When you wipe away the tear from the cheek
of distress, when you light up a smile in the eye of misery, think you,
that none of the comfort you administer will flow back in generous and
refreshing streams to your own heart? Are these exertions that Imogen
ought to contemplate with indifference? Is this a power that Imogen can
reject without deliberation?"
Imogen stood for a moment in a sweet and ingenuous state of suspense.
She had a native and indefeasible reverence for every thing that had the
remotest analogy to virtue, and she could not answer a proposal that
came recommended to her by that name with unhesitating promptitude. She
was too good and modest to assume an air of decision where she did not
feel it; she was too simple and unaffected, to disguise that hesitation
to which she was really conscious. "How false and treacherous,"
exclaimed she, "are your reasonings! Among the virtuous inhabitants of
the plain, every one seeks to influence another by motives which are of
weight with himself, and utters the sentiments of his own heart. Where
have you learned the disingenuous and faithless arts you employ? To what
purpose have you cultivated them, and whose good opinion do you flatter
yourself they will obtain for you? False, perfidious Roderic! the more I
see of you, the more I fear and despise you.
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