Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/67

 of power and emotion, for its working out of character, and fathoming the depths of passion. Amenaïde is the chief subject of this poem, and a fearful character does she present. In the first pure confiding of her affection, when, as a peasant girl, she pledged herself to return the love of her affianced husband, whose heart she believed equally hers; in her gladness, when she learned her accession to unbounded wealth, and her reinstatement in her ancestral dignities,—a gladness inspired by the thought that she would be now a more fitting bride for the Count Leoni; in the upspringing fount of happiness, when told of his return from foreign travel; in her exultation at the thought of meeting him the first time, surrounded by all the accessories of rank and fortune, which he did not expect; in the self-sacrificing idea of telling him she valued them only for his sake;—in all this we have a bright picture of woman's confiding, entire, and generously-devoted love. But a dark shadow is stealing over the sunny hues, and in the bitter misery of the first knowledge that Leoni had been faithless; in the intense pride of veiling her emotion from the scorn or pity of others; in the terrible and sudden hatred with which she looked on his fair bride, her unconscious rival; in the dire purpose of revenge; in the terrible conflict with herself during the progress and accomplishment of her plans, during that fearful solitude of crime which, happily, few can imagine; and who can paint?—in the waking up of remorse after the murder; and then in the reckless self-abandonment with which she seeks to save the life of Leoni, who has been condemned to die, on suspicion of the crime of which she was the instrument; and, last of all, in her own self-inflicted death, we have indeed a most powerfully-wrought combination of evil passions, and setting forth of their attendant misery.