"Yes," answered Berkley; "that is the waywith you all, you young men. You see a sweet face, or a something, you know not what, and flickering reason says, Good night; amen to common sense. The imagination invests the beloved object with a thousand superlative charms; furnishes her with all the purple and fine linen, all the rich apparel and furniture, of human nature. I did the same when I was young. I was once as desperately in love as you are now; and went through all the 'Delicious deaths, soft exhalations Of soul; dear and divine annihilations, A thousand unknown rites Of joys, and rarified delights.' I adored and was rejected. 'You are in love with certain attributes,' said the lady. 'Damn your attributes, Madam,' said I; 'I know nothing of attributes.' 'Sir,' said she, with dignity, 'you have been drinking.' So we parted. She was married afterwards to another, who knew something about attributes, I suppose. I have seen her once since, and only once. She had a baby in a yellow gown. I hate a baby in a yellow gown. How glad I am she did not marry me. One of these days, you will be glad you have been rejected. Take my word for it." "All that does not prevent my lot from being a very melancholy one!" said Flemming sadly. "O, never mind the lot," cried Berkley laughing, "so long as you don't get Lot's wife. If the cucumber is bitter, throw it away, as the philosopher Marcus Antoninus says, in his Meditations. Forget her, and all will be as if you had not known her." "I shall never forget her," replied Flemming, rather solemnly. "Not my pride, but my affections, are wounded; and the wound is too deep ever to heal. I shall carry it with me always. I enter no more into the world, but will dwell only in the world of my own thoughts. All great and unusual occurrences, whether of joy or sorrow, lift us above this earth; and we should do well always to preserve this elevation. Hitherto I have not done so. But now I will no more descend; I will sit apart and above the world, with my mournful, yet holy thoughts." "Whew! You had better go into society; the whirl and delirium will cure you in a week. If you find a lady, who pleases you very much, and you wish to marry her, and she will not listen to such a horrid thing, I see but one remedy, which is to find another, who pleases you more, and who will listen to it." "No, my friend; you do not understand my character," said Flemming, shaking his head. "I love this woman with a deep, and lasting affection. I shall never cease to love her. This may be madness in me; but so it is. Alas and alas! Paracelsus of old wasted life in trying to discover its elixir, which after all turned out to be alcohol; and instead of being made immortal upon earth, he died drunk on the floor of a tavern. The like happens to many of us. We waste our best years in distilling the sweetest flowers of life into love-potions, which after all do not immortalize, butonly intoxicate us. By Heaven! we are all of us mad."