there was a
volatility in his manner which often distressed her; but love gladdened
the scene; besides, he was the most tender, sympathizing creature in the
world. A fondness for the sex often gives an appearance of humanity to
the behaviour of men, who have small pretensions to the reality;
and they seem to love others, when they are only pursuing their own
gratification. Darnford appeared ever willing to avail himself of her
taste and acquirements, while she endeavoured to profit by his decision
of character, and to eradicate some of the romantic notions, which had
taken root in her mind, while in adversity she had brooded over visions
of unattainable bliss.

The real affections of life, when they are allowed to burst forth, are
buds pregnant with joy and all the sweet emotions of the soul; yet they
branch out with wild ease, unlike the artificial forms of felicity,
sketched by an imagination painful alive. The substantial happiness,
which enlarges and civilizes the mind, may be compared to the pleasure
experienced in roving through nature at large, inhaling the sweet gale
natural to the clime; while the reveries of a feverish imagination
continually sport themselves in gardens full of aromatic shrubs, which
cloy while they delight, and weaken the sense of pleasure they gratify.
The heaven of fancy, below or beyond the stars, in this life, or in
those ever-smiling regions surrounded by the unmarked ocean of futurity,
have an insipid uniformity which palls. Poets have imagined scenes of
bliss; but, sencing out sorrow, all the extatic emotions of the Soul,
and even its grandeur, seem to be equally excluded. We dose over the
unruffled lake, and long to scale the rocks which fence the happy valley
of contentment, though serpents hiss in the pathless desert, and danger
lurks in the unexplored wiles. Maria found herself more indulgent as
she was happier, and discovered virtues, in characters she had before
disregarded, while chasing the phantoms of elegance and excellence,
which sported in the meteors that exhale in the marshes of misfortune.
The heart is often shut by romance against social pleasure; and,
fostering a sickly sensibility, grows callous to the soft touches of
humanity.

To part with Darnford was indeed cruel.--It was to feel most painfully
alone; but she rejoiced to think, that she should spare him the care and
perplexity of the suit, and meet him again, all his own. Marriage, as
at present constituted, she