"And yet, I think, I can describe why I could never entertain anything like passion for you. Your beauty is all intellectual. There is nothing voluptuous in the character of it. Added to this, I know that such a man as you are, ought not, or if he ought, he will not, make woman his first pursuit; and, to love at all, he must feel pride in the object of his affections. I might excite your passions; but then, such contempt as you have lavished on poor Lady Caroline Lamb would kill me."
"Is there any sort of comparison to be made between you and that mad woman?" Lord Byron asked.
"No matter! I would never put myself in the power of a man who could speak thus of any lady whom he had once professed to love."
"How do you know I ever did?"
"Those letters, in her ladyship's novel, Glenarvon, are much in your own style, and rather better than she could write. Have you any objection to tell me candidly whether they are really your originals?"
"Yes! they are. But what of that? Is it not absurd to suppose that a woman, who was not quite a fool, could believe in such ridiculous, heartless nonsense? Would not you have laughed at such poetical stuff?"
"Certainly. Those letters would have done more to convince me of your perfect indifference, than even your silence and neglect. Nobody ever did or can impose upon me by a heartless love-letter. Quand le coeur parle, adieu l'esprit. It is, in fact, almost impossible to compose anything, which has a resemblance to strong feeling, when one is addressing a person towards whom our heart is cold."
"I am glad we agree on one point. Now, with regard to my various errors, of which you have been pleased to make mention."
"I did not do so to wound or to vex;" interrupted I, "but you are too touchy and susceptible. I am surprised at what, when carried to excess, I conceive to be the defect of a little mind. However, much may be said in extenuation of your sensitiveness; because you are in ill-health, and may be blue-devilled, when you see things in such a sickly light, or suspect persons of meaning to insult your feelings, when they perhaps never once thought about you in their lives."
"You use me worse than anybody, and yet, touchy as I am, I really like you, because I feel the conviction, that you would sacrifice your own interest to do me good: and, suspicious as you are pleased to describe me, I am convinced that there is nothing you could ever say or do to me, but I should take as I know it would be meant, in good part. You have perhaps the sort of plain understanding which would serve to make me better; but you could not live with me or endure much of my society. I am, in short, determined that you shall like me all my life, and I know myself too well to believe that to be possible, were you to see me at all times."