"Why? She had nothing to reproach herself with. Had she not waited
long enough for him?"
"Young heads," remarked Becker, "are not always stored with sense. A
foolish pledge, given in a moment of thoughtlessness is often
obstinately adhered to in spite of reason and argument. The young idea
delights in miraculous instances of fidelity. What more charming to a
young and ardent mind than the loves of Dante and Beatrix, of Eleonora
and Tasso, of Petrarch and Laura, of Abelard and Heloise, or of Dean
Swift and Stella? Young people do not reflect that most of these
stories are apocryphal, and that the men who figure in them sought to
add to their renown the prestige of originality; they put on a passion
as ordinary mortals put on a new dress, they yielded to imagination
and not to the law of the heart, and almost all of them paid by a life
of wretchedness the penalty of their dreams."
"That is, I presume," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "you do not object to any
reasonable amount of constancy, but you object to its being carried to
an unwarrantable excess."
"Exactly so, madam," replied Becker; "constancy, like every thing else
when reasonable limits are exceeded, becomes a vice."
"The merriments of the marriage breakfast," continued Wolston
"slightly interrupted by the arrival of the new guest, were resumed.
Pages:
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214