SILENT LOVE.

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BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

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Oh! call it by some better name,

For Friendship is too cold;

And love is now a worldly flame,

Whose shrine must be of gold;

And passion, like the sun at noon,

That burns o’er all it sees,

Awhile as warm, will set as soon—

Oh! call it none of these.

Imagine something purer far,

More free from stain of clay,

Than Friendship, Love, or Passion are,

Yet human still as they.

Moore.

“Many are poets who have never penned their inspiration;” and still more truly might it be said, “Many are lovers who have never breathed their adoration.”

If there be much “unwritten poetry” in the world, there is also much unuttered love, much that should have been spoken to hearts where it would have found a response, much that would have contributed to honor and happiness, much that has existed in secrecy and silence, glimmering, like the lamp in an ancient sepulchre, only over the ashes of departed hopes.

Mr. Allison was one of those persons who are usually considered “lucky men,” though his luck lay in his industry, perseverance and economy, while the talisman which secured his success was most probably inscribed with the word, “Patience.” He had grown rich slowly, not from the sudden influx of speculative wealth, but by the gradual accumulations of toilsome years, and his progress from poverty to riches had been marked by no startling transitions. Upright in all his dealings, and justly conscious of his own native respectability, he sought no devious ways to fortune, and, when her favors were gained, he aimed at no ostentatious display of them. He lived in plain but handsome style, spared no expense in the education of his family, gratified them with every luxury that was consistent with his ideas of propriety, and, contrary to the practice of most American merchants, indulged himself with sufficient leisure even amid the cares of business, to enjoy the society of his wife, his children and his friends. Remembering his own early struggles, he was always ready to extend a helping hand to the young and unfriended, so that many a poor boy, who now enjoys the blessings of competence, has looked back with joy to the day which brought him within the notice of the benevolent merchant.

Among those whom Mr. Allison had most efficiently aided was a youth, named Ernest Melvyn, who, when scarcely fourteen years of age, had been so fortunate as to secure a situation in his warehouse. In little more than two years after he entered Mr. Allison’s employ the boy had the misfortune to lose his father, and thus the maintenance of a sick mother and an almost infant sister devolved upon him. Mr. Allison, with that promptness which always doubles the value of a generous act, immediately promoted Ernest to a more responsible station, and increased his salary, while he appropriated to the use of the widowed mother comfortable apartments in one of his own houses. But his kindness did not stop here. Finding that the family of his young clerk were highly respectable though now reduced to great indigence, and that the boy’s early education had been suited rather to his father’s former station than to his present fortunes, Mr. Allison determined to give him every advantage in the prosecution of his studies. He invited Ernest to his house, gave him the use of his library, directed him to the most instructive books, and, in short, left nothing undone which could contribute to his future welfare.

Deeply grateful to his benefactor for all his kindness, and fully sensible of the importance of such advantages, Ernest showed his thankfulness both by his close attention to his duties, and his ready acceptance of Mr. Allison’s offers. He became a regular resident in the family; a timid, quiet, unobtrusive haunter of that pleasant fireside, where he always found a kind welcome, cheerful companions and excellent books. Every body liked him, from the merchant, who was pleased with his fidelity to business, and Mrs. Allison, who found him very useful in the execution of those thousand little commissions of which husbands are so provokingly forgetful, down to the smiling servant maid who opened the door at the knock of the pale and pleasant-faced clerk. His quiet cheerfulness and unruffled good-temper made him a great favorite with Mr. Allison’s daughters, but his most especial friend in the family was the “youngling of the flock,” the petted and lovely little Mary. Though scarcely four years old when Ernest became so associated with them, Mary attached herself to him, with all the warmth of childish affection. Ernest loved her for her resemblance to his own little sister, who had been the idol of his boyhood, and who had early followed his father to the grave. He seemed to have transferred to Mary Allison the love which had once been lavished upon his lost darling, and fondly did the child respond to his tenderness. She was in truth one of the loveliest of creatures, with large, soft, blue eyes, a profusion of golden curls, and lips like the berries of the cornel-tree, while her frank and joyous temper, her sunny cheerfulness, and the overflowing affection which seemed ever gushing up from the depths of her innocent heart, added new charms to her infantine beauty. She was the idol of her parents, the delight of her elder sisters, the plaything of the servants, and, above all, the cherished pet of Ernest Melvyn. Hour after hour would he sit with Mary nestled upon his knee, while he displayed to her wondering gaze the beautiful engravings in her father’s costly volumes, or traced on her little slate many a rough but spirited sketch of castle and cottage, to be effaced and renewed with every childish whim. He carved fairy baskets of cherry-pits, fashioned clay models of Indian figures, and practiced, for the gratification of his favorite, those thousand little devices which can be accomplished by a skilful hand, good taste and patience. When infancy gave place to childhood, with its increasing cares, it was Ernest Melvyn who became the confidant of all little Mary’s anxieties and pleasures. It was he who wrought out the tedious sum, and explained the wonderfully abstruse rules of that hated grammar, and aided her in remembering those troublesome chronological tables, and, in short, removed every stumbling-block, while he lightened every burden of her school life.

