[282]
I think I can go on with my story with a very decent composure.
In complying with your request, I cannot say that my own experience warrants, in any degree, the old and commonly received idea that sorrow loses half its poignancy by its revelation to others.
It was a humorous opinion of Sterne, that a blessing which ties up the tongue, and a mishap which unlooses it, are to be considered equal; and, indeed, I have known some people happy under all the changes of fortune, when they could find patient auditors.
Tully wept over his dead daughter, but when he chanced to think of the excellent things he could say on the subject, he considered it, on the whole, a happy circumstance.
But, for my own part, I cannot say with the Mariner in Coleridge's ballad, that At an uncertain hour
My agony returns;
And, till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.
He paused a moment, and rested his head upon his hand.
‘You have seen
Mrs. H——, of——?’
he inquired, somewhat abruptly.
I replied in the affirmative.
‘Do you not think her a fine woman?’
‘Yes, certainly, a fine woman.
She was once, I am told, very beautiful.’
‘Once? is she not so now?’
he asked.
Well, I have heard the same before.
I sometimes think I should like to see her now, now that the mildew of years and perhaps of accusing recollection's are upon her; and see her toss her gray curls as she used to do her dark ones, and act over again her
