My physical faculties had not
yet been developed to their present grossness of maturity,
neither had my moral energies acquired that tone of
ferocity which often renders me hideous, even in my own
eyes. In a word, the milk of my nature (for, with all my
impetuosity of character, I was generous-hearted and
kind) had not yet been turned to gall by villainy and
deceit. My form had then all that might attract--my
manners all that might win--my enthusiasm of speech all
that might persuade--and my heart all that might interest
a girl fashioned after nature's manner, and tutored in
nature's school. In the regiment, I was called the handsome
grenadier; but there was another handsomer than I,--a
sly, insidious, wheedling, false, remorseless villain.
That villain, Clara de Haldimar, was your father.
"But wherefore," continued Wacousta, chafing with the
recollection, "wherefore do I, like a vain and puling
schoolboy, enter into this abasing contrast of personal
advantages? The proud eagle soars not more above the
craven kite, than did my soul, in all that was manly and
generous, above that of yon false governor; and who should
have prized those qualities, if it were not the woman
who, bred in solitude, and taught by fancy to love all
that was generous and noble in the heart of man, should
have considered mere beauty of feature as dust in the
scale, when opposed to sentiments which can invest even
deformity with loveliness? In all this I may appear vain;
I am only just.
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