In the mean time Mr. Allison’s elder daughters were growing up to womanhood, as beautiful as they were gentle and good. Their personal attractions, their gracefully feminine characters, and the known wealth of their father, all contributed to draw around them a crowd of admirers, whose motives were as various as their minds. Amid such persons Ernest never mingled. Retiring in his manners, and humble in his feelings, he never obtruded himself into the gay circle which gradually formed itself around the young ladies. His visits were as frequent as ever, but his evenings were usually passed in the library, aiding Mary in her lessons, giving her such primary instructions in drawing, as his fine but uncultivated taste would permit, or reading some useful book, which, if rather above the child’s comprehension, was yet listened to with pleasure because Ernest was the reader. Mr. Allison beheld with pleasure the innocent attachment which existed between them. He believed it to be an advantage to both, since it gave Mary a new impulse and aid to mental cultivation, while it preserved Ernest from many of the temptations which assail the youth of a large city; and even the prudence of age could see nothing to fear from the affection which had thus been awakened in the days of infancy. But the love which had thus sprung up between the child of four summers, and the boy of sixteen, had lost none of its tenderness when Mary could count her twelfth birthday. “How I love,” says the Ettrick Shepherd, “how I love a little girl of twelve;” and those who have made children a study will heartily agree with him. It is the sweetest of all ages, the loveliest of all periods in woman’s life: because it is perhaps the only season when the developing mind and expanding heart display their beautiful feminine traits without one shadow from the coming cloud of passion, when the flowers of affection give out their richest perfume, unmingled with the envenomed sweets with which future years will imbue them.

Ernest Melvyn had grown up tall and handsome, but with the pale cheek and thoughtful brow of the habitual thinker. His eyes were usually veiled beneath their full and drooping lids, but they were full of intelligence and sweetness, while his form was as graceful and his step as free as if he had never trod other soil than that of the green hills where his sunny hours of childhood had been passed. His application to business had given him a degree of gravity beyond his years, and his love of reading had made him a quiet observer of society rather than an actor in its busy scenes. His time was divided between his duties in the warehouse, his attention to his infirm mother, and his visits to Mr. Allison’s family; the first tended to create stability of character, the second to cultivate the domestic affections, and quicken his delicate sense of duty, while the last gave him the inestimable advantage of polished and virtuous female society. Could he have overcome his reserve, and learned to think less humbly of himself, Ernest Melvyn might have shone in the gayest circles, for, even in a place where wealth too often determines a man’s social position, the protégé of the rich Mr. Allison would have found little difficulty in winning his way. Had Ernest understood the “art of pushing,” an art, by the way, which deserves to be made the subject of a course of lectures, he could easily have become a general favorite in society, and might, in all probability, by some fortunate marriage, have compassed what the world pleasantly calls “Independence,” in other words, a lifelong subsistence upon the alimony of a wife. But Ernest was too modest, too single-minded to think of such things. The liberal stipend which he received from Mr. Allison more than sufficed for all his mother’s necessities, and his own wants were very few. A small sum was annually left in his benefactor’s hands, to form a fund for his mother’s future support in case of his death, and with this provision he was perfectly content. As his tastes developed, his gradually increasing means enabled him to gratify them without encroaching upon this consecrated hoard. Books, purchased chiefly at auction, and remarkable rather for their solid worth, than their exterior decorations, had accumulated around him, a few choice paintings which he had found among the rubbish of a deceased picture dealer, now adorned the walls of his neat apartment, a collection of minerals, made with no other expense than that of healthful fatigue, a small but very complete cabinet of shells, miniature casts from the antique, moulded by himself in moments of leisure, and a portfolio of exquisite pencil-drawings by his own hand, all attested the elegance of his tastes and the innocence of his pursuits.

