But vanity of vanities, and all is vanity! Let us raise the veil of
deception that shrouds the emptiness of human joy. Alvira has now
gratified her heart's desires in everything she could have under the
sun. She had beauty, wealth, and fame, but she was like the pretty
moth that hovers around the flame of the candle, and finds its ruin
in the touch of the splendor it loves. Poor Alvira was another child
of Solomon that sighed over the emptiness of human joy; for bitter
disappointment is the sad tale ever told in the realization of misguided
hope. Often, at midnight, when the unknown captain would return from
the theatre or some festive entertainment given in her honor, she would
sit at her table, wearied and disgusted, and weep bitterly. The
unnatural restraint necessary to preserve her disguise, the separation
from all the comforts and sympathies common to her sex, and the painful
reminiscences of the past wrung tears of misery from her aching heart.
The dreams of Messina haunted her still, but increased in anguish
and terror, as her thoughts could now fly from the lonely cave on the
Alps to the battle-field on the side of Vesuvius. Again the pangs
of remorse poisoned every joy; again the angry countenance and clenched
hand of her murdered father would bend over her restless couch; and
again the scream of terror in the dark, silent midnight would summon
her friends around her. Deep and fervent the prayer that was poured
forth from that sad and breaking heart that some providential
circumstance would enable her to make the change she had no long
premeditated.
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