Ah, let me look, let me watch, let me wait, unhurried, unprompted! Bid me not venture on aught that could alter or end what is present! Say not, Time flies, and Occasion, that never returns, is departing! Drive me not out yet, ye ill angels with fiery swords, from my Eden, Waiting, and watching, and looking! Let love be its own inspiration! Shall not a voice, if a voice there must be, from the airs that environ, Yea, from the conscious heavens, without our knowledge or effort, Break into audible words? And love be its own inspiration? XIII. Claude to Eustace. Wherefore and how I am certain, I hardly can tell; but it IS so. She doesn't like me, Eustace; I think she never will like me. Is it my fault, as it is my misfortune, my ways are not her ways? Is it my fault, that my habits and modes are dissimilar wholly? 'Tis not her fault; 'tis her nature, her virtue, to misapprehend them: 'Tis not her fault; 'tis her beautiful nature, not ever to know me. Hopeless it seems,--yet I cannot, though hopeless, determine to leave it: She goes--therefore I go; she moves,--I move, not to lose her. XIV. Claude to Eustace. Oh, 'tisn't manly, of course, 'tisn't manly, this method of wooing; 'Tisn't the way very likely to win. For the woman, they tell you, Ever prefers the audacious, the wilful, the vehement hero; She has no heart for the timid, the sensitive soul; and for knowledge,-- Knowledge, O ye Gods!--when did they appreciate knowledge? Wherefore should they, either? I am sure I do not desire it. Ah, and I feel too, Eustace, she cares not a tittle about me! (Care about me, indeed! and do I really expect it?) But my manner offends; my ways are wholly repugnant; Every word that I utter estranges, hurts, and repels her; Every moment of bliss that I gain, in her exquisite presence, Slowly, surely, withdraws her, removes her, and severs her from me. Not that I care very much!--any way I escape from the boy's own Folly, to which I am prone, of loving where it is easy. Not that I mind very much! Why should I? I am not in love, and Am prepared, I think, if not by previous habit, Yet in the spirit beforehand for this and all that is like it; It is an easier matter for us contemplative creatures, Us upon whom the pressure of action is laid so lightly; We, discontented indeed with things in particular, idle, Sickly, complaining, by faith, in the vision of things in general, Manage to hold on our way without, like others around us, Seizing the nearest arm to comfort, help, and support us. Yet, after all, my Eustace, I know but little about it. All I can say for myself, for present alike and for past, is, Mary Trevellyn, Eustace, is certainly worth your acquaintance. You couldn't come, I suppose, as far as Florence to see her? XV. Georgina Trevellyn to Louisa ----.