To Mr. Allison’s daughters Ernest Melvyn appeared in the light of a valued relative, a sort of “Cousin Tom,” useful on all occasions and obtrusive on none, universally liked, and allowed to come and go with all the freedom of a family friend, less noticed when present than missed when absent. But to the little golden-haired Mary he was an object of far more importance, and even when the flush of womanhood began to brighten the cheek of the little maiden, and her innocent bosom thrilled with those “impulses of soul and sense,” which mark the first step beyond the limit of girlish gayety, Ernest was still the friend, the confidant of all her joys and sorrows. Exceedingly sensitive in character, with feelings keenly alive to every emotion, full of affection and gentleness, and quick to receive impressions, Mary Allison was a creature of impulse rather than judgment. The circle which had long surrounded her sisters now opened to admit her also. Two of Mr. Allison’s daughters were on the verge of matrimony, while two still remained free to win new lovers to their feet, when Mary made her entrance into society. Conscious that she possessed no small share of the beauty which had made her sisters so attractive, vague dreams of future triumphs and successes began to mingle with her gentler feelings. The spirit which often leads a beautiful woman into the mazes of coquetry, was striving in the heart of the fair girl, and but for the quiet counsels of Ernest, who was now her mentor in the perilous days of womanhood, even as he had been her playfellow in the sunny hours of childhood, she might have become a vain and frivolous votary of fashion. But there was something in the calm reproach of Ernest’s thoughtful eye, which restrained the wayward follies of the flattered belle, and Mary felt, long ere she acknowledged even to herself the truth, that, whatever might be the charms of adulation, the approval of one noble heart was worth them all. When lovers came around her, Ernest gently withdrew from all apparent competition, content to watch from afar, lest danger or deception should touch the object of his hallowed interest. Keeping always aloof from the throng of admirers who now found their way habitually to a house where such varied attractions were ever to be met, Ernest seemed abstracted and indifferent. The incense offered by the professed danglers, the attentions of beaux, the heavy bon-mots of would-be witlings, fell on his ear unheeded; but when one of lofty mind and noble character, a man worthy of respect and affection, when such an one offered his homage at the shrine of youthful beauty, Ernest was all eye, all ear, aye, and all heart.

Was Ernest in love with Mary Allison? Who can tell? surely he was too unpresuming, too calm, too free from jealousy to be in love. Yet what meant his eager watchfulness over her every look and word, his keen perception of her every impulse, his deep devotion to her every wish? It was most strange, and yet might not a warm fraternal affection for one who had taken the place of his dead sister in his heart, account for all his feelings? Such was Ernest’s belief, and if he deceived himself, his was the punishment as well as the error.

One after another, the beautiful daughters of Mr. Allison were wedded, until only Mary, the lovely Mary, whose very changefulness of temper formed one of her brightest charms, alone was left. From her sixteenth year Mary had received the homage of flattery and affection. Some had wooed her for her fortune, some for her gayety, some for her warm-heartedness, but all had alike been unsuccessful. When questioned as to her motives for this indiscriminate coldness, she would only laugh, and toss back her golden locks with a look of mischievous mirth that seemed the index of a light and unfettered heart. Utterly free from the coquetry which can deliberately win hearts but to wound them, she yet loved admiration, and could seldom resist the temptation of making herself agreeable. Indeed she could scarcely avoid making conquests, for her usual sweetness of manner was sufficient of itself to attract all who came within its influence. As Miss Edgeworth has beautifully expressed it, “even from the benevolence of her own disposition she derived the means of giving pain, as the bee is said to draw the venom of its sting from its own honey.” Too sensitive for frivolous coquetry, Mary was in far more danger from those sentimental flirtations which are so fascinating to the romantic and the imaginative, and often so fatal to the peace of those who indulge in them. Few women—I mean warm-hearted, high-souled women—have escaped the influence of these “opium dreams of too much youth and reading,” as they are contemptuously called by the worldly and the cold. Few but have, at the early dawn of womanhood, cherished a pure and passionless affection, which the world may have sneered at as “Platonic,” and the prudent may have censured as indiscreet, but which was a source of infinite happiness while it endured, and which, perhaps, by the very anguish of its dissolution, afforded the best of all discipline for the future trials of the heart. Yet, like all other exquisite pleasures in this changing world, such joy is only to be bought at the price of future pain. Rarely does such an attachment terminate without suffering—rarely does that passionless dream fade into the splendors of a brighter reality—rarely does the heart awake from its trance of sublimated feeling to find loftier and sweeter impulses in actual life and perfect love.

