enied that we were rendered
happier by our luxuries, by our ambition, or by our affections. Love and
its ties were banished from your solitary Utopia. And you asserted
that the true wisdom of life lay solely in the cultivation--not of our
feelings, but our faculties. You know, I held a different doctrine: and
it is with the natural triumph of a hostile partizan, that I hear
you are about to relinquish the practice of one of your dogmas;--in
consequence, may I hope, of having forsworn the theory?"

"Not so, my Lord," answered Aram, colouring slightly; "my weakness
only proves that my theory is difficult,--not that it is wrong. I still
venture to think it true. More pain than pleasure is occasioned us
by others--banish others, and you are necessarily the gainer. Mental
activity and moral quietude are the two states which, were they
perfected and united, would constitute perfect happiness. It is such
a union which constitutes all we imagine of Heaven, or conceive of the
majestic felicity of a God."

"Yet, while you are on earth you will be (believe me) happier in the
state you are about to choose," said the Earl. "Who could look at that
enchanting face (the speaker directed his eyes towards Madeline) and not
feel that it gave a pledge of happiness that could not be broken?"

It was not in the nature of Aram to like any allusion to himself, and
still less to his affections: he turned aside his head, and remained
silent: the wary Earl discovered his indiscretion immediately.

"But let us put aside individual cases," said he,--"the meum and the
tuum forbid all argument:--and confess, that there is for the majority
of human beings a greater happiness in love than in the sublime state of
passionless intellect to which you would so chillingly exalt us. Has not
Cicero said wisely, that we ought no more to subject too slavishly our
affections, than to elevate them too imperiously into our masters? Neque
se nimium erigere, nec subjacere serviliter."

"Cicero loved philosophizing better than philosophy," said Aram, coldly;
"but surely, my Lord, the affections give us pain as well as pleasure.
The doubt, the dread, the restlessness of love,--surely these prevent
the passion from constituting a happy state of mind; to me one knowledge
alone seems sufficient to embitter all its enjoyments,--the knowledge
that the object beloved must die. What a perpetuity of fear that
knowledge creates! The avalanche that may crush us depends upon