Note 178 — Scene II.—The Apartment of Werner, in the Palace.

{382}["'Conrad ... before you thus presume to chastise me with your eye, learn to understand my actions! Young, and inexperienced in the world—reposing hitherto in the bosom of indulgence and luxury, is it for you to judge of the impulse of the passions, or the temptations of misery? Wait till, like me, you have blighted your fairest hopes—have endured humiliation and sorrow—poverty and insult—before you pretend to judge of their effect on you! Should that miserable day ever arrive—should you see the being at your mercy who stands between you and everything that is dear or noble in life!—who is ready to tear from you your name—your inheritance—your very life itself—congratulate your own heart, if, like me, you are content with petty plunder, and are not tempted to exterminate a serpent, who now lives, perhaps to sting us all.'"—Canterbury Tales, by Sophia and Harriet Lee, 1838, ii. 204, 205.]