textfiles/etext/AUTHORS/IRVING/irving-broken-571.txt

                                    1819-20

                                THE SKETCH BOOK

                                THE BROKEN HEART

                              by Washington Irving

                                     I never heard

       Of any true affection, but 'twas nipt

       With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats

       The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the rose.

                                                           MIDDLETON.

  IT IS a common practice with those who have outlived the
susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in the gay
heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love stories, and to
treat the tales of romantic passion as mere fictions of novelists
and poets. My observations on human nature have induced me to think
otherwise. They have convinced me, that however the surface of the
character may be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, or
cultivated into mere smiles by the arts of society, still there are
dormant fires lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which,
when once enkindled, become impetuous, and are sometimes desolating in
their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the blind deity, and go
to the full extent of his doctrines. Shall I confess it?- I believe in
broken hearts, and the possibility of dying of disappointed love. I do
not, however, consider it a malady often fatal to my own sex; but I
firmly believe that it withers down many a lovely woman into an
early grave.

  Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him
forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but the
embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of
the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, for space in the world's
thought, and dominion over his fellow-men. But a woman's whole life is
a history of the affections. The heart is her world: it is there her
ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for
hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she
embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and if
shipwrecked, her case is hopeless- for it is a bankruptcy of the
heart.

  To a man the disappointment of love may occasion some bitter
pangs: it wounds some feelings of tenderness- it blasts some prospects
of felicity; but he is an active being- he may dissipate his
thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation, or may plunge into the
tide of pleasure; or, if the scene of disappointment be too full of
painful associations, he can shift his abode at will, and taking as it
were the wings of the morning, can "fly to the uttermost parts of
the earth, and be at rest."

  But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded, and meditative
life. She is more the companion of her own thoughts and feelings;
and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow, where shall she look
for consolation? Her lot is to be wooed and won; and if unhappy in her
love, her heart is like some fortress that has been captured, and
sacked, and abandoned, and left desolate.

  How many bright eyes grow dim- how many soft cheeks grow pale- how
many lovely forms fade away into the tomb, and none can tell the cause
that blighted their loveliness! As the dove will clasp its wings to
its side, and cover and conceal the arrow that is preying on its
vitals, so is it the nature of woman to hide from the world the
pangs of wounded affection. The love of a delicate female is always
shy and silent. Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to
herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her
bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace.
With her the desire of the heart has failed. The great charm of
existence is at an end. She neglects all the cheerful exercises
which gladden the spirits, quicken the pulses, and send the tide of
life in healthful currents through the veins. Her rest is broken-
the sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams-
"dry sorrow drinks her blood," until her enfeebled frame sinks under
the slightest external injury. Look for her, after a little while, and
you find friendship weeping over her untimely grave, and wondering
that one, who but lately glowed with all the radiance of health and
beauty, should so speedily be brought down to "darkness and the worm."
You will be told of some wintry chill, some casual indisposition, that
laid her low;- but no one knows of the mental malady which
previously sapped her strength, and made her so easy a prey to the
spoiler.

  She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove;
graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm preying
at its heart. We find it suddenly withering, when it should be most
fresh and luxuriant. We see it drooping its branches to the earth, and
shedding leaf by leaf, until, wasted and perished away, it falls
even in the stillness of the forest; and as we muse over the beautiful
ruin, we strive in vain to recollect the blast or thunderbolt that
could have smitten it with decay.

  I have seen many instances of women running to waste and self-
neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if
they had been exhaled to heaven; and have repeatedly fancied that I
could trace their death through the various declensions of
consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached
the first symptom of disappointed love. But an instance of the kind
was lately told to me; the circumstances are well known in the country
where they happened, and I shall but give them in the manner in
which they were related.
patriot; it was too touching to be soon forgotten. During the troubles
in Ireland, he was tried, condemned, and executed, on a charge of
treason. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. He was so
young- so intelligent- so generous- so brave- so every thing that we
are apt to like in a young man. His conduct under trial, too, was so
lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he repelled the
charge of treason against his country- the eloquent vindication of his
name- and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour of
condemnation- all these entered  deeply into every generous bosom, and
even his enemies lamented the stern policy that dictated his
execution.

  But there was one heart, whose anguish it would be impossible to
describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had won the
affections of a beautiful and interesting girl, the daughter of a late
celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him with the disinterested
fervor of a woman's first and early love. When every worldly maxim
arrayed itself against him; when blasted in fortune, and disgrace
and danger darkened around his name, she loved him the more ardently
for his very sufferings. If, then, his fate could awaken the
sympathy even of his foes, what must have been the agony of her, whose
whole soul was occupied by his image! Let those tell who have had
the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being
they most loved on earth- who have sat at its threshold, as one shut
out in a cold and lonely world, whence all that was most lovely and
loving had departed.

  But then the horrors of such a grave! so frightful, so dishonored!
there was nothing for memory to dwell on that could soothe the pang of
separation- none of those tender though melancholy circumstances,
which endear the parting scene- nothing to melt sorrow into those
blessed tears, sent like the dews of heaven, to revive the heart in
the parting hour of anguish.

  To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred
her father's displeasure by her unfortunate attachment, and was an
exile from the paternal roof. But could the sympathy and kind
offices of friends have reached a spirit so shocked and driven in by
horror, she would have experienced no want of consolation, for the
Irish are a people of quick and generous sensibilities. The most
delicate and cherishing attentions were paid her by families of wealth
and distinction. She was led into society, and they tried by all kinds
of occupation and amusement to dissipate her grief, and wean her
from the tragical story of her loves. But it was all in vain. There
are some strokes of calamity which scathe and scorch the soul- which
penetrate to the vital seat of happiness- and blast it, never again to
put forth bud or blossom. She never objected to frequent the haunts of
pleasure, but was as much alone there as in the depths of solitude;
walking about in a sad reverie, apparently unconscious of the world
around her. She carried with her an inward woe that mocked at all
the blandishments of friendship, and "heeded not the song of the
charmer, charm he never so wisely."

  The person who told me her story had seen her at a masquerade. There
can be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness more striking and
painful than to meet it in such a scene. To find it wandering like a
spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around is gay- to see it
dressed out in the trappings of mirth, and looking so wan and
wobegone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into a
momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the
splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter abstraction, she
sat herself down on the steps of an orchestra, and, looking about
for some time with a vacant air, that showed her insensibility to
the garish scene, she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly
heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite voice;
but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching, it breathed
forth such a soul of wretchedness, that she drew a crowd mute and
silent around her, and melted every one into tears.

  The story of one so true and tender could not but excite great
interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the
heart of a brave officer, who paid his addresses to her, and thought
that one so true to the dead could not but prove affectionate to the
living. She declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably
engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted in
his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was
assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own
destitute and dependent situation, for she was existing on the
kindness of friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining
her hand, though with the solemn assurance, that her heart was
unalterably another's.

  He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene
might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She was an amiable and
exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a happy one; but nothing
could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into
her very soul. She wasted away in a slow, but hopeless decline, and at
length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broken heart.

  It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, composed the
following lines:

       She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,

           And lovers around her are sighing:

       But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,

           For her heart in his grave is lying.

       She sings the wild songs of her dear native plains,

           Every note which he loved awaking-

       Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,

           How the heart of the minstrel is breaking!

       He had lived for his love- for his country he died,

           They were all that to life had entwined him-

       Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried,

           Nor long will his love stay behind him!

       Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,

           Where they promise a glorious morrow;

       They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the west,

           From her own loved island of sorrow!

                        THE END
.