The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees | Page 3

The witty
and impecunious dean had then been living in London for more than
four years, in his "lodging in Berry Street," absorbed in the political
intrigue of the last years of Queen Anne, and sending to Stella, in
Dublin, the daily journal, which so faithfully preserves the incidents of
those years. Under date of an April Sunday in 1713, we find in this
journal these lines, Swift's first mention of our present hero: "I went to
court to-day on purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one of our fellows at
Trinity College. That Mr. Berkeley is a very ingenious man, and a great
philosopher, and I have mentioned him to all the ministers, and have
given them some of his writings, and I will favour him as much as I
can."
In the natural course of things Berkeley soon heard much, though he
saw scarcely anything, of Mrs. Vanhomrigh and her daughter, the latter
the famous and unhappy "Vanessa," both of whom were settled at this
time in Berry Street, near Swift, in a house where, Swift writes to Stella,
"I loitered hot and lazy after my morning's work," and often dined "out
of mere listlessness," keeping there "my best gown and perriwig" when
at Chelsea.
Mrs. Vanhomrigh was the widow of a Dutch merchant, who had
followed William the Third to Ireland, and there obtained places of
profit, and her daughter, Esther, or Hester, as she is variously called,
was a girl of eighteen when she first met Swift, and fell violently in
love with him. This passion eventually proved the girl's perdition,--and
was, as we shall see, the cause of a will which enabled Dean Berkeley
to carry out his dear and cherished scheme of coming to America.
Swift's journal, frank about nearly everything else in the man's life, is
significantly silent concerning Esther Vanhomrigh. And in truth there
was little to be said to anybody, and nothing at all to be confided to
Stella, in regard to this unhappy affair. That Swift was flattered to find

this girl of eighteen, with beauty and accomplishment, caring so much
for him, a man now forty-four, and bound by honour, if not by the
Church, to Stella, one cannot doubt. At first, their relations seem to
have been simply those of teacher and pupil, and this phase of the
matter it is which is most particularly described in the famous poem,
"Cadenus and Vanessa," written at Windsor in 1713, and first published
after Vanessa's death.
Human nature has perhaps never before or since presented the spectacle
of a man of such transcendent powers as Swift involved in such a
pitiable labyrinth of the affections as marked his whole life. Pride or
ambition led him to postpone indefinitely his marriage with Stella, to
whom he was early attached. Though he said he "loved her better than
his life a thousand millions of times," he kept her always hanging on in
a state of hope deferred, injurious alike to her peace and her reputation.
And because of Stella, he dared not afterward with manly sincerity
admit his undoubted affection for Vanessa. For, if one may believe
Doctor Johnson, he married Stella in 1716,--though he died without
acknowledging this union, and the date given would indicate that the
ceremony occurred while his devotion to his young pupil was at its
height.
Touching beyond expression is the story of Vanessa after she had gone
to Ireland, as Stella had gone before, to be near the presence of Swift.
Her life was one of deep seclusion, chequered only by the occasional
visits of the man she adored, each of which she commemorated by
planting with her own hand a laurel in the garden where they met.
When all her devotion and her offerings had failed to impress him, she
sent him remonstrances which reflect the agony of her mind:
"The reason I write to you," she says, "is because I cannot tell it you
should I see you. For when I begin to complain, then you are angry;
and there is something in your looks so awful, that it strikes me dumb.
Oh! that you may have but so much regard for me left that this
complaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little as ever I can.
Did you but know what I thought, I am sure it would move you to
forgive me, and believe that I cannot help telling you this and live."

Swift replies with the letter full of excuses for not seeing her oftener,
and advises her to "quit this scoundrel island." Yet he assures her in the
same breath, "que jamais personne du monde a étê aimée, honorée,
estimée, adorée, par votre ami que vous."
The tragedy continued to deepen as it approached the close. Eight years
had