'Ah, well, _I_ believe in Shakespeare. His lovers fall in love at
first sight.'

'No doubt they do, but to justify yourself you have to suppose that
you are a Juliet and your friend a Romeo. They may, for aught I
know, be examples in my favour. However, I have to lay down a rule
for my own poor, limited self, and, to speak the truth, I am afraid
that great men often do harm by imposing on us that which is
serviceable to themselves only; or, to put it perhaps more correctly,
we mistake the real nature of their processes, just as a person who
is unskilled in arithmetic would mistake the processes of anybody who
is very quick at it, and would be led away by them. Shakespeare is
much to me, but the more he is to me, the more careful I ought to be
to discover what is the true law of my own nature, more important to
me after all than Shakespeare's.'

'Exactly. I know what the law of mine is. If a man were to present
himself to me, I should rely on that instinct you so much despise,
and I am certain that the balancing, see-saw method would be fatal.
It would disclose a host of reasons against any conclusion, and I
should never come to any.'

Clara smiled. Although this impetuosity was foreign to her, she
loved it for the good which accompanied it.

'You do not mean to say you would accept or reject him at once?'

'No, certainly not. What I mean is that in a few days, perhaps in a
shorter time, something within me would tell me whether we were