From such perils, to which her romantic temper would probably have exposed her, Mary Allison was preserved by the watchfulness of Ernest. Indeed their mutual regard seemed to possess much of the character of such an affection as has just been described, but without its dangers. He was her friend, her counsellor, the guide of her wayward feelings; but there was none of that high-wrought sensibility, that fervent language which would be impassioned were it not so pure, that ardor of feeling which gives to such a friendship the semblance of love—but of love wingless, and with bow unbent. Ernest never ventured to be other than the friend, the honored, trusted and humble friend. Not that he was a servile, mean-spirited contemner of himself because of his property—for he was in truth as high-souled, lofty-minded, and proud-hearted a being as ever wrestled with fortune—but gratitude had quickened his perception of duty, and, in the echoes of his own heart, he learned the nature of his own humility.

Mary had attained her twenty-second year when she received another offer of marriage from a gentleman whose character and standing in society made him a most eligible match. He was refused, but so kindly and gently, that he resolved not to be repulsed. He persevered in a course of delicate attentions which even Mary’s fastidiousness could not reject, and he demanded the consideration due to friendship till he could make good his claims to a warmer interest. He was certainly not distasteful to Mary, and had she been called to choose one from among her professed lovers, Charles Walton would probably have been the object of her choice. But she was conscious that she was capable of a much stronger emotion than he had inspired, and a very slight examination into her heart showed her one sealed recess which she dared not venture to unlock. Within that holy of holies, which every mortal shrouds within his bosom, she knew that an image was enshrined on which maiden pride forbade her to look, and the fair girl turned away dismayed from her self-imposed task. But her lover was patient and persevering, and, after months of assiduous wooing, he sought her father’s aid. Mr. Allison had never interfered to control the inclinations of his children. If the suitor was only a man of integrity and honor, mere pecuniary disparity was never allowed to influence his opinions, but, in this case, he certainly was disposed to wish that Mary might decide in Mr. Walton’s favor. He wished to retire from business, and Walton was very competent to supply his place in a concern which might still be conducted for the benefit of the family, if Mary would become the wife of the new partner. Actuated by these motives he promised his influence to the ardent lover; but the more he reflected upon his task the more reluctant he felt to perform it. He could not bear to influence the affections of his favorite child, and yet he earnestly wished her to think as he did. Like most men in a similar predicament, he adopted a middle course, and quieted his scruples by committing the trust to another.

One evening, just at twilight, Mary was in a small apartment communicating with the drawing-room, when her father approached in close conversation with Ernest Melvyn. They took a seat in the parlor, and, as the door was ajar, Mary could not avoid hearing her own name several times repeated. She was about entering the room when she heard her father say, “I wish, Ernest, you would use your influence with Mary. I am sure she prefers Mr. Walton, and it is only a woman’s whim which prevents her acceptance of him.”

“Are you sure she is attached to Walton?” asked Ernest, in a low and hurried tone.

“Oh, I cannot be mistaken about it; she likes him better than any lover she has ever had, for she confessed as much to me yesterday. It is full time she came to some decision, and I wish she would accept him. He is exactly the kind of person whom I should have selected for her, and I am sure he will make her happy. She is greatly influenced by your opinions, Ernest, and I really wish you would advise her to marry Walton.”

Mary listened breathlessly for Ernest’s answer. After a long pause she heard him say, “Certainly, sir, if you wish it, I will do so.” Mary staid for no more. Hurrying to her room, she flung herself on the floor in an agony of excited feeling. The secret of her heart was now revealed to her, and the anguish which overwhelmed her proved how fondly she had cherished the delusion. She now knew what before she more than suspected; she no longer doubted that her heart and happiness had long been in the keeping of the modest and gentle Ernest. But with this knowledge came the startling fact that Ernest loved her not.

