Heart | Page 3

often-times unwritten tragedies are hidden in that thoughtless little
phrase! O, the mass of blighted hopes, of slighted affections, of cold

neglect, and foolish contumely, wrapped up in those three syllables!
Kind heart, kind heart, never use them; neither lightly as in scorn, nor
sadly as in pity: spare that ungenerous reproach. What! canst thou think
that from a feminine breast the lover, the wife, the mother, can be
utterly sponged away without long years of bitterness? Can Nature's
wounds be cicatrized, or her soft feelings seared, without a thousand
secret pangs? Hath it been no trial to see youthful bloom departing, and
middle age creep on, without some intimate one to share the solitude of
life? Ay, and the coming prospect too--hath it greater consolations than
the retrospect? How faintly common friends can fill that hollow of the
heart! How feebly can their kindness, at the warmest, imitate the
sympathies and love of married life! And in the days of sickness, or the
hour of death--to be lonely, childless, husbandless, to be lightly cared
for, little missed--who can wonder that all those bruised and broken
yearnings should ferment within the solitary mind, and some, times
sour up the milk of human kindness? Be more considerate, more just,
more loving to that injured heart of woman; it hath loved deeply in its
day; but imperative duty or untoward circumstances nipped those early
blossoms, and often generosity towards others, or the constancy of
youthful blighted love, has made it thus alone. There was an age in this
world's history, and may be yet again (if Heart is ever to be monarch of
this social sphere), when those who lived and died as Jephthah's
daughter, were reckoned worthily with saints and martyrs; Heed thou,
thus, of many such, for they have offered up their hundred warm
yearnings, a hecatomb of human love, to God, the betrothed of their
affections; and they move up and down among this inconsiderate world,
doing good, Sisters of Charity, full of pure benevolence, and beneficent
beyond the widow's mite. Heed kinder then, and blush for very shame,
O man and woman! looking on this noble band of ill-requited virgins;
remember all their trials, and imitate their deeds; for among the legion
of that unreguarded sisterhood whom you coldly call old maids, are
often seen the world's chief almoners of warm unselfish sympathy,
generous in mind, if not in means, and blooming with the immortal
youth of charity and kindliness.
CHAPTER II.

HOW THE DAUGHTER HAS A HEART; AND, WHAT IS
COMMONER, A LOVER.
Yes, Maria Dillaway, though Sir Thomas's own daughter, had a heart, a
warm and good one: it was her only beauty, but assuredly at once the
best adornment and cosmetic in the world. The mixture of two such
conflicting characters as her father and mother might (with common
Providence to bless the pair) unitedly produce heart; although their
plebeian countenances could hardly be expected without a direct
miracle to generate beauty. Maria inherited from her father at once his
impetuosity and his little button-nose: although the latter was neither
purple nor pimply, and the former was more generous and better
directed: from her mother she derived what looked to any one at first
sight very like red hair, along with great natural sweetness of
disposition: albeit her locks had less of fire, and her sweetness more of
it: sympathy was added to gentleness, zeal to patience, and universal
tenderness to a general peace with all the world; for that extreme
quietude, almost apathy, alluded to before, having been superseded by
paternal impetuosity, the result of all was Heart. She doated on her
mother; and (how she contrived this, it is not quite so easy to
comprehend) she found a great deal loveable even in her father. But in
fact she loved every body. Charity was the natural atmosphere of her
kind and feeling soul--always excusing, assisting, comforting, blessing;
charity lent music to her tongue, and added beauty to her eyes--charity
gave grace to an otherwise ordinary figure, and lit her freckled cheek
with the spirit of loveliness. Let us be just--nay, more: let us be partial,
to the good looks of poor dear Maria. Notwithstanding the snub nose (it
is not snub; who says it is snub?--it is mignon, personified good
nature)--notwithstanding the carroty hair (I declare, it was nothing but a
fine pale auburn after all)--notwithstanding the peppered face (oh, how
sweetly rayed with smiles!) and the common figure (gentle,
unobtrusive, full of delicate attentions)--yes, notwithstanding all these
unheroinals, no one who had a heart himself could look upon Maria
without pleasure and approval. She was the very incarnation of
cheerfulness, kindness, and love: you forgot the greenish colour of
those eyes which looked so tenderly at you, and so often-times were
dimmed with tears