Produced by Dagny; and by David Widger Corrected and updated text and HTML PG Editions of the complete 11 volume set may be found at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9774/9774.txt https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/9774/pg9774-images.html BOOK VIII. O Fate! O Heaven!--what have ye then decreed? SOPHOCLES: _OEd. Tyr._ 738. "Insolent pride . . . . . . . . . The topmost crag of the great precipice Surmounts--to rush to ruin." _Ibid._ 874. CHAPTER I. . . . SHE is young, wise, fair, In these to Nature she's immediate heir. . . . . . . . . . Honours best thrive When rather from our acts we them derive Than our foregoers!--_All's Well that Ends Well_. LETTER FROM ERNEST MALTRAVERS TO THE HON. FREDERICK CLEVELAND. EVELYN is free; she is in Paris; I have seen her,--I see her daily! How true it is that we cannot make a philosophy of indifference! The affections are stronger than all our reasonings. We must take them into our alliance, or they will destroy all our theories of self-government. Such fools of fate are we, passing from system to system, from scheme to scheme, vainly seeking to shut out passion and sorrow-forgetting that they are born within us--and return to the soul as the seasons to the earth! Yet,--years, many years ago, when I first looked gravely into my own nature and being here, when I first awakened to the dignity and solemn responsibilities of human life, I had resolved to tame and curb myself into a thing of rule and measure. Bearing within me the wound scarred over but never healed, the consciousness of wrong to the heart that had leaned upon me, haunted by the memory of my lost Alice, I shuddered at new affections bequeathing new griefs. Wrapped in a haughty egotism, I wished not to extend my empire over a wider circuit than my own intellect and passions. I turned from the trader-covetousness of bliss, that would freight the wealth of life upon barks exposed to every wind upon the seas of Fate; I was contented with the hope to pass life alone, honoured, though unloved. Slowly and reluctantly I yielded to the fascinations of Florence Lascelles. The hour that sealed the compact between us was one of regret and alarm. In vain I sought to deceive myself,--I felt that I did not love. And then I imagined that Love was no longer in my nature,--that I had exhausted its treasures before my time, and left my heart a bankrupt. Not till the last--not till that glorious soul broke out in all its brightness the nearer it approached the source to which it has returned--did I feel of what tenderness she was worthy and I was capable. She died, and the world was darkened! Energy, ambition, my former aims and objects, were all sacrificed at her tomb. But amidst ruins and through the darkness, my soul yet supported me; I could no longer hope, but I could endure. I was resolved that I