'your sorrow is useless.do not receive this as merely a commonplace remark, but let reason therefore restrain sorrow.i would not annihilate your feelings, my child, i would only teach you to command them; for whatever may be the evils resulting from a too susceptible heart, nothing can be hoped from an insensible one; that, on the other hand, is all vice--vice, of which the deformity is not softened, or the effect consoled for, by any semblance or possibility of good.you know my sufferings, and are, therefore, convinced that mine are not the light words which, on these occasions, are so often repeated to destroy even the sources of honest emotion, or which merely display the selfish ostentation of a false philosophy.i will shew my emily, that i can practise what i advise.i have said thus much, because i cannot bear to see you wasting in useless sorrow, for want of that resistance which is due from mind; and i have not said it till now, because there is a period when all reasoning must yield to nature; that is past: and another, when excessive indulgence, having sunk into habit, weighs down the elasticity of the spirits so as to render conquest nearly impossible; this is to come.you, my emily, will shew that you are willing to avoid it.'
第11章（2 / 3）