"Here is the end of hopes and
aspirations," thought he, "of romance and ambitions! Where I yield or
where I am obstinate, I am alike unfortunate; my mother implores me,
and I refuse an angel! Say I had taken her: forced on me as she was,
Laura would never have been an angel to me. I could not have given her
my heart at another's instigation; I never could have known her as she
is, had I been obliged to ask another to interpret her qualities and
point out her virtues. I yield to my uncle's solicitations, and
accept, on his guarantee, Blanche, and a seat in Parliament, and
wealth, and ambition, and a career; and see!--fortune comes and leaves
me the wife without the dowry, which I had taken in compensation of a
heart. Why was I not more honest, or am I not less so? It would have
cost my poor old uncle no pangs to accept Blanche's fortune,
whencesoever it came; he can't even understand, he is bitterly
indignant--heart-stricken, almost--at the scruples which actuate me in
refusing it.
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