THE BR0KEN HEART

(Washington Irving. — The Sketch book.)

I never heard

Of any true affection, but ’twas nipt

With care, that, like the carterpillar, eats

The leaves of the spring’s sweetest book — the rose.

Middleton,

It is a common practice with those who hâve outlived the susceptibility of early feeling, or hâve been brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at ail love stories, and to treat the taies of romantic passion as mere fictions of novelists and poets. My observations of human nature hâve induced me to

think otherwise. They hâve 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 fires 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 disapointed love. I do not, however, consider it a malady often fatal to my own sex : but 1 firmly believe that it withers down many a lovely woman into an early grave.

Man is the créature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle o the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for famé, for fortune, for space in the world’s thought, and dominion over his fellow-men. But a woman’s 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 trea-

sures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soûl in the traffic of affection ; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless — for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.

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 a tide of pleasure; or, if the scene of disappointment he too full of painful associations, he can shift his abode at will, and taking as it were the wings of the morning, can “ fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at rest.”

But woman’s is comparatively a fixed, a secluded, and méditative 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.

How many bright eyes grow dim— how many soft

ROBERT EIMET.

cheeks grow pale — how many loyely forms fade away into tlie tomb, and none can tell the cause that blighted their loveliness ! As the dove will clasp its wings to its side, and cover and conceal the 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 délicate 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 the heart has failed. The great charm of existence is at an end. She neglects ail the cheerful exercises which gladden the spirits, quicken the puises, 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 find friendship weeping over her untimely grave, and wondering that one, who but lately glowed with ail 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.

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 find it suddenly withering, wlien 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 haye smitten it with decay.

I hâve 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 hâve repeatedly fancied that I could trace their death through the yarious declensions of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached the first symptoms 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.

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 everything 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 éloquent vindication of his name— and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour of condemnation— ail these entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the stern policy that dictated his execution.

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 celehrated Irish barri ster, She loved him with the disinterested fer-

vour of a woman’s first and early love, When every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him; when blasted in fortune, and disgrâce and danger darkened around his name, she loved him the more ardenly for his very sufïerings. If, then, his fate could awaken the sympathy even of his foes, what must hâve been the agony of her, whose whole soûl was occupied by his image ! Let those tell who hâve had the portais of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being they most loved on earth — who hâve sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a cold and lonely world, whence ali that was most lovely and loving had departed.

But then the horrors of such a grave! so frightful, so dishonoured ! there was nothing for memory to dwell on that could soothe the pang of séparation — 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.

To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred her father’s displeasure by her unfortunate attachment, and was an exile from the paternal

roof. But could the sympathy and kind offices of friends

hâve reached a spirit so shocked and driven in by horror, she would hâve experienced no want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and generous sensibilises. The most délicate and cherishing attentions were paid her by families of wealth and distinction. She was led into society, and they tried by ail kinds of occupation and amusement to dissipate her grief, and wean her from the tragical story of her love. But it was ail in vain. There are some strokes of calamity which scathe and scorch the soûl — which penetrate to the vital seat of happiness — and blast, it. never again to put forth bud or blossom. 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 reverie, apparently unconscious of the world around her. She carried with her an inward woe that mocked at ail the blandishments of friendship, and “ heeded not the song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.”

The person who. told me her story had seen her at a masquerade. There can be no exhibition of far-gone

wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet in such a scenç. To find it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where ail around is gay— tô see it

dressed ont 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 a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy erowd 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 soûl of wretchedness, that she drew a erowd mute and silent around her, and melted every one into tears.

The story of one so true and tender couid not but excite great interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead couid not but prove afîectionate to the living. She declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the memory of her former lover. Ile, however, persisted in his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her con-

viction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and dépendent 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 another’s.

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 maçle an effort to be a happy one ; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soûl. She wasted away in a slow, but hopeless décliné, and at length sunk into the grave, the victirn of a broken hearth.

It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, eomposed the following lines :

She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, And lovers around her are sighing :

But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,

For her heart in his grave is lying.

She sings the wild songs of her dear native plains, Every note which he loved awaking—

Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,

How the heart of the minstrel is breaking!

He had lived*for his love, for hiscountry he died—

The were ail that to life had entwined him —

Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried,

Nor long will his love stay behind, him î Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,

When they promise a glorious morrow;

They’ll shine o’er her sleep, like a smile from the west, From her own loved island of sorrow !

(Washington lRviNG.~The Sketch book.)