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Towards a Digital
Epistemology
Aesthetics and Modes
of Thought in Early
Modernity and
the Present Age

Jonas Ingvarsson
Towards a Digital Epistemology
 Jonas Ingvarsson

Towards a Digital
Epistemology
Aesthetics and Modes of Thought in Early
Modernity and the Present Age
Jonas Ingvarsson
Lit, History of Ideas and Religion
University of Gothenburg
Gothenburg, Sweden

ISBN 978-3-030-56424-7    ISBN 978-3-030-56425-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56425-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
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This book was originally published in Swedish by Rojal Förlag with the title
Bomber virus kuriosakabinett: texter om digital epistemology.
 Foreword

The Digital Switch: From Causality to Relationships

Today, investments in digital humanities are carried out at many universi-
ties all over the world, and research calls that encourage various forms of
multidisciplinary database projects, preferably with one foot within the
natural sciences and technologically oriented social sciences, are staple
goods. The question we must ask ourselves is: How do digital media affect
the knowledge production in comparative literature—and in the humani-
ties in general? What new theoretical frameworks do we need to address
the digital? What new methods and methodologies are possible? Or can,
and maybe even should, we just continue as before?
Based on this challenge, Jonas Ingvarsson’s heuristic arguments in
Towards a Digital Epistemology suggest a number of possibilities for the
future design of comparative literature and the humanities. The ambition
here seems to be that through the digital—as a lens and mode of thought,
which Ingvarsson consistently maintains—we afford a new understanding
of (and for) comparative literature and the history of the humanities. In
short, it is about conceptualizing the technological situation of which we
are always already inevitably a part. With ease, at times almost with a cocky
elegance, Ingvarsson incorporates an impressive and compelling energy
into his argument.
Ingvarsson argues that the consequences of digitization for the human-
ities are far-reaching, beyond digital tools and mechanical distant reading
techniques. Based on a combination of posthumanist-oriented philoso-
phies of technology and media theory, Ingvarsson argues that the digital

vii
viii FOREWORD

affords a new paradigm of knowledge: a digital epistemology. The purpose

of the book is to elucidate the far-reaching consequences of this digital
epistemology.
One crucial point of this epistemology is the shift from causality to
relationships. This also involves an increased awareness of the physical
presence and the importance of material practices for knowledge produc-
tion. Comparative literature must therefore also become a media archaeol-
ogy, where these material relationships, as well as the researcher’s presence
in the field, are situated, theorized and investigated. Digital epistemology,
and the media archaeological practices in its wake, also include a postdigi-
tal perspective, where “analog nostalgia,” with its occasional fetish-like
relationship with retro techniques and old media, is highlighted by
Ingvarsson as “one of the most concrete expressions of media materiality
observed through digital epistemology” (ibid.). Ingvarsson’s study not
only actualizes the trivial truth that media—as Bolter and Grusin (1999)
noted in McLuhan’s aftermath—remediate older media; he also shows
how a remediated medium operates in a contemporary environment. The
media archaeological object is made active in a feedback loop in which its
history is changed by the contemporary, but where the object’s history
also influences the contemporary.
Ingvarsson presents two early modern media technologies—cabinets of
curiosities and the emblem—to demonstrate that the “concept of digital
epistemology can address and frame literary and artistic practices from
practically any historical period” (Chap. 1). Here, the haunting activity of
the media archaeological object is emphasized, as these forms “will not
primarily be treated as historically situated expressions of older world
views, but rather as productive modes of thought, capable of illuminating
our own digital times” (ibid.).
The cabinet of curiosities, Ingvarsson says, like other early modern
archives and collections, is not organized according to the principle of
provenance that governs the modern archive, according to which objects
are sorted by origin. Instead, the curiosity cabinet applies the principle of
pertinence, which structures objects according to a material, spatial and,
above all, relational order. The cabinet encourages “the crossing of bor-
ders, and the affirmation of similarities between nature and culture,
between artifact and organic, the grotesque and the beautiful” (Chap. 2).
The cabinet’s knowledge production is performative and associative, and
operates with a contingent and recursive composition of objects rather
than with a symbolic and linear logic.
 FOREWORD ix

Through analyses of works by, among others, Göran Printz-Påhlson,

Johannes Heldén and Olga Tokarczuk, we are shown how the principle of
pertinence through the spatial juxtaposition of the poem and the book
page “establishes new, perhaps surprising, but not random relationships”
(ibid.). Here, the principle of pertinence, and a digital epistemology,
emphasize that representation is ongoing and performative. In a similar
way, the early modern emblem genre is combined with electronic litera-
ture and digital interfaces. The emblem’s juxtaposition of disparate
objects—heading, image, text—does not aim, Ingvarsson says, to generate
specific knowledge, not even concerning the often allegorical referential
content of the image. The emblematic text, as well as the electronic one,
is neither complete nor permanent. The perspective of digital epistemol-
ogy here makes the emblem and the electronic text, the literary object
itself, visible as text machines.
Johannes Heldén’s cybernetic eco-poetry is taken here as one example
of the topicality of emblems in contemporary aesthetic practice. Contrary
to utopian dreams of the internet and the web as the absolute archive,
Heldén’s poetry emphasizes, precisely by demanding participation and
embodiment, information and meaning as ephemeral and incomplete pro-
cesses. In particular, the slippage between the electronic Entropy Edition
(2010) and the printed poetry collection Entropi (2010) underscores how
each participatory configuration also inevitably marks a lost opportunity,
while at the same time making clear that it is precisely this lack and loss of
obvious meaning-bearing structure (“pattern,” in Hayles’ terminology)
that force new configurations. In this way, according to Ingvarsson, the
emblem and the electronic text both, as modes of thought, encourage the
reader to “combine and compose, initializing a thought process, rather
than reveal something completed,” both therefore operating “in line with
emblematic epistemology” (Chap. 3).
What comparative literature and the humanities as a whole must do, in
order to operate within this paradigm of digital epistemology, is, if not to
replace, then at least to supplement meaning content and interpretation
with materiality and composition. As Ingvarsson argues, “juxtapositions
constitute the pedagogical core of digital epistemology” (Chap. 3). The
objective may seem to be to fundamentally challenge the curriculum of
comparative literature, arguing a shift from a practice based on provenance
and causal relationships to the spatial relations of the principle of perti-
nence: from interpretation to juxtaposition; from meaningful content and
distance to materiality and presence. But the ambition is not—at least not
x FOREWORD

explicitly—to portray traditional humanities and close reading of canon-

ized objects as a necessarily outdated business. This strict opposition
between old and new humanities instead arises, it seems, when digital (as
well as non-digital) tools are regarded as neutral and universal processes,
which is exactly what a digital epistemology opposes. On the contrary, a
digital epistemology is aware that digital tools and forms of expression are
historically conditioned, just as the codex and print culture have always
been, but also that the tools themselves influence how this condition is
expressed. Ingvarsson’s ambition is to both promote the digital reading
skills that a contemporary media situation produces, and at the same time
encourage new perspectives on traditional humanistic educational content.

