Page:Eliot - Adam Bede, vol. I, 1859.djvu/332

320 be apt to be mastered by love. A fine constitution doesn't insure one against small-pox or any other of those inevitable diseases. A man may be very firm in other matters, and yet be under a sort of witchery from a woman."

"Yes; but there's this difference between love and small-pox, or bewitchment either—that if you detect the disease at an early stage and try change of air, there is every chance of complete escape, without any further development of symptoms. And there are certain alterative [sic] doses which a man may administer to himself by keeping unpleasant consequences before his mind: that gives you a sort of smoked glass through which you may look at the resplendent fair one and discern her true outline; though I'm afraid, by the by, the smoked glass is apt to be missing, just at the moment it is most wanted. I daresay, now, even a man fortified with a knowledge of the classics might be lured into an imprudent marriage, in spite of the warning given him by the chorus in the Prometheus." The smile that flitted across Arthur's face was a faint one, and instead of following Mr Irwine's playful lead, he said quite seriously—"Yes, that's the worst of it. It's a desperately vexatious thing, that