拜伦与查沃斯小姐

Byron and Miss Chaworth

[1]"若比心之纯洁,"那个在一大堆最恬不知耻、最令人恶心的小说中点缀了许多美妙情感的女人迪德旺夫人(1)说:"若比心之纯洁,天使也比不上热恋中的少年。"[2]这一夸张说法勉强够得上是句真话。倘能被那位诗人青春期的恋情所证明,这句话则可谓真理。那种孩子气的诗人之恋无疑是人类情感中的一种,而这种情感几乎可实现我们纯洁而香艳的天国之梦。

[1]"The angels"says Madame Dudevant,a woman who intersperses many an admirable sentiment amid a chaos of the most shameless and altogether objectionable fiction-"The angels are not more pure than the heart of a young man who loves with fervor."[2]The hyperbole is scarcely less than true.It would be truth itself,were it averred of the love of him who is at the same time young and a poet.The boyish poet-love is indisputably that one of the human sentiments which most nearly realizes our dreams of the chastened voluptuousness of heaven.