Stockholm, Sweden Per Israelson

References
Bolter, J. D., & Grusin, R. (1999). Remediation: Understanding New Media.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gumbrecht, H. U. (2004). Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Hayles, N. K. (1999). How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics,
Literature, and Informatics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
McLuhan, M. (1962). The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
 Preface and Acknowledgments

This volume consists of texts that were written during the course of a
research project entitled Representations and Reconfigurations of the
Digital in Swedish Literature and Art 1950–2010 (RepRecDigit, see repr-
ecdigit.se) and financed by the Swedish Research Council (VR) 2013–2018.
The majority of these texts have been published in Scandinavian maga-
zines, but they were edited, and combined, into four chapters and pub-
lished in book-length format in Swedish by the Fall of 2018 as Bomber
Virus Kuriosakabinett: Texter om digital epistemologi (Rojal Förlag). The
production of that book has been an integral part of the project, as I have
co-operated with digital artist, bookbinder and Rojal Förlag founder Olle
Essvik, who continuously explores the relation between new technology
and old craftsmanship. The result was a book which was bound by hand in
100 copies, and where the covers of the book were made from used books,
discarded from the shelves—a media archaeological recycling. For this
English version we are not that lucky, but it is worth pointing out that the
very materiality of the first version is indeed part of the argumentation of
the pages to follow.
I would like to express my gratitude to Vetenskapsrådet (the Swedish
Research Council) for funding, and to my colleagues in this project: Jakob
Lien, Cecilia Lindhé and Jesper Olsson. Moreover, in RepRecDigit we
decided to co-operate with artists on articles and in seminars, and I am
very thankful for their contributions not only to this volume but to the
project as a whole: Olle Essvik, Johannes Heldén and Imri
Sandström—geniuses!

xi
xii Preface and Acknowledgments

Chapter 3 was written with substantial contributions from Cecilia

Lindhé. Thanks!
As for the Swedish version (and of course with consequences also for
this book), I am thankful for the insights and comments from colleagues
Otto Fischer and Andreas Önnerfors, and for translating assistance from
Tommy Andersson.
I also owe a great thank-you to Grant Bolmer and Andrew Lison,
whose encouraging and creative feedback proved to be valuable, and has
indeed strengthened the arguments of the following chapters. Thanks also
to Palgrave Pivot for accepting my proposal.
Permission to use their material in this volume has been granted by Ralf
Andtbacka, Olle Essvik, Mette Hegnhøj, Johannes Heldén and Imri
Sandström.

Gothenburg, Sweden Jonas Ingvarsson

June 2020
 Contents

1 Digital Epistemology: An Introduction  1

1.1 Digital/Analog  3
1.2 Liu/Lindhé/O’Gorman  4
1.3 Epistemology and Early Modern Modes of Thought  8
1.3.1 The Emblem  9
1.3.2 The Cabinets of Curiosity 12
1.3.3 Epistemology Engines and Recursive Historiography 14
1.4 Media Archaeology 19
1.5 The Book 23
References 26

2 Evoking McLuhan’s Juxtapositions in the Digital Age:

Archaeology and the Mosaic 29
2.1 The Past and the Contemporary 30
2.2 McLuhan, Media Archaeology and Historiography 32
2.3 Strategies and Juxtapositions 34
2.3.1 Salon Culture versus Social Media 35
2.3.2 The Principle of Pertinence and the Mosaic of
McLuhan 36
2.3.3 Electronic Literature versus the Renaissance Emblem 37
2.4 Interface. Mosaic 38
2.5 Hegnhøj and Essvik. Materiality and Analog Nostalgia 40
References 46

xiii
xiv Contents

3 CCC versus WWW: Digital Epistemology and Literary Text 49

3.1 The Mechanical Hand 50
3.2 The Literary Text: Operation CCC 52
3.3 Postdigitality and Analog Nostalgia 55
3.4 Digital. Tactile. Cabinet 57
3.5 The Principle of Pertinence 60
3.6 Imri Sandström: Language and the Principle of Pertinence 63
3.7 Kunstkammer Poetics 69
3.8 Babbage. Again 75
References 79

4 “Books Are Machines”: Materiality and Agency from the

1960s to the 2010s 83
4.1 Digitization as a Lens 84
4.2 Digital History and Threats 84
4.3 Without Us: UKON 86
4.4 Ubiquitous Viruses 89
4.5 The Number of the Beast 91
4.6 Torsten Ekbom 1965  94
4.7 Johannes Heldén 2010  97
4.8 On Digital Humanities102
References107

5 Towards a Twenty-First-Century Pedagogy for the

Humanities111
5.1 Introduction112
5.2 The Two Cultures 2.0112
5.2.1 Counter-culture114
5.2.2 Correspondence115
5.3 Digital Expressions?117
5.3.1 Digital Practices117
5.3.2 Digital-Born Works118
5.4 From Mode of Expression to Mode of Thought121
5.5 Media Archaeology, Digital Epistemology and Pedagogical
Challenges124
5.6 Conclusions and Challenges128
References133

