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It is a common thing to laugh at all love
stories, and to treat the tales of romantic passion
as mere fictions of poets and novelists,
that never existed in real life. My observations
on human nature have convinced me of
the contrary, and have satisfied me, that however
the surface of the character may be chilled
and frozen by the cares of the world, and
the pleasures of society, still there is a warm
current of affection running through the depths

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of the coldest heart, that prevents its being utterly
congealed. 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 firmly believe that it withers down many
a lovely woman into an early grave.

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 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 treasures. She sends forth her sympathies
on adventure; she embarks her whole
soul in the traffick of affection; and if

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shipwrecked, her case is hopeless—for it is a bank-ruptcy
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 can
dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation,
or 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 fly to the uttermost parts of the
earth, and be at rest.

But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded,
and a 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.

How many bright eyes grow dim—how many

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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 conceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals,
so it is 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 the heart has
failed. The great charm of existence is at an
end. She neglects all the cheerful exercises that
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 least external
assailment. Look for her, after a little while,
and you find friendship weeping over her

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untimely grave, and wondering that one, who but
lately glowed with all the radiance of health
and beauty, should now be brought down to
“darkness and the worm.” You will be told
of some wintry chill, some slight indisposition,
that laid her low—but no one knows the mental
malady that 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 core. We find 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.

I have seen many instance of women running
to waste and self neglect, and disappearing
gradually from the earth, almost as if they

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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 first 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 they were
related.

Every one must recollect the tragical story
of young E—, the Irish patriot, for 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

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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.

But there was one heart, whose anguish it
would be in vain 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 fervour of a woman's
first 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

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lonely world, from whence all 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 sooth the
pang of separation—none of those tender,
though melancholy circumstances, that endear
the parting scene—nothing to melt sorrow into
those blessed tears, sent, like the dews of heaven,
to revive the heart in the parching 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 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

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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—that penetrate to the vital seat of hapiness—
and blast it, never again to put forth
bud or blossom. She never objected to frequent
the haunts of pleasure, but she was as
much alone there, as in the depths of solitude.
She walked about in a sad reverie, apparently
unconscious of the world around her. She
carried with her an inward wo 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 seen
her at a masquerade. There can be no exhibition
of far-gone wretchedness more striking
and painful than to meet it in such a scene.
To find 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 wo-begone, as if it had tried in

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vain to cheat the poor heart into a 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.

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 officer, who paid his addresses
to her, and thought that one so true to
the dead, could not but prove affectionate to the
living. She declined his attentions, for her
thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the
memory of her former lover. He, however,

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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 desitute 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 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 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 vicitm of a broken heart.

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

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