The door opens, and her father enters, leaning upon the arm of her beloved. Yes, he has told all! Mr. Dacre approached, and, bending down, pressed the lips of his child. It was the seal to their plighted2 faith, and told, without speech, that the blessing3 of a parent mingled4 with the vows5 of a lover! No other intimation was at present necessary;’ but she, the daughter, thought now only of her father, that friend of her long life, whose love had ne’er been wanting: was she about to leave him? She arose, she threw her arms around his neck and wept.
The young Duke walked away, that his presence might not control the full expression of her hallowed soul. ‘This jewel is mine,’ was his thought; ‘what, what have I done to be so blessed?’
In a few minutes he again joined them, and was seated by her side; and Mr. Dacre considerately remembered that he wished to see his steward6, and they were left alone. Their eyes meet, and their soft looks tell that they were thinking of each other. His arm steals round the back of her chair, and with his other hand he gently captures hers.
First love, first love! how many a glowing bard7 has sung thy beauties! How many a poor devil of a prosing novelist, like myself, has echoed all our superiors, the poets, teach us! No doubt, thou rosy8 god of young Desire, thou art a most bewitching little demon9; and yet, for my part, give me last love.
Ask a man which turned out best, the first horse he bought, or the one he now canters on? Ask — but in short there is nothing in which knowledge is more important and experience more valuable than in love. When we first love, we are enamoured of our own imaginations. Our thoughts are high, our feelings rise from out the deepest caves of the tumultuous tide of our full life. We look around for one to share our exquisite10 existence, and sanctify the beauties of our being.
But those beauties are only in our thoughts. We feel like heroes, when we are but boys. Yet our mistress must bear a relation, not to ourselves, but to our imagination. She must be a real heroine, while our perfection is but ideal. And the quick and dangerous fancy of our race will, at first, rise to the pitch. She is all we can conceive. Mild and pure as youthful priests, we bow down before our altar. But the idol11 to which we breathe our warm and gushing12 vows, and bend our eager knees, all its power, does it not exist only in our idea; all its beauty, is it not the creation of our excited fancy? And then the sweetest of superstitions13 ends. The long delusion14 bursts, and we are left like men upon a heath when fairies vanish; cold and dreary15, gloomy, bitter, harsh, existence seems a blunder.
But just when we are most miserable16, and curse the poet’s cunning and our own conceits17, there lights upon our path, just like a ray fresh from the sun, some sparkling child of light, that makes us think we are premature18, at least, in our resolves. Yet we are determined19 not to be taken in, and try her well in all the points in which the others failed. One by one, her charms steal on our warming soul, as, one by one, those of the other beauty sadly stole away, and then we bless our stars, and feel quite sure that we have found perfection in a petticoat.
But our Duke — where are we? He had read woman thoroughly20, and consequently knew how to value the virgin21 pages on which his thoughts now fixed22. He and May Dacre wandered in the woods, and nature seemed to them more beautiful from their beautiful loves. They gazed upon the sky; a brighter light fell o’er the luminous23 earth. Sweeter to them the fragrance24 of the sweetest flowers, and a more balmy breath brought on the universal promise of the opening year.
They wandered in the woods, and there they breathed their mutual25 adoration26. She to him was all in all, and he to her was like a new divinity. She poured forth27 all that she long had felt, and scarcely could suppress. From the moment he tore her from the insulter’s arms, his image fixed in her heart, and the struggle which she experienced to repel28 his renewed vows was great indeed. When she heard of his misfortunes, she had wept; but it was the strange delight she experienced when his letter arrived to her father that first convinced her how irrevocably her mind was his.
And now she does not cease to blame herself for all her past obduracy29; now she will not for a moment yield that he could have been ever anything but all that was pure, and beautiful, and good.
点击收听单词发音
1 bliss | |
n.狂喜,福佑,天赐的福 | |
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2 plighted | |
vt.保证,约定(plight的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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3 blessing | |
n.祈神赐福;祷告;祝福,祝愿 | |
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4 mingled | |
混合,混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 ); 混进,与…交往[联系] | |
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5 vows | |
誓言( vow的名词复数 ); 郑重宣布,许愿 | |
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6 steward | |
n.乘务员,服务员;看管人;膳食管理员 | |
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7 bard | |
n.吟游诗人 | |
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8 rosy | |
adj.美好的,乐观的,玫瑰色的 | |
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9 demon | |
n.魔鬼,恶魔 | |
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10 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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11 idol | |
n.偶像,红人,宠儿 | |
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12 gushing | |
adj.迸出的;涌出的;喷出的;过分热情的v.喷,涌( gush的现在分词 );滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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13 superstitions | |
迷信,迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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14 delusion | |
n.谬见,欺骗,幻觉,迷惑 | |
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15 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
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16 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
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17 conceits | |
高傲( conceit的名词复数 ); 自以为; 巧妙的词语; 别出心裁的比喻 | |
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18 premature | |
adj.比预期时间早的;不成熟的,仓促的 | |
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19 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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20 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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21 virgin | |
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
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22 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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23 luminous | |
adj.发光的,发亮的;光明的;明白易懂的;有启发的 | |
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24 fragrance | |
n.芬芳,香味,香气 | |
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25 mutual | |
adj.相互的,彼此的;共同的,共有的 | |
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26 adoration | |
n.爱慕,崇拜 | |
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27 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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28 repel | |
v.击退,抵制,拒绝,排斥 | |
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29 obduracy | |
n.冷酷无情,顽固,执拗 | |
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