It involves fierce jealousy of happiness, freaks of
cruel vengeance against some fancied rival who wins a glance,
--emotions, terrors, unknown to the majority of women, and which ought,
therefore, to be more than indicated. The doubt, the dramatic doubt of
love, is the keynote of this analysis, where certain souls will find
once more the lost, but unforgotten, poetry of their early struggles;
the passionate exaltations of the heart which the face must not
betray; the fear that we may not be understood, and the boundless joy
of being so; the hesitations of the soul which recoils upon itself,
and the magnetic propulsions which give to the eyes an infinitude of
shades; the promptings to suicide caused by a word, dispelled by an
intonation; trembling glances which veil an inward daring; sudden
desires to speak and act that are paralyzed by their own violence; the
secret eloquence of common phrases spoken in a quivering voice; the
mysterious workings of that pristine modesty of soul and that divine
discernment which lead to hidden generosities, and give so exquisite a
flavor to silent devotion; in short, all the loveliness of young love,
and the weaknesses of its power.
Mademoiselle Josephine de Temninck was coquettish from nobility of
soul. The sense of her obvious imperfections made her as difficult to
win as the handsomest of women. The fear of some day displeasing the
eye roused her pride, destroyed her trustfulness, and gave her the
courage to hide in the depths of her heart that dawning happiness
which other women delight in making known by their manners,--wearing
it proudly, like a coronet.
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