"O, yes"—said Gordon—"as fine pieces of statuary as one could wish to look upon! Montague, indeed, has fire enough—the more fortunate for him, for a deal it must have taken to thaw the ice of your cousin!"
"They are both a little singular," said Alice, "yet they love each other tenderly. How happy they will be! How sweet life must be, when congenial hearts are thus united forever!"
"Yes,—perhaps so—but after all, sweet Alice, it is better to do, as you and I do—love each other, and still be free!—I would not link my fate with that of any woman in the world. I am quite sure, that I should hate even you, sweetest,—angel as you are, could you call me husband. O, there is something killing to all romance, in the very sound of that word!—Do you not agree with me, dearest?"
Alice could not utter a syllable—but cast on him a heart-rending look of mingled disappointment, mortification and astonishment!—"False!—ungrateful! cruel!"—at length she murmured—and hastened to her chamber, at once to indulge and conceal the bitterness of her feelings.
"Alice is mourning herself to death, for that worthless, heartless Gordon," said Margarette to Montague, some time after their marriage.
"She is doing what she has ever done," said Montague—"thinking only of herself, and cherishing feelings that are totally destructive of all that is valuable in character."
"She has keen sensibility," said Margarette.
"But it is all expended on herself," said Montague. "Her sensibility results in good to no one, for she has no sympathy. Her character used to interest me, until I saw it contrasted with one so much more valuable—so much more exalted!—It was you, my dearest wife, who first taught me the strong distinction betwixt sympathy and sensibility,—and how utterly useless the latter is, when unaccompanied by the former. With Alice, it is not love for Gordon, but self-love that is the cause of her thus pining. Let some other romantic looking knight appear, and sue for her hand, and her affections would be at once transformed. Should no such one appear, she will by degrees degenerate into a peevish, useless, discontented, burdensome old maid. And the best advice I could give to any young lady of great sensibility, and who would be either useful or happy, is—That she should strive to forget her own sorrows, whether real or imaginary, and expend her sympathies on the afflictions and distresses of her fellow-creatures. By so doing, the benevolence of her heart would be constantly expanding, until she would on earth approximate to the character of an angel,—and when the summons came, would drop the garment of mortality, and shine a seraph in eternal day."
S. H.