mountain lowered and threatened ruin every day. The
Maltese Minister's house hard by had been struck by
lightning. Like lurid Nature, Emma too was roused
to fury, though, a microcosm of it also, she smiled
between the outbursts. What could she do but
wait ?
Twelve days more; the order comes "Oblige Sir
William/' Her passion blazes up, indignant:
". . . Nothing can express my rage. Greville, to advise me! you that used to envy my smiles! Now
with cool indifference to advise me! ... Oh! that is
the worst of all. But I will not, no, I will not rage.
If I was with you I wou'd murder you and myself
boath. I will leave of [f] and try to get more strength, for I am now very ill with a cold. ... I won't look
back to what I wrote . . . Nothing shall ever do for
me but going home to you. If that is not to be, I will
except of nothing. I will go to London, their go into
every excess of vice till I dye, a miserable, broken-
hearted wretch, and leave my fate as a warning to
young whomen never to be two good; for now you
have made me love you, you made me good, you
have abbandoned me ; and some violent end shall finish
our connexion, if it is to finish. But oh! Greville, you cannot, you must not give me up. You have not
the heart to do it. You love me I am sure; and I am
willing to do everything in my power, and what will
you have more? And I only say this is the last time
I will either beg or pray, do as you like." " I always knew, I had a foreboding since first I began to love
you, that I was not destined to be happy; for their is
not a King or Prince on hearth that cou'd make me
76 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
happy without you." " Little Lord Brooke is dead.
Poor little boy, how I envy him his happiness."
She had been degraded in her own eyes, and by the
lover whom she had heroised. Was this, then, the re-
ward of modesty regained; of love returned, of strenu-
ous effort, of hopes for her child, and a home purified?
Her idol lay prone, dashed from its pedestal, with feet
of clay. And yet this did not harden her. Though
she could not trust, she still believed in him as in some higher power who chastens those he loves. Her
paroxysms passed to return again: ". . . It is
enough, I have paper that Greville wrote on. He
[h]as folded it up. He wet the wafer. How I envy
thee the place of Emma's lips, that would give worlds,
had she them, to kiss those lips! ... I onely wish
that a wafer was my onely rival. But I submit to
what God and Greville pleases." Even now she held
him to his word. " I have such a headache with my
cold, I don't know what to do. ... I can't lett a
week go without telling you how happy I am at hear-
ing from you. Pray, write as often as you can. //
you come, we shall all go home together. . . . Pray
write to me, and don't write in the stile of a freind,
but a lover. For I won't hear a word of freind. Sir
William is ever freind. But we are lovers. I am
glad you have sent me a blue hat and gloves. . . ."
For many years she cherished Greville's friendship.
She wrote to him perpetually after the autumn of this
year saw Sir William win her heart as well as will by
his tenderness, and by her thought of advancing the
ingrate nephew himself. Never did she lose sight of
Greville's interests during those fourteen future years
at Naples. She lived to thank Greville for having
made Sir William known to her, to be proud of her
achievements as his eleve.
But at the same time in these few months a larger
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 77
horizon was already opening. She had looked on a
bigger world, and ambition was awakening within
her. She had seen royalty and statesmen, and she
began to feel that she might play a larger part. Under
Greville's yoke she had been ready to pinch and slave ;
with Sir William she would rule. " Pray write," she concludes one of her Greville letters, " for nothing will make me so angry, and it is not to your intrest
to disoblidge me, for you don't know," she adds with point, " the power I have hear. ... If you affront
me, / will make him marry me. God bless you for
ever." *
And amid all her tumult of disillusionment, of un-
certainty, of bewilderment in the new influence she
was visibly wielding over new surroundings, she re-
mained the more mindful of those oldest friends who
had believed her good, and enabled her to feel good
herself. Sir William, wishful to retain for her the
outside comforts of virtue, hastened to gratify her by
inviting Romney and Hayley to Naples. The disap-
pointment caused by Romney's inability to comply with
a request dear to him - threw her back on herself and
made her feel lonelier than ever; her mother was her
great consolation.
And what was Greville's attitude? These Emma-
letters would have been tumbled into his waste-paper
basket with the fourteen others that remain, had he
not returned them to Hamilton with the subjoined and
private comment: " L'onbli de I'lnclus est volant,
ftxez-le: si on admet le ton de la vertu sans la verite, 1 Morrison MS. 153, August i, 1786. Some of the sentences are quoted in the order of feeling and not of sequence. Emma seldom wrote long letters in a single day.
2 Romney had been very ill. In his answer (August, 1786) he hopes "in a weke or to, to be upon my pins (I cannot well call them legs), as you know at best they are very poor ones." Cf.
