Woman, feelingly conscious of her own comparative infirmity of mind and disposition, vague, imperfect in idea and purpose, either for good or evil, naturally inclines towards those of the opposite sex, who carry out to their fullest extent the distinguishing attributes of their nature—masculine stability, and strength of purpose and of action; nay, even to the abuse of this same principle—she is sometimes led more easily to yield her heart to the influence of the firm and well-defined character, under whose most common aspect may be detected a current of fixed purpose, strong, earnest, and undeviating in its course—even though that course may tend to evil—that character be strong in all, that unblinded reason must condemn—than to men of Mr. de Burgh's calibre, whose very weaknesses may "lean to virtue's side." Thus many a Medora becomes linked to a Conrad—many a Minna to a Cleveland.
With all this, and in spite of that intuitive sympathy which inclines one woman to side with another, in similar cases of right and wrong, Mary was far from suffering any such consideration to tend to the deterioration of her cousin Louis in her eyes. Nay, as far as concerned the state of feeling to which Mr. de Burgh might have arrived regarding his wife, the more she saw of him, the more was she led to image to herself the bitter disappointment—the great provocation which must have gradually converted into the apparently indifferent and inconsiderate husband, that naturally most affectionate and amiable of beings.
"Till fast declining one by one,
The sweetnesses of love were gone,
And eyes forgot the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's sunny day,
And voices lost the tones that shed
A tenderness round all they said,
And hearts so lately mingled seemed
Like broken clouds, or like the stream
That smiling left the mountain's brow
As though the waters ne'er could sever,
Yet ere it reach the plain below
Breaks into floods that part for ever."
Nor could Mary, though Mrs. de Burgh's extreme kindness to herself made her easily incline to indulgence and partiality, at all times bring herself to approve or enter into her feelings or course of conduct, or be led quite to do, and think as it pleased her beautiful cousin.
One instance of the kind it may be necessary that we should record, both as in it our heroine was more personally concerned, and as forming a more regular link in the chain of our story.
CHAPTER X.
Lo! where the paling cheek, the unconscious sigh,
The slower footstep, and the heavier eye,
Betray the burthen of sweet thoughts and mute,
The slight tree bows beneath the golden fruit.
THE NEW TIMON.