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    love with a girl of nineteen . Her bright black eyes and dancing ringlets bewitch me still , as I see them in memory . I felt tortures of jealousy as I saw the men hovering round her , or turning over the leaves of her musictortures as fierce as ever beat within the heart of a grown man . I met her in after life , when I was twenty and she two-and-thirty : she was then a smiling , easy , dark-eyed , perfectly stupid mother of four children .

    Yet there was a certain halo thrown about her by the remembrance of what she had been once ; and I asked her to sing me " Cherry Ripe , " with which she was wont to ravish all hearers , and make me mad with rapture . She sang it , in a poor , thin , nasal tone that made my heart ache with pity . Was this the being I adored ? Was this the voice which had to me been the spell of a syren ? I shut out the Present , and wandered back again into the dreamland of the Past !

    Let me not dally thus at the threshold : other fairy forms await me . My second grande passion made an epoch in my history . I was then thirteen , and had come home for the midsummer holidays . We were living in Gloucestershire , among the clothiers . One of our neighbours , Mr . Singleton , a wealthy clothier , had become very intimate with my father , and constantly invited me to spend the day in his house , where I had unlimited credit on the garden . But the fruit was not the real attraction to me . I used that only as a pretext to be oftener with Mrs . Singleton , who was certainly the most majestic woman I had ever seen . She was at that

    time about three or four-and-thirty ; tall , calm , dignified , and tender . Her large languishing eyes , her luxuriant drooping curls , her placid brow and aquiline nose made an indelible impression on me . She was the belle of the county , but was not in the least haughty on that account . Indeed , she treated me with a familiarity which would have been mortifying had she not made a mistake respecting my age—thinking me only twelve , when I was fully thirteen . After my explanation I thought I perceived a little more reserve in her manner , as if she felt I might be dangerous . She invi *« d me , however , to come and see her ; so it was quite clear that I had not betrayed my sudden

    mind plans for future action . My fears subsided as my body became cooler . I recalled the jests about my passion . I remembered that at home I was still looked upon as a hoy—one is always a boy at home ! I strolled homewards through the fields . The lark was rioting in the sunny heights of heaven , and showering forth the rapture of his song ; the bees were murmurously musical ; the cows were reposing under the branching shade of spreading trees , or standing knee deep in the cool ponds , switching the torment-flies with their lazy tails . There was peace around me , and soon peace was within me . I reached home , and slunk into the house unobserved .

    Mrs . Singleton dined with us that day . It was long before I dared to look at her . She said nothing about the morning ' s discovery . I fancied there was a tender reserve in her manner , but that was the only shade of difference I could detect . ' * She loves me ! " I mentally exclaimed . " She approves of my passion . She shares it . " There was a ringing in my ears , a dizziness in my head , as I thought of this . I could not eat . They remarked it . I said I was not well . I left the table , and wandered out into the garden , there to master my emotions . back to school the it to be " last half

    I was to go on morrow : was my . " This , then , was the last time I should see her for six months ; six long intolerable months I was to be separated from my Arabella ! My only consolation was that she knew of my passion and returned it . " Oh ! she must return it . After so open a declaration as that of the Mustard and Cress—there can be no doubt !" I returned to tea , but was very silent all the evening . Indeed I generally am silent in company . Not that I am deficient in conversational powers : by no means ; but it is always offensive to me to see people thrusting themselves forward and trying to shine . I am reserved , modest , and prefer sitting quiet . Some people , I know , think me dull . Nothing can be farther from the truth . I have great vivacity—only I keep it restrained .

    pas . I went often ; at last I went daily . My shyness prevented my speaking to her ; but I worshipped her silently—at a distance . While at home I was constantly framing speeches—and admirable speeches they seemed to bewhich I resolved to address to her when we were left alone . Unhappily no sooner did she appear than all my courage fled , and I blushed , trembled , stammered , and looked foolish . It was no use : I was only bold in her absence ; in her presence I was abashed .

    As Mrs . Singleton rose to depart she held out her hand to me , and said" Jasper , you will run over to-morrow and say good bye before you go , will you not ?" Tears came into my eyes , and I could not answer . Before I had recovered myself she was gone . What a night I passed 1 Could Mr . Singleton be blind ? Did he not observe her evident partiality ? Was he not jealous , or was he stupid ? Stupid .

    Nothing gave me more pleasure than the delight of doing anything for her . She would sometimes entrust me with small commissions for Stroud . I did not walk , I flew to execute them . One day she reprimanded me for something I had done : gently , indeed ; but , oh ! a reprimand from her lips ! a serious reproach in those lovely eyes ! She told me what I had done was not manly . I left her sick at heart—enraged at myself—in anguish of conscience and humiliation I threw myself undressed upon my bed , and tossed about through a long sleepless night in tortures . I went there next morning to beg forgiveness . I saw she was touched by my aspect .