Index137
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Copper engraving probably by Jan Gerritsz Swelinck (born

around 1601), after a drawing of Adriaen van de Venne
(1589–1662); Public Domain https://commons.wikimedia.
org/w/index.php?cwurid=47779411
Fig. 1.2 “Musei Wormiani Historia,” the frontispiece from the Museum
Wormianum depicting Ole Worm’s cabinet of curiosities (Public
Domain)13
Fig. 2.1 Mette Hegnhøj, “Catechismus, Come back!” (From Ella er mit
navn, vil du købe det? 2014) 41
Fig. 2.2 Mette Hegnhøj, “IN A WAR THE BOOK WILL DIE” (From
Ella er mit navn, vil du købe det? 2014) 43
Fig. 2.3 Olle Essvik, pictures describing the making a new copy of
William Blade’s book with a binding machine constructed with
the help of a 3D printer (From The Enemies of Books 2014) 45
Fig. 3.1 Ralf Andtbacka (From Wunderkammer 2008, photograph) 59
Fig. 3.2 Imri Sandström, from Flapping, Flapping, Flapping, Flapping
(2014), screenshot (“This is a photograph of a risograph print
of Flapping, Flapping, Flapping, Flapping, a digital image based
on an excerpt from the Gale ECCO print on demand-version of
a scanned version of Magnalia Christi Americana: or, the
ecclesiastical history of New-England, from its first planting in the
year 1620. unto the year of our Lord, 1698. In seven books. ... By ...
Cotton Mather, ...”, quote from Flapping, Flapping, Flapping,
Flapping)68

xv
xvi List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Linda Hilfing Ritasdatter, from Endless Endtime II (2016),

detail, photograph 93
Fig. 4.2 Johannes Heldén, Entropy Edition (2010), screenshot 98
Fig. 5.1 Johannes Heldén, from the installation Field, HUMlab X,
Umeå 2015. Photograph 120
 CHAPTER 1

Digital Epistemology: An Introduction

Abstract The notion of digital epistemology as applied in this volume

could in some of its applications be understood as an attempt to do digital
humanities without being committed to digital tools and objects. This,
however, is not a programmatic stance, rather a reminder that the episte-
mological consequences of digitization can be traced also in texts and art-
work that are not “about” digital objects; and without using digital tools
to perform the analysis. In this introduction, Cecilia Lindhé (Digital
Humanities Quarterly, 7(1). http://www.digital-humanities.org/dhq/
vol/7/1/000161/000161.html. Accessed May 2020, 2013), Alan Liu
(Theses on the Epistemology of the Digital: Advice for the Cambridge Centre
for Digital Knowledge. http://liu.english.ucsb.edu/theses-on-the-episte-
mology-of-the-digital-page/. Accessed Apr 2020, 2014) and Marcel
O’Gorman (E-Crit: Digital Media, Critical Theory and the Humanities.
University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2006) are mentioned as sources of
inspiration; media archaeology is identified as an important perspective;
and early modern forms and genres such as the emblem and the cabinets
of curiosities are presented and suggested as points of reference.

Keywords Digital humanities • Digital epistemology • Cabinets of

curiosities • Emblem • Media archaeology

© The Author(s) 2020 1

J. Ingvarsson, Towards a Digital Epistemology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56425-4_1
2 J. INGVARSSON

As counterintuitive as it may seem at first glance, this book examines digi-

tality largely uncoupled from any sort of immediate technological referent.
Instead we treat digitality as a strictly theoretical concept. It’s not that com-
puters have been mistakenly omitted from the argument. This apparent
omission is the argument itself. (Galloway 2014, xix)

This project started out as an obstinate reflection. Having experienced dif-

ferent forms of digital humanities practices for more than a decade, I
started to think about a “digital humanities sans digital tools, methods and
objects.” It must indeed be possible, I thought, to discuss the effects of
digitization on art, literature, or on the production of knowledge in gen-
eral, not primarily as something related to certain tools or objects. “The
digital” within the humanities, for example, could be explored not only in
databases, archives and big data, nor in topic modeling and speculative
visualizations; neither should the objects of study be restricted to com-
puter games, to electronic works of art or to literary texts and artworks
explicitly relating to computerization and other digital expressions. I asked
myself: How has digitization affected literary works that in no way treat or
depict the digital? And: Can we approach “the digital” as “things to think
with” (to paraphrase Sherry Turkle)?1
Soon enough, of course, I found out I was not alone—the above quote
from Alexander R. Galloway being perhaps the most striking remark in
this regard. The result, nevertheless, is this volume, a collection of texts
which share the ambition of exploring and probing the concept of digital
epistemology. It should be stated immediately that the scope of this concept
or, rather, of these two words—“digital” and “epistemology”—by far out-
reaches the ambitions of this volume. However, the very same two words
have been guiding the observations made in the chapters to follow.
The notion of digital epistemology as applied in this volume, thus,
could—in some of its applications—be understood as the abovementioned
“digital humanities sans digital tools and objects.” This, is not a program-
matic stance, though, but rather a reminder that the epistemological con-
sequences of digitization can be traced also in texts and artwork that are
not “about” computers, networks or fiberoptic cables; and also without
using specialized digital tools to perform the analysis (of course, we still
use the computer to search for texts, facts and illustrative examples, and to
write down and edit our reflections). But indeed, the following pages will
also analyze texts that either treat digital culture as an object, or are digital
born electronic works of literature (I am not as stubbornly consequent as
Galloway in this regard).
 1 DIGITAL EPISTEMOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION 3

Many have noted—and the humanities of today should perhaps pay

wider attention to—the fact that more or less every cultural artifact today
is digitally permeated in one way or another, in some or many aspects of
its processes of production and distribution. For the sake of the argument
in this volume, it will thus be necessary to approximate a working defini-
tion of how the “digital” in “digital epistemology” (and in some respects,
the “analog”) should be understood in this particular context.

1.1   Digital/Analog
The texts that follow suggest that “the digital” can be regarded as a per-
spective, “a lens,” or as a starting point for different forms of historical
reflection. To clarify this position, the notion of the digital in this context
needs to be narrowed down. An obvious observation could be that the
digital, in a historical context, somehow follows from, and extrapolates,
“the analog,” or at least the broadcasting media. That could have been the
easy part. However, as has been argued by Jonathan Sterne (2016), analog
and digital are not a binary couple. Rather, the concept of “analog” is
more or less a construction derived from digital culture: “The idea of ana-
log as everything not-digital is in fact newer than the idea of the digital,”
Sterne claims (Sterne 2016, 32, his italics). This is a valid, and from a
media history perspective very interesting, point. Moreover, as we shall see
(and return to), the analog, in its old Oxford English Dictionary definitions
(presented by Sterne), will actually become a driving force in the notion of
digital epistemology. The practice of juxtaposition is indeed analog in the
sense that it points out “similarities to another unrelated group” (ibid.,
34). Digital and analog, thus, are teaming up in this endeavor.
Another take on digital versus analog is provided by Galloway’s book
on French philosopher François Laurelle, quoted above. While somehow
keeping the binary alive, Galloway not only stresses the point that “digi-
tal” primarily is a mode of thought rather than a set of machines, networks
or databases, but also notes that it “conjures a relation – a true miracle –
between aggregates of things that really should have nothing at all to say
to one another” (Galloway 2014, 63).2
Today we experience a network of communications media and systems
which differs radically from the situation we experienced only a few
decades ago. This situation also changes the conditions of how we pro-
duce, perceive and distribute data; it changes artistic expressions and our
accumulation of knowledge. To gather this heterogenic change in one
4 J. INGVARSSON

