“Marriage is a serious affair!” said Endymion, with a distressed look.
“The most serious. It is the principal event for good or for evil in all lives. Had I not married, and married as I did, we should not have been here—and where, I dare not think.”
“Yes; but you made a happy marriage; one of the happiest that was ever known, I think.”
“And I wish you, Endymion, to make the same. I did not marry for love, though love came, and I brought happiness to one who made me happy. But had it been otherwise, if there had been no sympathy, or prospect of sympathy, I still should have married, for it was the only chance of saving you.”
“Dearest sister! Everything I have, I owe to you.”
“It is not much,” said Myra, “but I wish to make it much. Power in every form, and in excess, is at your disposal if you be wise. There is a woman, I think with every charm, who loves you; her fortune may have no limit; she is a member of one of the most powerful families in England—a noble family I may say, for my lord told me last night that Mr. Neuchatel would be instantly raised to the peerage, and you hesitate! By all the misery of the past—which never can be forgotten—for Heaven’s sake, be wise; do not palter with such a chance.”
“If all be as you say, Myra, and I have no reason but your word to believe it is so—if, for example, of which I never saw any evidence, Mr. Neuchatel would approve, or even tolerate, this alliance—I have too deep and sincere a regard for his daughter, founded on much kindness to both of us, to mock her with the offer of a heart which she has not gained.”
“You say you have a deep and sincere regard for Adriana,” said his sister. “Why, what better basis for enduring happiness can there be? You are not a man to marry for romantic sentiment, and pass your life in writing sonnets to your wife till you find her charms and your inspiration alike exhausted; you are already wedded to the State, you have been nurtured in the thoughts of great affairs from your very childhood, and even in the darkest hour of our horrible adversity. You are a man born for power and high condition, whose name in time ought to rank with those of the great statesmen of the continent, the true lords of Europe. Power, and power alone, should be your absorbing object, and all the accidents and incidents of life should only be considered with reference to that main result.”
“Well, I am only five-and-twenty after all. There is time yet to consider this.”
“Great men should think of Opportunity, and not of Time. Time is the excuse of feeble and puzzled spirits. They make time the sleeping partner of their lives to accomplish what ought to be achieved by their own will. In this case, there certainly is no time like the present. The opportunity is unrivalled. All your friends would, without an exception, be delighted if you now were wise.”