Page:Romance & Reality 1.pdf/208

202 "Is he handsome?" asked Emily. "Nay," returned Lorraine, "do not ask me. I always consider one of my own sex as a nonentity or a rival: in the first quality he excites my indifference—in the second, my hatred. I dislike that any one should attract a woman's attention enough for her to ask any questions about him." A woman always, whether she shows it or not, takes a general assertion to herself, not from vanity, but from the intense individuality of her nature; and Emily found something satisfactory even in having no answer to her question. Mr. Morland.—"But what induces you to have so many books open at once?" Edward Lorraine.—"Because I have a Plutarchian taste, and love parallels. Nothing delights me more than to turn from a subject in one author, to see how differently it is treated in another; for no two agree even about the same thing." Mr. Morland.—"Because no one sees things exactly as they are, but as varied and modified by their own method of viewing. Bid a botanist and a poet describe a rose-tree—the one will dwell upon its roots, fibres, petals, &c., and his