PART III.


In the history of the affections we know that circumstances sometimes
occur, where duty and inclination maintain a conflict so nicely balanced
so as to render it judicious not to exact a fulfillment of the former,
lest by deranging the structure of our moral feelings, we render the
mind either insensible to their existence, or incapable of regulating
them. This observation applies only to those subordinate positions
of life which involve no great principle of conduct, and violate no
cardinal point of human duty. We ought neither to do evil nor suffer
evil to be done, where our authority can prevent it, in order that good
may follow. But in matters where our own will creates the offence, it is
in some peculiar cases not only prudent but necessary to avoid straining
a mind naturally delicate, beyond the powers which we know it to
possess. We think, for instance, that it was wrong in Mr. Sinclair, at
a moment when the act of separating from Osborne might have touched, the
feelings of his daughter into that softness which lightens and relieves
the heart, abruptly to suppress emotions so natural, by exacting a proof
of obedience too severe and oppressive to the heart of one who loved as
Jane did. She knew it was her duty to obey him the moment he expressed
his wish; but he was bound by no duty to demand such an unnecessary
proof of her obedience. The immediate consequences, however, made him
sufficiently sensible of his error, and taught him that a knowledge of
the human heart is the most difficult task which a parent has to learn.

Jane, conducted by her parents, having reached another apartment, sat
down--her father taking a chair on one side, and her mother on the
other.