| “Had we never loved so kindly, Had we never loved so blindly, Never met or never parted, We had ne'er been broken-hearted.” |
The opinion under consideration is egregiously erroneous. Woe to her who abandons the helm of judgment, in forming that connection, which is to decide her whole fortune for life. Ill-fated must she be, who concludes that the head and heart must be divorced, before she can experience that sentiment, which binds human souls in the sacred tie of marriage.
Another believes love to be an Illusion. She thinks it a subject fit only for the fevered imagination of the poet, or for tales of fiction and romance. With the realities of life it has no concern. In this plain, matter-of-fact, working-day world, there is no room, she thinks, for this creature of the brain. Therefore does she determine to fortify herself against its approaches. Others may pursue the phantom, if they will, but she is resolved to be never so cheated, as to “fall in love” with a man.
The enthusiast may subject herself to severe disappointments, and may find ultimately that the husband she loved and married, under the sway of the blind god, falls far short of that mysteriously exalted being she deemed herself connected with for life. But far more to be deplored is her fate, who entered the matrimonial state with the Stoical faith that love was all an “illusion.” What sympathy can those, thus joined, but not wedded, feel in the season of sorrow? How little will they share, or even imagine, those joys which spring up between hearts that have been pledged, exchanged, and cemented.
There are those, who regard love as of necessity a mere Impulse; a thing not subject in any wise to human control, but fitful, an outbreaker, a tyrant. They can govern other emotions and sentiments. Anger, envy, jealousy, resentment, pride, they believe capable of being moderated, if not wholly suppressed. But love is lawless. Its mandates must be obeyed, and that instantly; they may not be opposed, no, not even questioned.
Who has not seen some young woman of talent and virtue sacrifice herself to this mistaken impression? The plume of the soldier, the gay air of the debauchee, the flippant beau, the half-insane tippler, could she not have seen her doom in being affianced to one of these poor pageants of humanity? Ah, but “she loved; she could not help loving;” she gave herself a victim at the profane shrine, because she always thought she must love where and whom, her unbidden, irresponsible, feelings should direct her to love.
There are others, who deem this sentiment a Weakness. If a lady find herself inclined to it, she should at once strive to subdue it. Much as one, whose face is marked by disease or accident, would fain conceal the blemish, so would she hide, even from a mother or sister, any experience of affection for a particular individual. Love is, in her view, a thing to be ashamed of, an infirmity, which, if one have not power wholly to escape, she should yet lock with eternal secrecy in her own bosom.
Now I ask, why should we blush for emotions, of which the God of nature implanted the germs within us? Is it weak to indulge a sentiment so productive of happiness as this, so essential to the wellbeing of the holiest bond on earth? Love is not a folly; in its purity, it is a noble, unselfish thing, the inspirer and friend of moral excellence. When I see a young woman pining over a hidden grief, which might have been spared, had she imparted her feelings to a friend; when I witness the mental powers tried, and at length overcome, by the struggles of a pent-up fire in the soul, I lament the sad error, to which these mournful consequences can be so directly traced. Why, if the object, especially, of her affection deserve and requite it, why should she bury it as a weakness in her soul? The cases are very rare, in which there is no one to whom a secret of this description may with propriety, and ought, to be frankly confided. The peril lies in concealment.
Some esteem love a Disease. They look upon her, who indulges it, as in an unsound condition. It is as if a member of the body were amputated, or maimed. The individual, on whom its visitations have been inflicted, is an object of compassion. Hence its approaches are actually dreaded. She who entertains this theory, instead of receiving cordially the advances of a gentleman, even a favorite, shrinks from the thought of it, and repels the intimations of any special attention on his part.
Is this well? Is it right so to deal with a sentiment common to the sex? Were it a disease, we should form exceptions to the rule. But since it is so almost universally experienced, why should one avert it from the heart? She who does this, misinterprets the human constitution. Let her study the purposes of Providence, and no more will she refuse the admission of this sentiment, when circumstances justify its encouragement, than she will decline taking food, lest it cause sickness and death. The laws of nature, she will see, extend over the spirit, no less than the body.