    He was a mere clothier—with no poetry in his soul—what could he know of love ? How could he appreciate such a divinity as Arabella ? And shewas she suffering the remorse of a guilty passion ? Did she bedew her pillow with tears—silent , scalding tears—in that drear and endless night ? Was she vainly endeavouring to cover with a vacant smile the agonies of a distracted heart ? Wretch that I was to cause such misery ! Wretch that I was to bring sorrow and disunion into that home—to bring guilty thoughts and sorrowing remorse to that domestic hearth , where I had been received as a friend ! They had nourished a viper , and now—now it stung them !

    Mr . Singleton and her friends began at last to joke me about her . They brought the colour violently into my cheeks by telling me I was in love with her . And she herself ( the hypocrisy of woman ! I exclaimed ) would join in the laugh , declaring that I was a Don Juan , an Amadis , the Lovelace of the nineteenth century . She used to pat me on the head and declare I was quite a dangerous character .

    Next morning I rose early , sharpened my penknife on a new hone bought the day before , shaved myself very carefully with it ( that is , the penknife , not the hone ) , put on my shortest straps and most splendid waistcoat , and , after a rapid breakfast , ran over to the Singletons . Arabella met me with her accustomed majesty ; a serene smile brightened her lovely face , and the acutest observer could have detected no traces of the sufferings of last night . I had learned by heart a most poetic and pathetic farewell speech ; but , as usual , I was dumb . After sitting a painful half hour , scarcely uttering a word , I rose abruptly , and with a spasm of courage said : —

    Were it my cue to moralize I would place a remark here on the carelessness with which people are wont to hurt a boy ' s feelings by jesting with him on his passion . They fancy he is only aping love ; as a girl with her doll apes the maternal care ; But boys when not altogether indifferent to women love , and love ardently . I have often loved ; but never did my heart beat so strongly for any woman as for Mrs . Singleton , who was my ideal of all that was grand and majestic in woman .

    " Now we must part ; but it is not for ever . " I blushed at my audacity . " Good-bye , my dear Jasper ! " she replied , " and don't forget your friends . " She stooped and kissed me . It was like a flood of fire pouring down my veins , as her lips touched my cheek . I trembled like a leaf ; she must have observed it ; but , placing something wrapped up in paper into my hand , she whispered : — " There , Jasper , take that to school with you . "

    As to their fiction about my boyhood , I scorned the imputation . A boy indeed ! Did I not shave every other morning ( with a penknife ) ? Did I not make them feel how rough was my beard ? Were not my trousers strapped tight over my boots ? Did I not read poetry , and write it too ? I felt myself—I knew myself a man ! 1 remember , as a delicate attention , sowing in Mustard and Cress the name of Arabella : it was hers ! Whenever she came into our garden I was in a mingled state of fear and delight , of anticipation and dread , lest she should walk round to that part of the garden where her name was so lovingly charactered . I wished her to see it . I wished her to read that indirect avowal

    of my passion ; yet the blood rushed throbbingly to my temples as I pictured her reading it . It came to pass at last . I stumbled upon her at the very moment when she first discovered it . She was reading it as I came up . She raised her eyes—those lustrous eyes !—to me and said" Jasper , what Arabella is this ?" I coloured violently—trembled—and scampered away as fast as I could down the shrubbery , through the house out into the dusty lane , and down the high road for three miles at least ;

    It was a locket ! I felt that it was a locket , containing one of her own majestic curls ! Its place should be upon my heart , I mentally vowed . Overcome by my emotion , I ran out of the house . No sooner was I in the garden than I tore open the paper .... A sudden sickness arrested me as I saw there , not a locket , but—two half-crowns ! I turned to look back . Mrs . Singleton was at the window nodding and smiling . Indignantly casting the money upon the ground , I burst into tears , and ran home . To be treated as a hoy ! and by her ! . To affect to consider me as a child who could be "tipped" with half-crowns—I who had offered her the homage of a heart ! Was that the answer to my declaration ? Had my Mustard and Cress come to that ?

    I seated myself panting and heated upon a bank , and there , while wiping the perspiration from my brow with a huge cotton handkerchief , gave myself up to the terrors of imagination . An enraged husband stood before me demanding an explanation ; my father indignantly reproving me . There I sat drawing figures on my dusty boots-, with a bit of stick , and revolving in my

    I reached home sobbing . I indignantly tore up by the roots the herby tenderness of which I had been guilty , and told my father all . He burst out laughing , and told me I was a fool to have thrown away the money . My father had no sentiment !

    Untitled Article

    Sept . 7 , 1850 . ] © $ * 9 **** 1 *** 573

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 7, 1850, page 573, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1852/page/21/