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120 THE BROKEN HEART. 
THE BROKEN HEART. 
' " I never heard 
Of any true affection, but 'twas nipped 
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats 
The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the rose." 
Middleton. 
It is a common practice with those who have 
outlived the susceptibility of early feeling, or have 
been brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissi- 
pated life, to laugh at all love stories, and to treat 
the tales of romantic passion as mere fictions of 
novelists and poets. My observations on human 
nature have induced me to think otherwise. 
They have convinced me that however the surface 
of character may be chilled and frozen by the 
cares of the world, or cultivated into 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 
sometimes desolating in their effects. 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 ambition. 
His nature leads him forth into the struggle and 
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