Famous Affinities of History | Page 6

dark- browed Queen of Egypt, imperious and
yet caressing, was everything. Never was such a prize and never were
such great hopes thrown carelessly away. After waiting seven days
Antony's troops, still undefeated, finding that their commander would
not return to them, surrendered to Octavian, who thus became the
master of an empire.
Later his legions assaulted Alexandria, and there Antony was twice
defeated. At last Cleopatra saw her great mistake. She had made her
lover give up the hope of being Rome's dictator, but in so doing she had
also lost the chance of ruling with him tranquilly in Egypt. She shut

herself behind the barred doors of the royal sepulcher; and, lest she
should be molested there, she sent forth word that she had died. Her
proud spirit could not brook the thought that she might be seized and
carried as a prisoner to Rome. She was too much a queen in soul to be
led in triumph up the Sacred Way to the Capitol with golden chains
clanking on her slender wrists.
Antony, believing the report that she was dead, fell upon his sword; but
in his dying moments he was carried into the presence of the woman
for whom he had given all. With her arms about him, his spirit passed
away; and soon after she, too, met death, whether by a poisoned
draught or by the storied asp no one can say.
Cleopatra had lived the mistress of a splendid kingdom. She had
successively captivated two of the greatest men whom Rome had ever
seen. She died, like a queen, to escape disgrace. Whatever modern
critics may have to say concerning small details, this story still remains
the strangest love story of which the world has any record.

ABELARD AND HELOISE
Many a woman, amid the transports of passionate and languishing love,
has cried out in a sort of ecstasy:
"I love you as no woman ever loved a man before!"
When she says this she believes it. Her whole soul is aflame with the
ardor of emotion. It really seems to her that no one ever could have
loved so much as she.
This cry--spontaneous, untaught, sincere--has become almost one of
those conventionalities of amorous expression which belong to the
vocabulary of self-abandonment. Every woman who utters it, when torn
by the almost terrible extravagance of a great love, believes that no one
before her has ever said it, and that in her own case it is absolutely true.
Yet, how many women are really faithful to the end? Very many,

indeed, if circumstances admit of easy faithfulness. A high- souled,
generous, ardent nature will endure an infinity of disillusionment, of
misfortune, of neglect, and even of ill treatment. Even so, the flame,
though it may sink low, can be revived again to burn as brightly as
before. But in order that this may be so it is necessary that the object of
such a wonderful devotion be alive, that he be present and visible; or, if
he be absent, that there should still exist some hope of renewing the
exquisite intimacy of the past.
A man who is sincerely loved may be compelled to take long journeys
which will separate him for an indefinite time from the woman who has
given her heart to him, and she will still be constant. He may be
imprisoned, perhaps for life, yet there is always the hope of his release
or of his escape; and some women will be faithful to him and will
watch for his return. But, given a situation which absolutely bars out
hope, which sunders two souls in such a way that they can never be
united in this world, and there we have a test so terribly severe that few
even of the most loyal and intensely clinging lovers can endure it.
Not that such a situation would lead a woman to turn to any other man
than the one to whom she had given her very life; but we might expect
that at least her strong desire would cool and weaken. She might
cherish his memory among the precious souvenirs of her love life; but
that she should still pour out the same rapturous, unstinted passion as
before seems almost too much to believe. The annals of emotion record
only one such instance; and so this instance has become known to all,
and has been cherished for nearly a thousand years. It involves the story
of a woman who did love, perhaps, as no one ever loved before or since;
for she was subjected to this cruel test, and she met the test not alone
completely, but triumphantly and almost fiercely.
The story is, of course, the story of Abelard and Heloise. It has many
times been falsely told. Portions of