love to passion? No;--one, whom I have seen but little; who, it is true,
arrested my eye at the first glance it caught of her two years since, but
with whom till within the last few weeks I have scarcely spoken! Her
voice rings on my ear, her look dwells on my heart; when I sleep, she is
with me; when I wake, I am haunted by her image. Strange, strange! Is
love then, after all, the sudden passion which in every age poetry has
termed it, though till now my reason has disbelieved the notion? ... And
now, what is the question? To resist, or to yield. Her father invites me,
courts me; and I stand aloof! Will this strength, this forbearance,
last?--Shall I encourage my mind to this decision?" Here Aram paused
abruptly, and then renewed: "It is true! I ought to weave my lot with
none. Memory sets me apart and alone in the world; it seems unnatural to
me, a thought of dread--to bring another being to my solitude, to set an
everlasting watch on my uprisings and my downsittings; to invite eyes to
my face when I sleep at nights, and ears to every word that may start
unbidden from my lips. But if the watch be the watch of love--away! does
love endure for ever? He who trusts to woman, trusts to the type of
change. Affection may turn to hatred, fondness to loathing, anxiety to
dread; and, at the best, woman is weak, she is the minion to her
impulses. Enough, I will steel my soul,--shut up the avenues of sense,--
brand with the scathing-iron these yet green and soft emotions of
lingering youth,--and freeze and chain and curdle up feeling, and heart,
and manhood, into ice and age!"




CHAPTER VII.

THE POWER OF LOVE OVER THE RESOLUTION OF THE STUDENT.--ARAM