Ward and Roberts's Romney, vol. i. p. 67.
78 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
on est la dupe, et je place naturellemcnt tout sur Ic
pied vrai, comme j'ai toujours fait, et je constate I'etat actuel sans me reporter a vous." One must not be
duped by the tone without the truth of virtue! The
" self-respect," then, instilled by him, was never designed to raise her straying soul; it was a makeshift
contrived to steady her erring steps a mere bridge
between goodness and its opposite, which he would not
let her cross; though neither would he let her throw
herself over it into the troubled and muddy depths
below : it was a bridge built for his own retreat. Grev-
ille recked of no " truth " but hard " facts," which he looked unblushingly in the face, nor did his essence, harbour one flash or spark of idealism. And still he
purposed her welfare, as he understood it; he had
sought to kill three birds with one stone. Hamilton,
for all his faults, was never a sophist of such com-
promise. For Emma he purposed a state of life above
its semblance, and a strength beyond its frail supports ; already he desired that she would consent to be, in all
but name, his wife. Greville, certain of her good na-
ture, had dreaded permanence; Hamilton, if all went
smoothly, meant it. Yet Greville exacted friendship
without affection. His French postscript was designed
to escape Emma's comprehension, though a month or
so later it could not have succeeded in doing so. But
the letter itself contai
ned some paragraphs which he
probably intended her to study:
"... I shall hope to manage to all our satisfac-
tion, for I so long foresaw that a moment of separa-
tion must arrive, that I never kept the connexion, but
on the footing of perfect liberty to her. Its com-
mencement was not of my seeking, and hitherto it has
contributed to her happiness. She knows and reflects
often on the circumstances which she cannot forget,
and in her heart she cannot reproach me of having acted
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 79
otherwise than a kind and attentive friend. But you
have now rendered it possible for her to be respected
and comfortable, and if she has not talked herself out
of the true view of her situation she will retain the protection and affection of us both. For after all, con-
sider what a charming creature she would have been
if she had been blessed with the advantages of an
early education, and had not been spoilt by the in-
dulgence of every caprice. I never was irritated by
her momentary passions, for it is a good heart which
will not part with a friend in anger ; and yet it is true that when her pride is hurt by neglect or anxiety for
the future, the frequent repition of her passion bal-
lances the beauty of the smiles. If a person knew her
and could live for life with her, by an economy of at-
tention, that is by constantly renewing very little attentions, she would be happy and good temper'd, for she
has not a grain of avarice or self-interest. ... Know-
ing all this, infinite have been my pains to make her respect herself, and act fairly, and I had always proposed to continue her friend, altho' the connexion ceased. I
had proposed to make her accept and manage your kind
provision, 1 and she would easily have adopted that
plan; it was acting the part of good woman, and to
offer to put her regard to any test, and to show that
she contributed to MY happiness, by accepting the
provision ... it would not have hurt her pride, and
would have been a line of heroicks more natural, be-
cause it arose out of the real situation, than any which by conversation she might persuade herself suited her
to act. Do not understand the word " act " other than I mean it. We all [act] well when we suit our
actions to the real situation, and conduct them by truth and good intention. We act capriciously and incon-1 Sir William offered to settle 100 annually, and Greville a like sum, on her. Romney was to have been a trustee.
8o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
veniently to others when our actions are founded on
an imaginary plan which does not place the persons in-
volved in the scene in their real situations. ... If
Mrs. Wells had quarrell'd with Admiral Keppell, she
would nevef have been respected as she now is. ... If
she will put me on the footing of a friend . . . she
will write to me fairly on her plans, she will tell me
her thoughts, and her future shall be my serious con-
cern. . . . She has conduct and discernment, and I
have always said that such a woman, if she controul
her passions, might rule the roost, and chuse her sta-
tion."
Thus yneas-Greville, of Dido-Emma, to his trusty
Achates. Surely a self-revealing document of sense
and blindness, of truth and falsehood, one, moreover,
did space allow, well worth longer excerpts. He ex-
cused his action in his own eyes even more elaborately,
over and over again. He would conscientiously fulfil
his duty to her and hers, if only she would accept his
view of her own duty towards him : his tone admitted
of few obligations beyond mutual interest. He never
reproached either her or himself: he thought himself
firm, not cruel ; he remained her good friend and well-
wisher, her former rescuer, a father to her child.
" Heroicks " were out of place and out of taste. He again held up to her proud imitation the prime pattern'
of " Mrs. Wells." He was even willing that she should return home, if so she chose; but his terms
were irrevocably fixed, and it was useless for her to
hystericise against adamant.
But he did not reckon with the latent possibilities of
her being. The sequel was to prove not " what
Greville," but what " God pleases."
