Page:Lady Anne Granard, or Keeping up Appearances Volume 2.pdf/36

34 of years places two people in two distinct areas, as to the history of their country, their connexions, memory, and their feelings, for them to enjoy the friendship of marriage, the fellowship of opinions. At that period, when enthusiasm and romance is natural and even graceful in one, it has subsided in the other, and the genuine eloquence of imagination, the vivid burst of feeling, may elicit a smile; but it is at best sickly, and often sneering. On the other hand, the finest argument ever concocted, the concentrated wisdom drawn from men and books, will fail to charm, like the hilarity of a dance, or the splendour of a gala, the young, gay girl, whose spirits are exuberant, and whose heart is untouched by care, and who, a dozen years afterwards, would, in calm cheerfulness, listen lovingly, and examine carefully, the pleaded reasons offered to her judgment. Mr. Glentworth had been all his life a close observer of men and things; and, as events of the most extraordinary nature had occurred in the last quarter of a century, and his mind was stored with anecdotes of men and measures, persons and places, it was natural that he should make mention of them in conversation, not unfrequently referring to familiar facts, or asking the aid of another's memory. On these matters of chit chat occurring, Mary always came forward with ready assistance, so far as her recollection or reading enabled her; for, when Isabella had said, "that was before I was born, I believe," a blank shadow seemed