Languages & literature > Man of feeling

'502 THE MAN OF FEELING
which I revered, was often called in to
enforce his fentiments, 1 did not, howt
ever, abfolutely affent to them ; but I
found my regard from the oppofite ones,
diminifhed by degrees. If it is dangerous
to be convinced, it is ever dangerous
to liften ; f°r our reafon is fo much of
a. machine, that it will not always be
able to refill, when the ear is perpetu¬
ally aflailed-.
“ In Ihort, Mr. Harley, (for I tire you
with a relation, the cataftrophe of which
you will already have imagined) I fell a
vrey to his artifices. He had not been
able fo thoroughly to. convert me, that
my confcience was filent on the fubjefl j
but he was fo ailiduous to fhew repeated
proofs of unabated afFedion, that I
hufhed its fuggeftions astheyrofe. The
world, however, I knew, was not to be
filenced; and therefore I took feme oc-
cafion to exprefs my uneafinefs to my
feducer, and intreat him, as he valued
the