It seems
to me a rash thing for a sensitive soul deliberately to cultivate its
sensibilities by rambling too often among the ruins of the Palatine, or
riding too often in the shadow of the aqueducts. In such recreations the
chords of feeling grow tense, and after-life, to spare your intellectual
nerves, must play upon them with a touch as dainty as the tread of
Mignon when she danced her egg-dance."
"I should have said, my dear Rowland," said Cecilia, with a laugh, "that
your nerves were tough, that your eggs were hard!"
"That being stupid, you mean, I might be happy? Upon my word I am not.
I am clever enough to want more than I 've got. I am tired of myself, my
own thoughts, my own affairs, my own eternal company. True happiness,
we are told, consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not
only to get out--you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some
absorbing errand. Unfortunately, I 've got no errand, and nobody will
trust me with one. I want to care for something, or for some one. And I
want to care with a certain ardor; even, if you can believe it, with
a certain passion.
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