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life, events however trivial obtained in my fancy an mensurate and ideal importance, and words ligh came back upon me with an oracular reverberation. said we', it was enough. Once when at the closin of a ball I, carrying her off from many rivals, led hand in hand, we two' in Homer's hearty phrase 'together' through the final arch of interwoven arm for the music then ceased;-I thought I had w 'just war', that a thanksgiving and triumph ha decreed me; I could have summoned lictors and cha convoy me along the Sacred Way, I could have cried Pontifex, Crown me in the Capitol. After many can recall that evening yet,

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Le perle, e le ghirlande, e i panni allegri,
E'l riso, e 'l canto, e 'l parlar dolce umano.

I see the glitter and the glow of the scene, the und and bridal brightness of the dancers; a vague vi Désirée. But there is this misery in affection, that we truly love like ourselves, we forget their looks, 1 'our memory retain the idea of their countenanc cloud hangs there, and I may not see her: the clou gathers over faces too dearly loved, and gazed much; lost too utterly, and mourned for too despa . . . Thus I cannot dwell here on the fairness outward temple, so truly answerable to its dear a mortal inhabitant, the countenance that spoke her pa with such eloquent blood', that I often thought the munity more than commonly complete in Désirée b Spirit and Body:

fancy an incom-
ords light as air
beration. If she
the closing dance
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ty phrase 'going
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the undulation ague vision of ion, that whom

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gazed on too o despairingly Erness of that dear and imher passions ght the comsirée between

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-I have indeed described both in one, if at all successful in my description.

Master,|

XIII If the triumph just recorded appears trivial, not so the fear of which that exultation as it were was the counterpart. Nothing on earth is so great, says a Master, as the reverence inspired by love. Such was that Fear in its first and highest essence; arising from no puerile comparison of myself with Désirée, not from any terrors of possible rivalry, but only, and no meaner idea intervening, from knowledge what she was, from her own dear self and exceeding preciousness. The first time I ventured in my journal, after a day marked there as holy to remembrance and to which memory is only too faithful, to accompany her name with the word 'dear', it is written tremulously : it was as if she heard me: the silent act seemed a startling confession,-one step to realizing a hope which, with evenly balanced energy, alarmed and allured me the more, the more I began to comprehend the meaning and contemplate the possibility of its realization. O with what heart-silencing awe, what tumultuous exultation along the blood, was that first mental union of the syllables Wife and Désirée ! No longer with the shouts of boyhood, nor in foreign regions, by the sands of Bayonne and Sorrento, the rocks of Arona and Meillerie, but I could now only whisper the 'sorrise parolette brevi' and to the English sea, answering with an innumerable low laughter of shoreward waves, and carrying the holy secret to Désirée as it kissed the garden terrace beneath her feet with murmurs of confession. Deeper henceforward was the colour, wider the range of passion like the final conception of perfect method in philosophy, it identified opposites into a higher truth,became more Actual at once and more Ideal: holier, and

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homelier. I could look at the Desired no longer wit first love

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That had no need of a remoter charm
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye:

-but with present resolve, and eager earnest anticip with the longings for settled peace; with the ho blessings which, obtained, would, I knew, be beyon hope. A voice called to me from the years to come recognized that this young playmate must be the on of life, my all in all, and the conditions of the str death or victory: I looked on the bright face with h and reverence unspeakable: I saw the angel in the until often I could look no longer. . . . Then, le Désirée, I repeated aloud the deeply-felt Spanish Ahora y siempre, or a text written on every page calendar which records the great festivals of the In quietness and confidence shall be thy strength sometimes, going to the grey village church, where i window the family crest of some ancient benefactor emblazoned, with anxious eyes I read and read agai legend written beneath. This was, PACEM ORO: 144 whose device I have never known, but his prayer has long accomplished.

XIV Had it held no other elements than a great and a great Reverence, this Fear would have been consistent with a perfect, a consummated affection. throughout these six years (to the latter portion of I now pass), no meeting went by without another sen fear without increase in that exigency for confe first, as I have noticed, definitely felt whilst I was be one roof with Désirée at the 'Tesoretto'. At the

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of days passed as so many now were within some seaside familiar Eden, or the house which had been my second home since childhood, long days, and each day pure happiness, often I asked myself, Was it right to let the 'creeping hours' go by in this unremitted reserve? Should I not have trusted passion to words? An old friend once, no doubt seeing my fondness, praised her warmly to me. For an instant it seemed desirable to confess, to ask her counsel; but I answered nothing to the purpose, satisfied with this thought alone-Guilty of what other ever follies, here at least I had secured the one great acknowledged blessing. A natural reluctance had restrained me from divulging to others, even dearest friends, a hope so tender and so vital to life that the voice within the heart hardly dared utter it; and although aware that others could not but know something, proud at times to know they knew it, yet by force of my own silence the secret seemed still my own. How should I discover the truth? We may see through coquetry and dissimulation: a warm, straightforward heart is inscrutable. I watched every indication with the peculiar blindness and lucid insight of passionate devotion: I inquired anxiously whether the long familiarity which permitted such open intercourse, such equal and unrestrained exchange of friendship, might not have rendered Désirée unconscious what she was to him she met always with that unswerving sisterly affection. And in truth, the more secure I felt of this great blessing, the more I feared the bare chance of losing all, or to take my fate into my own hasty hands— the more trusted to God that sweet silent growth of love, sure to shape some perfect end, so Reason, Experience, and Faith assured me, in due season. 'Away with curious 'forequestioning,- what will be, will be',

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τὸ προκλύειν, ἐπεὶ γένοιτ' ἂν ἤλυσις, προχαιρέτω.

Was it indeed cowardice to wait thus, or that larger co to which the acts of premature daring themselves a but another cowardice disguised? Time taught me a answer; reserve was right; the dear one unconsc the end would have been alike. Every hour of though I knew it not, was saved from the et

XV Strong in this quietness and confidence in great hope of life, when at the third summer's conclus returned to the University, unexpected war springin suddenly within my heart, with distrust and alarm, s much I had hitherto peaceably and unwaveringly con in. This, which as the first mental revolution, surp and terrified me then, I look at now of course wit wonder. A single law of central agency may contro ebb and flow, but there is not one tide only in the affai men; most, I should imagine, can or could point out se crises, more or less decisive of the direction their inner has taken. Such changes are matter not for re acquiescence, or triumph, but for earnest reflection. evitable in themselves, and when accomplished, ever often apparently of the entire life preceding, they ar truth moments only in our existence;-like the telluric revolutions of nature, from afar and secretly pared by a thousand causes, outward and internal:-posi in space, intersection of our orbit by other planets, enfee heat in heaven, more forcible gravitation sunwards, central fires, glacial action, prolonged repose; by Will, lastly, which is without such analogy as I indicated to the organic forces of the universe, mould the microcosm, Man. They pass, and we perhaps

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