Frail men and women should see what a passionate but virtuous woman can
suffer, when a revelation, of which they think but little, comes and
blasts her young heart, and bids her dry up in a moment the deep well
of her affection, since it flows for an unworthy object, and flows in
vain. I tell you that the fair head severed from the chaste body is
nothing to her compared with this. The fair body, pierced with heathen
arrows, was nothing to her in the days of old compared with this.
In a word--for nowadays we can but amplify, and so enfeeble, what some
old dead master of language, immortal though obscure, has said in words
of granite--here
"Love lay bleeding."
No fainting--no vehement weeping; but oh, such deep desolation; such
weariness of life; such a pitiable restlessness. Appetite gone; the
taste of food almost lost; sleep unwilling to come; and oh, the torture
of waking--for at that horrible moment all rushed back at once, the joy
that had been, the misery that was, the blank that was to come.
She never stirred out, except when ordered, and then went like an
automaton. Pale, sorrow-stricken, and patient, she moved about, the
ghost of herself; and lay down a little, and then tried to work a
little, and then to read a little; and could settle to nothing but
sorrow and deep despondency.
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