A Description of Millenium Hall: And the Country Adjacent Together with the Characters of the Inhabitants and Such Historical Anecdotes and Reflections As May Excite in the Reader Proper Sentiments of Humanity, and Lead the Mind to the Love of VirtueScott, Sarah
Philosophy
A Description of Millenium Hall: And the Country Adjacent Together with the Characters of the Inhabitants and Such Historical Anecdotes and Reflections As May Excite in the Reader Proper Sentiments of Humanity, and Lead the Mind to the Love of Virtue
Scott, Sarah
Utopias -- Fiction
I might be brought to believe it my duty to sacrifice my ease of mind,
to the preservation of my character, but in my case, there is no choice;
I must either add to the contamination of a very profligate world, or,
in the face of Heaven, enter into the most solemn vows to love a man,
whom the most I can do is not to hate. This is wilful perjury. In such
an alternative duty cannot direct me, and misery must follow my
decision, let me determine as I will.'
In this irresolution, Miss Melvyn left her friend, but the vent she had
given to her grief had greatly calmed her spirits and restored her to
the power of reflection. At her entrance into the house, she met Lady
Melvyn, who with a very stern countenance ordered her to go and
entertain Mr Morgan, who waited for her in the parlour. She found him
alone, and as he began to renew his addresses, which a repulse from her
had not discouraged, since he hoped to succeed by the influence her
parents had over her, she immediately formed the resolution of
endeavouring to make him relinquish his pretensions, in hopes that if
the refusal came from him, he might become the object of her mother's
indignation, and her persecution might drop, at least for a time. She
therefore frankly told him, that tho' her affections were entirely
disengaged, yet he was so very repugnant to them that it was impossible
she should ever feel that regard for him which he had a right to expect
from his wife; and therefore intreated him, in consideration of his own
happiness, if hers were indifferent to him, not to persist in a pursuit
which, if successful, could not answer his hopes, nor reduce her to
render herself wretched by becoming his wife, or to exasperate her
parents by refusing him. She then added all her heart could suggest to
flatter him into compliance with this request.
Mr Morgan's foible was not an excess of delicacy; he told her plainly,
he admired her eloquence prodigiously, but that there was more rhetoric
in her beauty than any composition of words could contain; which
pleading in direct contradiction to all she had said, she must excuse
him, if he was influenced by the more powerful oratory of her charms;
and her good sense and unexceptionable conduct convinced him, that when
it became her duty to love him, she would no longer remain indifferent.
All Miss Melvyn could urge to shew him this was but a very poor
dependence, had no sort of weight, and he parted from her only more
determined to hasten the conclusion of their marriage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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