The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 159: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

136 REYNOLDS’ WORKS seen, then widening and deepening, now diverted from its course by some obstacle, now dammed up until the weight of its waters break down the impediment; thus sometimes free and sometimes checked, though never altogether sub- dued, until its channel becomes broad and deep and its waters expand into a glorious flood. Oh, wherefore have novelists and poets ever taken love as their most favourite theme? Why has the minstrel made it the subject of his harmony, and the limner illustrated its episodes upon his canvas? Is it not because it is the most important passion which the human heart can possibly know, a source alike of the sublimest happiness and the profoundest misery, sometimes a blessing, at others a curse, and often proving the pivot upon which turn the mightiest deeds as well as the gravest occurrences ever beholden upon the theatre of the world? What reader, therefore, will ever quarrel with his author if for a space he digress to discourse upon the varied elements which form the compound of love, or to expatiate upon the immensity of its influence over the hearts as well as the transactions of human beings? But we set out by observing that if love at one time feed itself upon the purest manna of hope, so at another does it voluntarily distil drops of bitterness into the cup which it drinks. Nor was the love of Edgar Beverley an exception to this rule. At first Laura’s letter had inspired him with enthusiastic hope, but subsequently, during the hours which elapsed ere it was time to enter upon the execution of the settled plan, the young heutenant gave way to a thousand torturing fears. Christian did all he could to soothe and tranquillize his friend, and to make him revert to the belief that everything would go right; but Christian himself, if similarly situated at the moment in respect to Isabella, would have been harassed by precisely the same apprehen- sions. We will not therefore unnecessarily extend this portion of our narrative, but without further preface we will proceed to a description of the scenes which occurred in the evening of that memorable day. At about twenty minutes past nine o’clock, a post-chaise- and-four advanced at a slow pace into the neighbourhood of Verner House, the postilions thus gently walking their horses in order as much as possible to avoid the chance of the sounds of the equipage being heard within the walls of EORNICLIOOKS (E(0)