'
'You mock me!'
'Nay! I am sincerely serious.'
'What, then, do you mean?'
'I mean that your imagination, my lord, dwelling for the moment with
great power upon the idea of Venetia, becomes inflamed, and your whole
mind is filled with her image.'
'A metaphysical description of being in love,' said Lord Cadurcis,
rather dryly.
'Nay!' said Masham, 'I think the heart has something to do with that.'
'But the imagination acts upon the heart,' rejoined his companion.
'But it is in the nature of its influence not to endure. At this
moment, I repeat, your lordship may perhaps love Miss Herbert; you
may go home and muse over her memory, and even deplore in passionate
verses your misery in being separated from her; but, in the course of
a few days, she will be again forgotten.'
'But were she mine?' urged Lord Cadurcis, eagerly.
'Why, you would probably part from her in a year, as her father parted
from Lady Annabel.'
'Impossible! for my imagination could not conceive anything more
exquisite than she is.'
'Then it would conceive something less exquisite,' said the Bishop.
'It is a restless quality, and is ever creative, either of good or of
evil.'
'Ah! my dear Doctor, excuse me for again calling you Doctor, it is so
natural,' said Cadurcis, in a tone of affection.
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