To the youthful lover it is the polar star that
guides him from the shoals and quicksands of vice, among which his
wayward fancy and inexperience are too apt to lead him. But in the
matrimonial state, the pleasures arising from the exercise of this
virtue are manifold, as it sheds a galaxy of splendour around the social
hemisphere; for it is such a divine perfection, that Solomon has wisely
observed, that
"A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband."
A husband so blessed in marriage, might exclaim with the lover in one of
Terence's comedies, "I protest solemnly that I will never forsake her;
no, not if I was sure to contract the enmity of mankind by this
resolution. Her I made the object of my wishes, and have obtained her;
our dispositions suit; and I will shake hands with them that would sow
dissension betwixt us; for death, and only death, shall take her from
me."
The eulogies of the poets in regard to this amiable trait in the female
character, are sublime and beautiful; but none, I think, have surpassed
in vivid fancy and depth of feeling, that of Lord Byron, in his elegant
poem of the _Corsair_. The following passage describing the grief of
Medora on the departure of Conrad, the pirate, is sketched with the
pencil of a poet who was transcendently gifted with a knowledge of the
inmost recesses of the human heart:--
"And is he gone,"--on sudden solitude
How oft that fearful question will intrude?
"'Twas but an instant past--and here he stood!
And now"--without the portal's porch she rush'd,
And then at length her tears in freedom gush'd;
Big, bright, and fast, unknown to her they fell.
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