pardon me for observing, that either your advice proceeds from a conviction that you have yourself chosen wrong in devoting yourself to solitude, or that you are weary of my company."
"You conclude wrong in the first instance," answered he: "I have never repented my residence here, on the contrary, it is the only circumstance that enables me to support the burden of existence; on the other point I will not deceive you; I long since thought every passion, every feeling, but one, was annihilated in my bosom.—Your appearance, your voice and manner, was unexpected, was touching; a few dormant embers of sensibility procured you entrance at first, and a particular consideration, in which I have been disappointed, induced me to receive you a second time. I now feel that I have been too long secluded from the world to find any satisfaction in a companion, and therefore I frankly confess I do not solicit your stay here. In the advice I have given you I am governed rather by
