"O for some German philosopher, with the perseverance of the African travellers, who seem to make a point of conscience to die on their travels, not, though, till the said travels are properly interred in quartos — with their perseverance, and the imagination of a poet to examine into the doctrine of sympathies ! And to begin with letters, in what consists the mysterious attraction no one will deny they possess ? Why, when we neither expect, hope, nor even wish for one, and yet when they are brought, who does not feel disappointed to find there are none for them? and why, when opening the epistle would set the question at rest, do we persevere in looking at the direction, the seal, the shape, as if from them alone we could guess the contents? What a love of mystery and of vague expectance there is in the human heart !"
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Romance and Reality
Romance and Reality (1831) is a novel by Letitia Elizabeth Landon about an attractive heiress, Emily Arundel, who meets the handsome Edward Lorraine and hopes to win his heart. In her imagination, she is succeeding but he is a traveler and in Spain he encounters Beatrice de los Zeridos, a spirited young lady of action, who is fighting to save both her home and family. Broken-hearted, Emily enters a nunnery in Italy from whence she is rescued, but she returns to England so weakened that she dies.
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