Of any true affection, but t was nipt
And lovers around her are sighing:
IT is a common practice with those who have outlived the susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love stories, and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere ?ctions of novelists and poets. My observations on human nature have induced me to think otherwise. They have convinced me that, however the surface of the character may be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, or cultivated into mere smiles by the arts of society, still there are dormant ?res lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which, when once enkindled, become impetuous, and are sometimes desolating in their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the blind deity, and go to the full extent of his doctrines. Shall I confess it?--I believe in broken hearts, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love! I do not, however, consider it a malady often fatal to my own sex; but I ?rmly believe that it withers down many a lovely woman into an early grave.
But then the horrors of such a grave!--so frightful, so dishonored! There was nothing for memory to dwell on that could soothe the pang of separation--none of those tender, though melancholy circumstances which endear the parting scene--nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed tears,sent like the dews of heaven, to revive the heart in the parting hour of anguish.
How many bright eyes grow dim--how many soft cheeks grow pale--how many lovely forms fade away into the tomb, and none can tell the cause that blighted their loveliness! As the dove will clasp its wings to its side, and cover and concealthe arrow that is preying on its vitals--so is it the nature of woman, to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace. With her, the desire of her heart has failed--the great charm of existence is at an end.
It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, composed the following lines:
There can be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet it in such a scene. To ?nd it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around is gay--to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth, and looking so wan and woe-begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the steps of an orchestra, and, looking about for some time with a vacant air, that showed her insensibility to the garish scene, she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite, voice; but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching, it breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness--that she drew a crowd, mute and silent, around her and melted every one into tears.
But womans is comparatively a ?xed, a secluded, and meditative life. She is more the companion of her own thoughts and feelings; and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation? Her lot is to be wooed and won; and if unhappy in her love, her heart is like some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and abandoned, and left desolate.
I have seen many instances of women running to waste and self-neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if they had been exhaled to heaven; and have repeatedly fancied that I could trace their deaths through the various declensions of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached the ?rst symptom of disappointed love. But an instance of the kind was lately told to me; the circumstances are well known in the country where they happened, and I shall but give them in the manner in which they were related.
She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,
From her own loved island of sorrow!
She never objected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but was as much alone there as in the depths of solitude; walking about in a sad revery, apparently unconscious of the world around her. She carried with her an inward woe that mocked at all the blandishments of friendship, and "heeded not the song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely."
Every note which he loved awaking--
Every one must recollect the tragical story of young E----, the Irish patriot; it was too touching to be soon forgotten. During the troubles in Ireland, he was tried, condemned, and executed, on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. He was so young--so intelligent--so generous--so brave--so every thing that we are apt to like in a young man. His conduct under trial, too, was so lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he repelled the charge of treason against his country--the eloquent vindication of his name--and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour of condemnation, --all these entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the stern policy that dictated his execution.
MIDDLETON.
She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove; graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm preying at its heart. We ?nd it suddenly withering, when it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see it drooping its branches to the earth, and shedding leaf by leaf, until, wasted and perished away, it falls even in the stillness of the forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in vain to recollect the blast or thunderbolt that could have smitten it with decay.
How the heart of the minstrel is breaking!
She sings the wild song of her dear native plains,
Nor long will his love stay behind him!
They were all that to life had entwined him--
She neglects all the cheerful exercises which gladden the spirits, quicken the pulses, and send the tide of life in healthful currents through the veins. Her rest is broken--the sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams--"dry sorrow drinks her blood," until her enfeebled frame sinks under the slightest external injury. Look for her, after a little while, and you ?nd friendship weeping over her untimely grave, and wondering that one, who but lately glowed with all the radiance of health and beauty, should so speedily be brought down to "darkness and the worm." You will be told of some wintry chill, some casual indisposition, that laid her low;--but no one knows of the mental malady which previously sapped her strength, and made her so easy a prey to the spoiler.
But there was one heart whose anguish it would be impossible to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had won the affections of a beautiful and interesting girl, the daughter of a late celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him with the disinterested fervor of a womans ?rst and early love. When every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him; when blasted in fortune, and disgrace and danger darkened around his name, she loved him the more ardently for his very sufferings. If, then, his fate could awaken the sympathy even of his foes, what must have been the agony of her, whose whole soul was occupied by his image? Let those tell who have had the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being they most loved on earth--who have sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a cold and lonely world, whence all that was most lovely and loving had departed.
For her heart in his grave is lying.
He had lived for his love--for his country he died,
Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune for space in the worlds thought, and dominion over his fellow-men. But a womans whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire--it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul in the traf?c of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless--for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.
He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted away in a slow, but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broken heart.
The leaves of the springs sweetest book, the rose.
Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,
Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,
When they promise a glorious morrow;
I never heard
Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried,
Theyll shine oer her sleep, like a smile from the west,
The story of one so true and tender could not but excite great interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave of?cer, who paid his addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead, could not but prove affectionate to the living. Shedeclined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted in his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and dependent situation, for she was existing on the kindness of friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurance, that her heart was unalterably anothers.
To a man, the disappointment of love may occasion some bitter pangs; it wounds some feelings of tenderness--it blasts some prospects of felicity; but he is an active being--he may dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation, or may plunge into the tide of pleasure; or, if the scene of disappointment be too full of painful associations, he can shift his abode at will, and taking, as it were, the wings of the morning, can "?y to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at rest."
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats
But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,
The person who told me her story had seen her at a masquerade.
To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred her fathers displeasure by her unfortunate attachment, and was an exile from the parental roof. But could the sympathy and kind of?ces of friends have reached a spirit so shocked and driven in by horror, she would have experienced no want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and generous sensibilities. The most delicate and cherishing attentions were paid her by families of wealth and distinction. She was led into society, and they tried by all kinds of occupation and amusement to dissipate her grief, and wean her from the tragical story of her loves. But it was all in vain. There are some strokes of calamity that scathe and scorch the soul--which penetrate to the vital seat of happiness--and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blossom.