“He could coldly promise his influence to give me to another—me, whom he has cherished from childhood—me, who have loved him from my very infancy! Yes, his is but a brother’s love, and never shall my nature be disgraced by the disclosure of an unrequited passion. It shall be plucked away even if entwined with the very fibres of my heart.” Such were the reflections of the unhappy girl, as the violence of her emotions subsided. Could she have seen the bitter struggle in the breast of Ernest—could she have divined the hidden agony of his spirit when he controlled his voice to utter those cold words—could she have known the sudden wretchedness of that moment which first revealed to him the depth and breadth of his own absorbing passion, she would have decided differently. One word then would have secured the happiness of both; but the word was unspoken, and the destiny of both was sealed.

That very night Charles Walton renewed his suit to Mary and was accepted—the next morning Mr. Allison informed Ernest that his influence was no longer necessary in the matter. The next week preparations for the marriage were commenced.

For several days Ernest absented himself from Mr. Allison’s house, but just as every body was beginning to wonder what could ail him, he came, and took his accustomed seat, as quiet and perhaps rather more silent than was his wont. He looked pale and care-worn, but his mother’s renewed paroxysm of illness was sufficient to account for his appearance, and though his lip quivered and his hand trembled as he offered his congratulations to Mary, yet no one could have dreamed that beneath his calm seeming he concealed an immolated heart. Mary’s pride rose to her aid when she beheld Ernest’s undisturbed demeanor. She almost despised herself for the weakness which made her shudder as with an ague, when he offered his wishes for her future happiness; and, resolutely closing her bosom against all such emotions, she determined to perform the duties she had undertaken with a firm and unyielding spirit.

The increasing illness of the invalid, Mrs. Melvyn, soon confined Ernest so closely to his home, during his leisure hours, that he thus escaped the torture of witnessing the arrangements for Mary’s marriage. It was perhaps fortunate for both, since the tie between them was now to be severed, that it should be done thus gradually, and from a sense of duty to others, rather than from selfish feelings. At times Mary half suspected that Ernest loved her, but the stern, self-sacrificing devotion of him who believed that she had chosen wisely and well, destroyed the fancy ere it became a hope. “She has fulfilled the wishes of her father—she has found love and happiness,” said Ernest to himself, “and not one shadow from the cloud which impends over my fate shall ever darken her path.” And with a courage far more exalted than that which binds the martyr to the faggot and the stake, did this noble-hearted being crush his own heart within him, lest he should mar the hopes of her whom he loved better than life.

Ernest did not see Mary wedded. On the very night of her bridal his mother died, and, in the awful stillness of the death-chamber, the voice of passion was hushed into silence. It was not until his only companion was laid in her humble grave, and the quiet of exhaustion had gradually stolen over the tortured feelings of the bereaved and heart-sick Ernest, that he ventured to approach the dwelling of Mr. Allison. Amid their festivities the family had not been regardless of his sorrow, and many an act of unobtrusive kindness had shown him that he was affectionately remembered among them. But he had learned some sad and solemn truths as he watched beside his dying mother. The nothingness of human cares, the vanity of human hopes, the fruitlessness of human affections had been deeply impressed upon his heart. His mother’s last lesson, imparted in the peacefulness of her dying hour, came with thrilling power to his bosom, and in the loneliness of his deep grief he learned life’s hardest lesson—“to suffer and be still.”

One more trial yet awaited him. Not long after his mother’s death, Mr. Allison took him aside and offered him a partnership in his lucrative business.

“I am old,” said the merchant, “and want to be released from toil; Charles Walton is to be the principal in our firm, and we wish to secure your future services, as well as to reward a fidelity which has never once failed in twenty years of duty. Indeed, Mary insisted that her husband should accept no proposition which did not include you. I require no capital from you; the profits arising from your yearly deposit in my hands have swelled your little fund to some ten thousand dollars, which I am ready to pay over to you before commencing our new arrangement.”

“You are kind—very kind, my dear sir,” was Ernest’s reply, while tears filled his eyes, and his emotions choked his utterance; “believe me, I am not ungrateful, and while life and health remain I shall ever be devoted to your service. But I cannot accept your noble offer—let me still be your clerk—your servant, if you will—I am no longer fitted for the responsibilities of a partner.”

“My dear fellow, you are as healthy, active, and industrious as ever you were; you are in the very prime of life, and must not talk of want of fitness.”

“The spring of life is gone,” said Ernest, mournfully, “I have no motive now for exertion.”

“You are dispirited, Ernest—the loss of your mother has saddened and depressed you. Think over my proposition in a calm and dispassionate manner, and I am convinced you will not refuse it.”

Ernest did think long and deeply on the subject, but his decision was unalterable.

