“Ah!” she replied with an assuring smile, “you never needed qualities other than your own to commend yourself to me.”
“Pleasant hypocrite! And yet, Julia, would you not be better pleased if I could draw and color, and talk landscape with you by the hour?”
“No! I have never thought of your doing anything of the kind.”
“Like begets liking.”
“It may be, but I do not think so. I do not think we love people so much for what they can do, as for what they are.”
“Ah, Julia, that is a great mistake. It is a law in morals, that the qualities of men should depend upon their performances. What a man is, results from what he does, and so we judge of persons. Edgerton is a noble fellow; his tastes are very fine. I suspect he can form as correct an opinion of a fine picture as any one—perhaps, paint it as finely.”
She was silent.
“Do you not think so, Julia?”
“I think he paints very well for an amateur.”
“He is certainly a man of exquisite taste in most matters of taste and elegance. I have always thought his manners particularly easy and dignified. His carriage is at once manly and graceful; and his dancing—do you not think he dances with admirable flexibility?”