The Friendships of Women

by William Rounseville Alger

Nor could on earth a spot be found
To nature and to me so dear,
Could thy dear eyes,
In following mine,
Still sweeten more
These banks of Rhine,

expressions so transcendently fond and earnest in their beauty, that it is a thrilling luxury to linger on them, return to them, and repeat them over and over.

One of the finest and richest productions of his genius, both in thought and in passion, is the poem he wrote to her when he was living at Diodati, on the banks of Leman.

My sister, my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.
Mountains and seas divide us; but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine.
Go where I will, to me thou art the same,
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny,
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

I feel almost, at times, as I have felt
In happy childhood: trees and flowers and brooks,
Which do remember me of where I dwelt
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books;
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt
My heart with recognition of their looks;
And even, at moments, I could think I see
Some living thing to love, but none like thee.

Oh that thou wert but with me! but I grow
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so
Has lost its praise in this but one regret.

The last intelligible words of Byron were,
"Augusta, Ada, my sister, my child."

It would be hard to find a friendship more deeply rooted, more inclusive of the lives of the parties, proof against terrible trials, full of quiet fondness and substantial devotion, than that of Charles Lamb and his sister Mary. The earliest written expression of this attachment occurs in a sonnet "To my Sister," composed by Charles in a lucid interval, when he was confined in the asylum at Hoxton for the six weeks of his single attack of insanity.

Thou to me didst ever show
Kindest affection; and wouldst oft-times lend
An ear to the desponding love-sick lay,
Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay
But ill the mighty debt of love I owe,
Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend.

Mary was ten years older than Charles, and, as is shown well in Talfourd's "Final Memorials," loved him with an affection combining a mother's care, a sister's tenderness, and a friend's fervent sympathy. Nor did he, in return, fall short in any respect. He appreciated her devotion, pitied her sorrow, responded to her feelings, revered her worth, and ministered to her wants with a loving gentleness, a patient self-sacrifice, and an heroic fortitude, which, as we gaze on his image, make the halo of the saint and the crown of the martyr alternate with the wrinkles of his weaknesses and his mirth. In one of her periodical paroxysms of madness, Mary struck her mother dead with a knife. Charles was then twenty-two, full of hope and ambition, enthusiastically attached to Coleridge, and in love with a certain "fair-haired maid," named Anna, to whom he had written some verses. This fearful tragedy altered and sealed his fate. He felt it to be his duty to devote himself thenceforth to his unhappy sister. He abandoned every thought of marriage, gave up his dreams of fame, and turned to his holy charge, with a chastened but resolute soul. "She for whom he gave up all," De Vincy says, "in turn gave up all for him. And of the happiness, which for forty years or more he had, no hour seemed true that was not derived from her." He never thought his sacrifice of youth and love gave him any license for caprice towards her or exactions from her. He always wrote of her as his better self, his wiser self, a generous benefactress, of whom he was hardly worthy. "Of all the people I ever saw in the world, my poor sister is the most thoroughly devoid of the least tincture of selfishness." He was happy when she was well and with him. His great sorrow was to be obliged so often to part from her on the recurrences of her attacks. "To say all that I know of her would be more than I think anybody could believe or even understand. It would be sinning against her feelings to go about to praise her; for I can conceal nothing I do from her. All my wretched imperfections I cover to myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and death, heaven and hell, with me. She lives but for me." Their hearts and lives were blended for forty years. Mary was unconscious at the time of her brother's death, and the blow was mercifully deadened in her gradual recovery. In her sunset walks she would invariably lead her friends towards the churchyard where Charles was laid. Their common friend Moxon paints the touching scene: