The Clergyman's Wife and Other Sketches/Maidenhood in Love

by Anna Cora Mowatt

MAIDENHOOD IN LOVE.

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n nature, what flower puts on its most brilliant hues, or expands in its fullest perfection, before the sun's caressing warmth and tingent light call forth the hidden possibilities of its species? In womanhood, what character assumes its most radiant coloring, or develops its highest beauty before its mysterious capabilities are evoked by the electric touch of love? We do not use the word lightly. We do not allude to that weather-vane of fancy which turns with every accidental breath; that evanescent penchant which leans wherever novelty attracts; that passing passion which evaporates like morning dew—which belongs to the morning season of impressible temperaments. It is only upon a pure, holy, and lasting emotion that we can bestow the name of love without fear of desecration.

That love enters reverently into the inmost sanctuary of a maiden's heart, fills her mind with one sovereign image, rises like a sun in the firmament of her soul, and imbues her whole world of thought and feeling with its own tints. Then falls the beautifying veil of moss upon the roses of her youth. The soft bloom diffuses itself over the grapes for life's vintage. Hope's whispering voice of promise makes perpetual music in her ears. The golden haze of anticipation envelops her future in misty glory. She moves in an atmosphere of festal joy. All germs of goodness, and strength, and loveliness, lying dormant in the depths of her spirit, are quickened. Her very existence seems suddenly enlarged.

Often she is unconscious of this marvellous revolution. She does not pause to analyze her own tumultuous sensations. Though the sound of a coming step, his well-known step, makes her pulses throb with almost painful pleasure; though his lightest tone thrills her, even when the words are unheard; though at the mention of his name, coupled with praise, she smiles unaware, and vainly seeks to repress the involuntary blush, she hides from herself, as long as possible, that love throbbed in her pulses, thrilled her with that voice, woke that smile, and conjured up that blush.

But when the tender knowledge presses upon her, when the sweet confession has once been drawn from her, when she has once yielded up her heart, how lavishly she pours out its whole wealth! Like Juliet, her "bounty is as boundless as the sea, her love as deep," and the more she gives the larger grows her store, until love and bounty both prove infinite. Like Portia, unambitious in her wish for her own aggrandizement, yet, for her lover's sake, she fondly desires to be "trebled twenty times herself, a thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich." And while she bestows so profusely, and desires to possess in greater abundance that she may have the power to impart more munificently, how little she demands in return! Yes, little, if we set aside the playful, or coquettish exactions of her inborn, womanly caprice. Is it not little to be trustingly content with mere words; to be satisfied with assurances that she is beloved; to require no actions, no sacrifices as proofs of that passion? And what loving woman demands any? even at the moment when an irresistible impulse prompts her to offer the strongest evidences of her own self-abnegating, unmeasured, unbartered affection. Sometimes she even appears to rejoice in the trials that test the strength of her devotion; to glory in the opposition that proves its powers of resistance. No ordeal seems too great for her heroism to tempt. Wrapped in Love's protecting banner, she knows that she will pass through victoriously.

It is strange to see how quickly she merges her own identity into that of the man whom she loves; how involuntarily she lays aside her own volition, and looks with his eyes, and reflects his thoughts, and unknowingly illustrates to him the truth of Coleridge's declaration, that "love is the completion of our being in another."

Passing strange is it too, to behold a young maiden upon whom affection has been richly poured from her cradle, who has literally been the idol of her home, turn from all these life-long worshippers to a comparative stranger, and cling to him with a tacit declaration that the love of all is outweighed by the love of one; that the very blame of that one is more precious than the praises of all others.

Strange, indeed, to find her ready to make any sacrifice, to renounce any happiness, to forego any advantage, that she may share his future. Alas! too often to see her willing to wound the tenderest of mothers, the truest of fathers, to save that stranger an hour's pain, or give him a moment's pleasure. At the first blush this reckless, unreasoning, all-absorbing devotion seems unnatural; and yet it is in strict accordance with Nature's unalterable law. Love—true Love is the supreme ruler; the omnipotent sovereign over the heart's whole empire, and all human affections are but its subjects.

True love? Where is the Ithuriel spear that will teach us to recognize this God-blessed Love from the "Puck of Passion"? Bring the one, great, unfailing touchstone, and try the thousand pleasant cheats we irreverently call "love," and how few will not melt at the touch, or assume some meaner form, and take some lower title! The only test of love is its immutability. The heavenly spark kindled by the Divine Hand shares the immortality of that great source from whence all love descends. The flame cannot expire.

"From heaven it came to heaven returneth."

