Albert, who could not see the justice of the comparison, offered some
further objections, and, amongst others, urged that I had taken the
case of a mere ignorant girl. But how any man of sense, of more
enlarged views and experience, could be excused, he was unable to
comprehend. "My friend!" I exclaimed, "man is but man; and, whatever be
the extent of his reasoning powers, they are of little avail when
passion rages within, and he feels himself confined by the narrow
limits of Nature. It were better, then--But we will talk of this some
other time," I said, and caught up my hat. Alas! my heart was full; and
we parted without conviction on either side. How rarely in this world
do men understand each other!
Aug. 15.
There can be no doubt that in this world nothing is so indispensable as
love. I observe that Charlotte could not lose me without a pang, and
the very children have but one wish; that is, that I should visit them
again to-morrow. I went this afternoon to tune Charlotte's piano. But I
could not do it, for the little ones insisted on my telling them a
story; and Charlotte herself urged me to satisfy them. I waited upon
them at tea, and they are now as fully contented with me as with
Charlotte; and I told them my very best tale of the princess who was
waited upon by dwarfs. I improve myself by this exercise, and am quite
surprised at the impression my stories create. If I sometimes invent an
incident which I forget upon the next narration, they remind me
directly that the story was different before; so that I now endeavour
to relate with exactness the same anecdote in the same monotonous tone
which never changes. I find by this, how much an author injures his
works by altering them, even though they be improved in a poetical
point of view. The first impression is readily received. We are so
constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they
are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavour to efface
them.
Aug. 18.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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