
KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 

THE BROKEN HEART. 
I never heard 
Of any true affection, but ’twas nipt 
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats 
The leaves of Spring’s sweetest book—the rose. 
MIDDLETON. 

OTWITHSTANDING ir Is 
A COMMON PRACTICE with 
) those who have outlived the 
} , susceptibility of the early 
, 5 feeling, or have been brought 
/ > up in the gay heartlessness of 
dissipated life, to laugh at all 
love stories, and to treat the tales of romantic 
passion as mere fictions of novelists and 
poets, yet my observations of human nature 
have induced me to think otherwise. ‘They 
have convinced me that, however the surface 
of the character may be chilled and frozen 
by the cares of the world, or cultivated by 
mere smiles by the arts of society, still there 
are dormant fires lurking in the depths of 
the coldest bosom, -which, when once 
enkindled, become impetuous, and are some- 
times desolating in their effect. Indeed, I 
am a true believer in the blind deity, and 
go to the full extent of his doctrines. Shall 
I confess it? I believe in broken hearts, 
and the possibility of dying of disappointed 
love! I do not however consider it a 
malady often fatal to my own sex, but I 
firmly believe that it withers down many a 
lovely woman into an early grave. 
Man is the creature of interest and ambi- 
tion. His nature leads him forth into the 
bustle and struggle of the world. Love is 
but the embellishment of his early life, or a 
song piped in the intervals of the acts. He 
seeks for fame, for fortune, for space in the 
world’s thought, and dominion over his fel- 
low men. But a woman’s whole life is a 
history of the affections. The heart is her 
world; it is there her ambition strives for 
empire—it is there her avarice seeks for 
hidden treasures. She sends forth her sym- 
pathies on adventure—she embarks her 
whole soul in the traffic of affection; and if 
shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for it is 
the bankruptcy of the heart. 
To aman, the disappointment of love may 
cause some bitter pangs; it wounds some 
feeling of tenderness—it blasts some pros- 
pects of felicity. But he is an active being; 
he may dissipate his thoughts in the whirl | 
of varied occupations, or may plunge into 
the tide of pleasure. Or, if the scene of 
disappointment be too full of painful asso- 
ciations, he can shift his abode at will; and 
taking, as it were, the wings of the morning, 
can “‘ fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, 
and be at rest.” 
But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a 
secluded, and a meditative life. She is more 
the companion of her own thoughts and 
Vou. IV.—8. 
113 

feelings; and if they are turned to ministers 
of sorrow, where shall she look for conso- 
lation? Her lot is to be wooed and won; 
and, if unhappy in her love, her heart is 
like some fortress that has been captured and 
sacked, and abandoned and left desolate. 
How many bright eyes grow dim! how 
many soft cheeks grow pale! how many 
lovely forms fade away into the tomb, and 
none can tell the cause that blighted their 
loveliness! As the dove will clasp its wings 
to its side, and cover and conceal the arrow 
that is preying on its vitals—so it is the 
nature of woman to hide from the world the 
pang of wounded affection. The love of a 
delicate female is always shy and silent. 
Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes 
it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries 
it in the recesses of her heart, and there 
lets it cower and brood among the ruins of 
her peace. With her the desire of her heart 
has failed—the great charm of existence is 
at an end. She neglects all the cheerful 
exercises which gladdened the spirits, and 
quickened the pulses, and sent the tide of 
life in healthful currents through the veins, 
Her rest is broken; the sweet refreshment 
of sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams. 
“Dry sorrow drinks her blood,” until her 
enfeebled frame sinks under the slightest 
external injury. Look for her a little while, 
and you find friendship weeping over 
her untimely grave, and wondering that one 
who but lately glowed with all the radiance 
of both health and beauty should so speedily 
be brought down to darkness and the worm, 
You will be told of some wintry chill, some 
casual indisposition that laid her low. But 
no one knows the mental malady which pre- 
viously sapped her strength, and made her 
So easy a prey to the spoiler. 
She is like some tender tree, the beauty 
and pride of the grove, graceful in its form, 
bright in its foliage, but with the worm prey- 
ing at its heart. We find it suddenly 
withering when it should be most fresh and 
luxuriant. We see it drooping its branches 
to the earth, leaf by leaf, until, wasted and 
perished away, it falls as in the stillness of 
the forest; and as we muse over the beau- 
tiful ruin, we strive in vain to recollect the 
blast of the thunderbolt that could have 
smitten it with decay. 
I have seen many instances of women 
running to waste and self-neglect, and disap- 
pearing gradually from the earth, almost as 
if they had been inhaled to Heaven; and have 
repeatedly fancied that I could trace their 
deaths through the various declensions of 
colds, consumptions, debility, languor, me- 
lancholy—until I reached the first symptoms 
of disappointed love. But an instance of 
the kind was lately told me. The cireum- 
stances are well known in the country where 