single volume would be utterly presumptuous. Moreover, the change itself

has a history—the notion, and materiality, of the digital is from a historical
point of view far from a homogenic phenomenon. The new order of
things, regarding the organizing and handling of information that com-
puters imposed from, say, the 1960s onwards, had an impact on culture
and fostered modes of thought that differ radically from the effects of
games, social media, ubiquitous computing and intelligent textiles we can
observe (and, alas, are being observed by…) today. Here already the
notions of “the digital” and “digitization” run into some difficulties
(which will be discussed in Chap. 4). “The digital,” in the current context,
will be approached from a historical and epistemological point of view
and, even more restricted, this perspective will be analyzed mostly through
aesthetical and (some) pedagogical examples. In this volume, Alan Liu,
Cecilia Lindhé and Marcel O’Gorman will work as points of departure for
the explorations that follow.

1.2   Liu/Lindhé/O’Gorman
In 2014, Professor Alan Liu (Dept. of English, University of California,
Santa Barbara) presented a brief blog post suggesting how to approach the
notion of “digital epistemology” (Liu 2014).3 Liu’s text operates on
another level of abstraction than we will encounter in this volume, but in
essence he shares the same objective: digital competences should not be a
concern only for those who explore digital objects or electronic culture,
nor for those who do big data, text mining or work with the digitization
of cultural heritages—rather, and moreover, Liu explains, “digital knowl-
edge should announce an epistemic shift for the academic practice as such”
(ibid.). Digitization challenges the core of academic and pedagogical prac-
tice, not only by the appearance of new tools and objects, but by the fact
that our modes of thought and our way to structure data and knowledge
are changing.
Cecilia Lindhé’s essay “‘A Visual Sense is Born in the Fingertips’:
Towards a Digital Ekphrasis” (Lindhé 2013) stands out as a more distinct
point of departure for several of the arguments put forward in this book.
In this article she discusses the notion of “ekphrasis” through a “digi-
tal lens”:

This article, then, has as its wider scope to deconstruct the filter of printing
technologies, with which we look at cultural history, and instead – with “the
 1 DIGITAL EPISTEMOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION 5

digital” as a lens in the form of digital literature and art – renegotiate an

aesthetic practice that emanates from both rhetoric and print technology.
(Lindhé 2013)

Accordingly, I want to highlight one possible path for the digital humani-
ties: the digital as a critical lens on aesthetic concepts and cultural history.
Lindhé’s argument, which has been indicative for reflections on digital
epistemology, is that “the digital” (here represented by digital art and lit-
erature) should be considered as a perspective, with the same critical poten-
tial as for example poststructuralism, gender theory and postcolonialism.
She furthermore notes that “digital perspectives on classic concepts could
challenge or revise more or less taken-for-granted assumptions in the
humanities” (ibid.).
Another important contribution to the argument in this volume comes
from Marcel O’Gorman, who already in 2006 published the thought-­
provoking E-Crit: Digital Media, Critical Theory and the Humanities
(O’Gorman 2006). O’Gorman’s argument is that digital culture calls for
a new pedagogical approach, a new way to relate the humanities not only
to the contemporary digital environment, but also to cultural history. The
humanities of today, O’Gorman argues, utilize only a fraction of the
potential that digital media offer, more particularly those aspects of digital
culture that most resemble print media; that is, databases, archives and
scanned books. And, he warns, if the humanists are not aware of this, there
is a risk that we will end up being digital archivists rather than critical theo-
rists (ibid., 11).4
Regardless of whether you are digitally oriented or not in your aca-
demic and pedagogical exercises, it is important to remember that the
practice of the humanities is not a given constant, but rather a
“Gutenbergian” practice, with its roots in a postromantic fantasy about
the hero, the genius, the nation and the authentic expression. Of course,
this fantasy has been challenged throughout the latter half of the twentieth
century (feminism, postcolonialism, structuralism, deconstruction, New
Historicism), but digital culture offers us yet a new paradigm, and
O’Gorman suggests a shift in academic practice from “hermeneutics” to
“heuretics,” and from “interpretation” to “invention”:

[T]he result of this “fever for archiving” does not transform the humanities
in any significant way or render humanities research more suitable to a cul-
ture of computing. New media have done little to alter the practices of
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Title: Don Sebastian

or, The house of the Braganza: An historical romance. vol. 4

Author: Anna Maria Porter

Release date: December 6, 2023 [eBook #72343]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme,

1809

Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from
images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON

SEBASTIAN ***
 DON SEBASTIAN;

OR,

THE HOUSE OF BRAGANZA.

J. M‘CREERY,Printer,
Black-Horse-Court, Fleet-Street, London.

DON SEBASTIAN;

OR,

THE HOUSE OF BRAGANZA.

AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

BY MISS ANNA MARIA PORTER.

 AUTHOR OF THE HUNGARIAN BROTHERS.

Take Physic, Pomp!

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
So shalt thou shake the superflux to them,
And shew the Heavens more just.
King Lear.

VOL. IV.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME,

PATERNOSTER ROW.
———
1809.

CHAP. I., CHAP. II., CHAP. III., CHAP. IV., CHAP. V.,
CHAP. VI., CHAP. VII., THE CONCLUSION.

DON SEBASTIAN;

OR,

THE HOUSE OF BRAGANZA.

