been imagined. To this was added deep humiliation; for Francesca's worst mortification was to remember that she had loved him. How had her ingenuous and trusting affection been requited! Deeply within her inmost soul Francesca felt that thus she could never love again.
It is no "romantic phantasy," no "eternal constancy," no "dying for love," no "blighted affection,"—phrases so strangely misunderstood, and still more strangely misapplied,—no vain dreaming sentiment, when I say, deeply is that woman to be pitied whose first attachment has been ill requited. The qualities most natural to youth are at once destroyed;—suspicion takes the place of confidence, reserve of reliance, distrust instead of that ready belief in all that was good and beautiful. Knowledge has come to her too soon—knowledge of evil, unqualified by the general charities which longer experience infallibly brings; but her age has lent its own freshness to this first great emotion; it becomes unconsciously a criterion, and the judgment is harsh, because the remembrance is bitter. Another affection may, and in nine cases out of ten does, supersede the first; and it is well that it should,—the daily contentment of life, the household happiness of hourly duty and hourly love, are not to be offered up in vain
