A single affection may indeed be true, earnest and absorbing; but such an one after all, is but a type—and if the object be worthy, a glorious type—of the great book of feeling; it is only the vapor from the cauldron of the heart, and bears no deeper relation to its exhaustless sources, than the letter which my pen makes, bears to the thought that inspires it,—or than a single morning strain of your orioles and thrushes, bears to that wide bird-chorus, which is making every sunrise—a worship, and every grove—a temple!
My Aunt Tabithy nodded.
Nor is this a mere bachelor fling against constancy. I can believe, Heaven knows, in an unalterable and unflinching affection, which neither desires nor admits the prospect of any other. But when one is tasking his brain to talk for his heart,—when he is not writing positive history, but only making mention (as it were) of the heart's capacities, who shall say that he has reached the fullness,—that he has exhausted the stock of its feeling, or that he has touched its highest notes? It is true there is but one heart in a man to be stirred; but every stir creates a new combination of feeling, that like the turn of a kaleidoscope will show some fresh color, or form.
A bachelor to be sure has a marvellous
