THE BROKEN HEART.

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 作者：华盛顿·欧文投票推荐加入书签留言反馈

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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 froz<s></s>en 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; sh<bdi>?</bdi>e 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 o<dfn>藏书网</dfn>f 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 melancholy dreams--"dry sorrow drinks her blood," until her enfeebled frame sinks uhe slightest external injury. Look for her, after a little while, and you ?nd friendship weeping over her untimely grave, and w that one, who but lately glowed with all the radiance of health ay, 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 teree, the pride ay 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 brao the earth, and shedding leaf by leaf, until, wasted and perished away, it falls even iillness of the forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruirive in vain to recollect the blast or thunderbolt that could have smitten it with decay.

 I have seen many instances of women running to waste and self-, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if they had been exhaled to heaven; and have repeatedly fahat I could trace their deaths through the various desions of ption, 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 try 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 toug to be soon fotten. During the troubles in Ireland, he was tried, ned, 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 duder trial, too, was so lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he repelled the charge of treason against his try--the eloquent vindication of his name--and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour of nation, --all these entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamehe stern policy that dictated his execution.

 But there was o whose anguish it would be impossible to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had won the affes of a beautiful and iing girl, the daughter of a late celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him with the disied fervor of a womans ?rst and early love. When every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him; when blasted in fortune, and disgrad 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 oh--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.

 But then the horrors of such a grave!--shtful, so dishohere was nothing for memory to dwell on that could soothe the pang of separation--none of those tehough melancholy circumstances whidear the parting se--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 fathers displeasure by her unfortuat, 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 experieno want of solation, for the Irish are a people of quid generous sensibilities. The most delicate and cherishing attentions were paid her by families of wealth and distin. 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 v<dfn>藏书网</dfn>ain. There are some strokes of calamity that scathe and scorch the soul--which pee 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 alohere as in the depths of solitude; walking about in a sad revery, apparently unscious 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."

 The person who told me her story had see a masquerade.

 There be no exhibition of far-gone wretess more striking and painful than to meet it in such a se. To ?nd it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around is gay--to see it dressed out irappings of mirth, and looking so wan and woe-begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into momentary fetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through <bdi></bdi>the splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter abstra, she sat herself down oeps of an orchestra, and, looking about for some time with a vat air, that showed her insensibility to the garish se, 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 toug, it breathed forth such a soul of wretess--that she drew a crowd, mute and silent, around her aed every oo tears.

 The story of one so true and tender could not but excite great i in a try remarkable for enthusiasm. It pletely 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 affeate to the living. She deed 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 vi of his worth, and her sense of her owute and depe 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 assurahat her heart was unalterably anothers.

 He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a ge of se 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 dev melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted away in a slow, but hopeless dee, and at length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broke.

 It was ohat Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, posed 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 song of her dear native plains,

 Every note which he loved awaking--

 Ah! little they think, who delight irains,

 How the heart of the minstrel is breaking!

 He had lived for his love--for his try he died,

 They were all that to life had entwined him--

 Nor soon shall the tears of his try be dried,

 Nor long will his love stay behind him!

 Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,

 When they promise a glorious morrow;

 Theyll shine oer her sleep, like a smile from the west,

 From her own loved island of sorrow!

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