Dolce far niente

“ And if once a girl’s heart is moved to pity, it’s more dangerous than anything. She is bound to want to ‘save him,’ to bring him to his senses, and lift him up and draw him to nobler aims, and restore him to new life and usefulness—well, we all know how far such dreams can go. ”

“ One hour's indulgence, one moment's confidence, might have brought her to your feet, to confess, not a crime, but a fact, 'which has been a covering to her eyes all the days of her life;' an accident which, in a fatal hour of weakness, she concealed; an accident which threw her into the power of those who, in hatred, or under the impulse of a guilty passion, sought to blight her peace, and ruin her virtue. That love which you doubt, in the place of a higher principle, saved her from guilt, and only left her a prey to the most protracted agony. ”

“ He loathes the nauseous sweet; he is weary to bear them. The shadows of happiness flee away, and sink into oblivion: So that he is stripped of all, and wanders to and fro, seeking rest, but finding none. ”

“ Passion grew upon her, passion of regret, of loss, of rage, of desire—“Oh, leave me, leave me! Oh, cruel, cruel! No man in the world could be so cruel—” and then she sprang up, and faced him, flushed and fierce as a woman whom love has made mad. ”

“ We can’t command our love, but we can our actions. ”

“ How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery! ”

“ As she dwelt—with the pleasure which under twenty is so often felt in the indulgence of a mournful self-pity—on her unmitigated woes, the idea, once before entertained, and never wholly forgotten, of finding a home for herself—of working for her bread—of escaping from the tyranny, the evil-speaking, the taunts and evil suspicions of her mother-in-law, flashed through her mind. ”

“ Do Thou tear away, even with the thoroughness that true love demands, all that is deep-rooted in us of vice and sin, iniquity and immorality, debasing lust and degrading desire! Do Thou, with unsparing chastisement, purge out all that lurks within our hearts, with hydra-headed persistence, of worldliness, selfishness, cupidity, prejudice, passion, anger, hatred, lust and licentiousness. ”

“ Noble girl! you are sacrificing yourself for a wretch and a beggar—one who has lost all, but a heart torn with love and agony;—he cannot offer you a destiny worthy of your virtue.” He then smote his forehead, in a fit of passion, reproaching himself as a thoughtless, wilful being, whose repentance had come too late. ”

“ And can it be a dream, that in the end man will find his joy only in deeds of light and mercy, and not in cruel pleasures as now, in gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boasting and envious rivalry of one with the other? ”

“ But now, for some instants, the poor girl had felt herself transported to a better world; aloft, as it were, in the midst of light and joy, she had looked down upon the abject desert of her life, had felt what a miserable creature is the woman, who, inspiring desire, does not also inspire reverence and love: she regretted and repented, but found herself outwardly or inwardly no better for regret. ”

“ I think that you are under the spell of some evil enchantment. It is not wholesome honest love. That is why I am patient, and why I feel certain that it will pass away."
"And then?"
"Oh then—then it may be my turn." ”

“ Haven’t you thought that he will drag you down—down, down, wear out your soul, break and sicken your life, destroy your beauty—You are beautiful, my dear, beyond what the world sees, even. Give it up—say, give it up, and don’t break our hearts! There are too many people loving you for you to sacrifice them—and yourself, too. ”

“ If any pleasure, any even which resulted from affection for others, had drawn her for an instant from what she believed to be the path—and it was always the thorniest path—of self-sacrifice, she would remorselessly denounce that pleasure, and even tear out that affection from her heart. ”

“ If she refused him, not only would she incur the risk of his ruin, but carry within her own soul the blight occasioned by the sealing up of her young heart's affections, which would render it callous to every other human love. ”

“ When I was well, I wished to live,
For clothes, for warmth, for food, and fire;
But they to me no joy can give,
No pleasure now, and no desire.
Then here contented will I lie;
Alone I cannot fear to die. ”

“ Suppose, now, the husband died (and I regret that I can not regard this contingency with disgust) and there were at least a sporting chance of my stepping into his shoes—oh! of course not at once, but later—later—why, then I could face permanent loyalty and temporary asceticism with a light heart.... But to go through the world refusing all sweets because my favorite sweet has been appropriated, surely that were foolish.
"Again, am I in love with her? Can one fall in love so suddenly, outside the realm of fiction? ”

