CHAPTER LXXXI.
A QUESTION WHETHER LOVE SHOULD BE FAITHFUL TO THE DEAD. DOUBTS ADVANCED AND CASES STATED.
O even in spite of death, yet still my choice,
Oft with the inward all-beholding eye
I think I see thee, and I hear thy voice!
LORD STERLINE.
In the once popular romance of Astrea the question si Amour peut mourir par la mort de la chose aimée? is debated in reference to the faithful shepherd, Tyrcis, who having lost his mistress Cleon (Cleon serving for a name feminine in French, as Stella has done in English,) and continuing constant to her memory, is persecuted by the pertinacious advances of Laonice. The sage shepherd, Sylvandre, before whom the point is argued, and to whom it is referred for judgement, delivers, to the great disappointment of the lady, the following sentence. Qu'une Amour perissable n'est pas vray Amour; car il doit suivre le sujet qui luy à donné naissance. C'est pourquoy ceux qui ont aimé le corps seulement, doivent enclorre toutes les amours du corps dans le mesme tombeau ou il s'enserre: mais ceux qui outre cela ont aimé l'esprit, doivent avec leur Amour voler apres cet esprit aimé jusques au plus haut ciel, sans que les distances les puissent separer.
The character of a constant mourner is sometimes introduced in romances of the earlier and nobler class; but it is rare in those works of fiction, and indeed it is not common in what has happily been called the romance of real life. Let me however restrict this assertion within its proper bounds. What is meant to be here asserted (and it is pertinent to this part of our story,) is, that it is not common for any one who has been left a widow, or widower, early in life, to remain so always out of pure affection to the memory of the dead, unmingled with any other consideration or cause. Such constancy can be found only where there is the union of a strong imagination and a strong heart,—which perhaps is a rare union; and if to these a strong mind be united, the effect would probably be different.
It is only in a strong imagination that the deceased object of affection can retain so firm a hold, as never to be dispossessed from it by a living one; and when the imagination is thus possessed, unless the heart be strong, the heart itself, or the intellect is likely to give way. A deep sense of religion would avert the latter alternative; but I will not say that it is any preservative against the former.
A most affecting instance of this kind is related by Dr. Uwins in his Treatise on Disorders of the Brain. A lady on the point of marriage, whose intended husband usually travelled by the stage-coach to visit her, went one day to meet him, and found instead of him an old friend who came to announce to her the tidings of his sudden death. She uttered a scream, and piteously exclaimed—“he is dead!” But then all consciousness of the affliction that had befallen her ceased. “From that fatal moment,” says the Author, “has this unfortunate female daily for fifty years, in all seasons, traversed the distance of a few miles to the spot where she expected her future husband to alight from the coach; and every day she utters in a plaintive tone, ‘He is not come yet! I will return to morrow!’”
There is a more remarkable case in which love, after it had long been apparently extinct, produced a like effect upon being accidentally revived. It is recorded in a Glasgow newspaper. An old man residing in the neighbourhood of that city found a miniature of his wife, taken in her youth. She had been dead many years, and he was a person of strictly sedate and religious habits; but the sight of this picture overcame him. From the time of its discovery till his death, which took place some months afterwards, he neglected all his ordinary duties and employments, and became in a manner imbecile, spending whole days without uttering a word, or manifesting the slightest interest in passing occurrences. The only one with whom he would hold any communication was a little grandchild, who strikingly resembled the portrait; to her he was perfectly docile; and a day or two before his death, he gave her his purse, and strictly enjoined her to lay the picture beside him in his coffin,—a request which was accordingly fulfilled.
Mr. Newton, of Olney, says, that once in the West Indies, upon not receiving letters from his wife in England, he concluded that surely she was dead, and this apprehension affected him so much that he was nearly sinking under it. “I felt,” says he, “some severe symptoms of that mixture of pride and madness which is commonly called a broken heart: and indeed, I wonder that this case is not more common than it appears to be. How often do the potsherds of the earth presume to contend with their Maker! and what a wonder of mercy is it that they are not all broken!”
This is a stern opinion; and he who delivered it held stern tenets, though in his own disposition compassionate and tender. He was one who could project his feelings, and relieve himself in the effort. No husband ever loved his wife more passionately, nor with a more imaginative affection; the long and wasting disease by which she was consumed, affected him proportionably to this deep attachment; but immediately upon her death he roused himself, after the example of David, threw off his grief, and preached her funeral sermon. He ought to have known that this kind of strength and in this degree, is given to very few of us;—that a heart may break, even though it be thoroughly resigned to the will of God, and acquiesces in it, and has a lively faith in God's mercies;—yea that this very resignation, this entire acquiescence, this sure and certain hope, may even accelerate its breaking; and a soul thus chastened, thus purified, thus ripened for immortality, may unconsciously work out the deliverance which it ardently, but piously withal, desires.
What were the Doctor's thoughts upon this subject, and others connected with it, will appear in the proper place. It is touched upon here in relation to Leonard. His love for Margaret might be said to have begun with her life, and it lasted as long as his own. No thought of a second marriage even entered his mind; though in the case of another person, his calm views of human nature and of the course of life would have led him to advise it.
