Whether hypocrisy was eligible was no subject of deliberation. If the
possession of all that ambition can conceive were added to the
transports of union with Eliza Hadwin, and offered as the price of
dissimulation, it would have been instantly rejected. My external goods
were not abundant nor numerous, but the consciousness of rectitude was
mine; and, in competition with this, the luxury of the heart and of the
senses, the gratifications of boundless ambition and inexhaustible
wealth, were contemptible and frivolous.

The conquest of Eliza's errors was easy; but to introduce discord and
sorrow into this family was an act of the utmost ingratitude and
profligacy. It was only requisite for my understanding clearly to
discern, to be convinced of the insuperability of this obstacle. It was
manifest, therefore, that the point to which my wishes tended was placed
beyond my reach.

To foster my passion was to foster a disease destructive either of my
integrity or my existence. It was indispensable to fix my thoughts upon
a different object, and to debar myself even from her intercourse. To
ponder on themes foreign to my darling image, and to seclude myself from
her society, at hours which had usually been spent with her, were
difficult tasks. The latter was the least practicable. I had to contend
with eyes which alternately wondered at and upbraided me for my
unkindness. She was wholly unaware of the nature of her own feelings,
and this ignorance made her less scrupulous in the expression of her
sentiments.

Hitherto I had needed not employment beyond myself and my companions.
Now my new motives made me eager to discover some means of controlling
and beguiling my thoughts. In this state, the manuscript of Lodi