I never heard
Of any true affe, but t was nipt
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats
The leaves of the springs sweetest book, the rose.
MIDDLETON.
IT is a on 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 ?s of s and poets. My observations on human nature have induced me to think otherwise. They have vinced 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 onkindled, bee impetuous, and are sometimes desolating in their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the bliy, and go to the full extent of his does. Shall I fess it?--I believe in brokes, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love! I do not, however, sider 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.
Man is the creature of i 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 iervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune for spa the worlds thought, and dominion over his fellow-men. But a womans whole life is a history of the affes. 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 iraf?c of affe; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless--for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.
To a man, the disappoi 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 pluo the tide of pleasure; or, if the se of disappoi be too full of painful associations, he shift his abode at will, and taking, as it were, the wings of the m, "?y to the uttermost parts of the earth, a rest."
But womans is paratively a ?xed, a secluded, aative life. She is more the panion of her own thoughts and feelings; and if they are turo ministers of sorrow, where shall she look for solation? 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, a desolate.
How many bright eyes grow dim--how many soft cheeks grow pale--how many lovely forms fade away into the tomb, and none tell the cause that blighted their loveliness! As the dove will clasp its wings to its side, and cover and ceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals--so is it the nature of woman, to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affe. 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.
She s all the cheerful exercises which gladden the spirits, qui the pulses, ahe tide of life ihful currents through the veins. Her rest is broken--the sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by melancho