YOU HAVE SUED
TO A SIMPLE MAID, WHO BY YOUR CHARMS HAS BEEN TAUGHT TO HATE THE SWAIN
THAT ONCE SHE LOVED. It only remains that she should persevere in the
resistance she has hitherto made, and that A SIMPLE SWAIN, perhaps her
favoured Edwin, should defy your enchantments. Think then of the
precipice on which you stand. Yet, yet return, while it is in your
power. One step in advance beyond those you have already taken may be
irretrievable. Alas, Roderic, it is thus that I advise! but I foresee
that my advice will be neglected. The Gods permit to the invisible
inhabitants of air, when strongly invoked by a mortal voice, to assist
their vices and teach adroitness to their passions; but they do not
permit an invocation like this to receive for its reward the lesson of
moderation, and the attainment of happiness.
"Go on then, Roderic, in the path upon which you are inflexibly
determined. You succeeded not in the stratagem of flattery; but it
served to take off the keenness of the aversion of Imogen. She
contemplates you now with somewhat less of horror, and with a virtuous
and ingenuous fear of uncandidness and injustice upon your account.
Neither have you succeeded in that deeper stratagem and less penetrable
deceit, the assumption of the form of him she loved.
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