O! fool! fool! Now I know what folly is. But barely
fifteen months since I stepped upon these shores, full of hope and full
of pride; and now I leave them; how? O! my dishonoured fathers! Even my
posterity, which God grant I may not have, will look on my memory with
hatred, and on hers with scorn!
'Well, I suppose we must live for ourselves. We both of us know the
world; and Heaven can bear witness that we should not be haunted by any
uneasy hankering after what has brought us such a heartache. If it were
for love, if it were for--but away! I will not profane her name; if
it were for her that I was thus sacrificing myself. I could bear it,
I could welcome it. I can imagine perfect and everlasting bliss in the
sole society of one single being, but she is not that being. Let me not
conceal it; let me wrestle with this bitter conviction!
'And am I, indeed, bound to close my career thus; to throw away all
hope, all chance of felicity, at my age, for a point of honour? No, no;
it is not that. After all, I have experienced that with her, and from
her, which I have with no other woman; and she is so good, so gentle,
and, all agree, so lovely! How infinitely worse would her situation be
if deserted, than mine is as her perpetual companion! The very thought
makes my heart bleed.
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