"It is weakness, not wilfulness, Rosalind. I am ashamed to confess, even to myself, that there are moments when I fancy I should like to love you; and then I would give more than my worthless life, if I had it, that you should love me. When this contemptible folly seizes me, I may, perhaps, as you say, throw out a bait to catch your curiosity, and then it is I utter the words of which you complain. But you must allow that this childishness never holds me long, and that the moment it is past I become as reasonable and as wretched again as ever." "Will you tell me whether this feeling of profound contempt for yourself, whenever you are conscious of a kindly sentiment towards me, arises from your conviction of my individual despicability, or from believing that all human affections are degrading?" "Not exactly from either. As for you, Rosalind,--is it not the weak and wavering Hamlet who says, in one of those flashes of fine philosophy that burst athwart the gloom of his poor troubled spirit, 'Give me that man that is not passion's slave?' My wits are often as much diseased as his, I believe; but I too have my intervals; and, when the moon is not at the full, I sometimes sketch the portrait of a being that one might venture to love. I, however, have no quarrel against passion,--it is not from thence my sorrows have come;--but I would say, 'Give me that friend That is not _falsehood's_ slave, and I will wear him (or her, Rosalind,) In my heart's core,--ay, in my heart of heart.' And if after all my hard schooling I could be simple enough to believe that any thing in human form could be true, I should be more likely to commit the folly about you than about any one I ever saw in my life." "But still you believe me false?" "I do." "And why, Henrietta?" "Because you are a woman;--no, no, because you are a human being." "And you really, without meaning to season your speech with pungent crystals of satire--you really do not believe that truth can be found in any human being?" "I really do not." "Heaven help you, then! I would rather pass my life in a roofless cabin, and feed on potato-parings, than live in such a persuasion." "And so would I, Rosalind." "Then why do you nourish such hateful theories? I shall begin to think your jesting words too true, Henrietta; and believe, indeed, that your wits are not quite healthy." "Would I could believe it! I would submit to a strait-waistcoat and a shaven crown to-morrow if I could but persuade myself that I was mad, and that all that I have fancied going on around me were but so many vapours from a moon-sick brain." "And so they have been, if you construe every word you hear, and every act you see, into falsehood and delusion."