“Talk not of all these,” cried Cecilia, “when one single obstacle has power to render them valueless.”
“But now,” cried he, “that obstacle is surmounted.”
“Surmounted only for a moment! for even in your letter this morning you confess the regret with which it fills you.”
“And why should I deceive you? Why pretend to think with pleasure, or even with indifference, of an obstacle which has had thus long the power to make me miserable? But where is happiness without allay? Is perfect bliss the condition of humanity? Oh if we refuse to taste it till in its last state of refinement, how shall the cup of evil be ever from our lips?”
“How indeed!” said Cecilia, with a sigh; “the regret, I believe, will remain eternally upon your mind, and she, perhaps, who should cause, might soon be taught to partake of it.”
“O Miss Beverley! how have I merited this severity? Did I make my proposals lightly? Did I suffer my eagerness to conquer my reason? Have I not, on the contrary, been steady and considerate? neither biassed by passion nor betrayed by tenderness?”
“And yet in what,” said Cecilia, “consists this boasted steadiness? I perceived it indeed, at Delvile Castle, but here—”
“The pride of heart which supported me there,” cried he, “will support me no longer; what sustained my firmness, but your apparent severity? What enabled me to fly you, but your invariable coldness? The rigour with which I trampled upon my feelings I thought fortitude and spirit,—but I knew not then the pitying sympathy of Cecilia!”
“O that you knew it not yet!” cried she, blushing; “before that fatal accident you thought of me, I believe, in a manner far more honourable.”
“Impossible! differently, I thought of you, but never, better, never so well as now. I then represented you all lovely in beauty, all perfect in goodness and virtue; but it was virtue in its highest majesty, not, as now, blended with the softest sensibility.”