The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 9, May, 1835Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 9, May, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
wounding his feelings, may cause her to excite hopes which are never
to be realized. In this case, he may drink too deeply of what
Shakspeare calls
"The honey'd music of her words;"
and at last will awaken to a disappointment, whose melancholy
influence I shall describe, when I come to speak of the effects of
love on the sexes. Perhaps in a case like this, prompt decision, and
the concealment of every thing like tenderness, may be the stern
mandate of reason and prudence; but we must recollect that it is not
that of feeling and sympathy; and we often, in our passage through
life, meet with cases of this kind, when too loose a rein is given to
the feelings upon Sterne's principle, that it is not always agreeable
to be fighting the d----l.
[Footnote 5: Sometimes coquettes appear to love after marriage more
intensely than others: in most cases I am disposed to doubt the
reality of the affection. Sometimes they have remained single until
the decline of their charms, the advance of age, and an unfavorable
public opinion, have destroyed their reign. This condition is almost
insupportable, and marriage becomes an asylum for their refuge. In
this case the coquette is in love with marriage, rather because of the
insupportable ills which she has escaped, than of the love which she
bears her husband. In other cases, after marriage, want of something
to engage her attention, and exercise her powers of pleasing; of
something that may amuse and excite her; in fine, as Mademoiselle de
L'Enclos, who will readily be acknowledged first rate authority on
this subject, expresses it, "_La necessité d'avoir quelque
gallantrie_," may induce her to lavish upon her husband, all those
attentions, finesses, and displays of feeling, which she before
bestowed upon the world at large. In this case, she makes her husband
the very personification of the gallantries of the world, and proceeds
to play out the game with him, which she had before been carrying on
with the dashing beaux of the fashionable world. Lastly, in some
cases, mere vanity itself may be sufficient, by its intense action, to
make the coquette wear in her countenance, and manifest by her
actions, that love which she feels not in her heart. I do not think
then the coquette will often make a fit companion for the man of
delicate sensibility and all searching penetration. He should seek for
some sensitive, deep feeling heart, which can return him back a full
measure of the love of which his own fond, devoted heart is so lavish.
True and genuine affection cannot long be deceived: it has too many
nice and exquisitely delicate chords, to be played upon with success
by the coarse fingers of hypocrisy.]
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