"That vast theatre, the world, changes not its actors: it is always man who appears there, though he varies; and as all his changes depend on some great passion, whose circle hath long and oft been trod, it would be strange, if in the little combinations of private life, experience, the science of the past, were not the plenteous source of useful instruction. Honor your fathers and mothers, then! respect them, if but for the sake of their bygone reign, the time of which they were the only rulers--if but for the years forever lost, whose reverent seal is imprinted on their brows. Know your duty, presumptuous children, impatient to walk alone on the path of life. They will leave you, do not fear, though so tardy in yielding you place: that father, whose discourses are still tainted by unwelcome severity; that mother, whose age imposes on you such tedious cares. They will go, those watchful guardians of your childhood, these zealous protectors of your youth, they will depart, and you will seek in vain for better friends: when they are lost, they will wear new aspects; for time, which makes the living old before our eyes, renews their youth when death has torn them away. Time then lends them a might unknown before: we see them in our visions of eternity, wherein there is no age, as there are no gradations; and if they have left virtuous memories behind, we adorn them with a ray from heaven: our thoughts follow them to the home of the elect; we see them in scenes of felicity, and, beside the bright beams of which we form their glory, the light of our own best days, our own most dazzling triumphs, is extinguished."[4] "Corinne!" cried Nevil, almost heart-broken, "think you it was against me he breathed that eloquent complaint?"--"No, no," she replied: "remember how he loved you, and believed in your affection. I am of opinion that these reflections were written long ere you committed the faults with which you reproach yourself. Listen rather to these thoughts on indulgence, that I find some pages later: 'We go through life surrounded by snares and with unsteady steps; our senses are seduced by deceptive allurements; our imaginations mislead us by a false glare; our reason itself each day receives but from experience the degree of light and confidence for that day required. So many dangers for so much weakness; so many varied interests with such limited foresight and capacity; in sooth, so many things unknown, and so short a life, show us the high rank we should give to indulgence among the social virtues. Alas! where is the man exempt from foibles, who can look back on his life without regret and remorse? He must be a stranger to the agitations of timidity, and never can have examined his own heart in the solitude of conscience.'[5]