 CHAP. I.
After serious reflection Sebastian came to the determination of
sacrificing his domestic comforts to the ultimate good of his people and his
child: the conflict was over with himself, but how was he to conquer the
heart of Kara Aziek? of that tender mother, who “chid the winds of
Heaven,” if they blew too roughly on the face of her darling?—that tender
mother and faithful wife, who saw so much of virtue and happiness around
her dwelling at Cachoeira, that she knew not where the world could shew a
station more productive of either.
Dreading the excess of her grief, yet arming himself to encounter it,
Sebastian quitted his solitude, and went forth to seek her.
He found her with Blanche, just returning from their village church,
where they had been witnessing the marriage of an Indian girl with one of
the most enlightened and amiable of her tribe. The happy scene from which
they were come, had lighted up the countenances of each: Blanche was yet
too young for complete sympathy with the blushing Izamba, but her heart
sympathized with happiness of any sort; and the tear of benevolent pleasure
which stood on the cheek of her mother, called a shower over hers.
Gently walking under a long line of cedars shading the Cachoeira,
Sebastian descried them afar off.—The full and perfectly-formed figure of
Kara Aziek, her slow soft step, the gentle dignity which distinguished her,
were contrasted by the slight and budding graces of Blanche’s more airy
form. Her step was quick, bounding, and uncertain as the young Gazelle’s;
her looks were timid, not majestic; and like spring preceding summer, she
sportively advanced, admiring every object she had seen and admired a
thousand times before.
Sebastian scarcely descried her ere she was at his side: by an irresistible
impulse he took her in his arms, and holding her to his heart, suffered the
tears he could no longer restrain, to fall over her face.
It was the first time that Blanche had ever felt her father’s tears; she
looked up, and the bright roses of health and delight faded from her cheek.
 “Be not alarmed, my child!” he whispered in a faltering voice, as he let
her go again, “I will rejoin your mother soon—speak not to her of this
weakness—I must explain it myself.”
Having spoken, he turned away, and hurrying towards a sugar-mill,
which he entered, as if intent on business, left Blanche to wait for her
mother, who seeing nothing extraordinary in this conduct of her husband,
entered her own habitation.
It was long ere Sebastian sufficiently recovered himself to join Kara
Aziek; the smile with which he dressed his pale countenance could not
conceal from her the unusual agitation of his heart: she fearfully inquired its
cause, and was answered by a cautious explanation of De Castro’s situation
and engagements.
Kara Aziek listened to him in profound silence, which she did not break
till some moments after he had concluded; she then turned on him her
expressive eyes; no tears were there, but they were full of that maternal
anguish she felt called upon to control.
She looked tenderly at him, as if she believed him unable to avert the
calamity with which she was threatened, and as if she considered him
equally with herself, an object of compassion. “I submit:” she said at length,
turning her eyes from her husband and fixing them on Heaven; “There are
periods in which I dare not yield to my feelings. That God who has blessed
us with our Blanche, calls her now to become an instrument for her father’s
restoration: I may not detain her.”—
At the last words, Kara Aziek closed her eyes as if she would have shut
from her husband’s sight the anguish of her soul: a general trembling seized
her, and unable to relieve herself by tears, she made an effort to smile, and
pressing his hand, leaned her face upon his shoulder.
Sebastian gently supported her. This unresisting acquiescence, this
uncomplaining grief, affected him far more than the most violent despair: in
proportion as his Aziek appeared more worthy of happiness, her different
destiny seemed more cruel.
“Dearest and best of women!” he exclaimed, “is it to day that I am to
receive the strongest proof of that love which has been the angel of my life?
—You know my heart, and you spare me the misery of contending with
tenderness for you, and duty to Portugal: you weep not, you complain not!
—O my Aziek, am I then indeed, dearer to thee than the child to whom thou
gavest birth?—I expected lamentation, remonstrance, shall I confess it?—
sorrowful reproaches—I find gentleness and heroism; I find that I am still
the first in that precious heart.”—
Transported out of himself by such a conviction, Sebastian folded his
arms around his wife, whose countenance suddenly glowing with vivid
emotion, was now bathed in tears. Instantaneously melted by this burst of
affection, she wept profusely, but her tears had no bitterness in them; she
forgot at that moment the impending evil she had been contemplating.
By degrees this rapture subsided, and the separation from her daughter
returned in all its force. “I will try to merit these kind praises:” she said
faintly, “but my heart may not always have such strength: pardon me
therefore Sebastian, if some moments of weakness should make me the
selfish creature you feared to find me. Remember that in this discourse I
have spoken my real sentiments, and do not attend to the temporary ravings
of a mother, who cannot always hear the voices of Reason and Religion;
who cannot always obey their commands. In my soul I am convinced we
ought to make this sacrifice; as such, it shall be completed.”
Again the tears of Kara Aziek ceased to flow, and her features resumed
their former paleness. Sebastian still looked at her with a mixture of anguish
and delight. His affection was eloquent, and repeated tributes to the
fortitude he admired, contributed to support and to console Kara Aziek.
One important matter yet remained to be discussed; should they or
should they not suffer Blanche to depart without knowing the story of her
birth?
Many arguments in favor of each line of conduct presented themselves
during this interesting discussion; but those had the most weight, which
dictated explanation.
Blanche was of an age and a character to feel the value of such a
confidence: the knowledge of her parents misfortunes would surely endear
them to her heart; and when widely separated, that anxiety which must
result from her acquaintance with their critical situation, would form still a
link of union. Their thoughts, their wishes, their solicitudes, would yet
remain the same, though their persons might be divided; it would be
impossible for Blanche not to remember and to love her parents, when her
dearest interests were inseparably interwoven with their images.
 In addition to this consideration, Sebastian urged one equally important:
Blanche would sooner attain the qualities requisite for her future guidance
through life, by this early call upon them. Discretion, courage, attentive
observation of persons and events, careful calculation of actions, and their
consequences, would be the natural fruit of thus giving her a necessity for
