Hester forgave Cecil for his opinion, the more so as she shared it; and although she combated his views on social matters as warmly as ever, was falling over head and ears in love with him.
"You will come round to my way of thinking one day," she said; "so elevated a mind as yours cannot long remain a slave to traditionary sophisms; the Spirit of the Age will claim you."
"Pray," said Cecil, smiling, "can you explain to me what this spirit of the age actually is? I hear a great deal about it, and comprehend nothing that I hear. Is our age so very different from all those that have gone before it?"
"Assuredly: it is the age of progress."
"Progress? but that is the characteristic of all ages; society never stands still."
"True, but sometimes it retrogrades, and now it advances. My dear Mr. Chamberlayne, you will not deny that the peculiarity of our age is not only progress, but consciousness of progress."
"That is to say, I suppose, while our forefathers contented themselves with advancing, we prate about our advance. Now, of that kind of consciousness I am as decided an enemy as Carlyle himself; and his eloquent denunciations of it as the disease of our time find full acceptance from me."
"Ah! my dear sir, Carlyle, with all his genius, does not understand the historic development of humanity."
"Perhaps not; nor do I: though I have tried. But it still seems to me an evil, not a benefit, that our modern reformers are so very conscious—"
"Stop! You will not deny that every man should have a Purpose?"