Morella

(1850)

Itself, by itself, solely, one everlasting, and single.--PLATO: SYMPOS.

WITH a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I regarded my
friend Morella. Thrown by accident into her society many years ago,
my soul from our first meeting, burned with fires it had never before
known; but the fires were not of Eros, and bitter and tormenting to
my spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in no manner define
their unusual meaning or regulate their vague intensity. Yet we met;
and fate bound us together at the altar, and I never spoke of passion
nor thought of love. She, however, shunned society, and, attaching
herself to me alone rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder;
it is a happiness to dream.

Morella's erudition was profound. As I hope to live, her talents were
of no common order -- her powers of mind were gigantic. I felt this,
and, in many matters, became her pupil. I soon, however, found that,
perhaps on account of her Presburg education, she placed before me a
number of those mystical writings which are usually considered the
mere dross of the early German literature. These, for what reason I
could not imagine, were her favourite and constant study -- and that
in process of time they became my own, should be attributed to the
simple but effectual influence of habit and example.

In all this, if I err not, my reason had little to do. My
convictions, or I forget myself, were in no manner acted upon by the
ideal, nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read to be
discovered, unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my deeds or in my
thoughts. Persuaded of this, I abandoned myself implicitly to the
guidance of my wife, and entered with an unflinching heart into the
intricacies of her studies. And then -- then, when poring over
forbidden pages, I felt a forbidden spirit enkindling within me --
would Morella place her cold hand upon my own, and rake up from the
ashes of a dead philosophy some low, singular words, whose strange
meaning burned themselves in upon my memory. And then, hour after
hour, would I linger by her side, and dwell upon the music of her
voice, until at length its melody was tainted with terror, and there
fell a shadow upon my soul, and I grew pale, and shuddered inwardly
at those too unearthly tones. And thus, joy suddenly faded into
horror, and the most beautiful became the most hideous, as Hinnon
became Ge-Henna.

It is unnecessary to state the exact character of those disquisitions
which, growing out of the volumes I have mentioned, formed, for so
long a time, almost the sole conversation of Morella and myself. By
the learned in what might be termed theological morality they will be
readily conceived, and by the unlearned they