SHEWING HOW THE YOUNG STUDENT FELL IN LOVE—AND HOW HE MADE THE BEST
USE OF HIS MISFORTUNE.
_Il creder, donne vaghe, è cortesia,
Quando colui che scrive o che favella,
Possa essere sospetto di bugia,
Per dir qualcosa troppo rara e bella.
Dunque chi ascolta questa istoria mea
E non la crede frottola o novella
Ma cosa vera—come ella è di fatto,
Fa che di lui mi chiami soddisfatto._
_E pure che mi diate piena fede,
De la dubbiezza altrui poco mi cale._
RICCIARDETTO.
Dear Ladies, I can neither tell you the name of the Burgemeester's
Daughter, nor of the Burgemeester himself. If I ever heard them they
have escaped my recollection. The Doctor used to say his love for her
was in two respects like the small-pox; for he took it by inoculation,
and having taken it, he was secured from ever having the disease in a
more dangerous form.
The case was a very singular one. Had it not been so it is probable I
should never have been made acquainted with it. Most men seem to
consider their unsuccessful love, when it is over, as a folly which
they neither like to speak of, nor to remember.
Daniel Dove never was introduced to the Burgemeester's Daughter, never
was in company with her, and as already has been intimated never spoke
to her. As for any hope of ever by any possibility obtaining a return
of his affection, a devout Roman Catholic might upon much better
grounds hope that Saint Ursula, or any of her Eleven Thousand Virgins
would come from her place in Heaven to reward his devotion with a
kiss. The gulph between Dives and Lazarus was not more insuperable
than the distance between such an English Greeny at Leyden and a
Burgemeester's Daughter.
Here, therefore, dear Ladies, you cannot look to read of
_Le speranze, gli affetti,
La data fe', le tenerezze, i primi
Scambievoli sospiri, i primi sguardi._[1]
Nor will it be possible for me to give you
_—l'idea di quel volto
Dove apprese il suo core
La prima volta a sospirar d'amore._[1]
This I cannot do; for I never saw her picture, nor heard her features
described. And most likely if I had seen her herself, in her youth and
beauty, the most accurate description that words could convey might be
just as like Fair Rosamond, Helen, Rachæl, or Eve. Suffice it to say
that she was confessedly the beauty of that city, and of those parts.
[Footnote 1: METASIA.]
But it was not for the fame of her beauty that Daniel fell in love
with her: so little was there of this kind of romance in his nature,
that report never raised in him the slightest desire of seeing her.
Her beauty was no more than Hecuba's to him, till he saw it. But it so
happened that having once seen it, he saw it frequently, at leisure,
and always to the best advantage: “and so,” said he, “I received the
disease by inoculation.”
Thus it was. There was at Leyden an English Presbyterian Kirk for the
use of the English students, and any other persons who might chuse to
frequent it. Daniel felt the want there of that Liturgy in the use of
which he had been trained up: and finding nothing which could attract
him to that place of worship except the use of his own language,—which
moreover was not used by the preacher in any way to his
edification,—he listened willingly to the advice of the good man with
whom he boarded, and this was that, as soon as he had acquired a
slight knowledge of the Dutch tongue, he should, as a means of
improving himself in it, accompany the family to their parish church.
Now this happened to be the very church which the Burgemeester and his
family attended: and if the allotment of pews in that church had been
laid out by Cupid himself, with the fore-purpose of catching Daniel as
in a pitfall, his position there in relation to the Burgemeester's
Daughter could not have been more exactly fixed.
“God forgive me!” said he; “for every Sunday while she was worshipping
her Maker, I used to worship her.”
But the folly went no farther than this; it led him into no act of
absurdity, for he kept it to himself; and he even turned it to some
advantage, or rather it shaped for itself a useful direction, in this
way: having frequent and unobserved opportunity of observing her
lovely face, the countenance became fixed so perfectly in his mind,
that even after the lapse of forty years, he was sure, he said, that
if he had possessed a painter's art he could have produced her
likeness. And having her beauty thus impressed upon his imagination,
any other appeared to him only as a foil to it, during that part of
his life when he was so circumstanced that it would have been an act
of imprudence for him to run in love.
I smile to think how many of my readers when they are reading this
chapter aloud in a domestic circle will _bring up_ at the expression
of _running in love_;—like a stage-coachman who driving at the smooth
and steady pace of nine miles an hour on a macadamized road, comes
upon some accidental obstruction only just in time to check the
horses.
Amorosa who flies into love; and Amatura who flutters as if she were
about to do the same; and Amoretta who dances into it, (poor
creatures, God help them all three!) and Amanda,—Heaven bless her!—who
will be led to it gently and leisurely along the path of discretion,
they all make a sudden stop at the words.