Passion Week

“ Girls are naturally vain; beautiful girls very vain; but it has rarely entered into the heart of woman to conceive of vanity so intense as that which tarnished the heart of Laura Chesney. It had been the one passion of her life—the great passion which overpowered other implanted seeds whether for good or for evil, rendering them partially dormant. ”

“ But Eleanor Vane, being very young and inexperienced, had no power of analysing the character of her lover. She only knew that he was handsome, accomplished, and clever; that he loved her, and that it was very agreeable to be loved by him.
I do not believe that she returned the young man’s affection. She was like a child upon the threshold of a new world: bewildered and dazzled by the glorious aspect of the unknown region before her; beguiled and delighted by its beauty and novelty. All the darker aspects of the great passion were unknown to her, and undreamed of by her. ”

“ Harry did not stay. Colonel Hampden never wore the scarf; but his standard went to the fight on Chalgrove Field.
Henrietta had not known nor conceived what it would be to send men forth to fight against their King. If she had imagined what passion it was that she had been smothering within her for so many months, and how the dread of battle and the horror of blood would work upon her, she would rather have hidden herself and the children in any chalk-pit of the hills than have been at Hampden House that day.
Her husband had but a moment. ”

“ I am not the same as those others who have been about your path. I have been forced through life to crush my wishes. Oh! it is a glorious joy to declare one’s love when one possesses the worldly means of happiness; but I was sobered very early to the necessities of life; I knew the utter folly of indulging in a hopeless passion; yet I felt as deeply, Lilian—deeper, deeper! ”

“ Thus Electra Fitz-Arden reasoned superior to the De Staëls, the Christinas and the Olympias, and thus she actually thought, but I knew her better than she knew herself. Her affections were as rich and overflowing as her mental energies; and her craving for human sympathy was in direct proportion to that intense love of beauty which, in her, amounted to an intellectual passion. ”

“ With the virgin wreath, the bride! To the love-feast clearly ringing, Tolls the church-bell far and wide! With that sweetest holiday, Must the May of life depart; With the cestus loosed—away Flies illusion from the heart! Yet love lingers lonely, When passion is mute, And the blossoms may only Give way to the fruit. The husband must enter The hostile life, With struggle and strife To plant or to watch. ”

“ Let your heart say, “Now his despair is speaking.”
Love comes, nor goes, at beck or call of reason,
Nor is love silent—though it says no word;
By day or night, in any clime or season,
A dominating passion must be heard.
So shall you hear, through Junes and through Decembers,
The voice of Nature saying, “He remembers.”
THE SUMMER GIRL
She’s the jauntiest of creatures, she’s the daintiest of misses,
With her pretty patent leathers or her alligator ties,
With her eyes inviting glances and her lips inviting kisses,
As she wanders by the ocean or strolls under country skies. ”

“ In the country, therefore, in spring meadows, among summer groves, and beneath autumnal skies, most certainly does the passion of love sink deepest into the human heart, and pass into the greatest extremes of happiness or pain. Here is where it may be seen, cheek to cheek, now in all the shivering ecstacies of intense rapture, or again moping carelessly along, with pale brow and flashing eye, sometimes writhing in the agony of undying attachment, or chanting its mad lay of hope and love in a spirit of fearful happiness more affecting than either misery or despair. ”

“ And there is all art, and all natural beauty from the beginning—everything that lasts and is life. Why, even to think on such subjects warms my whole being with a glow of enthusiasm which is in itself a more exquisite pleasure than passion, and not alloyed like the latter with uncertainty, that terrible ache. I might take my walk in the garden with my own particular Faust like any other girl, and as I take my glass of champagne at dinner, for its pleasurably stimulating quality, but I hope I should do both in moderation. ”

“ Like all strictly reared girls, a certain prudishness at first caused Dawn to shrink from her love as something that should be resisted, but as her wedding-day drew near her heart grew more at peace regarding her contemplated change of life, and unfolded to the enchanting influence of youth's master passion. ”

