"Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in

books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story.

Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been

in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything."

"But how shall we prove anything?"

"We never shall. We never can expect to prove any thing upon such a

point. It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof.

We each begin, probably, with a little bias towards our own sex; and

upon that bias build every circumstance in favour of it which has

occurred within our own circle; many of which circumstances (perhaps

those very cases which strike us the most) may be precisely such as

cannot be brought forward without betraying a confidence, or in some

respect saying what should not be said."

"Ah!" cried Captain Harville, in a tone of strong feeling, "if I could

but make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes a last look at

his wife and children, and watches the boat that he has sent them off

in, as long as it is in sight, and then turns away and says, 'God knows

whether we ever meet again!' And then, if I could convey to you the

glow of his soul when he does see them again; when, coming back after a

twelvemonth's absence, perhaps, and obliged to put into another port,

he calculates how soon it be possible to get them there, pretending to

deceive himself, and saying, 'They cannot be here till such a day,' but

all the while hoping for them twelve hours sooner, and seeing them

arrive at last, as if Heaven had given them wings, by many hours sooner

still! If I could explain to you all this, and all that a man can bear

and do, and glories to do, for the sake of these treasures of his

existence! I speak, you know, only of such men as have hearts!"

pressing his own with emotion.

"Oh!" cried Anne eagerly, "I hope I do justice to all that is felt by

you, and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should

undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my

fellow-creatures! I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to

suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman.

No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married

lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every

domestic forbearance, so long as--if I may be allowed the

expression--so long as you have an object. I mean while the woman you

love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own

sex (it is not a very enviable one; you need not covet it), is that of

loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone."




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