tality; and, thus brought to a level with the beginnings and endings—the chances and changes of life's common-place employments and pleasures—and, alas! from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step—our divinity turns out an idol—we are grown too wise, too worldly, for our former faith—and we laugh at what we wept before: such laughter is more bitter—a thousand times more bitter—than tears.
Emily was in the very first of the golden age of unconscious enjoyment—a period which endures longer in unrequited love than any other; the observance and display of another's feelings do not then assist to enlighten us on our own.
Lorraine's imagination was entirely engrossed by Adelaide Lorimer. He had first seen her in a situation a little out of the common routine of introduction; she was quite beautiful enough to make a divinity of—and her grace and refinement were admirable in the way of contrast to the prettiness and simplicity of which he had just been thoroughly tired in Norway. Now it is an admitted fact in moral—or, we should say, sentimental—philosophy, that one attachment precludes another—and that to be sensible
