‘Your acquaintance could not influence affairs. My very affection for my cousin, the complete appreciation which I now possess of her character, before so little estimated and so feebly comprehended by me, is the very circumstance that, with my feelings, would prevent our union. "All these various circumstances convinced me more and more that truth is to be found in Christianity alone. I could not now be satisfied with mere knowledge, I longed for love. "Then what induced Teddy Weyne to bury himself alive in the wilds?
I'm sure it must be terrible living up there alone, with nothing but earwigs and owls for company." But, Lord bless you! it was no good. She may, I am confident she will, yet be happy. I can never make her so.
Then it was that the sun of righteousness shed abroad in our hearts, not only the light that illuminates, but the quickening warmth that enables the soul to live the life of God. I saw that love had led the Saviour to seek me. Whenever it came to breakfast-time, after three hours upon the moors, I regularly forgot the pigs, but paid good heed to the rashers. For ours is a hungry county, if such there be in England; a place, I mean, where men must eat, and are quick to discharge the duty. Our engagement in old days was rather the result of family arrangements than of any sympathy.
I love her far better now than I did then, and yet she is the very last person in the world that I would marry. I perceived also my own sinful and miserable condition; but this feeling seemed absorbed in a sense of the divine love. In Christ I found my life,--the centre of all my thoughts and affections,--the sole object that could fill the void in my heart,--the key of all mysteries,--the principal of all true philosophy, yea the _truth_ itself. The air of the moors is so shrewd and wholesome, stirring a man's recollection of the good things which have betided him, and whetting his hope of something still better in the future, that by the time he sits down to a cloth, his heart and stomach are tuned too well to say “nay” to one another. I trust, I believe, that my conduct, if it have clouded for a moment her life, will not ultimately, will not long obscure it; and she has every charm and virtue and accident of fortune to attract the admiration and attention of the most favoured.
Her feelings towards me at any time could have been but mild and calm. It is a mere abuse of terms to style such sentiments love. But,’ added he sarcastically, ‘this is too delicate a subject for me to dilate on to Miss Temple.’