THE LOVE OF EXCITEMENT
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deline Arden is but eighteen. Do not judge her too harshly if nerves highly strung, and a temperament at once impressible and impetuous, manifest themselves in contrarious moods, multiform inconsistencies, and a state of unrest that craves incessant excitement. Deprived of that impetus, she sinks down powerless, her energies quenched, her mind a stagnant pool. What wonder that she hails as an angel's touch any hand that "troubles the waters," as those of Bethesda were stirred of old! She hardly asks whether the welcome disturber be a spirit of good or evil; she is rewakened, revivified in the rushing vortex; that is enough.
Her vehement nature constantly demands strong and rapid emotional changes. When her feet are in swift pursuit of some inspiring object, when her veins swell with their leaping current, when her thoughts kindle with flashes of enthusiasm, when her heart is thrilled with acute feeling, called forth by some actual incident, some ideal personation, or evoked from the pages of some highly-wrought
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