be misjudged and haply reviled by thy fellows
for failing to do what it is not given thee to do? If so, thou wilt pity
poor Mithridata, whose nature was most ardent, expansive, and affectionate,
but who, from the necessity under which she laboured of avoiding as much as
possible all contact with human beings, saw herself condemned to a life of
solitude, and knew that she was regarded as a monster of pride and
exclusiveness. She dared bestow no kind look, no encouraging gesture on any
one, lest this small beginning should lead to the manifestation of her
fatal power. Her own servants, whose minds were generally as deformed as
their bodies, hated her, and bitterly resented what they deemed her haughty
disdain of them. Her munificence none could deny, but bounty without
tenderness receives no more gratitude than it deserves. The young of her
own sex secretly rejoiced at her unamiability, regarding it as a
providential set-off against her beauty, while they detested and denounced
her as a--well, they would say viper in the manger, who spoiled everybody
else's lovers and would have none of her own. For with all Mithridata's
severity, there was no getting rid of the young men, the giddy moths that
flew around her brilliant but baleful candle. Not all the cold water
thrown upon them, literally as well as figuratively, could keep them from
her door. They filled her house with bouquets and billets doux; they stood
before the windows, they sat on the steps, they ran beside her litter when
she was carried abroad, they assembled at night to serenade her, fighting
desperately among themselves. They sought to gain admission as tradesmen,
as errand boys, even as scullions male and female. To such lengths did they
proceed, that a particularly audacious youth actually attempted to carry
her off one evening, and would have succeeded but for the interposition of
another, who flew at him with a drawn sword, and after a fierce contest
smote him bleeding to the ground. Mithridata had fainted, of course. What
was her horror on reviving to find herself in the arms of a young man of
exquisite beauty and princely mien, sucking death from her lips with
extraordinary relish! She shrieked, she struggled; if she made any
unfeminine use of her hands, let the urgency of the case plead her apology.
The youth reproached her bitterly for her ingratitude. She listened in
silent misery, unable to defend herself. The shaft of love had penetrated
her bosom als