Nature
has retaliated by making me also an unnaturally inferior person. Nature
abhors lopsidedness. She turns out man as a whole, to be developed as a
whole. I always wonder, whenever I come across a supernaturally pious, a
supernaturally moral, a supernaturally cultured person, if they also have
a reverse self.'
"I was shocked at his suggested argument, and walked by his side for a
while without speaking. At last, feeling curious on the subject, I asked
him how his various love affairs were progressing.
"'Oh, as usual,' he replied; 'in and out of a _cul de sac_. When I am
Smythe I love Eliza, and Eliza loathes me. When I am Smith I love Edith,
and the mere sight of me makes her shudder. It is as unfortunate for
them as for me. I am not saying it boastfully. Heaven knows it is an
added draught of misery in my cup; but it is a fact that Eliza is
literally pining away for me as Smith, and--as Smith I find it impossible
to be even civil to her; while Edith, poor girl, has been foolish enough
to set her heart on me as Smythe, and as Smythe she seems to me but the
skin of a woman stuffed with the husks of learning, and rags torn from
the corpse of wit.'
"I remained absorbed in my own thoughts for some time, and did not come
out of them till we were crossing the Minories.
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