e to her freedom of
choice, the right of every human being. Yet how was I to do this? She
herself would disdain my interference. Since then I must be an object of
indifference or contempt to her, better, far better avoid her, nor expose
myself before her and the scornful world to the chance of playing the mad
game of a fond, foolish Icarus. One day, several months after my return to
England, I quitted London to visit my sister. Her society was my chief
solace and delight; and my spirits always rose at the expectation of seeing
her. Her conversation was full of pointed remark and discernment; in her
pleasant alcove, redolent with sweetest flowers, adorned by magnificent
casts, antique vases, and copies of the finest pictures of Raphael,
Correggio, and Claude, painted by herself, I fancied myself in a fairy
retreat untainted by and inaccessible to the noisy contentions of
politicians and the frivolous pursuits of fashion. On this occasion, my
sister was not alone; nor could I fail to recognise her companion: it was
Idris, the till now unseen object of my mad idolatry.

In what fitting terms of wonder and delight, in what choice expression and
soft flow of language, can I usher in the loveliest, wisest, best? How in
poor assemblage of words convey the halo of glory that surrounded her, the
thousand graces that waited unwearied on her. The first thing that struck
you on beholding that charming countenance was its perfect goodness and
frankness; candour sat upon her brow, simplicity in her eyes, heavenly
benignity in her smile. Her tall slim figure bent gracefully as a poplar to
the breezy west, and her gait, goddess-like, was as that of a winged angel
new alit from heaven's high floor; the pearly fairness of her complexion
was stained by a pure suffusion; her voice resembled the low, subdued tenor
of a flute. It is easiest perhaps to describe by contrast. I have detailed
the perfections of my sister; and yet she was utterly unlike Idris.
Perdita, even where she loved, was reserved and timid; Idris was frank and
confiding. The one recoiled to solitude, that she might there entrench
herself from disappointment and injury; the other walked forth in open day,
believing that none would harm her. Wordsworth has compared a beloved
female to two fair objects in nature; but his lines always appeared to me
rather a contrast than a similitude:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star when only one