should accumulate your misfortune by my censures.
    What could I say to such a man as this? Amiable, incomparable man! Never was
my mind more painfully divided than at that moment. The more he excited my
admiration, the more imperiously did my heart command me, whatever were the
price it should cost, to extort his friendship. I was persuaded that severe duty
required of him, that he should reject all personal considerations, that he
should proceed resolutely to the investigation of the truth, and that, if he
found the result terminating in my favour, he should resign all his advantages,
and, deserted as I was by the world, make a common cause, and endeavour to
compensate the general injustice. But was it for me to force this conduct upon
him, if, now in his declining years, his own fortitude shrunk from it? Alas,
neither he nor I foresaw the dreadful catastrophe that was so closely impending!
Otherwise I am well assured, that no tenderness for his remaining tranquillity
would have withheld him from a compliance with my wishes! On the other hand,
could I pretend to know what evils might result to him from his declaring
himself my advocate? Might not his integrity be brow-beaten and defeated as mine
had been? Did the imbecility of his grey hairs afford no advantage to my
terrible adversary in the contest? Might not Mr. Falkland reduce him to a
condition as wretched and low as mine? After all, was it not vice in me to
desire to involve another man in my sufferings? If I regarded them as
intolerable, this was still an additional reason why I should bear them alone.
    Influenced by these considerations, I assented to his views. I assented to
be thought hardly of by the man in the world whose esteem I most ardently
desired, rather than involve him in possible calamity. I assented to the
resigning what appeared to me at that moment as the last practicable comfort of
my life, a comfort upon the thought of which, while I surrendered it, my mind
dwelt with undescribable longings. Mr. Collins was deeply affected with the
apparent ingenuousness with which I expressed my feelings. The secret struggle
of his mind was, Can this be hypocrisy? The individual with whom I am
conferring, if virtuous, is one of the most disinterestedly virtuous persons in
the world. We tore ourselves from each other. Mr. Collins promised, as far as he
was able, to have an eye upon my vicissitudes, and to assist me in every respect
that was at all consistent with a just recollection of consequences. Thus I
parted as