Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/211

Rh frivolous education makes a woman,—generous in great things, petty in small, vain, irritable, full of the littleness of herself and her complaints, ready to plunge into an abyss with her lover, but equally ready to fret away all love with reproaches when the plunge had been made. Of all men, Welford could bear this the least. A woman of a larger heart, a more settled experience, and an intellect capable of appreciating his character, and sounding all his qualities, might have made him perhaps an useful and a great man; and at least her lover for life. Amidst a harvest of evil feelings, the mere strength of his nature rendered him especially capable of intense feeling and generous emotion. One who relied on him was safe,—one who rebelled against him, trusted only to the caprice of his scorn. Still, however, for two years, love, though weakening with each hour, fought on in either breast, and could scarcely be said to be entirely vanquished in the wife, even when she eloped with her handsome seducer. A French writer has said pithily enough, "Compare for a moment the apathy of a husband with the attention, the gallantry, the adoration of a lover,