plays were even ordinarily possible! But people have so little nature in
them, that they don't know what is natural!"

Thus Fanny ran on, in no very connected manner; stringing together those
remarks which, unless I am mistaken, show how much better an uneducated,
clever girl, whose very nature is a quick perception of art, can play the
critic, then the pedants who assume the office.

But it was only for the moment that the heavy heart of Godolphin could
forget its load. It was in vain that he sought to be amused while yet
smarting under the freshness of regret. A great shock had been given to
his nature; he had loved against his will; and as we have seen, on his
return to the Priory, he had even resolved on curing himself of a passion
so unprofitable and unwise. But the jealousy of a night had shivered into
dust a prudence which never of right belonged to a very ardent and
generous nature: that jealousy was soothed, allayed; but how fierce, how
stunning was the blow that succeeded it! Constance had confessed love,
and yet had refused him--for ever! Clear and noble as to herself her
motives might seem in that refusal, it was impossible that they should
appear in the same light to Godolphin. Unable to penetrate into the
effect which her father's death-bed and her own oath had produced on the
mind of Constance; how indissolubly that remembrace had united itself with
all her schemes and prospects for the future; how marvellously, yet how
naturally, it had converted worldly ambition into a sacred duty;--unable,
I say, to comprehend all these various, and powerful, and governing
motives, Godolphin beheld in her refusal only the aversion to share his
slender income, and the desire for loftier station. He considered,
therefore, that sorrow was a tribute to her unworthy of himself; he deemed
it a part of his dignity to strive to forget. That hallowed sentiment
which, in some losses of the heart, makes it a duty to remember, and