| 275 | 276 | 277 | 278 | 279 |
| 1 | 154 | 308 | 461 | 615 |
|
contribute to your happiness."
Perdita shook her head; "If it could be so," she replied, "I were much in
the wrong to disdain your offers. But it is not a matter of choice; I can
live here only. I am a part of this scene; each and all its properties are
a part of me. This is no sudden fancy; I live by it. The knowledge that I
am here, rises with me in the morning, and enables me to endure the light;
it is mingled with my food, which else were poison; it walks, it sleeps
with me, for ever it accompanies me. Here I may even cease to repine, and
may add my tardy consent to the decree which has taken him from me. He
would rather have died such a death, which will be recorded in history to
endless time, than have lived to old age unknown, unhonoured. Nor can I
desire better, than, having been the chosen and beloved of his heart, here,
in youth's prime, before added years can tarnish the best feelings of my
nature, to watch his tomb, and speedily rejoin him in his blessed repose.
"
So much, my dearest Lionel, I have said, wishing to persuade you that I do
right. If you are unconvinced, I can add nothing further by way of
argument, and I can only declare my fixed resolve. I stay here; force only
can remove me. Be it so; drag me away--I return; confine me, imprison me,
still I escape, and come here. Or would my brother rather devote the
heart-broken Perdita to the straw and chains of a maniac, than suffer her
to rest in peace beneath the shadow of His society, in this my own selected
and beloved recess?"--
All this appeared to me, I own, methodized madness. I imagined, that it was
277
Page
Quick Jump
|