"The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can
know it?"
--Holy Writ
It does not take much to make two hearts beat faster than one.
* * *
The heart can deceive itself when it cannot deceive another.--Which
will be cold comfort to some lovers, though it may console others.
* * *
To admit a sacred visitant into the inner recesses of the human heart,
those recesses must be neat indeed. Remember, too, that you can
Never expect an angel to act as a charwoman; the sweeping must be done by
the owner. Lastly,
Unless each heart is permitted access to the other, their union is
fictitious, perhaps perilous.--Explain these tropes who can.
* * *
No man can tell to whom a woman's heart belongs; not even the man who
calls the woman "his". And
Let no man imagine that when he has won him a woman, he has won him a
woman's heart. Since,
Sometimes a woman will give her heart to one man and her troth to
another. Besides,
Many a heart is hard to read--especially if it is a palimpsest. Indeed,
many are illegible to their owners. Nevertheless,
That the woman should not know her own heart (as so often happens)
terrifies the woman as much as it exasperates the man. Yet,
That must be a curious love that causes the heart to hesitate. And yet,
Many a man has debated for months whether to propose or not; and
sometimes a woman will accept on a Friday the man that she refused
point-blank of a Tuesday. But perhaps,
Where the heart hesitates, it is not so much a case of love as a case of
convenience. For,
An overwhelming love leaves the heart of either doubt or debate. But
alas,
The human heart seems to be an anatomical engine of such intricate and
delicate mechanism that its workings are uncontrollable even by its
owner.
Is a constant heart as hard a thing to manufacture in the world of life
as is an immobile thing in the world of matter? And matter, so they say,
is immobile only at absolute zero--when bereft of even molecular motion:
a thing impossible to produce, and which to produce would require
incalculable pressure and almost incalculable cold.
(Is there no chemical formula for fixing the impression of the heart?)
Who really held Burns his heart in thrall, Nelly Fitzpatrick or Mary
Campbell or Ellison Begbie or Margaret Chalmers or Charlotte Hamilton or
Jenny Cruikshank or Anne Park or Jean Armour or Mrs. Whelpdale or Mrs.
Agnes McLehose? and who the heart of Goethe,--Gretchen or Kitty Shonkopf
or Frederica Brion or Charlotte Buff or Lily Shonemann or the Countess
Augusta or Charlotte van Stein or Bettina Brentano or Mariana von
Willemer--or his wife, Christina Vulpius?
However, whether it is a provision of Nature, or whether it is due to the
perversity of Man, probably the feminine heart is far more constant than
the masculine, and perhaps any one of Goethe's or of Burns his inamoratas
would have clung to him had he been faithful to her. And yet,
Would you have had Shelley stick to Harriet Westbrooke? and how shall one
interpret his feelings for Amelia Viviani? What would have happened if
Keats had lived and married Fanny Brawne--she who flirted with somebody
else while he was sick and did not even know that he was a poet? Yet she
was an inspiration to Keats, as Mary Godwin (and Amelia Viviani) were to
Shelley (1). Ought Byron to have said 'No' to Claire or Lady Caroline
Lamb or the Countess Guiccioli or any one of the many maids and matrons
that besieged his heart? Could anything have kept Rosina Wheeler and
Bulwer Lytton side by side,--Rosina Wheeler to whom, before marriage,
Lytton could find write, "Oh, my dear Rose! Where shall I find words to
express my love for you?" and to whom, after marriage, he wrote, "Madam,
The more I consider your conduct and your letter, the more unwarrantable
they appear"?
God in heaven! what a pitiful game it all is! And alas! as George Sand
says, "All this, you see, is a game that we are playing, but our heart
and life are the stakes, and that has an aspect which is not always
pleasing." (2)
(1) See the Dedication of "The Revolt of Islam" (and see the
"Epipsychidion").
(2) Letter to Alfred de Musset.
* * *
Many a man's heart has been treated as a football. Yes; but many a
woman's heart has been treated as a shuttlecock.
* * *
Human beings there are--both men and women--out of whom, at a mere
touch, virtue seems to go: converse with them is stimulating; contact
enthralling. And yet,
Powerful as physical or as mental attraction may be, permanently to
retain the attracted object requires a profounder force. Perhaps,
though,
Beauty and grace and brilliancy may attract; it is only something far
more deep-seated that retains. In other words,
Charm of body and mind may appeal to body and mind; only the heart
appeals to the heart. Those who know not this, and they are
Many, permit the heart to leak through the senses; with the result that,
when demands are made upon the heart, that cistern is found to have run
dry. So,
To philanderers and to flirts, when a great and true love comes, they do
not comprehend it, and they cannot appreciate it. Wherefore,
Would-be lover, keep thy heart intact until it be required of thee.
* * *
You need not imagine that, because you have once been permitted to see
some way down into a human heart, that you will necessarily ever again be
so permitted.
* * *
Hard words break no bones. But they often break hearts.
* * *
Drink is too often the refuge of the masculine, and a rich husband the
refuge of the feminine, broken heart.
* * *
Extreme youth thinks the world is a toyshop--where anything may be had
for the asking; old age regards it as a museum--where nothing may be
touched.
* * *