Then I would hasten
to my desk, weave the new-found web of mind in firm texture and brilliant
colours, leaving the fashioning of the material to a calmer moment.

But this account, which might as properly belong to a former period of my
life as to the present moment, leads me far afield. It was the pleasure I
took in literature, the discipline of mind I found arise from it, that made
me eager to lead Perdita to the same pursuits. I began with light hand and
gentle allurement; first exciting her curiosity, and then satisfying it in
such a way as might occasion her, at the same time that she half forgot her
sorrows in occupation, to find in the hours that succeeded a reaction of
benevolence and toleration.

Intellectual activity, though not directed towards books, had always been
my sister's characteristic. It had been displayed early in life, leading
her out to solitary musing among her native mountains, causing her to form
innumerous combinations from common objects, giving strength to her
perceptions, and swiftness to their arrangement. Love had come, as the rod
of the master-prophet, to swallow up every minor propensity. Love had
doubled all her excellencies, and placed a diadem on her genius. Was she to
cease to love? Take the colours and odour from the rose, change the sweet
nutriment of mother's milk to gall and poison; as easily might you wean
Perdita from love. She grieved for the loss of Raymond with an anguish,
that exiled all smile from her lips, and trenched sad lines on her brow of
beauty. But each day seemed to change the nature of her suffering, and
every succeeding hour forced her to alter (if so I may style it) the
fashion of her soul's mourning garb. For a time music was able to satisfy
the cravings of her mental hunger, and her melancholy thoughts renewed
themselves in each change of key, and varied with every alteration in the
strain. My schooling first impelled her towards books; and, if music had
been the food of sorrow, the productions of the wise became its
medicine. The acquisition of unknown languages was too tedious an
occupation, for one who referred every expression to the universe within,
and read not, as many do, for the mere sake of filling up time; but who was
still questioning herself and her author, moulding every idea in a thousand
ways, ardently desirous for the discovery of truth in every sentence. She
sought to improve her understanding; mechanically her heart and
dispositions becam