about the business: until the impetuous Vanessa
becomes too fond of him, until the doctor is quite frightened by the young
woman's ardour, and confounded by her warmth. He wanted to marry neither
of them--that I believe was the truth; but if he had not married Stella,
Vanessa would have had him in spite of himself. When he went back to
Ireland, his Ariadne, not content to remain in her isle, pursued the
fugitive Dean. In vain he protested, he vowed, he soothed, and bullied;
the news of the Dean's marriage with Stella at last came to her, and it
killed her--she died of that passion.(55)

And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had written beautifully
regarding her, "That doesn't surprise me," said Mrs. Stella, "for we all
know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick." A woman--a true
woman! Would you have had one of them forgive the other?

In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend Dr. Tuke, of
Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on
which are written in the Dean's hand, the words: "_Only a woman's hair_."
An instance, says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his feelings under
the mask of cynical indifference.

See the various notions of critics! Do those words indicate indifference
or an attempt to hide feeling? Did you ever hear or read four words more
pathetic? Only a woman's hair; only love, only fidelity, only purity,
innocence, beauty; only the tenderest heart in the world stricken and
wounded, and passed away now out of reach of pangs of hope deferred, love
insulted, and pitiless desertion:--only that lock of hair left; and memory
and remorse, for the guilty, lonely wretch, shuddering over the grave of
his victim.

And yet to have had so much love, he must have given some. Treasures of
wit and wisdom, and tenderness, too, must that man have had locked up in
the caverns of his gloomy heart, and shown fitfully to one or two whom he
took in there. But it was not good to visit that place. People did not
remain there long, and suffered for having been there.(56) He shrank away
from all affections sooner or later. Stella and Vanessa both died near
him, and away from him. He had not heart enough to see them die. He broke
from his fastest friend, Sheridan; he slunk away from his fondest admirer,
Pope. His laugh jars on one's ear after sevenscore years. He was always
alone--alone and gnashing in the darkness, except when Stella's sweet smile
came and shone