“Poets and painters have ever an eye for beauty in women; and when Carlotta D. entered the apartment, leaning on the arm of her father, Paul started as if one of the bright visions of his ideal world stood suddenly embodied before him. The lady, too, was for a moment half-embarrassed—for the fame of the young painter had reached her ears, and, womanlike, she had been wondering if report spoke truly when it ascribed to him the dark clustering locks, and the lustrous eyes of her own sunny south.
‘Love’s not a flower that grows on the dull earth;
Springs by the calendar; must wait for sun—
For rain; matures by parts—must take its time
To stem, to leaf, to bud, to blow. It owns
A richer soil, and boasts a quicker seed!
You look for it and see it not: and lo!
E’en while you look the peerless flower is up,
Consummate in the birth!’
“Was it strange that Paul and Carlotta, both worshipers of the beautiful, with souls alive to the most holy sympathies of our nature, was it strange that they should love?