“Alas! the love of woman, it is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing; For all of theirs upon that die is thrown; And if ’tis lost, life hath no more to bring To them, but mockeries of the past alone.” BYRON. The term “broken heart” is not a mere poetical image. Cases are recorded in which that organ has been ruptured in consequence of disappointed hope. Let those who are sceptical as to the fact that physical disease so often results from blighted affection, visit the wards of our public and private asylums. In those dreary regions of misery they will have an opportunity of witnessing the wreck of many a form that was once beauteous and happy. Ask their history, and you will be told of holy and sincere affection nipped in the bud—of wild and passionate love strangled at its birth—of the death of all human hopes, of a severance from those about whom every fibre of the soul had entwined itself. Silent and sullen grief, black despair, “And laughter loud, amidst severest woe,” are the painful images that meet the eye at every step we take through these “hells upon earth.”[27] In this country, the great majority of the cases of insanity among women, in our establishments devoted to the reception of the insane, can clearly be traced to unrequited and disappointed affection. This is not to be wondered at, if we consider the present artificial state of society. We make “merchandize of love;” both men and women are estimated, not by their mental endowments, not by their moral worth, not by their capacity of making the domestic fire-side happy, but by the length of their respective purses. Instead of seeking for a heart, we look for a dowry. Money is preferred to intellect; pure and unadulterated affection dwindles into nothingness when placed in the same scale with titles and worldly honours, “And Mammon wins his way Where seraphs might despair.” How little do those who ought to be influenced by more elevated motives calculate the seeds of wretchedness and misery which they are sowing for those who, by nature, have a right to demand that they should be actuated by other principles! “Shall I be won Because I’m valued as a _money-bag_? For that I bring to him who winneth me,”[28] says Catherine, in the spirit of honest indignation. It should be remembered that “wedlock joins nothing, if it joins not hearts.” How many melancholy cases of suicide can clearly be traced to this cause! Death is considered preferable to a long life of unmitigated sorrow. When the heart is seared, when there exists no “green spot in memory’s dreary waste,”—when all hope is banished from the mind, and wretched loneliness and desolation take up their residence in the heart, need it excite surprise that the quiet and rest of the grave is eagerly longed for! If a mind thus worked upon be not influenced by religious principles, self-destruction is the idea constantly present to the imagination.