"The truth is, Lord Merton was, simply, naturally and intensely selfish ; he was himself "the ocean of his thoughts ;" he never considered the comfort of other people, because he never looked at it as distinct from his own ; and the most romantic devotion, the most self-denying love, would have seemed, if he were the object of it, as quite in the common course of things. This is a common character, which age alone developes into deformity. Youth, like charity, covers a multitude of sins ; but Heaven help the wife, children, servants, and all other pieces of domestic property, when such a man is fifty, and has the gout !"
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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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