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24 24 Imaginary Corwersation. Thelymnia was placed beside me, until an ungenerous heart eocposed the treasure that should have dwelt within it, to the tarnish of a stranger, if that stranger had the baseness to employ the sophistry that was in part expected from him, never should I have known that I had not loved before. We may be uncertain if a vase or an image be of the richest metal, until the richest metal be set right- against it, The- lymnia ! if I thought it possible, at any time hereafter, that you should love me as I love you, I would exert to the utter- most my humble powers of persuasion to avert it, O ! there is no danger, said she, disconcerted ; / do not love any one: I thought I did, like you; but indeed, indeed, Euthymedes, I was equally in an error. Women have dropt into the grave from it, and have declared to the last moment that they never loved : men have sworn they should die with desperation, and have lived merrily, and have dared to run into the peril fifty times. They have hard cold hearts, in- communicative and distrustful. Have I too, Thelymnia? gently he expostulated. No, not you, said she ; you may believe I was not think" ing of you when I was speaking. But the idea does really make me smile a7id almost laugh, that you should fear me, supposing it possible, if you could suppose any such thing. Love does not kill men, take my word for it. He looked rather in sorrow than in doubt, and answered : Unpropitious love may not kill us always, may not deprive us at once of what at their festivals the idle and inconsi- derate call life ; but, Thelymnia I our lives are truly at an end when ive are beloved no longer. Existence may be continued or rather may be renewed, yet the agonies of death a7id the chilliness of the grave have been past thro; nor are there Elysian fields, nor the sports that delighted in former times, awaiting us, nor pleasant converse, nor walks with linked hands, nor intermitted songs, nor vengeful kisses for leaving them ofif abruptly, nor looks that shake us to assure us afterward, nor that bland inquietude, as gently tremulous as the expansion of buds i7ito blossoms, which hur- ries us from repose to exercise and from exercise to repose. O! I have been very near loving! cried Thelymnia. Where in the world can a philosopher have learnt all this about it !