But still her lips refus'd to send--"Farewell!"
"He's gone!"--against her heart that hand is driven,
Convuls'd and quick--then gently rais'd to heav'n;
She look'd and saw the heaving of the main:
The white sail set--she dared not look again;
But turn'd with sickening soul within the gate--
"It is no dream--and I am desolate!"
CANTO I.
The description of Conrad's return from his piratical cruise, the agony
of his mind when he finds that his lovely Medora had fallen a sacrifice
to her affectionate regard for him, and his sudden departure in a boat,
through despair, is equally grand and powerful, and exhibits a fine
specimen of the influence of female constancy even on the mind of a man
like Conrad, who, from the nature of his pursuits, was inured to the
infliction of wrongs on his fellow-creatures.
The anecdote of the behaviour of Arria towards her husband, Paetus,
related by Pliny, is one of the greatest instances of constancy and
magnanimity of mind to be met with in history. Paetus was imprisoned, and
condemned to die, for joining in a conspiracy against the Emperor,
Claudius. Arria, having provided herself with a dagger, one day observed
a more than usual gloom on the countenance of Paetus, when judging that
death by the executioner might be more terrible to him than the field of
glory, and perhaps, too, sensible that it was for her sake he wished to
live, she drew the dagger from her side, and stabbed herself before his
eyes.
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