"Miss Vernon would have us turn first one cheek and then the other to be smitten," said Lord Effingham.
"Yes," said Miss Vernon, colouring, but composed, "I would in that sense in which we were recommended to do so. If Conrad could have loved, as Byron describes, his sense of wrong would have led him to feel a noble pity for his injurers; revenge would have been merged in an effort to teach them truth by forgiveness; and which is the grandest creature, the man who, freed from the petty dominion of self, can look down on his own passions from a real eminence, or he who is their willing slave; before whose frown
'Hope withering fled, and mercy sighed farewell!'"
"Bravo, Miss Vernon, you have converted me," cried the Colonel.
"Yes," said Lady Desmond, "I believe you are right, Kate."
"You demand perfection," observed the Earl, gloomily.
"I fear," said Miss Vernon, half ashamed of her enthusiasm, "I have talked a great deal too much."
"But the modern school of poets, who draw their inspiration from a mushroom, or pig-sty, or an old man afflicted with the rheumatism, are, I confess, too transcendental for me; I cannot interest myself in such anti-poetical subjects," remarked Lord Effingham.
"I rather like Longfellow; and Kate, I believe, considers him the first of poets," said Lady Desmond.