in repeating them? Depend on it, Shirley, no tear blistered the
manuscript of 'The Castaway.' I hear in it no sob of sorrow, only the
cry of despair; but, that cry uttered, I believe the deadly spasm passed
from his heart, that he wept abundantly, and was comforted."

Shirley resumed her ballad minstrelsy. Stopping short, she remarked ere
long, "One could have loved Cowper, if it were only for the sake of
having the privilege of comforting him."

"You never would have loved Cowper," rejoined Caroline promptly. "He was
not made to be loved by woman."

"What do you mean?"

"What I say. I know there is a kind of natures in the world--and very
noble, elevated natures too--whom love never comes near. You might have
sought Cowper with the intention of loving him, and you would have
looked at him, pitied him, and left him, forced away by a sense of the
impossible, the incongruous, as the crew were borne from their drowning
comrade by 'the furious blast.'"

"You may be right. Who told you this?"

"And what I say of Cowper, I should say of Rousseau. Was Rousseau ever
loved? He loved passionately; but was his passion ever returned? I am
certain, never. And if there were any female Cowpers and Rousseaus, I
should assert the same of them."

"Who told you this, I ask? Did Moore?"

"Why should anybody have told me? Have I not an instinct? Can I not
divine by analogy? Moore never talked to me either about Cowper, or
Rousseau, or love. The voice we hear in solitude told me all I know on
these subjects."

"Do you like characters of the Rousseau order, Caroline?"

"Not at all, as a whole. I sympathize intensely with certain qualities
they possess. Certain divine sparks in their nature dazzle my eyes, and
make my soul glow. Then, again, I scorn them. They are made of clay and
gold. The refuse and the ore make a mass of weakness: taken altogether,
I feel them unnatural, unhealthy, repulsive."

"I dare say I should be more tolerant of a Rousseau than you would,
Cary. Submissive and contemplative yourself, you like the stern and the
practical. By the way, you must miss that Cousin Robert of yours very
much, now that you and he never meet."

"I do."

"And he must miss you?"

"That he does not."

"I cannot imagine," pursued Shirley, who had lately got a habit of
introducing Moore's name into the conversation, even when it seemed to
have no business there--"I cannot imagine but that he was fond of you,
since he took so much