"From the struggle which it calls upon her to endure, silently and alone;--from the agony of a change of existence which must be wrought without any eye perceiving it. Depend upon it, Margaret, there is nothing in death to compare with this change; and there can be nothing in entrance upon another state which can transcend the experience I speak of. Our powers can but be taxed to the utmost. Our being can but be strained till not another effort can be made. This is all that we can conceive to happen in death; and it happens in love, with the additional burden of fearful secrecy. One may lie down and await death, with sympathy about one to the last, though the pa.s.sage hence must be solitary; and it would be a small trouble if all the world looked on to see the parting of soul and body: but that other pa.s.sage into a new state, that other process of becoming a new creature, must go on in the darkness of the spirit, while the body is up and abroad, and no one must know what is pa.s.sing within. The spirit's leap from heaven to h.e.l.l must be made while the smile is on the lips, and light words are upon the tongue. The struggles of shame, the pangs of despair, must be hidden in the depths of the prison-house. Every groan must be stifled before it is heard: and as for tears--they are a solace too gentle for the case.

The agony is too strong for tears."

"Is this true love?" asked Margaret, in agitation.

"This is true love; but not the whole of it. As for what follows--"

"But is this what every woman has to undergo?"

"Do you suppose that every woman knows what love really is? No; not even every unmarried woman. There are some among them, though I believe but few, who know nothing of what love is; and there are, undoubtedly, a mult.i.tude of wives who have experienced liking, preference, affection, and taken it for love; and who reach their life's end without being aware that they have never loved. There are also, I trust, a mult.i.tude of wives who have really loved, and who have reaped the best fruits of it in regeneration of soul."

"But how dreadful is the process, if it be as you say!"

"I said I had alluded to only a part of it. As for what follows, according as it is prosperous or unreturned love, heaven ensues upon this purgatory, or one may attain a middle region, somewhat dim, but serene. You wish me to be plainer?"

"I wish to hear all you think--all you know. But do not let us go on with it if it makes you sigh so."

"What woman ever spoke of love without sighing?" said Maria, with a smile. "You sighed yourself, just now."

"I was thinking of Hester, I believe. How strange, if this process really awaits women--if it is a region through which their path of life must stretch--and no one gives warning, or preparation, or help!"

"It is not so strange as at first sight it seems. Every mother and friend hopes that no one else has suffered as she did--that her particular charge may escape entirely, or get off more easily. Then there is the shame of confession which is involved: some conclude, at a distance of time, that they must have exaggerated their own sufferings, or have been singularly rebellious and unreasonable. Some lose the sense of the anguish in the subsequent happiness; and there are not a few who, from const.i.tution of mind, forget altogether 'the things that are behind.' When you remember, too, that it is the law of nature and providence that each should bear his and her own burden, and that no warning would be of any avail, it seems no longer so strange that while girls hear endlessly of marriage, they are kept wholly in the dark about love."

"Would warning really be of no avail?"

"Of no more avail than warning to a pilgrim in the middle of the desert that he will suffer from thirst, and be deluded by the mirage, before he gets into green fields again. He has no longer the choice whether to be a pilgrim in the desert or to stay at home. No one of us has the choice to be or not to be; and we must go through with our experience, under its natural conditions."

"'To be or not to be,'" said Margaret, with a grave smile. "You remind one that the choice of suicide remains: and I almost wonder--Surely suicide has been committed from dread of lighter woes than you have described."

"I believe so: but in this case there is no dread. We find ourselves in the midst of the struggle before we are aware. And then--"

"Ay, and then--"

"He, who appoints the struggles of the spirit, supplies aids and supports. I fully believe that this time of conflict is that in which religion first becomes to many the reality, for which they ever afterwards live. It may have been hitherto a name, a fancy, a dim abstraction, or an intermitting though bright influence: and it may yet be resorted to merely as a refuge for the spirit which can find no other. But there is a strong probability that it may now be found to be a wonderful reality; not only a potent charm in sorrow, but the life of our life. This is with many the reason why, and the mode in which, the conflict is endured to the end."

"But the beginning," said Margaret; "what can be the beginning of this wonderful experience?"

"The same with that of all the most serious of our experiences--levity, unconsciousness, confidence. Upon what subject in the world is there a greater acc.u.mulation of jokes than upon love and marriage; and upon what subject are jokes so indefatigably current? A girl laughs at her companions, and blushes or pouts for herself; as girls have done for thousands of years before her. She finds, by degrees, new, and sweet, and elevated ideas of friendship stealing their way into her mind, and she laments and wonders that the range of friendship is not wider--that its action is not freer--that girls may not enjoy intimate friendship with the companions of their brothers, as well as with their own. There is a quick and strong resentment at any one who smiles at, or speculates upon, or even observes the existence of such a friendship."

"Oh, Maria!" exclaimed Margaret, throwing down her work, and covering her face with her hands.

"This goes on for a while," proceeded Maria, as if she did not observe her companion, "this goes on for a while, smoothly, innocently, serenely. Mankind are then true and n.o.ble, the world is pa.s.sing fair, and G.o.d is tender and bountiful. All evil is seen to be tending to good; all tears are meant to be wiped away; the gloom of the gloomy is faithless; virtue is easy and charming; and the vice of the vicious is unaccountable. Thus does young life glide on for a time. Then there comes a day--it is often a mystery why it should be that day of all days--when the innocent, and gay, and confident young creature finds herself in sudden trouble. The film on which she lightly trod has burst and she is in an abyss. It seems a mere trifle that plunged her there.

