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O better had it been to die than to see and hear Glenarvon. When he smiled, it was like the light radiance of heaven; and when he spoke, his voice was more soothing in its sweetness than music. He was so gentle in his manners, that it was in vain even to affect to be offended; and, though he said he never again could love, he would describe how some had died, and others maddened, under the power of that fierce passion—how every tie that binds us, and every principle and law, must be broken through, as secondary considerations, by its victims:—he would speak home to the heart; for he knew it in all its turnings and windings; and, at his will, he could rouze or tame the varying passions of those over whom he sought to exercise dominion. Yet, when by every