Falkner by Mary Shelley

There was to Elizabeth a fascinating interest in the story related by Lady Cecil. Elizabeth had no wild fairy-like imagination. Her talents, which were remarkable, her serious, thoughtful mind, was warmed by the vital heat emanating from her affections -- whatever regarded these, moved her deeply.

Here was a tale full of human interest, of love, error, of filial tenderness, and deep-rooted, uneradicable fidelity. Elizabeth, who knew little of life, except through such experience as she gathered from the emotions of her own heart, and the struggling passions of Falkner, could not regard the story in the same worldly light as Lady Cecil. There was an unfathomable mystery; but, was there guilt as far as regarded Mrs. Neville? Elizabeth could not believe it. She believed, that in a nature as finely formed as hers was described to have been, maternal love, and love for such a child as Gerard, must have risen paramount to every other feeling. Philosophers have said that the most exalted natures are endowed with the strongest and deepest-seated passions. It is by combating and purifying them that the human being rises into excellence; and the combat is assisted by setting the good in opposition to the evil. Perhaps Mrs. Neville had loved -- though even that seemed strange -- but her devoted affection to her child must have been more powerful than a love which, did it exist, appeared unaccompanied by one sanctifying or extenuating circumstance.