It is only in a strong imagination that the deceased object of affection can retain so firm a hold, as never to be dispossessed from it by a living one; and when the imagination is thus possessed, unless the heart be strong, the heart itself, or the intellect is likely to give way. A deep sense of religion would avert the latter alternative; but I will not say that it is any preservative against the former.
A most affecting instance of this kind is related by Dr. Uwins in his Treatise on Disorders of the Brain. A lady on the point of marriage, whose intended husband usually travelled by the stage-coach to visit her, went one day to meet him, and found instead of him an old friend who came to announce to her the tidings of his sudden death. She uttered a scream, and piteously exclaimed—“he is dead!” But then all consciousness of the affliction that had befallen her ceased. “From that fatal moment,” says the Author, “has this unfortunate female daily for fifty years, in all seasons, traversed the distance of a few miles to the spot where she expected her future husband to alight from the coach; and every day she utters in a plaintive tone, ‘He is not come yet! I will return to morrow!’”
There is a more remarkable case in which love, after it had long been apparently extinct, produced a like effect upon being accidentally revived. It is recorded in a Glasgow newspaper. An old man residing in the neighbourhood of that city found a miniature of his wife, taken in her youth. She had been dead many years, and he was a person of strictly sedate and religious habits; but the sight of this picture overcame him. From the time of its discovery till his death, which took place some months afterwards, he neglected all his ordinary duties and employments, and became in a manner imbecile, spending whole days without uttering a word, or manifesting the slightest interest in passing occurrences. The only one with whom he would hold any communication was a little grandchild, who strikingly resembled the portrait; to her he was perfectly docile; and a day or two before his death, he gave her his purse, and strictly enjoined her to lay the picture beside him in his coffin,—a request which was accordingly fulfilled.
Mr. Newton, of Olney, says, that once in the West Indies, upon not receiving letters from his wife in England, he concluded that surely she was dead, and this apprehension affected him so much that he was nearly sinking under it. “I felt,” says he, “some severe symptoms of that mixture of pride and madness which is commonly called a broken heart: and indeed, I wonder that this case is not more common than it appears to be. How often do the potsherds of the earth presume to contend with their Maker! and what a wonder of mercy is it that they are not all broken!”
This is a stern opinion; and he who delivered it held stern tenets, though in his own disposition compassionate and tender. He was one who could project his feelings, and relieve himself in the effort. No husband ever loved his wife more passionately, nor with a more imaginative affection; the long and wasting disease by which she was consumed, affected him proportionably to this deep attachment; but immediately upon her death he roused himself, after the example of David, threw off his grief, and preached her funeral sermon. He ought to have known that this kind of strength and in this degree, is given to very few of us;—that a heart may break, even though it be thoroughly resigned to the will of God, and acquiesces in it, and has a lively faith in God's mercies;—yea that this very resignation, this entire acquiescence, this sure and certain hope, may even accelerate its breaking; and a soul thus chastened, thus purified, thus ripened for immortality, may unconsciously work out the deliverance which it ardently, but piously withal, desires.
What were the Doctor's thoughts upon this subject, and others connected with it, will appear in the proper place. It is touched upon here in relation to Leonard. His love for Margaret might be said to have begun with her life, and it lasted as long as his own. No thought of a second marriage even entered his mind; though in the case of another person, his calm views of human nature and of the course of life would have led him to advise it.
CHAPTER LXXXII.
THE DOCTOR IS INTRODUCED, BY THE SMALL POX, TO HIS FUTURE WIFE.