own lips an avowal of affection seemed more like the condescension
of a pitying angel than the sympathy of a creature of passion and
frailty like myself. I was miserably self-deceived; and self-deception
is of a nature most repugnant to the healthy operation of truth. We
suspect others, but seldom ourselves. The deception becomes a part of
our self-love; we hold back the error even when Reason would pluck it
away from us.

"Our whole life may be considered as made up of earnest yearnings after
objects whose value increases with the difficulties of obtaining them,
and which seem greater and more desirable, from our imperfect knowledge
of their nature, just as the objects of the outward vision are magnified
and exalted when seen through a natural telescope of mist. Imagination
fills up and supplies the picture, of which we can only catch the
outlines, with colors brighter, and forms more perfect, than those of
reality. Yet, you may perhaps wonder why, after my earnest desire had
been gratified, after my love had found sympathy in its object, I did
not analyze more closely the inherent and actual qualities of her heart
and intellect. But living, as I did, at a considerable distance from
her, and seeing her only under circumstances calculated to confirm
previous impressions, I had few advantages, even had I desired to do so,
of studying her true character. The world had not yet taught me its
ungenerous lesson. I had not yet learned to apply the rack of
philosophical analysis to the objects around me, and test, by a cold
process of reasoning, deduced from jealous observation, the reality of
all which wore the outward semblance of innocence and beauty. And it
may be, too, that the belief, nay, the assurance, from her own lips, and
from the thousand voiceless but eloquent signs which marked our
interviews, that I was beloved, made me anxious to deceive even myself,
by investing her with those gifts of the intellect and the heart,
without which her very love would have degraded its object. It is not
in human nature, at least it was not in mine, to embitter the delicious
aliment which is offered to our vanity, by admitting any uncomfortable
doubts of the source from which it is derived.

"And thus it was that I came on, careless and secure, dreaming over and
over the same bright dream; without any doubt, without fear, and in the
perfect confidence of an unlimited trust, until the mask fell off, all
at once; without g