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in his sentiment; it was devotion and faith. His life was swallowed up in
the existence of his beloved; and his heart beat only in unison with the
pulsations that vivified hers. This was the secret law of his life--he
loved and was beloved. The universe was to him a dwelling, to inhabit with
his chosen one; and not either a scheme of society or an enchainment of
events, that could impart to him either happiness or misery. What, though
life and the system of social intercourse were a wilderness, a
tiger-haunted jungle! Through the midst of its errors, in the depths of its
savage recesses, there was a disentangled and flowery pathway, through
which they might journey in safety and delight. Their track would be like
the passage of the Red Sea, which they might traverse with unwet feet,
though a wall of destruction were impending on either side.
Alas! why must I record the hapless delusion of this matchless specimen of
humanity? What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards
pain and misery? We are not formed for enjoyment; and, however we may be
attuned to the reception of pleasureable emotion, disappointment is the
never-failing pilot of our life's bark, and ruthlessly carries us on to the
shoals. Who was better framed than this highly-gifted youth to love and be
beloved, and to reap unalienable joy from an unblamed passion? If his heart
had slept but a few years longer, he might have been saved; but it awoke in
its infancy; it had power, but no knowledge; and it was ruined, even as a
too early-blowing bud is nipt by the killing frost.
I did not accuse Evadne of hypocrisy or a wish to deceive her lover; but
the first letter that I saw of hers convinced me that she did not love him;
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