“There is a state of mind in which we listen thus to a human voice as if it were an oracle,—and instead of asking an explanation of the destiny it announces, we wait submissively for what yet remains to be told. In this mood, Elinor slowly advanced from the casement, and asked in a voice of fearful calmness, “Has he explained himself perfectly to you?”—“Perfectly.”—“And there is nothing to expect?”—“Nothing.”—“And you have heard this from himself—his very self?”—“I have; and, dear Elinor, let us never again speak on the subject.”—“Never!” answered Elinor,—“Never!”
“The veracity and dignity of Margaret’s character, were inviolable securities for the truth of what she uttered; and perhaps that was the very reason why Elinor tried to shrink most from the conviction. In a morbid state of heart, we cannot bear truth—the falsehood that intoxicates us for a moment, is worth more than the truth that would disenchant us for life.—I hate him because he tells me the truth, is the language natural to the human mind, from the slave of power to the slave of passion. * * * * * * * *
“Other symptoms that could not escape the notice of the most shallow, struck her every hour. That devotion of the eye and heart,—of the language and the look, that cannot be mistaken,—were all obviously directed to Margaret. Still Elinor lingered in the Castle, and said to herself, while every day she saw and felt what was passing, “Perhaps.” That is the last word that quits the lips of those who love. * * * * * *
“She saw with all her eyes,—she felt to the bottom of her soul,—the obviously increasing attachment of John Sandal and Margaret; yet still she dreamed of interposing obstacles,—of an explanation. When passion is deprived of its proper aliment, there is no telling the food on which it will prey,—the impossibilities to which, like a famished garrison, it will look for its wretched sustenance.
“Elinor had ceased to demand the heart of the being she was devoted to. She now lived on his looks. She said to herself, Let him smile, though not on me, and I am happy still—wherever the sun-light falls, the earth must be blessed. Then she sunk to lower claims. She said, Let me but be in his presence, and that is enough—let his smiles and his soul be devoted to another, one wandering ray may reach me, and that will be enough!
“Love is a very noble and exalting sentiment in its first germ and principle. We never loved without arraying the object in all the glories of moral as well as physical perfection, and deriving a kind of dignity to ourselves from our capacity of admiring a creature so excellent and dignified; but this lavish and magnificent prodigality of the imagination often leaves the heart a bankrupt. Love in its iron age of disappointment, becomes very degraded—it submits to be satisfied with merely exterior indulgences—a look, a touch of the hand, though occurring by accident—a kind word, though uttered almost unconsciously, suffices for its humble existence. In its first state, it is like man before the fall, inhaling the odours of paradise, and enjoying the communion of the Deity; in the latter, it is like the same being toiling amid the briar and the thistle, barely to maintain a squalid existence without enjoyment, utility, or loveliness. * * * * * *
“About this time, her Puritan aunt made a strong effort to recover Elinor out of the snare of the enemy. She wrote a long letter (a great exertion for a woman far advanced in years, and never in the habits of epistolary composition) adjuring her apostate niece to return to the guide of her youth, and the covenant of her God,—to take shelter in the everlasting arms while they were still held out to her,—and to flee to the city of refuge while its gates were yet open to receive her. She urged on her the truth, power, and blessedness of the system of Calvin, which she termed the gospel.—She supported and defended it with all the metaphysical skill, and all the scriptural knowledge she possessed,—and the latter was not scanty.—And she affectingly reminded her, that the hand that traced these lines, would be unable ever to repeat the admonition, and would probably be mouldering into dust while she was employed in their perusal.
“Elinor wept while she read, but that was all. She wept from physical emotion, not from mental conviction; nor is there such an induration of heart caused by any other power, as by that of the passion which seems to soften it most. She answered the letter, however, and the effort scarce cost her less than it did her decrepid and dying relative. She acknowledged her dereliction of all religious feeling, and bewailed it—the more, she added with painful sincerity, because I feel my grief is not sincere. “Oh, my God!” she continued, “you who have clothed my heart with such burning energies—you who have given to it a power of loving so intense, so devoted, so concentrated—you have not given it in vain;—no, in some happier world, or perhaps even in this, when this “tyranny is overpast,” you will fill my heart with an image worthier than him whom I once believed your image on earth. The stars, though their light appears so dim and distant to us, were not lit by the Almighty hand in vain. Their glorious light burns for remote and happier worlds; and the beam of religion that glows so feebly to eyes almost blind with earthly tears, may be rekindled when a broken heart has been my passport to a place of rest. * * * * * * * *
“Do not think me, dear aunt, deserted by all hope of religion, even though I have lost the sense of it. Was it not said by unerring lips to a sinner, that her transgressions were forgiven because she loved much? And does not this capacity of love prove that it will one day be more worthily filled, and more happily employed. * * * * * *
“Miserable wretch that I am! At this moment, a voice from the bottom of my heart asks me “Whom hast thou loved so much? Was it man or God, that thou darest to compare thyself with her who knelt and wept—not before a mortal idol, but at the feet of an incarnate divinity?” * * * * * *