. The
visionary Perdita beheld in all this only a new gloss upon an old reading,
and her own was sufficiently inexhaustible to content her. She listened to
me as she had done to the narration of my adventures, and sometimes took an
interest in this species of
We both agreed in loving Adrian: although she not having yet escaped from
childhood could not appreciate as I did the extent of his merits, or feel
the same sympathy in his pursuits and opinions. I was for ever with him.
There was a sensibility and sweetness in his disposition, that gave a tender
and unearthly tone to our converse. Then he was gay as a lark carolling from
its skiey tower, soaring in thought as an eagle, innocent as the mild-eyed
dove. He could dispel the seriousness of Perdita, and take the sting from
the torturing activity of my nature. I looked back to my restless desires
and painful struggles with my fellow beings as to a troubled dream, and felt
myself as much changed as if I had transmigrated into another form, whose
The ex-queen of England had, even during infancy, endeavoured to implant
daring and ambitious designs in the mind of her son. She saw that he was
endowed with genius and surpassing talent; these she cultivated for the sake
of afterwards using them for the furtherance of her own views. She
encouraged his craving for knowledge and his impetuous courage; she even
The ex-queen had also a daughter, now twelve years of age; his fairy sister,
Adrian was wont to call her; a lovely, animated, little thing, all
sensibility and truth. With these, her children, the noble widow constantly
resided at Windsor; and admitted no visitors, except her own partizans,
travellers from her native Germany, and a few of the foreign ministers.
Among these, and highly distinguished by her, was Prince Zaimi, ambassador
to England from the free States of Greece; In the early nineteenth century Greece was the focus of a
cultural movement, an idealizing "Hellenism," and international
political involvement in the War of Independence against the Ottoman
Empire. (For a work that strategically represents both the
idealization and political involvement, see P. B. Shelley's
In
Evadne was eighteen years of age. Although they spent much time together at
Windsor, the extreme youth of Adrian prevented any suspicion as to the
nature of their intercourse. But he was ardent and tender of heart beyond
the common nature of man, and had already learnt to love, while the
beauteous Greek smiled benignantly on the boy. It was strange to me, who,
though older than Adrian, had never loved, to witness the whole heart's
sacrifice of my friend. There was neither jealousy, inquietude, or mistrust
in his sentiment; it was devotion and faith. His life was swallowed up in
the existence of his beloved; and his heart beat only in unison with the
pulsations that vivified hers. This was the secret law of his life--he loved
and was beloved. The universe was to him a dwelling, to inhabit with his
chosen one; and not either a scheme of society or an enchainment of events,
that could impart to him either happiness or misery. What, though And Moses stretched out his hand over the
sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind
all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were
divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea
upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their
right hand, and on their left. (Exodus
14:21-22)
Alas! why must I record the hapless delusion of this matchless specimen of
humanity? What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards
pain and misery? We are not formed for enjoyment; and, however we may be
attuned to the reception of pleasureable emotion, disappointment is the
never-failing pilot of our life's bark, and ruthlessly carries us on to the
shoals. Who was better framed than this highly-gifted youth to love and be
beloved, and to reap unalienable joy from an unblamed passion? If his heart
had slept but a few years longer, he might
I did not accuse Evadne of hypocrisy or a wish to deceive her lover; but the
first letter that I saw of hers convinced me that she did not love him; it
was written with elegance, and, foreigner as she was, with great command of
language. The hand-writing itself was exquisitely beautiful; there was
something in her very paper and its folds, which even I, who did not love,
and was withal unskilled in such matters, could discern as being tasteful.
There was much kindness, gratitude, and sweetness in her expression, but no
love. Evadne was two years older than Adrian; and who, at eighteen, ever
loved one so much their junior? I compared her placid epistles with the
burning ones of Adrian. His soul seemed to distil itself into the words he
wrote; and they breathed on the paper, bearing with them a portion of the
life of love, which was his life.
Adrian's soul was painted in his countenance, and concealment or deceit were
at the antipodes to the dreadless frankness of his nature. Evadne made it
her earnest request that the tale of their loves should not be revealed to
his mother; and after for a while contesting the point, he yielded it to
her. A vain concession; his demeanour quickly betrayed his secret to the
quick eyes of the ex-queen. With the same wary prudence that characterized
her whole conduct, she concealed her discovery, but hastened to remove her
son from the sphere of the attractive Greek. He was sent to Cumberland; but
the plan of correspondence between the lovers, arranged by Evadne, was
effectually hidden from her. Thus the absence of Adrian, concerted for the
purpose of separating, united them in firmer bonds than ever. To me he
discoursed ceaselessly of his beloved Ionian. Her country, its ancient
an-