house with its homely board and benches in the dining room and a few chairs in the best parlor it struck me that here was the fulfilment of every of an imagination in various methods of costly self indulgence and splendid ease pictures � in brief more shapes of luxury than there could be any object in except for an s advertisement � and the whole repeated and doubled hy the reflection of a great mirror which showed me s proud figure likewise and my own it cost me i acknowledge a bitter sense of shame to perceive in myself a positive effort to bear up against the effect which sought to impose on me i reasoned against her in my secret mind and strove so to keep my footing in the with which she had surrounded herself � in the of personal ornament which the of her physical nature and the rich of her beauty caused to seem so suitable � i beheld the true character of the woman passionate luxurious lacking simplicity not refined incapable of pure and perfect taste but the next instant she was too powerful for all my opposing struggles i saw how fit it was that she should make herself as gorgeous as she pleased and should do a thousand things that would have been ridiculous in the poor thin weakly characters of other s women to this day however i hardly know whether i then beheld in her truest attitude or whether that were the truer one in which she had presented herself at in both there was something like illusion which a great around her have you given up forever i inquired why should you think so asked she i cannot tell answered i except that it appears all like a dream that we were ever there together it ia not so to me said i should think h a poor and meagre nature that is capable of but one set of forms and must convert all the past into a dream merely because the present happens to be unlike it why should we be content with our homely life of a few months past to the of all other modes it was good but there are other lives as good er better not you will understand that i condemn those who give themselves up to it more entirely than i for myself should deem it wise to do it irritated me this self complacent qualified a and criticism of a system to which many individuals � perhaps as highly endowed as our gorgeous � had contributed their all of earthly endeavor and their aspirations i determined to make proof if there were any spell that would her out of the part which she seemed to be acting she should be compelled to give me a glimpse of something true some nature some passion no matter whether light or wrong provided it were real your allusion to that class of characters who can live only in one mode of life remarked i reminds me of our poor friend possibly he was in your thoughts when you spoke thus th� poor fellow it is a pity that by the fault of a narrow education he should have so completely himself to that one idea of his especially as the slightest of common sense would teach him its now that i have returned into the world and can look at his project from a distance it requires quite all my real regard for this respectable and well man to prevent me laughing at him � as i find society at large does s eyes darted lightning her cheeks pushed the of her expression was like the effect of a powerful light flaming up suddenly within her my experiment had fully succeeded she had shown me the true flesh and blood of her heart by thus involuntarily my slight pitying half kind half scornful mention of the man who was all in all with her she herself probably felt this for it was hardly a moment before she her breath and seemed as proud and self possessed as ever i rather imagine said she quietly that your appreciation falls short of mr s just claims blind enthusiasm in one idea i grant is generally ridiculous and must be fat to the respectability of an ordinary man it requires a very high and powerful character to make it otherwise but a great man � as perhaps you do not know � his normal condition only through the inspiration of one great idea as a friend of mr and at the same time a calm observer i must tell you that he seems to me such a man but you are very for him ridiculous doubtless he is so � to you there can be no truer test of the noble and heroic in any individual than the degree in which he s room possesses the faculty of heroism from i dared make no retort to s concluding in truth i admired her fidelity it gave me a new sense of s native power to discover that his influence was no less potent with this beautiful woman here in the midst of artificial life than it had been at the foot of the gray rock and among the wild trees of the wood path when she so passionately pressed his hand against her heart the great rude shaggy man and loved him did you bring with you i resumed do you know have sometimes fancied it not quite safe considering the of her temperament that she should be so constantly within the sphere of a man like such tender and delicate natures among your sex have often i believe a very adequate appreciation of the heroic element in men but then again i should suppose them as likely as any other women to make a impression could hardly give his affections to a person capable of taking 