IT is a noticeable thing how much fear increases love. I mean--for the
aphorism requires explanation--how much we love in proportion to our
fear of losing (or even to our fear of injury done to) the beloved
object. 'Tis an instance of the reaction of the feelings: the love
produces the fear, and the fear reproduces the love. This is one
reason, among many, why women love so much more tenderly and anxiously
than we do; and it is also one reason among many why frequent absences
are, in all stages of love, the most keen exciters of the passion. I
never breathed, away from Isora, without trembling for her safety. I
trembled lest this Barnard, if so I should still continue to call her
persecutor, should again discover and again molest her. Whenever (and
that was almost daily) I rode to the quiet and remote dwelling I had
procured her, my heart beat so vehemently, and my agitation was so
intense, that on arriving at the gate I have frequently been unable, for
several minutes, to demand admittance. There was, therefore, in the
mysterious danger which ever seemed to hang over Isora, a perpetual
irritation to a love otherwise but little inclined to slumber; and this
constant excitement took away from the torpor into which domestic
affection too often languishes, and increased my passion even while it
diminished my happiness.

On my arrival now at Isora's, I found her already stationed at the
window, watching for my coming. How her dark eyes lit into lustre when
they saw me! How the rich blood mantled up under the soft cheek which
feeling had refined of late into a paler hue than it was wont, when I
first gazed upon it, to wear! Then how sprang forth her light step to
meet me! How trembled her low voice to welcome me! How spoke, from
every gesture of her graceful form, the anxious, joyful, all-animating
gladness of her heart! It is a melancholy pleasure to the dry, harsh
afterthoughts of later life, to think one has been thus loved; and one