Why in the act of persuading me do you bestow upon me those
laboured commendations, which the very persuasions you employ are
intended to prove that I little deserve? Is it necessary, Roderic, that
your manners should be so strange and unaccountable, as to supply food
for eternal jealousy and suspicion? And what must be that conduct, that
inspires jealousy into a heart unguarded as mine? I talk of suspicion,
but I scarcely know the meaning of the term. And yet there is in your
carriage something precise, plausible and composed, that I have seldom
observed in any other man. Oh, shepherd! you know not what you do, when
you awake all these ideas in a maiden's breast, when you thus confound
things that heaven and earth put asunder."
"Ungenerous Imogen," replied the magician, "wherefore this? Do I claim
any thing more of you than rectitude demands, and your own bosom will
another day approve? Am I not your better genius to guard you against
the errors that might be prompted by too tender a heart? Beside, does
the conduct of beings of a higher order depend upon my nod? Can I
control the spheres, and call down celestial essences from their bright
abodes? And will they be rendered subservient to the purposes of
treachery and guilt?"
"Roderic here break we off our conference.
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