I was--nay, what matters it?
Who is answerable for his nature?
Who can say, 'I controlled all the circumstances which made me what I am ?' Madeline,--Heavens! did I bring on myself this temptation?
Have I not fenced it from me throughout all my youth, when my brain did at moments forsake me, and the veins did bound?
And now, when the yellow hastens on the green of life; now, for the first time, this emotion--this weakness--and for whom?
One I have lived with--known--beneath whose eyes I have passed through all the fine gradations, from liking to love, from love to passion?
No;--one, whom I have seen but little; who, it is true, arrested my eye at the first glance it caught of her two years since, but with whom till within the last few weeks I have scarcely spoken! Her voice rings on my ear, her look dwells on my heart; when I sleep, she is with me; when I wake, I am haunted by her image.

Strange, strange! Is love then, after all, the sudden passion which in every age poetry has termed it, though till now my reason has disbelieved the notion ?...

And now, what is the question?
To resist, or to yield.

Her father invites me, courts me; and I stand aloof! Will this strength, this forbearance, last ?--Shall I encourage my mind to this decision ?" Here Aram paused abruptly, and then renewed: "It is true! I ought to weave my lot with none.

Memory sets me apart and alone in the world; it seems unnatural to me, a thought of dread--to bring another being to my solitude, to set an everlasting watch on my uprisings and my downsittings; to invite eyes to my face when I sleep at nights, and ears to every word that may start unbidden from my lips.