In self-defence--pathetic stratagem of intellectual man at issue with the flesh--he fell back upon the idealism which ever strives to endow a fair woman with a beautiful soul; he endeavoured to forget her body in contemplation of the spiritual excellencies that might lurk behind it.

To depreciate her was simpler, and had generally been his wont; but subjugation had reached another stage in him.

He summoned all possible pleadings on the girl's behalf: her talents, her youth, her grievous trials.

Devotion to classical music cannot but argue a certain loftiness of mind; it might, in truth, be somehow akin to 'religion'.

Remembering his own follies and vices at the age of four-and-twenty, was it not reason, no less than charity, to see in Alma the hope of future good?
Nay, if it came to that, did she not embody infinitely more virtue, in every sense of the word, than he at the same age?
One must be just to women, and, however paltry the causes, do honour to the cleanliness of their life.