He knew
that the inspirations of integrity and the lessons of education were not
to be eradicated at once; and he attempted not to gain the acquiescence
of his captive by gross and unsuitable allurements, unconcealed with the
gilding of dexterity and speciousness.
But his eloquence and his address were equally vain. In spite of the
beauty of his person and the urbanity of his manners, the shepherdess
received his declarations with coldness and aversion. She assured him of
the impossibility of his success, that she felt for him emotions very
different from those of partiality, and that her heart was prepossessed
for a more amiable swain. With that sweet simplicity, that accompanied
all she did, she endeavoured to dissuade him from the pursuit of a
hopeless and unreasonable passion; she enumerated to him all the sources
of enjoyment with which he was surrounded; she intreated him not in the
wantonness of opulence to disturb her humble and narrow felicity; and
she besought him in the most pathetic and earnest language to dismiss
her to freedom, contentment and her parents.
The more she exerted herself to bend his resolution, and the more scope
she gave to the unstudied expression of her artless sentiments, the more
inextricably was the magician caught, and the more firm and inexorable
was his purpose.
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