May melt in tears, or break, to quit a flower.”
Indifference.
It is easier to still the wave of passion than to break the dead Sea of indifference, which, like the Lake Asphaltes, destroys the energies of all that approach it, until, like the birds who are said to drop lifeless on its dull surface, the heart sinks to rise no more.
Unrequited Love.
Nothing is more touching than unrequited love, and unreturned friendship. I can go through all the sorrow and the sadness it must excite—the heart thrown back, the hand rejected. There is then but one shelter, one repose; it turns in upon itself, and stings that self to death!—to death? yes, the heart to death—cinder powder! and the poor frame walks about, a wonder and a speculation to its neighbour.
The Cross.
The holy ensign of the Cross was often used in dress in order to command a homage the wearer would not otherwise have received. In 1363, the father of the Doge of Venice preferred always going bareheaded to pulling off his cap to his son, until the Doge thought of placing a golden cross in front of his cap. The father then re-assumed his cap, and when he met his son pulled it off, saying, “It is not him I salute, but the cross;” and from that time the cross became an ornament of the ducal cap.