To a man, the disappointment of love may occasion some bitter pangs: it
wounds some feelings of tenderness--it blasts some prospects of
felicity; but he is an active being; he may dissipate his thoughts in
the whirl of varied occupation, or may plunge into the tide of pleasure;
or, if the scene of disappointment be too full of painful associations,
he can shift his abode at will, and taking, as it were, the wings of the
morning, can "fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at rest."
But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded and a meditative life.
She is more the companion of her own thoughts and feelings; and if they
are turned to ministers of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation?
Her lot is to be wooed and won; and if unhappy in her love, her heart is
her world--is like some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and
abandoned, and left desolate.
Shall I confess it?--I believe in broken hearts, and the possibility of
dying of disappointed love! I do not, however, consider it a malady
often fatal to my own sex; but I firmly believe that it withers down
many a lovely woman into an early grave. So is it the nature of woman to
hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection.
--_Washington Irving._
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To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
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