CHAPTER IV
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE
1787-1791
WHAT was the new prospect on which Emma's
eyes first rested in March, 1786? Goethe
has described it. A fruitful land, a free,
blue sea, the scented islands, and the smoking moun-
tain. A population of vegetarian craftsmen busy to
enjoy with hand-to-mouth labour. A people holding
their teeming soil under a lease on sufferance from
earthquake and volcano. An inflammable mob, whose
king lost six thousand subjects annually by assassina-
tion, and whose brawls and battles of vendetta would
last three hours at a time. An upper class of feudal
barons proud and ignorant. A lower class of half-
beggars, at once lazy, brave, and insolent, who, if
they misliked the face of a foreign inquirer, would
stare in silence and turn away. A middle class of
literati despising those above and below them. A
race of tillers and of fishermen alternating between
pious superstition and reckless revel, midway, as it
were, between God and Satan. The bakers celebrat-
ing their patron, Saint Joseph; the priests their child-
like "saint-humorous," San Filippo Neri; high and low alike, their civic patrons, Saints Anthony and Januarius, whose liquefying blood each January propitiated
Vesuvius. Preaching Friars, dreaming Friars; sing-
ing, sceptical, enjoying Abbes. A country luxuriant
Si
82 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
not only with southern growths, but garlanded
even in February by "banks of wild violets and tan-
gles of wild heliotrope and sweet-peas. A spirit of
Nature, turning dread to beauty, and beauty into
dread.
She sits, her head leaned against her hand, and
gazes through the open casement on a scene bathed in
southern sun and crystal air the pure air, the large
glow, the light soil that made Neapolis the pride of
Magna Grsecia. Her room it is Goethe himself
who describes it " furnished in the English taste,"
is " most delightful " ; the " outlook from its corner window, unique." Below, the bay; in full view,
Capri; on the right, Posilippo; nearer the highroad,
Villa Reale, the royal palace; on the left an ancient
Jesuit cloister, which the queen had dedicated to learn-
ing; hard by on either side, the twin strongholds of
Uovo and Nuovo, and the busy, noisy Molo, overhung
by the fortress of San Elmo on the frowning crag;
further on, the curving coast from Sorrento to Cape
Minerva. And all this varied vista, from the centre of
a densely thronged and clattering city.
The whirlwind of passion sank, and gradually
yielded to calm, as Greville had predicted. " Every woman," commented this astute observer, resenting
the mention of his name at Napl
es, " either feels or acts a part " ; and change of dramatis personcc was necessary, he added, " to make Emma happy " and himself " free." But his careful prescription of the immaculate " Mrs. Wells " only partially succeeded.
True, the elderly friend was soon to become the at-
tached lover, and the prudential lover a forgiven friend ; but he ceased henceforward to be " guide " or " philosopher," and gradually faded into a minor actor in the drama, though never into a supernumerary. She
felt, as she told Sir .William, forlorn; her trust had
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 83
been betrayed and rudely shaken. What she longed
for was a friend, and she could never simulate what
she did not feel. 1 His gentle respect, his chivalry, contrasting with Greville's cynical taskmastership, his persuasive endearments, eventually won the day; and by
the close of the year 'Emma's heart assented to his suit.
Her eyes had been opened. To him she " owed every-
thing." He was to her " every kind name in one."
" I believe," she told him early in 1787, " it is right I shou'd be seperated from you sometimes, to make
me know myself, for I don't know till you are absent,
how dear you are to me " ; she implores one little line just that she " may kiss " his " name." Sir William at fifty-six retained that art of pleasing which he never lost; and she was always pleased to be petted and
shielded. Already by the opening of 1788 she had
come to master the language and the society of Naples.
Disobedient to his nephew, and his niece Mrs. Dickin-
son, who remonstrated naturally but in vain, Sir Will-
iam insisted on her doing the honours, which she aston-
ished him by managing, as he thought, to perfection.
Every moment spared from visits abroad or her hos-
pitalities in the Palazzo Sessa was filled by strenuous
study at home, or in the adjoining Convent of Santa
Romita. Her captivating charm, her quick tact, her
impulsive friendliness, her entertaining humour, her
natural taste for art, which, together with her " kindness and intelligence," had already been acknowledged by Romney as a source of inspiration ; her unique " Attitudes," her voice which, under Galluci's tuition, she was now beginning " to command," even her free and easy manners when contrasted with those of the
J Cf. her very striking letter to Hamilton, Morrison MS. 163:
"... Do you call me your dear friend ? . . . Oh, if I cou'd express myself! If I had words to thank you, that I may not thus be choked with meanings, for which I can find no utterance ! "
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