Not of the ordinary compound of the domestic and the
fashionable; there is nothing exciting in that; and besides,
our realistic novelists have rendered such researches on my part
superfluous; but of a type, small, but each member of which is built
up of infinite complexities--like this girl. The nature would awaken
with a sudden, mighty shock, not creep toward the light with slow,
well-regulated steps--but, bah! what is the use of indulging in
boneless imaginings? One can never tell what a woman of that sort will
think and feel, until her experience has been a part of his own. And
there is no possibility of my falling in love with her, even did I
wish it, which I certainly do not. The man who fascinates is not the
man who loves. Pardon my modesty, most charming of grandmothers, if
your soul really lurks behind that wonderful likeness of yours, as
I sometimes think it does, but a man cannot have the double power of
making many others feel and of feeling himself. At least, so it seems
to me. Love lightly roused is held as lightly, and one loses one's
respect for even the passion in the abstract.
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