【英文原著类】MARIA Or The Wrongs of Woman(玛利亚).pdf

MARIA: Or The Wrongs of Woman
MARIA: Or The Wrongs
of Woman
1
MARIA: Or The Wrongs of Woman
CHAPTER 1
ABODES OF HORROR have frequently been described, and castles,
filled with spectres and chimeras, conjured up by the magic spell of genius
to harrow the soul, and absorb the wondering mind. But, formed of such
stuff as dreams are made of, what were they to the mansion of despair, in
one corner of which Maria sat, endeavouring to recall her scattered
thoughts!
Surprise, astonishment, that bordered on distraction, seemed to have
suspended her faculties, till, waking by degrees to a keen sense of anguish,
a whirlwind of rage and indignation roused her torpid pulse. One
recollection with frightful velocity following another, threatened to fire
her brain, and make her a panion for the terrific inhabitants, whose
groans and shrieks were no unsubstantial sounds of whistling winds, or
startled birds, modulated by a romantic fancy, which amuse while they
affright; but such tones of misery as carry a dreadful certainty directly to
the heart. What effect must they then have produced on one, true to the
touch of sympathy, and tortured by maternal apprehension!
Her infant's image was continually floating on Maria's sight, and the
first smile of intelligence remembered, as none but a mother, an unhappy
mother, can conceive. She heard her half speaking half cooing, and felt
the little twinkling fingers on her burning bosom--a bosom bursting with
the nutriment for which this cherished child might now be pining in vain.
From a stranger she could indeed receive the maternal aliment, Maria was
grieved at the thought-- but who would watch her with a mother's
tenderness, a mother's self-denial?
The retreating shadows of former sorrows rushed back in a gloomy
train, and seemed to be pictured on the walls of her prison, magnified by
the state of mind in which they were viewed--Still she mourned for her
child, lamented she was a daughter, and anticipa