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 in casuistry to justify the means necessary for so good an end. To us who are at a different point of view, it is the one passage in Donne's life which gives us an unequivocal reason for loving him. Whatever his early faults, he was capable of a devoted and enduring passion. He probably did not foresee the consequences of his rashness, when he made his clandestine match with the girl of sixteen, who lived in his patron's house, and was the daughter of the rich Sir George More. He was prepared for some difficulty, and makes a quaint excuse for his folly. To have acted openly, he tells his indignant and involuntary father-in-law, 'would have been to impossibilitate the whole matter.' The remark seems to show that an acute logician does not always perceive how different an argument looks from the other side of the question. The matter, as More and Egerton considered, ought to have been 'impossibilitated.' Donne hoped, perhaps, that by the help of his persuasive tongue and his distinguished friends the matter would be smoothed over, and the marriage become a help instead of a hindrance to his fortunes. Egerton, however, refused to reinstate the secretary, even at More's request; and More, though he forgave as a Christian, declined as a man of