Let
him only be self-controlled and prudent--keep carefully and
systematically out of the woman's way. Or perhaps--for it was not
gratifying or dignified thus to live in terror of a minister's
daughter--perhaps he might ultimately learn to associate and hold
intercourse with her, unharmed. That would be a triumph worth striving
for! Indeed, how could he feel secure until it had been won? Again, did
there at present exist any such risk as he had brought himself to
imagine? Was not this first ordeal, and its effects, all that was to be
apprehended? What if all his anxiety, and self-control, and prudence,
had been wasting themselves upon nothing? Would it not be worth while to
try the experiment? to prove whether he was still liable to this strange
witchery and enchantment? even if so it should turn out, it was still
well that the point should be settled once for all. Decided, then, that
he should take the first opportunity to put himself to the test.
Thus did the young man argue around his instinct, ignorant that the
poison was at that moment circulating in his blood, and prompting the
very sophistries that his brain produced. He who is cured begets a
wholesome aversion toward what has harmed him; he feels no curiosity to
prove whether or no he be yet open to mischief from it.
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