dare I tell?
’Tis Alice!—curse us, Geraldine!—farewell!
We suppose, however, that “curse us” is a misprint; for why should Geraldine curse both herself and her lover?—it should have been “curse it!” no doubt. The whole passage, perhaps, would have read better thus—
oh, my eye!
’Tis Alice!—d—n it, Geraldine!—good bye!
The remainder of the narrative may be briefly summed up. Waldron returns to his professional engagements with the pirates, while Geraldine, attended by her father, goes to sea for the benefit of her health. The consequence is inevitable. The vessels of the separated lovers meet and engage in the most diabolical of conflicts. Both are blown all to pieces. In a boat from one vessel, Waldron escapes—in a boat from the other, the lady Geraldine. Now, as a second natural consequence, the parties meet again—Destiny is every thing in such cases. Well, the parties meet again. The lady Geraldine has “that miniature” about her neck, and the circumstance proves too much for the excited state of mind of Mr. Waldron. He just seizes her ladyship, therefore, by the small of the waist and incontinently leaps with her into the sea.
However intolerably absurd this skeleton of the story may appear, a thorough perusal will convince the reader that the entire fabric is even more so. It is impossible to convey, in any such digest as we have given, a full idea of the niaiseries with which the narrative abounds. An utter want of keeping is especially manifest throughout. In the most solemnly serious passages we have, for example, incidents of the world of 1839, jumbled up with the distorted mythology of the Greeks. Our conclusion of the drama, as we just gave it, was perhaps ludicrous enough; but how much more preposterous does it appear in the grave language of the poet himself!
And round her neck the miniature was hung
Of him who gazed with Hell’s unmingled wo;
He saw her, kissed her cheek, and wildly flung