“ By dint of suffering, you see, my gall has overflowed, and my heart is like my mouth—bitter, Oh, so bitter!"
"I know that you grumble in spite of yourself sometimes, godmother—Ah, it is so easy to be always cheerful and contented when one is happy; while you have found little happiness in your life." ”

“ This all embracing love demands a sacrifice, which is made with greater hesitation than one would expect—the sacrifice of the pleasure of being satisfied with one’s self—which anger adds to the contemplation of other people’s faults (and satire to the contemplation of other people’s follies) —by way of a sweetening ingredient, and whose place is taken by a pure and unalloyed regret at the frequency with which the disease shifts its seat, and at the chronicity of the bleeding of the wounds and scars of helpless man. ”

“ What! you can't understand that this unfortunate young girl is so heart-broken, after her lover's departure, that she is ready to eat anything and everything—even poison, poor thing! Her life is of so little value to her,—she is so wretched that she doesn't even know what she is doing, and so eats everything that happens to be within reach—and yet, her misery doesn't move you in the least. ”

“ So that thou mayest come to the fruition of your desires, shrink not from exciting pity, that all who behold you may exclaim, "Why, poor wretch, you are in love!" Shall I complain aloud or only whisper it, how virtue is on every side confounded with vice? ”

“ It is not thus with passions born of desire. The attraction which has roused them can, in contempt of all dignity, rearouse them suddenly, the nerves being exclusively concerned in their manifestation. ”

“ From the first until now—or at any rate until two months ago when that boy came and forced her to look at herself—the thing in her that had been outraged became something that took the place of love, that was as the other pole of love, something that yielded a satisfaction of its own, a satisfaction intense as the things of love are intense, but cold, ordered, certain. It was the power to hurt; the power to bring pain by simply doing nothing. ”

“ To all these, add those cruel moments when passion, less unruly, allows us leisure to inspect ourselves, and to feel the whole infamy of our situation; those moments in which the heart, born for more solid joys, wearies of its own idols, and finds ample punishment in its disgusts and in its own inconstancy. ”

“ And if, through your disillusion and disgust, and the pain of broken idols, you permit yourself to act foolishly and with want of dignity at a period when love seems of supreme importance, you will be laying up limitations for yourself. ”

“ Oh, if you like your satisfaction to taste hard and bitter! I don’t! I think it’s much better to hold ourselves free to take advantage of all the possibilities of happiness, little and big, that come our way. It’s really a duty that we owe ourselves. ”

“ I cannot stay in any place, and seek in vain for relief from the sense of her contempt and her ingratitude. I can settle to nothing: what is the use of all I have done? Is it not that very circumstance (my thinking beyond my strength, my feeling more than I need about so many things) that has withered me up, and made me a thing for Love to shrink from and wonder at? ”

“ You begin with shame and regret. But the sight of your lover’s agonies, his indignation, his anger, madden you and you get the lust of cruelty. You become insane. You make new wounds. You tear open old ones. ”

“ However, since you do not wish it, I will not go to-day."
"I do not wish you to go at all," she said. "But I see it is quite sufficient for me to say that I do not desire you to do a thing, for you to do it." ”

“ What malevolent power conceived the idea of crushing a woman's sensitive delicacy and all the thousand wiles of her modesty under the fetters of constraint? What sense of duty can force from her these flowers of the heart, the roses of life, the passionate poetry of her nature, apart from love? ”

“ You condemned yourself, you poor, dear child, to long days of boredom, bitterness, disgust that no pleasure henceforth will be able to assuage the long sadness of! It is however so sweet to love, so sweet to be loved, so sweet to live again through what one loves in the objects that one loves! ”

“ Why should she not dare; what was it to dare after all? Was she to lose her chance in life, and such a chance, simply because as a girl she had agreed to a foolish contract, which, as it seemed, it was impossible could ever be fulfilled? Was her youth to be sacrificed to a preposterous engagement, which, if it was ratified at all, could only be ratified in grim middle age, when all power of enjoying life would have fled, even if the hope of anything to enjoy were then vouchsafed her? ”

