With a rapidity scarcely intelligible, and in a manner wholly incoherent, she then went on: 'Ellis, I pretend not to any mystery. Why is one person adorable, and another detestable, but to call forth our love and our hatred? to give birth to all that snatches us from mere inert existence; to our passions, our energies, our noblest conceptions of all that is towering and sublime? Whether you have any idea of this mental enlargement I cannot tell; but with it I see human nature endowed with capabilities immeasurable of perfection; and without it, I regard and treat the whole of my race as the mere dramatis personae of a farce; of which I am myself, when performing with such fellow-actors, a principal buffoon.' Nearly out of breath, she stopt a moment; then, looking earnestly at Ellis, said, 'Do you understand me?' Ellis, in a fearful accent, answered, 'I ... I am not quite sure.' 'Remove your doubts, then!' cried she, impatiently; 'I despise what is obscure, still more than I hate what is false. Falsehood may at least approach to that degree of grandeur which belongs to crime; but obscurity is always mean, always seeking some subterfuge, always belonging to art.' Again she stopt; but Ellis, uncertain whether this remark were meant to introduce her confidence, or to censure her own secresy, waited an explanation in silence. Elinor was evidently, however, embarrassed, though anxious to persuade herself, as well as Ellis, that she was perfectly at her ease. She walked a quick pace up and down the room; then stopt, seemed pausing, hemmed to clear her voice for speech; and then walked backwards and forwards before the window, which she frequently opened and shut, without seeming to know that she touched it; till, at length, seized with sudden indignation against herself, for this failure of courage, she energetically exclaimed, 'How paltry is shame where there can be no disgrace!--I disdain it!--disclaim it!--and am ready to avow to the whole world, that I dare speak and act, as well as think and feel for myself!' Yet, even thus buoyed up, thus full fraught with defiance, something within involuntarily, invincibly checked her, and she hastily resumed her walks and her ruminations.