I suppose there is scarcely any man who reads this or any other novel but
has been baulked in love some time or the other, by fate and
circumstance, by falsehood of women, or his own fault. Let that worthy
friend recall his own sensations under the circumstances, and apply them
as illustrative of Mr. Pen's anguish. Ah! what weary nights and sickening
fevers! Ah! what mad desires dashing up against some rock of obstruction
or indifference, and flung back again from the unimpressionable granite!
If a list could be made this very night in London of the groans,
thoughts, imprecations of tossing lovers, what a catalogue it would be! I
wonder what a percentage of the male population of the metropolis will be
lying awake at two or three o'clock to-morrow morning, counting the hours
as they go by knelling drearily, and rolling from left to right,
restless, yearning and heart-sick? What a pang it is! I never knew a man
die of love certainly, but I have known a twelve-stone man go down to
nine-stone five under a disappointed passion, so that pretty nearly
quarter of him may be said to have perished: and that is no small
portion.
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