“It comes too late; my life is now an aimless one, and riches might only tend to make it a useless one also; there are none to share my fortunes, and why should a solitary and isolated man heap up riches when he knows not who shall gather them? it comes too late!”

Alas! how often has that thought paralized the energies and stricken the heart of the patient sufferer. Even he, who in the flush of manhood can proudly exclaim, “I bide my time,” as if in defiance of fortune’s frowns, is often heard, when all was gained, to sigh mournfully in after life over the chilling reflection, “it comes too late!"—too late for the fulfilment of hope—too late for the attainment of happiness.

Ernest Melvyn never rose above the station of confidential clerk, but the respect and esteem of his employers testified his integrity and usefulness. Mr. Walton learned to regard him with as much friendship as Mr. Allison, and it was not long before he was as welcome a guest in Mary’s new home as he had ever been in the scenes of her joyous childhood. Whatever might have been her feelings towards Ernest, his perfect self-possession and calm demeanor, by convincing her that he had never loved her, aided her in the subjugation of her own rebellious heart. Her husband was kind, affectionate, and good. She had always respected his talents and esteemed his virtues, and now, as time wove the new and strong ties of parental affection between them, the quiet happiness of domestic life gradually effaced the brightest tints of her youth’s romance. It may be that a shadow rested long on her path—it may be that the spectre of blighted love sometimes stood beside the shrine of her household gods—but Time, the true exorciser of all such ghosts, wrought his work of kindness, slowly but surely, and Mary became a cheerful, useful and happy woman.

Ernest experienced the usual changes which come upon a solitary man. He lived alone among his books, and pictures, and shells, until they became actually objects of tender interest to him. Regularly, every afternoon, he visited Mr. Allison, and read the newspapers for his benefactor, whose failing sight rendered the perusal of his favorite journals a task of some difficulty. This done, Ernest returned to his home and passed the remainder of the evening in study—aimless it is true, but still pleasing; or in a dreamy and vague reverie so enticing to a reserved and imaginative man. But on one certain evening in each week, he always took his seat at Mrs. Walton’s tea-table, and as regularly ensconced himself in the chimney-corner as soon as tea was over. To the isolated man this weekly visit, and those claspings of the hand with which he was always greeted, were as dear as the “memorable kiss” with which the “apostle of passion” fed his wild idolatry; aye, full as precious and far more pure was the joy thus imparted than any refinement of infidel philosophy and illicit love. Mary’s children climbed his knee, even as Mary had done in her own glad infancy, and loved him with all the fervent affection which had once characterized her feelings. Like all old bachelors, he became somewhat of a humorist, and, at last, was voted by the dandies of the rising generation, to be decidedly eccentric. But his kindliness of heart, his firm integrity, and his purity and delicacy of feeling never forsook him.

To the day of his death he never disclosed the secret of his early love. When the frosts of three-score winters had whitened his locks, the solitary old man withdrew to his lonely room, and there, amid those inanimate objects which had been his solace through so many weary years, he yielded up his gentle spirit to the God who gave it. He was found one morning lying in the quiet sleep of death—his arms crossed upon his breast, his bible on the table at his bedside, and his features settled in such sweet repose that none looked upon them without feeling that Death had indeed dealt mercifully with the righteous.

His will was found in his cabinet, and Mary Walton was made the sole heiress of his little fortune; although no reason was assigned for this exclusive preference. Perhaps the little casket which was discovered in a secret recess of the same cabinet disclosed somewhat of the truth to her conscious heart. It contained a lock of golden hair, marked: “given me by Mary on her twelfth birthday,” together with a withered bouquet, which, from the silken band around it, Mary remembered to have given him the night preceding her betrothal, and a penciled sketch in which she had no difficulty to recognize her own girlish beauty.

Reader, does my tale seem tame and trite? it is the history of a blighted heart; and if the secrets of that strange world of mystery were more frequently revealed, many such a tale of simple pathos would enlist the sympathies of the glad and gay. The picture of that self-forgetting being, subduing his love, at first, from the very humility of true affection, and, afterwards, crushing it within his heart lest its living presence should mar the happiness of his beloved, is to me one of ineffable tenderness. That he was mistaken in his views of her happiness does not destroy the beauty of his self-devotion; and what shall we say of the moral courage which could relinquish all claims to posthumous sympathy, by bearing his secret to the grave, lest a shadow from the past should fall upon her present peacefulness?