



Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner, and Project
Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders










ANNA ST. IVES

THOMAS HOLCROFT

1792







CONTENTS


Volume I
Volume II
Volume III
Volume IV
Volume V
Volume VI
VOLUME VII

Explanatory Notes


ANNA ST. IVES

_A NOVEL_


VOLUME I


LETTER I

_Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton_

_Wenbourne-Hill_

Here are we, my dear girl, in the very height of preparation. We begin
our journey southward at five tomorrow morning. We shall make a short
stay in London, and then proceed to Paris. Expectation is on tiptoe: my
busy fancy has pictured to itself Calais, Montreuil, Abbeville, in
short every place which the book of post roads enumerates, and some of
which the divine Sterne has rendered so famous. I expect to find
nothing but mirth, vivacity, fancy, and multitudes of people. I have
read so much of the populousness of France, the gaiety of its
inhabitants, the magnificence of its buildings, its fine climate,
fertility, numerous cities, superb roads, rich plains, and teeming
vineyards, that I already imagine myself journeying through an
enchanted land.

I have another pleasure in prospect. Pray have you heard that your
brother is soon to be at Paris, on his return from Italy?--My father
surprised me by informing me we should probably meet him in that
capital. I suspect Sir Arthur of an implication which his words perhaps
will not authorize; but he asked me, rather significantly, if I had
ever heard you talk of your brother; and in less than five minutes
wished to know whether I had any objections to marriage.

My father is exceedingly busy with his head man, his plotter, his
planner; giving directions concerning still further improvements that
are to be made, in his grounds and park, during our absence. You know
his mania. Improvement is his disease. I have before hinted to you that
I do not like this factotum of his, this Abimelech Henley. The amiable
qualities of his son more than compensate for the meanness of the
father; whom I have long suspected to be and am indeed convinced that
he is artful, selfish, and honest enough to seek his own profit, were
it at the expence of his employer's ruin. He is continually insinuating
new plans to my father, whom he Sir Arthurs, and Honours, and Nobles,
at every word, and then persuades him the hints and thoughts are all
his own. The illiterate fellow has a language peculiar to himself;
energetic but half unintelligible; compounded of a few fine phrases,
and an inundation of proverbial wisdom and uncouth cant terms. Of the
scanty number of polite words, which he has endeavoured to catch, he is
very bountiful to Sir Arthur. 'That's noble! That's great your noble
honour! Well, by my truly, that's an _elegunt ideer_! But I always said
your honour had more _nobler_ and _elegunter ideers_ than any other
noble gentleman, knight, lord, or dooke, in every thing of what your
honour calls the grand gusto.' Pshaw! It is ridiculous in me to imitate
his language; the cunning nonsense of which evaporates upon paper, but
is highly characteristic when delivered with all its attendant bows and
cringes; which, like the accompaniments to a concerto, enforce the
character of the composition, and give it full effect.

I am in the very midst of bandboxes, portmanteaus, packing-cases, and
travelling trunks. I scarcely ever knew a mind so sluggish as not to
feel a certain degree of rapture, at the thoughts of travelling. It
should seem as if the imagination frequently journeyed so fast as to
enjoy a species of ecstasy, when there are any hopes of dragging the
cumbrous body after its flights.

I cannot banish the hints of Sir Arthur from my busy fancy.--I must not
I ought not to practise disguise with any one, much less with my
Louisa; and I cannot but own that his questions suggested a plan of
future happiness to my mind, which if realized would be delightful. The
brother of my dear Louisa, the chosen friend of my heart, is to be at
Paris. I shall meet him there. He cannot but resemble his sister. He
cannot but be all generosity, love, expansion, mind, soul! I am
determined to have a very sincere friendship for him; nay I am in
danger of falling in love with him at first sight! Louisa knows what I
mean by falling in love. Ah, my dear friend, if he be but half equal to
you, he is indeed a matchless youth! Our souls are too intimately
related to need any nearer kindred; and yet, since marry I must, as you
emphatically tell me it will some time be my duty to do, I could almost
wish Sir Arthur's questions to have the meaning I suspect, and that it
might be to the brother of my friend.