all these properties.
With the prospect of one day filling a station of responsibility, seeing in
the example of her father the awful vicissitudes to which even monarchy is
exposed, and feeling, in her own person, the dependance of man on man,
she would avoid the risk of becoming intoxicated with a distinction which
presented itself under a shape so forbidding.
Her imagination, chastized by experience, and her heart disciplined by
early care, would mature, fix, and ennoble her character: if Providence
should call her to a throne, that education would enable her to fill it with
honour; if destined to pass her life in obscurity, the memory of her parents
lot, would teach her the emptiness of the world, and the rarer treasures of
that benevolence which makes joy to itself in every station.
If blind to the advantages of candour, Sebastian should permit Blanche
to depart in ignorance of her real condition, he reflected, that she must go
with either a sentiment of curiosity about the concealed motives of her
parents, or with a sentiment of disappointment at their seemingly-lukewarm
affection: continual deception must be practised on her; and bearing away
with her no quickening principle of anxiety, her filial love would soon
languish.
The remembrance of her happy home, would, from its very happiness,
only serve to excuse her to herself for ceasing to feel an animated interest in
its inhabitants; and delivering up her young mind to the charms and
novelties of a gay life, she would perhaps lose much of her goodness and all
her simplicity.
These reflections decided Sebastian, for Kara Aziek had decided at first,
from the mere impulse of feeling.
Having left his Aziek seeking additional strength at that sacred source
whence human virtue is derived, he sought Gaspar, and imparted to him the
resolution to which he had brought himself: Gaspar’s emotion was purely
joyful; he neither dreaded dangers nor difficulties, oceans, nor dungeons,
when the prospect of being useful to his King lay before him.
 His sanguine nature made him certain that he should not be long
separated from Sebastian: the destruction of Spanish tyranny, and the
restoration of Portugal, were events that he concluded must follow the
interference of England; he was but leading his sweet young mistress to a
triumph, not to a struggle; he was but going to make the path broad and
open which led back to the throne of her ancestors.
“We part, Sire! it is true;” he said, “yet what is our parting?—we shall
meet again, and meet in happiness. I feel that Providence has now set a
period to your trials: this is the epoch destined for the recovery of your
former possessions.—We shall reach England—England will raise her
powerful arm, and as if by magic, the whole mass of foreign tyranny will
crumble to dust. My honoured young mistress will then be given to the
Portuguese as a pledge that their beloved sovereign yet lives, and will
condescend to reign over them: you will arrive, Sire, to find in your own
kingdom, power, adoration, and happiness!”
“Not adoration Gaspar,” said Sebastian, smiling kindly, “not adoration,
that is an impious tribute to kings, which, thank God, I never required, nay,
which I abhorred, even in my proudest day.—If I may regain the love of my
people, by convincing them that a parental tenderness for them glows in this
time-tried heart, I shall indeed rejoice that the meridian hours of my life are
not to pass away at Cachoeira. Marvellous destiny! (he added after a
thoughtful pause) shall I ever again find myself the ruler of a mighty nation
—the arbiter of their fates—the earthly God to punish and to reward?—
When I look back to the period in which I was this powerful creature, it
seems to me a long-past dream; suffering and seclusion, the only realities!”
“Not so, Sire!” gravely observed Gaspar, “you are a sovereign and a God
at Cachoeira; you are the happiest of husbands and of fathers,—and do you
say that there are no realities but suffering and seclusion?”
Sebastian fixed his eyes on him, with a look of generous approval,
“Ever, my friend!” he exclaimed; “ever watchful over my character as much
as my interest! I spoke, Gaspar, in a way too familiar with me: I spoke from
the impression of one recollection only; I remembered therefore my losses,
and forgot my possessions. Be satisfied, my soul is fully sensible of the rare
blessings I enjoy. Had I not lost my liberty and crown, I should never have
been the happy father and husband, never have opened my eyes on the light
of pure Christianity: this thought makes me consider my misfortunes as
benefits.”
Gaspar expressed his satisfaction at so ingenuous a confession of error,
and proceeded to name the time and preparations that would be required,
ere he could commence his voyage.
He knew that merchant-ships were then in the bay of St. Salvador, bound
for St. Lucar: in one of these, it was agreed he should procure a passage for
himself and his young charge, with whom he might easily proceed from St.
Lucar to Messina.
Nothing was more common than for the children of Brazilian settlers to
be sent to Europe for their education or health, and one of these motives
would certainly be attributed to Blanche’s separation from her parents,
should any persons think such an event of sufficient consequence to employ
their thoughts.
Charged with securing the cabin of the merchant-ship, and with
providing all things requisite for a tedious voyage, Gaspar hastened to St.
Salvador, leaving sadness in that house, which until now, never knew more
than the shadow of passing clouds.
The interview with his daughter was a trying hour to Sebastian: Kara
Aziek declined being present: her heart dreaded itself; and the nearer drew
the moment in which she was to make the sacrifice demanded, the more her
fears and her agitation increased.
“If I should fail at last!” she constantly repeated to herself, while striving
to strengthen her resolution by the recollection of Sebastian’s
commendations; “if I should disappoint his trust in my promise of
submission! ah God! pity me, succour me, support my feeble spirit, and
give me that added confidence in thy mercy, that added tenderness for his
feelings, which may successfully wrestle against the despair of a mother.”
Impressed with a sense of her own weakness, Kara Aziek fled from
every scene which could enervate her still further, courageous from that
very tenderness of character, with which her courage had to struggle, she
refused to herself the luxury of indulging her grief, and of participating in
that affecting interview which must increase it.
While she surrounded herself by various occupations, forcibly wresting
her mind towards the interest of others, Sebastian was unfolding to their
daughter the wonderful story of his youth.
 Her amazement and sympathy may be imagined; they were in proportion
to the sensibility of her character: but Sebastian looked beyond these, and as
he slowly related the events of his life, and pointed out the lessons to be
learned from them, he watched their effect on her who might hereafter need
such beacons to guide her in the same course.
