“Il y a encore une autre espèce de larmes qui n'ont que de petites sources, qui coulent et se tarissent facilement: on pleure pour avoir la réputation d'être tendre; on pleure pour être plaint; on pleure pour être pleuré; enfin, on pleure pour éviter la honte de ne pleurer pas.”—De la Rochefoucauld.
Who treads upon the field of death? Who sighs upon the winds of the night, like the mourning ghost of the warrior, mingling its melancholy tones with the shrieks of the passing owl, that lonely flaps his pinions in the moonlight? Who walks amongst the slain? See, where the figure glides with heedless step, its white robe streaming like a mist of morning when the sun first glances on the mountain; now gazing on the pale moon, now turning to the paler faces of the dead. Who walks upon the bed of sleeping carnage? Who wakes the frighted night from her horrid trance, and thus tempts her terrors? Is it the restless spirit of a departed hero, or the ghost of the love-lorn maid? Is it light, or is it air? Ah no! it is not light, it is not air; it is not the ghost of the love-lorn maid; it is not the spirit of the departed hero. No, no, no, no!—'tis Mrs. Jenkins of the 48th!!!
And it was Mrs. Jenkins of the 48th. She, poor soul! was the victim of early impressions. She was cradled in romance, and nursed in air-built castles; she read of Ossian, and she became his adopted daughter; she read of Sir Walter, and she became his adopted niece; she was Lady Morgan's “sylph-like form,” and her voice was one of Tom Moore's “Irish Melodies;” she could delight the eyes of the rude with tambour-work and velvet-painting; she could ravish their ears with a tune on the piano; she could finish a landscape in Indian ink, and play the “Battle of Prague” without a stop. The admiration of her doating parents, the envy of her female acquaintances, angelic, charming Charlotte Clarke (now Mrs. Jenkins of the 48th) was all you could desire.
Charlotte was bred at Portarlington boarding-school; there did she form her mind—there did she learn that she had “a soul above buttons,” and that love and glory were the “be all and the end all” of existence. Trade! fie,—contaminate not the ethereal soul—dim not the halo that surrounds such excellence, by the approach of such coarse and vulgar matter! Charlotte despised it, even as her father loved it and gave to it all his days.
Dublin is a martial city; the view of the royal barracks is a royal sight. There did she love to go and gaze, and listen to the band, until the tears stole down her lovely cheeks. She would then walk home, and weep, and sleep, and dream of epaulettes both gold and silver, of scarlet coats, of feathers and long swords. Her days (until after tea-time) were passed in reading Newman's novels, and practising the “run” of Braham. “He was famed for deeds of arms; She a maid of envied charms.” “Young Henry was as brave a youth.” “Hark where martial music sounding far.” These were her songs; she practised them in the morning with her hair in papers, and she sung them after supper, (whenever she was at a “party”) with her interesting curls upon her forehead, shading her blushes and the soft light of her languid eyes. She loved the Rotunda-gardens in the summer evenings, and she gloried in the ball, when winter hung upon the night; for both in gardens of Rotunda, and in light of ball-room, the red coats ever in her hopes, cut a figure in her eye, and a deeper in her heart. She went to the Dargle and the Waterfall, to Pool Avoca,[7] and Killyny (when ever she was invited), and among the Summer Sunday beauties of the scene, full well she did enact her part. Her life was one bright dream, beaming with sun-bright smiles and brighter tears. Her heart was tender, and her will was strong. Need it be said, that such a maid fell deeply in love? Alas! she did. The gentle Charlotte loved;—ah! deeply loved—but who she could not tell! It was a form and yet it was not matter, (no matter, indeed, whether it was or not); it was a hero, all epaulettes and scarlet, white feathers, and still whiter pantaloons, set out with sword and belt and sash and gorget; a hero at all points, whose name, nevertheless, was not to be found in the army list: in short the being was a lovely paradox—a thing and yet a nothing, she saw it in her dreams, as well as in her wakeful hours; it never left her side waking or asleep; there was the form of her darling lover, like Moore's “Knight of Killarney,” O'Donohue and his white horse on a May-day morning,
“That youth who beneath the blue lake lies
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dancing and prancing on the winds; there he was in a splendid uniform, (some say with buff facings, some say green,) and she woo'd it, and she woo'd it, till her cheek grew pale, and her eye lost half its brightness. Every officer she met on the Mall was likened to her lover in her “mind's eye;” but they were not her lovers. Captains Thompson, Jones, and Pentilton; Lieutenants Jacobs, Raulins, and Flagherty; Ensigns Gibbs, Mullins, and Mortimer; all resembled the object of her love, but she refused to acknowledge their identity with it. At length young Jenkins, an Ensign of Militia, realized the aerial form she so long had loved. Yes, he did actually embody it; and at the holy altar, even in spite of crusty fathers
“Who make a jest of sweet affection,”