Do not call me romantic: if romance it be, it originates in the supreme
satisfaction I have taken in contemplating the powers and beauties of
my Louisa's mind. Our acquaintance has been but short, yet our
friendship appears as if it had been eternal. Our hearts understand
each other, and speak a language which, alas, we both have found to be
unintelligible to the generality of the world.

Once more adieu. You shall hear from me again at London. Direct to me
as usual in Grosvenor Street.

Ever and ever your

A. W. ST. IVES


P.S. I am sorry to see poor Frank Henley look so dejected. He has many
good, nay I am well persuaded many great, qualities. Perhaps he is
disappointed at not being allowed to go with us; for which I know he
petitioned his father, but was refused; otherwise I could easily have
prevailed on Sir Arthur to have consented.

I am determined to take King Pepin[1] with me. It is surely the most
intelligent of all animals; the unfeathered bipeds, as the French wits
call us two-legged mortals, excepted. But no wonder it was my Louisa's
gift; and, kissing her lips, imbibed a part of her spirit. Were I to
leave it behind me, cats, and other good for nothing creatures, would
teach it again to be shy, and suspicious; and the present charming
exertion of its little faculties would decay. The development of mind,
even in a bird, has something in it highly delightful.

[Footnote 1: A goldfinch which the young lady had so named.]

Why, my Louisa, my friend, my sister, ah, why are not you with me? Why
do you not participate my pleasures, catch with me the rising ideas,
and enjoy the raptures of novelty? But I will forbear. I have before in
vain exhausted all my rhetoric. You must not, will not quit a
languishing parent; and I am obliged to approve your determination,
though I cannot but regret the consequence.




LETTER II

_Louisa Clifton to Anna Wenbourne St. Ives_

_Rose Bank_

Health, joy, and novelty attend the steps of my ever dear and charming
Anna! May the whirling of your chariot wheels bring a succession of
thoughts as exhilarating as they are rapid! May gladness hail you
through the day, and peace hush you to sleep at night! May the hills
and valleys smile upon you, as you roll over and beside them; and may
you meet festivity and fulness of content at every step!

I too have my regrets. My heart is one-half with you; nay my beloved,
my generous mamma has endeavoured to persuade me to quit her, arguing
that the inconvenience to her would be more than compensated by the
benefit accruing to myself. The dear lady, I sincerely believe, loves
you if possible better than she does me, and pleaded strenuously. But
did she not know it was impossible she should prevail? She did. If my
cares can prolong a life so precious but half an hour, is it not an
age? Do not her virtues and her wisdom communicate themselves to all
around her? Are not her resignation, her fortitude, and her
cheerfulness in pain, lessons which I might traverse kingdoms and not
find an opportunity like this of learning? And, affection out of the
question, having such high duties to perform, must I fly from such an
occasion, afflicting though it be? No! Anna St. Ives herself must not
tempt me to that. She is indeed too noble seriously to form such a
wish. Answer, is she not?

Oh that I may be deceived, but I fear you expect too much from my
brother. Oh that he might be worthy of my Anna! Not for my own sake;
for, as she truly says, we [That is our souls, for I know of no other
we]. We cannot be more akin; but for his own. He is the son of my
beloved mother, and most devoutly do I wish he might be found deserving
of her and you. He would then be more deserving than any man, at least
any young man, I have ever known. Though brother and sister, he and I
may be said to have but little acquaintance. He has always been either
at school, or at college, or in town, or on his travels, or in some
place where I did not happen to be, except for short intervals. I have
told you that his person is not displeasing, that his temper appears to
be prompt and daring, but gay, and that his manners I doubt are of that
free kind which our young gentlemen affect.

To say the truth however, I have heard much in favour of Coke Clifton;
but then it has generally been either from persons whose good word was
in my opinion no praise, or from others who evidently meant to be civil
to me, or to the family, by speaking well of my brother. I believe him
to have much pride, some ambition, a high sense of fashionable honour;
that he spurns at threats, disdains reproof, and that he does not want
generosity, or those accomplishments which would make him pass with the
world for a man whose alliance would be desirable. But the husband of
my Anna [you perceive I have caught your tone, and use the word husband
as familiarly as if there were any serious intention of such an event,
and as if it were any thing more than the sportive effusion of fancy,
or rather the momentary expansion of friendship] the husband of my Anna
ought to be more, infinitely more, than what the