A serious joy warmed his heart, when he beheld the impression made by
the knowledge of her birth: looks of trouble and apprehension were
instantly diffused over her features: she was not ambitious therefore: to
inspire her with zeal for her own rights, it would be requisite to teach her
the benevolent purposes to which they might be directed.
No parts of her father’s narrative so absorbed the attention of Blanche, as
those which related to her mother. While Sebastian detailed the variety of
Kara Aziek’s destiny, and the transitions from pain to pleasure which they
had had mutually endured, the eyes of Blanche alternately shone with the
brightness of joy, or fell to the ground blinded with tears. It was evident,
that from the moment Kara Aziek appeared upon the scene, her affectionate
child saw in her love the best blessing of life, and ceasing to think of her
father’s loftier anxieties, was solely interested in reaching the moment
which gave her parents to each other.
Once, and only once, did her agitated heart burst through the restraint
which delicate timidity, and filial respect had imposed: it was at the
description of Sebastian’s return to Portugal, at the reception of Donna
Gonsalva, and the conversation of the two noblemen at the house of Lopez
Vernara.
Powerfully moved by these incidents, she suddenly threw herself on the
bosom of her father, exclaiming, in a voice broken by sobs, “Ah send me
not to such a dreadful world! let me not live with people who have thus
outraged my dearest father!”
Much affected by a sensibility as just as it was exquisite, Sebastian
strained her to his breast, and lifting up the scattered ringlets from her
cheek, he kissed it fondly. That roseate cheek, those eyes now closed with
grief, but lovely still from the long lashes which fringed them, the soft arms
that twined around his neck, and the beautiful tresses which fell dishevelled
over them, all these were so like his Aziek’s, that he repeated his caresses,
and abandoned to a moment of weakness, whispered, “Should I not risk all
things to go with my child?”
 At this unexpected dawn of hope, Blanche raised her face, the sunshine
of happy youth was on it. “O my father;” she cried, “let us go together!—
my mother, my dear mother too—we cannot live without her.”
Sebastian had now recovered himself, and sorrowing to destroy the
illusion his own words had raised, he proceeded in a calmer tone, to explain
to her the weighty reasons which rendered it necessary for him to trust the
judgment of De Castro, and to act by his suggestion: he alone could decide
on the prudence of measures, which must be influenced by the conduct of
those potentates amongst whom he was acting.
Blanche had been early taught to yield to the voice of reason: the
moment she was convinced that what she wished was hostile to her better
interests, or blameable in itself, she ceased to form a wish on the subject.
She submitted to the commands of duty, as to the irreversible decrees of
Heaven.
This valuable habit of moral obedience, now enabled her to acquiesce in
the dreary prospect of separating from her parents, and committing herself
to a world, of which the history had made her afraid. She wept bitterly; but
she frequently repeated, that she saw her father could not in justice to
himself and his country, and in gratitude to those friends who were now
risking their lives for his sake by secret correspondence with the enemies of
Philip, do otherwise than grant them some rallying point like herself.
Sebastian contemplated her as she sat struggling against her grief,
kissing his hands and looking at him with humid smiles: Sebastian
contemplated her with many an admiring thought. He contrasted her
character and conduct with what his own had been at a much more forward
period of youth: at that period the whole globe was scarce large enough for
his tempestuous passions to rage in. Shame and compunction were on his
brow. “Blanche,” he exclaimed, “if the certainty that you possess the fullest
love, the most perfect approbation of your father, can give comfort to your
heart, be assured that you do possess them—never my child, never were
you half so dear or so estimable to me, as at this moment.”
Blanche started from her seat, and threw herself before him; Sebastian
bent towards her, and holding her against his breast in the lovely attitude in
which she had placed herself, he resumed his discourse. “Cultivate this self-
government which ennobles you thus in a parent’s eyes!—O my daughter,
self-government is dignity, is happiness, is dominion!—’tis the secret of
disarming adversity of its sting—’tis the virtue which comprehends all
others—’tis that which will entitle you to a crown in Heaven!—Had I been
like thee, my child, at this instant I should have nothing to reproach myself
with; I should have been dwelling in the house of my fathers, and I should
not have had to send my innocent Blanche into a faithless world in search
of that possession which my folly threw away.”
He stopt, and several deep sighs followed his words. Blanche kissed his
hand with repressed ardour; her timid voice trembled as she spoke. “You
have profited by your chastisements, dearest father, or how should I have
become the character you praise?—ah me! shall I always remain so? your
virtues have sprung up out of your trials; and mine perhaps may die under
them.”
Struck with the justice of this observation, and charmed with the salutary
humility which it proved, her gratified father pursued the theme she had
begun, and discoursing on principles and passions, on trials and
temptations, forgot the lapse of time.
Kara Aziek’s voice near the windows of the apartment in which they sat,
roused him to recollection, and taking Blanche by the hand, he went forth to
join her mother.
By the same impulse, Kara Aziek and her daughter pressed each other in
their arms without speaking; Sebastian approached, and drew them towards
him! he too was silent: after some moments of extreme emotion, they
recovered themselves, and rose from this sad embrace. The faces of Kara
Aziek and Blanche were bathed in tears, that of Sebastian was pale, but
more composed.
As if by tacit agreement, no one ventured to speak of the only subject
that engrossed their thoughts: their conversation was serious, and
interrupted by long pauses, but it was evidently connected with their most
interesting reflections.
Not till she was alone with her daughter, a few days previous to her
departure, had Kara Aziek courage to name the trial they were about to
encounter: at this instant fortitude forsook her, and the weeping Blanche
beheld for the first time, her gentle and hitherto patient mother, given up to
an agony of despair.
Periods like these, are not those in which human comfortings avail: the
soul must seek and find its comforter in itself. It must be habituated to
believe that all the decrees of Heaven are wise and good; then will sorrow
gradually subside, and a consolation past utterance will succeed to
distraction.
Experience had taught this most precious lesson to Kara Aziek; for often
had she had occasion to feel in her own person, and through that of her
husband, that

