To the vulgar there is but one infidelity — that which, in woman at least, can never be expiated or forgiven. They know not the thousand shades in which change disguises itself — they trace not the fearful progress of the alienation of the heart. But to those who truly and deeply love, there is an infidelity with which the person has no share. Like ingratitude, it is punished by no laws. We are powerless to avenge ourselves.
When two persons are united by affection, and the love of the one survives that of the other, who can measure the anguish of the unfortunate who watches the extinction of a light which nothing can reillumine! It mostly happens too, that the first discovery is sudden. There is a deep trustfulness in a loving heart; it is blind to the gradual decrease of sympathy — its divine charity attributes the absent eye, the chilling word, to a thousand causes, save the true one; care — illness — some worldly trouble — some engrossing thought; and (poor fool that it is!) endeavours by additional tenderness, to compensate for the pain that is not of its own causing. Alas, the time has come, when it can no longer compensate! It hath ceased to be the all-in-all to its cruel partner. Custom has brought its invariable curse — and indifference gathers round the place in which we had garnered up our soul. At length the appalling light breaks upon us. We discover we are no longer loved. And what remedy have we? None! Our first, our natural feeling, is resentment We are conscious of treachery; this ungrateful heart that has fallen from us, how have we prized and treasured it — how have we sought to shield it from every arrow — how have we pleased ourselves, in solitude and in absence, with yearning thoughts of its faith and beauty; — no wit is ours no more! Then we break into wild reproaches — we become exacting — we watch every look — we gauge every action — we are unfortunate — we weary — we offend. These, our agonies — our impetuous bursts of passion — our ironical and bitter taunts, to which we half expect, as heretofore, to hear the soft word that turneth away wrath — these only expedite the fatal hour; they are new crimes in us; the very proofs of our bitter love are treasured and repeated as reasons why we should be loved no more: — as if without a throe, without a murmur, we could resign ourselves to so great a loss. Alas — it is with fierce convulsions that the temple is rent in twain, and we hear the Divinity depart. Sometimes we stand in silence, and with a full heart, gazing upon those hard cold eyes which never again can melt in tenderness upon us. And our silence is dumb — its eloquence is gone. We are no longer understood. We long to die in order to be avenged.
We half pray for some great misfortune, some agonizing illness, that it may bring to us our soother and our nurse. We say, “In affliction ‘ or in sickness it could not thus desert us.” We are mistaken. We are shelterless — the roof has been taken from our heads — we are exposed to any and every storm. Then comes a sharp and dread sentiment of loneliness and insecurity. We are left — weak children — in the dark. We are bereft more irrevocably than by death; for will even the Hereafter, that unites the happy dead that die lovingly, restore the love that has perished, ere life be dim?
What shall we do? We have accustomed ourselves to love and to be loved. Can we turn to new ties, and seek in another that which is extinct in one? How often is such a resource in vain! Have we not given to this — the treacherous and the false friend — the best years of our life — the youth of our hearts — the flower of our affections? Did we not yield up the harvest? how little is there left for another to glean! This makes the crime of the moral infidelity. The one who takes away from us his or her love, takes from us also the love of all else. We have no longer, perhaps, the youth and the attractions to engage affection. Once we might have chosen out of the world — now the time is past. Who shall love us in our sear and yellow leaf, as in that time, when we had most the qualities that win love? It was a beautiful sentiment of one whom her lord proposed to put away—” Give me, then, back,” said she, “that which I brought to you.” And the man answered, in his vulgar coarseness of soul, “Your fortune shall return to you.”
“I thought not of fortune,” said the lady; “give me back my real wealth — give me back my beauty and my youth — give me back the virginity of soul — give me back the cheerful mind, and the heart that had never been disappointed.”
Yes: it is of these that the unfaithful rob us, when they dismiss us back upon the world, and tell us with a bitter mockery to form new ties. In proportion to the time that we have been faithful — in proportion to the feelings we have sacrificed — in proportion to the wealth of soul — of affection, of devotion, that we have consumed, are we shut out from the possibility of atonement elsewhere. But this is not all — the other occupations of the world are suddenly made stale and barren to us! the daily avocations of life — the common pleasures — the social diversions so tame in themselves, had had their charm when we could share, and talk over, them with another. It was sympathy which made them sweet — the sympathy withdrawn they are nothing to us — worse than nothing. The talk has become the tinkling cymbal, and society the gallery of pictures. Ambition, toil, the great aims of life — even there cease abruptly to excite. What, in the first place, made labour grateful and ambition dear? Was it not the hope that their rewards would be reflected upon another self? And now there is no other self. And, in the second place, (and this is a newer consideration,) does it not require a certain calmness and freedom of mind for great efforts? Persuaded of the possession of what most we value, we can look abroad with cheerfulness and hope; — the consciousness of a treasure inexhaustible by external failures, makes us speculative and bold. Now, all things are coloured by our despondency; our self-esteem — that necessary incentive to glory — is humbled and abased. Our pride has received a jarring and bitter shock. We no longer feel that we are equal to stern exertion. We wonder at what we have dared before. And therefore it is, that when Othello believes himself betrayed, the occupations of his whole life suddenly become burthensome and abhorred.
“Farewell,” he saith,
“Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!”
And then, as the necessary but unconscious link in the chain of thought, he continues at once —
“Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! oh, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner; and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
Farewell! — Othello’s occupations gone.”
But there is another and a more permanent result from this bitter treason. Our trustfulness in human nature is diminished. We are no longer the credulous enthusiasts of Good. The pillars of the moral world seem shaken. We believe, we hope, no more from the faith of others. If the one whom we so worshipped, and so served — who knew us in our best years — to whom we have offered countless, daily offerings — whom we put in our heart of hearts — against whom if a world hinted, we had braved a world — if this one has deserted us, who then shall be faithful?
At length, we begin to reconcile ourselves to the worst; gradually we gather the moss of our feelings from this heart which has become to us as stone. Our pride hardens down into indifference. Ceasing to be loved, we cease to love. Seasons may roll away, all other feelings ebb and flow. Ambition may change into apathy — generosity may sour into avarice — we may forget the enmities of years — we may make friends of foes; but the love we have lost is never renewed. On that dread vacuum of the breast the temple and the garden rise no more: — that feeling, be it hatred, be it scorn, be it indifference, which replaces love, endures to the last. And, altered for ever to the one — how many of us are altered for ever to the world; — neither so cheerful, nor so kind, nor so active in good, nor so incredulous of evil as we were before! The Deluge of Passion has rolled back — the Earth is green again. But we are in a new world. And the New World is but the sepulchre of the Old.