Her friend did not come when she looked for him, or he is gone somewhere, or he has said something that she did not expect. Some such trifle reveals to her that she depends wholly upon him--that she has for long been living only for him, and on the unconscious conclusion that he has been living only for her. At the image of his dwelling anywhere but by her side, of his having any interest apart from hers, the universe is, in a moment, shrouded in gloom. Her heart is sick, and there is no rest for it, for her self-respect is gone. She has been reared in a maidenly pride, and an innocent confidence: her confidence is wholly broken-down; her pride is wounded and the agony of the wound is intolerable. We are wont to say, Margaret, that everything is endurable but a sense of guilt. If there be an exception, this is it. This wounding of the spirit ought not perhaps to be, but it is very like the sting of guilt; and a 'wounded spirit who can bear?'"

"How is it borne--so many as are the sufferers, and of a cla.s.s usually thought so weak?"

"That is a mistake. There is not on earth a being stronger than a woman in the concealment of her love. The soldier is called brave who cheerfully bears about the pain of a laceration to his dying day; and criminals, who, after years of struggle, unbosom themselves of their secret, give tremendous accounts of the sufferings of those years; but I question whether a woman whose existence has been burdened with an unrequited love, will not have to unfold in the next world a more harrowing tale than either of these."

"It ought not to be so."

"It ought not, where there is no guilt. But how n.o.ble is such power of self-restraint! Though the principle of society may be to cultivate our pride to excess, what fort.i.tude grows out of it! There are no bounds to the horror, disgust, and astonishment expressed when a woman owns her love to its object unasked--even urges it upon him; but I acknowledge my surprise to be the other way--that the cases are so rare. Yet, fancying the case one's own--"

"Oh, dreadful!" cried Margaret.

"No woman can endure the bare thought of the case being her own; and this proves the strong natural and educational restraint under which we all lie: but I must think that the frequent and patient endurance proves a strength of soul, a vigour of moral power, which ought to console and animate us in the depth of our abas.e.m.e.nt, if we could but recall it then when we want support and solace most."

"It can be little estimated--little understood," said Margaret, "or it would not be sported with as it is."

"Do not let us speak of that, Margaret. You talk of my philosophy sometimes; I own that that part of the subject is too much for any philosophy I have."

"I see nothing philosophical," said Margaret, "in making light of the deepest cruelty and treachery which is transacted under the sun. A man who trifles with such affections, and abuses such moral power, and calls his cruelty flirtation--"

"Is such an one as we will not speak of now. Well! it cannot be but that good--moral and intellectual good--must issue from such exercise and discipline as this; and such good does issue often, perhaps generally. There are sad tales sung and told everywhere of brains crazed, and graves dug by hopeless love: and I fear that many more sink down into disease and death from this cause, than are at all suspected to be its victims: but not a few find themselves lifted up from their abyss, and set free from their bondage of pride and humiliation. They marry their loves and stand amazed at their own bliss, and are truly the happiest people upon earth, and in the broad road to be the wisest. In my belief, the happiest are ever so."

"Bless you for that, for Hester's sake! And what of those who are not thus released?"

"They get out of the abyss too; but they have to struggle out alone.

Their condition must depend much on what they were before the conflict befell them. Some are soured, and live restlessly. Some are weak, and come out worldly, and sacrifice themselves, in marriage or otherwise, for low objects. Some strive to forget, and to become as like as possible to what they were before; and of this order are many of the women whom we meet, whose minds are in a state of perpetual and incurable infancy. It is difficult to see the purpose of their suffering, from any effects it appears to have produced: but then there is the hope that their griefs were not of the deepest."

"And what of those whose griefs are of the deepest?"

"They rise the highest above them. Some of these must be content with having learned more or less, of what life is, and of what it is for, and with reconciling themselves to its objects and conditions."

"In short, with being philosophical," said Margaret, with an inquiring and affectionate glance at her friend.

"With being philosophical," Maria smilingly agreed. "Others, of a happier nature, to whom philosophy and religion come as one, and are welcomed by energies not wholly destroyed, and affections not altogether crushed, are strong in the new strength which they have found, with hearts as wide as the universe, and spirits the gayest of the gay."

"You never told me anything of all this before," said Margaret; "yet it is plain that you must have thought much about it--that it must have been long in your mind."

"It has; and I tell it to you, that you may share what I have learned, instead of going without the knowledge, or, alas! gathering it up for yourself."

"Oh, then, it is so--it is from your own--"

"It is from my own experience that I speak," said Maria, without looking up. "And now, there is some one in the world who knows it beside myself."

"I hope you do not--I hope you never will repent having told me," said Margaret, rising and taking her seat on the sofa, beside her friend.

"I do not, and I shall not repent," said Maria. "You are faithful: and it will be a relief to me to have sympathy--to be able to speak sometimes, instead of having to deny and repress my whole heart and soul. But I can tell you no more--not one word."

"Do not. Only show me how I can comfort--how I can gratify you."

"I need no special comfort now," said Maria, smiling. "I _have_ sometimes grievously wanted a friend to love and speak with--and if I could, to serve. Now I have a friend." And the look with which she gazed at her companion brought the tears into Margaret's eyes.

"Come, let us speak of something else," said Maria, cheerfully. "When do you expect your friend, Mr Enderby, at Deerbrook again?"

"His sister says n.o.body knows; and I do not think he can tell himself.

You know he does not live at Deerbrook."

"I am aware of that; but his last visit was such a long one--"