“We, ignorant of ourselves,

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good: so find we profit
By losing of our prayers.”

The silent caresses and touching tears of her daughter, contributed to

console, rather than to afflict her: so sweet, so amiable, so excellent a
creature, was she not destined to ornament and to bless mankind?—The
heart of a fond mother answered in the affirmative; and like the sick person
who courageously bears the crisis of a disorder when the paroxysm is
expected to work his cure, she roused herself to support a parting which she
hoped would lead to permanent re-union.
Though flattering herself that many months would not elapse ere the
path should be open for Sebastian’s return to Portugal, she exhorted
Blanche, as if their separation were to endure for years: her admonitions
were few and impressive; she had nothing new to teach her daughter, but
what she had been hitherto teaching her every day by example rather than
precept, she now summed up, in easily-remembered maxims.
This discourse with her mother was never forgotten by Blanche.
Gaspar had provided the accommodations requisite for his young
mistress; all their arrangements were completed, and the day was fixed for
the sailing of the vessel which was to convey them to Europe. Sebastian
confided to his friend a packet for Don Emanuel De Castro, signifying the
extent to which he would engage himself with any foreign power willing to
assist him: this packet contained also a letter to Queen Elizabeth, which
Blanche was to deliver at their first meeting.
Sebastian had written with the dignity of a King, and the tenderness of a
father: by the warmth of his paternal expressions, he sought to make her
sensible that she could not hope to injure or distress his child with impunity.
He expressed himself strongly, yet with such courtly address, that although
Elizabeth must feel his meaning, and see his doubts, she could not openly
reply to them.
The hour of separation drew near; the ship was to sail on the morrow.
Having resolved to let no other objects share her heart with her parents,
at that moment in which she alone would occupy theirs, Blanche took leave
of the Indians on the preceding evening: their uncontrolled lamentations
affected her powerfully; and it was not till the night was far advanced, that
she recovered from the mournful impression.
Day-break awoke her: when she first opened her eyes at the rustling of
the breeze among the tall tops of a grove of Magnolias, when she saw their
beautiful foliage, and heard the birds singing from their branches, she felt a
sudden shock; for this was the last time in which she should see these trees,
or feel this air!
She was going far away! she was going from her parents! at this
conviction a death-like sickness oppressed her very heart; she sunk back on
her pillow, and believing the effort impossible, resigned herself to an excess
of despair. The tears which she shed in floods, gradually relieved her
feelings, and left them more obedient to her will: she repeated to herself the
injunctions and arguments of her parents, she strove to fix a short period for
the continuance of their separation, and having recourse to devotion, was
enabled to quit her chamber with a tolerably serene countenance.
It was yet early day; no one else was stirring, and Blanche rose thus
soon, that she might take a parting look at the recent grave of Barémel.
This playmate and guardian of her infant days, had died of old age, and
was buried by Sebastian himself under a cluster of Palmito’s in his garden.
No stone, with indecent resemblance to the monument of departed man,
marked the place where he laid; but a circle of plaited reeds enclosed the
little mound, and Blanche often stole there, to cover the bed of her favorite
with flowers.
She now moved lightly and timidly towards it, half-ashamed of a
sensibility it was amiable to feel. O lovely season of youth! how sweet art
thou to behold, with thy attendant graces of modesty, susceptibility, and
self-distrust!
The colours of the blooming flowers through which she passed painted
the soft complexion of Blanche; hers was the complexion that announced a
tender and intelligent heart, for it varied with every thought and every
feeling; it was now flushed with strong emotion.
She approached Barémel’s grave, and was going to throw herself upon it
with a violence of sorrow pardonable at her early age, when she was
checked by the apprehension of its being criminal.—“Yet he was so loving,
and faithful!” she exclaimed, tears trembling in her eyes, “I think it cannot
be wrong to remember him with affection.” Her innocent heart decided in
the affirmative, and sitting down near the grassy heap, she strewed it with
blossoms, and gave loose to her tears.
Her mind was quickly thronged with long-past images: different epochs
of holidays and festivals in which Barémel had constantly performed some
amusing part; passed in review before her. She remembered his joyful bark,
his supplicating whine, his watchful and loving looks, his unwearied
attendance of her from infancy to youth, over all the romantic region that
surrounded Cachoeira. “Poor Barémel! I can never see thee again!” she
said, sighing: that apostrophe conveyed to her heart a salutary exhortation
to take comfort on a far dearer subject.
She was indeed going to quit her parents, but not for ever; they were yet
in the flower of their lives, and Providence therefore permitted her to
anticipate their future re-union. Blanche was of a grateful disposition; she
loved to be happy, and far from partaking in the nature of those wretchedly
tempered spirits who seem to feast on discontent, and refuse to be
comforted; she opened her soul to admit the smallest particle of
consolation.
Her reflections now assumed a more serious cast, (for they were
employed in enumerating the mercies she yet possessed, and those she
might anticipate without presumption,) but they were no longer afflicting:
anxious to seize this moment of resignation for appearing before her
parents, she got up, and giving a long look of regret to the resting-place of
her early companion, turned homeward.
Sebastian was advancing in search of her: “I have only been to look at
poor Barémel’s grave,” she said blushing, “since you have told me all that I
owe to him, his memory has become almost sacred to me, he saved my dear
father’s life.”
Blanche added the last sentence with trepidation which shewed she was
eager to give an honorable excuse for what might have been deemed a
weakness. Sebastian pressed her hand as he led her forward: “like thy
mother in all things!” he observed, “ever diffident of thy best and most
engaging actions!”
They proceeded in silence to the apartment of Kara Aziek: she had yet
many things to say, or to repeat, and she was now gathering fortitude to
pronounce them calmly. Blanche sat down between her parents: each held
one of her hands, and frequently pressed it; but as yet, none of them spoke:
their eyes were fixed on the ground.
Why is it that the dearest connexions, when about to lose sight of each
other, avoid looking on the countenance they love, and which they will so
soon long to behold again? is it that the soul instinctively prepares for its
calamity, and tries to soften the pang by gradual abandonment of its
enjoyments? or is it that grief would be uncontrollable if those delightful
feelings were indulged which we are conscious must end with the removal
of the person beloved?
Whatever be the motive, its effect was seen in the family at Cachoeira:
they remained silent and immovable, drawing by stealth long and
interrupted sighs. They were summoning resolution to speak of parting.
At this moment Gaspar hastily entered; every eye was raised towards
him: “The ship sails an hour earlier than we expected, a messenger has just
come from St. Salvador to say so, we have not an instant to lose.”
Kara Aziek uttered a loud shriek, and clasped her daughter in her arms;
they had started up at Gaspar’s first words, and now remained clinging to
each other. Tears, sobs, broken exclamations, embraces repeated again and
again, were the witnesses of their sorrow.
Gaspar called on them to remember the fatal consequence of delay:
almost subdued himself, he yet had courage to appear barbarous, that he
might shorten the pangs of others.
Blanche heard him not: she flung herself alternately from the arms of
one parent to those of the other, and as she deluged their bosoms with her
tears, she called on them to assure her that their separation should not be
eternal.
Cold damps stood on the brow of Sebastian, for the pains of death were
in his heart, but his eyes were tearless. Kara Aziek was like one frantic; her
softness had given place to a wild and resisting despair: she clung to her
child, and no remonstrances had power to loosen her grasp!
 Sebastian trembled for her reason, and that fear gave him strength to
accomplish what he knew to be indispensible. He advanced towards his
wife, forcibly, yet tenderly, unlocked her hands as they met round the waist
of Blanche, and hastily pushing his daughter towards Gaspar, exclaimed,
“Go, go my child! if you would not kill your mother. I have, I have blessed
you—I bless you again.”
Gaspar had seized the arm of Blanche, while his agitated master was
trying to detain Kara Aziek; he now led the former towards the door, and
lifting her up, ran with her from the house to the caloche which was to carry
them to St. Salvador.
On reaching the carriage, he found that she had fainted; less alarmed at
this natural effect of sorrow, than he would have been grieved by her
lamentations, he got into the vehicle, and supporting her against his
shoulder, proceeded to bathe her temples with a pungent essence he usually
wore about him.
His exertion succeeded, Blanche revived: she looked round, and seeing
herself on the road, she knew that all hope of present change was desperate:
her eyes closed again, but it was only to weep with less obviousness, and to
preserve their last look of her parents.