先讀課文﹕
The Broken Heart
by Washington Irving
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 dissipated
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 the 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 bustle 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 fellow-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 sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul
in the
traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless--for it is
a bankruptcy of the heart.
To a man, the disappointment of love may occasion some bitter pangs; it
wounds some feelings of tenderness--it blasts some prospects of felicity;
but he is an active being--he may
dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation, or may plunge
into the tide of pleasure; or, if the scene of disappointment be too full
of painful associations, 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 meditative life. She
is more the companion of her own thoughts and feelings; and if they are
turned to ministers of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation? 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 is it the nature
of woman, to hide from the world the pangs 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 bosom, 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 gladden the
spirits, quicken the pulses, and send 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, after 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 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 of the mental malady which previously sapped
her strength, and made her so easy a prey to the spoiler.
She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove; graceful
in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm preying 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, and shedding leaf by leaf,
until, wasted and perished away, it falls even in the stillness of the forest;
and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in vain to recollect the
blast or thunderbolt that could have smitten it with decay.
I have seen many instances of women running to waste and self-neglect, and
disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if they had been exhaled
to heaven; and have repeatedly
fancied that I could trace their deaths through the various declensions
of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached the
first symptom of disappointed love. But an
instance of the kind was lately told to me; the circumstances are well known
in the country where they happened, and I shall but give them in the manner
in which they were related.
Every one must recollect the tragical story of young E----, the Irish patriot;
it was too touching to be soon forgotten. During the troubles in Ireland,
he was tried, condemned, and executed,
on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy.
He was so young--so intelligent--so generous--so brave--so everything that
we are apt to like in a young man. His conduct under trial, too, was so
lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he repelled the charge
of treason against his country--the eloquent vindication of his name--and
his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour of condemnation,
--all these entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his enemies
lamented the stern policy that dictated his execution.
But there was one heart whose anguish it would be impossible to describe.
In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had won the affections of a beautiful
and interesting girl, the daughter of a
late celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him with the disinterested fervor
of a woman's first and early love. When every worldly maxim arrayed itself
against him; when blasted in fortune, and disgrace and danger darkened around
his name, she loved him the more ardently for his very sufferings. If, then,
his fate could awaken the sympathy even of his foes, what must have been
the agony of her, whose whole soul was occupied by his image? Let those
tell who have had the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between them and
the being they most loved on earth--who have sat at its threshold, as one
shut out in a cold and lonely world, whence all that was most lovely and
loving had departed.
But then the horrors of such a grave!--so frightful, so dishonored! There
was nothing for memory to dwell on that could soothe the pang of separation--
none of those tender, though
melancholy circumstances which endear the parting scene--nothing to melt
sorrow into those blessed tears, sent like the dews of heaven, to revive
the heart in the parting hour of anguish.
To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred her father's
displeasure by her unfortunate attachment, and was an exile from the parental
roof. But could the sympathy and kind offices of friends have reached a
spirit so shocked and driven in by horror, she would have experienced no
want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and generous sensibilities.
The most delicate and cherishing attentions were paid her by families of
wealth and distinction. She was led into society, and they tried by all
kinds of occupation and amusement to dissipate her grief, and wean her from
the tragical story of her loves. But it
was all in vain. There are some strokes of calamity that scathe and scorch
the soul--which penetrate to the vital seat of happiness--and blast it,
never again to put forth bud or blossom.
She never objected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but was as much alone
there as in the depths of solitude; walking about in a sad revery, apparently
unconscious of the world around her. She carried with her an inward woe
that mocked at all the blandishments of friendship, and "heeded not the
song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely."
The person who told me her story had seen her at a masquerade. There can
be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness more striking and painful than
to meet it in such a scene. To find it wandering like a spectre, lonely
and joyless, where all around is gay--to see it dressed out in the trappings
of mirth, and looking so wan and woe-begone, as if it had tried in vain to
cheat the poor heart into momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling
through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter abstraction,
she sat herself down on the steps of an orchestra, and, looking about for
some time with a vacant air, that showed her insensibility to the garish
scene, she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to warble a
little plaintive
air. She had an exquisite voice; but on this occasion it was so simple,
so touching, it breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness--that she drew
a crowd, mute and silent, around her and melted every one into tears.
The story of one so true and tender could not but excite great interest
in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a
brave officer, who paid his addresses to her,
and thought that one so true to the dead, could not but prove affectionate
to the living. She declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably
engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted in his
suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by
her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and dependent
situation, for she was existing on the kindness of friends. In a word, he
at length succeeded in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurance,
that her heart was unalterably another's.
He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene might wear
out the remembrance of early woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife,
and made an effort to be a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent
and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted
away in a slow, but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into the grave,
the victim
of a broken heart.
1) 生詞自己查
2) 作者介紹﹕Washington Irving (1783-1859) American writer. Washington Irving'
s pseudonyms included: Dietrich Knickerbocker, Jonathan Oldstyle, and Geoffrey
Crayon. Washington Irving was a short story writer, famous for works like
"Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." These works were both
a part of "The Sketch Book," a collection of short stories. Washington Irving
has been called the father of the American short story because of his unique
contributions to the form.
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5) 希望能背誦。帶有感情地。
6) 如果能寫篇愛情故事﹐跟貼於此。本人將抽時間修改評述。
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