Book 8 Chapter 1

O Fate! O Heaven!--what have ye then decreed? SOPHOCLES: Oed. Tyr. 738.

"Insolent pride . . . . . . . . . The topmost crag of the great precipice Surmounts--to rush to ruin." Ibid. 874.

. . . SHE is young, wise, fair, In these to Nature she's immediate heir. . . . . . . . . . Honours best thrive When rather from our acts we them derive Than our foregoers!--All's Well that Ends Well.

LETTER FROM ERNEST MALTRAVERS TO THE HON. FREDERICK CLEVELAND.

EVELYN is free; she is in Paris; I have seen her,--I see her daily!

How true it is that we cannot make a philosophy of indifference! The affections are stronger than all our reasonings. We must take them into our alliance, or they will destroy all our theories of self-government. Such fools of fate are we, passing from system to system, from scheme to scheme, vainly seeking to shut out passion and sorrow-forgetting that they are born within us--and return to the soul as the seasons to the earth! Yet,--years, many years ago, when I first looked gravely into my own nature and being here, when I first awakened to the dignity and solemn responsibilities of human life, I had resolved to tame and curb myself into a thing of rule and measure.

Bearing within me the wound scarred over but never healed, the consciousness of wrong to the heart that had leaned upon me, haunted by the memory of my lost Alice, I shuddered at new affections bequeathing new griefs. Wrapped in a haughty egotism, I wished not to extend my empire over a wider circuit than my own intellect and passions. I turned from the trader-covetousness of bliss, that would freight the wealth of life upon barks exposed to every wind upon the seas of Fate; I was contented with the hope to pass life alone, honoured, though unloved. Slowly and reluctantly I yielded to the fascinations of Florence Lascelles.