nd _amas_?
The loves of Cadenus and Vanessa you may peruse in Cadenus's own poem on
the subject, and in poor Vanessa's vehement expostulatory verses and
letters to him; she adores him, implores him, admires him, thinks him
something god-like, and only prays to be admitted to lie at his feet. As
they are bringing him home from church, those divine feet of Dr. Swift's
are found pretty often in Vanessa's parlour. He likes to be admired and
adored. He finds Miss Vanhomrigh to be a woman of great taste and
spirit, and beauty and wit, and a fortune too. He sees her every day; he
does not tell Stella about the business: until the impetuous Vanessa
becomes too fond of him, until the Doctor is quite frightened by the
young woman's ardour, and confounded by her warmth. He wanted to marry
neither of them--that I believe was the truth; but if he had not married
Stella, Vanessa would have had him in spite of himself. When he went
back to Ireland, his Ariadne, not content to remain in her isle, pursued
the fugitive Dean. In vain he protested, he vowed, he soothed, and
bullied; the news of the Dean's marriage with Stella at last came to her,
and it killed her--she died of that passion.
And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had written beautifully
regarding her, "That doesn't surprise me," said Mrs. Stella, "for we all
know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick." A woman--a
true woman! Would you have had one of them forgive the other?
In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend Dr. Tuke of
Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on
which are written, in the Dean's hand, the words: "_Only a woman's
hair_." An instance, says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his
feelings under the mask of cynical indifference.
See the various notions of critics! Do those words indicate indifference
or an attempt to hide feeling? Did you ever hear or read four words more
pathetic? Only a woman's hair: only love, only fidelity, only purity,
innocence, beauty; only the tenderest heart in the world stricken and
wounded, and passed away now out of reach of pangs of hope deferred, love
insulted, and pitiless desertion:--only that lock of hair left; and
memory and remorse, for the guilty, lonely wretch, shuddering over the
grave of his victim.
And yet to have had so much love, he must have given some. Treasures of
wit and wisdom, and tenderness, too, must that man have had loc
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