The novels of Charles Brockden Brown, consisting of Wieland;or, The transformation. Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the year 1793. Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a sleep-walker. Jane Talbot. Ormond; or, The secret witness. Clara Howard; or, The enthusiasm of love. With a memoir of the author.

138 JANE TALBOT.
If all my knowledge relate to my own character, and
that knowledge is egregiously defective, how profound
must be my ignorance of others, and especially of her
whom I presume to call mine!
No paradox ever puzzled me so much as your conduct.
On my first interview with you I loved you; yet what
kind of passion was that which knew only your features
and the sound of your voice? Every successive interview has produced, not only something new or unexpected,
but something in seeming contradiction to my previous
knowledge.
" She will act," said I, " in such and such circumstances,
as those of her delicate and indulgent education must
always act. That wit, that eloquence, that knowledge,
must only make her despise such a witless, unendowed,
unaccomplished, wavering, and feeble wretch as I am."
To be called your friend; to be your occasional conmpanion; to be a tolerated visitor, was more than I expected. When I found all this anxiously sought and
eagerly accepted, I was lost in astonishment. At timesmay I venture to confess?-your regard for me brought
your judgment into question! It failed to inspire me
with more respect for myself; and not to look at me with
my own eyes degraded you in my opinion.
How have you laboured to bestow on me that inestimable
gift,-self-confidence! And some success has attended
your efforts. My deliverance from my chains is less
desperate than once it was. I may judge of the future,
perhaps, by the past. Since I have already made such
progress in exchanging distant veneration for familiar
tenderness, and in persuading myself that he must possess
some merit whom a soul like thine idolizes, I may venture
to anticipate the time when all my humiliation may vanish,
and I shall come to be thought worthy of thy love, not
only by thee, but by myself.
What a picture is this thou drywest! Yet such is my
weakness, Jane, that I must shudder at the prospect. To
tear thee from thy present dwelling and its comforts, to
make thee a tenant of thy good widow, and a seamstress
for me!
"Yet what" (thou sayest)' is a fine house, and a train