Then you are among the rocks of Meillerie? Or standing a partaker of the danger of Julia on the dreadful precipice?
No, madam. The divine Julia is dead!--[Had you heard the sigh he gave, Louisa--!] I am at a passage which I suspect to be still more sublime. I am sure it is equally heart-rending.
It is Clara, at the table of Wolmar; where the child, with such simplicity, conjures up the infantine but almost perfect semblance of the dead. If ever laughter inspired the horrors of distraction, it was the laugh of Clara!
It is a wonderful passage. But I find you were rather contemplating the sorrows of the friend than of the lover.
Pardon me, madam. I was considering, since the friend was thus on the very brink of despair, what must be the force of mind which could preserve the lover.
Friendship and love, in such minds, are the same.
When the lover and the friend are united, the heart is reluctant to own its feelings can be equalled.
Ought you not to avoid such a book, Frank; at least for the present?
If it led me into error; otherwise not. I think I know what were the author's mistakes; and he not only teaches but impresses, rivets, volumes of truth in my mind.
The recollection of what had just passed with Clifton forced itself upon me, Louisa; it made me desirous of putting a question to Frank on the subject, and I asked--
I think them superfluous, nugatory, and therefore absurd.
Yes--We cannot promise to do wrong: or, if we do, cannot perform--Neither can we, without guilt, refrain from doing right; whether we have or have not promised.
Some glimpse of this truth, for I perceive it to be one, had shot across my mind; but not with the perspicuity of your proposition--I am inclined to be a rude interrogator: I have another question to ask [He bowed]--I own you are seldom wrong, and yet I hope--[I remember, Louisa, that I gave a deep sigh here; and it must not be concealed]--I hope that you have been wrong, once in your life.
But perhaps you have changed your opinion--Do you still think as you did?--Are you still _certain that I act from mistaken principles?_ [He instantly understood me--Had you seen his look, Louisa--!]
I could not bear it, Louisa. I burst away.
What rash impulse was it that hurried me forward to tempt this trial?--Alas! It was the vain hope, for vain it appears to be, he might have retracted.