If, my dear reader, thou hast ever happened to take post-horses at--,
or at--(one at least of which blanks, or more probably both, you will
be able to fill up from an inn near your own residence), you must have
observed, and doubtless with sympathetic pain, the reluctant agony with
which the poor jades at first apply their galled necks to the collars
of the harness. But when the irresistible arguments of the postboy have
prevailed upon them to proceed a mile or two, they will become callous
to the first sensation; and being warm at the harness, as the said
postboy may term it, proceed as if their withers were altogether
unwrung. This simile so much corresponds with the state of Waverley's
feelings in the course of this memorable evening, that I prefer it
(especially as being, I trust, wholly original) to any more splendid
illustration with which Byshe's ART OF POETRY might supply me.
Exertion, like virtue, is its own reward; and our hero had, moreover,
other stimulating motives for persevering in a display of affected
composure and indifference to Flora's obvious unkindness. Pride, which
supplies its caustic as a useful, though severe, remedy for the wounds
of affection, came rapidly to his aid.
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