“And is there,” said I, “no parallel in the moral world for this lovely offspring of the natural?”——
Glorvina raised her humid eyes to mine, and I read the parallel there.
“I vow,” said the priest, with affected pettishness, “I am half tempted to fling away my violet, since this idol flower has been decreed to Mr. Mortimer; and to revenge myself, I will show him your ode on the rose.”
At these words, he took out his pocket-book, laughing at his gratified vengeance, while Glorvina coaxed, blushed, and threatened; until snatching the book out of his hand, as he was endeavouring to put it into mine, away she flew like lightning, laughing heartily at her triumph, in all the exility and playfulness of a youthful spirit.
“What a Hebe!” said I, as she kissed her hand to us in her airy flight.
“Yes,” said he, “she at least illustrates the possibility of a woman uniting in her character the extremes of intelligence and simplicity: you see, with all her information and talent, she is a mere child.”
When we reached the castle, we found her waiting for us at the breakfast table, flushed with her race—all animation, all spirits! her reserve seemed gradually to vanish, and nothing could be more interesting, yet more enjouee, than her manner and conversation. While the fertility of her imagination supplied incessant topic of conversation, always new, always original, I could not help reverting in idea to those languid tete-a-tetes, even in the hey-dey of our intercourse, when Lady C.——— and I have sat yawning at each other, or biting our fingers, merely for want of something to say, in those intervals of passion, which every connexion even of the tenderest nature, must sustain—she in the native dearth of her mind, and I in the habitual apathy of mine.
But here is a creature who talks of a violet or a rose with the artless air of infancy, and yet fascinates you in the simple discussion, as though the whole force of intellect was roused to support it.
By Heaven! if I know my own heart, I would not love this being for a thousand worlds; at least as I have hitherto loved. As it is, I feel a certain commerce of the soul—a mutual intelligence of mind and feeling with her, which a look, a sigh, a word is sufficient to betray—a sacred communion of spirit, which raises me in the scale of existence almost above mortality; and though we had been known to each other by looks only, still would this amalgamation of soul (if I may use the expression) have existed.
What a nausea of every sense does the turbulent agitation of gross commonplace passion bring with it. But the sentiment which this seraph awakens, “brings with it no satiety.” There is something so pure, so refreshing about her, that in the present state of my heart, feelings, and constitution, she produces the same effect on me as does the health-giving breeze of returning spring to the drooping spirit of slow convalescence!