the passage of the Red Sea, which they might traverse with unwet feet,
though a wall of destruction were impending on either side.

Alas! why must I record the hapless delusion of this matchless specimen of
humanity? What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards
pain and misery? We are not formed for enjoyment; and, however we may be
attuned to the reception of pleasureable emotion, disappointment is the
never-failing pilot of our life's bark, and ruthlessly carries us on to the
shoals. Who was better framed than this highly-gifted youth to love and be
beloved, and to reap unalienable joy from an unblamed passion? If his heart
had slept but a few years longer, he might have been saved; but it awoke in
its infancy; it had power, but no knowledge; and it was ruined, even as a
too early-blowing bud is nipt by the killing frost.

I did not accuse Evadne of hypocrisy or a wish to deceive her lover; but
the first letter that I saw of hers convinced me that she did not love him;
it was written with elegance, and, foreigner as she was, with great command
of language. The hand-writing itself was exquisitely beautiful; there was
something in her very paper and its folds, which even I, who did not love,
and was withal unskilled in such matters, could discern as being tasteful.
There was much kindness, gratitude, and sweetness in her expression, but no
love. Evadne was two years older than Adrian; and who, at eighteen, ever
loved one so much their junior? I compared her placid epistles with the
burning ones of Adrian. His soul seemed to distil itself into the words he
wrote; and they breathed on the paper, bearing with them a portion of the
life of love, which was his life. The very writing used to exhaust him; and
he would weep over them, merely from the excess of emotion they awakened in
his heart.

Adrian's soul was painted in his countenance, and concealment or deceit