“I seemed to care for nothing; the world was a blank to me. I abandoned all thought of the law. I went into the country, but could not bear the solitude, yet could not endure society.... I seemed to drift about without aim or object, at the mercy of every breeze; my heart wanted anchorage. I was naturally susceptible, and tried to form other attachments, but my heart would not hold on; it would continually recur to what it had lost; and whenever there was a pause in the hurry of novelty and excitement I would sink into dismal dejection. For years I could not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret; I could not even mention her name; but her image was continually before me, and I dreamed of her incessantly.” “For time makes all but true love old; The burning thoughts that then were told Run molten still in memory’s mould, And will not cool Until the heart itself is cold In Lethe’s pool.” The memory of Ann Rutledge never faded from the heart of Abraham Lincoln. Years after her death he was heard to say, “My heart lies buried in the grave of that girl. I can never be reconciled to have the snow, rains, and storms beat upon her grave.” Gruff Samuel Johnson worked in his garret, a most inconvenient room, after his “Tetty” died, because, said he, “In that room I never saw Mrs. Johnson.” Her wedding-ring was placed in a little box, and tenderly kept till his death. Michael Angelo’s devotion to Vittoria Colonna will be told, perhaps, even after the wonderful statues of Day and Night are lost or destroyed. “He bore such a love to her,” said his pupil Condivi “that I remember to have heard him say that he grieved at nothing so much as that when he went to see her pass from this life he had not kissed her brow or her face, as he kissed her hand. After her death he frequently stood trembling and as if insensible.” All lovers of art know of Saskia, whose life was to Rembrandt like the transcendent light he threw over his pictures; whose death left him forever in the shadow of shadows. If men give such affection as these men gave,—and tens of thousands do,—then the affection is worth the most careful consideration; accepted, if possible, with gratitude that one has been thought worthy of homage; refused, if necessary, with the utmost delicacy and kindness. Young women sometimes, perhaps because of youth, do not realize the far-reaching influence of what the world is pleased to jest about as “love affairs.” An acquaintance of mine, pretty, intelligent, and reared by a Christian mother, became engaged to two young men at the same time. One of course was refused, with, to him, bitter heartache. She married the other, led a wretched life with him, and finally was divorced.