“ Lo! one morning, something almost imperceptible steals on the beauty of this passion, like the first wrinkle on the front of an adored woman. The breath and perfume of love expire in these pages of youth, as an evening breeze dies upon the flowers. We feel it, but are unwilling to confess it. Our letters become shorter and fewer, are filled with news, with descriptions, with foreign matters; and, if any thing happens to delay them, we are less disturbed. On the subject of loving and being loved, we have grown reasonable. ”

“ But as love rose about her like a tide her thoughts turned more and more to the Supreme, the Self-Existent,—and this love also consumed her for He wounded her heart with the august secrets of His beauty, and perceiving in vision wafts of His sweetness she sank into a deep melancholy, desiring that to which no earthly passion may attain. ”

“ All the days and years that had preceded it had been but so many roots and tendrils which had stored the strong essences of life, that at last they might display themselves in this miraculous bloom! It is the flower that blooms but once, this exquisite flower of young, adoring love. Maturer years may bring the strength of calm affection, the heat of turbulent passion, but, in the incredible romance of sex, once only comes the wonder-hour, when the whole world is dipped in splendour, winged with song, glittering with the fresh dew of young desire. ”

“ Bridging a gulf toward mem'ries green,
With one regret—"it might have been."
Oh, why, when life is in its June
Of fruity fragrance, perfect tune,
Does passion's stormy pride destroy
Youths' heritage of love and joy? ”

“ Tho' now, perhaps, those childish airs you prize,
Lovers and husbands see with diff'rent eyes.
A rising passion will new charms create;
A falling seeks new causes for its hate.
Wisely the bee, while teeming summer blooms,
Thinks of the dearth which with cold winter glooms,
So thou should'st, in thy love's serener time,
When passion reigns, and Flora's in her prime,
Think of that winter which must sure ensue,
When she shall have no charms, no fondness you. ”

“ How many crosses and trials is she exposed to from some lynx-eyed dame, or staid old vestal of a mistress, who keeps a dragon watch over her virtue, and scouts the lover from the door! But then, how sweet are the little love scenes, snatched at distant intervals of holiday, and fondly dwelt on through many a long day of household labour and confinement! If in the country, it is the dance at the fair or wake, the interview in the church-yard after service, or the evening stroll in the green lane. ”

“ Often returning from the garden, through the sweet-scented meadows in the long, light evenings, those calm evenings of the English summer which seem to carry madness to the blood of youth, after a long and happy afternoon spent with him, it seemed to her as if her head was light with joy, as if her brain or heart must burst with the excited happiness of loving and being loved by such a man as this. ”

“ A sound of merriment comes faintly from Fane's study; clearly men have a better notion of passing time than ladies. Reading novels on Sunday is forbidden, but it is no sin to act them. Spicy, full-flavoured, exciting lover-stories run through more quickly and easily on this day than any other, and more love nonsense is talked on a Sunday than in all the remaining six days of the week. ”

“ Being convinced, by experience, that the days of courtship are the most happy of our lives, I was willing enough to lengthen the period; and the various amusements which the young couple every day shared in each other's company seemed to increase their passion. We were generally awakened in the morning by music, and on fine days rode a-hunting. The hours between breakfast and dinner the ladies devoted to dress and study: they usually read a page, and then gazed at themselves in the glass, which even philosophers might own often presented the page of greatest beauty. ”

“ No thought interrupts the sprightly march of her sensations; life throbs in her body; and the rose is dancing over her heart to the beat of her gaieties.
On this rosy morning the flowers are vivid on their bunches. They wake and stir together, one might say; they, too, have the spirit of youth. And this rose on the bosom of my mistress, afire with its pride of place, grows garrulous and jocund, and lives at the heat and pace of fever. See now, as she nears me, how it calls in its exhilaration to the roses in her face! In and out they blow and fade, trepidant and precipitate ”

