It looked very different then." "Mr.Linwood could explain these engravings," said he, drawing forward some which indeed represented Italian ruins, grand and ivy mantled, where the owl might well assert her solitary domain.

"He has two great advantages, an eye enlightened by travel, and a taste fastidious by nature." "I do not admire fastidiousness," I answered; "I do not like to have defects pointed out to me, which my own ignorance does not discover.
There is more pleasure in imagining beauties than in finding out faults." "Will you think it a presuming question, a too inquisitive one," he said, holding up an engraving between himself and the light, "if I ask your candid opinion of Mr.Linwood?
Is the world right in the character it has given?
Has he all the peculiarities and fascinations it ascribes to him ?" He spoke in a careless manner, or rather tried to do so, but his eye burned with intense emotion.

Had he asked me this question a short time previous, conscious blushes would have dyed my cheeks, for a "murderous guilt shows not itself more soon," than the feelings I attempt to conceal; but my sensibility had been wounded, my pride roused, and my heart chilled.

I had discovered within myself a spirit which, like the ocean bark, rises with the rising wave.
"If Mr.Linwood _had_ faults," I answered, and I could not help smiling at the attempted composure and real perturbation of his manner, "I would not speak of them.

Peculiarities he may have, for they are inseparable from genius,--fascinations"-- here their remembrance was too strong for my assumed indifference, and my sacred love of truth compelled me to utter,--"fascinations he certainly possesses." "In what do they consist ?" he asked.