creature, as I first looked at her, when yet upon the early threshold of
womanhood--

'With household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty'--

you might have supposed her some Hebe or young Aurora of the dawn. When
you saw only her superb figure, and its promise of womanly development,
with the measured dignity of her step, you might for a moment have
fancied her some imperial Medea of the Athenian stage--some Volumnia
from Rome,

'Or ruling bandit's wife amidst the Grecian isles.'

But catch one glance from her angelic countenance--and then combining
the face and the person, you would have dismissed all such fancies, and
have pronounced her a Pandora or an Eve, expressly accomplished and held
forth by nature as an exemplary model or ideal pattern for the future
female sex:

'A perfect woman, nobly plann'd,
To warn, to comfort, to command:
And yet a spirit too, and bright
With something of an angel light.'

To this superb young woman, such as I have here sketched her, I
surrendered my heart for ever, almost from my first opportunity of
seeing her: for so natural and without disguise was her character, and
so winning the simplicity of her manners, due in part to her own native
dignity of mind, and in part to the deep solitude in which she had been
reared, that little penetration was required to put me in possession of
all her thoughts; and to win her love, not very much more than to let
her see, as see she could not avoid, in connection with that chivalrous
homage which at any rate was due to her sex and her sexual perfections,
a love for herself on my part, which was in its nature as exalted a
passion and as profoundly rooted as any merely human affection can ever
yet have been.

On the seventeenth birthday of Agnes we were married. Oh! calendar of
everlasting months--months that, like the mighty rivers, shall flow on
for ever, immortal as thou, Nile, or Danube, Euphrates, or St. Lawrence!
and ye, summer and winter, day and night, wherefore do you bring round
continually your signs, and seasons, and revolving hours, that still
point and barb the anguish of local recollections, telling me of this
and that celestial morning that never shall return, and of too blessed
expectations, travelling like yourselves through a heavenly zodiac of
changes, till at once and for ever they sank into the grave! Often do I
think of seeking for some quiet cell either in the Tropics