Calantha’s principles had received a shock, the force and effect of which was greatly augmented by a year of vanity and folly; her health too was impaired from late hours and an enervating life; she could not walk or ride as formerly; and her great occupation was the indulgence of a useless and visionary train of thinking. She imagined that which was not, and lost sight of reality;—pictured ideal virtues, and saw not the world as it is. Her heart beat with all the fervour of enthusiasm; but the turn it took was erroneous. She heard the conversation of others; took a mistaken survey of society; and withdrew herself imperceptibly from all just and reasonable views. Ill motives were imputed to her, for what she considered harmless imprudence; she felt the injustice of these opinions; and, instead of endeavouring to correct those appearances which had caused such severe animadversion, in absolute disgust she steeled herself against all remonstrances. Every one smiles on me and seems to love me—the world befriends me—she continually thought; yet I am censured and misrepresented. My relations—the only enemies I have—are those who profess to be my friends. Convinced of this, she became lonely. She had thoughts which once she would have mentioned as they occurred, but which she now concealed and kept solely to herself. She became dearer in her own estimation, as she detached herself from others, and began to feel coldly, even towards those whom she had once loved. CHAPTER XXXIII. It is dangerous to begin life by surrendering every feeling of the mind and the heart to any violent passion—Calantha had loved and been loved to such an excess, that all which followed it appeared insipid. Vanity might fill the space for a moment, or friendship, or charity, or benevolence; but still there was something gone which, had it never existed, had never been missed and required. Lord Avondale was perhaps more indulgent and more affectionate now, than at first; for a lover ever plays the tyrant; but even this indulgence was different; and that look of adoration—that blind devotion—that ardent, constant solitude, when, without a single profession, one may feel certain of being the first object in life to the person thus attached,—all this was past. Such love is not depravity. To have felt it, and to feel it no more, is like being deprived of the light of the sun, and seeing the same scenes, which we once viewed brilliant beneath its beams, dark, clouded and cheerless.—Calantha had given up her heart too entirely to its power, ever more to endure existence without it. Her home was a desert; her thoughts were heavy and dull; her spirits and her health were gone; and even the desire of pleasing, so natural to the vain, had ceased. Whom was she to wish to please, since Avondale was indifferent? or what to her was the same, absent and preoccupied.