'
'I owe it not to my own wit or wisdom,' said Lord Colambre; 'but much
to love, and much to friendship,' added he, turning to Sir James Brooke;
'here was the friend who early warned me against the siren's voice; who,
before I knew Lady Isabel, told me what I have since found to be true,
that,
'Two passions alternately govern her fate--
Her business is love, but her pleasure is hate.'
'That is dreadfully severe, Sir James,' said Count O'Halloran; 'but I am
afraid it is just.'
'I am sure it is just, or I would not have said it,' replied Sir James
Brooke. 'For the foibles of the sex, I hope, I have as much indulgence
as any man, and for the errors of passion as much pity; but I cannot
repress the indignation, the abhorrence I feel against women, cold and
vain, who use their wit and their charms only to make others miserable.'
Lord Colambre recollected at this moment Lady Isabel's look and voice,
when she declared that 'she would let her little finger be cut off to
purchase the pleasure of inflicting on Lady de Cresey, for one hour, the
torture of jealousy.'
'Perhaps,' continued Sir James Brooke, 'now that I am going to marry
into an Irish family, I may feel, with peculiar energy, disapprobation
of this mother and daughter on another account; but you, Lord Colambre,
will do me the justice to recollect that, before I had any personal
interest in the country, I expressed, as a general friend to Ireland,
antipathy to those who return the hospitality they received from
a warm-hearted people, by publicly setting the example of elegant
sentimental hypocrisy, or daring disregard of decorum, by privately
endeavouring to destroy the domestic peace of families, on which,
at last, public as well as private virtue and happiness depend.
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