_Milverton_. I daresay I may have done so. These are very deep matters, and any one view about them does not exhaust them. I remember C— once saying to me that a man never utters anything without error. He may even think of it rightly; but he cannot bring it out rightly. It turns a little false, as it were, when it quits the brain and comes into life. _Ellesmere_. I thought you would soon go over to the soft side. Here, Rollo; there’s a good dog. You do not form unreasonable expectations, do you? A very little petting puts you into an ecstasy, and you are much wiser than many a biped who is full of his claims for gratitude, and friendship, and love, and who is always longing for well-merited rewards to fall into his mouth. Down, dog! _Milverton_. Poor animal! it little knows that all this sudden notice is only by way of ridiculing us. Why I did not maintain my ground stoutly against Dunsford is, that I am always afraid of pushing moral conclusions too far. Since we have been talking, I think I see more clearly than I did before what I mean to convey by the essay—namely, that men fall into unreasonable views respecting the affections _from imagining that the general laws of the mind are suspended for the sake of the affections_. _Dunsford_. That seems safer ground. _Milverton_. Now to illustrate what I mean by a very similar instance. The mind is avid of new impressions. It “travels over,” or thinks it travels over, another mind; and, though it may conceal its wish for “fresh fields and pastures new,” it does so wish. However harsh, therefore, and unromantic it may seem, the best plan is to humour Nature, and not to exhaust by overfrequent presence the affection of those whom we would love, or whom we would have to love us. I would not say, after the manner of Rochefoucauld, that the less we see of people the more we like them; but there are certain limits of sociality; and prudent reserve and absence may find a place in the management of the tenderest relations. _Dunsford_. Yes, all this is true enough: I do not see anything hard in this. But then there is the other side. Custom is a great aid to affection. _Milverton_. Yes. All I say is, do not fancy that the general laws are suspended for the sake of any one affection. _Dunsford_. Still this does not go to the question whether there is not something more of will in affection than you make out. You would speak of inducements and counter-inducements, aids and hindrances; but I cannot but think you are limiting the power of will, and therefore limiting duty. Such views tend to make people easily discontented with each other, and prevent their making efforts to get over offences, and to find out what is lovable in those about them.