And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flashing round a summer sky.--THOMSON.

DAILY, hourly, increased the influence of Evelyn over Maltravers. Oh,
what a dupe is a man's pride! what a fool his wisdom! That a girl, a
mere child, one who scarce knew her own heart, beautiful as it
was,--whose deeper feelings still lay coiled up in their sweet
buds,--that she should thus master this proud, wise man! But as
thou--our universal teacher--as thou, O Shakspeare! haply speaking from
the hints of thine own experience, hast declared--

"None are so truly caught, when they are catched,
As wit turned fool; folly in wisdom hatched,
Hath wisdom's warrant."

Still, methinks that, in that surpassing and dangerously indulged
affection which levelled thee, Maltravers, with the weakest, which
overturned all thy fine philosophy of Stoicism, and made thee the veriest
slave of the "Rose Garden,"--still, Maltravers, thou mightest at least
have seen that thou hast lost forever all right to pride, all privilege
to disdain the herd! But thou wert proud of thine own infirmity! And
far sharper must be that lesson which can teach thee that Pride--thine
angel--is ever pre-doomed to fall.

What a mistake to suppose that the passions are strongest in youth! The
passions are not stronger, but the control over them is weaker. They are
more easily excited, they are more violent and more apparent; but they
have less energy, less durability, less intense and concentrated power,
than in maturer life. In youth, passion succeeds to passion, and one
breaks upon the other, as waves upon a rock, till the heart frets itself