Thus, Love cannot recede, it cannot stand still; it must obey the law of eternal progression, must advance onward and upward, must grow stronger, broader, purer, with every hour of its existence. If it falter, languish, cool, it is not love,—never was love,—never can become love.

The most exquisite illustration which we have ever met, of the affluent love of a high-souled woman, is that given by Mrs. Browning in her Portuguese Sonnets. Surely, a truer, fuller love-utterance never rang out from woman's heart and lips! Yet Mrs. Browning has only painted, with startling force and unsurpassable eloquence, the emotions which thousands of women who love have, either consciously or unconsciously, experienced; though few women, if any, have been gifted with her miraculous power of breathing forth her inmost soul in rythmic concord of sweet sounds. What woman who has loved, or is capable of loving, will find our quotations too ample?

The sonnets are addressed by the (supposed) Portuguese lady to her lover. She portrays to him how entirely by love, "The face of all the world is changed," to the eyes of her who loves; how beautifully she is "taught the whole of life in a new rhythm." How even

"The name of country—heaven—is changed awayFor where thou art or shall be there or here."

She tells him that

"The widest landDoom takes to part us, leaves thy hand in mineWith pulses that beat double. What I doAnd what I dream include thee, as the wineMust taste of its own grapes. And when I sueGod for myself, he hears that name of thineAnd sees within mine eyes the tears of two."

She shows him how worthy of acceptance is the love of the most humble; how beautiful is mere love itself; how impossible it is that there should be anything low in love, even when the lowliest love; how God accepts the love of the meanest creatures, because they love. How through her love, she stands transfigured and glorified in her lover's presence, and

"How that great work of love enhances nature's."

She pleads that he may not love her for her deserts, which she accounts poor, and says:

"If thou must love me, let it be for naughtExcept for love's sake only. Do not sayI love her for her smile—her look—her way.Of speaking gently—for a trick of thoughtWhich falls in well with mine, and certes broughtA sense of pleasant ease on such a day—For these things in themselves, beloved, mayBe changed, or change for thee—and love so wrought,May be unwrought so. Neither love me forThine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry— Since one might well forget to weep who boreThy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby. But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou mayest love on through love's eternity."

She gives him a lock of hair, the first she ever gave to man, the lock where he will find pure the kiss her mother gave her when she died; and tells him that "the soul's Rialto hath its merchandise," and she "barters curl for curl upon that mart," and claims a lock from his brow to lay upon her heart, where it shall lack no natural heat until that heart grows cold in death.

The womanly adjuration "tell me you love me!" is one familiar to the ears of all men who have been devotedly loved. Few of them can have failed to discover that a woman is never tired of being told what she knows so well. The Portuguese lady, with the same earnest yearning to hear what she already believes, exclaims:

"Say over again, and yet once over again That thou dost love me!"

And adds in vindication of her longing to hear that sweet assurance,

"Who can fearToo many stars, though each in heaven should roll? Too many flowers, though each should crown the year? Say thou dost love me—love me—love me—toll The silver iterance—only minding, dear, To love me also in silence, with thy soul."

She turns to her letters and musingly loosens the string that bound them, and lets them drop upon her knees. Though they are but "dead paper, mute and white," to her they seem "alive and quivering" against her tremulous hands. She tenderly reminds him what this said, and what that; a simple thing, and yet it made her weep. And she tells him how she "sank and quailed" when she read the one which held those words, "Dear, I love thee!" and how the ink of another had paled by lying upon her fast-beating heart.

Then, with that vague sense of fear which every woman feels at the contemplation of yielding up all for one, she asks him, solemnly:

"If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchangeAnd be all to me? Shall I never missHome-talk and blessing, and the common kissThat comes to each in turn, nor count it strangeWhen I look up, to drop on a new rangeOf walls and floors—another home than this?Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which isFilled by dead eyes too tender to know change?"

With reverent words, almost with holy awe, she dwells upon the memory of his first kisses.

"First time he kissed me, he but only kissedThe fingers of this hand wherewith I write,And evermore it grew more clean and white,Slow to world greetings—quick with its 'oh, list!'When the angels speak. A ring of amethystI could not wear here plainer to my sight,Than that first kiss. The second passed in height The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed, Half falling on the hair. O, beyond meed! That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown, With sanctifying sweetness did precede. The third upon my lips was folded down In perfect, purple state! Since when, indeed, I have been proud, and said—'My love, my own!'"

She tries to measure that which is measureless—her love for him.

"How do I love thee, let me count the ways; I love thee to the depth, and breadth, and height, My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace— I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right, I love thee purely, as they turn from praise; I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith; I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears of all my life!—and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death!"

After that inspired outburst of woman's perfect love, what word can be added?