Page:Shirley (1849 Volume 2).djvu/40

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28
SHIRLEY.

for the sake of having the privilege of comforting him."

"You never would have loved Cowper," rejoined Caroline, promptly: "he was not made to be loved by woman."

"What do you mean?"

"What I say. I know there is a kind of natures in the world—and very noble, elevated natures, too—whom love never comes near. You might have sought Cowper with the intention of loving him; and you would have looked at him, pitied him, and left him: forced away by a sense of the impossible, the incongruous, as the crew were borne from their drowning comrade by 'the furious blast.'"

"You may be right. Who told you this?"

"And what I say of Cowper, I should say of Rousseau. Was Rousseau ever loved? He loved passionately; but was his passion ever returned? I am certain, never. And if there were any female Cowpers and Rousseaus, I should assert the same of them."

"Who told you this, I ask? Did Moore?"

"Why should anybody have told me? Have I not an instinct? Can I not divine by analogy? Moore never talked to me either about Cowper, or Rousseau, or love. The voice we hear in solitude told me all I know on these subjects."

"Do you like characters of the Rousseau order, Caroline?"