tenderness, she grew reserved towards me, her first and fast friend.

I could not see her thus lost, without exerting myself to remedy the evil

--remediless I knew, if I could not in the end bring her to reconcile

herself to Raymond. Before he went I used every argument, every persuasion

to induce her to stop his journey. She answered the one with a gush of

tears--telling me that to be persuaded--life and the goods of life were

a cheap exchange. It was not will that she wanted, but the capacity; again

and again she declared, it were as easy to enchain the sea, to put reins on

the wind's viewless courses, as for her to take truth for falsehood, deceit

for honesty, heartless communion for sincere, confiding love. She answered

my reasonings more briefly, declaring with disdain, that the reason was

hers; and, until I could persuade her that the past could be unacted, that

maturity could go back to the cradle, and that all that was could become as

though it had never been, it was useless to assure her that no real change

had taken place in her fate. And thus with stern pride she suffered him to

go, though her very heart-strings cracked at the fulfilling of the act,

which rent from her all that made life valuable.

To change the scene for her, and even for ourselves, all unhinged by the

cloud that had come over us, I persuaded my two remaining companions that

it were better that we should absent ourselves for a time from Windsor. We

visited the north of England, my native Ulswater, and lingered in scenes

dear from a thousand associations. We lengthened our tour into Scotland,

that we might see Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond; thence we crossed to

Ireland, and passed several weeks in the neighbourhood of Killarney. The

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The Last Man