"Well, I should like to hear your oracle's opinion, if you can give it in shorthand."
"She warned me there was a passion which was very fashionable, and which I should hear a great deal of, both in conversation and books, that was the result of indulged fancy, warm imaginations, and ill-regulated minds; that many had fallen into its snares, deceived by its glowing colours and alluring name; that—"
"A very good sermon, indeed!" interrupted Lady Emily; "but, no offence to Mrs. Douglas, I think I could preach a better myself. Love is a passion that has been much talked of, often described, and little understood. Cupid has many counterfeits going about the world, who pass very well with those whose minds are capable of passion, but not of love. These Birmingham Cupids have many votaries amongst boarding-school misses, militia officers, and milliners 'apprentices; who marry upon the mutual faith of blue eyes and scarlet coats; have dirty houses and squalling children, and hate each other most delectably. Then there is another species for more refined souls, which owes its birth to the works of Rousseau, Goethe, Cottin, etc. Its success depends very much upon rocks, woods, and waterfalls; and it generally ends daggers, pistols, or poison. But there, I think, Lindore would be more eloquent than me, so I shall leave it for him to discuss that chapter with you. But, to return to your own immediate concerns. Pray, are you then positively prohibited from falling in love? Did Mrs. Douglas only dress up a scarecrow to frighten you, or had she the candour to show you Love himself in all his majesty?"
"She told me," said Mary, "that there was a love which even the wisest and most virtuous need not blush to entertain—the love of a virtuous object, founded upon esteem, and heightened by similarity of tastes and sympathy of feelings, into a pure and devoted attachment: unless I feel all this, I shall never fancy myself in love."
"Humph! I can't say much as to the similarity of tastes and sympathy of souls between the Duke and you, but surely you might contrive to feel some love and esteem for a coronet and ninety thousand a year." "Suppose I did," said Mary, with a smile, "the next point is to honour; and surely he is as unlikely to excite that sentiment as the other. Honour—-"
"I can't have a second sermon upon honour. 'Can honour take away the grief of a wound?' as Falstaff says. Love is the only subject I care to preach about; though, unlike many young ladies, we can talk about other things too; but as to this Duke, I certainly 'had rather live on cheese and garlic, in a windmill far, than feed on cakes, and have him talk to me in any summer-house in Christendom;' and now I have had Mrs. Douglas's second-hand sentiments upon the subject, I should like to hear your own."
"I have never thought much upon the subject," said Mary; "my sentiments are therefore all at second-hand, but I shall repeat to you what I think is not love, and what is." And she repeated these pretty and well-known lines:—
CARELESS AND FAITHFUL LOVE.
To sigh—yet feel no pain;
To weep-yet scarce know why;
To sport an hour with beauty's chain,
Then throw it idly by;
To kneel at many a shrine,
Yet lay the heart on none;
To think all other charms divine
But those we just have won:—
This is love-careless love—
Such as kindleth hearts that rove.
To keep one sacred flame
Through life, unchill'd, unmov'd;
To love in wint'ry age the same
That first in youth we loved;
To feel that we adore
With such refined excess,
That though the heart would break with more,
We could not love with less:—
This is love—faithful love—
Such as saints might feel above.
"And such as I do feel, and will always feel, for my Edward," said Lady
Emily. "But there is the dressing-bell!" And she flew off, singing—