She found
peace at last in the grave!"
"Thou hadst not time to give thy manly tenderness and noble qualities an
opportunity; else, my life on it, she would have come to love thee,
Gaetano, as all love thee who know thee!" returned the baron, warmly.
"Thanks, my kind friend; but beware of making marriage a mere convenience.
There may be folly in calling each truant inclination that deep sentiment
and secret sympathy which firmly knits heart to heart, and doubtless a
common fortune may bind the worldly-minded together; but this is not the
holy union which keeps noble qualities in a family, and which fortifies
against the seductions of a world that is already too strong for honesty.
I remember to have heard from one that understood his fellow-creatures
well, that marriages of mere propriety tend to rob woman of her greatest
charm, that of superiority to the vulgar feeling of worldly calculations,
and that all communities in which they prevail become, of necessity,
selfish beyond the natural limits, and eventually corrupt"
"This may be true;--but Adelheid loves the youth.
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