“ And many a blow deserving of praise was given and endured. But I will not stay me further to give a long account of this, for it pleases me better to rehearse that for the sake of which I began this story, and that which I thought and did and said in this love affair, about the which at that time I made great dole.
For three whole days—this is no fable—the pleasing festival dured, at the which all were made welcome and at their ease. Then the revel ended, but my lady departed not for the space of a whole month. ”

“ This wonderful time that makes happy and normal at once—that gives color and joy and sensuous pleasure and at the same time frees one from the too great intensity of an unsatisfied desire! The wonderful, ornate honeymoon when the full beauty of your mistress is revealed to you, but when this beauty has the cooling and pleasing and caressing quality of Nature and no longer corrodes and harasses and waylays and deeply troubles! ”

“ What day-dreams of hope and happiness--of life being one perpetual holiday, with no master and no mistress to grant or withhold it--of every Sunday being a Sunday out--of pure freedom as to curls and ringlets, and no obligation to hide fine heads of hair in caps-- what pictures of happiness, vast and immense to her, but utterly ridiculous to us, bewilder the brain of the little housemaid at number six, all called into existence by the wedding at the corner! ”

“ Such enthusiasm over Mercedes' beauty in her pink satin costume! Such an enjoyable little lunch at one o'clock! Such a bewildering number of pleasant events crowded into a few hours. If ever there was in any earthly home a sense of heavenly love and joy, it was in the Newton house that day. Angels might—and probably did—rest in the flower-scented atmosphere of its spotless rooms, for if angels rejoice with the sinner forgiven and accepted, surely still more will they rejoice in the fruition of tried and accepted love, and in the unselfish affection of those who rejoice, because others rejoice. ”

“ But, in the second prelude, all the sobs of too strong a joy, all the pantings of exasperated desire, all the starts of furious expectation, alternated, mingled, were confounded. The impatience of the feminine soul communicated its thrills to the immensity of the night, to all the things that, in the pure summer night, breathed and watched. The ravished soul threw its appeals to everything, that they might remain vigilant beneath the stars, that they might be present at the festival of its love, at the nuptial banquet of its joy. ”

“ For youth to be bold;
So the brave and the fair
May venture to dare,
Like the birds of the air,
Their feelings unfold.
This day of the year,
To the young very dear,
Suggests to the heart
A sweet happiness near;
And a hope bright and gay,
May tempt them to say,
On St. Valentine’s Day,
Words tender and queer.
Shy lovers, begin,
Faint hearts never win,
Nor is it a sin
[66] To love wisely and well;
And the coy and the fair
May be yearning to hear,
At least once a year,
What a lover might tell.
So, gents, your attention ”

“ Then she returned the scroll to its place and when her mistress awoke, she said to her, "O my lady, indeed I am to thee a true counsellor and am tenderly anxious on thy account. Know that love is a tyrant and the hiding it melteth iron and entaileth sickness and unease; nor for whoso confesseth it is there aught of reproach." Rejoined Rose-in-Hood, "And what is the medicine of passion, O nurse mine?" Answered the nurse, "The medicine of passion is enjoyment" Quoth she, "And how may one come by enjoyment?" ”

“ Then is the season when the voice is ever soft, the eye ever bright, and every movement of the frame airy and picturesque; each accent is full of tenderness; each glance, of affection; each gesture, of grace. We live in a heaven of our own creation. All happens that can contribute to our perfect satisfaction, and can ensure our complete self-complacency. We give and we receive felicity. We adore and we are adored. Love is the May-day of the heart. ”

“ Greatly did this delight me, as you who hear tell of it can well believe. On another day we went to the chase, and on another we descended down to the river to fish. In suchwise did we pass the whole month, following many gladsome pursuits.
But know that in the midst of this my happiness, love bound my heart in its toils more firmly than ever, and laid so violent hold on it, that a great desire to be loved was so kindled within me, that, ere the festival was ended, never did any other miserable being endure such stress of mind. ”