Note 11: — Chapter VII

'You may suppose, that a mind like mine must have, repeatedly, set itself to examine, on every side, all that could possibly have a relation to a subject affecting it so materially. You have hinted at mysterious obstacles to the wish, in which every faculty of my soul has been so long absorbed—the wish of forming with you, a connection, nearer, and more tender, than that of friendship. This mystery, by leaving room for conjecture (and how frequently have I warned you of this!), left room for the illusions of imagination, and of hope—left room for the suspicion, that you might, possibly, be sacrificing your own feelings as well as mine, to a mistaken principle. Is it possible that you were not aware of this—you, who are not unacquainted with the nature of the mind! Still less were you ignorant of the nature of my mind—which I had so explicitly, so unreservedly, laid open! I had a double claim upon your confidence—a confidence, that I was utterly incapable of abusing, or betraying—a confidence, which must have stopped my mind in its career—which would have saved me the bitter, agonizing, pangs I have sustained. Mine were not common feelings—it is obscurity and mystery which has wrought them up to frenzy—truth and certainty would, long ere this, have caused them temporarily to subside into their accustomed channels. You understand little of the human heart, if you cannot conceive this—"Where the imagination is vivid, the feelings strong, the views and desires not bounded by common rules;—in such minds, passions, if not subdued, become ungovernable and fatal: where there is much warmth, much enthusiasm, there is much danger.—My mind is no less ardent than yours, though education and habit may have given it a different turn—it glows with equal zeal to attain its end."11 Yes, I must continue to repeat, there has been in your conduct one grand mistake; and the train of consequences which may, yet, ensue, are uncertain, and threatening.—But, I mean no reproach—we are all liable to errors; and my own, I feel, are many, and various. But to return—