“ What, then, is easier than making of our passions an insupportable pain or sin, when, if we cut out, as is very just, the little sweetness through which they lead us, there is left of them only the cruel disquiet and bitterness with which they abound? ”

“ If I am doomed to be unhappy, I will confine my anguish in my own [Pg 140] bosom—tenderness, rather than passion, has made me sometimes overlook delicacy—the same tenderness will in future restrain me. ”

“ Very right, my love, and if you had asked yourself what it was right to do, you would have given it, perhaps, just as quickly, for you know your Bible tells you, 'Be pitiful'—'Feed the hungry.' Your feeling of pity, then, was a right feeling, and your readiness to give your cake was what we call a good impulse; but you know there are some very wrong feelings, such as anger, which sometimes makes little girls give hard words, and even hard blows, to their brothers and sisters, or playmates, who will not do as they wish. ”

“ There are many other things you dare no longer do; thoughts and enjoyments you can never reawaken. No woman, and you ought to know this, will be willing to elbow in your heart the phantom whom you hold there. ”

“ Love will never far remain.
But sharper and sharper the maiden to prove,
The Discerner of all things below and above,
Feigns pleasure, and horror, and maddening pain.
And her painted cheeks he kisses,
And his vows her heart enthrall;
Feeling love's sharp pangs and blisses,
Soon her tears begin to fall.
At his feet she now must sink,
Not with thoughts of lust or gain,—
And her slender members shrink,
And devoid of power remain.
And so the bright hours with gladness prepare
Their dark, pleasing veil of a texture so fair,
And over the couch softly, tranquilly reign. ”

“ The same impetuosity, the same riot of mood and energy and impulse, the same big hunger for the joy of living—I could see that you had all these things to fight against, to keep down. Even before your marriage I knew that a passably bad man was always a poor brake on the wheels of a passionate girl's life. ”

“ Yes, let us drop it, madame, for I, too, am tortured by many painful recollections from which I am ever striving to escape, for it is cowardly and degrading to permit one's mind to dwell continually upon persons one hates and despises. Ah, madame, I sincerely hope you may never know that mixture of regret, aversion, and love, which renders one's life for ever miserable. ”

“ Should I yield to my natural impulse and indulge in the nonsense and fun which has ever been so dear to my heart, I am convinced that she would at once lose all respect for me, if, indeed, she did not think me suddenly insane. ”

“ It is impossible, my dear, to have every circumstance happen as we wish it to do; but if a disappointment could at any time justify ill-nature and petulance, it would certainly be adding greatly to the unhappiness of life. And do you think, my dear, that to fight on every occasion with those who oppose you, is at all consistent with the delicacy of a young lady? ”

“ If you wish for my affection, you will not speak of such things again, but will endeavor to purify yourself from a mental vice, which may sometimes, in periods of suffering, give you a false comfort for a brief season, only to degrade you, and sink you later in a deeper misery. ”

“ With the volume of unspeakable misery before us, which the vagrant disposition of man occasions to that part of the female world with which he can sport at pleasure, would it be wise, or prudent, or just, to subject the whole to his unbridled passions?—to break down all the fences which morality and reason have established, to enable man to enjoy a few additional moments of rapture, purchased at the price of so much agony to woman? ”

“ You are in love, and I presume you can't get all your wishes gratified at once, on the spur of the moment; that's all it is. Lovers are like children; they scream and cry if anybody only just touches their doll. Have done, I pray you, with that lamentation, for I tell you I can't do with it. ”

“ How mean, how cruel, is it, by a thousand tender assiduities, to win the affections of an amiable girl, and, though you leave her virtue unspotted, to betray her into the appearance of so many tender partialities, that every man of delicacy would suppress his inclination towards her, by supposing her heart engaged! Can any man, for the trivial gratification of his leisure hours, affect the happiness of a whole life! His not having spoken of marriage may add to his perfidy, but can be no excuse for his conduct. ”