I am not sure if the ladies understand the full value of the influence of absence, nor do I think it wise to teach it them, lest, like the Clelias and Mandanes of yore, they should resume the humour of sending their lovers into banishment.

Distance, in truth, produces in idea the same effect as in real perspective.

Objects are softened, and rounded, and rendered doubly graceful; the harsher and more ordinary points of character are mellowed down, and those by which it is remembered are the more striking outlines that mark sublimity, grace, or beauty.

There are mists too in the mental as well as the natural horizon, to conceal what is less pleasing in distant objects, and there are happy lights, to stream in full glory upon those points which can profit by brilliant illumination.
Waverley forgot Flora Mac-Ivor's prejudices in her magnanimity, and almost pardoned her indifference towards his affection when he recollected the grand and decisive object which seemed to fill her whole soul.

She, whose sense of duty so wholly engrossed her in the cause of a benefactor, what would be her feelings in favour of the happy individual who should be so fortunate as to awaken them?
Then came the doubtful question, whether he might not be that happy man,--a question which fancy endeavoured to answer in the affirmative, by conjuring up all she had said in his praise, with the addition of a comment much more flattering than the text warranted.