“How little importance, then, should we attach to our caprices, when we know, by experience, how short is the pleasure and displeasure they can give,” was the careful reply.
“Caprices!” said Sara, “yes, you are right. My mind gets weary, disgusted, and dismayed. But the soul is never bored—never tired. Poor prisoner! It has so few opportunities.”
She sighed deeply, and her father saw, with distress, the approach of a sentimental mood which he deplored as un-English, and feared as unmanageable.
“What is this languor, this inability to rouse myself, to feel the least interest in things or people?” she continued. “I am not ill, and yet I have scarcely the strength to regret my lassitude.”
“What does it mean?”
He put his hand upon her jacket sleeve.
“Is this warm enough?” he said. “The autumn is treacherous. You are careful, I hope.”
She glanced out of the window and up at the clouds which, grey, heavy, and impenetrable, moved, darkening all things as they went across the sky.
“I wish it would rain! I like to be out when it rains!”
“A strange fancy,” said her father, “but tastes, even odd ones, give a charm to life, whereas passions—“ he put some stress upon the word and repeated it, “passions destroy it.”