Who really held Burns his heart in thrall, Nelly Fitzpatrick or Mary
Campbell or Ellison Begbie or Margaret Chalmers or Charlotte Hamilton or
Jenny Cruikshank or Anne Park or Jean Armour or Mrs. Whelpdale or Mrs.
Agnes McLehose? and who the heart of Goethe,—Gretchen or Kitty Shonkopf
or Frederica Brion or Charlotte Buff or Lily Shonemann or the Countess
Augusta or Charlotte van Stein or Bettina Brentano or Mariana von
Willemer—or his wife, Christina Vulpius?
However, whether it is a provision of Nature, or whether it is due to the perversity of Man, probably the feminine heart is far more constant than the masculine, and perhaps any one of Goethe's or of Burns his inamoratas would have clung to him had he been faithful to her. And yet,
Would you have had Shelley stick to Harriet Westbrooke? and how shall one interpret his feelings for Amelia Viviani? What would have happened if Keats had lived and married Fanny Brawne—she who flirted with somebody else while he was sick and did not even know that he was a poet? Yet she was an inspiration to Keats, as Mary Godwin (and Amelia Viviani) were to Shelley (1). Ought Byron to have said 'No' to Claire or Lady Caroline Lamb or the Countess Guiccioli or any one of the many maids and matrons that besieged his heart? Could anything have kept Rosina Wheeler and Bulwer Lytton side by side,—Rosina Wheeler to whom, before marriage, Lytton could find write, "Oh, my dear Rose! Where shall I find words to express my love for you?" and to whom, after marriage, he wrote, "Madam, The more I consider your conduct and your letter, the more unwarrantable they appear"?
God in heaven! what a pitiful game it all is! And alas! as George Sand says, "All this, you see, is a game that we are playing, but our heart and life are the stakes, and that has an aspect which is not always pleasing." (2)
(1) See the Dedication of "The Revolt of Islam" (and see the "Epipsychidion").
(2) Letter to Alfred de Musset.
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Many a man's heart has been treated as a football. Yes; but many a woman's heart has been treated as a shuttlecock.
* * *
Human beings there are—both men and women—out of whom, at a mere touch, virtue seems to go: converse with them is stimulating; contact enthralling. And yet,