Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 4).pdf/174

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

( 166 )

every table is covered to disprove on the other. If she settle her opinion one way, she will probably become the foundress of some new-fangled monastery; if on the other, she will be discovered, some star-light night, seeking truth at the bottom of a well."

Juliet then anxiously enquired into the state of her health.

"She seems to me," answered the Baronet, "quite as well as it is possible for a person to be, who is afflicted with the restless malady of struggling for occasion to exhibit character; instead of leaving its display to the jumble of nature and of accident. But these new systemers do not break out of bounds more wildly from whim, than they afterwards seek retreat within them, tamely, from experience. The little Selina, on the contrary, who has escaped the trouble of supporting a character, by not having an idea that could form one, had the kindness to make me the most liberal communication of every thing that she