He looked at Edgar; who, not aware this was designed to catch his attention, naturally exclaimed: 'Thoughts! can you choose, or avoid at pleasure?'
'Most certainly. After four-and-twenty a man is seldom taken by surprise; at least, not till he is past forty: and then, the fear of being too late, sometimes renovates the eagerness of the first youth. But, in general, your willing slaves are boys.'
Edgar, laughing, begged a little information, how he meant to put his thoughts in execution.
'Nothing so facile! 'Tis but to look at some fair object attentively, to follow her with your eyes when she quits the room; never to let them rest without watching for her return; filling up the interval with a few sighs; to which, in a short time, you grow so habituated, that they become natural; and then, before you are aware, a certain solicitude and restlessness arise, which the connoisseurs in natural history dub falling in love.'
'These would be good hints,' said Edgar, 'to urge on waverers, who wish to persuade themselves to marry.'
'O no, my dear sir! no! that's a mistake of the first magnitude; no man is in love when he marries. He may have loved before; I have even heard he has sometimes loved after: but at the time never. There is something in the formalities of the matrimonial preparations that drive away all the little cupidons. They rarely stand even a demand of consent—unless they doubt obtaining it; but a settlement! Parchments! Lawyers!—No! there is not a little Love in the Island of Cyprus, that is not ready to lend a wing to set passion, inspiration, and tenderness to flight, from such excruciating legalities.'
'Don't prose, Clary; don't prose,' cried Sir Theophilus, gaping till his mouth was almost distorted.
'O, killing! O, murder!' cried Lord Newford; 'what dost talk of marriage for?'
'It seems, then,' said Edgar, 'to be much the same thing what sort of wife falls to a man's lot; whether the woman of his choice, or a person he should blush to own?'
'Blush!' repeated Sir Sedley, smiling; 'no! no! A man of any fashion never blushes for his wife, whatever she may be. For his mistress, indeed, he may blush: for if there are any small failings there, his taste may be called in question.'