'My dearest Eugenia! let them but resemble you mentally, and there is no person, whose approbation is worth deserving, that will not love and respect them. Good and evil are much more equally divided in this world than you are yet aware: none possess the first without alloy, nor the second without palliation. Indiana, for example, now in the full bloom of all that beauty can bestow, tell me, and ask yourself strictly, would you change with Indiana?'
'With Indiana?' she exclaimed; 'O! I would forfeit every other good to change with Indiana! Indiana, who never appears but to be admired, who never speaks but to be applauded.'
'Yet a little, yet a moment, question, and understand yourself before you settle you would change with her. Look forward, and look inward. Look forward, that you may view the short life of admiration and applause for such attractions from others, and their inutility to their possessor in every moment of solitude or repose; and look inward, that you may learn to value your own peculiar riches, for times of retirement, and for days of infirmity and age!'
'Indeed, Sir,—and pray believe me, I do not mean to repine I have not the beauty of Indiana; I know and have always heard her loveliness is beyond all comparison. I have no more, therefore, thought of envying it, than of envying the brightness of the sun. I knew, too, I bore no competition with my sisters; but I never dreamt of competition. I knew I was not handsome, but I supposed many people besides not handsome, and that I should pass with the rest; and I concluded the world to be full of people who had been sufferers as well as myself, by disease or accident. These have been occasionally my passing thoughts; but the subject never seized my mind; I never reflected upon it at all, till abuse, without provocation, all at once opened my eyes, and shewed me to myself! Bear with me, then, my father, in this first dawn of terrible conviction! Many have been unfortunate,—but none unfortunate like me! Many have met with evils—but who with an accumulation like mine!'
Mr. Tyrold, extremely affected, embraced her with the utmost tenderness: 'My dear, deserving, excellent child,' he cried, 'what would I not endure, what sacrifice not make, to soothe this cruel disturbance, till time and your own understanding can exert their powers?' Then, while straining her to his breast with the fondest parental commiseration, the tears, with which his eyes were overflowing, bedewed her cheeks.
Eugenia felt them, and, sinking to the ground, pressed his knees. 'O my father,' she cried, 'a tear from your revered eyes afflicts me more than all else! Let me not draw forth another, lest I should become not only unhappy, but guilty. Dry them up, my dearest father—let me kiss them away.'
'Tell me, then, my poor girl, you will struggle against this ineffectual sorrow! Tell me you will assert that fortitude which only waits for your exertion; and tell me you will forgive the misjudging compassion which feared to impress you earlier with pain!'
'I will do all, every thing you desire! my injustice is subdued! my complaints shall be hushed! you have conquered me, my beloved father! Your indulgence, your lenity shall take place of every hardship, and leave me nothing but filial affection!'
Seizing this grateful moment, he then required of her to relinquish her melancholy scheme of seclusion from the world: 'The shyness and the fears which gave birth to it,' said he, 'will but grow upon you if listened to; and they are not worthy the courage I would instil into your bosom—the courage, my Eugenia, of virtue—the courage to pass by, as if unheard, the insolence of the hard-hearted, and ignorance of the vulgar. Happiness is in your power, though beauty is not; and on that to set too high a value would be pardonable only in a weak and frivolous mind; since, whatever is the involuntary admiration with which it meets, every estimable quality and accomplishment is attainable without it: and though, which I cannot deny, its immediate influence is universal, yet in every competition and in every decision of esteem, the superior, the elegant, the better part of mankind give their suffrages to merit alone. And you, in particular, will find yourself, through life, rather the more than the less valued, by every mind capable of justice and compassion, for misfortunes which no guilt has incurred.'
Observing her now to be softened, though not absolutely consoled, he rang the bell, and begged the servant, who answered it, to request his brother would order the coach immediately, as he was obliged to return home; 'And you, my love,' said he, 'shall accompany me; it will be the least exertion you can make in first breaking through your averseness to quit the house.'