But I am straying unawares into the province of sentiment, where I am such a stranger that I shall inevitably lose my way, especially as I am too proud to take a guide. Lady Olivia ---- may perhaps be very fond of Leonora: and as she has every possible cause to be so, it is but reasonable and charitable to suppose that she is: but I should never guess it by her manner. She speaks of her friendship sometimes in the most romantic style, but often makes observations upon _the enviable coolness and imperturbability of Leonora’s disposition_, which convinces me that she does not understand it in the least. Those who do not really feel, always pitch their expressions too high or too low, as deaf people bellow, or speak in a whisper. But I may be mistaken in my suspicions of Olivia; for _to do the lady justice_, as Mrs. Candour would say, she is so affected, that it is difficult to know what she really feels. Those who put on rouge occasionally, are suspected of wearing it constantly, and never have any credit for their natural colour; presently they become so accustomed to common rouge, that, mistaking scarlet for pale pink, they persist in laying on more and more, till they are like nothing human. Yours affectionately, HELEN C----. * * * * * LETTER XV. OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----. I have found it! I have found it! dear Gabrielle, rejoice with me! I have solved the metaphysical problem, which perplexed me so cruelly, and now I am once more at peace with myself. I have discovered the reason why I cannot love Leonora as she merits to be loved--she has obliged me; and the nature of obligation is such, that it supposes superiority on one side, and consequently destroys the equality, the freedom, the ease, the charm of friendship. Gratitude weighs upon one’s heart in proportion to the delicacy of its feelings. To minds of an ordinary sort it may be pleasurable, for with them it is sufficiently feeble to be calm; but in souls of a superior cast, it is a poignant, painful sensation, because it is too strong ever to be tranquil. In short, “‘Tis bliss but to a certain bound-- Beyond, ‘tis agony.” For my own part, the very dread that I shall not be thought to express enough, deprives me of the power to speak or even to feel. Fear, you know, extinguishes affection; and of all fears, the dread of not being sufficiently grateful, operates the most powerfully. Thus sensibility destroys itself.--Gracious Heaven! teach me to moderate mine.