



Produced by Doug Levy





LOVE AND LIFE

An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume


By Charlotte M. Yonge



Transcriber's note: There are numerous examples throughout this text
of words appearing in alternate spellings: madame/madam, practise/
practice, Ladyship/ladyship, &c. We can only wonder what the publisher
had in mind. I have left them unchanged.--D.L.




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.


The first edition of this tale was put forth without explaining the
old fable on which it was founded--a fable recurring again and again in
fairy myths, though not traceable in the classic world till a very late
period, when it appeared among the tales of Apuleius, of the province
of Africa, sometimes called the earliest novelist. There are, however,
fragments of the same story in the popular tales of all countries, so
that it is probable that Apuleius availed himself of an early form of
one of these. They are to be found from India to Scandinavia, adapted to
the manners and fancy of every country in turn, _Beauty and the Beast_
and the _Black Bull of Norroway_ are the most familiar forms of the
tale, and it seemed to me one of those legends of such universal
property that it was quite fair to put it into 18th century English
costume.

Some have seen in it a remnant of the custom of some barbarous tribes,
that the wife should not behold her husband for a year after marriage,
and to this the Indian versions lend themselves; but Apuleius himself
either found it, or adapted it to the idea of the Soul (the Life)
awakened by Love, grasping too soon and impatiently, then losing it,
and, unable to rest, struggling on through severe toils and labours till
her hopes are crowned even at the gates of death. Psyche, the soul or
life, whose emblem is the butterfly, thus even in heathen philosophy
strained towards the higher Love, just glimpsed at for a while.

Christians gave a higher meaning to the fable, and saw in it the Soul,
or the Church, to whom her Bridegroom has been for a while made known,
striving after Him through many trials, to be made one with Him after
passing through Death. The Spanish poet Calderon made it the theme of
two sacred dramas, in which the lesson of Faith, not Sight, was taught,
with special reference to the Holy Eucharist.

English poetry has, however, only taken up its simple classical aspect.
In the early part of the century, Mrs. Tighe wrote a poem in Spenserian
stanza, called _Psyche_, which was much admired at the time; and Mr.
Morris has more lately sung the story in his _Earthly Paradise_. This
must be my excuse for supposing the outline of the tale to be familiar
to most readers.

The fable is briefly thus:--

Venus was jealous of the beauty of a maiden named Psyche, the youngest
of three daughters of a king. She sent misery on the land and family,
and caused an oracle to declare that the only remedy was to deck his
youngest daughter as a bride, and leave her in a lonely place to become
the prey of a monster. Cupid was commissioned by his mother to destroy
her. He is here represented not as a child, but as a youth, who on
seeing Psyche's charms, became enamoured of her, and resolved to save
her from his mother and make her his own. He therefore caused Zephyr to
transport her to a palace where everything delightful and valuable was
at her service, feasts spread, music playing, all her wishes fulfilled,
but all by invisible hands. At night in the dark, she was conscious of
a presence who called himself her husband, showed the fondest affection
for her, and promised her all sorts of glory and bliss, if she would be
patient and obedient for a time.

This lasted till yearnings awoke to see her family. She obtained consent
with much difficulty and many warnings. Then the splendour in which she
lived excited the jealousy of her sisters, and they persuaded her that
her visitor was really the monster who would deceive her and devour her.
They thus induced her to accept a lamp with which to gaze on him when
asleep. She obeyed them, then beholding the exquisite beauty of the
sleeping god of love, she hung over him in rapture till a drop of the
hot oil fell on his shoulder and awoke him. He sprang up, sorrowfully
reproached her with having ruined herself and him, and flew away,
letting her fall as she clung to him.

The palace was broken up, the wrath of Venus pursued her; Ceres and all
the other deities chased her from their temples; even when she would
have drowned herself, the river god took her in his arms, and laid her
on the bank. Only Pan had pity on her, and counselled her to submit to
Venus, and do her bidding implicitly as the only hope of regaining her
lost husband.

Venus spurned her at first, and then made her a slave, setting her first
to sort a huge heap of every kind of grain in a single day. The ants,
secretly commanded by Cupid, did this for her. Next, she was to get
a lock of golden wool from a ram feeding in a valley closed in by
inaccessible rocks; but this was procured for her by an eagle; and
lastly, Venus, declaring that her own beauty had been impaired by
attendance on her injured son, commanded Psyche to visit the Infernal
Regions and obtain from Proserpine a closed box of cosmetic which was on
no account to be opened. Psyche thought death alone could bring her to
these realms, and was about to throw herself from a tower, when a voice
instructed her how to enter a cavern, and propitiate Cerberus with cakes
after the approved fashion.

She thus reached Proserpine's throne, and obtained the casket, but when
she had again reached the earth, she reflected that if Venus's beauty
were impaired by anxiety, her own must have suffered far more; and
the prohibition having of course been only intended to stimulate her
curiosity, she opened the casket, out of which came the baneful fumes of
Death! Just, however, as she fell down overpowered, her husband, who had
been shut up by Venus, came to the rescue, and finding himself unable
to restore her, cried aloud to Jupiter, who heard his prayer, reanimated
Psyche, and gave her a place among the gods.


CHAPTERS.


       I.   A SYLLABUB PARTY.
      II.   THE HOUSE OF DELAVIE.
     III.   AMONG THE COWSLIPS.
      IV.   MY LADY'S MISSIVE.
       V.   THE SUMMONS.
      VI.   DISAPPOINTED LOVE.
     VII.   ALL ALONE.
    VIII.   THE ENCHANTED CASTLE.
      IX.   THE TRIAD.
       X.   THE DARK CHAMBER.
      XI.   A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE.
     XII.   THE SHAFTS OF PHOEBE.
    XIII.   THE FLUTTER OF HIS WINGS.
     XIV.   THE CANON OF WINDSOR.
      XV.   THE QUEEN OF BEAUTY.
     XVI.   AUGURIES.
    XVII.   THE VICTIM DEMANDED.
   XVIII.   THE PROPOSAL.
     XIX.   WOOING IN THE DARK.
      XX.   THE MUFFLED BRIDEGROOM.
     XXI.   THE SISTER'S MEETING
    XXII.   A FATAL SPARK.
   XXIII.   WRATH AND DESOLATION.
    XXIV.   THE WANDERER.
     XXV.   VANISHED.
    XXVI.   THE TRACES.
   XXVII.   CYTHEREA'S BOWER.
  XXV