I have submitted to her whims, I have
worshipped her feet, I have, I believe, strengthened her principle. I
have done all in my devotion but adopt her religious faith. And I have,
as I trusted some time since, awakened to perceive that those twenty
years were a period of mere sentimental pastime, perfectly useless,
fruitless, unless, as is possible, it has saved me from other follies.
But it was a folly in itself. Can one's nature be too stedfast? The
question whether a spice of frivolousness may not be a safeguard has
often risen before me. The truth, I must learn to think, is, that my
mental power is not the match for my ideal or sentimental apprehension
and native tenacity of attachment. I have fallen into one of the pits of
a well-meaning but idle man. The world discredits the existence of pure
platonism in love. I myself can barely look back on those twenty years of
amatory servility with a full comprehension of the part I have been
playing in them. And yet I would not willingly forfeit the exalted
admiration of Louise for my constancy: as little willingly as I would
have imperilled her purity.
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