Corinne's letter made Oswald a second time repent the idea he had formed of detaching himself from her. The intellectual dignity, the attractive tenderness with which she repelled the harsh allegations he had made against her country, affected him deeply, and penetrated him with admiration. A superiority, so grand, so simple, and so true, appeared to him above all ordinary rules. He felt that Corinne was not the weak, timid woman, without an opinion on any subject beyond the sphere of her private duties and sentiments, which he had chosen in his imagination as a partner for life. The remembrance of Lucilia, such as he had beheld her at the age of twelve years, agreed much better with this idea;--but could any woman be compared with Corinne? Could ordinary laws and rules be applied to one, who united in herself so many different qualities, cemented by genius and sensibility? Corinne was a miracle of nature, and was it not a miracle worked in favour of Oswald, when he could flatter himself with interesting such a woman? But her real name and condition were unknown to him. What would be her future projects were he to avow his intention of uniting himself to her? All was yet in obscurity; and although the enthusiasm with which Corinne had inspired Oswald made him desirous of espousing her, yet the idea that her life had not been wholly irreproachable, and that such an union would certainly have been condemned by his father, threw his soul into confusion, and racked him with the most painful anxiety. He was not now so sunk in grief, as before his acquaintance with Corinne; but he no longer felt that sort of calm, which may even accompany repentance, when our whole life is devoted to the expiation of a crime. Formerly, he was not afraid to abandon himself to his recollections, bitter as they were; but now he dreaded those long and profound reveries, which would have revealed to him what was passing at the bottom of his soul. In the meantime he prepared to visit Corinne, in order to thank her for her letter, and obtain pardon for what he had written to her, when Mr Edgermond, a relation of young Lucilia, entered the room. He was a worthy English gentleman, who had almost constantly resided in Wales, where he possessed an estate. He cherished those principles and prejudices which, in every country, serve to maintain things as they are, and which have a most beneficial tendency, when things are as well as human reason will permit. When that is the case, such men as Mr Edgermond, that is to say, the partizans of established order, though strongly and even obstinately attached to their customs and to their manner of thinking, ought to be considered as men of rational and enlightened minds.